Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2022, pp. 6-7
Letters to the Editor
BACKLASH TO RUSSIA EXPOSES AMERICAN HYPOCRISY
Recently, the United Nations General Assembly voted 93 to 24 to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Fifty-eight nations abstained from the vote. The resolution accused Russia of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” in Ukraine. President Joe Biden denounced President Vladimir Putin and said he should be charged for war crimes. But is the U.S. so innocent? Why has the United States long opposed the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created by the Rome Statute? The statute has been ratified by 123 nations, but not the United States, Russia or Ukraine.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump even sanctioned senior ICC figures involved in investigating possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. How quickly we have forgotten our government’s offshore black sites where detainees were subjected to the most gruesome medieval torture and then dispatched to Guantanamo Bay, or the “shock and awe” of our invasion of Iraq based on faulty intelligence which resulted in the death of over one million Iraqis and the destruction of much of their country.
If Biden is so incensed with Putin’s criminal behavior, shouldn’t he climb down from his lofty perch and adopt a uniform code of ethics in preventing wars? While we rightfully take aim at Putin’s brigade of criminals on the use of cluster munitions—whose only purpose is to create terror blowing up men, women and children into tiny pieces—why have we long used cluster bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan? They were also used extensively in prior wars by the U.S. in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Is it not surprising the United States stubbornly refuses to ratify the treaty banning these hideous weapons? Let’s charter a new beginning by releasing the “forever prisoners” languishing in Guantanamo who have never been charged with a crime, offering them massive reparations and sending them back to their countries, saving U.S. taxpayers $13 million per year for each prisoner. Finally, let’s halt shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is waging a war on poverty-stricken Yemen that goes beyond the pale of extreme cruelty and ruthlessness.
Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA
The insincerity of U.S. foreign policy was recently magnified by a “gaffe” made by former President George W. Bush during a May speech. Bush was outlining the foreign and domestic offenses committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin when he committed the ultimate Freudian slip, condemning “...the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” The former president quickly caught his mistake, saying, “I mean Ukraine.” But, he then appeared to mutter, “Iraq, too.”
While Bush and the crowd laughed at the mistake, it’s perhaps the closest a recent U.S. president has come to admitting his role in the violation of human rights and international law. As Ian Williams notes in this issue (p. 18), the U.S.’ outrage at the invasion of Ukraine is in many ways undermined by its own acts in violation of international norms, as well as its support for rogue regimes such as the State of Israel.
ISRAEL PUSHING FOR A U.S. WAR WITH IRAN
Israel, one of the strongest militaries on the planet (really the first with the U.S. guaranteeing back-up), is going after Iran, a country that originally signed the U.N. non-proliferation agreement (allowing U.N. inspectors in to prove they have no nuclear weapons). This is such a joke.
Israel will not allow U.N. inspectors to check out its nuclear weapons and has assassinated many of Iran’s scientists. Israel attacked Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and helped push the U.S. to war with the country in 2003. Israel, with the help of Russia and the U.S., is bombing Syria. Israel is also involved in wars in Libya and Yemen, and of course is bombing the Gaza Strip repeatedly.
If Israel wants the U.S. to put the screws to Iran via further sanctions, and perhaps war, then the U.S. will do so. Think about who is in control of the United States’ foreign policy and at what a price: our blood and our treasure.
Barbara Gravesen, Lady Lake, FL
CANADA MUST STOP SUPPORTING ISRAELI WEAPONS INDUSTRY
Canada recently signed a $36 million contract to buy Hermes StarLiner drones from Elbit, an Israeli company that also manufactures the cluster bombs, bullets and corrosive white phosphorus shells used to attack both Hamas and civilians in Gaza.
The StarLiner is a civilian version of the armed drones the Israeli military employs to surveil and bombard Gaza and West Bank targets. It carries cameras and sensors instead of Hellfire missiles. Elbit also supplies surveillance technology for the illegal “Separation Wall” and produces parts for Israeli tanks and war planes deployed against Palestinians.
Transport Canada says that the new Canadian drones will be employed to “keep Canadian waters safe, and to monitor pollution.” Technologically-advanced Canada could easily manufacture and sell its own drones for this and other important tasks.
Canada’s choice of Israeli drones violates its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty that forbids weapons sales with nations engaged in human rights abuses. It is wrong for Canada to support a foreign company that profits from supplying the weapons and technology required to sustain the illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the Gaza blockade.
Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada
For more on Canada’s relationship with Israel’s Elbit Systems, see Candice Bodnaruk’s column on p. 38 of the January/February 2022 issue of the Washington Report.
THOUGHTS ON THE SLOGAN “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA”
I recently read an excellent elucidation of the popular protest phrase, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” which pro-Israeli groups claim is an antiSemitic or even genocidal slogan. Critics of the “river-to-the-sea” catchphrase argue that protesters who use the slogan are demanding the destruction of Israel and the cleansing of the entire region, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, of its Jewish population. I would hazard to guess that this is what most people actually believe is being said.
Yousef Munayyer (Jewish Currents, June 11, 2021) contends that the slogan is really only demanding “a state in which Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them. When we call for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, it is precisely the existing system of domination that we seek to end.” So, rather than a call to genocide, the slogan should be considered one for the unification of Palestine and Israel where all citizens have equal rights and are “free.”
It is a good explanation, but the popular interpretation will be difficult if not impossible to overcome. The power of slogans to fan fires of opinion and fuel the human race’s apparent addiction to conflict cannot be denied. Slogans are read at face value, not by people attempting to determine what they actually mean. “From the River to the Sea” mirrors Israel’s call for “From the Sea to the River,” which seems to have also popped up in the media recently.
Both statements carry the “extermination of the other” connotations. Without a doubt, each side has their extremists who would love to see these ideas fulfilled. Such placard catchphrases stir up violence and aid those who want continued division.
Would it be better, then, for protesters to say, chant and proclaim what they really mean? “From the River to the Sea, Palestine and Israel Together will be Free” might be less inflammatory. Free from the institutionalized war and hatred, free from the hubris and entitlement, free to find solutions instead of reiterating the causes over and over and pointing fingers, free to douse the flames of conflict, free to think about what their slogans are really saying? It is food for thought.
Ken Green, Cooper Landing, AK
