I posted Bernie's entire speech yesterday which came from Common Dreams. My
take on it is pretty much the ssame as Silverstein's. It was better than
anyone else's, but unfortunately, Bernie is way behind the times when it
comes to the reality of Isreal today.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of S. Kashdan
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 11:53 AM
To: Blind Democracy List
Subject: [blind-democracy] Bernie Finally Addresses Israel-Palestine
Bernie Finally Addresses Israel-Palestine
By Richard Silverstein
Tikun Olam, March 22, 2016
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/03/22/bernie-finally-addresses-israel
-palestine/
Bernie Sanders offered to address Aipac's national conference via live video
feed as almost every Israeli prime minister has done and many presidential
candidates as well (Romney was the last in 2012). He chose not to speak live
because there are a series of extremely important western primaries which
may make or break his candidacy. He needed to be campaigning out west. So
Aipac invented a rule that no presidential candidates are permitted to
address the audience via video and rejected his offer to speak.
Instead, Sanders delivered the speech in the most unlikeliest of places,
Mormon-country: Utah.
I've now read the speech and I have to say that I'm very pleasantly
surprised. Given that I wrote last week that Bernie couldn't possibly acquit
himself well facing this conundrum, he pulled off something quite
politically adept. He will not have satisfied the die-hard pro-Palestine
activists like Steven Salaita. Hell, the speech doesn't even satisfy me
fully. But it's far better than any other presidential candidate in this
election cycle and probably better than any presidential candidate in the
history of the country.
Among the most important achievements are simply that he mentioned Palestine
at all. And he did so often:
I am here to tell the American people that, if elected president, I will
work tirelessly to advance the cause of peace as a partner and as a friend
to Israel.
But to be successful, we have also got to be a friend not only to Israel,
but to the Palestinian people, where in Gaza unemployment today is 44
percent and we have there a poverty rate which is almost as high.
So when we talk about Israel and Palestinian areas, it is important to
understand that today there is a whole lot of suffering among Palestinians
and that cannot be ignored. You can't have good policy that results in peace
if you ignore one side.
Of course, you know that Barack Obama understood this as well. He may've
hinted around the edges at holding these views. But he never said them. More
importantly, he never followed up on any hopeful rhetoric he espoused with
concrete action. There were attempts, but they were feeble and weren't
advanced with firmness and conviction.
Returning to Bernie's speech, he did not mention Palestine to make demands
upon Palestinians or wag his finger at them telling them what they must do
if they expect anything from the world. That's what all the other
candidates, including Hillary Clinton and even Barack Obama, do. Sanders
affirmed Palestinian suffering. He called for an end to the Gaza siege.
Think of how radical that was--and this:
Peace will require strict adherence by both sides to the tenets of
international humanitarian law. This includes Israeli ending
disproportionate responses to being attacked...
This implies that Israel's massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in
multiple wars violated international law. No U.S. president or candidate has
ever said or even implied that.
Also, Bernie avoided so many pitfalls into which other less adept candidates
fall. He didn't demand that Palestinians recognize "the Jewish state" of
Israel. He said they must recognize Israel. Period. Of course, Palestinians
already recognize Israel (since the PLO did so in 1988). So that statement
is almost redundant, unless it was directed at Hamas (Bernie didn't say).
There was no demonization of Hamas. No reference to Palestinians as
terrorists.
That being said, there are portions of the speech which lapse into liberal
Zionist nostalgia for an Israel that has long since receded into the distant
past: the reference to our "shared values" and mutual democratic traditions
and embrace of the rule of law. These are quaint notions which no longer
hold true in Israel (and they're under fire here in this country as well,
but to a lesser extent). It's almost inexcusable for a presidential
candidate as smart and progressive as Sanders not to face such a reality.
What we all admire about Bernie is his refusal to embrace sloganeering or
empty rhetoric or cheap political tricks. He speaks his mind, unfiltered. He
faces reality undaunted and unfazed. But not when it comes to Israel.
Bernie fell into a hasbara trap when he echoed the standard pro-Israel rap
against Hamas: it allegedly siphoned off international humanitarian aid and
used it instead to build tunnels to kill Israelis:
I condemn the fact that Hamas diverted funds and materials for much-needed
construction projects designed to improve the quality of life of the
Palestinian people, and instead used those funds to construct a network of
tunnels for military purposes.
Building tunnels is not a terribly expensive enterprise, especially compared
to the cost of an Apache helicopter or F-16. I do not know where Hamas found
the few millions which went to building these tunnels. But one thing is
certain: when a foreign enemy attacks your home you are entitled to defend
it. That means you are entitled to fight on your own home ground and attack
the invading enemy. So why would Bernie attack Palestinians for defending
themselves from Israeli invasion?
In the most disappointing passage, Sanders once again affirms his embrace of
the two-state solution and calls for a resumption of the tried-and-failed
strategy of renewed negotiations:
I firmly believe that the only prospect for peace is the successful
negotiation of a two-state solution.
The first step in that road ahead is to set the stage for resuming the peace
process through direct negotiations.
Progress is never made unless people are prepared to sit down and talk to
each other. This is no small thing. It means building confidence on both
sides, offering some signs of good faith, and then proceeding to talks when
conditions permit them to be constructive. Again, this is not easy, but that
is the direction we've got to go.
Bernie, I don't know how many times we gotta tell ya: that horse has left
the barn. Peace talks are a dead-end. Especially peace talks aimed at
arriving at a two-state solution. Israel simply has no interest in it. Not
just Netanyahu, who of course has no interest in it. But no Israeli Jewish
party has an interest in the hard compromises necessary to secure peace. So
why deceive yourself?
Though hopeful rhetoric always sounds better on the stump than the downbeat,
the truth is that the U.S. cannot influence a positive outcome in the region
until we are willing to stare an Israeli leader in the face and say: no
more. Until a U.S. president is willing to say to the Israel lobby (that is,
Aipac): no more. Not just say it, but do something about it.
That will be hard. Very hard. Perhaps impossible. But someone's gotta break
the logjam and do it. To those who call it "the impossible dream," remember
how many decades the world thought the Cold War was permanent, that
Communism was the most powerful competitor of the democratic west, that the
Iron Curtain seemed impregnable? How long did it take for it all to come
tumbling down?
I have little doubt that this is what will happen in the Israel-Palestine
conflict. We are already moving very, very slowly in that direction. It may
take years. But once a certain threshold is reached, the denouement will be
relatively quick.
Bernie may not be there yet. But unlike any other presidential candidate of
this or any other generation, he has the capacity to learn from his mistakes
and get things right. At least I hope so.
On a related note, I simply don't have the heart or stomach to offer an
analysis of Donald Trump's speech. But I can't get away without mentioning
the priceless tidbits about the danger Donald faced when he agreed to accept
the dangerous honor of being Grand Marshall of New York's Israel Day parade.
Apparently, there was a Hezbollah hit on him that somehow missed its mark.
The would-be assassins took the D train instead of the L and by the time
they got there Donald had retired to Tavern on the Green or his rooftop
aerie at Trump Tower.
The second piece of pricelessness was Donald's touting of his daughter
Ivanka's new-found religion, Orthodox Judaism, and the "beautiful Jewish
baby" she carried in her Jewish tummy. Did I say shameless pandering? But
half the audience was composed of Jewish bubbehs and zaydehs. They ate it up
I'm sure.
But seriously, no media outlet has yet noted that one of the foreign policy
brain trust Trump has appointed includes Walid Phares. Phares' main claim to
fame was as a commander of Phalangist death squads during the Lebanese civil
war. He's managed in the intervening decades to rebrand himself as a serious
Middle East analyst. By "serious," that means that as a Lebanese Christian
he only hates Muslims, but no longer puts bullets in their brains.
Donald's not the first GOP presidential candidate to invite Phares to offer
his foreign policy "insights." He served a similar role for Mitt Romney.
Phares joins Frank Gaffney as two of the strangest Islamophobe foreign
policy advisors in this campaign. Gaffney has joined Ted Cruz' team as chief
Muslim-hater. A small note about a Cruz "Gaff" (pardon the expression) in
his Aipac talk. In deriding Trump for using the term "Palestine," Cruz said
that everyone knows "Palestine hasn't existed since 1948." Um, no, Ted. You
couldn't even read your own hasbara cue cards. Every hasbarist worth his
salt knows there never has been a Palestine. Let's get our arguments
straight!
Probably, Cruz (or whoever the dolt was who wrote his speech) was thinking
of the British Mandate, also known as Mandatory Palestine. That did end with
the British withdrawal in 1948.
Regarding odd foreign policy advisors, Hillary's got one of her own: a
Hollywood-Wall Street billionaire who ripped off a Japanese anime show and
turned it in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. That would be Haim Saban.
Saban is widely believed to be a Mossad asset, as I've reported here
numerous times.
Full transcript is at:
https://berniesanders.com/sanders-outlines-middle-east-policy/
