Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/mjrosenberg/page/4/)
The month of March 2002 was a terrible time in both Israel and the West Bank. Some 100 Israelis were killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched a military operation in the West Bank killing some 500 Palestinians. Children made up a significant number of the victims on both sides. The prospects for an end to violence, let alone peace, appeared lower than at any time previously.
I understand that my position as stated here is rife with contradiction. I oppose BDS but I endorse Hawking’s support for it.
But here’s the thing. I would not support Hawking’s protest if my own government was taking action against the occupation. If the Obama administration was using its leverage to get Israel out of the occupied territories or, at least, to stop the illegal settlement enterprise, there might be no need for any kind of boycott. After all, given our massive aid to Israel, our consistent support for Israel at the United Nations and our adopting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies on Iran, we have powerful leverage.
In that case, however, the fact that nobody gave “one good goddamn” about the Jews is offered as a justification for the creation of Israel. After all, who but themselves will defend a people to which the world is indifferent? The unique aspect of Dershowitz’s statement is not so much his assertion that nobody cares about Palestinians but his view that indifference to the suffering of millions of people is a justification for continued indifference.
Fortunately, Dershowitz is wrong. Millions of people do care about the Palestinian people, infinitely more today than ever before. Dershowitz knows that, which is why he devotes so much energy to fighting those who champion the Palestinian cause.
The war over war with Iran has many battlefronts. Inside Washington, the battle line is between a small coalition of peace and security, non-proliferation and religious groups opposing war and favoring a peaceful solution to the stand off with Iran, and a well-funded war machine comprising neoconservative organizations who believe war with Iran should have started years ago.
n short, the aphorism often used to describe the effect of drone attacks can be applied to U.S. policy in the Muslim world in general: for every enemy we kill, we create dozens or hundreds more. And some of those enemies turn up here as terrorists.
So my question is this: why can’t the likelihood of blow-back be part of the calculation when policymakers decide to take a particular action or make a particular statement relating to the Middle East or the Muslim world in general?
No, the point of this resolution is to tell Israel that it can go to war with Iran, with the assurance that if it gets into trouble, the United States will step in and finish the job. Israeli hawks need that assurance because it is generally understood that Israel cannot take out Iran’s nuclear facilities alone. It can only try if it knows that the United States is right there just in case.
And yesterday Shamir’s long-time protégé, Binyamin Netanyahu openly adopted the Shamir strategy. No one needs to wait until his retirement to understand that, like Shamir’s, it is designed to prevent negotiations not advance them.
Ha’aretz reported that the Netanyahu government has informed Secretary of State John Kerry that Israel is not interested in discussing land and borders right now.
Why does any of this matter? It matters because it is the Israeli government and its lobby that has generated the hysteria in this country about Iran. Simply put, if it wasn’t for Israel and its lobby, the United States would no more consider bombing Iran’s reactors than North Korea’s. Nor would President Obama be ruling out containment, a policy that we utilized with the Soviet Union and which prevented war for 40 years. Because there is no lobby dedicated to fear-mongering about North Korea, our policy makers are able to approach the problems it poses rationally, without considering the impact on campaign donors. Instead, our Iran policy is primarily about domestic politics, domestic but driven by Netanyahu’s worldview, most notably his belief that you can’t negotiate with the likes of Shiite Iran.
A new Pew Research Center poll demonstrates that Republicans are much more sympathetic to Israel than Democrats, a wider partisan divergence than has ever existed before. The poll finds that when asked if their sympathies are more with Israelis or Palestinians, 66 percent of Republicans choose Israel compared with 49 percent of independents and just 39 percent of Democrats.
The divergence is significant for several reasons.
Obama accomplished what he had to. He reached over Netanyahu’s head and spoke directly to the Israeli people, explaining why peace is in their own best interest and why justice for the Palestinians cannot be denied. And he was cheered. Loudly.