A Subtle Propaganda Campaign to Discredit Mahmoud Abbas, Sharm Al Sheikh and a Palestinian State
Press Action
Friday, February 18, 2005
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cummings02182005/
By Jordy Cummings
It isn’t easy being Mahmoud Abbas. Some on the left, and within the Palestinian diaspora find him to be insufficient, while others hope that like a good labor negotiator, he can get as many concessions from the United States as possible. I hold no brief for Mazen one way or the other, except that I always hope for even minor improvements any time diplomacy takes place between any states, no matter how obvious the asymmetry.
While some call him a US puppet, the piece I linked, written by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha portray him as someone quite moderate, albeit, not a leftist, more of a neoliberal. Malley and Agha are well known for having used the pages of the New York Review of Books quite well in the past, the two of them, former diplomats having utterly disproven the “generous offer” nonsense that was repeated by Barak and Clinton back in the lazy hazy days of summer 2000. In fact one can postulate that since Mazen is not an anti-capitalist, he is the man to back, and is being given quite a bit more latitude than was given Yasir Arafat, who while corrupt, pretended to be a Guevar-ian.
Some have called the NYRB, often an excellent journal in this writer’s opinion, as the semi-official voice of the liberal end of the State Department. If this is the case then this may be the reason that, if not the state of Israel itself, but its supporters, particularly on the ultra-right but not excluding even Eric Alterman, have been doing whatever they can to discredit and malign Mazen, as well as more generally, the Gaza Withdrawal and a Palestinian State in general. This is happening just at a point in which there are sensitive talks taking place, and Palestinians, unlike Israelis, have kept to the ceasefire. The fault lines of the truly desperate Pro-Israel lobby are being shown, since the Neocons, particularly Frum are crowing about Sharm Al Sheikh as an “achievement,” while Eric Alterman is writing, without using the exact phrase, that Mazen is a holocaust denier.
Nevermind the fact that he told Ha’aretz in 2003 that “The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind,” Mazen was being tarred for writing about what Lenni Brenner as well as Israeli historians Tom Segev, Yosef Grodzinksy and others have touched upon, which is the complicity of certain (most definitely not all) Zionist organizations in the Holocaust, including one president of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, and most of the parties that have come to be known as the Likud. At worst, he was perhaps insensitive, but as he reminds readers, it was written in the context of war, and one can add that it is incredible chutzpah for Pro-Israel people to complain about what Mazen wrote over 20 years ago, when Palestinians are being expected to make peace with the butcher of Sabra and Shatilla.
Aside from attempting to tar Mazen as a “holocaust denier,” efforts are being made to portray him as an “old terrorist.” It is true that he was a member of El Fatah from the beginning, and it is true that he was a member of what has come to be known as the “moderate wing.” Even if one believes that he had some part in militant actions, which is extremely doubtful considering his opposition to the Al Aqsa Intifada, the complaint is empty next to the actions of Ariel Sharon, both in recent history and over the last half century. Be that as it may, the charge is laughable, considering how he is seen by many Palestinians to be an American puppet made to control their struggle.
Beyond the specific allegations about Mazen is a whole hodgepodge of issues. Right-wing and pro-settler organizations have succeeded in intimidating moderate “Peace Now"-type Zionists to the point where equal view is given in the pages of the Zionist press to tepid (and entirely insufficient) condemnations of settlers along with demands from radical Rabbis affiliated with the Settler and Kach/Gush Emunim movements claiming that God is on their side.
It is well known that a “refusenik movement” of dissenting soldiers from Israel has stopped working on behalf of the occupation. There is a far larger group of soldiers who are sympathetic to the settlers, who according to recent reports in Ha’aretz are considered more of a security threat to Israel than Palestinians. Nevermind that Israelis have literally built huge new cities in the Negev desert to resettle the settlers from Gaza and the West Bank.
The settlers—or this could all be an Israeli Psy/op to get “out” of even its barest obligations—have been issuing death threats to Sharon, and even Netanyahu. I was amused to see that Netanyahu was heckled recently by settlers, reminding me of the opposite degree of heckling that took place at Concordia. Like fundamentalist Christians in America who lose a Creationism battle, these folks are out for Old Testament blood. Tom Paine was right when he called the Old Testament the bloodiest book ever written.
So whether it is a project of settlers and their supporters intimidating the Jewish press, or a quasi-official project of the Zionist movement, a tremendous effort is now underway to discredit the very notion of a Palestinian state. Liberal journalists known for their moderation on the issue are suddenly repeatedly talking of how Palestinians may not be “ready” for a state, while Abbas is a “denier.” Christian Zionists may well scuttle Bush’s policy, though it is instructive to note that reportedly televangelists such as Robertson have been now saying that “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) are less holy than Israel proper, perhaps preparing their viewers for a change in Metatron’s plan.
Another stock response to the need for a Palestinian state is that “it would be like Iran” or (name your other Islamic state.) This would seem laughable even to pro-government Israelis, who see Palestinians as much more cosmopolitan, like Syrians and Lebanese to an extent, than other parts of the Arab world. It would also seem laughable to Palestinians who for the most part, do not want a theocracy. But the question remains that even if were a theocracy, it would still be the decision of Palestinians, not of occupiers or Americans.
Finally, we see an increase in public condemnation of those affiliated with sympathies for the Palestinian cause. I don’t feel sorry for Eric Alterman, for example, who was recently called an Anti-Semite in the pages of the Boston Globe (for asserting, reasonably that Muslims aren’t gonna go to Holocaust memorials in droves until more Jews recognize the Nakhba.) Alterman himself is acting as a part of this policy, even if he doesn’t realize it, by repeating discredited rumors about Abu Mazen, and implying that Palestinians may not be “ready.”
The underlying premise is that beyond manufactured ideologies, theological or otherwise, the United States needs desperately to force a peace deal, or appear to be forcing a peace deal. Some say they may even allow Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors, à la Iraq in 1981, in exchange for more “gestures” toward peace, such as today’s (soon to be broken) promise to stop house demolitions. Whatever the case may be, it seems quite clear that even within the neocons, particularly the more idealist ones such as Frum and Fukuyama, there seems to be an urgent need to create a Palestinian state, in order to offset growing “anti-americanism.”
Israel, on the other hand, is hedging its bets, doing business with American competitors such as China and Russia, and hoping to ride this one out. There may well be a Palestinian State, albeit a neoliberal capitalist one, created in the next few years. Even that tiny achievement will only happen if the right wing Zionists and “StraussCons” and others don’t get away with doing whatever they can to discredit Abu Mazen, Palestinians, a Palestinian State and by extension, peace in general. I would never, never ask people to not criticize anyone, to hold one’s tongue. But those on the left who are calling Mazen a puppet (as opposed to simply not a radical, and someone willing to use the United States) are doing exactly what Israel wants. If they can discredit Abbas and create a power vacuum in which Palestinians are led by warring factions, all of whom are not “moderates,” one assumes that not only the United States, but the world would then continue to ignore the plight of Palestinians.
Jordy Cummings, editor of Pure Polemics, lives in Toronto and can be reached at yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca.