With friends like this, Israel needs no enemies

[Violet_Crumble]

GERALD CAPLAN
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, Sep. 30, 2011 5:18PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Sep. 30, 2011 5:35PM EDT

There will be no Israeli-Palestinian spring. At the United Nations, Israel’s closest, most reliable allies are once again assuring the nation a future of isolation, insecurity, irreconcilable internal division, international condemnation and endless conflict. For the people of Israel, a life of perpetual anxiety is assured. As my family used to put it, is this good for the Jews?

The Palestinian initiative to seek recognition by the UN offered a people without hope a few precious days of pride and dignity. But I fear their life of constant humiliation will return. Now, if there is any chance at all for Palestinians to end this degrading status, their only realistic alternative is to escalate peaceful civil disobedience. (A remarkable look at the use of non-violent resistance by Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israel’s response, can be found in the New York Review of Books, Feb. 24, 2011, “Israel and Palestine: Breaking the Silence,” by David Shulman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

<snip>

This was not the Zionist ideal of Eretz Yisrael as a light unto the nations that was bred into my soul as I was growing up. Nor is an Israel controlled by ultra-nationalist politicians, Arab baiters, ethnic cleansers, violent settlers, and Taliban-like religious fundamentalists. Nor is an Israeli army that increasingly reflects these hate-filled extremists.

Nor is the unholy alliance that supports Israel the kind of allies we hoped a just and humane Israel would attract. To be adopted by American Christian evangelicals whose ultimate goal is either the conversion or annihilation of all Jews; by far-right European political parties of Muslim-haters who only yesterday demonized Jews; by American Republicans who want to roll back the modern world; by Conservatives in Canada who flagrantly exploit and exaggerate anti-Semitism for their own political purposes; by bogus friends everywhere who insist that criticism of Israel equals anti-Semitism; by the violence-prone Jewish Defence League in Canada, who befriended the English Defence League, a violently anti-Muslim group embraced by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik; by politicians too craven and opportunistic to stand up for the real well-being of Israel, led by the man who used to be Barack Obama. Can such friends really help assure Israel of a secure future?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/with-friends-like-this-israel-needs-no-enemies/article2186896/singlepage/#articlecontent

[provis99]

1. look at Israel's past friends:

Apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, Pinochet's Chile, Chiang Kai-shek's Taiwan, Galtieri's Argentina, the Shah of Iran. By your friends will ye be known.

[LeftishBrit]

2. With the possible exception of Galtier's Argentina, these were all America's friends too.

And most of them were also big pals of Britain, expecially under dear Maggie.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Israel has for a long time been a client state used by America for its foreign policy goals

Like the UK, but even more so.

Sometimes these goals have been (a) beneficial to the world at large and/or (b) beneficial to Israel in the long term. But very often they haven't been.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. Exactly. And when Israel outlives it's usefulness to the US, what then?

The US needs and wants instability in that region, but Israel doesn't need it (though Nutty probably wants it because he's pretty stupid)...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Really?

I'd agree about the "client state" part, but has America used Israel? My impression is that the Republicans and the Democrats have both benefited massively from Israeli support, but that America has not done so to nearly such an extent.

[LeftishBrit]

7. The American military industrial complex has certainly benefitted.

And so have the American governments who want some allies, as they pursue military adventures in the Middle East, in the interest of maintaining and expanding their empire.

Whether you consider either of these as a benefit to 'America' depends on point of view; but they are both highly important to American policymakers.

[Centrist2011]

5. Zionism

I think Republicans need to get this through their heads- Israel and Palestine have an EQUAL RIGHT TO EXIST. Just because they want independence does not mean they want to abolish Israel. We don't need to choose between Israel and Palestine. Palestinian independence is not a threat to Israel, just as Tibetan independence from the commie terrorists is not a threat to China. It is simply independence of a people. I defend Israel's right to exist, against the TRUE anti-Israel sentiment. People on both sides of the fence need to realize it is impractical not to accept the fact that both nations have an equal right to exist.