Israel

When it comes to Israel and its position in the Middle East, there are no progressives in Congress, there are only cowards. I am an American of Jewish descent who has made it my responsibility to learn the history of the dispossession of 700,000 Palestinian people and the complicity on the part of the United States in the militarization of Israel to maintain our control of the region's resources. It's all there in the history books, but starting with the Woodrow Wilson administration and culminating with George Bush the Second’s, there has been a very calculated campaign to pervert that history to keep the American people ignorant and fearful of the so-called "terrorists" who supposedly threaten the existence of Israel and our interests in the Middle East. In actuality, the U.S. has helped create those "terrorists" in every perverted move it has made, from supporting the Muslim Brotherhood against Arab nationalism to invading Lebanon in futile attempts to squelch guerilla movements like Hezbollah, which gained the support of the Lebanese people in the conflict of 2006. The U.S., along with its other western allies who have allowed us to call the shots, is largely responsible for the abysmal situation in the Middle East and for the civilian deaths and destruction suffered by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and the Israelis.

To my knowledge, not one Democrat (except for Dennis Kucinich). has had the guts to stand up and acknowledge the lies, distortions, and propaganda that are spewed out on a daily basis by every administration, by Congress, and by the mainstream media. How many Americans know abut the refusnik Israeli military pilots who have refused to fly bombing missions that kill civilians indiscriminately, or the editor of an Israeli newspaper who has provided a point by point analysis of how we have arrived at this insane moment in history when the Israeli government is perpetrating atrocities that turn the entire world against it (and its military supplier, the U.S.) and turn poor, disenfranchised, angry young Arab men and women into jihadists? What they do is tragic and counterproductive; what we are doing is obscene. And as one of the refusniks pointed out, as he traveled around this country speaking out about what is going on in his country, what is equally obscene is that the majority of Americans are completely ignorant of the fact that there is a peace movement in Israel and in Palestine. That knowledge would not serve our purpose of controlling the Middle East.

Until Congress takes a stand against these policies, now threatening the stability of the entire world, and the media begins to do its job of giving voice to those who try to speak truth to power, the Obama administration will have a free hand to continue its control by force. Is Iran next? I saw a film clip of the 60 Minutes Mike Wallace interview of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Or really, it wasn’t an interview but an assault, the only way the arrogant octogenarian Wallace knew how to pretend to be a journalist. As Wallace asked his snide questions and acted out his grievances, Ahmadinejad, through an interpreter, actually tried to say something about the relations between his country and the U.S. in the larger context of Middle East politics, but Wallace was not about to have him appear as a statesman, with opinions based in historical context (and, unfortunately, in an Islamic fundamentalist vision of economic progress and social regression). He had to be demonized, like all the rest of the Arab leaders (except for Saudi Arabian kings and princes who cut off peoples hands as punishment but send their oil in the right direction), so that our invasions become liberations and our occupations become democratization.

How did the Jewish lobby in this country become so powerful? Why do otherwise liberal and progressive Jews sit on their hands when it comes to criticizing Israel or Zionism? Why did they allow Bush and Cheney to invoke the Holocaust at every turn in the road in their “fight against terrorism”, which has suddenly morphed into a “fight against fascism”? Why do Jews continue to let a Holocaust culture excuse Israeli and American imperialism that continues to turn the world against us and create real anti-Semitism? Before he died, Columbia University professor, author, and activist Edward Said had come to the conclusion that a two-state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli problem would never work. The only hope was for a one-state homeland to both Arabs and Jews, where an elected government could actually represent the interests of the Palestinian population.

That will probably never happen in our lifetime. Palestinian political disorganization and lack of leadership are no match for the Zionist and Israeli guiding principle, aided and abetted by the U.S. Santa Fe author and activist Kathleen Christison, in her book Perceptions of Palestine, quotes Said complaining about the Palestinians’ “historical inability as a people to focus on a set of national goals, and single-mindedly to pursue them with methods and principles that are adequate to these goals.” And no American president and no American Congress, Republican or Democrat, will ever see Palestine as anything but an impediment to Israel. When as brilliant an advocate as Said becomes filled with such despair over any hope of solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, it makes us cynical as well. But I mourn the loss of his constant attention and passion to the situation. Without it, we are even further removed from a solution.

A Not Very Hopeful Solution: Create a one-state homeland to both Arabs and Jews, where an Arab majority will have to find the political will to create a democratic and just society.