I woke up this morning a few minutes into Barack Obama’s victory speech, which I watched on the BBC. He knows how to talk, and the emotions on the faces in the audience moved me despite my cynicism. I do think that the election of a black man is a significant symbol even if it’s divorced from any particular policy. Still, I suspect the main message much of white America will take from the election is that racism is dead and so government intervention to eliminate discrimination is no longer justified. It would not surprise me to see Obama himself adopt this line, given his traditional American faith in individualism and self-help.
Of course, it’s hard, here in Palestine, to ignore Obama’s determined efforts to avoid any criticism of Israeli policy. The Israeli newspapers are filled with assurances that Obama is “a friend of Israel.” Today I received an email with a column by Ralph Nader blasting Obama for caving in to pro-Israel pressure, but Nader’s current location on the fringes of mainstream politics makes his on-target analysis unlikely to get much traction.
On BBC this morning, the election coverage I saw ignored Palestine and Israel, but as you might expect Al Jazeera got right to the point with an interview with journalist Robert Fisk. Fisk noted that Obama’s impressive speech ignored the importance of justice. Fisk was concerned that Obama’s promise to go after “those who tear the world down” (something like that) might be a hint that he would continue America’s identification of Islam as the enemy. Obama, Fisk predicted, won’t push Israel hard despite his commitment to speak “the truth.” As Nader wrote in his column, Obama abandoned his Palestinian sympathies once he left Illinois for Washington.
Nader, by the way, also emphasized Obama’s corporate-friendly political history, which helps explain the unusual support he’s received from corporate interests. I’ve long thought that Obama, like Democrats more generally, routinely ignore the two issues I’ve been most concerned with over the years, corporate power and rights, a topic I’ve explored in my academic work, and applying justice principles to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On these issues, and I suspect on others, Obama will disappoint many of his current fans.
Technorati Tags: Obama, Israel, Robert Fisk, Nader, Palestine