I
believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S.
president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to
suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized
in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful
and intimidating, but any determined president-even President Bush
this very day-could prevail and win overwhelming public support for
the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American
people:
Israel's present government, like its
predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank-biblical Judea
and Sumaria-so Israel will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox
Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the
Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality.
Although a minority in Israel, they are
committed, aggressive, and inflluential. Because of deep religious
conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining
statehood on any part of the West
Bank.
In its violent assaults on Palestinians,
Israel uses the pretext of eradicating terrorism, but its forces are
actually engaged advancing the territorial expansion just cited.
Under the guise of anti-terrorism, Israeli forces treat Palestinians
worse than cattle.
With due process nowhere to be found,
hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured. Some
are assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are
destroyed. Entire cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some
confinements lasting for weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing
emergency medical care are routinely held at checkpoints for an hour
or more. Many children are undernourished.
The West Bank and Gaza have become giant
concentration camps. None of this could have occurred without U.S.
support. Perhaps Israeli officials believe life will become so
unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually leave their
ancestral homes.
Once beloved worldwide, the U.S.
government finds itself reviled in most countries because it
provides unconditional support of Israeli violations of the United
Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of all major
religious faiths.
How did the American people get into
this fix?
Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35
years ago when Israel's U.S. lobby began its unbroken success in
stifling debate about the proper U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli
conflict and effectively concealed from public awareness the fact
that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical support to
Israel.
Thanks to the
suffocating influence of Israel's U.S. lobby, open discussion of the
Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government all
these years. I have firsthand knowledge,
because I
was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs
Committee in June 1967 when Israeli military forces took control of
the Golan Heights, a part of Syria, as well as the Palestinian West
Bank and Gaza. I continued as a member for 16 years and to this day
maintain a close watch on
Congress.
For 35 years, not a word
has been expressed in that committee or in either chamber of
Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy. No
restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have been
offered for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years
received more than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of
Israel, even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated
as downright unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence
of free speech was assured when those few who spoke out - Senators
Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy, and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey,
Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard, and myself -
were defeated at the polls
by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel
forces.
As a result, legislation
dealing with the Middle East has been heavily biased in favor of
Israel and against Palestinians and other Arabs year after year.
Home constituencies, misled by news coverage equally lop-sided in
Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress behaves as if
it were a subcommittee of the Israeli
parliament.
However, the bias is widely noted beyond
America, where most news media candidly cover Israel's conquest and
generally excoriate America's complicity and complacency. When
President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as "my dear friend" and "a
man of peace" after Israeli forces, using U.S.-donated arms,
completed their devastation of the West Bank last spring, worldwide
anger against American policy reached the boiling
point.
The fury should surprise no
one who reads foreign newspapers or listens to BBC. In several
televised statements long before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, believed by
U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity in
Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal
complaint. Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express
their opposition to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and
severity, especially since Bush announced his determination to make
war against Iraq.
The lobby's intimidation remains
pervasive. It seems to reach every government center and even houses
of worship and revered institutions of higher learning. It is highly
effective in silencing the many U.S. Jews who object to the lobby's
tactics and Israel's brutality.
Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty
deserve maximum punishment, but it makes sense for America to
examine motivations promptly and as carefully as possible. Terrorism
almost always arises from deeply-felt grievances. If they can be
eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are certain to
subside.
Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush
has made no attempt to redress grievances, or even to identify them.
In fact, he has made the scene far worse by supporting Israel's
religious war against Palestinians, an alliance that has intensified
anti-American anger. He seems oblivious to the fact that nearly two
billion people worldwide regard the plight of Palestinians as
today's most important foreign-policy
challenge.
No one in authority will admit a
calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded from the American
people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America suffered
9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly
because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in
Washington.
Israel is a scofflaw nation and should
be treated as such. Instead of helping Sharon intensify Palestinian
misery, our president should suspend all aid until Israel ends its
occupation of Arab land Israel seized in 1967. The suspension would
force Sharon's compliance or lead to his removal from office, as the
Israeli electorate will not tolerate a prime minister who is at odds
with the White House.
If Bush needs an additional reason for
doing the right thing, he can justify the suspension as a matter of
military necessity, an essential step in winning international
support for his war on terrorism. He can cite a worthy precedent.
When President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that freed
only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion, he make the
restriction because of "military necessity." If Bush suspends U.S.
aid, he will liberate all Americans from long years of bondage to
Israel's misdeeds.
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