[WCUSP] Our leaders' blindness/ the Real Problem is much deeper

Fri Apr 13 16:58:10 CDT 2007

Hoping you and I will continue to be optimistic and part of the struggle for
 peace with justice in the Middle East.

marlena santoyo
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Our leaders' blindness: Golda ignored peace initiative before 1973 War;
Olmert should avoid same mistake
Ze'ev Tsahor
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3383638,00.html

One day at the beginning of 1971, US Secretary of State William Rogers
phoned David Ben Gurion and asked him to speak to Prime Minister Golda
Meir in an effort to convince her to seriously weigh the Egyptian
initiative aimed at advancing peace with Israel.

The 85-year-old Ben Gurion was at Sdeh Boker at the time. Ripe with age
and satiated with years of arguments and disappointments he wished to
finally break away from politics. His relationship with Golda was
tainted, and he wasn't inclined to speak to her.

Rogers pleaded with him. The Egyptian initiative is an ad-hoc
opportunity, he said, but Golda is not taking it seriously and is
rejecting it with contempt. She admires you; perhaps she will listen to
you. Ben Gurion complied with the request and asked his aides to connect
him with Golda in Jerusalem.

The short conversation between them didn't run smoothly. Those present
in the room could hear Ben Gurion repeatedly explain why Golda should
engage in talks with Egypt, based on the proposal that provided a chance
for peace in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. Although
those present in the room couldn't hear Golda on the other end of the
phone, it was quite clear that she had no interest in the Egyptian peace
initiative.

'A war will soon break out'

Ben Gurion lost his patience, accused Golda of leading Israel to a
disaster, and ended the conversation. For some reason he placed the
receiver on the table. Those present in the room could hear Golda
calling out "Ben Gurion, Ben Gurion," but he refused to pick up the
phone again and said sadly: "A war will soon break out." The rest is
history.

The validity of historic comparisons is limited but nonetheless there is
a fascinating resemblance between the Egyptian initiative from
generations ago to the current Saudi initiative. As then, now too our
decision makers are made up of politicians lacking any vision; the
cabinet is dependent on small parties with vested interests and there is
a huge gap between the arrogance of military commanders and the IDF's
preparedness for war. Even today the ethos of control over the occupied
territories is stronger than the human rights manifesto.

"We are better off without peace but with Sharm El-Sheikh," then Defense
Minister Moshe Dayan said arrogantly, and encouraged wide scale
settlements in the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. And in that leadership
test, Golda and Dayan's adamant resistance led to the failure of the
Egyptian initiative. From here the route to the Yom Kippur War was a short
one.

Rogers and Ben Gurion were not the only ones in their generation. An
examination of newspapers of the time will show that many Israelis
understood that the Egyptian initiative had presented an opportunity to
bring about peace between Israel and Egypt, and that its rejection would
lead to war.

Yet looking back at history shows that the blindness of a leader who
foolishly leads its people to war is a more common occurrence than a
sober leader who recognizes a political opportunity and leads his people
to peace. Golda and Dayan were among the blind, and even the great Ben
Gurion couldn't open their eyes.

The Saudi initiative is now presenting the Middle East with a new and
rare opportunity, and once again Israel's leadership is being put to the
test of history.
=================================================

Exploring:  The real problem is much deeper

marlena santoyo

===========
From: George Salzman [mailto:george.salzman at umb.edu]
Sent: 2007 April 12 Thursday 11:33 PM
Subject: Beyond Finkelstein (Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein III)

Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein III
The real problem is much deeper.
James Petras and Bill Templer
are straightening me out
4 April 2007
by G.S.  <george.salzman at umb.edu>
this page is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/S2/2007-04-04.htm

            My first posting on this issue (Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein I),
was:
      A dangerous struggle to bury the truth, 8 April 2007
            Norman G. Finkelstein is a treasure of the academic world. His
effectiveness in making known much of the truth about the Israel-Palestine
conflict is so great that Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University has mounted
a disgraceful one-person campaign to try to bury his voice by preventing him
from gaining tenure in De Paul University, i.e. by getting him fired. . . .
To see entire item, (htm).
           A second posting (Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein II) followed shortly
afterwards:
      Help prevent Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz from intervening in De Paul
University to get Norman G. Finkelstein fired, 9 April 2007, posted 11 April
2007
            Norman G. Finkelstein is a rock of solidity in academia. His
effectiveness in making known (the rest is the same as above). . . . To see
entire item, (htm).

            Both Bill Templer and James Petras wrote me, emphasizing the
importance of confronting the Zionist infrastructure in the U.S. that works
to propagate Zionist ideology and to implement the Zionist program in accord
with that ideology. I wrote today to a number of people, a letter that said
in part:

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Subject: The need to block Dershowitz's effort to prevent open discussion
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:56:58 -0500
Dear Kevin Murray, James Petras, Bill Templer and Chris Leadbeater,

      Thanks to each of you for writing me on this "hot-button" issue ...
James, Kevin, and Bill, would it be OK for me to use the relevant parts of
your statements in preparing a follow-up appeal for support for Norman
Finkelstein? Kevin ... I would like to add [your letter] as a third sample,
to my posting at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/S2/2007-04-09.htm
.
      Jim, your note this morning raises a deeper question: how to tackle
the support structure that is undoubtedly backing this particular effort of
Dershowitz. I think that's surely worth pursuing. My characterization of
Dershowitz's efforts as a one-man campaign was naive. You're correct in
seeing him as merely the point man. Bill Templer called my attention to your
analysis in http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17482.htm, a
lengthy article that I haven't yet read entirely, but will.
      I had been hesitant to characterize the attack on Finkelstein as a
Zionist campaign because I thought that otherwise-sympathetic people might
be turned off, thinking (incorrectly) that an anti-Zionist position is an
anti-semitic (meaning here anti-Jewish) position. Such folks would, I
thought, more likely respond to a call for opposing censorship of discussion
of important issues and to support an effort to counter Dershowitz. But of
course there are more sinister efforts being made behind the scenes, just as
was the case with the New York Theatre Workshop in New York City's East
[Greenwich] Village suddenly cancelling "My Name is Rachel Corrie"
(http://pwgd.org/gs/?p=12) and at the Kennedy School of Government of
Harvard University immediately following the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, "The
Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19062?email). In both instances, "Jewish
money" was involved. Perhaps there needs to be a totally open discussion of
the implications of Zionist ideology, and a no-holds-barred effort to
uncover the Zionist infrastructure's initiatives, successes and failures. I
think that is what both of you, Bill Templer and Jim Petras, are pointing
towards. You're probably correct.
      Also, for the benefit of those of you who might not have received word
of it, there's a petition in support of Finkelstein, which Chris told me
about. It's at (http://www.petitiononline.com/nf200704/petition.html). I
believe it's important to also write personal statements. But that of course
takes a bit more time and effort.
All best wishes, especially to Dennis H. Holtschneider and Charles S.Suchar,
who must feel that you and De Paul University are 'under the gun' of the
Zionists.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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      I want to recommend James Petras’ article, “US Empire and the Middle
East: Zionism, Puppet Regimes and Political Allies”, which I’ve now read
completely. It was posted on the Information Clearing House website on 4
April. Petras makes a very strong case for the extreme influence of what he
terms the ‘Zionist power configuration’ (ZPC) in the United States. His
essay begins:
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An understanding of US imperial policy in the Middle East requires an
analysis, which centers on four points:
1) The power and influence of Israel and the Zionist power configuration
over US political institutions (Congress, the Executive branch, the mass
media, the two major political parties and electoral processes), their
economic leverage on investment and financial institutions (state and trade
union pension funds, investment banks), their cultural domination of
journals, the performing arts, magazines, films and newspapers. Zionist
political, economic and cultural power is directed exclusively toward
maximizing Israel’s military, economic and political expansion and
superiority in the Middle East even when it conflicts with other US
imperialist interests.

2) The capacity of the US Empire to construct and instrumentalize Middle
East client states and mercenary forces to implement US policies. The most
prominent and important current instruments of US policy in the Middle East
include the puppet regime in Iraq, the Abbas-Dahlan group in Palestine, the
Kurds in Iraq, the Sinoria-Harari-Jumblat regime in Lebanon, the
Mujahideen-e Khalq Organisation, Kurds and Sunni tribalists in Iran and the
puppet Somali ‘regime’ backed by Ethiopian-Ugandan mercenaries.

3) An alliance with right-wing regimes and rulers in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel to provide military bases,
intelligence and political backing for the colonial occupation in Iraq, the
division of Iraq, economic sanctions and war against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas
and any other clerical-nationalist and leftist movements in the Middle East.

4) The capacity to contain, repress and limit the opposition of the majority
of the US public and a minority of Congress members to the current war in
Iraq and a future war against Iran. The key problem for US imperialism is
the discrediting of the civilian-militarists in the White House and their
increasing tendency to resort to new political ‘adventures’ and
‘provocations’ to recover support and to concentrate dictatorial powers in
the President’s office.

These ‘vectors’ of US Middle East policy are increasingly challenged from
within and without, are subject to sharp contradictions and face the
probability of failing. Nevertheless the ‘machinery’ of imperial power is
still operating and defining the nature of US Middle East policy.
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      Petras’ formulation in terms of the ‘Zionist power configuration’
(ZPC) is inclusive of all the elements in U.S. society that are part of that
power configuration. However, it is clear that he is focussed pricipally on
the primarily Jewish organizations, groups and individuals within the power
configuaration. I believe this is justified, despite the presence and weight
of those right-wing fundamentalist Christian groups that are part of the
ZPC.
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All comments and criticisms are welcome.  george.salzman at umb.edu>
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