by Ray McGovern Posted on
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan embark on their next excellent adventure later this week with President Joe Biden – this time to the Middle East, with Israel the first stop.
There is not the slightest pretense that the visitors will reproach their Israeli hosts on Israel’s Apartheid regime. Nor does anyone expect President Biden to tell the Israelis they can no longer get away with murdering U.S. citizens. Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot by an Israeli soldier on May 11, comes to mind; also 23-year-old volunteer Rachel Corrie (crushed under an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003), and the 34 seamen killed on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967.
That the Israelis are given carte blanche – that they think they can get away with murder – should be no secret, whoever happens to be president in Washington. Just before President Barack Obama picked Biden to be his running mate, Biden crowed, “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
If the song sheet says sing about Israel’s right to defend itself, Biden sings. Recall that during the 2020 Presidential primaries, as author Peter Beinart argued, Biden had an “alarming” non-progressive record on Israel. “Biden basically just sees Israel as a domestic political issue,” Beinart told The New Yorker. Of people like Blinken and Sullivan, Beinart added, “I don’t know whether they wrestle with this or whether they feel guilty. I do think that, one day, they will be judged harshly for helping to keep Palestinians oppressed.”
No ‘Sense of Guilt’ Evident
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