Salon.com > Ira Chernus

Can Obama earn his Nobel Peace Prize?

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Barack Obama came to Israel and Palestine, saw what he wanted to see, and conquered the mainstream media with his eloquent words. U.S. and Israeli journalists called it a dream trip, the stuff that heroic myths are made of: a charismatic world leader taking charge of the Mideast peace process. But if the president doesn’t wake up and look at the hard realities he chose to ignore, his dream of being the great peacemaker will surely crumble, as it has before.

Like most myths, this one has elements of truth. Obama did say some important things. In a speech to young Israelis, he insisted that their nation’s occupation of the West Bank is not merely bad for their country, it is downright immoral, “not fair... not just ... not right.”

I’ve been decrying the immorality of the occupation for four decades, yet I must admit I never dreamed I would hear an American president, standing in Jerusalem, do the same.

Religion prof: Opposing gun control is a sin

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:37:00 +0000

"We don’t benefit from ignorance.”
—President Obama, January 16, 2013, at a press conference on his plan for new gun control legislation

When you look at a gun, do you see danger or safety? It all depends on the angle you’re looking from, risk perception expertssay. The gun control debate is ultimately a clash of competing worldviews, and it’s very fraught. Each side draws on symbolic narratives—I would call them myths—with deep roots in the American past.

Is a showdown brewing between Israel and the U.S.?

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:36:00 +0000

Here’s the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza: Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem? It’s on no one’s agenda for the New Year. But it could happen anyway.

It’s true that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process appears dead in the water. No matter how much Barack Obama might have wanted that prize, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed him at every turn. The president appears to have taken it on the chin, offering more than the usual support for Israel and in return getting kloom (as they say in Hebrew). Nothing at all.

However, the operative word here is “appears.” In foreign affairs what you see -- a show carefully scripted for political purposes -- often bears little relation to what you actually get.

While the Obama administration has acceded to the imagery of knee-jerk support for whatever Israel does, no matter how outrageous, behind the scenes its policies are beginning to look far less predictable. In fact, unlikely as it may seem, a showdown could be brewing between the two countries. If so, the outcome will depend on a complicated interplay between private diplomacy and public theater.

When Benghazi hijacked the election

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Who lost Libya? Indeed, who lost the entire Middle East? Those are the questions lurking behind the endless stream of headlines about “Benghazi-gate.” Here’s the question we should really ask, though: How did a tragic but isolated incident at a U.S. consulate, in a place few Americans had ever heard of, get blown up into a pivotal issue in a too-close-to-call presidential contest?

My short answer: the enduring power of a foreign policy myth that will not die, the decades-old idea that America has an inalienable right to “own” the world and control every place in it. I mean, you can’t lose what you never had.

This campaign season teaches us how little has changed since the early Cold War days when Republican stalwarts screamed, “Who lost China?” More than six decades later, it’s still surprisingly easy to fill the political air with anxiety by charging that we’ve “lost” a country or, worse yet, a whole region that we were somehow supposed to “have.”

Debunking our myths about Israel

Thu, 26 May 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Tuches aufn tish: Buttocks on the table. That's the colorful way my Yiddish-speaking ancestors said, "Let's cut the BS and talk about honest truth." It seems like a particularly apt expression after a week watching the shadow-boxing between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that brought no tangible progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The truth, like the table, is usually hard and uncomfortable. President Obama's carefully hedged public call for a two-state solution along Israel's 1967 borders may indeed represent a new step. Maybe it will even prove part of some long-range game plan that will eventually pay off. But here's the problem: as of now, Obama shows no inclination to back his words with the power the U.S. government could wield. Until he does, those words won't provoke any change in Israel's domination of the Palestinians.

Three myths of Israel’s insecurity

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:10:00 +0000

This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.

Here are the Three Sacred Commandments for Americans who shape the public conversation on Israel:

1. For politicians, especially at the federal level: As soon as you say the word "Israel," you must also say the word "security" and promise that the United States will always, always, always be committed to Israel's security. If you occasionally label an action by the Israeli government "unhelpful," you must immediately reaffirm the eternal U.S. commitment to Israel's security.

2. For TV talking heads and op-ed pundits: If you criticize any policies or actions of the Israeli government, you must immediately add that Israel does, of course, have very real and serious security needs that have to be addressed.

3. For journalists covering the Israel-Palestine conflict for major American news outlets: You must live in Jewish Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and take only occasional day trips into the Occupied Territories. So your reporting must inevitably be slanted toward the perspective of the Jews you live among. And you must indicate in every report that Jewish Israeli life is dominated by anxiety about security.

Blood or Treasure: Obama’s choice in the Middle East

Thu, 06 May 2010 21:07:00 +0000

Writing about U.S. Middle East policy used to be a boring job. You’d start out with "The U.S. supports Israel’s stand on..." and then just fill in the details. No longer. Many pundits claim to smell the winds of policy change blowing from the White House. Every word about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the president or his advisors is now parsed by journalists like so many soothsayers studying oracle bones.

Mr. Obama himself remains as cryptic as those bones and as open to divergent interpretations. At a recent press conference, he cautioned that "the two sides may say to themselves, 'We are not prepared to resolve these issues no matter how much pressure the United States brings to bear.'"

Aha! said the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Obama thinks peace "may be beyond reach." Meanwhile, over at the Jerusalem Post, the headline was: "Obama: U.S. Cannot Impose Peace."