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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Why Israel's far right policy damages America's national interests Pravda... The appeal to "far-right" voters by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his recent re-election campaign (in 2015) reveals a politically uncomfortable truth not publicly debated in American mainstream media (influenced by the Jewish lobby), which is that Israel's far right policy in the last few decades has damaged America's national interests in five major ways (to be explained below). And the term "far right" here refers to the "militarist" and "elitist" (like "racist") orientations in political ideology. (a) RACISM The first major evidence for the damage of America's national interests by Israel's far right policy has to do with "racism" in Israel. Far from being a shining democracy in the Middle East as Israel would like the rest of the world to believe, it has for decades practiced a political system of ruthless "apartheid" against different minorities. Print version + - Font Size Send to friend For instance, Arab Israelis comprise "about 20 percent of Israel's population of eight million and have long complained about discrimination" systematically targeted against them, and things have become so bad under the leadership of Netanyahu that the recent election drove many "Arab-Israeli voters out 'in droves' to sway the election against him" and "they emerged from Tuesday's vote [on March 17] as the third largest party," so it is not surprising that even White House spokesman Josh Earnest expressed his dissatisfaction with Netanyahu by saying that "the United States and this administration is deeply concerned about rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens," as reported by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle for Reuters on March 18, 2015. Netanyahu went so far as to openly express his racist attitude towards the Arabs (whom he called "sub-human" on April 15, 2013), and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had expressed, over the years, his concern with Israel's continued practice of "apartheid" against the Palestinians. Israel's racist policy is not confined to Arab Israelis, however, as it also targets blacks from Africa in Israel, especially with respect to the notorious racism by "white Jews" against "black Jews" from places like Ethiopia and others in Israel -- as well as black migrants from Africa in Israel. Historically, many Jews are notorious for their racism towards non-Jews for centuries, as many Jews continue to frustrate proselytism to non-Jews, to pressure assimilated Jews to return to their Jewish roots, to discourage intermarriage, and to offensively regard themselves as "the chosen ones" (as this Jewish religious ideology has been exploited, over the centuries, to look down on, and discriminate against, non-Jews). (b) COLONIAL SETTLEMENT The second major evidence for the damage of America's national interests by Israel's far right policy has to do with "colonial settlement." Israel's "land grabbing" in occupied territories has continued for decades, to the point that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had bluntly said in "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (2006) that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East." Israel's colonial expansion has accelerated under the leadership of Netanyahu (since his first term in the 1990s) -- and by 2015, about one million Jewish settlers have occupied a large portion of Palestinian lands in Gaza and the West Bank, which makes the future formation of a coherent Palestinian state more and more impossible, according to a report by Al Jazeera America in March (2015). In the process, so many Palestinian homes were bulldozed to the ground by Israeli security forces, and the homeless (often poor) Palestinians were then kicked out, by force, of the areas where their folks had lived for centuries, so now they have no place to go (and nothing to live on). Whenever the U.S. intervenes and asks Israel to stop the colonial settlement, Israel plays the "money card" by asking the U.S. for money before it offers "concession" in regard to its colonial settlement in occupied territories, but each time, even after the money is given, Israel goes on to engage in colonial settlement in other parts of the occupied territories, so this long cycle (of a colonial settlement somewhere, a money request for concession, another colonial settlement somewhere else, another money request again for concession, and so on) continues, with no end in sight. For instance, in 1999, the "newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak" wanted "to collect in advance an additional $1.2 billion in economic assistance promised by President Bill Clinton to former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for carrying out territorial withdrawals specified in the Wye agreement, signed in 1998," but "neither Netanyahu nor Barak had yet carried out the withdrawals," even after the U.S. administration at the time included "the payment in the fiscal year 2000 appropriation," as Richard H. Curtiss explained in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Even John Kerry, the current U.S. Secretary of State, lost his patience and complained last year (in 2014) that the colonial settlement by Israel constitutes a ruthless "apartheid," which is simply unacceptable. But Israel, with the support of the Jewish lobby in the U.S., continues its "apartheid" policy. (c) REJECTION OF THE PALESTINIAN STATE The third evidence for the damage of America's national interests by Israel's far right policy has to do with the rejection of "the Palestinian state." Under the leadership of Netanyahu, the peace talk between Israel and the Palestinians has gone nowhere, and, during the recent re-election campaign, the "divisive" rhetoric by Netanyahu only makes things worse, since "Netanyahu's insistence that there will be no Palestinian state while he holds office, seen as a maneuver to mobilize his right-wing base, angered the Palestinians and drew criticism from the United Nations and European governments. Chances for restarting long-stalled peace moves already had been low" - and this is a very serious rejection of the "two-state solution" for "the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, the cornerstone of more than two decades of peace efforts" by the U.S. in the region, as reported by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle for Reuters on March 18, 2015. This led the U.S. Senator Chris Murphy to say that "it was remarkable [for Netanyahu] to back-track so significantly on a two-state solution" and added that "it could make Washington's effort to mediate more difficult" -- and "White House spokesman Josh Earnest reaffirmed Obama's commitment to a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and said that based on Netanyahu's comments, 'the United States will evaluate our approach to this situation,'" as reported by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle. Indeed, many countries around the world had condemned Israel's brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories, since more than 130 countries around the world (mostly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia) already formally recognized the Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders (so as to end the brutal Israeli occupation). (d) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY The fourth evidence for the damage of America's national interests by Israel's far right policy has to do with "crimes against humanity." For instance, Israel's bombardments of Gaza for weeks in 2014 had left about 3,000 Palestinian civilians dead, most of whom were women, children, and the sick -- and destroyed the entire territory like hell. Even the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was forced to condemn it as "a moral outrage and a criminal act" and called for those responsible for this "gross violation of international law" to be brought to justice. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, made a similar point that "house demolitions and the killing of children raise the 'strong possibility' that Israel is violating international law" that "could amount to war crimes," as reported by RT on August 26, 2014. And Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu aptly "compared Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to the Islamist militants who killed 17 people in Paris [on January 7-9, 2015], saying both had committed crimes against humanity," as reported by Reuters on January 15, 2015. Bolivia under the leadership of Evo Morales had formally declared (on July 31, 2014) Israel to be a "terrorist state" and "renounced a visa exemption agreement with the country in protest" over Israel's "crimes against humanity" in Gaza, because, as Morales explained, "Israel is not a guarantor of the principles of respect for life and the elementary precepts of rights that govern the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of our international community." As a historical reminder, this is not the first time that Israel committed crimes against humanity, as it had done the same to Gaza before, for instance, in the last two weeks (of late December in 2008 and early January in 2009), also with the death of many Palestinian civilians (many of whom were women and children), the destruction of homes and infrastructure everywhere, and the catastrophic humanitarian crisis awaiting those who had nowhere to escape from the heavily bombed city. (e) SABOTAGE OF IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS And the fifth evidence for the damage of America's national interests by Israel's far right policy has to do with the sabotage of "Iran nuclear talks." For instance, only a few weeks ago (in early 2015), "Netanyahu defied Obama with a politically divisive speech to Congress attacking U.S.-led nuclear talks with Iran," and this "could put him on a...collision course with the Obama administration," so "some Obama aides had privately left little doubt during the Israeli election campaign of their preference for Netanyahu's center-left challenger, Isaac Herzog," and "administration officials had privately signaled their hopes for an election outcome more in sync with Obama's agenda, especially with an end-of-March deadline looming for a framework nuclear deal in negotiations between Tehran and world powers," as reported by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle. The hawkish stand by Netanyahu could not be more unreasonable, since Israel itself has nuclear weapons but insists that other countries in the region should not have the bombs, and it even went so far as to bomb the nuclear facilities of other countries (like Iraq) some years ago. In addition, Israel had also sabotaged the nuclear programs of other countries (like Iran) over the years, since, for instance, it even sent assassins to kill Iranian nuclear scientists (as reported by Ulrike Putz for Spiegel on August 02, 2011) while privileging itself with the sole possession of nuclear weapons in the region. CONCLUSION The five evidences (above) are illustrative, not exhaustive, but the point to remember here is that the damage of America' s national interests by Israel's far right policy is very serious. According to an estimate by Richard H. Curtiss, "during the more than half a century that has elapsed since the creation of Israel on May 15, 1948, the U.S. has lost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars as a result of the Arab economic boycott, and more as a result of the 1973 Arab political oil boycott that touched off a recession in the U.S. and the industrialized countries. There also are incalculable costs associated with the vastly increased security outlays for U.S. government installations at home and abroad necessitated as a result of U.S. support for Israel in its long-standing disputes with its Arab neighbors." By the early 2000s, total U.S. aid to Israel over the years already exceeded $100 billion (at a time when the U.S. itself has been in financial crisis in the past decades, with its massive debts of a few trillion dollars), as Richard H. Curtiss showed in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. And John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in "The Israel Lobby" extensively showed in 2006 how the one-dimensional pro-Israel mass media and the "unwavering support for Israel...jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world." Contrary to popular belief, Israel and America do not belong to "the same family," as the propaganda machine of Israel and its fifth columns (like the Jewish lobby in America) would like us to believe, as its far right policy has damaged America's national interests over the decades. What is "good" for Israel is often "bad" for America. In the end, Israel's far right policy (with its militarist and elitist, like racist, orientations) is as much "anti-American" (in damaging America's national interests) as "un-American" (in eroding the American ideals of freedom and equality). Peter Baofu Dr. Peter Baofu was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and had taught as a Professor at different universities in America, Western Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. He completed more than 5 academic degrees in the states, including a Ph.D. from M.I.T. (in Cambridge, Massachusetts), and was a summa cum laude graduate. He is the author of 78 books and 80 new theories (as well as many articles), all of which provide a visionary challenge to conventional wisdom in the social sciences, the formal sciences, the natural sciences, and the humanities, with the aim for a "unified theory of everything" -- together with numerous visions of the mind, nature, society, and culture in future history. Some examples of his books on world affairs include "The Future of Post-Human War and Peace" (2010), "Beyond the World of Titans, and the Remaking of World Order" (2007), "Beyond Nature and Nurture" (2006), "Beyond Civilization to Post-Civilization" (2006), "Beyond Capitalism to Post-Capitalism" (2005), the 2 volumes of "Beyond Democracy to Post-Democracy" (2004), "The Future of Capitalism and Democracy" (2002), the 2 volumes of "The Future of Human Civilization" (2000), and so on. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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