|
CounterPunch
January
25, 2003
Too Many Smoking
Guns to Ignore:
Israel,
American Jews, and the War on Iraq
by BILL and KATHLEEN
CHRISTISON
former
CIA political analysts
Most of the vociferously pro-Israeli neo-conservative
policymakers in the Bush administration make no effort to hide
the fact that at least part of their intention in promoting war
against Iraq (and later perhaps against Syria, Iran, Hezbollah,
and the Palestinians) is to guarantee Israel's security by eliminating
its greatest military threats, forging a regional balance of
power overwhelmingly in Israel's favor, and in general creating
a more friendly atmosphere for Israel in the Middle East. Yet,
despite the neo-cons' own openness, a great many of those on
the left who oppose going to war with Iraq and oppose the neo-conservative
doctrines of the Bush administration nonetheless utterly reject
any suggestion that Israel is pushing the United States into
war, or is cooperating with the U.S., or even hopes to benefit
by such a war. Anyone who has the temerity to suggest any Israeli
instigation of, or even involvement in, Bush administration war
planning is inevitably labeled somewhere along the way as an
anti-Semite. Just whisper the word "domination" anywhere
in the vicinity of the word "Israel," as in "U.S.-Israeli
domination of the Middle East" or "the U.S. drive to
assure global domination and guarantee security for Israel,"
and some leftist who otherwise opposes going to war against Iraq
will trot out charges of promoting the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, the old czarist forgery that asserted a Jewish plan
for world domination.
This is tiresome, to put it mildly. So
it's useful to put forth the evidence for the assertion of Israeli
complicity in Bush administration planning for war with Iraq,
which is voluminous, as the following recitation will show. Much
of what is presented below could be classified as circumstantial,
but much is from the mouths of the horses themselves, either
the neo-con planners or Israeli government officials, and much
of it is evidence that, even if Israel is not actively pushing
for war, many Israelis expect to benefit from it, and this despite
their fear that a war will bring down on Israel a shower of Iraqi
missiles.
The evidence below is listed chronologically,
except for two items grouped separately at the end. Although
deletions have been made for the sake of brevity, and emphasis
has been added to occasional phrases and sentences, no editorial
narrative has been added. The evidence speaks for itself.
"Benjamin Netanyahu's government
comes in with a new set of ideas. While there are those who will
counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to make a clean
break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an
entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic
initiative.To secure the nation's streets and borders in the
immediate future, Israel can [among other steps] work closely
with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back
some of its most dangerous threats. This implies a clean break
from the slogan, 'comprehensive peace' to a traditional concept
of strategy based on balance of power. Israel can shape its strategic
environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening,
containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus
on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, an important Israeli
strategic objective in its own right, as a means of foiling Syria's
regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions
recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq..Since
Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle
East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel
has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts
to redefine Iraq. Israel's new agenda can signal a clean
break by abandoning a policy whichallowed strategic retreat,
by reestablishing the principle of preemption, rather
than retaliation alone and by ceasing to absorb blows to the
nation without response. Israel's new strategic agenda can shape
the regional environment in ways that grant Israel the room to
refocus its energies back to where they are most needed: to rejuvenate
its national idea.Ultimately, Israel can do more than simply
manage the Arab-Israeli conflict though war. No amount of weapons
or victories will grant Israel the peace it seeks. When Israel
is on a sound economic footing, and is free, powerful, and healthy
internally, it will no longer simply manage the Arab-Israeli
conflict; it will transcend it. As a senior Iraqi opposition
leader said recently: 'Israel must rejuvenate and revitalize
its moral and intellectual leadership. It is an important, if
not the most important, element in the history of the Middle
East.' Israel-proud, wealthy, solid, and strong-would be the
basis of a truly new and peaceful Middle East."
"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for
Securing the Realm," policy paper written for Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mid-1996, under the auspices of
an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and
Political Studies. Authors included Richard Perle, Douglas Feith,
and David Wurmser, now all policymakers in or policy advisers
to the Bush administration
"Iraq's future will profoundly affect
the strategic balance in the Middle East. The battle to dominate
and define Iraq is, by extension, the battle to dominate the
balance of power in the Levant over the long run.Iraq tried
to take over its neighbor, Kuwait, a catastrophic mistake that
has accelerated Iraq's descent into internal chaos. This chaos
has created a vacuum in an area geostrategically central, and
rich with human and natural resources. The vacuum tempts Iraq's
neighbors to intervene, especially Syria, which is also driven
to control the region.Iraq's chaos and Syria's efforts simultaneously
provide opportunities for the Jordanian monarchy. Jordan is best
suited to manage the tribal politics that will define the Levant
in the wake of failed secular-Arab nationalism.IfJordan wins,
then Syria would be isolated and surrounded by a new pro-western
Jordanian-Israeli-Iraqi-Turkish bloc.It would be prudent
for the United States and Israel to abandon the quest
for 'comprehensive peace,' including its 'land for peace' provision
with Syria, since it locks the United States into futile attempts
to prop-up local tyrants and the unnatural states underneath
them. Instead, the United States and Israel can use this
competition over Iraq to improve the regional balance of power
in favor of regional friends like Jordan."
"Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance
of Power Strategy for the Levant," policy paper written
for an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic
and Political Studies, December 1996, by David Wurmser, now a
State Department official in the Bush administration
"In the [occupied] territories,
the Arab world, and in Israel, Bush's support for Sharon
is being credited to the pro-Israel lobby, meaning Jewish money
and the Christian right.[In April 2002] state department professionals
convinced Bush that it was important to quell the violence in
the territories before assaulting Iraq. The U.S. military supported
that view, emphasizing the critical importance of the ground
bases in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for the success of the mission.
But according to a well-placed American source, the weather vane
turned.Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
and Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, asked Bush what kind of
coalition-shmoalition he needed to win the war in Afghanistan.
They calmed his concerns by saying there's no chance the situation
in the territories will shake the regimes of Mubarak in Egypt
and the Abdullahs in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.Last Saturday [April
20], the president convened his advisors in Camp David, for another
discussion of the crisis in the territories and Iraq. They decided
to sit on the fence."
Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz,
April 26, 2002
"It echoes the hawks in the Bush
administration, but Israel has its own agenda in backing a US
attack on Iraq. As Egypt and other Arab allies issue vehement
warnings to dissuade Washington, Israel's fear is that the US
will back off. 'If the Americans do not do this now,' said Israeli
Deputy Defense Minister and Labor Party member Weizman Shiry
on Wednesday, 'it will be harder to do it in the future. In a
year or two, Saddam Hussein will be further along in developing
weapons of mass destruction. It is a world interest, but especially
an American interest to attack Iraq. And as deputy defense minister,
I can tell you that the United States will receive any assistance
it needs from Israel,' he added. Viewed through the eyes of Israel's
hawkish leaders, however, a US strike is not about Iraq only.
Decisionmakers believe it will strengthen Israel's hand on the
Palestinian front and throughout the region. Deputy Interior
Minister Gideon Ezra suggested this week that a US attack on
Iraq will help Israel impose a new order, sans Arafat, in the
Palestinian territories. 'The more aggressive the attack is,
the more it will help Israel against the Palestinians. The understanding
would be that what is good to do in Iraq, is also good for here,'
said Ezra. He said a US strike would 'undoubtedly deal a psychological
blow' to the Palestinians.Yuval Steinitz, a Likud party member
of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, says
he sees another advantage for Israel. The installation of a pro-American
government in Iraq would help Israel vis-a-vis another enemy:
Syria. 'After Iraq is taken by US troops and we see a new regime
installed as in Afghanistan, and Iraqi bases become American
bases, it will be very easy to pressure Syria to stop supporting
terrorist organizations like Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, to
allow the Lebanese army to dismantle Hizbullah, and maybe to
put an end to the Syrian occupation in Lebanon,' he says. 'If
this happens we will really see a new Middle East. It might be
enough not to invade Syria but just to have an American or UN
blockade so that no one can ship weapons to it,' Steinitz adds.Mr.
Ezra predicts a US strike would 'calm down the entire region'
by eliminating 'the extremism of Saddam.'"
Ben Lynfield, Christian Science Monitor,
August 30, 2002
"As the Bush administration debates
going to war against Iraq, its most hawkish members are pushing
a sweeping vision for the Middle East that sees the overthrow
of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as merely a first step in
the region's transformation. The argument for reshaping the political
landscape in the Mideast has been pushed for years by some Washington
think tanks and in hawkish circles. It is now being considered
as a possible US policy with the ascent of key hard-liners in
the administration, from Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith in
the Pentagon to John Hannah and Lewis Libby on the vice president's
staff and John Bolton in the State Department, analysts and officials
say. Iraq, the hawks argue, is just the first piece of the puzzle.
After an ouster of Hussein, they say, the United States will
have more leverage to act against Syria and Iran, will be in
a better position to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
and will be able to rely less on Saudi oil. The thinking does
not represent official US policy. But increasingly the argument
has served as a justification for a military attack against Iraq,
and elements of the strategy have emerged in speeches by administration
officials, most prominently Vice President Dick Cheney.A powerful
corollary of the strategy is that a pro-US Iraq would make
the region safer for Israel and, indeed, its staunchest proponents
are ardent supporters of the Israeli right-wing. Administration
officials, meanwhile, have increasingly argued that the onset
of an Iraq allied to the US would give the administration more
sway in bringing about a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, though Cheney and others have offered few details on
precisely how.In its broadest terms, the advocates argue that
a democratic Iraq would unleash similar change elsewhere in the
Arab world.'Everyone will flip out, starting with the Saudis,'
said Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Center for Middle East Policy
at the Hudson Institute in Washington [and another author of
the 1996 policy paper written for Israel, above]. 'It will send
shock waves throughout the Arab world. Look, we already are pushing
for democracy in the Palestinian Authority, though not with a
huge amount of success, and we need a little bit more of a heavy-handed
approach,' she said. 'But if we can get a democracy in the Palestinian
Authority, democracy in Iraq, get the Egyptians to improve their
human rights and open up their system, it will be a spectacular
change. After a war with Iraq, then you really shape the region.'"
John Donnelly and Anthony Shadid, Boston
Globe, September 10, 2002
"Slowly, President Bush's war plan
against Iraq is emerging from the thick fog. At first it looked
like a collection of hazy slogans, but gradually it is becoming
clear that it has definite, if hidden, aims.The war plan of the
Bushies makes sense only if the US leadership is ready (more
than that, is actually longing) for the occupation of Iraq in
order to remain there for many, many years.But in the eyes of
Bush and his advisers, this is a very worthwhile investment that
would yield immense benefits. Among others:
*The main objective of the American economy
(and therefore of American policy) is the oil of the Caspian
Sea.
*The existence of a secure American base
in the heart of the Arab world will also enable Washington to
bully all the Arab regimes, lest they stray from the straight
and narrow.
*The new situation will destroy the last
remnants of Arab independence. Even today, almost all the Arab
countries are dependent on America.
A massive American physical presence
in their midst will put an end to any pretense of Arab power
and unity.A grandiose, world-embracing, yet simple and logical
design. What does it remind me of?In the early 80's, I heard
about several plans like this from Ariel Sharon (which I published
at the time). His head was full of grand designs for restructuring
the Middle East, the creation of an Israeli 'security zone' from
Pakistan to Central Africa, the overthrow of regimes and installing
others in their stead, moving a whole people (the Palestinians)
and so forth. I can't help it, but the winds blowing now in Washington
remind me of Sharon. I have absolutely no proof that the Bushies
got their ideas from him, even if all of them seem to have been
mesmerized by him. But the style is the same, a mixture of megalomania,
creativity, arrogance, ignorance and superficiality. An explosive
mixture. Sharon's grand design floundered, as we know. The bold
flights of imagination and the superficial logic did not help;
-Sharon simply did not understand the real currents of history.
I fear that the band of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Wolfowitz,
Perle and all the other little Sharons are suffering from
the same syndrome.Sharon may believe that he will be the big
winner of such an American move, though history may show that
he brought a historical disaster on us. He may succeed in exploiting
the ensuing anarchy in order to drive the Palestinians out of
the country. But within a few years Israel could find itself
surrounded by a new Middle EastA region full of hatred, dreaming
of revenge, driven by religious and nationalist fanaticism. And
in the end, the Americans will go home. We will be left here
alone. But people like Bush and Sharon do not march to the beat
of history. They are listening to a different drummer."
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, CounterPunch.org,
September 10, 2002
"Ever since the Bush administration
ordered the CIA to nurture the exiled Iraqis, nothing happens
to them by accident. [Jordanian] Prince Hassan didn't just happen
to drop in [on a meeting of Iraqi exiles in London] because he
was in town. The Hashemite dynasty has never given up its dream
to revive the Iraqi throne. It could be a great job for Hassan,
whose older brother [the late King Hussein] denied him the Jordanian
kingdom at the last minute. It's true that restoring a monarchy
in Iraq does not exactly fit the Bush administration's vision
of a democratic Middle East. But there are signs that it fits
some old dreams of a few of the key strategists around the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld
triangle running America's Iraq policy. A few weeks ago, Richard
Perle invited the Pentagon chiefs to a meeting with researchers
from a Washington think tank.According to information that reached
a former top official in the Israeli security services, the researchers
showed two slides to the Pentagon officials. The first was a
depiction of the three goals in the war on terror and the democratization
of the Middle East: Iraq, a tactical goal; Saudi Arabia, a strategic
goal; and Egypt, the great prize. The triangle in the next slide
was no less interesting: Palestine is Israel, Jordan is Palestine,
and Iraq is the Hashemite Kingdom."
Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz,
October 1, 2002
"The summer of 1993 saw the emergence
of two contradictory paths concerning Israel and its place in
the Middle East. The signing of the Oslo agreement raised hopes
for Israel's integration into a web of political, security and
economic cooperation with its Arab neighbors. At the same time,
Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington published his essay, 'The Clash
of Civilizations,' in which he argued that the conflicts around
the world would no longer be over ideology, but over culture
instead. 'Islam has bloody borders,' Huntington wrote, counting
Israel as a 'Western creation' on the fault lines of the conflict,
along with Kashmir and Bosnia. The idea was accepted enthusiastically
by the Israeli right wing. It also had some supporters on the
left, most noticeably Ehud Barak, who described Israel as a Western
fortress in the region, 'a villa in the jungle.' As of now, it
appears that the argument was settled in favor of the clash of
civilizations theory, which has taken over the political and
security establishment in Israel.The appeal of the clash of civilizations
theory is also expressed in the Israeli enthusiasm for the expected
American assault on Iraq, in the hope of showing the Arabs who's
the boss in the region. Israel is the only country to absolutely
support the American decision, and has urged it to act, and quickly.The
tangible result of the change in consciousness has been deepening
Israel's dependence on American defense and economic support.
Sharon led that policy. The same Sharon says there are no free
lunches in policy and is now begging for aid from Washington,
trying to point the American cannon in the direction of its next
target after Iraq."
Israeli correspondent Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz,
November 14, 2002
"The embrace of U.S. President George
W. Bush is Ariel Sharon's chief asset as he vies for another
term of office as prime minister. Sharon is finding it hard to
show any achievements during his 20 months in power.The only
card left in his hand is the diplomatic card, as personified
by Israel's good relations with the White House, and all of Sharon's
campaign revolves around it. Sharon and his cronies are now asking
the voters for an extended period of grace, and are promising
that next year will be the year that counts. All of their hopes
and expectations are pointed toward Washington: an American
attack on Iraq is seen as the lever which can extricate Israel
from its economic, security and social quagmire. It is hoped
that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power will set in motion
a 'domino effect,' will end the Palestinian Intifada, bring about
the end of Yasser Arafat's regime and eradicate the threat to
Israel from Iran, Syria and Hezbollah."
Israeli correspondent Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz,
November 18, 2002
"To understand the genesis of this
extraordinary [US global] ambition, it is also necessary to grasp
the moral, cultural and intellectual world of American nationalism
in which it has taken shape. This nationalism existed long before
last September, but it has been inflamed by those attacks and,
equally dangerously, it has become even more entwined with
the nationalism of the Israeli Right.The banal propaganda
portrayal of Saddam as a crazed and suicidal dictator plays well
on the American street, but I don't believe that it is a view
shared by the Administration. Rather, their intention is partly
to retain an absolute certainty of being able to defend the Gulf
against an Iraqi attack, but, more important, to retain for
the US and Israel a free hand for intervention in the Middle
East as a whole. From the point of view of Israel, the Israeli
lobby and their representatives in the Administration, the apparent
benefits of such a free hand are clear enough. For the group
around Cheney, the single most important consideration is guaranteed
and unrestricted access to cheap oil, controlled as far as possible
at its source. [A]s alternative technologies develop, they could
become a real threat to the oil lobby, which, like the Israeli
lobby, is deeply intertwined with the Bush Administration. War
with Iraq can therefore be seen as a satisfactory outcome for
both lobbies.[W]hat the Administration hopes is that by crushing
another middle-sized state at minimal military cost, all the
other states in the Muslim world will be terrified into full
co-operation in tracking down and handing over suspected terrorists,
and into forsaking the Palestinian cause.The idea, in other words,
is to scare these states not only into helping with the hunt
for al-Qaida, but into capitulating to the US and, more important,
Israeli agendas in the Middle East.'The road to Middle East
peace lies through Baghdad' is a line that's peddled by the Bush
Administration and the Israeli lobby. It is just possible that
some members of the Administration really believe that by destroying
Israel's most powerful remaining enemy they will gain such credit
with Israelis and the Israeli lobby that they will be able to
press compromises on Israel. But this is certainly not what public
statements by members of the Administration, let alone those
of its Likud allies in Israel, suggest.It's far more probable,
therefore, that most members of the Bush and Sharon Administrations
hope that the crushing of Iraq will so demoralise the Palestinians,
and so reduce wider Arab support for them, that it will be possible
to force them to accept a Bantustan settlement bearing no resemblance
to independent statehood.From the point of view of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, war with Iraq also has some of the character of a Flucht
nach vorn, an 'escape forwards,' on the part of the US Administration.
On the one hand, it has become clear that the conflict is integrally
linked to everything else that happens in the Middle East, and
therefore cannot simply be ignored, as the Bush Administration
tried to do during its first year in office. On the other hand,
even those members of the American political elite who have some
understanding of the situation and a concern for justice are
terrified of confronting Israel and the Israeli lobby in the
ways which would be necessary to bring any chance of peace. When
the US demands 'democracy' in the Palestinian territories before
it will re-engage in the peace process it is in part, and fairly
cynically, trying to get out of this trap."
Anatol Lieven, Senior Associate at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, London Review
of Books, December 2002
"If you want to know what the administration
has in mind for Iraq, here's a hint: It has less to do with weapons
of mass destruction than with implementing an ambitious U.S.
vision to redraw the map of the Middle East. The new map would
be drawn with an eye to two main objectives: controlling the
flow of oil and ensuring Israel's continued regional military
superiority.[Patrick] Clawson [a policy analyst with the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy], whose institute enjoys
close ties with the Bush administration, wascandid during a Capitol
Hill forum on a post-Hussein Iraq in 1999: 'U.S. oil companies
would have an opportunity to make significant profits,' he said.
'We should not be embarrassed about the commercial advantages
that would come from a re-integration of Iraq into the world
economy.'...But taking over Iraq and remaking the global oil
market is not necessarily the endgame. The next steps, favored
by hard-liners determined to elevate Israeli security above
all other U.S. foreign policy goals, would be to destroy
any remaining perceived threat to the Jewish state: namely, the
regimes in Syria and Iran.In 1998, [David] Wurmser, now in the
State Department, told the Jewish newspaper Forward that
if [Iraqi opposition leader] Ahmad Chalabi were in power and
extended a no-fly, no-drive zone in northern Iraq, it would provide
the crucial piece for an anti-Syria, anti-Iran bloc. 'It puts
Scuds out of the range of Israel and provides the geographic
beachhead between Turkey, Jordan and Israel,' he said. 'This
should anchor the Middle East pro-Western coalition.' [Richard]
Perle, in the same 1998 article, told Forward that a
coalition of pro-Israeli groups was 'at the forefront with
the legislation with regard to Iran. One can only speculate what
it might accomplish if it decided to focus its attention on Saddam
Hussein.'Now, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has joined
the call against Tehran, arguing in a November interview with
the Times of London that the U.S. should shift its focus
to Iran 'the day after' the Iraq war ends.[T]he hard-liners in
and around the administration seem to know in their hearts that
the battle to carve up the Middle East would not be won without
the blood of Americans and their allies. 'One can only hope that
we turn the region into a caldron, and faster, please,' [Michael]
Ledeen preached to the choir at National Review Online last August.
'That's our mission in the war against terror.'"
UC Berkeley journalism professor Sandy
Tolan, Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2002
"The immediate and laudatory purpose
of a United States military campaign against Iraq is to stamp
out the regime of Saddam Hussein, the world's most psychopathic
ruler, and to strike a blow against terrorism and the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction. As such this is a welcome
move from Israel's standpoint, whatever the consequences.[T]he
American planners, who display considerable disdain for most
of the Muslim and Arab worlds, seem to think that the forcible
removal of Saddam's evil regime and the consequent implantation
of an American military presence in the wild Middle East will
project a civilizing or liberating influence. They are not alone;
not a few progressive Arab thinkers (and many Israelis) appear
to welcome this American deus ex machina into the region."
Israeli military/political analyst, Yossi
Alpher, bitterlemons.org, December 23, 2002
"I thinkthat the conquest of Iraq
will really create a New Middle East. Put differently: the Middle
East will enter a new age. For the time being this will happen
without us, as long as there's no Palestinian solution. Many
peoples in the region are ruled by frightened dictators who have
to decide whom to fear more, the terrorists or the war against
terrorism. Asad fears for his legitimacy due to the war against
terrorism. Arafat can also lose his legitimacy. The Saudis gave
money for terrorism due to fear. No terrorist-sponsoring country
is democratic.In those countries [that support terrorism] there
will be revolutions. Television will play a role like in the
collapse of the Iron Curtain. This will happen with the Palestinians,
too. The Arab world is ripe for internal revolution like the
USSR and China in the past decade."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon
Peres, bitterlemons.org,
December 23, 2002
"Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of
Nebraska, having just returned from a week-long fact-finding
trip to the Middle East, addressed the Chicago Council of Foreign
Relations Dec. 16 and said out loud what is whispered on Capitol
Hill: 'The road to Arab-Israeli peace will not likely go through
Baghdad, as some may claim.' The 'some' are led by Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon. In private conversation with Hagel and
many other members of Congress, the former general leaves
no doubt that the greatest U.S. assistance to Israel would be
to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. That view is
widely shared inside the Bush administration, and is a major
reason why U.S. forces today are assembling for war.As the
US gets ready for war, its standing in Islam, even among longtime
allies, stands low. Yet, the Bush administration has tied itself
firmly to Gen. Sharon and his policies.In private conversation,
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has insisted that
Hezbollah, not al Qaeda, is the world's most dangerous terrorist
organization. How could that be, considering al Qaeda's global
record of mass carnage? In truth, Hezbollah is the world's most
dangerous terrorist organization from Israel's standpoint. While
viciously anti-American in rhetoric, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah
is focused on the destruction of Israel.Thus, Rice's comments
suggest that the U.S. war against terrorism, accused of being
Iraq-centric, actually is Israel-centric. That ties George
W. Bush to Arik Sharon.What is widely perceived as an indissoluble
Bush-Sharon bond creates tension throughout Islam.On balance,
war with Iraq may not be inevitable but is highly probable. That
it looks like Sharon's war disturbs Americans such as
Chuck Hagel, who have no use for Saddam Hussein but worry about
the background of an attack against him."
Robert Novak, Washington Post,
December 26, 2002
"With a scandal chipping away at
his government, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon changed the subject
to Iraq this week and found his country eager to listen.Mr. Sharon's
remarksseemed to strike a chord with Israeli voters, who are
concerned about an Iraqi attack and still traumatized by the
events of 1991, when 39 Iraqi missiles landed in the country.To
some Israeli commentators, the week's events highlighted the
lingering effects of the first war with Iraq, and how Mr. Sharon,
an incumbent prime minister with an unmatched reputation for
toughness, is the likely beneficiary of any debate over a second
one. 'What happened in 1991 is an unfinished chapter,' said Asher
Arian, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem.
'The Israeli public feels it has a score to settle. When
Sharon talks about Iraq, it has enormous resonance.'Part of the
explanation for the positive reception of Mr. Sharon is the genuine
fear that many Israelis harbor of an Iraqi attack.The other factor,
commentators here say, is the looming memory of the Persian Gulf
war of 1991. For Israelis, proud of their military successes
over the years, that war was a different experience. At American
insistence, they endured Iraqi missile attacks without fighting
back. 'The gulf war was the first time in Israel's history where
people had to hide and run way,' said Itzhak Galnoor, former
commissioner of the Israeli civil service. 'For Israelis to be
helpless, that was very traumatic.'"
Dexter Filkins, New York Times,
December 29, 2002
Authors' note: Given the prevailing atmosphere
in the United States for debate on Israel, the frequency with
which critics of Israel are accused of malicious ethnic motives,
and the widespread skittishness about associating Israel or American
Jews with war planning against Iraq, the following items are
of particular interest. The first of these items reports a clear
Jewish effort to suppress any evidence of Jewish support for
war. The second is evidence, from a non-Jewish perspective, of
the effect of the silence imposed on critics of Israel.
"A group of U.S. political consultants
has sent pro-Israel leaders a memo urging them to keep quiet
while the Bush administration pursues a possible war with Iraq.
The six-page memo was sent by the Israel Project, a group funded
by American Jewish organizations and individual donors. Its authors
said the main audience was American Jewish leaders, but much
of the memo's language is directed toward Israelis.The memo reflects
a concern that involvement by Israel in a U.S.-Iraq confrontation
could hurt Israel's standing in American public opinion and undermine
international support for a hard line against Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein. 'Let American politicians fight it out on the
floor of Congress and in the media,' the memo said. 'Let the
nations of the world argue in front of the UN. Your silence allows
everyone to focus on Iraq rather than Israel.'An Israeli diplomat
in Washington said the Israeli government did not request or
fund the efforts of the Israel Project and that Israeli leaders
were unlikely to follow all the advice. 'These are professional
public relations people,' the diplomat said. 'There's also a
political-diplomatic side.' The Iraq memo was issued in the past
few weeks and labeled 'confidential property of the Israel Project,'
which is led by Democratic consultant Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
with help from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican
pollsters Neil Newhouse and Frank Luntz. Several of the consultants
have advised Israeli politicians, and the group aired a pro-Israel
ad earlier this year. 'If your goal is regime change, you must
be much more careful with your language because of the potential
backlash,' said the memo, titled 'Talking About Iraq.' It added:
'You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq
is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.'
In particular, the memo urged Israelis to pipe down about the
possibility of Israel responding to an Iraqi attack. 'Such certainty
may be Israeli policy, but asserting it publicly and so overtly
will not sit well with a majority of Americans because it suggests
a pre-determined outcome rather than a measured approach,' it
said."
Dana Milbank, Washington Post,
November 27, 2002
"[We need to] demystify the question
of why we have become unable to discuss our relationship with
the current government of Israel. Whether the actions taken by
that government constitute self-defense or a particularly inclusive
form of self-immolation remains an open question. The question
of course has a history.This open question, and its history,
are discussed rationally and with considerable intellectual subtlety
in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.Where the question is not discussed
rationally, where in fact the question is rarely discussed at
all, since so few of us are willing to see our evenings turn
toxic, is in New York and Washington and in those academic venues
where the attitudes and apprehensions of New York and Washington
have taken hold. The president of Harvard recently warned that
criticisms of the current government of Israel could be construed
as 'anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.' The very
question of the US relationship with Israel, in other words,
has come to be seenas unraisable, potentially lethal, the conversational
equivalent of an unclaimed bag on a bus. We take cover. We wait
for the entire subject to be defused, safely insulated behind
baffles of invective and counterinvective. Many opinions are
expressed. Few are allowed to develop. Even fewer change."
Joan Didion, New York Review of Books,
January 16, 2003
Kathleen Christison worked for 16 years as a political analyst with
the CIA, dealing first with Vietnam and then with the Middle
East for her last seven years with the Agency before resigning
in 1979. Since leaving the CIA, she has been a free-lance writer,
dealing primarily with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her
book, "Perceptions
of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy,"
was published by the University of California Press and reissued
in paperback with an update in October 2001. A second book, "The
Wound of Dispossession: Telling the Palestinian Story,"
was published in March 2002.
Bill Christison
joined the CIA in 1950, and served on the analysis side of the
Agency for 28 years. From the early 1970s he served as National
Intelligence Officer (principal adviser to the Director of Central
Intelligence on certain areas) for, at various times, Southeast
Asia, South Asia and Africa. Before he retired in 1979 he was
Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis,
a 250-person unit. They can be reached at: christison@counterpunch.org
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January 18
/ 19, 2003
William Hughes
Rockin'
DC
100,000 Plus for Peace
Wayne Madsen
Deceptions
& Illusions
How the Press Downplayed the Protests
Alexander Cockburn
American Journal
Paranoid? North Korea?
Kevin Gray
Born
Again
Can MLK's Legacy Be Reclaimed from Its Abusers?
Edward Said
An Unacceptable Helplessness
Saul Landau
Mt.
Whitney Towers Above Death Valley
Eric Ruder
Death Row Shut Down
How Victory Was Won
Anthony Gancarski
Is
the Vatican Part of the Axis of Evil?
Ray Hanania
Likud and Hamas: the Ties that Bind
Walt Brasch
Bush Dances with the Supremes
Carol Norris
Rumsfeld's Paradigm Shift
No Evidence is Evidence
Adam Engel
The Armageddon Jamboree
Anis Shivani
Is It Time to Move to Canada?
Krieger, Smith
Carson
Poets' Basement
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|