Almost
everyone in the West who is not a fan of Donald Trump—and if they are a fan,
their sanity is to be doubted— assumes that U.S. President Joe Biden is now
helping to save both the United States and the world. In some categories such
as climate change, environmental regulation, economic reform favoring the poor
and middle class, equal rights and, of course, combating the Covid-19 virus,
they might have a point.
Nonetheless,
it really saddens me to say that, at least in this author’s opinion, President
Biden is not “the sharpest tack in the box.” That is, he is not the smartest guy
in Washington, D.C. On the other hand, Joe has a strong point. He has the good
fortune to have drawn together some very strong and progressive advisers on the
domestic side of the political equation. It would also seem that, unlike his
predecessor, Biden has the capability to actually listen to these people. He
also has accommodated himself to the pressure put forth by true progressives
such as Bernie Sanders.
The
one exception to this wealth of good advice is on the other half of the job, in
the area of foreign policy, in particular foreign policy toward the Middle
East, and specifically policy toward the country of Israel. Here is where Joe
has difficulty thinking straight and is out of luck with his chosen advisers.
To
wit Andrew Bacevich of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft: “Beneath
a veneer of gender and racial diversity, the Biden national security team
consists of seasoned operatives who earned their spurs in Washington long
before Donald Trump showed up to spoil the party. So, if you’re looking for
fresh faces at the departments of state or defense, the National Security
Council or the various intelligence agencies, you’ll have to search pretty
hard. Ditto, if you’re looking for fresh insights. In Washington, members of
the foreign policy establishment recite stale bromides, even as they divert
attention from a dead past to which they remain devoted.”
Actually,
in the field of U.S.-Israeli relations, there are two areas where President
Biden’s analytical shortcomings show themselves.
First,
the inability to formulate foreign policy that takes into account the behavior
of the object of that policy.
Joe
Biden says “my commitment to Israel is completely unshakable. As president, I’m
going to continue our security assistance … and maintain Israel’s qualitative
military edge. I’m not going to place conditions for the security assistance.”
Essentially, this position abdicates U.S. national interests in favor of
Israeli interests.
Here
is a metaphor for such blind commitment. Think of how one adjusts attitudes
toward friendships held over time. If you had a friend (we will refer to this
friend as male) who, for whatever reason, evolved into a robber, would you give
him a gun every year on his birthday? Would you do that because you remember he
was a battered child and you think the arsenal you provide will make him feel
secure and, hopefully, lead him to give up his criminal behavior? Or maybe you
think he needs the gun because he lives in a bad neighborhood?
Biden
believes the unbelievable, which is that “Israelis wake up every morning facing
an existential threat. That’s why we always have to be adamant that Israel must
be able to defend itself.” But this is just a long-obsolete
rationalization for spoiling your friend, who turns out to be head of the
strongest gang on the block.
In
the meantime, Biden points fingers at his predecessor for adopting exactly the
same stance toward the Saudi Kingdom. Biden complained that “Donald Trump has
given the government of Saudi Arabia a blank check to pursue a disastrous set
of policies.”
The
reverse side of this coin entails Joe Biden’s uninformed attitude toward the
Palestinians. These are people who allegedly pose an “existential” threat to
Israeli lives.
“The
Palestinians need to end incitement in the West Bank and rocket attacks in
Gaza.
No
matter what legitimate disagreement they may have with Israel, it’s never a
justification for terrorism.”
The
truth is well known for more than seventy years, and the truth that is known is
that it is the Palestinians who are under the “existential threat” and it is
the Israelis who exercise massive violence against them, more often than not of
a terroristic nature. When Palestinians resist Israeli oppression they are
labeled terrorists, they are killed and their infrastructure is destroyed. When
they do not resist, more and more of their land is taken. Volunteers must come
from Europe to the West Bank so that farmers can harvest their olives without
getting shot by Israeli settlers. Gaza is under blockade, not able to
obtain basic supplies or vaccines. It should come as no surprise that “the
death tolls in the Israel-Palestine conflict are lopsided, with
Palestinians far more likely to be killed than Israelis. According to the
Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which has compiled month-to-month
fatality records, looking at the figures since 2005, 23 out of every 24
conflict deaths have been Palestinian.”
Biden
also insists that the Palestinian Authority should “acknowledge, flat-out, Israel’s
right to exist—period–-as an independent Jewish state and guarantee the
borders.” Actually, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) did so in
1993. The Palestinian Authority suspended recognition in 2018 due to incessant
theft of Palestinian land by Israel.
It
appears that Joe Biden takes none of these facts into consideration. Is it
because he does not know them? Such ignorance is certainly possible, though for
a U.S. president it would be inexcusable. More likely, he has heard the
Palestinian side, but cannot interpret it objectively because he is
ideologically committed to the Israeli worldview.
The
President of the United States has declared: “I am a
Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.” Commitment to Zionism is
commitment to an ideology. Seeing the world on the basis of an ideology—any
ideology—must distort your understanding. Thus, Biden agrees to the Zionist
Project of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and his view of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict becomes as lopsided as the conflict’s death toll.
Joe
Biden’s personal refusal to adjust U.S. policy to confront even those aspects
of Israeli behavior he says he opposes—settlement activity and threats of
annexation—carries over into his personal opposition to the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel, active both in the U.S. and
Europe. Just as his reasoning is often faulty when refusing to match policy to
Israeli behavior, it is also faulty as to his opposition to BDS.
On
the one hand, “Joe Biden will protect the constitutional right of our citizens
to free speech.” On the other, the president “has been unequivocal in
condemning calls in the United States to boycott, divest from, and sanction
Israel.” In other words, Americans can say it, but in this case, Joe ain’t
listening.
According
to the president, “the BDS movement singles out Israel—home to millions of
Jews—in a way that is inconsistent with the treatment of other nations, and it
too often veers into anti-Semitism.”
It
is obvious that in the case of the BDS campaign, Israel is “singled out.”
However, this is not unusual or “inconsistent with the treatment of other
nations.” It is quite consistent. Cuban Americans single out Cuba. Other groups
single out China, or Russia, or Myanmar and the like. Does the president
dismiss these defenders of human rights because of their single-country focus?
Of course not. Thus, he is being a hypocrite when singling out BDS.
In
the case of Israel, those involved in BDS are mostly well-informed Western
citizens, and victims of Israeli oppression (Palestinians) or Jews who are
utterly disgusted with what the Zionists are doing in their name. Israeli
actions, particularly in the Occupied Territories, are in clear violation of
international law and human rights declarations, and this gives the BDS a solid
legal grounding. So what is Biden complaining about? Nothing that he has
seriously thought through. And, when pushed on this, he falls back on the
charge of anti-Semitism. Yet, the suggestion that the BDS movement is
anti-Semitic is just a red herring. Everybody knows that.
Here
is another quite legitimate justification for Americans, and others in the
West, to “single out” Israel for attention by supporting BDS. Israel is indeed
unique in that through its agents—Zionist lobbies—it is powerful enough to
divert the debate over the aims of foreign policy in relation to much of the
Middle East. That is, these agents of a foreign power divert the debate away
from what is in the best interests of the U.S. or this or that Western nation,
toward the question what is in the best interest of Zionist Israel. As a
result, billions of dollars, pounds, euros and other resources have been
diverted into making Israel a supremely powerful apartheid state.
Can
Joe Biden understand these arguments? No more than any other self-proclaimed
Zionist. As a Zionist he must, if he is to stay ideologically consistent to the
Zionist Project of teking over Palestine. And for that horrendous “accomplishment”,
let Israel off the hook for its crimes. Sometimes this blinkered way of
thinking creates embarrassingly contorted positions.
Consider
this emotional proclamation made by then Senator Joe Biden at the AIPAC (American
Israel Public Affairs Committee) Policy Conference, on March 20,
2016.
“Singling
out Israel, [either at the UN or by BDS] is wrong! It’s wrong! I know it’s not
popular to say, but it’s wrong, because as the Jewish people know better than
any other people, any action that marginalizes one ethnic and religious group
imperils us all. It’s incumbent upon us, all of us, that we stand up against
those who traffic in pernicious stereotypes, who seek to scare and divide us
for political gain, because the future belongs to the bridge builders, not the
wall builders.”
Let’s
unpack this declaration. We start with the sentence “the Jewish people know
better than any other people, any action that marginalizes one ethnic and
religious group imperils us all.” It is correct that, given their history, many
Jews should recognize Biden’s statement as true. But all those who are Zionists
will make an exception for Israel. They must do so in order to avoid outright
contradiction. Why so? Because Israel has posited both its identity and its
security on the “marginalization of one ethnic and religious group,” namely,
Palestinian Christians and Muslins. Maybe President Biden senses that there is
some inconsistency here, but being a Zionist he dismisses it as justified.
Addressing an AIPAC audience, of course, meant no one challenged him.
We
move on to the next sentence. “It is incumbent that all of us to stand up
against those who traffic in pernicious stereotypes.” When Israeli leaders and
Zionists such as Joe Biden constantly refer to Palestinians who resist Israeli
oppression as “terrorists,” they too, and foremost, are “trafficking in
pernicious stereotypes.” It is a safe guess that Biden does not realize this.
He is not cultured enough to do that.
Next
sentence, “It is incumbent that all of us that stand up against those who …
seek to scare and divide us for political gain.” I cannot think of a more apt
description of what the Zionist/Israeli aim is here in the United States and
the West in general—to scare us away from the defense of Palestinian rights and
divide us when it comes to legitimate criticism of Israeli behavior, all done
for political gain in the form of maintaining an extraordinary level of
financial and military support of an apartheid state.
Finally,
the last statement, “because the future belongs to the bridge builders, not the
wall builders.” It is amazing that, given his immediate audience, Biden made
this statement with a straight face. For he was addressing those infamous for
building a wall that divides and isolates.
Essentially,
this entire declaration by Joe Biden attributes to BDS all the negative
characteristics that Israel in fact displays. As a self-declared, true-believer
Zionist, he does this without any recognition of the deep irony his declaration
contains.
How
much history does Joe Biden, or his foreign policy advisers, know? For
instance, do they know the history of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency? Lyndon
Johnson could have gone down in U.S. history as a remarkably successful and
progressive leader. He could have done this on the basis of his championing
civil rights. But he was destroyed by the Vietnam War—a war fought by the U.S.
because of its powermongering imperatives.
President
Biden may well be faced with the same choices. He probably could go down in
U.S. history as the 21st century’s first truly great president for all those
reasons listed at the beginning of this article. But these achievements may be
diminished by adherence to obsolete and dangerous foreign policies in the
Middle East. If he follows his current trajectory, he will bury the 2015 Iran
agreement—one of the most promising diplomatic achievements of the 21st
century. He may linger on in that “forever war” in Afghanistan. He will let
both the Israelis and the Saudis off the hook for their past and future
abominations. And he will sustain Israeli dominance in the region even as that
country confirms itself as an oppressive apartheid State which represents a
threat to human rights and international law. Through all of this Joe Biden may
lose his moment in history.
PALESTINA
A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on March 19 during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
Although tragic, the above news reads like a routine item from occupied
Palestine, where shooting and killing unarmed protesters is part of the daily
reality. However, this is not true. Since right-wing Israeli Prime Minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, announced, in September 2019, his
intentions to formally and illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied
Palestinian West Bank, tensions have remained high.
The killing of Hanaysha is only the tip of the iceberg. In occupied East Jerusalem
and the West Bank, a massive battle is already underway. On one side, Israeli
soldiers, army bulldozers and illegal armed Jewish settlers are carrying out
daily missions of evicting Palestinian families, displacing farmers, burning
orchards, demolishing homes and confiscating land. On the other side,
Palestinian civilians, often disorganized, unprotected and leaderless, are
fighting back.
The
territorial boundaries of this battle are largely located in occupied East
Jerusalem and in the so-called ‘Area C’ of the West Bank – nearly 60% of the
total size of the occupied West Bank – which is under complete and direct
Israeli military control. No other place represents the perfect microcosm of
this uneven war like that of the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East
Jerusalem.
On
March 10, fourteen Palestinian and Arab organizations issued a ‘joint urgent appeal to
the United Nations Special Procedures on forced evictions in East Jerusalem’ to
stop the Israeli evictions in the area. Successive decisions by Israeli courts
have paved the way for the Israeli army and police to evict 15 Palestinian
families – 37 households of around 195 people – in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni area in
Sheikh Jarrah and Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in the town of Silwan.
These
imminent evictions are not the first, nor will they be the last. Israel
occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem in June 1967 and formally, though
illegally, annexed it in 1980. Since then,
the Israeli government has vehemently rejected international criticism of the
Israeli occupation, dubbing, instead, Jerusalem as the “eternal and undivided
capital of Israel”.
To
ensure its annexation of the city is irreversible, the Israeli government
approved the Master Plan 2000, a massive scheme
that was undertaken by Israel to rearrange the boundaries of the city in such a
way that it would ensure permanent demographic majority for Israeli Jews at the
expense of the city’s native inhabitants. The Master Plan was no more than a
blueprint for a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign, which saw the
destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes and the subsequent eviction of
numerous families.
While
news headlines occasionally present the habitual evictions of Palestinian
families in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and other parts of East Jerusalem as if a
matter that involves counterclaims by Palestinian residents and Jewish
settlers, the story is, in fact, a wider representation of Palestine’s modern
history.
Indeed,
the innocent families which are now facing “the imminent risk of
forced eviction” are re-living their ancestral nightmare of the Nakba – the
ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1948.
Two
years after the native inhabitants of historic Palestine were dispossessed of
their homes and lands and ethnically cleansed altogether, Israel enacted the
so-called Absentees’ Property Law of 1950.
The
law, which, of course, has no legal or moral validity, simply granted the
properties of Palestinians who were evicted or fled the war to the State, to do
with it as it pleases. Since those ‘absentee’ Palestinians were not allowed to
exercise their right of return, as stipulated by international law,
the Israeli law was a state-sanctioned wholesale theft. It ultimately aimed at
achieving two objectives: one, to ensure Palestinian refugees do not return or
attempt to claim their stolen properties in Palestine and, two, to give Israel
a legal cover for permanently confiscating Palestinian lands and homes.
The
Israeli military occupation of the remainder of historic
Palestine in 1967 necessitated, from an Israeli colonial perspective, the
creation of fresh laws that would allow the State and the illegal settlement
enterprise to claim yet more Palestinian properties. This took place in 1970 in
the form of the Legal and Administrative Matters Law.
According to the new legal framework, only Israeli Jews were allowed to claim
lost land and property in Palestinian areas.
Much
of the evictions in East Jerusalem take place within the context of these three
interconnected and strange legal arguments: the Absentees’ Law, the Legal and
Administrative Matters Law and the Master Plan 2000. Understood together, one
is easily able to decipher the nature of the Israeli colonial scheme in East
Jerusalem, where Israeli individuals, in coordination with settler
organizations, work together to fulfill the vision of the State.
In
their joint appeal, Palestinian human rights
organizations describe the flow of how eviction orders, issued by Israeli
courts, culminate into the construction of illegal Jewish settlements.
Confiscated Palestinian properties are usually transferred to a branch within
the Israeli Ministry of Justice called the Israeli Custodian General. The latter
holds on to these properties until they are claimed by Israeli Jews, in
accordance with the 1970 Law. Once Israeli courts honor Israeli Jewish
individuals’ legal claims to the confiscated Palestinian lands, these
individuals often transfer their ownership rights or management to settler
organizations. In no time, the latter organizations utilize the newly-acquired
property to expand existing settlements or to start new ones.
While
the Israeli State claims to play an impartial role in this scheme, it is actually
the facilitator of the entire process. The final outcome manifests in the
ever-predictable scene, where an Israeli flag is triumphantly hoisted over a
Palestinian home and a Palestinian family is assigned an UN-supplied tent and a
few blankets.
While
the above picture can be dismissed by some as another routine, common
occurrence, the situation in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has
become extremely volatile. Palestinians feel that they have nothing more to
lose and Netanyahu’s government is more emboldened than ever. The killing of
Atef Hanaysha, and others like him, is only the beginning of that imminent,
widespread confrontation.
The Palestinians will not let go the rest of their land easily. « We shall resist. And we will be hundreds, thousands to fight with all our might for our homeland ! » I have the feeling that they will fight harder for their freedom than the French Resistance did against the Nazis. Although all they want is keep their dignity, their Palestinian citizentship and live in peace.
INTERACTIVE: Palestinian Remix
Palestinian
Center for Human Rights
International
Solidarity Movement – Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom
Defense for Children
Breaking the Silence
BRASIL
AOS FATOS: As
declarações de Bolsonaro, checadas
