| Subj: | Three Opinions On The Cause of Day911 |
| Date: | 11/17/01 12:20:45 PM Pacific Standard Time |
Right To The Point News Review Vol. 1:
In the days immediately following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks,
Israel-first journalists and the mainstream media tried to convince the American
public that the attacks had nothing to do with Israel. They said they were
the result of hatred for American wealth, power, immorality and freedom.
But despite their efforts, that didn't wash. Too many respected, though
less mainstream, journalists were presenting a different explanation and
pointing to old articles warning that American policies and actions in the
Middle East could lead to catastrophe. And interviews with Mid-Easterners
and Bin Laden himself enunciated clearly what the true reasons behind the
attacks were:
1) American support (especially military) of Israel, which was stealing and
destroying the land and lives of Palestinians
2) U.S. sanctions against Iraq, which were killing millions of people
3) the stationing of troops on their land, and other forms of
meddling.
And so Israeli and American Jewish articles began crooning a different tune;
now they said that yes, the attacks *were* mostly about Israel and U.S. support
of Israel -- but they said this doesn't mean our policies are wrong and should
be changed. Just the opposite. What it meant was that Israel
and America are both hated by the Arab world because they are so much
alike--that's why they're such good friends... because they have so much
in common. It's a familiar theme that we've been hearing for years.
And it's not at all true.
Here are three recent articles that talk about some of the important differences
between Israel and America. Read what they say, and see how wrong one
journalist was when he wrote the day after the attacks that Americans are
all Israelis now - like it or not. At least for now, Americans and
Israelis are still "as different as night and
day."
MOB
marge@whtt.org
http//www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/05_11_01_b.htm
America and Israel As different as night and day
Adib F. Farha, The Daily Star
One of the basic tenets of modern, effective advertising and of successful
public relations is that people identify with those who are "like us." The
message carries significantly more weight when the recipient can identify
with parallels to his own situation. With this in mind, Israelis and
their supporters are keen on projecting theocratic and oppressive Israel
as "the only American-type democracy in the Middle East," as Alan Dershowitz
wrote in The Jerusalem Post last Friday. This line has great appeal to the
American reader, who cherishes democracy and is naturally inclined to empathize
with people who uphold similar principles to his, share similar suffering
as his own, and with whom he can, therefore, identify.
Yet, as a matter of fact, the similarities between Israel and the US are
few. Other than the fact that Israel too holds democratic elections,
other similarities are hard to find. The US is a secular state that has no
"state religion" and in which all citizens are equal under the law. Israel,
by comparison, is a "Jewish state" that, by inference, sets its Jewish citizens
on a higher plateau than their Christian and Muslim counterparts.
The US respects human rights while Israel practices state-sponsored terrorism.
The US is an open society that has always welcomed immigrants from the world
over, irrespective of their race or creed, and given them a chance to lead
better lives. Israel, on the other hand, offers its citizenship automatically
to any Jew, regardless of his birth place, if he chooses to move to Israel
under its "right of return" laws, while it denies it to hundreds of thousands
of Palestinian refugees who were themselves or whose parents were born in
Israel and whose property was illegally confiscated by immigrants to the
newly-founded state.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the introduction of new extraordinary
legislation in the US to deal with an extraordinary threat, pro-Israeli
commentators are having a hay day identifying additional alleged similarities
with the US. Dershowitz, for example, sees no difference between the Israeli
policy of "targeted assassinations" and President George Bush's directive
to target Osama bin Laden. Pro-Israeli commentators were quick to
capitalize on Bush's directive to show Americans how they are "like them."
But while bin Laden has implicitly admitted his responsibility for the terrorist
attacks in the US when he called for renewed similar acts of terror, the
victims of Israel's "targeted killings" are fighting for their
universally-acknowledged right of self-determination.
Yes, terrorism is terrorism, as Israel repeatedly declares, and it should
be condemned and punished irrespective of the motives. But it is preposterous
to equate freedom fighters with terrorists. The level-headed US Secretary
of State Colin Powell made that distinction unequivocally in a statement
to congress a couple of weeks ago.
Whether they are Jews or gentiles, Lebanese civilians who took shelter in
UN barracks in Qana in south Lebanon during Israel's invasion of Lebanon
in 1996 or Israeli civilians in a Jerusalem pizza parlor, mass killers of
innocent civilians should be condemned. But Israel is trying to equate
Palestinians who are fighting the Israeli war machine, which destroys their
homes, occupies their villages, and bombards the offices of their nascent
government, with wanton terrorists like Osama Bin Laden who target Christians
and Jews indiscriminately. With its effective propaganda tactics and
its twisted attempts to depict its ongoing war against its own civilians
with America's war on terrorism, the "we are like you" line has great appeal
in the West.
Commentators like Dershowitz try to justify the use of "moderate physical
pressure," which he admits is "a euphemism for non-lethal torture," by alluding
to the fact that the FBI is "seeking authority to use torture to learn of
imminent terrorist threats." But even if such authority is granted, does
that make it correct for Israel to torture and kill people on the basis of
suspicion and absent conviction in a court of law? The premise that
one is innocent until proven guilty has always been an axiom of American
justice that it has practiced without fail. It is unlikely that torture will
be legalized in the US. Nevertheless, Israeli supporters were quick to jump
on the opportunity to highlight another alleged example to prove that "we
are like you."
Dershowitz's article concludes that, "The United States and Israel have been
the primary victims of terrorism." But what of the thousands of innocent
Arabs who fell victims to Israeli state-sponsored terrorism before and after
the founding of the State of Israel and who still die with its bullets every
single day? What of the civilians killed by Israeli gangs in Deir Yassin
and by Israeli warplanes in Bahr al-Bakar and in Qana, to name but a few
examples? What of killing UN mediator Count Bernadot and blowing up the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem by an Israeli gang led by Ishac Shamir, who was
later elected as Israel's prime minister?
Ignoring the glaring differences between America, a nation that is a champion
of human rights, egalitarian, secular, and a defender of freedoms on the
one hand and Israel's atrocious record of human rights abuses, discrimination,
sectarianism, and its daily trampling of the freedoms of its Arab constituency
on the other hand, Dershowitz writes that, "it is wrong for the US to demand
more of Israel than it asks of itself." His faulty argument is an extension
of the tireless attempts to draw fictitious parallels between Israel and
the US to gain American empathy. Israel and the US are as different
as night and day when it comes to fundamental principles of democracy, human
rights, and justice. It is time that Americans and the rest of the world
realize that.
Adib F. Farha wrote this commentary for The Daily Star. He can be reached
by e-mail at
adibfarha@yahoo.com
http//www.jordantimes.com/Wed/opinion/opinion1.htm
Can Washington See It? - Editorial
The Jordan Times (Amman)
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
------------------------------
Isn't it time that American public opinion faces the fact that the US shares
no more values with Israel than it shares with most Arab
countries.
Israel cannot be considered a democracy--Its political, judicial and economic
systems hinge on sidelining, marginalising, and denying the rights of 20
per cent of the country's population -- the Arab Israelis.
Israel cannot be considered a law-abiding country. It has defied dozens
of UN resolutions, it upholds the principle of land acquisition through the
use of force, it practices and defends military occupation and political
assassinations.
Israel is a theocracy, a state built on the belief that religion and nationality
should coincide.
It was never affinity that prompted and cemented the alliance between Israel
and the US -- it was a matter of interests.
And now it is becoming increasingly obvious, especially, after all the changes
that Sept. 11 brought about, that America's interests do not coincide with
the interests of Israel, or, we should rather say, with the interests of
the government of hardliner Ariel Sharon.
President George W. Bush started his office with a policy of "wait-and-see"
towards the Middle East conflict--America should pull back and let the parties
sort out their problems, he thought.
He soon realised that the world's only superpower has simply too many interests
at stake to afford to sit on the sidelines in any world crisis, let alone
in the Middle East. This realisation, according to various accounts, came
long before Sept. 11.
Now, the US is back in the middle. And its vision for the future of the Middle
East no longer matches with that of Israel. Not that American policy
changed. It was Israeli policies that became too extreme and
rejectionist.
Washington sees two independent sovereign states, but Sharon doesn't.
Washington envisages that the capital of each state is going to be in Jerusalem.
But Sharon doesn't.
Washington still believes that any settlement should be based on UN Security
Council Resolution 242. But this Israeli government doesn't.
Sharon just pulled Israeli and American views apart. And he is taking advantage
of the US-led war against terror to discredit US policies and impose his
own terms.
What started last month, when Sharon compared Washington's Middle East policies
to European powers' policies of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler, was just
the beginning. Afterwards, Sharon repeatedly brushed off the US. When Washington
asks Israel to withdraw troops from Palestinian areas, Sharon says the US
does not really mean it, they are just trying to protect their international
coalition against terror. If US officials talk to Arab leaders, Sharon retorts
that Washington is just after its short-term plan of getting Ben Laden. When
Bush affirms the Palestinians' right to an independent state, Sharon downplays
his statement by insinuating that America is just after keeping the Arabs
quiet.
No one has ever undermined Washington's foreign policy as much as this hawkish,
arrogant, army
general.
--------------------------------------------------
http://www.sobran.com/columns/011023.shtml
Weighing the Costs
October 23, 2001
by Joe Sobran
One reason the Middle East has always baffled me is that we hear such
contradictory things about the state of Israel. Israel's defenders make it
sound like heaven; its detractors make it sound like hell. On the one hand,
its citizens, including Arabs, enjoy liberties denied by most states in the
region; on the other hand, it deals harshly and cruelly with non-Jews, especially
in the occupied territories.
A Christian has to be particularly disturbed by the recent killings of innocent
Christians, including children, in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ. The
exact circumstances are unclear, because our news media don't report much
on the plight of Christians in the region; but it's hard to believe these
violent deaths were unavoidable. Were they inflicted by weapons supplied
by the United States?
The question is not whether Israel is heaven or hell; it's neither. It's
a deeply troubled country, and the real question, for Americans, is whether
the fate of the United States should be tied to it.
It's understandable that the Israelis should want U.S. support; but what
is the cost to Americans? There is the monetary cost, in billions of tax
dollars per year; there is the hatred of this country that is exacerbated,
if not wholly caused, by the U.S.-Israel alliance; and that hatred has now
cost thousands of American lives, with the toll rising.
It would be one thing if Israel's American advocates frankly admitted the
costs and argued that America has nevertheless gained more than it has lost
by the alliance. But they don't. They talk as if the alliance has been all
profit to this country, with no downside. They contend that the 9/11 attacks
had little or nothing to do with the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Some of Israel's advocates are even arguing, as former Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu does, that Arabs hate Israel because of the United States,
and not vice versa! Even by the standards of political propaganda, which
assumes the stupidity of the masses, this is absurd. If it were true, the
Israelis would end their ties to the United States in a flash.
A decade ago, Patrick Buchanan was accused of anti-Semitism for referring
to Israel's "amen corner in this country." But nobody denied that such an
Amen Corner exists, including many journalists, Christian as well as Jewish,
who constantly urge the U.S. to go to war against Israel's enemies -- especially,
at the moment, Iraq.
To acknowledge this is to incur the charge of raising "the canard of dual
loyalty." Now it would be grossly unfair to accuse all American Jews of giving
their chief loyalty to Israel. But that some Jews do it is beyond question.
What is the pro-Israel lobby in this country seeking, if not at least the
partial sacrifice of American interests to Israeli interests? That's what
lobbies are for sacrificing general interests to particular interests. Farmers'
lobbies do it, labor unions do it, big corporations do it. They always pretend
that what is good for the narrow interest is good for everyone, just as the
pro-Israel lobby always argues that what is good for Israel is good for
America.
The pro-Israel lobby never acknowledges that there may be sharp divergences
between the two countries' interests. Having read its literature for many
years, I can't recall a single case when Israel's advocates have said "Policy
X would be to Israel's advantage, but it would hurt the United States, so
it should be avoided." Even "dual" loyalty would sometimes put U.S. interests
first.
Worse than the pro-Israel lobby itself are the American politicians who
constantly pander to it. They act on the assumption that Jewish voters and
campaign donors place Israeli interests above American interests. And as
long as they act on this assumption without putting it into words, nobody
comments on the "anti-Semitic" implications of their behaving as if the "canard"
were solid fact.
Even when the Israelis kill American sailors or steal American military secrets,
these fine Americans never express outrage or demand investigations. Nothing
could better illustrate the sagacity of George Washington's warnings against
the "foreign corruption" to which republics are susceptible.
Israel has become so dependent on American aid that even to ask for candor
about the interests at stake is to risk the charge of being "anti-Israel"
-- as if seeking the unvarnished truth amounted to declaring war on Israel.
Israel's defenders imply that Israel depends not only on America, but on
false propaganda. Don't they ever listen to
themselves?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright 2001, may be reproduced only in full.
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