- James J. David is a retired Brigadier General and a graduate
of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, and the National
Security Course, National Defense University, Washington DC. He served
as a Company Commander with the 101st Airborne Division in the Republic
of Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 and also served nearly 3 years of Army active
duty in and around the Middle East from 1967-1969. He is a regular contributor
to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
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- "Libya has never been a threat to the United States,
and for that matter, Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The
only threat Iraq or Libya posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear
weapons in the Middle East."
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- It seems that the entire world is praising American and
British diplomacy for its efforts in convincing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
in announcing that Libya would cease work on its programs to develop nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons. This is quite an accomplishment, considering
that Libya has been listed for more than 17years by the U.S. State Department
as one of the major countries supporting state terrorism.
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- As wonderful as this news may be, the United States needs
to concentrate its efforts towards the real obstacle to world peace. Libya
was no threat to world peace, and neither was Iraq. If the United States
devotes as much effort in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as
they did with Libya's weapons of mass destruction then maybe the American
people could rest a bit easier.
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- According to a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League,
forty-two percent of the American people consider Israel as a threat to
world peace. What's even more astonishing is the result of a recent European
poll that found 59 percent of Europeans considered Israel as the major
threat to world peace with the United States coming in second. Libya wasn't
even mentioned.
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- Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and
for that matter, Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only
threat Iraq or Libya posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear
weapons in the Middle East.
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- While Iraq failed to obey one UN resolution fast enough,
Israel has steadfastly refused to obey not just one UN resolution, but
an incredible 69 UN resolutions. Israel's actions have brought outrage
from a majority of the UN's member states on 69 separate occasions. They
have condemned Israel for the destruction of Arab villages, for the murder
of innocent women and children, for making war on neighboring states, for
refusing to withdraw from invaded and occupied territory, for killing protesting
students, for killing civilians protesting being expelled from their homes,
for a transcontinental bombing raid against Tunisia, and for dozens of
other violations. And on 29 other occasions, UN resolutions with real teeth
in them, calling for Israel to withdraw from stolen land and allow self-determination
for the Palestinian people among other things, would have been adopted
but were vetoed by the one dissenting vote of the United States. When it
comes to the exercising of any kind of real power against those who violate
UN resolutions, it seems that some countries are "more equal than
others." Israel gets away not only with an expansionist foreign policy,
but with repeatedly and endlessly violating the most elementary human rights
of her subject peoples.
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- Although Israel's PR men would have us believe that Israel
is an island of Western values in the Middle East, the truth is quite the
opposite. Not only does Israel violate the most fundalmental human rights
laws but Israel is also guilty of assassination, kidnapping, expulsion,
detention without charges or trial, land confiscation, and collective punishment
- not to mention Israel's long-standing practice of espionage against the
United States, its principal benefactor and the attack on the USS Liberty
that killed 34 American sailors and injured another 171.
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- Hardly a day goes by without the Israelis killing innocent
Palestinian men, women, and children. Today they killed 8 Palestinians
and wounded an estimated 300. Three days ago they killed a 6-year-old Palestinain
boy just hours before a 13-year-old Palestinian boy died from a gunshot
to his head. Twenty Palestinians have been killed in the past two weeks
even though there hasn't been even one suicide bombing in over two months.
And just last week the Israelis shot and killed a 21-year-old pregnant
Palestinian mother trying to take her young son to the hospital. The Israelis
have killed more than 500 women and children in the past 3 years. They
have demolished more than 3000 Palestinian homes, causing more than 17,000
homeless, including 2300 children.
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- These stories never make the Headline News or the front
pages of your local newspapers. You don't see President Bush or Condoleezza
Rice out on the front lawn of the White House condemning the Israelis for
killing innocent men, women, and especially children. The United States
talks about a balanced Middle East Policy but just look at what we actually
practice. We have one standard for the treatment of Israelis that is so
high they cannot be criticized no matter what grisly crimes they commit.
Then we have a second standard for the treatment of Palestinians that is
so low we publicly finance their ethnic cleansing and torture.
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- President Bush may refer to Israeli policies as obstacles
to peace but when it comes time for a vote in the U.N. Security Council
on the illegal settlements, or the apartheid wall, or on assassinations,
or any of the other Israeli criminal acts, the United States vetoes every
move to condemn Israeli aggression. The United States could not even bring
itself to condemn the Qana Lebanese refugee camp massacre of 1996 in which
103 innocent Lebanese civilians were killed. Is it any wonder the Arab
world hates us? Is it any wonder America was attacked? How can the United
States strive for world peace when Israel is allowed to do whatever it
pleases? Supporting Israel may be politically correct, but the more we
look the other way, the more violence there will be. American politicians
jump on the Zionist bandwagon simply because they know that is where the
power is. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Lobby and Jewish
interest groups have effectively silenced any politician who is critical
to Israeli policy.
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- Is the Israeli lobby and the Jewish control of our American
politicians so powerful that our elected officials have lost all sense
of moral right? Evidently, former President Jimmy Carter thought so when
he was prompted to say, after he left office of course, that no politician
dared to oppose its demands, because to do so would be "political
suicide." They take our money, we fight and die in their wars, and,
since both political parties are in their pocket, the American people don't
have any choice in the matter. Sheilding Israel is an international embarrassment
and places U.S. citizens in danger around the world, let alone danger to
our own nation. It is time for the American people to face the fact that
supporting Israel's criminal activities is the greatest threat facing America
today. Disguising America's threat with anything else is nothing more than
political spin and a decoy used as a means of savings one's career. Placing
the blame on Israel would end one's political career.
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- The recent decision by Libya to abandon its weapons of
mass destruction is just one step towards world peace. The bigger step
would be for Israel to do the same. It is time for the United States to
free itself from the grips of the Jewish lobby and to take a stand on the
side of human mankind. It is time to use our foreign aid as leverage and
to insist on Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to abide
by International Law. It is time we stop fooling the American people. It
is time to get tough with Israel. After all, Israel is the biggest threat
to world peace.
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