Why Did Congress Shamelessly Pander to Israel?

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted January 17, 2009.

I continue to be astounded by "liberals" who treat bomb and rocket attacks against Israelis as justice, while condemning Israeli retaliation. There were 2,117 deaths at Pearl Harbor; to accept the peculiar calculus of anti-Israelites, U.S. was morally bound to terminate its war against Japan after the first 2,117 deaths.

Poles lost land to Russia in the aftermath of WW II, yet we don't hear of Polish suicide bombers. Germans lost land. Etc., etc. etc. Only the Palestinians have adopted bloodlust as their guiding philosophy; why is this so attractive to "liberals"?  

Zunes piece responds:

What liberals do you know of who believe bomb and rocket attacks against Israelis are "justice?" This is a red herring. I, and everyone else I know who has written articles on this Web site, condemn both sides for attacking civilians.

DCostello2 agrees with Zunes:

Why is it that when one speaks out against Israel, it is immediately thought that one supports Hamas? Did you speak out against the illegal and immoral U.S. war on Iraq? If so, does that mean you support al-Qaida? Why does Israel get to benefit from this kind of twisted logic?

Some commenters wonder if most U.S. politicians even know very much about the conflict:

Freelyb writes:

How many of them really know what has gone on over time between these two factions? How much research do they do on all these things that they influence so strongly? I'd really like to know ...

Particle paints our politicians as not only ignorant, but foolish and cowardly:

No doubt a few are ignorant clods. More just pander to ignorant clods. Probably more than a few have been following this for years, but are either biased or simply too cowardly to speak up.

I would guess that there is probably a sense in Congress that Israel will have its desperate way one way or the other. But in the long run that it (Israel) will be doomed by issues that boil down to geography. It's all a sort of mad, hopeless bravura. Mad to the point of being a sick and archaic opera played out by played-out thugs and fools.

So how can Americans keep politicians accountable? tony_opmoc has one idea:

Virtually the entire Dem-controlled Congress should be tried for war crimes against humanity.

Erin suggests a more realistic route:

I second that proposal. But since that won't happen, lets vote all of them, except the five who voted against it, out at the next election.

jreinhart1 points out that our politicians’ unethical positions hardly end with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

America has opened up two illegal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. has blatantly forced regime change of other countries, covert or overt, for the last 110 years, since the Spanish-American War. Until the chambers of Congress and the executive office are cleaned out, America's underbelly is a filth-ridden hidden government working for the special interests on K Street, and the Department of Defense is anything but.

Obama must flush out criminals from the last executive office, or he becomes nothing better than what was there previously. We must take the log out of our own eyes before we pick out the twigs from other nations. Otherwise, America is nothing but a nation led by hypocrites.

See more stories tagged with: congress, israel, gaza, united nations, war. hamas, pelosi reid

Tana Ganeva is an editorial assistant at AlterNet.

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