 |
| Volume XV, Spring 2008, Number 1 |
| |
BOOK REVIEW
|
| |
|
| |
Burning Issues: Understanding and Misunderstanding the Middle East, A 40-Year Chronicle,
by John Mahoney, Jane Adas and Robert Norberg, editors. Americans for Middle East Understanding, 2007. viii and 439 pages, 5 maps. $16.95, paperback.
Robert Brenton Betts
Professor, University of Balamand, Al-Kurah, Lebanon
Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU) was founded by a group of Americans hoping "to create a deeper understanding of the history, culture and current events in the Middle East." Co-founders Jack B. Sunderland and Henry G. Fischer, president and vice president respectively (who died recently, in 2005 and 2006), initiated a project to publish an anthology of articles that have appeared in the organization's publication, The Link, over the past 40 years. It is dedicated to their memory. Editor Jane Adas, in her introductory article "Lest We Forget," begins by questioning the logic behind the "billions of non-repayable dollars" given to Israel on the premise that Israel's loyalty and strategic importance to the United States make it an ally worthy of such unprecendented consideration. "Is it?" she asks. The answer provided by the chronology of events from 1948-2006 listed in her article and the succeeding articles and epilogue clearly support an unequivocal "No."
Divided into five parts A Historical Survey, Individuals of Courage, The Media, Religion, and Warfare the 19 articles are a damning, shaming catalogue of Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinian people, whose land they have illegally seized and whose population they have dispersed and abused, as well as of the misuse of those billions of dollars that Americans have willingly provided for such inhuman behavior. As Adas, a professor at Rutgers University, notes, "Israeli actions over the past 53 years involving U.S. interests in the Middle East seriously challenge the 'strategic asset' premise of the Israel Lobby" (p. 3).
From the very beginning of the Israeli-American relationship, it is shown without doubt that the root of it was money and votes. As John F. Mahoney notes in his article on "Political Zionism: Its Historical Origins and Growth," President Harry Truman, who recognized Israel ten minutes after it declared its independence on May 14, 1948, frankly declared why he did it: "I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents" (p. 25), but he certainly had that number of Jews, most of them then, and now, Democrats. He won reelection six months later. The same combination of money and votes that has effectively kept Congress firmly in the Zionist fold has continued to this day. No matter what Israel does, the United States supports it, sometimes wringing its hands in mock despair but never showing the resolve necessary to prevent further abuse of the Palestinian people.
"In the beginning there was terror," as Ronald Bleier entitles his article, and the terror that began with the King David Hotel bombing and the Deir Yassin massacre continues to this day. Yet Congress and the president continue to keep the money flowing. The wake-up calls provided by Jimmy Carter's recent book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, and the damning report by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israeli Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy, on the insidious and corrupting influence of the lobby for Israel, expose the hypocrisy of it all, but without result. Christian fundamentalists provide massive support for a state that is effectively emptying the Holy Land of its Christian inhabitants, whose ancestors go back to the time of Christ, replacing them with anyone with the slightest claim to a Jewish grandparent. Donald Neff in his article "Epiphany at Beit Jalla" recounts one of the many attempts by the Isrealis to frighten Christian Palestinian villagers into fleeing their homes. His honest journalism nearly cost him his life (p. 195) and his job.
The most deeply despicable event in the whole history of blind American support for Israel is, of course, the USS Liberty massacre in 1967. In his article, published in The Link in 1982, James Ennes, who was a lieutenant on watch at the time of the deliberate and unprovoked Israeli attack on the ship, recounts the shameful role played by then-President Lyndon Johnson and succeeding Congresses in refusing to reveal the truth behind the events that resulted in the death of dozens of U.S. sailors by people who are on the receiving end of billions of dollars in American aid. Recently, in yet another insult to the memory of these dead servicemen, attempts to name a new amphibious ship the USS Liberty LCS-2 have been rejected (p. 350). No reason has been given, but it doesn't take a genius to work out who is behind it.
It takes a strong stomach to read Burning Issues. The information it contains makes you desperately ashamed of the U.S. government and its role in supporting a country that has denied basic justice to millions of people while claiming to be a valuable ally and a "democracy" if you happen to belong to the right religion. But read it one should, with the hope that in the end justice will prevail, before both the United States and Israel reap the whirlwind for their perfidy in bringing the Middle East to the dangerous crisis point it faces today.
|
|
