Don’t cover for Israel’s crimes

It is a small wonder Americans are misinformed regarding the Palestine/Israel conflict. Charles Krauthammer (op-ed Jan. 2), laughably passing as a responsible journalist, uses inflammatory language (“a knife in Israel’s back”) to describe President Obama’s decision not to veto a United Nations resolution condemning illegal “settlements” on occupied Palestinian territory.

Every American president since 1967 has exercised not only this option, but some have actually voted, quite justifiably, to condemn Israeli criminal activity. The only shame is that dozens of times we have vetoed similar, and entirely justified resolutions, to offer cover for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and others.

Moreover, we did nothing when the Israelis deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, killing 34 Americans and wounding 172. Contrarily, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the Israelis out of Egyptian and Palestinian territory after the 1956 war, and President Ronald Reagan abstained 21 times on resolutions condemning Israeli crimes.

Then we have Donald Trump blathering about reversing the abstention, and the GOP in Congress threatening condemnation of the abstention. No wonder the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, described the U.S. Congress, basically, as a collection of brain-dead braying donkeys cheering “lies heaped upon lies” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke to a joint session.

This story was originally published January 11, 2017 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Don’t cover for Israel’s crimes."