1967 Middle East War was a Turning Point for Israel

The pro-Israeli groups failed to convince Kennedy to give Israel unconditional support. Kennedy understood Israel’s ambition to dominate the region. He, on the other hand, wanted to strike a balance by keeping a good relationship with the Arab states. He realized, now known from the released archive documents, to help many underdevelopment countries including those of the Middle East was the most effective way confronting Communism. After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, President Kennedy, realizing the existential threats posed by a nuclear confrontation,  wanted to cut down America’s own military spending and start a diplomatic relationship with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba to end the Cold War soon. All these threatened the military-industrial-complex and its close allies, the pro-Israeli groups, and big businesses. Kennedy was the last US president to refuse to provide Israel with vast military aid it was urging America to provide; after his assassination “the faucet was fully open,” said Ilan Pappe. Oliver Stone had a ground to allude to an Israeli connection to the President’s murder in his film JFK. [note]Ilan Pappe, The Ten Myths about Israel, Verso, London, 2017, p. 54 (Kennedy’s refusal to massive aid to Israel and his assassination link.)[/note]

He was assassinated and removed. After Kennedy was gone, they worked on President Lyndon Johnson, not so bright and visionary and extremely egocentric, self-centered, and deeply insecure man, facing the tough challenges of the Vietnam War and consequently the unpopularity at home, was succumbed to the pro-Israeli allurements. Johnson was promised to become a remarkable figure in history if he would give Israel huge military aid and unconditional support. He was also assured his and his party’s resounding victories at the next elections. Facing nation-wide protests against Vietnam [note]Jason Maoz, ‘Who Was The First Genuinely Pro-Israel U.S. President?’, Jewish Press, Aug 30, 2017, http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/who-was-the-first-genuinely-pro-israel-u-s-president/2017/08/30/[/note] Johnson deviated from the path of his predecessors – both Eisenhower and Kennedy – and quadrupled military aid to Israel. The deal also paved the way for Israel to work on the future presidents of America.

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ohnson’s continuous massive military aid and other political and diplomatic assistance to Israel enabled the latter to defeat all its neighbors decisively and occupy their lands. This was a complete reversal of the previous administrations’ policies to strike a balance between the Arab countries and Israel. The goal was to find a solution that would be sustainable in bringing about stability and harmony in the region.

However, Israel had a different agenda of occupation, expansion, and domination. By dint of the strong relationship Israel forged with the West, especially with the massive and unconditional help from America, Israel became arrogant and reckless.

Israel bombed an American surveillance ship near the coast of Gaza and killed 38 American soldiers and wounding 172 in 1967. There was a total blackout of that event in the American media. Israel bombed and torpedoed an American ship, the US Liberty, stationed near the Gaza strip. The ship was bombed most unprepared and when it was not expecting an attack from an ally, Israel, so it remained completely defenseless. [note]Jason Maoz, ‘Who Was The First Genuinely Pro-Israel U.S. President?’, Jewish Press, Aug 30, 2017, http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/who-was-the-first-genuinely-pro-israel-u-s-president/2017/08/30/[/note] Even Secretary of State Dean Rusk and heads of all the intelligence agencies have called the attack deliberate—but the Johnson administration and the Congress, under the President’s heavy influence, remained unmoved and unconcerned. The attitude was, “We don’t care that Americans were deliberately killed. We will not embarrass Israel.” [note]Ennes Jr., James M., USS Liberty: 38 Years and Counting, https://www.wrmea.org/2005-may-june/special-report-uss-liberty-38-years-and-counting.html[/note] This was kept hidden from the American public with the cooperation of the Capitol Hill, the White House, and the media betraying the trust of the American people. This kind of preposterous and reprehensible episode took place as early as in 1967, and this trend continues still today. The American policymakers in order to serve their own interests by serving Israeli interest would stab the American public in the back, but the public would not know about it.

Israel’s decisive victory at the 1967 war was a huge PR achievement. The victory convinced many Jews around the world but especially the American Jewry, not yet pro-Israeli, to become committed pro-Israeli. Israel’s victory ignited the spirit of Jewry. Taking the fullest advantage of the situation, the pro-Israeli groups became relentless and exhaustive in mobilizing support for Israel in the West in general and in American in particular. This was done to convince the American public that Israel, and not the Arab countries, is the most reliable ally that America could count on in a difficult region. The Arab countries became expendable. With this PR achievement, the pro-Israeli groups in the West became relentless to convince the Western public and the policy-makers to continue to give Israel unconditional political support and ENORMOUS military aid. In return, Israel would look after the interests of the West in the oil-rich Middle East region.

However, the President and the policy-makers should have seen the writing on the wall. Going back a little in the past the Zionist leaders also promised the same thing to Britain at the turn of the twentieth century when Britain still was a mighty colonial power in which ‘the Sun never set.” Britain got the bait. Both the British interest and the Zionist interest appeared to coincide. Wealthy Zionist leaders like the Rothschild gave huge financial aid to Britain to defeat and dissolve the Ottoman Empire, that had controlled Palestine; thereafter, for Britain to take control of the region to facilitate massive Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe and other places in the 1920s and 30s and to help the immigrants to settle there. The hidden agenda was to help create a foothold and then progress with establishing a Jewish state that would drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land. That was not the British plan, however. When later British officials and leaders realized this grand plan and the atrocities and persecution of the indigenous Arab people that would come along with the agenda, they went against establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The Belfour Declaration of 1917 did not promise Jews a Jewish state but a homeland in Palestine to live peacefully with the Arab neighbors.

The Zionists by that time, with the training and military aid from the British army in Palestine, on the pretext of self-defense, became very strong and belligerent against the Palestinians. When the British army was protecting the Palestinians from the Zionist brutality, the Zionists started to kill British officers stationed in Palestine, killed Lord Moyne, the British minister, and finally blew up the British headquarter in Jerusalem the King David Hotel in 1946 killing 91 people. Britain decided to leave Palestine handing over power to the UN, then a weak and newly formed organization.

After the British left Palestine in 1946, the Zionists had their field day. Violence against the Arabs increased to drive them out of their homes, villages, and their forefathers’ land. Soon after the UN resolution 181 to partition Palestine was declared on Nov 29, 1947, between December 1947 and January 1949, within 13 months the Zionists perpetrated 31massacres and uprooting operations, half of the population of Palestine were driven out, half of the villages of Palestine were destroyed, emptying and demolishing 11 out of 12 towns so that there is no sign left of the people left. This is to rename the places, build new infrastructures, uproot the old graveyards to erect new buildings, create new Jewish neighborhoods, all to rewrite history by wiping out all traces of the existence of the people who lived there for centuries. [note]Ilan Pappe, The Ten Myths about Israel, Verso, London, 2017, p. 150[/note]

During a short period of time called Nakba or catastrophe, more than 750,000 Palestinians were driven out from their homeland to the refugee camps in the neighboring countries. A list of massacres perpetrated by the Zionist terrorist groups before Israel was created in 1948 and since then by the Zionist state itself including many massacres and killings, torture, slow poisoning including the Sabra and Shatila in 1982, Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002, so on so forth. Ilan Pappe, a famous Jewish historian, laments in this book: “There has never been an end to Israel’s killing of Palestinians.’ [note]Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, London, 2006, p.258[/note]. The rest is history.

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This is briefly the story of the Zionists’ promising to protect British interests in the Middle East where oil was just discovered. Why then American leaders could think that Israel would keep the same promise to America?  As time progressed the trend of the disservice to the new benefactor started to unravel. America has lost its trust and confidence in the world as an honest broker for peace. America has earned distrust and abhorrence — for supporting Israeli occupation and ‘incremental genocide’ as Ilan Pappe among others believes to be so, against the Palestinian people — from the international community. Severe resistance groups emerged in many places in the world against any American involvement.  The defeat and disgrace both in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused by such distrust and dislike and the fierce resistance as a result. What is the price for such a counterproductive state of America for supporting Israel’s heinous and brutal crimes against humanity? Who except the American people pays for such costly policies to satisfy Israel? Tens of trillions of dollars of American taxpayers money have been wasted to manage the Afghanistan invasion and turmoil, same for Iraq, and then to conduct the war on terror, a military-focused agenda for almost two decades, brutal and ruthless military confrontations took place, that in turn aggravated the situations and failed to bring about any long-term solution.  All these to keep Israel happy. American people that under heavy smokescreens and bluffs, fail to see the real face of Israel and supported the state-sponsored atrocities against defenseless people.

America is behaving like a giant elephant, totally sick and incapacitated by a virus inside, kicked and nailed to the ground by a tiny actor outside, taking orders even knowing that carrying out the orders would be self-destructive. The Capitol Hill is full of McCarthies now. 9/11 is the fate they would bring for America, no better, and they do not care as long as they care only about staying in power. The Jewish money, their heavy participation in an election process, and above all the manipulation, threats, and enticement, of the powerful pro-Israeli groups and networks keep the less-ethical politicians in power for a long time. Those who open their mouth in response to the dictate of conscience are sent home emptyhanded or to a jail on laughable charges.

Even though holding on to the occupation and building settlements in the occupied territories are all a flagrant violation of the international law and it is a bigger violation of the moral and humanitarian principles on which America was founded 240 years ago, the policymakers are unconditionally carrying out orders for a “friend”. If Israel is a “friend” America does not need an enemy anymore. For Israel, America has become the worst hypocrite in the world in history. When an American leader or a writer or a think tank or  a member of a civil society talk about democratic values and justice, countless people in the world think these talks are “meaningless.” They all look like hypocrites supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine for seven long decades. How can they possibly talk about human rights and democratic values? This is the true defeat Israel has brought about for America. In supporting Israel America has lost its moral voice and the trust the nation gained under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Neither of them endorsed establihsing Israel, a Zionist state, in Palestine driving half of the inhabitants out of the land that belongs to the Palestinians.

It is important to note that leaders prior to Lyndon Johnson all took a stand against Israel when the newly created tiny state in the Middle East went too far. In the fall of 1953, Eisenhower briefly suspended military aid to Israel after it violated the terms of a U.N.-brokered armistice agreement with Syria by venturing into a demilitarized zone to try to divert the waters of the Jordan River. After the mass murder of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at Qibya, all aid to Israel was halted. Then 1956 Eisenhower stopped the Israeli invasion of Suez Canal of Egypt and commanded to withdraw. Israel did. [note](Doug Rossinow, The dark roots of AIPAC, ‘America’s Pro-Israel Lobby’ The group was formed to spin positive PR after Israeli atrocities. March 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/03/06/the-dark-roots-of-aipac-americas-pro-israel-lobby/?utm_term=.c4590cb3406e )[/note]

[ Put the cursor on the reference number to view the reference, see the whole list of references at the end of the letter under “End Notes.” ]

After Kennedy came to power he refused to give Israel massive military aid, kept a close watch on the possible secret nuclear proliferation by demanding frequent inspections that Israeli leader hated, he also tried to maintain a good relationship with the Arab countries. When Kennedy started to put pressures on Israel to take back at least a significant size of 1948  refugees back,  Prime Minister Ben-Gurion started to panic. [note]Jason Maoz, ‘Who Was The First Genuinely Pro-Israel U.S. President?’, Jewish Press, Aug 30, 2017, http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/who-was-the-first-genuinely-pro-israel-u-s-president/2017/08/30/[/note] Kennedy was murdered soon after.

The endless violence and bloodshed that a Zionist state in Palestine would cause were predicted by the King-Crane Commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919. After surveying 36 towns and important locations in Palestine and other places of the Middle East, the Commission strongly opposed the creation of a Zionist state, Israel in Palestine, a land considered to be sacred by the followers of all three major religions. The Commission report warned the world that a Zionist state would pursue policies towards expulsion of the Arabs, wars to occupy other countries and expansion that would cause turmoil and bloodshed in the region indefinitely. A Zionist state, once created, would try to manipulate other powers to support its expansion and domination agenda in the entire region and beyond.  The reported vehemently opposed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The world has been a witness to these predictions ever since Israel was created in 1948. After President Wilson fell ill and became incapacitated, unable to attend the final phase of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the report under the heavy pressures from the Zionist leaders kept hidden from the world for the next 50 years.  30

This was echoed by a Jewish American thinker and lawyer, Alfred M. Lilienthal, who wrote a book: “What Price Israel?” in 1953 and the later edition is named “The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace?”31 In the book he warned that Israel’s brutal and cruel agenda of expulsion, occupation, and oppression would be a tremendous disservice to Judaism, to the Jewish cause, and most of all to America, the superpower that helped bring Israel into existence and helped it to become what it is today: the most powerful state in the region. A prominent Jewish Israeli journalist says “Israel’s military occupation is one of the most brutal, cruel, tyranny in the world.” [note]Gideon Levy Lecture at Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQS-_9K5-Dk&t=1158s[/note]

It is extremely important to note many iconic figures like Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, President Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR], Geroge Marshall [then the Secretary of State], were all dead against the creation of a Jewish state that would occupy Palestine and might go for ethnic cleansing. It is also important to note that Jews like Albert Einstein and Nahum Goldman were for the security and safety of the Jewish people but not without respecting the rights and dignity of the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular.  They promoted maintaining a good relationship with the Arabs including the Palestinians.

A 22-year veteran congressman, Paul Findley’s comment on the book is extremely pertinent for the world to note, he wrote: “If policy-makers in Washington had heeded Lilienthal’s warning, Jews and Arabs would have lived happily together all these years, and many thousands of people in the Middle East would have been spared violent deaths. Moreover, I believe that 9/11 would never have occurred.” 32

These assertions are substantiated and exposed by meticulous works of courageous Jewish scholars/professors/ journalists like Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Gideon Levy, and others. More scholars and thinkers, Jews and non-Jews, would have come forward exposing Israel’s agenda, however, because of the fear of painful reprisals from the pro-Israeli groups they are often fearful and compelled to keep quiet.

Israel could have agreed to the two-state solution a long time ago from the point of strength and from the point of vision and a sense of justice. The world would have on the Israeli side appreciating its sense of justice and tolerance.  A Palestinian state with the cooperation from Israel and the West could have learned to live in peace with Israel and with time even could have left behind the past and became peaceful partners and promoters of peace and prosperity to help create a stable, democratic, progressive region. A win-win state of affairs was always within reach if Israel would go for it. History is a testament to the fact once an agreeable option is in place in which there are enough confidence and trust, especially due to the genuine involvement of a world power and/or with the international community, even intractable enemies can become partners in governance or allies. This option was always there for Israel to grab as the international community was ever so ready to get involved and give help.

Unfortunately, Israel has not given any consideration for peace and justice. Israel used each and every peace initiative since the 1967 war victories as opportunities to buy time to promote its expansion and occupation agenda: after the 1978 Camp David Peace Accord, after the Oslo Accord, after the Road Map, in fact after each and every peace process started even by the United States of America, the country to which Israel should be indebted for its existence and success, Israel started to go for more settlements in the occupied area. As Gideon Levy repeatedly mentioned in many of his writings and speeches that irrespective of who is in power in Israel, not a single regime since 1948 has ever been interested to end occupation and subjugation. The clearest evidence is that each and every Israeli administration continued to build settlements in the occupied area since the 1967 war. Finally, the world community came to realize that Israel has had never been interested in peace. The only agenda Israel is interested: expansion and “brutal occupation.”

If an American president ever wanted he could have stopped Israeli agenda of occupation and crimes against humanity. Since Johnson each president, in order to stay in power and leave a good legacy behind and to help his political party, betrayed his conscience and his nation. [Levy lecture at WRMEA] The American public needs to think now to place a man of conscience, a principled person, in that position that would help bring back America’s honor.