I sometimes wonder if doing away with dual citizenship might loosen the stranglehold Israel has on U.S. foreign policy. It might, at least, reduce the number of campaign fundraising trips that so many members of Congress regularly take to Israel. I mean, we don’t see Congress making routine, Mecca-like pilgrimages to Maine or any other American state, or any other country for that matter.

Many years ago, I was told that some people call Israel the 51st state; I think of it as the cuckoo bird state. The common cuckoo relies on mimicry to locate and lay its eggs in sometimes smaller host birds’ nests, to  the detriment of the exhausted hosts. Like the host bird, America has become exhausted too, and poorer, and morally diminished from (naively, perhaps) feeding foreign aims that betrayed its own pro-social ideals.

In his July speech to Congress, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel also protects the U.S., not just vice versa. If that’s true, it’s only because we’ve made so many Arab and Muslim enemies defending Israel – which has never stopped dehumanizing Palestinians and stealing their land. Israel has been “playing” us for 75 years and keeps trying to trick us into attacking Iran (via its recent retaliation-seeking Iran provocations). Must we be manipulated into another war, like we were with Iraq, before someone figures that out?

Melodie Greene
Calais