If more and more Arabs breach the wall of fear that has prevented them for decades from demanding their rights, expressing their rage at the corruption and repression of their governments and at regime impotence in the face of Israel’s arrogance of power, there’s one question above all others America’s policy makers will have to ask themselves. Who do we need most if America’s own real interests are to be best protected – the Arabs or Israel? And that, of course, begs the mother and father of all questions for them: Is Israel our most valuable ally in the region or our biggest liability?
Eisenhower was the first and last president to contain Zionism’s territorial ambitions. Kennedy might have been the second if he had been allowed to live. But from Johnson to Obama, and whether they really believed it or not (I think most if not all of them didn’t), every American president has paid extravagant lip-service to the idea that Israel is the U.S.’s most valuable ally in the Middle East.
Obama’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government has not been good to say the least, but there are informed and influential Israelis who think the manifestation of people power in Egypt could provide both men with the opportunity to change the relationship for the better. Writing in Ha’aretz under the headline For Obama, Eygpt protests may garner a new friend – Israel, Aluf Benn wrote this (my emphasis added):
“If Netanyahu plays his cards right, he could leverage the fall of neighbouring regimes into a significant improvement in Israel’s relations with the United States.
“Obama wants to be popular among the citizens of Arab states at the expense of their leaders, as he tried to do in his Cairo speech some 18 months ago. He is betting that the new regimes will be grateful and will continue to rely on Washington for diplomatic and military support. But he is taking a risk: What if the revolution doesn’t stop at the moderate interim stage and keeps going till it reaches Muslim extremism? And what will the United States do in the interim phase, when the Middle East is sunk in uncertainty?
“When Obama and his advisers look at a map of the region, they see only one state they can count on: Israel. The regime is stable, and support for America is well-entrenched. Obama may dislike Netanyahu and his policy toward the Palestinians, but after losing his allies in Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and with the uneasiness gripping his friends in Jordan and the Gulf, Washington can’t afford to be choosy. It will have to move closer to Israel, and for another reason as well: An anxious Israel is an Israel that is prone to military adventures, and that’s the last thing Obama needs right now.
“Now is the time for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to justify their claim that Israel is a ‘villa in the jungle’, the West’s outpost in the Middle East.”
Netanyahu’s own contribution to fear mongering was the statement that “Egypt could follow the path of Iran”.
In my view it is not difficult to imagine the line the Zionist lobby in America was taking with the Obama administration. It might well have quoted a sentence from the National Security Network’s press release of 27 January. “The Obama administration seeks to encourage political reforms without destabilizing the region.” Then something like the following. “Your policy is failing. Your encouragement of political reforms is destabilizing the region, but what is happening is far more menacing than destabilization in the general sense. What we are witnessing is the beginning of a regional Arab intifada. The tide is turning in favour of the forces of violent Islamic fundamentalism in all its forms. If the war against global terrorism is not to be lost, America now needs Israel more than ever.”
In reality there is no evidence to suggest that change brought about by people power in Arab states would lead inevitably to rule by, or even popular support for, extremist and violent forces which use and abuse Islam in much the same way as Zionists use and abuse Judaism. From Tunisia and Eygpt in particular there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary (but as I will indicate later, everything will ultimately depend on whether or not policy makers in Washington D.C. put America on the right side of history).
The evidence to the contrary is in the fact that the manifestations of Arab people power the world has witnessed to date were not instigated by Islamist extremist groups They were spontaneous protests with demands by citizens from almost all sections of civil society, and very few were (or so it seemed) ideologically driven.
Given that policy makers in Washington D.C. say they want to see democracy alive and well in the Arab world, why, really, are they so alarmed by what is happening?
The answer is in this fact. What almost all Arab peoples want is not only an end to corruption and repression and a better life in their own countries. They also want an end to the humiliation caused by Israel’s arrogance of power, American and other Western support for it and the impotence of Arab governments, most of which are seen by their masses as agents of America-and-Zionism.
The implications are profound.
If change brings Arab governments which must and do reflect the wishes of their peoples, those governments will be under great and perhaps irresistible pressure to use their leverage in a serious effort to oblige the U.S. to use its leverage to cause Israel to end its occupation of all Arab land grabbed in 1967.
If Arab push came to American shove, Arab leverage options include withdrawing ambassadors from America; stopping assistance for propping up America’s ailing economy; and a credible threat to use the oil weapon. (As I have written in the past, the Arabs would not have to turn off the oil taps. A credible, behind-closed-doors threat to do would be enough. As I have also written in the past, if the boot was on the other foot – if the Zionists were in the Arab position, they would have played the oil card long, long ago).
If, in response to the wishes of the people, a new Arab Order did signal an intention to use its leverage, it would be crunch time for America in the Middle East; and its policy makers would have to answer the who do we need most question.
How they answered it would determine what side of history in-the-making America was going to be on – the right side or the wrong side.
The right side would see America using its leverage to oblige Israel to end its occupation. This would open the door to a real peace process (actually the first ever) and create an environment in which there would be no place for Muslim extremism.
The wrong side would see America continuing with the policy of support for Israel right or wrong and being complicit in its defiance of international law and war crimes. This would open the door to the forces of violent Islamic fundamentalism and set in motion a confrontation that could go all the way to a clash of civilizations.
Which option will America choose if crunch time comes?
Footnote
As I watched the drama unfolding in Eygpt, I found myself wondering why, really, Mubarak was clinging on. I entertained the thought that it was because Obama was telling him to do so in the hope either that the “protesters” would run out of steam, or because he, Obama, needed time for his people to fix the succession. I was entertaining such a thought because I had just re-read an excellent piece by Philip Stephens published in the Financial Times last October. In it he wrote: “Five years ago Mr. Bush promised a democratic transformation in the Middle East. The ambition of his second inaugural address was abandoned almost as it was spoken. Offering a voice to the Arab street, it was soon agreed, risked empowering extremists such as Hamas. Better to slip back into the comfortable cold war posture of cuddling up to friendly tyrants.”
The coming days, perhaps hours, will tell us if this American policy preference is sustainable.
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A possible U. S. position could be, (behind the scenes of course) in the face of this uprising, that Netanyahu must end and remove the west bank settlements and in response the U. S. would work on Mubarak remaining in power. That would be a compromise, trading a cause of major volatility and source of anger on the "arab street", especially on the street of the most populous arab country, for a Mubarak who would support Israel on every other issue, even their treatment of Gaza. Such would fit with the self-interested, all-else-be-damned m. o. they apply to every other issue, but is, however unlikely and "out there", the only way the U.S. could possibly have anything to do with the outcome. Bur even that wouldn't happen because the zionist lobby has Obama by the balls, and "gut zionism" (the term you coined in your book) will choose for Obama, as for every other President for years, the most self-destructive path. The U. S. has no influence any more.
I can't help wondering if there isn't a hidden player in this unfolding drama - an Israel suitcase nuclear device on American soil with which to blackmail U.S. presidents into submission.
When more and more Americans breach the wall of their ignorance, a fifty year educational dumbing down, and the duplicity of their government, and strive to return this Nation to one of law and obediance to the Constitution, then and only then can any logical and sensible predictions be made. The US is a festering Nation of corruption.
Mr. Hart's writings makes sense and could lead to peace but the only problem is there are too few in power who want peace. But please keep writing as it is a great guide for us laymen. There are still many who know right from wrong.
One main concern for this country is when the 2012 elections arrive the "Tea Party" in their enthusiasm do not send a virgin to run a brothel,Washington.
Egypt could be the signal "it's time to fish or cut bait" for everyone.
I absolutely agree with Art Loyd, about Alan Hart's writings and America.
Watching tonight on PressTv and AlJazeera the terrible onslaught on the brave people of Egypt, I am totally outraged and furious. In an argument I just had, I said " ... this is the result of our ways here in the West. For decades we have allowed things to build-up to the present boiling point. We are guilty by way of deafness and silence and indifference and Islamophopbia. Egyptians and others are now paying the crime we allowed to be perpetrated on the People of Palestine by Israel and America and our governments in Europe.
When the dust will settle and the Truth will finally come out, people will say: "... my god, we didn't know", just as the German people said when the horror of the concentration camps was shown to them - I heard it myself from my German relatives. "We didn't know". I'll throw that outrageuos phrase at anyone's face if this time too they will try to give me the "Didn't know" speech. We have behaved with our brothers and sisters in Islam like Germans behaved with Jews - we have turned our heads the other way and liquidated the whole story by calling the Plaestinians and other Muslims fanatics and terrorists. Never stopped for a moment to really listen and ask questions.
Now that others are paying for decades of oppression allowed by the West, we ought to be ashamed. Tonight I feel unconfortable sitting in my quiet room in my nice Western neighborhood, watching others being beaten, with no danger to fear for my person. My only hope is that this time, perhaps, history may teach us something. Yet I doubt it: people watching the revolt are cheering for the Arab people fighting in the streets but do not feel in any way related to the events unfolding before their eyes.
Alan, I have the unconfortable feeling it's too late for Obama to do the "right thing", even if he wanted to. He missed his chance with Netanyahu when he had one. And that was a criminal misjudgement. That shrewd zionist was bale to size him up with one look and swallow him in one bite.
The Western rulers have made themselves impotent by siding-up with Zionists and other dictators all the way. Now they are in a fix - especially if they fear a scenario like the one depicted above by Glen (and by you in previous articles). But of course you are right: a solution must and can be found, but it would take the will and joint effort of many people in power. And it takes people like you to advise them.
Martina, Rome, Italy
I have read extensively on Israel/Palestine and believe that the overwhelming body of historical evidence shows that ISRAEL is the most violent and extremist regime in the ME.