In the past two days, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton rushed to the media to say U.S.-Israel ties are a “close, unshakable bond” and to pledge their “absolute commitment to Israel’s security.”
Vice President Biden would have said the same, but he is still so shamed by the meal of humiliation he disgracefully lapped up at Netanyahu’s table that he is hiding under the bed.
This mighty U.S.-Israel “crisis” looks ready to blow over quicker than it started. Obama and Clinton have accepted that Netanyahu and AIPAC are their bosses and the Muslim world will note that carefully. Obama’s eager acceptance of Israel’s humiliating dressing-down will shock always honor-minded Muslims, reinforce their perception that Israel runs U.S. foreign policy, and convince the Muslim world — moderate and militant — that the “new opening” Obama declared in Cairo was simply a “new opening” meant to again delude Muslims into thinking change will occur in U.S. policy in the Middle East. The icing on the cake for our Islamist enemies will appear when Israel successfully goads the Palestinians into a third Intifada — and that seems not too far off — and Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Republican leaders immediately announce more U.S. taxpayer funds for “poor little Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East” and AIPAC-owned members of Congress sign the traditional blank check.
If nothing else this little episode shows Americans the problem in Israel-U.S. relations is not Israel, but the greedy, cowardly, and disloyal Americans in Congress who keep supporting Israel with large sums of money and — in Iraq — the blood of our kids. It long has been obvious that AIPAC is loaded with U.S. citizens who care for America only because it is a convenient milk cow they can keep draining on Israel’s behalf. These Israel-First “warriors,” of course, push for war with Muslims from here in North America where their wealth and kids are safe from the impact of their war-mongering, unless of course they encourage their children to follow the Rahm-Emanuel-model of publicly emphasizing disloyalty to America by serving with Israel’s military.
In the last 10 days, however, we also have been able to more clearly see — thanks to their near total silence over Biden’s humiliation — that many of our elected representatives are also nominal U.S.citizens who take their marching orders from AIPAC and care more about Israel than the United States. No American parent can any longer doubt that when they send a young son or daughter to serve in the U.S. military, the Congress will always be eager to spend their lives if Israel and its U.S. citizen supporters deem it necessary to do so.
Amidst this disaster, Americans, I think, must be clear in their minds that this situation is not to be blamed on Israel. The Israeli government’s actions on settlements, suborning Americans to commit treason, conducting covert political action in the United States, or killing Palestinians are all part and parcel of its program of national defense, and therefore its own business. Unsavory as these actions may be, all nations — including our own — play the game of international politics in much the same way. At day’s end, the policies and actions necessary for Israel’s defense can only be decided by Israelis, and Washington has no business intervening to force Israel’s decisions one way or another. (NB: The same holds true for the decisions of the Palestinian leadership.)
So let the blame for this mess rest where it rightfully belongs — on the U.S. federal government. The executive and legislative branches of our government built and are maintaining the current U.S.-Israel relationship. And it is a relationship that corrupts our domestic political system, media, and academy, and — as General Petraeus said this week — commits us to endless war with the Muslim world on behalf of a country from which America derives zero benefit but incurs a steady and deepening flow of economic and human costs. Again, the issue must not focus on Israel. The issues to be be resolved are U.S.-centric and are encompassed in two questions: (a) Why do those we elect to the presidency and Congress “to preserve, protect, and defend” the constitution ignore that duty and place much more value on preserving and protecting the welfare, territorial ambitions, and survival of a country irrelevant to U.S. interests? and (b) Why do so many U.S. citizens put Israel first and expect their fellow citizens to pay for their disloyal preference with their taxes and the lives of their children?
Honest answers to these questions, I believe, would show how thoroughly the problem of Israel is really a thoroughly American problem which is powered by the greed, disloyalty, and arrogance of some U.S. citizens.
