Why Palestine is
Important
By Israel Shamir
Palestine is important not because it
is as beautiful as Tuscany, nor because the Palestinians
are suffering, and not even because it is occupied by a
Jewish state. What we need to understand is that the
Jews have been handed Palestine not because they were so
smart or so strong or so devoted, but by Imperial
design.
Palestine is important because it is
believed to be a linchpin of Empire, one of the key
points necessary to control the world. Such was the
conviction of the 19th century British
Empire-builders of the Rhodes variety, and this
conviction has been recently and continuously
reformulated into the terms of modern geopolitics. Once
an arcane theory developed by HJ Mackinder, it has grown
up to become a driving force behind globalism. We shall
not go into its rational interpretation of mythological
imagery; we must simply accept that this is the way the
world’s powerful elite think.
Mackinder planned the subjugation of
the whole planet to the Empire. He noted that the Arab
world (a passage-land, in his terms) is central
for this enterprise, and declared that “the hill
citadel of Jerusalem has a strategic position with
reference to world-realities not differing essentially
from its ideal position in the perspective of the Middle
Ages, or its strategic position between ancient Babylon
and Egypt.” He believed that the “ideal position” of
Jerusalem as the centre of the world of the medieval
Crusader maps is no religious quirk, but an inspired
understanding of the inherent quality of the place. In
his exact words, “In a monkish map, contemporary with
the Crusades, which still hangs in Hereford Cathedral,
Jerusalem is marked as at the geometrical centre, the
navel, of the world, and on the floor of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem they will show you to
this day the precise spot which is the centre… The
medieval ecclesiasts were not far wrong”.
A strategist-mystic, Mackinder was a
great supporter of Balfour declaration: “The Jewish
national seat in Palestine will be one of the most
important outcomes of the war. That is a subject on
which we can now afford to speak the truth ... a
national home at the physical and historical centre of
the world”.
In his fresh-from-the-presses book,
The Great Games (rush out and buy it while stocks
last, dear reader!), our friend and fellow
Counterpuncher Eric Walberg says it best:
“Mackinder’s inspiration was not Zionist but rather
imperial, and by putting Jews in a Palestinian homeland
he was assembling the pieces in today’s imperial order”.
Clearly, his imperialism, and his
geography have had religious antecedents. Geopolitics is
a secularised sacred geography, and its drive towards
“the hill citadel of Jerusalem” and “Shambala” is not a
coincidence. But then,
every ideology is a crypto-religious doctrine; or
in words of Carl Schmitt,
«all of the most pregnant concepts of modern doctrine
are secularized theological concepts».
People argue that geopolitics has
more than a touch of mumbo-jumbo, but this doctrine is
being applied by the elites. One can rationalise the
fateful Imperial attachment to Afghanistan by a vague
possibility to build there a pipeline; it is easier to
see in the US drive to Afghanistan a new version of the
search of Shambala. Mackinder rationalised his
feelings, he referred to Jerusalem’s army being able to
defend the Suez, but the old maps influenced him – and
other Empire-builders - more than he was ready to admit.
For this reason it is difficult to
imagine that the Empire will ever voluntarily release
Palestine; it is far too important ideologically,
religiously, geopolitically, and strategically in the
eyes of the Imperial elites. But why has the Empire
chosen the Jews to be the shock troops in Palestine?
Indiana University’s Professor of Geography, Mohameden
Ould-Mey provides some explanation in a
scholarly paper, a paper that was never successfully
published. The paper had been duly reviewed and accepted
by Political Geography’s chief editor
David Slater, but two years later a new chief editor
came along who knew better on which side lies the
butter, and he quickly
spiked the paper. He used his position to instead
commission some celebratory articles about Israel’s
Independence Day.
In the never-published paper,
Professor Ould-Mey revealed that the Zionist movement
was not created by Jews in the 19th century:
they were busy looking closer to home. These starry-eyed
Jews once dreamt of forming a homeland inside Ukraine or
Poland, to build there an independent state “just like
Serbia”. It was the British who had a different idea,
namely, to turn the Jews into English colonists in the
Middle East. They needed manpower to man the Hill
Citadel, and “they wanted the Jews to fill in the blank
for the non-existing native Protestants in the Holy
Land”. The idea was tried earlier and failed: Napoleon
toyed with the idea of planting Jews in Palestine as
France’s foot soldiers, but there were no takers among
Jews. The Brits achieved what the French could not.
Enter William Henry Hechler (1845-
1931), “the British agent who actually fathered Zionism
in Eastern Europe and Russia”. Hechler is the man who
turned Leo Pinsker into a Zionist; Pinsker later became
author of the first and most influential pre-Zionist
pamphlet, Auto-Emancipation. “This is when and
how the British began to inject their Zionism into an
otherwise local and normal emancipation movement of
Eastern European Jewry in their own ancestral homeland”
in Eastern Europe, writes Ould-Mey.
After winning over Pinsker and
establishing the first Jewish movement for settlement in
Palestine (Hibath Zion), Hechler went to Vienna
to entice Theodor Herzl. At that time, Hechler was
already “described as an agent working for German and
English interests and particularly as a ‘secret agent’
working for the Intelligence Service”.
“Hechler actively participated in the
First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in August
1897…Hechler-Herzl relations (like the Hechler-Pinsker
ones before them and the Balfour- Weizmann ones after
them) would seem to resemble the tutor-tutored relations
rather than prophet-prince relations as suggested by
Zionist historiography. Beyond tutoring Herzl on what
Zionism is all about, Hechler introduced both Herzl
and Zionism to the German Emperor, the Russian Czar,
the Ottoman Sultan, the Pope (Pie X)” and other
luminaries.
“Herzl was essentially a British
envoy to the Germans, the Russians, the Ottomans, and
the Jews. It was said that Herzl was fitted to lead
Zionism precisely because he knew neither the Jews nor
Palestine or Turkey…”
Ould-Mey concludes: “The British
wanted Palestine for imperial and religious motives and
used the Zionist Jews as willing surrogates and proxies
who down the road became more active agents.”
This makes sense, for it solves the
mystery: why was the Jewish Zionist movement such a
Johnny-come-lately? Jewish Zionism was still in its
infancy when Russians, French and Germans had been
buying up lands and building houses all over the Holy
Land for 40 years. Ould-Mey’s theory answers all the
pertinent questions nicely. It was an English coup de
grace.
This discovery is very exciting, but
a trifle short of sensational: the British Intelligence
Service is known to have rocked the cradle of The Muslim
Brotherhood, the CIA fostered the Taliban, Shabak
fathered Hamas. There is no doubt that all these bodies
became wildly independent, unleashed themselves from
their masters and ended up causing them a lot of
trouble. Ould-Mey’s discovery that the Zionist movement
was established by the British Secret service does not
necessarily imply that it remained under their control –
or anybody’s external control.
Since then, Jews have become doubly
integrated into the fabric of the Empire: as the holders
of the geopolitical “hill citadel of Jerusalem”,
and as the bearers of neo-liberal post-modern ideology,
the ideology of the “islanders” in Mackinder’s
terminology -- which is surprisingly close to “the
traditional Jewish ideology” in the view of Milton
Friedman as expounded by
Gilad Atzmon. The first group is located mainly in
Israel; the second group is mainly in the US.
The Zionist conception that the Jews
are natural placeholders of the “hill citadel of
Jerusalem” is now under review. The Middle East has
sprung forth new forces with which the Empire is already
actively collaborating. Foremost are the aggressive
Saudi Wahhabis whom Thierry-Meyssan has
identified as the
Sudairi. Qatar’s Al-Jazeera is a powerful weapon
that is in their hands. They
play along with Israel but they are not Zionist
stooges. They are quite a nasty lot and are friends of
the Empire by their own right.
Obama’s May
speech has made this clear. Israel is no longer the
only outpost in the wilderness of the Middle East, no
longer a bastion of the West in the East. Obama’s
proposal was similar to that made by Jimmy Carter to
China and Taiwan in 1979, when the United States
transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to
Beijing while carrying on commercial, cultural, and
other unofficial contacts with Taiwan. Over 30 years
have passed since then, and Taiwan has not suffered from
being downgraded. Likewise, Obama offered Israel a
similar deal: shrink a bit, and you will live a long
and happy life. Contraction should be not only
territorial, but strategic and ideological as well. You
are welcome to stay a favorite son of the US in the
Middle East, but as a son among other sons, not as a
pampered baby among slaves. In short, be a Taiwan –
don’t try to be a China.
As we know, Israel quickly
neutralized this proposal by mobilising pro-Jewish
American politicians. This has effectively humiliated
Obama – and energized the new pro-Imperial Arab forces
to action. Their new confidence was expressed in Prince
Turki’s
opinion piece and has been widely commented upon.
This is one reason why Israel has been acting
hysterically recently, as is evident from the attacks on
the Flotilla, the detention of the fly-in tourists, and
the massacre of the unarmed Palestinians upon the
anniversary days of the Nakba and Naksa.
Israelis have a feeling that their
position is being re-evaluated, and they are freshening
up their connections with the Jews abroad and flexing
the power of their lobbies, playing up anti-semitism
hysteria. The most recent orchestrated surges of
pro-Jewish sentiments have surfaced in the harsh
treatment of film director Lars von Trier and designer
John Galliano, but are by no means over.
Now an important debate of the last
decade can be addressed. Noam Chomsky explained
America’s obsession with Israel by hard-nosed Imperial
interests, while
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt inter alia have
explained it by activity of the Israel Lobby. Now we can
try to square this circular argument.
Indeed, the imperial plans for
conquest of the world as they were laid upon in the end
of 19th century included creation of the
“hill citadel of Zion” manned by “ranging” (Mackinder’s
term) Jews. New data proves that these plans were not
inspired by Jews, but given to Jews by imperial
planners. These plans passed from generation to
generation, and presumably they are now accepted by the
imperial elites as given.
During the Cold War this idea figured
less prominently, but “since the end of the Cold War, as
regional strategic concerns have replaced those of the
global bipolar confrontation of the twin superpowers,
the relevance of Mackinder's study [and of his concepts]
is once again apparent”, in words of
Leut.-Gen Ervin Rokke.
So apparently, Chomsky was right?
Not so fast. We can reword the old argument in new
terms: M&W argument can be read as “the old ideas of
Mackinder are so much of old bunkum, and in reality the
citadel became rather a hindrance than a useful defence,
like
Belfort”. This coincides with the Arab
pro-Imperialist view of the Saudis. Perhaps it is a
convincing opinion, but the Lobby is still instrumental
in blocking it.
The last and final answer to the
“Jews and Empire” question was proposed by the modern
Russian author, Viktor Pelevin:
- Everything is in the hands of
Allah, - said the girl.
- I beg your pardon, - a young man
turned to her rather unexpectedly, - How can it be? What
about Buddha’s mind? Hands of Allah exist only in the
mind of Buddha, you would not deny that, would you?
The girl smiled politely.
- Surely I wouldn’t. The hands of
Allah exist only in Buddha’s mind. But the whole point
is that the mind of Buddha is in the hands of Allah.
Edited by Paul Bennett