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 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?
Mr. Justin Raimondo
is the editorial director of Antiwar.com
Source:
by courtesy & © 2002 Justin
Raimondo & Antiwar.com
by the same author:
