Zionism and History

by **AlicetheCurious** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:01 pm

Amira Hass is one of my heroes. Here's something she wrote last year, during the so-called Gaza "withdrawal" con job: (So, DE, what do you think of her -- Nazi-infiltrated, Islamofascist sympathizer, what?) <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Gaza: The remaining 99.5 percent by Amira Hass August 25, 2005 Haaretz "I want to ask you as a Jew to a Jewess," the young man said a few days ago. In these days, a beginning such as this invites a dialogue of the kind in which we have been drowning for several weeks now - a dialogue in which the definition "Jew" has been appropriated to describe some type of unique entity, one that is set apart from the other human species, a superior one. Sometimes it's the Jewish boy with his arms raised from the Warsaw Ghetto; sometimes it's the young girl whose orange shirt bears the slogan, "We won't forget and we won't forgive;" and sometimes it's the soldier who refuses to evacuate a Jew. A unique entity of ties of blood, sacredness and land. "As a Jew to a Jewess," said the young man, who turned out to be a tourist from South America who has family in Israel and also understands Hebrew. It was at the Erez crossing, among the barbed-wire fencing, the locked gates, the revolving gates, the intimidating guard towers, the soldiers using special cameras to keep an eye on the handful of individuals passing through, and the booming loudspeakers through which they bark out their orders in Hebrew to women who have been waiting in the heat for five hours to go visit their sons imprisoned at the Be'er Sheva jail. "Is it possible," he continued with his question, "that the Israelis, who are so nice and good - after all, I have family here - are unaware of the injustice they have caused here?" The images of destruction left behind by Israel in Palestinian Gaza and witnessed by him in the past few days have left a look of shock in his eyes. "I am a Jew, and my father is a Holocaust survivor, and I grew up on totally different values of Judaism - social justice, equality and concern for one's fellow man. As naive as it may have been, the question was like a breath of fresh air. Here was a Jew who was voicing his opinion on the fate of 1,300,000 people, while the entire world appeared to be focused on every one of the 8,000 Jews who are moving house. Here was a Jew who was moved by what have become dry numbers - 1,719 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip from the end of September 2000 until today; and according to various estimates, some two-thirds of them were unarmed and were not killed in battles or during the course of attempts to attack a military position or a settlement. Based on figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, of those killed, 379 were children under the age of 18; 236 were younger than 16; 96 were women; and 102 were the objectives of targeted liquidations during the course of which the Israel Defense Forces also killed another 95 individuals who, according to the military too, were "innocent bystanders." Some 9,000 Gaza residents were injured; 2,704 homes to some 20,000 people were razed by the IDF's bulldozers and assault helicopters; 2,187 were partially destroyed. Some 31,650 dunams of agricultural land were left scorched. The Israeli responses to these numbers are standard: They invited it upon themselves, or: What do they expect when they fire Qassams at children and peaceful homes, or try to infiltrate and murder citizens in their houses - that the IDF won't come to their defense? A direct line is drawn between these questions, which expressed the public's support for the Israeli assault policy, and participating in the sorrow of the evacuees and the wonderment at this "magnificent chapter" in the history of the Zionist settlement enterprise - a direct line of fundamental belief in the Jews' super-rights in this land. Indeed, one can join those who are amazed by the settlers in general, and the Gaza Strip settlers in particular. What talent it takes to live for 35 years in a flourishing park and splendid villas just 20 meters from overcrowded, suffocated refugee camps. What talent it takes to turn on the sprinklers on the lawns, while just across the way, 20,000 other people are dependent on the distribution of drinking water in tankers; to know that you deserve it, that your government will pave magnificent roads for you and neglect (prior to Oslo, before 1994) to the point of destruction the Palestinian infrastructure. What skill it takes to step out of your well-cared-for greenhouse and walk unmoved past 60-year-old fruit-bearing date trees that are uprooted for you, roads that are blocked for you, homes that are demolished for you, the children who are shelled from helicopters and tanks and buried alongside you, for the sake of the safety of your children and the preservation of your super-rights. For the sake of about half a percent of the population of the Gaza Strip, a Jewish half-percent, the lives of the remaining 99.5 percent were totally disrupted and destroyed - worthy of wonderment indeed. And also amazing is how most of the other Israelis, who did not go themselves to settle the homeland, suffered this reality and did not demand that their government put an end to it - before the Qassams. A big, well-fed goat was removed from the Gaza Strip this week. And therefore, the sense of relief felt by many of the 99.5 percent is understandable - although it is a far cry from the reality emerging from the so-superficial media reports that are focusing on the celebrations of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. In the words last week in the Khan Yunis refugee camp of a former worker at one of the settlements: "The settlements divided the Strip into three or four prisons. Now, we will live in one big prison - a more comfortable one, but a prison nevertheless." <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAS20050825&articleId=864">www.globalresearch.ca/ind...icleId=864</a><hr></blockquote>

by **erosoplier** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:07 pm

I come from a sciencey kind of background - I chose maths, not history, early on, but I've always been interested in 'humanity' somehow. So I started to study psychology, not engineering, but soon discovered only Single Vision and Newton's Sleep in that area also. I stopped following world events during the break-up of Yugoslavia - ethnic conflict doesn't turn me on, and that's what I thought Yugoslavia was about at the time. The Middle-East was always somebody else's very old and complicated problem for me. The black tide of post-modernism arrived for me in the early 1990's, and that plus other practical considerations inspired me to avoid the internet completely until early last year. That's when I discovered the whole freak-out magnitude of the post- and pre-9/11 world we're living in. The centre hasn't held - things have definitely fallen apart. How I long for the days when it was only the biosphere that was at risk, when the neo-classical economist was the most sinister force that could be identified (well, not really actually - the closer you get to the truth, the better, hey?). I'm not greatly impressed when I hear (read) an American say in response to their discovery of "9/11 truth" that "we've got to take our country back" - back to something about "the nation the founding fathers created." Nationalism is over, it is a dead end - it is the dead end we find ourselves in now. Sorry Mr or Mrs US citizen, I don't want you to get your country back. Apart from anything else, it was never yours to begin with. Your nation was founded by the same people who brought you 9/11. The movers and shakers. 9/11 was brought to us by the same people who brought us the great religions of the world. People who fear both death and the unknown to the extent that they'll make shit up and/or propogate it in order to have some control over the future. And if you're a Jew, and you want your own safe homeland, you may well get it, but it's an either/or situation - you'll either get your very own safe homeland, or you'll get to be fully human. Now that I think of it, it's a neat trick that the "Illuminati" are Godless, nationless, "Lucifer" (light) worshippers. They've put "Wrong Way Go Back" signs on many of the paths that lead to freedom. Cunning bastards. We've got to stop focusing on where it all went wrong, so much, and start focusing on what is right. It's not about giving up your history/your nation/your identity, its about being as fully human as you can be. It's about being a serious and proud and loving Earthling. We are creatures of love, as that Byrne chap once put it. (But it's hard to comprehend how profoundly true this truth is. Often chemical assistance proves invaluable here). We'll never be able to take the world back out of the hands of the injured souls who now control it using any force other than love. They will destroy it rather than relinquish it otherwise. They want to take our guns away so that we are defenceless? We must take all the guns away, every last mother-fucking one, and don't you dare think yourself civilised if you think any different to this. Maybe the internet will save the world. But it was never ever required in order for the world to be saved. Only right-seeing is required, and face-to-face talk and snail-mail would have been sufficient for that to have spread. More than likely the internet will get switched off just when we've really come to rely on it. Click. Edit: But fwiw Mr and Mrs US citizen, I'd rather you take your nation back than see it left it in the hands of the uber-idiots. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=erosoplier>erosoplier</A> at: 9/29/06 6:18 pm

by **sockmonkey** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:17 pm

Shortly before exiting this world through a suitably elevated window, former Secretary for Defense James Forrestal, a name well known to this forum, played a role the very period discussed in this thread, the birth of the Zionist state. From the fall of 1947 until early 1948, Forrestal witnessed the behind the scenes struggles for both the UN partition vote and the upcoming American presidential election, and was greatly distressed by what he described in his Diary as the " taking foreign policy and national security out of the province of the responsible ministers, and in acting contrary to their counsel under the pressure applied through electoral advisers." These words are important considering that at the time they were written, Britain had announced, (as a reply to Truman's call for 100,000 "displaced persons" to be allowed to enter Palestine,) that they would withdraw their administration from Palestine. Truman's advisors of course proceeded to inform him of the dire consequences should this occur. (Douglas Reed tells the story from this point forward): "General Marshall told the American Cabinet that such a British withdrawal "would be. followed by a bloody struggle between the Arabs and Jews" (August 8, 1947), and his Under Secretary of State, Mr. Robert Lovett, pointed to the danger of "solidifying sentiment among all the Arabian and Mohammedan peoples" against the United States {August 15, 1947). This warning was at once answered by the voice of party-politics. At a Cabinet lunch Mr. Robert Hannegan (Postmaster General, but previously national chairman of the President's party, the Democratic Party) urged the President to "make a statement of policy on Palestine" demanding "the admission of 150,000 Zionists". Thus the party-man's counsel was that President Truman should respond to the British warning by increasing his bid for Zionist electoral support, from 100,000 to 150,000 persons. Mr. Hannegan said this new demand "would have a very great influence and great effect on the raising of funds for the Democratic National Committee" and, as proof of what he promised, added that the earlier demand (related to 100,000 immigrants) had produced the result that "very large sums were obtained from Jewish contributors and they would be influenced in either giving or withholding by what the President did on Palestine". Thus the issue from the outset was presented to the President in the plainest terms of national interest on the one hand and party-contributions, party-votes and party-success on the other. It was argued throughout the months that followed and finally determined on that basis, without any gloss. Mr. Forrestal's alarm became acute. He held that if state policy and national security (his province) were to be subordinated to vote-buying the country would pass under Zionist control and earlier (in 1946) had asked the President if Palestine could not be "taken out of politics". Mr. Truman at that time had "agreed about the principle" but evinced the feeling "that not much will come of such an attempt, that political manoeuvring is inevitable, politics and our government being what they are". . In September 1947, Mr. Forrestal spurred by his misgivings, laboured tirelessly to have Palestine "taken out of politics". His idea was that both contending parties must contain a majority of peop1e who could be brought to agree, in the paramount national interest, that major foreign issues be set above dispute, so that Palestine could not be used for huckstering at election-time. He found only disdain for this idea among the men of "practical politics". At the next Cabinet lunch (October 6) the party-boss rebuked the responsible Cabinet officer: "Mr. Hannegan brought up the question of Palestine. He said many people who had contributed to. the Democratic campaign were pressing hard for assurances from the administration of definitive support for the Jewish position in Palestine". Mr. Forrestal foresaw Mr. Truman's capitulation and his alarm increased. He saw the Democratic party-manager, Mr. J. Howard McGrath (November 6, 1947) and again could make no headway. Mr. McGrath said, "There were two or three pivotal states which could not be carried without the support of people who were deeply interested in the Palestine question". Mr. Forrestal made no impression with his rejoinder, "I said I would rather lose those states in a national election than run the risks which I felt might develop in our handling of the Palestine question". The next day he again received support from General Marshall, who told the Cabinet that the Middle East was "another tinder box", and Mr. Forrestal then "repeated my suggestion . . . that a serious attempt be made to lift the Palestine question out of American partisan politics . . . Domestic politics ceased at the Atlantic Ocean and no question was more charged with danger to our security than this particular one" (November 7, 1947). The "partition" vote was by this time near and Mr. Forrestal made another appeal to. Mr. McGrath , the Democratic party-manager, showing him a secret report on Palestine provided by the governmental intelligence agency. Mr. McGrath brushed this aside, saying Jewish sources were responsible for a substantial part of the contributions to the Democratic National Committee and many of these contributions were made "with a distinct idea on the part of the givers that they will have an opportunity to express their views and have them seriously considered on such questions as the present Palestine question. There was a feeling among the Jews that the United States was not doing what it should to solicit votes in the United Nations General Assembly in favour of the Palestine partition, and beyond this the Jews would expect the United States to do its utmost to implement the partition decision if it is voted by the United Nations through force if necessary '. " Mr. Forrestal was told by Mr. Loy Henderson (in charge of Middle Eastern Affairs in the State Department) that "very great pressure had been put on him as well as Mr. Lovett to get active American solicitation for United Nations votes for the Palestine partition; he said Felix Frankfurter and Justice Murphy had both sent messages to the Philippines delegate strongly urging his vote". The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which had a concession in Liberia, reported (he said) that it had been asked by telephone to instruct its representative in Liberia "to bring pressure on the Liberian Government to vote in favour of partition ". Mr. Forrestal returned to the attack: "I remarked that many thoughtful people of the Jewish faith had deep misgivings about the wisdom of the Zionists' pressures for a Jewish state in Palestine. . . The decision was fraught with great danger for the future security of this country". Mr. Forrestal, in desperation, now tried to convince the Republican Mr. Dewey: "I said the Palestine matter was a matter of the deepest concern to me in terms of the security of the nation, and asked, once more, if the parties could not agree to take this question out of their electoral campaigning". Governor (of New York State) Dewey's response was much the same as President Truman's: "It was a difficult matter to get results because of the intemperate attitude of the Jewish people who had taken Palestine as the emotional symbol, because the Democratic party would not be willing to relinquish the advantages of the Jewish vote". Thereon Mr. Dewey continued to try and outdo the Democratic politicians in his bid for "the Jewish vote" (and to his own surprise nevertheless lost the election). Mr. Forrestal next tried to strengthen the hand of the State Department, in its resistance to the President, by a memorandum (January 21, 194<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"> in which he analyzed the dangers to American national security flowing from this entanglement: "It is doubtful if there is any segment of our foreign relations of greater importance or of greater danger. . . to the security of the United States than our relations in the Middle East". He warned against doing "permanent injury to our relations with the Moslem world" and "a stumble in to war". He said he had found "some small encouragement" among individual Republicans for his proposal to take the question "out of party-politics", but among the Democrats had met a feeling "that a substantial part of the Democratic funds come from Zionist sources inclined to ask in return for a lien upon this part of our national policy". Mr. Forrestal urged the Secretary of State (General Marshall) to remonstrate with the President, pointing out that a large body of Jews "hold the view that the present zeal of the Zionists can have most dangerous consequences, not merely in their divisive effects in American life, but in the long run on the position of Jews throughout the the world". Under-Secretary Lovett, on reading Mr. Forrestal's memorandum, produced one already prepared by the Planning Staff of the State Department. This informed the President that the partition plan was "not workable" (exactly as British governments had been warned by their colonial administrators that "the Mandate" was "not workable"); that the United States was not committed to support it if it could not be effected without force; that it was against American interest to supply arms to the Zionists while refusing them to the Arabs; that the United States should not take on itself to enforce the "recommendation" of partition and should try to secure withdrawal of the partition proposal. Mr. Lovett added, "the use of the United Nations by others as a propaganda platform is complicating our conduct of foreign relations" and said the State Department was "seriously embarrassed and handicapped by the activities of Niles at the White House in going directly to the President on matters involving Palestine". On that very day, the Under-Secretary complained, he had once more been under "pressure"; Mr. Niles had telephoned from the White House "expressing the hope that the embargo on the sales of arms to the Zionists would be lifted". At that point Mr. Forrestal evidently became an acute annoyance to the powers behind the White House and his elimination was decided. First he received a visit from Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt junior. Whatever the father's deathbed pledge not to take "hostile action against the Arabs", the son (a New York politician, with presidential hopes) was an extreme Zionist partisan. Mr. Forrestal pointedly said, "I thought the methods that had been used by people outside of the Executive branch of the government to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered closely on scandal". He records (as if with surprise) that his visitor "made no threats" in response to this, and he then explained his proposal to "lift the question out of politics" by agreement between the parties. Mr. Roosevelt, his father's son, replied that "this was impossible, that the nation was too far committed, and that, furthermore, the Democratic Party would be bound to lose and the Republicans to gain by such an agreement". Mr. Forrestal answered that "failure to go along with the Zionists might lose the states of New York, Pennsylvania and California;" (the "pivotal states" earlier mentioned by party-manager McGrath) "I thought it was about time that somebody should pay some consideration to whether we might not lose the United States". No comment by Mr. Roosevelt is recorded, but he was a harbinger of ill for Mr. Forrestal because on this same day (February 3, 194<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"> came the intervention of Mr. Bernard Baruch. Mr. Baruch, earlier an opponent of Zionism, was now so zealous in the cause that he advised Mr. Forrestal "not to be active in this matter. . . I was already identified, to a degree that was not in my own interests, with opposition to the United Nations policy on Palestine". Four days later (February 7, 194<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"> he drew up a last paper on the subject which he never submitted to the President, but which contains something of historical importance. He said that on February 6 "Eisenhower told me that effective United States participation in a Palestine police force would involve about one division with appropriate supporting units". At that time, therefore, General Eisenhower (then Chief of Staff) was drafting plans for the potential engagement of American troops in Palestine. Mr. Forrestal put away this last memorandum. On February 12 and 18 he made two final appeals to General Marshall to contend with the President and the party-managers and at that point his efforts ceased. His desisting availed him nothing for within a twelvemonth he was literally hounded to death. His end needs to be described here, before the armed seizure of Palestine is recorded; it is the c1assic case of persecution by defamation, leading to death. I first went to America early in 1949 and was perplexed by the venom of the attacks, in the press and radio, on one Mr. James Forrestal, Secretary for Defence. I knew nothing of him but his name, and the part he played in this affair (as above recorded) was then entirely unknown to the public. Nevertheless they read or heard daily that he was insane, a coward who had left his wife to be attacked by a burglar, a tax defaulter, and all manner of other things. By chance I met a friend of his who told me that he had been so reduced by this persecution that those near to him were gravely alarmed. A few weeks later he threw himself from a high window, leaving in his room some copied verses from Greek tragedy which ended with the refrain" "Woe, woe! will be the cry . . ." <a href="http://knud.eriksen.adr.dk/Controversybook/TheZionistState1.htm">knud.eriksen.adr.dk/Contr...State1.htm</a>

by **yathrib** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:23 pm

Given the recent events in Lebanon, Gaza, etc, it might be understandable that many reasonable people are as interested in antisemitism as they might have been in, say, anti-Serbianism circa 1995-96. The Israeli-Palestinian thing is unique because there are a certain number of people who hate Jews just 'cuz, and so they'll hit them with anything they think will stick. Frankly, I don't know *anyone* on the left like that, but certainly the Palestinian cause can and does attract those types, and conversely it might indeed be irresistible for some people who are passionately devoted to that cause to take advantage of the vast pool of material developed over centuries of pointless "faith-based" Jew hatred. So it goes. But even so, as I said to my friends who say people like Cindy Sheehan are "antisemitic," the left isn't antisemitic. It's anti-killing-people-and-taking-their-land.

by **yathrib** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:50 pm

...is this a son of Shem? COuldn't resist. http://images.salon.com/books/review/2006/09/27/buruma/cover.jpg<img src="http://images.salon.com/books/review/2006/09/27/buruma/cover.jpg" style="border:0;"/>

by **AlicetheCurious** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:38 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Mr. Forrestal answered that "failure to go along with the Zionists might lose the states of New York, Pennsylvania and California;" (the "pivotal states" earlier mentioned by party-manager McGrath) "I thought it was about time that somebody should pay some consideration to whether we might not lose the United States".<hr></blockquote> Chilling words. Thanks for the post, sockmonkey.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 6:46 am

This thread is called: "Zionism and History". I think Dream's End thinks of 'history' as something in the past, fixed, as in, "what evidence is there, if any, that the early Zionists were really, truly racists in their heart of hearts?" As we say here in Egypt, only God knows what is in people's hearts. All we humans can do, is witness actions. The early Zionists, the on-time Zionists and the late Zionists, of all ideological backgrounds and tendencies, all, without exception, engaged in an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing that has amounted and is amounting to genocide. And History is not a static thing, like a block of cement. It is fluid, like a river. Even the past is constantly being re-evaluated in light of new evidence being found, or of new ways of thinking, or depending on who is doing the looking. As we argue and discuss about what was in the hearts of long-dead men, history is being made, the genocide is continuing, a people are being extinguished. Their cries of protest are portrayed through the Zionist-dominated media as "hate"; their resistance as "terrorism"; Christian and Jewish religious figures are "pious"; Muslim religious figures are "fascist" or "fanatic". Those few courageous people in the West who object to the ongoing massacres and war crimes are "Nazi-infiltrated" or "antisemitic". Living in the Middle East, I am fortunate to have access to all kinds of coverage; every night, I channel-skip between the BBC, CNN, al-Manar (the Hizbullah channel), al-Arabia, al-Jazeera, and even stay up occasionally to watch the ABC or NBC nightly news. The difference in coverage is scandalous. Just as one example, take the resistance in Iraq. Western audiences are told that the US/British/Iraqi puppet forces are fighting against terrorist 'insurgents' who attack and bomb Iraqi civilians. That these terrorist 'insurgents' were led by 'Abu Musab al-Zarqawi', whom the Americans finally killed, but he was replaced by some other evil cartoon-like figure. Arabic audiences do hear the US and Iraqi government explanations, but they also get to see and hear the true leaders of the Iraqi insurgency, who are never, ever, mentioned on Western broadcasts. Those leaders without exception, constantly warn that the US and Britain are fomenting a civil war in Iraq through terror squads and government-sponsored militias, and that they have yet to find ANY evidence that there is al-Qaeda or that there ever was such a "leader" as 'Abu Musab al-Zarqawi'. Indeed, there is much evidence that they are telling the truth, and that the Western media is complicit in horrific war crimes. What does Iraq have to do with Palestine? With Zionism? Frankly, I was going to give concrete examples from today's news about the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, news that you'll never see on your tv. But, as most Arabs are becoming aware, Israel and Zionism are one part of a much bigger project, the mother of all bulldozers smashing and crushing its way through the Middle East. Israel really is the "mini-me" of American imperialism, and the degree of brutality, the insatiable greed, the breath-taking hypocrisy, the racism against the native population and implied status as a "superrace" above the law, are strikingly similar. In fact, Jewish Zionism, Christian Zionism, and the Global War on Terror have become indistinguishable. Maybe some will say that this is the wrong thread for talking about Iraq, but keep in mind that this is a distinction that neither side, the US/Israeli Zionist, nor the Arab nationalist side, recognize. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>According to an article recently published in New York Times Magazine, in September 2004 Counsellor to the US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces James Steele was assigned to work with a new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency unit known as the Special Police Commandos, formed under the operational control of Iraq’s Interior Ministry (‘The Way of the Commandos’, Peter Maass, <a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/TheWay_of_the_Commandos.html">psychoanalystsopposewar.o...andos.html</a> ). From 1984 to 1986 then Col. Steele had led the US Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, where he was responsible for developing special operating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict. These forces, composed of the most brutal soldiers available, replicated the kind of small-unit operations with which Steele was familiar from his service in Vietnam. Rather than focusing on seizing terrain, their role was to attack ‘insurgent’ leadership, their supporters, sources of supply and base camps. In the case of the 4th Brigade, such tactics ensured that a 20-man force was able to account for 60% of the total casualties inflicted by the unit (Manwaring, El Salvador at War, 1988, p 306-8 ). In military circles it was the use of such tactics that made the difference in ultimately defeating the guerrillas; for others, such as the Catholic priest Daniel Santiago, the presence of people like Steele contributed to another sort of difference: People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador – they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch. (Cited by Chomsky, op cit.) The Police Commandos are in large part the brainchild of another US counter-insurgency veteran, Steven Casteel, a former top DEA man who has been acting as the senior advisor in the Ministry of the Interior. Casteel was involved in the hunt for Colombia’s notorious cocaine baron Pablo Escobar, during which the DEA collaborated with a paramilitary organization known as Los Pepes, which later transformed itself into the AUC, an umbrella organization covering all of Colombia’s paramilitary death squads (<a href="http://cocaine.org/colombia/pablo-escobar.html">cocaine.org/colombia/pablo-escobar.html</a> ; <a href="http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/040105isac.htm">www.ciponline.org/colombi...05isac.htm</a> ). Like Colombia’s death squads, Iraq’s Police Commandos deliberately cultivate a frightening paramilitary image. During raids they wear balaclavas and black leather gloves and openly intimidate and brutalize suspects, even in the presence of foreign journalists (see the report by Peter Maass’s). Significantly, many of the Commandos, including their leader, are Sunni Muslims. Evidence of Massacres In the last few weeks, with the discovery of several mass graves in and around Baghdad, evidence of multiple extra-judicial killings has started to become much more visible, but, in fact, even a cursory review of such archives as the one compiled by Iraq Body Count (<a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.net">www.iraqbodycount.net</a> /) reveals that mass executions have been taking place commonly in Iraq over at least the last six months. What is particularly striking is that many of those killings have taken place since the Police Commandos became operationally active and often correspond with areas where they have been deployed. The clearest correlation is in Mosul, where the Police Commandos began operating in late October (<a href="http://www.strykernews.com/archives/2004/10/29/special_iraqi_police_commandos_continue_operations.html">www.strykernews.com/archi...tions.html</a> ). In mid-November it was reported that insurgents were conducting an offensive and had managed to drive most of the (regular) police from the city. There followed what was described as a joint counter-offensive by US forces and Police Commandos. The Police Commandos conducted raids inside the old quarter starting on 16 November in which dozens of suspects were arrested. During one such raid on a mosque and a tea shop, detainees, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs, were seen being taken away by commandos (<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/Iraqi-soldiers-found-murdered-in-Mosul/2004/11/21/1100972263000.html">www.smh.com.au/news/After...63000.html</a> ). In the weeks and months that followed over 150 bodies appeared (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4105009.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl...105009.stm</a> ), often in batches and frequently having obviously been executed, usually with a bullet to the head (eg. <a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/iraq/?id=12147">www.middle-east-online.co.../?id=12147</a> ). The victims are repeatedly stated to have belonged mostly to the security forces, with ‘insurgents’ blamed for conducting a campaign of intimidation. Yet, most of the bodies were dressed in civilian clothes with little in the way of identification. In the few instances in which positive identifications have been reported, these are based on flimsy evidence. For instance, in the case of nine victims described as soldiers that had been shot in the head, a US army lieutenant simply stated that a ‘unit recently moved to one of the US bases’ had ‘some guys missing’ (<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/Iraqi-soldiers-found-murdered-in-Mosul/2004/11/21/1100972263000.html">www.smh.com.au/news/After...63000.html</a> ); photographs of the victims showed them wearing civilian clothes. A blatant case of disinformation regards a group of 31 bodies ‘discovered’ by the Police Commandos in March 2005 scattered around a cemetery in western Mosul. The bodies, described by an Interior Ministry spokesman as belonging to civilians, police officers and army soldiers, were said to have been the victims of a single policeman, Shoqayer Fareed Sheet, who confessed to these and numerous other killings on a special television show conceived by founder of the Police Commandos Adnan Thavit, called Terrorism in the Hands of Justice (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23448-2005Mar10.html">www.washingtonpost.com/wp...Mar10.html</a> ). Not only does this programme break every conceivable moral and legal standard, but it is notorious for parading obviously tortured detainees who are often forced to confess to being homosexuals or paedophiles as well as murderers. ( <a href="http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:OkQ0b9q9QbkJ:uniraq.org/documents/ArabicRegionalNews22">66.102.9.104/search?q=cac...onalNews22</a> March2005.doc+quds+press&hl=en&client=safari) Given the extreme paucity of evidence, the lack of secure identification and the disinformation put out by the Interior Ministry, there is at least a strong possibility that many, if not all, of the extra-judicial killings in Mosul have been carried out by the Police Commandos. Police Commandos Directly Accused A similar, thought less complete pattern is emerging in other areas where the Commandos have been operating, notably Samarra, where bodies were recently found in nearby Lake Tharthar (<a href="http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=41936">www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=41936</a> ). However, the strongest case is currently starting to emerge in Baghdad, where a wave of killings over the last few weeks has resulted in accusations being made directly against the state security forces and specifically against the Police Commandos. The accusations revolve around three distinct massacres. On 5 May a shallow mass grave was discovered in the Kasra-Wa-Atash industrial area containing 14 bodies. The victims, all young men, had been blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs and they had been executed with shots to the head. The bodies also revealed such torture marks as broken skulls, burning, beatings and right eyeballs removed. In this case family members were able to identify the bodies; the victims were Sunni farmers on their way to market. According to Phil Shiner of the British-based Public Interest Lawyers, the men had been arrested when Iraqi security forces raided the vegetable market (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1488096,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/intern...96,00.html</a> , <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=760368">abcnews.go.com/Internatio...?id=760368</a> ). Less than two weeks later on 15 May, 15 more bodies were discovered at two sites in western Baghdad. Eight of the victims were found In the Al-Shaab area, while a further seven were discovered behind a mosque in Ore district (<a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=733276">www.kuna.net.kw/home/Stor...SNO=733276</a> ). According to the Chicago Tribune, ‘some had been blindfolded, most were found with their hands bound and all had been shot in the head’ (<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505170030may17,0,3795261.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-utl">www.chicagotribune.com/ne...ective-utl</a> ). The Association of Muslim Scholars quickly responded to the wave of killings, accusing soldiers and Interior Ministry commandos of having ‘arrested imams and the guardians of some mosques, tortured and killed them, then got rid of their bodies in a garbage dump in the Shaab district’ (<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=238784&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/">www.mg.co.za/articlePage....onal_news/</a> ). ‘This is state terrorism by the Ministry of Interior’ said Hareth al-Dhari, secretary general of the Association (<a href="http://news.ft.com/cms/s/47613c82-c804-11d9-9765-00000e2511c8.html">news.ft.com/cms/s/47613c8...511c8.html</a> ). Whilst al-Dhari also blamed the Badr brigades associated with the ruling Shia coalition, the emphasis of his denunciation was quickly shifted in the mainstream press to reinforce only this aspect of the accusation and the notion of sectarian tit-for-tat violence (eg <a href="http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4569103.stm">newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/w...569103.stm</a> ). The Iraqi government’s riposte to the Association’s accusations was predictably insidious, with the new defence minister blaming terrorists wearing military uniforms (<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505170030may17,0,3795261.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-utl">www.chicagotribune.com/ne...ective-utl</a> ). However, it should come as little surprise to discover that at the beginning of May the government had announced an imminent counter-insurgency crackdown, which they said was likely to unleash well-trained commandos in Baghdad and other trouble spots (<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8725.htm">www.informationclearingho...le8725.htm</a> ). Wider Evidence of Massacres With such accusations being made specifically against US-trained counter-insurgency forces it is worth briefly mentioning some of the other massacres that have occurred in Iraq over recent months. In October 2004 some 49 bodies were discovered on a remote road about 50km south of Baquba. The victims, who wore civilian clothes, had all been shot in the head. The Interior Ministry announced that they were off-duty soldiers. Some accounts by police said the rebels were dressed in Iraqi military uniforms, although details were far from clear (<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/10/24/international0921EDT0440.DTL">sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DT0440.DTL</a> ; <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136419,00.html">www.foxnews.com/story/0,2...19,00.html</a> ). Similarly, in March of this year 26 bodies were discovered at Rumana, near Qaim, close to the Syrian border. According to the Interior Ministry, most of the victims were members of a rapid response team. The victims had been blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the head. The bodies, which once again were dressed in civilian clothes, were found in an area where the US army had been conducting Operation River Blitz, a marine-led assault on insurgents in the Euphrates River valley (<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136419,00.html">www.foxnews.com/story/0,2...19,00.html</a> ; <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/09/iraq.main/">edition.cnn.com/2005/WORL...iraq.main/</a> ). To further muddy the waters, the bodies of eight men from Sadr City were found in Yussufiah, 40km south of Baghdad, on 9 May this year. The victims, who had been tortured, then executed with a bullet to the back of the neck, were found wearing army uniforms, but relatives identified them as civilians. Army captain Ahmed Hussein suggested that the killers wanted people to believe they had executed soldiers (<a href="http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1701988,00.html">www.news24.com/News24/Wor...88,00.html</a> ). There are other similar cases of mass killings, as well as many more involving smaller numbers of bodies far too numerous to mention. Nonetheless, it is worth emphasising the many bodies (more than 100) gradually being dredged up from the River Tigris, especially around Suwayra, south of Baghdad. The bodies began to be noticed in late February of this year, surfacing at the rate of one or two a day, but began to increase in frequency in April; some of the victims, who were mostly men but included some women and children, were bound, others shot or beheaded. In April, president Talabani claimed the victims had been kidnapped by insurgents in the village of Madain, but, in fact, those identified to date hailed from a wide radius and could not be accounted for by a single episode of kidnapping. Police in Suwayra have stated that many of the victims are likely to have been stopped at impromptu checkpoints by masked men, while some Sunnis say that the victims may include people detained by the police (<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/22/MNG45CDDBQ1.DTL">www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar...CDDBQ1.DTL</a> ). In light of these bodies in the Tigris, it may be significant to note a strange report on the website Jihad Unspun of US soldiers dumping body bags from helicopters in the Diali River in eastern Iraq during the early hours of the morning. The writer argues that the bags held the corpses of American soldiers or foreign mercenaries that the army wished to conceal from public knowledge (<a href="http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=100552&list=/home.php&">www.jihadunspun.com/inthe...e.php&</a> ). This implausible theory leaves a very large question mark over the identity of bodies that the US army wishes to conceal and recalls the report submitted to the Brussels Tribunal, ‘Tarmiya: the Silent Agony’. This account contains first hand testimony from an agricultural worker who survived an attempted execution by a team of US special forces. He and a colleague were abducted from the farm where they worked, then taken to a secluded grove where their throats were cut. They were left for dead, but miraculously, one of them survived (<a href="http://www.brusselstribunal.org">www.brusselstribunal.org</a> /). Whilst this account lacks corroboration and has remained anonymous to protect the identities of those involved, it remains a convincing description of the kind of long-range ‘reconnaissance’ missions that people like James Steele were conducting in Vietnam. Modelling the Iraq War Whilst much of the violence across Iraq appears chaotic, some lines are starting to emerge that follow the pattern and the logic of other counter-insurgency wars. In El Salvador, when the war finally came to an end, it became clear that the majority of its victims had been participants in progressive social movements as well as peasants who had been perceived as sympathising with or supporting the guerrillas. The object of the war was not to defeat an ideologically motivated rebellion, it was to prevent the possibility of progressive social change and to maintain the country within the US economic orbit in its traditional tributary role. The same can be said of Colombia at present, where the long current phase of the internal conflict in which thousands of social activists have been murdered has butted seamlessly with the country’s exposure to economic liberalisation. In short, legitimate social demands are violently suppressed in favour of allowing foreign capital to extract super profits from Colombia’s rich natural resources and selling off its public assets for the same purpose. Much of the conflict takes place within the realm of so-called ‘civil society’, where progressive leaders are excluded or eliminated, whilst those who are prepared to throw in their lot with predatory foreign capital are rewarded and extolled. In Iraq the war comes in two phases. The first phase is complete: the destruction of the existing state, which did not comply with the interests of British and American capital. The second phase consists of building a new state tied to those interests and smashing every dissenting sector of society. Openly, this involves applying the same sort of economic shock therapy that has done so much damage in swathes of the Third World and Eastern Europe. Covertly, it means intimidating, kidnapping and murdering opposition voices. The economic assault on Iraq is well underway. Visible unemployment stands at around the catastrophic level of 28%, large parts of the state sector have already been sold off and wages have fallen (often to less than half of their pre-war levels), thanks in part to the introduction of thousands of cheap workers from Pakistan, India and the Philippines. These workers are often tricked into coming and stripped of their passports, effectively working as slaves in order to undercut accustomed Iraqi living standards. Reconstruction projects are given almost exclusively to foreign (mainly US) companies, who pay a flat rate of 15% tax with no limits to repatriation of profits, while Iraq’s state-owned companies are excluded (<a href="http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3005">www.antiwar.com/orig/shum...cleid=3005</a> ). In the countryside, Iraqi farmers are now obliged to buy a licence to grow genetically modified seed and are prohibited from resowing the seed developed by their ancestors in the cradle of civilisation (<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA501A.html">www.globalresearch.ca/art...A501A.html</a> ). The covert assault has also begun. Attacks on workers and trade unionists are becoming increasingly common (<a href="http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000200.html">www.iraqitradeunions.org/...00200.html</a> ) and it is instructive that the railway workers union, in an industry that has been slated for privatisation, seems to have been particularly targeted, with US administrators on the ground threatening to bring in Indian workers (<a href="http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000117.html">www.iraqitradeunions.org/...00117.html</a> ). Whilst the IFTU, the dominant, state-sanctioned new trade-union umbrella organisation, may have endorsed the occupation, the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) has not; in any case, ordinary Iraqi workers will find themselves increasingly at odds with the puppet government as they try to defend even rudimentary living standards. Industrial action is already widespread in Iraq, though little reported in the mainstream press. An even more frightening picture is emerging within the sector of higher education, where, since the beginning of the occupation, some 200 Iraqi academics have been murdered, while control and intimidation has become systematic. Many of the victims worked in the social sciences, where overlap with progressive social movements is unavoidable (<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200409060018">www.newstatesman.com/200409060018</a> ). Unfortunately, in Iraq it is almost impossible to securely attribute any of the host of assassinations and extra-judicial killings, while the US-UK propaganda campaign has left many all too willing to believe in such bugbears as Al-Zarqawi (see Michel Chossudovsky’s article ‘Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?’ (<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405B.html">www.globalresearch.ca/art...O405B.html</a> ). What we do know, however, is that hundreds of Iraqis are being murdered and that paramilitary hit squads of the proxy government organized by US trainers with a fulsome pedigree in state terrorism are increasingly being associated with them.<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FUL506A.html">www.globalresearch.ca/art...L506A.html</a> <hr></blockquote>

by **Dreams End** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:38 am

Alice...we'll disagree over whether the US went to war in Iraq for "Zionism"....I'm pretty sure there are all kinds of ways our elites are directly benefitting...I know it's more than oil. I think we can agree that chaos is the goal, not democracy. However, that post deserved its own thread. I'd encourage you to start one. It'll get lost on page 5 of this one.

by **Gouda** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:06 am

It seems that agreeing on the sources of this history is a discussion/debate onto itself. I really can't offer much in this thread, since I have NOT studied the history enough, but I do have Israel Shahak on my reading list, as he came highly recommended. I assume that Shahak, a holocaust survivor and Israeli (who obviously follows a not-so-flattering line of scholarship into the history of Zionism), might come close as a reliable source of historical analysis. Any thoughts on Shahak? I just started reading an essay he wrote on Yitzhak Shamir and his rearing in the LEHI organization (the Stern Gang). Yeesh.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:48 am

The Wiki page on Israel Shahak is pretty good as an overview: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shahak">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shahak</a>

by **Dreams End** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:05 am

I didn't read much of Shahak's own writing on the wiki page...I'll put it on my unwieldy to-do list. gouda, I wonder. Does it bother you that David Duke has a Shahak quote on the very first page of his book "Jewish Supremacism"? While Alice wants to pretend there is no Nazi-left movement going on, here we have an author dearly beloved by both Cockburn and Ernst Zundel. I don't put that forward as proof that he is wrong...in fact the wiki page didn't give me much info about his beliefs other than the disputed shabbat incident that looks to me like he was not truthful but that's just wiki's view. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> This book is dedicated to the memory of one of them: an Israeli Professor, Dr. Israel Shahak, who recently passed away. Dr. Shahak believed that Jewish Supremacism has greatly harmed the Palestinian people as well as the non-Jewish community the world over. He offered strong evidence that Jewish radicals have waged an unrelenting ethnic war against Gentiles since the days of their sojourn in Egypt. Dr. Shahak believed that this extreme chauvinism has helped bring about centuries of repeated anti-Semitic reactions, ranging from the pogroms of Pharaoh to the horrors of what is now called the Holocaust. He persuasively argued that unless both Jews and Gentiles courageously stand up against this supremacist agenda and its power, it will continue to pose a severe danger to Jews and Gentiles alike. <a href="http://www.davidduke.com/supremacism/preface.shtml">link</a><hr></blockquote> By the way, could someone tell me if Duke is misrepresenting Shahak here? Surely Shahak did not write about the "unrelenting ethnic war against Gentiles since the days of the sojourn in Egypt".

by **Gouda** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:47 am

Heh heh. It would probably bother Shahak more than me. That's the shit thing about putting your work out there in the public arena. (For the record, Zundel was not the one who recommended the work of Israel Shahak to me.) I am sure Shahak would be very pleased to learn that David Duke and Zundel plundered his grave and have stolen his skull. He might not be happy about how they are pissing in it either. I have not read much at all yet by Shahak, so I guess I can't assume his post-mortem thoughts. I would hope that if some fence-sitting fascists were led to Shahak and decided to read him in full, they would realize he is in fact not on Duke's side. A racist bigot wants to be convinced nonetheless, so Duke can have them. Like law, we have to read history a) for its content and b) for the spirit in which it is written. (And we surely need to take into consideration the deep background of the historian.) From what I know so far, I gather I am in line with the spirit of his scholarship, and further reading/research will tell about the factual accuracy. I am interested to learn if he does indeed come through on the scholarship part. David Duke can steal the facts and twist them into his own context, but he can not touch the spirit or true direction of an anti-fascist's work. Maybe I am assuming too much before acutally reading much of Shahak, but it seems to me, DE, that you could very well be the Shahak of the american Left. A Leftist exposing the Nazi/fascist thread among the Left because you treasure and respect and see the work/power of the Left as a bulwark against fascism. You may alienate and piss off some on the left for this, but you do it anyway. I am also convinced of and concerned enough about a Nazi-left movement to seriously follow this with vigilance, thanks in no small part to you and Jeff and proldic and others like the long lost albion. This is dangerous stuff and needs to be followed, exposed and stopped. But don't hurt your own work by letting fellow antifascists get tarred by Nazi-leeching. It's a difficult line, but how we do it will determine our failure or success. The ADL for example. Right intentions, wrong way: when the ADL worries that Borat will cause more antisemitism as he exposes it, well, I think that is counterproductive at least. They discredit themselves and potentially harm Jews. Borat hunting and gigging in Texas and Arizona ("throw the jew down the well...") actually reminded me how much this stuff IS ingrained and how easily people can get caught up in the nazi sway. Let's say that Borat (and Jeff for posting the vid links) did a great thing for my awareness. For the ADL to want to shut that down is wrong, stupid, and counterproductive. And not a little totalitarian. While I hope the ADL's heart is in the right place, I think they need to re-examine their approach. The problem is, I know the ruling elite will try to make dissenters and leftists sound like al qaeda to justify their police state. Zawahiri recommending William Blum. Bin laden and Zawahiri and Zarqawi (rest his soul) reciting liberal or left or anti-global talking points on swiftly (CIA) authenticated videos right always before important votes in Congress, low polls, or before elections. What should we do? Would Shahak not have known before sitting down to his work that the Nazis who put him into a camp would also some day find fodder for their hate in his very own research? He probably, I am assuming again, knew that this could happen, yet he did his work anyway. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 10/3/06 9:53 am

by **AlicetheCurious** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:24 pm

I think Shahak was mainly addressing his writings to 'liberal' Jews and Israelis, tearing away the veil of denial and propaganda that mutes the cognitive dissonance between the values they supposedly believe in, and the nature of the state they support so passionately. I think he was a very brave scholar, a man of integrity, and his political analysis provides vital and amazing insights, even today. He should not be blamed for the twisted minds who use his writings AGAINST racism and hate, to promote those very things.

by **Dreams End** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:46 pm

I think it would only be sporting to give you and Gouda a chance to re-evaluate your support of Shahak. Gouda, in particular, I find articulate and thoughtful...but Shahak may not be the route you want to take to make your points. Good God..... The rest will have to wait until probably tomorrow night or Thursday as I am out of time. But seriously, Gouda...Google a bit on this man. Just because he's Jewish doesn't mean he's not insane...

by **AlicetheCurious** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:33 pm

By the way, below are some excerpts from a marxist commentary & analysis of Oded Yinon's 1982 piece, which I believe was written around 1988: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The Zionists, in particular, with their relatively small population and their total dependence on U.S. imperialism, can only enact their plan for Israeli dominion through neo-colonial schemes in the Arab East, and these require the support of their imperial master. In this regard, Oded Yinon’s blueprint is the application to the present and near future of the Zionist design pursued by Herzl, Weizman, Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, and, today, by Peres and Shamir. Those who would select among them, offer Palestinians a Hobson’s choice, for the political debate among the Zionist rulers centers on the means and timing of a conquering design. When, for example, Moshe Dayan took Gaza in 1956, Ben Gurion became angry, informing Dayan, "I didn’t want Gaza with people, but Gaza without people, the Galilee without people." Moshe Dayan, himself, told Zionist youth at a meeting in the Golan Heights in July 1968. "Our fathers had reached the frontiers recognized in the partition plan; the Six-Day War generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan, and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan ... to Lebanon and ... to central Syria as well." [182a] Neo-colonial rule, however, depends, as Oded Yinon makes clear, upon the dialectical relation between military might and hired hands. Fragmenting the Arab states will proceed under the cover of war - whether a blitzkrieg attack, use of a proxy armed force or covert operations. The ultimate success requires local leaders who can be bought or ensnared. Zionists, therefore, have given us repeatedly not only their Mein Kampf, but the evidence that the preservation and extension of their rule depends on misleaders among the victim peoples. The "divide-and-rule" schemes of Zionism and their imperial patron are unending. ... The Four “No’s” Yinon’s ideas are not outlandish. They are advocated by Sharon and Begin’s Minister of Defense, Moshe Arens, and also by the Labor Party. Y’ben Poret, a ranking official in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, was irritated in 1982 by pious criticisms of the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza: "It is," he declared, "time to rip away the veil of hypocrisy. In the present, as in the past, there is no Zionism, no settlement of the land, no Jewish state, without the removal of all the Arabs, without confiscation." [183] The 1984 political platform of the Labor Party was promoted in full-page ads in the two leading Israeli dailies, Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz. The ads highlighted the "Four No’s": No to a Palestinian state No negotiations with the P.L.O. No return to the 1967 borders No removal of any settlements. The ad advocated an increase in the number of settlements on the West Bank and Gaza, their full funding and protection. In 1985, the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, a Labor Party leader, echoed the sentiments of Sharon and Shamir emphasized by Oded Yinon. We are certainly not willing to make partners of the Palestinians in any way in a land that was holy to our people for thousands of years. There can be no partner with the Jews of this land. [184] As with Camp David, even a Bantustan on parts of the West Bank and Gaza would be but a prelude to the next "dispersal". Forcing 2.5 million Palestinians into Jordan is, another interim measure, for Israeli "lebensraum" [Hitler’s infamous phrase meaning "living space"] will not be confined by the Jordan River. It should be clear, under any future political situation or military constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan River and beyond it [emphasis added], as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. [185] Palestinian Population Transfer Yinon’s ideas were also echoed in an important story carried by The Washington Post on its front page on February 7, 1988, under the headline "Expelling Palestinians: It Isn’t a New Idea and It Isn’t Just Kahane’s." Two Israeli journalists, Yossi Melman, diplomatic correspondent of the Israeli daily, Davar, and Dan Raviv, London-based CBS News correspondent, disclosed that barely two weeks after the end of the June 1967 war, secret Israeli cabinet meetings were convened to discuss the "resettlement of Arabs". The information was obtained from private diaries kept by Ya’acov Herzog, director general of the Prime Minister’s office. The official transcript of the meeting remains secret. According to the Post article, Prime Minister Menachem Begin recommended the demolition of the refugee camps and the transfer of the Palestinians to the Sinai. Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir and Foreign Minister Abba Eban, both Labor Zionists, disagreed. They called for the transfer of all the refugees "to neighboring Arab countries, mainly Syria and Iraq". The 1967 cabinet meeting did not reach a decision. “Sentiment seemed to favor Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon’s proposal that the Palestinians ... should be transported to the Sinai desert,” the Post article states. Accordingly, the Prime Minister’s office, the Defense Ministry and the army jointly set up a "secret unit charged with ‘encouraging’ the departure of the Palestinians for foreign shores". The secret plan was revealed by Ariel Sharon before a Tel Aviv audience in November 1987, when he disclosed the existence of an "organization" which for years had transferred Palestinians to other countries, including Paraguay, with whose government Israel had made the necessary arrangements. These "transfers" were handled by the Israeli military governor’s office in Gaza. When one of the transferees, Talal ibn-Dimassi, attacked the Israeli consulate in Asuncion, Paraguay, killing the Consul’s secretary, complications ensued: "The attack in Paraguay put an abrupt end to the secret Israeli plan which the government had hoped would help solve the problem of the Palestinians by exporting them," the Post article states. Over one million people were contemplated for "transfer". Only 1,000 were successfully sent out. Melman and Raviv emphasize that the relocation of Palestinians is not new “as the 1967 cabinet discussions show”. They state that a similar scheme would be attractive to a growing number of Israelis "as they watch the recent uprising in the West Bank and Gaza” An Option Long Considered The authors acknowledge that the removal of the Palestinians has been the central focus of Zionist planning since the inception of the movement. They write: Since the early days of Zionism, resettlement has been an option for dealing with the problem posed by the large Arab population in the historical land of Israel. Melman and Raviv recount a series of schemes which were designed to effect the removal of the Palestinian people. The East bank of the Jordan River [the state of Jordan] was contemplated, a scheme indicated in March 1988 in a full-page advertisement republishing a column by George Will which equates Jordan with Palestine. [185a] Labor Zionists and Revisionists were united on the necessity to transfer the Palestinians elsewhere. Vladimir Jabotinsky spelled out the various efforts made since World War I in a letter written in November 1939. We should instruct American Jewry to mobilize a half billion dollars in order that Iraq and Saudi Arabia will absorb the Palestinian Arabs. There is no choice: The Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs. By 1947, Labor Zionists and Revisionists joined together in the mass expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians. In 1964, a young Israeli colonel named Ariel Sharon instructed his staff to determine "the number of buses, vans and trucks required in case of war to transport ... the Arabs out of northern Israel." In 1967, Israeli military commanders began the process. One general sent bulldozers to demolish three Arab villages near Latrun on the road to Jerusalem, expelling their residents. Such an expulsion order was issued for the West Bank city of Qalqilya and then cancelled. Since the Uprising began in December 1987, Michael Dekel of the Likud has taken up the call "to transfer the Arabs", and Gideon Patt, a government minister from the Liberal Party, has declared that the Palestinians should be placed on trucks and sent to the border. Melman and Raviv conclude with the following prognosis: Kahane’s message - expel the Palestinians or risk losing control of the land of Israel -remains a potent one. And in the absence of a political solution to the Palestinian problem [sic], Israel may be pushed toward desperate measures. A Warning by Sharon It is in this context that Ariel Sharon’s declaration of March 24, 1988, is to be assessed. Sharon stated that if the Palestinian uprising continued, Israel would have to make war on its Arab neighbors. The war, he stated, would provide "the circumstances" for the removal of the entire Palestinian population from inside Israel and from the West Bank and Gaza. ... If the Palestinian people face the destruction of their organized existence by Israel, one fact must be stressed: The Zionist state is nothing but the extension of the power of the United States in the region. Israeli extermination plans, occupations and expansion are on behalf of the principal imperialist power in the world. Whatever may be the tactical divergences which emerge from time to time between Israel and the United States, there is no Zionist campaign that can sustain itself without the backing of its principal sponsor. The U.S. government between 1949 and 1983, provided $92.2 billion in military aid, economic aid, loans, special grants and tax deductible "bonds and gifts". [186] As Joseph C. Harsh, put it in the August 5, 1982, issue of The Christian Science Monitor. Few countries in history have been as dependent on another as Israel is on the United States. Israel’s major weapons are from the United States - either as gifts or on long-term, low-interest loans, which few seriously expect to be repaid. Israel’s survival is underwritten and subsidized from Washington. Without American arms, Israel would lose the quantitative and qualitative advantage which President Reagan has promised to maintain for them. Without the economic subsidy, Israel’s credit would vanish and its economy would collapse. In other words, Israel can only do what Washington allows it to do. It dare not conduct a single military operation without the tacit consent of Washington. When it does undertake a military offensive, the world assumes correctly that it has Washington’s tacit consent. <a href="http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/ch12.htm">www.marxists.de/middleast...n/ch12.htm</a><hr></blockquote>

Zionism and History

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