not something discussed in subud histories

Historian says US backed “efficacious terror”
in 1965 Indonesian massacre
John Braddock, WSWS via Global Research, Jul 7 2009

The US and British governments, supported by Australia, were deeply complicit in the murder of more than half a million alleged communist sympathisers in the wake of the 1965 Indonesian coup, a historian told an international conference in Singapore last month. Brad Simpson, an assistant history professor at Princeton and author of Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968, said the US and British governments did “everything in their power” to ensure that the Indonesian army would carry out the mass killings. The conference, entitled The 1965-1966 Indonesian Killings Revisited, held at the National University of Singapore from Jun 17-19, was a rare forum on the subject. The event, co-hosted by the university, the Asia Research Institute and the Australian Research Council, involved some 30 scholars from around the world.

Within Indonesia, the history of the political slaughter carried out between Oct and Dec 1965 has been suppressed for decades. The massacre of at least 500,000 people, the jailing without trial of about a million others, and the widespread use of torture and rape, ranks as one of the great crimes of the twentieth century. Despite the official secrecy surrounding the events, the consequences still reverberate within the country’s social and political life. The current ruling elite can trace its history back to the 1965 events. President Susil Bambang Yudhoyono, for instance, is a former general, while his father-in-law, Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, was an Australian-trained officer who led the killings in Central Java.

No such conference could be held in Indonesia, and most of the participants were non-Indonesian. Since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, tentative attempts to examine the coup have foundered on opposition from the military. A truth and reconciliation commission set up by parliament never got off the ground, and the Constitutional Court has now ruled it unlawful. School textbooks reflect the military propaganda, which maintains that the killings were part of a “patriotic campaign” against communism.

The Age interviewed two elderly survivors of the massacre, Sumini and Anwar Umar, who maintain a weekly vigil across the road from the president’s offices in Jakarta. Sumini, a former kindergarten teacher, was arrested, tortured and imprisoned for ten years for being a member of Gerwani, a women’s movement linked with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Anwar, who had been secretary-general of a civil servants union, spent 12 years in prison and was also tortured. Even after their eventual release, their identity papers were marked to show they were former political prisoners and they were unable to work.

The coup followed a period of sustained political upheaval after WW2. Following independence, Sukarno precariously balanced between the various demands of the ruling elites and widespread social unrest among workers and the poor. In 1957, foreign domination over the economy was shaken by a massive eruption of workers and peasants who seized or occupied factories, plantations, banks and ships. Sukarno ensured that the property was handed over to the army, which was sent to suppress the movement. Following further unrest in 1962, and again in early 1965, Sukarno brought the army commanders and PKI leadership into his cabinet. Washington was increasingly concerned at the PKI’s size and influence. In 1965, however, the PKI insisted on the “peaceful road” to socialism.

According to Simpson’s paper, Capitalists come back! The Political Economy of the 1965-1966 Killings, there was “a lot of evidence that the US was engaged in covert operations to provoke a clash between the army and the PKI to wipe them out.” Even at the height of the massacre, while harboring deep reservations about the military’s willingness to enact the sweeping political and economic changes Washington deemed necessary, US officials and their regional allies were “weighing the conditions under which they would resume assistance to Jakarta”.

In an interview with the Darwin-based Southeast Asian Times on Jun 7, Simpson said US and other Western officials viewed the mass killings as “efficacious terror”, an essential building block of the “quasi neo-liberal policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno’s ouster”. They viewed the wholesale annihilation of the PKI and its supporters as “an indispensable prerequisite to Indonesia’s reintegration into the regional political economy and international system, the ascendance of a military modernising regime and the crippling or overthrow of Sukarno”. Immediately after the coup, the US administration rushed to express political support for the Suharto regime. It provided covert monetary assistance to the Indonesian armed forces, while the CIA organised arms from Thailand. The US government also provided communications equipment, medicine and a range of other items, including shoes and uniforms. Simpson told the conference:

The United States was directly involved to the extent that they provided the Indonesian Armed Forces with assistance that they introduced to help facilitate the mass killings.

The British government also extended an emergency loan of £1m to Indonesia in late 1965 and promised not to attack Borneo if Indonesia withdrew soldiers engaged in a conflict with British-backed Malaysia, Simpson said. While he found “zero evidence” that the US government masterminded the coup itself, it is unlikely that the military plotters proceeded without assurances from the US and its allies. The full story of US involvement remains to be told. The pretext for the coup was the kidnapping and murder on Sep 30 of six generals, allegedly at the PKI’s instigation. Suharto swiftly rounded up the “rebels”, took control of the capital and launched his anti-communist pogrom, which was designed to exterminate every known member and supporter of the PKI, along with thousands of trade union members and ordinary workers, peasants and students. US diplomats and CIA officers, including the former US ambassador to Indonesia and Australia, Marshall Green, subsequently admitted working hand-in-glove with Suharto in carrying through the massacres. They personally provided the names of thousands of PKI members from CIA files for the death lists.

In another paper to the conference, David Jenkins, former foreign editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, said that the Australian, British and US embassies were aware of the mass killings, but did not raise a single protest to the systemic slaughter. All the embassies knew the PKI had not initiated the coup, but did nothing to protect the victims from the military. Archive documents released in Australia in 1999 proved that the Johnson administration in Washington was actively agitating for the formation of a military regime, and urging its embassy in Jakarta to co-ordinate closely with the army and insist that the generals act ruthlessly to crush the PKI. When, at the end of October, Washington determined that Suharto should establish a military government, it did so in close consultation with both the British and Australian governments.

Other conference speakers highlighted the significant role played by the Muslim organisations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah in the killings. These right-wing organisations, acting at the behest of and at times organised by the military, willingly participated in the eradication of workers and peasants who were seen as a threat to traditional landowners and vested religious interests. Historian Greg Fealy from the Australian National University cited instructions from NU leaders to its members exhorting them to physically eliminate all traces of communism. According to Fealy:

They made frequent references to terms such as menumpas (eradicate or annihilate), membersihkan (cleanse), mengganyang (crush), and mengikis habis (eliminate).

Muslim clerics played central roles in overseeing and directing the killings, and coordinated with military officers. The killings were notable for their gruesome character. Many victims were either beheaded, garrotted or had their throats slit with knives or machetes wielded by the Islamic militias. “It was done face-to-face,” Fealy said. Unlike the “mechanical” processes employed by the Nazis, or Pol Pot’s farms, the executions were “done by hand”.

US anthropologist Mark Woodward said that in Yogyakarta, leaders of Muhammadiyah, the dominant Islamic group in the area at the time, issued statements declaring the destruction of the Communist Party an individual religious obligation, not just a collective one. Katharine McGregor of the University of Melbourne said that following the killings, NU members touted their participation as “a form of patriotic service to the nation” and reminded Suharto’s New Order regime of the debt owed to the religious community. In 2000, President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was a senior member of NU, issued an apology to people affected by the violence and proposed to officially lift the ban on communism. The move met vehement opposition from senior NU members and the military. During a recent interview conducted by McGregor, NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi declined to comment on the role of NU in the 1965 violence, saying:

All that happened must be considered history and not opened up again, otherwise another civil war might occur.

ignored by the ‘mainstream press’

Obama’s Rollback Strategy (extract)
James Petras, Global Research, Jul 9 2009

The US’s roll-back of critical elected regimes to impose pliant clients has found further expression in the recent military coup in Honduras. The use of the high command in the Honduras military, and Washington’s long-standing ties with the local oligarchy who control the Congress and Supreme Court, facilitated the process and obviated the need for direct US intervention. Unlike in Haiti, where US marines intervened to oust Aristide only a decade ago, or in Venezuela, where the US openly backed the failed coup against Chavez in 2002, or more recently in Peru, where the US funded the botched coup against Morales in Sep 2008, the circumstances of US involvement in Honduras were more discreet, in order to allow for ‘pausible denial’. The ‘structural presence’ and motives of the US are readily identifiable. Historically the US has trained and socialized almost the entire Honduran officer corps and maintained deep penetration at all senior levels through daily consultation and common strategic planning. Through its military base in Honduras, the Pentagon’s military intelligence operatives maintain intimate contacts. Honduras has served as an important base for US military intervention in the region: In 1954 the successful US-backed coup against Guatemala’s Arbenz was launched from Honduras. In 1961 the US-orchestrated Cuban exile invasion of Cuba was launched from Honduras. From 1981-1989, the US financed and trained over 20,000 ‘Contra’ mercenaries in Honduras which comprised the army of death squads to attack the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. During the first seven years of the Chavez government, Honduran regimes were staunchly allied with Washington against Venezuela.

Obviously no military coups ever occurred or could occur against any US puppet regime in Honduras. The key to the shift in US policy toward Honduras occurred in 2007-2008 when the Zelaya decided to improved relations with Venezuela in order to secure generous petro-subsidies and foreign aid from Caracas. Subsequently Zelaya joined ‘Petro-Caribe’, a Venezuelan-organized Caribbean and Central American association to provide long-term, low-cost oil and gas to meet the energy needs of member countries. In more recent days, Zelaya joined ALBA, a regional integration organization sponsored by Chavez to promote greater trade and investment among its member countries in opposition to the US-promoted regional free trade pact, known as ALCA. Since Washington defined Venezuela as a threat and alternative to its hegemony in Latin America, Zelaya’s alignment with Chavez on economic issues and his criticism of US intervention turned him into a likely target for US coup planners eager to make Zelaya an example and concerned about their access to Honduran military bases as their traditional launching point for intervention in the region. Washington wrongly assumed that a coup in a small Central American ‘banana republic’ (indeed the original banana republic) would not provoke any major outcry. They believed that Central American ‘roll-back’ would serve as a warning to other independent-minded regimes in the Caribbean and Central American region of what awaits them if they align with Venezuela.

The mechanics of the coup are well-known and public: The Honduran military seized President Zelaya and ‘exiled’ him to Costa Rica; the oligarchs appointed one of their own in Congress as the interim ‘President’ while their colleagues in the Supreme Court provided bogus legality. Latin American governments from the left to the right condemned the coup and called for the re-instatement of the legally-elected President. Obama and Clinton, not willing to disown their clients, condemned unspecified ‘violence’ and called for ‘negotiations’ between the powerful usurpers and the weakened exile President, a clear recognition of the legitimate role of the Honduran generals as interlocutors. After the UNGA condemned the coup and, along with the OAS, demanded Zelaya’s re-instatement, Obama and Clinton finally condemned the ousting of Zelaya but they refused to call it a ‘coup’, which according to US legislation would have automatically led to a complete suspension of their annual $80m military and economic aid package to Honduras. While Zelaya met with all the Latin American heads of state, Obama and Clinton turned him over to a lesser functionary in order not to weaken their allies in the Honduran junta. All the countries in the OAS withdrew their Ambassadors except the US, whose embassy began to negotiate with the junta to see how they might salvage the situation in which both were increasingly isolated, especially in the face of Honduras’ expulsion from the OAS. Whether Zelaya eventually returns to office or whether the US-backed junta continues in office for an extended period of time, while Obama and Clinton sabotage his immediate return through prolonged negotiations, the key issue of the US-promoted ‘roll-back’ has been extremely costly diplomatically as well as politically.

The US-backed coup in Honduras demonstrates that unlike the 1980s, when Reagan invaded Grenada and Bush 41 invaded Panama, the situation and political profile of Latin America (and the rest of the world) has changed drastically. Back then the military and pro-US regimes in the region generally approved of US interventions and collaborated; a few protested mildly. Today the center-left and even rightist electoral regimes oppose military coups anywhere as a potential threat to their own futures. Equally important, the last thing the incumbent regimes want is bloody domestic unrest, stimulated by crude US imperial interventions. Finally, the capitalist classes in Latin America’s center-left countries want stability because they can shift the balance of power via elections (as in the recent cases in Panama, Argentina) and pro-US military regimes can upset their growing trade ties with China, the Middle East and Venezuela/Bolivia.

Honduras: “El negrito del batey”
cadejo4, Kos, Jul 8 2009

The situation involving racist comments by Enrique Ortez Colindres, foreign minister for the de facto regime sworn in following the Jun 28 military coup in Honduras, boiled over yesterday when the US ambassador to Honduras expressed his outrage over Ortez’ comments. Ortez has called Obama a “little black man” at least three times in public interviews since the coup. Following the US denunciation yesterday, he apologized on Honduran television and said he had written a letter of apology to Obama. A third quote by Ortez Colindres surfaced yesterday, made during an interview with a Honduran television station and cited in El Tiempo newspaper:

He negociado con maricones, prostitutas, con ñángaras, negros, blancos. Ese es mi trabajo, yo estudié eso. No tengo prejuicios raciales, me gusta el negrito del batey que está presidiendo los Estados Unidos.
I have negotiated with queers, prostitutes, leftists, blacks, whites. This is my job, I studied for it. I am not racially prejudiced. I like the little black sugar plantation worker who is president of the United States.

The US ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, responded in the strongest possible terms yesterday:

As the official and personal representative of the president of the United States of America, I convey my deep outrage about the unfortunate, disrespectful and racially insensitive comments by Mr. Enrique Ortez Colindres about President Barack Obama. Statements like this are deeply outrageous for the American people and for me personally. I am shocked by these comments, which I condemn in the strongest terms.

Llorens studiously avoided any recognition of Ortez as foreign minister for the de facto regime. In other press statements, Ortez Colindres has called Obama “a little black man who doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is” and “a little black man who doesn’t know anything about anything.” Hondurans opposed to the de facto regime have posted at least six videos of one of his comments to YouTube:

Q: Do you think the “gringos,” as you call them, would permit an invasion of Honduras promoted by Chavez?
A: They permit anything. The United States is no longer a defender of democracy. In the first place, the president of the republic, with all due respect to the little black man, doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is. We’re the ones who know where Washington is and we’re the ones who are obliged, as a small country, a democratic pygmy, to clarify the concepts for him and read to him, maybe in his language, what’s going on.

In his apology, Ortez said the comments were made before he had been officialy sworn in by the leader of the de facto regime, Roberto Micheletti. His comments were made Monday last week, the same day he was sworn in. Ortez said:

In the expression that’s been mentioned, I did not intend to be offensive in any way.

While ignored in the US press, his comments caused a firestorm throughout Latin America, where they seemed to confirm a prevailing impression of Honduras as a backwards country ruled by an overbearing elite business class and a corrupt military. The term negrito del batey refers to immigrant, Haitian sugar plantation workers in the Dominican Republic. Batey is a local word for worker barracks and housing. The term was popularized in Latin America thanks to a song, “El Negrito del Batey,” written for Dominican merengue artist Joseito Mateo in 1942. The song is about a sugar plantation worker who would rather go out dancing than work:

A mí me llaman el negrito del batey
Porque el trabajo para mí es un enemigo
El trabajar yo se lo dejo todo al buey
Porque el trabajo lo hizo Dios como castigo.
They call me the black boy from the batey
Because working is my enemy
I leave all working to the ox,
Because God made work as a punishment.

paid zionist trolls: now, it’s official

Thought-police is here
Rona Kuperboim, Ynet, Jul 10 2009

The Foreign Ministry unveiled a new plan this week: Paying talkbackers to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. A total of 600,000 shekels will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad. The Foreign Ministry intends to hire young people who speak at least one language and who study communication, political science, or law – or alternately, Israelis with military experience gained at units dealing with information analysis. Beyond the fact that these job requirements reveal a basic lack of understanding in respect to the dynamics of the online discourse, they are not too relevant either. An effective talkbacker does not need a law degree or military experience. He merely needs to care about the subject he writes about. The sad truth is that had Israeli citizens believed that their State is doing the right thing, they would have made sure to explain it out of their own accord. Without being paid.

Foreign Ministry officials are fighting what they see as a terrible and scary monster: the Palestinian public relations monster. Yet nothing can be done to defeat it, regardless of how many foolish inventions will be introduced and how many bright communication students will be hired. The reason is that good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved. Yet nonetheless, the Foreign Ministry wants to try to change the situation. And they have willing partners. “Where do I submit a CV?” wrote one respondent. “I’m fluent in several languages and I’m able to spew forth bullshit for hours on end.”

Any attempt to plant talkbacks online must fail. Especially if the State is behind it. Not only because it’s easy to identify responses made on behalf of someone, but also because it’s anti-democratic. When the Israel Electric Company or other companies do it, it’s annoying. Yet when the State does it, it’s dangerous. Imposters on behalf of the government are threatening free discourse even if they only wander through the virtual space. The Internet was meant to serve as an open platform for dialogue between people, rather than as a propaganda means.

Something worrisome is happening here lately. We see the accumulation of silencing attempts. The Nakba Law, the bill calling for a ban on protests outside the homes of politicians, Lieberman’s Loyalty Law, and the biometric information database. The free speech hunting season is on. Thankfully we have the Internet, and it enables us to identify processes, discuss them, warn about them, and join forces against them. We can assume that soon we’ll see the establishment of a website opposed to this new initiative, unless such site already exists. Perhaps even a group on Facebook. I wonder whether all its members will be Foreign Ministry agents, or whether it will also include some real people. This is not a police state: This is a thought-police state.

letting the fascists march proves it’s a democracy

Marzel, Ben-Gvir can march in Rahat
JPost, Jul 11 2009

Police will allow right-wing activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir to march in the Beduin town of Rahat along with a small group of supporters, Army Radio reported Friday. However, police said they would carefully define and approve the marchers’ route, a limitation the activists have opposed. Marzel and Ben-Gvir, along with MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), have announced their plans to stage ‘Jewish pride parades’ in 15 Arab towns. They have said that just as a gay pride parade is allowed in Jerusalem despite the sensitivity of the issue, so should their processions be authorized. Ben-Gvir said, referring to a previous parade held in March:

We will tour Rahat despite the threats, as we did in Umm el-Fahm. And we won’t let lawbreakers run the country. There has to be one rule for everyone. Freedom of expression and the right to march are not only for the people of the Open House and the far Left. We have the right to march and review the illegal construction in the cities and the towns and, of course, to hold marches with Israeli flags.

During the Umm el-Fahm march, rock-throwing and violent clashes with the town’s residents prompted riot police to respond with stun grenades and tear gas. Sixteen policemen were lightly wounded, including deputy police chief Insp.-Gen. Shahar Ayalon. Some 2,500 officers flooded the area, forming a human shield around the approximately 100 marchers and their leaders, Ben-Gvir and Marzel.

burroughs: we see the future through the binoculars of the people

more nonsense from egypt

Egypt arrests group it says plotted Suez attacks
Maggie Michael, AP, Jul 9 2009

Egyptian authorities arrested 25 people on suspicion of plotting attacks on oil pipelines and ships in the Suez Canal, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The group, which Egypt said had links to al-Qaida, was made up of two dozen Egyptians, most of them engineers and technicians, and their Palestinian leader. “They believe in takfiri and jihadi thought,” the ministry statement said, adding that the group planned to use explosives rigged with mobile phone-activated detonators against shipping in the Suez Canal, having learned about explosives from al-Qaida militants on jihadi Web sites, and that one of the suspects in the case crossed into the Gaza Strip to meet up with the Palestinian Army of Islam group, to receive instructions on attacking vital and important targets in Egypt. A group by that name did once operate in Gaza, but was later dismantled by Hamas. Also Thursday, a security official in northern Sinai said 700 kg of TNT destined for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip was found during a search of a storage area outside the city of el-Arish in the northern Sinai Peninsula. The official said no arrests were made.

haaretz interviews uzi arad

Power of deterrence
Ari Shavit, Haaretz, Jul 10 2009

You are short-tempered; you have fits of rage.
It’s true that I am short-tempered, but I lose patience because of the importance I attach to things. Because I am not cynical. It is important for me to have a high level of professionalism in the Prime Minister’s Office and for high standards to be the criterion. I am not a born elitist, but it is important to me that we have a government that sets criteria of superb achievement.
You are an advocate of brute force.
Me? Brute force? I thought I was actually sensitive. In national and international issues, force is also a language. But I do not like wars between Jews. I prefer to direct the brute force energies within me at the goyim.
You are a technocrat.
Maybe so. But there are technocrats and there are technocrats. The political party I supported as a youth was Rafi. The Rafi ethos was security activism: to get results. On a number of matters I also did things that were innovative and constituted breakthroughs. In any event, I am a proud technocrat. I always strive to do the best for my country.
Do you see any prospect that the conflict will come to an end in the coming years?
Regrettably, we have not so far been successful in bringing about Arab internalization of our right of existence. The Arab and Muslim refusal to recognize Israel’s legitimacy is sometimes suppressed and amorphous, at other times sharp and violent, but it is all-embracing. I have not yet encountered an Arab personage who is capable of saying quietly and clearly that he or she accepts Israel’s right of existence in the deep historical and conscious sense. Accordingly, it will be difficult to reach a true Israeli-Palestinian agreement that does away with the bulk of the conflict. I don’t see that in the coming years it will be possible to forge that different reality which so many Israelis want.
Will a Palestinian state be established on the watch manned by you and Netanyahu?
That is a different story. I don’t see among the Palestinians a process of truly drawing closer to acceptance of Israel and peace with Israel. I also do not see a Palestinian leadership or a Palestinian regime but a disorderly constellation of forces and factions. But possibly someone might come along and say I am an engineer of events; the depth doesn’t interest me – I am going to produce an event. And within three years – presto – four Annapolises, two disengagements, global pyrotechnics. And then suddenly, in 2015, there is a Palestinian state. Stamps, parades, carnival. That could happen. A fragile structure, yes; an arrangement resting wholly on wobbly foundations. But it could happen. There could be a Palestinian state.
What you are saying is that there will not be true peace, but there might be an American peace event with Hollywood trappings.
Everyone with eyes to see, sees that there is a failure of Palestinian leadership. There is no Palestinian Sadat. There is no Palestinian Mandela. Abu Mazen is not vulgar like Arafat and not militant and extreme like Hamas. There could be worse than him. But even in him I do not discern the interest or the will to arrive at the end of the conflict with Israel. On the contrary, he is preserving eternal grievances against us and intensifying them. After Olmert offers him almost everything, he says wide gaps remain. And then you reach the conclusion that there really is a receding horizon here; The more Israel moves toward the Palestinians, the more they move away. And they do that because even the moderates among them do not really want a settlement. At most, they are striving toward a settlement in order to renew the confrontation from a better position.
What you are saying is that there is no Palestinian partner for a true peace.
At the moment, there is no one on the map. There are no true peace leaders among the Palestinians. But I am not deterministic. I do not think this is part of the Palestinians’ genetic makeup. I want to believe that in the future a different type of leadership will arise. I hope that a Palestinian – woman or man – will emerge who is able to recognize that there is some justice on the Israeli side, too. Because, you know, in Israel there are so many who see the justice of the Palestinians’ cause and write about it and make a living from it. Read the paper you work for, for example. But true peace will come when Palestinians emerge who recognize there is also Israeli justice – that there is also a little Israeli justice. At the moment there are none.
Can peace with Syria be achieved during the Netanyahu government?
Here we have a different problem. The majority of Israel’s governments insisted that Israel would stay on the Golan Heights. That is also the position of the majority of the public and most MKs. The position is that, if there is a territorial compromise, it is one that still leaves Israel on the Golan Heights and deep into the Golan Heights.
From your point of view, is that the right position to take? That this must be the essence of a settlement – a compromise deep into the Golan Heights? That even in peace we must ensure that a large part of the Golan Heights remain in our hands?
Yes
Why?
For strategic, military and land-settlement reasons. Needs of water, wine and view.
So you say unequivocally: Peace yes, Golan no?
Correct.
What about the “deposit” of Yitzhak Rabin, in which he undertook to leave the Golan Heights?
There is no such thing. In 1996, Netanyahu asked Warren Christopher to have the deposit returned to Israel, and so it was. In his letter, Christopher pledged that the deposit was not valid.
What about the concessions made by Netanyahu himself in the negotiations he held with the first President Assad at the end of the 1990s?
Netanyahu’s position was that Israel should remain on the Golan Heights at a depth of a few miles. A few miles translates into a lot more kilometers. If you draw a line from Mount Hermon to Al Hama at a depth of a few miles, you will see this leaves a great deal of the Golan Heights, from the south to the north.
Is this still the position of the government today?
The government’s position is readiness to resume the negotiations with no prior conditions and with each side aware of the other’s position. The Syrians are certainly aware that the Netanyahu government and the majority of the public will not leave the Golan Heights.
Will the Americans accept that? Won’t they try to impose a different approach?
The impression is that there are deep differences between Israel and the United States. Israel is saying, first Iran, then Palestine, whereas the United States is saying, first Palestine, then Iran. Both cases need treatment. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and freeze one issue in order to deal with the other. From the Americans’ viewpoint, the achievement that is required in the Israeli-Arab dimension is the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The achievement required in the Iranian dimension is not to allow Iran nuclear capability that will enable it to produce nuclear weapons. When Israel says that it feels a more acute need to deal with the Iranian problem, it is right on three counts. First, because the urgency there is overriding; second, because if we succeed there, it will be easier here; and third, because if we do not succeed there, we will not succeed here. If Iran goes nuclear, everything that might be achieved with the Palestinians will be swept away in a tidal wave and go down the tubes overnight.
You have not been able to persuade the Americans of this. On the Palestinian question they have appointed a high-profile senior envoy who is engaging in intensive activity. But in regard to Iran, nothing is happening. As Washington sees it, Ramallah is more urgent than Tehran; the settlements are more dangerous than the centrifuges.
Dov Weisglass built the first stage of the Road Map well, but created catastrophes in the second and third stages. He did so because he was certain that the first stage was a dam in the face of the coming stages. But then came the disengagement which undermined the Road Map on the ground. And then Annapolis undermined the Road Map politically. Olmert and Livni acted contrary to Weisglass’s logic and jumped straight to the third stage. So what we had was a series of typical Israeli makeshift exercises. Every two years they came up with a move that completely contradicted the previous move. The result, of course, was the policy debacle that Netanyahu and I had warned against. The Netanyahu government inherited scorched earth from its predecessors.
Do you feel that as a result of Israeli mistakes, the international attitude toward Israel today is extremely unfair?
Completely unfair. I say this in English openly: “extremely unfair.” If you want to enforce the clauses of the Road Map, you have to enforce all of them. And security violations are more serious than building violations: Qassam rockets kill people, settlements do not. But I am a formalist. I am in favor of formalism. The thing is, that if they come to us and count every settlement, they have to apply the same indices and the same principles to the Palestinians. Anyone who does not do this is behaving unfairly, but he is also behaving unwisely. He is not advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace that he would like to see.
Maybe the real problem is the settlements have made Washington fed up with us. Maybe the problem is that Obama and Clinton have lingering issues concerning Netanyahu, hence their chilly behavior toward him. Isn’t the alliance between Rome and Jerusalem wobbly? Don’t you have the feeling that just as de Gaulle terminated a 15-year French alliance with Israel after the war in Algeria, Obama will terminate a 40-year American alliance with Israel after the war in Iraq?
Each of them has an interesting potential from our point of view. We must also strive to join NATO and to conclude a defense alliance with the United States. If there is an Israeli-Palestinian settlement that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, membership in NATO and a defense alliance with the United States should be part of the quid pro quo that Israel will receive.
There are some in Israel who fear such developments.
They fear the loss of Israeli freedom of action and that essential elements of deterrence will be put at risk. But I think that just as France and Britain possess capabilities even within the NATO framework, the same can be true in regard to Israel. Membership in NATO is a logical step and can provide us with a guarantee of mutual security and even add a layer to our deterrence if the Middle East goes nuclear. It is possible that membership in NATO or a defense alliance with the United States will be a condition of a regional settlement.
Your main front as national security adviser will be the danger of a nuclear Iran and a nuclear Middle East. But as far as we know, Iran has already crossed the point of nuclear no-return and has enough fissionable material to assemble a first nuclear bomb.
The point of nuclear no-return was defined as the point at which Iran has the ability to complete the cycle of nuclear fuel production on its own; the point at which it has all the elements to produce fissionable material without depending on outsiders. Iran is now there. I don’t know if it has mastered all the technologies, but it is more or less there. However, the term “no-return” is misleading. Even if Iran has fissionable material for one bomb, it is still at a low grade of enrichment. And if it wants to conduct a test, it will not have even one bomb. It follows that Iran is not yet nuclear and not yet operational. Serious obstacles still lie in the way. The international community still has enough time to make it stop of its own volition.
Still, looking back, we see a dramatic failure here. A red line was defined and Iran crossed it.
I told you that the Netanyahu government inherited scorched earth. That is true in any number of spheres. The tragic and heartbreaking story of Gilad Shalit is one example. It was not resolved in any way, shape or form. The same holds true for the Second Lebanon War and for Operation Cast Lead, which caused a great decline in our political status, particularly in Europe. Annapolis got us nowhere, nor did the disengagement. But most serious of all, by far most serious, is Iran’s progress toward nuclear capability. I am not saying that nothing was done. Things were done. But if at the end of the day it turns out that Iran is drawing closer to its goal, obviously not enough was done. And what was done was too late, too little and too feeble.
What you are actually saying is that the national leadership in Israel over the past six or seven years understood about Iran and talked about Iran but did not address the Iranian issue with the prioritization, intensiveness and concentration of forces needed?
That is exactly what I am saying. In one case, because the leadership scattered its efforts and resources instead of concentrating them. It preoccupied itself with other issues, such as the disengagement and Annapolis. In a second case, because it did not home in on the main issue – Iran. I will give you an example. Look at how many speeches were delivered here about a democratic Jewish state, democratic and Jewish. The subject was discussed until it was coming out of people’s ears. In contrast, look at how many moves were made to curb nuclear Iran by political and diplomatic means. There is no comparison between what the previous government devoted to the two issues. I want to tell you that Javier Solana racked up more kilometers traveling around the world to address the Iranian issue than the Israeli foreign minister did. Western statesmen did more to prevent Iran from going nuclear than their Israeli counterparts.
Are you contending that there was a monumental political failure here?
A gross failure. Between 2003 and 2007, it was far easier to contain Iran. The Iranian program was lagging behind. American power was more blatant. Various big powers were inclined to cooperate. Iran was more cautious and more vulnerable. But what preoccupied us in 2005? The disengagement. And what preoccupied us in 2007? Annapolis. We mobilized our national resources for empty moves. We wasted political assets on nothing. We talked about the red line of the point of nuclear no-return in Iran, but in practice we were committed only to the artificial red line that stipulated arbitrarily that there would be no more Jews in Gaza by the end of 2005. I tell you that if those mental resources and the determination and tenacity that were displayed in regard to the disengagement had been devoted to preventing Iran from reaching the point of nuclear no-return, Iran would not have got there.
And now that point is behind us?
Yes – in the technological sense, it has been crossed. I believe that in practice we will be able to block Iran. But the line that was termed a “red line” has been crossed.
Was there a policy eclipse here?
Certainly. The Winograd Committee exposed the functional eclipses in the Second Lebanon War. But even though it was a painful and costly event, the limited war of 2006 bore no historic significance. In regard to Iran, if history develops badly, the failure is liable to turn out to be of historic proportions. I am confident that Netanyahu will know how to cope with the harsh reality he inherited. He is the first Israeli leader to identify and understand in depth the Iranian threat. He is the first who did not talk about a publicity campaign or about military action but about applying levers of economic pressure. Contrary to others, he did not talk about moves involving force and did not issue threats. Netanyahu understands that Iran is the great challenge of this period. He is dealing with the challenge intelligently, responsibly and with the state’s interests uppermost.
Isn’t it too late? Isn’t it time to accept that Iran will be a nuclear power?
I am not at liberty to say what the government of Israel thinks. Nor will I tell you what the US administration thinks. But I will tell you the opinion of professionals from serious research institutes in the United States and Europe. The major fear among professional circles is that a nuclear Iran will burst the dams and cause nuclear proliferation in the region. According to these experts, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey have certain capabilities. Syria, Libya and Algeria have already tried. Therefore, if Iran goes nuclear, those countries will consider following suit. There is already evidence of this. Those who understand are aware how baseless is the argument that one can extrapolate from the reality of the Cold War to the reality in the Middle East. It is wrong to say that just as we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union and with a nuclear China, we will also be able to live with a nuclear Iran. The subject is not just a nuclear Iran; the subject is a multi-nuclear Middle East. A Middle East in which there are quite a few countries that resemble Pakistan. Serious experts who are not Israelis look at the Middle East and say that if Iran is nuclear in 2015, the Middle East will be nuclear in 2020. And a multi-nuclear Middle East is a nightmare. Five or six nuclear states in a jumpy and unstable region where the world’s energy resources are located will not create nuclear quiet but nuclear disquiet. A nuclear Middle East will be exactly like a pyramid that stands upside down.
It’s unlikely that the Iranians will stop after the dialogue that the Americans will perhaps hold with them in the months ahead. The probability of containment without pressure is low.
Unquestionably.
If so, three possibilities remain: them with the bomb, them getting bombed or a maritime blockade.
I hear about a maritime blockade from unofficial American analysts – no one enters or leaves. Iran is very much dependent on the importation of oil distillates and on the export of unrefined oil. So an effective blockade could threaten Iran with bankruptcy within months. In that case, Iran might yield. But it might also decide to challenge those who are cutting it off. From there the road to escalation is short.
So this scenario says that the only way to prevent Iran from getting the bomb is to impose a closure on the country.
Again I want to introduce a cautionary note: what I am saying here does not reflect official Israeli policy or American policy. But there are those in the West who believe that this is the way. The prospect is to confront the Iranian government with a dilemma: Going nuclear or flourishing, going nuclear or survival of the regime. If that will be the dilemma, Tehran might conclude that regime survival is more important than the nuclear project.
What will the West do if there is no maritime blockade or if there is one that fails? In that case, will there be any choice but to prevent the bomb by bombing Iran?
I was fascinated by Robert Oppenheimer, the Jew who created the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos. Another figure who riveted me was Henry Kissinger, one of the first nuclear strategists. But above all I was drawn to Herman Kahn, with whom I worked at the Hudson Institute. Kahn is the original Dr. Strangelove. He was a Jewish-American genius who was a salient nuclear hawk and dealt with the planning and feasibility of nuclear wars. Kahn was a towering figure. He was a beacon of intelligence, knowledge and pioneering thought. He combined conceptual productivity, humor and informality. He attracted a group of devotees of whom I was one in the 1970s. But he also had bitter rivals who criticized him for even conceiving of the idea of a nuclear war. In the Cold War it was precisely those who talked about defense and survival who were considered nuclear hawks. The doves talked about “mutually assured destruction,” which blocks any possibility of thinking about nuclear weapons. Like Kahn, I was one of the hawks. One of my projects was a paper for the Pentagon on planning a limited nuclear war in Central Europe. On the face of it, what is the point of this? Why execute the enemy after deterrence has failed? But according to Dror, it is important to ascertain that the deterrence will work, even if you yourself have been destroyed. He sees this as a contribution to the repair of the world. When we say “never again,” this entails three imperatives: never again will we be felled in mass numbers, never again will we be defenseless and never again will there be a situation in which those who harm us go unpunished.
Is the Holocaust relevant to our strategic thought in an era of a nuclear Middle East?
Look at the way memory guides people like Netanyahu, who refers time and again to the 1930s. Bernard Lewis also said a few years ago that he feels like he is in the late 1930s. What did he mean? On the one hand, an imminent threat, rapidly approaching, and on the other, complacency and conciliation and a cowering coveting of peace. When I visited Yad Vashem not long ago, I could not bear the psychological overload and left halfway through. I don’t think there is an Israeli or a Jew who can be insensitive to the Holocaust. It is a painful black hole in our consciousness.
When you look around today, what is your feeling? Are we alone?
We are always alone. Sometimes we have partners and lovers and donors of money, but no one is in our shoes. I still remember Roosevelt and all the wise and enlightened types of the American security hierarchy in the period of Auschwitz, and I have retained the lesson. In Jewish history and fate there is a dimension of unfairness toward us. We have already been alone once, and even the good and the enlightened did not protect us. Accordingly, we must not be militant, but we must entrench our defense and security prowess and act with wisdom and restraint and caution and sangfroid. Never again.

facts on the ground

Achieving two states without a solution
Jonathan Cook, National (Abu Dhabi), Jul 7 2009

Netanyahu has been much criticised in Israel, as well as abroad, for failing to present his own diplomatic initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to forestall US intervention. Netanyahu may have huffed and puffed before giving voice to the phrase “two states for two peoples” at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, but the contours of just such a Palestinian state, or states, have been emerging undisturbed for some time. In fact, Netanyahu appears every bit as committed as his predecessors to creating the facts of an Israeli-imposed two-state solution, one he and others in Israel’s leadership doubtless hope will eventually be adopted by the White House as the “pragmatic,” if far from ideal, option. While Israel has been buying yet more time with Washington in bickering over a paltry settlement freeze, it has been forging ahead with the process of creating two Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that despite supposedly emerging from occupation are in reality sinking ever deeper into chronic dependency on Israeli goodwill. This is creating a culture of absolute Israeli control and absolute Palestinian dependency, enforced by proxy Palestinian rulers acting as mini-dictatorships.

For a growing number of Palestinians, the conditions of bare subsistence and even survival are Israeli gifts that few can afford to spurn through political activity, let alone civil disobedience or armed resistance. The Palestinian will to organise and resist as their land is seized for settlements is being inexorably sapped. It is little mentioned but Israel all but abandoned completing its massive separation wall in the West Bank some time ago. There are significant gaps waiting to be filled, but, with things having grown so quiet and the cost of each kilometre of wall so high, the sense of political and military urgency has evaporated. Suicide bombers, had they the determination, could still slip into Israel. But increasingly Palestinians view such attacks as futile, if not counterproductive: Israel simply wins greater international sympathy and has the pretext to turn the screw yet tighter on Palestinian life. None of this has been lost on Israel’s leaders of either the so-called Left or Right. Rather than being an aberration in response to rocket attacks, the blockade of Gaza has become Israel’s template for Palestinian statehood. The West Bank is rapidly undergoing its own version of disengagement and besiegement, with similar predictable results.

Gaza’s blockade, and the savage battering it took in December and January, has suggested even to Netanyahu that the Israeli version of the carrot-and-stick approach works. The stick, a devastated Gaza unable to rise from the rubble because aid and basic goods are kept out, has transformed most of the population into a nation dependent on handouts, borrowing where possible to buy necessities smuggled through the tunnels, and concentrating on the lonely art of survival. As the normally restrained International Committee of the Red Cross reported last month:

Most of the very poor have exhausted their coping mechanisms. Many have no savings left. They have sold private belongings such as jewellery and furniture and started to sell productive assets including farm animals, land, fishing boats or cars used as taxis.

The carrot, if it can be called that, is directed towards Gaza’s leaders, Hamas, rather than its ordinary inhabitants. The message is simple: keep the rocket fire in check and we won’t attack again. We will allow you to rule over the remnants of Gaza.

In the West Bank, the carrot for the leadership is even more tantalisingly visible. The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is colluding in the creation of a series of mini-fiefdoms based on the main cities. Trained by the US military, Palestinian security forces with light weapons are taking back control of Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Qalqilya, Ramallah and so on, while the PA is encouraged by promises of economic charity to prop up its legitimacy. The leader of a Palestinian non-governmental organisation in Ramallah confided at the weekend that what is being created are “City Leagues,” a mocking reference to the Palestinian regional militias known as the Village Leagues, armed by Israel in the early 1980s to stamp out Palestinian nationalism by threatening and attacking local political activists. Those were a dismal failure; this time Palestinians are less sure Israel will not succeed. Palestinian prisons are starting to fill not only with those suspected of belonging to Hamas, but those who dissent from Fatah rule. The ground is being carefully tended by Israel to create a brutal client state.

The stick, as in Gaza, is directed at the ordinary population. The news headlines are of the easing of movement restrictions at the checkpoints. That may be true at a few places deep in the West Bank. But at the big checkpoints that separate Israel from what is left of the West Bank, such as the one at Qalandiya between Ramallah and Jerusalem, the monitoring of Palestinian movement is becoming fearsomely sophisticated. These checkpoints are now more like small airport terminals, with limited numbers of “trusted” Palestinians entitled to pass through. To escape the poverty of the West Bank each day to reach manual work inside Israel, they must have a magnetic ID card storing biometric data and a special permit. Cards are denied by Israel not only to those with a record of political activity, but also to those who have distant relatives deemed to be politically engaged. The same NGO leader concluded, again with bitter irony:

Our leaders are declaring victory: the victory of defeat.

Should Abbas and his PA functionaries sign up to this Israeli vision of statehood, the defeat for the Palestinians will be greater still.

i think arnold toynbee would approve

UK charity sponsors event accusing Israel of apartheid
Jonny Paul, JPost, Jul 9 2009

A prestigious local community venue in east London was set to host an event on Thursday night organized by a charity that supports and funds a boycott of Israel and accuses Israel of being an apartheid state. Moreover, the charity made it clear to the co-vice chair of the Zionist Federation, Jonathan Hoffman, that he would not be allowed to attend. Toynbee Hall was to host the launch of a book titled Israel Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide. The controversy surrounding the event allegedly led to one of the venue’s funders to pull out. The book was written by journalist Ben White. In one of his articles, White said he understood why some people are anti-Semitic. White said:

I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. One is the State of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. It is because Zionists have always sought to equate their colonial project with Judaism that some misguidedly respond to what they see on their televisions with attacks on Jews or Jewish property.

Thursday’s event was sponsored by a charity called War on Want, which is accused of having an anti-Israel agenda. Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said:

Despite passing themselves off as a mainstream aid charity, War on Want runs virulently anti-Israel campaigns. It supports and funds a boycott of Israel, promotes this idea to libel Israel as ‘apartheid’ and complains about ‘Zionist pressure’ if anyone objects.

War on Want claims to “fight global poverty” and its campaigns focus on areas such as fighting free trade agreements, sweatshop conditions of workers and tax dodging by multinational corporations. However one of its major campaigns is “fighting occupation in Palestine” in which it calls for sanctions against Israel and for the annulment of Israel’s trade agreement with European Union. It has accused Israel of carrying out a “campaign of apartheid.” Last year, War On Want was warned by the Charity Commission, the regulator for UK charities, for deviating from its mandate as a registered charity for its politicized campaigning. Following an investigation into War On Want’s activities, the Charity Commission said on Thursday prior to the event:

After making contact with the charity and considering their response, the commission has concluded that the charity could only support the event if certain steps and measures are properly taken to manage the risks. These steps include, for example, that the charity will brief the author in advance regarding the framework in which charities must work and after the speaker has finished the charity will have its own session on the subject. On the basis of assurances given by the charity that had already planned these and other steps, we are not taking the matter further. The commission does not have the power to investigate an allegation or complaint that War on Want’s event is inciting hatred and contributing to anti Semitism. Any concerns about this should be reported to the police.

Toynbee Hall is run as a community-serving charity. Graham Fisher, Toynbee Hall’s chief executive, said:

As with all our room bookings and events, Toynbee Hall cannot be held responsible for any views expressed by hirers and their representatives.

Asked why Hoffma n had been banned from attending the meeting,War On Want’s executive director, John Hilary, told the JPost:

The event is designed to draw public attention to the gross abuse of human rights in Palestine. My colleagues and I have just returned from there last week, and we will be sharing our experiences of the situation alongside Ben White’s presentation of his book. War on Want welcomes all members of the public to our events. Mr. Hoffman alone has been told he will not be welcome on Thursday because he is known for causing serious disturbances at public events on this issue.

paris JDL thugs nicked

Zionist strong-arm tactics condemned in France
Press TV, Jul 9 2009

Crowds in Paris protesting an attack on a French bookstore have called on officials to dismantle the allegedly responsible Jewish militant group. Four members of the Jewish Defense League were arrested on Sunday for breaking into the store, run by pro-Palestinian activists. The masked attackers trashed the store, setting books ablaze and smashing computers. The rally outside the Resistances bookstore attracted activists shouting against intimidation by the strong-arm tactics of the JDL. French activist Liliana Cordova Kaczerginski, from the international Jewish anti-Zionist network, told Press TV on Wednesday:

Imagine for one minute if this is a Jewish library, sure I would think that even Sarkozy, the president would come here to say something about it.

The JDL has denied any involvement in the incident, although the attackers had rushed in through the front door yelling loudly and claiming to be members of the group. The group had previously attacked a bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris in 2006. No arrests were made at the time. The protestors have called on the French government to ban the extremist group, a move that has already been made in the US and Israel.