Shame & Blame
By John Strausbaugh
A conspiracy theory that briefly made the rounds last week speculated that the bomb attack on the USS Cole was a covert Israeli military operation. Like many conspiracy theories, this one may have strayed far from actual events, yet it resonated with another, intuitive truth: whoever attacked the Cole did Israel a large favor. Because this is a time when Israel needs the world–and, more critically, the United States–to be focused on all the "Islamic terrorists" that can be found, and distracted from the shameful way Israel has been acting.
And so the specter of Osama bin Laden, which has lain dormant these past several months, once again rises to menace innocent Americans, while dolorous images of young Americans killed or injured aboard the Cole flood the news, amid much saber-rattling rhetoric of vengeance and retribution from politicians and hack journalists throughout the land. Bin Laden, who as we all know was the creature of U.S. intelligence, even looks the very part of the Satanic, turbaned Muslim assassin Americans have been trained over the past few decades to fear and despise.
Contrast his image as the all-powerful Evil One with that of the always-capitulating "Yes Sir" Arafat, the now almost thoroughly compromised Palestinian "leader" whose reputation and influence may well be added to casualty lists from this current conflict. Addressing the Israeli people back on Oct. 7, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said, "We are witnessing an acute and violent escalation in our relations with the Palestinians. Responsibility for this rests with Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. If he so wished, he could with a simple command halt the violence." This seems unlikely. Arafat looks more and more like a corrupt opportunist buffeted by interests–those of the U.S., Israel and his own people–over which he has little control.
Will we soon be told that bin Laden was indisputably behind the Cole attack? Almost surely. Will we have any way of verifying this? Certainly not. At any rate, as the conspiracists suggest, he couldn’t have come back at a better time for Israel. One needn’t be anti-Zionist, much less anti-Semitic, to feel that the nation founded as a refuge from the depredations of racist savagery and fascist repression has a lot to answer for in its current brutal suppression of Palestinian and Israeli Arab protests. We’ve been shown and told about acts of barbarism by both sides. But Israel is so overwhelmingly dominant in the relationship that its ferociousness is the more abhorrent. It has borne down with lethal military might on rock-throwing street protesters. The numbers alone weigh heavily: as of this writing, seven Israelis (four of them soldiers) have been killed, compared to 102 Palestinians, including 24 under the age of 15. Depending on whose estimates one chooses to trust, up to 3500 Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have been injured. On their bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza, three million Palestinians are effectively under military house arrest.
As this is being written on Monday, the desperate attempt to get the "peace process" back on its rails is off to a rocky start. Whatever happens there, all three of the relevant "leaders"–Barak, Arafat and the great peace broker Bill Clinton–have already been shamed.
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Carl
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