Peace

Almost 40 years ago, I attended The Ohio State University. I was so proud that when I was presented with different options for my graduate studies, I chose OSU and prayed to be admitted. My prayers were answered. Ever since, Columbus has been my home. My children are Buckeyes.  That was a no-brainer in our family. So proud that while working overseas, myself and other Buckeyes formed an OSU Alumni Club with many activities. We even created social media groups for those of us who attended OSU. In other words, I am a Buckeye to the bone as well as my entire family. At one point, my daughter Jana, while my wife was at work, asked that we remodel her room with an OSU theme. Sure enough, we went to Sears, bought scarlet and gray paint and painted her room and furniture with OSU colors. The Lantern has articles with our names, mine and my children, being cited on so many issues, domestic and international. OSU St John Arena was selected for the “Town Meeting” planned by President Clinton where he sent his national security team —National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Defense Secretary William Cohen and Secretary of State Madeline Albright, when he planned to bomb Iraq.

If you were wondering why or how the mainstream media coverage of what is taking place in Gaza is so slanted as to make it look like a real war between two well-armed and competitive adversaries instead of a massacre of civilians, wonder no longer! A leak has exposed a New York Times internal document that provides editorial guidance about words that should not be used in any article relating to Gaza or to Palestine. They include “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupied territory,” and even “Palestine” itself.

The New York Times coverage of the Israeli carnage in Gaza, like that of other mainstream US media, is a disgrace to journalism. 

 This assertion should not surprise anyone. US media is driven neither by facts nor morality, but by agendas, calculating and power-hungry. The humanity of 120 thousand dead and wounded Palestinians because of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is simply not part of that agenda. 

 In a report - based on a leaked memo from the New York Times - the Intercept found out that the so-called US newspaper of record has been feeding its journalists with frequently updated 'guidelines' on what words to use, or not use, when describing the horrific Israeli mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7. 

invited three insightful analysts of present-day U.S. foreign policy to share their thoughts in a roundtable discussion. Here are excerpts from Phyllis Bennis, Jackson Lears and Jeffrey Sachs.

-- Norman Solomon

 Question: How would you assess the most important aspects of current U.S. foreign policy?

 Phyllis Bennis: I think the most important aspects are the most problematic ones. The focus on militarism that leads to a military budget this year of $921 billion, almost a trillion dollars, an unfathomable number translates to $0.53 out of every discretionary federal dollar going directly to the military. And if you add in the militarism side of things, the federal prison system, the militarization of the borders, ICE, deportations, all those things, you come up with $0.62 out of every discretionary federal dollar.

 So the militarism is, I think, the single most important problem. The issue of unilateralism remains a huge problem when the rise of the so-called “global war on terror” essentially wiped out the possibility of a post-Cold-War peace dividend, which had currency for about a week, as I recall, and that unilateralism continues.

Israel’s plan to expand into an Eretz or “Greater” state incorporating large chunks of its neighbors’ land starts with eliminating the pre-1948 inhabitants of a place once known as Palestine. That nearly all of those who think of themselves as Palestinians must be killed or otherwise removed is perhaps reduced to an aphorism, like “Israel has a right to defend itself,” to absolve the Israeli state and its rampaging army of any guilt in the process. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ability to avoid any serious consequences for his behavior is remarkable, and it generates further atrocities that might have been unimaginable when the fighting in Gaza started back in October.

If we condemn Hamas for its October 7 attacks in Israel, we’re not accused of anti-Arab bigotry. Nor should we be. Nothing could possibly justify the atrocities that Hamas committed against hundreds of civilians, who were the majority of the 1,200 people killed as a result of the attacks by Hamas forces. And nothing can justify the taking of civilian hostages.

‘All we can do for Gaza is just offer our Du’a.” This is an oft-repeated statement by enraged Arabs and Muslims who feel helpless before the Israeli genocide in Gaza. 

 But is it true that only invocations and supplications are possible, as tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being killed and wounded by the Israeli war machine? 

 No. There is much that can be done and, in fact, many people around the world are already doing it. 

Jared Kushner, a former US official whose relationship to power is that he married the wealthy daughter of a man who was later to become the US president, once attempted to teach Palestinians how to handle their own struggle for freedom.

 In 2020, he advised Palestinians to stop ‘doing terrorism’, summing up the Palestinian problem in the claim that ‘five million Palestinians are (..) trapped because of bad leadership’, not the Israeli occupation or US support for Israel. 

First you call them terrorists. Then you say you’re defending yourself. Moral problem solved!

You can kill as many of them as you want.

Well, maybe there will be consequences later (and maybe not), but for the moment you have overcome your own moral barriers and can start doing your job as a soldier: killing people. And in the process, you are making the world – your world, not theirs – safe. War is such a paradox: killing one’s way to peace. But apparently it’s humanity’s primary organizing principle.

Citizens of America, citizens of Israel, citizens of Russia . . . citizens of the world . . . this has to change! Now is the time to end war, by which I mean transcend war: disarm, demilitarize. We’re killing the planet; we’re living on the brink of nuclear suicide. Creating and dehumanizing an “enemy” isn’t going to create peace, but rather, just the opposite. We’re spreading hell across the planet, and not only does war always come home, it continues to create an endless cycle of death and destruction – simply to justify itself.

The USA used 9/11 to further a hidden agenda with catastrophic results. Not only did we lose blood and treasure, we lost whatever moral high ground we once had. Israel needs to learn from our mistakes.

Leaders make choices in moments of crises which can either lead to enhanced security or catastrophe for their nations, with the lives of innocents often hanging in the balance.

Immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I went to the floor of the House of Representatives and warned against the U.S. lashing out blindly in response to the devastating attacks which killed over 3,000 persons.