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Grand Theater: The US, The PLO, and the Ayatollah
Khomeini. Why did the US government, in 1979, delegate to the
PLO the task of negotiating the safety of American hostages at the US embassy
in Tehran? Historical and Investigative Research - 10 Dec 2005 Late in 1979, student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader
of the Islamist coup d’Etat that followed the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79,
attacked the US embassy in Tehran and took about 90 hostages. Khomeini would
not receive US officials for negotiations, he said, because the United States
was “Great Satan.” But the US government proposed, and Khomeini accepted,
that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) be the mediator. The PLO
eagerly participated because, it said, it wanted to help protect American
lives... And then the PLO in fact obtained a promise from Khomeini that the
safety of the hostages would be guaranteed (it was). The New York Times
quipped that “Yasir Arafat is so busy playing statesman,”[1]
but the New York Times had eagerly built Arafat up for the role (as
shown below), helping this antisemitic terrorist organization to shine on the
world stage as powerbroker and benefactor. One is entitled to wonder: What in
the world is the PLO? How does it get away with this? This piece will
seek to throw some light on these questions. Introduction This piece is the second in a series of articles that HIR is producing
to fill out the historical background necessary to understand US president
George Bush Jr.'s ongoing war on Iraq. So you may be wondering: What is the
relevance of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 to a US war against Iraq
taking place in the year 2005? In 1979, as I will argue, the US ruling elite produced the Iranian
‘hostage crisis’ in order:
As I will show, these two objectives were subgoals of a more general
strategy to support Islamist Iran against secular Iraq, and simultaneously to
generate a diplomatic process towards a PLO state on Israeli soil --
precisely what the US government is also doing now (and what it did in
between). The point of all that will be explained further below and in
subsequent pieces, but I give a general picture of the present situation in
the appendix. In sum, a proper understanding of the hostage crisis of 1979, I aim to
show, will help us see just how consistently pro-PLO, pro-Iran, and
pro-Islamist -- and in consequence how anti-Israeli -- US policy has been
over the years. This piece will focus on the PLO side of the equation; the coming
pieces will take a closer look at the Iranian connection. Table of Contents █ Introduction (above) █ The PLO is asked to mediate the hostage crisis █ The geopolitical game of the US ruling elite in the Iranian hostage
crisis
█ But. . .why does the US attack Israel? Is it for oil? _____________________________________________________ The PLO is asked to mediate the
hostage crisis _____________________________________________________ The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 forced the Iranian shah (or king)
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to flee the country. The shah had been a repressive,
right-wing US puppet (more on this in
forthcoming pieces). After his exile, the de facto head
of state, soon to be made de jure head of state, became the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, a leader of the opposition forces and an Islamist
terrorist who achieved undisputed total power when he violently defeated the
progressive workers movements that had joined his Islamist forces in fighting
against the shah (more about this important struggle in forthcoming pieces). The PLO had not been a mere observer in the events leading up to
Khomeini's rise to power. In fact, the PLO had been training Iranian
guerrillas since the early 1970s. As a token of thanks for this, once in
power, the Ayatollah Khomeini immediately seized the Israeli diplomatic
mission in Tehran and gave it to the PLO.[2]
Also: “Arafat received a pledge from Ayatollah Khomeini that the Iranians
would ‘turn to the issue of victory over Israel’ after Iran had consolidated
its strength.”[2a] The PLO had
been calling (still is) for the destruction of Israel, so that is what
“victory” meant.[2b] Khomeini took
to denouncing Israel every opportunity he had. Later that year, as many will vividly remember, student followers of
Khomeini in Tehran, protesting that the US had allowed the exiled shah into
the US for medical treatment, seized the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November
and took hostage those in it, producing the ‘hostage crisis.’ They would not
release the hostages, the students said, until the US turned the shah over
for trial in Iran. Many were shocked. But what was truly shocking was this:
four days later The New York Times announced that the PLO, a terrorist
organization, “had begun efforts to protect the lives of Americans held
hostage.” “UNITED
NATIONS, N.Y., Nov. 7 -- Palestine Liberation Organization officials said in
interviews here today that a two-member PLO delegation, headed by a leader of
Al Fatah, the main guerilla group, had arrived in Teheran and had begun
efforts to protect the lives of Americans held hostage by students in the
United States Embassy.”[3] (For those of you
whose eyes are popping, I have provided a scan of the original NYT piece in
the footnote.) And why was the PLO doing this? “In response
to a question as to whether the initiative of the PLO was an effort to
improve its image, [PLO spokesperson Rahman] said: ‘It is what we consider
our moral responsibility toward a group of human beings.’” Really. The New York Times also reported that, “Zehdi Labib
Terzi, the chief Palestinian observer here, said that the delegation had been
the idea of Yasir Arafat, head of the PLO.” But somebody else was claiming
the credit for planting the idea in Arafat's head: the US government.
In fact, there had been a formal request, as reported in the same NYT piece:
This may require a
pause for proper digestion. Yasser Arafat was not nobody. In 1979, he was a friend
of the Ayatollah Khomeini, whom he had helped install in power, and an
American congressman was boasting to the press about having phoned “Mr.
Arafat” to ask if he could help the United States, a superpower, in a crisis. The PLO didn’t
merely oblige this US congressman but announced happily that it had the
problem licked: “Mr. Terzi
said: ‘We have great hope the Iranian students will respond to our appeal.’
The aim of the mission as reported from here last night was to seek the
release of the hostages. Today, Mr. Terzi and Mr. Rahman spoke of protecting
the hostages’ lives. The PLO
delegation in Teheran ‘will just sit down and reason with the students,’ Mr.
Terzi said, adding: ‘We have learned how to handle such cases.’”[4] Do you see anything incongruous in how these PLO
officials swaggered? They breezily announced that they would free the
hostages in Tehran! The next day they ‘limited’ themselves to claiming they
would protect the hostages’ lives. And how? They’d sit down with the students
and talk it out because the PLO, they said, was quite good at this. How nice.
But at the precise moment these PLO officials spoke, 7 November 1979,
the Ayatollah Khomeini -- an iron-fisted, repressive Islamist terrorist --
was putting a rubber stamp on what had been obvious for months: that he was
the supreme, absolute, and totalitarian ruler of Iran.[5]
This Ayatollah Khomeini had publicly endorsed the takeover of the US embassy
in Tehran, and the PLO had yet to have its first official contact with
Khomeini on the hostage issue. But the PLO was already announcing the problem
solved? The PLO did not behave like a stateless terrorist group fighting for
a scrap of land in the Middle East; it strode like an imperial power on its
way to deal with a vassal state. If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck... What am I saying? That perhaps the PLO was in
reality an imperial power dealing with vassal states? That would be absurd.
But a slightly different proposal is not absurd, and it will easily account
for the PLO’s behavior. Make two assumptions: 1) the PLO was (and is) a
covert US pet, and 2) so was Khomeini. Now the interpretation becomes that
the United States, a de facto imperial power with client states and organizations
all over the world, was producing its own Grand Theater. This explains why
the whole idea of PLO mediation came from the US ruling elite. Let us call this my hypothesis. Is it reasonable? Let us first see whether my
hypothesis can account for how the two PLO officials above swaggered. Here is
my proposal: In the glare of the spotlight, overconfident PLO mercenaries who
understood that the profile of their organization was being raised by their
patron superpower, and who could see that the outcome was foreordained,
became too giddy and spoke too boldly in their first press appearances on
this matter, going so far as to attribute the whole initiative to Yasser
Arafat (see above), and to declare the problem solved already. A mistake. But my hypothesis can neither stand nor fall on how
it accounts for such a small detail as this; it must be evaluated against a
background of facts. And it must form part of a reasonable theory. What
theory would this be? In other words, if the Iranian ‘hostage crisis’ was
US-produced Grand Theater, what was the purpose of it? I claim it had two immediate objectives:
Is this reasonable? The first claim will be shocking if you hold to the
mainstream hypothesis that the US is an ally of Israel. And the second will
be shocking if you hold to the mainstream hypothesis that the US ruling elite
fights Islamist terrorism. (The idea that the US ruling elite was sponsoring
an enemy state may also trouble you, but that is not what I am proposing -- I
think the Iranian ruling elite is allied with the US ruling elite, and the
rest is theater). However counter-intuitive my proposals may at first
seem, what matters is whether they agree with the historical evidence. I have researched the history of US foreign policy
towards the Jewish people and state since the 1930s to the present, and this
evidence supports the view that the US ruling elite -- contrary to the common
belief -- is an enemy of Israel. These findings will mostly not be addressed
in this piece, but you are free to
consult them.[5b] As
for Islamist terrorism, though its foot soldiers certainly do hate the United
States, their leaders are in my view allied with the US ruling elite, which
sponsors this ideology in part because it assists US imperialism, as
it destabilizes the great Asian powers with Muslim populations on their
borders: Russia, China, and India. It is Jared Israel who first proposed this
interpretation.[5c] The question of US policy towards Iranian Islamism,
and of the US's broader geopolitical strategy in Asia, will be taken up more
fully in other HIR pieces, still to come. Here below I will evaluate, against
a background of relevant facts, my hypothesis that the US ruling elite meant
to raise the PLO's prestige in 1979, and that, in order to do this, it set
the Iranian ‘hostage crisis’ in motion. _____________________________________________________ The geopolitical
game of the US ruling elite in the Iranian hostage crisis
Here is a basic question:
The answer to this question will be a ‘prediction’
and what it states will depend, naturally, on our working hypothesis. So let
us consider two competing hypotheses. The mainstream hypothesis: Assumptions:
The US ruling elite is an ally of Israel and an enemy of Islamist
terrorism. The PLO is what it seems: a stateless terrorist group. And the
Islamist terrorist Khomeini is also what he seems: the enemy of the US. Relevant facts
not under dispute: Khomeini is the leader of a new
Islamist state, using the hostage crisis to raise his prestige in his own
country and on the world stage as a supposed challenger to the United States,
calling the US ‘Great Satan.’[5d] The request
for PLO mediation has been made by -- of all countries -- ‘Great Satan’: the
United States. Prediction:
As a consequence of the PLO’s absurd effrontery, a product of ‘Great Satan’
intervention, Khomeini will protect his prestige and rule out any role for
PLO mediation. My hypothesis: Assumptions:
The US ruling elite is an enemy of Israel. The PLO and Khomeini are both
covert instruments of the US ruling elite, which is using both instruments to
conduct Grand Theater on the world stage, one purpose of which is to make the
PLO shine in a positive light the better to use it against Israel. Analysis:
Under these assumptions, Khomeini will have to allow the PLO to play its role
and shine, despite its effrontery. Why? Because this is what the US ruling
elite wants, and they call the shots. Of course, it will be necessary first
to get PLO officials to tone it down a bit in public, so as not to embarrass
Khomeini too much because Khomeini is playing his own role: that of defiant
anti-American leader. He has to look fearless. Prediction:
After some corrective official statements by the PLO to the effect that, ahem,
the PLO really can’t do anything unless Khomeini gives permission, because
Khomeini is the boss, Khomeini will allow the PLO to act as mediator, letting
this terrorist organization shine as supposed protector of American lives. Of course, the above are not really
predictions, because we are looking at the past, not making guesses about the
future. But that matters little. What matters is which hypothesis is most
consistent with the facts. Science can look forwards or backwards; what a
scientist may not do is defend absurdities. Let us now review what happened. The day immediately after the PLO’s Zehdi Labib
Terzi made his strikingly confident statements that the PLO would solve
everything quickly, The New York Times reported statements from the
PLO that sounded a different note: “…PLO
officials here [in Tehran], appearing somewhat embarrassed, were saying that
there had been no offer of mediation. The organization’s observer at the
United Nations, Zehdi Labib Terzi, had said the trip was aimed at insuring
safety of the hostages. The PLO officials here appeared to be concerned that
the organization not seem to be intruding itself into the situation against
the wishes of the Ayatollah. ‘The PLO
office in Teheran has never announced such a thing and never has anything
been said about mediation,’ said Sakher Darvish, the Palestinian spokesman
here. ‘This is spread by the press agencies and we completely deny the
matter.’ ...The PLO has
said at its Beirut headquarters that the mission to Teheran was inspired by
‘humanitarian objectives.’ Officials here, however, were guarded in their
comments, knowing that any mediation must have the approval of Ayatollah
Khomeini.”[6] But even as the PLO corrected its exuberance of the
day before, there was no question that its profile was being raised. The same
NYT article wrote that, “The PLO
appeared to be the strongest hope of negotiating the release of the hostages
after Ayatollah Khomeini last night refused any meeting with former Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, named by President Carter as special representative in
the embassy crisis.” The PLO: “the strongest hope,” according to The
New York Times. And then, two days later, again consistent
with my hypothesis, there was the following NYT front page headline: “NEW IRAN
OFFICIAL REAFFIRMS DEMAND [THAT] US TURN OVER SHAH BUT CONFERS WITH PLO
AIDES”[7] Consider the context. The “NEW IRAN OFFICIAL” was
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Iran’s new foreign minister in the government that
Khomeini had just appointed. The shah was the repressive right-wing US puppet
whom the Khomeini movement had replaced, and he was hated in Iran. The world
was told that the seizure of the US embassy and its hostages was in
retaliation for the US having allowed the shah to enter the United States for
medical treatment. First the students, then Khomeini, and now Khomeini’s new
government were refusing to release the hostages unless the shah were turned
over for trial in Iran. So what we learn above is that, though the Iranians
may have been snubbing US representatives, they certainly were talking
to the PLO. The headline above was saying that the Iranians were tough
mothers but the PLO might be able to deal with them. It was front page news in the New York Times that
the new Foreign Minister of Iran met with the PLO. But if you think that is amazing, consider the subtitle
for the same article, written in lower case type: “Foreign Minister
Also Meets U.S. Chargé” This was a reference to “L. Bruce Laingen, the
American chargé d’affaires under guard in the [Iranian] Foreign Ministry
building since the takeover of the embassy.” So, in the middle of a hostage
crisis at the US embassy in Iran, The New York Times was treating the
meeting of Bani-Sadr with the PLO as more important than his meeting with the
highest-ranking US embassy official in Iran at the time.[8] The same article explained that “The new [Khomeini-appointed]
Foreign Minister met this morning with two officials of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, Abu Walid and Hani al-Hassan, head of the PLO’s
office here…Dr. Bani-Sadr was scheduled to meet with them again.” But The
New York Times assured its readers that the Ayatollah Khomeini, not the
PLO, called the shots in Iran, a point that apparently required
clarification: “But they [the PLO] cannot make any move without approval from
the Ayatollah.” Something else that is worthy of note is the representation
of the PLO in The New York Times as brave peace-seekers.
So the most prestigious print source in the world
told its readers that the PLO was taking political risks to help the
hostages; the PLO, therefore, should be considered moderate, said the NYT,
relative to “more radical organizations.” This is precisely the
representation that was required to launch, a little over a decade later, the
Oslo ‘Peace’ Process, which the US forced Israel to participate in (consult
the footnote), and which brought the PLO into Israeli soil, from which
position it has been much better able to murder innocent Israelis and
indoctrinate the West Bank and Gaza Arabs into its ecstatic genocidal
ideology.[9] So this is
consistent with the hypothesis that we are looking at US-driven political theater
meant, in part, to raise the prestige of the PLO in order to attack Israel --
so long as we assume, that is, that the New York Times does the
bidding of the US ruling elite, as HIR has repeatedly argued.[9a] On November 17th, a NYT headline announced: “IRAN SAID TO
PLEDGE HOSTAGE PROTECTION; P.L.O. Reported to Get Assurance During Endeavors
in Teheran on Behalf of Americans.”[10] The body of the article explained: “BEIRUT, Lebanon,
Nov. 15 -- Iranian officials told the Palestine Liberation Organization that
they would protect the lives of the Americans and others being held hostage
at the United States Embassy in Teheran, Arab officials close to the
Palestinians said here today. The assurances
were said to have been made by telephone to Yasir Arafat, the guerilla
leader, after his representative visited Teheran last week… …Palestinian
leaders now believe that outside diplomatic endeavors have no chance of
success for the time being. But they keep open the possibility that the PLO
may step in again at a later stage. Abolhassan
Bani-Sadr, Iran’s director of foreign policy, is understood to have told [PLO
official] Abu Walid…that the Iranians would call in the PLO if they decided
to free the hostages.” So, readers of The New York Times were told
that the PLO had secured the safety of the hostages, and might yet free them.
Again, this is consistent with my hypothesis. In fact, the PLO swaggered so
mightily at this time that it allowed itself to insult the United States
publicly in the middle of its mediation process, explaining that it was not
acting impartially but taking Khomeini's side, which the US, by the way, took
sitting down.[10a] One week later The New York Times carried
another headline that made the PLO the center of everything: “PLO HINTS AT
SHIFT IN IRANIAN DEMANDS: Aide Says US Hostages Might Be Freed if Shah Is
Returned, but Captors Press Demands”[11] The body of the article explained that the demand
was no longer for the Shah to be handed over to the Iranians for trial, but
merely that he leave the US.[11a] Apparently,
the Ayatollah Khomeini was not as tough as he seemed. But the PLO evidently
was very powerful: “Reporters
reminded [PLO spokesman Mahmoud] Labadi that the Iranian students holding the
hostages threatened to kill them if the United States let the Shah go
anyplace but Iran. ‘That is not true,’ he said. ‘If the Shah is sent to
Mexico there would be no problem…’” Amazing. Total confidence was back: the PLO had
become the de facto Foreign Ministry of Iran, speaking for its
government. In that capacity, as the same article reported, the PLO organized
an Iranian delegation and arranged meetings for them with the representatives
of various Arab governments.[11b] Many months later, escaped Iranian officials
declared that the PLO had in fact been behind the whole thing from the
beginning: “On Oct. 12, 1979,
a senior P.L.O. delegation, including Abu Jihad, Abu Walid (who is in charge
of ''special operations'') and Col. Husni Ghazi al-Hussein, arrived in
Teheran. Iranian officials who have fled the country claim that this P.L.O.
team, in a series of meetings with Iranian revolutionary leaders arranged by
Abu Hassan, proposed the assault on the United States Embassy that took place
on Nov. 4. It is impossible to prove or disprove this report in the absence
of further details. But Western European intelligence sources report that Abu
Hassan was one of the counselors who urged Khomeini to reject any prompt
resolution of the embassy occupation, and that the original assault force
included several Iranians who had been trained at Palestinian camps in
Lebanon.”[11c] What happened, in the end? The shah was not turned over to Iran, but instead
spent time in Egypt, Morocco, Bahamas, and Mexico. And the hostages,
precisely as the PLO promised, were not killed. The US proposed buying the freedom
of the hostages to the tune of $5.5 billion.[12] On
21 January 1981, the hostages were freed; they had been treated well.[13]
The payment to Iran was closer to $8 billion -- it was called the “largest
private financial transfer in history,” and it came in very handy for Iran’s
war with Iraq, which raged since September 1980.[13a]
By the time the hostages were released, the PLO was
keeping itself out of this particular spotlight because the Arab states had
taken Iraq’s side against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, and the PLO couldn’t
afford to be opposing the entire Arab world (Iraq had an Arab ruling
elite, and the Iranians are not Arabs). Still, the PLO got to shine quite a
bit, dressed up as a positive diplomatic force on the world stage. The behavior of the PLO, then, is consistent with my
hypothesis. And so is the behavior of the president of the United States, to
which I now turn.
As you may recall, the officially given reason for
allowing the exiled Iranian shah into the US had been that he needed medical
treatment. According to Khomeini, admitting the shah had been the trigger for
taking the US embassy hostage, and he was promising not to release the
hostages unless the shah were turned over by the United States for trial in
Iran. But had the US really admitted the shah for medical reasons? On 21
March 1980, a NYT editorial proposed instead that “The [shah’s] medical
emergency may have been a convenient pretext.”[14] Why this suggestion? The New York Times was
addressing a question that many people had to be turning over in their minds
because, obviously, “President Carter did know that to admit the Shah would
run at least a diplomatic risk.” In fact, “[Carter] was warned that admitting
the Shah might jeopardize the [US] embassy.” And yet despite all this Jimmy
Carter allowed the deposed Iranian dictator into the United States. This
provided quite a bit of fodder for speculation, because the shah, after all,
was universally reviled. If admitting him into the United States carried a
significant probability of losing the US embassy in Tehran to an armed mob,
Carter obviously should have left him outside, whether or not the shah
needed US medical treatment. It turns out, however, that the shah didn't even
need US medical treatment. As the NYT piece explained, “[David] Rockefeller
and Henry Kissinger had made the Shah a symbol of American constancy,” and David
Rockefeller, who was a personal friend of the shah, “favored the Shah’s
permanent residence in the United States as the least that should be done for
a former ally.” So it is more than a little suspicious that “The Shah’s
condition was diagnosed mainly by a single doctor engaged by David
Rockefeller.” This doctor must have been less than honest because there was,
apparently, no medical emergency requiring a US hospital: “[The shah’s]
health did not require him to come to the United States after all...there is
no special magic to the hospitals in New York.” So why did Jimmy Carter let the shah in? After pointing out the problems with the official
story, The New York Times proposed this alternative: that Carter's
move was perhaps meant “to test Iran’s tolerance for the Shah’s permanent
residence in the United States.” This is a remarkable hypothesis. Are we to
believe that Carter, despite having been warned that this might cost him the
US embassy in Tehran, with 90 people in it, let the shah into the United
States, anyway, just to see if something bad really would follow? The
New York Times would like you to think that the people who run superpower
states approach foreign policy like the child who, warned not to stick his
hand into the hornet's nest, does it anyway -- to see what happens. This is
absurd under any circumstances, but more so with an impending US
presidential election, and Carter running for a second term, as was the
case. One does not resolve an apparent absurdity by
proposing a bigger one. My hypothesis says that Khomeini
belonged to the US ruling elite, and that Jimmy Carter needed to produce the
appearance of a provocation so that Khomeini could seize the US embassy in
Tehran. The point? To get the Grand Theater rolling. And why? Because Jimmy
Carter wanted to raise the profile of both Khomeini and the PLO, his clients.
Losing the US election was neither here nor there for Carter -- it was part
of the US ruling elite's Grand Theater (Reagan's policies towards the PLO and
towards Iran were Carter's[14a]). Is this absurd? Not if it agrees with the evidence. A forthcoming HIR
piece will examine US policy towards Iraq and Iran, and the
relationship of the Ayatollah Khomeini to the US ruling elite of both
parties, Democrat and Republican; here, let us focus on Jimmy Carter's
pro-PLO diplomacy. Only two years before, in 1977, Jimmy Carter had
been working overtime to give the PLO the dignity of a ‘government in exile,’
as opposed to the dignity of a terrorist organization, and had been
energetically pushing for the idea of a PLO state.[15] This is what The New York Times wrote in
1977:
If Congress had “admiration” for the president’s
Middle East diplomacy, which involved trying
to force the Israelis to give up strategic territory won in a defensive war
in which Israel's Arab enemies had meant to exterminate the Israeli Jews,
what does this mean?[15aa] That the US
government, across the board, favored an anti-Israeli policy. And who would Carter's “Palestinian ‘homeland’” be
for? Two months later, the Associated Press wrote this (my emphasis):
If “the Americans” wanted the PLO to have the
dignity of a “government in exile” so it could participate at the Geneva
peace conference, then the US ruling elite was obviously trying to create a
PLO state. And Jimmy Carter was passionate about this. A few days later, The
New York Times wrote,
The PLO was murdering innocent Israeli civilians, consistent
with its founding charter mandate, which openly calls for the destruction of
Israel via the extermination of the Jewish people.[15d]
And yet US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was pretending that the problem was
the “Israeli refusal to accept...right for existence of some kind of
Palestinian state.” But that's not the end of it. As you can see above,
either the Israelis would cooperate with Jimmy Carter's effort to create a
PLO state in the West Bank and Gaza, or Carter would launch the process
leading to such a state without involving the Israelis: “if Israelis continue
to refuse to make commitments before conference, Pres Carter has said that he
would publicly issue peace plan.” The anti-Israeli stance of the United
States government was simply extreme. And Carter's position is uncannily
similar to the threats that
George Bush Sr. delivered to the Israelis in 1991,
when the US finally succeeded in getting an Israeli government to participate
in the effort to create a PLO state.[15e] The next year, in 1978, when Israel tried to defend
itself from PLO attacks against its civilians, launched from PLO bases in southern
Lebanon, United States President Jimmy Carter forced the Israelis to back
down.[16] The above is all consistent with my hypothesis, and
makes it entirely unsurprising that Jimmy Carter should have tried to improve
the PLO's image the year after, in 1979, by setting in motion the 'hostage
crisis.' By contrast, the mainstream hypothesis, namely, that the United
States ruling elite favors Israel, is not supported by the above mountain of
relevant facts. From this perspective, the spectacularly flawed and
disastrous Delta Force operation to rescue the hostages looks like more Grand
Theater, there to convince everybody that everything had been tried and now a
diplomatic solution—buying the
hostages to the tune of $8 billion, as it turns out—would have to be found. But there are other facts, as well, that support my
hypothesis. I turn to these next.
Just seven years before the taking of the hostages in
Tehran, at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, “members of
the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist
organization Black September…the attack led directly to the deaths of 11
Israeli athletes…”[17] According to a State Department document unearthed
by historian Russ Braley, and reproduced on the web by World-Net Daily in
2002, US Intelligence knew, at least as early as 1973, that
Black September was just a cover for Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah, the controlling core of the PLO.[18]
Indeed, the document says: “no significant distinction now can be made
between the BSO [Black September Organization] and Fatah.” The document
further explains that “The collapse of Fatah’s guerrilla efforts led Fatah to
clandestine terrorism against Israel and countries friendly to it.” It
concludes: “Fatah leadership including Arafat now seem clearly committed to
terrorism.” The 1973 State Department document was sent to
American embassies all over the world, and they were instructed as follows:
“This brief should not be attributed to CIA in any way, and owing to extreme
sensitivity of information it should be conveyed orally only.” So the State
Department preferred that the general public not know these things about the
PLO. But why? Why was the confirmation that the PLO was
responsible for the Munich massacre, and that it would henceforth focus on
terrorist activity, so “sensitive” that the public shouldn’t know about it?
Why was it so “sensitive” that, beyond the recipients of this document, the
few who could be privy to this information should get it only as a
rumor, rather than a claim officially confirmed by US Intelligence? The mainstream hypothesis that the US government is
opposed to terrorism and allied with Israel would seem to require the US to
make this information public in order to embarrass the PLO, because nobody
denied back then that the PLO was a terrorist organization dedicated to the
destruction of Israel. If you accept the mainstream hypothesis, then, it is
not merely awkward but absurd that the US State Department should have
protected the PLO. And if degrees of absurdity can be contemplated, then the
US State Department's behavior is radically absurd, because the PLO was
guilty of murdering US diplomats -- that is to say, employees of the US State
Department. On that point, consider what else the 1973 State
Department document mentioned above says: “Question of
link between Black September Organization (BSO) and Fatah has been subject of
much public discussion since murder of US diplomats in Khartoum. Fatah
leader Arafat has disavowed connection with BSO, and many in Arab world and
elsewhere have pointed to Arafat’s disavowal as justification for continuing
financial and other support for Fatah. …Arafat
continues to disavow publicly any connection between Fatah and terrorist
operations. Similarly, Fatah maintains its pretense of moderation vis-à-vis
the Arab governments, a pose which most of these governments find convenient
for their public position toward the Palestinian cause.” [emphasis added] Diplomats are supposed to be sacrosanct in
international law, so the murder of diplomats is about as serious as a crime
gets. But the US didn't want to prosecute. On the contrary, the State
Department -- the employer of the US diplomats whom the PLO murdered in
Khartoum -- made clear in this 1973 document that assisting the PLO’s
“pretense of moderation” was vital to the United States government. It kept
this information secret and assisted Arafat’s denials, it appears, to avoid
inflaming the American public against the PLO, and to foster a political
climate that made it possible for the Arab states to support the PLO under
guise of furthering “the Palestinian cause.” That was 1973. By late 1979, our year of
focus, despite the State Department's efforts, the general public understood
perfectly well that the PLO was in the business of killing innocent men,
women, and children. This was not especially difficult given that PLO terrorism
from southern Lebanon had made necessary an Israeli invasion in order to
protect its civilians, as mentioned above. To get a sense for how clear it
was in the public mind that the PLO was a terrorist organization, consider
that in September of that year African American leaders of the SCLC (Southern
Christian Leadership Conference), the late Martin Luther King's organization,
met with Yasser Arafat. To what end? These fools were there to destroy King’s
legacy by having a hug fest with a world famous racist, heaven knows why. But
political correctness required them to say that they were “ ‘appealing to the
PLO to stop killing Israeli men, women and children and…urging…the PLO to
recognize the right of Israel to exist,’ [SCLC chairman] Fauntroy said.”[19] In
1979, therefore, the public was not confused: it understood that the PLO was
a terrorist organization. So what happened is this: During the Iranian hostage
crisis of 1979, the United States turned to a famous terrorist organization,
which the US government knew since 1973 was guilty of murdering American
citizens, and asked it to -- what? To go save the lives of American
citizens. Isn't this an absurdity? It certainly is under the
mainstream hypothesis, which says that the US ruling elite is a friend of
Israel and opposed to terrorism, and moreover, responsible to the US
citizenry, members of whom the PLO had murdered. But under my hypothesis what
the US ruling elite did is not absurd.
What follows?
Under my hypothesis, what the US government did
makes sense. My analysis here supports the view that the PLO is a
client organization of the US ruling elite, wielded by this elite as a weapon
against Israel. For more documentation of this hypothesis, consult:
But. . .why does the US attack
Israel? Is it for oil? Many find appealing the hypothesis that US foreign
policy in Asia is primarily driven by the US’s hunger for cheap oil. By this
hypothesis, the US ruling elite provides protection, sponsorship, and
legitimization to the PLO in order to attack Israel because this keeps the
oil-rich Arab states happy. Even if we accept this hypothesis, the US is an
enemy of Israel -- for oil, if you wish, but still an enemy. However, 1) Even if the US does not support the PLO, it is
obvious that the Arab states cannot do much to hurt the US (the Arab states
are fifth-rate powers, and the US is the greatest power in history); 2) The piece cited above, Is the US an Ally of
Israel?, documents quite a few cases of US intervention against Israel
that appear entirely gratuitous from the point of view of the hypothesis that
hunger for cheap oil is the principal motivator; similarly, 3) the bulk of the evidence on US geostrategy in
Asia fits quite nicely with Jared Israel’s hypothesis that the US power elite’s
main goal is political hegemony in Eurasia. To this end, Islamist terrorism
is promoted as a way of destabilizing states that compete with the US for
power.[20] [21] I believe,
of course, that another main goal is to speed the destruction of Israel. So I
don’t like the ‘It’s About Oil’ hypothesis. Forthcoming
work on HIR will see to explain the origin of the animus against
Israel in the US ruling elite. It will simultaneously explain why the Western
mass media cooperates with this anti-Israeli policy.
The
next piece in this series is:
_____________________________________________________ Footnotes and Further Reading Here is a brief summary of the
geopolitical structure of what the US is doing right now, the better to
compare it to similar geopolitical patterns in the past. As defended in the General Introduction to
this series of articles, the broad effect of Bush J'r.'s
invasion-plus-withdrawal of Iraq will be to foster the growth of Islamist
terrorism in Asia.[1a]
More narrowly, two specific effects of Bush Jr.'s war on Iraq will be: 1)
to destroy Iraq as a state, turning it instead into a messy collection of
militias and Islamist terrorist groups that prey on innocent people and for
which no state will publicly take responsibility; and 2)
upon US withdrawal, to make Iraq a de facto province of Iran. This is happening at the same time
that Iran is renewing loud calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.[1aa]
Hence, it matters that Iraq, soon to be Iran's chaotically terrorist
westernmost province, almost borders Israel.
Important and powerful groups inside
Lebanon and Syria also mean to destroy the Jewish state, and here too, Iran plays a role, through its support of the Lebanese Hezbollah
terrorists who are also patronized by the government of Syria, a
situation that US officials appear to approve of. Consider: “...successive American
administrations have been reluctant to openly push for an end to Syrian
protection of Hezbollah. In fact, the United States has been unwilling even
to publicly request that the Syrians end this protection. While this
stems in part from the long-standing American policy of avoiding public
statements which mention or suggest that Syria controls Lebanese policy
decisions, it may also reflect a tendency to underestimate the degree of
control that Damascus has established over Hezbollah, which is usually
regarded as an Iranian proxy.”[1e] At first blush this is all consistent
with an anti-Israeli US policy, as are many other things. Notice, for example, in the map above
that Saudi Arabia is a mortal enemy of Israel which, like Iraq, is prevented
from having a border with Israel only by diminutive Jordan. Saudi Arabia is
also “ultimately...the largest beneficiary of U.S. weapons sales in the
entire world [and] one of the most heavily armed countries in the world.”[1ab] Remember, also, that under US
pressure the ‘Israeli government’ allowed the PLO to become the sovereign
in Gaza, with the Gaza-Egypt border no longer even patrolled by Israeli
troops.[1c] Though most people don’t know this, US Intelligence certainly does:
PLO/Fatah is an organization
descended from the WWII Final Solution against the Jews, and chartered to
finish it.[1b] Egypt is a country that in fact
borders Israel in the south and which, in the past, has mobilized wars
against Israel with the loudly stated objective of exterminating the Israeli
Jews.[1d] One hardly needs to be a military
strategist to see that the Israeli Jews are being squeezed from all sides
with their backs against the Mediterranean sea. If a military strategist were
needed, however, we could turn to the Pentagon, because the Pentagon authored
a study in 1967 that concluded Israel could not survive without the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.[1f]
(By the way, the US would like for the West Bank also to be completely
in PLO hands.) So, taken together, the effects of US policy are to
prepare the ground for the next great genocide of the Jewish people, which is
to take place in Israel in the near future -- perhaps the very near future. Is this what the US ruling elite
wants? We cannot exactly say they are against it, because the US
ruling elite has gone rather out of its way to produce such results. And when
we look back into history, we find that what happened in 1979 has a
geopolitical structure identical to the current concatenation of events -- so
this is no fluke. You may now appreciate why there is good reason to pay
attention to 1979 when puzzling over present events.
[1a] "Bush
Jr.'s War on Iraq: A general introduction"; Historical and Investigative
Research; 1 December 2005; by Francisco Gil-White [1aa] "the
Iranian President [called] for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'..." SOURCE: BLAIR CONSIDERS UN SANCTIONS AS HE SPEAKS OF
'REVULSION' AT IRANIAN PRESIDENT'S SPEECH, The Independent (London), October
28, 2005, Friday, Final Edition; NEWS; Pg. 5, 745 words, BY ANNE PENKETH AND
COLIN BROWN [1ab] The emphasis
in the quotation is mine. It comes from:
[1b] On the Nazi
roots of the PLO, read, the most complete documentation is here:
Some of this material was originally published here:
Concerning the PLO Charter, here are the relevant
articles:
In other words, the PLO has always held that
"the liberation of Palestine" means purging or liquidating the
Jews, which of course means killing the Jews because any kind of
negotiation is out of the question: “armed struggle is the only way to
liberate Palestine.” This explains why the PLO is always killing Jews even
when it says that it is negotiating for 'peace.' The translation for the PLO Charter articles above
is by:
[1c]
"Palestinians celebrated a step toward independence from Israel on
Friday with a jubilant ceremony opening the Rafah border crossing between the
Gaza Strip and Egypt, their first self-governed passage to the outside world.
SOURCE: Israelis Hand Off Gaza Crossing;
Palestinians Take Control of Rafah, The Washington Post, November 26, 2005
Saturday, Final Edition, A Section; A01, 1275 words, Scott Wilson, Washington
Post Foreign Service, JERUSALEM Nov. 25 [1d] Israel
suffered terrorist attacks from its Arab neighbors in the period 1964-67, and
when they staged a full-scale military provocation, the US refused to help;
from “Is the US an Ally of Israel?: A Chronological look at the evidence”;
Historical and Investigative Research; by Francisco Gil-White. [1e] SOURCE:
"Hezbollah: Between Tehran and Damascus"; Middle East Intelligence
Bulletin; Vol. 4, No. 2; February 2002; by Gary C. Gambill and Ziad K. Abdelnour [1f] If you would
like a short analysis of the significance of the Pentagon document, visit: For the Pentagon document itself, you have the
following three options:
[2] Just two
weeks after the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and took power, the New
York Times reported:
SOURCE: P.L.O. Is Cool to Dayan Remarks; Statements
Given Prominence; By MARVINE HOWE Special to The New York Times. New York
Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Feb 15, 1979. p. A12 (1 page) [2a] “An exultant
Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, proclaimed
here today that the Iranian revolution had ‘turned upside down’ the balance
of forces in the Middle East. ‘Today Iran, tomorrow Palestine,’ he said. Mr. Arafat received a pledge from Ayatollah Khomeini
that the Iranians would ‘turn to the issue of victory over Israel’ after Iran
had consolidated its strength, the Teheran radio reported. …Bantering and grinning, the guerrilla leader
declined to furnish details about support the PLO had given to various
Iranian guerrilla organizations, saying: ‘It is enough that we are here, and no matter ho
much we have helped we cannot offer as much back as the Iranian people have
offered us. It is enough for us to be among the Iranian people. Asked whether the Palestinian movement felt
‘stronger’ since the Iranian uprising, he said: ‘Definitely. It has changed completely the whole
strategy and policy in this area. It has been turned upside down.’” SOURCE: Arafat, in Iran, Reports Khomeini Pledges
Aid for Victory Over Israel; Visit a Sign of Iran's Sharp Turn ARAFAT, IN
TEHERAN, PRAISES THE VICTORS; By JAMES M. MARKHAM Special to The New York
Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Feb 19, 1979. p.
A1 (2 pages) [2b] The PLO has always
meant to destroy Israel via genocide. It is commonly believed that as a
result of the Oslo 'Peace' Process the PLO abandoned its goal of destroying
Israel. This is belied by the ongoing PLO murders of innocent Jews, which in
fact accelerated dramatically with the Oslo Process. But to see a thorough
documentation that the Oslo Process was a 'Trojan Horse', which the PLO used
to be in a better position to kill Jews, read:
[3] P.L.O. Aides
Say Group Is in Iran, But U.S. Official Expresses Doubt; P.L.O. Said to Make
Contact 'Leading Figure' in Al Fatah; By ERIC PACE Special to The New York
Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 8, 1979. p.
A10 (1 page) [4] P.L.O. Aides
Say Group Is in Iran, But U.S. Official Expresses Doubt; P.L.O. Said to Make
Contact 'Leading Figure' in Al Fatah; By ERIC PACE Special to The New York
Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 8, 1979. p.
A10 (1 page) [5] IRAN'S CIVIL
GOVERNMENT OUT; HOSTAGES FACE DEATH THREAT; OIL EXPORTS BELIEVED HALTED;
STUDENTS WARN U.S. Ayatollah Instructs Secret Revolutionary Council to Form a
Cabinet Council's. Membership Is Secret. Iran's Civil Regime Cedes Power to
Ayatollah's Islamic Authority. 'Fight the Americans'. Brzezinski Called
'American Wolf'; By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times. New York Times
(1857. Nov 7, 1979. p. A1 (2 pages). [5b] “Is the US an
Ally of Israel?: A Chronological look at the evidence”; Historical and
Investigative Research; by Francisco Gil-White. [5c] http://emperors-clothes.com/iraq-iran.htm#2 [5d]
“Taking their cue from Ayatollah Khomeini, who excoriated the United States
as ‘the Great Satan which gathers the other Satans around it,’ demonstrators
outside the [US] embassy walls chanted ‘Khomeini fights, Americans tremble.’” SOURCE:
Held Hostage in Iran--60 Americans; New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov
11, 1979; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2002);
pg. E1. [6] IRANIANS BAR
HOSTAGE TALKS, REPEATING DEMANDS FOR SHAH; U.S. LETS ENVOY CONSULT P.L.O.;
PALESTINIANS ARRIVE Guerrilla Aides in Teheran, but Hope of Mediation Is
Believed to Fade U.S. Envoy Reported Arrested Iran Dims Outlook for P.L.O.
Role In Freeing U.S. Embassy Hostages Liaison Between Iran and P.L.O.
Students Find a Document New Government Was Forecast Shah's Renunciation
Proposed Students Parade an American; By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York
Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 9, 1979. p. A1
(2 pages) [7] NEW IRAN
OFFICIAL REAFFIRMS DEMANDS U.S. TURN OVER SHAH; BUT CONFERS WITH P.L.O. AIDES
Foreign Minister Also Meets U.S. Charge--4 Diplomats Report Hostages Well but
Tired Bani-Sadr Meets Palestinians New Iranian Official Reaffirms Demands
That U.S. Turn Over the Shah 'Petition' by Hostages Cited 'Set an Example for
All Nations'; By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times. New York Times
(1857. Nov 11, 1979. p. 1 (2 pages) [8]
For a definition of a Chargé D'Affaires, see: [9] In 1991, Bush
Sr.'s administration forced Israel to participate in the Oslo process, which
brought the PLO into the West Bank and Gaza; “Is the US an Ally of Israel?: A
Chronological look at the evidence”; Historical and Investigative Research;
by Francisco Gil-White. [9a]
"DID THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 DESTROY FREEDOM OF THE PRESS?:
The red pill..."; Historical and Investigative Research; 3 January 2006;
by Francisco Gil-White [10] IRAN SAID TO
PLEDGE HOSTAGE PROTECTION; P.L.O. Reported to Get Assurance During Endeavors
in Teheran on Behalf of Americans. By HENRY TANNER Special to The New York
Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 16, 1979. p.
A17 (1 page) [10a] Since it had
been a US congressman who had asked the PLO to get involved, the excerpt
below makes clear that the PLO could also afford publicly to insult the
United States. How did the US take this? Sitting down.
SOURCE: IRAN SAID TO PLEDGE HOSTAGE PROTECTION;
P.L.O. Reported to Get Assurance During Endeavors in Teheran on Behalf of
Americans. By HENRY TANNER Special to The New York Times. New York Times
(1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 16, 1979. p. A17 (1 page) [11] P.L.O.
HINTS AT SHIFT IN IRANIAN DEMANDS; Aide Says U.S. Hostages Might Be Freed if
Shah Is Returned, but Captors Press Demands; Special to The New York Times.
New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 23, 1979. p. A18 (1
page) [11a] “TUNIS, Nov.
22 – A spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization [Mahmoud Labadi]
hinted today at a softening in the stand of the militant Islamic regime of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by saying that the hostages being held in the
American Embassy in Teheran would probably be released if the deposed Shah
left the United States.” SOURCE: P.L.O. HINTS AT SHIFT IN IRANIAN DEMANDS;
Aide Says U.S. Hostages Might Be Freed if Shah Is Returned, but Captors Press
Demands; Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file).
New York, N.Y.: Nov 23, 1979. p. A18 (1 page) [11b]
“The PLO has been sponsoring a three-man delegation that came to Tunis to ask
the Arab heads of state or representatives to back their confrontation with
the United States. The Iranian delegation was rebuffed by the summit
conference but managed to arrange meetings with Mr. Arafat, President Hafez
al-Assad of Syria Prime Minister Salim Hoss of Lebanon and Foreign Minister
Ali Abdel Salam al-Turayki of Libya.” SOURCE: P.L.O. HINTS AT SHIFT IN IRANIAN DEMANDS;
Aide Says U.S. Hostages Might Be Freed if Shah Is Returned, but Captors Press
Demands; Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file).
New York, N.Y.: Nov 23, 1979. p. A18 (1 page) [11c] “TERROR: A
SOVIET EXPORT”; New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.:
Nov 2, 1980. pg. A.42; by Robert Moss [12] U.S. PROMISES
IRAN $5.5 BILLION ON DAY HOSTAGES ARE FREED; ASSETS ARE PUT AT $9.5 BILLION
In All, 70 Percent Would Be Made Available Within a few Days of Americans'
Release; By BERNARD GWERTZMAN Special to The New York Times. New York Times
(1857. Jan 11, 1981. p. 1 (2 pages) [13] 'ALIVE, WELL
AND FREE'; Captives Taken to Algiers and Then Germany-- Final Pact Complex
Transferred to U.S. Custody 52 Hostages Fly to Freedom, Ending Long Ordeal in
Iran Negotiations Were Intense Drama Seized World's Attention Americans
Examined by Doctors; By BERNARD GWERTZMAN Special to The New York Times. New
York Times (1857-Current. Jan 21, 1981. p. A1 (2 pages). [13a] "Largest
Private Financial Transfer in History"; New York Times; Jan 25, 1981; by
STEVEN RATTNER; pg. E3 [14] Was the Shah's
Trip Necessary?; New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 21,
1980. p. A26 (1 page). [14a] To see how
friendly Reagan's policies towards the PLO were, consult the years 1981, 1982-83,
and 1985 in
the following documentation:
Reagan's policies towards Iran were also extremely friendly:
he armed Iran to the teeth, secretly selling the Iranians billions of dollars
in military equipment every year for the duration of the Iran-Iraq war. This
topic is covered in the following piece:
[15] In 1977 Jimmy
Carter worked hard to give the terrorist PLO the dignity of a 'government in
exile'; “Is the US an Ally of Israel?: A Chronological Look at the Evidence”;
Historical and Investigative Research; by Francisco Gil-White. [15a] Source: The
Policy Of Confusion, By James Reston; New York Times (1857-Current file); May
13, 1977; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001);
pg. 20 [15aa] In 1967, after the
Six-Day War, the US put pressure on Israel to relinquish the territory
gained, even though it knew it was indispensable to Israeli defense; “Is the
US an Ally of Israel?: A Chronological Look at the Evidence”; Historical and
Investigative Research; by Francisco Gil-White. [15b] The
Associated Press, August 2, 1977, AM cycle, 911 words, By BARRY SCHWEID,
Associated Press Writer, ALEXANDRIA, Egypt [15c] The
New York Times Company: Abstracts; Information Bank Abstracts; New York
Times; August 8, 1977, Monday; Section: Page 1, Column 4; Length: 147 Words;
Byline: By Bernard Gwertzman; Journal-Code: Nyt; Abstract. [15d] The following
articles from the PLO Charter were translated by the Associated Press and
published in the following piece: The Associated Press, December 15, 1998, Tuesday, AM
cycle, International News, 1070 words, Clinton meets with Netanyahu, Arafat,
appeals for progress, By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent, EREZ
CROSSING, Gaza Strip. [Emphasis added]
This is clear. If armed struggle is the only way to
“liberate Palestine,” then the PLO is committed to killing Jews -- any
appearance of negotiation will merely be a ploy to secure a better position
from which to kill more Jews. The outcome of the Oslo 'Peace' Process has
been perfectly consistent with this analysis. The language of purging and liquidating,
evoking the way that the German Nazis also spoke about the Jews, who are here
rendered as “the Zionist presence,” is more than suggestive that the PLO
means to exterminate the Israeli Jews. Al Fatah, the controlling core of the PLO, was
grandfathered by Hajj Amin al Husseini, a leader of Adolf Hitler's
extermination program against the European Jews, who played a leading role in
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews (and also Serbs and Roma) in
Yugoslavia and Hungary. This Hajj Amin had agreed with Hitler that if the
German armies conquered British Mandate Palestine Hajj Amin himself would
take charge of the extermination of the Jews there. So the case is
closed. If you wish to read about the Nazi history of the
PLO, you will find the most complete documentation here:
Some of this material was originally published here:
[15e] Bush Sr.'s
administration forced Israel to participate in the Oslo process, which
brought the PLO into the West Bank and Gaza. "Is the US an Ally of
Israel?: A Chronological Look at the Evidence; Historical and Investigative Research;
by Francisco Gil-White. [16] “In June
1978, Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin, under intense American pressure,
withdrew Israel's Litani River Operation forces from southern Lebanon… The
withdrawal of Israeli troops without having removed the PLO from its bases in
southern Lebanon became a major embarrassment to the Begin government…”
Keep in mind that
the US invaded Panama on the official grounds that one American
soldier had been killed. But when scores of Israeli civilians were being
murdered by the PLO terrorists, the US would not allow Israel to protect
itself. [17] Munich massacre;
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [18] WND Exclusive: “New
evidence Arafat killed U.S. diplomats: Nixon historian finds CIA report on
Fatah link to 1973 murders”; World Net Daily; March 18, 2002; 1:00 a.m.
Eastern; By Joseph Farah. The
State Department document that WND cites is in three pages, and you may view
them here: 1) 1973 State Department Telegram;
PAGE ONE [19] PLO to
Continue Attacks, Arafat Tells SCLC Group, The Washington Post, September 21,
1979, Friday, Final Edition Correction Appended, First Section; A23, 560
words, From News Services, BEIRUT, Sept. 20, 1979 [20] "The
Empire Isn't In Afghanistan For The Oil!"; Emperor's Clothes; 17 May
2002; by Jared Israel. "The Great Afghan Oil Pipeline Disaster: Comic
Relief For a War-Torn World"; Emperor's Clothes; 6 March 2003; by Jared
Israel "Two News Reports on Supposed Oil Pipeline";
Emperor's Clothes; 6 March 2003 "Emperor's Clothes Interviews UNOCAL OIL";
Emperor's Clothes; 9 July 2002; Interviewer: Jared Israel; Interviewee: Barry
Lane, UNOCAL's manager for public relations. [21] To read Jared
Israel's articles on the promotion of Islamist terrorism in Asia, and its
likely motives, visit: |
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