Carlos Latuff/ MWC NEWS

The issue is not that our representatives obsequiously cater to the desires of AIPAC and the Israeli lobbies; a brief recounting of the constant flood of resolutions and acts passed in support of their desires is sufficient to show that reality (this is not a complete list, only a smattering): HR 311, 371, 390, 398, 615, 617, 4235, 4681 (the Palestine Anti-Terrorist Act, not yet passed in the house but passed in the Senate as S2370), the Syrian Accountability Act, HR 1828 passed 398 to 4, and, perhaps the most cowardly resolution of all, one in direct opposition to the expressed condemnation of every nation in the UN, the one that endorsed Israel’s ravaging of Lebanon, its unparalleled invasion of a nation that had done nothing to Israel in the late summer of 2006, a vote that effectively left every congressmen stark naked before the moral outrage of the world’s community, and, one more that sets their cowardice before the public as if it glowed in florescent lights, one in striking contradiction to the reversed action under way on the remembrance of the Armenian Genocide, HR 52  paying tribute to Rev. Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp in commemoration of the Jewish Holocaust, passed unanimously 413-0, and HR583 which recognizes the 6 million Holocaust victims passed this year, September 17. Why do they have trouble remembering the Armenians?

And, finally, we must consider HR 2464 and HR 2953 to direct the Secretary of Education to provide grants to promote Holocaust education and awareness in K-12 in all states. This legislation does not promote the Holocausts most relevant to the American people, the holocaust against the Native indigenous peoples that lived on this land when Europe invaded or the Holocaust that our forebears and citizens executed through the “institution” of slavery where millions died at sea and millions more were buried in unmarked graves. It does not include the Armenian Holocaust or the Bosnian Holocaust of recent years or that in Darfur presently, or Rowanda, or our own taking place in Iraq where over a million civilians have died or in Palestine which is currently in its 60th year of genocide.

I would commend the learning outcomes that should result from study of the Holocaust, outcomes that are pertinent to all such barbaric behavior by humans against their brothers and sisters. “Teaching about Holocaust allows students to consider such issues as indifference toward suffering, use and abuse of power, prejudice, racism, and the disintegration of civilized values” (The Holocaust Education Project,” Margnet Lincoln). Indeed, all our representatives might benefit from such study, but not by isolating it to the tragedies suffered by one group with no mention or concentration on others.  Perhaps the heinous actions of the state powers that exist and terrorize their citizens and those under occupation, as in Darfur, Iraq, and Palestine, might force our legislators and those in the UN to intervene and stop the slaughters, not with military force, but moral force, that the teachings of Jesus as noted above, teachings now embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, become the shield of Justice for all.

But this is not to be. Our legislators hide behind their feigned love of Israel as dictated to them by the lobbies, feigned because they proclaim the friendship for that democratic state, the only one in the mid-east when they know in their heart of hearts that Israel is not a democracy, not in its constitution (which it does not have even after 60 years of existence), not in its apartheid restrictions imposed on its Arab (read Palestinian) citizens (which it proclaims are equal in all respects to Jews though Jews alone can purchase land in Israel), not in its moral adherence to international law or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (although it is a signatory to that document even as it defies 160 UNGA resolutions asking that Israel abide by international law). No, our legislators will continue to grovel before the lobby, to speak the script, to assure themselves the continued support of those who dictate how they will vote despite the consequences to the best interests of the United States.

Let’s consider the consequences and weigh them before the “One Love” that Christ suggested might be a way to everlasting peace. I’m not going to relate a series of statistics that demonstrate the idiocy of the lobby’s line that Israel is in danger of “being wiped off the map.” Any staff member can be sent to gather that information should the congressman wish to contrast the enormity of the evidence that shows that the state of Israel dominates in all respects the reality on the ground over a population, an indigenous population, that has nothing – no army, no weaponry of consequence, no control of its own territory, no air force, no navy, no Revolutionary Guard, no tanks, no F-16s, no planes period, no water, no roads, no electricity, even no garbage pickup, except as Israel may grant in its largesse – it has only the force of moral superiority to throw against the occupiers, the oppressors who have been condemned by the international community over and over again, and but for the fawning obedience of our representatives as they cast their lone veto in the Security Council, Israel might have been forced to accept its moral responsibility before the world’s communities and grant a tinge of justice to the people of Palestine.

Instead, let me offer a few images of the reality they allow to happen in the name of America, the land that in its foundational documents extols equality for all people, the Bill of Rights for all people, justice before the courts regardless of privilege, a voice in the government that is granted the right to govern by the consent of the people, and from these basic rights, the moral foundation that requires each and every citizen, most certainly our legislators, responsibility to ensure that justice for all is served. Instead, we are placed under the pall of a small group of our citizens who manipulate our legislators to their own ends by coercion and fear, and, in that control, they deny the rights of the American people to determine their own fate.

This is the same reality that Akiva Elder, the prominent journalist for Ha’aretz, the moderate Israeli newspaper, notes, in an interview with Amy Goodman, is his lot when covering military affairs in Israel. He and his colleagues must endure the review of their reporting by the military before it is published and any reporting on Israeli military actions must be seen through the lens of external newspapers, “the New York Times reported that.” “The policy is that we have an Israeli military censorship, and there is an agreement between the military censor and the editors of the Israeli papers that when it comes to sensitive issues, we have to submit every story to the censor …” When Amy Goodman asked, “You’re in the United States now. Do you still have to abide by …” “I’m afraid so.” “Why?” “You don’t want to put me into trouble, right? I have to go back to Israel. Well, if you offer me asylum, then I will consider it. But my children are waiting for me at home, so I – you’ll have to forgive me.” “What would happen if you defied the censor?” “My editor on my newspaper will be fined.” Such is the state of open dialogue and investigative reporting in that democratic state. But then one might argue that our own press operates under similar restraints imposed by its corporate owners. (see interview with Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now,” 10/8/2007). How similar Elder’s comments to those made by Rosenberg that are imposed on our legislators. How similar the means of control imposed on the Jews in 1941 by the ruling oligarchy of “the Agency and Hagana.” 

Perhaps if our legislators had fought in the military, (there are some exceptions), they might envision the enormity of the contrast on the ground. The reporting talks about battles with Palestinian militants, about terrorist attacks against IDF forces, about military engagements with Hamas fighters, (the primary source of our main stream media information as it comes from Israeli officials), but does not mention that one side has tanks and humvies, a network of highways for military transport, satellite surveillance, F-16 fighter jets for air cover support, helicopters with missile launchers, state of the art machine guns for its soldiers, and night goggles while the Palestinian insurgent has spit and stones, homemade Qassam rockets, and ancient rifles. How difficult can it be to hurl such weaponry, $300,000 dollar missiles at paraplegic men in wheelchairs?