Opinion
President Obama’s mistake
Orly Azoulay
Published: 22.09.11, 10:02
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41 Talkbacks for this article
1. We're talking about the same Obama?
Albrecht Klein ,   Germany   (09.22.11)
2. For oil they are ready to rewright history
Ariely ,   Jerusalem Israel   (09.22.11)
-- Palestinians want international acceptance to statehood and endless conflict continuation: - No difference between Arabs desire in 1947 and 2011. Destroying the Jewish state Only new tactics!(terror,boycode,deligitimization) --- In 2011 The Arabs want to get international approval to: *No to a Jewish state! *No to direct negotiations! *No to a peace that will remove the issues for conflict continuation! ----Arabs refused peace in: 1948-1967-1995-2001-2009. Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan the West bank. They didn’t form a Palestinians state. The Palestinians didn’t demand a state. -- The world need of 58 Muslim states oil combined with the wish to please the Islamism outcome is: --they are ready to give away all the moral values --pay to Muslims with the Israeli coin (remember Czechoslovakia) ----- In Arabic language -NOT IN ENGLISH lying to infidels *From the PLO platform reaffirmed in the Fatah "The struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity IS ELIMINATED"" * Palestine Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah in Lebanon "The peace talks with Israel are part of ARAB STRATEGY TO ISOLATE ISRAEL and threaten its legitimacy." * Azzam al-Ahmed head of the Fatah negotiating team with Hamas "Fatah has never recognized Israel’s right to exist and WILL NEVER DO SO. Neither Fatah nor Hamas is required to recognize Israel" "--- Hamas charter *"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except THROUGH JIHAD. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." " *"The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims kill the Jews.
3. It's Our Fault ...We Need To Fix It.
Salma ,   Palestine   (09.22.11)
Arabs should speak harshly to America and carry a big stick and shout loudly : enough is enough. tomorrow is FRIDAY.
4. ORLY is right. Obama and evil forces lost
Israeli 2   (09.22.11)
But we didn't ALL lose. ISRAEL WON! Thank you Orly for a good article.
5. OBAMA DOESNT MEAN WELL!!
yafit ,   israel   (09.22.11)
6. SORRY ORLY
DAVID ,   JUDEA   (09.22.11)
I feel bad for you and your co elitsts that your beloved colored Meshiach did not work out. You did bring up his skin color, while that is of no significance to many of us.While you write about the big stick concept and seem to understand that principle, that is something your controlling elite, has never understood here in the middle east. While you and co worship your religion of peace, we are in a constant state of war due to this same weakness of resolve. So keep on pushing for one sided concessions and you will only create more war and mayhem here. But I am sure that this falls on deaf ears, like it has for the past 90 years.
7. Best Piece I've Ever Read here...
Mike S ,   Phoenix, USA   (09.22.11)
8. Head in water?!!!!!
Ayeush ,   Gibraltar   (09.22.11)
Though I came to realise that Ms Azoulay is desperatly trying to give a certain leadership-legitimity to President of USA B. Obama, she fails to convince me, and most of those who care to send in their opinion. We all had hope for Obama era, he came with so much promises to define new caracters to a new global language, as to the way humans should transact wiyh each other. Unfortunately (lets just say that his putting in secondary level the menace of a disintrgrating world economy, didn't add to his other misconceptions about the actual, phisycal, living and breathing world), but the promises stayed so, and the situation got more aggravated by his hesitations, and sudden changing of policies. So, Ms. Azoulay, wake up and wait for 2013.
9. Leadership analysis
Marcela Araújo ,   Brazil   (09.22.11)
Comparing the political leadership to leadership in relationships Here is an analysis: If I were a man ... (I do not like this idea, but it is only a hypothesis ...). If I am a man and take the decision to always expect women to take the initiative to start a relationship, therefore, I take the decision not to take risks. If I let the woman take the initiative and always do all the "important questions in the relationship," I let her be the leader of the relationship. But if I am a man and I want my decisions prevail and I do not have the leadership of the relationship, the only alternative left to me is the control through manipulation. Then, through my answers and my actions, I manipulate my partner for my decisions always prevail. So I would not take responsibility (and risk) of leadership, But my decisions always prevail. If someone wants their decisions prevail is just that person to take responsibility (and liability risks that brings with it). If I am a man and take the initiative in relation to woman, "I'm telling her" I do the important questions of the relationship, I'm assuming the leadership and direction of the relationship. So therefore, my decision will prevail. So I do not need to manipulate my partner for my decisions prevail. For this reason it is important to talk and more importantly know how to start a conversation.
10. Obama's mistake
Iletzter ,   TA- Israel   (09.22.11)
This article is uteer stupidity and is totally opposite of reality. Obama used a very bick stick against Israel. The only reason he backtracked and made the best speech of his life was because of substantial losses he realized especially last week in NY 9th district where a Republican wasn't in office in the last 80 years. Quite an upset. if he would continue his old policy he would certainly lose the elections. I hope the Jews won't gullible and re-elct him because of his nice speech yesterday. Obam's mistake was to change US policy to be pro Muslim and try to appease the Arab world. Arabs don't work with logic. They respect only- force and might !
11. The United States' big mistake......
jackflash   (09.22.11)
....allowing a small pressure group to hijack its strategic interests in an vitaly important region. US Mideast policy is Likud Mideast policy. Until AIPAC is tamed, no US president can, nor will push US interests in the region.
12. The Middle East is not the Western World
Yael Schlichting ,   Raubling - Germany   (09.22.11)
Here "might makes right". Treaties are signed to be broken! Friendships are contracted to be betrayed. Actually Middle East experts in the US know only toooooo good about such rules and Israel has the "comfortable position" to have no friends in the middle east, who would betray it. The positions are only too clear and Obama chose to ignore this. He didn't want to see the reality but wanted to make the world fit his idealistic world view. All this would be okay, if we could gain the impression, that Obama learns, but I fear, he doesn't give up his ideas. Hence he cannot accept, that terrorists will be terrorists and traitors will be traitors!
13. Obama meant well? To whom?
Ram ,   London   (09.22.11)
14. #9 - sometimes
seadog1946 ,   Arthur Kill, NJ   (09.22.11)
I like to be on top, other times on the bottom, on the side is interesting and then there is everything in between. Whispering is more sensual than talking.
15. Still drinking the Kool-Aid
Danny ,   USA   (09.22.11)
The author is still lost in the delusion of Obama the messiah, the messenger of hope and change and goodwill toward humankind. Most other people, including many of Obama's former supporters, have now realized that he stands for none of those things. Obama is in fact all about inexperience, lack of leadership traits, and a vision that plays well in the faculty lounge but is completely distanced from hard reality. But hey, when the emperor has no clothes, it's much easier to say that it is all the fault of needing to win the Jewish vote.
16. Stopped reading at the word Occupation
BH ,   Iowa   (09.22.11)
Waste of time reading analysis of one who does not even know the most basic facts.
17. To: No. 3
Sarah B ,   U.S.A. / Israel   (09.22.11)
"Enough is enough?" We've had MORE than enough with Arabs. Besides, do keep in mind for Friday prayers that the U.S. can wipe out the entire Arab world in 30 seconds or less. What you should do is pray that doesn't happen. Because it can. Rather easily, actually. "Speak harshly to America?" And back it up exactly how, imbecile? You should contemplate suicide; the Arab gene pool is compromised enough already.
18. President Obama saved you
Isaac Storm   (09.22.11)
President Obama saved people like you Orly - because believe it or not you could be hauled into international court if Abbas took his resolution to the UNGA under UN resolution 377,uniting for peace and it passed by a two-thirds majority. Do you think living in TA and spouting the views that you do would save you? You could be on an airplane & violating their airspace; you could be on a ship & violating their waterway. You could be writing one of your columns & violating their electrical grids. You could be drinking a glass of water & violating their right to fresh water. You see Orly, if that resolution were to pass, the PA can make all kind of treaties (like the law of the sea), sit in on all kinds of UN committees, and take any Israeli and probably every Israeli to court for violations of what they consider to be theirs. And if you "don't think that it could happen to you," think again.
19. What the Arabs don't get
Gee ,   Zikron Yaakov   (09.22.11)
Is the fact that the US (not just Odumba) does in fact carry a very large stick. The US supplies the Arabs with 25% of the entire economy. The Arabs also don't the fact that we carry an even bigger stick. With over half of their economy. Plus 100% of their water, power, fuel and medical treatment. They would cut any number of limbs just to harm Jews - they are that racist.
20. Wrong premise, conclusions; Obama failing is "equivalence"
Dr. L. Brnd ,   San Diego, USA   (09.22.11)
American presidents have never before relied on contrived "moral equivalence" as Obama has in disputes between our allies and enemies (or worse, with terrorist groups). There was no "moral equivalence" drawn by the US between Britian and Nazi Germany, no "moral equivalence" drawn between the interests of NATO states and the USSR. No "moral equivalence" between Kuwait and the Saudis - and Saddam Hussein. Yet this jackass persists in trying to draw "moral equivalence" between apartments and rockets fired at civilians, between "settlements" and suicide bombers, between 63 years of Israeli democracy and the dictators of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO, between Israel, which accepted the UN Partition, and the Arabs, who didn't and still adamantly refuse to recognize the Jewish State, between Israel, with a million Moslem Arab citizens, and a PA that demands racist exclusivist state with no Jews allowed. Obama's blunder was to ignore all this history and to try to operate like a referee in a boxing match. Obama's blunder was to put the irrelevant issue of "apartments in settlements" at the forefront rather than to first put heavy pressure on the PA to agree to explicitly recognize the Jewish State next door and drop its idiotic "Right of Return" in exchange for a state. Obama's blunder was to turn UNSC242 on its ear and try to re-write it as "the '67 borders with agreed swaps", which is the exact opposite of the "secure borders" that 242 demands and promises Israel. The origin of this problem is that Obama, regardless of what it says on his birth certificate, has no idea what it means to be an American. He has never served in our military. He is a Kenyan-Indonesian by upbringing, not an "African-American" descended from slaves as the rest are. He grew up in Sukarno's Indonesia, never reciting our Pledge of Allegiance or singing our national anthem or "America the Beautiful" until he was in junior high school in Hawaii. And listening as a child to the moezzins in mosques of his former homeland wail about the Great Satan America - this is why Obama hates the Superpower America, which he has pledged to dismantle and "lead from the rear", following the wishes of the global community. That is why he views the world through the lens of "moral equivalency", rather than from the perspective of American values. He has forgotten (if he ever knew) that he is the President of the USA, not the President of the Global Community, their views to be placed before ours. We will fix our error in 2012. Got it, Orly?
21. Big Stick
PDave ,   Minooka, USA   (09.22.11)
Orly, you do not understand Obama or American politics. From the beginning O. FAVORED the Palestinians. He wanted to show the Israeli government that HE was more even-handed. He hoped the PA would see how favorable he was to them and thus cooperate with him. You're right; they saw weakness. I suppose Bibi did too. But make no mistake, O FAVORS the Arabs.
22. Orly Azoulay
Malone ,   Hfx   (09.22.11)
For a minute here,I thought I was reading Haaretz.
23. American Jews beware!
Maurice ,   Montreal   (09.22.11)
Yes, yesterday, Obama was kind to israel , but that is part of his ploy to get again the Jewish vote that he lost recently in New York. If Obama gets elected for the next term, then he will have NOTHING else to lose. He will surely start supporting the Palestinians with the goal to enter into history as the president who enabled the creation of Palestine.
24. Orly Azoulay is a RADICAL ATHEIST LEFTIST!
David ,   Washington   (09.22.11)
she is the ENEMY of ISRAEL!
25. Obama Locks and the 3 Little Bears
Monteray Jack ,   The Morrow Morrow La   (09.22.11)
In America there is a myth that all peoples want freedom and are basically good, especially among the left. Obama really thought he could come out swinging at Natanyahu, and for the Palis without the Palis later double crossing. But "our cousins" have done what they always have, and if he ever watched the news or read the Quran he would have known better. And now Obama also thought he could stab his Jewish constituency in the back, with paying at the poles. He was wrong again. He looked so sober stupid, sitting next to Natanyahu, a manner he has treated with utter disrespect time and again, taking back everything he ever said, a double shot of straight reality just hit the village fool. I wonder how it felt to do the right thing for a change, and act like a man of integrity after 2 years of attacks on the only decent country in the ME.
26. Orly Azoulay ! PERFECT .
(09.22.11)
27. Stop the lying "Occupation" Mantra.
Jerry ,   The Netherlands   (09.22.11)
28. Obama IS naïve !!!
Neomi ,   US   (09.22.11)
The middle east is a hornet's nest! how can someone who's not new to politics, could have ignored this very simple FACT? How could he not learned or educated himself on the history of the middle east, the mentality of its people and learn from his predecessors? How could he sign a death sentence on one of the only moderate arab leader in the region (Mubarak) and not react when a dictatorship like Syria carries on such atrocities (oh, maybe because they don't have oil...how different, then, his legacy from the one of George Bush?). And, by the way, where are the Jobs and growth Obama has promised us? No, I'm not voting for this guy again! he just doesn't have what it takes to be the president !!!
29. Obama's Mistake
Martin Gray ,   Miami, USA   (09.22.11)
NY - 9. God bless Ed Koch.
30. to Salma 3
john Darren ,   cairns-Australia   (09.23.11)
That is the funniest post of the day.
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