| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: Sunday New York Times Ad: 'America and Israel: A Troubling A |
| Subject: Sunday New York Times Ad: 'America and Israel: A Troubling Alliance'
Dear CNI Foundation Supporter:
We will run our second in a series of six full-page ads in the New York Times this Sunday, July 2nd, two days before Independence Day. We urgently need your support to sustain our campaign, which features a new full-page ad in the New York Times every two months. You should have recently received a letter from us about our ambitious advertising campaign, so this email serves a reminder to send in your contribution by mail today, or to make a secure credit card donation online now: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2836
We have so far raised 75% of the $45,000 needed to cover the cost of this Sunday's ad, titled "America and Israel: A Troubling Alliance." For those of you who have not yet contributed to the campaign, we need your help now, in whatever amount you can give, to make up the $10,000 shortfall. For those of who have already given to the campaign or who cannot afford a donation at this time, our next advertisement is planned to run on Sunday, September 3rd, and we will need your continuing support to keep our message in the public square.
The CNI Foundation broke through a major barrier -- censorship by the nation's "newspaper of record" -- four years ago when the Times first agreed to run one of our full-page ads. This is the fourth full-page CNI Foundation ad to run in the New York Times since the Times first agreed to publish one of our advertisements in September 2002 and the third to run in the last year. These ads have stirred the debate about the consistent bias in our Middle East policy and have awakened a broader sector of American public, outside the small group of about 50,000 that are directly reached by organizations such as ours, to the perils of our continued funding of Israel's 39-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. We feel that it is essential for us to capitalize on the momentum generated by the AIPAC espionage case and the recent paper on the Israel lobby by Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. Now is the time!
Sincerely yours,
Eugene Bird
President
PS: If making your donation online, be sure to mark the box that says "I want my donation to go to the placement of a full-page ad in the New York Times" to specify your donation for this effort. You can even make your donation to the CNI Foundation anonymous by checking the box that says "I prefer to make this donation anonymously."
PSS: Included below is the final text for this Sunday's ad (July 2nd, 2006), which will appear opposite the editorial page in the "Week in Review" section.
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AMERICA AND ISRAEL: A Troubling Alliance
Freedom for All… Including Palestinians
As we celebrate the independence of the United States and the freedom of the American people, we pay respect to the right of all peoples to self-determination. Yet as we celebrate, others needlessly suffer under an illegal occupation, with no end in sight. Here at home, the Bush Administration has sung its own praises about democratizing the Arab world while hypocritically implementing a policy intended to bring down the duly elected government of the Palestinian people.
We are engaged in an effort to compress the lives of four million people under the weight of our sanctions and an Israeli blockade. This is a recipe for a Third Intifada. That would be in no one's interest.
"Terrorism has been described as waging war on innocents to break their political leaders. Is that not a fair description of what we are doing to the Palestinians?"
- Pat Buchanan, June 5, 2006
How is it that we have become so divorced from our founding principles? How is it that our alliance with Israel has led us so far astray?
A Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex
As President Eisenhower said just before leaving office:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
- President Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961
Today, the U.S.-Israel alliance is based on the enormous aid program to Israel, which feeds its military-industrial and intelligence complex. And the American military-industrial complex is now dependent on the lucrative sale of weapons and materiel, which are used in the continued occupation of Palestinian land. Our intelligence communities are deeply intertwined, making it difficult for a truly American policy to be adopted by the President and the Congress.
Strategies Gone Awry
In the last ten years, strategic consultations between Israel and the U.S. have deepened, despite proven espionage against America by officers and supporters of the Israel lobby.
Under the influence of well-positioned neoconservatives and the Israel lobby, we chose to go to war in Iraq and engage in what has proved to be an almost senseless war and occupation, now being overwhelmed by sectarian strife.
As Colonel Harry J. Shaw wrote in Foreign Policy magazine several years ago:
"Exaggerated claims of Israel's capabilities and willingness to act as a strategic surrogate for America in the Middle East are not merely harmless rhetoric employed to justify U.S. military and economic aid to Israel. These claims confuse and distort the differences in the two countries' interests, responsibilities, and capabilities and hamper America's efforts to protect its interests when Israeli actions threaten them...
"Both Israel and the United States will benefit from quietly discarding the strategic partnership myth and grounding their relationship in greater realism. Others have suggested that the United States clarify its commitment to Israel's survival in treaty form. But in order to do so, the boundaries of the state of Israel would need to be agreed upon -- a task sure to be difficult."
- Colonel Harry J. Shaw, Former chief of the military assistance branch of the Office of Management and Budget under four Presidents
Because of the one-sided nature of the unwritten alliance and our preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel has been given a free hand to deal with the Palestinian insurgency.
Israel's military and targeted assassination approach to dealing with that insurgency has led to the growth of terrorist organizations, some with worldwide connections, that have complicated the U.S. ability to prosecute the war on terror.
By clinging to the land and water resources of the West Bank, Israel undermines the very reasons for the strategic alliance.
Israel's prime minister has said the Israelis must modify their dreams for a "Greater Israel," but his withdrawal plan falls far short of creating an independent Palestinian state. Failing that, the Palestinian insurgency will continue.
How to Fix the U.S.-Israel Relationship
The unwritten alliance between the United States and Israel must be drastically modified. Israel’s best security lies in establishing internationally-recognized borders with both Palestine and Syria as soon as possible. This should be our aim and the goal of any alliance.
The two-state solution everyone knows is necessary can only happen if the Palestinians have the West Bank, with agreed-upon boundaries, and East Jerusalem as its capital. The Israeli army must withdraw, not remain in occupation.
We need help from everyone to reach this goal. The Arab League is ready to assist in the negotiations in both Iraq and Palestine. Clearly a military solution is not working.
Congress should hold a series of hearings on the alliance and the "road to peace" in the Middle East with witnesses from all interested parties, not just from Israel and its supporters. Congress should recognize that its unmonitored aid to Israel is one of the causes for the continuation of this dismal conflict.
There is a second issue. For thirty years we have had a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons. And now, Israel and its supporters are urging us to take "strong action" against Iran. For the sake of maintaining any alliance with America, Israel must join in a new effort to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction around the world, not just in the Middle East.
Now is the time for the Bush administration to take the big step that J. Robert Oppenheimer urged of President Truman and Congress: Place all nuclear material-handling facilities around the world under a truly effective international inspection agency. All weapons grade material would be reduced to fuel rods for use in power stations in the next decade. The U.S. has been doing this both with its own and Russia’s surplus weapons materials.
Israel could then turn her megatons of bombs into megawatts of electricity, and save billions of dollars in oil imports.
"What I'd like to see is an open debate on this issue…I'd like to see the mainstream media…ask questions about the influence of AIPAC on Congress, ask all sorts of questions about the aid that we give Israel and whether it's justified, ask questions about whether supporting Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is indeed consistent with American values."
- Professor John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago on the Diane Rehm Show, June 21, 2006
What is the CNI Foundation?
The Council for the National Interest Foundation (CNI Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible organization with thousands of American supporters across the country that works to promote a rational and even-handed Middle East policy that is in the long-term interest of America, Israel and the Arab states.
The CNI Foundation was founded by Congressmen Paul Findley (R-IL) and Paul "Pete" McCloskey (R-CA) in 1989. Its current chairman is Ambassador Robert Keeley.
"What is the Council for the National Interest? It is an anti-virus to the Israel lobby."
- President Eugene Bird
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