za3tar

Understandably, the Arab street has been doubtful of the American policy in the Middle East. It is understandable because the American foreign policy in the past eight years has disengaged the moderate majority of the Arab streets, that is to say the least. America’s foreign policy in the Middle East in the past eight years was highlighted by a long unjustifiable war in Iraq, frequent escalation in rhetoric with Syria and Iran, complete siding with Israel without exerting any pressure or influence to promote a peaceful solution, and the complete disregard of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process to the very last year with a futile last-minute attempt.

The new American president Obama had campaigned with a message of hope and change. He had promised to change the foreign policy tone coming out of Washington to that of promoting dialog, peace, and mutual respect. Like many around the world, Arabs were hopeful in this new president but were still doubtful that that was all campaign rhetoric that will soon be forgotten. After all, George W. Bush had also campaigned under the banner of change!

Barack Obama, however, is off to a good start. He has extended a peaceful message to the Muslim world in his inauguration speech as I blogged previously. He also called Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his first couple of days to gesture that he will not leave the peace process to the last days of his presidency as some of his predecessors have done. His pick for Middle East envoy has a proven record of brokering peace between the Irish and the British, and many are hailing him as a good and balanced pick to hopefully broker a meaningful peace for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Most recently, in his first public TV interview after the inauguration, Obama appeared on the Arabic news channel Al-Arabiya where he seemed to reach out to the moderates in the Arab and Muslim world with a message of mutual respect and open dialog.

I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised! I too was initially doubtful that Obama would be any different when it came to the Middle East than his predecessors. But so far he has proved me wrong, he seems to be working well on it and I hope he continues. So long are the days of George Bush’s “spreading democracy through invading countries”.

I just hope that Obama’s efforts to change the tone of America in the Middle East continues, and I hope that he will make some serious effort to exercise his influence to broker a real and sustainable peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So Mr. Obama, so far you seem to be working on these foreign policy issues harder and more sincerely than your predecessors. Thank you for that. I hope you continue to do so, and I wish you the best of luck.

Note: It goes without saying of course that it will not all be solved with the external interference of the United States. We Arabs have to work on solving our own problems and building our own communities. I believe that many people agree on this, and I hope it was implied from my previous posts.

I found this to be one of the best lines of Obama’s inauguration speech. I found it very applicable to our situation in the Arab world.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

It seems that we often forget that our shortcomings are of our own doing. We all have an obligation to build our own countries and enhance our lives and the lives of all their citizens. Instead of blaming all our downfalls on others, we have to take building a bright future for ourselves into our own hands. Instead of giving up, we have to take it upon ourselves to create opportunities in our homelands were they are missing.

Other than that, i really liked the gesture shown by Obama by directly mentioning the Muslim world and how there are common interests between the Muslim world and America, and how that both can work at them in a civilized and peaceful way. Hopefully his administration will be much better than its predecessor in dealing with the Middle East and the Arab & Muslim worlds in general.

[full transcripts of Obama's inaugural speech here]

During the last crisis in Gaza, Israeli spokespeople and pro-Israeli pundits argued that the high amount of civilian death and casualties is not because of Israel’s use of excessive fire power and disregard of Palestinian civilian human life, but because the Hamas fighters were hiding between civilians. On the scene eye witness accounts, however, have often denied that Hamas fighters or rockets were located in the bombed areas.

Even if we chose to believe that Israel is only surgically targeting militants and not infrastructure, civil services facilities, or just bombing anything that moves; That still does not justify Israel’s actual actions on the ground.

For example, Israel already had complete knowledge of GPS locations of hospitals, UN schools and facilities, and even residential towers. Israel also has complete knowledge that civilians fled to these locations for shelter and treatment. So, if Israel was really trying to minimize civilian casualties in the densely populated Gaza Strip, and even if a sniper or a rocket was fired from a hospital or a school’s vicinity, is the surgically targeted response to bomb the entire area ? Does that really minimize civilian casualties ? What benefit would Israel get from bombing a hospital ??

In the following video, Kenneth Roth, an executive director at the Human Rights Watch describes how Israel used 155 millimeter caliber weapons in a densely populated civilian area. A single fire from this weapon can cause casualties within a 300 meeter radius of its impact location. So, would an army seeking to minimize civilian casualties use such a weapon in a dense urban setting ? The answer is of course not.

The following interview is only 3 minutes long and is really worth the viewing. Unfortunately, it only aired on CNN International which is rarely viewed inside America.

Now that Israel has finally started to allow international journalists to go into the Gaza Strip, some reports of the scale of death and destruction inflicted on that tiny strip are starting to come out.

During the 22 day war only Arabic news networks had reporters embedded in the strip. Aljazeera English was the only international news network with reporters. Hopefully now

The following are a couple of reports filed by CNN’s Ben Wedeman. Unfortunately it seems that these reports were only aired on CNN international which does not really watched in America.

Kudos to Wedeman and all other journalists in Gaza for following the truth and reporting what is happening on the ground.

How will this current crisis in Gaza end ? I am interested to know what you think.

Israel’s declared goal from this assault was to stop the Hamas rockets coming out of Gaza. However, in a matter of 20 days Israel has killed more than 850 Palestinian adults and 300 children, and has injured more than 5000 people. Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza and the amount of death and destruction it has inflicted on the civilian population has given the Hamas government in Gaza increased sympathy and support. Not only that, but Israel’s brutality and excessive use of force has undermined the voices of moderates, instilled doubt in the Palestinian street about Israel’s true intentions for peace, crippled the credibility of the peace advocates, and diminished the expectations of any peace process. All of this seems to strongly indicate that the end of this current assault will not usher in an era free of rocket attacks.

After all, how can the Palestinian street believe that Israel seriously wants peace if Israel has been stalling the peace process for years and continues to expand illegal settlements and illegal outposts in the West Bank, while at the same time killing more than 1150 Palestinians in an all-out assault on Gaza ?

Israel of course realizes this. Many have argued that the true intention of this assault was to seize the opportunity while George Bush is in the white house and boost the electability of the Kadima party with Tzipi Livni against the right-wing hardliner Netanyahu who advocates for more violence against the Palestinians.

My question is: In your opinion, How do you think this current assault will end ? When will it end ? and what will cause it to end ? What will the end result be ? and How will the situation in Gaza be after it all ends ?