The Council for the National Interest hosted a forum on Capitol Hill on May 29 entitled "Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. Congress: Realities and Opportunities." According to CNI chairman Ambassador Robert Keeley and CNI president Gene Bird, the purpose of the forum was to discuss the conflict as the present administration nears the end of its term and suggest recommendations for the next.
"This administration has defined diplomacy in a new way," Keeley said. "It makes lists of organizations it doesn't speak to and calls them terrorists. Others call them resistance fighters," the retired ambassador noted. "The essence of diplomacy is you talk to everybody as we've done historically. We need more diplomacy and less force."
Israeli peace activist and former Knesset Member Uri Avnery spoke via a teleconference call from Israel. Addressing any members of Congress in the audience, he said that American support for Israel is an empty phrase. "Which Israel?" he asked. "The Israel which seeks peace and reconciliation and an end to the shameful occupation? Or the Israel which is addicted to occupation and expansion?"
Calling for peace, Avnery said, "There can be no security without peace. Peace and security are two sides of the same coin"-and he insisted that Palestinians need security, too. He pointed out what is obvious to everyone outside the current U.S. and Israeli administrations: the reunification of Palestine is in the interest of everybody, because peace requires support from people on both sides.
"Five generations have been born since this conflict began," Avnery said. He suggested forming a committee for peace and reconciliation on the model of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which would condemn past mistakes. He closed on a note which sounded very familiar to his audience: "Let us again raise the banner of hope," Avnery urged. "Yes we can!"
Professor of political science Menachem Klein, who teaches at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, said the Geneva Initiative offers a model permanent status agreement, which could end the conflict by the end of this year. [Read about this agreement at <www.geneva-accord.org/HomePage.aspx?FolderID=11〈=en>.] Weighing in on the one- or two-state solution debate, Klein said a one-state solution would make a small ethnically exclusive military regime rule undemocratically over a majority. He said he believes that a two-state solution based on internationally recognized borders must take place.
Ambassador Edward Peck said the United States and Israel are violating every single ideal Americans say we stand for. Our actions have destroyed our image worldwide. Thanks to our uncritical support for Israel, the U.S. can no longer "claim a moral high ground." Peck described what he called our "selective morality," comparing our wildly different responses to the Myanmar cyclone on May 2 and 3 to Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza. The regime in Myanmar faced worldwide condemnation and was vilified in the press for preventing delivery of international humanitarian aid from reaching cyclone victims, Peck pointed out. The world also blames the U.S. and Israel for preventing delivery of vital goods and aid to Gaza.
Dr. John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, pointed out that we are in serious trouble in the Middle East. "You'd expect Congress to be holding hearings on how to fix things or to examine American policy toward Israel-the keystone of U.S. policy in the region," Mearsheimer said, "but the Israel lobby won't allow a critical examination of our relationship. The lobby demands the United States support Israel generously and unconditionally and it gets what it wants."
Mearsheimer proceeded to describe how this happens. "The lobby meets with every candidate running for Congress and asks them to offer a position paper on Israel/Palestine," he said. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) "monitors their voting records and steers money toward favored candidates. If a candidate is deemed hostile, they'll steer donations to his opponent."
AIPAC gets what it wants another way, according to Mearsheimer: "If there is a hearing about U.S. foreign policy only one side is allowed to speak-those vetted by AIPAC....No critic of Israel is allowed to testify."
"Some of Israel's strongest backers are Christians," Mearsheimer concluded by noting. "Their top priority is to protect Israel. One would think it would be to protect the United States."
Former U.S. Senator James Abourezk (D-SD) called upon Congress and presidential candidates working on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East to "rise above greed and a thirst for power and do the right thing."
-Delinda C. Hanley
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2008, page 61
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