CONCENTRATION OF CONSERVATIVE VAULES

How can a person listen day after day to TV news of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not have a strong opinion? Nor, should they be able to listen to all those tails of relentless human misery and not realize that there is a strong American bias especially right wing balance favoring Israel and not wonder what the basis of that bias is. How can it be that the Washington Post (7/21/14) has an article recruiting solders into the Israeli Defense Force (army) and the mayor of a major city in the U.S. is an officer in the

Israel Defense Force? How can it be that money people like Sheldon Adelson can be pictured with Mitt Romney, American presidential candidate at the time, at a political fundraiser in Jerusalem? This is all true in spite of the fact that over time, Palestinians are being killed over Israelis at a rate overwhelmingly reflecting Israeli might—for every 15 people killed in the conflict, 13 are Palestinian and two are Israeli. (Statistics for the past two months are from United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs.). There can be no question about the “unfairness” of the competition. What spurs them on to fight against such overwhelming odds in the face of such devastating consequences to their women and children? They know what they are doing will make matters worse.

Is there a hidden connection; that is something we don’t know or don’t understand between the obvious overwhelming right wing support for Israel and the deep-seated will of the Palestinian people to fight on in the face of such odds. Although, it is difficult to sort out the rhetoric of those who go to great lengths to avoid anti-Semitism but in truth are haters of Jewish people, the question of who benefits from such bias answers that question. The answer is so obviously Israel, it is trite. However, the question about what we don’t know turns out to be equally obvious that it is trite; we do not know what is really happening in Gaza. We do not have equal access to the truth about the living situation in Gaza compared to living in Israel. When an attempt is made to disclose that information, they are immediately suppressed, denied, or ridiculed. For example, the terrible uproar and turmoil at the Carter Center, in what amount to a book burning, caused by publishing of the book, Peace not Apartheid.  Or, the confusion that arose from the Rupert Murdoch tweet about his feeling toward Jews as discussed by Michael Wolff in the Guardian (Nov. 2012), which was edifying. 

“Rupert Murdoch and the Jews

His Twitter slip about the 'Jewish-owned press' was revealing – of prejudice, paranoia and neoconism – and none of it is pretty”

The truth seems to be an innate need of some people to be superior to some one else, perhaps arising from our bestial sense of peck order or hierarchy dominance that in the past 50 years has condensed into political party affiliation. What I am saying is that if people tend to “hate” one group of people because they are somehow different they will hate other groups of people for different reasons—thus, the hate is akin to bestial xenophobia or fear of anything different regardless of what it is. People have extended it to include even vaguely defined moral groups such as members of a different nation or church or another. Everyone knows about Lyndon Johnson’s famous declaration when he signed the civil rights act of 1964, which was something like Democrats giving black the right to vote will be the end of liberal party in the South. The recent right wing Supreme Court decision to block that legislation is an extension of President Johnson’s fear. Perhaps that single act made over 50 years ago did more to define modern liberalism from conservatism then anything we did before as a people in America.

The innate feeling is not new; we all know about the ancient crusades with religious groups fighting and senselessly killing of one another over their beliefs. Perhaps the ancient tribes fighting and killing others of the exact same species fighting for territory to protect what we nebulously defined, as “theirs” is simply greed and an outgrowth of xenophobia. We also know the right wing response to what is happening on the Mexican American boarder; their signs say they are fighting to protect America but fail to tell us what they are protecting. To lack empathy for children is so un-American. The protestors do not want to harm children but what they are doing seems to be disconnected from other human values; like the social disconnect between the Palestinian people and Israel people but they end up doing so—they are causing them great harm.

Our Nation’s history is filled with examples of hateful rhetoric toward certain groups of people such as the salve trade and “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”, the open despise we had for the “little dark” Philippine people before and after the Spanish American war, or the internment of Japanese “Americans during the WWII. Of course, we have to include the searing reality of the attitude of Germen people toward Jews in that era. Now “we” have Muslims on our “hate” radar; however, it is not just some mystical editorial “we”, but seems limited to a well define group of people called the Republicans far right.

We say all of the hate Israel has from Palestinians has nothing to do with conservative values but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests it does. Does the entire sweep of conservative financed Israel ads, news media articles in the conservative press and TV, and posts on social media in support of Israel have an innate basis? Is it OK for Israel to hold the Palestinian people in servitude as we restricted Native Americans on reservations or “owned” slaves in the old plantation south, or in more recent times for our government to hold Japanese people in concentrations camps? As a nation, historically, our “conservative” hands are not clean. We can see the evidence for that in reports from our southern boarder on TV everyday and witness a “tough” Republican governor send National Guard Troops with assault rifles to confront those children on the same news stations we see tough Israeli military tanks attacking unarmed people in Gaza who want to see and end to inhumane suppression.    

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