Allies don't let our soldiers die
Did Israel deliberately allow 241 American Marines to die?
By Joseph Sobran
Yes, says Victor Ostrovsky, a former Israeli secret
agent. In a new book, By Way of Deception: A Devastating
Insider's Portrait of the Mossad, Mr. Ostrovsky says the
Israelis had advance notice of the suicide attack that
killed 241 Marines in Beirut in October 1983 but withheld
the information from the United States in the hope that
the attack would poison American Arab relations.
The Israeli government is desperately trying to block
publication of the book, which also says the Israelis are
"actively spying, recruiting, organizing and carrying out
covert activities mainly in New York and Washington,
which they refer to as their playground."
Although it can hardly succeed and will probably
backfire, the censorship attempt enjoyed initial success
in both the U.S. and Canada. Obliging courts in both
countries have ordered that the book be at least
temporarily suppressed When it comes to Israel, freedom
of speech and of the press is considerably less than
total, even in America.
Mr. Ostrovsky says Israeli agents heard he had written
the book and tried to bribe and threaten him to dissuade
him from going into print. He is now in hiding.
More than 17,000 copies of By Way of Deception are in
print, and many reviewers have already received copies.
If the book divulges sensitive information, as the
Israelis' lawyers say, it's too late to stop other
governments from getting it. The only purpose of the
censorship is to stop Americans from reading Mr.
Ostrovsky's account of how Israel allowed U.S. Marines to
be slaughtered
Books are rarely suppressed in America (at least not by
direct government intervention), and by the time you read
this, By Way of Deception will almost certainly be
unshackled. Then the Israelis will have to either
discredit the author or argue, as they did in the case of
the spy Jonathan Pollard, that the decision to let the
Marines be killed was a "rogue" action.
Mr. Ostrovsky's allegations should be shocking. Letting
the troops of a benefactor nation be blown up in their
own compound is hardly the act of a "reliable ally," as
Israel is said to be.
But you have to wonder whether anyone will really be
shocked. The act would be consistent with a long pattern
of reprehensible Israeli behavior toward the U.S. Some of
it has been widely publicized; no doubt the largest part
of it has never been discovered.
If anyone ought to be stunned, it's the many pundits
who echo Israeli propaganda to the effect that Israel is
America's only valuable and trustworthy ally in the
Middle East. If they mean what they say, they should be
publicly changing their minds, or at least demanding a
thorough investigation into Israeli conduct toward this
country.
Congress ought to be shocked, too, to the extent that
its all-out support for Israel has been sincere rather
than venal and cowardly. But how many of our elected
representatives will dare, or care, to ask tough
questions about whether our ties to Israel have done
serious damage to this country's interests?
Such questions are not only long overdue, they are
especially urgent right now, when the United States may
be on the verge of a full-scale war in the Middle East,
and the Israel lobby is eager to see America launch
hostilities against Israel's chief enemy, Iraq.
The path of least resistance is to say nothing, to go
on pretending that the interests of the U.S. and of
Israel are virtually identical, to keep repeating that
Israel is our "reliable ally" and "strategic asset." Any
politician or journalist who says otherwise, even for the
good of America, does so at risk to his career. That's
why there is so little open debate on these matters. Even
our press isn't fully free.
And now the Israeli government has mounted a direct
attack on press freedom in America itself. It will be
instructive to see whether the press corps goes on acting
un shocked.
Joseph Sobran
is a nationally syndicated columnist who now maintains a Website at
http://www.sobran.com.
