School Yard Bullies:

Once there was boy called Israel he attend­ed mid­dle east high school in a volatile area. Most of the oth­er kids teased and threat­ened him, he was forced to defend him­self against the oth­er kids in his school , he once took on a whole group of them and beat them square­ly. This act of brav­ery forced some of his ene­mies to make friends with him, yet there were some who were vehe­ment­ly opposed to Israel. Some argued that he had no right to exist, oth­ers argued he had a right to exist , just not in their school.

Because Israel went to a school where he was not liked, a school where many argued he was placed because of his pow­er­ful friends, he was allowed to take weapons to school. Now the rules are that there should be no weapons in that school, but lit­tle Israel had big pow­er­ful friends who insist­ed they want­ed him in that school, and they swore that no mat­ter what they would defend him to the death.

One boy named Iran was par­tic­u­lar­ly pissed at the idea that Israel was not only allowed to take weapons to school, he was giv­en some of the most dev­as­tat­ing weapons by his pow­er­ful friends, and school admin­is­tra­tors nev­er ques­tioned it. So Iran decid­ed to fash­ion his own weapons and take them to school. Now grant­ed that Iran nev­er fought with Israel or was even a part of that group of oth­er guys that Israel had sound­ly beat­en there was still pal­pa­ble ani­mus that sim­mered between both boys.

As a result they con­tin­u­al­ly fought through prox­ies , in oth­er words they both had friends who fought mini skir­mish­es with each oth­er , in many cas­es their fin­ger­prints were all over the skirmishes.

(ronit​baras​.com image.)

Now Iran also has pow­er­ful friends, the dif­fer­ence with his friends was that they were not ide­o­log­i­cal friends ‚they were the type who looked out for their own inter­ests. In oth­er words they were not the type who would defend Iran in a fight, they would cut and run. Iran rec­og­nized that if he want­ed to regain respect for him­self and the respect of those boys who were sound­ly whipped by Israel he must get com­pa­ra­ble weapons to those Israel has. So Iran start­ed devel­op­ing his own arse­nal of weapons and in an effort to get respect he kept brag­ging that he was a bet­ter fight­er than many believe to be true. Now Israel’s pow­er­ful friends made claims that Iran was mak­ing weapons that are dan­ger­ous, with the inten­tion of tak­ing them to school. They argued that Iran not only want­ed to take the weapons to school he want­ed to destroy their friend Israel with them.

Now in all fair­ness, Iran in an effort to seem impor­tant had said that he want­ed to remove Israel from the map. This caused much con­ster­na­tion with Israel’s friends, who argued that based on those pompous boast­ful pro­nounce­ments alone Iran should be emas­cu­lat­ed and not allowed to have any weapons at all. Iran attempt­ed to walk those com­ments back, he argued I do not want to destroy him I just want to remove him from my school. As such the pow­er­ful friends lob­bied school admin­is­tra­tors to strip search Iran every­day he arrives at school because he can­not be trust­ed not to try to destroy Israel with the weapons he does­n’t have.

Israel for his part , know­ing that his friends wield­ed immense pow­er over the school admin­is­tra­tors and are also finan­cial pow­er­hous­es with­in the alum­ni, demand­ed that Iran not only be strip-searched but demol­ished and made bare for his inso­lence. Now America Israel’s largest and most pow­er­ful backer , was con­flict­ed he sup­port­ed Israel and said so, but he had been in sev­er­al fights, and even though he is extreme­ly pow­er­ful he had come out of a cou­ple of fights scarred, because he unad­vis­ed­ly entered into fights with­out clear­ly defined ene­mies and what win­ning looks like. America did not want to be dragged into anoth­er fight sim­ply put.

This did not sit well with Israel who by now had become accus­tomed to being treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, giv­en a feel­ing of enti­tle­ment if you will. After all he had always done what he want­ed with­out con­se­quence. His pow­er­ful friends gave him carte blanch, they gave him weapons and as much mon­ey as he want­ed. Even when he clear­ly broke school rules his pow­er­ful friends pre­vent­ed admin­is­tra­tors from pun­ish­ing him. To many even some who once sup­port­ed his right to be in that school he was now an out of con­trol bul­ly who want­ed to throw his weight,.….… oh .. well the weight of his friends around.

Despite being allowed to abro­gate all the rules many oth­er kids have been sus­pend­ed and even expelled for, Israel demand­ed that school admin­is­tra­tors stop hav­ing dis­cus­sions with Iran , he vehe­ment­ly demand­ed that Iran should be stripped searched using force. When he did not get school admin­is­tra­tors to do his bid­ding, Israel called them all kinds of deroga­to­ry names, and cas­ti­gat­ed them for being inef­fec­tu­al. Mark you this is the same admin­is­tra­tion which allowed him to defy rules and turns a blind eye to his malfeasance.

Many oth­er chil­dren have felt the over­whelm­ing arro­gance of Israel because of the weapons he had at his dis­pos­al and the pow­er­ful friends who stood by men­ac­ing­ly, ready to defend him with even more pow­er­ful weapons. Many won­dered how his friends could even be peace mak­ers between Israel and the oth­er kids when they state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly they sup­port him, and pro­vide him with weapons even they com­bined can­not match.

Ok this is no sto­ry of a school with bul­ly­ing boys. This is actu­al­ly a grown up sit­u­a­tion between sov­er­eign nations run by men who will tell you they are intel­li­gent lead­ers who know best what’s good for their respec­tive country.

What would Israel do if it had no nuclear weapons, and did not have a pow­er­ful friend like the United States as an uncon­di­tion­al backer?

My gut tells me Israel would do every­thing in its pow­er to pur­sue and secure peace.

Barack Obama was elect­ed to office on a peace plat­form, he cam­paigned against the Iraq war and promised if elect­ed he would end it. He has , his base on the left are not par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled with him for lit­er­al­ly esca­lat­ing the Afghan con­flict by throw­ing more troops into what many argue is an unwinnable war. Not a war unwinnable because America is weak , but unwinnable because not even the com­man­der-in- chief can artic­u­late what win­ning actu­al­ly is.

Not want­i­ng to seem weak, a charge repub­li­cans use to tar and feath­er demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dents, Obama acqui­esced to demands by pen­ta­gon gen­er­als and oth­ers behold­en to the mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex in the repub­li­can par­ty by send­ing more troops to the Afghanistan the­atre. The American peo­ple are still not told why blood and trea­sure is still being squan­dered in that coun­try when the rea­son they were told our mil­i­tary was sent there was to top­ple the Taliban and kill Osama Bin Laden. Both were accom­plished yet the United States mil­i­tary is still in Afghanistan.

But back to pres­i­dent Obama. This pres­i­dent is prob­a­bly the least pow­er­ful American pres­i­dent ever. Simply put, he is not allowed to use pres­i­den­tial pow­er in ways oth­er pres­i­dents has.Being the first black pres­i­dent his hands are all but tied, his every move is ques­tioned, his most rou­tine order parsed and ridiculed.

On the issue of Israel the pres­i­dent has giv­en more than he was com­fort­able giv­ing to Netanyahu. Forced to the right by hawks in the repub­li­can par­ty wish­ing to scare off Jewish vot­ers a valu­able part of Obama’s coali­tion. Of course repub­li­can or demo­c­ra­t­ic every can­di­date has to swear their com­mit­ment to the state of Israel, vow­ing to defend her with every ounce of their being if elect­ed pres­i­dent. Don’t believe me ask pres­i­dent Ron Paul.

Former pres­i­dent Jimmy Carter has been vil­i­fied mer­ci­less­ly because of all American pres­i­dents past to the present he has shown the great­est sense of fair­ness. As a result President Carter is vil­i­fied because he rec­og­nizes the right of the Palestinian peo­ple to live as free peo­ple, free from the grind­ing boots of Israeli occu­pa­tion and domination.

Why does Netanyahu not want peace to work ? Many in Israel want peace , even some who head­ed secu­ri­ty agen­cies in that coun­try have stat­ed their oppo­si­tion to war with Iran. Former Mossad head Meir Dagan said he does not think Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear indus­try any­time soon, an attack that would have to include “a large num­ber of tar­gets.” In keep­ing with Mossad’s rep­u­ta­tion, he sug­gest­ed going for “régime change” instead. (pressen­za International press agency)

I am not sure on what basis a coun­try or its oper­a­tives can call for régime change in anoth­er sov­er­eign nation. A nation I might add which has a rich his­to­ry and cul­ture. Who autho­ris­es one coun­try to demand change of lead­er­ship in anoth­er soverign nation sim­ply because they diosagree with them polit­i­cal­ly? My naiveté’ is exposed here but what would the reac­tion be if the two per­spec­tive Iran has for Israel would be bomb them into obliv­ion or change their lead­er­ship by what­ev­er means. This is the kind of dog­mat­ic rhetoric we saw com­ing out of for­mer pres­i­dent George Bush’s white house, spear­head­ed by Dick Chaney, which seem to be the posi­tion of Israel.

While we are on the sub­ject of Cheney , it has become clear to me that evil does not emanate from the heart but rather from the mind. Despite his rather unde­served good for­tunes in receiv­ing a new heart, Cheney has shown that his hatred for pres­i­dent Obama is just as intense when he addressed repub­li­cans in Wyoming stat­ing quote:”“I can’t think of a time when I felt it was more impor­tant for us to defeat an incum­bent pres­i­dent today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter to the coun­try,”cnn​.com

As a chris­t­ian I ques­tion myself when I hear this guy make these state­ments, I gen­er­al­ly won­der why decent peo­ple die dai­ly and this man despite the good­ness of God still will not stop lying and sow­ing hatred. Cheney is the author and archi­tect of the débâ­cle we refer to as the Iraq war, he man­u­fac­tured lies and prop­a­gat­ed them accus­ing Iraq of hav­ing weapons of mass destruc­tion, he sought to link Iraq to 911 when pro­fes­sion­als in the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty debunked those lies. This war­mon­ger who need­ed to get Black water into Iraq still con­tin­ued his drum­beat of lies and dis­tor­tions for war, which the coun­try was even­tu­al­ly plunged into.

The con­se­quences of this war will live with America for hun­dreds of years to come thanks to Dick Cheney. This guy has the nerve to talk about unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter? His very temer­i­ty is an unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter. Osama Bin Laden is dead . He could­n’t get him, General Motors is alive , they ran the coun­try into a hole Obama restored it. The Iraq débâ­cle is at an end and no Dick Cheney there were no weapons of mass destruc­tions there , you have been exposed, you are the unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter, and a pathet­ic liar.

It is beyond my com­pre­hen­sion, maybe some of you good folks may enlight­en me here, what gives one coun­try the right to tell anoth­er sov­er­eign nation what they can­not have? Does the United States, Russia, France, England, Israel, China, India, Pakistan own the world? Does the nations that are not nuclear armed pow­ers have the right to demand that those coun­tries named above forth­with get rid of their weapons? Who decides in the world who gets to have arse­nals of weapon­ry that can poten­tial­ly destroy this plan­et a thou­sand times over? And while we are at it how can we argue that one nation can be trust­ed with nuclear weapons over oth­ers , when the United States is the only coun­try ever to have used atom­ic weapons ?

No one wants to ask these ques­tions, because of fear for the United States sen­sors or because of fear of being labeled anti-Semitic by sup­port­ers of Israel. As human beings the only thing we real­ly have is our char­ac­ter, we must stand for some­thing, we live in a world where if one says the wrong thing he could end up in prison just for telling the truth, but we must not be det­tered by what man may do to us, rather we must stand on the prin­ci­ples of our con­vic­tions. Like so many who were demo­nized, mar­gin­al­ized, and vic­tim­ized before us, we must ask the ques­tions that Dr. king, Gandhi. Garvey. Marley and oth­ers have asked , because if we have no jus­tice on this plan­et we call home, all of our efforts at peace are mere futile whis­tles in the wind.