by Brenda Heard
The timing of political manoeuvring often reveals the stark business of domination. Sometimes the timing is flagrant, like the recent commotion in Greece. In the very hours of forbidding the passage of the aid flotilla to Gaza, the financially strapped Greek government welcomed the approval of an €8.7 billion aid payment from the European Union. With Israel’s position as an EU-groupie, even the Associated Press couldn’t resist smirking at Greece’s underlying ‘incentive to cozy up to its rich Mediterranean neighbor’.
Political manoeuvring also thrives on more subtle timing, as for example in the case of the notorious indictments of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Widely announced as imminent in December 2010, they somehow found themselves on the backburner when the Arab uprisings claimed every corner of Middle East news coverage. Some six months later, on the heels of the formation of a Lebanese government non-hostile to the targeted Hezbollah—in the very hours between finalising the government’s policy statement and its being subject to a parliamentary vote of confidence—only then were the indictments set into motion. Bored of battling the credibility of Arab protests, international media eagerly shifted to the new sensational headlines.
Particularly when it comes to the Zionist project, the Western Israeli Alliance has often banked on timing—on distraction and exploitation. Five years ago, for instance, Israeli forces repeated the pretext-invasions of 1978 and 1982. Five years ago, Israeli forces renewed their aggressive campaigns of 1978 and 1982. With the full backing of their Western allies, five years ago Israeli forces again attacked Lebanon.
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