America Don't Worry...

America Don't Worry, Israel is behind you

Nadia Hassan















I remember a few years ago, walking through the wonderful narrow streets of the occupied Old city of Jerusalem, seeing a small shop managed by an old Palestinian man who was selling souvenirs to the tourists. I entered the shop, not because I wanted to buy something, I cannot be a tourist in my own land (despite the Zionist entity that is occupying our land, allowing me to enter there just as a tourist) but because I was captured by the smell of fresh coffee that beckoned me from inside the shop. As I know my people, I knew that as soon as I set foot inside the shop I would be welcomed with this hot and stimulating beverage. I was right, after just a minute I was enjoying my drink and having a nice talk with the man. I made the rounds of his shop, looking at the hundreds small plates, pictures, colorful fabrics of all kinds of imaginative maaterials and very original T-shirts hanging on one of the wall. T-shirts with pictures of Jerusalem, with Holy Land slogans, with IDF motifs (always wondering who would buy one of those!) and I saw one that scared me the most because of its realism. It was a simple T-shirt with the slogan: “America Don’t worry, Israel is behind you!”

When I left the shop I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t get it, I was thinking that the right way to say it is “Israel Don’t worry, America is behind you!” not the opposite way. Anyway, after a few minutes of confusing thoughts about which comes first, the egg or the chicken, I forget the whole thing and continued my walk in the Old city of Jerusalem.

This happened 3 years ago.

Today, watching the news and thinking of what is going on in the Arab Homeland, this slogan came to my mind out of the blues and I started to realize the real meaning of it.

The recent events in Lebanon and in recent months in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza Strip proves that certain international and regional powers are continuing efforts to implement their “master plan” of chaos for the region as the first step to the greater plan of making their domination permanent.

This is not a conspiracy theory as many are saying, it's just the result of decades of efforts from the imperialistic powers to gain control of certain strategic areas in the Arab Homeland and control Arab oil, monopolizing their market. For that reason, these incidents are not limited just to Lebanon. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with the huge amount of propaganda that we are not able to see the whole picture, the clear chain of events with similar patterns from the Gaza Strip to Baghdad, Somalia, Darfur and to Beirut. Some elements can be different in each case, but they have one thing in common, the master colonialist project of the United States and the high security risks that these events cause to its main settlement in the region, Israel. These places are strategically interconnected and the success of the US plan in the region depends on being able to control them.

Today, US-led imperialism is threatening national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. All recent interventions of imperialistic powers in different regions have resulted in divisions of countries and separation of peoples by ongoing wars. Kosovo and Iraq are just examples of the implementation of “divide and rule” policy of the imperialists. And the new states that are the outcome of these policies are not more than controlled states which serve as bases for imperialistic activities.

The Arab region is not an exception and as long as the Arab ruling classes are either unable to protest or are participating in these externally designed and oriented plans, the only alternative will be popular resistance. Resistance movements of any kind are a just threat for this goal.

The pro-imperialistic Arab regimes understand that their position are extremely fragile since they don’t have the support of the masses, and they compromised their own people’s sovereignty and development for the sake of their own survival. Adel Samara, in his book “Epidemic of Globalization” describes this situation very well: “As long as each regime is guarding a set of foreign interests inside the Arab Homeland, that regime has no alternative but to oppress the popular classes whose interests are in contradiction with the ruling comprador and its western capitalist allies. These interests vary from the plunder of raw material and oil to an open market where the regime becomes the agent that saturates it with foreign products and permits the spread of multinational corporations with their branches in many Arab countries chasing cheap and oppressed labor“.

To protect these interests and to guarantee their share, the trickle-down reward, Arab regimes suppressed all forms of liberties and the current situation in Lebanon is just an example of that. Siniora’s government didn’t have another option than to back down the parliament decision of last week to make the communication system of Hezbollah illegal due to pressure from the supporters of the resistance, but immediately (as if on cue) the Arab League foreign ministers expressed support for Siniora, despite the fact that they were aware of the root causes of Lebanon’s crisis.

Israel is not standing on the sidelines in what is going on here, in fact it is very afraid that any resistance movement against its own expansionist and imperialist plans can bring about control of a portion of what it considers its own domains. Israel is the central Key in this puzzle due to its strategic location. For that reason, Israel is also doing its part of the deal calling the International Community to take a look at the situation in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip and do whatever it can to stop this frightening crisis to the security of its own state. Indeed, it insists that the International Community consider only the security interests of Israel alone as they attempt once again to convince us that religion and sectarian fights are the main reason for the disputes in the area. In doing so, they cover the political motivations and especially the economic interests involved in the whole process.

How funny is that? Calling upon the International Community to take an action for a state which is ‘celebrating’ 60 years of occupation of others’ land, 60 years of dispossession of other people, 60 years of terror against civilians and 60 years of neglecting every single thing the international community has asked for.

If the US and all the western pro-imperialistic governments for that matters lose control over this area, the whole plan can come to an end, since they are not in a position to attack another country and take the control of all the natural resources without some kind of convincing explanation for doing so, or at least not without a propagandist campaign prior to the invasion to make it look like a “rescue plan” from the jaws of evil. What made the US hesitate in launching new occupation is Iraqi resistance, which has truly worn down the US army. This is another reason why the target of all formal regimes in the west is the Resistance.

Escalation of tensions and conflicts in Lebanon and Palestine is in the American regime’s best interests because they know that no matter what happens, Israel is there for doing what they have so far been doing better than anyone else: oppressing others, occupying, attacking and killing in “security’s name”, everything that is needed to make the master plan succeed. Anyway, they have more than 60 years’ experience doing just that.

Many Arabs like myself during those walks in the Old city of Jerusalem 3 years ago, developed a false thinking that the Jews control the US. This is a miserable way of thinking. Israel is the product of the interests and needs of the capitalist core, two centuries before the Zionist organization of Theodor Herzl was even founded. Israel is doing a job in the Arab Homeland; its role is functional. The last proof of that is the fact that, while Israel tried to end its aggression against Lebanon in 2006, given the unsuccessful campaign, the US ordered Israel to continue until its final defeat!

And yes, America Don´t worry, Israel is behind you!

Nadia Hasan is a Palestinian activist who was born in Chile and who lives between various nations of South America and the Middle East. Her site is Palestina Resiste! and she dreams of the day when all Palestinians can exercise their Right of Return.