[WCUSP] Cruelty & Denial of the Israel Lobby: Dems Rebut Carter on Israeli 'Apartheid'

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

This article can be found on the web at 
_http://www.thenationcom/doc/20061204/brown_ 
(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061204/brown)    
 

Dems Rebut Carter  on Israeli 'Apartheid' 
by MICHAEL F.  BROWN 
[posted online on  November 20, 2006] 
Neither Democrats  nor Republicans are prepared to say a word in opposition 
to Israeli Prime  Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to add far-right Knesset 
member Avigdor  Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party to Israel's governing  
coalition. 
Instead, Democrats  are shoring up their pro-Israel bona fides. They are 
strikingly anxious because  of a courageous new book by President Jimmy Carter 
that hit American bookstores  in mid-November, _Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026) . 
It is  an extraordinarily bold--and apt--title. 
Incoming House  Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, forcefully criticized the 
book. "It is  wrong," she declared, "to suggest that the Jewish people would 
support a  government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes 
ethnically based  oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously." 
Lieberman, however,  embodies the pursuit of "ethnically based oppression." 
He has called for the  execution of Arab Knesset members for meeting with Hamas 
leaders, and he  regularly talks of removing from Israel many Arab Israelis 
in what can  euphemistically be termed a land swap or "transfer," but in more 
plain-spoken  English is a form of ethnic cleansing. 
There is a dual  system of law at work in the occupied West Bank and East 
Jerusalem--one for Jews  and one for Palestinians. Additionally, Palestinians are 
confined to South  Africa-like bantustans, while Palestinian refugees are 
refused permission to  return to homes and land from which they were expelled by 
Israel. Meanwhile,  Jews from around the world are welcomed under Israel's Law 
of  Return. 
Some members of the  American Jewish community have tried to make the case 
for ending Israeli  domination of the Palestinians, but most members of Congress 
still prefer to  listen to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 
(AIPAC) and the  Anti-Defamation League (ADL). 
The ADL criticized  Lieberman in May, but National Director Abraham Foxman 
now says, "He has served  Israel well in the past, and I have no doubt he will 
do so again." This  abdication of moral authority is from the head of an 
organization that claims to  provide "programs and services that counteract hatred, 
prejudice and  bigotry." 
Pelosi is very close  to AIPAC, and when it comes to Israeli discrimination 
against Palestinians she  appears to have a willed ignorance. It's as if she 
looked at the Jim Crow South  and failed to recognize the discriminatory 
treatment meted out to  African-Americans. How would Americans react had Pelosi 
claimed that there was  no racism at work in the Jim Crow South or in apartheid 
South  Africa? 
The same claim of  hers regarding the occupied territories is deeply 
troubling. Yet here we are in  the twenty-first century with a generally well-informed 
leader saying there is  no ethnic oppression by Israel at the very moment 
that a notorious racist is  joining the government coalition. On that she is 
silent. 
Indeed, it is hard  to see how any serious American politician can fail to 
see the racism that  courses through the thirty-nine-year Israeli occupation of 
the Palestinian  territories. A partial explanation can be found in Pelosi's 
willed ignorance--a  disbelief or bewilderment that Israel's military and 
political leadership could  be capable of such systematic human rights 
violations--but some of the cause  must also be attributed to lobbying efforts and the 
fear held by many Americans  of being unfairly labeled as unfriendly to Israel 
or, worse, as anti-Semitic.  Verbal intimidation has worked on far too many, 
politicians and activists  alike. 
Then, too, there is  the peculiar belief that Palestinians were largely freed 
with the entry of the  Palestinian Authority in 1994 and that certainly 
Gazans were with the unilateral  Israeli withdrawal in September 2005 from the 
coastal strip. This ignores the  fact that Palestinians do not fully control their 
borders, are confronted with  myriad checkpoints, are still losing land to 
expanding settlements, do not  control imports and exports, and do not even have 
a functioning airport or  seaport in Gaza. Palestinians are cast as 
terrorists, while in Washington even  the politicians who should know better give 
Israel a free ride, and billions in  foreign aid, despite oppressive policies that 
in other locales would have  American politicians incensed. 
Carter's use of the  term "apartheid" has even received flak from Congressman 
John Conyers, the next  Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee. 
Conyers stated recently that  the use of the term "apartheid" in the book's 
title "does not serve the cause of  peace, and the use of it against the Jewish 
people in particular, who have been  victims of the worst kind of 
discrimination, discrimination resulting in death,  is offensive and wrong." 
Conyers is  absolutely right about the horrific treatment dealt Jews over the 
years. He  would be entirely right to criticize Carter if he had compared 
Israel's actions  to those of the Nazis. But Carter simply made the case that 
Israel is capable of  discriminating against and subjugating another people. 
Nobel Peace Prize  recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu has made the same connection 
as Carter. "I've been  very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; 
it reminded me so much of  what happened to us black people in South Africa." 
In my own  experience, I was deeply struck several years ago, during 
intermittent stays  with the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron, by the need to save 
dishwater in  order to "flush" the toilet. In contrast, nearby Israeli 
settlers enjoyed  swimming pools and watered their lawns in the heat of the day. 
The unfair  distribution of water resources between Palestinians and Israeli 
settlers--as  well as the previously noted relegation of Palestinians to what 
are essentially  bantustans--made it clear that Israel is capable of 
discriminating on a par with  apartheid South Africa. Obviously it's not precisely the 
same, but many aspects  are strikingly similar. 
Late last month I  called a number of offices on Capitol Hill (Biden, McCain, 
Obama and Pelosi) for  comment on the fact that Lieberman was then poised to 
be named Minister of  Strategic Threats (principally giving him responsibility 
for the Iran portfolio)  and for a response regarding his hateful statements 
on Palestinians--both in  Israel and the Palestinian territories. They either 
had no relevant comment or  did not respond to messages. 
It is clear that a  prominent racist employing violent rhetoric who is part 
of the Israeli governing  coalition is simply not on Washington's radar screen. 
In an alert capital,  Lieberman's entry into the explosive Iranian situation 
would have the full  attention of American leaders. This is no time for 
provocateurs, and Olmert  should be told as much. 
American leaders and  journalists had this opportunity November 13, when 
Olmert visited Washington.  Congressional leaders, the President and journalists 
missed a real opening to  press Olmert vigorously to eject the demagogic 
Lieberman from his coalition and  to comply with international law by ending 
Israel's occupation of the  Palestinian territories. 
This would be in the  American national interest--and certainly in Israel's 
national interest, though  its leaders may not see the advantages of a just 
two-state solution until the  day Palestinians in the territories begin calling 
not for national rights but  for civil rights in a single, unified state. This 
is a future possibility, as  there already are more Palestinians than Jews 
between the Jordan River and the  Mediterranean Sea. At the most basic level, 
however, rejecting Lieberman's  racism and attaining Palestinian freedom are 
simply the right things to  do. 
Perhaps President  Carter should send copies of his book to members of 
Congress who do not grasp  the injustice of Israel's long-running oppression of the 
Palestinians. They  might learn a thing or two about the long-festering 
conflict at the heart of so  many of our current troubles in the  region.

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