Electronic Iraq

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Neo-conservative hawks in and outside the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had hoped that Israel would attack Syria during last summer’s Lebanon war, according to a newly published interview with a prominent neo-conservative whose spouse is a top Middle East adviser in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Meyrav Wurmser, who is herself the director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute here, reportedly told Yitzhak Benhorin of the Ynet website that a successful attack by Israel on Damascus would have dealt a mortal blow to the insurgency in Iraq.

Faced with mounting resistance to its occupation of Iraq, the United States is deliberately copying the repressive tactics of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza — including home demolitions, large-scale destruction of trees, barriers and roadblocks, and a careless disregard for the life of civilians. Electronic Iraq’s Ali Abunimah examines this growing trend, and warns that the U.S. ought to listen to the advice of those Israelis who understand that repression and occupation can never bring security or democracy.

On 29 March 2003, Justin Huggler, writing in the British Independent newspaper, reported that the US was “studying fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin last April” for clues on how to manage urban combat in the cities of Iraq. Electronic Intifada’s Nigel Parry reports on our sister site, Electronic Iraq, lamenting the undeniable message to the Arab world of American support for Israel so blind and insensitive to both Palestinians and Iraqis that it is terrifying.