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during the bombing of Beirut, and I was struck by their lack of optimism and the depression in their voices. They spoke of being in a "hundred years war." They saw no hope of peace in their lifetimes, nor the lifetimes of their children or grandchildren. They also at the same time lacked faith that Israel could survive. They said they supported the attack on Lebanon but the way they said it, they sounded trapped, like, "what else can we do but support the government--our safety depends on it."
I did not come away with a positive feeling about Israel's chances of survival--well, survival maybe, but survival as an armed fortress bristling with armaments, surrounded with hostile enemies-- mere survival, not happiness and well-being.
When I combine this with what I feel about Israel's alliance with the despised Bush Junta, I end up with a strong, strong intuition that Israel needs to make a dramatic turnabout, and--hear me out, I know it sounds kind of crazy in current circumstances--ally itself with IRAN in defense of regional self-determination, and a renewal of Middle Eastern culture. The Bush Cartel does not mean well toward ANY Middle Eastern peoples. They may fake friendship with Israel, but it's about as sincere as everything they say. They are extremely treacherous people, with loyalty to no one and nothing. They don't even care about Americans. They view us as sweatshop labor and cannon fodder. Israel's rightwing leadership has made a very foolish--and possibly fatal to Israel--choice in this alliance, and have ended up with only two friends in the world--the fascist Bushites, who will sell Israel out in a minute, if they see profit in it (who are their buddies anyway--the Saudi sultans!)--and the American people, who have a longstanding commitment to Israel that is, however, being sorely tested by the Israel/Bush Junta alliance.
In 1954, the US and Israel destabilized and destroyed Iran's new democracy, and inflicted the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran. WE drove the Iranians--the most potentially progressive people among Israel's neighbors in the Middle East--into the arms of the mullahs. Iranians must surely feel fear, anger and paranoia toward the U.S. and Israel--understandably so. The Bushites want their oil. That is no secret--it's spelled out in NeoCon documents. They want to invade and dominate all Middle Eastern oil fields, and they are using the fear on both sides--Iran and Israel--to accomplish that unjust goal.
I don't like what Israel has become--a militaristic society which has treated the displaced Palestinians with great injustice, and has sided with people who are oppressing ME and my country, the Bush junta--but I also want Israel to survive and prosper, and to make the great contribution that it is capable of, to modern Middle Eastern culture. I think Israel needs to assess its CURRENT situation, and opt for REGIONAL self-determination, and consider the common good and well-being of all Middle Eastern peoples, much like South America is doing in relation to the U.S. Countries like Columbia and Guatemala--with their corrupt relations with the US--are dinosaurs. The future is with the vast, peaceful, leftist movement that has swept the continent--in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, with growing leftist movements in Peru, and in Mexico. The common themes of this movement are regional self-determination and self-sufficiency, and anti-US interference and domination--especially anti-"neo-liberal" (false liberal, the rich get richer) globalization. The governments that ally themselves with the US and the Bushites--in the Middle East and in Latin America (the few that are left)--are harming their own people. Look at Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for instance, also the UAE and Qatar--disgusting displays of wealth by the few, while ordinary people have no hope of advancement, and are kept in an oppressed condition by brutal means, by religious propaganda, and by means of "trickle down" oilonomics. No democracy. No equity. No justice. The super-rich hang out with the Carlyle Group. They fear their own people.
The Latin American governments that are anti-US (or at least newly independent in their thinking about foreign policy) are HELPING their own people, empowering and enfranchising the majority, and pursuing equity and justice. The Middle East is not nearly as developed or far thinking (nor are they as culturally inclined toward democracy), but there ARE some seeds of democracy, equity and decent, majorityist government in Iran, and in Palestine and Lebanon, including within Hamas and Hezbollah--in considerable contrast to the rich sheiks of Saudi Arabia and Co. The hotheads and militarists hold sway mostly because of fear. If Iran's safety from invasion by the Bush Junta were guaranteed, for instance, you wouldn't hear these demagogic statements from leaders about "death to Israel" or not nearly as much of it. But, like the Bush Junta, Israel itself is playing to the militarists and STRENGTHENING them. There is a parallel--maybe not exact, but interesting--in Latin American armed revolutionaries of previous decades. With hard work on transparent elections, and empowerment of all Latin Americans--including the vast poor and brown population that has been so neglected, exploited and impoverished--Latin American countries have transcended that era--the era of the need or desire for armed resistance to brutal fascist juntas. Only in Cuba, and, for a while, in Nicaragua, did armed revolution result in stable, equitable governments. The rest of Latin America had a longer, in many ways more difficult road to democracy and justice. The military leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas have some similarities to the armed leftists of the past in Latin America. They DO represent MANY people, but violence is a poison that infects everything--and few who engage in it can escape its ill effects. How can the positive communal strengths of Hezbollah and Hamas be strengthened, and the anger and militancy lessened? Certainly NOT by siding with the Bush Cartel, and helping them carry out their plans for a "new" American Roman Empire.
This is what I mean by concern for the common good of all Middle Eastern peoples. Israel is on the WRONG SIDE of the struggle for self-determination, the struggle for people power--both in the Middle East, and here in the U.S. And whatever mistakes have been made in the past--or by the current leadership--the Israeli people CAN change this. They have a lot more power to do that--a dramatic turnabout--than WE do, at the moment. They actually have a healthier democracy--although their country's militarism, paranoia, and vulnerable position (with hostile neighbors all around) are threats to that democracy.
I think about those three young Israeli tech workers a lot. Trapped in a "hundred years war." They are the future. And I hope that they will be able to see that, in the future, all options are open. That's what they future is--a limitless horizon of choices and possibilities. Why does a "hundred years war" have to be one that is chosen?
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