Yohay Elam

America is going tomorrow to midterm elections. All of the seats in the Congress and a third of the seats in the Senate are to be voted upon. The commentary that I’ve heard suggests that the congress will be taken by the Democrats, while the Senate will see a close race between both parties.

I hope that the Democratic Party will win both houses. The reign of George W. Bush and his Republican party has been awful for America. I’m not involved in with internal American affairs, but I can definitely see that the US became more religious, the gaps between the rich and the poor have widened (Katrina) and it isn’t a place I want to live in anymore.

I do know much about their foreign policy, and it’s wrong.

The war in Iraq was the worst mistake. Saddam Hussein, just yesterday sentenced to death, was a cruel dictator. He was bad for his people. The result of the American invasion isn’t better. The United States blamed him of holding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Never found. The CIA accused his intelligence officers of collaboration with Al Queda. Bin Laden’s organization hardly had any presence there. Now they are all over Iraq, killing foreigners and recruiting people for more terror acts, also exported elsewhere. How did that help in the war against terror? Now, when a more real threat come from Iran, the US is weak. The military is won out, the very deep debt (caused largely by the Iraqi adventure) and the world won’t stand side by side with another campaign.

Policy in the Middle East? This administration is very supportive of Israel. Wow, Great!

It only does us a lot of damage. The US has lost it’s role as a fair broker between the Arabs and ourselves. The distrust that the Arabs have towards the Americans, and our snubbing of European efforts make peace look very distant. Another problem is the settlements.

Contrary to previous administrations, this one is the most permissive of them all. Legal and illegal settlement are flourishing in the West Bank. President Bush’s letter to Ariel Sharon in 2004 gave strengthened our right to build there. It puts a burden on peace negotiations, as well as on the Israeli budget. These funds could well help old age pensioners, the decadent education system, or the sick health system.

The latest effect of American policy on Israel, is it’s refusal to permit talks with Syria. After putting Syria in the bad guys section, the only possible policy seems isolation. They never thought of trying to pull Syria out of it’s pact with Iran, and bringing them back to the guys. For us, the start of talks with Syria could be a very positive step towards peace, and a very big problem for Hizballah. It’s an Israeli interest to give peace a chance when Assad makes a proposal. He could be cheating, but we’ll never know if we won’t try, if we keep obeying to our American allies.

I could go on for hours about why Bush is bad. A change in Congress and Senate could make a big difference in American policy. The situation inside the US will be better, and I do hope that also foreign policy will change.