When asked at a recent press conference --by Helen Thomas-- about whether any countries in the Middle East have nuclear weapons, Obama answered, perhaps with a wink and a nod:
"With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don't want to speculate."
Obama knows full well that Israel has an arsenal of nukes, but that's the way the diplomatic game is played when the topic is Israel, America's one democratic, and greatly favored, Middle East ally.
But that raises the question: Is Israel really a democracy? I say no, despite its parliamentary style government and elections which appear to be open and largely free of corruption. Elections aside, no country can claim the mantle of democracy without recognizing the rights of all its citizens, regardless of culture, ethnicity or religious belief. A true democracy by definition tolerates, even encourages, diversity. Israel, which styles itself a "Jewish state", a notion ratified in the recent election, fails that test.
What does it matter? In and of itself, it matters little whether Israel meets the standards of American Jeffersonian democracy. Very few countries do, perhaps not even America itself. What does matter, however, are two issues, interrelated, and of the utmost importance for American foreign policy.
The first is the establishment of a just peace between Palestine and Israel. With the election of an Israeli conservative coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a peace agreement seems increasingly unlikely. And make no mistake --the cause of the Palestinians is at the heart of much of the Arab unrest in the Middle East. It has been since long before Israeli independence in 1948.
The second issue is the ongoing and unquestioned American support for Israel regardless of its actions or its policies toward the Palestinians. Again, that support is at the heart of Arab enmity toward the United States and much of the West. It continues under Obama.
A recent article in the Guardian questions the future of Zionism, the founding ideology of the Israeli state. The author, Daphna Baram, claims that Zionism and the drive for "ethnic purity" are incompatible with democracy:
"It is time to stop the procrastination over the question whether Israel
can be both Jewish and democratic. [Avigdor] Lieberman provided the answer loud
and clear: it cannot. At this late hour, when the shadow of
proto-fascism is hovering over the land, it is time to join forces with
Palestinian citizens in the battle against ethnic purity, and for a
true democracy."
Daphna Baram is a Jew, born in Jerusalem, a veteran of the Israeli army. But that won't necessarily insulate her from accusations of anti-Semitism. As Howard Jacobson wrote last week in the British Independent,
"No, you don’t have to be an anti-Semite to criticise Israel. It just so happens that you are."
The great irony, and the great tragedy, is that Arab Palestinians and Jewish Israelis may be as closely related ethnically, or racially, as any two groups of people on earth, enemies or otherwise.
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