an example of changing the context of the issue by appealing to emotions and creating a brand new narrative

Here is a leaked copy of the Zionist plan to attack the Boycott and Divestment Campaign Against Israel's Occupation and to strategy to shut down the debate on the Palestinian issue and to shift it discussion of anti-Semitism and not Israel's illegal Occuption and illegal settlements and human rights violations. (thanks to the various people who supplied this material).

Delegitimization of Israel: “Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions”
Co-Chairs: Dr. Mitchell Bard and Professor Gil Troy

This position paper summarizes the discussions of the Working Group on Delegitimization at the 2009 Global Forum against Anti-Semitism. Our task was to generate specific action plans to respond to the BDS – boycott, divestment, sanctions – movement, to reframe the issues in our favor and to set a new proactive agenda. If there was one clear conclusion that emerged from the two-day session in December, it was THERE MUST BE FOLLOW UP. There is a need in the Jewish world today for more coordination, for more sharing of best practices, for more LEADERSHIP in the fight against anti-Semitism. Activists in the field feel alone. Those who succeed are not sharing their successful tactics and strategies; those who are less experienced flounder, wasting precious time, resources, goodwill. Everyone was honored and excited to participate in the Global Forum; no one wanted it to be limited to a two-day meeting, and many volunteered to keep the global conversation growing.

Beyond that, this paper will spend less time on definitions and narratives, and instead serve as an initial brainstorming document. Through the use of a Wiki set up with the assistance of Dr.Andre Oboler, task force members helped edit these two papers. The first was initially authored by Gil Troy, the second on taking offense, by Mitchell Bard. We thank all the participants for all their time, passion and expertise – and look at this as the start of an ongoing process, which we hope will continue.

BDS AS A CLEAR TARGET:
There is a clarity in fighting against BDS that could provide traction in the Jewish world and beyond. In the current climate, Israel advocates are always going to lose a fight over “settlements” and “occupation,” or at best get mired in stalemate. BDS shifts the terrain, making the battle one over Israel’s right to exist, over the legitimacy of Zionism, over the anti-Semitic tropes shaping the anti-Israel movement, and the rank anti-Semitism behind the disproportionate, obsessive focus on Israel. It is also a battle about freedom of speech and of open discourses, given the BDS attempt to shut down normal flows of learning and commerce with Israel. This is a battle we can win – and (shhh, don’t tell anyone) have been winning so far, in many ways, in many communities.

We also should recognize that BDS is a part of a broader campaign to delegitimize Israel. This campaign of delegitimization, Dr. Joel Fishman writes, has been "a central motif of Palestinian propaganda in international bodies" and reflects a strategy of a "People's War," as full blown political, economic, cultural, ideological struggle against the very existence of Israel.

The Foreign Ministry can help centralize the fight against BDS and delegitimization, coordinate responses to what is a coordinated attack, share information, take a moral stand against the human rights hypocrites, engage diplomats in a fight for Israel’s basic rights, and train Israeli diplomats about the BDS movement. But the fight also has to be local not international, rooted in particular community norms, and necessarily somewhat distanced from the Foreign Ministry which is, naturally, perceived as a biased party, and whose involvement in all facets would help our enemies argue that we are fighting for Israel using the fight against anti-Semitism as camouflage.

PUT BDS IN CONTEXT:
Part of the fight against BDS is an educational one. And central to that is explaining that
(as mentioned before) BDS crosses the line into traditional bigotry, both by resurrecting traditional anti-Semitic tropes, and by following the traditional ways of all bigots in attacking the essence of Israel and the Jewish people rather than constructively seeking to change particular policies or actions.BDS is part of the “Durban Strategy” adopted by NGOs during the infamous Durban Conference that was supposed to be against racism in late August, early September 2001. Good liberals on campus and elsewhere who think they are just fighting for “justice” need to be confronted with the fact that they are advancing a particular agenda with a particular – and quite problematic – pedigree.BDS is also part of the broader Islamist strategy to undermine the West. Especially in North America, activists need to understand how positions they are taking are aiding the same people who support shooting up Fort Hood, trying to down commercial jets on Christmas, and succeeded in killing nearly three thousand people on September 11, 2001.

Strategy / Vision A 5 Year Plan

All too often, we get mired in the tactics of the day-to-day battle and are too reactive. The group decided that before plunging into a more detailed discussion of some dimensions of the problem, we should step back and think about our vision, about our strategy and about what tactics will achieve our broader goals, five years from now.

Our Vision:

Includes: Israel being a cause to celebrate

Humanization of Israel (using a vibrant proactive approach making the Zionist case while emphasizing Israel’s many positive accomplishments and appealing characteristics

Driving a Wedge between Soft Critics and Hard Delegitimizers

Strategy

To have in place legislative prohibitions vs. BDS which can then be applied in different communities, acknowledging the different legal traditions.

Creating “Best Practices” which can be modeled and taught.

To have in place institutions (centralized, or 'hub within network' institutions) that can share information. (Committee members disagreed whether the bulk of the work should be from the government or from the community/civil society).

Institutions: To have in place Affinity Groups – lawyers, accountants, academics etc who can help fight BDS from within

Israeli intellectual 'buy in' – mobilizing Israeli academics and other professional who understand the seriousness of the threat and fight it

Encouraging more Israel Studies on campus as part of a broader rebranding and reversing of the current wherein enemies of Israel on campus are rewarded and friends are punished

Debranding the NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations) – naming and shaming

Pursuing a strategy of ridicule and satire – especially on the internet

Here are some steps we should follow to achieve those goals:

1. Let’s Reframe to Name and Shame:

BDS means very little to most people – and sounds like a communicable disease (which in some ways, like anti-Semitism itself, it is…) The awkwardness of the language, and the venom behind the sentiments, together provide a double opportunity. We can rename and reframe their movement. We need to point out how BDS crosses the line from legitimate criticism to historically- laden, anti-Semitic messaging. We should note that BDS fails the “Sharansky Test” of Demonization, Double Standards and Delegitimization” because it singles out Israel for special condemnation, speaking for example about the “apartheid nature of the state” rather than specific policies. We could reinforce this by adding a 2-E Test – “exceptionalism” and “essentialism” – which again focuses on singling out Israel and, in the nature of traditional bigotry, condemning the actor not the act.

In that spirit, in Toronto, the Jewish Federation re-christened the movement the Blacklist, Demonize and Slander movement. In addition to exposing the animus of the movement, the label cleverly filtered the BDS movement through the correct cultural framework when the BDSers targeted the Toronto Film Festival. Jane Fonda, initially, was happy to sign a petition bashing Israel. When she found out that she supported a “blacklist” – a major no-no in post 1950s Hollywood culture, she felt ashamed and retracted. Similarly, the leading academics fighting boycotts have been scientists, because free exchange is the lifeblood of the scientific community and the thought of risking that for mere politics is appalling to many. At the same time, there are (some, not enough) voices in the gay community denouncing groups such as “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid,” because they know how much more liberal Israel is than any other Middle Eastern country (the major international association of gay travel agents held its annual meeting in Israel in 2009).

These examples suggest we need to think, case by case, about how to frame the BDSers in the way that most emphasizes the gap between their actions and the democratic ideals they pretend to espouse. Recasting the campaign as a blacklist is a powerful way to demonstrate what the movement is really about. We should think of other strategies that help delegitimize the delegitimizers.

1.1 Ensuring tactics don't defeat strategy

The campaign against the University and College Lecturers' Union's boycott attempt in the UK was a signal success, mainly due to a classic job of re-framing. The BDS crowd wants the debate to be about Israel and the pro-Israel crowd made it about academic freedom. Although this is an exquisite tactic it runs the risk of leading to a strategic defeat.

What happened was that the "bad guys" talked about how bad Israel is and the "good guys" talked about how bad boycotts are. In the end the only messages that anyone heard about Israel were how bad she is. The boycott motion was handily defeated, but such a triumph contains the seeds of a Pyrrhic victory. Perhaps it's natural to glory in any kind of victory we can obtain in this fight, however, “Israeli policy makes me sick, but boycotts make me sicker” (as stated as a typical progressive view in the BDS fight) is hardly the ringing endorsement of Israel we would all seek!

To quote Charles Jacobs (late of the David Project), students are often reduced to arguing that "Israel doesn't suck." This is only a slight exaggeration. Unless we can come up with a way to produce a new meta-frame for discussing the Middle-East the BDSs will keep us on the run until we are worn out.

2. Dig Deep to Undermine

When the Student Society of Concordia University in Montreal was overtaken by Palestinians and anarchists in the late 1990s, early 2000s, rumors were rife about activists just enrolled in one course per semester to keep their eligibility for the Student Society, about money from outside the university being pumped into the pro-Palestinian activities and about money from the Student Society being diverted both for personal gain and for unauthorized political use. Surprisingly, neither the Jewish community nor the journalistic community undertook the kind of Edwin-Black- style investigation the whole mess deserved, for various cultural and political reasons. Investigative journalism is an underutilized tool in the fight against coordinated movements like the BDS movement.

Similarly, we need to do more historical research, showing the polluted origins of the Zionism is racism, Israel apartheid, and BDS movements. In October 1976, just under a year after the 1975 Zionism is Racism resolution passed the UN General Assembly, Professor Bernard Lewis published an article “The Anti-Zionist Resolution,” in Foreign Affairs (Vol. 55, No. 1 (Oct., 1976), pp. 54-64), uncovering the Soviet and Nazi roots of the resolution. Lewis’s research remains relevant today – as does his example.

3. We Need a War Room

The BDS movement is well-coordinated (and well-financed) (MY NOTE: HUH???) . The Jewish community needs a war room, tracking this movement, sharing best practices, coaching communities. All too often (and most especially on campus), when an anti-Israel initiative is launched the few who care act as if such a thing never occurred elsewhere and start working on their own strategy – rather than relying on a broad network and a collective memory that should be helping them.

The War Room could also provide the necessary intelligence and background that could be useful in the kinds of grassroots fights necessary to defeat BDS. Whether this War Room should be linked to the Ministry, or to the Global Forum, or to another Jewish organization, or stand on its own, is an important subject we should debate.

In describing this much-needed body of activists and academics we debated the nomenclature – some call it a clearinghouse, others a hub – but we need to share information, coordinate strategy, learn from each other, and push certain lines, taking offense, not just playing defense. In North America, the Federation system is talking about launching a coordinating body to fight BDS. England has “Fair play” functioning as a hub. In France the CRIEF coordinates. All these initiatives should be coordinated globally – through Israel, the target of the attack and the center of the Jewish people.

To be specific:
* Our guiding principle is that the first people to fight are the people on the ground – this is added value not a command center
* The mission is to be informational and tactical – a clearinghouse of information and like the town crier of old – a spur to action with weekly updates, particular tactics
* Like an iceberg, partially submerged – we need to make some public points to shape the narrative against BDS, delegitimizing the delegitimizers, but we also need ome private initiatives. We should not share all our strategies and tactics for the enemy to see
* Broadcast and narrowcast – having some messages that work globally, but also customizing our messages for campus, unions, civil society
Professor Irwin Cotler spoke at the Global Forum about “the globalization of the indictment” and our need to take back the narrative, to become the plaintiff…. How can we do this is we don’t coordinate strategies, if there isn’t a central body for information sharing, with a great website, but also engaged experts, representing the different countries, helping to shape this battle, sending out weekly updates, helping people who want to get involved, and, as one of our participants suggested targeting the bad guys, using the blogosphere to mock them, to embarrass them, to name and shame?

Each community should of course have its own structures but this war room should act as a hub. It should start simply by coordinating a proactive, integrated structure against BDS and delegitimization – if it works, it could be a crucial resource when crises develop,and it truly could be a global forum against anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and delegitimization, but for now let’s keep it focused.

4. BDS Draws a Line in the Sand 

5. BDS merits a double ju jitsu move  

7. Make the fight Horizontal, Hip, and Hysterical… 

8. Speak to Israelis about their roles as ambassadors and dangerous role as enablers 

At the same time, Israeli critics of Israeli policy need to understand that in an age of instant communication, what they say “within the family,” echoes throughout the world. The Norman Finkelsteins and Noam Chomskys of the world quote Israelis incessantly. No Israeli should feel compelled to change their politics, no matter what Chomsky and Finkelstein would choose to do. But ALL Israelis should watch their language, understanding that false Nazi/Apartheid/ Racism analogies feed Israel’s harshest enemies, who wish to wipe out the state. There is a rich bank of historical analogies and words Israeli critics can use to criticize Israel. There must be an awareness of how harmful the Nazi and Apartheid analogies are, and how they are used – the slogan “Never Again” should apply to false, offensive, analogizing, not just the mass murder itself

Note the analysis of Uri Avnery of the BDS. Avnery has a long record of harshly criticizing Israel, but distinguishes between his ultimately loving criticism and the exterminationist agenda underlying much of the BDS Campaign. He writes: “Reading some of the messages sent to me and trying to analyze their contents, I get the feeling they are not so much about a boycott on Israel as about the very existence of Israel. Some of the writers obviously believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a terrible mistake to start with, and therefore should be reversed. Turn the wheel of history back some 62 years and start anew.

“What really disturbs me about this is that almost nobody in the West comes out and says clearly: Israel must be abolished. Some of the proposals, like those for a “One State” solution, sound like euphemisms. If one believes that the State of Israel should be abolished and replaced by a State of Palestine or a State of Happiness – why not say so openly?

9. Ally, Fraternize, and Build Coalitions 

9.3 Reporters 

9.4 Bloggers 

9.5 Professional Organizations and Communities 

10. Zero in on a moment to raise awareness of the BDS threat and start delegitimizing the delegitimizers 

11. Meet “lawfare” with “lawfare.” 

12. Let’s Push More Broadly for a Citizenship 2.0 Campaign 

GOING ON OFFENSE

The time has come to explore ways to put the boycotters on the defensive and to initiate our own campaigns to highlight issues of concern. For example:

2. Lobby academic journals to adopt policies barring submissions from anyone who advocates an academic boycott. Journals are supposed to promote academic freedom and intellectual exchange and should not collaborate in efforts to stifle such exchanges. If academic boycotters cannot get published, they will perish.

3. Circulate information on Muslims acting contrary to Islam. If the people of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia knew their “pious” leaders were really alcoholics, gamblers and perverts, they might hasten regime change.

4. Create a “Student Rights Watch” organization that would seek to counterbalance certain NGOs that have become Israel-bashing specialists. SRW could go in at least two different directions – one would be to make a human rights organization that monitored activities around the world with the emphasis on non-democratic states (as HRW once did) – another approach would be to have the students focus on rights as students on college campuses with an emphasis on how Israel and Jews are treated, but also monitor other abuses inside and outside the classroom.

5. Launch a Saudi apartheid campaign. It is galling that Israel is tarred with comparisons to South Africa when there is a country that really does merit this comparison. Progressive and women’s groups should be natural allies in such a campaign, which might have a goal of adopting Sullivan-like principles for Western companies doing business in the kingdom.

6. “Buy Israel” campaign. This is already being done is some areas, but it might be adopted as an international program.

7. Buy Israel Bonds. It has been done quietly, but a more aggressive effort might be made to sell Israel Bonds to corporations and other entities (there is a danger to raising attention to it as it might create a new target for BDS). It may be a tougher sell given current interest rates at the moment, but one of the best responses to BDS is multimillion dollar bonds purchases made by banks, unions, pension plans, and others.

8. Outreach to mainline Christians. We have spent too little time on educating non-Jews and reacting only at the last minute when some of their leaders try to adopt BDS proposals at their national conventions. These churches bring in a parade of anti-Israel speakers who are rarely countered. Rather than focus so much attention preaching to the choir, greater efforts should be made to speak directly to non-evangelical Christians. The MFA could be especially helpful in this area.

9. Outreach to key minorities. In the United States, Hispanics will become an increasingly influential factor in American politics and, therefore, the U.S.-Israel relationship. Too little effort has been given to educating this community about Israel.

10. Developing Israel Studies as an academic discipline. Most universities have few if any courses about modern Israel and many of those that are taught are usually taught badly. A variety of steps can be taken to enhance the field across the globe. In the U.S., for example, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), has brought 65 visiting Israeli scholars to teach for an academic year at more than 40 universities over the last 5 years. AICE also supports graduate students pursuing Ph.D.s in Israel-related fields and postdoctoral fellows. Chairs and centers of Israel studies are being created in the U.S. and, more recently, the U.K. Providing the next generation with a good education about Israel is vital for the future as well as critical to countering present campus-based efforts to delegitimize Israel.

11. Try to make inroads at the UN and its associated agencies by targeting small nations. Many of these countries do not give a lot of thought to the Middle East and go with the herd. In fact, we know the UN reps sometimes act with little or no instruction from their governments. It may not be possible to overcome the Arab/Islamic bloc and its allies, but it may be possible to chip away at its majorities so votes are not one-sided and resolutions so biased (a small effort along these lines is underway in the U.S.).

AGENDA FOR THE WORKING GROUP MEETING

These were some of the questions we addressed – although it was difficult to cover them all, let alone answer them adequately in two short sessions. Still, we include them as food for thought for future conferences.

Universities (or other institutions) that invest in Israel seldom do so for reasons of Zionist sympathy. If they have put money into Israel or Israeli companies it's because their investment advisers have told them that it's the right thing to do in order to grow their endowment. Hence, divestment would be financially inadvisable.
If, in the midst of a divestment campaign, campus unions that represent technical, administrative and janitorial staff were convincingly informed that the divestment campaign might well lead to job cuts (and not amongst the tenured academics pushing for BDS) they might easily be persuaded to condemn such a campaign. How embarrassing for the "progressive" academics pushing BDS to be opposed by the representatives of the lowest paid workers on campus?

9.2 StudentsFar too much of the fight against anti-Semitism and for Israel occurs within a Jewish community bubble. The Foreign Ministry can be a particularly useful force here in helping build alliances with academics, business people, politicians, anti-terror/ national security types, Christian Zionists, civil libertarians – creating a broad coalition that is against demonization. Moreover, we learn from the anti-academic- boycott movement in England, whose guiding principle is that “the first people to fight BDS should be the people in the sector,” self defense is the best defense.9.1 Labor unionsBDS merits a double ju jitsu move: First, the BDS response to Israel is so over the top, it should be an opportunity to delegitimize the delegitimizers. Second, the Toronto community has been particularly effective in turning the lemons of BDS into lemonade – going from “Boycott” to Buycott – with the results being sold-out Israeli movie nights at the Toronto Film Festival, record-ticket sales for the targeted Dead Sea Scrolls, and a run on kosher wine when BDSers attacked Israeli wine. More broadly, the second paper offers many interesting ideas for getting off the defensive, becoming pro-active and taking the fight to the BDSers.

Until now.

The mainstream media's favorite scapegoat, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, resurfaced on Saturday amidst reports that he called the attacks of September 11, 2001 "a big lie." According to the immediate and rabid response of virtually every Western news network around, this was simply the latest insane claim of the same raving madman who has previously threatened to wipe a foreign state off the map and denied the Holocaust.

Yet, as with those other mistranslated or misunderstood statements, this new claim hardly stands up to even the most cursory scrutiny, as it has been reported with little accompanying context and comparison. According to a translation by Reuters, Ahmadinejad, addressing the staff of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, stated that, "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan." PressTV translated the President as saying that the circumstances of 9/11 were a "big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan."

Most of the press, including CBS, Huffington Post, and Fox, ran with an Associated Press report by Ali Akbar Dareini entitled, "Iran's Ahmadinejad: Sept. 11 attacks a 'big lie'" while CNN and Ha'aretz reprinted the AP with some slight variations like using the headline "Ahmadinejad Calls 9/11 'A Big Fabrication'."

Robert Mackey, writing for The New York Times editorialized that Ahmadinejad told Iranian intelligence officials that the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City was "staged."

By reporting that he called 9/11 a "lie" or "fabrication," the press has completely subverted the meaning of Ahmadinejad's actual statement. Headlines and ledes like the ones printed by the mainstream media give the intentionally misleading interpretation that Ahmadinejad claimed that 9/11 didn't actually happen. But the full quote obviously reveals something quite different. The events of 9/11 – that hijacked airplanes were flown into buildings, killing tens of hundreds of people – is not questioned or denied by Ahmadinejad in these statements. The attacks, in and of themselves, are not debated or disputed. What Ahmadinejad says is that the event itself was the result of, as PressTV reports, a premeditated "scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure," that was subsequently used as an excuse to justify the so-called "War on Terror" and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In short, President Ahmadinejad does not claim that 9/11 itself is a lie. He never has. In May 2006, in a letter written directly to George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad states, clearly and unequivocally,

"September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies."

Ahmadinejad's words echo those of his predecessor, President Mohammad Khatami, who in the wake of the attacks declared, "On behalf of the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic, I denounce the terrorist measures, which led to the killing of defenseless people, and I express my deep sorrow and sympathy with the American people." Furthermore, Iran was one of the first countries to hold candle-light vigils in solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the attacks.

What Ahmadinejad does claim, however, is that the official story of the events – publicly memorialized in the publication of the US government-sponsored The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) – is dubious, incomplete, and may very well have been the result of well-calculated misinformation and deliberate action (or, perhaps, inaction on previously obtained intelligence) by the US government. This is neither a new revelation for Ahmadinejad nor for the world community in general. In his letter to Bush, Ahmadinejad wrote,

"Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?"

In questioning the job done by American intelligence agencies, and questioning the US government's official version of events and responsibility, in the lead-up to September 11th, the Iranian President isn't alone.

Esfahan is Half the World, and Half the World Questions the 9/11 Story

To read the hysterical reports about his recent 9/11 comments questioning the accepted story of the event, one would think that Ahmadinejad is voicing roundly rejected, widely unpopular, and insanely outrageous conspiracy theories, devoid of any reasonable evidence or public support. This is hardly the case.

In fact, Ahmadinejad is in the company of more than half of planet Earth, half of New Yorkers, and almost half of all Americans. His views are not particularly uncommon, let alone unique. They surely don't demonstrate a lunatic fringe viewpoint, but rather an opinion well within the public discourse, though not often discussed by Western media.

Whereas the 9/11 Commission was officially "created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002…to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks," a plurality of the public believe this goal was not successfully accomplished and have doubts about the Commission's findings.

An August 2004 Zogby poll, conducted right after the Commission's report was made public and just days before the Republican National Convention was held in Manhattan, found that over 49% of New York City residents and 41% of New York State citizens say that at least some US government officials "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."

Another Zogby poll from May 2006 found that 42% of Americans believe that "the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks" and said "there has been a cover-up." Another ten percent of respondents were unsure. The same poll found that 44% of Americans believe that "the Bush Administration exploited the September 11th attacks" in order to advance its own foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, namely, "to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Furthermore, 45% of those polled agree that "so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success," while eight percent remain "unsure."

A Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll from July 2006 discovered that "More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East."

The next year, in May 2006, a Rasmussen poll revealed that "overall, 22% of all voters believe the President [sic] knew about the attacks in advance," while "a slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance."

Between May 2002 and October 2006, polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News found that upwards of 79% of the American public believed that "When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States," members of the Bush Administration were either "mostly telling the truth but hiding something," "mostly lying," or "not sure." In those four and a half years, the number of respondents convinced that the government was "mostly lying" grew by 20%.

A September 2008 World Public Opinion survey, asked "16,000 people in 17 countries who they thought was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington." The results showed that "majorities in only nine of the 17 countries believed that al-Qaida was behind the attacks." In response, WPO director Steven Kull stated,

"Broadly, I think what this tells us is that there is a lack of confidence in the United States around the world. It is striking that even among our allies, the numbers that say al-Qaida was behind 9/11 do not get above two-thirds, and barely become a majority. So this is a real indication that the United States is not in a strong position to, in a sense, tell its story. The American narrative is not as powerful in the world today."

Evidence aside, the mainstream media presents Ahmadinejad's recent statements as if they represent an outlandish theory based upon nothing more than paramount insanity.

Wiping Context Off the Map

Disingenuously reporting that Ahmadinejad called 9/11 a "big lie" without exploring the context his statement, notably his claim that 9/11 was used as a "pretext" to carry out the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, is much akin to headlines announcing that Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe out" Israel without presenting the statement in full. For instance, a Jerusalem Post article from December 12, 2006 and entitled "Ahmadinejad: Israel will be 'wiped out'" states in the first paragraph that the Iranian President "vowed once again that Israel would be 'wiped out.'" Only later in the piece does writer Herb Keinon reproduce the entire quote, which reveals a contextually vital qualification:

"The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom…[elections should be held among] Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."

Similarly, press reports from the previous fall, which sparked the entire "wiped off the map" fiasco, failed to tell their readers the whole story. In that speech, analyst Arash Norouzi explains, "Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West's apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the "Zionist regime" was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets." Apparently, in his reading of history, Ahmadinejad was simply reiterating the suggestions of Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl. In chapter 2 of his 1896 manifesto, Der Judenstaat, Herzl wrote,

"We [Jews] should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence."

Ahmadinejad reminded his audience that, while the eventual weakening or complete dissolution of America's hegemony over the Middle East via its colonial-settler garrison state may be unthinkable or unimaginable to some, "as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books." He listed the Shah's tyrannical monarchy in Iran, the repressive and expansionist Soviet Union, and the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, as examples of "regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished" in only the past three decades. In conclusion, Ahmadinejad repeated Khomeini's prescient view that the political demise of the Zionist government of Israel would soon follow: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Of course, all we've ever heard from Western press reports is that Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," an idiom that doesn't even exist in the Persian language, and that was the end of the discussion.

Confusing "Pretext" with "Pretense"

When Ahmadinejad speaks about historical events acting as pretexts to subsequent injustices, he is not claiming that the first event never happened, but simply stating that the event served to justify what followed. This pretext, then, is the exploitation of terrible tragedies as an excuse, motive, and ostensible reason ascribed to explain what historically occurred next. Using horrific events to nefarious advantage is what Naomi Klein has essentially defined as "The Shock Doctrine." This is what Ahmadinejad has spoken about when he uses the term "pretext," which is why, in his speech on Saturday, he stated that "Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking."

Unfortunately, the media has decided to equate the term "pretext" with "pretense" and insist that they are both identical synonyms for a claim, invention, myth, fabrication, or lie. With this in mind, it is easy to see how the demonization campaign of Ahmadinejad has been so successful.

This deliberate misinterpretation is not at all new. Even though it is commonplace in the press to insist that Ahmadinejad is a virulent anti-Semite who believes the Nazi holocaust never happened, this is an absurd suggestion unsupported by the facts.

When, at last April's Durban II conference, Ahmadinejad addressed the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 by stating, "As was the case after World War II, armies occupied other territories and people were transferred from territories…In reality, under the pretext of compensating for the evil done in the name of xenophobia, they in fact set up the most violent xenophobes, in Palestine."

He continued, "The Security Council made it possible for that illegitimate government to be set up. For 60 years, this government was supported by the world. Many Western countries say they are fighting racism; but in fact support it with occupation, bombings and crimes such as those committed in Gaza. These countries support the criminals."

The media reported that Ahmadinejad called the holocaust a myth, which promoted a pre-staged walkout by attending European delegations. But the usage of the word "pretext" is obvious to anyone willing to actually read.

Ahmadinejad's Durban II comments repeat remarks he previously wrote back in early September 2006, in a letter sent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In it, Ahmadinejad stated, "World War II came to an end with all its material and moral losses and its 60 million casualties. The death of human beings is tragic and sad. In all divine religions and before all awakened conscience and pure nature of mankind and the sense of right and wrong, the life, property and honor of people, regardless of their religious persuasion and ethnic background, must be respected at all times and all places."

By accepting the 60 million death toll of World War II, how could Ahmadinejad be denying the mechanized ethnic cleansing of millions of European Jews? He continued,

"Honorable Chancellor

I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress. The collective conscience of the world is indignant over the daily atrocities by the Zionist occupiers, destruction of homes and farms, killing of children, assassinations and bombardments.

Excellency, you have seen that the Zionist government does not even tolerate a government elected by the Palestinian people, and over and over again has demonstrated that it recognizes no limit in attacking the neighboring countries."

If Ahmadinejad's point still isn't clear, he elaborates:

"Using the excuse for the settlement of the survivors of the Holocaust, they encouraged the Jews worldwide to migrate and today a large part of the inhabitants of the occupied territories are non-European Jews. If tyranny and killing is condemned in one part of the world, can we acquiesce and go along with tyranny, killing, occupation and assassinations in another part of the world simply in order to redress the past wrongs?"

The question is not whether the holocaust happened or not, rather, it is how that horrendous tragedy has been exploited in order to justify the establishment of a "Jewish State" in Palestine and rob indigenous Palestinians of their own rights to self-determination. The issue is not to call history into question, but rather to explore the consequences of historical acts.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad has always made a stark distinction between Jewish people and Zionists. He has said on numerous occasions that his opposition to a Jewish State is a political and ideological one, and not to be confused with a violent ultimatum or military threat to the Israeli people. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that Iran has "no problem with people and nations" and that Iran does "not have any confrontation with anyone. We seek relations based on respect and justice." Even more specifically, in a 2008 CNN interview with Larry King, he stated quite clearly that "we don't have a problem with the Jewish people."

Just to be extra clear, Ahmadinejad declared, "We are opposed to the idea that the people who live there should be thrown into the sea or be burnt," reiterating his belief in self-determination of all people based upon elections: "We believe that all the people who live there [in Israel and Palestine], the Jews, Muslims and Christians, should take part in a free referendum and choose their government."

Even during his widely lambasted Durban II speech, Ahmadinejad clearly demarcated the distinction between the 19th century colonial ideology of Jewish nationalism and the Jewish religion, stating, "The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces."

Despite the fact that Ahmadinejad called for an "end to Zionism," countless news agencies erroneously reported that he sought the "destruction of Israel," and numerous commentators, including British ambassador Peter Gooderham, called these remarks "anti-Semitic."

In his piece about Ahmadinejad's 9/11 statement on Saturday, The New York Times' Robert Mackey, reminded his readers about comments made by the Iranian President during an International al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally on September 18, 2009, a national celebration in solidarity with the Palestinian people and in opposition to Zionism. Mackey, who refers to Quds Day as "Iran’s annual anti-Israel day," writes that Ahmadinejad told the crowd that "The pretext for the creation of the Zionist regime is false…It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim." Again, the pretext of the holocaust is not at all the same thing as a lie.

The holocaust, as an historical occurrence admitted to by its own perpetrators in Europe and widely described as the systematic and mechanized murder of millions of Jews, is not being called a lie in this statement. Considering that the indigenous people of Palestine bear no responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, the consequences of the holocaust, however, as it was used to justify the creation of Israel in Palestine, is what Ahmadinejad states is based on a "mythical claim." This becomes quite clear by listening to the very next line of Ahmadniejad's speech, unreported by Mackey or anyone else in the Western press: "The occupation of Palestine has no connection with the issue of the holocaust."

Later in the Quds Day speech, Ahmadinejad once again made sure to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism:

"The Zionists have no faith. It is a big lie that the Zionists should be considered tantamount to the Jews or the Christians. Zionists are not Jews nor Christians, and, rather, the Zionists seek to destroy all the values brought about by the divine prophets…the basis of Zionism is to destroy human culture and human values and the values of all nations."

Iran itself has an ancient community of over 25,000 Jews, the second largest Jewish population in the Middle East after Israel itself. Along with Ahmadinejad, Siamak Morsadegh, the Jewish Iranian legislator and community leader, has criticized Israel's policies towards Palestinians, especially in Gaza, saying it showed "anti-human behavior…they kill innocent people," and continuing that the Jewish community in Iran does "not recognize a government or a nation for the Zionist regime."

"A New Pearl Harbor"

That Ahmadinejad – along with millions and millions of others around the world – would find the official story of 9/11 suspicious is not without good cause.

A year before the September 11, 2001 attacks, neocon think tank Project for a New American Century, published a 90-page manifesto for a imperially dominant American Empire, urging "that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." Among its aims, the report, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century, calls for the United States to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars" and achieve "a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity."

PNAC's members, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Eliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Norman Podhoretz, John Bolton, Scooter Libby, and Richard Perle, believed that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Maybe those many PNAC members who, later that year, were subsequently appointed to top level positions in Bush's new administration didn't want to wait that long for such a galvanizing moment in order to pursue their own agenda of unilateral preemptive invasions of Middle Eastern countries.

When Ahmadinejad speaks of 9/11 as involving a "complicated intelligence scenario and act," shouldn't the media perhaps contextualize his statement by discussing the exaggerated and manipulated 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident which was largely responsible for launching the American military campaign in Vietnam, the 1954 Israeli false flag operations known as the Lavon Affair conducted against Egypt, or the planned, but never implemented, Operation Northwoods scheme in 1962 concocted by the U.S. Department of Defense to instigate a war with Cuba (one of the plans consisted of hijacking an airplane and blaming the new Castro regime).

IranAffairs' Cyrus Safdari reminds us of "Emad Salem, an undercover FBI informant who had infiltrated the group that carried out the first WTC bombing back in 1993. He was smart enough to record his conversations with the FBI. Turns out, he specifically warned the FBI of the bombing, and offered to replace the bomb material with a harmless substance, but the FBI said no." What about the completely bogus, but thoroughly hyped, "Newburgh bomb plot" to bomb synagogues in Riverdale, NY and fire a missile at a US military jet, which was entirely set up by FBI informant Shahed Hussain.

What about the 2007 statement by National Medal of Science laureate Lynn Margulis in which she referred to 9/11 as a "new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties"? Or former CIA Middle East operative Robert Baer, who has written, "Until we get a complete, honest, transparent investigation – not one based on 'confession' extracted by torture – we will never know what happened on 9/11." Or former senior CIA official Bill Christison, who wrote that there is a "strong body of evidence showing the official US government story of what happened on September 11, 2001 to be almost certainly a monstrous series of lies." What about the other CIA officials who question the official story?

What about the Guardian report from November 1, 2001 which revealed that, according to French intelligence officials, "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent"?

What about the mysterious collapse of Tower 7, Able Danger, the failure to scramble jets, the myriad National Security experts denied, ignored, or censored from the 9/11 Commission report, deception and non-cooperation by the Department of Defense, whistle-blowers like Coleen Rowley, supposed short-selling and text message warnings, or the five dancing Israelis seen watching and videotaping the attacks from New Jersey's Liberty State Park across the Hudson River?

What about the British intelligence report, entitled "Responsibility for the terrorist atrocities in the United States," which purports to provide evidence that "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001, yet begins with the following disclaimer: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law"?

What about the BBC report, entitled "The investigation and the evidence," which concludes, "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks…At best the evidence is circumstantial."

What about the evidence that, in no verified audio or video tapes, has bin Laden actually claimed responsibility for the attacks, yet has even been quoted as stating, "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act…we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed."

What about the fact that Osama bin Laden is, to this very day, not specifically wanted in connection with the 9/11 attacks, according to FBI's own Most Wanted List?

As a result, is there not plenty of dubious information and spurious evidence surrounding the official story of the September 11 attacks to warrant some sort of suspicion, regardless of what you may personally think actually happened? In this way, with his recent comments, President Ahmadinejad has given voice to the majority of the world. But clearly, for fear they might stumble on some uncomfortable truths, it appears easier for the mainstream media to decontextualize his statements and label him a crackpot conspiracy theorist who is a danger to the American way of life, thus leading the United States down the path to attacking a third Middle Eastern country, than to do its own job.

By misrepresenting the country of Iran, its people, its system of government, its culture, its religion, its elected and unelected leaders, the Western press has already set the stage for an attack on the Islamic Republic. Because of the media's sensational and propagandistic reporting, 71% of Americans already believing that Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons. 90% think that the power of Iran's military poses either a critical or important "threat to U.S. vital interests" (despite the fact that Iran's military budget that is literally one hundred times smaller than that of the US). 59% of American citizens even support unilateral, preemptive US military action against Iran regardless of whether economic or diplomatic efforts achieve the government's desired effect.

Perhaps, as was seen with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the press is doing exactly what the US government wants it to do.

*****

Contact him at wideasleepinamerica@gmail.com.
–
Wide Asleep In America
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com

I read your article 'Why no Jewish writer can be believed' with much interest. You know, sometimes I feel like that about the Anglo Saxons. Often times, as history is evidence, especially vis a vis the East India Company and its colonial conquests whose enduring shackles of mental servitude are still felt daily in my native nation, can one really tell the difference between the Jewish white Anglo-Saxon and the Christian white Anglo-Saxon race? While the religious rituals may be different, the imperial practices aren't when the reference begins and ends with 'race'! Any conflict between them is often only the white man's burden negotiation between two ubermensch fighting over primacy!

Let me therefore, begin this response by first agreeing that every name which you have mentioned in your article, I too have similarly unraveled some aspects of their narratives which weren't entirely wholesome (to put it charitably). The last one, Gilad Atzmon's, was here:

But that website took down my comment (now why would they do that?)! Fortunately, I had saved a local copy which is cached here:

Often times, as G. Edward Griffin also puts it, the sins of the 'left' are uncovered by their enemies on the 'right', and vice versa. The in-fighting among hegemonic pigs often betrays their criminal secrets. For an astute non-bigoted seeker of truth and justice for all, that's simply the low hanging fruits of the rotten tree to be plucked for forensic analysis. Especially, if they also happen to be the type-3 of Hitler's classification of people:

"In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the Press as a 'Great Power' within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press continues the work of education even in adult life. Generally, readers of the Press can be classified into three groups: First, those who believe everything they read; Second, those who no longer believe anything; Third, those who critically examine what they read and form their judgments accordingly." (Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter X)

Otherwise, I for one do not have the infinite resources to dig out the dirt on all the hectoring hegemon pigs on the planet. Let them dig it out on each other. I'll only use it circumspectly. I cannot permit my mind, and my guard, to take vacation for even a single moment - for the 'devil' knows no race, color, cast, or creed! Minimally I need to protect myself from being tainted by your prejudices - but I also find your views interesting, and often worth refuting lest they taint the feeble of mind too comfortable in their own adjusted worldview.

So, back to your narrative, I find the race construct disturbing no matter who uses it, the antagonist, or the protagonist.

I quite agree that the Talmud is a major tortuous source of Jews' misanthropic ambitions as god's ubermensch created on earth to lord over the Goy. But not completely. Atheism too is not an unfamiliar imperial driving force in the same vein:

By that token, I could condemn your non-beliefs the same way - couldn't I? It is just logic.

People generally do not lie, cheat, deceive, murder, become water boys or house negroes for the ubermensch, or endeavor to conquer the 'untermenschen' by way of deception, by their race or religion - the political ponerologists advocating the psychopathic view of ubermensch not withstanding. In my humble view, people do so by choice (including perverse indoctrination and the 'banality of evil').

I am unwilling to condemn such misanthropes by their race, religion, caste, or creed � because, by its logic, I would unfairly have to condemn all peoples belonging to those sets. That is guilt by association! I see no difference between that, and the crimes of Nazism, Zionism. I condemn criminals only by their acts. To the extent that misanthropic doctrines from their books, cultural heritage, or tortuous philosophies might motivate them, well, there are at least 60 million white Anglo Saxon ubermensch Christian misanthropes alone in the Bible Belt of America trying to bring on Armageddon and Jesus! I think they far surpass the Jews in sheer numbers. Therefore, should I condemn all Christians for the twisted perversion of such a large number of criminals among them who think bombing other nations will lead to some Rapturous Nirvana? Or, perhaps the entire white Anglo Saxon population by their race alone, for between Jews and Christians, that's the entire Western civilization? By your logic, why not?

I find the following recipe which was legally averred at Nuremberg by Robert H. Jackson rather defining, reasonable, equitable, and wisely applicable to all cases of misanthropic thoughts that transform into inflicting actual harm upon others, whether by bombs, or by debt-enslavement, whether in the quest of Lebensraum, Zionistan, or one-world government:

"The intellectual bankruptcy and moral perversion of the Nazi regime might have been no concern of international law had it not been utilized to goosestep the Herrenvolk across international frontiers. It is not their thoughts, it is their overt acts which we charge to be crimes." (Nuremberg, Closing Speech)

I charge as crimes against humanity, the enactment of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. All those who crafted it, proposed it, enabled it, aided and abetted in its passage as well as in its obfuscation over the past 100 years, and benefitted from its enslaving action of the entire nation, are more appropriate candidates for being accorded the full 'enemy combatant' protocol at Guantanamo Bay than its present indigent inhabitants! For indeed, in that one enabling Act, is accumulated the combined evil of all the evil that has followed over the past 100 years, including all the wars, its 100 million victims, and entire nations entrapped in un-payable debt to steal their public commons! That first monumental crime is independent of the race - all the Congressman who signed the Bill under the stewardship of Bernard Barauch and Col. House, including the President of the United States at the time who approved it, and the vast numbers of newsmedia and PR spokespersons of both political parties who got on the Hegelian Dialectic bandwagon of sloganeering "banking reform" and filled the newspapers with their bullshit, were Christian white folks right alongside the Jewish white folks. (The blacks in America at the time only lived in their ghettos after their escape/emancipation from the clutches of their white Christian Anglo Saxon plantation owners, and therefore can't rightly be counted among the races who contributed to the hijacking of America.)

So, are all the white Anglo Saxons of America guilty of that first monumental crime against the American public, and the world's peoples? Are they all complicit in hiding it, spinning it, obfuscating it? But you have already absolved Eustace Mullins. I apologize for using an obvious truism to make the blatant point that by your criterion of guilt by association, you should have dismissed the good Samaritan Christian Mullins too without reading, just like the anti-Semitic choir does!

In a previous communication regarding another article way back in September 2009, titled: 'Jewish disinfo the specialty of popular Rense columnist', I had also noted your zeal for gross, and what I felt at the time was ignorant, generalization. In that article, you had carelessly maligned Islam in the same breadth as Christianity by asserting: "Throughout human history, the Talmud is the heart of darkness, and the Bible and the Qu'ran are complicit in concealing this fact." I had written to you:

'As a Muslim, I would only like to inquire on your statement: "Qu'ran are complicit in concealing this fact". Would you kindly let me know what you have based that assertion upon? While I might concur with anyone that the Talmud contains some really abhorrent things, nay shocking things, I also wonder who among the Jews really believes in what's in their old books…. but that's not the purpose of this letter to you. It is to only inquire the basis upon which you chose to malign Islam, by asserting that the Qur'an is deliberately complicit in concealing some abhorrence, some distortions in Judaism like its Talmudic teachings. As you surely [must] know [Islam], both Prophet Moses and Jesus are revered in the Qur'an as among the Great Prophets. Qur'an assert that God sent both Moses, and Jesus, among many other prophets, to mankind, to every people, and each time sent a new one to correct the erroneous man-made teachings that had cropped in the previous prescription over time, or to generalize the particularized teachings, as the case between Moses followed by Jesus, with Prophet Muhammad being the last one to correct all past manmade errors, and to generalize God's religion to all mankind. So, while one may not believe in Islam, or any religion [for that matter], the fact of your assertion being false [in the context of Qur'an and Islam] is plainly manifest. Thus I inquire if it was inadvertent, malicious, or merely ignorant. And if none of those, then kindly do enlighten me the reason for your statement. We can always learn from each other � no one has monopoly over knowledge.'

That moment onwards, I could easily have dismissed you on the same grounds as you have dismissed all the Jews: "[Anglo Saxon] writers inevitably [distort and prevaricate], blur and twist the contours of any argument to invariably shape it into advantage for only themselves."!But I still read your present article with care, and I am even taking the time to respond to you, once again - since it warrants a response - because I refuse to bow to the vagaries of your personal prejudices and myopia lest it infect others. You already may have a great following among the white supremacists I imagine, despite perhaps your own aversion to it - I hope.

Finally, I do thank you Mr. John Kaminski for your often provocative and bold viewpoints, whether or not one agrees with them. I think it is courageous and un-inhibited people like yourself who continually push on the acceptable envelop of thought and its public expression, and thus widen the discourse space for many more ordinary people like myself to have our tiny voice (for what little that's worth). Minimally, the brownshirt thought-police will chase you before they might chase me (or perhaps they will soon lock up all the non-conformists regardless)! Be that as it may, let's not get carried away as the self-proclaimed avantgarde in provocative thought, into realms of moral absurdity, especially in falling prey to the antagonists own vices: guilt by association, the race factor, arrogance, and ignorance.

Thank you.

Zahir Ebrahim

Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/02/respto-johnkaminski-jewish-writers.html

Source PDF: http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/respto-johnkaminski-jewish-writers-feb282010.pdf
Kaminski article URL: http://www.johnkaminski.info/pages/the_next_chapter/too_late_for_trust.htm

The aspect of the Al-Mabhouh assassination that is attracting most attention is the issue of forged passports. Today's Jewish Chronicle carries a short commentary on the tendency of Israeli security services to "borrow" passports, highlighting two methods by which this could have been done. The first is apparently innocuous, whereby as part of the normal migration procedures any "Oleh" wishing to make the "aliyah" (migration to Israel) parts willingly with his or her identification documents, which can and usually are circulated. The anonymous JC commentator suggests that a more surreptitious method was used for holders of foreign passports who would be approached directly by the security services. This approach is "widely known among new and old immigrants to Israel" according to one man who described how he was approached for his passport while spending a gap year in Israel 40 years ago:

"We were 18 and on a kibbutz. When your madrich (youth leader) says 'can I borrow your passport?' you do not ask any questions. Mine came back with a Romanian stamp on it. This happened to 30 people. As far as I know Israel was bribing the Romanian regime for olim [plural of Oleh] and people needed a non-Romanian passport to get out of the country."

The rather blasé commentary reveals that far from being astonished that their identities had been stolen – probably by Mossad – the British citizens with dual nationality living in Israel could have had a reasonable idea that their identities might have been taken for use in such a way. The fact that this practice is "widely known" has serious implications for governments such as ours and the protection of citizens' identities, as well as security concerns. Not only does this Israeli practice show contempt and disregard for other countries – including its supposed allies – it also endangers the security of its own nationals.

When Mossad attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khalid Mishal in 1997, its operatives used Canadian passports. The two had to take refuge in the Israeli embassy in Amman. It transpired that two Canadian Jews living in Israel had been approached and asked if their passport details could be "borrowed" by one of Israel's security services, a process that has been described as "emotional blackmail" and a test of their "loyalty to Israel" by journalist Paul McGeough.¹

According to McGeough, the Canadian authorities were left highly embarrassed and "vulnerable" after the apparent collaboration between Canadian and Israeli security services was made public. A former Israeli ambassador to Canada said, "The Canadian authorities knew… that passports were being used by Mossad… it was known to people at the embassy and they essentially turned a blind eye to it."²

This begs the question whether or not the British government or British security services are themselves aware that Mossad agents have been using British passports and to what extent, if any, they have been involved in the whole Al-Mabhouh affair. Moreover, if it had been, for instance, a Pakistani passport that had been so easily passed around the ISI³ and then used for clandestine operations, would we be seeing the same rather limp response from the international community?

Meanwhile, two leading legal experts have commented on the affair to MEMO:

“We must draw distinctions between domestic and international law. On the domestic front- each state will have criminal penalties for the misuse of its passports. In the UK the Identity Cards Act 2006 specifies criminal penalties for the misuse of passports, forging passports etc. Someone who has 'allowed' their passports to be used in such a way, could be charged with aiding and abetting offences under the 2006 Act. 

This is a very serious matter and the courts will look at the purpose of the use of the false documents in terms of measuring the seriousness. For example if the documents were used for seeking work, it would be seen as a much less serious case compared to fraud. In this case, we are looking at murder. The government could look at the steps Margaret Thatcher took following the apparent use of British passports where she closed down Mossad operations in the UK in the 1980s. This is much more serious given that Israel had given diplomatic assurances that this would not happen again and is certainly an aggravating factor that the government would have to take into account."

Paul Troop,
A prominent barrister specialising in human rights and civil liberties

---

 

The legality of the use and abuse of foreign passports?

The respective governments should: 

source: http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/commentary-and-analysis/692-why-are-we-surprised-that-mossad-used-fake-passports

Nakba survivors and their descendents commemorate their destroyed villages with Zochrot

The Nakba law is coming up again for consideration in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, in a more moderate version than before but with the same motivation:  to frighten everyone who wishes to commemorate the human and political tragedy that occurred in 1948, in which the Zionists expelled most of the Palestinian inhabitants of the country and the state of Israel destroyed most of the localities in which they lived.  Those proposing the law hope to mobilize Zionist patriotism by threatening to forbid commemorating Independence Day as a day of mourning.  They are blind, of course, to the historical context, and the development of that tradition among the displaced Palestinians who remained in Israeli territory.  Let us not forget that Arab localities in Israel were ruled by a military government until 1966.  Palestinian citizens were forbidden to travel “beyond the pale” without a permit from the military governor.  On Independence Day all the residents had a vacation, even the Arabs!  The most important place for them to visit was the one where they had lived, to which they were forbidden to return.  As the years went by, and they understood that the Jewish state would never allow them to return home, this event took on a national-political aspect, and in recent years it is celebrated with a “March home” to the remains of one of the localities captured during the nakba.  “Their independence; our Nakba,” became the main slogan of these events. 

The government intends to impose economic sanctions on the organizers of these important commemorations, which will only increase the discrimination suffered by Palestinian citizens of Israel.  The economic sanctions contradict the state’s obligation to the welfare of all its citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or national identity.  In recent years, a growing number of Jews have participated in the return marches to Palestinian localities which Israel captured during the Nakba, and support for the right of return is increasing.  These Jews are undermining the ethno-national dichotomy of the slogan, recognizing that the tragedy which occurred in 1948 is part of their own history.  The participation of Jews in events commemorating the Nakba undermines the effort, which is as old as Zionism itself, to bring about confrontation and schism between Arabs and Jews in the country. 

It may not come as a surprise that in this difficult time for Israeli public relations efforts, the government disseminates absurd “facts” about the Palestinian refugees.  For example, that they numbered only 320,000, not approximately 800,000, as a result of the Nakba, while 150,000 “were absorbed in Arab countries” and 50,000 “ returned to their countries.”  Such newspeak insults the intelligence of many Israelis, who have known for a long time that the official government explanations for the events of 1948 are intentional lies. 

Hundreds of Israelis contact Zochrot every year.  Educators, students, journalists, directors and others who are interested request information which has been concealed for so long about what happened just outside the house where they were born.  The editor of the most comprehensive web site about the Nakba, www.palestineremembered.com reports that the number of Israelis entering the site is second only to the number of Palestinians.  These are dramatic developments which no law which tries to compel people to forget the Nakba will be able to stop. 

The Nakba is increasingly present in Israeli cultural production, no longer ignored by best-selling books and films by young directors.  Even architects are beginning to show signs of addressing the traditions of local Palestinian architecture. 

Despite these positive signs, it is impossible to underestimate the danger presented by the strengthening of anti-democratic currents in Israel.  The present government is acting to greatly restrict the freedom of civil society to negotiate with the regime over the most controversial topics.  Arbitrary arrests, outrageous investigations and draconic legislation are what you find in the toolbox of a government which knows that its survival depends on creating a “iron wall” that, for now, protects the Israeli colonial regime.

Eitan Bronstein
Zochrot

February 2010

www.zochrot.org

It is not the place of a plebeian living comfortably in California in the United States of America – where no one is shooting at his family, nor demolishing his home, nor subjecting him to suffer Jews only roads nor the dehumanizing checkpoints on every mile – to  critique the monumental struggle of a mighty people barely surviving a genocidal conquest of their ancestral lands, where, just to exist daily in dignity after burying one's children shot in the head is to resist, where, just to not forget without going insane is to resist, where, to fight the tanks with only stones despite the label of terrorist' is to resist.

And far be it for any mortal to critique the gentle Jew among a population of 20-60 million world Jewry who dares to courageously stand up for what is decent and moral, who bears witness for crimes against humanity against one's own tribe, who resolves to bring to her people the news of what she saw with her own two eyes in Palestine.

But to also not point out the palpably obvious is a travesty of both thought and justice. For, in order for the monumental struggle of the Palestinians to result in anything other than glossy book publishing, and Peace Prizes, one perhaps will have to incur the wrath of both the moralist as well as the tyrant. And so be it. I ain't writing this to win a popularity contest, to make a living from narrating other people's misery, to win elections by seeking representation, or to ingratiate myself with the victims or their moral champions. Effort is great – but on a treadmill it is wasting precious time on endless trail of red herrings.

Anna Baltzer, a wonderful human being, and Mustafa Barghouti, a courageous
leader of a beleaguered people, are both riding high on platitudes. It is unfortunate that they exhibit little forensic understanding of the facts of the matter beyond the Israeli military occupation which they have lived and witnessed daily. The unvarnished and hidden only in plain-sight reality which begets the golem, at least in my view, is this, this, this, and this. [1] A thorough due diligence of the cited material and some  un-emotional reflection makes the endless trail of red herrings apparent. [2] Power only respects power. Not platitudes, not appeals to morality, and not narratives.

Please keep making shocking presentations showing the brutality of the golem, keep appearing on comedy shows amidst the applause of the partisans and the curse of the zealots, it sure looks good in America. It also looks good for the Jews – one of their own angels once again boldly speaks the authentic moral voice in favor of a beleaguered humanity as “it's in line with the tradition of social justice that has been the pride of Jewish people”. Yes indeed, and as my irreverent Palestinian friend also says “We run from Jew to Jew, they create the problem, and also argue the solution, they control the full spectrum of our discourse as well as our existence.” Dismissing the Palestinian voice as being merely cynical, or irrational and requiring the Jewish authentication to have legitimacy, it's just  wonderful to make colorful presentations to universities and to appear on mainstream television in America to attempt to project Palestine's misery on the American psyche.

The purpose, one of course presumes, is to inform the ignorant Americans of what's happening in Palestine so that, one logically ventures to presume again, the newly informed public with their mighty democratic vote will finally rush to alter the destiny of the Palestinian People. [3]

Sadly so, and contrary to what most people have been led to believe, lack of knowledge isn't the chain that is anchoring the superbly conscionable American public down from bringing justice to Palestine, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Lebanon, to Pakistan, and to the Grand Chessboard being played for the winner takes all high stakes gambit of one-world government. [4]

This truth should be self-evident and is easily demonstrable. Simply examine what the United States has done to Iraq in the past 8 years before its own public's eyes. That isn't at all a state-secret, nor an open secret. We have Abu Ghrieb for instance whose pictures were splashed even in the mainstream news – far more than Jenin or Gaza ever were. We have the exposé which gallantly revealed how the Pentagon Generals created the message machine to fool the American public into supporting the invasion of Iraq on fabricated pretexts. [5] With all that knowledge before their eyes, one of course sees Main Street USA filled with American protesters demanding the hanging of their leaders after the disclosures of missing WMD, the horrendous torture of civilians, and the  complete devastation of even the DNA of Mesopotamia for eons to come, right?
[6]

But wait, why bother to go that far overseas searching for sympathy among the conscionable peoples of the United States of America for those untermensch 'unworthy victims' who share the same cultural baggage with the Palestinians thus automatically extending that 'unworthiness' to each other. How about their ownselves? The American protesters surely choked their nation's thoroughfares
bringing business as usual to a grinding halt when the American banksters plundered their own nation through their own elected representatives before their very eyes last October, right? [7]

None of that is particularly secret as perhaps some feel that the plight of the Palestinians is from the American public. Those among them who want to know about the reality of “imperial mobilization” can easily learn so, it's not a state
secret. And those who do already know, as in the aforementioned instances, well, they still continue to live on in their own dream states not only unfazed by the desecrated 'untermensch' humanity, but the theft of their own nation in plainsight hasn't motivate them a heck of a lot. Can any sensible analysis deny this grotesque reality?

The entire premise of if Americans only knew then they'd surely bring justice to the world and all will live happily ever after, has now empirically been proven to be entirely specious. [8] An absurdity. For Americans are no more or less moral than the rest of the spectating world. Including the 8 million Palestinians living in Diaspora. That is easily demonstrable by how many set sail with the courageous, courageous, former American Congresswoman to attempt to break the blockade of Gaza with basic medicines and supplies. [9] Imagine, instead of the lonely Dignity, there were one million Dignities? In a world's population of almost 7 billion, and West's own 2 billion comfort seeking zombies and plethora of philosophers and activists, one couldn't mobilize a civilian force of conscience of 2-10 million human beings willing to risk their discomfort in sailing to Gaza to stop the genocide going on before our very eyes? Administering a medicine below its recommended dosage for the disease at hand only makes the body immune to it having no impact on the malady in much the same way as not applying sufficient imploding force to create critical mass also does not trigger the chain reaction necessary to set off a nuclear bomb. Symbolic expression no more initiates a nuclear chain reaction than gives pause for concern to the hectoring hegemons.

The shoah of the Palestinians isn't something in the yesteryear for which the “never again” vows are repeatedly taken in the halls of the Holocaust Museum. Nor is it the indescribable genocide of centuries past which colonized the land of the Native Americans before one living today was ever born. It is happening right here, right now, in our own time, and so what of it? High minded people can't be bothered with other people's existential problems other than at best, some weekend show of bravado of the conscionable and some whispered prayers of the pious! If there was efficacy in such acts, then wishes would be horses and beggars would surely be riding. But we see that this does not happen. People continue to suffer under the jackboots of the Nazis, old and new.

What worthy moralists penning narratives and/or walking the beleaguered victims safely past checkpoints don't appear to comprehend is the notion of efficacy: the difference between applying band-aids to symptoms vs. curing the systemic illness by accurately diagnosing, and then efficaciously antidoting
the root cause. Perhaps deliberately. Perhaps thoughtlessly. Perhaps the flock is calculatingly misled by the multitude of priestdoms who lead them in the feel-good dissipation of their energies into red herrings and “focus groups” while fait
accompli is seeded in its backdrop. [10] That should be self-evident. But apparently, it isn't to many.

So, in my view, when offering narratives to the public thinking that morality, or knowledge equates to action, never mind efficacy, one is either creating or chasing endless red herrings. [11]

It has certainly worked wonders for “arguably the most important intellectual alive” in selling his narratives. [12] And so too for the two hundred other Jewish voices of dissent, or perhaps the number is two thousand? Or is it twenty  housand? How many have created tax-exempt foundations, like the nemesis does, to donate all those proceeds to the Palestinian cause; used it for purchasing a newsmedia or a mainstream newspaper; set up an AIPAC, a JINSA, and one hundred think-tanks to create competing policy proposals to counter AEI's craftsmanship? And it also works great for everyone who cheers them on – for it's soothing to the conscience to run safely on the treadmill.

When peace prizes are awarded to the victims for the superlative narratives of their own, or to their exponents among their oppressor's civilization, it's  covetously appreciated and becomes their badge of honor. [13] The fact that they are sharing it with bloody murders doesn't seem to cross their mind, nor the fact that the whiteman is in fact mocking the 'Negro'. [14] Victims trip over themselves to welcome the new whiteman as heroes. Talk show circuits naturally follow, with more narratives to boot. And the annual Nakba commemoration is of course an event to  look forward to. All the great speeches that get made there, all the slogans that are raised, and all the lofty assertions that are made.

Amidst all this energized symbolic weekend run on the treadmill for most people, and perhaps a lifestyle for a handful of others of courageously putting band-aids on visible wounds while doing little for curing the systemic disease, the only people all this wonderful dissent doesn't work for, and hasn't work for, are the bleeding Palestinians exhausting themselves out at ground Zero.

The enemy is simply far superior and far more cunning in waging a full spectrum overwhelming war by way of deception. Those on the ground see only the most overt of its instruments – the guns, the walls, but not the forces which drive them.

With no hope for any of the armed to the teeth standing armies from around the world coming to their rescue, they clutch at straws. And the Internationals, as courageous as they are in putting their own lives on the line with some like Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, and so many others, paying for their personal quest for justice with their own lives, provide that bale of straw to the Palestinians. But no solutions. Those in Diaspora are already settled someplace while admittedly still holding onto the keys to their demolished homes now left behind. And those at ground Zero in Palestine continue to suffer the privilege of great loquaciousness of their brethren in Diaspora who do indeed try to serve their former family members well from the relative safety of their new homes in the West. Their weekend protest marches, the shouting and venting anger at the Caligula, the symbolic pins, T-shirts, posters, and colorful flag-waving, etceteras, and back to the pursuit of their 'American Dream' on Monday morning, 8 am.

If this depiction offends the pious, well, the reflection in the mirror is more grotesque than the reality outside. It is our silence, our apathy, our un-courage, our co-option, our lack of skill to appreciate the diabolicalness of the enemy, to understand its sources of power, to fathom its limitless deep pockets and the fount which replenishes it, to appreciate its long range Machiavellian planning with red herrings being an integral part of its vast arsenal of waging wars by way of deception, and finally, the paucity of a superior intellect to pursue the efficacious instead of the 'glamourous', all of which entirely enables and emboldens that evil among mankind.

The “pastrami sandwich” example acutely illustrates just one instance of being out-classed in all dimensions by a far more cunning and sophisticated foe. Ariel Sharon noted to Winston Churchill III in 1973, six years into Israel's military occupation of remaining Palestine: “We'll make a pastrami sandwich of them. We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlement, right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years time, neither the United Nations, nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.” [15]

And the truth of those diabolical words is visible in the maps reproduced below. It is still on-going. But there is no evidence of that comprehension in anything the Palestinian leadership, or their moral supporters have proffered up since, neither at the Oslo Accord, nor at the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the 'Negro' by the whiteman for his dutiful compliance with their discourse, and nor in the wonderful rehash of narratives of Anna Baltzer and Mustafa Barghouti in 2009, 36 years later. They vacuously talk of peace-peace, justice-justice, rights-rights, security-security, without betraying, at least in that appearance on American television, any understanding of the forces which drive their nemesis.

This is once again unequivocally demonstrated in these saintly closing remarks of Mustafa Barghouti, interrupting the very passionate moral voice of Anna Baltzer making the pair a fantastic must-see nourishment for the soul on American television's finest moral hour: “If I may say so, Israel has tried for sixty years the language of power, to achieve security. The only road that was not tried fully, is to have peace with Palestinians. And I am sure, this is the best guarantee for security.”

Is security what Israel wants? Yes, surely, but only after all the natives have been dispatched to their reservations or transferred out of the Holy Lands. But before then? For the past 60 years, has security been the successive Israeli governments primary quest as the learned Dr. Mustafa Barghouti played to the American audience? Or has it all along been the conquest of Palestine that every Palestinian on the ground knows as unarguable fact just as surely as the picture of their beautiful child now shot dead right through the eyes and burned alive by phosphorous bombs that puts all the Jews' hypocritical laments of Shoah to shame? [16] While Jon Stewart may be forgiven his inbred American wisdom of conveniently forgetting the parallels of how America was settled by the whiteman, all others not peering down the rabbit hole or bleating their own victimizers' mantras already know that by continually fueling conflict, taking 10 under the guise of fighting the 'barbarians' in purported self-defense, and returning 1 if the 'terrorists' behave, has been the primal modus operandi of the golem for similarly re-settling another paradise lost. [17]

The veracity of that observation too, based on the profound wisdom of David Ben Gurion: “what is inconceivable in normal times is possible in revolutionary times”, and the nonsensicalness of the premise uttered by the respected Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, are all self-evident in the maps below.

These maps depict the real unvarnished reality on the ground: “However the different party maps have nothing to do with reality, a fact well known to the people who drafted them. The maps were produced to feed addiction (a) of the populace. This is virtual reality. The actual reality on the ground has been created continuously, consistently and deliberately, since 1967, by all Israeli governments, Labor, Likud and Kadima.” [18]

That is precisely why Palestinians have continually lost their struggle to wonderful narratives, to chest beating, chest thumping, and intellectualizing their moral struggle in poetry and songs, photographs and theater, to Peace processes and Accords, to maps handed them by their victimizers, and ultimately, to even using the vocabulary and constructs of the occupiers themselves to describe their own victimhood, all of which is dutifully rewarded with more land loss, and more peace prizes for playing the fool.

One ventures to predict that Anna Baltzer's poignant book is slated for a Pulitzer Prize for sure, or at least the Orwell Prize like native Palestinian Raja Shehadeh's acute narrative 'Palestinian Walks' in 2008. [19] If this chap, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti keeps up this charade before the West, keeps selling out his own long suffering people by spewing red herrings crafted for him by the whiteman, there is surely a peace prize in it for him as well. Perhaps these accolades have already been issued, just awaiting public announcement – as the map of Israel in Palestine rapidly reaches its final completion while Eretz Yisrael continues to be worked on in parallel.

To put some real efficacy to the resistance before fait accompli entirely seals the Palestinians' fate, and it's almost there, genuinely concerned people are gonna have to bite the bullet even at this late stage of conquest and go where neither the Palestinians, nor their moral exponents have shown any inclination to go. To the very DNA of Der Judenstat's strength.

Because, as with the secret of Samson's indomitable strength, this golem's hidden source of power lies deceptively elsewhere! [20] Not in Israel. Not in the White House, and not in the U.S. Congress. We have already seen them all bow together before another higher power with our very own eyes.

And that is the real Samson Option! Want to get rid of the golem? You gonna have to pay in spades by seeking and cutting off its locks. To do so requires skills, expertise, and resources often un-possessed by the ordinary plebeians rising to support the beleaguered victims. All we can do is make speeches, write books, and appear on  talk shows. All the victims can do is to exist to resist. And all their leadership can do is to find new ways to be co-opted. That's how they live longer, more willing they are to become the 'Negro' of Martin Luther King's scorn. [21] Without taking on the DNA with resources to back up the effort in a full spectrum assault to overwhelm their senses and their resources just as they do ours, all this dissent is a wonderful waste of precious time. It only helps the victimizers.

SEE orignal article to view maps! (link at bottom)

Time once seeded to fait accompli, simply becomes impractical to reverse.
Time is Zionism's best friend. Just look at the map and one can see it. All the while one is wasting it in not effectively addressing the root of the matter, newer generation of Zionists are born on that soil claiming birth-right. And newer victims are fed to the golem, but not just in Palestine. The world has brazenly and complicitly witnessed Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, the emerging arc of crisis in the Global Zone of Percolating Violence as annotated by Zbigniew Brzezinski before any crisis had materialized way back in 1996. The People of the United States themselves are the newest victims to behold. They all share the same common enemy.

Next time you make your outstanding presentations Anna, Mustafa, go there – show How Zionistan is the banksters' private baby for which they diabolically harness both the 'left' and the 'right' from amongst the Jews. Show how the name to which the Balfour Declaration is addressed controls the world through their full spectrum control of world's finance and resources, and what its remaining agenda is.

Show in whose palace the Treaty of Versailles was signed which spelled the real beginning of end of Palestine for its indigenous peoples. Show why and how it has not been an idle boast of the godfathers: “give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes its laws”. Unmask their secret role in being the real financiers of Der Judenstat, and by virtue of their full spectrum control of the West's politicians, including those in the United States, of being the real prime-movers behind the primacy of Zionism and the criminal dispossession and systematic eradication of the Palestinian populations from their own ancestral lands.

If fair punishments are ever to be awarded for their crimes against humanity for just the past 100 years in any Just court of law, Adolph Eichmann would have to be retroactively let go by resurrecting his soul from his grave with high honors and awarded multiple peace prizes plus compensation, in order to administer hanging and extraction of restitution as the graduated scale of ultimate punishment for the ultimate prime-movers of all wars and pestilence before which
their errand boys' and patsies' crimes against humanity pale in comparison. [22]

Go for the jugular of the Zionists' hidden only in plainsight source of strength today by seeking the billions, or even the paltry millions from your wealthy kin and funding multi-spectrum legal assault across the world and across the board upon the first harbingers of world's misery – just as the Zionists won Der Judenstat by legal means, even if only by a sovereign's word.

And watch your own world crumble around you for taking on the real source of Samson's power, far quicker than what Israel has done to the Palestinian people.

That's why no one of any prominence with anything to lose treads there. That's why even the heavily protected past American Presidents have had their brains blown out, or attempted to be blown out, when they tread too close to that forbidden path. But if enough people of means and worldly wherewithal go there together with wit, courage, and play like grandmasters in a team rather than shocked idealists on a moral mission chasing 1000 red herrings, then, and only then, an effective battle will finally be waged against the real power source which fuels the golem. When such an effective struggle is genuinely waged, the final outcome will surely not be scripted as it entirely is at the present time.

The battle goes to those who can best out maneuver their opponent, as in Jujitsu, as in Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope against George Forman, rather than always to the stronger. As Patrick Henry put it: “Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active,
the brave.” [23]

That only works for battles with real teeth in them, and before fait accompli cements the outcome. Today, no native American can do anything except live on in memory.

Thank you.

Footnotes

[1] Zahir Ebrahim, Celebrating Israel's 60th Birthday in the 60th year of the Nakba May 15, 2008 http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/05/celebrating-israels-60th-birthday.html 

Zahir Ebrahim, At What Cost the Israel Lobby? : It's only an 'errand boy'!
Oct. 14, 2009 http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/10/respto-what-cost-israel-lobby-jeffgates.html 

Zahir Ebrahim, Is Zionism a sophisticated Hegelian Dialectic? Sept. 06,
2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-zionism-hegelian-dialectic.html 

Zahir Ebrahim, Ebook: Reclaiming Palestine 2008 Omnibus June 04, 2008
http://humanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/files/2008/06/reclaiming-palestine-2008-omnibus-june042008.pdf

[2] Zahir Ebrahim, The endless trail of red herrings, Feb. 28, 2007
http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/03/endless-red-herrings.html

[3] Zahir Ebrahim, Not-Voting is a 'YES' vote to Reject a Corrupt System
which thrives on the facade of Elections and Democracy! Oct. 22, 2008 http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/01/from-genesis-to-genocide-in-palestine.html   

http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-voting-is-yes-vote-to-reject-system.html  

[4] Zahir Ebrahim, Response to Financial Times Gideon Rachman's 'And now
for a world government' Dec. 11, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/12/responseto-ft-gideon-rachman-worldgov.html

[5] DAVID BARSTOW, NYT, Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,
April 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[6] Zahir Ebrahim, America’s Shame, Preface to Prisoners of the  Cave, 2003,
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/americas-shame.html#Peoples-Guilt

[7] Zahir Ebrahim, Why Not Be An Ostrich? Feb. 13, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-not-be-anostrich-feb132009.html

Zahir Ebrahim, The Wrecked Ship of Fools, April 1 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/04/wrecked-ship-of-fools-apr12009.html

Zahir Ebrahim, Why Bluff Martial Law? Oct. 03, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-bluff-martial-law.html

[8] Zahir Ebrahim, Prisoners of the Cave, 2003, Chapter 2
http://prisonersofthecave.blogspot.com/2007/04/chapter-2.html#The-Premise-If-Only-the-Americans-Knew

Zahir Ebrahim, Prisoners of the Cave, 2003, Chapter 3 Is Democracy Inimical
To Empire Building?
http://prisonersofthecave.blogspot.com/2007/04/chapter-3.html

[9] CNN, Cynthia McKinney on Israel's Ramming of The Dignity, December
30, 2008 Quote: “Well, I wouldn't call it accosting, I would call it ramming. Let's just call it as it is”,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZeNdIGI8os  

[10] George W. Bush, Quote: “It's like deciding – well I am going to decide policy based upon a focus group”, cited in Zahir Ebrahim, Prisoners of the Cave, Chapter 7
http://prisonersofthecave.blogspot.com/2007/04/chapter-7.html

Zahir Ebrahim, Manufacturing Dissent: Weapons of Mass Deception – The
Master Social Science June 01, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/06/wmd-master-social-science.html

[11] Zahir Ebrahim, The endless trail of red herrings, Feb. 28, 2007
http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/03/endless-red-herrings.html

[12] Peter Schweizer, Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist, 2006
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/2912626.html

[13] Zahir Ebrahim, Letter to Editor Guardian: 2008 Orwell Prize for the
Palestinian Narrative of Nakba May 03, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/05/letter-toguardian-2008-orwellprize.html

Jeff Halper in Canada Nobel Prize Nominee and Israeli Peace Activist
Speaking on the Siege of Gaza, January 22, 2009
http://www.caiaweb.org/node/1096

[14] Zahir Ebrahim, The Answer to the Burning Question du jour: Why was
President Obama Gifted the Nobel Peace Prize? How to win the Nobel
Peace Prize October 09, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-win-nobel-peace-prize.html

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin
Luther King (Jr.), pg. 307
http://books.google.com/books?id=k8uPHtrU8BsC&pg=PA307

Quote:
“The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress, and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man's contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man's representative to the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him.”

[15] From George S. Hishmeh, Special to The Daily Star, July 18, 2002. Cited in 'What for?' by Victoria Buch, Occupation Magazine, 22 April 2006
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34220

Quote:
“Winston S. Churchill III, grandson of the famed British prime minister, recalled last October at the National Press Club here a telling encounter he had had in 1973 with the hawkish Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister, about Zionist objectives. “What is to become of the Palestinians?” Churchill asked. “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them,” Sharon said. Churchill responded, “What?” “Yes, we’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”

[16] Zahir Ebrahim, From Genesis to Genocide in Palestine January 16, 2009 Zahir Ebrahim, Letter to Editor Palestinians' fate worse than Shoah! Jan
09, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/01/palestinians-fate-worse-than-shoah.html

[17] Zahir Ebrahim, The endless trail of red herrings, Feb. 28, 2007
http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/03/endless-red-herrings.html

Zahir Ebrahim, Celebrating Israel's 60th Birthday in the 60th year of the
Nakba May 15, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/05/celebrating-israels-60th-birthday.html

[18] Victoria Buch, Occupation Magazine, 22 April 2006, Op. cit.

[19] Zahir Ebrahim, Letter to Editor Guardian: 2008 Orwell Prize for the
Palestinian Narrative of Nakba May 03, 2008
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/05/letter-toguardian-2008-orwellprize.html

[20] From Genesis to Genocide in Palestine : The Golem Is Not Jewish! Nov.
19, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/11/genesis-to-genocide-golem-not-jewish.html

At What Cost the Israel Lobby? : It's only an 'errand boy'!, Oct. 14, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/10/respto-what-cost-israel-lobby-jeffgates.html

[21] Martin Luther King. Op. cit.

[22] Zahir Ebrahim, Who is more guilty of monumental war crimes – the prime-movers or trigger pullers? April 09, 2009
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/04/vanilla-or-chocolate-icing-ondevilscake.html

[23] Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775,
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/henry.shtml

Anna Baltzer's videos embedded at the beginning of this article:

Anna Baltzer: Life In Occupied Palestine November 02, 2009, in 3 parts
http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/2009/11/anna-baltzer-life-in-occupied-palestine.html

Anna Baltzer & Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart -Recorded Wednesday, October 28, 2009
http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/video/index.html

Source URL:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/11/rescuing-thestruggle-for-palestine.html     

Source PDF:
http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/rescuing-thestruggle-for-palestine-nov-222009i.pdf   

Source msword:
http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/rescuing-thestruggle-for-palestine-nov-222009.doc 

The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.
Verbatim reproduction license at http://www.humanbeingsfirst.org#Copyright.

I am not exactly sure why we like round numbers. Is it because they make valuations easy, even when the particular number is irrelevant? Some philosophers, Plato included, believed that order and symmetry are innate values in the human psyche. Perhaps. Or, perhaps, in the case of the media, numbers give us the sense, deceptively, that we have a grasp over certain truths.  We determine the order in which legacies such as Obama's should be dissected. After a decided date, the subject can be ignored until the next round number arrives, bringing with it more useless chatter. 

Of course, this is a delusion. Like much of the media's behaviour, it has no connection to reality. It's all a mind game. A lie, even. For victims of US policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere, the attention given to round numbers is wholly illogical. The drones flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan, loaded with killing technology, care little for numbers, including the number of lives they destroy daily. 

Did Gazans starve less when we "examined" Obama's (pro-Israel) legacy after 100 days of his presidency? Where they better off one year from his election victory or one year from his inauguration? 

How about 273 days from his ascendancy to the White House? Was that a particularly chaotic day in Baghdad's streets? Do soldiers take a break from killing on even days, and resume the slaughter on odd ones? 

But why should this discussion matter at all? It matters because we often buy into this folly, allowing the media to determine what is important and when a discussion is pertinent. Those involved in this charade express their views, agreeing politely and disagreeing loudly.  The next day, the media returns to a state of complacency, as if the detrimental policies of Obama's government ceased to exist; as if war was eradicated, and there was nothing left to talk about. 

But truly, do Palestinians in Gaza care much for round numbers? I doubt it. Nor do Iraqis, Afghanis, and, now, Yemenis. Misery is misery, any day, every day; war is an inferno. The smell of death, the scenes of blood in Kabul and Baghdad and Gaza, will remain the same on a Friday, or a Tuesday, 100 day into Obama's presidency or 514 days later. 

Every minute in a victim's or potential victim's life counts. Those who have lived in war zones can comprehend this truth. That's why Gaza wants to see the end of its misery now, instead of waiting for CNN's next roundtable discussion assessing the next round number in Obama's presidency. Iraqis and Afghanis similarly listen to words and judge deeds, caring little for numbers. 

Remember when Obama spoke to the "Muslim world" from Cairo on June 4th? That's the date that Muslims – many still victimized, directly or otherwise, by the Obama administration's policies - remember and recount. On that day, Obama made promises, speaking with "audacity", and much hubris. Muslims listened.  Some clapped and even cheered; others hesitated or expressed cynicism, but still hoped for change. Alas, none of those hopes have been fulfilled, as instead of change, there is only a continuation of the policies of his predecessor. 

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," said Obama in Cairo. His deeds since then have reaped the opposite results: mistrust and disrespect. 

"Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan," he said. Since then, he has ordered the surge of 30,000 additional soldiers to that already distraught country. The US, its allies and their drones have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians since that statement was made. 

"Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future - and to leave Iraq to Iraqis," he said. One fails to see evidence of a better future based on his administration's conduct in Iraq in the last year or so. Little progress has been made in leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. 

Even in Cairo, he had the audacity to lecture Palestinians, the very victims of Israel's brutal occupation, which is armed and funded by US money. "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build." We must note that the US government continues to make these demands of Palestinians, ignoring the fact that Israel's reign of terror has never ceased, including Israeli violence against Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank. 

Still, Obama did state that "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society." 

Alas, the Obama administration faltered on its demand of a complete Israeli freeze, and is now harassing the ineffective leadership of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank to return to the negotiation table without conditions. 

In addition, the hope of ensuring that "Palestinians can live, and work and develop their society," is nothing but a pipedream, considering that Palestinians in Gaza teeter between chronic malnutrition and starvation. We cannot forget the fact that the siege on Gaza would not have been possible without US support. 

So before we giddily gather to discuss Obama's legacy the next time another round number is celebrated on our television screens, let's remember that for an Iraqi father, frantically searching for his son's remains in a Baghdad street, numbers matter little, whether even, odd, round or in any combination. A massacre is a massacre, and a war of choice is a crime, any day, any time. 

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic film featuring handsome freedom fighters and a riveting romance amidst the heroic triumph of Jewish Destiny over Arab Evil Doers. Set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy, moviegoers marveled as exiled Jews returned to their fabled promised land, a staple of popular culture to which Americans are first exposed as children in "Sunday school."

Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction. Even now, few Americans realize the storyline was adapted for the screen from a 1958 novel by Leon Uris. The biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind-a novel set during the Civil War of the 1860s-the filmadaptation was directed by Hollywood icon Otto Preminger. The blockbuster's stars included a young Paul Newman with his leading lady a blond Eva Marie Saint.

The cast included character actor Lee J. Cobb and Peter Lawford, married to Pat Kennedy, a sister of John F. Kennedy who was elected president the same year. By then, Lawford was a famous member of pop culture's high profile "Rat Pack" that included singer Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop. Italian crooner Sal Mineo, then a teen heartthrob, received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a Jewish émigré.

An Oscar should have been awarded to Israel and its supporters for portraying this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation-state when, in reality, its founding traces to an alluring storyline. Forty-five years after the release of Exodus, American naiveté was again targeted by Jewish storytellers to induce the U.S. to war in the Middle East-only this time for real.

Then as now, Americans are easily swayed by sympathetic portrayals of an enclave granted nation-state recognition by President Harry Truman, a Christian-Zionist. The Missouri Democrat had famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15. Truman was a True Believer in the same way that fundamentalist Christians believe-truly believe-that their Messiah will not return until the "Israelites" recover their ancestral home.

Preying on similar beliefs, Republican George W. Bush, another Christian-Zionist president, was induced with phony intelligence to wage war in Iraq. The false intelligence was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or assets developed for that purpose. That invasion had long been a priority goal of those who believe-truly believe-in their right to an expansionist Greater Israel.

Yet as Shlomo Sand chronicles in The Invention of the Jewish People (2009), the historical evidence is scant either for an exile or an "exodus." As with the movie, the return of a "Jewish People" to a Jewish homeland is "a conscious ideological composition" meant "to claim a higher cultural lineage" than what can be supported by the facts.

In lieu of the novel-writing skills of Leon Uris, the Zionist narrative featured Biblical archeologists such as William F. Albright who, in the 1920s, traveled to the Holy Land to excavate artifacts that would, as Sand puts it: "reaffirm the Old Testament and thereby the New."

By interpreting his finds in Christian-Zionist terms, Albright and his colleagues not only unearthed Biblical "facts" that shaped the Sunday school curriculum, they also helped pre-stage the perceived legitimacy of a Jewish people returning from exile to a Jewish homeland. As Sand points out, if there was no exodus, how can there be a return? If there is no "Jewish People," how can there be a homeland?

Yet these widely held beliefs remain the premise underlying Israel's expansionist agenda and its rationale for heaping six decades of abuse on Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Political Expedience or Biblical Prophecy?

White House counsel Clark Clifford cautioned Truman that his reelection was unlikely absent the funding that Jewish-Americans-with Israel's recognition-were eager to provide. In early May 1948, General George C. Marshall, Truman's Secretary of State, argued vigorously against recognition. Strong objections were also heard from the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marshall, the top-ranked U.S. military officer in WWII, was outraged that Clifford put domestic political expedience ahead of U.S. foreign policy interests. Marshall told Truman that he would vote against him if he extended sovereign status to an enclave of Zionist terrorists, religious fanatics and what Albert Einstein and Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt called "Jewish fascists." Marshall insisted that State Department personnel never again speak to Clifford.

In March 1948, a Joint Chiefs paper titled "Force Requirements for Palestine" predicted the "Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives." Those objectives included an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel that envisioned the taking of Arab land, ensuring armed clashes in which the U.S. was destined to become embroiled.

The Joint Chiefs listed Zionist objectives as:

- Initial Jewish sovereignty over a portion of Palestine,
- Acceptance by the great powers of the right to unlimited immigration,
- The extension of Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine,
- The expansion of "Eretz (Greater) Israel" into Transjordan and portions of Lebanon and Syria, and
- The establishment of Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Akin to the fictional portrayal in Exodus, those Zionists lobbying Truman assured him they would remain within the initial boundaries. We now know that was a lie. They also promised that the Zionist state would not become what it quickly became: a theocratic and racist enclave-albeit widely marketed by pro-Israeli media as the "only democracy in the Middle East."

To remove all doubt as to the extremist goals of the Zionist project, the Joint Chiefs assessment added ominously:

"All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group–the Jewish Agency."

Deceit from the Outset

A beguiling combination of Hollywood fiction, manipulated beliefs and outright lies remain at the core of this entangled alliance and the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship." The deceit deployed to advance the hegemonic goals of the Zionist project remains obscured by an undisclosed media bias reinforced by a widespread pro-Israeli influence in popular culture. As with the 1960 film, the ongoing manipulation of thought and emotion lies at the core of this duplicity a half-century later.

In The Persuasion Explosion (1985), author Art Stevens reports that Exodus was a public relations ploy launched by Edward Gottlieb who sought a novelist to improve Israel's image in the U.S. The name Uris originates with Yerushalmi, meaning "man of Jerusalem." The film rights to Exodus were sold in advance of the book's publication. Translated into dozens of languages, this masterpiece of mental and emotional manipulation quickly became a global phenomenon as its created favorable impressions of Israel.

The rewards are real for those who offer aid and comfort to this trans-generational deceit. When Truman's campaign train traversed the nation as part of a 1948 whistle-stop tour, grateful Jewish nationalists refueled his campaign coffers with a reported $400,000 in cash ($3.6 million in 2010 dollars). Those funds helped transform his anticipated loss into a victory with support from pro-Israeli editorial boards that-after recognition-boosted Truman's sagging popularity.

The Creation of Reliable Assets

Clark Clifford was rewarded with his career goal when he emerged as a top-paid Washington lawyer. After proving himself a pliable personality, he remained a reliable asset. During the G.H.W. Bush presidency, his combination of political prominence and perceived credibility provided cover for a massive bank fraud involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International aided by Roger Altman, his Ashkenazi law partner.

In 2009, Hollywood released an action thriller (The International) starring Clive Owen and a similar storyline involving the International Bank of Business and Credit. Neither Clifford nor Altman had experience in banking when their law firm enabled what prosecutors charged was a global criminal operation.

Media reports described the BCCI scheme as the largest bank fraud in history. This $20 billion transnational operation even featured the requisite Hollywood component: Clifford's protégé was married to Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman, a 1970s fantasy-adventure television series.

The real fantasy in this long-running geopolitical fraud lies in why U.S. lawmakers continue to befriend and defend a "nation" that has for so long-and so consistently-deceived and betrayed its most loyal ally. As a badly miscast Eva Marie Saint asked in her most memorable line in Exodus: "When will it ever end?"

The greatest wonder will be if, based on facts confirming the depth and duration of this duplicity, those lawmakers urging continued support for Israel are not charged with treason. [See: "How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy" http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/how-the-israel-lobby-took-control-of-us-foreign-policy/]

To restore its national security, the U.S. must shake off its entangled alliance with this extremist enclave. "Shaking off" is the literal translation of "intifada." Those who know the true facts behind this trans-generational deception are quickly reaching the conclusion that the recognition of this enclave as a legitimate state was key to this ongoing fraud. Others may be waiting for the movie, American Intifada.

Source: Opinion Maker

The way Israel looked to Zionists by the Zionist Nation Builders

Three proposals: Framing our own arguments – ignoring Zionist rhetorical traps – developing strategic thinking and implementing our strategies 

While watching most Western mainstream news and current events shows, how many times do we activists for Palestine find ourselves arguing with the television, pointing our finger at the screen and saying, “NO! That’s not true,” or “How dare you spread this propaganda?”. We are reacting to someone else’s discourse. The public is continually given a version of information and news that, while occasionally purporting to be balanced, actually is an extension of Israeli Hasbara (propaganda). 

We have to be aware of the fact that what news actually reaches the public has already jumped through a dozen hoops before it arrives into millions of homes. The major obstacle is for factual information to even break out of its confines and become “newsworthy”. But overcoming that obstacle is enormously difficult. The selection of what is newsworthy starts before a report gets anywhere near an editorial desk. “News” has its origin in a value system that determines which events are ordinary and which are exceptional, only the latter makes the cut. Editors are in a privileged position because they often promote the interests and values of the society they are part of (national, political or corporate as it may be), as well as being able to create and further adjust the world according to the weight they assign to each argument that makes its way to the general public. 

Events in Palestine are generally reported in the West with Israeli framing and an Israeli timetable, using Zionist terminology and tailoring it to suit their ideological needs, which vary, ranging from winning a war to joining the EU. Framing makes the information appear like news, rather than showing its real nature as part of a PR campaign. 

Even the solidarity movement hesitates to challenge the positions of some of its ideologues when these positions are “pragmatic” and said to be done in order to “enlarge the movement”. These advocates avoid topics which might “turn some people off” such as those people who do not accept Palestinian Right of Return, who do not believe in the legitimacy of resistance, who do not think there is an Israel lobby running the show or whose idea of Palestine is geographically limited to Gaza and the West Bank. 

The fact that disturbs many of us is that the coverage, so blatantly biased in favour of Israel’s interests, is not recognised as the propaganda that it is by most of the general public. Yet, we can rest assured that those producing this coverage are indeed fully cognisant of it. They are able to hide most of this bias with other smokescreens, such as the “Global War on Terror”, campaigns against “weapons smuggling”, interventionist operations labelled as “nation building” and dozens of other newsworthy items that catch the imagination without expecting the public to think too deeply though, since if they did reflect on the meanings of these words, they might become extremely unhappy with these policies.  Editors no longer even try to hide behind body shields of objectivity, because now they are “promoting values”. 

This is why when there is a report about heavy bombing of Gaza, no time will be wasted in inserting images or phrases that place all the blame on the Palestinians. It was they, after all, if one follows the linear presentation of the report, who launched rockets from Gaza into Sderot. That these claims are highly exaggerated, that the Israeli actions were disproportionate or even were war crimes never gets stated. The public must accept the Israeli logic that is used to justify the shelling. The aggressor becomes the victim and the idea is reinforced of the strikes against Gaza as legitimate “reaction” that anyone would undertake to “defend their families”. 

Mainstream coverage then juxtaposes references to Hamas “taking over” Gaza and inferences that they are a terrorist organisation in a rebel region. The context or facts are never explained, and geography and history are turned on their heads, with Israel depicted as “leaving Gaza” which the media then depicts as being abandoned to the marauding fanatics who brought death and destruction upon the land. Thus, facts may be present in the reports someplace (number of deaths), but they are seen through a distorted lens and dished out, steaming hot on a Zionist plate. They are there to serve Zionist needs and they are very successful at doing it too. The public has felt saddened, but at the end of the day, they justified the Israeli aggressor and ignored the fate of the victims, civilians like themselves for the most part. After all, it’s the Israelis whose values are shared. It’s the Israelis who have been painted into a corner in an existential fight for their lives. 

This kind of reporting, however, is not in any way new. Looking back at the way the dropping of American atomic bombs on Japanese people or the carpet bombing of a city like Dresden using phosphorus weapons, was justified in the mass media of the time, nothing has changed. It is standard procedure in wartime to utilise the mass media and for it to be at the service of the “patriotic cause”. This is true not only in the West. Political propaganda is an important weapon and it is always well-oiled. Yet, we activists have to be aware of the manipulation that does not serve the causes of humanity and justice because it is only propaganda and, more importantly, we have to make others aware of it. Every time we use any Zionist discourse, the way we should be using it is to debunk it. It only serves us if we are stripping away the propaganda and showing just how empty the rhetoric is. We should never be giving it any legitimacy.  

Moving away from a war scenario, though, we can see how the Hasbara permeates very many other aspects of our lives and worse, how we as activists get trapped into it. Our lawmakers have fully adopted the Israeli narrative as “the Truth”. This is demonstrated by their policies and rhetoric. A very recent example of how we have fallen into a Zionist trap is our reaction to the commemoration of the Holocaust in Europe. The politicians and media people take the Zionist cue and stick it between the bookends of “Anti-Semitism” and “Israel”. The issue is framed precisely the way the Zionists can best utilise it to justify Israel’s illegitimate takeover and destruction of Palestine. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and their dispossession, their transformation from Fedayin to refugees and exiles or “fifth columns” (internal enemies) within Israel is totally hidden from view. Israel is not presented as it is, but as an idea, an oasis of democracy and salvation for all the Jews of the world. It is depicted as the victory of good over evil. Israel is a story with a “happy ending”. While victims have every right to be commemorated (we demand the same for our victims), the tragedy of the Jewish victims in Europe is used for the political ends of a racist State that discriminates against non-Jews, yet somehow, enjoys vast international consensus. 

We activists should be able to differentiate between a commemoration and a political manipulation. We should be aware of which arguments will make a difference to Palestinians and which ones will fall into the traps Zionists set for us to slide down into. 

It’s no secret that Holocaust commemoration has morphed into pro-Israel rallies and festivals using music, film, arts, culture and politics to promote allegiance to Zionism. The linking of the two (a legitimate commemoration and a political/ideological rally) was very clever and it has been outrageously successful. Hats off, sincerely. The indelible connection serves Zionist interests because as soon as someone condemns the Zionist ideology, they are going to be defamed as “negating the Holocaust” and not respecting the victims of a totalitarian regime. The marketing has been spotless, so the connection is here to stay and we better admit it and take stock. If we are pointing out that this coupling is an instrumental manipulation, which we have been doing now for quite a long time, almost as long as the celebrations themselves have been officially adopted in each State, can we claim that this has gotten us anywhere? Anywhere positive? Those controlling the media control how our rhetoric is (mis)interpreted and all that has happened is that new demonising of those who dare make this into their speeches is unleashed, doing zero for those populations, much less for liberating a single Palestinian from his or her oppression? No proof exists that our exposure of this ploy is effective, the contrary is true. More Holocaust museums are built, more air-time is granted to Israel in the way it chooses to be depicted, as the solution to endemic Anti-Semitism and the garrison mentality that it uses to justify all of its actions is reinforced. 

A proposal is in order. We should let Holocaust Memorial Day be celebrated without commentary, and let the argument become the terrain of historians and not activists. 

The Holocaust should not be our argument unless we are indeed historians who spend our time researching and bringing light to areas that need study. There is a world of Arab history, of Palestinian history that demands to see the light of day. This includes the Palestinian Nakba, and we should not use the Jewish word, it is history they share with Europeans, it is not our history. Palestinians had nothing to do with the crimes in Europe. Every time the issue is at the core of discourse, it brings the topic into the area where Zionists are experts at manipulation and domination of the discourse, twisting the truth and denying any connection between mass immigration of Jews into Palestine and the Nakba. 

A way to avoid the manipulation is to simply ignore the event, just like the Zionists ignore our events. They do not commemorate our Nakba or our Naksa, our tragedies and important moments and indeed our very history are black holes to them. Undeniably, we are invisible unless we are framed the way Zionists can obtain gains from, as terrorists, savages, bunglers of peace deals offered on silver platters. Not as a single people with a common past and future. It’s obvious that their “ignore them and they will go away” strategy works! If this is the case, why are we so bullheaded and persist in playing the game their way? Why don’t we try their tactic on for size? Why must we continue arguing over issues that do not concern us such as the Holocaust or Anti-Semitism? Since when are these Palestinian issues? Since when do we think it is good to waste so much of our time on reacting to Zionist issues rather than forcing them to react to ours? 

The Palestinian cause should not be reactive. It is an ongoing struggle to reclaim rights, land and dignity that have been destroyed by the Zionist project. That Zionism (“the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel” according to the Jewish Virtual Library) is a racist ideology is not our opinion, that it is based upon ethnic and religious exclusion is stated in their very literature and laws. It only could accomplish and realise this project in the middle of the Arab world by means of violence against Arabs and continued oppression of Palestinians. Zionism does not allow coexistence, and there is no version of Zionism that is not exclusionist.  

It can only benefit us to concentrate on being the masters of discourse and not reactive to a discourse that is designed as propaganda or as a diversion to keep us from implementing our own projects. We need to opt for a different approach, one that sets the agenda, that seeks to resolve our problems in a pragmatic way. This requires that we listen to ourselves and set our issues as the themes to dominate the discourse. It requires an active strategy of planning, coordination of actions to achieve all kinds of short-term and long-term goals. It means working on matters that count to us, that keep us focused on our problems and the ways to resolve them and not caught in somebody else’s propaganda web. 

We have so many issues on the table and so many people dedicated to their resolution. We need to use that as a resource and our emphasis has to be directed towards our goals and the means to obtain them. Just a list of the top issues on the table can barely scratch the surface, so vast is the range of issues.

Due to the wars waged upon Palestinians, the sanctions and medieval siege against them, their situation has dramatically plummeted in recent years and hopes seem to vanish. Geographically, Palestinians are divided and even as a people, they have been fragmented. All of this can only bode ill for the struggle, and Palestinians need to reclaim their strength and know that they will succeed, in spite of such odds against them. The list of Palestinian needs covers every aspect of life and none of these needs can be met without actively seeking to obtain them. Palestinians are steadfast, patient and courageous in the face of such oppression and tragic circumstances. They are willing to work towards their liberation, they have never given up on that hope, and the last vestiges of belief that sorting things out with the Zionists through negotiation seems to have abandoned them. Illusions are able to sustain hope only until a certain point, then desperation sets in, then… as in all revolutionary struggles, people join together and realise the power they have.

Palestinians, like every other people, will build their own future and use their own society to do it, with their values and heritage as a base. Like every revolutionary movement before it, the message is not to wring one’s hands, cry and commiserate until the storm passes, but to join forces and to DO. The message of Malcolm X, Steve Biko, Che Guevara, Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Michel Aflaq and many others was clear. Their leadership empowered the masses to utilise their own free choice and their own cultures to cast off those who would dominate them and turn them into slaves. The leaders never said, “Just say No”, but they set an agenda, they framed the issues, they empowered the people who were in a weak position of colonialism, oppression, occupation, apartheid. No one ever brought liberation to an oppressed people. It has always been obtained through popular struggle, action and commitment to the goal.

Just saying, “NO” to Israel is meaningless unless one says “YES” to Palestine. Anti-Zionist rhetoric makes activists “find one another”, feel passionate and stirs them to action, but in and of itself can produce nothing useful because it promotes nothing.

To best understand a practical approach, let us think of a corporate board meeting. Each year, the company’s state of affairs is illustrated with detailed specifics to the managers and investors so that they can approve or reject the balance, (of course, audited by a body that has no corporate interests). If they approve it, as most boards do, they then move onto the step of deciding how to utilise their assets, what investment or management choices must be made in order to be profitable in the next period. The board does not focus on what another company is doing, but they take stock of their own liabilities and propose strategies to make the company successful. They study the milieu and make projections. The competition is referred to as a source of stimulus, seen in a strategic basis whose successful strategies should be copied or imitated, but their agenda is not what is on the table. That would make no sense.

Bringing this analogy to Palestine, one can observe that there is a massive need for Palestinian society at every level, and not only the upper echelons, to draw up a balance sheet that reflects the real conditions on the ground. Assets and liabilities need to be known and quantified. A strategy must be developed that can be implemented in a reasonable timeframe so that each action can be tried, judged and corrected.

Actions have to take priority over rhetoric, and the list of possible actions with analysis of their implementation, inter-connection and outcome has to be compiled, factoring in as many variables as possible, even using Game Theory projections (http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/12/03/a-strategy-revolution-a-game-theory-approach-to-palestinian-resistance/). There are many groups and organisations that already exist and should be coordinated so that focus on the problems can be specific and each focus group can take advantage of a wide range of input. All groups in Palestine should be empowered, taking the lead in determining the priorities of the interventions and the goals that each group intends upon obtaining. Then, these actions must be implemented.

Activists around the world need to follow the timetable and the directions of those who are making proposals shared by the widest possible consensus, and the actions need to be economic, cultural, political as well as supported enthusiastically and disseminated properly. The Palestinian agenda is our agenda, resistance actions are our means, boycott is our instrument, the Palestinian voice is the guiding one. We activists have to be willing to follow, and willing to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. When we address those in our societies, let us be valid representatives of the Palestinian struggle, but let us allow them to set the discourse.

There is space for all of us in this struggle, and at least one campaign for every activist to engage with: health and environment issues, human and civil rights, refugee issues, labour rights, freedom of movement, projects for documentation of Palestinian history and protection of its land and heritage, freedom for the PLC and for all political prisoners, rebuilding Palestinian infrastructure and creating jobs, and it only begins there. There is a wall in Palestine that must come down, a siege that must end. Our plates are full and Palestinians need to lead the discourse as protagonists, they must determine the action. Any other direction is a false one and will lead nowhere.

Palestine Think Tank

see the introduction to the series: http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/01/22/common-activist-errors-and-some-proposals-to-rectify-them/

or its abridged version published on Ma'an News Agency: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=257044

"Good evening, and welcome to WTFN’s inaugural Oscar preview show. I’m your host Lance Boyle coming to you from Los Angeles. The ceremony may still be weeks away but there’s a lot to talk about. Joining us in The Cutting Room is veteran movie columnist and critic Miriam Kale.”

(Lance Boyle turns to face Miriam Kale. They are sitting in high-backed upholstered chairs across from each other. A black coffee table is between them and all around are enlarged stills and posters of the nominated movies.)

Before we get into the movies themselves, Miriam, what’s your opinion on the Academy’s decision to include 10 best-picture nominees instead of the usual five.Miriam Kale: “In a word—embarrassing. It amounts to handicapping the big Hollywood studios because their movies can’t compete with the best independent and foreign films. In contrast to inventive, entertaining films like last year’s winner Slumdog Millionaire (a British film shot in India), Hollywood churns out an insipid diet of zombies, vampires, cartoonish action, angels, devils, torture, comic books, teen sex farces, sequels, prequels, remakes and bastardizations of TV shows. Recycling may be good for the planet, but in a creative medium like movies, it's an admission of intellectual bankruptcy. All the Academy did was debase the award.”LB: “Surely, you don’t think all Hollywood films are recycled dross.” 

MK: “No, of course not. Last year’s The Devil Wears Prada from 20th Century Fox was a deserving nominee, especially because of Meryl Streep’s performance as tyrannical magazine editrix Miranda Priestly. My point is that so few award-worthy movies are being made that the odds of one being nominated for, much less winning, the Best Picture Oscar are slim to none. Unfortunately, rather than rely on the studios to improve the quality of their movies, the Academy changed the rules to give the illusion that such movies are worth consideration, which is kind of fitting for an industry based on presenting illusions.”

LB: “What happened to Hollywood?”

MK: “The same thing that happened to the big U.S. automakers: it fixated on short-term profits, became afraid to take risks, and lost respect for its market. Hollywood studios still think that the average 12-year-old boy is its key demographic. On the other hand, independent and foreign filmmakers are more willing to make intelligent movies that have the grace, wit and sophistication to attract an adult audience. Such thinking does not compute in Hollywood where studios have gone to great lengths to inure filmgoers to such things as grace, wit and sophistication. Let’s face it: where else but in Hollywood could Adam Sandler have a career, or great films like Carrie, Psycho and The Manchurian Candidate be remade into inferior knockoffs?”

LB: “The Academy said the doubling of the Best Picture nominees is just an experiment. Do you think it will continue past this year?”

MK: “Sadly, yes. Once you handicap an industry it’s nearly impossible to get it to stand on its own two feet.”

LB: “Well, we’ll have to wait until 2011 to see if your prediction comes true, but right know I’d like to move on to the Academy’s newest category, one that should be getting more attention than it has so far—The Leni Riefenstahl Award for Excellence in Propaganda. First, Miriam, tell us how this award came about.”

MK: “Two years ago, the Academy came to the belated realization that holocaust movies and documentaries are getting a disproportionate amount of nominations just because of their subject matter. Moreover, many of these films are thematically repetitious, stereotypical and historically dubious. They don’t so much present historical entertainment as they do historical dogma. As such, they constitute propaganda. Of course, you can criticize any film genre, but since the U.S. movie industry is dominated by a hierarchy of Jews, many of whom support Israel, the Academy felt that holocaust movie genre was compromising the aesthetic and moral integrity of the awards. Therefore, it decided to create a special category for holocaust-themed propaganda—‘The Leni’ for short.”

LB: “Leni Riefenstahl, for those who may not remember, was a great 20th-century German filmmaker, but because she portrayed Hitler and the Nazi Party sympathetically, her movies have become scorned as fascist propaganda.

MK: “Sad, really, because her films were otherwise excellent, as evidenced by her numerous awards.”

LB: “So Miriam, what’s your pick?”

MK: “Inglourious Basterds—no contest!”

LB: “I had a feeling you’d say that, but…”

MK: “Uh, just one thing first, Lance…”

LB: “Sure, go ahead.”

MK: “The Academy created The Leni precisely to avoid the kind of tasteless spectacle we saw at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. By honouring Inglourious Basterds SAG enphasized the image of Hollywood as a holocaust propaganda factory. To all intents and purposes, SAG seems to be forcing us to respect Inglourious Basterds as a legitimate film, rather than the Grand Guignol schlock it really is. I have had to sit through scores of World War II/holocaust films in my career, and none can compare to this one’s reprehensible dishonesty. Shame on SAG!”

LB: “On the surface, it seems that Inglourious Basterds is a strange choice for The Leni, since one of the award’s defining criteria is to serve Israel by promoting sympathetic or even pathetic images of Jews. It shows Jews committing torture and dehumanizing their enemy with unapologetic, sadistic glee. Does this film not debunk the Jew-as- victim stereotype and therefore undermine its propaganda value?”

MK: “Excellent observation, Lance, and I share your ambivalence, but the needs of Israeli propaganda have changed. The Jew-as-victim shtick is still important, but Israel can no longer rely on it alone. The Internet has exploded the illusions of Israel as a poor, victimized state and bastion of democratic virtue. Israel has been forced to recognize that it can no longer pretend to be something it’s not and expect to be believed. Inglourious Basterds depicts the changing face of Israeli propaganda.”

LB: “Which is?"

MK: “A country that commits torture and dehumanizes other human beings with unapologetic, sadistic glee. This is why Inglourious Basterds is so deserving of The Leni. Even though it is yet another unnecessary remake, it normalizes Jewish cruelty to make it easier for the world to accept it in real life. I’d like to show a brief clip from early in the film that makes this point. The leader, Aldo “the Apache,” played by Brad Pitt gives orders to the basterds: (They turn to look at the film screen behind them.)

Aldo: “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. Every man under my command owes me 100 Nazi scalps.” (The screen retracts.)

LB: “How does depicting and celebrating Jewish cruelty aid Israeli propaganda?”

MK: “If we can feel nothing for Germans who are tortured, because we have been brought up to view them as ‘evil,’ then it is easier for us not to feel anything for Arabs who are tortured, because Israel spreads the propaganda that they are ‘evil.’ For propaganda to succeed, it must control and politicize language to make independent thought impossible. Israel cannot expect to get away with an atrocity like Cast Lead if the world persists in viewing Palestinian Arabs as human beings with inalienable human rights. Inglourious Basterds helps Israel do this by making a cruel mockery of human compassion. As it is the Western world has done virtually nothing to punish Israel for its unprovoked slaughter, or demanded that Egypt stop building a wall to prevent humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip.”

LB: “Let me read to you the following statement from Quentin Tarantino: ‘When you watch all the different Nazi movies, all the TV movies, it’s sad, but isn’t it also frustrating? Did everybody walk into the boxcar? Didn’t somebody do something?’ Isn’t Tarantino trying to show compassion for the Jews who are about to be murdered?”

MK: “That’s what were supposed to think, but in fact Tarantino cares far less about the Yiddish victims of Nazi Germany than he does about slaking the atavistic bloodlust of his zionist producers. Here’s what Lawrence Bender said to Tarantino: ‘As your producing partner, I thank you, and as a member of the Jewish tribe, I thank you, motherfucker, because this movie is a fucking Jewish wet dream.’”

LB: “What a horrid, perverse thing to say! How could anyone take pleasure in torture! What did Bob and Harvey Weinstein have to say. After all, it was their production company that made the movie?”

MK: “They also got off on the Jewish revenge theme. Significantly, though, many Jews were deeply offended by it, and some even walked out of screenings! But this fact should not be seen as a failure on Tarantino’s part; rather it shows how he has evolved—or devolved, if you like—from being a self-indulgent filmmaker into a willing propagandist for Jewish fascism. Then we have to look at a possible motive for the Weinsteins. Their company is such dire financial straits that they need a major hit in the worst way. What better gold mine than a farcical Holocaust story where Jews are shown to be sadistic ‘heroes’ who go medieval on Nazis. This illustrates what I said earlier about holocaust movies getting unfair, automatic recognition.”

LB: “Clearly, this a perfect example of why The Leni is necessaary, but I’d pick up on a point you just made: How do you make the leap from Jews fighting Nazis to Jewish fascism?”

MK: “Remember Aldo’s speech? Tarantino wants us to believe that the holocaust might not have occurred if Jews has been as cruel as the Nazis. First of all, this idea monstrously stupid. You might as well say that unarmed Palestinians deserve their own fate because they aren’t as murderous and cruel as the Israeli military. Second, it is blatantly anti-Semitic, to use a pet phrase of zionist propaganda!”

LB: “You've lost me.”

MK: “If we take Tarantino’s mission statement at face value, then he declares that Jews, not Nazis, were ultimately responsible for the holocaust. He stands the Jew-as-victim image on its head to give us the Jew as moral coward.”

LB: “But this does undermine Israeli propaganda. The idea that Nazis are uniquely responsible for the holocaust is a fundamental dogma, as is the idea that all Jews were victims of the Nazis. Has Tarantino not given ammunition to those who challenge the official holocaust narrative?”

MK: “In a general sense, yes, but as Bender said, the film is ‘a Jewish wet dream.’ The orgy of cruelty overrides any such thoughtful consideration of what is actually being depicted. This was a major risk both for the Weinsteins and Tarantino, because if people do stop to analyze Inglourious Basterds, they will see that, in effect, it justifies the holocaust! And by justifying the holocaust, the film reinforces the propaganda that Israel is necessary.”

LB: “Let me see if I get this straight: In the old propaganda, Jews are depicted as victims of the holocaust, and Israeli exploits this image to blackmail the world into silence about its treatment of Palestinians; in the new propaganda, the holocaust is downplayed as a historical event and Jews are reinvented as kosher Nazis?!”

MK: “Well, not kosher, exactly. The Jews that supported Hitler were anything but!”

LB: “Jews that supported Hitler?”

MK: “Lance, the great failure of holocaust movies is that they present an absolute moral dichotomy between Nazis and Jews that didn’t exist. A tiny minority of Jews, zionist Jews, actively collaborated with the Nazis because they also wanted to rid Europe of its Jewish population. The only difference was that zionists wanted ‘their people’ to go to Palestine. In exchange for Nazi support, they abetted the suffering of other Jews: they betrayed the Jewish resistance, helped the Nazis sabotage negative press reports, and prevented the vast majority of Jews from fleeing to other lands. The more these non-zionist Jews suffered, the easier it would be for zionists to force the world to agree to a Jewish state after the war. In effect, zionist Jews needed the holocaust, which is why they helped Hitler fill and administer the concentration camps. So, yes, Jews supported Hitler—fascist Jews, that is.

LB: “Still, though, the Basterds are killing Nazis, right? They’re not helping them.”

MK: “True, but the Nazis are mere props. They don’t matter because we’re supposed to identify with the killers and their motives, not with their victims and their suffering. By making torture look slick and morally defensible, Inglourious Basterds perverts our sense of justice, and that’s how it serves Israeli propaganda. Just replace Nazi soldiers with Arab civilians and the film imitates life. Whether he intended to or not, Tarantino has equated the murderers of Jews with the victims of Jewish murder in such a way that the torture and gleeful sadism in each case are contextually identical.

LB: “It didn’t entirely work, though. As you said, many Jews walked out of the screenings. Even if the producers loved the movie, its propaganda value seems weak.”

MK: “Ironically, Jewish alienation enhances the film’s propaganda value because it reinforces the new propaganda. Israel knows that its most effective critics are Jews: Richard Goldstone, Richard Falk, Ilan Pappé, Philip Weiss, Akiva Eldar, Norman Finkelstein, just to name just a few. The film is a declaration that the fascist Jew is superior to the moral Jew, and that the moral Jew is an enemy of Israel. If Tarantino and the Weinsteins wanted to make a legitimate film about preventing the nazi persecution of Jews, here is the film they should have made. (As he says this, the movie screen behind them comes down and a movie poster is shown.)

LB: (He looks at the poster and is a little startled.) “I don’t think Hollywood is ready for that.”

MK: “Of course is isn’t. It would be an indictment of Hollywood’s role as a zionist collaborator as well as a devastating refutation of Israel’s right to exist. Nevertheless, I suspect that Israel’s defenders would find a way to gush over it.”

LB: “We’re almost out of time, Miriam. Any last words?”

MK: “Yes. Appearances to the contrary, Inglourious Basterds is the face of the new propaganda and deserves The Leni. Also, since Avatar will clean up at the Oscars, the Academy could not have picked a more preposterous year to expand the list of nominees.”

LB: “Let’s pick it up there next time. Thanks for coming.”

MK: “Always a pleasure.”

LB: (To camera) Thanks for joining us. For Miriam Kale and our crew, I’m Lance Boyle. Good night!”

January 14, 2010

click on image to enlarge

How else to explain the bizarre performance yesterday by Danny Ayalon, deputy Israeli foreign minister and capo di tutti of Avigdor Lieberman, at which he brusquely summoned the Turkish ambassador for a brushing down, and in a highly unusual move summoned press photographers to record the humiliation and pointedly noted that the ambassador was sitting in a lower position than the Israelis and that the latter refused to shake his hand.  Here is how Yediot reported the story:

When the ambassador was finally asked to enter the room, his hosts instructed him to sit on a low couch opposite the higher chairs in which they were seated. The hosts, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General for Europe, Naor Gilon [ed., and suspected Steven Rosen intelligence conduit], and Ayalon’s office director, David Segal did not smile at their guest and refused to shake his hand.

When the photographers suggested a handshake, the Foreign Ministry officials refused. “That is precisely the issue,” said Ayalon. Ayalon made sure that no one could have any doubts that the humiliation of the ambassador was anything but deliberate: “The important thing is that people see that he’s low and we’re high and that there is one flag here,” he said to the photographers.

This reminds me more of the battle between Freedonia and Sylvania in the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, than the behavior of a serious national diplomatic corps:

I have taken it upon myself to make one final effort to prevent war.

- No kidding? – I’ve talked to Ambassador Trentino, and he says Sylvania doesn’t want war either.

…I’ve taken the liberty of asking the ambassador to come over here. Because we both felt that a friendly conference would settle everything peacefully. He’ll be here any moment.

Mrs. Teasdale…I’d be only too happy to meet Ambassador Trentino and offer him on behalf of my country the right hand of good fellowship. And I feel sure he will accept this gesture in the spirit in which it is offered.

But suppose he doesn’t. A fine thing that’ll be. I hold out my hand and he refuses to accept it. That’ll add a lot to my prestige, won’t it? Me, the head of a country, snubbed by a foreign ambassador! Who does he think he is that he can come here and make a sap out of me in front of my people?

Think of it. I hold out my hand and that hyena refuses to accept it. Why, the cheap four-flushing swine! He’ll never get away with it, I tell you! He’ll never get away with it!

…So, you refuse to shake hands with me, eh?

Mrs. Teasdale, this is the last straw! There’s no turning back now!  This means war!

Then it’s war!

I wonder whether Bibi Netanyahu, when he appointed Lieberman, realized what he was getting was closer to opera buffa than real diplomacy.  Of course, this performance (which is precisely what it is) brings nothing but ridicule on Israel.  Nations of the world wonder whether the Marx Brothers are running the MFA, instead of professional diplomats.

The Bibi scandal sheet, Yisrael HaYom revels in the political grandstanding with this brazen ‘Height of Humiliation’ photo. (above)

What makes this even more buffoonish is that Lieberman is willing to create this international incident in order to score cheap domestic political points against a rival.  Ehud Barak is scheduled for a major visit to Ankara this weekend.  What better way to screw up the Labor Party leader’s efforts to get Syria-Israel negotiations back on track than to poison the well even before Barak arrives.

I’ve always felt that Israeli politics resembles an alligator wrestling pit more than anything else and this story confirms it.  I’m afraid the analogy to an alligator pit may be doing these noble ancient beasts a disservice.

Turkey’s prime minister however, is a real national leader and no fool.  He’s not playing this as opera and refuses to allow his ambassador to be publicly humiliated. Remember this is the same Erdogan who at Davos dressed down the incipiently senile Shimon Peres when the latter attempted to defend the Gaza war using the most bombastic propaganda.  Now Erdogan is kickin’ butt and takin’ down names:

Turkey demanded an apology from Israel on Tuesday over what it called the discourteous treatment of its ambassador, further souring ties between the two regional powers on the eve of a visit by Israel’s defence minister.

…”We expect an explanation and apologies from Israeli authorities for the attitude against our Tel Aviv ambassador Oguz Celikkol, and the way this attitude was reflected,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

“We call on the Israeli Foreign Ministry, whose behaviour and attitude towards our Tel Aviv Ambassador did not comply with diplomacy, to obey courtesy rules,” it said.

The MFA seemed to enjoy the tit for tat and responded with vintage hasbara:

“The Turks are the last people who can preach morality to the State of Israel and the IDF, which is the most moral army in the world.”

UPDATE: Ayalon has “apologized” for his behavior with a statement that typically lacks any crediblity:

…”It is not my way to insult foreign ambassadors and in the future I will clarify my position by more acceptable diplomatic means.”

Source: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/01/13/lieberman-shames-turkish-ambassador-torpedoes-israel-turkish-relations/

The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the term as “a modern word expressing antagonism to the political and social equality of Jews,” assigning its origins to the  “ethnological theory that the Jews, as Semites, are entirely different from the Aryan, or Indo-European populations and can never be amalgamated with them” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8jl7YQ3).  According to Jewish Encyclopedia, the word “Anti-Semitism” does not imply opposition on account of religion but “on account of … racial characteristics,” such as “greed, a special aptitude for money-making, aversion to hard work, clannishness and obtrusiveness, lack of social tact, and especially of patriotism” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8jl7YQ3).   Outlining the history of the term, the Jewish Encyclopedia ascertains that the word was first printed in 1880 (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8uZ0yFX) but acknowledges the difficulty of tracing its first use.  What appeared to have been employed in a philological sense in Franz Bopp’s (1791-1867) “Comparative Grammar,” later acquired a meaning imbued with ethnic characteristics (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b91hsaWJ).  Christian Lassen (1800-76) was the first to draw a “picture of the Semites” as distinct from the Aryans. Ernest Renan (1823-92) came up with a theory of “inferiority of the Semites” – "The two words, which have served until now as a symbol for the progress of the human mind toward truth, science, and philosophy, were foreign to them." Renan credits the Aryans with all the “great military, political, and intellectual movements in the world's history,” while the Semites are credited with “the religious movements.” “The Semites have never had any comprehension of civilization in the sense in which we understand the word; they were at no time public-spirited.  Intolerance was the natural consequence of their monotheism, which, if not imported from the Semitic world, would have remained foreign to the Aryans, who were impressed with the variety of the universe.  The Jewish people, while not progressive, claimed that the future was theirs; and this illogical position accounts for the hatred which eighteen centuries were unable to mitigate” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b9AA28Uz).  Renan’s influence can be felt in an article published by Hellwald in 1872:  "The Jews are not merely a different religious community, but – and this is to us the most important factor – ethnically an altogether different race. The European feels instinctively that the Jew is a stranger who immigrated from Asia. The so-called prejudice is a natural sentiment.  Civilization will overcome the antipathy against the Israelite who merely professes another religion, but never that against the racially different Jew. The Jew is cosmopolitan, and possesses a certain astuteness which makes him the master of the honest Aryan. In Eastern Europe the Jew is the cancer slowly eating into the flesh of the other nations.  Exploitation of the people is his only aim.  Selfishness and lack of personal courage are his chief characteristics; self-sacrifice and patriotism are altogether foreign to him" (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b9HQtXQv).  

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern Zionism, had experienced anti-Semitism first hand – he had seen the Parisian mob demanding the death of Dreyfus in 1895, and had heard the cheers of the middle-class Viennese that greeted the election victory of anti-Semitic Karl Lueger the same year (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  But Herzl failed to recognize the huge Gentile support for Dreyfus:  the intellectuals of France with Emile Zola at the forefront, rallied behind Dreyfus, the right wing of the French society, the army, the clergy were discredited, and anti-Semitism was defeated.  Instead of seizing the moment and mobilizing support for Dreyfus, Herzl, the most famous journalist in Vienna, used it as an opportunity to further the idea that “anti-Semitism could not be Beaten” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html) and the World Zionist Organization did not combat it. The very first entry of Herzl’s “new Zionist Diary” contains the following statement:  “In Paris … I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon.  Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).   Karl Lueger's success in Vienna was used to develop a “pragmatic strategy of non-resistance to anti-Semitism coupled with emigration of a portion of the Jews to a Jewish state-in-the-making” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  While the Habsburg Emperor refused to confirm Karl Lueger in office – 8 per cent of the generals, considered the most loyal supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were Jews – Herzl favoured the confirmation.  On November 3, 1895 he met the Prime Minister Count Casimir Badeni and told him to “accommodate Lueger” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  

A similar logic underlined the cooperation between Zionists and the new Nazi regime in mid-1930s.  The ideological similarities between the two – “the contempt for liberalism,” the racism and the strong belief that “Germany could never be the homeland of its Jews” – convinced the Zionists to solicit the patronage and support of Adolf Hitler repeatedly after 1933 (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  Two months after Hitler’s rise to power on January 30, 1933, Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS and Kurt Tuchler, an executive of the ZVfD visited Palestine on the condition that upon his return the Baron would write a pro-Zionist article for the Nazi press (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  Rabbi Joachim Prinz’ comments of 1937 describe the “Zionist mood in the first months of 1933” and allude to a memorandum sent to the Nazi Party by the ZVfD on June 21, 1933: “Everyone in Germany knew that only the Zionists could responsibly represent the Jews in dealings with the Nazi government.  We all felt sure that one day the government would arrange a round table conference with the Jews, at which – after the riots and atrocities of the revolution had passed – the new status of German Jewry could be considered.  The government announced very solemnly that there was no country in the world which tried to solve the Jewish problem as seriously as did Germany.  Solution of the Jewish question?  It was our Zionist dream! We never denied the existence of the Jewish question!  Dissimilation? It was our own appeal!” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  

The memorandum, unknown until 1962, was printed in German in Israel.  It reveals the similarities between the Nazi and Zionist ideologies and the extent of collaboration between the two parties: “May we therefore be permitted to present our views, which, in our opinion, make possible a solution in keeping with the principles of the new German State of National Awakening and which at the same time might signify for Jews a new ordering of the conditions of their existence … An answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral renewal of Jewry… a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values … On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible… Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we, too, are against mixed marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group … The national distancing which the state desires would thus be brought about easily as the result of an organic development … For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews, because in dealing with the Jewish question no sentimentalities are involved but a real problem whose solution interests all peoples, and at the present moment especially the German people … Our observations, presented herewith, rest on the conviction that, in solving the Jewish problem according to its own lights, the German Government will have full understanding for a candid and clear Jewish posture that harmonizes with the interests of the state.” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  

Speaking in the name of “self-conscious Jewry,” the Zionists acknowledged sharing the Nazi ideal of the “foundation of the new state” that had established the “principle of race.”  The “principle of race” was at the heart of anti-Semitism.  Yet, this fact did not discourage collaboration.  Quite the contrary, the Zionists not only encouraged it – “we, too, are against mixed marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group” – but offered their cooperation – “We believe in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty between a group-conscious Jewry and the German state …” – and full support to a “government fundamentally hostile to Jews” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  The memorandum, “a treason to the Jews of Germany,” emphasized the level of collaboration between the Zionists and the Nazis, all in the name of a Jewish state.   As for Hitler’s overt anti-Semitism, expressed in Mein Kampf, the Zionists had inherited Herzl’s conviction “that anti-Semitism could not be fought” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).  Besides, given their support for the Nazi “principle of race,” one can ascertain that the Zionist ideologies were not different from those of the Nazis.   However, in recent years, dating from the 1967 Six-Day War, the term “anti-Semite” is used to discredit critics of the policies of the Zionist state (Gates, 124) and “to misdirect and intimidate” (Gates, xvi) those who seek the truth.  These charges must vehemently be denied and people who believe in the validity of the charges must be given the chance to understand how they, unwillingly as it seems, have become reluctant participants and victims of a Zionist “Nationalistic Religious Orgy” (http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/print/4755/), a brainwash and propaganda apparatus that hides the truth from the population.  Thus non-Jews who disagree with the agenda of Colonial Zionism are branded “anti-Semitic,” and dissenting Jews that deviate from the pro-Zionist “party-line” are smeared pejoratively as self-hating Jews (Gates, 124). Fuelling charges of anti-Semitism against anyone opposing Tel Aviv’s “land grab,” deemed lawful by the Jewish fundamentalists (Gates, 127), has become a strategic method of suppressing the opposition to Israel’s new colonialism.  The aggressive strategy of “discredit[ing], isolat[ing], ostraciz[ing] or marginaliz[ing] anyone critical of Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies” (Gates, 127) proves to be an “effective” method of censorship – the fear of a smear campaign keeps many quiet – undermining a fundamental right to Free Speech.   

The policy of silencing the critics follows a well-know pattern:   the attacker usually starts with mentioning the “right to free speech” while attempting to hush the critic (Gates, 127).   Norman Finkelstein’s 2005 book Beyond Chutzpah – The Misuse of Anti-Semitism caused Zionists “to hit the panic button” (Gates, 127).    A Harvard-Zionist Professor Alan Dershowitz, whose book Chutzpah was the center of an extended critique by Norman Finkelstein, in a typical Zionist manner, attempted to halt the publication of  Finkelstein’s “controversial book on Israel” (Gates, 253).  At the age of 55, after teaching for six years at Chicago’s DePaul University, Finkelstein was denied tenure. His application had been approved at the departmental and college level but the Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences opposed it.  Finkelstein accused Dershowitz of meddling in the tenure proceedings, and Dershowitz admitted sending a letter to the DePaul Faculty members, lobbying against Finkelstein’s tenure (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ENawcSliA&feature=related).  At the end of the day, the University succumbed to the pressure exercised by Jewish organizations and Alan Dershowitz.  To use Noam Chomsky’s words, Dershowitz had declared a “jihad against Finkelstein (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBclWDYuoxI&feature=related) that despite the latter’s outstanding scholarly credentials, cost him a tenure.     

Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid published by Simon & Schuster on November 14, 2006, met with a barrage of criticism (see Carter’s defence of the book and the ideas contained therein in President Jimmy Carter Pounds Israelhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDKw0f95k7Q&feature=related).   Abraham Foxman of ADL charged Carter, a supporter of the State of Israel and the sponsor of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace process, with anti-Semitism and Martin Peretz of the New Republic wrote:  “[Carter] will go down in history as a Jew-hater” (Gates, 127).  Similarly, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), an AIPAC media watchdog, bought full-page ads in The New York Times inciting readers to complain to the publisher about the new Carter book (Gates, 127).  After the publication of the book, Alan Dershowitz made the following comment: “Jimmy Carter has literally become such an anti-Israel bigot that there’s a kind of special place in Hell reserved for somebody like that”   (Alan Dershowitz Blasts President Jimmy Carter on Shalom TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FscSs-_IL0&feature=related).

Judge Richard Goldstone, an internationally respected jurist that headed the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, was assaulted by various leaders of the Jewish community and labelled an anti-Semite (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371) despite his impeccable credentials.  He served as chair of the commission that investigated the crimes of the security forces during the apartheid regime in South Africa.  He was the chief prosecutor of the International   Criminal Tribunals in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/6006-gazas-goldstone-on-the-backseat).  He is a member of the governing board of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/war-crimes-white-wash) and a life-long supporter of Israel (http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/6006-gazas-goldstone-on-the-backseat).  The accusation is not only inconsistent with his heritage but also with the fact that he was a member of the International Panel, established in 1997 to investigate the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371).     Nevertheless, in the eyes of those who choose to turn a blind eye to the inhuman treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Goldstone is a traitor that qualifies for the label “self-hating Jew,” if not for the warn-out version: “anti-Semite.”  

Noam Chomsky, a renowned American linguist, philosopher, author, political activist and a key left-wing intellectual has been criticized for his views on Israeli policies.  Dismissing Israel’s claims of self-defence (Noam Chomsky on the Israel-Palestine Conflict http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpw-h6WY8As&feature=related), Chomsky explained: “They [Israel] are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they’re crushing … You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying somebody else’s land.  That’s not defense!  Call it what you like.  IT’S NOT DEFENCE! ” (Noam Chomsky on Israel's Policy of 'Self-Defense' – Palestine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SVaJLuNSo&feature=related).                                             

In an interview on October 21, 2004 Amy Goodman of Democracy Now asked: “What do you say to those who call you anti-Semitic?”  Noam Chomsky’s answer was as clear and logical as ever: “Depends who they are. If they're people like … [me] with a nice Jewish education … I’d tell them to read the Bible, where the concept is invented. It was used by King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible that calls … prophet Elijah – Elijah was what we would nowadays call a dissident intellectual, like most of the prophets were, giving geo-political analysis, calling for moral behaviour. He calls for Elijah, he says ‘why you are a hater of Israel’? What does that mean? You are criticizing me. I'm the king. I'm Israel. And therefore you're a hater of Israel. And that's what the concept means” (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041021.htm).  Chomsky’s logic is based upon the principle of employing identical standards of evaluation when dealing with similar situations.  Using the strategy of smearing the critics of a country’s policies would amount to charging Berlusconi’s critics with anti-Italianism, Bush’s critics with anti-Americanism, etc. “If you identify the country, the people, the culture with the rulers, accept the totalitarian doctrine, then … it's anti-Semitic to criticize the Israeli policy, and anti-American to criticize the American policy, and it was anti-Soviet when the dissidents criticized Russian policy.  You have to accept deeply totalitarian assumptions not to laugh at this” (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041021.htm).   Chomsky’s critic Alan Dershowitz sees things differently.  Chomsky jokingly suggests that he, similar to Norman Finkelstein, probably is on Dershowitz’ “Hit List.” The comment has a tinge of irony but there is truth in it – for years, Chomsky admits, Dershowitz had produced “outlandish lies about him (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBclWDYuoxI&feature=related).  

Chomsky is right in his analysis of King Ahab’s equation of his rule with Israel; the story comes to us from 1Kings 18:17.  Elijah defies Ahab’s, thus also the State’s authority, but he does it in the name of God:     “[36] O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I HAVE DONE ALL THESE THINGS AT YOUR BIDDING” (1Kings 18:36).  And just like any other terrorist extremist, Elijah kills in the name of God:  “[40] Elijah said to them [the Israelites], ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; DO NOT LET ONE OF THEM ESCAPE’.   Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and KILLED THEM THERE” (1Kings 18:40).  

All prophets of the Old Testament speak in the name of God, and the threats they utter stand as messages from God.  Thus Hosea threatens Israel with exile:  “[17] Because they have not listened to him, my God will reject them; they shall become wanderers among the nations” (Hosea 9:17).  Jeremiah prophecies loss of land, property and servitude imposed as punishment:  “[1] The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts … [3] … Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your sin throughout all your territory.  [4] By your own  act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever” (Jeremiah 17:1-4).  Amos predicts disaster in the form of whole-sale massacre: “[1] Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: [2] Fallen, no more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to raise her up.  [3] For thus says the Lord God: The city that marched out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which marched out a hundred shall have ten left” (Amos 5:1-3).  

The words of Amos, a pre-exilic prophet from the time of King Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE), a period of territorial expansion and prosperity, ring true today.  The wealthy in Amos reached prosperity through manipulation of debt and credit that gave rise to gross inequities between the ruling elite and the poor (NRSV, 1302 HB).  “[7] Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!” (Amos 5:7).   Small farmers lost their land and personal property and in many cases even their personal liberty (NRSV, 1302 HB), while the rich got richer:   “[4] Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; [5] who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; [6] who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! [7] Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away” (Amos 6:4-7).   Amos’ denouncement of the decadent opulence of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and his call to Justice is similar to the denouncement delivered by the modern critics of Israeli policies.  Predictably, the reaction towards such criticisms essentially has remained the same:  [10] They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth” (Amos 5:10).  

The message delivered by the prophets in the name of God is ominous.  There is war: “your sons, and daughters shall fall by the sword” (Amos 7: 17), “The sword is given to be polished … to be placed in the slayer’s hand … for… it is against all Israel’s princes; they are thrown to the sword, together with my people” (Ezekiel 20:11-12),  destruction: “I will deliver up the city and all that is in it” (Amos 6:8), moral degradation: “Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city” (Amos 7:17), famine:  “I will send a famine on the land” (Amos 8:11), exile: “Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land” (Amos 7: 17),    “I will scatter them before the enemy” (Jeremiah 18:17),  “And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes on them for harm and not for good” (Amos 9:4).  But the promises of misfortune in Deuteronomy are graver than those of the prophets: “The Lord will send upon you disaster, panic, and frustration in everything you attempt to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly …” (Deuteronomy 28:20).   Pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, ulcers, scurvy, itch, mildew, madness, confusion of mind, blindness, blight, barrenness of womb and of land, drought, hunger, thirst, siege of towns, military defeat before enemies, exile, servitude, continual abuse, robbery, nakedness, lack of everything  are the punishments designed for Israel (Deuteronomy 28:15-52).   A gruesome description of cannibalism is part of the threats: “[53] In the desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you.  [54] Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children, [55] giving to none of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns.  [56] She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter, [57] begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs, and the children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in your towns” (Deuteronomy 28: 53-57).  Cannibalism resulting from siege is God’s ultimate weapon and as such it is also referred to in Leviticus 26:29, 2Kings 6:28-32, Jeremiah 19: 9, Lamentations 4:10, Ezekiel 5:10.  In all instances God proudly displays this punishment delighting in its abhorrent nature:  “[9] AND I WILL MAKE THEM EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR SONS AND THE FLESH OF THEIR DAUGHTERS, AND ALL SHALL EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR NEIGHBOURS in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them” (Jeremiah 19:9).   

Reading these threats makes one wonder: is the God of the Hebrew Bible an anti-Semite?  Or more properly, are the priests and scribes of the Second Temple – the writers of these texts – anti-Semitic?  While because of the cultural-historical distance between the Second Temple Judaism and our own time these questions can be debated endlessly, we can affirm that the modern critics of Israeli policies are NOT anti-Semitic.  Therefore, the charges of anti-Semitism must be rejected and exposed for what they are:  “an attempt to deflect criticism from the actions of … Israeli government by declaring criticism of Israel out of bounds and invoking Europe's last great taboo – the fear of being declared an anti-Semite” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/17/1).  The equation "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism" that has become the “new orthodoxy” has produced new ways of associating anti-Israel or anti-Zionist rhetoric with anti-Semitism (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020490.html).  The study of serious anti-Semitism, presently “hijacked and debased by people lacking any serious expertise in the subject” (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020490.html), should, in reality, include the analysis of the dealing of the Zionists, who collaborated with the Nazi regime and were guilty of anti-Semitism by association.  Next, it should deal with the Zionist State that ignores the guilt of the founders of Zionism, and is as guilty of anti-Semitism as the founders themselves.   

Bibliography

Gates, Jeff.  Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War.  Santa Barbara: State Street Publications, 2008.

The new Oxford Annotated Bible. Augmented Third Edition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California, is named after the famed Austrian Nazi-hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, a connection that turns out to be appropriate in disturbing but unexpected ways. That is, both Simon Wiesenthal and the Center named after him have been accused of flagrant lying, exaggerations and half-truths. Wiesenthal’s confabulations were never a matter of published discourse among scholars, so far as this writer can determine, nor were they popular knowledge until quite recently. In any case, it is now known that Wiesenthal, a born story-teller, rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story—in fact many of the things he claimed to have done were fabrications. This recently came to light with the publication, in June of 2009, of Hunting Evil, by British Author Guy Walters, in which he characterizes Simon Wiesenthal as “a liar—and a bad one at that.” Wiesenthal, he maintains, would “concoct outrageous stories about his war years and make false claims about his academic career.” Walters found that there were “so many inconsistencies between his three main memoirs and between those memoirs and contemporaneous documents, that it is impossible to establish a reliable narrative from them. Wiesenthal’s scant regard for the truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said.”1

The Wiener Library, one of the world’s oldest and most reputable institutions for the study of the Holocaust, has endorsed this revaluation of Wiesenthal. That is interesting because one assumes that they, like many others in the field of Holocaust Studies, may have been aware for some time that there were problems with Wiesenthal’s resume. The Wiener Library’s Director Ben Barkow concluded that “accepting that Wiesenthal was a showman and a braggart and, yes, even a liar, can live alongside acknowledging the contribution he made.”

Daniel Finkelstein, grandson of the Wiener Library’s founder, had this to say in an August 2009 article in the London Times about Guy Walters’ Hunting Evil: “Walters’s documentary evidence on Wiesenthal’s inconsistencies and lies is impeccable. He shows how the Nazi hunter’s accounts of his wartime experiences are contradictory and implausible. He demonstrates that he had no role, contrary to his own assertion, in the capture of Adolf Eichmann. He pitilessly dissects Wiesenthal’s overblown claims about the number he brought to justice, suggesting it was not much more than a handful.”2

So what is the truth about Simon Wiesenthal? Born in 1908 in Galicia, Wiesenthal attended the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1929, where he had a reputation as a gifted raconteur. (Walters says he appeared as “a stand-up comedian,” which could be a British approximation of the cabaret theatre popular at that time.) Wiesenthal claimed to have graduated from Czech Technical, but records show that he didn’t. He also maintained that he studied at Lwow Polytechnic in Galicia in 1935, but there is no record of him ever attending classes there. Wiesenthal likewise claimed to have operated his own architectural office and built elegant villas, but again Polish records do not support this. Instead he appears to have worked as a supervisor in a Lviv furniture factory from 1935 until 1939, a somewhat more mundane occupation, and one that Wiesenthal himself acknowledged before he became a famous celebrity in Vienna.

During the Second World War, Wiesenthal was apprehended by the Nazis, and was in at least six different Nazi camps. For reasons unknown, however, he claimed later to have been in 13 of them. This raises the question that must inevitably come up when contemplating Wiesenthal’s stories about himself. Being in a single Nazi camp would clearly be a horrific, mind-blowing experience, much less being in six of them. (This writer cannot confirm which ones were death camps and which ones labor or concentration camps.) So why did Wiesenthal feel it necessary to inflate the number of camps he’d been in to 13, particularly since such claims were likely to be checked later?

Part of the answer seems to be that Wiesenthal was a natural-born confabulator and liar who had a powerful need to create the persona of a superhero. But that alone does not explain his behavior. The Holocaust raises questions about human nature, and there is a demand for accounts that can explain, rationalize, and create a moral context for it. Wiesenthal offered people a plausible narrative with a moral framework: Nazis incarcerated him; he miraculously escaped; he now tracked them down. The systemic evil of the Holocaust was so huge and so threatening that it could be successfully addressed only by a superman whose capacity to survive evil and punish transgressors was larger than life. Wiesenthal was acutely aware of this; and his heart-stopping accounts of last-minutes escapes from the Nazis played to this anxiety. And the fact that he was bringing masses of Nazi war criminals to justice was the happy ending to the success story, the kind people wanted to hear; but as Walters demonstrates in Hunting Evil, at least one of Wiesenthal’s accounts of last-minute escapes from the Nazis can be shown to be a fabrication, and others are questionable.

After the war, Wiesenthal founded two organizations that sought to collect and centralize information on Nazi war criminals at large. Sometimes these war criminals were “hiding in plain sight,” in the sense that governments knew where they were but lacked the political will to arrest them. The main function of Wiesenthal’s organizations, then, was to keep the issue current in the public eye—and he had the kind of personality, and the public relations skills, to do just that. This is the real reason for Wiesenthal’s notoriety. The organizations set up by Wiesenthal were research organizations, and had no real investigative functions, such as law enforcement might have, and no power to arrest people. Guy Walters concludes (correctly, in my opinion) that the disinterestedness of western governments in hunting down Nazi criminals was far more repugnant morally than Wiesenthal’s experiments with the truth. That said, the fact that Wiesenthal told so many unnecessary lies, and that people who might have suspected this said nothing to challenge them, is one more example of the Holocaust’s ability to corrupt.

Although Wiesenthal claimed to have brought over a thousand Nazi criminals to justice, he generated information leading to the arrest of less than a hundred at most. His most outrageous claim was that he participated in the tracking down of Adolf Eichmann. This was, and remains, a falsehood—the tracking and kidnapping of Eichmann was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and Wiesenthal’s involvement was limited to passing on whatever information he had to them. This inconvenient reality was widely known—certainly it was known to Mossad, which despised and resented Wiesenthal’s self-serving stories—but apparently few people were willing to question Wiesenthal’s many claims.

Except in Austria, that is, where Wiesenthal was for a long time a controversial figure. It the 1970s, Wiesenthal publicly berated Austrian Prime Minister Bruno Kreisky for having so many ex-Nazis in his cabinet—and in this, Wiesenthal was undoubtedly right. The controversy he stirred up was especially important because Austrians had, up to that time, generally avoided much public discussion about their own responsibility for Nazi crimes; and Wiesenthal may have welcomed the opportunity to open up this issue when he made his sensational—but accurate—accusations about Kreisky’s cabinet choices. Kreisky, a Jewish Social Democrat, hinted that Wiesenthal had survived the war only because he collaborated with the Gestapo; but Wiesenthal sued for libel and won. Wiesenthal also drew fire for emphasizing that others besides Jews died in the gas chambers, which brought him into conflict with Elie Wiesel, who took the view that the Holocaust should be seen as an exclusively Jewish event. Some of Wiesenthal’s ideas were good ones—how ironic, then, that his ideas were given serious consideration only because of the rough-and-tumble public persona that Wiesenthal had invented for himself as part of his entrepreneurial and overly-imaginative self-promotion as a swashbuckling Nazi-hunter.

Wiesenthal received practically every honor known to the 20th century, over 100 of them. Mainly because of his own self-promotion, Wiesenthal became much more than an author with some dubious and not particularly well-written books—he became a secular saint. But of what secular religion was Saint Wiesenthal the exemplar? The trouble with Wiesenthal was not his extraordinary efforts to focus public attention on Nazi criminals—the problem was, and is, that his accounts of his own experiences were never challenged by people who professed to have an interest in historical truth. His addiction to confabulation made him a prisoner of what Norman Finkelstein has called The Holocaust Industry, which we may describe as the systematic use of the Holocaust for personal and organizational gain.

We are left with the sense that perhaps some who noticed discrepancies in Wiesenthal’s books said nothing because they were afraid of being denounced as anti-Semites. Author Guy Walters refers to this in his July 2009 article in the Sunday Times. “Some may feel I am too harsh on [Wiesenthal] and that I run a professional danger in seemingly allying myself with a vile host of neo-Nazis, revisionists, Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites. I belong firmly outside any of these squalid camps and it is my intention to wrestle criticism of Wiesenthal away from their clutches. His figure is a complex and important one. If there was a motive for his duplicity, it may well have been rooted in good intentions.” Guy Walters made this caveat a month after his book came out last summer; the fact that he made it at all indicates the sensitivity with which a professional historian must approach anything having to do with the Holocaust.

In fact, the appearance of Walters’ book has some of the characteristics of a literary campaign, although not necessarily of pre-arrangement. Walters’ Hunting Evil was published in Britain on June 18, 2009, at the beginning of last summer. A month later, in July, an article by Walters appeared in the Sunday Times, which set forth his reasons for revealing Wiesenthal’s duplicities. (One might think that because something is true might be reason enough for a historian to reveal it.) In August, 2009, a month later, Daniel Finkelstein’s supportive review appears in the Jewish Chronicle, validating Walters’ research. Finkelstein’s review was pivotal, since—as the grandson of the founder of the world’s oldest library on Holocaust history—he is assumed to speak with an authority that others lack, including perhaps Guy Walters himself.

That is not to say that the above was part of a coordinated campaign. Walters wrote on his website that he does not know Finkelstein, and based on internal evidence this writer believes that to be true. It simply indicates how complicated telling the truth can become when one writes about the Holocaust, and how important it is for many historians to carefully consider the public-relations angle before revealing things that might make people uncomfortable. In Guy Walters’ case, he received support for his findings from a man whose credentials in Holocaust Studies cannot be challenged. (There is at least one new book about Wiesenthal coming out soon, which after the Walters’ revelations will almost surely be forced to deal with obvious discrepancies in Wiesenthal’s narrative.)

There is ongoing fallout to the Walters’ book in other areas. On November 26, 2009, there appeared a sensational Associated Press report (carried on Walters’ website) that 12 members of the 15 member international advisory board of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies have resigned, apparently after a hysterical uproar about the availability of research material to scholars. (The AP report gives as the reason for the international hullabaloo certain objections by scholars “that restrictions on access to files made independent research impossible.”) Inevitably, one of those involved in the AP report warned that unrestricted access to the Institute’s files might encourage “holocaust deniers.” The opposite seems much more likely. The longer people hide the truth about Wiesenthal, the more doubts it will create about how objectively historians are able to write about the Holocaust.

Beginning with the publication in 1961 of Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews, people on the Left, political and cultural progressives, and some psychologists sought to deconstruct the Holocaust so that they could learn how systemic evil operates. If the Shoah was history’s greatest crime, why not try to understand how it happened, so such crimes could be thwarted in the future? That was the right approach to take, but it quickly led to a kind of truth that many people did not want to accept—that there is a Nazi in every person, and that any tribe, national group or country in the world could experience the same moral collapse as Germany experienced, given the right conditions. That was too threatening for many people, because they did not want to acknowledge how deep evil ran in human nature.

And it was, also, the ultimate threat to the neo-cons that were beginning to gain power in the US. If the same moral collapse that happened in Germany could happen elsewhere, such an analysis could be applied anywhere, which meant that the big neo-conservative foundations could not control discourse about the Holocaust. An objective deconstruction of the development of evil in Germany could even serve as a guide to what is happening in Israel. The neo-cons could not allow that to happen, because of their position that Israel’s government could never be criticized; and because the neo-conservatives did not want a truly objective deconstruction of the Holocaust that could teach people how to defeat systemic evil. On the contrary—they sought to create their own systemic evil in the US and in the Middle East, by using the Holocaust to arouse fear, anger, guilt and aggression, as well as religious nationalism generally.

Invoking the Holocaust in social and political discourse became a way for the powerful neo-cons and the Israel Lobby to use the unresolved trauma of the Holocaust, in some cases to generate ideas and in other cases to suppress them. The use of the Holocaust to manipulate people and societies to uncritically support Israel depends on a particularization of the Holocaust—it insists, in other words, that Nazi evil cannot be compared to any other form of systemic evil. It insists that the causes of German moral collapse (violent nationalism, fanatical identification with victim status, deep feelings of inferiority, a longing for apocalyptic solutions) cannot be applied anywhere else. That is despicable nonsense.

Not only can the causes of German moral collapse be seen in other nations and situations; such an analysis must be applied to other nations and situations, if we are to learn anything about how systemic evil works. Neo-cons generally dislike that, because they wish to discuss the Holocaust only within a context of Jewish exceptionalism. But sadly, there’s a Nazi in everybody—in fact, that’s the most important thing that the Holocaust teachers us. As Avraham Burg writes, today’s Israel feels a lot like Weimer, not because Israeli culture is so similar to central Europe’s culture, but because the decline into evil is always similar wherever it occurs. How could Israel not look like Weimer, when so much of what passes for a national consciousness in Israel is simply trauma from the Holocaust, which people do not attempt to deconstruct along universal lines but to which they cling as personal as well as national identities?

It was not until after Simon Wiesenthal died in 2005 that a British historian was able to write frankly about the duplicity in Simon Wiesenthal’s stories. Again I must ask, why did not the people who may have known about Wiesenthal’s casual relationship with the truth speak up about it? Predictably, the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, California, is in no hurry to accept this new historical appraisal of their namesake—their website, in fact, faithfully replicates many of Wiesenthal’s lies and inaccuracies. But that should not surprise us, because the Simon Wiesenthal Center, like Simon Wiesenthal himself, is not interested in historical truth, nor is it committed to teaching about the history of the Holocaust in all its complexity. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is, rather, committed to using the Holocaust to raise money, and using the trauma associated with it to promote the Center’s extremist political perspectives.

Lawrence Swaim is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Freedom Foundation. This article is from his upcoming book Trauma Bond–An Inquiry Into the Nature of Evil,

Source

(Thanks Ron for the forward) http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/deconstructing-simon-wiesenthal/

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
- Albert Einstein
"The age of military attacks is over, now we've reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past…even for mentally challenged people."
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 11/23/2009

The American political, academic, and media establishment has long been beating the drums of war with Iran and, as the author of New York Times' latest OpEd encouraging the US bombing of that country, University of Texas professor Alan J. Kuperman has now emerged as the Keith Moon of sensational jingoism and, considering his concept of reality, morality, and legality, is probably twice as crazy.

Mr. Kuperman, in a piece published on December 23rd and titled "There’s Only One Way to Stop Iran", stridently advocates for an immediate, unilateral, unprovoked and devastating aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. He writes,

"Since peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work [with Iran], and an invasion would be foolhardy, the United States faces a stark choice: military air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities or acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons."

Apparently, Mr. Kuperman's "one way" is a premeditated act of war, a preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that has not threatened nor invaded any country in over two and half centuries. The "stark" choices that Mr. Kuperman proposes do not include the obvious legal answer: for US policy to abide by international law and ratified treaties guaranteeing the right of Iran to a peaceful nuclear energy program and therefore cease threatening Iran with homicidal military action.

Though Mr. Kuperman claims to believe that "negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action," he immediately turns around to state, "We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons." He concludes with the dire warning that "Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better."

Mr. Kuperman even believes that "Iran's atomic sites might need to be bombed more than once to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons." His suggestions not only defy all basic logic and reason, but, more perversely, demonstrate his utter contempt for global jurisprudence, basic facts, and human life.

Despite being a highly educated scholar, Mr. Kuperman, who has a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, reveals a stunning lack of historical knowledge, a general disinterest in providing any sort of supporting evidence or documentation for his baffling assumptions, and a bewildering inability to discern truth from propaganda, all of which, unfortunately, inform his outrageous conclusions. In fact, there are so many unsubstantiated claims and outright lies packed into the relatively short article, it's an absolute wonder that The New York Times chose to print it. Has the Grey Lady laid off all its fact-checkers?

Then again, it should probably come as no surprise that the "newspaper of record" has no qualms about printing fiction masked as truth, as seen with the relentless build-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq just seven years ago.

First of all, Kuperman's constant mischaracterizations of Iran's wholly legal energy program as an illicit, covert effort to build a nuclear bomb stands in stark contrast to all available information provided and accepted by both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran's nuclear program, and the intelligence community of the United States, which spies on Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA has repeatedly found, through intensive, round-the-clock monitoring and inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities – including numerous surprise visits to Iranian enrichment plants – that all of Iran's centrifuges operate under IAEA safeguards and "continue to be operated as declared."

In an IAEA report from as far back as November 2003, the agency states that "to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons programme." Then, after extensive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, the IAEA again concluded in its November 2004 report that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."

In May 2008, the IAEA reported that it had found "no indication" that Iran has or ever did have a nuclear weapons program and affirmed that "The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material [to weaponization] in Iran." Earlier this year, IAEA spokesperson Melissa Fleming even issued a statement clarifying the IAEA's position regarding the flurry of deliberately misleading articles in the US and European press claiming that Iran had enriched enough uranium "to build a nuclear bomb." The statement, among other things, declared that "No nuclear material could have been removed from the [Nantanz] facility without the Agency's knowledge since the facility is subject to video surveillance and the nuclear material has been kept under seal."

This assessment was reaffirmed as recently as September 2009, in response to various media reports over the past few years claiming that Iran's intent to build a nuclear bomb can be proven by information provided from a mysterious stolen laptop and a dubious, undated – and most likely forged – two-page document. The IAEA stated, "With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran."

Both the out-going and in-coming Director-Generals of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei and Yukiya Amano, respectively, have stated that there is absolutely no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Even the United States' National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which aggregates classified information from 16 American intelligence and security agencies, concluded in a formal evaluation of Iran's "Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" in November 2007 that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program. A recent Newsweek report, from September 16, 2009, indicates that, despite what is constantly repeated by administration officials and warmongers like Mr. Kuperman, the NIE stands by its 2007 assessment and that "U.S. intelligence agencies have informed policymakers at the White House and other agencies that the status of Iranian work on development and production of a nuclear bomb has not changed."

Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal accurately points out the "important difference between the U.S. intelligence community’s and the IAEA’s assessments," continuing, "According to the 2007 NIE, Iran had a nuclear weapons program until 2003. According to the IAEA – the international nuclear watchdog agency actively monitoring Iran’s program and conducting inspections in the country – there is no proof Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program."

Nevertheless, in a mere 1492 words, Mr. Kuperman refers to, what he terms, Iran's "bomb program" eight times and makes ten additional references to Iran's so-called pursuit of a nuclear weapon arsenal, nuclear weapons techniques, weapons-grade enrichment, and weapons trafficking. One can only assume, then, that he has information that neither the IAEA inspectors nor the United States government has yet to uncover and examine.

Perhaps, devoid of any actual evidence, Kuperman simply takes as a matter of faith that the Iranian government is intent on and committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. Maybe he's just worried about supposed apocalyptic ideologies of modern governments which blend theocracy and republicanism and agrees with war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned during his September 24 speech at the UN, in what may have been the single most ironic and self-unaware statement since "Let them eat cake", that "the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction." This amazing statement came from the designated (not elected) Prime Minister of a self-described "Jewish State" which currently has upwards of 400 nuclear warheads yet has never signed the NPT and is therefore not subject to inspection and monitoring.

But if faith really is a consideration, due to the fact that Iran is a deeply religious society and a constitutionally mandated Islamic Republic, perhaps Mr. Kuperman should be aware that, on August 10, 2005, Iranian nuclear negotiator Sirus Naseri informed an emergency meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors that a religious decree unconditionally prohibiting the acquisition of nuclear weapons was in effect. He stated,

"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain.

The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT and has placed the entire scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards and Additional Protocol, in addition to undertaking voluntary transparency measures with the agency that have even gone beyond the requirements of the agency's safeguard system."

Furthermore, Congressional foreign policy advisor Gregory Aftandilian, speaking at a Center for National Policy event titled “A Nuclear Middle East” in October 2008, stated rationally that Iran is "not stupid" and "has a long history, thousands of years, of statecraft…Tehran is not suicidal."

Even more to the point, the government and military of Iran has a strict "no first strike" policy, something that countries like the United States and Israel obviously don't have. Iranian government and military officials have long stated that they will act in self-defense only if their country is attacked and have never issued threats about initiating aggression against another nation. As General Hoseyn Salami, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air Force, remarked on an Iranian news program on September 28, 2009, "As long as our enemies act within a political domain, our behavior will be completely political. However, if they want to leave the domain of political action and enter the domain of military threat, then our action will be exactly and completely military."

Whereas Iran operates legally with defensive consideration for its own security in the face of constant bellicose rhetoric and aggressive posturing from both Washington and Tel Aviv, Mr. Kuperman's advice to the US government directly contravenes international law. In fact, even the threat of attack is prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations, which states, "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." (Article 2, paragraph 4)

In July 1946, Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor at Nuremburg after World War II, stated in his Closing Argument of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal that of all Nazi war crimes, including invasion, occupation, mass displacement, concentration and extermination camps, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, "the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars."

When the judgment of the IMT was delivered a few months later, it maintained that "To initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

The Nuremburg judgment had a profound influence on subsequent international law; its findings and conclusions served as the framework for UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), The Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949) and its additional protocols (1977), The Nuremberg Principles (1950), The Convention on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (1968), and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).

Considering Mr. Kuperman has a Masters degree in international relations and international economics from the Bologna-based Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, one might assume he would have a strong grasp on these governing principles of international law. Alas, as his policy suggestions seem based upon myriad misunderstandings of simple information and are tantamount to the supreme war crime of aggression, it appears that his higher education is not the only thing about Kuperman that's bologna based.

Kuperman begins his OpEd by declaring that the recent draft agreement proposed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (all of them nuclear weapons states) and Germany (which engages in "nuclear sharing" with the United States, widely seen as a major breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself) was defective from the outset and would have aided Iran on, as Kuperman would have us believe, its nefarious quest to build nuclear bombs. He claims that the proposal, which called for roughly 70% of Iran's accumulated low-enriched uranium to be sent to Russia and France for further processing before it was returned (sometime in the future) for use in a medical reactor core in Tehran, would have "rewarded [Iran] with much-coveted reactor fuel despite violating international law" and "fostered proliferation" because "the vast surplus of higher-enriched fuel Iran was to get under the deal would have permitted some to be diverted to its bomb program."

The Western proposal was met with considerable and understandable skepticism from all segments of Iranian establishment who see the offer as being a way to permanently stop Iran's enrichment capabilities, which are legally guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran has been a signatory for over 40 years. Iran's Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani warned on October 24 that "Westerners are insisting to go in a direction that suggests cheating." Iran's head-of-state Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on November 4, also cautioned against the deal, stating, "When we carefully look at the situation, we notice that [the United States and its allies] are hiding a dagger behind their back."

Even Mir Hossein Mousavi, presidential challenger and leader of the current opposition movement, criticized the proposal in late October when he declared, "If the promises given [to the West] are realized, then the hard work of thousands of scientists would be ruined." Mehdi Karroubi, another opposition leader and presidential hopeful, accused Ahmadinejad's administration of abandoning national interests by negotiating with the IAEA.

Nevertheless, Time reported that "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on October 29 that 'conditions have been prepared for international cooperation in the nuclear field' and his administration is 'ready to cooperate.'" Furthermore, Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Armed Forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi, and Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh all expressed a desire to use diplomatic efforts to find a reasonable and suitable solution to the current standoff.

In early December, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated that Iran was "willing to exchange most of its uranium for processed nuclear fuel from abroad" in a phased transfer of material with full guarantees that the West "will not backtrack an exchange deal." Mr. Mottaki proposed that Iran would agree to initially hand over 25% of its uranium in a simultaneous exchange for an equivalent amount of enriched material in order to fuel the medical research reactor. The remainder of the uranium would be traded over "several years."

In response, The New York Times reported that this proposed timetable was immediately rejected by Western powers. The US government-sponsored Voice of America quoted an unidentified senior US official as claiming that the Iranian counter-proposal inconsistent with the "fair and balanced" draft agreement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has previously threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran, urged Iran to "accept the agreement as proposed because we are not altering it."

Apparently, the US government is unaware of what a "draft agreement" is. By definition, it is a proposal – a "draft" – not a final, binding accord. It is a primary piece of negotiation that can and should be revised by all parties until a mutually beneficial agreement is reached. The West appears to only accept its own offers and dismisses any other suggestions. This is not diplomacy, this is no "outstretched hand." This is, quite simply, an illegal and imperial ultimatum dictated to the sovereign nation of Iran by historically aggressive, colonial powers.

As The New York Times reported,

"Mr. Mottaki also suggested that the Western news media had helped torpedo the October agreement by framing it in hostile terms that confirmed Iran’s fears of losing its nuclear supplies.

'We said we are in agreement on the principles of the proposal, but suddenly the Western media announced that 1,200 kilograms of uranium would be leaving Iran to delay the construction of a nuclear bomb,' Mr. Mottaki said, according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. 'Is this the answer to Iran’s confidence-building?

Still, Mr. Kuperman mischaracterizes Iran's supposed acceptance-then-rejection of the absurd Western proposition. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad initially embraced the deal because he realized it aided Iran's bomb program," he writes, and then claims that "under such domestic pressure, Mr. Ahmadinejad reneged."

Mr. Kuperman declares that "Tehran’s rejection of the deal was likewise propelled by domestic politics – including last June's fraudulent elections and longstanding fears of Western manipulation." Not only does this statement simply assume that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad was stolen and illegitimate (a tired narrative devoid of any substantiated evidence), he dismisses foreign involvement – namely that of the US – in Iranian affairs by employing the word "fears" rather than "facts."

Perhaps Mr. Kuperman is unaware that in 2007, ABC News reported that George W. Bush had signed a secret "Presidential finding" authorizing the CIA to "mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government." These operations, according to current and former intelligence officials, included "a coordinated campaign of propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, and the manipulation of Iran's currency and international banking transactions." The Sunday Telegraph corroborated this information when it stated, "Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."

It is also well-known that, a year later, the Bush administration was granted $400 million with which to further destabilize Iran via, as the Washington Post reported at the time "activities ranging from spying on Iran’s nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics…" The rebel groups supported by such funding and training include, according to both Counterpunch's Andrew Cockburn and the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the militant Sunni group Jundullah, or "army of god," and the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or PMOI), which maintains an "enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups."

Although Washington officially denies involvement, the Sunday Telegraph reports that funding for Jundallah's "separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now 'no great secret', according to one former high-ranking CIA official," whose claims were confirmed by former US State Department counter-terrorism agent Fred Barton, who said that Jundallah's terrorist activities "inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime." Among the bombings and violent attacks for which Jundallah has claimed responsibility are the killings of nine Iranian security guards in 2005, another 11 in a 2007 bombing, at least 16 Iranian police officers in a 2008 attack, and, most recently, the deadly bombing of a security gathering in southeast Iran on October 18, 2009 which killed 35 people including several top regional security officials and provincial commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Further, ABC News has reported that, according to Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, Jundallah is "responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran" and "has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005." The report continued,

"U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. The money for Jundullah was funneled to its leader, Abdelmalek Rigi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states."

These connected Iranian exiles are members of the MEK, the Iranian opposition network that, in 1981, assassinated about 70 high ranking Iranian officials including cabinet members, elected parliamentarians, and the new Chief Justice when it bombed state headquarters. After the Iranian Revolution, the group moved its headquarters to Iraq and was supported by Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that claimed the lives of over a million people. The MEK also claims responsibility for informing the United States and its allies about Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program, for which no verifiable evidence has ever been found.

On December 15, 2009, Texas Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee addressed Congress regarding that fate of MEK exiles currently living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The Congresswoman pleaded for the Obama administration to "save" the "Iranian dissidents [who] are now huddled [at Camp Ashraf], fearful for their lives." She claimed that the Iraqi government, which is now tasked with guarding the camp after US forces recently handed over control, had put the exiles "at risk of arbitrary arrest, torture or other forms of ill treatment and unlawful killing," and described the MEK – which, again, is designated as a terrorist group by the US State Department – as "dissidents who simply want to live in peace and alone." Apparently, Ms. Jackson-Lee saw nothing wrong with begging the United States to support terrorists, as long as those terrorists have the goal of toppling the Iranian government.

Plus, just last week, Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that a number of MEK members have been arrested for violent activity and destruction of public and private property at recent anti-government protests in Tehran.

American involvement, both overt and covert, in Iranian affairs is beyond doubt, thereby making Mr. Kuperman's blow-off of Iran's "fears of Western manipulation" completely absurd.

In a June 24, 2009 interview on Al Jazeera reporter Josh Rushing asked former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft if the US has "intelligence operatives on the ground in Iran," to which Scowcroft simply replies, "Of course we do."

The very next day, USA Today reported that "the Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents" via the US Agency for International Development (USAID) program which has long been known as a cover for the US government to fund regime change operations in various parts of the world.

A few days later, during a June 28 CNN interview with Robert Baer, Fareed Zakaria asked the retired 21 year CIA veteran and former Middle East undercover operative, "Isn’t it true that we do [try to destabilize the regime]? Don’t we fund various groups inside and outside Iran that do try to destabilize the government?" Baer answered, "Oh absolutely," adding, "There is a covert action program against Iran where the [U.S.] military is running; a covert action against Iran from Iraq and Afghanistan."

One month later, on July 26, Mr. Zakaria interviewed Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, a North America studies professor and political analyst at the University of Tehran. Mr. Marandi revealed that "Right now you have almost 40 television channels in Persian being broadcast into Iran from the United States and Europe – basically funded by the American government and European governments, or in some cases owned – which have played a very negative role over the past few weeks, turning people against one another… in many cases, they call for riots, and they call for violence." Mr. Zakaria, for unknown reasons, took it upon himself to deny these widely-accepted and well-evidenced allegations.

The veracity of such claims was confirmed a couple of weeks later, on August 9, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared "Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot," Clinton said. "We were doing a lot to really empower the protesters without getting in the way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition."

Even John Limbert, embassy hostage turned Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Near East at the US State Department, chimed in during a December 10, 2009 interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He stated that the United States government "will not sit silently" and "will not ignore what happens on the streets of Tehran," continuing that, "we believe, as we have always believed, that the Iranian people deserve decent treatment from their government."

This is a truly amazing thing for a US official to say, especially one who worked in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution thirty years ago. At that time, the United States government supported, both vocally and materially, the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran, referred to as "an island of stability" by President Carter in 1977. Under the Shah's tyrannical rule, a Time article from January 7, 1980, tells us, "Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of torture in the dungeons of SAVAK, the [US and Israeli-trained] secret police."

Furthermore, the Time article continues,

"The depth of its commitment to the Shah apparently blinded Washington to the growing discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe that their investment was buying stability and friendship; they trusted what they heard from the monarch, who dismissed all opposition as 'the blah-blahs of armchair critics.' Even after the revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced that 'there is no alternative to the Shah.' Carter took time out from the Camp David summit in September 1978 to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of Washington's continued support." [emphasis mine]

Limbert, of all people, should know better than to claim that the US government cares about the rights and desires of the Iranian people. What it really cares about, and has always cared about, is fueling protests of anti-imperial governments and bolstering opposition to administrations that repel American hegemony, hubris, and dominance.

It may also be interesting to note that, whereas the US Department of Defense considers "protests" to be a type of "low-level terrorist activity," according to one of its 2009 training manuals, State Department official Limbert takes great pride in saluting the "brave people of Iran…who are going out on the street and demonstrating." One wonders if he also salutes anti-war protesters here in the United States.

But this is all just the tip of Mr. Kuperman's iceberg of deliberate disinformation.

Insisting multiple times during his piece that Iran is "violating international law" by not responding to UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate halt to its enrichment program, Mr. Kuperman again demonstrates his own lack of awareness of the fundamental principles of jus cogens, or peremptory norm, as it applies to the authority of UNSC resolutions and the NPT agreement. Again, this is surprising due to Mr. Kuperman's current role as director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin and his former stint as Senior Policy Analyst for the nongovernmental Nuclear Control Institute.

Mr. Kuperman might want to review the tenets of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty first. Article IV of the treaty states:

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop, research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty [which prohibit the transfer or acquisition of nuclear weapons].

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world. [emphasis mine]

As neither the IAEA nor the US intelligence community has found any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, Iran not only has the legal right to develop and produce peaceful nuclear energy on its own soil, but it has the inalienable right to do so, under the terms of the NPT. Under these terms, no one and nothing – government, agency, council, resolution, draft agreement – can infringe upon Iran's right to operate power plants and enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program.

Therefore, any resolutions calling for Iran's inalienable right to be relinquished are, in and of themselves, wholly illegal. Paranoid suspicions, demonizing propaganda, and allegations without evidence are totally insufficient to demonstrate any violations of the NPT by the Iran government.

Cyrus Safardi of IranAffairs, in addition to supplying supporting documentation from the UN's own International Law Commission and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, explains,"

Article 103 of the UN Charter says that UNSC resolutions trump obligations under international treaties such as the NPT. However, Article 103 does not apply to sovereign rights and jus cogens. It is a general and well-recognized principle of international law that UNSC resolutions that are contrary to jus cogens are ultra vires and NOT binding."

With this in mind, it is clear that all UNSC resolutions that "demand" Iran suspend enrichment and close its intrusively monitored and meticulously inspected nuclear facilities – UNSC resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), and 1803 (2008) – are contradictory, illegal and consequently non-binding.

Furthermore, Safardi writes that "Iran's safeguard agreement with the IAEA, and the IAEA statutes, only permit a referral to the UNSC when there has been a diversion of fissile material for non-peaceful use." Since the IAEA had previously confirmed that there had been no such diversion and without any evidence of a nuclear weapons program, its referral of the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council was, as CASMII founder Abbas Edalat points out, "politically motivated and illegitimate." Edalat continues,

"On February 15th [2007], Stephen Rademaker, the former US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-proliferation confessed that the two crucial votes by India against Iran in the Governors’ Board of the IAEA which led to Iran’s referral to the Security Council were indeed the result of US coercion. Incidentally India, like the other US allies Pakistan and Israel, is not a signatory to the NPT and has developed nuclear bombs which is tolerated and supported by the US.

Because the IAEA's referral of Iran's file to the UNSC was unwarranted and because the UNSC resolutions are themselves illegal, Iran has no reason to abide by them and is therefore under no obligation to halt its nuclear program, as Mr. Kuperman keeps insisting.

In fact, the United States is currently in violation of the NPT itself, insofar as "the US has refused to negotiate for complete disarmament and verification per treaty terms and actively plans to use nuclear weapons, including first-strike use against 'enemies' who may only become threats in the future," according to Carl Herman of the Examiner.

Even though Mr. Kuperman deems violations of international law cause enough to justify military campaigns, he doesn't seem to mind Israel's constant trespasses and consistent ignoring of numerous Security Council resolutions since 1967.

Continuing, Mr. Kuperman declares that "while Iran permits international inspections at its declared enrichment plant at Natanz, it ignores United Nations demands that it close the plant, where it gains the expertise needed to produce weapons-grade uranium at other secret facilities like the nascent one recently uncovered near Qom."

Isn't everything "secret" until it's announced? What Mr. Kuperman probably knows, but refuses to say since it would weaken his argument for illegally bombing another country and willfully murdering innocent people, is that the new Fordo nuclear facility was actually announced to the IAEA by Iran itself, in advance of the panicky press conference held on September 25 by President Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. "I can confirm that on 21 September, Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country," IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said.

Under its current safeguards agreement with the Agency, Iran is not obligated to inform the IAEA of any new facilities until six months before the introduction of nuclear material to the site. Since the Fordo enrichment plant is not yet operational, and won't be for another 18 months, Iran has broken no rules. In fact, the site was announced a full year before it needed to be. As Ali-Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, remarked, "This installation is not a secret one, which is why we announced its existence to the IAEA."

Ahmadinejad even pointed out that the agreements and guidelines between Iran and the IAEA do not require approval by the United States. "We have no secrecy, we work within the framework of the IAEA," he said. "This does not mean we must inform Mr Obama’s Administration of every facility that we have."

That Mr. Kuperman would claim the Fordo site near Qom was "secret" is unsurprising, considering the same constant refrain in media outlets like the New York Times. What is interesting is his allegation that the facility allows Iran to acquire knowledge about producing nuclear weapons is especially bizarre considering that, after inspectors surveyed the new plant, IAEA Director-General ElBaradei declared that the agency's monitors found "nothing to be worried about," continuing, "It's a hole in a mountain."

"The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things," ElBaradei said. Due to the constant threats by the US and Israel to bomb Iran, especially by arm-chair warriors like Mr. Kuperman, it should come as no surprise that the Iranian government might be interested in defending their scientific facilities and technological progress from such attacks. In fact, not doing so would be irresponsible.

Without providing even a shred of evidence, Mr. Kuperman states that "Iran supplies Islamist terrorist groups in violation of international embargoes." He is obviously referring to Hamas and Hezbollah, two democratically-elected resistance groups, which are consistently demonized in the Western press for being opposed to Israeli settler-colonialism, illegal and oppressive occupation, and American military imperialism. What is left out, of course, is that the US-supported Israeli siege of Gaza is itself "illegal" and displays "profound inhumanity," according to John Ging, Gaza's director of operations for the refugee agency UNRWA. Furthermore, according to the Policy Declaration of the new Government of the Republic of Lebanon, issued on November 26, 2009,

“It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the [Hezbollah led-]Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy by all available and legal means.”

As a result, Lebanon expert Franklin Lamb explains, "Legally, constitutionally, and politically, Lebanon’s new National Unity Government policy legitimizes, embraces, and incorporates by reference, according to some Pentagon and State Department analysts, the National Lebanese Resistance," and affirms that Hezbollah and the State of Lebanon are "inseparable and indivisible with respect to defending this country from foreign interference and occupation. It affixes the Governmental imprimatur for liberating Lebanese lands still occupied by Israeli forces." Lamb continues,

"According to some international lawyers, it also fulfills UN Security Council Resolution 1559 regarding disarming militias because Lebanon has in effect declared that the arms of the Hezbollah led Resistance are part of the defense of Lebanon itself and not a particular movement or political party. This Policy statement satisfies UNSCR 1701 for the same reason."

Mr. Kuperman also does not address how American funding of the Israeli occupation and military support for its frequent invasions, massacres, and war crimes violate numerous US statutes including the Arms Export Control Act (P.L.80-829) which states that exported weaponry must be relegated to "internal security” and “legitimate self-defense” only, the Foreign Assistance Act (P.L.97-195) which holds that “No assistance may be provided…to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” and the Foreign Ops Appropriations Act's "Leahy Law" which demands that no aid be provided to "any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights." One look at the UN Goldstone Report proves that the United States has consistently violated its own legislation with regard to Israel, as well as numerous international laws. For example, the US is violating the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which the US claims it will not fulfill until 2023, even though the convention requires the elimination of these weapons by 2012 (already an extension from 2007). Also, Obama has rejected inspection protocol for US biological weapons despite his stated dedication to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and has refused to ratify the international antipersonnel landmine ban, despite being lauded by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for his commitment to "disarmament and arms control negotiations."

In his New York Times piece, Mr. Kuperman warns that "If Iran acquired a nuclear arsenal, the risks would simply be too great that it could become a neighborhood bully." Clearly, the argument assumes, only the United States and Israel should be allowed to bully Middle Eastern countries with their own nuclear arsenals, invasions, occupations, and international impunity.

He then goes on to state that "history suggests that military strikes could work," claiming that "Israel's 1981 attack on the nearly finished Osirak reactor prevented Iraq's rapid acquisition of a plutonium-based nuclear weapon and compelled it to pursue a more gradual, uranium-based bomb program."

This is a dubious conclusion to draw based on the fact that the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful, under intensive safeguards and monitoring, and that the Osirak reactor was, as Harvard physics professor Richard Wilson has explained, "explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit."

What Mr. Kuperman also omits is that the Israeli attack, code named Operation Opera, took the lives of ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian researcher and was widely lambasted by the international community, prompting a UN General Assembly resolution (36/27) on November 13, 1981 that "strongly condemn[ed] Israel for its premeditated and unprecedented act of aggression in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct, which constitutes a new and dangerous escalation of the threat to international peace and security."

The resolution also reaffirmed Iraq's "inalienable sovereign right" to "develop technological and nuclear programmes for peaceful purposes" and stated that, not only was Iraq a party to the NPT, but had also "satisfactorily applied" the IAEA safeguards required of it. Conversely, it noted "with concern" that "Israel has refused to adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and, in spite of repeated calls, including that of the Security Council, to place its nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards."

In addition to condemning "the misuse by Israel, in committing its acts of aggression against Arab countries, of aircraft and weapons supplied by the United States of America," the resolution reiterated "its call to all States to cease forthwith any provision to Israel of arms and related material of all types which enable it to commit acts of aggression against other States" and requested "the Security Council to investigate Israel's nuclear activities and the collaboration of other States and parties in those activities" and "institute effective enforcement action to prevent Israel from further endangering international peace and security through its acts of aggression and continued policies of expansion, occupation and annexation."

Furthermore, the General Assembly demanded that "Israel, in view of its international responsibility for its act of aggression, pay prompt and adequate compensation for the material damage and loss of life suffered" due to the illegal and lethal attack.

For Mr. Kuperman, this constituted a successful mission (which, considering that none of the UN's demands have ever been met over the past 30 years, perhaps it was). Truth be told, this is an unsurprising conclusion for someone who claims that "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the United States military can oust regimes in weeks if it wants to." Perhaps Mr. Kuperman doesn't get out much.

That might explain why Mr. Kuperman also claims that "Iran could retaliate [in response to a US air strike] by aiding America’s opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does that anyway," without any evidence to back up that assertion. Is he unaware that Iran is a longtime enemy of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda and enjoys moderately good relations with the puppet government in Iraq? Does he not remember that Iranian intelligence provided valuable assistance to the US military before the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001? Does he not know that the claims that Iran supplies weapons to Iraqi militias and resistance fighters have been repeatedly debunked?

Take, for example, the time in 2008 when a cache of thousands of weapons was seized during raids of Mahdi Army arsenals around Karbala. Military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner, when asked in May 2008 about the proportion of Iranian weapons then in the hands of Iraqi fighters, muttered the standard deflection and insinuation that the resistance groups "could not do what they're doing without the support of foreign support [sic]" and then broadly defined such "support" as training, funding, and arming fighters with weapons. The evidence, eventually handed over to the Iraqi government by US forces a few months later, was found to provide no solid proof that the weapons came from Iran and the charges were withdrawn after a meeting with Iranian officials. The allegations collapsed once and for all when the weapons were looked at again by the Americans who, via a military spokesman, "attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin." The entire embarrassing episode was summed up by Keith Olbermann on Countdown at the time:

"Major General Kevin Bergner convened a news conference in Baghdad last Wednesday to list 20,000 items of ammunition, explosives, and weapons captured or uncovered by US and Iraqi governmental forces in the last few weeks of fighting. 45 rocket-propelled grenades, 570 assorted explosive devices, 1800 mortars and artillery rounds. The point? This was the big day, this was the day, according to the LA Times, that the American military was to show the media of the world the conclusive evidence that at least some of the weaponry used by Iraqi insurgents had been supplied by Iran. The US military spokesman confirming to that newspaper that that's what the dog-and-pony-show was to include. They were all ready to show off Iran's tangible responsibility for some of the haul of the machinery of death, to establish the link between American fatalities and Iran: trademarks or company logos or Made in Tehran stickers or something.

When US experts took a second look at all this stuff, they then said 'None of this is from Iran.' 20,000 blowing-up things? Hard count of those supplied by Iran: zero. Percentage of the whole imported from Iran: no percent. Amount of tangible evidence linking Iran to anti-American uprisings in Baghdad: none. You do realize, they are making this up about Iran!"

And still, despite all the painfully obvious truth of the matter, US military officials continued to accuse Iran of channeling weaponry to Shia militias who are opposing the illegal US occupation in Iraq. In late May 2008, Gareth Porter reported in IPS News that the alleged weapons were clearly not of Iranian origin (they were mostly manufactured in China, Russia, and the former Yugoslavia) and were obtained by Iraqi militias on the international black market.

With a quick look at some other facts, it can even be argued that the US military has itself provided lethal weaponry to Iraqi "insurgents" on a scale that could easily be called negligent collaboration. In August 2007, the Pentagon admitted to losing track of a whole third of the total weapons distributed to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. As a result, states Global Research, "The 190,000 assault rifles and pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today."

As his battle cry draws to an end, Mr. Kuperman suggests that "air strikes could degrade and deter Iran's bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try."

The costs and risks that Mr. Kuperman so deftly avoids addressing are the lives and livelihoods of the people of Iran. No type of "surgical" or "precision" bomb-dropping can avoid the loss the human life. A country of 70 million living, breathing, working, walking, talking, laughing, crying, dissenting, protesting, counter-protesting, praying, not praying, dreaming, wishing, hoping, loving human beings deserves far more consideration and calculation than what Mr. Kuperman provides or could ever understand.

New York politician Charles Evans Hughes, who, in the early 20th Century, served as Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, once said, "War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals."

With this in mind, let's hope there's a special cell in hell reserved for lying warmongers like William Kristol, Judith Miller, and now, Alan Kuperman.

*****

By Jeff Gates* (2nd in a series)

Be not deceived by Barack Hussein Obama's middle name or by the fact that he spent several childhood years in Indonesia. His political career is a product of a Westside Chicago Ashkenazi network with roots that trace directly back to organized crime of the 1920s.

From left to right: Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Abner Mikva

Top fundraiser Penny Pritzker traces her family lineage to grandfather Abe and great-grandfather Nicholas who served as lawyers for organized crime. She declined a nomination as Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Cabinet, a post typically offered top fundraisers. Her confirmation hearings could have proved a political embarrassment by reminding us of the suspect origins of "our" latest president.

Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva aptly described this high-profile product of the Chicago Outfit as "the first Jewish president." Plus his Vice President, only a heartbeat from the reins of power, is the reliably obsequious Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden.

For his Secretary of State, Obama appointed a presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, whose political career traces to the same source. After serving as First Lady in the presidency of Arkansas native Bill Clinton, she fled to New York to run for the U.S. Senate knowing she could not win an election-any election-in Arkansas where she is widely reviled.

By staking out extreme pro-Israeli positions, she joined New York Senator Charles Schumer as, in practical effect, the second Jewish Senator from a key electoral state long dominated by this trans-generational criminal syndicate.

The chiefs of staff for Barack and Michele Obama are both Ashkenazim from Chicago, long a center of foreign espionage. That fact was recently reconfirmed by Federal Bureau of Investigation translator Sibel Edmonds when, from FBI wiretaps, she documented the close working relationship between the Israel Lobby and U.S. officials with power over policy making in the Middle East, including Richard Perle, Wolfowitz understudy Douglas Feith and key members of Congress.

Earlier this month, a Chicago man whose father was a Pakistani diplomat was charged with involvement in planning "India's 911." In practical effect, the murder of 166 people in Mumbai, India's financial center, accelerated the destabilization of Pakistan by drawing troops out of the western provinces for redeployment along the eastern border with India. See: What is Israel's Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?

Why Outside Help Is Required

The same syndicate working to destabilize Pakistan is also destabilizing the U.S.-from the inside. That's why ordinary Americans need the assistance of Pakistanis and others outside the U.S. to restore some semblance of representative government.

The confidence with which this game theory aggression progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11 while in a principals' meeting at Camp David, a presidential retreat outside Washington, he proposed that the U.S. invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.

On that same day, San Diego FBI Special Agent Stephen Butler interrogated Iraqi Munther Ghazal at his home near San Diego to determine if he was funding Mel Rockefeller with whom Ghazal traveled to Baghdad in early 1997. After meeting for several days with Nidhal al-Hamdani, a top nuclear physicist with oversight of Iraq's mothballed nuclear weapons program, Rockefeller returned to the U.S. with a practical proposal for removing Saddam Hussein without this war and without triggering a violent and destabilizing insurgency.

When regional specialists at the U.S. Department of State declined to meet with him, he traveled to Ottawa in April 1997 where he met with Middle East specialists in the Canadian government to ensure a written record would confirm there was an alternative to war in Iraq-six years before the invasion. Instead of debriefing him, FBI agents sought to discredit him.

Though FBI agents interviewed Munther Ghazal numerous times, they have yet to meet with Mel Rockefeller. Four packages sent to the Phoenix divisional office of the FBI documenting ongoing treason and criminal stalking were returned, marked "refused."

FBI Special Agent Butler cashed checks and paid rent for the two San Diego-based hijackers who piloted planes into the World Trade Center towers. The same Iman who counseled Major Nidal Hasan (with FBI knowledge) before he was transferred to Fort Hood-where he went on a shooting spree-also counseled the San Diego-based hijackers-likewise with FBI knowledge.

As of December 18, 2009, no one from either federal law enforcement or national security had debriefed Mel Rockefeller-eight years after 9-11. Had he been engaged in good faith in early 1997 after his return from Baghdad or in early 2001 after his return from Jakarta, the facts suggest that 9-11 might well have been prevented. Good faith engagement after 9-11 could have prevented the invasion of Iraq. Instead, extraordinary steps were taken to discredit him.

When President George H.W. Bush declined to invade Baghdad to remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Pentagon Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz imposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By the time that the invasion of March 2003 began, the Israeli Mossad had more than 100 agents deployed for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were also traced to Mosul-reports that proved false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz.

In the lead-up to the invasion, Wolfowitz assured policy-makers of a swift and welcome regime-change whose $50 billion cost would be recovered from the proceeds of Iraqi oil. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has since projected the total cost will exceed $3,000 billion, all of it borrowed. That total, 60 times the original estimate, includes $700 billion in interest paid on war-related debt.

See:

A Closer Look at Israel's Role in Terrorism

Ft. Hood: "Death By Political Correctness"?

Fort Hood Tragedy: The Real Story of the Terrorist "Mad Doctor Hasan"

By Carlos Latuff

It was an historic moment: a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that was an apology for an imperialist war of occupation. More than that, it preemptively laid out the justification for U.S. imperialist wars.

Even without hearing the speech, you could measure it by the reactions it evoked. Reactionaries Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who have otherwise attacked everything President Barack Obama does and says, applauded and praised the speech, as did much of the U.S.-based corporate media. Others more skeptical of U.S. military adventures were either surprised or appalled. One common commentary in the media was that “Obama sounded like Bush,” or at least “like a better educated Bush.”

The Oslo speech provides an opportunity to step back from individuals and look at the forces that drive U.S. imperialism. The same political and repressive mechanisms remain in play whatever party has its hands on the reins and whatever president is in the White House.

The George W. Bush years tended to obscure this reality. Bush himself was always so arrogant, always so obviously a product of a lifetime of unearned privilege and always so crass and enthusiastic in his promotion of Washington’s narrow interests that anyone not looking closely might miss the fact that he and his policies had the full support of the great majority of the U.S. ruling class — until his wars started to crumble.

Vice President Dick Cheney so epitomized the evil figure behind the throne that you might ignore his central role in the capitalist establishment. The rest of the Bush gang, what were called the “neo-cons,” used whatever managerial or intellectual talents they had to plan aggressive wars and transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. They always made sure to put some in their own pockets — with an obvious attitude that they were entitled to their privileges.

Many saw the problem with the U.S. role as rooted in Bush and Company, or the Republican right, or the Republican Party, and missed the central role of the imperialist system that engendered this particular set of war criminals.

But now there is a Democratic Party administration, and a large Democratic Party majority in Congress. The president is a much more sympathetic figure. He makes intelligent speeches that show a broader world perspective. Yet the Oslo speech dissolves the differences.

U.S. foreign policy, U.S. aggressive war policy, as explained in Oslo, remains the same: the U.S. will invade where it wants to. To Washington, the opponents of the U.S. are “evil,” while U.S. interests are “good.” In Washington’s ideological model, the Taliban and whatever al-Qaida forces remain in Afghanistan — 100 according to U.S. intelligence — take the place of Saddam Hussein and “weapons of mass destruction.” A slightly new set of lies will be used to justify war in Afghanistan, war on Pakistan, and whatever other war is seen as useful to U.S. banks and industry or strategic position.

Behind this policy is the crisis of capitalism worldwide, the U.S. drive to continually expand its access to raw materials, especially energy resources, its access to markets and new areas of investment, the competition with imperialist rivals in Europe and Japan, the growing contradictions and anticipated conflicts with Russia and China. These make U.S. military aggression almost inevitable.

The Pentagon designed Washington’s policy for Iraq and now for Afghanistan. Driven by that same impulse to expand — while the capitalist economy is contracting — the ruling class here has reached a consensus behind that aggressive strategy. Regarding the Afghanistan escalation and the Oslo speech, this is apparent from the broad support from the corporate media, including not only the militarist hacks at Fox News but the capitalist mainstream semi-official media like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

The Democratic Party goes along with this — whatever the tactical misgivings of Vice President Joe Biden or the opposition of a senator or two. And whether the president is enthusiastic, neutral or reluctant hardly seems to matter. The Oslo speech shows that he accepts the role of the U.S. president — chief executive for U.S. imperialism — and will argue its case.

No matter how dangerous the war, how high the suffering of the occupied population or the sacrifices of U.S. workers and youth, neither the generals, the class they serve nor the two capitalist political parties will accept defeat and withdrawal. That is, unless there is a resistance army fighting them blow for blow in the occupied country and a powerful workers’ movement challenging them at home.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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http://www.workers.org/2009/editorials/oslo_and_empire_1224/

Is this the best the world can deliver?

A hypocrite who unsuccessfully tries to justify war and aggression on the starved and brutalized people of Iraq and Afghanistan? 

In a silent America, Obama is unchallenged and does all he can to strengthen U.S. ties with Israel (as the rest of the world contemplates boycotts of various kinds to deter Israel from committing more crimes).  A year into his presidency, not only are the wars against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan going strong, but Obama is sending 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan.

The American brand of "peace" has surely made a mockery of the word. No one in the Middle East is foolish enough to believe, for a second, that America wants "peace" when all that America, and her handsome new president, does is to reinforce its devastating military presence in countries where they are not welcomed. 

An Iraqi mother who lost every child she had (4 boys) as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003 said: "don't utter that word, it has brought us nothing but death and destruction". 

She was referring to the word "peace". 

No doubt Palestinian, Lebanese, and Afghan mothers have similar sentiments about this peculiar word that is on the lips of every invading army and colonialist power.  But those who live under the brutal occupations of the U.S. and Israel, or those of us still unoccupied (Iranians, Pakistanis, etc) still suffer the political and economic brutality of this "world order" in the form of unemployment  and political repression.  For us, the word "peace", as spoken by Americans, is void of credibility.  

In the Middle East, everyone knows that the U.S. has been involved in covert actions to destabilize the area and control the political arena for decades.  In Iran, the 1953 CIA coup d'état has been well documented and disseminated, but still many in the U.S. do not know that the hated dictator of Iraq (Saddam Hussein) was in fact a trained U.S. puppet until he fell out of favor with the State Department.  

Even fewer Americans know that the U.S. has been nurturing the most genocidal militias, people who destroyed the nation, from the 1970's until this decade.  Colonialist campaigns to dominate the local population, and to install puppet governments to serve the interests of the West, is a familiar scenario for all who live the reality of life in the Middle East.  Even in Iran, which has never been militarily occupied, thanks to the resistance of its neighbors to invasions and occupations, the society has continuously been suffering under U.S. covert actions to destabilize the civil society and to stifle democratic development (i.e., the U.S.-instigated war with Iraq and the fueling of this war for 8 years, and constant economic pressure in the form of  sanctions). 

Mainstream media constantly warns Americans about the wrath that may come to them from  their victims.  If you ask me, what really "threatens" American is its indifference, as it devastates humanity.   

Think about it. Overall, 300,000 American soldiers and private security personnel (heavily subsidized by U.S. government) rampage through every street in Iraq, and no clear statistics are available on how many armed Americans roam the streets of Afghanistan.  Life's necessities (electricity and clean water among other things) are often lacking, and deadly bombings kill the occupied population almost daily.  

The common denominator to all this is the American military and private security presence.  

With no serious "anti-war" movement in sight, in America, what most Americans contemplate is not the miserable reality they have created for people under U.S. occupation; Americans wonder why Iraqis and Afghans are so "ungrateful"! 

"Before stabbing your neighbor with a knife, stick a needle in your OWN arm", says the old Iranian proverb.  Would YOU be grateful to an invading force whose presence has meant massive violence and wholesale robbing of your resources? 

If Obama is given ten more prizes for his "peace" efforts, it would make no difference to those who can clearly see he is just a more attractive invader than Bush Jr. ever was.  Unfortunately, the liberal "peace-loving" America seems to be OK with that brand of world war.  Obama is the commander-in-chief of invading armies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his record shows that he has no intention of ending American colonial wars.  Believe him when he says it, and shows it. 

This being the case, local resistance to unjust wars and corrupt U.S.-installed governments, that only function to siphon oil and other resources to Western companies, will continue unless Americans see through the constant smokescreen and realize that complacency and disinterest, regarding the people they help to subjugate, is literally threatening survival of our species.
_______________________________________

Dr. Savabieasfahani , a native of Iran, is an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA). Her new book is Pollution and reproductive damage: pollution induced cell-death and reproductive damage in fish and mammals published by DVM publishers (Germany). She has published on effects of plasticizers and pesticides on female reproductive cycle. Pollution caused by wars and invasions in the Middle East has turned her attention to the effects of war pollutants on public health, in areas now experiencing environmental crisis.

Source: http://www.annarbor.com/community/news/opinion/the_peace_prize_goes_to_the_commander-in-chief_of_invading_armies_in_afghanistan_and_iraq/