US presidents love to accentuate the values supposedly shared by Americans and Israelis during their annual pilgrimage to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Just last month, President Barack Obama received a standing ovation during the largest conference in AIPAC’s history for saying the US has Israel’s back and for reaffirming America and Israel’s “shared values” as well as their “special relationship.” In the past, I’ve dismissed such chummy language as no more than ingratiating rhetoric, but upon reflection it’s true. In many respects Israel is America’s mini-me.
Both countries were born on the soil of others, indigenous populations that were either killed or exiled with those remaining forced onto reservations or treated like third-class citizens. Both were forged by pioneers fleeing their homelands when their doors were opened wide to immigrants.
They espoused democracy, absorbed a multitude of cultures and thrived under capitalist systems. Their citizens were hardworking, entrepreneurial and innovative, giving the planet a host of new discoveries and technologies; they are proud of their scientific achievements and are naturally imbued with a sense of superiority.
Americans and Israelis share nationalistic fervour. They are proud of their respective founding fathers although Americans have bleached-out the fact that many of theirs were slave owners. Likewise, Israelis tend to have amnesia when reminded that a number of their revered former leaders were members of terrorist organisations or were advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Arab populations.
Today, the two tightly-knit allies are nuclear powers. America is the only country to have used them. Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir was on the point of doing so during the 1973 war with Egypt—and to this day Israel holds to ‘the Samson Option,’ i.e., taking the world down with it in response to its perceived annihilation. Both spend a disproportionate amount of GDP to preserve their military might (Israel: 6.3 per cent, the US: 4.7 per cent). They’ve been belligerents in conflicts; they have invaded other lands and have maintained lengthy occupations—the US has occupied Afghanistan since 2001, Israel has been illegally occupying Palestinian territories since 1967.
Oddly, despite their respective economic and military strengths their successive governments are invariably driven by a siege mentality whereby the end will always justify the means vis-a-vis security concerns. Neither the US nor Israel are prepared to abide by international laws and conventions should they run contrary to their respective interests, while their vast networks of intelligence operatives are empowered to assassinate their country’s enemies anywhere in the world—or pluck them from the streets of foreign capitals to be tortured and incarcerated without trial.
Detention centres
Both regularly deprive non-national suspects of habeas corpus; Israeli prisons are packed with Palestinians on hunger strikes protesting their open-ended detention without charge. America is still imprisoning 169 at Guantanamo and untold numbers in clandestine detention centres in spite of condemnation from the UN, the EU and Amnesty International whose secretary-general, Irene Khan, referred to Guantanamo as “The gulag of our times.”
Millions were killed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Up to a million died as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Untallied numbers of Afghans bombed, entire villages incinerated—and Americans naively enquire, “Why do they hate us?” Thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese slaughtered by Israelis, homes bulldozed, orchards and olive groves destroyed while 1.5 million Palestinians are corralled and blockaded on 360 square kilometres. Israelis never ask “Why do they hate us?” They know. According to their worldview, the planet is populated by anti-Semites bent on the Jewish state’s destruction.
Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that Tel Aviv and Washington, together and separately, are able to exercise undue influence on other countries. The Bush administration managed to persuade the UK to agree to a one-way extradition fast-tracking process in America’s favour and leant on over 100 states to agree to bilateral immunity agreements precluding US nationals from being sent to the International Criminal Court. Last week, Israel was so terrified of pro-Palestinian housewives from Manchester and fresh-faced European students hoping to join a humanitarian flytilla to build schools in Bethlehem that it twisted the arms of major British and European airlines to stop them boarding planes.
Israelis and Americans also share a propensity to defend the indefensible and turn a blind eye to their own military’s crimes. Where is the public outrage in the US over holiday snaps of grinning US soldiers in Afghanistan holding body parts, published in the Los Angeles Times? They’ve witnessed the obscenities at Abu Ghraib. They’ve seen their finest urinating on the bodies of Afghans. Why aren’t they ashamed of what’s being done in their name? And where is the fury in Israel over videos showing an Israeli army officer smashing his rifle into the head of a young Danish activist unprovoked and assaulting several others? Israelis have been gathering and commenting in newspapers, not to protest but to display their approval.
So, yes, perhaps Obama was right. Israelis and Americans do share the same values, although if he honestly attempts to define them, even to himself, he may just conclude that both nations are sliding down a slippery slope to having few values worth sharing.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
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Obama is right: US and Israel share similar values
Posted on April 25, 2012 by Linda S. Heard
US presidents love to accentuate the values supposedly shared by Americans and Israelis during their annual pilgrimage to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Just last month, President Barack Obama received a standing ovation during the largest conference in AIPAC’s history for saying the US has Israel’s back and for reaffirming America and Israel’s “shared values” as well as their “special relationship.” In the past, I’ve dismissed such chummy language as no more than ingratiating rhetoric, but upon reflection it’s true. In many respects Israel is America’s mini-me.
Both countries were born on the soil of others, indigenous populations that were either killed or exiled with those remaining forced onto reservations or treated like third-class citizens. Both were forged by pioneers fleeing their homelands when their doors were opened wide to immigrants.
They espoused democracy, absorbed a multitude of cultures and thrived under capitalist systems. Their citizens were hardworking, entrepreneurial and innovative, giving the planet a host of new discoveries and technologies; they are proud of their scientific achievements and are naturally imbued with a sense of superiority.
Americans and Israelis share nationalistic fervour. They are proud of their respective founding fathers although Americans have bleached-out the fact that many of theirs were slave owners. Likewise, Israelis tend to have amnesia when reminded that a number of their revered former leaders were members of terrorist organisations or were advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Arab populations.
Today, the two tightly-knit allies are nuclear powers. America is the only country to have used them. Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir was on the point of doing so during the 1973 war with Egypt—and to this day Israel holds to ‘the Samson Option,’ i.e., taking the world down with it in response to its perceived annihilation. Both spend a disproportionate amount of GDP to preserve their military might (Israel: 6.3 per cent, the US: 4.7 per cent). They’ve been belligerents in conflicts; they have invaded other lands and have maintained lengthy occupations—the US has occupied Afghanistan since 2001, Israel has been illegally occupying Palestinian territories since 1967.
Oddly, despite their respective economic and military strengths their successive governments are invariably driven by a siege mentality whereby the end will always justify the means vis-a-vis security concerns. Neither the US nor Israel are prepared to abide by international laws and conventions should they run contrary to their respective interests, while their vast networks of intelligence operatives are empowered to assassinate their country’s enemies anywhere in the world—or pluck them from the streets of foreign capitals to be tortured and incarcerated without trial.
Detention centres
Both regularly deprive non-national suspects of habeas corpus; Israeli prisons are packed with Palestinians on hunger strikes protesting their open-ended detention without charge. America is still imprisoning 169 at Guantanamo and untold numbers in clandestine detention centres in spite of condemnation from the UN, the EU and Amnesty International whose secretary-general, Irene Khan, referred to Guantanamo as “The gulag of our times.”
Millions were killed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Up to a million died as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Untallied numbers of Afghans bombed, entire villages incinerated—and Americans naively enquire, “Why do they hate us?” Thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese slaughtered by Israelis, homes bulldozed, orchards and olive groves destroyed while 1.5 million Palestinians are corralled and blockaded on 360 square kilometres. Israelis never ask “Why do they hate us?” They know. According to their worldview, the planet is populated by anti-Semites bent on the Jewish state’s destruction.
Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that Tel Aviv and Washington, together and separately, are able to exercise undue influence on other countries. The Bush administration managed to persuade the UK to agree to a one-way extradition fast-tracking process in America’s favour and leant on over 100 states to agree to bilateral immunity agreements precluding US nationals from being sent to the International Criminal Court. Last week, Israel was so terrified of pro-Palestinian housewives from Manchester and fresh-faced European students hoping to join a humanitarian flytilla to build schools in Bethlehem that it twisted the arms of major British and European airlines to stop them boarding planes.
Israelis and Americans also share a propensity to defend the indefensible and turn a blind eye to their own military’s crimes. Where is the public outrage in the US over holiday snaps of grinning US soldiers in Afghanistan holding body parts, published in the Los Angeles Times? They’ve witnessed the obscenities at Abu Ghraib. They’ve seen their finest urinating on the bodies of Afghans. Why aren’t they ashamed of what’s being done in their name? And where is the fury in Israel over videos showing an Israeli army officer smashing his rifle into the head of a young Danish activist unprovoked and assaulting several others? Israelis have been gathering and commenting in newspapers, not to protest but to display their approval.
So, yes, perhaps Obama was right. Israelis and Americans do share the same values, although if he honestly attempts to define them, even to himself, he may just conclude that both nations are sliding down a slippery slope to having few values worth sharing.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.