BY BENJAMIN BRADLOW

In print | Published April 3, 2008

When I first arrived at Swarthmore, the most recent hot political issue was by far the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to archived Phoenix articles, 2003 had been particularly rife with debate and perhaps too-hot-headed confrontation between Jewish advocates for Israel and Palestinian students and sympathizers with the Palestinian cause. These days, it is rare to see anything about the issue on campus, especially as students mobilize for the Democratic primary campaign consuming Pennsylvania.

Accepting its increasing irrelevance in the face of the attention paid to the electoral campaign, the Bush Administration has decided to make one last push in Israel and the Palestinian territories. They must know that a time-tested way to make waves in such a climate is this go-to lame duck foreign policy issue. In doing so, the administration will continue a dynamic that has long affected the national political dialogue concerning the region. In the current presidential campaign, we’ll continue to hear the same slogans coming from both political parties: “we will not negotiate with terrorists,” “security comes first,” “respect Israel’s right to exist.” These are the same things we’ve heard from the Bush Administration for the last eight years.

But even as John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sing the same old tune, the Bush Administration is seeing that this empty sloganeering butts up against a different reality. While from afar, the administration has refused to negotiate with Hamas in Gaza, now that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney are actually on the ground they see there is no choice but to do just that. On Sunday, Rice was quoted in the New York Times recognizing her administration’s ineptitude in its approach to the region. Responding to the fact that Israel appears to have violated all fundamental aspects of the Bush-led “roadmap” to peace, particularly freezing illegal settlement growth, she acknowledged, “We haven’t been monitoring and verifying during the last two years.”

This might qualify as the understatement of the year. The Bush administration has aided the constant Israeli bait and switch throughout its time in office. They have stood by as Israel exacted illegal collective punishment on the residents of Gaza by shutting its borders; they stood by when the Israeli army mobilized in Gaza to kill both civilians and militants in the occupied territory; they stood by when Israel bombed southern Lebanon, home to many Palestinian refugees, with impunity; they stood by as Israel continued its open expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Rice may feign surprise at the lack of progress towards peace in the region, but her position amounts to nothing more than willful ignorance. If you disempower Palestinian moderates and fail to take seriously the political power of more hardline political elements like Hamas, then it is little wonder that the Palestinian political vacuum has produced a populace more open to violence than ever before, according to recent polls. Could she possibly not have known of the crimes that Israel continued to perpetuate against Palestinians, while the U.S.-Israel alliance bumbled through its responses to the latest Palestinian political infighting?

What is perhaps most troubling is that this year’s crop of candidates is just as beholden to the old terms of the debate as the Bush administration has been. All of the candidates have appeared at conventions held by the influential, extremist lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

All parrot the same tired policy slogans of the past. But the next president, particularly if he or she lasts for two terms will face a policy concern that previous U.S. presidents have not had to deal with. As growing population facts on the ground change, the U.S. continued support for Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories will be tantamount to supporting an apartheid-like state where a minority rules a majority.

In the face of Israel’s existence perpetuating an even greater fundamental crime against the Palestinian people, American Jewry and the American people need to choose a different path from the one they have traveled thus far. American Jews must reject the extreme leadership in its midst that has used vast money and influence to push presidential candidates to such hard-line positions in support of Israel.

And all Americans must speak up to reject the crimes in the Palestinian territories that persist with our own acquiescence. The horse-race aspects of the presidential campaign should not be an excuse to ignore the pressing issues that make this such an important election.

Ben is a senior. He can be reached at bbradlo1@swarthmore.edu.

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