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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
13, 2006
The Democrats Don't Care
Screw
the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead
By KATHLEEN and BILL
CHRISTISON
At a panel on the defense and foreign
policy impact of the midterm election, sponsored two days after
the election by Congressional Quarterly, Steven Simon,
late of the Clinton administration and still a member of the
Democratic, pro-Zionist mainstream at the Council on Foreign
Relations, pronounced on prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace
and essentially declared it not worth anyone's effort. Using
words, a tone, and a body language that clearly betrayed his
own disinterest, he said that Hamas is "there" (exaggerated
shrug), that the Israeli government is in turmoil after its Lebanon
"contretemps" (dismissive wave of the hand), that both
sides are incapable of significant movement, and that therefore
there is no incentive for anyone, Democrat or Republican, to
intervene (casual frown indicating an unfortunate reality about
which serious people need not concern themselves). There is
simply no prospect for more unilateral Israeli withdrawals and
therefore for any progress toward peace, Simon said in conclusion
-- signaling not only a total lack of concern but an utter ignorance
of just what it is that might bring progress, as if Israeli unilateralism
were truly the ticket to peace.
Thus spake the Democratic oracle.
Not that anyone who knows the Palestinian-Israeli situation
from other than the selective focus of the Zionist perspective
had any expectations in the first place. No one ever thought
the new Democratic Congress would hop to and put pressure on
Israel to make peace. Just remember John Kerry and Hillary Clinton,
to say nothing of Bill Clinton, when any question of the Democrats'
stance arises. And don't forget Nancy Pelosi, who rushed to
condemn Jimmy Carter for using the word "apartheid"
in the title of his new book and for whom, according to a Jewish
Telegraphic Agency profile, support for Israel is personal and
"heartfelt." One Jewish activist and long-time friend
described her as "incredibly loyal" (interesting term)
and as feeling Jewish and Israeli issues "in her soul."
But Simon's brief disquisition
on the futility of even making an effort was particularly striking
for its profound dismissiveness and its profound blindness to
what is and has been going on on the ground. Simon's "contretemps"
in Lebanon was no mere embarrassing misstep but a murderous rampage
that killed 1,300 innocent Lebanese and dropped over a million
cluster bomblets in villages across the south, left to be discovered
by returning residents. But the Democrats don't care, and
Steven Simon considers this hardly worth a second thought.
Israel gets itself in trouble, showing its true brutal nature
in the process, and this gives Simon and the Democrats a handy
excuse to avoid doing anything.
Eighteen Palestinian innocents
in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip were murdered while
sleeping in their beds a day before Simon spoke, killed by Israeli
shellfire, round after round fired at a residential housing complex
-- 16 members of one extended family and two others who came
to help them after the first round exploded. The Democrats
don't care. Steven Simon considers this not worth a mention.
In the six days preceding this
incident, Israel assaulted Beit Hanoun the way it assaulted Jenin
and Nablus and other West Bank cities in 2002 -- a murderous
assault reminiscent of Nazi sieges or of the Russian siege of
Chechnya, in which in these six days 57 Palestinians were killed,
to one Israeli soldier. The dead include Palestinian fighters
and a large number of civilians, including children and including
two women shot down in the street while attempting to lift the
Israeli siege of a mosque. The mosque was leveled. The Democrats
don't care. Steven Simon considers this not worth a mention.
In the four months preceding
this six-day siege, the Israelis killed 247 Palestinians in a
prolonged attack on Gaza. Of the dead, two-thirds are civilians,
20 percent children. Of nearly 1,000 injured, one-third are
children. The Democrats don't care. Steven Simon considers
this not worth a mention.
Israel is planning a larger
siege of Gaza, concentrating not just on Beit Hanoun in the north
but on Rafah in the south, ostensibly to unearth arms-smuggling
tunnels. This has been going on for years; Rafah has been the
scene of Israel's murderous pummeling periodically since the
intifada began -- in 2003 when Rachel Corrie was killed trying
to protect the home of an innocent family from demolition, in
2004 when hundreds of homes were demolished in multiple sieges
and a peaceful protest demonstration was strafed from the air.
But the Democrats don't care. Steven Simon considers
this not worth a mention.
Gaza, of course, is not the
only Palestinian territory being raped and pillaged. Its 1.4
million residents are the most distraught -- living imprisoned
in a territory with the highest population density in the world,
walled in with no exit except as Israel sporadically allows,
being deliberately starved by the official policy of Israel,
which dictates to the U.S., which dictates to Europe, vulnerable
to constant Israeli assault. But the West Bank's 2.5 million
Palestinians are not much better off. They continue to be killed
by Israelis and squeezed by Israel's separation wall, by settlement
expansion, by movement restrictions, by theft of agricultural
land, by diminishing economic opportunity, and by massive Israeli-fostered
unemployment. Their death toll is only minimally less than Gaza's.
This obscenity of oppression
and murder does not faze the Democrats or any of Israel's Zionist
supporters in the U.S.
Whatever Israel wants is all right with the Democrats. The
110th Congress will screw the Palestinians just the way the Republican
109th did.
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst
and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the
author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of
Dispossession.
Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA.
He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director
of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis. They
spent October 2006 in Palestine and on a speaking tour of Ireland
sponsored by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
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