The Secret War With Iran.
Ronen Bergman.
Free Press (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2008.
[Translated from "Nekudat Ha'al Chazor"]
Reviewed by Jim Miles
If one knew little about the Middle East and its many strands of religious,
political, military, and strategic interests, this seemingly well written
work would have the reader believing that Israel is the altruistic good
guy – although making tactical mistakes in its counter terrorist
endeavours – and the Iranians are the cause of all the atrocities in the
Middle East. In the epilogue Ronen Bergman indicates that he "began
researching this book in order to uncover and make sense of" the "secret
war" that has been ongoing between Israel and Iran, and "to place the
events…in their historical context." If that is what he intended to do,
then this work fails completely.
The major fault with The Secret War With Iran is exactly that, one of
context. It is a fault that puts this book squarely in the genre of blatant
apologetics and rhetoric exhorting the Americans to attack Iran. The
contexts not revealed in the text are several. The main hidden context
being the reasons for much of the Middle East's anger at Israel, the ongoing
occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian "territories". This uses
many guises from outright military force, imprisonment, torture, house
demolition, through to the subtler and yet more psychologically abusive
tactics of land expropriation, marriage laws, and a multitude of other laws
that make it impossible for the Palestinian people to have a home and a
culture. Only once in the work do I recall the word occupation being used,
with the implication otherwise that the Israeli military is in Palestinian
territory to stop the terrorists, not to ethnically cleanse the territory
for Jewish Zionist settlers. [1]
The United States is mentioned frequently with the final commendation being
that "Israel's considerable contribution to America's endeavors to make the
world a better place must be acknowledged." I would consider that an
outright lie, unless Israel's contribution is the shaping of the American
political landscape (consider AIPAC and all the right wing American
apocalyptic rapture fanatics looking for Armageddon). America has little
consideration for the world being a better place, only a place that is
subservient to its demands and wishes for resources and geopolitical
control. That underlies the second major dissimulation in the text, the
massive support that the United States has given Israel both directly as $3
billion in direct aid and more in military aid (per annum), and the aid it
has provided to other Middle East countries in its attempts at hegemonic
control. Alongside rests the American tendency to make this a religious
war, "this crusade" in the words of Bush, and the Israeli acceptance and
support for that are all concealed to the reader. Iran is not the only
country that uses money, religious fanaticism, and subterfuge to work
towards its goals.
Another area taken out of context is of course the Iranian attempts to
acquire a nuclear weapon. What Bergman describes as Iran's march towards
achieving nuclear success rings mostly true in relation to other books; and
while he does simply admit that Israel has nuclear weapons, the Israeli
process could well suffer the same description as he has given to the
Iranian attempts as a "dance of lies, deception, fabrications, and stalling
that [Israel/Iran] has been carrying out to mislead the West." Israel of
course was very successful with this, achieving a clear nuclear supremacy in
the Middle East (one bomb would have done that) yet still playing a tune of
recalcitrant coyness. The latter phrase refers to the fact that Israel
operated entirely outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and still
does and has never officially admitted to having a weapon, while Iran has
been working within it, even if deceptively. Finally of course, lies the
context of the United States being the main nuclear power in the world, the
only nuclear power to have used the weapon, the only power to advocate a
first-strike pre-emptive roll for them, and the main power abrogating
treaties that attempt to control their spread (the ABM treaty, the NPF
treaty and its current relations with India). [2]
This lack of context emphasizes the double standards that to a sceptical and
educated mind permeate the stories. Along with the occupation of
Palestine, the massive military support of the U.S., and the Israeli nuclear
weapons, other double standards occur. The suicide bombings effects in
Israel are vividly described, but never are the atrocities committed by the
IDF in the occupied territories. Bergman says, "No attempt was made to get
down to the root of the matter [suicide bombings]." Of course not, because
the root of the matter is the occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian
people, although at this point in his tale of woe, the Israelis are in
occupied Lebanon. Hizbollah and the Palestinians are implicated in drug
dealings, ignoring the connection that wherever the Americans go in their
quest against communists or terrorists major drug operations seem to spring
up. Where there's oil, there are Americans, where there are Americans there
are war and drugs – it's not strictly limited to Hizbollah and the Taliban.
[3]
The ultimate insult from the perspective of double standards is in the
reference section. Bergman's sources are almost entirely Jewish (should we
be surprised?) and he emphasizes the oral interviews as the main emphasis
for his research. Oral history is described as "a complex matter that
demands various rules and precautions, mainly finding written or oral
evidence to confirm the information process." That fully contradicts
Israeli attempts to deny the oral history of Palestine, the destruction of
over 500 villages and towns, the slow gradual cleansing of Palestinians from
their land in spite of both oral and written records. Of course the
occupation and ethnic cleansing are not even considered in this work so that
disturbs Bergman not at all. [see note 1]
It would be laborious to go through the work pointing out all the other
matters that are borderline dissimulation, double standards, and outright
lies, but allow me a few examples. First up is Mossadegh who in most
histories is considered to be a full fledged democratic personage who took
power away from the Shah, gave the power to the people via the parliament,
nationalized the oil companies (mostly British at the time) and while he
despised the communists, allowed them to continue to operate. Bergman
however describes Mossadegh as someone who "practically took over the
government." If taking over the government means transferring the power to
the people, then yes, he "practically" took it over – we should be so lucky
if that happened in the U.S. The only reason he did not was because
Britain and the U.S. conspired to eliminate him one way or another. That is
where the real story of modern Iran begins, not with the overthrow of the
Shah. [4]
A few 'smaller ' items entertain the story along the way: Khomeini seeing
the world "as a clash between good and evil (same school of religion as
Bush); the Shah's son being "perhaps the best person to explain his
downfall" (truly unbiased that would be); the U.S. "maintained pressure on
Tehran not to violate human rights" (a constant with U.S. foreign affairs,
never minding its own business); criticizing the PLO for behaving in Lebanon
"as if the country belonged to them" (perhaps recognizable from the Israeli
occupation of Palestine?).
What really irked my anger was the simplistic lie concerning the Sabra and
Shatilla massacres, that "Israel was not an active partner in this atrocity,
but its forces also did nothing to prevent it." Even if one could salvage a
grain of truth from this, the Israelis were an occupying force and therefore
responsible under international law for the safety and health of the
citizens of that country. There is so much evidence against this that it
can only be labelled a lie – oh yes, I forgot, it's oral history mostly,
corroborated by many participants and eye-witnesses. I guess it doesn't
count then. [5]
I could go on …and on…with the double standards and out of context
information in this work, but then I would be rewriting it for the next
while, an unnecessarily strenuous task. What then is Bergman's ultimate
purpose in writing all this? Possibly threefold. First, having the U.S.
attack Iran would save Israel a lot of men and equipment at least initially.
Secondly, it would destroy Iran's perceived intent against Israel, but as
with the Shah, would manipulate the geopolitical scene in Israel's favour.
It could, but not likely, shift some of the retaliation and revenge focus
away from Israel but as the U.S. and Israel are so intertwined that would
not be too likely. Another consideration, as it is a work of propaganda in
the truest sense, is to convince American politicians of all stripes (well,
there really is only one stripe to an American politician) that attacking
Iran is a necessity.
Whatever the reason, the book falls within the categories of rhetoric,
dissimulation, and propaganda. Bergman has faithfully fulfilled the Israeli
media position of an aggrieved Israeli state fighting off all the
terrorists, while denying its own terror and ethnic cleansing within the
Palestinian territory. Read it if you wish, but be guarded as to what you
accept. [6]
[1] there are many recent works on this topic. See among others: Ramzy
Baroud's The Second Palestinian Intifada; Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing
of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine; Tanya Reinhart The Road Map
to Nowhere and Israel/Palestine; Jonathan Cook's Blood and Religion; Geoff
Simons' The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; more recently: Marda Dunsky's
Pens and Swords and Saree Makdisi's Palestine Inside Out – An Everyday
Occupation.
[2] see Michael Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement – How Israel Went Nuclear
and What That Means for the World.
[3] see various works by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, including
Whiteout and Imperial Crusades.
[4] see Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men (Wiley, 2003) and Overthrow
(Times Books, 2006)
[5] this story is written in many of the books found under note 1 and in
many other books. As this month is the 26th anniversary of the massacre
there have been a number of recent internet articles as well on the topic,
from which two excerpts:
Robert Fisk – "If the Israelis had not taken part in the killings, they had
certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them
uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. They
had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military
assistance – the Israeli airforce dropped all those flare to help the men
who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila – and they had
established military liaison with the murderers in the camps."
http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-fisk180903.htm
Mahmoud El-yousseph – "Present at the command post [the Kuwaiti embassy]
were the primary architects of the atrocity: Israeli Defense Minister Ariel
Sharon…along with high-ranking army officials….A group of refugees who
reached the one of the Israeli checkpoint [sic] were ordered by soldiers to
return back into the camp – even though they told the soldiers that people
are being slaughtered inside. This encounter was documented by a
Scandinavian news crew."
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14175
[6] for a much stronger and more academically balanced history, one that
looks at many more perspectives more accurately see Treta Parsi's
Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S.
(Yale University, 2007).
