Tag Archives: Israel

Political Rants

When brute strength gets construed as virtue.

We’re witnessing another paroxysm of killing in the occupied territories of what was once mandate Palestine, the Israelis using their first-world military capabilities against a captive populations with at best pathetic means of self-defense. Much has been written, broadcast, etc., about the proximate cause of this latest bloodbath. I am somewhat persuaded by the argument that it may be a function of Netanyahu’s inability to form a coalition government for the umpteenth time. The best way to get the religious bigot and neo-fascist blocks on your team is to start blowing Palestinians to bits.

Whatever the specific heinous sequence of events, this is just Israel “mowing the lawn” once again, dropping bombs on one of the most densely populated regions on earth, rampaging through Al Aqsa mosque, beating the living hell out of young Palestinians and killing as many as they can manage. (See my posts on the 2014 edition of this story.) You have no doubt heard endless condemnations of rockets being fired into Israel from the open-air prison that is Gaza, but make no mistake: these are toys compared to what’s being dropped on Gazans every day and every night. The power differential between the two sides is absolute.

Rights to exist.

There is no question but that Israel is legitimately a country. It has a highly problematic origin story and was founded on massive violence and displacement, like every other country, including and especially the United States. So within the pre-1967 borders, it has rights and responsibilities. Beyond those borders, in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Golan, it has only responsibilities, no rights. Our international order is less than ideal, but to the extent that there is a law of nations, that principle is at the center of it.

Palestinians have national rights, even though they don’t currently have a nation state. But because of their forced separation from their homeland, they are not seen by our foreign policy establishment as having the right to self-defense, to a decent living, to be free from the hand of oppressors, and so on. It is therefore up to us to ensure that their right to exist as a people is duly recognized.

Cracks in the apartheid wall.

Because of the degree to which the Israeli military relies on direct aid from us, popular opinion on Israel-Palestine in the United States is crucial. Up until recent years, the only voices you would hear on the mainstream media were those of Israeli PR flacks. But as the Intercept has reported, this is changing the same way public perception of police violence in the U.S. is changing – largely due to the fact that smart phone cameras make millions of people amateur photo journalists and documentary filmmakers.

Now raw footage of Israeli troops abusing Palestinians, marauding through their places of worship, their schools, etc., is available to compete with the carefully crafted video being generated by the IDF. Beyond that, a broader range of voices can now be heard on corporate media, such that actual substantive criticism of Israeli policy makes its way onto the airwaves to a greater extent than it did just a few years ago. That’s a remarkable shift that reflects shifting sentiments around the nation.

This is not the first atrocity committed against Palestinians and it won’t be the last. As Americans, we need to do what we can to move our government closer to a reasonable position on this conflict. Right now, their heads are in the 1980s – we need to snap them out of it.

luv u,

jp

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Political Rants

Who would you sanction?

We have had Cuba, Iran, and North Korea under sanction for decades; Venezuela under sanction for a number of years now.  These examples are all for political reasons, of course. In the cases of Cuba and Iran, we dole out punishment for the unforgivable crime of “stealing” something quite valuable from us … specifically, Cuba and Iran. With North Korea, it’s basically get-back for their not having lost the Korean war after we reduced their country to rubble in the early 1950s. It was the same situation with Vietnam for a couple of decades, before we half-forgave them for what we did to them. (Not a typo.)

If, of course, we didn’t have a craven foreign policy, who would we call out? I have a few candidates.

Balsonaro’s Brazil. Make no mistake – the reason why there have been more than 70,000 fires in the Amazon this year is because this clown fascist has been encouraging ranchers, miners, loggers, and soybean farmers to clear this irreplaceable resource for further exploitation. Balsonaro is similar to Trump in as much as he represents all of the worst tendencies of his nation, rolled up into one big greasy ball. A sane U.S. foreign policy would oppose this mad regime with every tool in the toolbox, support the freeing of Lula and the aspirations of Brazil’s workers and landless peasants.

Great candidates (for sanctions)

Modi’s India. The BJP Hindu nationalists are flexing their muscles after their electoral win, with Modi at the helm. In the Indian administered sector of Kashmir,  they are engaged in a massive shutdown of free speech and free expression. Modi has cut the region off from the rest of the world and is arresting dissidents, harassing Muslims, and basically encouraging his Hindu nationalist followers to reek havoc on the majority Muslim community. A sane U.S. foreign policy would take issue with this in a big way. It just astounds me the degree to which this story is being ignored in America. If India were an official enemy, you would hear no end of this.

Netanyahu’s Israel. The Israelis are, once again, dropping bombs on people they don’t like, attacking targets in two locations in Lebanon – Beiruit area and the Bekaa Valley (see Rami Khouri’s article in The New Arab). They also bombed a Hezbollah arms depot in Iraq and a purported Iranian position in Syria. They are throwing gasoline on a burning fire and getting away with it. I am convinced that they do not want to fight a conventional war with either Hezbollah or Iran. They want us to fight it.  This, and countless offenses against Palestinians, should carry a substantial cost in terms of U.S. aid … if we had a sane foreign policy.

That’s a big if, regardless of who wins the presidency next year. But I would sooner go with a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the driver’s seat than the current ass-clown.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Turn right at Greenland.

Trump may well think there’s something rotten in Denmark, but it’s hard to know for sure. This past week’s strange interlude about Greenland seems more like a textbook study in megalomania as it  gradually unfolds. Where did Trump get this idea about buying this inhabited, now-melting glacial island from the Danes? The first story that I heard was that it was some Danish diplomat, but god only knows where that came from.

The simple fact is, well, Trump is a simpleton; somebody told him that he could buy Greenland, and he believed whoever that was. In his tiny mind, everything is for sale – it’s just a question of price. I’m thinking that as he saw the public reaction and it began to dawn on him how idiotic he looked, he did what proto-dictators always do – they bend every effort to make the world conform with their delusions. Trump doubled down on the claim, and suddenly there emerged some weird proposal about a kind of extended lease, which is essentially what the U.S. already holds with regards to its military bases on the island. Then when the prime minister (herself an anti-immigration freak) called the idea absurd, Trump canceled his scheduled state visit to Denmark.

Big Island Mine!

I know people are tempted to laugh at this episode, but we have to remind ourselves that this is the president of the United States and, as such, someone capable of tremendous harm all around the world. And I know he and his administration are deliberately trying to trigger people like me by acting strangely and saying outrageous things, but I think he is seriously showing signs of dictatorial self-aggrandizement and the autocrat version of shut-in syndrome, where all you hear is the echo of your own voice. This week Trump said, in effect, that either 80 percent of Jewish Americans are disloyal to themselves and to Israel (once again associating them with another country, as he has done before) or they are just plain stupid. Then he repeated a crackpot claim that Israelis see him as “the chosen one.” Oh … and said that he might want to be president for 10 or maybe 13 years. Somebody needs to shut that shit down.

We are dealing with a deranged right-wing nutjob in the White House. Isn’t there a constitutional amendment designed for a situation like that?  The sad fact is, people in Washington could stop this crap show, but they will not. It’s down to us.

luv u,

jp