The U.S.-Israeli “War on Terrorism” Could Breed More Violence

by Rachelle Marshall

"Terrorism is back with a vengeance.” —Binyamin Netanyahu, in Fighting Terrorism, 1995

“Terrorism is the enemy of our generation, and we must prevail.” —U.S. President Bill Clinton, Aug. 5, 1996

“For Israel and the U.S., the ‘war on terror’ is but a way of transferring the Arab-Israeli struggle from the moral and political grounds on which it properly belongs to security ones.” —David Hirst, in the Guardian, Aug. 2, 1996

Acts of random violence against civilians have typically been a method used by the powerless to bring pressure on the powerful. The word “terrorism” is far more often associated with young militants who blow up buses or hijack airplanes than with high-ranking officers who order the destruction of entire villages. But in what may become a classic example of the self-fulfilling prophecy, the U.S. and Israel are now labeling as supporters of terrorism weaker nations whose link with foreign violence is remote but whose rulers are hostile to Israel. The assumption, apparently, is that by turning these countries into pariahs and crippling their already struggling economies we will induce them to become more compliant. But in fact, as history shows, when weak regimes are threatened, they often become more dangerous.

Nevertheless, this policy has bipartisan backing in the U.S. Bob Dole charged in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention that Clinton “defends giving the green light to a terrorist state, Iran, to expand its influence in Europe and relies on the U.N. to punish Libyan terrorists who murdered American citizens. I will not.” Only 10 days earlier, Clinton signed a bill imposing sanctions on foreign firms that do business with Iran and Libya, calling them “the two most dangerous supporters of terrorism.” Referring to these two countries and to Iraq and Sudan as if they were major military threats to the Free World, he warned that “Fascism and communism may be dead or discredited but the forces of destruction live on.”

During the same week, Defense Secretary William Perry hinted strongly on National Public Radio that Iran was responsible for the bombing of U.S. troops in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on June 25. He offered no evidence, and the State Department later admitted that the operation was probably financed by wealthy businessmen in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who may have believed they were contributing to charitable organizations. Six Saudi Islamic militants have since been arrested for the attack. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was equally reckless when he accused Iran of involvement in the bombing of a synagogue in Buenos Aires in 1994. The culprits were later found to be Argentinian officers.

The only U.S. ally to favor the sanctions was Israel.

It was no coincidence that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) applauded the sanctions bill as “a message that the United States is not willing to stand by as rogue regimes threaten U.S. interests and those of its allies.” (italics added.) In fact, the only U.S. ally to favor the sanctions was Israel. Members of the European Union unanimously condemned them, as did China and Japan. A week after the signing ceremony, Turkey’s pro-Muslim government politely thumbed its nose at Washington by signing a $23 billion, 23-year agreement to buy natural gas from Iran and calling for a summit meeting with Syria, Iran, and Iraq on the Kurdish problem. Only the fact that Turkey is a vital NATO ally may save it from U.S. and Israeli reprisal. After the deal with Iran was announced, a senior fellow at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy urged in The New York Times that the U.S. give Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan the cold shoulder “and not grant him an official visit or a meeting with President Clinton if he requests one.” In other words, the U.S. should insult an allied leader for attending to his own country’s interests instead of bowing to Washington.

Because the Iranian government that took over in 1979 ended the close alliance that Israel had enjoyed under the Shah, and supports Hezbollah forces fighting to end Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, Israel has worked unceasingly to convince the world that Iran is a threat to Middle East security. As Israel’s political arm in the U.S., AIPAC pressured the White House to declare an embargo on trade with Iran and Libya last year, and more recently engineered passage of the sanctions bill.

Another Lobby Victory

The pro-Israel lobby scored another victory in early August when the House International Affairs Committee voted to retain sanctions on Syria despite strenuous objections by the State Department, which at the time was engaged in negotiations with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad. Although Syria has not been suspected of launching a terrorist attack since 1986, Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilmana pro-Israel zealotsaid sanctions must remain until Syria “ends its sponsorship of terrorism.”

Israel has long been successful in inducing Washington to support policies that promote its own short-term interests while causing disaster to those of the U.S. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath cost the lives of 264 U.S. Marines and made enemies of former friends throughout the Middle East. Clinton’s failure to condemn Israel’s deliberate assault on a U.N. refugee shelter in Lebanon last April renewed that animosity. Now, as Washington angers close allies in Europe and Asia by attempting to interfere with international trade, Israel once again has achieved its goal while the U.S. pays the bill.

It is true that Clinton administration officials and Republican political leaders find it smart strategy to set up straw enemies abroad in order to maintain huge military budgets, and continued profits to the arms industry, in a post-Cold War world. But punishing Iran and other Middle East countries is also central to both parties’ effort to secure the pro-Israel vote next November. For their part, Israel’s supporters in the U.S. see the joint campaign against so-called terrorist states as useful in convincing Americans that when it comes to foreign policy, the people of both countries have identical interests. Earl Raab of Brandeis University’s Nathan Perlmutter Institute went so far as to assert in a recent issue of the Northern California Jewish Bulletin that “Anti-American attacks are anti-Jewish attacks and vice versa. In the case of foreign policy and Israel, this connection has become ingrained in the American consciousness.” Raab and other supporters of Israel would have us believe that Israel’s critics are not only anti-Semitic, but anti-American as well.

Unfortunately the costs of vilifying and punishing countries that Israel considers its adversaries may come high to both Americans and Israelis. The New York Times recently quoted a senior Arab official from a Persian Gulf state as saying that punitive measures “may be inviting just the sort of thing the Americans are trying to preventmore terror. Such measures,” he pointed out, “are dabbling with the very livelihood of these nations and creating a club of miseries that can turn into a flood of anger.”

Middle East experts almost unanimously agree that the sanctions and hostile rhetoric from Washington reinforce the claims of hard-liners in the target countries who preach hatred of the U.S., and undermine moderates who favor accommodation. It was therefore not surprising last January that Iran’s parliament approved a $20 million operation “to counter the Great Satan.” The action followed shortly after the widely publicized revelation that the CIA planned to launch a $19 million “covert operation” to destabilize the government of Iran.

Just as U.S. and Israeli policies strengthen militant radical groups in Iran and the Arab world, the behavior of the new Israeli government is likely to produce the same effect within Israel’s borders. Instead of encouraging the mutual trust between Israel and its Arab neighbors that is essential to Israel’s security, Netanyahu and his ministers have gone out of their way to provoke anger, not only with their policy statements, but with gratuitous insults as well. In his much-applauded speech to Congress, for instance, the prime minister jokingly referred to Arab-Israeli negotiations as “collective bargaining.” “We bargain,” he said, “and the Arabs collect.” After Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy returned from a meeting with Yasser Arafat, the powerful Minister of Infrastructure Ariel Sharon attacked him for talking with a “war criminal.” Rafael Eitan, minister of agriculture, sneered that he would not even have sent a border guard to meet with Arafat. Two weeks later, the government sought to humiliate the Palestinian president by first denying him permission to fly to Ramallah to meet with Shimon Peres, and then, after a week’s delay, offering him a one-time-only permit. Arafat met with Peres in Gaza instead.

Meanwhile the anti-Arab mood among many Israelis, legitimized by Netanyahu’s election, has unleashed a wave of assaults by Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinians and their property. Two days before Palestinian gunmen ambushed and killed two Israelis near the village of Beit Shemesh, for instance, Israeli soldiers in Beit Shemesh had forced two young Palestinians to strip naked in the center of town and then beat them. When Palestinians tried to protest peacefully against an illegal seizure by settlers of a hundred acres of agricultural land from the village of Qaryat, the settlers attacked the demonstrators with clubs, seriously injuring three people including a 70-year-old woman and a camera man for a foreign news agency. Israeli soldiers looked on but did nothing. Members of a Jewish peace group from the U.S. who recently visited Hebron reported seeing truckloads of Israeli teenagers from nearby settlements repeatedly careen through Arab neighborhoods waving guns and shouting threats, ignored by soldiers and police.

Accomplishing Obstruction

Netanyahu’s principal accomplishment so far has been to restore to full luster Israel’s role as obstructionist in the peace process. In refusing to accept the principle of land-for-peace as a basis for negotiations he has in effect rejected U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 and disavowed the Oslo agreement of 1993 and those that followed. He has said no to withdrawing from the Golan Heights and threatened to retaliate against the Syrians if Hezbollah used long-range rockets against Israel. Ze’ev Maoz, the head of Israel’s Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, told Israel Radio on Aug. 20 that Netanyahu’s positions had increased the probability of war with Syria.

Netanyahu also insists that the terms of Israel’s withdrawal from Hebron be renegotiated. One new requirement is that all PLOoffices in East Jerusalem be shut down before any withdrawal takes place. Finally, the Likud government has lifted the ban on new settlements in Palestinian territory. In mid-August the Housing Ministry moved 300 mobile homes to the West Bank as the first step toward establishing a new settlement, even though a clause in the Oslo agreement says that “neither side shall take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” Michael Eitan, head of the Likud Party in the Knesset, promised, “There will be new neighborhoods and many Jews will come and live in them.” In response to these and other Israeli actions, an editorial in the Jerusalem Times concluded, “Israel is not negotiating with the Palestinians; it is imposing its rule on them.”

Meanwhile the Likud government has continued the economic strangulation of the occupied territories. Only a trickle of Palestinian workers are allowed into Israel despite Netanyahu’s announcement that he would lift the border closing, and despite the fact that no Palestinian with a valid work permit has ever been involved in terrorism in Israel. Israeli officials also are blocking completion of the Gaza airport, a project intended to allow Gazans to export and import goods without being forced to pay Israeli middlemen, and to travel without having to undergo humiliating strip searches and costly delays at Israeli airports. The government also has postponed indefinitely plans for industrial zones and joint investment projects designed to lower the more than 50 percent unemployment rate among Palestinians.

Not surprisingly, there is growing resentment against Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the peace process brings only worsening conditions and the multiple PA security forces become increasingly oppressive. Palestinians now find themselves having to struggle for human rights on two fronts. The death of Mahmoud Jemayel on July 31 at the hands of Palestinian interrogators, and the fatal shooting by Palestinian police of Ibrahimi Hadayeh on Aug. 1 brought to nine the number of Palestinians killed by PA officials in the past two years. Thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets for Jemayel’s funeral, many of them calling the PA “traitors.”

As Israel continues to pressure Arafat to destroy Hamas’ infrastructure, using the border closings as a club, the Palestinian president is caught in a double bind. If he gives in to Israel’s demands by cracking down even further on Hamas he might gain a few concessions from Israel but would surely intensify opposition to his regime, since the Islamic organization provides vital social services to thousands of families. In any case, time may be running out. By keeping 2 million Palestinians behind barbed wire, with neither freedom nor jobs but only the bitterness aroused by broken promises, Israel is provoking almost certain reprisal. Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein warned of this possibility in an interview with The European (Aug. 1-7) when he said, “When they confiscate my land, when they confiscate my water, when they confiscate my future, this means a declaration of war and war means bloodshed.” At the very least, Israel’s policies are strengthening the hands of Palestinian militants who from the beginning opposed any compromise peace with Israel.

It may not be too far-fetched to suspect that Binyamin Netanyahu and some of the other zealots in his government would welcome an outbreak of terrorism. Netanyahu’s early claim to fame was as a so-called expert on terrorism, so a chance to mastermind a punitive response would put him in his element. Above all, a significant act of violence by a few desperate Palestinian youths could provide just the excuse Netanyahu needs to disavow Oslo and dismantle the current peace process entirely. Unless Arab nations are able to respond with an unprecedented show of unity, only a strong protest by the U.S., accompanied by credible threats to cut off aid, would have any chance of turning Israel around. But with U.S. politicians in both parties competing for the pro-Israel vote in November, and with Washington policy-makers busy providing fuel for violent protests in other parts of the Middle East, don’t bet on this happening.