- (The simple answer is to be found in Israel's thermonuclear
weapons inventory which, according to an official USAF paper, has been
used to blackmail the US and remains a major factor in US foreign policy
decisions. The Air Force paper detailing these facts can be read here:
http://www.rense.com/general35/isrnuk.htm - ed)
-
- Israel is a "thunderously failed reality" that
"rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression
and injustice." Were these words spoken by an American leader, he
would be denounced as an anti-Semite. But these are the words of a former
speaker of the Israeli Knesset who cries for his country. "The countdown
to the end of Israeli society has begun," writes Avraham Burg, "the
end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep."
-
- "Israel, having ceased to care about the children
of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred
and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism." Burg implores
"Diaspora Jews" to "speak out." To little avail.
-
- Why? Why, when a Knesset member is unintimidated, are
we so silent? Why, when Ariel Sharon is dragging America's good name through
the mud and blood of Ramallah and Jenin, are we so tongue-tied? Did not
Burke instruct us, "To sin by silence when they should protest makes
cowards out of men"?
-
- Israelis are speaking truth to power. Army Chief of Staff
Moshe Yaalon has told Israel's press it was Sharon who undermined Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas. Twenty-seven Israeli Air Force pilots have refused
to obey "immoral orders" for air strikes on "populated civilian
centers."
-
- Five hundred Israeli soldiers have refused to take part
in the repression. Four ex-chiefs of Shin Beit - Ami Ayalon, Carmi Gillon,
Yaakov Peri, Avraham Shalom - have charged Sharon with leading Israel to
ruin. "We are heading downhill toward near-catastrophe," says
Peri, "If we go on living by the sword, we will continue to wallow
in the mud and destroy ourselves."
-
- Ayalon and Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh have issued
a declaration of principles calling for Israel's withdrawal to her 1967
borders. Ex-Justice minister Yossi Beilin has negotiated a detailed accord
with a former Palestinian minister. Colin Powell wrote a letter of support.
Where is George W. Bush?
-
- Why is he silent when Sharon has led us into a cul-de-sac
from which he cannot find an exit? Why is our president letting Sharon
ravage what is left of our reputation in the Arab world? Sharon promised
peace and security. He has delivered war and hatred. Over 700 Israelis
are dead. Some 2,500 Palestinians have died, including hundreds of children.
Scores of thousands have been wounded. Homes and olive groves have been
destroyed.
-
- Yet still Sharon approves new settlements without a peep
of protest from President Bush. When Howard Dean suggested that U.S. Mideast
policy needed to be more "even-handed," he was warned by Democratic
bosses never to use that term again. Why are our politicians so craven,
so terrified of an Israeli lobby that does not speak for Israel, let alone
for America?
-
- Israel is in an existential crisis. Its options for survival
are narrowing by the month. It can push all the Palestinians into Jordan,
a monstrous crime of ethnic cleansing some on the Israeli Right are advocating.
It can wall off Israel and Jerusalem and leave the Palestinians in a truncated,
tiny state that will become an eternal spawning pool of terror, as Sharon
is now doing.
-
- Or it can give the Palestinians what Oslo, Camp David,
Taba, the Saudi Plan, and "road map" promised: a homeland.
-
- If Israel is to remain democratic and Jewish, she must
either let the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem goóor annex them
all and grant Palestinians full rights as citizens in a binational state.
Are Israeli Jews willing to practice in their country what American Jews
preach in ours, equality and multiculturalism?
-
- Israel is free to choose her course. But America needs
a Middle East policy Made in the USA, not in Tel Avivóor at AIPAC
or AEI. President Bush should restate U.S. support for the survival of
Israel but also register America's disgust with Sharon's duplicitous policy
of creeping annexationism and repression, while talking of peace.
-
- Sharon should be told to vacate every settlement and
outpost put up since Bush took office and to tear down any part of his
new wall that encroaches on the land of the coming nation of Palestine.
Else, American aid stops.
-
- If this undermines Sharon, so much the better. If we
are to preach democracy to the Arabs, let us also preach it to the regime
that claims to be the only democracy in the region as it holds three million
persecuted Palestinians in human bondage.
-
- As Israel's benefactor and guardian, we have a right
to demand that our values be respected in her treatment of the Palestinians,
that our vital interests always be kept in mind, as they have rarely been
in 50 years.
-
- If Mr. Burg can stand up to Sharon, why cannot Mr. Bush?
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
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- http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/buchanan.html
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