Are the Bush administration and it's Republican rubber stampers Israel's best friends?
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"Bush and the Republicans have been Israel's best friend," an Orthodox Rabbi recently told me.
It seems that his words reflect the perceptions of a majority of Orthodox Jews and possibly a large number of Israelis.
It's simple, really. The Bush administration has been the most permissive, through it's policy of almost totally ignoring the middle east and middle east diplomacy. The ORthodox Jews and some Israelis read this as signs of being Israel's best friend. I disagree, but I'll get back to this in a few paragraphs.
First, I want to explore a phenonmenon that Orthodox Jews and Israelis are not aware of-- rapture Christianity. Tens of millions of fundamentalist Christians are fervently praying for the "rapture" to arrive, as soon as possible.
The "rapture" is a scenario that these fundamentalists believe is predicted by the bible. It is preached about routinely, promised by ministers. When the rapture occurs, people who have "taken Jesus into their heart" will be instantly whisked up to heaven "in Jesus' arms." They'll simply disappear from the earth-- both the living and the dead-- to find themselves in heaven.
These tens of millions of "rapturists" believe that, for the rapture to occur, other biblically predicted events must occur. There must be great turmoil and conflict in the middle east, and then, once the turmoil and conflict reach the worst levels, the "antichrist" will come.
The new phenomenon of Christian Zionism is based upon these rapture beliefs. The strong support that evangelical fundamentalists give to Israel is based on these beliefs.
Let's spell it out clearly. For the rapture to occur, Israel must be engulfed in war, massive, violent, hellfire and damnation war, with huge losses of life. This is the vision the rapturists are praying for, that they yearn for. When the rapture occurs, and Jesus "raptures" the people to heaven, hundreds of thousands of Jews will die and the rest of the people on the planet will be "left behind."
There is a "LEFT BEHIND" book series with movies already made. Over 50 million books have been sold. This is a huge phenomenon. Bush's support for Israel, the Republican party's support for Israel are based upon rapturism.
There was a Twilight Zone story, by Rod Serling, that told of a visit to earth by aliens from another planet who had a book, titled, To SERVE MAN. Earthling, learning of the book, warmly welcomed the aliens. THousands of earthlings accepted the aliens' invitation to travel to their planet. Then, a translator discovered-- TO SERVE MAN was a cook book.
The Bush, Republican and Christian Right's support of Israel is just as predatory, equally malignant in intention.
Could it be worse? Yes. Let's look at the last disaster-- Israel's failed Lebanon adventure. This was done with the permission and, at the least, tacit encouragement of the Bush administration. Now that it's over, it's clear that the winners were Hezbollah and Iran. But Bush also won.
The Bush administration used Israel like a stick, poking the Israeli stick deep into the Iranian hornets' nest, stirring up anger, hate and most useful to Bush, the drumbeats of war among the media.
The prospects for war with Iran are seeming more and more likely. This may be attractive to the most macho warhawks. But most people, including Israelis I've spoken to, believe that any war with Iran will produce massive casualties in Israel-- because Iran will lash out at any attack by bombing Israel, not with small katyusha rockets, but with major missiles aimed at major cities. Casualties will be in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
When Bush and his rightwing Republican and Democrat rubber stampers in congress initiate an attack on Iran, Israel will truly find out what kind of a friend Bush has been. I fear the insight will come at a terrible price.
Let's tackle the Bush administration's "friendship" with Israel from another perspective. It's generally agreed that Bush has left Israel alone to do as it wanted in dealing with its neighbors, giving Israeli a longer leash, more freedom than any other administration in US history.
The USA has been Israel's "patron." But that word is too weak to describe the support the US has provided for Israel. Without the US, Israel could not function as it has. Not only does the US provide Israel with billions in dollars, it provides untold billions in additional military supplies and intelligence.
I see the relationship as a "parental" one. The US has so much power over Israel, over it's survival, that it controls, in too many ways, who is in power and the decisions Israel makes. A parent does not allow his children to do anything they want. A parent does not ingore bad behavior. A parent intervenes when his child gets in trouble or hurts others. Failure to intervene, to guide the child over whom the parent has so much influence, is a egregious failure in responsible functioning in the relationship.
If you don't like the "parent" relationship, try partner. A partner who invests as much as the US does in Israel has a responsibility to guide its malfunctioning partner.
Since Bush became president, you only have to look at the number of terrorist attacks, the number of people in Israel and among Israel's neighbors, to see that Israel's decisions have been poor ones.
A good ally, particularly one with as much power and influence as the US has over Israel, functions the way previous presidents have dealt with Israel, with tough love, requiring serious efforts at peace-making and greater restraint in dealing with neighbors.
The Bush administration has been a cheap, shallow friend of Israel, using Israel, like the Twilight Zone aliens with the cookbook, to engage its strongest base, the Christian right, throught their cravings to attain the rapture. This is not a fantasy, not science fiction. It is a bizarre, macabre reality that every Jew and every Israeli should be heavily factoring into the "friend of Israel" equation.
Pounding harder on the middle east war drums, attacking Iran is not the answer. Iraq was an already beaten, de-clawed, emasculated country when Bush waged his "war" with "mission accomplished." We've seen how well planned and successful that effort was. Yes, Saddam was taken out, only to be replaced by something far worse-- the loss of THE balancing factor in the middle east, which kept Iran at bay.
An attack on Iran, with a much larger population, with years of preparation and a much stronger military will not be nearly as easy. Even if the US succeeds in doing to Iran what it did to Iraq, destroying communications, airforce and breaking up ground forces, the response from Iran will be incredibly more destructive, starting with Israel. Sure, the US will be able to pull a "soutnern Lebanon" on Iran, destroying much of the infrastructure of Iran. But in the process it will lose much more of what is left of any good will it has left in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It will further unify more hundreds of millions of Muslims against the US. It will build hatred for the US and Israel and the Jews even more, just as Ohmert's failed Lebanese adventure has done. (And replacing Ohmert with more hawkish Bibi Netanyahu will only make matters worse.)
A good friend of Israel will help Israel find peace, stability and will help turn neighbors who are enemies into trading partners with synergistic interests that build peace and good relations. You won't see that coming from the right wing in the US. Supporting Bush and his right wing supporters is almost a guarantee that Israel will face more death, in the next two years than it has seen in its lifetime. Supporting Bush and his right wing war supporters may feel like a way to help Israel. But Israel has gotten itself into deep trouble and greater danger than ever before with the help of Bush and his "cookbook" Christian right supporters.
It's time for the true "friends of Israel" the Jews who love Israel and want what is best for Israel, to get off their war horses and start supporting leaders who work closely with Israel and its neighbors in efforts that make Israel safer and the Jews less hated not more hated.
The steroid version of support for Israel-- low brain, no diplomacy, high conflict-- has not worked the past six years. Things are worse. More people are dying. Under democratic leadership Israel was better off. Diplomacy requires the US to lean on Israel, but more important, to lean on the Saudis and other Arab partners, which, let's face it, Bush has done a terrible job at. The Dems are friends of Israel, but not as friendly with the oil Arabs. You don't see Dems hobnobbing and hugging emirs, princes, sheiks and kings, like Bush does. It will be much easier for the Dems to play hardball with supposedly friendly Arab nations that have consistently sabotaged peace efforts relating to Israel.
note: The rapture/messiah story is not just one embraced by Christian fundamentalists. Some Muslims and Jews also embrace similar apocalyptic narratives. It is reported that Ahmadinejad believes that he is playing a key role by intensifying the hostilities.
Authors Bio:
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.