Here is my transcription of the late Australian broadcast journalist Richard Carleton's 1970 interview with the Beirut-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) spokesman Ghassan Kanafani, as posted by the Lebanese-American academic Asad Abukhalil (otherwise known as The Angry Arab) on his Twitter feed on 25/6/19.
But first a word from Kanafani's Danish wife Anni to put you in the picture regarding what you are about to read:
"If none of the hundreds of foreign correspondents who filled the by then legendary office at Al-Hadaf [the PFLP's newspaper] were unable to put Ghassan down in a dialogue, it was because the answers he always gave were penetrating, sharp and accurate, the main reason being that the cause which he was defending - the Palestinian revolutionary struggle - is a just one." (Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine Research Center, 1973)
Note also that I have modified some of Kanafani's syntax for greater clarity of meaning:
Richard Carleton: Of the 11 Palestinian movements the most radical of all is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)... It was the Popular Front that hijacked and blew up 3 [sic] jet aircraft at Revolution Airport in the Jordanian desert... The Beirut leader of the Popular Front is Ghassan Kanafani. He was born in Palestine but fled in 1948, as he puts it from Zionist terror. Since then he's been plotting the destruction of both the Zionists and the reactionary Arabs.
Ghassan Kanafani: I know what I know really that the history of the world is always the history of weak people fighting strong people, of weak people, who have a correct case, fighting strong people, who use their strength to exploit the weak.
RC: Turn to the fighting that's been going on in Jordan in recent weeks.* It's your organisation that's been one side of the fight. What has it achieved?
GK: One thing. That we had a case to fight for. That's a lot. This people, the Palestinian people, prefer to die standing than to lose its case. We proved that King [Hussein] is wrong. We proved that this Palestinian nation is going to continue fighting until victory. We proved that our people can never be defeated. We taught every single person in this world that we are a small, brave nation who are prepared to fight to the last drop of blood for justice for ourselves after the world failed to give it to us. This is what we achieved.
RC: It does seem that the war, the civil war, has been quite fruitless.
GK: It is not a civil war. It's a people defending themselves against a fascist government which you are defending simply because King Hussein has an Arafat problem. It's not a civil war.
RC: Well, the conflict...
GK: It's not a conflict. It's a liberation movement fighting for justice.
RC: Well, whatever it might be best called...
GK: Not whatever, because this is where the problem starts. Because this is what makes you ask all your questions. This is exactly where the problem starts. This is a people who are discriminated against fighting for their rights. This is the story. If you say it's a civil war, then your question will be justified. If you say it's a conflict, then, of course, it'll come as a surprise to know what's happening.
RC: Why won't your organisation engage in peace talks with the Israelis?
GK: You don't mean peace talks exactly. You mean capitulation, surrender.
RC: Why not just talk?
GK: Talk to whom?
RC: Talk to the Israeli leaders.
GK: That kind of conversation is between the sword and the neck.
RC: Well, if there were no swords or guns in the room, you could still talk.
GK: No, I have never seen any talk between a colonialist case and a national liberation movement.
RC: But despite this, why not talk?
GK: Talk about what?
RC: Talk about the possibility of not fighting.
GK: Not fighting for what?
RC: Not fighting at all. No matter what for.
GK: People usually fight for something, and they stop fighting for something. So tell me what is it we should speak about.
RC: Stop fighting...
GK: Or rather what is it we should stop fighting for to talk about?
RC: Talk to stop fighting, to stop the death, the misery, the destruction, the pain.
GK: Whose death, misery, destruction and pain?
RC: Of Palestinians, of Israelis, of Arabs.
GK: Of the Palestinian people who are uprooted, forced into refugee camps, starved, murdered for 20 years, and forbidden even to call themselves Palestinians.
RC: Better that way than dead though.
GK: Maybe to you, but to us, no.To us, to liberate our country, to have dignity, to have respect, to have our basic human rights, is as essential as life itself.
RC: You call King Hussein a fascist. Who else among the Arab leaders are you totally opposed to?
GK: We consider the Arab governments to be of two kinds. Ones we call reactionaries who are tied to imperialism: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia. Then there are the other Arab governments, which we call the military placebos [?], such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria and so on.
RC: Let me get back to the hijacking of the aircraft.** On reflection, do you think that was now a mistake?
GK: We didn't make a mistake in hijacking them. On the contrary, they were one of the most correct things we ever did.
***
Nothing so much as the manner of their lives and deaths, conferred only by an accident of birth, confirms the vast gulf separating the privileged, white colonial reporter from Australia, Richard Carleton (1943-2006), and the exiled Palestinian driven out of his ancestral homeland by Zionist terror gangs in 1948, Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972).
While Carleton returned to Australia to do the kind of work he enjoyed doing, eventually ending up working for Channel 9 television's 60 Minutes program, and dying of a heart attack while on the job at the age of 62, Kanafani, aged just 36 at time of his death, was cruelly incinerated along with his 17-year-old niece, Lamees, on July 8 1972 after Israel's Mossad had planted explosives on his car.
You will be interested to know that Richard Carleton is the father of James Carleton who runs ABC Radio National's God Forbid program. To give you the measure of the son, see my 16/7/13 post Our ABC Owned for a transcription of his interview with George Galloway.
[* Carleton here is referring to the period of fighting in Jordan between the armed Palestinian resistance movement, led by Yasser Arafat's Fatah, and allied Palestinian groups such as the PFLP. The fighting ran from 6/9/70 - 17/7/71; **Briefly, Carleton here is referring to the PFLP's hijacking of 5 planes from 6/9/70 to 9/9/70 to Dawson's Field in Jordan. In August 1969, Leila Khaled was one of a PFLP commando unit which hijacked a TWA flight. She ordered the pilot to fly over her ancestral city, Haifa, and land in Syria where the plane was blown up after its passengers were evacuated. In September 1970, she and Patrick Arguello, a Nicaraguan-American, hijacked Israeli EL AL flight 219 from Amsterdam, forcing it to land at Dawson's Field. Patrick was martyred by an Israeli security guard. Leila was captured and flown to a police lockup in Britain. Note that all planes hijacked to Jordan were blown up by PFLP commandos after they had evacuated the passengers.]
Showing posts with label Jordan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jordan. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Death of a Sheikh
Just a reminder that Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine - the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) - is not a thing of the past. The mass expulsion of Palestinian Arab civilians by Zionist terror gangs began well before the creation of Israel and the intervention of Arab state forces in May 1948, and continued up until armistice lines were agreed to in March 1949. There were, of course, more mass expulsions when Israeli forces overran the West Bank in 1967.
But that doesn't mean that Israel wasn't busy doing what it does best in the 18 years between 1949 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the West Bank.
The following incident occurred in 1952, just one of many examples of Israeli brutality against Palestine's indigenous Arab population recorded by Commander E.H. Hutchison, USNR, in his memoir, Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1951-1955 (1956). (Hutchison was an Observer in the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization's (UNTSO) Mixed Armistice Commission (MAC) in Jerusalem from 1951-54):
"Since the beginning of the Armistice, Jordan and Egypt had complained on many occasions that Israel was cutting down her Arab population by driving Bedouins and even Arab villagers across the border. Israel was condemned in some instances but had taken no steps to allow the return of the Arabs.
"On September 17, 1952, an incident occurred that gave us a chance to study one of these cases first hand. It gave us an interesting insight into the lot of the Bedouin and the village Arab still living inside Israel. On the morning of the 17th, Major Itzaq, Senior Jordan Military Delegate to the MAC, called to inform us that the Israelis had expelled ten families of the es-Sani tribe and that they had been stopped inside the Jordan border south of Hebron. This wasn't the only call during the week concernong the es-Sanis and on the 22nd of the month we went into the area and counted over 100 families, nearly 1,000 members of the tribe, camped temporarily just inside Jordan... [From] the only tent that had been pitched, an old man stepped out... He looked fierce, but his eyes twinkled. Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani beckoned us to his tent.
"In the Western World the table pounding would have started at once - but not here. Solemn greetings were exchanged... It was fully thirty minutes before the District Police Commander expressed his regrets that his government could not allow the es-Sani tribe to remain in Jordan. He hastened to explain that Jordan's arable lands were already crowded, and if the es-Sanis were allowed to stay, Israel would push other tribes across the border. There were still approximately 15,000 Bedouins in the Negev.
"Sheikh Ibrahim listened attentively; occasionally he cast his eyes upwards and spread his hands in a gesture of despair. When the district commander had finished, there was a minute of dead silence. El Hajj Ibrahim looked from one to the other and then dramatically presented his case. According to him the es-Sanis were once a rich tribe. Their many herds grazed over the lands of the Negev but the people, other than those assigned to tend the herds, lived on the lands they cultivated southeast of Beersheba... At the end of the Arab-Jewish hostilities, the Israelis forced them to leave these lands and move to El Laqiya, northeast of Beersheba. The land there was poor, but they worked hard, and during the next three years they had made it productive to the extent that Israel declared a quantity of their grain as surplus crop and demanded that it be sold to the government at a fixed price. El Hajj Ibrahim continued. He explained that over a month ago the Israeli Military Government had told him Israel was going to establish a settlement at El Laqiya and that his tribe would have to move to Tel Arad. He knew the Tel Arad area well and, seeing no possibility of survival there, ignored the order. A week later the Israelis brought in tractors and representatives of a land company; work was started on the es-Sani lands. El Hajj Ibrahim took his complaint to the Israeli courts and, according to him, they granted him a provisional judgment against both the Military Governor of Beersheba and the land company engaged in the work. The tribe was given permission to stay at El Laqiya.
"The legal action, however, did not stop the Israeli Military Governor, who moved in rapidly to enforce his demands. When he stated that the tribe would have to go to Tel Arad, by force if necessary, the old Sheikh countered by saying that he would move his tribe to Jordan before he would go to Tel Arad. The Military Governor explained that this would be against the terms of the Armistice with Jordan but that he would make no attempt to stop the move. El Hajj Ibrahim took the offer and the border east of El Laqiya, usually carefully guarded by Israel against infiltration, remained open until his tribe crossed into Jordan. 'Now,' he concluded in a shout, 'you stop me. Where can I lead my people?' El Hajj angrily whacked the carpeted ground.
"Following this conference we immediately arranged for a meeting between the Israeli and Jordanian representatives at the border area near the scene of the crossing. Here we were informed by the Military Governor of Beersheba, Lt. Colonel Hermann, and the Chief Israeli Delegate to the MAC, Lt. Colonel Ramati, that El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani had asked if he could move his tribe, 'residents of Tel Arad,' into Jordan. The Military Governor stated that he had told the Sheikh he could not grant such permission but would not object to the move... After days of bickering it was finally arranged for the tribe to return to Israel, although the Israelis wanted them transported inside Jordan to a point opposite and closer to Tel Arad. The Jordanians refused to do this and it was finally settled that the transfer would be made at the original point of crossing, on the Hebron-Beersheba road.
"It was October 26, before the es-Sanis were back in Israel. Seventeen of the tribe members had vanished deeper into Jordan and the search for them was not pressed. The crossing was a drama of frustration and despair driven by an unrelenting force. The Israeli court action was forgotten. By allowing the es-Sanis to cross into Jordan under threat of being sent to Tel Arad, the Israeli Military Governor had very cleverly been able to make credulous his claim that these were nomadic people who should not be allowed to control the more productive areas. Lt. Colonel Hermann, who admittedly pressured the tribe to leave their lands and openly allowed them to cross into Jordan, now blandly stated, with authoritative cunningness, that the es-Sanis had broken the laws against crossing the border and must be held responsible for the violation.
"On the days of the crossing operation, the Israelis turned out in a show of force. Five trucks were brought from Beersheba for which the tribe was charged L160 per truck, per trip. The grain was resacked and loaded on the trucks; nothing else was taken on these trucks. The grain was not being sent with the tribe. It was being placed in separate storage where, as I was told, an amount would be deducted to cover the cost of the crossing operation plus an amount to cover the back taxes and surplus grain claimed by the Israeli Government.
"Armed Israelis sat next to armed Arabs as the members of the tribe filed across the border. The men were searched by soldiers and police. The women were taken under a bridge where they were similarly inspected by Israeli police women. Many arguments broke out and displays of temper frequently brought the always present tension near the breaking point. The Sheikh paced among the members of his tribe, alternately shouting orders and offering words of consolation. He was visibly under a great strain.
"Towards evening on October 26, the last truck, piled high with tents and personal belongings, lurched over the border. The stragglers of the tribe were precariously perched on top of the load. I walked over to Sheikh Ibrahim and his eldest son, Mohammed, who were preparing to follow their tribe. We shook hands solemnly. Mohammed had lost none of the anger he had displayed throughout the operation. His lips drew tight: 'What you have seen is all that is left of a once prosperous and respected tribe.'
"The old Sheikh cupped his left hand over our handclasp in friendship. He was still very much the leader - in his memory, the leader of a proud and carefree people. Now, his eyes reflected defeat. Three weeks later a small notice appeared in the Israeli papers which stated that Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani had died at Tel Arad." (pp 30-37)
NB: Hutchison gives the figure of 5,491 Arabs driven from Israel into Jordan from June 1949 to October 1954 (p 91)
But that doesn't mean that Israel wasn't busy doing what it does best in the 18 years between 1949 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the West Bank.
The following incident occurred in 1952, just one of many examples of Israeli brutality against Palestine's indigenous Arab population recorded by Commander E.H. Hutchison, USNR, in his memoir, Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1951-1955 (1956). (Hutchison was an Observer in the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization's (UNTSO) Mixed Armistice Commission (MAC) in Jerusalem from 1951-54):
"Since the beginning of the Armistice, Jordan and Egypt had complained on many occasions that Israel was cutting down her Arab population by driving Bedouins and even Arab villagers across the border. Israel was condemned in some instances but had taken no steps to allow the return of the Arabs.
"On September 17, 1952, an incident occurred that gave us a chance to study one of these cases first hand. It gave us an interesting insight into the lot of the Bedouin and the village Arab still living inside Israel. On the morning of the 17th, Major Itzaq, Senior Jordan Military Delegate to the MAC, called to inform us that the Israelis had expelled ten families of the es-Sani tribe and that they had been stopped inside the Jordan border south of Hebron. This wasn't the only call during the week concernong the es-Sanis and on the 22nd of the month we went into the area and counted over 100 families, nearly 1,000 members of the tribe, camped temporarily just inside Jordan... [From] the only tent that had been pitched, an old man stepped out... He looked fierce, but his eyes twinkled. Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani beckoned us to his tent.
"In the Western World the table pounding would have started at once - but not here. Solemn greetings were exchanged... It was fully thirty minutes before the District Police Commander expressed his regrets that his government could not allow the es-Sani tribe to remain in Jordan. He hastened to explain that Jordan's arable lands were already crowded, and if the es-Sanis were allowed to stay, Israel would push other tribes across the border. There were still approximately 15,000 Bedouins in the Negev.
"Sheikh Ibrahim listened attentively; occasionally he cast his eyes upwards and spread his hands in a gesture of despair. When the district commander had finished, there was a minute of dead silence. El Hajj Ibrahim looked from one to the other and then dramatically presented his case. According to him the es-Sanis were once a rich tribe. Their many herds grazed over the lands of the Negev but the people, other than those assigned to tend the herds, lived on the lands they cultivated southeast of Beersheba... At the end of the Arab-Jewish hostilities, the Israelis forced them to leave these lands and move to El Laqiya, northeast of Beersheba. The land there was poor, but they worked hard, and during the next three years they had made it productive to the extent that Israel declared a quantity of their grain as surplus crop and demanded that it be sold to the government at a fixed price. El Hajj Ibrahim continued. He explained that over a month ago the Israeli Military Government had told him Israel was going to establish a settlement at El Laqiya and that his tribe would have to move to Tel Arad. He knew the Tel Arad area well and, seeing no possibility of survival there, ignored the order. A week later the Israelis brought in tractors and representatives of a land company; work was started on the es-Sani lands. El Hajj Ibrahim took his complaint to the Israeli courts and, according to him, they granted him a provisional judgment against both the Military Governor of Beersheba and the land company engaged in the work. The tribe was given permission to stay at El Laqiya.
"The legal action, however, did not stop the Israeli Military Governor, who moved in rapidly to enforce his demands. When he stated that the tribe would have to go to Tel Arad, by force if necessary, the old Sheikh countered by saying that he would move his tribe to Jordan before he would go to Tel Arad. The Military Governor explained that this would be against the terms of the Armistice with Jordan but that he would make no attempt to stop the move. El Hajj Ibrahim took the offer and the border east of El Laqiya, usually carefully guarded by Israel against infiltration, remained open until his tribe crossed into Jordan. 'Now,' he concluded in a shout, 'you stop me. Where can I lead my people?' El Hajj angrily whacked the carpeted ground.
"Following this conference we immediately arranged for a meeting between the Israeli and Jordanian representatives at the border area near the scene of the crossing. Here we were informed by the Military Governor of Beersheba, Lt. Colonel Hermann, and the Chief Israeli Delegate to the MAC, Lt. Colonel Ramati, that El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani had asked if he could move his tribe, 'residents of Tel Arad,' into Jordan. The Military Governor stated that he had told the Sheikh he could not grant such permission but would not object to the move... After days of bickering it was finally arranged for the tribe to return to Israel, although the Israelis wanted them transported inside Jordan to a point opposite and closer to Tel Arad. The Jordanians refused to do this and it was finally settled that the transfer would be made at the original point of crossing, on the Hebron-Beersheba road.
"It was October 26, before the es-Sanis were back in Israel. Seventeen of the tribe members had vanished deeper into Jordan and the search for them was not pressed. The crossing was a drama of frustration and despair driven by an unrelenting force. The Israeli court action was forgotten. By allowing the es-Sanis to cross into Jordan under threat of being sent to Tel Arad, the Israeli Military Governor had very cleverly been able to make credulous his claim that these were nomadic people who should not be allowed to control the more productive areas. Lt. Colonel Hermann, who admittedly pressured the tribe to leave their lands and openly allowed them to cross into Jordan, now blandly stated, with authoritative cunningness, that the es-Sanis had broken the laws against crossing the border and must be held responsible for the violation.
"On the days of the crossing operation, the Israelis turned out in a show of force. Five trucks were brought from Beersheba for which the tribe was charged L160 per truck, per trip. The grain was resacked and loaded on the trucks; nothing else was taken on these trucks. The grain was not being sent with the tribe. It was being placed in separate storage where, as I was told, an amount would be deducted to cover the cost of the crossing operation plus an amount to cover the back taxes and surplus grain claimed by the Israeli Government.
"Armed Israelis sat next to armed Arabs as the members of the tribe filed across the border. The men were searched by soldiers and police. The women were taken under a bridge where they were similarly inspected by Israeli police women. Many arguments broke out and displays of temper frequently brought the always present tension near the breaking point. The Sheikh paced among the members of his tribe, alternately shouting orders and offering words of consolation. He was visibly under a great strain.
"Towards evening on October 26, the last truck, piled high with tents and personal belongings, lurched over the border. The stragglers of the tribe were precariously perched on top of the load. I walked over to Sheikh Ibrahim and his eldest son, Mohammed, who were preparing to follow their tribe. We shook hands solemnly. Mohammed had lost none of the anger he had displayed throughout the operation. His lips drew tight: 'What you have seen is all that is left of a once prosperous and respected tribe.'
"The old Sheikh cupped his left hand over our handclasp in friendship. He was still very much the leader - in his memory, the leader of a proud and carefree people. Now, his eyes reflected defeat. Three weeks later a small notice appeared in the Israeli papers which stated that Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim es-Sani had died at Tel Arad." (pp 30-37)
NB: Hutchison gives the figure of 5,491 Arabs driven from Israel into Jordan from June 1949 to October 1954 (p 91)
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
A Fairfax Mystery: The PLO Uprising That Wasn't
WTF is going on at Fairfax?
Here's a two-sentence extract from a piece that appeared on the websites of both Fairfax papers (Age & SMH), Life in the shadows for Palestinians caught in Syria's conflict, by Marika Sosnowski:
"After accepting thousands of Palestinians who fled or were displaced by Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, in 1970 the PLO under Yasser Arafat clashed with Jordan's Hashemite monarchy. The conflict, which came to be known as Black September, ended with thousands of Palestinians killed and the PLO leadership and militants expelled to Lebanon." (26/3/17)
Now here's how it appeared, in a less coherent form, and containing a marked anti-Palestinian tweak, in the print edition of the SMH on March 27 - I've boldened the changes:
"After accepting thousands of Palestinians who fled or were displaced by its Western neighbour Israel in wars in 1948 and 1967, in 1970 the PLO under Yasser Arafat staged an uprising against their Jordanian hosts, the Hashemite monarchy. The conflict, which came to be known as Black September, was violently quashed by the Jordanian Armed Forces. Thousands of Palestinians were killed and the PLO leadership and fighters were expelled to Lebanon."
Needless to say, anyone with a comprehensive knowledge of modern Palestinian history would know that there was no Palestinian "uprising" in Jordan in 1970. What there was was a bloody crackdown by King Hussein on the armed Palestinian resistance movement based there, and a heroic, but ultimately doomed, defence by the latter against the Jordanian army's vastly superior numbers and firepower.
So how do we account for the two versions? And which is Sosnowski's, who, according to her twitter account, is a Melbourne University-trained lawyer and "regular Middle East commentator"?
Here's a two-sentence extract from a piece that appeared on the websites of both Fairfax papers (Age & SMH), Life in the shadows for Palestinians caught in Syria's conflict, by Marika Sosnowski:
"After accepting thousands of Palestinians who fled or were displaced by Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, in 1970 the PLO under Yasser Arafat clashed with Jordan's Hashemite monarchy. The conflict, which came to be known as Black September, ended with thousands of Palestinians killed and the PLO leadership and militants expelled to Lebanon." (26/3/17)
Now here's how it appeared, in a less coherent form, and containing a marked anti-Palestinian tweak, in the print edition of the SMH on March 27 - I've boldened the changes:
"After accepting thousands of Palestinians who fled or were displaced by its Western neighbour Israel in wars in 1948 and 1967, in 1970 the PLO under Yasser Arafat staged an uprising against their Jordanian hosts, the Hashemite monarchy. The conflict, which came to be known as Black September, was violently quashed by the Jordanian Armed Forces. Thousands of Palestinians were killed and the PLO leadership and fighters were expelled to Lebanon."
Needless to say, anyone with a comprehensive knowledge of modern Palestinian history would know that there was no Palestinian "uprising" in Jordan in 1970. What there was was a bloody crackdown by King Hussein on the armed Palestinian resistance movement based there, and a heroic, but ultimately doomed, defence by the latter against the Jordanian army's vastly superior numbers and firepower.
So how do we account for the two versions? And which is Sosnowski's, who, according to her twitter account, is a Melbourne University-trained lawyer and "regular Middle East commentator"?
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Massacre & Incident
Another book review* by Paul Monk in The Australian. Here's how it begins:
"'Barely in modern times has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,' Michael B. Oren wrote in the opening paragraph of Six Days of War (2002),** his compelling history of the June 1967 conflict in which Israel crushed its Arab neighbours and seized control of Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. He listed some of those consequences: the Black September incident in Jordan (1970), the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes (1972)..." (Partial gaps in revisionist critique of Israel, 4/10/14)
So when 11 Israelis are killed it's a massacre, but when nearly 3,500 Palestinians are killed it's merely an incident.***
Why would you bother reading on?
[*Cursed Victory: A History of Israel & the Occupied Territories, by Ahron Bregman; **From Norman Finkelstein's 2002 review of Oren, Abba Eban with footnotes: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations crisis in the US - ie, a jot of the reality of its brutal policies manages to break free of ideological controls - a new propaganda initiative is launched to lift the spirits and close the ranks of the Zionist faithful. After Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Zionist book of the month was Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial. Soon after the Palestinians entered into revolt in September 2000 and Israel unleashed a new round of violent repression, From Time Immemorial - although definitively shown to have been a hoax - was reissued and soared to the top of the Amazon list, soon followed by Oren's book (Amazon frequently featured them together). While certainly a much more sophisticated enterprise, Six Days of War serves the same political agenda as From Time Immemorial. In the introduction Oren states as his goal that the June war 'never be seen the same way again.' In fact he simply repeats the same old, tired apologetics. Like From Time Immemorial, its real purpose is to reclaim the lost world of Zionist heroism and innocence. With so much water under the bridge, however, except among true believers (admittedly not a small number) it's unlikely to succeed."; ***See my 14/8/12 post Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History.]
"'Barely in modern times has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,' Michael B. Oren wrote in the opening paragraph of Six Days of War (2002),** his compelling history of the June 1967 conflict in which Israel crushed its Arab neighbours and seized control of Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. He listed some of those consequences: the Black September incident in Jordan (1970), the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes (1972)..." (Partial gaps in revisionist critique of Israel, 4/10/14)
So when 11 Israelis are killed it's a massacre, but when nearly 3,500 Palestinians are killed it's merely an incident.***
Why would you bother reading on?
[*Cursed Victory: A History of Israel & the Occupied Territories, by Ahron Bregman; **From Norman Finkelstein's 2002 review of Oren, Abba Eban with footnotes: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations crisis in the US - ie, a jot of the reality of its brutal policies manages to break free of ideological controls - a new propaganda initiative is launched to lift the spirits and close the ranks of the Zionist faithful. After Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Zionist book of the month was Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial. Soon after the Palestinians entered into revolt in September 2000 and Israel unleashed a new round of violent repression, From Time Immemorial - although definitively shown to have been a hoax - was reissued and soared to the top of the Amazon list, soon followed by Oren's book (Amazon frequently featured them together). While certainly a much more sophisticated enterprise, Six Days of War serves the same political agenda as From Time Immemorial. In the introduction Oren states as his goal that the June war 'never be seen the same way again.' In fact he simply repeats the same old, tired apologetics. Like From Time Immemorial, its real purpose is to reclaim the lost world of Zionist heroism and innocence. With so much water under the bridge, however, except among true believers (admittedly not a small number) it's unlikely to succeed."; ***See my 14/8/12 post Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History.]
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Why Pick on Israel?
The question on every Zionist lip:
"Why does Israel consistently attract the ire of the international community ('Reality ignored in rush to judgment on 'apartheid' Israel', 14/5)?" asks prolific letter writer and Israeluvvie Joel Feren, of Elwood, Victoria.
"Israel is indeed different to its neighbours - it is democratic and a champion of rights. It is senseless that Israel is labelled a demonic superpower of the Middle East while the despotic Syrian government massacres more than 80,000 civilians, Saudi Arabia subjugates women, Iran remains under police tyranny, Egyptian Coptics [sic] face persecution and thousands of Palestinian refugees are left to languish in refugee camps in Jordan." (The Australian, 15/5/13)
Er, Joel, I think that last one could be described as the sleeper carriage in your train of thought, mate.
Thousands of Palestinians languishing in refugee camps in Jordan. Ever ask yourself what they're doing there in the first place?
Does the word refugee ring any bells? Suggestive perhaps of a flight from something? Something dire?
The word Palestinian? Hm?
Doesn't work for you?
OK, let's try a multiple choice question.
Did Palestinian refugees in Jordan:
a) drop from the sky?
b) spontaneously - no one knows why - decamp from Palestine and move to Jordan?
c) flee at the point of Zionist bayonets and worse, either in 1948 or 1967, and remain there because Israel won't let them return?
d) witlessly fall victim to the old Israeli 'Jordan is Palestine' propaganda line and relocate to Jordan?
"Why does Israel consistently attract the ire of the international community ('Reality ignored in rush to judgment on 'apartheid' Israel', 14/5)?" asks prolific letter writer and Israeluvvie Joel Feren, of Elwood, Victoria.
"Israel is indeed different to its neighbours - it is democratic and a champion of rights. It is senseless that Israel is labelled a demonic superpower of the Middle East while the despotic Syrian government massacres more than 80,000 civilians, Saudi Arabia subjugates women, Iran remains under police tyranny, Egyptian Coptics [sic] face persecution and thousands of Palestinian refugees are left to languish in refugee camps in Jordan." (The Australian, 15/5/13)
Er, Joel, I think that last one could be described as the sleeper carriage in your train of thought, mate.
Thousands of Palestinians languishing in refugee camps in Jordan. Ever ask yourself what they're doing there in the first place?
Does the word refugee ring any bells? Suggestive perhaps of a flight from something? Something dire?
The word Palestinian? Hm?
Doesn't work for you?
OK, let's try a multiple choice question.
Did Palestinian refugees in Jordan:
a) drop from the sky?
b) spontaneously - no one knows why - decamp from Palestine and move to Jordan?
c) flee at the point of Zionist bayonets and worse, either in 1948 or 1967, and remain there because Israel won't let them return?
d) witlessly fall victim to the old Israeli 'Jordan is Palestine' propaganda line and relocate to Jordan?
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History
"Foreign Minister Bob Carr has stressed Australia's desire to see a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Senator Carr said the need for the resumption of negotiations was 'urgent'." (Australia supports two-state solution: Carr, John Lyons, The Australian, 7/8/12)
That is, the need to resume the world's longest-running diplomatic charade. Meanwhile, outside in the shrinking scrap of land that is supposed to host the mythical Palestinian statelet, the bulldozers roar, the olive trees burn, the bullets whine, the kids are ripped out of their beds at 2 in the morning by uniformed thugs and taken away, and the desperation mounts. But Bob and Shimon are too busy indulging in a little mutual back-scratching to notice such things:
"Senator Carr and Mr Peres emphasised the warmth of relations between Australia and Israel. They deplored the ongoing violence of the Assad regime in Syria... and noted the stresses the Syrian crisis was placing on neighbouring Jordan, which has a growing refugee problem." (ibid)
Poor little Jordan, they tut. How can the little king there cope with all those refugees?
Jordan? Refugees? Sure, Bob may be a history buff but you can't expect him to remember the time when Israel was packing Palestinian refugees off to Jordan (not to mention Lebanon and Syria too). After all, when the Israelis were busy ethnically-cleansing Palestine in 1948, Bob was less than 2 years old. And anyway, his forte, American history, is so incredibly sexy it really doesn't leave much time for the rest of the planet, especially the bits inhabited by brown people. So when Bob talks about refugee camps in Jordan, he's not talking about those who ended up there from US-occupied Iraq (remember them?), and as for those who ended up there from Israeli-occupied Palestine 6 decades ago, well they aren't even on his radar:
"I have just spent 3 days in Jordan speaking to its leadership, visiting refugee camps..." (Jordan's tolerance shines a light on rest of the world, Bob Carr, The Australian, 10/8/12)
No, no brushing up on the history of modern Jordan for Bob. There are more important things on his mind:
"... and holding discussions on interfaith dialogue and the overlap of cultures." (ibid)
But all that's just by way of introducing today's gripe. This is what really got me going:
"It was hard not to be impressed by the worldliness of a leadership that has steered the country since it gained independence in 1946. Jordan lives in a tough neighbourhood. It lost the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and withstood an attempted Palestinian coup in Black September 1970."
Typical! Those bloody Palestinians again! Not content with remaining mere stateless refugees in Jordan (because Israel doesn't do interfaith dialogue or overlapping cultures), would you believe that these ingrates actually tried to stage a coup against King Hussein in 1970!
Except that they didn't.
I mean does this sound like the opening round of a Palestinian coup to you?:
"At five minutes to five on the morning of the 17th [September 1970], [King] Hussein's army launched a full scale military operation against [Palestinian] guerilla positions in Amman. The King confidently expected it to be complete within 48 hours. Patton tanks of the 60th Armoured Brigade, supported by armoured car units, moved into the city from all sides and concentrated heavy fire on guerilla strongholds, and in particular on their bases on Jebel Hussein, and in the Wahdat and Al-Husseini refugee camps. It was the first time Jordanian armour had invaded the country's capital, and the effect was devastating: any house from which fire was directed at the advancing armour was obliterated, and the commandos responded with anti-tank and sniper fire. The people of Amman, caught helplessly in the crossfire, sought refuge in their cellars, or tried to escape to parts of the city which they believed would be safe." (Hussein: A Biography, Peter Snow, 1972, p 223)
Remind you a bit of Syria today?
Tough neighbourhood indeed. (You really dig that cool Israeli talk, don't you Bob?) Here's how the neighbourhood toughs experienced the massacre that came to be known as Black September:
"Amman is burning and death roams in it... The criminal whom they call king used to boast about his love for his people and tribes. He kills the women in their homes and the children in their streets. His name used to be Hussein, but brothers, his name today is Nero - the hateful madman and murderer. Amman is burning at the hands of Nero." (Voice of Palestine Radio, Damascus, 17/9/70)
Here's how the international press saw it:
a) "In almost a quarter of a century of foreign reporting, I cannot recall anything remotely similar to what I have seen in Jordan. I have witnessed inter-tribal massacres in Africa and the slow blood-letting in Vietnam. But there has been nothing like the urban devastation - both in lives and property - that Amman has suffered. And that includes Budapest, when the Russians smashed the Hungarian revolt in 1956." Arnaud de Borchgrave, Senior Editor, Newsweek, 5/10/70)
b) "For ten days and nights during the civil war in Jordan, the [Palestinian] commandos were telling me about the massacre being perpetrated by the Royal Bedouin Army. I believed them - but proof was not available. Now I have found the evidence and I was able to photograph what the Jordan government is trying to hide by various means: The wholesale liquidation of the Palestinians. The king's soldiers (Bedouin) have cut the Palestinians to pieces and stabbed them to death - men, women and children - with hatchets and knives. In the mosque square, on the steps leading into the mosque, in the mosque itself and even on the steps of the minbar (mosque platform). And in their thirst for blood, the Bedouin moved from there to the Ashrafiyah Hospital, where they snatched the wounded Palestinians from their beds and stabbed them with knives in front of the doctors. Then they forced the nurses and doctors to leave the hospital. The decisive point in all that has happened is the following: Hussein cannot behave as if the massacres did not take place and he cannot undo what has been done. Regardless of whether the number of those killed and wounded in the refugee camps is 2,000 (as the Army Command says) or 20,000 (as Arafat says), this will not have a big effect on Jordan's future. The decisive fact is that conciliation between Hussein and the Palestinians has become impossible and that the Palestinians now demand what Hussein has made possible for his Bedouin: Revenge. I hadn't advanced a few steps inside the mosque on Jabal Ashrafiyah in Amman when I felt that my feet were wet. Blood had penetrated through my canvass shoes. I had to walk over torn bodies and through dismembered heads and limbs. The atmosphere was suffocating. I wanted to go out quickly into the open air. Then I saw the child, a girl about 8 years old, laid down in front of the mosque, that holy place. The head was bashed down to the nose, and the lips were parted with the last scream of terror."(Gerd Heidemann, Stern, No 42, October 1970)
King Hussein's shabiha!
And finally, here's the view from the palace:
"It is a sad time here. But we are putting our house in order and soon it will all be organized." (Leila's Hijack War, Peter Snow & David Phillips, 1970, p 102)
Some Palestinian coup that was!
That is, the need to resume the world's longest-running diplomatic charade. Meanwhile, outside in the shrinking scrap of land that is supposed to host the mythical Palestinian statelet, the bulldozers roar, the olive trees burn, the bullets whine, the kids are ripped out of their beds at 2 in the morning by uniformed thugs and taken away, and the desperation mounts. But Bob and Shimon are too busy indulging in a little mutual back-scratching to notice such things:
"Senator Carr and Mr Peres emphasised the warmth of relations between Australia and Israel. They deplored the ongoing violence of the Assad regime in Syria... and noted the stresses the Syrian crisis was placing on neighbouring Jordan, which has a growing refugee problem." (ibid)
Poor little Jordan, they tut. How can the little king there cope with all those refugees?
Jordan? Refugees? Sure, Bob may be a history buff but you can't expect him to remember the time when Israel was packing Palestinian refugees off to Jordan (not to mention Lebanon and Syria too). After all, when the Israelis were busy ethnically-cleansing Palestine in 1948, Bob was less than 2 years old. And anyway, his forte, American history, is so incredibly sexy it really doesn't leave much time for the rest of the planet, especially the bits inhabited by brown people. So when Bob talks about refugee camps in Jordan, he's not talking about those who ended up there from US-occupied Iraq (remember them?), and as for those who ended up there from Israeli-occupied Palestine 6 decades ago, well they aren't even on his radar:
"I have just spent 3 days in Jordan speaking to its leadership, visiting refugee camps..." (Jordan's tolerance shines a light on rest of the world, Bob Carr, The Australian, 10/8/12)
No, no brushing up on the history of modern Jordan for Bob. There are more important things on his mind:
"... and holding discussions on interfaith dialogue and the overlap of cultures." (ibid)
But all that's just by way of introducing today's gripe. This is what really got me going:
"It was hard not to be impressed by the worldliness of a leadership that has steered the country since it gained independence in 1946. Jordan lives in a tough neighbourhood. It lost the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and withstood an attempted Palestinian coup in Black September 1970."
Typical! Those bloody Palestinians again! Not content with remaining mere stateless refugees in Jordan (because Israel doesn't do interfaith dialogue or overlapping cultures), would you believe that these ingrates actually tried to stage a coup against King Hussein in 1970!
Except that they didn't.
I mean does this sound like the opening round of a Palestinian coup to you?:
"At five minutes to five on the morning of the 17th [September 1970], [King] Hussein's army launched a full scale military operation against [Palestinian] guerilla positions in Amman. The King confidently expected it to be complete within 48 hours. Patton tanks of the 60th Armoured Brigade, supported by armoured car units, moved into the city from all sides and concentrated heavy fire on guerilla strongholds, and in particular on their bases on Jebel Hussein, and in the Wahdat and Al-Husseini refugee camps. It was the first time Jordanian armour had invaded the country's capital, and the effect was devastating: any house from which fire was directed at the advancing armour was obliterated, and the commandos responded with anti-tank and sniper fire. The people of Amman, caught helplessly in the crossfire, sought refuge in their cellars, or tried to escape to parts of the city which they believed would be safe." (Hussein: A Biography, Peter Snow, 1972, p 223)
Remind you a bit of Syria today?
Tough neighbourhood indeed. (You really dig that cool Israeli talk, don't you Bob?) Here's how the neighbourhood toughs experienced the massacre that came to be known as Black September:
"Amman is burning and death roams in it... The criminal whom they call king used to boast about his love for his people and tribes. He kills the women in their homes and the children in their streets. His name used to be Hussein, but brothers, his name today is Nero - the hateful madman and murderer. Amman is burning at the hands of Nero." (Voice of Palestine Radio, Damascus, 17/9/70)
Here's how the international press saw it:
a) "In almost a quarter of a century of foreign reporting, I cannot recall anything remotely similar to what I have seen in Jordan. I have witnessed inter-tribal massacres in Africa and the slow blood-letting in Vietnam. But there has been nothing like the urban devastation - both in lives and property - that Amman has suffered. And that includes Budapest, when the Russians smashed the Hungarian revolt in 1956." Arnaud de Borchgrave, Senior Editor, Newsweek, 5/10/70)
b) "For ten days and nights during the civil war in Jordan, the [Palestinian] commandos were telling me about the massacre being perpetrated by the Royal Bedouin Army. I believed them - but proof was not available. Now I have found the evidence and I was able to photograph what the Jordan government is trying to hide by various means: The wholesale liquidation of the Palestinians. The king's soldiers (Bedouin) have cut the Palestinians to pieces and stabbed them to death - men, women and children - with hatchets and knives. In the mosque square, on the steps leading into the mosque, in the mosque itself and even on the steps of the minbar (mosque platform). And in their thirst for blood, the Bedouin moved from there to the Ashrafiyah Hospital, where they snatched the wounded Palestinians from their beds and stabbed them with knives in front of the doctors. Then they forced the nurses and doctors to leave the hospital. The decisive point in all that has happened is the following: Hussein cannot behave as if the massacres did not take place and he cannot undo what has been done. Regardless of whether the number of those killed and wounded in the refugee camps is 2,000 (as the Army Command says) or 20,000 (as Arafat says), this will not have a big effect on Jordan's future. The decisive fact is that conciliation between Hussein and the Palestinians has become impossible and that the Palestinians now demand what Hussein has made possible for his Bedouin: Revenge. I hadn't advanced a few steps inside the mosque on Jabal Ashrafiyah in Amman when I felt that my feet were wet. Blood had penetrated through my canvass shoes. I had to walk over torn bodies and through dismembered heads and limbs. The atmosphere was suffocating. I wanted to go out quickly into the open air. Then I saw the child, a girl about 8 years old, laid down in front of the mosque, that holy place. The head was bashed down to the nose, and the lips were parted with the last scream of terror."(Gerd Heidemann, Stern, No 42, October 1970)
King Hussein's shabiha!
And finally, here's the view from the palace:
"It is a sad time here. But we are putting our house in order and soon it will all be organized." (Leila's Hijack War, Peter Snow & David Phillips, 1970, p 102)
Some Palestinian coup that was!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Holy Crap
"Nothing incenses me or provokes me like watching tourist promotions for the enemy state of Israel. I scream inwardly: The stones are not yours. The flowers are not yours. The beaches are not yours. The clouds are not yours. The blue of the sky is not yours. All will return to their owners. Then everything will be more beautiful and splendid." (The Angry Arab, angryarab.blogspot.com, 6/7/11)
I know how he feels.
The Sun-Herald this week carried a double page promo on the stolen land in its travel supplement written by staff journalist Andrew Taylor, who, according to an appended disclosure, "travelled with assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
A holy bunch of hedonists is clearly part and parcel of the Israeli foreign ministry's post-Mavi Marmara massacre PR strategy of recruiting foreign journalists and other useful fools in a concerted effort to airbrush the apartheid state (See my post of 30/11/10 Once a Sow's Ear).
Some gems:
"But visitors expecting to be manhandled at military checkpoints, harangued by religious nutbags or caught in crossfire will be in for a surprise. Israel is not merely a country-sized firing range but rather an ethnically diverse, vibrant land where cultural and late-night pursuits often take priority over piety and politics."
So Taylor didn't know that checkpoints were reserved for occupied Palestinians? Or that there's no such thing as crossfire because it's actually the Israelis who are doing all the shooting? Oh, really? But then, given the abysmal knowledge deficit of most of our ms media scribblers and babblers, quite possibly not. Anyway, to invoke the 'o' word would only cruel the sales-pitch and defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, so forget I ever mentioned it. Still, seeing I have, don't those late-night pursuits take on a whole new meaning?
"Jerusalem's first pleasant surprise is the steep hills carpeted in pines and cypresses that guard the western approaches to King David's city. Thanks to the determination of Jewish settlers in the 1950s to 'make the desert bloom', this side of Jerusalem resembles the alpine scenery of central Europe."
Amazing, isn't it? Despite King David being little more than a character in the Bible, with no real archaeological substance to back him or his alleged empire up, the Zionist narrative nonetheless mandates that he be the defining moment of the city's history - a little like referring to London as Emperor Claudius' city. Taylor's deliberate focus on a mere historical (if even that) blip, to the exclusion of 14 centuries of almost uninterrupted Muslim rule and presence in the city, is yet another example of what religious scholar Keith W. Whitelam calls the "retrojection of the modern state of Israel into the Iron Age."* But expecting anything other than Zionist cliches here is to forget that we're dealing with PR, not genuine travel writing. And to confirm just that, what does Taylor do in the very next sentence but trot out the tired old saw about heroic Jewish pioneers 'making the desert bloom'.**
[*The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, 1996; See also Top Israeli archaeologists contest Jewish ties to Jerusalem, The Palestine Information Center, 10/8/11; ** See my 25/11/08 post Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner.]
In addition to the nonsense about King David's city, notice how the iconic 14-century old Haram ash-Sharif, with its golden Dome of the Rock (mislabelled Dome of the Mount!) and accompanying mosque, without which Jerusalem would be virtually unrecognisible, play second fiddle to a structure that had disappeared from history in Roman times:
"Above the Wailing Wall is Temple Mount, home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Mount [sic], with its iconic golden roof."
And check out the Israeli foreign ministry-approved tour guide/minder, Oded:
"A different guide, also named Oded, tells me that a bullet hole inside al-Aqsa marks the spot where King Abdullah I of Jordan was shot in 1951 for daring to suggest the Arabic [sic] world should negotiate with Israel."
Bet you say that to all the hack journos, Oded.
The message from Oded and his transmission belt, Taylor, of course, is that the 'Arabs' are always the clockwork violence-prone intransigents in this conflict.
While Taylor manages to swallow this familiar Zionist insinuation without gagging, the historical record, as Avi Shlaim's definitive study, The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, & Palestine 1921-1951 (1988/1998) shows, will have none of it:
"In the last weeks of his life Abdullah was a lonely and disappointed man. Three weeks before his death he invited an American officer of the Palestine Conciliation Commission named Hamilton Fisher to his palace in Amman... After discussing certain specific aspects of Jordanian-Israeli relations, Abdullah asked Fisher to stay and talk to him about what he called 'a most personal and confidential problem which is breaking my heart'. This problem was that of peace with Israel. 'I am an old man', said Abdullah. 'I know that my power is limited; I know that I am hated by my own son... I also know that my own people distrust me because of my peace efforts. But despite all that, I know that I could get peace settled if only I had some encouragement and could get any reasonable concessions from Israel'...
"He said his own people distrusted him because they suspected him of wanting to make peace without any concession by Israel. He emphasised that this was an obstacle which he could not overcome. Please understand, he said, that despite the Arab League I would have the support of my own people and the tacit support at least of the British if I could justify peace by pointing to concessions made by the Jews. But without any concessions from them, I am defeated before I even start...
"[I]t would be erroneous to conclude that King Abdullah was assassinated just because of his contacts with the Israelis and because of his well known desire to make peace with them. The real background to the murder was the long standing rivalry between Abdullah and the Husaynis. It is true that his opponents were opposed to his settlement with Israel, but this was not their sole reason for instigating his murder. Nor was the assassination part of a broad Palestinian bid to capture power in Jordan or to reverse Jordanian foreign policy. The conspirators did not propose to renew the war against Israel. Some of them were moved by the dream of an independent, resurgent Arab Palestine, and by the fear of further Jewish advances at the cost of the Palestinian Arabs which the British-controlled Arab Legion might be either unable or unwilling to prevent. It was significant that all the conspirators were Palestinian Arabs who belonged to the mufti's camp. But although all the signs seem to point to the shadowey figure of the mufti, no evidence was discovered of his direct complicity in the murder." (pp 415-418) And what was Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's reaction to the assassination of Abdullah? A peace offensive? Not on your nelly. He proposed to the Brits that they take over Jordan, while Israel grabbed the rest of Palestine and the Sinai all the way to the Suez Canal, a proposal in which they showed little interest at the time.
Moving on, have you ever seen a more dreadful metaphor than this?:
"If Jerusalem is a little Marie Osmond, Tel Aviv is definitely the Stevie Nicks of Israel."
Ah, but here's something of value:
"There's certainly no sign of the boorishness that led English writer A.A. Gill, in his latest book, Here & There, to label Israel as home to the rudest people."
Isn't it amazing what you can report when you don't have "assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs"?
Finally, it's not only Palestinian stones, flowers, beaches, clouds and sky which Israel has ripped off, it's also the food:
"Food is serious business in the Middle East. Israel's claim to be the home of hummus is hotly contested by neighbouring Lebanon..."
I know how he feels.
The Sun-Herald this week carried a double page promo on the stolen land in its travel supplement written by staff journalist Andrew Taylor, who, according to an appended disclosure, "travelled with assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
A holy bunch of hedonists is clearly part and parcel of the Israeli foreign ministry's post-Mavi Marmara massacre PR strategy of recruiting foreign journalists and other useful fools in a concerted effort to airbrush the apartheid state (See my post of 30/11/10 Once a Sow's Ear).
Some gems:
"But visitors expecting to be manhandled at military checkpoints, harangued by religious nutbags or caught in crossfire will be in for a surprise. Israel is not merely a country-sized firing range but rather an ethnically diverse, vibrant land where cultural and late-night pursuits often take priority over piety and politics."
So Taylor didn't know that checkpoints were reserved for occupied Palestinians? Or that there's no such thing as crossfire because it's actually the Israelis who are doing all the shooting? Oh, really? But then, given the abysmal knowledge deficit of most of our ms media scribblers and babblers, quite possibly not. Anyway, to invoke the 'o' word would only cruel the sales-pitch and defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, so forget I ever mentioned it. Still, seeing I have, don't those late-night pursuits take on a whole new meaning?
"Jerusalem's first pleasant surprise is the steep hills carpeted in pines and cypresses that guard the western approaches to King David's city. Thanks to the determination of Jewish settlers in the 1950s to 'make the desert bloom', this side of Jerusalem resembles the alpine scenery of central Europe."
Amazing, isn't it? Despite King David being little more than a character in the Bible, with no real archaeological substance to back him or his alleged empire up, the Zionist narrative nonetheless mandates that he be the defining moment of the city's history - a little like referring to London as Emperor Claudius' city. Taylor's deliberate focus on a mere historical (if even that) blip, to the exclusion of 14 centuries of almost uninterrupted Muslim rule and presence in the city, is yet another example of what religious scholar Keith W. Whitelam calls the "retrojection of the modern state of Israel into the Iron Age."* But expecting anything other than Zionist cliches here is to forget that we're dealing with PR, not genuine travel writing. And to confirm just that, what does Taylor do in the very next sentence but trot out the tired old saw about heroic Jewish pioneers 'making the desert bloom'.**
[*The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, 1996; See also Top Israeli archaeologists contest Jewish ties to Jerusalem, The Palestine Information Center, 10/8/11; ** See my 25/11/08 post Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner.]
In addition to the nonsense about King David's city, notice how the iconic 14-century old Haram ash-Sharif, with its golden Dome of the Rock (mislabelled Dome of the Mount!) and accompanying mosque, without which Jerusalem would be virtually unrecognisible, play second fiddle to a structure that had disappeared from history in Roman times:
"Above the Wailing Wall is Temple Mount, home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Mount [sic], with its iconic golden roof."
And check out the Israeli foreign ministry-approved tour guide/minder, Oded:
"A different guide, also named Oded, tells me that a bullet hole inside al-Aqsa marks the spot where King Abdullah I of Jordan was shot in 1951 for daring to suggest the Arabic [sic] world should negotiate with Israel."
Bet you say that to all the hack journos, Oded.
The message from Oded and his transmission belt, Taylor, of course, is that the 'Arabs' are always the clockwork violence-prone intransigents in this conflict.
While Taylor manages to swallow this familiar Zionist insinuation without gagging, the historical record, as Avi Shlaim's definitive study, The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, & Palestine 1921-1951 (1988/1998) shows, will have none of it:
"In the last weeks of his life Abdullah was a lonely and disappointed man. Three weeks before his death he invited an American officer of the Palestine Conciliation Commission named Hamilton Fisher to his palace in Amman... After discussing certain specific aspects of Jordanian-Israeli relations, Abdullah asked Fisher to stay and talk to him about what he called 'a most personal and confidential problem which is breaking my heart'. This problem was that of peace with Israel. 'I am an old man', said Abdullah. 'I know that my power is limited; I know that I am hated by my own son... I also know that my own people distrust me because of my peace efforts. But despite all that, I know that I could get peace settled if only I had some encouragement and could get any reasonable concessions from Israel'...
"He said his own people distrusted him because they suspected him of wanting to make peace without any concession by Israel. He emphasised that this was an obstacle which he could not overcome. Please understand, he said, that despite the Arab League I would have the support of my own people and the tacit support at least of the British if I could justify peace by pointing to concessions made by the Jews. But without any concessions from them, I am defeated before I even start...
"[I]t would be erroneous to conclude that King Abdullah was assassinated just because of his contacts with the Israelis and because of his well known desire to make peace with them. The real background to the murder was the long standing rivalry between Abdullah and the Husaynis. It is true that his opponents were opposed to his settlement with Israel, but this was not their sole reason for instigating his murder. Nor was the assassination part of a broad Palestinian bid to capture power in Jordan or to reverse Jordanian foreign policy. The conspirators did not propose to renew the war against Israel. Some of them were moved by the dream of an independent, resurgent Arab Palestine, and by the fear of further Jewish advances at the cost of the Palestinian Arabs which the British-controlled Arab Legion might be either unable or unwilling to prevent. It was significant that all the conspirators were Palestinian Arabs who belonged to the mufti's camp. But although all the signs seem to point to the shadowey figure of the mufti, no evidence was discovered of his direct complicity in the murder." (pp 415-418) And what was Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's reaction to the assassination of Abdullah? A peace offensive? Not on your nelly. He proposed to the Brits that they take over Jordan, while Israel grabbed the rest of Palestine and the Sinai all the way to the Suez Canal, a proposal in which they showed little interest at the time.
Moving on, have you ever seen a more dreadful metaphor than this?:
"If Jerusalem is a little Marie Osmond, Tel Aviv is definitely the Stevie Nicks of Israel."
Ah, but here's something of value:
"There's certainly no sign of the boorishness that led English writer A.A. Gill, in his latest book, Here & There, to label Israel as home to the rudest people."
Isn't it amazing what you can report when you don't have "assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs"?
Finally, it's not only Palestinian stones, flowers, beaches, clouds and sky which Israel has ripped off, it's also the food:
"Food is serious business in the Middle East. Israel's claim to be the home of hummus is hotly contested by neighbouring Lebanon..."
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
USrael's Arab Whores
Reports that Egypt is constructing an American-designed metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip in an effort to block Gaza's smuggling tunnels, and has declared that the Rafah crossing will be closed to over 1,000 international Gaza Freedom marchers intending to enter Gaza at the end of the year, should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of USraeli-Egyptian collaboration since 1978. It is useful, however, to review the genesis of Egypt's current involvement in Palestinian affairs on USrael's behalf. The following account, Egypt & the Rise of Hamas, comes from an excellent new anthology: Egypt: The Moment of Change, Edited by Rabab El-Mahdi & Philip Marfleet, Zed Books, 2009:
"From 2002 onwards Egyptian officials began to play an active role in the 2 key areas of Palestinian politics. First they continued to transmit US and Israeli pressure to the Palestinian Authority, particularly by means of a reformed Palestinian security apparatus. The Egyptians claimed to be acting as impartial mediators between Palestinian factions, hosting talks between Fatah and the Islamists of Hamas, and brokering ceasefires when in 2007 the 2 factions came into conflict. Meanwhile Mubarak dealt directly with the Israeli government, facilitating the latter's strategy of 'disengagement' from Gaza. Under plans agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, Egyptian security advisers were to police the Palestinian security services after Sharon had organised evacuation of Israeli settlements. A joint statement by the Palestinian factions in June 2004 condemned Egypt's role as 'part of a policy of deception and fraud whose goal is to imprison the Palestinian people in a giant jail in Gaza while controlling the sea, the air and the borders and simultaneously widening the occupation of the West Bank with settlements and the separation fence'.* Egyptian officials countered that security advisers would only go to Gaza with a clear invitation from the PA. During 2005, Egypt appeared to be steering the PA (now under Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas) towards accepting an expanding Egyptian security role in the Gaza Strip. By August 2005 Egyptian security officials were training 5,000 Palestinian policemen in the Gaza Strip in preparation for Israeli withdrawal. Meanwhile, progress towards Egyptian-Israeli normalisation resumed with the return of the Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv and the signing of a $2.5 billion deal for the sale to Israel of Egyptian natural gas, which later caused uproar among the Egyptian opposition. In September 2005 Israeli settlements in Gaza were dismantled and Israeli troops withdrew from the area. Under the terms of an agreement brokered by the USA, the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt was to be under joint Palestinian and Egyptian control, but overseen by a European monitoring force. [*Surprise, surprise!]
"This neat division of responsibility between Fatah, Egypt and Israel was upset by Palestinian voters, who in January 2006 returned a majority of Hamas representatives in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. A new Palestinian government under Ismail Haniyeh soon faced an ultimatum from the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the USA, Russia & the EU), the major financial sponsors of the PA. Hamas, they insisted, must commit to 'non-violence' and to recognition of Israel, or forfeit all aid. In the absence of such guarantees, in April 2006 the USA and EU withdrew all support to the PA, adding to intense pressure on the population of Gaza produced by an Israeli blockade and chronic food shortages. Two months later Israel reinvaded Gaza - but failed to crush Hamas.
"The US officials now turned to Fatah, with Egyptian support, to achieve what the Israeli army had been unable to achieve. Egypt was to play a key role in preparing Fatah's militiamen for civil war, with the aim of destroying the Palestinian Islamists. In December 2006 Abbas called for new elections and dissolution of the Hamas government. Meanwhile Egyptian arms began to flow across the border to Fatah-controlled PA security services... Fatah security forces also received training in Egypt. In June 2007, however, Hamas routed Fatah's forces and seized military control of Gaza, pre-empting a US-backed military coup organised by Muhammad Dahlan, former head of the PA's Preventative Security Service. One factor prompting the Hamas initiative was a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that Abbas had asked Israel to allow passage to a further arms shipment from Egypt, including 'dozens of armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing RPG rockets, thousands of hand grenades and millions of rounds of ammunition'.
"Fatah's humiliation in Gaza contributed to worsening relations between Israel and Egypt. Israeli officials accused [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak of turning a blind eye to arms smuggling to Hamas and increased their pressure on the USA to block or reduce aid to Egypt. Mubarak was now facing an acute dilemma, which came to a head in January 2008. Israel had tightened its siege on Gaza, periodically cutting off electricity supplies, blockading almost all goods and causing immense suffering to the civilian population. On 22 January, Palestinian women demonstrated in Rafah, calling on Egyptian forces to open the border. A series of explosions breached the border fence and soon hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were pouring through into Egyptian territory. Publicly the Egyptian government welcomed the Palestinians, laying the blame for their plight on Israel's policy of blockade. At the same time it ordered suppression of demonstrations in Cairo. Some 1,000 people, mostly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, were arrested on 24 January as they attempted to gather in support of the Palestinians. Mubarak was eventually compelled to begin direct negotiations with Hamas over policing of the border.
"In December 2008, when Israel again assaulted Gaza, and Egypt refused to permit its residents to escape by entering Egypt, Mubarak was widely accused of having collaborated with the Palestinians' tormentors. Mass media across the region noted the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to Cairo a day before the attacks on Gaza, suggesting that Mubarak had known in advance of the assault. From Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah broadcast live on Arabic-language satellite channels, declaring cryptically: 'I am not calling for a coup in Egypt... but if you [the Egyptian government] do not open the Rafah crossing, if you do not help the Palestinian people, you will be considered accomplices in the massacre and the blockade'. In an unusual step Egyptian security services permitted a number of closely controlled demonstrations in central Cairo, although protests which began in universities and in provincial centres were attacked and many activists arrested." (pp 143-145)
If you found that depressing, how about the big picture of USraeli-Arab collaboration? The following overview, The Arab States as Instruments of US Policy is taken from Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel & Palestine, Naseer H. Aruri, South End Press, 2003:
"Arab regimes are among the principal tools of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The Jordanian military onslaught against the Palestinian movement in September 1970 inflicted structural damage, the effect of which continued to set back the Palestinian struggle for decades to come. Not only had the late King Hussein terminated the Palestinian-enforced de facto dual authority in Jordan, he also enabled the United States and Israel to maintain their strategic advantage in the east Mediterranean vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Likewise, when Palestinian fighters regrouped in Lebanon after the 'Black September' debacle of 1970 and began to threaten the delicate balance inside Lebanon and in the region, Syria was tacitly accepted by the United States and Israel as the logical candidate for the role of policeman in 1976. The Palestinian national movement once again had to be reduced to manageable proportions, this time, however, not by a conservative pro-Western monarchy, but by a self-professed 'revolutionary' Arab nationalist regime. The agreement, in which Israel and Syria came to share suzerainty over Lebanon, with US blessings, was the product of that mission.
"Egypt was drafted subsequently to deliver the coup de grace, peacefully this time, against the Palestinians. Camp David had inflicted more damage on Palestinian nationalism by nonmilitary means in 1978 than the two previous armed onslaughts combined. Thus, the first Arab state to assume responsibility for strategic balance vis-a-vis Israel, from the mid-1950s until 1970, was transformed in the late 1970s to an enforcer of US policy and a facilitator for Israel. Not only had Camp David I secured the removal of Egypt from the Arab strategic arena, it also allowed Israel to dodge its legal responsibilities to the Palestinian people and to shrug off its obligation to withdraw from Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territories, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and international law.
"Even Iraq, the third contender for strategic balance vis-a-vis Israel, had allowed itself to become an instrument of US foreign policy during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. US policy makers were gratified to see Iraq inflict damage on the Islamic republic in Iran without cost to the United States, and to weaken itself in the process, thus undermining its desire to play the role of pacesetter in the Gulf. Moreover, Iraq's war against the mullahs turned Arab attention away from the Israeli threat and toward a presumed 'Shiite Iranian threat'. The Palestinian cause, already battered by Camp David, was further bruised by the redefined priorities of Saddam Hussein. And when Hussein began to exaggerate his own importance for US interests in the Gulf, he was reduced to size, not only with the acquiescence of Arab regimes, but also with the active participation of the Gulf states, Egypt, and Syria." (pp 6-7)
"From 2002 onwards Egyptian officials began to play an active role in the 2 key areas of Palestinian politics. First they continued to transmit US and Israeli pressure to the Palestinian Authority, particularly by means of a reformed Palestinian security apparatus. The Egyptians claimed to be acting as impartial mediators between Palestinian factions, hosting talks between Fatah and the Islamists of Hamas, and brokering ceasefires when in 2007 the 2 factions came into conflict. Meanwhile Mubarak dealt directly with the Israeli government, facilitating the latter's strategy of 'disengagement' from Gaza. Under plans agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, Egyptian security advisers were to police the Palestinian security services after Sharon had organised evacuation of Israeli settlements. A joint statement by the Palestinian factions in June 2004 condemned Egypt's role as 'part of a policy of deception and fraud whose goal is to imprison the Palestinian people in a giant jail in Gaza while controlling the sea, the air and the borders and simultaneously widening the occupation of the West Bank with settlements and the separation fence'.* Egyptian officials countered that security advisers would only go to Gaza with a clear invitation from the PA. During 2005, Egypt appeared to be steering the PA (now under Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas) towards accepting an expanding Egyptian security role in the Gaza Strip. By August 2005 Egyptian security officials were training 5,000 Palestinian policemen in the Gaza Strip in preparation for Israeli withdrawal. Meanwhile, progress towards Egyptian-Israeli normalisation resumed with the return of the Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv and the signing of a $2.5 billion deal for the sale to Israel of Egyptian natural gas, which later caused uproar among the Egyptian opposition. In September 2005 Israeli settlements in Gaza were dismantled and Israeli troops withdrew from the area. Under the terms of an agreement brokered by the USA, the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt was to be under joint Palestinian and Egyptian control, but overseen by a European monitoring force. [*Surprise, surprise!]
"This neat division of responsibility between Fatah, Egypt and Israel was upset by Palestinian voters, who in January 2006 returned a majority of Hamas representatives in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. A new Palestinian government under Ismail Haniyeh soon faced an ultimatum from the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the USA, Russia & the EU), the major financial sponsors of the PA. Hamas, they insisted, must commit to 'non-violence' and to recognition of Israel, or forfeit all aid. In the absence of such guarantees, in April 2006 the USA and EU withdrew all support to the PA, adding to intense pressure on the population of Gaza produced by an Israeli blockade and chronic food shortages. Two months later Israel reinvaded Gaza - but failed to crush Hamas.
"The US officials now turned to Fatah, with Egyptian support, to achieve what the Israeli army had been unable to achieve. Egypt was to play a key role in preparing Fatah's militiamen for civil war, with the aim of destroying the Palestinian Islamists. In December 2006 Abbas called for new elections and dissolution of the Hamas government. Meanwhile Egyptian arms began to flow across the border to Fatah-controlled PA security services... Fatah security forces also received training in Egypt. In June 2007, however, Hamas routed Fatah's forces and seized military control of Gaza, pre-empting a US-backed military coup organised by Muhammad Dahlan, former head of the PA's Preventative Security Service. One factor prompting the Hamas initiative was a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that Abbas had asked Israel to allow passage to a further arms shipment from Egypt, including 'dozens of armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing RPG rockets, thousands of hand grenades and millions of rounds of ammunition'.
"Fatah's humiliation in Gaza contributed to worsening relations between Israel and Egypt. Israeli officials accused [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak of turning a blind eye to arms smuggling to Hamas and increased their pressure on the USA to block or reduce aid to Egypt. Mubarak was now facing an acute dilemma, which came to a head in January 2008. Israel had tightened its siege on Gaza, periodically cutting off electricity supplies, blockading almost all goods and causing immense suffering to the civilian population. On 22 January, Palestinian women demonstrated in Rafah, calling on Egyptian forces to open the border. A series of explosions breached the border fence and soon hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were pouring through into Egyptian territory. Publicly the Egyptian government welcomed the Palestinians, laying the blame for their plight on Israel's policy of blockade. At the same time it ordered suppression of demonstrations in Cairo. Some 1,000 people, mostly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, were arrested on 24 January as they attempted to gather in support of the Palestinians. Mubarak was eventually compelled to begin direct negotiations with Hamas over policing of the border.
"In December 2008, when Israel again assaulted Gaza, and Egypt refused to permit its residents to escape by entering Egypt, Mubarak was widely accused of having collaborated with the Palestinians' tormentors. Mass media across the region noted the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to Cairo a day before the attacks on Gaza, suggesting that Mubarak had known in advance of the assault. From Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah broadcast live on Arabic-language satellite channels, declaring cryptically: 'I am not calling for a coup in Egypt... but if you [the Egyptian government] do not open the Rafah crossing, if you do not help the Palestinian people, you will be considered accomplices in the massacre and the blockade'. In an unusual step Egyptian security services permitted a number of closely controlled demonstrations in central Cairo, although protests which began in universities and in provincial centres were attacked and many activists arrested." (pp 143-145)
If you found that depressing, how about the big picture of USraeli-Arab collaboration? The following overview, The Arab States as Instruments of US Policy is taken from Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel & Palestine, Naseer H. Aruri, South End Press, 2003:
"Arab regimes are among the principal tools of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The Jordanian military onslaught against the Palestinian movement in September 1970 inflicted structural damage, the effect of which continued to set back the Palestinian struggle for decades to come. Not only had the late King Hussein terminated the Palestinian-enforced de facto dual authority in Jordan, he also enabled the United States and Israel to maintain their strategic advantage in the east Mediterranean vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Likewise, when Palestinian fighters regrouped in Lebanon after the 'Black September' debacle of 1970 and began to threaten the delicate balance inside Lebanon and in the region, Syria was tacitly accepted by the United States and Israel as the logical candidate for the role of policeman in 1976. The Palestinian national movement once again had to be reduced to manageable proportions, this time, however, not by a conservative pro-Western monarchy, but by a self-professed 'revolutionary' Arab nationalist regime. The agreement, in which Israel and Syria came to share suzerainty over Lebanon, with US blessings, was the product of that mission.
"Egypt was drafted subsequently to deliver the coup de grace, peacefully this time, against the Palestinians. Camp David had inflicted more damage on Palestinian nationalism by nonmilitary means in 1978 than the two previous armed onslaughts combined. Thus, the first Arab state to assume responsibility for strategic balance vis-a-vis Israel, from the mid-1950s until 1970, was transformed in the late 1970s to an enforcer of US policy and a facilitator for Israel. Not only had Camp David I secured the removal of Egypt from the Arab strategic arena, it also allowed Israel to dodge its legal responsibilities to the Palestinian people and to shrug off its obligation to withdraw from Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territories, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and international law.
"Even Iraq, the third contender for strategic balance vis-a-vis Israel, had allowed itself to become an instrument of US foreign policy during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. US policy makers were gratified to see Iraq inflict damage on the Islamic republic in Iran without cost to the United States, and to weaken itself in the process, thus undermining its desire to play the role of pacesetter in the Gulf. Moreover, Iraq's war against the mullahs turned Arab attention away from the Israeli threat and toward a presumed 'Shiite Iranian threat'. The Palestinian cause, already battered by Camp David, was further bruised by the redefined priorities of Saddam Hussein. And when Hussein began to exaggerate his own importance for US interests in the Gulf, he was reduced to size, not only with the acquiescence of Arab regimes, but also with the active participation of the Gulf states, Egypt, and Syria." (pp 6-7)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
West's Wild East 4
Continued from the post before last...
Meet the 'Israelis':-
Jakov Baratz, Director of Military Intelligence, is The Tower of Babel's poster boy, the complete converse of that awful Syrian Ba'thist, Colonel Safreddin. He's your typical, conscience-racked Israeli philosopher-warrior who does everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties when planning his country's next war crime... which the author has based on Israel's 1966 "reprisal raid" on the West Bank village of Samua when the West Bank was still under Jordanian control (1948-1967). "PLO terrorists" have been infiltrating Israel from the West Bank and Jakov and his staff have been tasked by Aron the PM to prepare a plan for said "reprisal raid"on one of three villages in the Hebron area. They must consider how long it'll take Jordanian troops to counterattack, and, of course - being Israelis and all - "We have then, to consider the villagers themselves. We are to avoid civilian casualties*. Our plan is to move out the population and then destroy the village. However, the villagers must have some place to go. If there are caves and wadis where they can shelter, so much the better. We cannot have them caught in cross-fire between the Jordanians and ourselves... Any questions?... 'Suggestion, sir.' 'Let's have it.' 'Medical services. In case there are civilian casualties...'" (pp 90-91) [*"The Israelis are among the most disciplined troops in the world and go to great lengths to avoid civilian caualties." Greg Sheridan (See my 8/2/09 post On Planet Sheridan)]
As the "raid" proceeds, Jakov and Israeli Chief of Staff Chaim observe the action from an "observation post overlooking the Hebron valley": "In essence, the Hebron plan was very simple and there was little room for mistakes. At 0600 the fighters would be in the air, and the ground troops would be right on the Jordan border. They would drive 5 kms into Jordan territory and surround the village. The villagers would be moved out and a mixed company of infantry and engineers would move in to clear out stragglers and set demolition charges in houses and public buildings. The charges would be exploded, the company would withdraw, the operation would be over. The tanks were there to protect the infantry, provide a massive show of strength and bar the road to any approach by troops of [Jordan's] Arab Legion. The only probable oppostion would be small arms and sniping from armed irregulars of the PLO." (pp 310-311)
And lo, like clockwork, "[w]hen the villagers saw [the Israeli tanks] they fled in panic..." But, just for the panic-proof among them, "a huge distorted voice began calling on the villagers - if any remained - to leave their homes and follow their neighbours... They would not be harmed, the voice promised them, but if any man fired a shot... they would be killed without mercy. The call was repeated, once, twice and again. Then, under the watchful eyes of the gunners, the last frightened folk crept out of their homes and hurried away. The ring of tanks closed around the huddle of empty habitations. The troops moved in to prepare its destruction." (pp 315-316)
Jordanian troops arrive only to be badly mauled by Israeli tank rounds. In the village, "buildings... spouted fire or collapsed like card-houses in a puff of dusty air," before Israeli troops, "shepherded" by tanks, depart for home, "unscarred, unhurried." Remarks Chaim, "Very neat, very efficient." (pp 316-317) The PM, of course, is a tad pissed off at the number of Jordanian casualties, but Chaim will have none of it: "'We told you the risks. You accepted them. We [the military brass] won't be made scapegoats'. The PM drew in his horns like a snail."
To recap: the cool, civilian casualty averse Israeli army has carried out the pollies' dirty work with the heaviest of hearts, but apart from one too many Jordanian troops biting the dust, neither villagers (shame about their village though) nor Israeli heroes emerge with so much as a hair out of place. Now you believe that, don't you? West did. Sheridan does. Only problem is history wasn't quite as "neat" as the novelist would have us believe.
According to Israeli historian Tom Segev, "The military had been demanding permission from the government to act against a Jordanian village for months... The government had refused, authorizing only limited action that the military commanders deemed useless. Now the army proposed entering the village of Samua... and bombing a few dozen houses there. Chief of Staff Rabin [Chaim] went to see [PM] Eshkol [Aron] at his home in Jerusalem. Eshkol would have preferred to take steps against Syria, but he agreed that the circumstances demanded action in Jordan, despite the risk of unwanted conflict with the Jordanian army." (1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East 2007 p 150)
Nor, it seems, did the villagers or their attackers emerge unscathed: "Israel's envoy to Washington, Ephraim Evron, reported that the [military] attache [at the US embassy in Amman, who visited Samua] had seen 'many civilians' bodies, which suggested that not all the houses were evacuated before being blown up. Some of the bodies were those of elderly women who had not been able to escape in time, Evron reported. Operation Shredder, as it was called, grew far beyond the [security] cabinet's expectations... A regiment commander in the paratroopers was killed and 10 IDF soldiers were wounded." (1967, p 151) Oops!
There were other consequences of the raid as well: the West Bank erupted in anti-Hashemite riots, savagely put down by the Jordanian army. It also had the effect of convincing King Hussein that whether he threw in his lot with the Syrians and the Egyptians or not, Israel wanted to occupy the West Bank regardless (see Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War & Peace, Avi Shlaim, 2007, p 227). Funny that, because one of the novel's themes is alleged Arab provocations of Israel designed to goad it into war.
Party pooper Segev might describe Yakov, Chaim & Co as "like adolescent boys or bulls in rut. They believed in force and they wanted war. War was their destiny (1967, p 296)," but what the hell does he know? West's Director of Military Intelligence is a man who cares, damn it, a man in pain:
"As he walked back alone to his office [Jakov] thought, as he had thought many times before, that it was all too spare and frigid and impersonal - a game played on a sand map, with no true knowledge, or even knowledgeable discussion about the human factors involved. Move out the civilian population! So simple! A roar on a bull horn and the human ants march out in orderly procession from the ant-heap. But it was never like that. How could it be? It was something far more poignant and destructive, old women doddering in panic through the alleys, a confusion of men shouting and yelling in contradiction, babies snatched from the breast, children herded like frightened sheep to caves and clefts in the hillside, the small hoards of seven hundred poor lifetimes buried under a pile of rubble. For what? To tell a harried princeling that he must police a hundred miles of desert border a little better. Medical services! God Almighty, how easy it was to say - how harsh the instant reality! A man with his eye gouged out by a bullet; a boy pushing his spilled guts back into his belly; the blank puzzlement on the faces of the dead. How easy it was to make political calculations - as if you could work out the whole human equation with a pair of calipers and a slide rule. Across the Atlantic the assembly of nations would sit in judgement on the act which, today, was being planned with such professional detatchment. All round the spinning planet, men and women would read the news and wonder whether this incident or the next would trigger an atomic destruction. There were no bounds to the consequences of the simplest act of violence. One man dead meant thousands would never be born. One homeless man might one day tear down cities in a mad vendetta against the human race. You could push the monstrous logic to a point at which it would drive you mad. On the other hand you could affect to ignore it altogether and limit yourself to that area of action which was allotted to you by legal commission. You could inform, advise, protest and then submit yourself to the consensus with a clear conscience... Or could you? He remembered Eichmann* sitting in his glass box in the courtroom, and making the same plea in a hundred different forms. What beat Eichmann in the end was the sheer horror of the arithmetic; but it started with the first Jew beaten by the first bunch of bullies in the street. So, if because of what you have begun this morning, one child is killed in a Hebron hovel, where do you stand? You know it can happen. You know it probably will. You have already accepted this tacit probability. How do you plead, Jakov Baratz? Guilty or not guilty?" (pp 91-92) [*Whoops! Inappropriate analogy! Morris West, you're an anti-Semite for sure!]
Like all those Israelis charged with keeping the hordes of Amalek at bay, Jakov suffers terribly from Existential Threat Syndrome (ETS): "'A man was killed this morning, sir; a peaceful farmer...' 'We have lost 6 million dead in the holocausts, Captain. Israel is built on their ashes. remember that'... The young man saluted and went out, closing the door behind him. Baratz stood staring at the map, where the red ink was spattered like blood spots and the cryptic military symbols told the story of a daily battle for survival. The map was as familiar to him as his own skin and he reacted instantly to every itch and prickle on its surface. Sometimes in his troubled dreams it was a skin; a living human skin, stretched tight and pegged down over a narrow ground between Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and the sea which was its life blood. Suddenly the skin would errupt into swellings and pustules and out of these would come legions and legions of soldier ants, marching in serried ranks until they blotted out the skin and ate through it to the bare ground. When the ants left, the ground would be covered with bones, over which the voice of the ancient prophet chanted a threnody: The Power of the Lord laid hold of me and by the Spirit of the Lord I was carried away and set down in the midst of the plain which was covered with bones. Round the whole extent of them he took me, where they lay thick on the plain, all of them parched quite dry. Son of man, he said, can life return to these bones... Then, in the dream, there would be a silence while he waited for the promise of resurrection that should follow the threnody. But the promise never came and he would wake, sweating and terrified, knowing that if the ants took over the land there would be no resurrection any more and that the House of Israel would be blotted out for ever."
But, despite his troubled dreams, he's really just a regular guy we can all identify with (unlike those Arab freaks already described: "[H]e did not believe in magic any more than he believed in the God of the Fathers, who could sit removed in his heaven while 6 million of his chosen ones perished in a monstrous hecatomb. And this was the irony of his situation, that in him, an appointed trustee of the continuity of Israel, the continuity was already broken. The hands which lay before him on the table were not anointed to a priesthood. No prophecies were written in their leathery palms. They called down no benediction from a silent sky. They were artisan's hands, apt to the working of wood and metal. They were soldier's hands, that could strip a gun and assemble it again from stock to muzzle swifter than most. They were lover's hands, which had once wakened Hannah to triumphant ecstasy..." (p 6)
And, and, he's sooo connected to the land: "He had come to it as a child, son of a landless trader from the Baltic, and he had never forgotten the splendour of his arrival: the furnace blaze of the sun, the blinding sky, the mountains hewn as if by wild axe-men, the desert where the air danced and cities and palm trees swam upside down and vanished at a glance. As a youth he had farmed it, building rock walls with his bare hands, carrying baskets of earth on his back, planting the vine twigs and the lemon-trees. As a man he had fought over it, using the military skills that the British had taught him, counting every bloody mile from Lydda to Ramle, to Abu Ghosh and the final foothold on Zion*. And now his love for it was manifold: a dark passion that bound him closer to the soil than he ever had been to the body of a woman. He was jealous too, like all lovers; because his tenure in the beloved was always insecure - and no one knew better than he how strongly it was threatened." (p 30) [*So Jakov threw himself into the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948? You gotta love this guy.]
To be continued...
Meet the 'Israelis':-
Jakov Baratz, Director of Military Intelligence, is The Tower of Babel's poster boy, the complete converse of that awful Syrian Ba'thist, Colonel Safreddin. He's your typical, conscience-racked Israeli philosopher-warrior who does everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties when planning his country's next war crime... which the author has based on Israel's 1966 "reprisal raid" on the West Bank village of Samua when the West Bank was still under Jordanian control (1948-1967). "PLO terrorists" have been infiltrating Israel from the West Bank and Jakov and his staff have been tasked by Aron the PM to prepare a plan for said "reprisal raid"on one of three villages in the Hebron area. They must consider how long it'll take Jordanian troops to counterattack, and, of course - being Israelis and all - "We have then, to consider the villagers themselves. We are to avoid civilian casualties*. Our plan is to move out the population and then destroy the village. However, the villagers must have some place to go. If there are caves and wadis where they can shelter, so much the better. We cannot have them caught in cross-fire between the Jordanians and ourselves... Any questions?... 'Suggestion, sir.' 'Let's have it.' 'Medical services. In case there are civilian casualties...'" (pp 90-91) [*"The Israelis are among the most disciplined troops in the world and go to great lengths to avoid civilian caualties." Greg Sheridan (See my 8/2/09 post On Planet Sheridan)]
As the "raid" proceeds, Jakov and Israeli Chief of Staff Chaim observe the action from an "observation post overlooking the Hebron valley": "In essence, the Hebron plan was very simple and there was little room for mistakes. At 0600 the fighters would be in the air, and the ground troops would be right on the Jordan border. They would drive 5 kms into Jordan territory and surround the village. The villagers would be moved out and a mixed company of infantry and engineers would move in to clear out stragglers and set demolition charges in houses and public buildings. The charges would be exploded, the company would withdraw, the operation would be over. The tanks were there to protect the infantry, provide a massive show of strength and bar the road to any approach by troops of [Jordan's] Arab Legion. The only probable oppostion would be small arms and sniping from armed irregulars of the PLO." (pp 310-311)
And lo, like clockwork, "[w]hen the villagers saw [the Israeli tanks] they fled in panic..." But, just for the panic-proof among them, "a huge distorted voice began calling on the villagers - if any remained - to leave their homes and follow their neighbours... They would not be harmed, the voice promised them, but if any man fired a shot... they would be killed without mercy. The call was repeated, once, twice and again. Then, under the watchful eyes of the gunners, the last frightened folk crept out of their homes and hurried away. The ring of tanks closed around the huddle of empty habitations. The troops moved in to prepare its destruction." (pp 315-316)
Jordanian troops arrive only to be badly mauled by Israeli tank rounds. In the village, "buildings... spouted fire or collapsed like card-houses in a puff of dusty air," before Israeli troops, "shepherded" by tanks, depart for home, "unscarred, unhurried." Remarks Chaim, "Very neat, very efficient." (pp 316-317) The PM, of course, is a tad pissed off at the number of Jordanian casualties, but Chaim will have none of it: "'We told you the risks. You accepted them. We [the military brass] won't be made scapegoats'. The PM drew in his horns like a snail."
To recap: the cool, civilian casualty averse Israeli army has carried out the pollies' dirty work with the heaviest of hearts, but apart from one too many Jordanian troops biting the dust, neither villagers (shame about their village though) nor Israeli heroes emerge with so much as a hair out of place. Now you believe that, don't you? West did. Sheridan does. Only problem is history wasn't quite as "neat" as the novelist would have us believe.
According to Israeli historian Tom Segev, "The military had been demanding permission from the government to act against a Jordanian village for months... The government had refused, authorizing only limited action that the military commanders deemed useless. Now the army proposed entering the village of Samua... and bombing a few dozen houses there. Chief of Staff Rabin [Chaim] went to see [PM] Eshkol [Aron] at his home in Jerusalem. Eshkol would have preferred to take steps against Syria, but he agreed that the circumstances demanded action in Jordan, despite the risk of unwanted conflict with the Jordanian army." (1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East 2007 p 150)
Nor, it seems, did the villagers or their attackers emerge unscathed: "Israel's envoy to Washington, Ephraim Evron, reported that the [military] attache [at the US embassy in Amman, who visited Samua] had seen 'many civilians' bodies, which suggested that not all the houses were evacuated before being blown up. Some of the bodies were those of elderly women who had not been able to escape in time, Evron reported. Operation Shredder, as it was called, grew far beyond the [security] cabinet's expectations... A regiment commander in the paratroopers was killed and 10 IDF soldiers were wounded." (1967, p 151) Oops!
There were other consequences of the raid as well: the West Bank erupted in anti-Hashemite riots, savagely put down by the Jordanian army. It also had the effect of convincing King Hussein that whether he threw in his lot with the Syrians and the Egyptians or not, Israel wanted to occupy the West Bank regardless (see Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War & Peace, Avi Shlaim, 2007, p 227). Funny that, because one of the novel's themes is alleged Arab provocations of Israel designed to goad it into war.
Party pooper Segev might describe Yakov, Chaim & Co as "like adolescent boys or bulls in rut. They believed in force and they wanted war. War was their destiny (1967, p 296)," but what the hell does he know? West's Director of Military Intelligence is a man who cares, damn it, a man in pain:
"As he walked back alone to his office [Jakov] thought, as he had thought many times before, that it was all too spare and frigid and impersonal - a game played on a sand map, with no true knowledge, or even knowledgeable discussion about the human factors involved. Move out the civilian population! So simple! A roar on a bull horn and the human ants march out in orderly procession from the ant-heap. But it was never like that. How could it be? It was something far more poignant and destructive, old women doddering in panic through the alleys, a confusion of men shouting and yelling in contradiction, babies snatched from the breast, children herded like frightened sheep to caves and clefts in the hillside, the small hoards of seven hundred poor lifetimes buried under a pile of rubble. For what? To tell a harried princeling that he must police a hundred miles of desert border a little better. Medical services! God Almighty, how easy it was to say - how harsh the instant reality! A man with his eye gouged out by a bullet; a boy pushing his spilled guts back into his belly; the blank puzzlement on the faces of the dead. How easy it was to make political calculations - as if you could work out the whole human equation with a pair of calipers and a slide rule. Across the Atlantic the assembly of nations would sit in judgement on the act which, today, was being planned with such professional detatchment. All round the spinning planet, men and women would read the news and wonder whether this incident or the next would trigger an atomic destruction. There were no bounds to the consequences of the simplest act of violence. One man dead meant thousands would never be born. One homeless man might one day tear down cities in a mad vendetta against the human race. You could push the monstrous logic to a point at which it would drive you mad. On the other hand you could affect to ignore it altogether and limit yourself to that area of action which was allotted to you by legal commission. You could inform, advise, protest and then submit yourself to the consensus with a clear conscience... Or could you? He remembered Eichmann* sitting in his glass box in the courtroom, and making the same plea in a hundred different forms. What beat Eichmann in the end was the sheer horror of the arithmetic; but it started with the first Jew beaten by the first bunch of bullies in the street. So, if because of what you have begun this morning, one child is killed in a Hebron hovel, where do you stand? You know it can happen. You know it probably will. You have already accepted this tacit probability. How do you plead, Jakov Baratz? Guilty or not guilty?" (pp 91-92) [*Whoops! Inappropriate analogy! Morris West, you're an anti-Semite for sure!]
Like all those Israelis charged with keeping the hordes of Amalek at bay, Jakov suffers terribly from Existential Threat Syndrome (ETS): "'A man was killed this morning, sir; a peaceful farmer...' 'We have lost 6 million dead in the holocausts, Captain. Israel is built on their ashes. remember that'... The young man saluted and went out, closing the door behind him. Baratz stood staring at the map, where the red ink was spattered like blood spots and the cryptic military symbols told the story of a daily battle for survival. The map was as familiar to him as his own skin and he reacted instantly to every itch and prickle on its surface. Sometimes in his troubled dreams it was a skin; a living human skin, stretched tight and pegged down over a narrow ground between Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and the sea which was its life blood. Suddenly the skin would errupt into swellings and pustules and out of these would come legions and legions of soldier ants, marching in serried ranks until they blotted out the skin and ate through it to the bare ground. When the ants left, the ground would be covered with bones, over which the voice of the ancient prophet chanted a threnody: The Power of the Lord laid hold of me and by the Spirit of the Lord I was carried away and set down in the midst of the plain which was covered with bones. Round the whole extent of them he took me, where they lay thick on the plain, all of them parched quite dry. Son of man, he said, can life return to these bones... Then, in the dream, there would be a silence while he waited for the promise of resurrection that should follow the threnody. But the promise never came and he would wake, sweating and terrified, knowing that if the ants took over the land there would be no resurrection any more and that the House of Israel would be blotted out for ever."
But, despite his troubled dreams, he's really just a regular guy we can all identify with (unlike those Arab freaks already described: "[H]e did not believe in magic any more than he believed in the God of the Fathers, who could sit removed in his heaven while 6 million of his chosen ones perished in a monstrous hecatomb. And this was the irony of his situation, that in him, an appointed trustee of the continuity of Israel, the continuity was already broken. The hands which lay before him on the table were not anointed to a priesthood. No prophecies were written in their leathery palms. They called down no benediction from a silent sky. They were artisan's hands, apt to the working of wood and metal. They were soldier's hands, that could strip a gun and assemble it again from stock to muzzle swifter than most. They were lover's hands, which had once wakened Hannah to triumphant ecstasy..." (p 6)
And, and, he's sooo connected to the land: "He had come to it as a child, son of a landless trader from the Baltic, and he had never forgotten the splendour of his arrival: the furnace blaze of the sun, the blinding sky, the mountains hewn as if by wild axe-men, the desert where the air danced and cities and palm trees swam upside down and vanished at a glance. As a youth he had farmed it, building rock walls with his bare hands, carrying baskets of earth on his back, planting the vine twigs and the lemon-trees. As a man he had fought over it, using the military skills that the British had taught him, counting every bloody mile from Lydda to Ramle, to Abu Ghosh and the final foothold on Zion*. And now his love for it was manifold: a dark passion that bound him closer to the soil than he ever had been to the body of a woman. He was jealous too, like all lovers; because his tenure in the beloved was always insecure - and no one knew better than he how strongly it was threatened." (p 30) [*So Jakov threw himself into the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948? You gotta love this guy.]
To be continued...
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