| |
MIDDLE EAST NEWS AND COMMENT
Page history last edited by june wortman 1 yr ago
ISRAEL - PALESTINE A news item, two articles and a bibliography. This is a long email but contains information you may not find easily anywhere. Thanks to my friends who send me such interesting articles.
If this subject is one you can not bear, then don't read this email. If you have a curious mind and want to hear information that is generally withheld from us by the media, and never really debated in congress, all politicians being intimidated by the Jewish Lobby, then you will want to read this. Why is it that no one dares criticize Israel in any way? Because they are accused of being anti-semitic, and because millions of dollars have been spent to "educate" the public to support anything the government of Israel does, and that the Palestinians are all bad. They did have a democratic election in which Hamas was the winner. We and Israel refused to accept this
result and have been in collusion ever since to starve the Palestinians into submission. They have also bludgeoned other countries to do the same. I am becoming more and more ashamed of my country, and greatly saddened by these feelings. June Wortman
----------------------------------------------
In the Tucson Citizen yesterday, May 27, was the following small article on the Nation and World page:
CARTER SAYS ISRAEL HAS 150 NUKES
London - Former President Jimmy Carter says Israel has a nuclear arsenal of 150 weapons, The Times of London reported Monday. Experts have long said Israel has nuclear arsenal, but the Jewish state has refused to confirm or deny it.
It was unclear from the newspaper's account whether Carter was citing his own assessment or drawing on official estimates. U.S. Officials have generally avoided discussing Israel's nuclear statue.
The Associated Press.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 20, 2008 in Theolog- The Blog of the Christian Century - theolog.org
Carter's Middle East mission
by James M. Wall
An editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (April 15) sharply criticized Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert for Israel's "boycott" of Jimmy Carter during the former president's recent trip to the Middle East. Olmert refused to meet with Carter; Israeli security personnel were not available to assist Carter's Secret Service detail. Editors of Ha'aretz wrote, "The boycott will not be remembered as a glorious moment in this government's history."
From the moment he took office as president in 1977, Carter was determined to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt. Working "incessantly toward that goal," Carter concluded the 1979 peace agreement for which, Ha'aretz concludes, he deserves "the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life."
Such high praise rarely appears in U.S. media. Most Americans have forgotten, if they ever knew, that 30 years ago, in a peace agreement with Egypt, Israel agreed to full autonomy for the occupied territories, and also agreed not to permit Jewish settlements there. These promises have been forgotten by Israel, which continues to build and expand settlements in the West Bank.
But Carter hasn't forgotten, and his memory may be a factor in the hostility toward him—a man who remembers prods the conscience of those who want to forget.
Israel is deeply indebted to Carter for its peace accord with Egypt. Not only did the agreement remove a major threat to Israel's security, but it also started the flow of billions of U.S. tax dollars into the Israeli economy, a subsidy now militantly defended annually by Israel's supporters in the U.S. Congress.
But this is also the man who wrote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and whose references to apartheid and critical view of Israeli policies have outraged many. Reflecting on the controversy evoked by the book, the Ha'aretz editorial states:
Israel is not ready for such comparisons, even though the situation begs it. It is doubtful whether it is possible to complain when an outside observer, especially a former U.S. president who is well versed in international affairs, sees in the system of separate roads for Jews and Arabs, the lack of freedom of movement, Israel's control over Palestinian lands and their confiscation, and especially the continued settlement activity, which contravenes all promises Israel made and signed, a matter that cannot be accepted.
Jewish journalist Tony Karon, who lived with apartheid in South Africa before moving to New York, writes on his blog, Rootless Cosmopolitan, that Carter may have been "tempting fate" by meeting with Hamas. After all, says Karon, " his entirely appropriate evocation of apartheid in reference to the regime Israel has created on the West Bank earned him the label "Holocaust-denier" from the more demented end of the American Zionist spectrum. But Carter . . . [is] making the rather straightforward adult argument that has eluded so much of the U.S. political mainstream that the only way to achieve peace is to talk to all of those whose consent it requires."
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar wrote in the Washington Post: "President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end."
In the same issue, however, the Post repudiated its guest columnist, saying that the article by al-Zahar "drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter."
Carter maintains that Hamas is worthy to be included in peace talks not because its leaders are paragons of virtue, but for the obvious reason that there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians that does not include all of the involved political parties. It is that reality that led Ha'aretz to conclude that "Carter's method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him."
James M. Wall is senior contributing editor at the Century.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday May 27, 2008 10:28 EDT
Israel imposes a 10-year ban on American critic of Israeli policies
(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
On Friday, Israeli security forces, Shin Bet, detained Norman Finkelstein when he tried to enter Israel, kept him in an airport holding cell for 24 hours, ordered him deported from the country, and then imposed a 10-year ban on his entry. Finkelstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is a Jewish-American author and academic who has frequently criticized the Israeli Government and provoked extreme animosity among right-wing factions in the U.S. He had flown to Israel 15 times previously without incident and was never charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime.
This morning, I interviewed Finkelstein regarding this episode and related issues (the audio for which is here). I also interviewed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, whose animosity towards Finkelstein is intense and long-standing. Dershowitz, to his credit (and, given the below-described events, somewhat ironically) was quite critical of Israel's exclusion of Finkelstein. The full interview with Dershowitz can be heard here.
This morning, the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, published an Editorial emphatically criticizing the government's exclusion of Finkelstein, rejecting the notion that Finkelstein posed any remote security threat and noting: "Considering his unusual and extremely critical views, one cannot avoid the suspicion that refusing to allow him to enter Israel was a punishment rather than a precaution." Haaretz further highlighted the danger of allowing the Government to suppress viewpoints it dislikes:
[T]he right of Israeli citizens to hear unusual views is one that should be fought for. It is not for the government to decide which views should be heard here and which ones should not.
The decision to ban Finkelstein hurts us more than it hurts him.
Beyond the obvious significance of the story itself (one which has been written about extensively in the foreign press, including Europe, but which is missing almost completely from the American media), this episode is part of a very disturbing trend whereby advocates of right-wing Israeli policies try to suppress viewpoints that deviate from their orthodoxies.
Finkelstein -- a Ph.D from Princeton and the author of numerous books -- was himself the subject of an extraordinary (and ultimately successful) campaign (with the enthusiastic leadership of "free speech advocate" Dershowitz, people like Marty Peretz and other neocons who dislike his views) to have him denied tenure by DePaul University, where he had taught for seven years. He was denied tenure even though the Political Science Department (by a 9-3 vote) and the Personnel Committee (unanimously) recommended him for tenure.
As The Chicago Tribune reported: "The American Association of University Professors had previously complained to the university that Finkelstein's summary discharge violated standards of academic freedom." Since then, no other university has been willing to risk the controversy that would be inevitably provoked if it hired Finkelstein, who has therefore been unemployed since leaving DePaul.
That campaign against Finkelstein was similar to the (also successful) one spearheaded by various American neoconservatives to block Yale University from extending a tenure position to University of Michigan Professor (and critic of Israeli policies) Juan Cole -- who stood accused (falsely) of harboring a "deep and abiding hatred of Israel"; that "if it were up to Mr. Cole, the country wouldn't exist at all"; and being "best known for disparaging the participation of prominent American Jews in government." Despite being approved for tenure by the Yale departments he was to join, Professor Cole's appointment was rejected by a Yale appointments committee in the wake of the neoconservative campaign against him. As Inside Higher Ed reported at the time, in an article entitled "Blackballed at Yale":
[NYU Professor of Middle East Studies Zachary] Lockman said that Cole is "one of the preeminent historians of the modern Middle East and he's been attacked on political grounds -- because he's critical of the Bush administration and Israel." Given Cole's reputation and the departmental backing for his appointment, Lockman said of the decision to reject Cole: "Universities seem to be willing to kowtow to pressure from outside interest groups" . . . .
"These vicious attacks on my character and my views were riddled with with wild inaccuracies," [Cole] said, adding that the criticism was "motivated by a desire to punish me for daring to stand up for Palestinian rights, criticize Israeli policy, criticize Bush administration policies and, in general being a liberal Democrat."
Over the past several years, the U.S. has itself refused entry to those espousing views on Israel disagreeable to neocons. In 2004, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim scholar from Switzerland who was to teach a course at the University of Notre Dame, was granted an entrance visa only to have it revoked by Homeland Security based on vague accusations that he posed a security threat. As The Guardian's Richard Silverstein noted, the visa revocation occurred after Ramadan was continuously attacked by neocons like Daniel Pipes with "false claims about Ramadan's sympathy for terrorism." Independent of Israel-related issues, there are numerous other cases of journalists, authors and others being refused entrance to the U.S. on the most dubious grounds that simply do not exist anywhere else in the free world.
In fact, the problem of right-wing attacks on free speech when it comes to Israel is -- as Finkelstein himself in my interview with him noted -- far worse in the U.S. than it is in Israel. As the Haaretz Editorial reflects, Israel is a pluralistic society that tolerates a much broader range of debate over Israeli actions than is permissible in the U.S. Indeed, just yesterday, Marty Peretz lamented that Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are lecturing this month at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on "The Israel Lobby." While suggestions of negotiations with Hamas is a taboo topic for American politicians, a majority of Israelis support that option. Views that are routinely castigated by neocons in the U.S. as "anti-Israeli" and even "anti-Semitic" are freely expressed in Israel, by Israelis, with regularity.
Still, Israel's 10-year exclusion of Finkelstein is disturbing and warrants real criticism. As Finkelstein noted in my interview with him, he was not intending to stay in Israel, but rather, to visit friends in the Occupied Territory. Thus, the issue extends beyond Israel's attempt to bar those with dissenting views from entering that country to Israel's attempt to deny Palestinians the ability to meet with those who are critical of Israel's occupation. Right-wing, Israel-centric factions in the U.S. have conclusively demonstrated that they oppose free debate and don't believe in free expression. It can't be good for Israel -- and, either way, it's certainly not justifiable -- for Israel to follow in their pernicious footsteps.
UPDATE: The interview with Finkelstein can be heard here. It's roughly 20 minutes. The interview with Dershowitz (roughly 6 minutes) can be heard here.
UPDATE II: The Jerusalem Post reports that Finkelstein's exclusion was, in fact, based on the government's dislike of his political views:
American political scientist and fierce critic of Israel, Prof. Norman Finkelstein, was denied entry to Israel and deported from the country early Saturday morning. Officials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world. . . .
Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard was active in campaigning against Finkelstein. His most recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is largely an attack on Dershowitz's The Case for Israel. In his book, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.
It's unclear what "anti-Zionist" in that context is supposed to mean, since Finkelstein has long advocated for a two-state solution based on Israel's 1967 borders -- the position that can, more or less, be described as an international consensus -- but what matters here is the acknowledgment that the exclusion was viewpoint-based. Some in comments had baselessly speculated that the exclusion was due to Finkelstein's having met with Hezbollah officials -- a fact which even the extremely anti-Hezbollah Dershowitz (as well as the Haaretz Editorial) agreed would not be a basis for exclusion, but clearly, not even Israeli government officials are invoking that pretext.
UPDATE III: Philip Weiss points to this article in The Telegraph, in which former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski complained that "the slur of anti-Semitism was too readily used" against critics of the Israeli government and its right-wing supporters in the U.S.:
Mr. Brzezinski has been accused of being "anti-Israel" by some Jewish academics, writers and bloggers after criticising Israel for excessive use of force and unwillingness to compromise. . . .
Mr Brzezinski said "it's not unique to the Jewish community -- but there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish community", referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950s.
"They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel."
These sorts of debate-suppressive tactics -- aside from being inherently wrong -- never advance the cause on behalf of which they're invoked. Coincidentally, Brzezinksi has a superb Op-Ed in today's Washington Post, co-authored with the equally superb retired Gen. William Odom, on creating a sensible American policy towards Iran.
UPDATE IV: One of the points which the Haaretz Editorial made in opposing the exclusion of Finkelstein is that right-wing Jewish-American extremists who, unlike Finkelstein, do pose a real security threat, are regularly allowed entry into Israel: "the decision is all the more surprising when one recalls the ease with which right-wing activists from the Meir Kahane camp -- the kind whose activities pose a security threat that no longer requires further proof -- are able to enter the country."
At Open Left, Paul Rosenberg examines an analogous inequity: while even the mildest critics of Israel on the Left are routinely demonized by neocons as "anti-Israeli" or "anti-Semitic," truly extreme hatemongers on the Right -- such as John Hagee -- are not only tolerated but embraced. Thus, Joe Lieberman, who previously compared Hagee to "Moses" in the midst of bathing Hagee with lavish praise, still refuses to repudiate Hagee or cancel his scheduled appearance at a Hagee event even in the wake of Hagee's comments that Hitler and the Holocaust were "God's will" to drive Jews back to Israel. Few things are more destructive than those like Lieberman who transparently exploit "anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" accusations to silence debate and for their own political gain.
-------------
Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Here is a bibliography from back when the UU Social Action Committee had it's beginning of years of Saturday Seminars with a six session series on Israel-Palestine that made us both famous and infamous. It was designed by Bob Steck, a former high school teacher, social activist and a survivor of the Lincoln Brigade with whom he went to fight the Nazis in Spain. I will star the pamphlets and papers that I still have, for anyone who wants to read them. We still have all but one session, the film, on tapes. I also have some printed bibliography sheets if you would like any of those to keep.
*TORAH JEWS REJECT ZIONISM - author's name withheld. 10-23-2003 in Rense.com http;//ww.rense.com/general143/torah.htm
*ZIONIST ORIENTATIONS - THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF JEWISH NATIONALISM - by Norman Finkelstein
Charles Smith, Ph. D. PALESTINE AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT. The best single historical introduction. He is a professor at U of A.
Edward Said - THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE. Not sure if still in print. but the SAID READER has an important section from that book, discussing Zionism from the Viewpoint of its Victims.
Edward Said and Christpher Hitchens. . BLAMING THE VICTIMS A collection of essays.
Norman Finkelstein - THE IMAGE AND REALITY OF THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE CONFLICT. The author'.s mother a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and Maindenneck Concentration Camp. His father also survivor of Warshw Ghetto and Aushwitz. Mr. Finkelstein writes, " The topic that most engaged me was the question of zionism.". Can a Jewish state be democratic? It has chapters dealing with some crucial issues: The nature of Zionism/ on what led to the '67 war, and its aftermath. A chapter on the '73 war also.
Simha Flapan THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL: MYTH AND REALITIES. meant for normal people, not academics.
Yael Zerubavel RECOVERED ROOTS: COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND THE MAKING OF ISRAELI NATIONAL TRADITION.
*THE ORIGIN OF THE PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT third edition (including Intifada 2000)
a pamphlet published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East. - P.O. Box 14561 Berkley, CA 94712
They have also published THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION which urges that a lasting solution needs to be based on International laws. It asks "How did a people with traditional high moral standards end up being an oppressor denying justice to others?
Amos Oz - IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL and Uri Avnery ISRAEL WITHOUT ZIONISM study how the israeli Lobby worked in Tucson to destroy the U of A Middle East Dept. considered one fo the best in the world, see Chapter 8 of "They Dare to Speak Out:, but former Representative Paul Findley of Illinois.
*THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT - A Unit for High School Student. by Ronald Stockton, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan-Dearborn. Part of a Unit of Study on "Roots of Violence iin the Middle East:." Prepared by the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the University of Michigan with support from the U.S. Institute of Peace. Revised sedond edition - November 1993 I have one copy of this
workbook
* Richard Ben Cramer - HOW ISRAEL LOST - The four questions. He was the
winner of the Pulitzer Prize/ A very interesting report by a journalist who had covered Israel for many years, was posted somewhere else for a number of years and then went back to Israel. He speaks of how the Israeli policies toward Palestine have sapped the moral foundations of the Israeli society, not to their benefit.
*Bernard Lewis THE CRISIS OF ISLAM Holy War and unholy terror, Includes an afterward.
*Thomas L Friedman - FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM, updated with a new chapter.
*Tom Segev. ONE PALESTINE, COMPLETE. Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
* Jimmy Carter PALESTINE: PEACE, NOT APARTHEID
On the Internet:
www.zmag.org has a Middle East Watch section which is outstanding, with links to various groups.
www.electronicintifada.org Ali Abunimah- one of the founders of the electronic intifada, has an email listing people can get on - for people who like to get a whole bunch of articles every day.
Rela Mazali gave a talk at the JUNITY conference. titled SOMEONE MAKES A KILLING OFF WAR: MILITARIZATION AND OCCUPATION IN ISRAEL-PALESTIN E www/junity.org/conference/rela.html
The JUNITY website - www. junity.org give information about American Jewish groups working against the occupation
jnpalme@attglobal.net will put you on his list to receive email information. He looks through a lot of email, and sends out to his lost only what he considers the best. He also sends occassionally action alerts.(signing petitions, writing to refuseniks in jail, or to the authorities regarding refuseniks, and so on )
There are Peace and Justice groups. One place to check on these is Israel indymedia - www.indymedia.org.il
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am glad to loan the books I have starred. Some might also be in the library. You with computers can go to the websites listed. This is a wide range of opinion, but very little of it expresses the position of the Israeli government or the staunch anti-Palestinians. You can find those elsewhere.
A friend had asked for some books to read on Israel-Palestine. I apologize for being so delayed in getting this to her.
-------------------------------------------------------------
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie:
deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth:
persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
~John F. Kennedy
---------------------------------------------------
"Not You! You!!!"
Tibet and Palestine
"Hey! Take your hands off me! Not you! You!!!"--the voice of a young woman in the darkened cinema, an old joke.
"Hey! Take your hands off Tibet!" the international chorus is crying out, "But not from Chechnya! Not from the Basque homeland! And certainly not from Palestine!" And that is not a joke.
* * *
LIKE EVERYBODY else, I support the right of the Tibetan people to independence, or at least autonomy. Like everybody else, I condemn the actions of the Chinese government there. But unlike everybody else, I am not ready to join in the demonstrations.
Why? Because I have an uneasy feeling that somebody is washing my brain, that what is going on is an exercise in hypocrisy.
I don't mind a bit of manipulation. After all, it is not by accident that the riots started in Tibet on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing. That's alright. A people fighting for their freedom have the right to use any opportunity that presents itself to further their struggle.
I support the Tibetans in spite of it being obvious that the Americans are exploiting the struggle for their own purposes. Clearly, the CIA has planned and organized the riots, and the American media are leading the world-wide campaign. It is a part of the hidden struggle between the US, the reigning super-power, and China, the rising super-power - a new version of the "Great Game" that was played in central Asia in the 19th century by the British Empire and Russia. Tibet is a token in this game.
I am even ready to ignore the fact that the gentle Tibetans have carried out a murderous pogrom against innocent Chinese, killing women and men and burning homes and shops. Such detestable excesses do happen during a liberation struggle.
No, what is really bugging me is the hypocrisy of the world media. They storm and thunder about Tibet. In thousands of editorials and talk-shows they heap curses and invective on the evil China. It seems as if the Tibetans are the only people on earth whose right to independence is being denied by brutal force, that if only Beijing would take its dirty hands off the saffron-robed monks, everything would be alright in this, the best of all possible worlds.
* * *
THERE IS no doubt that the Tibetan people are entitled to rule their own country, to nurture their unique culture, to promote their religious institutions and to prevent foreign settlers from submerging them.
But are not the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria entitled to the same? The inhabitants of Western Sahara, whose territory is occupied by Morocco? The Basques in Spain? The Corsicans off the coast of France? And the list is long.
Why do the world's media adopt one independence struggle, but often cynically ignore another independence struggle? What makes the blood of one Tibetan redder than the blood of a thousand Africans in East Congo?
Again and again I try to find a satisfactory answer to this enigma. In vain.
Immanuel Kant demanded of us: "Act as if the principle by which you act were about to be turned into a universal law of nature." (Being a German philosopher, he expressed it in much more convoluted language.) Does the attitude towards the Tibetan problem conform to this rule? Does it reflect our attitude towards the struggle for independence of all other oppressed peoples?
Not at all.
* * *
WHAT, THEN, causes the international media to discriminate between the various liberation struggles that are going on throughout the world?
Here are some of the relevant considerations:
- Do the people seeking independence have an especially exotic culture?
- Are they an attractive people, i.e. "sexy" in the view of the media?
- Is the struggle headed by a charismatic personality who is liked by the media?
- It the oppressing government disliked by the media?
- Does the oppressing government belong to the pro-American camp? This is an important factor, since the United States dominates a large part of the international media, and its news agencies and TV networks largely define the agenda and the terminology of the news coverage.
- Are economic interests involved in the conflict?
- Does the oppressed people have gifted spokespersons, who are able to attract attention and manipulate the media?
* * *
FROM THESE points of view, there is nobody like the Tibetans. They enjoy ideal conditions.
Fringed by the Himalayas, they are located in one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. For centuries, just to get there was an adventure. Their unique religion arouses curiosity and sympathy. Its non-violence is very attractive and elastic enough to cover even the ugliest atrocities, like the recent pogrom. The exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is a romantic figure, a media rock-star. The Chinese regime is hated by many - by capitalists because it is a Communist dictatorship, by Communists because it has become capitalist. It promotes a crass and ugly materialism, the very opposite of the spiritual Buddhist monks, who spend their time in prayer and meditation.
When China builds a railway to the Tibetan capital over a thousand inhospitable kilometers, the West does not admire the engineering feat, but sees (quite rightly) an iron monster that brings hundreds of thousands of Han-Chinese settlers to the occupied territory.
And of course, China is a rising power, whose economic success threatens America's hegemony in the world. A large part of the ailing American economy already belongs directly or indirectly to China. The huge American Empire is sinking hopelessly into debt, and China may soon be the biggest lender. American manufacturing industry is moving to China, taking millions of jobs with it.
Compared to these factors, what have the Basques, for example, to offer? Like the Tibetans, they inhabit a contiguous territory, most of it in Spain, some of it in France. They, too, are an ancient people with their own language and culture. But these are not exotic and do not attract special notice. No prayer wheels. No robed monks.
The Basques do not have a romantic leader, like Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. The Spanish state, which arose from the ruins of Franco's detested dictatorship, enjoys great popularity around the world. Spain belongs to the European Union, which is more or less in the American camp, sometimes more, sometimes less.
The armed struggle of the Basque underground is abhorred by many and is considered "terrorism", especially after Spain has accorded the Basques a far-reaching autonomy. In these circumstances, the Basques have no chance at all of gaining world support for independence.
The Chechnyans should have been in a better position. They, too, are a separate people, who have for a long time been oppressed by the Czars of the Russian Empire, including Stalin and Putin. But alas, they are Muslims - and in the Western world, Islamophobia now occupies the place that had for centuries been reserved for anti-Semitism. Islam has turned into a synonym for terrorism, it is seen as a religion of blood and murder. Soon it will be revealed that Muslims slaughter Christian children and use their blood for baking Pitta. (In reality it is, of course, the religion of dozens of vastly different peoples, from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kosova to Zanzibar.
The US does not fear Moscow as it fears Beijing. Unlike China, Russia does not look like a country that could dominate the 21st century. The West has no interest in renewing the Cold War, as it has in renewing the Crusades against Islam. The poor Chechnyans, who have no charismatic leader or outstanding spokespersons, have been banished from the headlines. For all the world cares, Putin can hit them as much as he wants, kill thousands and obliterate whole towns.
That does not prevent Putin from supporting the demands of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for separation from Georgia, a country which infuriates Russia.
* * *
IF IMMANUEL KANT knew what's going on in Kosova, he would be scratching his head.
The province demanded its independence from Serbia, and I, for one, supported that with all my heart. This is a separate people, with a different culture (Albanian) and its own religion (Islam). After the popular Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to drive them out of their country, the world rose and provided moral and material support for their struggle for independence.
The Albanian Kosovars make up 90% of the citizens of the new state, which has a population of two million. The other 10% are Serbs, who want no part of the new Kosova. They want the areas they live in to be annexed to Serbia. According to Kant's maxim, are they entitled to this?
I would propose a pragmatic moral principle: Every population that inhabits a defined territory and has a clear national character is entitled to independence. A state that wants to keep such a population must see to it that they feel comfortable, that they receive their full rights, enjoy equality and have an autonomy that satisfies their aspirations. In short: that they have no reason to desire separation.
That applies to the French in Canada, the Scots in Britain, the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere, the various ethnic groups in Africa, the indigenous peoples in Latin America, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and many others. Each has a right to choose between full equality, autonomy and independence.
* * *
THIS LEADS us, of course, to the Palestinian issue.
In the competition for the sympathy of the world media, the Palestinians are unlucky. According to all the objective standards, they have a right to full independence, exactly like the Tibetans. They inhabit a defined territory, they are a specific nation, a clear border exists between them and Israel. One must really have a crooked mind to deny these facts.
But the Palestinians are suffering from several cruel strokes of fate: The people that oppress them claim for themselves the crown of ultimate victimhood. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Also, the great majority of the Palestinians are Muslims (nobody pays attention to the Palestinian Christians). Since Islam arouses fear and abhorrence in the West, the Palestinian struggle has automatically become a part of that shapeless, sinister threat, "international terrorism". And since the murders of Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Palestinians have no particularly impressive leader - neither in Fatah nor in Hamas.
The world media are shedding tears for the Tibetan people, whose land is taken from them by Chinese settlers. Who cares about the Palestinians, whose land is taken from them by our settlers?
In the world-wide tumult about Tibet, the Israeli spokespersons compare themselves - strange as it sounds - to the poor Tibetans, not to the evil Chinese. Many think this quite logical.
If Kant were dug up tomorrow and asked about the Palestinians, he would probably answer: "Give them what you think should be given to everybody, and don't wake me up again to ask silly questions."
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is o a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: THE GAZA BOMBSHELL (I received three different messages from readers about this. June W.)
(Below is commentary from several sources on the original article. Go to the original in Vanity Fair by clicking on the following:) HYPERLINK "http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804"http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
THE WISDOM FUND
March 5, 2008
DO YOU KNOW?
"Two days earlier Israel killed more Palestinians than have been killed by all the Qassams [rockets fired from Gaza] over the past seven years."
YOU WOULD IF YOU VISITED
OR
---
THE GAZA BOMBSHELL
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever. . . .
{also at the link below from a second message on the same subject}
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
---
THE WAR ON ISLAM -- Recipient Human Rights Foundation Gold Award
SUBSCRIBE to our mailing list at
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Revealed: The US plan to start a Palestinian civil war / The Electronic Intifada
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 07:43:06 -0700
This is a rather explosive report, based on an article by David Rose:
"The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008,
Vanity Fair reported that it has "obtained confidential documents, since
corroborated by sources in the US and Palestine, which lay bare a covert
initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams to
provoke a Palestinian civil war." The magazine adds that the plan "was for
forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's
behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the
democratically-elected Hamas-led government from power."
For me, the major lesson is that once again the US is being shown as an
extremely destructive force, whose aims have nothing to do with the well
being of Palestinians or Israelis.
Judith Norman adds:
One irony of this situation is that Israel originally (covertly) helped
Hamas when it was first founded in the late 80's, on the grounds that a religious extremist movement such
as this would help undermine the PLO. As Uri Avnery points out (in a piece recently posted on JPN:
"it is ironic that the Israeli leadership [and, we can add, the US
leadership as well] is now
supporting the PLO in the hope of undermining Hamas."
Both policies - Israel's initial support for Hamas and this latest US effort to undermine it -
have been disastrous as far as Israeli security is concerned. The article in Vanity Fair
concludes: "It is impossible to say for sure whether the outcome in Gaza would have been
any better-for the Palestinian people, for the Israelis, and for America's allies in Fatah- if the
Bush administration had pursued a different policy. One thing, however, seems certain:
it could not be any worse."
(above iis commentary from my reader who sent the message.
REVEALED: THE US PLAN TO START A PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2008
United States officials including President George W. Bush and
Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice participated in a conspiracy to arm and train
Contra-style Palestinian militias nominally loyal to the Fatah party to
overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, an investigative article in the April 2008
issue of
Vanity Fair has revealed. [1]
The allegations of such a conspiracy, long reported by The Electronic
Intifada, are corroborated in Vanity Fair with confidential US government
documents, interviews with former US officials, Israeli officials and with
Muhammad Dahlan, the Gaza strongman personally chosen by Bush.
The article, by David Rose, recounts gruesome torture documented on
videotape of Hamas members by the US-armed and funded militias under
Dahlan's control. Hamas had repeatedly alleged such torture as part of its
justification for its move to overthrow the Dahlan militias and take full
control of the interior of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
Vanity Fair reported that it has "obtained confidential documents, since
corroborated by sources in the US and Palestine, which lay bare a covert
initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams to
provoke a Palestinian civil war." The magazine adds that the plan "was for
forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's
behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the
democratically-elected Hamas-led government from power."
Abrams was one of the key Reagan administration figures involved in the
Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, whereby the US illegally armed militias in
Nicaragua to overthrow the ruling Sandinista government. Abrams wasconvicted and later
pardoned for lying to Congress.
While it has been known that the US engaged in covert activity to subvert
Palestinian democracy and provoke Palestinians to shed each other's blood,
the extent of the personal involvement of top US officials in attempting to
dictate the course of events in Palestine -- while publicly preaching
democracy -- has only now been brought to light.
Bush met and personally anointed Dahlan as "our guy" in 2003. In July 2007,
The Electronic Intifada reported on a leaked letter written by Dahlan and
sent to the Israeli defense minister in which he confirmed his role in a
conspiracy to overthrow then Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat
for whose replacement Bush had publicly called. Dahlan wrote: "Be certain
that Yasser Arafat's final days are numbered, but allow us to finish him off
our way, not yours. And be sure as well that ... the promises I made in
front of President Bush, I will give my life to keep."
The US planning to overthrow the government elected by Palestinians under
occupation began immediately after the Hamas movement won a clear victory in
the January 2006 election for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas,however,
proved "surprising resilient."
At a meeting at Abbas' Ramallah headquarters in October 2006, Rice
personally ordered Abbas to dissolve the government headed by Hamas' Ismail
Haniyeh "within two weeks" and replace it with an unelected "emergency
government."
When Abbas failed to act promptly on Rice's order, the US stepped up its
efforts to arm Dahlan in preparation for the attempted coup. Hamas foiled
the coup plot by moving preemptively against Dahlan's gangs, many of whom
refused to fight despite being furnished with tens of millions of dollars in
weapons and training. The US-conceived "emergency government" headed by a
former World Bank official, Salam Fayyad, was eventually appointed by Abbas,
but its authority is limited to parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
While the United States and Israel were the driving forces behind the civil
war and coup plot, others had a hand including several Arab states and their
intelligence services. "The scheme," Rose writes, "bore some resemblance to
the Iran-contra scandal" in that "some of the money for the [Nicaraguan]
contras, like that for Fatah, was furnished by Arab allies as a result of US lobbying."
Endnotes
[1] "The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008,
( Jewish Peace News is a source of some of this and can be reached at http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/jpn.shtml. A very interesting website for those wishing to obtain news from another point of view on the Israel/Palestine situation.)
---------------------------------------------------
Who Is Tony Karon?
I’m a journalist from Cape Town, South Africa, resident in New York since 1993. I’m currently a senior editor at TIME.com (although I do this site on my own time, and am personally entirely responsible for its content, which in no way reflects the views or outlook of anyone else). I’ve worked there since 1997, covering the Middle East, the “war on terror” and international issues ranging from China’s emergence to the Balkans. I also do occasional op-eds for Haaretz and other publications, as well as bits of TV and radio punditry for CNN, MSNBC, and various NPR shows. I did an ever-so-brief stint at Fox News (measured in months, I swear!) and worked at George magazine in its startup year. Having majored in economic history, I cut my analytical teeth in South Africa in the struggle years, where I worked both as an editor in the “alternative” press and as an activist of the banned ANC. And in that context, my obsession with understanding global events took root, as a means of contextualizing the choices and obstacles we faced in the struggle against apartheid.
In 1990/1, I gave up my activist career almost as soon as Nelson Mandela was released, the ANC was unbanned and the regime conceded to a transition to democracy — once we’d achieved a “normality” to politics in South Africa, and it was not a profession that interested me. (If you’d been French under occupation, you might well have joined the resistance, but that didn’t mean you’d remain active in party politics after the Nazis were gone — that was how it was for many of my generation of South African activists.) I went to work in the mainstream media at the Cape Times and the Mail&Guardian Weekly, before leaving for New York in 1993 on what I imagined would be an extended holiday. A brief research gig at Time Out opened my eyes to the possibilities of working here — as well as hooking me up to the first connections of the sort of ever-expanding networks that make life in the city possible (and if this were an Oscar thank you speech, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a huge shout-out to Gerda Marie Kenyon, wherever you are now, who gave me that Time Out gig and started the snowball rolling). What followed was a mad array of freelance gigs ranging from the sublime (television work for Britain’s Channel 4 that involved escapades such as spending three days with the rapper Notorious B.I.G.) to the ridiculous — writing the script for a Geffen Records “rockumentary” on Manowar, an upstate New York heavy metal band, really big in Spain and Greece, whose brief spell in the Guiness Book of records as the world’s loudest band underscored their image of themselves as Norse warriors and Wagner’s true inheritors.
While I relished the professional holiday from the serious themes that had preoccupied me during the 80s, and the opportunity to explore other interests and passions, I seemed to gravitate back to writing about geopolitics despite myself. The optimism surrounding the new paradigms of post-Cold War politics suddenly began to recede, and familiar patterns began to repeat themselves. Reading the New York Times on the subway en route to various day jobs, I found myself drawn back to the big themes. There were things that needed saying, and I had more to offer than commentaries on the marketing strategies of the Wu Tang Clan.
In the aftermath of 9/11, I found many friends and acquaintances asking me to share private observations about the “war on terror” and related subjects. I started mailing those out to a list of friends and colleagues, that just kept growing as they forwarded them to others. And finally, after a substantial hiatus, they’ve evolved
into this web site.
------------------------------
Tony Karon: Obama and the 'Jewish Vote'
Rootless Cosmopolitan is not in the habit of endorsing political
candidates, but Barack Obama - Barack Hussein Obama - is an exception.
Rootless Cosmopolitan loves Barack Hussein Obama. Here's why: I was
reminded of the essence of my own credo
wonderful ethno-musicologist Robert Farris Thompson, writing of his
love of Mambo and other Afro-Caribbean musical styles:
Mambo distills their cross-cultural insights, leading us, for
example, to a Puerto Rican man who learned to live among the Anglos,
Jews, Italians and Irish. In a wonderful book on his life, "Benjy
Lopez: A Picaresque Tale of Emigration and Return," by Barry B. Levine,
he shared this insight: "Imagine if you were twenty years old and
didn't feel inferior to anybody or better than anybody. When you treat
everybody the same, people open up to you." Those are words I have
tried to live by.
It is these words that also capture precisely what inspires me about
Obama. My good friend Michael Weeder - Father Michael Weeder, an
Anglican priest and longtime revolutionary in my native Cape Town -
sent me an email at about the same time in which he noted the
following:
Obama is the child both of Africa, who was robbed of her own,
and of those whose aspirations were embodied in the Mayflower. A child
of our continent in the White House ... this is not just a North
American election, no... we should all have that bloodied vote. I see
how Americans are stepping up to the plate of human justice and
solidarity.
Out of the whore of Babylon comes something new as the sloping
Beast pauses, en route to Jerusalem. Perhaps a new day is possible.
The reason people around the world are excited about the possibility of
an Obama presidency is that they see in him a person who appears to
live by that credo "neither inferior, nor superior, to anyone." And
that's in marked contrast to the arrogance with which every U.S.
president of the past quarter century has addressed the world.
Hillary Clinton is so imprisoned in this haughty arrogance that she
mocks Obama for even suggesting that the starting point in dealing with
Iran, or Cuba is to talk to the adversary and understand his concerns.
Nope, Hillary is very much part of the bark-into-a-megaphone school of
international affairs, of which the Bush Administration has simply been
the zenith. Clinton's boundless cynicism has been astonishing - she
expects people to vote for her on the basis that she's taken more hits
from the Republicans and is immune to their blows; she mocks Obama for
offering people the hope that things could be different. Which, of
course, is true, in the sense that if Hillary Clinton is elected
president, I'm not sure how profoundly different they would be, quite
frankly.
She goes on about how Obama hasn't been tested, but in truth - on the
issues that really matter to the world - both have been tested, and
Hillary failed. She voted to authorize the Iraq war, where Obama had
the courage to stand up and say no. And she voted to authorize Bush to
do his best to provoke another war with Iran. Again, Obama refused to
give Bush the mandate he sought. I want Obama to be President because I
think he's the least likely of all the contenders to drop bombs on
people or starve them in the name of self-righteous anger, ideological
arrogance or because Israel demands it.
America is in urgent need of a profound change in the way that it
relates to the world, and it's not going to come from Hillary Clinton.
The fact that she believes she can prevail by pouring scorn on the very
notion that things could be different is a sign of the decrepitude that
has dominated the upper echelons of the Democratic Party since the
first Clinton term. (It may not be surprising that in a party that
could put up Al Gore and John Kerry, Hillary might believe that she had
earned the right to be the candidate, but why shouldn't Democratic
voters expect more?)
Now, as the desperation begins to set in, the Clinton campaign is
showing its true colors, trying to stampede voters away from Obama by
implying that he's a trojan horse for Osama, doing their best to alert
Jewish voters to the idea that, unlike Hillary he may not be willing to
jump through every hoop that the Israel lobby demands
So, Is Obama "Good for the Jews"?
On a recent visit to Cape Town, I was shown one of those Obama-as-Osama
smear emails that have done the rounds of the internet's Jewish
geography, containing those talking points that were once exclusive to
the fevered racist imagination of the the Zionist alte-kakkers but have
since become mainstream fare for Clinton boosters. His middle name is
HUSSEIN. Scary, huh? His father and paternal grandmother were MUSLIMS.
He went to a MADRESSA as a toddler. (Actually, I've long been amused at
how the term madressa has come to connote terrorist training camp in
the Western media - all I can tell you is that in my anti-apartheid
struggle days in South Africa, we had plenty of our activist meetings
in madressas kindly made available by local imams, and I felt right at
home in them because they were almost indistinguishable from the Hebrew
nursery school I had attended, but never mind...)
I read a few lines and began to giggle. "Oh, so you don't believe Obama
is secretly part of the Muslim war against the West?" the man who
showed me the email asked. What Muslim war against the West, I asked.
He looked a little offended: "You mean you don't believe there's a
Muslim war against the West?" No, I don't. And I don't believe Obama is
a Muslim, anyway, but I do think his heritage may make him more
inclined to engage in dialogue with Muslim countries, and that would be
an extremely good thing.
Again, quoting from my good friend, the Anglican Father Michael Weeder,
whose own roots are not dissimilar from Obama's, "I relate to his
Muslim Indonesian connection because that is where the dominant strand
of my genetic lines leads from and then a large proportion of my
relatives (the known ones) are Muslim. But that is a minor if not
irrelevant matter... Much is being made of Obama's Muslim ties with
Islam, and if Islam has influenced him I say 'Praise be to Allah'
because his nur is pure, and shines like the morning sun through a
winter haze. I believe that grace is at work here."
It is, of course, precisely the prospect of an American president
committed to justice and dialogue that freaks out the Zionists. They
cite his willingness to talk to Iran as Exhibit A in the case against
him.
apage=1&cid=1203589810710&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull>
That's because the Zionists want an American president who will bomb
Iran, having worked themselves into a lather of with their own dark
fantasies about Iran as Nazi Germany. And if Obama is prepared to talk
to Iran, he may be prepared to talk to Hamas, too. For the Zionists,
that's another reason to plotz at the prospect of an Obama presidency,
even though talking to Hamas is exactly what Israel and the U.S. need.
The greatest fear, quite explicitly, cited by the Zionists is that
Obama may pursue an even-handed policy on the Middle East. Imagine
that...
It disturbs the Zionist establishment that Obama is promising change,
because the Zionist establishment is deeply invested in the current
disastrous status quo - the status quo that has plunged America into a
ruinous war, and the Middle East into a chaos that even sober Zionists
ought to recognize is bad for Israel, even if they remain cold to the
crimes against Palestinians it has involved. "All the talk about > change, but
without defining what that change should be is an opening
for all kind of mischief," warned Malcolm Hoenlein
Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. "Of course
Obama has plenty of Jewish supporters and there are many Jews around
him," Hoenlein said. "But there is a legitimate concern over the
zeitgeist around the campaign."
The problem with Obama, for the Zionist establishment - and some
Israeli politicians have made this clear
cid=1201070769195&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull> - is that he
may be too even-handed in dealing with Israel and the Palestinians. He
may not muster quite the same degree of racist contempt for the Palestinians
the-palestinians/> that can be safely expected from a Hillary Clinton
(they're not entirely sure of John McCain, either, fearful that he
might send Republican "realists" of the Scowcroft-Baker variety to the
Middle East rather than Irgun fighters like Elliot Abrahams, Bush's
Mideast point-man). As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, "Visiting the
region in 2005 as senator for New York, Senator Clinton shunned the
Palestinians completely, meeting only Israeli leaders and hearing and
expressing only Israeli positions. She particularly galled Palestinians
by enthusiastically backing the 700-kilometre complex of walls and
fences that Israel is building inside the West Bank."
When Obama gently but firmly suggested to Ohio Jewish voters
a difference between being a friend to Israel and embracing the toxic
Likud view of how to approach its neighbors, some Zionist commentators
went apoplectic - Haaretz's manic U.S.-based nationalist watchdog
Shmuel Rosner howled that Obama was interfering in Israeli internal
affairs! But then Rosner represents the Zionist alte-kakker perspective
to a tee, with grading of American political candidates
basis of their level of hostility to Israel's foes and willingess to
give it carte blanche to destroy the Palestinians and itself. Why
Haaretz publishes this crank, I have no idea, but it should be
embarrassed to run this sort of tribalist drivel which most American
Jews find acutely embarrassing.
The reality is that Obama may be just the sort of friend Israel needs;
the sort of friend that restrains you from driving home drunk.
I love this line from one of Hillary's campaign organizers in response
to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted "an honest discussion about
ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West" -
Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton's who has organized campaign events
for her, responded, "I am horrified at Mr. Obama's point of view."
Enough said.
Never Mind Obama, are the Zionists "Good for the Jews"?
If I was a Zionist, of course, I'd be less worried by Obama than by the
fact that American Jews are voting for him in huge numbers, despite
being warned off him by the Zionist establishment. Obama even beat
Hillary among Jewish voters in California, a state that Hillary
actually won! I have little doubt that he'll easily carry a majority of
young Jewish voters, about 70% of whom, like Obama, opposed the Iraq
war at the time that Hillary voted for it. And what this reveals, in fact, is that Zionist hegemony among American Jews is fading.
A 2007 study commissioned for American Jewish organizations found that
less than half of American Jews under 35 would consider Israel's
disappearance a "personal tragedy," and more than half were
uncomfortable with the very idea of a Jewish state. These figures
reveal that young American Jews don't want to be fenced off in some
nationalist ghetto of the mind; they don't see their fate and their
existence as initimately tied to Israel's, nor do they see Israel as
representing them and their Jewishness. It would be safe to assume, in
fact, that a large and growing number of American Jews, just like
Barack Obama, would like to see a more even-handed U.S. Middle East
policy that raises the prospects for peace. A Jew's place, as I've
always argued, is in the world, wherever he or she chooses to make it.
And the value of Judaism is derived from the way it feeds into a
universal humanity - tribal nationalism has no place in my idea of
Judaism, and it's not something I want any part of. And I get the sense
that millions of young American Jews feel the same way. Barack Obama is
the perfect candidate in this election for those who believe that our
Jewish values compel us to be part of a universal movement for justice
that joins us together with all who share that goal, across all tribal
boundaries. And he's the perfect candidate to lead America in an age
when it will have to learn to treat the rest of the world as something
more than its vassals and courtiers. That's why long before Texas and
Ohio cast their votes, the vast majority of humanity that is paying
attention has left no doubt that it wants to see Barack Obama in the
White House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Many thousands of you have asked to learn more about my position on the Iraq war and related funding. As you may know, a few weeks ago I voted again
to deny funding without a timetable.
I am bothered by the recent movement to repackage the Surge as a success. Today, I released an editorial (below and also published on the Daily Kos) regarding my view of the Surge's so-called "success." If you have a moment, please read it when you get a chance.
Thank you again for your support.
Congressman Robert Wexler
*************************
A Surge of More Lies
by Congressman Robert Wexler contact@wexlerforcongress.com
January 8, 2008
A new troubling myth has taken hold in Washington and it is critical that
the record is set straight. According to the mainstream media,
Republicans, and unfortunately even some Democrats, the President's
surge in Iraq has been a resounding success. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
This assertion is disingenuous, factually incorrect, and negatively impacts
America's national security. The Surge had a clear and defined
objective - to create stability and security - enabling the Iraqi
government to enact lasting political solutions and foster genuine
reconciliation and cooperation between Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.
This has not happened.
There has been negligible political progress in Iraq,
and we are no closer to solving the complex problems - including a
power sharing government, oil revenue agreement and new constitution -
than we were before the Administration upped the ante and sent 30,000
more troops to Iraq.
Too many Democrats in Congress are again
surrendering to General Petraeus and have failed to challenge the Bush
Administration's claims that the surge has been successful. In fact -- it is just the opposite.
The
reduction in violence in Iraq has exposed the continuing failure of
Iraqi officials to solve their substantial political rifts. By
President Bush's own stated goal of political progress, the Surge has
failed.
Of course raising troop levels has increased security
- a strategy the Bush administration ignored when presented by General
Shinseki before the war in Iraq began - but the fundamental internal
Iraqi problems remain and the factors that were accelerating the civil
war in 2007 have simply been put on hold.
The military
progress is a testament to the patience and dedication of our brave
troops - even in the face of 15 month-long deployments followed by
insufficient Veteran's health services when they return home. They have
performed brilliantly - despite the insult of having President Bush
recently veto a military spending bill that enhanced funding and
benefits, and increased care.
Despite the efforts of American
soldiers, the surge alone cannot bring about the political solutions
needed to end centuries of sectarian divide.
As it stands,
little on the ground supports the assertion that Iraqis are ready to
stand up and govern themselves. Too few Iraqi troops are trained,
equipped and combat ready, and they cannot yet provide adequate
security. Loyalty is also an issue in the Iraqi army as Al Queda and
Sunni insurgents infliltrate their defense forces. The consequences
turned deadly just recently when an Iraqi soldier purposely killed two
U.S. troops.
On the streets of Baghdad and Mosul, the Sunni
and Shia factions have paused their fighting, awaiting guarantees and
protections that have not yet been delivered. As Iraqi refugees return,
there is no mechanism to help them rebuild their lives, nor recover
their now-occupied homes. Neighborhoods once mixed are now segregated.
In
Northern Iraq, Kurdish terrorists conducting nefarious operations
across the border into Turkey have compelled our NATO ally to strike at
bases, inflaming tensions between Baghdad and Ankara.
The surge is working? We suffered more U.S. casualties in 2007 than in any other year of the war. We can't afford any more of this type of success.
How
can we create the situation that is most likely to deliver political
progress in Iraq? Not by continuing the surge and occupation. Our best
chance (there is no guarantee) is by putting real pressure on the Iraqi
government to force action. Telling the national and local Iraqi
leaders that we are withdrawing our troops can help accomplish this
goal. Today, the majority Iraqi Shia government led by Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki has little incentive to act when American troops remain
in the country to provide security and stability.
Based on the Administration's plan, John McCain's proposal of a 100-year US occupation could be a reality!
The
Democratic Congress must act aggressively to first cut off funding for
the surge and then the entire war. Many of my colleagues avoided a
showdown with the administration because they mistakenly believed such
a fight would endanger the safety of the troops.
In fact, we
must accept that every soldier killed or injured in the coming months
should have already been home. Every billion dollars of
war-appropriations we spend from here on should have been spent on
genuine priorities here at home such as children's heath care.
Enough
is enough: While the Administration over-commits American forces in
Iraq, we see Al Qaeda-regrouping and Osama Bin Laden still at large. We
remain seriously bogged down in Afghanistan, and are witnessing a
crisis in Pakistan that has left a nuclear country on the brink of a
meltdown. America's resources and attention are desperately needed
elsewhere and our soldiers must no longer be needlessly sacrificed as
we wait for Iraqis to stand up.
The Surge has failed.
If my colleagues gullibly accept the moving rationale for the Surge,
just as so many have for the war itself, we will have failed as well.
***To contact me or for more information, go to www.wexlerforcongress.com .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Annapolis: How to Get Out?
By Uri Avnery
.
11/23/07 "ICH" --- - THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in
the least funny.
Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to
all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was
due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it
some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his
fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to
swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the
Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is
always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of
photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace
between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations,
anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda,
no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting.
This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire
enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are
actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness
with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders
and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back.
The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the
saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men
cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important
enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on
the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which
would benefit them the most.
* Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove
that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy,
and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed.
Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an
Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush
succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't
that show who is the greatest of them all?
* Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in
order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon
War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal
investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition
knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the
King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has
achieved.
* Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in
his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser
Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal
partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if �
IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them
has any substance. For one simple reason: no one of the three partners
has any capital at his disposal.
* Bush is bankrupt. In order to succeed at Annapolis, he would
have to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the
necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian
state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with
some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula
for the refugee issue.
But Bush is quite unable to exert the slightest pressure on Israel,
even if he wanted to. In the US, the election season has already
begun, and the two big parties are bulwarks standing in the way of any
pressure on Israel. The Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with
the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be
uttered unpunished.
* Olmert is in an even weaker position. His coalition still
survives only because there is no alternative in the present Knesset.
It includes elements that in any other country would be called fascist
(For historical reasons, Israelis don't like to use this term). He is
prevented by his partners from making any compromise, however tiny -
even if he wanted to reach an agreement.
This week, the Knesset adopted a bill that requires a two-thirds
majority for any change of the borders of Greater Jerusalem. This
means that Olmert cannot even give up one of the outlying Palestinian
villages that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. He is also prevented
from even approaching the 'core issues" of the conflict.
* Mahmoud Abbas cannot move away from the conditions laid down by
Yasser Arafat (the 3rd anniversary of whose death was commemorated
this week). If he strays from the straight and narrow, he will fall.
He has already lost the Gaza Strip, and can lose the West Bank, too.
On the other side, if he threatens violence, he will lose all he has
got: the favor of Bush and the cooperation of the Israeli security
forces.
The three poker players are going to sit down together, pretending to
start the game, while none of them has a cent to put on the table.
THE MAJESTIC mountain seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the
minute. It's against the laws of nature: the closer we get to it, the
smaller it seems. What looked to many like a veritable Mt. Everest
first turned into an ordinary mountain, then into a hill, and now it
hardly looks like an anthill. And even that is shrinking, too.
First the participants were to deal with the "core issues". Then it
was announced that a weighty declaration of intentions was to be
adopted. Then a mere collection of empty phrases was proposed. Now
even that is in doubt.
Not one of the three leaders is still dreaming of an achievement. All
they hope for now is to minimize the damage - but how to get out of a
situation like this?
As usual, our side is the most creative at this task. After all, we
are experts in building roadblocks, walls and fences. This week, an
obstacle larger then the Great Wall of China appeared.
Ehud Olmert demanded that, before any negotiations, the Palestinians
"recognize Israel as a Jewish state". He was followed by his coalition
partner, the ultra-right Avigdor Liberman, who proposed staying away
from Annapolis altogether if the Palestinians do not fulfill this
demand in advance.
Let's examine this condition for a moment:
The Palestinians are not required to recognize the state of Israel.
After all, they have already done so in the Oslo agreement - in spite
of the fact that Israel has yet to recognize the right of the
Palestinians to a state of their own based on the Green Line borders.
No, the government of Israel demands much more: the Palestinians
must now recognize Israel as a "Jewish state".
Does the USA demand to be recognized as a "Christian" or "Anglo-Saxon
state"? Did Stalin demand that the US recognize the Soviet Union as a
"Communist state"? Does Poland demand to be recognized as a "Catholic
state", or Pakistan as an "Islamic state"? Is there any precedent at
all for a state to demand the recognition of its domestic regime?
The demand is ridiculous per se. But this can easily be shown by
analysis ad absurdum.
What is a "Jewish state"? That has never been spelled out. Is it a
state with a majority of Jewish citizens? Is it "the state of the
Jewish people" - meaning the Jews from Brooklyn, Paris and Moscow? Is
it "a state belonging to the Jewish religion" - and if so, does it
belong to secular Jews as well? Or perhaps it belongs only to Jews
under the Law of Return - i.e. those with a Jewish mother who have not
converted to another religion?
These questions have not been decided. Are the Palestinians required
to recognize something that is the subject of debate in Israel itself?
According to the official doctrine, Israel is a "Jewish and democratic
state". What should the Palestinians do if, according to democratic
principles, some day my opinion prevails and Israel becomes an
"Israeli state" that belongs to all its citizens - and to them alone?
(After all, the US belongs to all its citizens, including
Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, not to mention
"Native-Americans".)
The sting is, of course, that this formula is quite unacceptable to
Palestinians because it would hurt the million and a half Palestinians
who are Israeli citizens. The definition "Jewish state" turns them
automatically into - at best - second class citizens. If Mahmoud Abbas
and his colleagues were to accede to this demand, they would be
sticking a knife in the backs of their own relatives.
Olmert & Co. know this, of course. They are not posing this demand in
order to get it accepted. They pose it in order that it not be
accepted. By this ploy they hope to avoid any obligation to start
meaningful negotiations.
Moreover, according to the deceased Road Map, which all parties
pretend to accept, Israel must dismantle all settlements set up after
March, 2000, and freeze all the others. Olmert is quite unable to do
that. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas must destroy the "terror
infrastructure". Abbas can't do that either - as long as there is no
independent Palestinian state with an elected government.
I imagine Bush tossing and turning in his bed at night, cursing the
speechwriter who put this miserable sentence into his mouth. On their
way to heaven, his curses must be mingling with those of Olmert and
Abbas.
WHEN THE leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine were about to
sign the Declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, the document was
not ready. Sitting in front of the cameras and history, they had to
sign on an empty page. I am afraid that something like that will
happen in Annapolis.
And then all of them will head back to their respective homes, heaving
a heartfelt sigh of relief.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rumors of (More) War: US Iran Attack Gains Credence
By Dave Lindorff
Created Nov 21 2007 - 10:11am
As someone who has been writing about this crazed administration's plans to launch an attack on Iran now for over a year, I have always noted that the real sign that it might happen would be when oil industry analysts started to worry about it.
That's because the oil industry is probably more plugged into the inner sanctum of the Bush administration than any other entity. If the analysts, who have their fingers on the pulse of the oil industry, start worrying that an attack could happen--with the resulting shutdown of oil shipments through the Persian Gulf, from which the world gets roughly a third of its oil--then we need to take the threat very seriously.
While we haven't seen the kind of spike in oil futures prices that we would expect should that mad war begin--which would see oil soaring well above $200 a barrel--we are seeing oil rise to a record high of around $100 a barrel.
Now comes word from the respected newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor [1], that analysts are starting to factor a US attack on Iran into their thinking. As the newspaper put it in an article published today reporting on the recently concluded meeting of the leaders of OPEC nations:
The 13-nation cartel once controlled prices often by just talking about pumping more or less oil. But now its leaders say booming world demand - largely from India and China - and concern over a possible US attack on Iran are driving prices.
The article also quotes an oil industry analyst, Mustafa Alani, of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, UAE, who says, "...there's very little they [the OPEC leaders] can do if there's an attack on Iran or something of that nature. In that case, prices will double, perhaps go to $300 a barrel."
It may be that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his generals, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and the leaders of many of America's Fortune 500 companies are opposed to an attack on Iran, knowing that it will be a military disaster and that it would cause a global economic collapse, but the US today is being led by two insane and desperate men, who may not care what any of those people think. With their domestic and international policies in ruins and their legacy a disaster, they may have decided to double up on their bet and just throw everything in with an air assault on Iran.
Keep watching those oil prices. If they start really bumping up from their current level, hold on to your Constitution--and get the hell out of dollars--because they're both going down.
_______
About author Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal [2]. His new book of columns titled "This Can't be Happening!The Case for Impeachment [4]," co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com [3]" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's new book is " [5]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resources on the Annapolis Conference
 |
The U.S.-hosted Israeli-Palestinian peace conference is due to be held in Annapolis on November 26. The US Campaign has written a fact sheet and talking points to help frame the issues, give a sense of what is as stake, as well as to describe likely political outcomes and what U.S. policy should be toward Palestine/Israel.
To download the US Campaign's fact sheet on the Annapolis conference, click here. See below for talking points on the conference by US Campaign Steering Committee member Phyllis Bennis.
|
UFPJ Talking Points #53
Middle East Talks in Annapolis:Photo-Op or Talk-Fest
By Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies
15 November 2007
** There is one thing certain about the international (or regional or bilateral) Middle East peace conference (or meeting or get-together) called by Condoleezza Rice (or George Bush or Elliott Abrams) for November (or maybe December): it's going to be held in Annapolis, Maryland (probably).
** Rice's sudden renewal of interest in and commitment to a new Middle East "peace process" has two main goals: buying support from Arab regimes for Washington's war in Iraq and escalating threats against Iran, and providing a photo-op to restore Rice's tarnished legacy.
**The agenda for the talks has not yet been finalized, but it will not include the goal of reversing Israeli occupation and dispossession and ending Israel's discriminatory apartheid policies.
**Because of U.S.-Israeli control of the agenda, "success" in Annapolis will depend on whether the Palestinian leadership can be coerced to sign on to a U.S.-Israeli text that many Palestinians will view as further abandonment of Palestinian national goals, and many in international civil society will see as violations of international law and human rights. There are serious questions whether the meeting as currently envisioned will be convened at all because of Palestinian refusal to accept U.S.-backed Israeli preconditions.
**With the U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott remaining intact, the conference is unlikely to lead to any even short-term improvement in the humanitarian crisis exploding across Gaza.
*****
There is serious doubt about even the official viability of the conference.Ten days from the anticipated opening, invitations have not been issued (because Arab governments and even the Palestinian leadership have not so far agreed to U.S.-Israeli terms), an agenda has not been announced, and no preliminary statement of goals and/or principles has been agreed to. Palestinian officials have so far - at least publicly - rejected at least some of Israel's preconditions.
Besides her urgent need to update her legacy (which is currently that of the person who stood before the world at the United Nations and announced "we don't want a ceasefire yet" as Israeli jets bombarded Lebanon in summer 2006), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urgently needs to win flagging Arab government support for the Bush administration's failing war and occupation in Iraq and its escalating mobilization against Iran.While most Arab governments remain quite happy to join the U.S. crusade, their people do not share support for the occupation of Iraq or for the anti-Iranian fervor now ascendant in Washington. As a result, the unpopular and often unstable Arab regimes (absolute monarchies, family dynasties and military regimes masquerading as democracies) must provide some kind of concession for the Arab rulers to pacify their restive populations. The latest version is to offer a high-profile (however low the results) diplomatic show aimed at allowing Arab governments to announce that the U.S. is now helping to give the Palestinians a state. As the New York Times described it, "now the United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies."
The Bush administration apparently anticipated that Arab governments, at the highest levels, would welcome invitations to Annapolis. But so far, even Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab governments with full diplomatic relations with Israel, have hesitated, and Saudi Arabia has remained unconvinced. Even if the Arab governments agree to participate, they may send low- to mid-level officials, without the political clout - and photo-op value - of kings and prime ministers.
The stated U.S. goal for the Annapolis meeting is to realize a two-state solution. But in fact, if the conference takes place at all, the result will be to continue the approach of the long-moribund 2003 "Roadmap to Peace."It will, at most, provide a high-visibility launch of a new edition of the same Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" that has failed so many times before:a process based on acceptance of Israeli dominance over Palestinian lives and territory. Its real goal will be to create something that the U.S. can anoint as an "independent Palestinian state," while leaving largely unchallenged Israeli strategic, military, and economic domination over the entire area of Israel-Palestine.
The meeting's agenda will not be based on what international law, as well as Palestinian and global public opinion, requires for a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement of the conflict:an end to Israeli occupation and settlement projects, realization of the Palestinians' rights of self-determination and return, and an end to Israeli discrimination and apartheid policies.
If the U.S.-Israeli goals for Annapolis are realized, they would probably lead to the following "two-state solution" results:
Borders
A Palestinian "state" would be announced on a series of non-contiguous truncated Bantustan-like cantons comprising something less than 50% of the West Bank plus Gaza.Israel might, with great fanfare, charitably "adjust" very slightly the current route of the Apartheid Wall to seize slightly less land that the current route (which Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni earlier announced would be the basis for any border).All of the West Bank's major water aquifers will remain on the Israeli side of the Wall.
Settlements
All the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain intact on the Israeli side of the Wall, leaving between 180,000 and 200,000 of the current 250,000 West Bank settlers in place. With great fanfare most of the 105 small symbolic "outpost" settlements constructed since 2001, which together house only about 2000 settlers, will be dismantled.The entire Jordan Valley would remain in Israeli hands. In exchange, Palestinians would be offered a "land swap" which would almost certainly involve a significantly smaller amount of land, of far less arability and viability.
Refugees
The Palestinian right of return, codified not only in general international law but specifically in UN resolution 194 (1949), has already been officially rejected by Israel but also by the United States, in the Bush-Sharon letter exchange of April 2004. Israel's Annapolis agenda plans to reassert that rejection though a demand that the Palestinians accept language recognizing the "Jewish character" of Israel, or accepting the definition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" as opposed to a state of its own citizens.So far Palestinian officials have indicated they will not accept that language, which Israeli Prime Minister Olmert says is a precondition to any negotiations. The rejection of the right of return will be further entrenched by an Israeli "offer" to Palestinian refugees the privilege of "returning" to the erstwhile new "Palestinian state," rather than the right to return to their actual home territory inside what is now Israel.
Jerusalem
International law (UN Security Council resolution 181, which divided Palestine into what was supposed to become a Jewish and an Arab state) calls for Jerusalem to belong to neither state, but rather to be a "separate body" under international jurisdiction. Virtually no governments (not even the U.S.) recognize Israel's annexation of occupied Arab East Jerusalem, and numerous UN resolutions have reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory. The Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem (known as neighborhoods, not settlements) include over 200,000 Israeli settlers, and they will remain in Israeli hands. The Israeli position in Annapolis will call for continuing Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, with some kind of Israeli-controlled "autonomy" for Palestinian neighborhoods and parts of the Old City's Muslim shrines.
If the U.S.-Israeli agenda for Annapolis succeeds with an official Palestinian imprimatur, the already reduced legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority could diminish further, and the existing Palestinian political crisis, especially the Fatah-Hamas divide, could be seriously exacerbated.It is important to remember that that the U.S. as well as Israel bear significant responsibility for the divisions, tensions and violence inside the Palestinian polity. In his leaked confidential report, former UN representative to the so-called Quartet, Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto stated directly that "the U.S. clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas - so much so that, a week before Mecca [the Saudi-brokered unity agreement between the two factions], the U.S. envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence,' referring to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being regularly killed and injured, because 'it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas'."
The talks in Annapolis will likely not even address the current humanitarian (as well as political) crisis currently ravaging the 1.6 million people of Gaza. The U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott of Gaza, as well as Israel's designation of Gaza as an "enemy entity" will remain in place.
Israel's restrictions on the supply of fuel and electricity to Gaza have already began to bite; with electricity supplies down the availability of fresh water is diminishing, and the declining stocks of transport fuel are expected to reach crisis point some time in the next few days. New U.S. aid to the Palestinians recently proposed by the Bush administration remains stalled in Congress pending "success" at Annapolis; in any case, that aid is almost entirely limited to support, especially military/security assistance, for the Fatah-led government in Ramallah, with virtually nothing designated for the desperately impoverished Gaza Strip.
________________________________
Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation.She is author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. To sign up to receive these talking points and other occasional posts directly, go to www.ips-dc.org and click on the "Stay Connected" button on the right-hand side - then select the New Internationalism Project (and any others you find interesting.)
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s the Oil
Jim Holt
Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.
Who will get Iraq’s oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies. The Iraq National Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields, leaving the rest – including all yet to be discovered oil – under foreign corporate control for 30 years. ‘The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy,’ the analyst Antonia Juhasz wrote in the New York Times in March, after the draft law was leaked. ‘They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country.’ As negotiations over the oil law stalled in September, the provincial government in Kurdistan simply signed a separate deal with the Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, headed by a close political ally of President Bush.
How will the US maintain hegemony over Iraqi oil? By establishing permanent military bases in Iraq. Five self-sufficient ‘super-bases’ are in various stages of completion. All are well away from the urban areas where most casualties have occurred. There has been precious little reporting on these bases in the American press, whose dwindling corps of correspondents in Iraq cannot move around freely because of the dangerous conditions. (It takes a brave reporter to leave the Green Zone without a military escort.) In February last year, the Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks described one such facility, the Balad Air Base, forty miles north of Baghdad. A piece of (well-fortified) American suburbia in the middle of the Iraqi desert, Balad has fast-food joints, a miniature golf course, a football field, a cinema and distinct neighbourhoods – among them, ‘KBR-land’, named after the Halliburton subsidiary that has done most of the construction work at the base. Although few of the 20,000 American troops stationed there have ever had any contact with an Iraqi, the runway at the base is one of the world’s busiest. ‘We are behind only Heathrow right now,’ an air force commander told Ricks.
The Defense Department was initially coy about these bases. In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld said: ‘I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting.’ But this summer the Bush administration began to talk openly about stationing American troops in Iraq for years, even decades, to come. Several visitors to the White House have told the New York Times that the president himself has become fond of referring to the ‘Korea model’. When the House of Representatives voted to bar funding for ‘permanent bases’ in Iraq, the new term of choice became ‘enduring bases’, as if three or four decades wasn’t effectively an eternity.
But will the US be able to maintain an indefinite military presence in Iraq? It will plausibly claim a rationale to stay there for as long as civil conflict simmers, or until every groupuscule that conveniently brands itself as ‘al-Qaida’ is exterminated. The civil war may gradually lose intensity as Shias, Sunnis and Kurds withdraw into separate enclaves, reducing the surface area for sectarian friction, and as warlords consolidate local authority. De facto partition will be the result. But this partition can never become de jure. (An independent Kurdistan in the north might upset Turkey, an independent Shia region in the east might become a satellite of Iran, and an independent Sunni region in the west might harbour al-Qaida.) Presiding over this Balkanised Iraq will be a weak federal government in Baghdad, propped up and overseen by the Pentagon-scale US embassy that has just been constructed – a green zone within the Green Zone. As for the number of US troops permanently stationed in Iraq, the defence secretary, Robert Gates, told Congress at the end of September that ‘in his head’ he saw the long-term force as consisting of five combat brigades, a quarter of the current number, which, with support personnel, would mean 35,000 troops at the very minimum, probably accompanied by an equal number of mercenary contractors. (He may have been erring on the side of modesty, since the five super-bases can accommodate between ten and twenty thousand troops each.) These forces will occasionally leave their bases to tamp down civil skirmishes, at a declining cost in casualties. As a senior Bush administration official told the New York Times in June, the long-term bases ‘are all places we could fly in and out of without putting Americans on every street corner’. But their main day-to-day function will be to protect the oil infrastructure.
This is the ‘mess’ that Bush-Cheney is going to hand on to the next administration. What if that administration is a Democratic one? Will it dismantle the bases and withdraw US forces entirely? That seems unlikely, considering the many beneficiaries of the continued occupation of Iraq and the exploitation of its oil resources. The three principal Democratic candidates – Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards – have already hedged their bets, refusing to promise that, if elected, they would remove American forces from Iraq before 2013, the end of their first term.
Among the winners: oil-services companies like Halliburton; the oil companies themselves (the profits will be unimaginable, and even Democrats can be bought); US voters, who will be guaranteed price stability at the gas pump (which sometimes seems to be all they care about); Europe and Japan, which will both benefit from Western control of such a large part of the world’s oil reserves, and whose leaders will therefore wink at the permanent occupation; and, oddly enough, Osama bin Laden, who will never again have to worry about US troops profaning the holy places of Mecca and Medina, since the stability of the House of Saud will no longer be paramount among American concerns. Among the losers is Russia, which will no longer be able to lord its own energy resources over Europe. Another big loser is Opec, and especially Saudi Arabia, whose power to keep oil prices high by enforcing production quotas will be seriously compromised.
Then there is the case of Iran, which is more complicated. In the short term, Iran has done quite well out of the Iraq war. Iraq’s ruling Shia coalition is now dominated by a faction friendly to Tehran, and the US has willy-nilly armed and trained the most pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi military. As for Iran’s nuclear programme, neither air strikes nor negotiations seem likely to derail it at the moment. But the Iranian regime is precarious. Unpopular mullahs hold onto power by financing internal security services and buying off elites with oil money, which accounts for 70 per cent of government revenues. If the price of oil were suddenly to drop to, say, $40 a barrel (from a current price just north of $80), the repressive regime in Tehran would lose its steady income. And that is an outcome the US could easily achieve by opening the Iraqi oil spigot for as long as necessary (perhaps taking down Venezuela’s oil-cocky Hugo Chávez into the bargain).
And think of the United States vis-à-vis China. As a consequence of our trade deficit, around a trillion dollars’ worth of US denominated debt (including $400 billion in US Treasury bonds) is held by China. This gives Beijing enormous leverage over Washington: by offloading big chunks of US debt, China could bring the American economy to its knees. China’s own economy is, according to official figures, expanding at something like 10 per cent a year. Even if the actual figure is closer to 4 or 5 per cent, as some believe, China’s increasing heft poses a threat to US interests. (One fact: China is acquiring new submarines five times faster than the US.) And the main constraint on China’s growth is its access to energy – which, with the US in control of the biggest share of world oil, would largely be at Washington’s sufferance. Thus is the Chinese threat neutralised.
Many people are still perplexed by exactly what moved Bush-Cheney to invade and occupy Iraq. In the 27 September issue of the New York Review of Books, Thomas Powers, one of the most astute watchers of the intelligence world, admitted to a degree of bafflement. ‘What’s particularly odd,’ he wrote, ‘is that there seems to be no sophisticated, professional, insiders’ version of the thinking that drove events.’ Alan Greenspan, in his just published memoir, is clearer on the matter. ‘I am saddened,’ he writes, ‘that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’
Was the strategy of invading Iraq to take control of its oil resources actually hammered out by Cheney’s 2001 energy task force? One can’t know for sure, since the deliberations of that task force, made up largely of oil and energy company executives, have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of ‘executive privilege’. One can’t say for certain that oil supplied the prime motive. But the hypothesis is quite powerful when it comes to explaining what has actually happened in Iraq. The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face of it, but the Bush administration’s cavalier attitude towards ‘nation-building’ has all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American protectorate for the next few decades – a necessary condition for the extraction of its oil wealth. If the US had managed to create a strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its own army and police force, and had then departed, what would have stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every other regime in the Middle East? On the assumption that the Bush-Cheney strategy is oil-centred, the tactics – dissolving the army, de-Baathification, a final ‘surge’ that has hastened internal migration – could scarcely have been more effective. The costs – a few billion dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) – are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured American geopolitical supremacy and cheap gas for voters. In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success.
Still, there is reason to be sceptical of the picture I have drawn: it implies that a secret and highly ambitious plan turned out just the way its devisers foresaw, and that almost never happens.
Jim Holt writes for the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker.
-------------------------------------------------
Living behind closed doors: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat
to Israel
By Gidi Weitz and Na'ama Lanski
Haaretz 25 October 2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/916777.html
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of
closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons
do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine
reveals in an article on Livni to be published tomorrow.
Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he
is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most
basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said
similar things about Iran.
The article also reveals for the first time a document Livni
prepared and sent to Olmert a few months after the Second Lebanon
War proposing a new division of labor between the two. "Enclosed is
a proposal for work procedures between us, with the aim of providing
an answer to Israel's strategic needs and facilitating early
planning and the formulation of coordinated Israeli positions ..
within the framework of cooperative relations, full transparency and
continuous mutual updates," wrote Livni.
She described in the document a number of required arrangements:
"The prime minister and the foreign minister will hold regular work
meetings at least once a week." In an allusion to her absence from
critical discussions during the war in Lebanon, she wrote: "The
foreign minister will be invited to meetings with the prime minister
on security matters and other meetings with serious implications."
The most important part of the document relates to the talks with
the Palestinians. Livni wrote: "The foreign minister shall represent
the prime minister and the government of Israel, and will act on
their behalf as the director of the dialogue with the relevant
Palestinian representatives, and in accordance with the policy and
methods to be coordinated in advance with the prime minster, while
keeping him informed."
It is reasonable to assume that Olmert's decision to appoint Livni
as head of the negotiating team with the Palestinians at the
Annapolis summit is connected to the document.
The Haaretz article also reveals for the first time a draft of a
document prepared for Livni by her advisor, Dr. Tal Becker of the
Foreign Ministry, who is slated to serve as a senior member of the
negotiating team with the Palestinians. The draft, named the
Diplomatic Horizon, is pessimistic about the chances of reaching a
permanent solution in the near future.
MIDDLE EAST NEWS AND COMMENT
|
|
Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above.
|
|
|
|
|
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.