If Obama Can Bring Change to DC, Why Not Middle East?

He's proved having a black president isn't impossible, after all

By Rebecca Smith Hurd, Newser User

Posted Jan 5, 2009 3:34 PM CST

(Newser) – As Barack Obama’s inauguration brings one thing once deemed impossible—a black US president—it will be accompanied by the renewal of another seemingly intractable issue, David Remnick writes in the New Yorker: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Obama claims to understand “the obligation to repair the world” set out in the Talmud; “the obligation of constant engagement is deep; the cost of negligence is paid in blood,” Remnick writes.

“History has proved that the seemingly impossible can be achieved: the Irish and the English have all but resolved a conflict that began in the days of Oliver Cromwell,” Remnick writes, “and on Jan. 20 an African-American President will cross the color line and move into the White House––a house that slaves helped build.”

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

Early-morning preparations continue for President-elect Barack Obama's Inaugural Reviewing Stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. (AP Photo)

With a US and Palestinian flag in the background, US consulate employee Sibby Adams held a card depicting Barack Obama during a reception in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Nov. 5. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

President-elect Barack Obama will make history again this month when he moves into the White House, a building constructed with the help of American slaves. (AP Photo)

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I was drawn to the belief that you could sustain a spiritual, emotional, and cultural identity. And I understood the Zionist idea—that there is always a homeland at the center of our story.
- Barack Obama, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in July

This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress but let me say Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. - Rep. George H. White of North Carolina, speaking to the House in 1901

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If Obama Can Bring Change to DC, Why Not Middle East?