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Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
April 1, 2002
PUTTING ISRAEL FIRST
Bush ignores US national interest, kowtows to Israel
The leering ugliness of the Israelis' Easter blitzkrieg is darkly illustrated by the
news
that, having marched into Ramallah, the IDF prepared a special Easter television
broadcast for this historically Christian city:
"Porn movies and programs in Hebrew are being broadcast by Israeli troops who
have taken over three Palestinian television stations of Ramallah, irate residents of
the besieged West Bank town have told AFP …. The soldiers started broadcasting
the porn clips – considered extremely offensive by most Muslims – intermittently this
afternoon from the Al-Watan, Ammwaj, and Al-Sharaq channels, the residents said.
'The pornographic movies started on Al-Watan television at around 3:30 pm,' one 34-
year-old Palestinian mother named Reema told AFP. 'I have six children at home,
they have nowhere to go with what is going on here and can't even watch TV,' she
said angrily. 'It's not healthy really. I think the Israelis want to mess with our
young
men's heads,' she said."
CHEAP THRILLS
As the Middle East descends into the political equivalent of a sado-masochistic orgy,
the porn trope forms the perfect note trumpeting Israel's triumph. The IDF offensive,
the invasion of Arafat's compound, the vaunted flexing of Israel's military muscle –
all
have the earmarks of some perverted ritual of humiliation and violation. As the IDF's
idea of Easter programming attests, the Israeli offensive projects the essential
character of the degraded Israeli "democracy" – a lust for domination.
After all, why does a robber, having already looted the till and gone halfway out the
door, turn and shoot his victim? Because he can. For one moment, he is a god, his
power to inflict death, at will, is orgasmic proof of his omnipotence. However, for a
certain type of killer there is no such thing as a clean kill: he must torture his
victim
until the last moment, extracting every ounce of perverted pleasure out of the
experience. This sadistic impulse is what drives the IDF and the Sharon government
forward – and gives their American amen corner a really cheap thrill.
SICKO BLOGGERS
Glenn Reynolds, the " blogger "-in-chief of the War Party, responds with a "chortle" to
the news of the Easter Sunday porn offensive, echoing Australian war-blogger-cum-
journalist Tim Blair 's snicker. And one can only imagine what the sight of those
butch young IDFers with their leather boots on Palestinian necks will do to inspire
Andrew Sullivan 's much -advertised libido . Flex those "power glutes," Andy!
PALESTINIAN KRISTALLNACHT
The complete helplessness of the Palestinians before the Israeli onslaught was
underscored by President Bush's endorsement of the rampaging IDF :
"I can understand why the Israeli government takes the actions they take. Their
country is under attack. Every day there has been a suicide bombing, and every day
the government sees the loss of innocent life."
Asked if the storming of Arafat's office was justified, the President averred:
"Israel is a democratically elected government, and the government is responding to
the will of the people for there to be more security.' Israel will make the decisions
necessary to defend herself."
Germany, too, was a democracy prior to World War II: Hitler was elected Chancellor,
and was recognized as such by all the other powers. Did his "democratic" mandate
ameliorate the crimes of Kristallnacht ?
But in looking to the American President for a semi-coherent explication of US policy
we are bound to come up empty-handed. Arafat could "do more" to rein in the suicide
bombers, Dubya dumbly insisted, as the Israelis cut off the phones, the electricity,
and the water in the PLO chieftain's compound. Duh-Duh-Dubya is clearly in over his
empty head, and is reduced, in a moment that calls for leadership, to a ventriloquist's
dummy, dutifully parroting the Israeli line.
OFF THE TRACKS
Meanwhile, as if to underscore this failure, the US delegate to the United Nations
was voting for a resolution condemning the Israeli invasion and demanding the
complete withdrawal of the IDF from Palestinian cities. This really brought home the
sad truth of Zbigniew Brzezinski's incisive analysis on CNN the other day:
"You have shown some very dramatic footage, some very dramatic sound bites as
well. And they give you a sense of the immediacy of the tragedy that's unfolding. But
I think it's important to step back and to remember that yesterday was a day of
historic opportunity in the Middle East as well as a criminal calamity.
"The historic opportunity is that, for the first time in 50 years, the Arab states have
indicated they are prepared to live in peace with Israel. And they've indicated a more
or less equitable framework, subject to negotiation, for such peace. The calamity, of
course, is the criminal act of terrorism. I find it baffling that the United States is
focusing almost entirely on the calamity.
"… [T]he [Bush] administration can't ignore the fact that for the last 10 years, Mr.
[Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon has opposed the Oslo peace process, he has
contributed to the political climate in Israel that subsequently led to the killing of
[then]
Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Rabin. He [Sharon] has been determined to dismantle the
Palestinian Authority and he is using every act of terrorism as an excuse to try to
destroy the Palestinian Authority. That is not the way toward peace. And the absence
of any meaningful American strategy and a sense of direction is a part of this
appalling reality that we are now watching."
THE ISRAELIZATION OF US FOREIGN POLICY
Lacking any coherence, American policy in the region is effectively placed in the
service of Israel's present government. As American-bought tanks roll over the
Palestinians, and Bush demands that Arafat – on the verge of being taken into
custody or killed – "stop the violence," Sharon's strategic goal has been effectively
accomplished. It is now the US and Israel versus the entire Arab-Muslim world. What
began as a war against an extremist fringe sect of Islam has turned into a religious
and civilizational conflict. The unprecedented Saudi peace plan was met with a volley
of spittle in Crown Prince Abdullah's face, coming not just from Sharon but from
Bush. If one of the chief aims of the Israeli lobby in the US has been to provoke a
final split between Washington and Riyadh, then the Easter offensive certainly
accomplished that. Our "war on terrorism" – marketed, at first, as a war on Osama
bin Laden and the perpetrators of 9/11 – has now become a war on a billion-plus
Arabs and Muslims worldwide. It is a war in which the US will have few dependable
allies: perhaps only Israel can be counted on. And that's just the way the Israeli
lobby
likes it.
A NATIONAL DISGRACE
It's a disgrace, really, how American interests are being ignored and derailed in the
Middle East, while our policy benefits only the interests of a belligerent little
settler
colony based on religious obscurantism and an outdated paranoia. The Saudi peace
plan, as an excellent piece in Reason pointed out , offered the Israelis what they
have always claimed to want – normal, peaceful relations in the region:
"Thanks to the Saudis a political horizon now exists. What emerged from the Beirut
conclave was an inventive offer that defied the tide of anger in the region aroused by
the Intifada. Pointedly, it was directed at Israeli public opinion and came
accompanied by a most amiable Saudi interpretation of the type of 'normal relations'
the Arabs promised Israel."
"The Arabs are bluntly offering Israel what it has always demanded," concludes
Reason contributing editor Michael Young. "If Israel refuses, its quarrel may no
longer be merely with its neighbors, but also with the US." I'm afraid Young is
overestimating the Bush administration's willingness to face down Sharon and
Likud's American amen corner. It was the libertarian journalist and polemicist Garet
Garrett who, in 1952, presciently noted that "no Empire is secure in itself: it's
security
is in the hands of its allies." Now, it appears, our foreign policy and our security
has
been placed in the hands of one particular ally, which is intent on dragging us into
their war.
THE NEW 'ISOLATIONISM'
In declaring Arafat "the enemy," Sharon announced that the purpose of surrounding
and invading the PLO compound was to "isolate" him. With this act, the Israelis also
succeeded in isolating the US. Brzezinski outlined the dangers well:
"I worry about the American national interest. I can see two major jeopardies ahead if
we don't step into the breach. If the tragedy between the Israelis and Palestinians
degenerates into total violence, if Arafat is killed, we'll probably see major
uncertainty, major instability in the Middle East. We'll become more isolated in the
war against terrorism because the Arabs will then unite against us. And we could
even get an oil embargo with the Saudis, the Iraqis and the Iranians joining forces
despite their disagreements. That's a very, very ominous scenario."
THE WAR PARTY REJOICES
Oh, but what a glorious scenario for the War Party! Why, just think, they can have all
the melodrama of a World War II movie: rationing, grim determination, and the same
self-righteous retort to all critics and other whiners: "Don't you know there's a war
on?!" Andrew Sullivan will lecture us on the morally uplifting effects of fasting;
Victor
Davis Hanson will write an article full of classical allusions to Spartan
self-sacrifice
and the manly virtues of imperial Rome; Norman Podhoretz will exhort us not to
engage in "another Munich" when the Arabs come up with another peace proposal;
and Rich Lowry will stop denying he really wanted to "nuke Mecca," admit it wasn't a
"joke," and ask "well, why not?"
AS YE SOW…
The line of the Bush administration and the Israelis is clear: the suicide bombings
cannot be tolerated, and Arafat is responsible. Since 9/11, it's a whole new ballgame,
and the Arabs had better get used to it, and get out of the way. Aside from the
question of Arafat's responsibility, which hardly seems a credible contention when he
can't even turn the lights on in his headquarters, what the American people don't
know about is the degree of the Israeli government's own responsibility for the terror
campaign now being unleashed on their civilian population. For, as Richard Sale,
UPI's terrorism correspondent, noted, Israel gave major aid to the fundamentalist
Hamas – the principal terrorist group coordinating the suicide bomber campaign:
"Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to
several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s,
Tel
Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years. Israel
"aided Hamas directly – the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the
PLO," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic
Studies. Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support
for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former
senior CIA official."
Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978, as Al-Mujamma Al Islami, and funds
flowed into its coffers without any interference from the authorities; funds slated for
the secular and leftist PLO were embargoed. At the time of the Iranian revolution,
Hamas began to pick up support, and, according to US intelligence sources cited by
Sale,
"Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One US intelligence source who
asked not to be named, said that not only was Hamas being funded as a
'counterweight' to the PLO, Israeli aid had a more devious purpose: 'to help identify
and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous
terrorists.'"
… SO SHALL YE REAP
Hamas was rife with Israeli collaborators, some of whom were weeded out and
executed – but not all. The secular nationalism of the PLO had merged Palestinian
Christians and Muslims into a unified struggle against the Israeli occupation. Hamas
had started out as an Islamic alternative to this structure, and so was encouraged by
the Israelis. However, via the confluence of two factors – the rise of fundamentalism
in Iran and the infusion of millions in Israeli funding (all of it US tax dollars, by
the
way) -- the group metastasized into a virulently murderous cancer that eventually
turned on its creators. Yet, as Sale points out,
"Even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to continue to give
Hamas support: 'The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli
establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would
refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any
agreements put in place,' said a US government official. 'Israel would still be the
only
democracy in the region for the United States to deal with,' he said."
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
A recent juxtaposition of links published by Antiwar.com makes the thrust of Israeli
policy all too clear:
The Saudi Peace Plan has created unusual allies:
In favor:
Arab Nations
George Bush
Yasser Arafat
Opposed:
Ariel Sharon
Hamas
Osama bin Laden
The degree to which Sharon and Hamas have goals in common, taken in context
with a recent curious news story about one of these suicide bombers, leads us in a
disturbing – but none too surprising – direction. As Associated Press account of the
death of suicide bomber Murad Abu Asal appears, at first blush, to be merely
baffling:
"A Palestinian suicide bomber threw himself on an Israeli vehicle parked close to the
West Bank border Wednesday, wounding two members of Israel's Shin Bet security
service who were sitting inside, police said. A statement from Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's office, which is responsible for Shin Bet, said the injured agents were on
"an operational mission" when they were attacked. The bomber's body was left at the
scene until explosives experts could check it for booby traps. Palestinian security
sources and Israeli radio reports identified the bomber as Murad Abu Asal, 23, and
said he had worked as a collaborator with Israel.
"… Palestinian security sources said collaborators regularly meet with Israeli security
agents in that area. Israel's security forces have a wide network of Palestinian
collaborators who provide intelligence."
On second blush, however, this raises a few questions, at the very least, such as:
what sort of "operational mission" were these two Shin Bet agents on when they met
their fate? It would be pointless to speculate, but forgive me if I at least raise the
possibility that they were up to no good, and that this was one collaborator who
finally
– and literally – went off on them.
SHARON'S GAME
Since 9/11, we are all supposed to empathize with the Israelis, because we allegedly
know just how they feel, they who have to live every day of their lives with the
specter
of terrorism hanging over their heads. But the suspicion that the Israeli government
may bear some responsibility for that threat – and not just indirectly, on account of
the occupation – may yet alert Americans and Israelis to the twisted nature of
Sharon's game.
TWILIGHT WORLD
In the black-and-white world of George W. Bush's "war on terrorism," the idea that
things are not always what they seem to be on the surface – especially when it
comes to the murky relations between nations – is lost or glossed over. In the twilight
world of covert action, however, where there are no allies and it's a war of all
against
all, moral parameters and boundaries are dissolved in the solvent of necessity, and
it's hard to tell friend from foe. Which brings to mind a curious news item from the
Bergen County (New Jersey) News, dated September 15, 2001….
A CURIOUS TALE
The story paints a picture of a widening dragnet in the greater New York-New Jersey
area designed to sweep up anyone and everyone connected to 9/11, including a raid
on a business known as Urban Moving Systems:
"Investigators first became interested in the business after witnesses reported
Tuesday that three men seemed to celebrate the World Trade Center explosions in
Liberty State Park, then drove away in a company van. … Agents took pictures inside
the company's office Thursday night and seized 13 computer hard drives. They also
showed a keen interest in the roof, which had a very clear view of the World Trade
Center until Tuesday. A half-dozen agents searched the roof with flashlights and
appeared particularly interested in the sight lines from the roof toward downtown
Manhattan.
"East Rutherford police stopped an Urban Moving Systems van on Route 3 Tuesday
and detained five men inside, at least some of them company employees. The
occupants said they were all Israelis. They were being detained because they are in
violation of immigration regulations, and all have expressed a desire to leave the
country on their own, according to an Immigration and Naturalization Service
spokesman.
"An employee of Urban Moving Systems, who would not give his name, said the
majority of his co-workers are Israelis and were joking on the day of the attacks.
"'I was in tears,' the man said. 'These guys were joking and that bothered me. These
guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"
At first, it seems like an anomaly that a bunch of Israelis would be cheering –
literally
jumping for joy – at the sight of the World Trade Cener, the pride of New York,
brought down and humbled. But, then again, on second thought, it makes perfect
sense, now doesn't it? "Now America knows what we go through," indeed. In light of
the growing scandal over Israeli spies in this country – who might have known
something about 9/11 before the dawning of that fatal day – we all ought to be as
"bothered" as that astonished employee of Urban Moving Systems by such a
perverse willingness to go to any lengths to gain our sympathy. We have to ask: what
wouldn't they do to keep it?
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