POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY DOUG SAUNDERS IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
That has always been true, a secure state whose people are assisted by Israel would have been a blessing.
Imagine
how much progress could have been made had Israel not spent a gigantic
fortune on its military and destruction and killing? Its spending is out
of all proportion to its size. It is a garrison state. And its
brutality on a per capita basis is world class.
But Israel's policy from the start was "the iron wall" towards the Palestinians, not helpfulness or friendship.
Einstein
has been proven absolutely right in his views on Israel: he favored
Jewish settlement in the Middle East, but he thought a formal Jewish
state would be a great mistake.
Israel's leaders
for years have viewed the Palestinians only as a burden to be gotten
rid of, and it has viewed their land - the West Bank, Gaza, and East
Jerusalem - as a land bank for Israeli expansion.
There
is no other way to understand Israel's behavior, and that is why it is
utterly stupid to say to the Palestinians - as Obama did and Harper did -
that the way to peace is through negotiating with Israel.
Israel has never once been an honest negotiator, and the United States has never once been an honest broker.
And
the whole world ignores the fact that the 1967 war was engineered by
Israel precisely to achieve in the future a Greater Israel, and Greater
Israel is what Israel relentlessly works towards year after year,
stealing more property and abusing more people.
_____________________________
"Why can't Obama and Harper just do it. They really are little men."
Yes, absolutely.
But consider how rare it is in this world for any leader to show genuine statesmanship?
It almost never happens, because it involves risks, the stuff of genuinely heroic behavior.
In
Obama's case, the answer is straightforward. He has proved an unpopular
and largely unsuccessful president on almost every front, and he faces
an election in which he needs all the campaign funds and favorable press
comment he can get - just the things the Israel Lobby can provide in
exchange for assuming the "right" posture towards the Middle East.
That's
exactly the situation Harry Truman found himself in with the intense
lobby to recognize the self-proclaimed state of Israel. Truman's
instincts were that early recognition of the terrorists and army running
people off their land was not wise, but he faced an uphill election and
the Israel Lobby, by Truman's own description, was intense beyond
anything he experienced. So he granted early recognition and started the
ball rolling towards the godawful mess we now have.
In
Harper's case, he not only mimics everything America does, but he
clearly hopes to establish a smaller version of the financial political
mechanism that dominates United States policy. He will make our politics
even more dependent upon private large donations by doing away with
Ottawa's support for parties, he will then aim at those groups who can
best finance Conservative ambitions, and that certainly includes
Canada's proportionately smaller but still important Jewish population.
There
was a day when most Jewish people - owing to their own history of
suffering and abuse - overwhelmingly supported liberal or progressive
parties and leaders.
But the existence and
behavior of Israel has greatly changed that fact. You simply cannot be
an unquestioning supporter of Israel today and keep a sense of fairness
and decency. Israel has proved a destructive and divisive political
actor.
_______________________________
"From
Israel to America, from Argentina to Swaziland, the people want one
thing while their democratically elected governments supposed to
represent the people and implement the will of the people, want another
thing.”
A very true observation.
By a recent poll the government of Israel no more represents what most people want than Harper's government in Canada does.
The
American political system especially has been carefully built to keep a
superficial resemblance of democracy while in fact completely catering
to special interests.
Who are the special interests? Those who finance the campaigns.
