By Ted Belman
Francisco Gil-White and Felix Quigley forced me, kicking and screaming, to consider an alternate reality on the question of Serbia. As a result of their work and the work of Peter Robert North and Nathan Pearlstein, I came to understand that the Serbs were acting in self defense and there was no need for humanitarian intervention. The public was fed a steady stream of lies to justify the intervention which was desired for geopolitical reasons.
I took a lot of flak for advocating this alternate reality which included being called a holocaust denier. I argued that before one can be guilty of same, a holocaust must be proven. If you want to read the articles and comments which lead to my new understanding, do a search on Israpundit of “Kosovo” or “genocide”.
Julia Goren who is a young Jewish journalist of high repute, has long championed the Serb cause. In her latest article More and More Big Names Discover the Balkans, published by Political Mavens, for whom she writes, she quotes from an article by Ken Timmerman who is in agreement.
The man who helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic says the State Department is pressuring him to hand over Christian Bosnia to its powerful Muslim neighbor, threatening the delicate balance that ended the Bosnian War.[..]
During the Clinton administration, “the U.S. gave its blessing as 4,400 jihadis came to Bosnia from Afghanistan,†Dodik said.[..]
Dodik also warned of the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran in Bosnia.
“The Saudis have funded and built more than 1000 new mosques†in the Muslim areas, he said. “These mosques serve as bases for training Muslim extremists.â€
There are two major unresolved issues in the Balkans today, both consequences of Imperial [American/UN] intervention… One is the ongoing existence of Bosnia under the peace agreement that forced it together yet kept it partitioned; for the past eight years, Imperial viceroys have sought to gradually abolish the partition. The other is Kosovo, a province occupied by NATO and the UN on behalf of ethnic Albanians who have ethnically cleansed it of nearly all others and demand to be granted independence.
Please read this article and our earlier posts to inform yourself.
Randy, the PR battle is only lost if one stops trying.
There are many who have not given up trying and probably never will give up trying to get Israel to get into the PR game full bore and indeed to get various Jewish organizations and pro-Israel advocacy organizations to be far more aggressive in that regard.
At some point, before it is too late, hopefully those that need to hear the voices of those never give uppers will hear them and will be moved to completely engage in the war of words and ideas to win hearts and minds.
The Serbs lost the PR battle. This is why Israpundit and other voices are critical for Israel. Once you lose the PR war, it’s close to being all over, ask Bush.
I just came upon this article as a case in point.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur June 6, 1996
I think we both see the situation similarly.
We are pretty much in agreement Ted including your statement:
As I see it, America right now is between the peace initiatives, being the Road Map which is all but abandoned and now lending some tepid support for the Saudi initiative, by suggesting as Israel has that it may provide the basis for discussions notwithstanding the Saudis and Arab League have said it is pretty much non-negotiable and yet has within it a number of provisions that America and Israel know cannot be.
That said, as noted earlier American policy in the Muslim Middle East has been premised on striking a balance between the relative strength of Israel on the one hand and the Muslim nations on the other. That balance is also being sought as the way that will open the door to real negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
America however always looking for a pat on the back and for allies to support her is pushing Israel into compromising positions that do have the effect of strengthening the Palestinians and weakening Israel. One of the consequences of that is that Israel is not being weakened so much as regards the Palestinians as she is being weakened in relation to all the Arab/Muslim nations.
On a simplistic theoretical paradigm basis, parties that are relatively equal as they sit across the negotiating table are in a relatively equal bargaining position and that better ensures that the deal struck will be fair and reasonable.
The problem with America’s thinking to enhance the Palestinian position and weaken Israel is that the situation is not akin to two non-violent parties sitting across the table from each other to negotiate a business deal. The other problem is that America does not seem to grasp that the situation Israel is in given the intractable Jew hatreds of the Palestinians and the Arabs that move them to act in the most heinous, inhuman and depraved ways is a matter no less then that of life and death.
America in trying to force a very complex situation crying out for a solution that is not there, into the same simplistic theoretical paradigm for peace that has been tried by Westerners since the UN Partition Resolution. Apart from the fact that the peace paradigm is completely unrealistic for the situation and America as well as the EU continue to ignore that fact, it also is important to note that this peace paradigm is a Western theoretical construct and not is not accepted or understood the same way by the Arabs/Palestinians.
In the result it is difficult to know whether the right tactic to open American eyes and especially that of the Bush administration is to go after America for unfairly and dangerously pushing Israel to the brink or to recognize that it is just pursuing a well intentioned goal in a way that cannot possibly work and probably can never work for so long as the Palestinian/Arab Jew hatred seethes within their veins.
As being presented as a pretty much non-negotiable proposal,
I am not being critical of the US here. I am just acknowledging reality. That reality makes the Sunni world of far greater value to the US than Israel. I also put this relationship into a global context. The US is often called upon to pressure Israel in the interests of its larger interests and so it does.
Israel still has a value to the US so I don’t believe that the US is ready to abandon Israel. But that may change.
Obviously the US policy may come back to bite them as it did on 9/11.
But I wonder how far reaching is their relationship. Why does it go so far as to undermine secular/Christian Europe or for that matter the US itself.
The whole “peace” process is designed to strengthen the PA and weaken Israel. How can you say otherwise? If only the US had been committed to securing israel in its post ’67 borders rather than pushing it back to the green line. What would have been so terrible for them? I guess the answer to that question was that it had to keep S.A and Egypt out of the Russian Camp which brings me back to my thesis.
Ted, for any Western nation to advance her interests in the Muslim Middle East, that Western nation has to deal with either Sunni or Shia. There are no secular Arab states. Advancing Western interests have a lot to do with Arab oil controlled by OPEC of which the Saudis, being a Sunni Muslim state are the most influential.
The Sunni Muslims comprise the vast majority of the Muslim Middle East.
Given the foregoing there should be nothing surprising, alarming, untoward or hinting of shadows of evil in the fact that America has a relationship with the Saudis that she tries to exploit to her advantage.
In terms of your 5 point joint Saudi – US statement of facts, they are about advancing American interests and not about seeking to harm Israel.
Joining the Saudis in supporting al Qaeda to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan and deal the Soviets a military loss was very important to the America psyche. Any blow to the Soviets, even if delivered by others would be seen by America as a point for the U.S. in their cold war with the Soviets.
I disagree with your imputing motive in your point 4 that America is supporting Fatah deliberately to weaken Israel. I do believe that America in trying to play honest broker and balance interests, has done a piss poor job of it by insisting that and pressuring Israel to make concessions and by failing to hold the Palestinians to their word. Instead of ensuring that real sanctions were imposed on the Palestinians for breaching their agreement, the Americans have gone along with the rest of the world and given the Palestinians a free pass, which means to the Palestinians that they have the green light to lie about anything they think will suit their purposes.
As we all know, the Palestinians have failed to keep their word on anything but their Arabic words to their people that the dream for Israel’s destruction is alive and well and all efforts must be made to achieve that dream.
Without dealing with each of your 9 points regarding the U.S.’s support for the Saudis, it seems to me that while Israel is impacted to some extent, America is hurting herself even more in both the short and long term.
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahabbism one of the main, if not the only basis for radical Islam. The Saudis have not only supported radical Islam, but have spread it worldwide and deep into the heart of America and it is the Saudi Sunni version of Wahabbi Islam that is radicalizing Muslim youth in America and turning them into radical Islamic Jihadists.
Most of us have often expressed bewilderment at America’s friendly relationship with the Saudis and America’s turning a blind eye to the grave danger the Saudis pose to America when we continue to ask regarding the Bush administration, “Just what are they thinking?”
The US and S.Arabia supported
1. al Qaeda to defeat Russia in Afghanistan.
2. KLA and the Islamists to destroy Yugoslavia creating Muslim Bosnia and Kosovo
3. Islamists in Turkey against the wishes of the secular army.
4. Fatah in its efforts to weaken Israel
5. the inclusion of Muslim Turkey in the EU
The US
1. never challenged S.Arabia for its support of Wahabbi madrassahs and mosques all over the world including the US.
2. protected Saudi VIPs right after 0/11 and declared Islam “a religion of peace”.
3. invaded secular Iraq the first time to protect Wahabbi S.Arabia.
4. financed the huge army of Sunni Egypt to the tune of $2 billion a year though Egypt has no credible
enemies
5. tolerates the extreme antisemitism emanating from Sunni Egypt, S.Arabia and the PA
6. together with Jordan and S.Arabia are supporting Siniori against Hezbollah and alQaeda both of whom are supported by Shiite Iran
7. has always worked with the Sunnis who attacked Israel in ’48. ’56, ’67 and ’73 in order to weaken Israel
8. finances Wahabbi textbooks for madrassahs and financed hateful PA textbooks for the PA
9. supported the Chechnya fight for cessation.
If the US is to be continually labeled “imperialist,” they should live up to that label: invade SA, call it the next state (can’t remember what number) and simply take the oil. In other words, do what the Romans and the Brits did over the past few centuries.
The state of “New Arabia” would be an offshore state, something like Hawaii…
This may be correct. Russia and China are both presently working with Iran while seeking control of petroleum resources; Iran and Venezuela play into this. Since there is a Sunni Shia rivalry, and the Saudis which also have large oil supplies are Sunni, we may be seeing the Russians and Chinese linning up with the Shiites and the US with the Sunnis in order to prevent a Chinese Russian monopoly of all Middle-eastern oil. What is in it for the Saudis is they can feel the US will protect the from the Shiites ruling Iran since the US is dependent upon their oil.
This complicates things greatly for the US in the WOT and other areas and keeps the US in a paradoxical situation.
I am increasingly coming to the belief that the US is committed to an alliance with the Sunni Jihadists in order to contain China and Russia.
As Felix says, “We need new leaders who can think in a different way.” Frankly, I’d settle for leaders who could think. This is as opposed to being guided or driven by ideological “truths.” This latter, robotic, approach to life can be neatly summed up in the saying of a friend of mine, that, “Man has an unlimited capacity for stupidity.”
As for turning to American working class movements, much as I’m a great proponent of taking things to the people and letting them decide what’s best for them, if the American working class movements are anything like Canadian working class movements, they are very decidedly not friends of Israel. Like every “movement” these have no doubt been hijacked by liars and hypocrites, and it’s their words and ideas that are being continuously publicized. So I guess when we talk about “new leaders who can think (in a different way)” we should start at the grass roots level where it would be most effective.
There is plenty to be concerned with about Russia, nevertheless, Putin is right on this, and not because he is necessarily a good person.
What is taking place in the world is a power struggle between East and West and also Islam because globalization is causing the convergence of nations. Societies and cultures of all people feel threatened and so each perspective group is seeking to manipulate transition into this new global system to make it conform to their own ideologies to the extent they are able.
This is what has been driving Islam to become more radical the past few decades, but all nations see the world converging and are trying to position themselves in the place with the most power possible. That is why we see US “imperialism” although it is not true imperialism, for the US is not concerned with ruling other nations but is concerned what type of nations they are. However, the EU, Russia, China, etc… , they are all seeking to position themselves.
What happened in the Balkans is the US didn’t like Milosevic’s government because it reminded them too much of the former Soviet Union, however, it was foolish to meddle, and it was a show of ignorance to think Islam a lesser evil or threat.
Ted
It takes courage and principle to be able to change your mind.
The question now is why does the US governmental ruling class continually through its interventions leave places with Islam in power, with all that that entails not only for the enemies of Islam, but also for the Muslim masses themselves.
If you read 23 Reasons by Joseph Alexander Norland you will see that he predicts that “Palestinianism” was bound to end in Fascist Islam, which is what is happening big time in Lebanon. But it was first of all the British ruling class which bred Palestinianism, and then this task was taken over post war by the Americans.
The struggle in Yugoslavia is certainly not over or ended, but to a certain extent it is now eclipsed by the situation which the Jews are facing. Antisemitism was always going to leave antiserbianism in the shade, and it is. I always thought that it the Yugoslavian experience was a prelude.
But the big question for me is why the Jewish movement as a whole has been unable to see this. Or to examine the reality of what the US and EU were doing in Yugoslavia.
Here we come to the very crux of the problem as far as the Jewish future is concerned.
The present Jewish movement is a bourgeois movement, and many of its leading figures and blogs while sincere in support of Israel, also are severely tied to the coat tails of American Imperialism.
This is why they steadfastly cannot turn to the American working class movement in an attempt to win the support of the American ordinary people for Jews and Israel even when that support is there to be won, so obviously.
We have attacks completely out of the blue now being made by Jewish blogs on Russia and Putin, and the latest I have seen on China, as if these Jewish blogs were a reflection of US State Department strategy.
China is still in many ways a Buddhist country and if not careful these State Dept type attacks made by Jews will alienate a billion people from Israel.
What the Jewish movement needs is a revolutionary socialist party, which directs itself not to the Israeli bourgeoisie, but to the Israeli proletariat, the ordinary people who are performing the labour in the Israeli state.
That is not about to happen soon. So the immediate alternative is to have a layer of Jewish patriots in Israel who will determinedly fight for their independence from especially US Imperialism, and who will have a strategy to fight the Stalinist Left and Peaceniks in Israel itself. Note NOT LEFT! But reactionaries who need to be exposed.
Yugoslavia is a negative experience. The Stalinists in the leadership of Yugoslavia were not able to defend their country against the ravages of Imperialism.
When all is said and done Tito and Milosevic were Stalinist in politics. It was their programme of peaceful existence with Imperialism which was their downfall and if Milosevic fought valiantly at the end this does not make it less untrue.
We need new leaders who can think in a different way. If that does not happen Israel and the Jews are doomed.
Especially at this moment Israel must work to accentuate every difference possible between all sections of the Arab world.
This means at once that Jews must totally oppose any help which the US may be given to the likes of the Lebanon Government or Army in opposing the Islamist Fascists.
The more these fight each other then the better it is for Israel and for everybody.
Israel should point out to the Lebanese Government Ministers that they too are the enemies of Israel, they too are antisemite, and to hell with them.
Let them fight to the death for all we care.
Instead Israel should develope means to build the IDF, to recruit into the IDF all of these religious Jews who have been given a pass, what idiocy that is, which idiocy must be ended and damned soon.
Otherwise there can be no fighting spirit ever to defeat the enemy.
Israel is in essence a fighting country and there is no separation between war and politics. Nowhere, not in October 1917, not in Spain 1936, and certainly never in Israel.