- Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government
had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few
express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe
the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during
the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid
until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war.
-
- The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating,
but any determined president - even President Bush this very day - could
prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by
laying these facts before the American people:
-
- Israel's present government, like its predecessors, is
determined to annex the West Bank - biblical Judea and Samaria - so Israel
will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful
role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until
Greater Israel is a reality. Although a minority in Israel, they are committed,
aggressive, and influential. Because of deep religious conviction, they
are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood on any part
of the West Bank.
-
- In its violent assaults on Palestinians, Israel uses
the pretext of eradicating terrorism, but its forces are actually engaged
advancing the territorial expansion just cited. Under the guise of anti-terrorism,
Israeli forces treat Palestinians worse than cattle. With due process nowhere
to be found, hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured.
Some are assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are destroyed.
Entire cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some confinements lasting
for weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing emergency medical care are
routinely held at checkpoints for an hour or more. Many children are undernourished.
The West Bank and Gaza have become giant concentration camps. None of this
could have occurred without U.S. support. Perhaps Israeli officials believe
life will become so unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually leave
their ancestral homes.
-
- Once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself
reviled in most countries because it provides unconditional support of
Israeli violations of the United Nations Charter, international law, and
the precepts of all major religious faiths.
-
- How did the American people get into this fix?
-
- Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35 years ago when
Israel's U.S. lobby began its unbroken success in stifling debate about
the proper U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and effectively concealed
from public awareness the fact that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical
support to Israel.
-
- Thanks to the suffocating influence of Israel's U.S.
lobby, open discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent
in our government all these years. I have firsthand knowledge, because
I was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee
in June 1967 when Israeli military forces took control of the Golan Heights,
a part of Syria, as well as the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. I continued
as a member for 16 years and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
-
- For 35 years, not a word has been expressed in that committee
or in either chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle
East policy. No restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have
been offered for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years
received more than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel,
even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright
unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech
was assured when those few who spoke out-Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles
Percy, and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl
Hilliard, and myself-were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed
by pro-Israel forces.
-
- As a result, legislation dealing with the Middle East
has been heavily biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians and
other Arabs year after year. Home constituencies, misled by news coverage
equally lop-sided in Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress
behaves as if it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament.
-
- However, the bias is widely noted beyond America, where
most news media candidly cover Israel's conquest and generally excoriate
America's complicity and complacency. When President Bush welcomed Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as
"my dear friend" and "a man of peace" after Israeli
forces, using U.S.-donated arms, completed their devastation of the West
Bank last spring, worldwide anger against American policy reached the boiling
point.
-
- The fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers
or listens to BBC. In several televised statements long before 9/11,Osama
bin Laden, believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited
U.S. complicity in Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal
complaint. Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express their
opposition to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and severity,
especially since Bush announced his determination to make war against Iraq.
-
- The lobby's intimidation remains pervasive. It seems
to reach every government center and even houses of worship and revered
institutions of higher learning. It is highly effective in silencing the
many U.S. Jews who object to the lobby's tactics and Israel's brutality.
-
- Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty deserve maximum
punishment, but it makes sense for America to examine motivations promptly
and as carefully as possible. Terrorism almost always arises from deeply-felt
grievances. If they can be eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are
certain to subside.
-
- Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush has made no
attempt to redress grievances, or even to identify them. In fact, he has
made the scene far worse by supporting Israel's religious war against Palestinians,
an alliance that has intensified anti-American anger. He seems oblivious
to the fact that nearly two billion people worldwide regard the plight
of Palestinians as today's most important foreign-policy challenge. No
one in authority will admit a calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded
from the American people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America
suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly
because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.
-
- Israel is a scofflaw nation and should be treated as
such. Instead of helping Sharon intensify Palestinian misery, our president
should suspend all aid until Israel ends its occupation of Arab land Israel
seized in 1967. The suspension would force Sharon's compliance or lead
to his removal from office, as the Israeli electorate will not tolerate
a prime minister who is at odds with the White House.
-
- If Bush needs an additional reason for doing the right
thing, he can justify the suspension as a matter of military necessity,
an essential step in winning international support for his war on terrorism.
He can cite a worthy precedent. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the
proclamation that freed only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion,
he make the restriction because of "military necessity."
-
- If Bush suspends U.S. aid, he will liberate all Americans
from long years of bondage to Israel's misdeeds.
-
-
- Mr. Paul Findley, who served as a Republican congressman
from Illinois for 22 years, is the author of 'They Dare to Speak Out' and
a member of the American Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee
-
- From RePortersNoteBook.com
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Kate
- neelhtak4852@eonet.net
- 9-21-2
-
- I think it is hogwash. Just plain hogwash!!!! Israel
is not the bad one and should be left alone. If anyone is to blame it
is America and her terrible moral conditions here on her soil. We have
more murders performed on television for our children to watch, drugs galore
on the streets, parents who care more for materialism than being home with
their children, God is taken out of our schools and out of our government.
Sex is so freely-pushed in front of us as a causal thing, when it was
meant to be between two loving people who are married...as in male and
female. We allow witchcraft to be taught in our public schools and universities;
we allow laziness to continue on in our young people; our young people
are spoiled and pampered and are no longer taught manners; and abortion
is considered as a way to birth control - with extremes of abortion such
as partial birth abortions. We call obscene words in songs 'freedom of
speech' and cursing at our children acceptable as well as young boys speaking
to elderly women in sexually explicit unacceptable language all the while
saying this is okay...that they are only doing this for 'shock value.'
We ignore the needs of our elderly and do not make sure that they get
the medical attention that they deserve. We promote homosexuality in the
government and in other areas of America saying this is an acceptable lifestyle.
America is ruled by the love of money.
-
- We wonder why America is no longer respected and why
the rest of the world wants to tear us down. When a country falls to the
ways of bad morals, the country will soon fall at the hands of its enemies
- even if the enemies are part of its own government.
-
- I honestly believe no matter who we would have put into
the office of Presidency they would have been corrupt. They would have
sold us out. That is why I am praying for those in authority over us.
I may not like what our President is doing and I may not agree with him
but he is in authority at this time and so I will pray for him. Let me
say this though, President Bush did not get us into this mess we are in,
we got ourselves into this mess we are in. I will not blame Israel for
our present problems with the Arab countries because to tell the truth America
helping Israel is probably the only thing that keeps us from being fully-attacked.
-
- I am telling you if we hurt Israel in anyway. we stand
against her God and we are not strong enough to do that. Research history
and you will see that Israel is too strong because of her God. The only
thing that can make Israel weak is to make her sick like America and I
doubt Israel wants to be this depraved.
-
- I love my country and I love my President even though
I don't agree with him and the things he is doing. I will weep and pray
for our government and our nation. I know that one day we will turn against
Israel and that will be a very sad day for us here in America.
-
- I am thankful to know about what is going on as it helps
me to know what to pray about and it also lets me know where we are as
far as time and Bible prophesy. Maybe you do not believe in such things
but me and countless others do. and they would stand up and agree with
me. Regardless what our President does we must honor him because this
is the right thing to do. It doesn't mean that we agree with him when
he does wrong only that we honor the office he is in and we pray for him.
We live in very perilous times.
-
- I hope that you will pass this email unto former Congressman
Paul Findley as I did not have an email address to mail it to him. but
I sure would like him to know how I feel about his anger at Israel. I
truly wish he would leave Israel alone she has nothing to do with this
fight.
-
- Sincerely,
- Kate
|
