Shared item
1 shares
Israel turns 60 - fact and fiction
via Iran Affairs by C S on May 08, 2008
Gershom Gorenberg has published an article entitled Seven myths about Israel on the occasion of thr 60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their God-given lands -- which is essentially apologia about Isael, as is his psuedo-liberal book "The Accidental Empire" (thesis: Israel just 'accidentally' came to dominate Palestinians but didn't really mean to.)
I thought it would be nice to take apart his explanations of these "myths"
Myth 1: "Israel is a successful democracy."Sort of. From what began as an impoverished and war-ravaged country flooded with Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world, Israel has grown into a regional military power with a per capita gross domestic product that exceeds all its neighbors'. . .
Well, there is the little unmentioned fact that Israel is also the recipient of the largest peace-time transfer of wealth EVER -- exceeding even the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after WWII. Gee, do you suppose THAT has anything to do with Israel's economic "success"?? Look, even apartheid-era South Africa was an economic success and "democratic" -- as long as you were white. Israel, similarly, is still an apartheid state. And in fact US money is being used to secure what are really the shaky crumbling socialist basis of Israel's economy.
Myth 2: "Israel is a Jewish state."Not in the way you think. Israel's secular Jewish majority is heir to that conception. For Israel's secular elite, being a Jew means speaking Hebrew, living in the Jewish homeland and belonging to Israeli society...
No, when they speak of Israel as "Jewish State" they mean a state in which one group (the Jews) have ethnically cleansed the others (the non-Jews) in order to artificially maintain the dominance of Jews over non-Jews. Gorenberg keeps referring to the Arab "minority" without nothing that they're only a "minority" because the rest of the "Arabs" (aka Palestinians) continue to be murdered and exiled.
Myth 3: "Israel was born of the Holocaust."No. Israel was born despite the Holocaust.
Every visiting foreign dignitary is taken to Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial. The route proceeds from exhibits on the horrors of the death camps to the establishment of the Jewish state. The stress on the Holocaust reflects the emotional trauma that the horror still inflicts on Jews. It also underpins the political message that Jews can be safe only in their own state.
Gorenberg seems to think that Israel's abuse of the Holocaust to justify its own existence is some sort of accident or "mistaken" impression of outsiders. It is not. It is a deliberate manipulation by Israel of US and European Holocaust guilt in order to to justify the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Myth 7: "The Israel lobby controls U.S. policy."Never. In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt hold the lobby largely responsible for U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East. The book's greatest flaw might be that it serves as an unintended advertisement for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is eager to play up its own influence.
Although AIPAC does lobby the Congress effectively, its influence on policy has limits. It could not prevent President George H.W. Bush from using loan guarantees as a means of pressuring Israel on West Bank settlement. In 2006, despite AIPAC's efforts to pass a version of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act that would have virtually cut off U.S.-Palestinian relations, the Congress opted for a more moderate bill.
"Never" huh? LOL! Note that as evidence he's citing Bush I's effort to pressure Israel to end West Bank settlements -- but Bush I himself said that he had never come under as much pressure as a result of that decision, that he was "one lonely guy" who was battling "something like a thousand lobbyists" (and all he managed to do was delay the loan guarantees for 4 months.) That decision may have cost Bush I his second term in office too.
Shared by: