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Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression

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Published in 1982, this very short little book, written by Israel's leading civil libertarian Israel Shahak, using massive quotation from the Israeli press, discusses Israel's massive weapons sales, military and police training and other forms of collaboration with such terroristic regimes as in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua under Somoza, Iran under the Shah, Malawi under Dr. Benda, a close friend of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Perhaps the prominent examples have to do with Israel's extensive military and economic alliance with apartheid South Africa and support for the Shah, especially among the Labor party doves, like Yigal Allon, who, made frequent visits to his friend, the head of Savak, the Shah's sadistic secret police. Another interesting example has to do with the 1976-83 "dirty war" regime in Argentina which butchered hundreds of Jews and engaged in such practices as forcing Jewish prisoners to kneel in front of pictures of Hitler, yet Israel was its primary supplier of military hardware and Israeli generals, like Motta Gur, often made friendly visits to the country.

Noam Chomsky, writing in August 1981, writes an outstanding introduction, and at the end of Shahak's essay, there are attached about five appendexis, containing good articles on this issue from the mainstream Israeli and American press and a few particularly good articles from Penny Lernoux of the National Catholic Reporter. Shahak's essay is not particularly easy to read, but the evidence he gives stands out above all else.