POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
He's supposed to be running for President of the United
States, a nation of more than 300 million people with plenty of problems.
So why is it that he goes to Israel to speak on matters
which are of no concern to most Americans?
Indeed, why does virtually every candidate and elected
Congressman take paid junkets to Israel, a nation of 7 million whose own
problems are immense and whose interests mostly have nothing to do with those
of the United States?
It's certainly not the ex-pat vote because that amounts to a
few hundred thousand people.
The answer of course is the relentless need for money by the
American political machine.
These guys are going to burn through hundreds of millions of
dollars in the next few months.
And the American Supreme Court has said that money is free
speech.
Well, the single best organized and financed special
interest there is is Israel and its American apologists.
When just one American billionaire can donate at least 18
million dollars to John McCain's efforts to gain the nomination, as Sheldon
Adelson very much did, it becomes clear that it is well worth while to make a
trip or two, done a yarmulke at the Wall, and make outlandish speeches.
Mr Adelson among others was reported as intending to attend
the campaign fund raiser in Israel.
This is the essence of government by and for special
interests.
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What is always left unsaid in statements like Romney's about
supporting an Israeli strike on Iran?
Iran has the capability of striking back.
So after Israel bombs yet one more nation, and that nation
turns its resources against Israel, as it will be entirely justified in doing
after an unprovoked attack, what will Israel's response be?
I think we all know that Netanyahu's lying bluster and threats
will immediately melt into special pleadings for help from the United States,
and the United States will be dragged into yet another war.
It would be a war which serves not one genuine American
interest, and, indeed, would do the opposite, alienating the hundreds of
millions of people whose native region Western Asia is.
Making policy commitments with those kinds of consequences
is beyond being stupid.
It may get him special-interest campaign contributions today
while just giving the American people he is supposed to serve one more gigantic
life- and money-wasting war.
That is how twisted American national politics have become.
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"Maybe its
something to do with a fellow democracy in a part of the world that is ruthless
and tyrannical..."
Oh please.
How is Israel a fellow democracy?
A democracy that insists on its being the "Jewish
state"?
How is that different to an Islamic state?
What kind of democracy kills 400 children in Gaza, a giant
refugee camp?
What kind of democracy drops a million cluster-bomblets on
Southern Lebanon?
What kind of democracy keeps people under occupation for the
best part of half a century?
What kind of democracy steals the homes and farms of those
it occupies regularly?
What kind of democracy keeps thousands in prison with no
proper legal proceedings?
What kind of democracy starts wars with every neighbor that
it has?
What kind of democracy has systematic practices that some of
the world's best ethical minds have declared are apartheid?
What kind of democracy allows insane settlers to shoot
people and cut down olive trees and take property with no penalties?
What kind of democracy doesn't allow women to approach a
national shrine from the same place as men?
What kind of democracy lets people exclude women from buses?
What kind of democracy makes atomic weapons deals with a
rogue statel like apartheid South Africa?
What kind of democracy has secret agents running around
assassinating people all the time?
What kind of democracy sends commandos to board a
humanitarian ship in international waters and shoots a number of the unarmed
people in the head?
The only past examples of “democracies” I can think of that
are even close are the American Confederacy and the previous governments of
South Africa and Rhodesia.
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"63% of Americans
support Israel he is representing the will of the majority in supporting
Israel."
"It is hard for
anti Israelis to understand democracy.”
As anyone familiar with statistics and polling knows it is
always possible to get different answers to the same questions just by asking
them in slightly different ways.
This matter came up in the Quebec referendum, and it is an
age-old one for pollsters.
Example: "Do you think Romney is a resolute man?"
as opposed to, "Do you think Romney a stubborn man?"
I guarantee different numbers to the two essentially-same
questions.
Again, positive responses to broad open questions like
"Do you support Israel?" are as meaningless as the question.
And quoting them, as you do, is dishonest.
Indeed, many respondents, afraid of being thought
anti-Semitic by an unknown caller on the other end of the line, would be
constrained to a positive response.
But if you ask the same question with some meat on the
bones, you will certainly get a different answer.
For example, "Do you support Israel's having illicit
nuclear weapons?"
Or, "Do you support Israel's shooting of 400 children
in Gaza?"
Or even, "Do you support Israel if its policies take
the United States into a costly war?"
And, no, it is not hard for critics of Israel to understand
democracy.
Indeed, just the opposite is true.
Israel's apologists seem blind to the traditional meanings
of democracy when it comes to any discussion of Israel.
We went through centuries of oppression to get to the
Enlightenment and to the institutionalizing of democratic and human values.
Today's Israel simply represents a giant step backward.
Indeed, I would add that it is the worst tyrannies who have
always been Israel's secret friends: Mubarak in Egypt, the kings of Saudi
Arabia, and the past government of South Africa.
Birds of a feather...
