25.4.06

The Israeli-Neo-Con project for the Middle East: Lebanonisation, not Democratisation

The term 'Lebanonisation' refers to the lebanese civil war between the different sects and religions in Lebanon which started in 1975 and lasted 15 years resulting in the near total destruction of a fragile nascent nation, in addition to disparitions, deaths, massacres and expatriations. This war came to a halt only for a short period (10 years) after which recent rising tensions in the region achieved a new state of political, economic and social precariousness leaving Lebanon in a limbo over its future.
Now Iraq has been going through the same process. From a prosperous and secular country providing its citizens with the basics of health care, education and infrastructure to a less prosperous but still unified and politically stable dictature after having been weakened by wars and sanctions, Iraq is now descending into hell since the March 2003 american invasion spiraling every day and at every suicide bombing into a civil war from which it may never recover.
Now you may say that things may be different in the two countries in waiting, Syria and Iran. I bet you not and I will tell you why. People with nice and positive projects, like the ones avowed by Bush and the neo-cons for the middle east to bring democracy and development, don't destruct in order to implement their projects. They don't bully and they don't kill. Bringing a democracy to a country should never be a killing enterprise.

However, I have every reason to believe that the killing enterprise going on in the middle east is here to last and is not to bring democracy and prosperity but only destruction and misery. I always defended the idea that the whole american enterprise for the middle east was to destabilize the region even further and to plunge the countries into a prolonged state of chaos in order to let Israel have its way as an imperial power whose wandering, under tremendous pressure, into an internationally sponsored peace process with the Palestinians was so short lived that nobody now remembers that glorious, and not so far, time.

Since Oslo and even before, the zionist project was officially transmutating from a 'survival' project for the state of Israel to an imperial project for the entire region. In fact the zionist project for Israel was never a 'survival' project as Israel wanted us to believe, it was always an imperial project. The official transmutation came when Israel realised in 1982 - after it won the two wars against Arab countries (1967 and 1973), after the departure of Palestinians from Lebanon, the weakening of the Movement for the Liberation of Palestine by the Lebanese civil war and the free ride Sharon was able to take into palestinian camps in Lebanon in 1982,assassinating children and women left behind by Palestinian militants ousted from Beirut with Arafat under international 'guarantees' on the security of their civilians in the camps - that they have no reasonable force in the middle east to oppose their imperial project. However, Israel is a tiny little country surrounded by a legion of oil rich countries and outnumbered by Arabs and its might can be insufficient to conduct its imperial project. It needed to weaken Arab countries and the only way to do so is to play on their ethnical and religious differences, to break these countries into sects wary of each other and ready to wage internal wars as it happened in Lebanon. Everybody knows by now the prominent role Israel played in Lebanon's civil war training the christian Phalangist militia inside Israel and supporting their war efforts against other Lebanese sects.
Israel knew it could not conduct such a project alone for the entire region without the United States, its long term ally, and probably could not have done so without the awaited but rapid military demise of the Soviet Union, the other superpower player in the middle east. It could not do it by itself taking the risk of enduring an international outcry and opprobrium for meddling in internal Arab countries affairs at such a large scale. So here comes the neo-con project for the greater middle east, plunging the region into civil wars and destructing their social fabrics, therefore sending them into a prolonged state of underdevelopment and internal tensions while Israel can thrive and reign without pressure for a long time to come.

I am not the only one musing on such a highly conspirational hypothesis. There are documents written and facts on the ground to substantiate it. We are living a nightmare in the middle east and the only thing that tells me that in fact this is reality and not a nightmare is that 'I know I am not dreaming because I can't sleep anymore'.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is reality as it is. I ask you to look at the big picture, not to focalise on one regional problem at a time, to look at them all. I ask you also to take a historical perspective on what is happening now in the middle east.

And I ask you to read the article that inspired me to write this post.

''Yinon's strategy was based on this premise. In order to survive Israel must become an imperial regional power and must also ensure the break-up of all Arab countries so that the region may be carved up into small ineffectual states unequipped to stand up to Israeli military might. Here's what he had to say on Iraq:
"The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.
"An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon.
"In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul and Shiite areas in the South will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north
."''

16 comments:

Oleh Yahshan said...

I am not sure what you are trying to say here.
Is Israel about to take over the world? or only the middle east??

oh and one more thing who is This Oded Yinon Guy?? Was he The Israeli Dictator for Years?? or Maybe in charge of the IDF? or president of the Elders of zion??

Sophia, These theories as much as you might want them to be true have no hold whatsoever with any reality. It would be nice to think that Israel controlls the U.S. It would also be easier if Israel had these Grand Empiral Ideas - Thats why we pulled out of Lebenon in the 1980's and why we gave back Sinai - so we can take over the world.
Next you are going to tell me that the Attacks in Sinai the other Day were also done by Israel. And that Al Zarqawi, is a Mossad Agent.

conspiresy theories are fun things to read, but don't belive them, they usually end up being the more complicated answer to the problem, and almost never help anyone find a solution.

Sophia said...

Oleh,
I would like all these theories not to be true.
Oded Yinon is a journalist, a former Israeli foreign security advisor and official. He published: 'A strategy for Israel in the nineteen eighties', originally in hebrew in KIVUNIM, a journal for judaism and Zionism. Translated to english by Israel Shahak, an Israeli critic of zionism.
The whole reference in hebrew is here (Issue No, 14--Winter, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the World Zionist Organization)

Read also:
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/
balkanization.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
index.php?context=viewArticle&code
=NIM20060326&articleId=2173

And here is the document in pdf.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20
Middle%20East.pdf

Anonymous said...

Sophia , you are so correct- excellent post.

odeh, these are not conspiracy theories. They are fact. The neo-cons are now in charge of ME policy for the US and some were former advisers to Bibi Netanyahu. They even penned a paper, see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm

If Israel had such good intentions let them withdraw from all the occupied territories not just the Sinai. They were forced to withdraw from Lebanon ,by the way.

For starters they could accept the Arab paece initiative or any peace initiative.

As for Zarqawi ,if he exists at all, being a Mossad agent, that is ridiculous. I am sure we can agree on that.

However, the Lavon affair is history you choose to ignore.

A classical example of Mossad's work was the program formulated by Mordechai ben Porat, an Israeli politician, in 1950/1951, where Israeli agents were used to toss hand grenades in the Massauda Shem Tov synagogue in Iraq, killing and injuring a number on innocent Jewish worshippers, to blame it on the Arabs.

Sophia , why be sleepless, it is the murderers and conspirators who are having trouble sleeping.

Rest assured that justice will prevail regardless of all the chutzpah and hasbara we have to endure.

Keep your excellent posts coming.

Issam

Oleh Yahshan said...

still I fail to see how you can take a journalist that wrote something 20 years ago and conclude anything from what you have written.

oh ya write you don't have to - that is what makes it such a great conspirecy.

if it wasn't so sad It would be really funny. no wait... it is really funny.. now if you will excuse me I have to get back to my basement and continue to devise plans to take over the world - we don't want to keep The Elders wating.

Gert said...

Sophia and Oleh:

I'm not a great fan of elaborate conspiracy theories either. On the face of it, many such CTs fit the facts and so does this one. But a rather superficial semblance to a series of facts doesn't constitute proof (although it does constitute a form of evidence).

However, there is no shortage of similar theories and scenarios being promulgated on the more extremist side of the Zionist movement: calls for Eretz Yisrael remain loud and clear. One such site (mainly American Jewish Zionists and general US and Canadian supporters in this case) is IsraPundit.com: their support for an Arab-free one-state solution for the region is unwavering.

Oleh, your own partner Olah, seems to be to be in favour of these ideas.

I don't believe these views are somehow the majority opinion of modern Israel though.

Nonetheless, it good to publish such articles, even tough their basis remains strictly speaking rather hypothetical.

Sophia said...

Oleh,

I am sure most Israeli citizen are unaware of such plans if they exist so I am not accusing you of conspiracy.

Gert,

Thanks for the comment. I personnaly don't like conspiracy theories. However conspiracy theories come to exist when everything around is totally irrational and twisted. In fact, the huma mind has to attribute meaning to any event, even the most bizarre one and when there is no rational explanation or meaning, conspiracy theories are useful. How are we to live if we don't attribute meanings ? However, theories are theories and they still have to be proven, so I would like very much that this theory will turn out to be wrong and that peace, justice and stability will be the landmarks for the neo-con project for the greater middle east.
As for the Israpundit guys they freak me out !

Gert said...

IsraPundit freaks you out? Then I won't include a list of even more wacky Zionist blogs and sites! Someone should write a brilliant spoof on these guys. Trouble is, they can be as vicious as they can comical... Two of IsraPundits gems: "Saudis are genetical degenerates" and "Conservatives breed better". I kid you not...

It's unbelievable what kind drivel "thought" is out there on the fringes of society, from whatever denomination, I hasten to add. Extremist thinking is really dangerous: it's inward looking nature causes an unbalanced and distorted view of the world and its rather elusive truths... Sometimes these people set out from logically defendable positions but without dialogue all ideas degenerate into perceived "absolute truths", further posing an obstacle to discussion. Religious fanatics are a good example but far, far from the only one.

Whatever happened to Dialectism?

Sophia said...

Most people don't understand what dialectism is. They don't know that it advocates the reach for truth by the exchange of logical arguments, sometimes contradictory. In fact, most people link Dialectism and dialectical methods to Marxism and marxism seems now, after the demise of the Soviets and of communism, very odd, a looser ideology. What is ironic is that communists did not actually practice dialectism, so dialectism is now in a dark corner in hisory, being at best a fancy philosophical idea.
I don't think we live now in an enlightened society in which the confrontation of ideas matters. What matters is the power of beliefs, being religious or irrational, which is actually the same.

Gert said...

The World as one great unbridgeable dichotomy: that's probably the greatest danger Humanity now faces. The new obscurantism is possibly more dangerous than the old one, with its near infinite capacity to dissipate unbased and biased beliefs. Ironically it's science, a product of Enlightenment (simply put, I'll concede that) that provides the technological means for this.

Sophia said...

Gert,

I like very much this reflection of yours. Thank you for sharing it and that's the good part of the internet.

Intrinsically, science is neither bad or good, it is we who decide if it is going to be bad or good.

Wolfie said...

Hi Sophia,

Interesting post, thank you. I'm a big fan of dialectism myself but it leads to quite a lot of misunderstanding.

Anyway back to the post. Strangely enough I got into a chat with an Israeli guy a while ago on a bulletin board who was proposing exactly such a theory and he didn't seem a conspiracy nut to me. That he should propose such an idea took me quite by surprise, as he quite rightly said "some of us can think outside the tribe"! Having had the unhappy opportunity to cross the path of the more extremist element of American Zionist ideology (purely by accident I'll add) up close and personal I am inclined to not dismiss such theorising out of hand however like Gert I would put it to one side until more information becomes available that either supports it or undermines it entirely. Till then I'll keep an open mind and wait and see.

Gert said...

Wolfie:

There is indeed no shortage of Israelis supporting such theories. That in itself proves nothing except for the fact that such views cannot be merely brushed aside as anti-Semitic twaddle, Protocols of Zion style (although on the Israeli right many will use just that argument). That's why strong evidence is needed, otherwise such assertions can seriously backfire.

Sophia said...

Wolfie, Gert,
Don't you think that the document by itself constitute a piece of evidence ? Of course it is not because it was written that it could have been applied but knowing the neo-cons and their love for highly utopist policies and projects for the middle east, I wouldn't be surprised if they took the document as a blue print for their 'greater middle east'.

I mean for many years zionist have convinced the world that Arabs wanted to throw them into the sea and that this was recorded on arab radio stations during the 1948 war ! Israeli researchers have established that this was a fabrication, nothing of the sort was said and there was no evidence substantiating the claim. However the west believed that there was a conspiracy to drive Israeli into the sea !

Wolfie said...

Gert,

That was exactly my assertion, no more.

Sophia,

I don't think such a document can be construed as evidence in itself, to be so it would have to be an official government document - which it isn't. What I do find suspicious is how wildly the current US Middle East strategy is veering from the "war on terror" with seriously counter-productive manoeuvres, that speaks for itself to some degree but also fuels the imaginations of the armchair conspiracy theory brokers.

Gert said...

Sophia:

Assuming it's genuine (I've no doubt about that), then clearly it constitutes evidence ("Exhibit A", as it were) but proof requires more (and ultimate, "absolute" proof doesn't exist, whether we're talking about this theory or Quantum Physics). More pieces of evidence than just one or a few documents are required to build a reasonable body of evidence, converging to proof.

Right now this is not much more than an interpretation of facts (that are not necessarily connected) that is arguable but not without merit. It can neither be dismissed out of hand nor accepted at face value.

Long live Empiricism!

Sophia said...

Gert,
I concede, after all, Empiricism is British !

 
Since March 29th 2006