While we're focusing the 50s, consider the following powerful words of Henry A. Byroade, Assistant Secretary of State (1952-55), addressing the Dayton (Ohio) World Affairs Council on April 9, 1954. They'd be inconceivable today, coming from a key US administration figure:
"To the Israelis I say that you should come to truly look upon yourselves as a Middle Eastern state and see your own future in that context rather than as a headquarters, or nucleus so to speak, of worldwide groupings of peoples of a particular religious faith who must have special rights within and obligations to the Israeli state. You should drop the attitude of the conqueror and the conviction that force and a policy of retaliatory killings is the only policy that your neighbors will understand. You should make your deeds correspond to your frequent utterances of the desire for peace." (Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1951-1955, Commander E.H. Hutchison, 1956, pp 97-98)
Just to be clear, among other things, Byroade is calling on Israel here to abandon a central pillar of Zionist ideology, the 'Jewish people' concept, which underpins the claim that Israel is not merely a state of its citizens, but rather a state representing all Jews, regardless of where they live, or whether they wish to be part of this fictional, supranational, entity.
Such plain-speaking, however, inevitably drew the wrath of the Zionist lobby of the day: "I had all kinds of problems," he recounted in an official interview, "There was a lot of pressure put on the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to get me out of the Service. I know: he talked to me frankly about it. He said to me once that a part of these problems were rumors about my sexual life. John Foster Dulles said, 'The President and I know exactly what's behind all this.' He said, 'Do you realize when I ran for the Senate in New York, they tried to pin a sex rap on me?'" (Truman Library - Henry Byroade Oral History Interview, 9/88, trumanlibrary.org)
Showing posts with label Truman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truman. Show all posts
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Thursday, July 23, 2015
First Colonel Kemp, Now Alan Johnson
There's no doubt about it, Sydney University, home to Professor Jake Lynch, the Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, and Sydney Staff for BDS, is being targeted by the Israel lobby.
First, there was Colonel Kemp*, and now, Alan Johnson:
"Apart from weapons, the way to defeat Islamic terrorism may be to engage in 'deeds of real opportunity' to win over young Muslims, such as an economic reconstruction 'Marshall Plan' for Gaza in exchange for demilitarization, according to leftist British political theorist Alan Johnson. He said social democratic movements in the West were operating in 'a kind of organised incoherence,' including slavishly attacking the traditional punching bags of Israel and the US... Professor Johnson, a senior associate at the British Labour-leaning think tank the Foreign Policy Centre, and a senior fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre [BICOM], was addressing a Sydney University audience." (Fight extremists 'with hearts and minds', Ean Higgins, The Australian, 23/7/15)
So "young Muslims" are going to be inspired by an end to Palestinian resistance and the transformation of the Gaza Ghetto into a pool of cheap labour for Israel? Hm...
If, on the other hand, Johnson had taken a different leaf out of US Secretary of State (1947-49) George Marshall's book, namely, that statesman's opposition to the partition of Palestine in 1947 and US recognition of the state of Israel in May 1948, there'd be no such thing as a USraeli "punching bag" today. (See my 12/10/12 post Mitt Romney is No George Marshall.)
So who's next at Sydney U?
[*See my 17/4/15 post The Trouble With Colonel Kemp.]
First, there was Colonel Kemp*, and now, Alan Johnson:
"Apart from weapons, the way to defeat Islamic terrorism may be to engage in 'deeds of real opportunity' to win over young Muslims, such as an economic reconstruction 'Marshall Plan' for Gaza in exchange for demilitarization, according to leftist British political theorist Alan Johnson. He said social democratic movements in the West were operating in 'a kind of organised incoherence,' including slavishly attacking the traditional punching bags of Israel and the US... Professor Johnson, a senior associate at the British Labour-leaning think tank the Foreign Policy Centre, and a senior fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre [BICOM], was addressing a Sydney University audience." (Fight extremists 'with hearts and minds', Ean Higgins, The Australian, 23/7/15)
So "young Muslims" are going to be inspired by an end to Palestinian resistance and the transformation of the Gaza Ghetto into a pool of cheap labour for Israel? Hm...
If, on the other hand, Johnson had taken a different leaf out of US Secretary of State (1947-49) George Marshall's book, namely, that statesman's opposition to the partition of Palestine in 1947 and US recognition of the state of Israel in May 1948, there'd be no such thing as a USraeli "punching bag" today. (See my 12/10/12 post Mitt Romney is No George Marshall.)
So who's next at Sydney U?
[*See my 17/4/15 post The Trouble With Colonel Kemp.]
Monday, November 11, 2013
The Politics of Partition 2
As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, one of the worst crimes in my book is lying about, misrepresenting, or otherwise distorting the historical record.
This habit, of course, is second nature to those with a vested interest in propping up the false historical narrative of political Zionism, and explains the need for, and motivation behind, blogs and websites such as this, which seek to combat Zionist (and Islamophobic) spin as it arises - alas, far too frequently - in the MS media.
Unfortunately, and I find this particularly troubling, such spin, though not necessarily Zionist in motivation, can also crop up in government-endorsed online resources for Higher School Certificate Modern History.
Take, for example, the following highly dubious treatment of the November, 1947 partition of Palestine in a document called Arab-Israeli conflict 1948-1996: 1948: A Year of myth or miracle? by Stephen Dixon of Kirrawee High:
"The United Nations (UN) vote for the partition of Palestine... illustrates well the public and private faces of Israeli policy during the period 1947-49. As the relieved and joyous crowds danced in the streets of Tel Aviv, there was talk of the hand of God miraculously delivering his people." (HSC Online, hsc.csu.edu.au)
One wonders why, in 2013, Dixon is invoking such a musty Eurocentric metaphysical concept as "the hand of God delivering his people" when the Zionist movement of the time was wholly secular in outlook, and in fact, just another European settler-colonial implant in the non-European world.
And where, one wonders, is there mention of the Palestinian Arabs, still the overwhelming majority of Palestine's population at the time? Doesn't it matter what they were thinking, and why?
To continue:
"On a more terrestrial level, the success of the Zionist enterprise can be attributed to the work of seasoned political in-fighters such as Golda Meir, Abba Eban and, above all, David Ben Gurion. Two examples serve to show how the establishment of the Jewish state was not left to chance or divine whim. As the date for the UN vote neared, the Arabs showed their naivety by eschewing the back-room deals and corridor meetings that are part and parcel of Western diplomacy. Not so the Zionists. Sustained and encouraged by the personal sympathy of President Truman of the USA and the powerful Jewish lobby of the eastern American seaboard, they began a process of intense behind-the-scenes lobbying to maximise the vote in favour of partition. Pressure was placed on the ambassadors of less committed small countries, such as Cuba, Haiti and Liberia, whose votes would help determine the decision. In the case of Liberia, the owner of the American Firestone Rubber Company, which held huge economic interests in the African country, was enlisted to pressure the Liberians to vote for partition." (ibid)
Now I suppose, one should be grateful that the student reading this is at least apprised, however sketchily, of the pressure tactics employed by the usual suspects to get their way. Be that as it may, Dixon's framing of the issue here is hugely problematic.
First, there is no hint here that our "in-fighters" were actually the ruthless Indian fighters who would go on to ethnically cleanse as much of Palestine as they could lay their hands on, leaving the partition resolution far behind in their wake. Nor is there a hint that Truman was motivated at the time largely by the desire to secure Jewish votes in a hard-fought election campaign.
But that's really the least of it.
The Arabs, in Dixon's construction, are simply assumed to have the same clout in the matter as the US Zionists whose dupes, in particular Clark Clifford and David Niles, were strategically positioned in the White House to ensure compliance with Zionist demands. If only these lackadaisical Arab klutzes had hopped off their camels long enough to get down and dirty in true Western style seems to be the gist here.
It appears that Dixon didn't pause long enough to consider whether the Arabs even had such useful things as a direct line to Firestone Rubber. No, they were just plain, bloody clueless!
Finally, the student who consults this text can surely be forgiven, in light of Dixon's presentation of the issue, for taking home the message that any low tactic is permissible in the world of statescraft. To hell with international law, ethical standards, and public probity.
Good one, Mr Dixon!
This habit, of course, is second nature to those with a vested interest in propping up the false historical narrative of political Zionism, and explains the need for, and motivation behind, blogs and websites such as this, which seek to combat Zionist (and Islamophobic) spin as it arises - alas, far too frequently - in the MS media.
Unfortunately, and I find this particularly troubling, such spin, though not necessarily Zionist in motivation, can also crop up in government-endorsed online resources for Higher School Certificate Modern History.
Take, for example, the following highly dubious treatment of the November, 1947 partition of Palestine in a document called Arab-Israeli conflict 1948-1996: 1948: A Year of myth or miracle? by Stephen Dixon of Kirrawee High:
"The United Nations (UN) vote for the partition of Palestine... illustrates well the public and private faces of Israeli policy during the period 1947-49. As the relieved and joyous crowds danced in the streets of Tel Aviv, there was talk of the hand of God miraculously delivering his people." (HSC Online, hsc.csu.edu.au)
One wonders why, in 2013, Dixon is invoking such a musty Eurocentric metaphysical concept as "the hand of God delivering his people" when the Zionist movement of the time was wholly secular in outlook, and in fact, just another European settler-colonial implant in the non-European world.
And where, one wonders, is there mention of the Palestinian Arabs, still the overwhelming majority of Palestine's population at the time? Doesn't it matter what they were thinking, and why?
To continue:
"On a more terrestrial level, the success of the Zionist enterprise can be attributed to the work of seasoned political in-fighters such as Golda Meir, Abba Eban and, above all, David Ben Gurion. Two examples serve to show how the establishment of the Jewish state was not left to chance or divine whim. As the date for the UN vote neared, the Arabs showed their naivety by eschewing the back-room deals and corridor meetings that are part and parcel of Western diplomacy. Not so the Zionists. Sustained and encouraged by the personal sympathy of President Truman of the USA and the powerful Jewish lobby of the eastern American seaboard, they began a process of intense behind-the-scenes lobbying to maximise the vote in favour of partition. Pressure was placed on the ambassadors of less committed small countries, such as Cuba, Haiti and Liberia, whose votes would help determine the decision. In the case of Liberia, the owner of the American Firestone Rubber Company, which held huge economic interests in the African country, was enlisted to pressure the Liberians to vote for partition." (ibid)
Now I suppose, one should be grateful that the student reading this is at least apprised, however sketchily, of the pressure tactics employed by the usual suspects to get their way. Be that as it may, Dixon's framing of the issue here is hugely problematic.
First, there is no hint here that our "in-fighters" were actually the ruthless Indian fighters who would go on to ethnically cleanse as much of Palestine as they could lay their hands on, leaving the partition resolution far behind in their wake. Nor is there a hint that Truman was motivated at the time largely by the desire to secure Jewish votes in a hard-fought election campaign.
But that's really the least of it.
The Arabs, in Dixon's construction, are simply assumed to have the same clout in the matter as the US Zionists whose dupes, in particular Clark Clifford and David Niles, were strategically positioned in the White House to ensure compliance with Zionist demands. If only these lackadaisical Arab klutzes had hopped off their camels long enough to get down and dirty in true Western style seems to be the gist here.
It appears that Dixon didn't pause long enough to consider whether the Arabs even had such useful things as a direct line to Firestone Rubber. No, they were just plain, bloody clueless!
Finally, the student who consults this text can surely be forgiven, in light of Dixon's presentation of the issue, for taking home the message that any low tactic is permissible in the world of statescraft. To hell with international law, ethical standards, and public probity.
Good one, Mr Dixon!
Friday, October 12, 2012
Mitt Romney is No George Marshall
In a speech given at the Virginia Military Institute on October 8, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney outlined his foreign - basically Middle East - policy goals.
Grotesquely but predictably, despite a decade of unprecedented death and destruction in the region unleashed by Bush and maintained by Obama, primarily to keep Israel and its domestic lobby happy, and despite the US taxpayer being slugged to pay for it all, Romney told us that "[t]here is a longing for American leadership in the Middle East."
No amount of rhetoric about US leadership in the Middle East, however, can disguise the fact that these days US policy there is essentially made in Israel, for Israel. Hence Romney's embrace of the bizarre notion that US and Israeli interests are one and the same:
"The relationship between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains. The President explicitly stated that his goal was to put 'daylight' between the United States and Israel. And he has succeeded. This is a dangerous situation that has set back the hope of peace in the Middle East and emboldened our mutual adversaries, especially Iran... I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security - the world must never see any daylight between our two nations."
The supreme irony of his speech was his invoking of the memory of US General George C. Marshall:
"Of all the VMI graduates, none is more distinguished than George Marshall - the Chief of Staff of the Army who became Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who helped to vanquish fascism and then planned Europe's rescue from despair. His commitment to peace was born of his direct knowledge of the awful costs and consequences of wars. General Marshall once said, 'The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.' Those words were true in his time - and they still echo in ours."
Marshall would have turned in his grave at the thought of this shameless hijacking of his legacy on behalf of a US foreign policy which caters to Israel's every wish and whim. Such is the ignorance of history, even its own, that prevails in the US that we can safely assume that whichever Romney hanger-on wrote his speech, he/she would've been blissfully unaware that, as President Truman's Secretary of State in the critical period leading up to the birth of Israel in May 1948, George Marshall was the key advocate in the Truman White House for putting as much daylight as possible between a nascent Israel and the United States, in opposition to those such as White House counsel and Zionist dupe Clark Clifford who pushed for the opposite.
Guided only by his belief in upholding and defending US and only US interests, Marshall did not support the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, favouring instead a UN trusteeship. Nor, when the idea of partitioning Palestine was mooted, did he support throwing America's weight behind it.
Finally, when it came to the matter of Truman (at the urging of Clifford) considering a speedy de facto recognition of the new state of Israel on May 15, 1948, with an eye to securing Jewish votes in an election year, Marshall was fiercely and fearlessly opposed to the idea:
"I remarked to the president that, speaking objectively, I could not help but think that suggestions made by Clifford were wrong. I thought that to adopt these suggestions would have precisely the opposite effect from that intended by him. The transparent dodge to win a few votes would not, in fact, achieve this purpose. The great dignity of the office of the president would be seriously damaged. The counsel offered by Mr Clifford's advice was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem confronting us was international. I stated bluntly that if the president were to follow Mr Clifford's advice, and if I were to vote in the next election, I would vote against the president." (Quoted in Remembering General George Marshall's clash with Clark Clifford over premature recognition of Israel, Dr Alfred M. Lilienthal, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999)
Unfortunately for the future course of US foreign policy, Marshall stopped short of going public with his principled opposition to Truman's expedient sucking up to Israel firsters. If he had, it just might be the case today that US presidents would be making their own Middle East policy, free of the crippling and demeaning subservience to perceived Israeli interests demanded and engineered by the Israel lobby; that the Middle East would have been largely spared the devastating serial USraeli aggressions so characteristic of our time; and that we'd all be spared the unedifying spectacle of candidates for the American presidency babbling inanely about eliminating daylight between Israel and the United States.
Just imagine...
Grotesquely but predictably, despite a decade of unprecedented death and destruction in the region unleashed by Bush and maintained by Obama, primarily to keep Israel and its domestic lobby happy, and despite the US taxpayer being slugged to pay for it all, Romney told us that "[t]here is a longing for American leadership in the Middle East."
No amount of rhetoric about US leadership in the Middle East, however, can disguise the fact that these days US policy there is essentially made in Israel, for Israel. Hence Romney's embrace of the bizarre notion that US and Israeli interests are one and the same:
"The relationship between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains. The President explicitly stated that his goal was to put 'daylight' between the United States and Israel. And he has succeeded. This is a dangerous situation that has set back the hope of peace in the Middle East and emboldened our mutual adversaries, especially Iran... I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security - the world must never see any daylight between our two nations."
The supreme irony of his speech was his invoking of the memory of US General George C. Marshall:
"Of all the VMI graduates, none is more distinguished than George Marshall - the Chief of Staff of the Army who became Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who helped to vanquish fascism and then planned Europe's rescue from despair. His commitment to peace was born of his direct knowledge of the awful costs and consequences of wars. General Marshall once said, 'The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.' Those words were true in his time - and they still echo in ours."
Marshall would have turned in his grave at the thought of this shameless hijacking of his legacy on behalf of a US foreign policy which caters to Israel's every wish and whim. Such is the ignorance of history, even its own, that prevails in the US that we can safely assume that whichever Romney hanger-on wrote his speech, he/she would've been blissfully unaware that, as President Truman's Secretary of State in the critical period leading up to the birth of Israel in May 1948, George Marshall was the key advocate in the Truman White House for putting as much daylight as possible between a nascent Israel and the United States, in opposition to those such as White House counsel and Zionist dupe Clark Clifford who pushed for the opposite.
Guided only by his belief in upholding and defending US and only US interests, Marshall did not support the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, favouring instead a UN trusteeship. Nor, when the idea of partitioning Palestine was mooted, did he support throwing America's weight behind it.
Finally, when it came to the matter of Truman (at the urging of Clifford) considering a speedy de facto recognition of the new state of Israel on May 15, 1948, with an eye to securing Jewish votes in an election year, Marshall was fiercely and fearlessly opposed to the idea:
"I remarked to the president that, speaking objectively, I could not help but think that suggestions made by Clifford were wrong. I thought that to adopt these suggestions would have precisely the opposite effect from that intended by him. The transparent dodge to win a few votes would not, in fact, achieve this purpose. The great dignity of the office of the president would be seriously damaged. The counsel offered by Mr Clifford's advice was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem confronting us was international. I stated bluntly that if the president were to follow Mr Clifford's advice, and if I were to vote in the next election, I would vote against the president." (Quoted in Remembering General George Marshall's clash with Clark Clifford over premature recognition of Israel, Dr Alfred M. Lilienthal, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999)
Unfortunately for the future course of US foreign policy, Marshall stopped short of going public with his principled opposition to Truman's expedient sucking up to Israel firsters. If he had, it just might be the case today that US presidents would be making their own Middle East policy, free of the crippling and demeaning subservience to perceived Israeli interests demanded and engineered by the Israel lobby; that the Middle East would have been largely spared the devastating serial USraeli aggressions so characteristic of our time; and that we'd all be spared the unedifying spectacle of candidates for the American presidency babbling inanely about eliminating daylight between Israel and the United States.
Just imagine...
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Gore Vidal , America's George Orwell
Courageous American intellectual, essayist, novelist, playwright and critic of American imperialism, Gore Vidal, died last week.
You wouldn't know though, from the obituaries in the Australian press (Man of letters last of his kind, AP/The Australian, 2/8/12; Insider author understood the world, Guardian News/Sydney Morning Herald, 3/8/12) that one of America's greatest minds had no trouble whatever understanding and deploring the bizarre and malign hold exercised by the Israel lobby over the United States' Middle East policy.
The only indication in the Australia press that Vidal had somehow escaped the 'Elephant? What elephant?' conditioning and cowardice that characterises most American (and Australian) intellectuals* came from a New York Times piece by Charles McGrath: "Some of his political positions were quarrelsome and provocative. Vidal was an outspoken critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians..."
There you have it, for The New York Times, anyone who criticises Israel, if not simply ignored or dismissed outright as an anti-Semite, may be accused of being "quarrelsome and provocative"!
That the US (and The New York Times) had a bit of an 'elephant' problem, was nothing new for Vidal. He was aware of it back in the 60s:
"As I left, I told [Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, editor of Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper and friend of its president, Gamal Abdul Nasser] that if I saw Nasser at the end of the week I was perfectly willing to present to the American public Egypt's case against Israel, just as Egypt would like it presented. Partly out of a sense of mischief (we hear altogether too much of the other side) and partly out of a sense of justice, I thought that the Arab case should be given attention in the American press. As of now it has been disregarded. In fact, a few years ago the Egyptians, despairing of ever seeing their cause presented impartially in the usual 'news' columns, tried to buy an advertisement in The New York Times. They were turned down. As a result, the Egyptians are somewhat cynical about our 'free press.' They are also quite aware that when Israel was founded in 1948 and the Arabs protested to Harry Truman, he told them with characteristic bluntness: 'I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.'** Heikal laughed when I told him that the Arab point of view might one day be given in the American national press. 'Your press would never let you,' he said with finality, as one journalist to another. 'Don't even try.'" (Passage to Egypt (1963), in The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, Edited by Jay Parini, 2008, p 283)
And here's Vidal discussing the 'elephant' 30 years later, in his Foreword to the first printing (1994) of Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years:
"Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him 2 million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. 'That's why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.' As neither Jack nor I was an antisemite (unlike his father and my grandfather) we took this to be just another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of American politics.
"Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has resulted in 45 years of murderous confusion, and the destruction of what Zionist fellow travellers thought would be a pluralistic state - home to its native population of Muslims, Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European and American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected to believe that the great realtor in the sky had given them, in perpetuity, the lands of Judea and Samaria. Since many of the immigrants were good socialists in Europe, we assumed that they would not allow the new state to become a theocracy, and that the native Palestinians could live with them as equals. This was not meant to be. I shall not rehearse the wars and alarms of that unhappy region. But I will say that the hasty invention of Israel has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the USA, Israel's unlikely patron.
"Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has ever hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest in a 'homeland'. It is as if the American taxpayer had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of the Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this been attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would have said no. But a religious minority of less than 2% has bought or intimidated 70 senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely presidential veto) while enjoying the support of the media."
These days the best indication of an individual's true worth as a man and an intellectual is to seek out the opinion of a leading Zionist shill on him and assume the opposite. As it happens, Israel's loudest voice in the Australian ms media, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, has called Vidal "no George Orwell" (Celebrity novelist insulted enemies with mocking style, The Australian, 2/8/12), so there you have it, folks; Vidal is America's George Orwell.
[*Characterised most recently by US geographer Jared Diamond's complete failure to mention the Palestinians and Israel's occupation when correcting Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney's misrepresentation of his Guns, Germs & Steel thesis, which Romney had cited to claim that Israel's 'success' vis-a-vis the Palestinians boiled down to cultural superiority. (See Romney hasn't done his homework, New York Times, 1/8/12); ** To correct Vidal, Truman was actually speaking to a group of America's diplomats in the Middle East (See my 21/4/10 post No George Marshall.).
You wouldn't know though, from the obituaries in the Australian press (Man of letters last of his kind, AP/The Australian, 2/8/12; Insider author understood the world, Guardian News/Sydney Morning Herald, 3/8/12) that one of America's greatest minds had no trouble whatever understanding and deploring the bizarre and malign hold exercised by the Israel lobby over the United States' Middle East policy.
The only indication in the Australia press that Vidal had somehow escaped the 'Elephant? What elephant?' conditioning and cowardice that characterises most American (and Australian) intellectuals* came from a New York Times piece by Charles McGrath: "Some of his political positions were quarrelsome and provocative. Vidal was an outspoken critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians..."
There you have it, for The New York Times, anyone who criticises Israel, if not simply ignored or dismissed outright as an anti-Semite, may be accused of being "quarrelsome and provocative"!
That the US (and The New York Times) had a bit of an 'elephant' problem, was nothing new for Vidal. He was aware of it back in the 60s:
"As I left, I told [Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, editor of Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper and friend of its president, Gamal Abdul Nasser] that if I saw Nasser at the end of the week I was perfectly willing to present to the American public Egypt's case against Israel, just as Egypt would like it presented. Partly out of a sense of mischief (we hear altogether too much of the other side) and partly out of a sense of justice, I thought that the Arab case should be given attention in the American press. As of now it has been disregarded. In fact, a few years ago the Egyptians, despairing of ever seeing their cause presented impartially in the usual 'news' columns, tried to buy an advertisement in The New York Times. They were turned down. As a result, the Egyptians are somewhat cynical about our 'free press.' They are also quite aware that when Israel was founded in 1948 and the Arabs protested to Harry Truman, he told them with characteristic bluntness: 'I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.'** Heikal laughed when I told him that the Arab point of view might one day be given in the American national press. 'Your press would never let you,' he said with finality, as one journalist to another. 'Don't even try.'" (Passage to Egypt (1963), in The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, Edited by Jay Parini, 2008, p 283)
And here's Vidal discussing the 'elephant' 30 years later, in his Foreword to the first printing (1994) of Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years:
"Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him 2 million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. 'That's why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.' As neither Jack nor I was an antisemite (unlike his father and my grandfather) we took this to be just another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of American politics.
"Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has resulted in 45 years of murderous confusion, and the destruction of what Zionist fellow travellers thought would be a pluralistic state - home to its native population of Muslims, Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European and American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected to believe that the great realtor in the sky had given them, in perpetuity, the lands of Judea and Samaria. Since many of the immigrants were good socialists in Europe, we assumed that they would not allow the new state to become a theocracy, and that the native Palestinians could live with them as equals. This was not meant to be. I shall not rehearse the wars and alarms of that unhappy region. But I will say that the hasty invention of Israel has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the USA, Israel's unlikely patron.
"Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has ever hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest in a 'homeland'. It is as if the American taxpayer had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of the Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this been attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would have said no. But a religious minority of less than 2% has bought or intimidated 70 senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely presidential veto) while enjoying the support of the media."
These days the best indication of an individual's true worth as a man and an intellectual is to seek out the opinion of a leading Zionist shill on him and assume the opposite. As it happens, Israel's loudest voice in the Australian ms media, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, has called Vidal "no George Orwell" (Celebrity novelist insulted enemies with mocking style, The Australian, 2/8/12), so there you have it, folks; Vidal is America's George Orwell.
[*Characterised most recently by US geographer Jared Diamond's complete failure to mention the Palestinians and Israel's occupation when correcting Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney's misrepresentation of his Guns, Germs & Steel thesis, which Romney had cited to claim that Israel's 'success' vis-a-vis the Palestinians boiled down to cultural superiority. (See Romney hasn't done his homework, New York Times, 1/8/12); ** To correct Vidal, Truman was actually speaking to a group of America's diplomats in the Middle East (See my 21/4/10 post No George Marshall.).
Friday, September 23, 2011
Let Me Qualify That
From Obama's speech at the UN General Assembly (Full transcript, Haaretz, 21/9/11):
"Now, I know, particularly this week, that for many in this hall, there's one issue that stands as a test for these principles and a test for American foreign policy, and that is the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But..."
BUT
"... what I also said is that a genuine peace can only be realized between the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May of this year. That basis is clear. It's well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state. Now, I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. I assure you, so am I. But..."
BUT
"... the question isn't the goal that we seek - the question is how do we reach that goal?. And I am convinced there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has edured for decades."
Hm... I wonder why it's endured for decades. Would unstinting US cash, military hardware and diplomatic backing have something to do with it?
"Peace is hard work."
Yeah, especially with the Israel lobby breathing down your neck. The more historically literate among the delegates would have perhaps recalled the famous words of President Harry Truman (who, incidentally, recognised the state of Israel in a mere 11 minutes after David Ben-Gurion's Declaration of Independence on May 14 1948): "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I don't have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents." And speaking of history, Obama himself must've had his mind wonderfully concentrated by the loss of historically Democratic Brooklyn and Queens to the Republicans the day before.
"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations - if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now."
Yeah, what's international law got to do with it? Or anything much these days?
"Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians - not us - who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians - not us - who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem. Ultimately, peace depends on compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied. That's the lesson of Northern Ireland, where ancient antagonists bridged their differences. That's the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is and will be the path to a Palestinian state - negotiations between the parties."
It's funny - Palestine went from 100% in 1947 to 45% in November 1947 to 22% in 1948/9 to 0% in 1967. But there's still room for Palestinians to compromise. Right.
"We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There's no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. It is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and so much effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can deliver a Palestinian state. But..."
And here's the biggest BUT of them all:
"... understand this as well: America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. Our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring. And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day. Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than 8 million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off the map. The Jewish people carried the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that 6 million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbours. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two-state solution with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine."
Then, for some strange reason, the following bit was omitted from the transcript: OK, OK. I can see you mongrels squirming in your seats. I can see your eyes rolling. I can hear you all groaning. (Not you of course, Australia and Canada. You go girls!) But I don't give a damn, OK? Cuz I'm Israel's bitch and I'm standing by my man and you bastards better get used to it! Seems you've all forgotten my performance of Stand By Your Man at the AIPAC shindig in May. Sit tight and I'll sing it again: "We know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood. I've seen it firsthand. When I touched my hand against the Western wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an 8-year old boy who lost his legs to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map." (See my 27/5/11 post Obama: Feel the Love)
"That is the truth - each side has legitimate aspirations - and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting. This body - founded, as it was, out of the ashes of war and genocide, dedicated, as it is, to the dignity of every single person - must recognise the reality that is lived by both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The measure of our actions must always be whether they advance the right of Israeli and Palestinian children to live lives of peace and security and dignity and opportunity. And we will only succeed in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down, to listen to each other, and to understand each other's hopes and each other's fears. That is the project to which America is committed. There are no shortcuts. And that is what the United Nations should be focused on in the weeks and months to come."
Zounds! Relationship counselling! Why didn't anybody think of this before? The man's a genius!
"Now, I know, particularly this week, that for many in this hall, there's one issue that stands as a test for these principles and a test for American foreign policy, and that is the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But..."
BUT
"... what I also said is that a genuine peace can only be realized between the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May of this year. That basis is clear. It's well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state. Now, I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. I assure you, so am I. But..."
BUT
"... the question isn't the goal that we seek - the question is how do we reach that goal?. And I am convinced there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has edured for decades."
Hm... I wonder why it's endured for decades. Would unstinting US cash, military hardware and diplomatic backing have something to do with it?
"Peace is hard work."
Yeah, especially with the Israel lobby breathing down your neck. The more historically literate among the delegates would have perhaps recalled the famous words of President Harry Truman (who, incidentally, recognised the state of Israel in a mere 11 minutes after David Ben-Gurion's Declaration of Independence on May 14 1948): "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I don't have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents." And speaking of history, Obama himself must've had his mind wonderfully concentrated by the loss of historically Democratic Brooklyn and Queens to the Republicans the day before.
"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations - if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now."
Yeah, what's international law got to do with it? Or anything much these days?
"Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians - not us - who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians - not us - who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem. Ultimately, peace depends on compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied. That's the lesson of Northern Ireland, where ancient antagonists bridged their differences. That's the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is and will be the path to a Palestinian state - negotiations between the parties."
It's funny - Palestine went from 100% in 1947 to 45% in November 1947 to 22% in 1948/9 to 0% in 1967. But there's still room for Palestinians to compromise. Right.
"We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There's no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. It is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and so much effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can deliver a Palestinian state. But..."
And here's the biggest BUT of them all:
"... understand this as well: America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. Our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring. And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day. Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than 8 million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off the map. The Jewish people carried the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that 6 million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbours. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two-state solution with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine."
Then, for some strange reason, the following bit was omitted from the transcript: OK, OK. I can see you mongrels squirming in your seats. I can see your eyes rolling. I can hear you all groaning. (Not you of course, Australia and Canada. You go girls!) But I don't give a damn, OK? Cuz I'm Israel's bitch and I'm standing by my man and you bastards better get used to it! Seems you've all forgotten my performance of Stand By Your Man at the AIPAC shindig in May. Sit tight and I'll sing it again: "We know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood. I've seen it firsthand. When I touched my hand against the Western wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an 8-year old boy who lost his legs to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map." (See my 27/5/11 post Obama: Feel the Love)
"That is the truth - each side has legitimate aspirations - and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting. This body - founded, as it was, out of the ashes of war and genocide, dedicated, as it is, to the dignity of every single person - must recognise the reality that is lived by both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The measure of our actions must always be whether they advance the right of Israeli and Palestinian children to live lives of peace and security and dignity and opportunity. And we will only succeed in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down, to listen to each other, and to understand each other's hopes and each other's fears. That is the project to which America is committed. There are no shortcuts. And that is what the United Nations should be focused on in the weeks and months to come."
Zounds! Relationship counselling! Why didn't anybody think of this before? The man's a genius!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Pixilated Presidents
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing." Mark Twain, Autobiography, 1959
What a goose!
[*The truth about God & George, Simon Freeman, timesonline, 7/10/05]
George W Bush - who gave us "God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan', and I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq', and I did"* - is but the most recent example of your pixilated American president. He destroyed Iraq.
Harry S Truman (1945-1953) is another. He helped destroy Palestine:
"In May 1949, one year after [de facto] recognition [by the United States], Israel gained full membership in the United Nations. The Truman administration gave Israel a $100 million loan. De jure recognition would finally be announced on January 31, 1949, after the Israeli elections... After Israel was created, the historical and religious meaning of what he had done became more important to Truman, especially his role in the return of the Jews to Palestine. Truman shared his thoughts with [his special counsel Clark] Clifford about biblical prophecies concerning the Jews' return to Zion in the Old Testament. Clifford, who considered himself an amateur Bible student, recalled exchanging passages with the president that dealt with the subject. One of the most striking quotes Clifford found was from Deuteronomy: 'Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the Mount of Nebo, the top of Isgah that is before Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land from Gilead unto Dan... all the land of Judah unto the western sea and the south and the plain'. As Clifford remarked in 1988, 'You can take an old biblical map and you could do quite a lot with that with the present boundaries of Israel'. That, he added, was what the Old Testament had promised to the Jewish leaders of the day. One of the president's favorites, which he often quoted, was also from Deuteronomy: 'Behold, I have given up the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land to which the Lord has sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob'. Others were from Genesis, which referred to 'an everlasting possession'...
What a goose!
[*The truth about God & George, Simon Freeman, timesonline, 7/10/05]
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
No George Marshall
"On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US 'will not waver in protecting Israel's security and promoting Israel's future', while noting while the Jewish state is 'confronting some of the greatest challenges in its history, but its promise and potential have never been greater'. Clinton also pointed out that in 1948 it took President Harry Truman just 11 minutes to recognise the state of Israel. 'And ever since, the US has stood with you in solidarity'." (Obama affirms 'unbreakable' US-Israel ties, AFP, 20/4/10)
So Truman took no more than 11 minutes to recognise Israel, eh? Just couldn't wait, right?
Was it because he knew it was the right and proper thing to do? Was he the instrument of Divine Providence?
Get real.
A bunch of American realists in the form of US diplomats to the Arab states had met with Truman on 10/11/45 to urge him to resist Zionist pressure for a Jewish state in Palestine. Truman candidly replied: "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."
Another American realist, former WW II US Army Chief of Staff and Truman's Secretary of State General George C Marshall (of Marshall Plan fame), adamantly opposed Truman's May 14, 1948 recognition of Israel because he knew that Truman was allowing domestic politics - or, as then Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett put it, "a very transparent attempt to win the Jewish vote" - to interfere with the rational formulation of US foreign policy.
Hillary, you're no George Marshall.
So Truman took no more than 11 minutes to recognise Israel, eh? Just couldn't wait, right?
Was it because he knew it was the right and proper thing to do? Was he the instrument of Divine Providence?
Get real.
A bunch of American realists in the form of US diplomats to the Arab states had met with Truman on 10/11/45 to urge him to resist Zionist pressure for a Jewish state in Palestine. Truman candidly replied: "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."
Another American realist, former WW II US Army Chief of Staff and Truman's Secretary of State General George C Marshall (of Marshall Plan fame), adamantly opposed Truman's May 14, 1948 recognition of Israel because he knew that Truman was allowing domestic politics - or, as then Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett put it, "a very transparent attempt to win the Jewish vote" - to interfere with the rational formulation of US foreign policy.
Hillary, you're no George Marshall.
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 3
"The state was born, but the ideals of renaissance, virtue, and peace have not been realized with it. The society it spawned is as parochial, impulsive, and prideful as its architects. It has lived for over rwo decades in enmity with its neighbours, carried away by concerns with its own needs, and out of touch with the broader perspectives of the Jewish world outside. Most basic to its shortsightedness is its inability to engage in the give-and-take of humane dialogue with the two enities which it must ultimately reach: the modern world and the Middle East." Alan R Taylor, Prelude to Israel: An Analysis of Zionist Diplomacy 1897-1947 (1959)
"The problem with Israel...is not...that it is a European 'enclave' in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a 'Jewish state' - a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded - is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism." Tony Judt, Israel: The Alternative, New York Review of Books, 23/10/03
What follows is my critique of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's shameful 12 March parliamentary motion on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, the text and discussion of which eluded both The Sydney Morning Herald (with the honorable exception of its Saturday columnist Alan Ramsey) and Melbourne's The Age:-
Rudd moved "That the House: (1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the State of Israel in the 60 years since its inception; (2) remember with pride and honour the important role which Australia played in the establishment of the State of Israel as both a member state of the UN and as an influential voice in the introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel's statehood, and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation; (3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel; a bond highlighted by our commitment to the rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural diversity; (4) commend the State of Israel's commitment to democracy, the Rule of Law and pluralism; (5) reiterate Australia's commitment to Israel's right to exist and our ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue; (6) reiterate Australia's commitment to the pursuit of peace and stability throughout the Middle East; (7) on this, the 60th Anniversary of Independence of the State of Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together."
In speaking to his motion, Rudd began by falsely claiming that "the story of the establishment of the state of Israel begins with the unimaginable tragedy of the Holocaust." In so doing, he conveniently ignored the fact that the Zionist movement, which created the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948, predated the Holocaust by almost 50 years, as well as the fact that the Zionist movement's single-minded obsession with setting up a Jewish state in Palestine was at odds with the interests of European Jews both before and after the Holocaust.
Before the Holocaust, the Zionists, instead of resisting the rise of fascism and Nazism, sought an accomodation with them, and elements of the Zionist revisionist movement even tried to forge an alliance with the Nazis against the British. [See Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983)]
After the liberation of Jews from Nazi concentration camps, most Jewish displaced persons (DPs) chose not to go to Palestine, contrary to the expectations and propaganda of the Zionists. And this in spite of the fact that the Zionist movement, totally insensitive to the real needs or wishes of Holocaust survivors, pulled out all stops, including blocking plans to evacuate them to countries other than Palestine, and forcibly, even violently, drafting them in Europe for service in the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. [See Yosef Grodzinsky's In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Story of Jews in Displaced Persons Camps and their Forced Role in the Founding of Israel (2004)]
The plight and fate of pre-war European Jewry, and the welfare of Holocaust survivors, always came second to the Zionist movement's goal of bringing as many European Jews as possible to Palestine in order to realise its goal of a Jewish state there. To quote just two examples of this attitude:-
"And this time in Eretz Yisrael, there are comments: 'Don't put Eretz Yisrael in priority in this difficult time, in the time of destruction of European Jewry'. I do not accept such a saying. And when some asked me: 'Can't you give money from the Keren Hayesod [Jewish National Fund] to save Jews in the Diaspora?', I said: no! And again I say no!...I think we have to stand before this wave that is putting Zionist activity into the second row." Yitzhak Gruenbaum, head of the Jewish Agency's rescue Committee (Brenner, p 234) And this, from David Ben-Gurion, leader of Palestine's Jewish community and first PM of Israel: "If Jews will have to choose between the refugees, saving Jews from concentration camps, and assisting a national museum in Palestine, mercy will have the upper hand and the whole energy of the people will be channelled into saving Jews from various countries. Zionism will be struck off the agenda not only in world public opinion, in Britain and the US, but elsewhere in Jewish public opinion. If we allow a separation between the refugee problem and the Palestinian problem, we are risking the existence of Zionism." (Brenner p 149)
Rudd went on to say, "By war's end, 6 million Jews had been murdered. By war's end the international community finally began to look again in earnest at the question of a homeland for the Jewish people."
This again is a distortion of fact. The international community had 2 unrelated problems on its hands:-
1) What to do about Britain's failed Palestine mandate, which had come under armed assault by Zionist forces (referred to by the pro-Zionist Churchill in 1944 as "a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany").
2) What to do about Jewish DPs.
With regard to the second, it is quite clear that the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP), set up to examine the Palestine problem in June 1947 (and which included Dr Evatt, Australia's Minister for External Affairs) did not regard Palestine as the solution for displaced Jews: Recommendation 12 of UNSCOP's findings said, "In the appraisal of the Palestine question it should be accepted as incontrovertible that any solution for Palestine cannot be considered as a solution for the Jewish problem in general." Despite this, all attempts by the international community to find an international solution for Jewish DPs were anathema to the Zionist movement and were vigorously resisted by it.
Rudd (and his Zionist boosters and sources) loves to trot out the 'glorious' tale of Evatt's role in Israel's creation: "Australia is proud to have played a significant part in the international process that led to the foundation of the state of Israel. Australia's then Minister for External Affairs, Dr Evatt, was part of the UN Special Committee [sic: Commission]on Palestine which recommended in August 1947 the termination of the Mandate for Palestine. And he was chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee meeting on the Palestinian Question that proposed the partition of Palestine [Again Rudd's got his facts wrong. It was UNSCOP which "proposed the partition of Palestine"]. He strongly believed that the fundamental right of self-determination for the Jewish people and for Palestinians could only be achieved by each having their own state."
Let us take a detailed look at this "process" of which "Australia is proud."* UNSCOP was an 11 member body on which only 2 Asian countries (India and Iran) represented the continent directly involved in its deliberations. Inevitably, when submitting its findings in August 1947, it split along continental lines: a majority of 7, all from Europe and North and South America, favoured the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state, while a minority of 3 (India, Iran and Yugoslavia - Australia abstained) proposed an independent federal state. In other words, European and American states (Africa did not get a look in) got to dictate the partition of an Asian country. As David Horowitz, the Jewish Agency liaison officer with UNSCOP commented: "The Asiatic bloc was solid and unitedly negative. The fact of our complete isolation on this continent, into whose life we aspired to become integrated, pained me..."
When the matter came before the UN General Assembly, meeting as an Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, a resolution to refer to the International Court of Justice the question of whether the UN had any competence to enforce partition without consulting, or against the wishes of, the inhabitants of Palestine was lost by only one vote. And when the Committee voted on the partition plan, it mustered only a simple majority when a 2/3rd's majority was required. With the exception of Cuba, all the negative votes were Afro-Asian.
At this point, before partition was voted on in the General Assembly, 6 countries became the target for Zionist and US arm-twisting: Haiti, Liberia, the Philippines, China and Ethiopia were pressured into either abstaining or affirming partition. Wrote Horowitz: "America's line of action had swung in a new direction. As a result of instructions from the President (Truman**) the State Department now embarked on a helpful course of great importance to our interest. The improved atmosphere swayed a number of wavering countries. The US exerted the weight of its influence almost at the last hour, and the way the final vote turned out must be ascribed to this fact." In the case of the Philippines, for example, its delegate had made a strong speech in the GA against partition, describing it correctly as a move towards "political disunion and territorial dismemberment," which would "turn us back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic doctrines of theocratic governments," and away from "the modern trend towards inter-racial co-operation and secular democracy." Three days later the Philippine delegation voted for partition. This is the process of which Rudd (aka "Australia") is "proud."
And this matter of manufacturing UN consent is quite apart from the issue of the legality of partition, given that, in the words of Palestinian lawyer, Henry Cattan, "it constituted a trespass on the sovereignty of the original inhabitants, it gave away to alien immigrants a large part of the territory of the country and it denied to the Palestinians the exercise of their natural right of self-determination [The Palestine Problem in a Nutshell, 1971 p 16]." Or the injustice of assigning more than half of Palestine (57%) to less than 1/3rd of its population, mostly foreign immigrants, who had legal title to only about 6% of the land.
Rudd went on to say that "[o]n 29 January 1949 [Australian PM Ben Chifley] announced that Australia would become one of the first countries to recognise the new state of Israel, describing it as 'a force of special value in the world community' As President of the General Assembly, 'Doc' Evatt then presided over the historic May 1949 vote admitting Israel as the 59th member of the UN."
With regard to the latter, Israeli activist and academic, Uri Davis has pointed out: "As...the discussions at the UN Security Council suggest, the holocaust notwithstanding, the UN would have been reluctant to allow the admission of the Jewish state as a member state had the UN not received formal and solemn assurances from the Government of the State of Israel that Israel would abide by Resolution 181 (II) of November 1947 recommending the partition of Palestine with economic union, and Resolution 194 (III) of December 1948 resolving that the 1948 Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes...should be permitted to do so...It goes without saying that, under the circumstances, had the new state failed to project itself as anything other than an international-law-abiding state, it would have seriously jeopardized the prospects of its admission as a member state in the UN." [Apartheid Israel, 2003, p 38]
Needless to say, neither resolution has been implemented by Israel (181 was violated when Israel went on to illegally extend its borders by a further 20% in the 1948-1949 war, failed to adopt a democratic constitution, and ignored Jerusalem's intended status as a 'corpus separatum'). Israel, of course, has since gone on to break record after record in its defiance of both the UN Charter and UN resolutions.
The rest of Rudd's speech merely retails such Zionist cliches as the Begin/Sadat love-in of 1979 and the Rabin/Arafat love-in of 1993, as well as the usual platitudes about the "establishment of an independent and economically viable Palestinian state" (though, interestingly, there is no mention that it should be 'contiguous'), and Israel's "robust parliamentary democracy" and "vibrant society and economy."
* Based on the account in GH Jansen's Zionism, Israel & Asian Nationalism (1971) pp 197-199
** Truman had once famously declared: "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I don't have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my consituents."
"The problem with Israel...is not...that it is a European 'enclave' in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a 'Jewish state' - a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded - is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism." Tony Judt, Israel: The Alternative, New York Review of Books, 23/10/03
What follows is my critique of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's shameful 12 March parliamentary motion on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, the text and discussion of which eluded both The Sydney Morning Herald (with the honorable exception of its Saturday columnist Alan Ramsey) and Melbourne's The Age:-
Rudd moved "That the House: (1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the State of Israel in the 60 years since its inception; (2) remember with pride and honour the important role which Australia played in the establishment of the State of Israel as both a member state of the UN and as an influential voice in the introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel's statehood, and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation; (3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel; a bond highlighted by our commitment to the rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural diversity; (4) commend the State of Israel's commitment to democracy, the Rule of Law and pluralism; (5) reiterate Australia's commitment to Israel's right to exist and our ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue; (6) reiterate Australia's commitment to the pursuit of peace and stability throughout the Middle East; (7) on this, the 60th Anniversary of Independence of the State of Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together."
In speaking to his motion, Rudd began by falsely claiming that "the story of the establishment of the state of Israel begins with the unimaginable tragedy of the Holocaust." In so doing, he conveniently ignored the fact that the Zionist movement, which created the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948, predated the Holocaust by almost 50 years, as well as the fact that the Zionist movement's single-minded obsession with setting up a Jewish state in Palestine was at odds with the interests of European Jews both before and after the Holocaust.
Before the Holocaust, the Zionists, instead of resisting the rise of fascism and Nazism, sought an accomodation with them, and elements of the Zionist revisionist movement even tried to forge an alliance with the Nazis against the British. [See Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983)]
After the liberation of Jews from Nazi concentration camps, most Jewish displaced persons (DPs) chose not to go to Palestine, contrary to the expectations and propaganda of the Zionists. And this in spite of the fact that the Zionist movement, totally insensitive to the real needs or wishes of Holocaust survivors, pulled out all stops, including blocking plans to evacuate them to countries other than Palestine, and forcibly, even violently, drafting them in Europe for service in the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. [See Yosef Grodzinsky's In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Story of Jews in Displaced Persons Camps and their Forced Role in the Founding of Israel (2004)]
The plight and fate of pre-war European Jewry, and the welfare of Holocaust survivors, always came second to the Zionist movement's goal of bringing as many European Jews as possible to Palestine in order to realise its goal of a Jewish state there. To quote just two examples of this attitude:-
"And this time in Eretz Yisrael, there are comments: 'Don't put Eretz Yisrael in priority in this difficult time, in the time of destruction of European Jewry'. I do not accept such a saying. And when some asked me: 'Can't you give money from the Keren Hayesod [Jewish National Fund] to save Jews in the Diaspora?', I said: no! And again I say no!...I think we have to stand before this wave that is putting Zionist activity into the second row." Yitzhak Gruenbaum, head of the Jewish Agency's rescue Committee (Brenner, p 234) And this, from David Ben-Gurion, leader of Palestine's Jewish community and first PM of Israel: "If Jews will have to choose between the refugees, saving Jews from concentration camps, and assisting a national museum in Palestine, mercy will have the upper hand and the whole energy of the people will be channelled into saving Jews from various countries. Zionism will be struck off the agenda not only in world public opinion, in Britain and the US, but elsewhere in Jewish public opinion. If we allow a separation between the refugee problem and the Palestinian problem, we are risking the existence of Zionism." (Brenner p 149)
Rudd went on to say, "By war's end, 6 million Jews had been murdered. By war's end the international community finally began to look again in earnest at the question of a homeland for the Jewish people."
This again is a distortion of fact. The international community had 2 unrelated problems on its hands:-
1) What to do about Britain's failed Palestine mandate, which had come under armed assault by Zionist forces (referred to by the pro-Zionist Churchill in 1944 as "a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany").
2) What to do about Jewish DPs.
With regard to the second, it is quite clear that the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP), set up to examine the Palestine problem in June 1947 (and which included Dr Evatt, Australia's Minister for External Affairs) did not regard Palestine as the solution for displaced Jews: Recommendation 12 of UNSCOP's findings said, "In the appraisal of the Palestine question it should be accepted as incontrovertible that any solution for Palestine cannot be considered as a solution for the Jewish problem in general." Despite this, all attempts by the international community to find an international solution for Jewish DPs were anathema to the Zionist movement and were vigorously resisted by it.
Rudd (and his Zionist boosters and sources) loves to trot out the 'glorious' tale of Evatt's role in Israel's creation: "Australia is proud to have played a significant part in the international process that led to the foundation of the state of Israel. Australia's then Minister for External Affairs, Dr Evatt, was part of the UN Special Committee [sic: Commission]on Palestine which recommended in August 1947 the termination of the Mandate for Palestine. And he was chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee meeting on the Palestinian Question that proposed the partition of Palestine [Again Rudd's got his facts wrong. It was UNSCOP which "proposed the partition of Palestine"]. He strongly believed that the fundamental right of self-determination for the Jewish people and for Palestinians could only be achieved by each having their own state."
Let us take a detailed look at this "process" of which "Australia is proud."* UNSCOP was an 11 member body on which only 2 Asian countries (India and Iran) represented the continent directly involved in its deliberations. Inevitably, when submitting its findings in August 1947, it split along continental lines: a majority of 7, all from Europe and North and South America, favoured the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state, while a minority of 3 (India, Iran and Yugoslavia - Australia abstained) proposed an independent federal state. In other words, European and American states (Africa did not get a look in) got to dictate the partition of an Asian country. As David Horowitz, the Jewish Agency liaison officer with UNSCOP commented: "The Asiatic bloc was solid and unitedly negative. The fact of our complete isolation on this continent, into whose life we aspired to become integrated, pained me..."
When the matter came before the UN General Assembly, meeting as an Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, a resolution to refer to the International Court of Justice the question of whether the UN had any competence to enforce partition without consulting, or against the wishes of, the inhabitants of Palestine was lost by only one vote. And when the Committee voted on the partition plan, it mustered only a simple majority when a 2/3rd's majority was required. With the exception of Cuba, all the negative votes were Afro-Asian.
At this point, before partition was voted on in the General Assembly, 6 countries became the target for Zionist and US arm-twisting: Haiti, Liberia, the Philippines, China and Ethiopia were pressured into either abstaining or affirming partition. Wrote Horowitz: "America's line of action had swung in a new direction. As a result of instructions from the President (Truman**) the State Department now embarked on a helpful course of great importance to our interest. The improved atmosphere swayed a number of wavering countries. The US exerted the weight of its influence almost at the last hour, and the way the final vote turned out must be ascribed to this fact." In the case of the Philippines, for example, its delegate had made a strong speech in the GA against partition, describing it correctly as a move towards "political disunion and territorial dismemberment," which would "turn us back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic doctrines of theocratic governments," and away from "the modern trend towards inter-racial co-operation and secular democracy." Three days later the Philippine delegation voted for partition. This is the process of which Rudd (aka "Australia") is "proud."
And this matter of manufacturing UN consent is quite apart from the issue of the legality of partition, given that, in the words of Palestinian lawyer, Henry Cattan, "it constituted a trespass on the sovereignty of the original inhabitants, it gave away to alien immigrants a large part of the territory of the country and it denied to the Palestinians the exercise of their natural right of self-determination [The Palestine Problem in a Nutshell, 1971 p 16]." Or the injustice of assigning more than half of Palestine (57%) to less than 1/3rd of its population, mostly foreign immigrants, who had legal title to only about 6% of the land.
Rudd went on to say that "[o]n 29 January 1949 [Australian PM Ben Chifley] announced that Australia would become one of the first countries to recognise the new state of Israel, describing it as 'a force of special value in the world community' As President of the General Assembly, 'Doc' Evatt then presided over the historic May 1949 vote admitting Israel as the 59th member of the UN."
With regard to the latter, Israeli activist and academic, Uri Davis has pointed out: "As...the discussions at the UN Security Council suggest, the holocaust notwithstanding, the UN would have been reluctant to allow the admission of the Jewish state as a member state had the UN not received formal and solemn assurances from the Government of the State of Israel that Israel would abide by Resolution 181 (II) of November 1947 recommending the partition of Palestine with economic union, and Resolution 194 (III) of December 1948 resolving that the 1948 Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes...should be permitted to do so...It goes without saying that, under the circumstances, had the new state failed to project itself as anything other than an international-law-abiding state, it would have seriously jeopardized the prospects of its admission as a member state in the UN." [Apartheid Israel, 2003, p 38]
Needless to say, neither resolution has been implemented by Israel (181 was violated when Israel went on to illegally extend its borders by a further 20% in the 1948-1949 war, failed to adopt a democratic constitution, and ignored Jerusalem's intended status as a 'corpus separatum'). Israel, of course, has since gone on to break record after record in its defiance of both the UN Charter and UN resolutions.
The rest of Rudd's speech merely retails such Zionist cliches as the Begin/Sadat love-in of 1979 and the Rabin/Arafat love-in of 1993, as well as the usual platitudes about the "establishment of an independent and economically viable Palestinian state" (though, interestingly, there is no mention that it should be 'contiguous'), and Israel's "robust parliamentary democracy" and "vibrant society and economy."
* Based on the account in GH Jansen's Zionism, Israel & Asian Nationalism (1971) pp 197-199
** Truman had once famously declared: "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I don't have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my consituents."
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