A warning to Obama from Tom Hayden

[Postman]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/08-7

Yes, it is difficult to understand much less endorse the apparent Hamas strategy. Knowing what was ahead, they might have taken a disciplined position from October to November of not giving Israel any excuse, any provocation, that could bring the crisis to boil in the interlude between November and the inauguration. They could have started a diplomatic offensive of their own. Those were their decisions. But it is foolish to ignore and deny, as many do, the deliberate policies of the Israelis and the US to overturn the outcome of the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power. It is immoral to squeeze the whole Gaza population into collective suffering by the blockade. It is impossible to "destroy" Hamas without guaranteeing the rise of another Palestinian resistance movement, just as Hezbollah was born in the ashes of Lebanon in 1982.

Obama is in a process of being cornered, not unlike the efforts to push John Kennedy into the Cuban quagmire in 1961, or the tactics of Richard Nixon to keep Saigon from agreeing to negotiations in 1968.

He is being cornered by his party, too. It is hardly constructive that Sen. Harry Reid said this week that "I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away." Where are the voices of the Progressive Caucus or Out of Iraq Caucus? Is it possible for Obama to take a stronger position than his own party leaders? Not likely, even though a Rasmussen poll shows a large percentage of Democratic voters supporting diplomatic rather than military approaches.

The silence, Obama must know, is extremely costly. As the bombs fall on Gaza children and civilians, his credibility comes under greater question. The bright promise of moral leadership is sullied and squandered, along with the potential of America's ability to be an even-handed diplomatic mediator. As January 20 approaches, he will have to make a lonely decision, the first of many, to remember his 2007 words about Palestinian suffering and his campaign pledge to talk unconditionally with adversaries.