[E-rundbrief] Info 190 - Avnery: Bush; Beilin: Stealing property in Jerusalem.
Matthias Reichl
mareichl at ping.at
So Jan 23 18:27:16 CET 2005
E-Rundbrief - Info 190 - USA - Israel - Palästina: Uri Avnery: King George
- Bush simple, violent and extreme - a dangerous combination; Yossi Beilin:
Sharon government stealing Palestinian property in East-Jerusalem.
Bad Ischl, 23.1.2005
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GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org/
Uri Avnery: Bush simple, violent and extreme - a dangerous combination
Yossi Beilin accuses Sharon government of stealing property
http://www.geocities.com/keller_adam/Avnery_heb.htm
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Uri Avnery
22.1.05
King George
When King George V died, we got a day off from school as a sign of
mourning. Palestine was then a part of the British Empire, which ruled
the country under a League of Nations mandate. To this very day, a
central street in Tel-Aviv, not far from my home, bears the name of King
George.
George V was followed (after a brief interlude) by George VI, who
was until recently the last George in our life. Now we have a new King
George, not British but American.
The relationship between the United States and Israel is difficult
to define. The USA has no official mandate over our country. It is not a
normal alliance between two nations. Neither is it a relationship between
a satellite and the master country.
Some people say, only half in jest, that the USA is an Israeli
colony. And indeed, in many respects it looks like that. President Bush
dances to Ariel Sharon's tune. Both Houses of Congress are totally
subservient to the Israeli right-wing - much more so than the Knesset. It
has been said that if the pro-Israeli lobby were to sponsor a resolution
on Capitol Hill calling for the abolition of the Ten Commandments, both
Houses of Congress would adopt it overwhelmingly. Every year Congress
confirms the payment of a massive tribute to Israel.
But others assert the reverse: that Israel is an American colony.
And indeed, that is also true in many respects. It is unthinkable for the
Israeli government to refuse a clear-cut request by the President of the
United States. America forbids Israel to sell an expensive intelligence-
gathering plane to China? Israel cancels the sale. America forbids a
large-scale military action, as happened last week in Gaza? No action.
America wants the Israeli economy to be managed according to American
precepts? No problem: an American (circumcised, to be sure) has just been
appointed as Governor of the Central Bank of Israel.
As a matter of fact, both versions are right: The USA is an Israeli
colony and Israel is an American colony. The relationship between the two
countries is a symbiosis, a term defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "an
association of two organisms living attached to each other or one within
the other" (from the Greek words for "living" and "together".)
Much has already been said about the origins of this symbiosis.
American Christian Zionism preceded the founding of the Jewish Zionist
organization. The American myth is almost identical with the Zionist
Israeli myth, both in content and symbolism. (The settlers fleeing from
persecution in their homelands, an empty country, pioneers conquering the
wilderness, the savage natives, etc.) Both are countries of immigration,
with all that this implies for good or ill. Both governments believe that
their interests coincide. On Independence Day in Israel, many American
flags are to be seen next to the Israeli ones - a phenomenon that is
without parallel in the world.
The inauguration of George Bush last week therefore had a special
significance for Israel. The state-controlled TV channel broadcast it
live. In many respects, the President of the United States is also the
King of Israel.
George Bush is a very simple, very violent person with very extreme
views, as well as being very much an ignoramus. This is a very dangerous
combination. Such people have caused many disasters in human history.
Maximilian Robespierre, the French revolutionary who invented the reign
of terror, has been called "the Great Simplifier" because of the terrible
simplicity of his views, which he tried to impose with the guillotine.
The ideologues who govern the thoughts and deeds of Bush are called
"neo-conservatives", but that is a misleading appellation. Actually they
are a revolutionary group. Their aim is not to conserve but to overturn.
Mostly Jewish, they are the pupils of Leo Strauss, a German-Jewish
professor with a Trotskyite past who ended up developing semi-fascist
theories and propagating them at the University of Chicago. He
illustrated his attitude towards democracy by citing the story of
Gulliver: when a fire broke out in the city of the dwarfs, he put the
fire out by urinating on them. This is the way, in his view, the small
elite group of leaders must treat the ignorant and innocent public, which
does not know what is good for them.
In his coronation speech, Bush promised to bring freedom and
democracy to every corner of the world. No less, no more. He cited the
two countries in which he has already achieved this aim: Iraq and
Afghanistan. Both have been devastated by American planes that dropped
the message from their bomb doors. Recently, the American soldiers wiped
a large city from the face of the earth in order to convince the
opponents of "American values". Now Falluja looks as if it had been
struck by a tsunami.
It is no secret that the Neo-Cons intend to "bring democracy" to
Iran and Syria, thereby eliminating two more traditional enemies of the
USA and Israel. Dick Cheney, the Vice-President (certainly no Virtue-
President), has already prophesied that Israel may attack Iran, as if
threatening to unleash a Rottweiler.
It could have been hoped that after the total debacle in Iraq and
the less obvious but equally serious failure in Afghanistan, Bush would
shrink from more such actions. But as almost always happens with rulers
of this type, he cannot admit defeat and stop. On the contrary, failure
drives him on to more extremes, vowing, rather like the captain of the
Titanic, "to stay the course."
There is no way to guess what Bush may perpetrate, now that he has
been re-elected by his people. His ego has been blown up to giant
proportions, reaffirming what the Greek fabulist Aesop said some 27
centuries ago: "The smaller the mind the greater the conceit."
He has kicked out the hapless, feeble Colin Powell (as David Ben-
Gurion eliminated Moshe Sharett in preparation for his 1956 onslaught on
Egypt) and appointed Condoleezza Rice, his personal servant (as Ben-
Gurion replaced Sharett with Golda Meir.)
Now the order is "clear the deck for action". On this deck, Bush is
a loose cannon, a danger to everyone around. The results of these
elections may be viewed by history as a worldwide catastrophe.
In domestic affairs, he may cause similar disasters. In the name of
"American values", he is about to destroy one of the foremost American
values: the separation of Church and State. His is the religion of a
"born again" convert, a primitive religion without morality and
compassion. Imposing this religion on all fields of life - from the
prohibition of abortions and same-sex marriages to the revision of
schoolbooks - may push society centuries back and void the constitution.
After four more years of this, America may be a very different country
from the one we loved and admired in our youth.
A friend of mine asserts that there are two souls residing in the
American nation, a good and a bad one. That may be true for every nation,
including even Israel and Palestine, but in America it is much more
extreme. There is the America of Thomas Jefferson (even if he liberated
his slaves only on his death), Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, the America of ideals, the
Marshall Plan, science and the arts. And there is the America of the
genocide perpetrated against the Native Americans, the country of slave
traders and the Wild West myth, the America of Hiroshima, of Joe
McCarthy, of segregation and of Vietnam, the violent and repressive
America.
During Bush's second term, this second America may reach new depths
of ugliness and brutality. It may offer the whole world a model of
oppression. I would not want my country, Israel, to be identified with
such an America. Any advantage we can derive from it may well turn out to
be short-term, the damage long-lasting, and perhaps irreversible.
One of the advantages of the US constitution is that Bush cannot be
re-elected for a third term. As the popular Israeli song goes: "We
survived Pharaoh, we shall survive this, too." Perhaps this could become
an anthem for the whole world.
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Beilin accuses Sharon government of stealing property
Meron Rapaport, Haaretz Correspondent//Last Update: 22/01/2005 19:21
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/530467.html
Responding to a report that the cabinet met in July 2004 and adopted a
decision to expand the powers of the Custodian of Absentee Property to
East Jerusalem, Yahad Chairman Yossi Beilin said Saturday that the
decision equated to stealing property, and that it was undemocratic.
As a result of the government decision, Palestinian property in East
Jerusalem, or, more precisely, the assets that residents of the West Bank
hold in East Jerusalem, will be distributed.
According to Beilin, who served as Justice Minister under former prime
minister Ehud Barak, government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did what
no government has done before.
"Neither from the left nor from the right, no one dared to do this, to
take the property rights of Palestinians in East Jerusalem," Beilin said.
He also announced that he would convene the Yahad faction so as to fight
against the decision, and he hopes that Justice Minister Tzipi Livni will
annul it.
MK Mohamed Barakeh (Hadash) said in response to the report that the
decision is a new "war crime" committed by the Sharon government. The
decision, Barakeh said, proves that, "Sharon's real disengagement is a
disengagement from all accepted agreement for a final settlement."
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