War in the Middle East?

2001-06-12

Richard Moore

Friends,

Sorry to have been ignoring the list... had to get some
paying projects delivered.

There haven't been many responses to the 'goals & strategy'
thread.  Perhaps we burnt ourselves out on the 'Returning to
the Garden' thread, which was more or less on the same
topic.  I guess we can let that rest until inspiration
reappears.

Meanwhile, we might as well keep on world events.

Ever since Israel accelerated its campaign of state
terrorism against the Palestinian people, with Washington's
tacit approval, it has been clear that the U.S. is up to
something in the region.  Either it's seeking to start a
regional war, or it's seeking an excuse to come down hard on
Israel and compel occupation of the Palestinian territories
by non-Israeli forces.  (If the latter, it wouldn't be to
help the Palestinians, but to project a larger U.S. military
presence in the area for other reasons.  Any benefit to the
Palestinians would be strictly 'collateral'.)

Below are some reports which predict that war is about to
start.  That may indeed be the most likely outcome.  On the
other hand, if the U.S. is planning to take direct control
in the area, a threatening war scenario would be precisely
the excuse needed, given the strong U.S. domestic sympathy
for Israel.

If the game plan is war, I don't have a clear understanding
of what the regime hopes to gain from such an adventure.  We
do know however that such a war would be nuclear.  Israel
has made that very clear, and it has at least 200 nuclear
warheads and sophisticated delivery systems to get them to
their targets.  Such a nuclear war might be difficult to
contain, and I find myself pondering the predictions from
Revelations.  In Revelations, Russia (the Bear) gives Israel
an ultimatum, presumably to prevent it from striking out at
its neighbors.  The outcome is a general devastation that
reaches far beyond the Middle East.  The scenario is quite
plausible even if the source is dubious.

Whatever game the U.S. is up to, it is risking the
annihilation of Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states, and
who knows who else.  It could only make sense for some deep
geopolitical objective, such as destroying Russia, or as an
act of mass genocide to help solve the 'over population'
problem.

Such scenarios do fit into the current modus operandi of the
global regime, given its genocidal behavior in Iraq,
Yugoslavia, and Africa.  But I still hold out hope for the
less drastic scenario, where the U.S. is seeking only an
excuse for a large military presence in the region.  It
seems that we'll know soon enough.

rkm
http://cyberjournal.org

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Delivered-To: moderator for •••@••.•••
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 06:53:58 -0400
From: "Nurev Ind." <•••@••.•••>
Organization: Nurev Independent Research
To: Activist Mailing List <•••@••.•••>
Subject: War in Mideast by October, Report Says

 War in Mideast by October, Report Says 

 6:50 am PST, 8 June 2001 

 7am.com News
 http://7am.com/cgi-bin/wires02.cgi?1000_2001060801.htm

An intelligence firm has said Israel could be facing a
full-scale regional war by October, and that top Israeli
commanders are becoming frustrated by Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's hesitation to destroy the Palestinian Authority's
infrastructure.

Texas-based Stratfor.com, a global economic and military
intelligence analyst firm, said in a report Thursday that
Israeli military leaders were "disillusioned" with Sharon,
and believes he may have lost his nerve.

"Sharon had pledged over and over that he would order an
attack that would destroy the Palestinian Authority and
exile Chairman Yasser Arafat from the region," the
analytical report said.

"That opportunity came over the weekend when a Palestinian
suicide bomber sent by the Islamic Hamas group blew himself
up and killed another 20 Israelis," said Stratfor.

However, the next day, June 2, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul
Mofaz presented to Sharon a plan for a massive bombing sweep
that would destroy the PA infrastructure and lead to the
exile of Arafat.

"But Sharon, under massive pressure from the United States
and the European Union, said no. Arafat had pledged a
cease-fire, and Sharon did not want to be seen as the one
who ruined the opportunity to end the 8-month-old war
against the Palestinians," Stratfor.com said.

According to the report, the result of that has been some
"deep soul-searching" within the upper echelons of the
Israel Defense Force. Top commanders, the report said,
believe Sharon is following exactly the same path as his
predecessor, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, whom Sharon
defeated soundly in February.

"Barak was held back from ending the war against the
Palestinians by the refusal of then-President Bill Clinton
to support a drive to exile Arafat. Barak felt that without
U.S. support, Israel would be alone against the world," the
report said.

Now, because of the civilian leadership's lack of will, IDF
commanders believe Arafat, over the next several months,
will continue to wage his campaign of Palestinian terror
against Israel, but will "keep it below Sharon's level of
tolerance."

Meanwhile, his allies in the region  Iran, Iraq, and the
Hizbollah terrorist organization  "will rearm for a regional
war against Israel," the report said.

"As the military brass sees it, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinians
and Hizbollah want a regional war. Syria and Egypt are
preparing for such a development. The brass is divided over
whether Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will join such a
coalition when the time comes," analysts said, in the
report.

"In every meeting with U.S. officials, Mubarak has pledged
he will stop such a war. But in public, the Egyptian
president has been talking very tough," said the report.

The "time frame" for such a war is "between October and the
end of this year," analysts said, according to the report.

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Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 08:31:14 -0400
From: "Nurev Ind." <•••@••.•••>
Organization: Nurev Independent Research
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Preparing the American public for war in the Middle East.

6/7/01

Cal Thomas is a Conservative writer and commentator.
I would also describe him as a " Zionist Christian."
This would obviously color his point of view, but does 
not alter the historical facts he describes below.

This is another article which appears to be preparing
the public for radical military measures or war in
the Middle East. I personally speculate that the US
Bush administration has given Israel the OK signal.

Too bad. This could have been avoided.

Nurev
========

A coalition of terror

Cal Thomas

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas.html

THE suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv night club last
Friday night, which killed 19 and injured scores of other
mostly young people, is the latest in a continuing strategy
to exterminate Israel and eliminate every Jew from the area.

---<snip>---

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Subject: Calamity About To Befall
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 19:54:45 -0400

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                    CALAMITY AHEAD

      Courageous Israeli Writer Issued Dire Warning

     "A whole nation is now huddled around one tribal 
      bonfire to lament its bitter fate, mourn its dead and 
      ignore the dead of the other side. As usual, it views 
      itself as the victim, turns the enemy into Satan and 
      waits, inactive and bravely unthinking, for the 
      calamity that is about to befall it and for which it is 
      in no small measure to blame."

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6/10:
Indeed the Israelis have brought this on themselves.  To put
it bluntly, their colonial and racist mindset, their
duplicitious and neo-apartheid "Peace Process", their brutal
and militant occupation policies, have brought both
themselves and the Palestinians to today's impasse and
indeed to the brink of calamity...to the "abyss".    
Of course the Americans are for sure at the least
co-conspirators in this whole venture.  Hence the biggest
guns have been brought in, none other than the head of the
CIA himself with his most extensive entourage, for the most
desperate attempt yet to force the Arafat Regime on the
Palestinian people however much against their will.

The "peace process" of Rabin was all along from the very
start just a continuation of the occupation by other more
crafty means.  And no amount of torturing and bribing, of
killing and maiming, was able to make it otherwise.  Indeed
the volcano is now nearing explosion.    But this one,
unlike mother nature, has a label "Made in Israel" with an
associated stamp "Made in USA".



                 UNDER THE VOLCANO
                       By Gideon Levy

[Ha'aretz, 10 June 2001]
There has never been such unity here. Listen to the Israeli
public discourse and you hear only one voice. From one
terrorist attack to the next, the nails are being driven
into the coffin of the concept of pluralism in Israel; the
attack at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv was the last nail.
The horror of the event sent everyone into a state of
paralysis: children and parents, right and left - everyone
agrees with everyone else. Fear became the teacher and
brought about a consensus that would shame no totalitarian
regime. One nation, one stand. Its basic elements: there is
no one to talk to, Arafat is not a partner, we have to do
"something," to deliver a final crushing blow once and for
all. We offered them everything and they chose war, there
will not be peace in this generation, we will live by the
sword for all time.

And overlaying it all, an appalling wave of hatred for Arabs
has seized everyone. Who doesn't hate Arabs a little these
days? Who still believes them? Who thinks it's possible to
make peace with them?

Where are the days when it used to be said that for every
two Israelis there were three opinions? Now, every three
Israelis have barely one opinion. From being an
ultra-involved nation, where every social gathering and
every taxi trip was always accompanied by lively political
arguments, the nation in recent months has become a choir
that sings one song, in one voice. Beyond the monotony, and
the danger such a development poses for democracy, it holds
out a more immediate risk. The fact that no one is asking
tough questions, that no one is proposing bold alternatives
and that the public agenda is becoming so uniform, wholly
aimed at the next war, should be cause for great concern.
Like a village living below a volcano and waiting
complacently for the next eruption, Israel is watching
events unfold as though watching a natural disaster over
which no one has any control, and muttering its well-worn
slogans. So we're headed for another terrible eruption of
bloodletting, that's how it goes.

Above all we are witnessing the evaporation of the left; but
there is hardly anything left of the center, either. "We are
all settlers," say people who not long ago styled themselves
leftists and centrists; it is not only writers' widows, such
as Edna Shabtai, who are turning right. The thin shell of
the peace camp broke apart in an instant, after its
enlightened members found out that the Palestinians were not
managing their affairs exactly according to the model the
peaceniks had created for them. The Palestinians resorted to
violence and dared to demand the right of return. The
conclusion: the left was wrong. The result: an almost
wholesale drift to the right. The media, the leaders of the
peace camp, together with Labor, the Likud and Rehavam
Ze'evi - all are declaiming almost the same message. Can
anyone seriously point today to substantial differences not
only between Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres, but even between
Yossi Sarid and Limor Livnat? The right says, honestly, that
it aspires to fighting a war, while the left says that war
is inevitable because of Arafat. That is a very minor
difference - too minor.

The lip service the left is paying in the form of calls for
a freeze on construction in the settlements or for the
establishment of a Palestinian state, is pathetic: too
little and too late.

It didn't have to be this way. The voice that has been muted
is now more essential than ever. Israel needs another voice
now, not just that of the brave but minuscule Gush Shalom
(the Peace Bloc). Where are the intellectuals and the
statesmen to assert that the Palestinians could never have
accepted what Ehud Barak offered, that the way it was
offered outraged them even more? Who will declare that a
just solution to the conflict must include not only a fair
territorial solution but also a just solution for the
refugees, including recognition of their right of return?

Who will speak out in a loud voice to offer a truth
different to the one now sweeping the country from end to
end? Who will state that the occupation is an act of
violence, the most terrible of all, that terrorism is not
only suicide bombers but also firing missiles at inhabited
homes? Who will assert the truth: That there are too few
differences between a person who blows himself up outside a
discotheque and kills 20 boys and girls, and a person who
frivolously fires shells at a house in which an infant girl
has just finished drinking milk from her mother's breast?
That depriving a whole nation of freedom of movement and
placing that nation in a prison is an act of violence more
cruel than any in the past, and stirs a people to fight
using whatever means it has? That the incitement in the
Palestinian media is not that much worse than the incitement
on Israeli radio and television? That the present war is
first and foremost a war over Netzarim and Yitzhar, and that
if they or all the settlements did not exist our situation
would be immeasurably better? That the roots of Palestinian
terrorism have to be sought in the Israeli occupation and
not in the Palestinians' genes?

Almost no one is asking these questions. A whole nation is
now huddled around one tribal bonfire to lament its bitter
fate, mourn its dead and ignore the dead of the other side.
As usual, it views itself as the victim, turns the enemy
into Satan and waits, inactive and bravely unthinking, for
the calamity that is about to befall it and for which it is
in no small measure to blame.



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            MiD-EasT RealitieS  -  http://www.MiddleEast.Org
                              Phone:  202 362-5266    
                              Email:   •••@••.•••

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From: MER <•••@••.•••>
To: "MER" <•••@••.•••>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 09:55:15 -0400
Subject: Quote of the Week - Ayatollah of Israel
Reply-To: •••@••.•••
Organization: MiD-EasT RealitieS



      "How can you make peace with a snake? The Ishmaelites 
    [Arabs] are all accursed evil people... God regrets 
    having created these Ishmaelites." 

    "Rabbi Ovadiah's fulminations cannot easily be dismissed. 
    A former chief rabbi of Israel, and a religious scholar 
    of some repute, he is also the spiritual leader of the 
    Shas party, the kingmaker of Israeli coalition politics." 

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - 8/8/00:
It's rather ironic that in the modern secular world of the
20th century there is a such a revival of theocratic based
nationalism in the Middle East.  Whatever one's view
of this development its important to realize that this
didn't start with the Iranian revolution against the
Westernized Shah.  Nor did it begin with the Muslims who in
casting off the Ottoman Empire early in the last century
dreamed of an Arab nation based on geographic
nationalism.    It actually started with the birth of
the first specifically religiously identified state in the
region in 1948, the "Jewish State".  And the
ramifications of this development are still taking
place.  The following article appeared in ©The Guardian on
7 August by Suzanne Goldenberg writing from Jerusalem:

"The bad boy of the Israeli rabbinate created a rare unity
between Arab and Jew yesterday, scandalising his own people
by saying that the millions killed in the Nazi Holocaust
were sinners, and outraging Palestinians by declaring them
accursed "snakes" despised by God.

The outpourings from Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, who devoted his
Saturday sermon to the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli peace
process, caused a firestorm as prominent Israeli rabbis and
politicians as well as Palestinians took to the airwaves to
deplore his views.

"The victims of the Holocaust, all 6 million Jews, all those
poor people who were lost at the hands of those evildoers
the Nazis were reincarnations of earlier souls who sinned
time and again and did all sorts of things that shouldn't
have been done, and were reincarnated so that things could
be set right," the rabbi told a crowded synagogue in
Jerusalem, and thousands of followers who tuned in on pirate
radio stations.

He berated the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, for
trying to make peace with the Palestinians. "Why are you
bringing them close to us? You bring snakes next to us. How
can you make peace with a snake?" Rabbi Ovadiah told his
applauding followers.

"The Ishmaelites [Arabs] are all accursed evil people. They
are all haters of Israel. God regrets having created these
Ishmaelites," he went on.

Rabbi Ovadiah's fulminations cannot easily be dismissed. A
former chief rabbi of Israel, and a religious scholar of
some repute, he is also the spiritual leader of the Shas
party, the kingmaker of Israeli coalition politics.

Shas, which combines ultra-Orthodox theology and ethnic
pride of Middle Eastern Jews, is the third largest party in
the Israeli knesset, or parliament, and Mr Barak is
desperate to woo its 17 parliamentarians back to his
coalition. That explains the prime minister's tepid response
yesterday.

Ignoring the slur against the Palestinians, Mr Barak said
the rabbi's comments did not befit a religious leader of his
stature. "They are liable to harm the memory of those who
perished in the Holocaust and the feelings of their family
members," his office said in a statement.

Mr Barak's silence on the attack on Arabs was inexcusable,
said the Palestinian information minister, Yasser Abed
Rabbo. "Every Israeli stands accused of being a racist until
he condemns this racist and idiot."

An Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, Ahmed Tibi, said he
would ask Israel's attorney general to charge the rabbi.
That seems unlikely; the attorney general has already
refused to charge Rabbi Ovadiah with incitement after he
called the secular education minister an enemy of the Jews
who should be liquidated."

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Subject: War Warns Top Saudi
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 07:16:53 -0400


                           WAR POSSIBLE WARNS TOP SAUDI

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6/10:
Normally one of the last places one would turn for
truthfulness, integrity, and information would be the Saudi
royal family.  Currently headed by a former playboy who
drank, gambled, and womanized his life away in Beirut and
London -- before assuming the throne -- it is the Saudi
"royal family which epitomizes the "client regime" realities
that have so fractured, weakened, and prostrated the whole
region once known as "the Arab world."  And of course it was
only a decade ago now that King Fahd was visited by then
Defense Secretary Cheney, accompanied by the Washington
Saudi Ambassador, and told (not asked) American forces were
about to descend on the Kingdom in what has become
essentially a masked American occupation of
Arabia. Just as an aside, in those days Osama bin-Laden
was also visiting King Fahd -- he was then a member of one
of the Kingdom's most prominent families and a most welcome
visitor to the Royal Palace.

The Americans are working hard to cover up all the war talk.
 But their actions betray their words and reveal their real
concerns:   A Secretary of State cancelling trips to remain
in Washington to "preside" over things with everyone in the
region.  The Head of the CIA personally, as never before
in history, taking charge of a region in person acting as a
kind of day-to-day pro consul,   like in the day of
Roman rule.  Leading Western diplomats and covert
types running rampant throughout the region from one capital
to the next, desperately trying to preserve the whole facade
of "client regimes" and financial interests created largely
on their behalf and kept in place for nearly a century now
through constant Western intervention and manipulation.


  SAUDI CROWN PRINCE WARNS OF MIDDLE EAST WAR

    Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has warned of the prospect
    of a Middle East war, accusing Israel of raising Middle
    East bloodshed to "unacceptable" levels.  

    Abdullah told German magazine Der Spiegel that the
    region is "sitting on a powder keg" that could "explode at
    any time".  

    He added that such a war "would not only affect Israelis
    and Arabs but many parts of the world" but did not
    elaborate any further.  

    Abdullah, who ended a three-day official visit to Germany
    on Friday, blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for
    eight months of violence that has left 484 Palestinians and
    108 Israelis dead.  

    He told the magazine: "The bloodshed is reaching levels
    we can no longer accept. The Israeli war machine takes
    aim daily at unarmed people who are at the most throwing
    stones."  

    Abdullah said Palestinian attacks against Israelis were "a
    sign of desperation and frustration", and that Palestinian
    leader Yasser Arafat could only stop his people's revolt if
    Israel ends the "cancerous growth of settlements in
    Palestinian areas".  

    Abdullah, who met Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder during
    his stay in Berlin, encouraged the European Union to
    mediate in the Middle East and said Germany should not
    be restrained by historic traumas.  

    "The crimes of the Nazis against the Jews must not serve
    as an excuse for accepting crimes against the Palestinians,"
    he told the magazine.   [This Is London - 9 June]


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-- 

============================================================================
Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
http://www.fantasticforum.com/cyberjournal/rkm_index.html
http://cyberjournal.org

    A community will evolve only when
    the people control their means of communication.
    - Frantz Fanon

    "Consensus does not mean agreement.  It means we create a
    forum where all voices can be heard and we can think
    creatively rather than dualistically about how to reconcile
    our different needs and visions."
        - Starhawk, "Lessons from Seattle and Washington D.C.", 
        in "Democratizing the Global Economy", Kevin Danaher, ed.,
        Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2001.

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