The Palestinian authority has prepared a report showing that the United States has not only provided a steady stream of weapons to the Sharon government as that government stepped up its violence against civilians in the occupied territories, the report also describes a series of U.S. political actions that have supported Israeli state terrorism and protected it against any international sanctions. The document, “The U.S.-Sharon Alliance in Genocide,” has been leaked to the press, although according to Palestinian officials this was not their doing as the report was for internal use only. Nevertheless, the substance of the report suggests a reversal in the Palestine authority’s earlier acceptance of the United States as an “honest broker” and it reflects the Palestinians’ growing doubts that meaningful concessions can be obtained from the U.S.-Sharon alliance without the intervention of third parties.

The report notes the sharp contrast between the recent critical and indignant reports on alleged Palestinian efforts to obtain weapons, and the unremarked massive flow of arms from the United States to Israel. The authors ask why it is assumed that Israel has a right to self-defense and security but not the Palestinians, and, noting the enormous imbalance in military force, the report suggests that this is not only unfair, it also leads to Israeli intransigence and encourages the ready resort to extreme violence agains the weaker, virtually unarmed party.

The table that follows, drawn from the report, lists some of the weapons transactions between Israel and the United States during Intifada 2.

Selected U.S. Arms Transfers to Israel During Intifada 2 (Jan. 2001-March 2002 only) Date Arms Transferred Price

1-24-01: 24 UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters: $212 million  1-24-01: 60 MK46 MOD 5 Torpedos: 3.4 million  1-24-01: 15 AH-1F Cobra Helicopters: 5.2 million 2-6-01: miscellaneous tools and supplies: 21 million 2-19-01: 9 AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters and 1 helicopter upgrade 500 million  6-6-01: 160 F100-PW-229 engines 300 million 6-7-01: AIM-120B AMRAAM missiles 27 million 6-19-01: 50 F-161 two seat fighters 2 billion 8-24-01: 48 AIM-120C-5 missiles, etc. not listed 12-21-01: 50 F-16 aircraft 1.3 billion 1-23-02: 30,000 excess M16 rifles not listed 3-13-02: 102 M51A1 20mm Gatling guns for F-15’s 5.2 million

[Compiled by Antifa Info-Bulletin from data collected by the Federation of American Scientists. Some of the prices are obviously below cost.]

The document points out that the U.S. Arms Control Export Act prohibits the provision of weapons to foreign governments that use them offensively and/or to commit human rights violations. It notes, however, that this and other laws were violated during the repeated Israeli invasions of Lebanon, and they continue to be violated now. The report claims that Israel has been supplied with weapons in complete disregard of the law by each successive U.S. administration. The question is raised: What is the meaning of a law in the United States? The report also asks: How can this one- sided supply arrangement favoring the stronger party be compatible with either peace or an “honest broker” role for the United States?

The report notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits Israeli dispossessions and seizures of Palestinian property, and the extensive settlements carried out even under the Oslo process, and that such Israeli actions are therefore “war crimes.” Israel is a signatory to that Convention and the United States claims to support it. The report points to the U.S. and Israeli refusal to participate in a Conference on the Geneva Convention called this past year by the Swiss. The report concludes that the law, domestic or interntional, has no impact in controlling U.S. dealings with Israel or Israeli behavior.

The report asserts that the United States regularly vetoes any international effort to control Israeli dispossessions and attacks on civilians, essentially giving Israel carte blanche to commit war crimes. It claims that the United States refuses to allow international monitors, let alone an international military force, to protect what the report alleges to be mainly civilian victims of a powerful military machine. The report notes the sharp contrast with the U.S. performance in Kosovo, where the United States was not satisfied with international monitors which it helped force upon Yugoslavia–although it eventually insisted on removing them, over Yugoslavia’s protest, to clear the ground for a bombing war and full military occupation to protect that alleged victim population. In the case of Israel and Palestine, by contrast, the United States defers to Israel, and will not even permit monitors.

The report notes also that the United States justifies its alliance and protection of Israeli violence by accepting Israel’s claim that while the Palestinians “terrorize” the Israeli’s only “retaliate.” The report rebuts this, asserting that, apart from the fact that there is an interaction process between violence on the two sides, it is the accepted view of most independent authorities that Israel’s long-term occupation, discrimination, expropriations, demolitions, and dispossessions are the root cause of the violence. Furthermore, in the interaction process, the Israeli violence is far more severe than that of the Palestinians. The report notes that the Israelis have engaged in systematic torture of Palestinians for decades, and that the ratio of Palestinians killed by Israel to Israelis killed by Palestinians has been greater than ten to one over many years. The report notes that the number killed under Ariel Sharon’s management at Sabra and Shatila was far greater than the total number of Israelis killed by the PLO from 1958-1981 according to official Israeli estimates.

The report claims that under President George W. Bush, only Arafat has been called on to stop “terrorism,” and arms continue to flow to Sharon, even as he steps up his violence against the Palestinian civil society in the occupied territories. The report contends that the Bush “demands” for Israeli pullbacks are clearly for public relations service only, containing not the slightest threat of aid reductions, let alone sanctions or bombing, and that even the Western news media recognize that Bush is giving Sharon more time to kill and destroy.

In its conclusions, the report claims that the unholy alliance between the United States and Sharon is threatening genocide, and it calls upon the international community to resist and stop this killing, destruction, and threat.

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*Note: This imagined report is a parody of Michael R. Gordon’s NYT article of April 12, 2002, “U.S. Gets Data Said to Connect Arafat to Terror,” and Douglas Frantz’s NYT piece of April 5, 2002, “Israel Says Papers Prove Arafat Paid Terrorist,” which give the usual NYT line, with its biased identification of the “terrorists” and generous details on what the “captured documents” show on the preferred linkages. The linkage of U.S. officials, policies, and arms supply to Israel’s terrorism is not a subject for Gordon or Frantz because there is no such terrorism and the support, though it may be violating endless laws and a global consensus, is accepted and normalized, needing no explicit discussion.  

 

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