The horrific bombing of a bus in Bulgaria killing at least 7 Israelis is terrible no matter how you look at it. All terrorism against civilians whether perpetrated by non-state actors or governments is criminal and indefensible. That refers both to this attack in Bulgaria and Israel’s attacks on Iranian scientists. Although at this point no one knows if there is a connection between the two, the point remains. Violence breeds violence and terror breeds terror. Of course, that is obvious.
One has to wonder if Prime Minister Netanyahu will use the killing of Israeli innocents as a pretext for war with Iran, whether Iran was behind the attack or not. Netanyahu and his cutouts here are hungry for war and this horrific act might serve their purposes fine.
In 1982, Israel was as eager for war with the PLO, then based in Lebanon, as it is for war with Iran now.
But it needed a pretext, something PLO leader Yasir Arafat had no intention of providing. But then fortune intervened. The PLO’s enemy, the crazy violent Abu Nidal group, attempted to kill Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was shot in the head by an assassin.
The Israelis knew the act was the work of Abu Nidal, not the PLO. But, figuring the world would not know the difference between one Palestinian group and another, it invaded Lebanon. The monstrous aftermath included the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the occupation of Lebanon until 2000, thousands of dead, the creation of Hizbullah, and essentially the destruction of a country (now finally rebuilt, more or less).
Here is how all this is described in the obituary of the ambassador who passed away in 2003.
Shlomo Argov, Israel’s former ambassador to Britain, has died from wounds he received nearly 21 years ago in the London terrorist attack that triggered Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. He was 73.
On June 3 1982, Argov was getting into his car after a banquet at the Dorchester hotel in Park lane when three gunmen from the Abu Nidal group appeared from nowhere; one of them, Hussein Ghassan Said, fired a single bullet straight through his head. The ambassador fell into a three-month coma, and somehow survived, but was paralysed and required constant medical attention for the rest of his life.
Not since the slaying of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 has a hit team made war such a likely outcome. At last, the then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon had a pretext for his long-planned campaign to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its headquarters in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. In his memoirs, Sharon admits that the Dorchester ambush was “merely the spark that lit the fuse”.
The next day, Israeli forces bombed PLO arms depots in Lebanon, Palestinian forces retaliated with cross-border Katyusha rocket salvos, and, barely 48 hours later, Israel launched its ill-fated Operation Peace For Galilee. At first, the invasion routed the enemy. But before long, Israelis were fighting in the streets of Beirut itself; and, as civilian casualties mounted, international opprobrium grew.
To make matters worse, within a year Israel faced an additional new foe on its northern border, the indigenous Shi’ite militia Hizbollah. Ultimately, Israeli troops found themselves mired in a foreign country for 18 years.
Precisely what motivated the Dorchester shooting remains a mystery. Far from being PLO agents, it appears that the Palestinian gunmen, eventually convicted, were next planning to kill Nabil Ramlawi, the PLO representative in London.
The terrorist organiser Abu Nidal (obituary, August 20 2002) was clearly behind the attack – one of the assailants still incarcerated in Britain was his cousin, Marwan al-Banna. By targeting Argov, wrote the author Samuel Katz, Abu Nidal wanted to “provoke an Israeli assault on Arafat’s fortress, and thereby weaken his two most bitter enemies”. But the terrorists’ Iraqi paymasters – the third of Argov’s would-be assassins, Nawaf al-Rosan, was a Baghdad intelligence colonel – also sought to embroil Israel in a war with Syria that would divert attention from their own reversals in the Iran-Iraq conflict.
Will Netanyahu use the Bulgarian horror the way Ariel Sharon used the shooting of Ambassador Argov? Would anyone be surprised?
RE: “In 1982, Israel was as eager for war with the PLO, then based in Lebanon, as it is for war with Iran now. But it needed a pretext. . .” ~ MJ
ALSO NOTE: “The War of Lies” , by Uri Avnery, gush-shalom.org, 6/09/12
[EXCERPTS] Thirty Years ago this week, the Israeli army crossed into Lebanon and started the most stupid war in Israel’s history. It lasted for 18 years. About 1500 Israeli soldiers and untold numbers of Lebanese and Palestinians were killed.
Almost all wars are based on lies. Lies are considered legitimate instruments of war. Lebanon War I (as it was later called) was a glorious example.
From beginning to end (if it has ended yet) it was a war of deceit and deception, falsehoods and fabrications.
THE LIES started with the official name: “Operation Peace in Galilee”. . .
. . . The simple fact is that for 11 months before the war, not a single shot was fired across the Israeli-Lebanese border. A cease-fire was in force and the Palestinians on the other side of the border kept it scrupulously. To everybody’s surprise, Yasser Arafat succeeded in imposing it on all the radical Palestinian factions, too.
At the end of May, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon met with Secretary of State Alexander Haig in Washington DC. He asked for American agreement to invade Lebanon. Haig said that the US could not allow it, unless there were a clear and internationally recognized provocation.
And lo and behold, the provocation was provided at once. Abu Nidal, the anti-Arafat and anti-PLO master terrorist, sent his own cousin to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in London, who was grievously wounded.
In retaliation, Israel bombed Beirut and the Palestinians fired back, as expected. The Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, allowed Sharon to invade Lebanese territory up to 40 km, “to put the Galilee settlements out of reach of the katyushas.”
When one of the intelligence chiefs told Begin at the cabinet meeting that Abu Nidal’s organization was not a member of the PLO, Begin famously answered: “They are all PLO”.
General Matti Peled, my political associate at the time, firmly believed that Abu Nidal had acted as an agent of Sharon. So do all the Palestinians I know. . .
. . . NINE MONTHS before the war, Sharon told me about his plan for a New Middle East. . .
. . . His design for the region, as told me then (and which I published nine months before the war), was:
• To attack Lebanon and install a Christian dictator who would serve Israel,
• Drive the Syrians out of Lebanon,
• Drive the Palestinians out of Lebanon into Syria, from where they would then be pushed by the Syrians into Jordan.
• Get the Palestinians to carry out a revolution in Jordan, kick out King Hussein and turn Jordan into a Palestinian state,
• Set up a functional arrangement under which the Palestinian state (in Jordan) would share power in the West Bank with Israel.
Being a single-minded operator, Sharon convinced Begin to start the war, telling him that the sole aim was to push the PLO 40 km back. . .
What makes MJ Rosenberg such a scumbag?
The only suspect named so far may have been an Islamist but had no links with Iran. He was an ex-Gitmo prisoner who travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both Sunni and hostile to Iran.
The Saudis are pouring arms and money into Syria at present both to topple the government and terrorise the people. They dont want whatever replaces Assad to be non-sectarian and democratic. They are repressing the democratic movement in Bahrain, where they see the Shi’ite population as Iran’s allies, Next move could be to launch a sectarian war in Lebanon.
But what better than to fan the flames of conflict between Israel and Iran, with Hezbollah as target and Netanyahu as ally? Under his government “Israeli intelligence” has become a contradiction in terms.
Behind the scenes it could be the CIA is pulling strings. It probably did in 1982 too. The late Issam Sartawi was convinced the Abu Nidal group who went on to kill him had come under the control of Mossad. But a third party acting in the background might have helped facilitate that.
During the hight of terrorist and often sectarian attacks in Iraq, Western leaders kept admonishing Iran, which was actually backing the Iraqi government, while most of the armed infiltrators came over the Saudi border (not counting the British special forces unit caught dressed in Arab clothing and posing as Sunni in a Shi’ite town).
On one occasion, discussing a particular bombing which appeared to have had American connivance, an Iraqi friend of mine objected that “the Americans don’t have suicide bombers”. “No, but the Saudis have”, I replied, He didn’t dispute that.
wouldn’t put it pass mossad to plant fake mich. state ID on bomber bc 1. MI has large arab pop 2. to force POTUS hand on potential iran attack. bomber’s plastic ID just happens to survive a burned out bus? c’mon on yo.
Two words: Lavon Affair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
What are the chances that Mossad committed the bombing? Israel is desperate for an excuse to attack Iran. This is the kind of thing they do, create an excuse.
MJ ROSENBERG, what do you think about the feedback on STATESMAN website? http://t.co/EUBjLdnr
two points :
1) you compare attacks on iran’s scientists who aids to the iranian evil nuclear weapon plan to murder of complete innocet people? where is your moral?
2) it’s different because iran is far from israel so you cannot actually make a serious attack and it will just cause more damage to israel than to iran since they will send rockets on innocent people as a fightback
I am sure Iran will answer appropriately. Let’s see what remains after the fog of war clears up.
I am sure Iran will appropriately. Let’s see what remains after the fog of war clears up.