This is good stuff from Kristof.
The ‘Unshakable’ Bonds of Friendship With Israel Are Shaking
If you oppose war crimes only by your enemies, it’s not clear that you actually oppose war crimes.
That’s a thought worth wrestling with as many experts suggest that both Hamas and Israel are engaging in crimes of war in the current Gaza conflict.
...
The United States was the first country to recognize Israel upon its founding in 1948, and one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans have mostly agreed on over the decades is unwavering support for Israel.
“The deep bonds of friendship between the U.S. and Israel remain as strong and unshakable as ever,” President Barack Obama wrote soon after taking office.
Yet today, especially within the Democratic Party, those bonds are shaking as Netanyahu resists a cease-fire in Gaza. He leaves us wondering: Why should our tax dollars subsidize a rain of destruction that has killed scores of children, damaged 17 hospitals and clinics and forced 72,000 people to flee their homes?
President Biden has blocked the United Nations Security Council from calling for a cease-fire. He apparently believes that he can accomplish more with private diplomacy than with public rebukes. “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel,” Biden said in 2010.
Alas, it’s difficult to spot this “progress.” Netanyahu has used American cover to expand settlements and pretty much destroy any hope of a two-state solution. He has winked at domestic extremism, so that at least 100 new WhatsApp groups in Israel (with names like “Death to Arabs”) encourage violence against Palestinians. And now he is bombing Gaza and igniting street fighting that President Reuven Rivlin of Israel has called a “civil war.”
Some progress! Some young Americans see...this hawkish, more extremist Israel and perceive not a plucky democracy but an oppressive military power...
[Some Boomers, too!]
Many of us admire a great deal about Israel. At home it has a robust democracy that gives more rights to Arab citizens than its neighbors do...
Yet there’s also the other Israel that systematically discriminates against Palestinians in the occupied territories...
...
...America should aspire to have allies with a higher moral standard than “better than Hamas.”
...
It’s also troubling that while the destruction of Gaza helps Netanyahu politically, it doesn’t seem to have any strategic purpose. Indeed, it arguably helps Hamas. [original emphasis]
...
In a recent column, I asked why giving $3.8 billion a year in military assistance to a rich country like Israel is the best use of that money, instead of, say, vaccinating people in poor countries against Covid-19.
I braced myself for a torrent of criticism. There was some, much of it making legitimate counterpoints. But what struck me was how many people simply agreed with me in a way that would never have been true a decade ago.
One last thing: Suggesting that the United States condition aid to Israel inevitably provokes charges of anti-Semitism, so let’s be cleareyed.
[WHAT!? YOU GET CHARGED WITH ANTI-SEMITISM BY DARING CONDITION AID TO ISRAEL ON HOW MANY CIVILIANS IT KILLS?!?!]
Anti-Semitism is a genuine concern and no doubt infuses some denunciations of Israel...
[There is "genuine concern" that an American taxpayer is anti-Semitic if she says "Maybe we ought to weigh our $3.8B in military aid on how much peace it buys"? Okay, no conditions. How about no aid? No, right? I'm still an anti-Semite? Yinz are making an anti-Semite out of me.]
It isn’t Islamophobic to denounce Iran’s nuclear program. It’s not anti-Christian to reproach President Donald Trump for condoning white nationalism. And it’s not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel for possible war crimes.
[Is it anti-Christian to say "Christians Hate America"? Yes, right? Man, I'm 0-for three here.]
