Two items in today’s news on apartheid. In “It’s Time for Some Israel Real Talk,” in The American Prospect, Jaclyn Friedman states that she loves Israel and endorses Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions targeted at the occupation.
I believe that “both sides” have committed atrocities, but that the current balance of power is so lopsided that the word “apartheid” is appropriate. (I didn’t believe that last part until I saw it with my own eyes.)
Alana Goodman reports for the Washington Free Beacon on a 2010 speech by Chuck Hagel at Rutgers:
Kenneth Wagner, who attended the 2010 speech while a Rutgers University law student, provided the Washington Free Beacon with an email he sent during the event to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The email is time-stamped April 9, 2010, at 11:37 AM.
“I am sitting in a lecture by Chuck Hagel at Rutgers,” Wagner wrote in the email. “He basically said that Israel has violated every UN resolution since 1967, that Israel has violated its agreements with the quartet, that it was risking becoming an apartheid state if it didn’t allow the Palestinians to form a state. He said that the settlements were getting close to the point where a contiguous Palestinian state would be impossible.”
“He said that he [thought] that Netanyahu was a radical and that even [former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi] Livni, who was hard nosed thought he was too radical and so wouldn’t join in a coalition [government] with him. … He said that Hamas has to be brought in to any peace negotiation,” Wagner wrote.
It is important to use the word “apartheid” for the West Bank because it is accurate and descriptive. As Friedman says, if you have eyes in your head and go there, you see apartheid. And remember: Jimmy Carter was smeared for using the word apartheid in a book title in 2006… Charney Bromberg said, it’s apartheid, three years ago at Columbia… and the Nation published a piece called “Apartheid on Steroids,” by Israel supporter Stephen Robert 2 years ago.
All to the good, but Hagel will have tough sledding on account of saying the unacceptable. After all, any Senator could say, “Some of my best financers are Zionist Jews.” Carter only said “Apartheid” (BTW, rhymes with HATE, not HEIGHT — Nederlands, not Deutsch) after he was long out of office. Just as all those ex-Mossad fellahi only complained about Israeli occupation after they left office. Hagel is trying to say (or, more accurately, to have said) these things BEFORE coming into office.
We all wish him good luck.
I’m reading Ilan Pappe’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. If only Hagel had taken a copy of this book to his hearing and to each questioner about Israel responded with, “Senator, have you read this book?”
Time and again in my reading, I come across some episode that could come right out of today’s news from Israel. The project of Zionism has never deviated, only the words spoken to distract the outside world have changed. This book, along with the confirmation provide by Mearsheimer and Walt, leaves no room for doubt that the United States has abetted a historic injustice. If only Hagel had used his time to confront it head on. At some point, someone in power will. In the meantime all of us little folks have to keep up the fuss.
The American Prospect article has a valuable concept that fits NRA and Israel and probably much more (e.g., the growing wealth-gap, drone-warfare, torture).
If Hagel did actually say all of this good for him but basing a post on someone’s email is damn flimsy. As Levin said at the last committee hearing “where is the hard evidence?” But millions would agree that if this is what Hagel said well he got it right.
Please more than a “basically” email. Transcript of the talk. Has to be a transcript. Man the next few days horseshit is going to be flying about Hagel. Those against Hagel are trying like mad to see what shit sticks. So far it is all flying back into their faces
Stephen Walt tweets on Hagel:
“The more Hagel told the truth, the more trouble he was in. How can you run a country when straight talk is punished and lies are rewarded?”
As succinct an observation re the israel lobby as you could wish.