I'd guess it was the most explicit call for ethnic cleansing by
a prominent American since Sherman's designation of the only good Indian
being a dead one, or California's second governor, John McDougal's,
declaration in his first message to the California legislature in 1851 to
the effect that "A war of extermination will continue to be waged between
the races till the Indian race becomes extinct." Mind you, Dick Armey wasn't
calling for every Palestinian in the territories to be murdered, merely
evicted to ... anywhere, so long as it's somewhere else.
Here's what happened. On May 1, on MSNBC's "Hardball," House
Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, puissant legislator from Fort Worth,
Texas, called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied
territories.
Armey said flatly that the Palestinian territories occupied by
Israel -- in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- are Israel.
Palestinians living in the West Bank should be removed.
Armey: "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank."
Matthews: "Well, where do you put the Palestinian state -- in
Norway? Once the Israelis take back the West Bank permanently and annex it,
there's no place else for the Palestinians to have a state."
Armey: "No, no, that's not -- that's not at all true. There are
many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land
and -- and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state."
Matthews: "So you would transport -- you would transport the
Palestinians from Palestine to somewhere else and call it their state?"
Armey: "I would be perfectly content to have a homeland, just
as -- most of ...
Matthews: But not in Palestine? ... "
Armey: "That's right ... I happen to believe that the
Palestinians should leave."
Matthews: "Have you ever told George Bush, the president from
your home state of Texas, that you think the Palestinians should get up and
go and leave Palestine, and that's the solution?"
Armey: "I'm probably telling him that right now."
Of course, there was some predictable whining from outfits such
as the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee that Armey's endorsement
of ethnic cleansing is reprehensible. It certainly is. But as a matter of
realism, let us acknowledge Armey's farsighted, two-pronged strategy. One
prong is the current Republican effort to get some sort of purchase on the
Jewish vote, in compensation for the Republicans' slowly dawning realization
that, despite all their efforts, the Democrats have got most of the Hispanic
vote locked up for years to come.
The other prong is most likely a farsighted Texan strategy to
grab a slice of the billions in U.S. aid that go each year to Israel. Figure
it out: If Palestinians are kicked out of their homeland, where are they
going to end up?
The Armey plan is, I can now reveal, to have the new
Palestinian statelet located in a magnificent new terminal at Dallas Fort
Worth airport, which will bring billions in federal funding. Having endorsed
the eviction of Palestinians, Armey will then shift position and announce
that with the Palestinians kicked out, Israel is now secure within its
borders and the $3 billion or so in acknowledged direct U.S. aid can now be
diverted to Texas to compensate the state of Texas for its role in hosting
the Palestinians' new "homeland."
In the aftermath of Armey's robust performance with Matthews,
the U.S. Congress gave Sharon the green light to do what it wants to the
Palestinians, with resolutions of unqualified support for Israel put forward
by Senator Joe Lieberman and by Armey's fellow Texan, Majority Whip Tom
DeLay, the former rodent exterminator.
And who voted against full-throated endorsement of the war
criminal Sharon? Precisely two members of the Senate declined to endorse
every action of a nation that most recently had rampaged its way through
Jenin refugee camp: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (as meister of the pork
barrel, he was maybe irked at the DeLay/Armey drive for Palestinian
subsidies) and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. In the House, there were
only 21 No votes, including outgoing California Rep. Gary Condit, who
probably now feels free to express his true feelings about the Levy family,
and also my favorites, Ron Paul of Texas and Dana Rohrabacher of California.
There were 29 reps who opted for the cowardly, sit-on-your-hands
"present" vote, including such Nation magazine lib-rad stars as Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Dennis Kucinich, also of Ohio,
and a man whose "prayer" against Bush's wars made the radical circuits a
month or so ago. I guess there's no place in Dennis' prayers for
Palestinians.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander
Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
