A recent op-ed in the Washington Post offers an
instructive example of elite opinion towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and the kind of logic, or lack thereof, which guides U.S. policy.
Richard Cohen, in an article, entitled �They Honor Us With
Their Hate," begins by reminding his readers of news that on September 11,
2001, �the Palestinians were cheering the deaths of about 3,000 innocent people
in America."
He then proceeds to explain that this was �before America�s
retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan or the war in Iraq," before
�Guantanamo became shorthand for abuse of the president�s constitutional
authority and before the outrage of Abu Ghraib.� �In other words, the
demonstration by Palestinians (in the Lebanese refugee camp of Shatila)
preceded most of the usual reasons given for why America today is held in
contempt by much of the world.�
Although the Bush administration has �made matters
worse," �in a way, America has little choice about being hated in some
parts of the world. The United States is never going to be truly popular as
long as it insists on adhering to certain principles.�
In conclusion, Cohen writes, �It�s always nice to have
friends. Sometimes, though, it�s more honorable to have enemies.� [1]
In short, while Israel is sometimes in the wrong, we must
support that country out of principle and should hence feel a sense of honor
for adhering resolutely to our �principles� rather than seeking to �appease�
Israel�s enemies, even when doing so causes them to hate us as well.
It�s an interesting argument, the examination which provides
some useful insights. Cohen begins by invoking an image of �the Palestinians�
rejoicing about the attacks of September 11. In fact, Palestine officially
condemned the terrorist attacks and the images of Palestinians celebrating
represented only a small group. It is certainly condemnable for people to
praise such a horrible tragedy. But how many Americans cheered on the attack
against Afghanistan, resulting, after just the first few months of conflict, in
more civilian deaths than caused by the terrorist attacks of September 11? How
many Americans cheered on the attack against Iraq? According to the most
scientific study to date of mortality rates in Iraq as a result of the war,
published in the Lancet medical journal, there have been 655,000
excess Iraqi deaths. [2] How many Americans have glorified violence such as
this? Cohen himself once wrote, �In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the
prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.� [3] Perhaps it was also
�therapeutic� for those Palestinians to celebrate the use of violence.
The relevance of the incidents of Palestinians celebrating
the attacks, for Cohen�s purpose, is to show that the U.S. was hated by them
even before �most of the usual reasons given� for why America is hated today.
The intended implication as that, prior to the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq, Palestinians had no reason to hate the U.S. The corollary, reiterated
again later in his article, is that the U.S. will be hated no matter what it
does, even for no good reason, so we must stay the course with present
policies.
Of course, Cohen acknowledges that the Palestinians weren�t
completely without reason for disliking the U.S. and recognizes that �U.S.
support for Israel� was a cause for hatred of U.S. policy even before �the
usual reasons� came to be. Other than U.S. support for Israel, however, the U.S.
apparently never gave cause for contempt from people in the Middle East before
the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Never mind that we created the situation that led to the
rise of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda organization by funding, arming, and
training the most radical Islamists -- whom President Reagan later regarded as
�freedom fighters� -- in an effort to overthrow the Afghan government; funding
which began in part, according to then National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski, in order to �induce a Soviet military intervention� -- a policy
carried out with no inconsiderable success. Brzezinski even bragged about
having had �the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam war," despite
the overthrow of a progressive government which sought to improve rights for
women and its replacement with warlords intent upon establishing their
repressive versions of Sharia, or Islamic law. [4] In fact, when the Taliban
rose to power they were initially greeted as liberators for ridding the people
of the warlords, some of whom have since regained power as allies of the U.S.
in the war to overthrow the Taliban. [5] The Soviet-Afghan war left more than a
million dead Afghans and 5 million refugees; but this is of little concern to
Brzezinksi and other U.S. government policy-makers. [6] And for Cohen and his
ilk, such policies and their devastating results are easily enough wiped from
memory.
And never mind that the bombing of Iraq didn�t begin in
March 2003. Bombings had continued intermittently since the 1991 Persian Gulf
War, escalating sharply in 1998 and continuing regularly since then until 2003,
when the bombing once again escalated in the �shock and awe� campaign and
subsequent invasion. The U.S. also bears primary responsibility for the U.N.
sanctions that resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqis, most of whom
were children. According to the U.N., by 1999 the sanctions had resulted in the
deaths of over a half-million children. [7]
Denis Halliday, then Assistant Secretary-General of the
United Nations and coordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq, resigned in 1998
in protest of the sanctions. �We are in the process of destroying an entire
society,� he said at the time. �It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is
illegal and immoral.� [8] As he later put it, �I had been instructed to
implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate
policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children
and adults.� [9]
Halliday�s successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned in
protest in 2000. As a result of sanctions, he said, putting it mildly, �We can
expect people entering adult life much less well prepared than their parents
were in facing civic responsibility, in having an ethical and moral grounding
when they were taught mainly how to survive under sanctions. The chances are
pretty good that we will see a generation that will not be so favorably
inclined towards countries in Europe and North America.� [10]
But never mind all that. Before Bush went and screwed things
up, we�d never given anyone in the Middle East cause to hate us.
There are no shortage of other examples of U.S. policies and
actions in the Middle East that would incur the wrath of anyone who happened to
be unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end, and yet Cohen would have his
readers believe that the U.S. had done little to nothing to provoke hatred
prior to 2001. It�s doubtful that this is due to ignorance and far more likely
the result of dishonesty.
Cohen next attempts to demonstrate his objectivity by
mentioning the slaughter of civilians in Sabra and Shatila in 1982. But he
caveats his statement by saying that Israel only �allegedly� abetted this war
crime. In truth, complicity was admitted. The Israeli Defense Force, under then
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, instructed the Christian Phalange militia to
enter the camp. [11] Israel�s commission of inquiry into the massacre, the
Kahan Commission, found Sharon personally responsible and concluded that �it is
impossible to justify the Minister of Defense�s disregard of the danger of a
massacre," adding that �this danger was certainly to have been
anticipated." [12]
After the onset of the slaughter, U.S. special envoy Morris
Draper demanded of Israel that �You must stop the massacres. They are obscene.
. . . You ought to be ashamed. The situation is rotten and terrible. They are
killing children. You are in absolute control of the area and therefore
responsible for that area.� [13] Israeli writer Amos Elon likened it to �A man
who puts a snake into a child�s bed and says: �I�m sorry. I told the snake not
to bite. I didn�t know snakes were so dangerous.� It�s impossible to
understand. This man�s a war criminal.� [14] Ze�ev Schiff, another well known
Israeli writer, similarly commented that �whoever allowed the Phalangists to
enter the refugee camps on their own can be compared to one who allows a fox
into the chicken coop and then wonders why the chickens were all eaten.� [15]
But Cohen�s use of the word �allegedly� serves its purpose:
Palestinians are evildoers who celebrate terrorist atrocities, while Israel is
a good state worthy of our support despite occasional mistakes, real or
�alleged." Presumably, U.S. support for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon of
which the Sabra and Shatila massacres were a part were one of those occasions
when U.S. support was �over the top� -- but in the end, in Cohen�s formula,
necessary in order to adhere to our moral principles.
Besides our moral principles, we must also support Israel
because �Israel is a legally sanctioned state, created by the United Nations in
1948.� This, simply stated, is a fabrication -- though an often enough repeated
one that blame for its propagation cannot be placed with Cohen. The United
Nations did not create the state of Israel in 1948. The U.N. neither has the
authority to take land from one people and give it to another nor has it ever
presumed to usurp such authority. On November 29, 1947, the U.N. General
Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution (only U.N. Security Council
resolutions are legally binding) recommending the partition of Palestine,
subsequent to the end of the British �mandate," into Arab and Jewish
states. [16] Though Jews were a minority of the population of Palestine
(608,000 Jews to 1,269,000 Arabs at the end of 1946), the plan apportioned a
majority of Palestine, including most of the best land, to the Jews
(approximately 56 percent to 43 percent). The Arabs, naturally, rejected the
proposal. When the British withdrew from Palestine on May 15, 1948, the Zionist
leaders under David Ben-Gurion unilaterally proclaimed the existence of the
State of Israel. [17]
According to Cohen�s logic, we must support Israel against
the Palestinians simply because Israel is a �legally sanctioned state� while
the Palestinians are stateless. The fact that this is a historical myth aside,
it�s instructive that according to Cohen�s argument, it is adherence to
�principals� to support the oppression of one people over another based simply
on the status of their statehood. According to this formula, the U.S. should
have supported Saddam Hussein�s Iraq against the Kurds because Iraq was legally
a state while the Kurds were stateless. How this position is reconcilable with
serious moral principles seems a mystery, but this doesn�t stop Cohen from laying
claim to the higher moral ground.
In his effort to lay such claim, Cohen adds that Iran and
various militant groups �fervently wish for Israel�s destruction.� Israel is
thus the victim while its opponents are monsters which threaten its very
existence. This is a dramatic departure from reality. First, even if were as
Cohen says, the fact that some �wish for Israel�s destruction� doesn�t mean
they are capable of destroying Israel. Israel�s existence has never been
threatened, as history has demonstrated repeatedly, the most outstanding
example of which was the June 1967 war. Again, at that time, there was talk of
a genocidal threat to Israel, a threat to the very existence of the state. Yet
the outcome of the war was never in doubt, only how long it would take Israel
to win a decisive victory. U.S. intelligence estimates were very near the mark
and it took only six days for Israel to achieve its aim.
Second, the truth of this characterization is questionable.
In one prominent contemporary example, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
has been widely quoted as having said that Israel �must be wiped off the
map." [18] This translation uses the English idiom meaning �to obliterate
totally," [19] and the quote has often been cited as proof that Iran
harbors the intent to commit violence and wishes �for Israel�s
destruction," a veritable call for genocide.
The only catch is that Ahmadinejad never said any such
thing. [20] He quoted Ayatollah Khomeini as saying, �This regime that is
occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.� The
context of his speech was concerning oppressive and illegitimate regimes, of
which Saddam Hussein�s Iraq and the Shah�s Iran were also included. [21]
Even the New York Times, while incredibly defending
their use of �wiped off the map� and suggesting Ahmadinejad may have been
calling for war, acknowledges that Ahmadinejad never said �Israel," but
�occupying regime of Jerusalem," and that he actually used a metaphorical
expression with an approximate meaning of �pages of time or history� and not
literally �map." [22]
His conclusion, based on the assertion that Israel�s enemies
�fervently wish for Israel�s destruction," is that the U.S. must not
�trample on its own moral values," but must rather, even though �the
settlements are an abomination," continue to support Israel because �its
existence is right.�
The pen of the propagandist thus makes it a moral obligation
for the U.S. to continue to support Israel�s ongoing wiping of any viable
future Palestinian state from the map because its enemies harbor similar
intentions towards Israel. Why the U.S. shouldn�t support Palestinian
aspirations for a state against Israel�s ongoing policy of wiping any potential
Palestine from the map because its existence would be right and consistent with
our moral obligations is left unexplained.
By the time he�s done, Cohen manages to explain away hatred
towards the U.S. as being the result of the U.S. �adhering to certain
principles� (this is certainly true, but Cohen clearly means moral principles),
rather than the result of the U.S. having strayed from moral principles. Our
support of Israel, our bombing of Iraq, our deliberate policy of starving Iraqi
children, our overthrow of democratic leaders, our support for oppressive regimes,
all of these historic U.S. policies and deeds are the result of policy-makers
�adhering to certain principles," and thus good and true and right.
The U.S. not only has done nothing to deserve the hatred of
others, but they only hate us because we are so good, and so we should,
therefore, take pride in the fact that we are so unloved by so many people in
so much of the world.
It is hardly uncommon for such utterly nonsensical arguments
in favor of existing U.S. policies to be propagated among the educated elite,
among politicians and the intelligentsia. That this state of affairs even
exists offers extraordinary insight into the political culture of the U.S. and
is a sad commentary upon the health of true moral principles amongst educated
Americans.
Notes
1. Richard Cohen, �They
Honor Us With Their Hate," Washington Post, July 10, 2007.
2. David Brown, �Study
Claims Iraq�s �Excess� Death Toll Has Reached 655,000″, Washington Post,
October 11, 2006.
3. Richard Cohen, �The
Lingo of Vietnam," Washington Post, November 21, 2006; A27.
4. Interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 1998
(translated from the French by William Blum).
5. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban:
The Story of the Afghan Warlords, (Pan Macmillan, London 2001), p.5.
6. �Afghanistan War,"
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2007.
7. �Iraq surveys show
�humanitarian emergency�," UNICEF, August 12, 1999.
8. Andrew Buncombe, �Infant
mortality in Iraq soars as young pay the price for war," The
Independent, May 8, 2007.
9. John Pilger, �Squeezed
to Death," Guardian, March 4, 2000.
10. �The
Unfinished War: The Legacy of Desert Storm," CNN, January 5, 2001.
11. Noam Chomsky, The
Fateful Triangle, (South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1999), p.
360.
12. Report
of the Commission of Inquiry into the events at the refugee camps in Beirut,
February 8, 1983.
13. Chomsky, p. 368.
14. Chomsky, p. 392.
15. Ibid.
16. U.N.
General Assembly Resolution 181, 1947
17. Joel Beinin and Lisa
Hajjar, �Palestine,
Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Primer," Middle East Research
& Information Project.
18. Nazila Fathi, �Iran�s
President Says Israel Must Be �Wiped Off the Map�," New York Times,
October 26, 2007.
19. Oxford English
Dictionary.
20. ee Juan Cole�s Blog �Informed
Comment," May 3, 2006. Jonathan Steele, �Lost
in Translation," Comment is Free (Guardian), June 14, 2006.
21. This is the translation
provided by The
Middle East Media Research Institute.
22. Ehtan Bronner, �Just
How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?," New York Times,
June 11, 2006.
Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent
researcher and writer who examines the facts and myths
of US foreign policy, particularly with regard to the US "war on
terrorism." He currently lives with his wife in Taipei, Taiwan and can be
reached at: jeremy@yirmeyahureview.com.