http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/columnists/2000-02-17/OPEDreese217021700.html
Turning blind eye to Israel damages U.S. credibility
By Charley Reese, Orlando Sentinel, 02/17/2000
Last week, Israel bombed power plants in Lebanon and
threatened further attacks against Lebanon's civilian
infrastructure. Did the United States protest this attack
against Lebanese civilians?
No.
There you have a clear, explicit example of the U.S.
government's double standard, a double standard that
destroys the credibility of the United States among the
people of the world. What Israel did is called a war crime,
but the United States could not bring itself to utter even the
mildest criticism. Instead, it blamed the victims -- the
Lebanese.
The Hezbollah guerrillas in Southern Lebanon attacked the
Israeli occupation forces and killed seven soldiers. This
prompted Israel's retaliation. But the Lebanese have every
legal and moral right to attack foreign soldiers illegally
occupying their country. Furthermore, Hezbollah sent its
military forces against Israel's military forces. Israel
responded by attacking civilian targets. It has done this
repeatedly, by the way.
Israel has illegally occupied a strip of Southern Lebanon
since 1979. The United Nations has condemned it, but the
United States has prevented any attempt to enforce the
U.N. resolution, as it has consistently done with all U.N.
resolutions directed at Israel's aggression against its Arab
neighbors. There are more than 60 such resolutions, the
same kind of resolutions that the U.S. government said,
when they applied to Iraq, were so important that
Americans must die to enforce them.
What is important for Americans to understand is how this
double standard harms the legitimate national interests of
the American people. Because of America's double
standard in regard to Israel, whenever an American
president or his representative speaks on any international
topic, the words are discounted. The world knows that we
have a double standard. The world knows that our word is
no good.
The world knows, for example, how we bully countries into
signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while
remaining dead silent on Israel's refusal to sign the treaty.
Israel acquired nuclear weapons and, according to a
member of the Israeli Knesset (its parliament), has a
stockpile of 300 nuclear warheads.
The world knows how we brand countries as state
sponsors of terrorism if some of their agents assassinate
their political enemies, but we say nothing about Israel,
which has sent its assassins all over the world to kill its
political opponents. Israel's assassination programs have
been so successful that those programs have been
celebrated in books, novels and movies. But, of course,
Israel is not a state sponsor of terrorism.
One day Americans will realize what a price they will have
paid for having America's foreign policy hijacked by the
agents of a foreign power. We have allowed that foreign
power to put us into a position in which people, who would
otherwise be our allies, must necessarily view us as
enemies. It is clear that the Israeli government has no
intention of pursuing a real peace with its Arab neighbors. It
seems to be choosing the path, to quote the words of a
former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshafat
Harkabi, "of committing national suicide."
That's what it is doing if it rejects peace, because people
should not confuse the survival of Jews with the survival of
a Jewish state. Jews have survived and will survive, but,
throughout history, the lifespan of an independent Jewish
state always has been short. Palestinians, and even the
Syrians, have made a good-faith offer of peace, but Israel's
response has been rhetoric and delays.
President Clinton can add to his record of utter failure a
blown opportunity to pressure the Israelis into making a
peace with their neighbors.
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on February 17, 2000.
