For years, pro-Israeli zealots and other fanatics in the United States who run out of arguments quickly revert to their fallback position that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East - and thus should be supported against Arab dictators. There is some truth to this argument, but not compelling integrity. Israel is indeed a domestic democracy for its Jewish citizens, and most Arab countries are not convincingly democratic.
But this is diversion, not a serious discussion. It is also less pertinent in view of the new Israeli government, which suggests that hypocrisy, rather than democracy, may be the defining characteristic of Israeli policies.
Equally troubling, shabby hypocrisy also defines those in the United States who unquestioningly support Israel and its excesses, and who parrot the argument that Israel is the only democracy in the region.
Hypocrisy rather than democracy is now the Israeli-American hallmark because of the increasingly stark and vulgar double standard that is applied to the behaviour of Israeli and Palestinian governments.
This is highlighted by the pronouncements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and of his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. These include a refusal to commit to a two-state solution as the goal of a negotiating process, a rejection of continued commitment to the “Annapolis Process” and only vague commitments to negotiate with a view to reaching a peace agreement.
The silence from the United States on these positions has been profound, and troubling, but this is perhaps understandable in view of the fact that Washington is still formulating its strategic and tactical policies in the region and completing its cast of characters who will manage Middle East policy, while also dealing with more pressing priorities.
Opposing Israel too strongly in Washington is a sure recipe for one-term political life expectancy, and Obama and company have to decide if they wish to take on the pro-Israeli machine and maniacs in Washington so soon.
The real problem with Israel’s position, though, is with the double standards that differentiate it from what is demanded of the Palestinians. For decades now, Israel and the United States have routinely demanded that the Palestinians make precise, explicit and public acceptances of Israel’s right to exist, ending the use of violence, and recognising past agreements.
This was the case with the PLO, which finally formally “renounced terrorism” and accepted “Israel’s right to exist” in the late 1980s. It is the case with Hamas today, with whom Israel, the United States, the Europeans, Russia and the UN (via the Quartet) refuse to deal until it recognises Israel, renounces the use of violence and accepts previously reached agreements.
It is not clear to most of the world, beyond the hypocrisy-democracy heartland in Tel Aviv and corners of the West, why the Palestinians are asked to show strict compliance with past agreements and formal recognition of the enemy before any talks can start, while no such comparable standards are applied to Israel.
This is precisely what colonialism is all about - one law for white men and a different, harsher, set of rules for the native darker people. It is also why the entire world experienced an anti-colonial revolt in the past century.
As Israel is the last active colonial enterprise in the world - and Lieberman lives in a colony of settlers from abroad - it is not so surprising to see the values of colonial discrimination and subjugation applied to the practice of politics and diplomacy when Israel is concerned.
It is shocking, though, to see the United States and other major democratic Western powers that support, and claim to value, Israel in part because of its democratic values, stand largely silent and immobilised in the face of Israel’s brazen hypocrisy and double standards.
Israel’s behaviour seems like the mirror image of their own fickle morality and expedient double standards.
The continuing sharp contrast between the two different political and moral standards applied to Israelis and Palestinians is one of the reasons the well-meaning officials associated with Yasser Arafat, and now with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, proved to be a hapless band of political amateurs unable to make war or peace with Israel, or to develop a meaningful, credible diplomatic relationship with major Western powers.
Not surprisingly, they have slowly lost credibility with their own Palestinian public, and ceded space and power to Hamas and others who demand politics based on more than pleading, and diplomacy anchored in more than dependency.
Two states, Israel and Palestine, are hard enough to achieve through peaceful negotiations these days. They are impossible to envisage at all if we also play this game according to two sets of rules, one for white man Zionists and another for dark boy Arabs.
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