Turn Biden’s public humiliation to America’s advantage

Last spring I took part in a debate at Georgetown University that considered the statement: “This house believes that it is time for the U.S. administration to get tough with Israel.” I was on the “yes” side and performed poorly, both because I am a pretty bad debater and because I do not support the type of “get tough” policy the house was considering, which was to exert heavy U.S. pressure on Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. I believe this kind of U.S. intervention is just as inappropriate as is intervention that yields blind support for Israel. Likewise, I do not believe that Washington should intervene to tell the Palestinians or the Israelis how, when, or by what means they can defend themselves. I believe the correct U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine is one that protects U.S. national security by recognizing America has no dog in the Israeli-Palestinian fight.

Now that Israel’s government has publicly and repeatedly humiliated Vice President Biden and — through him — the United States, it perhaps is time to suggest points I tried but failed to make at the Georgetown debate. I am not sure that anything will change because the Israelis treated Biden as what he and all U.S. leaders are when dealing with Israel — abject and effete lickspittles. But an attempt must quickly be made to end the present U.S.-Israel relationship before the corrupting impact is felt of the wads of money and media “explanations” U.S. citizen Israel-Firsters are now preparing to deliver for the use of those they have suborned in the Federal government, the Congress, and among the paragons of free speech they own across the breadth of the U.S. journalistic profession.

My own position on this issue follows:

1.) Washington’s intervention prolongs the Palestine-Israel religious war, and its unqualified support for Israel requires U.S. leaders to ignore the al-Qaeda-led Islamists’ motivation for attacking the United States. The Obama administration can serve U.S. interests and facilitate the war’s end by breaking ties with both sides.

  • Non-intervention will remove the U.S. involvement that permits Israeli and Palestinian recklessness, and leave the combatants solely responsible for fighting until one, the other, or both are destroyed, or peace is made.
  • This is a wise policy: adolescents always sink or swim by their own actions; no nation has a right to exist; and the war’s outcome is irrelevant to America.

2.) In the post-war period, Washington can consider requests for restored relations with each entity, or with whichever survives.

  • Palestine’s request would be mostly pro forma; it does not threaten America.
  • Israel is different story, with an ominous historical parallel.
  • In 1861, Lincoln said America had faced three questions of survival. Two were answered: independence was won and the government administered the nation. The third question — Can rebellion by an election’s losers be crushed? — was answered positively in 1865.
  • Lincoln faced a fourth question: Can domestic subversion be defeated? He did so, neutering by law and politics disloyal Northerners — called Copperheads — who overtly and covertly aided the rebels.
  • Today’s question is identical: Can America defeat a pro-Israel fifth column of U.S. citizens — Neo-Copperheads — that corrupts U.S. domestic politics and foreign-policy making and whose arrogant intransigence poses the most lethal threat to Israel’s survival?

3.) For renewed post-war ties, then, Washington must insist that Israel take five actions to help destroy the U.S. citizen-led, Israel-First fifth column that has made Israel the most arrogant, avaricious, and treacherous U.S. ally.

  • Americans always have served God and Caesar, but they abhor fellow citizens who serve a foreign Caesar, as do those who subordinate U.S. interests to their assessment of Israel’s needs.
  • Four public Israeli government actions will focus loyal U.S. citizens on their disloyal countrymen, those who want their taxes spent and soldier-children killed in a religious war for Israel.

a.) Israel must list all U.S. intelligence and technology it has given or sold to third countries.

b.) Israel must identify all U.S. citizens who have or are serving its military and so have sworn allegiance to a foreign power.

c.) Israel must admit sponsoring anti-U.S. espionage by Pollard and others, and publicly name all U.S. citizens and front companies it has paid in the past or is now paying or assisting to commit treason against the United States.

d.) Israel must list all U.S. citizens, living and dead, to whom it has issued passports, in the following categories: (a) Senators, Congressmen, Cabinet members, and senior political appointees; (b) federal civil servants, especially diplomats and intelligence officers; (c) civilian and uniformed Pentagon employees; (d) journalists, academics, and entertainers; and (e) other citizens.

e.) The fifth Israeli public action is simple justice. Israel must publicly admit that it deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in 1967.

These actions will incite popular revulsion in loyal U.S. citizens against the pro-Israel fifth column and the Democratic and Republican politicians it bribes and manipulates. Subsequent publicity and elections will end the Neo-Copperheads’ influence in U.S. politics; relieve Israel of fatal U.S.-citizen friends who can give it only calamity; and afford Americans a more precise understanding of the Islamists’ motivation so that foe can be correctly analyzed and then annihilated.

Author: Michael F. Scheuer

Michael F. Scheuer worked at the CIA as an intelligence officer for 22 years. He was the first chief of its Osama bin Laden unit, and helped create its rendition program, which he ran for 40 months. He is an American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst.