From hb@harelbarzilai.org Wed Jan 23 17:26:32 2002
Date: 4 Dec 2001 20:48:08 -0800
From: Harel Barzilai <hb@harelbarzilai.org>
To: [...]
Subject: Israel

Some of you may be wondering, how does an Israeli-born Jewish person
react to recent events? Like any decent human being reacts to the 
taking of human life, with deep sadness..

Although admittedly and certainly, one partially numbs one's feelings
(here as in 9/11, the war on Afghanistan's people, and countless other
examples) in order to try to give a careful reasoned response.

Yet many similaries to 9/11 and the aftermath are remarkable..

[Yes, this is the place to click "delete" if you don't wish
to hear my thoughts. I barely found the time to write these
but felt I needed to make the time, over the last three days]


On Nov 24 BBC reported
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1672000/1672948.stm]
that "Tens of thousands of Palestinian mourners have demanded revenge
for the killing of a senior Islamic militant, whom Israel accused of
having planned devastating suicide attacks on its territory this
year."

This is Israel, the country that had no problem "capturing"
(hijacking) Mordechai Venunu from another CONTINENT to bring him to
trial for the crime of telling the world Israel had nuclear weapons.
Are we to believe that arresting or "capturing" Mahmoud Abu Hanoud was
beyond its capacity, if indeed he was suspected of these crimes?
No, the decision was made, as so often in human history, that "we'll
REALLY show em'!" and that violence and extra-judicial executions,
rather than the rule of law, police, and putting people on trial, was
the way to go.

No doubt, they convinced themselves that they would be "safer" by
carrying this act of extra-judicial execution (hence, an act of
terror) just as those in Washington, while on some level understanding
the issues of power and control and oil, convince themselves
(rationalizations being one of the human races' most powerful forces)
that what they are REALLY doing is making the US "safer" (and they try
to convince us of the same) , by committing terror on a massive scale,
leading to the deaths of thousands of innocents who, we are not
allowed to suppose, might harbor feelings of less than acceptance for
their wives, mothers, husbands, boys, girls, and babies being
slaughtered, either directly, or by being pushed over the brink into
the slow agonizing death of starvation. Nor are we allowed by the
thought police to imagine that (some minority) of people whom Washington
thus terrorizes in our name, might resort to the same "I'll REALLY
show 'em!" logic of our "leaders" in Washington.

BBC continues, "According to some estimates, 50,000 people gathered in
the West Bank city of Jenin for the funeral of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, who
died along with two other members of the militant Hamas group when an
Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at their car near the West
Bank town of Nablus on Friday. Hanoud's assassination came just after
the deaths of five young Palestinian children in an explosion, and
Israel on Saturday admitted the possibility that it had been
responsible. Correspondents say many of Saturday's mourners pumped
bullets into the air as they pledged that revenge against Israel would
'be very strong and very soon'"

Not many days after this Nov 24 BBC report, terrorist suicide bombs
killed dozen of Israeli civilians. Sharon and other like him who have
longed for an excuse for a full frontal assault on Palestinians, and
to end any minimal peace process, were less than entirely sorrowful
about it. To be blunt, Sharon was thrilled, ecstatic, gleeful. Maybe
not on the surface, maybe not consciously, but every plan which was
already in existence now became easier to do. Just as a huge attack on
US civil rights was ready and in place to be launched before 9/11, and
now that's easier. Just as a huge escalation of the military, and (as
reported by BBC and top Pakistani officials) an assault on Afghanistan
was already planned before 9/11, to replace one set of murderers
(those whom Washington was lovey-dovey with even while they were still
vicious murderers, not long ago) with another set of murderers,
rapists, torturers, who will better do "our" (Washington's) bidding.

Keep in mind, while Arafat is *accused* of choosing not to stop
terrorism (since it has been obvious for years that he is a power
hungry politician for whom complaining about suffering is, like for
most leaders, not coming from the heart but used in a chess game, it's
almost secondary whether he is guilty of other crimes)..although
Arafat is "accused" of choosing not to stop terrorists, in the case of
Sharon, it is not merely an accusation: unlike Arafat, we know for
100% CERTAIN that Sharon not only supports, but carries out, not in
secret, but openly, acts of terror -- except when states rather than
countries do the same thing, we don't' call it terrorism, despite the
fact that the actions of Russia in Chechnia, Israel in the
territories, the US throughout much of the world, follow a logic which
we would call "Terrorism" without hesitation if carried out by others,
e.g., if the Sudan flew planes over the US and destroyed half of our
pharmaceutical industry, that would be terrorism. That is what Clinton
did in 1998 in Sudan, an extremely poor country in which lack of
medicines means suffering and death on a scale we will probably never
know. In part because Washington, having backed away from it's initial
claim of "chemical weapons plants" has blocked the investigation the
Sudan has called for. Now if Sudan decided to "retaliate" by bombing
the US instead of using world courts, we'd (rightly) call it an act of
terror. If Nicaragua said, "hand over so and so, who has been
involvement in terrorism; we will give you no evidence -- do it or we
bomb" that would be terrorism (unfortunately this is not hypothetical;
except that plenty of evidence HAS been given by Nicaragua and Haiti
but Washington will not hand terrorist thugs who might 'sing' in court
about CIA connections, to these countries)

Back to Israel. Suppose Israel had chosen to grab and arrest this
fellow instead of assassinating him. It would have

1) Been a propaganda coup to present evidence against him in court, as
far as world opinion

2) It would have taken away from its opponents (whatever you think of
the situation)  the ability to attack "Israeli violence

3) On top of both of those, it would have not given nearly as much
ammunition to extremists and terrorist sympathizers, as ASSASSINATING
in cold blood does; that gives a huge amount of ammunition to the
enemy, which can then draw public support from the average person who
is moderate and does not support terrorism.

Despite these and other reasons, states are not moral agents, they
follow their own logic, internally consistent, but globally lethal to
human survival, escalating the cycle of violence while trying to
increase their own military power, economic stranglehold, and
political domination.

Ironically, and in another case of "full reverse logic" BBC commented
that the US apparently, "unlike previous cases [of terrorist attacks on
Israel] is not calling on Israel to exercise restraint"

Since "restraint" is a code word for "not engaging in violent terror
attacks which will kill civilians and the innocent", the idea is that
the US is encouraging precisely those kinds of actions we read about
on Nov 24 and which no doubt led to the large scale "reprisal" terror
attack on Israel.


As tragic as these events are, the lessons for the US in the aftermath
of 9/11 are even greater. 

In an interview with Democracy Now after a one month
visit to India and Pakistan Chomsky points out other similarities: the
 charges of both India and Pakistan against the other are more or less
true, but unless India, for example, faces the truth the the (quite
real) terror against it in the Kashmir is based on decades or
repression, brutal suppression of independent parties and free
elections, etc, the cycle of violence (in this case between two
nuclear states) will continue, towards mutual destruction:

http://stream.realimpact.org/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/exile/dn20011204.ra&start=%221:10:36.6%22

The possible destruction of the entire human race, not a matter of
small importance, is also discussed in light of the latest plans for
the  ultra-militarization of space. Indeed, Chomsky's citing
of some of the words of  one of the world's leading biologists
on whether intelligence helps or hurts a species' survival, it's
important to notice the  increasingly ominous signs on how actions 
which are suicidal for the human race are entirely *rational* if we
stay within the economic-political institutions that exist today
(which, one might add, tells us about the choice between survival and
keeping or letting go of those institutions..)

Also Noam Chomsky's latest book, 9-11 is $9 paperback or just $4
eBook is at http://sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100546790
Though for Audio I would most recommend, Howard Zinn's excellent talks
e.g. 

http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3865

-Harel