http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/8%20o/Oil%20and%20the%20planned%20demolition%20of%20Lebanon%20By%20Mike%20Whitney.htm
Oil and the "planned demolition" of Lebanon
By Mike Whitney
Al-Jazeerah, August 8, 2006
-“The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them…Hitler—as odious as he is to us—has given this idea a good name in the world.” Ze’ev Jabotinsky; Ideological founder of the Likud Party “One Palestine Complete” p 407
-“The raw logic of Israel’s distorted self-image and racist doctrines is exposed beyond confusion by the now-stark reality: the moonscape rubble of once-lovely Lebanese villages; a million desperate people trying to survive Israeli aerial attacks as they carry children and wheel disabled grandparents down cratered roads; limp bodies of children pulled from the dusty basements of crushed buildings. This is the reality of Israel’s national doctrine, the direct outcome of its racist worldview.” Virginia Tilley ---
-----“The Case for Boycotting Israel” Counterpunch -----
-By bombing the highways and main bridges into Beirut, Israel has cut off the capital from the outside world and put the entire nation under siege. Israel can now execute its plan to pummel Lebanon into rubble without the threat of foreign intervention.
-The north has been effectively severed from the south allowing the IDF to continue its ethnic cleansing operations as well as its search-and-destroy missions for Hizbullah fighters. They have meticulously destroyed all the main points of entry at the Syrian border and blockaded the coastline. Israel believes that their earlier occupation (which ended in year 2000) failed due to the unrestricted flow of supplies and weaponry from Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has assisted this effort by providing crucial intelligence from the NSA about the movement of material from the outside.
-By now, it should be apparent that Israel’s military campaign has nothing to do with Hizbullah’s capturing of the 2 Israeli soldiers on July 14. The present plan, which was drawn up more than a year ago (and which high-ranking members of the Bush administration were fully briefed) is designed to establish a new northern border for Israel at the Litani River and create an “Israel-friendly” regime in Beirut.
-The plan to annex the land south of the Litani River dates back to the founding of the Jewish state when Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion described the country’s future borders this way: “To the north the Litani River, the southern border will be pushed into the Sinai, and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan.” (See Map of post WW1 Zionist plan for region http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story1045.html)
-In 1978 the IDF launched Operation Litani with the intention of annexing the southern part of Lebanon and setting up a Christian client-regime in Beirut that would take orders from Tel Aviv. Israel said that it needed a “buffer zone” for its security, the same excuse that it uses today. The 1982 invasion devolved into an 18 year onslaught which ravaged the Lebanese economy and killed more than 20,000 civilians. In 2000, Israel was driven from Lebanon by the persistent attacks of the Lebanese resistance organization, Hizbullah.
-The media portrayal of the current conflict is blatantly absurd. It has nothing to due with “captured soldiers” or Israel’s “right to defend itself”. This is a traditional war with clear territorial and political objectives. The border controversy is nonsense. Israel is trying to seize more land to realize its vision of “Greater Israel” while reducing an adjacent Arab country to a “permanent state of colonial dependency”. This explains the vast and deliberate destruction to Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. Israel’s dominance requires that its neighbors endure abject poverty and oppression. By destroying the infrastructure and life-support systems, Israel hopes to eliminate the rise of a potential rival as well as to diminish the ability of the Lebanese resistance to wage war against the Jewish state. Once Lebanon is decimated, it will be delivered to Zionists at the World Bank (Paul Wolfowitz) who will apply the shackle of reconstruction loans and structural readjustment, which will keep Lebanon as an indentured servant to the global banking establishment. This model of economic servitude has been used throughout the developing world with varying degrees of success. It anticipates Israel’s regional ascendancy while ensuring that Lebanon’s sovereignty will be compromised for decades to come.
-The United States has played a unique role in Israel’s war on Lebanon. In its 230 year history the US has never deliberately assisted in an attack on an ally. That record will end with Lebanon.
-Lebanon was demonstrably “pro-American” government on friendly terms with Washington. In fact, American NGOs and intelligence organizations helped to activate the “Cedar Revolution” which gave rise to the Fouad Siniora government and the eventual expulsion of Syrian troops. To a large extent, Washington and Tel Aviv had achieved what they wanted to by meddling in Lebanon’s political affairs. The country was singled out as a shining example of Bush’s “global democratic revolution”, which was the stated goal of American intervention in the Middle East.
-Lebanon has since been rewarded for its cooperation by the total obliteration of its economy and infrastructure. The Bush administration has abandoned any pretense of being an “honest broker” and is now providing Israel with precision-guided missiles to prosecute a war against a (mainly) civilian population. They are also actively collaborating with the Olmert regime to foil all plans for an immediate ceasefire. The United States is a fully-engaged partner in the premeditated destruction of a democratic country. It is as much a part of the Israeli aggression as any IDF tank commander rumbling towards Beirut.
-The United Nations has been sidelined by the administration’s obstructionism at the Security Council. The efforts of the Bolton-Rice team are tantamount to a “declaration of war”. So far, the Israeli offensive has uprooted nearly 1 million people in the south; making refugees of approximately 25% of the Lebanon’s total population. The UN has done nothing to respond to this calamity. Its ineffectiveness casts doubt on whether it will survive the present crisis. Security in the new century will ultimately depend on alliances between the individual countries. The UN model of one, monolithic international institution trying to "preserve the peace” has proved to be a wretched failure.
-The scene in the south of Lebanon is hauntingly similar to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948; the Nakba. Once again, Israel is seen driving Muslims from their homes in an attempt to expand its territory. The “deliberate” attack on Qana, which killed 57 civilians, as well as the bombing of clearly marked ambulances and “white flag-waving” mini-buses chock-full of fleeing villagers, shows that the Israeli high-command still understands the importance of using terror as a means of controlling behavior. Israel’s carefully calculated atrocities have had the desired effect; triggering the mass-exodus of hundreds of thousands of frightened civilians and leaving Hizbullah fighters to fight it out with the IDF.
-The Bush administration is now attempting to pacify its critics by pushing a resolution that calls for a “full cessation of hostilities”. The resolution does not demand that Israel stop attacking Hizbullah nor does it require the IDF to leave Lebanon. It is Munich all over again; a miserable “sell-out” by the Security Council that guarantees a steady increase in the violence as well as an intensification of the rage that is sweeping across the Muslim world. The UN has unwittingly endorsed Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and created the foundation for another generation of terrorists. The resolution shows that the UN is nothing more than a “cat’s paw” for US/Israeli geopolitical ambitions and that the “post-colonial” European allies are willing to succumb to the neocon plan for a "New Middle East".
-The UN is not an “honest broker”; its bumbling attempts at peace have only provided the cover of international legitimacy to Israel’s rampage. Israel will now continue its crusade unobstructed; setting up outposts throughout the south, pushing the Shia off their land, attacking Hizbullah as they see fit, and installing an Israeli-client in Beirut.
-Israel will never return to its “internationally recognized” northern border unless it is beaten-back by the Lebanese national resistance, Hizbullah.
-What does Israel want?
-The only way that Israel can maintain its dominance in the region is by becoming a main-player in the oil-trade. Otherwise it will continue to be dependent on the United States to strengthen its military and defend its interests. Israel’s determination to “stand on its own 2 feet” is outlined in the neocon plan for “rebuilding Zionism” in the 21st century; “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. The document is the blueprint for redrawing the map of the Middle East and eliminating rivals to Israeli power. Most of the attention has been focused on the parts of the paper which presage the attacks on Iraq, Lebanon and Syria; including this ominous passage:
-----“Securing the Northern Border: -----
-Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran, as the principle agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
-paralleling Syria’s behavior by establishing the precedent that Syria is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
-striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove to be insufficient, string at select targets in Syria proper.” (“A Clean Break”; Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser)
-Clearly, this is the basic schema for US/Israeli aggression in the region. What has been overlooked, however, is Israel’s determination to “break away” from its traditional dependence on American support. As stated in the text:
-(Israel intends to) “forge a new basis for relations with the US—stressing self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern, and furthering values inherent to the West. This can only be done if Israel takes serious steps to terminate aid, which prevents economic reform. Israel can make a clean-break from the past and establish a new vision for the US-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity, and mutuality—not one narrowly focused on territorial disputes. (Israel) does not need US troops in any capacity to defend it…and can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past….No amount of weapons or victories will grant Israel the peace it seeks. When Israel is on sound footing, and is free, powerful, and healthy internally, it will no longer simply manage the Arab-Israeli conflict; it will transcend it”.
-Israel’s “economic freedom” depends in large part on its ability to become a central petroleum-depot for the global oil trade. In Michel Chossudovsky’s recent article “Triple Alliance: US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon”, the author provides a detailed account of the alliances and agreements which underscore the current war. As Chossudovsky says, “We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hizbullah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theater is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’”.
-Chossudovsky shows how the recently completed Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline has strengthened the Israel-Turkey alliance and foreshadows an attempt to establish “military control over a coastal corridor extending from the Israeli-Lebanese border to the East Mediterranean border between Syria and Turkey.”
-Lebanese sovereignty is one of the unfortunate casualties of this Israel-Turkey strategy.
-Most of the oil from the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline will be transported to western markets but, what is less well-known, is that a percentage of the oil will be diverted through a “proposed” Ceyhan-Ashkelon pipeline which will connect Israel directly to rich deposits in the Caspian. This will allow Israel to supply markets in the Far East from its port at Eilat on the Red Sea. It is an ambitious plan that ensures that Israel will be a critical part of the global energy distribution system. (See (Michel Chossudovsky, The war on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, July 2006)
-Oil is also a major factor in the calls for “regime change” in Syria. An article in the UK Observer “Israel Seeks Pipeline for Iraqi Oil” notes that Washington and Tel Aviv are hammering out the details for a pipeline that will run through Syria and “create and endless and easily accessible source of cheap oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia.” The pipeline “would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria, and solving Israel’s energy crisis at a stroke.”
-The Israeli Mossad is already operating in northern Iraq where the pipeline will originate and have developed good relations with the Kurds. The only remaining obstacle is the current Syrian regime which has already entered the US/Israeli crosshairs. The Observer quotes a CIA official who said, “It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel’s energy supply as well as that of the US. The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream, and is now a viable project—albeit with a lot of building to do.”
-Former US ambassador James Atkins added, “This is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally.”
-The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy market. Behind the bombed-out ruins of Qana and the endless sorties laying Lebanon to waste, are the tireless machinations of the energy giants, the corporate media, the banking establishment and Israel.
-Don’t expect a quick return to peace. This war is just beginning.

Carter: Bush is Israel's worst ally (MUST READ)

Jimmy Carter IS stating some obvious facts, that Bush policy of no ceasefire is actually destructive to Israel too, but he's NOT telling the TRUTH, so he MUST be role playing. (This gets VERY VERY INTERESTING below, trust me!)

Since Jimmy Carter was the first President who authorized secret funding for Al-Qaeda (pre-Al-Qaeda, the mujahideen), not as a defensive but as an OFFENSIVE weapon against the Soviets ... to increase the probability that they'd be drawn into a civil war in Afghanistan ... and he's never come clean about that, has he? ... I'd have to say that Carter's in the role of "loyal opposition".

(Carter met with Brzezinski, Rockefeller, and Kissinger for two years over at the Tri-Lateral Comm, before he got elected as an 'outsider'.)
(Remember, Al-Qaeda destroyed fledgling civil society in Afghanistan in the late 70's and 80's and 90's.)

Heck, they gotta put someone in that peacemaker slot. Why not a guy considered a bleeding heart liberal Dem? That will certainly divide public opinion across party lines.

Another thing Carter authorized was the continued sales of arms to Indonesia in the 25-year genocide and repression of East Timorese, begun by Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. 800,000 DEAD, in a tiny, primitive society. Not started by, but continued by, Jimmy Carter.

I think this "Carter as Peace God" is a replay of taking Ramsey Clark, Attorney General in charge of breaking up the antiwar movement under Johnson, and putting him at the forefront of a radical communist peace movement ... where he has played the role of "ineffective" defense attorney for real victims of repression.
As Attorney General during part of the Vietnam War, Clark oversaw the prosecution of the Boston Five for “conspiracy to aid and abet draft resistance.� Four of the five were convicted, including pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Clark
Clark's father also supported some "liberal" desgregation causes like his son, at a time when racial segregation was a black mark on the US stance as a symbol of Liberty opposed to Communism, but Tom Clark supported fierce repression of leftists of all stripes, particularly during the Red Scare.
Then Ramsey starts a communist antiwar group?!!
(see www.public-action.com for info on Clark as attorney)

This information is important for everyone, for the solid ranks of Democrat voters who think all these problems would be solved if only Bush was gone, and for the Republicans who think that the opposition is "irrational Bush haters".

Speaking of "Bush-haters", some make the ridiculous claim that Bush-haters support Al-Qaeda and Arab terrorists. Actually, Al-Qaeda was literally supported by Brzezinski, a British Intelligence working for the US, and funded by every administration after that, both Democrats and Republicans. A video of Brzezinski's pep talk to Al-Qaeda, called "God is on your Side", is on my home page, www.Takeoverworld.info THE ONLY MONEY I EVER DONATED TO AL-QAEDA HAS BEEN VIA MY TAXES.

Let's take a look at what "Al-Qaeda" has accomplished so far:
1) two entire countries turned over the western oil interests, Afghanistan to former Unocal consultants
2) 3000 dead American civilians in NY, many more sickened by toxic and carcinogenic air, dying of cancer and other diseases, since the EPA told them the air was fine
3) 6000 (approx) dead Afghani civilians, tens of thousands more starved to death, frozen, maimed and missing arms, legs, eyes, though the countryside is in utter chaos, and heroin production is skyrocketing
4) 120,000 (approx) dead Iraqi civilians, with triple or quadruple that number permanently maimed, terrorized, displaced, dislocated, and robbed of all their possessions of a middle class lifestyle, or farming lifestyle, or whatever, while their country is divided up by GLOBAL oil interests, with American companies in the lead
5) 2500+ American troops dead (which Kissinger called soldiers stupid animals to be used as cannon fodder for political games), probably 20,000 maimed and psychologically damaged (forget about psychologically maimed Iraqis), many with permanent injuries, but don't worry, we'll cut benefits so taxpayers aren't affected
6) 600+ Lebanese civilians dead, Shiite, Sunni, Druze, and Christians of all sects, mostly farmers, shepherds, and the very poor in the cities, based loosely off America's War against Al-Qaeda, and with Al-Qaeda offering to "help" Hezbollah, Hz refusing Al-Qaeda's help (i think Hz is a legit resistance, as opposed to Al-Qaeda)
7) uncounted numbers (mostly Arabs, and American troops, but worldwide) who will die from cancer and other conditions and have an epidemic of birth defects, due to dumping radioactive waste (depleted uranium) all over Iraq, Bosnia, Lebanon
8) a few hundred dead Israelis, civilians and soldiers
as one American officer said about the staged Pearl Harbor event, "It was a cheap price" http://www.silverbearcafe.com/infamy.html (Lieutenant Commander Joseph Rochefort, head of the Navy’s Mid-Pacific Radio Intelligence Network.)
Gosh, it looks like this Al-Qaeda Project, rather than being good for Arab liberation, actually serves the role getting them killed and dominated by foreigners.
Since Al-Qaeda was undeniably, irrefutably an American-British Intelligence creation in the first place ... Hmmm ... Makes you wonder.

(The current President is literally an American Intelligence creation, by his father. And John Kerry, like Bush and like Heinrich Himmler, is admittedly a member of Skull and Bones, only he and Bush told a giggling Tim Russert they can't talk about it.)

(I think next time I get confronted by a Marine at the gas station, I'll tell him I can save his life and a lot of the lives of his friends, IF he can restrain himself from punching me in the mouth until I give him the answer to the the Kissinger question: do you consider yourself a stupid animal to be used as cannon fodder?)

Come to think of it, let's look at what the Zionists accomplished for Jews:
ZIonists had openly declared "War" on Germany in the newspaper, exposing unarmed non-Zionist Jews to be shot and gassed, and then left them behind, Zionists set up Jewish Councils or Judenrat which encouraged Jewish Resistance to back down and reported more radical Jews to the Nazis, Zionists broke the Euro trade embargo with Nazi Germany, they met with Nazis including Adolf Eichmann, they diverted donations from saving Jewish lives to helping build up Israel, and Chaim Weitzman was quoted as saying "One cow in Jerusalem is worth a thousand Jews in the Diaspora (the rest of the world)" ... the betrayal of Euro Jews by Zionists is detailed by True Torah Jews -- look it up.

I now have details that Hitler was not the main impetus in charge of killing Jews, Heinrich Himmler and Ludendorff and others were. This is not Holocaust Denial. The Jewish Holocaust was real. Hitler was the puppet of Himmler and others, partly due to torture and fear of his own life, probably partly due to willingness.

Who was Heinrich Himmler? The head of German Intelligence, and literally an occultist worshipper of Lucifer, member of Skull and Bones. They found a child's skull in his altar.
Who was Himmler meeting with? British and American Intelligence, many of whom were also occultist worshippers of Lucifer in Skull and Bones.
What Americans? Rockefeller, Ford, IBM, Dupont, William Hearst (newspapers), Allen Dulles (founder of the CIA), and many other top Wall Street Industrialists and Finance people, including Dulles' top men George Herbert Walker (moneyman) and that lowly tire salesman son-in-law Prescott Bush, who his son became CIA director, as well as many of these guys also being in Skull and Bones, an organization based on occult worship of Lucifer.

What are the odds the Bush Sr. was admittedly a member of Skull and Bones, as was his son, yet they are devout Christians at the same time? Isn't satan-worship and Christianity incompatible?

for DEEPER info go here: http://www.jfkii.com/ and for God's sake buy my friend John's friggin movie!! It's GOOD, and it's not some Democrat partisan trash.

There are some strong similarities in these roles of Zionists and Al-Qaeda. Who put the Zionists on the map? Britain and America. Who put Al-Qaeda on the map? America, via British-born Brzezinski.
I'd venture that ZIonists are about as unhealthy for Jewish lives as Al-Qaeda is for Arab lives, although it doesn't seem like that on the surface.

Free Palestine - End the Occupation - Free Lebanon: Dear Friends, We are all OK - So far - - Sam Bahour, Ramallah, Palestine
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Dear Friends, We are all OK - So far - - Sam Bahour, Ramallah, Palestine
Dear friends,
We are all ok.

Under cover of the Israeli Attack Forces' (IAF) obliteration of the country of Lebanon, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) visited our neighborhood about 1 hr ago, 11:15pm. A fleet of Israeli armored vehicles surrounded our block. At the time, all we saw from our front porch was a jeep parked smack at the end of our driveway. My two girls, Areen, 12, and Nadine, 6, were alone in the living room watching TV and playing the card game UNO, which they bought last week while in the US.

When they heard soldiers and walkie-talkie jabber outside they came running to advise us that the "jesh" (army) is outside. Both girls have been through this before (too many times!), but each time the fear that this creates is hard to explain. Areen just wants all of us to stay as far away as possible, probably because she is old enough to comprehend that many innocent Palestinians have been killed as bystanders when these lone ranger soldiers enter their wild west - our cities. Nadine basically just becomes confused and wants to ensure that they are not here to enter our home, as they did twice when she was younger.

Anyway, their target tonight was an apartment building, 4 houses down from our home. My Aunt Nameh lives 1 house away from this apartment building from the other side. The Israeli cowboys set off about 5-6 very loud explosive devices, most likely to gain entry to the building. Immediatly all of the lights in the building went on...most residents were sleeping at the time. While some soldiers entered the building others were surrounding the vicinity, like the one in front of our house. Out of no where, and I mean no where, about 10-15 Palestinian neighboorhood youth assumed their traditional role. They rolled trash canisters in the middle of the road and pelted the jeeps with stones. My car, which was on the sidewalk and in the crossfire was spared, no doubt due to the long time experience these youth have resisting this 39 yr old occupation force. The solders did not fire back...a VERY CLEAR example that when ordered to do so they don't fire at stone throwers trying in vein to pierce steel armor. At other times, they aim to kill under the same circumstance.

To make a long story short, Shiekh Fadel Hamdan was abducted and removed from the building and placed in one of the armored jeeps. Taken from in front of his wife and children to an unknown location. Shiekh Fadel happens to be an elected parliamentarian with Hamas, but that did not stop him from being arrested. Why would it? Yesterday the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative council was arrested from this home as well. That makes about 38 or so legislative council members and ministers that are now being held by Israel. No charge, no warrant, no trail...just plain abducted.

A friend of mine in the UK made an interesting comment to me today, before tonight's episode. He asked,

"How is the abduction of the speaker of the palestinian parliament said to be, by an israeli spokesman today, "a legitimate target" because he belongs to Hamas, whilst the abduction of the Israeli soldier in Gaza, who was sitting in a tank that was firing into Gaza indiscriminately is an act of war?" Well, that is one hell of a good question.

When the Israeli solders whisked away, myself and neighboors went to check the damage. I also went to check on my Aunt who was noticeably still shaken up. I can say one thing for sure, the doors and windows will all be replaced before noon prayers tomorow, but the internal damage to the kids and elderly and all of us may never heal.

Well, its dark outside, even street lights are out now. Traffic is nearly zero. Just like a good prision that announces "lights out", we go to bed knowing that the occupation stands at the doors of our city, able to enter any home, anytime, and take any action they deem necessary. Only difference is that in this prison there is only one judge, one juror, and one prosecutor...Israel. All this under one law...the LAW OF THE JUNGLE, written by the best US lawyers you've ever seen.

Now, back to more pressing matters...Lebanon, or what's left of it. I wonder if Condoleza Rice has finished her dinner yet...

23 days left in my visa, to be able to remain with my family, in my home, and at my work,

Sam

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=14079
Israel was founded on ethnic cleansing by Ilan Pappe
Date: 06 / 08 / 2006 Time: 10:51
-The present dismal reality unfolding in the Middle East has clear historical roots and a journey into the past may help to illuminate what lies behind the destructive policies of Israel in both Palestine and Lebanon.
-Zionism arrived in Palestine in the late 19th as a colonialist movement motivated by national impulses. The colonisation of Palestine fitted well the interests and policies of the British Empire on the eve of the First World War.
With the backing of Britain, the colonisation project expanded, and became a solid presence on the land after the war and with the establishment of the British mandate in Palestine (which lasted between 1918 and 1948).

While this consolidation took place, the indigenous society underwent, like other societies in the rest of the Arab world, a steady process of establishing a national identity. But with one difference. While the rest of the Arab world was shaping its political identity through the struggle against European colonialism, in Palestine nationalism meant asserting your collective identity against both an exploitative British colonialism and expansionist Zionism. Thus, the conflict with Zionism was an additional burden.

The pro-Zionist policy of the British mandate there naturally strained
the relationship between Britain and the local Palestinian society.This climaxed in a revolt in 1936 against both London and the expanding
Zionist colonisation project. The revolt, which lasted for three years, failed to sway the British mandate from a policy it had already decided upon in 1917. The British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, had promised the Zionist leaders
that Britain would help the movement to build a homeland for the Jewish
people in Palestine.

The number of Jews coming into the country increased by the day - although even at that point, during the 1930s, the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing 4 percent of the land.

As resistance to colonialism strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians would they be able to create a state of their own. From its early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of Palestine if the dream of a Jewish state were to come true.

The preparation for implementing these two goals of statehood and ethnic supremacy accelerated after the Second World War. For the British the country lost its strategic importance once they were evicted from India.It was a tense place that required the presence of British forces in equal numbers to those kept by the empire in the Indian sub continent - without obvious imperial rewards.

While the Zionist leadership finalised a plan for taking over the land and expelling the people between 1946 and 1948, the Palestinian leadership hoped the British empire would transfer to them their country in which they were still the vast majority and the indigenous population.

But Britain decided to transfer the issue of Palestine to the United Nations (UN) in February 1947. Palestine was the first conflict in which it was asked to mediate in a significant way. It offered a pro-Zionist solution, and a very unjust and impractical one at that.

The first obstacle was that since the Palestinians demanded to be treated as any other Arab national movement, they expected the international community to recognise, without any conditions, their natural right to the country.They did not expect this right to be negotiated with a colonialist
movement. They therefore boycotted the process.

The UN ignored this and the special committee it appointed for the question, Unscop (United Nations Special Committee for Palestine) conversed only with the Zionist leadership. It devised a solution that catered for the needs and aspirations of that side alone. In any case, the Palestinians had a difficult time presenting the moral side of their demands due to the Holocaust. The Western international community was only too happy to evade any
discussions about the implications of the genocide in Europe and to drop the problem on Palestine's doorstep.

The inevitable result of this approach was accepting almost unconditionally the Zionist demands for a state in Palestine.

Territorial

At the end of November 1947, the UN offered to divide Palestine into two states almost equal in their territorial space. The Jews were only one-third of the population by 1947 and most of them had arrived in Palestine only a few years earlier.The categorical Palestinian refusal to go along with this deal,
backed by the Arab League, allowed the Zionist leadership to plan carefully
the next step. Between February 1947 and March 1948, a final plan for ethnic cleansing was prepared. The Zionist leadership defined 80 percent of Palestine (Israel todaywithout the West Bank) as the space for the future state.This was an area in which one million Palestinians lived next to
600,000 Jews.

The idea was to uproot as many Palestinians as possible. From March 1948 until the end of that year the plan was implemented despite the attempt by some Arab states to oppose it, which failed. Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighbourhoods demolished.

Half of Palestine's population was uprooted and half of its villages destroyed. The state of Israel was established in over 80 percent of Palestine, turning Palestinian villages into Jewish settlements and recreation parks, but allowing a small number of Palestinians to remain citizens in it.

The June 1967 war allowed Israel to take the remaining 20 percent of Palestine.This seizure defeated in a way the ethnic ideology of the Zionist
movement. Israel encompassed 100 percent of Palestine, but the state
incorporated a large number of Palestinians, the people who Zionists made such an effort to expel in 1948.

The fact that Israel was let off easily in 1948, and not condemned for
the ethnic cleansing it committed, encouraged it to ethnically cleanse a
further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But the June 1967 war was too short - six days - and the international community more aware. Palestinian society was more experienced. Hence Israel was left with a large number of Palestinians under its control and could not complete the job.

The Palestinian national movement rose again in the form of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and even if it did not liberate one square inch of Palestine, it did relocate the Palestinian issue and the 1948 Nakbah (catastrophe) in the centre of world public attention.

The ethnic cleansing operation was also defeated by the persistence and resilience of those Palestinians that were allowed to stay in Israel.They became one quarter of the population. Demography thus became the major issue in Israel's national security agenda. It overshadows any other concern, be it for social equality, democracy or human rights.

The educational system, the media and the politicians all stress the danger that Palestinians constitute for the state of Israel's existence and the Jewish citizen's wellbeing. In this situation the Israeli left urges downsizing the territory, the right calls for downsizing the Palestinians. But the moral and ideological distance between the two poles of the political system is very short indeed.

After two uprisings in the occupied territories and a failed international diplomatic effort that totally ignored the root of the conflict as represented above, we are now back to the very basics of the conflict.
--Impose--
-For the last six years, with the full backing of its Jewish electorate, successive Israeli governments have tried to impose by force what for them is the ideal solution. It consists of imprisoning large numbers of Palestinians in enclaves
in the West Bank and the Gaza strip, controlling thorough an apartheid system the Palestinian minority in Israel, and rejecting categorically any repatriation of the Palestinian refugees. This plan is fully backed by the US.
-Bush's neo-conservative presidency pursues its own unilateralism, trying to impose by military means and intimidation its economic and strategic values on the rest of the world. Only two movements in the area resist Israel and the US. Sadly for people of the left, like myself, they are not from our school, but we should respect their steadfastness and will to resist occupation and colonisation. These are Hamas and Hizbollah.
-Israel feels it has now a window of opportunity to eliminate these forces in Gaza and in Lebanon - and beyond in Syria and Iran.The regional war that is developing may in the short run undermine these two forces, but in the long run it may mean Israeli confrontation not only with the Arab world but with the Muslim world as a whole. At that point, the US might abandon it, and the Jewish state would end like the crusader's kingdom of medieval times.
-A disaster thus is looming for us all - Jews and Arabs - and it is only Europe that could avert it, if it would stop slaving its interests and ours, to the interests of the US and Zionism.
-Ilan Pappe is an Israeli-born professor at Haifa University. This article first appeared in Socialist Worker 2011, 29 July 2006 (www.socialistworker.co.uk)

Israel Is Hooked On Militarism
Nation: U.S. Supports Bombs Instead Of Peace In Middle East
(The Nation) This article was written by Robert Scheer.

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Those who mindlessly support Israel, right or wrong, from President Bush on through the cheerleaders in Congress and the media, betray the security of the Jewish state. They are enablers who have encouraged Israel's dependency on the drug of militarism as a false escape from the difficult accommodations needed to bring peace to the Middle East.

For too many pundits and politicians, bombing just seems so much simpler — until, as happened in Qana, Lebanon, on Sunday, those bombs blow up to your nation's disgrace, slaughtering scores of innocents whose only crime was to be in the crossfire. The alternative to such excessive violence — an authentic peace process — had been supported by every American president since Harry Truman. Yet it was abruptly abandoned, indeed ridiculed, by the Bush administration, which bizarrely believes it can re-create the Middle East in a more U.S.-friendly form. The president has framed this process with a simplistic good-versus-evil template, which has the Christian West and Jewish Israel on an unnecessary collision course with the Muslim world.

Israel foolishly jumped at the tempting opportunity presented by Bush, who believes all the complex issues dividing the Middle East can be neatly summarized as the choosing of sides in a playground game called "the post-9/11 war on terror."

"The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East," Bush said Monday. "When democracy spreads in the Middle East, the people of that troubled region will have a better future." Apparently, Bush is unclear on the fact that Lebanon's prime minister — elected after the country's celebrated "Cedar Revolution" — has condemned the uncritical support provided by the United States for Israel since this conflagration began. Or that Hezbollah is an important part of that democratic government because of its popularity among the Shiite Muslims of southern Lebanon. Bush's neoconservative foreign-policy cabal argued that troublesome regimes, such as that of Saddam Hussein, could be easily transformed into pliable, West-leaning democracies. Instead, the opposite has happened. Throughout the region, elections hyped by Bush have turned out to be a vehicle for the expression of religion-fueled rage against Israel and its U.S. sponsor.

Even the elected leaders in "liberated" Iraq are denouncing Israel and the United States. On Monday, the Iraqi prime minister appeared at a memorial service in which he and other speakers condemned Israel. Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the most important leader in post-Hussein Iraq, broke from his usually circumspect public statements to denounce this "outrageous crime," while Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the country's most powerful militia and a key parliamentary bloc, railed against "the ominous trio of the United States, Israel and Britain, which is terrorizing Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and other occupied nations."

Meanwhile, Israel, with U.S. support, has ignored what it had learned through its occupation of Palestinian territories and previous disastrous attempts to subdue Lebanon: Compromise from a position of strength is more effective than seeking a pyrrhic total victory. Not only has each attempt to crush local resistance begat more radical and disciplined enemies, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, but the likelihood of rage-fueled "blowback" is exponentially increased.

"There's going to be another 9/11, and then we're going to hear all the usual claptrap about how it's good versus evil, and they hate us because we're good and democratic, and they hate our values and all the other material that comes out of the rear end of a bull," London Independent correspondent Robert Fisk told interviewer Amy Goodman of the radio program "Democracy Now!" after watching dozens of children's corpses being stuffed into plastic bags or wrapped in rugs.

It is true that the Israeli withdrawals of the past half-decade, nearly complete in the case of Lebanon and cynically minimal in the Palestinian territories, did not resolve all the disputes or stop all violence. Yet the abandonment of the peace process and the renewed reliance on bombs will prove far more costly for Israel. Long after Bush is gone from office, Israel will be threatened by a new generation of enemies whose political memory was decisively shaped by these horrible images emerging from Lebanon. At that point, Israelis attempting to make peace with those they must coexist with will recognize that with friends such as Bush and his neoconservative mentors, they would not lack for enemies.

By Robert Scheer
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