His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take "many years". Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without conditions. He put pressure on the Palestinian leader to throw away the opportunity of international scrutiny of UN Judge Goldstone's damning indictment of Israeli war crimes in Gaza while his Assistant Secretary of State said that the Goldstone report was "seriously flawed". After breaking his pre-election promise to call the 1915 Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkey a genocide, he has urged the Armenians to sign a treaty with Turkey, again "without pre-conditions". His army is still facing an insurgency in Iraq. He cannot decide how to win "his" war in Afghanistan. I shall not mention Iran.

And now President Barack Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. After only eight months in office. Not bad. No wonder he said he was "humbled" when told the news. He should have felt humiliated. But perhaps weakness becomes a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Shimon Peres won it, too, and he never won an Israeli election. Yasser Arafat won it. And look what happened to him. For the first time in history, the Norwegian Nobel committee awarded its peace prize to a man who has achieved nothing – in the faint hope that he will do something good in the future. That's how bad things are. That's how explosive the Middle East has become.

Isn't there anyone in the White House to remind Mr Obama that the Israelis have never obliged a US president who asked for an end to the building of colonies for Jews – and Jews only – on Arab land? Bill Clinton demanded this – it was written into the Oslo accords – and the Israelis ignored him. George W Bush demanded an end to the fighting in Jenin nine years ago. The Israelis ignored him. Mr Obama demands a total end to all settlement construction. "They just don't get it, do they?" an Israeli minister – apparently Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – was reported to have said when the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reiterated her president's words. That's what Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's crackpot foreign minister – he's not as much a crackpot as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he's getting close – said again on Thursday. "Whoever says it's possible to reach in the coming years a comprehensive agreement," he announced before meeting Mr Obama's benighted and elderly envoy George Mitchell, "... simply doesn't understand the reality."

Across Arabia, needless to say, the Arab potentates continue to shake with fear in their golden minarets. That great Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir – murdered in 2005, quite possibly by Mr Obama's new-found Syrian chums – put it well in one of his last essays. "Undeterred by Egypt since Sadat's peace," he wrote, "convinced of America's unfailing support, guaranteed moral impunity by Europe's bad conscience, and backed by a nuclear arsenal that was acquired with the help of Western powers, and that keeps growing without exciting any comment from the international community, Israel can literally do anything it wants, or is prompted to do by its leaders' fantasies of domination."

So Israel is getting away with it as usual, abusing the distinguished (and Jewish) head of the UN inquiry into Gaza war crimes – which also blamed Hamas – while joining the Americans in further disgracing the craven Palestinian Authority "President" Mahmoud Abbas, who is more interested in maintaining his relations with Washington than with his own Palestinian people. He's even gone back on his word to refuse peace talks until Israel's colonial expansion comes to an end. In a single devastating sentence, that usually mild Jordanian commentator Rami Khouri noted last week that Mr Abbas is "a tragic shell of a man, hollow, politically impotent, backed and respected by nobody". I put "President" Abbas into quotation marks since he now has Mr Ahmadinejad's status in the eyes of his people. Hamas is delighted. Thanks to President Obama.

Oddly, Mr Obama is also humiliating the Armenian president, Serg Sarkisian, by insisting that he talks to his Turkish adversaries without conditions. In the West Bank, you have to forget the Jewish colonies. In Armenia, you have to forget the Turkish murder of one and a half million Armenians in 1915. Mr Obama refused to honour his pre-election promise to recognise the 20th century's first holocaust as a genocide. But if he can't handle the First World War, how can he handle World War Three?

Mr Obama advertised the Afghanistan conflict as the war America had to fight – not that anarchic land of Mesopotamia which Mr Bush rashly invaded. He'd forgotten that Afghanistan was another Bush war; and he even announced that Pakistan was now America's war, too. The White House produced its "Afpak" soundbite. And the drones came in droves over the old Durand Line, to kill the Taliban and a host of innocent civilians. Should Mr Obama concentrate on al-Qa'ida? Or yield to General Stanley McChrystal's Vietnam-style demand for 40,000 more troops? The White House shows the two of them sitting opposite each other, Mr Obama in the smoothie suite, McChrystal in his battledress. The rabbit and the hare.

No way are they going to win. The neocons say that "the graveyard of empire" is a cliché. It is. But it's also true. The Afghan government is totally corrupted; its paid warlords – paid by Karzai and the Americans – ramp up the drugs trade and the fear of Afghan civilians. But it's much bigger than this.

The Indian embassy was bombed again last week. Has Mr Obama any idea why? Does he realise that Washington's decision to support India against Pakistan over Kashmir – symbolised by his appointment of Richard Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan but with no remit to discuss divided Kashmir – enraged Pakistan. He may want India to balance the power of China (some hope!) but Pakistan's military intelligence realises that the only way of persuading Mr Obama to act fairly over Kashmir – recognising Pakistan's claims as well as India's – is to increase their support for the Taliban. No justice in Kashmir, no security for US troops – or the Indian embassy – in Afghanistan.

Then, after stroking the Iranian pussycat at the Geneva nuclear talks, the US president discovered that the feline was showing its claws again at the end of last week. A Revolutionary Guard commander, an adviser to Supreme Leader Khamenei, warned that Iran would "blow up the heart" of Israel if Israel or the US attacked the Islamic Republic. I doubt it. Blow up Israel and you blow up "Palestine". Iranians – who understand the West much better than we understand them – have another policy in the case of the apocalypse. If the Israelis attack, they may leave Israel alone. They have a plan, I'm told, to target instead only US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their bases in the Gulf and their warships cruising through Hormuz. They would leave Israel alone. Americans would then learn the price of kneeling before their Israeli masters.

For the Iranians know that the US has no stomach for a third war in the Middle East. Which is why Mr Obama has been sending his generals thick and fast to the defence ministry in Tel Aviv to tell the Israelis not to strike at Iran. And why Israel's leaders – including Mr Netanyahu – were blowing the peace pipe all week about the need for international negotiations with Iran. But it raises an interesting question. Is Mr Obama more frightened of Iran's retaliation? Or of its nuclear capabilities? Or more terrified of Israel's possible aggression against Iran?

But, please, no attacks on 10 December. That's when Barack Obama turns up in Oslo to pocket his peace prize – for achievements he has not yet achieved and for dreams that will turn into nightmares.

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Obama has betrayed mission to forge Mideast peace

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Goldstone Gaza Report

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Click here for comment by Aluf Benn on Obama's Nobel win Do you think Obama deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Join the debate with Haaretz.com on Facebook Oslo decided to change its ways and begin giving out deferred Nobel Prizes: Win now, pay tomorrow. There's no other way to explain the bewildering, not to say bizarre, decision to grant the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama. Just like the reserved, esteemed Norwegians on the prize committee, we here, sweating and bleeding, were overjoyed with Barack Obama's election as U.S. president - black, eloquent, enchanting, striking and promising. Many an eye welled with tears, from Jerusalem to Rafah, at his unforgettable inauguration address, and even as late as his Cairo speech we still clung to his beautiful words. Advertisement   We here in the Middle East could not help but be impressed by the new spirit he ushered in. Negotiations with Iran, a handshake with Hugo Chavez, openness toward Cuba, tolerance toward North Korea and the cancellation of the missile shield in Eastern Europe. A new dawn broke after years of darkness under his predecessor, for whom the Apaches did the talking and who primitively divided the world into good guys and bad guys with his imbecilic invasion of Iraq and hopeless occupation of Afghanistan. America became less hated in the world. If the Norwegians wanted to reward a promise, Obama has earned his Nobel. If they wanted to reward a change in the language America speaks to the world, he is the honorary laureate. If they wanted to reward his intentions, that would be fine, too. He might even deserve a prize for promoting peace, but only pending the fine print on his diploma, which will run: Anywhere but the Middle East. For the information of the esteemed committee members: Obama is not a complete package. So far he has betrayed his mission in the one region most threatening to world peace. There has been no "change" and no "yes we can." There has only been profoundly depressing treading in his predecessor's footsteps. The same methods, the same foot-dragging, the same trudging through the same mire. Can you believe, when you see George Mitchell doing the rounds between President Shimon Peres' empty words and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' vacuous statements, that Mitchell is the envoy of a Nobel Prize laureate? Obama might deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature, like Winston Churchill for his books, but as far as actions are concerned, at least in this part of the world, he deserves at most a conditional award, an IOU. At this point in his term, Obama resembles only one other Nobel Peace Prize winner - the Dalai Lama, zooming around the world and smiling beatifically. Let these reservations not be seen as evidence of provincialism, because it's as simple as this: A president of the world who has not done enough to achieve peace here is not worthy of the Oslo crown. What has the new Nobel laureate done so far in our region? Mitchell Shmitchell, a bitter and lost struggle over settlement expansion, a bizarre struggle against the Goldstone report, a disgraceful silence about the Gaza siege, and the ultimate proof that there's nothing new under the Middle Eastern sun. It's not Obama who "can," it's Israel. Israel can twist the arms of any president. You don't want to freeze the settlements? Okay, never mind. You don't want to take responsibility for the crimes in Gaza? Okay, never mind. You don't want to end the occupation? Okay, never mind. This is not the conduct of a Nobel laureate and president. A consolation prize: Perhaps the Nobel will serve as a catalyst, a kind of alarm clock ringing to wake the laureate in the final minute. Unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, in this region he will not need to shed American blood to secure peace. It's enough to show political determination, apply pressure and use Israel's isolation and dependency for the cause of peace. Israel needs a friend to save it from itself. Obama now needs to choose whether to join the laureates-in-vain - from Henry Kissinger to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat - or join the great ones, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Teresa. It's true, no one has ever won the prize twice (except the International Committee of the Red Cross), but no one has won it on a down payment, either. If Obama brings peace to the Middle East, perhaps Oslo will change its ways once more and grant him the Nobel again - once as a down payment, once by right. Congratulations, Mr. President, now it's time to settle your debt.

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[Editor's Note: There are parts of Gilad Atzmon's piece that are so outrageous that they border on recreating the old slander against the Jews--namely that they run the world. This is pure nonsense. It is certainly true that Obama is surrounded by people like Rahm Emanuel and Sommers who have a deep commitment to Israel that transcends concern about America's self-interest, but it is also true that when it comes to American foreign policy it is the miltiary industrial complex and the interests of America's ruling elites which, in association with the elite's ability to shape public opinion, combine to shape foreign policy decisions. So why even bother to read Atzmon? In this case, he has an interesting insight into the difference between Obama the president and Obama the brand that can be separated from his hatred of Zionism.]

The Nobel Prize, the Brand and the President

Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 06:33AM

Imprisoned by the most dangerous Zionist guards 

People out there are divided whether it was a right decision to award Obama with a Nobel prize for peace. In fact, almost everyone around me is outraged, what ‘peace’ they ask, what about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay,  Palestine?   We are tired of promises they insist. The Nobel Prize committee on its part ‘highlighted Obama’s effort to support international bodies, build ties with the Muslim world, act in favour of  nuclear disproliferation and fight Climate change’.  Those who are unimpressed with Obama stress that the above is just  ‘empty rhetoric’,  nothing but ‘hot air’. “We want to see action, we demand facts on the ground”.

    While Obama’s critics raise some valid points, they for some reason seem to fail to grasp the distinction between ‘Obama the Brand’ and ‘Obama the President’. The ‘Brand’ stands for hope and humanism.  It tends to say the right things on the right occasions. It is ethically aware. It employs reason occasionally and it even manages to talk sense often enough. ‘Obama the Brand’ is, no doubt,  a refreshing event in the Western political arena.

    ‘Obama the President’ is a different story altogether: It struggles, it fails to deliver, it fails to keep promises. It says things and does the opposite.  ‘Obama the President’ is a politician and politicians are conditionally untrustworthy.

    The failure of Obama  to merge the ‘Brand’ and the ‘President’ into a continuous ethical reality is indeed a colossal tragedy. But it is not Just Obama’s tragedy, it is actually our own  disaster. As much as the ‘Brand’ manages to spread some cheering humanist and universal statements, the ‘President’ is actually imprisoned by some of the most dangerous Zionist guards. ‘Obama the President’ has a big open bill to pay to the people who gave him the keys to his current white dwelling. In other words he has  many Zionists to appease and another bunch of rabid Sayanim* that have managed to invade his office. To a certain extent,  Obama's failure to establish an adequate continuum between the ‘brand’ and the ‘president’ is due to the unfeasibility of a continuum between humanism and Zionism.

    Unfortunately, Within the Western liberal discourse there is no obvious  political means to confront the Zionist lobbies, and its infiltrators within the American administrations or any other Western democracy. Catastrophically enough, there is no practical or political  means to stop the Wolfowitzes from taking us into another illegal genocidal war. Like in America, no one in British politics or media is courageous enough to elaborate on the close ties between Blair’s cabinet and his party’s leading fund raisers at the time when Britain was taken into a Zionist illegal war in Iraq. The West in general and the English Speaking Empire in particular have lost their survival instinct. It would be right to argue that within the post WWII Liberal discourse  we lack the political apparatus to defend ourselves from the infiltration of Zionist foreign interests. By the time we are convinced that we have managed to silence one Wolfowitz, five Emanuel Rahms pop out in the background.

    This is exactly where the Nobel Peace Prize comes into play.  Rather than waiting for Obama to launch another Zionist war, rather than letting him nuke Iran just to make the Jewish state a ‘safer place’, they, the Nobel Prize committee have hopefully pulled him in: they gave him their biggest trophy in a very early stage of his presidential term. They basically bounded him to his ‘Brand’ i.e. hope, humanism, harmony and reconciliation. They told him, “listen to us Mr President, here is your  trophy, once you accept it you may have to say NO to your Ziocons at home, for people with a peace medal cannot launch wars.” Obama may have to find some other policies to pursue peace rather than killing Muslims. Time will tell whether the Nobel Committee gamble justified itself. For the mean time we may have to agree that the Nobel Committee  offered Obama an opportunity to bond the ‘Brand’ and the ‘President’ into a unified, dignified and ethical stand. Let’s hope that he takes the challenge.

    As far as the Nobel Committee is concerned, this is probably the most clever thing to do. The committee should have thought about it a long time ago. Rather than waiting for too long, they should have awarded Blair and Bush in the immediate beginning of their terms. This could have saved the lives of millions of Iraqis and Afghans. They should also have considered awarding Shimon Peres with a Nobel Prize already in the 1950’s, this may have prevented him from building the Dimona nuclear reactor and later transforming it into a leading Zio-terminator. Henry Kissinger? Very much the same, they should have award him the peace medal on his Brit Mila (circumcision) ceremony when he was just 8 days old. This could have saved the lives of millions.

    Nobel Prize for Peace should be used as a preventative means.  Rather than wasting it on tedious humanists and boring peace lovers who do nothing but making the world nicer, we should better employ it in a preventative method. In current world affairs it should be used as an induced commitment to peace so we can avert the risk of Zionist wars.

    If I read it correctly,  the Nobel Peace Prize is there to help ‘Obama the Brand’  withstand the pressure posed on ‘Obama the President’ by his Ziocon ring.

Sayanim* = Jewish tribal operators who happen to work for mossad or serve israeli and zionist interests.