$3.075 Billion. With a "B". $3,075,000,000. That's $23 a year, on average, from every American taxpayer, going directly to funding foreign aid to the state of Israel. If there were a way of quantifying the in-kind value of US international lobbying on Israel's behalf, not to mention the US Security Council veto, which has made Israel effectively immune from any repercussions resulting from their dozens of breaches of international law - from refusal of right of return to unending occupation - that number would likely rise.
Ostensibly, this funding is supporting "the only democracy in the region," a necessity for "fighting the war on terror" and preserving our regional interests. Despite the fact that the middle one seems a bit circular, given how much regional animosity stems from our policy inseparability from Israel on key issues.
Today, I came across an article that sparked again the unspeakable frustration I, as one of those American taxpayers, feel when I see what my money is, at least partially, paying for.
A forty-year illegal occupation, wherein messianically-minded religious radicals have been allowed to illegally settle in walled fortresses, thus changing "facts on the ground" to the point where a two-state solution is increasingly unlikely, given that current Palestinian territory is more and more resembling a block of swiss cheese. The The prisoners, like Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian football player, held in Israeli jail for three years with neither trial nor charge, on the basis of supposed "secret information". The 2009 Gaza War, where - despite a Hamas ceasefire that that had led to a dramatic reduction in rocket attacks in the four months preceding invasion - a people already barricaded, sanctioned and cut off from humanitarian aid were bombarded with exponentially more advanced military technology, all while the civilians were not allowed to leave. CAT Bulldozers that demolish Palestianian homes and electrical lines because they were built without the permits Israel next to never gives to anyone but Settlers - a policy most Palestinians see as a war of attrition, an attempt to make their daily life within the territory theirs by international law so miserable and unpredictable that they just leave, giving Israel access to the whole block of territory, and utterly demolishing any two-state solution. An Oslo peace process premised on land-for-peace, after which illegal settlement rates skyrocketed. A current peace process that refuses to deal on basic issues - right of return, right of reclaiming of occupied legally Palestinian territory, dismantling of settlements, access to Jerusalem - and constantly chides the Palestinians for not taking the 1948 deal, a deal that brashly gave 56% of land to the Jewish 33% of the population, and that furthermore split the Arab population, with a goodly number of Arab populations becoming the minority within a Jewish state, the very thing the Jews themselves did NOT want to be in any other state.
And this, which I came across today. In scale, minor, but in sheer banality of evil terms, infuriating.The arrogant, intrusive, demeaning Ben-Gurion airport security procedures enacted on two UNITED STATES CITIZENS flying to Israel as tourists, because they happened to be Arab American. I'd encourage you to read the story Sasha al-Sarabi and Najwa Doughman's in its entirety here, but here are a few choice excerpts:
"Do you feel more Arab or more American?” she asked. I had answered the ten previous questions very calmly, but with this question I looked back at the security official confused and irritated. She couldn’t have been much older than me—her business attire and stern facial expressions did not mask her youth.
“I don’t know, I feel both. Why? Does this affect my ability to get in?”
She ignored my question. “Surely you must feel a little more Arab, you’ve lived in many Middle Eastern countries.”
I did not see the correlation. I have never felt the need to choose. “Yes I have but I also lived in the US for the past seven years, and was born there, so I feel both.” My response did nothing to convince her.
...
But you have been here two times already. Why are you coming now for the third time? You can go to Venezuela, to Mexico, to Canada. It is much closer to New York, and much less expensive!”
I realized the conversation was going nowhere. “Right, but I wanted to come back here again. Don’t you have tourists who come back more than once?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” she replied disgruntled.
“Okay, we are going to do something very interesting now!” Her face transformed from a harsh stare to a slight smirk. She proceeded to type “www.gmail.com” on her computer and then turned the keyboard toward me. “Log in,” she demanded.
“What? Really?” I was shocked.
“Log in.”
I typed in my username and password in complete disbelief. She began her invasive search: “Israel,” “Palestine,” “West Bank,” “International Solidarity Movement.”
Looking back, I realize I shouldn’t have logged in. I should have known that nothing I did at this point would change my circumstances, and that this was an invasion of my privacy. Yet all the questions, the feeling that I had to defend myself for simply wanting to enter the country, and the unwavering eye contact of the security officers left me feeling like I had no choice. I was worried I would let Sasha down if I refused and that it would be the reason for both of our denials into the country.
She sifted through my inbox, reading every single email with those keywords. She read sentences out loud to her colleague, sarcastically reenacting and mocking old Google Chat conversations between Sasha and me about our future trip to Jerusalem. I squirmed in my seat.
....
After they had gone through every one of our belongings, they proceeded to the body search. I was taken to the back of the room with one male and two female security officers. The room was smaller and closed off with a curtain. The older woman seemed to be training the younger one. She would murmur directions in Hebrew as the younger officer patted me in different places. The man stood right outside the half-open curtain. They scanned my body with a metal detector, and it beeped at the button on my jeans. “Take off your pants,” said the older officer immediately.
I lost my last nerve. “NO,” I responded. “We’ve already been denied. You searched everything. Why do I need to take my pants off after you’ve denied me? I will not take my pants off.”
“This is how we do things in Israel,” the woman snapped back. “You have to take them off.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then someone will make you.” They all walked out of the room.
I began crying and shaking as my mind went through a million different nightmares. Were they going to get more people to hold me down? What the hell is going to happen to us? I wanted to see Sasha and not be alone for a minute longer, but was too afraid of the consequences of leaving the room.
The guards returned a few minutes later with shorts taken from my luggage. “Fine,” they said. “Wear these.”
I struggled into them with tears streaming down my face. I stood ashamed and mortified as she patted me down all over again. I had never felt so humiliated, so degraded, and so violated.
...
“Does this happen often?” Sasha asked.
“Every day,” replied the officer."
I don't know about you, but I'd like my $23 back.
Except, as you may know, despite being financial and politically joined at the hip, we don't actually have any say in the Israeli policy, far-right-wing policies that are not only abrogating basic humanitarian principles but are furthermore destroying the American image in the Middle East. Seeing how much we bankroll the country, maybe we should get a few votes in the Knesset. Or, at the very least, maybe we should make clear to our own representatives that paying for occupation, martial law, and degrading military practices towards Palestinians is *not* what we signed up for when we see our taxes deducted from every pay check.
And, frankly, I don't think Israel needs more bosom buddies. It needs more well-meaning critics: those who say "yes, we agree you should exist, but we will unequivocally *not* hold back in telling you you're driving yourself to the point of alienation from all those who value social justice, and if you want to live up to your ideals of a genuinely democratic society, you will no longer be allowed to act with impunity (one of the aspects that makes Israel so hated in the region); you will be forced to reform just like any rogue state". Because what you get when a state is effectively blocked from forceful and action-backed criticism is a state so used to making policy with no expectation of consequence is a state incapable of self-correcting, shielded from the consequences of even its most radical actions, externalities shifted onto those with much less international sway. Not to mention the fact that it completely undermines any role we, the US, might play as a credible peacemaking intermediary.
I have nothing against my Jewish friends; I am the farthest thing from anti-Semitic. I have the deepest respect for the many Jewish leaders, who, throughout history, who have been on the cutting edge of social reform, from womens rights to anti-fascism to socialism to anti-war protests to civil rights to gay rights. I have nothing in principle against the idea of a Jewish state. What I have a problem with is a state so desperate for security that it is willing to sacrifice anything to attain it. Believing Israel should be allowed to exist is one thing. Swallowing the line that anything and everything should be tolerated in the name of national security, and furthermore, the line that the security of Israeli citizens is one iota more sacrosanct than the security of Palestinian residents and refugees, is absolute nonsense.
With this blog, I've probably sacrificed my ability to ever visit Israel, sacrificed my ability, in many districts, to ever attain public office, unless policy shifts radically in the interim (and, you know, the atheism thing stops being an issue). But I fervently believe that accepting injustice - be it in Israel or anywhere else - simply because it's the status quo is despicable, and believe even more fervently that the security of one shouldn't be built on the oppression of another. Just as our economic security eventually had to shift from being built on the backs of slaves, American must begin to conceive of national security which does not rely on the political suppression of Arabs under client police states or Israeli occupation. The entire point of the democracy is that we can, in theory, shift the status quo, if we make it clear to our representatives that Israel better shape up if it wants the continued support of the American people, and more particularly, of the American taxpayers.
Salaam, Shalom, and Peace,
Cody
Arabic Word of the Day: النكبة - the Nakba. "The Catastrophe" colloquially used among Palestinian populations to refer to events of 1948, when, from their perspective, Israeli military strikes and the concomitant war drove them out of their ancestral homes. Putting aside the question of whether the claims are factually accurate, this word reminds me that it's important to recognize the historical memories of disenfranchisement and marginalization within the Palestinian community, memories and sufferings which are often shunted side in discussions of the conflict's roots.
Quote of the Day:
"In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.
The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld." - George Washington, Presidential Farewell Address, 1796.
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