A lot has been going on since last we spoke, and a bunch of it came to a head this past week when Israel’s far-right regime launched a largely unprovoked attack on Iran. (Yes, they’ve been rivals for years, but Israel chose to attack directly and militarily, and that’s very much a Thing™.)
During that attack, Israel used missiles and drones to hit the very negotiations it and the U.S. had been setting up to address the matter of Iran’s nuclear aspirations, killing not just top negotiators in the process, but also a handful of Iranian officials as well as numerous women and children. This attack also featured Israeli missile strikes on Teheran’s Children’s Hospital.
Naturally, this escalation prompted a response from Iran, and off we went.
In the middle of all this, we have the upcoming G7 conference in Canada. Here, now, a few days into the ongoing hostilities that ensued after Israel’s attack, the big headline we’re seeing across media outlets all over the globe is “President Heads to G7 Amid Middle East Conflict”.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like “President Heads to G7 Amid Middle East Conflict” is a headline we’ve been seeing for a thousand years at this point.
And I think I speak for most of my fellow Americans when I say I’m pretty well tired of seeing it.
Flip the script, already.
What does that mean? For me, flipping the script looks like this:
1. Use U.S. leverage to reign in the Israeli regime. Actual ceasefire, now.
2. Deliver not only food and aid into Gaza, but also monitors.
3. Get Iran back to a negotiating table that can be trusted.
4. Reinstate USAID and don’t intercede in UNRWA relief efforts.
5. Stop flushing away American influence by vetoing every UN resolution critical of Israel.
6. Condition all military aid to Israel on it acting like a rational state actor. And that means:
6a. No more conquest in the name of some “Greater Israel”, the plan for which involves Israel taking and holding not just the whole of Palestine, but also the whole of Lebanon, Syria, and Cyprus, in addition to a majority of southeast Turkey — things that are never going to happen. The 1967 borders are the only ones the international community will accept.
6b. Gaza is a concentration camp, and that era needs to be over. Oppressed people radicalize because of how they’re being treated.
6c. The U.S. has supported two states in historical Palestine since forever. Refusing to get that show on the road is spitting in America’s face, not to mention the face of every Palestinian.
6d. No more mass round-ups of civilians for Israeli torture camps and calling it security arrests. Those are hostages, and we say we dislike those.
6e. In America, we have the Leahy Law, which prohibits the provision of U.S. military assistance to foreign units credibly suspected of committing gross violations of human rights. Israel does not deserve an exception to this law of our land, so that allowance must end.
6f. Get control of the Israeli settlers, who’ve been radicalized to view and treat the occupied as the interlopers. When they attack Palestinians or destroy their property, they must face charges.
But above and before all of this…
Flipping the script means ensuring that the relatively small circle of powerful folks who are spending all Americans’ money intentionally keeping us mired in this Groundhog Day nightmare, agree to satisfy themselves with a little less than absolute crushing victory over all those who oppose them even a little bit.
Especially when, on this particular suite of issues, that number includes the overwhelming majority of the American people, just as it includes a majority of everyone else on planet Earth
Put simply, the beliefs and attitudes of a small minority who would see millions die just so more land can be stolen, do not deserve to drive the lives of everyone else into abject ruin and misery.
There has never been a compelling scriptural basis for any claim that only Jews should live in and control that part of the Middle East (especially when it’s literally the birthplace of Christianity), but even if there was, that basis would not be sufficient to trump the human and civil rights of so many actual human beings trying to live actual lives in real time. It really is not.
That claim is, at best, a dream. And even for those who believe in a dream with all their heart…
Some dreams don’t deserve to come true.