[Peace-discuss] Apartheid not possible without US support

[C G Estabrook]

Come on, Bob. There’s no mystery here. American foreign policy has been remarkably consistent tin the post-WWII world (and long before), when we’ve killed 20 to 30 million people in wars to "maintain the disparity” established in 1945 (as G. Kennan wrote in 1948: “...we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population…”). 

The US political establishment (“permanent government”/ “deep state”) are the agents of dominant social groups, as you well know. "The U.S. government ... supports the Saudi government [and the Israeli government] for its own geopolitical purposes” - which are the purposes of the “one percent,’ the US economic elite.    

I hope there has been an "historic shift [but] still the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen continues, as Karen pointed out. Still ‘U.S.' participation the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen continues.” 

We need to encourage US citizens to recognize and bring to an end US government support for the criminal Israeli and KSA regimes, to demand the removal of US troops (and weapons) from the Mideast, and to began paying reparations for the vast damage done by recent US administrations.   


> On Dec 16, 2018, at 9:09 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> "for its own geopolitical purposes"
> 
> Yes, but who does "its" refer to? Exactly whose geopolitical purposes? Who is "the United States"? Exactly who is calling the shots on this policy, and in exactly whose interests are they doing so? 
> 
> I think we Americans have a important new vantage point right now from which to try to examine these important questions with more specificity. 
> 
> Let's temporarily substitute the words "Saudi Arabia" for the word "Israel" in this discussion. 
> 
> The "U.S. government" also supports the Saudi government "for its own geopolitical purposes."
> 
> But between September 2016, when only 27 Senators voted against the Saudi tank deal, and last week, when 56 Senators voted to pass the Sanders-Lee-Murphy Yemen War Powers Resolution to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen, there has been a historic shift. 
> 
> Still the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen continues, as Karen pointed out. Still "U.S." participation the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen continues. 
> 
> Why does "U.S." participation in the Saudi regime's war-famine-genocide in Yemen continue?
> 
> "For its own geopolitical purposes."
> 
> But now there's a split. Part of the U.S. government - the U.S. Senate - doesn't want to participate any more. The part of the U.S. government that doesn't want to participate any more is trying to grab the steering wheel from the part that does. 
> 
> Now, in the Saudi case, the specificity of who "its" refers to, the specificity of what "geopolitical purposes" of "its" might be at stake, lie much greater exposed. 
> 
> Separate from the urgency of ending the Yemen war, isn't that a welcome development? 
> 
> Shouldn't Americans who care what happens to Palestinians in Palestine as a result of U.S. foreign policy be having a thousand conversations with each other about how to try to retrace the arc of debate in Washington on the U.S. relationship to Saudi Arabia since September 2016 with respect to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel? 
> 
> To narrow the question a bit: what's a bone we could fight with AIPAC over in the U.S. Senate now, with the goal that in the next while we'd get 27 Senators, and two years from now we'd get 56? 
> 
> It should be something that matters. It should be something that activists care about. 
> 
> But also, it shouldn't be "shooting the moon." It should be something where we have a plausible path to getting 27 Senators in the next while, and 56 Senators in the not-too-distant future. 
>  
> I have an idea. Let's turn opposition to the Cardin bill into an affirmative declaration of the First Amendment right of Americans to participate in boycotts to reform U.S. foreign policy to bring it into compliance with respect for internationally-recognized universal human rights that are also recognized in U.S. law. Tracking the position of the ACLU that the Cardin bill is an unconstitutional abridgment of Americans First Amendment protected free speech rights. 
> 
> Four of the five Senate Democrats mooted as candidates for POTUS are good on this. Only Booker is bad. Let's use this as a wedge. 
> 
> ===
> 
> Robert Reuel Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 7:58 PM C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>  …for its own geopolitical purposes.
> 
> =================================
> Opinion I Feel No Sympathy for the Settlers
> 
> Beneath the veil of sanctimonious and hypocritical unity, and the media’s fake show of national grief to advance its own commercial goals, the truth must be told: Their tragedy isn’t ours
> 
> Gideon Levy  
> Dec 16, 2018 2:32 AM
> 
> I do not sympathize with people who profiteer from tragedy. I have no sympathy for robbers. I have no sympathy for the settlers. I have no sympathy for the settlers not even when they are hit by tragedy. A pregnant woman was wounded and her newborn baby died of its wounds – what can be worse than that? Driving on their roads is frightening, the violent opposition to their presence is growing – and I feel no sympathy for their tragedy, nor do I feel any compassion or solidarity.
> 
> They are to blame, not I, for the fact that I cannot feel the most humane sense of solidarity and pain. It’s not just that they’re settlers, violators of international law and universal justice; it’s not just because of the violence of some of them and the settling of all of them – it’s also the blackmail with which they respond to every tragedy, which prevents me from grieving with them. But beneath the veil of sanctimonious and hypocritical unity, and the media’s fake show of national grief to advance its own commercial goals, the truth must be told: Their tragedy isn’t ours.
> 
> Their tragedy isn’t ours because they’ve brought the tragedy upon themselves and the entire country. It’s true that the main blame goes to the governments that gave into them, either eagerly or out of weakness, but the settlers cannot be absolved of blame, either. The extorter – and not just those who have given into extortion – is also to blame. But they are there, generations born on stolen land, children raised in an apartheid existence and trained to think it is biblical justice, and with government support. Perhaps we cannot blame those who are sitting on land usurped by their parents. But their tragedy is not ours because they exploit every tragedy to advance their aims in the most cynical of ways.
> 
> When a baby dies they install trailer homes, when soldiers are killed defending them – they do not seek forgiveness from the families of these soldiers, despite their blame for the lives that have been cut short – they only present demands so as to whitewash their crimes. And with these demands the appetite for revenge grows: to imprison even more of their neighbors, to destroy their homes, to kill, to arrest, block roads and exact more revenge. And if that, too, is not enough, their own wild militias raid the Palestinians, throw stones at their vehicles, set their fields on fire and wreak terror on their villages. They are not satisfied with the collective punishment imposed by the army and the Shin Bet security service, exercised with cruelty and sometimes criminality. The settlers’ lust for revenge is never satisfied. How is it possible to identify with the grief of people who behave like that?
> 
> It’s impossible to identify with their bereavement, because Israel has decided to avoid looking at all that is done there in the land of Judea. When you are capable of being indifferent to the execution of a psychologically impaired young man by soldiers, you can also be indifferent to the shooting of a pregnant woman by Palestinians. When you ignore the goings on at the Tulkarm refugee camp, you can also ignore what takes place at the Givat Assaf junction. It’s moral blindness to everything. Yesha isn’t here, that’s the price being paid for the lack of interest in what is going on in the territories and for ignoring the occupation, under whose sponsorship the settlements are based. Giant budgets are poured out there without any public opposition – so there is also indifference to the fate of the settlers and their tragedies. The piece of land they have taken over doesn’t interest most Israelis living in the land of denial, and that’s the price.
> 
> We have no reason to apologize for the lack of interest and identification. The settlers have brought it on themselves. Those who have never shown any interest in the suffering of their Palestinian neighbors, which they have caused, those who preach all the time that the iron fist must always be tightened, to torture them even more – don’t deserve to be identified with, not even in the hour of their grief. I take no joy in their suffering but I have no sympathy for their pain. The real pain is borne by their victims, those who moan submissively and those who take their fate in their hands and try to resist a violent reality violently and sometimes also murderously. The Palestinians are the victims deserving of pity and solidarity.
> 
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