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Today's
Stories
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Uri Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
21, 2004
Israel's
Intelligence Scandal
Irreversible
Mental Damage
By
URI AVNERY
Two
weeks ago, the international community made a shocking declaration.
Giving
in to a demand by George Bush, the “Quartet” accepted the
“Revised Disengagement Plan” of Ariel Sharon. This means
that the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation
and the United States confirmed this document. I wonder if any one of
the honorable diplomats has read the document with their own eyes.
In
the first paragraph of the “plan”, the following words appear:
“Israel has come to the conclusion that at present, there is no
Palestinian partner with whom it is possible to make progress on a bilateral
peace process.”
That
is to say, the international community has confirmed that the Palestinian
people has no right to take part in the determination of its own fate.
Everything will be decided by the Government of Israel alone, with the
backing of the United States, whose position will be automatically accepted
by the other partners of the “Quartet”.
The
European Union with its 25 member-states, the government of the Russian
Federation and the organization that represents the entire world have
humbly accepted the edict of Bush, the dictator of the world, who is
himself a captive of Sharon. Sharon decided long ago that the elected
president of the Palestinian people is “irrelevant”, together
with the whole Palestinian leadership.
The
Palestinian people have been eliminated from the list of decision-makers,
thereby also abolishing in practice all the agreements signed with them,
from Oslo to the Road Map.
This
is a scandalous step, unprecedented in its dimensions, and it passed
without comment. Apart from Sharon and his minions, nobody noticed the
implications. The big boot of the international community trod on the
Palestinian people without even noticing it, as if on an ant.
That
is the culmination of a process that began with the return of the then
Prime minister, Ehud Barak, from the 2000 Camp David summit. After the
failure of that meeting, he coined the mantra that has since become
the cornerstone of the policy of successive Israeli governments: “I
have turned every stone on the way to peace / I have offered the Palestinians
more generous proposals than any of my predecessors / The Palestinians
have rejected all my offers / Arafat wants to throw us into the sea
/ We have no partner for peace.”
This
mantra is based on a series of lies that have been exploded long ago.
American eye-witnesses like Rober Malley, President Clinton’s
advisor at Camp David, as well as some of the Israeli participants and
international researchers have published detailed reports that prove
that Barak himself was responsible for the failure at least as much
as Arafat – in fact, far more.
And
as if by coincidence, just when the international community absent-mindedly
accepted that the Palestinian people is not a partner for peace, in
Israel itself things are happening that turn everything upside down.
The
High Priest of the “We Have No Partner” creed is General
(res.) Amos Gilad, who at the crucial time was chief of the research
section (and as such the No. 2) of the Army Intelligence Department.
Since army intelligence is the department solely responsible for the
“national security assessment”, it has a decisive influence
on the formation of national policy.
The
army intelligence man reports directly to the Prime Minister and takes
part in cabinet meetings. No minister would dare to question his assessments,
which are the guiding star of the entire state. The research chief of
the intelligence department is supposed to submit a professional summary
of the huge amount of data amassed by the intelligence community. Most
ministers are forbidden to read the written report, and even the few
others are allowed only to glance at it. Therefore, the oral summary
presented by the chief of research to the Prime Minister and the cabinet
is of paramount importance.
Amos
Gilad went even further: he appeared almost daily in the media, commenting
on almost every political and security event. He was not only the “national
assessor”, but also the “national explainer”, as he
was commonly called in the media.
Who
is this man, who has had a greater influence than any other person on
the policies of Israel over the last few crucial years, and whose kontsepsia
(Hebrew for “conception”) is still directing the path of
the state? This is the very same Amos Gilad who some days ago claimed
for himself the benefits due to disabled army veterans. He was not wounded
in battle, God forbid, but claimed that the stress caused by his difficult
job has inflicted on him irreversible mental damage.
This
claim involves a considerable amount of Chutzpah, if not worse. But
it also raises the question: This mental damage, when did it start?
When were the first symptoms observed? Was it when he started endlessly
repeating that Arafat wants to throw us into the sea? Or was this declaration,
perhaps, itself a symptom of his mental problem? And how can he continue
to fulfil his present duties?
The
last two weeks, Israel witnessed a stormy debate that should have shaken
the very foundations of the state.
The
former chief of Army Intelligence, General (res.) Amos Malka, who was
the direct superior of Gilad, broke his silence of many years and published
a thunderous accusation: that Amos Gilad arrived at his "kontseptsia"
without any intelligence basis whatsoever. On the contrary, the huge
amount of information collected by the intelligence department indicated
the very opposite. That is to say, Gilad freely invented his intelligence
reports, based on his political views and/or on the desire to please
his political bosses, Barak and Sharon.
This
grave accusation raised a storm in professional circles. Intelligence
operatives of undoubted integrity emerged from their anonymity in order
to support Malka publicly. They were headed by the man who, at the relevant
time, was in charge of the Army Intelligence section for Palestinian
affairs, Colonel Ephraim Lavie, who was then responsible for the collection
of all intelligence material about the Palestinian leadership. There
is no doubt that in the professional confrontation between Amos and
Amos, Amos Malka emerged as the victor.
This
means, in simple words: there was no intelligence material at all backing
the assertion that Arafat is working for the destruction of the State
of Israel, that Arafat had broken off the peace process in order to
start a terror campaign, that Arafat is not ready for a reasonable compromise.
All these assertions, uttered by diverse Israeli politicians and generals,
were based on the “assessment” of one man who, while appearing
to represent the intelligence department, was actually suppressing the
considered professional reports of his own department, as well as of
the General Security Service (Shabak).
When
the debate heated up, the orientalist Matti Steinberg, a former advisor
on Palestinian affairs to the chief of the Shabak, joined the fray.
Steinberg not only confirmed that Gilad’s “kontseptsia”
was completely false and contradicted the intelligence material assembled
by his own people, but he also asserted that Gilad’s conception
“fulfilled its own prophecy”.
Since
Israel is immeasurably stronger than the Palestinians, its actions create
reality. The acts guided by Gilad’s “kopntseptsia”
created results that suited it. Much as the “kontseptsia”
of Eli Za’ira, the intelligence chief at the time of the Yom Kippur
war, resulted in catastrophe, thus the “kontseptsia” of
Amos Gilad caused – and is still causing – the disasters
of the present intifada.
(The
1973 intelligence conception was that Egypt would not dare to attack
Israel, causing all the glaringly obvious signs to the contrary to be
ignored, thus preventing adequate preparations and resulting in the
death of 3000 Israeli soldiers. Since than the Hebrew word “kontseptsia”
has assumed an almost obscene connotation in Israel.)
As
of now, Gilad’s immediate superior (Malka) and his immediate subordinate
(Lavie) both accuse him of presenting his personal opinions, which were
unsupported by any intelligence backing, as if they were the official
assessment of the intelligence services.
Gilad
has caused irreversible damage. His mantra was accepted by the vast
majority of Israelis, as well as a large part of international public
opinion. Its exposure in professional circles will not alter this fact.
Indeed, the recent decision of the “Quartet” shows how deeply
entrenched this lie has become throughout the world.
By
the way, these revelations show that the secret assessment of the highest
professional echelons of the Army Intelligence Department and Shabak
were practically identical with the assessments published at the time
by Gush Shalom, which were met with total disbelief by the media and
the public, including a large part of the “peace camp”.
To wit, that the Palestinian leadership, headed by Arafat, has never
wavered from its readiness to make peace with Israel based on the creation
of a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (which
together make 22% of historic Palestine), with territorial compensation
for the remaining 3% and sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Haram-al-Sharif
(“Temple Mount”). The refugee problem would be solved by
agreement with Israel (meaning: Israel will have a veto on any solution).
The
experts of army intelligence and the security service, too, agree that
Arafat has not wavered from this position. On this basis, peace can
be achieved even now, as Arafat himself confirmed this week in a fascinating
interview with the new editor of Haaretz, David Landau.
Ariel
Sharon denies this, of course, because he is not ready for peace on
these terms. He wants to annex at least 55% of the West Bank, hoping
that the life of the Palestinians in the remaining 45% will become so
impossible that they will leave the country of their own accord. Shimon
Peres is eager to help him in the realization of this design.
For
that, Sharon needs the “We Have No Partner” mantra. Amos
Gilad delivered the goods. Now the “Quartet” has accepted
it, bringing shame on itself and obstructing the search for peace.
Uri
Avnery is an Israeli journalist, member of Gush Shalom and
contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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