Liberating America From Israel By Former Congressman Paul Findley
9-12-2
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused
to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express
this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe
the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during
the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid
until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war.
The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined
president - even President Bush this very day - could prevail and win
overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these
facts before the American people:
Israel's present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex
the West Bank - biblical Judea and Samaria - so Israel will become Greater
Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics,
believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality.
Although a minority in Israel, they are committed, aggressive, and influential.
Because of deep religious conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians
from gaining statehood on any part of the West Bank.
In its violent assaults on Palestinians, Israel uses the pretext of eradicating
terrorism, but its forces are actually engaged advancing the territorial
expansion just cited. Under the guise of anti-terrorism, Israeli forces
treat Palestinians worse than cattle. With due process nowhere to be found,
hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured. Some are
assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are destroyed. Entire
cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some confinements lasting for
weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing emergency medical care are
routinely held at checkpoints for an hour or more. Many children are undernourished.
The West Bank and Gaza have become giant concentration camps. None of
this could have occurred without U.S. support. Perhaps Israeli officials
believe life will become so unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually
leave their ancestral homes.
Once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself reviled in most
countries because it provides unconditional support of Israeli violations
of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of
all major religious faiths.
How did the American people get into this fix?
Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35 years ago when Israel's U.S. lobby
began its unbroken success in stifling debate about the proper U.S. role
in the Arab-Israeli conflict and effectively concealed from public awareness
the fact that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical support to
Israel.
Thanks to the suffocating influence of Israel's U.S. lobby, open discussion
of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government all
these years. I have firsthand knowledge, because I was a member of the
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in June 1967 when Israeli
military forces took control of the Golan Heights, a part of Syria, as
well as the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. I continued as a member for
16 years and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
For 35 years, not a word has been expressed in that committee or in either
chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy.
No restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have been offered
for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years received more
than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel, even in
private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright unpatriotic,
if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech was assured
when those few who spoke out-Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy,
and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard,
and myself-were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by
pro-Israel forces.
As a result, legislation dealing with the Middle East has been heavily
biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians and other Arabs year
after year. Home constituencies, misled by news coverage equally lop-sided
in Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress behaves as if
it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament.
However, the bias is widely noted beyond America, where most news media
candidly cover Israel's conquest and generally excoriate America's complicity
and complacency. When President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as "my dear friend"
and "a man of peace" after Israeli forces, using U.S.-donated
arms, completed their devastation of the West Bank last spring, worldwide
anger against American policy reached the boiling point.
The fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers or listens
to BBC. In several televised statements long before 9/11,Osama bin Laden,
believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity
in Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal complaint.
Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express their opposition
to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and severity, especially
since Bush announced his determination to make war against Iraq.
The lobby's intimidation remains pervasive. It seems to reach every government
center and even houses of worship and revered institutions of higher learning.
It is highly effective in silencing the many U.S. Jews who object to the
lobby's tactics and Israel's brutality.
Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty deserve maximum punishment, but
it makes sense for America to examine motivations promptly and as carefully
as possible. Terrorism almost always arises from deeply-felt grievances.
If they can be eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are certain to
subside.
Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush has made no attempt to redress
grievances, or even to identify them. In fact, he has made the scene far
worse by supporting Israel's religious war against Palestinians, an alliance
that has intensified anti-American anger. He seems oblivious to the fact
that nearly two billion people worldwide regard the plight of Palestinians
as today's most important foreign-policy challenge. No one in authority
will admit a calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded from the American
people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America suffered 9/11
and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S.
policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.
Israel is a scofflaw nation and should be treated as such. Instead of
helping Sharon intensify Palestinian misery, our president should suspend
all aid until Israel ends its occupation of Arab land Israel seized in
1967. The suspension would force Sharon's compliance or lead to his removal
from office, as the Israeli electorate will not tolerate a prime minister
who is at odds with the White House.
If Bush needs an additional reason for doing the right thing, he can justify
the suspension as a matter of military necessity, an essential step in
winning international support for his war on terrorism. He can cite a
worthy precedent. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation
that freed only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion, he make
the restriction because of "military necessity."
If Bush suspends U.S. aid, he will liberate all Americans from long years
of bondage to Israel's misdeeds.
Mr. Paul Findley, who served as a Republican congressman from Illinois
for 22 years, is the author of 'They Dare to Speak Out' and a member of
the American Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee