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The Palestinian Cause:
A Routine For Deception

By Ghali Hassan

19 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org

It is becoming a routine for Western leaders to use the “Palestinian cause” as a way to further their own interests at the expense of Palestinian lives and Palestinian struggle to self-determination. The main objective is to manipulate public opinion and serve U.S.-Israel Zionist agenda.

For decades and whenever there is a crisis in the region, the Palestinian cause has been used as the preferred dog bone by the U.S. and its allies. Once the crisis was over, every one forgets the Palestinian people.

In 1990, just before the criminal war on Iraq, the Palestinian cause was adopted to mean that a defeat for Iraq will be followed by a peaceful resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The Arab despots – “moderate” Arabs, as they are called – who often used the Palestinian struggle to further their own interests, were bribed to participate in the war against a follow Arab nation. The so-called “Gulf war” proved to be a deliberate and calculated genocide against the people of Iraq, and disastrous for the people of Palestine. Since 1990, Israel’s has occupied more Palestinian land, killed thousands of innocent Palestinians and enhance its image around the world.

In 2002 and just before the unprovoked and illegal invasion and Occupation of Iraq by the U.S./British armies, the Palestinian cause was again adopted to manipulate public opinion and enlist the support of the “moderate” Arabs for the U.S.-Britain war crimes against the Iraqi people. The so-called Dick Cheney and Colin Powell “diplomatic movements” presented the Palestinian people and their struggle against Israel as the main beneficiaries of the war on Iraq. The criminal war against Iraq planned not only to destroy Iraq as a united nation but also to inflict maximum damage on the Arab people and legitimise Israel’s terror against the Palestinian people.

In her recent visit – the sixth in a year and a half – to occupied Palestine, the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice said, the U.S. was very concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the West Bank and Gaza, and promised to “redouble our efforts to improve the conditions for the Palestinian people”. Note the criminal hypocrisy. The U.S., Israel and their European allies have imposed collective punishment – including harsh economic sanctions – on the Palestinians in order to reverse the Palestinian people’s democratic choice and destabilise the democratically elected Hamas-led government. The policy is being carried out through illegal and unconstitutional methods, including the incarceration of Hamas leadership and serious efforts to foment civil war among the Palestinians by arming and training militias loyal to Mahmoud Abbas – the U.S.-Israel collaborator – and his corrupt clique. The policy is criminal, because the Hamas government was elected by the Palestinian people through fair and democratic elections despite Israel’s illegal and brutal military occupation, and that the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people are against the U.S.-Israel policy.

The shameless Rice said that she and Abbas had discussed ways to “make possible a life for the Palestinian people that is not subject to the kind of daily humiliations that we know have been associated with the occupation”. It is important to remember that for nearly forty years, the U.S. has been the major supporter of the illegal and brutal occupation. Without the billion of dollars in U.S. military aid to Israel and the pressure exerted on U.S. politicians by the pro-Israel Jewish lobby (the Neocons), the occupation would have disappeared long time ago. Like her predecessors, Rice is serving a U.S.-Israeli Zionist agenda at the expense of the Palestinian people and Arabs in general. The U.S. and its allies need the Palestinian cause to garner support for their next war, possibly against Iran or Sudan.

Meanwhile, Gaza – the newly “liberated” Concentration Camp – is under Israeli siege and U.S.-EU sponsored economic sanctions. Since the evacuation of the illegal Jewish settlements, Israeli forces have terrorised the 1.4 million Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinians, a large number of them small children have been deliberately killed by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF). According to the Palestinian National Initiative; “sustained Israeli military attacks, including 112 air strikes, and the firing of 4,251 artillery shells and 5 naval shells into the Gaza Strip during the period of 29 March to 27 June 2006 alone. During the same period, a total of 94 [Palestinians] were killed, including at least 35 civilians, 14 of whom were children and 6 of whom were women”. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), at least “287 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 60 children and 13 women, have been killed by [the] IOF since June 25, 2006”. Israel’s terror and war crimes against the Palestinians is continuing with the full support of Western powers.

The Camp has no electricity and no drinking water. The cuts to electricity and water supply have affected the healthcare services, food supply and the treatment of sewage. In addition to indiscriminate military attacks, the Palestinian living conditions have deteriorated with widespread starvation and disease. The situation can only be described as a “comeback to the times of the Nazis”. The pretext for this deliberate genocide is Hamas refusal to “recognise” the Israeli occupation. While the genocide of Palestinians continues in full view of the “international community”, no Western leader has the courage and moral principles to defend the Palestinians and their noble cause seriously.

I have lost count of how many times Britain’s Tony Blair used the Palestinian cause to inflict more misery not only on the Palestinian people but also on the people of Iraq and recently on the people of Lebanon. “The most obvious examples are Blair's visits to Palestine [before and] after the war against Iraq and, again, after the war against Lebanon. Whenever there is a lull between Western military campaigns in this region you know its Palestinian cause time again. It is a fleeting season, for after a brief flurry of activity and displays of earnest concern, the cause is again put on hold until the next crisis”, wrote Azmi Bishara, the Palestinian member of the Knesset. Blair’s visit coincided with the ongoing siege and starvation of the Palestinians which the Blair’s Government is promoting.

According to the BBC, the global Zionist propaganda, Blair said: “From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland, to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism”. This is the same Blair who refused to back an immediate ceasefire to end Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. It is difficult to understand how the British PM allows himself to behave in such hollow and criminal way. For all these years, the Blair’s Government provided unconditional diplomatic and military support to Israel Fascist regime. It is important to remember that it was the former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who instead of presenting the report – that criticised Israel for its brutal policies and terror in Palestine – to EU members, ordered for it to be buried and for no measures to be taken to prevent the continuation of Israeli violations of international law. Britain’s policy has always been to enhance the U.S.-Israel Zionist agenda and has nothing to do with the Palestinian people and peace in the region.

As the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote recently; “Countless trips by presidents and secretaries of state, peace initiatives and peace plans aplenty, from the Roger's Plan to the Road Map, via ‘reassessment,’ fruitless talks and flowery declarations, pressure and promises, discussions and decisions – and nothing has happened. And in the background, a fundamental question echoes, without a response: Is America at all interested in bringing about a solution in the Middle East? Is it possible that it does not understand how crucial it is to end the conflict”? It is the U.S. official policy in the Middle East.

The policy is funded by billions of American taxpayers’ money and enforced by powerful pro-Israel Jewish lobby. Its aim is to produce ongoing stalemate and conflict to serve U.S.-Israel interests. The U.S. is not in the business of solving problems; the U.S. is the problem. If the US wants peace, peace is and has always been within easy reach.

Hence, it would be overly naïve to conclude that the current interest in the Palestinian conditions is a sign of a change in the policies and moral principles of the U.S. and its allies or that the U.S. and its allies prefer peace to violence. The U.S. is not seeking peaceful solution and is pursuing only one objective, that of ongoing U.S.-Israel domination.

For the U.S. and it allies, including the Arab despots, the Palestinian cause is a convenient tool used and abused to serve U.S.-Israel interests at the expense of the Palestinian people. We should remind everyone not to forget that the Palestinian struggle is for just and noble cause, to free their land and people from the illegal Israeli occupation.


Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.

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