Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer…

There is one thing that is clear to me about what we must do to permanently end the threat posed by radical Islamic extremism: we must establish a relationship with the entire Muslim and Arab world based on genuine trust and shared interests. Our current presence in Iraq offers us an opportunity to accomplish this, but only if we are willing to face reality and treat Arabs as if they are equals to the Jews in Israel. No other American policy is more responsible for anti-Americanism in the Middle East (and in Europe, Asia and much of the rest of the world for that matter) than our ignorant and morally indefensible support of the hostile and oppressive actions of the Israeli government.

It would be correct to argue that war is not the ideal foundation for building a diplomatic and cross-cultural alliance upon, but it is precisely that which has put us in a position to rewrite our Middle East policy to better serve America’s national security interests. Heretofore, American foreign policy has marginalized Arab Muslims, more so than any other civilization on the planet, due in large part to our misguided support of Israel. Israel carries itself as if it were the 51st state of the Union, and for whatever reason US governments have reinforced American solidarity with the Jewish state despite its continues disregard for US interest and the will of the international community.

For all of the pandering heard from Democrats about the importance of listening to the international community when formulating US foreign policy or guiding the nation into a war, has anyone ever hear them apply this same logic to the issue of Israeli occupation of the Palestinians and total disregard for international law and countless UN resolutions? Of course not.

Republicans are no less hypocritical in their application of consequences for transgressions against the international community. One of the primary reasons given for the invasion of Iraq was its continuous disregard for UN resolutions demanding its disarmament, which is in my opinion a great and justified reason for imposing sanctions and using force to increase pressure on a government. However, in the case of Israel, it has acquired nuclear capability by spying on the United States, occupied its neighbors and reduced millions of people to a stateless and largely hopeless existence, all in the name of God and country. What have we done about that? Nothing. No sanctions, no force, politicians don’t even have the courage to speak out publicly against their irresponsible and harmful policies for fear that this would be politically unwise.

There are hundreds of reasons for this, not one of which makes any sense to me whatsoever. I will expand upon this idea over the next few weeks as I begin to outline my positions on the issues of importance to our nation and my generation, which is the greatest victim of the current crop of US political leaders who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than securing the interests of the children and grandchildren.