The Anointed One apparently had nothing to say. Yet. “Pro-Palestinian protesters at Obama’s Hawaii house,” by Ross Colvin for Reuters, December 30 (thanks to James):
KAILUA, Hawaii (Reuters) – A small group of placard-waving pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered near U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s vacation retreat in Hawaii on Tuesday to protest against the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Obama has made no public comment on the strikes, which Israel launched on Saturday. Aides have repeatedly said he is monitoring the situation and continues to receive intelligence briefings but that there is only one U.S. president at a time….
“He is talking about how many jobs he is going to create but he is refusing to speak about this,” said one of the protesters, Carolyn Hadfield, 66.
She was one of eight protesters standing with placards reading “No U.S. support for Israel” and “Gazans need food and medicine, not war” near Obama’s rented vacation home in Kailua, an upmarket suburb on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he is in the second week of a vacation with his family.
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
Obama did not acknowledge the protesters when his motorcade drove past to take him to play basketball at his old school. He stared straight ahead sipping from a bottle of water.
“The president-elect values citizen participation in our nation’s foreign policy, but there is one president at a time, and we intend to respect that,” said Brooke Anderson, his chief national security spokesperson.
Obama has in the past called Israel one of the United States’ greatest allies and has vowed to ensure the security of the Jewish state.
He has also said he would make a sustained push to achieve the goal of two states — a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state….
Those are contradictory aspirations.