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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics Yohanan Ramati BULLETIN OF THE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR WESTERN DEFENCE A Comparative

Case Study of The Yugoslav and Middle East Crises Volume 9, Bulletin No. 4 December, 1996. Introduction Statesmen, politicians and journalists have lied deliberately throughout human h istory. Indeed, human history, usually written by unprincipled victors, contains so many falsehoods that the search for truth often becomes an impossible task. Even the currently accepted axioms are false. the lies of democratic statesmen a re often as monumental as the lies of the most tyrannical dictators. In both cas es, the motives are love of power and greed. The age of rapid air transportation, television and computers has created a worl d in which cheating all the people all the time is easier than at any time in hi story, while cheating most people most of the time is the normative political ph enomenon. Superpowers have always been able to lie and cheat more effectively th an other states. Competition between them occasionally - though by no means alwa ys - encouraged resort to truth. Temporarily, this competition has been eliminat ed by the emergence of the United States as the only Superpower. So truth has be come what Washington wants it to be. When it does not correspond to the facts, t he facts are buried beneath a barrage of television, radio and press propaganda kowtowing to Big Brother. In principle, there is little to distinguish today's US propaganda about the Yug oslav crisis or West European propaganda about the Middle East crisis (with whic h the US is often in tactic sympathy) from the propaganda of Goebbels, Stalin or , for that matter, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein. The lies are equa lly outrageous, the half-truths are equally misleading and the goals are fundame ntally the same - more power and more money for those who dictate policy. but th ere is one redeeming feature about the sole superpower being a democracy: it is a little less dangerous to criticize it because large segments of its electorate - and even some politicians - really believe in abstract values like truth, jus tice and free speech. US policy-makers and power brokers protect themselves by a smoke screen of lies disseminated in the press and media. But the occasional cr itic is unlikely to go to prison or be assassinated. However, such critics are most unlikely to receive publicity in major television networks or major American newspapers - and very little in Western Europe. This is part of the system. Ignoring truth is one of the recognized modern methods o f propagating lies. The Case Study This comparative case study is necessary not only because the parallels between the history of Serbia and the history of the Jews in the land of King David and King Solomon are too many to be ignored, but also since the attitude of the West ern powers - and in particular the US - to both the Yugoslav and the Middle East ern crisis is largely determined by the pro-Muslim bias of their policy-makers a nd power brokers. Western Europe has been a little more understanding in Yugosla via because it is a little more scared of Muslim terrorism, mass Muslim immigrat ion and the potential military threat from North Africa. this led to more object ivity in the press and, occasionally, in the electronic media, but very little e lse. Indeed, the need to make this case study comparative is highlighted by the

fact that the anti-Serb posture of West European policy-makers is dictated more by their political and economic interests in the Middle East than by a desire to appease the Americans. France (tacitly supported by Germany and Britain) has be en doing everything possible to undermine US Influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iran a nd Iraq by adopting pro-Muslim Middle East policies more extreme than those of t he US State Department - not only as regards the Arab-Israel dispute. In other w ords, the political and economic ambitions of the West European states in the Mi ddle Est are the direct cause of their cooperation with a pro-Muslim and anti-Se rb US policy in Yugoslavia. On the other hand, the readiness of the US to mute i ts policy of combating Islamic extremism in the Middle East is partly due to its anti-Serb bias and its political goals in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. the n et result is that the pro-Muslims are dictating Balkan and Middle Eastern polici es in the US and Western Europe alike. The past, even the distant past, has a bearing on the present. The Arabs arrived in Palestine (the name given to the country by the Romans) in the 7th century A .D. from the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. Their clams to be the desce ndants of the ancient Canaanites, Moabites and Philistines are a ridiculous atte mpt to rewrite history. Though rightly insisting they are Arabs and Muslims, the y have started to stage Canaanite religious rites in full fancy dress, and to pa y their devotions to Ba'al and Astarte! Whether or not the Albanians in Kosovo claim to have been there before the Serbs - in fancy dress or otherwise - the facts remain that the cradle of Serb nation alism is in Kosovo, while the cradle of Jewish nationalism is in Judea and Samar ia - in Hebron, Jerusalem, Jericho and Shiloh. Kosovo was ethnically cleansed of most of its Serbs. Judea and Samaria were ethnically cleansed of most of their Jews. But this cannot wipe out history and the respective Serb and Jewish claims to these regions. More recent parallels are even more telling. Both Serbs and Jews fought the Nazi s during the Second World War and both Serbs and Jews were the victims of persec ution and murder by Hitler and his allies - the Croat "Ustashis" and the Bosnian Muslims. Moreover, the Arabs of the Middle East openly supported Hitler wheneve r an opportunity arose. Yet both Serbia and Israel were and are being pressed by the Western powers to make territorial concessions to their old-new enemies. Th is pressure, which Israel has experienced since its birth in 1948 and Yugoslavia since its dismemberment by American-German fair, has been exerted with the assi stance of lying propaganda in the Western media, which utilize the ability techn ological progress has given them to brainwash ever-increasing masses of the worl d's population. Let me start with Yugoslavia. Throughout the cold War, the USSR had a clear inte rest in maintaining a united Yugoslavia, under communist control. There were man y Serb communists and more Serb partisans who had helped the USSR during World W ar II. However, the Serbs' problem in dealing with the Kremlin was that the lead er of these partisans who duly became the dictator of Yugoslavia was born of Cro at and Slovene parents and, far from safeguarding the influence of the Serb majo rity, did his utmost to decrease it. He was also strongly anti-Israeli. As Tito was a confirmed communist. Moscow had no interest to risk removing him and chanc e an even less reliable successor. The result was that the traditional Russian s upport for the Serbs was partly eroded. It should be noted that communism promot ed atheism - not Orthodox Christianity - so the common Christian-Orthodox herita ge of the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Serbs was of only minor importance du ring this period. The very short time interval between the end of the Cold War and the successful German-American attempt to break up Yugoslavia was not coincidental, Russia was in the throes of a desperate economic crisis and suffered a serious political se tback when the other Soviet republics became independent states. Its Foreign Min

ister, Andrey Kozyrev, favored a policy of cooperation with Germany and the US a nd could be relied upon not to make trouble for them in the UN. The German inter est in creating friendly satellite states in Croatia, Slovenia and elsewhere in the Balkans was obvious. The only pertinent question was why the US supported it . The answer is simple: it wanted to dominate Europe. The Yugoslav civil war was set off by the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia as independent states by Germany (with tacit US approval) in defiance of internati onal law and of the Helsinki accords guaranteeing the territorial integrity of e xisting European states, Yugoslavia included. Eleven European Community states v oted against it, but Germany, knowing they would not dare to maintain their oppo sition for fear of endangering the Maastricht agreement, "went it alone" and imp osed its view. Thereupon, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina under Muslim rule, th e situation there was tailor-made for disaster. Only 44% of the population was M uslim, about 35% - Serb and perhaps 19% - Croat. In other words, there was a sub stantial Christian majority. Moreover, the Muslims lived mainly in urban areas, i.e. in less than a quarter of the country. The Serbs, on the other hand, were m ainly a rural population and lived in 60% of the country. To try to impose a Mus lim government led by an Islamic fundamentalist on such a "state" was to invite civil war. The Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina fulfilled none of the criteria r equired by international law for an independent state. It did not control the te rritory arbitrarily assigned to it and could not meet its international obligati ons. But it had the blessing of Washington. Nowadays, Washington's blessing is i nternational law. Inevitably, the civil war broke out, all sides perpetrating the cruelties civil wars create, like Abraham Lincoln's generals. The European community intervened to stop the fighting. Pressure and persuasion from Lord Carrington and some othe rs led to an agreement in Lisbon, initiated by Izetbegovic on behalf of the Musl ims, Tudjman on behalf of the Croats and Milosevic on behalf of the Serbs. Peace seemed around the corner. but the Americans did not want this peace. For one th ing, they had no interest in an agreement mediated by Europeans. This might have strengthened the European union which was not on Washington's agenda. They need ed the Bosnian civil war to weaken Western Europe and demonstrate its dependence on the United States. They also needed it to drive a wedge between Germany and Russia, further safeguarding the US status as the only superpower. Besides, they had determined Bosnia-Herzegovina would be a state ruled by Muslims. So US Amba ssador Warren Zimmerman was sent to Sarajevo to tell Izetbegovic not to sign the agreement he had just initialed because Washington would get him better terms. Izetbegovic complied and tree years of civil war costing hundreds of thousands o f lives followed. Washington wanted this war and got it. While Western media bewailed the Muslim c asualties, virtually ignoring Croat casualties and expressing satisfaction with Serb casualties, there was no talk of peace. Nor was peace on Washington's agend a while a US-trained and partly and partly US-equipped Croat army ethnically cle ansed Krajina of its Serbs, bombarding Knin as fiercely as the Bosnian Serbs eve r bombarded Sarajevo, but without the restraint of critical television coverage. Then NATO air-bombed the Bosnian Serbs, attributing to them an incident the Bos nian Muslims had deliberately provoked after the decision to hit the Serb forces had already been taken. "Peace" came only when the Americans could impose it on their terms in an American city, amidst comments that the Europeans were incapa ble of dealing with their affairs without US assistance. The role of the media in general, and the American media in particular, while th ese events were occurring was to justify US policy. In the US, where the general public still does not really like Hitler's World War II allies and dislikes for eign interventions on behalf of authoritarian states with no pro-American record , this required an organized campaign promoting hatred of Serbs by every technol ogical means and propaganda trick available, whitewashing Croats and depicting t

he Bosnian Muslims as peace loving and US-loving democrats whose women and child ren were being killed by Serb war criminals. the technique of the Goebbelsian "B ig Lie" was applied shamelessly, ruthlessly and effectively. The degree of objec tivity in West European media was better and there was a fair number of anti-Cro at and anti-Muslim articles in the West European press. However, the crucial tel evision services were much less objective and their programmers rarely criticize d US policies in a manner conveying strong disapproval. The Western media were neither initiators nor merely observers of events in Bosn ia. the term most exactly describing their function is "collaborators". With som e laudable exceptions (chiefly in Western Europe), they collaborated with the US Government explaining and justifying its policies. Consequently, after the sign ing of the Dayton agreement, when the American interest called for assuring a pe aceful atmosphere before and during the Bosnian elections, vicious attacks on th e Serbs became much rarer. The personal views of the journalists sent to cover Y ugoslavia for the major television networks colored their presentations, as pers onal views always do. US journalists were usually selected for this task on the basis of their political views rather than their journalistic qualifications. An d when one scratches this matter far enough, one will often find some kind of Go vernment intervention or "guidance" at the higher decision-making levels of the broadcasting corporations concerned, especially - but not only - in the United S tates. In the West European press, such "guidance" was sometimes lacking, with t he result that many anti-American, anti-Croat, anti-Muslim and even pro-Serb art icles appeared in French, British, Italian and some other newspapers. European t elevision networks were more circumspect in opposing American viewpoints. The media and the press did not determine policies. This was done by US politici ans and by the owners or representatives of giant international conglomerates, m any of which have major business interests in the Arab states. The media and pre ss did what they were told to do, often gladly, but sometimes reluctantly. A fai r proportion of the do-called "free press and media" is actually owned by giant conglomerates belonging to the globalist club. In some cases, Arab oil states li ke Saudi Arabia and Kuwait own large holdings of media shares. The journalists k now who bitters their bread. Being politically incorrect rarely yields advanceme nt in their profession. This applies in Israel too, where most journalists work for owners supporting the Left-wing Labour and Maretz parties and share their pr edilection for appeasing the Arabs and the US, which tends to make them anti-Ser b and sympathetic to the Bosnian Muslims. The television is most affected by thi s sickness. There have been quite a few pro-Serb articles in the Israeli press. At this point, let me turn to the Middle East and Israel's ambivalent relations with the United States. To describe these relations as friendly is, at best, an exaggeration. The US did nothing to help Jews escape from Hitler's Europe during World War II and even turned back a ship with Jewish refugees which succeeded i n reaching American shores. Its passengers died in Hitler's death camps. Preside nt Truman needed the Jewish vote to defeat the Republican candidate, Thomas Dewe y, in the 1948 election. He was also personally influenced by the European Holoc aust. This is why the US voted together with the USSR (which simply wanted the B ritish to leave Palestine) to create a Jewish state during the UN vote in Novemb er 1947 and why it recognized the Jewish state in May 1948. But as soon as the A rabs attacked it pro-Arab pressures from the State Department mounted and Israel was saddled with an American arms embargo while it was fighting for its life. I t was only saved by arms supplies from communist Czechoslovakia. The 1948 war ended with some territorial gains, including West Jerusalem and its approaches, which gave Israel a historical basis for its new independent existe nce. Ben Gurion promptly transferred the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, des pite the opposition of the powers to this move, Armistice agreements were signed with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. During these negotiations, the American mediator, Dr. Ralph Bunche, did not press Israel for significant territorial con

cessions. In 1954, Ben Gurion retired and was succeeded as Prime Minister by the weak Moshe Sharett, who began to be pressed by the Americans to give up the Sou thern Negev. When Ben Gurion heard this, he mobilized the party against Sharett, had him dismissed and regained power. In 1956, Britain and France decided to oppose by force Gamal Abdul Nasser's nati onalization of the Suez Canal, built and owned by their nationals. They requeste d and received Ben Gurion's help. Israel overran the entire Sinai peninsula in a few days, only to find itself faced - like the British and the French - with a US-Soviet ultimatum to withdraw. France and Britain never regained their influen ce in the Middle East and the memory of being forced out of the region by their American allies still rankles. In return for retreating from Sinai and the Gaza strip, Israel received a US guarantee that a future Egyptian closing of the Stra its of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be met by American intervention. Israel t ried to invoke this guarantee in May 1967, when Nasser again closed these strait s. the State Department replied that it could not find the document... When Egypt, Syria and Jordan finally attacked Israel on 4 June 1967, the US (pro bably the CIA with State Department authority) sent a spy ship, the Liberty, whi ch collected information about weaknesses in the Israeli battle lines and transf erred it to the Egyptians. It should be stressed that at the time the Egyptian d ictator, Gamal Abdul Nasser, was an ally of the soviet Union with which the US w as conducting a Cold War. Israel reacted by attacking the Liberty with military aircraft, killing more than 20 Americans. The US did not dare to react strongly because American public opinion would have denounced its actions. The incident r eflects the deep-seated hostility to Israel in certain State Department and CIA circles. The 1967 war ended in six days The UN resolution adopted after its end, No. 242, would have been one of Israel's greatest diplomatic achievements, were it not f or the fact that in international relations truth, even when embodied in an offi cial written document properly signed and approved, counts for very much less th an what the great powers want at any given moment. UN Resolution No. 242 does no t require Israel to evacuate the territories it occupied during the 1967 war. Th is was specifically stressed by the British and American diplomats who framed it . It requires only a retreat from some of these territories, without specifying where or how far. According to the then Assistant Secretary of State, Eugene B. Rostow, the provisions of this resolution would have been satisfied by a retreat of a few kilometers on the Egyptian front alone. Needless to say, the Arabs imm ediately "interpreted" US resolution 242 as demanding the evacuation of every in ch of territory occupied by Israel and, after some years, most of the powers out wardly accepted this interpretation, though admitting in private talks with Isra elis that it is false. Nasser died in September 1970 after conducting a war of attrition against Israel on the Suez Canal front, which claimed many lives. His successor, Anwar Sadat, was an admirer of Hitler during World War II. He continued the war of attrition, but decided to switch Egypt's support from the USSR to the US. As a result, the Americans began to "mediate" between Israel and Egypt, deliberately misinformin g Israel about breaches of cease-fire agreements, such as the movement of Egypti an missiles to the vicinity of the Suez Canals. In 1972, Sadat finally expelled all Russian experts and military advisers from Egypt. His relations with the US became very close, and it is difficult to believe that Washington did not know h is plans for attacking Israel on the Day of Atonement, 5 October 1973. There was no American warning and Israeli intelligence wrongly advised the Government the re was no likelihood of war. The Joint attack by Egypt and Syria surprised Israel and, had it started from th e pre-1967 borders, the country would have been overrun. As it was, the Egyptian s were able to advance some 15 kilometers beyond the Suez Canal, while the Syria

ns occupied most of the Golan Heights. The Us promised Israel arms and munitions , but these were deliberately delayed by a week during which Israeli casualties exceeded 1,000 dead. The idea was to soften Israel up for territorial concession s to Egypt, regardless of the results of the fighting, Gen. Ariel Sharon's break through and outflanking of the Egyptian 3rd Army left Israel well West of the Su ez Canal, while Gen. Avigdor Kahalani and others pushed the Syrians out of the G olan to a line only 20 kilometers from Damascus. After 18 days of fighting, it w as clear to all that the Arabs had suffered a devastating defeat. The Egyptian 3 rd Army could be destroyed at will and there was little to prevent an Israeli ad vance to Cairo. The US intervened to turn the Egyptian and Syrian defeats into major diplomatic victories. It issued an ultimatum to Israel demanding not only that the 3rd Army be allowed to retreat unmolested but also that Israel evacuate all territory We st of the Canal, as well as a strip to the East of the Canal. This meant retreat ing to positions far worse than those from which the victorious war had started, and the effect on Israeli morale was devastating. Israel's hawkish Prime Minist er, Golda Meir, resigned and, for the first time since independence, defeatism b ecame fashionable. Itzhak Rabin, who became Prime Minister, became its chief exp onent. His successor as head of the Labour Party and Prime Minister Shimon Peres , followed in his footsteps. It should be stressed that for the first 25 years of Israel's existence, defeati sm was foreign to the leadership of the Israel Labour Party, which retained powe r throughout this period. The Prime Ministers - Ben Gurion, Eshkol and Golda Mei r - were strong characters capable of withstanding Arab and foreign pressures at least as well as their Right-wing political opponents. The only exception was M oshe Sharett - and this was the reason for his very short tenure of power. But i t seems that the American betrayal in October 1973 broke Rabin and Peres, just a s it broke the spirit of most of their followers and many other Israeli Jews. In 1975, there was renewed American pressure on Israel to make major territorial concessions to Egypt and Rabin gave way. In return for the Abu Rudeis oil field s, which supplied most of Israel's fuel requirements, and the strategic Gidi and Mitia passes, Rabin received from President ford an official letter, dated 1 Se ptember 1975, stating, inter alia: "The US has not developed a final position on the borders (of Israel), Should it do so, it will give great weight to Israel's position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remai ning on the Golan Heights." Some time after the signature of the Oslo agreement with the PLO, President Clinton extracted from the same Rabin a secret promise t o cede Syria the entire Golan Heights, including areas West of the international border which Syria had captured before 1967 and which would give it the right t o part of the water of the Jordan river and nearly a quarter of the water of Lak e Galilee. the Ford letter proved another empty promise. American politicians ig nore it. Prime Minister Netanyahu told Clinton he could not be bound by promises given by Rabin to the US without authority from his own Government or the Kness et, which were informed about them only after Labor had lost the 1996 election. In 1977, the first Likud Government in history of Israel took office. Its head, Menahem Begin, decided to make peace with Egypt, calculating that this would div ide the Arab world and leave him time to expand the Jewish population in Judea-S amaria. Other by-products of this policy were to be greater security for Israel through the removal of Egypt from the enemy camp and more aid from the United St ates, which had become Anwar Sadat's sponsor. Begin miscalculated. The division in the Arab world proved temporary. Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded Anwar Sadat aft er the latter's assassination, quickly repaired most of the damage. Egypt remained Israel's most dangerous enemy, with the added advantages of not b eing perceived as such and massive US aid - military as well as financial. Us ai d to Israel was increased, but the cost was an image of economic dependence bree

ding further demoralization and a decline in Zionist motivations. Only the expan sion of the Jewish population outside the narrow coastal strip - not only in Jud ea-Samaria but also in Jerusalem, Galilee and the Negev - was a lasting contribu tion to Israel's ability to survive. Characteristically, during the peace negoti ations with Egypt, President Carter coordinated his positions with those of Anwa r Sadat and succeeded in extracting from Begin the surrender of the entire Sinai peninsula, depriving Israel not only of self-sufficiency in oil but also of vit al strategic depth. On Sadat's insistence, the peace treaty also included a sect ion providing for Palestinian Arab autonomy. The question whether Israel, Jordan or Egypt would exercise sovereignty over this autonomy was left open for negoti ations. The text appeared to exclude the possibility of a Palestinian Arab state . Later Egypt repudiated it. Israel's relations with the US improved somewhat with the election of Ronald Rea gan as President in 1980. However, Middle East policy was effectively in the han ds of the pro-Arab Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger. The latter was proba bly responsible for one of the most shameful and Irresponsible decisions taken d uring this period. In 1982, Israel, angered by PLO terrorism from Lebanese bases , sent forces into Lebanon to expel the PLO and protect the Christian power stru cture there. Syria reacted by masterminding the assassination of the Christian P resident of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, causing Israeli troops to occupy Beirut in order to prevent a Muslim takeover there. The US, France and Italy sent forces t o Lebanon, ostensibly to protect the PLO during its withdrawal from Beirut, kill ing 50 people. When this evoked no response from the international force, Syria, anxious to get rid of this force and to attain control of Lebanon on a permanen t basis, sent Muslim terrorist on suicide missions against a US marine camp and a French base on 23 October 1996. 241 US marines and 58 French soldiers were kil led. Instead of punishing the Syrians, Weinberger ordered the US forces to withd raw from Lebanon (the French and the Italians following suit), giving Syria and the entire Arab world to understand that the West would accept a Syrian occupati on of Lebanon and the destruction of its Christian power structure. Syria has ru led Lebanon, with Washington's blessing, ever since, but it took another seven y ears to complete the destruction of the Maronite-Christian power structure - wit h the help of traitors in the Christian camp. The occupation of Lebanon given Sy ria an annual income of $1 billion to $2 billion from the proceeds of heroin and other drugs exported from there. In 1989, PAN-AM flight 103 was bombed and destroyed over Lockerbie, Scotland. Bo th Israeli intelligence and the CIA knew that the outrage which killed 270 peopl e, was perpetrated by Achmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palest ine (General Command), which has its headquarters in Syria and operates under Sy rian orders. But President Bush was reluctant to blame Syria, since he did not d esire to upset his plans for Syria-Israel peace talks involving major concession s to Syria. A high CIA official told the German magazine Focus that the Lockerbi e bomb was carried by the Syrian national airline from Damascus to Berlin and th ere given to Jibril's operators. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US decided to blackmail Syria with Lockerbie in order to force it into its anti -Iraqi coalition. As someone had to be blamed for the outrage, Washington picked Libya, which had nothing whatever to do with it, and persuaded the UN to impose sanctions on it. Asked by Focus if the truth about Lockerbie will ever be offic ially admitted by the US, the high CIA official said: "It is doubtful whether my government can ever retreat from the Libyan version. Too much has happened sinc e 1991. The UN embargo (on Libya) has caused enormous damage. And Syria is on th e brink of peace with Israel. I do not deny that the price of this peace is Lock erbie." (my italics). Later, the US did everything in its power to discount and conceal evidence linking Syrian-sponsored Islamic terrorists with the blowing up of the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires in March 1992 and has been protecting the good name of the Syrian dictator (usually by blaming Iran for his actions) ever since.

The parallels between the US attitude to Syria and its attitude towards the Izet begovic regime in Bosnia are striking. In both cases, the behavior of the Muslim protege of Washington is irrelevant. He will be helped against his Christian or Jewish opponents regardless... The Rabin-Peres Government, which ruled Israel for four years starting in June 1 992 with a majority of one in Parliament which included seven Arabs, based its p olicies on the following evaluation: Israel cannot afford another war with the Arabs because there will be too many c asualties in Tel Aviv. Opposing United States policies is counterproductive and futile. The only hope for Israel's survival is surrender to all Arab demands backed by W ashington while it is still possible to obtain US security guarantees in return. The by-product of ceding the Golan Heights, Judaea-Samaria, East Jerusalem and t he Gaza strip will be the political annihilation of Israeli parties opposing thi s and permanent Labor Party rule. The support of Jewish public opinion for the Government's policies is superfluou s, as the US, the international community and, hopefully, the Arabs will back th em. This is why the Government called its acts "irreversible". Peres ignored the probability that US undertakings given Israel within the frame work of peace treaties would prove as unreliable as political undertakings given by the US in the past. The 1996 elections brought in a Likud Government support ed by religious parties. Its policy rests on less defeatist assumptions, but it is well aware the support extended to Arab claims by the US and the West may enc ourage the Arabs to start a war they will expect to win at the diplomatic tables even if they lose it on the battlefields. Besides, Israel cannot expect any sup port from Western Europe against the US, because France, Britain and Germany are trying to supplant US influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran by being more pro-Arab than the Americans. Therefore, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to cont inue the negotiations with the PLO and Syria, despite the blatant breaches of th e Oslo agreements by the Palestinians, who, besides using arms given their polic e to keep order to kill Israeli soldiers, have not even formally amended their C ovenant calling for Israel's destruction. However, it was decided to reject the more extreme Arab demands, try to amend some of the provisions of the Oslo agree ment and insist on reciprocity in its implementation. The rejection of the initi al US proposals at the recent Washington conference, which would have rewarded t he PLO for starting the riots and killing Jews, showed that the Netanyahu Govern ment is capable to standing up to Washington when this is absolutely necessary. The result was and American retreat and a presidential statement leaving Arafat and especially President Mubarak of Egypt (who may well have planned the riots t ogether with Arafat) dissatisfied. However, Netanyahu showed less firmness after wards and his attempts to curry favor with the Opposition by confining his major appointments to its supporters have weakened his position internally. He has al so done nothing to counter the defeatism of the Israeli media and much of the pr ess, which continue to support PLO demands. The role of the Israeli media in the Middle East crisis parallels the role of US and West European media in the Yugo slav crisis - they collaborate with American policy-makers, usually disregarding the national interest of their own country. False statistics have hacked some of the most damnable lies in this sorry tale o f two crises. As regards Lebanon, statistics cited in the West have consistently exaggerated the numbers of Muslims and understated the number of Christians in order to justify the Syrian takeover of the country. Saudi indulgence is partly responsible for this. Yet despite massive Christian emigration after 1990, the r

egisters drawn up for the recent Lebanese elections still showed the Maronite Ch ristians as the largest ethnic-religious group and the Christians and Muslims al most equal in number. the Palestinians, most of whom came to Lebanon from Jordan after the PLO was expelled by King Hussein when he suppressed its rebellion in 1970, are not Lebanese citizens. Under Syrian rule, thinly disguised by Lebanese puppet politicians and rigged elections, Lebanon has become the major terrorist center of the Middle East, hosting over 10 terrorist organizations active in Tu rkey, Israel, Western Europe and elsewhere The number of Palestinian Arabs in Palestine has also been systematically exagge rated. One of the methods is not to count the dead. The UN body charged with Hel ping Arab refugees, whose staff is partly Arab, has been cooperating with the PL O in this matter. "Internationally supervised" elections were a deliberate and flagrant fraud in b oth Bosnia-Herzegovina and "Palestine". In each case, the purpose of the electio ns was to provide legitimacy for the party whose interests the US desired to adv ance - Arafat's Farah and the Islamic extremists of Mr. Izetbegovic respectively . Therefore, ballot-stuffing and fraudulent vote-counting were simply ignored an d the required international blessing was conferred upon the "results". The PLO announced immediately after the first count that Arafat had received 88. 1% of the votes and Farah - 75% of the seats on the Legislative Council. ON the same day, the Israeli paper Ma'ariv published a detailed list of elections resul ts, excluding 9 seats where "counting had not yet been completed". The headline read: Blow to Arafat, 9 Members of Hamas Elected in Gaza Strip. This, though man y Hamas members boycotted the election or voted for Yihya Ayyash - a terrorist p reviously killed by the Israeli secret service. Heydar Abdul Shafi, an opponent of Arafat and the Oslo accords was also elected. In Judea-Samaria, the Hamas boy cott was more extensive, yet Hamas got 2 seats in Nablus. The Farah Hawks and ot her opponents of Oslo, got most of the seats, while some went to supporters of J ordan. The declaration of official election results was postponed for two days o f frantic arm-twisting, ballot-box stuffing and "recounts" They produced the res ults the US, Arafat and Shimon Peres wanted. Of the 11 Hamas seats, only 4 remai ned. In Hebron, a known center of Islamic extremism, Fatah swept the board A wom an supporting Arafat from the Balata camp in Nablus found herself elected and wa s granted a lengthy interview on Israel Television. In Ramallah, Fatah got an ex tra seat. The "final figures" gave Farah and its supporters 67 seats out of 88 just over the 75% announced in advance. This wholesale fraud received the enthusiastic blessing of ex-President Carter, the European observers and the Peres government. The truth is that a fair electi on, yielding results approximating Palestinian public opinion was the last thing the West and Peres wanted. The Western goal was to justify the eventual cession of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip to the PLO. Peres' goal was to please the Americans. The story of the elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina is best told in the words of Th e Guardian correspondents in Sarajevo in a dispatch dated 24 September 1996 and headlined "West covering up mass fraud in Bosnian polls". The Guardian is a libe ral British daily, which by no stretch of the imagination could be described as pro-Serb. the text has been slightly abridged: The international organization supervising the Bosnian elections is trying to co ver up wholesale fraud involving an estimated 600,000 phantom votes. the prelimi nary results call into question the apparent victory of Alija Izetbegovic. His 4 1,000- vote margin of victory over the Bosnian Serb separatist; Momcilo Krajisni k , is dwarfed by the scale of voting discrepancies, which are greatest in predo minantly Muslim areas.

Independent election monitors demanded the elections be declared null and void a fter initial returns showed 7% more votes than estimated voters. Western observe rs say the figures suggest cheating during the count or ballot-stuffing on a vas t scale. But if the results were nullified or if Mr. Krajisnik were declared the victor. Western strategy in Bosnia would go into a tailspin as : Bosnia's Muslims would refuse to accept Mr. Krajisnik, who helped orchestrate Se rb ethnic cleansing, as head of state. Under the Dayton agreement, no new government institutions can be created until the whole election process - campaign, polling day count and results 0 is certif ied by the Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE). Non-approval could postpone by months the draw down of US-text NATO troops, pres enting President Clinton with a foreign policy fiasco weeks before the US presid ential elections in November. While supervising the election, OSCE has been under constant US pressure to play down the evidence of fraud. The head of its Sarajevo mission is Robert Frowick, a US diplomat. Over the past month, the OSCE press department has been graduall y packed with US officials, while their European counterparts have been sent hom e or demoted, in effect making the OSCE press office an extension of the America n embassy. According to a Western observer, there was only one international sup ervising team in Bosnia for every eight polling stations and when the polls clos ed 70% of the polling stations were totally unsupervised. There are serious discrepancies throughout Bosnia, but the worst fraud appears t o have been in mainly Muslim areas. One OSCE source said that in central Sarajev o 30,000 votes appear to have been cast on behalf of dead or missing Muslims. Th e number of voters was also suspiciously high around Bihac, the head of the Inte rnational Crisis Group Office in Sarajevo, Sir Terence Clark, said yesterday; "W e call on OSCE to explain the discrepancies and if they can only be explained by fraud then they should declare the elections null and void." OSCE argued there was no direct proof of fraud. Its elections director, Jeff Fis cher, said the turnout seems high because the original estimate of the total ele ctorate - 2.9 million - was too low. Over the weekend, OSCE revised the figure u pwards to 3.2 million. But the revised figure defies demographic logic. It allow s for new voters coming of age since the 1990 election, but radically revises do wnwards the death toll of the war. A UN analyst commented: "It is as if nobody a t all had died throughout the entire war." Diplomats say the electorate estimate of 2.9 million was first put forward by OS CE in April 1996. Three studies by UN and Bosnian statisticians arrived at estim ates ranging from 2,936,000 to 2,957,000. Two days after the elections, on Septe mber 16th, a document accepting these figures was signed by representatives of O SCE, the UN and IFOR. At least 580,000 refugees are known not to have voted. Bas ed on polling day observations of international monitors, the document assumes a n 80% turnout of Bosnians still in Bosnia but concedes this "is probably higher than the real turnout". If 80% of Bosnia's voters had voted, the maximum number of votes would have been 1.89 million - 600,000 less than the actual number of b allots cast, which was officially reported as 2.52 million. The European Institute for the Media, which monitored Bosnian television and rad io broadcasts throughout the campaign said: "the fairness of the democratic proc ess was seriously marred". The European Commission, which funded the monitoring, initially tried to soften its findings and then vainly urged the institute to d elay the publication of its report.

We can relax. If Washington wants Izetbegovic and Arafat to become elected presi dents, this will happen, whatever the real results of the elections held. I do n ot envy President Milosevic. The make quite sure he signs on the dotted line, th e Americans made the final termination of the sanctions on Yugoslavia dependent on his formal approval of the electoral fraud in Bosnia. Of course, there are differences between the ongoing betrayals of the Israeli Je ws, the Lebanese Christians and the Serbs by the West. but viewed against the ba ckground of historical trends, these differences are minor. In each case, the ba sic reasons are the greed of "globalist" business interests involved and allied with Muslim rulers for their personal and institutional profit, and the control exercised by these interests over US and many West European politicians. the "On e World" their propaganda is trying to sell us is a world in which they can deci de which states exist and which are destroyed. Yet their Achilles heel are precisely the Muslims, whose ambitions they are cyni cally promoting. the proportion of secular Muslims is infinitely smaller than th e proportion of secular Christians or secular Jews. Islam is an aggressive relig ion. Among its main tenets is its belief in the Muslim right to rule over unbeli evers. It is totally opposed to the values of Christianity, Judaism and atheist or agnostic secularism. and it is spreading over the globe, including Europe and North America, like wildfire. Islam is also a patient and highly practical reli gion. If the unbeliever is too strong or too distant to be conquered, it allows the Muslim to leave him alone. Moreover, in contrast to the Christian-atheist-ag nostic nations, the trend among the Muslims is towards more and more fundamental ist Islam. Today, we see this not only in Afghanistan. Pakistan and Iran, but al so in Egypt and Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. The United States has taken the Muslim jinn out of the bottle but, almost certai nly, will be unable to put him back into it. It cannot even cope with Louis Farr akhan and his "Nation of Islam" on its own territory. The recipe used to maintai n US control is to select two or three Muslim states - in practice Iran, Iraq an d Libya 0 as scapegoats to be beaten in order to demonstrate to the others the w isdom of accepting American dictates. Events in the Muslim world and on its frin ges are proving this recipe inadequate. Iran, Iraq and Libya are no more Muslim and no more totalitarian than Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria or Pakistan, al l of which have been Washington's special proteges, though they detest everythin g the West stands for except technology and bribes. And even bribes have their l imit when the recipient starts believing he can stab the donor in the back with impunity. this is why the story of Washington's relations with Syria, briefly ou tlived above, is so important. It is crucial not to translate the criticisms of US and Western policy-makers an d their big business sponsors into criticisms of Western democratic values. Glob alism is a sham and a bane. But healthy nationalism and democracy still offer th e best chance of resisting "globalism" and the tide of Islam in our imperfect wo rld. Healthy nationalism is also the only motivation which can, to some extent, control the weaknesses created by human greed, weaknesses so often proved deadly by the course of human history. In the long run, the lying propaganda in the Western press and media can destroy the West itself. But the struggle of its critics must be for the soul of the We st, not against the West. for the US and other Western countries of today, drive n by the greed of the small cliques controlling their power structure, are provi ng once again the truth of the ancient Greek proverb; "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad."

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