There are some people who see the U.S.’s policies in Middle East, and especially the support it gives to Israel, as an existential necessity for the U.S. These people might be thinking that the U.S. has no other option in the Middle East than its current policies and might be seeing that every action of the Washington is a part of greater American strategies.
These people can’t escape from seeing and presenting the fate of the U.S. and Israel as one and the same, either because of the grudge they have against the U.S. or because of admiration of its long-term strategic policies. According to this perception, Israel has been constituting an important strategic part of the U.S.’s hegemony in the Middle East since the day it was founded. They believe that the U.S. is preserving its hegemony in the U.S. thanks to Israel.
I have stated a dozen times that the U.S.’s relationship with Israel is not mandatory, and instead of it augmenting its power, it depletes it with each passing day and also threatens its global hegemony.
If it hadn’t been the support it has been providing to Israel, which has been committing human rights violations with its aggressive, occupant and murderous policies by ignoring all international relations and practices, the lifespan of the U.S.’s global hegemony would be much longer, and it would have more deeply-rooted relations with the Middle East. However, today Israel has been sucking all the power and wealth out of the U.S. like a black hole.
As a black hole in the region, while Israel has been sucking all this power and reputation, there remains no sympathy for the U.S. in the eyes of the people of the Middle East. At the end of the day, the U.S. is going to see that it gained nothing from all this support it has been giving to Israel.
In a way, the strategic mind that shapes international relations, just like the human mind, isn’t completely independent from positive and negative emotions. That is why, no matter how strategic it is, a feeble mind can prepare its own end with its frailty. Nations also have inciting and self-accusing self (nafs al-‘ammarah and nafs al-lawwamah) and these can ruin all strategic thinking and one’s will.
There is also an increasing social consciousness of how the U.S.’s policies in the Middle East in general, and in Israel, in particular, are harming it both on the levels of strategic thinking and human democratic values. This state of affairs in which these policies of the U.S. necessitate it to lavishly ignore the values that make America, America is disturbing more and more circles, and the voices of those who see this as a threat for the U.S.’s interests are rising.
You have been following our dear friend Abdullah Muradoğlu’s columns. If you haven’t been following them, I strongly suggest you do. He is ingeniously reflecting the developments taking place in the U.S. In his column published on Sunday, he conveyed the reactions of the American public against Trump, who shut down the Federal Government just because funds weren’t allocated for the Mexican wall, and to pass the bill supporting Israel in an environment of economic crisis. It seems that this support plays an important role in awakening the American public opinion about the striking realities which are related to Israel.
Four days ago Michelle Alexandre, one of the columnists of the New York Times, published an article which reflects this atmosphere very well. The article titled “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine” starts by making a comparison to Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to break the silence in the American public opinion about the Vietnam War in 1967.
At that time there was an environment of heavy political pressure which silences whoever speaks about the Vietnam War, preventing people to speak about the realities and declaring those who raised their voices as traitors and removing them from their positions with McChartist practices. In such an environment King was able to show to the public that the emperor has no clothes by saying, “The time comes where silence is betrayal” during his visit to Riverside Church at Manhattan.
Alexandre says that they are “at the exact same point” by stating that “We are in a time where keeping our silence which has been imposed on us about Palestine and Israel is betrayal.”
His choice not to betray cost Martin Luther King his life. Today too people should similarly be discussing what happened to those who wanted to break their silence regarding Palestine. Unfortunately, there is an “order of discourse” which is maintained by existing career systems and other methods where one needs to repeat the arguments imposed by Israel lobbies. This order is silencing whomever wants to speak about Israel’s occupant, murderous and settler state policies. The stories about what happened to those who tried to speak out are being presented to us as if they are legends. In the end, even though we don’t state the opposite, we feel that we have to remain silent about this issue in order not to lose our gains.
In the meantime, Israel continues its hostile occupation by keeping an entire nation under siege, depriving them of their most fundamental needs, bombing civilians whenever and wherever they please, settling Jews they bring from the other corners of the world in Palestine as they please; and in doing this they are uprooting Palestinians, who have been living in those lands for generations from their homes, entering their places of worship in the most aggressive manner and making occasional searches, harassing households, and subject Palestinians to the most cruel treatments at closely-placed checkpoints.
And we are ignoring these practices because of the pressures of media giants and the career systems where Israel lobbies are influential, and which threatens us to keep our silence about on issues. Alexandre, by reiterating King’s “A time comes where silence is betrayal” says “No!” She speaks about the issue and she is also letting us know about other Americans who speak out just like she does. She talks about the Boycott Israel campaign which was launched by the civil rights movement which is a newly rising movement against Israel’s policies and the fact that it taken U.S. policies hostage. This was something unimaginable a short while ago.
Of course, Alexandre especially underlines that these sentiments do not and should not mean anti-Semitism. Hence, actually, the strongest objections are coming from the Jewish population about Israel’s unfair policies today. Jews think that Israel’s practices, which it claims to be doing in the name of Judaism, is harming it the most and they are joining in on the insurrection against Israel.
Of course, we agree with Alexandre on her sensitivity.
