-Caveat Lector- http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/document_details.asp?CatID=127&DocID=1225
18 April 2002 Israel: the generals’ grand design Tanya Reinhart [Tanya Reinhart, is professor of linguistics and cultural studies at Tel Aviv University and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her political writings appear regularly in Yediot Aharonot. ] Sharon’s present strategy of fighting the Palestinians to the last and imposing a new regional order follows the long-term vision of Israel’s political generals. For them, the failure of the Oslo peace process was not just inevitable, but a goal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- (excerpt) In conventional political discourse, Israel’s recent attacks on Palestinian civilians, villages, and governmental institutions are described as “retaliatory acts”. They are justified as a “response” to the latest wave of terror attacks on Israeli civilians. In fact, these “retaliatory measures” are part of a systematic assault on the Palestinian Authority that was carefully prepared long before the current “war on terrorism.” As far back as October 2000, at the outset of the Palestinian uprising and before the terror attacks had started, military circles in Israel had prepared detailed operative plans to topple Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. In a statement published in Israel’s major newspaper, Ha’aretz, on 18 October 2001, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared, “Oslo [the peace accord] is not continuing; there won’t be Oslo; Oslo is over.” Oslo is now widely considered in Israel to be “an historical mistake.” Since March of 2001, the Israeli media has openly discussed plans to re-establish full military control of the territories. Alex Fishman, the senior security correspondent for Yediot Aharonot, has explained that, after the Oslo accords, “The IDF (The Israeli Defence Force, or Israeli army) regarded the occupied territories as if they were one territorial cell,” and that this placed some constraints on the IDF and enabled a certain amount of freedom for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian population. Now, however, the army has returned to a concept of military administration that prevailed in the pre-Oslo years. They planned to divide the occupied territories into sixty-four isolated cells, each of which will be assigned a special military force, and “the local commander will have freedom to use his discretion” as to when and whom to shoot – the aim being to isolate Palestinian communities from each other, in preparation for a full takeover. The apparent change in the official Israeli position on Oslo did not occur as a result of Palestinian terrorism. The first Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians in the current uprising did not occur until 3 November 2000, in a Jerusalem market. Yet a month earlier, on 15 October, 2000, a document prepared by the security services at the request of then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak stated that “Arafat, the person, is a severe threat to the security of the state [of Israel] and the damage which will result from his disappearance is less than the damage caused by his existence” (details of this document were published in Ma’ariv on 6 July, 2001). The operative plan to topple Arafat, known as “Fields of Thorns,” had been prepared as far back as 1996, and was then updated in early 2000 once the Intifada began, as reported by Amir Oren in Ha’aretz on 23 November, 2001. The “Field of Thorns” plan includes everything that Israel is currently executing and more. (For details of the “Field of Thorns” plan see Anthony Cordesman, “Peace and War: Israel versus the Palestinians. A second Intifada?” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), December 2000, and its summary in Shraga Eilam, “Peace With Violence or Transfer” in Between The Lines, December 2000.) Starting in the Autumn of 2000, politicians and functionaries in then Prime Minister Barak’s circles worked on preparing public opinion for the eventual toppling of Arafat. A key step in that propaganda war occurred on 20 November 2000, when Nahman Shai, then public-affairs coordinator of the Barak government, released a sixty-page document prepared by Barak’s aide, Danny Yatom, titled “Palestinian Authority non-compliance… A record of bad faith and misconduct.” Informally referred to as the “White Book,” this document argued that Arafat’s present crime – “orchestrating the Intifada” – was just the latest in a long chain of evidence that showed, it alleged, that Arafat had never deserted the “option of violence and struggle.” Here is an example of the sort of evidence the “White Book” cites: “As early as Arafat’s own speech on the White House lawn, on13 September, 1993, there were indications that for him, the D.O.P. [declaration of principles] did not necessarily signify an end to the conflict. He did not, at any point, relinquish his uniform, symbolic of his status as a revolutionary commander” (Section 2). It’s true that Arafat wore the uniform on that occasion. This uniform, however, is the only “evidence” that the report can cite of Arafat’s hidden war-like intentions on an occasion that readers will recall was part of the Camp David peace process. A large section of the “White Book” is devoted to establishing Arafat’s “ambivalence and compliance” regarding terror. Here’s an example: “In March 1997 there was once again more than a hint of a ‘Green Light’ from Arafat to the Hamas, prior to the bombing in Tel Aviv… This is implicit in the statement made by a Hamas-affiliated member of Arafat’s Cabinet, Imad Faluji, to an American paper (Miami Herald, April 5, 1997).” No further “hints” are provided to link Arafat to this bombing. One wonders what history would look like if every statement by an opposition member of the Israeli Cabinet were taken to reflect the views of the Israeli Prime Minister. (Because of the nature of its coalition governments almost all Israeli Cabinets contain members from parties in contention with the Prime Minister of the day.) Yet these kinds of accusations – particularly that Arafat has given the “green light to terror” – succeeded in becoming the mantra for mainstream Israeli propaganda: “Arafat is still a terrorist and is personally responsible for the acts of all groups, from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to Hizbollah.” >From Barak to Sharon If the Barak administration paved the propaganda path, the plans to oust Arafat grew more detailed under Ariel Sharon. The Foreign Report of 12 July, 2001 disclosed that the Israeli army had updated its plans for an “all-out assault to smash the Palestinian authority, force out leader Yasser Arafat and kill or detain its army.” Entitled, “The Destruction of the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces,” this plan was formally presented to the Israeli government by chief of staff Shaul Mofaz on 8 July 2001. In this plan, the Israeli assault on Arafat would be launched, at the government’s discretion, after a big suicide bomb attack in Israel had caused widespread deaths and injuries; the bomb attack would be cited as the justification for the Israeli attack. Many in Israel suspect that the assassination of the Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Abu Hanoud in November 2001 was designed to create the appropriate “bloodshed justification.” The timing, in any case, is deeply suspect. First, Abu Hanoud was assassinated just when the Hamas was upholding its two-month-old agreement with Arafat not to attack targets inside of Israel. Second, the assassination took place on the eve of Sharon’s visit to the United States. Few in the Israeli government would not have been aware that the assassination would almost certainly result in a terrorist response. Indeed, Alex Fishman reported this publicly when he observed: “Whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu Hanoud knew in advance that [a terrorist attack inside of Israel] would be the price. The subject was extensively discussed both by Israel’s military echelon and its political one, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation” (Yediot Aharonot, 25 November, 2001). So Israel’s recent moves to destroy the Palestinian Authority, as described among others by Paul Rogers in last week’s openDemocracy, cannot be viewed as spontaneous “acts of retaliation.” They should be seen as part of a calculated plan, long in the making. This plan first required a propaganda war against Arafat, which was begun under Barak. The next step was to weaken the resistance of the Palestinians, which Israel has been doing systematically since October 2000 through bombarding their infrastructure, imprisoning people in their hometowns, and bringing them close to starvation. All Israel needed to complete the plan was for international conditions to “ripen,” permitting Israel to act without effective disapproval from the United States and various world bodies. By December 2001, conditions seem to have “ripened” thanks to the power-drunk political atmosphere in the United States. If, at first, it seemed that the United States would try to keep the Arab world on its side by moderating the Israel-Palestine conflict as it did during the Gulf War in 1993, it now appears that it couldn’t care less. US policy is no longer based on building coalitions or investing in persuasion, but on sheer force. The smashing “victory” in Afghanistan has sent a clear message to the Third World that nothing can stop the United States from ruining any nation it targets. From now on, fear should be the sufficient condition for obedience. The US hawks who are pushing to expand the war on terrorism to Iraq – and further – view Israel as an asset. There are few regimes in the world like Israel, so eager to risk the life of their citizens for some new regional war. As Prof. Alain Joxe, head of the French CIRPES (Centre for Peace and Strategic studies) put it in Le Monde, “the American leadership is presently shaped by dangerous right-wing Southern extremists, who seek to use Israel as an offensive tool to destabilize the whole Middle East area” (17 December, 2001). The same hawks are also talking about expanding the future war zone to targets on Israel’s agenda, like Hezbollah and Syria. Under these circumstances, Sharon got his green light in Washington. The Israeli media chorus incessantly reinforces this in a way that also feeds back into US politics: “Bush is fed up with this character [Arafat]”; “Powell said that Arafat must stop with his lies” (Barnea and Schiffer, Yediot Aharonot). But since December Arafat has been – for all practical purposes – under house arrest, surrounded by Israeli tanks. Even so, he has tried to appease the Israelis: to no avail. On 17 December, from his bunker, Arafat issued a televised call to all organizations to refrain from any terror or armed activities. The various Palestinian organizations complied, understanding the gravity of the situation, and a relative calm was maintained. Sharon, apparently needed a further “bloodshed justification” to advance his re-occupation plan. He ordered the assassination of another Palestinian leader on 14 January – Raed Karmi, head of a Tul Karem militia belonging to the mainstream Fatah organization. The horrible revenge taken by Palestinian militants – the bombing of a bat mitzvah celebration in Hadera – did not take long to follow. ------------- (please see site for end of article) Copyright © Tanya Reinhart, 2002. Published by openDemocracy. Permission is granted to reproduce articles for personal and educational use only. Commercial copying, hiring and lending is prohibited without permission. If this has been sent to you by a friend and you like it, you are welcome to join the openDemocracy network. Tanya Reinhart, is professor of linguistics and cultural studies at Tel Aviv University and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her political writings appear regularly in Yediot Aharonot. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. 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