By Robert Weitzel
“If I were a Jew, I would be a Zionist.
I am a Zionist. You don’t
have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”-
Senator Joseph Biden
Considering the last eight years and
the current (viable) options, I”ll admit to wanting Barack Obama in
the White House in January. Undoubtedly, more people around the
world will have a better chance of surviving the next four years with
his finger on-or rather off-the button. However . . .
For all of Obama’s campaign promises
of “change,” his choice of
Joseph Biden as his running mate sends
a clear signal to Israel’s lobby in Washington and its right-wing
government in Jerusalem that for the next four years there will be no
change in the United States” unconditional support or its annual
$6 billion in direct and indirect aid.
Predictably, neither will there be a
change in the hopelessness and the impotent rage of the Arabs suffering
under a U.S.-supported Zionist ideology in Palestine.
Senator Biden is the ardently pro-Israel
chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. He is a 36-year veteran politician
whose specialty is foreign policy. When he told a reporter from the
Jewish cable network, Shalom TV, that he is a Zionist, he knew the implications
of that admission for the Palestinians, the entirety of the Arab world,
and America’s global “war on terror.”
Matt Dorf, the Jewish Outreach Coordinator
for the Democratic National Committee, said that “Israel would have
no better friend in the vice president’s office than Joe Biden.”
Dorf might just as easily – and as honestly – have said, “Palestinians
would have no greater foe in the vice president’s office than Joe
Biden.”
Commenting on the unrest in Palestine
in 2007, Biden planted his flag deep in Israel’s camp: “The responsibility
rests on those who will not acknowledge the right of Israel to exist,
will not play fair, will not deal, will not renounce terror.”
Obama’s running mate has chosen his
side. He cannot be a neutral American statesman brokering a Middle East
peace or he cannot be a Zionist.
One cannot be a Zionist and place the
suffering of Palestinians on the same moral plane as that of Israeli
Jews.
One cannot be a Zionist and demand that
Israel dismantle its illegal settlements that co-opt nearly half the
land in the Gaza Strip and Occupied West Bank.
One cannot be a Zionist and place the
blame for sixty years of violence and the deaths of innocent thousands-both
Palestinian and Israeli-on the cold-blooded determination with which
the Zionist cadre executed the ethic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians
from the land they had inhabited for untold generations.
One cannot be a Zionist and contemplate
the return of Palestinians to their homes that are now occupied by Israeli
Jews or the rebuilding of the 500 Palestinian villages destroyed during
the great Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.
One cannot be a Zionist and abandon the
dream of Eretz Israel in order to live as equals with an Arab neighbor
in a truly democratic Palestine-Israel.
One cannot be a Zionist and demand that
Israel’s apartheid wall be torn down.
One can be a Jew. One can be an Israeli.
But one cannot be a Zionist.
Joseph Biden is neither a Jew nor an
Israeli. He is the Democratic vice presidential candidate who unabashedly
declared, “The Democrats” support for Israel comes from our gut
. . . and ends up in our heads.” Sound familiar? Haven’t we already
had eight years of a president who “thinks” with his gut and expects
the rest of us to behave like dung beetle larvae? Speaking strictly
for myself, I’m tired of their balls of poo.
Could it be there is no difference, no
possibility of change as Obama promises, between the Democratic and
Republican parties” subservience to Israel’s shadow government on
K Street or their tacit support of Israel’s internationally condemned
policies toward the Palestinians?
Could it be that the two parties” overt
support for Israel’s regional aggression exacerbates the “war on
terror” and makes the people their candidates swear to God to protect
and defend less safe?
Could it be that the “ball of dung”
being fed to the American people by both parties conceals the obvious
truth that there is no strategic value in our irrational alliance with
Israel?
Commenting on the unrest in Palestine
in 1921, Winston Churchill, one of the architects of the modern Middle
East, told the House of Commons: “The cause of unrest in Palestine,
and the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement, and from our promises
and pledges in regard to it.”
Joseph Biden’s self-professed Zionism
plays well on Shalom TV, but it is a liability for the United States
in the global “war on terror” and a death warrant for Palestinian
and Israeli innocents.
–
Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor
to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly
appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted
at: robertweitzel@mac.com