Seeking Daylight Between US and Israel

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Seeking Daylight Between US and Israel

by Eileen Fleming
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

On Monday, Mitt Romney addressed 400 cadets and invited guests in Lexington at the Virginia Military Institute, in what was billed as a major foreign policy address and vowed to “change course in the Middle East” and that the President’s responsibility is “to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”

He added, “Hope is not a strategy” but he knows “the president hopes for a safer, freer, and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope.”

Mitt made broad critiques of Obama’s “passivity,” but he did not call for any new-armed intervention in any Mideast conflict.

Much of Romney’s address focused on Iran, but he offered no solutions that differ from Obama’s policy of tightening sanctions and insisting that an Iranian nuclear bomb is intolerable.

Romney did not call for a new “red line” on Iran as Israel has said it wants, or say if he would be open to a U.S. attack on Iran to stop them from acquiring “nuclear capability” so Israel doesn’t have to do it now.

Romney charged that Obama’s poor relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has help embolden Iran and other adversaries.

In reference to Obama’s early administration statement to “put some daylight” between the United States and Israel, Romney “will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security. The world must never see any daylight between our two nations.”

Former Israeli peace negotiator, Daniel Levy, a Senior Fellow and Director for Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations responded:

“Israel is denying the very dignity and freedom to Palestinians, often their co-religionists and fellow Arabs, that Romney is claiming to support. No daylight means very few new friends and many more missed opportunities. ‘No daylight with ‘our closest ally’ Israel is also rather hard to reconcile with this commitment: ‘I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state,’ unless Romney believes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is planning a real November surprise – withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to facilitate a Palestinian state.

“Or perhaps Romney’s choice of words here was no coincidence. For Romney a Palestinian state must be ‘democratic and prosperous.’ He dropped the word ‘viable,’ international diplomatic-speak for a state with contiguous territory, external borders, a capital, etc. Perhaps Romney supports a non-viable Palestinian state, otherwise known as a Bantustan, in which case he has a partner in Prime Minister Netanyahu, and no problem with the ‘no daylight’ clause.”

Mitt is not advocating that the US should lead, but that he can be led to ignore Israel’s continuing colonization of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Both Romney and Obama’s Israel Palestine policy is one of conflict management; not about seeking a just peace.

Regarding foreign aid, Romney said he “will make it clear to the recipients of our aid that in return for our material support, they must meet the responsibilities of every decent modern government.”
Israel has received the greatest amount of U.S. foreign aid of any other state, but it does NOT respect the rights of all of its citizens-the 1.4 million ‘Arab Israelis’ and the 4 million Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Unlike Mitt, Obama and all of Congress this candidate for US HOUSE has actually been to occupied Palestine seven times since 2005, and as I responded to the Orlando based HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS:

My top priority if elected is changing USA foreign policy that endangers this homeland.

Since 2005, I have been to both sides of The Wall in Israel Palestine seven times: to learn, report and support nonviolent Palestinians, Israelis and International resisters of the military occupation of Palestine, which is viewed everywhere in the world-except America-as a US-Israeli collaboration.
Jonathan Ben Artzi, a nephew of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spent eighteen months in jail for refusing to serve in the IDF pleaded,

“Sometimes it takes a good friend to tell you when enough is enough. As they did with South Africa two decades ago, concerned citizens across the US can make a difference by encouraging Washington to get the message to Israel that this cannot continue. If Americans truly are our friends, they should shake us up and take away the keys, because right now we are driving drunk, and without this wake-up call, we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state.”

My Goal in connection with this issue is to hold America to its obligations as a Member State of the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS which includes holding ALL other Member States to it: Read more…

The establishment of Israel’s very statehood was contingent upon their upholding the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS and affirmed on 14 May 1948, in The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel:

“On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.”