Questions and Contemplations: Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al Hariri Assasinated: A US/Israeli Operation?

Whenever something like this happens, my first question is: Who benefits?

For quite some time now, it seems that the US and Israel have been looking for an excuse to go into Syria and Iran. Both countries, like Iraq, have been demonized and belong to the so-called "Axis of Evil" - that is to say, they are on the list of countries that the joint US-Israeli coalition have in their sights in order to fulfill their dreams of empire.

In yesterday's edition of Signs of the Times, the editors wrote:

[....]By all accounts, Hariri was one of the few "men of peace" left in the Middle East. In his two terms as Lebanese PM since 1990 he had brought Lebanon out of the carnage wrought by 15 years of civil war and set it well on the way to becoming once more the "Paris of the Middle East." As in the case of Iraq, Israel is determined to do whatever necessary to ensure that it remains all-powerful in the region and prevent any of its Arab neigbours from emerging as solid, unified Muslim democracies that it could not demonise as "terrorist states". By murdering Hariri and having the blame pinned on Syria, the Mossad have removed a stablising influence on recovering Lebanese society and the Middle East in general, and given the US government an excuse to further ratchet up the war rhetoric towards Damascus.

In this sense, Israel shares a common goal with the US and it is for this reason that Israel has always enjoyed the overwhelming support of successive US administrations. While the US and Israel both make much of their bogus "war on terrorism", both countries have long since realised that it is by fomenting "terrorism" and "terrorist" groups that their control of the Middle East can be assured. Yet, while both countries share a common goal, the reasons that each desires to achieve that goal are slightly different.

By controlling the extensive oil resources in the Middle East (and the countries that sit upon them), the US can ensure that it continues to top the heap of world superpowers. Israel too wishes to remain as a powerful world player, and its leaders realise that acting as a hired thug for the US in the region is the best way to do so. Yet it is more than mere power lust that is driving Israel's leaders to deliberately antagonise and provoke the entire Arab world. Israel's very presence in the Middle East is predicated on the Judaic notion of a "chosen people" and their very own homeland granted to them thousands of years ago by their mythical god, yahweh.

While it may be possible (if unlikely) to make a convincing geopolitical argument for the US government's Middle East policies over the years, to understand the thinking of people like Sharon and all those that act on his orders, one would have to first embrace as legitimate the idea that a group of human beings can constitute a "chosen people", one of their lives being worth more than 1,000 of the lives of the "lesser" people of the world. One would also have to accept that the "chosen people" are divinely entitled to a piece of land in the Middle East and that they are permitted therefore to act in any way necessary to achieve their goals of lebensraum. While the Israeli government is careful to distance itself from extreme Judaic beliefs, it is clear that it is just such beliefs that underpin its policies.

Religious and political incentives aside, one of the strongest indications of an Israeli involvement in the murder of Hariri is the fact that not ONE mainstream news source is even mentioning the possibility of Israeli involvement, when it is painfully clear that Israel has the most to gain from his death. But then again, we have become accustomed to the severe lack of intestinal fortitude or any real journalistic integrity on the part of the mainstream media. And also to the fact that much of the Western press is dominated by Israeli sympathisers and/or "Zionists".