Tragedy in Gaza -- Desperately Seeking Leadership from Obama

By Sunera Thobani, rabble.ca. Posted January 5, 2009.

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.

In one fell swoop, the Israelis have destroyed whatever momentum Obama might have mobilized for a peaceful resolution of the blockade of Gaza and the siege that Gazans and Hamas have endured. Israel has pushed Obama into a corner with this attack, intensifying the suffering of the Palestinian people and making it all but inevitable that retribution will follow.

A state of war with its neighbors benefits Israel's ambitions in the region, even as it secures support for Zionist lobbies in the Western world. During the U.S. election campaign, Vice President-elect Joe Biden had warned that Obama would be tested early in his presidency. Few expected the challenge to come from a staunch U.S. ally and not from those contesting U.S. power.

Obama's silence on the Gaza crisis grows more curious by the day; it has already cost him much political capital. He appears weak and ineffectual even before his inauguration, one more symbol of hope capitulating to the realpolitik of the "special" U.S./Israel relationship.

As a community organizer in Chicago, Obama understood the racial calculations that shape the everyday lives of black people in the United States. With a Kenyan father who was a Muslim, Obama surely understands the consequences of such racial calculations at the international level. Palestinians have paid a heavy price for their resistance to Israeli power. As a law professor, Obama most certainly understands the terrible toll of surviving the crimes of an occupying power bent on genocide.

Unfortunately, Obama is missing in action in this first challenge to his presidency. The Israelis have used his own words to justify their aggression, and Obama has responded with a deafening silence. This does not bode well for the future.

U.S. and Israeli elites have a long history of buying off quislings to further their interests. Obama needs to act quickly to prove he is not one of them.

See more stories tagged with: obama, palestine, gaza, hamas

Sunera Thobani teaches women's studies at the University of British Columbia.

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