ZGram - 12/4/2002 - "US Policy Toward Israel - Stop Pretending"
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Wed, 4 Dec 2002 08:47:42 -0800
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny
December 4, 2002
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
Another voice of reason! Read it and pass it on!
The writer of this essay is a retired senior foreign service officer
of the United States Department of State.
[START]
US Policy Toward Israel -
Stop Pretending
Terrell E. Arnold
12-4-2
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher last week expressed deep
US concern about recent civilian casualties, including the death of
UN director of reconstruction, Mr. Ian Hook, resulting from Israeli
military actions. That expression of concern, as far as it went, was
appropriate and timely, but Boucher went on to say that the United
States remains solidly behind Israel's efforts to combat terrorism,
and he concluded by saying that Washington's concerns are not a
condemnation of the Israeli offensive.
That formula appears designed more to avoid offending Israeli
leadership than to secure corrective action, and the Israelis seem to
treat the formula as a continuing carte blanche endorsement of their
actions in the West Bank and Gaza. They normally reject rather than
respond to any criticism.
In the meantime, under an asserted 'war on terrorism' the Israeli
Defense Force operates without restraint throughout the West Bank and
Gaza, keeps three million Palestinians under rigorous curfew and
surveillance, has brought the Palestinian economy to a standstill,
destroys homes and properties only alleged to be related to
militants, protects old and new settlers as the settlements continue
to expand, and regularly shoots people who are only suspected of
being terrorists. On the other hand, the Palestinians, who have no
army, are not supposed to fight back; if they do, they are treated as
terrorists.
It is time for the United States to stop pretending that any part of
the IDF operation in the West Bank and Gaza is acceptable. Israeli
shootings of people who have neither been tried nor found guilty of
crime, the IDF occupation, continuing settlement building, and
Israeli treatment of the Palestinians as inferior are constant
provocations to which the Palestinians respond with suicide bombings.
Both Israeli and US models of the War on Terrorism involve disturbing
erosion of the justice system and of national sovereignty. Israel has
the only armed force in Palestine, and we have not objected to
Israeli use by the IDF of accusation and suspicion as justifications
for killing Palestinians. We, the United States, therefore, have
bought into a corruption of the international justice system by
placing the fight against terrorism outside the law. The United
States moved into this same shadow land with the assassination of six
suspected Al Qaida members in Yemen. Israel ignores any sovereign
rights the Palestinians may have or aspire to enjoy. The US has
indicated that in the War on Terrorism national boundaries may not
deter attacks on suspected terrorists.
US tolerance for Israeli excesses in the West Bank and Gaza is a
reflection of our own creeping loss of moral focus. The Israeli
treatment of Palestinians is not right, and we know it. We may use
the Palestinian suicide bombings, as the Israelis do, as an excuse
for the occupation, but those bombings are constantly provoked by IDF
actions. As a rule, the United States would be working overtime to
terminate the occupation of any other country by a hostile army, but
not in the case of Israel. We would be screaming for explanations of
such attacks as the killing of Ian Hook, but not from Israel. We
would hold any other aid receiving country to legal standards of
accountability and performance, but not Israel. And now we encourage
the Israelis in their attitude toward international criticism or
responsibility by ignoring Israel=E2s acquisition of weapons of mass
destruction and Israel=E2s failures to comply with more than 30 UN
resolutions, while pounding Iraq for far lesser infractions in both
fields.
The =E3special relationship=E4 with Israel has been a cornerstone of US
policy for more than half a century. However, from the beginning it
provided political cover to Israeli excesses, starting with the
systematic expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and property in
the late 1940s, to which we did not object. In recent years, it has
provided for greater economic and military assistance to Israel than
to any other country. In fact, US aid to Israel in some years has
equaled aid to all other countries combined, and if the currently
requested package goes through, it will be more than twice US aid to
all other countries in 2003.
What have we gotten for those enormous investments of our national
prestige and treasure? Rewards are hard to find. The US Congress
decided to fund the peace process initiated by the Camp David Accords
by giving half of worldwide US assistance to Israel and Egypt, mainly
to Israel. But at present and for the indefinite future Israeli
excesses in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to remain the chief
stumbling blocks to peace in the Middle East. Our largely uncritical
support of Israel, despite continuing excesses, has alienated much of
the Arab world and many others as well. And now, unless effective
ways are found to moderate Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians,
our future is at risk due to increasing terrorism by people
sympathetic to the Palestinians and/or opposed to Israel.
The solution is not rejection, but a more balanced relationship. We
cannot continue to acquiesce in Israeli military destruction of the
Palestinian state. Polite criticism accompanied by unwavering support
is a giant hypocrisy. We have to work on getting and keeping the
Palestinians on a path to peace, but Israelis have to recognize that
the special relationship is a two way street, and they must start
delivering on their part of the peace process. Israel must accept
that much of its current predicament is its own doing, and therefore
the only way out is for Israel to behave responsibly toward the
region and its neighbors. Israel should begin to repay its enormous
debt to us, variously estimated at $85 billion, instead of using its
clout with the US Congress to get that debt forgiven.
=46inally, we must not allow the War on Terrorism or the special
relationship to undermine the values that have made our country
great. No relationship with any country is worth that order of
sacrifice. It is time to stop pretending that the relationship in its
present form is a good thing. It clearly is not, and it is costing us
dearly with everyone else.
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(Source: =1Fhttp://www.rense.com/general32/pretned.htm )