Dr. Aaron Lerner – IMRA
If U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were a private citizen, her half-baked and seriously distorted idea that the Arab-Israeli conflict is equivalent to the struggle of Black for equality in the Jim Crow America of her childhood would only serve as evidence of a serious lack of analytical skills (or just plain intellectual laziness).
But she isn’t.
Again: It is not only ludicrous but also dangerous for policy making to compare the Palestinian leadership and their goals to Reverend Martin Luther King’s peaceful struggle for equality as if Gaza and Nablus are no different than Selma Alabama.
Rice’s continuous fixation on this false equivalence dangerously distorts the reality of the situation: the Blacks of America did not try to destroy the U.S. in 1776, nor were Blacks part of a great pan-Black nation stretching from Canada down to Argentina that considered the U.S. to be a temporary foreign entity to be ultimately ejected from the America’s altogether.
When policy making is driven by this false equivalent it is hardly surprising that it takes a cavalier attitude towards Israel’s genuine and necessary concerns.
It is imperative that the Israeli officials interacting with Secretary Rice – and for that matter, those in the U.S. with a genuine interest in regional stability – to make a point to correct her.
Rice’s visit/In the shadow of Martin Luther King
By Aluf Benn Haaretz 16 October 2007
When Condoleezza Rice talks about the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, she sees in her mind’s eye the struggle of African Americans for equal rights, which culminated in the period of her Alabama childhood. CONTINUE
No racial separation in the north ?
I believe Rice’s “impressive career” involved quiet efforts at hagiography – the development of “heros”. She’s not old but was a Chevron Director as early as 1991. She had a sponsor very high in the Bush 41 administration.
Comparing the PLO (Don’t call it “PA” [Jacques Derrida, we need you now.]) leaders with Martin Luther King is also on the official list of talking points or Aluf Benn wouldn’t know about it.
Kol tuv,