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Is the US an ally of Israel?
A chronological look at the evidence

Historical and Investigative Research -- by Francisco Gil-White
[ this piece updated regularly ]
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm
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NOTE: In this document, when you see a red footnote this means that, in addition to giving the source and/or a link, there is extra material (sometimes relatively lengthy) that is worth reading and which provides additional context and clarification. Many of my sources are available on the web and I have provided the hyperlinks in the footnotes (whether red or not) so that readers may easily examine them.

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...continued from
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm

The 1930's -  Negative - The US Establishment helped sponsor the rise of the German Nazi movement.

1939-1945  -  Negative - This year's material is divided into the following sections:

Introduction

1. The general policy of the Allies towards the plight
of the Jews

2. No US visas for European Jews trying to escape the Nazi slaughter

3. The allies refused to sabotage Hitler's Final Solution by military means

1945 - Negative - After 1945, the US created US Intelligence by recruiting tens of thousands of Nazi war criminals.

1947-48 - Mixed to Negative - Forced by external circumstances, the US government gave lukewarm support to the creation of the State of Israel. But then it reversed itself and implemented policies designed to destroy Israel.

1949-1953 - Negative - In Israel's hour of supreme need, the US allied with Israel's mortal enemies.

1955 - Mixed - The US forces Israel to withdraw from Sinai, but makes some concessions to the Israelis.

1955-1965 - Positive (in one regard only) - Israel indirectly gets some US weapons.

1958 - Negative - Israel assists US military intervention in the Middle East; when this places Israel in danger, the US does...nothing.

1964 - Mixed - The US abandoned its previous official policy of trying to get Israel to relinquish the territories won in the War of Independence. Why had it been trying to do this?

1964-1967 - Negative - Although Israel suffered terrorist attacks from its Arab neighbors during these years, when they staged a full-scale military provocation, the US refused to help.

1967 - Negative - 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.

1969 - Negative - The Arabs attack the Israelis. The US response is to try and remove the Israelis from territory they need for their defense.

1970 - Positive - Washington temporarily abandons the diplomatic effort to make Israel withdraw from the territories.

1973 - Positive - The US assisted Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

1974-1975 - Negative - The US supported the election of a pro-PLO Nazi war criminal to the post of UN Secretary General.

1975 - Negative - The US reached an agreement with Israel not to have contacts with the PLO. The US immediately violated the agreement.

1977 - Negative -  Jimmy Carter worked hard to give the terrorist PLO the dignity of a 'government in exile,' and then he teamed up with the Soviets to try and saddle Israel with a PLO terrorist state next door.

1978 - Negative - When Israel tried to defend itself from the PLO terrorists, the US forced Israel to stand back.

1979 - Negative - Jimmy Carter began large-scale US sponsorship of antisemitic Islamist terrorists, especially in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

1981 - Negative - The US pushed for a PLO state in the West Bank against Israeli objections.

1982-1983 - Negative - The US military rushed into Lebanon to protect the PLO from the Israelis.

1985 - Negative - 1985 includes more material than other years, so we have divided it into subsections.

1. Shimon Peres acted as a US agent, against Israeli interests.

2. Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti (respectively, the Italian prime minister and foreign minister) committed political suicide for the sake of pushing the PLO. The US was behind them.

3. Ronald Reagan denied the Holocaust

4. Who was in charge of US covert operations in 1985?

1987-1988 - Negative - The 'First Intifada' was a US-PLO strategy used to represent the Arabs in West Bank and Gaza as supposedly oppressed 'underdogs.'

1989 - Negative - With Dick Cheney, the US began supporting a PLO state in the open as the 'only solution' to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

1991 - Negative - Bush Sr.'s administration forced Israel to participate in the Oslo process, which brought the PLO into the West Bank and Gaza.

1994 - Negative - Yasser Arafat was given a Nobel Peace Prize, and the CIA trained the PLO, even though Arafat's henchmen were saying in public, this very year, that they would use their training to oppress Arabs and kill Jews.

1996-1997 - Negative - The United States exerted such strong pressure on the Netanyahu government (including threats) that, even though Netanyahu had been elected on an anti-Oslo platform, he had the necessary cover to betray the Israeli public that had elected him.

2005 - Negative - Mahmoud Abbas, who will soon have total control over Gaza, is the one who invented the strategy of talking 'peace' the better to slaughter Israelis. The US ruling elite loves Mahmoud Abbas.

(I will soon post documentation for the missing years in between.) 

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1981 [ negative ]

The US pushed for a PLO state in the West Bank against Israeli objections
____________________________________________________________

On November 14, 1981, the UN adopted a resolution condemning Israel for destroying a nuclear installation in Iraq.[63] Israel and the US were the only two countries to vote against.

That may look like US support for Israel. However, just a few days later the US voted for a resolution condemning Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights.[64] The US then also reversed itself on the prior resolution concerning the attack on Iraq, launching a frontal diplomatic attack on Israel. The outgoing Secretary General of the UN, the Nazi Kurt Waldheim, exulted publicly over this turn of events, and added that, by the way, the West Bank and Gaza Arabs should be given their own state.[65]

US president Ronald Reagan's attacks on Israel were so sharp that many prominent members of the American Jewish community interpreted this as antisemitism, so Reagan met

"with 32 Jewish supporters... [and then]... with the presidents of 34 Jewish organizations"

Reagan was quoted as giving them the following non-sequitor: that

"his administration 'will not condone anti-Semitism and will attack it wherever it surfaces.'"[66]

But nobody was asking Reagan to attack antisemitism wherever it surfaced; the complaint was that antisemitism had surfaced in the office of the president!

In addition,

"…The White House adviser…said Reagan assured his Jewish supporters that 'the only path to peace we're following is the Camp David process,' and not either peace initiatives proposed by Saudi Arabia or Europeans.

Reagan had raised some Jewish concerns by praising what he called implicit recognition of Israel in the plan advanced by Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi plan calls for establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and peace between countries in the region. The plan never mentions Israel.

The Europeans have questioned whether any settlement can be reached without active PLO participation."

So Reagan, first, endorsed a Saudi ‘peace’ plan that called for the establishment of a Palestinian state “with its capital in East Jerusalem,” and which didn’t recognize Israel’s actual existence, let alone recognize its right to exist.

Then, Reagan said that no, the Saudi plan would not be followed, and neither would he pay any attention to the Europeans, who were calling for a PLO state. Instead, the “Camp David process” would be his policy.

But the “Camp David process” was Jimmy Carter’s policy, and it called for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, the creation of a self-governing Palestinian Arab authority, and, after three years, “negotiations will take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza.”[67] Since Carter had pushed very hard for including the PLO in the Geneva ‘peace’ conference, it is obvious that this strategy, which looks and sounds exactly like what the Oslo process later became, was meant to create a PLO state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Adding insult to injury, Reagan decided to sell arms to Saudi Arabia (in addition to the secret buildup that nobody knew about - see 1979 section).

But Reagan had some cover because, only a month earlier, American businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr., the president of the World Jewish Congress, had written an editorial in the New York Times in which he:

1)  argued for an American role in a Middle East peace process;

2)  spoke about "genuine Palestinian needs";

3)  presented the Arabs as genuinely wanting peace; and

4)  advised the Israeli prime minister to accept the Arabs' preconditions and to find "an acceptable solution for the Palestinians." "Mr. Begin...," Bronfman explained, "must be prepared to go further than endorsing the idea of Palestinian autonomy."[68]

More than autonomy: in other words, a Palestinian state! Bronfman was certainly not doing Israel any favors. This must be kept in mind, because, as we will see by the sequel, Bronfman is quite prominent in the American halls of power. This is true as a general rule: only Jews who go out of their way to attack Israel (openly or not so openly) have any influence in Washington.

Now why might that be? 

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1982-1983 [ negative ]

The US rushed to protect the PLO in southern Lebanon from the Israelis.
____________________________________________________________

Not content with the above, in September 1982, Edgar Bronfman, from his perch as President of the World Jewish Congress, publicly endorsed Ronald Reagan's plan for Middle East peace. Reagan was using Bronfman as a 'Jewish diplomat' to speak for Israel, and American newspapers dutifully carried the headline "Jewish leader OKs Reagan peace plan."[69]

But who cares what Bronfman said? He was not a spokesman for the Israeli government. As a matter of fact,

"the [Likud] Israeli government [led by Menachem Begin]...unanimously and totally rejected the American initiative."[70]

And what was Bronfman endorsing?

"The Camp David peace accords call for an interim, five-year period of autonomy for the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza during which the final status of the territories is to be negotiated."[71]

Autonomy leading to final status was code for a peace process leading to a Palestinian state. We have already seen that the US was quite keen to have Yasser Arafat and the PLO terrorists run such a state (see 1977 section). Thus, Reagan's plan to create a Palestinian state, which Bronfman endorsed, was another American attack on Israel.

Even as US President Ronald Reagan was pressing for a Palestinian state run by the PLO, these terrorists were attacking Israeli civilians from their bases in Lebanon. Above we noted that in 1970 Jordan's King Hussein had militarily expelled the PLO terrorists from his country.

"Thereafter the PLO shifted its bases to Lebanon and continued its attacks on Israel. The PLO's relations with the Lebanese were tumultuous, and the organization soon became embroiled in Lebanon's sectarian disputes and contributed to that country's eventual slide into civil war."[72]

This was a repeat of the problems the PLO had earlier caused in Jordan.[73]

Because the PLO was murdering Israeli civilians, Israel invaded Lebanon, and launched a

"campaign that Israel said would wipe out the PLO as a political and military force and open the way for true peace in the Middle East."[74]

The Israelis very nearly did just that. They failed, however. But not for lack of trying. Rather, what happened is that as Israeli troops got ready to deliver a knockout blow to the PLO, the US intervened to save them. The Washington Post noted the contrast between the PLO's earlier exit from Jordan, and from Lebanon:

"From Amman [Jordan], the PLO troops left unheralded, in ridicule. From Beirut [Lebanon], they left in a compromise negotiated by the United States, waving their Kalashnikov rifles. Arafat left not in the middle of the night but with an emotional dockside sendoff from the Lebanese prime minister, a French Navy escort and U.S. air cover."[75]

But why did the US do this? Because the PLO is the US's pet, and the US meant to use it again as an attack dog (as we shall see). If any further evidence for this 'master-pet' relationship were needed, consider that, in Lebanon, the US had been using the PLO as its *guard* dog:

"The Lebanese occupation by Israel caused the Palestinians to have to leave Lebanon eventually...They had been the protectors for the American diplomatic community in Beirut...There was liaison with the PLO, and the Americans were depending on them for their security." -- Vincent Cannistraro, senior intelligence official.[76]

It's a love affair!

A bit later, a rival Lebanese faction assassinated Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese phalangists. Two days after that, in the resulting chaos, a massacre was committed in Sabra and Shatila, blamed on these now-headless phalangists. Despite the fact that nobody was blaming Israeli soldiers, Ronald Reagan (who was then using the Contra terrorists to kill innocent civilians in Nicaragua) launched a ferocious diplomatic attack against Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and his Likud government, claiming Israel was responsible for this. Edgar Bronfman Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress, again provided cover for Reagan by supporting this attack wholeheartedly.[77]

Before closing this section, it is important to note that despite the US rescue of the PLO, Arafat's eviction from Beirut was a severe blow that essentially defeated the organization. By 1983, the Christian Science Monitor was writing as follows:

"The Palestine Liberation Organization continues, meanwhile, a loss of regional influence that began with Israel's summer 1982 invasion of Lebanon. As part of the initial cease-fire, Mr. Arafat and the majority of Palestinian guerrillas abandoned their base in Beirut. Since then, a hard-line faction has challenged Arafat's PLO leadership. Now Arafat's back is literally against the sea, and his departure from [the northern Lebanese city of] Tripoli seems only a matter of time."[78a]

Sure enough, two months later, the New York Times reported that:

"Mr. Arafat, who is believed to be in Tunis, is scheduled to meet Monday with Lebanon's Prime Minister, Shafik al-Wazzan, to discuss his organization's terms for withdrawing the rest of its guerrilla forces from [Tripoli,] Lebanon."[78b]

The US did what it could to make sure that the remaining PLO troops would get out of Lebanon safely:

"White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the Reagan administration wished for the 'unhampered' withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization troops loyal to Arafat."[78c]

And the Reagan administration became quite strident about this, in fact.

"The United States said today that it had told Israel that it 'hopes and expects' the Shamir Government will halt its military actions around Tripoli and allow Yasir Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization fighters to be evacuated from the city.

...officials said privately that Washington was losing patience with the Israeli tactics that have delayed Mr. Arafat's withdrawal."[78d]

At the time, as the same New York Times article explains, President Ronald Reagan's point man on the Middle East was one Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defense in George Bush Jr.'s administration.

"Today, in what State Department officials said was an effort to demonstrate to the Arabs the American desire for good relations with them as well as the Israelis, Donald Rumsfeld, the special Middle East envoy, arrived in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders.

Mr. Rumsfeld is the highest ranking American to visit Iraq since the Reagan Administration took office in 1980."

What has been reviewed for the years 1982-83 does not suggest in the least that the Reagan administration really intended to have good relations with the Israelis. To confirm that, it suffices to read on and find out what happened in 1985.

From its new base in Tunis, the defeated PLO would find it very difficult to attack Israel, which is why it resorted to such high jinks as taking hostage the Italian ship Achille Lauro in 1985 (see below). The US would therefore make sure to revive the PLO, and eventually bring it to power in the West Bank, where it could once again easily kill innocent Israeli civilians.

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1985 [ negative ]

____________________________________________________________

Early in 1984, the Christian Science Monitor wrote,

"This week marks a fundamental reexamination of US Mideast policy. ...Tuesday saw a flurry of activity in Washington regarding the Middle East. President Reagan met with special envoy Donald Rumsfeld and with Republican congressional leaders to discuss new directions in US peacemaking efforts there."[78e]

A bit later, in March of the same year, the New York Times wrote,

"The Reagan Administration is fashioning a new Middle East strategy... The officials said there had been unending meetings to try to find something new to say and do to put the new strategy into effect. A decision to send Donald Rumsfeld, the special Middle East negotiator, back to the region was said to be waiting on this."[78f]

What was this "new strategy" that the "Reagan administration [was] fashioning"? In 1985 there were three main US initiatives against Israel and the Jews. One by Shimon Peres who, as we shall see, behaved as a hostile American puppet, rather than an Israeli patriot. One by the Italians, acting as agents of the Americans on behalf of the US pet, the PLO. And one by Ronald Reagan in person, as a very public and vocal antisemite.

1. Shimon Peres acted as a US agent,
against Israeli interests
_____________________

A once useful, though now almost irrelevant, simplification: the Labor party in Israel was traditionally in favor of a Palestinian state; the other main party, Likud, was traditionally against. (The labels 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' in Israel have a superficial rather than substantive connection to their traditional meanings, by the way, because it is the so-called Israeli 'left-wing' that advocates for the PLO, an extreme right-wing organization, and the so-called Israeli 'right-wing' that is opposed to the PLO.)

In 1985 the Israeli government was divided: the prime minister was Shimon Peres, from Labor, and the foreign minister was Yitzhak Shamir, leading the opposition Likud party. When a parliamentary government is divided this way it is a breach of the highest sort for the prime minister to conduct foreign policy without consulting his foreign minister, especially on the question that most divides Israeli society: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, when the Labor Prime Minsiter Shimon Peres circumvented his Likud foreign minister by using Edgar Bronfman Sr., a US businessman and president of the World Jewish Congress, as his private diplomat to the Soviets, and also the leaders of the American Jewish Congress as his private diplomats to the Arabs in Amman and Cairo, this naturally provoked a crisis. Wrote the Guardian, "...the question of who speaks for the Jews, and for Israel itself, suddenly surfaced twice: in Moscow and in Amman."[79]

It was all very mysterious...

"[Bronfman's] departure for the Soviet Union a week ago Sunday was not announced; the Soviets did not publicly acknowledge his visit on Monday and Tuesday; and his return to New York on Thursday went unreported. The trip was made public only when Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir criticized it in an interview with the Jerusalem Post."[80]

And when Bronfman came back to New York, he was "refusing to disclose whom he met and what, if anything, he had achieved..."[81]

What was all this about?

According to Israel Radio, the discussion with the Soviets was about "Israeli agreement with Syria over the future of the occupied Golan Heights,"[82] and "One Israeli newspaper also reported that Bronfman carried a position paper on a phased Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights."[83]

As for the Arabs, wrote the Guardian,

"The message [the private diplomats] brought to Mr Peres, from both [Egyptian president] Mubarak and [Jordanian King] Hussein, was: put the PLO to the test, and allow it some role in the diplomatic process. But this, of course, is anathema to the Likud half of the government, led by [foreign minister!] Mr Yitzhak Shamir."[84]

In other words, Peres used non-Israelis to do a diplomatic end-run around the Likud foreign minister. And to what end? To maneuver simultaneously for an Israeli withdrawal from strategic high ground, and in order to create a diplomatic process that would place the genocidal PLO in control of the West Bank.

This sort of thing is usually called 'treason.'

Yitzhak Shamir "criticised his own Premier [for using] Mr Edgar Bronfman ...[and added that]... Israel can talk directly to the Soviet Union...it does not need intermediaries."[85] As to the content of this diplomacy, Shamir's response was "not merely to reject the substance of the talks in Amman, but to blast the American Jewish figures for presuming to speak on these matters ...[and he] extended the same logic to attack Edgar Bronfman."[86] But Yitzhak Shamir did not accuse Shimon Peres of treason - he should have.

Ariel Sharon (then Trade and Industry Minister), on the other hand, was not so shy:

"Mr Sharon has accused Mr Peres of going behind the Government's back to hold secret talks with King Husain of Jordan, and has even claimed that the Prime Minister is prepared to consider what amounts to the ultimate Israeli treason: talking to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The Prime Minister's actions, Mr Sharon has said, amount to 'unparalleled cynicism, with disregard for every administrative norm' ...[and he has]...accused him of 'acting with deliberate and premeditated slyness.'"[87]

Sharon was quite right: this didn't smell good. So was the US involved?

On the surface, it would appear not. At this time there was a "Soviet proposal for an international Middle East peace conference that would include the Soviets and the Palestine Liberation Organization."[88] In January 1985, "The United States and Israel...rejected calls for a peace conference that would include the Soviet Union and the PLO."[89]

That looks like American support for Israel. But that's a bit funny, because:

1) the US had already teamed up once before with the Soviet Union to try and impose the PLO on Israel (see 1977 section);

2) the PLO is an American pet (see 1982 section); and

3) just two months later, in March, when Edgar Bronfman's trip to the Soviet Union was being set up, the Washington post reported that

"[US Secretary of State George] Shultz, fresh from reporting to President Reagan on his Moscow conversations with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said Reagan 'firmly intends' to seize the moment for high-level dialogue and improvement in relations... [US] Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams said... [that a]mong the signs of possible progress... is an invitation to Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, to visit Moscow..."[90]

Bronfman functioned as Ronald Reagan's 'Jewish diplomat' whenever the US president chose to attack Israel. Moreover, Bronfman was vociferously calling for a Palestinian state (see 1981, 1982 sections). How interesting, then, that Peres should choose precisely this man to be an agent for secret and treasonous negotiations with the Soviets concerning Israeli withdrawal from strategic high ground. And how interesting that Bronfman's trip should have been with the blessings of the US government. All of this suggests that Shimon Peres is a US agent, carrying out US policy hostile to Israel.

There is no need to speculate, however. Shimon Peres was in fact directly coordinating his Soviet diplomacy with the US government:

"Talks on the possibilities for improving Israeli-Soviet ties are expected to figure in Mr. Peres's meetings in the United States with President Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz this week. The Israelis are keenly aware of next month's summit between Mr. Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev."[91]

Is the picture getting clearer? Shimon Peres' attack on Israel was an American attack.

If any doubts remain on this point, they are dispelled by looking at the other half of Peres' treasonous diplomacy, which had to do with trying to jump-start a peace process with the Arabs that would involve the PLO. Guess who got that ball rolling? The United States.

Peres sent his private diplomats to Amman and Jordan in September. But it was the United States that had earlier laid the groundwork for this. In late May, King Hussein of Jordan made a trip to the US, and a week later the US announced that it would

"soon hold talks with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation on ways to renew the peace process in the Middle East..."[92]

This led to an uproar in Shimon Peres' divided cabinet:

"Some ministers fear this will lead to back door recognition of the PLO by the U.S. and have demanded that Jerusalem immediately inform Washington that Israel opposes this development.

Speaking after the Cabinet meeting yesterday Mr David Levy, a deputy premier and Housing Minister, said 'It is de facto back door recognition of the PLO.'

He demanded an immediate reply by Israel rejecting what he called the contradictory position taken by the U.S."[93]

The foreign minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was also strongly opposed.

But the prime minister, Shimon Peres, did his best to tamp down opposition to the US initiative within Israel. A bit later, in September, Peres would carry out the second stage by sending his private diplomats to the same King Hussein, and to president Mubarak in Egypt.
 

2. Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti commit
suicide for the PLO
_________________

Another American attack, with the aim of producing a 'peace' process leading to a PLO state, took place in parallel, from Italy. I shall begin by explaining what Craxi and Andreotti did, and then I will show that the US was behind this as well.

On December 6, 1984, "[Italian prime minister Bettino] Craxi held an unannounced meeting with Arafat in Tunisia." Why?

"[to get] the 10 [European] Common Market nations behind a Middle East peace initiative when Italy takes over the presidency of the organization in January. His plan calls for the PLO to join in the negotiations..."[94]

Craxi's next door neighbor, Pope John Paul II, had received Yasser Arafat in 1982 (the same year that the PLO got chased out of Lebanon for murdering Israeli civilians!), and ever since the Pope had been agitating vocally in the PLO's favor.[95] (It is worth noting that the Pope does not usually meet publicly with terrorists; his public efforts are on behalf of those who kill Jews.) All of Rome’s power spoke with one voice: a state for the PLO in the West Bank.

On December 8th, two days after meeting with the terrorist, the Italian prime minister, Bettino Craxi, vouched for Yasser Arafat in the strongest terms:

"Mr Bettino Craxi, endorsed King Hussein's call... for a joint approach by Jordan and the PLO toward a Middle East peace settlement ...[and]... added that the PLO chairman, Mr Yasser Arafat, whom he met during his visit, had shown an 'unequivocal desire for peace and negotiations.'"[96]

Mark the word "unequivocal."

Then, in March 1985, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak met with Ronald Reagan and returned to Cairo saying "he had not been disappointed in his talks with Reagan." This means Reagan had lent a sympathetic ear to what Mubarak had told him. And what was that?

"[Mubarak had] suggested that the United States hold talks with a delegation from Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization to explore the agreement that King Hussein of Jordan and Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, reached Feb. 11."

Although the Americans stopped short of giving this plan a public blessing,

"The initiative won more support in Europe. Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy gave the plan a boost tonight after talks with Mr. Mubarak."[97]

Craxi, in other words, was racing to and fro, working overtime as a PLO diplomat, and he was doing this with bravado, even gusto.

Consider only that when, on October 1st 1985, "Israeli jet fighters... flew 1,500 miles to blast the PLO headquarters in Tunis...in retaliation for the Yom Kippur slaying of three Israelis aboard a yacht in Cyprus,"[104] this was the Italian prime minister's response:

"...Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi condemned Israel for conducting 'terrorist violence,' and sent a message to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat offering condolences for the victims of the raid."[105]

Incredible, but not unusual: the rest of the world also condemned Israel for defending itself from terrorists, and the United States, in particular, voted for a "ringing condemnation of the Israeli action by the U.N. Security Council."[106] (Naturally, because having deposited the PLO safely in Tunis, after saving it from utter destruction in Lebanon [see 1982 section], the US was keen to protect its pet.)

But Craxi's passionate pro-PLO diplomacy did not go down well with all Italians.

"Craxi [from the Socialist Party] and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti [from the Christian Democratic Party] triggered a major political row [in Italy]... because of the vehemence of their reaction to the Israeli bombing... [in] Tunisia."[107]

In fact, according to the Washington Post,

"The sharpest criticism of their statements - except for that from the Israeli government - was by Defense Minister Spadolini [of the small Republican Party]."[108]

The political passions were stirred further when in the midst of Craxi's passionate defense of the PLO terrorists, on October 7th, these terrorists seized (of all things!) an Italian ship: the Achille Lauro.[98]

Ouch! It was not supposed to be that way - the over-eager PLO terrorists had apparently strayed from the original plan.

"The four Palestinians aboard the Achille Lauro intended to stay aboard as passengers until the cruise liner reached Ashdod, Israel, and then planned either to shoot up the harbor or take Israelis hostage... The Israelis were to be held to bargain for the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israeli jails... [But] the four members of the group aborted their plans and seized the ship when their weapons were discovered by the crew after the Achille Lauro had left Alexandria [Egypt]."[99]

Yasser Arafat tried to help his friend Bettino Craxi save face by claiming that the Palestinian hijackers were not PLO men.[100] And Italian foreign minister Giulio Andreotti went out of his way to agree with Arafat in public![101] But who were they kidding? Yes, the PLF, which had seized the Achille Lauro, had earlier splintered into three groups, and two of them claimed to be anti-Arafat. But the third faction, headed by Abul Abbas, was openly loyal to the PLO leader.[102] Unfortunately for Arafat's and Andreotti's denials, it was precisely this faction led by Abul Abbas, and which was loyal to Yasser Arafat, that had seized the Italian ship.[103]

So in the end Yasser Arafat had to call his terrorists off:

"[W]hen relations between the P.L.O. and Italy seemed jeopardized by the seizure of the [Italian] ship... Mr. Arafat and Abul Abbas ordered the hijackers to return to Port Said [Egypt] and surrender."[109]

If you still needed evidence that you are living in an absurd world, it was just provided by the fact that it is possible for the media to write that, after the PLO terrorists attacked an Italian ship, relations between Italy and the PLO "seemed jeopardized." No wonder people have trouble thinking about the world.

Not to be outdone, the US would add its own absurdities to this mix. After the hijackers turned themselves in to the Egyptian authorities, it was revealed that they had murdered an American citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, Jewish.

"The circumstances of the killing of Klinghoffer, who relatives said was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a stroke five years ago, were unclear. An officer of the ship told ABC that one of the hijackers, with blood on his trousers, 'said he had killed him and thrown him overboard.'

Klinghoffer apparently was killed, the ship's captain, Gerardo de Rosa, told CBS by ship-to-shore radio, because the hijackers could not get authorities to negotiate with them. They threatened to kill more, de Rosa said, speaking in broken English, 'but they kill just Mr. Klinghoffer.'"[110]

The US expressed 'outrage' at this.

"…when U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Nicholas Veliotes visited the ship off Port Said tonight to check details of the situation and discovered that Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered, he demanded by radio phone that the Egyptians prosecute 'those sons of bitches.'"[111]

Instead, Egypt sent them on a plane to their master, Yasser Arafat, in Tunis. This suggests that Egypt did not think that the US was serious, because if it had thought that, it is quite unlikely that it would have risked the wrath of the superpower over a couple of men. Another possibility is that the US and Egypt had an arrangement to keep appearances but to let the terrorists go free.

Here's what happened.

First, the US decided to make a big show of bravery by diverting the Egyptian plane carrying the PLO terrorists to a joint US-Italian base. The official story is that they didn't know that Abul Abbas, the mastermind, and another senior PLO official were on board. But when this became public, the US did not proceed to "prosecute those sons of bitches," who after all were now in US custody; instead the US made a big public show of insisting that Italy put these two men, the bosses of the operation, on trial. But the only person murdered was an American citizen...

Of course, the Italian prime minister was Bettino Craxi, who sang love songs for the PLO. So when Egypt voiced its public opposition to the US's public demand that Italy try the terrorists, Bettino Craxi, of course, found the Egyptian argument persuasive and let the terrorists go.[112]

Having thus once again taken a refreshing and exhilarating plunge into total insanity, Bettino Craxi met with his equally eager advisors to see if they could predict what the consequences of their latest stunt might be.

"Prime Minister Bettino Craxi met with senior aides tonight to discuss the possible consequences of a decision by his Government to allow two key members of the Palestine Liberation Organization [to] leave Italy."[113]

Four days later, this was the consequence: "Oct. 17: Italian government of Bettino Craxi resigns over Achille Lauro affair."[114]

Spectacular. Bettino Craxi had shown himself to be a passionate PLO nationalist, willing to sacrifice the post of prime minister of a major world power for the sake of making amorous expressions to the PLO in the most inconceivably absurd of circumstances, releasing - too boot - the specific PLO terrorists who had masterminded an attack against his own country back into the care of Yasser Arafat, their lord and paymaster.

But what did this achieve? Doesn't extraordinary behavior such as this call for a powerful reason? It does.

This entire maneuver was a tremendous blow to the international prestige of Israel, because it showed that even when the moral facts on the ground could not be more clearly on its side, the Jewish state received the world's condemnation. Even the prime minister of a country whose ship was held by the PLO preferred these terrorists to Israel. Using the world as theater, a message was sent to the intimate subconscious of people everywhere, awakening the giant that slumbers there (if he was not already awake). We are speaking of antisemitism.

So was the US behind all this?

Let us consider first the obvious oddities in the behavior of the US. To begin with, the only person killed aboard the Achille Lauro was US citizen Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jew. The US had diverted the Egyptian plane carrying the people who had masterminded Klinghoffer's murder to a joint US-Italian base. In other words, the US had custody of the murderers of an American citizen. But the US did not try these individuals. Instead the US handed the PLO masterminds over to Italy and then (of course) expressed public 'outrage' when Italy - as could be expected from Bettino Craxi - let them go.

This all makes perfect sense if the US ruling elite does not care about Jewish lives, even be they American ones. It also makes sense if the US ruling elite cares deeply about protecting its prized pet: the PLO. Under any other hypothesis, however, it is truly difficult to make sense of what the US government did. Especially when you consider that the US has considered just one American citizen killed sufficient to launch the invasion of a country (Panama).

"[On December 16 1989] Panamanian soldiers killed an unarmed U.S. Marine officer dressed in civilian clothes.

Retaliation by the United States was quick and decisive. On December 17, U.S. President George Bush ordered troops to Panama, with the subsequently announced aims of seizing Noriega to face drug charges in the United States, protecting American lives and property, and restoring Panamanian liberties."[115]

So one US soldier killed was enough to justify the US invasion of a foreign country, and the seizure of that country's leader to be tried in the United States. But the PLO murderers of one American Jew, already in US custody, were released to the passionately pro-PLO Italian prime-minister, Betinno Craxi, whose foreign minister, Giulio Andreotti, was equally pro-PLO. Predictably, these men returned the murderers of an American Jew, in health, to the PLO.

To put this all in its proper context, we must briefly consider US covert penetration of Italy in the post-war. Once this is properly appreciated, we will have all the pieces of the puzzle because Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti are products of this US penetration.

Immediately after World War II, Italy had the strongest leftist movement in Europe, and the US ruling elite was not happy about that.

"Papers released over the years in the United States under the Freedom of Information Act have established that the US would consider military intervention if the Communists came to power [in Italy]."[117]

Mind you, the US was not saying it would send its troops if there was a communist armed takeover, but that it would do so if the Italian Communists - very popular - won freely at the polls because the Italian people wanted them in power.

In the event, the US decided not to wait and see what happened at the polls. Instead, it carried out an extensive covert penetration of the Italian Establishment, using fascists, in order to destroy the Italian left and make sure that it lost the election. (And the US was doing similar things in Germany).[116a]

Many things still aren't known about this, but the research of historian Christopher Simpson has shown us at least the tip of the iceberg (Simpson, C. 1988. Blowback: America's recruitment of Nazis and its effects on the Cold War. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson). Simpson writes:

“Not all the clandestine containment programs were aimed at the USSR and its satellites. Some of the most important early applications of these tactics began in Western Europe. The Italian elections of 1948 marked another important milestone in the development of US covert operations and in high-level support for the use of former Nazi collaborators.” (p.89)

As is now well known, Pope Pious XII assisted Hitler’s domestic policy by ordering the German Catholic party not to oppose the German Nazi leader. But this Pope did much else for the Nazis, as documented by historian Peter Cornwell.[116b] Especially shocking is the Vatican's direct assistance to Adolf Hitler's extermination program in Croatia, which was there led by the German-allied Croatian Ustashe. These camps were run by Franciscan priests under the authority of Archbishop Stepinac, who greeted Ante Pavelic, the Croatian ‘poglavnik’ (i.e. ‘fuhrer’) as an emissary of God.[116bb] After the war, the Vatican used one of its many infamous ‘rat-lines’ to spirit almost the entire Ustashe (Croatian Nazi) organization to safety, including Ante Pavelic (who was given last rites by the Pope himself when he died in Spain).[116c] What historian Christopher Simpson documented, which is that the Vatican eagerly helped the CIA deploy its covert fascists in Italy in the post-war period, is entirely consistent with the Vatican's behavior during the war.

“the CIA established much deeper and broader ties with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome than had previously been the case. This not only had a powerful impact on the Italian political scene but also...laid the foundation for the agency’s relationship with Intermarium, an influential Catholic lay organization made up primarily of Eastern European exiles that operated under the protection of the Vatican. At least half a dozen senior leaders of Intermarium can be readily identified as Nazi collaborators.” -- Christopher Simpson, Blowback (p.89)

This is the same Intermarium that, in cooperation with US intelligence, set up several rat lines to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe after the war. Many to the US (to read about the secret US absorption of thousands of Nazi war criminals, after the war, see 1945 section).

“Cardinal Spellman of New York served as a crucial go-between in CIA-Vatican negotiations... The US government, the cardinal said, had secretly ‘released large sums in ‘black currency’ in Italy to the Catholic Church.’ This “black currency” did not come from American taxpayers. Rather, a substantial part of the funding for clandestine activities in Italy came from captured Nazi German assets, including money and gold that the Nazis had looted from the Jews... The CIA withdrew about $10 million from the fund in late 1947, laundered it through a myriad of bank accounts, then used that money to finance sensitive Italian operations. This was the ‘black currency’ that Cardinal Spellman asserted was given to the Vatican for anti-Communist agitation. Much of the CIA’s $10 million Italian war chest was delivered through clandestine campaign contributions to Christian Democratic candidates... [and] many of the remnants of the Fascists’ wartime ruling apparatus, as well as most of the police, had joined Christian Democratic ranks after 1945...” -- Christopher Simpson, Blowback (p.91-92)

Since the Christian Democratic parties were set up by the CIA-Vatican alliance to be fronts for the fascists, it matters that Gulio Andreotti, Bettino Crazi's foreign minister, was a Christian Democrat. Both prime minister Craxi and foreign minister Andreotti are now known to have been involved with an extensive CIA terrorist operation in Italy that had murdered leaders of the Italian left. This was all uncovered during the early 90s when a few brave Italian magistrates risked their lives to investigate this and make their findings public, producing a scandal that shook Italian society to the core. When this scandal broke, the British daily The Independent wrote that:

"The main loser seems to be the Socialist leader, Bettino Craxi. He said that when he was prime minister he never knew about it. Then a letter was produced with his signature saying he had been informed."[117]

What the same article reports about Craxi's foreign minister, Giulio Andreotti, makes it clear that the latter was even more clearly implicated in this terrorist business, and also that he was apparently a secret tool of NATO. I hate to be redundant but this really must be said again: Andreotti's Christian Democratic party, dominant in Italy in the post war, was "[b]acked by the Vatican and at one time by CIA money."[118] The violence sponsored by these people was no laughing matter.

"Historically, there is the grim record of seven, unresolved terrorist-type attacks between 1969 and 1984 in which 150 people died: the 1980 Bologna train station massacre of 85 people was the most infamous. It has long seemed probable that those attacks were the work of right-wing sympathizers, well positioned within the Italian state, whose major concern was to push Italian public opinion to the right and halt the advance of an Italian Communist Party which touched 34 per cent at the 1976 general election.

Despite years of trials and retrials, and traces of wrongdoing involving Italian Secret Services, the CIA, the Masonic lodge P2 and the Mafia in all seven investigations, only a handful of minor figures have been sentenced, while no organization has been held responsible. Put simply, most of these attacks appear to have been 'covered up'.[119]

The above is from an article in the Irish Times that was using the occasion of another terrorist bombing in Italy, this one in Florence, in 1993, to look back. The Irish Times added:

"On the day before the Florence bomb, the former prime minister, Senator Giulio Andreotti, was answering questions about the murder of a journalist. Mr Andreotti is currently being investigated on both murder and Mafia collusion charges.

Just one week ago, the former Socialist prime minister, Mr Bettino Craxi, predicted a new season of bombs."

You can't make this stuff up.

It seems, therefore, that Craxi and Andreotti were American stooges in what was (is?) a rather deep and extensive covert penetration by US intelligence of the Italian Establishment. From this point of view, it is now easier to explain Craxi's and Andreotti's entirely absurd behavior in the Achille Lauro affair: they only appeared to be Italian politicians. In reality, they were paid US agents, and they had a job to do: make the PLO a player, offend Israel, and teach the whole world that antisemitism was the name of the game - again.
 

3. Ronald Reagan denies the Holocaust
__________________________________

Ronald Reagan was famous for delegating authority. But the task of offending Jews he took firmly into his own hands, launching yet a third simultaneous attack on Israel in this busy year of 1985.

"President Reagan, who earlier declined to visit the site of a Nazi concentration camp during his visit to Germany next month because he said it would be 'out of line,' has decided to lay a wreath at a German war cemetery where many Nazi soldiers were buried after the Battle of the Bulge, the White House announced today."[120]

This naturally created an uproar. You may wonder, how is it possible for the president of a country that fought the German Nazis to do something like this?

Well, but did the US fight the German Nazis? The US Establishment, remember, helped fund the rise of the Nazi party, and the government under Roosevelt energetically cooperated with Hitler's Final Solution (see sections on 1930s and 1939-45). After the war, the US illegally and in secret absorbed the entire Nazi war criminal organization in order to create the CIA (see 1945 section). It is hard to argue, therefore, that America's belated entry into the World War stems from the US Establishment's in-principle objection to Nazi ideology. Isn't it more reasonable to suppose that the US invaded Europe because the Soviets were on their way to the Atlantic? That the US had no objection to Nazis can be seen from the fact that, as soon as the Nazis were whipped into obedience again in 1945, the US immediately redeployed them. From this perspective it is hardly surprising that Reagan should have sought a) to re-normalize German Nazism, and b) to re-normalize antisemitism with a high-profile spitting session on the Jews.

And that's what this was.

The US president was very careful to insult the Jews. In the uproar that followed the proposed itinerary of his visit to Germany (made public well in advance, so as to guarantee the uproar), prominent Jewish leaders such as Elie Wiesel explained publicly to the American president that

"there could be no trade-off by combining visits to a camp and to the cemetery. 'A visit to this particular cemetery is to us unacceptable,' he said."[121]

The way a master dismisses a nagging slave, Ronald Reagan replied that maybe he would add a visit to a Nazi concentration camp site, but that in any case "no thought was being given to eliminating a visit to the Bitburg [Nazi] cemetery."[122]

I emphasize: this was all carefully premeditated and deliberate. German chancellor Helmut Kohl had actually

"proposed that Reagan join him...in visiting both a World War II cemetery and a concentration camp site, [and yet] Reagan's advance men accepted the first, but declined the second."[123]

I am not trying to make Helmut Kohl look good - to include the Nazi cemetery was an outrage anyway, and in fact Kohl was apologizing for the Nazis in public.[124] My point is that the American president went out of his way to out-Nazi the German chancellor and make known his intentions to lay a wreath to honor the Nazis and to simultaneously disrespect the victims of the Shoah.

In fact, Reagan announced this a whole month in advance of his trip, guaranteeing an extended pandemonium that carried the news all around the world. And to make sure nobody thought there had been a mistake, when the protests began he did not give an inch. Then he

"unleashed a new wave of Jewish fury... by claiming that German soldiers buried [in that cemetery] were 'victims' of the Nazis 'just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.'"[125]

But some might think this was Reagan's idiosyncrasy, or his administration's. To dispel any such notion, powerful members of the American Establishment, such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, added their voices, calling on president Reagan not to cancel his visit to the Nazi cemetery.[126] Amazing, because even in Germany many were confused and disturbed by this, so Reagan could have taken the easy way out by calling it all a 'mistake.'

No. In the end he laid his wreath. On the graves of Nazis.

If worldwide Jewish pressure could not get Reagan to do the slightest of symbolic retreats on such an obvious moral issue, with the whole world watching in amazement, what was the ulterior meaning?

Simple: this was 'the leader of the free world' doing Holocaust denial via diplomacy-speech. That's what this was.

US president Ronald Reagan, the most important man in the world, took the loudest megaphone in history, the Western mass media, and screamed at the top of his voice, for a whole month, that antisemitism was normal again. The Jews, who continue to think (whether approving or disapproving) that the US establishment is pro-Jewish and pro-Israel, were deaf to how this reverberated on the walls of everybody else's subconscious.
 

4. Who was in charge of US covert operations in 1985?
_______________________________________________

Given so much US overt and also covert activity to attack Israel, you may wonder, who was in charge of US intelligence operations during the year of 1985? That was Vincent Cannistraro, "Director of NSC Intelligence from 1984 to 1987" where he was responsible for "coordinating intelligence programs throughout the [Reagan] administration."[127]

Cannistraro was the man in charge.

You may recall that it was Cannistraro who explained the love-affair between the US and the PLO, revealing that American diplomats in Beirut relied on the PLO terrorists for their security. This is before the Israelis prepared a knockout blow against the PLO that brought the Americans sweeping in to save these terrorists from destruction (see 1982 section).

It is also Cannistraro who first helped the CIA train the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and then directed the Contra program from his new perch at Reagan's National Security Council.[128] Simultaneously, the US was illegally sending arms to the antisemitic Islamists in Iran (and notice the cynicism: the US made Israel deliver the weapons).[128a] Two massive government conspiracies running at the same time, which, as you may recall, became one of the biggest scandals in US history (though nobody served jail time and many of them are back in power in Bush Jr.'s administration).

At the end of the year, the Associated Press carried the headline "Wave Of Terrorism Voted Top Story Of 1985."^[130] Cannistraro, a trainer of terrorists, and responsible for "coordinating intelligence programs throughout the [Reagan] administration" oversaw a great deal of this - including, of course, the activities of that prized US pet: the PLO.

Now that nobody seems to remember the Iran-Contra double mega-scandal of the 1980s, Cannistraro has resurfaced as a major opponent of Israel, and he parades himself as "ABC News intelligence analyst Vincent Cannistraro."[128] He is presented by the Orwellian media as a counter-terrorist.[129]

It is also worth pointing out that the CIA director in 1985 was William Casey, who was appointed to that post by Ronald Reagan after Casey ran his presidential campaign. Who is William Casey?

Well, in the section on 1945, it was explained that the US absorbed almost the entire Nazi war criminal organization and out of that created the CIA.

"Frank Wisner, a dashing young Wall Street lawyer who had distinguished himself in underground OSS intrigues [the OSS is the precursor to the CIA] in Istanbul and Bucharest, headed the coordinating team."

This coordinating team was tasked with the job of absorption of the Nazi war criminal infrastructure [my emphasis, below].

"Frank Wisner's Special Intelligence Branch staff, which was engaged in work with [Nazi war criminal Reinhart] Gehlen [who was the most important Nazi asset], had more than its share of brilliant operatives who were to leave their marks on the history of US espionage. They included Richard Helms, for example, later to become CIA deputy director for clandestine operations and eventually agency director under Presidents Johnson and Nixon; William Casey, CIA director under President Reagan; Harry Rositzke, soon to become chief of CIA clandestine operations inside the USSR and later CIA chief of station in India; and, of course, Wisner himself, soon to be chief of all American clandestine warfare operations worldwide."[131]

That US president Ronald Reagan should have sought to normalize the Nazis, and to re-normalize antisemitism, is surprising only to those who do not know this history.

____________________________________________________________

1987-1988 [ negative ]

The 'First Intifada' was a US-PLO strategy used to represent the Arabs in West Bank and Gaza as supposedly oppressed 'underdogs'
____________________________________________________________

Late in 1987, commercial strikes, rock-throwing riots, and other disturbances began taking place in the West Bank and Gaza. By early 1988, this was being called the 'intifada.' The interpretation in the mass media was that this was a 'spontaneous uprising' in reaction to supposed Israeli oppression. For example, on 12 January 1988, the British daily The Guardian produced the following headline:

"An uprising that took the Israelis by surprise: How Jerusalem misjudged the spontaneous unrest in the occupied territories."[131a]

The Guardian also reported that,

"In yesterday's leaflets the Arabic word intifada (root: shake, convulse, tremble) - and roughly but unsatisfactorily translated as 'uprising' - recurred again and again."

I shall demonstrate that the intifada was not spontaneous in the least, but rather was a planned strategy of the terrorist PLO. But first things first. I will address the following questions in sequence.

1) Does a confrontation between well-armed soldiers and rock-throwing boys demonstrate that the first oppress the second?

2) What was the broader context of pro-PLO diplomacy at the UN in which the 'intifada' took place?

Once the above two questions have been answered, I will address a third question.

3) Was the PLO directly behind the 'intifada'?

Put together, my argument will be the following. The impression that the rock-throwing Palestinian Arabs were 'underdogs' and therefore the 'good guys' is a facile and mistaken one. But this impression was carefully constructed to coincide with the effort at the UN to create a diplomatic process leading to a PLO state. Not coincidentally, it was the PLO that produced the intifada as a ploy to assist this process.

Finally, I will argue that,

4) The United States was behind it all.

1. Does a confrontation between well-armed soldiers and rock-throwing boys demonstrate that the first oppress the second?
________

The main images of the 'intifada' were rock-throwing Palestinian Arab boys in confrontation with fully armed Israeli soldiers. With images like that, just a little bit of editorializing would produce an impression of supposed Israeli oppression of the Palestinian Arabs. The media editorialized it precisely like that, with gusto. And the PLO milked that for all it was worth.

However, it is important to understand that who the good guys are is not directly established by who is holding a rock and who is holding a gun. Consider the following, from the very beginning of the unrest:

"Khalil al Wazir, the senior military aide to Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, has said that disturbances in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip are certain to continue as long as Israeli troops continue their present tactics.

Al Wazir, better known by his codename Abu Jihad, spoke in an interview with the BBC correspondent in Tunis, blaming the recent wave of violence on what he called savage behavior by Israeli soldiers.

In the latest incident, Israeli soldiers Monday shot and killed a Palestinian mother of five and wounded five others during protests in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 10 miles north of Jerusalem. The soldiers fired into the air and then at the legs of the protesters as they rushed to the scene after an Israeli woman motorist was injured by a rock thrown at her car, said the spokesman.

A military source said the Arab woman killed in the clash, identified by the hospital as Amayat Hindi, 35, was apparently a passerby and not among the protesters. The army was investigating the shooting, added the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Four of the wounded were treated in nearby Ramallah hospital, while a fifth, who was slightly injured, was treated briefly at the scene and released, the military added."[134b]

So the PLO blamed the unrest on supposedly "savage behavior by Israeli soldiers." What savage behavior?

We hear of a "Palestinian mother of five" killed by the Israelis, by name Amayat Hindi. The PLO implies that she was willfully killed; the Israelis claim that she was an accidental casualty. According to the Israelis, the soldiers were not trying to kill anybody, and so had fired into the air and then at people's legs. But they did have to do something because an "Israeli woman motorist" was in danger of being killed by the rock throwers. Who's right?

A UPI wire of the same day, reporting on the same event, had more detail about this. There are some discrepancies with the above. For example, the woman's name is not given as Amayat Hindi but as Inayad Hindi, and in the UPI wire she is not a mother of five but of eight. However, UPI concurs that she was 35 years old, that the number of people wounded in the same incident was five, and that the trouble started when the rock-throwers injured an Israeli motorist.

Why did Inayad Hindi die? UPI explains:

"Cornered Israeli troops shot and killed a mother of eight and wounded five people during a general strike by Arabs protesting an attempt by Jews to pray at one of Islam's holiest sites.

(...)

Inayad Hindi, 35, a school teacher and a mother of eight, was hit by gunfire from Israeli troops who were trapped by a mob in the center of Ramallah, about 9 miles north of Jerusalem, Israeli military sources said."[134c]

If the Israeli troops had been "cornered" and "trapped" by the rock-throwing mob, then, since rocks can maim and kill, and since there were quite a few rock throwers, the soldiers had an obligation to defend themselves, and moreover to defend the Israeli motorist. But they obviously did not shoot to kill, otherwise a lot of people would have died. Only one person died, and it appears to have been an accident, because it is unlikely that a schoolteacher and mother of eight was throwing rocks. And the Arab and Israeli sides agree about this because, as the same wire explains, "A spokesman at Ramallah Government Hospital, where Hindi was pronounced dead on arrival, said she was shopping when she was shot."

We also learn above that the Arab rock throwers were not protesting Israeli oppression - they were upset that a few Jews wanted to worship, so they started throwing rocks, because that Jews should pray was very offensive to them. In the words of one Palestinian interviewed by UPI,

"'They're all so mad about the Jews who want to go to the mosque to pray,' said Omar Said, 32, who kept his brassware shop open."

Of course, Omar was putting it a bit tendentiously. It is false that the Jews wanted to go pray at the mosque, obviously, because Jews do not pray at mosques. What Omar leaves out is that the site of the mosque is also the site of Solomon's Temple. The Jews were few and they were not going there to drive the Arabs out; they just wanted to pray too.

So what emerges is that what the PLO calls "savage behavior by Israeli soldiers" was in fact perfectly decent behavior by Israeli soldiers, who, with minimum harm to their attackers, did their best to protect an Israeli civilian and then their own selves from a rock-throwing mob that had enraged itself merely because a few Jews wanted to pray.

But this information is in the wires, which almost nobody reads except for a few journalists. What people read is what appears in newspapers, and newspapers (and other mass media) tended to adopt the PLO interpretation of the unrest. To give you a taste for what usually happens in the major papers, consider what the three newspapers that covered this particular incident said.

First, the highly regarded Christian Science Monitor wrote:

"Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian mother of five and wounded five other people yesterday during protests that swept the occupied territories, an Army spokesman and witnesses said.

Troops opened fire in Ramallah to disperse about 500 Palestinian students who marched in the main square, the spokesman said."[134e]

That's it. The entire context is missing, and it makes the Israelis look very bad. The soldiers fired "to disperse about 500 Palestinian students"? Well yes, but what happened to the fact that these students were throwing rocks and had endangered the life of one innocent Israeli citizen? What about the fact that these students had "cornered" and "trapped" the soldiers? These facts are not mentioned.

The Toronto Star ran the headline, "Palestinians riot as mom shot by Israelis." But, of course, the only way to write a correct title with those words is to put them like so: "Mom accidentally shot by Israelis as Palestinians riot." What the Toronto Star wrote suggests that the riots were caused by the death of Inayad Hindi, something that is not true. The body of that article 'reported' as follows:

"Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian mother of five and wounded five other people yesterday in demonstrations that quickly spread in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip...

The demonstrations had several causes but participants told reporters they were mainly to protest Israeli police action near Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem Sunday."[134f]

The explanation is of course false. The Palestinian Arabs were not protesting "police action." They themselves explained how they were upset that a few Jews wanted to pray. And nothing is said about the fact that the rock throwers had attacked an Israeli civilian whom the soldiers rushed to protect.

Finally, The Herald ran the headline "Mother Killed." Not "Arab intolerance reaches rock-throwing pitch as Arabs riot to protest Jewish prayer," or "Protecting a civilian, Israeli soldiers trapped by enraged Arab mob." No, what you must remember is that the Jews killed a mom. Monsters. Underneath the "Mother Killed" title, The Herald writes simply "Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian mother of five who was searching for her children today, during a violent protest by about 500 Arab students."[134g] Nothing more.

Of course, this is only one incident, but it is instructive. The main lessons are three.

a) It is possible for the 'bad guys' to be the ones throwing rocks at fully armed soldiers, and therefore if Palestinian Arabs throw rocks at Israeli soldiers we cannot rush to conclude that they are responding to supposed Israeli oppression.

b) Since the PLO tried to claim that the obviously correct and compassionate behavior of the Israeli soldiers in this case was supposedly "savage," it follows that we need to examine PLO accusations of supposed Israeli brutality during the intifada with the utmost skepticism.

c) We cannot trust the mass media which people consume to report things accurately. There is a very strong bias to distort the truth in order to make the Israelis look like oppressors, and to make the Palestinian Arabs look like victims.

One final point, here: it is important to remember that rock-throwing is not 'non-violence.' And yet there was a big push in the mainstream Western media to represent the Palestinian 'intifada' as supposedly non-violent. For example, an article that appeared in the Financial Times towards the beginning of the intifada went so far as to compare the PLO terrorist George Habash (who "remains an influential and durable figure in the PLO") to Mahatma Ghandi.

"Dr George Habash, leader of the revolutionary Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, seems an unlikely advocate of a Gandhi-style campaign of civil disobedience in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."[134h]

But Ghandi's followers were not throwing rocks; they were non-violent. Therefore, a rock-throwing campaign cannot be called "Ghandi-style." More