WE ARE ALL ISRAELI NOW
After the Israeli war machine overwhelmingly attacked the only democratic Arab country in the area, Eric Black reported in the Strib that GOP candidate Mark Kennedy and DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar agree that Israel has the right to use massive force against Hezbollah. Even 6th district candidate Patty Wetterling and Bachmann, who mostly disagree, completely agree on Israel. However, this is not just local Minnesota politicians who want to show their political stature in world affairs.
Republican congressional leaders left their political wrangling behind and rushed to offer unconditional support for Israel's offensive against Hezbollah fighters, “reflecting a bipartisan desire to not only defend a key U.S. ally but also solidify long-term backing of Jewish voters and political donors in the United States, according to officials and strategists in both parties,” reported the Washington post. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman sees the political eureka moment with a speech to Christians United for Israel, declaring that 'today, we are all Israelis.” Even those congressional representatives, who are against the war on terrorism in Iraq, are going out of their way to show their unconditional support to Israeli in the war against Lebanon.
The US congress issued a resolution with an astonishing approval of 410-8 vote, supporting the Jewish state action. I understand the political pragmatism and the incumbents’ strong needs to hold on power and get reelected, but salivating to the Jewish and Israeli lobby AIPAC in a country that champions democracy around the world is not just a mind-boggling but is dangerous. Only eight representatives showed any political courage and voted against signing a blank check to Israel to do what it pleases to the small country of Lebanon. As John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt reported in their three years of research, “For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel.” This situation, they explained, “has no equal in American political history.” Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? No one denies that this is a Bush or a new evangelical conservative thing; this is an American thing, with a political system that is void of any political courage. As an Arab/Moslem myself, I must raise the question, “Why do they hate us?” A year ago the international community propaganda machine promoted the Lebanese democratic model as a savior to the primitive Arabs political undemocratic systems. Now the Lebanese Hezbollah militia resistance to the Israeli hegemony in the area is the new model that is revered in the Arab street. President Bush - the leader of the free world - declared that Israel has the right to defend itself, and nobody else you may wonder! He also explained that we should look at this war as an opportunity for a lasting peace, rising out of the Lebanese ashes and children corpuses somehow a lasting peace will develop. I wish he had listened to his own advice on September 11, standing by the rubble and the ashes of the TwinTowers.
When the whole world was listening and genuinely ready to lend us a hand to work for a lasting peace, President Bush made the biggest political blunder of modern times.
BY AHMED THARWAT