From Angry Arab.
Links about Al Bayanouni and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood:
The Muslim Brotherhood: the trojan horse of the syrian revolution. (article in Arabic)
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood between piety and lethal errors. (article in Arabic)
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood by Gary Gambill (article in English).
Al Bayanouni speaking on the Syrian regime, Iran and Israel.
As of late, sunni extremism has become respectable to USrael and the west in general. Some links:
Israel and Saudi Arabia are natural allies.
Wikileaks: Hariri to the US: Syrian Muslim Brotherhood not extremist and they want peace with Israel
Israel wants a committment from the US to protect the Saudi regime.
UK and US want to make peace with the Taliban.
Al Bayanouni improves on Alawi question!!!! (but this was the context of the aftermath of the July 2006 war in Lebanon when everybody thought that Hezbollah was so weak and so unpopular that the Syrian regime was ready for compromise...
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood new leadership: assessment of the Bayanouni years.
General information about the brotherhood and its ideology.
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
28.5.11
Outrage: UK Training Saudi Forces Used To Crush Dissent In Bahrain
Here are some gems of justification from the UK about their ministry of Defence training Saudi troops in crowd control, some of them were used in Bahrain:
“This is the shocking face of our democracy to many people in the world, as we prop up regimes of this sort,” Edwards said. “It is intensely hypocritical of our leadership in the UK – Labour or Conservative – to talk of supporting freedoms in the Middle East and elsewhere while at the same time training crack troops of dictatorships.”
The West's mission in the ME is not about demcoracy but about changing hostile regimes to friendly ones. And even if Arabs implements democracy overnight, the West won’t be pleased.
“An MoD spokesman described the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, as “key partners” in the fight against terrorism. “By providing training for countries to the same high standards used by UK armed forces we help to save lives and raise awareness of human rights,” said the spokesman.”
What? Aren’t these the same people who are portrayed by US embassy cables as cash machines for Islamists terrorists? And up until recently by the hundred millions?
And last but not least:
“Labour MP Mike Gapes, the former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said British military support for Saudi Arabia was about achieving a “difficult balance”.
“On the one hand Saudi Arabia faces the threat of al-Qaida but on the other its human rights record is dreadful. This is the constant dilemma you have when dealing with autocratic regimes: do you ignore them or try to improve them?”
“This is the shocking face of our democracy to many people in the world, as we prop up regimes of this sort,” Edwards said. “It is intensely hypocritical of our leadership in the UK – Labour or Conservative – to talk of supporting freedoms in the Middle East and elsewhere while at the same time training crack troops of dictatorships.”
The West's mission in the ME is not about demcoracy but about changing hostile regimes to friendly ones. And even if Arabs implements democracy overnight, the West won’t be pleased.
“An MoD spokesman described the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, as “key partners” in the fight against terrorism. “By providing training for countries to the same high standards used by UK armed forces we help to save lives and raise awareness of human rights,” said the spokesman.”
What? Aren’t these the same people who are portrayed by US embassy cables as cash machines for Islamists terrorists? And up until recently by the hundred millions?
And last but not least:
“Labour MP Mike Gapes, the former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said British military support for Saudi Arabia was about achieving a “difficult balance”.
“On the one hand Saudi Arabia faces the threat of al-Qaida but on the other its human rights record is dreadful. This is the constant dilemma you have when dealing with autocratic regimes: do you ignore them or try to improve them?”
27.7.10
David Cameron: Gaza is a prison camp
UK's PM David Cameron drew the ire of Israel and its friends today as he labeled Gaza as a 'prison camp'. Most Israeli defenders who were 'shocked' by Cameron's statement agreed with it. However, they seemed to hold Hamas as the sole responsible for the situation in Gaza, ignoring that Palestinians voted for Hamas and accrediting the thesis that Israel's treatment of Gaza amounts to a collective punishment of a million and a half people.
I don't know if Cameron's statement is tactical or if it is a genuine courageous political act. I don't care. Kudos to David Cameron!
I don't know if Cameron's statement is tactical or if it is a genuine courageous political act. I don't care. Kudos to David Cameron!
10.12.09
UK labeling supermarket food from illegal west bank settlements as 'Israeli settlements produce'
Britain has acted to increase pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements by advising UK supermarkets on how to distinguish between foods from the settlements and Palestinian-manufactured goods...
EU law already requires a distinction to be made between goods originating in Israel and those from the occupied territories, though pro-Palestinian campaigners say this is not always observed.
Separately, Defra said that traders would be committing an offence if they did declare produce from the occupied territories as "Produce of Israel".
Foods grown in Israeli settlements include herbs sold in supermarkets, such as Waitrose, which chop, package and label them as "West Bank" produce, making no distinction between Israelis and Palestinians. A total of 27 Israeli firms operating in settlements and exporting to the UK have been identified: their produce includes fruit, vegetables, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, plastic and metal items and textiles.To read more of the story follow the link in the title...
3.8.09
Supressing evidence of torture is a criminal offence
The Bush and Obama administrations have been, under different motives, hiding evidence of torture performed by US personnel, and Mrs Clinton is now asking their ally, the UK, to supress evidence of torture of one of their citizen, Binyam Mohammad, at Guantanamo.
This is clearly a criminal offence, says Human rights lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, and another exrecise in 'naked political power', according to the British judge who is in charge of the case of Mohammad.
This is clearly a criminal offence, says Human rights lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, and another exrecise in 'naked political power', according to the British judge who is in charge of the case of Mohammad.
26.3.08
Sarkozy the anglophile
When I was a child in Lebanon I was told many funny stories having a central character Jeha. These stories are part of the folkore tradition but they are in fact universal. Jeha is simple minded, dumb, pathetic, and funny. One of these stories goes like this: Jeha broke the main water pipe connecting the village to the source and when asked why he answered: 'I did this to get people to talk about me'.
Sarkozy's politics, domestic and foreign, has been all about that. Even his marriage. The tension between France and Germany has been building since Sarko was elected. One has to browse one of the main German newspapers to realise that Germany doesn't like Sarkozy. This is a clear departure from France's traditional European alliances. Sarkozy doesn't like to be challenged and he wasn't going to be in good terms with Merkel, a woman, a daughter of a pastor and a former physics professor and researcher. Merkel is all subtelty, protestant rigorism, and old fashioned European rationalism. Sarko is emotional, not subtle and the contrary of a morally rigorous person. Sarkozy found his political model in Tony Blair and the British new labour. The man works by personal affinities away from rational judgement. And, like Jeha, Sarkozy is breaking the water pipe between Germany and France and trying to build another one with the UK. Will he succeed ? I doubt...But he will be surely talked about.
Sarkozy the anglophile. Is it genetic ?
Nicolas Sarkozy has kicked off his eagerly-anticipated visit to the UK by urging both counties to "move from being cordial to being friendly" as many of the British papers print naked pictures (nsfw) of his wife.
Related: Sarkozy strains French-German relations.
Sarkozy's politics, domestic and foreign, has been all about that. Even his marriage. The tension between France and Germany has been building since Sarko was elected. One has to browse one of the main German newspapers to realise that Germany doesn't like Sarkozy. This is a clear departure from France's traditional European alliances. Sarkozy doesn't like to be challenged and he wasn't going to be in good terms with Merkel, a woman, a daughter of a pastor and a former physics professor and researcher. Merkel is all subtelty, protestant rigorism, and old fashioned European rationalism. Sarko is emotional, not subtle and the contrary of a morally rigorous person. Sarkozy found his political model in Tony Blair and the British new labour. The man works by personal affinities away from rational judgement. And, like Jeha, Sarkozy is breaking the water pipe between Germany and France and trying to build another one with the UK. Will he succeed ? I doubt...But he will be surely talked about.
Sarkozy the anglophile. Is it genetic ?
Nicolas Sarkozy has kicked off his eagerly-anticipated visit to the UK by urging both counties to "move from being cordial to being friendly" as many of the British papers print naked pictures (nsfw) of his wife.
Related: Sarkozy strains French-German relations.
20.2.08
The FO successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial Iraq WMD dossier
The Information Tribunal, which adjudicates on disputes involving the Freedom of Information Act, agreed to remove the single reference to Israel when it ordered the release of the draft of the Iraqi weapons dossier written by John Williams, the FO's chief information officer at the time.
Along with unfavourable references to the US and Japan, the reference to Israel was written in the margin by someone commenting on the opening paragraph of the Williams draft. It was written against the claim that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has flouted the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction".
6.9.07
Taking George Seriously (not W.)
Do you regret being friendly with Saddam Hussein?
I regret using words that, with scissors and paste, could be endlessly used by my enemies. I was never a friend of Saddam's. I was an opponent of Saddam's when Britain and America were his best friends and I used to demonstrate outside the embassy in London when businessmen and ministers were going in and out selling him weapons. But I just believe it is immoral to kill people's children because you don't like their dictator, especially when you helped put that dictator in power in the first place.
I regret using words that, with scissors and paste, could be endlessly used by my enemies. I was never a friend of Saddam's. I was an opponent of Saddam's when Britain and America were his best friends and I used to demonstrate outside the embassy in London when businessmen and ministers were going in and out selling him weapons. But I just believe it is immoral to kill people's children because you don't like their dictator, especially when you helped put that dictator in power in the first place.
26.8.07
Bush, Blair, and Israel: A concerted agression on Lebanese civilians during last year's July war
I was away from the blogosphere for one week and nearly missed this interesting post by Craig Murray* shedding some new light on what appeared to be the inability of western governments, especially Blair's, on which many have pinned hopes to stop the savage bombings of civilians in Lebanon by Israel because of its good relations with the US government who was actively and openly promoting and supporting Israel's war on Lebanon (remember Rice's many trips to the ME during this war and famous declaration about the ME pangs of birth ?).
Well, behind the scenes, UK's diplomacy was actually working the other way. While Margaret Beckett, Blair's minister for foreign affairs, as other western leaders, was showing support for the west's darling Lebanese PM Fouad Sanyura with a short visit and a declaration about how her country was working hard to achieve a ceasefire, the UK's mission at the UN was instructed to keep a ceasefire off the agenda.
Murray relates the following: "I had a friend and former colleague call me from our Mission to the United Nations phone me from New York at the time in deep personal despair, as he had been instructed to keep an early ceasfire resolution off the Security Council agenda by making it known that we would veto it. Meanwhile everyday he was seeing news footage of dead Lebanese children dragged from the rubble of their homes. "
At the time, I was deeply moved by British peace activists efforts to expose the UK's complicity and bring the case of war crimes against Israel and its allies in this war by attempting on the night of 6th to 7th August last year, when Israel knew it was loosing the war and consequently intensified its bombings on civilians in a will to inflict maximum damage, to look at Prestwick airport for evidence of US munitions bound for Israel for use in the Lebanon conflict, among them the infamous cluster bombs who continued to kill children well after the end of the war. At the time, we, citizen of Lebanon, felt totally abandoned by our own government and by the international community, who was supporting our government but refusing a ceasefire to save our children, our civilians, and our source of living and infrastructure (remember the ugly oil spill all over the Lebanese coast and the cluster bopmbs scattered in our fields resulting from Israel's bombings ?).
Eight activists were charged of trespassing. Seven were acquitted by the court this August. The remaining activist, Marcus Armstrong, who was charged, refused to pay a 750 pounds fine and preferred prison for 20 days. Indy media Scotland reports that a prominent expert witness of the defendants testified that "a collusion in war crime was relevant to the context of the trial.
Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University told the court that war crime by Israel was very much an issue at the time of the incident at the airport. Israel had been breaching international law by targeting its air strikes in Lebanon at areas and installations liable to contain civilians. They had asked the US for an emergency top-up supply of bombs. US planes delivering these armaments would need a fuel stop-over in the UK and Prestwick was one of the options."
This shows, among others, that activism is never vain, especially when it is brought to the courts of law where it can serve as a basis to build a case for war crimes against powerful governments by ordinary citizens. The impulse shouldn't be changed, it only need to be intensified and extended. As Craig Murray rightly states, Marcus Armstrong is a prisoner of conscience and I wish everyone had his conscience during this ugly war. I wish him well.
Read what Jonathan Cook, Correspondant in Nazareth, has to say about the July war of agression on Lebanon.
*As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped expose vicious human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.
Well, behind the scenes, UK's diplomacy was actually working the other way. While Margaret Beckett, Blair's minister for foreign affairs, as other western leaders, was showing support for the west's darling Lebanese PM Fouad Sanyura with a short visit and a declaration about how her country was working hard to achieve a ceasefire, the UK's mission at the UN was instructed to keep a ceasefire off the agenda.
Murray relates the following: "I had a friend and former colleague call me from our Mission to the United Nations phone me from New York at the time in deep personal despair, as he had been instructed to keep an early ceasfire resolution off the Security Council agenda by making it known that we would veto it. Meanwhile everyday he was seeing news footage of dead Lebanese children dragged from the rubble of their homes. "
At the time, I was deeply moved by British peace activists efforts to expose the UK's complicity and bring the case of war crimes against Israel and its allies in this war by attempting on the night of 6th to 7th August last year, when Israel knew it was loosing the war and consequently intensified its bombings on civilians in a will to inflict maximum damage, to look at Prestwick airport for evidence of US munitions bound for Israel for use in the Lebanon conflict, among them the infamous cluster bombs who continued to kill children well after the end of the war. At the time, we, citizen of Lebanon, felt totally abandoned by our own government and by the international community, who was supporting our government but refusing a ceasefire to save our children, our civilians, and our source of living and infrastructure (remember the ugly oil spill all over the Lebanese coast and the cluster bopmbs scattered in our fields resulting from Israel's bombings ?).
Eight activists were charged of trespassing. Seven were acquitted by the court this August. The remaining activist, Marcus Armstrong, who was charged, refused to pay a 750 pounds fine and preferred prison for 20 days. Indy media Scotland reports that a prominent expert witness of the defendants testified that "a collusion in war crime was relevant to the context of the trial.
Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University told the court that war crime by Israel was very much an issue at the time of the incident at the airport. Israel had been breaching international law by targeting its air strikes in Lebanon at areas and installations liable to contain civilians. They had asked the US for an emergency top-up supply of bombs. US planes delivering these armaments would need a fuel stop-over in the UK and Prestwick was one of the options."
This shows, among others, that activism is never vain, especially when it is brought to the courts of law where it can serve as a basis to build a case for war crimes against powerful governments by ordinary citizens. The impulse shouldn't be changed, it only need to be intensified and extended. As Craig Murray rightly states, Marcus Armstrong is a prisoner of conscience and I wish everyone had his conscience during this ugly war. I wish him well.
Read what Jonathan Cook, Correspondant in Nazareth, has to say about the July war of agression on Lebanon.
*As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped expose vicious human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.
27.7.07
Conspiracies against civil society: What the 'Zodiac' and Bin Laden have in common ?
Yesterday I watched the 'Zodiac', a movie by David Fincher on one of the most notorious serial killers in the US. This is Fincher's best movie so far. Factual, meticulous, with attention to details, even though it is based on a one man account written by Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist working for the SFC at the time.
The Killer who terrorised San Francisco and area was never found with certainty. The main suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen was questioned by the police who was unable to charge him - despite a huge amount of coïncidence between him and what the police 'knew' about the killer (technically considered as circumstancial evidence) - because of the graphological expertise. This is where the story became puzzling for me. Most of the evidence the police possessed at the time were the letters and ciphers the Zodiac wrote to the press, the police, and anybody who would gove him media presence and keep him in the public eye. The graphological expertise did however change over time, over more than 10 years, and its changes led the police and the journalist working on the story to suspect different people, taking suspicion away from Leigh Allen, only to focus on Leigh later. It was amazing how the struggle of the police turned around letters and graphology, a very uncertain evidence, if we judge the standards of graphology at the time. It was somehow a doomed trail.
And this was not the only obstacle in the Zodiac story.
The absence of a clear pattern in the killings, except their savagery, absence of motive, and the will to inflict terror on the population by calling the police and sending ciphers and letters;
The dispersion of the killings on different administrative police areas and different jurisdictions;
Their duration over a ten month period, which is a long period if we judge by the weight of the threat at the time (the killer was thretening to kill a whole load of a schoolbus), during which the killer identification was made increasingly difficult;
The duration of the police investigation extending, under partial information, in both directions, to connect the murders to past unresolved killings, and present and future threats from the Zodiac which went on until mid 70s,
The despair of the police who weregoing from one piste to another without being able to dig deep in the investigation...
Something in this story made me think of l'affaire des 'tueurs fous du Brabant' who terrorised Nivelles and the region of the Brabant in Belgium between 1982 and 1985. Les tueurs du Brabant was a larger scale crime and terror operation involving disgruntled members of the police (gendarmerie) as well as Neo nazi and extreme right groups. The killers were never found and identified but there is police evidence that they were more than one, at least three, and they had links to various groups. But the more consistent interpretation of such an operation came from Le Monde Diplomatique in 2001. According to Le Monde Diplomatique, it was probably an operation to destabilise the weak Belgian government.
A small scale terror operation like the Zodiac killings could not be meant to destabilise the US, but to keep the population in a state of terror, definitely yes. One of the obstacles to the investigation about the Zodiac killings is that the police never assumed the theory of more than one killer operating under an umbrella group and I think this might have been the case in the Zodiac killings. This is an irony because for the 9/11 attacks, the US government rushed to conceptualise the foundations of Al-Qaida as a terror group or network, while we know that Al_Qaida networks operate loosely and 'by inspiration'. However, serial killings like the Zodiac's were clearly orchestrated to strike the imagination and provoke terror and the fact that there were many serious suspects in the investigation should have led to a conspiration done by a group, mainly against civil society in the US, because civils were the main target.
I think the most accurate interpretation of the Zodiac killings comes, in this regard, from Spike Lee in his movie 'Summer of Sam'. Spike Lee insists in his movie, not on the trail followed by the police and not on the affair itself but on the results of such a terror climate on the population in a special neighbourhood, and on the psychology of some of the movie's characters. I find that Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam' is a good complement to Fincher's movie if you were to watch the 'Zodiac' on video.
Reflecting on this story, I found many similarities between the US's main serial killings operations and the present climate of terror. Major serial killings in the US, including killings of officials, were never resolved, and their main results were the production of a climate of terror. Thanks to Bin Laden, the US does not need its serial killers now. One has to consider Bin Laden as a super Zodiac with a wide media international coverage and much more people terrorised day and night by the idea of him.
Conspiarcy theorists beware !
Fellow blogger Conspiraloon Stef has posted an interesting article recently on the subject of Terror and its relation to major state conspiracies against their own civil societies.
Listen to the talk mentioned by Stef in his post. It was given by Nafeez Ahmed recently in London. There are many interesting parallels that Ahmed draws between the present security-political climate and WWII known archives, in terms of public opinion manipulation.
The Killer who terrorised San Francisco and area was never found with certainty. The main suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen was questioned by the police who was unable to charge him - despite a huge amount of coïncidence between him and what the police 'knew' about the killer (technically considered as circumstancial evidence) - because of the graphological expertise. This is where the story became puzzling for me. Most of the evidence the police possessed at the time were the letters and ciphers the Zodiac wrote to the press, the police, and anybody who would gove him media presence and keep him in the public eye. The graphological expertise did however change over time, over more than 10 years, and its changes led the police and the journalist working on the story to suspect different people, taking suspicion away from Leigh Allen, only to focus on Leigh later. It was amazing how the struggle of the police turned around letters and graphology, a very uncertain evidence, if we judge the standards of graphology at the time. It was somehow a doomed trail.
And this was not the only obstacle in the Zodiac story.
The absence of a clear pattern in the killings, except their savagery, absence of motive, and the will to inflict terror on the population by calling the police and sending ciphers and letters;
The dispersion of the killings on different administrative police areas and different jurisdictions;
Their duration over a ten month period, which is a long period if we judge by the weight of the threat at the time (the killer was thretening to kill a whole load of a schoolbus), during which the killer identification was made increasingly difficult;
The duration of the police investigation extending, under partial information, in both directions, to connect the murders to past unresolved killings, and present and future threats from the Zodiac which went on until mid 70s,
The despair of the police who weregoing from one piste to another without being able to dig deep in the investigation...
Something in this story made me think of l'affaire des 'tueurs fous du Brabant' who terrorised Nivelles and the region of the Brabant in Belgium between 1982 and 1985. Les tueurs du Brabant was a larger scale crime and terror operation involving disgruntled members of the police (gendarmerie) as well as Neo nazi and extreme right groups. The killers were never found and identified but there is police evidence that they were more than one, at least three, and they had links to various groups. But the more consistent interpretation of such an operation came from Le Monde Diplomatique in 2001. According to Le Monde Diplomatique, it was probably an operation to destabilise the weak Belgian government.
A small scale terror operation like the Zodiac killings could not be meant to destabilise the US, but to keep the population in a state of terror, definitely yes. One of the obstacles to the investigation about the Zodiac killings is that the police never assumed the theory of more than one killer operating under an umbrella group and I think this might have been the case in the Zodiac killings. This is an irony because for the 9/11 attacks, the US government rushed to conceptualise the foundations of Al-Qaida as a terror group or network, while we know that Al_Qaida networks operate loosely and 'by inspiration'. However, serial killings like the Zodiac's were clearly orchestrated to strike the imagination and provoke terror and the fact that there were many serious suspects in the investigation should have led to a conspiration done by a group, mainly against civil society in the US, because civils were the main target.
I think the most accurate interpretation of the Zodiac killings comes, in this regard, from Spike Lee in his movie 'Summer of Sam'. Spike Lee insists in his movie, not on the trail followed by the police and not on the affair itself but on the results of such a terror climate on the population in a special neighbourhood, and on the psychology of some of the movie's characters. I find that Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam' is a good complement to Fincher's movie if you were to watch the 'Zodiac' on video.
Reflecting on this story, I found many similarities between the US's main serial killings operations and the present climate of terror. Major serial killings in the US, including killings of officials, were never resolved, and their main results were the production of a climate of terror. Thanks to Bin Laden, the US does not need its serial killers now. One has to consider Bin Laden as a super Zodiac with a wide media international coverage and much more people terrorised day and night by the idea of him.
Conspiarcy theorists beware !
Fellow blogger Conspiraloon Stef has posted an interesting article recently on the subject of Terror and its relation to major state conspiracies against their own civil societies.
Listen to the talk mentioned by Stef in his post. It was given by Nafeez Ahmed recently in London. There are many interesting parallels that Ahmed draws between the present security-political climate and WWII known archives, in terms of public opinion manipulation.
25.7.07
Vote for an Academic Boycott of Israel
The British Medical Journal has featured two opinions on the subject, one for and one against, and is allowing its readers online, either academics or members of the public, to vote.
If you are for a boycott, please participate, because the Giyus, Israel's largest cyber support network, is already in, if we judge from the poll results as of today.
UPDATE: The survey is closed.
Read here my opinion for a Boycott.
More information from Sabbah's
If you are for a boycott, please participate, because the Giyus, Israel's largest cyber support network, is already in, if we judge from the poll results as of today.
UPDATE: The survey is closed.
Read here my opinion for a Boycott.
More information from Sabbah's
5.6.07
The 1967 Israeli Agression on Arab Countries: fourty years of conflict in the middle east
The monthly Le Monde Diplomatique is one of the few newspapers that does not subscribe to 'La pensée unique'. They publish well researched news and analyses you will never find in the mainstream press.
In this June livraison there are three articles on the 1967 war and I am reproducing them here entirely to encourage readers to subscribe to Le Monde diplomatique online. It is only around fourty dollars per year to get good analyses and the right news.
1967: a war of miscalculation and misjudgment
By Henry Laurens
Few foresaw the 1967 war and none guessed that it would create a profound upheaval across the Middle East. The defeat of Egypt’s Nasser and of Arab nationalism led to the emergence of political Islam and encouraged Palestinian resistance.
Few foresaw any major risk of renewed armed conflict between Arabs and Israelis early in 1967. True, tension had risen after Israel began diverting the Jordan river in 1964 and Syria countered with its own diversion plan, backed in principle by Lebanon and Jordan. But its support was only verbal and Israeli bombing forced Syria to cease its construction work.
Both Israel and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s United Arab Republic (UAR, the 1958-61 union between Egypt and Syria which ended with a Syrian coup) were in an arms race that stressed their economies. It is likely that Israel publicly overestimated the Egyptian threat to gets its first major arms delivery from the United States, plus a guarantee of support in the event of an Arab attack.
There was wide division in the Arab world, then in full cold war confrontation between “progressives” and “conservatives” (or “reactionaries” according to the progressives). This, with Israel’s clear military superiority, led experts to believe that though peace might be impossible, war was unlikely.
There were three main theories for the short crisis between 13 May and 4 June. The first, almost universally accepted at the time, was that Egypt intended to destroy Israel – an irrational explanation given the military balance of power. The second was that the Israeli government had laid a trap and successfully manipulated both western and Arab governments to boost its diplomatic position before launching a new phase of Zionist expansion. (As with all conspiracy theories, this supposes one party to be inordinately intelligent and the other extremely stupid.) The third explanation was a series of misjudgments by both protagonists and a shared blame for subsequent events.
The political rebirth of the Palestinians, endorsed by the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964 and Fatah’s first military operations in 1965, was a new factor. Palestinian leaders took the Arab leaders’ hawkish declarations at their word and wanted to force them into war. The start of the Palestinian armed struggle had been relatively insignificant – 15 Israeli dead, most of them soldiers, between the first Fatah attack on 1 January 1965 and 5 June 1967. But it was the first challenge to the Israeli victory of 1948-1949, seen as a casus belli.
The leftwing neo-Baath party that took power in Syria in 1963 supported the Palestinians and challenged that fragile fait accompli, Israeli sovereignty over the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria (1), because it was the least accepted by the international community. The result became the “Syrian syndrome”, referring to Yitzhak Rabin’s aggressive policy when he was Israeli army chief of staff and attempts to consolidate advances into the demilitarised zone and force Syria to abandon the Palestinians. At the time Rabin was not aiming for another war. He believed a show of force, backed by tacit support from the US, would impose Israel’s will on Syria, now abandoned by Egypt. His military plan was to take the battle directly to enemy territory. This vision was purely practical, for Israeli territory was ill suited to defensive action. Accordingly, any Arab territory captured by Israel would not be returned before a full peace agreement was signed and truce lines would have to be redrawn – one can guess in whose favour. So, in the presence of the Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, Rabin and his officers drew up the ideal borders that would ensure Israeli security once and for all. These included the Litani river, the Jordan valley and the Suez canal. Eshkol was not enthusiastic – except about the Litani because Israel’s water resources were already a problem. All agreed that such an ambitious programme would not be feasible without international support.
Following Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956, the US was a vigilant defender of the territorial status quo and demanded that the Israeli army evacuate Gaza. After that the US increased its aid considerably but continued to respect that status quo. The problem was not the Israeli army’s capacity for conquering territories but the state’s ability to hold on to them.
Two military actions by Israel preceded the crisis of May-June 1967: a raid on the West Bank village of Samu on 13 November 1966 to “punish” villagers for helping Fatah: and the humiliation of Syria on 7 April 1967 when Israel shot down six Syrian MiGs. The Samu incident convinced King Hussein of Jordan that Israel intended to destroy his kingdom to take over the West Bank, and the MiGs revealed Nasser’s lack of action. The Israeli army, built up tensions but stopped short of war. It had no compunction about threatening Syria with further military action. On 13 May 1967 the Soviet Union warned Syria and Egypt of an impending Israeli invasion of Syria, based on information leaked through the tension-building strategy.
The next day the Egyptian army deployed its forces in Sinai, doubtless to dissuade. Nasser was not only acting in accordance with the Arab political game, isolating Jordan to force it out of the Saudi Arabian camp and into the Egyptian one, he also wanted to revert to pre-1956 borders. On 15 May he demanded the withdrawal of United Nations troops from the international zone. Without Egypt’s support, the troops would be considered occupation forces, and so the UN pulled all its troops from Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
Israel stood by powerless as it lost one of the most important gains of the 1956 campaign (2). Worse, on 17 May two Egyptian reconnaissance flights above Jordan flew over the Dimona nuclear reactor close to the border without being intercepted. This highlighted Dimona’s vulnerability and Israeli leaders became convinced that a preventive raid would meet with international understanding, or even sympathy. This preoccupation lasted throughout the crisis and led to the first call-up of reserves. Far from acting as a deterrent, the Israeli nuclear programme was vital in the march to war.
Nasser, who wanted to revert to a pre-Suez situation, took the next step on 22 May by closing the Tiran Straits that separate the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea. He would risk war, believing his army could withstand enemy attack. Some of his aides considered a military operation in the Negev to establish a connection to Jordan, but Nasser vetoed the plan. Publicly, he placed Israel on the same level as other imperialists and reactionary forces including the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Jordan as well as the Shah of Iran.
But Nasser underestimated Israel’s strength. He did not think Israel could fight on two fronts or would attack without help. He believed that no European nation, still less the US, bogged down by Vietnam, would commit its forces. What Nasser did not understand was that Israel needed only political support from the US and Britain, not military assistance.
Egyptian propaganda attacked Israel, the imperialists and the reactionaries. Jordan was the first country to rally to Nasser, whose popularity was at its peak. But Nasser, wily manipulator though he was, did not take into account the danger of his propaganda. He could not content himself with his real, if limited, success. His relatively moderate stance (he never mentioned offensive action) was obscured by the radio services. His Voice of the Arabs radio talked about the total liquidation of Israel and its imminent destruction, and other Arab media took this up. Nasser may have wanted to revert to a pre-1956 configuration, but his propaganda machine was going for pre-1948.
Taken by surprise, the Israeli military pushed the government to launch an offensive – but Mossad, Israel’s secret service, was hesitant. It could not predict the outcome because the Egyptian government was often contradicting itself. Eshkol preferred a diplomacy, but the Israeli press wrote of a “new Holocaust” and fostered an atmosphere of impending disaster.
The decision was postponed and the Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, dispatched to Paris and Washington. President Charles de Gaulle assured Eban that he would oppose the first nation to attack. The British and US governments considered the blockade of the Straits of Tiran an act of aggression but neither wanted war. Instead they toyed with the idea of an international naval force to ensure free passage in the Gulf of Aqaba. On 26 May President Johnson told Israel that it would “not be alone unless it decides to go alone” and asked for time to find a political solution.
The Soviet Union supported Nasser diplomatically but asked Egypt to not engage in hostilities. These entreaties only confirmed the strength of Nasser’s position and encouraged him to build up troops in Sinai. There was no question of turning back. That would be a setback for the progressive forces that had won the propaganda war and made US military intervention impossible – so Nasser believed – without setting the entire region aflame and leading to the collapse of its western-backed regimes. Then it would only be a matter of time before Jordan capitulated, followed by Saudi Arabia, leading to Iran’s isolation. The stakes were no longer Sinai but the entire Arab peninsula, with its vast oil and financial reserves.
Egypt rejected any political solution that granted the Israeli navy passage through the Gulf of Aqaba, and the British and US governments realised an international maritime force was not feasible. They feared the closure of the Suez Canal because of the threat to oil supplies, leading to the withdrawal of sterling assets by the Arab nations and the collapse of the pound. The stakes had changed. Now it was a question of which cold war bloc, Soviet or western, would gain control of the Middle East and its oil.
Nasser’s dissuasive tactics worked admirably but he underestimated Israel’s military capacity, which had increased since 1956. Moreover, the Egyptian leaders had failed to consider the effect of their declarations on western and international public opinion. As Nasser’s stance became more radical, the Israeli high command increased pressure on the government. General Ariel Sharon, then army division commander, even suggested there might be a military coup. Jordan’s alignment with the UAR precipitated events, since Saudi Arabia was obliged to follow suit. Israel appeared to be living its strategic nightmare: encirclement by an Arab coalition.
Eshkol gave in on 1 June. He set up a national unity government with Moshe Dayan as defence minister and the rightwing leader Menachem Begin as minister without portfolio. Both openly supported territorial expansion. Survival apart, there was unfinished business from Israel’s 1948 war – the conquest of the West Bank.
The US government abandoned any hope of a diplomatic solution and allowed Israel to act. On 31 May Meir Amit, head of Mossad, flew to Washington. Next day he met Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and the head of the CIA. Amit adapted the domino theory: if Nasser won this round, the region up to the Soviet border would come under Arab domination. Israel needed US commitment as well as immediate protection against Soviet interference. Amit’s US counterparts agreed with his analysis.
That message was transmitted via several channels. In a telegram to US embassies in Middle East on 3 June, Secretary of State Dean Rusk explained the US position: a reasonable solution was not possible given the psychology of an Arab “holy war” and its Israeli equivalent, “apocalypse psychology”. He said the US could no longer urge restraint on a country that believed its vital interests to be in jeopardy. Since both Arabs and Israelis were confident of a military victory, one side must have misjudged the situation badly.
On 4 June Walter Rostow, Lyndon Johnson’s security adviser, circulated a memo in which he predicted the outcome of the conflict. Taking all the necessary rhetorical precautions to suggest that war, let alone an Israeli victory, was hypothetical, he speculated that all moderate Arabs – all those who feared Nasser’s expansionism – would prefer to see Nasser beaten by the Israelis rather than by outside forces. This would generate potential for the Middle East: moderation would allow the countries to focus on economic development and regional collaboration. Then, if a solution were found to the Palestinian refugee problem, Israel could be accepted as an integral part of the region. This, said Rostow, was a moment of historic transition. It was clear that Israel had received all the assurances from Washington and had no need to wait. Its government launched the attack on 4 June.
The Six Day war was the result of miscalculations. The term frequently appears in documents from the time. The legal uncertainty surrounding the 1957 agreement for freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran made it difficult to define a casus belli or an aggressor. Is the aggressor the party that imposes the blockade or the first to fire? On the Arab side the real driving force behind events was the cold war that opposed the UAR and Saudi Arabia. The rapprochement between the US and Israel provided ammunition for the Arab discourse equating imperialists, reactionaries and Zionists, and accentuated the rhetoric that confused the US and Israel. But the Arabs’ rhetoric turned international public opinion against them.
The US allowed Israel to go to war to save Saudi Arabia. US politicians who even then envisaged a “new Middle East” did so in a context of regime change while respecting the territorial integrity of existing states. In this the US gave ammunition to the progressive Arabs, but the US misled itself about its ability to respect territorial integrity after a military occupation.
While territorial expansion was not on the agenda in early 1967, Israel had never legally renounced the whole of mandatory Palestine. Some Israelis still discuss this: many think about it. But they are blinded to the fact that the Palestinian political revival, which gained momentum because of the war, reduced the conflict to its essence – the struggle of two peoples for one holy land.
De Gaulle’s lonely predictions
By Alexis Berg and Dominique Vidal
The evening paper France-Soir ran the headline “Egypt attacks Israel” on 5 June 1967, although when it went to press it was clear Israel had launched the attack by destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. That was the start of the preemptive war that allowed Israel to quadruple its territory by occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The headline was so obviously untrue that the second edition read instead “War in the Middle East”. The example was extreme, yet typical of the attitude of the French media to the Six Day war. The defence of Israel was an end that justified anything, leading to outright manipulation of the news.
Before the war the press had claimed that the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was intent on annihilating Israel (see “1967: a war of miscalculation and misjudgment”). Even the satirical Le Canard Enchaîné ran a story on 31 May, “Towards a final solution to the problem of Israel” which read: “The Ra’is [the Egyptian leader, aka Führer] has solemnly declared to the world press that if Israel so much as raises a finger it will be totally destroyed, although he did not state by which means. Gas ovens perhaps?”
Despite the Israeli offensive the media accused the Arab world of warmongering. On 6 June the socialist paper Le Populaire claimed: “Israel is successfully resisting attacks on all sides.” When the war was over references to defence justified all Israeli conquests. On 8 June Combat rejoiced in the “marvellous outcome for the Israeli army”: on the same day Yves Cuau wrote in Le Figaro: “It appears tonight that the Jewish army has achieved the greatest of victories. Never before has a dictator taken such a beating.”
This misrepresentation affected public opinion, and support for Israel grew throughout the crisis and the war. Thousands of protesters marched in Paris and other French cities, joined by leading politicians with the exception of the communists and the far left. Paris-Jour congratulated the 50,000 fans who attended the pro-Israel pop concert with star Johnny Hallyday (recently guest of honour at Sarkozy’s election victory show) while L’Aurore lauded the “impressive display of support to a nation under threat”.
The French Committee for Solidarity with Israel published appeals in newspapers and gathered signatures from personalities such as Serge Gainsbourg, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret as well as politicians including Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and François Mitterrand. A separate petition launched by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, signed by most of the leftwing artists and intellectuals, was also a huge success. But in an article in Le Monde on 14 June, the sociologist Maurice Duverger observed: “The enthusiasm with which the majority of French people have rallied to the Israeli cause has put the French Communist party in a difficult position, even in relation to its own supporters.”
It was not easy for President de Gaulle to make himself heard. “France will not give its approval to – and still less support – the first nation to use weapons,” he had said in a cabinet meeting on 2 June. True to his word, he imposed an arms embargo on both sides. Months later de Gaulle said: “Israel is organising an occupation of the territories it has captured, which can only result in oppression, repression and expulsion, and there is resistance in those territories that Israel is calling terrorist.” Yet the only line of that speech people remembered was a controversial statement about the Jews being “sure of themselves and domineering”.
With hindsight, de Gaulle’s analysis was prophetic, but at the time it shocked the French establishment. On 7 June the weekly Nouvel Observateur demanded to know “why de Gaulle has dropped Israel” and deplored the fact that “Gaullist France does not have friends, only interests”. De Gaulle had broken with 20 years of unconditional support for Israel during which France allowed it to obtain first the A-bomb and then the H-bomb. To some de Gaulle’s attitude was an affront to legitimate guilty feelings about the Vichy government’s active participation in the genocide of the Jews, while others, nostalgic for colonial French Algeria, felt deprived of a revenge on “the Arabs”.
Not until the invasion of Lebanon and the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, followed by the first intifada of 1987, did the French begin to distance themselves from Israeli policy and call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state beside Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital. French presidents led the way: de Gaulle’s successors, from Georges Pompidou to Jacques Chirac, all adopted his Middle Eastern policy. Will Nicolas Sarkozy now follow suit?
The word Palestinian was notable by its absence in all the accounts of 1967, with the exception of the communist and far-left press and the Catholic paper Témoignage Chrétien. France was oblivious of the main victims of the war that completed the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 and even of their name.
Was 1967 a victory too far for Israel?
By Meron Rapoport
The Six Day war transformed Israel from relative poverty into a regional military superpower. It also began an occupation which has been slowly destroying the country’s meaning and identity – and may yet dissolve its existence.
Memory deceives us. Forty years after June 1967, many in Israel view the time before the Six Day war as a golden age, a paradise lost when Israel was a small, just society where hard work, modesty and solidarity prevailed over greed and selfishness; everyone knew each other and no-one occupied land belonging to anyone else.
That, of course, is a delusion: 1966, the last year before Israel occupied territories, was terrible. Unemployment had reached a record 10%, there was a sharp recession and for the first time in the country’s history, migration from it was higher than that to it (aliya). Although military rule over 400,000 Arabs living inside Israel, in place since the 1948 war, was abolished in 1966, their situation remained tough as their lands were confiscated to build new Jewish towns and villages.
The 1967 war changed all that. Everyone knows that afterwards Israel was considered a regional, if not an international, military superpower. What is less known is that the war changed economic history. The recession ended, unemployment decreased and the economy began to prosper. In 1967 gross domestic product per capita in Israel was only $1,500. By 2006 GDP per capita was $24,000, putting Israel in 23rd place in the UNDP’s Human Development Report. This is reflected in migration to Israel. More than 1.5 million Jews have arrived in the past 40 years and the population has increased from 2.4 million in 1967 to 5.5 million in 2006. No wonder that many consider the war was a turning point in the “Israeli success story”.
Yet the war can also be seen as the source of all evil. The amazing victory, in which the Israeli army smashed the three biggest Arab armies – Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian – should have made Israel feel secure. Instead, Israel is anything but a safe place. Since 1967 it has engaged in six conflicts – a war of attrition on the Suez Canal, the 1973 war, two intifadas and two wars in Lebanon. More than 5,000 Israelis have been killed and there have been about 50,000 Arab deaths (Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian).
The problem is not just that the wars go on and on, but that Israel is not winning them. Dov Tamari, a retired Israeli general turned historian, remarked after the end of the second Lebanon incursion that the 1967 war was the last in which Israel won an outright victory. All others had ended in a draw, if not defeat. Every war has forced Israel to give up something. The 1973 war was followed by total withdrawal from Sinai as part of the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979; the first intifada in 1989 led to the Oslo accords in 1993; the first Lebanese war in 1982 ended in unconditional retreat in 2000; and the result of the second intifada was the dismantling of the Gaza settlements two years ago.
Last year’s war in Lebanon is another example. While politicians claimed victory, a Haaretz survey showed that only 20% of Israelis thought that Israel had won. This failure to win wars may explain why a senior Israeli politician recently said in a private conversation that he was not sure Israel would survive another 20 years. Decades of occupation have worsened the fears of Israelis instead of alleviating them.
Waiting for a phone call?
Where did it all go wrong? Quite early. General Moshe Dayan, the defence minister and most prominent Israeli politician in 1967, said right after the victory: “We are waiting for a telephone call from the Arabs”, meaning – so it seemed – that if the call came, Israel would withdraw from the territories it had occupied, the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights, in return for peace agreements with the Arab world. In his book 1967 the historian Tom Segev proved that the Israeli government did not mean it that way, but that is what the world, and Israeli public opinion, believed.
At the same time Israel set in motion a process that would later make the deal of territories for peace difficult, if not impossible. Levi Eshkol, the supposedly dovish prime minister, allowed the first settlers to build a settlement, Kfar Eztion, in the West Bank before the end of 1967, while Dayan ordered the destruction of Syrian villages and towns on the occupied Golan Heights and the building of an Israeli settlement on the ruins of the Syrian town of Kuneitra.
In early 1968 Israelis were allowed to live in Hebron. The results of this can be seen 40 years later: the centre of this ancient city is a ghost town, where no Palestinian is allowed to live or walk or shop so that the place is clear for the 500 Israelis who live there. It was not by chance that Hebron was the location of the first suicide attack in 1992, after Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians in the mosque of Abraham (also known as Cave of the Patriarchs). The first Palestinian suicide attacks were in retaliation for this incident.
Looking at the map it is easy to see that the settlements in the West Bank were planned to separate Palestinian communities from each other, and create a continuum between the settlements and pre-1967 Israel. Settlements were built around Palestinian East Jerusalem to separate it from towns and villages close to the city. Further settlements were constructed in the Jordan Valley as a barrier between the West Bank and Jordan; and roads with settlements beside them were built in heart of the West Bank, separating Nablus from Ramallah, and Kalkilia from Tulkarem.
Ariel Sharon, the architect of the settlement project, said openly in 1975 that his aim was to prevent the creation of a Palestinian entity. This project, which over the years has been supported by governments right and left, has proved successful. More than 250,000 Israelis live today in hundreds of settlements in the West Bank – and 200,000 live in neighbourhoods built in occupied parts of Jerusalem. Their numbers have helped change the political attitude. Apart from the Communist and Arab parties, all political leaders in Israel, from Yossi Beilin to Ami Ayalon, from Ehud Olmert to Ztipi Livni, claim that the settlement blocs should be a part of Israel in any peace agreement. The separation wall is built along the lines of these blocs.
Obstacle to peace
Yet political leaders, even perhaps Sharon before his illness, acknowledge in private and sometimes in public that the settlements are the biggest obstacle to a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians and the Arab world. Israel has been trapped by this huge monster it built during 40 years of occupation. It cannot swallow the settlements as this would lead to the annexation of the West Bank, which even the most rightwing governments decline to do because of its international, legal and demographical implications; and it cannot get rid of them because the settlements have already entered the bloodstream of Israeli society. The settlements are a cancer.
Is it possible that Israel has trapped itself voluntarily? Perhaps it has become so used to the occupation that it cannot live without it. For 40 years Israelis have lived in a society based on privilege. Before the 1967 war, new immigrants from Arab countries had fewer rights than those who came from Europe, while Palestinians living inside Israel had fewer rights than anybody else; but after 1967 Israel set up an official system of discrimination. The one million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza (now grown to 3.5 million) were deprived of political rights, and the military commanders controlled every aspects of their lives.
Relations between Palestinians living under occupation and Israelis have changed for the worse over the past 40 years, but the situation in which Israelis had rights and Palestinians did not became natural to most Israelis. The worsening restrictions on the lives of Palestinians over the years, and the apartheid – many Israelis only meet Palestinians when doing military service on the West Bank – intensified these distinctions. Giving up the occupation means giving up privilege. That will be hard.
After 1967 Israel was quickly transformed into a capitalist society. The huge public works after the war created a much stronger entrepreneur class. The billions of dollars (the US has given Israel $3bn military aid every year since 1973) spent on military technology, which progressively advanced, have helped make Israel a small high-tech superpower. At the same time, because of the privileges resulting from the occupation, Israel became a much more fragmented society. In 1967 more than 80% of the workforce was organised in one big labour union, which controlled 33% of the economy; kibbutzim were held in high esteem. Today, only 25% of Israeli labour is organised and Israel is rated as among the most unequal societies in the West: according to the Gini Index Israel is in 62nd place among the highest advanced economies, and 18 families control 75% of the Israeli economy. This is also a result of the 1967 war.
There is another important result. After 1967 the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became one of the most significant in the world, if not the most significant. Israel has gained from this. Its excellent relations with the US, its international importance, its strong army and wealth all derive from this. That the Arab League, which refused any deal with Israel after the war, is desperate for Israel to make full peace with all Arab countries is another result.
There is a negative aspect. Israel’s position in the West also depends on the view that it is the frontline between the West and the East, between Judeo-Christian civilisation (a peculiar hyphenation given the terrible historical confrontations between the divergent beliefs) and Muslim civilisation. After the 9/11 attacks in the US, belief in this frontline position became widespread in Israel and not just among the religious right, who have claimed since 1967 that building settlements in Israel is a fulfilment of the will of God, thereby making the Israeli-Arab conflict cultural-religious instead of territorial. Avigdor Liberman, deputy prime minister and head of the pro-transfer party Israel Beitenu (Israel is our home), told Haaretz in a recent interview that Israel is “the front outpost of the whole free world”.
This may explain the doomsday feeling in many parts of Israeli society after the war with Lebanon. Hizbullah was described as an arm of Iran, and Iran was damned as a leader of a clash of civilisations. So the failure of the big and ultra-sophisticated Israeli army to crush a few thousand half-trained Hizbullah fighters (plus the thousands of rockets that were fired by Hizbullah into north Israel for over a month) convinced many Israelis that they were not wanted in the region and in the long run they might lose the war against Islam. Four decades of occupation have so paralysed Israeli society that its leaders lack the courage to look for a real solution to the conflict. The occupation has occupied Israel.
In this June livraison there are three articles on the 1967 war and I am reproducing them here entirely to encourage readers to subscribe to Le Monde diplomatique online. It is only around fourty dollars per year to get good analyses and the right news.
1967: a war of miscalculation and misjudgment
By Henry Laurens
Few foresaw the 1967 war and none guessed that it would create a profound upheaval across the Middle East. The defeat of Egypt’s Nasser and of Arab nationalism led to the emergence of political Islam and encouraged Palestinian resistance.
Few foresaw any major risk of renewed armed conflict between Arabs and Israelis early in 1967. True, tension had risen after Israel began diverting the Jordan river in 1964 and Syria countered with its own diversion plan, backed in principle by Lebanon and Jordan. But its support was only verbal and Israeli bombing forced Syria to cease its construction work.
Both Israel and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s United Arab Republic (UAR, the 1958-61 union between Egypt and Syria which ended with a Syrian coup) were in an arms race that stressed their economies. It is likely that Israel publicly overestimated the Egyptian threat to gets its first major arms delivery from the United States, plus a guarantee of support in the event of an Arab attack.
There was wide division in the Arab world, then in full cold war confrontation between “progressives” and “conservatives” (or “reactionaries” according to the progressives). This, with Israel’s clear military superiority, led experts to believe that though peace might be impossible, war was unlikely.
There were three main theories for the short crisis between 13 May and 4 June. The first, almost universally accepted at the time, was that Egypt intended to destroy Israel – an irrational explanation given the military balance of power. The second was that the Israeli government had laid a trap and successfully manipulated both western and Arab governments to boost its diplomatic position before launching a new phase of Zionist expansion. (As with all conspiracy theories, this supposes one party to be inordinately intelligent and the other extremely stupid.) The third explanation was a series of misjudgments by both protagonists and a shared blame for subsequent events.
The political rebirth of the Palestinians, endorsed by the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964 and Fatah’s first military operations in 1965, was a new factor. Palestinian leaders took the Arab leaders’ hawkish declarations at their word and wanted to force them into war. The start of the Palestinian armed struggle had been relatively insignificant – 15 Israeli dead, most of them soldiers, between the first Fatah attack on 1 January 1965 and 5 June 1967. But it was the first challenge to the Israeli victory of 1948-1949, seen as a casus belli.
The leftwing neo-Baath party that took power in Syria in 1963 supported the Palestinians and challenged that fragile fait accompli, Israeli sovereignty over the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria (1), because it was the least accepted by the international community. The result became the “Syrian syndrome”, referring to Yitzhak Rabin’s aggressive policy when he was Israeli army chief of staff and attempts to consolidate advances into the demilitarised zone and force Syria to abandon the Palestinians. At the time Rabin was not aiming for another war. He believed a show of force, backed by tacit support from the US, would impose Israel’s will on Syria, now abandoned by Egypt. His military plan was to take the battle directly to enemy territory. This vision was purely practical, for Israeli territory was ill suited to defensive action. Accordingly, any Arab territory captured by Israel would not be returned before a full peace agreement was signed and truce lines would have to be redrawn – one can guess in whose favour. So, in the presence of the Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, Rabin and his officers drew up the ideal borders that would ensure Israeli security once and for all. These included the Litani river, the Jordan valley and the Suez canal. Eshkol was not enthusiastic – except about the Litani because Israel’s water resources were already a problem. All agreed that such an ambitious programme would not be feasible without international support.
Following Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956, the US was a vigilant defender of the territorial status quo and demanded that the Israeli army evacuate Gaza. After that the US increased its aid considerably but continued to respect that status quo. The problem was not the Israeli army’s capacity for conquering territories but the state’s ability to hold on to them.
Two military actions by Israel preceded the crisis of May-June 1967: a raid on the West Bank village of Samu on 13 November 1966 to “punish” villagers for helping Fatah: and the humiliation of Syria on 7 April 1967 when Israel shot down six Syrian MiGs. The Samu incident convinced King Hussein of Jordan that Israel intended to destroy his kingdom to take over the West Bank, and the MiGs revealed Nasser’s lack of action. The Israeli army, built up tensions but stopped short of war. It had no compunction about threatening Syria with further military action. On 13 May 1967 the Soviet Union warned Syria and Egypt of an impending Israeli invasion of Syria, based on information leaked through the tension-building strategy.
The next day the Egyptian army deployed its forces in Sinai, doubtless to dissuade. Nasser was not only acting in accordance with the Arab political game, isolating Jordan to force it out of the Saudi Arabian camp and into the Egyptian one, he also wanted to revert to pre-1956 borders. On 15 May he demanded the withdrawal of United Nations troops from the international zone. Without Egypt’s support, the troops would be considered occupation forces, and so the UN pulled all its troops from Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
Israel stood by powerless as it lost one of the most important gains of the 1956 campaign (2). Worse, on 17 May two Egyptian reconnaissance flights above Jordan flew over the Dimona nuclear reactor close to the border without being intercepted. This highlighted Dimona’s vulnerability and Israeli leaders became convinced that a preventive raid would meet with international understanding, or even sympathy. This preoccupation lasted throughout the crisis and led to the first call-up of reserves. Far from acting as a deterrent, the Israeli nuclear programme was vital in the march to war.
Nasser, who wanted to revert to a pre-Suez situation, took the next step on 22 May by closing the Tiran Straits that separate the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea. He would risk war, believing his army could withstand enemy attack. Some of his aides considered a military operation in the Negev to establish a connection to Jordan, but Nasser vetoed the plan. Publicly, he placed Israel on the same level as other imperialists and reactionary forces including the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Jordan as well as the Shah of Iran.
But Nasser underestimated Israel’s strength. He did not think Israel could fight on two fronts or would attack without help. He believed that no European nation, still less the US, bogged down by Vietnam, would commit its forces. What Nasser did not understand was that Israel needed only political support from the US and Britain, not military assistance.
Egyptian propaganda attacked Israel, the imperialists and the reactionaries. Jordan was the first country to rally to Nasser, whose popularity was at its peak. But Nasser, wily manipulator though he was, did not take into account the danger of his propaganda. He could not content himself with his real, if limited, success. His relatively moderate stance (he never mentioned offensive action) was obscured by the radio services. His Voice of the Arabs radio talked about the total liquidation of Israel and its imminent destruction, and other Arab media took this up. Nasser may have wanted to revert to a pre-1956 configuration, but his propaganda machine was going for pre-1948.
Taken by surprise, the Israeli military pushed the government to launch an offensive – but Mossad, Israel’s secret service, was hesitant. It could not predict the outcome because the Egyptian government was often contradicting itself. Eshkol preferred a diplomacy, but the Israeli press wrote of a “new Holocaust” and fostered an atmosphere of impending disaster.
The decision was postponed and the Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, dispatched to Paris and Washington. President Charles de Gaulle assured Eban that he would oppose the first nation to attack. The British and US governments considered the blockade of the Straits of Tiran an act of aggression but neither wanted war. Instead they toyed with the idea of an international naval force to ensure free passage in the Gulf of Aqaba. On 26 May President Johnson told Israel that it would “not be alone unless it decides to go alone” and asked for time to find a political solution.
The Soviet Union supported Nasser diplomatically but asked Egypt to not engage in hostilities. These entreaties only confirmed the strength of Nasser’s position and encouraged him to build up troops in Sinai. There was no question of turning back. That would be a setback for the progressive forces that had won the propaganda war and made US military intervention impossible – so Nasser believed – without setting the entire region aflame and leading to the collapse of its western-backed regimes. Then it would only be a matter of time before Jordan capitulated, followed by Saudi Arabia, leading to Iran’s isolation. The stakes were no longer Sinai but the entire Arab peninsula, with its vast oil and financial reserves.
Egypt rejected any political solution that granted the Israeli navy passage through the Gulf of Aqaba, and the British and US governments realised an international maritime force was not feasible. They feared the closure of the Suez Canal because of the threat to oil supplies, leading to the withdrawal of sterling assets by the Arab nations and the collapse of the pound. The stakes had changed. Now it was a question of which cold war bloc, Soviet or western, would gain control of the Middle East and its oil.
Nasser’s dissuasive tactics worked admirably but he underestimated Israel’s military capacity, which had increased since 1956. Moreover, the Egyptian leaders had failed to consider the effect of their declarations on western and international public opinion. As Nasser’s stance became more radical, the Israeli high command increased pressure on the government. General Ariel Sharon, then army division commander, even suggested there might be a military coup. Jordan’s alignment with the UAR precipitated events, since Saudi Arabia was obliged to follow suit. Israel appeared to be living its strategic nightmare: encirclement by an Arab coalition.
Eshkol gave in on 1 June. He set up a national unity government with Moshe Dayan as defence minister and the rightwing leader Menachem Begin as minister without portfolio. Both openly supported territorial expansion. Survival apart, there was unfinished business from Israel’s 1948 war – the conquest of the West Bank.
The US government abandoned any hope of a diplomatic solution and allowed Israel to act. On 31 May Meir Amit, head of Mossad, flew to Washington. Next day he met Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and the head of the CIA. Amit adapted the domino theory: if Nasser won this round, the region up to the Soviet border would come under Arab domination. Israel needed US commitment as well as immediate protection against Soviet interference. Amit’s US counterparts agreed with his analysis.
That message was transmitted via several channels. In a telegram to US embassies in Middle East on 3 June, Secretary of State Dean Rusk explained the US position: a reasonable solution was not possible given the psychology of an Arab “holy war” and its Israeli equivalent, “apocalypse psychology”. He said the US could no longer urge restraint on a country that believed its vital interests to be in jeopardy. Since both Arabs and Israelis were confident of a military victory, one side must have misjudged the situation badly.
On 4 June Walter Rostow, Lyndon Johnson’s security adviser, circulated a memo in which he predicted the outcome of the conflict. Taking all the necessary rhetorical precautions to suggest that war, let alone an Israeli victory, was hypothetical, he speculated that all moderate Arabs – all those who feared Nasser’s expansionism – would prefer to see Nasser beaten by the Israelis rather than by outside forces. This would generate potential for the Middle East: moderation would allow the countries to focus on economic development and regional collaboration. Then, if a solution were found to the Palestinian refugee problem, Israel could be accepted as an integral part of the region. This, said Rostow, was a moment of historic transition. It was clear that Israel had received all the assurances from Washington and had no need to wait. Its government launched the attack on 4 June.
The Six Day war was the result of miscalculations. The term frequently appears in documents from the time. The legal uncertainty surrounding the 1957 agreement for freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran made it difficult to define a casus belli or an aggressor. Is the aggressor the party that imposes the blockade or the first to fire? On the Arab side the real driving force behind events was the cold war that opposed the UAR and Saudi Arabia. The rapprochement between the US and Israel provided ammunition for the Arab discourse equating imperialists, reactionaries and Zionists, and accentuated the rhetoric that confused the US and Israel. But the Arabs’ rhetoric turned international public opinion against them.
The US allowed Israel to go to war to save Saudi Arabia. US politicians who even then envisaged a “new Middle East” did so in a context of regime change while respecting the territorial integrity of existing states. In this the US gave ammunition to the progressive Arabs, but the US misled itself about its ability to respect territorial integrity after a military occupation.
While territorial expansion was not on the agenda in early 1967, Israel had never legally renounced the whole of mandatory Palestine. Some Israelis still discuss this: many think about it. But they are blinded to the fact that the Palestinian political revival, which gained momentum because of the war, reduced the conflict to its essence – the struggle of two peoples for one holy land.
De Gaulle’s lonely predictions
By Alexis Berg and Dominique Vidal
The evening paper France-Soir ran the headline “Egypt attacks Israel” on 5 June 1967, although when it went to press it was clear Israel had launched the attack by destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. That was the start of the preemptive war that allowed Israel to quadruple its territory by occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The headline was so obviously untrue that the second edition read instead “War in the Middle East”. The example was extreme, yet typical of the attitude of the French media to the Six Day war. The defence of Israel was an end that justified anything, leading to outright manipulation of the news.
Before the war the press had claimed that the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was intent on annihilating Israel (see “1967: a war of miscalculation and misjudgment”). Even the satirical Le Canard Enchaîné ran a story on 31 May, “Towards a final solution to the problem of Israel” which read: “The Ra’is [the Egyptian leader, aka Führer] has solemnly declared to the world press that if Israel so much as raises a finger it will be totally destroyed, although he did not state by which means. Gas ovens perhaps?”
Despite the Israeli offensive the media accused the Arab world of warmongering. On 6 June the socialist paper Le Populaire claimed: “Israel is successfully resisting attacks on all sides.” When the war was over references to defence justified all Israeli conquests. On 8 June Combat rejoiced in the “marvellous outcome for the Israeli army”: on the same day Yves Cuau wrote in Le Figaro: “It appears tonight that the Jewish army has achieved the greatest of victories. Never before has a dictator taken such a beating.”
This misrepresentation affected public opinion, and support for Israel grew throughout the crisis and the war. Thousands of protesters marched in Paris and other French cities, joined by leading politicians with the exception of the communists and the far left. Paris-Jour congratulated the 50,000 fans who attended the pro-Israel pop concert with star Johnny Hallyday (recently guest of honour at Sarkozy’s election victory show) while L’Aurore lauded the “impressive display of support to a nation under threat”.
The French Committee for Solidarity with Israel published appeals in newspapers and gathered signatures from personalities such as Serge Gainsbourg, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret as well as politicians including Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and François Mitterrand. A separate petition launched by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, signed by most of the leftwing artists and intellectuals, was also a huge success. But in an article in Le Monde on 14 June, the sociologist Maurice Duverger observed: “The enthusiasm with which the majority of French people have rallied to the Israeli cause has put the French Communist party in a difficult position, even in relation to its own supporters.”
It was not easy for President de Gaulle to make himself heard. “France will not give its approval to – and still less support – the first nation to use weapons,” he had said in a cabinet meeting on 2 June. True to his word, he imposed an arms embargo on both sides. Months later de Gaulle said: “Israel is organising an occupation of the territories it has captured, which can only result in oppression, repression and expulsion, and there is resistance in those territories that Israel is calling terrorist.” Yet the only line of that speech people remembered was a controversial statement about the Jews being “sure of themselves and domineering”.
With hindsight, de Gaulle’s analysis was prophetic, but at the time it shocked the French establishment. On 7 June the weekly Nouvel Observateur demanded to know “why de Gaulle has dropped Israel” and deplored the fact that “Gaullist France does not have friends, only interests”. De Gaulle had broken with 20 years of unconditional support for Israel during which France allowed it to obtain first the A-bomb and then the H-bomb. To some de Gaulle’s attitude was an affront to legitimate guilty feelings about the Vichy government’s active participation in the genocide of the Jews, while others, nostalgic for colonial French Algeria, felt deprived of a revenge on “the Arabs”.
Not until the invasion of Lebanon and the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, followed by the first intifada of 1987, did the French begin to distance themselves from Israeli policy and call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state beside Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital. French presidents led the way: de Gaulle’s successors, from Georges Pompidou to Jacques Chirac, all adopted his Middle Eastern policy. Will Nicolas Sarkozy now follow suit?
The word Palestinian was notable by its absence in all the accounts of 1967, with the exception of the communist and far-left press and the Catholic paper Témoignage Chrétien. France was oblivious of the main victims of the war that completed the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 and even of their name.
Was 1967 a victory too far for Israel?
By Meron Rapoport
The Six Day war transformed Israel from relative poverty into a regional military superpower. It also began an occupation which has been slowly destroying the country’s meaning and identity – and may yet dissolve its existence.
Memory deceives us. Forty years after June 1967, many in Israel view the time before the Six Day war as a golden age, a paradise lost when Israel was a small, just society where hard work, modesty and solidarity prevailed over greed and selfishness; everyone knew each other and no-one occupied land belonging to anyone else.
That, of course, is a delusion: 1966, the last year before Israel occupied territories, was terrible. Unemployment had reached a record 10%, there was a sharp recession and for the first time in the country’s history, migration from it was higher than that to it (aliya). Although military rule over 400,000 Arabs living inside Israel, in place since the 1948 war, was abolished in 1966, their situation remained tough as their lands were confiscated to build new Jewish towns and villages.
The 1967 war changed all that. Everyone knows that afterwards Israel was considered a regional, if not an international, military superpower. What is less known is that the war changed economic history. The recession ended, unemployment decreased and the economy began to prosper. In 1967 gross domestic product per capita in Israel was only $1,500. By 2006 GDP per capita was $24,000, putting Israel in 23rd place in the UNDP’s Human Development Report. This is reflected in migration to Israel. More than 1.5 million Jews have arrived in the past 40 years and the population has increased from 2.4 million in 1967 to 5.5 million in 2006. No wonder that many consider the war was a turning point in the “Israeli success story”.
Yet the war can also be seen as the source of all evil. The amazing victory, in which the Israeli army smashed the three biggest Arab armies – Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian – should have made Israel feel secure. Instead, Israel is anything but a safe place. Since 1967 it has engaged in six conflicts – a war of attrition on the Suez Canal, the 1973 war, two intifadas and two wars in Lebanon. More than 5,000 Israelis have been killed and there have been about 50,000 Arab deaths (Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian).
The problem is not just that the wars go on and on, but that Israel is not winning them. Dov Tamari, a retired Israeli general turned historian, remarked after the end of the second Lebanon incursion that the 1967 war was the last in which Israel won an outright victory. All others had ended in a draw, if not defeat. Every war has forced Israel to give up something. The 1973 war was followed by total withdrawal from Sinai as part of the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979; the first intifada in 1989 led to the Oslo accords in 1993; the first Lebanese war in 1982 ended in unconditional retreat in 2000; and the result of the second intifada was the dismantling of the Gaza settlements two years ago.
Last year’s war in Lebanon is another example. While politicians claimed victory, a Haaretz survey showed that only 20% of Israelis thought that Israel had won. This failure to win wars may explain why a senior Israeli politician recently said in a private conversation that he was not sure Israel would survive another 20 years. Decades of occupation have worsened the fears of Israelis instead of alleviating them.
Waiting for a phone call?
Where did it all go wrong? Quite early. General Moshe Dayan, the defence minister and most prominent Israeli politician in 1967, said right after the victory: “We are waiting for a telephone call from the Arabs”, meaning – so it seemed – that if the call came, Israel would withdraw from the territories it had occupied, the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights, in return for peace agreements with the Arab world. In his book 1967 the historian Tom Segev proved that the Israeli government did not mean it that way, but that is what the world, and Israeli public opinion, believed.
At the same time Israel set in motion a process that would later make the deal of territories for peace difficult, if not impossible. Levi Eshkol, the supposedly dovish prime minister, allowed the first settlers to build a settlement, Kfar Eztion, in the West Bank before the end of 1967, while Dayan ordered the destruction of Syrian villages and towns on the occupied Golan Heights and the building of an Israeli settlement on the ruins of the Syrian town of Kuneitra.
In early 1968 Israelis were allowed to live in Hebron. The results of this can be seen 40 years later: the centre of this ancient city is a ghost town, where no Palestinian is allowed to live or walk or shop so that the place is clear for the 500 Israelis who live there. It was not by chance that Hebron was the location of the first suicide attack in 1992, after Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians in the mosque of Abraham (also known as Cave of the Patriarchs). The first Palestinian suicide attacks were in retaliation for this incident.
Looking at the map it is easy to see that the settlements in the West Bank were planned to separate Palestinian communities from each other, and create a continuum between the settlements and pre-1967 Israel. Settlements were built around Palestinian East Jerusalem to separate it from towns and villages close to the city. Further settlements were constructed in the Jordan Valley as a barrier between the West Bank and Jordan; and roads with settlements beside them were built in heart of the West Bank, separating Nablus from Ramallah, and Kalkilia from Tulkarem.
Ariel Sharon, the architect of the settlement project, said openly in 1975 that his aim was to prevent the creation of a Palestinian entity. This project, which over the years has been supported by governments right and left, has proved successful. More than 250,000 Israelis live today in hundreds of settlements in the West Bank – and 200,000 live in neighbourhoods built in occupied parts of Jerusalem. Their numbers have helped change the political attitude. Apart from the Communist and Arab parties, all political leaders in Israel, from Yossi Beilin to Ami Ayalon, from Ehud Olmert to Ztipi Livni, claim that the settlement blocs should be a part of Israel in any peace agreement. The separation wall is built along the lines of these blocs.
Obstacle to peace
Yet political leaders, even perhaps Sharon before his illness, acknowledge in private and sometimes in public that the settlements are the biggest obstacle to a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians and the Arab world. Israel has been trapped by this huge monster it built during 40 years of occupation. It cannot swallow the settlements as this would lead to the annexation of the West Bank, which even the most rightwing governments decline to do because of its international, legal and demographical implications; and it cannot get rid of them because the settlements have already entered the bloodstream of Israeli society. The settlements are a cancer.
Is it possible that Israel has trapped itself voluntarily? Perhaps it has become so used to the occupation that it cannot live without it. For 40 years Israelis have lived in a society based on privilege. Before the 1967 war, new immigrants from Arab countries had fewer rights than those who came from Europe, while Palestinians living inside Israel had fewer rights than anybody else; but after 1967 Israel set up an official system of discrimination. The one million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza (now grown to 3.5 million) were deprived of political rights, and the military commanders controlled every aspects of their lives.
Relations between Palestinians living under occupation and Israelis have changed for the worse over the past 40 years, but the situation in which Israelis had rights and Palestinians did not became natural to most Israelis. The worsening restrictions on the lives of Palestinians over the years, and the apartheid – many Israelis only meet Palestinians when doing military service on the West Bank – intensified these distinctions. Giving up the occupation means giving up privilege. That will be hard.
After 1967 Israel was quickly transformed into a capitalist society. The huge public works after the war created a much stronger entrepreneur class. The billions of dollars (the US has given Israel $3bn military aid every year since 1973) spent on military technology, which progressively advanced, have helped make Israel a small high-tech superpower. At the same time, because of the privileges resulting from the occupation, Israel became a much more fragmented society. In 1967 more than 80% of the workforce was organised in one big labour union, which controlled 33% of the economy; kibbutzim were held in high esteem. Today, only 25% of Israeli labour is organised and Israel is rated as among the most unequal societies in the West: according to the Gini Index Israel is in 62nd place among the highest advanced economies, and 18 families control 75% of the Israeli economy. This is also a result of the 1967 war.
There is another important result. After 1967 the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became one of the most significant in the world, if not the most significant. Israel has gained from this. Its excellent relations with the US, its international importance, its strong army and wealth all derive from this. That the Arab League, which refused any deal with Israel after the war, is desperate for Israel to make full peace with all Arab countries is another result.
There is a negative aspect. Israel’s position in the West also depends on the view that it is the frontline between the West and the East, between Judeo-Christian civilisation (a peculiar hyphenation given the terrible historical confrontations between the divergent beliefs) and Muslim civilisation. After the 9/11 attacks in the US, belief in this frontline position became widespread in Israel and not just among the religious right, who have claimed since 1967 that building settlements in Israel is a fulfilment of the will of God, thereby making the Israeli-Arab conflict cultural-religious instead of territorial. Avigdor Liberman, deputy prime minister and head of the pro-transfer party Israel Beitenu (Israel is our home), told Haaretz in a recent interview that Israel is “the front outpost of the whole free world”.
This may explain the doomsday feeling in many parts of Israeli society after the war with Lebanon. Hizbullah was described as an arm of Iran, and Iran was damned as a leader of a clash of civilisations. So the failure of the big and ultra-sophisticated Israeli army to crush a few thousand half-trained Hizbullah fighters (plus the thousands of rockets that were fired by Hizbullah into north Israel for over a month) convinced many Israelis that they were not wanted in the region and in the long run they might lose the war against Islam. Four decades of occupation have so paralysed Israeli society that its leaders lack the courage to look for a real solution to the conflict. The occupation has occupied Israel.
17.5.07
Why did the US go to war in Iraq and why France will be joining in against Iran
Because both countries are financially flat broke. And because the neocon dogma (and France now has a neocon president) dictates that instead of fixing internal problems, which is time consuming and not profitable for those who are at the top of the financial pyramid, it is easier, in order to stay in power and satisfy the Big Money who elect presidents now, to invade another country in order to hide these internal problems and open new economic opportunities, not for the country, but for the few financiers in the country,s top corporations and the Politicians whom they feed. The New 'humanitarian' wars are conducted on the expenses of the people to open new economic and financial opportunities for Big corporations looking for new business horizons in a national context of economic stagnation. This is exactly what happened in the US with the Iraq war and this what will happen in France with the coming Iran war.
Thanks to fellow blogger Stef for finding and displaying the information below.
The CIA publishes, among other things, information about the current accounts of the balance of payments for different countries. What is interesting in this information is that the countries who led the war against Iraq have actually the worst balance of payments.
The current account of the balance of payments is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). A current account surplus increases a country's net foreign assets by the corresponding amount, and a current account deficit does the reverse. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation.
We know very well that Jacques Chirac did not go to war against Saddam, not because of some humanitarian principle but because of Chirac's proximity with eminent sunni Arab Politcians including Saddam. Rumsfeld and the US had the same old friendship with Saddam but everybody knows that the US treats its friends very badly . We also know that Sarkozy, the new french president, was sorry for Chirac's attitude toward the US at the onset of the Iraq war and always wanted to apologize. Well now that he is a president, he may be able to apologize in a very special way and France's attitude toward US wars in the ME might change very quickly.
There is actually a war being prepared by the neocons, it is the war against Iran which entered, according to some specialists, its final phase, and Sarkozy is impatient to embark on this one. First, he is going to choose as his foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, the liberal French doctor who advocates conflicts for the purpose of Humanitarian intervention and who was an advocate for the Iraq war. At the same time, Sarkozy is preparing the public opinion for a long war like the one the US is waging in Iraq. He asked that a text written by communist French resistant Guy Mocquet to his parents, while he was 17 and fighting in the French resistance to the Nazi occupation, be read by college students. Although the wars against Iraq or Iran are colonial wars and not wars of resistance, Sarkozy has been defending, all along his campaign for presidency, colonial wars as civilizing missions. And although Sarkozy is a neocon, it does not bother him to read a text written by a communist. Indeed neocons have revealed themselves as much dogmatic and indoctrinating as old commies. Because despite the demise of the communist party, communist resistance to Nazis in France is part of the common glorious history of the nation and its identity. An identity Sarkozy wants to restore to the French people by pitting them against immigrants...He even alluded that this loss of identity is due to immigration by creating a ministry for national identity and immigration.
The letter of Guy Mocquet goes like this (my translation): My Life was short.
«[...] I am going to die! All I ask and all I want from you my 'petite maman' is to be courageous, which is how I am right now, exactly as other brave people before me. My natural choice was to live. But from the bottom of my heart I hope now that my death can serve a purpose. [...] 'Petit papa', I take my leave from you, for the last time, knowing all the sorrow I caused to both of you. I want you to know that I did my best to follow the path you traced for me. I send my adieu to all my friends and to my brother whom I love very much. I want him to study hard and to become a worthy man. Seventeen and a half, my life was so short. I regret nothing except leaving you all. I am going to die. [...] I embrace you with a child's heart. Courage ! [...]»
Read here my article about the moral dilemma of our modern societies sending their children to war. Sarkozy is not going to make France any better...He is going to hide France's ailing economy and his inability to do anything about it by sending France's youths to wars against foreign countries. This is the core idea of the new triumphant capital. After having failed to deliver on economic progress and reforms, the new capital, aided by the neocon ideology, conducts policies of wars, not only to hide the ailing economy but to subjugate the working and struggling classes and silence their dissent. Sarkozy has already shown us his colours, from his vacation on the yacht of the billionnaire Vincent Bolloré to his choice of the young Guy Mocquet letter, and to his closeness to Tony Blair, the man who played second fiddle to George Bush and the neocons and who is happy with the election of Sarkozy and cannot wait to meet with him as a president. Blair will be giving Sarkozy some advise on how to lie into going to war and staying the course. Sarkozy will surpass Blair as a neocon, he already stifled rational debate in France while thriving on the misery and the divisions of the French people....He will build his popularity exactly like celebrities by radicalising the presidency around his persona, provoking, instead of rational debate, flat admiration, hate or indignation, all of which contributing to his omnipresence in the media and the minds of the French people who will become obsessed and addicted to him for some time to come...Sarkozy strives for our attention, negative or positive, and his policies will thrive on the bed of hate and indignation...
The only way to counter Sarkozy is to fight him on facts without emotions, positive or negative, without rethoric, without sentiments, without anger. Because he will be seeking to provoke, above everything else, sentiments and emotions, in order to stifle rational debate. We have an arduous task before us and we have the obligation to do it well for the sake of France's destiny and the destiny of its people...
P.S. Bush threatens Iran with new sanctions
Thanks to fellow blogger Stef for finding and displaying the information below.
The CIA publishes, among other things, information about the current accounts of the balance of payments for different countries. What is interesting in this information is that the countries who led the war against Iraq have actually the worst balance of payments.
The current account of the balance of payments is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). A current account surplus increases a country's net foreign assets by the corresponding amount, and a current account deficit does the reverse. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation.
We know very well that Jacques Chirac did not go to war against Saddam, not because of some humanitarian principle but because of Chirac's proximity with eminent sunni Arab Politcians including Saddam. Rumsfeld and the US had the same old friendship with Saddam but everybody knows that the US treats its friends very badly . We also know that Sarkozy, the new french president, was sorry for Chirac's attitude toward the US at the onset of the Iraq war and always wanted to apologize. Well now that he is a president, he may be able to apologize in a very special way and France's attitude toward US wars in the ME might change very quickly.
There is actually a war being prepared by the neocons, it is the war against Iran which entered, according to some specialists, its final phase, and Sarkozy is impatient to embark on this one. First, he is going to choose as his foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, the liberal French doctor who advocates conflicts for the purpose of Humanitarian intervention and who was an advocate for the Iraq war. At the same time, Sarkozy is preparing the public opinion for a long war like the one the US is waging in Iraq. He asked that a text written by communist French resistant Guy Mocquet to his parents, while he was 17 and fighting in the French resistance to the Nazi occupation, be read by college students. Although the wars against Iraq or Iran are colonial wars and not wars of resistance, Sarkozy has been defending, all along his campaign for presidency, colonial wars as civilizing missions. And although Sarkozy is a neocon, it does not bother him to read a text written by a communist. Indeed neocons have revealed themselves as much dogmatic and indoctrinating as old commies. Because despite the demise of the communist party, communist resistance to Nazis in France is part of the common glorious history of the nation and its identity. An identity Sarkozy wants to restore to the French people by pitting them against immigrants...He even alluded that this loss of identity is due to immigration by creating a ministry for national identity and immigration.
The letter of Guy Mocquet goes like this (my translation): My Life was short.
«[...] I am going to die! All I ask and all I want from you my 'petite maman' is to be courageous, which is how I am right now, exactly as other brave people before me. My natural choice was to live. But from the bottom of my heart I hope now that my death can serve a purpose. [...] 'Petit papa', I take my leave from you, for the last time, knowing all the sorrow I caused to both of you. I want you to know that I did my best to follow the path you traced for me. I send my adieu to all my friends and to my brother whom I love very much. I want him to study hard and to become a worthy man. Seventeen and a half, my life was so short. I regret nothing except leaving you all. I am going to die. [...] I embrace you with a child's heart. Courage ! [...]»
Read here my article about the moral dilemma of our modern societies sending their children to war. Sarkozy is not going to make France any better...He is going to hide France's ailing economy and his inability to do anything about it by sending France's youths to wars against foreign countries. This is the core idea of the new triumphant capital. After having failed to deliver on economic progress and reforms, the new capital, aided by the neocon ideology, conducts policies of wars, not only to hide the ailing economy but to subjugate the working and struggling classes and silence their dissent. Sarkozy has already shown us his colours, from his vacation on the yacht of the billionnaire Vincent Bolloré to his choice of the young Guy Mocquet letter, and to his closeness to Tony Blair, the man who played second fiddle to George Bush and the neocons and who is happy with the election of Sarkozy and cannot wait to meet with him as a president. Blair will be giving Sarkozy some advise on how to lie into going to war and staying the course. Sarkozy will surpass Blair as a neocon, he already stifled rational debate in France while thriving on the misery and the divisions of the French people....He will build his popularity exactly like celebrities by radicalising the presidency around his persona, provoking, instead of rational debate, flat admiration, hate or indignation, all of which contributing to his omnipresence in the media and the minds of the French people who will become obsessed and addicted to him for some time to come...Sarkozy strives for our attention, negative or positive, and his policies will thrive on the bed of hate and indignation...
The only way to counter Sarkozy is to fight him on facts without emotions, positive or negative, without rethoric, without sentiments, without anger. Because he will be seeking to provoke, above everything else, sentiments and emotions, in order to stifle rational debate. We have an arduous task before us and we have the obligation to do it well for the sake of France's destiny and the destiny of its people...
P.S. Bush threatens Iran with new sanctions
19.4.07
British journalists call for boycott of Israeli goods
''At the annual delegates meeting of the journalists' union last Friday, a vote calling for "a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa" was approved 66 to 54.''
28.3.07
Cheerleading for War
It seems that not everybody is unhappy with the capture of the British navy by Iran's revolutionnary guard.
Some are cheering. (Famous For 15 Megapixels)
Since 2001, we have been used to warmongerers, war philosophers, war intellectuals, war instigators, war terrorists, war profiteers... Now it seems is the time for war cheerleaders. Someone has to do the uneasy job of lifting the spirits...for all those people !
If you go to the BBC comment section you will find the comments calling to nuke Iran in the bottom, as the page presents the most recent comments first. So the first comments were from the cheerleaders, they were too eager to show their support for the troops. It is the same thing with the comment section in the Guardian when it comes to issues touching the Middle East; the first ones to leave their comments are the cheerleaders of the global and long war on terror, Cyberzionism Oblige !
Some are cheering. (Famous For 15 Megapixels)
Since 2001, we have been used to warmongerers, war philosophers, war intellectuals, war instigators, war terrorists, war profiteers... Now it seems is the time for war cheerleaders. Someone has to do the uneasy job of lifting the spirits...for all those people !
If you go to the BBC comment section you will find the comments calling to nuke Iran in the bottom, as the page presents the most recent comments first. So the first comments were from the cheerleaders, they were too eager to show their support for the troops. It is the same thing with the comment section in the Guardian when it comes to issues touching the Middle East; the first ones to leave their comments are the cheerleaders of the global and long war on terror, Cyberzionism Oblige !
27.3.07
The next Iran War: Lessons from the 1956 Egypt's Invasion
I always thought that the Iraq war was a prerun for the Big One, the Iran War. Iran's war would be more difficult, more dangerous. Iraq would be a bread and roses victory walk. The latter, as tragic in its consequences as it is now, is sadly not the only neocon faulty assumption. Iraq's difficulties apart, the neocons and Bush are showing us now their determination to squeeze Iran when they could not attack it and letting us know that the attack is still an option. The result is the actual showdown and the anguish and tension that go with.
Reading a counterpunch article about the Suez war, I realised that Israel's influence on the west's policy in the ME has one basic and faulty assumption: Israel presents itself to western diplomacies as their frontline in the region and the main guardian of their interests. Back in 1956 when Israel arranged for the Suez invasion, and because of cold war logic, Eisenhower was not convinced of this equation.
One has to read the interesting article of Harry Clark in Counterpunch to realise how much this faulty assumption, endorsed unquestioned in the west and enforced by the Israel lobby largely supported by the Jewish diaspora, is hurting actually the west's interests in the ME.
We need a political leadership to break this equation between Israel's and the west's assumed shared interests in order for the region to achieve a just and lasting peace. Otherwise, the Middle East will always be for its citizens a dangerous and murderous field, thanks to USrael, UKrael, Frisrael, or whatever country with which Israel chooses to make its holy union of 'common interests' for the sake of zionism to survive unquestioned over the dead bodies of Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians and the the resentment of the livings.
Read how Rice, Bush and the neocons are trying to reshape the middle east in a way to eliminate any challenge to Israel's only superpower. And how the UN is an accomplice in this project (Forever Under Construction)
Reading a counterpunch article about the Suez war, I realised that Israel's influence on the west's policy in the ME has one basic and faulty assumption: Israel presents itself to western diplomacies as their frontline in the region and the main guardian of their interests. Back in 1956 when Israel arranged for the Suez invasion, and because of cold war logic, Eisenhower was not convinced of this equation.
One has to read the interesting article of Harry Clark in Counterpunch to realise how much this faulty assumption, endorsed unquestioned in the west and enforced by the Israel lobby largely supported by the Jewish diaspora, is hurting actually the west's interests in the ME.
We need a political leadership to break this equation between Israel's and the west's assumed shared interests in order for the region to achieve a just and lasting peace. Otherwise, the Middle East will always be for its citizens a dangerous and murderous field, thanks to USrael, UKrael, Frisrael, or whatever country with which Israel chooses to make its holy union of 'common interests' for the sake of zionism to survive unquestioned over the dead bodies of Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians and the the resentment of the livings.
Read how Rice, Bush and the neocons are trying to reshape the middle east in a way to eliminate any challenge to Israel's only superpower. And how the UN is an accomplice in this project (Forever Under Construction)
6.2.07
The US and UK must stop backing dictatorial 'Moderates' regimes in the ME
''The longer the US and Britain back dictatorial regimes in the Middle East the more explosive the region will become''
Mai Yamani, CIF , Guardian
Mai Yamani, CIF , Guardian
5.2.07
The UK sent seventeen year old soldiers to Iraq
15 UK soldiers under 18 years of age were sent to fight in Iraq since 2003, despite the ratification by the UK of the UN protocol on children soldiers, UK defence minsitry admitted yesterday. The admission came as an answer to a question from a Lib Dem in the parliament. The soldiers were 17 years old, among them 4 girls.
1.2.07
Why Blair should have read 'Lord of The Ring'
Remember who defeated the greedy blood thristy Lord of The Ring in Tolkien's novel ? Hobbits. Small peace loving creatures but obstinate and courageous.
Well I doubt Tony Blair had actually read the novel. If he had done so he might have understood that lies, unjust wars, greed, and crimes, although imposed by fear and sensationnalism, end up to be just what they are; lies and crimes. And because Tony wasn't satisfied enough with Iraq, David Kelly, Palestine, Lebanon, Cash for honours, Celebrities mansions, US style Hubris, he wanted to silence an investigation on corruption involving Arms deals. In this final act of what will be remembered as a shameful three terms mandate, Tony wanted to come to the rescue of all evils, the British Arms industry and his own.
This final act in a long history of obstructing Justice might plunge Tony's coveted Ring, and the ultimate power grab that goes with it, into the boiling lava of Mount Doom. It will be really a Hobbit like victory for Justice on a man otherwise seemingly untouchable up to now. And from here, if Justice is delivered in his lifetime, I wish Tony can be sent to a nice hell. I suggest Bush's extraterritorial facilities, some place in the Caribbean, close to this America he so much loved, so much envied, and so much obeyed...
Well I doubt Tony Blair had actually read the novel. If he had done so he might have understood that lies, unjust wars, greed, and crimes, although imposed by fear and sensationnalism, end up to be just what they are; lies and crimes. And because Tony wasn't satisfied enough with Iraq, David Kelly, Palestine, Lebanon, Cash for honours, Celebrities mansions, US style Hubris, he wanted to silence an investigation on corruption involving Arms deals. In this final act of what will be remembered as a shameful three terms mandate, Tony wanted to come to the rescue of all evils, the British Arms industry and his own.
This final act in a long history of obstructing Justice might plunge Tony's coveted Ring, and the ultimate power grab that goes with it, into the boiling lava of Mount Doom. It will be really a Hobbit like victory for Justice on a man otherwise seemingly untouchable up to now. And from here, if Justice is delivered in his lifetime, I wish Tony can be sent to a nice hell. I suggest Bush's extraterritorial facilities, some place in the Caribbean, close to this America he so much loved, so much envied, and so much obeyed...
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Since March 29th 2006