James M. Wall

by James M. Wall

When Israel would not allow the Palestinian soccer team to practice in Gaza, the team held its practice sessions in Egypt. The documentary film Goal Dreams reminds us of the implications of that decision. Palestinians from Chile, New York and Spain who were trying out for the team arrived in Egypt with little difficulty, but Palestinians who had to travel the few miles from Gaza to Egypt were delayed for several days at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt for "security reasons."

The same Israeli-controlled border crossing was more hospitable to a recent group of Palestinians entering Gaza from Egypt. Fatah, the political party favored by the U.S. and Israel in the current Gaza internal conflict, was allowed to bring in as many as 500 troops. According to the Washington Post (May 18), these troops were trained in Egypt "under a U.S.-coordinated program to counter Hamas."

The U.S.-trained Fatah forces are under the command of Palestinian national security adviser Mohammed Dahlan, who was appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas under pressure from the U.S. Tony Karon, a senior editor at Time.com, describes Dahlan as "the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington's anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet" (tonykaron.com)-a reference to the Chilean military dictator installed with the help of the U.S. after a 1973 military coup led to the overthrow and death of President Salvador Allende.

by James M. Wall

Election season 2006 is over, and we can say goodbye to the negative media ads and stories. Opposing sides fought one another with reckless abandon. Yet they never once thought of turning their struggle into a civil war. So why is the Bush administration claiming that it's pushing for democracy in the Middle East while it is taking steps that encourage a civil war between Hamas and Fatah?

In their January 2006 elections, the Palestinians emerged as a potential democracy-limited, to be sure, by the absence of sovereignty and by uncertain borders and a destitute economy under Israeli control. Hamas won the internationally monitored election. There was just one problem. As far as Israel and the United States were concerned, Palestinian voters chose the wrong party.

John Mearsheimer, an expert in international relations at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, academic dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, have issued what United Press International calls "a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby." Their study, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," argues that Israel played a major role in pushing the U.S. into the war in Iraq, and it concludes that the Israel lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy is bad both for Israel and for the U.S.

by James M. Wall

The negative responses to the DPW deal are an excuse to curry favor with a public that has been persuaded that the world is locked in a clash of civilizations. This clash theory has lost favor in some intellectual circles now that Iraq has become such a political and human disaster. But although it's a simplistic and incorrect response to the horrors of 9/11, some politicians and journalists still find the clash to be a convenient theory, one that hides other motives.

by James M. Wall