While the Western propaganda machine primes the public for war on Iran, it is Tel Aviv and Washington that author the worst atrocities, writes Haim Bresheeth* So as the war drums are beating again in the political jungle that "the West" has become, Russia's Vladimir Putin manages to perceive the danger in this new global hysteria better than more democratic leaders in Europe and the US. His comparison of the sanction- wielders against Iran to "maniacs with razor blades" slashing all about them is apt if somewhat limited; if only we were facing maniacs with razors -- those maniacs have every conceivable weapon that man has ever created, including nuclear bombs waiting to be directed at Iranian targets. The fire of this particular, well-orchestrated hysteria was stoked, as usual, in Washington, but the script was written in Tel Aviv, it seems. It is almost a year now since the public campaign for a war on Iran has been launched by Israel, with many of its politicians, generals and pundits hammering the message incessantly -- Iran is dangerous because it is about to get nuclear weapons. Well, Israel should know, shouldn't it? For more than three decades, Israel has defied the international community, by illegally and covertly producing hundreds of nuclear weapons -- reportedly between 300 and 400 devices. For even longer, it has been producing chemical and biological weapons based on research in a secret lab in Nes Ziona, near Tel Aviv. Those facts are no secret -- one can find them in any defence publication dealing with the Middle East, and The Sunday Times has brought the story to world readers through the evidence of Israel's courageous whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu. Despite this knowledge, the Western powers are, yet again, hell-bent on a search for weapons of mass destruction where all know they do not exist. The open hypocrisy has now reached new heights: Iran, a country which has not attacked another, or occupied it, is now being treated as a terrorist state when it tries to develop nuclear energy facilities, because, in the fullness of time (10 years, according to most sources) it may also be able to develop nuclear weapons as a result of mastering this technology. At the same time, Israel, a country that has nuclear weapons, does not even pretend to develop nuclear facilities for peaceful means, and has spent 40 years illegally occupying parts of four different Arab countries, as well as controlling the whole of Palestine, oppressing its people in every possible way, is not even under investigation for any of those crimes! Israel is totally free to bomb just about anywhere it chooses, kill just about anyone it wishes, destroy the whole infrastructure of Lebanon, murdering more than 1000 people, yet we have heard not a single voice in the Western democracies speak out against such atrocities. On the contrary, it is the other side -- always the other side -- that is blamed. A few examples will serve the point. When Israel kills someone in Gaza by shooting a missile haphazardly at them in a crowded street that in itself seems to be good enough proof of their alleged crimes. What ingenious and efficient justice this has become: there is no need for judicial enquiries, trials and incarceration. The supposedly guilty will be killed, and the killing itself seals their guilt and confirms it. Should not all nations adopt such a simplified, admirably efficient system of control? And it is not just individuals that this form of justice is meted out against but also states: if someone based in Lebanon happens to harm an Israeli soldier or two, as was the case in summer 2006, then the whole country is guilty. The proof is not in the pudding this time but in the bombing -- if Israel has destroyed Lebanon, it must have been because Lebanon was guilty. So the US and the UK spent their time supporting this massacre and orgy of destruction instead of doing all they could to bring it to an end. If one is looking for weapons of mass destruction, one has to go no further than Israel; that is where the maniacs are wielding their razors, not in Tehran. Now, every jurist will tell you that the law has to be applied to all without distinction, or it cannot rule at all, yet international law is allowed to be flaunted by some, while applied to others who have not broken it with venom and hysteria. Have we learnt nothing from the last four and a half years in Iraq? It seems that we haven't. It seems that the whole war- mongering propaganda machine is churning out its poisonous messages yet again, building up to the "inevitable" attack on Iran, a disaster that will make Iraq look like a peaceful picnic -- another chapter in the long line of "disaster-capitalism" projects described so aptly by Naomi Klein in her recent book. As the weapons of the West, and its destructive energies are wielded against another Muslim country, this murderous campaign will further prove to millions of Muslims that the Western project is an Orientalist, anti- Arab, anti-Muslim venture; an application of the Huntingtonian thesis of "clash of civilisations". The main beneficiary of such razor wielding is not the West in its folly, but the forces of destabilisation -- Al-Qaeda and its related organisations, fed by the hatred that such one-sided policies and actions breed in the Middle East and beyond. Not only do such actions lead to short-term policies and long-term disasters, but they also produce a climate of disregard for the due process of law, nationally and internationally, further weakening a global system that is seen to be unjust, unequal and destructive, without clearly pointing towards any viable alternative. It is not Iran that makes the world an unsafe place. It is the group of maniacs with their nuclear razor, flailing about in anti-Muslim rage. While most of us may strongly disagree with their actions, unless we can stop them this time we shall all suffer the results. * The writer is an academic living and working in London and co-editor of The Gulf War and the New World Order .
