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8/16/2002 (5:22) |
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Take the money and run
By Israel Shamir, Special to Arab News
JAFFA, 16 August — Travel opens up the vistas of your mind. It is wonderful to roam our beautiful Earth, from France to Norway, from China to Russia, from Africa to Latin America, enjoying its variety and hospitality, and the profession of reporter gives you a chance to see the world. But eventually one pays attention to an interesting coincidence. It could happen to you in Marseille, as you walk by the inner harbor, or in Brittany, in the fishermen’s city of Oriente, in Guatemala or Nicaragua, in Milan, this capital of Italian fashion, in Naples or in Shanghai, in Russian White Sea port of Archangel or in the middle of China, in Berlin and Hamburg, in the passes of Hindukush, in Tokyo and Baghdad, Manila or Havana. Suddenly you notice that all these exotic and diverse places have one thing in common, they were bombed by Brits and Yankees. These guys sure get around. Today we bomb Afghanistan, tomorrow the rest, or whatever they sing in the Air Force. The reasons vary. They had bombed China for the stubborn Chinese did not want to buy their opium, Colombia, for they were selling drugs, Russians and Vietnamese, for being Commies, Cambodians, for being there, Germans and French, for offending Jews, Iraqis, for hard cash and Sudanese by mistake.
Now, we have got a sneak preview of their next campaign, courtesy of the Washington Post. The men in charge of the US, and I mean real men, not this nincompoop in the White House, conspire to erase Iraq, to continue with Saudi Arabia and finish off with Egypt. The news was broken gently by a strategist with a wholesome all-American name Murawiec, smuggled into Pentagon by one of the men in charge, Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard N. Perle. This Jewish hawk, a friend of Sharon, a devoted Zionist, should be considered the real author of the blueprint calling for seizure of the Arabian oil fields and realignment of the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudis have feigned amazement, while the US columnists tried to play down the story and have a good laugh. It surely has its comic value. Glib assessments — 'Wars have been the principal output of the Arab world' — sound particularly rich when coming from a proponent of Judeo-American cult, probably the most violent and war-prone since Genghis Khan. Muraviec’s rhetoric question — 'What has the Arab world produced?' — reminded me of a thieving banker, Flatto-Sharon, who had escaped French police to Israel, bribed voters, got elected into the Parliament and there had the temerity to ask Yitzhak Rabin in his beginner’s Hebrew: 'What did you do for the state of Israel?' It remained as one of the best Israeli jokes. But I was neither amazed nor amused. The desire to plunder and kill Arabs is frequently vented in the Jewish circles, but recently it run into snags. The Palestinian property had been looted years ago, their lands and houses taken over and resold. While killing Palestinians may be pleasing to the deity of vengeance, it is not a very profitable exercise. Squeeze of the remainder goes too slow for the impatient and accustomed to NASDAQ growth folks.
Iraq seems to be an appealing target for mass murder, and in the prestigious Jewish World Review, a Jewish American columnist Jonah Goldberg calls: 'Baghdad must be destroyed. America should go to war with Iraq even if that risks innocent Iraqi — and American — lives'. Although life or death of a Goy is surely no objection, there is no money in bombing Iraq, either.
The riches of the Arabian Peninsula hoodwink the Jews, being tantalizingly within the reach of IDF Merkaba tanks. This temptation was well expressed by Jewish American Professor David D. Perlmutter in LA Times: 'I daydream — if only! If in 1948, 1956, 1967 or 1973 Israel had acted just a bit like the Third Reich, then today Jews, not sheikhs, would have that Gulf oil'.
One would think that Saudi crude goes to the US, why should an American professor mind it? But your average American Jew values his Jewish-ness well above his American-ness. Witty Joe Sobran noted, 'It was once considered 'anti-Semitic' to impute 'dual loyalty' to (American) Jews. This is now pass'. Dual loyalty nothing! Dual loyalty would be an improvement in comparison with their single-minded devotion to their own national interests.
In order to turn the Perlmutter’s daydream into reality, usually quite diverse Jewish voices of extreme right and shades of left are united. While Richard Perle is as right-wing as they make it, Justin Raimondo noticed 'ex-leftist David Horowitz, who demands all-out war on the Arab world, and Stephen Schwartz, ex-Trotskyite, who became a major theoretician of Riyadh as 'kernel of evil' school.' Even anti-Zionist Trotskyite Lenni Brenner, whose brilliant pen and cheerful style I admire, decided to join the US warriors, and called to launch feminist crusade against Saudi Arabia.
The Jewish-owned media amplified these opinions. A Jewish journalist, Miss Slavin, reported in USA TODAY published by the top Jewish leader, Mort Zuckerman, that a Jewish analyst Max Singer (a founder of the conservative Hudson Institute, who never had been to Saudi Arabia but frequents Israel) suggested to Pentagon officials to dismantle the Kingdom. Value of Singer’s opinion is next to nil, but it has received good media coverage more important opinions have been denied. There was no article by an Arab-American calling to dismantle Israel, just for the balance. It appears the organized Jews firmly planted Saudis in the cross-hairs of their formidable weapon, the mass media.
It leaves us with a difficult query, why do some American forces, and the American Jews among them, want to destroy Saudi Arabia, the faithful ally of the US and a very moderate power in regional context? And another one, what could be done about it?
Optimists argue that it is just a threat, a psychological warfare, a pressure applied to the Kingdom. The reasons for such pressure could be explained by need of American oil companies to threaten Saudis into obedience and extend their contracts. Alternatively, the US military needs to use Saudi air bases for attack on Iraq, and the Arabs are not sufficiently obsequious.
But I am not sure it is an empty threat. We live in the shadow of ongoing meltdown of the dollar and the American-based financial pyramid. It began in August 2001, caused 9/11 as the means to slow the meltdown, and goes on, gathering speed as an avalanche snowball. Saudis have too much dollar reserves. Elimination ('freezing') of their dollar assets would slow the meltdown, as vast trillions of dollars will vanish from the marketplace. While injection of money causes inflation, its evaporation will cause deflationary, upward pressure on the dollar. In other words, for the Wall Street, it makes sense to freeze Saudi assets, as they froze the assets of Iran and Iraq.
The Saudi government probably has time to counteract it. They should shift their holdings out of the collapsing dollar zone, into euro, yen or gold. The great idea of golden — Islamic dinar — promoted by the wise Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mohamed Mahathir should be activated immediately. The Saudis could learn much from Dr. Mahathir who succeeded to turn his strife-torn poor country living off oil and natural rubber into the prosperous land of national accord and stable economy. The Malaysians squared the circle: Their immigrant communities are fully integrated, have equal rights, and still do not endanger the indigenous Malay group. They develop high tech industries, support charities, provide welfare state; there is no discrimination, no poor or needy people in Malaysia. They do not depend on the US, do not provide their land for the US bases, do not invest in the US, and still remain on friendly terms with Washington. Following the Malaysian way, the Kingdom will reduce its vulnerability. Alas, it would not diminish the Jewish appetite for Arab oil, nor the organized Jewish hostility to Riyadh. The Saudi government is uncomfortably conscious of the threat. Now, the Saudis have to pay heed to unpleasant reality. Israel is not just a small Middle Eastern country anymore, but a forward element of the new aggressive international force, Jewish supremacists. They have too many good reasons to undo Saudi Arabia.
- This prosperous and well-armed country must be brought down to its knees before Israel will make its most important step, seizure and destruction of the beautiful Umayyad Mosques in Jerusalem.
- Saudis have too much money, too much oil and too few friends. his combination brought Kuwait down, but the US bombed Iraq to restore the Emir of Kuwait. Washington is not going to repeat this feat when the Saudi oil fields will pass into Israeli hands.
- The Viagra of Saudi money would invigorate flabby Dow Jones.
There is an additional reason. The Jewish conscience had been poisoned by sweet dreams of revenge for the defeats of times long gone. Mainstream Jewish scholars of 19th and 20th century betrayed their audience, and, instead of describing real Jewish history, created an idealized and distorted picture of wonderful past, old grievances, undeserved wrongdoing and revenge dreams. Their readers swallowed the fabricated stories and grew up as unrestrained nationalists. Modern Jews are victims of nationalist propaganda, misled and disoriented, induced with desire to rectify the mythic wrong.
The Jewish state was established to undo the perceived results of the Roman victory of 70 AD, and now a new idea floats in the air, to undo the perceived results of Prophet Muhammad’s victory over the Jewish tribes and to bring the peninsula under Jewish rule. Together with the desire to undo the victory of Christianity, this archaic spirit will inevitably cause more turmoil in the world.
This spirit reminded me of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber in a late 1970s horror musical comedy. Sweeney Todd has turned his customers into savory pies’ stuffing in order to exact revenge on the judge who wronged him. The Saudis should act before it is too late. They should rethink their relationship with the Palestinians, and treat them as their outward defense rather than as poor relatives.
- there should be more effort and money spent on public discourse in the US and Europe, as Edward Said constantly reminded the Arabs.
- We should confront the archaic tendency among Jews and promote a different spirit, a spirit of understanding and brotherhood. Though it is not taught in Jewish schools, Prophet Muhammad won his battles by attracting like-minded Jews to the banner of Islam as well. Early converts fought under the green banner of Islam on every battlefield from Yarmuk to Cairo.
There are many good Jews, in Israel and in the US alike, and there is no reason for confrontation between the descendants of Abraham, but the restless spirit of Sweeney Todd should be exorcised.
(Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalist based in Jaffa.)
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