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Israel and 9-11
And Mumia Abu Pollard
11/28/2001 10:29:59 AM
Justin Raimondo / Antiwar.com
Commentary -- November 28, 2001
ISRAEL AND 9/11
Feds holding 60 Israelis in connection with 9/11 – Why?
Justin Raimondo
http://www.antiwar.com
Haven't we had enough of Israel? The other day, an explosive device
planted
near a school by Israeli army commandos killed five Palestinian kids:
Mohammed
Na'im Astal, 14; his brother, Akram Na'im Astal, 7; Aniz Idris Astal, 11;
his
brother Omar Idris Astal, 14; and Mohammad Sultan Astal, 12, a cousin.
They
were blown to smithereens, and not even the shards of their bodies could
be
found. The children were killed 200 yards from the UN-sponsored school
they
attended, along a path regularly used by students. Looming over this
horrific
death scene, the shadow of an Israeli army watchtower guarding the nearby
Gush
Katif settlement.
BULLDOZING PEACE
Haven't we had enough of Israel? The day after the US announced its new
Middle
East peace initiative, the Israelis bulldozed more Palestinian homes in
Gaza
and announced the planned construction of new houses for Jewish settlers
in the
West Bank city of Hebron, thumbing their noses at their American
benefactors at
a time when the US itself is besieged.
POLLARD, AGAIN
Haven't we had enough of Israel? When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visits
Bush
at the White House, he plans to "raise the issue of Jonathan Pollard,"
according to Middle East Newsline. Pollard, you'll remember, is the
Israeli spy
whose betrayal of American secrets led to the deaths of untold numbers of
American agents in the field. Many contend that the Israelis traded the
stolen
information to the Soviet Union in return for increasing the emigration of
Russian Jews to Israel. In "The Case Against Jonathan Pollard," Seymour M.
Hersh relates a conversation between the late William J. Casey, then CIA
director, and one of his station chiefs, a month after Pollard's arrest.
When
his subordinate asked why the CIA chief was ordering stepped-up monitoring
of
an Israeli delegation on a routine visit,
"'He asked if I knew anything about the Pollard case,' the station chief
recalled, and he said that Casey had added, 'For your information, the
Israelis
used Pollard to obtain our attack plan against the USSR, all of it. The
coordinates, the firing locations, the sequences. And for guess who? The
Soviets.' Casey had then explained that the Israelis had traded the
Pollard
data for Soviet émigrés. 'How's that for cheating?' he had asked."
HE'S KIDDING, RIGHT?
When one grasps the enormity of Pollard's betrayal, it is possible to
wonder:
why wasn't he shot? Yet, Sharon, like his predecessors, is intent on
releasing
him: furthermore, he is raising the issue at a particularly tense moment
in the
history of US-Israeli relations. After all, the Israeli Prime Minister
just got
through accusing the Americans of "appeasing" the Arabs by sacrificing
Israel
on the altar of a Middle East peace settlement, just as Czechoslovakia was
sold
out to the Germans in the years leading up to World War II. First he
compares
an American President in the midst of a crisis to Neville Chamberlain –
now he
wants to bring up Pollard. What will he do for an encore – build an
Israeli
settlement on the White House lawn?
BITTERSWEET SIXTEEN
November 21 was the sixteenth anniversary of Pollard's arrest, and the
week
seemed to mark a new upsurge in the movement to release Pollard from his
life
sentence. In addition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish
Organizations (a consortium of fifty-five groups), the Reform Union of
American
Hebrew Congregations and the Orthodox Union, the roster of organizations
and
politicians urging freedom for Pollard includes the sainted Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani – and now even the Reverend Al Sharpton.
THE POLLARD-SHARPTON PACT
Sharpton is being wooed by another Pollard supporter, Rabbi Shmuley
Boteach,
author of the "Kosher Sex" guide for married couples and bosom buddy of
mutant
pop singer Michael Jackson. Shmuley opines:
"The civil rights movement was not a black issue, it was about human
rights.
This is not a Jewish issue, it's about human rights. I think Rev. Sharpton
can
help in this cause. He's a man who is a voice for many who have no voice."
At Shmuley's urging, Pollard wrote to Sharpton, suggesting a meeting:
"I am aware that in the past you have gone on public record stating that
the
life sentence that I am serving is too harsh, calling for equal justice in
my
case, and advocating for my release. Your participation in this case is
welcome
and I look forward t exploring with you the ways in which your enhanced
involvement might be most effective."
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?
Sharpton and Pollard might seem like strange bedfellows, at first: after
all,
the Reverend Al has attacked Jewish merchants in the black community
as "interlopers," and been accused of anti-Semitism by his detractors. But
when
you get right down to it, Pollard's supporters and the Reverend Al's are
brothers under the skin. Black victimology and its Jewish equivalent – the
doctrine of Zionism – are both organized around the same principle: that
past
oppression of a minority requires extraordinary present-day remedies,
which
inevitably violate the rights of the majority.
BROTHERS IN SPIRIT
In the case of the victimologists-of-color, the remedy is affirmative
action
and the victims are those who lost out in the process: the students and
job
applicants who would have been rewarded if merit and not race had been the
only
criterion. According to the dogma of the Jewish victimologists, the remedy
for
their past oppression is Zionism, the idea of a separate Jewish state in
the
land of Palestine – and the victims are, among many others, the five
Palestinian schoolchildren blasted to bits by an Israeli booby-trap.
INGRATITUDE, THY NAME IS ISRAEL
US support for Israel has gotten us – what? Our tax dollars bought the
explosives that snuffed out those five young lives. We also pay for
Israeli
settlements that make peace in the Middle East an impossible dream.
Without US
aid and political support, the Israeli settler-colony would sink like a
stone,
enveloped by the vicious and incessant tribal warfare that characterizes
the
whole history of the region. Certainly our support has not earned us the
gratitude that one might expect. Instead, the Israeli Knesset held a
special
session to mark the anniversary of Pollard's incarceration, where, as
Israel
National News reports, "speakers from across the political spectrum
addressed
the Knesset and dozens of special guests, each demanding that the U.S.
release
Pollard."
During the session, one right-wing deputy got up and denounced Sharon
because
he "didn't have the courage to stand in front of the US President and
demand
Pollard's immediate release." Sharon cannot afford to lose the support of
his
ultra-right wing, and, at any rate, cannot fail to do what his Labor
predecessor did, and that is lobby for Pollard's release.
MUMIA ABU POLLARD
To even bring up the Pollard case is to stand accused of anti-Semitism,
but in
this case it is the Israelis, and their vocal amen corner in the US, who
are
making this an issue. It is Pollard's numerous supporters in America, as
well
as in Israel, who have not let us forget him. He is the Mumia Abu Jamal of
the
Zionist cause, a symbol of Israeli independence and combativeness – even
against its ally and devoted sponsor, the US. Just how far this
combativeness
goes was vividly dramatized by the sinking of the U.S.S. Liberty, in
1967 –
another topic, along with the Pollard case, that only alleged
"anti-Semites"
discuss – and it may go even farther, in light of a strange new twist in
the
post-9/11 terrorism investigation.
THE ISRAELI CONNECTION
What's interesting, in this regard, is the news that, along with the 1,000
or
so Muslim Middle Easterners jailed in the Ashcroft Sweep, 60 Israelis have
been
picked up and held, not just for routine visa violations, but in
connection
with the 9/11 investigation. The Washington Post story subhead
read: "Government calls Several Cases 'of Special Interest,' Meaning
Related to
Post-Attacks Investigation." According to the Post, INS officials in
Cleveland
and St. Louis testified in court that these Israelis were "of special
interest
to the government" – putting them in the same category as hundreds of
mostly
Arab men rounded up by the feds since the attacks.
What, exactly, is the meaning of this? In the days and weeks after the
twin
towers went down, perfervid rumors of Israeli responsibility for the
attack
roiled some sectors of the Arab media, with the former Imam of New York
City's
biggest mosque refusing to rule it out. The pro-Israel pundits had a field
day
with this, pointing to such nonsense as proof positive that the Arab mind
was
fundamentally and perhaps irreversibly deformed by "Islamo-fascism" and
anti-
Semitism. But as long as 60 Israeli citizens are being held – under
conditions
of great secrecy – in connection with the 9/11 investigation, it is no
longer
tenable to dismiss the possibility of an Israeli angle in this story.
SPYING – A TIME-HONORED TRADITION
Although the Post story blandly assures us that the Israeli detainees "are
observing a time-honored tradition in their country – touring the world
after
their mandatory service in the Israeli military," we are also informed
that "a
number of them had served in counterterrorist units in Israel." Well,
spying is
indeed a time-honored tradition, and something tells me these guys are no
ordinary tourists, but since the US Government is keeping mum about
everything
connected with this investigation, we just don't know. In rounding up
untold
hundreds of mostly Arab Muslim men, and interviewing thousands more, the
Ashcroft Sweep is clearly designed to gather information that might lead
them
to the remaining conspirators. It could be that the Israelis, or at least
some
of them, fall into this category: while not being directly involved, maybe
they
know something. Nothing else could account for the government's "special
interest."
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA
A delegation from Israel came to the US warning of some unspecified
terrorist
threat a few months before 9/11. Add to this persistent stories about the
employees of Odigo, an Israeli software company, who received "instant
messages" over their computers on the morning of 9/11, and news reports of
Israelis picked up by the FBI after neighbors reported them laughing and
smiling while they photographed themselves against the backdrop of the
burning
World Trade Center – and now this.
WHAT DID THEY KNOW?
Taken together, these stories justify at least some suspicion of Israel's
role.
It is still nonsense – and vicious nonsense – to ascribe the 9/11 horror
to "Zionist agents." But now there is at least a hint of Israeli
foreknowledge,
on some level, which can only be dispelled if and when the government
comes
clean and lifts the veil of secrecy.
TRUTH WILL OUT
Secret trials, secret evidence, closed military tribunals – many
commentators,
in decrying these extraordinary measures as unconstitutional, have also
pointed
out that none of this is necessary, since we already have the legal means
to
deal with terrorism, as in the case of the first WTC bombing. One would
think
that, normally, the US would be trying to impress the public that the
administration is on the job with this investigation, in addition to
building a
public case for holding over a thousand detainees.
There is, however, nothing normal about the times we are living in: and,
in any
case, secrecy is a necessity for those who have something to hide. But in
these
days of the Internet, and the instant dissemination of information, the
gatekeepers have to resort to quasi-legal means to keep the truth from
coming
out. But it will come out, sooner rather than later – in which case, the
question, "Haven't we had enough of Israel?" may be definitively answered.
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