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Don’t even get me started on America’s failed foreign policy in the Middle East. Just try to name even one country east of Suez that America hasn’t tampered with and made a mess of. “Israel?” you might say. Yeah right. Just imagine what Israel would be like today if America had resisted the temptation to interfere with its policies, the direction it was taking and its priorities.
America, like some strange King Midas in reverse, seems to have completely screwed up everything that it touches in the Middle East. And, yes, this statement appears to include Israel too.
First of all, in any kind of sane world Israel would have gotten its hand slapped for bombing the USS Liberty back in 1967. But it didn’t. 34 U.S. sailors were deliberately and callously murdered by Israeli armed forces and apparently no hand-slapping was involved — with the possible exception of some bizarre spy vs. spy story from Wayne Madsen about America then sinking an Israel submarine in retaliation and then Israel sinking a French submarine to get even and also sinking a U.S. cargo ship returning empty from Iran after dumping off tons of weapons from Reagan to the Ayatollah, thus getting in the last word. http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/oldsite/article.asp?ID=10051.
If this bizarre story is true, however, America’s and Israel’s leaders’ foreign policies and moral compasses are even more off-base than we thought!
And after the USS Liberty incident, Israel’s leadership must have been on top of the world. “Wow!” they must have said to themselves in stunned disbelief. “If Americans let us get away with deliberately murdering 34 U.S. sailors in cold blood, they’ll let us get away with anything! Let’s go for it guys.” And apparently they did.
America over the past several decades has appeared to support every single bad thing that Israel has done since its inception. “America NEVER sends us to our room without any supper — no matter how badly we behave!” seemed to the message that America sent to Israel’s leadership after the USS Liberty was heartlessly attacked, bombed and strafed.
So Israel, like some naughty child, was allowed to pull as many wings off as many Middle East butterflies at it wanted to. That mess in Lebanon in the 1980? That mess in Lebanon in 2006? The heartless bombing of Gaza with deadly white phosphorus that killed hundreds of women and children in 2008? Rachel Corrie’s death-by-bulldozer in 2003? Go for it!
And even more important, Israel has suffered inestimable harm to its international reputation as a religious nation. And it has suffered economic harm. And moral harm. And its citizens have become racists and murderers without even a qualm. The whole country looks like South Africa during Apartheid or Warsaw during World War II. Yuck! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVlFfFUk8w&
Not to mention the price Israel has to pay as its returning soldiers suffer from PTSS.
Not to mention the price Israel has to pay as its entire civilian population suffers from PTSS!
“But Jane,” you might say, “if Israelis hadn’t fought back, then Palestinians would have thrown them into the sea!” Not true. That “Poor Me, underdog, David vs. Goliath” story is getting more and more unbelievable every day days. Did David own a whole fleet of F16 jets or over 200 nuclear weapons? I think not.
Not only that, but a huge number of Israelis these days are voluntarily throwing their own selves into the sea. We will never know how many Israelis with European roots have packed up their families in the middle of the night and moved back to Europe where it is safe and where Europe’s leadership doesn’t use them as fall-guys for some real estate grab and their children won’t grow up to be bigots. I’ve heard that there are more Israelis living in Berlin right now than there were even back in the 1930s.
In an article entitled, “Three Myths of Israel’s Insecurity,” Ira Chernus lists three frequently-told stories that are actually purely myths. “Myth Number 1: Israel’s existence is threatened by the ever-present possibility of military attack. In fact, there’s no chance that any of Israel’s neighbors will start a war to wipe out Israel….
“Myth Number 2: The personal safety of every Jewish Israeli is threatened daily by the possibility of violent attack. In fact, according to Israeli government statistics, since the beginning of 2009 only one Israeli civilian (and two non-Israelis) have been killed by politically motivated attacks inside the green line (Israel’s pre-1967 border). Israelis who live inside that line go about their daily lives virtually free from such worry.
“Myth Number 3: Israel’s existence is threatened by worldwide efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. Early in 2010, Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that the country was not ‘suffering from terror or from an immediate military threat.’” http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/04/17/the-great.israeli-security-scam/print
Now let’s talk about the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) economic movement worldwide — where both Israeli and American companies who support apartheid are being boycotted. This movement is putting Israel in more danger than possibilities of violent attack. And the BDS movement is a direct result of Israel having been influenced by America’s ineffective, weird and immoral foreign policies in the Middle East. And I have the YouTube flash mob videos to prove it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww7OUUfjoBQ
Of course I could continue to cite you cases in point here all night about how Israel’s military, economic and racist policies are failing it bigtime all over the Middle East, and also in the eyes of world opinion, with regard to Israel’s military and foreign policy strategy. For instance, there’s the case of the new Arab Spring movements that appear to have been originally inspired by Arab hatred of injustice in Palestine. However, I am more of a philosophical person than a military fact-checker or foreign-policy wank and would prefer to focus on investigating how Israel’s American-inspired-and-funded cruel, unjust and apartheid policies appear to be also destroying Israel from within as well as allegedly from without.
Most practicing Jews — both outside of Israel and inside it — are religious and righteous people who put a heavy emphasis on observing mitzvahs and pursuing justice. And slowly but surely these practicing Jews are becoming fed up with the vicious persecution of Palestinians that currently makes Israel more resemble Warsaw than the Promised Land.
And not only that, but Israelis have stolen — stolen! — millions of olive trees from Palestinian farmers. You gotta sink pretty low in order to steal some poor farmer’s olive trees. Where in the Talmud does it say that olive-tree-stealing is kosher? Nowhere!
Arab Jews in Israel are also getting fed up with being prejudiced against — even though they are in the majority in Israel. In an article published recently by a group of Arab Jews in Israel, young Mizrahi Jews stated that, “We believe that, as Mizrahi Jews in Israel, our struggle for economic, social, and cultural rights rests on the understanding that political change cannot depend on the Western powers who have exploited our region and its residents for many generations.” http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/young-arab-jews-open-letter-to-arab-peers.html
Arab Jews are also getting prejudiced against in Israel — remember those famous ringworm experiments that maimed thousands of Jewish children of Arab origin? The ones where children were irradiated deliberately? And paid for by America?
It’s not only Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs that are getting kicked around in Jerusalem. Arab Jews are getting kicked around there too. That’s just wrong!
For decades, America has offered Israeli leaders billions and billions of dollars if Israel only will serve as its cats-paws in the Middle East. And Israeli leaders just hold out their hands, happily selling out their country, willingly corrupted by wealth.
And then there’s that infamous Subaru ad where a Zionist driver thinks it’s just peachy to run over Palestinian children. Now tell me again how Israelis could have sunk so low morally? It’s amazing what the power of American money will do when it is waved in your face. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=198500236852998
Just like Americans have been corrupted into believing that killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of women and children in the Middle East is both necessary and cool, Israelis have also sold their birthright as moral human beings in order to serve bogus U.S. foreign policy goals in the Middle East that do NOT serve Israel’s own national interests at all — nor America’s either.
PS: Here’s a link to an article written by Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, “As a Holocaust Survivor, AIPAC Does Not Speak for Me”: http://www.moveoveraipac.org/2011/04/as-a-holocaust-survivor-aipac-does-not-speak-for-me/ “At the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible….”
16 Comments
Great job, jane…! I’d only quibble with some of the facts, like Israel has 400-450 nukes, not 200, and, it’s PTSD, not PTSS…! ;-)
An excellent diary. Israel began with such promise and I agree that they are destroying themselves with our help.
Really sad. Thank you for writing.
Some day soon the American’s will be leaving the Middle East. The American dollar, the American economy, the American Empire, are finished. Israel and Saudi Arabia will have to come to terms with Iran (and Turkey?). Zionism may have to compromise with the necessity for survival.
A worthy view well expressed Jane — thank you for taking the time and effort to post this at FDL…hopefully the excellent I/P Conflict posts that show up here at FDL will garner more comment follow up as they surely deserve support and endorsement.
Rain begins with drops of water and what are streams,rivers and floods but so many drops of water that began as rain?
This I/P Conflict needs the rain of reason and streams,rivers and floods of pushback on what Israel has done or does as well as directly encouraging the Palestinians to go all Gandhi on TelAviv and WashtingtonDC.
Concur with comments above — each and every rain drop counts.
Actually since the late 19th century, the Zionists’ intent was to remove all Arabs from Palestine. In May 1948, when the British Mandate ended, over 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their homes and forced to flee (“Nakba”)and 400 Palestinian village were destroyed by the Israeli army.
Yes, the US is complicit in Israel’s continuing persecution of the Palestinians. Without our help, Israel might have been forced to make friends with the Arabs in Palestine and throughout the Middle East.
As I see it the basic premise of your article is flawed. Israel is not a victim it is a perpetrator. They take advantage of American cyncicism, imperialism, and moral cowardice, yes, that is not the same as being a victim of American cyncicism, imperialism, and moral cowardice.
Suleiman Aydin
And here is maybe the latest lousy decision of the State Department and White House concerning events in Palestine. As for Obama, what else can we expect from him since he agreed to be the poodle in the US-Israel relationship:
The Administration Fumbles Palestinian Unity
April 28, 2011
MJ Rosenberg
PS: Thanks for your writing and analysis.
I think Jane does draw attention to Israel’s “victim” propaganda and its casting of Palestinians in the role of “terrorists,” especially Hamas, a pretty slick manuever that exploited 9/11 a decade ago, while it continued the occupation and relentless colonialism of Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Real good piece here. You are drawing back the curtain to describe how criminal governments have and are damaging their own people. The US gov. being the poster child for citizen abuse.
You make another good point, although not directly, about who is using who in the US/Israeli relationship. Chomsky has argued that it is the US who uses Israel as a forward base in the Middle East but even if you accept that then you must admit they are being paid damn well for the use. It is clear that the Zionist control the US congress and presidency. The sweetest whistleblow of all would be to know what they have on them; it just can’t all be campaign money.
Arab spring may pollinate an American spring and the next notch or two down in the American public’s economic experience may be all it takes for the call for real answers and the demand for responsibility in the criminal acts of the last ten years. The fearmongers and warmongers would be wise to contemplate their futures.
Chomsky’s view on the US-Israel relationship is one-sided and entirely focused on the US dependence on oil. Oil was his interpretation of our motives in attacking Iraq, for example. Entirely left out of the picture is Israel’s manipulation of US politics in order to cover its occupation and colonialism of the Palestinian territories. I don’t appreciate his view on the nature of the Israel-US relationship, with the White House and Congress alike. In Obama’s backtracking after the Cairo speech, he looked like a dog with his tail between his legs.
@ shergald May 1st, 2011 at 2:02 pm
They are doing exactly as that other white settler state – South Africa, did and demonising and denigrating their opponents and those they oppress as much as they can.
Suleiman Aydin
Good analysis. I think that if the US had come down hard on israel after the USS Liberty incident, aipac could have been controlled. After all, Ike made everybody, including israel, withdraw from the Suez invasion and didn’t suffer any consequences. The stealing of the Palestinian lands may have then been curtailed. To keep harping on Hamas being a terrorist group is primarily to keep from having to make any adjustment to the policy of “peace will only come on israel’s terms.”
Not many would disagree with your perspective. What you describe is undoubtedly the configuration Israel is moving toward, the Apartheid state Jimmy Carter warned about, which some would say is already with us. Greater Israel, the colonization of all of old Palestine seems to be its goal, minus cantons of Palestinians, surrounded and in some cases actually walled in (like Qalqilia), by Israeli military.
And Israel is using its victim-security propaganda as a rationale to go there. The Palestinians have nothing to lose at this stage, and the worse thing they could do is follow Israel’s directives in regard to the peace process. There is no peace process; it is all a sham.
Great essay, Jane, thank you. I would quibble only with your calling Israel a “victim” of U.S. foreign policy. It seems to me that Israel is the tail that wags the U.S. dog, and most of us in the U.S. are unwitting victims of Israel’s control of our government.
That’s why this joke isn’t really a joke: “Why doesn’t Israel want to be the 51st state? Because then they’d have only two senators.”
When President Carter warned us about the destructive power that Israel and its U.S. supporters (the Zionist lobby) wage in our government, he was attacked as an anti-semite. We don’t want to know about the Congress people and Senators who have admitted that criticism of Israel, no matter how mild or justified, will result in smear campaigns and extremely well-funded candidates to run against them. We don’t want to know about academics
who speak out against Israel’s illegal campaign of ethnic cleansing, land and resource theft, apartheid and racism against the Palestinians, only to see their careers destroyed by vicious campaigns run by such people as Harvard prof Alan Dershowitz.
We ignore the fact that Israel has made a science of undermining international law by violating it with impunity, thanks to U.S. protection. For example, “extrajudicial assassination” used to be a shocking concept, but Israel made killing people without arrest or trial so commonplace that now the U.S. does it and thinks nothing of it.
The survivors of Israel’s attack of the USS Liberty, by the way, and their families, are still waiting for justice. gtr5.com is their website.
Another good website, this one about the middle east from an American Jewish perspective, is mondoweiss.net.
How true…!
I’d add that +972 magazine is a great Israeli website…!