Netanyahu & Obama, Two Peas in a Pod

Dear Mr. President,

Occasionally I slide into the give-him-the-benefit-of-the-doubt mode, a dangerous way of thinking when it comes to you. I read excerpts from the book, Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010, accounts by Israeli soldiers and sailors of the brutality, injustice and inhumanity they visited on Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. It is a damning indictment of the Israeli Defense Forces, believed by Israelis to be “the most moral army in the world,” and as untrue as the American belief that the U.S. military is the “mightiest the world has ever known,” both myths promoted by politicians and propagandists. Harsh Logic contains accounts of soldiers breaking down doors at 2 a.m. to terrorize whole families, scenes of horrific and unjustified brutality and murder—beatings, indiscriminate shooting of innocents, the destruction and looting of homes, the constant indignities suffered by the Palestinians, and the illegal blockade and near starvation conditions imposed by the Israeli government. It is inconceivable that you could defend the latest murderous assault on Gaza by Israel with: “There is no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” It is impossible to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, to your promotion of the myth that Gazans bear sole responsibility or that it is even a war when one side has no army, no navy, and no air force, or the myth that Gaza is a self-determining nation-state, for if it is easy for me to find information that gives the lie to your statement, then surely you cannot be ignorant of the facts either. I can only conclude that you are, once again, the defender of tyranny and injustice, that in defending Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the theft of their lands, you add to your list of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It comes as no surprise however, for the U.S. military, as all militaries, used similar tactics in Iraq and still do in Afghanistan—the 2 a.m. break-ins, the indiscriminate murder of militants and civilians—all classified as “insurgents” by the military—the brutality and disregard for human life. As Kevin Powers says in The Yellow Birds, “we no longer recognized our own brutality.” That is what war does to people, Mr. President, the consequences of your delusions of “national security” and “mission.” You and Bibi Netanyahu; two peas in a pod, brother tyrants under the skin.