Dick Armey Tells Palestinians: Get Out

by Alexander Cockburn

Here's what happened. On May 1, on MSNBC's "Hardball," House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, puissant legislator from Fort Worth, Texas, called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territories.

Armey said flatly that the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel -- in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- are Israel. Palestinians living in the West Bank should be removed.

Armey: "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank."

Matthews: "Well, where do you put the Palestinian state -- in Norway? Once the Israelis take back the West Bank permanently and annex it, there's no place else for the Palestinians to have a state."

Armey: "No, no, that's not -- that's not at all true. There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and -- and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state."

Matthews: "So you would transport -- you would transport the Palestinians from Palestine to somewhere else and call it their state?"

Armey: "I would be perfectly content to have a homeland, just as -- most of ...

Matthews: But not in Palestine? ... "

Armey: "That's right ... I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave."

Matthews: "Have you ever told George Bush, the president from your home state of Texas, that you think the Palestinians should get up and go and leave Palestine, and that's the solution?"

Armey: "I'm probably telling him that right now."

Of course, there was some predictable whining from outfits such as the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee that Armey's endorsement of ethnic cleansing is reprehensible. It certainly is. But as a matter of realism, let us acknowledge Armey's farsighted, two-pronged strategy. One prong is the current Republican effort to get some sort of purchase on the Jewish vote, in compensation for the Republicans' slowly dawning realization that, despite all their efforts, the Democrats have got most of the Hispanic vote locked up for years to come.

The other prong is most likely a farsighted Texan strategy to grab a slice of the billions in U.S. aid that go each year to Israel. Figure it out: If Palestinians are kicked out of their homeland, where are they going to end up?

The Armey plan is, I can now reveal, to have the new Palestinian statelet located in a magnificent new terminal at Dallas Fort Worth airport, which will bring billions in federal funding. Having endorsed the eviction of Palestinians, Armey will then shift position and announce that with the Palestinians kicked out, Israel is now secure within its borders and the $3 billion or so in acknowledged direct U.S. aid can now be diverted to Texas to compensate the state of Texas for its role in hosting the Palestinians' new "homeland."

In the aftermath of Armey's robust performance with Matthews, the U.S. Congress gave Sharon the green light to do what it wants to the Palestinians, with resolutions of unqualified support for Israel put forward by Senator Joe Lieberman and by Armey's fellow Texan, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, the former rodent exterminator.

And who voted against full-throated endorsement of the war criminal Sharon? Precisely two members of the Senate declined to endorse every action of a nation that most recently had rampaged its way through Jenin refugee camp: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (as meister of the pork barrel, he was maybe irked at the DeLay/Armey drive for Palestinian subsidies) and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. In the House, there were only 21 "no" votes, including outgoing California Rep. Gary Condit, who probably now feels free to express his true feelings about the Levy family, and also my favorites, Ron Paul of Texas and Dana Rohrabacher of California.

There were 29 reps who opted for the cowardly, sit-on-your-hands "present" vote, including such Nation magazine lib-rad stars as Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Dennis Kucinich, also of Ohio, and a man whose "prayer" against Bush's wars made the radical circuits a month or so ago. I guess there's no place in Dennis' prayers for Palestinians.