January 1, 2002
THE HOLY LAND -
PROPAGANDA AND REALITY
With the beginning of every New Year one tends to
be filled
with hope that things will be better than in the past. The stunning and
it must
be admitted unexpected, phenomenally rapid successes of our military
forces
which resulted in the removal of the Taliban as a government raises
hopes for
future successes on the world stage. Our armed forces and their
leadership
deserve full credit and applause for a job well done. Afghanistan is in
the
process of being pacified, which may, however, still take some time
because the
various factions within the Afghani people have different ideas on how
the
country should be run. Whether or not they will continue to listen to
our well
meant advice is another question.
More troubling is, however, that America still seems to be unwilling to
realistically address one of the root causes for our War on Terrorism,
the
Middle East. The Holy Land continues to be mired in chaos and we seem
to have
hitched our wagon firmly to Prime Minister Sharon's vision of the
future.
'War Has Been Forced on Us' Sharon Says was the headline in
the Salt
Lake Tribune after a spate of suicide bombings committed by
Palestinians in
Israel. The slaughter of innocent civilians is indeed reprehensible and
measures must be taken to reduce these acts of random violence to a
minimum.
But an expectation that they can be stopped altogether, even by means
of the
most intense security measures and repression, is unrealistic and
should not be
fostered.
For me Sharon's words cited above evoked an eerie memory of the Third
Reich. Der uns aufgezwungene Krieg -
the war
which has been forced upon us - was the favorite phrase of Hitler
after the victory over France, when he made a feeble peace offer to
England
which was rebuffed, until the bitter end in 1945. The war was not
Germany's
fault it was Britain and France who had declared war on the Reich and
which led
to all the subsequent events, was the official propaganda line. That
Hitler had
started the war with his invasion of Poland and that the Western Allies
were
duty bound to stand by their guarantees, of which Hitler had been fully
aware,
the German people were supposed to have forgotten.
Any historical similarity must be viewed with caution but it does
behoove us to
look at the facts which have led Israelis and Palestinians to this
dreadful
impasse. Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor in Chief of the
prestigious U.S. News and World Report, kept repeating in a recent
editorial
that Arafat is a hate-filled terrorist who has never kept a promise in
his
life. It is he who has instigated all the Palestinian terrorist attacks
of the
past and who continues to do so now. Zuckerman wrote:
"When Arafat, ejected from Jordan and Lebanon, finally left his
stopping
place in Tunis to come to Gaza, he was essentially given a choice:
either a state
or terrorism. Perversely, Arafat said yes to terrorism and no to a
state. We
saw it again last year at Camp David. Arafat would not accept
the huge
concessions offered by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak and
endorsed by
President Clinton. If he had, a Palestinian flag would be flying today
over a
sovereign, independent, internationally recognized Palestinian state,
and there
would be no Israeli occupation."
This is not idle rhetoric but a firmly held belief by Mr. Zuckerman to
which
Americans should now subscribe or appear unpatriotic.
Let us examine dispassionately some of these statements. The most
important
aspect is that if Israel had withdrawn the occupying forces from the
areas
conquered in the Six Day War, as demanded by the Security
Council Resolution
242 of 22 November, 1967, the problems we see today could, in
all
probability, have been prevented. The Resolution, which was passed
unanimously,
demanded "Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territory
occupied in the recent conflict." Israel ignored the
Resolution.
After the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 Israel surrendered the
Sinai
Peninsula and considered its commitment in regard to Resolution 242
fulfilled
because the Resolution did not contain the words "all territory"but
only
"territory." It was actually the word "all" over which
bitter haggling had ensued and its omission prevented an American veto
of the
Resolution. That the right wing of the Israeli public, most prominently
represented by Likud under Prime Ministers
Begin,
Shamir, Netanyahu und now Sharon,
had absolutely no interest to withdraw from the West Bank and
Gaza
is exemplified by the party's manifesto for the 1977
election as cited in The Iron Wall by Avi
Shlaim
"The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel is eternal, and
an
integral part of its right to security and peace. Judea and
Samaria
[the occupied West Bank] shall therefore not be
relinquished
to foreign rule; between the sea and the Jordan, there will be
Jewish
sovereignty alone. Any plan that involves parts of Western
Eretz Israel
militates against our right to the Land, would inevitably lead to the
establishment of a 'Palestinian State,' threaten the security of the
civilian
population, endanger the existence of the State of Israel, and defeat
all prospects
of peace."
The goal was to create a "Greater Israel" which was
not limited to the armistice frontiers after the 1948 wars. The term
"Western" Eretz Israel is, therefore, potentially highly meaningful. Revisionist
Zionism, of which Likud is the offspring, always
wanted to
incorporate areas to the east of the Jordan River into the Jewish state.
Although further military expansion into Jordan was unrealistic in 1977
the
hope to ultimately bring this dream to fruition, has not yet died. In
the
meantime the territories conquered in 1967 were to be colonized with
Jewish
settlements. To attract settlers state subsidized housing would be
provided at
substantially reduced rates. Palestinian land would be expropriated and
the
civil rights of the Palestinian population in these areas were not
regarded as
worthy of attention. The aim was to create facts on the ground,
including in
East Jerusalem, which would mute any question of withdrawal.
Palestinians who
objected by violent means were jailed or expelled and the rest of the
people
had to submit to military rule. The consequences of this policy were,
of
course, utterly predictable. Yeshahayu Leibowitz (Judaism,
Human Values and the Jewish State) stated in an article, published
in 1988
and entitled Forty Years After:
"What many call 'the undivided Land of Israel' is not, and can never
be,
the state of the Jewish people, but only a Jewish regime of force. The state
of Israel today is neither a democracy nor a state abiding by the rule
of law,
since it rules over a million and a half people deprived of civil and
political
rights. That a subjugated people would fight for its freedom against
the
conquering ruler, with all the means at its disposal, without being
squeamish
about their legitimacy, was only to be expected...We call the acts of
the
Palestinians 'terrorism' and their fighters 'terrorists.' But we are
able to
maintain our rule over the rebellious people only by actions regarded
the world
over as criminal. We refer to this as 'policy' rather than 'terror'
because it
is conducted by a duly constituted government and its regular army."
Leibowitz called for a voluntary withdrawal of the occupation forces
but
"the conscience of Israel," as he was referred to, was ignored. So
were numerous UN resolutions which condemned the continued occupation
and the settlements
on occupied territory as being illegal under the Fourth Geneva
Convention which regulates the rights and obligations of an
occupying
power. Israel felt free to disregard the Convention because in the
views of its
leadership there is no occupation of conquered land. All of it is Eretz
Israel,
and whoever does not like it is simply wrong. The treatment of the
Palestinian
population is Israel's internal affair. The fact that this view is not
grounded
in international law but simply in a biblical interpretation and
therefore a
religious one is not being conceded.
When one reads Shlaim's book, as well as the one by Benny
Morris
which was mentioned in the December installment, it is absolutely
amazing how the
American public has been misled about the real facts. Was it
really
only Arafat who had deliberately sabotaged the Oslo peace process, as
Mr.
Zuckerman and a great many others insist on? The answer is: No!
Right-wing
Israeli politicians among them Benjamin Netanyahu have
been firmly
opposed to the Oslo Accord. Shlaim headed a
sub-chapter of his book with "Declaration of War on the Peace
Process." In it he lists the basic guidelines of the
government
as outlined by Prime Minister Netanyahu in his inaugural
speech to the Knesset in 1996. To quote from Shlaim's
book:
"Those who expected the Likud leader, once elected, to start blunting
the
edges of his opposition to the peace process, found no comfort in this
document. The guidelines were those of an ethnocentric
religious-nationalist government. The chapter on education
promised to
cultivate Jewish values and to put the Bible, the Hebrew language, and
the
history of the Jewish people at the center of the school curriculum.
The
foreign policy guidelines expressed firm opposition to a
Palestinian
state, to the Palestinian right of return, and to the
dismantling of Jewish settlements. They reserved the right to
use the
Israeli security forces against terrorist threats in the areas under
Palestinian self-rule. They called on Syria to resume peace talks
without
preconditions but at the same time ruled out any retreat from Israeli
sovereignty on the Golan Heights. The assertion of Israel sovereignty
over the
whole of Jerusalem was explicit and exhaustive. So was the commitment
to continue developing settlements as 'an expression of
Zionist
fulfillment'. And for good or bad measure, the guidelines made no
explicit reference to Oslo or Cairo agreements."
Is Mr. Zuckerman and those who write similar articles, merely unaware
of
history or does the rule: "I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with
facts!" hold? Another aspect of Netanyahu's speech is
noteworthy: "His call on Syria for talks without preconditions [while
having made a precondition himself] was widely seen as an attempt to
dissociate
himself from the verbal promises made by his predecessors. But there
was also
an implied warning that Israel would act not only against
terrorists
but against the sponsors of terror [emphasis added]." What was
implied in 1996 in Israel has become official policy of the
United
States in 2001. President Bush may now remove any government
we do not
like, either by bombing a given country into submission or by fomenting
internal upheavals. That this merely smacks of American Imperialism
dressed up
in humanitarian language ought to be obvious to any unbiased observer
of the
international scene.
Let me re-emphasize that I have never had any sympathy for the Taliban
and
Osama bin Laden's followers. I also have deep compassion for the
victims of the
September 11 attack and want to prevent future disasters of this type.
But if
we merely seek justice for the victims and the prevention of future
attacks we
do not have to antagonize a great many other countries. We
should rely
on Interpol as well as coordination of the various government security
agencies
around the world instead of massive bombing. The fact that
bombing
worked in Afghanistan, is no guarantee that it will do so in other
circumstances. If the Bush administration persists in the belief that
all
governments who have harbored terrorists need to be eliminated we have
a
massive job ahead. We will not only have to install a new regime in
Baghdad but
also in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lybia, Iran, Pakistan,
North
Korea, China and various other places around the globe, while we
condone and
support at the same time a repressive government in Israel. Under these
circumstances there will be nothing but war, human suffering, and
further
hatred of American policies.
An objective observer must admit that the Israelis and
their
supporters in the United States have done a superb propaganda
job
while the Arab-Palestinian side has shown a great
deal
of incompetence. This brings me to the oft repeated statement
that Arafat
had walked away from the 2000 Camp David peace plan
and chosen
terrorism instead. At no time have our government, the Israelis, or the
Palestinians published a transcript of the sessions and what the
conditions
were that Arafat was supposed to have accepted. What type of
state
should he have signed on to? Was it truly independent
and
contiguous or was it supposed to have been a
group of
isolated cantons where the access is
patrolled by
Israelis and water as well as power supplies are in Israeli hands? We
have not been shown these documents and, therefore, simply don't know.
The Palestinians
are being chided for not having presented a peace plan
of
their own. Theirs is actually rather simple. It says to Israel: obey
the Security Council Resolutions, dismantle the settlements on the West
Bank
and Gaza, withdraw your armed forces to
the
pre-June 1967 borders and allow refugees to return.
Since Israel is unwilling to do this the blame for the breakdown of
talks has
to be shifted onto the opponent. One cannot fault the Jews for this
strategy
because it works, but American citizens who morally
and
financially support Israel's policies should be given the facts.
There does not seem to be any reason why the minutes of the Camp David
meeting
are being withheld from public view. What is our government
afraid of,
and why do Congress and our media
not demand factual answers? As long as we do not have these answers we
will be
bombarded by propaganda on the one hand and conspiracy theories on the
other.
Why have Israeli politicians proven
to be so intransigent
towards genuine peace? The major reasons were already present in
1948
and 1949 when Ben-Gurion felt in no
hurry to
conclude peace with the neighbors, because he believed that
time was
on his side. Every peace treaty would inevitably
involve some territorial
concessions, and the return of the refugees
into the
Jewish state would create a major political problem. It was preferable,
therefore, to wait until the world would get used to the
existing
borders and eventually forget about the Palestinians.
He was correct in this assumption as far as the world was concerned,
but the Palestinians
refused to be forgotten. An annexation of East Jerusalem (as
was
done), Gaza and the West Bank (which is still hoped for) obviously
makes good
military sense because the current borders are quite illogical. It
would lead,
however, not only to condemnation by the rest of the world, but more
importantly to profound changes in Israeli society. Israel cannot
remain a
"Jewish" state for Jews when it has to harbor more than three million
Arabs as full fledged citizens. The question Israel has avoided
throughout its existence for more than 50 years is what kind
of a state
do the Jewish inhabitants really want?
Is it to be a secular constitutional democracy
with equal rights for all citizens regardless of religion and
ethnicity, or
a Jewish state by and for Jews? Throughout their history Jews
have
been masters at avoiding either-or questions and opted for the
as-well-as route
but sooner or later a choice will have to be made. Unless this
fundamental question is answered there can be no peace,
and as long as the U.S. continues to veto Security Council
Resolutions
which demand justice for Palestinians we invite
further acts of terrorism on our own people.
Gloria Borger recently (U.S. News & World Report,
December
31, 2001/January 7, 2002) quoted one of President Bush's aides
as having commented "What he says in private these days is very
often what he says in public." This is a laudable
trait and would be a welcome change from some previous
presidents. On the other hand if President Bush really thinks
in the
terms the Jerusalem Post has reported
in its December 21, 2001 edition, America and the
rest of the
world may have little to rejoice about in
the coming
year.
"In a meeting last week with seven leading Jewish donors, including
veteran Republican Max Fisher, and National Security Adviser Condoleeza
Rice
present, George W. Bush reportedly said that if he had been Ariel
Sharon he, Bush,
would have acted the same way the prime minister is acting in the face
of the
Palestinian war of terror. Quoted without attribution by the
highly
reliable Nahum Barnea of the Yediot Aaharonot daily, Bush
also said
that Arafat is weak and his regime close to collapse. Proceeding from
there to
the broader Arab world, Bush said that unlike Sharon, who was
democratically
elected, Saudi King Fahd was not elected and it is unclear just who
exactly he
represents.
One participant in the meeting told Barnea that Bush also
spoke
disparagingly about his own State Department, which he said is
'irrelevant,'
and whose Arabists' 'games' the President now intends 'to
bring to an
end.' Finally Bush personally reiterated, according to the
report,
what other American officials said in recent weeks, namely that Hamas
and Hizbullah were terrorist organizations,
and that if
Syria and Lebanon are harboring them, they are no different than the
Taliban.
Be the accuracy of this report what it may, it is clear in Jerusalem
that Bush
has lost all patience for Arafat, whom he now clearly, and
irreversibly, sees
as a liar and terror-supporter."
That Sharon is likewise a terror-supporter,
against whom a criminal investigation is under way in Belgium for his
behavior
in Lebanon, is deemed to be unimportant and not reported by our
mass-media.
Sharon seems to have been given the green light to proceed as he
pleases and
America will have to pay the bills not only in the financial sense of
the word.
Arafat has many strikes against him but the most
serious is,
for the American public at least, that he is neither telegenic
nor
articulate. The suave American educated Netanyahu, who is
likely to be
Sharon's successor if Likud remains in power, can outtalk any
Palestinian any
day. As long as the American public is satisfied with glib one-liners
and
glamor rather than a basic understanding of complex issues we will
continue to
be treated to self-serving propaganda rather than facts.
When Sharon prevented Arafat from visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve,
which
Arafat had done regularly since 1995, Sharon showed himself to be a
petty
hate-filled individual whom we have every reason to distrust. This type
of
fanaticism reminds one of the Taliban's destruction of the ancient
statues of
Buddha and tells the world that no other religious sentiments except
one's own
are tolerated in the "Holy Land."
If the Jerusalem Post article, as quoted above, is
indeed correct
the hopes which I had pinned on the Bush
administration in Whither
Zionism? might well have been misplaced.
But it is not yet too late. Therefore I'd like to offer this New Year's
prayer
for our President:
Please oh Lord look kindly upon George W. Bush and his wife, grant them
the
ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood; let them not be
misled by
propaganda which serves ulterior motives and leads to actions which do
not
conform to the principles America was founded upon. Prevent the
President from
succumbing to Hubris which tends to afflict people in their success and
heralds
their downfall. Let him act with wisdom and foresight, rather than
expediency,
to the benefit of America and the world. Thank you Lord.
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