How Can Bush Sleep?

President Bush doesn't read much and thus is no doubt unaware of the excellent article by professors Mearsheimer and Walt showing how the Israeli Lobby pushed the U.S. into war. Cindy Sheehan wonders for what noble cause her son died in Iraq. The Lobby wanted to topple Saddam Hussein because he supported the Palestinians' right to resist the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The Palestinian West Bank encompasses 2200 square miles, and thus the noble cause for which each American soldier has died is less than one square mile of occupied land. Their deaths enable Israel to maintain control of their stolen property. Meanwhile, as reported by Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times (3/26/06), piles of tortured bodies are being discovered in Iraq, with eyes gouged out, fingernails extracted, faces burned with acid, appendages chopped off, bones broken, skulls cracked if not beheaded, and riddled with power-drill holes. Apparently President Bush retires early each night but one wonders how he can sleep knowing that every pain-filled scream in this ill-advised and unnecessary war is his fault.

WSJ Response

In an attempt to refute the article "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by professors Mearsheimer and Walt, today's Wall Street Journal editorial resorted to The Lobby's trump card: the anti-Semitic charge. Apparently, anything said now about the Israel Lobby which might give "aid and comfort to those who have no trouble substituting the word 'Jews' for 'Israel Lobby' " is "anti-Semitic in effect." It also follows that one must not criticize Israel since this too might give comfort to anti-Semites and thus be "anti-Semitic in effect." There goes freedom of speech; the power of The Lobby is complete. In defending the late editor Robert Bartley from charges of being in The Lobby, the claim is made that he supported Israel just as he supported other friendly democracies, such as Great Britain, Poland, and Taiwan. But do these countries occupy other peoples' land? Have they driven people from their homes, bombed and massacred them, all with U.S. support? Indeed, professors Mearsheimer and Walt clearly document the fact that Israel is not a true democracy. Finally, on today's Wall Street Journal Editorial Report (TV Fox News), Bret Stephens, responding to the professors' statement that the U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because we are so closely allied with Israel, exclaimed that this is "an amazing argument!" Has he forgotten 9/11? "The 9/11 Commission Report" states (p. 147) that the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, attacked us because of U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. What could be more clear than that?

The Lobby

The pro-Israeli Lobby is in a dither due to an exquisitely documented paper by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt exposing this Lobby's detrimental domination of America's foreign policy. The working paper is on the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's web site, and the essay is published in the March 23 London Review of Books (www.lrb.co.uk). Meanwhile, in Iraq, sectarian slaughter continues. Martha Raddatz of ABC News reported on PBS Washington Week, March 24, that she had recently asked a group of 200 Iraqi Security Forces in Sadr City whether they had enough equipment. Answer: no. Did they have enough armored vehicles? Answer: we have no armored vehicles; the enemy has better weapons than we do. Are you better off now or before Saddam was taken down? Almost all raised their hands indicating that they were better off before Saddam was removed and explaining that now there are murders, assassinations, and no security. Understandably, many Americans are mystified about how and why we got into this mess. Agatha Christie's Mr. Quin has noted that often one sees things better afterward than at the time. "The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relationship to one another." ("The Mysterious Mr. Quin") The Lobby pushed us into this war, and if the Lobby can't have a pro-Israeli puppet running Iraq, who, of course, accepts the Israeli occupation of Palestine, then the next best outcome for Israel is an intractable Muslim vs Muslim civil war.

View From the Middle East

As recounted in his recent book, "The Great War for Civilisation," highly acclaimed British journalist Robert Fisk, who has interviewed Osama Bin Laden three times, wrote the following immediately after the September 11 attacks: "But this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and U.S. helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia --paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally-- hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps."(p. 835) "America has bankrolled Israel's wars for so many years that it believed this would be cost-free. No longer so."(p. 836) One reason America thought this would be cost-free is that our media doesn't report on the atrocities we subsidize. An eye-witness living and reporting in the Middle East for 30 years, Robert Fisk has documented that which Americans are not supposed to know. He has also illuminated the techniques by which our government and our media prevent us from seeing our country the way the rest of the world does.

Letters to the Editor

More often than not, the Letters to the Editor section is more informative, enlightening, and insightful than the rest of the newspaper. Today's New York Times is a prime example. In response to a March 4 editorial, "Underwriting Hamas," Gary E. Kaminski of Buena Vista, Pa. writes, "What is blindingly obvious is that the root of the hostility of Palestinian people toward Israel is the brutal occupation of their land by a foreign government. That you can write an editorial on the subject and not even mention the occupation beggars belief." Also, Munjed Farid Al Qutob of London writes, "Your editorial lacks evenhandedness in dealing with the Palestinians. Hamas is being asked to recognize Israel's right to exist and abandon violence. But if the United States is to play the role of an honest broker in peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, it cannot give Israel America's blank check. The United States is hated in the Islamic world because of its unconditional, unlimited support of Israel. Palestinians, no less than anybody else in the world, have a right to resist occupation. Nobody can deprive them of this right."

Hamas and Peace

Russia's foreign minister reports that Hamas will honor the Arab Peace Initiative (Saudi Peace Plan) which calls for Israel to return to the internationally recognized 1967 borders, as called for in UN resolutions, in return for peace and diplomatic recognition by all the Arab states, including Palestine (See "The Boston Globe 3/4/06). Considering that we were attacked on 9/11 (See "The 9/11 Commission Report" p. 147) because of our support for Israel's occupation of Palestine, it behooves us to persuade Israel to honor the Arab Peace Initiative. This is a far better policy than joining Israel in trying to starve the imprisoned Palestinians to death by withholding aid. In the minds of Muslims, we stand for occupation of Muslim lands and oppression of Muslims, not for freedom and democracy as we pretend. This is why President Bush is greeted with massive protests in Pakistan and elsewhere. America and Israel have long believed that peace can be obtained by bribing nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, with economic aid in return for recognizing Israel and accepting the occupation. When governments are corrupt, the people often turn to religion. Thus, these countries dare not risk democratic elections, because the Islamists would win. It is not Hamas which is an obstacle to peace, it is the US-subsidized Israeli occupation of Palestine.