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Obama has other priorities
President’s State of Union address shows Mideast conflict not a top priority
Yoram Ettinger
Published:
01.30.10, 15:25 / Israel Opinion
The exclusion of the Arab-Israeli conflict from President Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address reflects a US order of priorities and, possibly, a concern that mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict does not advance – but undermines – Obama's domestic standing. In fact, Jerusalem should impress upon the US to reduce its mediation profile, minimize tension between Israel and the American broker, while enhancing strategic cooperation between Israel and its American ally.
Obama's address focused on the US economy in general, and on the 26 year record-unemployment and the 65 year record-budget deficit, in particular. Thus, Obama highlighted a national order of priorities, underlining domestic issues, which preoccupy the public mind and tend to determine the fate of an American president and his political party for success or oblivion. Therefore, the global agenda – and even counterterrorism – were marginalized by Obama's address.Washington's international agenda does not consider the Arab-Israeli conflict to be a top priority. Obama devoted the few minutes allotted to the international arena to his commitments to evacuate Iraq, to reinforce troops in Afghanistan, to constrain the North Korean nuclear threat, to prevent Iran's nuclearization, to reduce the nuclear arms race, to combat terrorism, to sustain engagement with rivals and enemies and to continue seeking multilateralism in general and with Muslims in particular. The avoidance of any reference to the Arab-Israeli conflict was intentional. [More]
posted by: jrtelegraph
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