"The stolen war" de Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

January 7, 2012

                                               The Stolen War

IS THERE no limit to the villainy of Hamas? Seems there isn’t.

This week, they did something quite unforgivable.

They stole a war.

FOR SOME weeks now, our almost new Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, has been announcing at every possible opportunity that a new war against the Gaza Strip is inevitable. Several commanders of the troops around the Strip have been repeating this dire forecast, as have their camp-followers, a.k.a. military commentators.

One of these comforted us. True, Hamas can now hit Tel Aviv with their rockets, but that will not be so terrible, because it will be a short war. Just three or four days. As one of the generals said, it will be much more “hard and painful” (for the Arabs) than Cast Lead I, so it will not last for three weeks, as that did. We shall all stay in our shelters – those of us who have shelters, anyway – for just a few days.  

Why is the war inevitable? Because of the terrorism, stupid. Hamas is a terrorist organization, isn’t it?

But along comes the supreme Hamas leader, Khaled Mash’al, and declares that Hamas has given up all violent action. From now on it will concentrate on non-violent mass demonstrations, in the spirit of the Arab Spring.

When Hamas forswears terrorism, there is no pretext for an attack on Gaza. 

But is a pretext needed? Our army will not let itself be thwarted by the likes of Mash’al. When the army wants a war, it will have a war. This was proved in 1982, when Ariel Sharon attacked Lebanon, despite the fact that the Lebanese border had been absolutely quiet for 11 months. (After the war, the myth was born that it was preceded by daily shooting. Today, almost every Israeli can “remember” the shooting – an astonishing example of the power of suggestion.

WHY DOES the Chief of Staff want to attack?

A cynic might say that every new Chief of Staff needs a war to call his own. But we are not cynics, are we?

Every few days, a solitary rocket is launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. It rarely hits anything but an empty field. For months, now, no one has been hurt.

The usual sequence is like this: our air force carries out a “targeted liquidation” of Palestinian militants in the strip. The army claims invariably that these specific “terrorists” had intended to attack Israelis. How did the army know of their intentions? Well, our army is a master thought reader.

After the persons have been killed, their organization considers it its duty to avenge their blood by launching a rocket or a mortar shell, or even two or three. This “cannot be tolerated” by the army, and so it goes on.

After every such episode, the talk about a war starts again. As American politicians put it in their speeches at AIPAC conferences: “No country can tolerate its citizens being exposed to rockets!”

But of course, the reasons for Cast Lead II are more serious. Hamas is being accepted by the international community. Their Prime Minister, Isma’il Haniyeh, is now traveling around the Arab and Muslim world, after being shut in Gaza – a kind of Strip-arrest – for four years. Now he can cross into Egypt because the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent organization, has become a major player there.

Even worse, Hamas is about to join the PLO and take part in the Palestinian government. High time to do something about it. Attack Gaza, for example. Compel Hamas to become extremist again.

NOT CONTENT with stealing our war, Mash’al is carrying out a series of more sinister actions.

By joining the PLO, he is committing Hamas to the Oslo agreements and all the other official deals between Israel and the PLO. He has announced that Hamas accepts a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. He has let it be known that Hamas would not contest the Palestinian presidency this year, so that the Fatah candidate – whoever that may be – would be elected practically unopposed and be able to negotiate with Israel.

All this would put the present Israeli government in a difficult position.

Mash’al has some experience in causing trouble for Israel. In 1977, the (first) Netanyahu government decided to get rid of him in Amman. A team of Mossad agents was sent to assassinate him in the street by spraying his ear with an untraceable poison. But instead of doing the decent thing and  dying quietly from a mysterious cause, like Yasser Arafat, he let his bodyguard chase the attackers and catch them.

King Hussein, Israel’s longstanding friend and ally, was hopping mad. He presented Netanyahu with a choice: either the agents would be tried in Jordan and possibly hanged, or the Mossad would immediately send the secret antidote to save Mash’al. Netanyahu capitulated, and here we have Mash’al, very much alive and kicking.

Another curious outcome of this misadventure: the king demanded that the Hamas founder and leader, the paralyzed Sheik Ahmad Yassin, be released from Israeli prison. Netanyahu obliged, Yassin was released and assassinated by Israel seven years later. When his successor, Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, was assassinated soon after, the path was cleared for Mash’al to become the Hamas chief.

And instead of showing his gratitude, he now confronts us with a dire challenge: non-violent action, indirect peace overtures, the two-state solution.

A QUESTION: why does our Chief of Staff long for a little war in Gaza, when he could have all the war he desires in Iran? Not just a little operation, but a big war, a very very big war.   

Well, he knows that he cannot have it.

Some time ago I did something no experienced commentator ever does. I promised that there would be no Israeli military attack on Iran. (Nor, for that matter, an American one.)

An experienced journalist or politician never makes such a prediction without leaving a loophole for himself. He puts in an inconspicuous “unless”. If his forecast goes awry, he points to that loophole.

I do have some experience – some 60 or so years of it – but I did not leave any loophole. I said No War, and now General Gantz says the same in so many words. No Tehran, just poor little Gaza.

 Why? Because of that one word: Hormuz.

Not the ancient Persian god Hormuzd, but the narrow strait that is the entrance and exit of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world’s oil (and 35% of the sea-borne oil) flows. My contention was that no sane (or even mildly insane) leader would risk the closing of the strait, because the economic consequences would be catastrophic, even apocalyptic.

IT SEEMS that the leaders of Iran were not sure that all the world’s leaders read this column, so, just in case, they spelled it out themselves. This week they conducted conspicuous military maneuvers around the Strait of Hormuz, accompanied by the unequivocal threat to close it. 

The US responded with vainglorious counter-threats. The invincible US Navy was ready to open the strait by force, if needed.

How, pray? The mightiest multi-billion aircraft carrier can be easily sunk by a battery of cheap land-to-sea missiles, as well as by small missile-boats.

Let’s assume Iran starts to act out its threats. The whole might of the US air force and navy is brought to bear. Iranian ships will be sunk, missile and army installations bombed. Still the Iranian missiles will come in, making passage through the strait impossible.    

What next? There will be no alternative to “boots on the ground”. The US army will have to land on the shore and occupy all the territory from which missiles can be effectively launched. That would be a major operation. Fierce Iranian resistance must be expected, judging from the experience of the eight-year Iraqi-Iranian war. The oil wells in neighboring Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will also be hit. 

Such a war would go far beyond the dimensions of the American invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps even of Vietnam.

Is the bankrupt US up to it? Economically, politically and in terms of morale?

The closing of the strait is the ultimate weapon. I don’t believe that the Iranians will use it against the imposition of sanctions, severe as they may be, as they have threatened. Only a military attack would warrant such a response.  

If Israel attacks alone – “the most stupid idea I ever heard of,” as our former Mossad chief put it – that will make no difference. Iran will consider it an American action, and close the strait. That’s why the Obama administration put its foot down, and hand-delivered to Netanyahu and Ehud Barak an unequivocal order to abstain from any military action.

That’s where we are now. No war in Iran. Just the prospect of a war in Gaza.

And along comes this evil Mash’al and tries to spoil the chances of that, too.

"Segurem-me senão..." por Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

November 5, 2011

                                                           “Hold me back!”

EVERYBODY KNOWS the scene from school: a small boy quarrels with a bigger boy. “Hold me back!” he shouts to his comrades, “Before I break his bones!”

Our government seems to be behaving in this way. Every day, via all channels, it shouts that it is going, any minute now, to break the bones of Iran.

Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow this. So we shall bomb them to smithereens.

Binyamin Netanyahu says so in every one of his countless speeches, including his opening speech at the winter session of the Knesset. Ditto Ehud Barak. Every self-respecting commentator (has anyone ever seen a non-self-respecting one?)  writes about it. The media amplify the sound and the fury.

“Haaretz” splashed its front page with pictures of the seven most important ministers (the “security septet”) showing three in favor of the attack, four against. 

A GERMAN proverb says: “Revolutions that are announced in advance do not take place.” Same goes for wars.

Nuclear affairs are subject to very strict military censorship. Very very strict indeed.

Yet the censor seems to be smiling benignly. Let the boys, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense (the censor's ultimate boss) play their games.

The respected former long-serving chief of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, has publicly warned against the attack, describing it as “the most stupid idea” he has  ever heard”. He explained that he considers it his duty to warn against it, in view of the plans of Netanyahu and Barak. 

On Wednesday, there was a veritable deluge of leaks. Israel tested a missile that can deliver a nuclear bomb more then 5000 km away, beyond you-know-where. And our Air Force has just completed exercises in Sardinia, at a distance larger than you-know-where. And on Thursday, the Home Front Command held training exercises all over Greater Tel Aviv, with sirens screaming away.

All this seems to indicate that the whole hullabaloo is a ploy. Perhaps to frighten and deter the Iranians. Perhaps to push the Americans into more extreme actions. Perhaps coordinated with the Americans in advance. (British sources, too, leaked that the Royal Navy is training to support an American attack on Iran.)

It is an old Israeli tactic to act as if we are going crazy (“The boss has gone mad” is a routine cry in our markets, to suggest that the fruit vendor is selling at a loss.) We shall not listen to the US any more. We shall just bomb and bomb and bomb.

Well, let’s be serious for a moment.

ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period.

Some may think that I am going out on a limb. Shouldn’t I add at least “probably” or “almost certainly”?

No, I won’t. I shall repeat categorically: Israel Will NOT Attack Iran. 

Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance.

The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.

Furthermore, Israel cannot fight a war without unlimited American support, because our planes and our bombs come from the US. During a war, we need supplies, spare parts, many sorts of equipment. During the Yom Kippur war, Henry Kissinger had an “air train” supplying us around the clock. And that war would probably look like a picnic compared to a war with Iran.

LET’S LOOK at the map. That, by the way, is always recommended before starting any war.

The first feature that strikes the eye is the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which every third barrel of the worlds seaborne oil supplies flow. Almost the entire output of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iraq and Iran has to run the gauntlet through this narrow sea lane.

“Narrow” is an understatement. The entire width of this waterway is some 35 km (or 20 miles). That’s about the distance from Gaza to Beer Sheva, which was crossed last week by the primitive rockets of the Islamic Jihad.

When the first Israeli plane enters Iranian airspace, the strait will be closed. The Iranian navy has plenty of missile boats, but they will not be needed. Land-based missiles are enough.

The world is already teetering on the verge of an abyss. Little Greece is threatening to fall and take major chunks of the world economy with her. The elimination of almost a fifth of the industrial nations’ supply of oil would lead to a catastrophe hard even to imagine.

To open the strait by force would require a major military operation (including “putting boots on the ground”) that would overshadow all the US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can the US afford that? Can NATO? Israel itself is not in the same league.

BUT ISRAEL would be very much involved in the action, if only on the receiving end.

In a rare show of unity, all of Israel’s service chiefs, including the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, are publicly opposing the whole idea. We can only guess why.

I don’t know whether the operation is possible at all. Iran is a very large country, about the size of Alaska, the nuclear installations are widely dispersed and largely underground. Even with the special deep penetration bombs provided by the US, the operation may stall the Iranian efforts – such as they are - only for a few months. The price may be too high for such meager results.

Moreover, it is quite certain that with the beginning of a war, missiles will rain down on Israel – not only from Iran, but also from Hizbollah, and perhaps also from Hamas. We have no adequate defense for our towns. The amount of death and destruction would be prohibitive.

Suddenly, the media are full of stories about our three submarines, soon to grow to five, or even six, if the Germans are understanding and generous. It is openly said that these give us the capabilities of a nuclear “second strike”, if Iran uses its (still non-existent) nuclear warheads against us. But the Iranians may also use chemical and other weapons of mass destruction. 

Then there is the political price. There are a lot of tensions in the Islamic world. Iran is far from popular in many parts of it. But an Israeli assault on a major Muslim country would instantly unite Sunnis and Shiites, from Egypt and Turkey to Pakistan and beyond. Israel could become a villa in a burning jungle.

BUT THE talk about the war serves many purposes, including domestic, political ones.

Last Saturday, the social protest movement sprang to life again. After a pause of two months, a mass of people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. This was quite remarkable, because on that very day rockets were falling on the towns near the Gaza Strip. Until now, in such a situation demonstrations have always been canceled. Security problems trump everything else. Not this time.

Also, many people believed that the euphoria of the Gilad Shalit festival had wiped the protest from the public mind. It didn’t.

By the way, something remarkable has happened: the media, after siding with the protest movement for months, have had a change of heart. Suddenly all of them, including Haaretz, are sticking knives in its back. As if by order, all newspapers wrote the next day that “more than 20,000” took part. Well I was there, and I do have some idea of these things. There were at least 100,000 people there, most of them young. I could hardly move.

The protest has not spent itself, as the media assert. Far from it. But what better means for taking people’s minds off social justice than talk of the “existential danger”?

Moreover, the reforms demanded by the protesters would need money. In view of the worldwide financial crisis, the government strenuously objects to increasing the state budget, for fear of damaging our credit rating.

So where could the money come from? There are only three plausible sources: the settlements (who would dare?), the Orthodox (ditto!) and the huge military budget.

But on the eve of the most crucial war in our history, who would touch the armed forces? We need every shekel to buy more planes, more bombs, more submarines. Schools and hospitals must, alas, wait.

So God bless Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Where would we be without him?    

Irão-Israel: Dois pesos e duas medidas

Actualizado a 27 de Julho de 2010

Hoje o Público informa que "União Europeia aprova novas sanções contra o Irão " ... "devido ao seu controverso programa nuclear."

Será que a UE vai sancionar as nações que detêm MESMO armas nucleares e que já ameaçaram usá-las, como o Paquistão e a Índia? Ou agravar as sanções à Coreia do Norte?

Ou sancionar Israel que detendo armamento nuclear, tem demonstrado total desrespeito pelos direitos humanos e humanitários e o direito internacional?

Isto para não referir os "intocáveis" - China, EUA, França, Reino Unido e Rússia - e os "fiéis depositários" da NATO (aquele tipo de aliança "defensiva" que já devia ter terminado), como a Alemanha, a Bélgica, a Holanda, a Itália e ... a Turquia. 

Duvido.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

O editorial do Público de hoje (25 de Julho) "A retórica nuclear a dois andamentos" (http://jornal.publico.pt/noticia/25-07-2010/a-retorica-nuclear-a-dois-andamentos-19898137.htm), observa:

"O Irão projecta um reactor nuclear e o mundo agita-se. A Coreia do Norte ameaça com uma bomba e ninguém liga"

Um editorial interessante que eu recomendo.

Para mim a dualidade abissal de critérios tem a seguinte justificação:

Enquanto a Coreia do Norte está na zona de influência da China e por mais ténue que pareçam os apoios, a China não permitiria que os EUA se atrevessem a alterar o "status quo".

O Irão encontra-se na zona de influência da antiga URSS. Hoje, a sua sucessora, a Federação Russa, está enfraquecida, e mais desejosa de ter acesso às tecnologias americanas do que em defender activamente a sua suposta "zona de influência". Veja-se a sua posição na última decisão do Conselho de Segurança que aprovou um novo pacote de sanções contra o Irão.

O Irão é um espinho cravado no pueril "orgulho/arrogância" americano, desde 1979, quando os funcionários da sua embaixada foram feitos reféns por estudantes iranianos e as tentativas de resgate terminaram em desastre. E por ser um "mau exemplo" de independência para o mundo face ao "império".

Para além do mais o Irão é "apetecido" quer pelas suas importantes reservas de petróleo, quer pelo seu posicionamento geográfico em geral, quer pela posição que detém de fácil controlo sobre o Golfo Pérsico, nomeadamente no tocante ao Estreito de Ormuz, o que só por si, em meu entendimento, torna a bomba nuclear dispensável, para o Irão.

De facto, com a possibilidade de fechar o Estreito de Ormuz, pelo menos durante algum tempo, bastando para isso afundar alguns navios em pontos estratégicos, o Irão, de facto, não precisa de bombas nucleares, para manter os “interesses ocidentais” – leia-se EUA, “capangas”, alienados e "capachos" – sob ameaça.

O que acontece com o Irão é simplesmente vergonhoso.

Podemos não gostar do regime iraniano em si – para mim está nas antípodas do que eu defendo;

Podemos clamar contra a inobservância de valores que defendemos, nomeadamente no tocante aos direitos humanos – mas certas potências e organizações não tem moral para atacar o Irão nesse plano, nomeadamente, quando os desrespeitam em sua própria casa e quando apoiam, quer à descarada, quer de forma indirecta, estados párias, que também os desrespeitam;

Podemos entender que alguns dos discursos do Senhor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad são anti-semitas – eu aqui fico sempre na dúvida, porque sendo ele um homem inteligente, não sei se é por populismo para uso interno que os profere ou se nessas ocasiões é um “agente adormecido” da Mossad que “acorda” a servir os interesses da clique “nacional"-sionista que governa Israel... mas que dizer dos discursos anti-iranianos de dirigentes americanos, europeus, e dos "nacionais"-sionistas israelitas?

Podemos entender as suas ameaças contra Israel como um "crime de ódio e de incitamento"... mas como poderemos classificar as declarações da Senhora Hillary Clinton, actual Secretária de Estado da Administração Obama, quando em campanha eleitoral, a 21 de Abril de 2008, declarou, referindo-se ao Irão, e no contexto de um possível futuro ataque nuclear deste a Israel "... we totally obliterate them", traduzindo, "...nós extinguíamo-los totalmente". TOTALMENTE!
.

O certo é que mais de dois anos passados… da bomba nuclear iraniana nem vê-la e as sanções entretanto agravaram-se e a retórica "imperial" subiu de tom.

De facto sanciona-se o Irão por querer desenvolver energia nuclear para fins pacíficos, no pressuposto de que, o que pretende é construir armas nucleares, mas cala-se o poderio nuclear israelita - a única potência nuclear de facto da região - fornecido pelos EUA, e até as comprovadas tentativas de vender esses “produtos” a outros Estados, como já foi provado, no tocante à África do Sul, quando ainda vigorava o regime do apartheid

O que continua por provar é que o Irão tenha por objectivo construir uma bomba nuclear.

Mas sanciona-se o Irão... porque a questão não é o nuclear mas antes o Irão em si.

Destruído o Iraque resta o Irão como potência regional. O que não é bom para os americanos e pouco simpático para os Russos. E a Turquia tem-se salvo porque tem sido uma aliada na NATO e de certa forma subserviente para com os interesses do "império".

A prova provada é a recusa liminar de uma solução que permitiria abrir caminho para o controlo do enriquecimento do urânio, construída pelo Brasil e pela Turquia e acordada com o Irão. Porquê?

Porque a solução não foi gizada pelo "império", apesar de estar de acordo com os princípios basilares pelos seus representantes enunciados uns tempos antes?

Não! Porque a Paz na região não interessa ao "império" e aos interesses "nacional"-sionistas que de certa forma o influenciam.

Entretanto, se de Ahmadinejad se refuta o discurso anti-semita – e bem – nada se diz do discurso dos governantes de Israel, cada vez mais arabofobo, xenófobo, racista e eugenista, nem das medidas concretas de descriminação e de apartheid que de forma opressiva, repressiva e violenta está a tentar impor à sociedade israelita e desde há muito é política seguida nos territórios ocupados da Palestina.

E pouco se fala da ocupação colonial da Palestina; nem do maior campo de concentração a céu aberto: a Faixa de Gaza; nem dos crimes que quotidianamente ocorrem contra os palestinos. E nada se resolve|

Dois pesos e duas medidas ou parafraseando a velha máxima tão americana: "Sim Israel comete crimes contra o direito internacional, contra o direito humanitário, contra os direitos do homem, mas é dos nossos".

(O Presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) supostamente declarou em 1939: "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.")