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Analyzing the Roots of Middle East Turmoil; A history of perfidy and betrayal in the Mideast gives insight into the motivations behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. UNITED STATES: Presidents Bush and Clinton said that "we are a target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world." Nonsense! People in Canada enjoy democracy, freedom, and human rights. So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian, or Swedish?" Robert Bowman, bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach FL, who marched in protest of Israeli attacks in Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns. He flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. Essentially, from the end of World War I to World War II, the empires of Britain, France, and Italy, controlled Arab territories. Since then, the United States has been the controlling imperial power in the Middle East. Prior to World War I, Arab territories were part of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan had taken the title of Khalif-al-Islam, or supreme religious leader of Moslems everywhere. When Turkey joined Germany in the war, the Sultan sent a summons to Sherif Hussein of Mecca, great-grandfather of the present King of Jordan, to declare a Jihad, or holy war, against the Allies. The British promised to support Arab independence, if Hussein revolted instead. There is a moment in the film Lawrence of Arabia when Peter O'Toole, clad in Arab clothes not unlike Osama bin Laden, asks General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) to confirm that he can promise Sherif Hussein independence in return for Arab support in destroying the Turkish army. For just a brief, devastating moment, Hawkins hesitates; then his face becomes all smiling benevolence: "Of course!" he says. Eventually shamed by what happened to British honor, Lawrence returned his medals to the British government. I have held in my hand the long-secret document for the inner group (USA, Britain, France, Italy) at the Paris Peace Conference that clearly recognizes that the Arabs had been promised their independence in 1915, including Palestine! It is marked "SECRET This Document is the property of His Britannic Majesty's Government." Kept secret, because in 1917 the British government--through international bankers--offered a national home for Jews in Palestine, at the expense of the land and future of the Palestinians. This promissory note to [UK] Lord Rothschild for the Zionist Federation, the Balfour Declaration, partly drafted by Associate Justice of the [US] Supreme Court Louis Brandeis, and underwritten by the Congress of the United States of America, has cost and continues to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars a year. The intervention has caused suffering to millions of people, and death to many, and its consequences are major influences on domestic and international affairs. Brandeis, who joined the Court in 1916, was actually nominated by trial attorney Louis Untermeyer, in return for his pre-1916-election purchase and suppression of Wilson's passionate letters to Mary Allen Peck, with whom Wilson had committed adultery. Similarly, Lloyd George was beholden to a barrister, Rufus Isaacs, by whom he was implicated in insider trading in Marconi shares. When Isaacs was offered and accepted the post of Lord Chief Justice less than six months later, Rudyard Kipling wrote Gehazi, since described as 'one of the greatest hate poems ever written.' Instead of jail, within the shortest time ever, Isaacs was made a baron, a viscount, an earl, and Marquess of Reading. The noted Jewish author Arthur Koestler wrote that in the perfidious correspondence "one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third." More than that, the land was still part of the empire of a fourth, namely Turkey. Lloyd George had only headed the Government since December 1916, when his predecessor Asquith was ousted by a coup de main. George had been legal counsel for the Zionists, and while Minister of Munitions, had assured Chaim Weizmann, future president of Israel, that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine." George's choice as his Foreign Secretary was Arthur Balfour, already known for his Zionist sympathies. After World War I, Prime Minister Lloyd George wrote in his Memoirs of the Peace Conference, where, as planned years before, the Zionists were strongly represented, that there was competition with Germany for Jewish support: "There is no better proof of the value of the Balfour Declaration as a military move than the fact that Germany entered into negotiations with Turkey in an endeavor to provide an alternative scheme which would appeal to Zionists. A German-Jewish Society, the V. J. O. D., was formed, and in January 1918, Talaat, the Turkish Grand Vizier, at the instigation of the Germans, gave vague promises of legislation by means of which "all justifiable wishes of the Jews in Palestine would be able to meet their fulfillment." "Another most cogent reason for the adoption by the Allies of the policy of the Declaration lay in the state of Russia herself. Russian Jews had been secretly active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first; they had become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society, later recognized as the Revolution. It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente. "It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry" (p. 726). Twenty years later, in a speech given in the context of continuing violence between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, David Lloyd George affirmed in the Commons on 19 June 1936, his justification for the Balfour Declaration in support of British interests. […] "It was at one of the darkest periods of the War that Mr Balfour first prepared his Declaration. At that time the French Army had mutinied; the Italian Army was on the verge of collapse; America had hardly started preparing in earnest. There was nothing left but Britain confronting the most powerful military combination that the world had ever seen. It was very important for us to seek every legitimate help that we could get. The Government came to the conclusion, from information received from every part of the world, that it was very vital that we should have the sympathies of the Jewish community. […] Under those conditions and with the advice they received, the Government decided that it was desirable for us to secure the sympathy and cooperation of that most remarkable community, the Jews, throughout the world." Winston Churchill said: "The Balfour Declaration must, therefore, not be regarded as a promise given from sentimental motives; it was a practical measure taken in the interests of a common cause at a moment when that cause could afford to neglect no factor of moral or material assistance." Speaking in the House of Commons on 4 July 1922, Winston Churchill asked rhetorically, "Are we to keep our pledge to the Zionists made in 1917? Pledges and promises were made during the war, and they were made, not only on the merits, though I think the merits are considerable. They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the war. It was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a definite palpable advantage. I was not responsible at that time for the giving of those pledges, nor for the conduct of the war of which they were, when given, an integral part. But like other members I supported the policy of the War Cabinet. Like other members, I accepted and was proud to accept a share in those great transactions, which left us with terrible losses, with formidable obligations, but nevertheless with unchallengeable victory." As for Britain, Oxford historian Elizabeth Monroe's study, Britain's Moment in the Middle East (Chatto & Windus, 1963, p.43) concludes, "Measured by British interests alone, the Balfour Declaration was one of the greatest mistakes in our imperial history." Sir Arnold Toynbee, historian and a delegate to the (1919) Paris Peace Conference, wrote in his foreword to The Palestine Diary (New World Press) that there are Palestinian refugees because "Jewish immigration was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power…The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the World, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the World's peace. Britain's guilt is not diminished by the humiliating fact that she is now impotent to redress the wrong that has been done." William Yale, who was special agent of the State Dept. in the Near East in World War I, told me on 12th May 1970 that Woodrow Wilson had asked him in 1919 to interview persons who might be influential to the future of the area. He interviewed General Allenby, Chaim Weizmann and others. Yale asked Weizmann what he would do if the British did not support the Balfour Declaration for the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Yale said, "Weizmann pounded his fist on the table and the teacups jumped. 'If they don't,' he said, 'we'll smash the British Empire like we smashed the Russian Empire." For some Germans and others following World War I, the weight given the Balfour Declaration by British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and other powerful figures, in securing allegedly critical Jewish support resulting in the Allied victory, lent credence from the highest authorities to anti-Jewish feeling. Is this a way of understanding subsequent German susceptibility to discrimination against Jews following the Great War? The integrating relationship between German Jews and non-Jews was disrupted, a relationship that had been so firm that many German Jews could hardly accept that it had been jeopardized. President Wilson was no better than the British imperialists, for all the advertising of self-determination of peoples as an American value. A commission, headed by his appointees, King and Crane, was sent to elucidate the state of opinion in the area. They sent a telegram to the President on 20 June 1919, warning "There was a deep belief in American peace declarations 'as in those of the British and French Governments of 9 November 1918 on right of people to self-determination." The Commission's Report stated "There was hostility to French control of Syria, and "The feeling against the Zionist program was not confined to Palestine but was shared very generally throughout the area." Permission was not given for the printing of extracts of the Report until after the U. S. Congress had confirmed the Balfour Declaration, where the Resolution was introduced by Mr. Hamilton Fish of New York, and the League of Nations had approved a proposed British Mandate for Palestine. Thus, in the one area of the Near/Middle East where the wishes for self-determination of the inhabitants had been determined, Wilson suppressed the information. Wilson was--in the words of his Secretary of War Lindley Garrison--a man of high ideals and no principles. The resolution adopted by the United States Congress: on June 30, 1922 was the following: Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favours the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christians and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected. Why have American presidents and the United States Congress dishonored the American people by not keeping that pledge to the "Christians and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine"? In area wars resulting from the British pledge and its implementation, and American support, millions of the Palestinians' neighbors in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, even Saudi Arabia, have been involved. Can one deny righteous anger - even hatred - of descendants who learn the truth? Did the men who piloted those planes on September 11, 2001 know? Public ignorance in Europe and America of these facts, and many more supporting them, allows Britons and Americans to be free from guilt for the enormity of crimes resulting from the perfidy, the breach of faith of their representatives Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson, and those who followed them. The German people have been required to acknowledge, atone and pay for the sins of some of their fathers "unto the third and fourth generation." Should the British, American and Jewish people acknowledge, atone and pay for the deaths, dispossession and exile of millions of Palestinians? (See footnote) When Britain withdrew its forces from Palestine in response to Jewish terrorism, Field Marshall Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, wrote, "The result of being driven out of Palestine was to weaken our overall strategic position in the Middle East, and that of the Western world generally in the struggle between East and West." At the beginning of the 20th century millions of people in the Near and Middle East from Lebanon to Afghanistan believed that an Englishman's word was his bond and that the States of America were neutral in Near and Middle Eastern matters. A century later, millions there who know the facts believe the USA is their enemy - even a Great Satan - and Britain has become its running dog with Blair barking "bin Laden!" Too much history? The peoples of the Middle East live it. The Economist, Oct. 15, 2001 edition about the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, noting "the day a British mandate came into force in Palestine, over the heads of unyielding Arab opposition," quoted from a dispatch from Jerusalem to London's The Times of 1922. "The Arabs declared a day of mourning throughout the city and the shops were closed as a protest against today's formal proclamation of the Mandate, but no Jews were molested." The day was September 11. Lawrence of Arabia would understand US911. (Footnote. "Let us not forget that the founders of modern, international terrorism were the Zionist revisionists led by Jabotinsky, who inspired Menchem Begin, leader of the Irgun Zwei Leumi, and Yitzhak Shamir's leader of the Stern Gang (Lehi). Have we forgotten the huge bomb these people left in the basement of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem? "Have we forgotten the massacre at Deir Yassein and numerous other similar act of extermination which were designed to terrorize the Palestinian people and send them fleeing for their lives away from their land? Have we forgotten the slow hanging with piano wire of the kidnapped British Army sergeants Mervyn Paice and Clifford Martin in the eucalyptus groves of Netanya? (Their bodies were also booby-trapped with explosives." -- Bamford, James. Excerpts from Body of Secrets, in The Guardian, Sept 8, 2001.) ©2002 * A New Enlightment Feature; [? Enlightenment ] This the second of a series of three on Our War and Terrorism Dr. John is a leading foreign affairs expert, and diplomatic historian. He is the author of The Palestine Diary: British, American and United Nations Intervention 1914-1948. In his foreword, Arnold Toynbee, the outstanding historian of the 20th century, wrote, "I hope this book will be widely read in the United States, and this by Jewish and non-Jewish Americans. If the American Government were constrained by American public opinion to take a non-partisan line in Palestine, the situation in Palestine might quickly change for the better." John K. Cooley, Middle East Bureau, The Christian Science Monitor, wrote, "It is a most illuminating and useful book. It should be in universities and libraries, and especially in the hands of historians, throughout the world." ICHEE, INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HUMAN ECOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, www.ichee.org , P.O. Box 7024, New York, NY 10128-0010 "Of all the tyrannies on human kind The worst is that which persecutes the mind." -- Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man, Epistle II, line 239. [Emphasis added] [Information received on 20 Jan 04] [Jan. 7, 14, 2002] |
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AUSTRALIA: IT'S a colourful book that sits on a shelf in the country's largest Islamic bookshop deep in the southwestern suburbs of Sydney.
But unlike much of the texts surrounding it, Jihad and Jurisprudence is considered by moderate Muslims to pose a danger to society. Inside, Western laws are described as null and void and all Muslims are called to participate in violent jihad, or holy war, in "infidel lands". Its author Abu Qatada is the suspected leader of al-Qa'ida in Europe and is under arrest in Britain. Joining a jihad group is, he states, "not a seasonal choice" but a divine order. "Infidel Christians and Jews who live on Muslim lands can be considered protected people, but those who are not in Muslim lands can have no protection and cannot be trusted; they are war infidels." The Arabic-language book was bought by The Weekend Australian from The Islamic Bookstore, in Sydney's Lakemba. It is evidence of what moderate Muslims fear is the spread of radicalising books and pamphlets that could serve as a convincing rationale for terrorism among younger impressionable members of the Australian Muslim community. Among those concerned are the country's most senior Islamic leader, Sheikh Taj Din Al Hilaly, and Islamic scholar Mohsen Labban. Both warn this literature could lead to Muslims isolating themselves from mainstream society and create a situation where radical ideas can be incubated. "They (fundamentalists) choose certain translations which have this tendency towards dogmatic and violent attitudes as the meaning of verses (from the Koran)," Mr Labban says. "What we are talking about is shaping the mind. A mind that makes you dogmatic, superior and intolerant towards everyone else. "This leads to no tolerance for integration or assimilation or acceptance, and perhaps antagonism towards the rest of society." Sheikh Hilaly himself is an unwilling recipient of this kind of literature, including the works of the 18th century founder of the fundamentalist Wahabi form of Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab. But some time ago he made a firm decision about how to deal with the caches of booklets and pamphlets that turn up unsolicited every few months on the doorstop of Lakemba Mosque, the most prominent place of worship for Australia's 280,000 Muslims. So seriously does he take the literature's ability to influence people, he makes trips to the rubbish tip to dispose of it. In an interview with The Weekend Australian several months ago, Sheikh Hilaly refused to reveal who was behind the material - which is understood to be distributed unsolicited to other mosques. Most of the literature raising concern is Wahabi, the pure form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. Based on a strict interpretation of the Koran, Wahabism has developed a negative reputation worldwide because its adherents include Osama bin Laden and his followers as well as Afghanistan's ousted Taliban. Wahabis believe laws laid down in the Koran, termed Sharia law, should be the way society is governed. Other moderate Muslims say official groups are spreading this literature, rather than a few individuals returning from the Middle East with books in their suitcase. But the moderates are reluctant to name these groups publicly, fearful of dividing the Muslim community and attracting unwanted attention. www.the australian .com.au/ common/ story_ page/0, 5744, 8541354% 255E601, 00.html |
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The Weekend Australian understands responsibility for spreading Wahabi literature worldwide rests with the Muslim World League and its affiliate the International Islamic Relief Organisation, both registered in Australia. They are Saudi government-controlled and have both been implicated in funnelling money to al-Qa'ida. The US Central Intelligence Agency says the IIRO funded six militant training camps in Afghanistan. The MWL is run out of an apartment in Melbourne's northern suburb of Preston. Director Mohamed Ahmed says about four shipping containers of literature arrive every year from Saudi Arabia for distribution in Australia, but says the material is never extremist -- merely copies of the Koran and other booklets to aid sheikhs and imams. Shafiq Rahman Abdullah Khan, who is listed on registration documents as IIRO director, says he has no knowledge of the organisation. The Australian Government has expressed its concerns to Saudi officials about the distribution of literature as well as money flowing from Saudi Arabia to schools, mosques and Islamic centres in Australia. But it remains a delicate area for the Government. Religious freedom is a fundamental right in any democracy. And the importation and dissemination of fundamentalist doctrine is therefore legal. However, Wahabism remains a potent label that some Muslims use against their rivals to try to damage their reputation. "It's a derogatory term that some people use to describe Muslims they don't agree with," says Amir Butler, chair of the Melbourne-based Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee. Such name-calling is expected to surface in coming months as Lakemba Mosque braces for management committee elections in June. Observers expect a power struggle between a coalition of young firebrand sheikhs, including Sheikh Shady el-Souleiman whose impassioned sermons can be heard at the United Muslim Association in Lakemba, and Sheikh Feiz Mohamad, who teaches at the nearby Global Islamic Youth Centre. They are expected to challenge the older generation who support Sheikh Hilaly, a leading moderate. "There is no doubt we would like to see him out of there," one member of the coalition says of Sheikh Hilaly. Jihad and Jurisprudence has a Wahabi rationale. Qatada rejects democracy, elections and parliaments. According to Wahabism, they contradict Islam because God made laws, not man. Wahabi followers in Australia exist on the fringes of the peaceful mainstream Muslim community. "Wahabism has been in Australia for a long, long time, they have their own centres, they have their own organisations, they just go about their business," says Mr Butler. "If they are distributing their literature, well good luck to them, but they don't have a monopoly on literature. Other communities spread their literature as well. If you go to a Turkish mosque, you won't find Wahabi literature there. "And even if it is widely distributed and read, it doesn't mean that they become Wahabis or that they even agree with it." Qatada's book clearly differs. The Jordanian-born cleric says violent jihad should occur everywhere and all Muslims are obliged to participate to remove the infidels. "Muslims, there is no substitute for fire, no substitute for arms, no substitute for blood," he exhorts. The Weekend Australian, www.the australian .com.au/ common/ story_ page/0, 5744, 8541354% 255E601, 00.html , By Trudy Harris and Vanessa Walker, pages 1 and 2, January 31 - February 1, 2004 |
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SYDNEY: Australia's Muslim leader Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali's description of the September 11 terrorist attacks as God's work against oppressors was appalling, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday. Mr Downer said he had read a transcript provided by the Australian Embassy in Beirut of a sermon the Mufti of Australia had given in Lebanon earlier this month. [sic; presumably February is meant.] "His support for the events of September 11, which is pretty manifest from his remarks and, secondly his support for the suicide-homicide bombers against Israeli civilians -- I think these are appalling comments to make," Mr Downer told the Nine network. "For an Australian to go overseas and make these sorts of comments is appalling, it's provocative. "It doesn't reflect the views of Muslims here in Australia." [sic] A spokesman for the Sydney-based Mufti fiercely denied the claims, saying the Mufti did not, and never would, support terrorism or suicide bombings. Spokesman Keysar Trad said the Mufti had taken bits from poetry, which he incorporated into his sermon, and his other comments had been misinterpreted. The September 11 reference was aimed at highlighting that evil could have a very long reach to everywhere. His statement that September 11 was God's work against oppressors meant people could do these things when they felt oppressed. "He's highlighting the need for justice in the world, he's highlighting the need for people to actually take a step back and think before they do anything," Mr Trad said. "I believe the context has been lost in the translation … he's not praising it by any means, he's really condemning these atrocities." He said there was not one line within the sermon that called for arms to be raised against another country. |
