11.07.2008

The President elect sends a sharp message to the Palestinians

So much for the 'Barack is a closet Muslim terrorist' trope

John Whitbeck characterized his signal in the following:

In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" — i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte.

Whitbeck argues that Emanuel's appointment, when considered along with Obama's AIPAC speech and Netanyahu's probable return to power, ought to scuttle any expectation that President Obama will push for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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