Speaking of massacres, Aaron Maté has a powerful article on Gaza and the U.S. role in facilitating Israel’s destruction of the same. Here’s an excerpt:
According to Save the Children, the number of Palestinian children killed in just three weeks has already surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019. “Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” a UNICEF spokesperson says. “It’s a living hell for everyone else.” In a statement demanding a ceasefire, seven UN special rapporteurs now warn that “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.”
I remember when Sting got into trouble in the 1980s for singing that the Russians love their children too. Is it OK to say the Palestinians love their children too and would prefer that they not be obliterated by “Made in USA” bombs provided for free to Israel?
I wrote this just this morning to a friend who’s been taking fire because she believes the Palestinians in Gaza are human beings who shouldn’t be targeted for ethnic cleansing:
The Israel/Palestine issue is both complex and simple. To keep it simple, we’re all human beings. No group of people are “human animals.” If any country should know the dangers of dehumanizing an enemy, it’s Israel. Yet that’s precisely what Israel is doing.
There are plenty of Jews who are bravely denouncing Israel, but their voices are not being heard. Meanwhile, the US government supinely serves the worst elements in Israel. Our own government is complicit in ethnic cleansing, not that I’m surprised about this, given our nation’s history.
They say Dexter was a serial killer, but he’s got nothing on the jackals in the US and Israel who’ve already killed roughly 10K Palestinians with many more deaths to come. (With apologies to real jackals.)
I’ve been writing to my senators and representative as well, imploring them not to vote for more murderous weaponry, whether for Israel or Ukraine (or anyone else). Just about all our politicians make noises about our country advancing Judeo-Christian values yet they conveniently forget about values like “thou shalt not kill” and “blessed are the peacemakers.”
Hellscape in Gaza (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
It would be far better if the U.S. stood on the sidelines and did nothing, yet Congress and the President must show their “strength” by using taxpayer dollars to ship scores of billions in weaponry to facilitate mass murder. As they do so, they pat each other on the back for being strong while boasting of creating jobs for various weapons makers in the “homeland.”
That’s how perverted and twisted government officials are. They’d rather spend scores of billions on death overseas than help struggling Americans here at home.
We need to vote the warmongers out, except I can’t forget what Emma Goldman said about voting: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
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By Bill Astore Speaking of massacres, Aaron Maté has a powerful article on Gaza and the U.S. role in facilitating Israel’s destruction of the same. Here’s an excerpt: According to Save the Children, the number of Palestinian children killed in just three weeks has already surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s …
The Association of Arab-American University Graduates finds it compelling to inaugurate its new publication series, Special Documents, with Oded Yinon’s article which appeared in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. Oded Yinon is an Israeli journalist and was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel. To our knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the “vision” for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.
The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
By Oded Yinon
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
March 11, 2002 —- At the outset of the nineteen eighties the State of Israel is in need of a new perspective as to its place, its aims and national targets, at home and abroad. This need has become even more vital due to a number of central processes which the country, the region and the world are undergoing. We are living today in the early stages of a new epoch in human history which is not at all similar to its predecessor, and its characteristics are totally different from what we have hitherto known. That is why we need an understanding of the central processes which typify this historical epoch on the one hand, and on the other hand we need a world outlook and an operational strategy in accordance with the new conditions. The existence, prosperity and steadfastness of the Jewish state will depend upon its ability to adopt a new framework for its domestic and foreign affairs.
2
This epoch is characterized by several traits which we can already diagnose, and which symbolize a genuine revolution in our present lifestyle. The dominant process is the breakdown of the rationalist, humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization since the Renaissance. The political, social and economic views which have emanated from this foundation have been based on several “truths” which are presently disappearing–for example, the view that man as an individual is the center of the universe and everything exists in order to fulfill his basic material needs. This position is being invalidated in the present when it has become clear that the amount of resources in the cosmos does not meet Man’s requirements, his economic needs or his demographic constraints. In a world in which there are four billion human beings and economic and energy resources which do not grow proportionally to meet the needs of mankind, it is unrealistic to expect to fulfill the main requirement of Western Society,1 i.e., the wish and aspiration for boundless consumption. The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do–that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.
3
The vision of man’s limitless aspirations and abilities shrinks in the face of the sad facts of life, when we witness the break-up of world order around us. The view which promises liberty and freedom to mankind seems absurd in light of the sad fact that three fourths of the human race lives under totalitarian regimes. The views concerning equality and social justice have been transformed by socialism and especially by Communism into a laughing stock. There is no argument as to the truth of these two ideas, but it is clear that they have not been put into practice properly and the majority of mankind has lost the liberty, the freedom and the opportunity for equality and justice. In this nuclear world in which we are (still) living in relative peace for thirty years, the concept of peace and coexistence among nations has no meaning when a superpower like the USSR holds a military and political doctrine of the sort it has: that not only is a nuclear war possible and necessary in order to achieve the ends of Marxism, but that it is possible to survive after it, not to speak of the fact that one can be victorious in it.2
4
The essential concepts of human society, especially those of the West, are undergoing a change due to political, military and economic transformations. Thus, the nuclear and conventional might of the USSR has transformed the epoch that has just ended into the last respite before the great saga that will demolish a large part of our world in a multi-dimensional global war, in comparison with which the past world wars will have been mere child’s play. The power of nuclear as well as of conventional weapons, their quantity, their precision and quality will turn most of our world upside down within a few years, and we must align ourselves so as to face that in Israel. That is, then, the main threat to our existence and that of the Western world.3 The war over resources in the world, the Arab monopoly on oil, and the need of the West to import most of its raw materials from the Third World, are transforming the world we know, given that one of the major aims of the USSR is to defeat the West by gaining control over the gigantic resources in the Persian Gulf and in the southern part of Africa, in which the majority of world minerals are located. We can imagine the dimensions of the global confrontation which will face us in the future.
5
The Gorshkov doctrine calls for Soviet control of the oceans and mineral rich areas of the Third World. That together with the present Soviet nuclear doctrine which holds that it is possible to manage, win and survive a nuclear war, in the course of which the West’s military might well be destroyed and its inhabitants made slaves in the service of Marxism-Leninism, is the main danger to world peace and to our own existence. Since 1967, the Soviets have transformed Clausewitz’ dictum into “War is the continuation of policy in nuclear means,” and made it the motto which guides all their policies. Already today they are busy carrying out their aims in our region and throughout the world, and the need to face them becomes the major element in our country’s security policy and of course that of the rest of the Free World. That is our major foreign challenge.4
6
The Arab Moslem world, therefore, is not the major strategic problem which we shall face in the Eighties, despite the fact that it carries the main threat against Israel, due to its growing military might. This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorites and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging.5 Most of the Arabs, 118 million out of 170 million, live in Africa, mostly in Egypt (45 million today).
7
Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria. Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians. In Egypt there is a Sunni Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7 million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a state of their own, something like a “second” Christian Lebanon in Egypt.
8
All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflict even more than those of the Maghreb. Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to the severity of the domestic trouble.
9
Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi’ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren’t for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi’ites in Iraq view as their natural leader.
10
All the Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon a delicate house of sand in which there is only oil. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis constitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi’ites are the majority but are deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi’ites are once again the majority but the Sunnis are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marxist South Yemen there is a sizable Shi’ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, Egyptian and Yemenite, but a Saudi minority holds power.
11
Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nablus. All of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient.
12
Alongside the Arabs, split as they are, the other Moslem states share a similar predicament. Half of Iran’s population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half of an ethnically Turkish group. Turkey’s population comprises a Turkish Sunni Moslem majority, some 50%, and two large minorities, 12 million Shi’ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds. In Afghanistan there are 5 million Shi’ites who constitute one third of the population. In Sunni Pakistan there are 15 million Shi’ites who endanger the existence of that state.
13
This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems.
14
In this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups and a huge mass of poor people. Most of the Arabs have an average yearly income of 300 dollars. That is the situation in Egypt, in most of the Maghreb countries except for Libya, and in Iraq. Lebanon is torn apart and its economy is falling to pieces. It is a state in which there is no centralized power, but only 5 de facto sovereign authorities (Christian in the north, supported by the Syrians and under the rule of the Franjieh clan, in the East an area of direct Syrian conquest, in the center a Phalangist controlled Christian enclave, in the south and up to the Litani river a mostly Palestinian region controlled by the PLO and Major Haddad’s state of Christians and half a million Shi’ites). Syria is in an even graver situation and even the assistance she will obtain in the future after the unification with Libya will not be sufficient for dealing with the basic problems of existence and the maintenance of a large army. Egypt is in the worst situation: Millions are on the verge of hunger, half the labor force is unemployed, and housing is scarce in this most densely populated area of the world. Except for the army, there is not a single department operating efficiently and the state is in a permanent state of bankruptcy and depends entirely on American foreign assistance granted since the peace.6
15
In the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt there is the largest accumulation of money and oil in the world, but those enjoying it are tiny elites who lack a wide base of support and self-confidence, something that no army can guarantee.7 The Saudi army with all its equipment cannot defend the regime from real dangers at home or abroad, and what took place in Mecca in 1980 is only an example. A sad and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967. Chances are that opportunities missed at that time will become achievable in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot even imagine today.
16
The “peace” policy and the return of territories, through a dependence upon the US, precludes the realization of the new option created for us. Since 1967, all the governments of Israel have tied our national aims down to narrow political needs, on the one hand, and on the other to destructive opinions at home which neutralized our capacities both at home and abroad. Failing to take steps towards the Arab population in the new territories, acquired in the course of a war forced upon us, is the major strategic error committed by Israel on the morning after the Six Day War. We could have saved ourselves all the bitter and dangerous conflict since then if we had given Jordan to the Palestinians who live west of the Jordan river. By doing that we would have neutralized the Palestinian problem which we nowadays face, and to which we have found solutions that are really no solutions at all, such as territorial compromise or autonomy which amount, in fact, to the same thing.8 Today, we suddenly face immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state.
17
In the course of the Nineteen Eighties, the State of Israel will have to go through far-reaching changes in its political and economic regime domestically, along with radical changes in its foreign policy, in order to stand up to the global and regional challenges of this new epoch. The loss of the Suez Canal oil fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil.9 The search for raw materials in the Negev and on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs.
18
(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course with the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians will not need to keep the peace treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will do all they can to return to the fold of the Arab world and to the USSR in order to gain support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a short while, for the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous expenditure, we will not be able to get through 1982 under the present conditions and we will have to act in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat’s visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979.10
19
Israel has two major routes through which to realize this purpose, one direct and the other indirect. The direct option is the less realistic one because of the nature of the regime and government in Israel as well as the wisdom of Sadat who obtained our withdrawal from Sinai, which was, next to the war of 1973, his major achievement since he took power. Israel will not unilaterally break the treaty, neither today, nor in 1982, unless it is very hard pressed economically and politically and Egypt provides Israel with the excuse to take the Sinai back into our hands for the fourth time in our short history. What is left therefore, is the indirect option. The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-Arab policy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long run. Egypt does not constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could be driven back to the post 1967 war situation in no more than one day.11
20
The myth of Egypt as the strong leader of the Arab World was demolished back in 1956 and definitely did not survive 1967, but our policy, as in the return of the Sinai, served to turn the myth into “fact.” In reality, however, Egypt’s power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has gone down about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow.12 In the short run, due to the return of the Sinai, Egypt will gain several advantages at our expense, but only in the short run until 1982, and that will not change the balance of power to its benefit, and will possibly bring about its downfall. Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front.
21
Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run.13
22
The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place recently. Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.14
23
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.15
24
The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether its economic might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run, the internal rifts and breakdowns are a clear and natural development in light of the present political structure.16
25
Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but not in the long run, for it does not constitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution, the termination of the lengthy rule of King Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run.
26
There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigrationfrom the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future. The autonomy plan ought also to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for, given the plans of the PLO and those of the Israeli Arabs themselves, the Shefa’amr plan of September 1980, it is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan.17
27
Within Israel the distinction between the areas of ’67 and the territories beyond them, those of ’48, has always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of ’67. It should be clear, under any future political situation or mifitary constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. It is no longer possible to live with three fourths of the Jewish population on the dense shoreline which is so dangerous in a nuclear epoch.
28
Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim generated by the major strategic consideration which is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today.l8
29
Realizing our aims on the Eastern front depends first on the realization of this internal strategic objective. The transformation of the political and economic structure, so as to enable the realization of these strategic aims, is the key to achieving the entire change. We need to change from a centralized economy in which the government is extensively involved, to an open and free market as well as to switch from depending upon the U.S. taxpayer to developing, with our own hands, of a genuine productive economic infrastructure. If we are not able to make this change freely and voluntarily, we shall be forced into it by world developments, especially in the areas of economics, energy, and politics, and by our own growing isolation.l9
30
From a military and strategic point of view, the West led by the U.S. is unable to withstand the global pressures of the USSR throughout the world, and Israel must therefore stand alone in the Eighties, without any foreign assistance, military or economic, and this is within our capacities today, with no compromises.20Rapid changes in the world will also bring about a change in the condition of world Jewry to which Israel will become not only a last resort but the only existential option. We cannot assume that U.S. Jews, and the communities of Europe and Latin America will continue to exist in the present form in the future.21
31
Our existence in this country itself is certain, and there is no force that could remove us from here either forcefully or by treachery (Sadat’s method). Despite the difficulties of the mistaken “peace” policy and the problem of the Israeli Arabs and those of the territories, we can effectively deal with these problems in the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
1
Three important points have to be clarified in order to be able to understand the significant possibilities of realization of this Zionist plan for the Middle East, and also why it had to be published.
2
The Military Background of The Plan
The military conditions of this plan have not been mentioned above, but on the many occasions where something very like it is being “explained” in closed meetings to members of the Israeli Establishment, this point is clarified. It is assumed that the Israeli military forces, in all their branches, are insufficient for the actual work of occupation of such wide territories as discussed above. In fact, even in times of intense Palestinian “unrest” on the West Bank, the forces of the Israeli Army are stretched out too much. The answer to that is the method of ruling by means of “Haddad forces” or of “Village Associations” (also known as “Village Leagues”): local forces under “leaders” completely dissociated from the population, not having even any feudal or party structure (such as the Phalangists have, for example). The “states” proposed by Yinon are “Haddadland” and “Village Associations,” and their armed forces will be, no doubt, quite similar. In addition, Israeli military superiority in such a situation will be much greater than it is even now, so that any movement of revolt will be “punished” either by mass humiliation as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or by bombardment and obliteration of cities, as in Lebanon now (June 1982), or by both. In order to ensure this, the plan, as explained orally, calls for the establishment of Israeli garrisons in focal places between the mini states, equipped with the necessary mobile destructive forces. In fact, we have seen something like this in Haddadland and we will almost certainly soon see the first example of this system functioning either in South Lebanon or in all Lebanon.
3
It is obvious that the above military assumptions, and the whole plan too, depend also on the Arabs continuing to be even more divided than they are now, and on the lack of any truly progressive mass movement among them. It may be that those two conditions will be removed only when the plan will be well advanced, with consequences which can not be foreseen.
4
Why it is necessary to publish this in Israel?
The reason for publication is the dual nature of the Israeli-Jewish society: A very great measure of freedom and democracy, specially for Jews, combined with expansionism and racist discrimination. In such a situation the Israeli-Jewish elite (for the masses follow the TV and Begin’s speeches) has to be persuaded. The first steps in the process of persuasion are oral, as indicated above, but a time comes in which it becomes inconvenient. Written material must be produced for the benefit of the more stupid “persuaders” and “explainers” (for example medium-rank officers, who are, usually, remarkably stupid). They then “learn it,” more or less, and preach to others. It should be remarked that Israel, and even the Yishuv from the Twenties, has always functioned in this way. I myself well remember how (before I was “in opposition”) the necessity of war with was explained to me and others a year before the 1956 war, and the necessity of conquering “the rest of Western Palestine when we will have the opportunity” was explained in the years 1965-67.
5
Why is it assumed that there is no special risk from the outside in the publication of such plans?
Such risks can come from two sources, so long as the principled opposition inside Israel is very weak (a situation which may change as a consequence of the war on Lebanon) : The Arab World, including the Palestinians, and the United States. The Arab World has shown itself so far quite incapable of a detailed and rational analysis of Israeli-Jewish society, and the Palestinians have been, on the average, no better than the rest. In such a situation, even those who are shouting about the dangers of Israeli expansionism (which are real enough) are doing this not because of factual and detailed knowledge, but because of belief in myth. A good example is the very persistent belief in the non-existent writing on the wall of the Knesset of the Biblical verse about the Nile and the Euphrates. Another example is the persistent, and completely false declarations, which were made by some of the most important Arab leaders, that the two blue stripes of the Israeli flag symbolize the Nile and the Euphrates, while in fact they are taken from the stripes of the Jewish praying shawl (Talit). The Israeli specialists assume that, on the whole, the Arabs will pay no attention to their serious discussions of the future, and the Lebanon war has proved them right. So why should they not continue with their old methods of persuading other Israelis?
6
In the United States a very similar situation exists, at least until now. The more or less serious commentators take their information about Israel, and much of their opinions about it, from two sources. The first is from articles in the “liberal” American press, written almost totally by Jewish admirers of Israel who, even if they are critical of some aspects of the Israeli state, practice loyally what Stalin used to call “the constructive criticism.” (In fact those among them who claim also to be “Anti-Stalinist” are in reality more Stalinist than Stalin, with Israel being their god which has not yet failed). In the framework of such critical worship it must be assumed that Israel has always “good intentions” and only “makes mistakes,” and therefore such a plan would not be a matter for discussion–exactly as the Biblical genocides committed by Jews are not mentioned. The other source of information, The Jerusalem Post, has similar policies. So long, therefore, as the situation exists in which Israel is really a “closed society” to the rest of the world, because the world wants to close its eyes, the publication and even the beginning of the realization of such a plan is realistic and feasible.Israel Shahak June 17, 1982 Jerusalem
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Israel Shahak is a professor of organic chemistly at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. He published The Shahak Papers, collections of key articles from the Hebrew press, and is the author of numerous articles and books, among them Non-Jew in the Jewish State. His latest book is Israel’s Global Role: Weapons for Repression, published by the AAUG in 1982. Israel Shahak: (1933-2001)
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Notes
1. American Universities Field Staff. Report No.33, 1979. According to this research, the population of the world will be 6 billion in the year 2000. Today’s world population can be broken down as follows: China, 958 million; India, 635 million; USSR, 261 million; U.S., 218 million Indonesia, 140 million; Brazil and Japan, 110 million each. According to the figures of the U.N. Population Fund for 1980, there will be, in 2000, 50 cities with a population of over 5 million each. The population ofthp;Third World will then be 80% of the world population. According to Justin Blackwelder, U.S. Census Office chief, the world population will not reach 6 billion because of hunger.
2. Soviet nuclear policy has been well summarized by two American Sovietologists: Joseph D. Douglas and Amoretta M. Hoeber, Soviet Strategy for Nuclear War, (Stanford, Ca., Hoover Inst. Press, 1979). In the Soviet Union tens and hundreds of articles and books are published each year which detail the Soviet doctrine for nuclear war and there is a great deal of documentation translated into English and published by the U.S. Air Force,including USAF: Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army: The Soviet View, Moscow, 1972; USAF: The Armed Forces of the Soviet State. Moscow, 1975, by Marshal A. Grechko. The basic Soviet approach to the matter is presented in the book by Marshal Sokolovski published in 1962 in Moscow: Marshal V. D. Sokolovski, Military Strategy, Soviet Doctrine and Concepts(New York, Praeger, 1963).
3. A picture of Soviet intentions in various areas of the world can be drawn from the book by Douglas and Hoeber, ibid. For additional material see: Michael Morgan, “USSR’s Minerals as Strategic Weapon in the Future,” Defense and Foreign Affairs, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1979.
4. Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Gorshkov, Sea Power and the State, London, 1979. Morgan, loc. cit. General George S. Brown (USAF) C-JCS, Statement to the Congress on the Defense Posture of the United States For Fiscal Year 1979, p. 103; National Security Council, Review of Non-Fuel Mineral Policy, (Washington, D.C. 1979,); Drew Middleton, The New York Times, (9/15/79); Time, 9/21/80.
5. Elie Kedourie, “The End of the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No.4, 1968.
6. Al-Thawra, Syria 12/20/79, Al-Ahram,12/30/79, Al Ba’ath, Syria, 5/6/79. 55% of the Arabs are 20 years old and younger, 70% of the Arabs live in Africa, 55% of the Arabs under 15 are unemployed, 33% live in urban areas, Oded Yinon, “Egypt’s Population Problem,” The Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 15, Spring 1980.
7. E. Kanovsky, “Arab Haves and Have Nots,” The Jerusalem Quarterly, No.1, Fall 1976, Al Ba’ath, Syria, 5/6/79.
8. In his book, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that the Israeli government is in fact responsible for the design of American policy in the Middle East, after June ’67, because of its own indecisiveness as to the future of the territories and the inconsistency in its positions since it established the background for Resolution 242 and certainly twelve years later for the Camp David agreements and the peace treaty with Egypt. According to Rabin, on June 19, 1967, President Johnson sent a letter to Prime Minister Eshkol in which he did not mention anything about withdrawal from the new territories but exactly on the same day the government resolved to return territories in exchange for peace. After the Arab resolutions in Khartoum (9/1/67) the government altered its position but contrary to its decision of June 19, did not notify the U.S. of the alteration and the U.S. continued to support 242 in the Security Council on the basis of its earlier understanding that Israel is prepared to return territories. At that point it was already too late to change the U.S. position and Israel’s policy. From here the way was opened to peace agreements on the basis of 242 as was later agreed upon in Camp David. See Yitzhak Rabin. Pinkas Sherut, (Ma’ariv 1979) pp. 226-227.
9. Foreign and Defense Committee Chairman Prof. Moshe Arens argued in an interview (Ma ‘ariv,10/3/80) that the Israeli government failed to prepare an economic plan before the Camp David agreements and was itself surprised by the cost of the agreements, although already during the negotiations it was possible to calculate the heavy price and the serious error involved in not having prepared the economic grounds for peace.
The former Minister of Treasury, Mr. Yigal Holwitz, stated that if it were not for the withdrawal from the oil fields, Israel would have a positive balance of payments (9/17/80). That same person said two years earlier that the government of Israel (from which he withdrew) had placed a noose around his neck. He was referring to the Camp David agreements (Ha’aretz, 11/3/78). In the course of the whole peace negotiations neither an expert nor an economics advisor was consulted, and the Prime Minister himself, who lacks knowledge and expertise in economics, in a mistaken initiative, asked the U.S. to give us a loan rather than a grant, due to his wish to maintain our respect and the respect of the U.S. towards us. See Ha’aretz1/5/79. Jerusalem Post, 9/7/79. Prof Asaf Razin, formerly a senior consultant in the Treasury, strongly criticized the conduct of the negotiations; Ha’aretz, 5/5/79. Ma’ariv, 9/7/79. As to matters concerning the oil fields and Israel’s energy crisis, see the interview with Mr. Eitan Eisenberg, a government advisor on these matters, Ma’arive Weekly, 12/12/78. The Energy Minister, who personally signed the Camp David agreements and the evacuation of Sdeh Alma, has since emphasized the seriousness of our condition from the point of view of oil supplies more than once…see Yediot Ahronot, 7/20/79. Energy Minister Modai even admitted that the government did not consult him at all on the subject of oil during the Camp David and Blair House negotiations. Ha’aretz, 8/22/79.
10. Many sources report on the growth of the armaments budget in Egypt and on intentions to give the army preference in a peace epoch budget over domestic needs for which a peace was allegedly obtained. See former Prime Minister Mamduh Salam in an interview 12/18/77, Treasury Minister Abd El Sayeh in an interview 7/25/78, and the paper Al Akhbar, 12/2/78 which clearly stressed that the military budget will receive first priority, despite the peace. This is what former Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil has stated in his cabinet’s programmatic document which was presented to Parliament, 11/25/78. See English translation, ICA, FBIS, Nov. 27. 1978, pp. D 1-10. According to these sources, Egypt’s military budget increased by 10% between fiscal 1977 and 1978, and the process still goes on. A Saudi source divulged that the Egyptians plan to increase their militmy budget by 100% in the next two years; Ha’aretz, 2/12/79 and Jerusalem Post, 1/14/79.
11. Most of the economic estimates threw doubt on Egypt’s ability to reconstruct its economy by 1982. See Economic Intelligence Unit, 1978 Supplement, “The Arab Republic of Egypt”; E. Kanovsky, “Recent Economic Developments in the Middle East,” Occasional Papers, The Shiloah Institution, June 1977; Kanovsky, “The Egyptian Economy Since the Mid-Sixties, The Micro Sectors,” Occasional Papers, June 1978; Robert McNamara, President of World Bank, as reported in Times, London, 1/24/78.
12. See the comparison made by the researeh of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and research camed out in the Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, as well as the research by the British scientist, Denis Champlin, Military Review, Nov. 1979, ISS: The Military Balance 1979-1980, CSS; Security Arrangements in Sinai…by Brig. Gen. (Res.) A Shalev, No. 3.0 CSS; The Military Balance and the Military Options after the Peace Treaty with Egypt, by Brig. Gen. (Res.) Y. Raviv, No.4, Dec. 1978, as well as many press reports including El Hawadeth, London, 3/7/80; El Watan El Arabi, Paris, 12/14/79.
13. As for religious ferment in Egypt and the relations between Copts and Moslems see the series of articles published in the Kuwaiti paper, El Qabas, 9/15/80. The English author Irene Beeson reports on the rift between Moslems and Copts, see: Irene Beeson, Guardian, London, 6/24/80, and Desmond Stewart, Middle East Internmational, London 6/6/80. For other reports see Pamela Ann Smith, Guardian, London, 12/24/79; The Christian Science Monitor 12/27/79 as well as Al Dustour, London, 10/15/79; El Kefah El Arabi, 10/15/79.
14. Arab Press Service, Beirut, 8/6-13/80. The New Republic, 8/16/80, Der Spiegel as cited by Ha’aretz, 3/21/80, and 4/30-5/5/80; The Economist, 3/22/80; Robert Fisk, Times, London, 3/26/80; Ellsworth Jones, Sunday Times, 3/30/80.
15. J.P. Peroncell Hugoz, Le Monde, Paris 4/28/80; Dr. Abbas Kelidar, Middle East Review, Summer 1979; Conflict Studies, ISS, July 1975; Andreas Kolschitter, Der Zeit, (Ha’aretz, 9/21/79) Economist Foreign Report, 10/10/79, Afro-Asian Affairs, London, July 1979.
16. Arnold Hottinger, “The Rich Arab States in Trouble,” The New York Review of Books, 5/15/80; Arab Press Service, Beirut, 6/25-7/2/80; U.S. News and World Report, 11/5/79 as well as El Ahram, 11/9/79; El Nahar El Arabi Wal Duwali, Paris 9/7/79; El Hawadeth, 11/9/79; David Hakham, Monthly Review, IDF, Jan.-Feb. 79.
17. As for Jordan’s policies and problems see El Nahar El Arabi Wal Duwali, 4/30/79, 7/2/79; Prof. Elie Kedouri, Ma’ariv 6/8/79; Prof. Tanter, Davar 7/12/79; A. Safdi, Jerusalem Post, 5/31/79; El Watan El Arabi 11/28/79; El Qabas, 11/19/79. As for PLO positions see: The resolutions of the Fatah Fourth Congress, Damascus, August 1980. The Shefa’amr program of the Israeli Arabs was published in Ha’aretz, 9/24/80, and by Arab Press Report 6/18/80. For facts and figures on immigration of Arabs to Jordan, see Amos Ben Vered, Ha’aretz, 2/16/77; Yossef Zuriel, Ma’ariv 1/12/80. As to the PLO’s position towards Israel see Shlomo Gazit, Monthly Review; July 1980; Hani El Hasan in an interview, Al Rai Al’Am, Kuwait 4/15/80; Avi Plaskov, “The Palestinian Problem,” Survival, ISS, London Jan. Feb. 78; David Gutrnann, “The Palestinian Myth,” Commentary, Oct. 75; Bernard Lewis, “The Palestinians and the PLO,” Commentary Jan. 75; Monday Morning, Beirut, 8/18-21/80; Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1980.
18. Prof. Yuval Neeman, “Samaria–The Basis for Israel’s Security,” Ma’arakhot 272-273, May/June 1980; Ya’akov Hasdai, “Peace, the Way and the Right to Know,” Dvar Hashavua, 2/23/80. Aharon Yariv, “Strategic Depth–An Israeli Perspective,” Ma’arakhot 270-271, October 1979; Yitzhak Rabin, “Israel’s Defense Problems in the Eighties,” Ma’arakhot October 1979.
19. Ezra Zohar, In the Regime’s Pliers (Shikmona, 1974); Motti Heinrich, Do We have a Chance Israel, Truth Versus Legend (Reshafim, 1981).
20. Henry Kissinger, “The Lessons of the Past,” The Washington Review Vol 1, Jan. 1978; Arthur Ross, “OPEC’s Challenge to the West,” The Washington Quarterly, Winter, 1980; Walter Levy, “Oil and the Decline of the West,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1980; Special Report–“Our Armed Forees-Ready or Not?” U.S. News and World Report 10/10/77; Stanley Hoffman, “Reflections on the Present Danger,” The New York Review of Books 3/6/80; Time 4/3/80; Leopold Lavedez “The illusions of SALT” Commentary Sept. 79; Norman Podhoretz, “The Present Danger,” Commentary March 1980; Robert Tucker, “Oil and American Power Six Years Later,” Commentary Sept. 1979; Norman Podhoretz, “The Abandonment of Israel,” Commentary July 1976; Elie Kedourie, “Misreading the Middle East,” Commentary July 1979.
21. According to figures published by Ya’akov Karoz, Yediot Ahronot, 10/17/80, the sum total of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the world in 1979 was double the amount recorded in 1978. In Germany, France, and Britain the number of anti-Semitic incidents was many times greater in that year. In the U.S. as well there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents which were reported in that article. For the new anti-Semitism, see L. Talmon, “The New Anti-Semitism,” The New Republic, 9/18/1976; Barbara Tuchman, “They poisoned the Wells,” Newsweek 2/3/75.
July 19, 2010 “Antiwar” — In 2001, Bibi Netanyahu paid a condolence call on a group of Israeli settlers in the village of Ofra, widows whose husbands had been killed in the Intifada: the videotaped conversation has just been leaked, and broadcast by Israel’s Channel 10, and it is a blockbuster.
At one point, Bibi is telling the widows that the Palestinians “think they will break us,” but don’t worry, ladies, Bibi has a plan:
“To hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne. The price is not too heavy to be borne, now. A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing…
“Woman: Wait a moment, but then the world will say ‘how come you’re conquering again?’
“Netanyahu: The world won’t say a thing. The world will say we’re defending.
“Woman: Aren’t you afraid of the world, Bibi?
“Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction.”
A child speaks up, and, surprisingly articulate, avers: “They say they’re for us, but, it’s like…”
Yes, even the children are little ideologues. Today that boy is a teenager on the verge of adulthood, and likely a fervent supporter of Israel’s ultra-rightist government, led by Bibi, who, back then, quickly assured him: “They won’t get in our way.” The child, hardliner that he was and no doubt still is, seemed doubtful: “On the other hand,” the kid ventured, “if we do some something, then they…”
That’s when Bibi really let his hair down:
“So let’s say they say something. So they said it! They said it! 80% of the Americans support us. It’s absurd. We have that kind of support…. Look. That administration [Clinton] was extremely pro-Palestinian. I wasn’t afraid to maneuver there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton.”
Of course he wasn’t, because he knew he’d win, what with the Republicans in Congress passing resolutions unconditionally supporting the Israelis and AIPAC and the rest of the Lobby going all out to mobilize their fifth column against Oslo and the very idea of a rapprochement. Oslo was a dagger placed against the throat of the hard-line Likud movement, which explicitly embraces the rather nutty idea of a “Greater Israel,” and there was no way Netanyahu or his party could accept it without betraying who and what they were and are. So when one of the women denounced the Accords as “a disaster,” Bibi agrees with her – and takes “credit” for neutering them:
“What were the Oslo Accords? The Oslo Accords, which the Knesset signed, I was asked, before the elections: ‘Will you act according to them?’ and I answered: ‘yes, subject to mutuality and limiting the retreats.’ ‘But how do you intend to limit the retreats?’ ‘I’ll give such interpretation to the Accords that will make it possible for me to stop this galloping to the ’67 [armistice] lines.’ How did we do it?”
Easy: the Accords had a loophole big enough to drive an IDF tank through, premising the handover of “land for peace” on the condition that the land in question encompassed neither settlements nor military sites, as Netanyahu explained to his adoring fans:
“No one said what defined military sites. Defined military sites, I said, were security zones. As far as I’m concerned, the Jordan Valley is a defined military site.
“Woman: Right [laughs]..
“Netanyahu: … How can you tell. How can you tell?”
Bibi goes on to boast of how he stood up to Clinton, insisting that it would be the Israelis, and not anyone else, who defined where and what was a “military site.” When the US balked, Bibi refused to sign on to the Hebron Agreement, stopping the peace process in its tracks: “Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo Accord.”
The settler comes back at him, however, interrupting Bibi’s self-congratulatory rapture by reminding him of Hebron, and other concessions embodied in the Accord. Netanyahu’s answer sums up the current position of his government. He cites his father (“Not exactly a dove, as they say”) who advised him:
“It would be better to give two percent than to give a hundred percent. And that’s the choice here. You gave two percent and in that way you stopped the withdrawal. Instead of a hundred percent. The trick is not to be there and be broken. The trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.”
This limns the current state of the current political dialogue in the Jewish state: the debate is between those who want 98 percent and those who demand 100 percent. (The only difference today, as opposed to 2001, is that the latter seem to have the upper hand: witness the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and his party of nutcases, who are the Israeli equivalent of Al-Qaeda.)
What’s interesting – and embarrassing – about this leak isn’t the “revelation” that Israel’s amen corner in America exerts a decisiveinfluence on US policymakers: who didn’t know that? The Israel lobby constantly boasts of it, while critics of US subservience to Tel Aviv consistently decry it. What we didn’t know, however, is how much the Israelis disdain us for it: “It’s absurd,” avers Bibi, and the settler lady, laughing, agrees with him. She, being an ardent nationalist, cannot conceive of a government that puts the interests of another nation over and above its own. Perhaps Bibi has a better idea of how the Israelis pulled that particular rabbit out of Uncle Sam’s hat, but emotionally it’s clear that he, too, finds the weakness of the Americans incomprehensible.
After all, it’s odd when you think about it: why would the mightiest empire the world has ever seen – a nation that spends more on its military establishment than all other nations of the world combined – kowtow before a country barely the size of Delaware? How is it that every attempt to heal this breach in our national security armor and our interests in the region – the running sore of the Palestinian question – has ended in utter failure, due entirely – as Bibi boasts – to the efforts of the Israelis to undermine it? How does the prime minister of a dinky little country almost entirely dependent on American largess stand up to the Emperor of the World – and win?
The answer is that American imperialism has spawned a global hegemon quite unlike the empires of the past: the British, the French, the Romans, the Macedonians, and as far back as it’s possible to know, all planted their flag on foreign soil to the glory and in the name of the nation. That is, they were nationalists, albeit of the dangerous outward-looking sort (as opposed to the inward-looking, contemplative variety that held sway in the US until the turn of the last century, commonly derided by our elites as “isolationists.”)
We, on the other hand, have a different self-conception. By no means do we ever acknowledge that we are indeed an empire, except when someone is trying to be provocative (or unless he’s a foreigner). We are supposed to be different from all the rest, because, you see, America – according to both neoconservatives and liberals – is a nation founded not on a sense of place, but around an abstract idea. To the neocons, it’s the idea of meritocracy (which, they figure, puts them on top), to the liberals it’s “equality” (which, they figure, puts them on top).
What they have in common, in spite of their superficial differences, is their insistence on deviating from the traditional concept of nationhood and, instead, conjuring up an ideological construct to put in its place, just as the Jacobins tore down the religious artifacts of Paris and erected in their place a statue to the Goddess of Reason. Thousands of lives were sacrificed on that bloody altar before it was over, just as many hundreds of thousands have been offered up to the American god of “Democracy” over the years.
Yet this democracy we claim to practice is the fatal chink in our armor, the means by which a much weaker enemy can easily manipulate and even fatally undermine us from afar, without any show of force except political strength. And this strength need not be derived from the support of the American majority. Since most could care less about foreign policy matters, this indifference allows a weird coalition of pro-Israel neocons, Democratic party “liberals” in debt to pro-Israel donors, and fanaticalChristian “Zionists” to dominate the debate, capture elite opinion, and set US policy on a course Bibi admits is “absurd.”
What this conundrum underscores is the truth of the Paulian–paleoconservative principle, repeated many times in many differentways in this space, that you can’t have a republic and an empire: it’s one or the other. This is true not only because empires are constantly defending and extending their frontiers, and are in a state of constant warfare, which requires a centralized authority and the consolidation of State power, but also due to the peculiar vulnerability of democratic institutions to foreign subversion. An America that refused on principle to interfere in the affairs of other nations would have little or nothing to fear from foreign lobbyists and fifth columnists: on the other hand, a “democratic” empire in which the emperor is subjected to all sorts of political pressures, including the necessity of raising obscene amounts of money just in order to keep his throne, is indeed “something that can be easily moved,” as Bibi put it.
“The new committee declined to disclose its funding – as a 501(c)4 advocacy organization, it isn’t required to – but said it had raised enough to air its first ad, starting this week, on Fox and CNN and during a Philadelphia Phillies game. The ad attacks Sestak for signing a letter criticizing Israel’s blockade of Gaza while not signing a defense of Israel circulated by the group AIPAC, and for appearing at a fundraiser for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which it describes as an “anti-Israel organization the FBI called a ‘front-group for Hamas’.”
Of course the new committee refused to disclose its funding – for the simple reason that a good deal of the money that fuels the pro-Israel lobby in this country comes from overseas. This was true in the early days of AIPAC and its predecessor, as Grant Smith’s invaluable research has underscored, and there is little doubt this tradition is continued unto the present day, with such groups as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, JINSA, and the American “Friends of the IDF” having open links to the Israeli foreign ministry and the IDF leadership. Ostensibly “American” groups that subsidize Israeli settlements in the West Bank enjoy tax exempt status, while pro-Palestinian groups that try to operate similarly are shuttered and their supporters jailed as supporters of “terrorism.” Of the billions we send every year in “aid” to the Jewish state, a significant portion returns to us in the form of pro-Israel propaganda.
Legally, the “Emergency Committee” is not required to disclose its funding – but they ought to anyway. Unless, that is, they’re content to leave the impression Israel is directly intervening in American elections. Or maybe that’s precisely what they intend.
David Frum gleefully called the committee “The New In Your Face Israel Lobby.” As in-your-face as the anti-Americanism and outright contempt for Washington expressed in that candid video of Netanyahu. It’s as if they’re saying to this administration: “Go ahead and go after us. We dare you!”Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (ISI, 2008), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The article criticizes Western leaders for supporting the ongoing Israeli mass killings in Gaza, calling it genocide. It suggests that their claims of Israel’s “right to self-defense” enables these atrocities against Palestinian civilians, particularly children.
Can Western leaders show a modicum of moral fibre?
Editorial
In blatant defiance of world opinion and international law, the Israeli state continues its daily massacre of civilians in Gaza. After nearly four weeks of non-stop aerial bombardment, the death toll has exceeded 9,000, with thousands more missing under rubble.
The actual death toll as of this writing could be near 15,000.
The United Nations organization UNICEF this week described Gaza as a “graveyard for children”. An estimated 400 children are killed or wounded every day. The wounded have no way of being treated as hospitals shut down from lack of fuel and supplies.
In heartrending scenes, families are desperately trying to dig up children buried under concrete debris. All too often, their cries fade with agonising death.
The world is witnessing an age of cruel depravity that is on par with the barbarity of Nazi Germany. Sickeningly, the Israeli regime carrying out these war crimes has the temerity to invoke the memory of the Nazi Holocaust as an excuse for its actions. Decent Jews and Holocaust survivors around the world are indignant and ashamed of the repugnant posturing of Israeli envoys wearing yellow stars on their suits at the UN.
The diabolical double-think is made possible by the political and diplomatic indulgence afforded by Western states.
There is no other way to view the mass killings as anything other than genocide. The head of the UN’s human rights office, Craig Mokhiber, this week resigned in disgust over the continuing genocide that he said the United States and the European Union were complicit in.
The wanton disregard for international law by the Israeli regime is shocking. This week saw the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza bombed on three consecutive days killing hundreds of civilians. According to the UN, more than 70 per cent of fatalities in Gaza are women and children.
Hospitals, schools and other shelters for terrified civilians have been deliberately targeted by Israeli warplanes dropping one-ton bombs supplied by the United States. The Pentagon callously announced that the U.S. had not imposed any limitations on Israeli forces in their use of American weapons.
Washington and its European allies repeat the mendacious mantra that Israel has a right to self-defense. This is a green light for the genocide of Palestinians. But it is an abomination.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, this week refuted this supposed “right to self-defense” as a vile distortion. The Russian envoy pointed out that the Israeli state is an occupying power which has been for years in gross violation of countless international laws and UN Security Council strictures. As an illegal occupying power, Israel has forfeited any legitimate claim to self-defense.
To argue a claim for self-defense is to turn reality on its head whereby an aggressor is presented as a victim. (A similar spurious claim is made for the NATO-backed Kiev regime in Ukraine which had for eight years been attacking ethnic Russian people in Donbass until Russian forces intervened for their defense in February 2022 after which time the Nazi regime in Kiev claims to be a victim.)
The Israeli state has a right to security and to defend its citizens within its internationally recognised borders as per the UN-designated 1967 boundaries with the Palestinian Territories. However, such a right which is normal for all states is not a right to offense and aggression, which is what has been taking place since the October 7 attacks by the Hamas militant group.
The mass killings by Hamas, which saw over 1,400 Israelis dying and more than 220 taken hostage, do not remotely justify the subsequent collective punishment and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
By continually invoking Israel’s spurious right to self-defense, the United States and European governments are perverting international law and giving Israel a license for heinous aggression and atrocities.
The position of Israel and its Western supporters is repudiated by the vast majority of UN members. Most nations are demanding an immediate cessation of violence and the lifting of the siege on Gaza to permit emergency supplies of food, water, fuel and medical treatment for the 2.3 million population.
The U.S. Biden administration has spurned international calls for a halt to the violence. President Joe Biden and his senior aides are hiding behind the bogus rationale of Israel’s “right to self-defense”.
This odious double-think of endorsing and facilitating genocide while at the same time seemingly expressing concern for civilian casualties is exposing the United States and other Western states for exhibiting rank hypocrisy.
The world is rightly outraged and sickened by the orgy of mass murder in Gaza.
Huge public protests taking place across North America and Europe condemning Israel’s genocide and calling for an immediate ceasefire show how much elite Western rulers are disconnected from democratic and basic moral concerns.
The United States has vetoed draft resolutions at the UN Security Council for an armistice.
However, there are signs that the Biden administration is slowly becoming aware of how its own contemptible double standards are incensing world opinion. Washington is alienating Arab governments and infuriating popular sentiment. Even Jewish organizations in North America are condemning the policy of supporting genocide.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Israel this weekend – his third trip in three weeks – to press Benjamin Netanyahu’s “war cabinet” to at least permit “humanitarian pauses” in the onslaught on Gaza.
Israeli forces have encircled Gaza City and a ground invasion is underway. Netanyahu has ruled out any ceasefire and his war cabinet has sworn to destroy Hamas fighters. Given that Israeli politicians have openly labelled all Palestinians as equivalent to Hamas, the coming days and weeks can only mean the grim death toll of civilians will escalate.
The belated mealymouthed concern from the Biden administration and other Western governments about “limiting civilian casualties” is a nauseating travesty.
Washington is preparing to sign off an additional $14 billion in military aid to Israel. Over the past month, hundreds of military cargo planes have arrived in Tel Aviv with more than 3,000 tonnes of weapons.
The United States and the Western states are complicit in the genocide against Palestinians from their unwavering support in the face of an appalling slaughter of innocents.
The bare minimum requirement is to call for an unconditional ceasefire. Can Western leaders show a modicum of moral fibre?
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The article criticizes Western leaders for supporting the ongoing Israeli mass killings in Gaza, calling it genocide. It suggests that their claims of Israel’s “right to self-defense” enables these atrocities against Palestinian civilians, particularly children. Can Western leaders show a modicum of moral fibre? Editorial In blatant defiance of world opinion and international law, the … Continue readingDiabolical Double-Think… Washington Touts Israeli Genocide of Palestinians as Self-Defense
Shen Yi, a prominent professor of international relations at Fudan University, likened Israel’s attacks to acts of aggression perpetrated by Nazis. Among the comments on recent posts from the official social media account of Israel’s embassy in China were similar comparisons of Israelis to Nazis.
The document, issued on 13 October, identifies a plan to transfer all residents of the Gaza Strip to North Sinai as the preferred option among three alternatives regarding the future of the Palestinians in Gaza at the end of the current war between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance
It’s difficult to know where to even start. There is so much to say about yesterday’s San Francisco protest against Israel and Biden’s support for their war crimes. The photos below hopefully will give some sense of the protest. It was large – tens of thousands, according to the SF Chronicle – and very youthful. […]
Was darf man in Deutschland? Alles, was nicht verboten ist, oder nur das, was ausdrücklich erlaubt ist? In Zeiten mit viel Israel und kaum noch Ukraine ist das eine Frage von höchster Brisanz. Da kann man nicht so einfach nach eigenem Gutdünken daherreden.
Weil die Bundesrepublik die zivilisierteste Form von Deutschland ist, die man sich überhaupt vorstellen kann als Deutscher, gibt es auch viele nützliche Verbote. Dennoch stiftet die nützliche Verbotsvielfalt viel Verwirrung, derentwegen …. Moment! Hätte ich das vielleicht so formulieren müssen: Weil es viele nützliche Verbote gibt, ist die Bundesrepublik die zivilisierteste Form von Deutschland, die man sich überhaupt vorstellen kann? Kürzer: Ist die Zivilisation eine Folge des Verbots oder das Verbot eine Folge der Zivilisation? Und was ist überhaupt eine Grauzone? Wo fängt die an und wo hört die auf? Wen könnte man fragen in einem zivilisierten Land? Es müsste wohl jemand “von oben” sein. Also jemand, der gewissentechnisch betrachtet über einem selbst steht. Am besten frage ich wohl einmal beim Bundesverbotsbeauftragten (m/w/d) nach.
Lieber Bundesverbotsbeauftragter!
Wo viel Licht ist, da gibt es auch viel Schatten. Daher nehme ich an, daß es da, wo es viel Gutdünken gibt, auch viel Schlechtdünken geben muß. Verständlicherweise hätte ich gerne den guten Dünkel und hoffe sehr, daß Sie mir zu einem solchen verhelfen können, weswegen ich mich schon im Vorhinein für jenen hilfreichen Dünkel bedanke, welcher Ihrem ersehnten Antwortbrief zweifellos zugrunde liegen wird.
Ich hätte da eine Frage zum Thema Ukraine und “Z“. Wie Sie wissen, ist der Gebrauch des einzelstenden Buchstaben “Z” in Deutschland aus Zivilisationsgründen verboten, es sei denn, es handelt sich um das Logo von “Zeit-Online”. Nun ist es so, daß der Retter von Demokratie, der ganzen Freiheit und sämtlicher westlichen Werte, der Herr Präsident Wolodymyr Selenskyj aus Kiew, vergangenes Jahr noch vom “Time”-Magazin zum “Mann des Jahres” gekürt worden war, von demselben “Time”-Magazin dieses Jahr aber zum “Traumtänzer des Jahres“, worüber der Retter sämtlicher Westwerte ziemlich betrübt sein dürfte (siehe Bildtafeln unten). Hängt der tatsächliche Wert der Westwerte davon ab, ob sie vor “Z” gerettet werden können? Wenn nicht, dann müsste sich die Presseberichterstattung zur Ukraine doch erheblich verstärkt haben, anstatt einfach öde abzuflauen.
“Mann des Jahres” 2022 (Screenshot:Facebook)“Traumtänzer des Jahres” 2023 (Screenshot:YouTube)“Betrübt” 2023 (Screenshot:Facebook/KI-Montage)
Da sich die Zeiten offenbar ändern, lieber Bundesverbotsbeauftragter (m/w/d), und nicht nur die Ukraine, sondern auch 500.000 tote Ukrainer bei der Rettung der Westwerte vor der Befreiung durch “Z” versagt haben, weswegen wir Deutschen wohl auch bald keine mehr haben werden, frage ich mich, ob sich nicht auch die Bedeutung des Buchstabens “Z” geändert haben könnte, so daß ich ihn eventuell wieder verwenden dürfte. Zweifellos ist es so, daß die Russen uns vom Thema Freiheits- und Westwertrettung befreit haben wie anno dazumal die Rote Armee vom Thema Endsieg. Die Nazidiktatur mit ihren Werten lag schließlich damals bereits westlich von Moskau, und die Rote Armee wurde nach dem Krieg als “Befreier” gepriesen. Hernach wollte niemand bei den Altwertwestlichen dabeigewesen sein. Das scheint jetzt wieder so zu sein. Ist es gestattet oder verboten, die Westwerte als Wildwestwerte zu bezeichnen?
Deshalb wollte ich Sie, den Bundesverbotsbeauftragten (m/w/d), einmal fragen, ob ich den Buchstaben “Z” eventuell wieder auf die Straße malen darf, so, wie in diesem Vor-Ukraine-Bild:
“Z” wieder erlauben? (Screenshot:Facebook)
Da fällt mir ein: Wissen Sie, wer die Amerikaner im Wilden Westen, welche die versagenden Retter der Westwerte in der Ukraine so überaus finanzkräftig unterstützt hatten, selbst von den Nazis befreit hat, und ob die Befreier der Amerikaner damals den Buchstaben “Z” verwendet haben? Im Februar 1939 hatten sich amerikanische Nazis mit über 20.000 Anhängern im Madison Square Garden zu New York versammelt – und zwar vor einem überlebensgroßen Porträt von George Washington. Wie kamen die ausgerechnet auf George Washington? Hatten die Amerikaner im Jahre 1939 noch gar keine modernen Westwerte? Sie hätten diese Veranstaltung doch bestimmt verboten, wenn sie damals schon die modernen, also die richtigen Westwerte gehabt hätten! Oder nicht? Wenn sie heute welche haben, wie sind sie dann zu den solchen gekommen? Oder hatten sie die Westwerte damals, haben sie dann weiß-der-Geier-wie verloren, fanden sie aber in Form der Wildwestwerte in der Ukraine wieder und wollten sie ab 2014 für sich selbst retten?
“Wildwestwerte?” (Screenshot:NewYorkAktuell)
Wie sie vielleicht wissen, gab es bei den Vereinten Nationen eine Abstimmung darüber, ob die wildwestwertlichen Sanktionen gegen Kuba aufgehoben werden sollen. Die Vertreter von 137 Nationen waren dafür, die Vertreter der Nationen USA und Israel waren gegen die Aufhebung. Abstimmungsergebnis also 137:2. Wenn es wahr ist, daß die Demokratie mit ihren Abstimmungen einen Westwert darstellt und keinen Wildwestwert, dann müssten die Sanktionen gegen Kuba also schleunigst fallen. Ist es den deutschen Medien verboten worden, darüber zu berichten, ob sie auch demokratisch-westwertlich fallen? Wenn ja, von wem? Von Ihnen, lieber Bundesverbotsbeauftragter (m/w/d)? In wessen Auftrag verbieten Sie eigentlich etwas? Ich hoffe, eine solche Frage ist nicht verboten. Wenn doch, ziehe ich sie natürlich sofort wieder zurück. Tun Sie dann bitte so, als hätte ich sie niemals gestellt. In dem Fall würde ich dann auch nicht gefragt haben wollen, ob die westwertliche Unterstützung für die Völkermörder und Kriegsverbrecher im Gazastreifen als wildwestwertliche Unterstützung bezeichnet werden darf oder nicht.
Wie dem auch sei: Sollte nach wie vor das “Z”-Verbot bestehen, beantrage ich hiermit eine Ausnahmegenehmigung vom Verbot. Ich würde das einzeln stehende “Z” gern für das Wort “Zyankali” verwenden, damit ich es im Zusammenhang mit Selenskyj nicht immer ausschreiben muß… zumal sich abzeichnet, daß Zyankali nicht nur in diesem Zusammenhang vermehrt Relevanz bekommen könnte, sondern in den Ländern der “regelbasierten Ordnung” insgesamt.
Können die westlichen Staats- und Regierungschefs ein Mindestmaß an Moral zeigen?
Unter eklatanter Missachtung der Weltöffentlichkeit und des Völkerrechts setzt der israelische Staat sein tägliches Massaker an der Zivilbevölkerung in Gaza fort. Nach fast vier Wochen ununterbrochenen Bombardements aus der Luft hat die Zahl der Todesopfer 9.000 überschritten, Tausende werden unter den Trümmern vermisst.
Die tatsächliche Zahl der Todesopfer könnte sich zum Zeitpunkt der Erstellung dieses Berichts auf 15.000 belaufen.
Das UN-Kinderhilfswerk UNICEF bezeichnete den Gazastreifen diese Woche als „Kinderfriedhof“. Jeden Tag werden schätzungsweise 400 Kinder getötet oder verwundet. Die Verwundeten können nicht behandelt werden, da die Krankenhäuser aus Mangel an Treibstoff und Vorräten geschlossen sind.
In herzzerreißenden Szenen versuchen Familien verzweifelt, Kinder auszugraben, die unter Betontrümmern begraben sind. Allzu oft verklingen ihre Schreie im qualvollen Tod.
Die Welt ist Zeuge eines Zeitalters grausamer Verderbtheit, das sich mit der Barbarei Nazideutschlands messen kann. Es ist widerlich, dass das israelische Regime, das diese Kriegsverbrechen begeht, die Frechheit besitzt, sich auf die Erinnerung an den Holocaust zu berufen, um sein Handeln zu rechtfertigen. Anständige Juden und Holocaust-Überlebende auf der ganzen Welt sind empört und schämen sich für das widerwärtige Getue der israelischen Gesandten, die bei der UNO gelbe Sterne auf ihren Anzügen tragen.
Diese teuflische Doppelzüngigkeit wird durch die politische und diplomatische Nachsicht der westlichen Staaten ermöglicht.
Es gibt keine andere Möglichkeit, als die Massentötungen als Völkermord zu betrachten. Der Leiter des UN-Menschenrechtsbüros, Craig Mokhiber, trat diese Woche aus Empörung über den anhaltenden Völkermord zurück, an dem die Vereinigten Staaten und die Europäische Union seiner Meinung nach mitschuldig sind.
Die willkürliche Missachtung des Völkerrechts durch das israelische Regime ist schockierend. In dieser Woche wurde das Flüchtlingslager Jabaliya im Gazastreifen an drei aufeinanderfolgenden Tagen bombardiert, wobei Hunderte von Zivilisten getötet wurden. Nach Angaben der UN sind mehr als 70 Prozent der Todesopfer in Gaza Frauen und Kinder.
Krankenhäuser, Schulen und andere Zufluchtsorte für verängstigte Zivilisten wurden gezielt von israelischen Kampfflugzeugen angegriffen, die von den Vereinigten Staaten gelieferte Ein-Tonnen-Bomben abwarfen. Das Pentagon verkündete kaltschnäuzig, dass die USA den israelischen Streitkräften keine Beschränkungen für den Einsatz amerikanischer Waffen auferlegt hätten.
Washington und seine europäischen Verbündeten wiederholen das verlogene Mantra, Israel habe ein Recht auf Selbstverteidigung. Dies ist ein grünes Licht für den Völkermord an den Palästinensern. Aber es ist eine Abscheulichkeit.
Der russische Botschafter bei den Vereinten Nationen, Vassily Nebenzia, hat diese Woche das angebliche „Recht auf Selbstverteidigung“ als schändliches Zerrbild entlarvt. Der russische Gesandte wies darauf hin, dass der israelische Staat eine Besatzungsmacht ist, die seit Jahren in grober Weise gegen zahllose internationale Gesetze und Auflagen des UN-Sicherheitsrates verstößt. Als illegale Besatzungsmacht hat Israel jeden legitimen Anspruch auf Selbstverteidigung verwirkt.
Einen Anspruch auf Selbstverteidigung geltend zu machen, bedeutet, die Realität auf den Kopf zu stellen, indem ein Aggressor als Opfer dargestellt wird. (Eine ähnliche fadenscheinige Behauptung wird für das von der NATO unterstützte Kiewer Regime in der Ukraine aufgestellt, das acht Jahre lang die russischstämmige Bevölkerung im Donbass angegriffen hat, bis russische Streitkräfte im Februar 2022 zu ihrer Verteidigung eingriffen, woraufhin das Nazi-Regime in Kiew behauptete, ein Opfer zu sein).
Der israelische Staat hat ein Recht auf Sicherheit und auf die Verteidigung seiner Bürger innerhalb seiner international anerkannten Grenzen gemäß den von der UNO festgelegten Grenzen von 1967 mit den palästinensischen Gebieten. Dieses Recht, das für alle Staaten normal ist, ist jedoch kein Recht auf Angriffe und Aggressionen, wie sie seit den Angriffen der militanten Hamas-Gruppe am 7. Oktober stattfinden.
Die Massentötungen durch die Hamas, bei denen über 1.400 Israelis starben und mehr als 220 als Geiseln genommen wurden, rechtfertigen nicht im Entferntesten die anschließende kollektive Bestrafung und den Völkermord an den Palästinensern in Gaza und im Westjordanland.
Indem sie sich ständig auf Israels fadenscheiniges Recht auf Selbstverteidigung berufen, verdrehen die Regierungen der Vereinigten Staaten und Europas das Völkerrecht und geben Israel einen Freibrief für heimtückische Aggressionen und Gräueltaten.
Die Position Israels und seiner westlichen Unterstützer wird von der großen Mehrheit der UN-Mitglieder abgelehnt. Die meisten Nationen fordern eine sofortige Einstellung der Gewalt und die Aufhebung der Belagerung des Gazastreifens, um die Versorgung der 2,3 Millionen Einwohner mit Nahrungsmitteln, Wasser, Treibstoff und medizinischer Behandlung zu ermöglichen.
Die US-Regierung unter Biden hat die internationalen Forderungen nach einer Beendigung der Gewalt zurückgewiesen. Präsident Joe Biden und seine hochrangigen Berater verstecken sich hinter dem Scheinargument von Israels „Recht auf Selbstverteidigung“.
Diese abscheuliche Doppelzüngigkeit, die darin besteht, einen Völkermord zu billigen und zu erleichtern und gleichzeitig scheinbar die Sorge um zivile Opfer zum Ausdruck zu bringen, entlarvt das Vorgehen der Vereinigten Staaten und anderer westlicher Staaten als pure Heuchelei.
Die Welt ist zu Recht empört und angewidert von der Orgie des Massenmords in Gaza.
Riesige öffentliche Proteste in ganz Nordamerika und Europa, die den israelischen Völkermord verurteilen und einen sofortigen Waffenstillstand fordern, zeigen, wie sehr sich die westlichen Eliten von demokratischen und grundlegenden moralischen Anliegen abgewendet haben.
Die Vereinigten Staaten haben im UN-Sicherheitsrat ihr Veto gegen Resolutionsentwürfe für einen Waffenstillstand eingelegt.
Es gibt jedoch Anzeichen dafür, dass sich die Regierung Biden langsam bewusst wird, wie sehr ihre eigene verachtenswerte Doppelmoral die Weltöffentlichkeit erzürnt. Washington verprellt die arabischen Regierungen und verärgert die Stimmung in der Bevölkerung. Selbst jüdische Organisationen in Nordamerika verurteilen die Politik der Unterstützung von Völkermord.
US-Außenminister Antony Blinken flog am Wochenende nach Israel – seine dritte Reise innerhalb von drei Wochen -, um Benjamin Netanjahus „Kriegskabinett“ zu drängen, zumindest „humanitäre Pausen“ bei den Angriffen auf Gaza zuzulassen.
Die israelischen Streitkräfte haben Gaza-Stadt eingekesselt und eine Bodeninvasion ist im Gange. Netanjahu hat einen Waffenstillstand ausgeschlossen und sein Kriegskabinett hat geschworen, die Hamas-Kämpfer zu vernichten. In Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass israelische Politiker alle Palästinenser offen mit der Hamas gleichgesetzt haben, können die kommenden Tage und Wochen nur bedeuten, dass die Zahl der Toten unter der Zivilbevölkerung noch weiter ansteigen wird.
Die verspätete, kleinlaute Besorgnis der Regierung Biden und anderer westlicher Regierungen über die „Begrenzung der zivilen Opfer“ ist eine widerliche Travestie.
Washington bereitet sich darauf vor, weitere 14 Milliarden Dollar an Militärhilfe für Israel zu bewilligen. Im vergangenen Monat sind Hunderte von Militärfrachtflugzeugen mit mehr als 3.000 Tonnen Waffen in Tel Aviv eingetroffen.
Die Vereinigten Staaten und die westlichen Staaten machen sich durch ihre unerschütterliche Unterstützung eines entsetzlichen Gemetzels an Unschuldigen mitschuldig am Völkermord an den Palästinensern.
Das absolute Minimum wäre die Forderung nach einem bedingungslosen Waffenstillstand. Können die westlichen Staats- und Regierungschefs ein Mindestmaß an Moral zeigen?
Der Friedensstifter 
