F L A S H B A C K   - 3 years ago
 
 

  HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICAN INVOVEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 "There is no parallel between bombs and bulldozers...
 We cannot have an environment in which people believe
 the way to get what they want is to kill innocent people..."
   U.S. President Bill Clinton 8/6/97

MER - Washington - 8/11/97:
 
Never in history has there been such an Israeli-captured President in the White House as Bill Clinton. The Israeli/Jewish lobby set out to defeat George Bush, quite literally infiltrated the Clinton headquarters in Little Rock with its people, pushed huge amounts of "soft money" at both Clinton and the Democracy Party, and sure enough their man Bill has done everything they ever dreamed ever since.
 
Bill's latest payoff to the Israelis and their American Jewish cadre is to make a former Israeli lobby official -- a man who was an Australian citizen when Bill was elected President, a man who lived in Israel and served in the Israeli army -- Assistant Secretary of State (that's of the UNITED STATES mind you!) for the Middle East!
 
It's not inordinate Chinese money and influence in American politics the Congress should be investigating, it's how Israel manipulates American politics with the help of some key Americans (most of them Jewish), who are in fact, however distasteful it is to say it, "dually loyal".
 
At Camp David back nearly 20 years ago the Israelis promised to stop settlements in the occupied territories. Go back and read the speech Jimmy Carter delivered to a joint session of the Congress in front of the entire world heralding this tremendous breakthrough! Within months the Israelis broke their promises, defied Carter (threatening his reelection that still never was to be), and went about their old ways. Sadat's assassination, revolution in Iran, the destruction of Lebanon, American hostages, the "Intifada", and the rise of Hamas and Hizballah ensued.
 
At Madrid and Oslo -- after the destruction of Iraq -- the Israelis made more promises and gave more assurances. Even with those conferences always weighted tremendously in their favor, even with the Americans always defying near-unanimous world opinion and vetoing various U.N. resolutions, Israelis have gone from one deception, one subterfuge, and one massacre to another. Meanwhile Washington has either looked the other way, or behind the scenes worked closely with the Israelis while publicly soothing Arab sensibilities with duplicitous, and meaningless, rhetoric.
 
Now in 1997, with the "native" Palestinians being corralled onto "autonomous" reservations in the name of "peace process", the Americans are at it again; blaming the victim rather than the aggressor; crying over scenes of Israeli carnage while looking away and covering up when rivers of Palestinian blood flow.
 
With Palestinian "autonomous" "population centers" now surrounded by American-supplied tanks, Israeli Army roadblocks, and electrified fences; and with what's left of Palestinian civil society now "controlled" by an imported once-PLO militia now armed and financed by Israel and the U.S. -- courageous Palestinians try to resist. But it is THEY Bill Clinton repeatedly condemns.
 
No wonder Dr. Eyad Sarraj from Gaza now pleads with the world to understand "Why We Have Become Suicide Bombers" -- (see http://www.MiddleEast.org/Sarraj1.htm).
 
No wonder Professor Noam Chomsky decries the "peace process" as very similar to Apartheid of old in South Africa -- (see http://www.MiddleEast.org/Chomsky1.htm).

So let it be said clearly and succinctly: The Palestinians have been lied to and tricked, deceived and battered by the U.S., Israel, and the Europeans for generations now. The Palestinians have been dispossessed and tortured, ravaged and bloodied by the Israelis for nearly 50 years now. It is the Arabs who have been bombed time and time again; from 1948 to 1956, from 1967 to 1982 to Sabra and Shatilla to Qana -- the list is lengthy indeed, the numbers of innocent Palestinians and Arabs far far greater than that of innocent Israelis.
 
And so today the Palestinians are perfectly entitled to defend their country and their vital interests, with stones, with guns, and if need be with bombs. The Palestinians are entitled to fight back against those who continually have used aggression against them, against those who have militarily occupied and brutalized them for a generation now. And if their tactics and choices are sometimes terrible to watch on TV, let us remember very well what has been done to them; and let us remember as well that to protect their "vital interests" it is the Americans who have used nuclear weapons and napalm, agent orange and 2000-pound bombs, killing and maiming so many millions of innocents.
 
Let it also be said clearly and succinctly: The American President, especially this Israeli American President, crying about the blood of "innocent civilians" has no credibility whatsoever! And if the Arabs regimes had any guts and dignity at all they'd tell the Americans (starting with Dennis Ross, himself a former Israeli lobby personality) to take a hike and start taking responsibility themselves for what is going on in their part of the world!
 
     Mark Bruzonsky*
 
* The author is Publisher of MER. His edited books about the Middle East have been published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian, Congressional Quarterly, and National Geographic (film).  Bruzonsky produces the weekly MER TV program and has visited the Middle East region over 150 times.  See http://www.MiddleEast.Org/mab.htm for further information.  Bruzonsky can be contacted at Mark@MiddleEast.Org and (202) 362-5266.
 
 
 
 

Copyright © Mid-East Realities & The Committee On The Middle East. All rights reserved.  POBox 18367 - Washington, DC 20036.    MER@MiddleEast.Org Phone (202) 362-5266           Fax (202) 362-6965         http://www.MiddleEast.Org