International

In his book 'Arafat Terrorist or Peacemaker' Alan Hart says that PLO's Khalad Hassan believed, as did Yasir Arafat and many in the organization that the Israeli government and the Jewish lobby in America used the Watergate scandal to bring down President Richard Nixon before he could force Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders and thereby compel the Jewish state to make peace with the Palestinians and the rest of her Arab neighbours.

The reason they adduce for this is that in a letter he wrote to Saudi Arabia's King Feisal, Nixon had pledged "Your Majesty, trust me that I will realize justice for the Palestinians". Hart goes on to pose the question 'is there any hard evidence that Nixon was seriously committed to a comprehensive peace and, if necessary, a confrontation with Israel in order to bring it about?' Answering his own question he says 'the answer is yes-quite a lot of evidence'.

Seymour Hersh in his book 'Kissinger: the price of power' gives credibility to this story when he gives details of a meeting in the White House between King Hussein of Jordan and Nixon after which the latter had said to his aides 'We've got to help the King. We cannot let American Jews make policy'.

When Watergate was heating up putting Nixon in a tight corner, King Feisal took an unprecedented step. He came to the American President's rescue during a farewell speech he gave in his honour on his visit to Saudi Arabia. He directly appealed to the American people to stand behind their President in his 'noble efforts aimed at securing peace and justice in the world'.

Hart quotes Khalad Hassan as saying that King Feisal's speech was his way of telling the Jewish lobby in America that he knew they were using the Watergate affair to ruin Nixon and thus the chance for peace in the Middle East.

Under normal circumstances King Feisal would never have given even a hint of any interference in the affairs of another country, but the situation was so desperate that he had to do something drastic to remedy the dangerous circumstances created by the American Jewish lobby. This episode indicates the two leaders had had developed a close rapport, and more significantly, that they had struck a deal.

This view gathers more credence with King Feisal's sensational revelation to Hassan, that Nixon had told him 'if he found his way blocked by Israel and the American Jewish lobby, he would throw away his prepared text when he made his next State of the Nation report, and that he would tell the American people, live on TV and radio the whole truth about how Israel and its friends in America were the obstacle to peace. In other words, Nixon was preparing to expose the way in which the Israeli government and its supporters in America controlled American foreign policy'.

To add to this we have another startling disclosure by the pompous Henry Kissinger who, according to Hassan, went to bed every night thinking that if the Americans knew what was good for them they would make him their President. Kissinger says Nixon had told him Israel had requested for long-term military assistance but he would refuse such requests and had added he was planning to cut off all military supplies to Israel until it agreed to a comprehensive peace. But before he could convert his policy into action he was forced to resign on August 9, 1974 over the Watergate affair.

Despite this setback King Feisal vowed to carry on with the unfinished business at hand. He had brought the Arabs together for the first time and had given the PLO its rightful place in the Arab nation. If there was a leader who could keep the Arabs together it was King Feisal. So according to the scheme of things King Feisal had to be 'eliminated'. And that's exactly what happened. On the March 25, 1975 a few months after Nixon was forced to quit King Feisal was assassinated by his nephew thus bringing to an end the best prospect there ever was of peace in the Middle East.

Who was behind King Feisal's murder? PLO's then Observer at the UN Zehdi Terzi had told Alan Hart it was common diplomatic assumption that the Americans had killed King Feisal with at least one female Israeli agent who was the girl friend of the King's assassin.

The Watergate Affair is trumpeted as a high point of the media's freedom in America. But the fact of the matter is that the American Jewish lobby deployed its media to 'manufacture democratic consent' to get rid of President Nixon before he could pose any threat to Israeli interests. In this background it might be interesting to note the Washington Post, the newspaper that 'exposed' the 'Watergate Affair', was and is still owned by a Jewish family with pro-Israel and pro-Zionist leanings. In retrospect Watergate was a mere trifle compared to America's horrendous war crimes abroad. Anyway Nixon's 'crime' is probably legal now with George Bush's new draconian laws sanctioning wire-tapping galore - all in the name of 'homeland security'.

Hameed Abdul Karim
(Vise President, Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine)

Points to ponder from across the Palk Straits

Almost hidden away in a long article by Kuldip Nayar which appeared in The Sunday Times International of July 2, is a passage which I think should be highlighted and pondered upon by our politicians and people.

It read "It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are the bane of these differences (Communal, caste, language, provincial, etc.). We can only hope that the country will throw up such men in abundance".

Who among our leaders will measure up to this? Their names will be written in gold in the annals of our country.

G. Jayatilleke
Rajagiriya

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