U.$. Remains Behind Israeli War

MC12

With each passing day, three things become more clear about 
the war in Palestine.

First, and most important from our perspective in this 
country, the United $tates, after pouring billions of 
dollars into the militarization of the Israeli state and 
orchestrating the systematic denial of Palestinian national 
self-determination for decades, remains chiefly responsible 
for the current state of war and oppression in Palestine.

Second, Yassir Arafat, the supposed president of the 
supposed autonomous Palestine, is a powerless neocolonial 
puppet unable and/or unwilling to make any substantial 
movement toward Palestinian self-determination. Instead, he 
falls in line with a disgraced community of neocolonial 
pseudo-rulers who seek their power from the imperialists 
rather than from the unleashed power of their freed people.

Finally, despite Israeli complaints that they are losing 
the battle for public opinion and that ordinary Israelis 
feel "under siege" -- as if Palestinians in the occupied 
territories haven't felt that way for years as their homes 
were bulldozed, as if the majority of those killed in the 
recent violence haven't been Palestinian -- despite all 
that, Israel maintains a huge military advantage. For 
example, on August 10, a suicide bomber blew up a pizzeria 
in Jerusalem and killed some 15 Israelis. In supposed 
retaliation -- justified by the bombing -- Israel blew up a 
police station in the West Bank and a police post in Gaza, 
using fighter jets and tanks, and then seized the 
Palestinian headquarters in East Jerusalem, known as Orient 
House.(1)

While Arafat maneuvers for the next round boot-licking 
"negotiations" with Israel and the united $tates, Israel is 
waging a devastating war against Palestinian political and 
military infrastructure, seizing more and more territory, 
destroying homes, locking out Palestinian workers, and 
otherwise carrying out their mission to expand Israel at 
the cost of Palestinian nationhood.

In the course of these attacks, Israel has committed 
countless acts of terrorism, including selective 
assassinations of Palestinian activists which also have 
killed children and other bystanders. For example, at the 
end of July Israel bombed a Palestinian Hamas house in 
Nablus, killing not only several Hamas leaders but also two 
children playing outside. The bombing led to strong 
statements of disapproval from Amerikan leaders, who 
considered it to embarrassing to defend in the public 
eye.(2)

Despite these faint protests from the Bush administration, 
the Amerikan press is full of hand-wringing over Bush's 
supposed lack of involvement, as if this were the reason 
for the current situation.(3) First, the current wave of 
violence began when Clinton was in office as was his Labor 
party counterpart in Israel, Barak. But more importantly, 
this is the chickens of the Amerikan "involvement" coming 
home to roost. Whether or not Amerika was on TV every day 
trying to get negotiations going again, the facts remain 
essentially the same. Israeli power and Palestinian 
weakness are built into the situation after decades of U.$. 
development and protection of Israel as a military and 
political ally against nationalist Arab and, at one time, 
Soviet influence.

The same people who decry the lack of Amerikan involvement 
also blame the current violence on Arafat's rejection of 
Barak's final proposal at the last meetings in the U.$., 
which supposedly represented how far Barak had come and how 
far the Israeli people were willing to go to make peace. 
Not very far. Under that deal, Israel would have controlled 
all the major borders and maintained security control over 
the whole territory, Israeli settlements would have 
remained, and Palestinian land would have been divided by 
Israeli access roads, traveled freely by the Israeli 
military. In other words, under that deal Israel could have 
done in the blink of an eye what it is currently doing. 
Different photo opportunities, same story.

To be clear, while we do not have a major group to cheer 
for in Palestine at present, we know whom to blame, and 
that is a crucial part of our organizing in this country. 
MIM blames Amerika first, Israel second, and Arafat third. 
MIM will continue to support the oppressed nation masses of 
Palestine in their struggles for self-determination by 
exposing the Amerikan role in national oppression and using 
our newspaper and other media to build support for those 
struggles within Amerika.

Notes: 
1. Reuters, August 9, 2001. 
2. New York Time, August 2, 2001, p. A8.
3. Washington Post, August 7, 2001, p. A1.