The carnage on the border between Gaza and Israel is horrific. I get it that, after decades of conflict, no one in the Mideast has clean hands (including, or especially, the US), but the deaths in this conflict are completely lopsided:
The US should be working to restrain Israel and seek a just peace. But we’re not. Why?
Because of American evangelicals.
I knew this is where US and Israeli right-wingers are coming from, but it’s still shocking that we’re even remotely expected to accept this as a serious argument:
Well first of all, I would take issue with beginning the history lesson in 1947. Go back another 3,500 years. Go back to the Bible.
Read the full quote in the article.
I accept that Israel’s existence as a sovereign nation state is a “fact on the ground” that just can’t be reversed at this point, but this argument is ludicrous. If the US is to accept it, then the time has come to give America back to Native Americans.
Unless, of course, what really matters isn’t history or reasons, but raw power. Lasting peace should require justice. Instead, in modern Israel, it means oppressing, displacing, and wiping out your opponents.
Trump’s foreign policy is built on doing what others haven’t done before, period – shake things up and make sure everyone stays tuned. He agreed to meet with Kim Jong-un, no strings attached, even though that was held out as the prize for cooperation by previous presidents.
With Israel/Palestine, he had two choices along this line: Seriously press Israel to stop the settlement expansions and start negotiating, or move the embassy to Jerusalem. He chose the embassy. Why? Because evangelicals were willing to flatter him:
“I told him that the moment that you do that, I believe that you will step into political immortality,” the news site quoted (Pastor John) Hagee as saying. “Because you are having the courage to do what other presidents did not have the courage to do.”
And of course, support him in huge percentages with their votes.
For what it’s worth, as a member of the non-religious community, let me say that I think religious people really have a hard time grasping how much their speech sounds like incoherent babbling to us. Bigoted, divisive, irrational incoherent babbling at that.
Bill Poorman 