From
Haifa To Jerusalem
By Am Johal
18 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Jerusalem - Here, we all feel like the boxer Roberto
Duran, who was known as "The Hands of Stone." In a rematch
fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in New Orleans in 1980, after having defeated
the American gold medalist during the 'Brawl of Montreal', he turned
his back to the ring in the eighth round, let his hands fall and uttered
the immortal words, "No Mas, No Mas."
No More. No More.
People were hiding in bomb
shelters or trying to find a way out of town yesterday as Hezbollah
rockets rained down on Haifa. I couldn't sleep all night, every noise
sounded like a rocket landing. They came in like pop flies and you could
hear the thwapping as they landed in the distance. As I jumped in to
the shower at 9, something hit hard in Haifa near the water. The sirens
went off and the streets became deserted. Thursday nights hit had only
engendered a kind of black comedy amongst the residents - this time
it was real.
Eight dead in a rail maintenance
yard.
By Monday, more rockets were
landing in northern Israel. The rules of the game had instantly changed.
For most Israelis, Gaza was far away and they could go about their summer
as per usual. But this time, daily life was disrupted for the first
time in a major Israeli city since tensions had escalated.
At least 140 Lebanese civilians
have also died since the violence broke out last week and public infrastructure
like the airport and roads has been mercilessly demolished.
As 'Operation Summer Rain'
had lulled the Israeli populace in to a state of soporific complacency
where the narrative of returning a soldier justified an intrusive bombardment
of Gaza which largely killed civilians, the latest escalation had only
emboldened them in to believing that the devastation of Lebanon is justified
for 'security purposes' - a catchall phrase designed to give the military
carte blanche discretion to carry out its idea of the public interest.
In other words, the narrative
here is built around the idea that the voices who are calling the Israeli
response counter-productive and disproportionate are naive peaceniks
who do not understand the value of sending Hezbollah a blunt and straightforward
message.
Or, in the words of the macho
new Israeli Defense Minister, "They'll never forget the name Amir
Peretz."
The irony is not lost that
Peretz, the darling of Israel's left, is an Arab Jew and that President
Moshe Katsav, currently fighting off sexual harassment allegations,
is an Iranian Jew. The head of state and the Defense Minister authorizing
the attacks are an Iranian and an Arab in a Jewish state - such are
the contradictions of this place. Nothing is as it seems.
Whoever is the talking head
in Israel representing the government is irrelevant; everyone here knows
that the military's actually in charge right now.
In what could only be called
a deeply hypocritical and backhanded response, UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called for an international
force to be sent to Lebanon to stop attacks on Israel. What about Israel's
bombardment of Gaza? What about Israel's decimation of Lebanon? Why
hasn't the UN called for the same type of international force in Gaza
or the West Bank? Civilian casualties in both those jurisdictions are
far greater than Israel has endured during the rocket attacks. Does
the relative military power of a state make it above being censured
for its own aggression and policies which violate international law?
This is an open question.
Let it not be forgotten that
Israeli military capacity has been realized by direct and indirect US
and European Union support. Israel is a proxy representative of the
West in the Middle East which would explain the wide berth and discretion
it is given in the exercise of its foreign policy, even when it violates
international law. When was the last time the European Union cited the
human rights component of its favorable trade agreement with Israel?
Tony Blair was the evil genius
who flew to Iraq in an off-blue button down shirt with sleeves rolled
up, to read a children's book to Iraqi elementary school students towards
the end of the Hutton Inquiry in 2003, promising them that big bad Saddam
would never come back. Though the weapons inspector David Kelley was
dead after being pressured to 'sex up' the dossier, everybody loved
Tony back home for the sheer quality of the PR stunt. After all, he
had beaten those mean Iraqis, made the world safer from terrorism and
stopped the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a
rogue power.
If there was any doubt that
the G8 and the West in general are setting the rules of the game in
international relations, there should now be no question at all on the
matter.
Hezbollah, intending to send
a message about the Gaza incursion, clearly overstepped in its resistance
activities. They will now pay a heavy price. Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah is permanently damaged by this and will become an assassination
target. The West has already portrayed him as just another rabid, frothy-mouthed
Arab terrorist just like Osama Bin Laden - largely because that's what
he is.
By firing hundreds of missiles
in to northern Israel in an unprecedented way, Israel utilized its strategic
opening to carry out a massive assault that had been talked about since
the original withdrawal from Lebanon. Hezbollah has now also eroded
the good will of the Lebanese population as well. Ariel Sharon had known
about the proliferation of rockets in southern Lebanon from Iran and
had military plans drawn up early on when he was Prime Minister.
There is a dearth of wisdom
in the Holy Land, but no shortage of naiv machismo and empty threats.
Everyone I know here is tired of all this fighting. They say life is
too short to live like this - maybe it's time to move away. Even the
Old City in Jerusalem has Israeli helicopters circling overhead right
now. Everyone's on edge.
But what about the Occupation
in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza? Will it go on for another
ten years in the name of maintaining security? What about the Separation
Wall that separates families? At no other point in history, has security
been so effectively used to violate basic human and civil rights.
The only difference between
the actions of Israel's military and the terrorism of Hezbollah is that
Israel's is state sanctioned. In either scenario, innocent civilians
inordinately pay the price of this aggression whether it is Israel,
Hezbollah or a sectarian faction connected to Hamas. Iran and the US
simply prime the pump by providing resources and weaponry in this proxy
Middle East war.
There is something more ominous
in the background of this story though. The US has never been comfortable
that they have had to accommodate an Iran which has been punching above
their weight class while the Americans have been busy in other places
defending freedom, mom's apple pie and all those other great things.
As the US has become entrenched in Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly
chastised US intentions in the region in an inflammatory manner. There
has been talk of pre-emptive strikes against Iran since the fall of
2003.
For extreme hawks in the
US Administration such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, they now
have a strategic opening to bend the ear of George W. Bush. There are
many within the Pentagon who would support a deep aerial assault on
Iran, not only on potential nuclear reactors, but against the military
and logistical infrastructure of Iran which is perceived as the immediate
threat. For those who hold to this position, they would argue that the
casualties which would result from Iranian rocket fire in to Iraq at
American soldiers and Iran's wide accessibility to launch terrorist
activities on a global scale, would be worth the risk of permanently
damaging the vital military, transportation and communications infrastructure
of the Islamic state.
Iran is clearly a nation
that jeopardizes American interests and in the current power equation,
the US is certainly not beyond launching a pre-emptive strike. Even
US concerns about rising oil prices in the event of an attack on Iran
could be addressed by opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for
a period of time.
Syria is widely perceived as irrelevant and could be handled by Israeli
Defense Forces according to this view. The US would then call on NATO
and individual countries within the European Union to support the attacks
without ever having to resort to a ground war.
The US, by viewing the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict as a regional issue, has never effectively played the role
of a balanced arbiter due to its own energy and geo-political interests
in the region. In fact, in 1953, such American stalwarts with names
like Schwartzkopf and Roosevelt helped overthrow a democratically elected
nationalist leader to install the Shah in Iran after oil fields belonging
to British Petroleum were nationalized. It was the first ever CIA-led
coup. The Americans and the British are old hands at this.
The US's Middle East democracy
project was never well thought out and has been a sad series of failures
- they would have been better off cloning a bunch of Mubareks in the
region rather than imposing a kind of rococo democracy composed of quisling
leaders.
Make no mistake - we have
now collectively crossed the Rubicon in to dangerous times. The question
is not if there is going to be a war with Iran - the question is when?