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?

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 Arabs created this quagmire by not accepting the original partition.
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 interenational 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.
     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.