SYMBOLISM OF A PRESIDENTIAL VISIT

By Jerry D. Rose

Oh my, the “symbolism” of Obama’s trip abroad! I have suggested in internet postings that, if President Obama were serious about an actual solution to the crisis of the Middle East, he could do a couple of “symbolic” things: (1) He could make his way to a site on the West Bank separation wall (maybe at Bethlehem where the Pope earlier went) and could say to Israeli PM: “Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall!’ or (2) He could make his way to the Egypt/Gaza border which is helping maintain the murderous siege of Gaza and say to his Egyptian host: “Mr. Mubarak, take down this border crossing barrier!” As we now know, the President (for some reason) did not follow my advice but found some other “symbolism” more to his liking.

After making nice to Muslims (sort of) in his Cairo speech, Obama takes himself to Buchenwald to make the obligatory cleansing stop for any U.S. leader who has just associated in any friendly way with Palestinian ones. At Buchenwald, Eli Wiesel by his side, Obama said…

“To this day, there are those who perpetrate every form of intolerance — racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and more — hatred that degrades its victims and diminishes us all. This place teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve our own interests. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened, a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful.”

To this slam against “ignorant and hateful” Muslim Holocaust-deniers to whom he had recently “reached out”, Time Magazine added the following, without the slightest indication that America itself may not have learned the “lesson” through its own or Israeli-supporting infliction of “suffering” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, the West Bank or Somalia.:

“Yet even as he spoke, it’s clear the world has not learned the lesson. Genocidal killings continue in the Darfur region of Sudan, and a long-running civil war in Sri Lanka recently concluded with the extended shelling of civilian refugee camps. ‘The world hasn’t learned,’ said Wiesel in a public address before the gates of Buchenwald.”

And for what may become the iconic image of Obama’s own sympathies with Israel, a “rose-laying” moment on the grounds of Buchenwald (perhaps destined to wind up framed in Rahm  Emanuel’s office), see the illustration accompanying the Buchenwald story in today’s New York Times.

Strong symbolism, especially in the hands of a U.S. government propaganda apparatus that knows how to use symbolism to help get our way in the world of international relations: think what we did with those “mushroom clouds” and those “mobile biological laboratories.”

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Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist