It seems that the entire world is praising American and British diplomacy for its efforts in convincing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in announcing that Libya would cease work on its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This is quite an accomplishment, considering that Libya has been listed for more than 17years by the U.S. State Department as one of the major countries supporting state terrorism.
As wonderful as this news may be, the United States needs to concentrate its efforts towards the real obstacle to world peace. Libya was no threat to world peace, and neither was Iraq. If the United States devotes as much effort in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as they did with Libya’s weapons of mass destruction then maybe the American people could rest a bit easier.
According to a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League, forty-two percent of the American people consider Israel as a threat to world peace. What’s even more astonishing is the result of a recent European poll that found 59 percent of Europeans considered Israel as the major threat to world peace with the United States coming in second. Libya wasn’t even mentioned.
Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and for that matter, Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only threat Iraq or Libya posed was a threat to Israel’s dominance of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
While Iraq failed to obey one UN resolution fast enough, Israel has steadfastly refused to obey not just one UN resolution, but an incredible 69 UN resolutions. Israel’s actions have brought outrage from a majority of the UN’s member states on 69 separate occasions. They have condemned Israel for the destruction of Arab villages, for the murder of innocent women and children, for making war on neighboring states, for refusing to withdraw from invaded and occupied territory, for killing protesting students, for killing civilians protesting being expelled from their homes, for a transcontinental bombing raid against Tunisia, and for dozens of other violations. And on 29 other occasions, UN resolutions with real teeth in them, calling for Israel to withdraw from stolen land and allow self-determination for the Palestinian people among other things, would have been adopted but were vetoed by the one dissenting vote of the United States. When it comes to the exercising of any kind of real power against those who violate UN resolutions, it seems that some countries are "more equal than others." Israel gets away not only with an expansionist foreign policy, but with repeatedly and endlessly violating the most elementary human rights of her subject peoples. Although Israel’s PR men would have us believe that Israel is an island of Western values in the Middle East, the truth is quite the opposite. Not only does Israel violate the most fundalmental human rights laws but Israel is also guilty of assassination, kidnapping, expulsion, detention without charges or trial, land confiscation, and collective punishment – not to mention Israel’s long-standing practice of espionage against the United States, its principal benefactor and the attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American sailors and injured another 171.
Hardly a day goes by without the Israelis killing innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. Today they killed 8 Palestinians and wounded an estimated 300. Three days ago they killed a 6-year-old Palestinain boy just hours before a 13-year-old Palestinian boy died from a gunshot to his head. Twenty Palestinians have been killed in the past two weeks even though there hasn’t been even one suicide bombing in over two months. And just last week the Israelis shot and killed a 21-year-old pregnant Palestinian mother trying to take her young son to the hospital. The Israelis have killed more than 500 women and children in the past 3 years. They have demolished more than 3000 Palestinian homes, causing more than 17,000 homeless, including 2300 children.
These stories never make the Headline News or the front pages of your local newspapers. You don’t see President Bush or Condoleezza Rice out on the front lawn of the White House condemning the Israelis for killing innocent men, women, and especially children. The United States talks about a balanced Middle East Policy but just look at what we actually practice. We have one standard for the treatment of Israelis that is so high they cannot be criticized no matter what grisly crimes they commit. Then we have a second standard for the treatment of Palestinians that is so low we publicly finance their ethnic cleansing and torture.
President Bush may refer to Israeli policies as obstacles to peace but when it comes time for a vote in the U.N. Security Council on the illegal settlements, or the apartheid wall, or on assassinations, or any of the other Israeli criminal acts, the United States vetoes every move to condemn Israeli aggression. The United States could not even bring itself to condemn the Qana Lebanese refugee camp massacre of 1996 in which 103 innocent Lebanese civilians were killed. Is it any wonder the Arab world hates us? Is it any wonder America was attacked? How can the United States strive for world peace when Israel is allowed to do whatever it pleases? Supporting Israel may be politically correct, but the more we look the other way, the more violence there will be. American politicians jump on the Zionist bandwagon simply because they know that is where the power is. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Lobby and Jewish interest groups have effectively silenced any politician who is critical to Israeli policy.
Is the Israeli lobby and the Jewish control of our American politicians so powerful that our elected officials have lost all sense of moral right? Evidently, former President Jimmy Carter thought so when he was prompted to say, after he left office of course, that no politician dared to oppose its demands, because to do so would be "political suicide." They take our money, we fight and die in their wars, and, since both political parties are in their pocket, the American people don’t have any choice in the matter. Sheilding Israel is an international embarrassment and places U.S. citizens in danger around the world, let alone danger to our own nation. It is time for the American people to face the fact that supporting Israel’s criminal activities is the greatest threat facing America today. Disguising America’s threat with anything else is nothing more than political spin and a decoy used as a means of savings one’s career. Placing the blame on Israel would end one’s political career.
The recent decision by Libya to abandon its weapons of mass destruction is just one step towards world peace. The bigger step would be for Israel to do the same. It is time for the United States to free itself from the grips of the Jewish lobby and to take a stand on the side of human mankind. It is time to use our foreign aid as leverage and to insist on Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to abide by International Law. It is time we stop fooling the American people. It is time to get tough with Israel. After all, Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.
