You’d have to imagine that voting “present” won’t really do for too much longer. The world doesn’t always like the U.S., but damned if they don’t look to us for leadership and guidance. No, Obama isn’t my president--not yet, anyway--but the Gaza conflict will have a powerful effect on U.S. strategy and diplomatic efforts in the region both for the short and long terms. While I appreciate the idea that he might not want to undercut the current president, it is also unthinkable that he wouldn’t make some comment on the situation.

As the clock ticks down to Barack Obama’s inauguration, the US president-elect has kept silent on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its latest deadly turn in the Gaza Strip.
Obama transition officials have ventured little more than saying their boss is “monitoring” the situation in Gaza, where at least 460 people have been killed in eight days of air raids before a ground offensive began Saturday.

In the same period, Gaza militant rockets have killed four Israelis and wounded several dozen people.

“The president-elect is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza,” his national security spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said in a statement after the ground assault got underway.

But she offered no further comment on the violence in Gaza and used a phrase repeated often by Obama and his aides: “There is one president at a time and we intend to respect that.”

That last bit is pretty funny to me. Obama had been, until the holiday break, a one-man press conference machine and more than happy to give his opinion on current events. Silence and the idea that there is only one president at a time is a new discovery with this crew.

Obama (and the “Office of the President Elect”, complete with nifty, presidential graphics) have elected to remain silent on this, leaving both enemies and friends wondering what he will do as this conflict moves deeper into this new year. Speeches and sound-bites aside, how will Obama’s White House show leadership in supporting Israel and in finding that elusive roadmap to peace? Will Obama’s White House support Israel? While he doesn’t currently have the power to actually act, it would be nice to have some idea of his intentions--and I’m sure our friends in Israel feel the same way.

Update: Even Arnold has weighed in on the crisis (and, happily and bluntly, on the side of the right of a nation to defend itself from unrelenting and utterly arbitrary rocket attacks from terrorists).