A.M. Rosenthal's Bill of Particulars Against "Fascist" Syria Fits Israel

By Paul D. Molineaux

Syria's unconditional acceptance of the US invitation to a peace conference has accelerated efforts by apologists for Israel to equate the Syrian regime with that of Iraq. One of the early efforts was that of indefatigable Arab bashing New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal. In a March 12 column he elaborated a notion of "Arab fascism" to deal with three unpleasant realities facing Likudist Israel in the aftermath of the US military victory against Iraq.

First, despite the best efforts of columnists like Rosenthal, President George Bush had not ordered a march to Baghdad to destroy entirely the Iraqi regime. Second, Syria, Israel's most formidable remaining Arab enemy, had won a few diplomatic points by siding with the US and the rest of the world coalition against Iraq. Third, and most serious, of course, was the danger that, in the aftermath of Desert Storm, there just might before the first time since 1979 be a serious US effort to find a fair settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, putting at risk the century long Zionist expansionist/annexationist project.

A few elementary realities would not Fit Rosenthal's scenario.

Rosenthal's inventive attempt to slay all three dragons at the same time was contained in a column entitled "How to Lose the Peace" and describing the characteristics of "Arab Fascism."

He began by parodying the administration's exercise of restraint in not marching on to Baghdad, and deploring "the nonsense that Iraq's internal affairs are not our business. " Rosenthal complained that the United States now was "showing how swiftly it might lose a peace in the Middle East. "

There were, however, a few elementary realities that would not fit Rosenthal's slay the dragon scenario: neither the United Nations nor the American people would support a policy of interventionism in Iraq. An American military conquest of Baghdad would have involved hundreds or thousands of American casualties, not to mention the killing of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. It also would have produced precisely what the administration had skillfully managed to avoid: a war perceived by the world as solely between the United States and Iraq.

Instead the administration had skillfully used the threat of military force to pursue some decidedly limited, but attainable, objectives. It had deterred Iraq from using chemical weapons against internal insurgents, but had avoided taking on the impossible task of attempting to occupy and then directly govern Iraq as a defeated enemy.

Rosenthal then went on to an even grosser misinterpretation of contemporary Middle Eastern history by attempting to equate President Hafez AlAssad of Syria to President Saddam Hussain of Iraq. Rosenthal offered a litany of evil deeds of which, he wrote, both Syria and Iraq were equally culpable. He challenged his readers to "try" to "find the difference. " Well, here's this reader's try:

1. Rosenthal Syria is just like Iraq particular: "Aggression against smaller neighbors"

The truth: Rosenthal doesn't understand or doesn't care to represent accurately contemporary history. Modern Syria has not engaged in aggression against its smaller neighbors. Syria entered Lebanon in 1975-76 at the behest of the government of Lebanon, with the encouragement of the US, and with the acquiescence of Israel up to a then famous "red line" in the south of Lebanon, well clear of the Israeli " security zone, " which the Syrians ever since have respected religiously. Presently, peace is being restored to Lebanon on the basis of a newfound national consensus, which is supported by the Arab world, particularly Syria.

2. Rosenthal Syria is just like Iraq particular: "Stockpiling of chemical and bacteriological weapons"

The truth: there is no crime in stockpiling chemical and bacteriological weapons. The United States does it. Israel does it. The crime is in using them for purposes other than legitimate national defense, which Syria like the US and Israel has not done.

3. Rosenthal Syria is just like Iraq particular: "Dreams of empire "

The truth: there is no known criminal sanction against dreaming. Some in the United States dreamed of "manifest destiny. " Some Zionists dreamed of a greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. The crime is in seeking to create empires by military conquest, which Syria has not done. If there is a prize for national territorial self-aggrandizement in the Middle East in modern times, the easy winner, even including the Iraq of Saddam Hussain as runner-up, is Israel.

4. Rosenthal Syria is just like Iraq particular: "Terrorism against the West"

The truth: Syria has probably coddled some terrorists against Israel and against supporters of Israel, not against "the West" a rather grandiose notion, even for desert dreamers.

The big prizes for terrorism in the modern era go to Israel's current prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, former leader of the Stern Gang (which assassinated UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem in 1948), and his predecessor as Likud prime minister, Menachern Begin, leader of the notorious Irgun (and intellectual defender of the massacre of the Arab population of the village of Deir Yassin in April 1948).

The Media Draws the Line

Rosenthal's description of "Arab Fascism" would never have been published in any serious American newspaper if, instead, it had been labeled "Jewish Fascism. " That, after all, is where the US media culture draws the line on freedom of speech, in order to avoid the dreaded, all purpose charge of "anti-Semitism. "

It is evidently legitimate and fashionable, however, to bash Arabs with precisely the same vague and hate filled language correctly deemed repugnant if applied to Jews. Ironically, the panoply of phrases Rosenthal assembles to support his notion of a generalized "Arab Fascism," quoted below, do in fact apply to Israel:

"Foreign aggression." Israel occupies a strip of territory in southern Lebanon. Israel occupies and claims to have "annexed" the Golan Heights in Syria.

Until the Camp David agreements, Israel also occupied the Sinai of Egypt, and during that time pumped out as much Sinai oil as possible, in direct and flagrant violation of elemental international law governing the exploitation of natural resources by occupying powers. In none of these cases could it apply even the figleaf of an extended "biblical claim" of Israeli sovereignty.

Since 1967 Israel has occupied and colonized the West Bank. Israel also occupies and colonizes the Old City of Jerusalem which it unilaterally claims to have "annexed," and is surrounding with new Jewish subdivisions. In both cases, Israel acts without sanction of the international community, usurps the rights of native inhabitants and for decades has ignored the repeated condemnations of virtually the entire world.

"Domestic terrorism." In Israel, citizens are second class, in endless There is no Israeli bill of rights. Indeed is no Israeli constitution. Arbitrary arrest and detention of Arabs without anything like habeas corpus have been the Israeli pr for decades.

"Persecution of minorities." Israel excludes its Arab citizens from half of the economy. Arab citizens may not buy land in more than 90 percent of the country, or live anywhere in the city of Tel Aviv.

"Control of the economy." Israel, founded by socialists, has one of the most socialist economies in the region, and in the world.

"Religious bigotry." Israel, approvingly called by its friends the "Jewish State", officially sanctions immigration by members of one race/religion, regardless of birthplace, and prohibits immigration of all others, regardless of birthplace. Among examples of discrimination against non-Jews in Israel, Jews, and Jews alone, are allowed to establish new colonies in occupied territories, on land which they do not own (in flagrant violation of international law), and are allowed to carry (and use) weapons.

"Elimination of personal, political or intellectual freedom." Rosenthal might avail himself some day of an opportunity to some Arab "citizens" of Israel about freedom. And then he might try talk some Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank about the same subject.

Fascism, by definition, is the attribution of moral authority to brute force, which way Arabs are ruled under Israeli occupation. But it would be wrong to talk about an "Israeli Fascism. " That, of course, would be a manifestation of the unspeakable crime of "anti-Semitism. " Rosenthal would instantaneously so inform the world

In the pages of The New York Times. The hue and cry would be systematically echoed by America's Zionist media flacks until the last drop of propagandistic milk was wrung out of it, or some better theme for purposes of defamation came along.

Another example of systematic fascism is the brutal abuse of the power of the written word that is the very essence of Rosenthal's misleading and polemicized writing concerning Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Paul Molineaux is a recently retired career foreign service officer with extensive experience in and the Middle East.