Benny Morris Justifies Israel's Coming Attack on Iran
On Friday July 18 the New York Times published an op-ed by the Israeli historian Benny Morris. It is entitled "Using Bombs to Stave Off War." Morris chose this American venue to announce that Israel would "almost surely" attack Iran some time in the next few months. And he indicated that America would be well advised to support the attack.
The reputation of Benny Morris is founded on unquestioned scholarly achievement and a far more dubious political stance. As one of Israel's "new historians," he recovered the record of harassment, murder, and expulsion of the Palestinians in the war of independence -- a finding that largely discredits the Israeli myth that the inhabitants fled from their own timidity, or because they were told to flee by Arab governments.
But speaking as an Israeli citizen, more recently, Morris has declared his view that the mistake of Ben-Gurion and the leadership of 1948 was that they did not carry the expulsion of the Palestinians all the way. Morris sees Israel in 2008 as a state under perpetual siege and the focus of a clash of civilizations; he sees Palestinians -- and to a degree, all Arabs; and Iranians, too -- as a species of animals not yet inducted into full humanity. Thus in a well-known interview
with Ari Shavit, published in Haaretz on January 5, 2004, Morris described the Israeli problem with the Palestinians:
"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."
In the years since Benny Morris spoke those words, the construction of the Israeli wall in the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza by land, sea, and air have created the cage he believed was necessary.
Now, writing from Israel for the American newspaper of record, Morris offers his advice concerning the proper treatment of Iran and Iranians. Since Iran is five years from being able to make a nuclear bomb (Morris says one-to-four years), Israel is compelled to bomb Iran "in the next four to seven months."
One may notice that the Israeli attack goes on a much faster schedule than the Iranian pace of research and discovery. Why the haste for destruction? Could it have something to do with the American presidential election of 2008 (which comes at Morris's four-month lower limit), or something to do with the inauguration of a new president in 2009 (thirty days before his upper limit of seven months)? Morris does not say. He writes, he says, because people need to realize that the success of Israel's coming "conventional assault" on Iran will be good for Israel, for the United States, and even for Iran. If, on the other hand, this conventional assault fails, Israel will some day launch a nuclear attack; and that will be less good.
The choice, Morris concludes, lies with the rest of the world, and especially with the United States. If Iran does not submit rapidly to the next round of international pressure, the world had better support Israel and hope for the success of its first aerial assault against Iran.
Morris confesses, or implies, one reservation. It would better if the United States could launch the attack. But, being realistic, he remarks the lack of enthusiasm among Americans "for wars in the Islamic lands."
"Which leaves," says Morris, "only Israel."
There is an irritant driving this article, a motive more deeply lodged than Morris is willing to avow. For he suspects Israel alone cannot do the job well enough. So having first dismissed the U.S. and the American public as faint-hearted and unequipped for "wars in Islamic lands," and having then come half way to ask again, Morris at last accuses the United States. If we do not soon intervene, and attack Iran as he counsels, the result will be further nuclear progress by Iran. This will be terminated eventually with a nuclear attack by Israel against Iran.
A nuclear attack on a nation of seventy million people (a great many of them innocent of the desire to wipe Israel off the map) is morally indefensible. How can Morris defend it? He can because he knows -- not believes but metaphysically knows -- that the moment that Iran comes into possession of its first weapon, the leaders of Iran will commit national suicide in order to obtain the pleasure of destroying Israel.
Morris alludes to his ulterior knowledge in two sentences so full of blandness, abstract jargon, and bureaucratic euphemism that their meaning is not initially clear; but if one reads with care, one sees that the message is never in doubt:
"Given the fundamentalist, self-sacrificing mindset of the mullahs who run Iran, Israel knows that deterrence may not work as well as it did with the comparatively rational men who ran the Kremlin and the White House during the cold war. They are likely to use any bomb they build."
Iran will use a nuclear bomb, Morris is sure, as soon as it has one, even knowing that to do so means the destruction of Iran. The Mullahs will do it because that is the kind of people they are.
Here then is the way around the charge that Israel, in attacking Iran some time before March 2009, will be committing a crime. By Morris's logic the attack by Israel will be an act of self-defense. Indeed, it will be preemptive -- hardly more than common sense -- given the knowledge that Benny Morris possesses of the "fundamentalist, self-sacrificing" nature of the leaders of Iran. No evidence for his intuition is ever offered -- evidence from (say) the history of Iranian foreign policy over the past fifty years, or 200; evidence founded on actions rather than words. What if Iran's words since 1979 have been wilder than its deeds? What if Israel's actions since 2002 have been wilder than its words (wilder, even, than Benny Morris's words of 2004)? These findings could not possibly touch the argument. Morris writes as a man in possession of a racial and religious knowledge that is superior to evidence.
Of course, he hopes that Israel will not be forced to go all the way (though he has deplored Ben-Gurion's failure to go all the way with expulsion of the Palestinians). He imagines most Iranians would prefer not to see "Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland." Morris has thus given the readers of the New York Times a vision of a hellish future, but then atoned for the extravagance by suggesting that, if things fall out so, it will be the fault of Iran and the United States. Israel will have done the best it could with a monstrous and implacable enemy and a reluctant ally.
All circumstances taken together, this New York Times op-ed by Benny Morris is at once the most overt and the most peculiar intervention we Americans have witnessed thus far, by an Israeli attempting to influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. The article is weakly founded on partial facts and conjectural truths. It passes without transition from mock-prudential calculations to a tyrannical threat to destroy a civilization for the good of the world. Yet, though unpersuasive, it acquires significance when published between a recent visit to the U.S. by the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and the current visit by the defense minister Ehud Barak. Morris's article is meant to be read in the context of such recent assurances as Olmert's, for example, that President Bush "understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and
intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."
But let us return for a last look at Benny Morris.
No person into whose mind had entered the idea that an Iranian may be a human being--and that there are millions of innocent Iranians -- could have generated with such casual facility the image of Iran as a "nuclear wasteland." Yet this was the image of Iran that the Israeli Benny Morris decided to conjure up for American readers in the New York Times.
In the Haaretz interview of January 5, 2004, the following exchange occurred between the interviewer Ari Shavit and Benny Morris:
"Would you describe yourself as an apocalyptic person?"
"The whole Zionist project is apocalyptic. It exists within hostile surroundings and in a certain sense its existence is unreasonable. It wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1881 and it wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1948 and it's not reasonable that it will succeed now. Nevertheless, it has come this far. In a certain way it is miraculous. I live the events of 1948, and 1948 projects itself on what could happen here. Yes, I think of Armageddon. It's possible. Within the next 20 years there could be an atomic war here."
This apocalyptic danger Morris may conceive himself to have put off a few more years by writing an editorial on behalf of Israel's coming attack. But whether the attack on Iran comes sooner or later, whether it is executed by Israel or the U.S. or both, and whether carried out with conventional or nuclear weapons, Morris has no doubt of one thing. It will have served the "apocalyptic" vision of the "whole Zionist project," and it will coincide with the highest values of
humanity properly defined.
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I don't intend to argue the history of Israel, but I do agree with Jacobo Timmermann, the Argentinian born Jew who won the Nobel Peace Prize. He lived in Israel for a while and left in disgust saying that it was impossible to find a middle ground to solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem. And I agree with Noam Chomsky, an American Jew and one of the most intelligent critics of Israel and the United States in the world. GZLives can debate Chomsky (Timmermann being already dead) since she/he seems to have a full-time job of pushing back at every critic of Mr. Morris' stance. I don't have the inclination or the time.
I can say this however, that as an American and as a citizen of the world, I find Benny Morris and his hysterical attempt at emotional blackmail to be entirely unconvincing. I have nothing but disdain for this man and anyone in Israel or the US who uses such blatant, clumsy, poorly disguised pseudo-reasoning to bring us to the nuclear abyss. Benny Morris, and his ilk, are hysterical. Their phobias are so extreme that they need clinical help. If Israel is hell-bent on "taking out" Iran it's time we call their bluff. The US should stay out of it.
On the issue regarding the "Nuclear Powered Iran," one must be reasonable enough to understand that if Israel and its dedicated servant, the United States of America, believe that they have the right to possess nuclear power (while it is indeed a common knowledge that they have nuclear "weapons," par excellence at their disposal), by the same token every nation on the face of the earth has the same right. To determine who values life and who does not--in order to make the decision as to who is more or less dangerous, should everybody possess such a power--we need to look into the history: So far, among all the nations on this earth, only the United States of America (the international patrol!) has used the nuclear weapons against other nations! Surprise!
“Morris sees...Palestinians -- and to a degree, all Arabs; and Iranians, too -- as a species of animals not yet inducted into full humanity... ‘Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another’.”
If someone says, "Jews this; Jews that," the very first—legitimate—reply would be (and should be), “not all Jews are the same;” and yet Mr. Morris (the scholar!) makes such a genocidal statement as, “...Palestinians—and to a degree, ALL Arabs; and Iranians....” After the WWII, and the stigmatic Holocaust experience, Mr. Morris’ “plans” for the Palestinians, Arabs, and Iranians sounds only too familiar. (His patronizing phrase, “I know that sounds terrible” definitely does not make him a humanitarian.) If Morris does not sound like Hitler, then who does?
world to and under Allah's rule and Allah's righteous laws!
but regardless, the fact is that there are places in this world that don't value life like people in the West do, and that has real ramifications). (The West also tends to stand against capital punishment. Plus, does it really stop those crimes from happening? And does capital punishment solve anything? Do two wrongs make a right? But those other areas of the world mentioned above, favor and practice capital punishment.) And they ultimately will be the ones who will win/get their way, just like the Nazis and the Japanese would have won and would still be in control today if they had gotten the nuclear bombs instead of America.
When Great Britain (the Revolutionary war), Germany, Japan, etc surrendered to America, the Americans (unlike the Japanese and the Nazis, and someday Iran with Syria) did not lord it over them nor rule over them nor take great advantage of them, nor did America force those peoples to live in bondage, oppression, and fear etc under America's rule etc etc etc, and guess what? - those peoples are now America's best allies and friends. (And the Chinese and the Koreans still harbor much antipathy towards, and strongly don't like, the Japanese - because of how the Japanese treated those who they defeated in war). But Allah has ordained that the Mullahs of the one and only real true faith - Islam - Shia Islam - and of the one and only real true God - Allah - will be victorious,
You are right. The Iranian people are human beings. The Americans and Israelis should not ever bomb them. That is what I too believe. My informed opinion, however, is that the Israeli and/or American military are only contemplating bombing Iranian nuclear sites (if even anything), not the Iranian population.
If and when the Iranian leaders use nuclear bombs against Israel, that damage - the damage to Israel from the nuclear bombs - will already be done. There is still even then no justification to bomb the Iranian people. And to do so would only result in an even far greater and more horrible and horrific mess. And in fact, if and when the Iranian military has nuclear bombs, other countries will certainly not go to war against them even after/if they bomb Israel. No one will risk going to war against them if they have nuclear bombs even if they use those bombs. The result would be horrific, and would just make things much MUCH worse. So no one will do it. The other nations will instead surrender, just like the world would have surrendered to Hitler had he had nuclear weapons (and would still be under Nazi rule today, unless we could somehow render all nuclear bombs unable to be exploded). The one who wins/gets their way is the one who has nuclear weapons and is willing to use them, and does use them. That's just the real true truth.
Benny Morris Op-ed in NYTimes is an excellent example of MAD-DOG-PLOY in action.
The recipe: act like a MAD DOG and the world lets you get what you want, however outrageous your demands.
In NYTimes the MAD DOG is barking in the person of Benny Morris.
Will it work?
The Israeli Lobby once even got President Bush to perform the MAD-DOG-GAME, when they had him threaten World War III if it allowed Iran acquire the knowledge to enrich uranium.
The President of United States looked foolish, and the ploy brought him ridicule instead of world compliance.
Likewise, the futile theatrics of Benny Morris turning into a MAD DOG on NYTimes will hardly convince anyone of apocalypse.
Richard Nixon was famous for this ploy too, threatening to nuke Southeast Asia if he wasn't given "peace with honor."
Those theatrics didn't set off the nukes, but how many thousands died for them?
Honor is an alien concept to this breed.
Everyone: read "The Iron Wall" by Ari Shlaim, which catalogs all the ways Israeli leadership has avoided a peace deal with the Arabs, starting from the founders, because of Israel's wider territorial ambitions. Always, some loophole or objection or event is manufactured: meanwhile the settlements continue to this very day.
The greatest danger to the Israeli population is this unrelenting aggression and determination to prevent a Palestinian state from arising, which is the origin of all the strife.
Now, in another gigantic historical joke, a very unfunny and tragic joke, the Israeli government is trying to enclose the nation in a new ghetto wall.
The country's leaders constantly whip up the people, who suffer a kind of post-traumatic syndrome resulting from the European massacre, encouraging them to see their neighbors as Nazis and somehow revenge themselves by oppressing them.
It's a disgraceful spectacle, and the Israelis are as much victim of their insane leaders as anyone. Better armed, but still led into disaster in the name of Zionism, a nineteenth-century nationalist delusion.
Just for the record - the author is AVI (not Ari) Shlaim. Shlaim is one of Israel's "New Historians" who have uncovered all the myths that so many Israel-Firsters thrive on. As you say, he is definately a must read if one is to understand Israel/Palestine history, unlike the propaganda links that the Zionists post here
Everyone: please read "The Iron Wall" by Ari Shlaim, which catalogs all the ways Israeli leadership has avoided a peace deal with the Arabs, starting from the founders, because of Israel's wider territorial ambitions. Always, some loophole or objection or event is manufactured: meanwhile the settlements continue to this very day.
The greatest danger to the Israeli population is this unrelenting aggression and determination to prevent a Palestinian state from arising, which is the origin of all the strife.
Now, in another gigantic historical joke, a very unfunny and tragic joke, the Israeli government is trying to enclose the nation in a new ghetto wall.
The country's leaders constantly whip up the people, who suffer a kind of post-traumatic syndrome resulting from the European massacre, encouraging them to see their neighbors as Nazis and somehow revenge themselves by oppressing them.
It's a disgraceful spectacle, and the Israelis are as much victim of their insane leaders as anyone. Better armed, but still led into disaster in the name of Zionism, a nineteenth-century nationalist delusion.
And then Google Ari Shlaim to read who and what he is so you are then able to understand the fairie tale you just read by yet another of the original Benny Morris cast of characters. The new Orwellian Jewish historians that the anti Israel crowd just loves to hold out as their evidence UNTIL as we see with Morris, the revisionist finds new evidence that contradicts his original conclusion. I think its fair to say that the same crowd that once loved Morris now condemns him as a hate spewing demon ...
As for this speciman that our poster seem to be holding up - the Jewish "historian" of the month proving its Israel and not the Islamists who refuse to make peace, its Israel and not those who clearly stated in Khartoum NO to recognition, NO to negotiation and NO to peace
http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_khartoum.php
Didn't really mean that at all ..
It's of course as always to the usual crowd Israel that is the problem
The implication that Benny Morris had previously concluded that Israel was the problem and not the Arabs with respect to the Arab/Israeli conflict and has since recanted is misleading and false - Morris never concluded any such thing. What Morris in fact did was to provide a far more balanced history of the conflict, which included permanently exploding the Orwellian myth that it was only the Arabs who were to blame for the conflict and that Israel played no role there, a position that he has not since "contradicted."
And again with respect to Khartoum, That was almost a third of a century ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 6-Day War - the world has changed considerably since that era.
Here: enter the 21st-century modern era, and learn about the Arab Peace Initiative:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/843076.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1844214.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Peace_Initiative
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_828.shtml
As for Ari Shlaim ...
"Shlaim's writing stems from a political agenda that is hostile to Israel, which is typical of the "new historians," rather than from an objective examination of the Israeli narrative. The following story will testify to the nature of Shlaim's attitude toward Israel. A few years ago he, together with Eugene L. Rogan, published the book "The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948." In the foreword to the book, Shlaim dared to write something to the effect of the following:
In the Middle East, as in other places, history plays a fundamental role in the building of a state, in granting legitimacy to its authority and to its political system. Governments in the region impose direct and indirect authority on the writing of history. The state controls the preparation of history textbooks for the elementary and high schools. The state runs the vast majority of the universities in the Middle East, and the members of their faculties are civil servants. National history associations and government publishing houses serve as filters whose job is to uproot impermissible historical descriptions, and to convince people of the truths that the state is interested in promoting. Since advancement in the academic establishment is closely related to adhering to the official line, historians are only barely motivated by the desire to engage in critical historical writing. Instead, the vast majority of Arab and Israeli historians have written and are writing in an uncritical nationalistic spirit.
Ari Shlaim (Part 2)
The Israeli reader cannot help but react with astonishment to these lies regarding Israel. This entire description is of course valid in relation to the Arab countries, but in Israel the situation is the opposite: The government does not run the universities, their faculty members are not civil servants and their advancement is not dependent on their writing according to the wishes of the government. A failure to distinguish between the situation here and what is happening in the Arab countries is strong evidence of Shlaim's willingness to use lies and invective as long as he can achieve his goal, which is to denigrate Israel. It is unfortunate that this man is becoming such a leading figure in the eyes of Israeli journalists."
This is, of course, quite off the point. The nature of the Arab governments is not the point, Israeli foreign policy is.
Anyone who reads the book will see it's quite well-documented, and fits the actions we see even today by the Israeli government.
Like the Americans, the Israeli people are hostage to a gang of warmongers, liars and criminals. They are also the victims of the violence created by this gang.
Zionism promised Jews safe nation where they cold live: the Israeli government has delivered the most unsafe place in the world for Jews to live. That's because it's created a neo-colonial, apartheid nation. It depends entirely on the support of one nation -- the belief in its "independence" is illusory.
This can change. But we need a new American government, Israel probably needs one also. Both nations have to abandon their arrogant belief that they can push anyone and everyone around and not suffer the consequences.
Why Doesn't Israel return the Iranians it kidnapped 30 years ago and IS STILL DETAINING. Iranian TV recently covered this
http://irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=798 (narrated in english)
Do you also believe there are no homosexuals in Iran because Ahmadinejad said so ? Just curious.
"Israeli officials dismissed as "nonsense" an Iranian diplomat's accusation Thursday that Israel is secretly imprisoning four Iranians - three diplomats and their driver - who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982.
As part of the prisoner swap approved by the cabinet on Sunday, Hizbullah is to provide a detailed report on the fate of IAF navigator Ron Arad, who was captured alive in Lebanon in 1986, and Israel is to provide information on the fate of the missing Iranians, after both Israel and Hizbullah sign the agreement.
Once that report is received, and [Gerhard Konrad] and [Ofer Dekel] conclude that it meets the expected standards, kidnapped reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser are to be returned to Israel, in exchange for Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, four Hizbullah fighters and the bodies of dozens of infiltrators and terrorists, including eight Hizbullah men."
---------
"At least 90% of all Jews are Zionists Wykle - are we all the demons you try and make us out to be? BS ..."
You're spending quite a bit of energy trying to convince the good people here that another pre-emptive war would be beneficial to Americans. The victims of such an attack mean nothing to you, although much like Iraq, women and children will die, and another generation of Muslims, Persians in this case, will be devastated. I have plenty of Iranian friends, and they're wonderful people. I'm sorry GZLives, but with your concerted effort to justify yet another war on innocent people makes you less than good-hearted. You are the other side of good. Your attitude is shallow and irresponsible, and people like you pose a threat, not only to the Middle East, but also to America and possibly the rest of mankind. The Israelis I've befriended are nothing like you. They care deeply about human life, both Jewish and Gentile. You share the sick neo-conservative ideology of Kristol, Perle, Cheney, Bolton, Wolfowitz, etc.
Your question was: "Are we all the demons you try and make us out to be?"
No! You speak for yourself, and yes GZLives, you are a menace to mankind.
Great post!
"You're spending quite a bit of energy trying to convince the good people here that another pre-emptive war would be beneficial to Americans."
No, I'm spending quite a bit of my time correcting much of the misinformation and out and out lying here. I'm also filling in the blanks left by those using selective facts to prove their arguments. Apparently its something many here are not accustomed to and don't like anyone challenging their world view which they believe is the only correct worldview.
A typical Leftist egocentric take on things always rejects any other view or opinion or sadly even facts.
I never said nor do I want a pre emptive strike anymore than the Israelis do. They want, as I understand it from reading everything I can, Iran to stop developing a nuclear bomb which ultimately will be handed off to one of the many Iranian proxy terror groups which now have Israel surrounded and will be used to take out an Israeli city and millions will die.
Everything the Iranians need fo create power, which is the reason they say they need to enrich uranium, has been offered to them and more, but they continue to reject all of it. Why, if it isn't nukes that they're after?
Morris states: "Every intelligence agency in the world believes the Iranian program is geared toward making weapons, not to the peaceful applications of nuclear power".
The latest National Intelligence Estimate flatly contradicts Morris.
That the Times gives Morris a prominent platform for warmongering should come as no surprise after its WMD disinformation campaign led by Judy Miller and Michael Gordon.
"The latest National Intelligence Estimate flatly contradicts Morris."
NPR reported in January of this year that :
"Buried deep into the 140-page Iran NIE was another conclusion: that Tehran had previously been working to build a nuclear bomb and still had some of the elements for a weapons program."
And so the NIE does NOT flatly contradict Morris at all does it?
The previous NIE of 2005 said that Iran as currently working on nukes.
The NIE of 2007 said that Iran stopped working on nukes in 2003.
Conclusion: NIEs are bullshit.
The IAEA has not found any nuke weapons program existing in Iran - EVER. Not now, not in 2003, not ever.
As I'm not a specialist regarding the matter, I will advise you poeple not to jump around.
In my Crystal ball, I see a lot of bad things fallowing a strike on Iran.
I see America being involved, guilty by association with Israel, in a nasty war.
I see terrorist network suddenly pumped out against us and Israel.
I see terrorist cells, thrown in a race to acquire a nuclear device. Desperately hungry to strike us.
I see the middle east lighting up like a suffocating blaze.
I see worlds economy strangled, because of gaze price completely disrupted.
I see China and Russia, Iran economical partners, squeezing in and ready-standing for a strategic move against us or our precious interests.
I see terror rising in Palestine and Israel.
I see the E.U tangled and mangled in a growing unavoidable war world 3.
I see me, gone on a search for a better life, beyond life.
I see pessimism, long lasting fog, true element of fear and the rise of a totalitarian system with the soul purpose of salvaging a fading idea of humans no longer behaving humanly.
I really see my fear I guess.
Can you feel me people?
If Iran was so eager to attack Israel with non existant nuclear weapons why are they still allowing and encouraging Jews to live there?
You don't really believe this do you ?
80,000 during the Shah's rule and now 2500?
Why do you think they all left?
Jews were there before Islam.
Islam came and jews became dhimmis - third class citizens
They were persecuted, murdered, accused of all sorts of crimes.
The government stages anti Jewish art shows, holocaust demial conventions and anti Jewish cartoon contests .. and you think Jews are happy there?
Pleeease
Pleeease. 25,000, not 2500. Iran's Jews have been offered financial incentives by Israel to emigrate, yet they remain. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/12/israel.iran
"They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby"
Former U.S. Congressman Paul Findley
Lawrence Hill Books: ISBN 1-55652-482-X $18.95 (3rd Ed., 2003)
Fascinating overview of decades of damage to American interests by virtue of the Israeli
lobby.
A book from a bought and paid for ex Congressman thrown out of office because of his support for Arafat - the man who stole about a billion dollars of aid earmarked for his people .... this is the sort of book you recommend to people to read?
On Findley for those who don't know
Just before Sept. 11, Findley released a book called "Silent No More," an attempt to improve the image of Islam in the United States and vilify his arch-enemy Israel. Obviously, the book didn't do very well in post-Sept. 11 America. But don't feel sorry for Findley. He seems to find enough money to travel the world and give speeches – particularly in the Middle East.
Findley has never gotten over the fact that he was turned out of office because of his own somewhat fanatical support of Yasser Arafat in 1982, even while serving as a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Recently, in Saudi Arabia, Findley explained the Bush administration had "overreacted" to the Sept. 11 attacks. Overreacted. He thinks most Americans don't understand the complexities of the Middle East debate because they have been hoodwinked and deceived.
Most Americans can't find Iran on a map. And if you call the Bush Admin's response to 9/11 by invading Iraq an "overreaction," then you are looking for excuses to describe the atrocity - and irrelevance-of our Occupation of Iraq.
The Republican- or MSM- propaganda machine must have been working overtime, to convince half of Americans that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Oh well, they had a nation of suckers to convince, a nation that believed in an "Axis of Evil" between mortal enemies (Saddam's Iraq, and Iran).
Findley's support was/is for the human and political rights that must be accorded the Palestinian people - who are not a lesser people than the Israelis. That Arafat had been the leader of the Palestinians is irrelevant to the argument of human rights. Findlay was not turned out of office because of support for Arafat - in fact, it did not matter who their leader was. Findley was turned out of office via Zionist orchestration of the election - he was not 110% pro-Israel. So its not a matter of Findley 'getting over' being turned out of office - its a matter of the just human rights of Palestinians, and those of us who believe in human rights are pleased that Findley is still doing his good work.
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