The Lost Kingdom?
The eyes are not here | There are no eyes here | In this valley of dying stars | In this hollow valley | This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
T.S. Eliot | The Hollow Men
Osama bin Laden might have delivered a shattering blow to a fragile U.S. psyche and Saddam Hussein might have drawn a blinkered administration into a long, costly and deadly war from which it is unable to extricate itself, but traitors in the White House have undermined citizens' faith in their leaders' integrity far more successfully than any outsider could have done.
For corrupt governance, the Valerie Plame Affair and Washington proxy Israel's flagrant abuse of power might combine to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, ending America's bid for perpetual global hegemony. Wars of conquest cost money and a believable sales pitch, or the public does not buy into them. Instead, they put their palm-greased advocates out of office.
While Americans acknowledge that their tax dollars bankroll Israel, the quiet disbursement of their billions deflects attention from that on which it is spent. The U.S. economy is in the tank and betrayed citizens have besieged a lying, war-mongering White House.
The Rove-Libby-Cheney-Tenet-Wilson-Plame debacle, the release of U.N.C.H.R. Special Rapporteur John Dugard's report (given little coverage in the U.S.) on Israeli violations of human rights (Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including Palestine), and former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg's Rosh Hashanah statement (A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent) could not come at a worse time for the Bush and Sharon administrations.
Government is based on trust and U.S. and Israeli citizens do not trust their governments. Unfettered fear roams at will through the corridors of privilege and power in Washington DC and Jerusalem. The neo-cons have been stopped in mid-swagger by the terrible sound of their little chickens coming home to roost. Americans are foaming at the mouth and look set to devour the monsters they backed to the hilt just the other day. In Israel, twenty-seven airplanes remain grounded by weighty consciences. For those who would have them rocketing Palestinians, it's a case of Apoplectic Now.
For the G.O.P. and Israeli conservatives, the party is well and truly over.
As the U.S. neo-cons overreach themselves in cementing power in the Middle East, paradox has brought about a situation in which 'forward base' Israel finds itself in danger of implosion. With increasing numbers of conscientious objectors speaking out against the atrocities being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), the decision of the Israeli Knesset to press ahead with the next phase of its Apartheid Wall and enlarge existing illegal settlements highlights the brutality with which it seeks to engineer a peculiarly Jewish state. While a wall surrounding the Palestinian people signals obvious disregard for human life, the inherent paradox is more telling, i.e. the jailer is as much a prisoner as those he incarcerates. The three-year Intifada, pressuring Israel into delivering a modicum of peace and autonomy to all its peoples, shows Jerusalem incapable of delivering fundamental human rights. It is inflexible, obdurate and criminally out of line.
A victim of its own vices, it is as Avraham Burg puts it: "...falling apart".
Whether it takes three years or three decades to do so, Israel cannot continue as it has done for much longer. For Israeli citizens, forced to believing the myth of an enduring Jewish state, the dream is coming to an end.
Most Israelis are decent, law-abiding citizens who, when they think about it, would not do to their neighbors as has been done to them. It is these ordinary Israelis, represented by sons and daughters who make up the Refuseniks, that now man the frontlines in the battle against the moral rot and decay festering in the heart of Zionism.
Echoing the sentiments of Americans after September 11, 2001 but qualifying them with the wisdom of an experience the United States gained only in Iraq, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says, "Israel has the right to take measures necessary to defend its citizens. However, the minister of defense and the prime minister are manipulating the public's fear of suicide attacks in order to obtain political objectives under the guise of security and defense arguments."
Events in the United States have shown us manipulation and deception backfire. They have the opposite of their desired effect. Unlike Americans, Israelis are mired in an ugly situation and daily bear the immediate consequences of their leaders' continued aggression. The $1.2bn, eight-meter high Apartheid Wall, which we are told is 'temporary' and is being built for security reasons, will greatly increase the Israeli state's insecurity.
Where to from here? In both countries, a break with past practice and belief is imperative. Obfuscatory answers and outright lies no longer cut it in a cynical world where every statement is deservedly suspect. Like its sponsor, Israel is at the crossroads, its immediate actions determining its future as never before. Change itself engenders fear. How does one overcome a natural rejection of the unknown and facilitate a desperately needed leap of faith?
Addressing those fears and offering alternatives might go a long way. I hope to explore several anxieties, real or imagined, in coming weeks.
In a comment appended to my previous entry, The Walls of the Third Temple, I used a graphic of Flight 175 taken an instant before it merged in a ball of fire with the south tower, 2 World Trade Center. I did so to illustrate a point. When push comes to shove or a bad outcome is beyond doubt, people tend to forget their differences and focus on that over which they are most likely to fight, a shared objective.
The left and right wings realize their mutual dependence on a single fuselage to keep them airborne.
Though imminent disaster might be apparent to Avraham Burg and many of the Israeli left, it is not clear whether those on the right realize they cannot survive a cataclysmic collision. Fellow travelers might be blissfully unaware of the monolithic tower's looming presence. Should the plane be turned around, all those aboard might still be unprepared for the severity of the necessary emergency landing.
In the United States, the little people are fighting over dead men's bones. 2004 is certainly set to be an interesting year.
I think we are in rats' alley | Where the dead men lost their bones.
T.S. Eliot | The Wasteland II. A Game of Chess
Links of Note
Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including Palestine Professor John Dugard, U.N. Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights
A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent Avraham Burg, Labor Party Knesset member, Speaker of Israel's Knesset from 1999 to 2003, and former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel
Lysistrataproject A comprehensive collation of links to eminently readable material on diverse issues
[First posted at Open Source Politics]
