[Peace-discuss] Remarks at Rally for Gaza, 7/25

Sat Jul 26 00:15:24 EDT 2014

It is not a question of responsibility; it is a question of anger and outrage at what is being perpetrated by « facts on the ground ». Massive protests against what an ally of the U.S. is doing by its nature reflects back on why « we" support such an ally. That is why Kerry is trying to find a cease fire.

There was no balance in Carl’s tirade, and I believe on that score that it was counterproductive.

People all over the globe are protesting Israel’s behavior, and that is important. I wish there were even greater protests—against Israel, and yes against all those governments who support that rogue state. They hinge together.

—mkb

On Jul 25, 2014, at 10:04 PM, ewjohnson via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

Indeed Americans have more responsibility for what their "country" does than
what Netan-yahoo et al. do.

Complaining about Israel is about as useful as pointing at Norway with yer fist.

Americans bear the corporate responsibility for what their government does.
They had the ability to sack the oligarchy but they have chosen to support it
with their lives and substance because they love Big Sibling.

I recall that Jesse Jackson also said that Obama ought to be castigated,
no, that was castrated.  Ah, same difference.

On 07/26/2014 10:23 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote:
Putting aside the attempt to describe accurately what's going on, I might ask, Where would public outrage by Americans do more good?

Netanyahu can probably regard being insulted in Urbana with equanimity, but Obama remembers that castigation from Americans brought down Presidents Johnson and Nixon.

See his discussion of Vietnam protests in 'Audacity of Hope.'  And note the DHS' stockpiling of ammunition, Pentagon-funded university studies of social unrest, and the administration's obvious nervousness about public protests in the coming months as the Great Recession continues for all but the 1%.

"...that the U.S. bears heavy ... responsibility [for] the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza" has (in Henry Kissinger's phrase) "the added virtue of being true."

--CGE

On Jul 25, 2014, at 8:58 PM, Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu<mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>> wrote:

I’m afraid that it is true that Carl seems more interested in castigating—thinks it more important—Obama, the U.S. government et al.,  then in accenting the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza and elsewhere. Of course, he is right that the U.S. bears heavy (but not total) responsibility, but the killers on the ground are let off scot free. This is  inimical to what we would hope to be continued intense public outrage about the Israeli aggression. The focus has been marred,.

—mkb

On Jul 25, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

I appreciate being asked to speak at the Gaza Protest today, as a representative of AWARE.

My remarks were as follows:

[1.] We must ask, Who is responsible for the Israeli military assault on Gaza? Many people can be blamed for Israel’s committing what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime - launching aggressive war” - but the final responsibility lies with the President of the United State.
[2.] Without the support - economic, military, political, and diplomatic - that the US government provides, Israel’s crimes would not be possible.
[3.] But the US does not provide this support because of undue influence from the government of Israel or the Israel lobby, as some people argue. The US government supports Israel - and its oppression of Palestinians - because Israel is America’s “stationary aircraft carrier” in the Mideast.
[4.] Most Americans think of US war in the Mideast as beginning after 9/11/2001, with the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but in fact our government has been killing people in the Mideast since the Second World War to secure control of what the US State Department called then “the world’s greatest material prize,” Mideast gas/oil.
[5.] The US government demands not just access to Mideast energy resources but control of them, because a strangle-hold over world energy flows gives the US the advantage over its economic rivals in Europe and Asia, notably Russia and China.
[6.] Obama could stop the killing in Gaza with a word. President Eisenhower did it in 1956, when Israel was far less dependent on the US than it is today. But Obama refuses to stop the killing, because it’s been the policy of all US administrations for two generations to allow the Israelis to continue their oppression of the Palestinians so long as Israel supports and participates in American imperial control in the Mideast.
[7.] We Americans, appalled at the dead children whom Israel has killed in Gaza, should direct our protest at the child-killer in the White House. Obama has killed 5,000 people with drones alone (200 of them children). He and his Israeli clients must be made to stop.

--CGE

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