An alliance that never was

Gay marriage has wide approval and a black man is president. Gender can remain fluid while mothers have the final say over life and death in nine states and the District of Columbia. Everyone, it seems, deserves recognition for what they are, what they have, and what they stand for. Everyone that is, except for the Jews.

The Jews have no rights. They have no rights to territory, security, or recognition. Thus the President spake, albeit by proxy.

The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement.

So said State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki in an interview with Al-Quds, the Arabic-language media organ of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

This was Israel’s final red line: its only red line. Recognition of Israel as the Jewish State was the one thing Israel demanded from the other side.

Territory? Sure. The release of murderers with Israeli blood on their hands into the general population? No problem. Carving up Jerusalem into little bits? Everything was possible.

All we wanted was this one thing: recognition. As a people and a nation.

We knew this was the one thing that stood in the way of peace—the only obstacle between Arabs and Jews: the Jewish State versus the Caliphate—a Muslim Caliphate that would exist everywhere in the world, only starting with little Israel and with ridding the world of Jews.

The Jews wanted to be recognized as a people with a right to territory just as successive Israeli governments agreed the Arabs had a right to a state of their own and to self-determination.

But the Arabs always said no.They never gave an inch on a single issue. No Jew, they said, had a right to exist anywhere in the world.

Israel gave the Arabs Gaza with its beautiful homes and greenhouses. It was like throwing entrecote to wolves. Israel welcomed Arab service in its parliament and in its Supreme Court. Arabs sat and continue to sit alongside Israelis on Israeli buses and receive first class treatment in Israeli hospitals. Israel did and does all this freely, with no coercion.

And it never mattered. Not a whit. The myth of Israel as a repressive society persists in the face of an overwhelming body of proof to the contrary.

The myth of Israel as the side that refuses to budge in negotiations also persists no matter how much Israel gives and gives and gives.

The Arabs said no, still say no and now Obama agrees with them. Now we know he always did.

Where Jews are concerned, the truth is disregarded, discarded, and cast aside in favor of lies.

(photo credit: AP/Majdi Mohammed)

There was never a question. Whatever Abbas demanded, Obama would grant. Israel would not be allowed to get in the way. Israel would be damned while its leader was high in the sky on the way to discuss the issue, when he cannot respond. It’s a dirty game with no rules. It’s a prod in the Jewish posterior by a President who has no power anywhere else in the world but in a tiny Israel the size of New Jersey that can be battered, abused, and pummeled into submission.

The President has removed Israel’s last line of defense. He’s thrown the reins to Abbas and kicked the chair out from under Bibi and the Jews. The knot that once tied the fate of the U.S. with Israel has unraveled all the way. The fabric is irreparably rent and Israelis may now sit shiva on the alliance that never was: an alliance in which the U.S. demands the release of terrorists with Israeli blood on their hands into the general population while damning President Karzai for following suit.

Now Jonathan Pollard remains incarcerated against every legal standard: a bargaining chip that is no bargaining chip because there is nothing left to bargain. There are no Israeli claims left for the U.S. to support. There was only this one thing they/we wanted. Recognition.

Gay people can marry and a black person can sit where he chooses on a bus in Alabama. But a Jew in a U.S. prison is held to a different standard. A Jew has no right to history and certainly not to statehood or ancient territory.

(photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It’s an ancient story.

It’s an alliance that never was.

The author is the communications writer at Kars4Kids.