It is Not For Israel To Do the World's Dirty Work

We sometimes keep quiet about Israel. It can be an uncomfortable topic. People who can happily debate and disagree on a wide range of issues will often come to Israel and then stop. It is too contentious. Too liable to raise tempers. However, we no longer have the option to keep quiet about things that need to be addressed.

In the past, when people could live within their borders, the sufferings of other countries were at the back of our minds and the back of our newspapers. But today, we share the same problems and the same threats. It is one interlinked and interconnected world. Even if it is painful, we need to have an honest and open debate. And we should start from this premise: Israel can no longer be asked to -- or appear to -- do the world's dirty work.

Every day, we are all brought closer together. By trade, the Internet, technology and all the forces of globalization. We can no longer see the Middle East as a regional issue. Its problems are our problems. Our problems are its problems. Yet too often we provide Israel with no constancy. Sometimes the international community supports Israel and stands shoulder-to-shoulder, sometimes it stands back.

We can no longer allow the appearance of the U.S. using Israel to serve its own agenda. Two recent examples are the strikes on Syria this September and the invasion of Lebanon in summer 2006. As long as the U.S. is perceived to favor Israel, there will be an imbalance that creates an impasse. It is for global agencies and alliances to address what are fundamentally global problems, whether in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, or elsewhere. We cannot mandate Israel to deal with issues that are global responsibilities -- through intention or through neglect. By allowing the burden to rest with Israel we intensify the situation. And we confuse it.

A change of course is needed. Along with greater international accord, we need to bring together the countries within the Middle East through dialogue, trade alliances, education, economic independence and cultural understanding. The consequences of not going the right way are unlimited. We have all come together from so far, but we have much further to go.

With bioweapons coming to surface and tools of mass destruction becoming more available, the course and methods of the past can no longer be used. Globalization demands us to share economies, but also we need to share decisions. Every time we resort to violence it is a sign that we have failed in our dialogue.

It is the role of the international community to try to support Middle Eastern issues. The U.S. must not walk alone; many must walk together. We need a new consortium of people to unite with international agencies to create empathy and accord. We need long-term, focused and constant efforts. The world has the money. The world has the influence. Defining the balance of responsibility between Israel and the Middle East, and the Middle East and the world, is a conversation we have to have now.

If we continue to leave Israel alone when it suits us, if we neglect our global duties to protect, then we will have this conversation under different circumstances. Perhaps when Iran has the bomb, perhaps when thousands more are dead, perhaps when it is all too late?

By then, saying uncomfortable things about Israel will be the least of our problems.

Comments

[sonofloud]

What do you mean sometimes???
This country has given Isreal a blank check and excuses every atrocity they commit against innocent Palestinians for years.
And when someone like Jimmy Carter (who has the most integrity of any politician alive) dares tell the truth about Israel, the media crucify him.

[SamThornton]

"...And we should start from this premise: Israel can no longer be asked to -- or appear to -- do the world's dirty work."
--------------------------------
Like others, I, too, am puzzled by this statement.

The only recent event that might fit -- emphasis on "might" -- is the recent Israeli air strike in Syria that government officials in several countries have been falling all over each other in issuing "no comments."

I've seen some speculation that this may have been a strike against a suspected nuclear site made at the behest of the U.S.

Or not.

Perhaps the point is that Israel may not represent the most rational choice to act as a proxy for others' unsavory actions in the Middle East, or elsewhere. By the same token, the United States would currently not be the most rational choice to act on behalf of any other country's interests in the Middle East or elsewhere, unsavory or otherwise.

I'm still confused. Help us out, Louse MacBain.

[outnow]

Israel has been the foot soldier of the US in the Middle East. As a "junior partner" of the US imperial project, there have been existential problems for Israel both militarily and philosophically.

Let's review history a bit. Jimmy Carter made Israel enter into a pact with Egypt. That was a good deal for Israel and Egypt. The rest of history has not been so good. Especially recently.

Now, the new, revised NIE forces Israel to look inward to determine whether Israel is a Jewish state or a democracy. As in the United States, you can't have both. No longer can Israel's hawks use the threat of the Iranian atomic bomb as an excuse to solve internal political differences for citizens within their own borders.

Can Biyamin Netanyahu ride into the Prime Minister's office on the now non-existent threat of the Iranian Nuke? Can Olmert stave off the single-state solution, another existential threat?

Can President Bush save his legacy with a shock and awe of Iran or with a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Will the new lap dogs, Merkel and Sarkosy fail to support an attack on Iran?

Let's all hope that we can turn to solving real problems rather than using a common enemy to avoid those problems. In America's backyard, there are more problems being sweep under the rug by politicians who don't have the moral courage and honesty to face them. So it is in Israel.

There is a changing of the guard in both countries. A change in philosophy must accompany this change because the existential threat cannot be relied upon by the extreme right wing of either country.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Sounds like a bunch of hype to me, maybe half
the problem is that maybe those same borders
need to be re-restablished? I don't know who
to really vote for because I'm not entirely
sure of what country they really represent.
Maybe it's time for a divorce? This ugly
marriage has certainly lasted long enough...
I think the day we get energy-independent
is the last day we have to watch this sad
soap opera...let's get about it.

http://www.apolloalliance.org

[argeec]

When Ms. MacBain speaks of keeping quiet about Israel, I'm sure she is referring strictly to the United States. The topic is discussed outside the US, where the AIPAC enbargo on discussion is not as strong as here.
For example, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is quoted in Haaretz on 11/30/07 as saying: "The day will come when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights. As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."
Now I think it would be great if that topic were to get major play in the MSM. But self-styled "friends of Israel" in the US won't let that happen.

[TitaniumAvatar]

Let's see:

Israel is NOT a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) but has Nuclear Weapons and the means to deliver them. Israel allows ZERO access by IAEA inspectors.

Iran is a signatory of the NNPT and does NOT have Nuclear Weapons. They offer limited access to IAEA inspectors.

As to the 'appearance of the U.S. using Israel to serve its own agenda'; don't you have that backwards?

Israel doing the World's dirty work? Exactly what 'mess' are they currently dealing with that is not at least half of their making?

"Sometimes the international community supports Israel and stands shoulder-to-shoulder, sometimes it stands back." This could be summed up with: Sometimes Israel's actions are legal and or proportional, and sometimes they are not.

[ebbtide]

When IRAN has the bomb?

Israel has "the bomb" and contiunally threatens to go to war with Iran.

Pakistan has "the bomb"

EVERYBODY HAS "the bomb"!!!

Yeah it is just a great big global community and there are many who are sick and tired of supporting Israel while it goes about it's god given mission to return to biblical boundaries by killing, bombing and other despicable atrocities against other human beings.

Do you live in the United States? Do you have dual citizenship with Israel.

I don't shun talking about the state of Israel at all. I will not be shamed by accusations of anti semitism, so popular at one time fore the Israel apologists. I do not owe allegiance to Mauritania or Israel. My allegiance is to the United Statea and the more the Israel lobby keeps influencing my life, while continuing to slaughter other human beings to get their land, the more outraged I am.

[dissolvethecorporation]

I doubt that it was an Israeli munitions company that manufactured the cluster bombs used on Lebanese civilians. Let's not dance around the truth. Sociopaths who will resort to any means to keep the Persian Gulf open are not confined to any single nation, race or religion.

[jhNY]

The general theme of this article appears to be that we in the US, along with the rest of the world, have for too long stood by while Israel solved the world's problems, as if several of those problems were not of Israels's creation from the start, as if there is anything approaching world consensus of opinion on matters like Iran as a threat to world peace or Syria as a rogue regime, etc. Assuming that "everybody" agrees means we can move on to practical matters like how big a UN force should invade Iran or remake the government of Syria or Lebanon or wherever next on "everybody's" list.

But reality lies elsewhere. The US has absolutely lost any claim to being an honest broker in the region, and the UN is institutionally weak and mostly ineffectual without the majority of the Security Council's approval for any action it might wish to undertake. And so far, the consensus assumed to exist in the article exists nowhere else.

[Nommo]

It isn't? Doesn't seem to bother them at all. USS Liberty, supporters of apartheid and quite accomplished practitioners of same now. No, doesn't seem to bother them at all.