Today I have gotten countless signs that at last the mood has changed, the American mood. That Israel miscalculated tragically, that American opinion is changing at last. The front page of today's Times, with 5 columns given to a horrifying photo– and the lead headline saying the Arab world is angry. A story about a friend who sat shiva for Israel on the last night of Hanukkah. Another friend whose mother has at last admitted doubts. Steve Clemons turns his blog over today to Mustafa Barghouti, for a post on Palestine's "Guernica."
Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes including a hospital and mosque.
In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity of such a claim should sicken the world community.
It's happening. America is finally turning. I said that it was high noon for the Israel lobby nearly 3 years ago when Walt and Mearsheimer came out, and I was wrong. It was just the dawn. Now comes the awakening. Post-Iraq Americans will get to decide: Is this the way for a country to handle a minority, destroying 350 of them in a heartbeat?
Related posts:
- The American sea-change is finally happening
- Rosenberg: It’s not democracy if a high appointee can’t be a harsh critic of Israel
- High State Department official listed Obama’s election among ’severe challenges and threats’ to Israel
- a beautiful thing might finally be happening (debate)
- (It’s happening!) Evanston rabbi calls Gaza a sick-making ‘outrage’
{ 5 comments }
You're wrong again, Phil. No matter what your friend's mama did Sunday night, this ain't no turning point.
Nobody cares, Phil, except Jews and Nazis.
I hope you are right. I do know that most Americans, if they ever think about Israel, support it much than they used to. More and more people, people who you wouldn't expect, express their sympathy for the Palestinians and their dislike for the actions of Israel.
Two problems: The first is that while most Americans (and indeed most American Jews, especially younger Jews) are less pro-Israel than they used to be, the topic remains the third rail of American foreign policy. Too many politicians remember what happened to members of congress seen as insufficiently subserviant to AIPAC.
If you are a politician or government official, there is little career advantage in being seen as unsympathetic to Israel. Few think tanks fund pro Palestinian views. You can make a living, move up the ladder being pro Israeli.
Look at our President Elect. Look at the sorts of communities he came from. I cannot believe in his heart he thinks what Israel is doing right now is moral, is good for America, is good for the world, indeed is good for Israel. However, he remembers that Clinton wasted much of his Presidency because he pissed the right wing off at the get go with the Gays in the military thing. Obama is not going to waste precious political capital on Palestine when the economy is in the toilet.
So despite the fact that more and more of us are horrified at the brutality, hypocracy, and racism of the air power massacre in Gaza, I do not see our government standing up and telling Israel that its actions are unacceptable.
Which leads to the second problem. Its funny, when you go to Israel and talk to people there, they have no idea how hated they are in Europe, in Britain, amongst most of the liberal intelligencia. They think we approve of their behavior. They think the rest of the world (except for a bunch of anti semites, of course) think they are the good guys.
A white South African once told me that it was the sports boycotts that broke the back of Apartheid. Economically, politically, white South Africa could have gone on. It was the sense of being a pariah that made whites think perhaps their political system was wrong.
I would like, in 100 years, for there to be a Jewish state in the Middle East. For that to happen, Israel needs to fit in to the region, to accept the offer from Saudi Arabia of 2002 that making genuine peace with the Palestians would lead to normal relations with the entire Arab world.
But Israel remains convinced that because it has US support, it need not compromise. Someday, that US support will disappear. Supporting Israel is not in our national interest, the rich old Jews funding AIPAC will die off, things that cannot last forever don't. It will not happen right now (look at Pelosi, look at the New York Times, look at Obama) but it will happen.
And then, Israel will wish that instead of attacking Gaza (because of missiles that have killed no one for the last 6 months, missiles so inaccurate they have killed more Palestians than Israelis) they had made peace when they were strong, when they had a chance.
I received an email from the Obama camp today, about a website "Open for Questions" that contains questions for Obama to answer. Posters pose the questions and visitors then vote on those they most want answered.
The huge vast majority of foreign policy questions ask Obama what he is going to do to bring about a just solution for Palestine, and had a considerably pro-Palestinian bent.
I went to the site angry, thinking I'd have to post something about the massacre, and ended up shocked by the sense that many Americans get it.
I join you in hoping that there is some indeed some progress.
http://change.gov/page/content/openforquestions20081229/
It won't be high noon until two sitting U.S. Senators hold a press conference in which they blast Israeli aggression and tell the lobby to go suck it.
Until then, it's all sound and fury, unfortunately.
I don't think the sort of change that is needed in U.S. politics is possible. The system is corrupt beyond repair, and the people in power bear no resemblance to ordinary citizens.
As for Israel, it should have never been an issue in American politics. There should have never been any support for Israel, and the present situation is largely due to U.S. support. And to even mention a "just peace" between Israel and its victims is laughable. I can't see how any U.S. politician that I have ever heard of can achieve peace in the region, let alone a just peace. I hope I'm wrong about the prospects for peace, but I don't trust my rulers, so I see no reason for anyone else to do so.
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