Israel, Palestine

[The following was submitted as a letter to The Nation magazine on 2/4/09.]

So many people on both sides of the debate over Israeli policies and Palestinians cannot break free of the "he said/she said" ping-pong match that generates way too much heat and very little light.

While I have my own opinions about who did what in the past, those sorts of analyses are mostly irrelevant. Israel IS the government on the ground in most of Palestine, for better or worse. That is the reality. Its military superiority says so, regardless of who may be "right" or "wrong."

Israel is a country with an established government and court system. Hamas (or even Al-Fatah) is a mere political organization. Or a terror organization. It does not really matter because, as a government with a court system, Israel is obliged to render "due process" to every person in the lands it controls at all times, regardless of the "legitimacy" debates about its territorial possessions.

To the extent that the government of Israel deprives ANYONE of due process, with injury, death or property destruction, it is a lawless, criminal violator of human rights. Its actions are NEVER redeemed nor justified by what certain individuals do under the rubric of Hamas or whatever. That is a ludicrous proposition, yet even the supporters of the Palestinian people have bought into that phony comparison argument with their refutations and denials about Israel's possessory legitimacy.

Human rights are universal, so Israel has no more legitimacy in violations of due process than does the United States, nor any other government. The doctrine of due process may be enshrined in our Bill of Rights, but as the recent Bush Administration demonstrated with its criminal behavior at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, that doctrine should not be and is not limited by or to our Bill of Rights, nor to our borders. Certain majorities on our Supreme Court have been absurdly wrong about that.

Former Pres. Jimmy Carter was right to call Israel's policies "apartheid." Perhaps a thorough boycott of Israel is in order.