- "It is even more obscenely unrealistic to tell the
Palestinians that they are responsible for the security of Israel. The
Palestinians, of course, have no state, no army, no air force and no nothing,
while Israel is ranked by many as being among the top 10 of military powers
in the world."
-
- U.S. policy toward the most destabilizing factor in the
Middle East " the Israeli-Palestinian conflict " is to support
Israel and to never offend the Israeli lobby.
-
- U.S. politicians use a number of rhetorical devices to
disguise this policy, since it guarantees not only a continuation of the
conflict, but a continuing supply of terrorists and an increasing hostility
toward American foreign policy in the region. They use rhetoric to pretend
to be interested in a solution.
-
- For example, they do not call things by their correct
names. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are not "disputed territories,"
nor are they Judea and Samaria. They are occupied territories. They were
occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. There is a long-standing United Nations
Security Council resolution calling on Israel to return those territories
to the Palestinians.
-
- The proper name for Jewish settlements in the occupied
territory is "illegal" settlements. The Geneva Accords, to which
Israel is a signatory, forbid the settlement of occupied territory, as
well as the expulsion of the native population.
-
- The proper name for Israeli tactics, such as the demolition
of homes, the destruction of agricultural property, the confiscation of
property, the imposition of curfews, the assassination of political opponents
and the blocking of roads, is "collective punishment," which
in most parts of the world is a considered a war crime. No civilized country
punishes innocent people for the misdeeds of an individual. No civilized
country condones murder.
-
- Another rhetorical device American politicians "
without a doubt the most cowardly in the world " hide behind is the
proposition that the "parties involved must reach a settlement."
This is the equivalent of a cop showing up at the door of a family whose
6-year-old daughter has been raped and saying, "Your daughter and
her rapist will have to work this out between themselves."
-
- There is such an enormous disparity in power " Israel
has all of it, and the Palestinians have none " that to put the burden
on Palestinians to negotiate with their oppressors is obscenely unrealistic.
It is exactly the same as if President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Winston Churchill had said to Poland, after it was invaded and conquered
by the Nazis, "You'll have to negotiate a settlement with the Third
Reich."
-
- It is even more obscenely unrealistic to tell the Palestinians
that they are responsible for the security of Israel. The Palestinians,
of course, have no state, no army, no air force and no nothing, while Israel
is ranked by many as being among the top 10 of military powers in the world.
-
- It is Israel, under international law, as the occupier
that has the responsibility to provide security for the Palestinians. That,
of course, is a laugh. For 37 years Israel has ruled the Palestinians in
the occupied territories as a conquered people with essentially no rights
at all.
-
- Finally, one of the things that most infuriates people
in the Arab world is the habit of American politicians taking note of every
Israeli death while ignoring the far more numerous deaths of Palestinians.
The death of any human being is a cause for grief, but the American habit
of ignoring Palestinian suffering leaves the impression that Americans
consider Jewish lives far more valuable than Palestinian lives. And the
truth is, many Americans do.
-
- You will note that all of the Democratic candidates avoid
talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or if they can't avoid
it, they make the ritualistic pledge of undying support for Israel.
-
- This is no way for a great power to act. The effect of
this enormous act of political cowardice on the American people is that
we will have to live with the terrorism it has already spawned and will
continue to spawn for generations and generations to come. The price of
American political cowardice is the blood of innocent people.
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- © 2004 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. First published
2-25-4 http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20040225/index.php
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