INFORМATION BШJ.ETIN Number 30 $5.00 Special Issue оп Israel and the Middle East * ~... ".- Intifada: ТЬе Palestinian Uprising Editorial 1 Israel and Palestine But what other comparison сап Ье made when an entire Most of this special issue on the Middle East is about the population is subjected to collective punishment and put Palestinians and the Israelis - about а forty-year conflict under curfew or herded into camps, and people are tear­ which is just now searing the conscience of the world. gassed to death, and captured prisoners have their bones It is impossiЫe to explain Israeli intransigence. It cannot broken, and houses of suspects are bulldozed to the ground, Ье а question of "secure borders" in this age of guided mis­ and people are called animals and buried alive, and the an­ siles. Nor can it Ье seen as а question of religious funda­ nounced policy of the government is one of random beatings mentalism, even though the Israelis justify the land grabs with and general terror and shoot-on-sight orders? Are we sup­ Ьiblical references. posed to exonerate the Israeli government just because it has The Israelis have themselves united the Palestinian opposi­ not killed as many Palestinians as the Nazis killed Jews? tion Ьу 21 years of the daily humiliation of occupation and mi­ The Israelis have ruled the occupied territories for twenty­ litarization, Ьу creating а nation of homeless people, killing one years. Now, Ьу standing up and raising their arms with and maiming tens of thousands and jailing many thousands stones against the occupiers, the occupied have forced even more, in а move to reduce and disperse the Palestinian the most racist Israelis to call them Ьу their rightful name - population. This policy can Ье defined, under international Palestinians. Despite Israel's refusal to bend to world pres­ law, as genocide. (Even the New York Тimes points out that sure, it is only а matter of time before the Palestinian people most Israelis think of Arabs as less than human.) It is unques­ have the nation-state they deserve. tionaЬly а policy of wholesale terrorism. Israel's critics are growing in number, like Albert Vorspan, Afghanistan the senior vice president of the Union of American Hebrew This issue also contains several articles relating to Af­ Congregations, who called the conflict "Israel's Vietnam, ghanistan. It is ironic that as the Soviet Union attempts to dis­ Kent State, and Watts rolled into one." (New York Тimes engage, as it attempts to cooperate internationally and Magazine, Мау 8, 1988.) But Israel's mindless apologists still Ьilaterally, the Reagan administration sabotages the Afghan abound, and they insist, like New RepuЬlic editor Leon Wiesel­ settlement. This is the same reprehensiЫe policy which the tier (New York Тimes, June 12, 1988), that it is "effrontery" to administration has applied to Nicaragua and Angola. • compare the Israeli rnilitary to the Nazis. ТаЫе of Contents Editorial 2 Israel in Africa Israeli State Terror Ву Jane Hunter 38 Ву Naseer Aruri 3 Israel's Nuclear Arsenal The Assassination of Abu Jihad Ву Meir Vanunu 45 Interview with Ghassan Bishara 7 Israeli Arms to the Contras Тhе "Transfer" Proposal Ву J ack Colhoun 46 Interview with Israel Shahak 10 Тhе Buckley Atтair Тhе Intifada and Israel's Dirty War Ву Edward J. DobЬins 49 ByEllenRay 13 Destabllizing Afghanistan lsraeli Occupation Ву Steve Galster 52 Ву Katherine Watjen 22 Тhе Afghan Pipeline lsraeli Chemical Warfare Ву Steve Galster 55 Ву Louis Wolf 26 Тhе Afghani Contra Lobby Тhе Israeli Arms Bazaar Ву Sayid Кhybar 61 Ву J ane Hunter 29 News Notes 68 Hakim's Connections Disinforming the World оп Libya Ву Peggy Adler Robohm 35 Ву Bill Schaap 76 Cover photo: Armed Israeli soldiers charge stone-throwing Palestinian demonstraters in Ramallah. Credit: Associated Press. CovertAction Information Bulletin, Number 30, Summer 1988, copyright © 1988 Ьу Covert Action PuЫications, Inc" а District of ColumЬia Nonprofit Corporation; Р.О. Вох 50272, Washington, DC 20004; (202) 737-5317; and с/о Institute for Media Analysis, Inc., 145 W. 4th St., New York, NY 10012; (212) 254-1061. All rights reserved. Staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis Wolf, and William Vomberger. Typeset Ьу СА/В; printed Ьу FacultyPress, Brooklyn, NY. lndexed in the Altemative Press lndex. ISSN 0275-ЗО9Х. 2 Covert Action NumЬer 30 (Summer 1988) Israeli State Terror: А Policy of "Might, Force, and Blows" Ьу Naseer Aruri* The U.S. and Israel have an interesting perspective on the pretexts for intervention. For example, the attack Ьу Israeli meaning of "terrorism." President Reagan often describes Army Unit 101 led Ьу Ariel Sharon on the Palestinian village terrorism as an international conspiracy (similar to his defmi­ of КiЬуа in October 1953, causing numerous civilian casual­ tion of communism) directed against the United States and its ties and destruction of homes, was condemned Ьу Sharett. Не "way oflife."1 The State oflsrael uses а similar defmition when writes, "[ln the cabinet meeting] 1 condemned the КiЬуа af­ justifying its repression of Palestinian aspirations. While Is­ fair that exposed us in front of the whole world as а gang of rael and the U .S. share а similar defmition of "terrorism," how Ыood-suckers, сараЫе of mass massacres re§ardless, it they use the term depends very much upon to whom they are seems, of whether their actions may lead to war ." referring. In his 1984 speech before the J onathan Institute, 2 Secretary Israeli State Terrorism of State Shultz quoted the words of the late Senator Henry More recent accounts Ьу Israeli writers show how earlier Jackson, who addressed the same forum in 1979. Senator acts of terrorism provided а historical background to the J ackson had said: adoption of а policy of state terrorism Ьу Israel.6 Benny Morris's explanation of the Palestinian exodus in 1948, based The idea that one person's "terrorist" is another's on state, military and Zionist archives, refutes the official Is­ "freedom fighter" cannot Ье sanctioned. Freedom raeli version that the Palestinians bear responsibility for their fighters or revolutionaries don't Ыоw up buses contain­ own expulsion. An earlier work Ьу Irish journalist Erskine ing non-combatants; terrorist murderers do. Freedom Childers denionstrated that, contrary to the official Israeli ver­ fighters don't set out to capture and slaughter school sion, there were no Arab radio broadcasts ordering the Pales­ children; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters tinians to leave.7 And Istaeli journalist Tom Segev reveals in don't assassinate innocent businessmen, or hijack and his.book how instrumental was Zionist terrorism in the crea­ hold hostage innocent men, women, and children; ter­ tion of the Palestinian refugee proЫem. Sixteen months after rorist murderers do. It is а disgrace that democracies 250 Arab civilians were massacred in the village of Deir Yas­ would allow the treasured word "freedom" to Ье as­ sin (April 9, 1948) Ьу the combined forces of ETZEL (known sociated with the acts of terrorists.3 as Menachem Begin's Irgun) and LEHI (known as Yitzha:k Shamir's Stern Gang) there was а debate in the Israeli Кnes­ However, in his personal diary, which was puЫished set in which, according to Segev, а member of Begin's Herut against the wishes of the Israeli establishment, former Israeli Party had boasted: "Thanks to Deir Yassin, we won the war."8 Prime Minister Moshe Sharett reveals that Israeli military Another account Ьу Lenny Brenner9 reveals that Israeli operations against Arab civilian populations were designed to Prime Minister Shamir was а convert to the pre-Mussolini terrorize them and create fear, tension and instaЬility.4 Betar (Zionist Brownshirts) in the late 1930s and that his Stern Sharett's documentation shows that Israel's territorial expan­ Gang had attempted to strike а deal with the Nazi regime in sion (such as in the Suez in 1956) was facilitated Ьу Israeli acts Germany in 1941 in which the establishment of а J ewish state of provocation, which generated Arab hostility and created in Palestine on а "totalitarian basis" would Ье bound Ьу а treaty with the German Reich. *Naseer Aruri is Professor of Political Science at Southeastem Mas­ Shamir's commitment to rightwing causes and to terrorism sachuetts University in North Dartmouth. His most recent book is entitled: Occupation lsrac/ over Palcstinc. was unmista:kaЬly revealed in an article he wrote in the LEHI 1. Demonstrating а powerful command of the English language and journal Hehazit (The Front) in the summer of 1943. This ех- characteristic open-mindedness, Reagan once described Nicaragua, North Korea, LiЬya, Cuba and Iran, as а "confederation of terrorist .states" who 5.lbld. make up "the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes and squalid 6. See Вenny Morris, Thc Вirth of thc Palcstinian Rcfugcc РrоЬ/ст criminals since the advent of the Third Reich." (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Tom Segev, 2. For more on the Jonathan lnstitute see CAIB, No. 22 (Fall 1984), р. 5. Thc Pirst lsraclis (New У ork: Тhе Free Press, 1986); Simha Flapan, Thc 3. Address Ьу George Shultz, Secretary of State, ''Тerrorism: Тhе Chal­ Birth oflsracl: Myths and Rcalitics (New York: Pantheon Press, 1987). lenge to the Democracies." Washington: Bureau of PuЫic Mfairs, Depart­ 7. Erskine Childers, "Тhе Other Exodus," ThcSpectator(London), Мау ment of State (Current Policy No. 589), June 24, 1984. 12, 1961. Reprinted in Walid Кhalidi, ed" Prom Haven to Conqucst 4. From the personal diary of Moshe Sharett discussed in Livia Rokach, (Washington, DC: lnstitute for Palestine Studies, 1987). lsracl's Sacrcd Tcrrorism, 3rd ed. (Вelmont, Mass.:.AAUG Press, 1986), рр. 8. Segev, ор.