Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Israel's Poodle

The Telegraph and BBC report that the US has abandoned its efforts to convince Israel to stop building settlements on illegally held Palestinian land. This is quite a walk-back from the tough talk that Obama exhibited early in his first term when he challenged the leader of the Israeli apartheid movement, Benjamin Netanyahu. Much of this has to do with the rise of theocratic true believers in the US.  Those recnetly elected were supported by Americans who manifest their hate by attacking civil liberties, suppressessing women, and undermine science and education to suit their superstitions – just like Islamic fundamentalists. The election of far right representatives and senators, bought and paid for by AIPAC has made confronting Israeli excesses and breaches of international law difficult at best. But this cave-in is still a cowardly concession to right wing Americans who would have opposed any action against the South African apartheid regime regardless of whether they could find South Africa on - as that deep think Sarah Palin would say - the "country of Africa".

The only solution is the removal of Netanyahu and his apartheid policies by the Israeli's. In the long term, the Netanyahu approach will continue to isolate Israel from Europe and collapse it from within. The continuance of past US foreign policy in the region, slavishly toeing the Netanyahu line, without regard to US foreign policy interests, will leave Israel with only two friends – the US and a bankrupt, perpetual anarchic Greece. Add to this the advance of Iranian Shiite interests in the region over the past five years – a pro-Iranian government in Iraq made possible by George W. Bush; fence mending visits to Tehran by the Lebanese Sunni leadership; growing Syrian influence in Lebanon after being tossed out; and, Israel’s loss of Turkey as an ally through its criminal blockade of Gaza, and US foreign policy aims, if anyone really knows what those are in the region, are doomed.
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