Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Obama Pledges ’Unbreakable Alliance’ with Zionism [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)For the benefit of the thread, allow me to reiterate, maybe a little more clearly.
When someone takes the side of the oppressor against the oppressed, support the powerful over the powerless, they too become the oppressor. To do so requires a total denial of the basic humanity of the oppressed.
The US has unfailingly, unswervingly, totally been completely on the side of the powerful in the Israel / Palestine conflict. Our role has amounted to stymieing all efforts to bring power to the powerless in this conflict, whether our role as invincible goalie in the UNSC, or our role as Israel's personal advocate in "negotiations." We hold them down and the Israelis punch.
Obama had - and I hold my breath, hoping it could still be "has" - an opportunity to change this paradigm. From the looks of it, he has chosen to not do so. Rather he has chosen, as the presidents before him have chosen, to see the Palestinians as unworthy of his consideration. To fund and defend and arm and protect and advocate for the very people whose feet are on the necks of the Palestinians. To feed himself from the tables of politicians embargoing food from the hungry and beating hunger strikers.
I have no other way to describe this behavior, other than "seeing them as subhuman." Whether that is a reflection on the man, or on the policy the man represents is, to be totally honest, irrelevant. if he can't push for his own convictions then policy will have to stand in the place of those convictions, and if there is harmony between policy and convictions... same thing.