Is it time to declare independence from Israel?

It is, indeed, time, according to Chris Hedges writing at Truthdig.com:

Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon.  Israel’s iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place.  The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed.  It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States.  It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal.  It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East. 

The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.  This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare.  American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war.  The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete.  The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests.  There is no longer any debate within the United States.  This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich.  The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high. 

This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow.  It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline.  And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East. 

Who is Chris Hedges? He is currently

A senior fellow at The Nation Institute and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

Hedges, who is not a pacifist and supports humanitarian interventions, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo designed to stop campaigns of genocide, nevertheless describes war as “the most potent narcotic invented by humankind.” He argues that violence has a dark fascination, something the Bible calls “the lust of the eye.” He writes that war is the pornography of violence, that “it has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque.” “War,” he writes, “gives us a distorted sense of self. It gives us meaning. It creates a feeling of comradeship that obliterates our alienation and makes us feel, for perhaps the first time in our lives, that we belong.” War, Hedges wrote, exposes the capacity for evil that lurks not far below the surface within all of us.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim

    I have long wondered when it will occur to more American voters that America's near-unquestioning support of Israel is one of the main reasons why the U.S. is a target of fundamentalist Muslim terrorists. Not to say that the U.S. shouldn't support Israel, but the conscious, conspicuous blindness that American politicians show toward Israeli atrocities, while simultaneously condemning any response taken by Arabs, goes far in explaining why America is despised by so many people in the region. The Bushites bloviate about terrorists "hating our freedom," when, more likely, the terrorists merely resent American support for Israel — a nation that is brutally occupying lands that had belonged to the Arabs for centuries. True, those lands might be the spoils of a war won by the west — arguably a legitimate excuse to occupy those lands — but Israel hasn't exactly been a benevolent neighbor. The attitude Israel displays toward its neighbors reminds me of an adolescent boy who has a supportive bully for a big brother: guarded by the protection of his larger sibling, the youngster becomes a cruel demon — abusing, harassing and intimidating other people for the slightest provocation, while simultaneously displaying no remorse for his own contemptible behavior.

  2. Avatar of Joe
    Joe

    We are engaged in a second great Crusades all over again. Christian imperialists versus Muslims. Again. No Jews required.

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

  4. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    It's time for every true progressive in this country and around the world to do the only thing that our consciences should allow us to do, the only thing that can keep us consistent with our supposed beliefs that human life is precious and that unnecessary violence is always criminal, barbarous and unacceptable. We must demand that Israel stop violence and immediately put an end to its colonialist military occupation of Palestine.

    And until they do so, we must organize and do everything we can to make sure our money is not financing mass murder and oppression.

    http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/28/1144

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