Lyndon LaRouches Oaseplan for Sydvestasien/Mellemøsten
Nu på dansk
Følgende 5 min. video om Oaseplanen er fra 2010:
2. Følgende uddrag med Harley Schlanger fra Schiller Instituttet, som begynder 12 min. inde i den øverste video:
Lyndon LaRouches Oaseplan for Sydvestasien/Mellemøsten
Et uddrag fra: At vinde krigen mod krigspartiet
Manhattan Project Dialogue, Saturday, October 21, 2023
HARLEY SCHLANGER: … Jeg vil give jer en kort kronologi [af Lyndon LaRouches arbejde for fred gennem økonomisk udvikling i Sydvestasien/Mellemøsten]. Det er så stort et arbejde, at det ville kræve mange dage og konferencer, og det burde vi gøre. Men jeg vil bare give jer et kort indblik i, hvad han gjorde, og hvordan han formede denne kamp, og hvorfor det i dag er den politik, som han og vores organisation repræsenterer, der er alternativet. Lad os starte med et historisk øjeblik i april 1975. LaRouche blev inviteret til at deltage i en konference i Bagdad for Ba’ath-partiet. Og mens han var der, mødtes han med en række arabiske ledere og kom derfra med et forslag fra irakerne om at samle en udviklingsfond på 30 milliarder dollars til Israel og Palæstina. Da LaRouche præsenterede det for vores medlemmer, var det ganske forbløffende. Han fulgte op på turen til Bagdad med en pressekonference, hvor han annoncerede udgivelsen af sin Internationale Udviklingsbank, som var en opfordring til et nyt monetært system, der ville være sammenhængende med denne pakke af penge til udvikling af Israel og Palæstina.
Lad mig give jer en kort beretning om omfanget af dette. Lige efter dette skete, bragte vi en overskrift i vores avis, hvor der stod: “Irak tilbyder Israel en fredsplan til 30 milliarder dollars.” Jeg var sammen med en gruppe mennesker, der delte den ud ved en tale, som Moshe Dayan holdt på Wake Forest University i Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Der var hundredvis af mennesker, og vi var meget bange for, at hvis vi gik derhen og sagde, at Irak ønsker at afslutte konfrontationen og tilbyder penge, ville folk blive vrede. Men det vi fandt ud af var, at de var meget interesserede i det. Vi solgte hver eneste avis, vi havde, og efter Dayans tale rejste jeg mig op blandt publikum – José Vega-style – og sagde til Moshe Dayan: “Vi har et forslag, som Lyndon LaRouche har lagt på bordet fra Irak om en udviklingsplan til 30 milliarder dollars for Israel og Palæstina. Vil du støtte det?” Jeg forventede en tirade fra ham, for han havde ry for at være lidt af en hidsigprop, en hård militærleder. Det han sagde var fascinerende. Han sagde: “Det her er meget interessant. Det kan ændre alt. Jeg er meget åben for at høre mere om det.” Det viste på det tidspunkt potentialet for LaRouches intervention – det var lige efter krigen i 1973, efter den arabiske olieembargo, efter det, der så ud til at være enden på enhver mulighed for at realisere ideen om en to-statsløsning for Israel og Palæstina.
Da LaRouche introducerede sin politik for Den internationale Udviklingsbank, sagde han følgende: “Med en IDB-politik i udsigt skulle den fredselskende fraktion i Mapai [som var et israelsk parti] snart blive herskende. Israelerne og de vigtigste arabiske stater kunne let blive enige om betingelserne for fortsatte forhandlinger om det palæstinensiske spørgsmål inden for rammerne af en øjeblikkelig fast aftale om samarbejde om udviklingspolitik.” Med den tilgang holdt LaRouche møder i løbet af de næste par år, begyndende i 1975, hvor han havde et møde med den israelske leder Abba Eban for at fremme diskussionen om denne tilgang. I 1977 skrev LaRouche en artikel, som blev offentliggjort i et Paris-baseret israelsk nyhedsbrev med titlen: “Israel and Palestine; A Future for the Middle East”. Her er, hvad han sagde i den:
“Generelt, uden direkte forhandlinger mellem Israel og Den Palæstinensiske Befrielsesorganisation(PLO), kan der ikke blive nogen løsning i Mellemøsten inden for en overskuelig, umiddelbar fremtid. Vi kender alle alt for godt de underliggende forhindringer for sådanne forhandlinger. Vi burde vide, at vi hurtigt må fjerne forhindringerne for sådanne direkte forhandlinger.” Han henviser udtrykkeligt til idéen om, at man først skal have en politisk aftale og derefter gå videre. Det han siger er, at “det objektive grundlag for en løsning i Mellemøsten er den økonomiske udviklingspakke, vi har peget på. Enhver anden tilgang vil mislykkes; vil hurtigt blive nedbrudt til en farce. Men det er ikke blot materielle fordele i sig selv, der skaber grundlaget for fred. Det er det faktum, at regeringernes forpligtelse til at realisere betydelige videnskabelige og teknologiske fremskridt fremmer humanistiske holdninger i befolkningerne.”
Det var den idé, LaRouche havde om sit westfalske princip; om vigtigheden af økonomiske politikker, der viser, at hver side anerkender fordelene ved den anden, som grundlag for fred. Det var hans tema i mange andre artikler i den periode. Han gik imod strømmen, da folk sagde, at man ikke kan forhandle med Arafat, han er ikke villig til at forhandle. Hvad LaRouche skrev i december 1983: “Arafat er den etablerede leder af det, der faktisk er en eksilregering for de palæstinensiske arabere. Hvis vi skal have succes med at forhandle med det palæstinensiske arabiske folk, er det Arafats lederskab, vi skal forhandle med.” Derefter skrev han et politisk dokument, “Forslag om at begynde udviklingen af en langsigtet økonomisk udviklingspolitik for staten Israel.”
Kort tid efter, i april 1986, opfordrede Shimon Peres, som på det tidspunkt var Israels premierminister, til at afsætte en pulje på 25-30 milliarder dollars til at skabe en udviklingsfond for Mellemøsten for de næste ti år. Peres kaldte det en Marshallplan for Mellemøstens udvikling. Lyndon LaRouche bakkede op om den og skrev flere artikler, hvor han forsvarede den. Men han påpegede det utilstrækkelige i tilgangen. Hvad han sagde på det tidspunkt var, at det, der er nødvendigt, er at tage fat på det mest alvorlige problem, der findes med hensyn til økonomien. Og hvad er det? Det er manglen på vand, og forholdet mellem det og manglen på strøm eller energi. Så mens LaRouche støttede Peres’ Marshallplan, og i 1986 havde Peres øget det samlede beløb til 50 milliarder dollars, begyndte han at beskrive, hvordan man kan skabe mere vand til Mellemøsten. Dette er grundlaget for det, der senere, i 1990, blev kendt som hans Oase-Plan. Han sagde, at man var nødt til at have en menneskeskabt Jordan-flod, som kunne flyde og give mere vand til alle de områder, der grænser op til den; herunder Jordan, Israel, Egypten og Den Arabiske Halvø. For at gøre det, sagde han, har man brug for afsaltning. Man har brug for en række atomkraftværker på 300 MW, som giver strøm til afsaltningen. Det vil også give den elektricitet, der er nødvendig for industrialisering og avanceret landbrug. I 1990 skrev han et stykke med titlen: “En fredsplan i arabernes og israelernes sande interesse”. Her skrev LaRouche, at vi har brug for “geografisk ingeniørkunst” til at føre kanalerne mellem Middelhavet og Det Røde Hav, og derefter Det Røde Hav til Det Døde Hav, for at skabe vandløb, som med atomdrevet afsaltning til at levere vandkraft og transport, ville give mulighed for industriel og landbrugsmæssig udvikling.
Her er det, han sagde, som virkelig er interessant:
“Man kunne definere den rette tilgang til udviklingen af Mellemøsten, hvis der ikke boede nogen mennesker der i øjeblikket, som hvis vi for eksempel planlagde bosættelsen af Mars: en ubeboet planet, ved hjælp af kunstigt miljø, og så videre.” Han fortsatte med at skrive, at opdelingen og fordelingen af vand og strøm skal organiseres, så den gennemsnitlige kvadratkilometer jord kan udvikles til at være produktiv på de nødvendige niveauer for forskellige typer af jordbrug – græsning, afgrøder, beboelse, industri og handel.
Ideen med de to kanaler og den overordnede tilgang til industriel udvikling blev betragtet som revolutionerende. Hvordan kunne man opnå en aftale på dette grundlag? Hvad der skete på det tidspunkt var, at Bush-regeringen forsøgte at gøre præcis det, som LaRouche havde advaret dem imod at gøre. For at forsøge at få en politisk løsning holdt de en konference i Madrid med repræsentanter for palæstinenserne og israelerne, men den førte ingen steder hen. De samme gamle argumenter, de samme gamle kampe, de samme gamle modsætninger; det faktum, at der havde været en række krige siden 1948, i ’48 og ’56 og ’67 og ’73, og fortsatte træfninger og terrorisme. Hvordan kunne man få de to sider til at mødes? Mens Madrid-konferencen stod på – og på det tidspunkt var det Yitzhak Shamir, der var premierminister – var der noget andet, der blev sat i gang, da Yitzhak Rabin blev premierminister året efter i 1992. Det var en diskussion bag kulisserne i Oslo, Norge, mellem repræsentanter, der var tæt på Shimon Peres, som var kommet med ideen om en Marshallplan for Mellemøsten, og repræsentanter for Arafat.
Det førte til en aftale i september 1993, kaldet Oslo-aftalen. Det vigtigste ved Oslo-aftalen, og de fleste fokuserer på det faktum, at Arafat og Rabin gav hinanden hånden, er, at de talte om at gøre en ende på fjendskabet. Det var her, Rabin kom med sin berømte udtalelse om, at for at gøre dette, må man have modet til at ændre aksiomer. Og det afspejlede de blot ved at mødes og give hinanden hånden. Det var et meget anspændt øjeblik, indtil de to greb hinandens hænder, kiggede hinanden i øjnene og derefter gik væk og udbragte en skål for hinanden. En skål for dem, der har modet til at ændre aksiomer. Men det, der lå til grund for dette potentiale, var netop LaRouches idé om økonomisk samarbejde og udvikling i de to økonomiske bilag, der var knyttet til Oslo-aftalen.
Jeg vil lige læse et par aspekter af dette. Det økonomiske bilag nr. 3: “Protokol om israelsk-palæstinensisk samarbejde om økonomiske og udviklingsmæssige programmer.”
“De to parter er enige om at etablere en israelsk-palæstinensisk komité for økonomisk samarbejde, der blandt andet skal fokusere på følgende.
“1. Samarbejde om vandområdet, herunder et vandudviklingsprogram …
“2. Samarbejde inden for elektricitet …
“3. Samarbejde om energiområdet …
“4. Samarbejde om det finansielle område, herunder et finansielt udviklings- og handlingsprogram til fremme af internationale investeringer på Vestbredden og i Gazastriben …
“5. Samarbejde inden for transport og kommunikation …
“6. Samarbejde inden for handel …” og endelig,
“7. Samarbejde inden for industri, herunder industrielle udviklingsprogrammer, som vil sikre oprettelsen af fælles israelsk-palæstinensiske industrielle forsknings- og udviklingscentre….”
Så det var bilag 3. Bilag 4 befæster dette med ideen om: “Protokol om israelsk-palæstinensisk samarbejde vedrørende regionale Udviklingsprogrammer.” Den taler om et økonomisk udviklingsprogram for Vestbredden og Gaza, en mellemøstlig udviklingsfond og endelig en mellemøstlig udviklingsbank. Alt dette var muligt på det tidspunkt, og det ville have gjort præcis det, som LaRouche foreslog, nemlig at skabe et grundlag hvor folk i de palæstinensiske områder ville se en fordel i at samarbejde med Israel, og israelerne ville se en fordel i at samarbejde med palæstinenserne. Ikke bare for at stoppe drabene, men for at skabe et miljø med gensidigt fordelagtige produktive aktiviteter, som ville hæve levestandarden for folk på begge sider af konflikten. Og på det grundlag ville en to-statsløsning være mulig. Det er kernen i LaRouches ideer.
Hvad skete der med den plan? Tja, den blev først dræbt af Verdensbanken, for i november 1993 sagde Verdensbanken, at de ikke ville kanalisere penge eller give midler, der kom fra donorer. Præsident Clinton forsøgte blandt andet at rejse midler til dette. Der var donorer, som var parate til at give penge, men Verdensbanken sagde, at de ikke ville give pengene til palæstinenserne, fordi de ikke stolede på dem på grund af “korruption”. Især var der modstand mod, at Arafat skulle have nogen mulighed for at modtage midlerne. Som et resultat var pengene der bare ikke. Det var et stort problem for opfølgningen. To år senere, den 4. november 1995, blev Yitzhak Rabin myrdet af en mand ved navn Yigal Amir, som var en del af bosætterbevægelsen og især havde været meget aktiv i Hebron, som var et af de største konfrontationsområder mellem de palæstinensere, der boede der, og de jødiske bosættere, som brugte den israelske stats magt til at rykke ind. Mordet på Rabin, oven i lukningen af potentialet for midler, afsluttede muligheden for succes for Oslo. LaRouche har specifikt udtalt i september 1993, efter håndtrykket i Washington, at det er presserende, at de første skridt til disse nye projekter bliver taget med det samme. Ellers var der fare for, at dette forslag ville drukne i begge parters blod. Han identificerede specifikt Sharon-netværkene i bosætterbevægelsen som truslen mod det. Og det var hvad der skete; en mulighed gik tabt.
Som vi ser, er det tilstrækkeligt at se på udviklingen fra 1995 til i dag. Palæstinenserne har stadig ingen stat; faktisk er de nu delt mellem to grupper, hvoraf den ene – Hamas, som Netanyahu nu sværger at udrydde – siden 2009 har Netanyahu og Israel givet midler til Hamas for at opbygge dem som en modvægt til Det Palæstinensiske Selvstyre. Hvorfor det? Fordi Det Palæstinensiske Selvstyre er en nationalistisk bevægelse, der repræsenterer palæstinensernes interesser som nation, i modsætning til Hamas, som er en religiøs bevægelse. Så længe man har Hamas, der kæmper mod Det Palæstinensiske Selvstyre, har man ingen samlet regering at forhandle med. Det er, hvad Netanyahu sagde; han pralede af at gøre det. Det anslås, at mere end 1 milliard dollars blev kanaliseret fra Israel gennem Qatar til Hamas, som Netanyahu nu siger, at han vil udrydde og udslette.
Så løsningen her er, at man bliver nødt til at identificere, hvad problemet er. Problemet er ikke israelere og palæstinensere, selvom det måske er dem, der udfører de desperate handlinger. Men de handler ikke i egen interesse; de handler i de højere magters interesse, som ønsker at forhindre enhver form for brud med de gamle aksiomer.
… HARLEY SCHLANGER: Thank you. As I’m sure almost everyone realizes now, we’re facing a growing threat of an expanding war in Southwest Asia; at the same time, we have a continuing proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and some of the neo-cons are pushing as hard as they can to get a war against China over Taiwan. This was made absolutely clear by Biden’s nationwide address on Oct. 19th. He had just come back from meeting with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. He pledged eternal support of the United States for Netanyahu and the policy of exterminating Hamas. And then he came back and presented a speech to the American people where he made the link of Ukraine and support for Israel. Why did he do that? Because there’s growing opposition to funding the war in Ukraine. This was part of the reason for the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and part of the reason they can’t put together a new speakership now for the House. What Biden tried to do was a clever trick; link the two things together as one package. Here’s what he said:
“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy. American leadership is what holds the world together. American values are what makes us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all of that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, is not worth it.” Then he went on to say, “[H]istory has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising.”
Now if you take that second part of the statement, you could apply it to the United States. Where has been the correct blame on the United States for the wars of aggression by America and NATO? The destruction of Libya, of Iraq, of Afghanistan, of Syria, of Ukraine. They have not been held accountable. People like George W. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden. So, to attempt to make this a question of standing up for democracy, this is precisely the line of the leading oligarchs through their Atlantic Council, which sponsored a Summit for Democracy to try and say the divide in the world is between democracies led by America, and authoritarian governments led by Russia, China, and now they throw in Iran, North Korea, and some others.
The attempt to connect these two funding situations—the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel—is an attempt to outflank those conservative Republicans who are opposing the new package Biden presented for Ukraine funding, initially a $24 billion request. In the budget deal that was reached, they threw that out completely. But listen to what leading Democrats are saying about the importance of Biden’s speech. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer applauded his plan and said, “We’re going to do everything in our power to ensure the Senate delivers the support of Israel and the rest of the package,” that is, Ukraine. Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat who is head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, concurred with Schumer and said, “The linkage has bipartisan support, and is our best shot to get it done now.” That’s the intent to outflank the opponents of Ukraine funding; but more importantly, what’s the real intent here? Permanent warfare to disrupt the potential of nations to break out from the unipolar order or the rules-based order.
What we’ve been emphasizing, as you heard from Lyndon LaRouche just before, is that the drive for war comes from higher up; above the elected officials who parrot the demands coming from the think tanks and the corporate cartels. But it’s the higher-ups you have to look at. Last week, in the Manhattan Project, I went through LaRouche’s assessment, which is that both sides in the Middle East have been played; both sides. The Arabs and Palestinians, and the Israelis. This is something that didn’t start just recently; it’s an orchestration by the British Empire going back, as LaRouche talked about, for thousands of years, but in the more recent period, going back to the pre-World War I period, when the question was, “How do you replace the Ottoman Empire to make sure that it remains under the control of the British Empire?” That is, the geographical area which we now call the Middle East, but which is essentially Southwest Asia. How do you keep it under the control of the British Empire? This was part of the fight in World War I. The intention to keep Germany and Russia away from each other so that the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad did not cut out the power of the British Navy to control international trade and commerce.
In 1916, there was the Sykes-Picot Agreement, where the British and the French carved up the Middle East to make sure that there would not be a coherent plan for nations to develop, but that they could easily be pitted against each other based on national views, tribal interests, religious differences such as Shi’ite and Sunni, and so on. And in 1917, they added to that with the Balfour Declaration, promising a Jewish state in Palestine.
When you look at the developments in recent days and the war expanding in Southwest Asia, this is what LaRouche said is a result of geopolitics. You look at that area, and what’s there? It’s an automatic natural land connection between Asia and Europe, and between Asia and Africa. It’s a sea connection with the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. These were areas central to British control, and that’s what geopolitics is about. How do you manipulate governments so that there will be no opposition to a looting policy directed from above by the British Empire? That’s the reason, LaRouche says, people are played there.
Let me just give you a brief sense of what I mean when I say the higher-ups involved in manipulation. There’s a fellow called Frederick Kempe, who is the CEO of the Atlantic Council, which is one of the leading think tanks for the geo-politicians and the corporate oligarchs. The Atlantic Council is funded by the British government; it’s highly integrated into British intelligence; and then it’s funded also by corporate cartels from the City of London and Wall Street. Here’s what Kempe had to say about Biden’s speech Thursday night. He said:
“Historians may come to know U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation as his ‘inflection point address’,” because Biden said this is an inflection point. Kempe goes on to say, “It was as eloquent and compelling as any he has delivered in his lifetime,” which, by the way is not saying much. But then he goes on to say, “It has the potential to be the most significant of his Presidency, and it was choreographed to be seen as such. It was only the second time he has chosen to speak from behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office, and he did it with the backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Israel, and simmering tensions around Taiwan.”
Now, to show you that Kempe actually understands what’s going on, he does make the counterpoint that, as this was going on, “as if scripted by a grand dramatist, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin were meeting in China as Biden travelled to Israel; doubling down on their common cause to rewrite the rules of the global order.” On that, Kempe is absolutely right. They are rewriting the rules, because they don’t accept the rules of the unipolar order dictated by the corporate cartels centered in London and Wall Street. They are, in fact, leading a rebellion against it, which includes most of the Global South. There are 150 nations at the Beijing conference of the Belt and Road Initiative. So, Kempe has a sense that he’s speaking going uphill. But what he’s identifying, and what Ursula von der Leyen, who is also very close to the Atlantic Council, said in her trip to Washington, what would happen if the U.S. role as the sole superpower is rejected? That’s what Biden said also. The pivotal role of America as the indispensable nation as the murderous Madeleine Albright called it. Well, Lyndon LaRouche has been a primary intellectual force in the opposition to this globalist policy for his whole life. In the time I knew him, from 1972 until his passing in 2019, he gave many speeches, conferences, voluminous writings presenting an alternative to submitting to this order.
I’m going to give you a brief chronology. It’s such a massive opus of work, it would require many days and conferences and we should do that. But I just want to give you a brief glimpse into what he did, and how he shaped this fight, and why today it’s the policies that he and our organization represent that are the alternative. Let’s start in one historic moment, April 1975. LaRouche was invited to attend a conference in Baghdad of the Ba’ath Party. And while he was there, he met with a number of Arab leaders, and came out of there with a proposal from the Iraqis to pull together a $30 billion development fund for Israel and Palestine. This, when LaRouche presented it to our membership, was quite staggering. He followed the trip to Baghdad with a press conference announcing the release of his International Development Bank, which was a call for a new monetary system which would be coherent with this package of money for developing Israel and Palestine.
Let me give you a brief anecdotal report on the magnitude of this. Right after this happened, we put out in our newspaper, a headline stating, “Iraq Offers $30 Billion Peace Plan to Israel.” I was with a group of people who distributed this at a speech given by Moshe Dayan at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There were hundreds of people there, and we were very much afraid that if we went there and said Iraq wants to end the confrontation and offers money, people would be angry. But what we found out is that they were highly interested in it. We sold every single newspaper we had, and then after the speech by Dayan, I stood up in the audience—José Vega-style—and said to Moshe Dayan, “We have a proposal that Lyndon LaRouche has put on the table from Iraq for a $30 billion development plan for Israel and Palestine. Would you support that?” I was expecting a harangue from him, because he had a reputation of being a bit of a hothead, a tough military leader. What he said was fascinating. He said, “This is very interesting. This could change everything. I’m very open to hear more about it.” It showed at that time the potential for LaRouche’s intervention—this is just after the 1973 War, after the Arab oil embargo, after what appeared to be an end to any possibility of realizing the idea of a two-state solution to Israel and Palestine.
When LaRouche introduced his International Development Bank policy, he said the following: “With an IDB policy in the wind, the pro-peace faction of the Mapai [which was an Israeli party] should soon become hegemonic. The Israelis and key Arab states could readily agree on durable terms of continued negotiation concerning the Palestinian question within the context of immediate firm agreement for cooperation in development policies.” With that approach, LaRouche conducted meeting over the next few years, beginning in 1975 when he had a meeting with Israeli leader Abba Eban to further the discussion of this approach. In 1977, LaRouche wrote an article which was published in a Paris-based Israeli newsletter called “Israel and Palestine; A Future for the Middle East.” Here’s what he said in that:
“In general, without direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, there can be no Middle East settlement for the foreseeable, immediate future. We all know all too well subjective obstacles to such negotiations. We ought to know that we must rapidly eliminate the obstacles to such direct negotiations.” He’s referring specifically to the idea that you should have a political agreement first, and then move on. What he says is that “The objective basis for a Middle East settlement is the economic development package we have indicated. Any other approach will fail; will be quickly degraded into farce. However, it is not mere material advantage in itself which provides the basis for peace. It is the fact that the commitment of the governments to realize high rates of scientific and technological progress fosters humanist outlooks in the populations.”
That was the idea LaRouche had of his Westphalian principle; of the importance of economic policies that show each side recognizing the benefit of the other as the basis of peace. This was his theme in many other papers during that period. He went against the tide when people were saying you can’t deal with Arafat, he’s unwilling to make a negotiation. What LaRouche wrote in December 1983: “Mr. Arafat is the established leader of what is, in fact, a government in exile of the Palestinian Arabs. If we are going to deal successfully with the Palestinian Arab people, it is with Mr. Arafat’s leadership that we must deal.” He then wrote a policy paper, “Proposal To Begin Development of a Long-Range Economic Development Policy for the State of Israel.”
Shortly after this, in April 1986, Shimon Peres, who was at that time Israeli Prime Minister, called for a $25-$30 billion pool of money to create a Mideast Development Fund for the next ten years. Peres called it a Marshall Plan for Middle East Development. As far as it went, Lyndon LaRouche backed it, and wrote several articles defending it. But he did point out the inadequacy of the approach. What he said at that time was that what’s necessary is to address the most serious problem that exists in terms of the economy. What is that? It’s the lack of water, and the relationship of that to the lack of power or energy. So, while endorsing Peres’ Marshall Plan, and by 1986, Peres had upped the total to $50 billion, what LaRouche did is, he started writing about how you can create more water for the Middle East. This is the basis of what became known later, by 1990, as his Oasis Plan. What he said is that you need to have a manmade Jordan River, which could flow to provide more water for all the areas that bordered it; including Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula. He said to do this, you need desalination. You need a string of 300MW nuclear plants that give you the power to do the desalination. It will also provide the electricity needed for industrialization and advanced agriculture. In 1990, he wrote a piece called “A Peace Plan in the True Interests of Arab and Israeli.” What LaRouche wrote in this is that we need “geographic engineering” to run the canals between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and then the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, to create water courses which, with nuclear-powered desalination to provide water power and transport, would allow for industrial and agricultural development.
Here’s what he said that’s really most interesting:
“One could define the proper approach to development of the Middle East, if no persons lived there presently, as if, for example, we were planning the settling of Mars: an uninhabited planet, by aid of artificial environment, and so forth.” He went on to write, the division and distribution of water and power must be organized to develop the average square kilometer of land to be productive at needed levels for different types of land-use—pastoral, crop, residential, industrial, and commercial.
This was idea of the two canals and the overall approach to industrial development was seen as revolutionary. How could you get an agreement on this basis? What happened at that point was that the Bush administration tried to do exactly what LaRouche had warned them not to do. To try and get a political settlement, they had a conference in Madrid, which included representatives of the Palestinians and Israelis, but it was going nowhere. The same old arguments, the same old fights, the same old antagonisms; the fact that there had been a number of wars since 1948 in ’48 and ’56 and ’67 and ’73, and continued skirmishing and terrorism. How could you get the two sides together? While the Madrid conference was going on—and at the time it was Yitzhak Shamir who was the Prime Minister, there was something else that was launched when Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister the next year in 1992. It was a back channel discussion in Oslo, Norway, between representatives who were close to Shimon Peres, who had come up with this idea of the Mideast Marshall Plan, and representatives of Arafat.
This came to fruition in the September 1993 agreement called theOslo Accord. Now, what’s most important about the Oslo Accord, and most people focus on the fact that Arafat and Rabin shook hands, they spoke about putting an end to the enmity. This is where Rabin made his famous statement that in order to do this, you must have the courage to change axioms. And they reflected that merely by meeting together and shaking hands. It was a very tense moment until the two of them grabbed each other’s hands, looked in each other’s eyes, and then moved away and did a toast to each other. A toast to those who have the courage to change axioms. But what was underlying this potential was precisely LaRouche’s idea of economic cooperation and development in the two economic annexes that were attached to the Oslo Accord.
I’m just going to read a couple of aspects of this. The economic annex #3: “Protocol on Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation in Economic and Development Programs.”
“The two sides agree to establish an Israeli-Palestinian Continuing Committee for Economic Cooperation, focusing, among other things, on the following:
“1. Cooperation in the field of water, including a Water Development Programme …
“2. Cooperation in the field of electricity …
“3. Cooperation in the field of energy …
“4. Cooperation in the field of finance, including a Financial Development and Action Programme for the encouragement of international investment in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip …
“5. Cooperation in the field of transport and communications …
“6. Cooperation in the field of trade …” and finally,
“7. Cooperation in the field of industry, including Industrial Development Programmes, which will provide for the establishment of joint Israeli-Palestinian Industrial Research and Development Centres….”
So, that was Annex #3. Annex #4 consolidates that with the idea of the “Protocol on Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation Concerning Regional Development Programs.” It talks about an economic development program for the West Bank and Gaza, a Middle East development fund, and finally, a Middle East Development Bank. All of this was possible at that time, and this would have done precisely what LaRouche was proposing, which was to create a basis where people in the Palestinian territories would see a benefit in cooperating with Israel, and the Israelis would see a benefit in cooperating with the Palestinians. Not just to end the killing, but to create an environment of mutually beneficial productive activity which would lift the standard of living of people on both sides of the conflict. And on that basis, a two-state solution would be possible. That’s at the center of LaRouche’s ideas.
Now, what happened to that plan? Well, it was first killed by the World Bank, because by November 1993, the World Bank said they would not funnel money or provide funds that came from donors. President Clinton among others was trying to raise funds for this. There were donors who were prepared to give money, but the World Bank said they would not extend that money to the Palestinians because they didn’t trust them because of “corruption.” In particular, opposition to having Arafat having any possibility of receiving the funds. As a result, the money was just not there. This was a major problem for the follow through. Then, two years later, Nov. 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a man named Yigal Amir, who was part of the settlers’ movement and in particular had been very active in Hebron, which was one of the major areas of confrontation between the Palestinians who lived there and the Jewish settlers who were using the power of the Israeli state to move in. The assassination of Rabin, on top of the shutdown of the potential for funds, ended the possibility of the success of Oslo. LaRouche has specifically stated in September 1993, after the handshake in Washington, that it’s urgent that the earth start being moved for these new projects immediately. Otherwise, there was a danger that this proposal would be drowned in the blood of both sides. He specifically identified the Sharon networks in the settlers’ movement as the threat to it. And that’s what happened; an opportunity was lost.
As we see, just project from 1995 to today. The Palestinians still have no state; in fact, they now are divided between two groups, one of which—Hamas, which Netanyahu is now vowing to exterminate—since 2009, Netanyahu and Israel have been providing funds to Hamas to build them up as a counter to the Palestinian Authority. Why? Because the Palestinian Authority is a nationalist movement that represents the interests of the Palestinians as a nation, as opposed to Hamas, which is a religious movement. As long as you have Hamas fighting with the Palestinian Authority, you have no unified government to negotiate with. That’s what Netanyahu said; he bragged about doing that. The estimate is that more than $1 billion was channeled from Israel through Qatar to the Hamas, which now Netanyahu says he’s going to exterminate and wipe out.
So, the solution here is that you have to identify what the problem is. The problem is not Israelis and Palestinians, though they may be the ones who carry out the desperate actions. But they’re not acting in their own interests; they’re acting in the interests of those higher up, who want to prevent any kind of break with the old axioms. We’re seeing this happening around the world. Why did this happen right now? Well, I can’t speak for the decision-making process of Hamas, but the timing on this is certainly worth looking at. You have the breakdown of support for the Ukraine war in the United States Congress. You have the Ukraine war going terribly. The counteroffensive fizzled out. You may be providing more weapons to Ukraine, but as Putin pointed out, that just means that there will be more deaths of Ukrainians.
The second point is that you have the emergence of a new counter pole to the unipolar order; namely, the BRICS. The emergence of the Global South with the commitment to the kind of development projects that Lyndon LaRouche has been writing about for 50 years; which means against the International Monetary Fund, against such projects as the Great Reset and the global Green New Deal, and so on. So, if you look at this from the standpoint of a Frederick Kempe and the Atlantic Council, and the people who bankroll that, a peace settlement in the Middle East would be a horrible for them. Just as a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine war, in which what Putin proposed for the last eight years—security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia, and a recognition for the potential for the two nations to work together—this represents a threat to the continuation of what Blinken calls the rules-based order. And so, that’s why it’s so revolutionary and important to grasp what LaRouche is saying; both in terms of who’s manipulating this, what’s the hand above the scene that’s playing the two sides against each other? And secondly, how do you defeat that? You have a movement in the Western nations—the United States and Europe—that rejects the unipolar order and the so-called rules-based order and reach out their hands to the Global South to work on joint development projects in the benefit of the other.
So, there is a solution. Those who say there is no solution are just the victims of the psychological warfare which is designed to make you depressed. But the solutions rest with what we’ve been trying to do; what we’ve been working on for years, and which is coming together now in the International Peace Coalition and the overall movement of the LaRouche Organization. We can make these solutions happen, but it depends on we, the people; not elected officials who have proven to be too corrupt and too intellectually small to take up the task at hand.
That’s my presentation for today.