Robert Fisk: This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel

[laststeamtrain]

Robert Fisk: This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel
Published: 07 August 2006

So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"

And there it all was again, the warmed-up peace proposals of Israel's 1982 invasion, full of buffer zones and disarmament and "strict respect by all parties" - a rousing chortle here, no doubt, from Hizbollah members - and the need for Lebanese sovereignty. It didn't even demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces, a point that Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister - and the man the Americans will eventually have to negotiate with - seized upon with more than alacrity. It was a dead UN resolution without a total Israeli retreat, he said on a strategic trip to Beirut.

A close analysis of the American-French draft - the fingerprints of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, were almost smudging the paragraphs - showed just who is running Washington's Middle East policy: Israel. And one wondered how even Tony Blair would want to associate himself with this nonsense. It made no reference to the obscenely disproportionate violence employed by Israel - just a sleek reference to "hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides" - and it made only passing reference to Hizbollah's demand that it would only release the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July in return for Lebanese and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Security Council said it was "mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel". I bet Hizbollah were impressed by the "mindful" bit, not to mention the "sensitivity" and the soft, slippery word "settle" - an issue which can be "settled" in maybe 20 years' time. Then came the real coup de grâce. A demand for the "total cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks" and the "immediate cessation" by Israel of "all offensive military operations". Bit of a problem there, as Hizbollah spotted at once. They have to lay down their arms.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1217413.ece

[jpkenny]

1. the worst thing one can do is to underestimate the intelligence and

courage of an enemy. To answer the question: No. They never learn from history. That's why history repeats.

[Prophet 451]

2. No-one ever learns from history

to paraphrase someone, the most you can hope to do is survive it.

[megatherium]

3. Why are the French a party to this? nt

[TomClash]

4. History

France was the mandatory for Lebanon and Syria after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Plus France is probably now trusted slightly more than the United States. Guess who you can thank for that.

[CHIMO]

6. Um

Perhaps Russia and China could represent Lebanese interests on the UN Security council?

Or hit Google with a few questions.

Note that France was a great help to the US in Haiti, although no one seemed to notice.

[Briar]

9. Good question

This resolution is so blatantly Israel's attempt to win in the UN what it has failed to achieve on the ground that I can't imagine why France signed off on it. Yet another example of the fact that West's "even-handedness" ("even-handed Bliar" is so exposed as a liar and hypocrite he was kept well in the background during this fix) always favours Israel. (Doubtless this will be treated as yet more proof that "God is on Israel's side".)

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

5. Whoever drafted this wants more war, not peace...

[Peace Patriot]

7. I don't agree with this thesis. I think Israel is the Bush junta's proxy.

This is Plan B of the Bushite/NeoCon "Project for a New American Century: get Israel to do it. EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT of the American people oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war (--a recent poll posted here at DU; other polls put it at about 65%, still very large opposition); plus, over 70% oppose the Iraq war/occupation, and 55% now want an IMMEDIATE withdrawal. And this is the American people we're talking about. Opposition in the rest of the world is TOTAL. The Bush junta therefore has the problem, how to pull off its nutso PNAC plan for invading and occupying all Mideast oil fields, with a wall of opposition. They hold the purse strings over Israel. We are now a mere "Gulf of Tonkin" incident away from the Bush junta jumping into it, and they won't bother to justify it (and the Diebold Congress won't bother with it either). We are as good as committed.

Israel's rightwing leadership is proceeding on the TRAGICALLY MISTAKEN ASSUMPTION that the Bush Cartel cares about Israel's survival. They are gung-ho, but are just about the stupidest leaders on this earth, outside of Bush himself. The Bush Cartel will abandon Israel in a cold minute, if they see profit in it. Their buds are the Saudi princes and the bin Laden's. Israel now has, as its only friend in the world, the despised Bush junta. Despite the Democratic Party leadership's kneejerk support for Israel (they have their own venal reasons), Israel is threatened with the loss of support among the American PEOPLE, for the first time in history, if the junta piggybacks into "Israel's war" (which I think is a foregone conclusion).

So while Israel may well be collusive in writing Bolton's lines, THERE IS NO WAY that Israel would have invaded Lebanon without the Bush junta's full support--financial, political and no doubt logistical. It is a Bush junta plan!

I do think there is another edge to it, that Israel may be bit nervous about the junta's rickety support, and is trying to position itself to advantage, should the Bushites fall and the American people turn against Israel. But that's Israel, or rather its leadership. It is the BUSHITE motive that is important. THEY WANT A MIDEAST WAR! They hold the lunatic notion that they can occupy the entire Middle East--when they can't even hold Iraq together. The U.S. is bankrupt. The people are boiling with anger. But when did that ever stop a Bushite?

So, I say to Israel, smarten up! Instead of invading Iran, JOIN TOGETHER WITH IRAN to throw the Bush Cartel out of the Middle East. You will gain a billion friends overnight all over the world--and you will preserve your support among the people in America. We fully intend to take our country back from the Bushites. Don't be attached to them when we do.

------------------------

Note: Robert Fisk is a truly great investigative reporter and commentator on the Middle East. But I'm seeing this situation from THIS end--the Bush junta end and its policies here, and its unpulicized policies such as PNAC. They are preparing for war! It's long been their plan. And read the entrails! They want control of the state National Guards (they want to take it away from the governors). They are invalidating all sorts of Congressionally-passed laws, at the stroke of pen--attaching signing statements to them. They are defying the Supreme Court on military tribunals--and now want to EXPAND those powers; they are defying Congress on torture. Their contempt for the Constitution and for Congress and for the American people has never been greater. They've got the election system sewn up with Diebold and ES&S "trade secret" vote tabulaton. I think Fisk is looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The Bush Cartel, Cheney and Rumsfeld are calling the shots.

[CHIMO]

8. Tend

To agree with your analysis. Just from the simple fact that nature doesn't do things that don't tend towards protection or advantage.

If one stands back and looks at the situation they keep going around in circles until they make the connection that the relationship is working.

When one can't be on the inside, then things have to be analyzed from the outside and forget the assumptions and the red herrings.