Sunday, October 11, 2009

Diplomacy Expert Calls Obama Nobel Prize Award 'Curious'


Gil Ronen
A7 News

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S President Barack Obama was a “very curious” decision, according to former Israeli envoy in Washington Yoram Ettinger. “Obama has no achievement which justifies the awarding of the prize,” Ettinger told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew servic "In the international arena, Obama has failed thus far, both in the struggle against Iran which is constantly threatening and ignoring his calls, and regarding North Korea which is also hurling insults at him and continuing to threaten world peace,” Ettinger said. “As for Al Qaeda – the fighting in Afghanistan is getting fiercer since he entered the White House and the situation in Iraq has not improved. In addition, [Russian strongman Vladimi Putin is advancing his aspirations which threaten the republics.”

In the Israeli-Arab arena, the former diplomat noted, Obama has had no achievements either. “Obama has succeeded in making the Arabs' unrealistic expectations of Israel even more extreme,” he explained.

"The only reason I can give for such strange awarding of the prize is that political considerations have taken over the award process,” Ettinger said. “They see Obama as the president who intends to (…) be guided more by a world view which is favored in the U.N and Europe, a world view that is shared by the leaders in the Nobel award committee.”

"When they see him diving in U.S opinion polls they hope to improve his standing,” he explained.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

I think the Nobel Prize is an honor for the President, he was very gracious about accepting it.

GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givon said...

Lisa,
You have "missed" the points made by so many others-performance does not matter, only good intentions.