Jonathan Cook - Israel and the Clash of Civilisations

Weekend Edition

September 23 / 24, 2006

From the New "Anti-Semitism" to Nuclear

Holocaust

How Israel is Engineering the "Clash of Civilizations"

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

The trajectory of a long-running campaign that gave birth this month to the preposterous all-party

British parliamentary report into anti-Semitism in the UK can be traced back to intensive lobbying

by the Israeli government that began more than four years ago, in early 2002.

At that time, as Ariel Sharon was shredding the tattered remains of the Oslo accords by reinvading

West Bank towns handed over to the Palestinian Authority in his destructive rampage known as

Operation Defensive Shield, he drafted the Israeli media into the fray. Local newspapers began

endlessly highlighting concerns about the rise of a "new anti-Semitism", a theme that was rapidly

and enthusiastically taken up by the muscular Zionist lobby in the US.

It was not the first time, of course, that Israel had called on American loyalists to help it out of

trouble. In Beyond Chutzpah, Norman Finkelstein documents the advent of claims about a new

anti-Semitism to Israel's lacklustre performance in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. On that occasion, it

was hoped, the charge of anti-Semitism could be deployed against critics to reduce pressure on

Israel to return Sinai to Egypt and negotiate with the Palestinians.

Israel alerted the world to another wave of anti-Semitism in the early 1980s, just as it came under

unprecedented criticism for its invasion and occupation of Lebanon. What distinguished the new

anti-Semitism from traditional anti-Jewish racism of the kind that led to Germany's death camps,

said its promoters, was that this time it embraced the progressive left rather than the far right.

The fresh claims about a new anti-Semitism began life in the spring of 2002, with the English-

language website of Israel's respected liberal daily newspaper, Haaretz, flagging for many months a

special online supplement of articles on the "New anti-Semitism", warning that the "age-old hatred"

was being revived in Europe and America. The refrain was soon taken up the Jerusalem Post, a

rightwing English-language newspaper regularly used by the Israeli establishment to shore up

support for its policies among Diaspora Jews.

Like its precursors, argued Israel's apologists, the latest wave of anti-Semitism was the

responsibility of Western progressive movements -- though with a fresh twist. An ever-present but

largely latent Western anti-Semitism was being stoked into frenzy by the growing political and

intellectual influence of extremist Muslim immigrants. The implication was that an unholy alliance

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had been spawned between the left and militant Islam.

Such views were first aired by senior members of Sharon's cabinet. In an interview in the Jerusalem

Post in November 2002, for example, Binyamin Netanyahu warned that latent anti-Semitism was

again becoming active:

"In my view, there are many in Europe who oppose anti-Semitism, and many governments and

leaders who oppose anti-Semitism, but the strain exists there. It is ignoring reality to say that it is

not present. It has now been wedded to and stimulated by the more potent and more overt force of

anti-Semitism, which is Islamic anti-Semitism coming from some of the Islamic minorities in

European countries. This is often disguised as anti-Zionism."

Netanyahu proposed "lancing the boil" by beginning an aggressive public relations campaign of

"self-defence". A month later Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, picked on the softest target of all,

warning during a state visit that the fight against anti-Semitism must begin in

Germany, where "voices of anti-Semitism can be heard".

But, as ever, the main target of the new anti-Semitism campaign were

audiences in the US, Israel's generous patron. There, members of the Israel

lobby were turning into a chorus of doom.

In the early stages of the campaign, the lobby's real motivation was not

concealed: it wanted to smother a fledgling debate by American civil society,

particularly the churches and universities, to divest -- withdraw their

substantial investments -- from Israel in response to Operation Defensive

Shield.

In October 2002, after Israel had effectively reoccupied the West Bank, the

ever-reliable Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, lumped in critics who were

calling for divestment from Israel with the new anti-Semites. He urged a new body established by

the Israeli government called the Forum for Co-ordinating the Struggle against anti-Semitism to

articulate clearly "what we know in our hearts and guts: when that line [to anti-Semitism] is

crossed".

A fortnight later Foxman had got into his stride, warning that Jews were more vulnerable than at

any time since the Second World War. "I did not believe in my lifetime that I or we would be

preoccupied on the level that we are, or [face] the intensity of anti-Semitism that we are

experiencing," he told the Jerusalem Post.

Echoing Netanyahu's warning, Foxman added that the rapid spread of the new anti-Semitism had

been made possible by the communications revolution, mainly the internet, which was allowing

Muslims to relay their hate messages across the world within seconds, infecting people around the

globe.

It is now clear that Israel and its loyalists had three main goals in mind as they began their

campaign. Two were familiar motives from previous attempts at highlighting a "new anti-Semitism".

The third was new.

The first aim, and possibly the best understood, was to stifle all criticism of Israel, particularly in the

US. During the course of 2003 it became increasingly apparent to journalists like myself that the


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American media, and soon much of the European media, was growing shy of printing even the mild

criticism of Israel it usually allowed. By the time Israel began stepping up the pace of construction

of its monstrous wall across the West Bank in spring 2003, editors were reluctant to touch the story.

As the fourth estate fell silent, so did many of the progressive voices in our universities and

churches. Divestment was entirely removed from the agenda. McCarthyite organisations like

CampusWatch helped enforce the reign of intimidation. Academics who stood their ground, like

Columbia University's Joseph Massad, attracted the vindictive attention of new activist groups like

the David Project.

A second, less noticed, goal was an urgent desire to prevent any slippage in the numbers of Jews

inside Israel that might benefit the Palestinians as the two ethnic groups approached demographic

parity in the area know to Israelis as Greater Israel and to Palestinians as historic Palestine.

Demography had been a long-standing obsession of the Zionist movement: during the 1948 war,

the Israeli army terrorised away or forcibly removed some 80 per cent of the Palestinians living

inside the borders of what became Israel to guarantee its new status as a Jewish state.

But by the turn of the millennium, following Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967,

and the rapid growth of the oppressed Palestinian populations both in the occupied territories and

inside Israel, demography had been pushed to the top of Israel's policy agenda again.

During the second intifada, as the Palestinians fought back against Israel's war machine with a wave

of suicide bombs on buses in major Israeli cities, Sharon's government feared that well-off Israeli

Jews might start to regard Europe and America as a safer bet than Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. The

danger was that the demographic battle might be lost as Israeli Jews emigrated.

By suggesting that Europe in particular had become a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, it was

hoped that Israeli Jews, many of whom have more than one passport, would be afraid to leave. A

survey by the Jewish Agency taken as early as May 2002 showed, for example, that 84 per cent of

Israelis believed anti-Semitism had again become a serious threat to world Jewry.

At the same time Israeli politicians concentrated their attention on the two European countries with

the largest Jewish populations, Britain and France, both of which also have significant numbers of

immigrant Muslims. They highlighted a supposed rise in anti-Semitism in these two countries in the

hope of attracting their Jewish populations to Israel.

In France, for example, peculiar anti-Semitic attacks were given plenty of media coverage: from a

senior rabbi who was stabbed (by himself, as it later turned out) to a young Jewish woman attacked

on a train by anti-Semitic thugs (except, as it later emerged, she was not Jewish).

Sharon took advantage of the manufactured climate of fear in July 2004 to claim that France was in

the grip of "the wildest anti-Semitism", urging French Jews to come to Israel.

The third goal, however, had not seen before. It tied the rise of a new anti-Semitism with the

increase of Islamic fundamentalism in the West, implying that Muslim extremists were asserting an

ideological control over Western thinking. It chimed well with the post 9-11 atmosphere.

In this spirit, American Jewish academics like David Goldhagen characterised anti-Semitism as

constantly "evolving". In a piece entitled "The Globalisation of anti-Semitism" published in the

American Jewish weekly Forward in May 2003, Goldhagen argued that Europe had exported its


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classical racist anti-Semitism to the Arab world, which in turn was reinfecting the West.

"Then the Arab countries re-exported the new hybrid demonology back to Europe and, using the

United Nations and other international institutions, to other countries around the world. In Germany,

France, Great Britain and elsewhere, today's intensive anti-Semitic expression and agitation uses

old tropes once applied to local Jews -- charges of sowing disorder, wanting to subjugate others --

with new content overwhelmingly directed at Jews outside their countries."

This theory of a "free-floating" contagion of hatred towards Jews, being spread by Arabs and their

sympathisers through the internet, media and international bodies, found many admirers. The

British neo-conservative journalist Melanie Philips claimed popularly, if ludicrously, that British

identity was being subverted and pushed out by an Islamic identity that was turning her country

into a capital of terror, "Londonistan".

This final goal of the proponents of "the new anti-Semitism" was so successful because it could be

easily conflated with other ideas associated with America's war on terror, such as the clash of

civilisations. If it was "us" versus "them", then the new anti-Semitism posited from the outset that

the Jews were on the side of the angels. It fell to the Christian West to decide whether to make a

pact with good (Judaism, Israel, civilisation) or evil (Islam, Osama bin Laden, Londonistan).

We are far from reaching the end of this treacherous road, both because the White House is

bankrupt of policy initiatives apart from its war on terror, and because Israel's place is for the

moment assured at the heart of the US administration's neoconservative agenda.

That was made clear last week when Netanyahu, the most popular politician in Israel, added yet

another layer of lethal mischief to the neoconservative spin machine as it gears up to confront Iran

over its nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu compared Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to

Adolf Hitler.

"Hitler went out on a world campaign first, and then tried to get nuclear weapons. Iran is trying to

get nuclear arms first. Therefore from that perspective, it is much more dangerous," Netanyahu told

Israel's anti-terrorism policymakers.

Netanyahu's implication was transparent: Iran is looking for another Final Solution, this one

targeting Israel as well as world Jewry. The moment of reckoning is near at hand, according to Tzipi

Livni, Israel's foreign minister, who claims against all the evidence that Iran is only months away

from posssessing nuclear weapons.

"International terrorism is a mistaken term," Netanyahu added, "not because it doesn't exist, but

because the problem is international militant Islam. That is the movement that operates terror on

the international level, and that is the movement that is preparing the ultimate terror, nuclear

terrorism."

Faced with the evil designs of the "Islamic fascists", such as those in Iran, Israel's nuclear arsenal --

and the nuclear Holocaust Israel can and appears prepared to unleash -- may be presented as the

civilised world's salvation.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the

forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by

Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is


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www.jkcook.net

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09232006.html

Review:

Israel and the Clash of Civilisations by Jonathan Cook

Raymond Deane, The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2008

Much debate on conflict in the Middle East is beset by

contradictions and unanswered questions. These include:

If the war in Iraq was motivated by oil, then why was it

opposed by so many within the oil industry itself? Was the

US incited by the omnipotent Zionist lobby to a war that is

opposed to America's vital interests (and is the lobby

omnipotent?)? Or is Israel merely a tool of the US

establishment, seen as a vital defender of Western

interests in the recalcitrant Orient?

In his second book, Nazareth-based English author

Jonathan Cook seeks to cut these Gordian knots, and in

the process proposes an uncompromisingly grim diagnosis

of what is happening in the world's most unstable region,

and why it is happening.

Borrowing analysis by Greg Palast, Cook accepts that the

oil industry wished to see Saddam toppled, but maintains

that it envisaged "a US-backed coup by a Ba'athist army

general; the new strongman would be transformed into a

democratic leader by elections held within three months."

There would ensue "the creation of an Iraqi state-owned

company that would restrict production, staying within

quotas and shoring up Saudi Arabia's control of OPEC ...

The neocons, on the other hand, wanted the Iraqi oil

industry privatized so that the global market could be flooded with cheap oil and the Saudi-

dominated cartel smashed."

Given that Saudi Arabia is "Israel's only Middle Eastern rival for influence in Washington," the

Jewish state had long desired to see the destruction of OPEC, which would also deprive the Saudis

of their "muscle to finance Islamic extremists and Palestinian resistance movements."

Furthermore, as far back as 1982 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz's legendary military

correspondent Ze'ev Schiff (recently deceased) had written that Israel's "best" interests would be

served by "the dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the

Kurdish part," a prescription that the US is attempting to fill a quarter of a century later. Israel

was also wary of "strongmen" who might act as a focus to awaken the dozing giant of Arab

nationalism, although Quislings are always welcome.

Clearly Israeli and US neoconservative perceived interests are being met by the current Iraq war


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better than by its predecessor, when George H.W. Bush, advised by the wily oilman James Baker,

declined to advance on Baghdad and oust Saddam Hussein, whose survival was still regarded as

essential for "stability" in the region.

Six months before the 2003 reinvasion of Iraq, the egregious neocon Michael Ledeen wrote: "We

do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to

change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize." Clearly, a cynical travesty of

Schumpeter's "creative destruction" has become the motto for a breed of militaristic ideologues

whose element is chaos.

If Israel is "the region's policeman," then, it is "one spreading discord rather than order ..." The

Israeli army, in reality that country's "permanent government," is braced for permanent warfare,

using Gaza and the West Bank as laboratories from which to export ideas, techniques and

technologies. "The US Department of Homeland Security was one of Israel's most reliable

markets, buying high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance

gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems." Naomi Klein's The Shock

Doctrine may be read as a complementary account to Cook's, albeit on a broader canvas.

As against "Chomsky's view that the positions of AIPAC and the Israeli lobby mainly reflected US

interests in the Middle East," Cook cites Chomsky's own view in the early 1980s that Israel sought

the "Ottomanization" of the region, "that is, a return to something like the system of the Ottoman

empire, with a powerful center (Turkey then, Israel with US-backing now) and much of the region

fragmented into ethnic-religious communities ..." (Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle). What this

would entail is laid out in the words of Hizballah's astute leader Hassan Nasrallah. In Lebanon,

"There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state," although a

Shiite state may well be prevented. Israel, Nasrallah adds, will be surrounded by "small tranquil

states. I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to

North African states ... Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that

has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other.

This is the new Middle East."

Meanwhile, the US and its accomplices will have obligingly split Iraq into three quiescent statelets,

as we have seen.

But Cook doesn't uncritically adhere to the position of US academics Stephen Walt/John

Mearsheimer that, as he paraphrases it, "much of the foreign policy making process in the US had

been effectively hijacked by agents of a foreign power, and that it was Israel really pulling the

strings in Washington through its neocon allies and groups like AIPAC ..." He asks "If such

commitment to Israeli interests was simply an effect of the pro-Israel lobby ..., why had the

previous Bush Sr and Clinton presidencies not pursued similar policies in the Middle East to Bush

Jr?" and cites a number of instances where the US has disregarded Israeli wishes, including

"disputes over Israeli arms sales to China ..., the current Bush administration's quiet non-response

to Israeli requests for financial compensation for its Gaza 'withdrawal' and its message to the

Olmert government that it should not ask for funding for its 'convergence plan' ..."

I'm not so sure about Cook's other examples. "Reagan's sale of AWACS planes to Saudia Arabia"

could surely be attributed to the different conditions of an earlier historical conjuncture. While

Reagan in many ways anticipated the worldview of the neocons (some of whom cut their fangs in

his administration), it's hard to read Cook without becoming convinced that neoconservatism was

the dominant ideology in Israel decades before it came home to roost in the US. As for "the first


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Bush administration's threat to withhold loan guarantees," often cited in similar contexts, surely

the Zionist lobby's subsequent vengeful role in stymieing Bush Sr's re-election suggests an

interpretation of this gesture's consequences more flattering to the power of the lobby's long arm.

On the other hand, there have been occasions when the Israeli tail has seemed to be wagging the

US dog, most notably the murky case of the USS Liberty, victim of a deliberate lethal attack

during the 1967 War, for which crime no subsequent US government has held Israel accountable.

In 1978, President Carter was humiliated when the Israelis invaded and occupied south Lebanon

against his wishes. Cook seems a little uneasy about these incidents, and his hypothetical

explanations of the US behemoth's seemingly helpless tolerance are hedged around with many a

"possibly" and a "doubtless" (the latter usually a reliable indicator of doubt). Yet it is impossible,

after reading this short but densely-packed and unswervingly logical book, to disagree with Cook's

knot-cutting conclusion that "the dog and tail wag each other."

I have described Cook's diagnosis as "uncompromisingly grim," and it must be said that Israel and

the Clash of Civilisations left this reader with a depressing sense of impotence. Cook attempts to

cheer us up in his final paragraph, concluding that "The most likely outcome [of US-Israeli efforts

to remake the Middle East] ... was the forging of new political, religious and social alliances across

the Middle East whose effects it was almost impossible to predict or imagine." Perhaps, however,

there is more hope to be gleaned from the preface:

"It is not entirely accidental that in dragging the US into a direct occupation of Iraq that mirrors

Israel's own much longer occupation of the Palestinian territories, Israel has ensured that the

legitimacy of both stands or falls together." Perhaps we are not too far from the day when the

illegitimacy of the Iraq adventure will become so patent to Americans themselves that their blind

support for the Zionist project will at last evaporate.

Raymond Deane is a composer, and a founding member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity

Campaign.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9289.shtml

A Review of Jonathan Cook's book

"Israel and the Clash of Civilisations"

by Stephen Lendman

Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the

predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the

Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance

sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and

Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International

Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth

Press Agency.

Cook states why he's in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the

true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He

"choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the 'treadmill' of the

mainstream media....which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it)


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makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."

Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing,

similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories.

"All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and

unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."

Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His first one in 2006 was titled

"Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State." It's the rarely told story

of the plight of the 1.4 million Palestinian Israeli citizens living inside the Jewish State, the

discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel's

"demographic problem" is the issue as Cook explains. It's the time when a faster-growing

Palestinian population (aside from the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a

"Jewish State" is threatened. Israel's response - state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic

cleansing to prevent it - in the Territories as well as and in Israel.

Cook's newest book, just published, is called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and

the Plan to Remake the Middle East." It's the subject of this review in the wake of advance praise.

Noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle

East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and

powerfully documents them. This review covers them in-depth along with some of this writer's

reflections on the region from America.

Introducing his topic, Cook begins with Iraq and states upfront that "civil war and partition were

the intended outcomes of invasion." Separation and conflict were planned, they serve America's

interests, they're not haphazard post-invasion events, and they originated far from Washington.

From the early 1980s, it was Israeli policy to subdue the Palestinians, fragment Arab rivals, and

foster ethnic and religious discord to maintain unchallengeable regional dominance. Bush

administration neocons chose the same strategy. Like Israel, they want to neutralize the region

through division and separation and make it work even though prior to invading Iraq, Sunni and

Shia neighborhoods were indistinguishable, and the country had the highest intermarriage rate in

the region.

The scheme is "Ottomanisation," and it worked for Ottoman Turkey against a more dominant

Islam. Israel sees four advantages to it:

-- divided minorities are easier to exploit, and Sunni - Shia conflict can achieve a greater aim -

subverting Israel's main threat - secular Arab nationalism united against the Jewish State;

-- greater military dominance lets Israel maintain its favored status as a valued Washington ally;

-- regional instability may lead to the breakup of Saudi-dominated OPEC, weaken the kingdom's

influence in Washington, and diminish its ability to finance Islamic extremists and Palestinian

resistance; and

-- Israel becomes freerer to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied

Territories.

Washington supported the scheme post-9/11, the "war on terror" was born, a clash of civilizations


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ensued, and the idea was that "Control of oil could be secured on the same terms as Israeli

regional hegemony: by spreading instability across the Middle East" and Central Asia through a

new-type divide and conquer strategy. For Israel, it weakens regional rivals and dampens

Palestinian nationalism and their hopes for "meaningful statehood."

Regime Overthrow in Iraq

Removing Saddam Hussein was justified to disarm a dangerous dictator threatening the region. It

was untrue and based on "False Pretenses" according to a study by two nonprofit journalism

organizations. On January 22, it was posted on the Center for Public Integrity web site. It's "an

exhaustive examination of the record" that shows the President and his seven top officials "waged

a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat" Iraq posed to galvanize

public opinion and go to war "under decidedly false pretenses."

At least 532 separate speeches, briefings, interviews, testimonies and more provide the evidence.

They show a concerted web of lies became the administration's case for war even though it's clear

Iraq had no WMDs or any ties to Al-Queda. Numerous bipartisan investigations drew the same

conclusion, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2004 and 2006, the

multinational Iraq Survey Group's "Duelfer Report," and even the dubious 9/11 Commission.

The study cites 232 false Bush statements alone about WMDs and 28 others about links to

Al-Queda. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others put out the

same lies that increased after August 2002 and spiked much higher in the weeks preceding

invasion. In all, the study documented 935 false statements, the dominant media spread them,

their deception is now revealed, and yet the administration avoided any responsibility for its

actions and the media is unapologetic. I

n addition, there are no congressional investigations, and the war is still misportrayed as a

liberating one when its clear intent was to erase a nation, divide and rule it, turn it into a free

market paradise, use it as a launching platform to dominate the region, and control its oil.

Saddam was never a credible threat. In addition, he'd been effectively disarmed in the early

1990s, but US officials suppressed what UN weapons inspectors' learned - the Gulf War

neutralized Iraq and "there were no unresolved disarmament issues." Further, Saddam's

son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, ran the country's WMD program in the 1980s and early 1990s. In

1995, he defected to the West, was thoroughly debriefed, and confirmed that there was no

nuclear program, and "Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the

missiles to deliver them."

The story was widely reported at the time, including a front page New York Times August 12

article headlined "Cracks in Baghdad" plus several subsequent follow-ups as events developed. It

was then buried, however, and never resurfaced in the run-up to March, 2003. For Iraqis, the

consequences were horrific, and they began after Saddam was tricked into invading Kuwait.

Four days later, Operation Desert Shield was launched, economic sanctions followed, a large US

troop buildup began, and a sweeping Kuwait-funded PR campaign prepared the public for

Operation Desert Shield. It began on January 17, 1991, ended on February 28, caused mass

killing, and all essential to life facilities were destroyed, effectively returning the country to its

pre-industrial condition.


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Twelve years of the most comprehensive, genocidal sanctions followed. They included a crippling

trade embargo and an air blockade to enforce it. Adequate humanitarian essentials were

restricted, and the 1995 UN Oil-for-Food Program was a well-planned scam. Until it ended after

March 2003, it provided the equivalent of 21 cents a day for food and 4 cents for medicines. In

addition, vital drugs and other essentials were banned because of their claimed potential "dual

use."

The toll was horrific and got two UN heads of Iraqi humanitarian relief to resign with Dennis

Halliday saying in 1998 that he did so because he "had been instructed to implement a policy that

satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed over one million

individuals, children and adults," including 5000 Iraqi children a month in his judgment.

Conditions got worse post-March 2003 with street violence commonplace; mounting deaths and

injuries; and a total breakdown of essential services, including electricity, clean drinking water,

sanitation, medical care, and education made worse by mass unemployment and poverty - an

occupation-created humanitarian disaster of epic proportions that continues to worsen.

Four million refugees left the country or are internally displaced, one-third of the population needs

emergency aid, millions can't get enough food, malnourishment is rampant, medical care barely

exists, and the British medical journal The Lancet published the Johns Hopkins University School

of Public Health study on the death toll in October 2006. It estimated 655,000 violent deaths since

March 2003 that could be as high as 900,000 at the time (and now much higher) because

interviewers couldn't survey the country's most violent areas and omitted from the study

thousands of families in which all members were killed.

Cook quoted a Palestinian academic, Karma Nabulsi, citing similarities between Iraq and occupied

Palestine - two populations "living in a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent,

powerless, destroyed, cowed, ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and

extremists, broken up into ethnic and religious tribalism and co-opted collaborationists."

Palestinians and Iraqis resist, demand their freedom, and polls shows overwhelming numbers

want the occupations to end. In Iraq, almost no one thinks America came to liberate them or

establish democracy.

Nearly everyone knows Washington's real intent - permanent occupation to control the country's

oil so Big Oil giants can exploit it for profit, deny Iraqis their own natural wealth, and give America

"veto power" over rivals and potential ones to assure their compliance.

A September 1978 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum is particularly notable. It listed three US

Middle East objectives:

-- "assure continuous access to petroleum resources,

-- prevent an inimical power or combination of powers from establishing hegemony, and

-- assure the survival of Israel as an independent state in a stable relationship with

contiguous Arab states."

Of great concern to US planners, then and now, is "curbing and crushing (Arab and Iranian)

nationalism that might inspire Middle Eastern states" to claim the right to their own resources and

deny the West their benefits. Twentieth century history documents how Britain and America


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controlled the region, installed puppet rulers, backed repressive dictators, removed uncompliant

ones, and looted oil-rich states for their gain. Iraq is now exploited, local industry was crushed, US

corporations plunder the country, and the so-called hydrocarbon law gives Big Oil the same right

to the nation's oil - if it's enacted but so far it's stalled.

The Iraqi cabinet approved it last February, but that's where things now stand because of mass

public opposition to a blueprint for plunder. If the puppet parliament passes it, foreign investors

will reap a bonanza of resources leaving Iraq with just slivers. Its complex provisions, still being

manipulated, give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control to less than one-fifth of the

country's operating fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits (most of Iraq's reserves) set aside

for Big Oil. Even worse, contracts (under "production sharing agreements") up to 35 years will be

granted, all earnings may be expropriated, and foreign interests have no obligation to invest in

Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share

new technologies.

Earlier in the 20th century, America coveted Middle East oil once its potential was realized.

Post-WW I, however, Britain occupied Iraq and Kuwait, benefitted most until WW II, miscalculated

on Saudi's importance, and let the Roosevelt administration secure an oil concession in the 1930s

that began close ties between the two nations. The President and King ibn Saud struck a deal.

America guaranteed the kingdom's security in return for a steady supply of oil at stable prices,

and later on, the recycling of huge petrodollar profits into US investments and military hardware.

Thereafter, the region was key, and the Carter Doctrine highlighted it after engineering the Shah's

removal in 1979. Carter stated - "Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside

force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests

of the United States of America (and) will be repelled by any means necessary, including military

force."

Post-9/11, the Bush Doctrine applied Carter policy globally in the 2002 National Security Strategy

(NSS), later revised and made harsher in 2006. It's an imperial grand plan for world dominance,

preventive wars are the strategy, the Middle East and Central Asia are its main targets, and the

powerful Israeli Lobby assures Washington and Tel Aviv interests are in lockstep. More on that

below.

The Long Campaign against Iran

The January 2007 Herzliya, Israel conference was notable for what's become the country's

premiere political event. This one differed from others in two respects. Forty-two past and present

US policy makers were invited, and attention focused on a Shia "arc of extremism" with debates

and discussion highlighting Iran and Hezbollah.

Participants claimed Iran spread regional instability, was close to developing nuclear weapons, and

would use them against Israel. There were similar echoes from the January 2008 conference with

comments from speakers like Ehud Barak saying "The Iranian nuclear threat remains critical (and)

We will not accept an Iran which possesses a nuclear capable military." General Ephraim Sneh

added "Our problem is not the nuclear problem, but rather the Iranian regime. (It) incorporates

imperial ambition, hatred of Israel, increasing military strength, and an unlimited budget."

Ignored was common knowledge or any glimmer of truth - that the late Ayatollah Khomeini

banned nuclear weapons development, today's Iranian officials repeatedly stress the country's

only nuclear aim is commercial, and Tehran represents no threat to Israel or any other country in


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or outside the region.

Since the early 1990s, Israel claimed otherwise - that Iran sought nuclear weapons, represented

an existential threat, and had to be confronted. By 1994, Haaretz reported that the country's top

priority was neutralizing Iran to thwart its regional aspirations because Tehran threatened to

acquire nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and had the ability to export terrorism and

revolution to subvert secular Arab regimes. Iraq was already under sanctions, but Israel saw both

countries as a combined threat. Weakening one would only strengthen the other, so both had to

be smashed.

With Iraq under occupation, Iran's now called the center of world terrorism and packaged with

Syria and Hezbollah as Israel's axis of evil with Hamas added later after its early 2006 electoral

victory. Israel has big aims - to become a regional hegemon, prevent a rival power from

influencing the "peace process," and deny the Palestinians any hope of ending the occupation. It

thus manufactured an Iranian threat and along with Washington blocks dialogue and negotiation.

Claiming Iran is a nuclear menace runs counter to the facts. Tehran is years away from producing

nuclear power, and IAEA head Mouhammad el-Baradei reports no evidence that Iran is building or

seeks to build nuclear weapons. He also told the press last August that "Iran is ready to discuss all

outstanding issues which triggered the crisis in confidence. It's a significant step. There are clear

guidelines (and Iran is not) dallying with the agency (or) prolong(ing) negotiations to avoid

sanctions....Iran (deserves) a chance to prove its stated goodwill."

IAEA also reported Iran's uranium enrichment program slowed, operates well below capacity, and

isn't producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts. It had only 1968 centrifuges functioning,

several hundred others in various stages of assembly or testing, and its enrichment level is well

below what's needed to build a nuclear bomb. In addition, in December 2007, the US National

Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003

(without evidence one ever existed) and has none of these weapons in its arsenal.

The Bush administration and Israel sidestepped NIE and denounced the IAEA, called it an Iranian

ploy to buy time, and "There was no (Israeli) debate about which country should be targeted after

Iraq." The goal was to isolate Iran, end its threat to Israel, but avoid the mistake of invading and

occupying another country with Iraq already out of control. Other choices were preferable -

stoking internal conflict, inciting instability, attacking by air, and deciding which reports to believe.

An August 2007 one called "Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMDs in the

Middle East" was particularly alarming. British experts Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher prepared it,

other evidence of impending conflict supported it, no date was given, but they stated things are

too far along in planning to stop. They wrote the Pentagon has plans for a "massive, multi-front,

full-spectrum" shock and awe-type attack with no ground invasion. Its aim is to target 10,000

sites with bombers and long-range missiles, destroy the country's military capacity, nuclear

energy sites, economic infrastructure and other targets to destabilize and oust its regime or

reduce the country to a "weak or failed state."

Washington also pressured the UN to impose sanctions on Iran. In July 2006, the Security Council

passed Resolution 1696 demanding Tehran halt enriching uranium by August 31 or be sanctioned.

UN Resolution 1737 followed in December, cited the country's nuclear program and imposed

limited sanctions with further ones applied after UN Resolution 1747 passed in March. On January

22, 2008, the five permanent Security Council members and Germany agreed to a third round of


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sanctions that was less than what the Bush administration wanted.

The cat and mouse game continues, the threat of wider war remains, and nothing may be

resolved with the current administration in power. Nor is there much chance for change under a

new one in 2009 as hawkish candidates from both parties dominate the race and support Israel's

design on Iran.

The Islamic Republic remains Target One, but on July 12, 2006 the Olmert government surprised.

It attacked Lebanon in a blatant act of aggression. It later came out the war was long-planned,

Washington was on board, and a minor incident became the pretext to launch it. The target was

Hezbollah, and the scheme was to remove what former Deputy Secretary of State Richard

Armitage once called "the A-team of international terrorism." That was his way of noting a

long-time Israeli irritant that was able to liberate Lebanon's south by ending the IDF's 22 year

occupation in May 2000.

By summer 2006, strong rhetoric suggested a wider war with Iran and Syria. Both countries were

accused of supplying Hezbollah with thousands of rockets to "wipe Israel off the map," and they

were being indiscriminately used to do it.

In fact, Hezbollah was founded as a national liberation movement after Israel invaded Lebanon in

1982. It's not an Islamist or terrorist organization as its founding mission statement reveals. It

was an "open letter to all the oppressed in Lebanon and the world" stating its aims - to drive the

US, French and Israeli occupiers out of Lebanon, defeat the right wing Christian Maronite Phalange

party allied with Israel, and give our people "liberty (in) the form of government they desire." It

added "we don't want to impose Islam upon anybody. We don't want Islam to reign in Lebanon by

force as is the case with the Maronites today."

Today, Hezbollah is a legitimate political and social organization that maintains a military wing for

self-defense. It represents Lebanon's Shia population (40% of the total) and is respected for

running a comprehensive network of schools, health facilities and other social services available to

anyone in need, not just Shias. Nonetheless, it's been unfairly branded anti-Jewish, accused of

wanting to destroy Israel, and Washington put it on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list in

1997.

In summer 2006, Hezbollah responded to Israeli aggression as its legitimate right. It targeted

military, not civilian, sites with spotty accuracy, hit some, and proved to Israel's embarrassment

that its forces, Iran and Syria knew site locations that could be struck more accurately with more

powerful weapons in retaliation if attacked.

The threat is real, but Hezbollah was the first order of business. Its rockets had to be eliminated

as Seymour Hersh reported. Otherwise, "You hit Iran (or Syria first), Hezbollah then bombs Tel

Aviv and Haifa," but more was at stake as well. Backing Lebanon's Siniora government against a

weakened Hezbollah and asserting the army's control in the south was key. In addition, with Iran

and Syria potential targets, the Pentagon wanted Israel to field test its bunker-buster bombs to

learn their effectiveness in advance.

Hezbollah was more formidable than expected, it prevailed against Israel's might, its leader, Sheik

Hassan Nasralah, is stronger than ever, his support extends beyond his Shia base in the south, the

IDF suffered a humiliating defeat, and that's where things now stand. Had the Olmert government

prevailed, Cook reports that an air attack on Syria was planned, President Bashar Assad

apparently knew it, a credible Washington source revealed it, and the Israeli media suggested the


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Bush administration wanted Israel to proceed.

Further hawkishness came from Hebrew University professor Martin van Creveld, a respected

military historian "with intimate knowledge of the army's inner workings and its collective ethos."

His March 2007 Jewish Daily Forward commentary argued that Syria planned to attack Israel no

later than October 2008, possibly with chemical weapons, but no evidence was cited. He merely

said the Assad government "had been on an armaments shopping spree in Russia" and let readers

draw their own conclusions. Israel, he claimed, was thus justified to attack preemptively even

though there was credible evidence that Syria sought resolution on the Golan issue, made

overtures to negotiate, and the Olmert government believed Assad was serious.

Nonetheless, he was rebuffed and hard line Washington and Tel Aviv officials prevailed. Appeasing

Iran and Syria was off the table, removing their "dire threat" had to be confronted, and it hardly

mattered that none existed. Then came November 2006. Olmert's approval rating was dismal, and

a newspaper poll showed Netanyahu would best him in fresh elections. US Republicans were just

as weak. The November 2006 congressional elections sent a strong message - end the war and

bring home the troops. For the first time since 9/11, neocon dominance was uncertain, tensions

surfaced in the administration, and a change of direction looked possible.

James Baker's Iraq Study Group recommended one in December. It argued that US forces should

be gradually withdrawn from Iraq, Iran and Syria should be engaged to help stabilize "what was

clearly a failed state," and the home front battle lines were drawn. Key Bush advisors continued to

claim Iran was the problem by trying to undermine Washington in Iraq. It was stirring up Shia

resistance, arming the Sunnis, and countering Tehran required greater US involvement, not an

exit.

For a while, it wasn't clear how things would turn out, but in the end the administration remained

hard line, and in early 2007 announced a 30,000 troop surge, stepped up pressure against Iran,

and positioned a major naval strike force in the Gulf. At the same time, President Ahmadinejad

became another "Hitler" and was misquoted as saying he was trying to "wipe Israel off the map."

He actually said "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" in a

reference to its military conquest, illegally occupying Jerusalem, colonizing the Occupied

Territories, and repressing the Palestinian people. Ultimately, these policies will fail, and respected

analysts say the same thing.

Ahmadinejad made no reference to Jews, only a racist Israeli government that relegates non-Jews

to second class status or worse. Regardless of his words and meaning, every move and comment

he now makes is scrutinized for any way to attack him.

End of the Strongmen

Cook asks why were Israel and the US extending the "war on terror" to the strongest Middle East

state, Iran, since it's the one most able to alleviate crisis in Iraq? Why turn a "clash of

civilisations" into an added Sunni-Shia struggle and risk making an unstable situation worse?

Many Middle Eastern states are "uncomfortable amalgams of Sunni and Shia populations" because

they were combined into unnatural states post-WW I. By late 2006, internal conflicts destabilized

Iraq and Lebanon, threatened to spread, and Washington and Tel Aviv were encouraging it.

By confronting Iran and Syria, things may only worsen, but White House reasoning is that this as

preferable to a united resistance targeting its occupation. Israel has the same view, and it lay


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behind the summer 2006 Lebanon war. At its start, it was hoped conflict would unite Christians

and Sunnis against Hezbollah and repeat the sectarian civil war that ravaged the country from

1975 to 1990. Instead, the nation united against Israel, and Hezbollah's power and overall status

was enhanced, the opposite of what Tel Aviv planned.

The same strategy is playing out in the Occupied Territories, but its outcome is unresolved. After

Hamas' electoral victory, Israel refused recognition, and the US and West went along. All outside

aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate

government was isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions and

attacks, and the idea was to foment internal conflict on Gaza streets. It went on for months, then

subsided (with occasional flare-ups) when Hamas prevailed against Fatah. It defeated Mahmoud

Abbas' heavily US-Israeli-armed paramilitaries that were led by Mohammed Dahlan. In spite of

defeat, Israel achieved a long-standing aim. It split the Palestinians into two rival camps in Gaza

and the West Bank and recognized the unelected Abbas government as legitimate.

Israel plans the same fate for Syria, but Cook says its "closed society (is) more difficult to read."

Nonetheless, Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act in late 2003 to justify a US and/or

Israeli future attack on any pretext that's never hard to find. A clause in the law states Syria is

"accountable for any harm to Coalition armed forces or to any United States citizen in Iraq if the

government of Syria is found to be responsible" even without proof. Whatever Syria does, it's

thwarted despite clear evidence it seeks peace with the West and Israel and will make concessions

in return for resolution to long-outstanding issues like the Golan.

Cook thus wonders "who controls American foreign policy? Does the dog wag the tail or the

opposite given the power of Israel to influence policy? One camp argues the former with

distinguished figures like Noam Chomsky believing Washington has a "consistent, predictable and

monolithic view of American interests abroad" and how best to secure them.

How to explain Iraq then since the administration rejected the advice of many of its key policy

advisors, including what Big Oil wanted. Instead, it opted for a messy "regime overthrow," not a

simpler "regime change" that worked well in the past without war and occupation. In addition,

attacking Iran guarantees regional turmoil, greater instability, regimes likely toppling, intensified

Iraq conflict targeting Americans, higher oil prices, possible world recession, and no assurance of

a favorable outcome.

Why risk it when Iran sought dialogue for years, but Washington consistently refuses. Cook cites

two US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and might have included James Petras'

work and his powerfully important book titled "The Power of Israel in the United States." This

writer reviewed it in-depth and was greatly struck by its persuasive content. It documents the

Lobby's depth and breath at the highest levels of government, throughout Congress, business

boardrooms, academia, the clergy (especially dominant Christian fundamentalists) and the mass

media. Together they assure full and unconditional support for most Israeli interests most of the

time going back decades. Wars included - in the Occupied Territories, against Lebanon, the Gulf

War, the current Iraq war as well as all Israeli wars since 1967 and the prospect of engaging Iran

and Syria despite strong opposition at home.

Cook presents his own view saying "the dog and tail wag each other," and that's Israel's strategy

by making both countries dependent on the other for dominance in and outside the region. He

believes Israel persuaded administration neocons that both countries shared mutual goals. It

worked because it placed US interests of global domination and controlling oil at the heart of

strategy.


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Consider also a long-standing "special relationship" between the two countries going back

decades. Senate Foreign Relations Committee private meeting transcripts before and after the

1967 war reveal it. They explain, early on, that Washington valued Israel as a strategic ally in a

vitally important part of the world. Aside from oil, the Johnson administration called Israel a useful

Cold War asset at a time Russia courted leading Arab states and made progress. Its regional wars

were also helpful to confront the kind of nationalist threat Egypt's Nasser represented. They split

regional states into irreconcilable camps - weak Gulf ones like the Saudis needing US protection;

stronger regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Iran under the Shah; and outliers like Syria, Libya, Iraq

and Iran after 1979.

Cook recounts Ariel Sharon's vision of empire as a regional superpower in an early 1980s speech

he never made. He radically departed from Israel's traditional strategy of either seeking peace or

directly confronting hostile neighbors. His new thinking was to extend Tel Aviv's influence to the

whole region by achieving qualitative and technological weapons superiority.

Sharon was a seasoned general, his views were respected, and he greatly influenced younger

officers who rose in prominence and, in the case of Ehud Barak, became Prime Minister like

himself. He believed Israel should impose its dictates and force other regional states to comply or

be punished.

The "Sharon Doctrine," as its called, also reflected the views National Security Adviser, General Uzi

Dayan, and Mossad head, Ephraim Halevy stated in December 2001. They called 9/11 a

"Hannukkah miracle" because it gave Israel a chance to marginalize and confront its enemies.

Henceforth, all "Islamic terror" elements could be grouped together as threats to the region's

rulers. Confronting it was crucial, so after Afghanistan Iraq, Iran and Syria were next "as soon as

possible." It was Dick Cheney's vision of permanent "war that won't end in our lifetimes."

In 1982, Israeli journalist and former Foreign Affairs Ministry senior advisor, Oded Yinon, proposed

an even more radical idea. Like Sharon, he advocated transforming Israel into a regional power

with an added goal: breaking up Arab states into ethnic and confessional groupings that Israel

could more easily control. Similar to Huntington's "clash of civilizations," Yinon suggested we were

witnessing cataclysmic times, the "collapse of the world order," and he identified the threat: "The

strength, dimension, accuracy and quality of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons will overturn most

of the world in a few years." He believed an age of terror emerged that would challenge Israel

with growing Arab militancy.

His remedy - install minority population leaders who are dependent on colonial powers even after

nominal independence. It worked in Lebanon under the Maronites, in Syria under the Alawis, and

in Jordan under Hashemite monarchs. Yinon believed these states were weak, as were oil-rich

ones, could be easily dissolved, and doing it was key to forcibly displacing Palestinians from the

Territories and inside Israel. Furthermore, achieving dominance depended on dissolving Arab

states so Israel would be unchallengeable and able to complete its ethnic cleansing process.

Remaking the Middle East

After the Soviet Russia dissolved, Israel's military had to convince Washington it could be useful in

a post-Cold War world. Would it be a bullying enforcer or a regional guarantor of US and Israeli

dominance by sowing disorder and instability? In the 1990s, "two new kinds of Middle Eastern

political and paramilitary actors" emerged - Sunni jihadis called Al-Queda and elements like the

Taliban in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in south Lebanon. They represent formidable challenges that


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aren't easily intimidated or bullied.

In this type world, threats are at a sub-state level, so Yinon's scheme was appealing - encourage

discord and feuding within nations, destabilize them, and arrange their dismemberment into

mini-states. Tribes and sectarian elements could be turned on each other, and alliances with

non-Arab, non-Muslim groups like Christians, Kurds and Druze could be cultivated to advantage.

One problem remains, however - the possibility that another Middle East state may develop

nuclear weapons, challenge Israel's dominance and get away with it. Nonetheless, Israel planned

"organized chaos" across the region and convinced administration neocons the scheme was

sensible. They had every reason to approve, and powerful opposition at home aside, they're

destabilizing the region along with Israel. There's no guaranteed outcome, the subsequent fallout

is unpredictable, but consider the possibilities. The administration is quite able to vaporize Iran

and Syria and end the homeland republic if that's the plan. It's also what other states have to fear.

Cook considers why Israel and Washington chose this agenda despite the risks:

-- by controlling Iran and Iraq, oil production can be increased and prices brought down

to a desired level;

-- Israel's rivals will be economically and politically crippled as will Palestinians in the

Territories and inside Israel;

-- Gulf states will also be weakened, including Saudi Arabia; and one major out-of-region

goal may be achieved -

-- containing China by controlling its main oil source; it may also be easier to dismember

the country the way the Soviet Union was dissolved.

The goal is grandiose, risky and its chance of succeeding highly improbable. Consider Russia

under Vladimir Putin. Contained under Boris Yeltsin, it's no longer a pushover. In a largely ignored

June 2007 speech, Putin highlighted deteriorating US-Russian relations post-9/11 with alarm.

Bush administration policies were threatening and endangered his country's security:

-- US military bases encircle it;

-- former Soviet states were recruited into NATO;

-- offensive missiles were installed on its borders on the pretext of missile defense;

-- allied Central Asian regimes were toppled to Washington's advantage; and

-- US-backed Serbian, Ukrainian and Georgian "pro-democracy" groups incited political

instability in Moscow.

These actions convinced Russian hard-liners that America plans regime change and further

fragmentation of the Federation. China sees this, too, and knows it may be next. It's gotten both

powers to ally in two organizations for their own self-defense and to compete with the US for

control of Central Asia's vast reserves - the Asian Energy Security Grid and the more significant


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Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that was formed in 2001 for political, diplomatic,

economic and security reasons as a counterweight to an encroaching US-dominated NATO. Other

regional powers may also join one or both alliances, including India, Iran and even South Korea

and Japan as a new millennium Great Game unfolds.

On the other side are the US and Israel with the Occupied Territories a test laboratory for what

they have in mind for the region. Israel has been at it since the 1967 war when the idea was to

expel Palestinians to Jordan because "Jordan is Palestine." The only debate was how to do it.

At the same time, Israel long considered dismembering Arab countries into feuding mini-states,

and in the early 1980s, Haaretz's military correspondent, Ze'ev Schiff, wrote that Israel's "best"

interests would be served by "the dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the

separation of the Kurdish part." Ever since, Israel implemented this practice in the Territories

along with testing urban warfare tactics, new weapons and crowd control techniques. Workable or

not, it's been a boon to business and it's built Israel's economy around responding to violence at

home and everywhere.

Israeli technology firms pioneered the homeland security industry, still dominate it, and it's made

the country the most tech-dependent one in the world and its fourth largest arms exporter after

the US (far and away the biggest), Russia and France. The US Department of Homeland Security

(DHS) is one of its biggest customers for high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs,

video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling, prisoner interrogation systems, thermal

imaging systems, fiber optics security systems, tear gas products and ejector systems and much

more.

With products like these and lessons learned from the Territories, Israel believes it can abandon

the old puppet strongman model of controlling populations. It wants no part of a "Palestinian

dictator" who might encourage Palestinian nationalism, challenge Israeli rule, and disrupt

settlement development plans in the Territories. Building them depends on keeping Palestinians

divided, weak, unable to resist, and easier to remove from land Israel wants to incorporate into a

greater Israel that includes south Lebanon.

After the 1967 war, Israel prevented new Palestinian leaders from emerging and first tried to

manage the population along family or communal lines by co-opting its leaders or eliminating

ones who became obstacles. By 1981, Sharon (as defense minister) refined the scheme into what

was named "Village Leagues" that were local anti-PLO militias. The system was abandoned,

however, when Palestinians rebelled against their collaborating leaders so Israel tried new

approaches.

Most important was the Muslim Brotherhood (that had roots in Egypt) that later became Hamas in

the late 1980s. Israel, at the time, believed traditional Islamic elements were more easily

managed than PLO nationalists, would later learn otherwise, and it led to a radically new

experiment - the Oslo process. It began secretly with a post-Gulf War weakened PLO, specified no

outcome, and let Israel delay, refuse to make concessions, and continue colonizing the Territories.

For their part Palestinians renounced armed struggle, recognized Israel's right to exist, agreed to

leave major unresolved issues for indefinite later final status talks, and got nothing in return.

Yasser Arafat and his cohorts got what they wanted - a get-out-of-Tunis free pass where they were

in exile following the 1982 Lebanon war. They got to come home, take charge of their people and

become Israel's enforcer. Interestingly, Cook points out a little known fact. Many high-level Israeli


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security figures opposed Oslo. They saw it giving Arafat an "internationalist platform" to

encourage Palestinian nationalism that might undermine Israel. After Rabin's assassination, it

wasn't surprising that the spirit of Oslo died, Arafat became isolated, spent much of the second

intifada a prisoner in his Ramallah compound, and died in a Paris hospital in November 2004, the

victim of Israeli poisoning with convincing evidence to prove it.

In the meanwhile, Israel scrapped Oslo and tried a new approach - cantonizing Gaza and the West

Bank to crush organized resistance and dissolve Palestinian nationalism. It began with checkpoints

and curfews. Then it was hardened into forced separation, displacement, willful harassment, land

seizures, home demolitions, bypass roads, and state-sponsored violence matching lightly-armed

people against the world's fourth most powerful military with every imaginable weapon at its

disposal and no hesitancy using them against civilians.

At the same time, Israel chose a co-optable Mahmoud Abbas over the legitimate Hamas

government. Its leaders will only recognize Israel if Palestinians are recognized in return and given

an independent homeland inside pre-1967 borders or there's one state for all Israeli citizens.

Israel, of course, refuses, and continues expanding settlements on expropriated land. In addition,

with Abbas' Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, Israel assures the two sides remain

divided and continue fighting each other for control. That's the strategy to keep Palestinians

marginalized and Israel confident that what's now working in the Territories can be applied

advantageously across the region.

That became Bush administration strategy early on with extremist neocons in charge led by Dick

Cheney. They knew all along that invading and occupying Iraq would unleash sectarian violence

"on an unprecedented scale." Cook notes that the scheme came out of a 1996 policy paper called

"A Clean Break" that was written by key neocons behind the war - David Wurmser, Richard Pearle

and Douglas Feith. They predicted that after Saddam fell Iraq would "be ripped apart by the

politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects and key families" because Sunni leadership maintained

unity through state repression.

Pre-war, Britain knew it as well, and, in May 2007, a US Senate Intelligence Committee reported

that US intelligence documents warned of post-invasion chaos because Iraq is one of the least

cohesive Middle East states with rival Sunni, Shia and Kurdish populations. This, however, fits

perfectly with the type occupation Washington wants. It also justifies the "war on terror," and

prepares things for the final solution Israel advocates - splitting the country into three mini-states:

a Kurdish one in the North, Shias in the South, and Sunnis between them.

Making it work won't be easy, however, because Iraq's largest cities have mixed populations.

It's the reason the Pentagon plans to cantonize them Israeli-style by enclosing neighborhoods with

barricades and walls and require special IDs for entry. Israel plans the same thing for Lebanon

where a large Shia population has been marginalized under the country's "confessional" system. It

allocates public office along religious lines, gives disproportionate power to Christian and Sunni

minorities, but Hezbollah is challenging the pro-western government with things so far unresolved.

After the 2006 war, Hezbollah got stronger, Washington supports the Siniora government, and is

promoting a "Cedar Revolution" like the "Orange" and "Rose" ones it successfully engineered in

Ukraine and Georgia. Assassinations and car bombings are part of the scheme, they're blamed on

Syria without evidence, but a more likely culprit is Mossad that has a long history in the region

engineering this type violence. Cook quotes former US counter-terrorism expert, Fred Burton,

saying the technology used in Lebanon's recent assassinations is available only to a few countries


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- the US, Israel, Britain, France and Russia.

The Pentagon and CIA are also active in "black operations" in Iran, have been for many months,

and it's no secret why. As in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, it's to create ethnic tensions throughout

the country, promote conflict, and hope it will destabilize the government and force it into a

mistake Washington can jump on in response. A Pentagon source told Seymour Hersh that their

operatives are working with Azeris in the north, Baluchis in the southeast, Kurds in the northeast,

and their own special forces in-country as well. The pot is bubbling, and Iran knows it.

It's a new version of the older colonial "divide and rule" scheme that so far proved ineffective, and

Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, thinks he knows what's going on. He says Israel and

Washington want to partition Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria. If he's right, as seems likely, it means

the idea is to change the way colonial powers ruled post-WW I, and Cook challenges it. He

believes making it work is "improbable (and) little more than a deluded fantasy." It worked in

Yugoslavia, but the Arab world is different.

He concludes his book saying a generation of Washington policy makers have been "captivated" by

thinking the Middle East can be remade by "spreading instability and inter-communal strife."

Instead, Cook sees a different outcome - new political, religious and social alliances forming

across the region. If Washington pursues its "war on terror," he sees continued "war without end"

with no victory. After the chaotic Bush years, it's hard disagreeing with him.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. Also

visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Stephen Lendman is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by

Stephen Lendman


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Jonathan Cook - Israel and the Clash of Civilisations

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Transcript of Jonathan Cook - Israel and the Clash of Civilisations