Mondoweiss follows up my investigations on the Israel-connection in the Wikileaks dump (and curiously, searching for “Israeli” brings some different results to “Israel“):
I’m poking around the Afghan war diaries from Wikileaks (inspired by Antony Loewenstein) and it looks like one element of our nationbuilding effort in Afghanistan is working: the people there have demonstrated a lot, and peacefully, against Israel.
Judging by the cable traffic, many of the demonstrations in Afghanistan in 2009 seem to have been against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Here’s a demo in northern Baghlan on January 1, 2009: 1000 people. The same day an Israeli flag is burned at a demo in Konduz City. The next day in Kabul, 2000 people demonstrate. A day later, another 400 people demonstrate against air strikes. More on January 8. Another on January 15. On January 25, a “peaceful and organized demonstration” near Kabul. No target mentioned for this demo; but you’d guess from the date that it involved Gaza.
(Oh, and here 350 university students conduct a protest in support of Palestinians, in 2007.)
A few days back I showed that James V. Forrestal, the first Sec’y of Defense, was opposed to the establishment of Israel because it would create turmoil in the Muslim world all the way out to Afghanistan. And he died way before Wikileaks.