The US Secretary of State Kerry is in Israel/Palestine. He recently gave an interview there with a representative of the Israeli and the Palestinian press. The interview was interesting from several angles.
First, it showed the mistake some people make when they claim that the only reason the US government supports Israel is due to the pressure of the Israel lobby in the US. Undoubtedly, that lobby is powerful, and it can sway individual members of congress. However, if the tops of Corporate America decided that it wasn’t in their interest to support Israel, they could undercut that lobby in a few weeks. All they’d have to do is conduct a press campaign revealing just a small part of the brutality that the Israeli regime is guilty of.
The real reason is seen in this comment from Kerry:
“And in the world around Israel that is full of turmoil today – we’ve seen what’s happened all through the Maghreb, Egypt, Tunisia, in Libya. We know what going on in Yemen. We know the struggles of Syria, obviously, Lebanon, Hezbollah. The challenges of this region are enormous. If we can find a peace that brings Jordan, Palestine, Israel together in a peaceful block, if you will, that will have a profound impact on the day-to-day life of everybody in this region and on the economic possibilities for this region. I can envision – and an Arab minister said this to me the other day – if peace comes to Israel and to Palestine, this will be a financial powerhouse. This will be the economic center of the region. And Israel’s talent, Israel’s ability to be able to break through on science and technology and agriculture, all of the – desalinization of water – all of these things are things that Israel can sell and bring to other people in the region, and you could actually have a peace.”
Corporate America – the US capitalist class – sees the tremendous turmoil throughout this all-important, oil-rich region. They understand that Israel is the only really stable, reliable ally. But they see that Israel’s expansionism and their accompanying brutality is adding to the turmoil.
The other interesting thing is to look at the interview and see how much time the Palestinian interview has. Notice how often Kerry simply cuts him off. It shows what Corporate America’s real interest is and how much concern they really have for the Palestinian people.
Categories: Middle East