Todays news featured Israels' announcement that it had approved 900 new houses for a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. Shortly after the news focused on the white houses' response, which was reportedly "dismayed." White house spokesman Robert Gibbs complained the move makes peace talks with Palestinian leadership "more difficult." He did not discuss any action the US could leverage to persuade the Israeli government to comply with it's promise to halt all building in (and of) new settlements. In fact this has been going on for a while and it doesn't seem to be changing under Obama. The US could if it wanted, effectively negotiate it's terms by withholding or threatening to withhold financial and military aid.
The United States tax payers are the sugar daddy of the Israeli government and specifically their military. Within the first month of 2009 the US had already given Israel over 2.5 Billion in military aid alone, apparently to reward them for their human rights abuses in Gaza that were still continuing unabated. From the time of Israels' 1973 October war, over my entire life, the US has given Israel over 200 Billion dollars in financial and military aid. It's the only nation for which the US grants an exception to the requirement that it spend its' military budget with US weapons manufactures. So it now has a booming war industry of it's own, which has bloomed with the rich fertilizer of our tax dollars.
The US and UK have played the role of father, big brother, and teacher to the fledgling nation and the UK even gave them nuclear weapons to play with. Israel was the UKs' burden after WWII because they were the occupier of Palestine in their waning days of empire. Jews from all over Europe flocked back to Palestine as a refuge from war stricken areas, and as a symbolic pilgrimage to their peoples homeland. The UK was notorious however for it's treatment of these Jewish settlers and refugees and one high level British official was assassinated in a terrorist attack carried out by a group of Zionist Jews who were inspired by the I.R.A. They were called Lehi, but the British called them the Stern group after their leader at the time. Their ultimate goal was to drive out the British and they're political violence (terrorism) seemed to pay off.
Shortly after the US stepped in to what it saw as a strategic relationship it could not afford to pass up. Our democratic nation, that shrills at the notion of nation building, and prides itself on religeous freedom, decided to turn this dusty hillside into Americas holy war fortress. Americas favor of Jews over Muslims would be displayed to the people of the region on a central stage in terms the Muslim world would comprehend with crystal clarity. Meanwhile back home in the bubble of the states, Americans would be inundated with maligned Arab stereotypes and biased news coverage from plain white Christian news anchors. Over years of tit for tenfold tat the Palestinians always seem to be reported for their failing attempts at defending their territories, while Israel gets a pass on the whole sale destruction of a people.
Obama assured AIPAC (A.K.A. the Israel lobby) that Israeli security is sacrosanct, and Hilary Clinton echoed the political call of the day that "Israel has a right to defend herself." First off, every nation has a right to defend itself, isn't that an obvious bias? And sacrosanct? How can we claim to be a fair arbiter when we're telling Israel that our support is unconditional, and simultaneously telling the Palestinians who are dying and losing their lands that they're permanently in the wrong in any future issue that might arise. After members of AIPAC were arrested for giving National Security secrets to the Israeli government, the charges were mysteriously dropped, even after the man charged with giving them the information pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Why does a Nation with an embassy in Washington DC even need a lobby group? Why should another country have the right to persuade our legislative branch, they don't get to vote in our elections?
This issue has never seen the light of reason and even Obama is under the spell of AIPAC, mindlessly chanting the slogans and talking points in ways that make them sound like his ideas. The Goldstone report was that light of reason that slipped into the congress through a crack in it's crusty shell and they chased Goldstone out of town like a bloodthirsty mob. The house called the report "Irredeemably biased" which is a phrase that ironically describes Americas treatment of Israel over the decades. Of course Obamas' white house has to concede that building in and on settlements in the occupied territories violated international law and should cease, even Bush conceded that much. Here's the single issue the US has it's blinders off to see and they're all talk and it's clearly just empty words. Israel can do what ever it wants, with no limit to the size and scope of it's crimes against humanity and international law with absolute impunity. Whudya gonna do about it, huh?
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