I know this is not supposed to be a political blog (I am steering clear of it for the most part) but alas, no one is an island. It's too difficult for me not to comment on the events of the past month which are of course only the latest in a series of setbacks for humanity. The following is not on behalf of any organization, group, or ideology; it is simply my personal opinion...
It's a sad day in America when nominally sane politicians like Hakeem Jeffries step out beating the war drum on behalf of not one, but two overseas conflicts with inexcusably high human costs while simultaneously claiming to represent the only political party holding the line on authoritarianism here in our midst. The depressingly familiar refrain of "Israel above anything of genuine national importance", and the impossibly vague and likely meaningless verbiage offered in explanation of how such escapades could possibly make Americans safer, are becoming daily all the more difficult to stomach, let alone accept on a theoretical basis, as if their particulars are couched on some lofty logical escarpment above the messy and assuredly international-law-violating fray unfolding beneath. And it is sad to see defense industry hacks like Antony Blinken courting the Saudis; again, not once, but twice, to firm up US support for yet another ethically challenged regime in the region, one that happens to be implicated in the dismemberment of a journalist. Surely, one could be forgiven for asking: with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Gone from the perpetual special coverage is any mention of the UN Special Rapporteur Report released this past June, squarely implicating the Israelis in a pattern of serious and systematic human rights violations in their treatment of the Palestinian people, all carried out in the open for years and with the tacit approval of our own State Department. Yet any criticism of the Israeli apartheid regime, regardless of content or implied sentiment, has rapidly become verboten in quite a few circles in response to the renewed conflict. Disturbingly, this would seem to imply that what would normally be considered protected speech and part of the depth and range of healthy dialogue in a democracy is now being used arbitrarily to deny people opportunities in a discriminatory way that would never be accepted in any other context, simply because it is convenient for power brokers who happen to have interests in a particular region that -- in a manner of speaking -- transcend the ideological.
But it remains to be seen how much longer the public will tolerate what had until recently been the not so much unquestionable as rarely questioned status quo regarding large commitments of military aid granted without, so it would seem, any genuine accountability to a country whose track record on human rights has now been shown by some of the world's top experts to be nothing short of atrocious. The hypocrisy of so-called mainstream politicians in their collective and personal failures to acknowledge and address this reality is the proverbial monkey on the back of the political establishment of the United States, who need to keep peddling increasingly unbelievable tales about our foreign policy interests to justify the billions in aid spent making Israel one of the most highly equipped and potent security apparatuses ever assembled. One doesn't read much about this now either, presumably to preserve the popular narrative of a "contest of equals" engaged in what is primarily a regional ideological conflict, far removed from the base concerns of commerce and international finance.
The long and short of it is the war profitteers wanted their bloody little war and they bloody well got it, didn't they? That's what happened in Ukraine and now that's what happening in Gaza. If our strategic regional allies have a right to "defend" themselves, does that mean we are now supposed to ignore our own machinations during the lead-up to the Maidan coup, and the systematic rejection of diplomatic alternatives that led to the Russian invasion? Do the Palestinians also have a right to defend themselves against decades of abuse and systematic confinement, or is simply continuing to deny them the ability to form an internationally-recognized democratic state sufficient to ensure that any such effort on their part will be labeled "terrorism" and therefore presumed morally bankrupt? Which people does the American government wish to enjoy the fruits of democracy: all people or only those who don't happen to inconvenience our strategic partners? Does recent -- let alone ancient -- history count for anything, or does the stadium clock start ticking only when our own "team" says it does?
Well, I don't know about you, Joe, but I'd like to be on a team that doesn't commit war crimes. At the very least. Does that make me a radical?
Maybe it does now.
Do enjoy the rest of your Halloween!
P.S. This is the first post I've both written and posted in Chicago since moving here just a couple of weeks ago. Of course no place is perfect but on the whole my experience here has been overwhelmingly positive, and I'm surprised at how smoothly the transition has gone so far. More on that to follow... Sorry about the slow pace of personal updates. They will appear in time.
