Why is Israel so special to the United States? For some it may be the idea that the establishment of Greater Israel fulfills a biblical prophecy, for others it may be guilt over the Holocaust and the US failure to help Jews trying to escape the Nazis. But I think a large part of it may be that Israel gives the United States a firm pied-a-terre in the oil-rich Middle East. The worldwide search for resources we can control is at the heart of US foreign policy. Or to put it simply, "what's our oil doing under their sand?" Our hunt for resources helps make the world a dangerous place, especially for the people who live with those resources, whatever their religion or ethnicity.
If we really want to end genocide in the world, we should debate which approach will best achieve that goal: True democracy within existing borders, (e.g. with respect to Israel and Palestine, a one-state approach), or nationalism, with its penchant for ethnic cleansing. How many of you know that in the days before the State of Israel was founded, the Arabs were driven off land that was to become Israel. How do we know all this? From the Hebrew press. In an article published 13 August 1993 in the Israeli daily Hadashot, writer Sarah Laybobis-Dar interviewed a number of Israelis who knew of the use of bacteriological weapons in 1948. One of those interviewed, Uri Mileshtin, an official historian for the Israeli Defense Forces, said that bacteria was used to poison the wells of every village emptied of its Arab inhabitants. According to Mileshtin, it was former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave the order in 1948 to remove Arabs from their villages, bulldoze their homes, and render their water wells unusable with typhus and dysentery bacteria.8 As I said in an earlier article, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
The preservation of Israel as a Jewish state seems racist to me. And in some other context with some other people it might be openly called racist. Ethnic separatism is racist and a poor substitute for what we really need to finally eliminate genocide, ie. universal recognition of human rights. And in the end, what does Israel as a Jewish state say about the ability of the Jewish people to live and thrive in the world? The world is big; Israel is very small. If Israel is the only place where Jews can feel safe, albeit with a sense of safety derived from being armed to the teeth, including with the bomb, and with the US at its back, the Jews will have been ghettoized on the planet, only this time by their own hand. They will have created the very thing they fought to escape during the Nazi era.
The United States, under Democratic and Republican administrations, has been so committed to the survival of Israel as a Jewish state, that discussion of a one-state solution has been banished to the fringes. Considering the cost to America in money, reputation, and eventually lives, if the US goes to war with Iran, I think Americans ought to be having a lively debate as to the best way to eliminate genocide, starting with the Middle East. But Obama, as he indicated in his speech to AIPAC, will continue the course of the United States guaranteeing the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.9 So people who thought that a black man would be especially sensitive to racism will be disappointed in Obama's Middle East policies, as they see the aspirations of the Palestinians to political and economic autonomy take a back seat to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
Nuclear non-proliferation and Iran
Nuclear non-proliferation is certainly a worthy goal. But building up the image of Iran as a nuclear threat is not the way to achieve it. In his speech to AIPAC, Obama said "Iran has strengthened its position. Iran is now enriching uranium and has reportedly stockpiled 150 kilos of low-enriched uranium. Its support for terrorism and threats toward Israel have increased. Those are facts. They cannot be denied and I refuse to continue a policy that has made the United States and Israel less secure.10
The fact that cannot be denied is that Iran's alleged support for terrorism and the increase of its threats against Israel is a non-sequitur to its stockpiling of 150 kilos of low-enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium is the type used in civilian nuclear power plants to generate electricity. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is a signatory, but Israel is not, recognizes the right of every nation to develop nuclear power for peaceful civilian uses.11 So far, the IAEA "has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran"12 although it is also urging Iran to implement all confidence building measure with respect to the peaceful intent of its nuclear program.13
The US has argued as early as 1998, during the Clinton Administration, that Iran has so much oil it doesn't need civilian nuclear power and therefore must be enriching uranium to get the bomb.14 But running the country on nuclear power means Iran would have more oil to sell at a profit on the international market in later years as demand increasingly outstrips supply, even though Iran would have to import uranium. The one way to be sure that a nation was not using civilian nuclear power as a cover for a weapons program would be for all nations to agree to ban civilian nuclear power. But that is not about to happen.
Demands of the US and Western Europe that Iran allow Russia to enrich its uranium for civilian use is an insult to the sovereignty and dignity of Iran. This is the equivalent of being told, "Don't try to use a knife yourself. Let an adult cut your meat for you." All this talk about Iran trying to get the bomb is about selling another war, getting Americans to accept the idea that an attack on Iran (either by Israel or by the US) is necessary and therefore acceptable. You will be branded unpatriotic (and anti-Semitic) for not supporting the squandering of more American lives and money on a war against Iran.
President Ahmadinejad of Iran has made some very intemperate remarks about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, but we know that the real power in Iran is the Guardian Council, not the President. Ahmadinejad's comments may be more bluster than threat, for home consumption. Iran is having a presidential election in 2009.
But let's assume the worst for a moment. Suppose Iran really is trying to get the bomb. Why would it want to do such a thing? Maybe because Russia, Pakistan, India and Iran's enemy Israel have the bomb? (Israel never officially answers the question of its nuclear status, but it's been an open secret that Israel has the bomb since Mordecai Vanunu was prosecuted in the 80s for letting that cat out of the bag). India, Pakistan and Israel are non-signatories to the NPT. Additionally, Israel's guarantor, the US, has the bomb and has the ignominious distinction of being the only nation to actually use it. Might Iran be feeling a little insecure in that unstable region of the world, especially after it saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, even though he did not have weapons of mass destruction? The United States will never be able to effectively promote nuclear non-proliferation if it fails to see things from the point of view of its adversaries and if it continues to promote the use of force to get its way.
But maybe nuclear non-proliferation isn't really the goal. Maybe the conquest of Iranian oil is the goal. And maybe the Iranians know that goal won't change, whoever is in the White House as of January 20, 2009.
ENDNOTES
1 Transcript of Obama's speech at AIPAC, NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432
2 Robert Fisk: New actor on the same old stage, The Independent, Aug 2, 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-new-actor-on-the-same-old-stage-883270.html
3 Joe Conn, “The Christian Coalition: Born Again?” Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Nov. 2002. http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5492&abbr=cs_
