[News] Israel and Haiti

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Israel and Haiti

February 01, 2010 By Mohsin Drabu
http://thedailymohsin.com/2010/01/31/israel-and-haiti/

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, which may have wiped 
out up to 
<http://thedailymohsin.com/2010/01/31/israel-and-haiti/www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/15/haiti-earthquake.html>3% 
of the population, one of the most publicised national aid and rescue 
efforts was provided by Israel. 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2010/Israel-sends-relief-delegation-to-Haiti-14-Jan-2010.htm>The 
day following the quake, a delegation including Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs, IDF Home Front Command and IDF Medical Corp Personnel left 
immediately to see how they could assist, and between then and the 
27th January, the 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Israeli_aid_arrives_Haiti_17-Jan-2010.htm>218 
IDF soldiers and officers, and 18 civilians treated more than 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Israeli_rescue_delegation_Haiti_13-Jan-2010.htm>1,110 
patients, conducted 319 successful surgeries, and delivered 16 
births. The IDF Search and Rescue force also rescued or assisted in 
the rescue of 4 individuals.

<http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2008/28-01-2010.htm>During 
that same time period, the 
<http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2008/21-01-2010.htm>same 
army shot 11 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, 
overwhelming during peaceful demonstrations; conducted 41 military 
raids into Palestinian communities, arrested 63 Palestinian 
civilians, including 5 children, as well as continuing the annexation 
of Palestinian land and destruction of homes in the West Bank, and 
the suffocation of Gaza.

"The Goldstone threat"

The goal behind the rapid and enthusiastic Israeli response is 
clearly therefore not a concern for human life, but rather the 
logical alternative, namely a conscious and well-planned PR 
operation. This much was indeed admitted by the IDF Home Front 
Command Chief, Major General Yair Golan, 
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3839561,00.html>who stated 
that "we had three missions: Saving lives, providing medical 
services, and representing the State of Israel honorably". Given that 
the latter element overarches the first two, it follows that the 
prime motivation behind Israel's activities in Haiti was to clean up 
the nation's tarnished image on the world stage. This is a need that 
is seen as being so urgent following the 
<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm>Goldstone 
Report into the 
<http://thedailymohsin.com/2009/12/28/the-gaza-assault-in-perspective/>Gaza 
massacre (note, not the massacre itself), as to be almost 
existential. Benyamin Netanyahu, addressing the Knesset in December, 
<http://blackchristiannews.com/news/2009/12/prime-minister-netanyahu-says-israel-faces-the-goldstone-threat.html>stated 
that there is a triple threat facing the state: "the Iranian 
[nuclear] threat, the missile threat and a threat I call the 
Goldstone threat". The nature of the "Goldstone threat" is clearly 
one solely of image, and so Israel needs to do what it can to ensure 
that this threat, namely that of negative perception in the West, is 
neutered. Israel's leaders largely felt that the mission to Haiti had 
been a major step towards achieving this. 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145793.html>As Netanyahu stated 
gleefully to the returning soldiers, "You have raised human spirits 
and elevated the name of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense 
Forces. As many plot against us, distort and muddy our names, you 
have shown the real IDF." IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145793.html>said that "Many 
have tried recently to tarnish our image. With your deeds, you have 
proven that the opposite is true." Ashkenazi was taking a break from 
his own efforts to prevent such "tarnishing", namely by 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145233.html>stymieing any 
attempts at the remote possibility of a moderately serious internal 
probe into Israeli conduct during Operation Cast Lead; it is thus 
only natural that he should praise the soldiers for sharing some of his burden.

Closer inspection of the Israeli relief effort tells the same story. 
<http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/port-au-hasbara.html>Professor Yoel 
Donchin, director of the Patient Safety Unit at the Hadassah Medical 
Centre in Jerusalem, and veteran of Israeli relief efforts, 
<http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/01/19/the-zionization-of-disaster-relief/>states 
that Israel's priorities were not non-showy staples such as chemical 
toilets and water purification systems- "If we went down that track 
we would miss out on seeing that child who was born with the 
assistance of our physicians"- but rather a 2 week field hospital 
that Donchin states will have little significant effect, since "(t)o 
be truly effective a field hospital needs to remain for two or three 
months, but that's a condition that Israel cannot meet...It is much 
more media savvy to show an Israeli hospital, replete with stars of 
David and of course the dedicated doctors and nurses, dressed in 
their snazzy uniforms with an Israeli flag on the lapel...It is only 
in the Israeli aid compound in Haiti that large signs carrying the 
donor country's name hang for all to 
see."<http://thedailymohsin.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/israelhaiti2.jpg>

 From a more general perspective, despite 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Israeli_rescue_delegation_Haiti_13-Jan-2010.htm>Netanyahu's 
statement that the mission was "in accordance with the best Jewish 
tradition of aiding one's fellow men", the most telling proof of such 
a contention, namely donations to third world countries, tells 
precisely the opposite story. Israel donates 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146125.html>only 0.042% of its 
GDP in aid to developing countries, which is 1/5 the average amount 
donated by countries of the <http://www.oecd.org/>OECD, the 
organization which Israel is seeking to join. Hence Israeli arguments 
about deep concern for human life, already impossible to take 
seriously during the regular Palestinian assaults, apparently extend 
to the rest of the developing world as well- ironic, given the degree 
to which Israel 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_aid_to_Israel.gif>is itself 
dependent on aid from a paternal benefactor, namely the US.

Helping Haitians in order to better torture Palestinians

Of course giving tuppence with the left hand to conceal daylight 
robbery with the right is an art at which Israel has become expert. 
In fact the biggest example of such is the entire peace process 
itself. Certainly since the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taba_Summit>Taba talks in 2001, it is 
just inconceivable that even the most sincere sounding blandishments 
at peace from Israel have been anything but a smokescreen to continue 
advancing what apologists for Israeli crimes call 
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4436739.stm>"the realities on 
the ground" further and further away from any situation that would 
allow for any sort of a peace to be established. That this is the 
case can be easily demonstrated. The only realistic peaceful solution 
is the 2 state settlement. The greater the annexation of land in the 
West Bank, the less viable the second state (the Palestinian state) 
becomes. This is because the aforementioned "realities on the 
ground"- large Jewish settlements like 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27ale_Adumim>Ma'ale Adumim, the 
Separation Wall, Israeli transport networks etc- turn the West Bank 
into a series of small, cramped bantustans, thus removing the 
potential for contiguity; a prerequisite for any state. Since Taba, 
settlement activity, destruction of Palestinian homes, and seizure of 
Palestinian land, 
<http://www.fmep.org/settlement_info/settlement-info-and-tables/stats-data/housing-starts-in-israel-the-west-bank-and-gaza-strip-settlements-1990-2003>have 
continued unabated; thus Israeli actions to vitiate any potential 
peace agreement have carried on at the same time as their continual 
statements of their desire for peace. They are stating they want 
peace with words, while vitiating any potential peace with their 
actions. Given that actions count for more than words, it follows 
that Israeli comments as to their desire for a peaceful settlement 
with the Palestinians are merely a public relations veneer for 
actions which remove the potential for peace in the most drastic way possible.

A further tactic that assists this goal is to attach impossible 
prerequisites to any peace agreement. The most commonly heard one, is 
requests that for any peace negotiations to occur, Palestinians must, 
among other conditions, 
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20070730.htm>recognize Israel and 
renounce violence. Given that Israel does neither of the two, it is 
obviously impossible to expect that Palestinians would ever agree to 
do the same. Yet making such statements allows Israel to plead to the 
world that it is making strong efforts for peace but is being held 
back by the intractable Palestinians. Anyone who takes the time 
simply to look and think can see that such demands illustrate that 
Israel does agree to road maps, 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=297230>on the 
sole proviso that they start at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Personal Responsibilities

Though Israel is guilty in its stunning malevolence of helping 
Haitians in order that it might better torture Palestinians, there is 
a grave hypocrisy that casts a blight over what has otherwise been a 
heart-warming global effort to assist the suffering Haitians. 
<http://www.countercurrents.org/quigley170110.htm>A brief look at the 
history of Haiti shows that the reason why 200,000 people should have 
died in a 7.0 earthquake is that the country has been crucified by 
twin torturers the US and France, ever since being the first country 
in the world to stage a successful slave-led anti-colonialist revolt 
in 1804. Due to their impudence at daring to feel that they should 
not be in bondage to their Caucasian overlords, they were forced, 
with significant pressure imposed by the US, to pay reparations to 
the French for the next 70 years, bankrupting the country. Further, 
there was an embargo placed on the island by France, and the US, who 
wanted to counter the threat of the good example- the real 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory>'domino effect', which is 
a doctrine that exists to this day as a justification behind some of 
the US's most egregious crimes- in order to discourage any idea of 
slave revolution in the US. The torture continued further with 
Woodrow Wilson's invasion in 1915, and then 19-year occupation, in 
order to secure American corporate interests, and then with Papa and 
Baby Doc Duvalier, father and son US-backed military dictators, whose 
economic and brutally oppressive policies further ravaged the country 
during their reign between 1957 and 1986. Clinton's neo-liberalism 
caused further economic destruction in the 1990's, and then George W. 
Bush's support for the coup against the democratically elected 
president, and one ray of hope, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, nailed the 
coffin lid shut. Such that when the earthquake hit, so ramshackle was 
the country and its infrastructure that it collapsed like a house of 
cards, killing everyone underneath. So though CNN may entitle its 
coverage 
<http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2010/01/29/pkg.cnnheroes.helping.haiti.cnn?hpt=C2>"Saving 
Haiti", the efforts that would need to be taken in reality to save 
Haiti- i.e. a liberation from US imperialist and neo-liberal 
domination- is an effort that CNN, as well as the rest of the 
mainstream media, would far more likely prevent than contribute 
to.<http://thedailymohsin.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/haiti_destruction-400x301.jpg>

The critical point is that though financial aid may help restore a 
fractional part of what has been destroyed, financial participation 
in the policies that lay the groundwork for such destruction is by 
far the more significant element. And this is what is occurring right 
now in Gaza. Were there to be an earthquake tomorrow in Israel- and 
it is predicted that 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=haiti&itemNo=1145238>Israel 
is due for one- Gaza, with its rickety housing and tinpot 
infrastructure, would most likely suffer a similar torment to the one 
that Haiti is currently suffering. This torment is one for which our 
governments- and thus we- are currently sowing the seeds with the 
support for the utter asphyxiation in every way of a territory of 1.5 
million people. It is worth wondering whether the people in the US 
and the UK, among those who contributed around $300m for Haiti 
following the celebrity fundraiser, thought about the fact that while 
they are contributing to the Haitian aid effort out of a desire to 
help lift people out of suffering, their tax dollars and pounds are 
being spent by their governments to create the exact same groundwork 
necessary for an identical destruction to occur elsewhere. Humans are 
compassionate creatures, and it is hard to imagine that were people 
fully apprised of this, that they would stand for such abuses of 
power by their elected officials. It is in this way, that by a cruel 
twist of circumstance, the people of the West are participating 
inadvertently in the same aforementioned dynamic as Israel, namely 
that of giving tuppence with the left hand, while taking massively 
with the right. With a greater clarity into the PR devices employed 
by Israel, people will have a greater capacity to take actions that 
sit comfortably with their conscience, and the injustices of the past 
that lead to the catastrophes of the present will be more likely avoided.




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