On Israel

The biggest threat to Israel's future peace and security is not Iran or Hamas, but the occupation of territory acquired by war and its government's quest for territorial expansion. This policy is unnecessary for Israel's peace and prosperity and puts Israel in clear violation of international law and prohibits it from interacting with the international community in a healthy way. It also condemns Israel to a perpetual state of emergency and vigilance.

The settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be imposed unilaterally by Israel. Unilateral actions will only perpetuate the conflict. Rather, the solution must be negotiated and should center on Israel's withdrawal from territories it occupied in 1967 in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolution 242 and the establishment of a truly sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, unless the legitimately elected leaders of both sides agree to a one-state solution. Hamas now explicitly accepts such a two-state solution, and has shown flexibility on this issue since its election despite its portrayal in the mainstream press. America's role should be that of an honest broker. However, successive American administrations have favored the Israeli side and thus have been an obstruction to a deal that can provide a lasting peace. This was the case in the last months of the Clinton admnistration. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, who took part in the Camp David negotiations with President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Barak, and Palestinian Authority President Arafat, says that if he were a Palestinian he would have rejected the so-called "generous offer" made to Arafat by Israel. (Watch his interview on Democracy Now!).

Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is creating a humanitarian disaster. It's appropriation of West Bank water resources is devistating Palestinian public health and agriculture. Although Israel refuses to recognize the legal border between itself and the West Bank, that border is clearly visible from space, with the Israeli side of the border literally colored green and the Palestinian side brownish.

Look at the blue and grey regions on the map over this man's shoulder in the picture to the left, which is from a BBC story. That is the occupied West Bank. Now find that same shape in the satelite image below, also from the BBC story. For more detail, visit Google Maps.



Israel prides itself on making the desert bloom, but this is done with irrigation and we must remember where the water is coming from.

The situation has got to the point where many people, including former high-ranking Israeli government officials, are concluding that Israel is morally lost. Former Israeli Knesset (parliament) Speaker Avraham Burg has written a book called Defeating Hitler in which he compares the situation in Israel today to Germany on the eve of Nazis coming to power. Here is an interview with Burg in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy likens Israel to a drunk and the United States to a friend who gives the drunk a bottle of vodka and keys to his car. Read his essay in the Huffington Post or listen to his discussion with Palestinian independent presidential candidate Mustafa Barghuti.

When we look at our politicians in this country -- our presidential and Congressional candidates, for instance -- they fall over each other in their rush to portray themselves as a "friend of Israel." (Refer to this page from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz evaluating the candidates.) But what does it mean to be a friend of Israel? Does financing an oppressive and self-destructive occupation make one a friend? Does refusal to acknowledge violations of international and humanitarian law make one a friend? The United States illegally invaded and occupied Iraq and has caused much suffering there, and most American are now willing to criticize the government for that policy. Why is it that so many of the same people readily condone the same behavoir on the part of the Israeli government? If we as patriotic Americans can oppose, indeed must oppose, illegal, immoral, and self-destructive behavior on the part of our government, mustn't a true friend of the Israeli people stand up and condemn the same behavoir when it is conducted by their government?

The bottom line is that Israel's own policy of carving up the occupied territories with Israeli settlements, Israeli-only highways, walls, and checkpoints is on the verge of making a two-state solution impossible, as there will be nothing but a patchwork tiny "cantons" poorly connected to each other and incapable of forming a viable state. Consider the following statement made by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

As an affluent and militarily powerful country, Israel should not be the recipient of American foreign aid; rather, it should be America's partner in providing the advanced solar energy and other technologies that it has successfully developed to impoverished developing countries. This would go a long way in earning Israel good will and gaining it the respected place in the international community that its people long for.