Bush’s Lies Can’t Hide Middle East Realities

By Rachelle Marshall

I don’t think there’s any question now of democracy in Iraq.—Stanford Professor Larry Diamond, author of Squandered Victory, in the Stanford Daily, Oct. 4.

Please, somebody give Dr. Rice a modern Middle East history book, or a walking tour of any Arab city outside its Green Zone.—Rami G. Khouri, editor-at-large of the Beirut Daily Star, Oct. 3.

A father argues with an Israeli border policeman who denied the Bethlehem resident and his family entry to Jerusalem to pray on the last Friday of Ramadan. The Israeli army prohibited Palestinian men under 45, including children, from entering Jerusalem from the West Bank (AFP Photo/Musa Al-Shaer).

GEORGE W. Bush’s foreign policy team took office with two priorities in mind: to eliminate potential challenges to American power, and make the Middle East safe for Israel. The Bush strategists had made their intentions clear in books and position papers long before the 2000 elections. The first step was to oust Saddam Hussain and establish permanent U.S. military bases on Iraq’s borders with Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A powerful U.S. military presence on their borders would intimidate the pro-Palestinian regimes in Syria and Iran and they would collapse like dominoes, leaving the United States with ultimate control over the oil-rich Gulf region. Having lost their patrons, the Palestinians would be forced to make peace on Israel’s terms.

The World Trade Center attacks gave Bush the chance to sell this agenda to Americans as essential to the “war on terrorism.” Once the invasion of Afghanistan was underway, the administration charged Saddam Hussain with complicity in the 2001 attacks and with possessing weapons of mass destruction. The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 went ahead despite testimony by United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix to the Security Council that no evidence of such weapons had been found. As both wars dragged on and Bush’s assertions proved baseless, he came up with a new sales pitch: the goal of his administration was to spread democracy in the Middle East.

It was a claim no more real than the imminent “mushroom cloud” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once warned about. Instead of promoting democracy, U.S. intervention in the Middle East has strengthened extremists, created problems for moderates, and undermined genuine moves toward democracy in Lebanon and Palestine.

Violence has flared up again in Afghanistan, where warlords continue to rule and corruption and lawlessness are rampant. In Iraq sectarian death squads linked to members of the U.S.-backed government are responsible for hundreds of gruesome killings every month.

Instead of enjoying the blessings of freedom Bush promised, some 600,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 invasion, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Baghdad is surrounded by trenches and checkpoints and the heavily patrolled city of Fallujah is “a mini-police state,” according to The New York Times. The government of what Bush describes as a “young democracy” has even resurrected laws from Saddam Hussain’s penal code criminalizing criticism of public officials. At least a dozen journalists have been charged.

Such realities did not deter Secretary of State Rice from declaring that Iraq was “making progress” when she helicoptered into the fortress-like Green Zone on Oct. 5 wearing a flak jacket and surrounded by soldiers carrying machine guns. As bodies of handcuffed Iraqi men showing signs of torture were being found daily, and an entire Iraqi police brigade was put under suspension for complicity with death squads, Rice praised Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for his “excellent leadership.”

Polls taken this fall found that more than two-thirds of all Iraqis want the occupation forces to leave, saying their presence provoked more violence. But self-determination has its limits when it conflicts with administration policy. Despite Al-Maliki’s inability or unwillingness to disband the illegal militias, Bush reaffirmed his support for the prime minister in mid-October, and assured him there would be no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. There has been no talk in Washington of dismantling the military bases that resemble self-contained American cities. Many Iraqis see them as evidence the United States intends to remain permanently in their country.

The freedom Bush claims Americans are fighting for has suffered its heaviest blows in Lebanon and Palestine, where efforts by Washington and Israel to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas violate the will of the overwhelming numbers of Palestinians and Lebanese who voted for the two organizations in free elections.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese gathered in Beirut on Sept. 22 to cheer Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and express defiance of Israel and the United States. Many attendees traveled hours to get there and it is easy to understand why. Highway billboards across Lebanon paid for by Hezbollah show pictures of the destruction caused by Israeli bombs, with the words “Made in the U.S.A.” stretched across them.

In a country that once welcomed Americans and maintained close relations with the United States, American-made cluster bombs continue to kill and maim civilians. Children are the most likely victims. During the last four days of the war Israel fired thousands of artillery shells on southern Lebanon that left more than a million unexploded bomblets on the leaves of olive trees, on rooftops , and scattered across backyards and fields. Lebanese officials say it will take more than 15 months to clear them away, and meanwhile at least 200,000 Lebanese are unable to return home or harvest their crops.

The newspaper Haaretz quoted an Israeli commander as saying, “What we did was monstrous; we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” What Israel did was indeed monstrous—but not unpremeditated. The rain of missiles fired on Lebanese villages was clearly intended to cleanse southern Lebanon of its inhabitants, and deprive Hezbollah of its main base of political support.

Israeli Siege of Palestine Intensifies


Iraqi boys collect blindfolds and plastic handcuffs from some of the 62 prisoners released from undisclosed detention centers moments earlier by U.S. authorities Oct. 30, 2006 (AFP Photo/Sabah Arar).

As Israeli forces were withdrawing from Lebanon, the siege of Gaza and the West Bank intensified. Israel has escalated its air and ground attacks on Gaza and made sweeping arrests. Despite U.S. requests that Gazans be allowed to export their produce, the borders remain shut, and almost all Hamas members of the government are in prison despite an order by a West Bank military court to free many of them. Israel’s confiscation of more than $50 million a month in Palestinian revenue collections, and the cutoff of international aid funds, have forced schools to close and caused serious shortages of fuel, hospital equipment, and medical supplies.

The Israelis have seen to it that the Palestinians are denied aid from other sources as well. On Sept. 20 Israeli troops raided Palestinian exchange offices in Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin and seized $1.3 million in Israeli shekels and Jordanian dinars. The military said the money had been sent from Iran. There was no international protest against what would normally be considered theft.

Societies that experience traumas such as invasions or severe hardship are at risk of becoming fractured. The Palestinians have had to endure trauma for more than 40 years, but seldom in such extreme form as in the past year. With Gaza a free-fire zone for the Israeli air force, severe unemployment, and the economy moribund, it is hardly surprising that internal fighting has broken out. Gun battles between Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas security police killed at least 12 Palestinians in early October.

The split between Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah widened when their efforts to form a unity government broke down over Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Because the Palestinians will receive no foreign aid as long as Hamas sticks to this position, Abbas is threatening to dismiss the government and replace it with technocrats. If he does, the Western nations will have succeeded in bringing down a democratically elected Palestinian government.

As tensions smoldered between the forces of Abbas and Haniyah in early October, Secretary Rice arrived on the scene equipped with a can of lighter fluid. The Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade had just threatened to kill three top Hamas leaders, staged violent demonstrations in Bethlehem, and was suspected of fire-bombing the home of the Hamas mayor of Doha. Nevertheless Rice offered Abbas $9 million to strengthen his police, with a promise of more to come. The offer was part of a $26 million plan by the Bush’s security coordinator, Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, to consolidate Abbas’s security forces, expand the presidential guard, and build a new security center on Gaza’s border with Israel.

The intent of the proposal, according to its text, is “for Palestinians to take responsibility for security and increase Israeli confidence and trust.” In other words, Palestinians living under a brutal and illegal occupation and forced to choose between sending their children to school or buying food, are expected to ensure Israel’s security.

Rice received a strong hint of how the plan will resonate in the Middle East when she met with leaders from eight Arab governments during her trip. In response to the Bush administration’s call for moderate Arabs to join together against the militants, the officials said they did not want to be pitted against other Arab governments or movements. They stressed the importance instead of ending the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told Rice, “There is a very short step from extremism to terrorism. And ever since the problem arose of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the region has been destabilized.”

The reluctance by U.S. policymakers to acknowledge this reality was evident in the recently released portions of the National Intelligence Estimates completed last April. The report by U.S. intelligence agencies lists four underlying causes of the spread of jihadist movements: corruption and fear of Western domination, “the Iraq jihad,” the slow pace of reform in Muslim countries, and “pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims.”

Nowhere in the published portions did the report suggest that Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, with full support from America, was a major cause of the anger among Arabs and Muslims. Yet as the United States and European Union were insisting that Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel, Israeli forces were relentlessly killing Palestinians. An Israeli bomb killed almost the entire Kadiah family on Oct. 13, including a young boy. The following day Israeli air strikes and gunfire killed five more Palestinians. Within three days a total of 21 Palestinians were killed, including at least two children. Meanwhile, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions the government announced plans to build 1,000 more illegal settlement units in the West Bank, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that “As long as I serve as prime minister, the Golan will remain in our hands because it is an integral part of the state of Israel.”

Olmert reinforced his hard-line credentials in late October by adding to his governing coalition a right-wing party that calls for annexing most of the West Bank and “transferring” Israeli Palestinians to the remaining territory. The party known as Beit Beiteinu is headed by Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant from Moldava, who will become deputy prime minister.

Like all Israeli leaders before him, Olmert claims his actions are justified by Israel’s need for security, but in fact neither the Palestinians nor any Arab nation poses a threat to Israel today, and all Arab leaders have agreed to establish relations with Israel once it returns to its 1967 borders. As Palestinians are reminded every day, Israel’s concern is not security but retaining control of as much of the West Bank, containing the fewest number of Palestinians, as possible. This is why Israel is refusing to allow Palestinian expatriates to immigrate to the West Bank and Gaza, or continue receiving three-month tourist visas. It is also the reason why Palestinian doctoral candidates from Gaza and the West Bank are barred from attending Israeli universities.

The restrictions not only break apart families but stifle economic growth, since most Palestinians who wish to return are individuals eager to develop Palestinian enterprises. In a New York Times op-ed column titled “We Can’t Go Home Again,” Sam Bahour described his own experience as a Palestinian American whose family has lived in the West Bank for generations (see this issue’s “Other Voices” supplement). Bahour moved back to Ramallah in 1993, built a $10 million shopping center, and established a successful telecommunications company. He now has a Palestinian wife and two daughters, but he may no longer renew his visitor’s visa.

Since 1993, Palestine Investment and Development, Ltd. and the Arab Palestinian Investment Company have created 5,000 jobs in the occupied territories. Many of their staff members are now denied re-entry, and the same is true of other large employers. More than 120,000 people of Palestinian descent have been affected by laws that serve no other purpose than to reduce the Palestinian population and impoverish those who remain.

One of the prevalent myths is that Hamas’ refusal to recognize the state of Israel is the chief obstacle holding up the peace process. Yet Yasser Arafat recognized Israel and was willing to settle for the return of 22 percent of original Palestine, only to be shunned by the United States and Israel. President Abbas recognized Israel and condemned violence but couldn’t persuade Israel even to lift its roadblocks.

In any case, Haniyah admits that the state of Israel is an undeniable fact. Like many Palestinians, however, the Hamas leader refuses to recognize Israelis’ “right” to a state on land from which they terrorized and expelled 700,000 Palestinians. The issue of recognition is in fact a smokescreen Israel uses to avoid a solution that has been on the table for nearly 40 years.

It was spelled out again in a New York Times advertisement on Oct. 4 signed by 134 former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and national security advisers from countries around the world, including the United States. The text calls for an end to the boycott of the Palestinian Authority and a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict based on “U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 of 1967 and 338 of 1973, the Camp David peace accords of 1978, the Clinton Parameters of 2000, the Arab League Initiative of 2002, and the Roadmap proposed in 2003 by the Quartet (U.N., U.S., EU and Russia).” The goal would be “security and full recognition of the state of Israel within internationally recognized borders; an end to the occupation in a viable independent, sovereign Palestinian state; and the return of lost land to Syria.”

Palestinians have long accepted such a solution only to have Israel reject it. In his New York Times article, Sam Bahour explained why Israel’s policy is self-defeating. The real threat to Israel’s security, he wrote, “comes from controlling an entire population...One neighbor cannot ensure its security by condemning the other to hardship and despair.” What he and other Palestinians want most, Bahour says, is “a better life to follow this occupation—a bright, joint future for Palestinian and Israeli children alike.”

If only George Bush and Condoleezza Rice were listening.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the Jewish International Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.