Anti-Semitic Jihad

I must have hit a nerve in my persistent campaign against the warmongers in and around the U.S. administration. Extremist and pro-Israeli internet sites and groups have published an article by Jonathan Schanzer, director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center, accusing me of anti-Semitism. I first thought that the title Anti-Semitic Jihad referred to Jihad as in holy war but it turned out to be my given name. I should be grateful for a Schanzer from a Jewish centre for attacking me; in certain Arab quarters this could be seen as a medal on my chest. I don’t see it that way. The egregious insult deserves a reply and the writer provides the right way of doing it. After asking if I am guilty of hate speech, he ends his article by saying: Last year, Home Secretary David Blunkett made the inciting of religious hatred a criminal offence. Al Khazen columns may qualify.
Good. I hereby throw down the gauntlet. The Jewish Policy Center or any such group is invited to take me to court in London and let English justice decide if I am an anti-semite or a champion of inter-faith dialogue and defender of the Jews. I am telling the accusers that they either put up or shut up.
The accusation is a blatant attempt at intimidation and I could have ignored it. But it annoyed me because, modesty aside, I don’t know of any other Arab writer or journalist who has defended the Jews more than I have done over the last two decades, but especially since the 9/11 atrocity. I attack the Likudniks and Israel apologists but I claim that they do not represent the Jewish people, either in the U.S. or Israel. This is a refrain in all my columns on the subject. I have also said that George W. Bush would have never seen office if the national trend reflected the voting of the liberal and centrist Jews of whom 80 per cent voted against him…twice, and that every survey of public opinion in Israel has shown a majority in favour of peace with the Palestinians. It is only the Schanzer types that I attack.
My view is that there is a war party in the Bush administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney and made up of two distinct groups. The first includes Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others who dream of an American empire ruling the world, or a neo-imperialism which, incidentally, is the exact view of Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and the second is made up of extremist American Jews, like Elliot Abrams, who represent Israel, rather than American interests, and this is again the view of the New York Times in an article be Helene Cooper on Oct, 10, 2006.
The so-called Cheney task force considered controlling Iraqi oil months before 9/11. This is supported by uncontested documentary evidence.
The warmongering Likudniks commit two crimes. First, they encourage extremist elements in Israel to oppose peace with the Palestinians, thus prolonging the suffering of the two peoples (there is enough ground here to accuse them of anti-semitism as they become party to the death of Jews), and second by providing a pretext to terrorists and extremist among Arabs and Muslims who justify their crimes by the crimes of the other side against their people.
The likudniks cannot escape the fact that they support a state in occupation of other people’s land for 40 years in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and, more to the point, cannot escape the numbers. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, between 29/9/2000 and 30/11/2007 Israel killed 866 Palestinian minors (under 15) as opposed to 119 Israeli minors killed by the Palestinians in the same period. Israel is seven times more terrorist than all the Palestinian groups.
And it is just not Palestine. The warmongers led the campaign for war against Iraq; the role of Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans cannot be overemphasized. The war might not have been possible without the alternative, and absolutely fabricated, intelligence provided by the pro-Israeli cabal. A million Iraqis and over 4000 American and allied troops would have been alive today had it not been for the big lie. Even after Iraq was shown to have no nuclear programme or a relationship with Al Qaeda, even after the death and destruction of the country, Senator Joe Lieberman and extremists of his ilk continue to support the war. Why not? Only Arabs and Muslim are being killed, along with a few Americans sacrificed by so-called Americans on the altar of Israeli security.
The warmongers are now agitating for war against Iran which can never threaten the U.S., a fact as solid as saying that the sun rises from the East. The column against me is unfortunate in the fact that it was written before the publication on Dec.3 of the National Intelligence Estimate which said that Iran stopped its military programme in 2003. So the column continues to warn of Iran’s danger and “history of violence and terror” that the reader might think that Iran invaded Mexico and killed a million innocent people there. To be continued.

Jihad Khazen