MER - Washington - 12 May 1998: 

                Bottom Line:  The Israelis could now
                agree to every word the Americans are
                proposing in the "negotiations" and 
                they would be the big winners, the 
                Palestinians the big losers.  It's 
                just the Middle East diplomacy version 
                of the old "Sting".  And if you don't
                know what this is all about, head on 
                over to Blockbuster's and get Robert
                Redford's classic movie of the same name.

Politics in America is a most convoluted thing these days; and Middle 
East diplomacy is indeed the hall of distorted mirrors as we have 
repeatedly pointed out.

The notion, propagated widely these days for transparently self-serving 
reasons, that Washington is now on the side of the Palestinians -- after 
half a century of severe anti-Palestinian policies and at a time when more 
Israeli/Jewish lobby officials are in leading positions in the U.S. 
government than in all previous American governments combined -- is simply 
preposterous. 

But just pick up the main newspapers and switch on the regular TV programs
and one would be inclined toward believing this ludicrous notion.  The major 
media have transformed Middle East affairs into a kind of fairy tale 
disneyland -- something more fit for children's consumption than for 
serious people who know history and want to understand contemporary affairs.

Lesson #1 these days:  Always remember that imagery has replaced reality, 
posturing has replaced substance, expediency has replaced principles. 

Lesson #2 these days:  The everyday media is much more an appendage of
governments and associated interests groups than an independent source of
information, not to mention critical analysis.  Especially when it comes to 
foreign policy, and especially when the foreign policy relates to matters 
Middle Eastern, much of the press has become a complicitous agent working 
in tandem with think-tanks, lobbying groups, and on-board "experts" and 
"scholars", nearly all of whom are associated with governments or their
funded associations in one way or another. 

Though these lessons apply nearly universally in our modern world, the 
situation in the U.S. regarding matters Middle Eastern is the worst of 
all.  For even a glimpse at reality, rather than hype and deception, one 
has to at least turn to the foreign media (especially the English-language 
U.K. press), better yet to the major academics (such as Chomsky and Said)
who rarely (and never consistently) are allowed to appear in the daily 
media on these subjects. 

Bottom Line:  The very notion that the U.S. is an "honest broker" and that
the Americans are pushing hard for a real "peace" is patently ridiculous. 
The historical facts are so much otherwise that the whole discussion about 
these matters has become rhetorically surrealistic.

Bottom Line:  Both the President and the Secretary of State are in bed with
and yet politically afraid of the Israeli/Jewish lobby at the same time; and 
Al Gore is downright petrified.  This is the case even though Bill Clinton 
has appointed more Israeli/Jewish lobby officials to his Administration than 
all other Presidents combined; despite the fact that Madeleine Albright 
appointed a leading official of the Israeli/Israeli lobby to be the Assistant 
Secretary of State for the Middle East; and despite the fact that quite 
literally all the major persons in Dennis Ross's negotiating team are 
religious Jews all with past close past ties to this same lobby!

Bottom Line: The international version of the Good Cop/Bad Cop game is 
clearly at work here.  The Americans now pretend to be on the side of the 
Palestinians, when in fact they are more than ever on the side of the 
Israelis who continue to receive billions of dollars yearly, continue to
expand their settlements, continue to swallow Jerusalem and surrounding
areas in gulps, continue to enhance their military technological 
advantages along with their weapons of mass destruction.  And all this 
is done while the Americans keep everyone else in check, veto U.N. 
resolutions and involvement, pay Israel's bills, and provide Israel ever 
greater arms and "strategic alliance".  Some "even-handedness"!

True, the Americans make continual noises to deflect serious scrutiny and 
to allow for the pretense that things are other than they are; but 
Washington is more Kosher today than at any other time in history, and 
this whole "peace process" is very much a joint American/Israeli concoction.

Bottom Line:  No matter which of the now discussed steps in the "peace 
process" are taken, the Israelis are the big winners, the Palestinians the 
big loosers, the Arabs the big patsies.  As usual, the Americans will sooner 
or later proclaim another "deal", and as always it will be a deal that 
tremendously benefits Israel no matter what is actually said at the time, 
no matter what kinds of colorful packaging it is all presented in.  After 
all, if you intend to sell someone something they don't want, and for a 
very inflated price, you've got to to trick the buyer into believing they 
not only want it but are getting a good deal when they buy it -- even if 
they really are getting taken to the cleaners!

Bottom Line:  The Israelis could switch public gears and now agree to every 
word the Americans are proposing and they would be getting nearly all that 
they have previously demanded.  Despite Olso they have given up little land; 
and that which is now "autonomous" -- the Palestinian population centers -- 
is completely surrounded by electrified fences and Israeli army checkpoints. 
For ordinary Palestinians things were better, much better in fact, when 
Israeli directly occupied them and before the Intifada ever began!

Bottom Line:  Today's "Peace Plan" is little more than the "Allon Plan" of 
the late 1960s, the Begin/Sharon "autonomy" plan of the late 1970s, or the 
Reagan plan of the 1980s.  Actually, its considerable worse because there 
are far more settlers now, because Jewish Jerusalem has been expanded far 
more than was the case then, and because even the notion of territorial 
contiguity for the Palestinians has been signed away by Arafat in order 
to et the considerable guns and money he has been provided to keep the
Palestinians "under control".

Bottom Line:  Bibi, and Rabin/Peres before him, has been getting most of 
what he has demanded, regardless of how the diplomats have been speaking 
on TV.   "Final Status Negotiations" are to be pushed forward -- 
accelerated" says Madeleine -- just as Bibi has insisted all along, but 
with the Palestinians having nearly nothing when they start.  At best 
about 10% of the occupied territories are actually "autonomous" with 
another 10% "dually administered".  Furthermore, while we're at it, let's 
not loose sight of the fact that the "occupied territories" themselves 
are but 23% of 1948 Palestine, and that 1948 map was already less than 
50% of previously Mandate Palestine). 

Furthermore, Israeli settlement constructions has not ended, it has 
actually escalated!  Not to mention the greatly expanded Apartheid-Style 
"by-pass roads" designed to totally dissect the Palestinian areas from 
each other while providing "safe-passage" routes for Israeli settlers.
Not to mention the growing and smothering restrictions Palestinians are 
everywhere subjected to -- now by what has become essentially a double-
occupation (with Israelis always in control of course even if hidden 
behind one-way mirrors).  Not to mention the severe forms of 
intimidation and repression used by the "Palestinian Authority" -- 
considerably worse than when the Israelis directly administered the 
occupation on their own.

Bottom Bottom Line:  The occupation has been colorfully and confusingly 
repackaged, but inside the box things are actually considerable worse than
they were before.  What's been underway for many years now is a kind of 
international "sting" operation with the Arab "client regimes", Arafat 
now among them, being used, manipulated, and taken for a ride time after 
time.  Actually its even worse as many of these regimes -- especially the 
Hashemite's in Jordan and the al-Sauds in Saudi Arabia -- are actually 
working ever more closely with the Americans, and in many cases with the 
Israelis, desperate to pull off this historic charade. 

True, it is a charade likely to have dire consequences in the years ahead;
but the politicians of the day are not thinking of history nor of justice, 
they are only poking their fingers in the tremoring dikes thinking of the 
moment and thinking of themselves.

And if anyone doesn't understand all this imagery and illusion -- just head 
on over to BlockBusters (or the international equivalent where ever you 
might be) and rent Robert Redford's classic "The Sting"!

________________________________________________________________ MID-EAST REALITIES is published a number of times weekly and the MERTV Program shows weekly on Cable TV.  For past MER articles go to: http://WWW.MiddleEast.Org.