VP Mike Pence Issues Thinly-Veiled Threat to Iran in Knesset Speech
Pence Speaks Before Israeli Knesset
While Americans were preoccupied with news that Congress has reached a deal to end the three-day-old U.S. government shutdown, VP Mike Pence was in the apartheid State of Israel addressing a special session of the Knesset. To open his speech, the Vice President repeated a mantra that he has used many times in the past, “America stands with Israel.” He claimed that this message came “from the heart of the American people” and was met with great applause.
My country’s very first settlers also saw themselves as pilgrims, sent by Providence, to build a new Promised Land. The songs and stories of the people of Israel were their anthems, and they faithfully taught them to their children, and do to this day. And our founders, as others have said, turned to the wisdom of the Hebrew Bible for direction, guidance, and inspiration.
In his speech, the Vice President analogized the modern State of Israel’s quest to exterminate the Palestinians to the quest of the first American invaders to settle the “new world”. Pence referred to America’s first settlers as pilgrims sent by “Providence” to build a new “Promised Land”, which seemed intended to invoke the concept of manifest destiny without actually using it.
But Pence’s analogy still glorifies and legitimizes the ongoing genocide committed against the native nations of the Americas, just as he continues to glorify the ongoing genocide that apartheid Israel is committing against the native Palestinian people. This author is quite sure the Vice President doesn’t realize just how appropriate the manifest destiny analogy is to apartheid Israel.
Even worse, perhaps he does.
Pence Touts Recognition of Jerusalem and Threatens Iranian Sovereignty
Mike Pence’s speech before the Knesset would not have been complete without touting President Trump’s controversial move in December to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Pence called the move “the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace”. In the same turn, Pence claimed the the U.S. remains “fully committed to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” These words appear to be chosen with the precision of an attorney. After all, the Jewish supremacist (a.k.a “Zionist”) vision of bulldozing any remnants of Palestine and its people into oblivion and building Israeli settlements on top of it could easily be defined as a “lasting peace”.
More important to note is how the Vice President’s echoed sentiments coming out of the State Department last week which indicate the Trump Administration is trying to breathe new life into the dwindling Syrian conflict as a pretext to attack Iran. Just as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did last week in a speech at Stanford University, Pence invoked the war on terror and ISIS to color Iran as a threat that must, and will, be stopped. Borrowing a strategy from the Obama Administration, Pence also echoed Tillerson by invoking the humanitarian argument to justify the upcoming U.S. attack on Iran by stating:
But I have another message today — a better message — from the people of America to the proud and great people of Iran: We are your friends, and the day is coming when you will be free from the evil regime that suffocates your dreams and buries your hopes. And when your day of liberation finally comes, we say to the good people of Iran, the friendship between our peoples will blossom once again.
Now just watch as the mainstream media outlets that supposedly hate Donald Trump fall all over themselves to beat the drums of war against Iran. Before that happens, though, you might want to read my short piece on the Five Quick Facts About Iran That the U.S. Wants You to Ignore. It will help put the coming carnage in context.
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