Posted by Turkish Delight from 64-66-217-137.stkn.bigvalley.net (64.66.217.137) on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 at 6:01PM :
The manufactured crisis — pitting America against the Arabs
publisher: Jordan Times (Amman)
By: Dr Naseer Alomari
Posted: 2002-04-10
Is the United States destined to engage in a cultural confrontation with the Arabs? Are Muslims and Arabs sworn enemies of America?
Pro-Israel groups with effortless access to the American media have launched a relentless campaign to manufacture a crisis between America and the Arab world.
The main objective of the campaign has been to obstruct any effort to enhance the Arab image, downplay the seriousness of the Arab countries' pursuit of peace, and eclipse the Arab governments' contribution to the war against terrorism.
Conservative and pro-Israel groups have unleashed unyielding attacks against the Palestinians by means of distorting the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and scheming to dehumanise Arabs and Muslims.
I shall outline some of the attacks and distortions that the anti-Arab groups have manufactured to fit their agenda.
At the conclusion of the Beirut summit, the Arab leaders unanimously opted for peace with Israel despite the deteriorating situation in the region. Since the crisis manufacturers' aim is to present Arabs as belligerent and confrontational, they panicked at the prospect of the Arabs being viewed as peace seekers. They rushed to introduce the historic breakthrough as a Saudi tactic to enhance the kingdom's image tarnished after Sept. 11.
The pro-Israel crisis manufacturers repeatedly and proudly declare that Israel is the only democracy in the region every time the Israeli army engages in collective punishment or arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians.
The subtle suggestion here is that democracies are unable to commit any legal or immoral actions. The goal is to give Israel the benefit of the doubt in all its actions.
One of the current misinformation tactics is to portray Israel as a small country that has been engaged in self-defence against hostile neighbours and to depict the Palestinian resistance to occupation as a broad confrontation between all Arabs and Israel.
Intentionally omitted is the fact that Jordan and Egypt have peace agreements with Israel, and that many Arab countries were engaged and willing to normalise relations with Israel before and after the current violence.
The dominant trick that very few people have even been willing to debunk is the automatic depiction of Israeli attacks, any of them, as self-defence against would-be terrorists.
Depending on when one starts the analysis of who attacked who first, one reaches a completely different conclusion of who initiated the attack. A suicide attack by a Palestinian may have come following a series of extra judicial killing of suspected militants. It is still described as a “terrorist attack” while the Israeli response is labelled “retaliation”.
The two terms can be reversed. The pro-Israel groups have not been challenged as to how violence should be characterised.
A scheme that the crisis manufacturers have used successfully has been to divorce suicide attacks from their historical context ,by means of describing suicide bombers as “homicidal maniacs”. By labelling suicide bombers as maniacs, the Israeli army will seem justified to use tough and illegal military action against anyone whom Israeli security forces view as a possible threat.
The term “suicide bomber” is gradually being replaced by the term “homicidal maniac” since the latter conjures the image of a crazy person who can only be stopped by an Israeli bullet. The trick here is to leave out the motives behind suicide bombings: occupation and humiliation.
In order to demonise the Arab people and governments and link them to terrorism, the pro-Israel crisis manufacturers have gone after the only source of financial support for the Palestinians who lose family members, by characterising donations to impoverished families as a cash payment to encourage suicide bombers.
The implication that any Palestinian, or any human being, is willing to kill oneself for money is a satanic notion that aims to dehumanise the Palestinians. The pro-Israel groups here have taken off the gloves and are not pulling back any punches.
-- Turkish Delight
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