-Caveat Lector-
From: Edward C. Corrigan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 5:32 AM
Subject: "Why Bush dances to Sharon's tune" by Eric Margolis
Here is an excellent article on the Israel lobby in the United States
and its control over President Bush. It is written by Eric Margolis,
Canada's equivalent to Robert Fisk. He is a columnist with the Toronto
Sun and is syndicated across Canada through the Sun newspaper chain.
Ed Corrigan
.
April 14, 2002
Why Bush dances to Sharon's tune
Israel's right-wing Likud party dominates U.S. Mideast policy through a
powerful lobby in
the American Congress
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
Who really is running America's Mideast policy? Last week,
the astounded world saw the grotesque spectacle of President George
W. Bush pleading in vain with Ariel Sharon, leader of a nation of only
6.3 million people which receives almost $5 billion in annual U.S. aid,
to cease laying waste the Occupied West Bank.
Ignoring worldwide condemnation and demands from
the UN Security Council, Sharon ordered his armour, much of it
American-supplied, to accelerate shooting up and bulldozing Palestinian
towns, refugee camps and all symbols of Palestinian identity or statehood.
Twenty years ago, Sharon invaded Lebanon, "to crush Palestinian terrorism."
His big guns and warplanes blasted Beirut for three weeks, killing 17,000
. Today, he remains determined to hold Arab lands Israel conquered in
1967 and to destroy any hopes or vestiges of a viable Palestinian state.
President Bush and senior aides Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were
left looking weak, indecisive, and inept. Bush clearly is a political
soulmate
of ultra-hawk Sharon; they share a mutual detestation for Yasser Arafat
and, it would seem, for Arabs in general.
Bush has been encouraging Sharon's attacks on Palestine for months. But
Israel's invasion of the West Bank - reminiscent of Soviet tanks crushing
Hungary in 1956 - gravely threatened America's Mideast client regimes,
so Bush had to demand Sharon relent.
SHEER FARCE
In an act of sheer farce, Powell was sent on a slow boat to Israel, via
Madrid and Morocco. Before Powell even arrived, former Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu summoned fawning U.S. senators and arrogantly
informed them Powell's mission would fail.
While the rest of the world condemned Israel's invasion and destruction
of the Palestinian ghettos, not a peep was heard from the White House,
Congress or America's media about Israel's violation of U.S. law in using
U.S.-supplied armour and warplanes against civilians. Nor about Israel's
violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. There
were no protests when Israel's Shimon Peres described massacres of
Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers.
Nor even a tut-tut when Sharon named to his cabinet a fanatical right-wing
general who advocates ethnic cleansing of Palestinians - the same crime
for which the U.S. pursued Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic.
To be sure, there is deep and justified sympathy in the U.S. for the
frightful suffering Israel has endured at the hands of suicide bombers,
and its need for self-defence.
Still, why was America alone in defending Israel's ruthless punishment of
the Palestinians?
How could Bush, only a few weeks ago, still bathing in the bogus glory of
a military "triumph" against a few thousand medieval tribesman in
Afghanistan, be so suddenly made to look foolish and impotent by events in
the Mideast?
Simply put, Sharon's right-wing Likud party has come to dominate U.S.
Mideast policy through its powerful American lobby, which "guides"
Congress.
Under pressure from the Israel lobby, 89 out of 100 senators and at least
280 congressmen recently demanded Bush give Sharon carte blanche to crush
Palestine. As the Israeli writer Uri Avnery wryly noted, if the Israel
lobby gave orders to repeal the Ten Commandments, Congress would vote in
favour.
America's media is strongly pro-Israel and averse to dissenting views. A
coterie of hawkish, Israel-first neo-conservatives dominates media
opinion-making and the Pentagon, leading the charge for a war against
Iraq, Iran, and Syria. One even helped to write Bush's foolish "axis of
evil" speech.
Tight U.S. mid-term elections are approaching.
Bush does not want to anger American Jewish voters
who believe Israel is in mortal danger.
GEORGE SR. ROASTED
Bush obviously recalls that when his father sought to pressure Israel to
halt building illegal settlements, Bush Sr. was unfairly roasted by the
media as an anti-Semite and forced to back down. No wonder Sharon
can thumb his nose at the White House.
Bush likes to talk tough, but this crisis has shown him to be the exact
opposite. In Texas, they'd say, "big hat, no land." Bush has so far failed
to take any real action to halt America's Mideast interests being
undermined by the bloodbath in Palestine and Israel.
The best way to protect Israelis from terror attacks is to withdraw their
200,000 illegal settlers and end their colonial rule over the West Bank,
Gaza and Golan; divide East Jerusalem into Jewish, Muslim, and Christian
sectors, have NATO troops police peace accords and either normalize
relations with the Arabs, as the Saudis propose, or build a wall to isolate
Israel from its neighbours. This cannot be done so long as settlements
remain.
Sharon is dead set against this sensible idea. He needs to be pushed
the way Dwight Eisenhower ordered Israel, in 1956, to get out of the Sinai,
which it had invaded and occupied - or else. Had Bush Eisenhower's
integrity or genuine patriotism, he would compel Sharon to accept the wise
Saudi peace plan and forget dreams of recreating biblical Greater Israel.
This would be a boon to Jews and Arabs alike.
But Bush junior is no Eisenhower. His dithering over the Mideast has
made the United States appear both helpless and a tacit supporter of
Israel's West Bank repression - and made America the potential target
of more terrorist attacks from the enraged Arab world.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Letters to the editor should be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit his
home page.
--------------------------------------
Edward C. Corrigan
Barrister and Solicitor
Notary Public
171 Queens Avenue
Suite 506
London, Ontario
N6A 5J7
519 439 4015 voice
519 439 7657 fax
800 883 6217 toll free
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.edcorrigan.ca
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
