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  • Israel's General Staff: `A Bunch of Dr. Strangeloves'

    Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), VA
    June 2 2004

    INTERVIEW: MAXIM GHILAN
    Israel's General Staff:
    `A Bunch of Dr. Strangeloves'

    Maxim Ghilan, writer, journalist, and poet, is the editor of I&P, the
    Israel & Palestine Strategic Update, founded in 1971 by Ghilan and
    Louis Marton. Maxim Ghilan is also founder of the International
    Jewish Peace Union (IJPU), the first Jewish outfit to recognize the
    Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as a partner in dialogue.

    Because of his views favoring Palestinian statehood next to Israel,
    and his active role in the peace process--before Madrid, or Oslo, and
    although no Israeli government supported the idea of a two-state
    solution before 1993--Ghilan was forced to live outside of Israel for
    23 years (1969-1993), during which time he became a living bridge
    between the Israeli peace camp and Yasser Arafat's PLO leadership. He
    returned to his country only after Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin signed
    the Oslo Accords. Israel and Palestine is the longest-existing
    publication on the Middle East, and favors a just peace for the two
    peoples, the Israelis and the Palestinians. He was interviewed in
    early May from Washington by Michele Steinberg, with Dean Andromidas
    of EIR in Wiesbaden, Germany. The concluding portion of the
    interview, on Maxim Ghilan's background--from his arrival in Palestine
    in 1944 as a refugee from Franco's Spain, where his father had been
    killed by Francisco Franco's Falangists, to his historic role for
    Israeli-Arab peace, will appear in the next issue of EIR.

    EIR: Welcome to EIR, Maxim Ghilan. Sharon had declared he would
    unilaterally separate from the Gaza Strip; but around May 13, Israeli
    tanks and troops entered Gaza, in one of the largest incursions in
    history, wreaking havoc both in Gaza Town and Rafah. What happened?

    Ghilan: Sharon's position inside Israel became untenable because of
    the Intifada Al Aqsa and his own involvement in corruption scandals.
    He decided to annex, unilaterally, large parts of the West Bank, and
    to withdraw tactically from Gaza, where 2,300,000 Palestinians are
    inflicting a heavy price on the occupation troops and Jewish
    settlers. However, the imbecile fanatics in his own Likud Party did
    not understand Sharon's scheme and refused to budge from Gaza. In an
    internal Likud Party polling, some 60,000 imbecile fanatics foiled
    their leader's attempt. The army brass, which wants to continue their
    perpetual wars, then forced Sharon to launch the "Rainbow in a Cloud"
    operation in Gaza.

    EIR: On April 14, there was a meeting and exchange of letters between
    Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush, where Bush lifted the requirement of
    Israel returning to UN defined borders. Who was responsible for this
    policy? And what are the implications, in your view?

    Ghilan: There are two elements in Israel responsible for this policy
    change. One of them is the army general staff; the other, the
    fanatics, the zealot nationalist Jewish camp, to which Sharon has
    always belonged (as well as being a pure product of the military
    mind), and for which he was always willing to do anything necessary,
    including massacres, such as Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in '82; or
    even before that, in the '50s, when Sharon headed incursions into the
    Gaza Strip, which was then still in Egyptian hands. Sharon then
    commanded Unit 101, a death squad which went into Arab territories
    and killed people, and so forth.

    So, that's one. Sharon is the most outstanding representative of the
    fanatics, because he is the best strategist, and holds a long-range
    view.

    The present versions of Sharon's plan, the ones approved in
    Washington by Vice President Cheney and President Bush, are tailored
    for Sharon by the high brass of the Israeli Army, the general staff
    of Israel's army. These elements command, in fact, not only the army,
    but the whole State of Israel.

    Ariel Sharon has never changed, and he never will. He wants a
    "Greater Israel," or, if you want, a Jewish-superiority state in all
    parts of historical Israel/Palestine. He is willing to go back and
    forth, in order to grab the whole land himself, or at worst to
    prepare the ground for his successors to do so. The grand scheme
    remains the same: total land takeover, step by step and sometimes
    back and forth.

    At the end of each phase, Israel always expands, and so it did even
    before its official creation, in the '30s and '40s, when land was
    bought from absentee feudals and the Arab peasants were thrown out;
    then in 1948, 1967, and ever since.

    In the 1930s and before, Palestinian peasants had lived there for
    generations, but officially possessed no property, and had no title
    to the land, particularly in the Saron Valley.

    In the wake of the Nov. 29, 1947 UN General Assembly resolution on
    partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state, Israel fought
    off an invasion of Arab armies and Palestinian militias and profited
    off its victory to take over much of western Palestine; chased out
    650,000 Palestinians, and razed 416 Arab villages; on that land,
    Jewish settlements were hastily created. In Jaffa town, up to then
    the cultural capital of the land, only 3,000 out of the original
    300,000 remained. Arab homes, even those of Jaffa citizens who
    stayed, were declared "absentee property" and stolen.

    The next stage came with the 1967 War, when still another contingent
    of tens of thousands of Arabs was terrorized into running away to
    Jordan, and Lebanon. The Golan Plateau, which was Syrian, was
    annexed, and eastern Jerusalem as well as huge tracts of land around
    it were annexed. In the face of international pressure, which was
    considerable, the West Bank was not officially annexed, but a program
    of Jewish settlement and land takeover brought to this area fanatic
    Jewish settlers, 230,000 up to this date.

    Sharon, after Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, Menahem Begin and Bibi
    Netanyahu, Moshe Dayan and Labor politicos Galili and Tabenkin,
    settled Jews strategically in any and every spot they could, so as to
    force out Arabs--and not only from the West Bank and the Golan after
    1967, but from the Galilee and Central Israel before that. Karmiel
    and Upper Nazareth were built on confiscated land, first declared
    "military areas" and then converted into "for Jews only" zones.

    In the West Bank, settlement blocs were purposefully set up so as to
    carve the area into Bantustans, separated from each other by
    settlements, so that if and when a Palestinian state is forced upon
    Israel, it should not be viable. The whole thing reminds one of
    apartheid in white-dominated South Africa.

    In later years, the Gaza Strip was isolated by a fortified fence. 40%
    of the Strip was confiscated for 7,500 Jewish settlers, compared to
    2,300,000 Palestinians in the most closely-populated area in the
    world.

    So, Sharon's plan is the cantonization of all Palestinian areas, for
    the time being, until more of them can be expelled. This phase of
    Sharon's dream is what has been approved by Bush and Wolfowitz, and
    is nicknamed "creation of a Palestinian state," or "disengagement."

    In fact, there's no disengagement planned, because the Israeli army
    will remain in Gaza, in the West Bank and on the Egyptian border in
    the so-called "Philadelphia area." Fighting will go on, because
    fences cannot keep Katyusha missiles or Kassam mortar shells from
    being lobbed over from Jordan, Lebanon, or from inside the Gaza
    Strip.

    The Washington Deal

    But, back to the April 14 events in Washington. What we have here is
    a U.S. agreement to completely forget, over 40 United Nations
    Security Council resolutions, including 242 and 338, which were
    guarantees, or at least promises by the international community, that
    Palestinian land should not be grabbed by force.

    These United Nations resolutions, and the Geneva Convention, to which
    Israel has officially adhered, say that land conquered by force
    cannot be annexed. Which stands in total contradiction to Bush's
    position and to Sharon's scheme. But this is never-never land,
    because of international pressure, and because of the popular
    uprising of the Palestinians--their second uprising, which has been
    ongoing since September 2000. Nobody can stop such an uprising.
    Julius Caesar did not in Germany; Napoleon could not in Spain. the
    only final colonial solution is genocide--such as that of Native
    Americans at the hands of WASP settlers in North America. This may
    yet happen to the Palestinians, too.

    So, instead, Sharon is creating a situation, which is not tenable for
    the Palestinian population, in the hope that he can digest the land,
    meanwhile, into expanding Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank,
    and contain the Palestinians as subdued vassals--complete serfs; those
    who won't submit, will be pressurized to emigrate. Christian Arabs
    already do. That's what Bush means by a "Palestinian state."
    Moreover, in the West Bank, the Palestinians will be concentrated to
    an enormous degree in small enclaves. As for Gaza, it is already
    become a pressure cooker, with conditions so unbearable, with drugs,
    prostitution, child labor, and endemic violence. Sharon's dream would
    only increase this horror.

    So, Sharon and the Army hope--that the Palestinian population will
    ultimately go away. But demography is against this. In Gaza, you have
    2.3 million; in the West Bank, 2 million and more; inside the Green
    Line, in Israel, 1.2 million. And outside the land, another 4 million
    or so, many of them still in refugee camps.

    To believe one can break and then control such a mass is, of course,
    completely unrealistic thinking. Only a peace agreement with the
    intervention of the international community can bring about a
    long-lasting ceasefire, and only a confederation of all Middle East
    and Central East countries, ethnic and religious blocs, can ensure
    long-lasting peace and prosperity.

    Sharon's so-called "separation plan" leads to total radicalization of
    Palestinian society, to the growth of Hamas into a truly
    international power. Moreover, "separation" actually encourages a
    forced mobilization of large sectors of the Arab world, including
    Arab businesses, in favor of Hamas, rather than in favor of Arafat's
    Fatah. In past decades, these Arab sectors outside of Palestine were
    afraid of the armed might of the Palestinian Liberation Organization,
    and so helped it. They did not do so just out of "Arab brotherhood":
    They were afraid for their regimes and their lives. Now, they are
    afraid of Islamic fundamentalism.... Hamas and Palestinian Islamic
    Jihad are part of this vast popular movement, and will obtain any
    help they need.

    What the fanatic Israeli nationalists did when they assassinated
    Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, two months ago, was create a new
    Islamic saint. Pictures of the blind sheikh's wheelchair being blown
    up by an Israeli 'copter have added a powerful icon to Islamist
    propaganda worldwide. In the Middle East, Israel and the United
    States are artificially creating a mass movement--and I'm talking
    about millions and millions of people--mobilized behind the Islamic
    fundamentalists.

    Add to that the fact that the majority of Islamic countries are not
    Arab: they are Indonesians; they are Chinese; they are
    Indo-Pakistanis; they are Africans. So, this has the potential for
    the destruction of the whole structure of Muslim societies throughout
    the world, especially in the South; and even before it, the
    destruction of northwestern society.

    EIR: Do you think that what Sharon has in mind, involves a larger
    plan to redraw the map of North Africa, Southwest Asia, and all of
    the Muslim and Arab world?

    Ghilan: I have no doubt of that. In 1982, Sharon already had
    magalomaniac plans to take over Arab oil countries in the Gulf. Only
    American intervention forced him to limit his invasion to Lebanon. As
    I see the situation now, there are, in the United States, inside the
    capitalist camp, two opposing elements: one, conventional,
    conservative business society; and another, neo-fascists inside the
    American army, and [inside] that country's "capitalism." The
    neo-fascists, unfortunately, presently hold power, or at least, have
    a deciding influence on the thoughts, or the head of the present
    administration. They are aided and abetted in that by fanatic
    Christian fundamentalists, just as the Israeli Army is aided and
    abetted by fanatic, religious Jewish felons.

    EIR: In both countries, these fanatics are a minority; yet, their
    influence goes far, far beyond. Is it that everyone else is afraid of
    them?

    Ghilan: No, no. It is not that. Not everybody is afraid; some people
    are afraid, but not everybody! Yet, there is a kind of domino effect.
    Let's talk in realistic, rather than in abstract terms: In Israel,
    you have a society in which the Army is the deciding factor in
    politics, economy--local and foreign-linked, religion, and in
    international affairs. This is a dog in which the Army "tail" wags
    the national dog.

    I'm not talking about the whole Army; I'm talking about the hawks in
    the General Staff. Inside the General Staff, you have two
    elements--two elements or wings, two forces. One, professional army
    officers, not totally blinded by power, arrogant but thinking in
    terms of the future. Then you have the fanatics, the war-eaters,
    nationalist idealists in fear of a second Shoah or Jewish genocide.

    Most Dangerous Bunch on Earth

    This is perhaps the most dangerous bunch of men on Earth at this
    moment.

    Why? You have other countries which are bigger, more prosperous,
    stronger militarily, and have instruments of mass destruction: the
    United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation, for
    instance. And you have other dangerous states where the people at the
    top are crazier and more fanatic than the Israeli brass. For
    instance, Saudi Arabia; for instance, North Korea. But also, other
    more obscure crazies, in Latin America, in Asia, and in Africa.

    But, nowhere on the globe, do you have leaders and generals who are
    both extremely sophisticated, and also possess massive amounts of
    implements of mass destruction, men who are truly extremist, fanatic
    nationalists.

    If Nigeria, or Angola, or Colombia suddenly wants to go to war
    against the rest of the so-called civilized world, against the very
    relatively sane world, it simply could not. Such a country may
    destroy hundreds of thousands.... It can kill a million people, a
    million and a half people, which is genocide, but not cause the
    physical end of the world. Even North Korea is too hungry and too
    dependent on China.

    Not one of the other extremely crazy regimes says "The whole world is
    against us." In Israel they teach children a song which says exactly
    that, in these very words. No other country threatens to destroy the
    world by launching a nuclear conflict, to commit mass-suicide, as the
    Jewish Masada rebels did, to thumb their noses at the Roman Empire.
    Or as Samson is said to have done to the Philistines in one last
    titanic suicidal act, which is taught to kids as an example.

    Of course, the root of this madness is Shoah-paranoia, but that does
    not make this bunch less dangerous.

    Yes, the Israelis can destroy the world, or ignite a world war that
    will. The Israeli military has the necessary means to do so. And
    Until Bush and Cheney came to power there was no other
    non-conventional power that considered using tactical nukes.

    By the way, let me make clear this point: that I am not a pacifist,
    and, I am absolutely not against a small country also having
    defensive non-conventional weapons as the big countries have--as long
    as it is not ruled by demented leaders with paranoid ideologies. Here
    we have a bunch of Dr. Strangeloves. Shaul Mofaz and Bogey Ya'alon--or
    Dick Cheney--are not the proper depositories of world-destroying
    weapons.

    So, we have these people at the eye of the tornado. You also have the
    regular kind of military people inside the Israeli General Staff.
    But, the people who make the decisions are the crazies. Again, why?
    Because a situation has been created, over 50 years, in which Israeli
    society lived with the crutch of outside aid. At first, it was just
    Jewish people, rich and poor, who helped the State of Israel
    consolidate. But, in the last 40 years, aid has mainly and officially
    come from the United States, extensive military aid, to the extent of
    about $3.1 billion a year officially, but in fact much, much more, to
    the extent of $16 or $17 billion a year, in a variety of ways. This
    creates a symbiotic relationship, in which Israel gets
    military-offensive aircraft and technology, as well as intelligence
    and other technology. Israel then uses American money, the U.S.
    grants and guarantees, to pay American firms.

    Of course American and Israeli middlemen get their cut amounting to
    many millions. In this circular business arrangement, two elements
    earn a lot of money: One is the American military-industrial
    establishment, like Lockheed, Boeing, Caterpillar (armored tractors)
    and so on, who recruit for that purpose people who work in the
    Pentagon. They get their cut and later work with the big commercial
    ones.

    Weapons Cry Out For Wars

    The Israeli middlemen are Defense Ministry or Army officials and also
    private entrepreneurs, who are all, without exception, people who
    worked or work at the highest [levels of the] Israeli army, at
    hush--hush levels. They directly profit from circular deals and become
    millionaires, if not billionaires.

    But, you also have the productive industrial sectors, here and there,
    who have no interest in stopping this symbiotic relationship,
    centered and based, essentially, on everlasting, ongoing war: on
    weaponry, and military technology. Because prosperity, such as it is,
    brings financial growth not only to the biggies but also to the
    peripheral industries. And to the trade-unions, including workers in
    the local military industries. So everybody is for this deal going on
    indefinitely.

    Weapons and military high-technology cry out for wars. A high-tech
    relationship usually brings profit to both sides. But this one does
    not! It's a military relationship--a military hardware and software
    relationship that diminishes peace-oriented sectors, which means that
    the people involved, indeed, the army General Staff or the Israeli
    Air Force staff, have a professional, personal interest in the
    continuation of a war situation in the Middle East. If a peaceful
    situation is found, their power disappears: No wonder it has lasted
    over 50 years.

    When an officer is released from the army and joins the reserve
    forces at the ripe age of 45 or so, he gets not only a pension, but
    it's a foregone conclusion that he will get to be one of the heads of
    a big industrial enterprise, or of the electricity company, or become
    a cabinet director of some ministry--or, in the most advanced cases,
    prime minister. And, there has been no Israeli Prime Minister who was
    not somehow connected with the so-called defense establishment. And
    that includes Shimon Peres, who is one of the few Prime Ministers of
    Israel, who was never a general or a chief of staff, but he was
    Ben-Gurion's official defense advisor, who created the Israeli
    nuclear technology with the aid of Guy Mollet, the social democrat
    Prime Minister of France in the early 1950s.

    EIR: Who are these generals, in the nationalist fanatical camp today?
    Can they be named?

    Ghilan: Well, you have, first of all, the man who became prime
    minister, Ariel Sharon; and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who was
    before that chief of staff. Second, you have the present chief of
    military intelligence, Aharaon Zeevi-Farkash, who was handpicked by
    Ariel Sharon. And then you have Amos Yaron, Director-General of the
    Defense Ministry, a hawk among hawks. And people like the former
    deputy head of the Mossad, Gideon Ezra, who is now a cabinet member;
    Then, you have Mossad head Meir Dagan. Also the present Chief of
    Staff Moshe Ya'alon. But "Bogey" Ya'alon is also a pragmatist, whose
    fanaticism is subordinated to his personal ambitions. My guess is
    that Ya'alon will align on whatever party he thinks has a chance to
    win the next Knesset elections, or the one after, be it Labor or the
    Likud. Bogey wants to eventually become prime minister, and will
    possibly play the hard-liner wherever he lands, not just because he
    is one, but also to win public sympathy.

    One more name, and I'm done with them: Major General Dan Halutz, the
    former head of the Israeli Air Force, one of the most fanatically
    nationalist generals and one of the most aggressive. He was
    responsible for the helicopter attacks on Palestinian activists, and
    ordered a one-ton bomb dropped on a civilian building because Hamas
    leader Mash'al had been there. He then stated he does sleep very well
    when he thinks of having given the order that killed so many
    civilians.

    Dan Halutz has just been named deputy head of the General Staff,
    which means he is going to become the next Chief of Staff after Moshe
    Ya'alon leaves. During the internal Likud census Halutz sat at
    Sharon's right, against army regulations prohibiting political
    involvement.

    EIR: You use the term neo-fascist; are you thinking in those terms of
    what they call themselves here, the "neo-conservatives"?

    Ghilan: Yes, but not only the neo-cons. I'm talking about the more
    extreme elements in the fundamentalist Christian camp, both
    Protestant and Catholic. I'm talking of undercover and special
    services people, inside the Pentagon, amongst whom we find some
    Christian fundamentalist fanatics in uniform, hoping to see the war
    between Gog and Magog and therefore keen for the renewal of America's
    "gung-ho" policy, as it was applied in the Korean War, or the Vietnam
    War, people who then wanted to drop an atomic bomb on the Kremlin,
    and today talk of "tactical nukes" to be deployed in the Middle East
    and who see the influence of any non-American power or state in the
    world, Israel excluded, as an insult to American hegemony. They have
    no concept of what the world is like, really, outside of the borders
    of the United States, and perhaps of Latin America.

    EIR: Definitely. And, Sharon and Cheney have something very much in
    common: They are both facing half a dozen or more investigations, and
    it seems like Sharon, in particular, is very threatened by this. If
    Sharon is indicted--and that's a very big "if"--how would that change
    the situation?

    Ghilan: First of all, I don't believe Sharon will be indicted--I may
    be wrong, of course. You see, Sharon put a new Prosecutor General
    into place--Menachem Mazuz; he got rid of the old prosecutor general,
    Edna Arbel, who was pushed upward into the High Court of
    Justice--Arbel being the one who recommended that Sharon be indicted
    in the case of the shady businessman, David Appel. I don't believe
    that with this new legal government advisor, and with the present
    situation, Sharon will be indicted.

    If he is, this will encourage the extreme nationalist idiots, who
    don't understand what Sharon is doing, and believe that he is selling
    out to the peace camp. In fact, Sharon is using the Gaza pretext to
    try and annex large areas in the Palestinian West Bank, and indeed,
    cut it in two.

    But, they don't think of this. The extreme nationalists of the
    National Alliance, and the Likud rank and file--including the
    Kahanists who have a faction in Likud, Moshe Feiglin's people--they
    don't want to understand. They say, "Hey gevalt! You are selling
    out," and they won, by some 53%, an internal Likud Party
    referendum--against Sharon.

    This week the cabinet is going to vote--again--whether there is going
    to be a very partial disengagement or withdrawal, they are speaking
    of three settlements in the Gaza Strip, and eight out of hundreds [of
    settlements] in the West Bank. And the Israeli army is supposed to
    stay on the Gaza Strip-Egyptian border.

    Next week the truncated withdrawal project will be put to a Knesset
    vote.

    - Sharon Lies Even To His Crazies - EIR: What is Sharon's real
    policy, in your view?

    Ghilan: For 50-odd years, one and the same overall nationalist
    current has brainwashed the nation into even greater nationalism,
    into ever greater militarization! This includes both the Likud's and
    Labor's propaganda.

    So, at the top, you have the sophisticated political and military
    Zionist apparatus, men and women who today are infinitely more
    dangerous than the rest; but you also have the "idiot" fanatics! And
    they are the majority of the Likud, of the nationalist camp and
    perhaps of the nation, whose grand majority seems to be evenly
    divided into docile sheep and idiot fanatics. And the fanatical
    idiots don't want to give up one inch of occupied territory.

    Sharon must be cursing them for the idiots his followers are, but he
    cannot tell them what he's really doing! At least not openly, because
    that would spoil his beautiful relationship with Bush. If he says
    what he really is doing, then Washington doesn't have a leg to stand
    on in the Middle East.

    EIR: Going back to what happened in Washington, at the last
    Sharon-Bush meeting, April 14. One of the figures who is notorious
    here, almost legendary, is Dov Wiesglass. How important is he?

    Ghilan: Dov Weisglass is part of this thing I described--this monster,
    which grew up, instead of a healthy defensive and politically sane
    military establishment, which existed at the beginning of the state.
    And he's also one of the people who, undoubtedly, will become head of
    the right-wing camp after Sharon goes. He will survive Sharon.

    Weisglass is at present, Sharon's official mouthpiece in talks with
    Washington, but also one of the people whom I described before: he is
    like Dagan, or Farkash, and Defense Ministry head Amos Yaron, or like
    Shaul Mofaz, part of, and executor for, the hawkish wing of the army
    general staff.

    Of course, he did not reach such pinnacles of power in the Army as he
    reached as Sharon's axe-man. He always has been a groupie, or
    soldier, of Sharon, and he is, and was, one of the fanatic Army
    zealots. He is also a very good politician. Or, if you want, a
    military diplomat.

    How The U.S.-Israel Deal Works

    Dov Weisglass is head of staff of Sharon's Prime Minister's Office;
    and has been, for a very long time, in touch with the Pentagon, in
    military matters, which, of course, gives him an "in" to those
    circles who are part and parcel of the symbiotic Israeli-American
    relationship of the military-industrial clan in the U.S.

    Through his Army contacts and those in military oriented industry, he
    became close to Vice President Cheney and to Deputy Defense Secretary
    Paul Wolfowitz, a Jewish-American neo-con. Later on, also to
    Condoleezza Rice. He knows the ins and outs of the American power
    establishment, much better than most Americans, not to mention in the
    Likud. Indeed, better than Sharon himself. Proof of that: his first
    talks, his most important talks, long before the last Bush-Sharon
    Washington meeting, were with--Cheney!

    Dov Weisglass is Sharon's and the General Staff's "counselor" to use
    Mafia parlance. That is systemic, not just a personal post,
    comparable to Henry Kissinger's in Nixon's administration. Weisglass
    shows us how Israeli power is structured: the Army tells the Prime
    Minister what it wants him to do, who sends his counselor to
    Washington to talk to Cheney and Wolfowitz, who--with the aid of
    Condoleezza Rice and often against Colin Powell's better
    judgment--convince their President, who invites Sharon to come to
    Washington and formalize the deal. And then Bush utters another bit
    of his doctrine--until he has to change that too.

    Strategy of the Big Lie

    Sharon has postponed for two months another visit to the U.S. This
    shows the Army brass is not happy.

    Remember, Weisglass talks in the name of the Israeli military, talks
    to the American military and war industry, the most greedy and
    ruthless wing of American capitalism, which uses its base, the
    fanatic U.S. fundamentalists to cement the deal publicly.

    In all, this is an alliance of two fanatic and greedy leaderships
    backed by two camps of relatively insane fanatics who are carefully
    kept ignorant through religion, media mind-washing, and a basically
    dishonest political system wrongly termed "Western democracy." By the
    way, the Christian fundamentalists are not really pro-Israeli. But,
    as somebody in the Likud once said, at a military war tactics
    session, "Let them believe whatever they will, about the coming of
    their Messiah and a war between Gog and Magog--as long as they fund us
    and back us."

    EIR: How do you think both Israeli parties maneuvered to trick the
    whole world with the disengagement plan? Here in the United States,
    our Congress is going along with a plan and they refuse to see what
    you are telling us as fact--that this plan is not what it seems.

    Ghilan: Well, I have proof, contrary to Sharon. Whatever I say can be
    documented by established facts, and above all, results. Not to speak
    of the biographies of the people I have mentioned. I do not guess. I
    say only things which happened, or are being done, by Sharon's
    government and by the General Staff: facts on the ground, which are
    now being implemented.

    This touches another aspect, another facet, the strategy of the Big
    Lie: in George Orwell's 1984, lying is truth, you say one thing and
    mean the opposite when the time is right.

    It started with Ben-Gurion; it started even before Ben-Gurion, with
    the Zionist movement, the Labor Directorate, which said it did not
    want a state, and then, of course, they made one; they said they
    wanted to evacuate the Jews from Europe, who were under Nazi control.
    But when the then-British Empire granted to the Zionist establishment
    in Mandatory Palestine, the right to create a military division, the
    Jewish Brigade, inside the forces fighting the Fascist Axis, Ben
    Gurion and Moshe Saret actually did their best to cooperate with
    Britain, so that 1 million Hungarian Jews went to Auschwitz, instead
    of being exchanged for 100 military trucks, and allowed to go to
    Palestine.

    Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's Secretary of State, told his President at
    that time, we don't want in the Middle East, another million Jews,
    who will destabilize the British hold in Egypt and in Palestine.

    So, the Auschwitz crematories worked at full speed, the Jewish
    Brigade was created inside the British Army--giving Ben Gurion's
    troops useful military experience--and the allies never bombed the
    annihilation camps nor the railway tracks which carried the death
    trains from France, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and so
    on.

    There are plenty of documents, some Israeli and some American, to
    back what I am saying.

    So, it went on as far back as that. In '48, they said they would
    accept the UN Partition Plan. Then they went on, to conquer as much
    territory as possible, and to raze the Arab villages inside the
    territory they grabbed, 416 of them, went on to throw out Arabs from
    towns such as Jaffa and Haifa. That was the beginning of the refugees
    problem, which is haunting Israel to this day.

    In 1949, a ceasefire was signed and it held for a while--these
    territorial arrangements lasted till 1967. From '49 to '67 they
    claimed they want peace, but they were not willing to give up one
    inch for real peace, or to agree to United Nations resolutions, or to
    give in to American pressure.

    Using the Jewish Superiority State
    We're talking about the '50s, before the American government put an
    end to the Suez operation, and took over the role of protector of
    Israel, from Britain and France, who used the Jewish Superiority
    State up to 1956, to perpetuate their control of the Middle East
    Arabs and their oil resources.

    After that, they did nothing to present any peace-oriented scheme. In
    '67 they grabbed more territory: they took the whole area of
    Jerusalem, they took the Golan Heights. They took the West Bank, and
    all of Western mandatory Palestine, up to the Jordan River, fell
    under Israeli military rule.

    At that stage, they said they want to come to an agreement, an
    understanding, that they will give back territories in the West Bank,
    and in Gaza--and you know that nothing like that has happened. Defense
    Minister Moshe Dayan, then, told a delegation of conquered
    Palestinian notables: You have nothing to give me, I talk to the King
    of Jordan only. And now, they are saying, of course, that they will
    not return to the '67 borders, as Moshe Dayan said his government
    would.

    So, this is the policy of the Big Lie. All the while, the government
    of Israel, and before it, the Zionist movement's leadership, applied
    a policy of deliberately lying. However, the policy of the big
    deliberate lie goes together, with deliberate, newly created facts,
    goes together with another expansion of the state base on more
    conquests, of throwing out more Arabs.

    You talk about a "Jewish Democratic" state but you apply orthodox and
    fundamentalist Jewish Halakha, i.e., precepts based on zealot, and
    racist precepts, rather than on the Magna Carta, Britain's legal
    basis, which was the legal base for the system, together with the
    Ottoman Empire's legal precepts.

    The Foreign Propaganda Machines
    They say "disengagement" but mean Israeli-controlled "apartheid."

    They talk about "targeted preventive measures," and mean the
    premeditated murder of people who have not been proved guilty in a
    court of law, and in the course of so doing, the murder and maiming
    of innocent by-standers, including women and children.

    They say: "granting them autonomy" but they mean the creation of
    helpless Bantustans under Israeli control, which will supply Israel
    with cheap labor and produce, and so on and so on.

    Sharon's propaganda machine has now set up a special department at
    the Israeli Foreign Office for linguistic, semantic disinformation,
    which works mostly in Western countries, and in the United Nations,
    using precisely the terms people want to hear when grisly pictures of
    the occupation appear on TV screens. It operates in France, and in
    the United States, in the United Kingdom and so on. Later on, quite
    often, such language is adopted by the media in many countries.

    EIR: What other propaganda outfits exist?

    Ghilan: Well, there are really several. There seems to be a
    disinformation intelligence department, according to foreign reports,
    and there is a special department in the office of the prime
    minister, which presumably controls all the rest. You also have a
    department of the Jewish Agency, a section of the world Zionist
    movement, which develops propaganda, including scare reports on the
    Arabs and anti-Semitism. Money and help is distributed to Jewish
    community activists and media in Europe and the United States. Claims
    have been made that all of the aid to Israel gathered by the United
    Jewish Appeal in the U.S. is used for such propaganda and for
    "encouragement" to non-Jewish politicians.

    Finally you have the press attachés at Israeli embassies abroad, who
    translate Israeli and Arab texts that may help convince news editors
    in favor of Israeli arguments.

    EIR: Well, the Israeli machine very much parallels the office of
    propaganda, lying, and misuse of terms that was used to secure the
    Iraq War, here in the United States.

    Ghilan: Yes, except that this Israeli propaganda network existed
    before the one created in the United States before the invasion of
    Iraq. I would say, somebody in the United States took a leaf out of
    Sharon's book! Maybe Wolfowitz?

    EIR: The Jewish-American community used to be, I believe, on the side
    of the Democrats. The masses of Jewish people and many other ethnic
    people would go to the Democrats to have a voice. But that has
    changed in the sense that Bush's election chief, Karl Rove, is very
    close to these Christian fundamentalist fanatics; his election
    strategy is that his deal with Sharon will get him the Jewish vote in
    the United States. How do you see that aspect?

    Ghilan: It has been a long, long time since the Jewish community has
    had any voice in American politics. This statement may surprise you,
    so let me explain.

    The Jewish-American community is--how many millions now? Five million
    or so? The Jewish organizations are no more than 600,000 people
    altogether, including everything: civil organizations, B'nai B'rith,
    religious community organizations, the federations, which are the
    local synagogue, schools, and so on; universities, the ADL and
    everything else. These 600,000 people are mostly controlled --and I
    exclude the Reform and Conservative communities--but even among them,
    many leaders are totally controlled by Jewish business interests,
    which are very, very few, a handful of people, really--I would say no
    more than 10,000 people altogether; 5,000 is probably closer to the
    truth. I'm talking about the major, big financiers.

    Now, these people have allied themselves with the most reactionary
    forces inside the United States. They speak in the name of the Jewish
    community, which is silent or indifferent. The Jewish community shuts
    up because (A) they are not really interested in politicking; and (B)
    because they are very, very much in solidarity with the State of
    Israel, which they see as a solution for those Jews who were
    threatened in Europe and possibly even an escape hatch if
    anti-Semitism becomes a real threat in America.

    Anything that Israel does, is either accepted, or at least not
    criticized by the Jews in the U.S., which brings about still another
    symbiotic arrangement: the State of Israel's leadership and the
    Jewish financial leadership, which controls nowadays such
    organizations a B'nai Brith, the American Jewish Congress, or even
    the World Jewish Congress--which once used to be democratic,
    philanthropical and very sane when it was headed by the late Dr.
    Nahum Goldmann, and under its Vice President Arthur Hertzberg.

    Anyway, American-Jewish organizations are, in 2004, no more
    democratic than the Communist Party was in the late Soviet Union, as
    its leadership can maneuver and use 5 million Jews without consulting
    them.

    As corruption and decadence breed despair and fanaticism, that part
    of the community that does not wish to leave Judaism--I'm talking
    about Jewish culture and ethnic bonding, not Jewish religion--that
    part which wants to remain Jewish, to keep a sub-identity inside the
    great American magma, is ever more tempted by Orthodoxy, and by
    Israeli patriotism--from afar.

    Youths, who in the past were liberal or left-wing, because their
    first generation parents came as workers from Eastern Europe, or were
    the incarnated Jewish Mom's dream of "My son, the doctor, my son, the
    dentist," now have affluent or middle class parents and seek idealism
    in their twice-removed roots. The most frustrated adopt Meir Kahane's
    ideology, and go to settle in Kiryat Arba, in the occupied
    Palestinian West Bank.

    Clearly, the Jewish community has been neutralized by its right wing
    and by the Israeli establishment, just as many lower- and
    middle-class non-Jewish Americans have been neutralized by their own
    right-wing and religious Christian extremists.

    And why should it be otherwise? American Jews are after all, part and
    parcel of American society.

    As for Bush's administration, under these conditions, it is not
    worried about the Jewish vote; on the contrary, it counts on the
    financial and organizational leaders to bring in the Republican
    Jewish vote because, they pretend, Bush is good for Israel, which is
    nonsense. Bush helps prepare the destruction of Israel through
    continued warfare.

    EIR: After the Bush-Sharon deal and particularly after the
    assassination of Rantisi, both President Mubarak of Egypt and King
    Abdullah of Jordan have made observations that they have never seen
    such widespread hatred of the United States in the Middle East,
    because of the failure to make peace, failure to help the peace
    progress, and because of the Iraq War. Is that your estimation, also?

    Ghilan: Part of my estimation. I think they don't go far enough,
    particularly after the massive destruction of civilian homes in
    Rafah, on Gaza's border with Egypt. I think we are seeing a rapid
    deterioration of stability--of reactionary stability in the Middle
    East--but still, stability that existed since the United States made a
    deal with Saudi Arabia for exportation of oil at the end of World War
    II, almost 60 years ago.

    Now, what is happening in the Middle East, is, that after the
    collapse of the Soviet Union, all those elements who believed society
    in the conservative Arab states would eventually change, became
    desperate.

    The Only God That Did Not Fail

    As a Palestinian once put it to me: "First, we Palestinians believed
    in Arab pan-nationalism. Then, in the two brands of Ba'athism, Syrian
    and Iraqi. Then, we believe in Gamal Abdel Nasser. And some of us
    believed in Marxism-Leninism. But, all these gods failed us, so what
    have we left? We Arabs have Allah left. So we trust in God and follow
    Islam."

    Do you know that half the leadership of the "Organisation D'Action
    Communiste Libanaise", mostly Christian Maronites and Greek Orthodox
    former-believers, converted to the Shia brand of Islam and joined
    Hezballah's leadership?

    This evolution defines precisely what is happening: many are turning
    to Islamic fundamentalism, because they've no other hope for real
    change. But, obviously, also, because Bush has made Islamic
    fundamentalism the bogeyman of the Western world, and has declared
    what the Arab world now sees as a crusade, a reactionary Christian
    crusade, against the poor of the world, and most especially against
    the Muslim poor of the world.

    I think we are very close to a global explosion of this movement. I
    think the next two areas to host Islamist expansion are going to be
    large areas in Asia and in Africa. I'm talking about Angola; I'm
    talking about South Africa, and I'm also talking about Indonesia and
    Malaysia, which have the largest Muslim populations in the world--not
    to speak about Pakistan and Southwest China, even Southern Thailand
    and India.

    This thing is going to blow up. It's already blowing up to a small
    extent, thanks to Bush-Cheney and to Tony Blair. As yet, the al-Qaeda
    thing is a small development compared to what still may happen,
    thanks to Western stupidity. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the
    Anglo-Americans have compounded the Soviet mistakes in the area.

    Western Deals with Fundamentalism

    You must keep in mind that leaders in the Arab world, including
    President Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan--but also the leaders of
    Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the Emirates--are not particularly worried
    about the needs of their populations. Nor are they worried about the
    fact the U.S. government supports Israel. What they are really
    worried about, is their own possessions, which they believe include
    their countries. And they have now come to the conclusion, based on
    very, very good home intelligence, that their regimes are not going
    to last; and that even the U.S. might make a deal with the
    fundamentalist movements in the Middle East against the monarchies,
    because the fundamentalists might give them control of some Middle
    Eastern countries to keep control of the oil and other Arab world
    natural resources. And in Africa, and in Central Asia.

    The Arab leaders are afraid for their own personal sake. Therefore,
    they are finally at a stage in which, in spite of U.S. and British
    military and development aid, to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, for
    instance, they are finally speaking out. In fact, they are frankly
    crying out, "Help! Help us!" And they are talking--in my opinion--they
    are talking as much to the fundamentalists as to American and
    European politicos of all kinds. If the U.S. can, why not they? Thus,
    the Anglo-Americans are unwillingly and willingly helping the
    Islamists.

    Don't forget that Cheney was one of the most trusted allies of the
    Arab potentates--and became the main mover of the anti-Arab crusade.

    EIR: Because of the oil?

    Ghilan: Because of the oil--not only Arab oil. Because of an
    Anglo-American decision to control directly the whole oil production
    and oil industry, even at the price of direct military occupation, as
    we have seen in Iraq. This is a war for control of, simply, all the
    oil in the world.

    Paranoid dreams? Megalomania? Sure, but that is what they suffer
    from. Beside being politically stupid and ignorant.

    EIR: Do you see that terror, after what Sharon has done in Gaza in
    these last few weeks, and the Bush-Sharon deal--that terrorism is
    going to get worse in the immediate period?

    Ghilan: On the global scene in general, and the Middle East in
    particular. I'm not talking here just about Israel--Israel is a
    different matter, and needs a different explanation.

    EIR: Could you touch on both aspects? For example, will Hamas become
    a mass organization?

    Ghilan: It already is. But, it will grow from 40 to 70% soon. It has
    now 40% support from the Palestinian population, in Gaza, and maybe
    less, maybe 32%, 35% in the West Bank.

    Now to international terrorism in Jordan, where they have just
    discovered a plot for a mega-chemical attack on major government
    activities, and had to suffer from revenge-attacks in the southern
    end of the kingdom.

    But, there is a difference. You see, I have considered the idea that
    secular or ethnic popular movements might join forces with
    fundamentalist uprisings in other areas of the world, but certainly
    in the Middle East.

    About the Israeli-Palestinian situation: since Sharon is interested
    in creating terrorists to perpetuate fighting and annexation, to keep
    the Bantustans under forcible control, until he can throw out or push
    out as many as possible, both the civil and popular uprising and
    terrorism against civilians will continue, perhaps even increase.

    We have two kinds of armed struggle in both Palestine and Israel: an
    armed uprising; and blind terrorism against civilians. Terror, in my
    mind, is any act of violence directed against civilians either by
    organizations or by governments. Popular armed uprisings include
    anything directed against military forces or targets, intelligence
    outfits, or the armed settlers including Palestinian collaborators
    with occupation.

    Civilian uprisings of course, include unarmed demonstrations,
    sit-ins, marching and so on.

    So, as long as occupation and annexation continue, these things will
    grow, and will be put down ever more forcefully, which will create
    ever greater hatred for the occupier, more extremism, more
    fundamentalism in Palestine.

    The Secret West-Islamic Deal
    While this happens, you are going to have the rest of the Muslim and
    Arab world increase their support for the Palestinians, openly or in
    hidden ways, and we are going to have such things as a very strong
    growth of the anti-reformist movement in Iran. This is part of a
    process which was already started from the beginning of 2002, when
    funds started coming into Palestine from private sources and
    organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom, in support
    of fundamentalist circles. The same thing happened in support of the
    Iranian conservatives and, together with anti-American outrage,
    helped destroy the reformist opposition.

    One of the things that encouraged this reactionary development was a
    hidden agreement by Britain, France, and certain circles in the U.S.
    to encourage the Iranian conservatives "to keep them at the West's
    side." This resulted in the partial elimination of the
    Marxist-Islamist fanatics of the Iranian Mujahideen-e Khalq--many of
    whom were expelled from France. But pro-Iranian power operations
    stopped there, because the U.S., France and the United Kingdom came
    to the conclusion that if the opposition in Iran comes to power, the
    country will become much less stable, and the danger of more Islamic
    fanatic antics will increase.

    The Westerners are now caught between a rock and a hard place because
    of Iraq's occupation. After consolidating their power, the Iranian
    conservatives are worried about their Shiite brethren in Iraq and
    would not mind the neighboring country becoming another religious
    dictatorship. Even now, the west prefers fanatics in situ, to secular
    dictatorships, or even democracies which remain independent. The West
    believes it is able to make better deals with the clerics, behind the
    scenes, because it worked in the past.

    Israel sold goods and arms to Khomeini's men and the funds were
    illegally used by Washington in the fabled Irangate affair, to fight
    the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and nobody got the wiser for a while.
    Only, when former CIA head, Bush, Sr., became President, it was
    pushed under the carpet. Somebody assassinated all the people
    involved in the Irangate affair, all the intermediaries. Secret
    Israeli agent Amiram Nir, a former journalist, died in a mysterious
    plane accident in Mexico, for instance.

    Nowadays, conditions have changed as they always do. It's difficult
    to formulate an effective imperialist policy in the 21st Century.

    The only consistent American foreign policy, that remains consistent,
    is support of Israel, even when the worst exactions occur here,
    exactions which create terror no less consistently. And when one
    thinks of what the U.S. supported in Latin America in the Irangate
    era, one must conclude that stupidity is a family affair. I mean, we
    now have the same kind of logic. When you see who are the supposed
    Iraqi rulers, the members of the Governing Council, under the
    military occupation, officials such as gung-ho Sanchez, and the
    Marine forces' stalwarts--I mean you must be suicidal to put the lives
    of U.S. GI's in the hands of these guys.

    The U.S. had the sympathy of the Iraqi Shia community which Saddam
    Hussein persecuted. Now, the Shia are both the fiercest opposition to
    the occupiers and the greatest danger to a united and democratic Iraq
    in the future. The Iraqi Shia community in Iraq has blown up in the
    West's faces. Everything in the Middle East is blowing up in the
    West's faces.

    And nobody has a clue what to do, though the solution is easy to see:
    have the Anglo-American coalition leave Iraq at once, give up both
    military and oil control to a United Nations force with heavy
    participation by the Arab countries, and hand over reconstruction to
    the new Iraqi government whilst paying the bills.

    Anything less will lead to the continuation of the present disaster.
    Even the relatively stable situation in Kurdish Iraq will blow up in
    the West's faces, later on, because sooner or later the United States
    will have to choose between a free Kurdistan, and Turkey, a strategic
    U.S. ally. And, if they choose Kurdistan, which means the
    dismembering of Iraq into three areas, oil-rich Kurdistan will be
    controlled at any price--through the Kurds. Which will mean America
    losing Turkey as an ally, Turkey blowing up, and Middle East
    fundamentalists joining forces with the Turkish ones, and with the
    Turkish army, which is the real ruler, and which will have to forge a
    de facto alliance with the Islamists in spite of its secular,
    Kemalist ideology. Power makes strange bedfellows.

    The Kurd-Turk Quandary

    And if by chance the U.S. chooses Turkey, then the Kurds will blow up
    once again. And they will blow up, not only in Iraq: they will blow
    up also in Turkey. Now there is a lid on the more extreme Kurdish
    freedom fighters, because they are extremists and because the rest of
    the Kurds want at least their own state, in Iraq and maybe in Iran
    too, just as the Armenians got an Armenian state, next to the Russian
    federation. Only in a state of their own can the Kurds grow and
    develop. For the time being, both the Iraqi Kurds and the Armenians
    are taking a leaf out of the Zionist book and talking autonomy in
    Iraq rather than independence. But, if the Americans prefer Turkey,
    this goes down the drain.

    In Kurdistan, you have two allies of the United States--who have
    totally opposed interests. And then, you have the oil. And, the U.S.
    would like a Kurdistan rump state, instead of in Iraq, but it would
    not like them to control the oil. And who says that after they take
    over, the Kurds won't take over the oil? And ally with other Kurds,
    in Iran, and in Syria? And then in Turkey itself?

    One thing is for sure: The U.S.--the neo-fascists in the U.S. in
    particular--have no real strategic outlook. They have no analysis that
    allows them to plan. They have no ability to sustain a long-term
    occupation of Iraq, and their plan for domination of the whole area
    through a "Greater Middle East" scheme is a hashish dream, an
    Orientalist Western joke.

    Nor have the Americans a short-range strategy: only greed and
    propaganda efforts, electoral ploys. They are now forced to find
    foreign mercenaries--who are starting to desert the ship. Spain and
    Honduras did, and if Italy and Japan are destabilized by terror, they
    will follow suit. Or else, their governments will not survive. The
    new Anglo-American proposal at the UN Security Council is nothing but
    a propaganda effort. The Americans and the British want to put blue
    helmets on their existing forces in Iraq and get more mercenaries
    under U.S. command. This is an effort to legitimize the takeover of
    Iraqi oil, and to go on controlling Iraq.

    It may be adopted at the UN but it will fail on the ground. It will
    not stop either the popular Iraqi insurrection against the
    occupation, nor, even worse, the ideological fundamentalist-Islamist
    revolution.

    EIR: You know, Mr. LaRouche has said, and this has become really
    popular with the American people, the ordinary people: George W. Bush
    is the dumbest man who has ever been President of the United States.

    Ghilan: But I don't know if that's right. There's been a few very
    dumb Presidents in the early stage of American history.

    EIR: Well, we've been looking into it, and it seems to be pretty
    close.

    Ghilan: But, he's certainly a very stupid man. And, Cheney--you see,
    when you have at the very top, a person who is stupid, and under him,
    people who are fanatics, then you have a very explosive combination.

    EIR: Right.

    Ghilan: Because the fanatic isn't accountable; the idiot is
    accountable. But when the fanatics define policy--Wow! Even when the
    fanatics are not that intelligent, because they are ruled by their
    emotions and hormonal drives rather than their heads.

    America As Othello, Britain As Iago

    Moreover, the American fanatics are taking their lessons from British
    imperialism, they are playing Othello to Britain's Iago.

    But British imperialism evolved in a completely different
    environment, in one in which the navy was the main weapon of control
    of any imperial power, and in which armies had a different local
    approach, cultural approach, to the various indigenous populations.

    Today, this is not the case, cannot be the case. But the neo-cons and
    the army brass still believe in direct occupation, and in punitive
    military policies, such as bumping out leaders, and killing wide
    sectors of the population. The point is, in the modern world, with
    modern technology, guerrilla warfare has become as potentially
    powerful against empires, imperial occupants in particular, as
    frontline armies and navies in past ages. The strategic situation has
    changed, the local situations have changed. And if you don't see
    that, if you want to impose American imperialism, using the patterns
    of British 19th-Century imperialism, then you are on your way to
    disaster: which is precisely what's happening in Iraq, in
    Afghanistan, and soon in Africa, and in Pakistan.

    EIR: On Iraq. Lyndon LaRouche is very concerned that there be an exit
    strategy, and he has laid out one, which begins with the United
    States saying, very clearly, "We are leaving." And Iraq has to go to
    the Iraqi people. The U.S. must end the occupation. The longer the
    U.S. stays there, the worse it's going to be. And he has called upon
    the countries around Iraq to play a major role, specifically: Iran,
    Turkey, Syria, Egypt. These will all be affected by the disaster
    there.

    Ghilan: You're forgetting one: Yemen.

    EIR: Should they also play a major role in Iraq?

    Ghilan: Absolutely. Otherwise they will become a base for the
    fundamentalist revolution. And, you forget one more: Jordan, which is
    at Iraq's borders, and the most delicate border, at that, because of
    the rivalry between Syria and Jordan, with Egypt, Egypt should be
    brought in, too.

    In fact, you cannot have a democratic conflict resolution in the
    Middle East after the American invasion of Iraq, a solution to the
    Iraqi problem, if the whole of the Arab world is not brought in;
    which brings us to the Middle East-defining Israeli-Arab conflict,
    the Palestinian conflict; which means such Arab inclusion into a
    peace deal must necessarily involve a prompt solution, or at least
    considerable progress on the way to impose from the outside an
    Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire and an Israeli evacuation from
    Palestine. If that does not happen, the abcess will simply move from
    one Mideastern organ to another and then in fact, to other
    geo-political bodies. EIR: How do you see a solution being reached
    after this policy disaster?

    Ghilan: Well, first of all, the solution now goes through at least
    three different stages, which should be very close to each other, a
    matter of months. None of them should be longer than a year.

    The first stage is, the establishment of a United Nations
    trusteeship, for a length of no longer than three years, but no less
    than one year. And such a United Nations trusteeship, would create a
    trusteeship UN section, just as there was one for South Africa during
    apartheid, with its own army, which should be different and separate
    from NATO, or other UN forces. It should not include NATO
    member-forces.

    During the next stage, the UN, NATO states excepted, should control
    all of Iraq, with the aid of Iraqi forces, then gradually hand over
    military and political control of all areas to the Iraqis.

    Before this is completed, at a stage which seems stable, direct
    elections should be held, under international observation, the
    principle being: half the national assembly or parliament on an
    overall Iraqi principle of one person, one vote, the other half being
    reserved for representation of the four existing sectors: Sunnites,
    Shia, Kurds and secular parties, each sector getting a number of
    seats in accordance with its numerical strength and the approximate
    amount of territory it lives on. This calculation may be the biggest
    obstacle to a truly democratic transition.

    So, the UN should fund a referendum in Iraq, region-by-region and
    inside the ethnic and religious communities--I'm thinking of the
    Kurds, of the Shiites, of the Sunnis, of the secular nationalist
    Iraqis, both pro-Baath-Saddam and anti-Saddam, but who are in favor
    of a non-religious republic in which women have full rights. Seats
    should be reserved for other groups, such as the Assyrians, to
    mention but one.

    All of them should be brought in as advisors to the UN Trusteeship
    Council and later on, as commissioners of the United Nations
    Trusteeship council, this international Iraq commission. Then, and
    only then, should a final and definitive constitution be drawn up to
    be approved according to a one person-one vote principle. This should
    happen in the third year, giving the country a sufficient cooling off
    period.

    After one year, you gradually take out the foreign military forces,
    and set up local military forces, ideally people who were already in
    Saddam's Iraqi Army or police, but these forces must be composed of
    local people in each area, and remain for a while under the control
    of the United Nations non-NATO commissioners, and after that, of the
    Iraqi Provisional Commissioners, until elections are held.

    Stability can only be reached if the various communities feel that
    they are represented in such a trusteeship. Otherwise, the Islamic
    revolution will continue and win over the country.

    Thus, all sectors will have rights, and then control, at each state,
    but not the ability to sow chaos for their own sectarian reasons.
    They will be part of the machine from the very beginning, but will
    only get access to the control levers according to their sector,
    under trusteeship, and final joint overall control of government when
    internal conflicts are manageable.

    This is the best of all bad solutions, since the present chaos
    prevents the immediate creation of an Iraqi Federal Republic, or a
    confederated one.

    Iraq's Oil As An Obstacle

    There is of course one big obstacle to such a scheme--oil. Who will
    control Iraq's oil? After all, this is what the invasion was all
    about, besides the Bush dynasty's wish for vengeance.

    I don't see Western oil multinationals giving up control of oil
    production and exploitation in the immediate future. Which is, of
    course, short-sighted of them, because the Anglo-American
    companies--plus the French, the Germans, and the Russians--are the only
    ones capable of developing Iraq's oil facilities in an advanced,
    industrialized manner, as only they possess the means to develop
    properly the third-largest oil reserves in the world. The
    multinationals should opt for profit, not control, but greed is
    always stronger than logic.

    So there is probably not going to be a UN trusteeship. And the
    neo-fascists in the Bush Administration, who are servants to the oil
    companies false gods, are certainly not going to give up direct U.S.
    control of Iraq and its oil, in one way or another.

    So I don't think that a democratic mechanism shall be worked out and
    chaos, or just fighting, will continue, followed by economic
    destabilization, worldwide.

    I think nobody, neither in Europe nor in the United States, has
    proposed such a step-by-step trusteeship plan, which could be offered
    to such people as the U.S. Democratic candidate (who is not my own
    choice for a brilliant leader but has the virtue of not being Bush or
    Cheney.

    Eventually, after much blood-letting, if such a trusteeship
    arrangement is worked out, it can only work if the world community,
    including a saner United States, reassures the Arab world and,
    indeed, the whole Islamic cultural community world-wide, saying,
    "Now, this is going to happen. But only with your democratic
    participation in day-to-day and overall decisions. We are going to
    allow the UN to bring in, if necessary, forces but keep both eyes
    open to prevent an imperialist, religious or totalitarian take over."

    Moreover, the Arab-Islamic community must see--not be promised, but
    see--the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being ended. Again with the help
    of international armed separation forces on both sides of the
    Israeli-Palestinian green line. Without a relatively just peace
    solution you can forget peace in Iraq or anywhere else in the Third
    World.

    Let's put a stop to this conflict which poisons international
    relations. This is really a first-class geopolitical priority.

    EIR: So, you think that these two plans must be done simultaneously:
    If you do something in Iraq, you must also match it with something to
    stabilize the Israel-Palestine situation?

    Ghilan: Yes. But remember that the way to an Israeli-Palestinian
    ceasefire is enforced separations with international armed forces at
    both sides of the Green Line, of the internationally accepted pre-67
    borders. I mean, Israel and the Palestinian authority are not going
    to shoot at the United Nations, right?

    When two madmen fight, you must bring in a doctor and restrain them,
    if necessary.

    At the same time, the United Nations should unilaterally decide,
    backed by a Security Council resolution, to sponsor and direct open
    negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The Security Council
    should establish a mechanism for a permanent planning commission that
    would deal with cooperation plans in the future--economy, development,
    construction of homes for the masses in Gaza and elsewhere, even
    cultural and religious cooperation. And about the means of funding
    permanent peace in the now Unholy Land.

    Pressure should be applied, economic sanctions pressure, if one or
    both sides drag their feet. Inducements in the form of reconstruction
    and development aid should also be offered by the world community.
    Finally, although the right of return of all Palestinian refugees
    should be assured, handsome offers for compensation and resettlement
    in a number of developed countries should also be proposed to those
    who so wish.

    If you do these things, three things will happen: 1) the United
    Nations will grow and develop, from a trust of a few strong nationals
    ruling over many small ones, to a real international and legal forum.
    2) Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil resources will finally become
    the motor of economic and political development. 3) A basis will be
    laid for a mashrek or Middle Eastern economic community leading to a
    Federated or Confederated Mashrek on European Community lines, but
    with a heightened social content.

    As for Israeli-Palestinian strife in the future--nobody in the area
    will allow two small states to go on fighting, thus spoiling the
    economic growth of the area. The way to Jewish-Arab peace leads first
    to trade and economic development, which alone will ensure continued
    peace. EIR: As a veteran of the peace camp in Israel--a founder of it,
    for many decades: How can the peace camp regain power in Israel?

    Ghilan: Look, you have in Israel, two sides, two peace camps. You
    have one, which is another silent minority, which is the non-Zionist
    peace camp; in other words, those who say, "we don't want to control
    anybody. We want a free Palestinian state, based on economic
    prosperity, beside Israel, and maybe in the later future, a Middle
    East Confederation or Community." They are a minority among the
    peaceniks everywhere.

    Then, you have a majority, which is the Zionist peace camp, and I
    mean people such as Yossi Beilin's new Yahad Party, including Meretz;
    the left wing of the Labor Party (which is not very left wing, but--);
    even some people inside the Likud; some people inside the Shinui, who
    are economically reactionary, but pro-peace for the Palestinians; and
    the poorer rank-and-file of the Shas, the orthodox oriental party who
    are against the Palestinians, but for social justice. Most of this
    peace camp, Shas and Shinui excepted, is middle-of-the-road in
    economic matters, and sometimes even right wing, but left of center
    in Palestinian affairs.

    They don't want real Palestinian independence. They want a Palestine
    "state" controlled by the Israelis and by the United States, because
    they believe that's the only way to ensure real security and peace
    for Israel. The Zionist peace camp seems to believe that such a
    controlled peace will bring about economic affluence for all
    Israelis, or the real liberation of the Arab masses in the Mashrek;
    with Sharon, it [the Zionist peace camp--ed] believes that [only]
    (anything but--MG) an Israeli-controlled peace will [not lead to]
    (bring anything but--MG) the abolition of the Israeli state. So, their
    social or economic aspirations stand in abeyance till peace arrives,
    and this hold for both the Zionist peace camps' right wing (Shinui)
    and populist wing (Shas).

    Most of these people are against Sharon, but for some of them, like
    "Fouad" Ben-Eliezer or Shimon Peres, a "National Unity Coalition"
    including Labor, the Likud and Shinui, is a desired goal, provided
    Sharon evacuates some Jewish settlements, including all settlements
    in the Gaza strip.

    This creates a problem for those, such as myself, who understand
    there's not going to be peace without social justice, nor social
    redress without a just peace with the Palestinians.

    To Be Ethical and Still Succeed
    The equation is the following: if one supports the Zionist peace camp
    majority at some of its happenings, such as the massive demo that was
    held in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, on May 15th, with 200,000
    participants, one really helps Shimon Peres, who launched with his
    speech there, a campaign for a new united national government with
    Sharon and Tommy Lapid at the top. If you don't go to such events, if
    you remain pure and honest, you are confined to the rather small
    ghetto of the peace-and-justice camp.

    I decided to participate, and as one of my friends told me: "We got
    there, and when Peres starts speechifying, we hold our noses and
    avoid the stench."

    In any case and unfortunately, a real just peace, a really lasting
    solution, may only be reached after much more blood is spilt, maybe
    25,000 more Israeli dead and about three times as many Palestinians.
    In the meantime, one must evolve and disseminate a non-Zionist
    Israeli ethos for the future, an alternative code of beliefs and
    behavior that is both humanist and practical.

    And continue fighting for Justice and human rights wherever they are
    violated.

    http://www.larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2004/3122max_ghilan.html
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