On Friday, Israeli soldiers and undercover personnel arrested five people, including two children, and took them off to an unknown destination. This is similar to the practice of extraordinary rendition done by the Bush administration, where they would whisk people off to unknown jails in violation of their Constitutional rights.
This is the sort of thing that happens on an ongoing basis as the Israeli government continues to pursue its policy of perpetual warfare against the Palestinian people and engage in the practice of collective punishment. And the problem is that the corporate media won't report on it even though billions of taxpayer dollars go to Israel, a nation that does not practice fundamental human rights towards its people.
Here in this country, we are protected by the right to know the nature of the charges against you, the right not to be arrested without probable cause, and the right to a fair trial. The fact of the matter is that we have basic philosophical differences with the Israel government. We protect the rights of our people; they don't. We allow all people to be represented in government; millions of Palestinians are disenfranchised.
What is happening right now in Palestine is very similar to what would have happened if the British had won the Revolutionary War and then continued right on with their policy of taxation without representation. We would have fought for as long as it would have taken to throw off British rule. Washington would have kept right on fighting for independence if it came down to it, even if it meant retreating west of the Appalachian Mountains to continue the struggle. And the Tibetans are in the same sort of position, engaged in a perpetual struggle to throw off Chinese rule that does not respect their right to self-determination.
The time for occupation and conquest is nearing its end. Back in the times of Julius Caesar, he had to kill 1 million Gauls and send another million into slavery before the third million finally surrendered. This is the sort of thing that one would have to do in order to complete a war of conquest. Back in the time of the Romans, nobody would have thought anything about it. Now, that sort of thing is becoming less and less acceptable. Human life is much more valued today than it was when the Romans were occupying the world.
The US has no business getting allied with nations with which it has basic philosophical differences except under extraordinary circumstances. The $3 billion or so that it sends to Israel every year could be much better spent on roads, bridges, and schools instead of propping up a dictator who whips up paranoia at every opportunity and brings right-wing extremists into government with him in order to cling onto power. There is no clear and present danger to the US that we need to continuously prop up the Israeli dictators with billions of taxpayer dollars in a time when we are considering sequestering trillions of dollars in order to get rid of our massive budget deficit.