It is very difficult for Americans to say anything with moral authority at all as long as our legislative bodies are virtually unanimous (8 Congressmen, 4 each Republican and Democrat, opposed the most recent appropriation for Israeli arms) in their support of more arms and military action for and by Israel. We are fueling the massacre.
As I have said in one of my recent articles on OpEdNews.com (http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-Is-Working-With-Is-by-William-P-Homans-Israel-Attacks-Gaza_Israel-Idf_Israel-Killing-With-U-S-Weapons_Israeli-Pressure-On-US-140730-451.html), "Hamas 'lobs' rockets; Israel STRIKES."
Hamas can not kill Israeli civilians. The Iron Dome system is virtually 100% foolproof, the most efficient missile-defense system ever designed or deployed. Two Israelis and one foreign worker, a Thai, have been killed by Hamas action. One was at a gas station. Hamas can not actually "target" anyone or anything outside the Strip. They have no planes, no tanks, no navy, no heavy artillery. Israel is using "smart" bombs, cluster bombs, and other cutting edge and prohibited technology.
Because of the virtually 100% success of Iron Dome, Israel can actually (if it chooses) REMOVE the war from the Palestinian civilian population by taking advantage of the Landsat surveillance system of the United States, which can place 100% of the Gaza border under constant and minute surveillance.
With Iron Dome, Israel can actually WAIT OUT Hamas' estimated 5-10,000 rockets. Knock every single one out of the sky for a price far lower than the amount the US spends on one DAY'S worth of our military expenditures in Afghanistan and now AGAIN in Iraq. WE ARE PROBABLY GOING TO INTERVENE against ISIS before they kill those 40,000 minority Islamic civilians trapped on a mountain and threatened with massacre.
And at the same time, we have been playing the insane game of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and we have ARMED ISIS in Syria, thinking to put loads of heavy weapons in the hands of "moderates". Extremists take weapons from moderates all the time; how did John Kerry and Barack Obama conceive that the outcome in Syria would be different?
With Iron Dome, Israel can actually WAIT OUT Hamas' estimated 5-10,000 rockets. Knock every single one out of the sky for a price far lower than the amount the US spends on one DAY'S worth of our military expenditures in Afghanistan and now AGAIN in Iraq. WE ARE PROBABLY GOING TO INTERVENE against ISIS before they kill those 40,000 minority Islamic civilians trapped on a mountain and threatened with massacre.
ONE AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE could PRIVATIZE Iron Dome by merely selling off a midsize company in his money-making empire. Sheldon Adelson is worth a net $36.8 billion. He could BUY IRON DOME FROM R+D THROUGH ITS PRESENT DEPLOYMENT FOR A FEW PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR OF HIS NET WORTH.
Adelson is an international gambling and publishing magnate who has recently said in Israel to leaders of the right-wing regime currently in charge that Israel should nuke Iran, starting with some "uninhabited" part of Iran, and then Teheran, if Iran does not surrender its nuclear program.
Adelson could easily BUY THE ENTIRE WAR. HE COULD BUY GAZA AND THE WEST BANK OUTRIGHT FOR WAY LESS THAN HALF OF HIS NET WORTH if there were winner-take-all capitalists in Hamas/Fatah who would sell them to him. It is not only the Israeli warmaking that is asymmetrical.
The economic might behind Israel against Gaza remains silent, because the REAL BIG MONEY doesn't have to cheer, doesn't have to talk, doesn't have to soil its hands with actual blood. It doesn't even have to pay for the slaughter, it's got terrorized American congressmen and senators taking money from the US taxpayer to pay for it!
The Big Money knows that it wins regardless. But it is there, sitting there like the merciless pagan god at the end of a Stephen King novel, watching its Israeli catspaws, and its AMERICAN catspaws, do the dirty work, and the Israelis having tailgate parties while watching and cheering on the airstrikes and shelling of Gaza.
What shall we do? Boycotting Israeli goods is practically useless. I can't remember ever seeing an Israeli product on a shelf where I might have to make a decision to buy or not buy it. Maybe a few oranges.
Street protest in other countries, particularly in the US, doesn't faze Israel in the slightest.
A Lincoln-Brigade type of resistance by Americans would be utterly impossible because unlike Communism in the 1930s, which continued to be an alternative to capitalism, and (maybe) a better one, before Stalin really got rolling, there is no ideological alternative in this world to capitalism to induce people of good will to risk their lives. The Chinese are capitalists, no matter for the form of their government.
There may be a moral alternative, but capitalism ALWAYS trumps morality in the 21st century. Or, as the Zionist one-time antiwar icon Bob Dylan (siighhh...) once sang, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." What VFP can or should do, beyond speaking constantly, one-to-one, to all of our friends, neighbors, and business associates, in addition to those not personally known to us (which crudely means, everybody else), is quite beyond me.
There may be a moral alternative, but capitalism ALWAYS trumps morality in the 21st century. Or, as the Zionist one-time antiwar icon Bob Dylan (siighhh...) once sang, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." What VFP can or should do, beyond speaking constantly, one-to-one, to all of our friends, neighbors, and business associates, in addition to those not personally known to us (which crudely means, everybody else), is quite beyond me.
The Gaza Strip is Israel's Warsaw Ghetto. Maybe only the people of that erring country realizing what they are doing by a quantum higher Palestinian death toll, will be able to stop it.
However, I do not put it past Israeli military authorities to turn the guns on its own people if truly serious, universal protest was to raise its head in Israel. They would undoubtedly call it "an internal political matter."
However, I do not put it past Israeli military authorities to turn the guns on its own people if truly serious, universal protest was to raise its head in Israel. They would undoubtedly call it "an internal political matter."
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