Obama,Bush,dan Gaza

Pada musim kampanye pemilu Amerika Serikat (AS) Barack Husein Obama berkunjung ke Israel. Saat itu, empat bulan sebelum pemilihan presiden, Obama berpidato di sebuah permukiman Yahudi dekat Jalur Gaza, “Jika seseorang melemparkan roket atau granat ke rumah saya,di mana dua anak saya sedang tidur lelap, saya sebisa mungkin akan menghentikan aksi tersebut.
Saya berharap orang-orang Israel melakukan hal yang sama.” Tepat satu setengah bulan setelah Obama terpilih jadi Presiden AS, 19 Desember lalu, Otoritas Hamas di Jalur Gaza menyatakan kesepakan perdamaian dengan Israel bubar. Pejuang Hamas yang tertindas Israel meluncurkan roket ke pemukiman Yahudi di kota-kota yang berdekatan dengan Jalur Gaza.Merasa mendapatkan “dukungan”Obama yang pernah disampaikan ketika kampanye itu tadi, Israel pun membalas serangan roket pejuang Hamas. Empat warga Israel yang tewas akibat roket Hamas dibalas dengan serangan udara besarbesaran, sehingga menewaskan lebih dari sekitar 700 warga Palestina, dan ribuan lainnya luka-luka. Itulah balasan yang tak setimpal: kematian 4 orang dibalas dengan kematian 700 orang? Adakah cara lain untuk membalas roket Hamas tersebut? Mantan penasihat Dewan Keamanan AS,Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, mengungkapkan, serangan besar-besaran Israel ke Gaza adalah kesalahan besar. Tindakan Israel itu, kata Brzezinski, hanya akan mengundang kecaman dunia terhadap Tel Aviv dan memperbesar dendam Hamas kepada orang Yahudi. Tindakan Israel itu, lanjutnya, merupakan gambaran pemerintah Ehud Olmert yang frustrasi. Olmert tampaknya tak bisa melihat solusi lain kecuali menyerbu besarbesaran Jalur Gaza.
Obama Terjebak Israel jelas sangat licik memanfaatkan momentum transisi pemerintahan AS dari Bush ke Obama.Pemerintah Bush dari Partai Republik secara tradisional memang amat dekat dengan Israel dibandingkan Demokrat.Namun Israel secara licik berupaya menyeret Bush dari Republik dan Obama dari Demokrat masuk dalam pusaran kepentingan Israel. Tel Aviv sepertinya mematuhi nasihat Obama saat kampanye di atas. Apakah hal itu yang menyebabkan Obama diam seribu bahasa terhadap aksi brutal Israel di Gaza? Haruskah Obama diam karena—seperti dikatakan Brooke Anderson, Juru Bicara Keamanan Nasional Tim Transisi Obama—belum menjadi presiden secara sah? Obama memang belum dilantik dan Bush baru akan turun setelah pelantikan Obama, 20 Januari mendatang. Mestinya,dalam masa transisi tersebut Bush tidak menyatakan sesuatu yang membuat marah dunia. Kita tahu Bush menyatakan bahwa Israel tidak bersalah dalam penyerangan ke Gaza. Israel hanya mau menghentikan serangan roket Hamas ke wilayahnya. Karena itu, kata Bush, penghentian serangan Israel hanya dimungkinkan jika Hamas menghentikan serangan roketnya. Pernyataan Bush tersebut jelas merupakan pemutarbalikan fakta. Sekelompok pejuang Hamas meluncurkan roket karena selama masa perdamaian Israel selalu memprovokasi dan menekan kehidupan orang-orang Hamas di Gaza. Pejabat dan aktivis Hamas diancam dan diintimidasi. Israel juga menutup perbatasannya dengan Gaza dan menjegal orang sipil yang dituduh Hamas untuk bekerja di Israel. Dampaknya, ekonomi Gaza pun terpuruk.Penutupan perbatasan Gaza-Israel menimbulkan permasalahan ekonomi serius di Gaza. Lantas,apa yang salah jika kemudian aktivis Hamas ingin terbebas dari tekanan Israel itu? Bagaimana seharusnya Obama bertindak? Obama memang menghadapi pilihan dilematis.Di satu sisi dia, bagaimana pun, adalah presiden sebuah negeri raksasa yang secara tradisional akan membela Israel. Meski tradisi Demokrat lebih bisa menghardik kejahatan Israel,tapi AS nyaris tak mungkin meninggalkan negeri Yahudi itu.
Di pihak lain,Israel pun menyiasatinya dengan berbagai rupa tindakan licik agar Pemerintahan Obama (Demokrat) masuk dalam pusaran masalahnya. Kenapa Israel melakukan hal seperti itu? Semua ini, barangkali, merupakan cermin rasa takut Israel terhadap kebijakan-kebijakan AS setelah Obama resmi memerintah. Kita tahu, Obama dalam kampanyenya mengusung kalimat Change! Dan salah satu change tersebut pendekatan yang berbeda terhadap Israel dan Islam.Obama yang “mbah-buyut”-nya di Kenya adalah muslim, niscaya punya perspektif yang berbeda dengan Bush dalam melihat persoalan Israel dan Islam. Obama, misalnya, dalam kampanyenya berjanji akan melakukan dialog dengan Iran dan Suriah, musuh utama Israel; dan siap bertemu muka dengan kedua pimpinan negara tersebut. Ini betul-betul sebuah kebijakan yang radikal,kebijakan yang bertentangan dengan Bush dan kebijakan yang menampar Israel. Obama juga dalam kampanyenya berjanji akan mengambil kebijakan yang bersahabat dengan negaranegara Islam di Timur Tengah dan Teluk. Ini pun kebijakan yang tak dikehendaki Bush dan Israel. Kebijakan Obama inilah yang tampaknya hendak dirusak Israel dengan penyerbuannya ke Gaza. Untuk sementara ini, melihat dukungan Bush dan diamnya Obama,Israel berhasil memperdayai dan menjebak Obama. Tapi apakah Obama setelah dilantik akan mengikuti permainan Israel atau sebaliknya akan menghardik Israel,kita tunggu. Yang jelas, dunia kini menunggu kebijakan Obama terhadap pembantaian Gaza.Negara-negara Timur Tengah tampaknya tak bisa berbuat banyak melihat kebrutalan Israel di Gaza. Begitu pula negara-negara Barat.Israel hanya akan menurut kalau Washington menghardiknya. Bush sudah jelas mendukungnya. Harapan dunia kini tertuju pada Obama yang masih diam seribu bahasa. Apakah diamnya Obama tanda setuju terhadap serangan Israel ke Gaza, atau sebaliknya, tanda kemarahan melihat kekejaman Israel? Washington sudah terlalu banyak mengeluarkan biaya, baik secara finansial, politik, maupun sosial untuk melindungi Israel.
Tiap tahun tak kurang USD4 miliar diberikan Washington secara cuma-cuma ke Tel Aviv. Senjata bernilai miliaran dolar juga diberikan AS kepada Israel. Hasilnya, Israel makin brutal dan berani mengacak-acak keputusan PBB serta perasaan masyarakat internasional yang benci perang dan pembantaian manusia. Beranikah Obama menghentikan tindakan brutal Israel di Gaza? Jika berani, berarti Obama benar-benar memenuhi janjinya dan citra AS akan makin baik di mata dunia. Jika tidak, Obama akan dikutuk masyarakat internasional karena menjilat ludahnya sendiri. Yang terakhir ini jelas akan membahayakan Obama dan AS sendiri seperti diprediksi Jerome R Corsi dalam buku The Obama Nation. Prediksi Corsi itu akan meleset jika Obama benar-benar melaksanakan janji-janji kampanye, apa pun yang terjadi! Jika Amerika berani mengatur dunia, logikanya Washington akan berani mengatur Israel, negeri yang hanya berpenduduk lima juta jiwa yang hidupnya “menyusu” kepadanya.(*) Bambang Pranowo Guru Besar UIN Jakarta

http://www.seputar-indonesia.com/edisicetak/content/view/203258/

Angkringan

AngkringanZarah
Hasan Aoni Aziz US
Pemerhati sosial dan energi, tinggal di Kudus.
"Dan barangsiapa mengerjakan kejahatan seberat zarah pun, niscaya dia akan melihat (balasannya) pula" (Al-Zalzalah-Kegoncangan, Surat 99:8). Atas nama butiran zarah, debu, atau atom-atom uranium yang bertubrukan dalam tabung reaksi--dalam skala raksasa kita kenal dengan pembangkit energi bertenaga nuklir, lingkungan kita telah dipertaruhkan untuk sebuah kecemasan yang bernama kelangkaan energi.
Dalam bentuk dan definisi wadak zarah-zarah berubah nama menjadi semen atau pasir. Ketiganya, yakni uranium, semen dan pasir, di sepanjang 2008 menjadi isu lingkungan yang cukup mengguncang masyarakat Jawa Tengah dan Yogyakarta.
Dan keributan seolah tak bisa dihindari setiap keinginan membangun zarah, semen, dan pasir itu di masyarakat. Penduduk di sekitar pantai selatan Kulonprogo, demi mempertahankan ladang-ladang mereka, harus berhadapan dengan pemodal dan penguasa yang ingin menambang pasir besi.
Di Pati, warga Sedulur Sikep melawan pemerintah setempat dan PT Semen Gresik yang akan menambang karst di dekat sawah mereka. Di hadapan Gubernur Jawa Tangah Bibit Waluyo, Mbah Tarno, tokoh Sedulur Sikep itu, mengatakan, "Aku ora ngekon, yo ora ngrawehi," (saya tak menyuruh, juga tidak melarang). Mengingatkan perlawanan diam pemimpin mereka yang bernama Samin Santiko di zaman Belanda dulu.
Amuk warga atas rencana penambangan pasir besi juga terjadi di Desa Balong, Jepara. Warga yang selama ini gagah berani menolak pembangunan PLTN Fissi Muria di tapak desa itu melawan pemerintah lokal dan pemodal.
Setara dengan PLTN, semen dan pasir besi akan mengubah wajah lingkungan menjadi muram. Kecuali kalau kita tetap menjaganya dari kecurangan amdal dan pencurian alam.
Mengapa harus menolak? Jawabannya dikatakan oleh penganjur nuklir Alvin M. Weinberg. Kata Weinberg, menerima PLTN sama saja membuat perjanjian dengan iblis. Mengingatkan kita pada sebuah opera "Faust" karya Charles Gounod.

Faust, filsuf renta yang harapan hidupnya menipis setelah buntu memecahkan masalah keilmuan, mendapati Marqeurite yang cantik di bawah jendela loteng tempat dia bersiaga bunuh diri. Ia terpesona oleh kecantikan gadis itu, lalu membuat perjanjian dengan iblis Mephistopeles. Sang iblis menjanjikan cinta Marqeurite untuk Faust jika Faust menyerahkan pengabdian sepanjang hidupnya untuk Mephistopeles.
Seperti nama surat tentang dosa sebutir zarah itu, kerusakan lingkungan adalah Al-zalzalah. Kejahatan terhadap alam akan dihitung sebanyak butiran zarah yang mereka ciptakan.
http://www.korantempo.com/korantempo/koran/2009/01/08/Berita_Utama-Jateng/krn.20090108.153108.id.html

Democrats Are Cowards in the Face of Israel's Brutality

Democrats Are Cowards in the Face of Israel's BrutalityDemocrats have silenced dissent and offered unflinching support for Israeli actions, including gross violations of international law.By Stephen ZunesJanuary 08, 2009 "AlterNet "January 06, 2009 The Democratic leadership's strident support for the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip underscores how the Democrats suffer from the same illusions as the outgoing Republican administration: that placing an Arab territory under debilitating sanctions that punish the population as a whole, bombarding heavily populated civilian areas -- resulting in widespread casualties among innocent people -- and invading and occupying territories with a long history of resistance to outsiders will somehow lead to greater moderation from those afflicted.
The reality is that Israel's war against Hamas and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is no more likely to result in more rational and compromising positions from the Palestinian side than the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel will lead to more rational and compromising positions from the Israelis.
As a result, the hard-line militaristic position of the Democratic Party does not bode well for a more enlightened Middle East policy after eight disastrous years under President George W. Bush.

On Capitol Hill, resolutions are being prepared in the House and Senate to defend the Bush administration's policy of unconditional support for the Israeli assaults, which as of this writing have led to the deaths of 500 people, at least one-quarter of whom were civilians. Unless there is widespread public opposition, it appears that the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats will vote along with their Republican colleagues in favor of these resolutions, thereby giving Israel a blank check to continue the carnage and, as a result, give Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups the excuse to continue their attacks against Israeli civilians as well.

Democrats Goad Israel Into War
In June, 38 of 49 Democratic senators -- including Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton of New York -- wrote a letter (PDF) to President Bush that Americans for Peace Now, a moderate Zionist group, warned would build "a defense, in advance, for a large Israeli military offensive in Gaza." The letter also urged the Bush administration to block any U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel, claiming that United Nations opposition to Israeli attacks against crowded urban areas constituted a refusal to "acknowledge Israel's right to self-defense." An almost identical letter in the House, drafted by House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., received the signatures of 150 of the body's 230 Democrats.
Americans for Peace Now noted that such an Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip would likely result in large-scale civilian casualties. In apparent anticipation of the large numbers of Palestinian deaths that would result from such military operations in the Gaza Strip, the House passed a resolution (PDF) in March, during an outbreak of fighting, that claimed, "Those responsible for launching rocket attacks against Israel routinely embed their production facilities and launch sites amongst the Palestinian civilian population, utilizing them as human shields." The resolution goes on to specifically condemn "the use of innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields by those who carry out rocket and other attacks" and yet again makes note of Palestinians who "continue to be utilized as human shields by terrorist organizations."

But according to Joe Stork of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, while Hamas failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, the watchdog group had found no instances of Hamas actually using human shields in the legally defined sense of deliberately using civilians as a means of deterring counterattacks. Despite my contacting the offices of more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress who supported the resolution -- all of whom are members of the so-called Progressive Caucus -- none of them could provide any examples of Hamas actually using human shields. It appears that the Democrats' goal in pushing through this resolution was to convince their constituents that it was the Palestinians, not the Israelis who were attacking them, who were responsible for civilian casualties and who would likewise be responsible for the far greater number of civilian casualties that would inevitably result from the Israeli bombardment and invasion which was to commence later that year.

The resolution also gave unqualified support for the Israeli government's attacks against the Gaza Strip, even as Amnesty International condemned Israel's "reckless disregard for civilian life" in its bombing and shelling of civilian population centers. The AI report also noted how the attacks by Palestinians against civilian-populated areas in Israel, which the report also roundly condemned, "does not make it legitimate for the Israeli authorities to launch reckless air and artillery strikes which wreak such death and destruction among Palestinian civilians."

Not a single one of the 230 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the resolution. (There were four abstentions, and 12 did not vote.) This sent a clear signal that there would be no opposition in Congress -- which provides over $4 billion annually in unconditional military and economic aid to the Israeli government -- for an even larger military assault against the Palestinian population of the enclave.

Democratic support for an Israeli war against the Gaza Strip went beyond such nonbinding resolutions. In apparent anticipation of the long-planned Israeli invasion of Gaza -- which was to begin just three months later -- the Democratic-controlled Congress voted in September to send 1,000 of the highly sophisticated GBU-39 missiles to Israel, which have been used on a large scale in the Israeli assault.
On Nov. 5, Israel launched a brief but significant military incursion into Gaza. Though the raid was a clear violation of the cease-fire that had been in place at the time, no criticism was heard in Washington. There had been a series of minor violations by both sides, but the magnitude of this raid appeared designed to provoke Hamas into letting the cease-fire lapse. Israel then tightened its siege of the Gaza Strip, prompting Human Rights Watch to note that "Israel's severe limitations on the movement of nonmilitary goods and people into and out of Gaza, including fuel and medical supplies, constitutes collective punishment, also in violation of the laws of war." Despite this, President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders continued to defend the sanctions.
Hamas appeared willing to renew its cease-fire in return for Israel lifting the blockade on humanitarian and other aid and ending its periodic raids into Gaza and assassinations of Hamas officials. However, Israel -- again, supported by Obama and Democratic congressional leaders -- refused. Now, however, despite these leading Democrats' opposition to nonmilitary means, which could have salvaged the cease-fire and prevented the rocket attacks into Israel, they are now claiming that Israel had "no choice" but to launch its massive assault on Gaza Strip in retaliation.

In a Dec. 28 interview, Obama's chief adviser David Axelrod appeared to align the president-elect with the Bush administration in its support for Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, citing an Obama statement from the summer, in which he said, "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."
Axelrod ignored the fact that since Israel had launched its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, rocket attacks against Israeli towns had actually increased. This raises concerns that an Obama administration, like the Bush administration, may be so ideologically committed to military solutions in political conflicts that it too will ignore even obvious failures.

Rationalizing Civilian Deaths
Amnesty International USA, in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 2, noted its dismay "at the lopsided response by the U.S. government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza." The Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization went on to note, "Without diminishing the responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, the U.S. government must not ignore Israel's disproportionate response and the longstanding policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster."

Leading Democrats rushed to the administration's defense, however. As reports of widespread civilian casualties among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from the Israeli attacks continued to pour in, Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted that "When Israel is attacked, the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stated ,"I strongly support Israel's right to defend its citizens against rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza." House Majority Leader Hoyer claimed, "Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza" and that Israel has "an unequivocal right" to engage in its military operations. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., whom the Democrats recently named to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declared "Israel has a right, indeed a duty, to defend itself in response to the hundreds of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza over the past week." Even prominent liberals, like Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., insisted that "This use of Gaza as a base from which to attack Israel left Israel with no choice except self defense."

These Democrats have been unable to explain how a number of the most deadly Israeli strikes, which took place nowhere near any legitimate military targets, constitute acts of self-defense. These have included the missile which struck a group of students leaving the U.N.-sponsored Gaza Training College in downtown Gaza, the bombing of a mosque during evening prayers, another missile attack centered in civilian neighborhoods in the crowded refugee camps of Jabalya and Rafah, as well as a series of attacks against the territory's one university. Scores of others who worked in government offices under the Hamas administration but had nothing to do with rocket attacks against Israel -- or any other military function of the Islamist party -- have been killed as well.
Yet some Democrats have gone as far as to simply deny that attacks against civilian targets are taking place at all. For example, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and its Middle East subcommittee, has insisted that (PDF), contrary to reports of reputable human rights groups, international journalists and other eyewitnesses, "The Israeli response has been a series of targeted strikes against Hamas militants, aimed directly at those who are launching the attacks on Israeli civilian population centers" and that "the Israeli military is taking extreme caution to limit civilian casualties."
The Democratic Party has a history of denying Israeli culpability in the deaths of civilians during military operations in the Gaza Strip. During an Israeli offensive against the territory in 2006, prior to Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian Authority, Amnesty International declared:
"The Israeli authorities' deliberate and wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and property in the Gaza Strip amounts to a war crime. The destruction and the disproportionate and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on the movement of people and goods into and from the Gaza Strip also amount to collective punishment of the entire population. This violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits punishing protected persons for offences they have not committed."
Similarly, the International Red Cross, long recognized as the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, declared that Israel was violating the principle of proportionality, as well as the prohibition against collective punishment.
Despite this and similar reports by other reputable human rights groups, Democrats – with only nine dissenting votes – joined their Republican colleagues in passing a House resolution claiming Israel's attacks, which resulted in widespread civilian casualties, were "in accordance with international law." The resolution went on to rebuke reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch's criticisms of Israel's failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets by including language that praised Israel's "longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss" and welcomed "Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties."

The resolution also insisted that Israel's attacks were in accordance with "Article 51 of the United Nations Charter." However, Article 33 of the Charter requires all parties to "first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice," which Israel -- with the backing of most of these same congressional Democrats -- has refused to do. Article 51 does allow countries the right to resist an armed attack, but not the right to engage in massive and disproportional attacks against crowded urban population centers.

The 2006 resolution, sponsored by the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., then the ranking Democratic member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, commended President Bush for "fully supporting Israel" in the face of widespread international opposition, including by some of the United States' closest allies.
With only nine dissenting Democratic votes in the 435-member body, this placed virtually the entire Democratic Caucus on the side of Bush against a broad consensus of the international community, including all major human rights organizations.

Opposing Peace Negotiations
It should come as no surprise that when negotiations are ruled out, war results. But instead of encouraging negotiations between Hamas and Israel, the Democratic Party has actively discouraged it.
Even President-elect Obama, who has expressed willingness to meet with leaders of Iran and other hard-line regimes, spoke out in early 2008 against any negotiations with the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, which received the majority of seats in the most recent Palestinian parliamentary elections. Indeed, the Democrats -- led by Vice President-elect Joe Biden -- have criticized the Bush administration for allowing the Palestinian Authority to go ahead with free elections in the first place.

This opposition to peace talks comes despite polls showing that a majority of Israelis -- including the mayors of the Israelis towns on the receiving end of Hamas rocket attacks -- do support negotiations with Hamas. Unlike the Democratic Party, the Israeli public is much more cognizant of the fact that -- whether it be a short-term cease-fire, a permanent peace agreement or something in between -- ending the violence without such negotiations will be impossible. Indeed, at the very time Obama was rejecting the idea of talks with Hamas, senior members of the Israeli security establishment were urging the Israeli government to engage in such talks, arguing that any agreement made without Hamas would fail.

Furthermore, for a number of years, the Israelis have been regularly negotiating indirectly with Hamas through Egyptian intermediaries and Palestinian prisoners. Back when Hamas was in charge of local governments in some West Bank towns several years ago, there were direct talks on a number of logistical issues. The Democratic Party, however, insisted that such talks not take place -- apparently because the prospect of negotiations would get in the way of Israel's massive military offensive against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

The Democratic Party's leadership has long argued that no talks should take place until Hamas formally recognizes Israel's right to statehood, yet many of these same Democrats have had no problems with meeting, and even providing support for, Israeli parties and political groups that insist that the Palestinians do not have the right to statehood, such as the Likud Bloc, which is favored to win the upcoming Israeli elections. In addition, a sizable majority of Democrats in Congress have gone on record insisting that an explicit Hamas recognition of Israel as a Jewish state be a precondition for ending sanctions and inclusion in the peace process, which is not only an unnecessary prerequisite for negotiating a long-term cease-fire, but is something which even the Israeli government has not demanded.

Silencing Democratic Critics
Democratic Party leaders have made it clear that any dissent from within the party to their right-wing position rejecting any contact with Hamas will not be tolerated.
For example, Robert Malley, who served as a National Security Council member and special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs under the Clinton administration, was already under fire for having the temerity to object to the Bush administration's effort to organize a coup against Hamas, noting how, "Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged." He had been serving as an informal adviser to Obama during the presidential race, but was forced to sever his ties with the campaign when it was revealed that, as part of his efforts to promote a cease-fire in his role with the International Crisis Group, he had met with Hamas officials. For the Obama campaign, such peace-making efforts simply could not be tolerated.
In an even better-known example, former President Jimmy Carter was quoted last spring as saying, "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors … Hamas will have to be included in the process," adding, "I think someone should be meeting with Hamas to see what we can do to encourage them to be cooperative." He then met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria.

Former presidents have historically been largely exempt from criticisms by elected officials of their own party. When it comes to expressing the opinion that the United States should figure out a way to include Hamas in negotiations, however, such courtesy quickly evaporated. Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, was immediately denounced by Democratic Party leaders. Steve Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee claimed, "Carter's views are antithetical to those in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. He does not speak for either [Clinton or Obama] in any shape or form, and I think there's pretty much unanimity on that point."

As a result of his efforts to avoid war, Carter was denied a major platform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, the first time in memory that a former president had been denied such an honor at his party's quadrennial gathering.
It's important to remember that both Malley and Carter were leaders of NGOs whose very mandates are to engage in conflict resolution. What these Democrats appear to be saying is that the Bush administration's policy of not talking with those deemed undesirable should not just be the policy of the U.S. government, but every nongovernmental organization and private citizen as well.

But that policy is inconsistent. Through his role at the Carter Center, for example, Carter met with war criminals like Liberia's Charles Taylor, Haiti's Raoul Cedras and Uganda's Martin Ojul, with no complaints from these same Democratic leaders. Their opposition to Carter's willingness to speak with Hamas appears not to have been because of the group's role in war crimes but because Carter had hoped such dialogue might pave the way for a negotiated settlement. Indeed, a number of those who supported Carter's exclusion from the Democratic National Convention had themselves met with unsavory characters as well, including right-wing Cuban and Nicaraguan terrorist leaders, some of the worst dictators on the planet, and others with even more blood on their hands than Meshaal.

What Explains the Democrats' Position?
All this inevitably raises the question as to why, in a conflict where both sides are clearly at fault, the Democratic Party has chosen to put 100 percent of the blame on the Palestinian side and has unconditionally supported the actions of the Israelis, who are not only the more powerful of the two, but whose violations of international humanitarian law are many times greater than those of Hamas.

There are those who try to defend these Democratic hawks by claiming it would somehow be political suicide to oppose any resolution supporting Israeli military actions. But a recent Rasmussen poll indicates that Americans are closely divided regarding the legitimacy of Israel's attacks on Gaza Strip, with Democratic voters opposing the offensive by a 55 percent-to-31 percent margin. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict overall, 7 of 10 Americans believe the United States should not take sides -- yet another example of how out of step the Democratic leadership is with the American public.
Nor does this strident support for Israeli militarism have anything to do with a genuine concern for Israel's legitimate security interests, given that every previous effort to defeat Hamas militarily has backfired. Similarly, Israel's 2006 offensive against Lebanon's Hezbollah -- also overwhelmingly supported by congressional Democrats -- proved to be a disaster for Israel.

The primary factor for the Democratic leaderships' hawkish stance regarding the current conflict appears to be the relative inaction of the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Most rank-and-file Democrats, at least intuitively, recognize the fallacy of the Democratic leadership's militaristic line and are aware that support for the Bush administration Middle East policy has brought neither justice for the Palestinians nor security for Israel. At the same time, however, the grassroots of the party has failed to mobilize in a way that would let the party leadership know there is a price to pay for supporting such a right-wing agenda.

Despite their efforts to undermine international humanitarian law and rationalize for the killing of civilians, many of these Democratic supporters of Bush administration policy toward Israel and Palestine still receive the enthusiastic endorsements and PAC funding from MoveOn and other supposedly "progressive" political organizations.
The message to Democratic lawmakers, then, appears to be that the progressive community doesn't care about international humanitarian law, at least if the victims happen to be Arabs.
And, although American Israel Public Affairs Committee and allied right-wing groups have certainly played a role in limiting debate within the Democratic Party, their power is often so grossly exaggerated as to create a fatalistic view that it is not worth even trying to get these Democratic officials to support a more balanced policy on Israel and Palestine. This results in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy by leading progressive activists to blithely accept that otherwise progressive members of Congress embrace positions essentially identical to that of the Bush administration. Congressional staffers -- always off the record -- often play into anti-Semitic stereotypes by claiming that their boss is but a hapless victim of rich and powerful Jews behind the scenes and should therefore not be held accountable for his or her actions. It is profoundly disappointing that so many peace and human rights activists appear to fall for it.

If there is to be peace between Israel and Palestine, we must stop giving these Democratic hawks the benefit of the doubt or making excuses for them. This means engaging in protests at their speaking events and sit-ins in their offices. It means withholding campaign contributions, supporting progressive challengers in primary races and backing Green or other third-party challengers in the general election.
Until they know there is a political price to pay for their anti-Palestinian -- and ultimately anti-Israel -- positions, they will continue to push their right-wing foreign policy agenda. How the progressive community addresses the ongoing tragedy in the Gaza Strip in the coming days and weeks may determine the direction for the incoming Obama administration and the 111th Congress, not just in terms of U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine, but in foreign policy overall.

For ultimately, the issue is not about Hamas versus the Israeli government, or even Palestine versus Israel, but between supporters of international humanitarian law and those who believe the United States and its allies are somehow exempt.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21679.htm

Why Do They Hate The West So Much, We Will Ask

Why Do They Hate The West So Much, We Will AskBy Robert FiskJanuary 07, 2009 "The Independent" -- - So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I'm afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against "international terror". The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.I've reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel's right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel's own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin's government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn't even apologise.Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we'll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We'll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we'll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn't. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21675.htm

Natural Gas, Palestinian Elections, and Israel’s Subversion of the ‘Peace Process’

Gaza Catastrophe:
Resource Conflict?
Natural Gas, Palestinian Elections, and Israel’s Subversion of the ‘Peace Process’

By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

January 07, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- Israel claims it is fighting in Gaza to stop Hamas rocket-fire against Israel, the continuation of which constituted a flagrant breach of the six-months ceasefire. Hence, the objective of the military operation is limited by the aim of putting an end to the rocket-fire. In fact, the current outbreak of violence cannot be understood without analysing the asymmetries in military violence between the two parties; the dynamic structure of the conflict in the context of the character of the Israeli occupation; the central role of recent discoveries of substantial natural gas reserves in Gaza; and joint Anglo-American and Israeli attempts to monopolise the lucrative (and strategic) energy resources through a political process tied to a corrupt Palestinian Authority run by Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party. Hamas’ unprecedented victory in democratic elections in 2006 fundamentally threatened these plans.


Operation Cast Lead, the concurrent Israeli military venture, was operationalised as a war plan in early 2008, and already finalised in detail as far back as 2001 by Israeli military intelligence. Its execution in late December 2008 into January 2009 is designed to head-off not only domestic Israeli elections, but more significantly, the outcome of further incoming Palestinian democratic elections likely to consolidate Hamas’ power, to permanently shift the balance of geopolitical and economic power in its favour. The long-term goal is the “cantonization” of the Occupied Territories making way for increased Israeli encroachment, and ultimately the escalation of Palestinian emigration.

Disproportionate Violence – 700: 4
Who bears primary responsible for the violence? You decide:
Nearly 700 Palestinians are dead, and 3,00 Palestinians injured. At least 13,000 civilians – half of them children – have been forced to flee their homes, now turned to rubble. (Save the Children Alliance, 02.01.09) Israeli human rights groups, like B’Tselem (The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) based in Jerusalem, confirm that the Israeli military is committing war crimes by intentionally targeting the civilian population in Gaza.


As I write, here comes news of example: “Israeli shelling kills dozens at UN school in Gaza” reports the London Guardian. More than 40 Palestinians were killed “after missiles exploded outside a UN school” in Jabaliya refugee camp by two Israeli tank shells, “where hundreds of people were sheltering from the continuing Israeli offensive.” Several dozen civilians were wounded. The school was clearly marked according to officials. And elsewhere, “at least 12 members of an extended family, including seven young children, were killed in an air strike on their house in Gaza City.” Hours earlier, “three young men – all cousins – died when the Israelis bombed another UN school, the Asma primary school in Gaza City,” where about 400 Palestinians had sought shelter “after fleeing their homes in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.”

As foreign journalists remain banned from entry into Gaza for for no plausible reason, Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem are reporting extensively on the deliberate mass destruction of civilian life and infrastructure by Israeli forces. B’Tselem points out that Israeli officials have described how the entirety of Palestinian society can be considered as providing a support network to Hamas, and is therefore
a legitimate target. But worse, the stories that B’Tselem brings to light, ignored by mainstream media pundits, are deeply horrifying. Here are some examples:

On 1 Jan. 2009, the Israeli army killed four women and eleven children in the Jabalya refugee camp. B’Tselem comments: “Such extensive loss of civilian life constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law and cannot be justified on military grounds.” (B’Tselem, 4.01.09) The Israeli human rights group documents dozens of eye-witness testimonies confirming. On 4th January, “soldiers opened fire from a tank toward a passenger taxi outside Gaza City. The four children in the taxi witnessed their mother and another woman killed.” On 27th December, two Palestinian toddlers “aged three and six, stepped out of their home to feed chickens in the yard. Before they reached the coop, the house was hit by the bombing of a nearby building.” The
three year old was killed.

This barely scratches the surface of what has been done. Other Israeli human rights groups, UN agencies, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, along with dozens of other credible independent organizations confirm that Israeli forces are indiscriminately targeting the entire Palestinian civilian population, blowing up residential areas, destroying power plants, bombing sewage facilities, annihilating hospitals, pummelling roads, all into bloody rubble.

Compare the hundreds of Palestinians killed, thousands injured, and tens of thousands made homeless, to the fact that only 4 Israelis have been killed due to Hamas rocket-attacks since the outbreak of conflict in December. (Guardian, 03.01.09) Of course, these deaths are condemnable and outrageous. But they are not cases of massive, systematic massacres of civilians - which are precisely what Palestinians have been experiencing under Israeli politico-territorial domination for the last decade.

The Long-Term View - 5000: 14
Consider, for instance, that on 19th September 2007, Israel’s security cabinet unanimously declared the entire Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” – solely due to ongoing Hamas rocket-fire. Yet that rocket-fire was and is a response to continued indiscriminate Israeli military bombardments. In January 2007, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) staged three days of air strikes killing 30 Palestinians, and on the 17th, the Gaza strip was placed under total closure. In response, over 150 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel between the 15th and 18th of that month by Hamas. Yet while these caused no injuries or fatalities to any Israelis, in that same period, nearly 700 Palestinians (including 224 civilians of whom 78 were children) were killed by Israeli extra-judicial executions.

Indeed, over the last 7 years of conflict, a grand total of 14 Israelis were killed by Hamas’ rocket-fire, compared to an estimated 5,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces with advanced American and British-supplied military equipment (Guardian, 30.12.08) “Among those killed in the first wave of strikes”, reports the Guardian, “were eight teenage students waiting for a bus and four girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one to 12 years old.”


Who Broke the Ceasefire?

It is a matter of historical record that the tentative six-month ceasefire was broken by Israel. On 4th November 2008, Israeli forces raided Gaza late at night killing 6 Palestinians, eliciting Hamas rocket-fire. (Guardian, 05.11.08) By late December, Israel called for a 48-hour truce in retaliatory attacks. An official from the UN Relief and Works Agency reported that Israel flagrantly violated the lull, exploiting the opportunity to drop 100 tonnes of bombs on Hamas government installations. (Ha'aretz, 30.12.08)

Root Cause of Palestinian Resistance: Structural Genocide in the Occupied Territories


After Hamas came to power in democratic elections, Israel imposed a brutal siege on Gaza in 2005, denying 1.5 million Palestinians electricity, fuel, food imports, medical supplies, and vital maintenance goods and spare parts. As water and sanitation services deteriorated, hunger and ill-health intensified, and mortality rates increased. International aid agencies like Oxfam warned of a major public health crisis.

The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, said that the siege of Gaza warned that the Israeli siege of Gaza, threatening the lives of an entire civilian population, expressed genocidal intent:

“Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these
current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy... But it would be unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of this crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking into account the extent to which European governments have lent their weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian political force.”

“Here’s One I Prepared Earlier…”
The siege was a strategy to prepare the ground for a protracted military operation, known as “Cast Lead”. Although justified on the grounds of stopping Hamas rocket-fire, the operation was planned over six months before the launch of the operation at the end of 2008.

Canadian analyst Professor Michel Chossudovsky from the University of Ottawa has revealed that Operation Cast Lead is in fact the legacy of “a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001”, aiming to produce a “
planned humanitarian disaster,” designed to inflict mass civilian casualties and terror – that is, to weaken resistance, increase Israeli control, and encourage Palestinian emigration. Contrary to Israeli official rhetoric, military targets are secondary to this principal objective.

In this respect, operation beginning in December 08 actually implements what was known as the “Dagan Plan” in 2001 - Operation Justified Vengeance, named after known its founder, retired general and current Mossad commander, Meir Dagan. The operation planned to destroy “the infrastructure of the Palestinian leadership” and collect the arms of “various Palestinian forces and expelling or killing its military leadership.” The cumulative impact of this strategy would be to eliminate the viability of Gazan political and military resistance to Israeli penetration, permitting the forcible “cantonization” of the Occupied Territories under the nominal rule of the politically-coopted Fatah faction.

Hints that the scope of the operation, already killing and injuring thousands of Palestinian civilians, would be far broader than hitherto admitted, came when Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told Israeli Army Radio that the Palestinians would “bring upon themselves a bigger Holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

Post-1999: Gaza as Locus of Resource Conflict

The question, of course, is why now? Pundits have pointed at the telling coincidence of imminent Israeli elections, requiring the Olmert cabinet to find new ways to regain some semblance of credibility after the disastrous Hizbullah defeat in southern Lebanon, not to mention the impact of domestic scandals. Yet even more significant is the role of imminent Palestinian elections. As of September 2008, Israeli political observes noted an erupting “constitutional crisis” in the Occupied Territories due to disagreement “between Hamas and Fatah over when the next Palestinian elections will be held.” Hamas officials stated that they would “not acknowledge Abu Mazen’s legitimacy as President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after January 2009, when it believes his term in office is due to finish.” According to Hamas, “new elections should be held in January 09′ since according to the PA’s Basic Law (which also serves as its temporary constitution) Abu Mazen finishes his Presidential term after 4 years.” In the event of failure to do so, the Presidency “temporarily passes to the Speaker of the Parliament, Abd al-‘Aziz Dweik.” As he is currently imprisoned by Israeli authorities, Hamas would resort to appointing Dweik’s deputy “who is also a Hamas member.”

Given the growing weakness of Abbas and the increasing popularity of Hamas, it was far from likely that the PA would be able to forestall elections until January 2010, as it had wanted to, without severe recriminations and domestic opposition. Both presidential and parliamentary elections were therefore likely in 2009, and would have allowed Hamas to consolidate its power in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli military and policy planners clearly recognized that this would create significant difficulties for Israel’s own plans for the Occupied Territories. A decade back, the British the oil firm BG International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas just off the Gaza coast, containing 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. Controlling security over air and water around Gaza, Israel quickly moved to negotiate a deal with BG to access Gaza’s natural gas at cheap rates.

The incentives for Israel are obvious – as the Telegraph reports: “Israel’s indigenous gas fields - north of the Gaza Marine field - could
run out within a few years and the only other long-term source will be a pipeline from neighbouring Egypt.”
The British Foreign Office, described the reserves as “by far the most valuable Palestinian natural resource.” Tel Aviv journalist Arthur Neslen cites an informed British source saying, “The UK and US, who are the major players in this deal, see it as a possible tool to improve relations between the PA and Israel. It is part of the bargaining baggage.” The project could provide up to 10 per cent of the Israel’s energy needs, at around half the price the same gas would cost from Egypt. The Gaza Strip would be effectively circumvented, as the gas would be piped directly onshore to Ashkelon in Israel. Neslen reports another informed source noting “an obvious linkage” between the BG-Israel deal and “attempts to bolster the Olmert-Abbas political process.” Yet this process is designed precisely to marginalise the Palestinian people, as Neslen reports that “up to three-quarters of the $4bn of revenue raised might not even end up in Palestinian hands at all. While the PIF officially disputes the percentages, it will provide no others for fear of a public backlash.” The “preferred option” of the US an UK is that the gas revenues would be held in “an international bank account over which Abbas would hold sway.” No wonder then, that Ziad Thatha, the Hamas economic minister, had denounced the deal as “an act of theft” that “sells Palestinian gas to the Zionist occupation.”


Things didn’t go quite according to plan. In fact, before any deal could be finalised, Hamas won the 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, provoking a bitter power struggle between Hamas and the pro-west Fatah, fuelled by the input of US and Israeli arms to the latter. Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority split in 2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah taking control of West Bank. Having been excluded from the US-UK brokered gas deal between Israel and the PA, one of the first things that Hamas did after getting elected was to declare that the natural gas deal was void, and would have to be renegotiated.

With Hamas declaring the constitutional imperative to hold elections in 2009, as early as January if possible, Israeli military and policy planners recognized the probability of a Hamas win – with all its political implications. At one time even stating its willingness to
recognise Israel's right to exist within its 1967 borders, a consolidated Hamas government in control of Gaza’s natural resources would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region, granting Palestinians the prospects of sustained economic growth, foreign investment, unprecedented infrastructure development, and thereby the prospect of a far more equal relationship with Israel, who in coming years needs to increasingly diversify energy supplies. Meanwhile Israel’s original Anglo-America sponsored plans for the Occupied Territories – a docile Fatah-controlled patchwork of underdeveloped cantonized Bantustans whose natural resources are controlled by Israel and profited by Anglo-American companies – would be thrown into the sea.

Israeli Military Objectives
Pundits, slavishly quoting Israeli defence sources, claim that Israel is trying to stop the Hamas rocket-fire, and will keep the operation rolling until they believe that they have degraded Hamas military capabilities sufficiently so as to forever prevent Hamas from firing rockets at Israel again. Ever. Failing this, pundits tend to be confused about the scope of Israel’s objectives, noting that the state aim is rather vague and intrinsically impossible to measure.

Given the preceding analysis, Israel’s official war aim is difficult to take seriously. On the contrary, there is thus little doubt that Operation Cast Lead is aimed at obliterating Hamas as a viable source of politico-military resistance in the Palestinian Territories, paving the way for the “cantonization” of the latter under the erection of the corrupt Abbas-led PA, before imminent 2009 Palestinian elections could consolidate Hamas’ socio-political entrenchment. The operation thus has two major objectives:

1) The short-term objective is to allow Israeli and Anglo-American unchallenged monopolisation of the Gaza gas reserves, and continued apartheid-style domination of the Territories.
2) The long-term objective is to create permanent conditions facilitating Israel’s re-encroachment on the Territories, encouraging Palestinian emigration and expulsion from their homes, and absorbing their remaining lands under renewed Israeli settler-colonisation programmes.

The attack on Gaza is, therefore, a war on democracy; a war on the right of peoples to self-determination; a war on the right of peoples’ to utilise their own resources for their own benefit. It continues and extends the policies of repression and discrimination perpetrated by Israel in the Occupied Territories since 1948, when three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced from their homes, and hundreds massacred, by Israeli forces in the Nakba (Catastrophe). Since then, Israel has continued to violate UN resolutions, attempted to grab as much territory as possible from the Palestinians, denied them the right to statehood and self-determination, and instituted racist laws to deprive them of civil liberties and human rights. Even Israeli officials like Ami Ayalon, the retired head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, have condemned these policies as a form of “
apartheid”: “The things a Palestinian has to endure, simply coming to work in the morning, is a long and continuous nightmare that includes humiliation bordering on despair… We have to decide soon what kind of democracy we want here. The present model integrates apartheid and is not commensurate with Judaism.” (Ma’ariv, 05.12.00)

Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine is supported by the US, Britain, and Western Europe, through financial aid, extensive supplies of arms and military equipment, diplomatic support. The global social justice movement needs to extend its support for Gaza far beyond marching and demonstrations, by pressuring media, government and civil society institutions to recognize that the Gaza crisis is an outcome of long-term policies that can only be understood in the context of recognizing the reality of Israel as a Setter-Colonial Apartheid regime sponsored by Anglo-American power.

Thus, the global social justice movement should look to widening and deepening public understanding of the origins of the current crisis in the contemporary conjuncture of the global imperial system. Yet just as South African apartheid required a massive international campaign of diplomatic and economic boycotting to bring it down, so too will the Israeli Settler-Colonial Apartheid regime require a comprehensive campaign of diplomatic and economic boycotts to weaken the nexus that ties Anglo-American power to Israel, and move toward a meaningful resolution of the conflict based on democracy and equality for Jews and non-Jews, together.


Where can we start, practically? An outstanding example is to call for the establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) under UN Charter Article 22, as has been advocated by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a London-based NGO with Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. As IHRC Chairman Massoud Shadjareh observed, “The setting up of such a tribunal is long-overdue, and is desperately needed to address the war crimes perpetrated not only in the current attacks on Gaza but in previous campaigns against the Lebanese and Palestinians. The relevant procedures and precedents are in place. It is time for the UN to act if it hopes to regain a shred of credibility amongst the outraged peoples of the world.” The IHRC's call for a tribunal resonates with numerous comments from independent experts on Israeli war crimes, such as Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois:

“The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.”


So here’s something you can do to make the establishment of an ICTI a real possibility – write to the UN General Assembly President, demanding the creation of an Israeli war crimes tribunal under UN Charter Article 22.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Executive Director Institute for Policy Research & Development - http://www.globalcrisis.org.uk
© Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

Barack Obama: “ America ’s First Jewish President”

FeaturedBarack Obama: “ America ’s First Jewish President”

By James Petras. Axis of Logic

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29031.shtml


“Obama asks Shimon Peres: “What can I do for Israel ?"
- Haaretz November 17, 2008


“The UN Special Rappateur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories (Richard Falk) has said
Israel’s policies there amount to a crime against humanity…He said the UN must act to protect the Palestinian population suffering what he called ‘collective punishment’…He said the International Criminal Court should also investigate whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law”

- BBC News December 10, 2008


“We need to ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy with Iran, making very clear to them that their development of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable, that their funding of terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah, their threats against Israel are contrary to everything we believe in…We may have to tighten up those sanctions…and give them a clear choice…whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way.”

President-Elect Obama on
NBC Meet the Press
December 7, 2008


Introduction

According to a nationally prominent Zionist spokesperson, former Congressman, Federal Judge, White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton and early backer of Obama, Abner Mikvner, “Barack Obama is the first Jewish President”. Mikvner’s affirmation reflects both
- Obama’s one-sided and longstanding commitment to the State of Israel and
- loyalty to the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the United States, as well as
- the long-term and successful effort of a network of financially and politically powerful Jewish Zionists to ‘embed’ Obama to their ‘Israel First’ political apparatus.

What is striking about the latter is the demeaning and arrogant claims made by some leading Jewish Zionist about their ‘central roles’ in the making of Obama’s professional and political careers – in effect denying the President-Elect any credit for his own academic or professional success. (Historically this has been mirrored in the continuous claims of some American Jews to have fought and won the battle of Civil Rights in the 60’s on behalf of African Americans – essentially denying black Americans any independent political role in their own struggle.) Even their personal flattery about his ‘wisdom’, ‘brilliance’ and ‘intellectual acuity’ is always linked with his unconditional support of the State of Israel. One can envision how quickly his Zionist colleagues would replace their plaudits with crude insults regarding his intelligence if he suggested Israel end its starvation blockade of Gaza … Needless to say the Zionists know their man, as they confidently proclaim, he is
a cautious and prudent politician, who measures power before he speaks, especially as he has filled the White House, economic councils and security apparatus with Zionist zealots.

The Making and Re-Making of Obama

The Chicago Jewish News, a nationally prominent Israel-First propaganda organ, published a lengthy article on ‘Obama and the Jews’ by Pauline Dubkin ( October 24, 2008 ), which quotes approvingly a ‘long-time Jewish observer of the political scene’, who declared that, “Jews made him (Obama). Wherever you look there is a Jewish presence.”

This is not merely the usual arrogant self-aggrandizing boasts of a Zionist power broker, with which we are constantly bombarded on so many political topics, this reflects an important part of what Obama has become, especially in advancing his latter day political ambitions. The Zionist self-promoters (ZSP), ever ready to take credit for any success (no matter how notorious and immoral) –
-
Wall Street speculators,
- Ivy League professors,
- Pentagon militarists,
- cultural gurus, and
- even the key patrons of art
forms like jazz and constantly rewrite history (or biography in the case of Obama) to maximize their self-importance in all aspects of American life.

The ZSP conveniently fail to mention in their articles that Obama’s white Gentile grandmother gave him the intellectual nurturing and
encouragement and diligently petitioned for scholarships for him to attend elite private schools, which formed the basis for his intellectual skills to write, speak and reason as an educated man. The ZSP exclude from their ‘revisionist and Judaized’ biography of Obama, the central importance of Reverend Jeremiah Wright who transformed Obama from an elite Ivy university graduate into an effective social activist. Obama was able to participate and get involved in community organizing in Chicago ’s African-American neighborhoods because of Wright’s endorsement and broad credibility. If it were not for Rev. Wright, Obama would never have had a social base or organizational experience to engage in Chicago politics. It is only after Obama had gained these skills and popular appeal that the Zionist politicos noticed him and went to work on his ego and ambitions, recruiting him to their pro-Israel agenda and financing his political career.

The Zionist re-write of his biography has gone curiously unchallenged by Obama. To suit his new mentors, the Israel-First ideologues and financial backers, he has willfully discarded and insulted his former mentors
, as well as any current policy advisers and political colleagues who doesn’t adhere to the Zionist line of unconditional support for Israel . Two cases come immediately to mind. When leading Zionist ideologues objected to the presence of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Malley, among Obama’s foreign policy advisors, the Zionists in Obama’s inner circle immediately marginalized them with his approval. When the notorious torture-promoting Zionofascist Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz raised a howl about former US President Jimmy Carter (a principled critic of Israel’s apartheid policies) speaking at the Democratic Party Convention (following a century-long political tradition of honoring former presidents) the Zionist operatives blatantly humiliated the elderly Carter by denying him even a five-minute speech – with Obama’s approval. ‘Professor’ Dershowitz publicly crowed about his success and power over the Democratic nominee Obama in censoring the former President.

The conversion and promotion of Obama as an Israel-Firster is an excellent case study of the methods the ZPC has used to build a near invincible power base in the US political system. The construction of the ZPC is not the result of a cabal with
a preplanned centrally controlled operation. Obama’s conversion began through
- an ideologically diverse,
- individual, family and community-based effort.

As Obama rose from local to national political office, Zionist promotion evolved from local into a nationally organized and concerted effort including campaign funding, business career appointments and paid propaganda and indoctrination junkets to Israel .

The ZPC offers positive inducements for the ‘recruitable’ and threats of retaliation and intimidation via media slanders and systematic public pillory through most Jewish communal organizations for the public political critics of Israel who remain recalcitrant and refuse to toe the Israel-First line.


Turning Obama into an Israel-Firster, according to the Chicago Jewish News article, began during his studies at Harvard Law School where he was ‘spotted’ by a Zionist professor, Martha Minow, as “smart, promising, and politically ambitious” and a likely recruit. The professor proudly recounts how she contacted family members, including her father, a major Democratic powerbroker, and fellow Zionists who ran a law firm in Chicago and recommended they hire the Obama. In brief, the first step in Zionist recruitment was using a prestigious academic post for initial contact, followed by a promise of career advancement through a professional network.

The next step was to introduce Obama to an association of ‘friends and neighbors' in the Jewish Community including prominent Zionist financial supporters. Obama’s early promoters played a key role in convincing him that his political future depended on Zionist allies and that support depended on his total commitment to an Israel-First agenda. As Obama’s ties with his Zionist-liberal backers in the Democratic Party thickened,
his links to black community organizing and his pastor and former mentor, the progressive African-American minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright weakened.

By the end of the 1990’s, Obama was firmly embedded in the liberal Zionist Democratic Party network and through it he teamed up with two key Zionist figures who were crucial to his presidential campaign: David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist since 2002 and the chief architect and tactician of his presidential campaign in 2008 and Bettylu Salzman, daughter of Phillip Klutznick, a billionaire real estate developer, slumlord and zealous Israel-Firster. Salzman/Klutznick admits she never would have bankrolled and promoted Obama simply because of ‘his smarts’ or liberal politics if he hadn’t pledged his commitment to Israel ’s interests. She states,
“Obviously I’m not going to support someone who is opposed to Israel and what it stands for. He’s right on all the issues when it comes to Israel . He is in exactly the same place (Hillary) Clinton is, maybe stronger. He’s a clearer thinker.” ( Chicago Jewish News, October 24, 2008 )

While Obama served in the Illinois Senate, he shared an office with an Orthodox Jew and fanatical Israel-Firster,
Ira Silverstein, who boasts of his role in ‘educating’ Obama about Jewish Orthodoxy and more important “shared pro-Israel feelings” to the point that … “When Silverstein sponsored numerous resolutions condemning PLO bombings Obama eagerly signed on as a co-sponsor.” (ibid)

Fully embedded in the Zionist Power Configuration of Chicago, Obama was advised by the Axelrods, Klutznicks and other key strategists to make the obligatory ritual pilgrimage to Israel and pay obeisance to its leaders in the course of his Senate campaign. During his trip to Israel , two years later in 2006, Obama was accompanied and guided by the executive vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Under Zionist guidance, Obama ‘connected’ with the Israeli state, totally ignoring the plight of the Palestinians who were being savagely repressed by the Israel Army and assaulted on a daily basis by Zion-Fascist settlers. Obama returned a thoroughly committed Zionist African-American politician.

With the Israeli-ZPC certificate of approval, Obama’s financial base of support widened to include some of the wealthiest pro-Israel Jewish Americans in the Midwest including Lester Crown, whose son, James Crown headed Obama’s financial campaign in Illanois. According to Crown (pater),

“From the time I met him, the times we talked about Israel and we talked about it several times, he has been an ardent backer of Israel ’s defense position (sic), Israel ’s security position.” (Ibid)

To those Zionfascists who demand that Israel annex all of Palestine and expel ‘the Arabs’ and were disturbed by Obama’s passing reference to a two-state solution, Crown assured them that Obama’s proposal was couched in such outrageously impossible demands for concessions from the Palestinians that it was a dead letter.

Not all Jews accept this view of a Zionist-embedded Obama: Some racists reject him as an untrustworthy and unqualified ‘Schvartze’ because of his ‘very close intimate relationship’ with Reverent Jeremiah Wright. The Zionist-influenced mass media took their cue from the far-right and orchestrated a hate campaign against Reverend Wright and his links to Obama. The ‘liberal Zionists’, who strategized and ran Obama’s presidential campaign, easily convinced Obama to publicly dissociate himself from his former minister and mentor of the 1980’s. Obama complied. However, the alliance of the Republican Right and Zionfascists demanded Obama make a public denunciation of the Minister
. The liberal Zionists prepared the script, which Obama recited, issuing a vicious condemnation of Rev. Wright and specifically listed Wright’s defense of the sovereignty and self-determination of the Palestinians as one of his ‘crimes’.

Obama had crossed the River Jordan. His capitulation to the Zionofascists was the inevitable consequence of his intimate and longstanding ties to his liberal-Zionist backers.

The public purging and scourging of a renowned African-American Christian theologian of the oppressed was only the beginning of the Zionist makeover of Obama as the first Jewish (or better Zionist) President of the United States . It was followed by further purges of any ‘centrist’ or ‘realist’ establishment adviser, who might at any time in the past have issued the mildest criticism of Israel ’s policies or even praised or associated with any other critic of Israel or the Jewish Lobby in the US . It was ‘guilt by association’.

The Zionofascists soon pressed their campaign to force Obama’s liberal-Zionists to purge Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Cold Warrior National Security Adviser to former President Jimmy Carter,
Samantha Power, author and lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Robert Malley, a former Clinton adviser for their perceived crimes against Zionism.

Brzezinski was accused of advocating what he called “an even-handed Middle East policy”, something clearly ‘anti-Semitic’ in the eyes of the unconditional supporters of Israel who dominate the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO). Worse still he praised the Walt-Mearsheimer book critical of the Israel Lobby, a capital offense in the eyes of most of the Jewish political spectrum. Power and Malley also transgressed the Israel-First line. Although Brzezinski later recanted his praise of Professors Walt and Mearsheimers’ study, he and the other members of the ‘objectionable three’ foreign policy specialists were marginalized and excluded from having any input on policy issues related to Middle East.

Control of Obama’s Middle East policy was taken over by Dennis Ross, a virulent Zionist advocate of Israel ’s ultra-militaristic policies, including an armed preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear and military installations. Ross is an unconditional supporter of the Israeli starvation siege of the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip and fully backed Israel ’s savage air attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon . Obama’s appointment of Ross is the clearest guarantee to all Zionists, liberal, orthodox or fascist, that US policy in the Middle East will continue to be subordinated to the interests of the Israeli State and its military.


Obama’s purge of any and all moderate voices on Middle East policy, his placement of fanatical Israel-Firsters in most key positions in his campaign and new Administration reflects his long-term, deep immersion into the Zionist Power Configuration. The result is a “Jewish President” – in the sense that most key White House, economic and security appointments reflect pre-election Zionist power in the making, indoctrination and scripting of the Obama candidacy.


The Configuration of the ‘Jewish President’

One of Obama’s longest supporters, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, provides a clue to Obama’s affinity for Zionist appointments. According to Rabbi Wolf, “Obama is embedded in the Jewish world.” While the Rabbi is presumptuous to assume that all Jews subscribe to his own Israel-First views, he is absolutely correct if he is referring to the Jewish-Zionist world.

Nothing better explains Obama’s selection of demonstrably failed economists and security officials than his long-term, large-scale links to the ZPC.

Obama started with the appointments of dual US-Israeli citizen, Illinois Congressman Rahm Emmanuel and Zionist David Axelrod to top White House posts, as well as Lawrence Summers (long-time Harvard ally of the Judeo-fascist, torture advocate Alan Dershowitz) as chief White House economic adviser. Summers is a life-time Israel-Firster, who used his presidency at Harvard University as a bully pulpit to attack a student-faculty group critical of Israeli policies in the Occupied Terrtories. As the former Treasury Secretary under the Clinton regime he was a key architect of the speculator-dominated financial system, which is currently in total collapse. In line with the ‘Jewish Presidency’, Obama named one of the foremost, unconditional Israel-Firsters to be his key Middle East policymaker – Dennis Ross, a leading Zionist ideologue and co-author of a presidential position paper advocating pre-emptive war with Iran . Ross is the pivotal Zionist figure in Obama’s entourage and his appointment is the guarantee for the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) that the Obama regime will follow and support with American guns and American tax-payer money every Israeli war crime, assault or invasion on its Arab and Parsi-speaking regional neighbors.

Ross, Axelrod, Summers, Emmanuel and their craven followers in Congress together with the AIPAC and the entire Zionist community-based network will ensure that Obama is inextricably ‘embedded’ in their agenda. They will not allow the publication or support of any intelligence investigation, judicial inquiry or United Nations report, which challenges Israel ’s occupation of Palestine and promotion of pre-emptive war with Iran based on the fabrication of data about its so-called nuclear threat. Each and every recently appointed Zionists has condemned the United Nations and International Atomic Agency reports refuting Israel ’s phony claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. They will make sure that newly appointed National Security Adviser, General James Jones will never bring up or make public his highly critical internal report based his on-site investigation of Israel ’s crimes against the civilian Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories .


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates are so deeply ‘embedded’ in the Zionist network and so deeply infused with the Israel-First ideology that ZPC ‘pressure’ will not be necessary. The three are, in effect, Zionized Zombies, eager to fawn and truckle, even to grotesque excesses, at every wink and gesture, signaling military handouts, UN vetoes and repeated provocative acts of war against Iran. They have even exceeded President Bush in their eagerness to please their Zionist mentors by recognizing Jerusalem as the ‘undivided’ capital of the Jews – effectively denying the rights of the Palestinian residents.

Nothing speaks to the dominance of the ZPC over US political life – domestic and foreign - than the election of their meticulously groomed first ‘Jewish President’ – and the subsequent takeover of strategic economic and security posts in his administration.

Conclusion

The ascent of a minority of ambitious power-driven political operatives acting first and
foremost for a militarist colonial power in a strategic region of the world economy represents the biggest threat to world peace and to US democratic values in recent history.


Think about it: Not only do the Zionists and their embedded clones rule the White House, they also have the political apparatus (left, liberal, center and right) to silence, insult, witch hunt and isolate any critic of their agenda, their organizations and of the State of Israel. When confronted by a critic the entire apparatus brays in unison about ‘anti-Semitism’ and follows up with severe civil sanctions. As Obama’s career under his Zionist handlers illustrates, they are capable of hurling repulsive denunciations against his former African-American mentor and spiritual councilor, Reverend Wright; capable of publicly humiliating and pushing aside a former President and Obama supporter, Jimmy Carter; capable of isolating and ‘sanitizing’ former top foreign policymakers from earlier Democratic Administration like Brzezinski, simply for pointing out Israeli crimes against humanity (although such observations are made daily in the European press and political circles).

The apparatus combines the carrot (embedding and promoting Obama) and the stick (stigmatizing Carter): It all depends on whether an individual, politician, academic, writer or journalist is ‘useful’ (i.e. an unconditional supporter) or ‘harmful’ (i.e. critical) to the State of Israel.

The Obama experience illustrates how a small, close knit, well-organized and well financed minority operating through prestigious professional posts and powerful economic enterprises can penetrate major political institutions, capture upwardly mobile politicians and ‘turn’ them into willing accomplices in promoting wars on behalf of a foreign colonial militarist power. If in the past we have experienced Zionist thuggery mugging our freedom of speech in civil society, think of what we can expect when these thugs have complete control of the White House. The ‘First Jewish President’ of the United States indeed! Where does that leave the American people, their rights, their interests and their country’s independent foreign policy?


Epilogue

In early December 2008, Israel’s right wing party, Likud, under the leadership of ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, met and nominated its slate of candidates for the upcoming national elections (February 12, 2009). The majority of candidates nominated represent what most Israeli journalists call the ‘hard right’ or what might be accurately described as Zionfascism. The Likud Party majority favors
- the expulsion of all Palestinians (i.e. non-Jews) from Greater Israel,
- the military seizure of Gaza,
- the end of any pretense of peace negotiations
and
- the immediate bombing of Iran.

Currently Likud and its fascists have the support of a plurality of Israeli Jews. If they win, it is a virtual certainty they will receive the automatic support of all the principal, respectable pro-Israel Jewish organizations in the US , who follow the line that: “It is not ours to question whom the Israelis vote for office. It is our duty to back the State of Israel.”

The election of an Israeli-fascist regime will up the ante in Washington . Does Obama’s embedding in the Zionist apparatus include support for Jewish fascism, the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine and their unilateral decision to ‘nuke’ Iran ? Three weeks into his presidency Obama will face his biggest Middle East challenge, which will define the nature of US policy in the region.

Obama has recently suggested that Washington would nuke Iran to protect Israel
–which has never yet signed a treaty with the US – to which the Bush Administration replied contemptuously that it would be very hard to convince American parents in Kansas that their sons should risk nuclear incineration for the sake of a small country in the Middle East . Clearly Obama is a greater war monger on issues involving Israel then even Bush: It comes with being a “Jewish President”.

Diundang Obama,Lia Soetoro Bawa Boneka Kenangan

Diundang Obama,Lia Soetoro Bawa Boneka Kenangan


KAKAK ANGKAT: Lia Soetoro (kanan) didampingi suaminya, Ibnu Sobah, saat ditemui SINDO di Jakarta kemarin. Lia terkejut mendapat undangan langsung dari Obama.
TERKEJUT, haru, sedih,dan bangga. Perasaan itu kini berkecamuk dalam benak Lia Soetoro, 51, kakak angkat Barack Hussein Obama, presiden terpilih Amerika Serikat (AS). Setelah puluhan tahun berpisah, keduanya direncanakan bertemu kembali dalam suasana dan kesempatan yang berbeda. Jika tidak ada kendala, Lia akan menghadiri pelantikan Barack Obama sebagai Presiden AS di Washington DC, 20 Januari mendatang atas undangan khusus dari saudara angkatnya itu. Jika Barry, sapaan kecil Barack Obama, kini menjadi orang nomor satu di AS, Lia masih tetap tinggal di kampung. Selain sebagai ibu rumah tangga, istri Ibnu Sobah, 58, ini juga punya kesibukan sehari-hari mencari rumput untuk kambing yang dia pelihara di Desa Sukasirna, Kampung Babakan Banten, RT 03 RW 09, Cibadak,Sukabumi,Jawa Barat. Saat ditemui di rumah kontrakan anaknya, Ibnu Syaifudin di Jalan Keselamatan Ujung RT007/02 No 9 Manggarai,Jakarta Selatan,kemarin, Lia tampak bersahaja. Wanita kelahiran 17 Agustus 1957 ini sesekali senyumnya tersungging ketika menerima kehadiran SINDO. Ibu dari tiga anak bernama Heni Marlina, 27, Noni Nova, 25, dan Syaifudin ini kemudian memulai pembicaraan. Menurut Lia, sejak Obama terpilih sebagai presiden AS, dirinya telahmendapatundanganuntukmeng
hadiri pelantikan adik angkatnya itu. Undangan berawal ketika utusan yang mengaku dekat dengan Maya Soetoro—adik tiri Obama—menghubungi dirinya,9 November 2008 lalu. Saat itu, wanita berkulit putih dan berkacamata yang diketahui bernama Gelf meminta Lia menghadiri pelantikan Obama. Tidak hanya itu, Gelf juga meminta Lia mempersiapkan diri menjelang pelantikan Barry.Menurut Lia, wanita yang memiliki postur tinggi dan berambut panjang itu memberikan uang sebesar Rp600.000 untuk pembuatan akta kelahiran. ”Karena saya tidak punya akta.Belum tahu untuk apa,” tutur Lia. ”Usai memberikan uang, dia kemudian meminta saya untuk menunggu kabar selanjutnya,” jelasnya. Hingga kini belum ada informasi lebih lanjut mengenai rencana tersebut. Meski demikian, Lia berharap jika pertemuan itu terjadi dia telah menyiapkan boneka monyet dan baju yang diberikan Obama kepada dirinya ketika berpisah di Bandara Internasional Hawaii, AS, pada 1971 silam seusai menjenguk neneknya Madelyn Dunham yang sakit kala itu. Sesekali, Lia yang mengenakan jilbab hitam dan baju lengan panjang dengan motif kembang-kembang ini tampak menerawang ke langit-langit rumah. Lia pun melanjutkan ceritanya. Dua pekan lalu dia mendapat telepon yang memintanya agar menunggu, karena semuanya tengah dipersiapkan. ”Hingga kini saya belum mendapat telepon atau informasi lagi,”katanya. Selain barang-barang milik Barry, Lia juga berniat memberikan pesan yang hingga kini masih terpatri dalam jiwanya. Pesan yang selalu diberikan mendiang ibu Obama, Stanley Ann Dunham ketika kami masih bersama, terutama sebelum makan dan tidur. ”Pesan tersebut yakni, sebelum melihat ke atas,lihat ke bawah, ke kiri dan ke kanan termasuk ke depan dan ke belakang,” kenang Lia. Pesan ini, kata dia, diberikan Ann Dunham agar Barry menjadi orang yang baik dan tidak sombong.
Mungkin, pesan ini sangat bermanfaat bagi Barry untuk lebih bijak dalam menerapkan kebijakan kepada rakyatnya, termasuk kepada semua negara di dunia. Diakui Lia,pertemuannya dengan Barry bermula ketika dia diajak kakeknya almarhum Hamim.Saat itu,dirinya ditinggal di rumah Mbok Siti, pembantu rumah tangga pasangan Lolo Soetoro-Stanley Ann Dunham di Kampung Leuwiliang, Bogor, yang ketika itu hendak ke Cibadak, Sukabumi. Ketika itu usia Lia masih 7 tahun, lebih tua 4 tahun dibandingkan Obama yang lahir di Honolulu, Hawaii, 4 Agustus 1961. Lia kemudian diajak Siti ke Jakarta dan menetap di rumah pasangan suami istri Lolo Soetoro (ayah tiri Obama) dan Ann Dunham. Lia biasa menyapa keduanya dengan Bapak Lolo dan Ibu Eny. ”Waktu itu Maya Soetoro belum lahir,sedangkan Barry masih tinggal bersama neneknya (di Hawaii),”katanya. Setelah beberapa saat tinggal bersama, Eny menjanjikan akan memberikan dirinya adik yang akan menemaninya. ”Tunggu yah, saya akan menjemput adik kamu Barry, biar ada temanmu di rumah,” ujarnya menirukan ucapan Eny. Obama pun akhirnya dibawa ke Indonesia dan sempat mengenyam pendidikan dasar di Jakarta. Tak dipungkiri, selama tinggal bersama, Lia selalu menemani Barry ke manapun. Tidak hanya bermain, bahkan tidur dan mandi bersama.Termasuk bepergian, karena keluarga Barry termasuk gemar berlibur ke tempat-tempat wisata. Beberapa kali dirinya diajak ke Puncak, Yogyakarta, Bali, hingga Tanah Toraja (Sulawesi Selatan) dan Kebun Raya Bogor. ”Anak-anak saya mengajak saya ke Bogor, tapi saya sedih, karena jadi ingat masa lalu,”tuturnya. Di rumah, Lolo dan Eny memanggil Lia dengan panggilan Non yang merupakan sapaan pendek dari Nona. ”Karena selalu dipanggil Non, Barry jadi memanggil saya Mbak Non,”ungkapnya. Dia mengatakan, Barry kecil bertubuh bongsor dan merupakan sosok yang baik dan murah hati. Dia selalu membagi makanan atau jajanan kepada kawan-kawannya.
Mahasiswa Bandung Diundang Alvin Adhitya Arief, 21, tak menyangka, jejaknya merantau ke negeri Paman Sam mengantarkannya menuju Gedung Putih. Wajah Alvin kini lebih sumringah. Sebab, tak lama lagi, dia akan menjadi salah satu tamu penting pelantikan Presiden AS ke-44 Barack Obama pada 20 Januari mendatang. Undangan pelantikan yang dikirim University Presidential Inaugural Conference itu diterima Alvin sejak Februari 2008 lalu. Email yang dikirim panitia tidak lantas dibalas Alvin. Sebab, dia harus berkonsultasi terlebih dahulu dengan kedua orangtuanya. Alvin kini tercatat sebagai mahasiswa manajemen bisnis di India University di AS. Alvin menjadi bagian dari 1% mahasiswa terbaik di kampusnya bersama mahasiswa dunia lainnya. Sumbangan Pelantikan Walaupun krisis ekonomi melanda AS, sumbangan untuk upacara pelantikan Barack Obama terus mengalir. Hingga kemarin, jumlah sumbangan tersebut mencapai tidak kurang dari USD30 juta selama tiga minggu terakhir ini. Panitia Pelantikan Presiden (PIC) mengatakan sekitar 2.000 donor telah memberikan sumbangannya. Namanama mereka juga telah diumumkan dan sedikitnya 378 donor memberikan sumbangan maksimal USD50.000 untuk perorangan. Untuk perusahaan atau lembaga, sumbangan maksimal ditetapkan USD250.000. Untuk perorangan mereka antara lain para selebriti Hollywood seperti Halle Berry, Samuel Jackson, Sharon Stone, Jammie Foxx, dan beberapa produser terkemuka seperti Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, dan James Lassiter. Selain itu, ada juga nama-nama seperti George Soros dan penyanyi legendaris Barbra Streisand. Selain selebriti, ada juga sejumlah eksekutif dan investor seperti pebisnis real estat Herb Miller yang menyumbang USD25.000, Morton Funger sebesar USD50.000 dan Anthony Welters juga sebesar USD50.000. (sucipto/ raka zaipul/irawan nugroho-washington)


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