A couple of readers asked me why I removed my support for the “Stop supporting Israeli apartheid!!” idea (from the change.org website).

I have to state here that of course I still do support the main point of the idea, i.e. to stop the conflicts in the war-torn region of Gaza (I am not taking sides but I think it’s not as simple as “the evil Israelis are killing the innocent Palestinians“). However, voting for this idea in the change.org website misses the point of this whole “peoples’ government” idea of the Obama administration. And I explain.

I see the change.org voting as a very good chance of introducing to the administration a number of important medium-to-long term issues that ought to be addressed for one of two reasons: either because the current legislation on the issue is fundamentally flawed (or non-existent) or because its implementation is crippled with ideology/financial-based lobbying, corruption, and/or simple apathy (hmmm, where have I seen that before?).

With this context in mind, the “Israeli Apartheid” idea is merely an impulse reaction to the Gaza conflicts, and as such it will not probably serve the granter purpose of re-evaluating the whole foreign politics plan the US has been adhering to over the last (many) years. If the US want to play a role in safeguarding peace and human rights in the world, they have to be consistent in their actions; otherwise, their credibility will fall and people will stop trusting them -oh wait, this has already happened!

In any case, a more generic idea about the US positioning in such cases would probably get my support, but for the time being I see other longer-term issues being more important in the context of this voting system. Issues having to do with energy sources, science education and funding, climate change, women rights, the fundamentals of the financial system, and the reformation of the horrible US health care system.