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www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=25615&d=26&m=4&y=2003


Saturday, 26, April, 2003 (23, Safar, 1424)



‘Master-Blaster’ — A Case for Liberation
John V. Whitbeck, Special to Arab News —



In the film “Thunderdome”, part of the bleak and violent “Mad Max” series of
films, there were two memorable characters — sultry pop diva Tina Turner
and “Master-Blaster”. In the film’s post-nuclear-war wasteland without
petroleum, the only source of energy was pig excrement, produced and
processed in a grim underworld ruled over by Master-Blaster, a composite,
two-in-one character. “Blaster” was a huge, muscle-bound adolescent with (to
be polite) severely underdeveloped mental abilities. On his shoulders,
hidden under a large helmet, sat “Master”, a brilliant midget who did Master-
Blaster’s thinking and provided the character’s voice while harnessing
Blaster’s brute force to achieve wildly disproportionate power for a midget.
Master-Blaster is an extraordinarily apt personification of the bizarre
relationship between Israel and the United States in recent decades. This is
particularly the case under the current Sharon-Bush regime. Encouragingly,
even the “mainstream” press in the United States has started, albeit
hesitantly and delicately, to focus on who is doing the thinking behind
current American foreign policy and (in the case of a few brave voices) for
whose benefit they are doing this thinking.



As Anne Joyce, editor of the Washington quarterly Middle East Policy, has
courageously written in the current issue of this journal, the war on Iraq
was “planned, not to protect the American homeland from the weak Saddam
Hussein, but to consolidate an American hegemony in the Middle East that
will permit Israeli settlers to keep the land they are stealing from the
Palestinians.”



A key question which needs to be posed more widely and intensely is in what
respects (if any) a series of American wars against Israel’s enemies (let
alone the perpetual “full-spectrum domination” of the entire world by the
Israeli-American Empire so dear to the hearts and minds of
the “neoconservative” cabal doing the thinking behind current American
foreign policy) is likely (or even intended) to improve the security,
prosperity or quality of life of Americans. It is a question for which
honest and convincing answers are not obvious.



Those who defend the regime’s “neoconservatives” against suggestions
of “dual loyalties” (a rather generous verbal formulation in the
circumstances) often argue that, in fact, they make no distinction in their
own minds between the United States and Israel, genuinely viewing the
interests of the two countries as identical in all circumstances and
honestly considering whatever is good for Israel to be good for the United
States. This may well be an accurate reflection of the state of mind of
many “neoconservatives” — and, indeed, for reasons of conviction or fear, of
the editorial policy of most of the American media. However, many Americans,
particularly those who, post-Sept. 11, do not accept “because we love
freedom” as an honest and convincing answer to the question “Why do they
hate us?”, do not view Master-Blaster as a single character on the world
stage.



It requires great courage for anyone in the United States to question
publicly this alleged identity of national interests. (The members of the US
Congress who would dare to state publicly that Israeli and American
interests are not always identical and that they would always put American
interests ahead of Israeli interests could probably be counted on one
person’s fingers.) Anyone challenging the prevailing orthodoxy in an
effective manner can expect to be hit with the epithet of mass
destruction “anti-Semite”, which, in America, is more intimidating
than “anti-American”. This does not make challenges less essential for those
who genuinely care about American national interests and world peace. Master
seems to be getting so certain of his dominant position wrapped around
Blaster’s head that he no longer even exercises due care in hiding himself
under the helmet. Ariel Sharon has been famously quoted as telling Shimon
Peres, while the latter was serving as his fig leaf foreign minister, that
Israel had no reason to worry about American “pressure”, because “Israel
controls the United States.” Promptly after the fall of Baghdad, an
interview in the Tel Aviv daily newspaper Ma’ariv quoted Israeli Defense
Minister Saul Mofaz as saying, “We have a long line of issues we are
thinking of demanding of the Syrians, and it would best be done through the
Americans” — who, of course, promptly did so.



Perhaps, at some point, the “liberation” of Iraq from Iraqi rule (and of
Syria from Syrian rule?) will be followed by the liberation of the United
States from foreign domination. In the film’s revolutionary climax, Master
is knocked off Blaster’s shoulders and drowns in a vat of liquefied power,
while Blaster, suddenly his own man, finds his voice and, finally, speaks
for himself.



(John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who writes frequently on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)



Arab News Opinion 26 April 2003









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