International Political Will

The struggle for true democracy continues in many parts of the world, but the global battle we are told to fear - against the militant Islamic fundamentalists - is simply a distraction. The real fight is within our own societies over which system will wield power in the world: A representative democracy with power resting in the hands of the many; or an authoritarian plutocracy that manipulates information to suit the elite’s own greed.

The most recent skirmish surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney’s response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria and the tangled web of policies that Israel and America have spun.

On cue, the hawks in Washington did their best to label Pelosi as a traitor, one of “them,” someone who is “helping the terrorists,” thereby questioning the patriotism and loyalty of anyone who dares to step out of line. If you want to convince the American public that there is absolutely no reasoning with the enemy, no option but force, and that diplomacy is futile, you can’t have anyone proving otherwise.

Pelosi visited with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and reportedly informed him that “in order for Israel to engage in talks…[Syria] must eliminate its links with extremist elements, including Hamas.”

Pelosi conveyed a message that diplomacy would be an option - even towing the pro-Israeli lobby line that there would be no working with a democratically elected government (Hamas). Is that so bad?

But remember - the Bush administration hasn’t lifted nary a finger to promote peace in the region since taking office. Their half-assed “Road Map“ set unobtainable conditions for talks that put the onus of ending all violence entirely on the shoulders of the Palestinian people, simultaneously giving a green light for Israel to continue their violent attacks and economic repression, not to mention to illegally acquire more land for civilian settlements while surrounding the rest with a prison wall.

Here’s just a few of the “diplomatic” efforts the presidential team has engaged in to promote peace in the region during the last 16 months:

1) Refused to accept free and fair democratic election results in Palestine, arming and funding a terrorists group (Prime Minister Abbas’s Fatah Party and their al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade) in yet another manipulated attempt at thwarting democracy when it doesn’t suit America’s ends.

2) Gave tacit permission for Israel to bomb the hell out of Lebanon, bringing the democratically elected government there to its knees and wiping out any hope of a stable government, causing thousands of casualties just to root out a minority group of extremists.

3) Expedited arming Israel with cluster bombs, 90 percent of which were dropped in the last three days of the war with Lebanon, after a peace agreement had already been drawn up. (Many of the cluster bombs were dropped in civilian areas, 10-20 percent of which tend not to explode on impact but rather lie in wait until some small child picks it up.)

But back to Pelosi’s “bad behavior,” according to Cheney. The VP said he was concerned because “[t]he president is the one who conducts foreign policy.”

That is true. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that the president “shall have power…to make treaties…and he shall nominate…ambassadors.”

This has long been interpreted to mean that foreign policy is the realm of the presidential administration only - and rightfully so. You can’t have dozens of diplomatic forays being conducted by every ambitious member of Congress.

But the first two paragraphs of a Reuters story, one reprinted in dozens of media outlets, displays the contradiction:

Vice President Dick Cheney accused U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday of “bad behavior” on her Middle East trip, saying she bungled a message for Syria’s president that was later clarified by Israel.

Cheney harshly criticized Pelosi’s visit to Syria last week and declared in an interview, “The president is the one who conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.”

So if the US president is supposed to conduct foreign policy, why is Israel clarifying it? And if this is, in fact, Israel’s offer that Pelosi bungled, why would it fall under the duties of the US president? Who is conducting whose foreign policy here?

The problem is that neither Israel nor the United States is interested in any type of real diplomacy, instead passing off impossible preconditions for talks as expressions of “peace.” Diplomacy died in the Holy Land with the unholy union between the Likud Party in Israel and the Evangelical Neo-Cons in America.

Is there a more laughable association than that between a right-wing Jewish party driven to expand their ethnically-exclusive nation regardless of the native inhabitants, and those Evangelical Christians that await the Day of Judgment when all but 144,000 Jews will be wiped out by the second coming of Jesus?

These parties and their views represent a minority - extreme fringes that have hijacked their governments by conveniently wrapping themselves in either one of the two basic values that all people of the world can relate to: national security or God. It’s time for the people of each country to step away from the rhetoric and to speak; to let their voices be heard in a sea of misinformation, lies, stereotypes and fear-mongering.

Perhaps all Pelosi was trying to do was rekindle the real path of diplomacy and negotiations that were lost in the hard line politics of the intolerant.

Did she step out of line by trying to create her own foreign policy? Perhaps.

But the foreign policy of Israel and the U.S. is intertwined. Neither side can speak about peace without double-checking with their allies in a now perpetual war against Islam. Are people who truly seek compromise left with much of a choice?

Until real intimations and negotiations toward peace begin, with the moderates given a voice - those that make up the majority of their respective populations - there will be no respite from the “clash of civilizations.”

Because the “civilizations” clashing aren’t Muslim vs. Christian or Muslim vs. Jew, nor is it East vs. West.

It’s a clash in our own communities, our own nations, between the privileged and the oppressed. It’s a fight among those with a voice and those being silenced.

It’s a battle in our own backyard, between democracy for the many and authoritarianism perpetrated by the few.

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de·moc·ra·cy: The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

au·thor·i·tar·i·an·ism: Of, relating to, or expecting unquestioning obedience.

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Tags: Israel, diplomacy, Pelosi, Cheney, fake peace

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