Political Views,

The True State of Terrorism
William A. Cook

“Truth will not make us free, but taking control of the production of truth will.”
(Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire)

      March held promise this year, the election of a new government in Palestine to replace the “irrelevant” one Sharon discarded just two years ago, and the election of a new government headed by a new party in Israel on the 28th of the month. April, the interim month, served as a month of negotiations for Ehud Olmert of Kadima to form his government while behind the scenes, the US and Olmert attempted to maneuver through the US Congress and Senate the diabolical Palestine Anti-Terrorism Act that, in conjunction with Israel’s own efforts, negates the only true democratic election held in the mid-east to date and emasculates the Palestinian people’s right to choose its government by instituting heinous draconian measures against Hamas. Thus did April fulfill Eliot’s observation as “the cruelest” month. May, the month of renewal in our cyclical calendar, should have provided promise for a resurrected peace in Palestine but instead promises to be the ugliest, meanest, most vicious and inhumane the international community has witnessed in many years.

      Consider what Bush and Olmert have done and the tragic consequences it portends: political efforts to negotiate peace demolished in favor of continued instability and chaos for years to come; humanitarian concerns wantonly destroyed as poverty grows, unemployment rises to even greater heights, disease and malnutrition metastasize; and most horribly, the psychological torment that seeps into the spirit feeds frustration and anger, humiliation and despair, and a futility of purpose eclipses love, hope and meaning. Consider the consequences for the Palestinians who now face an imposed starvation inflicted on them by purportedly civilized democratic states in full knowledge that unemployment has reached two thirds of that population and nothing can reverse that trend because Israel has locked the prison gates that surround them. This Act should it be passed as HR4681 and S 2370 or enforced through subterfuge as amendments to other bills is a collective and hence illegal action as determined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions. Yet it is perpetrated by the United States of America in full congress assembled and punishes a people for voting democratically in full view of the world in a monitored election. Consider as well the consequences of this unilateral act as it impacts the people of Israel and America. Deprivation and desperation fuel hatred of the oppressor, and Bush and Olmert, having thrown fuel on the fire of vengeance and retaliation, have condemned both Jews and Americans  to reap the whirlwind as the people of the world grasp the unnatural acts taken against a helpless people and cast their condemnation on the governments that act in their name. This is no way to bring peace or to end terrorism.

Palestine Anti-Terrorism Act that, in conjunction with Israel’s own efforts, negates the only true democratic election held in the mid-east to date and emasculates the Palestinian people’s right to choose its government by instituting heinous draconian measures against Hamas.

       Why? What is the truth? Which of these governments is the true terrorist state? Let’s review the facts. Condemnation of Hamas centers on its charter of 1988 and its alleged terrorist acts committed since its founding. According to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (Los Angeles Times, 2/5/06) the charter “reveals that Hamas … is not just dedicated (however wrongly or murderously) to the destruction of Israel. It shows Hamas to be governed by a Nazi-like genocidal orientation to Jews in general.” Goldhagen cites Article 7 to prove his analogy: “Hamas has been looking forward to (implementing) Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet … said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” “Imagine,” Goldhagen continues, “if a territory or country next to the United States … were governed by a political party that had repeatedly terrorized and murdered citizens of its neighbor, and had issued a governing charter about Americans …Would people in that country (the US) accept the threatening political party as a fit partner for peace?” Such is the fear generated by Hamas in the Israeli mind as presented by Professor Goldhagen upon the ascension of Hamas to lead the Palestinians.

      Now compare if you will Sharon’s government during the first years of his control. Sharon depended on “the National Religious Party headed by Effi Eitan, a self-proclaimed rabid Zionist who brazenly and shamelessly shouts that Palestinians are not ordinary people, but ‘uncircumcised,’ ‘little people,’ and ‘evil.’ The Jews, on the other hand, are ‘blessed.’ And they [the Jews] will come with ‘vengeance against [their] terrible evil’ and ‘make a reckoning with them.” (My comments from Counterpunch 2/14/04 with quotes taken from the Los Angeles Times). Add to these comments the Gush Emunim rabbis words “…Jews who kill Arabs should be free from all punishment …Whoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell [Erubin 21b].” Now turn to Olmert’s new government, a mixture  concocted from a variety of parties that constitute the Knesset including Labor, Shas, Yisrael Beytenu, United Torah Judaism, National Union (represented in Sharon’s government), and Pensioners with figures like Amir Peretz of Labor, Eli Yishai of Shas and Avigdor Leiberman of Yisrael Beytenu. Note if you will the importance of rabbis in this mix. The United Torah party is an alliance of two parties, “the Degel HaTorah that is guided by the rabbinic heads of the Lithuanian yeshivas of non-Hasidic Haredi Ashkenazi Jews. (And) the Agudat Yisrael that is guided by the followers of Hasidism in Israel, and also consisting of Ashkenazi Jews.” (Wikipedia, 5/1/2006). The Shas Party was founded in 1984 under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef with strategic help and guidance from Rabbi Elazar Shach. Its focus has been “opposition to removal of religious functions and restrictions of the state.”

      Now consider the platforms of the National Union Party, a composite of three parties with these stated objectives: “it support(s) the settlement of the Land of Israel, advocated more military power in the War on terror and harsher measures against Palestinian terrorism, rejects all current Oslo-based peace efforts, … the notion of a Palestinian state, and advocates voluntary transfer of the Palestinians.” (Wikipedia). The National Religious Zionist party, a faction of the National Union, “put focus on supporting the Israeli settlements, fighting terrorism … and establish the high-status of Religious Zionism.” It actively protested the “disengagement plan” for Gaza, and has rabbis of the Religious Zionist Movement supporting it. The Yisrael Beytenu party is right-of-center, supported in great measure by the immigrant settlers who have the most to gain by continued occupation of the settlements in the West Bank. Avigdor Leiberman, a founder of the party and its leader, offers creative plans for map redesign that will effectively isolate Palestinians from Jews, supports hard-line negotiations with Palestinians, and a transfer program proposed in 2005 that other members of the Knesset labeled “racist.”

      Add to the above, Olmert’s stated campaign issues that push for dismantlement of a small number of settlements in the West Bank, the enclosure of the largest settlements behind the Wall incorporated into greater Israel, and confiscation of the Jordan River Valley, and the potential for a mutual peace accord is impossible. Indeed, Olmert has made clear that he intends to create Israel’s borders unilaterally by 2010. Two items of importance to note here: Israel does not intend to pursue peace but it does intend to force the Palestinian people to submit to an apartheid Bantustan homeland surrounded by a prison wall completely under the control of Israel, and, two, the Israeli Knesset and the new government includes parties that have as their stated goal the eradication of the Palestinian people by transfer, by incarceration or by force. The racism inherent in these party’s platforms has even been acknowledged by the Knesset in its refusal to consider Leiberman’s plan and by commentators in Israel like Gideon Levy.