A Missing Wikileak: All Roads Lead To Tel Aviv
20 December 2010By Dr Ghayur Ayub
Tickers on different news channels were running
fast at the bottom of the television screen. It was
the evening before the next batch of Wikileaks were
due for publication. I made sure to buy The Guardian –
one of five newspapers publishing the documents. With
remote control in hand, I was browsing through Sky
News, BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera and Press TV. To the best
of my recollection, it was Sky News which caught my
eye. The breaking news referred to a planned Israeli
nuclear attack on two American cities, which were to
be linked to Pakistan. America would have had a cause
to respond in kind and take out Pakistani nuclear
sites. I couldn't believe my eyes! I rewound the news
to double check what I had just read. Thinking details
would be published in the Guardian newspaper the
following day I did not record it. Later, I rang a
friend and told him about the mind boggling news. The
bizarre news kept me awake most of the night.
The next day I got the newspaper and went through it
page by page. To my surprise, the "ticker news" could
not be seen anywhere. I read it a couple of times but
failed to find the particular piece. I could not
understand how the newspaper missed such an important
part of the leak? In pursuit, I opened the Wikileaks'
website and browsed through it carefully; no luck
again. Then, I Googled relevant questions pertaining
to Israel; still no luck! To make it more direct, I
refined my search based on the information I had read
on television. Again no reference. The news had just
disappeared from cyberspace.
Doubts started emerging whether I had really seen that
segment which was embedded in my mind despite me
vividly remembering its content. In fact I called a
friend about it. So what happened to the news?
The only explanation I can think of is that the news
item must have leaked out by mistake and then swiftly
been retracted. After all it is common knowledge that
the leaks are selective. I have no idea who else
watched it during that brief period it was on the air.
Was it a coincidence that at that very moment I was
browsing through the channels? Many would say yes. But
I don't believe in coincidences. I call them part of
'cosmic language'. All it means is that nature talks
to us in its own language that has no syllabi. I may
write on this subject some other time. But for now I
had to find the 'missing leak'.
During my search I came to know about a basic fact
that even the embarrassment factor was not that high
for the politicians and foreign diplomats as they all
understood each other and routinely lied which
explains the uniformity in their reaction to the leaks
by denying them. It also became apparent that the
leaks related to Israel were primarily Iran-centric
and that Iran's nukes pose an "existentialist threat"
to Israel.
It was interesting to find that before the leaks were
publicized Natanyahu did not think they would
seriously damage Israel's position. No wonder when he
visited jubilantly Tel Aviv's Beit Sokolow, the home
of the Israeli Journalists Association, for the prime
minister's annual meeting with the Editors Committee,
he was all smiles. This is the place where Ben Gurion
used to hold secret meetings.
Last year he skipped the event; however, this time
around it was different because of the Wikileaks
publication. He showed up to display his political
command by sticking to his public agenda and sending a
message to the White House of what was befalling
President Obama. As if he knew there was now no fear
that Washington would persist on the question of a
settlement freeze or to accelerate negotiations on
withdrawal from the territories. He felt confident
that the settlement issue would take a back seat and
it was time to press on other issues such as extremism
in Arab and Muslim world.
At Beit Sokolow he announced "no one will now be able
to allege that Israel is acting irresponsibly". Then
he spoke about the Arab leaders urging them to "speak
openly about Iran what they have been whispering to
the Americans" Speaking his language in an interview
with Time Magazine, Julian Assange sent an identical
message "We can see the Israeli Prime Minister
[Benjamin] Natanyahu coming out with a very
interesting statement that leaders should speak in
public like they do in private whenever they can".
Natanyahu was proud that Israel maintained information
security and that sensitive conversations were not
conveyed in diplomatic cables but in face-to-face
meetings or via secure telephones. For a split second
that "mysterious ticker" flashed back and I thought if
only Natanyahu knew that a blunder had been committed
by someone somewhere exposing Israel's intentions to
start a nuclear nightmare!
He seemed content with the outcome of Wikileaks,
ignoring what Huseyin Celik, the deputy leader of
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's AKP Party had said
about Israel. Celic accused Israel of engineering the
leaks, questioning how Israel could announce before
the release that it would not suffer from its
publication. He queried, "How did they know that?"
Instead, Natanyahu was quoting Arab leaders from
Egypt, Jordan and Persian Gulf States, that they were
also fearful of the Iranian threat. He was right in
his statement because Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the
crown prince of Abu Dhabi warned, "Iran will threaten
Israel's existence should it go nuclear." He called
Ahmadinejad a "Hitler", proposing that "if air strikes
will not do the job in Iran the ground troops should
be sent in." Similarly, Saudi King Abdullah wanted the
U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake".
Another UAE leader gave his reasons for Iran-bashing
by saying that "Iran is establishing `sleeper
emirates' across the Muslim world including south
Lebanon, Gaza, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Eastern
Province of Saudi Arabia with the mother of all
`emirates' in southern Iraq and now in Yemen." Similar
sentiments were heard from other pro-American leaders
in the Arab world. One Israeli official stated, "the
Arab countries are pushing United States towards
military action more forcefully than Israel".
As opposed to these reports the American intellectual
Noam Chomsky cited a Brookings Institution poll that
80 per cent of Arabs consider Israel as the main
threat followed by the U.S. at 77 per cent. Only 10
per cent rated Iran as a danger. He concluded by
stating, "When they talk about Arabs, they mean the
Arab dictators, not the population, which is
overwhelmingly opposed to the conclusions that the
analysts-Clinton and the media-have drawn." According
to another report, the Arab rulers "dare follow the
American line completely, particularly if this
includes a strike against Iran if they did, they'd
risk popular revolts".
I found nothing but Iran-centric Wikileaks in the
Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers. They were
reminiscent of the "Zimmermann Telegram" during World
War I. The declassified documents of history tell us
that in early 1917 the British cryptography unit
("Room 40" ) decoded a telegram from German Foreign
Minister Arthur Zimmermann to his country's embassy in
Mexico City proposing that the Mexicans launch a war
against United States and retake Texas. The British
showed the telegram to American diplomats. It prompted
the Congress and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to
declare war on Germany which contributed to Germany's
defeat at the end of 1918.
A few months after this episode of the "Zimmermann
Telegram" the Bolshevik Revolution took place in
Russia. The new leadership wanted to declassify the
documents of the Czar's Foreign Ministry. The task was
given to Leon Trosky – the people's commissar for
foreign affairs. One of the documents revealed the
1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement in which Britain and France
planned how they would carve up the Ottoman Empire and
also promised a hefty slice to Russia which desired
Istanbul and the Black Sea straits. What if the
secrets were revealed at that time? Would it have
changed the history?
The point I am trying to make is that exposure of
secrets can influence events if they appear at the
right moment, as in the case of the Zimmermann
telegram. So what could be the reason for Wikileaks
and how will it affect short and long-term relations
amongst Muslim countries vis-a-vis pro-Israel lobbies
in America. Would Natanyahu be resting in a comfort
zone and constantly pressurizing Obama to stop
interfering in the internal matters of Israel
especially the settlements issue had the 'missing
leak' been circulated? Here comes the million dollar
question. Is there a 'missing leak' exposing Israel's
heinous motives despite the leaked documents stating
that "there is no Israel lobby involvement to
involuntarily force US in a war to serve Jewish
interests" and that "the world opinion is wielding
towards declaring Iran as the head of a snake that
must be cut off as the Saudi potentate described it."
Not many would believe in the existence of such a
'missing leak'. Even my own lawyer daughter thinks I
may have misread the news. But deep down, I know what
I saw and read that evening. Perhaps 50 years from now
this "ticker news" may show up in a slue of
declassified documents similar to Zimmerman's secret
telegram. The leaked telegram changed the course of
history but the 'missing leak' cannot; as long as it
remains missing.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments