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by Peter A. Belmont / 2010-04-28
© 2010 Peter Belmont
Most US politicians seldom tire of telling themselves and the world several heart-warming things. They stand up for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Staunchly. As a rule. Usually. Indeed, most of the time. Well, often, anyway. Nice window-dressing. Of course they don’t really mean these things. We’re talking American politics here.
But there are other things that they always, always, always say. They always say that US and Israeli interests are the same. Identical. Never mind that that can scarcely be possible in reality. Reality has nothing to do with it. We’re talking American politics here.
Of all the things where one might suppose that the US and Israel have interests that differ, the chief one, as I see it, is the matter of approval of Israel’s program of land confiscation and colonial settlement of the occupied territories—nowadays limited to the West Bank (and Syria’s Golan Heights).
Now, of course, colonial settlement of occupied territories is Israel’s project, and I defer to Israel to compute its own national interest. Of course colonial settlement is in Israel’s national interest if its government says it is. Governments always get this sort of thing right, don’t they?
But why is this project in the American national interest?
Is the confiscation of land in occupied territories (without compensation for the land taken and contrary to international law) a US practice? No. But we support it when Israel does it, bringing down upon ourselves without any apparent gain the opprobrium of the world and especially of the Arab and Muslim world, as General Petraeus recently and rightly reminded the country.
Is the settling of colonial settlers in occupied territories (contrary to international law) an American practice? No. But we support it when Israel does it, bringing down upon ourselves without any apparent gain the disapprobation of the world and especially of the Arab and Muslim world.
Is the building of these settlements likely to cost the US money? You bet. In addition to the $3B we pay Israel every year, we are always being asked to fund other Israeli projects, like the building of housing for the Soviet immigrants several years ago, Israel’s comical project that increased its “Jewish” population by bringing in people from the USSR who only pretended to be Jewish. If there is ever a two-state peace, Israel will have to remove the settlers and to destroy or abandon the settlement housing and provide the returning settlers with housing within pre-1967 Israel. Very expensive. who doubts that the US will be asked to pay? And what was the point, anyhow, what with the settlements being illegal and all?
Now, our highly principled politicos speak up for the rule of law when it is convenient, but ignore it when Israel violates international law (which it promised to comply with when it signed various treaties and applied for entry into the UN).
They speak up for human rights when it is convenient, but never for Palestinian human rights when that would inconvenience Israel.
Our politicos also speak up for democracy when it is convenient and righteously demanded that the Palestinians living under occupation elect a Palestinian Authority (“PA”) to pseudo-govern themselves as a slave people—and then, when to general surprise Hamas won the election, our politicos had nothing good to say—rather the opposite—to the PA. So much for democracy.
And then there is Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank. This wall has cost over $1T. It snakes through the West Bank cutting Palestinians off from their farmlands and from each other. It was such a disgrace that the UN asked the UN’s court, the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”), to declare the legal consequences of the wall. That court did so after due deliberation and on July 9, 2004, gave an advisory opinion declaring the wall illegal, stating that it should be removed from all occupied territories, including occupied East Jerusalem, and importantly stating that it was the duty of every country to see to it that Israel removes it.
The US, a frequent (or at least occasional) champion of the rule of law, ignored the court’s opinion, apparently echoing Stalin’s famous remark, “How many divisions has the Pope?” as “Just let the ICJ try to enforce its judgment, just let it try!”
The reader will understand my puzzlement.
On the one hand, “the US National Interest” is a non-existent abstraction which, to the extent it has any meaning, means the constantly evolving balance of disparate (and contradictory) interests which underlie the policies adopted by the US government.
Who else but the government can “compute” the national interest, right? So if our politicians want to throw out the rule of law, throw out democracy, throw out concerns for human rights, and get in bed with the most notorious rights- and law-violator in the world today, why, then, it is by definition in the US national interest to do so, because governments never make mistakes as to their own national interest. Do they?
But, still, one does wonder just why the US cannot advance Israeli/Palestinian peace, as presidents consistently say they wish to do, by requiring Israel to remove the principal obstacle to peace, namely, the wall and the settlers. I mean, if the world’s only remaining superpower cannot order its vassal state to do whatever it chooses to order, what kind of superpower is it?
And if it is in the US’s national interest—as many believe—to convince the world that we ARE a superpower, then why not show the world that we are by ordering Israel to remove the wall and the settlers? You know, instead of backing down time after time and thus proving to the world that we are really a paper tiger.
requiring Israel to remove the wall and the settlers would violate no known US interest, would help with the Arab and Muslim worlds (as Gen. Petraeus said), and would bolster the US’s reputation—tattered as it may be—for concern with rule of law, human rights, and, perhaps, democracy.
This is all so puzzling. Maybe I ought to ask AIPAC and UC Berkeley’s Hillel why it is in the US national interest to support (and not to oppose) Israel’s colonial settlement project. I might learn something. Certainly, no US politician has ever been known to explain the matter.
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