28.5.06

Kissinger in 1975: Israelis prefer radical Arabs

A declassified document posted by Angry Arab.

I cannot copy/paste from the document so here are some things he said:

They want to be the only friend of the united states. They want to antagonize Arabs in the US with as many legislations as possible.

We are for Israel's survival but not for its hegemony... Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world. ..I think in ten to fifteen years Israel will be like Lebanon struggling for existence with no real influence in the Arab world...

Our policy is to move toward peace and improve relations with the Arab world...

Basically the Israelis prefer radical Arabs...

More declassified documents about Kissinger's encounters with world leaders, verbatim.

5 comments:

Wolfie said...

This document explains, in part, why Kissinger was sometimes labelled an anti-Semite. Not pro-Israel enough obviously.

Things have clearly changed since then and Zionist influence is far stronger in US foreign policy now.

"If the Arabs -- if I can be frank -- don't do anything stupid."

Like fly a 747 into a NY sky-scraper? Ho-hum...

Sophia said...

Wolfie,

Please be frank. The attack on the WTC was the stupidiest thing to do.

Actually I felt a relief when I learned that the hijackers were not Palestinians, not one of them. But again, it didn't help the Palestinians because Israel, the US and the neo-cons were able to put all things middle eastern in one bag, Islam, Arabs, palestinians, terrorism, fanaticism, etc...
When you look more closely, for those who know the Arab world, there is a huge difference between Hamas and Bin Laden I posted on this issue. Bin Laden's objectives are internal, toppling the Saudi regime and he does not care about the Palestinians (even though TV cameras showed the world the celebrations of some Palestinians in the street in reaction to 9/11). Again, this has nothing to do with solidarity with Bin Laden, it has to do with inflicting by proxy a misery on the US who is Israel's most reliable ally and therefore its ally in the opression of the Palestinians.

On another front, when reading the news you realise that there is no defense, whatsoever, on the part of the Israelis, media people, bloggers and officials, of the US misdeeds in Iraq, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, when pointed out by the press and decried everywhere in the world. However, there is a very consistent defense, on the part of American media outlets and officials, of Israeli misdeeds against the Palestinians. The alliance is clearly not reciprocal in terms of taking responsibilities and this is why the anger is mostly turned against the US while it should be turned against Israel. This imbalance of shifting responsibilities is serving well Israel and harming Americans. American citizens are just starting to voice timidly their concerns (see the Walt and Mearsheimer paper about the Israel lobby)but I don't know if they will be able to go all the way to reestablish a certain balance in their relations with Israel.

Wolfie said...

Sophia,

Please forgive my rather cryptic remark. Neither I nor anyone I know of in the UK suspected Palestinian involvement in 9/11 for a moment, they have always targeted Israeli interests and such an act would be counter-productive and stupid. It is the American media which has consistently tried to extend a broader brush of blame and the reasons for that is clear to anyone with the intelligence beyond that of a mollusc. Whoever planned the attack could be assured of an extreme retaliation and there lies the puzzle; what would be their purpose? In my mind OBL wanted to inspire support for his cause and chose a sparsely populated hell-hole which would bog-down the American forces (the Taliban STILL control the country today) and carefully chose only Saudis for the task because the Americans are so dependent on Saudi oil and support. He's no fool.

The Palestinians get a reasonable amount of support from Europe and clearly would not want to jeopardise that. Even my cousin's Jewish wife has sympathy for them and describes Israel as "the cause of Anti-Semiticism", she too can see through the media driven attempt to paint all Arabs with the same brush. I guess we get better geography lessons here.

Wolfie said...

The Israelis prefer radical Arabs for another reason. Their greatest fear is Pan-Arab unity and the best route for that is through secularism because the interpretation of Islam is so different in each country that radicalised nations are unlikely to agree and when they do its only through ethnic ties. Divide and rule. The blue-print for this is now emerging in Iraq as the long-term plan takes shape - the partition of the country.

Sophia said...

Wolfie,

There is no need to apologise. It was rather me who did not phrase correctly my answer to your comment. I learned english relatively late, and even if I write and read a lot in this language, I still don't grasp some nuances of the everyday language. Here in Canada, I live, work and interact mostly in French.

This said, I remember that everybody suspected the Palestinians in the wake of the WTC bombing and this was a legitimate suspicion coming from the West. Palestinians did some very high profile attacks against Israelis, but never against other people. Everybody remembers Munich. But that was back in the seventies.

The irony is that rebel Saudis like OBL are the product of the joint fight of Saudi Arabia and its American ally against Secularism in the Arab world. Arab nationalism and secularism was well and alive in the Arab world in the fifties through the eighties sustained mainly by the unity around the Palestinian problem and inspired by the strong secularism of Palestinian Liberation Organisations. Palestinians themeselves still the most secularist in the Arab world even today as they elected Hamas. Secularism in the Arab world was sadly fought fiercely by oppressive regimes who financed the flourishing Islamist organizations across the Arab world, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Palestine, with the oil money instead of tending to their people's needs and the development of their region, you know whom I am speaking of.

Lebanon is a clear example, despite the civil war between religious factions, I was surprised to realise that secularist movements were still strong after the war but they are being now manipulated by a pro-Saudi government in Lebanon.

As for jews, the majority of them are not staunch supporters of imperialist zionism. We cannot put the blame on jews for what Israel is doing as we cannot put the blame on all Arabs and Muslims for what OBL is doing in their names.

You seem to be well informed about the situation in the ME. People in Europe in general are better informed than Americans and Canadians.

Thanks for the comments.

 
Since March 29th 2006