by Editor (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 39, No. 2, Rabi' al-Thani, 1431)
Long before the Zionist entity was planted in the heartland of Islam, like a dagger thrust into its heart, turmoil had erupted in the Middle East. This land, once a solid bloc under Ottoman rule, was parcelled into nation-states to serve British and French colonialists’ political, economic and geostrategic interests. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq,Lebanon, and later Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had never existed in history; they are colonial creations and serve their interests. The establishment of the Zionist entity was possible only after the creation of these non-entities: Israel’s first line of defence, in the infamous words of David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister.
In the 62 years since its creation and numerous wars later, the Zionist entity has engulfed virtually the entire Middle East into flames. Hardly any country in the region has escaped its military aggression. As an expansionist settler colonial entity, it has caused endless suffering and mayhem in the region. But unlike all earlier colonial entities, it is neither viable economically nor politically. Zionist Israel is a parasitical state that thrives on the US body. The US was not Israel’s cash cow from day one. In the first 20 years of Israel’s existence, it was dependent on European support — primarily British and French, and secondarily with money extorted from Germany for holocaust “reparations”. When the holocaust was perpetrated, there was no such entity as Israel yet hundreds of billions of dollars have been sucked by this parasitical state while the real victims of the holocaust have gotten little by way of compensation, according to Professor Norman Finkelstein, the son of holocaust survivors (The Holocaust Industry, 2000).
A glance at some statistics would help clarify Israel’s dependence. Between 1948 and 1968, Israel received $348 million in aid from the US. From 1968 to the present, Israel has received more nearly $150 billion. This figure does not include donations from Zionist Jews that funnel money to their favourite country, again hundreds of billions of dollars. While there are more than 45 million people living in absolute poverty in the US, the billions of dollars shovelled to Israel annually, is never questioned. Members of US congress dare not mention this, otherwise the Zionist lobby would make sure they do not get reelected. The Zionists are master blackmailers. Thus, for all practical purposes, the US is little more than a Zionist colony. Capitol Hill, in the word of American commentator Pat Buchanan, is “Zionist occupied territory.”
It is to the Middle East however that we must return for it is there that Zionist Israel has inflicted the greatest damage, harm and suffering. True, if Zionist Israel were wiped off the world map today, this would not mean the end of all Middle Eastern problems but it would remove a major irritant. The degree of bloodshed and suffering would decline drastically. Since 1948, every war in the Middle East has been waged either directly by Israel against its neighbours or on its behalf by the US and its allies (examples: Iraq-Iran war and the two wars against Iraq). Israel has been responsible for turning millions of Palestinians into refugees; tens of thousands of others have been murdered. The Zionists and their Western allies consider Palestinian and Muslim blood cheaper than water. From the refugee camps of southern Beirut to the slums of Ghazzah, Palestinians live in misery and deprivation. Ghazzah has become the largest open-air prison, much like aNazi concentration camp of the Second World War.
While Israel has consistently invoked the bogey of an “existential threat” it faces from others — first the Arabian regimes, then the PLO and now Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Iran — it is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, with 200–500 nuclear warheads. The West led by the US makes hypocritical noises about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons but maintains deafening silence about the Israeli arsenal. Asked by the veteran journalist Helen Thomas at his first White House press conference after becoming president to name the country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, Barack Obama said he did not want to “speculate”.
It is such hypocrisy and the shielding of Israel from all criticism that heightens anger against Zionist crimes in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere. Israel is the principal, nay the only source of conflict, war and bloodshed in the Middle East. The millions of Palestinians it has uprooted and continues to uproot from their lands, homes and farms and orchards seek an end to such crimes and redress for the injustices inflicted on them. If the world is unable or unwilling to end such barbarism, then the victims are left with no choice but to rise up and defend themselves. If such resistance causes discomfort to the Zionists or the West, so be it. Self-preservation is a basic instinct and the right of all living creatures. How can the Palestinians be deprived of this right?
Israel’s barbarism, however, carries the seeds of its own destruction. Gradually, people worldwide have woken up to the reality that Israel is not a victim but the perpetrator of horrible crimes. Despite the shrill propaganda about anti-Semitism and the holocaust, the world sees Israel through its bulldozing of Palestinian homes and the crushing of Palestinian boys after breaking their bones. Israel’s inner contradictions are catching up with it and its end is not far off.
Elimination of the racist Zionist ideology will be the first step toward bringing sanity and, therefore, peace to the Middle East.