Unrestrained Aid to Israel Must End Blind Allegiances Perpetuate the Crisis in the Middle East

Author: Wasim Rahman

For a little over a week now, I have been active with a group of students on campus who have been collecting signatures for petitions demanding a re-evaluation of United States policy towards Israel. I believe that the events of the past month in the West Bank demonstrate to us, as Americans, that our current position of unrestrained financial and political support for the Israeli government is wrong and must end immediately. This column contains two sections. First, I will present the content of these petitions and explain the reasoning behind them. Second, I will narrate the problems I have faced as an activist on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from those who pledge total blind support to the State of Israel.

We have three petitions that we will send to the Vermont Congressional delegation. The first reaffirms that we believe that despite everything that has happened and will happen in the Middle East, students at Middlebury College support an independent Palestinian state. The second states that we believe we should end all United States military aid to Israel, particularly since the Israeli government has refused numerous demands by President Bush to withdraw its tanks and soldiers from West Bank cities. We believe that we are only enabling the Israeli government to further deprive the Palestinians of their human rights. Lastly, our third petition is to join in the international condemnation of the excessive use of Israeli force during April 2002. In the words of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their own humiliation? Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people" (Christian Science Monitor, April 18, 2002).

Conventional wisdom tells us that the first thing to disappear in propagandist culture is the ability to self-criticize. I am stunned by students, predominantly Jewish, on our campus who are absolutely unwilling to accept that Israel can ever be wrong. I am even more disturbed that there are some students on this campus who, due to their passion for the topic, have completely monopolized the pro-Israeli camp with their extremist views. I recognize and support that Jewish students can and should feel a sense of natural affinity towards Israel. However, their allegiance to Israel becomes harmful to the United States when it has no limits and fails to see reason. It also becomes harmful when they interpret any criticism of Israeli policy as being anti-Jewish. I realize that Israel is important to them, yet I cannot imagine that they would let their Jewish identity be completely defined by it. After all, there are many Jews out there who don't even believe Israel should exist. I hope they are not seen as anti-Jewish.

An example of such blind allegiance is the slogan "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel." This slogan speaks to the outright refusal to criticize any policy of the Jewish state. It implies that even when Israel does something wrong, such as bulldozing homes with civilians still inside them, their support will be unfailing.

Another example of this propagandist culture took place on the steps of our nation's capitol on April 14, at one of the largest rallies ever organized in support of Israel. The Associated Press reported that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was drowned out by chants of "no more Arafat" and booed and hissed at when he told the crowd that "innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying as well. It is critical that we recognize and acknowledge that fact." The crowd simply refused to hear, let alone acknowledge, that Palestinians have also suffered.

It seems clear to me that these demonstrators, particularly the ones who stood holding racist signs reading "Arabs danced on 9/11," should not be determining our foreign policy. They booed even the mildest attempts by our government to be a little fairer in the description of the conflict. Compared to the charges of war crimes raised by Amnesty International, the United Nations, the pope and Human Rights Watch, the comments by Wolfowitz were very mild. Nevertheless, they were unacceptable to those whose thinking is too clouded to understand the pain of the other side.

Most astonishingly, as I write this, according to an April 22 Washington Post article entitled "Supporters Consider How to Increase Military Aid for Israel," plans are already underway to award Israel with $200 million in military aid, despite the outcry by international human rights groups. Some members of Congress who have a very strong pro-Israeli record have chosen to ignore the comments made by former President Carter last week, asking that we reduce United States aid to Israel in order to realize a just peace (New York Times, April 22, 2002).

I beseech students who disagree with policies such as collective punishment, settlements and 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' logic used by Sharon to speak up. I want the campus to know that you exist. Some of you have already signed our petitions and privately shared your feelings of disappointment and frustration with the Israeli government. Nevertheless, you must speak out and let the campus know that a moderate position does exist — one that does not believe in the proliferation of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights and does not believe that destroying Palestinian homes will lead to a more secure Israel. Sadly, in the eyes of some skeptics, my voice is discredited because I am Muslim. Therefore, we need someone from within the Jewish community to also speak with conscience and echo the message of the New Left posters and of Israeli groups such as Peace Now and Gush-Shalom, which all maintain that Israeli security will only come from peace, not the other way around.

Today, there are over 400 Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza because they believe it only furthers the conflict. They are not anti-Jewish or even anti-Zionists. Their petition states that "We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it ... shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people."

I pray that there will be more students on this campus who will speak out for the basic human rights of Palestinians. There should be more of us insisting that Palestinians should not be forced to live among rotting corpses in their refugee camps for days or forced to watch as their land is slowly colonized by Jewish settlers who provide a pretense for Israeli troops to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. We should insist that we end any military aid to Israel, unless we want our Apache helicopters to be firing missiles onto homes, public buildings and cars in the name of killing 'suspected militants.'

Together, we should make clear to the Israeli government that we do not believe it is a true democracy until it establishes due process for all its citizens as well as those that live under its occupation. So-called 'targeted' assassinations are antithetical to a democratic state that has an independent judiciary. Israel should not kill Palestinian political leaders as they travel down a road with their families. Instead, it should take pains to ensure that everyone is proven guilty before they launch missiles at them. If due process is not feasible for Israel, then it should end its so-called 'targeted' killings immediately.

Our government has repeatedly condemned suicide bombings by extremists on the Palestinian side. When will we acknowledge the extremists on the Israeli side?