Bob,
Tuesday night, I looked at a video on The Electronic Intifada of a talk
given by Richard Falk about the situation with Israel and the US. He is so
knowledgeable, and the talk was so fascinating, that I was up way past my
bedtime, listening to him. In part of the lecture, he talks about why this
"special relationship" between the US and Israel exists. Of course there are
many reasons. There are the geopolitical reasons that have to do with oil
and the US having a military proxy in the Mid East. There is the guilt that
the US harbors for refusing entry to Jewish refugees when Nazis began
imprisoning Jews in concentration camps and murdering them. There is the
identification that many people felt with the vision of idealistic Jewish
people, moving to a land which was described as an empty desert, and making
that desert bloom. The Palestinians were made invisible to us, as were their
farms, their olive trees, their flowers and fruit trees. The Kibbutzim were
socialist communities, an experiment in a new way of life. As most American
Jews became less religious, they identified as Jews by identifying with
Israel instead of being religious. Almost every liberal supported Israel. I
think that the first crack in this defense of Israel came in 1982 when it
became known that Israel was involved in the slaughter of Palestinian
refugees in Lebanon. Richard Falk's book is on Bookshare, thanks to Deborah
Murray.
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope
Richard Falk
https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/942473/
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 4:58 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Back to Basics: Clearing the Fog of the
Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Hi Miriam,
Well, this is one of the best short summaries of the Israeli Palestinian
conflict I've seen.
It brought me back to Freshman year in high school. AS part of a world
history course I took, we did a United Nations simulation.
I chose to be the delegate from Israel. Needless to say, the version of
history I read to prepare for the simulation was a one-sided pro-Israel one.
Then, in college, I got a more balanced view, but the tendency was still
pro-israel. AS I grew older, I kept thinking that Israel was using
relatively small attacks by the Palestinians to justify large scale military
action.
Reading books by folks like Zinn, Blumenthal and Pappe really clarified
things for me.
Oh, by the way, if Trump somehow becomes our next president, we will be on
the road to the Israeli-style government that was described here.
Here's the question I keep asking myself. What is it that allows America to
continue it's lover-style relationship with Isreal? IN other words, as a
whole, America treats Isreal like a lover; love them right or wrong.
Is the answer:
a. Americans are either brainwashed by our government or truly ignorant of
what is going on in the Middle Ease; or B. Americans do realize what's going
on, but since it is non-white people who are being wronged, they don't give
a damn.
Bob Hachey
