Sunday, September 20, 2009

THE TIRED NEWS THAT OBAMA IS TO HAVE A MEETING WITH ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

This does seem a tremendous waste of time.

Israel clearly has its own agenda, and that agenda does not include what any fair-minded person calls peace.

How can you have "peace" while you continue daily to steal the farms and homes and water of those with whom you are supposed to be making peace?

Of course, there's also Israel's re-creation of South African apartheid in all its unrelenting fury, treating millions as less than equal humans.

And what additionally do we have in Gaza?

A brutal blockade stopping assistance to a people who have done nothing other than elect a government Israel doesn't like, and that act of war (for so blockades are considered in international diplomacy) comes after a savage attack, killing hundreds and hundreds of civilians, including a great many children.

Israel insists it is a victim, but the claim is ridiculous on the face of it.

Israel is unrelentingly aggressive, and demonstrates no guiding principles of democracy and human rights towards others.

That ugly Israeli stance can only change if the United States finally shows some courage and stops sending a gigantic annual subsidy to a state that takes its money and then sneers back that it will do exactly as it pleases.

And, considering Israel’s supporters’ fine-tuned art of constantly lobbying Congress with targeted contributions, what does any realistic person believe are the chances of that?