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The elephant in the room :
Why Palestine should concern all Americans
one American's thoughts
Injustice can be found all
too easily around the world -- in Darfur, Burma, Timor, Tibet, Haiti,
Diego Garcia, to note but a few. What separates Palestine from these?
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the extent to which
extreme injustice and suffering is wholly dependent on US complicity
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what that complicity
symbolizes globally about our country
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how that complicity is
corrupting United States internal affairs and damaging our nation.
Palestine is about much more than just Palestine.
As most of the world sees it, what we cause in Palestine is counter to
every value for which we claim to stand. For much of the world, Palestine
is the symbol of American colonialism in what professes to be a
post-colonial world. Palestine has become iconographic of the abyss
between what we say and what we do, of what is seen as the immorality and
dishonesty of US foreign policy. For Americans who are bewildered at the
hatred against our country in much of the world, answers are most obvious
in Palestine.
Reconsidering Assumptions
1
The Palestinians created this quagmire by not accepting the original
partition.
Firstly, what is often forgotten is that the
Zionists refused a proposal for a bi-national state before the
Palestinians refused to accept the partition, and before that, refused
offers of resettlement to other countries. Israel was a political
goal, not a means to a haven for persecuted Jews.
The creation of Israel in 1948 was
predicated on a 1947 UN mandate which would have given about 45% of
Palestine to the Palestinians, and about 55% to the new state of Israel
(U.N. history). The Arabs' refusal to accept this plan is often
cited as the origins of the conflict. But one needs to ask, then, Why
should Palestinians have forfeited more than half their country at the
pressure of political groups such as Irgun and Lehi, both of which were
considered terrorist organizations? To achieve their goal, these groups
used violence against three main targets:
-- terrorism against the West, most notoriously Menachem Begin's
bombing of the King David Hotel
-- terrorism against
Palestinians, most notoriously the
April 9, 1948
massacre in Dayr Yassin by Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the
Stern Gang.
-- terrorism against Jews to force them from surrounding regions to
emigrate to Israel. To quote
one such displaced Jew, an Iraqi, "Jews from Islamic lands did not
emigrate willingly to Israel... to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews;
and to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous
occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors."
And since Nazi atrocities were said to be a principal
rationale for the creation of Israel, one needs also to ask, Why would
Palestinians, innocent of any complicity in the Holocaust, be the ones to
give up their land, rather than Germany or another involved nation? In
truth, of course, the origins of the nation of Israel predate the
Holocaust, dating back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
Influential people such as Alan Dershowitz
(allegedly plagiarizing Joan Peters) have popularized notions of an Israel
founded on an essentially uninhabited region, or of land vacated as a
result of an Arab radio broadcast instructing listeners to flee, or land
purchased legally from willing parties. No serious scholar, including
Israeli, believe such myths. Where the government of Israel claims to have
"made the desert bloom", were in truth Palestinian villages with
centuries-old agriculture, villages that were leveled and whose very names
have now been erased from maps.
2
This issue is too
complicated for non-experts. We don't really know what's going on there.
If this is so, one should be able to
examine the "complications" and be satisfied that they are actually
integral to the problem, rather than being used to obfuscate it. In fact,
the "complications" prove either to be irrelevant, or a direct
result of the injustice. The core issue is remarkably simple.
The claim that we lack reliable knowledge of what
is happening in the Occupied Territories is a great irony, because the
reason there are no international observers is that Israel will not
let them in. Palestine has for years implored the world community for such
monitors, but Israel steadfastly refuses to allow them. Why?
Further, the independent international witnesses and
human rights workers who are in the Occupied Territories are remarkably
consistent in what they report.
3
Why can't the Palestinians just
compromise?
Rather, the Palestinians are the only ones ever to
have compromised, because negotiations have always been framed
around their getting less than what is legally theirs under international
law, and Israel giving up nothing to which it is legally not entitled. It
is important to understand that Palestine is not "disputed" territory, as
we often hear in the US media. It is
occupied. This is not a partisan judgment, but a simple matter of
international law. Negotiations between Israel and Palestine have never
involved Israel returning all it illegally holds, yet for the word
"compromise" to have any meaning, that would have to be the mere starting
point. Though framed as "concessions" by Israel, its proposals have been a
matter of how much stolen land it will, or will not, return, and how much
Palestinian control over its own water sources and internal affairs it
will, or will not, allow.
Even with such compromise from the Palestinians,
Israel has never lived up to its obligations in any peace plan. As but one
example, whereas under the Oslo accords Israel agreed to halt the growth
of their illegal settlements, the number of settlers instead accelerated (graph).
Perhaps the most publicized Israeli "concession" was
Ariel Sharon's dismantling of the settlements in the Gaza Strip. This
however was nothing but a strategic move in a cynical chess game; not only
were these settlements illegal anyway, but they had become a logistical
liability, and the fanfare accompanying their dismantling provided cover
for the taking of far more new land in the West Bank than that left behind
in Gaza. When 7000 settlers left the Gaza Strip, 15,000 moved into the
West Bank.
Israel has for decades operated in violation of
international laws, human rights conventions, and sundry United Nations
resolutions, most famously the 1967 UN
Security Council Resolution 242, which calls, among other measures,
for Israel's immediate vacating of Palestinian land and its permitting of
freedom of navigation through international waterways.
See also
UN Resolutions, and
United States Security Council Vetoes.
4
Israel has repeatedly offered
the Palestinians their own nation.
In stark contrast to the general perception in the
United States, Palestinians have never been offered their own viable
nation. Even one of Israel's chief negotiators,
Schlomo Ben-Ami,
has conceded this. For example, under the
much-touted Camp David accord (2000), Palestinians were offered a series
of disconnected strips of land that would be dissected with extensions of
Israel. Palestine would not have had actual national autonomy, nor control
of its own borders, nor control of its water supply, nor air space, nor
would Palestinians have unfettered travel from one disconnected segment of
Palestine to another, and Israeli-controlled roads would traverse their
land. This was heralded in the United States as a dramatic gesture by
Israel that was foiled by an unappreciative Arafat.
Watch this analysis by the Israeli human rights organization, Gush
Shalom, or
read an analysis in FAIR.
To cite the scholars
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt :
"not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the Palestinians a viable
state. Ehud Barak’s purportedly generous offer at Camp David would have
given them only a disarmed set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli
control." (Rabin, assassinated by an
Israeli for signing the Oslo Accords, was often regarded as a peace-maker.
5
But shouldn't Israel have the right
to defend itself?
To nip this mantra in the bud, of
course Israel, like all nations, has every right to defend itself. But to
say that Israel is defending itself against Palestine is to say that
Palestine is attacking Israel. Quite the opposite, of course, is the case.
This is an important legal and moral point: Israeli retribution against
Palestinian self-defense is not Israel defending itself. Further, many
of Israel's policies serve no defensive purpose whatsoever, having no
possible motivation but to oppress and demoralize the Palestine
population.
Ongoing sonic booms, indiscriminate bombings,
razing of villages, bulldozing of homes, destruction of olive trees, webs
of crippling check-points, forced break-up of families, implicit tolerance
of settler violence, dumping of sewage into the Palestinians' water
supply, the kidnapping and
torture of citizens and elected officials, theft of its government's
till, and the attempts to erase their history and very identity, render
life among Palestinians a living hell that has ravaged every aspect of
Palestinian life except its peoples' will to resist. So what, then, does
Israel claim to be defending itself against? Israel claims to be defending
itself against the low-tech missiles fired into its territory from Gaza
or, occasionally, the West Bank, and from suicide bombers. But these are
reactions to the occupation, not visa-versa. Israel's military endeavors
are to acquire yet more land, and have nothing to do with defense. Even
its apartheid wall is routed not for protection, but to annex more of
Palestine and to render the rest unlivable; that is, preparing it future
annexation.
6
Israeli soldiers kill civilians only
in self-defense, or when militants use civilians as shields.
We saw above that since Israel is
the aggressor, civilian deaths would be culpable even if ostensibly in
self-defense. But in addition, the Israeli military's deliberate targeting
of civilians, including children, is well-documented (see, for example,
Chris Hedges,
a journalist who "watched [Israeli] soldiers entice [Palestinian] children
like mice into a trap and murder them for sport," or the reports of
various human rights groups). The charge that Palestinian fighters use
civilians as shields is invoked habitually without evidence, and quite to
the contrary Israeli human rights organizations have witnessed the Israeli
military's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. In all the years
of its occupation, Israel has steadfastly refused to allow UN or other
international observers, despite Palestinian pleas. Why? While this has
limited outside witnesses in Palestine, one need only look at Lebanon, in
particular the village of Qana, to find overwhelming first-hand witness to
deliberate Israeli targeting of civilians and use of weapons banned by
civilized nations.
7
Palestine precipitated the
conflicts of the summer of 2006 by kidnapping an Israeli soldier.
Palestine, at this writing, holds
one Israeli soldier. Israel illegally holds ten thousand Palestinian
political prisoners, including children, democratically elected members of
the Palestinian government, and mere family members of those sought. Many
of these prisoners are tortured, and some "disappear". The US media remain
mute about this. Whereas these kidnappings are contrary to international
law, Palestine's holding of one Israeli soldier is in fact legal, as he is
a soldier in an occupying military.
8
Palestinian militant organizations
refuse to recognize Israel.
One must ask why the occupied are
expected to recognize the occupiers before the occupiers recognize the
occupied. Formal recognition of Israel is about the only bargaining chip
Palestinians have. Yet Hamas, to take the most visible example, has
explicitly stated that it will recognize a "permanent peace" with Israel,
but this is not mentioned in the mainstream American press. Here it should
be mentioned that the United States does not recognize Taiwan, but this is
hardly a problem in the two countries' peaceful relations.
Further, Israel refuses to define its own borders; what
country could possibly be expected to recognize a neighboring country that
will not commit to where its borders lie? Once Israel ends the occupation,
recognizes Palestine, and defines its own borders, Palestinian political
organizations may fairly be asked to address recognition of Israel.
In 2002, all 22 members of the Arab League approved a
Saudi plan that offered not just full recognition, but indeed "normal
relations" with Israel, and asked only for a "just solution", not right of
return, for Palestinian refugees. Though this exchange for Israeli
withdrawal from Palestine was very similar to what Barack publicly claimed
to have offered at Camp David two years earlier, it was ignored by the
Israeli Government.
9
Historically, there has never been
peace between Arabs and Jews.
Quite the contrary, the historical
evidence demonstrates that Islamic lands were frequently a refuge for Jews
persecuted in Europe. While one certainly can find instances of conflict
between any two groups coexisting in the same region, Jews and Arabs
(whether Muslim or other faiths) have lived together in relative peace for
centuries. Indeed, were this not the case even in the 1940s, Israel's
architects would not have had to resort to intimidation and violence to
get many
Jews in neighboring Arab lands to emigrate to the new Jewish state.
10
What about terrorism?
Let's define terrorism as
deliberate violence against civilians for political ends, and agree that
it needs to be condemned unconditionally, no matter who the victims and
who the killers.
Who, then, are terrorists? The Arab youth who
straps explosives to her body and boards a civilian bus in Tel Aviv? The
Zionist extremists who murdered Palestinians, Jews, and Westerners to
force the creation of Israel? The Israeli soldier who daily fires on
unarmed Gazans in the knowledge that his actions will be tacitly condoned?
The fundamentalist settler in Hebron who with impunity "cleanses" a
neighborhood of its people? The occupation army that
demolishes houses and levels villages? The government that then denies
they ever existed? Are all terrorism, but only Palestinian terrorism is
labeled as such by the American media.
Governments and media harness the power of selective
language to subliminally pre-empt logical conclusions. Code words keep us
from critical thought. Strip away this veneer, and this more honest world
may look astonishingly topsy-turvy.
Still, it is true that Palestinians have killed and
maimed innocent Israelis. In any substantial population, there will be
good people, bad people, and every shade in between, and among three
million people living in intolerable oppression, it is inevitable that
some will turn to irrational means. Contrary to stereotypes, suicide
bombers are not necessarily religious fanatics, nor Muslim. Some are
Christian, and many have been educated people leading largely secular
lives. There has, however, been one common denominator -- desperation.
(Read, for example, Amira Haas' "Not
an Internal Palestinian Matter".)
That some members of any
particular group resort to such crimes, has no bearing on justice for the
rest. People thrown off their land and living in squalor are not any less
deserving of repatriation and reparation because of the crimes of anyone
else, whether in their ethnic/national group or not. Nothing here is to
excuse anyone's violence against any country's civilians, but rather to
dismiss the straw issue of terrorism as a mark against Palestinian
aspirations for justice.
11
About the notion that
anti-Semitism plays a role
in criticism of Israel...
To make an implicit link between bigotry against
Jews and the actions of the government of the nation-state of Israel, is
not only intellectually preposterous, but indeed, as we will see, is
itself anti-Jewish, and
trivializes true anti-Semitism. The facts and arguments of the political
situation either stand or fall on their own merits, period.
Those who attempt to silence criticism of Israel by
stigmatizing it as anti-Semitic corner themselves into a quandary, because
if Judaism and the government of Israel are implicitly linked, then
Judaism is also culpable for any crimes committed by Israel. In other
words, to link criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism is to engage in
precisely the same racist logic as the bigots who blame Jews, rather than
Israel, for the actions of that government. Shielding Israel's leaders
from legitimate criticism is also harmful to Israel itself, as it enables
them to drag their nation further into strategic and moral catastrophe.
It should also be noted that some of the most vocal
opponents of Israeli policy, most important scholars, human rights
workers, and witnesses, are Jews and Israelis, including the children of
Holocaust survivors. The prejudicing of honest debate about Israel and
Palestine by labeling defenders of Palestine as anti-Semitic must be
exposed for the cheap political ploy it is.
12
Right or wrong, Israel
is our ally, and
US-Israel policy is in the US national interest
Two scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,
recently
examined the US-Israeli relationship and
concluded that it is harmful to the United States. The United States gives
more than fifteen millions dollars a day to Israel, and does so
under favorable terms not afforded any other country. US foriegn policy
has long been molded around the interests of the Israeli government. Its
lobbyists support US lawmakers who do their bidding in Congress and
wage attack campaigns against those who resist.
Yet we have fought wars against nations for committing
a fraction of the crimes that Israel commits every day. We have attacked
nations in the belief that they might in the future develop an atomic
bomb, yet we helped Israel, which refuses to allow inspectors or to be
party to nuclear treaties, to make them. We have attacked nations for
defying United Nations Security Council resolutions, yet Israel has
flaunted them for decades. We have formed international coalitions to
fight countries that attack their neighbors, yet we repeatedly block
international condemnation of Israel for doing the same. We have put
leaders on trial for using banned weapons, yet Israel routinely commits
such war crimes with our money and support.
Israeli espionage in the US is tolerated as no other country's would
be. A four-part report by Fox News about the extent of Israel's spying on
the United States, and that the Israeli government had, but did not share,
prior knowledge of the September 11th attacks against us (not complicity
in, but intelligence of) were quickly pulled from that news site.
The videos were however archived by outside sources and can been viewed
here
(click "ok" to run active-x control if your browser asks).
As recorded in this
Library of Congress document (red highlighting added), in the
1960s Israel is believed to have stolen about 220 pounds of eriched
uranium from the United States, and 200 tons of ore from a
German ship in the Mediterranean. The US material was stolen
from an Apollo, Pennsylvania facility.
Not even
a deliberate, unprovoked act of war by Israel against a US naval
vessel was sufficient to stop this corruption of US self-interest and US
morality. On June 8, 1967, "Israel attacked our proud naval ship — the USS
Liberty — killing 34 American servicemen and wounding 172. Those men were
then betrayed and left to die by our own government." These are the words
of Adm. Thomas Moorer, who was commander of the 7th Fleet and later
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What did the US government do in
response to this attack by Israel against the United States? Adm. Moorer's
testimony is that "U.S. military rescue aircraft were recalled — not once,
but twice — through direct intervention by the Johnson administration.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s cancellation of the Navy’s attempt
to rescue the Liberty, which I confirmed from the commanders of the
aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, was the most disgraceful act I
witnessed in my entire military career." We would assume that in our open
society, such an act of war, and our government's deliberate delaying of
help to our troops, would warrant the full, immediate attention of
Congress. Instead, "Congress, to this day, has failed to hold formal
hearings on Israel’s attack on this American ship. No official
investigation of the attack has ever permitted the testimony of the
surviving crewmembers" (-Adm. Moorer).
Why did Israel attack a US vessel? There are three
theories, none mutally exclusive.
-- to keep the US from observing Israel's attack on the Golan Heights. The
Golan offensive was delayed when the Liberty arrived in the area, then
took place the day after the Liberty was crippled. The coincidence of
timing supports this theory.
-- because Israel was then conducting mass executions of Egyptians in El
Arish, onshore 13 miles from the Liberty. Bedouin villagers claim to have
witnessed the executions, and the
mass graves discovered there, along with the later admission of such
atrocities by Israeli officers, support this theory.
-- Israel's intention of framing Egypt for the attack.
The testimony of the surviving United States crew,
along with evidence and documnets,
is available online. But just as the Israeli government's account of
its actions in Palestine are always accepted against those of
Palestinians and human rights workers, so was its claim of an "accidental"
attack on the Liberty taken above those of every witness, the
preponderance of evidence, and every major official privy to the case
except one -- Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who twice stopped
assistance from reaching the ship.
Our alliance to Israel has damaged our security, our
economy, the integrity of our institutions, our freedom, and our national
soul. With our complicity in Israel's destruction of Palestine, we have
been destroying ourselves.
Selected Introductions -- Films
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land -- U.S. Media and the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
(Ratzkoff & Jhally)
Palestine is Still the Issue (John
Pilger)
Selected Introductions --
Web Sites
If Americans Knew
Vermonters for a
Just Peace in Palestine /Israel
An Introduction to the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Norman Finkelstein)
Sunni, Shi'a, & other branches of Islam
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