Israeli Influence on the Bush Administration (Was why...)

[Mutualcode at aol.com]

Before we go down this path, a few preliminaries: It is true that
Palestinians have not so good a deal, at this moment in history,
within greater Israel. It is also true that common Arabs, in the
streets of all the surrounding countries, have not so good a
deal. In fact, there is probably a greater chance that an Israeli
Palestinian enjoys suffrage than most of the Arabs in the 
surrounding countries, who are by and large poor, without any
hope of democratic participation in their own governance, and, 
whose frustration has often been re-focused on Israel by their 
rulers, who are not interested in democracy..

As far as comparisons with "a democracy like the United States,"  
Israel is a little more than fifty years old. While not strictly a fair
comparison, the first fifty years of the U.S. were not so stellar
years for human rights. People could still be bought and sold in the
open market. Natives, including women and children, were often
hunted for a bounty (especially in California btw) &c. In other words,
countries, especially democracies, evolve.

What I'm saying, in a very abbreviated way, is that the ideal standard
by which the success of Israeli democracy is being measured does
not exist, excepting as a pre-conception in the minds of those who
have already made up their minds about the outcome.

We can see what a terrorist attack on the U.S. has done for the
right wing here. Our own civil liberties have become expendable.
Is it any wonder that Begin, Netanyahu and Sharon have replaced
the likes of Meir, Rabin and Perez in a tiny country that suffers
almost daily terrorist attacks, and, is surrounded by totalitarian and/
or fundamentalist regimes that have made a career out of publically
calling for its anihilation? If we had been more supportive when Israel
was in the hands of the moderates and the secularists, if we had
been tougher on the likes of Syria and the rest, perhaps the right 
wing in Israel would have remained on the back benches. 

What was the geo-political motivation keeping the U.S. from
supporting the embattled Israeli democracy when it could have
made a big difference? I'm saying it was at least partly the same 
reason we supported the Shah and the Saudis. It used to be 
Cold War calculations, what now? 

In a message dated 2/27/2003 4:26:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
barbara100 at jps.net writes:


> http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=10364&
> repository=0001_article
> 
> [  ]
> 
> Americans should not fall for the claim that Israel is a democracy like the 
> United States. To begin with, Israel is a Jewish state where state 
> preference goes to Jews over all others. Often, it is claimed that Israel 
> gives voting rights to its Arab  minority. This is only nominally true.
> 
> 
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