With Friends like these…
By Uri Avnery, 14.1.06
JUDAS ISCARIOT is headed for a makeover. According to news
reports, cardinals close to the new pope recommend a change in the Catholic
Church's attitude towards him: exit the treacherous Jew who turns the messiah
over to the cohorts of the evil High Priest - enter the apostle who simply
fulfilled his role in the divine design. After all, it was God who decided that
his son should die on the cross.
A well-intentioned
effort, but a pathetic one. No Vatican decision can alter the image of Judas in
the New Testament: a despicable informer who received "thirty pieces of
silver" for his betrayal of the Son of God. No Christian who absorbs this
story in his childhood will ever forget the picture of the contemptible traitor
who kisses Jesus at the moment of betraying him to his executioners. Nothing
will help except changing the biblical text itself, and that is, of course, not
so easy.
If one of the other 11
apostles had betrayed Jesus, the consequences would not have been, perhaps, so
horrible. But since Judas sounds in many languages like "Jews", the
betrayal is associated in the consciousness of Christians with Jews in general.
Multitudes of Jews throughout history have been butchered because of this. The
Nazi battle-cry "Judah Verrecke!" (Perish, Jews!") paved the way
to the gas chambers.
Perhaps this had some
influence on the young neo-Nazi,
Alexander Koptsev, who
ran amok this week in the Moscow synagogue, stabbing and wounding ten people.
That act lit up all the red lights. Again, "the rise of anti-Semitism in
the world" became a major subject, again the alarm bells shrilled.
There is indeed a
growing danger of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism - two different phenomena
that can appear both together and separately. But it is not connected with
primitive skinheads like the Moscow knife-wielder. It is much more dangerous,
and the fuel that feeds them exists in other places and on other levels.
IN ONE of the stream of speeches in which George W. Bush
is now trying to defend his ill-fated invasion of Iraq, this week he let loose
a sentence that should light all the red lights. In this sentence he castigated
his opponents for asserting that he had attacked Iraq "for the oil and for
Israel".
He thus brought to the
surface an assertion that had until then been openly voiced only by
anti-Semitic marginal groups. They have put together three facts: (a) that the
people who most aggressively pushed for the war were the neo-cons who play a
major role in the Bush administration, (b) that almost all the important
members of this group are Jews, and (c) that the occupation of Iraq has freed
Israel from a significant military threat.
Up to now, the American
media have treated this allegation with contempt, as a ridiculous
"conspiracy theory". Now that
the President himself has spoken about it, it may become part of the legitimate
public discourse in the United States and throughout the world.
Therein lies a great
danger for Israel. The entire Israeli establishment supported the American
invasion. (When we, the opponents of the war, called a demonstration against it
in Tel-Aviv, on the day when millions took to the streets all around the world,
it was a small event, ignored by the media.) Now it may happen, as so often in
history, that those responsible for the disaster will evade responsibility.
George Bush will fade from memory in a few years. What will remain is the
impression that Israel and the Jews dragged the poor US into a despicable
adventure.
BY SHEER CHANCE, this week saw the appearance of a book about the
Iraq war that touches on the same subject - "State of War" by James
Risen.
Among other things, the
book says that the Secretary of Defense and the neo-cons who dominate
Washington did not listen to the American intelligence analysts, who advised
caution when it came to Iraq, but to the Israeli intelligence people who
flooded Washington and briefed high-ranking officials.
According to Risen, it
was the hard-line Israelis that Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, were
listening to, not the cautious CIA. "CIA analysts were often skeptical of
Israeli intelligence reports, knowing that Mossad had very strong - even
obvious - biases about the Arab world."
After their visits, CIA officials would generally discount much of what
the Israeli intelligence officers supplied, "Wolfowitz and other
conservatives at the Pentagon became enraged by this practice," Risen
writes. Wolfowitz is, of course, a very Jewish name.
The obvious conclusion:
it was the Israelis and their allies, the Washington Jews, who pushed the US
into the war.
AS IF that was not enough, Washington is now rocked by a
big scandal that has a close connection with Israel. At its center stands a
person called Jack Abramoff - again a name that discloses the Jewish identity
of its owner.
This Jack is a
super-lobbyist, a symbol of the phenomenon that has turned American politics
into a dirty stable of corruption, which even the mighty Hercules would have
had trouble cleaning up. He skimmed the money of his clients, mostly Native
Americans, put some of it into his own pocket and used the rest to bribe
establishment figures, senators and congressmen. He gave them generous gifts,
junkets around the world, suites in luxury hotels and other perks. Most of the
beneficiaries were Republicans, but some crumbs were thrown to Democrats, too.
Up to this point, it’s
nothing unusual, just bigger than usual. The lobbying industry is very well
developed in Washington, which is infested by lobbyists like a hobo with lice.
The pro-Israeli lobby is no different from all the others. The lobbyists
corrupt everything. They bribe the politicians to make laws that will divert
billions of public money into the pockets of their clients. They play a major
role in financing the election campaigns of politicians, from the President
himself down to the lowliest mayor. Only rarely is one of them caught and sent
to prison, as may happen now to that Abramoff.
What is special about
Abramoff is that he is a fanatical Zionist. According to the stories published
in the States, some of the money that he diverted was transferred to extreme
settlers in the West Bank. Abramoff sent them military equipment for use
against the Palestinians, and perhaps against the Israeli government. Among other
items, he bought them camouflage uniforms, telescopic sights for snipers,
night-vision binoculars and a thermal imager.
American publications
mention a settler named Shmuel Ben-Zvi from the Betar Illit settlement, a
high-school buddy of Abramoff, who received this equipment. Ben-Zvi denied it,
but the Senate committee has obtained e-mail messages from him lauding Abramoff
for sending him "reinforcement", while Abramoff wrote him that
"if only there were another dozen of you, the dirty rats would be
finished."
Abramoff himself claims
that he is simply an idealist, who uses the money "put into his hands by
God" in order to help Israel. He also financed a - probably fictitious -
outfit of Syrian exiles, supported by Israel. One of the American publications
mentions in this context the biblical Mossad motto: "By way of deception
thou shalt make war" (Proverbs 24,6 - that's how it sounds in modern
Hebrew, but the actual meaning of the words is in doubt. The English Bible
renders it thus: "For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war".)
So that's how it looks
to Americans: the man who has become a symbol of corruption is a Jew who
supports Israel.
AND AS IF that is not enough, either, another friend of
Israel has also made waves in the American media. That's our old acquaintance
Jerry Falwell, the leader of millions of American Christian fundamentalists, a
friend of the late Menachem Begin.
It may be remembered
that Binyamin Netanyahu, our then Prime Minister, went to America in 1998 to
meet President Bill Clinton. In those days, Clinton was trying to exert
pressure on Israel in order to promote peace. Netanyahu was invited for this
purpose. On the eve of his meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu met publicly with
Falwell of all people, in front of a crowd of hundreds. Falwell, a sworn enemy
of Clinton, reveals now that the meeting was deliberately planned as an affront
to the President.
Some days before that,
another friend of Netanyahu's, William Kristol, one of the Jewish neo-con
power-brokers, had publicly hinted that a huge White House sex-scandal was
about to break. Immediately afterwards, the Monica Lewinsky scandal was
unleashed and the public was informed that the President had had sex in the
White House with the young intern with the very Jewish-sounding name.
Two weeks before the
Netanyahu visit, an American Jewish
paper had published an ad demanding that the President abstain from pressuring
Israel. The ad included a photo of Clinton taken from the back - the very shot
of Clinton embracing Monica that was later published all around the world.
Falwell practically
brags that he helped Netanyahu to blackmail Clinton. If so, he was successful.
No pressure on Israel materialized at that meeting.
By the way, the magazine
in which Falwell published his allegation, Vanity Fair, belongs to the
publishing empire of Si and Donald Newhouse, generous contributors to the
pro-Israel lobby.
(Another high-profile
leader of the Christian fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, declared last week that
the stroke that felled Sharon was God's punishment for giving away a piece of
the Holy Land to the Arabs. He later apologized, probably hoping to save an
agreement he has with the Israeli government to build a huge tourist complex
near the Sea of Galilee.)
THE PICTURE that emerges for the American public is that
Israel and the Jews dominate Washington and that the US government dances to
their tune. That is, of course, a wild exaggeration, but many may come to
believe it. That may not have any immediate influence, but constitutes a very
serious long-term danger. When things repeat themselves again and again, the
effect is cumulative.
Such events must serve
as a warning. The Israeli government and the leaders of the US Jewish community
must think again about this danger. Disapproving words about "the rise of
anti-Semitism" are not enough, what is required is a profound change of
behavior. We must stop all contact with crooks, especially if they are Jewish,
and with fundamentalists of all sorts. Everyone who has the best interests of
Israel at heart must demand that. The matter concerns the national security of
Israel, especially when the policy of our government is completely based on
unstinting American support.
Ariel Sharon was too
overbearing to consider this danger. Let's hope that his successors will be a
little more sober.