The Palestinians' Kiss of Death

In the Middle East, everything is a conspiracy theory

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The Palestinians' Kiss of Death
by Arash Monzavi-Kia
20-Apr-2010
 

Palestinians were the only nation who unequivocally and actively supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Palestine has been a nation drowning in blood and tears for two generations, and like all the angrily desperate, grabs on any glimmer of hope for revenge on Israel and its friends. That is how; Saddam could readily use the local Palestinians in Kuwait for guarding the town and functioning as a make-shift police force.

At the time of invasion, Iraq had the largest army in the region and the 4th in the world. Saddam had one million men under arms, four thousand modern tanks and 600 combat aircraft, as well as hundreds of ballistic missiles and tons of chemical weapons. The Iraq invasion or so called “liberation” of Kuwait, took only two days to complete, because it was rehearsed in great detail for the past six months. The Palestinian workers in the Kuwait City poured into the streets and celebrated their hero du jour.

To deter any third-party interference and prove its militaristic effectiveness, Saddam could show its recent string of victories over the Iranian army, which made ayatollah Khomeini swallow the “poison of peace”. Only two years ago, Iraq had conducted five monumental consecutive military operations against the Iranians, which fully crippled the IRI army. In the space of three months, the Iraqi forces had obliterated two IRI pasdar divisions at al-Faw, destroyed the combined pasdar and army concentrations around the Fish-Lake, conducted a crushing double-envelopment against IRI at the Hawizeh marshes, then another at Mehran and finally the last one at Dehloran. When Khomeini threw in the towel, the once formidable IRI army had been reduced to rubble.

The other country who supported Iraq throughout the invasion, was Jordan, where King Hussein was once again heavily influenced by its majority Palestinian population, and his crown prince (king’s brother Abdullah) who was openly anti-Israel. Perhaps King Hussein had mistakenly calculated that the balance of power in the Middle East was forever altered against the US-Israeli axis, and it was time to salute the new czar.

By capturing Kuwait, Iraq had effectively “acquired” its biggest creditor, who had financed the Iraqi war against Iran, to the tune of $150 billion. With that victory, Saddam was sitting on as much oil in Iraq as in Kuwait, which was in total equivalent to 200 billion barrels of proven reserves.

The combination of one million troops, that much oil and so many Palestinian supporters, alerted Israel and US to Saddam’s clear-and-present danger. Since its birth in 1948, Israel has constantly been threatened with annihilation, in the hands of its Arab neighbors. They had gone to all-out war four times, and each time the Israeli’s had been able to survive. This time, the threat was again both credible and ominous.

It is hard to fathom Iraq’s next move after Kuwait, but most likely it would have had a trajectory towards Jordan and Palestine, at least as a diversionary cover for its expansionary ambitions. It is unlikely that Iraq would have been foolish enough to again directly engage with the Israeli army, but Saddam could indefinitely finance terrorist and suicide attacks against their civilian targets. Later on, Iraq fully supported those attacks and even openly paid $25,000 to each suicide bomber’s family.

As surprising as it may be for us Iranians, most Arabs and Palestinians have traditionally mistrusted Iran’s governments as an “American-Israeli” supported entity. For them, the close relationship between Shah and Israel, as well as the covert support of US for the Islamic Republic (Iran-Contra), sort of “confirmed” that suspicion. In the Middle East, everything is a conspiracy theory, so for Palestinians, it was easy to believe that Iran was an Israeli diversion to bleed the Arab blood and weaken their armies. Hence, the active support of most Palestinian forces of Saddam, during his eight year war with Iran.

It is only recently, since the openly hostile gestures by the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, towards US and the threat of destroying Israel that the dominant Palestinian militia has turned pro-Iran. For their never ending yearn to fight and destroy the Jewish state, Iran has become the latest source of “hope and blessing”.

Since their sharp right-turn and the “election” of Ahmadinejad in 2005, the IRI has clearly placed the defeat of Israel and US at the top of its agenda. The IRI pasdaran foreign intervention brigade (Sepah Qods) has relentlessly armed and trained the Hezbollah of Lebanon in addition to the Hamas in Gaza. However, they clearly realize that sponsoring a proxy war against Israel will not go unpunished, nor have they forgotten how the 1,000,000 strong conventional army of Saddam was destroyed in six short weeks.

Therefore, it appears that the rulers of Iran are currently seeking the ultimate asymmetrical weapon against the threat of an Israeli-inspired US attack. For Tehran, arming against the American threat has been the number one military preparedness target since 1988. Moreover, the hardliners of IRI seem to have resigned to the fact that no conventional armed force in the Middle East will be able to withstand an Israeli or American assault. Hence, the world is anxiously witnessing their hurried drive towards the coveted A-bomb ability.

Today, the hard-core IRI calculations seem to have resulted in the following set of dogma:

1 – Israel is a strategic enemy of Islam, which should be defeated and destroyed, as clearly prescribed by Khomeini himself.

2 – Israel can only be crippled by a sustained, chronic and bloody war of attrition on its borders, carried out by the Palestinians, who are armed and financed by IRI and other “concerned parties”.

3 – Israel has steadily identified Iran as the only active supporter of the Palestinian armed struggle, and has engaged the IRI proxy forces in Lebanon and Gaza.

4 – The key Israel ally (US) will try to influence Iran to give up its active hostility against Israel, by political, economical and ultimately military means.

5 – Iran can only deter the American efforts, by acquiring A-bomb level nuclear capabilities.

Tehran’s recent reneging on its initial agreement with the very generous Western countries nuclear-package, concealment its new uranium enrichment plant in Qom and preparation for a long and arduous round of economical sanctions, can only be understood within the framework of the above dogma. That is how the hardliners in Tehran are again gambling with the livelihood and future of 75 million Iranians, on an Islamist ideological basis.

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capt_ayhab

I swear

by capt_ayhab on

If that Shah of everyone had only tried to understand the misery of the people during his own hokomat, instead of foreseeing everything else  100 years in future, perhaps we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

I promise you that there is a clip somewhere that shah pahlavi foresaw the Rapture and how Emama Zaman and Messiah are hand in hand raining fire and death on unbelievers.

We just have to wait for that CLIP.

-YT 


Q

LOL Ayhab!

by Q on

That's what happens when your "world" is all in your head.


capt_ayhab

[Ex]Shah of Iran ...... King of the world

by capt_ayhab on

Only if he could have kept one country as a test.

-YT 


jamshid

Samer Srouji

by jamshid on

I pointed it out because such accusations can be considered captial crime in Iran and so it is a serious matter. Thank you for clearing the misunderstanding.


Samer Srouji

agreed

by Samer Srouji on

You are right Jamshid, Mr. Monzavi-Kia did not make such a claim.

Actually, he makes an excellent analysis with regards to the IRI stance and ideology in his article; which I have read through a couple of times. 

I withdraw the comment made without prejudice to what he has written. Thank you for pointing that out.


jamshid

Samer Srouji

by jamshid on

"While some may agree with you that the Middle East should be subjugated under a US-Israeli axis and military occupation..."

Typical regime propaganda against innocent Iranians. Where did Mr. Monzavi-Kia suggested the above false claim? Why do you make such false accusations?

Do you realize that these sort of false accusations have landed many innocent Iranians in the many prisons of Iran? How does that make you feel about your behavior? And what does it say about you?


Bavafa

It would have helped if

by Bavafa on

It would have helped if the author had done some fact finding research first and then express his view in such article.

As others have pointed out, specifically by Samer Srouji, there are so many holes and one-sidedness (note these are my words and not Mr. Samer) in this article that it does not merit a response. But I would suffice to add my voice to what Samer Srouji and JJ have said.

Mehrdad


Jahanshah Javid

Unfair, one-sided

by Jahanshah Javid on

If we want peace in the Middle East, we must look at the issues beyond ethnic and religious affiliations.

Any side that resorts to violence, any side that kills indiscriminately, any side that does not submit to international laws, must be condemned and curtailed, whether Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Iranian, American, or...

The bottom line is, as long as the Palestinians are denied their own state, bloodshed and destruction will linger on. A democratic Palestine along side Israel will immediately remove the reasons for the existence of radical groups and states from Hamas to Hezbollah to Al Qaida as well as right-wingers in Israel, Iran and the U.S.


humanbeing

well written samer

by humanbeing on

dear samer

thanks for the well written and reasoned comment. too bad there is not more civilized dialogue between neighbours. this is really not an issue for iranian.com. wish there was a popular internet forum in our neck of the woods for people seeking the 'right to live in freedom and dignity, side by side ... with neighbours' to grope around for rapprochement and reconciliation. 

with respect


Samer Srouji

I suppose it is easy to blame the Palestinians

by Samer Srouji on

for being hypocritical by supporting Saddam against Iran, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait -- and now in the last few years benefiting from Iranian support. I have seen this argument put forward before, but it suffers from a fallacy of false cause: Whether the IRI supports or does not support the Palestinians has no bearing on the legitimacy or justice of the Palestinian cause.

More importantly, it is unfair to qualify the Palestinians as a nation "drowning in blood and tears for two generations" and ignore that you are referring to a nation under a harsh military occupation, denied of the most basic rights and stripped of the most basic freedoms; imposed by an unceasing Israeli colonization and military occupation. If you were in the Palestinians shoes, facing the colonization óf your land and people - then you would take any help you can receive to resist the occupation, no matter where it is from. If the Chinese or Russians decided to send military or economic assistance to the Palestinians, they would take it without second thought.

The right of any nation to resist occupation is enshrined in the UN charter - and the Israeli obligation to withdraw from the occupied territories is embodied in UN security council resolution 242. The Palestinians are resisting occupation, not seeking to destroy Israel, as your article implies. Actually, the majority of Palestinians would be more than happy to live in peace with the israelis as neighbors, and I think the same goes for most Israelis. And while it is true that Hamas does proclaim the destruction of Israel -- Have you bothered to listen to Israeli pronouncements about destroying, expelling, and wiping the Palestinians from the map? Or the constant recurring theme among Israeli politicians discussing "transfer" of the Palestinians (ie another expulsion.) Such statements pass unnoticed in our wonderfully objetive media reports in the West.

These statements are made in Israel regularly by extremist factions. And the reality is, the only nation being gradually and effectively wiped off the map are the Palestinians. Recently, the Israeli military passed new measures that allows them to expel any "non residents" from the West Bank, interpreting the term flexibly.