    The Road Map of Marquis de Sade or Speaking Dirty for Palestine
    By Israel Shamir

     (a talk given in Paris on 18 June 2003)

    The Road Map is not a compromise between Palestinians and Jews, but
    between Jews and Jews, none of whom lives in the Middle East, namely,
    between Jewish liberals of New York and Jewish neo-cons of Washington.
    Both groups are devoted to preservation and prosperity of the Jewish
    State, but they disagree on strategy: while neo-cons such as Perle would
    exterminate and evaporate its enemies a la Joshua bin Nun, Tom Friedman
    and other liberals think the goyim could be safely jailed in security of
    Gaza strip guarded by NATO soldiers. Now, these two groups reached a
    compromise for following reasons. The active stage of the American
    conquest of Iraq is over, but the US army bleeds in Iraq and
    Afghanistan. Before replacing American soldiers in the conquered lands
    by French, Indian and other conscripts, in order to free them for the
    next stage, the assault on Iran, it needs to show the world that the war
    was not just an ugly imperial enterprise done in the interests of the
    Zionists. Whence the Road Map was ushered in .

    The two Jewish schools of the US are wonderful in providing drama.
    Though the real difference between the twain is tiny, they obscure it by
    boisterous philippics. Like seasoned shopkeeper bemoans ill luck that
    forces him to part with a treasured item at a rock-bottom price, and
    encourages an innocent buyer to enter the deal, the hard-core Zionists
    bewailed 'the Auschwitz borders' of the Road Map. Some friends of
    Palestine, mainly the believers in two-states' solution saw the distrait
    Jews and took the bait. They hastily concluded that the Road Map is good
    and fair for Palestinians.

    'The Zionists are hysterically frightened of this unflinching Texan
    cowboy', - wrote Jack Graham, the lawyer, 'He will show us the
    independence of the American mindset! Peace is nigh!' Always ready to
    jump the gun, Ali Abunimah proclaimed (in a piece called Who's afraid of
    the Road Map? ) "Israel's supporters are in full panic by even the
    appearance of minimal fairness and reciprocity contained in the plan'.

    Alas, nobody was afraid of the Road Map. Abunimah et al repeated the
    error of the youthful bride of prince de Bauffremont, a notorious
    sodomite in a delightful if risque story by Marquis de Sade. The Prince
    was to be married to the chaste and innocent girl, whose mother was well
    aware of her future son-in-law preferences.

    - My daughter, she said, reject the first proposition of your husband.
    Tell him firmly, any other way but that one! (Ma fille, mefiez-vous des
    premieres propositions que vous fera votre mari, et dites-lui fermement
    : Non, monsieur, ce n'est point par la qu'une honnete femme se prend,
    partout ailleurs autant qu'il vous plaira, mais pour la, non
    certainement...) However, the Prince has decided to kick the anal habit
    and to approach his young bride in the conventional fashion. He was
    quite astonished and pleasantly so, when the lady rejected his initial
    advance and steered him towards the valleys he preferred anyway, tells
    us the Marquis in the story aptly entitled L'EPOUX COMPLAISANT.

    Probably the President Bush was equally surprised by the unexpected
    support of the Road Map coming from supporters of Palestinian cause.
    They were supposed to reject it out of hand for it was indeed the plan
    fit for Marquis de Sade. Like the young bride, they were conditioned to
    approve whatever is disproved by the unwelcome partner, and thus fell
    into the trap. The two-staters among them are so hell-bent for action
    like public school boys on their first cross-Channel trip, that they are
    ripe for any trap.

    Indeed, the Road Map would be awful if it ever worked, and the
    conditions imposed by Sharon's government made it pathetic. It was aptly
    described and justly condemned by our colleagues Jeff Blankfort , Ran
    HaCohen and Kathleen Christison in Counterpunch, by Edward Said, Uri
    Avnery and Jennifer Loewenstein and others. The 14 conditions of Israeli
    government nixed whatever positive element the Road Map may contain. At
    best, the process would produce a few fenced reservations for natives
    called 'Palestinian State'.

    Does this mean that we, the advocates of humanity, should fight the Road
    Map, as some friends suggest? Well, like Don Quixote, we could of course
    charge forth and fight windmills. But another risque joke tells of a man
    in an advanced stage of venereal disease whose physician informs him
    that his member has to be cut off. In panic and despair, he rushes from
    one specialist to the next, until the most eminent of them all reassures
    him that no surgery is needed: his diseased member has already fallen
    off.

    In other words, there is no reason to fight this fictitious peace plan,
    for it will naturally disappear the way of Jaring, Zinni, Saudi and
    other Plans all by itself. Sharon's missile attacks on defenceless Gaza,
    the farcical 'dismantling' of settlements before the final decision to
    beef them up prove that Israeli leaders had no slightest intention to
    honour even its modest framework. Ahmed Bouzid, this fine analyst of
    Philadelphia, correctly sums it up: 'Anyone who has followed this
    conflict and has a minimum sense of history can only view the latest
    declarations from the Israeli government as nothing more than a stalling
    tactic. '

    Indeed, why should Zionists accept the plan, or any peace plan? They are
    'King-of-the-Mountain'; the only other regional power of importance,
    Iraq, was reduced by brave Jessica Lynch and her fellows-in-arms; while
    Teheran waits for its turn. It is rumoured that General Garner gave up
    his position in Baghdad for he was promised the vice-regency of France
    when it will be taken over. President Bush again looks a willing
    plaything responding to Zionist remote control.

    There is no slightest chance for any solution in Palestine, but the
    solution of equality, of unified citizenship and full integration of all
    dwellers of Palestine. The two-states' supporters fool nobody but
    themselves. To make matters worse, there is no chance for this solution
    until some degree of equality will come into the American discourse.
    Why, indeed, the media discusses this non-existent Road Map? It is
    further evidence of the malady called the misbalance of discourse. The
    recent acts of terror in Gaza and Jerusalem served a reminder to
    doubters. While death of innocent civilians in Gaza was hardly mentioned
    in what American papers had described as 'violence', it was stressed
    next day when 'violence' visited West Jerusalem. This anomaly joined
    other numerous anomalies, from unbelievably high 80 per cent of all
    American foreign aid going to Israel, to the disproportionate space
    media devotes to Jewish issues from the holocaust to Cabala. Altogether
    it amounts to a unique phenomenon.

    We grieve over the Palestinian tragedy, but we should also regret the
    American tragedy, for these sturdy people, once renowned for their free
    speech and rugged individualism, would probably lose out to geese in a
    contest for independent thinking. Just recently the Americans were
    extremely angry at President Clinton. It was not because he had an
    extramarital affair, the Americans said, but for lying. We can forgive
    everything but a lie. Not only the newspapers attacked him for his
    rather innocent lie, but the Congress tried to impeach him for this
    reason.

    Twenty years ago, President Nixon was practically skinned and lynched
    for the same offence: he lied, called the media, he lied, repeated the
    Americans, and he had to resign. But now, President Bush lied - and his
    lie was not a small and sordid thing, but the huge lie of Iraqi WMD.
    Well, who cares, says nonchalant Wolfowitz, and Tom Friedman repeats,
    yes, who gives a damn indeed, is not "the real story we should be
    concerned with. " Amen, said the Americans, we've already forgotten he
    ever mentioned WMD. It appears the American Jews decide not only who is
    an antisemite (one who calls for equality of a Jew and non-Jew) but who
    is a liar, too.

    I do not fret over American moral principles, but their total
    unquestioning submission to manipulation, their readiness to sincerely
    repeat whatever they are told, amounts to demonic possession. Like in
    Haitian lore, they were turned into a Zombie by a sinister Warlock, the
    Masters of Discourse. Our few wonderful friends in the US look more and
    more like Soviet dissidents of old, with one major difference. The
    dissidents had full support of the West, while the American dissidents
    of the present day stand alone.

    Now, we all tend to play the game, and even Cassandra found it difficult
    to grieve the introduction of the wooden horse into the walls of Troy
    when everybody else rejoiced at the Danaian splendid gift. But in
    America, conformism exceeds all bounds of reason. What is worse, this
    imbalance does not want to stay overseas but it is spilling over into
    Europe. The American totalitarian media lords are buying into European
    communications. The billionaire Haim Saban, an Israeli-American Jew, is
    buying KirchMedia, Germany's largest TV broadcaster. He is also the
    largest single contributor to the US political parties, and a great
    supporter of Israel - to such an extent that University of California
    denied him security clearance . One can imagine what sort of programs
    his TV will broadcast. This attempt to hijack the mindset of Europe
    should be checked, and the spoiled goods of America - from genetically
    engineered meat to soap operas to 'news' - stopped from entering Europe.

    France is the key bulwark of the dam that stems the American tide. If
    President Jacques Chirac had not stuck to his principled position,
    Germany's Erhard Schroeder and Russia's Vladimir Putin would not dared
    raise objections to the American attack on defenceless Iraq. You may be
    proud of your leaders, and give them your support. France needs unity,
    and no issue unites opponents of the Empire like the issue of Palestine.
    Let it be the bond of unity between native and adoptive French people.

    France is the shining star in the constellation of Europe. Let this
    wonderful country of small winding roads, vineyards and farms, great
    cathedrals and parish churches, but also of modern industry and
    communications, of friendly and thoughtful people, be its guiding star
    as well. France is important to Eastern Europe, for the EU membership
    should bring its people respite from their present pro-American and
    pro-Zionist Soros-trained leadership. France is important for Russia,
    its traditional ally, so the Russians would shake off the vestiges of
    the CIA-installed Yeltsin's regime.

    France is important for the Middle East, but she is even more important
    to the US. This country can't stand up alone against the Empire, nor
    should we push for confrontation. Let France set an example for the good
    Americans to emulate, like it did in the early days of the Republic. The
    more privileged Americans realise this. In a small Champenois village I
    ran across a frequent visitor, a Mr Cohen of the New York Times.
    Weekdays he stays in Manhattan, eats freedom fries with gefilte fish,
    and calls to punish treacherous France, but on weekends he flies here to
    enjoy a taste of true civilisation. At heart, he knows: the American
    Empire under its Texan executives and Jewish media barons is an
    extremely uncomfortable affair even for its adepts; almost as
    uncomfortable as the Middle Eastern Jewish state.

    For after all, in civilised France Marquis de Sade was sent to a
    psychiatric asylum, and was not asked to draw up Road Maps.