A forgery between reality and the media

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban

The British daily, The Guardian, headlined its first page on March 24, 2010 with “Britain expels Mossad agent over forged passport plot,” with the subtitle: “Police investigation finds Israel forged documents used by Dubai hit squad”.  The main headline in the International Herald Tribune was in the same spirit: “Britain Expels Israeli Diplomat over Fake Passports”. 

The Western reader, who is not acquainted with the details of what is going on in the Middle East, understands from this that there is only a ‘forgery crisis’.  The Dubai hit squad is an Israeli government terrorist group which flew to Dubai through a number of European countries in order to assassinate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.  Al-Mabhouh is a Palestinian who was expelled with his family by Israeli official terrorism in 1948, and for over sixty years they have been subjected to all kinds of terrorism, deprivation and blockade in Gaza, and was assassinated because he declared resistance against a hateful racist occupation that robbed people of their livelihood and dignity and desecrated their holy places.  That is why the Israeli prime minister signed the decision to assassinate him.

The Wall Street Journal headlined “U.K. ousts Israel official over passports”.  The question remains: is the so called ‘crisis’ a forgery crisis or a political and moral one when ‘civilized’ Western governments give cover to assassination and terrorist operations endorsed by the highest echelons in a government which behaves as if it were above international legitimacy and law?  Or is it the case that the leniency of the official Arab position towards Israel and its allies made Arab blood so cheap that the West does not care if any Arab is killed?  Or is it the case that violating Western rules in forging a passport is more serious than killing an Arab person with the only sin of trying to live a free and dignified life in Palestine, the land of his fathers and grandfathers?

25 professional killers converged from European capitals to assassinate a person fighting for freedom, justice and human rights, and struggling against injustice, racism and occupation.  Even the measure taken regarding the passport forgery was minimal.  The diplomat who forged the passport was removed, not expelled, and will be replaced of course by another expert in forging passports.  No applications for sanctions were made to the Security Council, as would have happened if an Arab country were involved in such terrorist acts.  No one asked for bringing Israel to account for the terrorist acts it is committing in broad daylight and in full sight of the ‘civilized’ world.  They call for Security Council resolutions and impose sanctions on countries, they believe, intend to possess nuclear weapons of which Israel possesses hundreds.  Israeli nuclear scientist Mordakhai Fanono spent years of prison, torture and house arrest for warning the world of the Israeli Dimona nuclear reactor.

But the free world does not want to hear anything because it fears AIPAC and its sisters.  The world at least heard of Mabhouh’s assassination in Dubai, thanks to Dubai police, but hundreds of Palestinians are assassinated daily in their villages and cities and under torture in Israeli jails without anyone hearing about them.

For instance, on Monday, March 22, Israeli occupation troops in cold blood killed the two young Palestinians Mohammad Faisal Qawariq and Salah Mohammad Qawariq who were carrying their agricultural tools and going to their land east of the village of Orta in the West Bank.  On the same day, seventeen year old Said Qadous died of wounds he sustained the day before when Israeli soldiers shot him in the village of Araq Burein south of Nablus.  They also killed the sixteen year old Mohammad Qadous in the same village.

Yet, when the Quartet, or any other body, comment on the Palestinian situation, they start it with “the Palestinians and the Israelis should …” as if the Palestinians have the weapons and the money and enjoy the international understanding and support which the Israelis enjoy in the United States and the West in general.  If the Western world claims to be concerned about the ‘security of Israel’ which kills the Palestinians, expels them and destroys their homes, what about the Palestinians.  They are the ones who need security, protection, justice and dignity not the Israelis who are armed to their teeth and who are touring the world with fake passports to commit crimes.

In a discussion in Newsweek on February 22, under the headline “Reassessing America’s special relationship with Israel,” Roger Cohen says: “The U.S. should step back from its special relationship with Israel”.  “What makes America's relationship with Israel special is its uncritical nature, even when U.S. interests are being hurt, and the huge amounts of money given to Israel in aid.  During the past decade, the U.S. paid Israel over $ 60 billion ... to what end is this money being used… This enterprise has grown the number of settlers in the West Bank from about 140,000 in 1996, to about 300,000 today. If you add the roughly 150,000 Israeli's in East Jerusalem, you get to a number of 450,000 Israelis beyond the 1967 border... Imagine, Israelis in their fast cars, Blackberry-ing away, booming down these super highways, while Palestinians on their donkey carts make their way on dirt tracks, if they can get there, to their orchards”.

When the United States classified Palestinian resistance as terrorism, it prevented even donations to schools, hospitals and child medicine under the pretext that this money is used to support terrorism.  So, an American cannot donate money to save the life of children who fall victims to Israeli phosphoric bombs under the pretext of “drying the sources of terrorism”.  While the truth is that the United States, with the sixty billion dollars in official aid, contributes to blockading, starving and suppressing millions of unarmed civilian Palestinians in order to subjugate them to the racist Zionist apartheid.

As to the fact that Israel defies international will and continues to build settlements, the remedy is not in White House discussions, but in taking official American and international measures in order to dry funding for these settlements.

Forging passports is a simple process compared with forging ethnic cleansing in Palestine to which the West has been contributing for a century as a result of dealing with the government of Israel as a government above international legitimacy and human rights.  Until that happens, there is no use pretending to put pressure and bring to account.  This game has been exposed, the players are well known, and their real contribution to the continuation of this official Israeli terrorist arrogance is no longer a secret.