June 07, 2009

Nonviolence in the Middle East: Obama’s Cairo Speech

Writer activist Starhawk in her Washington Post column "On Faith": "My first reaction, reading it, was 'This speech makes us all safer, and does a better job of it than a thousand drone attacks or military forays.'”

(Excerpts)
..." Obama also tackled head-on the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian problem:  Israel’s continued building of and support for illegal settlements.  I suspect many people are still unclear on the concept of ‘settlement’: the word creates an image of a stalwart, noble outpost in the wilderness.  In reality, settlements are more like gated suburbs plunked down in the midst of Palestinian territory, villages, farms and cities that have always been in Palestinian hands and that the Oslo agreements and the Road Map define as destined for a Palestinian state...

" Obama also called on the Palestinians to renounce armed struggle and embrace nonviolence.  Now, I’m a passionate believer myself in nonviolence.  I share his assessment that a powerful, nonviolent movement could advance the cause of justice in a way that violence can never do.  However, there is something disingenuous about the man who is ordering troops into Afghanistan and drones to bomb Pakistan telling another people ‘Violence is a dead end.’  I credit Obama with a distaste for violence and a strong preference for diplomacy, and truly, I like the guy. I think he’s a great leader in a rotten time, and a brilliant man of real integrity.  But there’s no denying that, from the moment he took office, he’s had blood on his hands.  For the powerful to demand that the less powerful renounce violence, without making the same demands on themselves or on their allies, is simply to say: “I reserve the weapons of death for myself and my friends.”
 
"I would have like Obama to urge nonviolence on all of us: Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians alike.."

Read article on-line here.

More on Starhawk here.