Steve Shalom, one of few Jewish critics of Israel around...
important to have a look at this article, and understand the US
arms involvement with Israel.
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From: "Michael Albert" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: ZNet Commentary / Feb 11 / Steve Shalom / Green
Lights and Red Herrings
Date sent: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 13:32:22 -0000
Here is today's ZNet Commentary Delivery from Steve Shalom.
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Here then is today's ZNet Commentary...
---------------
Green Lights and Red Herrings By Stephen R. Shalom
In December 1975, after receiving a green light from U.S. President
Gerald and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Indonesian
President Suharto launched an invasion of East Timor. The
weapons for the attack came from the United States. "Of course
there were US weapons used," commented one high-ranking
Indonesian general. "These are the only weapons that we have."
U.S. law, however, prohibited Jakarta from using its U.S.-supplied
weapons for purposes other than self-defense. When the State
Department Legal Advisor Monroe Leigh raised this point in a cable
to Kissinger, the Secretary of State exploded: "The Israelis when
they go into Lebanon -- when was the last time we protested that?"
-- an accurate observation that would soon become prophetic.
Kissinger went on: "And we can't construe a Communist
government in the middle of Indonesia as self defense?" (Nation, 29
Oct. 1990, p. 492). Kissinger fans will recall his similar comment
on authorizing the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected
government: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a
country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own
people." Of course, Communism was a red herring in both cases.
In response to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, the U.S.
publicly announced that it was suspended arms supplies to
Jakarta, but, there was actually no interruption in weapons
deliveries and, under Kissinger's orders, the "suspension" was
quietly lifted the next month.
In 1977, the Indonesians were beginning to run low on weapons, so
the United States -- now under the administration of President
Jimmy Carter -- accelerated the arms flow. And when
Congressional restrictions prevented Carter from providing jets to
Jakarta in 1978, he used Israel as a conduit: Israel sent U.S.
warplanes to Indonesia while the United States re-supplied Israel.
In the late 1970s, some 200,000 East Timorese -- more than a
quarter of the population -- died under the ferocious Indonesian
assault, made possible by U.S. weapons.
In 1982, the United States gave another green light, this time for a
full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Two days after the Israeli
armed forces, the IDF, rolled over the border, Secretary of State
Alexander Haig told a news conference that President Reagan had
"deferred judgment" on whether Israel's use of U.S. weapons in
Lebanon violated U.S. law. Over the ensuing weeks, Israel
conquered half the country, killed thousands of civilians, destroyed
countless homes, attacked Syrian forces in the Bekka Valley, and
broke numerous truces. The Israeli army sat poised outside Beirut,
alternately shelling the city, making tank forays, and cutting off its
water and electric supply. The Reagan administration did hold up
one shipment to Israel of cluster bombs (anti-personnel weapons
being used by the IDF on Beirut), but pointedly declared that it
would not make a legal determination about whether Israel had
violated U.S. law. At the same time, Reagan assured Jewish
leaders that his administration would not impose sanctions against
Israel. On August 5, Reagan told Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak
Shamir -- in what might hold the record for understatement:
"Should these Israeli practices continue, it will become
increasingly difficult to defend the proposition that Israeli use of
U.S. arms is for defensive purposes." These Israeli practices did
continue, and U.S. arms continued to flow.
Israel justified its invasion by claiming PLO terrorism on the border
(in fact the border had been quiet for eleven months except when
there were Israeli provocations), that the Israeli ambassador to
Britain had been shot in London (yes, but by a virulently anti-PLO
organization), and that they were countering the Syrians (who were
in Lebanon under an Arab League mandate, having been invited
into the country in 1976, with encouragement from Washington and
Tel Aviv, to combat a Palestinian-leftist coalition). In short, more
red herrings.
Unfortunately, U.S. arming of foreign aggressors is not just a thing
of the past. Consider an article in the New York Times of Feb. 3,
2000, by William A. Orme Jr. The thrust of Orme's report is that a
planned Israeli purchase of new "Apache" helicopters from the U.S.
has been held up because Washington does not want to share
secret military software with Israel for fear that the latter might
transfer these secrets to China and India, customers for its own
arms industry. But the article also mentions -- in passing, and
without further comment -- how Israel's current U.S. helicopters are
being used and how the new ones will be used:
"Israel's decade-old fleet of 42 Apaches is in almost daily combat
use, flying three-hour round-trip sorties to southern Lebanon from
carefully camouflaged hangars here. Air Force officers say their
bombing raids against Hezbollah guerrilla targets would be more
effective and pose less risk to crews if they could use the newer
Longbow Apaches."
In other words, U.S. weapons are being used on a regular basis for
military actions in a neighboring country without any objection from
Washington, and a new sale of weapons for the specific purpose of
further acts of aggression is being considered.
Of course, the Israelis claim -- as they did in 1982 and as the
Indonesians claimed in 1975 -- that their actions are totally
defensive. But when Israel first moved into southern Lebanon in a
big way in 1978, the UN Security Council unanimously passed
Resolution 425 which called "upon Israel immediately to cease its
military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw
forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory" -- a resolution Israel
has been defying for more than two decades. For many years the
pattern has been that when Lebanese guerrillas strike at IDF
soldiers occupying southern Lebanon, Israel responds with what
can only be called terrorism. For example, when 3 Israeli soldiers
were killed in April 1993, "Israeli helicopters fired at least 15
missiles into three houses, a bakery and a valley outside the zone,
as tanks and artillery slammed 200 shells around a string of
villages in the region," wounding eight civilians and a UN soldier
(NYT, 14 Apr. 1993, A13).
Israel's new Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, has promised to withdraw
Israeli troops from Lebanon by the summer. So why the need for
the helicopters? A report by Deborah Sontag in the New York
Times on Oct. 7, 1999, suggested an answer, noting that in order
to minimize its own casualties the new IDF strategy is to
emphasize airborne attacks: "What we are really doing is
introducing technologies that partially substitute for the physical
presence of soldiers," said Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim
Sneh.
So it seems that once again U.S. weaponry will be facilitating
international aggression. Washington provides the green light and
endorses the red herrings. And it will continue to do so until we can
exert the public pressure to stop it.
--------------------
Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at William Paterson
University in NJ. He is the author of Imperial Alibis and is currently
working on Which Side Are You On? An Introduction to Politics.
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