"I am a
Zionist. You Don't Have to be a Jew to be a Zionist!"
Biden and Israel
By ROBERT
WEITZEL
“If I were a Jew, I would be a Zionist. I am a Zionist. You
don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.” - Senator Joseph Biden
02/09/08 "Counterpunch"
-- -
Considering
the last eight years and the current (viable) options, I’ll
admit to wanting Barak Obama in the White House in January.
Undoubtedly, more people around the world will have a better
chance of surviving the next four years with his finger on—or
rather off—the button. However . . .
For all of Obama’s campaign promises of “change,” his choice of
Joseph Biden as his running mate sends a clear signal to
Israel’s lobby in Washington and its right-wing government in
Jerusalem that for the next four years there will be no change
in the United States’ unconditional support or its annual $6
billion in direct and indirect aid.
Predictably, neither will there be a change in the hopelessness
and the impotent rage of the Arabs suffering under a
U.S.-supported Zionist ideology in Palestine.
Senator Biden is the ardently pro-Israel chair of the Foreign
Relations Committee. He is a 36-year veteran politician whose
specialty is foreign policy. When he told a reporter from the
Jewish cable network, Shalom TV, that he is a Zionist, he knew
the implications of that admission for the Palestinians, the
entirety of the Arab world, and America’s global “war on
terror.”
Matt Dorf, the Jewish outreach coordinator for the Democratic
National Committee, said that “Israel would have no better
friend in the vice president’s office than Joe Biden.” Dorf
might just as easily—and as honestly—have said, “Palestinians
would have no greater foe in the vice president’s office than
Joe Biden.”
Commenting on the unrest in Palestine in 2007, Biden planted his
flag deep in Israel’s camp: “The responsibility rests on those
who will not acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, will not
play fair, will not deal, will not renounce terror.”
Obama’s running mate has chosen his side. He cannot be a neutral
American statesman brokering a Middle East peace or he cannot be
a Zionist.
One cannot be a Zionist and place the suffering of Palestinians
on the same moral plane as that of Israeli Jews.
One cannot be a Zionist and demand that Israel dismantle its
illegal settlements that co-opt nearly half the land in the Gaza
Strip and Occupied West Bank.
One cannot be a Zionist and place the blame for sixty years of
violence and the deaths of innocent thousands—both Palestinian
and Israeli—on the cold-blooded determination with which the
Zionist cadre executed the ethnic cleansing of 800,000
Palestinians from the land they had inhabited for untold
generations.
One cannot be a Zionist and contemplate the return of
Palestinians to their homes that are now occupied by Israeli
Jews or the rebuilding of the 500 Palestinian villages destroyed
during the great Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.
One cannot be a Zionist and abandon the dream of Eretz Israel in
order to live as equals with an Arab neighbor in a truly
democratic Palestine-Israel.
One cannot be a Zionist and demand that Israel’s apartheid wall
be torn down.
One can be a Jew. One can be an Israeli. But one cannot be a
Zionist.
Joseph Biden is neither a Jew nor an Israeli. He is the
Democratic vice presidential candidate who unabashedly declared,
“The Democrats’ support for Israel comes from our gut . . . and
ends up in our heads.” Sound familiar? Haven’t we already had
eight years of a president who “thinks” with his gut and expects
the rest of us to behave like dung beetle larvae? Speaking
strictly for myself, I’m tired of their balls of poo.
Could it be there is no difference, no possibility of change as
Obama promises, between the Democratic and Republican parties’
subservience to Israel’s shadow government on K Street or their
tacit support of Israel’s internationally condemned policies
toward the Palestinians?
Could it be that the two parties’ overt support for Israel’s
regional aggression exacerbates the “war on terror” and makes
the people their candidates swear to God to protect and defend
less safe?
Could it be that the “ball of dung” being fed to the American
people by both parties conceals the obvious truth that there is
no strategic value in our irrational alliance with Israel?
Commenting on the unrest in Palestine in 1921, Winston
Churchill, one of the architects of the modern Middle East, told
the House of Commons: “The cause of unrest in Palestine, and the
only cause, arises from the Zionist movement, and from our
promises and pledges in regard to it.”
Joseph Biden’s self-professed Zionism plays well on Shalom TV,
but it is a liability for the United States in the global “war
on terror” and a death warrant for Palestinian and Israeli
innocents.
Robert Weitzel is a
contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays
regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be
contacted at:
robertweitzel@mac.com
Click on
"comments" below to read or post comments
Comment
Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse and meaningful commentary.
Do not include personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling outside our
guidelines – those including personal attacks and profanity –
are not permitted.
See our complete
Comment
Policy and use this link
to notify us if you have concerns about a
comment. We’ll promptly
review and remove any inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and
educational purposes. Information Clearing House
has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator
of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
