When King George V died, we got a day off from school as a sign of mourning. Palestine wasthen a part of the British Empire, which ruled the country under a League of Nations mandate. Tothis very day, a central street in Tel-Aviv, not far from my home, bears the name of King George.
George V was followed (after a brief interlude) by George VI, who was until recently thelast George in our life. Now we have a new King George, not British but American.
The relationship between the United States and Israel is difficult to define. The USA hasno official mandate over our country. It is not a normal alliance between two nations. Neitheris it a relationship between a satellite and the master country.
Some people say, only half in jest, that the USA is an Israeli colony. And indeed, in manyrespects it looks like that. President Bush dances to Ariel Sharon ’s tune. Both Houses ofCongress are totally subservient to the Israeli right-wing – much more so than the Knesset. Ithas been said that if the pro-Israeli lobby were to sponsor a resolution on Capitol Hillcalling for the abolition of the Ten Commandments, both Houses of Congress would adopt itoverwhelmingly. Every year Congress confirms the payment of a massive tribute to Israel .
But others assert the reverse: that Israel is an American colony. And indeed, that is alsotrue in many respects. It is unthinkable for the Israeli government to refuse a clear-cutrequest by the President of the United States . America forbids Israel to sell an expensiveintelligence-gathering plane to China ? Israel cancels the sale. America forbids alarge-scale military action, as happened last week in Gaza ? No action. America wants theIsraeli economy to be managed according to American precepts? No problem: an American(circumcised, to be sure) has just been appointed as Governor of the Central Bank of Israel .
As a matter of fact, both versions are right: The USA is an Israeli colony and Israel is anAmerican colony. The relationship between the two countries is a symbiosis, a term defined bythe Oxford Dictionary as “an association of two organisms living attached to each other or onewithin the other” (from the Greek words for “living” and “together”.)
Much has already been said about the origins of this symbiosis. American ChristianZionism preceded the founding of the Jewish Zionist organization. The American myth isalmost identical with the Zionist Israeli myth, both in content and symbolism. (The settlersfleeing from persecution in their homelands, an empty country, pioneers conquering thewilderness, the savage natives, etc.) Both are countries of immigration, with all that thisimplies for good or ill. Both governments believe that their interests coincide. OnIndependence Day in Israel , many American flags are to be seen next to the Israeli ones – aphenomenon that is without parallel in the world.
The inauguration of George Bush last week therefore had a special significance forIsrael . The state-controlled TV channel broadcast it live. In many respects, the Presidentof the United States is also the King of Israel .
George Bush is a very simple, very violent person with very extreme views, as well as beingvery much an ignoramus. This is a very dangerous combination. Such people have caused manydisasters in human history. Maximilian Robespierre, the French revolutionary who inventedthe reign of terror, has been called “the Great Simplifier” because of the terriblesimplicity of his views, which he tried to impose with the guillotine.
The ideologues who govern the thoughts and deeds of Bush are called“neo-conservatives”, but that is a misleading appellation. Actually they are arevolutionary group. Their aim is not to conserve but to overturn. Mostly Jewish, they are thepupils of Leo Strauss, a German-Jewish professor with a Trotskyite past who ended updeveloping semi-fascist theories and propagating them at the University of Chicago . Heillustrated his attitude towards democracy by citing the story of Gulliver: when a fire brokeout in the city of the dwarfs, he put the fire out by urinating on them. This is the way, in hisview, the small elite group of leaders must treat the ignorant and innocent public, which doesnot know what is good for them.
In his coronation speech, Bush promised to bring freedom and democracy to every corner ofthe world. No less, no more. He cited the two countries in which he has already achieved thisaim: Iraq and Afghanistan . Both have been devastated by American planes that dropped themessage from their bomb doors. Recently, the American soldiers wiped a large city from theface of the earth in order to convince the opponents of “American values”. Now Falluja looksas if it had been struck by a tsunami.
It is no secret that the Neo-Cons intend to “bring democracy” to Iran and Syria , therebyeliminating two more traditional enemies of the USA and Israel . Dick Cheney, theVice-President (certainly no Virtue-President), has already prophesied that Israel mayattack Iran , as if threatening to unleash a Rottweiler.
It could have been hoped that after the total debacle in Iraq and the less obvious butequally serious failure in Afghanistan , Bush would shrink from more such actions. But asalmost always happens with rulers of this type, he cannot admit defeat and stop. On thecontrary, failure drives him on to more extremes, vowing, rather like the captain of theTitanic, “to stay the course.”
There is no way to guess what Bush may perpetrate, now that he has been re-elected by hispeople. His ego has been blown up to giant proportions, reaffirming what the Greek fabulistAesop said some 27 centuries ago: “The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.”
He has kicked out the hapless, feeble Colin Powell (as David Ben-Gurion eliminated MosheSharett in preparation for his 1956 onslaught on Egypt ) and appointed Condoleezza Rice, hispersonal servant (as Ben-Gurion replaced Sharett with Golda Meir.)
Now the order is “clear the deck for action”. On this deck, Bush is a loose cannon, a dangerto everyone around. The results of these elections may be viewed by history as a worldwidecatastrophe.
In domestic affairs, he may cause similar disasters. In the name of “American values”, heis about to destroy one of the foremost American values: the separation of Church and State.His is the religion of a “born again” convert, a primitive religion without morality andcompassion. Imposing this religion on all fields of life – from the prohibition of abortionsand same-sex marriages to the revision of schoolbooks – may push society centuries back andvoid the constitution. After four more years of this, America may be a very different countryfrom the one we loved and admired in our youth.
A friend of mine asserts that there are two souls residing in the American nation, a goodand a bad one. That may be true for every nation, including even Israel and Palestine , but inAmerica it is much more extreme. There is the America of Thomas Jefferson (even if he liberatedhis slaves only on his death), Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Rooseveltand Dwight Eisenhower, the America of ideals, the Marshall Plan, science and the arts. Andthere is the America of the genocide perpetrated against the Native Americans, the country ofslave traders and the Wild West myth, the America of Hiroshima, of Joe McCarthy, ofsegregation and of Vietnam, the violent and repressive America.
During Bush’s second term, this second America may reach new depths of ugliness andbrutality. It may offer the whole world a model of oppression. I would not want my country,Israel , to be identified with such an America . Any advantage we can derive from it may well turnout to be short-term, the damage long-lasting, and perhaps irreversible.
One of the advantages of the US constitution is that Bush cannot be re-elected for a thirdterm. As the popular Israeli song goes: “We survived Pharaoh, we shall survive this, too.”Perhaps this could become an anthem for the whole world.