XPost: or.politics, alt.usage.english, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: rec.music.beatles   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   BY ALFRED DE ZAYAS   
      
   On 18 May the Security Council was seized of a resolution that would   
   have granted UN membership to Palestine.Twelve members of the SC voted   
   in favor of the resolution, while two countries – the UK and   
   Switzerland – abstained. The US vetoed it.[1]   
      
   I would have been surprised if the US had voted in favor or abstained.   
   The voting record at the Security Council documents dozens upon dozens   
   of unjustified vetoes by the US, mostly to shield Israel from being   
   called to account, from being subjected to sanctions as once another   
   Apartheid State, South Africa, was[2].   
      
   The intransigent attitude displayed again and again by the United   
   States is contrary to the letter and spirit of the UN Charter, in   
   particular articles 1, 2, 4 and 27.  What to me would seem more urgent   
   would be a resolution to expel Israel from membership in the United   
   Nations, as provided for in Article 6 of the Charter.  But, of course,   
   the US would also veto such a hypothetical resolution.   
      
   Nonetheless, I could envision the General Assembly withdrawing the   
   accreditation of the Israeli diplomats at the United Nations.  This is   
   within the GA’s competence and does not require a Security Council   
   resolution, as was the case when the credentials of South African   
   Ambassadors were rejected in the 1970s and 80s because of their   
   Apartheid policies[3].  Rejecting Israeli credentials would be   
   justified, since Israel is guilty not only of Apartheid but also of   
   genocide.   
      
   Whereas the Global Majority condemns Israel, three cases are before   
   the International Court of Justice, and several have been submitted to   
   the International Criminal Court, the US persists in its negationism   
   of Israeli crimes and evidently enjoys its exceptionalism in being   
   “one-man out”?   
      
   It seems that the US is trapped in its own political and psychological   
   web. The US has lost the capacity to think and act outside the box, it   
   is condemned to committing the same errors and exacerbating the   
   already toxic situation.  Many American observers including myself   
   have indicated that after the US government took the unwise decision   
   to enter into an alliance with Israel, this effectively meant   
   subordinating US interests to those of Israel.  It is and was   
   predictable that situations would arise where the US would not be free   
   to pursue its own priorities, but would be bound to support   
   geopolitically unwise policies, abuse the veto power in the Security   
   Council, and act contrary to the letter and spirit of the UN Charter.   
      
   For decades the US has supported patently illegal Israeli measures at   
   an exorbitant cost to the US economy and US prestige in the world   
   stage. The Global majority perceives the US and Israel as the greatest   
   dangers to the peace and security of mankind[4].  US actions in the UN   
   and elsewhere have cemented this perception.   
      
   The US and Israel are rightly perceived as dangerous bullies.  There   
   is no love lost for the US and Israel. No doubt, the US alliance with   
   Israel has caused the US to lose authority and credibility in the eyes   
   of the Global Majority, precisely because the US has defended the   
   indefensible, justified the unjustifiable, engaged in apology of   
   genocide.  The US alliance with Israel makes it complicit in the   
   illegal Israeli settler-colonialism, in its Apartheid policies, in all   
   the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel. This   
   complicity triggers civil and penal liability, which in due course   
   will have to be addressed. The International Law Commission’s Draft   
   Code on State responsibility [5] will someday be applied against the   
   United States, and Israel which will owe trillions of dollars to the   
   billions of human beings who have been victims of US imperialism and   
   neo-colonialism.   
      
   In the history of the United States, nothing has been as damaging as   
   its “alliance” with a retrograde State that pretends to implement   
   Biblical prophecies and destroy its Arab neighbors.  Three thousand   
   years after the conquest of the “promised land”, Prime Minister   
   Netanyahu is now following the narratives of the book of Joshua and   
   the destruction of the Canaanites[6].  It is not surprising that   
   Netanyahu relies on Biblical stories of the destruction of the people   
   of Amalek by the Israelites[7]. Amid the genocidal excesses committed   
   by Israel on the people of Gaza, Netanyahu quoted from First Samuel   
   15:3, saying, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our   
   Holy Bible. ‘Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all   
   that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women,   
   children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys’ It is   
   little wonder that the International Court of Justice is now   
   confronted with this statement – one of so many – that illustrate the   
   Israeli “intent” to destroy “in whole or in part” the targeted   
   group.[8]   
      
   Although the US and Israeli interests do not converge, there is a   
   dynamic of complicity and one crime begets another.  Friedrich   
   Schiller wrote in his Drama Piccolomini — das ist der Fluch der Bösen   
   Tat, dass sie fortzeugend Böses muss gebären — that is the curse of   
   the evil act, that it will continue to engender further harm[9].   In   
   fact, the US government has gradually become dependent on its   
   “alliance” with Israel, which is more of a one-way road.   
   Notwithstanding the daily efforts of the mainstream media to whitewash   
   Israeli crimes and to give a veneer of legitimacy to the genocide,   
   more and more Americans are coming to understand that “there is   
   something rotten in the state”[10].   In practice, the US government   
   is quasi in the service of Israel and not in the service of the   
   American people.   
      
   The United States is caught in abstruse ideologies that escape all   
   rationality. Israel is not only an Apartheid State, it is a   
   neo-colonial State with policies that are incompatible with the UN   
   Charter, the 1949 Geneva Red Cross Conventions, the 1977 Additional   
   Protocols, and with international law in general.   
      
   Perhaps the saddest thing is that the American people are essentially   
   disenfranchised, because both political parties are caught in the   
   Israeli web.  Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, you only get   
   candidates that will continue supporting Israel.  Indeed, saying a   
   good word about the right of Palestinians to have their own State, the   
   idea of seeing the Palestinians as human beings entitled to the same   
   human rights as we claim for ourselves, is rejected by the mainstream   
   media.  Whoever supports the Palestinians is ostracised and accused of   
   anti-Semitism.   
      
   The American people are prey to the Orwellianism of the New York Times   
   and Washington Post. Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, it is   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)