Via MCS
– 29. Apr, 2011
It is difficult to see what the American interest is in offering a congressional bully pulpit to a man like Netanyahu who has clearly condoned war crimes and it would seem pointless to listen to yet another Israeli attempt to prevaricate and, let’s face it, lie.
By Philip Giraldi / Antiwar.com
Apologists for Israel sometimes argue that critics of that nation hold the government in Tel Aviv up to an impossibly high standard, that many condemn Israelis for doing things that other countries in the world also do routinely. That argument has a certain persuasiveness in that Bahrain’s Sunni rulers treat the country’s Shi’a majority just as badly as Israeli Jews treat Palestinian Arabs, but it misses the point. How Israel treats its own minority citizens, Gazans, and residents of the West Bank, and its neighbors might be significant from a humanitarian point of view, but it is not a vital interest of the United States. That Washington has become a victim of the internal politics of the Middle East is largely due to manipulation by Israel and its lobby, which has turned all Americans into enablers of Israeli policies, no matter how short-sighted or ill-conceived. It is the US national interest that has been sacrificed in the process. That is the point.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky |
A second indication of Israel’s control over Congress even when it is not in the US national interest is the issuance of frequent resolutions by both the House and Senate in support of every move taken by Israel. Ever since the United Nations’ Goldstone Report was released, detailing Israeli war crimes in its Cast Lead invasion of Gaza in January 2009, there have been efforts to delegitimize the report’s findings. Normally, the US is able to block any investigation into Israeli missteps, as it successfully did when Lebanon was bombed and invaded in 2006, an event that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described as “birth pangs of a new Middle East,” but the devastation of UN sponsored relief facilities and schools resulting from Cast Lead was such that an international investigation could not be avoided.
The Obama Administration has persistently questioned the Goldstone Report’s conclusions, the media has largely ignored the crimes against civilians that it describes, and Congress has been working hard to put pressure on the United Nations to rescind the report in its entirety. The objective of Israel’s friends is to protect its government and defense forces from any accountability for the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians and many of whom were children. Israel’s independent investigation into possible war crimes committed by its soldiers has been essentially bogus, with only one soldier receiving seven months in jail for fraudulently using a stolen credit card.
US SENATE TO UN RECIND GOLDSTONE REPORT |
That failure has been addressed by the House of Representatives. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House is currently considering a bill, HR 1501, “To withhold United States contributions to the United Nations until the United Nations formally retracts” the Goldstone Report. As the committee is headed by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a passionate supporter of Israel, it is certain that the bill will go to the full House for approval, where it will likely pass overwhelmingly. However one feels about the United Nations in general, it is difficult to understate what this bill will do to America’s standing vis-à-vis a number of international bodies. There is no possible explanation for this bill but to protect Israel from any and all legitimate criticism. As is frequently the case, the United States and its citizens will pay the price in terms of America’s approval rating sinking even lower worldwide. Defending Israel from criticism does not appear either in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights and sacrificing American interests for those of a foreign power is just not acceptable, but Congress has long since abandoned any attempt to mandate minimal standards of accountability, either for itself or for the state of Israel.
Binyamin Netanyahu invited to address a joint meeting of Congress in May |
It has already leaked that Netanyahu will likely reveal what he calls a new peace plan asserting forcefully that Israel’s security must be guaranteed. Which means a Palestinian state with no authority to do anything that states normally do, disarmed and not even controlling its own borders or airspace. It would essentially be the status quo wrapped up as a totally bogus peace agreement and there is no sign that Netanyahu might be willing to abandon his most ardent supporters, 500,000 strong in the settlements built on Palestinian land.
It is difficult to see what the American interest is in offering a congressional bully pulpit to a man like Netanyahu who has clearly condoned war crimes and it would seem pointless to listen to yet another Israeli attempt to prevaricate and, let’s face it, lie. Conservative columnist Joe Sobran once commented on an earlier Netanyahu speech before Congress back in 1996. He likened the response to that given to Josef Stalin when addressing the Supreme Soviet, with everyone standing up and applauding wildly because no one dared to be seen as the first to stop clapping. Hopefully both Ron and Rand Paul and Dennis Kucinich will not bother to applaud at all.
Filed under: Palestine, US Foreign Policy | Tagged: Activism, Benjamin Netanyahu, Goldstone Report, Philip Giraldi, Zionist Lobby |