PERPETUAL WAR?

"Candidates who avoid saying what they believe out
of fear of offending lobbyists and activists who have
been proven wrong over and over again are not doing
Israel any favors. And they should not be rewarded
for it by being granted the label of "pro-Israel." There
is nothing pro-Israel about supporting policies that
only promise that Israeli mothers will continue to dread
the sons' 18th birthdays for another generation. For
that we are supposed to be grateful?" So writes M. J.
Rosenberg in the Israeli paper, Haaretz. Rosenberg
is director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy
Center. His article is an important one which, among
other things, agrees with much of the controversial
new book on the Israel lobby by Profs. Mearsheimer
and Walt. I urge you to read the full article at
www.haaretz.com/.

Below is a letter of mine that appeared in the local
paper (Albany Democrat-Herald): "In a recent
editorial you asked concerning Iraq, 'How does it end?'
You went on to write: 'But it is a mistake to ask the
question about the end only about Iraq. It ought to
be asked about the continuing conflict between
America and the West on the one side and radical
Islam on the other.'"

"That, of course, is the crucial question! And the
answer has been given by none other than Osama
bin Laden: 'The West will know no peace until the
Palestinians have peace.' He was not speaking idly.
King Abdullah of Jordan, a staunch friend of the U. S.
and an enemy of terrorism (and bin Laden) has said
many times 'that the root cause of Muslim terrorism
is the Palestine-Israel situation. It is the core issue
underlying everything else.'" Why do we in the West
disbelieve or ignore what Muslims keep telling us?
It might have something to do with the way our
media discount and reject the opinions of Muslims.

"Jimmy Carter explains -- in a must-read if you want
to understand that situation -- just how and why
this issue is so central to Muslims in all their dealings
with the West. His epochal book is: Palestine Peace
Not Apartheid." (And by the way, Bishop Tutu, who
knows apartheid, visited Palestine and said, "this is
apartheid.")

"Also, Stephen Walt, a Harvard prof., and John
Mearsheimer of the Univ. of Chicago have a new
book just out that explains why we keep on backing
Israel's brutal, illegal forty-year occupation of the
West Bank to the tune of giving them $3 billion a
year, and vetoing any efforts by the U. N. to make
them live up to their many agreements. That book
is called: The Israel Lobby, and no, it's not anti-
Semitic in any way, nor am I." (Is M. J. Rosenberg
anti-Semitic, or Haaretz?)

"That book also documents the role Israel had in
getting us to remove Saddam. He was way more
of a problem for them than he ever was for us. The
same is now true of Iran. Sen. Lieberman wants to
attack them, and the Israel lobby, along with the
senator, was successful in preventing a 'no war with
Iran without our say so' clause in recent legislation.
And so it goes."

"We will begin to establish friendly relations with the
Muslim world when, and only when, we force Israel
to live up to its many past agreements to get out of
the West Bank and let the Palestinians live in peace
in their own land. Palestinian resistance, when it
takes the form of terrorist attacks on civilians is to
be condemned absolutely and unconditionally. It
cannot be justified in any way, shape or form. Hamas
is a wrong, in fact, criminal response to a criminal
occupation." (End of letter to the editor.)

Back to M. J. Rosenberg, (in the article in Haaretz
that I referred to in the opening, above):
"I spent almost 20 years as a Congressional aide and can
testify from personal experience that senators and House
members are under constant pressure to support status-
quo policies on Israel. It is no accident that members of
Congress compete over who can place more conditions on
aid to the Palestinians, who will be first to denounce the
Saudi peace plan, and who will win the right to be the
primary sponsor of the next pointless Palestinian-bashing
resolution. Nor is it an accident that there is never a
serious Congressional debate about policy toward Israel
and the Palestinians. Moreover, every president knows
that any serious effort to push for an Israeli-Palestinian
agreement based on compromise by both sides will produce
loud (sometimes hysterical) oppositions from the Hill.

Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to
exploring whether all this is good for the United States
(and to a lesser extent, Israel). The question I ask today,
and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior
is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six-Day War, the
occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and
Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have
a future in the Jewish state.

Has 'pro-Israel' advocacy consistently produced 'pro-
Israel' ends? At several critical moments, it most certainly
has not."

Where can we find leaders with the guts and brains
and integrity to fight for justice for the Palestinians and
peace with our Muslim neighbors? There are none on
the national scene at the moment, and our country has
no greater need than that! We are on the verge of
attacking another Muslim country without reason or
justification, and thus alienating the rest of the Muslim
world permanently. That means perpetual war.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net