By William A. Cook

Perception is often the stepchild of ignorance, especially when controlled by those with the most to gain. It is especially difficult for our Congress to perceive clearly when it grovels at the feet of AIPAC. America’s Knesset, servile hirelings of Israel’s lobby, rush to pass yet another resolution conceived by AIPAC and authored and co-signed by Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen in the House and Lieberman and Bayh in the Senate, Resolutions H. Con. 362 and S. 580, the “Iran War Resolution.” Virtually all Congressmen with the exception of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and all Senators, including McCain and Obama, will vote to support this resolution. Passage provides Bush with power to impose a unilateral blockade on Iran, an act, if done without UN sanction, is an act of war. This resolution, a virtual carbon copy of the resolution that has mired us in Iraq, does nothing for the security of the United States, indeed it does the opposite, but it does secure continued funding of Republicans and Democrats by AIPAC and Israel.    
 
The wise man seeks to see through the eyes of his perceived enemy; only then will he know his perceived failures and the rationale that gives purpose to those arraigned against him. Our Congress is driven, like the horse carriage of old, with blinders that prevent vision beyond that dictated by Israel’s interests, not America’s. Consider the “Iran War Resolution” from the perspective of the nations that compose the United Nations General Assembly, not the Security Council that is controlled by the U.S. veto.
 
Let’s rewrite the legislation so that it expresses the sense of the United Nations General Assembly regarding “the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital security interests of the United Nations by Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.”
 
Whereas Israel is NOT a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), has NOT foresworn the acquisition of nuclear weapons by ratification of the NPT, and is therefore able to avoid declaration of all its nuclear activity and defy constant monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA);
 
Whereas for nearly 50 years, in clear contravention of the explicit obligations of the NPT, Israel operated a covert nuclear program until it was revealed by Mr. Mordechai  Vanunu, who served 18 years in solitary confinement for providing the world information on this deceit, and, recently, by Prime Minister Olmert and former  President Jimmy Carter;
 
Whereas Israel continues to expand the number of illegal nuclear weapons available to its military forces, as has become evident in its most recent invasion of a neighbor in 2006, Lebanon, and continues in defiance of binding UNSC resolutions demanding suspension of all such illegal activities;

Whereas the Israeli nuclear weapons capability poses a grave threat to international peace and security by fundamentally altering and destabilizing the strategic balance in the Middle East, and severely undermining the global nonproliferation regime;

Whereas Israel’s overt sponsorship of several terrorist groups, especially those aligned with the Settlers occupation in Palestine, and its close ties to the United States, demonstrates that Israel and the U.S. share their nuclear materials and technology with others;

Whereas Israel continues to develop ballistic missile technology and pursues its capability to field intercontinental ballistic missiles, a delivery system suited almost exclusively to nuclear weapons payloads;

Whereas Israeli leaders have repeatedly called for the destruction of Palestine and Lebanon, respected members of the United Nations;

Whereas Israel’s support for its rogue terrorist group, the IDF, has enabled that group to wage war against the government and people of Lebanon and Palestine leading to the invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and its political and physical domination of Palestine;

Whereas Israel’s support for its Settlers and IDF has enabled it to illegally seize control of the West Bank and Gaza and to continuously bombard and devastate Palestinian civilians with F-16s, bulldozers, tanks, and missiles;

Whereas through these efforts, Israel seeks to establish regional hegemony, threatens longstanding friends and allies of all nations in the mid-east, and endangers vital United Nations security interests; and

Whereas nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization of the use of force against Israel: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the United Nations General Assembly that the world’s international body

1. Declare that Israel disband all nuclear weapons capability;
2. Join the nations of the mid-east in signing the NPT;
3. Remove its troops from the occupied territory of Palestine;
4. Tear down the illegal wall that it has used to imprison the Palestinians;
5. Return all natural resources to the people of Palestine;
6. Pay reparation for its destruction of Lebanon;
7. Return occupied land to Lebanon and Syria;
8. Provide for the refugees illegally prevented from returning to their legitimate homes;

The above document modifies the wording of the House and Senate resolutions to indicate a totally different perspective on world affairs, one built on Justice, the requisite foundation for a lasting peace, not those of Israel alone. Considering the magnitude of the reality that exists in Israel versus Iran relative to nuclear capability alone, the absurdity, the hypocrisy, the sheer arrogance of these resolutions boggles the mind. How can the world respect a nation whose representatives avoid seeing the world from the eyes of those most impacted by the threat that Israel poses in the mid-east? How can the world understand that a nation rejects the testimony of its own CIA National Intelligence Estimate that Iran has not actively pursued nuclear weapon capability since 2003 and the evidence brought to the United Nations by the IAEA’s Director, El Baradei, after nine unannounced investigations of Iran’s nuclear facilities in this past year all revealing no evidence of weapon development? How can the world respect a Democracy that is led to such acts of vengeance by a small nation more invested in its own interests than those of America as Mearsheimer and Walt’s report testifies.
 
The most evil deceit resides in the conceit of those who pretend to be a friend and achieve their end by flattery, bribery, or coercion; those who fall victim to such evil remain forever the bondslave of their Overseer. They have, in effect, surrendered their principles, their conscience, and their personal freedom to a ruthless, merciless, amoral force, willingly sacrificing in the process the people they represent. Such is the state of affairs in our spineless Congress. 
              
-William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Deception: Bush’s Mideast Policy. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: cookb@ulv.edu.