Netanyahu’s Victory: Now What President Obama?

Netanyahu’s Victory: Now What President Obama?

Posted by Alan Hart on March 18, 2015

"Love him (Netanyahu) or hate him, this is the face of Israel."

That’s how Uriel Heilman concluded an article for the JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency) on Netanyahu’s election victory after noting that he had shown his true colours by declaring that there would be no Palestinian state while he is in charge. What President Obama now has to decide is whether or not he will allow Netanyahu to remain in charge of American policy for Israel-Palestine.

If Netanyahu had not shown his true colours in the final hours before Israelis voted, Obama would have had some wriggle room. I mean that he could have gone on pretending that it was still worth putting effort into trying to get a peace process going with Netanyahu’s Israel. But Netanyahu’s outright rejection of a Palestinian state and his promise to go on building more and more illegal settlements leave Obama without any wriggle room.

It is clear and ought to be obvious to all that Obama now as only two options.

One is to wash his hands of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel and walk away from it. If he does this he will no doubt seek to cover up his complicity by default in Zionism’s crimes by saying, as he has said on several occasions during his presidency, that he can’t want peace more than the parties themselves.

Obama’s only other option is to say publicly to Israel that enough is enough and that America will now use its leverage to cause (or try to cause) Israel to end its defiance of international law.
I think Saeb Erekat, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee and the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, spoke the unvarnished truth when he said this:

The Israeli elections show the success of a campaign platform based on settlements, racism, apartheid and the denial of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. Such a result would not have been possible had the international community held Israel to account for its systematic violations of international law
A first small step by Obama in the direction of publicly telling Israel that enough is enough would be a statement that on what is left of his time in the White House America will not veto UN Security Council resolutions which condemn Israel’s policies and actions and demand a halt to settlement activity and an end to occupation.

Continue to read:
[link to www.alanhart.net]