****Recently, a documentary on Israeli television strayed into the truth and showed pictures of the forced expulsion of Palestinians by the Jews during 1948 There was a tremendous uproar in Israel The director of the documentary was not praised for telling the truth, but assailed for acting as the "agent of the enemy."****

THE British invasion of America continues. First it was the Beatles in 1964. soon to be followed by the Rolling Stones. Over the last thirty-four years, superstars such as Elton John. Rod Stewart and George Michael have musically conquered America. The only missing ingredient in the British invasion was gender. That is about to change. The Spice Girls are here! Tickets for their upcoming concert in New Jersey sold out instantly.

The Spice Girls compensate for their lack of real musical talent by providing the fans with what they really really want ". They are pretty adept at dishing out liberal dose of eroticism in the name of music.

There are Spice Girls (Spice Boys, if you will) in the world of politics, too. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu comes to mind immediately. He compensates for his moral depravity with a heavy dose of arrogance. He too is not above strutting his stuff in his quest to get what he "really really wants." And what he really really wants is not peace with the Palestinians, but more land from the Palestinians. He wants not advice from America, he wants more money from America. "No" for an answer is not what he wants from the President of the United States:

he goes behind his back and transforms a no" to "yes" through services of shameless Jewish and non-Jewish Senators and Congressmen, and gets what he wants.

Everybody knows that the Israeli lobby reigns supreme in Washington. They formulate the US Middle East policy. Hitherto, they had extended the US government the courtesy to articulate their formulation officially. and kept quiet when the US government made minor changes. Not so with Ne-tanyahu. He has no qualms about showing up the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, or in embarrassing President Clinton.

Israel enjoys overwhelming military superiority over the Arabs right now. In the past when they did not. it was the US military and economic aid that sustained them. Israel was in danger of losing the 1973 war against Egypt and Syria. Initially. Egypt and Syria made significant gains. It was the

American satellite photographs showing Israel the Egyptian and Syrian troop positions, and the airlift of American weapons and spare parts that turned the tide of the war in Israel's favour. ("I cannot fight America". an exasperated President Anwar Sadat had said.) Of course, gratitude is not one of Netanyahu's strong traits. A case in point is how he muzzled the US Secretary of State and the President recently.

For a long time the US Administration had floated the idea that if the Israelis and the Palestinians could not agree on how much land Israel should withdraw from In the occupied territories. America would suggest how much withdrawal is reasonable, to break the impasse. Netanyahu shot back, saying that only Israel had the right to decide how much land it needed for its security. This was a direct slap in the face of America, who for fifty years has been the guarantor of Israeli security.

As the administration made arrangements to reveal its plan to break the deadlock anyway (13% Israeli withdrawal), Netanyahu's people went into overdrive. Jewish agencies took out full page ads in prestigious US newspapers such as the New York Times warning the President not to pressure Is rael.

The American Israeli Public Affairs committee (AIPAC) twisted the Congress’s arms. Consequently, lea by Connecticut Senator Lieberman (who is Jewish) and Florida Senator Connie Mack (who Is not) over seventy Senators signed a letter asking the President to back off. Foreign policy is in the President's domain, not the Congress's. Yet. when it comes to the interest of Israel, rules can be made or broken with impunity. Sensing ominous cloud gathering overhead. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sheepishly declared in a press conference that the US wifi not make it's Middle East policy public.

Festivities are in full swing in Israel as it celebrates its fiftieth birthday. Conspicuously absent from the celebration is any discussion on how the country was founded. Israeli children have been taught that Israel was established on a barren, uninhabited sand strip. Recently, a documentary on Israeli television strayed into the truth and showed pictures of the forced expulsion of Palestinians by the Jews during 1948. There was a tremendous uproar in Israel. The director of the documentary was not praised for telling the truth, but assailed for acting as the "agent of the enemy."

Israel is routinely praised for being the only democracy in the area. It is a democracy based on stealing Palestinian land and expelling Palestinians from their ancestral homes. It is a democracy based on Jewish supremacy; Jews from anywhere in the world — Russia.

China. Argentina or anywhere else — can gain instant citizenship of Israel; whereas the Palestinians who have lived there from time immemorial have to continually prove that they belong, and Palestinians who go abroad are in danger of losing their residence permits permanently.

Israel is a democracy based on lies, brute force and intimidation. It is a democracy that is concerned solely with the rights of the Jews. It is a democracy, that like apartheid treats one fifth of its citizens, the Arabs, as second class citizens, officially. According to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as quoted in the New York Times. Israel should not give back an inch of the West Bank to the Palestinians: instead should settle at least one million more Jews in the Palestinian lands. Israel is a democracy that works extremely hard to prevent the President of the United States from expressing his view. Isn't the freedom to express one's view the cornerstone of democracy? Israel is a democracy that looks more and more like the dictatorship of the Jews.

President Clinton did not attend Israel's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Vice president Albert Gore went instead Gore had to go. If he does not commit himself totally to the fictitious doctrine of "Israel s security", even if that means grabbing more Arab and Palestinian lands, and destroying more Arab and Palestinian property and lives, he can kiss his Presidential ambitions good bye.

Netanyahu is full of praise for the Unites States as long as it sings Israel's praise, doles out billions of dollars and toes its Une. If he displays an iota of evenhandedness. Netanyahu has no hesitation in kicking the President of the United States in the groin, and making him sing the blues. Why? Because Netanyahu knows that the IsraeU lobby would not only bail him out. but would ensure continued flow of US cash and military hardware into Israel.

Watch out. Spice Girls, you have competition! There is someone else who overplays his cards and gets away with it. That rising star, a Spice Boy no less, roams the Middle East?