[Peace] [Peace-discuss] Apartheid not possible without US support

Sun Dec 16 15:09:55 UTC 2018

"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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