The United States has long been on the receiving end of Israeli misbehavior. Israel invades Lebanon or Gaza, the US vetoes UN Security Council resolutions condemning civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure, and Washington winds up taking the blame for condoning Tel Aviv’s recklessness. Repeat that twenty times and it is no surprise that most of the world regards the United States as the enabler of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly cited American support of Israeli repression as one of his reasons for attacking the United States. Opinion polls taken in Muslim countries, where footage of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians is nightly fare on television, demonstrate sharp declines in the numbers of those who regard the US favorably. And the repeated application of the get out of jail free card to Israel has produced an insufferable arrogance in Israeli leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu, confident that the American dog will let itself be wagged by the Israeli tail whenever necessary. It invites more of the same, whether it is building more settlements, killing civilians in Gaza, or intercepting humanitarian missions on the high seas.
Not being held accountable ever has led to recklessness on the part of the Israelis and has further diminished America’s international reputation as it is increasingly seen as complicit in various outrages and even war crimes. In the Cast Lead invasion of Gaza in December 2008 Israel was able to unleash an enormous and sophisticated US-provided military arsenal against a largely helpless civilian population within which a small number of genuine Hamas militants concealed themselves. It was probably Israel’s most audacious defiance of international norms of behavior and the fact that it has escaped consequence-free suggests that history will soon repeat itself in the form of another assault on Hamas which will undoubtedly bring in its wake a large number of civilian casualties and further destruction of schools, hospitals, homes, and businesses.
This time Judge Richard Goldstone, who was commissioned by the United Nations to head a group of four jurists asked to write a report on Cast Lead, has to be seen as an enabler of any possible future conflict. Let us assume for a moment that Goldstone, who was under tremendous pressure from international Jewry, was actually sincere in his recent recantation regarding Israeli war crimes in Gaza. His first report for the United Nations asserted that Israel and Hamas had both been guilty of war crimes, but that the devastation produced by Israel far exceeded anything accomplished by Hamas. Israeli crimes included destroying clearly identified schools, hospitals, and United Nations food warehouses. White phosphorous artillery shells were used against civilian targets, generally regarded as completely unacceptable by most of the world’s militaries. It was collective punishment time with Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister declaring "The Palestinians are going to bring upon themselves a Holocaust."
