By Haaretz
June 08, 2010 "Haaretz" -- Ramussen poll: Only 19% of Americans believe Israel is to blame for clash aboard Gaza-bound aid ship Mavi Marmara last week.
Nearly half - 49 percent - of likely U.S. voters believe that pro-Palestinian activists were to blame for the deaths that occurred when the Israel Defense Forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last week, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Only 19 percent believe that Israel was to blame. Another 32 percent said they were not sure.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed on May 31 when the IDF intercepted six Gaza-bound aid ships. All the deaths occurred on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara vessel. The IDF said its soldiers opened fire in self-defense after being attacked by activists with knives and other weapons.
51 percent of those surveyed said Israel should allow an international investigation of the incident. 25 percent rejected the idea of an international probe and another 24 percent were undecided.
49 percent of U.S. voters agreed that, generally speaking, most countries are too critical of Israel. 21 percent said countries are not critical enough and 17 percent said neither.
Israel is one of only five countries that a majority of Americans are willing to defend militarily.
70 percent of voters said they have been following news reports about the Gaza flotilla incident at least somewhat closely. 28 percent have not been following closely, if at all.
73 percent of voters think it is unlikely that a lasting peace agreement will be reached between Israel and the Palestinians in the next ten years.
58 percent view Israel as a U.S. ally and two percent as an enemy, with 32 percent saying the country is somewhere in between the two.
By comparison, just 30 percent see the United Nations as an ally of the United States. 16 percent see the UN as America’s enemy, and 49% put it somewhere in between.
The survey was based on interviews with 1,000 likely U.S. voters and had a +/-3 percent sampling error margin.
Showing posts with label IDF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IDF. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Two-State Delusion
By Alan Sabrosky
May 11, 2009 "Khaleej Times" -- The world is once again being treated to yet another round in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” charade.
The “usual suspects” are posturing, pronouncements are being made, speeches are being given, and hints and rumours about a supposed “toughening” in the US government’s approach to Israel are filtering out from the press. We are supposed to think that something different is about to happen, and that, as the old American folk song had it, “The times, they are a-changing.” It is all nonsense. The whole exercise strikes me as what the old Soviet Army used to call a maskirovka, sort of a complex strategic masquerade on steroids, with rehearsed actors playing their scripted roles before a fully aware and involved audience, and that includes the head of the American NSC and his “leaked” memos. There may be some blunter words said to Netanyahu than he (or other Israeli prime ministers) has heard in a while, but it isn’t unprecedented.
Former President Reagan was very pro-Israeli, but he got so incensed at Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon that he reportedly yelled at then-Israeli Prime Minister Begin and deployed Marines with naval support to block them around Beirut. And regardless of how the intervention ended, there were occasions when US Marines and Israeli troops came right up to the edge of a full-scale fire-fight, and I was assured at the time by several Marine officers who were there that they were fully prepared to slug it out with the IDF if that was required, and the 6th Fleet had standing orders to go to the mat in their support if that happened - a far cry from 1967, when it had stood back in the face of the deliberate Israeli air and naval attack on the USS Liberty that killed or wounded more than 200 American sailors and Marines.
Today that would never happen, of course, or the US Navy & Marine Corps would have punched a hole through the Israeli blockade on Gaza and ended their assault on it a few months ago. They didn’t, and President Obama wouldn’t have sent them in, either — most of the rest of the world has been outraged by the brutal Israeli action that killed over 1400 Palestinians and wounded thousands more, the majority of them women and children, but all Obama does is talk about America’s undying commitment to the security of “our staunch ally Israel,” while the US Congress declaims its support of “poor, brave little Israel” (sic) and continues to vote billions of dollars in assistance to it. What is going to happen is that stories will leak about “full & frank” discussions between Obama & Netanyahu, and then after hemming and hawing for a while, Netanyahu will grudgingly agree to negotiations leading towards a two-state solution, he will be praised as a “man of peace” (just like Ariel Sharon, right?), and that pot will just keep boiling and boiling until both Obama and Netanyahu go away.
Besides, the two-state solution is a dead-in-the-water derelict, and given the Israeli attitude, probably always was. For it to be viable, three things would absolutely have to happen. First, all Israeli settlements would have to be withdrawn from the West Bank and Palestinian refugees allowed to return without Israeli interference. That isn’t going to happen. Second, a viable Palestinian state would have to be sufficiently well armed to make the Israelis think 10 times before doing a Gaza strike in either part. And last, a viable Palestinian state would need armed guarantees from other nations.
Looking beyond the two-state political zombie requires one to look at the key players. Aside from their impoverishment, geographical separation and vulnerability, about the only cards the Palestinians hold are a willingness to persevere and a comparable willingness to die. The misbegotten Palestinian Authority (PA) is so useless, and its top leaders — Arafat as well as Abbas — have been so bad, that I cannot decide if it and they are creations of Mossad, or simply tolerated to ensure that nothing much better will come along.
Hamas is better for Palestinians, of course, which is why it won the election a few years ago, and it is for that reason more than any other that the Jewish lobbies in the US and elsewhere have made its presence in negotiations all but unthinkable.
Israel itself is a fascinating case study in the principle that people often acquire the worst habits of their oppressors, for the dominant Israeli attitude — views Arabs generally and Palestinians in particular much the way their last oppressors viewed Jews.
There is only one possible fly in this ointment, from the Israeli perspective, and it is the only one that anyone wishing to unravel this Gordian knot can exploit: American public opinion. At present, a large majority of Americans support Israel, having been fed a steady diet for decades of Israeli “victimisation” in the face of Arab “barbarism.” But that support is, as the saying goes in America, “a mile wide and an inch deep,” and AIPAC and company know this, which is why they work so hard to filter what most Americans see, hear and read about the Middle East. (Editor's emphasis throughout) But it is a filter that is starting to weaken — a difference that is reflected in growing criticism of Israel and of US support for it. Disrupt this pro-Israel filter, make historical events like the Israeli assault on the USS Liberty and the IDF’s murder of a young American woman named Rachel Corrie household words in the US, bring images of ravaged Gaza into American homes, and watch the world start to change — because it can. And the technology is there to do this.
May 11, 2009 "Khaleej Times" -- The world is once again being treated to yet another round in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” charade.
The “usual suspects” are posturing, pronouncements are being made, speeches are being given, and hints and rumours about a supposed “toughening” in the US government’s approach to Israel are filtering out from the press. We are supposed to think that something different is about to happen, and that, as the old American folk song had it, “The times, they are a-changing.” It is all nonsense. The whole exercise strikes me as what the old Soviet Army used to call a maskirovka, sort of a complex strategic masquerade on steroids, with rehearsed actors playing their scripted roles before a fully aware and involved audience, and that includes the head of the American NSC and his “leaked” memos. There may be some blunter words said to Netanyahu than he (or other Israeli prime ministers) has heard in a while, but it isn’t unprecedented.
Former President Reagan was very pro-Israeli, but he got so incensed at Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon that he reportedly yelled at then-Israeli Prime Minister Begin and deployed Marines with naval support to block them around Beirut. And regardless of how the intervention ended, there were occasions when US Marines and Israeli troops came right up to the edge of a full-scale fire-fight, and I was assured at the time by several Marine officers who were there that they were fully prepared to slug it out with the IDF if that was required, and the 6th Fleet had standing orders to go to the mat in their support if that happened - a far cry from 1967, when it had stood back in the face of the deliberate Israeli air and naval attack on the USS Liberty that killed or wounded more than 200 American sailors and Marines.
Today that would never happen, of course, or the US Navy & Marine Corps would have punched a hole through the Israeli blockade on Gaza and ended their assault on it a few months ago. They didn’t, and President Obama wouldn’t have sent them in, either — most of the rest of the world has been outraged by the brutal Israeli action that killed over 1400 Palestinians and wounded thousands more, the majority of them women and children, but all Obama does is talk about America’s undying commitment to the security of “our staunch ally Israel,” while the US Congress declaims its support of “poor, brave little Israel” (sic) and continues to vote billions of dollars in assistance to it. What is going to happen is that stories will leak about “full & frank” discussions between Obama & Netanyahu, and then after hemming and hawing for a while, Netanyahu will grudgingly agree to negotiations leading towards a two-state solution, he will be praised as a “man of peace” (just like Ariel Sharon, right?), and that pot will just keep boiling and boiling until both Obama and Netanyahu go away.
Besides, the two-state solution is a dead-in-the-water derelict, and given the Israeli attitude, probably always was. For it to be viable, three things would absolutely have to happen. First, all Israeli settlements would have to be withdrawn from the West Bank and Palestinian refugees allowed to return without Israeli interference. That isn’t going to happen. Second, a viable Palestinian state would have to be sufficiently well armed to make the Israelis think 10 times before doing a Gaza strike in either part. And last, a viable Palestinian state would need armed guarantees from other nations.
Looking beyond the two-state political zombie requires one to look at the key players. Aside from their impoverishment, geographical separation and vulnerability, about the only cards the Palestinians hold are a willingness to persevere and a comparable willingness to die. The misbegotten Palestinian Authority (PA) is so useless, and its top leaders — Arafat as well as Abbas — have been so bad, that I cannot decide if it and they are creations of Mossad, or simply tolerated to ensure that nothing much better will come along.
Hamas is better for Palestinians, of course, which is why it won the election a few years ago, and it is for that reason more than any other that the Jewish lobbies in the US and elsewhere have made its presence in negotiations all but unthinkable.
Israel itself is a fascinating case study in the principle that people often acquire the worst habits of their oppressors, for the dominant Israeli attitude — views Arabs generally and Palestinians in particular much the way their last oppressors viewed Jews.
There is only one possible fly in this ointment, from the Israeli perspective, and it is the only one that anyone wishing to unravel this Gordian knot can exploit: American public opinion. At present, a large majority of Americans support Israel, having been fed a steady diet for decades of Israeli “victimisation” in the face of Arab “barbarism.” But that support is, as the saying goes in America, “a mile wide and an inch deep,” and AIPAC and company know this, which is why they work so hard to filter what most Americans see, hear and read about the Middle East. (Editor's emphasis throughout) But it is a filter that is starting to weaken — a difference that is reflected in growing criticism of Israel and of US support for it. Disrupt this pro-Israel filter, make historical events like the Israeli assault on the USS Liberty and the IDF’s murder of a young American woman named Rachel Corrie household words in the US, bring images of ravaged Gaza into American homes, and watch the world start to change — because it can. And the technology is there to do this.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Both Parties Cheerlead Still More Loudly for Israel's "War"
By Glenn Greenwald
January 10, 2009 "Salon" -- -World concern over, and opposition to, the Israeli war in Gaza is rapidly mounting:
International pressure intensified sharply on Israel on Thursday, the 13th day of its Gaza assault, after the United Nations suspended food aid deliveries, the International Committee of the Red Cross accused the Israelis of knowingly blocking assistance to the injured, and a top Vatican official defended comments in which he compared Gaza to a concentration camp.
The Israelis have deliberately made it impossible to know the full extent of the carnage and humanitarian disasters because they continue to prevent journalists from entering Gaza even in the face of a now week-old Israeli Supreme Court order compelling them to do so. According to Palestinian sources, there are now 700 dead Palestinians -- at least 200 of them children -- and well over 1,000 wounded. Those numbers are not seriously doubted by anyone. By comparison, a total of 10 Israelis have died -- 10 -- almost all of them by "friendly fire." The unusually worded Red Cross condemnation of Israel was prompted by its discovery, after finally being allowed into Gaza, of starving Palestinian children laying next to corpses, with ambulances blocked for days by the IDF. Even with the relative "restraint" Israel is exercising (the damage it could cause is obviously much greater), this is not so much of a war as it is a completely one-sided massacre.
As a result, much of the world is urging an end to the war and acting to forge a cease-fire -- except the United States. Here, blind and unequivocal support for the Israeli attack is actually increasing almost as fast as the Palestinian body count piles up. Apparently, it isn't enough that we supply the very bombs being dropped on the Palestinians and use our U.N. veto power to prevent any U.N. action to stop the war or even to urge its cessation. The U.S. Congress wants to involve the U.S. further still in Israel's war.
This afternoon, the Democratic-led U.S. Senate did just that by enacting -- via a cowardly voice vote -- a completely one-sided, non-binding resolution that expresses unequivocal support for the Israeli war, and heaps all the blame for the conflict on Hamas and none of it on Israel. Harry Reid -- who jointly sponsored the Resolution with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell -- proudly proclaimed: "When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel." On its website, AIPAC is already patting the U.S. Senate on its head for "for conveying America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense."
The Senate resolution is here... (.pdf). The very similar House version that was circulated earlier today was drafted by Israel-centric House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.). It is here... (.pdf), and is expected to pass early next week -- undoubtedly with overwhelming bipartisan support. ThinkProgess noted yesterday that Democrats took the lead in drafting the Resolution because they did not want to be "out-hawked by the Republicans," though it's hardly unusual for Democrats to march in lockstep with Republicans on Israel more than any other issue.
It's hard to overstate how one-sided this resolution is. It "expresses vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders." Why should the U.S. maintain an "unwavering commitment to the welfare" of a foreign country? It "lays blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas." It repeatedly mentions the various sins of Hamas -- from rockets to suicide attacks -- but does not mention a single syllable of criticism for Israel. In the world of the U.S. Congress, neither the 4-decade occupation of Palestinian land nor the devastating blockade of Gaza nor the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements even exist. That may not be mentioned.
The Resolution demands that Hamas take multiple steps towards peaceful resolution but demands that Israel do absolutely nothing. It purports to call for a cease-fire in which the Palestinians make all the concessions and Israel makes none. Worst of all -- in light of the Red Cross condemnation, yesterday's slaughter at the U.N. school, and other similar incidents -- the Resolution disgustingly praises Israel's conduct of the war, claiming that "Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since the current round of fighting began on December 27, 2008."
This one-sided, ostensibly "pro-Israel" bipartisan inflaming of tensions by the U.S. is nothing new. Long-time Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller, in Newsweek, earlier this week made one of the most startling revelations in some time -- that in all the time the U.S. has supposedly been attempting to forge a Middle East peace agreement over the past 25 years, it never once, in any meaningful way, raised with Israeli leaders the damage that comes from Israeli settlements. Specifically, said Miller: "I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity — including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions — does to the peacemaking process."
Miller emphasized that by being so blindly supportive even of misguided Israeli actions, "the United States has allowed that special bond to become exclusive in ways that undermine America's, and Israel's, national interests." The only way the U.S. can play a constructive role in the Middle East, he argues, is if it is even-handed and, most importantly, willing to criticize Israeli actions when they harm American interests (and their own) and pressure them to stop. Matt Yglesias, in a new piece up at The American Prospect, makes much the same point.
Yet here we have, yet again, exactly the opposite behavior -- equally from both parties. At exactly the time that worldwide horror over this war is at its peak, the Democratic-led Congress steps up to announce to the world: "this is our war, too; we support whatever Israel does absolutely and without reservations." We thus make Israel's wars our wars; its enemies our enemies; its intractable disputes our disputes; and the hostility and anger it generates our own. And we embolden Israel to continue further.
Given that we endlessly hear from our political establishment that the first and most important obligation of our leaders is to "keep us safe" -- that's the justification for everything from torture to presidential lawbreaking -- what possible legitimate rationale is there for the U.S. Congress to act in unison to involve itself in Israel's war so emphatically, and to thereby re-direct the anger over Israeli actions even further towards the U.S. and American citizens? How are U.S. interests even remotely advanced by insinuating ourselves this way? As Juan Cole recounted this week:
In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. . . .
On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.
You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.
The U.S. does enough on its own to make itself the target of worldwide anger. Why must it take on Israel's battles as well?
The fact that this is a non-binding resolution makes it worse, not better. It achieves nothing other than rubbing in the world's face -- including the Muslim world -- that this is not just an Israeli attack on Palestinians but an American attack as well. As BooMan put it in explaining that virtually no mainstream U.S. politician would dare oppose this Resolution: "This, then, creates the false impression that there is near unanimity of support for whatever it is that Israel wants to do. And let me frank about this . . . sending such a message does more to put Americans at risk than it does it protect Israelis."
TPM's Elana Schor today wrote: "We're looking into whether any senator was bold enough to decline to co-sponsor the measure." It will be a surprise if there were any. Many members of Congress -- with some noble exceptions -- still remain pitifully afraid that the likes of David "Axis of Evil" Frum will accuse them of being anti-Semitic if they dare oppose Israeli actions, even in the name of U.S. interests, while others continue to be supportive of any war or proposed war waged on Muslims or Arabs -- regardless of the rationale for the war or its severity.
Whatever the motives, for America to blindly support Israel's self-destructive and unjustified behavior does not serve Israeli interests and -- most importantly -- does not serve America's. Blind support isn't "friendship," nor is enabling someone else's destructive behavior. It's subservience. And few things are as harmful or as unjust as the cowardly, lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel.
UPDATE: Since the Israeli attack on Gaza began, the advocacy of J Street -- the new Jewish-American organization designed to break AIPAC's monopoly on speaking for American Jews -- has been superb. They have gone much further than any Jewish group that is taken seriously by the establishment, continuously expressing opposition to the Israeli offensive and infuriating those who want to maintain a neoconservative stranglehold over speaking for American Jews. Earlier today, I asked them for their position on the Senate Resolution and, just now, this is what they sent me:
Since the first days of the crisis in Gaza, J Street has consistently called for strong American leadership to reach a ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel, institutes an effective mechanism to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza, and lifts the blockade of Gaza. Since J Street's founding, we have consistently advocated for active American diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We support Congressional action that endorses these aims.
That statement -- by design, I would guess -- is unclear in the extreme. It seems intended to imply -- without actually stating -- support for the Congressional Resolutions. They say they "support Congressional action that endorses these aims," but -- conspicuously -- they don't actually say whether the Resolution passed by the Senate and to be passed by the House does so. It's hard to see how either of the two Resolutions could be deemed to do so, given that neither even mentions, for instance, a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. But that's the statement J Street issued.
On a related note, MediaBloodHound has the details on the very interesting story of how AP caused to vanish into thin air the tough questioning by its reporter of the U.S. State Department regarding Gaza.
January 10, 2009 "Salon" -- -World concern over, and opposition to, the Israeli war in Gaza is rapidly mounting:
International pressure intensified sharply on Israel on Thursday, the 13th day of its Gaza assault, after the United Nations suspended food aid deliveries, the International Committee of the Red Cross accused the Israelis of knowingly blocking assistance to the injured, and a top Vatican official defended comments in which he compared Gaza to a concentration camp.
The Israelis have deliberately made it impossible to know the full extent of the carnage and humanitarian disasters because they continue to prevent journalists from entering Gaza even in the face of a now week-old Israeli Supreme Court order compelling them to do so. According to Palestinian sources, there are now 700 dead Palestinians -- at least 200 of them children -- and well over 1,000 wounded. Those numbers are not seriously doubted by anyone. By comparison, a total of 10 Israelis have died -- 10 -- almost all of them by "friendly fire." The unusually worded Red Cross condemnation of Israel was prompted by its discovery, after finally being allowed into Gaza, of starving Palestinian children laying next to corpses, with ambulances blocked for days by the IDF. Even with the relative "restraint" Israel is exercising (the damage it could cause is obviously much greater), this is not so much of a war as it is a completely one-sided massacre.
As a result, much of the world is urging an end to the war and acting to forge a cease-fire -- except the United States. Here, blind and unequivocal support for the Israeli attack is actually increasing almost as fast as the Palestinian body count piles up. Apparently, it isn't enough that we supply the very bombs being dropped on the Palestinians and use our U.N. veto power to prevent any U.N. action to stop the war or even to urge its cessation. The U.S. Congress wants to involve the U.S. further still in Israel's war.
This afternoon, the Democratic-led U.S. Senate did just that by enacting -- via a cowardly voice vote -- a completely one-sided, non-binding resolution that expresses unequivocal support for the Israeli war, and heaps all the blame for the conflict on Hamas and none of it on Israel. Harry Reid -- who jointly sponsored the Resolution with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell -- proudly proclaimed: "When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel." On its website, AIPAC is already patting the U.S. Senate on its head for "for conveying America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense."
The Senate resolution is here... (.pdf). The very similar House version that was circulated earlier today was drafted by Israel-centric House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.). It is here... (.pdf), and is expected to pass early next week -- undoubtedly with overwhelming bipartisan support. ThinkProgess noted yesterday that Democrats took the lead in drafting the Resolution because they did not want to be "out-hawked by the Republicans," though it's hardly unusual for Democrats to march in lockstep with Republicans on Israel more than any other issue.
It's hard to overstate how one-sided this resolution is. It "expresses vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders." Why should the U.S. maintain an "unwavering commitment to the welfare" of a foreign country? It "lays blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas." It repeatedly mentions the various sins of Hamas -- from rockets to suicide attacks -- but does not mention a single syllable of criticism for Israel. In the world of the U.S. Congress, neither the 4-decade occupation of Palestinian land nor the devastating blockade of Gaza nor the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements even exist. That may not be mentioned.
The Resolution demands that Hamas take multiple steps towards peaceful resolution but demands that Israel do absolutely nothing. It purports to call for a cease-fire in which the Palestinians make all the concessions and Israel makes none. Worst of all -- in light of the Red Cross condemnation, yesterday's slaughter at the U.N. school, and other similar incidents -- the Resolution disgustingly praises Israel's conduct of the war, claiming that "Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since the current round of fighting began on December 27, 2008."
This one-sided, ostensibly "pro-Israel" bipartisan inflaming of tensions by the U.S. is nothing new. Long-time Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller, in Newsweek, earlier this week made one of the most startling revelations in some time -- that in all the time the U.S. has supposedly been attempting to forge a Middle East peace agreement over the past 25 years, it never once, in any meaningful way, raised with Israeli leaders the damage that comes from Israeli settlements. Specifically, said Miller: "I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity — including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions — does to the peacemaking process."
Miller emphasized that by being so blindly supportive even of misguided Israeli actions, "the United States has allowed that special bond to become exclusive in ways that undermine America's, and Israel's, national interests." The only way the U.S. can play a constructive role in the Middle East, he argues, is if it is even-handed and, most importantly, willing to criticize Israeli actions when they harm American interests (and their own) and pressure them to stop. Matt Yglesias, in a new piece up at The American Prospect, makes much the same point.
Yet here we have, yet again, exactly the opposite behavior -- equally from both parties. At exactly the time that worldwide horror over this war is at its peak, the Democratic-led Congress steps up to announce to the world: "this is our war, too; we support whatever Israel does absolutely and without reservations." We thus make Israel's wars our wars; its enemies our enemies; its intractable disputes our disputes; and the hostility and anger it generates our own. And we embolden Israel to continue further.
Given that we endlessly hear from our political establishment that the first and most important obligation of our leaders is to "keep us safe" -- that's the justification for everything from torture to presidential lawbreaking -- what possible legitimate rationale is there for the U.S. Congress to act in unison to involve itself in Israel's war so emphatically, and to thereby re-direct the anger over Israeli actions even further towards the U.S. and American citizens? How are U.S. interests even remotely advanced by insinuating ourselves this way? As Juan Cole recounted this week:
In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. . . .
On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.
You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.
The U.S. does enough on its own to make itself the target of worldwide anger. Why must it take on Israel's battles as well?
The fact that this is a non-binding resolution makes it worse, not better. It achieves nothing other than rubbing in the world's face -- including the Muslim world -- that this is not just an Israeli attack on Palestinians but an American attack as well. As BooMan put it in explaining that virtually no mainstream U.S. politician would dare oppose this Resolution: "This, then, creates the false impression that there is near unanimity of support for whatever it is that Israel wants to do. And let me frank about this . . . sending such a message does more to put Americans at risk than it does it protect Israelis."
TPM's Elana Schor today wrote: "We're looking into whether any senator was bold enough to decline to co-sponsor the measure." It will be a surprise if there were any. Many members of Congress -- with some noble exceptions -- still remain pitifully afraid that the likes of David "Axis of Evil" Frum will accuse them of being anti-Semitic if they dare oppose Israeli actions, even in the name of U.S. interests, while others continue to be supportive of any war or proposed war waged on Muslims or Arabs -- regardless of the rationale for the war or its severity.
Whatever the motives, for America to blindly support Israel's self-destructive and unjustified behavior does not serve Israeli interests and -- most importantly -- does not serve America's. Blind support isn't "friendship," nor is enabling someone else's destructive behavior. It's subservience. And few things are as harmful or as unjust as the cowardly, lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel.
UPDATE: Since the Israeli attack on Gaza began, the advocacy of J Street -- the new Jewish-American organization designed to break AIPAC's monopoly on speaking for American Jews -- has been superb. They have gone much further than any Jewish group that is taken seriously by the establishment, continuously expressing opposition to the Israeli offensive and infuriating those who want to maintain a neoconservative stranglehold over speaking for American Jews. Earlier today, I asked them for their position on the Senate Resolution and, just now, this is what they sent me:
Since the first days of the crisis in Gaza, J Street has consistently called for strong American leadership to reach a ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel, institutes an effective mechanism to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza, and lifts the blockade of Gaza. Since J Street's founding, we have consistently advocated for active American diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We support Congressional action that endorses these aims.
That statement -- by design, I would guess -- is unclear in the extreme. It seems intended to imply -- without actually stating -- support for the Congressional Resolutions. They say they "support Congressional action that endorses these aims," but -- conspicuously -- they don't actually say whether the Resolution passed by the Senate and to be passed by the House does so. It's hard to see how either of the two Resolutions could be deemed to do so, given that neither even mentions, for instance, a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. But that's the statement J Street issued.
On a related note, MediaBloodHound has the details on the very interesting story of how AP caused to vanish into thin air the tough questioning by its reporter of the U.S. State Department regarding Gaza.
Friday, January 25, 2008
One and Two State Solutions:The Myth of International Consensus
By Kathleen Christison
24/01/08 Counterpunch
...The humanitarian disaster that is Gaza is entirely the result of the international community's supine refusal to stand up to Israel and the U.S. and its active support for an embargo on Gaza that is imprisoning and starving 1.5 million inhabitants and devastating the Gazan economy...
...Invocation of the international consensus to induce Palestinians to stop advocating true equality in a single state in all of Palestine comes out of a kind of denial, a refusal to acknowledge that the international consensus is so oblivious to the injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinians that it has not noticed and does not care that the possibility of establishing two states died quite some years ago. A real two-state solution...is now a forlorn dream from which the international consensus has yet to awaken.
MORE...
NOTE:
This piece by Kathleen Christison is simply excellent. Tragically it provides an accurate depiction of the so-called "facts on the ground" in Palestine/Israel. What is transpiring among the poor people of Gaza is reprehensible. The US and Israel bare prime responsibility for what has become a true humanitarian crisis. It is not factually incorrect to label it a kind of "passive transfer" reminiscent of the Nakba ["the catastrophe"; the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes] over a half century ago under the Hagana (pre-Israeli Defense Force).
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
24/01/08 Counterpunch
...The humanitarian disaster that is Gaza is entirely the result of the international community's supine refusal to stand up to Israel and the U.S. and its active support for an embargo on Gaza that is imprisoning and starving 1.5 million inhabitants and devastating the Gazan economy...
...Invocation of the international consensus to induce Palestinians to stop advocating true equality in a single state in all of Palestine comes out of a kind of denial, a refusal to acknowledge that the international consensus is so oblivious to the injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinians that it has not noticed and does not care that the possibility of establishing two states died quite some years ago. A real two-state solution...is now a forlorn dream from which the international consensus has yet to awaken.
MORE...
NOTE:
This piece by Kathleen Christison is simply excellent. Tragically it provides an accurate depiction of the so-called "facts on the ground" in Palestine/Israel. What is transpiring among the poor people of Gaza is reprehensible. The US and Israel bare prime responsibility for what has become a true humanitarian crisis. It is not factually incorrect to label it a kind of "passive transfer" reminiscent of the Nakba ["the catastrophe"; the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes] over a half century ago under the Hagana (pre-Israeli Defense Force).
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)