The Struggle for the Soul of America: Israel’s Choices: Endless Conflict or Real Peace

Posted on October 12, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

On this Yom Kippur, Israel, the United States, Iran and much of the Arab world must repent and change course.

The current war between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is just the latest chapter in a conflict that has been going on at least since Israel was established by United Nations Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947. Under that resolution, the British protectorate of Palestine was to be divided into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab. The Arab countries surrounding Israel opposed the resolution and went to war against Israel in 1948.[1]

Israel won that war which resulted in over 700,000 Arabs being forced from their homes in the new Jewish state.[2] It has won several other armed conflicts with their Arab neighbors since then. But the Six-Day War in June 1967 was a turning point. Israel captured the West Bank during that war, and it has been under Israeli military occupation as a national security measure to this day.[3]

While six Arab countries, beginning with Egypt in 1979, have made peace with Israel[4] and normalized relations, hostilities continue with a number of others led by Iran. Backed by a huge amount of U.S. funds and armaments, Israel has been able to deter Arab assaults over the years, with the exception of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Since then, Israel has gone on the offensive. Its goal now appears to be the complete elimination of all terrorists that threaten Israel. As a result, many thousands of innocent Arabs in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, a great many of them women and children, have been killed, plus thousands more maimed or starved to death, in Israel’s widespread attacks to wipe out its enemies.[5]

The only problem is Israel will never be able to do that militarily. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari has even admitted as much when he said that Hamas cannot be made to “disappear.”[6] The bottom line is that as long as the Palestinian people are denied their own state as promised in the 1947 U.N. resolution, the fighting will continue.

Unfortunately, the current Israeli government has no intention of agreeing to a two-state solution. It would rather continue killing thousands of innocent Arabs, leave its hostages in the hands of Hamas, have its own people live in constant fear and danger, and be isolated from the rest of the world except for the U.S. Implausibly, the American government seems helpless to do anything to stop this madness despite the fact that it supplies Israel with the means to keep this cycle of death and destruction going.

Meanwhile, 99 American doctors, nurses and other medical personnel who have volunteered in Gaza since October 7, 2023, are urging President Biden and Vice President Harris to “end this madness now.” Estimating the Gaza death toll at over 118,000, they wrote, “Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered by our bullets.”[7]

Consequently, they are demanding of Biden and Harris: “A ceasefire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law.”[8]

There’s practically no chance that the Biden administration would agree to this demand. It could, however, immediately halt shipments of all offensive weapons to Israel to pressure Jerusalem to agree to a ceasefire and begin negotiations for a real two-state, lasting peace. While that may not convince Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to change course, it may move the Israeli people to demand elections for a new government.

The Arab world recently made a strong offer that’s gotten little attention but could open the door to those negotiations. Two weeks ago, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi responded to Netanyahu’s claim that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it. Safadi announced at the United Nations that 57 Arab and Muslim countries would unequivocally guarantee Israel’s security if Jerusalem ended the occupation and agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.[9] Of course, the U.S. would as well.

While getting there will be very difficult, Harris should now state that as president, she would strongly support and work to implement the Arab proposal while continuing to protect Israel. On the anniversary of the October 7^th massacre, Harris affirmed that “We must work to ensure nothing like the horrors of October 7 can ever happen again.”[10] Ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state is the only way to ensure that critical goal.

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is a former U.S. Institute of Peace Fellow and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He is also the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America. (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.). Contact him at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com.

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Israeli-wars

[2] https://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_West_Bank#:~:text=The%20West%20Bank%2C%20including%20East,during%20the%20Six%2DDay%20War.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_relations#:~:text=After%20several%20Arab%2DIsraeli%20wars,Morocco%20and%20Sudan)%20normalized%20relations.

[5] https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/more-women-and-children-killed-gaza-israeli-military-any-other-recent-conflict; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/10/4/live-israeli-bombs-rain-down-on-lebanons-beirut-gaza-occupied-west-bank

[6] https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/20/middleeast/hagari-netanyahu-destroy-hamas-israel-intl/index.html

[7] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/10/05/gqob-o05.html

[8] Ibid.

[9] https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-10-02/ty-article-opinion/.premium/jordans-foreign-minister-told-israelis-and-inconvenient-truth/00000192-4dc3-d2cc-a5d7-edff907e0000

[10] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/10/07/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-marking-one-year-since-hamas-october-7th-terrorist-attacks/

The Struggle for the Soul of America: Biden on the Brink

Posted on April 21, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

I turned on the news Friday morning to learn that Israel had bombed Iran in retaliation for the Islamic State’s missile attack on the Jewish state last weekend. Fortunately, Israel’s counterattack was measured and caused relatively little damage to Iran. Now the world waits to see if the Iranian leaders will retaliate in turn. Or, hopefully, since their losses were minor, the Iranians may be content to leave matters as is, as long as Israel does the same. Still, these two enemies have brought their mutual enmity to the brink of all-out war. No one can be happy about that.

At the same time, the Israeli-Hamas War drags on in Gaza. While President Biden urges Prime Minister Netanyahu to halt the Israeli offensive and agree to a ceasefire, again the world waits, this time, to see what Israel will do next.

Meanwhile, Congress is preparing to send more unconditional military assistance to our Middle East ally in its battle against Hamas.[1] Biden’s support for the $26 billion aid for Israel just approved by Congress this weekend is further alienating the Muslin American community from the president:

Many Muslim Americans were already furious with the Biden administration over its handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with activists organizing Democrats to vote “uncommitted” rather than support the president in some state primaries this year.[2]

Such aid only undercuts any efforts by the Biden administration to stop the fighting. What incentive does Netanyahu have to cease his offensive in Gaza if the U.S. continues supplying him with the means to keep it going? It makes no sense. Moreover, the administration’s unwillingness to get tough with Israel as more and more innocent Gazans become collateral damage or starve to death hurts Biden’s re-election campaign.

The longer this war continues, the greater the possibility of Iran and its surrogates coming to the aid of Hamas and creating a much larger regional war. As noted in Foreign Affairs:

Biden urgently needs to articulate and then implement a clear strategy to protect Palestinian civilians from bearing the brunt of Israel’s military operations, counter Iran’s corrosive war-by-proxy strategy, and blunt the capabilities of Tehran’s accomplices.[3]

The war is taking a toll on Biden’s support.[4] Less than 40% of Americans now support Israel’s actions in Gaza.[5] And only 33% now support Biden’s handling of the conflict.[6] If the war is not concluded in the next few months, the president may very well be on the brink of defeat in November. Biden could lose swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin that he won by small margins in 2020.[7] He needs to use the full force of his office to quickly step up his efforts to end the war or risk losing the presidency this fall.

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com. Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/19/israel-ukraine-aid-house-speaker-mike-johnson/

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/muslim-americans-soured-biden-see-024447720.html

[3] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/irans-order-chaos-suzanne-maloney?check_logged_in=1&utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20240419

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/israels-war-gaza-political-flashpoint-risk-bidens-coalition/story?id=108962662

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/19/americans-israel-gaza-polling/

[6] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-israel-gaza-poll-cbs-news/

[7] https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/; https://www.yahoo.com/news/muslim-americans-soured-biden-see-024447720.html; https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan

The Struggle for the Soul of America: The Issues Likely to Decide the 2024 Elections

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

There are so many diverse issues in this year’s elections that it’s hard to tell which ones may determine the outcome next November. Of course, the economy, including inflation, will play an important role in the election. It always does.

But I believe four other issues will be critically important in this election. Specifically, abortion, the Israel-Hamas War, immigration, and democracy. Let’s them take one at a time.

Abortion. Like Biden, the great majority of Americans support a woman’s right to choose. That includes 43% of Republicans. About 1 in 8 voters (12%) now say that abortion is the most important issue for their vote in the 2024 elections.[1] While Trump recently declared that the abortion issue should be left up to the states, he takes pride in having appointed the three Supreme Court justices responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Given the opportunity, the Republican Party will likely enact a national ban on abortion. Despite his latest statement, I doubt Trump would risk the fury of conservatives by vetoing an abortion ban bill. As president, he would undoubtedly sign a national ban. Abortion rights supporters know that voting for Biden is the only way to absolutely prevent that from happening. A strong turnout by them in critical swing states could very well be the decisive factor in the election. In fact, the Democrats could win both the House and the Senate as well with a compelling pro-choice campaign.

Israel-Hamas War. On the other hand, Biden’s handling of the war has cost him support among youth,[2] Arab-Americans, and others. Many Democrats, including Sens. Sanders and Kaine who come from different wings of the party, have criticized Biden’s failure to condition U.S. aid to Israel and to demand a ceasefire.[3] Recently, the president appears to finally be pressuring Israel, but it could be too little too late. He needs to stand up to Prime Minister Netanyahu and force Israel to end the war by cutting off unconditional aid.

Unfortunately, the end to the war is nowhere in sight. This could cost Biden the election. We need to lobby the Biden administration to take immediate steps to severely limit civilian casualties, demand a permanent ceasefire, and make further aid to Israel conditional.

Immigration. This issue offers Biden a significant challenge as well as a great opportunity. The Republicans blame Biden for the huge number of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico. Yet, it was Trump who pushed the Republicans to reject their own border security bill, which would have gone a long way toward solving the crisis at our southern border.[4]

The challenge for Biden is to reframe immigration as beneficial in the minds and hearts of Americans. We are a nation of immigrants who came to the United States seeking a better life. Immigrants make valuable contributions to our country in farming and numerous other endeavors. We need them to keep our economy strong. They want to be here and, on average, are more law-abiding than native-born Americans.[5]

If he reframes the issue, Biden has an opportunity to turn immigration into a winner for Democrats. While we must secure our borders and control the number of immigrants entering our country, immigrants are a valuable asset to America. Trump formulates immigration as a crime and security issue. Actually, it’s an economic and humanitarian matter. Biden needs to confront Trump head-on and set the record straight.

Democracy. If elected, Trump wants to be a dictator on day one of his presidency. He idolizes autocrats like Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and envisions having the supreme power they have. Since the great majority of Republican officeholders support Trump and desire the same control over America that he does, they all need to be defeated. The Democrats need to make this clear to the voting public.

Whether American democracy survives could be the biggest issue in this year’s election. Biden and all Democrats running for office in November should make the survival of our democracy the central theme of their campaigns. Will we, the people continue to have a voice in determining abortion, immigration, and all other public policies? Or will the United States become an authoritarian regime led by Trump?

The path to victory for Biden and the Democrats is clear. Whether they have the vision and wisdom to take it is another question.

Bruce Berlin

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/.

[1] https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/press-release/1-in-8-voters-say-abortion-is-most-important-to-their-vote-they-lean-democratic-support-biden-and-want-abortion-to-be-legal/

[2] https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/24125496/young-voters-trump-biden-polling

[3] https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/04/05/congress/bernies-advice-to-biden-on-israel-00150808

[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-kill-border-bill-sign-trumps-strength-mcconnells-waning-in-rcna137477

[5] https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-immigration-and-crime

The Struggle for the Soul of America: Biden Quietly Conditions Aid to Israel as Opposition to His Mid-East Policy Grows

Posted on February 17, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

(Correction: Last week I incorrectly wrote that the Border Patrol union supports “Biden after previously twice backing Trump…” Actually, the Border Patrol union did not endorse Biden. Rather, it supported Biden’s bipartisan border security bill which the Senate recently voted down.)

In what some are calling “historic”, President Biden recently issued a presidential memorandum requiring countries receiving U.S. military aid to comply with international humanitarian and human rights laws.[1] Biden’s order gives Secretary of State Antony Blinken 45 days to obtain “credible and reliable written assurances” from all countries in active conflicts receiving our aid that they are complying with these laws.[2]

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded to the president’s directive, noting, “This is a sea-change in terms of how you approach U.S. military aid and its impact on civilians.”[3] The order authorizes a swift cutoff of military aid to countries, including Israel, that violate international protections of civilians. While Israeli officials were briefed on Biden’s memorandum before its pronouncement, that does not seem to have diminished Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza.[4] Hamas’s horrendous attack on Israel last October does not justify the extreme vengeance that Israel has inflicted on the people of Gaza.

Richard Haass, the former longtime head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has urged Biden to go even further in separating himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s blanket bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Haass has proposed that the president deliver a speech — possibly to the Knesset, the nation’s parliament — where he’d lay out his vision directly to the Israeli people.[5] In addition to ending the war in Gaza, Biden’s grand bargain would tie an accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia to substantial steps toward Palestinian statehood.[6]

The pressure on Biden to take decisive action to establish a permanent ceasefire and end the conflict is mounting. Most Democrats now disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war, including nearly three-quarters of voters under 30.[7] If he is to win re-election in the fall, the president needs to regain their support soon.

Another critical constituency that Biden needs to win back is the Arab American vote. That community feels “a bone-deep sense of betrayal” by Biden. He has “infuriated Arab Americans by resisting their demands that he call for an immediate cease-fire.” Their anger has given rise to the ‘Abandon Biden’ movement around the country, but most importantly in Michigan. With as much as 5% of the vote in Michigan, Arab Americans could prevent Biden from winning that crucial state, and possibly result in the president losing re-election.[8]

Yet another constituency dismayed with Biden’s support of Israel’s all-out attack on Gaza is the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), one of the country’s oldest and most prominent Black Christian denominations. The leaders of the AME recently called for the U.S. to end its financial aid to Israel, labeling the country’s military campaign in Gaza “mass genocide.” Some “Black clergy members said the war could weaken an already fraught relationship between Mr. Biden and Black voters, Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc.”[9]

When will Biden wake up and realize what’s at stake? While I do not doubt his concern, even anguish, over the slaughter Israel has perpetrated in Gaza, action speaks louder than words. If Biden does not soon act decisively to end America’s participation in that onslaught, he will forever be remembered as the primary accomplice to Israel’s massacre of thousands of Gazans; he will lose the presidency in November; and he may very well be held responsible for the downfall of American democracy.

Bruce Berlin

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/. Join the movement to revive our democracy. Together we can save the soul of America.

[1] https://www.wfmj.com/story/50435951/biden-order-attaches-human-rights-conditions-to-us-military-aid-easing-democratic-rift-over-israel

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/biden-outlines-new-conditions-for-us-military-aid-amid-criticism-over-support-for-israels-gaza-campaign/

[3] https://www.wfmj.com/story/50435951/biden-order-attaches-human-rights-conditions-to-us-military-aid-easing-democratic-rift-over-israel

[4] Ibid.

[5] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-urged-deliver-speech-israel-162549617.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

[6] https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/13/biden-israel-palestinian-statehood-grand-deal-middle-east-saudi-arabia-gaza-hamas/

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/politics/biden-israel-gaza-poll.html

[8] https://news.yahoo.com/arab-americans-feel-bone-deep-100213072.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/ame-church-us-israel-aid.html

The Struggle for the Soul of America: The Israeli/Hamas/Palestinian/ U.S. Quagmire

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Author: Bruce Berlin

The current war in the Middle East is just the latest terrible chapter in an intractable 75-year conflict. Clearly, Hamas’s recent terrorist attack on Israel was horrendous. While an Israeli retaliation may seem justified, it must be truly measured at all costs. A full-blown invasion of Gaza would needlessly kill countless of innocent Palestinians and could result in expanding the war throughout the region. While highly unlikely, a cease-fire would be in the best interests of moving toward a peaceful resolution of this long-standing quagmire.

That Israel has relentlessly mistreated the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza over these many decades cannot be ignored as a major contributing factor to the current fighting. Nor can Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s focus on consolidating his own power by overhauling the judiciary while under indictment be overlooked.[1] In fact, Egyptian intelligence officials claim they personally warned Netanyahu that Hamas was planning “an explosion of the situation…and very soon, and it would be big.” Netanyahu denied receiving any such advance warning.[2]

At the same time, the U.S.’s unconditional military aid to Israel (over $3 billion/year since 2009) has given the Jewish state carte blanche to handle the West Bank and Gaza however it pleases. Consequently, no one has clean hands in this tragic situation.

While the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, denounced Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ‘criminal policy of revenge,’[3] the Biden Administration has given its full support to Israel.

Josh Paul, until recently the Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, quit his position. As the director, he helped shape policy regarding sending military arms to other countries. Paul’s resignation was in response to America’s rush to arm Israel in its battle against Hamas.[4]

Paul sent the following email to his Bureau’s leadership noting:

“It’s been clear for decades that the only route to that future — that future being peace — is not through military victory, but through diplomatic compromise, not through creating fear, but through building trust, not through killing enemies, but through making friends, not through imposing suffering, but through inspiring hope. On all these counts, what is happening now in Israel is a tragedy not only for lives it is taking and also for the future, whose possibility it is foreclosing upon for yet another generation. … In this conflict everyone loses, and the longer it lasts, the greater the losses will be.”[5]

Paul then suggested that:

“…maybe the best thing for Israel right now is not security assistance in the sort of volume that makes them think they can afford to just ignore the Palestinian question and hope that, cordoned off, it will go away. Or to put it another way, if we weren’t giving them billions a year for decades, is it more or less likely they would have found it in their interest for the Oslo process to work and we wouldn’t be where we are today.[“6]

[The Oslo Accords were a set of agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that established a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a mutually negotiated two-state solution. Netanyahu was a harsh critic of the Accords which ultimately failed.[7]]

Like Josh Paul, Ralph Nadar believes the Biden administration has failed to put the current hostilities in the broader picture. Nadar observed:

“Biden seems unwilling to recognize the historical origins of this conflict that now has mighty Israel occupying, colonizing, brutalizing and stealing land and water from the twenty-two percent of the original Palestine left for millions of Palestinians under Israeli daily control.“[8]

Even when Israel was established in 1948, the leading Founder of the Israeli state, David Ben-Gurion, understood the profound injustice driving the Palestinian resistance: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel….They see but one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”[9]

According to Nadar, Biden’s failure to call for a ceasefire disregarded his own military’s private advice against an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. They knew it would increase the risk of a larger war in the Middle East that would clearly be against the national interests of the American people and U.S. security.[10]

While most Americans support diplomatic efforts to end the conflict,[11] Biden endorsed Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas. However, he did say, “it would be a big mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”[12]

As Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer living in Haifa, explained, “If there is one lesson of this, it is not that this was a security failure. It was a failure on the part of the world to address the conflict.”[13] America’s unconditional military support of Israel over the decades has played a huge role in that failure. If the Biden administration learns that lesson, it would be one very positive thing that comes out of this tragic war.

Bruce Berlin

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/. Join the movement to revive our democracy. Together we can save the soul of America.

[1] https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/netanyahu-israel-warning-america-trump-20231019.html

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/

[3] https://www.commondreams.org/news/btselem-israel-gaza

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/20/josh-paul-israel-civilians-00122716

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/20/josh-paul-israel-civilians-00122716

[6] Ibid.

[7] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oslo-Accords

[8] https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/biden-will-not-escape-history-s-judgement-for-failure-to-stop-gaza-assault

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/wall-street-journal-ipsos-poll-israel-hamas

[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/politics/biden-israel-gaza.html#:~:text=officials%20have%20warned%20of%20a,and%20aired%20on%20Sunday%20night.