Enabling Israel expansion

The article, “Trump’s Israel envoy signals policy change,” is in error (Dec. 17).

The proposed transfer of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem simply would be emblematic of the support the United States has given, in spite of impotent verbal protests, to the Zionist project to control all of Palestine. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first head of state, said that the Zionist goal always has been “to secure ... that the whole of Palestine will be Jewish, and not only a part of it.” That goal has been achieved in the sense that 100% of Palestine and the Golan Heights are controlled by Israel through military action, land seizures euphemized as “settlements,” siege and occupation. Throughout this process, as Jewish writer Tony Judt said, the United States has been Israel’s “paymaster.”

Only twice, in 1956 and 1989, under two Republican presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush, did the U.S. take effective action to halt Israeli expansionism. They threatened to halt or seriously diminish U.S. aid, which is now more than $10 million a day. The Israelis immediately complied and recommenced expansion under the next president.

In 2002, the Arab states all offered to recognize Israel and live peacefully with it if it would return to the pre-1967 borders. That offer stands, as former President Jimmy Carter has pointed out. Israel can choose peace or expansion. It is choosing expansion. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem would put the final stamp on the crushing of Palestinian hopes enabled since 1948 by the U.S.

Daniel C. Maguire Milwaukee