There is
considerable reluctance both by the press and by our political leaders to state
what has been obvious to anyone who has been paying attention--that Trump and
his supporters have colluded with an enemy of the United States to undermine US
interests, our elections and our democratic processes not only to win an
election but to weaken the role of the US in international relations. There are implications of colluding with an
enemy that our political leaders seem reluctant to state--Trump is a traitor.
Trump is an
inveterate and constant liar who has said one thing and done another (for
instance, saying he would drain the swamp but instead appointing denizens of
the swamp to major roles in his administration). His swamp dwelling cabinet officials are
systematically weakening the US by rolling back regulations that protect our
air, our water, our environment, our housing, our medical care, our social
safety net--and systematically dismantling important government agencies from
housing to education, the FDA to the Justice Department. He is actively
undermining our quality of life, our educational system, our cultural values
and our democratic institutions.
More important he is a traitor in the traditional sense of
subverting U.S. national interests in the service of a foreign enemy of the
US. Despite his assertions that his
collusion with Russia is "fake news" there is sufficient evidence publicly
available to substantiate the claim that Trump and his co-conspirators had
Russian help to win the election. Trump’s
interest was to win at any cost and the Russian interest was to subvert the
U.S. democratic processes, weaken the NATO alliance and sow discord among the
European democracies and within the US—all of which is very clearly
substantiated by US and European intelligence agencies.
The latest
instance of Trump acting in the service of a foreign power and against the
interests of our own nation is his unilateral termination this week of the US
commitment to the agreement with Iran that limits its ability to develop a
nuclear weapon and provides for monitoring of its nuclear sites to assure
compliance. It is in our interest to
keep that agreement in place because it reduced the potential threat to Middle
East stability. Arguably it is in the
interest of other powers in the region, including Israel, because it reduces
tension and could lead to a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unfortunately the right-wing government of PM
Netanyahu does not want peace yet because it has not yet achieved its ultimate
goal, which is control of all of the land area of biblical Israel and the
displacement or subjugation of the Palestinians from their land.
Why does
withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran serve Israeli interests? For
two apparent reasons. 1. It angers Iran, which will then find reasons
to increase tensions that could result in a larger conflict, possibly even war
between Iran and Israel. Israel expects
any such war would involve the US.
Israel hopes that will result in the defeat of Iran, to prevent a future Nuclear-armed Iran, and
to reduce the power of Iran as a force that could threaten Israel's
future. 2. By increasing regional conflict and tensions
it provides an opportunity for Israel to increase the amount of land it is
steadily incorporating into Israel while justifying the land grab as necessary
for regional peace.
Why is Trump
betraying US national interests in the service of Israeli policy? The U.S. has
been sympathetic to Israel since its creation ex nihilo out of Arab
owned land in Palestine. We get it. There was sympathy for the Jews as a result
of the Holocaust. We have not forgotten. But that was more than 70 years ago and the
history of Israel in recent years has been less than admirable. Israel has refused to acknowledge any injury
to the Arab occupants that they displaced to create Israel, refused the right
of Arabs to return to their homeland even as immigrants, and under recent
right-wing Israeli governments especially that of Netanyahu have created new
settlements and refused the right of Palestinians to their own state. Those Israeli policies have been opposed by
every other nation in the world as unreasonable, unlawful and unacceptable, and
the US has been caught between its desire to support Israel while telling
Israel that its policies were troublesome.
Unfortunately
US policy has been undermined by two different groups in the US who have
supported Israel’s troublesome attitude:
(a) American Zionist Jews, and their supporters in Congress and (b)
Christian Zionists, each with its own agenda and rationale, but cooperating in
the demand that the US support Israel’s expansionist land policies and its
historic right to biblical lands, and continuing to support Israeli foreign
policy no matter that it is not in the best interests of the US.
Israel
defines its national interest as (a) expansion of Israel into Arab lands and
creating one state in the territory that was formerly Palestine; (b) claiming
Jerusalem as capital of that expanded Jewish State with no recognition of the
rights of Christians (since medieval times) or of Palestinians (since the
Muslim era, if not to biblical times) to share in that symbolic capital of
three major religions and peoples; and (c) no regional power strong enough to
counter Israeli military power.
The Middle
East has been a trouble spot in the world for generations and seems always a
tinderbox ready to erupt in flames. In
the nuclear age that has become a danger that needs to be managed. Israel reportedly has nuclear weapons. Iran seems to have emerged as a force to be
reckoned with, causing Israel to fear Iran getting a nuclear weapon, which
would make the outcome of any war between Iran and Israel uncertain but possibly
leading to the destruction of Israel.
The US, together with the western nations of the NATO alliance, fear
Iran getting a nuclear weapon because it could lead to unforeseen but
troublesome problems in that entire region, given the Islamic potential for
suicidal actions.
Whose
interests are served if the US pulls out of the nuclear non-proliferation
agreement with Iran? Certainly not US interests. The US gains nothing by a war with Iran. The
rest of the world? Surely the rest of
the world’s nations see nothing to gain by war.
Israel’s interests? Of
course.
Israel is
the elephant in the room. By supporting
the interests of Israel against the interests of his own nation Trump is
committing treason.
I am
prepared for criticism from the right that this article is anti-semitic but my bona
fides on this issue are pretty clear and longstanding. I was a supporter of Israel in its early days
when it faced annhilation at the hands of various mid-Eastern powers, and I
continued to support it throughout its early development until it began its
current expansionism with a claim to all of the biblical lands of 3000 years
ago under the preposterous theory that these were lands granted to Abraham by
God and thus to Israel and that any legal claims had to give way to theological
justification.
The current
US interest in the Middle East is to contain Iran and divert its energies into
peaceful projects and away from terrorism, trouble-making and political
isolation. Together with our allies the
US entered into the agreement with Iran to curtail its nuclear weapons program.
Israel has
different national interests than the US--in the service of which Israel has
been successful in convincing Trump to pull out of the nuclear agreement and is
pushing Trump to take military action against Iran. The US withdrawal from the agreement is
likely to push Iran to do something troublesome, which will give the US
pretense for a military strike against Iran, which is what Israel wants.
Our
principles as Christians and as Humanists compel us to oppose vociferously any
US involvement in a war against Iran whose objective is to assist Israel in its
unjust and illegal seizure of Palestinian lands (including the city of
Jerusalem).
