THE bombings of truck convoys passing through Sudan that robbed the lives of over 50 people are thought to have been implemented by Israel using unmanned drones. At first we were given to believe the US was behind the attacks but this has been denied by Washington. Israel, on the other hand, has declined to refute allegations pertaining to its involvement and as the Israeli daily Haaretz reports, the outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has hinted that those pointing the finger in his direction may be spot on.
“We operate everywhere where we can hit terror infrastructure — in close places, in places further away, everywhere we can hit terror infrastructure, we hit them and we hit them in a way that increases deterrence,” he recently boasted.
Israel and the US maintain the trucks were being used to smuggle weapons and long-range missiles to Gaza to support Hamas. Sudan says there were no weapons.
Whatever the case, there can be no justification for this infringement of Sudan’s sovereignty, just as there was no justification for America’s destruction of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant in 1998 under the pretext it was manufacturing nerve chemicals for Osama Bin Laden. In fact, it was producing anti-malaria and veterinary drugs. The CIA has since admitted that its “intelligence” was flimsy.
Ironically, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant in the name of Sudanese President Omar Bashir relating to Darfur, which is supported by Washington and Tel Aviv. Yet, neither the US nor Israel have ratified the Rome Treaty and, thus, do not accept the court has jurisdiction over their own countrymen.
The unpalatable reality is that the US and its ally Israel can get away with just about anything and everything with impunity. On Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli pilots bombed what they called a military target “deep inside Syria”. Initially, Israel was uncharacteristically silent on the issue going as far as to gag its press but later Israel not only admitted its aggression, it accused Syria of constructing a nuclear reactor in partnership with North Korea.
The Syrian President Bashar Assad vehemently denied this, saying, “it was an unused military building” that was hit. North Korean officials called the allegation “preposterous”.
Foreign media outlets were invited to tour the site to see for themselves. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei strongly denounced the attack. “Israel took the law into its own hands and that neither the US nor Israel provided evidence that the site was a secret nuclear installation”, he said.
In fact, this was a replay of Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq’s civilian reactor at Tuwaitha that only strengthened Saddam Hussein’s resolve to build a bomb. Apart from the international community’s verbal censure at the time, Israel was allowed to get away with it, which has set a worrying precedent.
Another irony is while Syria is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under which it is monitored, the IAEA is barred from inspecting US and Israeli nuclear facilities. Indeed, Israel has never officially admitted to having a nuclear weapons program opting for so-called “nuclear ambiguity” and at the same time the US flagrantly and persistently violates its own NPT obligations.
Israel defies UN Security Council Resolution 1701 passed during its 2006 war with Lebanon with constant infringements of Lebanese airspace that have recently been intensified. Also ignored by Israel are UNIFIL’s calls to cease such over flights and pleas by the UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon to end its occupation of the Lebanese village of Ghajar near Lebanon’s border with the occupied Golan Heights.
Similarly, the Israeli government thumbed its nose at a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and has failed to heed international calls to open Gaza’s borders and end the 2-year-long siege, which has caused so much Palestinian hardship and suffering.
Such Arab grievances receive little column width in the international press that prefers to portray Israel as an eternal victim striving for its very existence in a hostile part of the world. The Israeli propaganda machine is wide reaching, efficient and relentless, somehow managing to paint Israel’s aggressive acts as merely defensive. Although, it and its No. 1 mouthpiece Mark Regev is struggling with damage control after numerous IDF soldiers recently admitted to deliberately killing civilians, using children as human shields and willfully destroying/defacing property in Gaza.
There may be worse to come. Israel’s new right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu insists that Iran’s nuclear ambitions represent an existential threat to the Jewish state and wants to persuade US President Barack Obama to allow him the free hand that was denied by Obama’s predecessor President Bush. It’s unlikely he will get it as Obama has called for respectful dialogue with Tehran. But that doesn’t mean to say he won’t go ahead anyway. Israel certainly didn’t take Washington’s permission to bomb Iraq’s Osirak reactor and was fully prepared to weather the ensuing flack.
Yesterday, heads of Arab states met in Qatar for the annual Arab League Summit. But even though Israel is openly aggressing many of its member countries, there are the usual divisions concerning what to do. Indeed, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is notably absent. The only subjects delegates appear able to agree upon are support for President Bashir of Sudan and putting a time limit on the Arab Peace Initiative, first launched in 2002. It’s sad to say but unless Arab governments can come together long enough to speak with one voice against Israel’s crimes and with enough will to warn Israel of dire diplomatic/economic repercussions, Israel’s power will remain inviolate.
One leader who has heard the message from Israel loud and clear is Syria’s President Bashar. “In Israel, there is no difference between the right, left and center,” he told his Arab League counterparts. “They are all competing for Arab land and blood”.
