Time for a Change #12

Israeli Colonialism

Dave Thomas

Some will accuse anyone that criticizes Israeli policy and practice of being prejudiced against Jews. This is ridiculous. Is anyone who criticizes Utah prejudiced against Mormons? Is anyone who criticizes our United States prejudiced against Americans? We often criticize our friends in hopes of helping them. The same way with countries. Also note that many Israeli Jews criticize Israeli policies. For a similar viewpoint to the one expressed here, read Richard Ben Cramer, 2004, How Israel Lost, The Four Questions. Also visit www.peacenow.org.

Defenders of Israeli policy typically say that every thing Israel does is to protect Israel against those who have sworn to destroy Israel. Why then does Israel persistently establish settlements in Palestine? These do not help defend Israel. They inflame the passions of Israel’s enemies. Israeli colonization of Palestine and establishment of internationally illegal settlements there is motivated by Israel’s desire to control Palestinian resources and people and ultimately to incorporate Palestine into Israel more than by Israel’s desire to protect Israel.

During the last 50 years, no colonized people have accepted their colonization peacefully. Israel will never have peace as long as she colonizes Palestine.

One can never be sure what would have happened if history had proceeded differently. But imagine that Israel had been content to accept its original boundaries, and whole-heartedly sought peace with her neighbors. Suppose Israel had sought, maintained relations with, and supported Palestinian leaders who accepted her existence. Suppose Israel had reached out to resettle Palestinian refugees from within Israel or at least to pay them reparations to assist their settlement elsewhere. Suppose Israel had recognized a Palestinian state and offered generous development assistance. Suppose Israel had paid for Palestinian water and other resources, instead of simply taking them. Suppose Israel had served as a market for Palestinians and had offered them employment at fair wages.

We will never know what would have happened, because this was never tried. But could it have been worse than the half century of violence which has occurred? Isn’t it possible that the great majority of Palestinians would have been happy to proceed to develop their own country with Israel as a supporting ally?

We can’t go back to redo history to find out what could have been. Even though hatred of Israel is greater now than earlier, could it still be possible to begin moving in a peaceful direction? Israel could approach the United Nations to ask for protection along her borders, as she begins a new peaceful policy. With international backing, Israel has much to offer the Palestinians as an alternative to continued violence.

Unfortunately there is no indication that a peaceful strategy will be attempted, particularly so long as the United States supports Israel’s present violent strategy. Israel may be attacking Lebanon in hopes the Lebanese government and army will disarm Hezbollah. A more likely result may be that the Lebanese government and army decide to support Hezbollah against Israel’s invasion. If Israel becomes bogged down in Lebanon the way the United States is bogged down in Iraq and if Israel’s invasion of Lebanon with U.S. support turns even conservative Arab governments against the U.S., the costs for Israel and our U.S. may allow a different American political leadership to steer a peaceful course. Let us hope so.

Liberals should always support peace, except when injustice results in large and continuing violation of freedoms and opportunities, which outweigh the violation that war causes. The primary injustice in the mid-east is the Israeli colonization of Palestine. Liberals should support changes in Israel’s policies from violent responses to those who respond violently to Israel’s colonization, to peaceful strategies oriented toward creating Palestinian allies. Just as we can’t be sure what would happen, neither can those who would criticize such changes be sure that they wouldn’t bring peace.

Recent news reports indicate that Israel may be willing to allow an international peace force to guard its border with Lebanon, perhaps similarly to what the United Nations has done on Cyprus to maintain peace between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. The United Nations should guard Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, but only on the condition these borders are Israel’s original borders. Israel and its neighbors could then have peace for the first time in many decades.

Israel has now attacked Lebanon, apparently believing that the Lebanese will blame Hezbollah and act to destroy their military capability. More likely, the Lebanese will blame Israel who is doing the bombing and give more support to Hezbollah.

Our United States is paying for the bombs that Israel is dropping on Lebanon and encouraging Israel to continue their attacks in hopes that Hezbollah’s military capability will be destroyed, with the support of the Lebanese. U.S. Secretary of State Rice has now gone to Lebanon to offer humanitarian assistance needed because of U.S. supported bombing of Lebanon. Wow! What effrontery! The best humanitarian assistance would be for the U.S. to insist that Israel withdraw to its borders, with Internationally sanctioned protection of Israel’s borders from violence by either the Israelis, Palestinians or Hezballah. This won’t happen during the Bush administration or perhaps even during a different one. So the carnage will continue.

---------------- Some comments added later

What could be Next?

Who could have imagined that Israel would be doing what they are in Lebanon? Imagine this. Suppose Israel decides to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran, to persuade Iran to quit assisting Hezbollah. There are some United States officials who would approve this, perhaps including our President Bush. Dave Thomas

See Silly Condoleezza Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continues to fly here and there like a chicken with its head cut off, with no apparent results. Congo, Darfur, Somalia, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Myamar, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, North Korea and other trouble spots abound, but where has Rice made any progress toward resolving them. Let’s work toward obtaining a U.S. administration which leads in creating a democratic United Nations with the resources to bring justice and peace to these various trouble spots.

Condoleezza Rice says let Israel continue bombing Israel until a sustainable peace can result from decimating Hezbollah. What she doesn’t recognize is that a sustainable peace can only result when Israel withdraws from Palestine and the Israeli settlements there. When Israel has complied with the many UN resolutions condemning its colonialism, an international peace keeping force can protect Israel’s borders from violence initiated by either Israel or Israel’s enemies.

----------------------- Some reactions to speeches and comments

Speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ohlmert, July 31, 2006

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel.

We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israelfrom Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and everywhere. The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims.

And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction - those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility.

Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack. This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us.

The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement? Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium? Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya? What can you do - that's the way we are. We don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly.

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret.  That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.

And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. What did it get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't recall you reacting with such alarm. And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent. And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent. What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't?

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine.  This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.

Dave Thomas’ Response

Contrary to Israeli Prime Minister Ohlmert’s comment in the last paragraph that this is a battle for Israel’s freedom, his earlier comments make clear that he does not intend to entirely withdraw from Palestine and the Israeli settlements. He uses the Jewish extermination by the Germans as justification for Israel’s violent reaction to Palestinian and Lebanese opposition. Unfortunately Israel’s reaction to Jewish history has only resulted in decades of strife. Incidentally, Ohlmert is wrong in stating that the world is not noticing and reacting negatively to the harming of innocent non-combatants in Iraq, Chechnya and other places.

I believe another way should be tried: Total withdrawal with international protection of Israel’s borders from violence originating from either side, and attempts to become a good neighbor to nearby Arabs. It is not easy to make a 180 degree turn and unlikely to occur; But the Israel’s past and present approach is clearly not producing security and peace for Israel and is resulting in huge damage to innocent non-combatants. I hope that Connie and others can fairly consider alternative strategies to achieve security and peace for Israel and Israel’s neighbors. Dave Thomas

Brigitte Gabriel (Lebanese) Speech at Duke University

I'm proud and honoured to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for Israel , the only democracy in the Middle East . As someone who was raised in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Moslem's shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christians, Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped.

For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about the Jews and Israel, that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that, if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds, as shouts of joy of Allah Akbar, God is great, would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes. One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this Mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: "it is not your fault". We just stood there crying, holding each other's hands. What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians. The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism verses civilization. It's democracy verses dictatorship. It's goodness verses evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle".

However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York , from Moscow to Madrid , from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation". Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent.

On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948 , in anticipation of Israel 's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street , in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem . Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" of "occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up, and support and defend the state of Israel , which is the front line of the war against terrorism.

Dave Thomas Responds

Brigitte Gabriel’s speech testifies that many Lebanese, Moslems and Palestinians have expressed their hatred through hideous actions. I agree, but this does not imply that Israeli policies toward these groups have been the most effective toward diminishing that hatred and bringing peace to Israel.

I am now reading Richard Ben Cramer’s How Israel Lost, The Four Questions. It addresses (1) Why do we care about Israel? (2) Why don’t the Palestinians have a state? (3) What is a Jewish State? (4) Why is there no peace? Cramer describes the Israel’s extreme domination and humiliation of the Palestinians. He also describes the Palestinian culture of vengeful reaction to humiliation and Yasser Arafat’s political corruptness. He asks the following questions on page 90:

“Why would a series of Israeli governments—everyone with the stated aim of making peace, or at least living in peace with the Palestinians—maintain (and enlarge) the network of settlement on Arab lands, continue (and increase) expropriations, confiscations punitive destructions—and assassinations? Why would successive governments elected to “put a stop on terror” ratchet ever tighter the vise-grip of closure and a system of checkpoints guaranteed to humiliate and embitter the captive people?”

My comments have focused upon Israeli policy because Israel is in control, such that changes in Israel’s policies may lead to changes in Palestinian opinions and policies. Palestinian policies have actually changed at times from more to less to more violence, without corresponding changes in Israeli policies. When violence diminished after the recent Palestinian elections, Israel increased her violence, including continued assassination of Palestinian leaders.

While we would all wish that Palestinians would respond peacefully to Israel, this will never happen as long as Israel continues to ignore Palestinian peace overtures and attacks Palestinian peace makers as viciously as Palestinian war makers. If peace will not reduce Israeli injustice, then Palestinians will continue to wage war.

From Paul Rogat Loeb, a Seattle resident, university professor and the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change, and Soul of a Citizen See www.paulloeb.org.

Two more articles that I thought might spur interesting thought and discussion.

The first is a reflection on the tragic shootings at the Jewish Federation in my city, and on the Lebanese War and related cycles of violence. (I know the Israeli Palestinian issue raises controversy, but these were my responses to a terrible event that hit very close to home). The second is on Ned Lamont's underdog victory in Connecticut, and on what ordinary citizens can do to help ensure that the will of the state's Democratic voters is respected.

In terms of classroom use, I'd say the one on the Seattle shooting might well be useful. The second's a bit more directed to your role as citizen, so maybe wouldn't fit as well in that role. Enjoy them and pass them on, post them, or reprint them if useful

[From The Seattle Times, Portland Oregonian, Detroit Jewish News and other places]

WAR AT HOME: THE SEATTLE SHOOTING

By Paul Rogat Loeb

Through the actions of a lone man with an unstable mental history, the Middle East wars have hit my community. Naveed Haq, from a middle class Pakistani-American family in eastern Washington State, shot six women at the Seattle Jewish Federation, in the city where I live. He killed one and left three critically wounded, saying "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel." I've never been to the Federation offices, but I've worshipped at affiliated Seattle synagogues, attended Federation-sponsored events, and met one of the women who was critically wounded. So Haq's reprehensible attack felt personal. Aside from the shooting of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane and an ambiguous 1994 incident involving a New York taxi driver and a van of Hasidic students, this may be the first politically motivated killing of an American Jew by an American Muslim in the past sixty years. As such, it risks sharply increasing the level of fear in America's Jewish communities, and with it the reflex support of even the most questionable Israeli actions.

We could dismiss the deaths as isolated from politics, the actions of a single deranged individual. Over 16,000 Americans kill each other every year. This past March, a man shot and killed six participants in a Seattle rave because he resented their lifestyle. Maybe if Haq hadn't attacked the Federation women, he would have shot someone else.

But I doubt it. So the question is whether the actions taken in response to this shooting will move us toward or away from further violence, here and in the Middle East. Before the shooting, Seattle's Arab American Community Coalition had been organizing a silent march for a Lebanon ceasefire. When the news hit, they postponed it, and issued a release saying they were appalled by the attack. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," they said. "Violence against anyone because of ethnicity or religion does not advance the cause of peace, justice and liberation in Lebanon, Palestine or Israel. Attacks on civilians must stop in Gaza, Beirut, Haifa, and certainly in downtown Seattle." Along with other Jewish, Christian, and Islamic leaders in the city, they called for common mourning and interfaith dialogue.

It's tempting, particularly for those of us who are Jewish, to use this shooting as an excuse for justifying every Israeli military escalation, and to blur the urgency of halting the bombs and shells falling on equally blameless civilians in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Haq eventually surrendered to police. But according to this logic we must teach a lesson to his compatriots--who continue to fire rockets and set off suicide bombs, attacking innocent women, men and children in Israel--because terror will understand only the language of force.

Except that Israel has followed this punitive approach again and again in the forty years since it occupied the West Bank. It's never brought security, only more bitterness. Five days before the shootings I appeared on a Seattle Jewish radio show along with the local head of Jewish Voices for Peace and an activist who worked to support Israeli policies. Though it was a friendly dialogue, the rabbi who cohosted the show kept treating those of us who challenged Israel's actions as starry-eyed dreamers, unwilling to acknowledge the realities of a violent world.

But it isn't naive to suggest that Israel's massive attacks on Lebanon and Gaza will embitter a new generation. Or to point out that the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections was the fruit of daily humiliations Palestinians face and of Israel's blocking the PLO from effectively functioning as even a nascent government. We've come close to agreements that would have ended the occupation with a just peace, in the Taba negotiations and in the nongovernmental Geneva Accord, whose participants included the former commander of the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza strip, the Palestinian Authority's minister for prisoner affairs, a leader of the Palestinian guerrilla group, the Tanzim, and a cousin of assassinated Hamas leader Abd al-Aziz Rantisi. Unless we return to that path, those who live in the West Bank and Gaza, or view themselves as acting in sympathy with them, are likely to fight with whatever weapons they see as available.

Absent a shift to widespread nonviolent resistance, of the kind that accounted for most of the first intifada's political gains (as chronicled in the book A Force More Powerful), this means, most likely, the taking of more innocent lives.

The Seattle gunman was a troubled individual, not part of any political movement. He didn't attend Islamic services and had even recently been baptized in an evangelical Christian church, though he didn't attend that church either. But the situation that sparked his unconscionable action was the same that continues to fuel Israeli-Palestinian cycles of violence.

Hezbollah seized Israeli hostages in the wake of Israeli attacks on Gaza and demanded the release of prisoners held since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Those from Gaza who abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit claimed to be acting in response to Israeli imprisonment of Palestinian women and children. Hamas now threatens retaliation for the deaths in the Lebanese village of Qana. As a result of the most recent Israeli military actions, 87% of all Lebanese now say they support the "resistance's fight against Israeli aggression."

The cycles of violence build on an individual level as well. When attempted London train bomber Hussain Osman was interrogated, he explained "More than praying we discussed politics, the war in Iraq ... we always had new films of the war... more than anything else those in which you could see Iraqi women and children who had been killed... There was a feeling of hatred and a conviction that it was necessary to give a signal--to do something."

Although Osman was caught before setting off his bombs, others were not, and brought about more innocent deaths.

No moral argument can justify the Seattle shootings. Suicide bombings and the firing of rockets at civilian populations in Israel are equally contemptuous of innocent lives. But the question isn't about justifications.

It's how to stop future violence. Whatever the actions of Hezbollah, forcing a fifth of the Lebanese population to flee their homes, destroying the power grids in Gaza and much of Lebanon, burning civilians with white phosphorous, and bombing villages full of children only makes matters worse. The killings here in Seattle should give Americans even greater impetus to demand an alternative.

[And the Lamont piece, From Huffington Post etc]

THE LAMONT VICTORY-NEXT STEPS FOR CITIZENS

By Paul Rogat Loeb

Ned Lamont's primary victory over Joe Lieberman may turn out to be a key moment in stopping the Bush Administration's destructive policies. But that depends on what the rest of us do.

Lieberman, as a majority of Connecticut's Democratic voters just acknowledged, was Bush's fiercest Democratic ally, not just on the Iraqi war, but on issues from the bankruptcy bill to his regressive energy bill, tax plans, and judicial nominations, not to mention Terri Schaivo. He was defeated despite outspending Lamont two to one, (with the help of massive contributions from the pharmaceutical and financial services industries) and being supported by Connecticut's and the Democratic Party's entrenched political leaders.

The question now is whether Lieberman can hold his seat through a divisive third party run that ignores the mandate of Connecticut voters. If anyone who loses a party primary, even a close one, can simply run on their own, then primaries become meaningless as ways to democratically select our leaders. Had Lieberman launched a third party campaign from the start, that would have been his right, but doing so after he lost the legitimate primary vote is unconscionable.

Though Lieberman's announced that he'll run as a third party candidate, that isn't set in stone. Citizens throughout the country can play a crucial role by pressuring key elected leaders and organizations that initially supported Lieberman to switch their support. Some of this has already begun to occur, with Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer's strong statements that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will fully back Lamont, and Hillary Clinton's donation of $5,000 from her PAC. But the process needs to be taken still further.

Lieberman's chances of splitting the party enough to win in November depend on the support he lines up. If it's only from major corporate and Republican interests, many of whom contributed to his primary campaign, then voters are far more likely to see him as merely a Republican stalking horse. According to ABC's George Stephanopolous, Karl Rove has already approached his campaign and offered to help. Republican fund-raisers have already volunteered to contribute. But he can't win with just Republican support.

What got Lieberman as close as he came was the active support of the local Democratic machine and the legitimacy that he gained from the backing of key national leaders like Schumer, Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer, and Barack Obama, and from institutions like the Connecticut AFL-CIO (though the state's major teachers unions and the Machinists union backed Lamont), and from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Human Rights Campaign.

These individuals and institutions supported him, I believe, because of old friendships and allegiances, because they didn't expect Lamont to emerge as such a powerful candidate or his insurgent campaign to touch such a nerve, and because there's a standard (and problematic) assumption that if an incumbent is at least somewhat on your side, you give them your automatic backing even if their opponent is as strong on the relevant issues or stronger. So National Abortion Rights Action League backed Lieberman despite his immensely disturbing position that a hospital could refuse emergency contraceptives to a rape victim and despite his playing a key role, by blocking any filibuster, in the confirmation of the profoundly anti-choice Justices Roberts and Alito (who have also been as ghastly as expected on issues of the environmental, social justice, civil liberties and presidential power). It was the support of institutions and individuals like these that gave Lieberman his veneer of moderation.

Now, we face a different situation. Lamont stressed from the beginning that he would support Lieberman if he lost and even campaign with him. Lieberman needs to do the same. The statewide turnout was nearly double the last major contested statewide Democratic primary, a dozen years ago. Given that Connecticut's Democratic voters have spoken, Lieberman needs to respect their will, and not split the party (and divert limited resources) by refusing to accept the will of the voters.

So the challenge is to line up every possible aspect of Democratic and organizational support behind Lamont-and to strip Lieberman of the resources and support that got him as close as he came. The initial shifts of high-profile Democrats are encouraging, whether they stemmed from conscience or belated recognition that ordinary Democrats want a change. But we need to ask more of them. Their endorsing Lamont matters, as do their financial contributions. But particularly for those who gave Lieberman credibility by initially backing and campaigning for him, that's not enough. They need to make clear that they will visibly and energetically campaign for Lamont as the legitimately elected representative of their party, and follow through on this commitment if they can't convince Lieberman to withdraw. It's up to all of us as to make sure the leaders who represent us respond.

The same thing's true with liberal organizations that endorsed Lieberman when Lamont's campaign had yet to coalesce. If we're members or supporters, we need to personally contact them and ask that they back Lamont and not Lieberman in this next round. They need to recognize that supporting Lieberman at this point means supporting the Bush administration, and everything it stands for.

We might remember that this isn't the first time Lieberman has placed his career above loyalty to party and beliefs. He also hedged his bets in the 2000 election, by running for reelection as Connecticut Senator while also running for Vice President. It didn't help the ticket, but worse yet, had Gore won (as he would have without the Florida machinations), Lieberman would have had to resign his Senate seat, and be replaced by a Republican appointed by Republican Governor John Rowland. So Lieberman has a long history of looking out only for himself, and we might also do our best to ensure that the media remembers this.

If we're successful enough in our efforts, the wells of support for Lieberman may dry up sufficiently that he'll decide not to make a serious third-party race. Or we'll help Lamont gain enough support and momentum to solidly win. Contributing to Lamont's campaign is important-money matters.

But wherever we live, we now have another task. That's to raise our voices enough with the elected officials and organizations that represent us, so that this campaign indeed can indeed become a potential national turning point.

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