By Dr. Tariq Shadid
Palestine Think Tank
Let us ponder for a second about the meaning of ‘leaking’. When something is leaking, it is usually understood that some fluid substance that is supposed to be flowing in a certain direction, is escaping from its designed route because of a defect in the structure that was built to guide it. Usually, if you have a leaking pipe in your water system, your main problem is that you are unable to control the flow of it, and water goes into directions where you don’t want it to be going.
However, the definition of ‘Wikileaking’ seems to be following entirely different laws of nature. Indeed, the information is flowing away from the secret pipelines it was originally guided into. However, the strange thing about ‘Wikileaking’ is that Israel, a country widely known for its secret dealings and cunning intelligence service, is managing to keep dry feet in spite of the massive political flooding allegedly caused by Wikileaks’ founding father, Julian Assange.
The lack of control that is so typical of other forms of ‘leaking’, certainly does not seem to apply to ‘Wikileaking’ – instead it looks like it is under perfect control, and carefully guided in such a way that it only serves the interests of one state, namely that of Israel.
Assange takes a leak, the world jumps up
Barely a country in the world that is actively involved in Middle East and other international affairs, either by choice or by geographical location, has been spared by Assange’s latest opening of his Pandora’s box of revelations. It is hard to visit a news source these days, without the word ‘Wikileaks’ jumping into your view at least once, and revealing some scandalous backdoor deal, secret agreement or embarrassing hidden relationship between governments who on the surface seem to be diametrically opposed to each other in the political spectrum.
Since the list of countries that have faced these embarrassments includes Obama’s United States, many anti-imperialist activists around the world have been anxiously awaiting the latest leaks, and are now engaging in discussions about the implications of many of these so-called astounding revelations. Julian Assange is being hailed worldwide by people who are critical of their governments as the activist who was able to embarrass governments, helped only by a small group of independent supporters. His star is rising rapidly, and although sounds of cynicism can be heard here and there, the overwhelming noise resounding in progressive circles is one of loud cheers for this long-awaited ‘champion of the ordinary man’.
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