Two groups, supporters of Israel and critics of Israel's attack on Lebanon, demonstrated in Cincinnati July 23. I marched with the latter group. Not because I support Hezbollah. Not because I believe Israel should be eliminated from the map. But because today we should stand with the Lebanese people, whose country is being destroyed by Israeli bombs.
I do this not only in solidarity with the Lebanese but also as an American concerned about changing U.S. policy. The United States is on the wrong side in the Middle East — on the wrong side if we want justice and peace in the world. I'm not talking about choosing a side in the war. I'm talking about choosing a side in the broader social struggle for justice. We Americans should be on the side of the Arab and Muslim peoples, on the side of their impoverished millions.
To say that we should be on the side of the Arab masses doesn't mean being the enemy of the people of Israel. In fact, the only way to peace for Arabs, Israelis and the other peoples of the region lies precisely through self-determination, democracy and economic justice for the Arab world's poor.
The end of World War II, when the modern Middle East was created, was the missed opportunity. For more than 100 years European nations, particularly England and France, dominated the Middle East. They conquered territories, subjugated and enslaved millions. The end of the war brought about an opportunity for decolonization, for the emergence of the Arabs and other peoples, the Kurds and the Iranians among them, and for the establishment of new states. The United States might have put itself on the side of the Arab masses. But for the United States, oil was more important than justice.
As France and Great Britain were displaced by the United States, the new imperial superpower decided to support the existing elites — kings and sheiks — who would protect America's access to oil and its geopolitical interests. The United States supported Israel virtually unconditionally, providing billions in military aid. Imperialism gave way to neo-colonialism in the Middle East, a masquerade of independence, as the United States and its oil companies continued to pump out the region's wealth.
The creation of Israel as compensation for the horrors of the holocaust that had devoured the Jews of Europe and as a homeland for the survivors could only seem to the Arabs like a continuation of European imperialism. The suffering of Jewish victims at the hands of Nazism could not justify Zionist terrorists of the Irgun and others like them who succeeded in driving three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. For the United States, however, U.S. support for Israel meant Israeli support for U.S. domination of the region as a whole — and that meant control of the ultimate strategic resource: oil.
The key issue, however, was the U.S. attitude toward the Arabs. In the struggles of the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, the desire of the Middle Eastern peoples for an end to neo-colonialism and a better life produced secular, nationalist and leftist governments throughout the region. Mossadegh, for example, became prime minister of Iran in 1951 and carried out the nationalization of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, giving Iran control of its most valuable natural resource. He ended Iran's feudal system, replacing it with government land ownership and collective farming. Iran's people might have had a better life. That might have been the beginning of a new Middle East.
But what happened? The British government and the CIA worked with the Shah of Iran to overthrow the Mossadegh government in 1953. The Shah's brutal dictatorship, with its famous Savak police force of torturers and murderers, took power and carried out a forced march to modernization and Westernization. The people revolted in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that brought to power the Shiite government there.
Everywhere the United States opposed progressive nationalist governments — often characterized by the State Department as pro-communist — and supported reactionary monarchs like the kings of Jordan or Saudi Arabia or unpopular and undemocratic secular rulers like Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
Of course, the United States continued to support Israel through several Israeli-Arab wars. Israel's wars with the Arabs led to occupation and repression. They also inevitably involved atrocities such as the Sabra and Shatila massacres when Ariel Sharon invited the Lebanese Phalange to enter Palestinian refugee camps to eliminate the Palestinian Liberation Organization fighters, leading to the murder of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
The central problem has been Israel's occupations. As with the recent U.S. conquest and occupation of Iraq, the Israeli occupations of large portions of Palestine and Lebanon created profound hatred for the occupier. Islamic fundamentalists founded Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israel found that it faced the enemy it had created in its own image. Israel's army met its match in the martyr brigades and suicide bombers.
Now Israel is bombing Lebanon's cities, killing hundreds of civilians and virtually destroying that country. Israel argues that its current wars on Palestine and Lebanon are justified because of the capture of three Israeli soldiers. But Israel has occupied Arab territory, displaced hundreds of thousands and kidnapped and imprisoned thousands of Palestinians. Israel must be condemned for these attacks, just as we condemn Arab or Muslim terrorists who murder civilians.
In the long run, we must shift U.S. support away from the Arab monarchs and dictators and away from unconditional support for Israel. Israel has a right to exist in its pre-1967 borders but not to invade, conquer and occupy Arab land. We must put ourselves on the side of the impoverished masses of Arab and Muslim peoples, even as we disagree with, criticize and oppose politically those among them who, in the name of religion, would thwart democracy, censor literature or stifle women's rights.
We must change our government's policy, and to do that, we must change our government.
Dan La Botz is a writer, teacher and activist. His column appears the fourth issue of each month.
