5 Ways America Enables Israel's Atrocities 

From AlterNet:

Israel’s assault on the besieged Gaza Strip has entered its sixth day. At least 58 civilians have killed, and the toll is likely to rise. Hundreds of Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, have been injured as well.

And if you’re an American, it’s your money that is being used to pay for these atrocities. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Guardian, “Israeli aggression is possible only because of direct, affirmative, unstinting US diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel and everything it does.”

So it’s no surprise that those outraged at the latest Israeli assault on Gaza would also blame the U.S.
 
More here.

Like most Americans, I like Israel.  Quite a bit, in fact.  For starters, they're just f'ing cool.  I mean, wiping out the Egyptian Air Force in only four hours during the Six Day War alone gets my respect.  As does the famous raid on Entebbe.  As does the arrest and trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann.  But it's not just that they're badass warriors.  The United States and Israel have a lot of culture in common.  And then there are all those fabulous Bible stories that take place in what is now modern day Israel.

But that doesn't mean I support everything they do.  Case in point: their treatment of the Palestinian people.

If you rely on US media coverage alone for your understanding of the Palestinian issue, then you can only conclude that that the people living in the occupied territories are all crazy, filled with religious hate, filled with the desire to wipe the nation of Israel off the map forever.  And, indeed, there are certainly some Palestinians who feel this way.  The reality, however, is much more complicated.

Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967.  The problem was, however, that once occupied, Israel had absolutely no idea what to do about the Palestinians living there.  It is a recognized war crime to expel a population from its homeland, so that option was dead on arrival.  The Palestinians didn't want to be controlled at all by Israel, so cooperation with their occupiers was a non-starter.  But Israel, fearing for its existence, and rightfully so at that point in history, didn't believe withdrawal was in its best interests.  So they stayed, without a plan for ever resolving the situation.

And that made the occupied territories into ghettos.  Indeed, ghettoization became the de facto policy of  Israel toward Palestine.  Israeli war hero and leader Moshe Dayan articulated the stance: "We don't have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and we will see how this procedure will work out."  But there was nowhere for the Palestinians to go.  Other Arab nations already had their fill of refugees and wouldn't take anymore.  The United States certainly wouldn't take them in.  So the Palestinians continued to live "like dogs."

And this was and is a damned shame.  After the Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the late 1970s, there was no longer an existential threat to Israel.  All their enemies were either defeated or had agreed to peace.  While something of a nuisance from time to time, with a few terrorist attacks here and there, Palestine no longer represented the threat it once seemed to Israel.  But the Palestinians continued to live "like dogs," with no constructive solution on the horizon especially because Israel's greatest ally, the United States, continually blessed the oppressive ghetto situation.

And that's essentially where we're at today.  Whatever started the conflict, it now perpetuates itself.  I don't know about you, but if my people were continually held under the specter of martial law by an invasive force, if I had been born into that situation, and if it appeared that it would never end, I would probably take up arms against the oppressor myself.  That is, this is no longer about Israel's existence: it's about a locked-in occupation that the major players involved don't want to end.

It is to our national shame that we Americans don't do everything we can to stop this intolerable situation.  It is to our further shame that we Americans actually enable the oppression with billions of dollars in foreign aid earmarked for military spending, and by providing cover again and again at the UN.  We're not doing the right thing.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$