[WCUSP] The Democrats Don't Care: Screw the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead.

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

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. 

www.counterpunch.  com




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