Criticizing Almighty Israel and the Mafiosi Israel Lobby in Washington is dangerous business. My last article about them brought me accusations and threats.
Not all Israel supporters are as bad as they may sound. Some are simply brain washed. Most Americans grew up in an environment that reveres and fears the Almighty Israel. They are constantly fed guilt for the Holocaust because their ancestors hadn’t done enough to prevent it, and then convinced that Israel is Jews ultimate haven. Therefore, any objective review of Israel’s actions and policies disgracing peaceful Judaism is regarded as anti-smite and hate speech. Many decent people, including brave Jews, lost their reputation, life achievement and professional future for committing the crime of criticizing Holy Israel or doubting its authoritative linkage to the Jewish faith and race.
The unprecedented American support and protectiveness of Israel might be understandable if it was a vital strategic asset or if there was a compelling moral case. But neither explanation is convincing.
With the accumulated $140 billion in direct aid, not including costly military and diplomatic support, Israel wasn't much of help when needed, like during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. To secure oil routes and fields, America had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force.
Again, in the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003, Israel was an embarrassing liability. To maintain its alliance with the Muslim world, the US could not use Israeli bases or ask for its help.
As a crucial ally in the War on Terror, Israel was given a free hand in Palestine and Lebanon. But the terrorists who threaten Israel do not threaten America, except when it threatens them, directly or via proxies, like Israel. Palestinian violence is a response to Israel’s cruel colonization of their territories. America is attacked largely as punishment for its alliance with Israel. For more on this, read Jimmy Carter’s book " Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid"
As for Syria and Iran, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests. Here again, the alliance with Israel is a burden. Its vast nuclear arsenal is why Iran sought nuclear weapons in the first place. Still, Iran knows too well the dire consequences if it attacked America or its allies directly or via proxies. Israel stead-fast refusal to make land for peace deal with Syria and accept the Arab League 2002 Peace Initiative based on UN Resolution 242 prolonged the Arab-Israeli conflict and soured US crucial relations with 1.5 billion Muslims. For a bi-partisan American perspective, read the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group’s report.
For all the support and sacrifices, Israel doesn’t act the loyal partner. It habitually ignores US requests and renege on promises like refraining from building new settlements and ‘targeted assassinations’ of Palestinian leaders and not spying on its benefactor. According to the US General Accounting Office, Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally.” Some of the large quantities of classified material Jonathan Pollard provided Israel in early 1980s were passed on to the Soviet Union to secure more exit visas for Soviet Jews, comprising US security and exposing its intelligent posts and agents in Europe and the Communist Block. Sensitive American intelligence and military technologies were sold to China by Israelis. As recently as 2004, Larry Franklin, a key Pentagon official, passed sensitive classified materials to an Israeli diplomat with the help and cover of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
If backing the underdog is a justification, America should support the Arabs. A 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies concludes that “the strategic balance decidedly favors Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbors.”
Israel aggressive past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians who, by the way, had nothing to do with the Holocaust. In fact, Jews in Palestine were treated far better than in Europe and America. Today, Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens. A recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a “neglectful and discriminatory” manner towards them. Unlike the US, where the Constitution grants equal rights to people irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship—so much so for the "democratic state" myth.
I, finally, rest my case with a statement I copied from the Harvard study, “Israel Lobby,” attributed to the Jewish State founding father and its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who told the president of the World Jewish Congress, Nahum Goldmann: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
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