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Israel invented bombing of civilian airliners in the Middle East
After Israeli denials and excuses, the black box was found and all their lies revealed...
On Wednesday, February 21 1973, a Libyan Arab Airlines civilian air jet, full of innocent passengers, was flying from Libya to Egypt when it found itself on the Sinai Desert occupied by Israel. Bad weather conditions had forced the plane to circle over Sinai, unable to land because of fierce sandstorms. Israel spotted the Libyan plane and assumes it was "a new Arab terrorist-attack".
In an unforgettable terrorist act, the Israeli air force fighters shot down the Libyan civilian jet with no hesitation killing all its passengers except one survivor.
IN MEMORIAM: LIBYAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 114
At 10:30 a.m. on 21 February 1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 took off on
its regularly-scheduled flight from Tripoli to Cairo.
The plane, a Boeing 727, was being piloted by a French crew under a
contractual arrangement between Air France and the Libyan national airline.
After a brief stop at the city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, Flight 114 continued
en route to Cairo with 113 persons on board.
As the airliner flew over northern Egypt on its approach to Cairo, it suddenly
encountered a blinding sandstorm which forced the crew to switch to instrument
control because the geographic features which ordinarily served as landmarks
could not be discerned in the swirling tempest. A short time later, the pilot
discovered that he had made a navigational error because of a compass
malfunction: the plane had missed an air traffic beacon, and he could not
ascertain its current location. He radioed the Cairo air control tower with an
urgent plea for assistance. The Egyptian flight controllers radioed back, giving
him the information necessary to correct the plane's course and warning that it
appeared that the plane might have strayed over the Sinai peninsula, which at
that time was occupied by Israeli forces.
The pilot immediately corrected the course, and LN 114 was heading back to
Cairo when the crew noticed two military jets approaching. The crew members
expressed relief, for they believed that the jets were Egyptian fighters sent to
escort their plane to safety at the Cairo airport. Such, however, proved not to be
the case: the two jets were in fact Israeli Phantoms, and, before the pilot of LN
114 had been able to make out the "Star of David" markings on their wings,
they had directed three bursts of cannon fire into the Boeing 727, blasting it
from the sky.
Flight 114 smashed into the Sinai desert only one minute's flying time from
Egyptian-controlled territory, killing 106 men, women and children aboard.
At first, Israel attempted to deny its culpability for the tragedy. However, after 24
February when the Boeing's "black box" which had recorded the pilot's
conversations with the Cairo control tower was recovered, such denial was no
longer possible. The Israeli government then did a volte-face and revealed that
LN 114 had been shot down with the personal authorization of Dado Elazar, the
Israeli Chief of Staff. Commenting on the decision to blow up the civilian
airliner, Golda Meir, then Prime Minister of Israel, showered Elazar with praise,
and exulted, "I want to tell you that I don't just appreciate you, I admire you!"
The United Nations failed to take any action against Israel for its destruction of
the Libyan passenger plane, and when the 30 member nations of the
International Civil Aviation Organization voted to censure Israel for the attack,
the U.S. abstained.
Would Israel have extradited the two pilots for trial in Libya ? Of course not - you see, there is a difference between certain countries among the members of the UN. Some have to follow international law - some don't.
Following is a list of the innocent passengers who were killed in the Israeli terrorist attack on that civilian plane:
Abdul-Adeem Mostafa Damdoum ( 1 year old )
Mohammad Saad Abou-Zaid ( 3 years old )
Hisham Farag S-Hail ( 4 years old )
Hassouna Ibrahim Hassouna ( 9 years old )
Ali Farag Abdussalam ( 12 years old )
Fawzia Farag Abdussalam ( 14 years old )
Ali Ibrahim Hassouna
Mohammad Ibrahim Hassouna
Farag Abdussalam Ash-Shaafi
As-Sanousi Az-Zintani
Salih Masoud Bwaiseer
Rajab Solaiman Akasha
Soad Ibrahim Al-Hinghari
Amal Ben-Amir Al-Bakkoush
Milad Abol-Eed
Atia Kalifa Karbaj
As-Sadiq As-Swaie Abol-Qasim
Abdul-Hafeeth Mohammad Ali D-haim
Dr. Nouri Ali Jaafar
Dr. Fatima Al-Mabrouk Abo-Ghaighees
Najma Abdul-Azeez Al-Hisadi
Essa Salem Al-Aswad
Fathi Sha-Ban Al-Hamshary
Ibrahim At-Tahir
Abou-Bakr Mohammad Al-Hajaji
Fathi Jab-Allah Al-Kawm
Salim Mohammad Al-Kawm
Mohammad As-Salheen As-Saiti
Hasan Abdul-Hafeeth Aj-Jhani
Younis Mostafa Al-Kawm
Essa Salih Said
Mabrouka Mohammad Jwaili
Ali Younis Al-Makki
Mohammad Fatheel Al-Mayar
Omar Abdul-Rahman Aj-Jaggi
As-Sanousi Mohammad Najm
Mohammad Abdallah Ash-Shakmak
Ismaeel Mohammad Thabouh
Mohammad As-Sadiq Al-Werfalli
Mansour Ali Hamad Ash-Shagh-aabi
Awad Mostafa As-Sada-wiya
Abdallah Mohammad Abou-Zaid
Abdel-Wahid Abdel-Kafi Miftah
Rasheed Mohammad Al-Malti
Abo-Bakr Mohammad Jadoula
Asad Shakir Aftaih At-Tarhouni
Abdel-Kader Taha At-Taweel
and the crew:
Jackques Berjes (pilot)
Almahdi Younis Ay-Yad (co-pilot)
Majda Habeeb (hostess)
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/plane.html
-------------------------------------------------------
Who Remembers LAA Flight 114?
September 19, 1983, Page 3
In the early afternoon of February 21, 1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, a Boeing 727 with 113 men, women and children aboard, was nearing the end of its regular run from Tripoli, Libya, to Cairo. But it never made it.
As it was preparing to begin its descent to Cairo the unarmed airliner -developed compass problems and strayed out of Egyptian-controlled airspace into the skies over the Sinai peninsula, then occupied by Israeli forces. It turned out to be a fatal malfunction.
Within minutes, Israeli Phantom jet fighters had moved into action to intercept the plane. And within minutes after that, one of the fighters had shot it out of the sky. One hundred and six persons, including all but one of the mostly French crew, were killed. The victims were mainly Egyptians and Libyans, and included one American.
In a number of respects, both the attack itself and the reaction of the perpetrators were strikingly similar to the case of Korean Airlines flight 7, shot down recently by Soviet jets after its Boeing 747 had infringed their airspace. Far different, however, was the U.S. response to what happened. President Nixon and the State Department did, of course, deplore the loss of life (even though the U.S. charge in Libya at the time was not permitted to offer condolences in person). But what was missing was any official criticism of what the Israelis had done, not to mention any rhetoric on the scale of what has been said to the Soviets. Nor was the U.S. interested in taking any disciplinary action against Israel. It did not bring the issue to the United Nations. And when the 30-member International Civil Aviation Organization voted on June 5, 1973, to censure Israel for its attack, the U.S. and Nicaragua-then under the Somoza regime-abstained.
If the U.S. had been of a mind to, it could have found plenty to criticize. The positions taken by the Israeli government after the shooting down of the plane, when examined today, look eerily similar to those taken by the Russians during the days after the Korean plane went down.
Israel's first communiqué after the shooting was more ready than the first Soviet one was to acknowledge at least implicitly what had happened. But it was nonetheless a study in euphemistic vagueness. After saying the plane had entered Sinai airspace and flown over "sensitive" Israeli military areas "in a manner that aroused suspicion and concern," it noted that Israeli jets "approached the plane and instructed it to land in accordance with international regulations. When the plane took no notice of the instructions and the warning shots that were fired, it was intercepted by Israeli planes. The hit plane landed inside Sinai 20 kilometers and crashed." (italics added). It was a deft exercise in conveying the idea that the plane had been shot down without describing specifically just how it had happened.
Not so vague, however, were the Soviet-style statements by Israeli officials in which they refused to concede that Israel was in any way to blame. Prime Minister Golda Meir, still referring to the incident, as the communiqué did, as a "crash," commented that in any case the French pilot was entirely to blame, -because he "did not respond to the repeated warnings that were given in accordance with international procedure." Transportation Minister Shimon Peres indicated his belief that the question of whether the plane made an innocent incursion or not was irrelevant. "There are international principles regarding the penetration of air space of another country whether deliberately or by error," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, Israel acted in accordance with those procedures."
Dayan Talks Tough
The next day, while Egypt was insisting that the pilot had had an instrument failure and had thought he was over Egyptian territory-and after a surviving crewman claimed there had been no warning shots-Israel's attitude stiffened even further. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan announced that the decision for Israeli fighter planes to fire at the airliner had been taken at the military level, that he had not been consulted, but that he had reviewed the decision made and found no fault with it. He denied that there was any need at all for a formal inquiry.
Sounding every bit like one of the Soviet generals who have defended the attack on the Korean plane, General Dayan added that if he had been a pilot of one of the Israeli planes, "I certainly would have been suspicious of the pilot's intention when he failed to heed warnings and elected-for whatever reason-to risk the lives of all his passengers rather than to follow the instructions to land ... I haven't the slightest doubt that the captain heard the order to land and understood it. I don't like to blame a dead man for what happened, but he is the only one to be blamed."
Two days later, on February 24, General Dayan's case fell apart completely when the discovery of the "black box" containing records of the pilot's conversations with Cairo's control tower revealed that the Egyptian version of what had happened was the right one. In a new communiqué, Israel conceded that the pilot of the plane had "apparently thought that the plane was flying in Egyptian skies. When the Israeli planes appeared, the pilot thought that those were Egyptian MIGs circling around the plane." There was no conclusive evidence in the black box that any warning shots had been fired, or that if they had, the crew of the plane had heard them.
General Dayan then made the first acknowledgment by any Israeli leader that Israel might bear at least a tiny part of the responsibility for the incident-although no more than a tiny part. The acknowledgment came in rather a backhanded way, as he announced why Israel would refuse to pay any compensation to the victims. His explanation: "In this case, we erred-under the most difficult of circumstances -but that does not put us on the guilty side."
The next day, February 25, Israel's government changed its mind about the compensation-but not about the guilt. It announced it would pay compensation voluntarily, out of "humanitarian considerations" -but that it had determined that the Israeli airforce had acted "in strict compliance with international law" in firing on the airliner.
The Israeli public appears to have acted pretty much as the Russian man-in-the-street has, in accepting its government's view that the Israeli air force had had no alternative. Terence Smith, the highly respected Israel bureau chief of The New York Times during that period, reported from Jerusalem on February 24, three days after the attack, that although most Israelis "seemed genuinely to regret the incident, few if any would accept Israeli responsibility for the loss of innocent lives. Rather, they seemed to regard the downing of the airliner as justifiable."
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/091983/830919003.html
In an unforgettable terrorist act, the Israeli air force fighters shot down the Libyan civilian jet with no hesitation killing all its passengers except one survivor.
IN MEMORIAM: LIBYAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 114
At 10:30 a.m. on 21 February 1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 took off on
its regularly-scheduled flight from Tripoli to Cairo.
The plane, a Boeing 727, was being piloted by a French crew under a
contractual arrangement between Air France and the Libyan national airline.
After a brief stop at the city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, Flight 114 continued
en route to Cairo with 113 persons on board.
As the airliner flew over northern Egypt on its approach to Cairo, it suddenly
encountered a blinding sandstorm which forced the crew to switch to instrument
control because the geographic features which ordinarily served as landmarks
could not be discerned in the swirling tempest. A short time later, the pilot
discovered that he had made a navigational error because of a compass
malfunction: the plane had missed an air traffic beacon, and he could not
ascertain its current location. He radioed the Cairo air control tower with an
urgent plea for assistance. The Egyptian flight controllers radioed back, giving
him the information necessary to correct the plane's course and warning that it
appeared that the plane might have strayed over the Sinai peninsula, which at
that time was occupied by Israeli forces.
The pilot immediately corrected the course, and LN 114 was heading back to
Cairo when the crew noticed two military jets approaching. The crew members
expressed relief, for they believed that the jets were Egyptian fighters sent to
escort their plane to safety at the Cairo airport. Such, however, proved not to be
the case: the two jets were in fact Israeli Phantoms, and, before the pilot of LN
114 had been able to make out the "Star of David" markings on their wings,
they had directed three bursts of cannon fire into the Boeing 727, blasting it
from the sky.
Flight 114 smashed into the Sinai desert only one minute's flying time from
Egyptian-controlled territory, killing 106 men, women and children aboard.
At first, Israel attempted to deny its culpability for the tragedy. However, after 24
February when the Boeing's "black box" which had recorded the pilot's
conversations with the Cairo control tower was recovered, such denial was no
longer possible. The Israeli government then did a volte-face and revealed that
LN 114 had been shot down with the personal authorization of Dado Elazar, the
Israeli Chief of Staff. Commenting on the decision to blow up the civilian
airliner, Golda Meir, then Prime Minister of Israel, showered Elazar with praise,
and exulted, "I want to tell you that I don't just appreciate you, I admire you!"
The United Nations failed to take any action against Israel for its destruction of
the Libyan passenger plane, and when the 30 member nations of the
International Civil Aviation Organization voted to censure Israel for the attack,
the U.S. abstained.
Would Israel have extradited the two pilots for trial in Libya ? Of course not - you see, there is a difference between certain countries among the members of the UN. Some have to follow international law - some don't.
Following is a list of the innocent passengers who were killed in the Israeli terrorist attack on that civilian plane:
Abdul-Adeem Mostafa Damdoum ( 1 year old )
Mohammad Saad Abou-Zaid ( 3 years old )
Hisham Farag S-Hail ( 4 years old )
Hassouna Ibrahim Hassouna ( 9 years old )
Ali Farag Abdussalam ( 12 years old )
Fawzia Farag Abdussalam ( 14 years old )
Ali Ibrahim Hassouna
Mohammad Ibrahim Hassouna
Farag Abdussalam Ash-Shaafi
As-Sanousi Az-Zintani
Salih Masoud Bwaiseer
Rajab Solaiman Akasha
Soad Ibrahim Al-Hinghari
Amal Ben-Amir Al-Bakkoush
Milad Abol-Eed
Atia Kalifa Karbaj
As-Sadiq As-Swaie Abol-Qasim
Abdul-Hafeeth Mohammad Ali D-haim
Dr. Nouri Ali Jaafar
Dr. Fatima Al-Mabrouk Abo-Ghaighees
Najma Abdul-Azeez Al-Hisadi
Essa Salem Al-Aswad
Fathi Sha-Ban Al-Hamshary
Ibrahim At-Tahir
Abou-Bakr Mohammad Al-Hajaji
Fathi Jab-Allah Al-Kawm
Salim Mohammad Al-Kawm
Mohammad As-Salheen As-Saiti
Hasan Abdul-Hafeeth Aj-Jhani
Younis Mostafa Al-Kawm
Essa Salih Said
Mabrouka Mohammad Jwaili
Ali Younis Al-Makki
Mohammad Fatheel Al-Mayar
Omar Abdul-Rahman Aj-Jaggi
As-Sanousi Mohammad Najm
Mohammad Abdallah Ash-Shakmak
Ismaeel Mohammad Thabouh
Mohammad As-Sadiq Al-Werfalli
Mansour Ali Hamad Ash-Shagh-aabi
Awad Mostafa As-Sada-wiya
Abdallah Mohammad Abou-Zaid
Abdel-Wahid Abdel-Kafi Miftah
Rasheed Mohammad Al-Malti
Abo-Bakr Mohammad Jadoula
Asad Shakir Aftaih At-Tarhouni
Abdel-Kader Taha At-Taweel
and the crew:
Jackques Berjes (pilot)
Almahdi Younis Ay-Yad (co-pilot)
Majda Habeeb (hostess)
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/plane.html
-------------------------------------------------------
Who Remembers LAA Flight 114?
September 19, 1983, Page 3
In the early afternoon of February 21, 1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, a Boeing 727 with 113 men, women and children aboard, was nearing the end of its regular run from Tripoli, Libya, to Cairo. But it never made it.
As it was preparing to begin its descent to Cairo the unarmed airliner -developed compass problems and strayed out of Egyptian-controlled airspace into the skies over the Sinai peninsula, then occupied by Israeli forces. It turned out to be a fatal malfunction.
Within minutes, Israeli Phantom jet fighters had moved into action to intercept the plane. And within minutes after that, one of the fighters had shot it out of the sky. One hundred and six persons, including all but one of the mostly French crew, were killed. The victims were mainly Egyptians and Libyans, and included one American.
In a number of respects, both the attack itself and the reaction of the perpetrators were strikingly similar to the case of Korean Airlines flight 7, shot down recently by Soviet jets after its Boeing 747 had infringed their airspace. Far different, however, was the U.S. response to what happened. President Nixon and the State Department did, of course, deplore the loss of life (even though the U.S. charge in Libya at the time was not permitted to offer condolences in person). But what was missing was any official criticism of what the Israelis had done, not to mention any rhetoric on the scale of what has been said to the Soviets. Nor was the U.S. interested in taking any disciplinary action against Israel. It did not bring the issue to the United Nations. And when the 30-member International Civil Aviation Organization voted on June 5, 1973, to censure Israel for its attack, the U.S. and Nicaragua-then under the Somoza regime-abstained.
If the U.S. had been of a mind to, it could have found plenty to criticize. The positions taken by the Israeli government after the shooting down of the plane, when examined today, look eerily similar to those taken by the Russians during the days after the Korean plane went down.
Israel's first communiqué after the shooting was more ready than the first Soviet one was to acknowledge at least implicitly what had happened. But it was nonetheless a study in euphemistic vagueness. After saying the plane had entered Sinai airspace and flown over "sensitive" Israeli military areas "in a manner that aroused suspicion and concern," it noted that Israeli jets "approached the plane and instructed it to land in accordance with international regulations. When the plane took no notice of the instructions and the warning shots that were fired, it was intercepted by Israeli planes. The hit plane landed inside Sinai 20 kilometers and crashed." (italics added). It was a deft exercise in conveying the idea that the plane had been shot down without describing specifically just how it had happened.
Not so vague, however, were the Soviet-style statements by Israeli officials in which they refused to concede that Israel was in any way to blame. Prime Minister Golda Meir, still referring to the incident, as the communiqué did, as a "crash," commented that in any case the French pilot was entirely to blame, -because he "did not respond to the repeated warnings that were given in accordance with international procedure." Transportation Minister Shimon Peres indicated his belief that the question of whether the plane made an innocent incursion or not was irrelevant. "There are international principles regarding the penetration of air space of another country whether deliberately or by error," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, Israel acted in accordance with those procedures."
Dayan Talks Tough
The next day, while Egypt was insisting that the pilot had had an instrument failure and had thought he was over Egyptian territory-and after a surviving crewman claimed there had been no warning shots-Israel's attitude stiffened even further. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan announced that the decision for Israeli fighter planes to fire at the airliner had been taken at the military level, that he had not been consulted, but that he had reviewed the decision made and found no fault with it. He denied that there was any need at all for a formal inquiry.
Sounding every bit like one of the Soviet generals who have defended the attack on the Korean plane, General Dayan added that if he had been a pilot of one of the Israeli planes, "I certainly would have been suspicious of the pilot's intention when he failed to heed warnings and elected-for whatever reason-to risk the lives of all his passengers rather than to follow the instructions to land ... I haven't the slightest doubt that the captain heard the order to land and understood it. I don't like to blame a dead man for what happened, but he is the only one to be blamed."
Two days later, on February 24, General Dayan's case fell apart completely when the discovery of the "black box" containing records of the pilot's conversations with Cairo's control tower revealed that the Egyptian version of what had happened was the right one. In a new communiqué, Israel conceded that the pilot of the plane had "apparently thought that the plane was flying in Egyptian skies. When the Israeli planes appeared, the pilot thought that those were Egyptian MIGs circling around the plane." There was no conclusive evidence in the black box that any warning shots had been fired, or that if they had, the crew of the plane had heard them.
General Dayan then made the first acknowledgment by any Israeli leader that Israel might bear at least a tiny part of the responsibility for the incident-although no more than a tiny part. The acknowledgment came in rather a backhanded way, as he announced why Israel would refuse to pay any compensation to the victims. His explanation: "In this case, we erred-under the most difficult of circumstances -but that does not put us on the guilty side."
The next day, February 25, Israel's government changed its mind about the compensation-but not about the guilt. It announced it would pay compensation voluntarily, out of "humanitarian considerations" -but that it had determined that the Israeli airforce had acted "in strict compliance with international law" in firing on the airliner.
The Israeli public appears to have acted pretty much as the Russian man-in-the-street has, in accepting its government's view that the Israeli air force had had no alternative. Terence Smith, the highly respected Israel bureau chief of The New York Times during that period, reported from Jerusalem on February 24, three days after the attack, that although most Israelis "seemed genuinely to regret the incident, few if any would accept Israeli responsibility for the loss of innocent lives. Rather, they seemed to regard the downing of the airliner as justifiable."
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/091983/830919003.html
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Oh, I forgot -- not civilians, just Israelis.
@%<
I forgot. It was just "an accident."
It seems Israel has been having a lot of accidents lately.
Well, it can be, I suppose, if you're only after propaganda points.
@%<
... it was yet another an un_believable list of "terrible accidents.
>> "Well, it can be, I suppose, if you're only after
>> propaganda points."
===============================
Point Scoring
Point scoring is a method of communication that prioritises making certain points favourable to the speaker, and attacking opponents of the speaker by trying to undermine their positions. Point scoring communication ought to give the appearance of rational debate, whilst avoiding genuine discussion. The aim of the Israel activist point scorer is to try to make as many comments that are positive about Israel as possible, whilst attacking certain Palestinian positions, and attempting to cultivate a dignified appearance.
--War By Deception strategies for Jewish Students:
http://www.wujs.org.il/activist/features/campaigns/communication_styles_for_hasbara.shtml
You've got it right aaron.
Zionism is a cult that turned being Jewish into an identity shell-game.
"We're a nation of people"
"We're a matriachal line - a race"
"We're a culture, a heritage"
"We're a religion"
quote from an ex-Peruvian born again Zionist:
==================================
"The Arab has the instinct of murder and killing like all gentiles, and only Jews do not have that instinct - that is a genetic fact."
==================================
[How 90 Peruvians became the lates chosen-ones]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,770315,00.html
Then you haven't been reading my posts very well, have you. Take a look at the on-going "Indymedia Censors Critic of Judaism" thread, and you'll see me _intentionally_ not discussing Israel or Zionism, despite a persistent troller trying to get me to do just that.
If you dig even deeper into the archives (although you'll have to spell my name right to do that), you'll find out exactly what I think of Sharon and Netanyahu. My stance is simple: there is much about Israel and Israel's polarizing policies that can be justly criticised -- and I've done so here -- but that doesn't mean I have to pretend to be blind when I see such ridiculous nonsense as in the base post, with its implicit presumption that Israel, for the hell of it, just decided to knock a planeful of civilians out of the sky -- sorta like the Johnny Cash song that sez "I shot a man just to watch him die."
Now, I know that Indybay has no shortage of posters willing to ascribe any imaginable evil to the wicked Zi-i-i-i-ionist Entity -- including "they're planning to take over the world," someone posted only yesterday. But they have in many cases simply replaced the demonization of the Palestinian people with the demonization of Israel. And that's no solution.
And I also know that there are those who still believe that the Russians shot down KAL007 on purpose, and use their most practiced condescending smirk on those who remind us that accidents do indeed happen in this world. And let's not forget all the statements from the Mideast (including, potentially, the explosion over Lockerbie) from those who thought the US just decided to shoot down an Iranian Airbus for the hell of it, and who used _their_ most practiced condescending smirk on those who called it a case of misidentification.
See, as much as it interferes with the demonization of Israel to admit it, accidents _do_ happen, and sometimes fatal ones. Unless, of course, you're arguing that Israel is perfect and makes no mistakes.
@%<
But it IS weird that the way Israel is being demonized is worse than how S Africa was demonized. If anything this hurts the Palestinian movement since an obvious conspiracy theory taints actual events.Im not sure about this airline post but international conspiracies surrounding Israel (like posts about the WTC and Bali) would never have happened around S Africa in the 80s. Clearly seperating conspiracy from real issues is the only way Palestinians will gain their freedom (but there is enough real anger this may be hard)
And from the other side people have to make sure they dont just criticize the conspiracies since that will aslo have no effect. People assume that if one doesnt accept an obiously false conspiracy one doesnt see the horror in real events (like assasinations of Palestinians with rockets from helicopters on busy street, torture of detained Palestinians, the economic hardships created by checkpoints, a growing Israeli right that wants to kick Arabs out of Israel proper and possibly the West Bank and Gaza etc...).
But it IS weird that the way Israel is being demonized is worse than how S Africa was demonized
South Africa--which at least had defined borders--was heavily criticized for several years prior to the dismantling of apartheid. I haven't seen an equivalent level of mainstream criticism directed at Israel for their version of aprtheid. Can you point to some examples?
It is interesting and I think revealing that you're critical of the Likud scum, but make no mention of the Barak regime -- which, with the help of Clinton, formulated the Oslo bantustan/"generous offer" -- or the rest of the Israeli social-economic set-up. For someone obviously set upon defending Israel from fundamental criticism, as you are, this is the smart way of fulfilling your task, since anyone who defends Sharon and Netanyahu discredits themselves immediately. By conceding that S+N are bad, paradoxically, you strengthen the Israeli position in the eyes of those who don't really understand the conflict. But, I don't need to be telling you that.
See, there's this thing called negotiation, and that involves offer, and counter-offer, and counter-counter-offer. Barak made _lots_ of offers at Camp David. Arafat made counter-offers. That's how it works.
Do you remember what Arafat's diplomatic counter-offer was to the last offer Barak made? No? It's because he didn't make one. (Unless you call the second intifada his counter-offer; that he _did_ make, and poll data suggests the majority of Palestinians now wish they hadn't gone along with it.)
Arafat's failure to continue negotiating means that you have to do one of two things. You can decide that Arafat's a bozo who yet again blew a fantastic opportunity, or else you have to sieze on the latest of Barak's many offers and treat it rhetorically as it it were THE ONE HOLY AND SANCTIFIED *O*F*F*E*R* rather than just another negotiating stage among many. Then you can use the flaws in that offer to declare, with the purest sour grapes, that the whole Oslo business was worthless from the start -- while what _made_ it worthless was that Arafat walked away from it to whip up the second intifada.
Who knows what Arafat would have gotten from Barak on the _next_ round of negotiations, if he hadn't decided to reach for the molotov cocktails instead? Who knows how many lives would have been saved?
"For someone obviously set upon defending Israel from fundamental criticism, as you are"
Ah, so now if I don't criticize Israel on the grounds _you_ decide, anything I say is irrelevant and I'm merely "set upon defending Israel from fundamental criticism"? Pardon me for neglecting to dance to your tune.
@%<
Saudi Police Minister Says Jews Were Behind Sept. 11 Attacks, According to Reports
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20021205_592.html
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Dec. 5 — The Saudi police minister has claimed Jews were behind the Sept. 11 attacks because they have benefited from subsequent criticism of Islam and Arabs, according to media reports.
Interior Minister Prince Nayef made the remarks in the Arabic-language Kuwaiti daily Assyasah last month. The latest edition of Ain al-Yaqeen, a weekly Internet magazine devoted to Saudi issues, posted the Assyasah interview and its own English translation.
"We know that the Jews have manipulated the Sept. 11 incidents and turned American public opinion against Arabs and Muslims," Prince Nayef was quoted as saying in the Arabic text, while Ain al Yaqeen's English version referred to "Zionists" instead of "Jews."
"We still ask ourselves: Who has benefited from Sept. 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks," Nayef was quoted as saying. Nayef's spokesman, Saud al-Musaibeeh, did not respond to repeated requests for confirmation the minister had been quoted accurately.
The Internet magazine's English translation of the comments began to attract attention in the United States just as the Saudis launched a new public relations campaign to address accusations the kingdom is soft on terrorism and inculcates extremist thought among its citizens.
"The Saudis are telling us that they are an ally in the war on terror while their top government officials are still blaming ... the Jews and denying that 15 Saudis took part in the attacks on New York and the Pentagon," Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said in Washington earlier this week.
"The Bush administration continually defends Saudi Arabia as a friend of the United States and a committed partner in the war on terror," Engel said. "Does this Saudi minister sound like a partner in the war on terror?"
Sen. Charles Schumer, also a New York Democrat, wrote this week in a letter to the Saudi ambassador to the United States that "the interior minister's comments only serve to confirm American suspicions about the Saudi government's commitment to the war on terror."
Nayef's remarks echoed rumors that have been heard in the Arab world since the attacks but this time they are attributed to the man in charge of Saudi investigations into the attacks.
The Saudi minister was quoted in the interview as saying his kingdom is currently detaining some 100 terror suspects for interrogation. He added that the suspects "will either apologize for their mistakes and change their course or will be referred to trial."
The United States has blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on al-Qaida terror network, whose chief, Osama bin Laden, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. It took Saudi Arabia five months after the attacks to acknowledge that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The Gulf kingdom, a close U.S. ally, has never officially held al-Qaida responsible for the attacks and usually refers to the hijackers as people "enticed and deluded" into committing their crimes.
Several statements attributed to bin Laden aired by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television claimed responsibility for the attacks. A statement attributed to al-Qaida's "political bureau" that appeared Monday on an Islamic web site listed the Sept. 11 attacks as among the successful operations carried out by the terrorist group against the United States.
In the interview, Nayef said he could not believe that bin Laden and his network, including Saudi participants, worked alone.
He was quoted as saying he believed terrorist networks have links to "foreign intelligence agencies that work against Arab and Muslim interests, chief among them is the Israeli Mossad."
**********
Now if it was not so sad as well as dangerous when told in these Muslim Loonies environment, we could have all shared a good laugh…
If I am not mistaken these are the guys whom 15 of their nationals were amongst the hijackers of the planes.
These are the same guys to have proposed this miraculous peace offer to the Israelis a few months ago, right? The peace plan that was so praised in this site…
” Israel was offered normal relations with the Arab world at the latest Arab League meeting. A two state solution was proposed by all the Arab countries along with peace and normal relations with Israel as long as Israel left the reaming 22% of Palestinian land to the Palestinians.”
A real generous offer, remind me later to comment about your math and the 22%…
But I personally would doubt any offer coming from these brilliant very well educated gentlemen, with such interesting theories.
Thank you, you can keep the recognition of the state of Israel for some time, to yourself, and let us talk again when you’ll grow up…
Just let Israel continue its ethnic cleansing and don't believe anything those "tricky" Arabs have to say, right? And we should keep paying for Israel's race war and conquest to the tune of five to twelve billion dollars a year as well, right?
Israel hoped that Arafat could fulfill his role as a neo-colonial administrator of a canton state, but he knew he'd live for about a second and half if he had accepted the humiliating terms Clinton and your man Barak laid down. Arafat didn't go into the Oslo process to skip out -- as a corrupt capitalist with waning support he wanted more than anything to codify some gains that he could "bring home" and preside over, but it was clear that wasn't in the offing. For you--as a defender of the Barak regime which massively accelerated the pace of settlements to name one of many crimes commited by his gov't -- to act as if his opting out was "unfortunate for the Palestineans" (not your words, but the jest of them) is gross and characteristic of the sanctimonious dishonesty that makes apologists like you so detestable.
I gotta go but the following by Norman Finklestein is relevant here.
Israel's settlement policy in the Occupied Territories the past decade points up the real content of the "peace process" set in motion at Oslo. The details are spelled out in an exhaustive study by B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) entitled Land Grab. (40) Due primarily to massive Israeli government subsidies, the Jewish settler population increased from 250,000 to 380,000 during the Oslo years, with settler activity proceeding at a brisker pace under the tenure of Labor's Ehud Barak than Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu. Illegal under international law and built on land illegally seized from Palestinians, these settlements now incorporate nearly half the land surface of the West Bank. For all practical purposes they have been annexed to Israel (Israeli law extends not only to Israeli but also non-Israeli Jews residing in the settlements) and are off-limits to Palestinians without special authorization. Fragmenting the West Bank into disconnected and unviable enclaves, they have impeded meaningful Palestinian development. In parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem the only available land for building lies in areas under Israeli jurisdiction, while the water consumption of the 5,000 Jewish settlers in the Jordan Valley is equivalent to 75% of the water consumption of the entire two million Palestinians inhabitants of the West Bank. Not even one Jewish settlement was dismantled during the Oslo years, while the number of new housing units in the settlements increased by more than 50 percent (excluding East Jerusalem); again, the biggest spurt of new housing starts occurred not under Netanyahu's tenure but rather under Barak's, in the year 2000 - exactly when Barak claims to have "left no stone unturned" in his quest for peace.
"Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two different systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality," the B'Tselem study concludes. "This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa."
During the first 18 months of Sharon's term of office, fully 44 new settlements - rebuked by the UN Commission Human Rights as "incendiary and provocative" - were established. (41) As settlements multiply, Israel is corralling West Bank Palestinians into eight fragments of territory each surrounded by barbed wire with a permit required to move or trade between them (trucks must load and unload on the borders "back-to-back"), thereby further devastating an economy in which unemployment already stands above 70 percent in some areas, half the population lives below the poverty line of $2 per day, and one-fifth of children under five suffer from malnutrition largely caused - according to a USAID report - by transport blockages. "What is truly appalling," a Haaretz writer lamented, "is the blasé way in which the story has been received and handled by the mass media….Where is the public outcry against this attempt to divide the territories and enforce internal passports … [and] humiliate and inconvenience a population that can scarcely earn a living or live a life as it is?" (42)
After seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations and a succession of new interim agreements that managed to rob the Palestinians of the few crumbs thrown from the master's table at Oslo, (43) the moment of truth arrived at Camp David in July 2000. President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak delivered Arafat the ultimatum of formally acquiescing in a Bantustan or bearing full responsibility for the collapse of the "peace process." Arafat refused, however, to budge from the international consensus for resolving the conflict. According to Robert Malley, a key American negotiator at Camp David, Arafat continued to hold out for a "Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 borders, living alongside Israel," yet also "accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlements, though [he] insisted on a one for one swap of land of 'equal size and value'" - that is, the "minor" and "mutual" border adjustments of the original US position on Resolution 242. Malley's rendering of the Palestinian proposal at Camp David - an offer that was widely dismissed but rarely reported - deserves full quotation: "a state of Israel incorporating some land captured in 1967 and including a very large majority of its settlers, the largest Jewish Jerusalem in the city's history, preservation of Israel's demographic balance between Jews and Arabs; security guaranteed by a US-led international presence." On the other hand, contrary to the myth spun by Barak-Clinton as well as a compliant media, "Barak offered the trappings of Palestinian sovereignty," a special adviser at the British Foreign Office observed, "while perpetuating the subjugation of the Palestinians." Although accounts of the Barak proposal significantly differ, all knowledgeable observers concur that it "would have meant that territory annexed by Israel would encroach deep inside the Palestinian state" (Malley), dividing the West Bank into multiple, disconnected enclaves, and offering land swaps that were of neither equal size nor equal value. (44)
Consider in this regard Israel's reaction to the March 2002 Saudi peace plan. Crown Prince Abdullah proposed, and all 21 other members of the Arab League approved, a plan making concessions that actually went beyond the international consensus. In exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal, it offered not only full recognition but "normal relations with Israel," and called not for the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees but rather only a "just solution" to the refugee problem. A Haaretz commentator noted that the Saudi plan was "surprisingly similar to what Barak claims to have proposed two years ago" at Camp David. Were Israel truly committed to a comprehensive withdrawal in exchange for normalization with the Arab world, the Saudi plan and its unanimous endorsement by the Arab League summit ought to have been met with euphoria. In fact, after an ephemeral interlude of evasion and silence, it was quickly deposited in Orwell's memory hole. (45) Nonetheless, Barak's - and Clinton's - fraud that Palestinians at Camp David rejected a maximally generous Israeli offer provided crucial moral cover for the horrors that ensued.
Learning from the Nazi holocaust
In September 2000, Palestinians embarked on a second intifada against Israeli rule. In the "warped thinking" of Israelis since Oslo, Haaretz journalist Amira Hass wrote soon after the renewed resistance, "the Palestinians would accept a situation of coexistence in which they were on an unequal footing vis-à-vis the Israelis and in which they were ranked as persons who were entitled to less, much less, than the Jews. However, in the end the Palestinians were not willing to live with this arrangement. The new intifada…is a final attempt to thrust a mirror in the face of Israelis and to tell them: `Take a good look at yourselves and see how racist you have become.'" Meanwhile Israel, having failed in the carrot policy it initiated at Oslo, reached for the big stick. Two preconditions had to be met, however, before Israel could bring to bear its overwhelming military superiority: a "green light" from the U.S. and a sufficient pretext. Already in summer 2001, the authoritative Jane's Information Group reported that Israel had completed planning for a massive and bloody invasion of the Occupied Territories. But the US vetoed the plan and Europe made equally plain its opposition. After 11 September, however, the US came on board. Sharon's goal of crushing the Palestinians basically fit in with the US administration's goal of exploiting the World Trade Center atrocity to eliminate the last remnants of Arab resistance to total US domination - or, in Robert Fisk's succinct formulation, "to bring the Arabs back under our firm control, to ensure their loyalty." Through sheer exertion of will and despite a monumentally corrupt leadership, Palestinians have proven to be the most resilient and recalcitrant popular force in the Arab world. Bringing them to their knees would deal a devastating psychological blow throughout the region. (46)
With a green light from the US, all Israel now needed was the pretext. Predictably it escalated the assassinations of Palestinian leaders following each lull in Palestinian terrorist attacks. "After the destruction of the houses in Rafah and Jerusalem, the Palestinians continued to act with restraint," Shulamit Aloni of Israel's Meretz party observed. "Sharon and his army minister, apparently fearing that they would have to return to the negotiating table, decided to do something and they liquidated Raed Karmi. They knew that there would be a response, and that we would pay the price in the blood of citizens." (47) In fact, it was plainly the case that Israel desperately sought this sanguinary response. Once the Palestinian terrorist attacks crossed the desired threshold, Sharon was able to declare war and proceed to annihilate the basically defenseless civilian Palestinian population.
Only the willfully blind could miss noticing that Israel's March-April invasion of the West Bank, "Operation Defensive Shield," was largely a replay of the June 1982 invasion of Lebanon. To crush the Palestinians' goal of an independent state alongside Israel - the PLO's "peace offensive" - Israel laid plans in September 1981 to invade Lebanon. In order to launch the invasion, however, it needed the green light from the Reagan administration and a pretext. Much to its chagrin and despite multiple provocations, Israel was unable to elicit a Palestinian attack on its northern border. It accordingly escalated the air assaults on southern Lebanon and after a particularly murderous attack that left two hundred civilians dead (including 60 occupants of a Palestinian children's hospital), the PLO finally retaliated, killing one Israeli. With the pretext in hand and a green light now forthcoming from the Reagan administration, Israel invaded. Using the same slogan of "rooting out Palestinian terror," Israel proceeded to massacre a defenseless population, killing some 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese between June and September 1982, almost all civilians. One might note by comparison that, as of May 2002, the official Israeli figure for Jews "who gave their lives for the creation and security of the Jewish State" - that is, the total number of Jews who perished in (mostly) wartime combat or in terrorist attacks from the dawn of the Zionist movement 120 years ago until the present day - comes to 21,182. (48)
To repress Palestinian resistance, a senior Israeli officer in early 2002 urged the army to "analyze and internalize the lessons of…how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto." Judging by Israeli carnage in the West Bank culminating in Operation Defensive Shield - the targeting of Palestinian ambulances and medical personnel, the targeting of journalists, the killing of Palestinian children "for sport" (Chris Hedges, New York Times former Cairo bureau chief), the rounding up, handcuffing and blindfolding of all Palestinian males between the ages of 15 and 50, and affixing of numbers on their wrists, the indiscriminate torture of Palestinian detainees, the denial of food, water, electricity, and medical assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, the indiscriminate air assaults on Palestinian neighborhoods, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes with the occupants huddled inside - it appears that the Israeli army followed the officer's advice. When the operation, supported by fully 90 percent of Israelis, was finally over, 500 Palestinians were dead and 1500 wounded. (49)
A Human Rights Watch investigation of the Israeli attack on Jenin refugee camp in April 2002 found that "Israeli forces committed serious violations of humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes." Some 4,000 Palestinians, more than a quarter of the camp's population, were rendered homeless in "destruction [that] extended well beyond any conceivable purpose of gaining access to fighters, and was vastly disproportionate to the military objectives pursued." Typical of the Israeli atrocities HRW documented in Jenin were these: a "thirty-seven-year-old paralyzed man was killed when the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] bulldozed his home on top of him, refusing to allow his relatives the time to remove him from the home"; a "fifty-seven-year-old wheelchair-bound man…was shot and run over by a tank on a major road outside the camp…even though he had a white flag attached to his wheelchair"; "IDF soldiers forced a sixty-five-year-old woman to stand on a rooftop in front of an IDF position in the middle of a helicopter battle." A senior HRW researcher further observed that what happened at Jenin was "not so different from any of the attacks" during Operation Defensive Shield, with Nablus and Ramallah suffering worse depredations. (50)
To be sure, Ehud Barak did disapprove of Operation Defensive Shield. Sharon, he scolded, should have acted "more forcefully." In the meantime, dismissing criticism of Israeli atrocities as driven by anti-Semitism, Holocaust Industry CEO Elie Wiesel lent unconditional support to Israel - "Israel didn't do anything except it reacted.... Whatever Israel has done is the only thing that Israel could have done…. I don't think Israel is violating the human rights charter.… War has its own rules" - and went on to stress the "great pain and anguish" endured by Israeli soldiers as they did what "they have to do." Boasting that he "left them a football stadium," one of Wiesel's agonized Israeli soldiers operating a bulldozer in Jenin later recounted in an interview: "I wanted to destroy everything. I begged the officers…to let me knock it all down, from top to bottom. To level everything…. For three days, I just destroyed and destroyed…. I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew that they didn't mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down.…I had plenty of satisfaction. I really enjoyed it." A B'Tselem investigation found that, typically, "in the Ministry of Education, not only was the computer network taken, so were overhead projectors and video players. Other equipment, including televisions and file cabinets full of records, such as student transcripts, were simply destroyed…. Hard disks were taken from civil society organizations that had invested years of work and millions of dollars to compile this material." "It was simply unbelievable," one young Israeli conscript recalled, "people simply made an effort to both destroy and rob…. The sergeant major would bring a truck and load up. It was done openly." "The total picture," B'Tselem concluded, "is one of a vengeful assault on all symbols of Palestinian society and Palestinian identity. This is combined with what can only be described as hooliganism: the result of thousands of teenage boys and young men in uniform allowed to run wild in Palestinian cities with no accountability for their actions." Haaretz reported that Israeli soldiers occupying Ramallah "destroyed children's paintings" in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, and "urinated and defecated everywhere" in the building, even "managing to defecate into a photocopier" - no doubt with "great pain and anguish." (51)
In July 2002, Israel moved quickly to avert yet another political catastrophe. With assistance from European diplomats, militant Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, reached an accord to suspend all attacks inside Israel, perhaps paving the way for a return to the negotiating table. Just 90 minutes before it was to be announced, however, Israeli leaders - fully apprised of the imminent declaration - ordered an F-16 to drop a one-ton bomb on a densely-populated civilian neighborhood in Gaza, killing, alongside a Hamas leader, 11 children and five others, and injuring 140. Predictably, the declaration was scrapped and Palestinian terrorist attacks resumed with a vengeance. "What is the wisdom here?" a Meretz party leader asked the Knesset. "At the very moment that it appeared that we were on the brink of a chance for reaching something of a cease-fire, or diplomatic activity, we always go back to this experience - just when there is a period of calm, we liquidate." Yet, having headed off another dastardly Palestinian "peace offensive," the murderous assault made perfect sense. Small wonder Sharon hailed it as "one of our greatest successes." (52) Scoring still another major political victory the next month, the Israeli government blocked Israeli peace activists from linking up with 700 of their Palestinian counterparts in Bethlehem. Reporting from Bethlehem, Amira Hass observed that many Palestinians were endeavoring to "open a pubic debate aimed at reducing Palestinian support for attacks inside Israel, without waiting for a change in Israeli policy." The joint demonstration, she continued, "was an example of that type of effort. It was an effort that failed, foiled by the Israeli authorities." (53)
The Oslo process was premised on finding a credible Palestinian leadership to cloak Israeli apartheid: a Nelson Mandela to act the part of a Chief Buthelezi. (54) Camp David signaled the defeat of this strategy: Arafat refused - or, due to popular resistance, wasn't able - to play the assigned role.....
That is absolutely correct. Many people don't realize the reason Israel is so insistent on killing Arafat or at least deporting him is because -- in their view -- he did not effectively take on that role as colonial administrator. His PA did kill some Palestinian protestors but they did not go nearly far enough as Israel would have wanted. Before he and his PA were attacked by Israel last May, Palestinians referred to him as "Qarafat" -- which pretty much means crap. He was hated but now after nearly being killed probably not so much anymore.
BTW, thanks for the article by Finkelstein. He is very courageous for his stand which got him fired from at least one university.
I've never claimed to be disinterested, Aaron, nor do I recall ever having claimed to be smart. But I do call 'em as I see 'em, and manage to do so without relying on huge slabs of other people's words to make my point for me. Nor, you'll notice, do I jam words in your mouth claiming that you are, say, a "shameless defender of Palestinian suicide bombings of innocent Israeli civilians."
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look. you seem like your intelligent, that's why it's especially irritating that you deploy your brains on the behalf of such a shady enterprise. this ain't junior league here. if you can't substantiate your claims or refute those made by others -- in whatever forms they may appear -- then perhaps you should reassess your political commitments.
when I was at university the zionists on campus were articulate, but essentially dishonest, having been coached in the art of deception. that may strike you as hyperbolic, but it's my experience, and confirmed by the above link on "propaganda scoring". what are your political affiliations Gehrig?
per your intimation that I support terrorism: complete bullshit. I am morally opposed to terror against civilians. I also am aware that terror actions are Sharon and Netanyahu's best friend, given that it helps mobilize greater support for their grand plans of more and more dispossession, expulsion, and murder. Indeed, Hamas, it is known, was fostered early on by the Israeli state as a wedge against the PLO -- which was relentlessly stonewalled (until it was sufficiently weakened to be considered the ideal vehicle for a humiliating codification of defeat). Hamas and like groups also serve to alienate potential support for the Palestinean cause -- also a boon to Jewish supremacists.
Pardon me for drawing upon "slabs" of others' work, but the following is relevant:
Saturday, 24 February 2001 11:28 (ET)
ISRAEL GAVE MAJOR AID TO HAMAS
By RICHARD SALE, Terrorism Correspondent
NEW YORK, Feb. 24 (UPI) --
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas recently described it as "the deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face." Active in Gaza and the West Bank Hamas wants to liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism.
But Sharon had left something out. Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.
Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO”, said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies. Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative”, said a former senior CIA official.
According to documents obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) by UPI, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies.
After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many of whom were living on the edge.
"Social influence grew into political influence," first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movements spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma Al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work.
Funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran. What took Israeli leaders by surprise was the way the Islamic movements began to surge after the Iranian revolution, after armed resistance to Israel sprang up in southern Lebanon organized by an Iran-backed movement called Hezbollah that bore similitaries to Hamas, these sources said.
"Nothing stirs up the energy for imitation as much as success," commented one administration expert. A further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its base of operations to Beirut in the 1980s, leaving the Islamic movements to strengthen their influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court of last resort," he said. When the intifada began, the Israeli leadership was further surprised when Islamic groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas immediately grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the doctrine of armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced and Islamic groups had not been subjected to suppression the way groups like Fatah had been, according to U.S. government officials.
But with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the birth of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to gain strength in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on terror to resist the Israeli occupation. Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One US intelligence source who asked not to be named, said that not only was Hamas being funded as a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had a more devious purpose: "to help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists."
In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were dangerous > hardliners," the official said. In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot. Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing to acknowledge its very existence.
Even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official.
"Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said. All of which is viewed with disapproval by some former U.S. intelligence officials. "The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try to be too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro. Former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson told UPI: "The Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. They are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it."
Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the waters," he said. "It gives weight to President George W Bush's remark about there being a crisis in education." Cordesman said that a similar attempt by Egyptian intelligence to fund Egypt's fundamentalists had also come to grief because of over complication.
An Israeli Embassy defense official, asked if Israel had given aid to Hamas replied: "I am not able to answer that question. I was in Lebanon commanding a unit at the time, besides it is not my field of interest." Asked to confirm a report by U.S. officials that Brigadier General Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials that he had helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists," the Israeli official said he could confirm only that he believed that Segev had served back in 1986. The Israeli Embassy press office referred UPI to its Web site.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International. > All rights reserved.
Ah, I have gone over to The Dark Side. There are only white hats and black hats, and anyone who points out the significant difference between Sharon and Barak is ipso facto Black hat. These aren't the droids you want; move along.
"this ain't junior league here."
Then maybe you should your game on. And one of the ways you can start is by refusing to simply parrot the party line, right down to the word "bantustan," on what happened at Camp David, and the offer that you must now treat as the O*N*E T*R*U*E O*F*F*E*R rather than just another stage in negotiations.
And, like it or not, the simple fact is, Arafat made no counter-offer to Barak. Instead he cranked up the second intifada. In doing so, he sent Israel a very direct message: "When I say peace, I mean peace _and_ belt bombs."
If you can document Arafat's counteroffer at Camp David, I'd be much obliged. If not, then you're stuck having to explain why, in the middle of deep and serious negotiations, Arafat went figuratively ballistic, and you'll have to explain how that was anything other than a complete and abysmal failure on his part.
"if you can't substantiate your claims or refute those made by others -- in whatever forms they may appear -- then perhaps you should reassess your political commitments."
Perhaps you'd like to begin by telling us what Arafat's counter-offer was? Or will you recognize that you can't, and either (a) try to rewind the conversation back to the flaws in Barak's offer, or (b) try to change the topic completely with your latest slab of cut-and-paste, as you do below? Remember, this isn't Junior League.
" when I was at university the zionists on campus were articulate, but essentially dishonest, having been coached in the art of deception."
Do you twirl your mustache when you say that?
"that may strike you as hyperbolic,"
No, just hysterically self-righteous.
"but it's my experience, and confirmed by the above link on "propaganda scoring".
And my experience is that Zionists aren't interchangeable cogs, and that there are those who are gleeful hardline propagandists and there are those who join Peace Now and have discussion/encounter groups with Palestinians and who think there's nothing wrong with Sharon that couldn't be cured by a falling piano. You're attempting to put everybody into the same shoebox, and my _extensive_ experience with campus Zionists of all flavors, decades of it, from Tagar to Progressive Zionist Caucus, says it's simply impossible to do so -- and makes me wonder how extensive your experience is if _you_ think it's possible to put them all in that little bitty box.
But then, you think Sharon and Barak are similar too. They're both Black Hats, and that's all you need to know. Those Zionists -- they're all alike; just assume they're all Sharon groupies and that way you won't be disappointed.
"what are your political affiliations Gehrig? "
Pro-labor Democrat. If I were an Israeli, I'd vote Labor. I'm also -- since presumably this is what you're _really_ asking -- a paid disinformation agent of the Mossad, as channeled through my local canasta club, for which I'm ostensibly being paid to cater the potato chips.
Now, on the Hamas stuff. The article you posted does a pretty good job pointing out how Hamas changed after the resurgence of hard-line fundamentalism after the fall of the Shah of Iran. The Hamas of the late 70s wasn't the same organization now slapping its beltbombs onto whatever teenager they can talk into "martyrdom." That came later. Did Israel want an alternative to Arafat's PLO? Given that the PLO charter at the time called for the explicit destruction of Israel, and explicitly refused all forms of negotation with Zionists that didn't involve killing them, and given that Arafat _knew_ he was going to be "stonewalled" as long as his stated goal was the destruction of Israel -- imagine, those wicked Israelis, "stonewalling" some poor fool only because he'd pledged his life to destroying Israel -- it's no surprise that Israel wanted to build an alternative.
" per your intimation that I support terrorism"
Beg your pardon, reread what I wrote. I was saying that I wasn't going to stoop to the same kind of rhetoric you do.
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That's the real reason that the "generous offer" bit got started; Barak's latest proposal really _had_ made a great leap in land area compared to the previous iteration, yet _that_ is the point at which Arafat so inexplicably walked away. To the astonishment of the US and Israel. Arafat _was_ making progress, considerable progress, but decided to push his luck by bringing extra pressure on Israel by supporting the second intifada -- which, as we know now, was a disastrous decision diplomatically, and a disastrous decision pragmatically.
_That's_ the head-scratcher, folks -- Arafat was getting some major changes from Israel, and chose _even then_ to torpedo the whole thing.
So don't try to counter one form of the "final offer" myth (that Israel had offered the moon, the sun, and the stars) with another form of the "final offer" myth (that Israel was stonewalling).
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