OK, having tied the tomato plants onto stakes to prevent the cold wind from the North from flattening them, I will now proceed to touch the third rail of progressive politics:
Israel.
Let’s leave aside that some of the neo-cons talk like they put Israel’s interest ahead of their own country’s; for all I know, in good Straussian fashion, they’re trying to make their imperial policies slide more easily down the gullets of the ignorant and credulous, especially in the Beltway Spoonful of sugar, and all that.
And let’s leave aside that some of the Christianists loons talk like they put the End Times, and Israel’s putative role, ahead of their own country; heck, maybe they’re just in it for the money, whether through the collection plate, or from the best sellers, or in all the other ways you can get funding from winger billionaires for trying to destroy reason.
Let’s talk about Israel. Were the fruits of the Six Day War sweet, bitter, or both?
I’d say sweet, inasmuch as Israel has the right to survive, like any other state since the Peace of Westphalia.
But I’d say bitter, too.
Isn’t it bitter that the land of the West Bank was illegally stolen—or, as we say here, “settled,” as if the land was empty—by religious fanatics?
Isn’t it bitter that those same religious fanatics want to force women to sit in the back of public buses?
Isn’t it bitter that those same religious fanatics don’t serve in the same army that protects them?
Isn’t it bitter that those same religious fanatics derailed the Oslo agreement by assassinating Yitzhak Rabin?
Isn’t it bitter that the occupation of the West Bank turned the state of Israel into a combination of suburb and South African township?
Isn’t it bitter that the seizing the West Bank changed the IDF from an honorable army to a demoralized occupation force?
Isn’t it bitter that Israel, by building a wall along the green line, has reconstituted the ghetto walls on a continental scale?
Isn’t it bitter that Israel, in mastering the imperial tools of torture and assassination, got so good that they could teach us?
Isn’t it bitter that Israel, having destroyed Fatah, which was secular, may now confront enemies whose religious fanaticism rivals that of their own fanatics?
Isn’t it bitter that the very idea of the “Holy Land” has defiled so many lives?
I don’t know what a good Middle East policy for this country would look like; or whether, after eight years of Bush misrule, whether good outcomes are even possible.
What I do know is that at this point, we all need to think of Israel as just another country, with its own interests: Like Britain, or France, or Russia, or China.
Or the United States.
Front page
And like the United States
Israel bin Played
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
Oddly, one of the Civil War bloggers wrote on this
Besides being a Civil War author and coming to be known as something of a cavalry expert despite lack of academic background (and also a lawyer for whatever relevance that has) he’s also Jewish and posts on Israel-related matters from time to time.
He seems to largely agree with you, not completely I don’t think, but not all that far off either.
(Post is primarily of a military and political nature, I have no idea what Eric’s religious views are in the theological rather than ethnic sense.)
BTW I have now seven actual baby tomatoes, the largest about 1.25 inches diameter, making their slow way to adulthood. Now I get to go through the back and forth of green tomato relish now? Or ripe tomatoes slightly later? What to choose, oh what to choose?
Not the worst sort of problem to have admittedly. :)
Israel’s right to
Israel’s right to survive? While they do have one, the notion that it was threatened in the 6 days war is mostly propaganda. Every analysis done at the time, or since, has indicated that Israel was never in danger. They could not have lost the war, and as such they could not have. I’ve always been doubtful that Egypt even planned to attack Israel, and a more accurate and historical reading of the situation puts the blame more squarely on the Israeli’s shoulders than the very… chery picked version of those events that get taught in this country.
Israel more or less decided to make an issue out of it when their troops accidentally hit an old land mine on the border to launch an attack on Jordan and it’s interests. Seeing that Israel was using trumped up allegations to justify attacking it’s neighbors, Egypt blocked off the Straits of Tiran. Israel then went to the US and demanded the right to strike Egypt, using what was considered even by the US at the time to be a very liberal interpretation of how hostile Egypt was acting. The US’s axact response isn’t well known, beyond lame and confusing phrases like “You won’t go alone unless you go alone”. Egypt, seeing that Israel was clearly planning military action and attempting to get the backing of the United states, began building up mulitary forces in Sinai. The Israel’s then used this build up, which happened primarily in response to their own aggression, to justify attacking Egypt preemptively.
To put it bluntly, most everything taught in the US about the Arab-Israeli conflict is extremely biased by propaganda for a US ally. While the Israeli’s are completely responsible for everything that’s happened over there, they are far more responsible than people in this country are lead to believe. There’s a reason this level of support doesn’t exist towards Israel in other countries. Those countries are primarily taught an accurate history of the events, rather than the extremely white-washed ones we are.
Either way though, it’s hard to reach the conclusion that we chose wisely than. Almost all of our current problems in the middle-east have that war, and Israel’s territorial aggression, as their genesis.
Israel
isn’t the US’s friend, or even ally. It’s your enabler. Or you’re its. It’s quite pathetic really - they spy on you, they attack you, they openly disprespect you and you bend over and ask for more.