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January
16, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
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The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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January
16, 2002
About That Weapons
Bust
The Ships on the Way
By Uri Avnery
The chiefs of the three big parties in Israel--the
Likud, the Labor Party and the army--were sitting on the stage.
They were frustrated. They knew already that they had not succeeded
in selling the great show that they had prepared with so much
effort: the capture of a ship loaded with weapons, commissioned
by the despicable Arafat. A heroic action, indeed, a second Entebbe.
In one respect they did succeed: in showing
that the borders between these three power-centers have disappeared.
Their chief could be easily switched--say, Ben-Eliezer to the
Likud, Mofaz to Labor, Sharon to the officers--without causing
any change at all. Like the Christian trinity, the three are
one--Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The capture of the ship was described
as a sublime act of courage. The soldiers of an elite unit, using
the most advanced technical equipment in the world, overpowered
13 sleepy sailors on the high seas. That was less dangerous than
the job of three Bedouin soldiers in a position near the Gaza
strip. If General Mofaz needs to tell us that this was equivalent
to the Entebbe raid--a daring and sophisticated commando action--it
shows that under his command the norms of the IDF have slipped
a lot.
It is clear that the army knew all the
movements of the ship. Since when? Good question. From the moment
that the weapons were loaded? Already from the moment the project
was decided upon? It is also clear that the information was provided
by agents installed close to the action. But where? In the Hizballah
headquarters? In Iran? Among the arms merchants? On the ship
itself? And if there was a collaborator on the ship, who?
The captain's behavior is strange, to
say the least. He went out of his way to oblige the Israeli government.
Full cooperation. When did that start? Only when he was captured?
Or, perhaps long before that?
The captain was very happy to tell all
to the Israeli reporters, the picked darlings of Army Intelligence,
who played their part in the show. During the evening, I saw
the captain on TV three times. The first time I saw something
that was omitted later. At the end of the interview, the captain
requested: "Tell my daughter that I am a fighter!"
Then he broke into tears and hid his face between his hands.
What caused this outburst? Is he afraid that his daughter might
think he is a collaborator? A traitor?
The captain said that he had received
the merchandize at sea, opposite the Iranian coast, and that
he was to turn it over at sea, opposite the Egyptian coast. If
so, how could he possibly know for whom the arms were destined?
Had he been told? That's strange, considering that the owners
of the cargo did not confide in him. And if they told him something,
how can we know that they told him the truth?
The ayatollahs have no interest at all
in arming Arafat, a secular leader who they are trying to undermine.
But they do have every interest in arming his Islamic opponents--Hizballah,
Hamas and Jihad. It is logical to assume that the arms were intended
for them.
But how? The short Palestinian coastline
in the Gaza Strip is hermetically sealed. The Israeli naval blockade
is impregnable. Could Gaza fishermen have found the arms beneath
the surface of the sea and dragged them to the shore, under the
watchful eyes of the Israeli navy? Sounds pretty ridiculous.
The whole story does not make sense. It smells of improbability.
The more so since all this happened, of course, exactly on time,
when Anthony Zinni was due in the country in order to impose
a cease-fire to which Sharon strenuously objects (because it
would oblige him to freeze all settlement activity). Hocus pocus--and
here is a new pretext for continuing the war against Arafat.
It seems that the American suspected
much the same thing. It took a major effort of the Israeli propaganda
machine--by far the best in the world--to persuade President
Bush to support Sharon's version. In the end he was almost convinced.
Almost.
But let's assume for a moment that the
whole story is true. Let's assume that Sharon, after a delay
of 50 years, is now fulfilling Ben-Gurion's publicly expressed
wish that he, please, stop lying. Let's assume that Ben-Eliezer,
too, has been converted to telling the truth, and that Mofaz
has become a real soldier again. Let's assume that this was indeed
Arafat's ship.
So what?
Ehud Barak once said that if he had been
a young Palestinian, he would have joined a terrorist organization.
One could add: If Barak had been the leader of the Palestinian
people at this time, he would have done everything possible to
bring in arms, more and more arms.
Like Balaam in the Bible (Numeri 22),
Sharon & Co. set out to curse and ended up praising--as far
as the Palestinians are concerned. Arafat is sitting in Ramallah,
surrounded by Israeli tanks, their cannons aimed at the windows
of his room from 300 meters away. And what is he doing? Instead
of cringing or escaping, he imports modern anti-tank weapons
to destroy the tanks (as his fighters did in 1975 in the alleys
of Sidon, when they destroyed a Syrian tank column.)
There are some Palestinian intellectuals,
like Edward Said, who have been asserting that Arafat has become
a collaborator, a sub-contractor of the IDF and Shin-Bet. Some
good people, Palestinians as well as Israelis, have written millions
of words about the rampant corruption of the Palestinian Authority.
They have asked again and again: Where does the money go? Why
is there no transparency? How come only Arafat and a tiny group
of his confidants know about the secret accounts abroad? Now,
along comes Mofaz and says: The millions were spent on arms.
Soon Mofaz will publish the Palestinian balance sheets, and transparency
will come into its own.
Arafat is interested in a cease-fire,
and therefore is making a great effort to enforce it. At this
point in time, it is in the Palestinian interest. Many Palestinians
say, quite rightly, that by breaking the cease-fire, Hamas and
Jihad are only serving Sharon.
But Arafat knows full well that Sharon
will not accept a cease-fire, and that, if he is compelled to
accept one, he will break it at the first opportunity, in order
to continue building settlements. Sooner or later, Mofaz will
resume his all-out offensive. To withstand such an attack Arafat
needs arms, a lot of arms. Anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons,
as well as long-range Katyushas for deterrence. The Israeli contention
that Arafat is buying exactly these weapons will raise his standing
among the Palestinians sky-high and fortify his position as their
uncontested leader. Never before has he been more "relevant".
In the mid-40s, when ships bearing illegal
immigrants were plying the seas and had become a major weapon
in our fight against the British government in Palestine, the
poet Nathan Alterman wrote a song that became a battle-hymn for
a whole nation: "Here's to the cold and steadfast night,
/ The night of danger and hardship, / Here's to the little ships,
Captain, / To the ships that are on their way!" Perhaps
some Palestinian poet is now penning a similar song.
That's how it looks to the Palestinians.
Israelis are, of course, glad that these arms did not reach their
destination, wherever that was. But there is no power on earth
that can prevent the smuggling of arms by a people that believes
it is fighting for its life, its very existence. Indeed, in our
own war of liberation we smuggled arms into the country by all
available means, especially during the periods of cease-fire.
No war is one-sided. Sooner or later,
the Palestinians will find ways to destroy tanks and down attack
helicopters and fighter planes.
It makes sense to make peace before that
happens.
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