April 10, 2007

Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy:

Apartheid and Manipulation

In our March 18, 2007 article we raised the question of whether U.S. Middle East policy was repugnant to the General Welfare Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Specifically, we presented several questions that we believed needed to be answered: “What if the fundamental Rights, Liberties and Freedoms of Americans were being curtailed because the United States was becoming a police State? What if the United States was becoming a Police State because it was engaged in a War on Terror?

What if the War on Terror was a result of hostilities directed towards the United States because the United States was annually giving billions of dollars of its tax revenues to the Government of Israel, who was using that money to pay its military to seize and occupy territories belonging to Palestinians -- a people of a different ethnicity and religion -- and to support the tyranny of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing against the Palestinians?

On April 7, 2007 we reported that we had received a number of sharp and caustic emails following the announcement that we would openly and objectively discuss the constitutionality of America’s financial and military support of Israel, the role that America has played directly and indirectly in the destruction of Palestine society, the “War on Terror” that has consumed our nation, and the developing Police State and erosion of individual Liberty and the rule of Law here at home.

We responded first, by stating unequivocally that we are not anti-Israel or anti-Jew, we are pro-Constitution and deeply concerned about what is happening to the individual Rights, Freedoms and Liberty of all Americans; we are concerned about how American resources and policies are being used to serve foreign interests at the expense of the fundamental, unalienable Rights of the American people in gross violation of our Constitution; we believe that all human life is to be revered and honored with the enjoyment of the same unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness that we proudly claim as Americans; and, we believe the protection of human life and liberty is every person’s duty and responsibility.

We then asked our critics to carefully consider and to answer for themselves a number of questions about their own possible personal biases and mis-perceptions regarding their understanding of the larger historical and spiritual contexts framing the Israel question, with particular focus on the higher-order Founding Principles embodied by the Constitution.

More Criticism and Support

Dozens of people took the time to respond to our last article. We have decided to publish the initial responses, dividing them into two groups: those from people that agree with WTP’s inquiry into the constitutionality of U.S. Middle East Policy and those from people that do not agree.

Those who are not supportive appear to disagree for a number of reasons, including the following: WTP should not stray from its original purpose “of defending the tax clauses of the Constitution”; Israel is entitled to the land it is taking from the Palestinians and more, it’s aggressive actions are justified by the Bible; if we let Israel fall we would be violating our “treaty obligations”; WTP should stay away from “religion”; we should not single our Israel because we also give aid to other countries; WTP must have been promised an enormous amount of money to take on this issue; WTP is taking on this issue for no other reason than it is “anti-government.”

We will leave it up to our readers to decide whether the responses have addressed the questions we asked in the previous article or otherwise make any meaningful contribution to the issue at hand.

However, we are compelled to comment briefly on a few of the responses.

First, there is no more to the background and history of our involvement in this issue than what we have posted on this website – any suggestion that we were paid to take on the issue is specious and wholly without merit.

Second, we know of no “treaty” that obligates the U.S. to support Israel, with or without its racist, apartheid policies and programs.

Third, the reasons we are focusing on Israel (and not other countries that receive U.S. aid) have to do with the contents of the paper by Mearsheimer and Walt and the book by Carter, and the link between America’s funding of Israeli oppression of Palestinians and America’s growing Police State and unconstitutional loss of individual Liberties here at home.

Finally, we are not “anti-government.” We are firm believers in the principle that to secure men’s individual, unalienable Rights, Governments must be instituted among men. Once instituted, however, Governments must be watched by the People and held accountable to the Constitution, to prevent the servant Government from taking over the House, turning the tables on and forcing the People to do its bidding.

In short, our involvement with the Israel question is based on nothing more than our desire to defend the Constitution and our careful, objective assessment of the root causes of the current, wholesale, erosion of individual Rights, Freedoms and Liberties in America. We have connected the dots. There is no doubt but that Israel is co-mingling United States tax money with Israeli tax revenues to fund oppression and apartheid, and our complicity in the whole sordid affair has made the United States a target of acts of terrorism. All this has resulted in a rising Police State in the United States and a loss of Freedoms.

Therefore, United States Middle East policy is repugnant to the General Welfare clause of the Constitution: Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. This Foundation cannot stand by, silently witnessing the destruction of this Republic and the Liberty of the People. This constitutional question is of monumental importance to America.

More Evidence

Included in the responses we received over the weekend was more evidence in support of the findings of Mearsheimer, Walt and Carter, that the United States is paying a very high price for the destruction of the Palestinian society, that U.S. policy in the Middle East has been driven by the activities of the “Israel Lobby,” and that the Israel Lobby attacks any person or organization that criticizes or is perceived to be a threat to Israel’s interests.

“Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict”

This one hour and 19 minute video provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Click here to watch the video:

"Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict" --- Google Video

The Dutch Documentary On U.S. Foreign Policy

First, we were sent a link to a Dutch documentary that was released just last week – on April 3, 2007. It was created as a result of the controversy created by Mearsheimer and Walt's article on the Israel Lobby. It features interviews with Mearsheimer, geostrategist Lawrence Wikerson (Colin Powell's Chief of Staff at the time Powell gave his speech before the U.N. in support of the invasion of Iraq), Richard Perle, historian and critic Tony Judt, preacher John Hagee, former Congressman Earl Hilliard, Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, Michael Massing and Daniel Levy.

The narrator speaks Dutch, but most of the film's content is derived from English interviews. (About 1:30 minutes of Dutch at the beginning of film, hang in there!)

The fifty-one minute documentary is a program from the Dutch VPRO ("Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcasting Company"). For information about VPRO, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPRO

For the Dutch documentary itself, use the following link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3497308896275775092&hl=en

"About That Word Apartheid”

President Carter’s latest book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” has unleashed a firestorm of controversy, in part because of Carter’s suggestion that white, racist South Africa’s mis-treatment of its indigenous inhabitants is similar to Israel’s treatment of its indigenous inhabitants. For some, this raises claims of “anti-Semitism”.

And yet, a Google search of “Israel + Apartheid” brings up 5.5 million references. The subject, it seems, is being discussed.

To help clarify the relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa, Americans For Middle East Understanding (AMEU) put together a timeline, beginning with June 1917, when Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Gen. Jan Christian Smuts met in London to lobby for their respective causes.

Americans For Middle East Understanding (AMEU) publishes The Link on a bi-monthly basis. More than 175 issues have followed since the first Link written by Humphrey Walz appeared in 1968. For the first two decades of its existence, The Link was virtually the only national periodical published for a diverse audience by an American non-profit organization that persistently challenged the prevailing myths and stereotypes about Arabs, Muslims and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Link archive constitutes a body of informed commentary, fact and anecdotal evidence that is all the more valuable for writers, researchers and historians because each issue (for the most part) covers only one subject.

The latest issue is entitled, “About That Word Apartheid.” Click below to read the article:

http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=271&aid=584&pg=1

Read the e-mails regarding WTP’s inquiry into the constitutionality
of U.S. Middle East Policy: Those that AGREE Those that do NOT AGREE

Read our March 18^th article titled “Mid-East Policy vs. the U.S. Constitution”