Hollow ring

Barack Obama's recent speech on the situation in the Arab world once again exposes the duplicity in U.S. policy.

IT was billed by the White House as the most important speech of President Barack Obama after his Cairo address. But if the Cairo speech had generated some expectations in the Arab street, his second speech, on May 18, which came in the wake of the turbulence that has gripped the region, failed to enthuse the Arab world. It was high on platitudes and had nothing new or substantive to say on the region and its myriad problems.

The President waxed eloquent about the Arab Spring, describing it as a historic opportunity to reshape politics in that part of the world and observing that people in the region achieved more change in six months than terrorists had been able to do in decades. We have the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of a dictator, Obama said. He did not, of course, mention that his administration was hedging its bets, both in Tunisia and Egypt, until the eleventh hour. The ousted dictators of the two countries were staunch allies of the West.

On the other hand, Obama threatened fire and brimstone against the recalcitrant governments of Libya and Syria, which have generally been following an independent foreign policy. He justified the United States-led war on Libya, saying that Washington had acted to save innocent lives. There was no mention of the thousands of lives lost and the refugee crisis triggered by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) war.

Obama had only mild words of criticism for the government of Bahrain, which has brutally suppressed the pro-democracy agitation there. Even that criticism was tempered by the observation that the government of Iran was meddling in the internal affairs of Bahrain and taking advantage of the political situation. We recognise that Iran has tried to take advantage of the situation there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law, Obama said.

He did not mention Saudi Arabia at all, though he had time to mention India, Brazil and Indonesia, which are not located in the region. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with the other pro-American emirates in the region, has ruthlessly dealt with political dissent.

Obama asserted that the U.S. would continue to pursue its core interests in the region, defining them as countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce; and safeguarding the security of the region, standing up for Israel's security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace. Among the unmentioned core interests was oil, for which the U.S. has already fought two wars in the region.

As far as nuclear proliferation is concerned, successive U.S. Presidents stood aside while Israel accumulated the largest nuclear arsenal in the region. Obama's efforts to portray the U.S. as a champion of democracy in the region will ring hollow as long as it continues its support for Israel and the pro-American authoritarian regimes in the region.

The other major talking point of Obama's speech was his call for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Obama said that his administration remained solidly committed to Israel's security. He said that Israel's pre-1967 borders with agreed land swaps should be the basis for negotiations to set up an independent Palestinian state. This, in effect, is a green signal to Israel that it will be allowed to retain most of its illegal settlements on the West Bank. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Obama has accepted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand that peace talks should be a gradual process and not time-bound. Obama's speech also referred to Israel as a Jewish state. This has been a long-standing demand of the Israeli right wing.

The million and a half Palestinians living in Israel fear that such a development will lead to even more discrimination against them and their eventual expulsion.

Obama also made the demand that the Palestinian side should return to the negotiating table immediately, despite the ongoing illegal settlement-building activities of the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) had called off talks after the Netanyahu government refused to put a freeze on the settlement activity in the West Bank. Obama also called on Hamas to recognise Israel, another long-standing Israeli demand. He preferred to talk about Israeli civilians being targeted by Palestinians while ignoring Israeli war crimes against defenceless Palestinians. Hamas and the Fatah, the two main Palestinian groups, recently signed a unity agreement, which came in for strong criticism from the Israeli government but was welcomed internationally. Obama, supporting the Israeli government's stand, was critical of Hamas. How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognise your right to exist, he said, referring to Hamas. In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to produce credible answers to that question.

Obama suggested in his speech that the contentious issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees' right of return be put on the back burner. More galling for the Palestinians was his criticism of their efforts to get their statehood recognised in the United Nations General Assembly later in the year and his insistence that a future Palestinian state should be non-militarised. The overwhelming number of member-states in the U.N., including close European allies of the U.S., have indicated that they will support the move to recognise an independent state of Palestine. The concept of a sovereign state without the right of self-defence, as Obama has suggested in his speech, is a demeaning proposal, coming as it did before formal negotiations with Israel had resumed.

Despite the pro-Israeli tilt in Obama's speech, the government in Tel Aviv was not happy. Netanyahu was particularly unhappy with Obama's emphasis on the 1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations for a Palestinian state. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation, Obama said in the speech.

Netanyahu has been repeatedly saying that the 1967 borders do not provide security for the Jewish state and that the international community should recognise the new facts on the ground. The viability of a Palestinian state should not come at the expense of Israel's existence, he said in a statement issued just before he flew to Washington for talks with Obama. He reiterated this point at a joint press conference with the U.S. President on May 20. He said that Israel could not go back to the 1967 borders as they don't take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground. Netanyahu's uncompromising posture got immediate support from right-wing American Congressmen and political commentators.

Obama will run for re-election in two years' time. He has not summoned the political courage needed to challenge the influential Jewish lobby in American politics. Instead, he is going hat in hand to seek their support. A couple of days after delivering his West Asia speech, the President spoke at the annual convention of the main Jewish lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He reassured AIPAC that his administration remained committed to Israel and that the bonds between the two countries were unbreakable. He said that he had said nothing particularly original in his latest speech on West Asia and that Israel's security interests continued to be the of the highest priority for Washington.

Obama's close aides told the American media that they did not expect any positive movement forward in the peace process as long as Netanyahu was at the helm of affairs in Israel. Obama had said in his speech that one of his goals was to save Israel from itself, warning that perpetual occupation of Palestinian land would be counterproductive. The status quo is unsustainable and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace, he said. He mentioned demographic imbalance, new military technology and the democracy surge in the Arab world as cautionary factors for Israel.

The unresolved issue of Palestine remains central to the Arab psyche. Richard Falk, the internationally reputed jurist and currently a U.N. Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights, said that the Obama speech only served to underline the one-sided approach of the U.S. administration to the Israel/Palestine conflict. He wrote that the Obama approach was deeply flawed, and a barrier rather than a gateway to a just and sustainable peace.

No wonder that the latest Obama speech has even fewer takers than his Cairo speech of June 2009. The new government in Egypt has already toughened its stance on Israel and is positioning itself to play once again a pivotal role in the peace talks. A recent opinion poll showed that only one in five Egyptians wanted close relations with the U.S.

In his speech Obama pledged $1 billion in annual debt relief to Egypt. But his close advisers have told the media that Washington may have a rethink on the subject if the Muslim Brotherhood plays a big role in the democratically elected government that will be taking over.

Obama also claimed that his policies had made both Iraq and Afghanistan safer places than before. In Iraq, Obama saw a multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian democracy emerging, despite almost daily incidents of sectarian violence and suicide bombings. On Afghanistan, he said that the American forces there had broken the Taliban's momentum. In recent months, the Taliban has escalated its attacks all over Afghanistan. Obama said that the U.S. would not tolerate aggression across the borders. The U.S. itself invaded two countries in the last decade. Israel, its closest ally, has shown no respect for the borders of its neighbouring countries. Saudi Arabia sent troops in March this year to help quell the peaceful civilian protests in Bahrain.

Obama's speech was full of contradictions and in a way exposed the duplicity inherent in U.S. policy towards the Arab world.