Well, Israel, you have finally done it. You have not only
turned the world against you, you have brought the US down with you. I hate that, but you are not totally to blame.
You had a lot of help from our misguided politicians, the media and millions of
right wing fundamentalist who call themselves Christian Zionists.
When I think of our invasion of Iraq, sanctions against
Iran causing the death of half a million children, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay,
waterboarding and the indifference to Palestinian suffering, I
ask myself, what happened to the America in which I grew up?
Chas Freeman warns:
For a long time, we have enabled
Israel’s self-injurious behavior. This has made it possible for Israel to
choose land over peace, to corrupt its democracy, to deviate from the core
values of its official religion as understood by Jews abroad, to empower racism
and bigotry among its Jewish majority, and most recently, to humiliate the
president of the United States while extracting twenty-nine kowtows from
Congress.
No one now harbors any real hope
that America can either deliver peace or help Israelis, Palestinians, and those
with whom they share their region to achieve it.[1]
I don’t care how many times Hillary Clinton calls for
bilateral negotiations between the two parties, she knows that no fair solution
can come from such grossly unequal parties unless some outside party is willing
to redress the imbalance of power. Israel also knows that if her support were
to suddenly compromise her ambitions for power and wealth, she would drop them
as quickly as she dropped her embrace of Yasser Arafat when she decided to run
for the Senate in New York.
Israel today is being more and more ostracized and
boycotted by people of conscience all over the world because of its racism,
arrogance and violence against the Palestinians. I say, “Thank goodness. It’s
about time.” But I hate to see the US being dragged down with it.
It seems that Arab leaders are finally learning that they
cannot count on the US to control international blowback to Israel’s dysfunctional
and unpopular relations with its neighbors.
Other than the US, Israel does not have a friend in the world. With years of failed “peace talks,” financing
settlement building, while objecting to them, and standing by paralyzed while
Israel bombards Gaza over and over, who is going to respect anything the US has
to say about seeking peace in the Middle East?
In 2002, the Arab League offered a revolutionary peace
proposal including recognition and normal relations with Israel in exchange for a
return to the ‘67 borders and peace with the Palestinians. Israel nor the US
ever responded. To this day, Israel has never offered a “peace plan” for living
side by side with the Palestinians.
Today, we still can’t get the words "occupation” or
“illegal settlements” in the party platform of either presidential candidate for
fear of losing large pro-Israel donors. The occupation has gone on for 50 years. When are we going to admit that
we can’t claim to be progressive and remain silent on the incredible misery and
unbelievable suffering meted out against the Palestinians?
Thomas Are
July 15, 2016
[1]
Chas W. Freeman, America’s Continuing
Misadventures in the Middle East. (Just Word Books, 2016.) p.107.
