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The
Israeli Taliban had its national convention the other day,
and the nutballs won out: the Likud party went on record as
declaring
that it would never accept the legitimacy of a Palestinian
state. In a stemwinder of a speech, ultra-rightist Benjamin
Netanyahu gave
voice to what has been, up to now, a largely unspoken
sentiment, advocated only by the most extreme fringe parties:
"In
order to defeat terrorism, we must take three steps. First,
we must complete the purification of the area, and clean it
out totally of all fighting forces and arms. The Prime Minister
and the government began this mission, but it has not yet
been completed."
Ah
yes, "purification" – an ominous word choice.
To
be fair, this translation is unique to the excerpt that appears
on David Horowitz's site: on the Netanyahu.org site, which
offers the complete text of the speech,
this word is missing. But that is just nitpicking, for the
ethnic cleansing of Palestine has always been implicit in
the Zionist program, in spite of the (public) protestations
of its leaders – and is now becoming more explicit as
the Middle East crisis reaches a feverish pitch.
Today,
46
percent of Israelis support what even Vladimir
Jabotinsky, the founder of hard-line "revisionist" Zionism,
explicitly ruled
out – the forcible expulsion of 3 million Arabs. Over
60 percent want the government to "encourage" Israeli Arabs
to leave the country, according to Ha'aretz. The growing
respectability of these ideas is symbolized by the entry of
the fundamentalist National Religious Party into
the government.
Another
Likud coalition partner is the Molodet party, which holds
the Ministry of Tourism: Benny Elon, the head of the ministry,
recently launched a publicity campaign on behalf of his party's
main platform plank: "Only transfer will
bring peace," as the billboards emblazoned with the Molodet
slogan proclaim.
According
to the Zionist ultras, there already is a Palestinian state,
it is located in Jordan – and the Palestinians need to go
back there. Sharon, during his tenure as Defense Minister,
once averred that "there is a Palestinian state. All that
is needed is a headline." To say that the Jordanians, not
to mention the US State Department, oppose this on the grounds
it would be destabilizing is a bit of an understatement. As
one wag put it: "Presumably the headline would be 'King
Hussein dead. Arafat in Amman.'"
To
get a good look inside the Netanyahu mindset, check out Christopher
Hitchens' memorable piece posted
four years ago in Salon:
"A few weeks ago, in this holy city, a public lecture was
offered by Benzion Netanyahu. It was in honor of a man named
Abba Ahimeir.
Neither of these two men is, perhaps, as well known as he
ought to be. Benzion Netanyahu, the 87-year-old father of
the [then-]Israeli prime minister, is a scholar at Princeton
University and the author of The Origins of the Inquisition
… Abba Ahimeir was a writer and activist in British Mandate
Palestine, and a zealous lieutenant of Jabotinsky. In the
pages of the magazine Doar Hayom, during the late 1920s
and '30s, he wrote a celebrated column titled 'From the Notebook
of a Fascist." He hymned Mussolini, referred to Jabotinsky
as 'Our Duce,' and even went so far as to say that Hitler
was on the right track, except for his excessive anti-Semitism.
… Ahimeir, said the elder Netanyahu, had been his mentor."
Yes,
but is the son responsible for the sins of his father? Hitchens
informs us "it is very well attested that Netanyahu the younger
makes few moves without consulting his revered papa, who also
rose to be Jabotinsky's secretary and pallbearer." His mentor,
Ahimeir, headed a faction of Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement
called Brit Habirionim, or Alliance of the Strong,
although birionim, in the contemporary vernacular,
has come to mean "hooligans." Netanyahu senior once told an
interviewer:
"It
is obvious to me that there is no Palestinian people. Not
in the past, nor in the present. ... What we have here is
simply a branch of the Arab people. The claim that such a
people exist is only being made so as to justify the call
to liquidate the Jewish state. They [the Palestinians] are
trying to create the illusion of a people that in fact has
never existed."
Hitchens
cites a March 21, 1998 article in Ha'aretz, by Shani
Litman, reporting on a talk given by Netanyahu to an audience
of "right-wing retired officers and security men in Tel Aviv."
He assured them there would be no sell-out:
"We
are making a constant effort to preserve the maximum, including
territories I would fight for even if they had no security
value."
Hitchens
also cites a piece by Israeli analyst Akiva Eldar that told
of a "memorandum of understanding" signed by the Israeli and
Palestinian security chiefs, brokered by the Americans, designed
to combat underground terrorist outfits and arrange for an
exchange of intelligence. But there was a glitch, Eldar reported:
"Netanyahu
forbade representatives of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)
to meet with their Palestinian and American counterparts for
the purpose of establishing a joint monitoring mechanism that
would supervise the implementation of the memorandum. It is
difficult to fathom how this very same individual, who swears
allegiance three times a day to the cause of the security
of Israel's citizens, is willing to forego a formal Palestinian
Authority. The reason for Netanyahu's position is
that he is opposed to a concomitant Israeli commitment to
confiscate firearms in the possession of Jews who plan, or
support, terrorist actions."
That
a man like Netanyahu wields such power in the governing party
– and may even be the next Prime Minister of Israel – is ominous
enough. But that prospect takes on an even darker hue in light
of the
arrest of Noam Federman and associates in connection with
a plot to bomb an Arab school for girls. Federman is a
supporter of the virulently supremacist Kach movement, founded
by the late Meir Kahane. Israeli authorities are now investigating
to see if other terrorist attacks on Arabs are connected to
an extensive extremist underground.
What
we can see in Netanyahu, and the radicalized Likud, is the
Jewish equivalent of the Taliban rising out of the fundamentalist,
militant, and messianic currents roiling Israeli society.
Sharon is held captive to this constituency, and cannot govern
without them. Netanyahu's coup at the Likud party conference
was but a prelude to the coming challenge
to Sharon's leadership.
The
Likud has
always stood for the idea of a Greater Israel – a concept
that has more to do with religious fundamentalism than any
genuine concern for "security." There cannot be a Palestinian
state, in this view, for the simple reason that God promised
the Jews not only all the lands of Judea, Samaria (the West
Bank), and Gaza, but beyond, from
the Nile to the Euphrates. Describing God's covenant with
Abraham, Genesis 15:18 proclaims:
"To
your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt
to the Great River, the river Euphrates."
Millions
of fundamentalists the world over, both Christian and Jew,
believe that: what's more, they are willing to fight and die
for it.
We
are all-too-well acquainted with the scourge of Islamic fundamentalism,
but the Israeli version – with the help of Christian "Zionists"
in the West – may pose a deadlier danger in the long run.
For the Afghan Taliban never even came close to acquiring
nuclear weapons: the Israelis are already nuclear-armed. No
one knows what a government beholden to a crackpot "spiritual
advisor" like Rabbi
Yosef is likely to do, in a crisis – and do we really
want to find out?
What's
even more outrageous is that this upsurge of religious fanaticism
and ultra-expansionist sentiment has been fueled by a flood
of US tax dollars, which fund not only the settlements but
the religious schools that
promote political extremism.
In
his speech to the Likud party conference, Netanyahu boasts
that he was feted during his trip to Washington, and that,
in no small part thanks to his effort:
"The
great American nation is not only not against us – it supports
us, and by a huge majority! And that is important, because
in the final analysis, what determines the position of the
administration in the United States is public opinion – especially
since the current administration – and primarily President
Bush, knows perfectly well just who Arafat is and what he
is striving for."
But
of course this last is nonsense. Or else what are we to make
of the American insistence on Arafat and the PLO as the only
possible negotiating partners in a Middle East peace agreement?
Oh well, never mind, because even the President of the United
States is subject to political pressure. As "Bibi" puts it:
"We have the ability to sway this public opinion."
The
Israeli Taliban could easily be reined in, and nipped in the
bud by US policymakers – but for the exertions of Likud's
American supporters. Ensconced in both parties – allied with
the Christian Right and the New Republic liberals
– uncritical supporters of Israel dominate the national discourse
on the Middle East. Wrapped in a protective shield, and subsidized
to the tune of $3 billion a year by US taxpayers, the worst
elements in Israeli society are coming to the fore, and pose
a direct danger not only to US interests, but to the whole
region.
–
Justin Raimondo
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