Political change in the United States? As in Israel, just different faces.

When the former Israeli prime minister Sharon, was taken to hospital almost one year ago, and his successor Olmert invited Peretz to head the ministry of defence, political commentators made money once again with their articles in support of the powerful leaders. The foresaw an almost rosy future for Israel under the auspices of Peretz, “Peace Now” forerunner and notable Labour member who promised increases in social services and advances in negotiations with the Palestinians. None of the comments makes the Israeli government less guilty of crimes against humanity and the commentators less accountable for their support of the government.

Rumsfeld left yesterday the ministry of defence of a government as genocidal as Israel’s, but as it happened with Sharon, this punctual change, or the wider ones brought by elections, is unable to achieve justice. A place in a bench in front of a war crimes tribunal and against humanity, should be the first stop in his way to a sentence in accord with his crimes, if someone is able to visualize one.

This very morning political commentators and editors, who are used to consider Bush’s crimes in the Middle East more or less serious political mistakes, and who refer to his victims as alleged terrorists, keep on earning money celebrating Rumsfeld’s departure and the Democratic Party’s electoral victory.

They never lose, they always side with the winner. If a Republican administration fails while sending armies to invade, destroy and occupy Third World nations, they still have the chance to criticise the failure and celebrate the arrival of a Democrat one, which will invade, destroy and occupy the same nations, but through humanitarian interventions and peace-keeping forces.

The best selling Spanish newspaper El País opens its editorial comment of November 9th about the last carnage in Gaza with this sentence: “The slaughter, presumably accidental…” It is crystal clear that numerous similar massacres during the 40 years of the bloody occupation of Palestine do not prevent pro-Israel commentators from placing a fitting doubt in the right place, with the hardly concealed aim of diminishing the international impact of the latest crime.

One wonders if comments like this one about Israel’s crimes are written by a computer programmed to support the Zionist cause, namely, to expel the Palestinians from their land no matter how, dead or alive, in order to make room for Jewish people from abroad. It is hard to believe that the writer of an editorial piece about Gaza hides Israel’s genocidal record, fails to mention the many charges it has received for its violations of international law, remains silent about the illegality of the occupation of Palestinian lands, avoids to inform about its use of banned weaponry against civilians, does not mention that it terrorises a population on top of keeping it under siege, and does not bring to light the fact that army personnel are routinely acquitted of gross human rights violations against the Palestinians, children under 10 years old and pregnant women included. The main difference between machine and human being is that the first does not receive any moneys for its support towards the Zionist cause.

No one should be fooled: US voters have not changed their Middle East policy. They have simply changed their policy’s head. What is more important: they did not introduce the change because they realised that their policy in Iraq –and other places- is a criminal one, but because it is unprofitable. It is easy to shout “mission accomplished” in a battleship deck in front of the world TVs before the arrival of problems and big spending, but it is quite difficult to repeat it after billions of dollars literally burnt and around three thousand soldiers killed in Iraq.

Because of their Middle East policies, US top leaders have become the laughing stock of the big powers, China and Russia. European countries –middle size powers- now shy away from their master, although they banked on nice war spoils when they sided with it. On the other hand, the hundreds of Arab and Muslim victims do not even appear in the picture, their numbers do not have a place in their executioners’ balance sheet.

US voters have not punished Bush because of his war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, they simply have reproached him for failing to achieve their imperial dream soon and cheaply. There were no complaints when Bush destroyed a whole country. On the contrary, he was acclaimed by standing men and women clapping their hands in the House of Representatives. No one spoke about taking him to a tribunal to face charges for those crimes. US voters only express their frustration for not bumping Iraqis off as their ancestors did so easily with the native population

Before a war crimes tribunal Bush could always say that the majority of the US was with him from the beginning of the war and almost until the end, since his voters only deserted him when he revealed himself as unfit to carry out the US Imperialist policy in the Middle East, not even massacring hundred of thousands of Iraqis.

Since it is almost sure that US war criminals will never face a war crime tribunal, since it is a hundred per cent sure that political editors will find new words to show mass murders as political mistakes, since it is pretty sure that the now abashed voters of the Democratic Party will become enthusiastic voters of the Republican Party as soon as the wind changes again, some comfort can be found in the blow the resistance has inflicted to the Imperial US plans and in the fact that the martyrs’ blood has not been shed in vain.

The recent Lebanese resistance success is also another reason for hope. It looks like the start of a wider movement that stretches out to Palestine, Iraq and other subjected nations looking for a world free from oppressors and their apologetic editorial commentators.