Faithful Democrats
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The
Church is locked into a mindset of Israel
as the Promised Land acquired by the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River and rightfully entitled to whatever it wants
wherever it wants it.
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Patterns have emerged
that suggest that the Bush Administration is committed in the Middle
East to creating reality in its own image. Among those patterns are:
- Unconditional support of the actions of the
nation-state of Israel… - Characterization of the world into "good" and
"evil" people… - Spreading "democracy" as a doctrine
interchangeable with capitalism…
Unconditional Support for Israel:
American Jewish activist,
Jeff Halper, writes from Jerusalem of the
complicity of the US
government in recreating the Middle East in
its own image.[1] In
the 108th Congress, House Resolution 460, dated June 23, 2004,
sealed the fate of Palestinians behind Israel's 407 mile long, 27 ft. high
meandering Concrete Curtain. The US
House of Representatives, with the Senate concurring in Senate Resolution 393,
endorsed the principles laid out by President Bush in a letter to Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, dated April 14, 2004.
Some of the terms of that letter and resolution were as follows:
1.
…The United States is strongly committed to the
security of Israel
and its well-being as a Jewish state…2.
…there will
be no security for Israelis and Palestinians until Israel and the Palestinians, and
all the countries in the region and throughout the world, join together to
fight terrorism and dismantle terrorist organizations…3.
…the United States remains committed to the security
of Israel, including secure,
recognized and defensible borders, and to preserving and strengthening the
capability of Israel
to deter enemies and defend itself against any threat…4.
…Israel and Palestine,
living side-by-side in peace and security…can only be envisioned when terrorism
is defeated, so that a new state may be created based on rule of law and
respect for human rights…5.
…in order to
promote a lasting peace, all Arab states must oppose terrorism, support the
emergence of a peaceful and democratic Palestine and state clearly that they
will live in peace with Israel…
By a vote of 407 x 9, the
US House of Representatives ratified the right of Israel to establish its own borders
for its own protection with no international accountability. It was followed by a 95 x 3 concurrence in
the US Senate Resolution 393.
The votes in the House
against were Democrats Conyers (Mich.),
Kilpatrick (Mich.), Kucinich (Ohio), Stark (Cal.),
Waters (Cal.), Woolsey (Cal.)
and Lee (Cal.) and Republican Paul (Tex.). Senators voting against were Byrd (D-Va.),
Jeffords (I-Vt.), Sununu (R-NH).[2]
Eleven weeks later, the
International Court of Justice in The
Hague ruled the wall to be an illegal confiscation of
land. The United Nations General
Assembly agreed by an overwhelming margin, but the damage had already been
done.
Of great concern to
Palestinians on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem was the realization that
President Bush had officially backtracked on the US commitment for right of return
by Palestinians to their confiscated homeland:
US President Bush met with Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004. In a joint press appearance,
Bush endorsed Sharon's plan to disengage from
the Gaza Strip and from areas of the West Bank.
In what was seen as a major shift of US policy, President Bush for the first
time recognized that Israel was not bound to return to the Green Line
borders and said Palestinian Arab "refugees"
would not have the right
to return to Israel under any final peace settlement. He also supported Israel's right
to maintain communities — the so-called "settlements"
— in the areas claimed by Palestinian Arabs.
Bush said the world had changed and
old policies no longer apply. "In light of new realities on the ground,
including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic
to expect that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and
complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," Bush stated.
Administration officials hoped Bush's position would stimulate peace talks between
Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. These hopes dimmed when news of Bush's
positions angered Arabs in the region and critics said Bush was less than an
honest broker between Israel
and the Palestinian Arabs.[3]
The effects of
House Resolution 460 are as follows:
1.
Israel, in contradistinction to the constitutional
republic of the United
States, is a state based on race alone – a
"Jewish state." Thus, license is given
to exclude from citizenship or civil rights those not of Jewish
extraction…While the Constitution of the United
States protects the minority from the tyranny of the
majority, such is not required of the nation-state of Israel…2.
The
commitment of the United States
government to the security of the nation-state of Israel is preeminent over other interests
in the region…3.
The disengagement
plan intended to enhance the security of Israel and confirmed by House
Resolution 460 contains the following provision authored by Israeli Prime
Minister, Ariel Sharon:
"We plan to accelerate construction of the Security
Fence, whose completion is essential in order to ensure the security of the
citizens of Israel. The fence is a security rather than a
political barrier, temporary rather than permanent, and therefore will not
prejudice any final status issues including final borders. The route of the fence, as approved by our
Government's decisions, will take into account, consistent with security needs,
its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities.[4]"
This
provision gives carte blanch to Israel
to put the "fence" where it deems it vital to its security…While the wall
itself is not a political barrier, its location and its effect is for political
purpose – occupation and domination…It is, in fact, permanent. Israel becomes the sole arbiter of
what is terrorism and what is not terrorism, its unilateral decision reflected
in the location of the meandering wall…4.
While the US remains
committed to the two-state solution – that the Palestinian peoples will have a
sovereign state of their own, Resolution 460 clearly states that this will
never happen until individual terrorism, as distinct from state-sponsored
terrorism, is defeated. In other words, so
long as there is the potential for a suicide bomber, a Palestine state will happen when Hell freezes
over.
You have to ask yourself
why the US Congress would overwhelmingly ratify the right of Israel to take
any land it deems important to its security without international protocol or
oversight.
There are all too many
reasons why that would happen. The
Israeli lobby is a strong force on both sides of the aisle. The American Jewish vote is always in
play. The politically powerful Christian
Zionist movement in the United States
seeks to expand the borders of the State of Israel from the Mediterranean to
the Jordan River in order to get ready for
Armageddon and the return of Jesus – or as some say, to force God's hand.
Also, many members of
Congress are sadly more interested in re-election than in justice except when
justice issues impinge on their abilities to be re-elected, at which point they
tend toward the most politically expedient stand.
Finally, a principal
forum for justice and mercy in America
– the Christian Church – is too comfortable to care about Israel as a
modern nuclear state or the Palestinians as an oppressed people. The Church is locked into a mindset of Israel as the Promised Land acquired by the
parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River
and rightfully entitled to whatever it wants wherever it wants it.
The oppressed has become
the oppressor with the sanction and encouragement of the most powerful nation
on earth.
"Axis of Evil"
The Bush doctrine divides
the world by an "Axis of Evil," with "good people" on one side and "evil
people' on the other. The ultimate
objective is to push the "good people" into democracy, thus overcoming the
demonic intent of the "evil people."
One has to wonder if the
Bush Administration has any sense of the resiliency and complexity of human
nature, or, for that matter, the universal disposition for evil even among the
"good." The picture emerges of US foreign
policy as one gigantic video game of Pac Man, with the guys in the white hats
wiping out the bad guys.
The problem with foreign
policy as an either/or, concrete-sequential computer game is that there are
innocent human beings caught in the crossfire.
These become collateral casualties of war that pale into insignificance
compared with the higher and nobler aims of the democratic nation-state. Hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of
civilians are expendable in retaliation for the deaths of 3,100 upwardly-mobile
Americans or 4,000 American soldiers, retribution seeming to have no
termination clause.
In the case of Israel, there
are no "evil people;" therefore, there are no restrictions on the extent to
which it may go to ensure its own security. By unconditionally ratifying every action of
the nation-state of Israel,
even its abuses of human rights and acts of terrorism remain on the "good" side
of the Axis of Evil ledger.
Democracy and the Exportation of Capitalism
A democracy is rule by
majority. A Constitutional Republic,
on the other hand, is protection of the minority from tyranny by the
majority. America
is a Constitutional
Republic. The Bush Doctrine, however, favors Democracy,
which positions it as viewing the Constitution of the United States
as an impediment against doing what it considers to be the right or "good"
thing.
The Christian Right
stands foursquare against our Constitutional form of government, as it seeks to
institute a theocratic form that favors a Christian majority. The guarantee of equal rights, equal
protection and free speech for all our citizens stands as an obstacle to
biblical precepts.
As regards Israel, both the Bush Administration and the
Christian Right view the nation-state of Israel as synonymous with the
Jewish people. Walking through the Old
Testament ful fills dreams of Israel
as a theocracy consistent with that longed for in the US. In that worldview, an eye-for-an-eye triumphs
over love of neighbor, rendering the Sermon on the Mount irrelevant. Race or religion as the basis for a
nation-state automatically tips human rights in favor of the majority at the
expense of the minority.
Both Israel and a theocratic US government fall neatly into absolute majority
rule, ultimately destroying the genius of our Constitutional Republic.
Democracies, rather than Constitutional Republics, are popular with neo-cons because
they have become inextricably interwoven with capitalism. Constitutional
Republics often restrain
the exercise of a free economy in favor of human rights and public safety,
while exploitation of the masses is a necessary evil for the greater good of a
free economy – a form of collateral but acceptable damage.
The US has a long history
of propping up individuals or regimes in democracies that favor US economic
interests. Recent history brings to mind
Papa Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, Manuel Noriega, Batista, Saddam Hussein, the
Taliban in Afghanistan,
Menachem Begin, Abbas and countless others.
Whenever the democracy tips against US interests, it becomes targeted
for the noble goal of overthrowing tyrants and restoring human rights.
Thus, having deposed and
executed Saddam Hussein, we now find ourselves faced with a Shiite majority
friendly to Iran
and Hezbollah. Palestinian elections
yielded a surprising Hamas majority, now largely isolated in a cesspool called Gaza and slowly being
strangled. The Taliban, once our friends in chasing out the Soviets and later overthrown
for harboring terrorists, now threaten to overpower our democratic regime in Afghanistan.
Democracy reigns where US
economic interests are advanced. Constitutional Republics, however, are reserved for the
weak and the vulnerable – people and nations that honor individual rights over
against the institutional soul. The weak
and the vulnerable, while critical to the thinking of the Founding Fathers, are
at the bottom of the neo-con agenda.
[1] Jeff
Halper, Obstacles to Peace, 3rd
edition (Jerusalem:
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), 2005), p. 71.
[2] Ibid.
[3] "What
was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 2004 Plan for Disengagement?" http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_current_disengagement_plan_2004.php.
[4] Halper,
p. 71.
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