Robert Fisk’s World: How can anyone believe there is ‘progress’ in the
Middle East?
A test of Obama’s gumption will come scarcely three months after his
inauguration

Saturday, 27 December 2008
Independent.co.uk Web

If reporting is, as I suspect, a record of mankind’s folly, then the
end of 2008 is proving my point.

Let’s kick off with the man who is not going to change the Middle East,
Barack Obama, who last week, with infinite predictability, became
Time’s "person of the year". But buried in a long and immensely tedious
interview inside the magazine, Obama devotes just one sentence to the
Arab-Israeli conflict: "And seeing if we can build on some of the
progress, at least in conversation, that’s been made around the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority."

What is this man talking about? "Building on progress?" What progress?
On the verge of another civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority, with Benjamin Netanyahu a contender for Israeli prime
minister, with Israel’s monstrous wall and its Jewish colonies still
taking more Arab land, and Palestinians still firing rockets at Sderot,
and Obama thinks there’s "progress" to build on?

I suspect this nonsensical language comes from the mental mists of his
future Secretary of State. "At least in conversation" is pure Hillary
Clinton ` its meaning totally eludes me ` and the giveaway phrase about
progress bei
ng made "around" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is even
weirder. Of course if Obama had talked about an end to Jewish
settlement building on Arab land ` the only actual "building" that is
going on in the conflict ` relations with Hamas as well as the
Palestinian Authority, justice for both sides in the conflict, along
with security for Palestinians as well as Israelis, then he might
actually effect a little change.

An interesting test of Obama’s gumption is going to come scarcely three
months after his inauguration when he will have a little promise to
honour. Yup, it’s that dratted 24 April commemoration of the Armenian
genocide when Armenians remember the 1.5 million of their countrymen `
citizens of the Ottoman empire slaughtered by the Turks ` on the
anniversary of the day in 1915 when the first Armenian professors,
artists and others were taken off to execution by the Ottoman
authorities.

Bill Clinton promised Armenians he’d call it a "genocide" if they
helped to elect him to office. George Bush did the same. So did Obama.
The first two broke their word and resorted to "tragedy" rather than
"genocide" once they’d got the votes, because they were frightened of
all those bellowing Turkish generals, not to mention ` in Bush’s case `
the US military supply routes through Turkey, the "roads and so on" as
Robert Gates called them in one of history’s more gripping ironies,

these being the same "roads and so on" upon which the Armenians were
sent on their death marches in 1915. And Mr Gates will be there to
remind Obama of this. So I bet you ` I absolutely bet on the family cat
` that Obama is going to find that "genocide" is "tragedy" by 24 April.

By chance, I browsed through Turkish Airlines’ in-flight magazine while
cruising into Istanbul earlier this month and found an article on the
historical Turkish region of Harput. "Asia’s natural garden", "a
popular holiday resort", the article calls Harput, "where churches
dedicated to the Virgin Mary rise next to tombs of the ancestors of
Mehmet the Conqueror".

Odd, all those churches, isn’t it? And you have to shake your head to
remember that Harput was the centre of the Christian Armenian genocide,
the city from which Leslie Davis, the brave American consul in Harput,
sent back his devastating eyewitness dispatches of the thousands of
butchered Armenian men and women whose corpses he saw with his own
eyes. But I guess that all would spoil the "natural garden" effect.
It’s a bit like inviting tourists to the Polish town of Oswiecim `
without mentioning that its German name is Auschwitz.

But these days, we can all rewrite history. Take Nicolas Sarkozy,
France’s cuddliest ever president, who not only toadies up to Bashar
al-Assad of Syria but is now buttering up the sick and awful Algerian
head of
state Abdelaziz Bouteflika who’s just been "modifying" the
Algerian constitution to give himself a third term in office.

There was no parliamentary debate, just a show of hands ` 500 out of
529 ` and what was Sarko’s response? "Better Bouteflika than the
Taliban!" I always thought the Taliban operated a bit more to the east
` in Afghanistan, where Sarko’s lads are busy fighting them ` but you
never can tell. Not least when exiled former Algerian army officers
revealed that undercover soldiers as well as the Algerian Islamists
(Sarko’s "Taliban") were involved in the brutal village massacres of
the 1990s.

Talking of "undercover", I was amazed to learn of the training system
adopted by the Met lads who put Jean Charles de Menezes to death on the
Tube. According to former police commander Brian Paddick, the Met’s
secret rules for "dealing" with suicide bombers were drawn up "with the
help of Israeli experts". What? Who were these so-called "experts"
advising British policemen how to shoot civilians on the streets of
London? The same men who assassinate wanted Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza and brazenly kill Palestinian civilians at the same time?
The same people who outrageously talk about "targeted killings" when
they murder their opponents? Were these the thugs who were advising
Lady Cressida Dick and her boys?

Not that our brave peace envoy, Lord Blair, would have much to say

about it. He’s the man, remember, whose only proposed trip to Gaza was
called off when yet more "Israeli experts" advised him that his life
might be in danger. Anyway, he’d still rather be president of Europe,
something Sarko wants to award him. That, I suppose, is why Blair wrote
such a fawning article in the same issue of Time which made Obama
"person" of the year. "There are times when Nicolas Sarkozy resembles a
force of nature," Blair grovels. It’s all first names, of course.
"Nicolas has the hallmark of any true leader"; "Nicolas has
adopted…"; "Nicolas recognises"; "Nicolas reaching out…". In all,
15 "Nicolases". Is that the price of the Euro presidency? Or will Blair
now tell us he’s going to be involved in those "conversations" with
Obama to "build on some of the progress" in the Middle East?