By Dr. Elias Akleh
When I was young I perceived the Zionist Israelis to be the Palestinians, and my, only enemy. The Zionist terrorist gangs had forcefully occupied my country, razed about 400 Palestinian towns, perpetrated many massacres against their Palestinian residents, and evicted many hundreds of thousands others out of the country into refugee camps. Among them was my family, whose property; home and ranch planted with citrus and olive trees and vineyards, were seized by Israeli terrorists.
Researching deep in the history and nature of the Arab/Israeli conflict, watching the unfoldment of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence against the savage Israeli oppression and territorial expansion, and examining the Western political policies towards the conflict I came to a new different realization. Israelis, themselves, are as victims as the Palestinians although to a very lesser extents. Those Israelis are being misguided, mass-brainwashed, and militarily driven by deliberately distorted and misinterpreted theology, political Rabbis, and Western Zionist imperialist powers to execute the colonial Zionist project of establishing Greater Israel in the heart of the Middle East.
It has become obvious to all, by now, that Israel could not have been created nor could it continue to exist as a viable state without the assistance of the West especially the USA. Israel is a military subsidiary of the US; a forward-deployed American military base in the Middle East, who is totally dependent on American funds. Since its creation, 63 years ago, Israel received more American tax money,
$3 Trillions as reported by Army War College in 2003, than any other country on earth. This money is used to cover the expenses of hoarding to Israel, housing, re-socializing, and absorbing every Zionist Jewish immigrant. It subsidizes homes for every Israeli citizen. It pays for free education of every Israeli child from elementary school until university graduation. It is used to create industries and jobs in Israel. It pays for complete medical coverage and for hefty monthly social security payment for every Israeli senior citizen. Even during the current economic crisis, when American tax-paying citizens are losing their jobs, losing their homes, the majority are without medical benefits, their educational system is facing severe budget cuts, with high rate of unemployment and many middle-class families are on the verge of poverty, their tax money is still generously transferred to subsidize Israelis’ relatively comfort living. Without the financial, technological, military, and political support of the successive American Administrations Israel would not have been created and would immediately collapse.
Successive American Administrations, since President Woodrow Wilson up to President Barak Obama, are the real enemy of the Palestinians.
Arming and supporting Israel unconditionally, while fighting and undermining in every way possible the Palestinian legitimate struggle for freedom, self-determination and statehood had been a core principle in the American foreign policy. Despite the American Administration’s claims to be an honest broker in the already 20 years old Palestinian/Israeli peace negotiations, and despite their claimed support for the two states solution we are witnessing only more Israeli expansions and more encroachments of fully armed aggressive fundamentalist extremists Israeli settlers on Palestinian towns. American Administrations have never been the honest broker they claimed to be, rather an Israeli full partner in occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
Enumerating all the actions of the American Administrations detrimental to Palestinians would require volumes. For the purpose of this article I will mention just few.
During WWI Great Britain was losing the war to Germany and was considering a German peace offer. An agreement (October 1916 London Agreement) was struck between Great Britain and World Zionist Organization (WZO) according to which Britain promised the Zionists to turn over Palestine to them as a reward if getting the US in the war as a British ally against Germany. Although the German Emancipation Edict of 1822 gave Jewish refugees equal civil rights as German citizens, the London Agreement had transformed German Jews from pro-German to pro-British. Encouraged by the London Agreement, and in partnership with WZO, American President Woodrow Wilson declared war against Germany in April 2nd 1917 under the false claim that German submarines had sunk the S.S. Sussex ship. It was later discovered that the Sussex was never attacked (see Francis Neilson’s book “Makers of War” pp 149-150). Rewarding the WZO Belfour Declaration was issued promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
In WWII the British was losing the war against Germany, again, and seems to lose grip over its Middle Eastern colonies especially Palestine. President Franklin Roosevelt came to the rescue. Needing a good excuse to break his pledge to the American people not to enter WWII President Roosevelt provoked Japan, a German ally, to attack Pearl Harbor (refer to diaries of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of Defense under Roosevelt, in Yale University Library). Roosevelt informed the Japanese that they could not purchase any more American steel or oil, the Japanese were heavily dependent on to continue their war against China. (refer to “Backdoor to War”, published by Henry Regnery of Chicago in 1952 written by Professor Charles Callan Tansill, professor of diplomatic history at Georgetown University). Roosevelt sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans so that Britain can keep Palestine as its colony and can fulfill its promise to WZO.
In a bargain with WZO President Harry Truman hastened, despite the opposition of his Secretary of State, George Marshall and the warnings of his Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, to recognize the Zionist terrorist state of Israel eleven minutes after its declaration in Tel Aviv at midnight of May 14th 1948, a state established by 600 thousand alien professionally armed terrorist groups into Palestine after the massacre and expulsion of its indigenous rightful owners into refugee camps in exile. Truman also compelled the UN to admit Israel as a peace-loving state, and provided billions of US taxpayers money to make Israel very powerful militarily. (Eliahu Epstein, the US representative of the Jewish Agency in Washington in 1948, told the story in a three page article in the June 1958 issue of the Jewish Chronicle of London). In return the WZO helped Truman win his 1948 election despite 20 to 1 odds against him, to serve as a president for a second term.
Sponsoring Joint Resolution by Congress H J Res. 117 on January 5th 1950, that was then refined by Congress to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, President Dwight Eisenhower sent 14,000 troops to occupy Lebanon, and shipped the US Sixth Fleet to station off the coast of Lebanon threatening the increasingly restless Arab nations not to make any move against the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.
President John F. Kennedy, like his predecessors, provided Israel with all kinds of support and even went further pledging to protect Israel even if it meant sending American troops to the Middle East. Yet when he stepped out of line by opposing Israel’s development of nuclear weapons and insisted on close inspection of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant he was assassinated.
President Lyndon Johnson gave Israel an estimated $32 Billion in financial aid and sophisticated military weapons on the expense of the American taxpayers so that Israel could wage the Six Days War on June 1967 against Arab countries. Risking military confrontation and war against the Soviet fleet,
according to Robert McNamara, Johnson’s Secretary of Defense, Johnson sent the US Sixth Fleet to the Mediterranean to defend Israel during that war.
In 1969 President Richard Nixon struck a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that US would stop its inspection of Israel’s nuclear plant in Dimona and would turn a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons program as long as Israel did not go public with its program and does not test weapons openly. (“Israel and the Bomb” by Avner Cohen). Israeli nuclear weapon program was exposed on October 5th 1986 when the Sunday Times of London published an article in which Mordechai Vanunu, a former Dimona technician, provided a detailed look and pictures of Israel’s Dimona plant.
During the October 1973 War Israel was losing the war to Egypt and Syria. Known as
Operation Nickel Grass President Nixon immediately built aerial and sea bridges between the USA and Israel, through which an estimated 117,895 tons of military equipment, including fighter bombers, helicopters, armored vehicles, tanks, missiles and electronic equipments, worth $4 Billion were shipped to guarantee Israel’s victory. Nixon also allotted $2.2 Billion a year to Israel. Arab members of OPEC countered this American aid to Israel with oil embargo against the USA causing the 1973 crisis.
When the Israeli trained and armed proxy South Lebanon Army and Maronite Phalange militias failed to kick the PLO out of Lebanon Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6th 1982, but faced fierce resistance from PLO fighters. Under the guise of multinational peacekeeping force President Ronal Reagan sent American aircraft carriers USS New Jersey, USS John F. Kennedy, and USS Independence to Lebanon to provide intelligence and military assistance to Israel that led to PLO’s withdrawal from Lebanon. This assistance made US troops a legitimate target for resistance groups, who bombed the American barracks in Beirut on October 23rd 1983 killing 241 marines. The US withdrew from Lebanon in 1984.
President George H. Bush was busy with his “Desert Storm” war against Iraq. To obtain cooperation of Arab countries he pretended to restrict American funding to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian occupied territories, although he sent the same funding through the back door of economical aid. Although he granted Israel the entire military hardware surplus from Desert Storm he was made to lose second election for bringing the subject of Israeli settlements in the open.
President Clinton’s administration was able to isolate and control the PLO through signing the Oslo Accords on September 13th 1993. Allowing Arafat to establish the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah had helped only to cut the wings of the PLO by placing it under close Israeli scrutiny and virtual control. The Palestinian Preventive Security Service was established, trained, and used to control the Palestinian population, thus relieving the Israeli army from this task. Making itself the primary financial donor while restricting other fund resources to the PA the Clinton administration had pressured Arafat to give one concession after the other to Israel throughout the next seven years of futile peace negotiations until Arafat rejected what was claimed to be “Israel’s generous offer” at the 2000 Camp David Summit.
The administration of President George W. Bush had the most devastating effects on Palestinians. Bush forced Arafat to appoint the American/Israeli puppet Mahmoud Abbas as a prime minister. Not willing to give any more concession to Israel Arafat outlived his usage and thus was poisoned. After Arafat’s death on November 11th 2004 Abbas was helped into presidency through an orchestrated election in 2005. When Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election Abbas conspired with the Bush administration to topple Hamas government, but the attempt failed (
Gaza Bombshell by Vanity Fair), and the Palestinians became divided into West Bank and Gaza Strip.
President Bush had supported Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006. He created a direct airlift from US to Israel sending all kinds of weapons including the illegal cluster bombs.
Another direct airlift was created sending weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, to support Israel’s 2008/2009 war against Gaza Strip (operation Cast Lead). Bush had also sabotaged peace negotiations by sidetrack unworkable ideas such as George Mitchel’s report, Road Map, and Geneva Initiative.
Obama’s administration followed even tougher policies against the Palestinians and very aggressive defense of Israeli crimes. Through the threat of withdrawing American funds the administration kept their obedient puppet, Abbas, as president beyond his term.
Hillary Clinton stated: “… there is no alternative to him (Abbas)”. Abbas’ bid at the UN to recognize a Palestinian state, when in reality the UN had done so in 1947, was just an American/Israeli/PA game to strengthen Abbas’ leadership by portraying him as a national hero and to avoid any revolt against his corrupt rule similar to what happened in Tunisia and in Egypt. Abbas is
“the best Palestinian leader for Israel” as stated by Israeli Shimon Peres. Obama threatened to veto recognition of Palestinian state declaring that the only way to statehood is to go back to the futile peace negotiation. Negotiation is Abbas “first, second and third choice”.
Threatening Palestinians and Arab countries Obama took the opportunity, in his UN speech, to assert American strong commitment to Israel’s security:
“America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. Our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring. And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day”
Obama had totally ignored the issue of Palestinians own security, and the fact that the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative offered Israel recognition, security, and normal relationships with all Arab countries if Israel recognizes a Palestinian state within the 1967 border.
To express this commitment to Israel’s security Obama’s administration has
pledged to sell Israel (actually to gift on the expense of starving and unemployed American taxpayers) nuclear material as well as technology and other military equipment despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
All these successive administrations had strongly supported Israel despite the fact that Israelis had militarily attacked the US, spied on the US, and stole secret technologies from US and sold them to its adversaries.
Israelis attacked American targets starting with the 1954
Lavon Affair (Israeli code name
Operation Susannah “video”) in which Israeli terrorists planted bombs in a US diplomatic facility in Egypt leaving evidence behind to implicate Egyptians. In an act of war against the US, during the 1967 Six-Days-War Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats had deliberately and intentionally attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 and wounding 173 sailors. Read
the reports (point to “US interest” tab and click “USS Liberty”),
the findings of the Independent Commission, and watch
the documentary. The purpose of the attack was to accuse Egypt of sinking the USS Liberty so that the US would retaliate against Egypt. Many circumstantial evidences had surfaced implicating Israeli terrorists in the attack of 911, whose aim was to get the US wage war against Islamic countries.
It is a very well known fact that Israel has been spying on the US for a long time. Read the
many reports here. Besides the well known story of Israeli spy
Jonathan Pollard there is the story of the alleged Israeli art students selling cheap art work to government personnel. These students were members of Israeli intelligence and electronic surveillance intercept units. Almost 90% of American communications traffic is managed and manipulated by Comverse Technology an arm of the Israeli government. In order to comply with the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) AT&T and Verizon had employed the services of Narus Inc., a subsidiary of Comverse. In 2006 AT&T whistleblower technician Mark Klein exposed the company’s
secret tapping room spying on American citizens at its San Francisco Facilities.
Israel had stolen nuclear material from the US. The case of Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) referred to large quantities of weapons-grade uranium, 587 pound, that were missing from the Apollo plant in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. This was reported by Carl Duckett, then CIA deputy director in a 1981 interview on an ABC television program “Near Armageddon: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East. It was also mentioned in 1991 book “Dangerous Liaison” by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. Read also the General Accounting Office (
GAO) report, the newly unclassified
Comptroller General report, the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and further
here, and
here.
Many of the American-made advanced weapons and military technologies given to Israel have been reversed engineered and resold to American competitors and enemies such as South Africa, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and to any highest bidders. Read
Gordon Duff’s article and
article and
video of Phillip Giraldi, who is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer.
Although many Christian Americans are stupid enough to believe what their administrations and their political clergy tell them about Israel rather than using their own reasoning to realize the facts, there are many other Americans, whom I met, read and heard about, some are Jews themselves, are aware of the realities and sympathize with the Palestinian just cause.
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Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes harticles on the web in both English and Arabic.
Uprooted Palestinian
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 6:14PM
by Alaa Ashkar - IMEMC News
Friday October 14, 2011 12:02
