The
Battle Of Gaza
By Mike Whitney
18 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In
less than 24 hours of fierce street-fighting, Bush’s proxy-army
in Gaza was routed by armed units of Hamas. It was a stunning defeat
for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for US-Israeli policymakers
who have done everything in their power to overturn the “free
and fair” election of the Hamas government. For now, Hamas has
reestablished its authority in Gaza although Abbas is still working
frantically with Bush and Olmert to consolidate his power in the West
Bank. So far, Abbas has carried out the demands of his paymasters by
replacing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh with ex-World Bank official,
Salam Fayyad---a Palestinian Karzai who will take his orders from Tel
Aviv or Washington. Abbas does not have the constitutional authority
to replace Prime Minister Haniyeh or to disband the Hamas-dominated
government, but this point is typically overlooked in the western media.
The Bush administration has
abandoned any pretense of neutrality and is openly supporting the ongoing
violation of UN resolution 242. Bush helped to engineer the savage boycott
which has withheld food, water, medical aid and financial resources
from Palestinian civilians. He has also funneled millions of dollars
and weapons to the Palestinian “Preventive Security Force”
headed by US-ally Mohammad Dahlan. According to the UK Guardian, “Washington
has launched a controversial $60 million program to bolster Mr Abbas's
presidential guard and Israel has quietly allowed Arab states to send
in arms and ammunition”. Dahlan’s militia was organized
to challenge Hamas, but the plan failed spectacularly. As soon as the
fighting broke out in Gaza, Dahlan’s men panicked and fled across
the border to Egypt. Those who remained were disarmed, stripped and
taken into custody by Hamas. One prominent Fatah gunman, Samih Madhoun,
who had boasted of “executing several Hamas fighters and torching
the homes of others”, was shot execution style.
The defeat in Gaza is just
the latest of Washington’s debacles in the Middle East. US-Israeli
failures in the territories are the result of a misguided policy which
is backfiring everywhere. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summed
up the present policy like this: "We're in the business of creating
... sectarian violence."
Hersh is right. Bush and
Olmert are using the familiar “divide and conquer” strategy
to provoke “Arab on Arab” violence. The policy is an extension
of Henry Kissinger’s dictum during the Iran-Iraq war: “I
hope they all kill each other”. The goal is the same today as
it was then.
Hersh says that the Bush
administration supported the group of Sunni extremists, Fatah al-Islam,
who are still battling the Lebanese Army in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.
He said that it is "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis
as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to
stop the spread of the Shiite world".
In Lebanon, as in Gaza Strip,
the “divide and conquer” strategy has produced appalling
results---forcing 30,000 poor Palestinians to flee their homes and search
for shelter.
This week’s bombing
of the minarets at the Golden Dome Mosque is another example of the
Bush Doctrine at work. Bush and his generals assure us that Al Qaeda
was responsible, but reports from the New York Times tell a different
story.
Here’s an excerpt from
an article by Graham Bowley “Minarets on Shiites Shrine in Iraq
Destroyed in Attack” (NY Times) which gives us a good idea of
what really happened in Samarra. Bowley says:
“Since the attack in
2006, the shrine had been under the protection of local — predominantly
Sunni — guards. But American military and Iraqi security officials
had recently become concerned that the local unit had been infiltrated
by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq. A move by the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad
over the last few days to bring in a new guard unit — predominantly
Shiite — may have been linked to the attack today.”
No reference is made to the
sudden and unexplained changing of the guards at the mosque in future
accounts in the mainstream press. And, yet, that is the most important
point. The minarets were blown up just days after the new guards took
charge. They cordoned off the area, placed snipers on the surrounding
rooftops, and then blew up the minarets in broad daylight.
The first explosion took
place at 9:30 AM. Ten minutes later the second bomb was detonated.
Al Qaeda?
Not likely.
The Golden Dome mosque has
been heavily guarded ever since it was blown up in 2006. The four main
doors have been bolted shut and not a tile has been moved in over a
year. The reason for this is that the Shiites consider it a “crime
scene” which they intend to investigate more thoroughly when the
violence subsides.
The Shiites never accepted
the official US-version of events that “al Qaeda did it”.
Many believe that US Special Forces were directly involved and that
it was a planned demolition carried out by experts. There is considerable
proof to support this theory including eye witness accounts from the
scene of the crime as well as holes that were drilled in the floor of
the mosque to maximize destruction. This was not a simple al Qaeda-type
car-bombing but a technically-demanding demolition operation.
The damning information in
the New York Times article has been corroborated in many other publications
including an official statement from the Association of Muslim Scholars
in Iraq (AMSI). According to the AMSI, Prime Minister Nouri al Mailiki
replaced the Sunnis who had been guarding the site for over a year with
Shiite government forces from the Interior Ministry. Their statement
reads:
“Security forces arrived
yesterday afternoon from Baghdad Tuesday for the receipt of the task
of protecting two tombs instead of the existing force there. Somehow
they obtained a scuffle followed by gunfire lasted two hours over control
of security forces coming from Baghdad."
So, the Sunni guards were
replaced (after a scuffle) with goons from the Interior Ministry. The
next day the minarets blow up.
Coincidence?
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al Maliki immediately issued statement where he claimed that the al
Qaeda was responsible for the attack. At the same time, however, he
arrested all 12 of the guards he sent from the Interior Ministry.
Why? Was he afraid they would
talk to the media?
The Association of Muslim
Scholars said that “last year’s explosion happened after
a severe political crisis between blocs involved in the political process
to the occupation. After the elections, the establishment of the government
was blocked at that time. It is quite similar to the political crisis
faced by the government and parliament today”.
The AMSI is right. The destruction
of the Golden Dome Mosque took place soon after the Iraqi parliament
rejected the US-plan for dividing Iraq. (“Federalism”) This
time, the parliament has voted-down the US-plan to transfer control
of Iraq’s vast petroleum reserves to the American oil giants via
the “oil laws”.
The AMSI sees the bombing
as a desperate attempt by the US occupation to break the logjam in Parliament
over the oil laws and to conceal the failures of the “surge”
by inciting sectarian violence. The only difference this time is that
the Shiite militias have been less responsive to US manipulation. In
fact, Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr has tried to stop his Mahdi Army
from attacking Sunni areas and he has decried the bombing as another
plot by US-Israeli intelligence agents operating in Iraq. He said that
the incident reveals “the hidden hand of the occupier.”
He added, “This is
what the occupiers brought to Iraq: a disintegration plot and fanning
the flames of sectarian violence. Destroying the Askariya shrine goes
exactly with the insurgents' beliefs.”
Among Shiites, there’s
nearly unanimous agreement that the US was behind the bombing. Middle
East expert Juan Cole reports on his blog-site “Informed Comment,
that protests have broken out in India, Pakistan, the Caucasus, Bahrain,
Iran and other locations where there are high concentrations of Shiites.
The consensus view is that the minarets were blown up as part of a larger
US-Israeli strategy for controlling the Middle East.
But why would the Bush administration
want to unleash a fresh wave of sectarian violence when they can’t
even establish security in Baghdad?
Here’s what the AMSI
says:
“Sectarian violence
is an effective means to enable the militias to fully impose their control
on (Sunni) neighborhoods and cities as it did after the bombings of
Samarra….The government is also trying to control the capital
of Baghdad; seeking to extend its power over other cities that reject
the occupation, especially the cities of Baquba and Samarra”.
This is what is gained by
the bombings—further ethnic cleansing of the Sunni neighborhoods
and greater control over the public through a campaign of terror. It’s
all part of a broader neocon strategy that centers on “creative
destruction” rather than the traditional US policy of “regional
stability”.
Al Sadr’s comments
(as well as those of the AMSI) show that fewer and fewer Iraqis are
taken in by US counterinsurgency activities. In fact, US-Israeli aggression
is now seen as the main source of violence in the region. This has turned
Muslims around the world against the West. For these people, the victories
by Hamas and Hezbollah must come as a welcome relief. They are small
indication that the imperial grip is beginning to loosen and that, perhaps
change will be achievable sometime in the “not so distant”
future.
The perception of US invincibility
has been shattered. America’s moral authority is in ruins. We
are neither feared nor respected; that is the unfortunate legacy of
Abu Ghraib and Falluja. But what is bad news for us may be good news
for the people in the Middle East. It’s now possible to imagine
a New Middle East where fundamental change is possible. As resistance
continues to swell from a trickle to a stream---we can envision “regime
change” sweeping through the region from Riyadh, to Amman to Cairo---an
entirely new world shaking off its colonial past.
The forces that Bush has
put in motion will inexorably lead to the decline of “superpower
rule” and the dismantling of the US imperium. The transition is
already visible. The battle of Gaza is just a macrocosm of a much larger
phenomenon which now extends from Mogadishu to Kabul.
Change is coming, but it
might not be to Bush’s liking. That’s the real lesson of
what happened in Gaza
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