Depressed, Frustrated, Saddened, Grieving

I've been taking this class on the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, and I have to confess to being overwhelmed by the amount of sickening information I've been exposed to. I'm unsure how to appropriately convey my sense of profound disappointment with the American government and media. My disgust is not with the Trinity Administration alone, but with Congress and the despicable Resolutions they have passed advocating Israel's latest massacre of innocents. I wrote my Senators in early August this letter:

Senator,

I am writing to express my disagreement with your submission of Senate Resolution 534. By unconditionally supporting Israel’s actions in Lebanon you are playing fast and loose with the facts and history of this conflict. If we are going to call ourselves friends of Israel, we need to start acting like their friends and not their accomplices. A friend shows concern and gives advice and admonishment when a friend goes astray. Turning a blind eye toward a corrosive policy, one threatening the very survival of Israel as a democracy (namely, their continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip), does not help our friend. America does not share the values of hatred and bigotry that are becoming a mainstay of Israeli culture. This conflict has for years been slowly eating away at Israel’s democracy, and we are doing our friends in Israel a grave disservice by giving our unequivocal support to however drastic an action they desire to take. I understand the pressures brought to bear on you by the realities of campaign fundraising, but I encourage you in the future to not lose sight of the fact that your duty is primarily to America and her security. Continued blind allegiance to outdated models of American Middle East strategic policy is harming our nation, especially when the rest of the world understands the severity of Israel’s human right’s abuses. It’s time for America to be a friend, not an enabler, and I pray that the next resolution on this issue will show some genuine leadership. The situation is crying out for a fair, even-handed broker to enter the fracas and establish a lasting peace between two peoples who lived peaceably for centuries before the last several disastrous decades. I implore you to work for peace, not to encourage unmitigated carnage and brutality at the expense of American security as Senate Resolution 534 has done. Thank you for your service to our country.

-Paul Rodriguez

Both Sarbanes and Mikulski responded with Israeli talking points pulled straight from an AIPAC press release. Both mentioned UN Security Council Resolution 1559, neither mentioned 242 or 338. The "state-sponsored terror" of Syria and Iran were mentioned, but Israel's state-sponsored terrorism was not. How have we as Americans allowed ourselves to become so pathetically brainwashed? I do not expect anyone who may read this to understand what I'm talking about, because as an American unless you fully dive into this conflict and understand its complexity you cannot possibly comprehend just how barbaric the Israeli military occupation of Palestine is. If there is anyone who desires to know more about what I'm talking about, you can start with this documentary.

Tags:
Israel, War on Terror, Palestine, Lebanon, Politics