I was prepared to write extensively about Obama’s shameful speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday, but this post by Palestinian analyst/activist Abir Kopty (above) says everything I wanted to say and more.
I’ll just add that I genuinely believe that after last night, the US has utterly abdicated any meaningful role as a peace arbiter between Israel and Palestine. Where this political leadership will come from remains to be seen.
And meanwhile, the oppression continues…
We listened to you when you talked about Israel’s citizens who have been killed by rockets fired at their houses, and that other children are taught to hate Israeli children. Do you not think that Israeli children hear what is said by rabbis who preach hate about Arabs? And we listened about Jewish suffering. No doubt Jewish people have suffered Mr. Obama, but let us put things in order: Jewish people are not the victims here. The Israeli state is not the victim; it is the occupier and the oppressor which continues to deny Palestinians living in their homeland and in exile ‘their universal right to live in freedom and dignity’.
When you fail to mention Palestinian suffer under occupation, when you fail to consider Palestinian children as equal human beings who deserve a better future, who are also entitled to human rights, you might win elections, but you lose your integrity, and you make it clear to everyone why the ‘so called peace process’ should be out of your hands…
We listened to you when you talked about the Arab Spring with such a passion. We listened with much suspicion, as America was very happy with the leaders of those countries who ruled for decades, and did not care then for Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, Syrian, Yemeni and Bahraini aspirations for freedom and dignity. And we know that you won’t leave those nations alone.
We listened to you and we did not understand why Palestinian freedom and dignity can wait? The only thing your speech made clear is that you do not dare to speak honestly.
I strongly encourage you to read her full post – please click here.
Shalom Rav 
you said it perfectly – and how i wish obama would read it ….and weep
Rabbi Brant,
I just want to thank you and Brian for your brave and principled work this year. I was on yesterday with “End the Occupation” phone call; & could not believe he is *hopeful! but will try to take his “long term-thinking” lead re: Shift of narrative. Your resources here; and mtg you this summer; are a high point for me as I do my t’shuvah.
Kol tuv and with my thanks.
Shabbat shalom, Lia Lynn Rosen
ClayKodesh.com
ditto
what do we expect from a president who is ready to sell his soul for reelection.
How strange that a small fish (Israel) eats a white whale
That Obama’s speech could ignore the cruelty of a 21st century high-tech Israeli occupation that intentionally punishes an entire people for being who they are: the indigenous people of Palestine who refused to leave their land to twentieth-century colonizers is shocking.
At least the feckless George W. Bush believed in his message. Obama humiliated himself by giving a campaign speech to AIPAC in the United Nations.
The very next time an Israeli or any other Jew straps a bomb to his body, walks into a crowded place and blows himself up, I’ll be ready to listen to the Palestinians.
Would you listen to the Palestinians the very next time an Israeli demolishes a home, poisons a well, uproots an olive orchard or allows a sick person to die at a checkpoint, or are bombs an absolute requirement?
They need to stop with the bombs if they want to be taken seriously, in the same way the IRA hurt its own cause with terrorism. I also can’t take seriously anyone who calls Israel “occupiers”… it is a sovereign nation, something “Palestine” is not and never was.
And it’s always a little comical to me when Americans try to claim any sort of moral high ground when it comes to conquering and subjugating other peoples. Cherokees…hello?