Coastal
Post Online
January
2002
Colonial Nightmares
By Edward W. Miller
As I write this December 20, one day before
the winter solstice, CNN from eastern Afghanistan shows a cold, dirty-white
mist hanging over the peaks of the Hindu Kush, a mist soiled by the awesome
debris of exploding bombs. Far below, but purposely avoided by their reporters'
camera, struggling through the frozen valleys and narrow mountain passes, tens
of thousands of starving Afghans, their few belongings on their backs or in
horse-drawn wagons, are marking their tortuous way towards a military-sealed
Pakistani border many will never survive to cross.
After almost three months of some of the
most intense bombing the world has seen, not one of the so-called
"objectives" of Bush's "War Against Terrorism" has been met.
Osama Bin Laden remains at large as does the Taliban's leader, and while our
so-called "specialized forces" have rounded up a few Al Qaeda
fighters, no significant military or political figures have been captured.
Rumor has it that most have either escaped into nearby Pakistan or, as is the
Afghan's custom, been forgiven, to disappear into those masses of Northern
Alliance fighters and mujahadeen who have been fighting that country's
internecine battles ever since the exhausted Soviets withdrew. Just what we are
going to do in Afghanistan is anybody's guess.
Bush's war against "international terrorism" is
placing many protest groups around the world, including the Palestinians, in
jeopardy. Israel's Sharon, after consultations in Washington, now declares
Intifada II a "terrorist operation," and our President, kowtowing to
America's Zionist lobby, has warned Arafat to reign in his suicide bombers.
Israel, however, feels no such restrictions, so the strafing of innocent
civilians, selective murder of Palestinian leaders, the bulldozing of
Palestinian homes, the shelling of Arafat's police officers, continues
unabated. Meanwhile, illegal Jewish settlements are expanding.
This Christmas week, the little town of
Bethlehem lies silent beneath the stars. While Christians around the world
celebrate its gift to the world, Israeli soldiers patrol its empty streets.
Most hotels are closed, shelled, or burnt, and the usual rejoicing crowds of
Christian pilgrims are nowhere to be seen. At night, instead of stars,
Christians and Moslems still living in Bethlehem can watch the blinking lights
of Israeli helicopters.
The
entire West Bank and Gaza are military enclaves wherein Palestinians cannot
travel from one village to another without the insolent, purposeful delay or
outright refusal from Israeli soldiers. Roads have been made impassable with
Israeli-made 100 meter-long trenches and even countryside and mountain passes
are closed. Palestinians attempting to bypass these obstructions are shot and
killed and ambulances forbidden access. These blockades provide no security for
Israel's Jews but rather increase the anger, frustration, and resulting
radicalization of Palestinian youth, thus giving Sharon his excuse to murder at
will. The present Zionist government of Israel intends to destroy any hope of a
Palestinian state.
Those in
Israel's government who control foreign policy are divided into two groups.
One, championed by the more liberal members in the Knesset, favor the so-called
"Alon Plan" which was expressed to a considerable degree by the
"Oslo Accord." The Alon Plan envisions a series of bantustanized
Palestinian enclaves, surrounded by armed Israeli checkpoints, with quisling
Arafat supported by Israel as nominal head of a pseudo "Palestinian
State." There would be some minor adjustment of those Israeli settlements
most expensive to defend, but essentially the Palestinians would accept a
considerable reduction in their anticipated "State." This plan the
Palestinian Authority had rejected at the Madrid Conference, but at Oslo,
Israel secretly maneuvered a weakened and politically inept Arafat to
accept.
Israel, with widespread
access to the American media, has made much of Arafat's rejecting Barak's
"generous offer" of 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. A closer
look reveals that offer to be "90 percent" of what remains after the
Jews subtract their huge expansion of East Jerusalem into the Jordan Valley,
plus tens of thousands of dunums of Arab land underlying both the illegal
settlements and bypass roads forbidden Palestinians. Thus Barak's "90
percent" turns out to be only 17 percent of the homeland promised the
Palestinians in both the original 1947 UN division and reinforced by UN
Resolution 242.
The more
dangerous political group now headed by Sharon and supported by Barak is best
described by Professor Tanya Reinhart of Tel Aviv University in a recent
article, "Evil Unleashed" (see MERL@Middleeast.org). Professor
Reinhart says Israel's recent "retaliatory acts" were carefully
planned..." "In October
2000... military circles were ready with detailed plans to topple Arafat and
the Palestinian Authority. This was before the Palestinian terror attacks
started."
"A document
prepared by the security services at the request of PM Barak, October 15, 2000,
stated that, 'Arafat, the person, is a severe threat to the security of the
state (Israel) and the damage which will result from his disappearance is less
than the damage caused by his existence'." The 60 page operative plan
known as "Fields of Thorns" was released in a meeting with the press
on November 20.
Professor
Reinhart notes: "The 'Foreign Report' (James Information) of July 12, 2001
disclosed that the Israeli army... was updating its plans for an 'all-out
assault' to smash the Palestinian authority, force out leader Yasser Arafat and
kill or detain its army." Its blueprint, titled "The Destruction of
the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces" was
presented to the Israeli government by chief of staff Shaul Moraz on July 8th.
The assault would be launched at the government's discretion, after a big
suicide attack in Israel, causing wide-spread deaths and injuries, citing the
bloodshed as justification."
"Israel's moves to destroy the PA... is a calculated plan long in
the making. The execution requires, first weakening the resistance of the
Palestinians, ...through killing, bombing of infrastructure, imprisoning people
in their hometowns, and bringing them close to starvation. All this while
waiting for the international conditions to ripen for the more advanced steps
of the plan. Now the conditions seem to have "ripened." In the "power-drunk" political
atmosphere in the US, anything goes. If it first seemed that the US will try to
keep the Arab world on it side... as it did during the Gulf War, it is now
clear that they couldn't care less... those US hawks who now push to expand the
war to Iraq and further view Israel as an asset... as Professor Alan Joxe, head
of French CIRPES put it in Le Monde," the American leadership is shaped by
dangerous right-winged Southern extremists, who seek to use Israel as an
offensive tool to destabilize the entire Mideast area." (December 17,
2001) The same hawks are also talking about expanding the future war zone to
targets on Israel's agenda, like Hizbollah and Syria.
In view of Israel's obvious intent to
prevent a true Palestinian State, plus the power exerted over Washington by
international Zionism, it is easy to understand why terrorized and oppressed
Palestinians again resorted to an INTAFADA, meeting Israel's everyday terror
with suicidal retaliation.
Considering the political unwillingness of either Catholic or Protestant
organizations in the US to tackle the Zionist machine, plus the fragmentation
of the Muslim world, the likelihood of a cooperative rescue of their Holy
Places from the infidel, Israel, seems dim at best.
Meanwhile, President Bush, enthralled by
the perceived power of his crusade against "international terrorism,"
influenced by AIPAC's political money, and enticed by his Christian Right's
fascination with Armageddon and "Rapture," may land us in a dangerous
Mideast conflagration. Hopefully, critical voices from Europe plus cautionary
advice form both China and Putin, may still restrain Washington. 2002 will be
an exciting year.