t*******y
发帖数: 374 | 1 HofftingPost another article
AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy
The official name for Israel's latest assault on Gaza is "Operation
Protective Edge." A better name would be "Operation Déjà Vu." As it has on
several prior occasions, Israel is using weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers
to bombard the captive and impoverished Palestinians in Gaza, where the
death toll now exceeds 500. As usual, the U.S. government is siding with
Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel instigated the
latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions
make Washington look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the
world.
This Orwellian situation is eloquent testimony to the continued political
clout of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the other
hardline elements of the Israel lobby. There is no other plausible
explanation for the supine behavior of the U.S. Congress--including some of
its most "progressive" members--or the shallow hypocrisy of the Obama
administration, especially those officials known for their purported
commitment to human rights.
The immediate cause of this latest one-sided bloodletting was the kidnapping
and murder of three Israeli hikers in the occupied West Bank, followed
shortly thereafter by the kidnapping and fatal burning of a Palestinian
teenager by several Israelis. According to J.J. Goldberg's reporting in the
Jewish newspaper Forward, the Netanyahu government blamed Hamas for the
kidnappings without evidence and pretended the kidnapped Israelis were still
alive for several weeks, even though there was evidence indicating the
victims were already dead. It perpetrated this deception in order to whip up
anti-Arab sentiment and make it easier to justify punitive operations in
the West Bank and Gaza.
And why did Netanyahu decide to go on another rampage in Gaza? As Nathan
Thrall of the International Crisis Group points out, the real motive is
neither vengeance nor a desire to protect Israel from Hamas' rocket fire,
which has been virtually non-existent over the past two years and is largely
ineffectual anyway. Netanyahu's real purpose was to undermine the recent
agreement between Hamas and Fatah for a unity government. Given Netanyahu's
personal commitment to keeping the West Bank and creating a "greater Israel,
" the last thing he wants is a unified Palestinian leadership that might
press him to get serious about a two-state solution. Ergo, he sought to
isolate and severely damage Hamas and drive a new wedge between the two
Palestinian factions.
Behind all these maneuvers looms Israel's occupation of Palestine, now in
its fifth decade. Not content with having ethnically cleansed hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and not satisfied with owning
eighty-two percent of Mandatory Palestine, every Israeli government since
1967 has built or expanded settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
while providing generous subsidies to the 600,000-plus Jews who have moved
there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu
confirmed what many have long suspected: he is dead set against a two-state
solution and will never--repeat never--allow it to happen while he is in
office. Given that Netanyahu is probably the most moderate member of his own
Cabinet and that Israel's political system is marching steadily rightward,
the two-state solution is a gone goose.
Worst of all, the deaths of hundreds more Palestinians and a small number of
Israelis will change almost nothing. Hamas is not going to disband. When
this latest round of fighting ends, the 4.4 million Palestinians who live in
the West Bank and Gaza will still be Israel's de facto prisoners and still
be denied basic human rights. But they are not going to leave, mainly
because Palestine is their homeland, but also because they have nowhere to
go, especially given the turmoil in other parts of the Middle East.
Eventually another ceasefire will be negotiated. The dead will be buried,
the wounded will recover, the tunnels now being destroyed will be rebuilt,
and Hamas will replenish its stockpile of missiles and rockets. The stage
will then be set for another round of fighting, and Israel will have moved
further down the road to becoming a full-fledged apartheid state.
Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and policymakers continue to back a brutal
military campaign whose primary purpose is not to defend Israel but rather
to protect its longstanding effort to colonize the West Bank. Amazingly,
they continue to support Israel unreservedly even though every U.S.
president since Lyndon Johnson has opposed Israel's settlements project, and
the past three American presidents--Clinton, Bush and Obama--have all
worked hard for the two-state solution that Israeli policy has now made
impossible.
"The explanation for America's impotent and morally bankrupt policy is the
political clout of the Israel lobby."
Yet as soon as fighting starts, and even if Israel instigates it, AIPAC
demands that Washington march in lockstep with Tel Aviv. Congress invariably
rushes to pass new resolutions endorsing whatever Israel decides to do.
Even though it is mostly Palestinians who are dying, White House officials
rush to proclaim that Israel has "the right to defend itself," and Obama
himself won't go beyond expressing "concern" about what is happening. Of
course Israelis have the right to defend themselves, but Palestinians not
only have the same right, they have the right to resist the occupation. To
put this another way, Israel does not have the right to keep its Palestinian
subjects in permanent subjugation. But try finding someone on Capitol Hill
who will acknowledge this simple fact.
The explanation for America's impotent and morally bankrupt policy is the
political clout of the Israel lobby. Barack Obama knows that if he were to
side with the Palestinians in Gaza or criticize Israel's actions in any way,
he would face a firestorm of criticism from the lobby and his chances of
getting Congressional approval for a deal with Iran would evaporate.
Similarly, every member of the House and Senate--including progressives like
Senator Elizabeth Warren--knows that voting for those supposedly "pro-
Israel" resolutions is the smart political move. They understand that even
the slightest display of independent thinking on these issues could leave
them vulnerable to a well-funded opponent the next time they're up for re-
election. At a minimum, they'll have to answer a flood of angry phone calls
and letters, and, on top of that, they are likely to be blackballed by some
of their Congressional colleagues. The safer course is to mouth the same
tired litanies about alleged "shared values" between Israel and the U.S. and
wait till the crisis dies down. And people wonder why no one respects
Congress anymore.
To be sure, the lobby's clout is not as profound as it once was. Public
discourse about Israel, U.S. policy toward Israel and the lobby itself has
changed markedly in recent years, and a growing number of journalists,
bloggers and pundits--such as Andrew Sullivan, Juan Cole, Peter Beinart, M.J
. Rosenberg, Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, Bernard Avishai, Sara Roy,
Mitchell Plitnick, David Remnick, Phil Weiss and even (occasionally) Thomas
Friedman of the New York Times--are willing to speak and write candidly
about what is happening in the Middle East. Although most Americans openly
support Israel's existence--just as I do--their sympathy for an Israel that
acts more like Goliath than David is fading. The ranks of the skeptics
include a growing number of younger American Jews, who find little to admire
and much to dislike in Israel's actions and who are far less devoted to it
than were previous generations. Pro-peace groups such as J Street and Jewish
Voice for Peace reflect that trend and show that opinion among American
Jews is far from unified.
"The lobby is still able to keep roughly $3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel
flowing each year; it can still prevent U.S. presidents from putting
meaningful pressure on Israel; and it can still get the U.S. to wield its
veto whenever a resolution criticizing Israel's actions is floated in the U.
N. Security Council."
Moreover, AIPAC and other hardline lobby groups could not convince the Obama
administration to intervene in Syria, and they have been unable to convince
the Bush or Obama administrations to launch a preventive strike against
Iran's nuclear infrastructure. They have also failed to derail the nuclear
negotiations with Tehran--at least so far--though not for lack of trying.
Pushing the U.S. toward another Middle East war is a lot for any interest
group to accomplish, of course, but these setbacks show that even this "
leviathan among lobbies" does not always get its way.
But the lobby is still able to keep roughly $3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel
flowing each year; it can still prevent U.S. presidents from putting
meaningful pressure on Israel; and it can still get the U.S. to wield its
veto whenever a resolution criticizing Israel's actions is floated in the U.
N. Security Council. This situation explains why the Obama administration
made zero progress toward "two states for two peoples": if Israel gets
generous U.S. support no matter what it does, why should its leaders pay any
attention to Washington's requests? Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry
could only appeal to Netanyahu's better judgment, and we've seen how well
that worked.
This situation is a tragedy for all concerned, not least for Israel itself.
A Greater Israel cannot be anything but an apartheid state, and exclusionary
ethnic nationalism of this sort is not sustainable in the 21st century.
Israel's Arab subjects will eventually demand equal rights, and as former
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned back in 2007, once that happens, "
the state of Israel is finished."
Unfortunately, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and assorted Christian
Zionist groups continue to exhibit a severe case of tunnel vision. Because
defending Israel no matter what it does is their main raison d'etre (and
central to their fundraising), they are unable to see that they are helping
Israel drive itself off a cliff. Similarly, those pliant members of Congress
who cravenly sign AIPAC-drafted resolutions are not true friends of Israel.
They are false friends who pretend to care but are really only interested
in getting reelected.
Historians will one day look back and ask how U.S. Middle East policy could
be so ineffectual and so at odds with its professed values -- not to mention
its strategic interests. The answer lies in the basic nature of the
American political system, which permits well-organized and well-funded
special interest groups to wield significant power on Capitol Hill and in
the White House. In this case, the result is a policy that is bad for all
concerned: for the Palestinians most of all, but also for the U.S. and
Israel as well. Until the lobby's clout is weakened or politicians grow
stiffer spines, Americans looking for better outcomes in the Middle East had
better get used to disappointment and prepared for more trouble. | t*******y
发帖数: 374 | 2 这不是以色列及巴勒斯坦的问题，这是美国的关键问题之一，如果不是最关键问题的话
。 | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 3 Hahaha:
"Most Senators and Congressmen would sodomize their own mothers if AIPAC
told them to." | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 4 "Never Again" once meant "We will be the last people against whom the
atrocity was ever committed." Now it means "We get to commit the very
atrocity that was committed against us because it was committed against us." |
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