Illustration by Ben Heine

By Mohamed Khodr *

The Honorable President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President;

Sir, congratulations on your Nobel Peace Prize. It is a manifestation of the world's relief and strong belief in your idealism, passion to change the status quo both domestically and internationally, and your desire to restore America's credibility around the world by tackling difficult challenges such as Climate Change, Nuclear Proliferation, and the longest thorn and Achilles Heel of our nation—the Israeli Palestinian conflict; a conflict between an illegally occupying superpower and the hapless millions of Palestinians who've endured the longest military occupation, theft of their nation, land, homes, farms, even their drinking water, diverted by Settlers to water their lawns and replenish their swimming pools.

Sadly for the world, Mr. President, your idealism met the reality of a Capitol long besieged by powerful interest groups that oppose your policies on all fronts, none more damaging to your credibility than your appeasement of Israel's powerful lobbies (AIPAC, ADL, ZOA etc.) and to its powerful support in Congress as once again demonstrated by a House Resolution demanding your rejection of the Goldstone Report, something that you shamelessly already did thereby telling the world that we stand with perpetrators of war crimes

The patented U.S. policy of a double standard that absolves Israel of war crimes while forcibly demanding that Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, and Lebanon implement U.N. Resolutions and surrender to the Israeli driven U.S. Foreign Policy has continued unabated under your administration. Warn the Muslims to tow the line while being complicit with Israel's defiance of all U.N. Resolutions, International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and its decades long illegal occupation of Palestinian land subjecting millions of civilians to a brutal military regime that kills, imprisons, and bombs at will with our money and weapons.

Washington D.C. is just as occupied by Israel as the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Sir, to the disappointment of the entire world but especially to the 1.6 Billion Muslims, you have retreated from your policy that required Israel's total freeze of all settlement projects, including "natural growth", and instead adopted a policy of freezing any pressure that demands Israel live up to its commitments to our nation, the sole benefactor and backer of its unabated militarism in the Middle East. To divert attention from our government's inability to press Israel due to its most powerful lobbies and media support, your government has placed the burden for peace talks on Israel's victims, the Palestinians and Arabs, while beating Israel's drum for an attack on Iran. The world sees your emblematic accommodation of Israel's interests as a continuation of Bush's policies who initially pressed Sharon publicly to cease his attack on Arafat in Ramallah, only to feel AIPAC's power and succumb to all of Sharon's demands, even going against long standing U.S. policy.

With the exception of President Eisenhower, every American President has endured the humiliating intimidating power of Israel and its powerful Lobbies. For Israel, America would rather fight the world, the Muslim world, rather than mildly step on Israel's toes

Perhaps your appeasement of Israel is temporary to ensure Congressional passage of Health Care Reform knowing that if you pressed Israel to much this legislation maybe jeopardized. However such a calculation is faulty given that you'll always need Congress to pass future legislation thus in effect you're held hostage by Israel due to your domestic agenda. Do you not find this scenario shocking; an American President's domestic and international agenda depend on Israel's interests and not our national interests?

"I emphasized that this has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter," Obama said in describing his phone call to the Afghan president. When Karzai offered back assurances, Obama said he told him that "the proof is not going to be in words. It's going to be in deeds."
–New York Times, "Obama Delivers a Stern Message to Karzai", Nov. 2, 2009

Your lofty rhetoric stands in stark contrast to your actual actions. It is bewildering to see the President of the United States and his Secretary of State feel so tense and uncomfortable when meeting with Israeli leaders, leaders who publicly and with total impunity insult you and our nation with our only response to the public rejection of our policy on freezing the construction of illegal settlements is the tepid remark: that such is "unhelpful".

If Israel can get away with insulting the very nation that has paid and died for its existence and militarism, then what chance do the Palestinians, Arabs, and the entire Muslim world have in standing up to Israel, the real power behind our foreign policy?

Mr. President, contrary to my initial hope, enthusiasm, and optimism that you may truly be an agent for change, a man with the "audacity to hope", today I feel deeply disappointed and pessimistic that your administration will simply follow the realpolitic ground rules that permeate all our national institutions—Israel First.
We vote for our politicians on Main Street only to lose them to Wall Street and K Street upon their arrival to Washington D.C. Is it any wonder that our nation is apathetic, uninformed, disinterested, cynical and skeptical that our government truly works on our behalf? Such attitudes can only lead to our future demise. Our civic void in Washington is filled by the powerful Industrial-Military-Media Complex. No greater example of our apathy and the power of foreign interests exist than our minority driven devastating invasion of Iraq.

Sir, may I ask you this question? How much is your reelection worth to you? Is it more worthy than truth, world peace, principled governance, or more tragically, the siege and genocide of Gaza? How many elderly, women, and children in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Syria, and perhaps Iran, must die to awaken your conscience that Israel must be reigned in?

Only you can answer that question perhaps while looking into the eyes of Sasha and Malia.

I pray for your courage as I pray for peace in the Holy Land, for our nation that is fighting wars in Muslim lands seething with anger against us and Israel for our callous disregard for their children's lives, and for a world hoping to regain its confidence in you.

We can only dream of such a tomorrow.

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.