How the West and Free Press Have Accepted, Approved and Underwritten Israel’s Long-Term Ethnic Cleansing and Institutionalized Racism

This is a Z Magazine-footnoted version, originally appeared in the March 2006 issue.

One of the most dubious clichés of the humanitarian intervention

intellectuals and media editors and pundits is that human rights have become

more important to the United States and

other NATO powers and a major influence on their foreign policy in recent

decades. David Rieff writes that human rights "has taken hold not just as a

rhetorical but as an operating principle in

all the major Western capitals, " and his comrade in righteous arms Michael

Ignatieff claims that our enhanced "moral instincts" have strengthened "the

presumption of intervention when massacre

and deportation become state policy." [1] This

perspective was built in good part on the basis of the experience –

and misreading – of developments during the dismantlement of

Yugoslavia in the

1990s, where the propaganda line was that NATO had reluctantly and belatedly

entered that conflict to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated by

the Serbs, and had done so successfully. This

was allegedly an intervention rooted in Blair-Clinton-Kohl-Schroeder

humanism, supported and pressed on these leaders by journalists and human

rights protagonists.

There were many things wrong with this explanation and analysis of

recent Balkans history, one of the most important of which was that NATO

intervention was not late – it came quite early and

was a primary cause of the ethnic cleansing that followed as it encouraged a

breakup of Yugoslavia in a manner that left large unprotected minorities in

the newly formed republics, thereby assuring

ethnic conflict; it sabotaged peace agreements within these new states in

the years1992-1994; and it encouraged non-Serb minorities to hope for NATO

military aid in arriving at final

settlements-which they finally did get. The NATO powers even actively or

passively supported the most complete ethnic cleansings of the Balkan

wars-which was of Serbs in Croatia’s Krajina area and

Serbs in NATO-occupied Kosovo from June 1999. [2]

There were other problems with the notion that the NATO intervention in

the Balkans had a humanitarian basis and effect, but it is equally important

to recognize the selectivity in this

focus and the political root of that selectivity. The humanitarian

interventionists were almost completely silent during the 1990s massacres

and deportations by Indonesia in East Timor, the Turkish

slaughters and village burnings in their Kurdish areas, the killings and

huge refugee exodus in Colombia, and the large-scale massacres in the Congo

carried out in good part by invaders from

Rwanda and Uganda. For some reason the "moral instinct" of the humanitarian

politicians didn’t reach these cases, where the killers were allies of

these politicians – and obtained arms and

military aid and training from them. Equally interesting, the moral instinct

of the humanitarian interventionist intellectuals and journalists failed to

over-ride the biased focus of their

political leaders but instead worked in parallel with those biases. This

helped their political leaders go after the targeted villains with greater

violence, partly by diverting attention from

the approved villains and the damage they were inflicting on their

(implicitly unworthy) victims.

The Remarkable Case of Israel

The most interesting and perhaps most important case of an aborted

"moral instinct" is that involving Israel, where the state has been engaged

in a systematic policy of dispossession

and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians on the West Bank and in East

Jerusalem for decades, not only without a meaningful response on the part of

the Free World, but with steady support from

the United States and spurts of approval and support from its democratic

allies. The ability of the Western political leaders, media and humanitarian

intellectuals to get enraged at approved

villains like Arafat, Chavez, and Milosevic, while treating Begin, Netanyahu

and Sharon kindly as statesmen deserving of economic and military aid and

diplomatic support, is a small miracle

of self-deception, advanced double standards, and moral turpitude.

What makes it a miracle is that the basic premises as well as performance

of the Israeli state fly in the face of the entire range of enlightenment

values that supposedly underlie

Western civilization.

First, it is a racist state as a matter of ideology and law. It is

officially a Jewish state, 90 percent of the land in the state is reserved

for Jews, Palestinians have been barred from

leasing or buying state-owned lands that were seized in 1948 and later, and

Jews from abroad have a right to immigrate and become citizens with

privileges superior to those of indigenous non-Jews.

This kind of ideology and law was unacceptable as regards the apartheid

state of South Africa, although it is interesting that Reagan was

"constructively engaged" with that state, Margaret

Thatcher found it quite tolerable, and South African "anti-terror"

operations were integrated with those of the Free World. [3] The Nazis treatment of the Jews in Germany even

before the

organization of the death camps was and still is considered outrageous; and

the Soviet mistreatment of its Jewish population even led to punitive U.S.

legislation (the Jackson-Vanik bill, still

on the books). But the Israeli analogue of the Nuremberg laws and its

construction of a state built on racial discrimination is acceptable to the

enlightened West. The "chosen people" replace

the "master race," and that is not only acceptable, Israel is held up as a

model democracy and "light unto the world" (Anthony Lewis). And by

implication, Israel’s creation of a body of

humans who are second class citizens by law (or of a still lesser class in

the occupied territories), legally and politically "untermenschen," is also

acceptable. This is a unique system

of "privileged racism."

Second, the Israeli state has been allowed to ignore numerous Security

Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding its

occupation of the West Bank, as well as the International

Court of Justice ruling on its apartheid wall, and simply dispossess the

Palestinians of a large fraction of their land and water, demolish

thousands of their homes, cut down many

thousands of their olive trees, destroy their infrastructure, and create a

modern network of roads through the occupied West Bank for Jews only while

imposing serious obstacles to

Palestinian movement within the West Bank. [4] This

systematic ethnic cleansing has been implemented by an extremely well

trained and well equipped army working over a virtually unarmed indigenous

population, to make room for Jewish settlers-and in violation of

international law on the proper behavior of an occupying power. This is a

unique system of "privileged ethnic cleansing,"

"privileged law violations," and "privileged exceptions to Security Council

and International Court rulings."

Third, Israel has periodically crossed its borders to make war on its

neighbors – Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon – has engaged in

supplementary bombing or acts of terrorism against those three countries

plus Tunisia, and for many years maintained a terrorist proxy army in

Lebanon while carrying out numerous terrorist raids there under its Iron

Fist policy, inflicting heavy civilian casualties. [5]

While the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was proclaimed to be in response to

terrorist attacks, in fact it was based on the absence of terrorist attacks

(despite deliberate Israeli provocations) and the

fear of having to negotiate with the Palestinians rather than continue to

ethnically cleanse them. [6] There was of course no

punishment or sanctions against Israel for these actions, as Israel

benefits from a "privileged right to aggression, state terrorism, and

sponsorship of terrorism," which is not unique but which follows from the

country’s status as a U.S. ally and client state.

Fourth, given its right to ethnically cleanse and terrorize in violation

of Security Council resolutions and international law, its victims have no

right to resist. They may be pushed off

their land, their homes demolished, olive trees uprooted, and their people

killed by IDF and settler violence, but forcible resistance on their part is

unacceptable "terrorism," to be deeply

deplored. A thousand odd Palestinians were killed by the Israelis during

their first and non-violent phase of resistance in the initial intifada

(1987-1992), but their passive resistance had no

effects on the illegal occupation, the international community did nothing

to alleviate their distress, and Israel had a tacit understanding with the

United States that it would be supported in its

violent response to the intifada until that resistance was broken. The ratio

of Palestinians to Israelis killed in these years was 25 to 1 or higher,

but given Israel’s privileged right to

terrorize, it was the Palestinians still labeled the terrorists.

Fifth, with full rights to ethnically cleanse and terrorize, and exempt

from international law, the Israelis were also free to put in charge of the

state a man responsible for a string of

terrorist attacks on civilians and, at Sabra and Shatila, a massacre of

somewhere between 800 and 3000 Palestinian civilians. Amusingly, the

Yugoslav Tribunal argued that genocidal intent could be

inferred from an action seeking to kill all the people of a given group in

one area, even if not part of a plan to kill all them elsewhere, citing

their own earlier decisions plus a UN Assembly

resolution of 1982 that the slaughter of 800 at Sabra and Shatila was "an

act of genocide." [7] But that kind of Tribunal

judgment was applied only to target Serbs-it was not only not

applied by the West to Sharon, it didn’t even interfere with his becoming an

honored head of state.

Sixth, with rights to ethnically cleanse and terrorize, such invidious

words were made inapplicable to Israeli actions. They were applied with

great indignation to Serb operations in Kosovo, which

were features of a civil war (stoked from abroad) and were not, as in the

Israeli case, designed to remove and replace an indigenous population in

favor of a different ethnic group.

Israel was not only exempt from charge of an extremely applicable pair of

words, it has also been the beneficiary of privileged usage of the words

"security" and "violence." The

Palestinians may be far more insecure than the Israelis and subject to a

much higher and more sustained level of violence, but again it is the

Palestinians who must reduce their resort to violence

and the big issue is how Israel can be made more secure. Palestinian

security is not an issue in the West, because their victimization is of no

concern and because their insecurity is a result

of their failure to accept the ethnic cleansing process and their

resistance to that process. They are "unworthy victims," by virtue of

deep-seated political bias.

The ethnic cleansing process, which involves wholesale terrorism, and is

the causal force that has elicited a responsive Palestinian retail

terrorism, is actually put forward (along with the

wall), not as a deliberate program to "redeem the land" for the chosen

people but as necessary for "Israel’s legitimate response to terrorism." [8] And the primary terrorists get away with

this!

Seventh, Israel is the only Middle Eastern state that has built up a

stock of nuclear weapons, and it has been aided in this not only by the

United States but also by France and Norway. This has

happened despite the 39 years of ethnic cleansing, steady and

record-breaking violations of Security Council demands and international

law, and periodic invasions of Israel’s neighbors.

This privileged right to nuclear weaponry and exemption from the

jurisdiction of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Non-Proliferation

Treaty flows from Israel’s other privileges noted

earlier, and ultimately the protection and cover of U.S. power.

Eighth, the Free World has been aghast at the possibility that Iran might

be positioning itself to acquire nuclear weapons at some future date. Iran

has of course been threatened with "regime

change" and bombing and other attacks by both the United States and Israel,

but Iran’s actions conflict with the regime of privilege in which only

Israel (and its superpower underwriter)

have a security problem and right of self defense; others, like the

Palestinians on the West Bank, must accept a position of inferiority, acute

insecurity, and ethnic cleansing and apartheid walls

and policies. Still others, like Iran, must cope with the threat of attack

and sanctions for engaging in legal actions and possibly seeking nuclear

means of self-defense, without help

from a Free World busily appeasing the United States and its Middle Eastern

client. So Israel not only has a nuclear privilege, it is able to get the

Free World to help it monopolize that

privilege in the Middle East, which of course gives it greater freedom to

ethnically cleanse.

Ninth, the Free World has also been upset at the victory of Hamas in the

Palestinian election of January 26, 2006. It is widely held that this may

disturb the "peace process," and George

Bush is not prepared to negotiate with a group that employs "violence"!

Violence, however, is the Bush and U.S. specialty, with three major

aggressions in the last seven years and an openly announced

program of domination based on military superiority; and Israel’s operations

in Palestine are violent beyond anything the Palestinians have been able to

muster, although in the ludicrously

biased West "suicide bombing" is horrifying whereas "targeted

assassinations" are not (although if the Palestinians had the capability of

targeting Israeli officials who can doubt that this

would horrify?). But just as "terrorism" cannot apply to the actions of the

United States and its Israeli client, neither can an invidious word like

"violence." These states only "retaliate" and

reluctantly use force in "self-defense" and with the best of intentions in

service to their "security" and humanitarian ends-and the West buys

this.

Hamas has grown in popularity because Fatah and its leaders have failed

to stop the ethnic cleansing process and have been unable to halt a steady

increase in Palestinian misery, with Israel

simply walking over Fatah’s leaders and making their tenure a complete

failure. Hamas was actually funded by Israel years ago with the objective of

splintering the Palestinians and weakening the

secular Fatah. It succeeded in this, but now that an Islamic group has taken

on power they and their patron will be able to find another reason to avoid

any final negotiated settlement with the

Palestinians, who have now voted in a party that does not eschew violence as

Sharon and Bush have done! Hamas also refuses to disarm and insists on a

right to defend its people against a

ruthless ethnic cleansing occupation, but in the West this is unreasonable

as only one side has the right to arms, self-defense and a concern over

"security." There is no right to resistance in

this case of shriveled moral instincts.

The "peace process" is an ultimate Orwellism, which I defined years ago

in a Doublespeak Dictionary as "Whatever the U.S. government happens to be

doing or supporting in an area of conflict

at the moment. It need not result in the termination of conflict or ongoing

pacification operations in the short or long term." So the "peace process"

in Palestine, steadily accepted or

actively supported by the U.S. government, has been characterized by

intensified ethnic cleansing, the destruction of the Palestinian

infrastructure, the settlement of some 450,000 Jews in the West

Bank, the construction of an apartheid wall, and the Israeli takeover of

much of East Jerusalem-in other words, the establishment by state terrorism

of enough "facts on the ground" to

make any kind of viable Palestinian state unthinkable. But for the

propaganda organs of the Free World, there has been a meaningful "peace

process" going on that the election of Hamas might

halt! [9]

How Do We Explain These Abominations and This Hypocrisy?

This has all come about because the Israeli leadership has wanted

lebensraum for the chosen people, the indigenous Palestinians have stood in

the way and have had to be removed, and the Israelis

have been able to do this, with critical U.S. military and diplomatic

support. This process has fed on itself. That is, the eventual Palestinian

violent resistance, along with Palestinian

relative weakness and vulnerability, have exacerbated the racist

underpinning of the ethnic cleansing project, with a resultant increase in

its savagery over the years, helped along by Israel’s

elevation to its recent leadership of a major war criminal. U.S. aid and

protection in the project has been crucial, as that has prevented any

effective international response to policies which

violate basic morality as well as law, and which if carried out by a target

state would result in bombing and trials for war crimes. [10]

The U.S. role, and the neutralization of any "moral instinct" in the

United States itself, results in part from geopolitical considerations and

the role of Israel as a U.S. proxy and

enforcer, and in part from the ability of the pro-Israel lobby and its

grass-roots and Christian right supporters to cow the media and political

establishment into tacit or open support

of the ethnic cleansing project. The lobby’s tactics include aggressive

exploitation of guilt, with references to the Holocaust, identification of

criticism of Israeli ethnic

cleansing with "anti-semitism," along with straightforward bullying and

attempts to stifle criticism and debate [11] –

efforts which intensify in parallel with increases in the viciousness of the

ethnic cleansing process.

These efforts have been aided by 9/11 and the "war against terror," which

have helped demonize Arabs and make Israeli policy a part of that supposed

war. The lobby and its representatives in the

Bush administration were eager supporters of the attack on Iraq, and they

are now fighting energetically for war against Iran – in fact the

lobby is the only sector of society calling for a

confrontation with Iran and it is already engaged in a major campaign on

Bush and Congress to get the United States to take action. The Iraq war

provided an excellent cover for intensified ethnic

cleansing in Palestine, and a further war, despite its serious risks, might

help in a further phase of ethnic cleansing and possible "transfer" of a

population that poses a "demographic

threat."

The performance of the "international community" in the face of the

ethnic cleansing project has been a disgrace. Gung-ho for a war and trials

of alleged villains in the ex-Yugoslavia,

where the United States was pleased to oppose ethnic cleansing, selectively,

the EU, Japan, Kofi Annan, most of the NGOs, and the Arab states, have been

gutless and their "moral instinct" paralyzed by the U.S. commitment to

Israel, the strength of Israel and its diaspora, the Israeli exploitation

of Holocaust guilt, and in the EU the racist bias held over from the

colonial

past and exacerbated by the flow of propaganda that features "suicide

bombers," not targeted assassinations and massive and illegal brutalization

and land theft.

Holocaust denial is reprehensible, but in the current political context

it is confined to marginal elements and has no real impact, except for

possibly providing a diversion from those engaged in

"ethnic cleansing denial," which as regards Israel is real and widespread

among Western elites and has serious consequences.

Conclusions

Palestine is a crisis area par excellence, where a virtually helpless

people has been abused, humiliated, beggared, and steadily displaced by

force in favor of settlers protected by a huge

military machine, supplied in turn and protected by the United States, and

with the tacit agreement, if not more, of the rest of the Free World. The

big issue now for the Free World is, will Hamas

behave and accept ethnic cleansing (still in very active process) and

possible bantustan status at best, or will it threaten to resist and to

commit "terrorism"? Power and racism have neutralized

that "moral instinct" in the West in respect of this very important

case.

It is a very important case in part because several million Palestinians

are being immiserated in a tragic system of violence that could be

terminated easily by the United States and

international community by simply saying stop and threatening an end to aid

and possibly sanctions. But in the Free World the causal force is not seen

as the occupation and ethnic cleansing but

rather the resistance to these abuses. This perspective is stupid, vicious,

and is actually a rationalization of the racist and politically

opportunistic support of the ethnic

cleansing project.

The situation in Palestine is also very important because hundreds of

millions of Arabs and a billion or more people of the Islamic faith, and

billions beyond that, interpret the West’s

treatment of the Palestinians as a reflection of a racist and colonialist

attitude toward Arabs, Islamists, and Third World people more broadly. It is

a wonderful producer of anti-Western

terrorism, but also and even more importantly a deep anger, hatred and

distrust of the West and its motives. It is a cancer that bodes ill for the

future of the human condition.