Friend of Israel
by Joseph Gainza
The US Government says it is a friend of Israel. That is good, I want my government to extend its circle of friends as wide as
possible, and to seek peaceful ways of living with those who refuse our friendship. But the US has a very strange way of behaving toward a friend. Friendship entails seeking the greatest good for one's friend. That is not what the US is doing with Israel.
If a friend comes to my house drunk, I do not give him the keys to my car. If that friend is fighting with a neighbor, I do not give
him a gun. If I wish to be a true friend, I seek ways to help him and his neighbor settle their disputes peacefully. If I see my hriend doing things that exacerbate the quarrel, I point that out to him. I try to get my friend to listen to the complaints of his neighbor and see where those complaints may be justified. I do not help my friend break into his neighbor's house and steal his property. I do not help my friend deprive his neighbor of the means to live a descent life. I do not subsidize the actions of my friend which make a peaceful settlement of the dispute impossible. And if my friend should kill his neighbor, I do not ongratulate him and tell him he has a right to kill; I certainly do not give him more weapons so he can kill again.
The US Government is betraying our friendship with Israel. The president and Congress are not acting in the best interests of
Israel, but responding with moral cowardice to its unlawful, immoral and brutal behavior toward the Palestinians. Afraid of Israel's powerful supporters in the US, our government betrays the very meaning of friendship by supporting Israel in its time of shame. And it is worse than that. Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid in the world. The US extends its diplomatic cover while Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land for new settlements in the occupied territories, in violation of international law, and making a peaceful, two state solution impossible.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asks, “what would you do if the (Palestinian) rockets were landing on your cities and towns?” Fair question. As someone who wants to see Israel live in peace amongst its Arab neighbors, I take this question very seriously. As a friend of Israel, who wants to get at the root of the ongoing tragedy, I would ask the prime minister “what would you do if another country occupied ever larger sections of your homeland, kept you and your people prisoners in a restricted zone where all coming and going, including commercial trade, is controlled by the occupier, and who attacks with overwhelming destructive power whenever the prisoners react with frustration and violence.
I do not intend to excuse the prisoner's violence, the rockets, the resulting fear and destruction. I am trying to place it in
historical and psychological context, just as I try to understand how the history of pogrom and holocaust – none perpetrated by Palestinians – motivates some of the unquestioning supporters of Israel. The Israeli government wants us to forget this Palestinian context as it has great explanatory power; so it places the start of the violence at a convenient moment which seems to support their contention that the Palestinians started the whole catastrophe.
Just when the number of Palestinian dead approached 1,400, the majority of whom were civilians, including nearly 200 hildren, the US government gave Israel an additional one billion dollars in weapons. This further implicates every U.S. taxpayer in the killings. The barbarous actions of the Israeli government in Gaza erodes the magnificent tradition of Judaism for justice and peace, a tradition which forms a basis of Western political thought. Israel says it wants peace, but it is the peace of a cell block. And the U.S. aids and abets these actions. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
Joseph Gainza
Vermont Action for Peace
Producer & Host - Gathering Peace
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