<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Unraveling the Illusion: the Democracy that Never&nbsp;Was]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" width="100%" align="center">
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-left:15px;" align="right">20:41 02/01/2011</td>
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<td class="caption_text" align="center">Mubarak&#8217;s strangulation of the Egyptian people is unraveling. (Allvoices)</td>
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-top:10px;"><strong>By William A. Cook</strong></p>
<p>&#8216;The  only people in Egypt who are committed to peace are the people in  Mubarak’s inner circle, and if the next president is not one of them, we  are going to be in trouble.&#8217; &#8212; <em>(Eli Shaked, former Israeli ambassador to Cairo, in Yediot Ahronot).</em></p>
<p>The  Egyptian peoples’ revolution against their government forces to the  fore the unfortunate reality that America’s friendship is an illusion  created for its own benefit, a strategy, if you will, that creates a  mirage of trust, compassion, and good will for the people while it  disfranchises them from power, enriches the “inner circle,” establishes a  brutal police force to control them, providing thereby a resident  dictator that will do the bidding of America’s military-industrial  complex to sustain its enormous need for on-going wars and a budget that  saps the wealth of the nation itself. Mark that Egypt’s military spends  6 billion a year to maintain its million soldiers and absorbs another  1.3 billion of U.S “aid” to buy American warplanes, tanks, and  helicopters. Virtually nothing is left for humanitarian needs or  domestic relief. The people have had enough.</p>
<p>Consider Iran,  perhaps our most graphic undemocratic entrance into the greater  middle-east. Our CIA assassinated the democratically elected Prime  Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed our own “beholden” King, the  Shah of Iran. He in turn created the SAVAK police to control the people  enriching his benefactors by using American tax dollars to buy weapons  from United States munitions’ industries. Clever, even demonic. But the  Iranian people revolted. Twenty five years of undemocratic, dictatorial  rule beneficial to U.S. and Israeli interests if understood in weapons  sales and oil to say nothing of the Shah’s recognition of our puppet  state, but disastrous for the Iranian people and America that now sees  Iran as a major enemy in the mid-east. But we do not learn.</p>
<p>Now,  Mubarak’s 30 year strangulation of the Egyptian people appears to be  unraveling while our administration and the Netanyahu governments look  on in disbelief and fear. What do we do with our 1.5 billion that has  served our dictator yearly for these many decades as a guarantee of  peace with Israel? To whom will it go if, as Eli Shaked observes above,  the “inner circle” alone in Egypt supports that agreement and they too  are deposed? The Muslim Brotherhood? Mohammad ElBaradei? The Egyptian  military? An “existential” quandary certainly! Israel’s Michael Ledeen,  writing in Pajamas Media, states “Mohammed ElBaradei is one of the last  men I would choose for leading Egypt to a ‘peaceful transition’ to  greater democracy. He doesn’t like America and he’s in cahoots with Iran  and the Muslim Brotherhood.”</p>
<p>How does America protect its client  state of Israel now? Consider what happens if Mubarak is dethroned:  nearly half of Israel’s natural gas is imported from Egypt, gas needed  by its own population as well as its military; Israel’s military  planning relies on Mubarak’s government and its complicity in guarding  the southern border of Gaza much to the dismay of the Egyptian people, a  border that has already been punctured by escaped Hamas prisoners who  have fled home through the tunnels; changes could be made in the control  of the Suez Canal to the detriment of Israel, and, perhaps most  importantly, Jordan and Saudi Arabia could become the next dominoes to  fall toward Israel leaving it isolated in a landscape dominated by  people unfriendly to it because of its undemocratic subjugation of the  Palestinian people.</p>
<p>It’s enlightening to peep in on the Daily  Alert, the daily report prepared for the Conference of Presidents of  Major Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  If anything reflects the mindset of the lobbies that support  unconditionally the Israeli state, it’s this Alert. Given the conditions  outlined above from both Iran under the Shah and Egypt under Mubarak in  their respective alliances with the U.S. and Israel, one might expect  some reflection on what drives people into the streets to overthrow  their governments.</p>
<p>Obviously the conditions created by the  American strategy of shoring up dictators guarantees a steady rise in  citizen anger against the regime and, concurrently, a rising hatred for  the power that feeds the dictator while suppressing the people.  America’s interest resides in its weapons sales that seed internal  conflicts and manufactured “wars” against neighbors as we witness in  Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s why we have in excess of 737  military installations around the globe supported by 1,840,062 military  and domestic personnel; it’s why we strategize to turn factions in a  country against each other; it’s why we want Israel to exist, to foster  unrest in the mid-east as it stealthily grabs more and more land from  its neighbors claiming they are victims of Arab aggression to wipe  Israel off the map; it’s why we need an overwhelming presence in the  mid-east with Israel serving as our largest military base to ensure that  our industrial complex controls the oil and gas that’s needed to  maintain our dominance in the world markets; unfortunately, it’s also  why America has become the most hated nation on the planet because its  propaganda expressing freedom and liberty, human rights and democracy  for all is now understood to be a lie, a fabrication of deceit designed  to dehumanize not liberate, to subjugate not free, to enslave not  acknowledge, with respect, the dignity of the individual.</p>
<p>The  Alert responds to the reality above because the audience they serve is a  recipient of America’s largesse; indeed, their Israel is the recipient  of more federal aid than any other nation coming to an estimated 1.8  trillion “including special trade advantages, preferential contracts, or  aid buried in other accounts.” (“The Costs to American Taxpayers of the  Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Thomas Stauffer, Washington Report on  Middle East). What does Israel do with all this money?</p>
<p>Most  importantly it buys U.S. weapons from private corporations with tax  dollars to create the fourth largest military in the world (Israel  estimate) to protect 6 million people, the vast majority foreigners to  the land, while it subjugates approximately 4 million Palestinians under  occupation stealing their land so that only 22% remains, and, in  addition, lays siege to Gaza for the past three years causing an  estimated 60% unemployment and forces 80% to live in poverty. This siege  includes all access and possession of the natural gas and oil reserves  that exist off of the Gaza coast thus depriving the Palestinian people  of approximately 3500 billion cubic meters of gas deposits and 1.8  billion barrels of oil. (“Arabs keep out! Israel lays claim to all the  resources,” Veterans Today, Manlio Dinucci, Voltairenet.org).  Additionally, the IDF has destroyed the infrastructure, restricted water  consumption drastically, sabotaged electricity to the area, and  prevented entrance for medical supplies and basic food stuffs,  suffocating the people in intolerable conditions and in complete  disregard for international law. And in one of the most recent  atrocities perpetrated by this true “friend” of America, it invaded Gaza  killing over 1400, decimating homes, schools, storage facilities,  hospitals, and UN buildings in a slaughter seen and heard around the  world.</p>
<p>It is not lost on the Arab world, or the rest of the world  for that matter, that Israel’s “democracy” is exclusive and totally  unique in the world. Nor is it lost on the Arab world that Israel exists  because America subsidizes its existence and gives it the means to  occupy and subjugate while it touts to the world that it believes “that  all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and  have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and  the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and  free of corruption; and the freedom to live as you choose. These are  human rights, and we support them everywhere.”</p>
<p>Interestingly  enough, despite the evidence listed above, nothing in the Alert papers  suggests that Israel should reconsider its policy of military force and  occupation. Indeed, even with the disclosure of the Palestine Papers  released by Wikileaks that describes in horrific detail the  collaboration of American diplomats with Israeli counterparts to  undermine by bribery and coercion the Palestinian negotiators, Mahmoud  Abbas and Saeb Erekat, displaying for all to see the duplicity of  America and Israel as they manipulate the peace process to achieve their  ends, regardless of the illegality or injustice inflicted upon the  Palestinian people, Israel finds no need to reconsider its approach to  the Arab world.</p>
<p>Rather, they emphasize what Netanyahu proclaims,  that all their European friends must defend Mubarak lest the unrest come  to haunt Israel. That the Egyptian people have expressed their anger at  the undemocratic, dictatorial policies of his regime means nothing to  Israel, that bastion of democratic values, which calls upon the U.S.  Congress and the state department to back Mubarak lest conditions force  Israel into a confrontation with the Egyptian military, the one supplied  by America and ranked as number 10 in the world. How ironic: American  F-16s fighting American F-16s above the Sinai.</p>
<p>Perhaps our  Congress might reflect on what America has become since it spawned the  rogue state of Israel into this militaristic monster that conceives of  force as the only solution to international conflicts. Perhaps it might  consider that it, too, should learn something from the Egyptian people  who see virtue in true freedom of expression, value in the rights of  humankind, and respect and dignity in being part of the government, not  its slave. Perhaps our Congress should see the world they have created  for this illusionary democracy, where a cauldron of millions live on two  dollars a day, where children starve, mothers are famished, the old and  the infirm deprived of joy at the very end of their lives, the young  made fodder for the elite who rule the world, a world of misery and  despair made possible by our corporate complex of munitions  manufacturers that suck the lifeblood of the masses to enrich their own.  Perhaps, then, they can face themselves and ask,</p>
<p>What manner of men can distance themselves from their kin?<br />
What beast of prey have they become to devour so many<br />
Without compassion or remorse, able to wield<br />
Weapons of unimaginable force against unseen foes,<br />
Who hear the screaming cry of the angel of death<br />
Hurtling from the sky,<br />
Where life itself should be the only force:<br />
The warmth of the sun, the gentle cooling rain,<br />
The promise of spring, the hope that comes again.</p>
<p><em>&#8211;  William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne  in southern California. His most recent book, The Plight of the  Palestinians was just released by Palgrave Macmillan in July. He  contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: </em><a href="http://www.laverne.edu/"><em>www.laverne.edu</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.drwilliamacook.com/"><em>www.drwilliamacook.com</em></a><em>.</em></td>
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<p><a href="http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16609">Unraveling the Illusion: the Democracy that Never Was</a>.</p>
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