[1990] By Way of Deception: A Devastating Insider's Portrait of the Mossad by Victor Ostrovsky
Allies don't let
our soldiers die
Did Israel deliberately allow 241 American Marines to die ?
by Joseph Sobran
Yes, says Victor Ostrovsky, a former
Israeli secret agent. In a new book, By Way of Deception: A Devastating
Insider's Portrait of the Mossad, Mr. Ostrovsky says the Israelis had advance
notice of the suicide attack that killed 241 Marines in Beirut in October 1983
but withheld the information from the United States in the hope that the attack
would poison American Arab relations.
The Israeli government is desperately trying to block publication of the book,
which also says the Israelis are "actively spying, recruiting, organizing and
carrying out covert activities mainly in New York and Washington, which they
refer to as their playground."
Although it can hardly succeed and will probably backfire, the censorship
attempt enjoyed initial success in both the U.S. and Canada. Obliging courts in
both countries have ordered that the book be at least temporarily suppressed
When it comes to Israel, freedom of speech and of the press is considerably less
than total, even in America.
Mr. Ostrovsky says Israeli agents heard he had written the book and tried to
bribe and threaten him to dissuade him from going into print. He is now in
hiding.
More than 17,000 copies of By Way of Deception are in print, and many
reviewers have already received copies. If the book divulges sensitive
information, as the Israelis' lawyers say, it's too late to stop other
governments from getting it. The only purpose of the censorship is to stop
Americans from reading Mr. Ostrovsky's account of how Israel allowed U.S.
Marines to be slaughtered
Books are rarely suppressed in America (at least not by direct government
intervention), and by the time you read this, By Way of Deception will almost
certainly be unshackled. Then the Israelis will have to either discredit the
author or argue, as they did in the case of the spy Jonathan Pollard, that the
decision to let the Marines be killed was a "rogue" action.
Mr. Ostrovsky's allegations should be shocking. Letting the troops of a
benefactor nation be blown up in their own compound is hardly the act of a
"reliable ally," as Israel is said to be.
But you have to wonder whether anyone will really be shocked. The act would be
consistent with a long pattern of reprehensible Israeli behavior toward the U.S.
Some of it has been widely publicized; no doubt the largest part of it has never
been discovered.
If anyone ought to be stunned, it's the many pundits who echo Israeli
propaganda to the effect that Israel is America's only valuable and trustworthy
ally in the Middle East. If they mean what they say, they should be publicly
changing their minds, or at least demanding a thorough investigation into
Israeli conduct toward this country.
Congress ought to be shocked, too, to the extent that its all-out support for
Israel has been sincere rather than venal and cowardly. But how many of our
elected representatives will dare, or care, to ask tough questions about whether
our ties to Israel have done serious damage to this country's interests?
Such questions are not only long overdue, they are especially urgent right
now, when the United States may be on the verge of a full-scale war in the
Middle East, and the Israel lobby is eager to see America launch hostilities
against Israel's chief enemy, Iraq.
The path of least resistance is to say nothing, to go on pretending that the
interests of the U.S. and of Israel are virtually identical, to keep repeating
that Israel is our "reliable ally" and "strategic asset." Any politician or
journalist who says otherwise, even for the good of America, does so at risk to
his career. That's why there is so little open debate on these matters. Even our
press isn't fully free.
And now the Israeli government has mounted a direct attack on press freedom in
America itself. It will be instructive to see whether the press corps goes on
acting un shocked.
Joseph Sobran is a nationally syndicated columnist who now maintains a Website
at http://www.sobran.com.