Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Day 83- Jedi chess

Dear Mr. President,

It appears as though the press corps is giving Robert Gibbs quite a rough time about your meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is one of those moments where, watching from the outside, being privy to nothing but what the media and the White House reveals, I have to concede I don't know enough to be certain about what you're doing. It seems as though you might be taking private steps toward toughening our stance on Israeli settlement activity. It seems as though you might be leveraging this latest incident into legitimate efforts at peace talks. But this could just be speculation.

Not long ago, when the battle for health care reform seemed to be getting the best of you, Jon Stewart said "I can’t tell if he’s a Jedi master playing chess on a three-level board way ahead of us, or if this is kicking his ass." I sometimes feel the same way about our Middle East policy. I know that my letters often include unbridled anger, disappointment and outrage. I know that, even if you make radical steps toward restarting the peace process, our foreign relations with Israel will likely still be too close for my comfort. I understand, Mr. President, that we will probably never agree on this. I think that my role as your constituent is to continue asserting my position, asking for more than I expect you to do, in the hopes of somehow balancing the AIPACs of the world. Much of my argument is based on the premise that there are absolute rights and absolute wrongs, and that gross oppression of human rights is an example of the latter. I do understand that the nuanced world we live in does not often lend itself well to absolution, and that you may be justifying certain means to an end I can't see or understand yet.

What I mean, sir, is that while I may be sick with grief at the death and suffering, at the injustice and oppression, while I may be exhausted with the fight and frustrated with our hypocrisy, I have faith that you know what you're doing and that you know what is right. I do not surrender my judgment to your own, but I do believe it is possible that you're seeing more than you're willing to let on.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

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