May 27, 2009
By CAROL VOGEL
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/arts/design/27louv.html?_r=1&8dpc
The public on Tuesday got its first peek at some of the art that will fill the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the 260,000-square-foot museum designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and expected to open in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates by 2013.
At a ceremony to commemorate the beginning of construction, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, officially opened an exhibition at the Emirates Palace hotel that includes 19 works of art bought over the last 18 months for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, as well as loans from the French national museums.
Acquired for what is being billed as the first universal museum in the Middle East, the works range from a Greek ceramic figure from around 520 B.C. to two 1862 canvases by Edouard Manet.
“By its very nature this museum will cover many cultures and many civilizations from the ancient to the present time,” the crown prince said in a telephone interview. “We have historic relations with our friends in France which are extending to the cultural side.” The collaboration, he added, will “help educate our people” in the building and running of such cultural institutions.
Under a two-year-old agreement, Abu Dhabi will pay France $555 million for the use of the Louvre’s name, as well as for art loans, special exhibitions and management advice. Securing the Louvre’s involvement and brand name was a crucial step in the emirates’ plan to build a $27 billion tourist and cultural development on Saadiyat Island, off the city’s coast. The project’s cultural components also include a Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a maritime museum, a performing arts center, hotels, golf courses, marinas.
With an acquisitions budget of more than $56 million a year, a team of curators from the French museums have worked full time deciding how to shape the Louvre Abu Dhabi collection.
“There are specialists in every field who are aware of the market,” said Laurence des Cars, the curatorial director of the Agence France-Muséums, a French public organization set up to oversee the project.
The curators are not out to create a mini-Louvre but rather a new museum melding two cultures and two traditions.
“We want this to be a collection of masterpieces that make sense together, that have soul and that will form a dialogue with different civilizations,” Ms. des Cars said. Once the museum opens, the curators will also organize four special exhibitions a year for the next 15 years that will include loans from French museums and institutions all over the world.
Among the acquisitions that are part of “Talking Art: Louvre Abu Dhabi,” on view in the capital through July 2, are a standing bodhisattva from the second to third century A.D.; a Chinese white marble head of Buddha from the Northern Qi Dynasty, A.D. 550-577; and a 16th-century polychrome painted copper ewer from Venice. There are also works on Christian religious themes, including a Bellini “Madonna and Child” from the 1480s and a 16th-century sculpture of Jesus from Bavaria or Austria.
Areas like African art have yet to be represented, Ms. des Cars said, although they will be included later. In the meantime the curators have borrowed objects like a 19th-century wood Tsonga headrest from Zambia and a wooden stool from Benin, both on loan from the Musée du Quai Branly.
Paintings that have been bought for the Louvre Abu Dhabi include a canvas by Jean-François de Troy, “Esther Fainting Before Ahaseurus,” from 1730, and the two Manets — “The Bohemian” and “Still Life With Bag and Garlic” — which were originally part of a larger canvas.
“In 1867, after a critical flop when it was shown in Paris, Manet cut up the painting,” Ms. des Cars said, and it became three paintings, one of which, “Boy With Pitcher,” is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The other two canvases disappeared and were found only recently.
“We had an opportunity to buy them from the Wildenstein gallery,” she said. They are being shown along with an etching by the artist, “Les Gitanos,” also from 1862, which shows the paintings’ original composition and is on loan from the Bibilothèque Nationale de France.
The curators also bought two works from the sale of art and objects belonging to Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, at Christie’s in Paris in February: an African-style stool from the 1920s for $640,000 and Mondrian’s “Composition With Blue, Red, Yellow and Black,” from 1922, for $29.4 million.
Eventually, Ms. des Cars said, “all civilizations and cultures will be represented” at the new museum. But for now, she added, what is on view in this exhibition illustrates the curators’ mission.
“There is a big sculpture of Christ facing the head of a Buddha and a 14th-century Koran,” she said. “It’s the perfect symbol of our universal spirit.”
27 May 2009
20 May 2009
Senate Democrats Won’t Provide Money to Close Guantánamo
May 20, 2009
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/us/politics/20detain.html?hp
WASHINGTON — In an abrupt shift, Senate Democratic leaders said on Tuesday that they would not provide the $80 million that President Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Mr. Obama, who on Thursday is scheduled to outline his plans for the 240 detainees still held in the prison, has faced growing pressure from lawmakers, particularly Republicans, to find a solution that does not involve moving the prisoners to the United States.
While Democrats generally have been supportive of Mr. Obama’s plan to close the detention center by Jan. 22, 2010, lawmakers have not stepped forward to offer to accept detainees in their home states or districts. When the tiny town of Hardin, Mont., offered to put the terrorism suspects in the town’s empty jail, both Montana senators and its Congressional representative quickly voiced strong opposition
Republicans, including the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, applauded the Democrats’ decision not to include the funds in their version of the military spending bill. Mr. McConnell, who has been warning for weeks about the dangers of closing the prison, said that he hoped it was a prelude to keeping the camp open and dangerous terror suspects off shore, where he said they belong.
Other prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney have unleashed similarly criticism of the Obama administration over the plan to close the detention camp. And Senate Democrats on Tuesday readily conceded that their decision to shift course in part reflected the success of Republicans in putting Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats on the defensive.
Obama administration officials have acknowledged that if the Guantánamo camp closes, as scheduled, more than 100 of the prisoners will likely need to be moved to the United States, including 50 to 100 that have been described as “too dangerous to release” but likely cannot be prosecuted.
Of the 240 detainees, 30 have been cleared for release and some will likely be transferred to foreign countries, but so far other governments have been reluctant to accept them. So far, Britain and France have each accepted one former detainee. As many as 80 detainees will be prosecuted and it is unclear what will happen to those who are convicted and sentenced to prison; some might be sentenced to death.
Senate Democratic leaders insisted that they still supported the decision to close the prison, were simply waiting for Mr. Obama to provide a more detailed plan, and had acted to avert a partisan feud that would only serve as a distraction and delay a military spending measure, which is needed to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and some other national security programs through Sept. 30. Mr. Obama had requested the $80 million be included in that bill.
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, indicated that the administration expected that Congress would eventually release the money to close the camp and he suggested that the concerns of lawmakers would be addressed on Thursday, when Mr. Obama presents a “hefty part” of his plan to deal with the detainees.
But the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, seemed to ramp up the concerns of Congressional Democrats, insisting during a news conference that lawmakers would never allow the terror suspects to be released into the United States and suggesting that they would never allow them to be transferred to American prisons.
“Guantanamo makes us less safe,” Mr. Reid said. “However this is neither the time nor the bill to deal with this. Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.”
Pressed to explain if that meant they could not be transferred to American prisons, Mr. Reid said: “We don’t want is them to be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.
The House last week overwhelmingly approved a $96.7 billion war spending measure after stripping the money for closing the detention center and inserting language barring Mr. Obama from transferring any of the detainees to the United States without first presenting a detailed plan to Congress and giving lawmakers a chance to review it.
In response, the White House, in a sharp about-face, announced that it would revive the military commissions, first created by the Bush administration, to prosecute some of the terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo.
The Obama administration said it would expand the legal rights of suspects, including a limit on the use of hearsay evidence and a ban on evidence gained from cruel treatment.
Still, discomfort continued to grow in Congress. When the bill was brought to the floor for debate on Tuesday, Mr. Reid and other leaders abruptly announced that they had shifted course and the money to close the prison would be removed.
Republicans had been planning to offer amendments to strip the money and further tighten the restrictions once the bill reached the Senate floor later this week. And they pressed ahead with some of those amendments on Tuesday, including one by Mr. McConnell requiring the administration to provide a “threat assessment” gauging the likelihood that detainees would return to terrorism if released.
At the Pentagon, a spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said he believed that the administration remained on track to meet the Jan. 22 deadline for closing the prison.
“I see nothing to indicate that that date is at all in jeopardy,” Mr. Morrell said at a news conference. As far as I can tell, everything remains on track for action to be taken, with regards to the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, by the timeline, according to the timeline prescribed by the president in the executive order.”
But Mr. Morrell also cautioned that top Defense Department officials were involved in “near-constant meetings” with counterparts at the Justice and State departments, as well as at the White House, suggesting that the time-line could change. Mr. Morrell also said he had not heard of any plans to consider transferring detainees from Guantanamo to the Bagrama military base in Afghanistan.
Mr. McConnell, at a news conference, noted that no prisoner had escaped from the Guantanamo camp since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and he said that the prison should remain open. “Guantanamo is the perfect place for these terrorists,” he said. “However, if the president ends up making -- sticking with this decision to close it next January, obviously they need a place to be. It ought not to be the United States of America.”
Mr. McConnell in his persistent, almost daily speeches about the dangers of closing the detention center can arguably take more credit than any other Republican in raising the pressure on Mr. Obama. And at the news conference, Mr. McConnell praised the president’s “flexibility” on national security issues, but of course he noted that the flexibility had largely been to adopt positions more in line with Republicans on security issues.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said the majority leader had not intended to suggest that detainees could never be transferred to American prisons, but only to say that the Senate would not provide money for closing the Guantánamo camp until a task force created by Mr. Obama presents a report on detainee policy and suggestions for moving forward, which is due in July.
Mr. Reid in his comments, however, was unequivocal in insisting that the terror suspects never reach American shores.
“You can’t put them in prison unless you release them,” he said. “We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.”
Mr. Reid said that he and other Senate leaders had shifted course after seeing the version of the military spending bill approved by the House last week, a rare gesture of deference by the upper chamber of Congress to the lower one.
“In looking at the position of the House, that was more logical,” Mr. Reid said. “We have clearly said all along that we wanted a plan. We don’t have a plan. And based on that, this is not the bill to deal with this.”
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/us/politics/20detain.html?hp
WASHINGTON — In an abrupt shift, Senate Democratic leaders said on Tuesday that they would not provide the $80 million that President Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Mr. Obama, who on Thursday is scheduled to outline his plans for the 240 detainees still held in the prison, has faced growing pressure from lawmakers, particularly Republicans, to find a solution that does not involve moving the prisoners to the United States.
While Democrats generally have been supportive of Mr. Obama’s plan to close the detention center by Jan. 22, 2010, lawmakers have not stepped forward to offer to accept detainees in their home states or districts. When the tiny town of Hardin, Mont., offered to put the terrorism suspects in the town’s empty jail, both Montana senators and its Congressional representative quickly voiced strong opposition
Republicans, including the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, applauded the Democrats’ decision not to include the funds in their version of the military spending bill. Mr. McConnell, who has been warning for weeks about the dangers of closing the prison, said that he hoped it was a prelude to keeping the camp open and dangerous terror suspects off shore, where he said they belong.
Other prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney have unleashed similarly criticism of the Obama administration over the plan to close the detention camp. And Senate Democrats on Tuesday readily conceded that their decision to shift course in part reflected the success of Republicans in putting Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats on the defensive.
Obama administration officials have acknowledged that if the Guantánamo camp closes, as scheduled, more than 100 of the prisoners will likely need to be moved to the United States, including 50 to 100 that have been described as “too dangerous to release” but likely cannot be prosecuted.
Of the 240 detainees, 30 have been cleared for release and some will likely be transferred to foreign countries, but so far other governments have been reluctant to accept them. So far, Britain and France have each accepted one former detainee. As many as 80 detainees will be prosecuted and it is unclear what will happen to those who are convicted and sentenced to prison; some might be sentenced to death.
Senate Democratic leaders insisted that they still supported the decision to close the prison, were simply waiting for Mr. Obama to provide a more detailed plan, and had acted to avert a partisan feud that would only serve as a distraction and delay a military spending measure, which is needed to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and some other national security programs through Sept. 30. Mr. Obama had requested the $80 million be included in that bill.
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, indicated that the administration expected that Congress would eventually release the money to close the camp and he suggested that the concerns of lawmakers would be addressed on Thursday, when Mr. Obama presents a “hefty part” of his plan to deal with the detainees.
But the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, seemed to ramp up the concerns of Congressional Democrats, insisting during a news conference that lawmakers would never allow the terror suspects to be released into the United States and suggesting that they would never allow them to be transferred to American prisons.
“Guantanamo makes us less safe,” Mr. Reid said. “However this is neither the time nor the bill to deal with this. Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.”
Pressed to explain if that meant they could not be transferred to American prisons, Mr. Reid said: “We don’t want is them to be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.
The House last week overwhelmingly approved a $96.7 billion war spending measure after stripping the money for closing the detention center and inserting language barring Mr. Obama from transferring any of the detainees to the United States without first presenting a detailed plan to Congress and giving lawmakers a chance to review it.
In response, the White House, in a sharp about-face, announced that it would revive the military commissions, first created by the Bush administration, to prosecute some of the terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo.
The Obama administration said it would expand the legal rights of suspects, including a limit on the use of hearsay evidence and a ban on evidence gained from cruel treatment.
Still, discomfort continued to grow in Congress. When the bill was brought to the floor for debate on Tuesday, Mr. Reid and other leaders abruptly announced that they had shifted course and the money to close the prison would be removed.
Republicans had been planning to offer amendments to strip the money and further tighten the restrictions once the bill reached the Senate floor later this week. And they pressed ahead with some of those amendments on Tuesday, including one by Mr. McConnell requiring the administration to provide a “threat assessment” gauging the likelihood that detainees would return to terrorism if released.
At the Pentagon, a spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said he believed that the administration remained on track to meet the Jan. 22 deadline for closing the prison.
“I see nothing to indicate that that date is at all in jeopardy,” Mr. Morrell said at a news conference. As far as I can tell, everything remains on track for action to be taken, with regards to the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, by the timeline, according to the timeline prescribed by the president in the executive order.”
But Mr. Morrell also cautioned that top Defense Department officials were involved in “near-constant meetings” with counterparts at the Justice and State departments, as well as at the White House, suggesting that the time-line could change. Mr. Morrell also said he had not heard of any plans to consider transferring detainees from Guantanamo to the Bagrama military base in Afghanistan.
Mr. McConnell, at a news conference, noted that no prisoner had escaped from the Guantanamo camp since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and he said that the prison should remain open. “Guantanamo is the perfect place for these terrorists,” he said. “However, if the president ends up making -- sticking with this decision to close it next January, obviously they need a place to be. It ought not to be the United States of America.”
Mr. McConnell in his persistent, almost daily speeches about the dangers of closing the detention center can arguably take more credit than any other Republican in raising the pressure on Mr. Obama. And at the news conference, Mr. McConnell praised the president’s “flexibility” on national security issues, but of course he noted that the flexibility had largely been to adopt positions more in line with Republicans on security issues.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said the majority leader had not intended to suggest that detainees could never be transferred to American prisons, but only to say that the Senate would not provide money for closing the Guantánamo camp until a task force created by Mr. Obama presents a report on detainee policy and suggestions for moving forward, which is due in July.
Mr. Reid in his comments, however, was unequivocal in insisting that the terror suspects never reach American shores.
“You can’t put them in prison unless you release them,” he said. “We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.”
Mr. Reid said that he and other Senate leaders had shifted course after seeing the version of the military spending bill approved by the House last week, a rare gesture of deference by the upper chamber of Congress to the lower one.
“In looking at the position of the House, that was more logical,” Mr. Reid said. “We have clearly said all along that we wanted a plan. We don’t have a plan. And based on that, this is not the bill to deal with this.”
16 May 2009
World Watches for Washington Shift on Mideast
May 17, 2009
By HELENE COOPER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us/politics/17prexy.html?_r=1&hp
WASHINGTON — Five weeks ago, President Obama stood before the Turkish legislature in Ankara and said that many Americans had Muslims in their families or had lived in a Muslim-majority country. “I know,” he said, “because I am one of them.”
But will that exposure lead Mr. Obama to take a different tack from his predecessors in his dealings with Israel?
That question, which has captivated a wide spectrum of people, from America’s Israel lobby to its Palestinian-Americans to the Muslim world at large, will take center stage on Monday, when Israel’s new and hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Obama since he became president.
“This is a piece of the cloud that’s hovering over this meeting: is this man different?” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator at the State Department and the author of “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.” “The fact that he’s African-American. The fact that his middle name is Hussein. The fact that the world for him is not black or white, that the Israeli-Palestinian situation is not black and white, there is gray, and in that gray lies the ability of this president to understand the needs and requirements of Palestinians. Is that on Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind? There’s no question that that’s there.”
Mr. Obama’s past suggests why, four months into his presidency, the answer to the question remains elusive. His first book, “Dreams From My Father,” delves deeply into matters of race and nationality and the need to belong somewhere, issues that permeate the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in the book Mr. Obama does not address specifically how he views Israel and the plight of the Palestinians.
As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.
During the 1990s, Mr. Obama also frequently attended tributes to Arab-Americans, where he often seemed “empathetic” to the cause of Palestinians, said Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist who lives in Chicago.
This contrasts with the more “tabula rasa” image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that many of Mr. Obama’s predecessors brought to their presidencies — a blank slate that was then shaped by the strong alliance with Israel that is a fixture of politics in the United States, many Middle East experts say.
“I think this president gets it, in terms of the suffering of the Palestinians,” said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “He gets it, which is already light years ahead of the average elected American politician.”
Mr. Obama’s predecessors, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said.
“I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
In an interview broadcast Saturday on Israeli television, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said he believed that Mr. Netanyahu, in what would be a significant shift, would endorse the creation of a Palestinian state during his meeting with Mr. Obama.
None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the presidential campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, even going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)
Still, many Palestinian-Americans who hoped that Mr. Obama would come into office and quickly seek to press the Israeli government on Palestinian issues have been disappointed.
“In practice, despite the hype, there is much more continuity with previous administrations,” Mr. Abunimah said. “People get carried away with the atmospheric change, but the substance of the U.S. policy towards Israel has been the same policy.”
Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama was quick to distance himself from Robert Malley, an informal adviser to his campaign, when reports arose that Mr. Malley, a special adviser to Mr. Clinton, had had direct contacts with Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and that controls Gaza. Similarly, he distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who was often critical of Israel, after complaints from some pro-Israel groups.
And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.
But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.
The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.
Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, while crucial, may only preview the beginning of the path the president will take, Mr. Freeman said.
“You can’t really tell anything by what happened to me and the fact that he didn’t step forward to take on the skunks,” he said, referring to his own appointment controversy and Mr. Obama’s silence amid critics’ attacks. “The first nine months, Nixon was absolutely horrible on China. In retrospect, it was clear that he had every intention to charge ahead, but he was picking his moment. He didn’t want to have the fight before he had to have the fight.”
“I sense that Obama is picking his moment,” Mr. Freeman said.
Ben Werschkul contributed reporting.
By HELENE COOPER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us/politics/17prexy.html?_r=1&hp
WASHINGTON — Five weeks ago, President Obama stood before the Turkish legislature in Ankara and said that many Americans had Muslims in their families or had lived in a Muslim-majority country. “I know,” he said, “because I am one of them.”
But will that exposure lead Mr. Obama to take a different tack from his predecessors in his dealings with Israel?
That question, which has captivated a wide spectrum of people, from America’s Israel lobby to its Palestinian-Americans to the Muslim world at large, will take center stage on Monday, when Israel’s new and hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Obama since he became president.
“This is a piece of the cloud that’s hovering over this meeting: is this man different?” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator at the State Department and the author of “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.” “The fact that he’s African-American. The fact that his middle name is Hussein. The fact that the world for him is not black or white, that the Israeli-Palestinian situation is not black and white, there is gray, and in that gray lies the ability of this president to understand the needs and requirements of Palestinians. Is that on Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind? There’s no question that that’s there.”
Mr. Obama’s past suggests why, four months into his presidency, the answer to the question remains elusive. His first book, “Dreams From My Father,” delves deeply into matters of race and nationality and the need to belong somewhere, issues that permeate the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in the book Mr. Obama does not address specifically how he views Israel and the plight of the Palestinians.
As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.
During the 1990s, Mr. Obama also frequently attended tributes to Arab-Americans, where he often seemed “empathetic” to the cause of Palestinians, said Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist who lives in Chicago.
This contrasts with the more “tabula rasa” image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that many of Mr. Obama’s predecessors brought to their presidencies — a blank slate that was then shaped by the strong alliance with Israel that is a fixture of politics in the United States, many Middle East experts say.
“I think this president gets it, in terms of the suffering of the Palestinians,” said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “He gets it, which is already light years ahead of the average elected American politician.”
Mr. Obama’s predecessors, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said.
“I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
In an interview broadcast Saturday on Israeli television, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said he believed that Mr. Netanyahu, in what would be a significant shift, would endorse the creation of a Palestinian state during his meeting with Mr. Obama.
None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the presidential campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, even going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)
Still, many Palestinian-Americans who hoped that Mr. Obama would come into office and quickly seek to press the Israeli government on Palestinian issues have been disappointed.
“In practice, despite the hype, there is much more continuity with previous administrations,” Mr. Abunimah said. “People get carried away with the atmospheric change, but the substance of the U.S. policy towards Israel has been the same policy.”
Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama was quick to distance himself from Robert Malley, an informal adviser to his campaign, when reports arose that Mr. Malley, a special adviser to Mr. Clinton, had had direct contacts with Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and that controls Gaza. Similarly, he distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who was often critical of Israel, after complaints from some pro-Israel groups.
And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.
But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.
The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.
Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, while crucial, may only preview the beginning of the path the president will take, Mr. Freeman said.
“You can’t really tell anything by what happened to me and the fact that he didn’t step forward to take on the skunks,” he said, referring to his own appointment controversy and Mr. Obama’s silence amid critics’ attacks. “The first nine months, Nixon was absolutely horrible on China. In retrospect, it was clear that he had every intention to charge ahead, but he was picking his moment. He didn’t want to have the fight before he had to have the fight.”
“I sense that Obama is picking his moment,” Mr. Freeman said.
Ben Werschkul contributed reporting.
15 May 2009
Action Alert: Thank Pres. Obama for Condemning Sri Lankan "Bloodbath"
Just hours after we released never-before-seen satellite imagery1 of Sri Lanka's devastated war zone, President Obama made a statement that condemned the deplorable acts in which innocent civilians are being used as human shields in a war zone that has been dubbed a "bloodbath" by the United Nations.
The President called on the Sri Lanka government to stop "indiscriminate shelling" of civilians and on the Tamil Tigers to "lay down their arms" so that the fighting can cease and civilians can be safe from attack. An all-out massacre is about to take place in Sri Lanka any day now. While Obama's words certainly fuel the global outcry that has been made over the escalating violence, they are not enough to protect the 50,000 innocent people who remain in harm's way.
If the bloodshed in Sri Lanka is going to stop, we'll need to urge President Obama to take clear and concrete steps toward resolving the crisis.
We've got to act now to build off the momentum of yesterday's statement. We want to have at least 30,000 letters sent to President Obama within the next 24 hours.
Add your name to our letter TODAY asking President Obama to take the following 3 steps to help end the violence in Sri Lanka.
~Ensure that food and medical supplies are able to enter the war zone and other affected areas.
~Civilians have been now herded into an area about the size of New York's Central Park. Food and medical supplies have a difficult time getting in, while civilians are forbidden to go out. In just the past few days, in an area designated as Sri Lanka's "safe zone", more than 400 people – including more than 100 children – have been killed. The people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
~Urge Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to speak about the atrocities in Sri Lanka.
The United States can use its influence to persuade Japan to voice concerns over the violence in Sri Lanka. Japan is one of Sri Lanka's largest aid donors and holds two-thirds of its foreign debt. If Japan expressed strong concern over the humanitarian crisis, then Sri Lanka would be much more likely to listen.
Call for transparency and a commission of inquiry so that those who commit war crimes can be held accountable.
Since the violence has escalated, journalists and independent observers have been barred from entering the war zone. If we're ever going to get a real picture of how badly the situation has deteriorated in Sri Lanka, then we'll need trusted people on the ground reporting the truth. Once the situation has been fully assessed, we'll need a process in place, like a commission of inquiry, to hold violators of human rights law accountable.
President Obama's words are just the beginning. Our next steps will determine how much longer the suffering in Sri Lanka will continue. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers have made it clear that they intend to fight this fight until the bloody end.
Before impending doom breaks, we'll need President Obama to show, not tell, his support for the innocent people of Sri Lanka whose lives hang in the balance.
Thank you for your action,
The President called on the Sri Lanka government to stop "indiscriminate shelling" of civilians and on the Tamil Tigers to "lay down their arms" so that the fighting can cease and civilians can be safe from attack. An all-out massacre is about to take place in Sri Lanka any day now. While Obama's words certainly fuel the global outcry that has been made over the escalating violence, they are not enough to protect the 50,000 innocent people who remain in harm's way.
If the bloodshed in Sri Lanka is going to stop, we'll need to urge President Obama to take clear and concrete steps toward resolving the crisis.
We've got to act now to build off the momentum of yesterday's statement. We want to have at least 30,000 letters sent to President Obama within the next 24 hours.
Add your name to our letter TODAY asking President Obama to take the following 3 steps to help end the violence in Sri Lanka.
~Ensure that food and medical supplies are able to enter the war zone and other affected areas.
~Civilians have been now herded into an area about the size of New York's Central Park. Food and medical supplies have a difficult time getting in, while civilians are forbidden to go out. In just the past few days, in an area designated as Sri Lanka's "safe zone", more than 400 people – including more than 100 children – have been killed. The people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
~Urge Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to speak about the atrocities in Sri Lanka.
The United States can use its influence to persuade Japan to voice concerns over the violence in Sri Lanka. Japan is one of Sri Lanka's largest aid donors and holds two-thirds of its foreign debt. If Japan expressed strong concern over the humanitarian crisis, then Sri Lanka would be much more likely to listen.
Call for transparency and a commission of inquiry so that those who commit war crimes can be held accountable.
Since the violence has escalated, journalists and independent observers have been barred from entering the war zone. If we're ever going to get a real picture of how badly the situation has deteriorated in Sri Lanka, then we'll need trusted people on the ground reporting the truth. Once the situation has been fully assessed, we'll need a process in place, like a commission of inquiry, to hold violators of human rights law accountable.
President Obama's words are just the beginning. Our next steps will determine how much longer the suffering in Sri Lanka will continue. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers have made it clear that they intend to fight this fight until the bloody end.
Before impending doom breaks, we'll need President Obama to show, not tell, his support for the innocent people of Sri Lanka whose lives hang in the balance.
Thank you for your action,
07 May 2009
Organize for Troy Davis!
The 30-day stay issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals expires on May 15th.
So now is the time for us to organize to save the life of Troy Anthony Davis. We're asking everybody to come out strong on May 19th – a day marked in human rights calendars across the world as the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis.
Whether you're holding a "Text TROY to 90999" sign on a busy street or organizing your local Amnesty chapter to hold a public demonstration or vigil, we need everybody to contribute their time on May 19th to make sure that the state of Georgia does not kill a man who may well be innocent. Register your Global Day of Action for Troy Davis activity or event now.
We know that time is short for organizing public events, but an execution date could be set as early as late May, so it is essential that action be taken soon. It's also really important that we get an accurate count of how many events and activities are taking place on May 19th, so we can share this information with officials in Georgia. Our emails and phone calls have gone a long way in buying Troy some much-needed time, but now we've got to take our action to the streets.
We appreciate the tens of thousands of you who have stood in Troy's corner while heart-stopping scenes have unfolded. On three separate occasions, Troy has been scheduled for execution. And on three separate occasions, his life was saved within a short period of time, even minutes, of his scheduled execution date.
Each time, those last minute stays came after people like you turned out by the thousands to rally in his defense. It was no coincidence. Troy's sister and long-time Amnesty activist, Martina Correia, has acknowledged Amnesty's powerful role in saving her brother's life each of those times.
Now here we are again with the clock winding down. While we can see little opportunity for legal recourse or second chances, we know that your advocacy has a strong record of making amazing things happen.
When we first introduced you to Troy Davis in early 2007, few people outside of Georgia knew about the injustice taking place. In the past two years, countless people have come to see Troy's case as a prime example of why the death penalty must be abolished – the risk of executing someone for a crime they did not commit is just too high.
We are serious when we say that we need everyone to support Troy Davis on May 19th by organizing their own event or awareness-raising activity.
After all, if you had 30 days left to fight for your life, wouldn't you want to know that you had thousands standing in your corner?
So now is the time for us to organize to save the life of Troy Anthony Davis. We're asking everybody to come out strong on May 19th – a day marked in human rights calendars across the world as the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis.
Whether you're holding a "Text TROY to 90999" sign on a busy street or organizing your local Amnesty chapter to hold a public demonstration or vigil, we need everybody to contribute their time on May 19th to make sure that the state of Georgia does not kill a man who may well be innocent. Register your Global Day of Action for Troy Davis activity or event now.
We know that time is short for organizing public events, but an execution date could be set as early as late May, so it is essential that action be taken soon. It's also really important that we get an accurate count of how many events and activities are taking place on May 19th, so we can share this information with officials in Georgia. Our emails and phone calls have gone a long way in buying Troy some much-needed time, but now we've got to take our action to the streets.
We appreciate the tens of thousands of you who have stood in Troy's corner while heart-stopping scenes have unfolded. On three separate occasions, Troy has been scheduled for execution. And on three separate occasions, his life was saved within a short period of time, even minutes, of his scheduled execution date.
Each time, those last minute stays came after people like you turned out by the thousands to rally in his defense. It was no coincidence. Troy's sister and long-time Amnesty activist, Martina Correia, has acknowledged Amnesty's powerful role in saving her brother's life each of those times.
Now here we are again with the clock winding down. While we can see little opportunity for legal recourse or second chances, we know that your advocacy has a strong record of making amazing things happen.
When we first introduced you to Troy Davis in early 2007, few people outside of Georgia knew about the injustice taking place. In the past two years, countless people have come to see Troy's case as a prime example of why the death penalty must be abolished – the risk of executing someone for a crime they did not commit is just too high.
We are serious when we say that we need everyone to support Troy Davis on May 19th by organizing their own event or awareness-raising activity.
After all, if you had 30 days left to fight for your life, wouldn't you want to know that you had thousands standing in your corner?
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