[Peace-discuss] "Some things you need to know before the world ends"

[Morton K. Brussel]

The view of Bob Blum, a straight and humane thinker:

The Anti-Empire Report: Some things you need to know before the world  
ends
                                          July 22, 2006
                                        by William Blum

The End Is Near, but first, this commercial.
There are times when I think that this tired old world has gone on a  
few years too long. What's happening in the Middle East is so  
depressing. Most discussions of the eternal Israel-Palestine conflict  
are variations on the child's eternal defense for misbehavior -- "He  
started it!" Within a few minutes of discussing/arguing the latest  
manifestation of the conflict the participants are back to 1967, then  
1948, then biblical times. I don't wish to get entangled in who  
started the current mess. I would like instead to first express what  
I see as two essential underlying facts of life which remain from one  
conflict to the next:
    1) Israel's existence is not at stake and hasn't been so for  
decades, if it ever was, regardless of the many de rigueur militant  
statements by Arab leaders over the years. If Israel would learn to  
deal with its neighbors in a non-expansionist, non-military, humane,  
and respectful manner, engage in full prisoner exchanges, and  
sincerely strive for a viable two-state solution, even those who are  
opposed to the idea of a state based on a particular religion could  
accept the state of Israel, and the question of its right to exist  
would scarcely arise in people's minds. But as it is, Israel still  
uses the issue as a justification for its behavior, as Jews all over  
the world use the Holocaust and conflating anti-Zionism with anti- 
Semitism.
    2) In a conflict between a thousand-pound gorilla and a mouse,  
it's the gorilla which has to make concessions in order for the two  
sides to progress to the next level. What can the Palestinians offer  
in the way of concession? Israel would reply to that question: "No  
violent attacks of any kind." But that would still leave the status  
quo ante bellum -- a life of unmitigated misery for the Palestinian  
people forced upon them by Israel. Peace without justice.
      Israel's declarations about the absolute unacceptability of one  
of their soldiers being held captive by the Palestinians, or two  
soldiers being held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, cannot be taken too  
seriously when Israel is holding literally thousands of captured  
Palestinians, many for years, typically without any due process, many  
tortured; as well as holding a number of prominent Hezbollah members.  
A few years ago, if not still now, Israel wrote numbers on some of  
the Palestinian prisoners' arms and foreheads, using blue markers, a  
practice that is of course reminiscent of the Nazis' treatment of  
Jews in World War II. [1]
      Israel's real aim, and that of Washington, is the overthrow of  
the Hamas government in Palestine, the government that came to power  
in January through a clearly democratic process, the democracy that  
the Western "democracies" never tire of celebrating, except when the  
result doesn't please them. Is there a stronger word than  
"hypocrisy"? There is now "no Hamas government," declared a senior US  
official a week ago, "eight cabinet ministers or 30 percent of the  
government is in jail [kidnapped by Israel], another 30 percent is in  
hiding, and the other 30 percent is doing very little."[2]   To make  
the government-disappearance act even more Orwellian, we have  
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in late June about  
Iraq: "This is the only legitimately elected government in the Middle  
East with a possible exception of Lebanon."[3] What's next, gathering  
in front of the Big Telescreeen for the Two Minutes Hate?
      In addition to doing away with the Hamas government, the  
current military blitzkrieg by Israel, with full US support, may well  
be designed to create "incidents" to justify attacks on Iran and  
Syria, the next steps of Washington's work in process, a controlling  
stranglehold on the Middle East and its oil.
      It is a wanton act of collective punishment that is depriving  
the Palestinians of food, electricity, water, money, access to the  
outside world ... and sleep. Israel has been sending jets flying over  
Gaza at night triggering sonic booms, traumatizing children. "I want  
nobody to sleep at night in Gaza," declared Israeli Prime Minister  
Ehud Olmert[4]; words suitable for Israel's tombstone.
      These crimes against humanity -- and I haven't mentioned the  
terrible special weapons reportedly used by Israel -- are what the  
people of Palestine get for voting for the wrong party. It is ironic,  
given the Israeli attacks against civilians in both Gaza and Lebanon,  
that Hamas and Hezbollah are routinely dismissed in the West as  
terrorist organizations. The generally accepted definition of  
terrorism, used by the FBI and the United Nations amongst others, is:  
The use of violence against a civilian population in order to  
intimidate or coerce a government in furtherance of a political  
objective.
      Since 9-11 it has been a calculated US-Israeli tactic to label  
the fight against Israel's foes as an integral part of the war on  
terror. On July 19, a rally was held in Washington, featuring the  
governor of Maryland, several members of Israeli-occupied Congress,  
the Israeli ambassador, and evangelical leading-light John Hagee. The  
Washington Post reported that "Speaker after prominent speaker  
characteriz[ed] current Israeli fighting as a small branch of the  
larger U.S.-led global war against Islamic terrorism" and "Israel's  
attacks against the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah were blows against  
those who have killed civilians from Bali to Bombay to Moscow." Said  
the Israeli ambassador: "This is not just about [Israel]. It's about  
where our world is going to be and the fate and security of our  
world. Israel is on the forefront. We will amputate these little arms  
of Iran," referring to Hezbollah.[5]
      And if the war on terror isn't enough to put Israel on the side  
of the angels, John Hagee has argued that "the United States must  
join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill  
God's plan for both Israel and the West". He speaks of "a biblically  
prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the  
Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."[6]
      The beatification of Israel approaches being a movement. Here  
is David Horowitz, the eminent semi-hysterical ex-Marxist: "Israel is  
part of a global war, the war of radical Islam against civilization.  
Right now Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world  
by taking on the terrorists. It is not only for Israel's sake that we  
must get the facts out -- it is for ourselves, America, for every  
free country in the world, and for civilization itself."[7]
      As for the two Israeli soldiers captured and held in Lebanon  
for prisoner exchange, we must keep a little history in mind. In the  
late 1990s, before Israel was evicted from southern Lebanon by  
Hezbollah, it was a common practice for Israel to abduct entirely  
innocent Lebanese. As a 1998 Amnesty International paper declared:  
"By Israel's own admission, Lebanese detainees are being held as  
'bargaining chips'; they are not detained for their own actions but  
in exchange for Israeli soldiers missing in action or killed in  
Lebanon. Most have now spent 10 years in secret and isolated  
detention."[8]
      Israel has created its worst enemies -- they helped create  
Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah in Palestine, and their occupation  
of Lebanon created Hezbollah. The current terrible bombings can be  
expected to keep the process going. Since its very beginning, Israel  
has been almost continually occupied in fighting wars and taking  
other people's lands. Did not any better way ever occur to the  
idealistic Zionist pioneers?
      But while you and I get depressed by the horror and suffering,  
the neo-conservatives revel in it. They devour the flesh and drink  
the blood of the people of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Palestine, of  
Lebanon, yet remain ravenous, and now call for Iran and Syria to be  
placed upon the feasting table. More than one of them has used the  
expression oderint dum metuant, a favorite phrase of Roman emperor  
Caligula, also used by Cicero -- "let them hate so long as they  
fear". Here is William Kristol, editor of the bible of neo-cons,  
"Weekly Standard", on Fox News Sunday, July 16:
      "Look, our coddling of Iran ... over the last six to nine  
months has emboldened them. I mean, is Iran behaving like a timid  
regime that's very worried about the U.S.? Or is Iran behaving  
recklessly and in a foolhardy way? ... Israel is fighting four of our  
five enemies in the Middle East, in a sense. Iran, Syria, sponsors of  
terror; Hezbollah and Hamas. ... This is an opportunity to begin to  
reverse the unfortunate direction of the last six to nine months and  
get the terrorists and the jihadists back on the defensive."
      Host Juan Williams replied: "Well, it just seems to me that you  
want ... you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war.  
You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to  
get into the Middle East ... you're saying, why doesn't the United  
States take this hard, unforgiving line? Well, the hard and  
unforgiving line has been [tried], we don't talk to anybody. We don't  
talk to Hamas. We don't talk to Hezbollah. We're not going to talk to  
Iran. Where has it gotten us, Bill?"
      Kristol, looking somewhat taken aback, simply threw up his hands.
      The Fox News audience does (very) occasionally get a hint of  
another way of looking at the world.


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