NOVANEWS
- US aid for Palestinian roads facilitates hateful Israeli system of separate roadways
- Which side are you on, J Street?
- Freeman: Israel is useless to US power projection
- More Arizona contradictions, this time from an Is-lobbyist
- The Arab turf at Brookings
- Report: Junior Israel lobbyist eavesdropped on Massad’s class at Columbia
US aid for Palestinian roads facilitates hateful Israeli system of separate roadwaysPosted: 30 Apr 2010 08:24 PM PDT
Great piece of investigative reporting by Nadia Hijab and Jesse Rosenfeld in the Nation showing that many new Palestinian roads in the West Bank paid for by our government (U.S. that is) and other international donors are only serving Israeli settlement expansion by consolidating an Israeli plan for separate roadways. Emphasis mine:
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Which side are you on, J Street?Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:00 PM PDT
A couple of news items relating to the self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby J Street over the past few weeks have shown that it’s siding with the wrong people if it is honestly interested in a just and lasting solution to the situation in Israel/Palestine.
On one hand, you have Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, taking down Alan Dershowitz in a running debate on the Huffington Post. But actions speak louder than words, and J Street’s actions have aligned the group with right-wing apologists for Israel. J Street allied itself with the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Israel’s consul general in San Francisco to successfully beat back the UC Berkeley resolution calling for divestment from companies that supply weapons to Israel for use in the occupied territories. J Street’s support of that effort was harshly criticized by some Israeli activists, who said the lobby group was “trying to gain political capital at the expense of dedicated peace activists.” J Street is deeply concerned about preserving Israel’s “Jewish and democratic” character. But by supporting the likes of AIPAC in opposing the efforts of boycott, divestment and sanctions activists, it’s actually making the two-state solution obsolete. If Israel doesn’t suffer any consequences for its colonization—something that AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby have been very successful at ensuring—then it is on a path to “national suicide,” as John Mearsheimer put it. What’s J Street going to say when nobody can deny that Israel is an apartheid state? Will it continue to ally itself with AIPAC, or will it be on the side of justice? In a April 25th interview with Haaretz (h/t to Richard Silverstein), Ben-Ami expressed “deep respect for AIPAC and what they’ve accomplished. It’s hard not to be impressed over what they have done over many decades to establish such a deep US-Israel relationship.” Take that in. Is Ben-Ami really saying that he has deep respect for AIPAC muzzling open debate in the United States about Israel, ensuring that billions of dollars keep flowing to Israel with no strings attached, even when war crimes are committed? After being left out in the cold by the Netanyahu government, it seems like J Street is being brought in. Its officials met with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren recently, and are now being recruited by the Netanyahu administration for the “front against Iran,” according to an Israeli media report that Didi Remez posted. All of these news items cut to the core of J Street’s problem: how can you be “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace” at a time when supporting Israel means supporting colonization, racism, and war crimes? How will history view J Street 20 years from now? The group has to choose between being AIPAC-lite, in effect a supporter of apartheid, or a group dedicated to justice. I urge the organization to pick justice. |
Freeman: Israel is useless to US power projectionPosted: 30 Apr 2010 06:32 PM PDT
The other day Stephen Maher published a piece on Electronic Intifada saying that American thirst for hegemony in the region, and not the Israel lobby, is the prime motivator of US policy in Israel and Palestine. What follows is an excerpt of a private email exchange responding to Maher’s post, reprinted by permission of the author, Chas Freeman, a former assistant secretary of defense.
Maher’s account is far from novel on any score but he is describing Japan’s, the UK’s, or Qatar’s role in US strategy, not Israel’s. A few facts to ponder when considering his assertion that Israel is a huge and essential asset for US global and regional strategy: — the US has no bases or troop presence in Israel and stores only minimal military supplies in the country (and these under terms that allow these supplies to be used essentially at will by the IDF). — Israeli bases are not available for US use. — none of Israel’s neighbors will facilitate overflight for military aircraft transiting Israeli territory, let alone taking off from there. Israel is useless for purposes of strategic logistics or power projection. — Israel is worse than irrelevant to the defense of Middle Eastern energy supplies; the US relationship with Israel has jeopardized these supplies (as in 1973), not contributed to securing them. — US relations with Israel do not bolster US prestige in Middle Eastern oil-producing countries or assist the US to “dominate” them, they complicate and weaken US influence; they have at times resulted in the suspension of US relations with such countries. — Israel does not have the diplomatic prestige or capacity to marshal support for US interests or policies globally or in its own region and does not do so; on the contrary, it requires constant American defense against political condemnation and sanctions by the international community. — Israel does not fund aid programs in third countries to complement and support US foreign or military policy as other allies and strategic partners do. Japan provides multiple bases and pays “host nation support” for the US presence (though that presence as well as the fact that Japan is paying for a good deal of it are growing political issues in Japan). The air base in Qatar from which the US directs air operations throughout the region (including in both Iraq and Afghanistan) was built and is maintained at host nation expense. So too the ground force and naval facilities we use elsewhere in the Gulf. The US is paid for the weapons and military services it provides to its European and Asian allies as well as its Arab strategic partners. Washington has never had to exercise a veto or pay a similar political price to protect any of them from condemnation or sanctions by the international community. Japan and various Arab countries, as well as European nations, have often paid for US foreign assistance and military programs in third countries or designed their own programs specifically to supplement US activities. Washington has made Israel our largest recipient of foreign aid, encouraged private transfers to it through unique tax breaks, transferred huge quantities of weapons and munitions to it gratis, directly and indirectly subsidized the Israeli defense industry, allocated military R&D to Israeli rather than US institutions, offered Israeli armaments manufacturers the same status as US manufacturers for purposes of US defense procurement, etc.. Almost all US vetoes at the United Nations and decisions to boycott international conferences and meetings have been on behalf of Israel. Israel treats its ability to command support from Washington as a major tool of diplomatic influence in third countries; it does not exercise its very limited influence abroad in support of US as opposed to its own objectives. As others have said with greater indirection than I have here, one must look elsewhere than Israel’s strategic utility to the United States for the explanation of its privileged status in US foreign policy, iniquitous as Maher considers that policy to be. |
More Arizona contradictions, this time from an Is-lobbyistPosted: 30 Apr 2010 06:27 PM PDT
Writer Peter Beinart worked for AIPAC during the last presidential cycle, doing private events AIPAC refused to allow me to attend. Well he was on Hardball tonight taking the side of Mexican-Americans in Arizona. They are, he said, emblematic of “politically vulnerable minorities historically in our country who get roughed up by abusive government.” Later he said that the immigrants are “human beings reacting the way that we would react” in the same situation.
Does the rubber ever meet the road with this guy? I don’t think he’s said one kind word about the vulnerable minority in Israel/Palestine, has never put himself in the Palestinians’ shoes. I want to say it’s strictly partisan–he’s making hay for the Democrats. But I think it probably goes deeper. He probably looks on Jews/Israelis as a politically vulnerable minority. |
The Arab turf at BrookingsPosted: 30 Apr 2010 01:46 PM PDT
Someone passed me an email from the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar, hiring for two jobs:
The research job and communications job both include this requirement:
And fluency in Arabic is “highly prized” or “strongly desired.”
But leave the important stuff (Israel/Palestine) to neocon wannabes. Ken Pollack, or Martin S. Indyk Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy. Here’s more brilliant analysis, from Indyk:
Notice the turf of the Arabs. Tell us what is wrong with your society. Tell us they are primitive and need to be placed under the tutelage of America so we can help bring them into modernity. But please don’t tell us we are in any way responsbile for the mess in the region and certainly don’t tell us about the extremely low regard for American foreign policy. So that was left to Petraeus. Not to a beltway think-tank. |
Report: Junior Israel lobbyist eavesdropped on Massad’s class at ColumbiaPosted: 30 Apr 2010 10:50 AM PDT
The pursuit of Joseph Massad at Columbia continues. Here’s an excerpt from an investigation by Jared Malsin at Electronic Intifada.
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