Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi greets US President Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Italy. The imperialist states have failed to meet their promises of $50 billion in aid to African countries.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
From the moment that President Barack Obama - who has won the Nobel peace prize - entered the Oval Office, he made clear that resolving the conflict in the Middle East would be a key priority of his foreign policy
By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 10:44AM BST
09 Oct 2009
His very first phone call was to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and his speech in Cairo sought to cast America as an even-handed peacemaker in the Holy Land. Soon afterwards, Mr Obama also pledged to negotiate a new treaty on nuclear disarmament with Russia.
So far, however, Mr Obama has no concrete achievement to his credit. The Israelis and Palestinians are no closer to a settlement today than when he took office nine months ago. On the contrary, recent violence in Jerusalem raises the possibility of a new Palestinian uprising: an event that would force the "peace process" into reverse.
The only possible explanation for the judges' decision to reward Mr Obama is that they are betting on his future achievements. They think he might secure an epoch-making settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians as well as a sweeping disarmament treaty with Russia. Having previously given the Nobel Peace Prize to leaders who have made real agreements to resolve real conflicts, the judges now appear to be rewarding effort and possible future accomplishment.
In effect, they are taking out a bet on Mr Obama's future peacemaking skills. Are they being realistic?
There is a good chance of America and Russia concluding another treaty on reducing nuclear arms. This is for a simple reason: the Kremlin's nuclear arsenal is rapidly deteriorating anyway and a new disarmament deal represents Russia's only chance of maintaining nuclear parity with America. Concluding this treaty would be a real achievement for Mr Obama - but it would follow three previous nuclear disarmament deals and it would not visibly alter the balance of power in the world.
Meanwhile, the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement are as remote as ever. The intractable problems at the heart of their conflict can be summed up in four words: borders, settlers, refugees, Jerusalem. Put simply, Mr Obama must devise a peace agreement which decides the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, the future of Palestinian refugees driven from Israel at its birth in 1948 and the division of Jerusalem into two national capitals.
Repeated attempts to resolve these issues, notably at the Camp David summit in 2000, have always failed, largely because the concessions required of both sides have been politically unacceptable. They remain unacceptable today. The "core issues" are certainly no closer to being settled than when Mr Obama took office in January.
But the judges appear to be betting that he can defy the odds and resolve them all in the next few years . Anyone who has followed events in the Middle East might not be entirely convinced by their optimism.
Friday, October 09, 2009
23:59 Mecca time, 20:59 GMT
Obama: I do not deserve Nobel prize
The Nobel committee said Obama had reached out to the world in a bid to end nuclear arms stocks
Barack Obama, the US president, has said he is "surprised and deeply humbled" after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, less than a year after taking office.
Speaking in Washington, Obama said he did "not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honoured by this prize".
The Nobel Committee in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, said that the award recognised Obama's attempts to foster international peace and create a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama will give his $1.4m reward for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to charity, the AFP news agency reported a US official as saying.
No decision has yet been taken on exactly which organisations will benefit, the official said.
'Mutual respect'
South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, awarded the prize himself in 1984, hailed the award as "a magnificent endorsement for the first African-American president in history".
But world reaction to the decision has been mixed, with the Taliban in Afghanistan saying it was absurd to give the prize to Obama when he had ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year.
In his speech from the White House, Obama said: "Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
"We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people.
"We must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect."
The president said he would accept the award as a "call to action" for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.
"And we must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years," he said.
Taliban criticism
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Nobel nominees
US President Obama was one of more than 200 individuals nominated for the 2009 Nobel peace prize. The decision to award Obama the prize was a surprise to those who thought that one of these four candidates would win:
Morgan Tsvangirai - the prime minister in Zimbabwe's power-sharing government. As opposition leader, he was imprisoned and severely beaten. But he struck a power-sharing deal with his rival, President Robert Mugabe
Piedad Cordoba - a politician and
hostage negotiator in Colombia, she mediated between the government and the rebel group FARC, and was herself
kidnapped in 1998
Hu Jia - currently in jail in China, on charges of subverting state power. After months of house arrest, he was sentenced just before the Beijing Olympic Games for his constant criticism of human rights abuses
Sima Samar - an advocate of women's rights in male-dominated Afghanistan, she was a senior minister in President Hamid Karzai's first government and is now head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission
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The Taliban condemned the decision saying that Obama has "not taken a single step towards peace in Afghanistan".
However, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, congratulated Obama, calling the announcement "appropriate".
An aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, said the award should prompt Obama to begin to end injustice in the world.
"We hope that this gives him the incentive to walk in the path of bringing justice to the world order," Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad's media aide, said.
"We are not upset and we hope that by receiving this prize he will start taking practical steps to remove injustice in the world.
Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, both said the prize should encourage everyone to help Obama rid the world of nuclear weapons.
"I think the peace prize was given with such a hope," Hatoyama told reporters on a visit to Beijing.
Merkel said Obama had shifted the tone towards dialogue in a very short time.
"There is still much left to do, but a window of possibility has been opened," she said in Leipzig.
'Extraordinary efforts'
Obama, 48, wins the award while still being the commander-in-chief of US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Nobel committee, said.
"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
"Obama has, as president, created a new climate in international politics.
"Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play."
The only US presidents to have won the award while in office are Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.
Roosevelt was awarded the prize for his contribution to the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
Wilson received the award for his part in founding the League of Nations.
Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, provided in his will for the establishment of the Nobel prizes in 1895.
The possible detrimental use of dynamite is believed to have influenced Nobel in leaving a better legacy after his death.
The Nobel Committee said that Obama had made "extraordinary efforts in international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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