Palestinian Youth Organization: Confrontation of the Zionist/Imperialist Project in the Arab Region!

Palestinian Youth Organization: Confrontation of the Zionist/Imperialist Project in the Arab Region ~ PFLP.

Comrade Khaled Yamani of the Palestinian Youth Organization delivered the following paper at the Anti-Imperialist Youth of World Conference in Istanbul, Turkey in October 2014: 

Confrontation of the Zionist/Imperialist Project in the Arab Region

Imperialism is the main enemy of the people. Imperialism stems from multiple sources, and not only one; while the largest, most influential, sophisticated and aggressive is U.S. imperialism, which may conflict and struggle over interests with other imperialisms, this does not mean that other imperialisms are an ally for our struggle. It also does not mean that all imperialisms are equal; clarity in what is our primary struggle, against U.S. imperialism, will only deepen the conflicts between U.S. imperialism and other imperialist forces.

In order to build on our clarity around this concept, we must turn to look at the role that we should play in practice: challenging illusions of peace with the Zionist state and exposing the terrorism of U.S. imperialism in its drive to control the Arab world and Central Asia (the expanded area labelled the “Middle East”) in order to control the oil markets in order to exercise its dominance over the world.

We are at war with imperialism, which is led by the U.S. state terror, with the Zionist state playing an organic and critical role, and supported by other imperialist states. These forces have the goal of destroying all of the progress that has been achieved in our region since independence and decolonization, which is illustrated by the destruction of infrastructure, and the overall economy, in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. This comes in addition of the promotion of sectarian conflict in order to dismantle and undermine social structures and social cohesion in targeted societies. While its control is incomplete, imperialism exploits these conflicts to keep us suppressed, disadvantaged and disunited, because this is the situation most advantageous to imperialism’s achieving control and perpetuating occupation.

The imperialist Zionist occupation entity

The primary objective of the Zionist invasion was to transplant a human base to undergird imperialist armed might, to confront and push back the Arab liberation movement, which constitutes a major threat to the interests of imperialism, which seeks victory in this vital region of the world. It is not true that the Zionist movement was a result of the persecution of Jews in Europe, and there is no true separation between the plans of the Zionist movement and those of imperialism for the region. There is a strategic cohesion between “Israel” and the Zionist movement and global imperialism. The battle with the Zionist entity is key to the overall conflict in the region: between the masses on the one hand, and global imperialism on the other hand.

The Palestinian revolutionary forces raise the slogan: “No coexistence with Zionism.” The end of the Zionist entity is necessary in order to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region. Zionism requires a serious response and confrontation equal or greater in measure to the imperialists’ promotion of the Zionist entity in the region.

This approach must be fundamental and constant in our discourse – especially of the Arab left, and must be at the base of building our strategy of confrontation. Our independence, development and unity as Arabs will not be achieved except through struggle, force, and power. The achievement of social progress is in fact a battle against the imperialist/Zionist juggernaut. Our well-being as a society is not possible without struggle and victory against the imperialist powers.

This is the basis of a clear strategy to build resistance, but it also requires the achievement of internal change in order for it to become possible to build a force that is capable of implementing this strategy and achieving its aims. Thus, the overlap of internal and external conflicts: we cannot build power and strength to confront imperialism with the ongoing presence of internal groups attached to the imperialist project. At the same time, we cannot overlook or minimize the direct threat from imperialism and Zionism engaging in wars against us, seeking control and occupation.

The development of a strategy to resist the imperialist/Zionist project in our region and the world must take into account the following:

1. There has become one battle, from Palestine, to Iraq, to all Arab countries. This struggle is intertwined with that of the peoples of Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, as well as Latin American nations and the rest of the world in general. The Palestinian people are standing on the front lines, and struggling in the trench of the various oppressed peoples and classes affected by the colonial capitalist system, in the struggle of the people in the greater battle against imperialism and its associated forces.

2. Palestinians and the Arab world must note that the Zionist state is an organic part of the politics of imperialism, a colonial settler entity, and an army of “mercenaries” to confront the movement and development of Arab progress. It is an economic center for the corporations of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. We affirm the illegitimacy and illegality of the racist Zionist entity and refuse all attempts to view it as a natural and normal state permanently accepted in the Arab region. The natural, former, present and future relationship of the Arab region with this entity is the relationship between the resistance and the dismantling of the occupation and the settlement. The primary contradiction in our region is between the Arab liberation project on the one hand and imperialism, Zionism and their projects on the other hand. This conflict cannot be resolved by any settlement that leaves imperialism and Zionism in place; it is a struggle until victory.

Any project that includes the integration of this entity in the Arab region is a project of domination that must be resisted. It is necessary to resist normalization of relations at all levels throughout the Arab world; normalization is an important mechanism to install and uphold Zionist hegemony. It is also essential to uphold the right of return of the Palestinian Arab people to their homeland, to their cities of villages of origin, as an absolute, unconditional, personal and collective right that is inalienable, and no authority is entitled or authorized to bargain or waive that right in any form. We emphasize here the Arab character of this right, as it is part of the Arab liberation project.

3. We must rebuild our society on the basis of resistance and the need to build democratic systems that represent the popular classes, in order to confront the imperialist Zionist schemes. We are concerned as revolutionary leftists that all projects of renaissance, renewal and resistance must be centered in the popular classes, in order to defeat capitalism and its subsidiaries who hold authority, and to confront and defeat the Zionist imperialist project.

4. Dependence on the so-called “international legitimacy” reflects and demonstrates imperialist hegemony and U.S. domination of the world. It is this supposed legitimacy that allows these forces to deny and disregard the natural, historical and moral rights of the people of the world. Legitimacy instead must be measured by the people’s right to accept or reject international resolutions approved by the imperialist powers engaged in a global war against the people.

5. In order to form and activate the front of resistance to imperialism and Zionism, in our case, the Palestinian struggle with the imperialist Zionist occupation, we must ask ourselves important questions. (How can the resistance intensify contradictions and class fissures in the Zionist occupier society? What is the tool best suited for pressure to escalate these contradictions?) Certainluy the answer is: The most effective and appropriate tool is the resistance, and the popular liberation war in all of its forms, and at the head, armed resistance. The only language that is understood by the enemy is that of revolutionary violence. The armed struggle is the principal approach that will make our land a key battlefield to the victory in the long struggle against the occupation and its attempts to liquidate our cause. With the masses and their conviction to achieve their goals of liberation at the forefront, this strategy ensures the resistance will achieve its objectives by multiplying the losses of the enemy and inflicting economic losses. The embrace of the resistance fighters who engage in armed struggle and revolutionary violence by the masses is a protective shield so that the enemy cannot isolate them or truly prepare to cope with their strikes.

6. Based on our understanding that the concept of the national democratic revolution is a scientific concept closely associated with the class struggle and national struggle, it is a revolution of national liberation and resistance to the presence of imperialism and Zionism, in order to end their presence in our nation. At the same time and place, there is a democratic revolution against despotic regimes of exploitation and dependency, that continues the struggle for complete liberation and sovereignty in economy, politics, culture and all of the issues of our people which primarily target the poor, the oppressed and the workers. Our vision of development is based on the principle of independent development, self-reliance, revolution and popular democracy. In our current condition as an Arab nation, the basis of revolution is a commitment to a vision and a program that reflects the interests and goals of workers, poor peasants, and the poor and oppressed masses, and it is from this understanding that we confront rulers.

Liberation requires liquidation of the comprador economic structure, the abolition of the domination of the market in the economic field and of the domination of right-wing neoliberalism in the economic, social and cultural spheres on a superstructural level. This means restructuring and building institutions of cultural and social resistance in line with the class interests of the masses of workers, poor and oppressed peoples, and hard and dedicated work to abolish social, economic and cultural backwardness and oppression, and to build instead on foundations of progress, enlightenment and democracy. Industrial and economic development must be planned, on the basis of equal opportunity, in order to provide a minimum income that ensures security for the people, meeting the needs of workers and the poor, and must come alongside the development of healthcare, social security, and cultural programs to serve the people, meet the needs of the masses, and achieve the principles of revolutionary social justice.

7.  On the importance and role of youth in revolution and social justice: there is no doubt that the youth represents a significant and distinct social group in various communities. They are strong and vital, and constitute an important source of prosperity, progress, development and sustainability in the community. When young people are absent from the social arena, the signs of stagnation and decline, accelerate toward collapse.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of young people as a force of social change is that they are, in general, the most ambitious group in a community. The process of change and progress does not stop, and any political party, youth organization or social group seeking political and social change must prioritize attracting the energies of young people and employing these energies toward specific goals.

There is a consensus that the power of youth is a double-edged sword, youth are innovative, creative, and productive if they are supported and are given strength and investment; but with no investment and engagement, they can become an unproductive sector if society fails to deal with its problems and find effective solutions. Young people as a resource depend in the first and last place on the willingness of the community, with all of its components, to support them at various levels, economically, socially, politically, culturally, intellectually and otherwise.

Young people are an important social force and a key sector in this community, and this sector has the means to win in the battle for change. There are many examples of this; the world felt the importance of the youth and students for decades in the countries of the developing world, where the vanguard of revolutionary youth in the national liberation movements led their countries to freedom from colonialism.

It is also the responsibility of leftist forces to take up the task of promoting and deepening awareness of a national culture of democracy among young people, of accommodating the advances of society, and bringing together cultural, national and human projects to defend a democratic and revolutionary culture to confront obscurantist, narrow-minded and oppressive extremist cultural projects. The national democratic identity, affiliation and culture is one that inspires among youth national commitment and democratic vision based on the history and struggle of Arab liberation movements, and leftist liberatory goals.

The Left and Marxist parties and the forces of the Arab left must push to crystallize a new policy that reflects the aspirations of Arab youth. This comes first through political programs and organizing of young people, that express the concerns, interests and aspirations of young people themselves and the challenges they confront at the domestic and external levels, along with attention to the issues of democracy, freedom and social justice. This also means taking up economic struggle; there is a high unemployment rate among youth in the Arab world, in some places over 50%, in addition to issues of education, literacy and health care, which should be at the forefront of daily struggles and party programs. The state of poverty, underdevelopment, illiteracy, the absence of democracy and the suppression of individual and collective freedoms in the Arab world are the results of the dominance of imperialism and the control of the Arab reactionary regimes associated with it, which are one of the key barriers to advancing the Arab national project. The continuation of this deteriorating situation only furthers the continuation of imperialist hegemony and that of its reactionary and bourgeois allies among the Arab ruling class.

8. The liberation of women is a prerequisite to the liberation of our society. Arab women confront two intertwined persecutions, social injustice and discrimination; and Arab women are a full partner in life and share fully in the daily suffering and struggle at all levels. Arab women must be supported to contribute fully as members and leaders of leftist organizations and youth movements, and our organizations must struggle for the liberation of Arab women, at political, social and class levels.

The elimination of imperialist hegemony, exploitation and capitalist greed, and the defeat of global imperialism and its military, economic and cultural control over our countries, which produces extreme poverty, widespread unemployment, hunger, and destruction in poor and developing nations and regional ethnic conflicts, will not occur, and victory over the imperialist onslaught will not be achieved, except through the formation of a democratic global movement to confront imperialism and its consequences, and seek dialogue between the peoples of the world on an equal basis, away from the policy of annexation, subordination and domination.

Palestinian Youth Organization

PFLP: On the anniversary of the notorious Balfour Declaration, the Zionist entity remains illegitimate!

PFLP: On the anniversary of the notorious Balfour Declaration, the Zionist entity remains illegitimate ~ PFLP.

On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Alfred Balfour delivered a treacherous stab in the back to the Palestinian Arab people, through a letter sent to Lord Lionel Rothschild, expressing the support of the British state for the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. This promise marked the stamp of approval on the Zionist project in Palestine and its work to impel the migration of Jews from various countries of the world in order to constitute Zionist military forces, supported with various types of modern weapons, who proceeded to commit massacres as a prelude to the establishment of the Israeli state on the ruins of our homes and lands and the displacement of our people in the region and around the world in 1948.

This historic crime, in which the British colonial state gave away what it was not its to give, continues to be a stain on the British state and global imperialism. The Palestinian people will not forget and will not forgive, over successive generations, the great crime committed against them.

The Palestinian people swiftly rejected this declaration on a popular level. Immmediately upon its announcement, Palestinians engaged in fierce clashes with the British occupation and the Zionists, refusing the dismantlement and destruction of their homeland, Palestine, and giving their lives in order to prevent the dispossession of Palestinian land and giving it to the Zionists. The Palestinian people took action from the outset, boldly acting with a firm commitment to the justice of their cause and the right to defend their land from this scheme. The magnitude of the crimes committed were severe and massive, leading to the establishment of the Zionist entity and the escalation of the conflict that continues until this moment.

We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, after 97 years of this treacherous colonialist promise, are confident in the ability of the Palestinian people to continue their resistance in order to undo the effects of this heinous crime and defeat the Zionist project in Palestine, no matter how long the struggle continues. We emphasize the following points:

1. Britain bears direct responsibility for this heinous crime committed against the Palestinian people. The imperialist British state is firmly in the camp that is hostile to the Palestinian people, and must not only apologize to the Palestinian people for this crime but atone for it by ensuring the return of the Palestinian people to their land, and the return of the Palestinian land and rights to their rightful owners.

2. There is growing global solidarity with the Palestinian cause, especially in Britain, which is evidenced in the recent vote of the British House of Commons in response to the pressure of the movement. The solidarity movement must escalate the pressure on the British state in order to end the historical injustice against our people and stop supporting the Zionist entity on all levels.

3. The battle with the Zionist criminal enemy and with global imperialism requires a struggle against racism and colonialism on the Arab level. Once again, we reaffirm that this entity is a Zionist-Arab conflict and should not be limited to our people, fighting in isolation from their Arab sisters and brothers.

4. The escalation of the Zionist attacks on the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, in the occupied city of Jerusalem, and on our prisoners in Israeli jails, cannot terrorize our people, and will not kill the Palestinian will of steadfastness and resistance. The resistance will continue in various forms until the achievement of its objectives.

5. There is a need to build national unity and reconciliation, and expedite the call for the provisional Palestinian leadership to meet and carry out their responsibilities and to rebuild the Palestinian institutions on the basis of proportional representation and a national vision with the participation of all forces in democratic elections, and the formulation of a national strategy based on adhering to constants and unity in order to confront the racist Zionist entity.

6. We draw lessons from the experience of 21 years of abhorrent, absurd negotiations, which have only proven clear failure, and the alternative of going to the United Nations for the implementation of all of the rights of our people without negotiations. It is important to join all national organizations and it is particularly imperative to join the International Criminal Court without further delay to prosecute the occupation for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

7. We must escalate the pressure to end the suffering of our people, who confront siege and aggression, as a national collective responsibility. We reaffirm that our first priority to mitigate the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip in the reconstruction is lifting the siege and opening all crossings immediately, and we call for a national committee to monitor the subject of reconstruction to protect it from Zionist involvement and intervention.

Finally, after 97 years of this racist declaration, we reaffirm that the Zionist entity remains an illegitimate and false entity, and we hold our firm conviction that it will be defeated, uprooted and dismantled. This requires us to strengthen our militant role, support the steadfastness of our people, and harness all of our energies to confront the Zionist entity.

We promise our people to remain on the road of struggle until the defeat of the occupation on every inch of our land.

#UN, post-colonial #colonialism + 9-11: Arundhati Roy on #Palestine!

Arundhati Roy on Palestine. ~ Palestine Diary.

Segment from the film “We..” where Arundhati Roy speaks about the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian struggle in the middle east. Historic references, who funds it, and more.

We is a fast-paced 64 minute documentary that covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation.

It visualizes the words of Arundhati Roy, specifically her famous Come September speech, where she spoke on such things as the war on terror, corporate globalization, justice and the growing civil unrest.

It’s witty, moving, alarming and quite a lesson in modern history.

We is almost in the style of a continuous music video. The music used sets the pace and serves as wonderful background for the words of Ms. Roy and images of humanity in the world we live all in today.

We is a completely free documentary, created and released anonymously on the internet.

Links:
http://www.weroy.org/
http://www.weroy.org/arundhati.shtml

Full documentary on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63wPSS…

TRANSCRIPT

September 11 has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too.  On September 11, 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour declaration, which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of the city of Gaza.  The Balfour declaration promised European zionists a national home for Jewish people.  Two years after the declaration, Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary said: ‘In Palestine we do not propose to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.  Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes of far profounder import than the desires or prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit this ancient land’.

How carelessly imperial power decreed whose needs were profound and whose were not.  How carelessly it vivisected ancient civilizations.  Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world.  Both are fault-lines in the raging international conflicts of today.

In 1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians: ‘I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time.  I do not admit that right.  I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia.  I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place’.  That set the trend for the Israeli state’s attitude towards Palestinians.  In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said: ‘Palestinians do not exist’.  Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, said: ‘What are Palestinians?  When I came here [to Palestine] there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins.  It was desert, more than underdeveloped.  Nothing’.  Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians ‘two-legged beasts’.  Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them ‘grasshoppers’ who could be crushed.  This is the language of heads of state, not the words of ordinary people.

In 1947 the UN formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55% of Palestine’s land to the zionists.  Within a year they had captured 78%.  On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was declared.  Minutes after the declaration, the US recognized Israel.  The West Bank was annexed by Jordan.  The Gaza strip came under Egyptian military control.  Formally, Palestine ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees.

In the summer of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Settlers were offered state subsidies and development aid to move into the occupied territories.  Almost every day more Palestinian families are forced off their lands and driven into refugee camps.  Palestinians who continue to live in Israel do not have the same rights as Israelis and live as second-class citizens in their former homeland.

Over the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas.  Tens of thousands have lost their lives.  Accords and treaties have been signed, ceasefires declared and violated.  But the bloodshed doesn’t end.  Palestine still remains illegally occupied.  Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where they are subjected to collective punishments, 24-hour curfews, where they are humiliated and brutalised on a daily basis.  They never know when their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine.  And when they will not.  They live with no semblance of dignity.  With not much hope in sight.  They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their communication, their water supply.  So when accords are signed and words like ‘autonomy’ and even ‘statehood’ are bandied about, it’s always worth asking: What sort of autonomy?  What sort of state?  What sort of rights will its citizens have?  Young Palestinians who cannot contain their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel’s streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening both societies’ suspicion and mutual hatred of each other.  Each bombing invites merciless reprisals and even more hardship on Palestinian people.  But then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic.  Although Palestinian attacks strike terror into Israeli civilians, they provide the perfect cover for the Israeli government’s daily incursions into Palestinian territory, the perfect excuse for old-fashioned, 19th century colonialism, dressed up as a new-fashioned, 21st century ‘war’.

Israel’s staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the US government.  The US government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every UN resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict.  It has supported almost every war that Israel has fought.  When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes.  And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the US.

What lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict?  Is it really impossible for Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves — more cruelly perhaps than any other people in history — to understand the vulnerability and the yearning of those whom they have displaced?  Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty?  What hope does this leave the human race with?  What will happen to the Palestinian people in the event of a victory?  When a nation without a state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be?  What horrors will be perpetrated under its flag?  Is it a separate state that we should be fighting for, or the rights to a life of liberty and dignity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion?

Palestine was once a secular bulwark in the Middle East.  But now the weak, undemocratic, by all accounts corrupt but avowedly non-sectarian PLO, is losing ground to Hamas, which espouses an overtly sectarian ideology and fights in the name of Islam.  To quote from their manifesto: ‘We will be its soldiers, and the firewood of its fire, which will burn the enemies’.

The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers.  But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they arrived at this destination?  September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002 — 80 years is a long long time to have been waging war.  Is there some advice the world can give the people of Palestine?  Some scrap of hope we can hold out?  Should they just settle for the crumbs that are thrown their way and behave like the grasshoppers or two-legged beasts they’ve been described as?  Should they just take Golda Meir’s suggestion and make a real effort to not exist?

In another part of the Middle East, September 11 strikes a more recent chord.  It was on September 11, 1990 that George W Bush Sr, then president of the US, made a speech to a joint session of Congress announcing his government’s decision to go to war against Iraq.

The US government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people.  That’s a fairly accurate description of the man.  In 1988 he razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq and used chemical weapons and machine-guns to kill thousands of Kurdish people.  Today we know that that same year the US government provided him with $500m in subsidies to buy American farm products.  The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the US government doubled its subsidy to $1bn.  It also provided him with high quality germ seed for anthrax, as well as helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

So it turns out that while Saddam Hussein was carrying out his worst atrocities, the US and the UK governments were his close allies.  Even today, the government of Turkey which has one of the most appalling human rights records in the world is one of the US government’s closest allies.  The fact that the Turkish government has oppressed and murdered Kurdish people for years has not prevented the US government from plying Turkey with weapons and development aid.  Clearly it was not concern for the Kurdish people that provoked President Bush’s speech to Congress.

What changed?  In August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he acted independently, without orders from his masters.  This display of independence was enough to upset the power equation in the Gulf.  So it was decided that Saddam Hussein be exterminated, like a pet that has outlived its owner’s affection.

The first Allied attack on Iraq took place in January 1991.  The world watched the prime-time war as it was played out on TV. (In India those days, you had to go to a five- star hotel lobby to watch CNN.)  Tens of thousands of people were killed in a month of devastating bombing.  What many do not know is that the war did not end then.  The initial fury simmered down into the longest sustained air attack on a country since the Vietnam war.  Over the last decade American and British forces have fired thousands of missiles and bombs on Iraq.  Iraq’s fields and farmlands have been shelled with 300 tons of depleted uranium.  In countries like Britain and America depleted uranium shells are test-fired into specially constructed concrete tunnels.  The radioactive residue is washed off, sealed in cement and disposed off in the ocean (which is bad enough).  In Iraq it’s aimed — deliberately, with malicious intent — at people’s food and water supply.  In their bombing sorties, the Allies specifically targeted and destroyed water treatment plants, fully aware of the fact that they could not be repaired without foreign assistance.  In southern Iraq there has been a four-fold increase in cancer among children.  In the decade of economic sanctions that followed the war, Iraqi civilians have been denied food, medicine, hospital equipment, ambulances, clean water — the basic essentials.

About half a million Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions.  Of them, Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said: ‘It’s a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.’ ‘Moral equivalence’ was the term that was used to denounce those who criticised the war on Afghanistan.  Madeleine Albright cannot be accused of moral equivalence.  What she said was just straightforward algebra.

A decade of bombing has not managed to dislodge Saddam Hussein, the ‘Beast of Baghdad’.  Now, almost 12 years on, President George Bush Jr has ratcheted up the rhetoric once again.  He’s proposing an all-out war whose goal is nothing short of a regime change.  The New York Times says that the Bush administration is ‘following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat of Saddam Hussein’.

Weapons inspectors have conflicting reports about the status of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and many have said clearly that its arsenal has been dismantled and that it does not have the capacity to build one.  However, there is no confusion over the extent and range of America’s arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons.  Would the US government welcome weapons inspectors?  Would the UK?  Or Israel?

What if Iraq does have a nuclear weapon, does that justify a pre-emptive US strike?  The US has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world.  It’s the only country in the world to have actually used them on civilian populations.  If the US is justified in launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, why, then any nuclear power is justified in carrying out a pre-emptive attack on any other.  India could attack Pakistan, or the other way around.  If the US government develops a distaste for the Indian Prime Minister, can it just ‘take him out’ with a pre-emptive strike?

Recently the US played an important part in forcing India and Pakistan back from the brink of war.  Is it so hard for it to take its own advice?  Who is guilty of feckless moralizing?  Of preaching peace while it wages war?  The US, which George Bush has called ‘the most peaceful nation on earth’, has been at war with one country or another every year for the last 50 years.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.  They’re usually fought for hegemony, for business.  And then of course there’s the business of war.  Protecting its control of the world’s oil is fundamental to US foreign policy.  The US government’s recent military interventions in the Balkans and Central Asia have to do with oil.  Hamid Karzai, the puppet president of Afghanistan installed by the US, is said to be a former employee of Unocal, the American-based oil company.  The US government’s paranoid patrolling of the Middle East is because it has two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves.  Oil keeps America’s engines purring sweetly.  Oil keeps the free market rolling.  Whoever controls the world’s oil controls the world’s market.  And how do you control the oil?

Nobody puts it more elegantly than the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.  In an article called ‘Craziness Pays’ he says ‘the US has to make it clear to Iraq and US allies that…America will use force without negotiation, hesitation or UN approval’.  His advice was well taken.  In the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the almost daily humiliation the US government heaps on the UN.  In his book on globalisation, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman says: ‘The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.  McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas….  And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps’.  Perhaps this was written in a moment of vulnerability, but it’s certainly the most succinct, accurate description of the project of corporate globalisation that I have read.

After September 11, 2001 and the War Against Terror, the hidden hand and fist have had their cover blown, and we have a clear view now of America’s other weapon — the free market — bearing down on the developing world, with a clenched unsmiling smile.  The task that never ends is America’s perfect war, the perfect vehicle for the endless expansion of American imperialism.  In Urdu, the word for profit is fayda.  Al-qaida means the word, the word of God, the law.  So, in India some of us call the War Against Terror, Al-qaida vs Al-fayda — the word vs the profit (no pun intended).

For the moment it looks as though Al-fayda will carry the day.  But then you never know…

In the last 10 years of unbridled corporate globalisation, the world’s total income has increased by an average of 2.5% a year.  And yet the numbers of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million.  Of the top hundred biggest economies, 51 are corporations, not countries.  The top 1% of the world has the same combined income as the bottom 57% and the disparity is growing.  Now, under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terror, this process is being hustled along.  The men in suits are in an unseemly hurry.  While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, while nuclear weapons are stockpiled to make the world a safer place, contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatised and democracies are being undermined.

In a country like India, the ‘structural adjustment’ end of the corporate globalisation project is ripping through people’s lives.  ‘Development’ projects, massive privatisation, and labour ‘reforms’ are pushing people off their lands and out of their jobs, resulting in a kind of barbaric dispossession that has few parallels in history.  Across the world as the ‘free market’ brazenly protects Western markets and forces developing countries to lift their trade barriers, the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer.  Civil unrest has begun to erupt in the global village.  In countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, India the resistance movements against corporate globalisation are growing.

To contain them, governments are tightening their control.  Protestors are being labelled ‘terrorists’ and then dealt with as such.  But civil unrest does not only mean marches and demonstrations and protests against globalisation.  Unfortunately, it also means a desperate downward spiral into crime and chaos and all kinds of despair and disillusionment which, as we know from history (and from what we see unspooling before our eyes), gradually becomes a fertile breeding ground for terrible things — cultural nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and of course, terrorism.

All these march arm-in-arm with corporate globalisation.

There is a notion gaining credence that the free market breaks down national barriers, and that corporate globalisation’s ultimate destination is a hippie paradise where the heart is the only passport and we all live together happily inside a John Lennon song (Imagine there’s no country…)  This is a canard.

What the free market undermines is not national sovereignty, but democracy.  As the disparity between the rich and poor grows, the hidden fist has its work cut out for it.  Multinational corporations on the prowl for ‘sweetheart deals’ that yield enormous profits cannot push through those deals and administer those projects in developing countries without the active connivance of state machinery — the police, the courts, sometimes even the army.  Today corporate globalisation needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries, to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies.  It needs a press that pretends to be free.  It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.  It needs nuclear bombs, standing armies, sterner immigration laws, and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that it’s only money, goods, patents and services that are globalised — not the free movement of people, not a respect for human rights, not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons, or greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, or God forbid, justice.  It’s as though even a gesture towards international accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.

Close to one year after the War Against Terror was officially flagged off in the ruins of Afghanistan, in country after country freedoms are being curtailed in the name of protecting freedom, civil liberties are being suspended in the name of protecting democracy.  All kinds of dissent is being defined as ‘terrorism’.  All kinds of laws are being passed to deal with it.  Osama Bin Laden seems to have vanished into thin air.  Mullah Omar is said to have made his escape on a motor-bike.  The Taliban may have disappeared but their spirit, and their system of summary justice is surfacing in the unlikeliest of places.  In India, in Pakistan, in Nigeria, in America, in all the Central Asian republics run by all manner of despots, and of course in Afghanistan under the US-backed Northern Alliance.

Meanwhile, down at the mall there’s a mid-season sale.  Everything’s discounted — oceans, rivers, oil, gene pools, fig wasps, flowers, childhoods, aluminum factories, phone companies, wisdom, wilderness, civil rights, ecosystems, air — all 4,600 million years of evolution.  It’s packed, sealed, tagged, valued and available off the rack.  (No returns).  As for justice — I’m told it’s on offer too.  You can get the best that money can buy.

Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life.  When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters.  So, standing here today, it’s hard for me to say this, but the American way of life is simply not sustainable.  Because it doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.

Fortunately power has a shelf life.  When the time comes, maybe this mighty empire will, like others before it, overreach itself and implode from within.  It looks as though structural cracks have already appeared.  As the War Against Terror casts its net wider and wider, America’s corporate heart is hemorrhaging.  For all the endless empty chatter about democracy, today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the US.  Their decisions are made in secret.  The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors.  Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions.  Nobody elected them.  Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf.  A world run by a handful of greedy bankers and CEOs who nobody elected can’t possibly last.

Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed.  It allowed too few people to usurp too much power.  Twenty-first century market-capitalism, American-style, will fail for the same reasons.  Both are edifices constructed by human intelligence, undone by human nature.

The time has come, the walrus said.  Perhaps things will get worse and then better.  Perhaps there’s a small God up in heaven readying herself for us.  Another world is not only possible, she’s on her way.  Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.

 

| Our Ally? Israel’s Attempted Sinking of the USS Liberty!

 

Attempted Sinking of the USS Liberty ~ AriWatch, “Our Ally”The USS Liberty was a United States spy ship operated by the Navy. Instead of cannon it bristled with radio antennas. Of the crew of 294 over 100 were radio operators, recording equipment operators, and cryptographers.

The story of Israel’s attempt to sink the USS Liberty is complicated by the fact that Israel was not alone in the villainy. After Israel began the attack, President Johnson’s administration refused to interfere with what Israel was doing. And afterwards both Israel and the U.S. government tried to cover-up what actually happened.

The story of Israel’s attack is incomplete without the story of the U.S. government’s complicity. They ended up partners in the crime.

There is no conjecture in the following account. It is based on abundant eye witness testimony. Afterwards we will furnish some conjecture, indicated as such.

The day is June 8, 1967. The Arab-Israel war later known as the Six-Day War is in progress. The place is 14 miles off the Egyptian Sinai coast in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. government, ever unwilling to mind its own business, has the USS Liberty deployed there, passively monitoring the progress of the war over radio communication channels, with emphasis on finding out if Egypt is colluding with the Soviets.

The day is bright and clear, “visibility infinite.” Hoisted above the Liberty is a new American flag in a 12 knot breeze. “USS LIBERTY” is painted on the stern; the English letters “GTR-5” on the bow. The ship is several times the size of any Egyptian horse freighter, and has a profile – one feature of which is a huge satellite dish – that easily distinguishes it from such a ship even were size discounted. And it has no cannon, distinguishing it from a war ship.

One glance and the ship is not Egyptian, another glance – hardly necessary – and it is American. And also incapable of shelling anyone.

Israeli reconnaissance planes fly over the ship. In daylight over a period of several hours they fly over at least eight times. One plane is propeller driven. They come so close that the crewmen of the ship and the pilots of the planes wave to each other. A Liberty radio operator hears the pilots repeatedly radio Israeli headquarters that the ship is American. The last of the planes departs not long after noon.

Suddenly at 1:58 pm three Mirage fighter jets, unmarked, zoom in and immediately begin firing rockets at the ship. The rockets punch eight inch holes through the hull, deck, and any men in their path. Mystere fighter jets (like the Mirages, French made) zoom in and drop napalm (jellied gasoline) bombs that splatter goop that sticks and burns where it lands. The crewmen, many of whom are on deck, are totally unprepared, scores are killed and injured. This goes on for twenty minutes. [1]

The Liberty tries to radio the Sixth Fleet for help, but the attacking aircraft had fired rockets into the base of every antenna. They manage to repair one antenna. [*]  The radio operator then discovers that their radio frequencies are being jammed. Eventually he finds a clear frequency and makes contact. The U.S. aircraft carrier Saratoga responds by launching several fighter aircraft and notifying the White House. The Liberty receives the message that help is on the way.

When the U.S. fighter planes are within minutes of the Liberty, Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis – commanding the Six Fleet carriers – receives an order from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to recall the planes. Admiral Geis calls the White House personally to confirm the insane order. McNamara comes on the line, then President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson confirms that the aircraft are to return, saying that he will not have Israel embarrassed. Admiral Geis – and it is hard to judge him considering the ingrained obedience to a chain of command that makes the military – recalls the aircraft.

Meanwhile the Israeli aircraft fly off as three Israeli torpedo boats make toward the Liberty. Several miles distant they begin firing torpedoes at the ship, five in all. One torpedo hits amidships, drowning about two dozen crewmen. The captain gives the order to abandon ship. The torpedo boats then approach within 100 feet and circle about the ship. With “USS Liberty” on the hull of the ship in full view, not to mention the American flag on the mast, they fire machine guns at anything on deck that moves. They strafe the life rafts on deck and those being lowered into the water by crewmen. The torpedo boat phase of the attack lasts about an hour

Then the Israelis abruptly stop. 34 crewmen of the Liberty are dead or dying (9 from the air attack, 25 from the torpedo attack) and about 170 others are injured, victims of rocket fire, gunshot, fire, and drowning – 70 percent of the crew.

One can only conjecture why the Israelis halted their attack. Probably they think, along with the Liberty’s crewmen, that U.S. fighter planes will arrive shortly.

The torpedo boats do not leave the area. For about an hour they just sit there and watch the ship, again with “USS Liberty” and the American flag in full view. Then in an apparent about-face they signal to the Liberty: “Do you need help?” According to bridge Lieutenant James Ennes, Captain William McGonagle’s reply is “a rude one.” The boats eventually depart.

Liberty puts out the fires and though riddled with holes and without motive power, remains afloat. At 3 p.m. the sixth fleet launches a U.S. rescue mission a second time, only to be recalled a second time. Still the Liberty does not sink.

Finally, dawn the next day, fifteen hours later, U.S. help arrives. The Liberty eventually makes rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer and heads to Malta, a group of islands south of Sicily.

Then the cover-up begins.

At the behest of the Secretary of Defense and the White House almost everyone involved is ordered not to discuss the incident with anyone, and the Liberty crewmen are transferred to stations far apart from one another, no two at the same place.

Israel’s reaction follows the dictum: If you can’t be good, you can at least be stupid. They claim the attack was the result of a string of innocent errors. The testimony of the Liberty crewmen, and the ship’s log, can be discounted. Israel does not do such things, why would it, America is our ally, etc. The Israelis claim that they mistook the USS Liberty for an Egyptian horse carrier.

Suppose, for a moment, in defiance of the facts we take the Israelis at their word. There is only one way such a mistake could have been made. Instead of their deliberately attacking an American ship we have them totally disregarding the possibility the ship they would attack might be an American ship. By their own admission they didn’t honestly care if it was American. They didn’t sincerely try to identify it.

But of course they did identify it.

As the years went by the former Liberty crew began to speak out publicly. The most articulate was Lt. James Ennes, in his book  Assault on the Liberty.  The big brass began to speak out as well. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer summed up the Liberty incident concisely:

“It’s ridiculous to say this was an accident. There was good weather, she was flying the U.S. flag[,] and the planes and torpedo boats attacked over a long period of time.” [2]

As for the cover-up, one of the military lawyers in the Court of Inquiry, Captain Ward Boston, recently came forward. The following is from his sworn written declaration. He refers to the late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who was the president of the Court of Inquiry. When he says “attempts to rewrite history” he refers to Jay Cristol’s recent (2002) pro-Israeli book The Liberty Incident. I have combined some of the paragraphs:

“For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them. However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth.

“In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the … attack on USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th.”
…
“The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack … was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. … It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors, who had ordered the attack, were well aware that the ship was American.”
…
“I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity.’ In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol’s book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack. It is Cristol’s … attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out.

“I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

“Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the court’s findings. Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to ‘put the lid’ on everything having to do with the attack on USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of it again.

“I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent off to Washington.”

He describes a phone call from Jay Cristol in 1990 requesting an interview. He refers him to Admiral Kidd (ret.), still alive at the time.

“Shortly after my conversation with Cristol, I received a telephone call from Admiral Kidd, inquiring about Cristol and what he was up to. …

“At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol’s claims of a ‘close friendship’ with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty.” [3]

You can read more about Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, and the subsequent cover-up, in the references below. [4]  Israel’s defenders reply to this literature with a snowstorm of details, making much of tiny flaws while ignoring the essential points. And by lying, as above.

Why did the Israelis do it? Obviously the intent of their sneak attack was to silence the Liberty and sink it leaving no survivors, but why? Here we enter the realm of conjecture. Admiral Moorer describes one possible reason – and while reading keep in mind this is the same Israel capable of the Lavon terrorist attack:

“I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties … to the ongoing [Arab-Israel, or Six-day] war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria  [while pretending, as they later did, that Syria had attacked them – ARI Watch] …

“And I believe Moshe Dayan [commander of Israeli forces] concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source [means] of acquiring that information[,] the USS Liberty.” [5]

And as in the Lavon affair let the Arabs take the rap, which would make the U.S. see the Arabs as its enemy as well as Israel’s and drag the U.S. into the war.

Another conjecture, based on newly revealed details of the war, is the following by Lt. Ennes. Bracketed text within his quotes (single quote-marks) is his:

“… the Israeli Army … executed as many as 1,000 Arab prisoners during the 1967 war.

“Historian Gabby Bron wrote in the Yediot Ahronot [newspaper] in Israel that he witnessed Israeli troops executing Egyptian prisoners on the morning of June 8, 1967, in the Sinai town of El Arish.

“Bron reported that he saw about 150 Egyptian POWs [prisoners of war] being held at the El Arish airport where they were sitting on the ground, … crowded together with their hands held on the back of their necks. [‘]Every few minutes,[’] Bron writes, [‘]Israeli soldiers would escort an Egyptian POW from the group to a hearing conducted by two men in Israeli army uniforms. Then the man would be taken away, given a spade, and forced to dig his own grave.[’]

“ ‘I watched as [one] man dug a hole for about 15 minutes,’ Bron wrote. ‘Afterwards, the [Israeli military] policeman told him to throw the shovel away, and then one of them leveled an Uzi at him and shot two short bursts … .’

“Bron says he witnessed about ten such executions … . Then an Israeli Colonel threatened him with a revolver, forcing him to leave the area.
…
“How would [senior Israeli officers] have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?” [6]

Whatever the reason for the attack, [7] there is no question that the Israelis deliberately tried to sink the USS Liberty with all hands, and that they knew what they were doing.

ARI says:  “Israel is our ally in the Middle East.”

This is our ally?

---

1  Some have noted the accuracy of the rocket bombs during the first phase of the attack and conjecture that the Israeli gunners used the photographs taken by the earlier reconnaissance planes.

*  [added footnote]  By James Halbardier  (“Terry”).  See
“Sailor Awarded Silver Star for ’67 Actions”
by Bryant Jordan, Military.com  May 29, 2009
http://www.military.com/news/article/sailor-awarded-silver-star-for-67-actions.html

2  Quoted in “USS Liberty: Eyewitness Account”
by James M. Ennes, Jr., Aug. 13, 2001.
http://www.hnn.us/articles/195.html

3  Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.), Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, January 9, 2004. This can be found at  http://www.ussliberty.org . He first gave sworn testimony a few months earlier. See:
“New Charges vs. Israel in ’67 Ship Attack”
UPI, Oct. 24, 2003.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031022-052400-3673r
and
“Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty”
October 22, 2003
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-commfindings.html

4  The references below flesh out the above bare-bones description of the USS Liberty incident. Keep in mind as you read different accounts that details have come to light over a long period of time and you will find immaterial discrepancies.

Assault on the Liberty
by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House 1980, Reintree Press 2002)  Reviewed at:
http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-James-Ennes-Jr/dp/0972311602
where you can see Israel’s defenders in action. For example, though the ship sustained 800 hits, as evidenced by as many holes, there was no  “ ‘extended’ attack.”

The most comprehensive website is:
USS Liberty Memorial
http://www.ussliberty.org

This chapter from Paul Findley’s They Dare to Speak Out describes the damage-control reaction to Mr. Ennes’ book:
“The Assault On  Assault”
http://www.ussliberty.org/findleybook.htm

“Remember the Liberty”
by John E. Borne
http://www.uss-liberty.com/2011/01/06/dr-john-e-bornes-remember-the-liberty 

The Zionist Connection
by Alfred Lilienthal
Chapter 17 (of the 2nd edition):  “The Attack on Liberty”

Body of Secrets
by James Bamford
Chapter 6:  “Blood”

Perhaps Mr. Bamford makes too much of transcripts of Israeli helicopter radio transmissions that the NSA had recently declassified. Israel dispatched the helicopters after the Israeli jets and torpedo boats had ceased their attack. By that time the Liberty was a wreck, with over 800 holes in her hull, all the antennas broken, and extensive torpedo damage. Mr. Bamford thinks it important that the Israeli pilots – who evidently, along with their controllers, were not in on the deception and had been told the ship was Egyptian – reported seeing the American flag, the last the Liberty had run up. Mr. Bamford’s point is that afterwards the Israeli story was that there had been no flag yet here is proof they had seen it, at least at the end.

It’s true this shows that the Israeli testimony is inconsistent regarding an important point (though with the loophole, for those who only believe Israelis, that no flag had been there before), but the testimony of the surviving Liberty crewmen shows that the flag had been flying and clearly visible all along, and that the Israelis had positively identified the ship as American before attacking. The Liberty crew’s testimony is more than sufficient.

For more see “Attempted sinking of the USS Liberty” on this website’s  Links  page.

5  “Memorandum: Attack on the USS Liberty June 8, 1967”
by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, June 8, 1997. On the  ussliberty.org  website.

6  “USS Liberty: Did Israel Commit One War Crime to Hide Another?”
by James M. Ennes, Jr.
I added some quotation marks, bracketed, which seem to be missing in the original.
Washington Post Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1996
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0596/9605028.htm

7  A police detective is not obliged to find the motive in order to prove that someone committed a crime. Israel’s motive is an interesting question, but the answer or no answer does not affect what happened.

 

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