- One of the least analyzed aspects of the Egyptian pro-democracy
movement and US policy toward it, is the role of the influential Zionist
power configuration (ZPC) including the leading umbrella organization
the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO)
Congressional Middle East committee members, officials occupying
strategic positions in the Obama Administration's Middle East bureaus,
as well as prominent editors, publicists and journalists who play a major
role in the prestigious newspapers and popular weekly magazines. This
essay is based on a survey of every issue of the Daily Alert (propaganda
bulletin of the CPMAJO), the NY Times and the Washington Post between
January 25 February 17, 2011.
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- From the very beginning of the Egyptian pro-democracy
movement, the ZPC, called into question the legitimacy of the anti-dictatorial
demands by focusing on the "Islamic threat". In particular the
ultra-Zionist Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Alert
harped on the "threat" of a "Islamic takeover" by the
Muslim Brotherhood even as the overwhelming number of non-Zionist experts
and reporters in Egypt demonstrated that the vast majority of protestors
were not members of any Islamic political movement, but largely advocates
of a secular democratic republic (see the Financial Times 1/26/11-2/17/11).
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- Once their initial propaganda ploy failed, the ZPC developed
several new propaganda lines: the most prominent of which was a sustained
defense of the Mubarak dictatorship as a bulwark of Israel's 'security'
and guardian of the so-called "Peace Accord" of 1979. In other
words the ZPC pressured the US administration, via Congressional hearings,
the press and AIPAC to support Mubarak as a key guarantor and collaborator
of Israel's supremacy in the Middle East; although it meant that the Obama
regime would have to openly oppose the million-member Egyptian freedom
movement. Israeli journalists, officials and their US Zionist counterparts
willingly admitted that although the Mubarak regime was a bloody, corrupt
tyranny, he should be supported because a democratic government in Cairo
might end Egypt's decades-old collaboration with the brutal Israeli colonization
of Palestine.
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- Once it became clear that uncritical support for Mubarak
was no longer a viable position and the Obama Administration was appealing
to the democratic movement to "dialogue" and negotiate with the
dictator, the ZPC demanded caution in backing a "dialogue" and
assurance that the dialogue did not lead to any abrupt changes in the Mubarak-Israeli
treaty. The ZPC and its scribes in the Washington Post presented Mubarak's
hand picked "Vice President" Omar Suleiman, a notorious torturer
and long-term collaborator of Israel's Mossad, as the legitimate interlocutor
for the dialogue - even as he was unanimously rejected by the entire pro-democracy
movement.
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- As the demonstrators grew in number and engulfed the
major public squares throughout the country and extended beyond the first
week, Israel and the ZPC promoted a possible alternative solution, which
would keep Mubarak in power, during a nine month 'transition' period.
Caught off guard by the rapid growth of Egypt's pro-democracy movement,
Israel's willing accomplices in the US administration and media conceded
that an end to the dictatorship would be a good thing if it was managed
appropriately; namely, if it excluded or minimized the role of the Muslim
Brotherhood and maximized the role of the pro-Israel military high command
and intelligence services as overseers of the "transition".
The ZPC contemptuously rejected Egypt's independent pro-democracy movement
and its leaders and sought to undermine the Egyptian people's movement
by inflating the role of the "best organized" Islamic Brotherhood
and warned of a future Islamist "seizure of power".
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- The leading Zionist official in the Obama Administration
and AIPAC point man, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg traveled
to Israel to assure the Netanyahu/Lieberman regime that the US was in contact
with the Egyptian military high command and sectors of the civilian opposition
(ElBaradei) and that Washington's support of the democracy movement was
conditioned by their assurance that the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty would remain
unchanged.
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- When Mubarak was finally forces to resign, handing power
to a military junta, the ZPC congratulated the coup-makers, supported its
demobilization of the movement and more important, celebrated the Egyptian
generals' endorsement of the "Peace Agreement of 1979". Now
the Israeli propaganda machine began to harshly criticize Mubarak and portrayed
the military coup as a positive step toward an "orderly and peaceful
transition". By 'orderly' the Zionist think tankers meant a 'regime
change' that did nothing to change the blockade of Gaza, the regular shipment
of fuel to Israel, or the hotline of collaboration between Tel Aviv and
Cairo. Israeli and American Zionists rejected early elections and promoted
a prolonged process in which the Egyptian military, the US Administration
and the ZPC could handpick members of the 'transitional constitutional
and electoral commissions' committed to continuing Mubarak's policy of
unconditional submission to Israel. By "peaceful" the pro-Israel
diplomats in the Obama Administration meant clearing the streets of the
masses of pro-democracy activists and demonstrators so that decisions could
be controlled by the small circle of Mubarak military and civilian holdovers
behind closed doors. By "transition", the circles of Zionists
propagandists, US/Israeli policy makers and Egyptian generals meant that
nothing would change but the face of Mubarak.
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- While Israel and the bulk of Zionist scribes and propagandists
in the US opposed or questioned the pro-democracy movements against pro-Israeli
rulers in the Middle East, they embraced and publicized the social movements
opposing the Iranian regime. In every print and electronic outlet, the
pro-Israel journalists emphasized the repressive, brutal nature of the
Iranian regime, called for regime change and raised the specter of a military
confrontation if Iranian warships traversed the Suez Canal, Iran's right
by international maritime law. Israeli security, the threat of 'radical
Islam' and Iran were cited to place narrow limits on all discussions and
debates over US policy regarding the enormous and growing mass pro-democracy
movements throughout the Arab world.
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- The same prominent US Zionist scribes who, at first,
defended US support for the dictatorial Mubarak regime and then supported
the military takeover in Cairo, have now become born-again backers of anti-regime
democrats in Iran. This is not inconsistent: the issue for US Zionists
is how might pro-democracy movements affect Israel's colonial policies
in Palestine and Israel's expanding power in the Middle East? In other
words, the ZPC in Congress and the White House are not concerned about
promoting democracy through American foreign policy, but only about harnessing
US diplomacy and military leverage to serve Israel.
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- What is striking about Obama's twist and turns in policy
toward the mass popular struggles in Egypt is how closely it repeats and
implements the policy positions of the US Zionist power configuration clearly
presented in the '52 organizations' propaganda organ, the Daily Alert.
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