Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The 'Israel Firster' brouhaha,Israel's hawks don't have their country's best interests at heart.

Rosenberg ha ovviamente ragione, sotto ogni aspetto: razionale, 
politico, emotivo.
 
I bagarozzi e i palmiri naturalmente non possono essere d'accordo, 
essendo dei bolsi reazionari militaristi che combattono dalla poltrona 
del loro salotto per costruire la loro identità virtuale di guerrieri.
 
Ma vorrei sentire gli altri cosa pensano dell'articolo, quelli non 
soffocati dalle loro frustrazioni personali.
 
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The 'Israel Firster' brouhaha
Israel's hawks don't have their country's best interests at heart.
Last Modified: 15 Dec 2011 12:14
 
I wonder what happened to Israel - by which I mean the actual country 
and its seven million people.
 
It still exists, thank God, but one would hardly know it from the way 
its supposed supporters discuss it in the United States.
 
Take the brouhaha last week that started with this article in Politico. 
Its thesis was that some leading progressives are no longer part of a 
"pro-Israel" consensus and are trying to move the Democratic Party in an 
anti-Israel direction.
 
This would, of course, be big news, if it were true.
 
But it isn't, and the only evidence presented in the piece is that many 
progressive bloggers oppose a preemptive war against Iran. Additionally, 
some argue that many of the people who promote military confrontation 
with Iran - and oppose diplomacy - are following Israeli Prime Minister 
Binyamin Netanyahu's lead on the issue.
 
This is hardly controversial. No one seriously denies that AIPAC has 
been pushing "crippling sanctions" against Iran for years with the 
insistence that, if those fail, war would be the only recourse. Along 
with its cutouts in congress, it strongly opposes dialogue as a means of 
resolving US differences with Iran over its nuclear programme.
 
Additionally, many progressives make the indisputable case that many of 
the neo-conservatives who are itching for war with Iran are the same 
people who promoted the war with Iraq. (The Council on Foreign 
Relations' Max Boot is perhaps the most obvious example.)
 
Another complaint, made against me, is that I habitually use the term 
"Israel firster" to denounce those who are promoting Israel's positions 
on Iran and other issues over those of the US. For some reason that 
drives the right crazy, although they consistently denounce both 
President Obama and his policies with almost obscene relish while 
consistently fawning over Netanyahu and his policies of the moment.
 
'Netanyahu firsters'
 
Can anyone argue with the assertion that, for neocons, Obama is always 
wrong and Bibi is always right? Not only that, they denounce those who 
dare criticise Netanyahu over anything while never ever letting up on 
Obama. How can it be that the prime minister is always right but the 
president is always wrong?
 
But I need to offer a clarification. By the term "Israel firster", I do 
not mean that right-wingers and neocons who advance bellicose Middle 
East policies are putting the interests of Israel first.
 
Far from it. They are putting the interests of Binyamin Netanyahu and 
his hardliners first. After all, if they were putting Israel first, they 
would not be promoting policies (such as war with Iran or the 
perpetuation of the occupation) that could very easily lead to Israel's 
destruction or, at least, to the loss of its Jewish majority.
 
The people I call "Israel firsters" are, in fact, Netanyahu firsters.
 
After all, many of these people were anything but "Israel firsters"when 
the late Yitzhak Rabin was pursuing peace with the Palestinians or when 
Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were considering plans that would have 
returned most of the occupied territories to the Palestinians, with 
Jerusalem converted into a shared capital. On the contrary, they fought 
these prime ministers, usually in conjunction with right-wing 
Republicans in congress.
 
One might ask: Why are progressives who care deeply about Israel never 
deemed "Israel firsters"? (Think of people like those in J Street and 
Americans for Peace Now who devote their lives to achieving peace for 
Israel.)
 
The answer is simple. Peace in the Middle East is clearly in the 
interests of both the US and Israel. In the mid-1990s an American could 
have gone out to the town square shouting devotion to Rabin, and no one 
would have blinked. And the reason was that Rabin was almost as 
pro-American as he was pro-Israel. He recognised that advancing an end 
to the Middle East conflict would have primarily benefitted Israel, but 
also its best friend and backer.
 
Hawks vs security
 
That is why, shortly after his 1992 election, Rabin told AIPAC that he 
would not be needing its services as an interlocutor with the Bush (and 
later Clinton) administrations. Knowing that the agenda he intended to 
pursue - peace - would be strongly supported by the US, he intended to 
speak for himself. He did not need anyone to pressure Congress. (See 
this in the Jewish magazine Moment).
 
In fact, the whole business of strong-arming the American government 
only comes into play when the right is in power in Israel 
(unfortunately, that has been almost all the time since an Israeli 
rightist murdered Yitzhak Rabin). An Israeli government that pursues 
peace does not need pressure tactics, as it can achieve support for its 
goals and generous US aid without them.
 
The bottom line here is that it is important not to allow the right to 
hijack Israel's cause. For the right, Israel is all about maintaining 
occupation, ensuring Israel's regional hegemony and fighting a 
civilisational war with Muslims.
 
For us, Israel is about Israel. Its creation in the wake of the 
Holocaust - the return of Jews to the place where their history began - 
was right and inevitable. Israel's sole purpose, as I see it, is to be a 
sanctuary where Jewish children are safe. It has served that purpose well.
 
But that will not continue if Palestinians continue to suffer under 
occupation or if Israel and Iran go to war. Jewish children will not 
forever be safe if Palestinian children aren't. Nor will they be safe if 
a war with Iran (and Hezbollah) spreads into the Israeli heartland.
 
The hawks don't care much about that.
 
For them, Israel is some kind of macho symbol rather than a place with 
real people who just want to live in peace and security. That is why I 
have to conclude that the term "Israel firster" is a bit imprecise. 
There is no evidence that these people care about Israel at all.
 
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action 
Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a 
part of the Media Matters Action Network.
 
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/2011121312030977495.html
 
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http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

 
http://www.aljazeera.com/