[Media-watch] "When at a loss, escalate".Artice Comment On Israel's recent strike on Syria.

[Iain Campbell]

This is the best analaysis of the reasons for Israel attacking Syria. A News 
item being wholly ignored by the corporate media right now.

>From: "YTupdates" <ytupdates at yellowtimes.org>
>Reply-To: YTupdates at yellowtimes.org
>To: yt-updates at yellowtimes.org
>Subject: YT Updates - October 11, 2003
>Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 17:43:23 +0600
>
>October 11, 2003:
>
>Read a brand new analysis on why Turkey decided that it may send troops to
>Iraq to help with the U.S. occupation there:
>
>"Deployment of Necessity: Turkey's Military Involvement in Iraq"
>http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=101
>
>****************
>
>Feature article included in full text below:
>

>by Gabriel Ash - YT Columnist (United States)
>
>Gabriel Ash, who grew up in Israel and served in the Israeli Defense 
>Forces,
>writes .
>
>Direct link: http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1608
>
>***************
>
>The following articles can only be accessed on YellowTimes.org:
>
>PINR: "Indo-Israeli Alliance Affects Regional Players"
>Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
>
>Analysis explaining the growing relations between India and Israel.
>
>Full text: http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1613
>
>**************
>
>"Is France the new savior?"
>by Paul Harris - YT Columnist (Canada)
>
>Paul Harris asks whether France is the world's new savior.
>
>Full text: http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1609
>
>**************
>
>"Survival of the Internet"
>by Lance Broughton - YT Columnist (New Zealand)
>
>Broughton wonders whether the Internet will be able to survive in the form
>it is in now.  He warns, "Sadly, mentally stimulating websites are being
>thrown on the scrap heap of political expediency for the sake of 
>conformity."
>
>Full text: http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1610
>
>**************
>
>"Adios, Columbus"
>by Anita Quintanilla - YT Guest Columnist (United States)
>
>This author discusses Christopher Columbus's history of death and
>destruction.
>
>Full text: http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1611
>
>**************
>
>News from the Front: New Massacre in Democratic Republic of Congo
>Printed on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 @ 07:29:31 CST
>
>Report by YellowTimes.org
>NewsFromtheFront.org
>
>TORONTO (NFTF.org) -- As progress toward a lasting peace in the Democratic
>Republic of Congo (DRC) moves apace, suddenly a vicious block in the road
>has reared its head. The United Nations peacekeepers on the ground in DRC
>have come upon a new atrocity; they have discovered the bodies of at least
>65 people, many of them children and pregnant women, apparently massacred 
>on
>October 6. The bodies have been located in or near the village of Katchele,
>100 km to the north and east of Bunia which is the major center in the
>northeastern province of Ituri. Bunia itself was the scene of vicious
>fighting earlier this year and several thousand people are thought to have
>died there; in all, it is believed that more than 50,000 have died in Ituri
>in the past four years as a result of ethnic conflict and during the battle
>for Bunia in the spring of 2003, as many as half a million people were
>displaced.
>
>Full text: http://yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1612
>
>**************
>
>"When at a loss, escalate"
>Printed on Monday, October 06, 2003 @ 07:33:51 CST
>http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1608
>
>By Gabriel Ash
>YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
>
>(YellowTimes.org) – There is an old joke about a man who goes to the doctor
>with a running nose (this was before the era of nasal decongestants). The
>doctor tells him to dress lightly and walk a few hours in the rain. The
>bewildered patient presses for an explanation, and the doctor adds, "I
>cannot treat a running nose, but if you get pneumonia -- then I can give 
>you
>antibiotics."
>
>The meaning of Israel's attack on Syria is that the government of Israel is
>taking the same route as that doctor. Unable to repress the Palestinian
>struggle for liberation, Israel is now trying to transform it into a
>regional war, for which its army is better equipped. That spells more
>disaster for the whole Middle East, including Israel.
>
>On Saturday, October 4, Hanadi Jaradat, 29, blew herself up in a restaurant
>in Haifa, killing 20 people including herself. American media, as usual,
>reported Jaradat's act without context. But Jaradat, a law school graduate,
>was reportedly avenging the death of her brother and cousin, murdered on
>June 12 in Jenin by Israeli death squads, who, according to LAW Society,
>apparently shot them after taking them into custody.
>
>No doubt, they, too, were butchered in retaliation for something, perhaps
>the suicide attack in Jerusalem on June 11, which itself was a retaliation
>against Israel's attempt to murder Hamas spokesperson Rantisi, which was a
>response to the joint Palestinian attack on the Erez checkpoint on June 8
>(involving no targeting of civilians), which itself was triggered by the
>continuing killing of Hamas activists, even as Abu Mazen was posing for the
>camera together with Bush and Sharon.
>
>There is no evidence that Israel's policy of assassination, even beyond the
>inconvenience of being a form of state terrorism, is achieving a reduction
>in Palestinian violence. On the contrary, the only success that can be
>reasonably attributed to this policy is Israel's repeated success in
>sabotaging cease-fires and insuring a continuation of the intifada. But, as
>if the logic of retaliation were not illogical enough, Israel responded to
>Jaradat's revenge by stretching the concept well beyond the border of the
>absurd, attacking a civilian target in Syria -- a Palestinian refugee camp
>in Ein Saheb.
>
>What more is needed to show that Israel's "defense" policies are nothing 
>but
>international terrorism? Let's be clear. First, Israel attacked another
>country without provocation. Second, Israel attacked a civilian target in
>that other country. Third, even by Israel's own admission, the target had 
>no
>direct connection to the suicide attack on Saturday, and no direct
>connection to any future attack. It was clearly not an act of self defense.
>
>But Israel's madness has a context, too. Within the world view of Israel's
>military junta, every problem has a military solution, and every problem
>that doesn't seem to have a military solution can be transformed into one
>that does.
>
>It seems obvious to most observers that Israel has no military solution to
>Palestinian violence. The junta refuses to contemplate a political 
>solution,
>which requires a measure of justice and the ability to compromise over 
>land.
>Palestinian violence continues and the impotence of killing one more 
>"senior
>Hamas operative" was becoming evident even to Israelis. The Israeli public
>is growing disillusioned with Sharon's government, which has just suffered
>two severe shocks. First, the government's plan to get rid of Arafat ended
>in humiliation; it was declared illegal and unacceptable by the U.N. 
>Second,
>the government was stunned by the first organized letter of protest written
>by conscientious objectors within the Israeli Air Force, up until this 
>month
>a bastion of conformism.
>
>The background for the decision to attack Syria is, therefore, Sharon's
>beleaguered position and absence of options. By attacking Syria, Israel's
>junta is hoping at the least to frighten the world, including the U.S. and
>Europe, and "punish" it for daring to impose limits on its use of force. 
>The
>message is that Israel will react to international pressure by causing
>greater instability throughout the Middle East. In considering this 
>strategy
>of blackmail and its ramifications, one should remember that Israel is a
>nuclear power that has already used threats of nuclear war to blackmail the
>U.S. (in 1973, as the New York Times, by "happy" coincidence, has just
>confirmed, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/opinion/06COHE.html. A
>second "benefit" of the attack is that it can potentially push forward the
>confrontation between the U.S. and Syria, and possibly Iran. The war in 
>Iraq
>has raised new hopes for getting the U.S. embroiled in war in Syria and
>Iran. While the U.S. is acting toward these countries with belligerence for
>reasons of its own, Israel is impatient. From Israel's perspective, the 
>U.S.
>needs prodding to act sooner rather than later.
>
>Finally, the attack on Syria has a serious potential to lead to a regional
>war, which, compared with the unwinnable intifada, would give Israel a
>chance to maximize the strength of its army and perhaps win -- or so the
>Israeli junta hopes -- another reprieve from the Palestinian problem.
>
>This importance of the last point needs to be assessed in light of the fact
>that Israel has used war before to defuse international pressure and avoid
>tackling the question of Palestinian rights. In 1956, war with Egypt put 
>the
>lid on international pressure on Israel to compromise. The 1967 war was
>concocted just as the Palestinians were beginning to organize politically
>and pan-Arabism was threatening to give them international bargaining 
>power.
>The 1982 war was a direct response to the danger of peace negotiations with
>the PLO.
>
>Moreover, all these wars began with unprovoked and unjustified Israeli
>attacks on its neighboring countries -- in Gaza (at the time in Egyptian
>hands) in 1955, in Samu (Jordan) in 1966, and in Beirut (Lebanon) in 1982.
>This pattern, of Israeli military provocations that create conditions for a
>full Israeli attack, masquerading as "preventive," is well established. It
>is part of the personal memory of the current Israeli leadership (Sharon,
>for example, was the commander of the Gaza raid, and the architect of the
>Lebanon war).
>
>Israel's strategy of escalation is based on a good insight -- that the
>Israeli army is best and most successful in open war. Israel has indeed won
>all its wars, and is likely to win the next one, too. Yet with
>each "victorious" war, Israel in fact grew weaker, and the justice of the
>Palestinian cause more obvious. The next war is unlikely to change that
>pattern.
>
>[Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel. He lives in the
>United States.]
>
>Gabriel Ash encourages your comments: gash at YellowTimes.org
>
>YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication.
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>
>http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1608
>
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