President Obama's new Mideast policy is flawed!

The oldest book in my personal library, the New Universal Atlas from the year 1857, and if you compared those old maps to today’s political maps, you will note that some countries no longer exist. One such country is Palestine, which has been replaced by Israel. This only tells you that Britain committed a huge mistake in creating the state of Israel and removing Palestine from the face of the earth. This is why today the Middle East has always been in turmoil because the Palestinians want what was theirs in the past.

But let’s not forget that the ancient past also included Israel. If you go further back into world history, you will note that almost half of Europe was under the Ottoman Empire (1289-1928), which was a Muslim dominated world. While it was one of the longest reigning empires, the Ottoman Empire, just like all the empires before it, also collapsed. The problem is, too many of us forget our history, which is why we are doomed to repeat them.

Enter US President Barack Obama last week ago mapped out his new Middle East Policy, stating amongst many other things that the starting point for talks between the Palestinians and Israel should follow the borders before the Six-Day War. Say what? What did you expect Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu to do… embrace the new Obama Doctrine? That Israel expanded its original territories after the Six-Day War was due to the fact that it was attacked by the Arab nations surrounding it. Hence, that old adage “To the victors belong the spoils” no doubt has been applied in this case.

For the Israelis, it is a matter of survival that they have this buffer zone. Good thing for Syria and the rest, Israel stopped fighting after six days. They could very well have crossed into Syria and occupied it. But that’s another story. Since then, the countries surrounding Israel have vowed never to recognize its right to exist. This is where the Obama Mideast Doctrine is seriously flawed. I fully concur that there should be a Palestinian State, but not at the expense of Israel because we will never see the end of this conflict.

I would like to believe that someday, there could be a Palestinian State side-by-side with Israel for as long as the Palestinians abandon its old and unacceptable policy of not recognizing Israel. A study of the Six-Day War that you can easily Google will give you an idea of how Israel had to fight all the Arab Armies surrounding it. So far, only Egypt and Jordan has signed a peace accord with Israel and that resulted in the return of the Sinai Peninsula that Israel also captured during the Six-Day War.

Let me say it here that when the Arab countries begin to recognize Israel’s right to exist then peace can finally come to the Middle East, then perhaps someday they would even return the Golan Heights. This is why US Pres. Barack Obama is wrong in putting a precondition the return to the borders prior to the Six-Day War as a starting point in peace talks. This shows Pres. Obama’s naïveté and lack of knowledge of history.

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I just couldn’t believe that the Philippine government won’t be filing any protest against the buzzing by Chinese Mig 29s of our rickety old OV-10 Broncos in Spratly Islands. Sure, Malacañang says that this was in deference to the visit of Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie who is in town for an official visit. They are also saying that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are still working to get complete details of that incident. Come now, the reports from the OV-10 pilots say that they were buzzed by Mig 29s, what more details does Malacañang want?

Mind you, a formal diplomatic protest against foreign nations is our basic right as a nation to protect our sovereignty. If Malacañang refuses to make that protest in the earliest possible time, it would be tantamount to telling the Chinese Air Force pilots to continue flying into Philippine skies. I’m just wondering if this was what the Aquino administration meant by its Open Skies Policy. Incidentally, if you didn’t know, the OV-10 “Bronco” is a Counter Insurgency (coin) aircraft, which tells you that it had no business flying into the Spratlys where there is no insurgency there as it is mostly over water. This only shows that the Philippine Air Force (PAF) for lack of air assets is using the wrong aircraft for their reconnaissance missions.

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According to Oakland Christian Evangelist Harold Camping, last Saturday May 21st was supposed to be Judgment Day or the end of the world when our Lord Jesus Christ would return to Earth. Camping said that there would be an earthquake unseen by the world. Well, he was a bit right that a 3.6 earthquake was felt in the Bay Area; we even had earthquakes felt in Dinagat, Leyte and Surigao. But the world did not end. This is proof that any idiot can misinterpret the Bible as he sees fit and end up being a complete fool! Suddenly the fanatical followers of Camping are nowhere to be found.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected] or vsbobita@ gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.