The
Israelization of America
By Gideon Samet, Haaretz,
April 4, 2003
"It is not too soon therefore
to be concerned about the
possibility that the Sharon-Netanyahu-Rumsfeld-Cheney
school of thought will come
out on top in the fierce
struggle over an Israeli-Palestinian
settlement. " -- The
events in Iraq can be seen
as the Israelization of
America. Close your eyes
for a moment, and you can
imagine that the Marines
in Karbala are Golani infantry
in Tul Karm. And it's not
surprising that two political
camps in Israel with diametrically
opposite views think something
good will come out of the
war. For example, they look
on with curiosity as American
soldiers there are blown
up in suicide attacks and
observe the reaction of
the army. After a taxi blew
up, killing the soldiers
who were coming to check
it, the Marines blasted
the next vehicle, liquidating
its civilian occupants.
Left and right are not especially
interested in what the American
military is learning from
the war. What intrigues
them is the political and
diplomatic lesson that the
White House will learn.
Never has there been a war
in which Israel did not
participate but which is
expected to impact so forcefully
on its future. The reason
for this does not lie in
the comparison Israelis
typically like to make between
their fate and the new American
effort in our tough neighborhood.
The impact derives, of course,
from the Americans' need
to operate intensively in
the region after the shooting
stops. From an Israeli point
of view, it's possible to
say two radically opposed
things about this American
interest. According to the
official definition, which
has the imprimatur of the
right wing, it conflicts
with the Israeli interest
to the degree that America
will strive to obtain a
settlement and exert pressure
to impose one. The left,
for its part, sees such
an American move as conferring
a clear national benefit
on Israel. Under the auspices
of the war, and in the face
of the American declaration
that it is determined to
implement the road map,
Jerusalem is already doing
all it can to thwart the
scheme.
Unhappy
endings
By Polly Toynbee, The Guardian,
April 4, 2003
The Downing Street dream
factory paints a hopeful
postwar future. But everyone
else sees potential disaster
-- "The postwar landscape
looks bleaker by the day,
international law fractured,
the UN bust. The only optimism
comes from triumphalist
White House hawks or from
the Downing Street dream
factory - though their visions
are quite different. Elsewhere
it is hard to find observers
who feel anything but alarm
at what is yet to come.
Look back at Afghanistan,
controlled by warlords still,
severely underfunded and
under-policed, all reconstruction
money still spent on basic
feeding, a place forgotten
as the world moves on. Will
Iraq fare much better?"
-- The world is upside
down. The three left-of-centre
dailies - the Guardian,
the Independent and the
Mirror - are all the most
hostile to the Labour government's
war, while the rightwing
press largely urges it on.
This is a wretched state
of affairs for those who
wish this government well,
watching it plunge headlong
into what looks like a serious
error. Europe is fractured,
other alliances and friendships
lost, leaving Britain marooned
with George Bush. Colin
Powell's sweep through Old
Europe yesterday delivered
a direct snub to any serious
role for the UN rebuilding
Iraq. The background roars
from the president's stomach-churning
speech in North Carolina
were a display of patriotic
histrionics to appal the
world. Yet what if it does
end well and Tony Blair
proves right after all?
Those who oppose the war
can only hope to eat their
words: nothing wrong with
humble pie. So let us examine
the government's scenario
for everything going right.
At the moment, it goes as
follows. Republican Guard
battalions have melted away
under catastrophic bombardment.
Stout resistance remains
and Baghdad may not fall
in a day but it will not
be Stalingrad. There is
no great hurry - Basra is
the patient way to take
towns, gradually. The regime
will fall with fewer British
and US losses than in any
conflict in history: civilian
deaths will be proportionate.
Rolling news deceives with
its hungry demands for a
new Band of Brothers episode
every hour, but war doesn't
work like that. All in all,
the government sounds calmly
certain that all will be
well. Since we know nothing,
let's assume all will be
tolerably well.
Here
and there
By Graham Usher, Al-Ahram
Weekly On-line, 3 - 9 April
2003
Two weeks into the Iraqi
war Palestinians see one
occupation and one resistance
-- "When I see Iraqis, I
see us," says a Palestinian
schoolgirl. She is looking
at the front-page photograph
of Tuesday's edition of
the Palestinian Al-Quds
newspaper. It shows a terrified
Iraqi mother and her three
children fleeing under a
pall of smoke, shopping
bags stuffed on their shoulders,
flanked by armoured personnel
carriers. It is Basra. "It
could be Bureij," says the
schoolgirl. The same comparison
hits Palestinians every
time they open a paper,
switch on the TV or try
to navigate the occupied
realities that have long
ruled their lives in the
West Bank and Gaza. Footage
of British soldiers raiding
homes in Basra bear an uncanny
resemblance to Israeli soldiers
doing the same in Nablus.
Images of Iraqi civilians
surrendering under the barrel
of American guns on the
Baghdad-Basra highway remind
all of the mass arrests
that have occurred in Dehaisha,
Tulkarm and Beit Hanoun.
Shots of British or American
bulldozers flattening walls
with pictures of Saddam
Hussein evoke memories of
Israeli tanks doing the
same to Palestinian Authority
buildings in Ramallah last
year. Nor is it only Palestinians
who are struck by the similarities.
On Sunday Israel's Maariv
newspaper ran pictures of
Iraqis sifting through the
rubble of a bomb crater
in Baghdad and Palestinians
standing amid the debris
of a destroyed apartment
block in Khan Yunis. "Similar?"
asked the newspaper.
Not
for oil alone
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram
Weekly On-line, 3 - 9 April
2003
The invasion of Iraq involves
grander designs than controlling
the Arab country's oil --
Perhaps the masters of aggression,
the pirates of this age,
were taken aback at the
extent of Iraqi resistance,
having been blinded by racist
assumptions and wishful
thinking. Competition pervades
decision-making processes
in the United States, as
it does everything else.
Such an orientation, though,
can make people selective
in their memory when they
are trying to make a point.
But such blinkers do not
fully explain the debacle
in which Bush, Blair, and
their coterie of advisers
find themselves today. Their
major error was to underestimate
the role of the state in
Iraq -- a country not just
rich in oil, but in culture
and history. Since independence,
the army has played a central
role in Iraq's history --
a role supported by the
country's oil wealth which
enabled it to maintain a
large military that has
gained extensive experience
over the past three decades.
But Iraq has more than just
a strong army. Its state
institutions provide extensive
services to large sectors
of the population. Since
the fall of the monarchy,
these institutions helped
foster a national identity
transcending ethnic and
tribal boundaries. The state
has, on occasion, exacerbated
ethnic tension through certain
actions and also through
the composition of its army.
Such friction is what the
Americans and the British
decided to focus upon. They
wagered on the divisions
within Iraqi society and,
when the time comes to address
the question of Iraq's future,
are likely to keep doing
so.
The
406th child
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz,
April 4, 2003
On the morning of her death,
Christine Sa'ada woke up
a little earlier than usual.
A strong wind was whistling
outside and she wanted to
stay curled up in bed, but
she had to get up for school.
Her father was a strict
school principal. And so
she didn't argue with her
mother and got out of bed
at 6:30, like always. She
got dressed, organized her
school knapsack, took the
sandwich her mother had
made for her and left the
house with her father George,
and her sister Marian. Every
morning, George Sa'ada drove
his two daughters to the
St. Joseph School in Bethlehem
before going to the Shepherd
School in Beit Sahur where
he was the principal. The
girls' mother, Najwa, remained
at home. Christine wanted
to be a lawyer when she
grew up. When she got home
from school that afternoon,
she was excited by the aroma
of pizza wafting from the
kitchen. "You're such a
good cook!" she said to
her mother, who can't help
crying at the recollection.
Then she did her homework
and studied for an upcoming
math test. As they did most
days, at four in the afternoon,
the family set out to visit
Najwa's parents, who also
live in Bethlehem. After
all the months of curfew
during the past two and
a half years, Christine
loved to get out of the
house and to ride around
town a little in the car.
The Sa'ada family's home
is located opposite the
Al-Aza refugee camp, near
the shambles of the Paradise
Hotel. It is in a part of
Bethlehem that has been
a center of the fighting
and the family has spent
many anxious days there.
They were without water
or electricity for weeks;
the house was partially
destroyed and the Sa'adas
ended up moving in with
Najwa's parents for extended
periods of time. But now
things were quiet in the
territories and last Tuesday,
they thought they could
safely make the trip over
to the grandparents' house.
These
weapons may win the war,
but leave a deadly legacy
By Christopher Bellamy,
The Independent, April 4,
2003
British forces in Iraq have
used cluster bombs against
some Iraqi targets, Geoff
Hoon, the Secretary of State
for Defence, acknowledged
yesterday. America has not
officially admitted their
use, but it seems clear
from television images and
reports from "embedded"
correspondents that large
numbers of artillery shells
and rockets containing submunitions
or cluster bombs are being
used. A necessary evil,
under present circumstances,
but while such weapons are
the only way Allied troops
can win without unacceptable
casualties, the legacy of
unexploded ordnance
the failure rate varies
from five to 16 per cent
is alarming the aid
agencies. They are the ones
who will have to quite
literally pick up
the pieces, perhaps for
years ahead. More than 4,000
civilians are reported to
have been killed or injured
by cluster bombs in the
aftermath of the 1991 Gulf
War. In Afghanistan, civilians
disastrously mistook the
yellow unexploded bombs
for food parcels. The unexploded
bomblets become, in effect,
anti-personnel land mines.
Yesterday, humanitarian
agencies were demanding
they be treated as such.
Cluster bombs are not specifically
banned under the Ottawa
convention which outlawed
anti-personnel land mines,
but their indiscriminate
nature means they are often
perceived as contravening
the rules of war.
Cluster
Bombs Liberate Iraqi Children
By Pepe Escobar, Common
Dreams/The Asia Times, April
3, 2003
AMMAN - The horror. The
horror. And unlike Apocalypse
Now, there are real, not
fictional images to prove
it. But they won't be seen
in Western homes. The new
heart of darkness has emerged
in the turbulent history
of Mesopotamia via the Hilla
massacre. After uninterrupted,
furious American bombing
on Monday night and Tuesday
morning, as of Wednesday
night there were at least
61 dead Iraqi civilians
and more than 450 seriously
injured in the region of
Hilla, 80 kilometers south
of Baghdad. Most are children:
60 percent of Iraq's population
of roughly 24 million are
children. Roland Huguenin-Benjamin,
a spokesman for the International
Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) in Iraq, describes
what happened in Hilla as
"a horror, dozens of severed
bodies and scattered limbs".
Initially, Murtada Abbas,
the director of Hilla hospital,
was questioned about the
bombing only by Iraqi journalists
- and only Arab cameramen
working for Reuters and
Associated Press were allowed
on site. What they filmed
is horror itself - the first
images shot by Western news
agencies of what is also
happening on the Iraqi frontlines:
babies cut in half, amputated
limbs, kids with their faces
a web of deep cuts caused
by American shellfire and
cluster bombs. Nobody in
the West will ever see these
images because they were
censored by editors in Baghdad:
only a "soft" version made
it to worldwide TV distribution.
According to the Arab cameramen,
two trucks full of bodies
- mostly children, and women
in flowered dresses - were
parked outside the Hilla
hospital. Dr Nazem el-Adali,
trained in Scotland, said
almost all the dead and
wounded were victims of
cluster bombs dropped in
the Hilla region and in
the neighboring village
of Mazarak. Abbas initially
said that there were 33
dead and 310 wounded. Then
the ICRC went on site with
a team of four, and they
said that there were "dozens
of dead and 450 wounded".
Contacted by satphone on
Thursday, Huguenin-Benjamin
confirmed there were at
least 460 wounded, being
treated in an ill-equipped
280-bed hospital.
A
Busy Couple of Days for
the Bulldozers
By Gila Svirsky, Dissident
Voice, April 4, 2003
April 3 -- It's been a busy
day today for Israeli bulldozers.
They had to do 16 houses
by sundown, and they couldn't
start until the men who
live in them had gone off
to work in the morning.
But those machines are tireless,
and by the end of the day,
you could find 16 families
sitting on heaps of rubble,
weeping and cursing.
Children, too. It was also
a busy night for the boys
in Tulkarm. That's
the Palestinian town where
our soldiers forced 1,500
men out of their homes in
the middle of the night,
put them on trucks, and
then drove several miles
out of town to dump them
out, with orders not to
return home 'for a few days'.
And then the soldiers had
to put the town under curfew,
just in case the women wanted
to go out looking for them.
So now we have several man-made
tragedies of the last 24
hours, but it couldn't have
been very interesting.
Not a photo or even a word
about it appeared on the
45-minute TV news tonight
on channel 2. Though
we did get a very extended
item about why the national
Israeli soccer team again
lost to France. Now
that's sad. Three of us
women - Na'ama from the
Israel Committee Against
House Demolitions, Sylvia
from Peace Now, and me from
the Coalition of Women for
Peace - had a big argument
with one of the bulldozers
at Sur Baher (just outside
Jerusalem) this morning.
The bulldozer wanted to
knock down the house, and
we wanted to knock down
the bulldozer.
Well, actually we just wanted
to stop its progress.
Our presence standing between
it and the house worked
beautifully until the soldiers
dragged us away along the
rocky, thorny hillside.
Thanks to three other activists
for their support and photos.
A
Crooked Mirror
By Uri Avnery, Media Monitors
Network, April 4, 2003
More on the war: Read the
Bible -- George Bush, we
are told, is a deeply religious
person, and so is his yeoman,
Tony Blair. It is a pity
that they do not read the
Bible more. One of the most
beautiful Hebrew sentences
can be found in I Kings
XX. When he threatened Israel,
the King of Syria boasted
of his mighty army and demanded
surrender. King Ahab replied
with four immortal Hebrew
words, rendered thus in
English: "Let not him that
girdeth on (his harness)
boast himself as he that
putteth it off."
Retroactive Terrorists --
Schoolbooks in dozens of
languages must now be rewritten.
The old books said that
the men and women of the
French resistance in World
War II were heroes. These
civilians went out in the
night to bomb German trains,
kill German soldiers and
execute collaborators. The
instructions came from London.
They knew that if they were
caught, they would undergo
gruesome tortures and be
put to death. American and
British movies sang their
praise. The Russian partisans,
whose slogan was "Death
to the Invader!" made the
life of the German soldiers
hell. The partisans were
hanged in droves. The original
guerillas – for whom
this Spanish word meaning
"little war" was coined
– attacked Napoleon’s
soldiers. Goya immortalized
them in his magnificent
painting. A whole generation
of Israeli children was
taught to admire the Irgun
and Stern Group fighters,
all civilians, of course,
who blew up the installations
of the British army and
killed its soldiers. It
appears now that they were
all vile terrorists.
Presstitution -- In the
Middle Ages, armies were
accompanied by large numbers
of prostitutes. In the Iraq
war, the American and British
armies are accompanied by
large numbers of journalists.
