ANALYSIS: Obama’s silence lets him assess conflict, reaction

ANALYSIS:

President-elect Barack Obama’s silence during the early days of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip speaks volumes about the complexity of the Middle East crisis that he will soon inherit and may preserve some of his options for when he is able to act on his own - outside the shadows of President Bush.

U.S. Jewish groups beckoned Monday for a sign of support for Israel from the incoming president while a prominent Muslim group sought a condemnation for a military response that it viewed as excessive. Yet Mr. Obama remained silent as he vacationed in Hawaii, leaving the U.S. response thus far as the Bush administration’s unequivocal support for the Jewish state.

In the absence of Mr. Obama’s reaction, Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress offered their own assurances that their party strongly supports Israel’s right to protect itself from continuing rocket attacks from Hamas.

“Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland declared. “As a sovereign nation, Israel has an unequivocal right to take action to ensure the security and safety of her citizens.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave an equally forceful response in support of Israel.

Since his election, Mr. Obama has weighed in regularly on such issues of the day as the financial crisis and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and most observers expect he eventually will be forced to respond to the Gaza conflict, which has killed more than 300 people. But his early silence may buy him time to examine the fallout of the military action - and the possibilities for a truce - and therefore leave him options for action when he takes office on Jan. 20, diplomatic analysts said.

“The problem is that many people would like to have him make a clear statement, but to make a clear statement before he becomes president means he has to live with it when he becomes president,” said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who noted that the outcome of the Israeli operation is still very much uncertain.

By staying silent, Mr. Obama “is making a virtue out of necessity,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator and author of “The Much Too Promised Land.” “He is going to inherit a crisis that doesn’t have an easy or quick exit.

“He will create a process, say terrific things and hold more meetings than you can believe, but in the end, this is not a bridge he can cross.”

Mr. Bush has not made a statement on Israel’s three-day air-assault campaign against the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. But a White House spokesman on Monday made it clear that Mr. Bush blames Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel for the current spasm of violence.

“The United States understands that Israel needs to take actions to defend itself,” said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, briefing reporters at Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The only public pronouncements so far by an Obama representative has come from senior adviser David Axelrod, during two appearances on Sunday talk shows.

Mr. Axelrod avoided making any endorsement or critique of Israel’s bombardment, deferring to Mr. Bush. But he did point to Mr. Obama’s comments in July, when the then-candidate for president strongly suggested that he supported Israel’s right to defend itself from rocket attacks.

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing,” Mr. Obama said during a visit to Sderot, a small city in southwestern Israel that lies less than a mile from Gaza and has come under frequent rocket fire.

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