A Short News Story! Between Israel And The United States
31 October 2010By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
News about a new round of "strategic dialogue" between
Israel and the United States launched in Washington on
October 20, came very brief, and was the least
circulated by news agencies. It only mentioned the
names of the participants, heads of delegations, that
the meeting is held once every six months, that the
latest was held in Tel Aviv and that top on the agenda
was Iran's nuclear threat. It stressed, of course, the
United States commitment to Israel's ‘security' which
practically means a guarantee to insuring its military
supremacy over neighbouring and far away Arab
countries in addition to non-Arab countries like Iran
and Turkey and Israel's monopoly over the possession
of mass destruction weapons, including nuclear
weapons.
The brief statement issued after the meeting stated
that "The United States and Israel are committed to
working together to enhance regional security and
stability. The present discussions helped identify
ways to improve our already strong cooperation in this
regard for the benefit of all in the region". The
question, however, is: how could the United States '
strategic cooperation with Israel be for the benefit
of ‘all'? In other words, how could the United States
' arming Israel with nuclear weapons and the aircraft
to carry them be for the benefit of ‘all' including
Arabs, Turks and Iranians? How could American funding
– by giving loan guarantees - for the building of
Jewish settlements on Palestinian land be for the
‘benefit' of those whose land is confiscated, whose
homes are destroyed, against whom war crimes, genocide
and ethnic cleansing are committed? And who are these
‘all' who will benefit from the US-Israel strategic
cooperation, when it is about war, settlement
building, intelligence terrorism against ‘all' in the
Middle East? It is a cooperation which aims at
preserving Israel's military supremacy and giving
cover to its destruction of Palestinian security,
livelihood, lives, rights and life style.
The way this piece of news is addressed shows the
degree of media dexterity of both sides in passing
such a dangerous news story in a manner that raises
very little interest on the part of their victims
regarding the broad scope of strategic cooperation and
solidarity between the United States and Israel and
their cooperation in waging aggression and ethnic
cleansing against the Palestinians through blockade
and through depriving the Palestinian people of
freedom, democracy and human rights. This means that
the United States will never be an ‘honest broker' for
the achievement of just and comprehensive peace. This
also explains why the peace process has failed during
the past twenty years. Successive US administrations,
which are hostage to the strategic dialogue with the
occupying Israeli forces, pretend to be a ‘broker',
while in fact they help Israel, as a strategic
partner, in destroying Palestinians' lives, threaten
neighboring countries, spread war and insecurity in
the Middle East in order to "preserve Israel 's
military supremacy".
Those who are surprised today at the Obama
administration's inability to achieve any progress in
the Middle East peace process should be referred to an
article titled "Good news about Obama appointments"
published by the Jewish Issues Watchdog on 24 November
2008. It says: "Previous postings raised questions
about potential nominees to Obama Administration
positions regarding their views on Israel, Iran , the
Palestinians, and other issues. Today, I focus on
reasons to have confidence that the incoming team will
do positive things in the Middle East". Now, about two
years from that date, we know that these "positive
things" include raising the question of the Jewishness
of the state, an unprecedented pace of settlement
building, home destruction in East Jerusalem, passing
a law in the Knesset forcing Palestinians to pay for
the demolition of their homes, banning them from
working in the tourist sector so that they do not
point to anything Palestinian and forcing them to
swear allegiance to a Jewish state, which means ethnic
cleansing of any Palestinian existence.
The documents published by Wikileaks about the war on
Iraq shows that the crimes committed against the Iraqi
people are similar in nature and magnitude to those
committed daily by Israel against the Palestinian
people. When something about such crimes is leaked to
the media, no one dares comment on them or call for
the punishment of those who committed them because
there is also a strategic cooperation between American
and Israeli media. And they are ‘free' not to publish
anything about the crimes committed by their
governments against the Arabs. The question is: who
punishes the culprits when the United Nations itself
lays under the heavy weight of American hegemony.
After all the disasters that have befallen Iraq and
Palestine, American diplomacy is doing its best to
support Israeli actions to impose inner conflict on
Lebanon and divide Sudan. Despite the fact that the
Sudanese are one people and have been living together
for centuries on the same land and with the same
culture and destiny, the first announcement of the
‘inevitability of separation' was made by US Secretary
of State, Hilary Clinton. After that a flurry of
activity was initiated, including the sending of
envoys, UN forces and visits by separation promoters
to Washington.
From the war on Iraq, to war on the Palestinians, to
aggression on Lebanon and providing Israel with
cluster bombs which still kill people in southern
Lebanon until now, US-Israel strategic dialogue has
seen nothing in the Arab world except oil and
strategic positions.
As they promoted Palestine, as a ‘land without people'
all our countries appear on their screens as land
without people which they can invade any time they
like, divide in the way that suits their interests and
destroy human relations by killing and displacement.
Then, they say that their "already strong cooperation
in this regard [is] for the benefit of all in the
region". Who are these all? Those in the region who
think that this cooperation is for the benefit of
their peoples should think again, unless their peoples
do not appear even on their radar screens. You know
now why this news story was so short? Because all the
disasters happening to our peoples are because of such
short news stories.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments