occupied territories represents a true case of ethnic cleansing, with
Palestinians driven from their lands and with houses demolished in a long-term
process of "redemption of the land" for the "chosen people."
Serb destruction of houses in Kosovo was not to make room for Serbs, it was done
in a struggle to contain an armed Albanian resistance. It was savage, but
Israeli treatment of the Palestinian "grasshoppers" (Yitzhak Shamir)
during two separate Intifadas, and before and between them, has also been
savage. What is more, Israeli abuses are in occupied territory supposedly under
UN and international protection and with the Fourth Geneva Convention
applicable, whereas Serb abuses were being carried out within their own national
territory.
The
crucial difference is strictly that Israel is the Godfather’s client whereas
Serbia had gotten itself on his hit list. That is enough at this point in
history to determine a result no matter how seemingly arbitrary and
unprincipled. The client is free to ethnically cleanse, and no international
intervention to protect victims will be permitted, by rule of the Godfather–as
Richard Holbrooke explained, "no force would be supported without Israeli
approval," so that is that. Kofi Annan and everybody else with a small
modicum of decision-making power recognize that U.S. approval would be necessary
for international intervention, so the matter is settled by the U.S. veto. A
similar process applied in East Timor, where the position of the Clinton
administration was that this was an internal Indonesian problem and that nothing
could be done without Indonesian approval, although here also, as in the case of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the abuses were being carried out in territories
recognized by an international consensus–but not by the Godfather–as illegally
occupied. In this instance the Clinton administration did, finally, and very
belatedly, under international pressure, tell this client to get out, but only
after East Timor had been effectively destroyed and the majority of the
population had been made refugees.
It
will be recalled, also, that in the case of Kosovo, international observers,
which the Serbs had already permitted and whose presence they were prepared to
reaffirm at Rambouillet, were deemed insufficient to protect those victims.
There a full Nato military occupation was required. The Godfather declaring this
to be so, naturally the mainstream media and intellectuals agreed– "ethnic
cleansing" is very bad and must be ended by external intervention.
So
how do the media and intellectuals rationalize the Godfather’s veto of an
international presence to protect the Palestinians, victims of a REAL and
long-term ethnic cleansing process that, as Amira Hass stresses in Ha’aretz,
gets more brutal year by year? Key features of the rationalization are massive
suppression of the ethnic cleansing facts and a focus on the
"irrational" retail and responsive violence of the oppressed (see my
"Israel’s Approved Ethnic Cleansing: Part 2, Official U.S. and Media
Protection," forthcoming in Z Magazine in May). But another important
mechanism of rationalization is simply taking it for granted that no
international protection of the victims is necessary because the Godfather and
client say so, and even making such protection unnecessary because the Godfather
is serving as an "honest broker."
In
the few news articles and op-ed columns that deal with the subject it is
reported that Arafat has appealed for UN and international protection, but that
Israel and the United States reject this and therefore it isn’t about to happen.
The secret here is utter superficiality, with no discussion of the conditions
and Israeli behavior that might call for such intervention, no mention of the
Fourth Geneva Convention that Israel has been brazenly violating for many years,
and of course no comparisons in substance between the U.S. and
"international community" stance on the need to protect Kosovo
Albanians and Palestinians. Trudy Rubin, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s lightweight
and undeviatingly establishment oriented foreign policy editor, even notes that
the United States supported intervention in Kosovo, but not in Israel, which she
takes as unchallengeable fact; the discrimination and implied U.S. veto over
anything the world might want to do does not call for any further comment.
Most
spectacular, however, is the frequent assumption that the Godfather is truly an
honest broker. Thomas Friedman cites Clinton’s approval of Barak’s peace plan as
if this demonstrated its merits for all parties ("Arafat’s War," NYT,
Oct. 13, 2000). The bloodthirsty fanatic William Safire decries the fact that
the United States is so impartial, because "Israel Needs an Ally, It does
not need a broker" (NYT, Oct. 12, 2000). The New York Times editorializes
that "Israel rightly resists any shift to a more international format. Only
the United States has sufficient authority and credibility with both sides to
help them bridge their remaining differences" (Nov. 13, 2000).
Given
the fact that the United States has armed Israel to the teeth, rushes to supply
it with guns and money every time its ferocious stone-throwing victims put it
"under siege" (Albright) and force it to kill in the face of
"violence," has vetoed literally dozens of resolutions condemning
Israeli mistreatment and expropriations of Palestinians in the occupied
territories, and has joined with Israel for decades in rejecting implementation
of overwhelming international consensus votes calling upon Israel to return
their land to the Palestinians, this kind of statement captures well a bias that
is not only blatant but one that has contributed much to protecting Israeli
ethnic cleansing and state terrorism.
The
owners, editors and reporters of the Times have bloody hands, but they share
this characteristic with many others in the U.S. media and political and
intellectual establishment.