Israel?s border massacre and human rights hypocrisy
17 May 2011
The Obama administration?s reaction to Israel?s massacre Sunday of
unarmed Palestinian protesters on its borders underscores the hypocrisy
of those ascribing ?humanitarian? motives to Washington?s predatory
policy in the region.

Israeli troops opened fire with live ammunition and, in one case, tank
fire on Palestinians who demonstrated on Israel?s borders with Syria,
Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Tens of thousands joined in the
protests, which were called to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the
Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), the term used by the Palestinians for
Israel?s declaration of independence and the wholesale ethnic cleansing
that drove three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homes in
1948.

In the intervening years, the population of Palestinian refugees and
internally displaced persons has grown to 7.1 million people living
without rights or citizenship in neighboring Arab countries, under
Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, or as worse than second-
class citizens in Israel itself.

The demonstrators were directly asserting the ?right of return? to
their homes and lands. This a right that Israel, backed by Washington,
has categorically ruled out, and that the bourgeois nationalist
leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has made
clear it is more than willing to bargain away.

On Sunday, Israeli troops opened fire at the border fence near Maroun
al-Ras in Lebanon, killing 10 Palestinian refugees and wounding another
80. Five more Palestinians were killed and at least 30 injured in the
Syrian border village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights.

Another Palestinian was killed and at least 86 civilians wounded when
Israeli troops opened fire with small arms and tanks on a border
protest in Beit Hannon in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Police
and troops also attacked protests in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. In
all, 16 people were killed and over 400 wounded, some of them
critically.

Asked for President Barack Obama?s response to this savage repression,
chief White House spokesman Jay Carney mouthed a pro forma declaration
of ?regret? for the ?loss of life? and then issued a blanket defense of
Israel?s killing spree.

?Israel, like all countries, has the right to prevent unauthorized
crossings at its borders,? said Carney. ?Its neighbors have a
responsibility to prevent such activity.?

Any sentence containing the words ?Israel, like all countries? and
?borders? is by definition a lie. Unlike other countries, Israel?s
borders are constantly shifting as a result of military aggression, on
the one hand, and the malignant spread of Zionist settlements on the
other. Those who died on Sunday were, in any case, inside Lebanon,
Syria, the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

Carney went on to place the principal blame for Sunday?s bloodletting
not on the Israeli government or military, but rather on Syria.

?We?re also strongly opposed to the Syrian government?s involvement in
inciting yesterday?s protests in the Golan Heights,? he said, adding,
?such behavior is unacceptable and does not serve as a distraction from
the Syrian government?s ongoing repression of demonstrators in its own
country.?

This line of reasoning echoes the filthy rationalizations made by the
Israeli government itself for the killing and wounding of unarmed
protestors, the majority of whom died on the Lebanese border, not the
Syrian.

Whether the government of Bashar al-Assad facilitated the passage of
Palestinian refugees through the militarized Golan Heights border area
to divert attention from its own bloody crackdown on internal
opposition is hardly the decisive issue in Sunday?s events.

The heroism and determination shown by young Palestinians braving
tanks and gunfire to demand their rights is of a piece with the recent
revolutionary upheavals by workers and youth in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain
and elsewhere in the Arab world. In confronting the Israeli state, they
were acting equally in defiance of all the Arab bourgeois regimes that
have repeatedly repressed and betrayed the Palestinians.

In Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese troops also opened fire on the
Palestinian protesters to drive them from the border. And in Egypt, the
military-dominated regime sent troops and police against thousands who
assembled outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo in solidarity with the
Palestinians. Firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition, the
security forces left hundreds wounded.

The reality is that Washington supports this repression by reactionary
Arab regimes and, above all, backs Israel in its systematic violence
and oppression against the Palestinian people.

The shameless duplicity and hypocrisy of US policy in the Middle East
will be on full display in the coming week. Obama delivers a speech
Thursday proclaiming his sympathy for the ?Arab spring??and no doubt
denouncing the regimes of Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria for their
repression.

This will be followed by a White House meeting with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday and then a speech to the American Israeli
Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the main Zionist lobby in the US,
in which one can be certain there will be no condemnation of turning
automatic weapons and tank fire on unarmed refugees approaching the
Israeli border. As the White House spokesman put it, the theme of the
AIPAC speech will be, ?the unshakeable bond between the Israelis and
the Americans and the importance of that relationship.?

It is self-evident that where and when Washington decides to invoke
concerns over ?human rights? is determined not by some universal moral
principles, but rather by definite imperialist interests.

If a country whose policies are at odds with the geostrategic aims of
US imperialism carries out internal repression?as in Libya?it becomes
the pretext for imperialist intervention aimed at imposing a regime
more subservient to Washington and asserting more direct American
control over oil reserves.

If another country, one that is aligned with US interests, bloodily
suppresses unarmed civilians, as in Bahrain, or, for that matter,
Israel, it receives tacit or even explicit support from Washington.

Despite the fact that ?human rights? has long served as the most
hypocritical and deceitful justification for imperialist war, it is
precisely on this basis that a whole layer of self-defined ?liberals?
and ?lefts? in both the US and Western Europe have swung behind the US-
NATO intervention in Libya.

Prominent among them is the University of Michigan professor, Juan
Cole, who has used his Informed Comment blog to promote the so-called
?rebels? based in Benghazi and celebrate the military actions of their
sponsors?the Pentagon and NATO.

On Monday, Cole posted a comment headlined ?The Arab Spring Comes to
Israel,? which described the border killings, reviewed the historical
crimes of 1948 and condemned the current policies of the Israeli
government. What was glaringly absent, however, was a single word about
the massive US military and financial support for Israel that makes its
crimes against the Palestinians possible.

Nor did he explain how the US could be defending ?human rights? in
Libya while backing mass killings and repression in Israel.

Having spent the last two months vigorously defending the US-NATO
imperialist intervention in Libya, Cole and his ilk lack either the
credibility or the inclination to oppose Washington?s policies
elsewhere in the region.

Palestinian working people and youth are now entering a decisive new
stage in their long and bitter struggle. They will find allies not
among these so-called ?lefts? and ?liberals,? who have cast off their
?antiwar? past to align themselves with imperialism, but rather among
the workers coming into struggle throughout the Middle East?including
in Israel?and in the American and international working class.

Bill Van Auken

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