05/19/07 It's Time To Take Tammy To Task For Stands On Israel

It's Time To Take Tammy To Task For Stands On Israel

The Capital Times
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Jennifer Loewenstein

In a recent Capital Times article, Wayne Bigelow, who chairs the Dane County Democratic Party, is quoted as saying U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin "fits very well with what most ... people believe in" and "I think people are generally satisfied with her votes."

Actually, Tammy Baldwin's record on the subject of Israel-Palestine not only belies her progressive reputation, it also keeps many of us dissatisfied with her votes.

Focus on Israel-Palestine is often considered "a single-issue obsession." People aware of the actual and symbolic implications of U.S. support for Israel understand, however, that it is the centerpiece of American foreign policy. Attempts to ignore, minimize or separate support for Israel from the multitude of international issues facing our nation are disingenuous.

Israel is not a "single-issue obsession." Support for Israel has become the litmus test for our convictions regarding the sanctity of human rights, the superiority of democratic government and the rule of international law.

Baldwin has been outspoken in her opposition to the war in Iraq, believing it could "destabilize the region and reinforce anti-American feeling across the world." No such concern informs her votes on Israel, the source of much greater regional instability and anti-American feeling around the world than Iraq.

Equally, Baldwin's claim that all nations should uphold the 1949 Geneva Conventions ring hollow, as do her concerns for civil liberties when juxtaposed to her unqualified support for Israel: Surely she knows that Israel is in violation of every relevant clause of the Geneva Conventions with regard to occupied Palestine; that it ignores the very concept of civil liberties for Palestinians both inside Israel and within the occupied territories; that it supports a system in which more than 400 checkpoints choke the interior of the West Bank, dividing families from each other, from schools, hospitals, businesses, farms, cities, villages and access to international borders; that Israel maintains a pass and permit system for Palestinians that makes the old South African apartheid system look mild; that a 26-foot-high concrete wall expropriates 10 percent of Palestinian land and all of its vital water resources in the name of "security," and that "sterile" - aka "Arab-free" - roads link up the illegal settlement infrastructure to Israel "proper," effectively annexing this land.

Indeed, a report issued this week by the World Bank rebukes Israel for keeping Palestinians off 50 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Appearing in public on numerous occasions with the student organization MadPAC, a student version of AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), Baldwin makes no attempt to ask difficult questions or broach uncomfortable subjects.

Baldwin's 2005 trip to Israel sponsored by the American Israel Educational Fund, an arm of AIPAC, has yet to blip on the radar screen of those who insist that she is an admirable progressive politician concerned with "balance." What is Tammy Baldwin doing associating herself so openly with one of the most right-wing, neoconservative lobby organizations in the United States?

Is Baldwin aware that AIPAC has openly supported the Iraq war, including President Bush's "surge" policy? Is she aware that AIPAC advocates military action against Iran? Does she know that AIPAC happily allies itself to groups such as Christians United for Israel that are openly racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist?

Does Baldwin have any idea what the human, social and economic costs of the siege imposed on a million and a half people of the Gaza Strip (50 percent of them under age 20) are - a siege she voted for and continues to support?

Does she know that Israel receives more free financial and military aid yearly from the United States than any other country in the world and, indeed, than any U.S. state?

Could these facts perhaps explain why blind support for Israel generates so much hostility by people tired of the pious claims of the U.S. that it stands, with Israel, for equality, freedom and justice?

What are those of us who follow U.S.-Israel policies to think of the sincerity of Tammy's stated convictions for human rights, democracy and international law when we witness these egregious double standards in her actions and her votes?

* * *

Of course, Tammy Baldwin is hardly the only member of Congress about whom we must ask these questions. The fact is she represents not the exception but the rule. Until this changes, American citizens have every right to "obsess" about why their elected representatives persist in the grotesque fawning over Israel that highlights more than any other international issue the callous hypocrisy of U.S. power.