April, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
made history on March 3rd, 2015 by delivering a powerful speech in
U.S. Congress. Two records were broken; one is that he was invited by then the
House Speaker John Boehner without consulting with or even notifying to the
White House beforehand; another is, as Washington Post columnist E.J. Bionne Jr.
put it, “the prime minister of one of the United States’ closest allies,
trashed an American president’s foreign policy.” He was not only insinuating
the incompetence of President Obama and his staff, also trying to undermine the
effort of negotiation for nuclear treaty with Iran by U.S. Government and its
allies. The House of Representatives and the Senate gave him standing ovations
or cheering applauses during his speech, which is clear indication that most of
the members in U.S. Congress are held hostage by Israel and Jewish lobbyists as
far as Israeli interests are concerned.
Mr. Isaac Herzog, a candidate of Israel’s
Primary Election in last March, openly expressed his worry that Mr. Netanyahu’s
visit to Washington would damage American-Israeli relationship as strategic
partners and allies.
Furthermore, Netanyahu made a public
announcement that if he was reelected, he would not allow the establishment of
an independent Palestinian state during his term. A clear challenge to American
pro-Palestinian independence policy for the past ten years. It makes almost
impossible to settle the rivalry between Israel and Palestine in peace, a major
setback for Obama’s Middle East policy.
Obama’s administration could not help but
to lash out at Netanyahu and his policies. It is quite a turnabout of any
American administrations in terms of unilateral support for Israeli causes. It
is of course due to the fact that this is Obama’s last term and there are split
of opinions among Jewish groups in America.
After the World War II, Jewish influence on
America’s foreign policy toward Israel
has increased
exponentially stemmed out of great sympathy on what had happened to Jewish
people in Europe during the War. To compensate their suffering, Britain and
France assisted the remaining Jewish population to “return” to Middle East by
uprooting almost one million of
Palestinians for the sake of establishing a Jewish State—Israel. It was done by
Colonial-style force disregarding the fact that Muslims had lived there for
more than two thousand years. It not only built one’s fortune on others’ pains,
but put those Jewish people in predicament as
well. It is a no-win situation.
Afterwards, America pressed by Jewish
Lobbyists and due to religious concerns and lured by lucrative oil profit has adopted
British Middle East policy and filled the power vacuum left by the withdrawal
of British Royal armies from Middle East. Ever since, U.S. is trapped in the
turmoil situation in the Arab world.
Jewish descendant population in America is
little more than 5 million. But the so called “choice” people disproportionally
take on top positions in finance, medicine, insurance and media, especially
Hollywood movie industry. Many hold teaching and research jobs in elite universities
as well. Through lobbying activities and advisory works to politicians, the
American Jews are able to exert enormous influence on Washington politic, and
considered to be one of the most powerful lobbyist groups. As a result,
American policy on Middle East is one-sided in favor of Israel by providing
billions worth of weapons and total diplomatic support internationally. Many
times it is at expense of American interests, a clear deviation from the way
U.S. usually conducts its diplomacy.
However, U.S. is encountering a lot of
insurmountable difficulties in that region. Yes, Obama did withdraw American
troops from Iraq and Afghan, but at cost of leaving both countries in chaos and
sectarian in-fights. By spending more than 3 trillion for the past decade on
the occupation of the two countries, it was the most expensive war in American
history and most corrupted one in terms of war dollars. It was done in total
disregard of international laws under the slogan of exterminating “terrorists”.
The irony is that toward the end Americans could not wipe out the Al-Qaeda nor
establish stable governments in the two countries.
In 2011 the so called “Arab Spring”
flourished in Arabic World. Instead of expected reform and open society, it
brought instability to almost all Islamic states, except a few, such as Saudi
Arab, Kuwait or United Arab Emirates and pushed many young people in that
region to become extremists. The establishment of the Islamic State in Northern
Iraq and Syria areas is a direct result. The military conflict between Israel
and its neighboring nations expanded into intra-fighting among Sunni, Shiite
and other sectarian groups, which could last several decades. Against the background
of the region, U.S. acting as world policeman and trying to intervene and solve
the Arabic problem by outside force is at best wishful thinking. The Arabic
population of Middle East and North Africa is about 160 million, while the
Islam followers are estimated as high as one billion. Therefore, anyone who
would want to use sheer military power to deal with the problem is shortsighted
and ignorant in terms of reality. Only
through education and the incremental process of modernization, there might be
a chance of peace and stability, which would take decades if not hundreds of
years. China, India and Japan are good examples of this kind of process in the
past two centuries.
While we have great sympathy toward the
Jewish people’s suffering during the Holocaust, we cannot endorse what the
allies and Israel did after the War. Britain and France should have found a
better solution to the “Jewish problem”. There was no justification to
dislocate million Palestinians and made a mess out of the misguided action
taken by the
Allies and later
the Americans. When Israelis announced: “Never Again” and took a hardline
toward the poor and confused Palestinians to protect its recovered “homeland”,
it antagonized the whole Muslim World. As a result, killings between the two
religious groups last several decades with no end in sight. Imagine if the war
money were spent on peaceful solutions, like settlement of Jews in South
America or even in America, the Middle East disaster could be avoided and the
world would be much better off than today.
Instead, the wrong policy has been adopted
by several administrations of United States for the past decades without
serious reflection whatsoever until about ten years ago. It goes on as matter
of routine and was never challenged by intellectuals, let alone general public.
The situation is gradually changing. There are some voices raised to reconsider
American foreign policy on Middle East. For many years, U.S. supported Israel
in terms of military actions against Islam countries and setting high oil price
to keep Saudi Arab and a few small monarchy states in line. It not only failed
to address the problem effectively, but made a mess in the whole area. Furthermore,
financial crisis, racial, drug and security problems add additional dismals to
the U.S. to deal with. So serious the situation, it could drag down America
into dismay. However, When Obama started the with-drawl of troops from Iraq and
Afghan in 2011, he thought America could shake off the trouble of Middle East
and turned his attention to Asia. A pivot of Asia policy was set to contain
China, “a rising power on the international stage and potential threat to
America”.
It is like opening a second war front without a settlement of the first.
The matter of truth is that China is not Soviet Russia, and never advocated a
world revolution against the West. China should not be called an aggressor when
she is merely reclaiming its sovereign rights over Diao Yu Islands(one time was
under administration of Taiwan’s I-lan county) and some islands in South China
Sea that historically belong to China. The Obama Asia policy for which Hillary
Clinton as Secretary of State was responsible is shortsighted
and ill-designed. Overstretching could be a major reason a great country might
fall as stated by Paul Kennedy in his book: ”The Rise and Fall of Great
Powers”. Clearly, America is being trapped in this predicament. Therefore, the
talk of pivot of U.S. Asia policy probably will remain just talk in the
foreseeable future.
In 2006, Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen first proposed that the
establishment of a Jewish state in Mideast---Israel was a mistake. He was
widely criticized in America. Later, he had to admit the word “mistake” used in
his column was a mistake.
Recently, he published a new book entitled: “Israel: Is it good for the
Jews?” in which he did not use the word: ”mistake”. Nonetheless, he did recount
the events of “return to homeland” truthfully. There were several key points
worth our attention: after the War, there was an opinion poll indicated that
out of 18,000 interviews, there was only 13 Jews that were willing to stay in
Europe, and most of them wished to “return” to their “homeland”--Palestine,
which they expected to establish a nation of their own, even though they had
lost it to the Islamists 2,000 years ago. Their wish was endorsed and assisted
to become reality by the Allies, of which the decision was made at Potsdam Conference
before the War was ended. In the process, it was inevitable that close to one
million of Palestinians were relocated to clear the area for a new nation. At the
time, it seemed the action was not so much serious in violation against human
rights, since so many Germans and Pakistanis had suffered the similar fate, a
clear Western imperialism and hegemony on display. Under the circumstances the
establishment of a Jewish state became a symbol of cruel and humiliate way
against the whole Arab World. Therefore, one solution led to many more problems
and led the Jews into hell. As a result, everlasting warfare is only option for
many years to come. From a long term perspective, how is it serving the Jewish
interests? The answer has to be “nay”.
Not long ago, James Baker, formal Secretary of State served under
President Reagan, was interviewed by a CNN reporter. He declared that Prime
Minister Netanyahu’s policy against the establishment of Palestine State was an
open denunciation of U.S. Mideast policy and practically killed the possibility
of peaceful settlement. Furthermore, Israel has expanded its territories by
force and built many settlements in that region, which made the situation from
worse to worst. After the so-called “Arab Spring”, Egypt、Libya、and Tunisia governments were overthrown
by mobs and both Syria and Yemen are in
civil war, all contributed to the instability. The situation
is in no better shape in Afghan and Iraq followed the withdrawal of American
troops. The extremists took the opportunity to set up the Islamic State, which
causes war among tribes of Northern Syria and Iraq. Baker, therefore, concluded
his interview by saying that America could not continue to play the role of
world policeman and definitely shouldn’t send ground forces to that area. The
only alternative U.S. and its allies have is to send military equipment and
weapons with sporadic air strikes. Even though almost everybody knows the
effect is limited let alone the ending of war. Therefore, his position on the
Mideast issue is very similar to Obama’s, which is very different from what the
Republicans advocated.
Middle East will continue to be the ready-to-explode powder barrel,
which may lead to even worst slaughters and never ending wars that could killed
hundreds and thousands of civilians and military personnel and dislocated
millions of people from their homelands. Many scholars and so called experts in
the West were excited about the “Arab Spring”, which they thought it could mark
the coming of new era when autocracies would disappear and democracy would
replace them.
It shows how superficial and naive they
are, because they always judge international events with tinted eye-glasses.
The politicians, most are hypocrites, on the other hand always claim they act
on behave of interests of their own countries disregard of any possible
consequences thereafter. Again, it bases on their colonial experiences ignorant
of current reality. The United States has become the leader of the peck and
suffered the most in terms of casualties and financial costs since the War II.
She is trapped by the Mideast predicament so deep that there is no satisfactory
solution in sight.
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