Robert Fisk: Why should Europeans protect Israel? [View All]

[Briar]

Why should Europeans protect Israel?

The enlarged Nato/Unifil force is not going to preserve 'peace'

By Robert Fisk

"The Independent" -- --

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So a big Ho-Ho-Ho from the world of reality. The enlarged Nato/Unifil force is not going to preserve "peace". It is going to maintain a " buffer" zone to protect Israel after the latter's dismal failure to destroy, disarm and liquidate the Iranian-armed Hizbollah guerrilla army over the past seven weeks. The UN may deny that it is a buffer zone for the Israelis - but if it was a buffer zone to protect Lebanese (the numerically higher victims of this latest war), it would be based, surely, inside the Israeli frontier. But no, it is there to protect Israel.

Note how the Arabs have accepted this. Note how we have accepted this - how we have sublimely gone along with the idea that Israel's security and happiness are more important than the security and happiness of the millions of Muslims also living in this region. Our soldiers are to be deployed to protect Israel. Do we really think that the Arabs don't realise this? And do we think that our western governments don't realise this when they huff and puff over whether to send soldiers to the Middle East?

Needless to say, the Americans and the British want no part of this mess. After Iraq and Afghanistan, they have no stomach to defend Israel, let alone Lebanon. Their job is to push the European masses into the bog they have created by their injustice and cowardice in the Middle East. President Bush promises "intelligence" assistance to the Unifil force - which means Israeli "intelligence", and we all know how good that is - while Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara offers not a single hero to give his life, which is as well after his outrageous sacrifice of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But while Europe's other political masters dithered this week, BBC World Service laid down a familiar narrative for its listeners. "It seems," said their man on The World Today, that the Europeans - how I hate these cheap clichés - "are prepared to talk the talk but not walk the walk." In other words, those bloody Wops and Frogs and Boche, not to mention the Dagos and the ungrateful Finns and Norwegians, were gutless little chicken shit when it came to standing by their European principles.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14708.htm