Friends tend to look out for one another. If your best buddy needs $5 bucks for a drink at Rennie’s, you’ll probably lend it to him. If he’s moving out of his apartment, maybe you’ll offer to load boxes into the U-Haul truck.
But what if this friend, the one you’ve known and enjoyed a relationship with for years, wants you to help him shoplift a Snickers bar? Or drive his getaway car after a bank robbery? What if your friend asks for cash, and any weapons you might have lying around, then proceeds to murder almost 60 innocent people, 27 of them children?Would you continue the friendship?
This is the question that may be – indeed should be – considered this week by the U.S. government, after a Sunday attack orchestrated by Israel on a residential housing area in Lebanon. In the three weeks of military struggle between Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel, the Sunday strike represents the deadliest attack yet. As aforementioned, all victims were civilians; almost half, children.
The tragedy has special weight for the United States, because members of the international community are finally coming forward to question what has been an unwavering alliance between the U.S. and Israel.
The United States provides Israel with more than $2.5 billion in military and economic aid each year, and since World War II, the U.S. has given more aid to Israel than any other nation. In the late 1980s Israel was termed a “major” U.S. ally, and that alliance has held strong through numerous struggles between Israel and other nations in the Middle East.
With the Sunday attack, however, the United States has reached an inescapable juncture wherein we have no other choice but to evaluate what has become a potentially dangerous friendship.
Israel, like its surrounding nations, has acted in recent days like a brash terrorist organization with little regard for human life or compassion. For years Israel has claimed that its nation deserves the right to defend itself; however, Hezbollah too believes that it is entitled to self-defense, and so the struggle continues.
In justifying his nation’s right to fight, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that “we will not hesitate to take the most severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for one purpose – to kill them.” According to Olmert’s own logic, Israel is now that nation against which “severe measures” ought to be taken.
By supporting Israeli attacks both fiscally and discursively – last Thursday Bush whole heartedly stated his support for Israel’s military action in Lebanon – the United States has backed itself into a corner where our country must rationalize the murder of 27 children.
After the civilian deaths, one Lebanese man put it best when he commented, “Why does President Bush send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel and hands the Lebanese a few boxes of food and blankets? Is he just trying to fatten us up before he gives Israel bigger bombs to kill us?” According to the UK Times, this man was displaced from his home by Israeli bombs, and gave his poignant statement while seeking refuge in a parking garage with his infant daughter.
Israel has come forward as shocked at the tragedy, saying that they were under the impression that the bombed area contained military paraphernalia. In response to the death of so many innocent civilians, Israel agreed to a 48 hour cease fire in order to investigate what happened, and why it happened; however, the nation went back on its word with a series of air strikes yesterday.
The U.S./Israel alliance is a touchy subject in this nation, for a number of reasons. It is of the utmost benefit to the United States to have a friend in the Middle East, and the cooperation between our nation and Israel in terms of trade and support is a bright example of how international friendship can be mutually beneficial.
As a Jewish citizen of the United States, I myself am very aware of the powerful emotions of many Jewish-Americans, who find comfort and moral significance in America’s support of Israel. These are my friends and family members who may not look kindly upon the column I have penned. In the end, however, my religious heritage cannot sway me from the belief that Israel has crossed the line, more than once, and the United States should critically evaluate their alliance.
Israel’s first conscientious objector to the Lebanon war, Sergeant Itzik Shabbat puts it best: “In my opinion, only this type of opposition that I’ve chosen will put an end to the madness that is going on.”
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