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The Forum > Article Comments > Few peacemakers in Israel's Knesset > Comments

Few peacemakers in Israel's Knesset : Comments

By Neve Gordon, published 18/2/2009

The devastating effects of Israel's elections on the Palestinians should concern world leaders and specifically President Obama.

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Like the US, we in Australia got a great orator to talk us out of any crisis.

Obama is just a great orator, who can talk people into voting for him. But he is still a politician, quite simply. you cannot trust a politician as far as you can throw them. They all just have their own interest at heart.

So Obama will do what benefits him. If that is to supply Isreal with weapon he will. If it is to appease Iran/Egypt he will
Posted by dovif2, Thursday, 19 February 2009 7:12:42 AM
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It is suggested that an Agenda for Obama should contain an extract of Immanual Kant’s Agenda for Perpetual Peace, published after Kant’s disappointment with Napoleon for forsaking the Libertinian principles that the young Napleon had earlier mostly gained his Military Honours for.

From this day on, quoted Kant, not one personage, nor even one personage alone representing the Good Lord, should ever be allowed to make final decisions ahead of what he called a Federation of libertinian nations to preserve Perpetual Peace.

Thus it was that the League of Nations was eventually founded, followed by the United Nations but both failing because of the very thing that Kant warned against, single party authority or virtually the same political behaviour, letting a single authority like an American President have the last say.

As any young political student is amazed at after leaning all the rudiments of true democracy, that the American Constitution similar to the archaic Britsh Law System still allows the elected leader to have the last say without the asking of the public ‘s consent as any decent democracy should.

Much of this was discussed so much during the Korean War with challenges against former war leaders like Macarthur having too much to say, when there should have been more consensus.

Certainly there was consensus even near the end of WW2 with the Bretton Woods Agreement, from where it is said that though he only was allowed to speak for Great Britain at the time, wonderful ideas such as the Marshal Plan where derived from suggestions by an aging Maynard Keynes.

The end of the Cold War was attained also not so much by direct authority but much informal discussion, Reagan and Gorbachev virtually playing their parts but more as figureheads.

Not so with George W Bush, however thus any budding politician these days should only hope that Obama will have a good peruse at the US Constitution and have all ancient Absolutism concerning the President scrubbed out replaciing it with the wisdom and understanding that only a fair-minded United Nations can give.

Cheers, BB, WA.

Regards, BB, WA.
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 19 February 2009 4:43:09 PM
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I find it amusing that a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University has the gall to tell Barack Obama what he must do. Obama is the President of the USA, not of the world. And he is answerable to Americans, not to foreigners.

Certainly, the USA has previously intervened in all sorts of global strife and it is arguable that the Americans are, at least in part, responsible for much of the trouble in the Middle East today. However, it is certainly more in keeping with the UN's role in the world that they, rather than the US, deal with these sorts of issues.

As for the rest of the world - well, what response would you like? It is easy for those sitting in Israel to assume that their plight is of pivotal importance to the world, but the reality is that my life goes on regardless of the Middle Eastern conflict. I think I can safely say that I have never been affected by it in any way. Most Australians are probably very similar. I would suspect that the same applies to Tongans, Fijians, Congolese and so on. So why is it up to the rest of the world to respond?
Posted by Otokonoko, Monday, 23 February 2009 4:49:56 PM
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