PeaceWatch Volume 5 #6
April 6, 2003

Lucky George

Ami Isseroff

George Bush may have been the most unpopular president of the United States in history until September 11, 2001, but the man has luck in politics, and the luck doesn't stop coming. After he decided, for unclear reasons, to go after the "nucular weapons" of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, he mishandled the adventure at every step, antagonizing allies, basing his case partly on evidence that turned out to be fabricated, telegraphing his punches, touting an over-optimistic war scenario and showing contempt for the UN. Americans sympathize with underdogs in any case. This combination should have made the war in Iraq an ideal issue for bringing down the president
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The stage was set. The anti-war demonstrators proclaimed their anger, the pundits protested, and the wags made the most wonderful jokes and cartoons about George W. Bush. There were animated comics and clever war posters. They talked, they sang, they danced, and showed the whole Bush team in glorious color.

However, the war went ahead as planned, and American support for the war and for George Bush is high, according to polls for ABC/Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. About 70% of Americans support the war; most think the war is justified even if no weapons of mass destruction are found, and about half would support a war on Iran if it continues its nuclear program.
This remarkable support is due in part to the unceasing efforts of a small and dedicated group. Who are the sinister forces  responsible for the popularity of the Iraq war? Are they neoconservative oil barons? Zionist War mongers? Profiteers? None of the above. They are the leaders of the anti-war movement themselves. They are part of the phenomenal luck of George W. Bush.

There were many good reasons to oppose this war, to bring home to Americans the humiliation and anger felt throughout the Middle East, and the alarm of European allies. However, the opposition to the Iraq war hardly touched those issues. Instead, it emblazoned its banners with a bizarre combination of repellent causes and fictitious claims that might legitimize the war in the eyes of the most steadfast pacifist.
 
War opposition was co-opted by groups trying to hitch a ride for their own unpopular agendas. They emphasized point after point that appealed to their own constituencies, but alienated Americans. They told Americans over and over that the war would help the causes they support and fight the causes they abhor.
 
"The war is about oil," a major theme of the demonstrators and the anti-war pundits, is sure to win American support. Americans hold a grudge against the Gulf state oil monopolies that raised the price of oil after 1973, and fear US dependence on Arab oil. The anti-war protesters told them that the war would put Iraqi oil in US hands and assure a steady supply. Visions of 25 cent a gallon gasoline recruited support for the war. Of course, the war is not about oil, and the US has in all likelihood made gentlemen's agreements with its Gulf state allies to maintain the price of oil at a profitable level, but the message got across.
 
The war opponents linked the war to the neoconservative strategy that allegedly toppled communism. A brilliant strategy: if you want to make something popular in the USA, link it to anti-communism. Presumably, everyone in the USA loves communism and was sorry to see the demise of the USSR. Others circulated lists of real and imagined American war crimes, inadvertently reminding people that Saddam had committed far worse crimes against the Iraqi people, Iranians and Kuwaitis..
 
The anti-Zionists however, outdid all the other anti-war advocates. The Palestinian cause was in desperate straits in the United States following the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the revelations of Palestinian Authority complicity in terror. The anti-Iraq war movement seemed to be a good way to get people marching and associate their cause with the Palestinian "resistance." Saddam was touted as the defender of the Palestinians. This strategy won adherents in the Middle East and Europe, where anti-war demonstrations quickly turned into "pro-resistance" demonstrations, but in the US it was a grave error.
 
Saddam funded suicide bombers and supported Palestinian extremists. The events of September 11 have not made suicide bombers popular in the United States. A person interviewed in a poll prepared for the Washington Post, said,  "I think the guy [Saddam Hussein] is a threat. If nothing else, the guy's paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. That alone is enough to show his militant stance toward the West."
 
The most disastrous tactic was to try to convince Americans that the Iraq war was somehow in Israeli interests. Proponents of this view insisted that the war was fomented by Ariel Sharon and his supporters in the US, by 'Zionists' and finally, by "the Jews." The cause of toppling Saddam was made more attractive by tying it to the supposed needs of a popular ally of the United States.
 
A crucial exhibit in this campaign was the "Clean Break" document, prepared by an American neoconservative pro-Zionist think tank for use by right-wing Israeli PM Benjamin Nethanyahu. Articles in The Nation, The Guardian and The Boston Globe and Mail, as well as many imitators hammered home the message, based on the flimsiest evidence. They insinuated that the Clean Break paper, some of whose authors have influence or alleged influence in the Bush administration, was the real basis of the war, that would make the Middle East safe for Ariel Sharon. Private correspondence from supporters of this bizarre idea goes so far as to insinuate that the "Zionists" in Washington who were promoting the war were agents of the Israeli government. They warn that they are keeping lists and compiling records of the Zionist responsible for the war. They all but paraphrase Senator Joe McCarthy, "I have here a list of Zionists in the Pentagon..."
 
The Clean Break paper, whatever its faults, was a strategy for making Israel independent of the US. This was needed, according to the authors, to overturn the Oslo process and ensure victory over the Palestinians rather than accommodation. This is stated explicitly in the Clean Break document:
 
"Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and mutuality — not one focused narrowly on territorial disputes. Israel’s new strategy — based on a shared philosophy of peace through strength — reflects continuity with Western values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it, including on the Golan Heights, and can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past. "

This logic is diametrically opposed to encouraging a US war against Iraq in service of Israel. That would hardly show the US that Israel doesn't need US soldiers to defend it. The war also brought an unwelcome side-effect for the Sharon government: pressure on Israel for a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the "Roadmap." That could hardly be a goal of Ariel Sharon or the Zionist right, and it would not "remake the Middle East" to Israel's advantage.
 

The anti-war people, incredibly enough, tried to make a case that the war was bad because it would bring democracy to the Middle East. According to them, the Zionist Lobby had hatched an evil plot to bring democracy to the Middle East, thereby destabilizing the region and magically making all the regimes pro-Israeli democracies. In his September 2002 article in the Guardian, "Playing Skittles with Saddam," Brian Whitaker was quite explicit about this point. This would really rally Americans against the war, because as we all know, being against democracy is a great American tradition. It makes sense, doesn't it?

Of course, except for right-wing analyst Meyrav Wurmser and a few children, no Zionist of any persuasion would think that any democratic Arab regime would be pro-Israel. However, some people are willing to believe anything bad about 'Zionists,' even that they support democracy, and others believe that if Zionists support democracy, then democracy must be bad.

Israel enjoys immense support in the United States, in part because it is seen as a firm ally against Islamist fundamentalism in the Middle East. Tying war opposition to anti-Zionism was obviously a disastrous strategy. The anti-war movement could hardly have helped Mr Bush more if they had insisted that the war was recommended by nine out of ten doctors as a cure for aging and impotence, and that Saddam was against Mom's apple pie, Truth, Justice and the American Way.

To bolster the idea that the war serves Israeli interests, the "anti-war" advocates invented a rumor that under cover of the war, Israel would conduct a mass transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza. How his could be done, and who would allow it, were left to the imagination of the readers. The advocates of this idea would have us believe that the Palestinians would vanish somewhere, and nobody would notice. It would be a trick done with mirrors.

The theme, with no evidence whatever to support it, was probably first aired in the Web magazine Counterpunch by Will Youmans, and was quickly taken up in Tikkun magazine and elsewhere. The Palestine National authority expressed concern over the issue. Of course, no Palestinians have been transferred, and it is extremely unlikely there was ever any such plan. To anti-Zionists, it sounded like something Zionists could do, along with poisoning wells and injecting children with AIDS. The idea may have appealed to many pro-Zionist Americans, and may have helped solidify support for the war.

As the campaign reached a climax, it made a wrong turn into anti-Semitic hysteria, a sentiment usually carefully hidden in private. Representative James Moran publicly insisted that the war would not be happening without Jewish support, and others defended his racist remarks. Once cannot really blame Moran morally for being the child who said what everyone else was thinking. An "Anti-War" coalition barred radical rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking out against the war at a rally. The fate of the anti-Iraq war movement was now sealed. The American Jewish community has been a key factor in every major US social movement beginning with the civil rights struggle and the anti-Vietnam war protests. The anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic campaign warned them off though, and made it impossible for American Jews to support the anti-war movement with any great enthusiasm. If you want American Jews to support a cause, don't tell them that it helps Yasser Arafat. That's a no-brainer.

The demonstrators were so loud, the jokes were so clever, the pundits so erudite, how could they fail? It happened because the very vocal opposition is led by  a few loud and persistent people who managed to make the core constituency of protest indifferent to the war, if not supportive of it. The protesters continue to protest, but unless the war goes really wrong, hardly anyone in the USA will listen.

Legitimate opposition to the war was cynically co-opted by others, with different and unpopular agendas. For them, the demonstrations are not about saving kids in Iraq, but about advancing the goals of OPEC, supporting Palestinian "resistance," propagating racism and other "causes" that are anathema to Americans. It may also be in order to consider the striking analogies between the fate of the Iraq war opposition and the Israeli peace movement.
 

Ami Isseroff

Rehovot, Israel