The Naked Truth - Yvonne Ridley, Former Taliban Captive, Convert to Islam

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The Naked Truth

Written by Yvonne Ridley

Thursday, 20 July 2006

** Originally published in Yemen Mirror on 20 July 2006

We've all heard of the Emperor's new clothes, but at the moment we seem to have a line of stark naked emperors performing a snake-like Conga right across the Middle East.

Without shame, they don't even have a fig leaf of decency to blush.

Cloaked only in Israel's genocidal insanity, George Bush, Tony Blair and the majority of the G8 heads, are leading the dance followed by the Arab leaders who are slithering along for the ride.

Zionist cheerleaders Bush and Blair are both wagging their fingers blaming Hamas and Hizb'Allah for causing this latest turmoil in the Middle East.

While Iran and Syria have also come in for a verbal spanking from the US President ... egged on by British Prime Minister Tony Blair who is beginning to morph from poodle to glove puppet.

What we are witnessing is an attempt by Israel to bring about regime change in Lebanon while ethnically cleansing Palestine of its people. With this group of deranged, blood-soaked meglomaniacs in charge we have little or no chance of stopping the killing of innocent civilians in Lebanon or Gaza ... but for once things aren't exactly going their way.

We are now living in a topsy turvy world where good men are depicted as evil and the heroes have become the villains. But the public is beginning to smell a rat as the stench of lies continues to pour out of the political power houses around the globe.

As Ghandi once said: "When you know the truth, the truth makes you a soldier".

Now a whole army of us is starting to wake up to the reality of what Israel and its backers are up to - and it is not that difficult because there is an overwhelming feeling of deja vu in the air.

It seems the grotesque legacy of Ariel Sharon is even more difficult to kill off than the old porker himself.

You see former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon always wanted to change the influence of Lebanon by planting a government as toothless as the neighbouring regimes in Jordan and Egypt.

The activities of Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have always amazed me ... I mean just how do the Arab world's poster boys of cowardice manage to stand up straight without the use of backbones.

I guess it must be thanks to the support they get from equally gutless leaders across La-la Land ... that's the Arab world to you and me.

But let me return to Sharon, first. The aim of his invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was regime change - it failed then and this latest Israeli folly will fail now, insh'Allah. And just like in 1982, every military step is being co-ordinated carefully with the knowledge of the White House and the Pentagon's military advisers.

Way back then, as now, the US postured and gesticulated unconvincingly as it warned Israel that it must have "clear provocation" before it could launch any invasion into Lebanon. This finger-wagging act is old and jaded and fools no one these days.

Sabri al-Banna, better known as the terror master Abu Nidal, duly obliged when his gang tried to assassinate Shlomo Argov the Israeli Ambassador to London - despite the fact London is thousands of miles from Beruit and the action was certainly not endorsed by Yasir Arafat it provided the clear provocation needed, as far as the Israelis were concerned.

Let's face it. The Israelis could start a fight in an empty room and still portray themselves as the victims while blaming the rest of the Arab world.

I'm sure I could have started the invasion of Lebanon all by myself last week by shoving one of Uri Geller's bent spoons up his left nostril! Surely an act of war?

It would be hilarious if the consequences weren't so tragic - and the situation falls yet again in to another of the 'you couldn't make this one up' category of excuses manufactured by Tel Aviv and Washington.

As it turned out the excuse this time round was duly provided when the braves from Hizb'Allah captured two Israeli soldiers ... conscripts are just not up to scratch when it comes to military stealth. they simply can not cut the mustard.

The Israeli Army is still missing its French conscript - that particular feckless POW was snatched by Hamas during a legitimate military operation in Palestine.

Both legitimate military snatches triggered massive rescue operations mounted by Israel in which the death toll of innocent Arabs is still rising by the hour.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Israel has never been able to secure the return of any of its volunteer soldiers alive, from so-called enemies.

A highly respected Israeli author and activist, and head of the Israeli peace movement Gush Shalom, knows better than most what is going on and he has a ringside seat from where he is providing the Western World with some brilliant analysis.

Uri Avnery writes: "The idea of installing a Quisling in Lebanon is nothing new. In 1955, David Ben-Gurion proposed taking a "Christian officer" and installing him as dictator. Moshe Sharet showed that this idea was based on complete ignorance of Lebanese affairs and torpedoed it. But 27 years later, Ariel Sharon tried to put it into effect nevertheless. Bashir Gemayel was indeed installed as president, only to be murdered soon afterwards. His brother, Amin, succeeded him and signed a peace agreement with Israel, but was driven out of office. (The same brother is now publicly supporting the Israeli operation.)
"The calculation now is that if the Israeli Air Force rains heavy enough blows on the Lebanese population - paralysing the sea- and airports, destroying the infrastructure, bombarding residential neighborhoods, cutting the Beirut-Damascus highroad etc. - the public will get furious with Hizb'Allah and pressure the Lebanese government into fulfilling Israel's demands. Since the present government cannot even dream of doing so, a dictatorship will be set up with Israel's support.

"That is the military logic. I have my doubts. It can be assumed that most Lebanese will react as any other people on earth would: with fury and hatred towards the invader. That happened in 1982, when the Shiites in the south of Lebanon, until then as docile as a doormat, stood up against the Israeli occupiers and created the Hizb'Allah, which has become the strongest force in the country. If the Lebanese elite now becomes tainted as collaborators with Israel, it will be swept off the map. (By the way, have the Qassams and Katyushas caused the Israeli population to exert pressure on our government to give up? Quite the contrary.)"

I know that there have been many spontaneous demonstrations across the world - I took part in one outside the British Parliament on Sunday - including Israel where a large number of the Jewish population is sick of the twisted politics and hidden agendas of Tel Aviv. But let's put the blame where it should be put ... right at the feet of the most powerful leader in the world and let's make the rest of the G8 leaders culpable as well as Kofi Annan, the biggest house slave of the 21st century.

If we are going for the blame game we shouldn't be too hard on our Israeli cousins - they just can't help themselves. Telling them to behave in a civilised fashion to their Arab neighbours and return stolen lands to the Palestinians is a bit like asking Vlad the Impaler to stop sinking his fangs into the local wenches in downtown Transylvania.

George W Bush and his G8 mates should have slapped down that nasty, vicious little Zionist State of Israel years ago instead of creating the monster it has - a monster, by the way which is totally reliant on greenbacks from the US and arms orders from the UK.

By allowing the Zionist monster to grow unchecked, a whole Pandora's Box is opening up across the region.

If Israel is unleashed on Hizb'Allah without any sort of restraint then not only will Iranians become outraged, but so will their shia counterparts in Iraq ... especially the 10-12 million who surround the 8000 British Army soldiers in southern Iraq. These are also the same Shia who are giving some sort of support for the neo-cons' plans in Iraq.

Apart from having a crack army, Hizb'Allah are great strategists and they have just zoomed up the popularity polls by showing solidarity with the Palestinians while the other Arab leaders look like extras for roles in Dumb and Dumber Part II.

If you ask me: Israel is about to get a lesson it will not forget - on two fronts as a nice little pincer movement between Hizb'Allah and Hamas is emerging. They might not be the best equipped fighting forces in the world but they have the bottle, the stomach and the will to fight.

Hamas and the Hizb'Allah have God on their side - I'm afraid Israel just has Bush and Blair and a bunch of cowardly Arab leaders quaking in their flip flops ... and that IS the naked truth.