Israel may 'go it alone' against Iran

 

http://tinyurl.com/n3pma

 

Jerusalem Post

Aug. 24, 2006

 

By Herb Keinon

 

Israel is carefully watching the world's reaction to Iran's continued refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, with some high-level officials arguing it is now clear that when it comes to stopping Iran, Israel "may have to go it alone," The Jerusalem Post has learned.

 

One senior source said on Tuesday that Iran "flipped the world the bird" by not responding positively to the Western incentive plan to stop uranium enrichment. He expressed frustration that the Russians and Chinese were already saying that Iran's offer of a "new formula" and willingness to enter "serious negotiations" was an opening to keep on talking.

 

"The Iranians know the world will do nothing," he said. "This is similar to the world's attempts to appease Hitler in the 1930s - they are trying to feed the beast."

 

He said there was a need to understand that "when push comes to shove," Israel would have to be prepared to "slow down" the Iranian nuclear threat by itself.

 

Having said this, he did not rule out the possibility of US military action, but said that if this were to take place, it would probably not occur until the spring or summer of 2008, a few months before President George W. Bush leaves the international stage. The US presidential elections, which Bush cannot contest because of term limits, are in November 2008.

 

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in a meeting in Paris with French Foreign Minister Phillippe Douste-Blazy Wednesday, said Iran "poses a global threat" and needed to be dealt with by the whole international community.

 

"The first thing they need to do is stop the enrichment of uranium," Livni said. "Everyday that passes brings the Iranians closer to building a nuclear bomb. The world can't afford a nuclear Iran." She said the Iranian reply to the Western incentives was just an attempt to "gain time."

 

Government officials said Israel's role at this time is to warn the world of the dangers of an Iranian nuclear potential. Some government officials are sending the message to their counterparts abroad that the firm implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 on Lebanon will send a strong message to Iran - which is testing the world's resolve - that it is serious about implementing Security Council resolutions.

 

Meanwhile, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported Wednesday that the Iranian news service Al-Borz, which it said is known to have access to sources in the Iranian government, predicted that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would announce what the news service called Iran's "nuclear birth" on the first anniversary of his government later this month.

 

In addition, an article Tuesday on the Teheran Times Web site, considered to be affiliated with the Foreign Ministry, implied that Iran's nuclear technology had already reached the point of no return. "If the West is seeking to impede Iran's nuclear industry, it should realize that Iran has passed this stage," the report read.

 

Diplomats from Europe, the US, Russia and China were poring over details of Iran's counterproposal to the Western nuclear incentives package Wednesday. Initial comments from Russia and China made clear Washington is likely to face difficulty getting at least those nations to agree to any tough sanctions against Iran.

 

In Paris, however, Douste-Blazy made clear that his government was sticking by the UN demand for Iran to halt enrichment by the end of this month as a precondition to further talks. Israeli officials said France has consistently advocated a firm position with Iran regarding the nuclear issue.

 

"I want to point out again that France is available to negotiate, and to recall that, as we have always said... a return to the negotiating table is linked to the suspension of uranium enrichment," Douste-Blazy said.

 

However, Russia's Foreign Ministry said it would continue to seek a political, negotiated solution to the dispute with Iran. China appealed for dialogue, urging "constructive measures" by Iran but also urging other parties to "remain calm and patient, show flexibility, stick to the orientation of peaceful resolution and create favorable conditions for resuming talks as soon as possible."

 

In London, a British Foreign Office spokesman predicted "some hard discussions" when the Security Council takes up the Iran issue in the coming weeks.

 

Iran said Tuesday it was ready for "serious negotiations" on its nuclear program and cast the counterproposal as a new formula to resolve the crisis with the West. But a semiofficial news agency said the government was unwilling to abandon uranium enrichment.

 

The world powers, the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, have given Iran until August 31 to accept the incentives package.

 

AP contributed to this report.

 

=================================

 

Miko Peled: Thirty-Nine Years of Denial

 

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-06200645811.htm

Palestine Chronicle June 20, 2006

 

The only way to stop the bloodshed of innocent Palestinians and Israelis is to eliminate the racially segregated system that currently exists in Israel.

 

By Miko Peled PalestineChronicle.com

 

Thirty-nine years have passed since Israel occupied the West Bank and The Gaza Strip. During this time there has been total denial in Israel about the state of the Palestinian people.

 

Palestinians living within Israel are treated with contempt and no regard is given to their rights as citizens, and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza continue to live under an Israeli military government without even the semblance of civil or political rights. But still Israelis pretend they live in a democracy and that the plight of the Palestinian people, who live only minutes away, is justified at worse and irrelevant to the life of Israelis at best.

 

Israel has been expanding Jewish Settlements and infrastructure in the West Bank and eliminating the "Green Line" on the one hand, and on the other hand saying it is waiting for the right time and the right partner with whom to make peace.

 

It has been thirty-nine years and neither the time nor the partners have come up. Still, the settlements grow, the infrastructure expands all around the West Bank and the line that once separated the West Bank from Israel has all but disappeared. Over the past thirty-nine years no Israeli government has shown the will or the political power to give up what Jews see as an integral part of their historical homeland.

 

Israel talks about the "Two State Solution" as the only acceptable solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict but no Israeli Prime Minister has shown a desire to do more than give the Palestinians limited governance and limited access to land. The Palestinian Authority is the limited governance Palestinians have received. This very limited form of self-government was agreed to by Israel on condition of continued Israeli military and economic dominance over Palestinian life.

 

For decades Palestinians have been losing their lands and their basic rights as a nation at a steady pace, but over the last 10 years this has been accelerated to a point that it is irreversible. The 1967 border no longer exists; Israeli development in the West Bank is permanent and no amount of exchanged territories could possibly compensate for the lands that Israel has forcibly taken from Palestinians.

 

In years past Israel would mostly arrest or exile local Palestinian leaders who lost favor with the Israeli occupation authorities. Over the last several years Israel has adopted a much more violent policy, whereby Palestinian political leaders are assassinated by Israeli forces in broad daylight. This policy is carried out without hindrance and no one stops to ask why these local leaders (quite often along with their assistants, family members, body guards or just innocent bystanders) deserve to die. Clearly Palestinian life and property are of little value and Israeli security forces on a daily basis are destroying both. Israeli society that in the past would not have tolerated such actions by its military has become numb and Israelis have no problem being accomplices to the crimes committed by the Israeli Army and other security forces against innocent Palestinians.

 

Israel may live in denial but that does not change the reality. Almost ten million people live under Israeli control, almost half of those people are Palestinians who have no political rights, no real political representation and no control over their future; in other words they have nothing to loose and nothing for which to look forward. Furthermore, millions of Palestinians live as refugees in and around Israel, having been forced out of their homes by Israel. Many of those still have the key to their homes, which in many cases still stand, inhabited by Israelis. No two nations who live under these conditions can expect to live in peace.

 

The only way to stop the bloodshed of innocent Palestinians and Israelis is to eliminate the racially segregated system that currently exists in Israel. It should be replaced with a political system that will secure the national, civil and human rights of all the citizens who live within it. The idea of one state under which two nations (or more) reside is not new to the world. It can be achieved and can work as well as any political system. If the last thirty-nine years have taught us something it is this: Attempts to divide Israel and Palestine into two states have failed and have lead the two people to endless bloodshed. When two nations live in such proximity and where two communities are as intertwined as the Israelis and Palestinians only a constitutional democracy can secure equal rights and a future of peace and security.

 

-- Miko Peled is an Israeli living in San Diego. He is the son of Israeli General Matityahu Peled.

 

 

Moshé Machover on Israel's permanent war

 

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9368

5 August 2006 | issue 2012

Features

 

Longstanding anti-Zionist campaigner Moshé Machover spoke to Matthew Cookson about the roots of the current Middle East crisis

 

The "war on terror" is deeply unpopular across the world - including in Britain and the US. People in many different countries are questioning and criticising their governments for participating in George Bush's imperialist project.

 

Yet Israel remains an exception. Opinion polls there have shown overwhelming support for the assault on Lebanon and the wider "war on terror" among Israelis. Why is this the case? And what are the historical and political roots of Israel's aggression?

 

To answer these questions I spoke to Moshé Machover, an Israeli dissident and a longstanding anti-Zionist and socialist. Moshé was born in Tel Aviv and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before coming to Britain in 1968. He is currently emeritus professor of philosophy at King's College London.

 

"The majority of Israelis believe that they are the victims," says Moshé, "just like the settlers in America believed that they were the ones threatened by the indigenous people there."

 

This perception is fed by Israeli government propaganda, he adds. "Israeli public opinion for the most part believes that Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza.

 

"In fact the Israeli government removed troops from Lebanon because they were defeated by Hizbollah, but they didn't quite withdraw. They retained part of Lebanese territory - the Shebaa Farms.

 

"And neither the British nor the Israeli public is aware that Israel has been making incursions into Lebanon all the time - snatching people sometimes. It has also violated Lebanese and Syrian airspace and territorial water.

 

Besieging the region

 

"There's a similar situation in Gaza. Israel withdrew its army and settlers, but it has been besieging the region and making raids into it. Two days before Hamas and others captured this Israeli soldier, Israel abducted two people from Gaza. And of course it had killed many Gazans by shelling and 'targeted' assassination.

 

"Despite this you find a lot of people who say the captures of Israeli soldiers were gratuitous attacks by Hamas and Hizbollah - they are blamed for starting it."

 

Moshé argues that this perception among the Israeli public has been strengthened by Hizbollah sending rockets into Israel in response to the invasion of Lebanon.

 

"Israel's missiles and bombs are accurate," he notes. "When the Israelis hit a civilian target or the United Nations observation point, it is clear that they meant to hit it, for political reasons.

 

"But the Katyusha rockets of Hizbollah are not accurate. They fall randomly and kill mostly innocent people, including Arab citizens of Israel.

 

"This, and the fact that they are not shown the devastation Israel is creating in Gaza and Lebanon, makes Israelis believe that they are the victims."

 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Machover, together with Akiva Orr, wrote The Class Character of Israel - a pioneering Marxist account of the nature of Israeli society.

 

The essay argued that Israel was "financed by imperialism without being exploited by it" because it was a "watchdog" for the US in the Middle East. This pays for a Western standard of living for Israel's Jewish majority.

 

This fact, together with Israel's settler society status, explains why Zionism and the oppression of Palestinians are taken for granted by the majority of the Israeli population.

 

As Machover and Orr wrote, "As long as Zionism is politically and ideologically dominant within that society, and forms the accepted framework of politics, there is no chance whatsoever of the Israeli working class becoming a revolutionary class."

 

I asked Moshé whether the arguments in this article still stood up 35 years later. "Of course, it's very old and things have changed - but the fundamentals are the same.

 

"There was a period during the 1970s and 1980s when Israel relied much more on Palestinian labour. There was a beginning of a convergence towards South Africa's model under apartheid.

 

"This convergence came to an end with the first Palestinian intifada uprising in 1987. Israel has since reverted to the kind of society described in the article. Palestinians are not regarded even as a source of exploitable labour power.

 

"Now the people doing the most menial work in Israel are migrant workers. There are thousands of Chinese workers, Filipinos, Romanian, Polish, Thai and others. They have replaced Palestinian workers.

 

"So the Palestinians are now surplus to requirements. This makes it much worse than South Africa, because it is possible to reverse apartheid.

 

"There is no economic equality in South Africa yet, but the blacks are still there and can fight for equal rights. But once ethnic cleansing is implemented, it is very difficult to reverse."

 

Last year's Israeli withdrawal from Gaza - and the realignment of political parties in Israel - led many mainstream commentators to argue that Israel was finally ready to allow an independent Palestinian state to exist.

 

But Moshé believes these manoeuvres were all about continuing Israel's dominance over the Palestinians. "The withdrawal from Gaza was a consolidation of the occupation," he says.

 

"A larger number of settlers were implanted in the West Bank. Gaza, from a secular Zionist point of view, had little value as it has too many Palestinians in it - it was too costly to maintain.

 

"So they turned it into a big prison camp - they are 'putting the Palestinians on a diet', as an adviser to the Israeli prime minister said earlier this year.

 

"And they have been bombing and assassinating Palestinians. Hamas kept a ceasefire for 16 months. But Israel was always provoking Hamas, until finally it made a successful military operation against Israeli soldiers who were manning a post from which Gaza was being shelled.

 

"This operation, and the capture of an Israeli soldier, was a military humiliation for Israel, which was made even worse when Hizbollah captured two more Israeli soldiers."

 

Military sophistication

 

These actions "were used as a pretext for the huge devastation of Lebanon", says Moshé. But the Israeli action has not gone to plan.

 

"Hizbollah's military sophistication and capability is incomparably better than any other Arab force that Israel has confronted. They are the only Arab force that has decisively beaten Israel in a campaign and forced it to withdraw."

 

So what about the role of the US in propping up Israel's actions? Moshé is adamant that "this war was prepared long ago - it is a US-Israeli war".

 

"The aims go beyond Hizbollah," he argues. "This is a public demonstration - with the whole world as the audience, especially the Arab world, and in particular Syria and Iran.

 

"Hamas, Hizbollah, Syria and Iran are the only forces remaining in the Middle East that are not subservient to the US and its local junior partners.

 

"The US didn't just give the Israelis a green light - it is also giving Israel the jet fuel. It is encouraging Israel."

 

The nature of Israel's relationship with the US has been the subject of much debate in the media.

 

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two US academics, recently claimed that there is an "Israel lobby" that ensures that the US backs Israel against its own interests.

 

I asked Moshé whether this theory is confirmed or disproved by the US's support for Israel's assault on Lebanon. "What Mearsheimer and Walt are right about is the descriptive part of their article - the operation of the pro-Israeli lobby," he replied.

 

Ideological reasons

 

"It is not just a Jewish lobby. The fundamentalist Christians are a much bigger part than the Jewish lobby, for their own ideological reasons.

 

"But Mearsheimer and Walt are right wing critics of US policy. There has always been a minority within the US elite that argues that the US is not doing the right thing.

 

"US capitalism is not a monolith, and these people belong to the minority who believe that the US is not serving its own interests. So who should they blame? The pro-Israeli or Zionist lobby.

 

"On this they are wrong. Is the dog wagging the tail, or the tail wagging the dog? Their theory is that the tail is wagging the dog and subverting US policy.

 

"But the US military/industrial complex is doing what it thinks of as serving its interests. They see Israel as a useful instrument. But this has a cost - it encourages anti-US terrorism and resentment in the Arab world.

 

"Of course, terrorism can be useful to the US elite, and as a real threat it is relatively negligible. It is not like the Cold War when the US was faced by another superpower with nuclear weapons - that was a real threat."

 

Moshé adds, "As for Arab resentment, the corruption of the present Arab regimes and their subservience to the US help prop up this situation.

 

"Things would be very different if the Arab world underwent a progressive transformation and stood up to the US.

 

"That would be the only thing that would make the US change its policy in the Middle East - they would have to pay a real price.

 

"The oil and arms industry is making a massive profit out of the Middle East wars. George Bush and Dick Cheney are linked to these kinds of companies. Israel is allowed to be strong because it serves the interests of US capitalism."

 

Moshé doesn't believe there is much hope for peace in the short or medium term. "As far as Israelis are concerned, world public opinion is the US," he says.

 

"The rest of the world doesn't count - they have the world's sole superpower as their backer. Israel is not under international pressure. That is why it is so important to campaign to boycott Israeli goods.

 

"Any long term solution must be based on equal individual rights to all, and equal national rights for the two groups involved, including the right of return for Palestinians. Whether there is one or two states is less important than this.

 

"A resolution can only take place when the Arab east is transformed and the balance of forces is different. It cannot be confined to just Palestine-Israel.

 

"The problem can only be resolved in a socialist union of the whole region. Marxists have always thought of the region as a whole. We need to think big."

 

 

 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749283.html

 

Ha'aretz August 11, 2006

By Ari Shavit

 

Ehud Olmert may decide to accept the French proposal for a cease-fire and unconditional surrender to Hezbollah. That is his privilege. Olmert is a prime minister whom journalists invented, journalists protected, and whose rule journalists preserved. Now the journalists are saying run away. That's legitimate. Unwise, but legitimate.

 

However, one thing should be clear: If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day. Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say - oops, I made a mistake. That was not the intention. Pass me a cigar, please.

 

There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front.

 

Still, if Olmert had come to his senses as Golda Meir did during the Yom Kippur War, if he had become a leader, established a war cabinet an d called the nation to a supreme effort that would change the face of the battle, a penetrating discussion of his failures could be postponed. But in blinking first over the past 24 hours, he has become an incorrigible political personality. Therefore, the day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real prime minister.

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