(Image credits: Michal Vexler)
Today at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israeli activists protested the United States's unconditional support for Israel and its ongoing "settlements project, oppression and apartheid." Below is part of the statement announcing the protest titled "We Won’t Be 'The US Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East'":
Last week the United States vetoed the UN Security Council’s draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements, contrary to the position of the other 14 member states (including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India and South-Africa), and the request of the Palestinians, the direct victims of the settlement project.
The US presents itself as fair player, a mediator and a conciliator between Israel and the Palestinians. In practice, however, it has other interests in the region and maintains “special security relations” with Israel, seeing Israel as “The US aircraft carrier in the Middle East”. Notwithstanding this massive economic and military support, it is the US’s active support of Israel’s crimes that maintains the Israeli occupation and apartheid, and therefore we see the US as a full accomplice in these crimes and in the violation of international law.
We point the finger at the criminal policies of the US and of the European Union
We are pointing the finger at the criminal policies of the US and the European Union. Without their military, economic and diplomatic aid, Israel will not be able to keep flaunting International Law and consensus, ignoring proposed peace initiatives and persisting with the settlements project, oppression and apartheid. All that without diminishing the State of Israel’s direct responsibility for these crimes.
A new campaign is currently being initiated against US and EU support of the Israeli occupation. We call on the US to join the international community in deed rather than just talk, in giving the Palestinian people its legitimate rights. The future campaign will also draw attention to the part played by Western states.
Whichever is the dog and whichever the tail of this unholy chimera, it needs to be staked in the heart. Good going!
“Without their military, economic and diplomatic aid, Israel will not be able to keep flaunting [FLOUTING] International Law and consensus, ignoring proposed peace initiatives and persisting with the settlements project, oppression and apartheid”.
Agreed, absolutely. USA and EU have never given up their (probably racist) general cuddly feelings for imperialism and [settler] colonialism. Remember the French in Vietnam? So hard to let go. And then the USA in Vietnam. And now the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. And building bases and mammoth embassies as if we’ll be there forever. SO HARD TO LET GO!
“International law?” “Internationalize me no international law,” I hear them saying; their actions speak volumes. And this includes EU as well.
propose a trade — Israel takes holocaust museum out of US ‘Main Street’ in Washington, we’ll take back the weapons & money US sends Israel.
Deal?
with Israel, seeing Israel as “The US aircraft carrier in the Middle East”.
When has Israel attacked anyone for the US?
Does just looking at items like “Israel” and the “US” allow space for systemic policy disagreements between people within these discrete countries or for people with emotional and ideological feelings for one nation that reside in the other? In other words, when you look at just “Israel” or the “US,” have you left space for people like Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Pipes, the Kagans, the Kristols, Podhoretz, the Wohlstetters, etc?
The “US aircraft carrier” description as far as I know was originally used in the 80′s by British antiwar activists to describe the UK which, in fact, was (and probably still is) a useful description. Unlike the UK, Israel contains no US bases and unlike Britain has never been used for any forward operations by the US. In that sense, Israelis’ use of that term seems off to me.
“Unsinkable aircraft carrier” is something I’ve recently heard on Al Jazeera, used in reference to Malta in re: Libya. I was curious, myself.
wikipedia: Unsinkable aircraft carrier is a term sometimes used to refer to a geographical or political island that is utilized to extend the power projection of a military force. Because such an entity is capable of acting as an airbase and is a physical landmass incapable of being destroyed, it is, in effect, an aircraft carrier that cannot be sunk.
The term unsinkable aircraft carrier first arose during World War II, to describe the islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean which became strategically important as potential airstrips for American bombers in their transoceanic war against Japan. To this end, the U.S. military engaged in numerous island hopping operations to oust the occupying Japanese forces from such islands; afterwards the U.S. Navy Seabees would often have to construct airstrips there from scratch – sometimes over entire atolls – quickly, in order to support the air operations against Japan.
The British Isles and Malta during World War II, Taiwan since the Chinese Civil War, and Japan during the Cold War have all been considered unsinkable aircraft carriers in regards to United States military forces. In 1983, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone pledged to make Japan an “unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific”, assisting the U.S. in defending against the threat of Soviet bombers.”
“it is the US’s active support of Israel’s crimes that maintains the Israeli occupation and apartheid, ”
The footsoldiers of apartheid are too many Israeli Jews. Without them and their amorality none of it would be possible.
Too many US dollars.
Too many US Jews enabling it all. With US dollars.
Much more important are the too many US goyim enabling it all. With US dollars.
Great to see this, and it is a pity if the latest US poll results are true, that 63% support Israel’s illegal actions. I blame the MSM (or fawnng corporate media) for the ignorance of the Mercans.
btw it is “flouting” the law (flaunting is showing off!)
Oh, they flaunt it alright!
link to mimg.ugo.com
CHORUS:
Israel was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed another American leader to restore
Its faded glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The veto man for you and me
LEAD TENOR IDF TROOPER:
And now it’s…
Springtime for Obama and Israel
AIPAC is happy and gay!
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Obama and Israel
Tel Aviv’s a fine place once more!
Springtime for Obama and Israel
Watch out, Europe
We’re going on tour!
Springtime for Obama and Israel…
CHORUS:
Look, it’s springtime
LEAD TENOR IDF TROOPER:
Winter for Hezbullah and Palestine
CHORUS AND IDF TROOPER:
Springtime for Obama and Israel!
CHORUS:
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
IDF TROOPER:
Come on, Israelis
Go into your dance!
IDF TROOPER “Lenny”:
I was born in Brooklyn und that is why they call me Len.
IDF TROOPER “MEL”:
Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Zionist party!
this is great!
who killed the man ?
the man that held the gun ?
or was it the bullet
or god
who made mans flesh weak ?
we all know what’s right and wrong
we have absolutely no excuse
it will be the soldiers who end this
by refusing to fire
then
we can call ourselves human
much better poetry than the usual fare at Chez ‘Mondo.
Yeah, let’s put the humanity anchor on the back of the 18-yr old male from a disadvantaged family and locked in a loyalty first organization.
RE – Return To Sender: Israeli activists say, “we won’t be the US aircraft carrier in the Middle East”
Elvis Presley – Return To Sender (VIDEO, 02:09) – link to youtube.com
P.S. Andy Kaufman did it better!
I continue to be impressed with those Israeli activists that carry on the good fight. Unfortunately they are a small, a very small, minority. The days when major figures like Buber and Einstein had some influence on events are long gone. As our local hasbarists are so eager to point out, the Israeli public is dominated by the racist, colonialist view that the first generation of Zionist embodied so change within Israel is no longer possible. The point is that if Israel cannot correct itself, it must be forced from the outside. And the only viable outside force has to be a grassroots BDS movement in the West. Our governments cannot provide that force — the lobby both here in the US and in Europe have too much power.
It isn’t difficult to think of the U .S. and Israel as the axis of evil. Certainly what those two countries have done over the years falls into the category of evil.
I continue to be impressed with those Israeli activists that carry on the good fight. Unfortunately they are a small, a very small, minority. The days when major figures like Buber and Einstein had some influence on events are long gone. As our local hasbarists are so eager to point out, the Israeli public is dominated by the racist, colonialist view that the first generation of Zionist embodied suc that change within Israel is no longer possible.
The point is that if Israel cannot correct itself, it must be forced from the outside. And the only viable outside force has to be a grassroots BDS movement in the West. Our governments cannot provide that force — the lobby both here in the US and in Europe have too much power.
And the only viable outside force has to be a grassroots BDS movement in the West. Our governments cannot provide that force — the lobby both here in the US and in Europe have too much power.
the information that seeps through the internet-based interstices of the MSM is becoming worrisome to Abe Foxman, among others. When I hear Israelis and Foxman and his fellow travelers use the word, “delegitimize,” the concept that that word has come to denote is, “damn, more and more people are discovering the facts of our criminal project and they’re writing it down and telling more people.”
In this discussion of his latest foray into encasing his ideas between book covers, Foxman worries that his organization is losing control over information, what with the internet, so ADL is working with nations all over the globe to ENFORCE study of holocaust — he reported that Turkey will require study of holocaust in Turkey’s schools, but fretted that there’s work to do since more people are reading Mein Kampf and the internet is a wide open resource for “the new antisemitism” which Foxman defined as “the delegitimization of Israel.”
Why is Foxman so afraid of people gaining information about historical events? Why the compulsion to control the historical narrative — isn’t that what Americans were told by Mukasey and Lieberman as they created intrusive aspects of Homeland Security — “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about”.
link
Perhaps it will take the voice of Israelis pointing out the confluence of interest here, to wake some people up. Maybe not
Back in the mid days of the Cold War, of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD), many influential American leaders in both Congress and the US Military viewed Israel as a bargain, more cost-effective than TEN US aircraft carriers. However, most certainly with the demise of the USSR, Israel is not even worth an old-fashioned floating tire tube–and the protruding valve stem sticks in Uncle Sam’s frail ribs every time he tries to paddle around on the bobbing water..
BDS America, all the way.
Beautiful