April 15, 2006
Three
years ago an Israeli Army bulldozer – manufactured and financed by the
US – drove over and killed Rachel Corrie. The 23-year-old student from
Washington State was in Palestine trying to protect defenceless
Palestinians from Israel’s daily terror. Rachel’s horrifying death was
deliberately covered-up and her name smeared in order to "protect
Israel’s interests". Why is the U.S. sacrifice so much for so little?
Since
its creation on Palestinian land, Israel has received massive
financial, military and political aid from the U.S. to facilitate
Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people and expansionist
policy. In 1948, Israeli Jews have ethnically cleansed more than
800,000 Palestinian (75 per cent of the population) from their land and
massacred tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children. Again,
in 1967 Israel used the same process of systematic ethnic cleansing to
expel more than 500,000 Palestinians from their land in the West Bank.
Israel is devoid of any moral superiority.
In
Palestine, Israel’s brutal policies involve permanent injuries to
individuals, sadistic torture, rapes and deliberate executions of
innocent Palestinians, including school children and political leaders.
Today, more than 4 million Palestinians live on less than 20 percent of
what was once the British Mandate of Palestine. They are pushed into
disconnected ghettoes control and denied freedom of movement by the
Israeli Occupation Force (IOF). Gaza is a large prison with more than
1.2 million impoverished and hungry Palestinians. According to the
World Bank, Gaza is experiencing the worst depression in history caused
by Israeli blockade and restrictions. More than 10,000 Palestinians are
illegally imprisoned in Israeli-run prisons without charge. Another 4-6
million Palestinians are languishing in refugee camps in Syria, Jordan
and Lebanon unable to return to their homeland. The aim is to
fractionate and exterminate the Palestinian community while the rest of
the world looking the other way.
Israeli
revisionist historian Benny Morris, who advocated the expulsion of all
Palestinians from Palestine because he thinks Palestinians are
Untermenschen or "lesser humans" than Jews has admitted (recently) that
Israel "founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and
treachery, beating and torture chambers and daily intimidation,
humiliation and manipulation" together with the stealing of Palestinian
land and water resources. The situation has not changed since. Israel
continues the dispossession and the systematic process of ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian people with unquestionable support of the
US administrations.
A
study by John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the
University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, Professor of International
Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, accurately
detailed the hidden fist of the pro-Israel America’s pro-Israel Jewish
Lobby ('the Lobby’) behind US unquestioned support for Israel’s terror
against the Palestinian people. In the March 2006 issue of the Faculty Research Working Papers Series of Harvard University. [1] The authors write:
Since
the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of
support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest
annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976,
and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune
of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3
billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the
foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This
largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy
industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of
South Korea or Spain.
Compare this with what Americans received in Katrina devastated New Orleans.
"Most
recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all
of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of
its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only
recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which
makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for
purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West
Bank", write Mearsheimer and Walt. "Moreover, the US has provided
Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it
access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16
jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to
its NATO allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of
nuclear weapons", add the authors. Furthermore, the US provides Israel
with strong political backing – even though Israel is in violations of
International Law and countless UN Resolutions –, in particular using
its veto’s power at the UN against the world community to veto any
criticism of Israel and increases the misery of the Palestinian people.
"The
combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to
spread 'democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic
opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the
rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political
history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security
and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of
another state?" question Walt and Mearsheimer.
It is alleged that US support for Israel is motivated by the following:
- Israel is "outnumbered" by the Arabs;
- Israel is the only "democracy" in a region; and
- Israel is a strategic U.S. ally and that supporting Israel is in the "interests of the American people".
However, evidence shows that the opposite is true in all cases.
Israel
is the largest military power in the region. In fact Israel is the
fourth largest army in the world. Its modern army in financed and
backed by the US and Western allies with more than 200 nuclear warheads
aimed at defenceless neighbours. It is not a true Israel is only
outnumbered by defenceless peoples. The Arabs armies are not for
defence purposes, but to protect US stooges from the Arab masses and
Arabs nationalism. Israel has regularly attacked and invaded
neighbouring countries. In addition to its occupation of Palestinian
land, Israel is still occupying the Golan Height in Syria, and south
Lebanon. Israel continues to kill and wounding Palestinians in ratio of
four or five to one. And in recent time, Israel has threatened to bomb
Iran.
Israel
is not a "democracy". Israel defines itself as a "Jewish state". It is
not a state for all its citizens. According to a recent report
published in the Guardian and substantiated by Gideon Levi of Ha’aretz, Israel is one racist state reminiscent to Apartheid South Africa. [2]
It discriminates not only against native Palestinians and 'Israeli
Arabs’ but also against non-Jews. Even Jews are treated and
categorised according to their origin. Furthermore, Israel is in
violations of international law and the UN Charter in its brutal
treatments of the Palestinian people.
Furthermore,
Israel is not a "strategic" US asset. The US has far more reliable
vassals in the region than Israel. Saudi Arabia, like other big US
military bases in the Gulf, is a vital US ally in the war on Iraq and
Afghanistan. A large sector of the US economy depends on good relation
with Saudi Arabia. Turkey is another more important US ally than
Israel. The reality is that the unquestioned U.S. support for Israel is
against Americans’ interests, and that Israel has succeeded in making
America one of the most feared and hated countries in the world.
Time
has shown that the behaviour of the US administrations and Israel – in
rejecting countless peaceful proposals to end the conflict – have been
consistent in creating and encouraging long-lasting conflict and
political stalemate in the region. U.S. leaders have always put
Israel’s interests above all other more vital US interests, and
vehemently refused to reconcile US interests in the Arab World with its
interest in preserving Israel’s interest. This imperialist agenda of
conflict and stalemate is designed to:
- advance Israel's Zionist ideology;
- benefit US oil corporations from moderately high oil prices and;
- provide market for US weapon industries.
However,
support for Israel – pushed by the pro-Israel America’s Lobby in the US
– takes precedence over other US interests in the Middle Eats. Because
the Lobby "claims are about advancing US interests and its support for
Israel is contextualised in its support for the overall US strategy in
the Middle East".
The
influence of the pro-Israel Lobby, a collection of individuals and
organisation led among others by Zionist organisations such as the
powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs (JINSA), the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
Organisations (CPMJO), and the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP) is formidable. With massive amounts of money collected
from donations, the influence of these organisations in Congress and
over US foreign policy is far-reaching. It is common among elites
American Liberals that Capitol Hill is the fourth "Israeli Occupied
Territory", after the Syrian Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza.
Without
a doubt, "[t]he thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost
entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the
'Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew
foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what
the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing
Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country – in this
case, Israel – are essentially identical," argue the authors of the
study. In coalition with the American religious right from the
Republican Party to the evangelical Christian groups, AIPAC with about
100,000 wealthy members form a single ethnic group wields a formidable
force in US politics.
The
study by professors Walt and Mearsheimer reveals that; "AIPAC’s success
is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional
candidates who support its agenda, and punish those who challenge it.
We can recall in this regard the attack waged in 1984 on Senator
Charles Percy, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations
Committee by Thomas Dine, head of AIPAC: All the Jews in America, from
coast to coast, gathered to oust [Senator Charles] Percy [of Illinois.
Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee] and the American
politicians – who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got
the message". [3]
Money
is critical to US elections (as the recent scandal over lobbyist Jack
Abramoff’s various shady dealings remind us) and AIPAC makes sure that
its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel
political action committees. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the
other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions
to their political opponents. AIPAC also organizes letter-writing
campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel
candidates". In 1982, AIPAC led a very successful campaign to defeat
Paul Findley, of Springfield, Illinois. Findley was a
congressman known for his sympathetic views toward the Palestinian
people. In other words, follow the Lobby’s line of unconditionally
supporting Israel’s terror, or else.
To
have her ambition for the presidency and her way to the White House
certified by the Lobby, Hillary R. Clinton has now turned against the
Palestinian people. In her latest attack on the Palestinians, the New
York Senator defended the Apartheid Wall – condemned as illegal by the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague – which is built by
Israel on stolen Palestinian land. In fact, the ICJ’ ruling was that
the Wall and all settlements (Israeli colonies) in the West Bank, Gaza
and Jerusalem are illegal and must be removed. The ICJ ruling, like all
other world curt ruling, requires all other signatories to the ICJ
Charter to compel Israel’s compliance with the ruling. The Wall
annexes 58 per cent of the West Bank. It is designed to imprison the
Palestinians into disconnected ghettos and confiscate their land and
water resources. Yet, the Palestinians are told to 'democratise’. An
imperialist cliché designed to manipulate public opinion and increase
the suffering of the victims.
Early
this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Bush
Administration to deduct from Israel’s foreign aid assistance the
amount it spends on expansion of settlements and the Apartheid Wall.
This request is an encouraging sign of due moral principle. Most
Americans are misled by the Lobby and Israel’s propaganda that the
Apartheid Wall is just a 'security fence’. A recent report by Shin Bet
(the Israeli intelligent service) attributed the decline of attacks
against Israel and increased safety to the "the informal truce observed
by some Palestinian groups" and not to the Apartheid Wall.
Mrs. Clinton campaign donation is assured now. Mrs.
Clinton just accepted $2000 from Willie Tan, owner of a string of
clothing sweatshops in the tiny Pacific nation of Saipan. Mr. Tan was
recently ordered to pay $9 million in back wages to workers – mostly
teenage Chinese females illegally shipped into the Island from China –
after officials branded his operation a sweatshop in 1992. Mr. Tan has
links with the Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who pleaded guilty in
January to fraud, corruption and embezzlement charges.
Abramoff
who received large amount of money as a Republican lobbyist diverted
most of it ('charity donations’) to Israeli settlers living illegally
on Palestinian lands. His customers were told this money is intended
for inner city poor Americans. Instead the money bought military
hardware to help settlers terrorize native Palestinians. Among other
expenditures, building school for Israeli snipers, purchases of
camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night vision binoculars, a thermal
imager and other material described in foundation records as security
equipment. (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, 02 May 2005). Abramoff is one of
Tom Delay "closest and dearest friends". Tom DeLay is the evangelical
Christian Zionist who was indicted on money laundering and other
charges, and resigned his post as House Majority Leader. DeLay is an
advocate of Israel’s policy of deliberate killings of Palestinian
leaders. In July 2003 on a visit to Israel, DeLay told the Israeli
Knesset that: "Israel’s fight is our fight" and that "Israel should not
withdraw from the occupied Arab lands". The speech was an Armageddon of
violence and injustice orchestrated by the alliance of AIPAC and the
Christian Zionists.
In
addition, the Lobby plays an important role in the thought control of
the American public. Its most formidable weapon is the use of
anti-semitism against anyone who dares to criticise Israel’s terror
against the Palestinian people. The Lobby uses the cliché of
anti-semitism to stifle debate and remove any even-handedness criticism
of Israel. Any criticism of Israel is labelled anti-semitism and
subjected to threat and intimidation. As a result of this blackmail,
the US media – from the mainstream to the so-called "Alternative" media
– is the most biased and less informative pro-Israeli media in the
world. Even Israeli media by comparison are more even-handed than the
US media. "Because so many powerful people in the media and publishing
business are strong supporters of Israel, the task is made vastly
easier", wrote the late literary critic Edward Said.
Furthermore,
to steer young Americans in a pro-Israeli direction, the Lobby is
moving into the university and college campuses across the US – even
though the average American is unaware of "that there is a narrative of
Palestinian suffering and dispossession at least as old as Israel
itself". It instituted and created several right-wing groups to watch
and monitor any department or faculty who dares to have pro-Palestinian
opinion. Faculty members across the US are under pressure from the
Lobby to hue to Israel’s policy. It demands a total pro-Israel teaching
and brainwashing of American students regardless.
Several
universities with Middle Eastern departments have been targeted and
their faculty members were subjected to hate e-mails and intimidation.
They are also demanding Congress to reduce the appropriation for Title
VI-funded programs of the Higher Education Act, in which federal
funding provided to universities to support the study of languages such
as Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Leading the pack of these attacks on
American free thought, education and democracy is Campus Watch. It is a
pro-Israel, anti-Muslims web site founded by the Zionist and
Islamophobic, Daniel Pipes. The site is a Zionist propaganda arm of the
Israeli government. It is specialising, among others, in witch-hunts
academics and students who question the US blind support for Israel’s
terror and repression in Palestine. It is a form of terrorist
propaganda against academic freedom.
The
study of Mearsheimer and Walt concurs with several other studies and
opinions around the world that the US war on Iraq was largely to
advance Israel’s interests and has nothing to do with WMD and terrorism
– as has been proved. The study make a strong case that the Lobby and
US Zionists (the so-called 'dual loyalty’ neo-cons or cabal, including
Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, David
Wurmser, John Bolton, Michael Ruben, Dick Cheney, and Lewis 'Scooter’
Libby, who is awaiting criminal trial) in the Bush Administration
formulated the policies and made the decisions to push the US to got to
war on Iraq. "The main driving force behind the war was a small band of
neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud [Party]", write
Mearsheimer and Walt. "Given the neo-conservatives’ devotion to Israel,
their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush
administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that
the war was designed to further Israeli interests", argue the authors.
Yet, the neocons push for the war on Iraq was largely uncovered in US
media.
The
war against the Iraqi people proves to be a carbon copy of the war on
the Palestinian people. In the same way Israel is destroying Palestine,
US illegal war on Iraq has destroyed the entire nation. In addition to
the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children
slaughtered in cold blood, an unknown large number of US soldiers
killed and wounded. Why a premeditated mass murder of innocent
civilians is good for the Jewish people or the American people?
Furthermore,
the war on Iraq has cost American taxpayers massively. According to
Linda Bilmes, a Harvard University budget expert and Columbia
University’s Professor of Economics and Nobel Laureate Joseph E.
Stiglitz calculate that the war is likely to cost the American
taxpayers a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars and potentially over
$2 trillion. [4] America’s education system and the health
care services will blossom with a fraction of this money. Israel is the
only beneficiary of this criminal and illegal war, and Israel continues
to foment new war in the region.
The
current warmongering propaganda against Iran by Israel, the Lobby and
some American politicians such as Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator
Hillary R. Clinton is against the interests of the American people.
Americans should know that good relations with Iran are in the
interests of their nation. Any US attack on Iran is against the
interests of the American and Iranian peoples, and can only lead to
hostility between the West and the Muslim World. The Lobby’s push for
the war on Iraq and Israel’s involvement in the crisis of both Iraq and
Iran show that Israel is not only attacking the Palestinian people, but
Israel is also attacking every other Arab and Muslim nation deemed to
disagree with its colonial policy.
Israel
reciprocates to this generous and unquestioned support provided by
American taxpayers and the US administration by simply undermining
American security. The case of Jonathan Pollard, a Texan Jew and former
intelligence analyst in the US Navy is a case in point. Pollard was
recruited by Israel to spy on the US military and US Nuclear Deterrent
program. Israel then traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the former
Soviet Union in exchange for increased emigration quotas from there to
Israel. "A number of officials strongly suspect that the Israelis
repackaged much of Pollard's material and provided it to the Soviet
Union in exchange for continued Soviet permission for Jews to emigrate
to Israel", wrote Seymour Hersh. Former Defence Secretary, Casper
Weinberger, in his affidavit opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard,
described the damage done to the United States; "[It is] difficult to
conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by …
Pollard's treasonous behaviour".
Lawrence
A. Franklin, the former analyst at the Defence Secretary Office at the
Pentagon was recently convicted and sentenced to 12 years, and seven
months in prison after pleading guilty to three felony counts under the
Espionage Act to communicate classified information to foreign
government. Franklin passed highly
classified military information about Iran and Iraq to two pro-Israel
lobbyists (Steven Rosen, AIPAC director of foreign policy issues, and
Keith Weissman, AIPAC Iran expert) and an Israeli diplomat. As
Mearsheimer and Walt argue, AIPAC is simply "a de facto agent for a
foreign government" which enjoys tax exempt status spying on the US.
Rosen
and Weissman were charged and still waiting trial. The leaking of the
FBI investigation of AIPAC to the media on August 28th, 2004 gave
advance warning to other spies working with Franklin. Further more,
Israel’s export of technology, particularly arms technology (built with
US input), and to China is on the rise. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz
report recently that "in 2005 contracts were signed for the export of
more than $3 billion between Israeli and foreign companies". Yet the
mainstream media in the US who hyped and propagated the illegal war
against the Iraqi people remain mute about Israel’s illegal activities
in the US and the danger of the pro-Israel powerful Lobby to American
democracy.
The
arming of Israel by the US and its European allies is neither in the
interests of the Jewish people nor is in the interests of the Americans
and the Europeans. In fact, what Israel is doing in Palestine is
against the interests of the Jewish people. Anti-Jewish sentiment in
Europe and around the world is not the result of anti-Semitism – all
Arabs are 'Semites’ –, but as a result of Israel’s brutal policy
against the Palestinian people, and Israeli propaganda to foment
anti-Muslim and anti-Arabs hatred around the world. Jews and Muslims
(including Arabs) have lived in coexistence for centuries. There are an
estimated 30,000 Jews live happily in Iran. They are far better treated
than the 1.2 million Arabs living in Israel, or the 4 million
Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal Occupation.
For
the "two states" solution to achieve equitable and lasting settlement
for the peoples of the region, Israel must first withdraw from all
occupied Palestinian land – demanded by UN Resolution 1402. Second, UN
Resolution 3236 adopted in 1974 which affirmed the right of the
Palestinian to self-determination and national independence, as well as
their right to return to their homes and properties must be implemented
unconditionally. The implementation of this resolution is essential for
a just and lasting peace.
Anti-American
sentiment across the world has increased as a result of US immoral
policy of unconditionally supporting Israel’s colonial policies in
Palestine. "People do not forget the death of their fellows, they do
not forget the torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice,
they do not forget oppression, and they do not forget the terrorism of
mighty powers. They do not only don’t forget. They strike back", said
playwright and Nobel laureate, Harold Pinter. If not rectified, US
immoral policy will continue to have massive consequences for the
American people.
Mearsheimer
and Walt rightly argue that Israel is no longer a reliable ally but a
burden on the US. They write; Israel "is becoming a strategic burden
[and] does not behave like a loyal ally". Israel is now "a liability".
The US "[s]upport for Israel is not the only source of anti-American
terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on
terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders,
including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in
Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for
Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to
attract recruits", write Mearsheimer and Walt.
Having
said all this, one must be careful to blame all US crimes around the
world on the pro-Israel Lobby; it is a deliberate diversion. The US is
the most powerful country in the world. The US has far more tools for
violence than any one, and the US is not accountable to anyone, let
alone the pro-Israel Lobby. The US has enough power to force Israel to
end it’s terror against the Palestinian people. Any form of economic
sanctions by the US and its allies will force Israel to change its
behaviour and pursue peaceful settlement. The US administrations knew
all along what they were/are doing. In other words, the American
administrations are complicit in Israel crimes against the Palestinian
people. The policies of both, the US and Israel, are complementary
imperialist policies.
Before
she died for a noble cause in Palestine, Rachel Corrie accurately
observed: "I feel like what I’m witnessing here is a very systematic
destruction of people’s ability to survive, and that is incredibly
horrifying … Sometimes I’m sitting down to dinner with people, and I
just realised that there is a massive military machine surrounding them
and trying to kill these people that I’m having dinner with, these
families that I’m sitting down to eat with and who are being very
generous and kind to me, and their children here, who are incredibly
threatened, living lives that no child ever should have to live".
Rachel Corrie’s words were deliberately smeared and censored because
they humanise the Palestinian people.
It
took only one brave American citizen to stand in front of a US-made
Israeli Army bulldozer to protect not only innocent Palestinian lives
but also America’s interests. It is up to the Americans people to
choose between the path of immorality and injustice and the path of
human rights and dignity for all.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia
Endnotes:
[1] Mearsheimer, John & Walt, Stephen (2006, March). The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Faculty Research Working Papers Series. Harvard University: Boston, MA.
An edited and shorter version of this study is available on LRB.
[2] Chris McGreal (2006). Worlds Apart. The Guardian, 06 February.
[3]
Tivnan, Edward (1987). The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American
Foreign Policy. New York: Simon & Schuster, (p. 191).
[4] Bilmes, Linda & Stiglitz, Joseph (2006, January). The Economic Costs of the Iraq War. Paper presented at the ASSA annual meeting. Boston, MA.