Andy Martin: President Barack Obama is an unwelcome guest in the Middle East

Andy Martin, Barack Obama’s original critic and one of America’s leading foreign policy and intelligence analysts, says President Obama may be an “unwelcome guest” in the Middle East this week. Obama has alienated Israelis and Palestinians. Even our closest ally in the region, Jordan, is impatient with Obama’s endless prevarications.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:



Obama critic Andy Martin calls President Obama “President/Emperor Ozymandias”



Andy sides with Israeli intelligence chiefs on how to deal with Iran



Andy surveys the Middle East and says Obama is an “unwelcome guest”



Andy speaks highly of Jordan’s King Abdullah, who is an American ally-in-fact and not just in rhetoric



(MANCHESTER, NH) (March 20, 2013) Republican foreign policy expert (see bio below) and corruption-fighter/conservative blogger Andy Martin says Barack Obama’s trip to Israel, Palestine and Jordan may end up reflecting that Obama is an “uninvited guest:”



Four years ago Barack Obama made sweeping statements about the future of the Middle East, Arab nations and the Muslim world. Today he begins his “first trip” to Israel, and moves on to Palestine and Jordan. I suspect that President Obama may end up being an “uninvited guest.” I have good friends and have spent a fair amount of time in Israel, Jordan and Palestine.



[In separate remarks later today I will present my views on the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. But today we deal with Obama’s trip to Israel, and his ongoing stops in Palestine and Jordan.]



Unlike 2009, on his current trip Obama is not making predictions or promises. He claims to be “listening.” Listening tours usually precede a campaign or candidacy, or perhaps even adoption of a policy. Obama is admitting that in the fifth year of his presidency he has no policy in the Middle East. I am indebted to Amir Taheri for the timeline of Obama’s visit (please see link #1 below).



There is a sharp cleavage in Israel – which Americans rarely see in our own media – concerning policy towards Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors attacks on Iran. He shows all of the bravado of George W. Bush before 2003, when Bush was laying the foundations for the invasion of Iraq.



The Israeli intelligence community on the other hand has come out strongly against an attack on Iran (please see group link #2). Unsurprisingly, I stand with the intelligence chiefs. They have the better of the argument.



I am not a fan of PM Netanyahu but I respect his intelligence. Netanyahu knows that when Obama says he has “Israel’s back,” Obama’s promises are worthless. The American people are sick of foreign adventures and have no desire to trigger what could become a mini-World War III. It is very unlikely that the United States will ever launch an attack on Iran. Netanyahu knows this.



Adding to the instability there is no personal chemistry between Obama and Netanyahu. In fact, I cannot think of any foreign leader who has personal chemistry with Obama. Obama is cool and remote both to our allies and our enemies.



Columnist Amir Taheri suggests the scheduling of Obama’s trip “is a downgrading of the US relationship with Israel (link #1).”



If Obama is giving the cold shoulder to Israel, will he be welcomed in Palestine? Taheri suggests Obama may also be excoriated during his visit to Palestine. Obama has managed to anger both the Israelis and the Palestinians.



In the past Obama has made extravagant promises to Palestinians. But he has delivered nothing; in fact, he has delivered less than nothing. Palestinians find themselves fighting the US at every United Nations General Assembly. The New York Post predicts Obama may be jeered in Palestine (see group link #3). Rather amazingly, Obama has managed to alienate both Israelis and Palestinians. Could matters get worse for the visiting president?



They could.



Our closest friend in the region, King Abdullah of Jordan, admits that the days of his unbridled monarchy are ending. Abdullah’s “kingdom” is the last vestige of the Hashemite kingdoms that were established by the British after World War I in the 1920’s. (Iraq was another.) In a pessimistic interview Abdullah basically says “a pox on all your houses (see Link #4).”



In the past Abdullah has put his nation squarely behind the United States. The CIA operates its largest station in the region, perhaps even in the world outside the US, in Amman. The US Government has created a sprawling diplomatic and intelligence plantation in Amman – the command and control center of our Middle East operations. So, yes King Abdullah is a true friend and a real ally of the United States. He is a former special forces officer.



But Abdullah also realizes that in the long run the United States cannot save Jordan from the march of history. Abdullah predicts that in the future Jordan will become a constitutional monarchy, a nation state totally unlike Saudi Arabia today, where an absolute monarch reigns and where that absolutism shows few signs of flexibility and respect for the future sweep of history.



Before the 2008 election I used to get cautionary messages from my agents in the Middle East: “don’t criticize Obama, he’s one of us,” they would say. I told them they were mistaken. I knew better. Obama never confuses religion with policies. But after the 2008 election in 2009 Obama began to present himself as an Islamic savior.



In reality, there was a brief moment when Obama could have taken dramatic and drastic action. A substantial American force was still in Iraq and he was a new president. He could have insisted on a continuing US presence in Iraq, and cut the Gordian Knot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But instead of taking action Obama only made sweeping speeches, and then did nothing, not unlike his way of dealing with his domestic “base.” Obama makes aspirational but vacuous speeches, and then fails to deliver results (as this is being written the Senate has torpedoed Obama’s signature gun control goal, an “assault weapons” ban).



Obama lives like an emperor in the White House. Truly he is a “king” in the same vestigial manner that King Abdullah views his own declining prospects. But Obama may not even achieve the legitimacy of Jordanian King Abdullah. Although the American president is obsessed with his “greatness” and “legacy,” Obama may turn out to have been a king of a different nature: Shelley’s King Ozymandias.



That’s why Obama is likely to be an unwelcome guest in the Middle East this week. The American people may have made a mistake in reelecting Obama; but our lives don’t depend on the outcome of his foreign policy. In a region where our foreign policy really matters, The Middle East, sadly for the United States Obama is just an unwelcome guest today.



[Andy has over forty years of experience in Asia, Southwest Asia and the Middle East; he is regarded overseas as one of America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analysts. He was in Iran and Afghanistan during the hostage crisis in 1979-80, and has regularly returned to Southwest Asia since then. He lived in Iraq in 2003. His analysis of the terrorist threat in Iran during 1979-80, and again in Iraq in 2003, were leading-edge predictions of what Americans faced in the future. Andy first went to Asia in 1967 and has lived in or been in Israel, Jordan, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.]



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LINKS TO THIS STORY (cut and paste the entire link below and not just the underlined portion):



Link #1



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/

real_message_of_mideast_trip_N9aa7WY76nyCNA83kRHmGM



Group Link #2



http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/03/

120903fa_fact_remnick



http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/movies/

the-gatekeepers-documentary-by-israeli-director-

dror-moreh.html



http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/

2012/11/the-gatekeepers-directed-by-dror-moreh.html



http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/03/17/

entertainment/arts/doc514397f9d6052192547561.

txt?viewmode=fullstory



http://m.npr.org/news/Arts+%26+Life/

172706218?start=10



Group Link #3



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/

palestinians_slam_bam_kwv15DOLJX5c60mIUkNDWM



http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

middle_east/in-west-bank-faint-hopes-

for-obamas-visit/2013/03/19/7275fbc0-

90c3-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html?hpid=z3



Link #4



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/world/

middleeast/king-abdullah-of-jordan-has-

criticism-for-all-concerned.html



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Andy is a legendary New Hampshire, New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, talk television pioneer, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy’s family immigrated to Manchester 100 years ago; today his home overlooks the Merrimack River and he lives around the corner from where he played as a small boy. He has forty-five years of background in radio and television. He is the author of “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” [www.OrangeStatePress.com] and he produced the Internet film "Obama: The Hawaii’ Years” [www.BoycottHawaii.com]. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” www.ContrarianCommentary.com. He comments on New Hampshire, national and international events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience both in the USA and around the world. For more, go to: www.AndyMartin.com



Andy has also been a leading corruption fighter in American politics and courts for over forty-five years and he is executive director of the National Anti-Corruption Policy Institute. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com. See also www.FirstRespondersOnline.us; www.EnglishforAmerica.org



He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).



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ANDY MARTIN: You must see the new Palestinian film “Salt of This Sea”

Middle East expert Andy Martin says the Palestinian-American production “Salt of the Sea” is a vivid portrayal of the complexities and contradicitons of modern Israel and Palestine. He recommends the movie as an amalgam of “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Easy Rider” and the “Three Amigos” all mixed into one. Martin, who has lived and worked in the Middle East for over forty years, says the film presents Israel and occupied Palestine as they really are on a day-to-day basis.

Internet powerhouse Andy Martin says “You must see ‘Salt of This Sea’”

Andy comments on a dramatic and entertaining new Palestinian film

ContrarianCommentary.com
“The Internet Powerhouse”
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Andy Martin says if you want to know what modern Israel and Palestine are like, see this film

(NEW YORK)(August 14, 2010) Friday afternoon I received a desperate email from a woman who was promoting a new film just opening in Greenwich Village. I went. The movie, “Salt of this Sea,” is a Palestinian-oriented production filmed on location.

You must see “Salt”. I enjoyed it immensely. I love the Middle East and so I have a special affection for the setting. The film is both a sad and loveable tale of a region that is left increasingly barren by the legacy of historical errors orchestrated at the end of World War II.

The movie resonated on many levels. As I watched the opening sequences I thought, yes, the Israelis really are that abusive when you visit Israel. I have stories to tell.

When “Soraya” crosses from the “West Bank” into Israel, the clanking of the bars at the Qalandia Checkpoint is frighteningly real. People are treated worse than cattle. I was there. The film is so real I felt I was back in the West Bank. And in Jerusalem.

Some of my newer readers associate me more with local issues. But for parts of the past five decades I have been focused on Asia and the Middle East.

How to describe the film? It is a Palestinian version of “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Easy Rider” and the “Three Amigos” all rolled into one. Although the movie is deadly serious and very dramatic, you can’t help but laugh at the Erich von Stroheim accents of the Israelis who have created a miniature replica of the Third Reich on the Mediterranean. “Vhy are you here?” “Vere are you staying?” “Vere is your second passport?” They really talk that way.

People who support Israel should see the film to get a true view of the nightmare that Israelis have created for Palestinians; Israelis have also given birth to a self-defeating, self-destructive nightmare for themselves as well.

The movie is dedicated to the memory of an Israeli massacre at al-Dawayima.

Ironically, while the United States supports “two nations” for “two peoples,” and that is the popular mantra, the Israelis have gone us one better and created “three prisons (including Gaza) for two peoples.” The Palestinian prisons are more degrading and dehumanizing. But Palestinians have a spirit of survival that will ultimately triumph.

The Israelis, on the other hand, have also imprisoned and dehumanized themselves in the process of degrading their neighbors. The Israeli historical narrative is gradually dissolving as World War II becomes a distant memory.

Soraya is an American-born Palestinian who wants to reclaim her family roots in Jaffa. Her family was pushed out by the 1948 Israeli invasion of Palestine. She visits Israel to see a friend in the West Bank and finds that the Israelis have completely rigged the system against local residents. Palestinians live under a brutal occupation. [Full disclosure: when the Israelis “liberated” the West Bank in 1967, they really were greeted as liberators; so it wasn’t always this way. The Israelis worked hard to make enemies of their Palestinian friends, and with typical Israeli efficiency they succeeded.]

In a “Bonnie and Clyde” escapade, Soraya, her chaste new “guy” and a third friend decide to stage a bank robbery to reclaim the money her family left on deposit in 1948. From there we transition into “Easy Rider” as the three amigos pretend to be Israelis, dress like Israelis, steal Israeli license plates for their van and head for Jerusalem and Jaffa. Good Morning Jerusalem!

At the premier on Friday star Suheir Hammad, who portrays Soraya, was there to describe how the film was produced. The “Israelis” were all genuine Israeli actors. And yes, they do talk with that faux Germanic accent over there. The abuses Israelis inflict on visitors I have personally witnessed. The film is as real as real can be.

Parts of the film are so real they were recorded as they actually happened. When helpless Palestinians were climbing a fence to cross another barrier between Jerusalem and the West Bank, right in the middle of a shooting sequence, the cameraman captured the indignity as it was actually unfolding. That is why I say if you have not seen Jerusalem and Israel today, see this film.

Israelis themselves have freedom of movement, and a much more open society (which is why gay Arabs covet a pass to Israel). But no one can ultimately live free in a police state, and Israel is becoming the ultimate police state, controlled through political propaganda, military force and bogus “democracy.”

I have never seen a more vivid snapshot of the sadistic reality of modern Israel. “Your papers, please. For your own security, of course” could be the Israeli national motto. But the film also portrays Israel’s freedom and prosperity, for some of the inhabitants. Even if their Israeli government is evil, most Israelis are not. It is a great tragedy that Israelis and Palestinians have dissipated their energy and creativity in perpetual war. There is no winner.

Israelis will retort that as a result of the Arab backlash to the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Jews who had lived peacefully for centuries in Arab lands also experienced the same expulsion and displacement as the Palestinians. One of my former girlfriends was Jewish, born in Alexandria, Egypt, forced to become a refugee.

And in case you didn’t know, Baghdad was once the greatest center of Jewish life in the world.

Bottom line. I love all of ‘em. I do not hate the Israelis (although I condemn their government) and I love the Palestinians (although I am deeply concerned by the increasing fundamentalism that has crept into their society).

One of the most racist, Nazi-like propaganda statements ever uttered was Israeli Prime Minister Golda (“who was born in Milwaukee”) Meir's claim that Palestine was a “land without a people, for a people without a land.” The movie dramatizes how Palestinians retain the memory of their homes in what is now Israel. Many of these residences have survived since 1948 and are still there. Joseph Goebbels could not have created a bigger lie and a grosser historical injustice than Israeli Prime Minister Meir’s false claim that Palestine was “uninhabited” when she arrived.

I’m not Jewish, of course. But I grew up in a very philo-Semitic home where the Holocaust was a topic of regular discussion. My father helped train the Jewish Brigade in the British Army. A London newspaper editor once described the Middle East conflict as one between “two wronged peoples.” But historical truth always triumphs in the end. Palestine was not a “land without a people.” You see the descendents of the people who actually lived in Palestine in 1948 portrayed in “Salt of this Sea.”

Where is the Israeli Gorbachev to make peace with the world? Israelis are mired in their own lies, a nation living on borrowed time. The hourglass is getting closer to empty.

Only when Israelis admit the injustices they inflicted in stealing their homeland from the indigenous population can they begin the process of reconciliation and permanent peace. That is what Soraya demands and what she does not receive.

The current householder of Soraya’s ancestral home is a sympathetic pro-peace Israeli. In a twist, when Soraya can’t stand the frustration of confronting the present, she leaves. But one of her copains stays behind with the Israeli girl, proving love knows no checkpoints and no ideologies. Or was it sex? Who knows?

Before departing Soraya vehemently demands that the Israeli occupant of her family home “admit” to the injustices of 1948 as the price of remaining in possession. But the Israeli is not mired in the surreal past. She has erased her history to avoid the painful reality of how her country was founded.

Still, the Israeli girl gets the Palestinian boy in the movie. That’s probably closer to the truth than either side wants to admit.

Don’t go to see “Salt of this Sea” to get angry or be hateful. Laugh a little, or even a lot. Remember that for one couple in the movie love triumphs over all. Reflect on the likelihood that if Israelis persist with their racist policies they will ultimately fail to establish permanent roots for their Reich-in-the-Desert. Palestinians may ultimately prevail, after enduring decade-after-decade of unspeakable and unnecessary abuses and injustices. All subsidized by your American tax dollars.

Time is not on Israel’s side.

This is a great little film. It conveys the sad truths of Palestine with a light touch and an occasional smile. Think Bonne and Clyde, Easy Rider and the Three Amigos all mixed into one.

[If you see the movie, whichever “side” you believe in, send me your comments and we’ll do a follow-up.]

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ABOUT ANDY: Andy Martin is the legendary New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He promotes his best-selling book, “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” and his Internet movie "Obama: The Hawai'i years." Martin has been a leading corruption fighter in Illinois for over forty years. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com
Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” http://www.contrariancommentary.com/. He comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of investigative and overseas experience. He has over forty years of familiarity with Asia and the Middle East; internationally he is regarded as one of America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analysts. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSAwww.facebook.com/AndyMartin Andy's columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
contrariancommentary.typepad.com[NOTE: We try to correct any typographical errors in this story on our blogs; find our latest edition there.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com © Copyright by Andy Martin 2010