------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 12, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- NO "HONEST BROKER" IN WASHINGTON: BUSH WANTS PALESTINIANS TO STOP RESISTING ISRAELI TERROR By Richard Becker Since the new Intifada (Uprising) began on Sept. 29, 2000, more than 400 Palestinians and 71 Israelis have been killed. Of the 12,000 people seriously wounded, more than 95 percent have been Palestinian. Nearly all the fighting and dying has gone on inside the less than 5 percent of historic Palestine that is today under the tenuous control of the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian living standards have plummeted, and Palestinian per capita income is today one-tenth that of Israelis. Yet the impression created by the U.S. corporate media is just the opposite. ABC, CNN, the New York Times, etc., taking their lead from the State Department, convey a picture of Israel as the victim, and the Palestinians as the aggressors. Completely lost in the highly distorted coverage is the reality that the Palestinians are fighting to end the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by the U.S.- supplied Israeli military and 200,000 armed settlers. The Palestinians have international law and scores of UN resolutions--not to mention elementary justice--on their side. But while the U.S. leaders and their media frequently invoke international legality when it suits their purposes, they seem to develop total amnesia on the subject when it comes to the Palestinians. BUSH ADMINISTRATION POLICY The Bush administration's first veto at the UN Security Council was cast against the Palestinians' request that unarmed UN observers be sent to the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel was adamantly opposed to the observers be sent into these areas. Anyone who has traveled to the occupied territories will understand why: the on-going repression, brutality and deprivation enforced by the occupation is all- too apparent. The UN Security Council, in many resolutions including numbers 242 and 338, has called for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, which Israeli conquered the 1967 war against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Instead of withdrawing, however, Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and a large part of the West Bank, and settled hundreds of thousands of Israelis in other parts of the West Bank and Gaza. The UN has repeatedly condemned these actions as blatant violations of international law. Despite violating as many as 70 UN resolutions, Israel has never suffered sanctions, much less any military action. Israel is protected by the United States, which in turn exercises decisive control over the UN. The contrast between Israel's privileged and protected status, and the genocidal punishment administered by bombs and blockade against Iraq, is the cause of deep anger throughout the Middle East. Labeling the very mild resolution on observers as "unbalanced," the U.S. blocked its passage. The vote was nine in favor, one opposed and five abstaining, but since the U.S. has veto power in the Security Council, the resolution was defeated. The Security Council vote was part of a more openly pro- Israeli stance adopted by the new Bush administration. The administration emphasized its orientation by inviting the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon--a notorious war criminal--to Washington, while issuing no such invitation to Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat. Then on March 29, Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded that the Palestinians "stop the violence," while simply urging the Israelis to "show restraint." WHAT "STOP THE VIOLENCE" MEANS In recent days, the media has focused almost unlimited attention on the death of a 10-month-old Israeli child, reportedly hit by a Palestinian bullet in Hebron, West Bank. Hebron is home to more than 120,000 Palestinians and 500 Israeli settlers. The settlers' zone is 20 percent of the city, despite their small numbers. The Hebron settlers are infamous for their extreme anti-Arab racism and fascist violence against the Palestinians. Armed with government-supplied automatic weapons, they frequently rampage through the streets, killing and wounding unarmed Palestinians, burning their shops and houses, and carrying out other atrocities, always under protection of the Israeli army. It was in Hebron that a U.S.-born settler, Baruch Goldstein, burst into the Mosque of Ibrahim several years ago, massacring 29 Palestinian worshippers. Goldstein is regarded as a hero by many of the Hebron settlers, who demand that all Palestinians must leave all of Palestine. The U.S. media covered the story of the Israeli child killed in Hebron for several days, focusing on the grief of parents and other settlers in a manner never accorded to grieving Palestinian families, although there are many more of the latter. An unidentified reporter for the Palestine Monitor, visiting Hebron during the same time period, described this discrepancy: "The situation that I witnessed yesterday was fueled by the expansion of settlements, the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources and the continued brutal occupation of millions of Palestinians. Palestinian children have been shot and killed by Israeli snipers and settlers as well, but the international media covers their deaths as simple casualties of war. "Palestinian children like 12-month-old Sara Abdel Azeem Hazan, shot and killed by settlers in Nablus, 12 year-old Samer Tabanja killed by a helicopter gunship as he stood on his roof, 9-year-old Obei Darraj, shot by an Israeli sniper while he played in his bedroom, 2-month-old Hind Nadal Jamil Abu Qwedar suffocated by teargas thrown by Israeli soldiers, 14 year-old Ahmad 'Ali Hasan Al- Qawasmi, shot to death in an alley by an Israeli soldier in Hebron, and of course Muhammad Al Durra 12, gunned down by Israeli soldiers." Bush and Clinton before him have issued repeated calls to "stop the violence" since the Intifada began. They are not referring to the on-going, day-to-day violence of the occupation: the shooting of demonstrators, the systematic torture and abuse of Palestinian political prisoners, the demolition of Palestinian homes and olive groves. Nor are they talking about the hundreds of helicopter missile attacks and tank shellings of Palestinian residential areas. What "stop the violence" really means in the mouths of U.S. and Israeli political leaders is "stop resisting." Both Bush and Sharon have demanded that the Palestinians must end the Intifada before any negotiations can be resumed. But the Palestinians believe, as one activist put it, that "to stop the Intifada now is to lose everything." In fact, the Intifada is a product of the failure of the "peace process." In its extremely distorted depiction of reality, the capitalist media here has assigned blame for this failure to the Palestinian side's "intransigence." But any objective assessment presents a very different picture. The U.S./Israeli side has said "No" to the Palestinians on all the major issues: "No" to a real state, with contiguous territory and control over its own borders; "No" to East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state; "No" the removal of the illegal Israeli settlements inside the West Bank and Gaza; and "No" to the right to return for the 5 million Palestinians and their descendants driven out of Palestine in 1948 and since to make way for the Israeli state. The U.S., contrary to the image promoted here, has never been an "honest broker" in the "peace process." How could it be, when it has given one side, Israel, hundreds of billions of dollars, all kinds of modern weaponry including nuclear weapons, and the political and diplomatic protection of the U.S. imperial state? For the other side, the Palestinians, the U.S. rulers have had nothing to offer but extreme hostility. The unmatched support the U.S. gives to Israel -- more than a quarter of all U.S. foreign aid to a country of only 6-7 million people--is not a result of sympathy. Neither is it primarily due to the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby. Instead, the U.S. arming and funding of Israel -- without which it could not be the power it is today--is due to U.S. economic and geo-political interests. For several decades, Washington has viewed Israel as an invaluable asset in a key strategic region. The Middle East holds two-thirds of the world's petroleum supply, and control of the area has meant unimaginable profits to U.S. banks, oil companies, military contractors and other corporate sectors. In addition, control of the world's oil is viewed as critical to U.S. imperialism's global domination. For the past six decades, since the time of World War II, domination of the Middle East's oil has been a fixed and central objective of U.S. foreign policy. Israel, sometimes referred to by U.S. officials like former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger as "an unsinkable aircraft carrier," is seen as a crucial extension of Pentagon military power in the heart of the region. That is why Washington has lavished such massive assistance on Israel, and turned this tiny state into the world's fourth-ranked military machine. The role of Israel in the U.S. empire is inherently opposed to the interests of the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the Middle East. At the same time, its assigned role as a garrison state--a perpetual warfare state--in imperialism's system, means that Israel can never be the solution or salvation for Jewish people that its supporters proclaim it to be. Real peace in the Middle East will only be possible when there is real justice for the Palestinian people. Justice for the Palestinians means, minimally, a truly independent state with contiguous territory and control of its own borders, Jerusalem as its capital, and the right to return for all the Palestinian people. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
