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Answering why Israel sells arms to reactionaries

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Reviews

THE ISRAELI CONNECTION: WHO ISRAELARMS AND WHY. By Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. Pantheon Books, New York. 289 pages. Hardcover.

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi was trained as a clinical psychologist, and teaches at the University of Haifa. As he explains in the prologue of The Israeli Connection, the journey that led him to write this book began one night in April, 1976. On Israeli television news, he watched South African Prime Minister John Vorster, a known Nazi collaborator, arrive at Tel Aviv airport, and receive the red carpet treatment and a warm hug from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Vorster then visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and signed his name in the visitors book.

As Beit-Hallahmi says, “What struck me was the surreal nature of the scene... and I decided I had to decipher the message hid- den in this image, and I promised ‘myself that I would get to the bottom of the Israel- South African connection.” But while his files on Israel’s relationships with South Africa grew, he soon discovered Israeli involvement “all over the glove, from Man- ila to Managua,” and realized that he was exploring a global strategy.

In eight tightly written chapters, Beit- Hallahmi examines Israel’s military role in

supporting reactionary regimes throughout

the third world. He cautions against conspi-

racy theory ideas and does not attempt to portray Israel as the global bogeyman. Instead, he aims to answer whether there is a coherent world view that explains such activities, and if so, to relate it to the history of Zionism and the state of Israel. All along, he keeps the reader engaged with a cogent argument, buttressed with punchy quotes from the Israeli press. The opening chapter provides the con- text. In 1948, Zionism achieved its greatest triumph with the establishment of Israel in Palestine — turning the Arab majority into a minority almost overnight. But the 1950s presented Israel with new challenges. The feudal, reactionary and corrupt Arab regimes Israel had dealt with and defeated were replaced in a wave of radicalization. And as decolonization began throughout the Third World, the Arabs found common cause with non-aligned nations. Beit-Hallahmi explains: “It was clear to Israeli leaders from the early 1950s on that any radical movement aimed at furthering the progress of decolonization in the Third World, and within the Middle East specifi- cally, was a threat, and Israel had to act accordingly.” Thus, a “periphery strategy” developed, whereby Israel created alliances with non- Arab nations on the periphery of the Arab

:

Middle EAst — specifically Turkey, Ethi- opia, and Iran. Iran offers a good example

- of how the “periphery strategy” worked, a

pattern which is today repeated in various forms throughout the Third World.

It works basically like this. Israel pro- vides weapons, advisors and military train- ing to the regime in question. While Israel

Israel provides arms to world reactionaries, author Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (inset) reveals.

reaps financial benefit from the arrange- ment and is afforded increased economic opportunities, the right-wing regime hopes to gain favourable influence in Washington through the powerful pro-Israeli lobby. Using Israel as a surrogate arms dealer suits Washington-as well, particularly in cases where human rights violations prevent —

THE ACCUSED. With Jodie Foster, Kelly McGillis. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan. At local theatres.

At the conclusion of The Accused, the U.S. mainstream film industry’s venture into the subject of rape, we’re given some statistics: there is a rape committed in the United States every six minutes; one in four rapes involvés more than one assailant. :

The inclusion of these facts is meant to

of socially conscious films produced by the industry. While this is commendable, the film leaves several questions unanswered — and perhaps reinforces some stereotyp- ical images — in its depiction of a brutal, cruel action and its consequences.

This made-in-Vancouver drama, with the province once again standing in for the state of Washington, is reportedly based

n a sensational pool-room rape in New ford, Mass. in 1983. Sensational is the key word here.

In the film version a young waitress, Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster), is raped on a pinball machine in the back room of a local bar. Adding to the outrage and humi- liation of this act are the cheers and cat-

other men. Rape then becomes gang rape.

We don’tsee this until almost at the end of the film, a scene which might seem unnecessary — graphic descriptions have been provided throughout — but which undeniably re-emphasizes the impression that sexual assault is violent and intended to subjugate its victim.

The strength of this film is that it doesn’t take the easy route in making this point. Prior to the rape, Sarah exudes all the classic symptoms of what the unenlight-

establish The Accused as one of the genre ~

calls of several onlookers, who egg on two |

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ened would call “asking for it.” She is, as they say, dressed provocatively, is intoxi- cated on alcohol and marijuana, and has flirted with men in the bar.

But “no” still means no — a word Sarah utters throughout the rape, until an attacker’s hand‘ is pressed over her mouth — and Sarah is determined to exact justice. Her pursuit of this goal is given credibility by Foster’s strong per- formance as a woman from the lower ranks of the working class with little edu- cation but an iron determination.

Sarah is not without class conscious- ness. Enraged when she discovers that the seemingly helpful assistant district attor- ney, Katheryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis), has allowed plea-bargaining to reduce the assailants’ conviction to the lesser offence of “reckless endangerment,” she barges in to Murphy’s private dinner party. If she had gone to law school and attained com- fortable middle class status, Sarah tells Katheryn in a bitter confrontation, the case would have been pursued to its limit.

Stricken by conscience, Murphy bucks her superiors and with Sarah launches a court action against those whose relentless cheering helped provoke the incident.

From here on, the focus of The Accused changes from the issue of rape to that of the responsibility and guilt of those who witness, but do not attempt to prevent, despicable acts.

Because of this, any attempt to discuss rape in a broader context is abandoned as

_ quickly as is the representative from the

local rape crisis centre, who appears when Sarah is taken to the hospital for examina- tion and is never heard from again. Thus we are denied the education such organi- zations provide: that rape has little to do with sexual desire and more with power,

Film fails to examine rape’s Causes

that many rapes are performed not by strangers but by someone the victim knows, or that there are ways to fight rape through collective action as well as indi- vidually in the courts.

Rape can happen in expensive houses as well as in seedy bars, but The Accused can leave us with the’ impression that its sole venue is a seedy, dimly lit bar indiscrimi- nantly populated by an assortment of low- lifes, college students and workers. Anti- working class prejudices are reinforced: the man who is the loudest in egging the others on is dressed in factory clothes.

It doesn’t help things when the perpe- trators are one-dimensional villains. An

examination of their own characters —

which might have revealed backgrounds as brutal and unloving as that of their victim — would have helped place rape in the context of a class-stratified society without diminishing the outrage of the crime.

Executive producer Sherry Lansing sheds some light on the film’s limitations. In a recent interview with the Georgia Straight, she acknowledged that her main reason for making The Accused was to focus on “the culpability of the bystander who does nothing.” She cited the dozens who witnessed the stabbing of a New York woman, the rise of Nazi Germany and the New Bedford rape incident.

Unfortunately, The Accused sheds no more light on that distressing pheno- menon than it does on rape. We’re left with a film that wins marks for its gritty depiction of sexual assault, but tells us nothing about its causes.

— Dan Keeton

10 « Pacific Tribune, October 24, 1988

direct arms sales.

Beit-Hallahmi says that in some cases, Israel also provides financial assistance, such as to the Nicaraguan contras. These funds apparently come out of the annual U.S. payment to Israel and Israel is then | reimbursed accordingly.

The author also describes another aspect of the Israeli connection as the provision of Soviet-made arms, which cannot be traced since they have either been captured or allegedly captured in various Middle East wars.

Whether aiding South Africa in chasing African National Congress “terrorists,” destabilizing neighbouring African states or supplying computerized data on water consumption in guerilla hideouts to Central American regimes, Israel expertise, Beit- Hallahmi says, is based on their experience with the Palestinians.

This experience, he feels, is at the root of the Israeli view of liberation movements everywhere. “Israeli leaders perceive any victory of a Third World radical movement as a long-term threat to Israel — first because it weakens the United States; second because it adds to the radicalization of the Third_World, which is opposed to Israel and allied with the Arabs.”

Beit Hallahmi elaborates: “Israel’s con- frontation with the Third World did not start in Manila or Managua ... It started in the Middle East ... Zionism meant the creation of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine through settlement and political domina- tion. Thus, by definition it entails an attack on the indigenous population, and a con- frontation with the Third World.”

He concludes that Israel has been export- ing to the Third World a belief that radical movements can be stopped, “that modern Crusaders still have a future ... Israel’s — problem, and the problem of the whole — Zionist project, is how to avoid the fate of @ the Crusaders.”

— Maureen Eason

Maureen Eason is a Vancouver freelance | writer.