Tragedy in Gaza -- Desperately Seeking Leadership from Obama

The new year has begun with Muslims around the world being taught a lesson in the crudity of racial equations: 400 Palestinian lives equal four Israeli lives.

Reeling from having learned that over a million Iraqi and Afghan lives equal 3,000 American lives, the logic of this racial mathematics is certainly no new thing. After all, the first U.S. Constitution engaged in just such calculations of human worth, and Katrina demonstrated their ongoing effects. But the lesson has the power to shock every time: the images of Palestinian bodies being pulled out of the rubble in Gaza that flood news reports are unbearable to witness.

Surely the lesson cannot be lost on President-elect Barack Obama. That such violence can be waged on so defenseless a population with the support of the Bush administration is unconscionable. That Obama chooses to remain silent is nothing short of cowardice.

Why is Israel able to continue its deadly assault on Palestinians in Gaza? Because Western governments (and their Arab quislings) are willing to allow the carnage to carry on into day three, four, five ... After all, these governments enabled the Israeli blockade of Gaza for the last year-and-a-half, they aided and abetted Israel's criminal meting out of collective punishment to the population for daring to vote for Hamas.

The mainstream media faithfully reported as true every lie told by the Bush administration about Iraq. Now the media upholds the fiction that Hamas is responsible for the violence waged by the Israelis. Israel probably calculated, and rightly so as has turned out to be the case, that the support it enjoys from these governments could withstand whatever murmurs of regret politicians might be moved to express by anti-Israeli demonstrations in their capitals.

The current Israeli attack is being attributed by some commentators to the machinations of Israeli politicians jockeying for power in the upcoming elections in that country. But there is another consideration that is far more important. Of all the Middle Eastern countries, it is Israel that stood to lose the most with the incoming presidency of Obama later this month.

Obama promised to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and committed his administration to pursuing diplomatic and political solutions ahead of military ones, not only in Iraq, but also in other conflicts within the region. Iran has been strengthened by the U.S. defeat in Iraq, while Israel was outmaneuvered by Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.

The writing has been on the wall for the Israelis. The carte blanche given to that country by past U.S. administrations to destabilize the region and pursue its territorial ambitions could no longer be counted upon.

The worldwide enthusiasm for the election of Obama signaled a global desire for change, people around the world are sick of the lies and wars, of the guns and bombs.

A return to the rule of law and an end to the Iraq war is what Obama promised, not only to the American electorate, but to the entire world. The election of the first black president was an ecstatic moment for people of color around the world, as it was for those white populations sickened by the racism and violence of American empire-building. People around the world took Obama up on his promise of hope, daring to believe that political change was coming.

Whether President-elect Obama will, or can, deliver what he promised is a question people of color passionately debate with eyes wide open. The hope that a black man will stand up to the racial calculations that turn the "native" into a "thing," as Frantz Fanon put it, is palpable among many Muslims.

Obama's public comments that he will welcome pressure from movements for social justice won him some time and a measure of credibility. Surely there is no greater cause for social justice than that of the Palestinian people. And Obama is the first U.S. president who seems to understand the nature of the Palestinian crisis prior to his election, as some who know him, including Ali Abunimah, have pointed out.