Zafar Bangash
US President Barack Obama was immediately de-nounced by pro-Israeli groups when he spoke about the creation of a Palestinian state last month. He said that “…the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states” (emphasis added). The Zionists are not prepared to vacate territory occupied through wars of aggression; they talk about new “ground realities” meaning illegal Jewish squatter colonies will not be removed. Even with 1967 borders, the Palestinians will get a mere 22% of the original land of Palestine while illegal immigrants from Europe, Russia and North America are free to occupy every inch of the holy land.
A day after Obama’s speech on May 19, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington for a meeting at the White House. Netanyahu did not even pretend to be polite; he insulted his host publicly. Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Magazine found this so distasteful that he wrote a satirical piece asking “…if President Obama doesn’t walk back on the speech, what will Netanyahu do? Will he cut off Israeli military aid to the US? Will he cease to fight for the US in the United Nations, and in the many international forums that treat Israel as a pariah?”
Obama was subjected to so much abuse by the Zionists that three days later (May 22) when he appeared before the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) he retracted virtually everything he had said in his May 19 speech. That did not end Israeli insults. On May 24, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress appearing every bit a conqueror rather than head of a government that annually extorts $3 billion in aid from the US. Not surprisingly, Pat Buchanan, the former US presidential candidate, has dubbed the congress as “Zionist occupied territory.”
Netanyahu claimed that he was prepared to make “painful concessions” for peace but there was no question of returning any part of Jerusalem. He insisted it would remain the “undivided” capital of Israel. The illegal Israeli settlements would not be dismantled either (leaving Palestine no more than patches of bantustans) and if a Palestinian state were ever to emerge, it must be completely demilitarized. It takes chutzpah to talk about “painful concessions” while insisting virtually nothing was negotiable. But only a Zionist can display such behaviour in a country whose handouts enable it to survive. And for this, Netanyahu was applauded 56 times, 29 of them standing ovations, by the cowering US congressmen and women standing before their master.
When Rae Abileah, an American Jewish woman, shouted from the public gallery “Stop the occupation, stop Israeli war crimes,” she was immediately pounced upon, kicked, punched and dragged out of the building. She had to be hospitalised for injuries. While the assault was underway, Netanyahu told the Congress: “You can’t have these protests in Tehran, this is real democracy.” Indeed. In Israeli-style democracy, people get kicked, punched and hospitalised for simply calling for an end to occupation and war crimes! Under US democracy, American citizens get beaten up by agents of a foreign country in their own Congress building while their representatives applaud. This is a strange form of democracy. But the question is, how does Israel get away with all this? The reality is that the American system has been hijacked by the Zionist lobby. The US political system is hostage to money; that is why it is said America has the best democracy money can buy. The Zionist lobby is well organized and has a gridlock on many media outlets where it works in tandem with Christian fundamentalist groups. Thus, the entire system is so perverted that the voice of the American people is drowned out. The system only looks after special interest groups of which the Zionist lobby is the most ruthless. If politicians, academics or journalists speak out in support of US interests and these do not accord with Zionist policy, they are immediately demonized and hounded out of office or work.
America can be likened to a powerful elephant that is controlled and guided by a monkey sitting on its back. The elephant dare not disobey the monkey because it is programmed to think that way. Claims about American democracy and freedoms ring hollow. For all practical purposes, America is a Zionist colony. Pat Buchanan was right after all . Recent events have simply reconfirmed this truth.
Zafar Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought
