Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2006 3:28:57 GMT -5
Former U.S. diplomat criticizes Israel, U.S.
By: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter
Refusing to deal with Hamas is misguided foreign policy, Amb. Edward Peck maintains
In free and fair elections, the Palestinian people chose Hamas to represent them. But the U.S., intent on forcing democracy on Middle East nations, says it won’t deal with Hamas, noted Amb. Edward Peck.
This hypocrisy doesn’t win the U.S. any friends, said Peck, former chief of mission in Iraq during the 1980s and veteran Middle East diplomat, who spoke at The City Club last week. The Council for the National Interest sent Peck to Gaza to be an observer at the recent Palestinian elections.
Of the U.S. refusal to have relations with Hamas, Arabs ask, “How can this be? That’s what democracy is all about,” Peck related.
He was sharply critical of Israel’s handling of the Palestinian elections.
Despite the “ubiquitous, sometimes repressive Israeli occupation for 38 years,” the Palestinians managed to hold two democratic elections, said Peck, whose remarks were challenged by several Jews during the question and answer period following his talk.
“Fatah was in charge and they lost,” Peck noted. “And they stepped aside, kind of like democracy is supposed to work.”
The Israelis maintained over 700 checkpoints, which made it difficult for Palestinians to get to the polls, the diplomat said. Although there are 130,000 Palestinian voters in east Jerusalem, the Israeli government allowed only 5,000 to vote in that city.
And, the Israeli government required Palestinians to vote at one of five post offices in Jerusalem, without indicating which location, Peck added. This required some Palestinians to travel to more than one post office before they found their correct polling place.
While Israel told the remainder of Palestinians living in east Jerusalem to vote in the West Bank, this wasn’t a viable option, Peck claimed. “If you do so, you are voting in a foreign country. You can’t get back to Jerusalem, and (you) lose the right to live there.”
He was equally critical of the Bush administration, calling officials ideologues who are forcing democracy on Middle East countries whether they like it or not.
“There’s no such thing as imposed democracy,” he noted. “Democracy is not hardware. You can’t hold it in your hand. There’s not an instruction book. It’s philosophical, experiential.”
It took the U.S. 100 years to abolish slavery, 150 years to give women the vote; and not until 1912 did Americans elect their own U.S. senators, Peck said. It took us seven years to write our Constitution, yet we told Iraq, “You’ve got the weekend.”
Peck, who speaks several languages, including Arabic, calls his public criticism of American foreign policy “constructive dissent.”
American officials suffer from an advanced case of hypocrisy, he noted. “Our guys are good guys. A terrorist is a person on the other side. It’s hypocritical to say we’re not going to deal with you because you are hostile to our friends in Israel.”
To the British, George Washington was a terrorist, Peck said. So was Menachem Begin; he won the Nobel Peace Prize, yet started his career as a terrorist, killing for Israel. “His cause was just,” Peck added.
Hamas, he said, is now talking about providing services for the people of Gaza and the West Bank. Refusing to talk to Hamas is not only hypocritical, it’s poor foreign policy, Peck said.
During the Cold War, faced with a nuclear threat, the U.S. maintained diplomatic relations and exchanged ambassadors with the Soviet Union. “Yet for 14 years, we did not speak to Iraq on any level,” Peck said. “The last time we (officially) spoke to Iran was in 1979. Does this help?”
The biggest boost for Hamas in the elections, Peck insisted, was the U.S. thundering that Palestinians not vote for the radical Islamic party. When Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the night before the Palestinian elections that Israel will decide by itself where its borders are, Peck noted, “Hamas said, ‘Thanks. Just what we needed.’”
The U.S. attitude that “we are bigger and stronger and know what’s best for you and we can do whatever we want,” persuades people “to look around for ways to make us sorry we said that,” he said. Israel, he added, has the same attitude regionally.
While he recognizes that Hamas “poses a bit of a threat,” Peck said the wall Israelis are building is not the answer. It cuts off towns and makes life so difficult for Palestinians that it inflames their anger. The settlements such as Ma’aleh Adumin, just east of Jerusalem, are growing, and Palestinians know they will never be in Jerusalem again.
“Suicide bombings are terrible things,” he said. “But Palestinians never had an army or a tank or an airplane. All they’ve got are their bodies, and they are fighting with those.”
In America, Peck said, everyone is silenced on the question of Israel. “Nobody wants to speak out (because they are criticized).. The press is silent.”
He told the story of a Palestinian man having a heart attack. Yet Israeli soldiers made his daughter, who was driving him to the hospital, wait 45 minutes at a checkpoint. The father died in the car. Shortly thereafter, the woman blew herself up.
“She was angry and she lost it,” Peck said. “Why else commit this horrible act? Things are going on that we don’t read about.”
Joyce Wald, who attended Peck’s talk, said, “He was making me very uncomfortable, talking about settlements and the wall. He went over the line in making our government look bad.”
Just as Israel is building a barrier to protect itself, the American government is building a wall on the border with Mexico, noted her husband, Eric Wald. “Should we tear that down?” {The wall along the border w/ Mexico was brought about by Usraelis who want to replicate Israel in the US, so they can make just such an argument]