Imperialists seek containment of Israeli war by MC12 Oppressing the Palestinian nation and denying their fight for national self-determination is on the routine task list for Israel, the Amerikan imperialist proxy in the Middle East. So the conflict that has killed at least 460 Palestinians and 87 Israelis since September 2000 is not way out of line for U.$. policy.(1) However, starting a regional war and undermining "regional stability" is not called for in the view of the Amerikan government. For that reason, despite a reluctance to get "involved" in the daily grind of the war against Palestine, the U$ Bush administration has finally taken up the traditional "moderating" role in Middle East diplomacy. Of course, Amerika paid for all the weapons Israel uses, and it is Amerikan protection that makes possible the Israeli military's violent repression of the Palestinian people. So "involvement" isn't the issue -- the question for the public is just the diplomatic role. And recent events underscore the delicacy of the issue for Amerika, which has cultivated profitable new relationships across the Middle East in the wake of waning ex-Soviet influence in the last 10 years. The neocolonial governments of the Arab and Muslim countries face popular pressure to stick up for Palestine, and resistance to alliance with Amerikan imperialism. That balance is easiest to maintain when the Israeli war is relatively peaceful and the "peace process" has some appearance of progress. But lately that has not been the case at all. In mid-May, Israel used F-16 fighter jets to bomb Palestinian targets in the West Bank, marking the first use of combat jets in the Occupied Territories since 1967. The U.$. and British governments were opposed to the strikes, seeing them as a dangerous escalation because of the reaction they were sure to cause.(2) Similarly, after Israel bombed Syrian targets deep inside Lebanon, the imperialists spoke up against a widening of the war. While blaming the conflict on the Palestinians, the New York Times News Service editorial read, "the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon needs to be certain that its response to these [Palestinian] provocations increases Israel's security rather than risking wider conflict."(3) One reason Amerika doesn't want too much violent escalation is that it leads to increased demands for some kind of international peace-keeping or observing role, and keeping the United Nations out of Palestine is a major diplomatic objective of the U$ government. The United $tates wants to pose as a moderate influence, trying to broker a "peace" deal, but it doesn't want any international organizations getting involved, because of their historic tendency to fault Israel for its occupation and atrocities. After pumping billions of dollars into militarizing the Israeli state, and coercing the allegiance of Arab leaders, all the while orchestrating the systematic denial of Palestinian national self-determination for decades, Amerika is in no position to offer any moral leadership in the eyes of the world. The escalations of violence have led to increasing opposition among Muslim governments, worried about their people's reaction. At an emergency meeting in Qatar, the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference announced it would "halt all political contacts with the Israeli government so long as the aggression and blockade against the Palestinian people and its national Authority continue and as long as Israel refuses to implement (related) U.N. resolutions."(1) In the week earlier, Jordan's King Abdullah II -- who has visited the new U.$. president Bush -- used police dogs and clubs to disperse hundreds of protestors demonstrating against Israeli atrocities in Amman, the capital of Jordan.(6) That's just what the imperialists are trying to avoid. Meanwhile, the death toll and other consequences of Israeli violence continue to mount. According to a report from the Palestinian National Authority (PNA, the Arafat government) covering October through April, the damage is extremely severe.(4) They report: * 492 Palestinians killed, including 172 children under the age of eighteen and 77 students * 23,147 Palestinians injured by Israeli fire, 40% of them under 18, 2,077 students * 4 doctors killed, 91 paramedics and 71 journalists injured The destruction is also economic: unemployment is at 56%, with 300,000 able Palestinians out of work and a 50% fall in gross national product. Thirty thousand Palestinian farmers have suffered losses, as Israelis destroyed: 108 drinking water wells, 392 ponds, miles of municipal water pipes, 800 cattle, 280,000 mature olive and fruit trees. Israel also destroyed 4,000 homes and other structures, including 328 farmhouses and sheds, 29 poultry farms, 30 mosques and 12 churches. Four thousand families have been displaced. There is no evidence that Amerikan strategy or Amerikan-led Israeli strategy has changed with the new Republican administration in the U$ and Likud administration in Israel. The diplomacy has a different tone, but the substance is the same. The future for the Palestinian people will depend on the course of their own anti-imperialist struggles. MIM will continue to support the oppressed nation masses 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.(5) Notes: 1. Reuters 26 May 2001. 2. London Daily Mail, 21 May 2001. 3. International Herald Tribune, 18 April 2001. 4. The report is at http://www.pna.net/events/facts_figures.htm. The PNA might be accused of exaggerating the damage, but their count of the total death toll of Palestinians is only about 7% higher than the Amerikan media's. 5. For previous stories see MIM Notes # 222, Nov 15, 2000; and MIM Notes 221, Nov 15, 2000 -- available at the MIM Notes web site: http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/ 6. Newsweek (Atlantic Edition), 28 May 2001, p. 37. (Thanks to a South Carolina prisoner for pointing out to MIM Notes Jordan's response to the protestors.)