|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
Lerner And West On The Democrats' Lock-step On Israel |
Current rating: 0 |
by tikkun via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
11 Nov 2003
|
|
Editorial from the Washington Post from Michael Lerner and Cornel West (the scholar/"Matrix" star): "Many Israelis see that Sharon's policies have led to an increase, not a decrease, in violence. They are dismayed when their government rejects out of hand Palestinian proposals for a cease-fire. They are appealing to their friends around the world to put pressure on the Israeli government. Doing so is an act of friendship, not hostility toward the Jewish people. We who are rightly outraged at Palestinian acts of violence need to be equally outraged when Sharon creates daily obstacles to a settlement of the conflict." |
Unfair Tilt Toward Israel
By Michael Lerner and Cornel West
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A25
In mid-September, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Democratic Rep. Howard Berman of Los Angeles and several dozen other congressional Democrats in an extraordinary attempt to stop debate in the presidential primaries about America's approach to Middle East conflict. In a letter to candidate Howard Dean, the liberal Democrats criticized Dean's statement that if the United States wanted to play a positive role in bringing Israel and Palestine to peace, it would have to take a more neutral stance.
Pelosi and others insisted that these words were a violation of America's traditional tilt toward Israel, and that they could be interpreted as abandoning the U.S. commitment to Israel's survival. Of course Dean had neither intended nor implied any such thing. In fact, Dean has not been particularly courageous on Middle East peace issues, so the public hand-slap sent a powerful message: Democrats can be against the war in Iraq, but they dare not question America's almost blind support for Ariel Sharon's government.
Privately, some Democrats say they are doing this to ensure that their party does not lose the support of Jewish campaign contributors, who play a disproportionate role in the finances of the party. Pelosi, they say, was trying to reassure these contributors that the party would stay loyal to Israel.
Yet in precluding a serious public discussion of our Israel-Palestine policy, the liberal Democrats who are normally the champions of free speech are actually hurting the best interests of the United States, Israel and the Jewish people.
The United States has repeatedly been the object of anger and terrorism from people who refer to the oppression of Palestinians by a U.S.-funded Israeli government as a major reason for their antagonism. President Bush promised that the war in Iraq would give him new leverage with Israel to push for a peace settlement. But the road map proposed for this purpose has proved seriously flawed, in part because it allows acts of terrorism to derail the process, and in part because it fails to state from the outset whether the Palestinian state it envisions is in all of the West Bank and Gaza or just in the little sliver that Ariel Sharon would give.
The Bush administration has passively acquiesced in Israel's refusal to free political prisoners (most of them never charged or given a trial), and has made only token protests against Israel's construction of a wall through the West Bank, demolitions of Palestinian homes and the targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants (usually carried out in ways that kill more innocent civilians than targets). Last month the United States vetoed a U.N. resolution that challenged Israel's right to expel or murder Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The State Department offered vague warnings when Israel announced an expansion of existing West Bank settlements. These policies put all Americans at risk and do nothing to move peace forward.
Israel's best interests lie with a United States that would support U.N. intervention to stop the killings, protect each side from the other and provide a U.N. protectorate for Palestine while it became organized as an economically and politically viable state, and while it set in motion steps to repress all those criminals whose ideological commitments might lead them to terrorist acts even after a state had been created. The United States should be promoting an agenda that is explicitly even-handed, balanced and both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. It would call for an end to the occupation, return of Israel to the pre-1967 borders and compensation for Palestinian refugees, who should be resettled in the new Palestinian state. There should also be a guarantee (perhaps through a mutual defense pact with the United States) of Israeli security. Such an agreement was signed last month between former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin and leading figures in the Palestinian Fatah organization; it remains only for Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian Authority to sign on.
Many Israelis see that Sharon's policies have led to an increase, not a decrease, in violence. They are dismayed when their government rejects out of hand Palestinian proposals for a cease-fire. They are appealing to their friends around the world to put pressure on the Israeli government. Doing so is an act of friendship, not hostility toward the Jewish people. We who are rightly outraged at Palestinian acts of violence need to be equally outraged when Sharon creates daily obstacles to a settlement of the conflict.
Instead of validating misleading stereotypes about Jewish money and power, the Democrats should be giving a place to the many friends of Israel, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who believe that it is not domination over others but cooperation and reconciliation that will provide the best path to peace and security for the United States and Israel.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine and author of Healing Israel/Palestine.Cornel West is university professor of religion at Princeton University and author of Race Matters.
@%< |
