OPINION
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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
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Posted Jan 5, 09 3:34 PM CST
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(Newser)
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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.”