[Peace] Sunday Lecture

[David Green]

Please circulate to interested parties:

"Facing the Apocalypse: The Unconventional Threat to
Israel"

A lecture by Prof. Louis Beres (Professor of
International Law, Purdue University) 

Sun Feb 17,  4:00 P.M. 
213 Gregory Hall 

This lecture is sponsored by Tagar, the right-wing
Zionist student organization, Hillel, The Drobny
Center for Jewish Studies, and ACDIS (Arms Control,
Disarmament, and International Studies).

Professor Beres believes in the potential for a
nuclear first-strike against Israel by Iran and
perhaps Iraq. He speculates about the potential need
for a pre-emptive Israeli first strike against one of
those countries. He believes that Palestinians and
other Arab and Muslim peoples carry an essential
hatred for Jews that cannot be altered by any "peace
process." In fact, such a "peace process" has only
made Israel more vulnerable, and increased the
likelihood that it will have to use nuclear weapons
pre-emptively. He discusses the "Samson option," by
which Israel would be willing to sacrifice itself
while taking its enemies with it. He sees the serious
and real consideration of the "Samson option" as vital
to Israel's deterrent capability. And much more.

See http://www.uiuc.edu/ro/tagar/Beres.html 

For context, I include the following by long-time
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, head of
Gush-Shalom:

February 11, 2002
Oil, Sharon and the Axis of Evil: The Great Game
By Uri Avnery

Some weeks ago, something curious happened: Israel
discovered that Iran is the Great Satan.
It happened quite suddenly. There was no prior
sensational news, no new discovery. As if by the order
of a drill-sergeant, the whole Israeli phalanx changed
direction. All the politicians, all the generals, all
the enlisted media, with the usual complement of
professors-for-hire, - all of them discovered
overnight that Iran is the immediate, real and
terrible danger.

By wondrous coincidence, at exactly the same moment a
ship was captured that, allegedly, carried Iranian
arms to Arafat. And in Washington Shimon Peres, a man
for all seasons and the servant of all masters,
accosted every passing diplomat and told him stories
about thousands of Iranian missiles that have been
given to the Hizbullah. Yes, yes, Hizbullah (included
by President Bush in the list of "terrorist
organizations") is receiving horrible arms from Iran
(included by President Bush in the "Axis of Evil") in
order to threaten Israel, the darling of the Congress.
Does this sound mad? Not at all. There is method in
this madness.

On the face of it, the matter is easy to explain.
America is still in a state of fury after the
Twin-Towers outrage. It has won a amazing victory in
Afghanistan, hardly sacrificing a single American
soldier. Now it stands, furious and drunk with
victory, and does not know who to attack next. Iraq?
North Korea? Somalia? The Sudan?

President Bush cannot stop now, because such an
immense concentration of might cannot be laid off. The
more so, as Bin-Laden has not been killed. The
economic situation has deteriorated, a giant scandal
(Enron) is rocki ng Washington. The American public
should not be left to ponder on this.

So here comes the Israeli leadership and shouts from
the roof-tops: Iran is the enemy! Iran must be
attacked!

Who has made that decision? When? How? And most
importantly - Where? Clearly not in Jerusalem, but in
Washington DC. An important component of the US
administration has given Israel a sign: Start a
massive political offensive in order to pressure the
Congress, the media and American public opinion.
Who are these people? And what is their interest? A
wider explanation is needed.

The most coveted resource on earth is the giant
oil-field in the Caspian Sea region, that competes in
scale with the riches of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 it is
expected to yield 3.2 billion barrels of crude oil per
day, in addition to 4850 billion cubic feet of natural
gas per year.

The United States is determined (a) to take possession
of it, (b) to eliminate all potential competitors, (c)
to safeguard the area politically and militarily, and
(d) to clear a way from the oil-fields to the open
sea.
This campaign is being led by a group of oil people,
to which the Bush family belongs. Together with the
arms industry, this group got both George Bush senior
and George Bush junior elected. The President is a
simple person, his mental world is shallow and his
pronouncements are primitive, bordering on caricature,
like a second-rate Western. That is good for the
masses. But his handlers are very sophisticated people
indeed. It's they who guide the administration.
The Twin Towers outrage made their job much easier.
Osama Bin Laden did not comprehend that his actions
serve American interests. If I were a believer in
Conspiracy Theory, I would think that Bin Laden is an
American agent. Not being one, I can only wonder at
the coincidence.

Bush's "War on Terrorism" constitutes a perfect
pretext for the campaign planned by his handlers.
Under the cover of this war, America has taken total
control over the three small Muslim nations near the
oil reserves: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The whole region is now completely under American
political-military domination. All potential
competitors - including Russia and China - have been
pushed out.

For a long time, the Americans have been arguing among
themselves about the best route for piping this oil to
the open sea. Routes that may be under Russian
influence have been eliminated. The 19th century,
deadly British-Russian competition, then called the
"Great Game", is still going on between America and
Russia.

Until recently, the western route, leading to the
Black Sea and Turkey, seemed most feasible, but the
Americans did not like it very much, to say the least.
Russia is much too near.

The best route leads south, to the Indian Ocean. Iran
was not even considered, since it is governed by
Islamic fanatics. So there remained the alternative
route: from the Caspian Sea, through Afghanistan and
the western part of Pakistan (called Beluchistan), to
the Indian Ocean. To this end, the Americans
conducted, ever so quietly, negotiations with the
Taliban regime. They bore no fruit. Then the "War on
Terrorism" was started, the US conquered all of
Afghanistan and installed their agents as the new
government. The Pakistani dictator, too, was bent to
the American will.

If one looks at the map of the big American bases
created for the war, one is struck by the fact that
they are completely identical to the route of the
projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean.
That would have been the end of the story, but the
appetite grows with the eating. The Americans drew two
lessons from the Afghani experience: (a) that every
country can be subdued by sophisticated bombs, without
putting any soldiers in harm's way, and (b) that by
military might and money America can install client
governments anywhere.

And so a new idea came up in Washington: Why lay a
long pipeline around Iran (through Turkmenistan,
Afghanistan and Pakistan) if one can lay a much
shorter pipeline through Iran itself? One has only to
topple the Ayatullah regime and install a new
pro-American government. In the past, that seemed
impossible. Now, after the Afghani episode, it looks
eminently practicable. One has only to prepare
American public opinion and to acquire the support of
the congress for an attack on Iran.

For this, Israel's good services are needed. It has an
enormous influence in the Congress and the media. It
works like this: Israeli generals declare every day
that Iran is producing weapons of mass-destruction and
threatens the Jewish State with a second Holocaust.
Sharon announces that the capture of the Iranian
arms-ship proves Arafat is a part of the Iranian
conspiracy. Peres tells everybody that Iranian
missiles threaten the whole world. Every day some
newspaper tells its readers that Bin Laden is in Iran
or with the Hizbullah in Lebanon.

President Bush knows how to reward those who serve him
well. Sharon got a free hand to oppress the
Palestinians, imprison Arafat, assassinate militants
and enlarge the settlements. It's a simple deal: You
deliver the support of the Congress and the media, I
deliver the Palestinians on a platter.

This could not happen if America was still in need of
allies in Europe and the Arab world. But in
Afghanistan, the Americans learned that they don't
need anybody anymore. They can spit in the eyes of the
pitiful Arab regimes, that are always begging for
money, and disregard Europe altogether. Who needs the
negligible armies of Britain and Germany, when America
alone is mightier then all the armies of the world
combined?

The idea of American-Israeli cooperation against Iran
is not new for Sharon. On the contrary, in 1981, when
he was just appointed Minister of Defense, he offered
the Pentagon a daring plan: in the event of Khomeini's
demise, the Israeli army would immediately occupy
Iran, in order to forestall the Soviet Union. The IDF
would turn the country over to the slow-moving
Americans, once they arrived. For this purpose, the
Pentagon would stockpile in advance the most
sophisticated arms in Israel, under American control,
to be used in this operation.

The Pentagon did not accept the idea at that time.
Now, the cooperation is being established against a
different background.

What conclusions should we draw from all this?
First of all, that we (Israel) shall be located on the
frontline of this coming war. Beyond the exchange of
curses between the "two Persian Chiefs-of-Staff" (as
the joke goes in Israeli command circles, alluding to
the fact that Israeli Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz was
born in Iran), an Iranian reaction to an American
assault may hurt us grievously. There are missiles.
There are chemical and biological weapons.

Second, that those of us who desire an
Israeli-Palestinian peace cannot rely on America. Now
everything depends on us alone, the Israelis and the
Palestinians. Our blood is more precious than Caspian
Sea oil. At least to us.


Uri Avnery lives in Israel. He has written extensively
about the life and career of Ariel Sharon.







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