Views > March 29, 2002

Stand Up For Peace

By Joel Bleifuss

In March, the Israeli Defense Forces, on the instructions of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, entered cities and refugee camps in the Occupied Territories and rounded up a couple thousand Palestinian men and boys, ages 16 to 24. In a few of these operations, before being interrogated, prisoners were stripped to the waist, bound, blindfolded and marked with numbers on their arms and foreheads. The televised images of this human cataloging outraged some Israelis, particularly those who remember when they too, confined to ghettos, were corralled and marked with identifying numbers.

Responding to protests, Chief of Staff General Shaul Mofaz eventually halted the practice. “It was badly received in the media,” explained a Sharon spokesman. An editorial in Ha’aretz, noting that Mofaz’s action was “very tardy,” put it this way: “The IDF caused deliberate suffering and humiliation to the broader Palestinian population. … Actions that harm the population and involve humiliations of civilians sabotage the chances––in any case minimal––of reaching a cease-fire and eventually an agreement and reconciliation. … Instead of fanning the flames and sowing hatred, [the government] must increase its efforts to achieve calm and return to the political track.”

The numerical marking of civilians in mass roundups received little attention in the United States. The Washington Post made a passing reference to the practice. The New York Times presented it as an allegation based on “reports.” After quoting Arafat––“Is that not what they say the Nazis did to the Jews?”––the Times let an Israeli army spokeswoman have the last word: “This is an obscene and absurd statement which hardly warrants further response.” End of story.

This eerie silence extends to the halls of Congress and the White House, where Sharon’s escalation of the war has evoked barely a murmur of protest. That is especially disturbing because Americans share complicity with the actions of Sharon and the Israeli military, which the United States funds to the tune of $1.3 billion a year.

Public opinion polls repeatedly show that a sizable majority of American Jews supports the peace process. A survey last October by Jewish Week found that 73 percent of those polled said it was in Israel’s interest for the United States to serve as a “credible and effective facilitator” of the peace process, even if that meant disagreements between the two countries.

Yet the powerful pro-Israel lobby brooks no criticism of either Israel or U.S. military aid. The key members of that lobby are the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. As Michael Massing pointed out recently in the American Prospect, these two organizations, which have “the most influence on foreign policy, have had leaders who are far more conservative and hard-line than are most American Jews.”

It is time for American Jews to repudiate groups like AIPAC and speak out against Sharon’s vision of greater Israel, the garrison state. And it is time for all Americans to ask that the United States leverage its very significant influence for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

The Bush administration has made tentative steps in that direction, supporting a U.N. resolution that called for creation of a Palestinian state and criticizing the Israeli incursions into the Occupied Territories as “unhelpful.” More is needed. One way to go would be to link progress toward peace negotiations with continued military support. Such linkage could pressure Sharon to accept Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s proposal to trade land for peace.

An argument can be made that U.S. military aid to Israel violates the Arms Export Control Act, which holds that the U.S. government shall only sell or provide arms to countries if such military aid “will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace.”

As it stands, continuing to support Sharon’s escalation of the conflict with the Palestinians does neither.

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  There are no comments on this article yet. Start the discussion below.

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Member Login

Username

Password

Forgot password?