Monday, January 30, 2012

Is Intervention in Syria On Its Way?




Due to the current crisis in Syria, with the Syrian military fighting rebels and the alleged gunning down of civilians by the Al-Assad regime, many are wondering if a US-NATO intervention is likely. It seems that now, with a recent UN draft resolution being bough to light, an intervention may very well occur.

Just two days ago, the American magazine Foreign Policy received a copy of a UN draft resolution which calls for the Al-Assad regime to comply with its demands in 15 days or "additional measures" will be adopted "in consultation with the League of Arab States." [1] 
The resolution itself calls on the Syrian government to do such things as "allow full and unhindered access and movement" for all Arab and international media. However, this request is quite strange as just this past December, an Arab League mission was sent to Syria to investigate and found "nothing frightening." Yet it seems that this was not satisfying to the Arab League and they are pushing for another inquiry.

The resolution also demands that the Syrian government "cease all violence and protect its population" and "withdraw all Syrian military and security forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks." However, such an action could allow for the Syrian rebels to retake those towns and cities and to organize and regroup, thus forming a much more organized and cohesive resistance against the Syrian government than is seen currently. This is quite plausible as the rebels are being back by the West. 

According Philip Giraldi, a former CIA analyst, the Syrian rebels are being given weapons that are transported via "unmarked NATO airplanes," that "volunteers from the Libyan National Transitional Council" are being brought in to aid the rebels and that  

French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers. [2]

It must be noted that the Arab League members are all US client states and that as such this resolution plays into the hands of the US and its European allies, who want to intervene in Syria. Turkey also plays a role in this, as not only are they a base of support for the Syrian rebels, but "Ankara's foreign minister, Ahmet Davitoglu, has openly admitted that his country is prepared to invade as soon as there is agreement among the Western allies to do so." [3] (emphasis added) The passing of this resolution could potentially allow for an agreement among the US-NATO alliance to be reached, thus allowing for a Turkish invasion of Syria.

An intervention into Syria is quite important in America's war plans for Iran. A top US aide recently stated that "The toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would serve a serious blow to Iran and would serve to further isolate the Islamic Republic" and that the overthrow of the Syrian government was "inevitable." [4] The toppling of the Syrian government would mean that Iran would be surrounded by countries that are US allies or partners, thus making it much easier to carry out Washington's invasion as they would not have to concern themselves with the possibility of outside resistance coming into Iran.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The True Heroes of Libya


It has recently been reported that forces which are identified as “pro-Gaddafi fighters” by Al Jazeera, have been fighting back against Libya’s National Transitional Council and have taken the town of Bani Walid. Al Jazzera stated that the pro-Gaddafi forces were “well-equipped and highly trained.” [1] Thus, it seems that while the US and NATO may have declared victory over Gaddafi, the people that support him are very much still alive and kicking.

While Western governments may act as if the National Transitional Council has the support of the Libyan people and is the legitimate government of Libya, they are quite incorrect. In addition to the war crimes that were committed by rebels during the US-led war against Gaddafi [2], it is now being reported that according to UN officials, “More than 8,000 pro-Gaddafi supporters are being held by militia groups, amid reports of torture.” [3] Thus, things are not as what they seem.

The Western media also has a major role to play in this as not only did they engage and support the propaganda campaign of lies and deceit directed against Gaddafi when the war against Libya started. Yet once it ended, they left and ignored important aspects of the aftermath, such as when the new Libyan government endorsed Sharia law, with the head of the NTC suggesting “that Islam could play a greater role in public life in the new Libya.” [4] This may very well mean that the women’s rights are in danger and the freedom that women had under Gaddafi [5] will be rolled back. The situation for women is all the more worrying when one factors in that many Islamist groups, which were repressed under Gaddafi, have now emerged after the war. [6]  (In addition to this, while women had a major role in the revolution during its beginning, by the end they were largely sidelined by the new regime. [7]) Thus, the situation for women is looking quite dismal.

This attack by pro-Gaddafi forces only goes to show that there are still those in Libya who refuse to subjugate themselves to Western interests, who refuse to sell out their country to imperialists and colonialists. These people, rather than the traitorous National Transitional Council, are the true heroes of Libya.

Endnotes


Saturday, January 21, 2012

Israel and Iran Part 1: An Alliance of Convenience


Author's Note: Due to the amount of information concerning the relationship between Israel and Iran, I have decided to turn what was going to be one article into a two-part series examining the past friendship between Iran and Israel and to give a better view of how modern-day relations between the two countries have been affected.


In the past several years Israel and Iran have been portrayed as bitter enemies who are at each other’s throats. One may be led to believe that the two countries have always been enemies; however, there is a history of friendship between them. During Iran’s rule under the Shah, both countries had extensive economic, political, and military ties that were used to ensure US and Israeli interests in the region, yet the Iranian Revolution changed Iran’s relationship with Israel. Due to the current confrontation between the two nations, an examination needs to take place of how the Iranian-Israeli alliance was formed and fell apart to better show how currently relations have been affected.

After the creation of the state of Israel, Iran was forced to play a balancing act between supporting Israel on one hand and making sure not to upset the Arab states on the other. The Jewish state was of great strategic interest to Iran as the Shah knew that Israel could “improve Iran’s security by absorbing the attention and resources of the Arab states.” However, if Iran was to formally recognize Israel, Arab would also fall on Iran thus the Shah treaded “a path between overt hostility and overt alliance.” [1] In addition to this, the Shah wanted to back Israel and with it the West, due to the fact that Communist ideology threatened the Shah’s rule as the levels of wealth inequality in Iran gave rise to pro-Soviet groups such as the Tudeh (“People’s”) Party. However, the shah was quite suspect of Israel’s loyalties due to the fact that during the outset of Israel’s inception many Israelis “felt an emotional and ideological affinity for the Soviet Union” due to the fact that “not only did strong socialist sentiment exist in Israel, but many Israelis identified the Soviet Union as the country primarily responsible for defeating Nazism.” [2] This, coupled with Israel’s efforts to befriend both the US and the Soviet Union, made the Shah somewhat suspicious that the Jewish state may have been trying to play both sides. Thus, the Shah adopted a wait-and-see policy where they would maintain a distance from Israel, waiting for her to fully clarify her allegiances.

Israel’s dilemma was quite complex as they had to depend on the West for capital investment, but needed Jews from both the East and the West to immigrate to Israel in order to grow its population and survive. The ethnic makeup of Palestine was against Israelis as by 1948 Palestinians outnumbered Israelis two to one (1.35 million compared to 650,000). While Israel did end up siding with the West, it did not change the fact that they were surrounded by hostile Arab nations. Thus, then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion came up with the doctrine of the periphery which held that due to the improbability of making allies out of the Arab states, Israel should focus cultivating alliances and friendships with non-Arab states such as Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia (the periphery states) and non-Arab minorities such as Kurds and Lebanese Christians. It was hoped that this strategy would “drive a wedge between Israel’s enemies, weaken the Arab bloc, and halt the spread of pan-Arabism in the region.” [3]

Iran and Israel would soon find themselves facing a common enemy: Egypt. In 1952 a military coup overthrew King Farouk and dissolved Egypt’s ties from Britain, gaining full independence. The new government drifted into the Soviet sphere. This greatly worried both Iran and Israel as both countries feared Soviet interests in the region, “the threat of radical pro-Soviet Arab states, andboth saw the pan-Arab, anti-Western regime in Cairo, led by Gamal AbdelNasser, as the main villain of the Middle East.” [4] Iran was especially worried about the Egyptian-Soviet alliance as they were quite concerned “about the territorial expansionism of pan-Arabism” and “Arab claims over Iran’s southern oil-rich province of Khuzestan because this pushed Arab nations to ally against Iran even though their respective national interests may have dictated a different course.” [5] Thus an alliance of convenience was formed to combat the mutual Egyptian threat.


This friendship between Israel and Iran went beyond mutual threats and into economics. Due to the Arab refusal to sell oil to Israel, the Jewish state was in desperate need of oil to continue its economic growth. Iran was readily able to supply it as after the 1956 Suez crisis they helped to finance the construction of the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline which connected the gulf of Aqba and the Mediterranean which allowed Iranian exports to bypass the Suez Canal. This ability to bypass the Suez was quite important as “73 percent of Iran’s imports and 76 percent of its oil exports passed through the canal.” The deal eventually deepened Israeli-Iranian ties on the highest administrative levels as “The pipeline was later upgraded to a sixteen-inch pipe after direct negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and the Shah in 1958” [6] which was the first direct meeting between an Israeli Cabinet member and the Shah.


This pipeline was not without consequences, however. While Israel and Iran didn’t reveal their economic cooperation, the close relationship between the two nations was well known to Arab states and was subject to intense criticism. Due to Arab sensitivities, the US backed the pipeline only after it was assured that the pipeline mattered more to the Shah than Arab sentiments as they sensed the Shah wanting to keep Israel at a friendly distance.

In addition to economic ties, the fact that Iran had a large Jewish community and Israel was a state meant for Jews was an area of cooperation. Israel wanted to bring Iranian Jews to the Jewish state and Iran wanted Israel’s level of influence in Washington and needed Israeli technological know-how to aid Iranian agriculture, with Israel training some 10,000 Iranian agricultural experts. Finally, the two nations connected due to being the “odd-men out” due to their non-Arab status in a region dominated by Arabs.


Yet, for all this friendship, there will still other motives at play. While Iran was quite important to Israel’s overall regional political strategy, Israel was not viewed in the same matter in Iran. Iran saw Israel as a vehicle to block Soviet- not Arab- regional advances. Iran saw the Soviets as a greater threat than the Arabs as the Soviets eyed “the oil reserves of the region” and was “using Nasser’s Egypt as its surrogate to penetrate the Persian Gulf.” [7] In addition to this, the Soviets were supporting leftist Iranian opposition movements, thus pushing the Shah into the arms of the United States. However, there was a dark side to the Iranian-Israeli alliance in the form of the Organization of Information and State Security, also known as the dreaded Savak.


In 1957 the Shah ordered the Savak to form intelligence relations with Mossad and manage Iran’s dealings with the Jewish state, at the expense of keeping the Iranian Foreign Ministry in the dark. Mossad secretly trained the Savak in military areas such as pilots, paratroopers, and artillery men, but also in torture and investigative techniques as well. Those latter techniques were used to repress political dissent against the Shah and keep his political opponents under surveillance.

During all this, the diplomatic relationship between the two nations was kept secret. Over the years Israel had become used to the nature of this relationship, however, they never fully grew accustomed to Iran’s contradictory stance on Israel. In Israeli minds, if Iran were to fully recognize Israel it would help advance Israel’s goal in to convincing the Arabs that the Jewish state was here to stay. While Ben-Gurion’s 1961 visit to Iran was kept secret and thus set the precedent for keeping such meetings secret, several years later Israeli diplomats urged Prime Minister Golda Meir to try and convince the Shah to bring Israeli-Iranian dealings out into the open. She attempted to convince the major Western powers to pressure the Shah to publicly recognize Israel; however these efforts were rebuffed by the Shah who refused to meet with the Israeli representative to Iran for more than three years. This may have very well been due to the fact that the year before Ben-Gurion’s visit, in 1960, Iran learned the hard way the repercussions of publicly recognizing its relationship with Israel.


In July 1960, when asked by a foreign journalist if Iran was going to recognize Israel, the Shah referenced Iran’s de facto recognition of Israel in 1950, saying that “Iran has recognized Israel long ago.” [8] This provoked a fiery response from Egyptian leader Abd al-Nasser who used the quote to expand Egypt’s regional influence and counter Iran’s growing relations with the Persian Gulf states in the form of anti-Iranian propaganda. This move marked a shift in Iran’s relationship with Egypt. Nasser’s propaganda campaign signaled that the traditional base for anti-Iranian propaganda, Iraq, was now shifting to Egypt. This campaign, coupled with the fact that Egypt was attempting to build up naval forces that could be sent to the Persian Gulf to play a supporting role to Iraq in a military confrontation between Iraq and Iran, deeply worried the Shah. Yet Israel aided Iran due to the fact that
If Iran was weakened by Egypt and Iraq, the Arab side would be bolstered and the Iraqi army would be freed up to participate in a potential Arab attack on Israel. But as long as Iran balanced Iraq and diverted the Iraqi armed forces eastward and away from the Jewish State, Israel was provided with a small but important window of safety. So Israeli intelligence provided Iran—whose military was constantly preparing for potential Iraqi or Egyptian attacks—with extensive intelligence on Egyptian military movements and planning. [9]
However, as the 1960s came to a close, the strategic context that enabled an Iranian-Israeli alliance was beginning to fade.


Throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, Israel and Iran allied due to the fact that they both faced common enemies; however, the fact of the matter was that at the end of the day, if the situation changed where one didn’t need the other, the alliance was finished. Due to the overall political landscape where Arabs disliked the Israelis more than the Persians, it was more likely that Iran would bail before Israel did. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s the geo-political landscape drastically changed as Israel won the 1967 war, the strategy of both the United States and the Soviet Union switched from containment to détente,  and Egypt moved from the Soviet to the US camp. These events greatly changed the relationship between Israel and Iran. 

After the 1967 war, Iran became deeply wary of the Jewish state as while the Shah supported a strong Israel, he did not favor an Israel that was stronger than Iran. This was not due to any worries that Israel would attack Iran as Iran was hundreds of miles away and could always readjust its position to align itself with moderate Arab states. Rather, this worry was due to the fact that the Shah believed that the ’67 war had changed Israel from a defensive state to an aggressive one and thus he was concerned about possible Israeli expansion. In addition to this, a too powerful Israel would create a situation where Israel could potentially “challenge Iran’s quest for preeminence or its strategic significance in Washington” and “would complicate the Shah’s balancing act of maintaining strong relations with Israel without angering Iran’s Arab neighbors.” [10] Unfortunately for the Shah, his fears came to fruition as Israel refused to return Arab territories that had been captured in the ’67 war. 


This caused Iran to freeze all joint Iranian-Israeli projects and adopt a tougher public stance against Israel, with the Shah arguing in late 1967 for a solution between Israel and the Arab states to be worked out within the UN. This sudden change in tone caused Washington to seek clarification regarding Iran’s stance to Israel to ensure that Iran had not fully turned against Tel Aviv. Iran, with the support of the US and Britain, supported UN Resolution 242 which argued for an Israeli withdrawal of all captured territory. Tehran also consulted the US to pressure Israel into taking a more flexible tone with the Arab states as they believed that Israel’s refusal to withdraw would only exacerbate and prolong the conflict. Yet the Shah was also knew that by pushing for an Israeli withdrawal, it would allow Iran to warm up to the Arab states and its support for Resolution 242, which upheld that a state could not acquire territory by war, was also viewed as a way to protect Iran from possible Arab or Soviet expansionism. Tel Aviv was disquieted by this sudden change in treatment and became suspicious of the Shah’s intentions. These suspicions were soon confirmed when Egypt’s change in camps, from the Soviets to the Americans, drew Iran closer to the Arabs.


Due to Egypt’s defeat at the hands of Israel in the ’67 war, Nasser was forced to reduce his regional aspirations and while Egypt began to explore the option of leaving the Soviet camp under Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, an opening occurred which allowed for a friendly relationship between Iran and Egypt to begin. When Egypt moderated its foreign policy and recognized Iran’s public support for the Arab position in Resolution 242, it greatly helped to lower tensions between Tehran and the Arab world by allowing for dialogue to take place between Tehran and Cairo. Via Kuwaiti mediation, Iran and Egypt began backroom dialogue in 1969 where the Shah forced on Nasser the humiliating conditions that Cairo publicly apologize to Iran for its previous provocations and the first step toward a normalization of relations had to be taken by Egypt. While Nasser was not fond of these terms, he begrudgingly accepted them and also agreed to a joint communiqué which announced the resumption of full diplomatic relations between Tehran and Cairo in August 1970. Tehran’s influence on Egyptian affairs didn’t end there as when Sadat came to power, he publicly made a major shift to the Western camp by expelling over 10,000 Soviet military advisors, but only after he had consulted with the Shah.


Furthermore, the Shah began to take visible steps toward the Arab camp in the form of forbidding Iranian officials from “attending the 22nd anniversary of the inception of the Jewish state at the Israeli mission in Tehran,” “refusing to invite the Israeli head of state to the celebrations marking 2,500 years of the Persian Empire in October 1971,” [12] and being extremely critical of Israeli policies. Thus, the thaw between Iran and the Arab world revealed the weakness of the Iranian-Israeli alliance. As Iran’s power and influence increased, they were less and less likely to side with Israel in order to resolve their disputes with the Arab world.


For Tel Aviv, Egypt’s switch from the Soviets to the US left Israel’s strategic environment less clear-cut more and less clear-cut due to the fact that Israel didn’t view the rise of Sadat in a positive manner. For Israel, Sadat’s rise signaled the formation of a force that would unite under the banner of pan-Arabism to destroy the Jewish state. While Cairo may have made friends with Tehran, it did nothing to end Egypt’s animosity towards Israel, as the Yom Kippur later revealed.

Yet, even though it seemed Tel Aviv and Tehran would break up, they still would have to deal with a common threat: Iraq.

If Iran’s relationship with Egypt had the Shah lowering his guard, it was quickly bought back up when Iraq began to replace Egypt as Tehran’s main enemy. Acts done by Iraq’s new leader, Saddam Hussein, such as hosting Iranian opposition elements and signing a Treaty of Cooperation with the Soviet Union which ensured a 15 year Soviet military and economic commitment to Iraq caused Tehran to be apprehensive concerning Iraq’s hostile intentions. This apprehensiveness only increased when the US refused to sell arms to Iran, thus making the country susceptible to Iraq’s growing military. Yet, while in the Shah’s mind the Soviets were becoming a threat due to their advances, in reality the situation was such where
the Soviet threat to Iran was growing, not because of direct Soviet advances against Iran but because of America’s weakening determination to protect Iran. As the U.S.-Soviet strategic relationship shifted from containment to détente, creating a competitive yet peaceful coexistence between the United States and the Soviet Union, Israel and Iran’s differing attitudes vis-à-vis superpower politics became a lesser factor in their bilateral relations. [13]

Israel also saw Iraq as a threat as Israeli strategists “feared that if Iraq emerged as a contender for the leadership of the Arab world and was willing to take on Israel in a future Israeli-Arab war, the balance might tip in favor of the Arabs” and they knew that “An Arab alliance with Iraq’s full participation could overrun Jordan and quickly place the Iraqi army on Israel’s eastern front.” [14] Thus, with détente changing the dynamics of the region as it created a situation where the superpowers were less willing to intervene on behalf of their allies and client states and the rise of an Iraqi threat to both Iranian and Israeli security, cooperation between Tehran and Tel Aviv became all the more important.


Yet, just when it seemed that the geo-political landscape would force Israel and Iran to cooperate once again, two events put the alliance on rocky territory: Iran’s quest for regional supremacy was fully revealed and the 1973 Yom Kippur war.


Endnotes


1: Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007), pg 20

2: Ibid, pg 21

3: Ibid, pg 22

4: Ibid

5: Ibid

6: Ibid, pg 23

7: Ibid, pg 24

8: Ibid, pg 27

9: Ibid, pg 28

10: Ibid, pg 30

11: Ibid, pg 32

12: Ibid

13: Ibid, pg 35

14: Ibid, pgs 34-35

Friday, January 20, 2012

Power, Propaganda, and Purpose in American Democracy

Power, Propaganda, and Purpose in American Democracy


By: Andrew Gavin Marshall




NOTE: The following article is the documented transcript from the second episode of a new podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People with Andrew Gavin Marshall,” hosted by BoilingFrogsPost.com. The information within the article is an extracted sample from a book being written and funded through The People’s Book Project.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Excerpt: Iran, Israel, and the Shah

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming article entitled Iran, Israel, and the Shah in which the former friendship between Israel and Iran is examined.



In the past several years Israel and Iran have been portrayed as bitter enemies who are at each other’s throats. One may be led to believe that the two countries have always been enemies; however, there is a history of friendship between them. During Iran’s rule under the Shah, both countries had extensive economic, political, and military ties that were used to ensure US and Israeli interests in the region.

After the creation of the state of Israel, Iran was forced to play a balancing act between supporting Israel on one hand and making sure not to upset the Arab states on the other. The Jewish state was of great strategic interest to Iran as the Shah knew that Israel could “improve Iran’s security by absorbing the attention and resources of the Arab states.” However, if Iran was to formally recognize Israel, Arab would also fall on Iran thus the Shah treaded “a path between overt hostility and overt alliance.” [1] In addition to this, the Shah wanted to back Israel and with it the West, due to the fact that Communist ideology threatened the Shah’s rule as the levels of wealth inequality in Iran gave rise to pro-Soviet groups such as the Tudeh (“People’s”) Party. However, the shah was quite suspect of Israel’s loyalties due to the fact that during the outset of Israel’s inception many Israelis “felt an emotional and ideological affinity for the Soviet Union” due to the fact that “not only did strong socialist sentiment exist in Israel, but many Israelis identified the Soviet Union as the country primarily responsible for defeating Nazism.” [2] This, coupled with Israel’s efforts to befriend both the US and the Soviet Union, made the Shah somewhat suspicious that the Jewish state may have been trying to play both sides. Thus, the Shah adopted a wait-and-see policy where they would maintain a distance from Israel, waiting for her to fully clarify her allegiances.

Israel’s dilemma was quite complex as they had to depend on the West for capital investment, but needed Jews from both the East and the West to immigrate to Israel in order to grow its population and survive. The ethnic makeup of Palestine was against Israelis as by 1948 Palestinians outnumbered Israelis two to one (1.35 million compared to 650,000). While Israel did end up siding with the West, it did not change the fact that they were surrounded by hostile Arab nations. Thus, then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion came up with the doctrine of the periphery which held that due to the improbability of making allies out of the Arab states, Israel should focus cultivating alliances and friendships with non-Arab states such as Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia (the periphery states) and non-Arab minorities such as Kurds and Lebanese Christians. It was hoped that this strategy would “drive a wedge between Israel’s enemies, weaken the Arab bloc, and halt the spread of pan-Arabism in the region.” [3]

Iran and Israel would soon find themselves facing a common enemy: Egypt. In 1952 a military coup overthrew King Farouk and dissolved Egypt’s ties from Britain, gaining full independence. The new government drifted into the Soviet sphere. This greatly worried both Iran and Israel as both countries feared Soviet interests in the region, “the threat of radical pro-Soviet Arab states, and both saw the pan-Arab, anti-Western regime in Cairo, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, as the main villain of the Middle East.” [4] Iran was especially worried about the Egyptian-Soviet alliance as they were quite concerned “about the territorial expansionism of pan-Arabism” and “Arab claims over Iran’s southern oil-rich province of Khuzestan because this pushed Arab nations to ally against Iran even though their respective national interests may have dictated a different course.” [5]

This friendship between Israel and Iran went beyond mutual threats and into economics. Due to the Arab refusal to sell oil to Israel, the Jewish state was in desperate need of oil to continue its economic growth. Iran was readily able to supply oil as after the 1956 Suez crisis; they helped to finance the construction of the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline which connected the gulf of Aqba and the Mediterranean which allowed Iranian exports to bypass the Suez Canal. This ability to bypass the Suez was quite important as “73 percent of Iran’s imports and 76 percent of its oil exports passed through the canal.” The deal eventually deepened Israeli-Iranian ties on the highest administrative levels as “The pipeline was later upgraded to a sixteen-inch pipe after direct negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and the Shah in 1958” [6] which was the first direct meeting between an Israeli Cabinet member and the Shah.

This pipeline was not without consequences, however. While Israel and Iran didn’t reveal their economic cooperation, the close relationship between the two nations was well known to Arab states and was subject to intense criticism. Due to Arab sensitivities, the US backed the pipeline only after it was assured that the pipeline mattered more to the Shah than Arab sentiments as they sensed the Shah wanting to keep Israel at a friendly distance.

In addition to economic ties, the fact that Iran had a large Jewish community and Israel was a state meant for Jews was an area of cooperation. Israel wanted to bring Iranian Jews to the Jewish state and Iran wanted Israel’s level of influence in Washington and needed Israeli technological know-how to aid Iranian agriculture, with Israel training some 10,000 Iranian agricultural experts. Finally, the two nations connected due to being the “odd-men out” due to their non-Arab status in a region dominated by Arabs.

Yet, for all this friendship, there will still other motives at play. While Iran was quite important to Israel’s overall regional political strategy, Israel was not viewed in the same matter in Iran. Iran saw Israel as a vehicle to block Soviet- not Arab- regional advances. Iran saw the Soviets as a greater threat than the Arabs as the Soviets eyed “the oil reserves of the region” and was “using Nasser’s Egypt as its surrogate to penetrate the Persian Gulf.” [7] In addition to this, the Soviets were supporting leftist Iranian opposition movements, thus pushing the Shah into the arms of the United States. However, there was a dark side to the Iranian-Israeli alliance in the form of the Organization of Information and State Security, also known as the dreaded Savak.


Endnotes

 

1: Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007), pg 20
2: Ibid, pg 21
3: Ibid, pg 22
4: Ibid
5: Ibid
6: Ibid, pg 23

7: Ibid, pg 24

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Fundraiser Alert! The Book Project Takes on the American Empire

This was originally posted on ThePeoplesBookProject.com on January 9, 2012.'

This past week the Book Project received total donations of $45.00, and with 7 hours worked @ $15.00/hour, the payment would be at $105.00, however, the budget for the Project was at $53.59, so I took that as my total payment, and now the People's Book Project has no budget.

As a result of the lack of donations for supporting hours worked, and as I cannot live on about $50/week, I have decided to try to experiment with another means of supporting the Book Project. Instead of doing the funding for hours worked on the book, I have decided to launch a fundraising effort to support a specific chapter, with a goal for the amount raised to write that chapter. When the chapter is completed, or near completion, I would begin a fundraiser for another chapter, and the amounts set for the target goal would vary depending upon the amount of work done on the chapter(s) thus far, and my estimation of time and effort to finish. This way, people can donate to something a little more specific, and I can also more firmly set goals and ensure more work to be done on particular chapters (instead of bouncing around from one to the other), and thus produce finished results. In order to raise support for a specific chapter, I will provide information on the subject matter, perspectives, events, ideas and criticisms within the chapter, and upon completion, I will provide one or two brief excerpts from the chapter so that readers (that's you!) may see the results of your support!

I would also greatly appreciate any feedback and suggestions on this new approach, but for now, I will be launching it in this way for this week.

Chapter Fundraiser: The Grand Areas of the American Empire

- Goal: $800.00

- Chapter(s) being supported: This fundraiser will be unique in that I am raising funds to support my writing of four simultaneous chapters, all of which I have already done some work on (some more than others). In an introductory chapter to the American Empire, I examined the plan set forth by the Council on Foreign Relations to establish "Grand Areas" of the world which America would control and dominate for their resources. These four chapters break the Grand Areas up into: (1) Asia, (2) Middle East and North Africa, (3) Sub-Saharan Africa, and (4) Latin America. The chapters will examine the actual strategies, plans,  implementation and effects of American imperial adventures in each region from the end of World War II until the late 1960s and early 1970s. Included will be imperial strategies set forth by the National Security Council (NSC), aims and actions of the Pentagon and the CIA, roles played by the international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, objectives and effects of philanthropic foundations in support of constructing educational systems for the management of the 'Grand Areas', the effects of decolonization and liberation movements across the 'Third World', covert and overt means of repressing, co-opting or destroying the liberation struggles, role of prominent think tanks in establishing imperial strategy, and the ideas and individuals involved in this imperial adventurism. The goal of $800.00 for the completion of four chapters amounts to roughly $200.00 to finish each chapter, which is a very small amount considering the time and effort required to put in to each chapter. The chapters on Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa are each roughly half finished, while the ones on Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have barely been started.

- Progress: I will update as frequently as possible the amount of the fundraising goal which has been reached, as well as progress undertaken on the chapters.

SEE: The new section on the site to support the funding of specific chapters: "COMPLETE A CHAPTER" for up-to-date information.

So please support the fundraising goal of $800.00 for the completion of four chapters on "The Grand Areas of the American Empire.


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Iran: The Lie Is Revealed

It has recently been revealed to the world that the US government does not think Iran is building nuclear weapons. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated in an interview with Face The Nation that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. His exact words were "Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No." (emphasis added) Thus, the house of cards that the US-NATO-Israeli alliance has been building as a pretext to invade Iran has fallen.

However, even though the curtain has been ripped off and the truth revealed, the belief that Iran is attempting to attain nukes is still deeply embedded in the minds of Iran's enemies. An example of this is the fact that according to leaked Israeli documents, Israeli experts "have begun planning for Iran to test a nuclear bomb within the next 12 months" and that "leading Israeli military and defense experts last week conducted a simulation of scenarios likely to occur in this event." In addition to this, it has also been reported that President Obama "is prepared to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon if diplomacy and sanctions fail." Thus, it seems that not only have the leading governments lied so much about this issue that they themselves are believing their own lies, but also that the media is also still continuing to promote this now dis-proven myth. 

The Strait of Hormuz situation has only heated things up between the West and Iran, as it gives the West another reason to attack Iran. The Strait amounts to about 20% of all traded oil worldwide and is crucial to feed the Western addiction to cheap oil. Iran has threatened to block the Strait if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports. The US has responded to this by stating that they "'would take action to reopen'" the Strait. This "action" of course implies having the US Navy attack Iranian vessels. The attack could be considered an act of war and thus could potentially lead to a US-Iranian war becoming a reality.

The fact that even though this myth has proven false, that the media and Western governments still push this idea should be disturbing to all and may very well lead to another war.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Obama And LGBT Rights

Currently Obama is alone with no one challenging him to the Democratic presidential nominee.  It is no secret that all of the Republican presidential candidates aren't too kindly towards the LGBT community, thus some may argue that we should vote for Obama instead. While he may have ended the horrid Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy, Obama has done little for the LGBT community since he first came into office.

At the outset of his term, the Democratic Party controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. While their main goal was fixing the economy (and rightfully so), repealing the Defense Of Marriage Act which is unconstitutional would have taken no time at all. In a speech given on June 29th of last year Obama stated that the law was unconstitutional and that his "administration is no longer defending DOMA in the courts." However, the administration was still enforcing DOMA and is still doing so to this day.

One may be able to make the argument that he changed as last year the administration made an announcement where it was told that the administration would push "governments it assists to offer greater protection to sexual minorities" by steering "financial incentives toward countries and programs that protect rights while expanding efforts to protect LGBT refugees." While this is without a doubt a great step for Obama and the LGBT community, it only highlights the double standard Obama has. He is willing to acknowledge that the community is under threat on an international level but ignores the fact that the community is under attack at home.

In addition to this, in 2008 Obama clearly stated that he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman and that he was "'not in favor of gay marriage.'" So far he has been consistent with those beliefs as he has not proposed a law to Congress that would allow gay marriage, thus it is still up to states to decide if they want gay marriage or not. Yet, there have been a large number of brave states who have passed legislation allowing for gay marriage.

To his credit however, Obama did, via executive order, pass law that guaranteed hospital visitation rights for the partners of gay patients and introduced protections for gay and transgender people against housing discrimination. Yet overall the situation of the LGBT community remains dismal.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Organized Terror and Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine

Organized Terror and Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine  (Part 2)

By: Andrew Gavin Marshall

Part 1, The Origins of Imperial Israel: A Buffer Against Arab Nationalism can be seen here


The official Israeli government explanation for the 'disappearance' of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from the land (roughly half the Arab population in Palestine in 1948) was that they left "voluntarily." The "new history" of Israel emerged within the past couple decades due to declassified documents relating to the 1948 war and its origins, and with a number of Israeli historians recreating the history of Israel and challenging the official story. David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first Prime Minister, was a leading Zionist at the time. He and other Zionists "accepted" the UN partition plan, wrote Jerome Slater, "only as a necessary tactical step that would later be reversed." In a 1937 letter to his son, Ben-Gurion wrote:
A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. The establishment of such a Jewish state will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety… We shall organize a modern defense force… and then I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means… We will expel the Arabs and take their places… with the forces at our disposal.[1]
In the same year, Ben-Gurion also wrote that, "The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war."[2] A year later, in 1938, Ben-Gurion told a Zionist meeting that, "I favor partition of the country because when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine." Palestine, as defined by the Zionists, had included the West Bank, Golan Heights in Syria, Jerusalem, southern Lebanon, and a significant degree of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.[3]
For any settler colonies, as the Zionists were, there are roughly four conditions which have to met if they are to survive. Graham Usher, an Israeli journalist, wrote that:
They must obtain a measure of political, military, and economic independence from their metropolitan sponsors. They must achieve military hegemony over, or at least normal relations with, their neighboring states. They must acquire international legitimacy. And they must solve their "native problem."[4]
The Jewish state, as defined by leading Zionists such as David Ben-Gurion, was not to simply be Jewish in its sociopolitical structure, explained Ilan Pappé, "but also in its ethnic composition." Further, this would be made possible "only by force." To accomplish this task, an efficient military organization was built over several years, with extensive financial resources. The main Jewish paramilitary organization in Palestine was founded in 1920 in order to protect the Jewish colonies, assisted by "sympathetic" British officers. Orde Wingate, a British officer, was central to convincing Zionist leaders of the need for such a military organization, associating the idea of a Jewish state with militarism and an army. Wingate was assigned to Palestine in 1936, and had established close connections between the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah and the British forces during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt.[5]
In 1940, Ben-Zion Luria, a historian at Hebrew University who was also employed by the Jewish Agency in Palestine suggested that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) should conduct a registry of all the Arab villages in Palestine, numbering some 1,200 in all, which had spread across the countryside for hundreds of years. Luria stated that, "This would greatly help the redemption of the land" into Jewish hands. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded in 1901 as one of the principal colonization organizations focused on buying Palestinian land to settle Jewish colonies. By the end of the Mandate in 1948, the Zionists had control over 5.8% of the land in Palestine.[6]
When news about the "village files" reached Yossef Weitz, the chief of the JNF settlement department (a major Zionist colonialist), he suggested that it be transformed into a "national project." Other top Zionists became very enthusiastic about the project, of which the main emphasis was on mapping the villages. In several cases, these maps in the Israeli State Archives are all that remains of the entire villages. The British, aware of these projects, were unable to find the headquarters for the secret intelligence network that was established to construct the maps. By the later 1940s, the "village files" included much more than mere locations of villages, but rather had details about road access, the quality of the land, water resources, common sources of income for the local population, religious and sociopolitical affiliations, and even the age of individual men within the village. One important category, explained Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, was the index of "hostility," referring to those individuals and communities which were 'hostile' to the Zionist project of colonization, which was largely determined according to examining the participation of certain villages and people in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, which "included lists of everyone involved in the revolt and the families of those who had lost someone in the fight against the British. Particular attention was given to people alleged to have killed Jews."[7]
The British, who had the Mandate over Palestine from 1923, when it was given to the British by the League of Nations, always saw Palestine as a highly strategic and vital imperial possession, largely due to its proximity to the Suez Canal, and thus, the route to Britain's colonial "Jewel", India. Palestine was considered a 'buffer' in the Middle East, in a land of potentially hostile peoples infused with the ideas of Arab nationalism. Just prior to World War II, the Arab population in Palestine revolted against the British rule in reaction to the dramatically increased rate of Jewish immigration and colonization of the land. The Arab Revolt (1936-39) presented the British with a civil war situation, which was suppressed by force of arms. Where the Arabs were a major problem for the British in the 1930s, the Zionists became a problem for the British in the 1940s, for they too turned to terrorist tactics to make British rule over Palestine impossible. Following World War II, the British Security Service (MI5), according to declassified documents from the agency, focused on the threat to Britain posed by Zionist terrorism, both within the Mandate and within Britain itself. The two main organizations identified by MI5 as terrorist groups were the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, who had planned on taking the war against Britain to its home, hoping to send several terrorist "cells" to London to "beat the dog in his own kennel." As the secret documents reveal, "MI5 was actually more concerned about the threat of Zionist terrorism than about the looming threat of the Soviet Union."[8]
MI5's wartime Director-General, Sir David Petrie, stated in 1946 in regards to the threat of Zionist terrorism that, "the red light is definitely showing." From a network of informers within Zionist organizations, Britain uncovered plots to assassinate British politicians associated with Palestine policy, including the Prime Minister himself. The Stern Gang had, in 1944, assassinated the British Minister of State in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and had also tried (on several occasions) to assassinate the British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael. On July 22, 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which was home to British government officials and personnel, and resulted in the deaths of 91 individuals, some of them Jews. Both MI5 and MI6 had offices in the Hotel at the time. As Britain responded with force against Zionist terrorist groups and other organizations, the extremist nature of the groups naturally increased. In October of 1946, the Irgun bombed the British Embassy in Rome, and conducted several sabotage operations against British military transportation routes in occupied Germany. In April of 1947, the British Colonial Office in London discovered an Irgun bomb consisting of 24 sticks of explosives, but the timer had broken, so the bomb did not detonate. In June of 1947, the Stern Gang launched a letter bomb campaign in Britain, "targeting every prominent member of the Cabinet," totaling 21 in all, but none of them ultimately got through to their targets. Another letter bomb assault was undertaken by the Stern Gang in 1948.[9]
In June of 1946, the British Army in Palestine undertook a search for the Jewish Agency, Haganah, and Palmach to retrieve their arms and arrest specific members and leaders. The Zionist organizations, however, had infiltrated the British just as the British had infiltrated the Zionist organizations; thus, the Zionists had advanced warning of the raid and some top officials were able to avoid arrest. The chief of the Haganah, Moshe Sneh, which was the military branch of the Jewish Agency, was in liaison with the terrorist organizations Irgun and Lehi. David Ben-Gurion, the president of the Jewish Agency, was also wanted by the British for his complicity in terrorist attacks. All in all, during the raid, roughly 2,700 people were arrested, including a significant portion of the political leadership within the Palestinian Jewish community, and some arms caches were retrieved. The result, predictably, was to multiply the violence committed against the British in retribution for the raids and arrests. Thus, the British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Alan Cunningham, concluded that, "immediate partition is the only solution which gives a chance of stability."[10]
This was largely the result of the Jewish Resistance Movement (JRM) which had emerged and developed between 1945 and 1946, consisting of the Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and Lehi, "directed and coordinated by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, despite the objections of some of its left-wing members." The aims of the JRM were to "weaken or destroy British rule in Palestine." The Haganah was founded as a territorial militia to defend Zionist settlements in Palestine, and in 1938, several Haganah units worked with the British to help crush the Arab Revolt. The British created the Palmach during World War II as an "elite offensive unit" in order "to assist [the British] in the event of a German invasion of Palestine." In 1945, the Haganah engaged in a secret agreement with the terrorist groups Irgun and Lehi against the British Mandate government. The Irgun was formed in 1931 when several officers separated from the Haganah over socialist sympathies within the defense forces, and became a right-wing paramilitary army, standing in opposition to the original conception of socialist and labour Zionism. The Stern Gang (also known as Lehi) separated from the Irgun during World War II when the Irgun agreed to cooperate with the British. The Stern Gang was a radical far-right group which held many fascist sympathies, and even "pursued agreements with Mussolini and the Nazis in 1940," though unsurprisingly, Hitler did not respond to the requests.[11]
It was within these various terrorist and paramilitary organizations that Plan D was formed among several Zionist leaders, most notably, David Ben-Gurion, to plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Throughout the 1940s, the planning stages of the village files went through many revisions, and encapsulated Plans A through D. In the planning stages during 1940, as one member of the data collection team, Moshe Pasternak, later recalled:
We had to study the structure of the Arab village. This means the structure and how best to attack it. In the military schools, I had been taught how to attack a modern European city, not a primitive village in the Near East. We could not compare it [an Arab village] to a Polish, or an Austrian one. The Arab village, unlike the European ones, was built topographically on hills. That meant we had to find out how best to approach the village from above or enter it from below. We had to train our "Arabists" [the Orientalists who operated a network of collaborators] how best to work with informants.[12]
A large network of informants had been established to gain intelligence on the Palestinian villages throughout the Mandate. The intelligence which was provided allowed for even more details into the village files, especially after 1943, as the expanded information included: "detailed descriptions of the husbandry, cultivation, the number of trees in plantations, the quality of each fruit grove (even of individual trees!), the average land holding per family, the number of cars, the names of shop owners, members of work shops, and the names of the artisans and their skills." As time passed, and the village files collected more information, political affiliations were added in regards to individuals within the villages, and in 1945, information regarding village mosques, the names of the imams and even accounts of the inside of particular homes. As the end of the Mandate grew close, the village files increasingly provided information of a more militaristic nature: "the number of guards in each village (most had none) and the quantity and quality of arms at the villagers' disposal (generally antiquated or even nonexistent)." In 1944, a small village was home to the training of informants and spies and from which they would conduct reconnaissance missions. The final report for the village files was in 1947, focusing on forming lists of "wanted" individuals. As Ilan Pappé explained:
In 1948, Jewish troops used these lists for the search-and-arrest operations they carried out as soon as they had occupied a village. That is, the men in the village would be lined up and those whose names appeared on the lists would be identified, often by the same person who had informed on them in the first place, but now wearing a cloth sack over his head with two holes cut out for his eyes so as not to be recognized. The men who were picked out were often shot on the spot… Among the criteria for inclusion in these lists, besides having participated in actions against the British and the Zionists, were involvement in the Palestinian national movement (which could apply to entire villages) and having close ties to the leader of the movement, the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husayni, or being affiliated with his political party. Given the Mufti's dominance of Palestinian politics since the establishment of the Mandate in 1923, and the prominent positions held by members of his party in the Arab Higher Committee that became the embryo government of the Palestinians, this offense too was very common.[13]
Villages of roughly 1,500 people had about 20-30 individual "suspects" within them. In November of 1947, the Zionist military command concluded that, "the Palestine Arabs had nobody to organize them properly," and that, "If not for the British, we could have quelled the Arab riot [the opposition to the UN Partition Resolution in 1947] in one month." The Arabs, while constituting a demographic challenge to the Zionist aspirations for Palestine, were not a military threat. Their military structures and leadership were largely destroyed by the British during the Arab Revolt and the Zionists were also aware that the Arab states were disorganized and hesitant to move forward on the Palestine issue. Thus, it was the British that primarily stood in the way of the Zionist plans for Palestine, and with 100,000 troops stationed in the an area with roughly 2 million people, it was no small force to contend with. Thus, the Zionist leadership, and specifically David Ben-Gurion, began advocating to support the Partition in the hopes of establishing a small Jewish state in order to have a base from which to expand. In 1946, Ben-Gurion told a gathering of the Zionist leadership that they could accept a smaller state, but that, "We will demand a large chunk of Palestine." Within a few months, the Jewish Agency created a map of a partitioned Palestine. The UN produced a partition map with less land allotted for the Jewish state. After the 1948-49 war, however, the new Jewish state had – through ethnic cleansing – established itself along the lines set out for it in the Jewish Agency map: all of Palestine, save the West Bank and Gaza.[14]
It was in this context that Plan C was evolved from Plans A and B. The British could not repress the eventual Jewish uprising in Palestine after World War II as they had the Arab Revolt prior to the war, and it was clear to the Zionist leadership that the British were on the way out, in no small part due to pressure from Zionist terrorism. In 1946, Plan C was finalized to prepare the Jewish military structures for their offense against the Palestinian population, including striking against political leadership, anti-Zionist Arabs, senior Arab officials, transportation routes, economic infrastructure, etc. Plan C added upon the village files information regarding leaders and activists within the Arab population and other "potential human targets." Within a few months, the addition of "operational specifics" became the basis for Plan D, which envisioned a Jewish State composed of 78% of the land of Palestine, as set out in the Jewish Agency map. As for the one million Palestinians within those lands, Plan D was very specific:
These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their rubble), and especially those population centers that are difficult to control permanently; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.[15]
As Ghazi Falah wrote in the journal, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Plan D's "underlying objective was the nationwide conquest and control of territories." Among the tactical objectives of Zionist forces were to occupy "all police fortresses/stations evacuated by British forces, and of Arab villages close to Jewish settlements; creating continuity between Jewish cities and neighbouring Jewish settlements; gaining control of lines of communications; besieging enemy cities; capturing forward bases of the enemy; counter attacks both inside and outside the borders of the State."[16]

In November of 1947 the UN proposed the partition plan into two states, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem as an international zone. The UN partition plan vastly increased the amount of land for the Zionists, as Jewish land amounted to less than 7% of the total of Palestine in 1947, which was increased to 56% in the UN partition plan, leaving 42% for the Palestinians, who prior to partition had over 90% of the land. The Zionists immediately began the ethnic cleansing in December of 1947 prior to the British leaving, and the first Arab army did not invade until May of 1948, when the British left. Thus, under British rule, wrote Falah, "Jewish forces initiated a war of demographic and territorial expansion which took on the dimension of space purification – expulsion and prevention on the return of the expellees." All able-bodies Jews within Palestine were mobilized by the Zionist forces to partake in the operation, with civilian Jews settling in the depopulated Palestinian villages in order to prevent any possible return of refugees. Civilians also imposed economic sanctions, disseminating propaganda, and preventing Palestinians from harvesting their crops. Destruction of Arab crops was a general policy, or to have Jewish settlers move in and harvest existing Arab fields in cleansed towns.[17]
Certain towns were then selected for massacres, usually carried out in small villages which had previously good relations with their Jewish neighbours. These towns were selected with the specific purpose of providing "lessons in toughness" for other Palestinians villages to incite them to leave and not return. Between May 1947 and March 1948, there were 92 cases of Zionist terrorism and massacres against Palestinians, organized by the Haganah in cooperation with the Irgun and Stern Gang. The small villages were chosen to be "victims," to be an example – a terror campaign – to incite fear in the Palestinian population. One such massacre in April of 1948 killed 254 Arab civilians in one village. On top of the massacres, the rape of Arab Palestinian women, whether Christian or Muslim, was also a prominent feature of the more brutal cleansings. When the British left Palestine and the Arab states invaded, they prevented the Zionist forces from occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[18]
All in all, some 400 Palestinian villages were cleansed, forcing roughly 750,000 Palestinians to flee, leaving roughly 100,000 Palestinians within the newly conquered Jewish territories, who remained under a virtual state of martial law and concentrated in small pales within Israel, the state which was declared by the Zionists in May of 1948. Massive Jewish immigration commenced for survivors of the Holocaust as well as Jews from Arab nations and the Soviet Union.[19]
The men who carried out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine became the mythical heroes of the founding of the state of Israel, most notably David Ben-Gurion, and the future leaders of the Israeli army, Yigael Yadin and Moshe Dayan, along with prominent Arabist academics, who, much like the intellectuals of the Nazi state, were among the most systematically malevolent, responsible for the final decisions regarding which villages were to be eradicated and which villagers were to be executed. The operations of the Arabists – Orientalist intellectuals – "were supervised by Issar Harel, who later became the first head of Mossad and the Shin bet, Israel's secret services."[20] The ruthless murders, assassinations, and massacres – even of women and children – were not a mere 'result' of the war, as many historians have claimed, but were a matter of policy. As Ezra Dannin, the Israeli government adviser on Arab affairs stated that, "If the High Command believes that by destruction, killing, and human suffering its aims will be achieved faster, then I would not stand in its way. If we don't hurry up, our enemies will do the same things to us."[21]

Notes
[1]            Jerome Slater, "What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), pages 173-174.
[2]            Ilan Pappé, "The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), page 9.
[3]            Jerome Slater, "What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), page 174.
[4]            Graham Usher, "Unmaking Palestine: On Israel, the Palestinians, and the Wall," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 35, No. 1, Autumn 2005), page 26.
[5]            Ilan Pappé, "The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 9-10.
[6]            Ibid, pages 10-11.
[7]            Ibid, page 11.
[8]            Calder Walton, "British Intelligence and the Mandate of Palestine: Threats to British National Security Immediately After the Second World War," Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 23, No. 4, 2008), pages 435-436.
[9]            Ibid, pages 439-440.
[10]            Steven Wagner, "British Intelligence and the Jewish Resistance Movement in the Palestine Mandate," Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 23, No. 5, 2008), pages 629-630.
[11]            Ibid, pages 630-631.
[12]            Ilan Pappé, "The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 11-12.
[13]            Ibid, pages 12-13.
[14]            Ibid, pages 13-15.
[15]            Ibid, pages 15-16.
[16]            Ghazi Falah, "The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and its Aftermath: The Transformation and Se-Signification of Palestine's Cultural Landscape," Annals of the American Association of American Geographers (Vol. 86, No. 2, 1996), page 259.
[17]            Ibid, page 261.
[18]            Ibid, page 262.
[19]            Graham Usher, "Unmaking Palestine: On Israel, the Palestinians, and the Wall," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 35, No. 1, Autumn 2005), page 27.
[20]            Ilan Pappé, "The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 18-19.
[21]            Jerome Slater, "What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), page 175.