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Maxwell column: In eyes of U.S., Israel can do no wrong (w/video)

 
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, left, shakes hands Wednesday with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel. Boehner was heading a delegation of congressional Republicans to the Middle East amid intense debate over the Iran nuclear deal.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, left, shakes hands Wednesday with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel. Boehner was heading a delegation of congressional Republicans to the Middle East amid intense debate over the Iran nuclear deal.
Published April 6, 2015

Most American citizens apparently don't understand, or don't care, how much influence Israel has on our government, especially on our foreign policy. Most Americans don't seem to realize, or don't care, that when Israeli conduct is the issue, we turn away from the very democratic and human rights principles we claim to hold dear. Paradoxically, many of the principles we blithely toss aside actually underpin the wisdom of our most cherished documents.

Israel's influence is outsized and profound, and this influence is harmful because we too often find ourselves on the wrong side of decency, morality and common sense.

How did it come to pass that the United States, the only remaining superpower, finds itself in a classic tail-wag-the-dog union with Israel, which is 5,703 miles from New York and the size of New Jersey?

Whenever Israel faces criticism in the world arena, Congress unblinkingly rallies to the Jewish nation's side. Support for Israel is a litmus test for those aspiring to national office.

A major result of this relationship is our abandonment of logic. Earnest people know, for example, that only equals can negotiate. In the enduring conflict in the Holy Land, we refer to "Israel" and the "Palestinians" as if they are equals. We fail to understand that when we speak of Israel, we're talking about a nation, an entity that has the unyielding support of America on the U.N. Security Council.

Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets. Whatever Israel opposes, America opposes.

Israel is a sovereign nation with the atomic bomb. No international agency has the authority to inspect them, to count them. Its powerful military, euphemistically called Israel Defense Forces, is propped up by billions of dollars annually from the United States. It can drop conventional bombs in other sovereign nations without a peep from us.

Then, there is the other side of the Holy Land conflict: the Palestinians. They are a diaspora on ancestral land virtually taken from them when Israel was created in 1948. Americans don't seem to realize, or care, that there's no country called Palestine, only the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. These separated places don't have a superpower representing them on the Security Council.

Israel occupies the West Bank, which is a maze of checkpoints, walls and fences, and it blockades Gaza, a prison. When Palestinians want to travel outside their territories, Israel has to approve. Yes, Israel has total control over these people's lives. Most Gaza residents are born in Gaza and die in Gaza, never leaving the strip of arid land, about the size of the District of Columbia, trapped between the Mediterranean Sea and Israel.

How, then, is real "negotiation" possible between Israel, the nation, and Palestinians, a Muslim scattering? It isn't. Remember, only equals can negotiate. Israel doesn't need, for example, anyone's approval to continue building settlements in the West Bank and to continue confiscating Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem.

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Most Americans, including President Barack Obama, intone that "Israel has the right to defend itself." Well, yes, but Israel creates the conditions that force it to defend itself.

Who's the enemy that Israel must defend against? It is a desperate, hapless people, Palestinians, seeking an autonomous country of their own, a people who can't defend themselves without receiving harsh punishment or risking annihilation.

A recent headline in the Tampa Bay Times captures the scope of Israel's power: "Israel to release tax funds." The article describes how Israel collects taxes and customs on behalf of Palestinians and transfers the sums to the occupied people. For any reason Israel sees fit, it withholds Palestinian monies as retaliation. The same is true of water. Israel decides how much water the West Bank and Gaza receive.

How many "freedom-loving" Americans would tolerate such inhumanity if we were the victims? How did Israel come to have the power to control the lives of millions of Palestinians? How did such a tiny nation win the silence and acquiescence of the last superpower?

Look at the surreal events of recent weeks in Israel and the United States. The ugliness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's GOP-arranged speech before a joint session of Congress is already fading from the American memory even though the speech was an insult to our president.

Behind in the polls in Israel, Netanyahu vowed that there would not be a Palestinian state on his watch if he was re-elected. The duplicitous prime minister tried to backtrack after Obama showed displeasure. Again, most Americans remain unwavering in their support of the Israeli leader. It doesn't matter how many promises he breaks or how many human rights agreements he tramples.