Earlier this year, top military officials including Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Mike Mullen were briefed by Pentagon officials that there was a growing perception among government leaders in the Middle East that the United States was incapable of standing up to the Israeli government.
In statements made after this briefing, leaders of U.S. military operations in the Middle East expressed grave concern U.S. policy toward Israel was destabilizing the region and putting U.S. troops in an increasingly dangerous position.
These events should resonate with the large but diminishing group of Israel apologists that have for years denounced as anti-Semitic anyone who dared to call Israeli foreign policy into question.
As the concerns of senior military officials has shown, Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, recent assaults on the Gaza Strip and continued colonization of the West Bank have become issues not only of legality and morals but also of U.S. national security.
Over the past year the Obama Administration has taken piecemeal steps to address concerns raised for decades by the United Nations and nearly every other country on the planet over Israel’s violation of international law and credible allegations of human rights violations. Yet still, U.S. policy toward Israel has changed very little in the face of overwhelming evidence that our government’s immutable support for the Israeli military and foreign policy has endangered U.S. troops and destabilized a region of the world U.S. tax payers are spending trillions to supposedly pacify.
The bloody assault on an aid flotilla destined for the Gaza Strip this past summer exposed to the world the Israeli government’s shameless intentions to break and demoralize the Palestinian people. Months later, in the deafening silence of U.S. policy makers, the Netanyahu administration has upheld its settlement policy in what the rest of the world recognizes as Palestinian land. In light of all this, one has to wonder what force could possibly steer U.S. policy toward Israel in such an immoral and counter-productive direction.
The answer, according to John Mearsheimer, author and political science professor at the University of Chicago, is that a loose, yet powerful coalition of politically potent groups and individuals have advocated for what they deem a “pro-Israel” stance in U.S. policy. Mearsheimer, who will be giving a lecture on campus next Wednesday, co-wrote a book about the Israel lobby and how its advocacy has often hurt the United States and ultimately has placed Israel itself in an increasingly adversarial position towards its neighbors.
As evidenced from U.S. silence in the shadow of Israel’s increasingly violent outbursts, the Israel lobby has distinguished itself from other lobbying coalitions in Washington by its extraordinary effectiveness. The lobby has exercised an unprecedented level of control of the discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the mainstream media, playing a part in the growing invective against Muslims in this country. The U.S. Congress and executive branch have also been overwhelmingly influenced by the Israel lobby, which has secured billions of dollars of material support for the Israel Defense Forces.
The result of the U.S. government’s support has been the development of a governing coalition in Israel that broods over the Palestinian territories with impunity, violating international law and the outcry of nations around the world. The condition of the Palestinian people has increasingly been compared with that of black South Africans during apartheid. Disenfranchised, persecuted and constantly pushed out of their homeland, Palestinians under the Israeli yolk have perhaps more in common with Native Americans shortly after the founding of this country than the South African majority.
As ugly as the situation has become, there is room for hope, not in the moribund peace-talks of this year but in a single state compromise that could be a few short years away under the right conditions. The Palestinian population in Israel proper is booming and will soon outnumber the Jewish Israeli population. This demographic fact will force the Israeli government to either deny Israeli-Arabs the vote or make compromises that might seem impossible today.
In combination with the use of U.S. influence to pressure Israel to abide by international law and the basic tenants of human rights, it should also be possible to nip growing extremism in the Palestinian territories in the bud.
However, in order to move U.S. policy toward Israel in a more pragmatic, peaceful and ultimately “pro-Israel” direction, citizens of this country will need to speak out and overwhelm the already vocal Israel lobby’s policy prescriptions. The UW system and students could get the ball rolling by divesting from corporations that support the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestinian land.
Now is as good a time as ever to move UW and ultimately U.S. policy into line with the rational suggestions of our military leaders and the overwhelming world opinion in favor of a just peace between Israel and its neighbors.
Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health.
