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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (2245)	7/9/2001 12:52:24 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

zmag.org <<< The actual reasons for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon have never been concealed in Israel, though they are rated "X" here. A few weeks after the invasion began, Israel's leading academic specialist on the Palestinians, Yehoshua Porath, pointed out that the decision to invade "flowed from the very fact that the cease-fire had been observed" by the PLO, a "veritable catastrophe" for the Israeli government because it endangered the policy of evading a political settlement. The PLO was gaining respectability thanks to its preference for negotiations over terror. The Israeli government's hope, therefore, was to compel "the stricken PLO" to "return to its earlier terrorism," thus "undercutting the danger" of negotiations. As Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir later stated, Israel went to war because there was "a terrible danger.... Not so much a military one as a political one." The invasion was intended to "undermine the position of the moderates within [the PLO] ranks" and thus to block" the PLO `peace offensive'" and "to halt [the PLO's] rise to political respectability" (strategic analyst Avner Yaniv); it should be called "the war to safeguard the occupation of the West Bank," having been motivated by Begin's "fear of the momentum of the peace process," according to Israeli Arabist and former head of military intelligence Gen. Yehoshaphat Harkabi. US backing for Israel's aggression, including veto of Security Council efforts to stop the slaughter, was presumably based on the same reasoning. The thinking behind Israel's terrorist operations in Lebanon is also no secret. It was outlined, for example, by the respected former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, considered a leading dove. He was responding to a review by Menahem Begin of atrocities against civilians carried out by the Labor governments in which Eban served, a picture, according to Eban, "of an Israel wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name." Eban does not contest the facts, but criticizes Begin for revealing them. He also explains the reasons for Israel's wanton attacks: "there was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities." In short, the civilian populations were to be held hostage under the threat and exercise of extreme violence, until they compel their governments to accept Israeli plans for the region. As we have seen, the current assault is quite frankly predicated on the same "rational prospect." As for the civilian toll, the basic thinking goes back to the founding fathers. In a January 1, 1948 diary entry, David Ben-Gurion wrote: "What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place and casualties. If we know the family -- [we must] strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent. Where there was no attack -- we should not strike." The qualifications were quickly dropped, by Ben-Gurion in particular, and by now have long been forgotten. Talk of "purity of arms" or the "benign occupation" is disgraceful apologetics, as widely recognized by now within Israel. >>> <<< During its 1982 invasion, Israel selected Khiam as the site of its notorious Ansar I prison camp, used since to punish people suspected of anti-Israel activity in Lebanon, or their relatives, thus to undermine any resistance to the South Lebanon Army. There is ample evidence of hideous conditions and savage torture, reported by the press in Israel and England, but not authenticated by the Red Cross or any humanitarian organization because Israel refuses to allow any access to the horror chamber run by its proxies under its supervision. >>>