These are the Juan Cole posts I love - not just recaps of events in the Middle east, but his scorching analysis backed by a solid foundation of peripheral knowledge that allows him to put together the bigger pictures.
Abramoff's dense network of illicit finances and phony charities might end some political careers in the United States. But the investigation into his activities by the FBI also shed light on the ways in which rightwing American Jews have often been involved in funding what are essentially terrorist activities by armed land thieves in Palestinian territory.Indeed, it was this terror funding of Israeli far right militiamen that tripped Abramoff up, since the FBI discovered that he had misled Indian tribes into giving money to the Jabotinskyites, and then began wondering if he had defrauded the tribes in other ways. (You betcha!) The Indian leaders were furious when they discovered they had been used to oppress another dispossessed indigenous people, the Palestinians, calling it "Outer Limits bizarre" and saying that they would never have willingly given money to such a cause. (emphasis added)
I really find it interesting to note that it was precisely this redirection of funds to foreign militants that caught the FBI's...uh, eye - almost as if the increased vigilance into terrorism funding is exactly what tripped up the biggest cogs in the Republican Fundraising Machine.
Now, it would be one thing for Abramoff, a wealthy man even counting his legal income, to spend money supporting these highly questionable causes, but to trick Indian tribes into doing so, where they are intrinsically opposed to Israeli settlement is just low.
Newsweek's Mike Issikoff reported last May that Abramoff diverted $140,000 from a charity ostensibly to benefit inner-city youths to militant Israeli colonists who had usurped land in the Palestinian West Bank.
Ahh, would this be the same charity scam Chris Matthews, Tom Delay and Rick Santorum did fundraising for? Bingo.
Such nice confluence of all the right wing religious wackos.
So what are these Israelis using the Indians' money for?
Well first of all:
"Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as "security" equipment.
Of course, the traditional media and I'm sure Abramoff would describe this as "self-defense" equipment. Sniping is never an act of self-defence. It involves a stealthy individual, shooting an unsuspecting target at medium to long range, ideally without the companions of the target even knowing where the shot came from. I'm phrasing this carefully to avoid moral connotations, but sniping is never an act of personal self-defence. Militaries use it as a way to inflict fear, or may I say..."terror" into their enemies. Less psychologically, it can be used to take out key figures in your opposition.
But as if buying Israeli militia (peripheral) equipment for terrorizing Palestinians wasn't enough, Abramoff also helped train those snipers:
The Hill reported on June 23, 2005 that some of the money Abramoff embezzled from the charity contributions of the Indian tribes "paid a monthly stipend and Jeep payments to a high-school friend of Abramoff who conducted sniper workshops . . ." The Hill suggested that the workshops were for Israeli army personnel, but the Israeli army does not need shooting lessons from Yitzhak Pindrus. The sniper lessons were for the colonists, practice for shooting Palestinians. (emphasis added)
Clearly Professor Cole is using some controversial wording, and being rather unequivocal about how he views the morality of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories (should we be calling it the Occupied "territory" now that Israel is out of Gaza?). I find his logic convincing, and his choice of words, appropriate. I'm not personally an ideologue to either party in the overall Israel situation, but I find religiously motivated settlements indefensible. However much Israel might have a case in justifying a military occupation (to ensure their territorial security), having civilians move in and claim the land in perpetuity is clearly wrong.
In any case, he does defend his view of the settlements:
Although some of my readers are under the impression that in the civilized world it is all right to take your neighbor's land by winning it in warfare, actually the United Nations Charter (to which Israel is a signatory) and the whole body of post-1945 international law frowns on that sort of thing. Likewise both the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbid occupying powers to settle their citizens in militarily occupied territories
...Illegal outposts, i.e. establishing foreign colonies on stolen land, is a way of terrorizing the indigenous inhabitants, and it requires a local militia to defend the colonists, along with sniper lessons and night-vision binoculars.
And the coup de grace, is Cole's point about the hypocrisy of this situation:
Now here's the thing. If a Palestinian-American had diverted $140,000 from a Muslim charity to "security equipment" and "sniper lessons" for Palestinians on the West Bank, that individual would be in Gitmo so fast that the sonic boom would rattle your windows.
Actually, Prof Cole's analogy even misses some of the point - it wouldn't be a Muslim charity, as the "Capital Athletic Foundation" was hardly advertised as a Jewish charity (I use Jewish in contrast to Muslim), so Abramoff is going beyond raising money for these causes from Religious Christian and Jewish conservatives who support Israeli settlement, to a larger population of people who thought they were helping inner city youth.
What a scumbag. I really hope he gets at least 10 years. Typical right wing "ends justify the means" thinking - in this case, even the ends are themselves unjustified. Unless one believes in a God-mandated biblical borders state of Israel.
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