{"id":1555,"date":"2009-11-05T08:44:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T21:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2009-11-05T08:53:35","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T21:53:35","slug":"no-partner-for-peace-our-american-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/?p=1555","title":{"rendered":"No Partner for Peace: Our American Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"mr_social_sharing_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t<!-- Social Sharing Toolkit v2.2 --><\/div><p style=\"text-align: left;\">by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icahd.org\/\">Jeff Halper<\/a> <em>(Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at &lt;<a href=\"mailto:jeff@icahd.org\">jeff@icahd.org<\/a>&gt;.)\u00a0 <\/em><em>5-11-2009<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama\u2019s \u201cczars,\u201d like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from the rest of the world, make it a political laughing-stock and, finally, render it a second-rate power capable of throwing around tremendous military weight but absolutely incapable of leading us to a better future. The Israel-Palestine conflict, while not the world\u2019s bloodiest, constitutes, for many people of the world, a unique gauge of American interests and intentions. So consider the messages this string of actions sent out to the world:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On August 10<sup>th<\/sup>, a letter was send to the President initiated by Democratic Senator Evan Bayh and Republican Senator Jim Risch, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and backed by AIPAC, the Israeli lobby. Signed by seventy-one senators, it called on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel even though Israel has not frozen settlement building, has not stopped expropriating Palestinian land or demolishing Palestinian homes, and has not lifted the severe restrictions on Palestinian life that has impoverished the majority of the population. The letter reaffirmed to Israel that it has widespread bi-partisan support in Congress and does not have to be overly concerned with demands from the Administration, while signaling to the Arab and Muslim worlds that they are not taken seriously.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When, on September 17<sup>th<\/sup>, the Human Rights Council of the UN accepted the Goldstone Report, the UN\u2019s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. Despite the mission\u2019s charges over Israeli war crimes, South African jurist Richard Goldstone actually bent over backwards to protect Israel as much as possible. Thus the report does not mention Israel\u2019s 42-year occupation of Gaza or its three year siege which has left a million and a half Gazans without adequate food, medical care or the basic necessities of life. Nor does it mention the fact that, rather than defending itself, it was Israel which violated the cease-fire with Hamas and refused repeated appeals by Hamas to renew it. Indeed, the Report also speaks of Hamas\u2019s violation of international law and demands that it, too, be investigated. Notwithstanding, the American representative to the UN, Susan Rice, immediately condemned the report (whether or not she actually read its almost 600 pages) and promised Israel that the US would stand behind its fight against the Report. Judge Goldstone asked the American government \u201cto indicate where the report is flawed or unbalanced,\u201d but never received a response.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On October 31<sup>st<\/sup>, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shows up in Israel and, in a press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, hails as \u201cunprecedented\u201d the Israeli government\u2019s readiness to \u201crestrain\u201d its settlement building. After months of begging Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction \u2013 including a dozen visits by envoy George Mitchell \u2013 the US simply caved in. Israel will continue expanding its settlements in East Jerusalem, will build another 3000 housing units in the Occupied Territories, will continue to build \u201cpublic buildings\u201d in the settlements and respond to their needs of \u201cnatural growth,\u201d and will continue to approve additional construction \u2013 a dubious policy of \u201crestraint\u201d that will last only nine months or so. By thus abandoning the Palestinians Clinton opened the way for Israel to accuse them of presenting \u201cunreasonable preconditions\u201d for starting negotiations &#8212;\u00a0 which Netanyahu promptly did in the same press conference.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On November 3rd, the House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 344-36, a resolution calling on the President and the Secretary of State \u201cto oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the \u2018Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict\u2019 in multilateral fora\u201d (i.e., the UN). Sponsored by four vociferously but well-placed pro-Israel members of Congress \u2013 Howard Berman (D-CA), the Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee, Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chair of the Foreign Relations\u2019 Sub-Committee on the Middle East and Dan Burton (R-IN), the Sub-Committee\u2019s ranking Republican member \u2013 the resolution calls the Goldstone report \u201cirredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy\u201d and \u201csupports the Administration\u2019s efforts to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>And just what haven\u2019t American officials and members of Congress responded to? How about the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon\u2019s call on Israel, on the same day the anti-Goldstone resolution was passed, \u201cto end its provocative actions\u201d in east Jerusalem. \u201cThe Secretary General,\u201d the UN reported, \u201cis dismayed at continued Israeli actions in occupied east Jerusalem, including the demolition of Palestinian homes, the eviction of Palestinian families and the insertion of settlers into Palestinian neighborhoods.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Underlying the growing alienation between the United States and the rest of the world community, including Europe, is America\u2019s failure, even under Obama, to embrace human rights as a guide to its foreign policy. At a time when many of the world\u2019s people suffer from impoverishment, conflict and a sense that their governments have failed them, have left them unprotected, the promise of universal human rights means a lot. Human rights language has yet to reach the US. When, recently, I did the rounds of Congress and the State Department promoting a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I was told that \u201cjustice\u201d is not an active element in American foreign policy. I was advised by seasoned lobbyists not to even mention the term \u201chuman rights\u201d in my meetings with senators and congress people, because it sounds anti-American, as if something trumps American law and policy (which human rights indeed does). But remove justice and human rights from foreign policy and you are left with short-range conflict management and damage control which, in the end, offers peace and security to no one. You certainly remove yourselves from the concerns of most people of the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The degree to which American policy regarding Palestinian rights diverges so sharply from even that of its European allies, not to mention from the Muslim world with which it is attempting to achieve a modicum of stability and accommodation that will allow it to remove its troops, has implications far beyond that particular conflict itself. When the US stands, as it often does, with Israel but against the entire international community on matters of human rights (as it did in regards to apartheid South Africa and support for the contras in Nicaragua, among others), it\u2019s isolation is highlighted, rather than its leadership. All of its other slogans, such as \u201cspreading freedom and democracy,\u201d are rendered hollow. Neither America nor its erstwhile ally Israel can avoid accountability for their policies and actions.<em> Realpolitik<\/em> cannot replace a policy based on human rights. If the US wishes to rejoin the international community and genuinely pursue its interests, there is no better place to start than carving out a foreign policy based on justice. Until then, America remains part of the problem, not the solution.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><br \/>\nThe Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is based in Jerusalem and has chapters in the United Kingdom and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Please visit our websites:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icahd.org\/\">www.icahd.org<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icahduk.org\/\">www.icahduk.org<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icahdusa.org\/\">www.icahdusa.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"mr_social_sharing_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t<!-- Social Sharing Toolkit v2.2 --><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">by Jeff Halper (Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at &lt;jeff@icahd.org&gt;.) 5-11-2009<\/p>\n<p>It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama\u2019s \u201cczars,\u201d like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-messages","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1557,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions\/1557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sjaroundthebay.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}