Racism and Genocide
Lies of Our Times
By James Petras
06/08/08 "ICH" -- - One of the hallmarks of totalitarian
ideologues is the use of the big lie: a virulent attack on a
defenseless group and then a categorical denial turning victims
into executioners and executioners into victims.
Zionist genocide promoter, Benny Morris practices the Big Lie1.
He claims, “I have never supported the brutal expulsion of all
Palestinians…I have said, repeatedly, that the expulsion of the
Palestinians is immoral and impracticable.”
In a recent interview in Israel, Morris states, “Under some
circumstances, expulsion is not a war crime. I don’t think that
the expulsions of 1948 (of nearly a million Palestinians) were
war crimes. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You
have to dirty your hands. Moreover, if he (Israeli Prime
Minister Ben Gurion) was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he
should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the
Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my
feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less
suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If
Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleaned the
whole country – the whole land of Israel, as far as the Jordan
River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If
he carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he
would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations.” In
its extremism, Morris’ promotion of Judeo-fascist ethnocide of
Palestine/Jordan exceeds that of any expressed by a secular
public Jewish figure in Israel.
Uprooting, massacring and driving 3 million Palestinians from
their homes, land and communities, according to Morris, lessens
suffering – for Jews – and promises a quieter life for Israeli
Jews! This is the same rationale that Hitler pronounced in his
project to ‘purify’ Nazi Germany.
Morris fabricates a tale about Israel’s peaceful role in the
Middle East when in fact it has been the most aggressive,
militarist, expansionist state in the entire Middle East. He
writes, “I am completely unaware that Zionism ever aimed to
‘rule the Middle East’…Zionism simply wanted to establish and
maintain a (miniscule) Jewish state in the Land of
Israel/Palestine, the patrimony of the Jews…conquered by savage
Muslim Arab invaders.”
The history of the Israeli state tells us otherwise. Israel has
expanded and colonized over three quarters of Palestine since
the original partition in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, Egypt and seized and occupies territory from
three of the four countries. Israel is the only country in the
Middle East, which has repeatedly invaded Lebanon, destroyed its
infrastructure, slaughtered Palestinian refugees in camps and
attempted to establish a puppet regime in South Lebanon. Israel
is the only Middle Eastern country, which shot down a Libyan
commercial airliner carrying pilgrims to Mecca killing all
aboard.
Israel’s ‘lobby’ – the Zionist power configuration in the US –
has secured over $120 billion dollars of US military aid and the
most advanced military technology for Israel, to insure Israel’s
‘overwhelming military superiority’ in the region. The military
superiority of Israel has served the Jewish state to threaten,
pressure, destabilize and influence Arab states.
The biggest nuclear threat in the Middle East and the sole
nuclear power (over 200 nuclear bombs) and the only country,
which publicly threatens to attack with nuclear weapons – is
Israel. Israel has engaged in cross border terrorist
assassinations throughout the Middle East, training death squads
in Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) to Colombia and recognizes no
sovereign borders in pursuit of its hegemonic goals.
Morris’ style is as revelatory as the substance of his
totalitarian beliefs. He claims, “Israel has been threatened by
Iran with destruction and the Iranian nuclear project appears to
have Israel as its target.” Apart from a vague remark, which was
grossly mistranslated, of Iranian President Ahmadinejad about
Israel “Disappearing from the page of history” (a remark
pointing to a political change of the ethnic nature of the
state), the Iranian government has never threatened to nuke
Israel. Morris, the prophet of Armageddon, with special powers
to delve into the “self-sacrificing mindset of the mullahs who
run Iran,” knows that deterrence will not work. No evidence
founded on action is presented. No history of Iranian foreign
policy over the past 50 years is presented.
The key to understanding Benny Morris’ proposal for nuclear
genocide is his totalitarian-racist view of Arabs, Muslims and
Iranians. In an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz
(2004) regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations he asserted,
“Something like a cage has to be built for them…There is no
choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in
one way or another.” According to Morris, Palestinians are
“barbarians who want to take our lives…At the moment that
society is in the state of being a serial killer. It is a very
sick society. It should be treated the way we treat individuals
who are serial killers.” To Morris, the dispossessed
Palestinians are the killers while the Israeli colonial state,
which dispossessed millions, tortured tens of thousands, jailed
hundreds of thousands and killed thousands and is building a
huge ghetto wall destroying the livelihood of 3 million, is a
sane, healthy society. Dehumanizing the victims and the use of
sub-human analogies is common practice of totalitarian
ideologues. Considering Muslims as sub-human eases the way to
incinerating them with nuclear weapons.
Benny Morris bases his argument for launching a nuclear attack
against Iran on two boldface lies: (1) “Every intelligence
agency in the world believes the Iranian program is geared to
making weapons, not to the peaceful application of nuclear
power”; and (2) “Everyone knows that such measures (economic
sanctions) have so far led nowhere and are unlikely to be
applied.” The sixteen leading US intelligence agencies released
a National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 based on all available
high tech sources and inside informants, stating that Iran was
not preparing enriched uranium for weapons. The International
Atomic Energy Agency, which has permanent on site inspectors and
makes continuous visits to Iranian nuclear facilities over the
past decade, has not found any evidence of a weapons program.
Every country, except Israel and the Zionist-dominated US
Congress and White House believe that negotiations should
continue. China, Russia, the states of the Middle East have
supported sanctions among other countries. Iran’s uranium
enrichment program is legal and is practiced by dozens of
countries around the world. Only Israel, the US and the EU have
arbitrarily decided to exclude Iran from developing nuclear
enrichment programs for peaceful uses. Morris and the Israelis
equate Iran’s legitimate activity with nuclear weapon production
and extrapolate the latter to an immediate threat against
Israel’s very existence.
Morris’ most laughable assertion is his claim that he “never
advocated a genocidal attack on Iran with the aim of killing 70
million Iranians.” In his own words, just a few weeks earlier in
a July 18 editorial in the New York Times he wrote, “Iran’s
leaders would do well to re-think their gamble and suspend their
nuclear program. Barring this, the best they could hope for is
that Israel’s conventional air assault will destroy their
nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of
Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the
alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland.”
By posing the question to Iran as one of ‘no choice’ but
surrendering national sovereignty to an “Israeli nuclear threat’
Morris has pre-determined the result: Israel will have to engage
in a genocidal nuclear assault on Iran. Morris’ double talk and
utter confusion in claiming to oppose Iranian genocide while
supporting ‘limited’ nuclear strikes against Iran revels his
total ignorance of the most elementary consequences of the
long-term, large-scale effects of radiation, contamination,
economic devastation and widespread social trauma, not to
mention the immediate effects of a thermonuclear attack on a
populous nation. A nuclear strike against a country is genocidal
in its effects on that nation – involving millions of human
beings in Iran and throughout the entire region with widespread
global contamination.
Benny Morris’ rant, in itself, is of no great concern were it
limited to some Israeli version of a Munich beer hall. But the
fact that ‘respectable’ capitalist print media, like the New
York Times among others…publish and circulate blatant advocacy
of nuclear genocide as ‘just another opinion’ is of prime
political concern: It tells us how far imperial-militarism has
infected Western political discourse; we have moved from a
scratch to gangrene.
Postnote: A declaration signed by over 200 Israeli academics and
peace activists was released August 5, 2008 stating:
There is no military, political or moral justification to
initiate war with Iran. A constant flow of information bears
witness to the fact that the Israeli government is seriously
considering attacking Iran, in order to disrupt its nuclear
plans. We do no disregard irresponsible actions by the Iranian
government – we also oppose atomic weapons of mass destruction
in the region. However, it is clear that the main source of the
immediate danger of a new, widespread war stems from the
policies of the Israeli government and the flow of threats from
it, backed by provocative military maneuvers.
After serious consideration, we reiterate our position that all
the arguments for such an attack are without any security,
political or moral justification. Israel might get caught up in
an act of adventurism that could endanger our very existence,
and this without any serious effort to exhaust the political and
diplomatic alternatives to armed conflict.
We are not certain that such an attack will occur. But the very
fact that it is being weighed as a reasonable option makes it
imperative that we warn and caution against the destructive
results of an offensive strike against Iran.
(contact: reuven.kaminer@gmail.com)
Professor Petras is the author of Zionism, Militarism and the
Decline of US Power (Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel
in the US (Clarity Press 2006).
Click
on "comments" below to read or post
comments
Comment
Guidelines
Be
succinct, constructive and relevant to the story.
We encourage
engaging, diverse and meaningful commentary. Do
not include personal information such as names,
addresses, phone numbers and emails. Comments
falling outside our guidelines – those
including personal attacks and profanity –
are not permitted.
See our complete Comment
Policy and use
this link to notify us if you have
concerns about a comment. We’ll promptly
review and remove any inappropriate postings.
Send
Page To a Friend
In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and
educational purposes. Information Clearing House
has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator
of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
