Obama and support for Israel

Speaking before the Union for Reform Judaism conference in Maryland on Friday, President Obama stressed that his administration has done more than any other to support Israel. There is no need to look for the details that might substantiate that statement for in doing so we might only conclude that the Obama administration has done at least as much as those of Ronald Reagan, George H Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush in bending over backwards to support the Zionist state. It has done no more and no less and the evidence would appear to suggest that Washington's support for Israel, is and has been for a long time, unconditional.

Nevertheless, the political discourse needed to sell this unconditional support is still required. Therefore, we have Obama telling the conference that:
"We stand with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," he said. "America's commitment and my commitment to security of Israel is unshakeable."  Of course, this oxymoronic jargon is nothing new but it does have a continued appeal; we have "a democratic state" and nobody has the right to deny any people their right to self determination. Values that are as American as apple pie and values which "middle America" just loves to identify with.

Of course, the reality that another people have to be ethnically cleansed for the Jewish state to come into existence and the reality that 20% of the population of Israel are being effectively disenfranchised in this "Jewish state" is being ignored. Therefore, we might do well to pick up on this gobblydegook by pointing out that only when a state becomes a state for all of its citizens can it become democratic and that if that happens in Israel, it will, of course, no longer be an exclusively Jewish state.

 A "state for all its citizens" that really does sound as American as apple pie. Indeed, we might even be talking about the United States that Obama swore allegiance to. Now, wouldn't helping to establish this  kind of state in the region be really supporting Israel and who knows, once that state is established, it might not be important what it is called. At least it would be a viable and far preferable alternative to the "Bantustans" that they will call "Palestine" and the oxymoronic "Jewish Democracy" that we have at the moment.