Challenges facing the new US President in Middle East

Barack ObamaBarack Obama, who became the 44th President of the United States today, enters the White House with a plateful of problems. He inherits the Presidency at a time when the US image has been severely battered and its credibility is at an all-time low, thanks to the disastrous policies of his predecessor George W. BushGeorge W. Bush during whose eight-year tenure the US invaded and occupied two countries in the war on terror.

Today, the world is less secure than it was on September 11, 2001. US policies of deceit and ramming its point of view down unwilling throats, whether in Afghanistan or in Iraq, torturing victims to extract “Confessions Made in Guantanamo Bay” flout the provisions of the Geneva Convention for a just and fair trial.

Above all, the unilateral declaration of ceasefire by the Israelis after killing more than 1,200 Palestinians in Gaza Strip and injuring thousands others in the merciless bombardment from the air and on the ground heralds a tragic saga in the annals of the Middle East history as President Barack Obama takes over from George W. Bush.

The US government will, of course, will continue to be HMV (His Master’s Voice) dancing to the tune of Tel Aviv. The latest tune belted out by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipora "Tzipi" Livni puts a new spin on what one would normally describe the dance of death and destruction in Gaza, its premeditated killing of the Palestinian people for trying to break the siege imposed on them by the Israeli occupation force.

But Livni redefines the liberation struggle with a new twist. She calls it a ‘battle between the extremists and the moderates”—a term that is freely bandied about in the Middle East in the religious context. In the process, she is trying to project Israel as a victim of Palestinian extremists who killed 11 Israelis, all of them soldiers. The international community, led by the US, goes by its version and condemns the loss of innocent life on the Israeli side, never mind the totally asymmetric nature of the war.

Meanwhile, reeling under the impact of the Israeli siege, Gazans have been forced to survive on wild grass that grows along the streets of Gaza. The only luxury they can afford is to have one meal a day consisting of khubz only. Approximately half the population of the Gaza Strip, or 800,000 people to be precise, have been without running water for two weeks.

.The water utility in Gaza, which normally pumps 220,000 cubic meters of water per day, is now producing only 100,000 cubic meters per day as a result of the Israeli bombardment. There is a serious risk that earth retention walls of several wastewater lagoons will break, inundating the surrounding communities with an estimated three million cubic meters of wastewater.

In this context, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King AbdullahKing Abdullah in a move, characteristic of the Kingdom’s humanitarian role, has announced that his country will donate $1 billion to help rebuild the Gaza Strip after the devastating Israeli offensive. He also told Israel that an Arab peace initiative will not remain on the table forever.

"Israel has to understand that the choice between war and peace will not always stay open and that the Arab peace initiative that is on the table today will not stay on the table," said the Saudi monarch during a speech.

The initiative, which was first proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and relaunched in March 2007, offers Israel collective Arab recognition in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the territory it occupied in the 1967 war, the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution for the problem of Palestinian refugees.

Israel initially rejected the initiative in 2002, but in the past year has said it could be a starting point for discussion. "The position of the Israeli government is that the Arab peace initiative remains a basis for dialogue between Israel and the Arab world," said Israeli spokesman Mark RegevMark Regev. "And we continue to be willing to negotiate with all of our neighbors on the basis of that initiative."

However, Syrian President Bashar AssadPresident Bashar Assad describes the offer as already dead and has proposed that the Arab summit adopt a resolution declaring Israel a "terrorist entity." The Arab world has struggled to come up with a unified response to the Gaza crisis — with strong Hamas supporters like Iran and Syria facing off against U.S. allies like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

It is this internal rift within the Arab ranks that Israel has exploited to the hilt by striking at the Palestinian targets at will. In fact, all available indications show that the Gaza campaign had been planned six months in advance, while Hamas’ missile attacks to end the siege of their territory only served as an excuse to cover up the Israeli game. The whole purpose of its military thrust was to cock a snook at the Palestinians that they, as the vanquished party, could always be subjected to attacks, irrespective of the noise made by the international community.

For this reason, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, because it does not consider Hamas to be its equal. It had adopted the same stance in Lebanon early last year during the war against Hezbollah by ending the hostilities unilaterally. Even during the previous negotiations with Palestine under Yasser ArafatYasser Arafat and subsequently under Abu MazenAbu Mazen, Israel backed off on the ground that it could not hold talks with a party that lacked international legitimacy. And the world backed Israel’s “principled stand.”

It is against this background that President Barrack Obama ushers in his four-year term in the White House. He might take a different route by trying to get the Syrians and Iranians on board. But it is doubtful if they will swallow the bait in any deal with Israel except on its own terms. In short, it will be premature to expect any breakthrough on the Middle East track, be it Palestine or Iraq. Afghanistan continues to remain a political back hole in which everything gets sucked in. Whether he may try to produce result on the Kashmir front is also a doubtful proposition, as it has defied a solution during the last six decades. Are we, then, moving around in circles?