Palestine and the US elections (Final)Don’t expect the peace yet [Archives:2008/1210/Opinion]

By: Hassan Al-Haifi
It really saddens this observer to see how many Arabs expect to have a turn of events in the region with every presidential election in the United States. While there is no harm in wishing for a change of heart (at least to being fair and objective) by any new President, especially if the President should come after the likes of George W. Bush. It goes without saying that any wishful thinking that Barack Obama will bring Jerusalem back to the Palestinians is exactly just that – wishful thinking.

There is a major problem in this region in that the Arabs are really still far behind in so many ways that it is becoming almost difficult now for most of the people in the region to relate to most of the developments of the world, let alone keep up with them. The Arabs are so backward politically that there seems to be a strong incongruity between most of the Arab leaders and their constituencies. The latter have been lied to, cheated and dehumanized by their leaders to the point where the Arab World, or the feelings and aspirations of the Arab citizens have no weight in the determination of the foreign policy of most of the Western powers (except with the respect to the petty foreign aid or bread crumbs that are given disguised as humanitarian assistance). Whatever the case, when it comes down to the truth, we really do not need anybody's leftovers, if the Arabs really had the right notion of how their resources should be allocated and managed. But with the lot of “leaders”” that are the worst batch of leaders this nation has known in a long time