Next Year in Jerusalem.
That's what many thought when Obama had just won the Presidency, that the next year in Jerusalem was going to be different. That here was a person who was going to use the power of the US Presidency to make real change and demand fairness for all in the Middle East. With that, the promise of peace.
Here we are. What we see in Jerusalem is instead are Palestinian families kicked out on the streets under eviction orders. People who had every reason to hope for something better are instead sleeping next to army vehicles and near armed extremists.
They had hoped for more than lip-service from President Obama. They still hope for more.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, 2 August, a force of hundreds of police and border guards invaded the quiet East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and systematically evicted the sleeping Hanoun and Gawi families from their homes. The sun dawned upon a new reality: chaos in the streets, children crying and elders in anguish. The police blocked every entrance to the area, preventing friends from coming to the aid of the distressed families or even helping them to remove their belongings from their homes. Revealing prior coordination with the authorities, the homes were quickly occupied by ultra-orthodox Jewish settlers....
The dispossession of the Hanoun and Gawi families is a clear act of defiance directed at the Obama administration's call to freeze settlements. If it succeeds, this will be a green light for Israel to continue with its ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Already five additional Sheikh Jarrah families have received court summonses and they are fated to join the Hanouns and the Gawis in the street if this supposedly "legal" land grab isn't stopped. If the new US president is to have any credibility on the international stage, he must keep faith with Maher Hanoun. Outside his home, Hanoun hung a big banner bearing President Obama's picture and the slogan "OBAMA,YES YOU CAN stop housing evictions in Sheikh Jarrah." He and the world are still waiting. --- Marcey Gayer is an Israeli-American activist residing in Tel Aviv.
More families await the dreaded knock on the door.
It is clear that Obama's plan is not working so far. President Obama has opposed in word these evictions, and he deserves credit for that. Yet has done nothing in deed. Nothing that will stop the evictions. He has offered Israel the promise of rewards if it stops the colonization of the West Bank. He has stated he support a "settlement freeze". The Israeli regime has made it clear it will not comply. In response, Obama has rewarded Israel with urging Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel. And, of course, with continued lavish US military aid.
As it stands now, the Israeli regime must choose the Carrot. or the Carrot.
So far, that is the only choice offered under US policy. It is hardly even considered that aid to Israel might be reconsidered, even limited in the slightest degree.
To be fair, Obama is getting no help from Congress, certainly not from the republicans, but also not from leading democrats. Like Steny Hoyer (Maryland- Iraq War Cheerleader Party) who is on a trip to Israel under the auspices of an AIPAC organization.
By demanding a freeze on the expansion of the Illegal Settlements in Occupied West Bank, President Obama gave a
a hint that maybe, just maybe, they would walk into a negotiation, rather than crawl into a pummeling. They could finally have a chance to look at their tired constituents and say:
We did not get rid of the settlements folks, but at least there will be no more ‘facts on the ground’ before we reach the next negotiations -- From Here
That isn't what Hoyer says, who complains that this is not an issue, supports "natural growth", and then blames Palestinians for lack of progress, the same view of the organization sponsoring his trip to Israel (I'm sure that is just a coincidence, however). Hoyer on his trip made many statements that are at odds with administration policy.
Some are saying that what is required is only negotiations. But the real process, peaceful or not, it what takes place outside the negotiations. If this is to include evictions, demolitions, arrests, teargassing of peaceful protesters, a siege on the people of Gaza that includes the willful creation of malnutrition for tens of thousands of Palestinian children, the prohibition of material with which the Palestinians in Gaza can rebuild their homes destroyed by US-made and subsidized weaponry.... then it is not a peace process.
Peace needs more than lip-service. We cannot continue to subsidize this without protest. We need to counteract the HuckabeesHoyers.
Organize to end US aid to Israel.
UPDATE: Everytime there is a discussion that touches on the subject of "settlement freeze" someone brings up a news story about how it is bearing fruit. It always seems to clash, unfortunately, with reality. Not only the reality of the families evicted in Jerusalem, who somehow see a different reality.
The Peace Now anti-settlement group says the last fresh government tender for settlement construction was in November 2008.
That was when former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was still in power and before the Obama administration took office.
But Mr Netanyahu's office has denied the hiatus amounted to an official freeze and continued to insist on "natural growth" construction in settlements.
Campaigners from Yesh Din said there was no sign of a slowdown on the ground, with construction continuing in government-funded projects, in the private sector and in unauthorised outposts.
"In practice, on the ground, construction is continuing and the pace is even picking up," said Yesh Din researcher Dror Etkes.
About 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements, which are illegal under international law, among 2.5 million Palestinians. --- from here