Obama's aims

Submitted by pete murray (Ireland), May 18, 2009 at 15:06

Obama has signaled he will not press for an immediate move for negotiations for an independent Palestinian state. Neither will he give any support to an Israeli attack on Iran.

Obama sees Palestinian statehood some considerable distance away. However, Obama will give short shrift to the Netanyahu ploy that before Palestinians can have their state they must first elect people the Israelis like, and that in the interim rebuilding the Palestinian economy rather than statehood should be the priority. Obama will reject such pleas as a mere delaying tactic. He will point out that if the Israelis were actually interested in Palestinian welfare they could start by removing the settlements and the blockade on Gaza. In fact, Obama will make it clear that removing the settlements, not Palestinian statehood, is his present priority. He accepts that even after the settlers go Israeli security will require the continued military occupation of the West Bank until the other conditions required for Palestinian statehood - political stability, economic development, and removal of the external threat to Israel by international negotiations. Obama has decided that removal of the settlements is a prerequisite for all these objectives. Obama will deal with the Iranian nuclear threat by offering Iran treaty assurances against military attack or subversion by the US in return for verifiable abandonment of its military-nuclear programme.

All of this is the nightmare scenario for the Israelis whose objective is to secure the Homeland by continuing settlement, while ensuring that there are no decent economic prospects at home for the educated middle-class Palestinians who might provide political stability and leadership to their people. Iran is of course a bagatelle. It is only the latest in a long line of excuses the Israelis have posited to buy time for their colonization project.

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