カテゴリー: 論説

International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

Senior researcher

Yoshiaki Yano

日本語

Conflicts in the Middle East are raging once again. The war between Hamas and Israel is escalating. The historical background and its misinterpretation by the Great Powers concerned have caused complicated consequences.

During the Islamic Ottoman dynasty, in the present-day Israel, Jews and Christians lived in peaceful harmony under the Islamic rule.

However, at the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement started, and groups of Jews started entering Palestine to settle in “God’s promised land.” But the Ottoman Empire did not particularly regulate their settlement.

After World War I, as the Ottoman Empire was in the process of dissolving, the Middle East region was divided into areas under the rule of several Western Great Powers. The United Kingdom, one of the belligerent powers of the War, concluded the Hussein-McMahon agreement in 1915, while the war was still going on, and promised the independence of the region where Arabs resided in exchange for the cooperation of the Arabic States in the war against the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

On the other hand, in May 1916, the United Kingdom made a secret agreement with its allies France and Russia, regarding the control over the Ottoman Empire after the War.

Moreover, in November 1917, the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging its agreement and support for the establishment in Palestine of a “National Home” for the Jewish people.

This triple-tongued diplomacy on the part of the United Kingdom, which made pledges that contradicted one another, is said to have been the fundamental factor creating the present-day Palestinian issue.

However, the Arab State designated in the Hussein-McMahon agreement did not include Palestine and some say that the two agreements did not contradict each other.

The Balfour Declaration clearly safeguarded the rights of Palestine’s indigenous non-Jewish residents while establishing a “National Home” for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Based on the Balfour Declaration, in 1922, the League of Nations adopted the resolution of the British Mandate for Palestine. At that time, the residents in Palestine were mostly Arabs and even under the mandatory rule, in view of the right of people’s self-determination, Arabs’ sovereignty should have been respected.

However, as the Zionist movement rose further, more and more Jews came to buy land and settle in Palestine and the conflicts between the Arab Palestinian residents and the Jewish settlement and Jewish settlers became more frequent.

The confrontation between the two peoples under the mandate turned into conflicts between States after the United Nations’ resolution to divide Palestine after World War II.

In the background of this resolution lay the massacre of Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. Before and during the War, many Jewish refugees headed for Palestine and the movement to support the establishment of a state for homeless Jews in Palestine became widespread among the Allied Nations.

Decisively important was the lobbying by Jewish American residents in the Congress of the United States of America, the most powerful victor of the War. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution recommending the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the partition of Palestine to create two independent Arab and Jewish states, and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem.

It turned out that the United Nations resolution allowed a different people to establish a respective new State in another’s land, almost equivalent to allowing invaders to conquer the land, which is against international law. This is exactly what became the root of the current conflicts in the Middle East.

In fact, on the next day after the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, the surrounding Arab States, not recognizing the Israeli independence, started military attacks against Israel. This was the first Middle East War. Israel won the war and after ceasefire through the United Nations mediation consolidated its status as an independent State and came to occupy a larger portion of the land than initially allocated in the Partition Resolution by the United Nations.

While Israel occupied the Palestinian region, more than 700,000 Palestinian people became refugees, which created the current Palestinian refugee issue.

After that, Middle East Wars between Israel and the surrounding Arab States took place three more times, and each time Israel won, expanding its territory further.

On the part of Palestine, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964, asserting its goal of Palestinian self-determination, but in the Lebanese civil war in 1982, the PLO was ousted from Lebanon and its influence gradually diminished. In 1988, after deciding to establish a Palestinian State in the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip, co-existing with Israel, the PLO adopted the Palestine Declaration of Independence.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords were signed, according to which the Government of Israel and the PLO recognized each other and an interim Palestine autonomy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was established. The PLO promised to abandon its armed struggle, but the newly established Hamas, acting as a destroyer of peace, launched suicidal terrorist bombings, aggravating the domestic conflicts with the interim government.

Hamas won the Palestine legislative election in 2006 and after the Battle for Gaza in 2007 became the governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is an organization that follows the principles of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian nationalism.

During the Syrian civil war, attempting to oust the Asad Government, Hamas fought against Hizballah, supported by the United States and Israel. Hizballah is a Shia Islam militia, based in southern Lebanon, supported by Iran.

In recent years, however, Hamas has been concentrating on armed struggle against Israel, promoting the strategic cooperation with Hizballah, and receiving support in terms of weapons and training.

The current conflict with Israel, triggered by the unexpected attack by Hamas, opened a new battle front in connection with the ongoing war in Ukraine, which benefits strategically Russia and China, although they are not directly involved in the conflict. Some commentators even think that support for Hamas came from Russia and China.

Another assumption based on the conflict is that Israel and the United States may launch a preemptive strike against Iran, which is reportedly close to obtaining enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon.

On the other hand, the Biden Administration released $ 6 billon-worth of the frozen Iranian assets. It cannot be denied that part of that money went to Hamas through Hizballah.

It is not clear, either, why the Biden Administration released as much as $ 6 billion of frozen Iranian assets, or whether weapons left deserted in Afghanistan or part of the weapons to be sent to Ukraine found its way into the hands of Hamas.

Some speculate that since Russia seems to be winning in the Ukraine War despite the past expectations, the U.S. Jewish international financial capital is trying to make profit by waging a new war in the Middle East.

Thus, the historical background leading to the outbreak of the war in the Middle East this time and the misunderstanding by the Superpowers of the realities inside and outside the region are so complicated that it is not at all a simple question of which one is ally or foe or which one is right or wrong.

It is urgent for each country to correctly analyze the situation and make the utmost effort to secure its national interest and particularly national security, without being swallowed up in the violent current of these bizarre and complicated international circumstances.

The region surrounding Japan is as militarily tense as Ukraine and the Middle East. Japan must have its own independent national security policy and carry out informational activities.

Particularly, Japan depends on the Middle East for more than 90% of its crude oil import. If the safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz should be threatened, Japan would be directly hit. Japan has 240 days’ oil stockpile maintained by the state and private companies. If the conflict should linger on, the Japanese economy would be hard hit. Japan should strengthen its energy security and particularly, restart its nuclear power facilities soon enough.

The conflict may suddenly spread and it is urgent to secure the safety of the Japanese residents and companies in the region and to have them safely and promptly return home to Japan. Reexamining the five principles to participate in the U.N. Peace Keeping Operations (PKO), the Japan Self Defense Forces should be authorized to use the necessary weapons in carrying out their missions in the conflict regions.

The biggest threat is China’s advance to the Senkaku Islands and Taiwan, using the void of power in the Northeast Asia. The state control of the Chinese economy tightens further and the dictatorship of Xi Jinping is further consolidated after consecutive ousting of high government officials and it appears that there are signs of progressing preparations for war, including efforts to enhance the nuclear forces and stockpile more nuclear weapons. Japan should speedily enhance its defense force, prepare for a possible attack on the Senkaku Islands and strengthen its own nuclear deterrent power.

International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

Guest Fellow

Tsukasa Shirakawa

日本語

1. The origin of the SCJ’s Galapagos-like pacifism

The Science Council of Japan was established in 1949 under the rule of the Allied Forces General Headquarters (GHQ), when everything held affirmative prior to the Pacific War was negated without reason. This very atmosphere turned the national academy fundamentally aiming to support Japan’s science and technology into a propaganda organ with Galapagos-like pacifism .

The then Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru was dissatisfied with the Science Council of Japan because while using the Government budget, all the SCJ did was to criticize the government and engage in political confrontations. So, Yoshida tried to change it from a government organ to a private one. But the SCJ’s first President Kameyama Naoto, citing the GHQ foremost, checked Yoshida and thus, eventually the time was up for Yoshida’s efforts.

Initially, when he took office, General Douglas MacArthur of the GHQ was very enthusiastic about the demilitarization of Japan. In thought and academic aspects, he was most attentive to two issues: the purge of public officials, which started in 1945, and the establishment of the Science Council of Japan.

2. The Science Council of Japan was filled with leftists

In the purge of public officials, many statesmen who held conservative views, journalists, business leaders, scholars and teachers were expelled from their jobs. Among those expelled, there were many people indispensable in the task of restoring Japan in the postwar years. It was only since 1950 that those indispensable workers gradually came to be exempt from the purge.

On the other hand, in the Science Council of Japan, from the very beginning, the subsidiary of the Communist Party named Democratic Scientists’ Association (DSA) was dominant. Against the re-armament, the Science Council of Japan issued a statement to the effect that the Council shall not engage in any study that may contribute to the development of military technologies. Incidentally, this statement was repeated as the statement of study of military security in 2017. Regarding national security, the SCJ has not changed its standing for sixty-six years.

The DSA lost support after it criticized Stalin in 1965 and practically ceased to exist in the 1960s. However, the Japan Scientists’ Association (JSA) succeeded it. The JSA is partially influenced by the Japanese Communist Party and the latter has kept certain influence over the Science Council of Japan, using this academic organization.

After DSA ceased to exist, its branch of jurists called “legal sub-committee” continues to operate even today and acts as a brain for the pro-Constitution movement or as an organization of activists. Incidentally, among the six SCJ members “who were denied appointment,” three of them, Mr. Matsumiya Takaaki, Mr. Okada Masanori and Mr. Ozawa Ryuichi are related to the legal subcommittee of the Democratic Scientists’ Association.

We should bear it in mind that although GHQ gave birth to the Science Council of Japan, it did not expand it. MacArthur himself gradually lessened his initial prejudice against Japan and finally started rearming it. On the other hand, the Science Council of Japan accepted MacArthur’s initial prejudice as it was and has preserved it.

I just mentioned that the first President Kameyama name-dropped GHQ in protesting against Prime Minister Yoshida’s intention to make the SCJ private. The Science Council of Japan has been very much proud of the fact that it came into being through GHQ, which was more powerful than the Japanese Government, while ideologically influenced by the Communist Party. This sense of pride seems to make the Science Council of Japan always act arrogantly in dealing with the Japanese Government.

3. The organization ailed by the “Pre-war Syndrome”

The year 1965, when Japan Scientists’ Association was born, was the “era of the students’ movement.” The Japanese Communist Party was promoting a peace movement with the goal to stop nuclear bombing and further accelerated it into a movement opposing the Vietnam War.

Part of the Science Council of Japan still carries the mentality of the students’ movement deeply soaked in pacifism and leftist ideology, which were present even in its prime age. This is clear from the scenes of scholars who “were denied assignment” loudly expressing themselves in front of the TV cameras.

Listening to anti-Government statements voiced by the Science Council of Japan, we can see its morbid, short-circuited thinking that connects everything to the pre-war situation or claims that “whatever conservative administration does leads to militarism.” I call it “Pre-war Syndrome.”

When statesmen of the ruling party try to enhance the national security policy, those who have internalized the pre-war syndrome hear “military boots” resounding from nowhere and become hot with flames of justice, thinking “unless we do something against it, Japan will become militarist.” This is the source of energy that keeps Galapagos-like pacifism going to this day within the Science Council of Japan.

4. The right to appoint resides in the Prime Minister

As the theoretical grounds for criticizing Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide’s refusal of appointment in 2020, it was mentioned that Niwa Hyosuke, Chief of Home Affairs of the Nakasone Cabinet, responded that “it is mere nominal recommendation and those recommended by the Council will not be refused and will be nominally appointed.”

In the background of this response, there was a change in the membership nomination. The SCJ members used to be elected among recommended candidates, but then the procedure was changed to a system of recommendation by the sitting SCJ members. By the latter method, it became easier for the Science Council of Japan to arbitrarily select its members.

However, the status of the member of the Science Council of Japan is special national civil servant to be appointed by the Prime Minister, which is clearly stated in the Science Council of Japan Law. It is the duty of a civil servant to follow the appointment by the Prime Minister. There is no need to account for the personnel appointment.

In addition, the final report of the Council for Science and Technology in 2003, based on the Fundamental Law on Reform of Central Ministries, Agencies and others, states, “As to the form of establishment, the way academies in major European and American states are is considered to be ideal, and regarding the Science Council of Japan, we will evaluate the progress in the reform within the next decade and discuss adequate way of establishment.” Following this, the Science Council of Japan should be reformed in one way or another by 2013.

5. The Science Council of Japan should promptly be dissolved 

Surveying proposals made by the Science Council of Japan so far, we cannot find any example of its significant social contribution that the entire nation can duly appreciate. In 2000, there was a case of fabrication in the field of archaeological society. The Science Council of Japan failed to propose any solution. In recent years, there have been many anti-Government proposals and when it comes to the covid disaster, the SCJ did not come up with any proposal. The Science Council of Japan, having assembled the top brains in Japan and being versed in overseas information and knowledge, has been busy protesting against the issue of the refused appointment, but failed to produce any proposal as a government organ during the hardest time for the Japanese people. A billion yen out of the precious tax money is annually spent on the SCJ. The Science Council of Japan seems not to feel duly responsible for meeting the people’s expectations.

In addition, the Science Council of Japan holds certain influence over the examination members of the Science Council of Japan Promotion Foundation in deciding the allocation of \237.7 billion scientific research fees for the fiscal 2021 as authorities in various fields of science. Through its enormous influence in allocating the scientific research fees, the SCJ controls the entire academic society, driving the academic world toward left, marring the Government’s national security policy and making Japan fall behind other countries in dealing with national security.

Moreover, some members of the Science Council of Japan are related to the so-called “seven schools of national defense” of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, some apply to the “One Thousand People Plan” by the Chinese Government recruiting foreigners, and there is a case in which Japanese cooperated in Chinese military study, while opposing Japan’s own military study.

Most of physics and engineering scientists’ specialties span both military and civilian fields. However, the Science Council of Japan is so insistent on being a propaganda organization firmly opposing military study on its own that not a few scientists find it difficult to carry out their study in Japan. The SCJ is led by assertions of those in humanities study and pro-Communist Party members while members in physics and chemistry are obliged to follow them. Thus, only partial assertions made by ultra-left SCJ members turn out to be the assertions representing the entire Science Council of Japan.

In historical examination of the Science Council of Japan, we must say that the SCJ is too much influenced by the Japanese Communist Party, which has a mere one percent support rate among the Japanese voters. The Japanese Government should promptly start dissolving the Science Council of Japan for the sake of Japan’s national security and other important issues.   

International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

advisor

Nishikawa Kyoko

Japanese Version

The overpowering sense of existence of Prime Minister Abe being felt anew

It’s been a year since Prime Minister Abe was brutally shot to death. The tremendous sense of loss has been not a bit appeased all this while, and the greatness of his existence has been felt each day. As if in correspondence with the loss, it seems that the world is moving toward an undesirable and eerie direction. Once the world stood in the honeymoon mood between Prime Minister Abe and President Trump, without major conflicts and well-balanced with the leaders of advanced countries respecting each other. Only one country, China, tried to expand its military power, aggressively moving in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and around Japan. From that time onward, the U.S. China policy has been drastically changed and the sense of a threat coming from China has been rapidly spreading among the advanced countries.

Seeing such global circumstances, I cannot help but feel how great the presence of Prime Minister had been. In the strong and trustful relationship with President Trump, Prime Minister Abe supposedly told the U.S. President on every available occasion what a perilous threat China is and how dangerous China’s self-righteous political stand is. He probably informed him that at present, China’s expansionism constantly creates the threat of military invasion, regarding Japan as an imaginary enemy and that this situation is extremely dangerous to the United States.

In the postwar years, the United States policy toward China was consistently China-friendly, including the one of the Republican Party. China has been receiving enormous amounts of economic aid from both the United States and Japan and at present has acquired huge economic and military powers. China has now become a monster, nearly overpowering the United States and demonstrating its overwhelming presence to the world. The world owed much to Prime Minister Abe, who endeavored to let the major world leaders recognize the menace of China. But he is gone now. The war in Ukraine is getting more and more complicated and chaotic, Russia and China are getting closer to each other, and Japan finds itself in the extremely difficult position amid the two.

Non-commonsense claims rapidly spread today

In the world successively plagued by the corona-virus disaster and the war in Ukraine, the trend of globalism has become vividly conspicuous. Globalism, at the first glance, may look beautiful, but at its root, it is close to communism and is a movement aiming to steer things into one direction. It seems that the destination of globalism is rootlessness, confusion, emptiness and loss of identity as a human. Losing the sense of a state, more like in terms of reducing the state to individuals, individuals rather than the whole, minority rather than majority, extraordinary rather than ordinary, and so forth---the society that up to now has been well-balanced on such traditional relationships has recently changed into a society with the emphasis on just one side, putting ordinary existence and common sense into an awkward position. The mass media and those with social status cater today to people who loudly assert their non-commonsense claims, and their non-commonsense views are pushed aggressively to the center. I wonder since when have the Japanese people became such a deplorable nation. The Japanese people used to be very considerate of each other.

The typical incident riding on this recent trend was the enactment of the law to enhance the understanding of LGBT. I was totally appalled at the passing of this LGBT bill. The bill has been discussed and the attempt to enact the law has been made over the last seven years and while Prime Minister Abe was alive, the conservative Diet members of the Liberal Democratic Party had been fending off the movement. However, after Prime Minister Abe was killed, entering this year, suddenly and speedily, the bill was passed, led by supposedly conservative Diet members, ignoring many opposing voices within the Party. The excuse of those Diet members for leading the passing of the bill was that the LDP had taken over the opposition parties’ radical bill, considerably amending and correcting the wordings, in response to questions and concerns raised by the conservative group and simply held by the public. However, before such an excuse, there is a fact that even the United States has been very careful anticipating problems involved and has not passed the LGBT related bill at the Federal level. Why, then, did Japan pass the bill, in advance of the rest of the world? I feel that this is very dubious and inadequate. I would like to hear what Prime Minister Kishida really believes to be right.

The movement of the LGBT related legislation is advanced rather at the municipal level. Including Tokyo as a starter, fifty municipals across the country have enacted ordinance to prohibit discriminatory treatment based on sexual orientation or identity. The speed of the trend is amazing. The trend to enact this bill, using the “verbal tool” of anti-discrimination, further leads to the destruction of the marital system by the introduction of the partnership system. At the root of this chain of movements lies the promotion of political correctness, leading to the destruction of the entire order concerned with the identity of the Japanese people, such as Japanese traditions, culture, customs, common sense that have been nurtured over our long history. This is not a reform. A reform does not change the essential axis of the matter but changes the methods. However, the recent movement can be termed as white revolution, riding on the current of globalism. Without using arms, leading the human mind and thinking at the base of all the fields of human activities to a certain direction. I think this can be called mental revolution or a trend of thought control.

The Supreme Court should reach the judgment, considering the common sense of the public in the broad perspective

In less than a month after the LGBT bill was passed, on this July 11, the Supreme Court returned a verdict in the small court, recognizing the plaintiff’s complaint that the transgender worker of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry be allowed to freely use women’s restrooms in the workplace. It was reportedly the unanimous decision of the five judges. What can I say? I thought judges are to reach judgment, in consideration of the public common sense and in the broad perspective, but, alas, they are not. They seem to live in a narrow and small world.

This year, in Saitama Prefecture, which enacted ordinance related to LGBT in 2022, they conducted a survey of public comments on making the basic plan. A total of 417 comments were turned in, 80% of which were against the plan. I think this is the exact consensus of ordinary Japanese. I only hope that the education for understanding LGBT at schools may not go too far, ignoring what parents, pupils and students feel. I used to fight against people trying to promote extreme sex education in Tokyo Metropolis. I cannot help thinking that advocates of the LGBT movement seem to have the same ideas as those advocates of sexual education I met in the past.

From the ancient times, countries with monotheism like Christianity and Islam have been very strict as their precept in dealing with sexual matters and homosexuality used to be severely punished as a crime. Therefore, the movement of LGBT tended to be radical. Comparing with monotheistic countries, Japan has been worshipping nature gods, which can be termed as polytheism and this kind of matter must have been dealt with in an extremely lenient, generous and open-minded way. Throughout our long history, various people have coexisted in a properly harmonious way. Therefore, it is totally unsuitable that Japan, having a history of such mature and moderate sexual responses, was the first to enact the “Promotion of LGBT Understanding Law” in the world.