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23 June 2005

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Dissecting Professor Avi Shlaim's Wednesday article in The Guardian

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"For when it comes to pointing fingers in their own direction for so many awful mistakes for so long, for such Israeli apologetica that at the very least played into the crafty and bloody designs of those they claim to so oppose, there is such a deafening silence from the likes of Avi Shlaim, Henry Siegman, Joel Beinin, Aaron Miller and the chicanerous Peace Now-B'rit Tzedek 'peace' propagandists."

"Many of Shlaim's assertions -- including those regarding Condi Rice and American hypocrisy -- are quite on target; as is his general thesis that the whole Gaza charade is a pretext and prelude to further Palestinian vanquishment and ongoing Israeli annexation."

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PROFESSOR AVI SHLAIM and 'Liberal'
Jewish Israeli Apologetica

MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 23 June:   For years now Professor Avi Shlaim has been a 'liberal' ex-pat Israeli academic apologist for both U.S. and Israeli policies... masquerading at sensitive but always self-serving times as an enlightened 'peace' advocate critic.

Against considerable facts, not to mention advice from colleagues, Shlaim was among the main group of international promoters of the false and oh-so-destructive for the Palestinians 'Oslo Peace Process'.   Then once again taking the easy way out and further misleading so many a few yeas ago he jumped on board the Bush/Sharon 'Road Map' train learning little it seems from his serious past mistakes.

The explanation for all of this carefully crafted intellectual and historical hypocrisy practiced by historian Shlaim is that in the process he has considerably feathered his own nest with invitations and funds from various establishment institutions and think tanks around the world, including some with close connections to the U.S. and Israeli governments. There is also in his past an all expenses paid junket for himself and family to the Hashemite Regime in Jordan, even though that regime has been a major subject of his writings, which lead to his altering one of his most important books including changing the title to try to sooth abit Royal Hashemite sensitivities.

And now, though providing some useful and needed commentary regarding the vacuous American Secretary of State and the historical hypocrisy of the United States in dealing wih the Middle East, Shlaim expands his apologetica continually insisting that everything is the fault of Ariel Sharon and continually suggesting that, oh gee, if only we'd all get back to the 'roadmap' -- the very semantic political deception Bush and Sharon concocted years ago to smokescreen everything else, including the imprisonment or assassinations of the leading credible Palestinian figures from Sheik Yassin to Marwan Barghouti to Yasser Arafat.   In the process Shlaim nearly totally -- and how conveniently for him -- overlooks that General Sharon's side-kick and deputy is non other than Shimon Peres and that the settlements themselves of which he claims to be so disdainful were more than doubled during the 'Oslo Peace Process' he so misguidedly supported during the reigns of his alternative heroes Generals Rabin and Barak.

Many of Shlaim's assertions -- including those regarding Condi Rice and American hypocrisy -- are quite on target; as is his general thesis that the whole Gaza charade is a pretext and prelude to further Palestinian vanquishment and ongoing Israeli annexation. This is the case even though he totally skips over the crucial reality that Gaza has become, thanks to Israel and the U.S. and past policies he has endorsed, the world's biggest ghetto and de facto prison, with all comings and goings controlled by the Israeli army now and in the future. Now the Israelis are even going to build as never before, and as nowhere else on planet earth, a 'sea barrier' to control access to Gaza from the sea, as well as special moats and fences and control posts to control entry from Egypt in the south, as well as from Israeli territory to the east and north.

As for Shlaim's assertion that "with Ariel Sharon...what you see is what you get" now that is extraordinarily misleading and very far off the mark.

Ariel Sharon is one of the most crafty political-military strategists who has has a tremendous impact on bringing about not only the end of the two-state solution in the once Holy Land but the whole Zionist Revionist and Neocon revolution, the 'Clash of Civilizations', the invasion/occupation of Iraq, the disingenuous 'roadmap', the assassinations of the leaders of the PLO and Hamas. All this not to mention what he and his operatives are now working toward -- in close coordination with the Americans and some Europeans -- in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and region wide to bring about a historic political and strategic realignment of the entire Middle East region.   It's nothing short of a masked and considerably convoluted Judeo-Christian crusade to reform, manipulate, and control much of the Arab and Muslim worlds.   Hence all the bloodshed so far, all the threats, all the military preparations and CIA penetrations. Hence military spending on the part of the U.S. that is greater than that of all of the rest of the world combined!

Israeli ex-pat Shlaim knows much of this; but it's so easy, convenient, and self-serving for him to disregard these crucial complexities, blame things on Sharon and Neocon Condi, and continue cashing in as the crafty apologist for the good-guy 'liberals' and 'internationalists', for their 'roadmaps' and 'peace processes' which have provided Sharon and the Israeli establishment he has been part of throughout his life going back to the days of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, as well as Sharon's close friend with whom he regularly has a special private Friday meeting, Yitzhak Rabin.

As for Dr. Shlaim's repeated talk, ad infinitum in fact, about a 'negotiated settlement' -- he makes a point of never really seriously defining what such a settlement would entail and specifically how it could still now, at such a late date, be brought into being. It's so cheap and easy to preach 'peace' though a 'negotiated settlement'. It's so hard and urgently needed to provide specific details about what the settlement would specifically entail, how it would brought into being, and why after so many long years and such blooshed it has not.

The deeper underlying unspoken realities of today's predicament are that apologist analysts like Avi Shlaim know very well that even greater bloodshed and political-military disasters are likely ahead; and furthermore that the policies, false hopes, and duplicitous lies of the past greatly contributed to bringing about 9/11 and its aftermath.   Yet they continue to scamper and dissemble in various ways to be able to say they were on the side of justice and peace while others, certainly not them and their friends, are responsible for all the bad, bloody, and tragic things that have happened and are now likely to happen.

For when it comes to pointing fingers in their own direction for so many awful mistakes for so long, for such Israeli apologetica that at the very least played into the crafty and bloody designs of those they claim to so oppose, there is such a deafening silence from the likes of Avi Shlaim, Henry Siegman, Joel Beinin, Aaron Miller and the chicanerous Peace Now-B'rit Tzedek 'peace' propagandists. And yet it is they, the long-time 'liberal' apologists for Israel and the dishonest promoters of duplicitously false 'peace processes' who have made Ariel Sharon and his minions, including Shimon Peres, possible for so long.

Withdrawal is a prelude to annexation

US hypocrisy is not new but Condi
Rice has taken it beyond chutzpah

Avi Shlaim

The Guardian - Wednesday June 22, 2005: Condoleezza Rice hailed the understanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the need to destroy the homes of the 8,000 Jewish settlers in Gaza as a historic step on the road to peace. This is a fatuous statement by one of the most vacuous US secretaries of state of the postwar era.

American foreign policy has habitually displayed double standards towards the Middle East: one standard towards Israel and one towards the Arabs. To give just one example, the US effected regime change in Baghdad in three weeks but has failed to dismantle a single Jewish settlement in the occupied territories in 38 years.

The two main items on America's current agenda for the region are democracy for the Arabs and a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. America, however, insists on democracy only for its Arab opponents, not for its friends. As for the peace process, it is essentially a mechanism by which Israel and America try to impose a solution on the Palestinians. American hypocrisy is nothing new. But
with Dr Rice it has gone beyond chutzpah.

With Ariel Sharon, by contrast, what you see is what you get. He has always been in the destruction business, not the construction business. As minister of defence in 1982, Sharon preferred to destroy the settlement town of Yamit in Sinai rather than hand it to Egypt as a reward for signing a peace treaty with Israel. George Bush once described his friend Sharon as "a man of peace". In truth, Sharon is a
brutal thug and land-grabber.

Sharon is also the unilateralist par excellence. The road map issued by the quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) in the aftermath of the Iraq war envisaged three stages leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. Sharon wrecked
the road map, notably by continuing to expand Jewish settlements on the West Bank and building an illegal wall that cuts deep into Palestinian territory.

He presented his plan for disengagement from Gaza as a contribution to the road map; in fact it is almost the exact opposite. The road map calls for negotiations between the two sides, leading to a two-state solution. Sharon refuses to negotiate and acts to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel. As he told rightwing supporters: "My plan
is difficult for the Palestinians, a fatal blow. There's no Palestinian state in a unilateral move." The real purpose of the move is to derail the road map and kill the comatose peace process. For Sharon, withdrawal from Gaza is the prelude not to a permanent settlement but to the
annexation of substantial sections of the West Bank.

Sharon decided to cut his losses in Gaza when he realised that the cost of occupation is not sustainable. Gaza is home to 8,000 Israeli settlers and 1.3 million Palestinians. The settlers control 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and most of the water. This is a hopeless colonial enterprise, accompanied by one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times. Bush publicly endorsed Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza and retain the four main settlement blocks on the West Bank without consulting the quartet - a reversal of the US position since 1967 that viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace.
Last year Sharon proposed handing the remaining Israeli assets in Gaza to an international body. Now he proposes to destroy the homes and farms.

The change of plan is prompted by Israeli fear that Hamas will claim credit for the withdrawal and raise its flag over the buildings vacated by the settlers. This is inevitable both because Hamas, not the PA, is the liberator of Gaza and because Israel is refusing to coordinate its moves with the PA. Another fear is that Hamas, supported by 35-40% of
the Palestinian population, will emerge as a serious electoral
challenger to Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

This is Condi's conundrum. If she is serious about spreading democracy in the Arab world she must accept the outcome of free elections; in most of the Arab world they would produce Islamist, anti-US governments.

Israel has contributed more than any other country to this sorry state of affairs. Condi and the American right regard Israel as a strategic asset in the war on terror. In fact Israel is America's biggest liability. For most Arabs and Muslims the real issue in the Middle East is not Iraq, Iran or democracy but Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people and America's blind support for Israel.

America's policy towards the Middle East is myopic, muddled and mistaken. Only a negotiated settlement can bring lasting peace and stability to the area. And only America has the power to push Israel into such a settlement.

It is high time the US got tough with Israel, the intransigent party and main obstacle to peace. Colluding in Sharon's selfish, uncivilised plan to destroy the Jewish homes in Gaza is not a historic step on the road to peace.

* Avi Shlaim is a British Academy research professor at St Antony's College, Oxford, and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

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