The absurdity of political campaigns in the United States added another chapter recently when New Jersey governor Chris Christie made the “Republican hajj” to Las Vegas. Ostensibly, he was going to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), but the real pilgrimage was to grovel at the feet of billionaire casino mogul [...]]]> by Mitchell Plitnick

The absurdity of political campaigns in the United States added another chapter recently when New Jersey governor Chris Christie made the “Republican hajj” to Las Vegas. Ostensibly, he was going to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), but the real pilgrimage was to grovel at the feet of billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson in the hope of getting the kind of fat contribution that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich received in 2012.

During his RJC speech, Christie made the grave mistake of using a clear fact that was unacceptable to the RJC and even more so to Adelson. He called the West Bank “the Occupied Territories.” The audience’s gasps were heard nationwide. Christie was forced to ramp his groveling up to supersonic levels when he apologized to Adelson for this nearly unforgivable blunder.

Such is the role of truth when it comes to Israel in the bizarre world of Republican pro-Israel politics. And it’s not just confined to the GOP. The Democrats have also dodged this very simple fact, and it has created a political climate where the US media also rarely refers to the occupied territories as “Occupied Territories.” The politically correct term for moderates is “disputed territories.” On the right, it’s the biblical designation, “Judea and Samaria.” Nowhere else but in the United States, not even in Israel, is it controversial to call the West Bank “occupied territory.”

Christie’s apparent gaffe was surprising since you’d think the governor of New Jersey, home to a whole slew of right-wing Jewish political donors, would know better, and this speaks ill of his ability to win the GOP nod in 2016. But it’s undeniable that he stated a blatant and indisputable fact. How accurate and accepted is the term, “Occupied Territories?” Let’s look at a few examples.

• The International Court of Justice, in its 2004 advisory opinion on the illegality of Israel’s “security barrier,” refers specifically to the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” and even further, specifically rules that the entire West Bank is under military occupation and subject to the laws regarding such a state of affairs.
• United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 calls for “…Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict…” (emphasis added).

It’s clear that the international system is unambiguous about the status of the West Bank. But one would not expect that to mean much to the RJC or Adelson. So what about Israel? While the official Israeli stance has long been that the areas are disputed, not occupied, even the Israeli government can’t always avoid reality.

• The Israeli High Court of Justice has consistently ruled that the West Bank is not legally part of Israel and that the laws of belligerent occupation apply there.
• Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put it bluntly in 2003: “To keep 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation–you can dislike the word, but what is happening is occupation–is in my view bad for Israel, for the Palestinians and for Israel’s economy.”

But you know, those Israelis, they feel all that international pressure. So what about some US sources that the RJC might consider reliable?

• In this video clip (about six minutes in), you can see former President George W. Bush, that noted anti-Israel liberal, saying that “Israel must stop settlement activities in the occupied territories…”
• Since 1981, when Ronald Reagan stated that Israeli settlement expansion is not illegal, the occupation has had a politically ambiguous position in US politics. Nonetheless, a 1978 determination by the State Department’s legal adviser was accepted by the Carter administration and has never been refuted. That determination clearly calls the Territories “occupied” and renders settlements illegal.

The idea that an apology is warranted for calling the West Bank occupied is no more rational than demanding an apology for calling the sky blue or saying that Israel exists to the south of Lebanon. But Christie made it pretty clear why it happens in another piece of his RJC address. He said that Israelis “want America to be their unblinking, unwavering, unquestioning friend.” Implicit in that is criticism of President Barack Obama’s temerity in questioning any Israeli policy.

Sure, that’s not a whole lot different than the repeated statements that Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have made in referring to the “unshakeable relationship” between Israel and the United States and the “zero daylight” that they falsely claim exists between US and Israeli goals. But “unquestioning?” Most parents don’t want that kind of devotion from their children, most spouses don’t expect it from their partner, and only an idiot would consider offering it to anyone.

We are all responsible for our own decisions, and as such, we should always reserve the right to question another’s. Most of us would accept that as a universal truth. The only exception most usually make is between themselves and their deity, which, apparently, is the relationship the RJC and Sheldon Adelson believe the United States should have with Israel.

Photo: Chris Christie addressing the 2014 CPAC convention. Credit: Gage Skidmore

by Robert E. Hunter

Ariel Sharon, the former Defense and Prime Minister of Israel, who died last week, was one of the most controversial leaders in Israeli history. I met him several times, including when I was the White House representative on the US negotiating team for the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy talks [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Robert E. Hunter

Ariel Sharon, the former Defense and Prime Minister of Israel, who died last week, was one of the most controversial leaders in Israeli history. I met him several times, including when I was the White House representative on the US negotiating team for the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy talks (1979-1981). I can’t say I knew him well; but well enough to know two things: his fundamental commitment was to Israel’s security as a military man, not as an ideologue, and he was immensely complex.

We all speculate about the “what might have beens” of history, and I am no exception. In fact, I will go far out on a limb and argue that tragedy took from Israel the two Prime Ministers who might have done the most to help it move beyond the decade’s long stasis in its relations with the Palestinians. This was so in major part because both men came out of the military and neither could be considered “soft” on security. Both were seeking to create change in Israeli-Palestinian relations. In November 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing fanatic; Ariel Sharon suffered an incapacitating stroke in January 2006, 4 months after Israel completed its Sharon-inspired withdrawal from Gaza. The work of both men in trying to build peace with security for Israel was thus cut off in mid-flight.

Let us consider Gaza. Israel’s withdrawal left a political vacuum. But it is not at all obvious that this vacuum had to be filled by Hamas, the movement that then and since refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist and to seek compromises to bring about some reasonable relationship with the Jewish state — not to say that Israel was prepared to reciprocate had there been such a Hamas initiative, much less to take the initiative itself.

In January 2006, at the annual gathering of the West’s leading defense personalities, in and out of government — the Munich Security Conference — I made a proposal during a session on the Middle East. I suggested that Ariel Sharon’s courage in withdrawing from Gaza be honored by a bold step to try creating there a chance for positive developments, beginning with a massive infusion of aid and investment to provide the people of Gaza with some hope and promise in their lives and, not incidentally, to help the relative moderates under Mahmoud Abbas, then and now President of the Palestinian National Authority, gain political traction in Gaza and against Hamas. I pulled a figure out of the air and proposed a $6 billion plan: $2 billion from the US; $2 billion from the EU; and $2 billion from the Arab states — the last-named, I thought, a challenge to those rich Arabs who have profited politically from keeping the Palestinian issue alive to “put up or shut up.”

I was surprised when my proposal was not simply ignored. Indeed, the chairman of the panel immediately endorsed the idea and said that he had his $2 billion to commit, provided that the other two parties I had named would do likewise. That person was Javier Solana, whose set of titles boiled down to his being in effect the Foreign Minister of the European Union. We were “off to the races.”

Unfortunately, the beginning was also the end. The rich Arab states did not respond. Israel opposed any such aid and investment plan and, not surprisingly, the US Congress thus only responded with what could be called “chump change.” The moment — and the opportunity — was lost; the chance, however slim, was never tested to see whether helping to improve the lives of people in Gaza could have provided political strength to the PNA as opposed to Hamas which, as has often happened with radical groups elsewhere (e.g., Fidel Castro’s “barefoot doctors” in Central America), was acting as the provider of social benefits, food, etc. to the trapped people of Gaza.

Thus it was not surprising that Hamas subsequently won the March 2006 parliamentary elections in Gaza. As I argued at the time, the failure of outsiders even to give Abbas and his people a chance to compete was a mistake that would never have been made by Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago or Karl Rove on the Republican side. Abbas would have had at least what is called, in ward-heeler politics, “walking around money.”

Notably, President George W. Bush at first endorsed the results of the Gaza elections; but a day later changed his pitch to oppose the accession of Hamas to power. Even then, it was arguably not too late. Gaza under Hamas was declared off limits and was effectively blockaded economically — political punishment, but, as so often in the imposition of sanctions, a political gift to Hamas. It would face no challenge to its rule, especially in deciding how what meager economic benefits came to Gaza would be distributed. And the rest is history.

WWSHD? That is, “What would Sharon have done?” We can’t know, any more than we can know what Rabin would have done, or have been able to do — though we do know the inclinations of both men at the moments in time when they were each struck down. Nor can we know whether, had Sharon followed through on his decision to withdraw from Gaza with the approach I proposed in January 2006, there would have been an adequate response from non-radical Palestinians; nor whether, had my proposal (or others like it) been followed, Hamas would have been weakened sufficiently to keep it from power.

But it all does make one think; especially to think about yet another missed opportunity — however “untested and untestable in retrospect” — in Arab-Israeli relations, missed opportunities by both sides, with which the history of that conflict has been littered.

by Henry Precht

Rare is the Middle East scholar or diplomat who departs from his customary groove in analyzing events in that region. Alas, I am — or was — one of the latter. Now, however, there come two books that just may cause a minor swerve from the usual rut [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Henry Precht

Rare is the Middle East scholar or diplomat who departs from his customary groove in analyzing events in that region. Alas, I am — or was — one of the latter. Now, however, there come two books that just may cause a minor swerve from the usual rut of thinking about Iran, especially by Iranians. Nothing revolutionary to be sure — that’s out of style — but prompting reflection.

The first volume is a biography of Mohammed Mossadegh, Patriot of Persia, by Christopher de Bellaigue, a British journalist resident in Tehran for the past 10 years where he has spent a fair amount of time in archives and interviews with figures from the fifties. The product is like a novel of the upper classes, rich with small stories and psychological quirks that lead us from the ancient land that was Iran in the 19th century to the state struggling against imperialism and trying awkwardly to become modern in the mid-20th century.

The focus, of course, is on the nationalization of Iran’s oil controlled by the British, which excited American Cold War fears of communism and produced the coup of August 19, 1953. The multiple lessons lead to one judgment: it didn’t have to end that way. The principal culprit was Mossadegh himself. A patriot, he loved his country more than its people and realities. A democrat, he ruled autocratically when it suited him. An old man encrusted with the past, he overplayed his physical condition and the drama of his situation. In three words, he was a man of rectitude and ineptitude. He picked poor advisers, poorly maintained alliances, was a terrible administrator and allowed his emotions to govern his decisions. He thought he could rely on Washington to help him with London. He underestimated the conflicting egos of his local allies that led them to abandon him. But he was a true patriot and his people loved him.

The British and then the Americans were lucky in this maladroit antagonist, but they were clueless in understanding what was happening in Iran and the nationalism they were facing. No matter, they knew how to spread their money around. They knew how to concentrate their efforts, pick competent men to work for them and influence bits of public opinion in their favor. All with nary a thought for what their work might lead to. (I suppose they would say that 25 years of imperial rule was a pretty good bargain, ignoring the succeeding longer period of bad times.)

The chief lesson I draw for outsiders is the obvious one: try, try harder, to understand Iran, its seeming weaknesses, but also its hard points. Be patient when they stumble, be persistent in trying to reach them. Think much farther ahead than the next election.

The second book is not about Iran, but it warns against what that country is up against in the attitude of its principal antagonist Israel. Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country — and Why They Can’t Make Peace by Patrick Tyler, an ace American ex-journalist, who helps us understand what Iran and the rest of the concerned world face when Israel threatens military action. The principal source of the militarism that grips the state and its people is the legacy of David Ben Gurion who cultivated a clique of constant warriors led by Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharron. They created a culture that emphasized harsh overreaction and preemption and that effectively eliminated from the leadership those dreamers (e.g. Moshe Sharett) who early on sought negotiations and accommodation with the Arabs.

Like the CIA agents in Iran, Ben Gurion and his friends knew how to manipulate the fears and convictions of their public — as well as America’s. His heirs — soldiers become politicians — have known how to resist and overcome external pressure and prosper. Obama’s failure on settlements as Netanyahu stood up to him was instructive for the president — a lesson all preceding presidents learned in their time. We can only hope that Obama’s course of instruction came with a body and courage building plan.

If our president is not up to the struggle — as Eisenhower, Carter and the first Bush were in varying degrees — disaster impends. Iran seems to have learned a little about avoiding provocative rhetoric; they might take further lessons in treading softly and reflecting on Mossadegh’s fate. The danger is real.

Photo: US President Harry S. Truman meets Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh on 23 October 1951.

Ehud Barak is retiring from Israeli politics in 2013, after two decades. Or so he says.

A career officer in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) before entering politics, Barak’s first mention in the US press appears to have been on May 22, 1993, when the New York Times‘ Clyde [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Ehud Barak is retiring from Israeli politics in 2013, after two decades. Or so he says.

A career officer in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) before entering politics, Barak’s first mention in the US press appears to have been on May 22, 1993, when the New York Times‘ Clyde Haberman noted, “Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, army chief of staff during the 1967 war, relies heavily on the military and political advice of the current chief, Lieut. Gen. Ehud Barak”. Although still IDF Chief of Staff at the time, he was “reportedly being groomed by Mr. Rabin for future Labor Party leadership.”

Born in 1942, Barak was part of a new wave of native born military retirees who entered Israeli politics in the 1990s, finally replacing Israel’s pre-state gerontocracy on both the left and the right. (That gerontocracy persists in the person of 89-year-old President Shimon Peres, whose 66-year political career has spanned 11 US presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barak Obama.) When Barak retired from the IDF, Rabin named him to the cabinet post of Interior Minister. Even then Barak was cultivating American contacts. According to Haberman, when Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Israel in February, General Barak was on hand almost everywhere the American went.” Apparently Barak cultivated close ties with Leon Panetta, President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff. Now Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration, Panetta responded to the announcement of Barak’s intended departure from Israel’s political scene by presenting Barak with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

When Barak retired from the IDF, Rabin named him to the cabinet post of Interior Minister. After Rabin’s assassination on Nov. 4, 1995, Acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres  gave Barak the post of Foreign Minister,  which Peres himself had held under Rabin. Barak was elected a Labor Party member of Israel’s Knesset in 1996, where he served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. That same year,  in Israel’s first direct (non-parliamentary) election for  Prime Minister,  Peres lost the premiership to Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak subsequently replaced Peres as leader of the Labor Party.

Barak defeated Netanyahu in the 1999 election.  In 2000  he ended Israel’s 17 year occupation of southern Lebanon, ordering the overnight withdrawal of all IDF troops, a controversial decision considered long overdue by some Israelis, criticized as too hasty by others. Marketing himself as a peacemaker in Yitzhak Rabin’s image, Barak curried American favor by meeting with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under  Clinton’s mediating auspices in 2000 at Camp David.  The talks ended in failure. Barak’s stated efforts to reach a peace agreement between Israel and Syria also failed.

After Ariel Sharon’s ceremonious and provocative visit to the Temple Mount with half a dozen members of the Likud opposition in September 2000 precipitated Palestinian outrage that turned violent (now known as the Second Intifada), Barak was forced to call for new elections. As attacks on Israeli civilians became more widespread, Labor was trounced by Likud, making Sharon Prime Minister in Barak’s stead.

Barak spent six years in “the private sector,” rebranding himself as a businessman involved in various energy and security projects, but nonetheless plotting his return to politics. He advocated  military action by the US to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power. “President Bush’s policy of ousting Saddam Hussein creates an extraordinary standard of strategic and moral clarity,” he wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times. None too pleased with “the in-depth, genuine — and so typically American — public debate that is developing before our eyes about Iraq” that might “dilute this clarity”  Barak even laid out the necessary military strategy for Bush: “a surgical operation to hit the core of the regime,” and, just in case that didn’t finish the job, a ready-to go “a full-scale operation to include major airborne and ground forces, perhaps 300,000 soldiers.”

Barak returned to politics in 2005, after four years in “the private sector” a/k/a Ehud Barak Ltd. After Ehud Olmert became acting Prime Minister when Sharon went into a coma following a stroke in early 2006, Barak joined Olmert’s cabinet, becoming Minister of Defense. Barak strategized and oversaw the three week IDF operation to counter rocket fire from the Gaza Strip known as “Operation Cast Lead.” Although many Israelis at the time considered Cast Lead to have been justified, necessary, and well executed, outside the country, Israel was criticized  for what was seen as excessive and disproportionate use of force inside the densely populated Gaza Strip.

After polls revealed his personal unpopularity with voters, Barak did not seek leadership of the Labor party leader in 2005, but he regained control of the party in June 2007. Deborah Sontag of the New York Times described Barak as “a kind of hawkish dove” who “casts himself in the image of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schroder — as the leader of a political movement that is finding its way from left to center.”

But the inglorious outcome of the 2009 election, necessitated by Ehud Olmert’s downfall amid accusations of corruption, reduced the Labor party — once proud political standard-bearer of the statism of Israel’s founders — to a puny party that placed fourth in the election. Barak was blamed for the loss, and he was increasingly regarded as an opportunist and political chameleon, particularly when he joined Netanyah’s Likud-led government in exchange for the keeping the defense portfolio

Facing the increasing unlikelihood that he will hold onto the post of Defense Minister in the next Netanyahu government — widely regarded as a shoo-in when Israeli elections take place in January 2013 — and lacking the personal popularity that might someday make him Prime Minister again, Barak seems to have chosen to give up on Israeli politics altogether.

Barak’s political obituaries in the Israeli media are mostly muted by dislike for him as a person and a politician. But he wins points from some Israeli journalists for his military acumen. Yoel Marcus writes in Haaretz:

His record as defense minister is excellent – even his rivals admit that, though they add it’s a shame he’s not a mensch. His loyal aides when he was prime minister left angry and bitter. His secretaries dubbed him “Napo,” short for Napoleon. As prime minister he failed, but as a strategist and leader he was considered a genius, even abroad.

During his not quite four years  in Netanyahu’s government, Barak has been sending mixed signals on his views of  Iran’s nuclear program and how Israel should deal with it. In November 2011, as my Lobe Log colleague Jasmin Ramsey reported, Barak told Charlie Rose that if he were Iran, he would “probably want nuclear weapons.” But this recent Haaretz editorial argues that “Netanyahu considered Barak a close adviser and partner in the formulation of policy toward Iran”, and Larry Derfner of +972 Mag points out that during Barak’s tenure at the helm of the Netanyahu government’s Defense ministry, “he has probably been best known for serving as Netanyahu’s partner in the drive for an attack on Iran.”

In the weeks before his announced retirement, Barak seemed to be situating himself as the Israeli political leader  far better equipped to maintain good relations with the US than Netanyahu. Isabel Kershner reported in the New York Times on Oct. 3 that a rift was growing between Barak and Netanyahu, citing Shmuel Sandler, a politics and foreign policy expert at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University (and at one time my next door neighbor). With the Israel elections coming, Sandler suggested that Barak wants to separate himself from Netanyahu. “What is his claim to fame? That he has good relations with Washington,” said Sandler to the Times.

If so, this raises interesting questions about Panetta’s presentation of a Distinguished Service medal to Barak three days after his announced withdrawal from politics. It certainly bolsters Barak’s pro-American image, but was the award presentation planned before Panetta knew Barak would be retiring? Is it an American plea for Barak not to leave the Israeli political scene? Or is it a harbinger that Barak will maintain his close ties with the Obama administration — and perhaps forge evens stronger ties — once he is unencumbered by his role as an Israeli politician?

Okay, it seems I spoke too soon. Hamas is now back in the “Iranian-supported” camp according to this editorial in the New York Times, which identifies Hamas as both “backed by Iran” and pathologically “consumed with hatred for Israel.”

President Shimon Peres has also refocused on Iran, as [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Okay, it seems I spoke too soon. Hamas is now back in the “Iranian-supported” camp according to this editorial in the New York Times, which identifies Hamas as both “backed by Iran” and pathologically “consumed with hatred for Israel.”

President Shimon Peres has also refocused on Iran, as shown by his response to a prompt by Piers Morgan of CNN. Morgan doesn’t beat around the bush and without displaying a modicum of impartiality asks: “If you believe Mr. President, that Iran is behind a lot of the Hamas terror activity, as you put it, then what action do you intend to take against Iran?”

Peres’ response?

Not that I guess so, I know that is the case. And we are not going to make a war with Iran but we are trying to prevent the shipping of long range missiles which Iran is sending to Hamas. And they are urge to Hamas to fire ….Iran is a problem, world problem. Not only from the point of view of building a nuclear danger, but also from the point of being a center of world terror. They finance, they train, they send arms, they urge, no responsibility, nor any moral consideration. It’s a world problem and you know it.

And what of the closure of the Hamas headquarters in Damascus, which according to many commentators supposedly created enormous strains with Iran and resulted in much less funding and material to Hamas than in the past? What of the recent visits by high profile non-Iranian regional leaders? Not much.

The Gaza problem, in the minds of the Netenyahu-Barak duo, is caused by Iran, according to Salam Masalha, writing in Haaretz: “[t]he current operation can be called “the little southern Iranian operation,” since it’s designed to paralyze Iran’s southern wing. The next operation will be “the little northern Iranian operation “: It will try to destroy Iran’s Lebanon wing.”

Israeli officials must be feeling like they’re losing their public relations war on Gaza. The meme of Hamas, the terrorist group, no longer seems sufficient. Hence “Hamas, the terrorist group supported by Iran” comes to the rescue.

Even the New York Times is noticing this problem and wants the “Arab leaders to speak the truth and stop ignoring the culpability of Hamas.” The unhappiness with the changed region and the difficulty it poses for the usual conceptualization of the disproportionate Israeli attacks on Gaza as self-defense and a fight against terrorism, is palpable. After all, it is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is calling Israel a “terrorist state” these days, but Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

The reality is that even the re-attachment of Hamas to Iran will neither resolve Israel’s occupation problem nor its public relations predicament. Israel is deemed the aggressor and out of control in the region not because it is unable to tell and re-tell its anti-terrorism narrative loudly enough, but because it cannot convince most of the world that its reckless bombing of a civilian population is a fight against terrorism (and its presumed chief sponsor, Iran).

As Sherine Tadros points out in her discussion of why reporting on Gaza is hard: “Hamas is not Gaza.” The reason Israel, after a few days of bombing, invariably loses its ability to sell the Iranian-backed terrorism meme in the court of regional public opinion — although not to US policy-makers who are its chief concern —  is because most people know that no society and its livelihood can be reduced to its government, no matter how bad that government is.

To be sure, the current Israeli government can take the honest route and call for the punishing of the entire society in the way Gilad Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, did when he said that “We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza… The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.”

But this is not the route most Israeli leaders (excepting Interior Minister Eli Yishai who posited the goal of Pillar of Defense Operation as “sending Gaza back to the Middle Ages”) have taken. The route taken is to say that Israel had no choice but to respond disproportionately because of Hamas terrorism (now, again, supported by outside terrorists).

This is not a credible argument given the impact of Israeli actions — including the almost 6-year old embargo — on Gaza and not Hamas. And blaming or even militarily attacking Iran will not make Gaza go away.

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.

I’ve [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.

I’ve met Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel’s parents, on several occasions. I cannot imagine the lives they lead. I cannot imagine the death of my child, much less the death of a child at the hands of a supposed ally of my country with no accountability. I can’t imagine my child being killed by that ally and then seeing my child being blamed for the incident. Yet the Corries have lived through all this, and somehow, while their frustration has grown, it has never morphed into hate. Somehow they always cling to the hope that Israel, an ostensible ally and fellow democracy, will at some point do the right thing.

I’m sure, though I haven’t spoken with them in years, that the Corries held out little hope that this verdict would be that point. But what is perhaps most stunning is that there is no clamor in the United States, aside from those whose sympathies would be with Rachel’s cause in trying to protect Palestinians from the ravages of occupation, for some kind of action on behalf of a US citizen who lost her life on foreign soil under, to be kind, questionable circumstances.

Take Cindy Corrie’s words today: “This was a bad day, not only for us, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law, and the country of Israel.” Someone was missing on that list, but Cindy got to them in another comment: “The diplomatic process between the United States and Israel failed us.”

I admire Cindy Corrie’s restraint. But the US failure here is much broader than what she is saying. And it’s a long term one.On March 25, 2003, Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the US government to “undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation” into Corrie’s death. The bill gathered 77 co-sponsors, which is not a large number, though a larger one than is typical for a bill critical of Israel. But none had the political muscle to counter defenders of Israel in the House, so the bill died in the Committee on International Relations. Its death, like its existence, generated little attention.

President Bush got a promise from Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, that Israel would conduct a “thorough, credible, and transparent investigation.” An investigation concluded that Rachel’s death was an accident, and that it was, in essence, her own fault for being there in the first place. In a detailed analysis of not only Israel’s several layers of investigation, but also of their own investigation, “Human Rights Watch’s own research indicates that the impartiality and professionalism of the Israeli investigation into Corrie’s death are highly questionable.”

Indeed, the State Department said at the time that “We do not consider this matter closed with the reception of the internal IDF report. We are going to press for a full and transparent investigation.” But none was forthcoming. And what is the US view today? Well, the US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro told the Corries last week that Israel’s investigation into Rachel’s death “…was not satisfactory, and wasn’t as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been.”

Indeed, the US’ official position is to press Israel for such a thorough and credible investigation. But nine years later, the Corries were reduced to trying to file a civil suit because there was simply nothing else happening. So much for US pressure.

Let’s be clear about this: we have a US citizen who met her death on foreign soil. The State Department and both the Bush and Obama Administrations believed that the investigation into her death was unsatisfactory. George W. Bush, surely not a president anyone would cast as less than enthusiastic in his support of Israel, personally requested a deeper investigation from the Israeli Prime Minister. And nearly a decade later, all our ambassador to Israel is doing is reaffirming that Israel has doesn’t enough.

Is there a better example of the absurdity of the US’ relationship to Israel than Rachel Corrie? It doesn’t matter if one believes that she had no business going to Gaza in the first place. The fact is that Israel has not explained her death to the satisfaction of its closest ally and patron. If this was any other country — including Great Britain, or Canada — there would be a massive outcry and the US wouldn’t rest until the questions were answered and some kind of accounting was seen.

But not with Israel. The relationship is not special, nor is it because it is “cherished,” in the ridiculous words of Mitt Romney. This is the relationship of an over-indulgent parent further spoiling an already selfish and harmful child. As we watch an Israeli Prime Minister brazenly interfere with a US presidential race, and try to manipulate the US into a war that is against our (and Israel’s) interests, we might also notice that our government is not fulfilling its most fundamental obligation: protecting its citizens overseas.

If Israel wants to make the case that Rachel Corrie’s death was an accident or was merited by her actions, then a transparent investigation that meets basic standards of credibility is the way to do that. That Israel refuses to do that would seem to indicate that they do not believe that the outcome of that investigation would be to their liking. Surely it cannot be about secrecy for security’s sake; Israel is no longer present on the ground in Gaza and the tactics, equipment and systems are a decade old.

Nothing can erase the tragedy of Rachel Corrie’s death. But her death offers an opportunity for the US to finally start to try to curb Israeli impunity. Palestinians are injured and killed regularly, and cases are often closed without resolution or even due investigation, as one can easily see by looking at the site of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. And other foreign activists have also been killed by Israeli forces over the years.

But the US continues to be inert on the matter. One can only hope the Corries find some solace and peace elsewhere. Israel, at least, has good reason to want to bury the truth behind Rachel Corrie’s death. The United States has only its own cowardice as an excuse.