Daily Times

Overwhelming pro-Israel
sentiment within the US, the political influence of American Jews and the Israel lobby make it unlikely that any US administration, Republican or Democrat, will succeed in bringing peace between Israel and Palestine. Unconditional US support for Israel not only embitters its relationship with the Arab world, for whom the Israel-Palestinian issue is of central importance, but also with the European Union whose stance on the issue is less skewed than that of the US. Positions taken on the Israel-Palestinian issue isolate the US in the world community and undermine its capacity for world leadership. It is a ‘love affair’ that makes America blind to Israeli crimes towards the Palestinians and distorts the character of American values and America’s worldview.

Hence American rhetoric based on the American creed, i.e. a belief in liberty, democracy, free speech and the rule of law does not match US policies in the Middle East. The policies are largely based on unconditional support for Israel regardless of Israeli behaviour rather than on a careful evaluation of the US’s long term vital interests in the region. The policies adopted make a parody of US ideals. US attitudes towards Israel are partly the result of a genuine sympathy for that country and partly the result of opportunism based on political calculations and fears real or perceived, of the strength of the Israel lobby. ‘Selling out’ on Israel is a slogan regularly used both by the Republicans and the Democrats to gain political advantage with the American Jews, a small but extremely wealthy and influential constituency. In the 2008 elections, 78 percent of Jewish voters went for Barack Obama and President Carter lost many Jewish votes in his 1980 re-election campaign because of his attempts at a dialogue with the PLO. Carter’s criticism of Israeli policy in Palestine: Peace not Apartheid (2006) is perhaps a little payback to the American Jews. Even though Republicans and Democrats both pursue the same policies towards Israel, Selling Out on Israel is a game at which both try to undo each other, ‘the sheer effrontery’ of which is astonishing sometimes, according to M J Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum. According to the author, who himself encountered considerable opposition from Jewish circles the Israeli lobby has an iron grip on in the US.

One of the major arguments offered by the Americans and parroted by the Israelis in support of Israel flows directly from an element of the American creed: support for democracy. It is argued that Israel is the only true and vibrant democracy in the Middle East and as such deserves US support. To make this claim convincing, Israel is touted as a beacon of democratic values in the midst of Arab authoritarian regimes, conveniently glossing over the fact that most Arab countries are colonial creations created by the colonial masters with a view to their continued interests in the region and ruled over, today, by US puppet regimes. The argument for democracy is undercut by Israel’s undemocratic behaviour towards the Palestinians in suppressing their rights, occupying the West Bank, and continuation of Jewish settlements there.

‘Biblical and pseudo historical arguments such as claims that Israel is a Jewish inheritance from God that would normally be considered insane in the making of foreign policy become readily acceptable in the case of Israel. Perhaps late Jerry Falwell’s fatuous statement, “To stand against Israel is to stand against God”, tops the list of inanities in support of Israel though Reverend Falwell must be commended for his moral courage in denouncing influential sexual degenerates in America. Unqualified support for Israel increased enormously in recent years with the rise of the Christian Right within the Republican Party. Claims that God gave Palestine eternally to the Jews in antiquity make rational discussion on the issue “based on universally accepted criteria impossible.” Lieven further remarks, “This argument in fact rejects Enlightenment as a basis for political culture, and in so doing also rejects modern civilization”; this is an exquisite argument by Mr Lieven that comes from his deep knowledge of development of Western thought. Irrational arguments become acceptable in the case of Israel because of American sympathy, culturally and historically, for the Israeli cause, the Israeli lobby, which includes the Christian Right, and reticence of the mass media and the politicians to discuss the Israel question rationally and openly.

From the Islamic viewpoint the Jewish claim is especially erroneous because it degrades and corrupts God’s attributes of Wisdom and Justice. Aziz (Almighty; a Being whose power is absolute and whose decrees none may challenge) is mentioned together with Hakeem (All-Wise) numerous times in the Quran to remind the readers that although Allah is capable of all things, His actions are always based on Wisdom and Justice and not on ignorance or tyranny. An eternal patrimony for any group regardless of behaviour would be most unjust and such a thing was never decreed by Allah, who despite being Aziz is also Hakeem.

Forming alliances on the basis of cultural and ethnic similarities, such as those of the British with their White colonies even after their independence, is a historical tradition and not condemnable if the alliances are not undertaken to tyrannise other cultures and ethnicities but the US-Israeli relationship is increasingly becoming similar to the one between Russia and Serbia. Russian guarantees to the Serbians encouraged Serbians to make irredentist claims against Austria, leading to the great debacle of WWI for all. The role of protector and protected in the case of the US-Israeli ‘love-affair’ appears inverted. The US, which should feel protected because of its geographical isolation and military power, is vulnerable and under perpetual terrorist threat whereas Israel has become a “kind of superpower, able to defy its entire region and Europe as well.” The superpower syndrome is of course a delusion on the part of Israel, which despite its nuclear arsenal, is a small country in a sea of Arab nations with whom it will have to reach some kind of accommodation in order to survive. I believe and it is quite possible that the covert war raging in Pakistan for the last half-dozen years or so to make Pakistan, a Muslim nuclear state, a failed state has its genesis in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Note: The ideas in this piece of writing are mostly from Anatol Lieven’s edifying work America Right or Wrong. I have mostly paraphrased his views and added only a few of my own.

(To be continued)

The writer is a freelance writer and an electrical engineer. He can be reached at shahid.rafi@yahoo.com