A Letter to America - Letter to America by Ruby Amatullah

In the Pursuit of Reclaiming America

Ruby Amatulla

The Summary

The United States of America is an extraordinary society. It was the first society in our modern world to defeat a then-superpower, England, in the Revolutionary War, which ended colonial rule and achieved a new degree of freedom. Its constitution is the blueprint for democracy in the modern world. After an amazing 240-year history of struggles – the Civil War, the collective bargaining movement, the women’s liberation movement, the Civil Rights movement, etc. — the United States has emerged as one of the most dynamic, resilient, self-critical, and self-correcting nations in the world. As a predominantly immigrant country as well as a healthy democracy, it became one of the most diverse and pluralistic societies long before globalization had begun. These factors contributed to making the United States one of the most powerful and influential nations in the world.

However, since the Cold War as well as the 1967 Six-Day War, America has been dragged down from its trust and trampled upon its core principles. The golden era – when the world looked to America as the champion of freedom and democracy – has long gone. The world no longer thinks America stands in solidarity with dispossessed and disenfranchised people in their struggles for freedom – as it once used to, during the era of President Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

America is now looked upon as a collaborator with tyrants, puppet regimes, monarchies, and foreign occupations. These regimes are sustained by American policies. Currently, the world views America as one of the biggest hindrances to democracy and freedom.

This letter relates how one Middle Eastern country, Israel, convinced a strong democracy to ascribe to undemocratic state-sponsored terrorism. Pro-Israeli civic groups are not the only power brokers in this conflict. In addition, the military-industrial complex, large financial interests, and corrupt politicians have collaborated with pro-Israeli civic groups to create this outcome. The collision of special interests creates a government that is autocratic and subservient to the few at the cost of the common interests and welfare of the society.

Since 1967, never before has the United States government been under such a stranglehold. Collusion has reached new heights. Pro-Israeli groups have virtually hijacked the American government to further its interests, not only in the Middle East but around the world. Israel is taking every opportunity to demonstrate to the world that they are the real superpower by proxy – not America.

However, this gloomy state of affairs does not cause the writer to lose hope. If the American people remain determined, a paradigm shift can take place, as it did many times before while facing extraordinary challenges. Her confidence in America remains high. Costly and counterproductive confrontations of the Vietnam and Cold War eras came to an end not through military change, but through the collective will of Americans to save their nation. When they realized their policymakers were wrong, they raised their voices loud enough to be heard by Capitol Hill.

Anti-Vietnam-War and anti-militarism protests during the late 1960s and the early 1970s

The collective will of the American public prevails. Peace and constructive engagements of detente and the new China policy replaced the agenda of confrontation and destruction and the arch-enemies were turned into world partners for a while.

Again, the nation and the world are under a horrendous spell of corrupt governments who are robbing their respective societies to serve enormously powerful transnational alliances of elites and vested interests. America — under the influence of pro-Israeli groups, vested interests, and neoconservatives — is one of the major powers that is feeding and sustaining many of these puppet regimes that are vandalizing their own societies to serve themselves and the American elites that keep them in power. As a result peoples on all sides, including the American people, of an engagement, become victims. This vicious state can change only when the American public rises up and take charge.

Dear Fellow Americans:

My name is Ruby Amatulla, I was born and brought up in another land on the other side of the globe [see my profile] in a very different culture, and then, unexpectedly, brought to the United States of America [America] in the early 1970s, when it seemed I was destined to spend the rest of my life, raise a family, work on a career, run a business, then devote on issues I care about. I have also been keeping close ties with the land I am from as my root is there.

The land I came from, now called Bangladesh, where over 95 percent of the people speak the same language, and about 85 percent follow the same religion, Islam. For all practical purposes, it is a monolithic society with very little diversity. I love Bangladesh and I am proud of the rich history and culture of the people, the family values, the close-knit social networks, and the beautiful landscape of lush greenery of a South Asian country on the delta of three major rivers.

The United States of America, the land I came to, on the other hand, is a land of immigrants, a microcosm of the world, people from all corners of the world come here and make it their home. It is indeed a beautiful country! At first, the diversity shocked me, however, as time progressed I became a deep admirer of that diversity and the principles on the basis of which this diversity is maintained and protected. America’s conducive and pluralistic social culture and the impartial rule of law help integrate diverse people from very different cultures in a very short period of time. I am a witness to that dynamic culture in America.

It is my understanding that the pluralistic culture shaped by the universal values, diversity, and rapid integration process enable America to draw vitality, creativity, and potentiality from people coming from different parts of the world with different experiences and cultures to infuse and invigorate the entire society to become the most versatile and dynamic country in the world. This is one of the major contributors of America’s phenomenal success in our time.

When I came to America I experienced the last leg of the anti-Vietnam-War movement, the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate, and the Nuclear Freeze movement, and also saw the emergence of the breathtaking diplomacy of détente with the arch enemies – China and the Soviet Union. Nixon’s trip to China in 1972 was a diplomatic breakthrough. From war and turmoil to diplomacy and constructive engagements, a shift swept through across the length and breadth of the globe because the collective will of the American people against war and confrontation and for dialogue and peace came to prevail. I realized that the American people, a product of a long-struggling past to achieve equality and freedom, is a source of a positive change in the world.

The collective will in America, if untied and determined enough, can change America and that can create a profound impact in the rest of the world. ‘The Vietnam War did not end in Vietnam, it ended on the streets of America,’ I believe is correct. If history is any reference, America since its inception 240 years ago has been a major force shaping the global society we live in today.

Centuries ago in 1776 – an era in which European colonialists subjugated millions through a ‘might is right’ philosophy – America was able to achieve a miracle. An amazing group of thinkers, policymakers, and private citizens came to a consensus that colonial rule violates human dignity. They risked their personal lives and fellow countrymen to formulate the “Declaration of Independence,” stating that “all men are created equal……endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Ultimately, they defeated a superpower and freed their people, thus establishing the first democracy in the modern world. It was the very first time a colony ousted a colonial power to establish self-rule. The course of history has changed since.

The idea of the ‘God-given’ right of self-rule was a breakthrough in human thought. The French Revolution took place soon after, in 1789. The world ever since has gravitated towards this realization, which is also mentioned in all famous religious scriptures. In the opening speech of the Bandung Conference in 1955, President Sukarno of Indonesia most proudly reminded his audience and the rest of the world about this breakthrough. He described the American Revolution as “the first successful anti-colonial war in history.”

In the opening speech of the Bandung Conference in 1955, President Sukarno of Indonesia most proudly reminded his audience and the rest of the world about this breakthrough in human affairs started with America’s success in defeating a mighty colonial power to achieve liberty, ‘The American War of Independence, the first successful anti-colonial war in history” he declared. ¹

This nation has gone through many struggles to preserve its vision and values. A bloody Civil War in which 720,000 Americans perished in order to stop slavery, a lengthy collective bargaining movement to achieve workers’ rights, women’s’ liberation movement centuries in the making to achieve gender parity – all are extraordinary achievements in a nation that has shaped global culture. America’s contributions to human rights are undeniable. This spirit is part of what makes the nation great. It is one of the most self-critical and self-correcting nations in the world.

Through these difficult struggles, America emerged as the most self-critical and self-correcting nation in the world.

This strong foundation started to rot and erode since the Cold War started in the early 1950s and the landslide took place especially since the 1967 Middle East War.

This letter is about these forces that have rendered a nation like America to a state in which people now are afraid to talk, even if they raise a voice, it is not being heard, freedom of press is mostly robbed, the media is owned and controlled by these forces, and the government is held hostage to serve the special interests. Journalists, academics, writers, thinkers, even religious clergies are scared to freely speak without being labeled as ‘anti-Semitic’, unpatriotic, extremists, ‘terrorist-sympathizers’, etc. and face the consequences of losing their good names, positions, jobs, careers, businesses, even charitable endeavors. This state is reminiscent of the McCarthy era [1949-54] of fear-mongering and the Communist witch-hunting that paralyzed the nation with fear, prejudices, and self-doubt. Many innocent people became victims of a vicious political agenda to promote personal interests and at the same time promote militarism and confrontation. A courageous, most revered journalist, Edward R. Murrow, brought the end to that 4-year national nightmare in 1954. He reminded citizens:

“There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation, we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

He reminded the nation of its values and moral foundation to stand against prejudice mongering that erodes that foundation. He rescued America from that dark hour. ³

Politicians’ agenda, devoid of principles, that attempts to take advantage of a vulnerable time of a nation to promote their own interest must be invalidated and completely rejected. The call for citizens’ right to know and the responsibility to act is needed now more than ever as the nation is facing a moral, political, economic, and social crisis as never before.

Today, Murrow’s message is most relevant, as most of the politicians at the Capitol Hill are McCarthy-incarnates in the sense that in order to fulfill a political ambition they sacrifice ethics and values of themselves and that of their nation. Except few that are struggling to keep their commitments to the American people, most are betraying the American public in order to serve their interests by serving Israel and its allies – the military-industrial-complex [MIC], the big businesses, and the Wall Street.

They are promoting the concocted narrative of confrontation and militarism inevitable from the “the clash of civilizations’ and Islamophobia, vilifying and painting a whole segment of humanity with one brush. Taking this contentious premise and creating policies accordingly to serve their own interests. It is no different today than it was then. Then Murrow’s wisdom prevailed, a 4-year long McCarthyism was brought to an end in March of 1954. The question today is who is going to stop the tenacious corrosive agenda that is making our democratic institutions dysfunctional and the core values of America trampled for the last several decades?

A critical factor that helps to cover up the downfall of America and the forces that are behind this state of disgrace is the manipulation of media or outright blocking this vital conduit of public awareness. Many scholars, activists, thinkers are bringing up this alarming development in a free democratic society in which there could be information blackout and news blockade. These are posing threats to democracy and justice. Journalists, writers, professors, media personalities all feel threatened, losing their tenure, getting marginalized, lose their good name, and getting victimized by pro-Israeli groups and their alliances of elites and vested interests. This is being succinctly brought up by a documentary film by a few courageous Western people. ‘The Occupation of the A merican Mind’ ‘The Occupation of the American Mind, Israel’s Public Relation War in the United States’, a documentary film by Sut Jhally, Executive Producer, & Roger Waters, [see the movie free, please visit https://www.occupationmovie.org/ The documentary, in the beginning, lays down a quote from the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, that conveys the real reason behind the media and press distortion: “ It does not matter justice is on your side or not, you must depict it is.”

Some courageous American congressmen, former and present, are openly acknowledging that Israel has ‘stranglehold’ on both Houses of the Congress. When they oppose Israel’s policies of atrocities against non-Jewish people, they suffered.

The power and, therefore, the responsibility to change this intransigent state of national degradation and disgrace rests on the people themselves, as they are the only ones who can bring about a paradigm shift, that is most needed today. The past is a reference if the public is determined and united enough that change can take place like a tidal wave sweeping and cleaning Washington to reinstate the nation as the founders envisioned. Whenever America’s leadership promotes freedom and democracy the world transforms into a better state as we have seen after the Second World War. As the American democracy is becoming dysfunctional, it appears the undemocratic forces and the authoritarian governments are alarmingly on the rise.

Peace cannot be achieved or sustained without justice, and justice cannot be upheld by hiding or distorting the truth. Therefore arrogance, power-hunger, fear, prejudices, excessive greed, and other vices that tend to distort truth also obstruct justice and hinder peace. This relationship among peace, justice, and truth is timeless and universal.

The great American leaders understood this timeless principle and acted upon it. Any violation of a human right amounts to injustice. They fought a Revolutionary War to establish justice and fairness in the society that was denied under a Tyranny. In 1860 President Abraham Lincoln persevered to establish justice for the blacks and he and his nation endured the Civil War to achieve it. President Woodrow Wilson fought against big businesses and financial centers to help establish equity. In foreign affairs, after the victory at the World War I [WWI], going against his European allies he sent the King-Crane Commission to the Middle East to offer freedom and self-rule to the region in 1919. He set up the League of Nations consisting of many nations– big and small – to handle the world affairs in an inclusive and democratic fashion to help sustain peace and stability in the world. ⁴

In his footsteps, President Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR] established the New Deal at home, going against corporate America and big financial institutions, to pull the nation out of the worst economic crisis and to deliver social justice. He also, like Wilson, arranged to establish the United Nations to help establish justice and peace in the world. Both of these leaders, in spite of the fact that America emerged as the most powerful country in the world under their leadership, could dictate and dominate the world, instead, rejected such notion of “might is right” practices of the European colonial powers. They, willingly sought cooperation and inclusiveness of the global community to manage global affairs so that justice and fairness can prevail. They were guided by the principle of ‘equality, liberty, and dignity as the “inalienable” rights’ of all human beings, the idea on which America was founded. ⁵

These American leaders left behind a legacy of justice: in essence, they urged America to be a leader of peace in the world by remaining committed to the founding principles of the nation. They urged their country to stay in solidarity with the dispossessed, disenfranchised suffering people in the world in their struggles for freedom, dignity, and economic welfare. They realized without economic freedom a person is not free, and democracy becomes a meaningless system failing to deliver social justice. The achievements of these struggles are essential elements of peace and stability. They repeatedly pointed out that the root cause of conflicts and wars is injustice perpetrated by the powerful ones to the weak and vulnerable people.

Had Wilson been well enough to shape the 1919 Versailles Treaty, he could have implemented his ‘14 Points’ and the recommendations of his King-Crane Commission on the Middle East, as he was the most powerful party to lay down the future agenda. The European powers could not ruin that endeavor to achieve enduring peace. He could have helped the world avoid the Second World War and its most devastating carnage; he could have helped create a democratic, progressive, and prosperous Middle East where Jews, Christians, and Muslims all would live in peaceful coexistence, as they did for centuries before Israel was created in 1948. The King-Crane Commission, appointed by President Wilson, recommended these in its 1919 report that was kept hidden from the world for half a century under the pressures from the Zionist leaders after Wilson became sick and incapacitated. Perhaps there would not be a need for the “Manhattan Project” to introduce the nuclear self-destructive capability to mankind.

Had FDR lived after the World War II to help shape the world — Britain, France, and the rest of the European powers knew — the British empire would come to an end sooner, France would have to let go its colonial rule in Indochina and Vietnam would become independent in 1945. The Vietnam war, that took lives of over 60,000 Americans and 3 million people in Southeast Asia, would not even be a possibility, both the Soviet Union and China would be allies as FDR was planning to make them so, in order to compel the European powers to let go of their colonial grip on the world, the Cold War perhaps would not take place, even if it did, it would have a shorter subdued life-span existence. A new world order would have emerged — avoiding many other bloodsheds and turmoil that actually took place since — making the planet a much better place for countless people. The state of Israel — with exclusive privileges for Jews at the expulsion and cost of the indigenous people — would not take place as he was vehemently opposed to it. Therefore, the Middle East would be a democratic and peaceful region supported and sustained by the pluralistic global culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence as FDR envisioned. Above all, today, America would not be victimized by Israel.

These were the visionary American leaders who were committed to the cause of America and that of humanity. They were understood and supported by the vast majority of American people. Being the leaders of the superpower and the most influential nation in our time they bent over backward to make the world a fairer and better place.

It is my understanding that had America retained the legacy of its visionary leaders and the trust and confidence the nation earned from the global community under their leadership, facing the challenges of the succeeding periods, the superpower could have achieved most of its objectives in the world at the fraction of the price it paid and saved the world from horrendous death and destructions draining tens of trillions of dollars from American taxpayers. America has ever been paying an extremely high price for deviating from that path of wisdom.

The American founders were dedicated to a set of universal principles, which are the foundation of this nation; they left behind a good system of governance and left behind a directive for the succeeding generations that if a government fails to serve the people, the latter should remove the former and replace it with one that would do.

Today, the world is regressing on human rights and democracy, authoritarian governments are on the rise behind the façade of democracy, and there is a rising discontent among the vast majority of the global population, because the beacon of liberty, America, they once thought would be beside them in their struggles and sufferings is no longer there.

I have repeatedly asked myself the question of how these groups and forces that tend to exploit a society could be managed in a way that these would become useful servants of the society instead of becoming its masters. The founding American leaders provided some answers, the system they left behind are still necessary but not sufficient to handle the complexities of the global society we live in today. Facing immensely powerful transnational networks and alliances of elites and vested interests that collude with each other to enhance their respective domain of influence and power, to benefit few at the cost of the vast majorities on all sides of engagements, we need to come up with more effective ways to confront these vicious forces that are creeping up underneath the radar of manipulated and distorted media to destroy everything good and vital this nation is meant to stand for.

The only people that can bring about that change are the American people. As Edward R Murrow reminded the nation seven decades ago facing a crisis that the citizens of a republic cannot abdicate their responsibility if they want the republic to succeed.

There is a high correlation between the attitude of the American leadership and that of the democratic state of the world. The Freedom in the World 2018 Report by the Freedom House demonstrated that by 2006 there was a hike in the democratic improvement around the world when the Bush administration was pushing for freedom and democracy in the global society. It started to decline as President Bush started to withdraw from his drive on his freedom doctrine to promote democracy, especially in the Middle East under the pressure from Israel, in the world. It appears since Donald Trump was elected in 2016 democratic state of the world has declined substantially. ⁶

This letter, therefore, is addressed to the American public, especially to the younger generation that carries the torch for tomorrow. The younger leadership, if they are conversant with the past struggles of their great nation and the milestones it attained, should be able to find the inspiration to generate the momentum.

As Senator Bernie Sanders and the former President Jimmy Carter expounded that changes are not going to come from Washington DC, it is rotted to the core. Changes are going to come from the people at the grass-root level. If the American people are determined and united enough they can bring about a paradigm shift in American policies, bring about a peaceful revolution both in domestic and foreign affairs to reinstate their values and reclaim their nation. ⁷

An American Success Story the World Noticed

During the Watergate period, in the early 1970s, I was new to the country and an undergraduate student in America, frequently visiting my parents at their Chevy Chase home in Maryland. My father was among the first batch of diplomats sent to Washington to represent Bangladesh, a newly liberated country then, previously known as East Pakistan. Until President Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, the most addictive routine was to watch the Watergate events with my father, a keen observer of world politics. We used to be glued to the television set and devoured the newspapers as soon as dropped at our front door early morning to find out what was happening next. It was an exciting time as we were witnessing an extraordinary event to unfold and with it a glimpse of how Washington and America worked. We were extremely proud of and hopeful about America that President Nixon, an influential politician who won the second term in the oval office and who made the visionary visit to China in 1972 — a breathtaking diplomatic move that later helped change the world — could not avoid facing the due process of law. I was not an American then but emotionally I became one. I was elated with the whole episode as a victory of truth and justice over might and human manipulative power. This was possible because some Americans decided to stand up to the bully of the President by exposing the leader, and some resigned to show rejection. That is the America the founding leaders and leaders like Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, and Martin Luther King toiled to build: A nation of rule of law based on sound values and universal principles, and no one even the President of the country is above the law. The Cold War started to erode the spirit of the nation, but it appeared from the Watergate that the core still was intact.

The Downfall: When the public looks the other way and remains silent

Today is a different reality: the nation is divided and polarized, there is no such movement against Washington when the government is openly supporting, funding, and colluding with undemocratic and repressive governments abroad, especially Israel. The government has been sanctioning enormous funds for militarism that is provoking a confrontation in the world instead of promoting diplomacy and development to achieve conflict resolution and harmony. On the domestic front, there is extreme income inequality, unsustainable national debt, and the most irresponsible and reckless spending by the Congress that is producing chronic budget deficits leading to the unsustainable national debt that needed to be passed on to the shoulder of the future generations. These are all alarming signs of dysfunction, disgrace, and degradation.

In 1956, when the Cold War started to intensify, an American sociologist, C. Wright Mills, identified some of the predatory forces in the society, their interwoven interests, and their collusion with each other to render the American government captive and the public helpless. He termed them as “power elite”

According to Mills, the power elite are the key top people in the three major sides of a modern society: 1) Economy; 2) Government; and 3) Military. However, taking full advantage of the Cold War and its threats, the power of the power elite grew exponentially.

One of the key strategies is that the power elite keeps the common people deprived and preoccupied with struggles of life distracting from activism and participation in the processes of democracy to compel the government accountable.

The other reason, I think, is that facing the enormous threats of a possible nuclear confrontation and the complexities of the Cold War, the American public for a long while remained totally dependent on the ‘power elite’ and remained submissive to their decisions. That was a dangerous state of lack of public scrutiny, the elites and vested groups took full advantage of to promote their own interests. President Truman was urged to “scare the hell out of the country” to increase the military budget enormously. The military-industrial-complex [MIC] and its complementary forces such as the big businesses or corporate America, the financial center [Wall Street], and the corrupt and colluding politicians in Washington all worked together in an alliance to increase their individual and collective gain. ⁸

President Eisenhower also warned the nation in 1956 about the subversive agenda of the MIC.

Since the 1967 Middle East War, the pro-Israeli groups emerged as a powerful elite force. Taking full advantage of the phenomenal Israeli success in defeating all its Arab neighbors, the pro-Israeli forces mobilized the Jewish Americans to contribute and participate in the campaigns of capturing the command center, the Capitol Hill and the White House, of America. The Israeli victory ignited the Jewish spirit in America as never before. The Jewish money, Jewish participation in an election, Jewish activism increased many folds. As a result, Jewish support in any election became a deciding factor in its outcome. Again taking full advantage of this state the pro-Israeli lobbies and groups became relentless and exhaustive in pursuing, manipulating, threatening, and even bribing, directly and indirectly, each and every member of both Houses of Congress, to vote in favor of bills that would serve Israeli interests, even that goes against the interests and welfare of the American public. Having had a firm grip on Congress, they then offer their support and services to elite groups like the military-industrial-complex and big businesses with a demand for unconditional support for the Israeli interests, even that goes against the constitution, the core values of the nation. Israel then caters its services to overseas rogue and undemocratic countries with the same demand for unconditional support for the Zionist cause. Taking full advantage of this situation Israel now pulls a lot of strings in many directions. Israel became almost invincible.

The wealth gap between the rich and the rest of America is the highest ever recorded in human history. “Wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence”, says Thomas Piketty, ⁹ a world-renowned economist. At the same time, 27 million Americans do not have health insurance, while a huge segment – 43 million Americans – of the society living below the poverty line. However, the tiny superrich group is getting a 100-billion-dollar tax cut by this Trump administration and have long been enjoying similar tax policies in favor of them. The top 1% gets 52% of national income every year. The top 1% owns more wealth than the rest 99%. Only three persons now hold more wealth than the bottom half of America and 20% own absolutely nothing. ¹⁰

There are chronic budget deficits leading to a national debt of 24 trillion in 2018 when the GDP is about 20 trillion. Yet the US Congress has increased the national debt by 1.9 trillion dollars in 2018 alone: a reckless and careless move by a body of people’s representatives that are supposed to look after the nation. There is a 5 trillion-dollar student loan that the young generation can never payback. The backbreaking national debt now is being transferred to the shoulder of the next generations. Their future also looks bleak.

The military-industrial complex [MIC] has long been draining America’s treasury producing many costly chains of outcomes and lingering counterproductive state of affairs abroad to serve its own interests as was warned by Eisenhower in 1956. Today, when there is no Cold War, the Congress still has been sanctioning an enormous budget for the military to serve the vested interests, not the people. This year, 2018, Bernie Sanders exposed that the government is going to give 700 billion dollars (more than the combined defense spending of the next ten countries) to defense, half of that goes directly to the big defense contractors. In a recent Senate hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders exposed the preposterous military spending in America in which corruption, frauds, mind-boggling cost overruns among the defense contractors are common occurrences. A very alarming fact is that Congress has failed to conduct an audit of the discrepancies of the defense industry for the last 28 years. This is possible because the pro-Israel lobby has long been colluding with the military vested interests to get the bills passed through both the Houses of Congress that are costly and detrimental to the true interests of the nation.

These are all alarming signs of mismanagement, corruption, insincerity, lack of leadership all amounting to injustices to the public. Democracy is not all about holding elections, sending representatives to the Capitol Hill to hold sessions of the Congress. These are means to achieve greater ends: The goals of democracy is to uphold rights and liberty, achieve social justice and common welfare, protect the society, and help create a conducive environment in which people can attain their potential so that most of the people feel good about their government.

Every poll or survey indicates they are not. When people’s rights are protected and people are informed through the uncontrolled media, these levels of discrepancies simply cannot take place. People are bluffed and misled. The Government, media, academia, and think tanks all participate in that process of betraying the public, as they are all owned or controlled by the rich and the powerful elites. As the great American leaders proclaimed that true freedom cannot be achieved in the absence of economic freedom and social justice, America is not free. Instead, the American government has become a plutocracy, a government-run by the relatively a tiny community of the rich and powerful to serve their interests and not that of the people.

For a long time, the government’s irresponsible and unfair policies favoring the rich and big businesses have brought the economy to this level in which a vast segment of society is silently suffering and struggling to make ends meet while the rich are getting super-rich. The ever more power-hunger of the rich people to control the government to serve them at the cost of the common people is also alarming. There are alarming numbers, and continuously increasing, of corporate lobbies stationed in Washington to manipulate and subvert the government in their favor. Therefore, it is no wonder that there is an ever-increasing rate of merging and buy-outs that have been taking place for a long time. At every business merging or buy-out, there are job cuts and other cost-cutting measures that help place more profit at the hands of the top people while a substantial segment takes pay-cuts, longer hours, and suffer. Merging or buy-out consolidates businesses that often stifle competition in the market including the job market and help create an unfair distribution of wealth in the society. Big businesses now control every aspect of the economy than ever before.

This is, however, is not new. These trends and unfair practices caused the 1929 stock market crash and the economic depression of the 1930s. However, by dedicated leaders like Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the twentieth century broke up the Standard Oil into 9 different companies to help bring about competition and stop subversive practices. President Woodrow Wilson has also put up a fight against subversion of big businesses, he was a vanguard of common people’s interest. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought about the New Deal – socialistic capitalism – that pulled the nation out of the worst economic depression. The big businesses did not like that at all. He made a lot of enemies, but he held firm to serve the common cause. President Kennedy fought vigorously against the steel industry that became subversive. Therefore, a good leader and good government look after people’s interests. Those are the people America needs to bring to power. This is the most powerful way to help bring about a change. However, that change cannot take place while people remain divided and disorganized. That is what thinkers like C. Wright Mills warned the nation about a long time ago. ¹¹

In the absence of that what we have is a man like Donald Trump who just gave a 100-billion-dollar tax cut to the super-rich, the top people of big businesses including the military industry.

A Fortune magazine article lays down that the top 1% in big businesses take 87% of the bottom 50% employees to do. ¹² The government policies are responsible for such horrendous unfairness and outright injustices. From 1978 to 2011, CEO compensation increased more than 725 percent (a rise substantially greater than stock market increase) and the painfully slow 5.7 percent growth in worker compensation over the same period.” ¹³ These are alarming signs of decay and dysfunction of the American democracy.

The top economists with a sense of greater social responsibilities such as Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffry Sachs, and others indicate that such concentration of wealth has terrifying consequences for democracy. I believe the ‘terrifying consequences’ already have taken place and the American government is an oligarchy now serving few while abandoning the common people, the system against which the founding generation fought a Revolutionary War to abolish.

I felt for a long time that one of the root reasons behind this dysfunctional state is giving extreme emphasis on individualism and individual rights in the Western world in general and in America in particular. This creates an extreme imbalance between the individual rights and collective rights of a society to remain healthy, stable, and sustainable.

Chris Hedges, a scholar, and thinker, recently said something as to that effect. He wrote in a recent book: “As long as we fold inward and embrace a hyper-individualism that is defined by selfishness and narcissism, we will never overcome this estrangement.” ¹⁴

When the nation was born naturally there was a focus on individual freedom and rights as these had been disregarded and trampled during the monarchical/colonial rule that existed at that time. However, now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. The acceptance of few individuals, using the extreme advantage at their disposal, can manipulate the government and the economy, and consequently, the vast majority suffers and remains at the mercy of the people at the top. This is extremely unfair, unhealthy, undemocratic.

America has been robbed while the American people have been sleeping. The democratic forces and the undemocratic forces exist side by side in a society. The undemocratic forces such as the ‘power elite’ always watch for and take advantage of the lack of vigilance of the people. If anyone would have checked Obama’s voting record as a Senator who obsessively favored big businesses during his two-year tenure, ¹⁵ the people would not vote for him. When people do not find out whom they are voting for, they get the deals they deserve. The elite deliberately creates stressful situations in which the public remains preoccupied and fails to pay adequate attention to governance.

When a man like Mr. Donald Trump becomes the president of America, it is indeed a disgrace. A man that is devoid of moral compass, devoid of any vision or leadership quality, the man that chased money, ego, and lust all his life, the man does everything to stay in power, supports anything and any group that would help him to get what he wants, personally, irrespective of the disservices they do to America. Indeed it is a downfall and disgrace of this great nation.

The American people hold the ultimate social power, according to the American constitution, to change their government. The ‘Occupy Movement’ did neither fail nor disappear; it helped to create many splinter groups across the country working relentlessly at the grass-root level fighting powerful groups. ¹⁶ I am hopeful and confident about the nation, I believe, if the past is the reference, that the American people have acquired enormous capacity to change and fight back to correct itself.

Fiercely promoting militarism and marginalizing diplomacy to serve the ‘Power-Elites’ and to rob the American public

Whenever America uses the tools of diplomacy and constructive engagements, such as the Marshall Plan and détente, its true victories are achieved, and its leadership is globally accepted

The policy-makers allocate a huge budget for the military while cutting down for the diplomacy and conflict resolution projects of the State Department. When diplomacy and development are marginalized, conflicts and confrontation increase to demand increased military spending. This may be good for the military-industrial-complex and other elites, it is definitely bad for the interests and welfare of the common people of the country. ¹⁷

The State Department used to be an indispensable instrument of American power when America was promoting peace. Now, the Defense Department is given the paramount importance to promote conflicts and confrontations. Since the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, the United States’ international affairs budget tumbled by 30 percent: ‘the State Department pulled the plug on 26 consulates and fifty mission of the US Agency of International Development [USAID]. ¹⁸ America’s military spending and muscle-flexing is a contributing factor for the confrontational state that existed during the Cold War as it is now. America’s 100 military bases pose threats to China and Russia to provoke more militarism and confrontation.

War on terror is a military-focused agenda that failed after almost two decades and spending trillions of dollars by the Western powers. The only beneficiaries are the military, big businesses, and Israel.

Had the root causes of radicalism were addressed after the 9/11 — the epic injustice done to Palestinians, acting on the Bush doctrine to spread democracy in the world especially to the conflict-prone areas, etc. – perhaps trillions of dollars could be saved.

The Cold War ended in 1989 but the legacy of the Dulles brothers is in full force in Washington. The ruthless, destructive, repressive, and undemocratic agenda they had propagated are picked up by the new generations of pro-Israeli neocons who have taken the agenda to a new level of subversion.

In 2003 Iran offered a comprehensive peace and cooperation proposal to the United States. The neocons in the Bush administration ignored the proposal and hid it from the American public. Instead, a vehemently confrontational strategy had been undertaken against Iran. If the path of diplomacy and constructive engagement was taken at that time tens of trillions of dollars could have been saved both in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Syria. Many scholars and journalists have written to condemn the neocon policy by which both the American people and the Iranian people have been victimized. The shareholders and top executives of many defense contractors made enormous profit out of these violent conflicts, that could have been avoided.

America now needs to cut down on military spending and set diplomacy and constructive engagements as indispensable instruments of America’s power and leadership. ¹⁹

The Israeli Agenda that Destroyed Amerca’s Leadership in the World

Before I talk about the most powerful undemocratic and subversive force, Israel, I want to assure the readers that I am not an anti-Semite and I never was. On the contrary, I have been, all my life, even from a very young stage a universal person. I remember growing up in East Pakistan, a Muslim majority country, I used to get extremely annoyed and disturbed by derogatory and discriminating comments about the Hindu minority community and about Hindu religion, so much so that I used to get involved in lengthy verbal fight, without knowing much I used to get frustrated for not being able to defend or convince others about my ideas that God has created us all. My parents, especially my father appreciated my views as he believed the same. This inherent propensity to see all human beings as the creation of God and as equals in dignity, has been nurtured and reinforced first by my parents at a very young age, especially my father, then the Quran as I started to study the Scripture seriously and as time progressed it reinforced my inherent inclination to see all in the bond of a greater family bond, and then later on by the diversity and pluralistic culture of America where I spent most of my life. In my 30s I searched the Quran, the scripture I follow, as well as other scriptures that the Quran validates as God’s Books, to find out about the commonality in the purpose of all religions. I did find profound Messages in the Quran and other scriptures. The universal messages and universal brotherhood I found in the Quran, have been lost from the regular discourse in the Muslim world. These universal messages are the core of the Book that I laid down on the website I created: www.consultquran.com and uploaded about 8000 files on the Quran.

When I was young and I did not know much, I used to always take Israel’s side and argued that the Arab states are many consisting of huge areas, they should support the tiny state Israel, therefore, they should pursue a good relationship with Israel. I used to argue that there are so many Muslim majority countries, why there cannot be a Jewish state? I used to blame the Arabs for not accepting the UN resolution 181. It was so much so that one of my family members used to tease me by calling me a “Jew lover.” I used to laugh and replied to him that I was a “mankind lover.” I have many Jewish friends and some ex-family members that are Jews. I love them, and they love me. I remember I was proud and astonished when the Entebbe rescue operation took place in 1976: I was very excited to see that all captives were rescued by a daredevil operation of Israeli commandos. I remember I was so excited that I loved to share that story with anyone and everyone I met at that time. My ideas started to change when the Oslo agreement had dwindled and I dug deeper to find out why.

However, I know that after reading this letter many would try to label me as an anti-Semite to discredit my work and invalidate my intention. This is their usual tactic to harass and penalize people who have conscience, integrity, and courage to speak out about Israel’s crimes against humanity. I am not worried about them; they should be worried about people like me that are committed to truth and through that help achieve harmony and not confrontation. Their agenda is to subvert truth, mine is to expose it for the sake of justice, without which peace cannot be achieved or sustained.

I support and work with those Jewish organizations that are committed to the cause of peace and justice as I am. I am an admirer of Jewish historians/activists/scholars who are courageous, men/women of integrity, and are fighting for the greater cause of peace and justice just the same way I do. I have referred some of their work in this letter. I definitely would vote for a Jewish person like Bernie Sanders if he decides to run for the top position of America. I will do everything in my ability to help his campaign. We need leaders like that irrespective of his/her creed, race, ethnicity, or gender.

The Middle East – The Tinder Box of the World

Israel’s decisive victory at the 1967 Middle East War electrified the Jewish communities around the world, particularly in America. The victory helped inspire and mobilize the American Jewry towards united political actions to serve Israel’s interests. Before 1967 many Jews were not convinced about the Jewish state in Palestine. In fact, there were protests and rallies against such a state as many believed it was against the directives of the Torah. This position became reversed after the victory.

Israel took full advantage of this consolidation of American Jewry in its favor. There were influential Jews in Wall Street, in Washington, in academia, in every cross-section of America that became convinced of Israel’s strength and shrewdness. Before this time they were dedicated Americans contributing to society enormously. After 1967, many Jews in America became dedicated Israelis, even betraying America. Zionist organizations like AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), etc. work relentlessly to create a shift in the hearts and minds of many American Jews. Establishing this strong umbilical cord in America Israel became extremely ambitious, reckless, hegemonic, uncompromising, and brutal in its oppression of the Palestinian people as if the rest of the world did not matter. The American election processes, media, academia, all fell victim to Israeli interests. A new agenda of political hand-twisting, threats, manipulation, bribing, and persuasion emerged in Washington. Ever since this is the way the pro-Israeli groups try to control each and every policy-makers and administration in Washington.

Many times Israel dragged America to do certain things on the international front that completely disgraced America, trampled its values; even violated the constitution of America.

Israel does not shy away from demonstrating its power. It takes every opportunity to show the world that it is not America but Israel that is the superpower now by proxy. Iran nuclear deal is one example where a sound multilateral agreement by almost all major powers and a commitment of the previous American administration had to be violated simply because Israel wants it. Israel seems to give the world a signal that the American presidents are just Israel’s servant. If they do not comply with Israel’s wish, he would have to be defeated along with his political party.

A conflict resolution and peace do not benefit the MIC and a democratic region does not serve Israel’s interests. Democracy translates into rule of law and that is a roadblock towards conflicts, the Israeli agenda. The people of the region overwhelmingly reject Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian and brutal oppression against the weak and defenseless people.

The monarchies and authoritarian governments in the region are supported and sustained by the Western countries to ensure that there is a steady flow of oil to serve their interests. However, that policy has left the region ever full of tension, turmoil, bloodshed, violence, and volatility. This is being openly admitted by the former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, before an Arab audience in 2005. “For sixty years,” she said, “my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East – and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” ²⁰

The Bush administration initially was dedicated to the cause of democracy in the world in general and in the Middle East in particular. The administration initially pushed the Mubarak regime to accommodate the Muslim Brotherhood in the parliamentary election, urged Lebanon to include Hezbollah in the political process, and compelled Israel to allow a fair and free election in the West Bank and Gaza and let Hamas participate in the election. The region became euphoric about the possibility, the Arab street expressed ‘America was not as Crusader but as a champion of the dispossessed’. Large majorities throughout the region told pollsters that they believed the United States truly wanted to see the Muslim world move toward democracy. A few months after the President’s second inaugural speech in January 2006 the Gallup International found that 78% of people in the Middle East considered democracy “the best form of government.”

♦♦♦

One can imagine, after all these years since 1967, the most intensive, extensive, exhaustive, and relentless efforts by the pro-Israeli groups from the Capitol Hill to the grass-root levels of the society to indoctrinate with lies, manipulate, mislead, and hide truth could accomplish in order to blackmail or by the American policymakers to keep them hostage to Israeli interests. The money, resources, connections the pro-Israeli groups used in America are unmatched and unparalleled, other vested groups only dream about this kind of influence on the American government. Jewish money is a major factor in both congressional or presidential elections. ²¹ The presidential candidates “depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 percent of the money raised from private sources”. Besides in every election, there are heavy Jewish voter turnout rates, especially in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, which increases their weight in determining who becomes the president. K13 A similar story for the representatives at both Houses of Congress. It is the election the pro-Israeli groups concentrate on to put pressures on a candidate to support the Israeli agenda. There are 200 Jewish groups that work relentlessly with the Israeli lobbies to help create a stranglehold on the government.

As Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six different secretaries of state on the Middle East and Arab-Israeli affairs put it: “There is a danger in a policy in which there is no daylight whatsoever between the government of Israel and the government of the United States.” ²²

Former American president Jimmy Carter, among others, has repeatedly brought up, in spite of receiving undeserved criticisms from the Zionist community, publicly that Israel’s long-term occupation and atrocities against the Palestinians is the worst case of human rights violations. Paradoxically enough, in spite of America being an open and democratic society there is no open and fair public discussion or debate in America about this ‘horrendous’ injustice in our time, Carter expresses his disappointment and frustration. ²³ There is a total blackout about Palestine even in the major networks and press. This is an incomprehensible state for a democracy, especially for America. Thomas Jefferson and other founding leaders and all the true servants of this nation have unequivocally emphasized always that without the freedom of press democracy cannot survive. The Zionist groups and pro-Israeli groups have systematically destroyed this vital element of democracy to subvert American rule of law and its values.

They are having the record number of houses with swimming pools with water robbed from the poor Palestinians in the neighborhood. 97% of Gaza’s water is contaminated because Israel has blown-up and destroyed its infrastructure. This kind of inhumanity is rare in history.

Vilifying and Dehumanizing Arabs and Funding Islamophobia in the West

The pro-Israeli groups are all focused to portray the Muslim world in general and Arabs in particular as ideologically belligerent and intolerant, culturally uncouth and backward, historically tribal, and unfit for democracy. Therefore, it is justified to deny Arabs democracy and freedom. A Muslim majority- society needs to be managed and controlled by the sophisticated and civilized West via puppet authoritarian rule otherwise the people are going to be enemies of the West. To condition the Western mind towards this goal, they use some hand-picked extremely biased Jewish historians like Bernard Lewis who, using cherry-picked facts, writes to demean and degrade Muslims. His articles like “The Roots of Muslim Rage” in The Atlantic in Sept. 1990 try very hard to convince readers that the anger Muslims feel towards the West comes from their own inferiority complex and insecurity, they are envious of the superiority and prosperity of the West. He writes: “Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified.” ²⁴

Along with that line a writer, Samuel Huntington writes the book, a best-seller, The Clash of Civilization, ²⁵ in which he attempts to convince his readers that there are inherent differences due to ingrained cultures for centuries that are not reconcilable. He suggests, through his cherry-picked self-serving facts to concoct a narrative that the future conflicts are going to take place along the fault line of culture. He writes: “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics.” His suggestion for the Western military and policy-makers is to remain strong and keep the opponents weak and divided. In this case, the opponents are mostly Muslim majority societies. The prejudice and fear-mongering against Muslims are alarming. He is suggesting to find a military solution when there is no military solution.

Anyway, reputable late Edward Said, a former professor at Columbia, refuted both Lewis and Huntington and people like them on many grounds. His article ‘The Clash of Ignorance’ in the Nation, ²⁶ a point-by-point rebuttal of these misrepresentations of facts exposes the real sinister intentions of promoting prejudices against the Muslim majority societies. His lecture on the ‘Myth of the Clash of Civilizations’ also exposes another root reason: promoting cynicism for the military planner in the West. He said that this kind of ideas and arguments deepen and prolong conflicts as the understanding gets distorted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPS-pONiEG8

Why it is so difficult to see that culture and ideological differences never cause conflicts and confrontations unless one group does injustice to another and encroach upon another’s rights. The root cause of conflict is injustice and oppression. When one group tries to dominate or subjugate another group and try to rob land, freedom, and dignity from the latter, that is what causes violent confrontations and wars. The differences among the diverse communities in a pluralistic society like America or anywhere else never should cause bloodshed and violent confrontations because people, generally, accept the other on equal terms as a human being should look at another. This mindset of pluralism gets ingrained in society because of the impartial rule of law that promotes and enforces that culture.

Granted, due to the long difficult past here would be pockets of people on both sides with feelings of vengeance. However, Tutu said that no situation is hopeless. If one goes around the world and sees that is happening in Northern Ireland or South Africa or El Salvador where this kind of reconciliation was beyond comprehension even a decade or a few decades ago.

The problem with Zionists is that the group is stuck in the past and cannot step forward into the promise of the future. It is true that the deep resentment of subjugation, massacres, bloodshed, and destructions exist now between the Palestinians and Israelis. In a positive change and set up that promises a better collective life all these wounds can heal sooner than one can expect. History is a testament to the fact that when a future is offered that all parties can trust, even die-hard rebels and extremists can become peaceful neighbors and polished politicians in a system and society that is supervised and guarded initially by a big power or the international community.

When people seek commonality in diversity and respect others’ rights including self-determination and freedom, a conflict fails to arise. If Jews did not go for expulsion of Palestinians from their own homes and villages, a grave injustice and crimes against humanity, instead saw them as equals and human beings deserving liberty and dignity as themselves, this long one hundred years of bloodshed and turmoil would not take place, America would not be a victim of Israeli policies, the region could be democratic and prosperous and inhuman sufferings of countless people could be all avoided, the Muslim world would now distrust and dislike America so much, 9/11 would not take place, American involvement anywhere in the Muslim world perhaps would not cause furious anger and resistance.

♦♦♦

Israel has become America’s Biggest Liability

The relationship with Israel cost America “blood and lives.” Israel “owns Congress” are the words coming from a former CIA intelligence officer for 20 years, Michael F. Scheuer, author, foreign policy critic, and political analyst, and a former adjunct professor at Georgetown University. ²⁷ Even though, his comments are taken as ‘outrageous’ and controversial by some, there are many other prominent figures in the world that concur with him. As one Israeli general recently pointed out that Israel is becoming a liability for America. ²⁸

In March 2010, General David Petraeus, then head of the US Central Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a testimony that Israel had become a liability for the US and that has become a challenge to “security and stability”, which his country aimed to achieve.

Israel has been a liability for America. Let alone the various serious episodes of Israeli spying on Washington and bartering US secrets and technologies with Russia and China, Israel has been the cause of instability in the Middle East region. ²⁹

The Pew Global Attitudes Survey reported in 2002 that “public opinion about the United States in the Middle East/Conflict Area is overwhelmingly negative,” and much of this unpopularity stems from the Palestinian issue. ³⁰

According to Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert, “No other issue resonates with the public in the Arab world, and many other parts of the Muslim world, more deeply than Palestine. No other issue shapes the regional perceptions of America more fundamentally than the issue of Palestine. Many other scholars and experts, Muslim or Western, concur with this view.

Zogby International also had a survey in six Arab countries and reported that an overwhelming percentage of respondents indicated that they have a negative view of America primarily because of the unfair Middle East policy. ³¹

On the direction of the American Congress, an advisory group from the State Department reported in June 2003 that “citizens in these countries – in the Muslim world – are genuinely distressed at the plight of the Palestinians and at the role they perceive the United States to be playing.” ³²

Other government studies and numerous public opinion polls offer the same conclusion that even though people in the Muslim world often like America’s science and technology, great trust in US products, American movies, and TV, and positive view of the American people and their core values, American democracy, pluralistic culture, etc., they despise American foreign policies towards the Muslim world in general and America’s blind support for Israel when Israel is committing such monstrous crimes against the Palestinian people, in particular, is simply wrong and unjust. America, they feel, has double standards as its policies violate its own professed values and principles.

Finally, King Abdulla II of Jordan offered a similar view in March 2007, telling a joint session of Congress that “the denial of justice and peace in Palestine….is the core issue. And this core issue is not only producing severe consequences for our region, but it is also producing severe consequences for our world.” [David Shelby, “Jordan’s King Abdulla stresses Urgently of Mideast Peace Process,” March 7, 2007, www.uninfo.state.gov.

♦♦♦

CONCLUSION

A peace activist recently wrote in the introduction to his recent book “Palestine is slowly becoming global – a social issue that all movements fighting for social justice need to embrace.” ³³ There are deeper reasons behind this statement. The Palestine Israel has created for the last seven decades is the epic injustice in our time and it will be remembered for generations and centuries. It captures the essence of injustice: an extremely powerful and influential country, coming into existence through manipulation to displace the indigenous population of the land, and then perpetrate genocide on the remaining population so that eventually they also vacate even the remaining 22% where the West Bank and Gaza are standing. This indeed is an epic injustice in our time. Other episodes of bloodshed, massacres, did not span more than a decade or so, somewhere for a year or few months. However, the massacres, destruction of homes and properties, Israel has destroyed ten thousand homes in Gaza and the West Bank since its creation systematically blowing up homes and buildings, according to the Amnesty International.

Humanity has come a long way to a new era in which people find common cause with others to live in peaceful coexistence. In this highly interconnected and interdependent global society with the emerging culture of accepting the other is the norm, it is a huge achievement for mankind.

The question that haunts me all the time is why these counterproductive ways to create a win-lose state of affairs? Why looking for a zero-sum game, extremely costly, caustic, soul-depleting, humanity-degrading, counterproductive outcomes that is not a solution in the long run? Where there are much better options are available in this pluralistic global society of peaceful coexistence producing a sustainable win-win state, why going for contention and bloodshed?

During these long seven decades, Israel could have gone for a two-state solution and bring peace in Palestine and region. It would not be all fair, but it would ease the Palestinian pain and help heal the deep wound that is felt by a people to have lost their homes, loved ones, and forefathers’ land. Israel could have willingly go back to the border provided by the UN Resolution 181 thereby returning 45% of the land to the Palestinians they used to have before Israel, and Israel keeping the 55%. Even that is unfair because the Palestinians have had a higher right on the land and they were 60% of the combined population, right now about half. However, for the sake of peace and a better future and with the involvement of the international community, especially Israelis would be a little considerate to give assistance in a gesture of compensation. There are about the same number of Jews, 6 million, as there are 6 million Arab Palestinians now. The 55-45 split could still be accepted. Then help Palestine become self-rule with a viable economy. This would have erased many bad feelings and helped heal the wounds. If there could be peace in Ireland when many people thought there was no hope, if there could be a conflict resolution and reconciliation in places like El Salvador in 1992, South Africa in 1994, Nepal in 2006, and now in Columbia ending a 50-year war. The world thought those were hopeless cases once but reconciliations and stability prevail now.

Alfred Lilienthal was right about Israel, it is a liability for itself and the Jewish cause, the Jewish religion, and most of all America. Israel could have long avoided all these serious fallouts. Palestine is a stain on the conscience of humanity and for generations, the world would remember what has happened in Israel-Palestine.

History is a testament to the fact that if there is a genuine process of peace and reconciliation that all sides can trust, even intractable enemies grab the opportunity for a better future. The international community has been eagerly waiting to intervene for a genuine peace process to take place in the Palestine-Israeli conflict, and only America is in a position to make that happen. How could there be a genuine peace process when America, blindly supporting Israel is betraying the side of the dispossessed?

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, one of the leading Republican figures in foreign policy in the past few decades, warned U.S. President Donald Trump against acting as ‘Israel’s lawyer,’ and reiterated his longstanding objections to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian land. ³⁴

On the other hand, the Palestinians, through their sufferings, have reached a level of world’s recognition and respect as fighters for freedom and dignity. They are an icon of struggles for freedom and dignity. The Palestinians have demonstrated the enormous capacity to endure pain and remain amazingly patient. They have not surrendered to enormous pressures and blackmailing coming from none other than Israel and the Trump administration.

If one pauses for a moment about what is happening in Gaza and then thinks that America is fully behind it would cause repulsion and disgust that America could be brought so low. Can these kinds of persecution and atrocities possible in the world supported by America? Gaza is the biggest concentration camp, a cage in which 2 million people live where 97% of water is contaminated and there is no electricity for most of the day. Israel’s indiscriminate bombings have caused it. The international community has declared that Gaza is inhabitable. Gaza’s condition and fate should be directly related to America because it is happening under the patronage of Capitol Hill and White House.

Gideon Levy, the Israeli journalist, clearly brought it to attention: If any Israeli government under Labor or Likud ever intended peace and reconciliation, it could have achieved it. No leader since Israel’s inception ever was sincere or serious about a solution. I think Israelis just keep two faces, one to show the world that they are for peace; the other is to show the Zionists that their goal is expulsion or occupation and domination over the Palestinians. A peace process is to buy time to become stronger and stay firmer on the goal of greater Israel. He also said that if any American administration wanted Israel’s occupation to end, the occupation would not last even for two months. In essence, what he is saying is neither the Israeli leaders nor the American leaders have ever been genuine and sincere about peace. I think all prominent Jewish scholar/writer who is for justice concur with that view. Finkelstein and Chomsky both openly express this view.

Countless people in the world believe and Gideon Levy confirms that America is responsible for this. Levy said that without America’s full backing, Israel would not be able to continue with occupation even for a few months. Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein all concur with that view. [ Levy lecture, WRMEA]

Therefore, the responsibility lies on the American people. They need to decide whether they want to leave behind a world in which extremists like the Islamists radicals or Zionist extremists ruin all that has been achieved for peace and harmony or let the world go in a downward spiral as it is going now. The ball is in their court.

ENDNOTES:

Footnotes

Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, New York, Times Books: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2013, p. 216 (Sukarno at Bandung conference praising America’s Revolutionary War, the first successful anti-colonial war in history.)
Jack Mirkinson, ’60 years Ago, Edward R. Murrow Took Down Joseph McCarthy,’ Huffington Post, 3/10/2014, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/edward-murrow-joseph-mccarthy-60-years-later_n_4936308.html
Edward R. Murrow: A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy See it Now (CBS-TV, March 9, 1954), Berkley Library, University of California, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, BBC, History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/fourteen_points.shtml
“Roosevelt’s ‘Grand Strategy,’” The American Almanac, July 14, 1997. http://american_almanac.tripod.com/lkffdr.htm His vision for both domestic and the world was same: social justice, economic freedom, a free world without colonial rule. The Atlantic Treaty and the New Bill of Rights lay down the vision.
Freedom in the World 2018, Freedom House https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018
The Carter Center discussion between Senator Bernie Sanders and the former President Jimmy Carter, May 8, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVW7QtRaIhw)
“Power Elite”, Economist’s Review, July 23, 2009, http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/07/the-power-elite.html (In 1956 the term was used to imply the group consisting of the military-industrial-complex (MIC), the big businesses, the financial center or the Wall Street, and the corrupt politicians and collectively this group exercise enormous predatory power.
Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014, p. 294-96 (The book is being discussed in detail by Paul Krugman in Bill Moyer’s show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQYA9Qjsi0
CHUCK COLLINS AND JOSH HOXIE, THREE PEOPLE OWN HALF THE US, WHILE ONE IN FIVE HAS NOTHING, ON 11/20/17, Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/three-people-own-half-us-while-one-five-has-nothing-716802
Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY, USA, 2009, p.59-60 (FDR’s speech about big business trying to the government their servan
GRACE DONNELLY, ‘Top CEOs Make More in Two Days Than An Average Employee Does in One Year’, Fortune magazine, July 20, 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/07/20/ceo-pay-ratio-2016/
Hamilton Nolan, What’s an Acceptable Ratio of CEO Pay to Worker Pay?, 9/18/13, http://gawker.com/whats-an-acceptable-ratio-of-ceo-pay-to-worker-pay-134276103
Chris Hedges, “America: The Farewell Tour,” New York, Simon & Schuster, 2018, p. 310
Hedges, Chris. Unspeakable. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 2016, p. 55-56
Michael Levitin, The Triumph of Occupy Wall Street, June 10, 2015, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-triumph-of-occupy-wall-street/395408/
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hard Choices, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2014, p. 24
Farrow, Ronan. War on Peace, The End of Diplomacy and The Decline of American Influence. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018, p. xxi-xxiii
Ibid. p. 307
(Reza Aslan, How to win a cosmic war, confronting radical religion, Arrow Books, Random House, London 2010, p 165, 169, 170)
Seymour Hersh: Jewish Money Controls Presidential Candidates, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ZDabT6r3w
John B. Judis, “Bush’s Failed Israel Strategy: Apocalypse Now,” New Republic Online, August 2, 2006
Jimmy Carter, ex-President of America, giving an interview regarding Israeli occupation and apartheid policy towards the Palestinians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvtC_qzHVM4
Bernard Lewis, The Roots of Muslim Rage, The Atlantic, Sep. 1990, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1990/09/the-roots-of-muslim-rage/304643/
Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations, New York, Simon & Schuster Inc.1996
Edward Said, The Clash of Ignorance, The Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance
David Frum, Michael Scheuer’s Meltdown, The Daily Beast , Jan 3, 2014 https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-scheuers-meltdown
Paul Findley, They Dare, p.75-76
Ramzy Baroud, ‘The uneven alliance: How America became pro-Israel,’ Aljazeera, March 9, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/uneven-alliance-america-pro-israel-170308064459862.html
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, p 68-70
Ibid. p.68
Ibid. p.6
Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe, Frank Barat, On Palestine, Haymarket Books, 2015, Chicago, p.7
Haaretz Reports, James Baker warns Trump against being “Israel’s Lawyer,” https://israelpalestinenews.org/james-baker-warns-trump-israels-lawyer/