Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Let's (Not) Talk About Israel

The New York Times is, thankfully, running an editorial about American public's resistance to talking about the influence of the Israel lobby in Washington, DC. I say "thankfully" because the topic is long overdue - especially on some of the larger American "progressive" blogs.

When I was a member of Daily Kos, it didn't take long at all for me to learn that the vast majority of the members of that community did not want to talk about Israel because it was too controversial and often resulted in very fiery exchanges. I though that was an odd consensus since members frequently addressed the abortion issue which resulted in hundreds of comments from all sides of the debate. Yet, somehow, Israel was out of bounds.

The only time it did seem to come up was when indictments of AIPAC members like Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman were announced. It seemed safe to talk about the effects of Israel's lobby in that context because it directly linked the Bush administration to a lobbying firm that had corrupt agents who were accused of spying. But, the broader conversation about Israeli/Palestinian relations continued to simmer under the surface, relatively unaddressed.

The author of the NYT piece, Tony Judt, writes about what is definitely behind the fear of that larger topic:

The damage that is done by America's fear of anti-Semitism when discussing Israel is threefold. It is bad for Jews: anti-Semitism is real enough (I know something about it, growing up Jewish in 1950's Britain), but for just that reason it should not be confused with political criticisms of Israel or its American supporters. It is bad for Israel: by guaranteeing it unconditional support, Americans encourage Israel to act heedless of consequences. The Israeli journalist Tom Segev described the Mearsheimer-Walt essay as "arrogant" but also acknowledged ruefully: "They are right. Had the United States saved Israel from itself, life today would be better ...the Israel Lobby in the United States harms Israel's true interests."

Many Americans don't even realize that Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid; do not realize that from 1967-1988 Israel was the subject of 88 UN Security Resolutions over its conducts towards the Palestinian people or that "Israel was "condemned" 49 times. In the General Assembly, 429 anti-Israel resolutions were passed, Israel was "condemned" 321 times; that as recently as last week, the US blocked a draft UN resolution to stop military attacks against the Palestinians because US Ambassador the the UN John Bolton said the statement "was disproportionately critical of Israel, and unfairly so, and needlessly so."

Qatar, acting on behalf of the Arab group at the United Nations, the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement of 112 nations, immediately requested an open council debate on the Middle East, which was scheduled for Monday afternoon.

"I don't see that that meeting is going to be productive, because I don't think the Security Council is an exercise in group therapy," Bolton said.

But Mansour predicted more than 150 UN, member-nations would address the meeting, to demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of UN members were "on the side of justice and international law."

Many Americans are also unfamiliar with the undue influence that Israel has had on the Bush administration relating to the march to war on Iraq or the current drumbeats to yet another war against Iran. Bush clearly stated not long ago that he will do whatever it takes to protect Israel and there is an undeniable push from the Israel lobby to support serious action against Iran.

Considering the extreme tension behind the latest revelations that Iran war planning in the Pentagon is certainly underway, the claims made in the recent Seymour Hersh story that the US is considering targeted nuclear strikes on Iranian facilities and a statement on Tuesday by Bush that all options are still on the table, those of us who are concerned do ourselves no favours by refusing to ignore the elephant in the living room - Israel - more specifically: the Israeli/Palestinian/Arabic issues that are the catalyst for such a heated situation in the broader Middle East.

If we refuse to talk about the history of the region and to actively engage in attempting to solve the conflicts in a rational way, the Bush administration will simply continue to war its way through the Middle East in a feeble attempt to somehow bring peace to the region. What Bush and the neocons don't seem to understand is that peace and war cannot exist simultaneously in such a small powder keg. They are doomed to perpetual failure if they simply choose to employ weapons where diplomacy is the key. We've seen them in action. We know how devastating their policies have been and continue to be.

It's long past the time when Americans need to face reality and have a frank and open discussion about Israel, without the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. Political policies are not people and the policies of the Bush and Israeli administrations need to be questioned at every turn.

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