Pro-Israeli Biases

So much is being left out of the current coverage, in large part due to conflating understanding the context with condoning terrorist violence.  Democracy Now, MSNBC, and at times even CNN have dared to bring the perspective of the past into the conversation, hosting guests like Ben Rhodes, Mustava Barghouti, Rashid Khalidi (author of The Hundred Years War on Palestine — A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, on two nights ago with Joy Reid on “The Reidout”, excellent episode, check it out).  

 

But all too many, like Lawrence O’Donnell I’m sorry to say, and to a certain extent even Thom Hartmann, have allowed their personal affiliations and pro-Israeli biases to shut down any discussion of context — as if it’s impossible, incoherent to feel outrage at the nauseating, revolting acts of terror by Hamas while at the same time acknowledging that maybe Israeli and US policy (like the $3.5 billion of military aid which by design *must* be spent on US manufactured weapons) might have something to do with the situation we find ourselves in. 

 

We’ve all seen how anyone advocating for BDS, the ultimate non-violent advocacy tool, was/is immediately spurned as being anti-Semitic.  How many recall that Hamas was basically brought into power in the first place by Sharon’s decision to remove Israeli settlements from Gaza back in 2005-6, which Gideon Levy and many others rightly predicted would clear the path for the five (5!) invasions that followed?  When Hamas was the surprise victor in the election that followed, I remember Jeff Halper recounting how an acquaintance affilliated with Hamas was almost in a panic and more than half-seriously was “calling for a re-count!”.  

 

I also remember the newly forming Hamas leadership wanting to adopt the tenents of the Olso Accords as a path towards peaceul co-existence, basically refuting their original, outdated charter which alledgedly called for “wiping Israel off the map”.  Israel responded by mounting a (violent) failed coup attempt, followed by imposing the blockade which has left them in complete control of Gaza to this day bent on “slowly starving them out”, to paraphrase a highly-ranked official at the time.  So much for “the only Democracy in the Middle East”.

 

Speaking of which — isn’t that exactly the map that Neten-yahoo just presented to the UN, only in reverse, with all of Palestine and Gaza to be officially annexed into Israeli territories?  Isn’t that exactly what the settlers have been doing in real time for the last 50 years, and now with the full backing, permission, and frankly unspoken gratitude of the Knesset?  

 

Don’t get me started.  (oops, too late).