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16 April 2005 - MER FLASHBACK - 5 LONG YEARS AGO:
The senior leaders of the U.S. and Israel personally gathered last week at the secluded Crawford, Texas ranch of the American President to plan together the next round of military, political, and covert actions in the Middle East.   The ever-accomodating and compliant corporate mass media reported very little of the realities of the situation, nearly always simply parroting the misleading and deceptive public statements carefully made to the ever-waiting throng of cameras.  For what was going on in intense secret discussions was not really about settlements or the 'peace process' as was played out to the cameras, but rather about the escalating pressures and likely attacks -- both covert and overt -- on Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and others throughout the region and beyond who refuse to submit to the 'New World Order' being implimented in the atmosphere created in the aftermath of 9/11, 2001.   Historical perspective is crucial.   The following MER FlashBack article was published more than a year before 9/11, after the failed U.S.-Syrian summit now all but forgotten, months before the disastrous Clinton Camp David II summit with Arafat and Barak, and before the Israeli 'withdrawal' from Lebanon.   Now the U.S. and Israel -- headed by Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres in the region and George Bush and Dick Cheney in Washington, again have Syria and Lebanon in their crosshairs, as well as Iran and the remnants of the Palestinian resistance -- with Iraq and Afghanistan already occupied and with major U.S. military and CIA facilities now placed throughout the region, far more than was the case just five long years ago.

 

April 2000      MiddleEast.Org        4/09/2000
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BARAK & SHARON PREPARE FOR A MIDDLE EAST KOSOVO

          THE WAR MACHINES ARE ON THE MARCH AGAIN

 "Barak is the most dangerous prime minister in the
 history of Israel. Already in 1982 he proposed to
 extend the Lebanon war to a total war on Syria.
 Then he explained (in a memorandum to Sharon) that
 the best way to do that is without sharing the
 plans with the government. Today he is consulting
 only with the heads of the army and the security
 services.  Never had the army as much grip on
 Israeli politics as in the times of Barak."
            Professor Tanya Reinhart
            Tel Aviv University (3/23/00) 

MID-EAST REALITIES - Washington - 9 April.  The same military, and in fact
many of the same persons, who brought us the invasion of Lebanon in 1982
and now maneuvering to bring us another Middle East war to start off this
new millenium.  This is what is really going on behind-the-scenes while CNN
reporters parrot press releases and focus on photo opps.

Remember just a few things about the Israelis:

1)  The War in 1982 was prepared and ready-to-go just waiting for an excuse.
An anti-PLO Palestinian shot the Israeli Ambassador in London and that was
used as the trigger for the war.  Even though Maggie Thatcher herself, then the
British Prime Minister, publicly spoke up to indicate that the PLO had nothing
to do with the shooting, the Israelis knew what they wanted to do and there
was no one willing or able to stop them.  The Americans, professing opposition,
actually gave the Israelis the wink.

2)  Ariel Sharon was at the time "Defense Minister" and he lead the Israeli
Army forward craftily deceiving even his own Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, as
he went.  Sharon fits the definition of war criminal for many things he has done,
including the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in that war.  He now heads Israel's
Likud Party and wants to be Prime Minister.

3)  An important General at the time advocated creating another excuse that could
then be said to justify attacking and destroying the Syrian Army and then remolding
the politics of the region by Israeli dictate.  His name was Ehud Barak.  He now
heads Israel's Labor Party and is today Prime Minister.

As another war begins to be weaved in the Middle East, the Israelis are more
dominant now than ever.  They have the U.S. by the balls and in the bag -- regular
readers of MER know the details.  They have the Arab regimes more confused,
divided, and infiltrated than ever.  They have the military might and the
propaganda apparatus to prevail.  They know the Europeans will make a few noises
but will not do anything serious.  And they would probably actually like for the
Iranians to dare get involved for they want to take them on as well for in just
a few days of battling there are some nuke and missile targets they have in mind.
And lastly, the Israelis know there's nothing to worry about from the U.N., a
humbled and now graying appendage of U.S. foreign policy that has gotten use to
performing elephant wiper tasks when it is assigned the cleanup work after the
guns have gone silent and the important decisions have already been taken.

The following column by Professor Tanya Reinhart in Israel a few weeks ago
tells part of what's really going on in Israel, smoothed over abit for
Israeli sensibilities.
 

 MAKING PEACE WOULD MAKE MUCH MORE SENSE
                 By Professor Tanya Reinhart*

So nothing is going to come out of this peace. Only three months
ago it looked so feasible: to bring the soldiers back home, to stop
renovating shelters in the Galilee, to forget about the northern
border, and afterwards, peace like with Egypt - including, if you
wish, visiting the unseen Syrian landscapes. But that's not what
will happen.

There are two narratives about what happened in the Clinton-Assad
summit in Geneva. Ours - the only one heard in Israel (and on CNN) -
is that Assad just doesn't want peace. "The masks have been unveiled",
said Barak, "the Syrian position is not ripe for the decisions
which are necessary in order to reach a peace treaty". Assad is
insisting on those 500 meters in order to humiliate us and derail
the process.

The second narrative can be witnessed in Robert Fisk's report in the
British "Independent": "The two men held three hours of talks,
through interpreters, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, with
the Syrian leader patiently explaining he was not going to fall
into the same 'peace' trap as the Palestine Liberation Organization
leader Yasser Arafat. He will not make peace with Israel before
guaranteeing the return of all of the occupied Golan, captured by
Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Mr Arafat signed a peace
settlement then failed to gain a majority of the occupied West Bank
or a capital in Jerusalem."

In this narrative, the dispute is not over the 500 meters at all
("it was conveyed on behalf of Assad that he is willing to compromise
on the withdrawal line, and even to full Israeli control over the
whole of the Kineret coast, while continuing to negotiate water
rights"). The dispute is over the model of the peace. There are two
models in our history: in the Egyptian model, all stages of the
withdrawal and guarantees were finalized before the treaty was signed
(the later discussions concerned the autonomy for the Palestinians).
The withdrawal was set to spread over three years, and only after 2/3
of Sinai was evacuated, embassies were set up. The Taba issue remained.
Both sides held it precious, and the Israelis used to spend their
vacations on its shores. That's why the decision regarding it was left
for the end.

In the Arafat model, the Oslo agreement was signed with almost nothing
agreed upon, besides Israeli declarations of principle about willingness
for a withdrawal. Seven years later, it turns out that the Palestinians
have halted the Intifadah, but Arafat didn't get anything of what was
promised to him in the west bank. What was realized was the autonomy
plan which the Palestinians always rejected.

Assad is saying that he will agree to a Sadat style peace, and not to
an Arafat style one. Barak is demanding that he will first sign, open
embassies and fight the Hizbollah. And then, if we will be satisfied,
we will withdraw. This is the Arafat model. Barak does not agree to
the Sadat model.

So there is no peace. But without peace, Lebanon is the Israeli Vietnam,
and life in the northern towns is hell. But it's ok, there is an
answer: 'unilateral withdrawal'. The US is threatening Syria that it is
supporting this plan, and has already begun to pressure Arab leaders to
support it as well. It is a little hard to understand why one needs
to threaten anyone to agree to an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon - what
everybody in the region has been demanding all along. But "unilateral
withdrawal" is the code name for a plan which Sharon has already
proposed three years ago: we will withdraw unilaterally while
creating some kind of provocation (such as, not fully withdraw)
and then, with the first missile, we will go on a total war. The world
will be on our side, because we have withdrawn. Since our soldiers are
no longer there, it would now be possible to burn the earth from the air.

Barak and others have mentioned this "Kosovo plan" several times. This
is what is being prepared in the north. And if it will prove necessary,
"we will also attack Syrian targets".

Barak and Sharon are counting on the fact that Assad is currently weak,
and his army is not what it used to be. So this time there will be no
missiles and no sealed rooms. Maybe they are right, but who wants to
check? And if they will succeed this time, how long will it last?

Making peace by the Sadat model would make much more sense. There is
still time to stop this summer's war.

[Translated from the original Hebrew in Yediot Aharanot, 30 March]

* Professor Reinhart teaches Linguistics at Tel Aviv University.    
  
 
 
 
 

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April 2005


Magazine






MER FlashBack - Wiping Out Palestinian Nationalism
(April 27, 2005)
MER FLASHBACK - Five Long Years Ago: Finally even Arafat's own Fateh is beginning to put into print what has long been suspected and whispered -- the Palestinian people have been tricked and duped and snookered.

Fahd and Reagan - MEI FlashBack 20 Long Years Ago
(April 26, 2005)
As for Arab dignity, after meeting yesterday with Bush-Cheney-Rice to plot the next steps in the 'New World Order' crusade, the Saudi Crown Prince was taken by his handlers and advisers to a local American diner where this man of the people had a photo op with some common folk looking more foolish and more out-of-place than ever.

Stealth Assassination of Yasser Arafat Resurfaces
(April 25, 2005)
As has become the usual when it comes to matters relating to Israel and the Middle East nearly all the mass corporate media in the U.S. and Europe allow themselves to be manipulated by governments, lobby-groups, and on-the-take commentators and pundits in ways that severely distort or cover up major events. Such was the case with what MER termed even as it unfolded last November the 'Stealth Assassination' of Yasser Arafat.

Saudi Ruler summoned to Texas for pre-war summit
(April 25, 2005)
Today on his Texas ranch the current Evangelical Christian American President has summoned the functioning Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca, the acting King of Saudi Arabia. It is a meeting whose origins go back to an American battleship at the end of World War II - the story of which follows.

Information about this new MiddleEast.Org program
(April 25, 2005)


Please Contribute to MER Today
(April 24, 2005)


Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1979 - Considerable Historical Insights
(April 23, 2005)


Interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1979 - Considerable Historical Insights
(April 22, 2005)


For Those Now Using the New MIDDLEEAST.ORG Program
(April 22, 2005)


FlashBack - 5 Very Long Years Ago
(April 16, 2005)


Information about MER
(April 15, 2005)
As many of you have been in touch to inquire this is just a brief note to let you know that MER has been partially and we hope only temporarily suspended for financial and equipment reasons. We know that many of you are concerned and though we have not been able to reply individually we do want you to know what is happening.

IRAQ AUTOPSY - FlashBack 2 Years
(April 2, 2005)
"The United States has embarked on an imperial adventure in the Middle East. This is the true meaning of the war against Iraq... Washington is intoxicated by the vision of imposing a Pax Americana on the Arab world... The fatal flaw is that this is not a purely American project. Rather it must be seen as the culmination of America's strategic partnership with Israel..." - Patrick Seale

U.S. Behind Original Iranian Nuclear Program
(April 1, 2005)
Hard as it may be for most Americans to understand, contemporary Iran is far more democratic than the regime of the Shah it replaced against great American support for the tyrant. Hard as it may be for most Americans to appreciate as well, contemporary Iran is in reality more democratic than many of the key U.S. client-regimes in the region -- including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan. The hypocrisy and deceitfulness of those in control of the power of the American Empire seems never-ending. But only once and awhile do exposés of the following kind appear in the corporate mass media; and in this case it was buried away on page 15 with a meek headline even though preparations to attack Iran are well-underway and the Bush-Sharon War Summit is about to take place.




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