Skip to main content

The Power Broker




For decades it seems that Israel has been the tail that wags the dog in regard to American Foreign Policy.  It's nice to see the head finally taking some control over our FP, but of course that does not come without a fight.  Obama not only faces a mad Republican Congress, but divisions within his own ranks, notably Chuck Schumer, who is slated to be the next Senate Democratic leader when Harry Byrd steps down next year.

Schumer is supporting a so-called "bipartisan" bill that would essentially allow Congress to reject any agreements made by the President, not that he doesn't already need Congressional approval to make such deals binding.   What makes this bill particularly noxious is that it is a direct challenge to the President's authority, largely inspired by AIPAC, which lobbies both Republican and Democratic leaders in the defense of Israel's interests.

This very narrow world view has been promoted far too long, and has caused great damage in our foreign relations.  It has stalled numerous peace talks in the Middle East, and put us in a defensive position in the United Nations, having to justify our unqualified support for Israel, despite the numerous times the country has broken UN resolutions regarding territorial expansion into the Palestinian homelands, which Israel continues to refuse to recognize as an independent state.

Schumer is firmly in the pro-Israel camp, unable it seems to see beyond this narrow view to the long term gains of reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, regardless of whether Iran recognizes the state of Israel or not.  It doesn't seem to cross his mind, or that of others bankrolled by AIPAC, that if Israel recognized Palestine, then Iran and other countries that don't recognize Israel wouldn't have a leg to stand on.  But, for them Israeli recognition has to come first.

Fortunately, President Obama sees beyond this narrow view, while not losing sight of Israel's interests.  You would never know this to hear Congressional leaders these days, who are bearing down hard on the President to pull out of these talks, lest they reprimand him like an insolent pupil, as if they know better.

What makes all this political genuflecting amusing is that the Obama administration is in league with the major countries of the world in this agreement.  The P5+1 comprises the US, the UK, China, France and Russia, all permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany and the EU.   Not only that but there is strong support within Israel for this agreement, but unfortunately Bibi's word is taken by the media as the sole word of this country, which was bitterly divided in the recent parliamentary election.

I guess for guys like Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer the only international ally that counts is Israel, even if it means setting us apart from the rest of the world.  It is a shame we reward this type of thinking by making these persons head of their respective political caucuses in the Senate, allowing them to buck the President for no other reason than the support they receive from AIPAC.

The United States shouldn't have to answer to Israel or serve as its "veto" in the United Nations, especially when this unquestioning support puts us at odds with the rest of the world.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005