PART THREE: THE MASSACRE

viii) BOMBING IRAQ INTO THE STONE AGE

A day after the expiry of the dead­line for Iraq to leave Kuwait the Allies launched what is claimed to be the biggest aerial bombardment the world had ever known. The choreography of the first night's bomb­ing raids was so complex the plann­ing must have started the moment American troops set foot in Saudi Arabia. 

A few weeks before the start of the war, General Powell stated that the air campaign would be, "Swift, decisive and overwhelming." The huge scale of the bombing led many of the Allies' military, political and academic, experts to proclaim that the war would be over within a few short days or, at most, a week, "The United States air force exp­ectations that six days of intens­ive bombing would destroy the air­force, ballistic missiles and comm­and system, bringing Iraq to its knees." (Paul Rogers, Guardian 24.1.91. p.21). Some believed the war could be won by an aerial bombardment alone.

It has been shown how the Allies' promise not to attack Iraq had been transmuted into a promise that it would be if it did not withdraw from Kuwait. Although the Allies repeated that their war aim was only the 'restoration of desp­otism' it was argued they had to knock out military targets in Iraq to weaken the command and supply links propping up its army of occ­upation so that later the Allies would find it easier to eject Iraq from Kuwait. Within a few days of the start of the bombing it was discovered just what was meant by 'military targets' in Iraq - it's chemic­al, biological and nuclear facilit­ies, its command and control cen­tres, air defences, airfields, mis­sile sites, munitions' factories, munitions' supply dumps, fuel dum­ps, troop emplacements, as well as supply lines, i.e. roads and rail, to the army in Kuwait. 

The euphoria that greeted the alleged successes of the Allies' precision bombing, obscured the fact that during these early days the Allies had slipped in an additional war aim. This was to attack what was described as, 'military related targets' in Iraq. These included power stations, water works, sanit­ation works, radio and telecommun­ications' systems (telephone and television), oil refineries, oil storage facilities, railway stat­ions, bridges, food stores, food processing factories, cement fact­ories and Iraq's governmental and administrative infrastructure. These targets were hit because they were all useful, in one way or another, to Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. But, more importantly, and unlike the first set of objectives, they were also needed or used by civilians.  

This new war aim, which had literally appeared out of thin air, caused anxiety among many onlookers for three reasons. Firstly, in effect, it gave the Allies a virtually free hand to destroy anything in Iraq on the excuse that it might have some slight connection to Iraq's war effort. One of the problems of modern warfare is that the military is highly entangled with civilian life - especially in soc­ieties under military dictator­ships. Iraq's military strength was tied in with its industrial infra­structure so it was relatively easy to argue that, in one way or anoth­er, most industries in Iraq contri­buted to the war effort. Even if, before the war, factories weren't directly linked to the military they might possess facilities/ass­ets that could become of use to the military during the war. Virtually any advanced chemical industry can be used to create chemical weapons so this entitled the Allies to obliterate the whole of Iraq's chemical industry even if most of it had had no connection to weap­ons' production. Perhaps a better way of appreciating the elasticity of this new war aim is by pointing out that if Iraq bombed military related targets in Britain these would include the vast majority of the country's universities on the basis that 50% of all higher res­earch in Britain is funded by the military. Destroying military rel­ated targets was thus tantamount to eradicating vast sections of the Iraqi economy. In effect, the Allies were intent on knocking Iraq out of the industrial age.

Secondly, many feared the Allies were using the objective of 'military related targets' to make life as unpleasant as possible for civ­ilians, especially those in Bagh­dad, in the hope of provoking a rebellion against Saddam Hussein and thus save the need for a bloody ground war. Although bombing power stations and waterworks would make life slightly more difficult for the military, the biggest impact by far would be on civilians. In Bagh­dad it put the water supply and sewage systems out of operation, which opened up the prospect of water borne diseases spreading through the city. It also meant that the city's hospitals were without power, "The result, as the 'Washington Post' has reported, is amputations performed by candle­light, and a shortage of blood for transfusions and of anti-biotics and painkillers, even of water for doctors to scrub up in before operations." (John Pilger 'Turkey Shoots' New Statesman 15.2.91)

That the Allies were inflicting heavy damage on civilian targets was confirmed even early on during the war by one prestigous observer, "The former United States Attorney Ramsay Clarke who visited the sou­thern Iraqi port city of Basra said what he saw was, "a human and civ­ilian tragedy". He contended that the allied air war exceeds the mandate given by United Nations Security Council Resolution 678. The relentless allied bombing he said destroyed residential areas, hospitals, night clubs, coffee shops, clinics and law offices." (Guardian 8.2.91. p.5).

Towards the end of the war, the political nature of the air raids became clearer and clearer. There were so many sorties against Bagh­dad that it was inconceivable they were still being confined to milit­ary related targets. The timing of the air raids was also politically motivated to put the severest pres­sure on the population to rebel against the government. This delib­erate bombing of civilian targets was plain mass murder, a war crime.

Thirdly, the attack on all Iraqi government buildings, not just those belonging to the military, made it seem as if the Allies were intent not merely on crippling Iraq's military effort but on syst­ematically destroying the Iraqi state. Many people regard the state as consisting of civil servants and politicians but if they haven't got any offices to work in then, effec­tively, the state ceases to exist.

The euphoria of the first few days of the war was soon replaced with shock when Iraq launched Scud miss­ile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia, and with dismay when it became apparent that the Iraqis were not going to submit. The Allies then began to talk about other war aims which went far beyond attacking military, or military related, targets.

The next war aim that was announced was the destruction of Iraq's mil­itary machine. It was argued that it was no good merely pushing the Iraqi army out of Kuwait because it would continue to pose a military threat to its neighbour. The only way this could be avoided was by exterminating large parts of Iraq's armed forces and destroying its arms and equipment.

This was quickly followed by a political war aim which included invading Iraq, destroying the Iraqis' huge underground military complexes, installing a puppet regime, carrying out war crimes' trials, executing the main culp­rits, especially Saddam Hussein, and extracting war reparations.

The Allies' justification for this political war aim was, rather surprisingly, United Nations' resolution 678. It turned out that this resolution not only mentioned the use of force to expel Iraq from Kuwait but contained the vaguely worded phrase, 'to restore intern­ational peace and security in the region'. The Allies had not referr­ed to the phrase until the second week of the war when it was sudden­ly wheeled out to justify the inv­asion and occupation of Iraq. The phrase was not just a bit of diplo­matic waffle but had been deliber­ately inserted to give the Allies a free hand to do whatever they want­ed, or could get away with, in the war. It was too closely connected to the Allies' professed aim of establishing a new world order to have been accidental, even though the connection between the two had not previously been made.

So, now the whole world knew what the West meant when it talked about 'Restoring international peace and security'. It meant putting sanct­ions on food and medicines; starv­ing innocent civilians; leaving the injured to suffer with unattended wounds; carpet bombing civilian targets; cluster bombs, incendiary bombs, napalm; depriving hospitals of electricity; devastating a coun­try's economy; invasion and occup­ation; the execution of its leaders; and the establishment of a puppet regime. This was vintage Western deviousness. As Mel Brooks might say about the Harvard educated George Bush, he uses his tongue, "bedder than a twenny dollar whor­e." And the Allied public lapped it up; this was a just war so this entitled the Allies to do anything they wanted.

In effect, the United States had manipulated the United Nations to grant itself permission for the invasion of another country. The United Nations was supposed to prevent countries from invading each other but here it was permitt­ing dozens of them to gang up and invade Iraq. 

During the build up to the war, the American government tried to reass­ure its people that the Gulf war wasn't going to be another Vietnam. And yet this was just what it began to look like during those early days. The Americans were bombing Iraq into the Stone Age just as they had done to Vietnam. Whilst President Bush put on his 'I'm the most sincere, caring and cuddly man in the world' look, as he gazed gently into the eye of the television camera, and claimed, "The Allies have no intention of dest­roying Iraq" this was exactly what he was doing.

Three weeks into the massacre the Allies claimed to have dropped more explosive power on Iraq than was used during the whole six years of the second world war. What the Americans seemed to be doing in Iraq was trying to beat the record they had set in Vietnam when, over as period of seven years, they cre­ated 26 million bomb craters. In the first three weeks of the Gulf war 50,000 sorties were flown and, given that B52s can carry one hundred 300lb bombs, could have created some 5,000,000 craters.  

It needs to be pointed out that bombing Iraq into the Stone Age would not bring peace and security to the region. If Iraq's economy was totally wrecked then all the countries which traded with it would also lose. Most of Iraq's neighbours Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Turkey had aleady suffered finan­cially because of sanctions but if the war caused the total devastat­ion of the Iraqi economy it would permanently weaken all of them. During the initial stages of the war, these countries also became increasingly agitated, in case one or other decided to march in with the Allies and then refused to march out again. There was also the fear that if, after the war, Iraq collapsed then one of them might be tempted to invade and restore their own form of order which would in­variably have threatened stability in the region. This, of course, would have been the ultimate irony. That a war which had been allegedly fought to oppose an annexation should end up with three or four countries dismembering the bludgeoned aggressor. 

ix) THE ALLIES STRUCTURAL IMPERATIVE

It has been noted that there was a structural imperative behind the Allies' military strategy; the huge military machine that had been sent to Saudi Arabia was so expensive to maintain that it had to be used and used as conclusively as possible. Thus, when General Powell stated that Allied' air strikes would be, "Swift, decisive and overwhelming" and when George Bush, announcing the start of the ground war, stated that it would be, "swift and decisive" (24.2.91), this terminolgy reflected the economic compulsion behind the Allies' military strategy. The war itself was codenamed 'Desert Storm' for the simple reason that the American military can act only in a storm-like fashion.

It was also pointed out that the colossal costs of this military machine meant that it could not be easily stopped to conduct peace negotiations since delays meant rapidly escalating costs. All possibilities of diplomacy, negot­iations and compromise were flatt­ened by this huge military steam roller. No matter how much justice there might be in a war initiated by the Allies there is something terribly disturbing about having to finish that war as quickly, i.e. as destructively, as possible simply in order to keep financial losses to a minimum. This economic impera­tive is a serious danger that needs to be addressed to avoid precipit­ous conflicts in the future.

Just how decisive this structural imperative was, however, is diffic­ult to assess because the Allies were also driven by two other imperatives and it is not possible to say which was the most import­ant. Firstly, and following on from the above, the Allies could not afford to permanently station troops in the Gulf to prevent Iraq from re-invading Kuwait. Secondly, the Allies could not maintain a military presence in the Gulf bec­ause the presence of 'infidels' in Moslem countries would not have been politically acceptable. These two imperatives meant that the only military strategy possible was to wipe out Iraq's military machine and decimate its economy to such an extent that it would never again be able to support a military machine bigger than Kuwait's puny armed forces.

These structural imperatives had been evident the moment that US troops were sent over to Saudi Arabia. Soon after the Iraqi inv­asion, Thatcher threatened the Iraqis that there would be war crimes' trials and that reparations would have to be paid if war broke out. She made it clear that she not only wanted Saddam out of Kuwait she wanted him out of Iraq as well. This promise could be fulfilled only if the Allies destroyed the Iraqi military and then invaded and occupied the country. It was not coincidental that, a short while later, President Bush announced the idea of a new world order.

It seems, then, that by the beginning of September 1990, the Allies had already decided to go to war and what their war aims were. Despite the confusion over the Allies myriad of war aims, and despite the way in which war aims rapidly escalated during the war itself, there had been, right from the start, only two which counted. All others had been lies and deceits designed to edge public opinion closer and closer towards these two goals. Thatcher, of course, had made no attempt to cover up these two ultimate war aims because she knew the barbarism of those who produce and read the sewage press. She had stated unequivocally that she wanted to destroy Saddam and his military machine and, as a result, had won roars of approval from the masses most of whom, before the start of the war, couldn't have put their finger within a couple of thousand miles of Iraq on a map of the world.

But, whilst her explicit statement of war aims had been greeted with jubilation by domestic warheads it was greeted with dismay in many Arab and Third World countries. If she was winning public support for the war she was also generating a lot of international opposition. She was making it difficult to win United Nations support. This was one of the reasons she had to be ousted from office. Once she'd gone, the barbarism of these ultim­ate war aims lay quietly under the United Nations' gravestone 'restor­ing peace and security' and were only resurrected during the war as a justification for the pending mass slaughter. It was the resurr­ection of death not life.

A mere two weeks after the start of the bombing, some commentators est­imated that the damage inflicted on Iraq was in the region of £15 bill­ion and that it would take the country ten years to recover from the devastation. After the war was over, these estimates were drast­ically increased, "Iraq is doomed to being an economic cripple for years and, experts say, rebuilding the country could cost up to $200 billion and take a generation." (Guardian 26.2.91. p.2). It is still not clear, however, how much damage the Allies inflicted on Iraq. It will be almost impossible to assess now that the civil war has started.

On February 6th, secretary of state James Baker attempted to allay public misgivings about the scale of the damage being inflicted on Iraq and announced that America would be prepared to help rebuild the country after the war. Given that James Baker showed some notable signs of decency during the war, this could not be put down to deceit or public relations. It was laughably unrealistic but it was not deceit. The chances of America helping to rebuild Iraq were no different from those nearly two decades earlier when America devastated Vietnam. The American government not merely refused to pay compensation to the Vietnamese government for that misbegotten war in which a million people were killed, it went out of its way to prevent world financial institutions from offering Vietnam the loans it needed to rebuild its shattered economy.

And why, it might be asked, was Vietnam refused financial assistance? The reason was its invasion of Cambodia to overthrow Pol Pot and the Kymer Rouge who were committing genocide against the Cambodian people. The Kymer Rouge's mass exterminations were the nearest that humankind (sic) has come to the reappearance of totalitarianism since the death of Stalin. Millions of people were murdered and mill­ions more would have been murdered if it had not been stopped by Vietnam's invasion. This was an entirely legitimate war.

And what, it might be asked, did America and Britain do to stop the genocide in Cambodia? Did they demand sanctions; did they state that they would go to war if Cambodians continued to be murdered; did they threaten Pol Pot with war crimes; did they threaten him with crimes against humanity? Of course not. Quite the reverse. They turned around and imposed financial sanctions on Vietnam. Throughout the 1980s, these democratic, freedom loving, moral majority, degenerate shit heads continued to give the Kymer Rouge diplomatic support, "Washington only withdrew its recognition of the Kymer Rouge last year." (Guardian 24.7.90). This protection prevented the Vietnamese from eradicating the Kymer Rouge which, on the border with America's ally, Thailand, were allowed to regroup and rearm. As a result, once the Vietnamese had withdrawn from Cambodia, the Kymer Rouge were strong enough to restart the murders and the tortures and to begin reoccupying large parts of the country. The war in Cambodia is still going on nearly 20 years after America deceitfully denied it had started a war in that country. America doesn't just rain death and destruction on a country. Like a bloodsports' enthusiast who enjoys torturing wounded animals, it stokes up civil war in the after­math of war so that the death and destruction continues for decades afterwards. 

x) ISRAEL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WAR

One of the main curiosities of the Gulf war was the incessantly reiterated view that Israel had nothing to do with the conflict. This view was held with such conviction by every Allied psychophant it was as if they were prepared to deny, for the sake of their career prospects and the 'ghoul life', that there was even a geographical link as though Israel existed on the other side of the world and was in closer proximity to Australia than Iraq. And yet the links were there for all to see.

Soon after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, one of the many war aims proffered by Allied experts was that if the Allies did not attack Iraq then Israel would. The American and British governments moved to stifle this suggestion as quickly as possible because of its dangerous implications.

What it implied was firstly, that Arab countries like Egypt and Syria would be fighting on Israel's behalf; secondly, that whilst the Allies were will­ing to go to war to oppose Iraq's annexation of Kuwait they were not willing to do anything about Israel's annexation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, or its 'security zone' in South Lebanon. Even worse, was that it established a link between the invasion of Palestine and the invasion of Kuwait. If this war aim had been allowed to win widespread public approval, it would have opened the way for Saddam to gain a publicity coup by offering to withdraw from Kuwait if the Israelis withdrew from the occupied areas of Palestine. The Allies feared that if public opinion swung behind this transparently just proposal, which at a stroke would have produced peace where there had been strife, it would prevent them from pursuing their secret war objectives.

Perhaps worst of all, however, was that this war aim would have highlighted some extremely embarrassing facts that would have exposed the sheer hypocrisy of the Allies' war effort. Firstly, "Since 1967, the United Nations Security Council has passed 15 resolutions criticizing Isreal's behaviour. None of them have been acted upon. They include: Resolution 267 condemning Isreal's annex­ation of East Jerusalem in 1980; Resolution 441 calling for the creation of a UN Commission to examine illegal settlements in the occupied territ­ories." (Ben Cohen, 'War Report' no.5 2.3.91. p.5). Prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Americans had blocked or watered down every resolution put to the Security Council condemning Israel's infringe­ments of human rights and the Geneva Convention.

Secondly, the American Congress hadn't merely refused to try and persuade the Israeli government to withdraw from the occupied areas, it had LEGITIMIZED Israel's illegal occupation. In 1989, after lengthy pressure from the Jewish lobby, the United States' Congress formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel - even though half the city had been invaded by Israel during the 1967 war, illegally annexed, and was under illegal occupation, "On Tuesday, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital." (David Hirst, Guardian 26.4.90. p.9). This showed Congress's deliberate flouting of UN resolutions and the extent to which it is dominated by Zionist sympathizers.

Thirdly, and even more embarrassing, was that the American government was helping the Israeli government to pursue its expansionist objectives by providing offset funding for the Zionists to build homes for Jewish colonialists in the occupied areas.

Fourthly, far from threatening to impose sanctions or attack Israel for its invasion of Palestine, America had been illegally propping up its military machine, "Acknowledgement of the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons would raise the question why all United States' aid to Israel is not illegal under legislation that bars aid to any country engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons develop­ment." (Noam Chomsky, Guardian 10.1.91. p.21). What even Chomsky seems to overlook is the issue of how the Israeli government obtained its weapons grade material. It can't be bought on the open market. Israel doesn't have uranium supplies under the Wailing wall. So, where did it come from?

In conclusion, this war aim would have been an utter public relations' disaster for the Allies. Israel not only had to be kept out of the Allied coalition and the war, it had to be kept out of the propaganda battle as well. From that point on, the Allies stressed over and over again that there was no link between Iraq and Israel. So far as the Allies were concerned, Israel was just an innocent bystander and had nothing to do with the conflict. When the war began and missiles started landing on Israel the Allies put on their bewildered look as if they couldn't for the life of them understand what that evil person Saddam Hussein was doing attacking a poor, innocent, peace loving, law abiding, country like Israel - ignoring for the moment that its racism is even more overt than apartheid in South Africa.

The belief that there was no link between the war and Israel was a reality-defying proposition on a par with the belief that Hitler didn't know about the gas chambers. That the American government tried to stand on the high moral ground to condemn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and demand Iraq's unconditional withdrawal whilst at the same time legitmizing Israel's occupation of Palestine; helping Israel to colonize the occupied lands; condoning Israel's illegal deportations of Palest­inians from their own homeland; and, finally, pro­moting the build up of Israel's nuclear weapons, was surely the most preposterous nonsense expounded since the height of nazism.

As far as Iraq was concerned, however, Israel was at the core of the conflict. Firstly, and most importantly, Saddam felt it was possible to invade Kuwait because if the Americans had allowed Israel to continue occupying Palestine then they couldn't object if he invaded Kuwait. The link between the Israeli and Iraqi invasions was the example that Israel had set to other countries in the region.

Saddam did not march into Kuwait in order to liber­ate Palestine. As a pan-Arabist, Saddam cared about the Palestinian issue but he wouldn't risk his country on their behalf, (many critics who accused him of being a power mad individual also believed he only used the Palestinian issue to win Islamic support for his occupation of Kuwait - and yet if he was a pan Arabist then, by definition, he must also have been concerned about the Palestinians). Saddam acted on the perfectly reasonable basis that if the West condoned Israel then it would also condone the invasion of Kuwait. 

Secondly, this link was reinforced when America decided to go to war against Iraq, "United States policy was the linkage." (Edward Said, Weekend Guardian 12-13.1.91. p.6). As will be shown, the the United States was fighting a proxy Israeli  war in the Gulf. 

Thirdly, Saddam wanted revenge for Israel's act of war when, in June 1981, it bombed and destroyed OSIRAQ, Iraq's nuclear facility. In the lead up to the Gulf war, Saddam made it plain that Israel would be attacked if Iraq was attacked by the Allies, and in return, "Israel threatened to neutralize Iraq." (Guardian 6.12.90. p.8).

Fourthly, many Iraqis, like many Arabs and Moslems, felt oppressed by Israel's vast military superiority, the third most powerful force in the world. Although Iraq was the fourth biggest in terms of troops and tank numbers it did not possess an offensive capability. Iraqis wanted an end to this intimidation especially after the invasion of Lebanon.

Fifthly, Moslems may not be committed to the Palestinian cause but it remains an emotional wrench for them to watch Israel abusing Palestinians and they wanted this turmoil ended.

Finally, Saddam was a pan Arabist/Islamicist with ambitions to become the new Nasser. Israel was the key ideological weapon which could be used to unite the Arab/Moslem world to give it a greater role in global affairs. If America was in the process of creating an open trade agreement with Canada and Mexico; if European countries have founded a huge economic bloc and were uniting into a political entity; and if Japan was slowly creating a huge economic trading bloc in the Far East then it was imperative for the Arabs/Moslems to unite and become a world power or they would end up being divided and abused like African nations.

It has to be emphasized that all of the above points have some validity and if only the Allies had not already made up their minds to go to war then these points should have been given the respect they deserved. 

The 'no linkage' slogan defied all sense of reality and epitomized to many Arabs/Moslems the Allies' arrogance, deceitfulness, bigotry and evilness. The Allies must have believed they were the greatest imperialists of all time to deny the profound links between the Israeli and the Iraqi invasions. These links were as plain to Arabs as they were non existent to the Allies. Every time the Allies denied this link it was a propaganda success for Saddam Hussein.

The unfortunate first victim of this latter day global Jewish conspiracy was, of course, as usual, the Palestinians. Whilst Saddam's chemical warfare capability was the subject of endless speculation in the media, very little mention was made of the Israeli government's refusal to issue Palestinians with gas masks during the war - an act which was not merely against the Geneva convention but was tantamount to a war crime. The Allies' refusal to acknowledge this crime, talk about it in public, let alone criticize Israel, clearly revealed the level of corruption that has been caused by the interference of the Jewish lobby in the domestic politics of the Allied countries. But, it gave Saddam Hussein another huge publicity victory amongst Moslems.

The Allies' bias in favour of Israel has a lot to do with the Diaspora since many people in the West are personally acquainted with, or are related to, Jewish people. It has more to do, however, with the number of Jews in promin­ent positions in most industrialized nations. The proportion of Jews in the most powerful positions in society from the media, academia, politics, business and finance, etc., far exceeds the prop­ortion of Jews in society. The dominance of the Jewish lobby even in the Labour party is consider­able, "The Scottish Labour was told by the Labour party's National Executive Council that it could not invite a PLO speaker unless Israeli parties affiliated to the Socialist International were also invited, as well as an observer from the Israeli embassy." (Guardian 13.2.90). If the Labour party had put Jewish speakers on the same terms then the PLO would have been delighted.

Henry Kissinger, whom Professor Siad once rightly described as the Jewish Dr Strangelove, was America's foreign secretary; Gerald Kaufman is Labour's foreign secretary - can anyone imagine Arabs or Moslems in these positions? Nigelk Lawson was chancellor of the exchequer. This is not, of course, an attack on Jews but a demand that Arabs/Moslems should be given similar positions in society to redress the distortions caused by this lop-sided Jewish influence. What this Jewish influence shows is that Britain had become a multi-cultural society a long time before multi-culturalists came onto the scene.

Zionists Hyping up the Holocaust in order to Exterminate Palestinians.

But there is another, more fundamental, reason for the bias in favour of Israel in Western nations. This is the guilt many Westerners feel about what happened during the second world war when, for the first time in human history, extermination camps were set up and some 4 million Jews were murdered.

There are still millions of people throughout Europe who participated in the second world war and whose proximity to the gas chambers might be a source of guilt - especially, of course, those who supported Hitler. But, what is much more pertinent here is that there are many more people who weren't even born when such a dreadful event occurred, who also feel the same way. For people to feel guilty about something they have never done is an absurd moral standpoint. Most compassionate people would agree that extermination camps were the most hideous event that has ever occurred in human history, and that they must never be allowed to appear again, but to feel guilty about them is perverse. 

One of the reasons innocent people feel guilty, and consequently that they must atone for what was done even before they were born, is that Zionist propaganda persists in fostering this guilt, not for moral reasons, but because of its considerable political benefits. It enables Israel to get away with acts of barbarity against the Palestinians and its neighbours which should not be condoned. Compassionate people are being pressured by a false sense of guilt to condone Israel's implementation of extreme right wing, if not exterminist, policies such as deportation, the confinement of Palestinians in Jewish ghettoes, assassination and the violent suppression of the Intifada.

Given the nightmare of the Gulf war Jewish lobbies must be challenged over their political use of the gas chambers as an excuse for Israel's atrocities. The Gulf war has clearly exposed the dangers of multi-culturalism. Whilst it is essential to make minorities feel welcome and to encourage their full participation in society, the foreign policy implications of doing so must be taken into consid­eration. The corruption caused by the Jewish lobby threatens to plunge the knife-edge relationships in the Middle East into a global nightmare.

Jews are so consumed by their own tragedy they forget the terrible disaster that took place in Vietnam. If the gas chambers should not forgotten, then the vileness of American actions in Vietnam which witnessed the introduction of such horrors as Agent Orange and anti personnel bombs, and which saw the return of that old standby of most mass murderers, carpet bombing, should also not be forgotten.

There will be no solution to the Palestinian issue until something is done to curb or, more preferably, to balance the excessive influence of the Jewish lobbies in Western democracies, most obviously in America. The price that has to be paid for an unregulated multi-cultural society is the Chatila massacre and the continuing murders of Palestinians in their own country.

Far from being a peripheral country in the Gulf war, Israel then was at the centre of the conflict.

xi) THE PRESSURES PUSHING AMERICA TO WAR

It has to be emphasized that Iraq posed no military threat either to America or to Europe. Iraq's aeroplanes and rockets would have had considerable difficulty reaching Israel or Saudi Arabia let alone the European continent or, even more preposterously, America. If Gerald Bull's so-called super­gun had been built this might have changed the situation but this weapon was never built because of the most effective weapon the Allies possessed for controlling Iraq - sanctions.

There were many pressures pushing the America towards war:- 

Firstly, although Kuwait might be a miniscule country with a miniscule population it was extremely wealthy with huge investments around the world. These investments have been estimated at $120 billion and earn $14 billion per annum in interest re­payments. The Kuwaitis earn more from their invest­ments than they do from sales of oil. Thus, exiled Kuwaiti despots could have used their huge economic clout to pressure the American government to act against Iraq.

Secondly, the Saudi Arabian government (like many other Gulf states) felt threatened by the invasion and could have used its huge investments in the global economy to exert even more pressure on the Bush administration.

Thirdly, the American government's perceived self interest was to protect its oil supplies and thus the American way of life so that millions of motorists could continue to obtain subsidies for poisoning the planet. Kuwait owns 20% of the world's oil supplies. 

Fourthly, America's huge multinational oil interests would also have put pressure on the American government to protect their interests.

Fifthly, the United States' military wanted an opportunity to justify the huge sums of money lavished on it during the previous decade under the sleeping presidency of Ronnie Reagan. The likelihood that the biggest and most expensive army in the world would sit back and do nothing whilst conflicts like the one in Kuwait took place were small since the tendency towards war increases exponentially with the increase in size of a country's military power.

A war would also enable the military to avert the run down of its forces as a result of the ending of the Cold War. War would also justify further huge investments in the military - especially if America took on the role as the world's policeman. In addition, the military were looking for an opportunity to test the weapons that had been developed since the Vietnam war.

Finally, the military was desperate for a Victory to wipe away the humiliation of their defeat in Vietnam. Despite the war crimes, the massacres, the most appalling use of chemical weapons, and the most despicable cruelty inflicted on an almost unarmed country, the only sin that many Americans believed they committed in Vietnam was to have lost the war. In effect, the Gulf war baptized the reborn American military in hundreds of thousands of gallons of Iraqi blood.

Sixthly, the arms' and munitions' businesses wanted a war to boost sales of their products.

Finally, there was the continual pressure exerted by both the Israeli government and the Jewish lobby in America for the American government to take action to counter Iraq's threat to Israel. It is this issue which needs to be explored in greater detail. 

xii) ISRAEL'S PROXY WAR: KUWAIT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WAR

In the early 1980s, the American government's lust for revenge against Ayatollah Khomeini and its desire to quell Islamic fundamentalism had led it to encourage Iraq to invade Iran. It continued to arm Iraq throughout the 1980s despite the growing protests of the Israeli government which felt that Iraq was becoming an increasing threat to its dominance of the region. But, successive American governments, of which Bush had been a key member for over a decade, took little notice. The relationship between America and Israel had been been under severe strain during the Iran-Iraq war.

Although Israel feared an attack by Iraq, it didn't believe that this was likely in the short term because whilst Iraq was the fourth biggest military power in the world it did not possess any significant offensive capability. Israel was much more concerned that Iraq might invade Kuwait to obtain the resources it needed to acquire an offensive capability which could then be used to attack Israel. Towards the end of the 1980s, there was increasing concern in Jewish circles that if something was not done to stop Iraq then, eventually, it would attack Israel and Israel would be forced to respond by using its nuclear weapons.

Israel carefully monitored developments in Iraq and almost as soon as the Iraq-Iran war came to an end began to discover evidence that Iraq was preparing for an invasion of Kuwait. When it had gathered conclusive evidence, the Israeli government issued an ultimatum to the Bush administration that if Iraq proceeded with the invasion then Israel would have no option but to attack Iraq.

The prospects of an Israeli attack on Iraq must have petrified the Bush administration. The war would almost certainly have involved Jordan, perhaps Syria and Iran, and it would have been difficult for other Arab countries to avoid being sucked into the conflict. Those governments which initially might have managed to stay on the sidelines, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would have been seriously destabilized or even overthrown by mass revolts. Although Israel is the third most powerful military force in the world its population (4 million) is too small to risk military strategies which entail large numbers of casualties and this would have forced it to resort to its nuclear weapons. Iraq would almost certainly have retaliated with whatever weapons of mass destruction it could cobble together. 

When confronted by this ultimatum, Bush had a choice; either condone Iraq's threatened aggression against Kuwait and face the prospect of Israel launching a war which could entangle the whole Arab world as well as involve the use of nuclear weapons, or, launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq to prevent the nightmare of an Arab-Israeli conflict. (There was a third alternative but this will be discussed in the next section).

The fact that Bush chose the latter option had profound implications. Firstly, the Americans were committing themselves, in perpetuity, to fighting Israel's wars to prevent it from using nuclear weapons. The great advantage of nuclear weapons is that they are supposed to make wars unfightable and yet, in this instance, they seemed to be provoking war.

Secondly, since America seems compelled to defend Israel, this puts the Israeli government in a much stronger position as regards its Arab neighbours. In future, it can carry out aggressive acts against its neighbours in the knowledge that the Americans would come to its rescue.

Thirdly, ever since the oil price rises of the early 1970s, the Allies, despite their all too obvious Jewish bias, have been trying to accommodate Arab interests and sensibilities. However, if it was known that the Allies would always go to Israel’s rescue, no matter what atrocities Israel continued to commit, then there is a strong possibility that some Arab countries would break out of America's orbit and develop their own policies.

Fourthly, during the Gulf war the Allies had been prepared to knock Iraq into the Stone Age but if, in the future, other Israeli-Arab/Moslem conflicts break out which, unlike the Gulf war, could lead to a reaction from Moslems all over the world, would they be willing to destroy Pakistan, another nuclear weapons country, if Moslem fundam­entalists toppled their puppet regime and threatened to defend Islamic honour with nuclear weapons?

It may seem absurd to suggest that the Allies fought a proxy Israeli war in the Gulf. And yet, the biggest winners of the Gulf war were the Israelis since the devastation of Iraq has left Israel with total military superiority in the region. Surely not even the worst Semitic bigot could deny this and, consequently, that it provides solid evidence for contending that the war was ultim­ately fought for Israel's benefit. The Allies could not have been naive about the effects of their actions on the balance of power in the Middle East. They knew the out­come of the war would give Israel regional supremacy so it is logical to assume that in effect they were carrying out a proxy Israeli war. The Gulf war was allegedly being waged to 'restore despotism to Kuwait' but its real purpose, its hidden agenda, was to destroy Iraqs military machine and so incapac­itate Iraq's industrial infrastr­ucture that it would never again be able to rebuild its military stren­gth and pose a threat, not so much to Kuwait, but to Israel. The Gulf war was a defensive, pre-emptive strike against Iraq to prevent Israel from launching a war in which it would be forced to use its nuclear weapons. 

Superficially, this explanation may seem to offer a sound, albeit prev­iously secret, justification for the war. After all, it seems pref­erable to fight a small war if it means avoiding a much larger con­flagration. Indeed, from this pers­pective no matter what acts of bar­barity the Allies might have comm­itted during the war with Iraq, they wouldn't be anything as bad as what would have happened during an Israeli-Arab war.

However, there are two reasons why this justification is not valid. Firstly, there was no need to go to war because sanctions would have been effective. Israel was under no immediate military threat since Iraq had no significant offensive military capability; it would be at least five to ten years before it would be powerful enough to chall­enge Israel - even assuming that the West continued to arm and train the Iraqi military. The Americans should have resisted Israel's ult­imatum and imposed sanctions on Iraq to prevent it from invading Kuwait.

Secondly, it was plainly immoral for America to attack Iraq for something that Israel was threatening to do. Since it was Israel that was threatening to initiate a war then action should have been taken against Israel not Iraq.

Soon after Iraq's invasion of Kuw­ait some Allied politicians proposed that the Allies' war aim was to prevent a nuclear war in the Middle East. Just before the start of the Gulfwar one commentator stated, "However unpleasant it may be, a massive attack on Iraq is the only way to break the deadlock and, more important, to avert a much worse confrontation in the near future." (Saul Zidka, Guardian 11.1.91. p.22). Even after the war was over there were those who sought to legitimize it by saying, "The coalition's true purpose in the Gulf, whatever may be said about UN res­olutions, is the avoidance of nuclear war." (General Sir John Hack­ett Guardian 27.2.91. p.21). What all of these propositions have in common is the assumption that the Allies went to war to prevent Iraq from attacking Israel. As has been suggested, the prospects that Iraq would invade Israel were remote and fanciful. It is far more likely that America went to war to prevent Israel from attacking Iraq than to prevent Iraq from attacking Israel. 

xiii) LURING IRAQ INTO A WAR: THE AVOIDABILITY OF THE GULF WAR. 

The outstanding question of the Gulf war is when Bush decided to go to war against Iraq. Was it on January 14th when the United Nations' deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait expired? Was it on November 18th 1990 when Bush doubled the size of the US military in Saudi Arabia to give it an offensive capability? Or was it soon after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait?

The evidence points in the direction that the Bush administration had decided to attack Iraq even before the invasion of Kuwait. It is as untenable to suppose that the American government was caught unawares by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as it is to suppose that Bush regarded Saddam Hussein as such a peaceful fellow he could be trusted to keep his word and not invade Kuwait. The 'nightmare scenario' that was mentioned so frequently during the lead up to the Gulf war, the fear that Iraq would withdraw from Kuwait before the Allies had launched their attack, didn't suddenly materialize after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It preceeded the invasion.

Saddam Hussein's plans for the invasion of Kuwait had been discovered a long time before his troops crossed the border. The CIA had been issuing warnings about an invasion for over a year, "The CIA sent warning signals of Iraq's menacing intentions early last year in the wake of Saddam Hussein's threat to "rain fire on half of Israel"."(Martin Walker, Guardian 19.3.91. p.10). After the Iran-Iraq war, the American Congress, under the overwhelming influence of the Jewish lobby, had become increasingly vociferous about the regional threat posed by Saddam Hussein and had voted to impose sanctions on Iraq.

The Israeli government had also been warning about this possibility for a long time and, "Two weeks before the invasion of Kuwait Moshe Arens, Israel's Defence Minister, made an official visit to Washington along with the head of Military Intelligence and the head of Mossad secret service for talks with the United States' Defence Secretary Dick Cheney. "The talks concentrated mostly on the Iraqi threat," Mr Arens said." (Guardian 7.3.91. p.10). 

So, given the increasing evidence about Iraq's preparations for war, why didn't Bush act to avert the invasion? He could have issued a very strongly worded protest to Iraq; he could have withdrawn the American ambassador in Iraq; he could have asked the Iraqi ambassador in America to leave the country; or, he could even have sent a small contingent of United States' troops to Kuwait, to signify that if Iraq invaded Kuwait it would automatically be regarded as an attack on America - just as a few months later he sent troops to the Gulf to prevent the alleged invasion of Saudi Arabia, (no evidence has yet appeared which shows that Saddam Hussein intended to move into Saudi Arabia). But, Bush did none of these things.

Saddam Hussein parked his troops on the Kuwaiti border for a week before the invasion took place. He acted with extreme caution because he wanted to test the level of American and world opposition to the threatened invasion. During this period there were ample opportunities for the Bush administration to make its opposition to the invasion known in no uncertain terms and yet, on the contrary, the United States' ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie, assured him that, "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait." 

Given the length of time that Iraq's preparations for the invasion of Kuwait was known and given the extent of the evidence about these preparations, the only reason Bush did not act decisively to avert this war was because he wanted a war with Iraq. He was terrified that if America did not attack Iraq then Israel would - thereby triggering off an Arab-Israeli war which would have involved the use of weapons of mass destruction, in particular Israel's nuclear weapons.

Bush couldn't justify a war against Iraq on the grounds that he wanted to prevent Israel from attacking Iraq and, even more embarrasing, to stop Israel  using its nuclear weapons. This would have been unacceptable around the world. He needed an excuse to attack Iraq. Kuwait was the opportunity to dispel the 'nightmare scenario' of a regional nuclear war. By allowing and even encouraging Iraq to invade Kuwait, Bush obtained the justification he wanted for a war. Thus, it can be seen, in yet another way, that this was Bush's war. Bush, so horrified about the devastation caused by Iraqi troops in Kuwait, sacrificed Kuwait so that he could fight a proxy Israeli war to decimate Iraq.

Since the end of the war, a whole spate of articles have appeared to explain the failure of secret service agencies around the world to predict that Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait. To believe that the combined secret intelligence services of America, Britain and Israel could be taken by surprise by the invasion is beyond improbability. It is simply not feasible that Israel, so hyper-sensitive about its security, should have failed to assess what was going on in a country which was militarily growing stronger year after year and which had repeatedly made threats to destroy Israel - even Kuwaiti military intelligence knew months in advance that Iraq was planning an invasion.

Conversely, that these countries conspired to allow the invasion to proceed so that they could destroy the person they had branded as a new Hitler, has the unmistakeable air of undeniable plausibility. 

xiv) TORAH, TORAH: ZIONIST EXPANSIONISM

As has been pointed out above, the Israeli government had been worried about a potential conflict with Iraq for many years. It had intended to attack Iraq if America had not done so. But, whatever happened, it was ready to exploit the situation to further its long term Zionist objectives.

Israel has been led by the extreme right wing Likud party ever since Menachem Begin came to power. The Likud party advocates a Zionist ideology whose main objective is the invasion and occupation of lands known as Greater Israel. Because of Israel's voting system, the Likud invariably has to share power with a number of extreme religious parties most of which advocate the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories. In 1990, when Meir Kahane, a prominent exponent of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Israel, was assass­inated in New York three Israeli cabinet ministers attended his funeral.

Throughout the 1980s, with the Likud in power, Zionism has become increasingly rampant in Israel. Successive Likud governments have pursued four policies to boost Zionism; the acquisition of land - both inside and outside Israel; the aquisition of financial and military support from America; the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel; and, a global Human Rights' campaign to enable Russian Jews to move to Israel. These policies have proved to be so spectacularly successful that Israeli governments have become much more belligerent about the need for Jewish expansionism and have created the conditions where they are a short step away from the fulfilment of their Zionist ambitions.

Lebensraum.  

The Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were formally annexed in 1981. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are still occupied but have not yet been annexed. After Israel's invasion of Lebanon, in which 20,000 people were killed, the Israeli government established a 'security zone' in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli government has taken over Palestinian land in the occupied areas by building Jewish 'settlements'. "There are now 85,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank." (Ian Black, Guardian 24.12.90. p.20_. "Israel has established 125 settlements in the occupied territories. 70% of West Bank land is denied to Palestinians, and the water ratio favours the 75,000 Israeli settlers by a factor of nine." (Ben Cohen, 'War Report' no.5 2.3.91. p.5).

'Settlers' is a euphemism for colonialists. Given that those who first moved into the occupied terr­itories were religious zealots, it was not surpris­ing that these yo-yos formed death squads to terr­orize and murder Palestinians. Zionist terrorists were responsible for seriously wounding the pro-PLO mayors of the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah. When asked about the prospect of holding negotiations with the Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's deputy foreign minister, replied, "There's no-one to negotiate with." (Channel 4 17.2.91). So now we know why.

The Israeli government helped to set up the Jewish Reclamation Project which is a Zionist organization to enable Jews to buy their way into predominately Arab areas of East Jerusalem. To the Palestinians this organization represents the thin edge of the wedge which is attempting to drive all Palestinians out of the city.

Support from the United States.

Despite the priority that the American government gave to Iraq during the 1980s, the Israeli government, with the help of the Jewish lobby in America, ensured that it received adequate recompense for the aid given to Iraq. Although it did not like the role that America played in the Iran-Iraq war, Israel still did well out of the conflict.  

The United States Congress is in the highly embarrassing position of having ratified Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem when it recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. 

The United States government also helped offset the costs of building homes for Jewish colonialists in the occupied territories. How many people would approve of the American government if it had provided funds for Saddam Hussein to build homes for Iraqis in Kuwait? Preposterous? Indeed. So why has it helped to fund the Zionist coloniz­ation of the occupied areas? A Senate resolution criticizing Israel's policy of building new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza was defeated by 90-8. (Socialist Worker, Dec 1990). 

Expulsion of the Palestinians.

The Israeli government has adopted a wide range of political devices to winkle out of Israel as many Palestinians as possible; deportations of Palestinian activists (Israel has carried out deportations even though they are illegal under the fourth Geneva Convention on military occupation); the demolition of the homes not merely of convicted, but of suspected, Palestinian terrorists (Independent 8.3.89, p.10), in the hope of forcing their occupants to leave Israel to find new homes, (since the law was brought into effect the Israeli government has demolished 1000 Palestinian homes); banning Palestinians from working in Israel so they are forced to find work elsewhere which often means they have to leave Israel; and, finally, and most mercilessly, culling the Palestinian population which until a short time ago was rapidly outgrowing the Israeli population. Since the start of the Intifada in December 1987, 644 Palestinians have been murdered and 13,000 injured; 21 of them killed during one incident late last year at Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Human Rights and Immigration. 

Throughout the 1980s an international human rights' campaign was extremely vocal in world affairs. It was supported by some of the most inflated political figures of the time, Ronnie Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Many people may have naively applauded the idea since it would seem to be a help in defending the victims of atrocities committed by a large number of vile regimes around the world. 

The dominating force behind this international campaign, however, were a number of global Jewish agencies and the campaign was primarily directed at one particular issue - putting pressure on Russia to allow Jews to emigrate from Russia. The hope was that once they were allowed to leave, most Russian Jews would go and live in Israel. The Helsinki agreement was the first step along the road. It was only with the rise of Gorbachev, however, that the campaign achieved its objective and a few years ago Russian Jews were given the right to emigrate.

To put it politely, the objectives of this so-called Human Rights's campaign were a little bizarre; it sought to give one group of oppressed people in Russia the right to go and live in Israel where they would be granted the right to oppress another group of people i.e. the Palestinians. As incredible as it might seem, some of the benefic­iaries of this Human Rights campaign went straight from Russia to homes in the occupied territories.

However, the Israeli government's hopes that all 3 million Russian Jews would go flooding into Israel were quickly dashed. Tens of thousands of Jews began to leave Russia but at the airports they took connecting flights to America or other western countries but not Israel. This was, of course, highly distressing to the Zionists so the Jewish lobby in America set to work again and within a short time had persuaded Congress to pass a bill banning Russian Jews from emigrating to America. This turned the tide and those who would have preferred to live elsewhere found themselves having to live in Israel. It would seem then that denying Russian Jews their rights and liberties in Russia is one thing but denying their rights and liberties in America is another. But, just to give this story of what must be one of the biggest con jobs in recent history, yet another twist; having channelled Russian emigrees into Israel, the Israeli government found to its consternation that many of those arriving in their country were not Jews at all but just plain, ordinary Russians desperate to get out of Russia. In this racist society not having the right blood is not kosher at all. How long is it going to be before the American Congress passes a law banning Russians from emigrating to Israel? 

The immigration of Russian Jews to Israel has become a flood, "About 200,000 immigrants are expected this year and 500,000 upwards in 1991, assuming the present rate continues. As many as one million will arrive within the next few years, increasing the population by a fifth." (Ian Black, Guardian 24.12.90. p.20_. There are some 3 million Jews who might emigrate to Israel which has a population of 4 million.

This influx of Russian Jews is having an electrifying political effect on Zionist expansionism. Yitzak Shamir, Israel's Prime Minister was quoted as saying, "Big immigration requires Israel to be big as well. We need the space to house all those people." (Daily Telegraph 16.1.90. p.9). The mass immigration of so many Russian Jews and the pros­pects of even more to come has been like lighting a fuse in an ammunition dump because it makes the idea of the mass expulsion of Palestinians more and more necessary (because of the lack of jobs and homes) and more and more feasible (because the Israelis will have the human and financial resources to expand their military power).

The Gulf war added to the successes of these four Zionist policies. The Likud government was able to use the opportunities thrown up by the Gulf war to make significant advances for Zionism - the most obvious of which was that America was fighting a war on its behalf which would leave Israel with military supremacy in the region.

Firstly, it imposed a 24 hour curfew (imprisonment is probably a better description) on the 1.7 million Palestinians living in the occupied territor­ies. Under the pretext of preventing terrorist attacks the curfew was used to force Palestinians out of their own country:- 

Palestinian workers could not travel to work in Israel so their jobs were given to Jewish immigrants from Russia.

Palestinian businesses could not trade and, if in debt to Jewish banks, would find themselves facing bankruptcy and thus the possibility of being bought out by Zionist organizations like the Jewish Reclamation Project.

Palestinian farmers were prevented from harvesting their crops which could also throw them into bank­ruptcy which might mean that they too will end up selling their land to Zionist colonists. 

Secondly, Israel refused to allow Palestinians who had gone to visit relatives in Jordan to return home.

Thirdly, and very ominously, the government  used the radicalization caused by the war to co-opt into the cabinet yet another racist, "Yitzhak Shamir appointed Rehavam Ze'evi, the leader of the extremist Moledet (homeland) party, who supports the removal of Palestinians from the occupied territories, as minister without portfolio in the policy making inner cabinet." (Guardian 4.2.91). It is believed that Rehavam Ze'evi, who once said, "We don't want to see Arabs in our streets and cities." (Guardian 17.12.90 p.8) will eventually become head of a new ministry for Lebensraum.

Zionists also used the war to release Jewish terrorists. "Three members of a Jewish underground movement who were convicted of murdering three Palestinian students in Hebron in 1983 and attempt­ing to kill the pro-PLO mayors of the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah, both of whom were maimed in bomb attacks on their cars in 1980, were released from open prison after serving only six years of a life sentence, (Guardian 27.12.90).

Despite its long history of criminal acts, the Gulf war enabled Israel to win world-wide sympathy, because of the suffering caused by Iraq's Scud attacks in which 4 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured, and admiration for not retaliating against these attacks. Israeli government officials have been anxious to build on this support by pointing out to the world that Palestinians in the West Bank cheered Iraq's Scud attacks and claims that this is why they cannot negotiate with the Palestinians - conveniently forgetting that Jews cheered the massacre at Jerusalem's Temple Mount when 21 Palestinans were murdered and that the Israeli army of occupation has murdered over 500 Palestinians during the three year long Intifada. It is peculiar in the extreme that whilst Saddam Hussein was rightly reviled for taking civilian hostages, there was no such righteous anger directed either in Britain or America at the Israeli government which held 1.7 million people as hostages against a chemical attack by Iraq.

Despite Iraq's terrifying, but futile, attacks on Israel, the Israeli government regarded the Gulf war with considerable glee since the war created many welcome opportunities to further the cause of Zionism. The ultimate irony of the Gulf war was that although America was fighting the war on Israel's behalf, it was commony regarded that Israel had built up a significant stock of political goodwill during the war because of its refusal to retaliate against Iraq. Of course, one of the ways in which Israel will spend this capital will be by preventing anything from being done to help the Palestinians.

The Allies repeated the refrain, "Iraq must fully and unconditionally implement United Nations' resolutions" so often that it will make action over Palestine unavoidable. However, it is more than likely that the implementation of resolution 242 on the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied areas will eventually be sabotaged and a much better measure of whether the Allies were fighting a proxy-Israeli war or a proxy Zionist war will be the proportion of the 3 million Russian Jews who are allowed to emigrate to Israel. Such is the crass corruption of modern day liberalism that unrestricted emigration is promoted (except Russian Jews to America) even where it will inevitably result in the oppression of other people and more than likely, sooner or later, trigger off another Middle East war.

The most explosive factor, however, behind the current wave of Zionism, and the biggest danger facing the Middle East over the next decade or so, is not oil nor Jewish immigration but water, "A quarter of the Arab world has no surface water at all, but receives water from underground aquifers. In some areas the rate of use of this water exceeds its supply." (Mallen Baker 'Thicker Than Oil' The Green Party 1990 p.14).

Virtually all countries in the Middle East are affected, "King Hussein of Jordon has gone on record as saying that water is the only issue over which he could see his country going to war with Israel. Iraq has condemned Turkey for the construction of dams across the Euphrates." (Mallen Baker p.14).

It has been suggested that one of the reasons for Israel's reluctance to withdraw from the West Bank is because of the access it provides to water, "Control of aquifers in the West Bank provided one of the main reasons for its occupation. West Bank aquifers now provide forty per cent of Israel's water. Access to that water by native Palestinians is severely restricted. As the former Israeli water commissioner Meir Ben Meir commented, 'Unless the people of the region are clever enough to discuss solutions to the problems of water scarcity, then war is inevitable." (Mallen Baker p.14).

Israel's attachment to the West Bank is also rooted in religion; military considerations, ("The West Bank hill ridge is critical for Israeli early warning and air defence." Guardian 25.1.91. p.21); and, infrastructure development, (the Israelis and Americans have sunk a huge amount of capital investment in Jewish colonies in the occupied territories). But, of these factors only the need for water will compel Israel to go to war. If Israel is to meet the water needs of an additional three million Russian Jews this will require a massive increase in water supplies.

There may, of course, be technological answers to this problem e.g. desalinization plants along the Mediterranean and water pipelines from wetter regions. It has recently been announced that, "Turkey is to convene a Global Water Summit Initiative. Its keystone is a $20 billion proposal for a 'peace pipeline' to take some of Turkey's plentiful river water to arid countries like Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.' (Guardian 18.3.91. p.10). But, if there isn't any peace in the Middle East prior to the construction of this pipeline then it is not difficult to imagine that it is not going to stay operational for very long.

Ever since the establishment of the Zionist state (by the illegal and yet legalized annexation of Arab lands) Israel has provoked its Arab neighbours (the Suez crisis being the most obvious example) not merely to impale themselves on Israel's superior strength but because the more it can show how hostile the Arabs are, the less likely is world opinion to support Palestinian demands for basic rights in what is, after all, their own country, Israel, "seems to constantly succumb to the temptation to sabotage moderate Arab political developments in order to be able to point a shaking finger at the "monstrous" regimes which surround her." (Martin Woollacott Guardian 4.3.91. p.25). 

In December 1988, the PLO formally recognized, at the United Nations, Israel's right to exist. "Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, has been incorpor­ated into PLO leader Yasser Arafat's 'two state solution' peace initiative of November 1988." (Ben Cohen, 'War Report' no.5 2.3.91. p.5). It was a courageous decision by Yasser Arafat given the threat of retaliation by Palestinian extremists - as happened for example when three PLO officials were murdered just before the outbreak of the Gulf war. Arafat's major act of courage and compromise was soon rubbished by the Israeli government because the Israelis' greatest fear is not Palest­inian extremism but Palestinian moderation. Within a year, this fear had become so intense that Sharon, the defence minister, was calling for the "liquidation of Arafat" (Guardian 18.7.89).

If the Jewish lobby in America was powerful enough to persuade Congress, despite United Nations' resolution 242, to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and if it was powerful enough to block the immigration of Russian Jews into America, then it is likely to be powerful enough to prevent any meaningful peace conference taking place after the Gulf war. But, a United Nations' peace conference should be held in Jerusalem to guarantee the existence of the Israeli state and to give the Palestinians the state they deserve. Jerusalem is the centre of three of the world's most popular religions. It can either be Salvation city or Catastrophe city.