A CALL FOR COURAGE: Bush and Kerry and the Israeli-Palestinian Problem

John Kerry has lost the courage of his earlier pro-Palestine convictions!

The 2004 presidential election should offer voters a stark contrast between the two major candidates regarding the Middle East. The war and occupation of Iraq does offer such a contrast, but, unfortunately, Bush and Kerry, at the moment, are reading from the same tired script about Israel and Palestine. If this doesn’t change, the Middle East will be doomed to four more years of stalemate and chaos, regardless of who wins.

It hasn’t always been this way, and it doesn’t have to remain! Earlier in the campaign, Kerry was much more articulate and forceful in his calls for a return to evenhandedness in the Middle East.

“Ignoring or downplaying the conflict is a dangerous game,” he said earlier this year in criticizing the Bush administration’s on-again-off-again interest in the Palestinians. He has often talked of Bush’s disengagement from the situation, of his refusal to initiate a top-level diplomatic effort to bring both sides together.

To the dismay of many of his supporters, however, as well as the Arab-American community, Kerry has been falling back on the same old clichés and generalizations about Israeli security needs and Palestinian intransigence. He originally called the Israeli security wall “provocative and counterproductive.” Later he referred to it as a legitimate act of self-defense.

Both candidates seem to be pandering to the Jewish-American voters, and both seem terrified of the powerful lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Bush administration has abandoned the historic American position of being an evenhanded peace broker in the Middle East. It has tilted in favor of the minority right-wing faction controlling the Likud Party in Israel and has given Prime Minister Sharon a blank check to rewrite or simply ignore Bush’s own peace plan blueprint.

If Kerry wants to offer himself as a viable alternative to this disastrous relationship, now is the time for him to show the courage of his real convictions.

Kerry’s national campaign chairperson is Jeanne Shaheen, former governor of New Hampshire. She promises that Kerry’s Middle East ideas will be “a breath of fresh air,” and “completely evenhanded.”

If this is true, there’s no better time than the present. Kerry must present a detailed foreign-policy paper on how his administration would reverse our current lopsided approach and ruinous pro-Sharon position. He needs to demonstrate a vision and a sense of history. And he must be willing to incur the wrath of the pro-Sharon factions of both parties as they attempt to discredit and intimidate him. And he must tell the AIPAC lobby that they cannot control his views and policy.

Architects of President Bush’s pro-Israel Middle East plan: Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz

In 2000, Bush won a majority of the Arab-American vote (which numbers over three million). He won them over during the election year by promising to be a fair and honest peace broker, as his father had been. But after September 11, Bush pandered to his right-wing constituents and advisors and AIPAC and took a hard line against Muslims and Palestinians. His administration’s uncritical acceptance of Sharon’s draconian tactics and West Bank policies have disillusioned them to the point where Kerry now commands a decisive lead in the Arab-American community.

One of the primary causes of terrorism is the terrible way the Israelis and Americans have treated the Palestinians — since 1948! Israelis took Palestinians’ land and had them live in tents outside of the land that had been taken from them. This is a classic way to generate hatred.

The Bush Road Map has turned out to be a map to nowhere, with the president failing for three years to put the full moral authority of the presidency behind it. His Christian fundamentalist base supports Israel no matter what it does — so Bush does as well.

What a way to generate worldwide hatred toward the United States!

Recently, Sharon proposed his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, with Bush’s approval. This plan also called for the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be annexed by Israel instead of negotiated — thus rendering a major component of the Bush peace plan effectively dead and buried.

This action by Sharon barely registered a whimper from the Bush administration. And it represents one more reason why he has lost the majority of Arab-Americans, and why Kerry needs to step forward and offer a serious alternative if he wants to be an honorable player on the world stage and to win over votes and support.

If he doesn’t, he’s courting political disaster. These communities, with over 500,000 voters, are concentrated in four important swing states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The Iraq war has galvanized these communities and the continuing mess in Palestine remains a focus of their concern and passions.

But this is not only in the best interest of fair play and justice for the Palestinians. It is even more a measure of whether the United States can become a true and honorable leader by demonstrating GLOBAL LEADERSHIP!

The Bush administration’s original Middle East envoy, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, said recently that he couldn’t believe one of the reasons given for the Iraq War — that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. He said that just the opposite has always been true, that the solution to most Middle East problems started with Jerusalem — solving once and for all the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

The Bush administration has arrogantly ignored this reality to disastrous results. If Kerry will come forward and present a bold alternative to the morally bankrupt Bush-Sharon team, he may win over many of the undecided voters throughout the country.

Zinni failed as a peace broker in 2001 because his efforts to be evenhanded were sabotaged by Bush’s willingness to be manipulated by pro-Sharon allies deep within the Bush administration, specifically the civilian leadership at the Pentagon. General Zinni is now speaking out about that frustrating experience, and the terrible planning that went into the Iraq War by those same Pentagon leaders.

Is John Kerry listening?