| VOL 6, NO 6 | June 2006 |
Paul Findley
Silence of the Poodles
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Paul Findley | |||
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My authority for making these statements comes from having been a close student of the lobby for over 30 years, the first 22 as a Member of Congress. The lobby leaders chose me as their number one target because I met unashamedly with PLO leader Yasser Arafat and later demanded the suspension of U.S. aid to Israel for its unlawful use of U.S.-donated military supplies. In 1982, when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC], the main center of Israeli lobbying in Washington, claimed credit for keeping me from election to a 12th term in the House of Representatives, I became the lobby’s prize trophy. Two years later, Senator Charles Percy, who was also guilty of failing to toe AIPAC line, joined me on the trophy shelf. Our fate has tended to focus the minds of other Members of Congress, discouraging them from the temptation to speak out about Israel’s misbehavior. Israel’s U.S. lobby is peerless among the hundreds of lobbies in our nation’s capital for one main reason: it alone is armed with the ultimate persuader, an ample supply of indictments for anti-Semitism The supply promotes automatic cooperation when legislation on behalf of Israel moves forward. It is the modern-day Sword of Damocles, a fearsome instrument that hangs over almost every head in our government. Until recently, it seemed to cow all of the nation’s prestigious scholars, except for a few hardy ones like Professor Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Juan Cole of the University of Michigan. In the study, they conclude that the flagrant, longstanding pro-Israel bias in U.S. Middle East policy has enabled Israel to tilt U.S. policy in ways that benefit Israel to the disadvantage of U.S. national interests, luring America even into costly wars and a rising tide of ill fame worldwide. They pin much of the blame on the influence of Israel’s U.S. lobby. One of their most significant conclusions: “The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel.” Mearsheimer and Walt quickly discovered why most of their academic colleagues behave much like the political poodles on Capitol Hill. Their study instantly became controversial, the subject of a vigorous U.S. discussion over Israel’s role in U.S. foreign policy for the first time since the Jewish state came into being in 1948. First published in the respected London Review of Books because no U.S. periodical was brave enough to give it a public audience, the study provoked such strong trans-Atlantic shock waves, thanks mainly to the Internet, that the wielders of the modern Sword of Damocles have gone public with a barrage of full-throated epithets, charging Mearsheimer and Walt with “ignorant propaganda, academic garbage, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel.” The Harvard Crimson quoted Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz as labeling the authors “liars” and “bigots.” Two other academics, in a letter to the London Review of Books, wrote ominously: “Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-Semitism.” They overlooked the fact that the lobby also includes powerful Christians. In a New York Daily News, less strident critic Harvard Professor David Gergen rebuked the authors by declaring that “over the course of four tours in the White House I never once saw a decision in the Oval Office to tilt U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel at the expense of America’s interest.” An experienced politician himself, Gergen must know that such tilts would never be recorded for anyone to see, even in the privacy of the Oval Office. In the column, Gergen mistakenly credited President Reagan with stopping Israel’s 1982 bloody assault on Lebanon. To the contrary, Israeli Prime Minister Begin was defiant, conveying his refusal in these words: “Nobody, nobody is going to bring Israel to her knees. You must have forgotten that the Jews kneel but to God.” [Source: George W. Ball: Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, p 45]. No matter what lies ahead, Mearsheimer and Walt have already well served the public. Their initiative has broken through a dangerous wall of silence. Thanks to publicity arising from their study, many thousands of U.S. citizens are aware for the first time that a domestic lobby on behalf of Israel exerts a significant role in forming U.S. Middle East policy, even on decisions of war. They are also now aware that religious communities—minority elements of both Christianity and Judaism—are the main pillars of the lobby.
Paul Findley was an Illinois Representative in Congress, 1961-83. He is the author of the bestseller, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby. He and Mrs. Findley reside in Jacksonville, Illinois. E-mail: Findley1@Verizon.net. MYANMAR: THROUGH BEIJING AND DELHI The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be meeting in Malaysia next month to discuss the situation in Myanmar. One hopes that the meeting will formulate a concrete plan of action based upon a timetable to compel the Myanmar government to prove that it is sincere and serious about dismantling the prevailing autocratic structures of power and moving towards a participatory democracy where ultimate authority would be in the hands of the people. There are two compelling reasons why ASEAN should produce a clear action plan this time. One, in the face of all the gentle, persuasive approaches from its fellow ASEAN states, and against the tide of international public opinion, the military junta in Myanmar has extended the detention of the much revered leader of the democracy movement in the country, Aung San Suu Kyi, by another year. Suu Kyi has already spent 10 out of the past 17 years in some form of detention or other. This shows that the junta cares little for world opinion, including that of the ASEAN regional grouping which has been rather protective of the illegal regime. Two, the United States is now working towards a United Nations resolution against the junta. While US officials have cited the violation of human rights in Myanmar as the reason for its proposed resolution, it is quite conceivable that it will use the issue to enlarge its influence in the region as part of its current attempt to ensure that its dominant geopolitical role in Asia remains unchallenged — especially in the wake of the rise of China, Myanmar’s closest ally in the world. This is why ASEAN should persuade China to play an active role in coaxing the Myanmar regime to abandon its present ways and to adopt tangible measures which will convince the world that it is keen on restoring democracy. Suu Kyi should of course be released without conditions and a firm date should be set for fresh nation-wide democratic elections, with all political actors participating. China should be told that unless there is a concrete action plan from the Myanmar regime, the US will seize the opportunity to pursue its own agenda. This could be detrimental to China’s own interests. India, with whom Myanmar is in the process of expanding economic ties, should also be brought on board. Next to China, it is India that Myanmar sees as a shield of sorts to protect its deeply flawed position on human rights from global censure. The ASEAN meeting in Malaysia should try to convince India that its own credentials as the world’s largest democracy could be severely tarnished if it is viewed by the international community as ‘the protector’ of the autocratic Myanmar regime The road to Myanmar, it is obvious, is through Beijing, and to a lesser degree, New Delhi. The ASEAN meeting should adopt a unified stand on sending a high level ASEAN delegation to both Beijing and Delhi to persuade their leaders to apply maximum pressure upon the Myanmar regime. It is only China and India, there is no need to reiterate, that can make the junta in Myanmar see light.
3 June 2006 THE NST AND THE POLITICS OF DISINFORMATION The Malaysian newspaper,the New Straits Times (NST), of 13 May 2006 carried a news report entitled ‘Uranium traces found at Iranian site’ sourced from AFP which alleged that “The UN atomic agency has found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country’s Defence Ministry”. The report attributed this allegation to unnamed diplomats. Since the report did not quote anyone from the UN atomic agency and did not name any diplomat, I became a little suspicious. As I had expected, the AFP based report had appeared in a number of other newspapers in various parts of the world before 13 May. The Iranian government immediately dismissed the report as “baseless claims that have been made in the past again and again, but they have no meaning for us.” The NST did not publish Tehran’s denial. It appeared in another English language newspaper in the country. One should not be surprised that disinformation of this sort about Iran’s nuclear programme has been appearing in the media with greater and greater frequency over the last six months. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself has been compelled to refute some of these concoctions on a couple of occasions in the past. Disseminating false information about a targeted nation in order to undermine its credibility before it is subjected to military action has now become part of a familiar pattern of operation associated with the mainstream media. For almost a year before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the mainstream Western media was busy churning out story after story about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction which were faithfully reproduced by a number of media channels in Asia. We now know that they were all scurrilous lies. In the months leading up to the January 1991 Washington helmed assault upon the Iraqi Army of Occupation in Kuwait, lurid tales about Saddam Hussein’s private life made headlines in tabloids in different countries, most of which have since been exposed as untrue. The media has an ethical responsibility to ensure that its reports especially on matters of such grave importance as the Iran nuclear crisis are honest and authentic. For pedaling falsehoods can have catastrophic consequences. The NST should be reminded that it is because so many media channels sought to justify and legitimize the Iraq War that the International Jury of Conscience on Iraq (of which I was a member) that met in Istanbul in June 2005 held the media directly responsible for the deaths and sufferings of not just the Iraqi people but also the Anglo-American led Occupation forces and their families. No person of conscience would want to see the media repeat its diabolical role in the Iran crisis. That it is imperative that the NST remains fully cognizant of its responsibility is underscored by yet another piece that appeared in yet another of its newspapers. In its editorial of 14 May 2006 on the D-8 Summit in Bali, The New Sunday Times opined that “If the D-8 can persuade President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad that he beats a lonely path to weapons grade uranium, the group will have given itself reason enough to meet again in the next Summit in Malaysia in 2008”. It is mischievous of the NST editorial to assume with unambiguous certainty that Iran is already pursuing a nuclear weapons program when the IAEA itself maintains after more than a thousand inspections that there is no evidence to suggest that Tehran is operating a clandestine nuclear weapons program or is anywhere close to manufacturing nuclear weapons. Most analysts have come to the same conclusion. Neither has the D-8 expressed any misgivings about Iran’s nuclear program; on the contrary, it reaffirmed the right of Muslim nations to undertake nuclear research for peaceful purposes—which Tehran insists is the mission of its nuclear program. The tone of the NST editorial mimics the rhetoric in neo-con circles and within the Zionist Right in Israel, the US and Europe, on the one hand, and among segments of the Christian Right in the US, on the other. Some of these elements have been pushing for military action against Iran even before the Iraq War began. We know that this is part of a much bigger agenda to establish total control over the Middle East which is the prerequisite for effective global hegemony. Now, I am beginning to wonder what the NST’s agenda is on the Iran issue?
16 May 2006 THAILAND AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY
Something very big is happening in Thailand. In recent weeks, people there have been in the grip of a constitutional debate that will have a lasting impact on their society. In fact it is a moment that has caught widespread attention and brought into public discussion some of the deepest complications when rooting democracy and the rule of law in any country. During massive protests in February and March, hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens called for the prime minister’s resignation. Pressed into a tight corner, he instead dissolved parliament and called a snap election for April 2. Opposition parties were left with insufficient time in which to organise and campaign. In an unusual show of solidarity, all major opposition parties boycotted the poll, in response to public calls for non-participation. Despite a big campaign from the ruling party, the boycott had a huge impact. In some seats government candidates running unopposed failed to get the minimum 20 per cent vote needed to enter parliament. In others, minor parties allegedly paid to run against Thai Rak Thai members, in order to overcome the 20 per cent rule, obtained more votes than the government candidate—although still only from a tiny fraction of the number of registered voters. Given the massive boycott of the election by large numbers of people throughout the country, the moral validity of the election was questioned from the beginning. As the discussion gained momentum, it increasingly revolved around which authority could determine the poll’s validity. There were growing calls for the King to intervene. However, on April 25 the King told the country’s senior most judges that they, not he, must solve the problem. The Thai courts have not played a leading role in solving the country’s constitutional and political crises in the past, although the 1997 Constitution established the Constitutional Court and Administrative Court alongside the Supreme Court with this purpose. After the King’s exhortation, the three courts met, leading to a decision by the Constitutional Court, by nine judges to five, that the election was invalid. The court recognised serious legal and procedural objections to the election, in particular, that in some places a secret ballot had not been observed. The courts’ interventions led to further questions over the impartiality and competence of the Election Commission, another agency created out of the 1997 Constitution. The commission was envisaged as a watchdog to put an end to the fraud and wrongdoing that plagued earlier elections in Thailand. However, the overwhelming feeling is that the existing commission has failed in this role. The permanent secretary to the Supreme Court president has called on the Election Commission to resign as the best way to resolve the impasse caused over the failed election. The chairman has refused to step aside, although one of the commissioners departed on May 16. However, there is now massive public pressure on the commission and it is hard to see how it will escape responsibility for the failed election, despite the emerging fact that its members seem to be beyond the authority of the courts. Hundreds of individual law suits have been filed against it by private citizens in a collective attempt to have its remaining members back down. The issues that are now being debated are of vital importance to the future of democracy and human rights in Thailand. Foremost is the role of the judiciary and the powers and procedures that should be in place for people to have recourse to it when matters of national importance arise. The new-found strength of the higher courts may lay the ground for future occasions when a firm and immediate role is required of them. It is also quite likely that the debate on development of actual provisions within the constitution itself will continue to grow and facilitate the expanded role of the judiciary. The immediate question is whether or not the Election Commission can continue to function. The holding of a free and fair election depends very much on the commission’s impartiality. Where public perception is that the commission has committed gross violations of its own rules, there is no choice but to replace it, and to ensure that the rules are held in place by the courts and scrupulously followed by its successor. In this regard, the provisions of the 1997 Constitution and accompanying laws on the independent bodies it created seem inadequate. Independence can only be meaningful when accompanied by accountability. Accountability and proper functioning can be ensured only by the oversight of a strong and effective judiciary. Judicial supervision is not a constraint on independence and impartiality; on the contrary, it is a guarantee. The Election Commission, National Counter Corruption Commission, Ombudsmen and others carry out administrative functions that must be subordinated to the judiciary, lest they by hijacked by their members with the wrong motives. This is particularly important in a country like Thailand, where powerful authoritarian forces may easily erode the stated independence of such bodies. At that time, the only effective recourse can be through the judiciary. It need not be said that there are much larger issues at stake for the people of Thailand than a mere election. At their heart is the question of how to ensure that the country’s democracy, obtained through a century-long struggle, is reinforced against all attempts at a return to authoritarianism. The test of democracy in Thailand is only just beginning. The threat of authoritarianism remains strong, but the people of Thailand have the will to over come it, starting with the present Election Commission.
Statement issued by Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). AHRC The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
IRAN: THE DAY AFTER
They have put the military - and even, horrifyingly, the nuclear - option at the center of the table. Don’t worry, they say, even if a preventive military strike is needed, we’re only talking about “surgical” attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities - no one, they say, is talking about invasion. It can’t happen, some say. The military brass knows their troops are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, they appear to be strongly opposed to a strike on Iran. And we know that any military strike on Iran - ANY strike - would be a violation of international law prohibiting preventive war. And George Bush now admits that “preventive war” - not his earlier claim of pre-emptive war - is indeed his strategic doctrine. We know that according to the International Court of Justice, even threatening to use nuclear weapons is a violation of international law - and the Bush administration is threatening to use nuclear “bunker-buster” bombs to attack Iran. We don’t hear much about it, but we know the National Academy of Sciences has found that “the use of such a weapon would create massive clouds of radioactive fallout that could spread far from the site of the attack, including to other nations. Even if used in remote, lightly populated areas, the number of casualties could range up to more than a hundred thousand” We know all that. But what if the Bush administration orders it anyway? What if they DO carry out just such a strike, nuclear or otherwise? Then what? What happens the day after? Practically no one is talking about that. And that makes this whole threat even more dangerous. It’s as if the Bush administration believes that the day after they bomb Iran, everything will be over, except maybe for the happy campers in the streets of Tehran cheering and clamoring for the U.S. to bomb some more to help them change their regime. Maybe they really do believe that. We have to assume there are plenty of Iranian versions of Ahmad Chalabi around Washington, exiles eager to return to power on the backs of U.S. tanks, urging the White House on. But there’s no reason we should believe them. Given the history of lies and deceit that underpinned the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, we have no excuse for buying their lies once again. Fool me once…fool me twice, after all. Let’s look at reality, instead of lies, distortions and weasel-words. If the U.S. attacks Iran - with nuclear or “conventional” bombs - it is virtually certain that Iranian retaliation will be swift and lethal. Iran’s surrounding neighborhood is, as the military jargon puts it, “target-rich.” Iran’s military strategists will have a wide choice. A direct attack on U.S. troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region (Oman and Qatar are both possibilities) is only the first option. Iran’s military is certainly no match for the Pentagon, but serious retaliation doesn’t require that; Tehran has plenty of conventional capacity to target those troop concentrations. How about Israel? Tel Aviv has been making bellicose threats towards Iran even before the Bush administration took up the crusade, and Israel’s 1981 destruction of Iraq’s French-built nuclear power plant at Osirak still looms large in Middle Eastern memories. Iran’s missiles can certainly reach Israeli cities. And given President Bush’s statements that Iran represents a threat to Israel, and that the U.S. will do whatever is needed to “protect our ally,” it is certainly possible that Iran’s retaliation will target Israel, regardless of whether it is ultimately U.S. or Israeli bombers that drop their lethal payload. Another possibility would be an attack through proxies, particularly in Iraq. Iraqi Shi’a and others, outraged by the expansion of Washington’s war to Iran, could well push already unstable parts of the country over the edge. Southern Iraq could collapse into chaos and violence. (Conversely, the widely-discussed claim that Iran might retaliate against the U.S. by “turning loose” Hezbollah to commit rampant terror attacks around the world appears to be grounded less in facts than in febrile Washington imaginations. Such a scenario assumes that Hezbollah, a decades-old anti-occupation movement in Lebanon created to resist Israel’s 1982 invasion, is nothing more than a cat’s-paw of the Iranian regime that Tehran can deploy at will. It denies the reality of Hezbollah’s independent, popular legitimacy, including its powerful representation in the Lebanese parliament, and the fact that despite long-standing Iranian support, Hezbollah’s strategic imperatives are driven by Lebanese, not Iranian, realities.) And what about the oil weapon? Iran certainly has the capacity to shut the strategic, but potentially vulnerable, Strait of Hormuz, through which a huge proportion of Middle Eastern oil flows to the rest of the world. What if the Iranian navy scuttled an oil tanker in the Strait, blocking oil traffic? What if it was a U.S. tanker? Do we really think the Bush administration - which so far has steadfastly refused even to hint at the possibility that Iran might respond with anything other than cheers and flowers to a U.S. bombing campaign - would respond to Tehran’s military retaliation politely, saying “oh of course we anticipated an Iranian strike-back, it’s just tit-for-tat and now it’s over”? Or do we think they will be true to form and move towards powerful retribution against Iran, possibly including the invasion by U.S. ground troops that we’re being told today is not even being considered? Some military analysts indicate Iran’s troops these days are training primarily in defensive guerrilla-war strategies, seemingly aimed at overcoming a future invasion. That shouldn’t surprise us. Iran, like the rest of the world, has watched the Bush administration’s disparate treatment of the various “Axis of Evil” countries. It has escaped no one’s notice – certainly not Iran’s – that the U.S. invaded Iraq, a country that had no viable nuclear program, while quietly ignoring North Korea, understood to have at least the technical capacity to produce, and perhaps already having, an existing nuclear weapon. We can assume that other countries around the world have learned the same dangerous and tragic lesson – that Non-Proliferation Treaty or not, if you get on the wrong side of Washington only a nuclear capacity might protect you from a possible U.S. invasion. At the end of the day Iran has been pretty clear about what it wants. It doesn’t seem to want an actual nuclear weapon (both the late Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor have issued religious prohibitions, or fatwas, against such weapons) although there’s little doubt that President Ahmadinejad appears to believe that posturing aggressively about “going nuclear” will help his flagging domestic ratings. (Sound familiar?) What Iran really wants, and has asked for, is serious negotiations with the U.S., based on equality, not humiliation. And at the end, a security guarantee that neither Europe nor the UN, but only the U.S. itself – the world’s “sole super-power” and the only nuclear weapons state threatening to actually use its nuclear arsenal – can provide. For all sides, talk is crucial. Nuclear weapons - in anyone’s hands - are a nightmare that should be abolished once and for all, as the now-fading Non-Proliferation Treaty anticipated so many years ago. Certainly Iran should abjure any search for nuclear weapons - but that’s not going to happen alone. What we need - what we ALL need - is a weapons of mass destruction-free zone throughout the Middle East. So not only no nukes for Iran, but let’s be sure Israel signs the NPT and places its unacknowledged but highly provocative Dimona arsenal of 200-400 high-density nuclear bombs under international supervision, and then allows the inspectors to destroy them. Let’s be sure no country in the Middle East is running a chemical- or biological-weapons program - the poor countries’ nuclear weapons substitute of choice and an unfortunate inevitability as long as Israel has a nuclear monopoly in the region. And it’s way past time for the U.S. to make good on its own NPT obligations to move towards full and complete nuclear disarmament. As long as Washington laughs off that obligation, and officially rejects it, it is hard to imagine why any other countries should take seriously a U.S. demand that take nuclear weapons off their agenda. Ironically enough the U.S. is already on record supporting just such a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. Article 14 of UN Security Resolution 687, that ended the 1991 Gulf War and imposed crippling sanctions on Iraq, states that disarming Iraq should be viewed as part of “establishing in the Middle East a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.” The language was written by the U.S. It’s time we held Washington accountable to that pledge. Let’s talk to Iran.
Phyllis Bennis’new book is “CHALLENGING EMPIRE: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power.” just published by Interlink. It is available from IPS or http://www.interlinkbooks.com.You can also get a copy of Challenging Empire with a donation of $100 or $10/month to IPS.Visit https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organization/IPS/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_key=116&t=mainips.dwt The Institute for Policy Studies
Israel at 58: A Failing Experiment
In spite of the above comments by Israel’s First Minister of Education (and reinforced by many other Israeli leaders), Israel was founded on the infamous fallacy that it was built on a ‘land with no people, for a people with no land’.Israel has utterly failed to persuade the world, and more recently more of its own people, that this was a valid premise for statehood. Also, given the fact that historic Palestine was inhabited prior to Israel being created, Israel has been unable to ignore that this very same fallacy is a raw form of outright racism. Israel expelled more than one half of the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948. Ever since, Israel has assumed a policy of civil discrimination, political imprisonment, torture, deportations, beatings, collective punishment, political assassinations, settlement building, economic dominance; the list is endless and intensified after the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967. For being an ‘empty’ land, the complications that Palestinians posed to the implantation of a Western state in the midst of the Middle East were overwhelming. Since its inception, Israel has arrogantly refused to address the most crucial prerequisite of its establishment as a conventional State — accepting the Palestinians — those people that just happened to be living in that ‘empty’ land of Israel. The Palestinians, those that were forcefully expelled from their homes in 1948, 1967, and more recently in 2001, have been living in squalid refugee camps throughout the region. The Palestinians, those that did not flee Israel-proper in 1948 are today fourth class Israeli citizens. The Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem that have lived under Israeli military occupation for 40 years, to the day, will continue to haunt the international community until justice is served and the Israeli occupation is ended, in its entirety. Similarly, it should be no surprise that past Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, rushed to sign the now failed Oslo Peace Accords after calculating the historic ramifications of the political earthquake that took place when the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, politically recognized the State of Israel. Rabin paid for that signature with his life, which was taken by one of his own citizens, a fanatic Jewish student. This was as close as Israel has ever been in closing the last chapter of its establishment. It was totally in Israel’s – the occupying power’s – hands then, as it is today, to end the occupation of the Palestinians and start the bitter process of reconciliation.
While the Bush Administration continues to ignorantly turn a blind eye to Israel’s blatant violations of international law and human rights, the United States runs the fear that the globalized world will start to question the moral authority inherent in the US’s unfettered support of an Israel that publicly pursues a policy that only has the intransigence to move an entire region into long-term political and economic turmoil. Countries that have bought into the New World Order of Globalization should start to internalize the consequences to themselves, if the US, in a world it single-handily runs, chooses to defend the wrong side of history at its will. Today, on the 58th remembrance of the Palestinian Nakba (translated Catastrophe) Israel must choose between continuing an illegal occupation and preserving the self-defined, albeit discriminatory, nature of the State of Israel. To think that both can peacefully co-exist, or possibly even singly exist, is utter ignorance of history and human development. Also, for Israel to believe that the US will continue to jeopardize its New World Order of Globalization for the sake of fulfilling an Israeli illusion of Palestinian submission is a miscalculation to the nth degree.
The writer is a Palestinian-American living in the besieged Palestinian City of El-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com. World Military Expenditures In 2004, world military expenditures reached $1 trillion - an average of $162 per person. The United States accounted for nearly half, 47%, of the total. There was a reduction in military spending at the end of the Cold War and until 1998. Since then, there has been an increasing trend; from 2002 to 2004 there was an annual average increase of about 6% in real terms (adjusted for inflation).
Military Spending in the Developing World While the amount of military spending in developing countries is small by comparison to global spending, it often occupies budget space desperately needed for development and social service. Research sponsored by UNICEF indicates that government spending on basic social services - primary education, basic health, and access to safe water - have a particularly big impact on children in poor countries. However, most developing countries spend only 12 to 14 percent of the national budgets on these services. The World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) summary reports that in 1999, on average developing countries spent 14.5% of central government expenditures on the military. In South Asia, the average percentage of military spending as a percentage of central government expenditures was 16.1%, and in Southern Africa it was 17.1%.
Another issue highly related to world military expenditures is foreign aid. Aid, normally from wealthy countries to developing countries, comes in various forms – humanitarian, development, military, etc. While international aid is substantial, by many standards wealthy countries give relatively modestly, and much aid is heavily tied to the foreign policy objectives of the donor country rather than to the needs of the recipient country. Source - Global Policy Forum: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/oda/tables/milvsaid.htm.Data from SIPRI and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some things to consider about aid to developing countries:
Source :World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence September 2005. |
Words spoken years ago by George W. Ball, a distinguished diplomat, author and champion of human rights, have vivid, new currency: “When Israel’s interests are being considered, Members of Congress act like trained poodles. They jump dutifully through hoops held by Israel’s lobby.” In the same interview, Ball said, “The lobby’s most powerful instrument of intimidation is the reckless charge of anti-Semitism.” Sadly, his words ring true today, verified by my own experiences and those of many of my colleagues in the U.S. legislature.
The airwaves and the headlines are full of talk of a U.S. military strike against Iran. That is as it should be - the danger of such a reckless move is real, and rising, and we should be talking about it. The Bush administration claims that negotiations are their first choice. But they have gone to war based on lies before, and there is no reason to believe that they are telling the truth this time.
One of Israel’s founding Ministers of Education and Culture, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur (1954), said it most sharply; “In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don’t agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force.” (History of the Haganah.) With this theme as the explicit backdrop of a newly established State, it is no wonder that Israel, 58 years later, has had little chance of being a normal member of the state of nations.
Every step of the way, as Israel further entrenched its illegal occupation of the Palestinians, it has been continuously rewarded by the United States of America. Israel has been propped up, financially and politically, by every single US administration at the expense of internationally unconscious US taxpayers, fully obedient to the direction of the far-reaching Israeli lobby and narrow commercial interests. What started as a US strategic ally in one of the most sensitive spots in the world during a Cold War that marred common sense, has rapidly digressed into a liability in an age of globalization that the United States alone is spearheading.
The need for basic social services in developing countries is clearly evident: