Democrats have been unreliable peace brokers in the Middle East, and – just like Republicans – censor any criticisms of Israel. Democrats pretend that Israel’s nuclear weapons don’t exist, while other countries are sanctioned or threatened with fire and fury if they so much as spin up a centrifuge. When Israel kills American citizens our own government does little or nothing. Every politician from Susan Rice to John Kerry, to Mitt Romney, and now Donald Trump, has used the tired old phrase “no daylight between Israel and the U.S.” to imply that the interests of both countries are identical.
The Democratic Party has wrestled with “Israel as Foreign Policy” in each of its last two conventions. Actually, the party has a serious AIPAC problem and its wrestling is mainly with AIPAC’s power. Now, with Donald Trump in office, some Democrats say they are worried that the president’s settler-ambassador David Friedman will move the American embassy to Jerusalem.
But in 2012 the DNC itself tried to push through a motion to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. An undemocratic roll was called by Antonio Villaraigosa and an unexpectedly loud “no” vote caught the DNC offguard. AIPAC had “vetted” the motion – had actually written the text – and Obama was counting on its passing. The “no” vote was finally overturned after multiple attempts in a clearly undemocratic maneuver, and the incident remains an ugly stain on the party’s ethics and democratic practices.
In 2016 the issue of the occupation of Palestine came up again. Clinton supporter Robert Wexler insisted that Democrats could not afford to mention the “O” word if a Two State Solution could be salvaged. Sanders supporter James Zogby pushed back, pointing out that everyone knows the occupation exists. Both sides disagreed whether Democrats should support or condemn the BDS movement. At the end of the day, the DNC adopted wording that made AIPAC and Clinton happy. And the Democratic Party has since chosen to tar the BDS Movement with the Israel lobby’s “anti-Semitic” brush.
So in December 2016, when the UN Security Council took a vote on a motion to condemn Israeli settlements, the US abstention was remarkable, something that had rarely been done before. Obama was again denounced by Republicans and the Israel lobby as an Islamist-Leftist who loved Shariah and hated Jews.
But what had happened was that a tiny crack of daylight had opened up between the United States and Israel. Because Israel’s interests are not identical to ours. Not even close.
Obama’s abstention was a Hail Mary to save the Two State solution. America’s extreme right white ultrationalists in their brown shirts and white hoods, and uncompromising Zionists like David Friedman, are now singing a triumphant tune: there will never be a Two State solution.
But, really, what is the alternative?
Between Gaza and the West Bank there are 4.5 Palestinians living under continuing Israeli military occupation. There are another 1.7 million Arab Israelis. There are almost 6 million stateless Palestinian refugees waiting for a homeland. There are 8 million Jewish Israelis in Israel, some of whom live most of the time in Europe or the U.S. Demographics are not on Israel’s side. By 2035 Jews will be a minority in Israel-Palestine.
Israel can either (1) work with the international community to create a contiguous Palestinian state that would accommodate some number of the Palestinian diaspora; (2) continue the occupation indefinitely; or (3) turn Israel into a multicultural democracy under secular law.
Democrats had better figure out if they prefer option (1) or option (3) because option (2) is barbaric and cannot be sustained. And Democrats will need to develop muscle and guts to push back against AIPAC and the boatload of Israel lobby groups that work tirelessly to keep the occupation in place – to steal more land and build more settlements.
And, frankly, it’s hard to understand why Democrats have such a problem with a secular, multicultural democracy. If that’s what they truly believe in.
As he was leaving office, George Washington offered a few pieces of advice. One was a warning about permitting double standards that favor a particular nation:
“… a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter… It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions … and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity…”
No one in modern times has said it any better.
Comments are closed.