John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

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Response to a comment which said [in reference to Israel],”No two states. No financial support”:

 

Of course, that’s reasonable, but nothing reasonable applies to Israel in the United States. Nothing. Ever.

Were there any political will in Washington, the whole business between Israel and the Palestinians could have been settled decades ago.

The United States, at least in theory, has that power. After all, Israel literally floats on a sea of American subsidies, and I don’t just mean the annual American government hand-out of about $500 per Israeli citizen.

There are huge public and private subsidies flowing to Israel, and a set of immense privileges in place – everything from free trade and favorable treatment in gaining large American government contracts to extraordinary access to American decision-makers – privileges worth their weight in gold.

But there is no political will in Washington to use that leverage.

There were even some very powerful past opportunities that were completely ignored, as when Israel attacked the USS Liberty viciously in the Six Day War.

America did nothing. Demanded nothing. Just shut the whole matter down.

Another strong psychological opportunity came in the wake of American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein slaughtering 29 Palestinians at prayer in 1994. Another 125 were wounded by that madman with a machine-gun.

Perfect time to apply pressure. Nothing was done.

Or how about the Six Day War itself, totally planned by an Israel confident it could win in order to seize the lands for a future “Greater Israel,” lands still occupied today. Millions held against their will. New parcels of land – the homes and farms of those held – stolen openly under the harmless-sounding euphemism of “settlements.”

Not a word. No effort. And remember when it comes to matters of property and ownership, likely no people on earth are more ready to shoot first and ask questions after than Americans.

In part, it’s the work of the very powerful Israel Lobby. No American politician wants to offend them. And no American politician wants to miss out on the campaign contributions and favorable mainline press handed out for loyal service.

But I believe the situation also reflects the fact that Israel really is a de facto colony of the US, a rather unusual and privileged one, serving many of Washington’s purposes in the Mideast.

Ever hear of a colonial power being fair in its colonies or showing the least sense of justice in colonial arrangements?

As for “the natives” anywhere, how did Britain treat them in its imperial heyday?

 

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https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/john-chuckman-comment-democracy-and-the-tyranny-of-a-majority-israel-and-the-palestinians-using-ugly-name-calling-to-silence-legitimate-criticism-of-unfairness/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/john-chuckman-comment-exactly-why-peace-cannot-come-from-israel-there-is-no-engine-for-doing-it-and-structural-realities-dictate-virtually-endless-hostility-as-far-as-peace-dictated-from-outside/

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John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN AP ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS

 

“Trump decided to withdraw troops from Syria without consulting advisers”

 

I think at best that is only technically accurate.

Everyone knew Trump’s original position on this.

And many reports point to advisors telling him not to go that way. Over and over.

Indeed, I ‘ve seen a piece that says his sudden impulse was in part a reaction to his hearing the same stuff over and again from advisors. There does come a point when there’s not much point in asking the same people the same question again.

Perhaps Trump had reached that, although it remains easy to paint him as impulsive and erratic in this decision because he has been impulsive and erratic so very many times. It is part of his basic nature. But you can be impulsive and erratic in executing a sound decision, or you can be erratic and impulsive in even making the decision. Opponents are suggesting the latter.

Well, that all means he knew their positions, and they knew his. So, I view this kind of report as echoing a kind of disinformation from insider opponents.

This would be by far Trump’s worthiest act, keeping his word on a very important matter from two years ago.

There can be no question he has made his Neocon officials angry – folks like Bolton and Pompeo – but who cares? They are some of the most deplorable people in the government. People always ready to see others die in the name of ideology.

I don’t like Trump, but I completely support him here. We all should.  I only hope he is sincere, but that is not at all certain. Nor is it certain that even if he is sincere, he will not be diverted from his purpose by powerful forces.

Of course, his blubbering about defeating ISIS is just defensive posturing. The best comment I’ve read on that claim is: “Actually, ISIS Isn’t Beaten Yet Because the US Prevented Syrians From Doing So”

That reflects the truth about most of the American activity in a war that has seen half a million die and millions made refugees. The secret aim of all the effort was to remove a popularly-supported government and weaken a country that Israel does not like having on its border, and the effort has failed. Yes, in the recent past, America did engage in actually bombing ISIS, but that has not been its record for the war.

ISIS has been bombed by Western governments recently because they could no longer resist the public clamor over this horrible gang which went out of its way to terrify opponents with brutal acts. Before that, they were a useful tool. Anyway, they’ve served their purpose and failed. And no one involved in Realpolitik and the war business has sympathy or use for failed hired thugs. You might as well try to earn some public relations credit by killing some of them off.

American bombing of ISIS in places like Raqqa, Syria, has been the most brutal by anyone in the war, killing very large numbers of civilians. It appears the Pentagon put the emphasis on just quickly getting the job done.

Of course, the same pattern has been seen in Afghanistan, a place which endlessly frustrates an American invader whose purpose, beyond vengeance, was never quite clear from the start.

The entire record of American involvement in Syria is shameful, and, of course, all of it is completely illegal since America has no one’s permission even to fly over the country, let alone bomb and build bases and provide weapons to rebellion.

The Syrian army, greatly helped by Russia and Iran, in fact defeated ISIS and some of the other terrorists. Perhaps, soon they can finish the job in the Northeast, and all the refugees can begin going home to rebuild?

But Turkey is promising to do the job for them in its determination to prevent a Kurdish rump state on its border. It is anybody’s guess how that will all sort out, vis-à-vis Syria and Russia.

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED COMMENT TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE TELEGRAPH

‘Well the Jews were there 3,000 years ago, 1,600 years before Islam even existed.’

That is typical of the kind of uninformed statements repeated over and over in defense of Israel’s current brutish behavior.

First, there is no history of Jews in Israel 3000 years ago. At that time, they were likely still part of ancient Mesopotamia, lands we today call Iraq, the place where they are thought to have originated.

But even more importantly, when people write about Israel’s additional territorial claims in terms of Hebrew Scripture, for most of the world’s people it makes as much sense as modern Greece claiming Turkey owing to the stories in the Iliad, Homer by the way actually going back about 3000 years and singing of still earlier events.

If you can quote Scripture as authority in Middle East affairs, you can justify literally anything, including killing all non-Jewish residents, for that is what the Biblical Hebrews were enjoined to do, over and over, supposedly by God but actually by their own prophets assuming the authority of God.

Many countries could have a claim on the territory we call Israel if this cloudcuckooland approach were valid, including the Egyptians who long, long ago ruled there, the Lebanese, viewed as the descendants of the ancient Phoenicians who also ruled there, and perhaps even the Iraqis, whose antecedents conquered the territory.

Go back far enough, and you can claim the territory we call Israel for the decedents of the early people who migrated out of Africa many tens of thousands of years ago.

The silliness of this ancient-writing-based claim is made even greater by the important research of an Israeli scholar who says that the Palestinians are, for the most part, the actual descendants of the ancient Israelis.

When Rome conquered territories, it typically did not remove the inhabitants, and it did not interfere with their religion, so long as they accepted Roman rule. Just because, after two turbulent millennia of history, most of the Palestinians are Muslim does not invalidate this concept. Moreover, DNA testing is tending to support this view.

So what we are really talking about with Israel’s modern activities is removing the descendants of ancient Israel who have lived there countless centuries in favor of new immigrants from New York or London. If that isn’t imperialism, I don’t know what is.

On still another level, Biblical claims must be rejected simply because they are dangerous and de-stabilizing. Greater Israel as it has been defined by Zionist scholars – and mind you, there are no maps in the Bible – includes the West Bank and Gaza and pieces of Syria and Lebanon. Does claiming that, or any portion of it, resemble anything but a certain formula for endless war and unrest?

Personal religious views and 2,500 year-old books have no place in international affairs.

In the end, if Israel wishes to be regarded as a state like any other state, then it must behave as we expect other states to behave, and that does not include undefined borders which constantly ooze out over the property of others.