Israel, Big Money and Obama
By MARGARET KIMBERLEY | August 18, 2010
“Barack Obama has established a strong record as a true friend of Israel, a stalwart defender of Israel’s security, and an effective advocate of strengthening the steadfast U.S.-Israel relationship, publicly stating that Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state should never be challenged.”
– Lester Crown
Lester Crown is a Chicagoan with a net worth of four billion dollars. He owns a large stake in and is a former president and board chairman of defense contractor General Dynamics. He also has held large holdings in Hilton Hotels, Maytag (now Whirlpool), and the Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees.
Crown was an early supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy first for the U.S. Senate, and then for president. He is one of the first and one of his most prodigious fundraisers. As the Obama presidential campaign website says, the candidate “… systematically built a sophisticated, and in many ways quite conventional, money machine.” The Crowns were an integral part of that machinery. One of Lester Crown’s children, James Crown, personally bundled $500,000 in campaign contributions for Obama and served as chairman of the Illinois fund raising effort. Lester Crown and his wife Renee hosted a fundraiser for Obama in 2007 at their home. The event invitation made it clear; their support for Obama was due to his support of Israel, its “right to exist“ and his willingness to strike militarily against Iran.
Every American president has wealthy individuals and families dedicated to getting them elected. The reliance of candidates for public office on the largesse of the rich may be common and expected, but it is nonetheless extremely dangerous. This corruption insures access for the rich, which guarantees that their interests are at the top of any president’s agenda, usually at the expense of what is good for everyone else.
For Lester Crown the top issue on his agenda is Israel. As he has said himself, “While my involvement in politics is motivated by a variety of issues, there is one issue that is fundamental: My deep commitment to Israel and to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship that strengthens both Israel’s security and its efforts to seek peace.”
According to a recently published article in The Atlantic, Israeli general Amos Yadlin traveled to Chicago in an effort to enlist Crown’s help in convincing the administration to attack Iran. White House visitor logs show that Crown did in fact visit the White House in April of this year to meet with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applied “hidden pressure” on Obama which came “from Chicago.”
When asked about this report, Crown denied only that Yadlin traveled to Chicago. He confirmed that the two spoke and were in agreement about wanting the United States to attack Iran. “ ‘I support the president,” Crown said. ‘But I wish [administration officials] were a little more outgoing in the way they have talked. I would feel more comfortable if I knew that they had the will to use military force, as a last resort. You cannot threaten someone as a bluff. There has to be a will to do it.’ ”
Lester Crown’s opinions are not like anyone else’s two cents. He is a defense contractor, meaning he has a personal interest in maintaining the state of permanent war for the United States. He is also a very wealthy man who worked hard to get Barack Obama elected. Crown’s October 1, 2007 fundraiser was directed primarily at Jewish contributors who may have been insufficiently convinced of Obama‘s support for maintaining the status quo in America‘s relations with Israel. The event invitation read in part, “The purpose of the evening is to show Barack how appreciative we are of his steadfast, honest and proud support of Israel.”
Those are the words out of Crown’s own mouth. No one should be squeamish about questioning his actions and his motives and the very fact that a private citizen conducts foreign policy in secret. Lester Crown was not elected to any office, he was not appointed to pursue foreign policy on behalf of the government, he hasn‘t been confirmed by the United States Senate. If congress had even a small amount of courage, Crown would be subpoenaed to testify about his communications with Yadlin and with the president and his advisors.
The story of a presidential campaign contributor’s contacts with a general of a foreign nation’s military ought to be front page news. Sadly, that lack of coverage is not surprising. The corporate controlled media would reveal too much about themselves if they told us the truth about the little bit of democracy we have left. No one becomes a serious presidential contender without first passing muster with the Lester Crowns of the world. All of which means that American style democracy is little more than a sham. Iowans and New Hampshirites don’t determine who will be president. The Crowns and their ilk are the ones who get to choose before anyone pulls a lever in a voting booth.
The story of Lester Crown’s foray into foreign policy will not make headlines as it should. Congress will not question him under oath. Only individuals who are interested enough and savvy enough will know a little of the tale of how a nation’s people gave up their rights so the rich might have their way. The issue at hand for Lester Crown is Israel, but the CEOs and board chairmen of other industries hold sway in their spheres as much as Lester Crown does in his.
There will always be people of great wealth who influence what happens to people in the rest of world. Today Israel, tomorrow big pharma, and big oil the day after that. BP poisons the Gulf of Mexico with impunity and Lester Crown wants to commit a crime of his own. The only crime worse than an attack on Iran is acquiescence in the face of corporate control of our lives.
Margaret Kimberley is a columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
Father Charged With ‘Resisting Arrest’ Despite Video Evidence Disproving Charge
IMEMC | August 19, 2010
A man whose arrest was filmed and spread on Youtube, showing his child begging soldiers to leave his father, has been sentenced by an Israeli court to three months and a fine.
The video shows Fadil al-Jabari’s four-year old son tugging on his father’s shirt and begging the soldiers not to take his daddy away. The footage is emotional and difficult to watch, as the child cries and repeatedly calls to his ‘papa’. The soldiers push the boy away and leave him on the side of the road alone as they take his father away in a military jeep.
Al-Jabari was charged with resisting arrest and striking an officer. Both of these charges are easily disproven by the video of the incident, but the video evidence was not allowed to be shown in court.
Apparently, the man was in a ‘restricted area’, trying to get clean water from a well that used to be Palestinian, but was seized by the Israeli military. Israeli authorities severely restrict access to water for the Palestinian population in the West Bank, cutting off water completely for 15 – 20 days at a time, even while Israeli settlements are able to water their lawns and swim in swimming pools.
According to local news agency Ma’an News, which interviewed Fadil al-Jabari’s mother, her 4-year old grandson has been severely traumatized by the incident, and repeatedly calls for his father. He has never had a history of behavioral problems, she said, but now, after watching the soldiers take his dad away, he has become agitated, and begun hitting his younger sister.
Palestinians say such abductions by Israeli troops are common, even leaving small children on the road without an adult, as the Israeli soldiers assume that some Palestinian will come along and help the child after the soldiers take their parent away. Israeli troops make no provisions whatsoever for the children of those whom they abduct.
Armed settler threatens farmers
Ma’an – 19/08/2010
NABLUS — An armed settler accompanied by settlement security guards prevented Palestinian farmers and peace activists from irrigating their land near Nablus on Thursday morning, witnesses said.
A resident of the illegal Itamar settlement, carrying a rifle and traveling in an armored vehicle with guards, approached farmers en route to water their recently planted olive trees. Witnesses said the settler threatened to shoot the farmers, from Awarta village, if they did not leave the area.
Israeli forces arrived and reiterated the settler’s orders, giving the farmers five minutes to evacuate the area, locals added.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said an armed security guard working at Itamar noticed a group of around 30 gathered near the settlement and notified the Israeli army, before approaching the group himself. Soldiers arrived and inspected the group’s documents, and permitted some farmers to work their land, she added. The spokeswoman was not aware of the presence of an armed settler.
Awarta Hassan Awad, head of Awarta village council, said that villagers will continue to work on their land every Thursday to protest the expansion of illegal settlements on their land.
Dark days in Al Buwayra: a week of settler attacks
August 19, 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
Al Buwayra is a small village located on the outskirts of Hebron, with about 560 inhabitants. Most people are farmers, growing grapes and vegetables to support themselves. The situation in the village is critical, and villagers are repeatedly being attacked by settlers from the illegal Kyriat Arba and Harzina settlements which surround the village as well as several illegal outposts.
The road into the village is blocked by a gate and an earth mound set up by the Israeli army, forcing the villagers to either climb or drive a long way in order to reach their homes. Since the Israeli army began demolishing two of the five illegal outposts around Buwayra, settlers have carried out several attacks both on the villagers, their farmland and their animals. Daily life is a struggle with good reason to be constantly afraid. The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in close cooperation with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), has been going to Buwayra almost every day over the last 3 weeks, when the army removed the first illegal outpost and the settlers started to attack the Palestinians in response.
Thursday 5 August
Death threats towards two internationals, attack on Susan Sultan.
Early Thursday morning, around 6.30, soldiers from the Israeli army came to remove an illegal outpost near a settlement. ISM and CPT sent people there straight away to make sure the soldiers and settlers didn’t harass Palestinians. The settlers were really angry and the villagers feared that the settlers would retaliate against the Palestinians. The settlers set fire to a small piece of Palestinian farmland but luckily the Palestinians themselves were able to put out the fire. There were internationals present almost the whole day. Two internationals, one from Denmark and the other from England, received two death threats from settlers because of their presence in the area. The outpost was removed and the soldiers tried to block the way to the outpost but after the soldiers left the settlers started clearing the road and rebuilding the outpost.
Friday 6 August
Two internationals attacked. Three Palestinians arrested at night, while trying to defend a family from settler attack.
ISM sent two people to replace the people from CPT that had spent the night in Al Buwayra. The situation up until 12.00 was quiet
At 12.00 the two internationals were sitting in the shade under a tree when three masked soldiers appeared out of nowhere and attacked. They carried wooden and metal clubs. The internationals were severely beaten. After the attack, which lasted only 2 minutes, the settlers ran towards the outpost. Family members from the Sultani house helped the internationals to stop the bleeding and protected them from further attacks. They were taken to Al Khalil hospital and one needed surgery on a broken nose and is still recovering from his injuries.
That night 100 settlers threw stones at the Sultans house because the Sultans helped the two internationals that had been attacked. When soldiers arrive most of the settlers leave the crime scene but one settler stays back to tell the soldiers that it’s the Palestinians that have been attacking the settlers and not the other way around. Three Palestinians were arrested at night while they were trying to defend and protect the Sultan house from the settler attack. It is known that two of them have been released.
Saturday 7 August
Closed Military Zone. Settlers set fire to grape vines.
Early on Saturday morning six people from ISM went to Al Buwayra. At first things seemed calm but after a while, when sitting close to the outpost, activists were approached by soldiers who said the area was a closed military zone and that the internationals had to leave. They moved a little away.
At night the settlers set fire to a field of Palestinian grapevines and a fire truck was called. However, the Palestinians ended up putting out the fire themselves.
Sunday 8 August
In the morning internationals tried to go into Al Buwayra but were refused access by the soldiers saying once again that the village was a closed military zone and that the internationals could not go and visit families and take pictures of the damage caused by the settler attacks.
Later three internationals, one from CPT and two from ISM, go by car and enter the village. The border police spotted the internationals quickly but after a talk with the commander the internationals and the Palestinian driving the car were allowed to go and visit one family for half an hour. The family spoke about what it is like to live in constant danger and fear of the settlers. From the family house settlers could be seen walking in the hills close to the outpost.
Monday 9 August
On Monday internationals made it in to Al Buwayra. By taking the back way the internationals avoided being seen by the border police and were able to go and speak to different families. The internationals saw settlers walking around the outpost but overall things seemed to be calm. But the villagers live in constant fear. They have trouble sleeping because they never know when to expect a settler attack. They are really worried about the future and when things are quiet for a few days they know that this is only a brief respite before a new settler attack.
LATE VICTORIAN HOLOCAUSTS BY MIKE DAVIS
BOOK REVIEW
Critics of globalization point out with some justice that poor people around the world suffer far more than the citizens of industrialized nations during downturns in the global economy. Peasants in developing countries can find their lives hanging in the balance during a rise in food prices or a decline in the global market value of the goods they produce. Never was this more true than during the hey-day of the European imperialism in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Aggressive trade practices and the ruthless use of military force effectively subdued nations in Asia, Africa, and South America and brought these countries into a global trade system. By the 1870s, and certainly by the turn of the century, many European countries, above all Great Britain, had created the world’s first global market economy. Financial markets in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and elsewhere were linked by telegraph to places where raw materials were produced for European consumption, while established trade routes were patrolled by European navies (particularly the Royal Navy). The economic power of the extensive British Empire was unparalleled and the inner workings of the global system dominated by London determined the fate of innumerable people around the world.
It is with the workings of the British economic system and their impact on indigenous populations in India, China, and elsewhere that Mike Davis’ book Late Victorian Holocausts is concerned. Davis’ point of departure is a simple question. Why is it that widespread hunger in Western Europe disappeared in the nineteenth century while famine and disease raged throughout multiple places in what today we would call the “Third World”? Davis provides a simple answer: European imperialism (especially British imperialism) created a global economic system through which the food and wealth of conquered nations (i.e. colonies) was siphoned off for the benefit of wealthy and powerful Europeans, while those in the colonies were left to starve and die. The result was mass death (what Davis calls “holocausts”) on an unprecedented scale in India, China, Brazil and other places, that was most intense during the El Niño drought years of 1876-77 and 1888-1902.
This imperial global economic system was certainly not a “free” market in any sense of the word. It was in fact bolstered by a long series of tariffs and unfavorable trade relationships that were forced by Europeans upon the peoples they conquered. Colonies were in turn subjected to economic pressure dictated by and manipulated from financial centers in Western Europe. It was these economic forces, as well as brutal gunboat diplomacy, that Davis argues created the Third World as we know it today.
THE “FREE MARKET” AS A MECHANISM OF MASS MURDER
Davis’ primary focus in fleshing out his story is the crown jewel of Britain’s colonial empire: India. Drought was the precipitating cause of the hardship faced by the Indian people. However, Davis demonstrates with statistics and anecdotes that it was the unregulated “free market” system imposed on India by Britain that led to the deaths of tens of millions in the mid-1870s and late 1880s.
How did death and human suffering on such a massive scale happen? Following the English conquest of India in the early nineteenth century, economic relationships in the sub-continent underwent revolutionary changes. Thousands of miles of railroad track were laid. Telegraph wire was strung between outlying areas and the capitol city of Bombay (Mumbai today). Central grain collection depots were created and Indian grain was exported in massive quantities to the British Isles. Also, Indian subsistence farmers were gradually forced out in favor of large land enclosures. Within these new enclosures cash crops like cotton were planted, which supplied the textile mills of Lancashire, but which could not feed the Indian peasants who farmed the land. Finally, the tax burden upon the Indian peasantry was increased exorbitantly to pay for these “improvements”. British authorities needed the revenue to finance war in neighboring Afghanistan.
The innovations imposed by the British on India re-directed the trajectory of Indian commerce and especially food production toward Great Britain and away from the local village markets where the food was needed. Rail lines and the adjacent grain depots enabled British authorities to stockpile grain and keep it under guard away from the people who needed it most, while telegraph lines dictated the price of grain on world commodities markets to local producers. When grain prices rose across the board in global trading, peasants could not afford to buy food.
In the face of these crippling economic forces, British colonial authorities did nothing, primarily because they would not “tamper” with the operation of the liberal “free” market that Britain had created. The Viceroy of India during the famine years of the 1870s was Lord Lytton, a mentally unbalanced English noble. Davis recounts that in the midst of widespread famine and the deaths of millions all around him, Lytton maintained a strict laissez-faire attitude toward famine relief. As Lytton wrote at the time, “there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of the Government with the object of reducing the price of food,” a policy proposal Lytton termed “humanitarian hysterics” and “cheap sentiment”. (p. 31)
Lytton and his fellow administrators preferred instead to blame the “laziness” of famine victims themselves for causing their own dire fate. Citing Lord Temple, “Nor will; many be inclined to grieve much for the fate which they brought upon themselves, and which terminated lives of idleness and too often of crime”. (p. 41) The task of saving life, therefore, was “beyond our power to undertake,” claimed Temple and Lytton, and it was “a mistake to spend so much money to save a lot of black fellows”. (p. 37)
British officials were thus completely unwilling to intervene in the operation of the “free” market despite seeing death on a massive scale all around them. Overall at least 7.1 million people, and perhaps as many as 10.3 million people, died during the famine years of 1876-1878. (p. 111) Furthermore, despite death on this scale and falling production caused by drought, British officials in India still managed to export 6.4 million cwt. of wheat to Great Britain. (p. 31)
LIFE AND DEATH FOLLOWS THE MARKET CYCLE
The years following 1879 were a time when the world market continued to expand. Monsoonal rains settled back into a normal pattern and grain production around the world rose considerably. These were also years when Britain and other colonial powers expanded their reach into the interior of the subjugated countries they held. In India, even more land is brought under cultivation. These lands are then connected to the market by expanded telegraph and rail lines. Then in 1888-89 and 1891-92, the bottom again fell out of the system as El Niño drought gripped the temperate regions of Asia once more.
The resulting death from famine and disease, caused by the very same factors operating in India and elsewhere in the 1870s, was unfathomably huge. By 1902 in India alone between 12.2 and 29.3 million people perished. In China, where the British, Americans, and other European powers controlled practically all trade using military force, between 19.5 and 30 million people died. In Brazil another 2 million perished over the same time span. (p. 7).
THE “FREE” MARKET AND THE MAKING OF THE THIRD WORLD
Mike Davis demonstrates beyond a doubt that the economic structure of exploitative globalization is not a new phenomenon in the world. The lives of millions of people who formerly had survived in localized economies based on subsistence farming were wiped out “in the process of being forcibly incorporated” into the modern world system. (p. 9) Davis reminds us that markets are never free and they never operate according to “iron laws” of economics. Rather, markets are created and often the power underpinning their operation is fiscal manipulation and simple brute force.
Great Britain’s global imperial economy was a case in point. It was never a “free” market. England imposed unfavorable trade terms and high tariff walls on India, China and on all of the other countries in its empire. Local economies forced open by the British were sucked dry of their vital raw materials and in return peasants were forced to buy expensive British manufactured goods. This practice was put into place throughout the colonial world by France, Portugal, Spain, Germany and other colonial powers. If anything, the economies of European colonies were more captive markets than free markets.
The latter point is perhaps the most important conclusion of Late Victorian Holocausts; specifically, that what we call the Third World today was a product of European and, to a lesser extent, American economic exploitation. The incorporation of formerly powerful countries like China and India into the global economy by Great Britain and others effectively destroyed indigenous production. Contrary to conventional wisdom, until around 1850, India and China had actually held their own against Europeans when it came to industrial production. The localized production of wealth and industry, however, was halted and then reversed by the imposition of the global economic system. It is for this reason, Davis concludes, that India’s per capita income did not increase between 1757 and 1947; and in fact declined by more than 50% between 1850 and 1900. (p. 311).
Israel & The Anti-Muslim Blow-Up
August 18, 2010 — MJ Rosenberg
I don’t know why I am at all surprised that the American Right — including the Republican Party — has decided that scapegoating Muslims is the ticket to success. After all, it’s nothing new.
I remember right after 9/11 when the columnist Charles Krauthammer, now one of the most vocal anti-Muslim demagogues, almost literally flipped out in my Chevy Chase, Maryland synagogue when the rabbi said something about the importance of not associating the terrorist attacks with Muslims in general.
It was on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, but that did not stop Krauthammer from bellowing out his disagreement with the rabbi. Krauthammer’s point: Israel and America are at war with Muslims and that war must be won.
It was shocking, not only because Krauthammer’s outburst was so utterly out of place but also because the man was actually chastising the rabbi for not spouting hate against all Muslims — on the Day of Atonement.
The following year, the visiting rabbi from Israel gave a sermon about the intifada that was then raging in Israel and the West Bank.
The sermon was a nutty affair that tearfully made the transition from intifada to Holocaust and back again. I remember thinking, “this guy is actually blaming the Palestinians for the suffering of his parents during the Holocaust.” I thought I had missed something because it was so ridiculous.
Then came the sermon’s ending which was unforgettable. The rabbi concluded with the words from Ecclesiastes. “To everything there is a season. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance….”
He then looked up and said: “Now is the time to hate.”
At first, I thought I had not heard him correctly. He could not be calling on the congregation to hate. There were dozens of children in the room. It wasn’t possible.
But it was. To their credit, many of the congregants I spoke with as we left the sanctuary were appalled. Even the right-wingers were uncomfortable with endorsing hate as a virtue. Yet, the rabbi was unrepentant. I emailed him to complain and he told me that he said what he believed. Nice.
One could ask what the Middle East has to do with the vicious outbreak of Islamophobia (actually Islamo-hatred) that has seemingly seized segments of this country.
The answer is everything. Although the hate is directed at Arab-Americans (which makes it worse) it is justified by invoking [the mass media/official narrative of] 9/11, an attack [supposedly carried out] by Muslims from the Middle East.
This hate is buttressed by the hatred of Muslims and Arabs that has been routinely uttered (or shouted from the rooftops) in the name of defending Israel for decades Just watch what goes on in Congress, where liberals from New York, Florida, California and elsewhere never miss an opportunity to explain that no matter what Israel does, it is right, and no matter what Muslims do, they are wrong.
Can anyone possibly argue that such insidious rhetoric has no impact on public opinion? At the very least, it gives anti-Arab and/or anti-Muslim bias a legitimacy that other forms of hate no longer have. Bigots who hate African-Americans or Jews, for instance, feel that they must claim that they don’t. That is not the case with Muslims who can be despised with impunity.
And here the liberals are worse than the conservatives because liberals exempt Muslims and Arabs (and now Turks) from the humanitarian instincts that inform their views of all other groups. Conservatives combine their Arab-bashing with a general xenophobia…
Liberals, on the other hand, single out Muslims for contempt. They do it actively — i.e., by defending every single Israeli action against Arabs with vehement enthusiasm. And they do it passively, by refusing to evince an iota of sympathy for Muslims who suffer and die at the hands of Israelis — like the 432 Palestinian children killed in the 2008 Gaza war.
Liberals join conservatives in rushing to the floor of the House and Senate to defend the Israelis against any accusation (remember how they robotically attacked the Goldstone report on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, not caring at about the horrors Goldstone described). And then they read their AIPAC talking points, enumerating all the terrible things Arabs have done while Israel has, Gandhi-like, consistently offered the hand of friendship. It would be laughable if the effect of all this was not so ugly.
Why wouldn’t all this hatred affect the perception of Arab-Americans too? Hate invariably overflows its containers, just like hatred of Israel sometimes crosses over into pure old-fashioned anti-Semitism.
Bottom line: it’s a witches’ brew that is being stirred up, and it is one that will no doubt produce violence. But the witches are not all on the right. Just as many liberals are stirring the pot to please some of their donors.
I’m not saying you should not blame Beck and Limbaugh for all this hate. But don’t forget to blame your favorite liberal and progressive politicians. With a few (very few) exceptions, they are just as bad.
India employing Israeli oppression tactics in Kashmir
Jimmy Johnson, The Electronic Intifada, 19 August 2010
The 2010 summer in the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir, administered by India, has been marked by popular protests by Kashmiris and crackdowns by India’s military. The stream of violence has left more than fifty dead, mostly young protestors. The situation in Kashmir has some parallels with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even borrowing the term intifada to describe the uprising. But the connection is more than analogy — Israel’s pacification efforts against Palestinians have proven valuable for the Indian police, army and intelligence services in their campaigns to pacify Jammu and Kashmir with numerous Indian military and security imports from Israel leading the way.
India and Israel had a limited relationship prior to 1992. India, as a prominent member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), had helped to form the NAM political positions on Palestine as part of the “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism and all forms of expansionism, foreign occupation and domination and hegemony” (1979, Havana Declaration). Beyond its anti-colonial and Third World solidarity politics, India also had realpolitik reasons for keeping a distance from Israel. The nation had a developing economy with a huge need for petroleum resources, of which it had no domestic source. Good relations with the Arab League and the Soviet Union helped to secure access to resources necessary for India to become the regional and global economic power it aspires to be.
With the beginning of the Oslo negotiations process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s and the end of the Cold War, India was free to pursue relations with Israel from a NAM standpoint. An end to the Israeli occupation was assumed a formality under Oslo by most international observers, especially early on — and had, by that time, gained the economic strength to pursue a policy taking it, as described in a US Army War College (USAWC) analysis, “from a position of nonalignment and noncommitment to having specific strategic interests taking it on a path of ‘poly-alignment.'” The report states that India has been in a “scramble to establish ‘strategic relationships’ with most of the major powers and many of the middle powers,” including Israel.
Israel rendered limited military assistance to India in its 1962 war with China and the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. It was not until after the Oslo process began though, that the limited military contacts developed into a fuller strategic relationship. According to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in 1994 “India requested equipment to guard the de facto Indo-Pakistan Kashmiri border. New Delhi was interested in Israeli fences, which use electronic sensors to track human movements” (Thomas Withington, “Israel and India partner up,” January/February 2001, pp.18-19). The remaining years of the decade were peppered with arms sales from Jerusalem to New Delhi, most notably unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare systems.
The strategic military relationship picked up even more steam in the new millennium and annual arms sales average in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The shift of Israel being a major defense supplier to a strategic partner was formalized in a September 2003 state visit by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to India where the Hindu nationalist government then in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party led by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, hosted the Israeli delegation and coauthored the Delhi Statement on Friendship and Cooperation between India and Israel. The statement’s longest segment is on terrorism. It declares that “Israel and India are partners in the battle against this scourge” and that “there cannot be any compromise in the war against terrorism.” The relationship has expanded drastically since 2000 with, in some recent years, Israel even supplanting Russia as India’s largest arms supplier. Surface-to-air missile systems, naval craft, advanced radar systems and other remote sensing technologies, artillery systems and numerous joint production initiatives ranging from munitions to avionics systems have all further boosted the relationship.
But as the Kashmiri uprising enters its third decade, the most telling part of the relationship is the export of Israeli pacification efforts against Palestinians to India, and their use in Jammu and Kashmir (and elsewhere as India faces multiple popular revolts). Israel has trained thousands of Indian military personnel in counterinsurgency since 2003. According to a 2003 JINSA analysis, “Presumably to equip these soldiers, India recently concluded a $30 million agreement with Israel Military Industries (IMI) for 3,400 Tavor assault rifles, 200 Galil sniper rifles, as well as night vision and laser range finding and targeting equipment.”
In 2004, the Israeli intelligence agencies Mossad and General Security Services (Shin Bet) arrived in India “to conduct the first field security surveillance course for Indian Army Intelligence Corps sleuths.” The Globes article on the topic cites an Indian source stating “The course has been designed to look at methods of intelligence gathering in insurgency affected areas, in keeping with the challenges that Israel has faced.” The further acquisition of UAVs, their joint production and the acquisition of other surveillance systems, notably 2010 agreements for both spy satellites and satellite communications systems, have all helped to further India’s pacification campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir. A notable example of how deeply embedded in India the Israeli counterinsurgency and homeland security industries are is the May 2010 agreement whereby Ra’anana-based Nice Systems will provide security systems and a command and control center for India’s parliament. Parliament security head Sandeep Salunke noted the context for the $5 million contract being “In light of the recent increase in global terrorism” (Nice Systems press release, 25 May 2010).
India’s political trend towards poly-alignment whereby it can have both strategic energy agreements with Iran and strategic defense agreements with Israel is part of a broader strategy the USAWC report noted by which “India will fiercely protect its own internal and bilateral issues from becoming part of the international dialog (Kashmir being the most obvious example).” This hostility towards international engagement with its occupation is not the only resemblance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both were born out the the end of the British colonialism, both are seen as front lines of the “War on Terror,” both the Kashmiri and Palestinian armed groups are erroneously seen as illegitimate in their own right, being mere tools of a foreign aggressor (Pakistan for Kashmir and Iran or Syria for Palestine), both have widespread abuses of human rights, and the Israeli public’s general apathy about or hostility towards Palestinian self-determination is surpassed by the domestic discussion in India, where Kashmiri self-determination isn’t even an issue, though pacifying Kashmir and securing the border with Pakistan is.
The analogy between the two conflicts can only be taken so far, but the direct connection by which Israel’s pacification industry exports tools of control developed for use against the Palestinians (and Lebanese) to be deployed against Kashmiris (as well as against the Naxalites and others in India) shows a deep linkage between the two conflicts and how one feeds the other. So long as Israel seeks to maintain control over Palestine it will continue to develop pacification tools, and so long as India continues its campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiris can expect to taste the fruits of Palestinian pacification.
Jimmy Johnson is a Detroit-based mechanic and an organizer with the Palestine Cultural Office in Dearborn. He can be reached at johnson [dot] jimmy [at] gmail [dot] com.
American Professor Charges Israel with Genocide — Publisher Censors Title!
By Kevin Barrett | August 18, 2010
William A. Cook, professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California, has charged the state of Israel with genocide — but his publisher won’t let him use the G word in the title of his new book!
Discussing the brand-new The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction on the Kevin Barrett show yesterday, Dr. Cook said that the publishers, Palgrave-McMillan, told him: “‘We can’t use the original title As the World Watches: Genocide in Palestine.'” Dr. Cook added that the book’s contents, which provide ample proof that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, were not censored.
I asked Dr. Cook: “There does seem to be a taboo against calling what is being done to the Palestinians genocide. And yet, according to the internationally-accepted definition of genocide… as I recall, there is a strong argument that it does fit what’s happening in Palestine.”
Dr Cook responded:
“The book deals with that point quite extensively in at least three different places (including my article). The Christisons‘ article deals with it as well. In the article that I wrote, ‘The Rape of Palestine’… I refer to the 1944 genocide term, which was a neologism created by Raphael Lemkin in The Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn summarized Lemkin’s meaning. And let me read that paragraph because I think it’s essential to grasp the fulness of the intent the UN grappled with and passed in its accepted definition of genocide.
Under Lemkin’s definition genocide was ‘the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group.’ That’s group, it is not state. Lemkin conceived of genocide as ‘a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction.’ That’s a quote. His definition included ‘attacks on political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of the group.’
Even non-lethal acts that undermined the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of the group constituted genocide, if they contributed to weakening the viability of the group. Under Lemkin’s definition, acts of ethnocide, a term coined by the French after the war to cover the destruction of a culture without the killing of its bearers, also qualified as genocide.
You take that composite understanding, and everything looking back from today — the siege on Gaza, going back to the various intentional destructions and massacres in Janin or Rafa, Ramallah, you realize that what’s taking place, including the building of the wall, which makes the independent economic condition of the Palestinian people impossible — that is genocide.”
Listen to my interview with Dr. William Cook.
The quoted segment begins about 14:40.
Disney tells Muslim woman to work out back where she won’t be seen
By Josh Cain | OC Weekly | August 18 2010
As we reported earlier, a Muslim woman who works as a hostess in the Grand Californian Hotel at the Disneyland Resort was not allowed to come to work today because she was wearing her hijab, a traditional Islamic headscarf.
This was the fourth time that the woman, 26-year-old Anaheim resident Imane Boudlal, attempted to work in the headscarf. Each time, she’s been told to remove the scarf or leave.
This time, however, she showed up with some back up.
Boudlal as she attempted to go to work for the fourth time.
Boudlal was accompanied by representatives of Unite Here Local 11, a union representing hotel workers involved in a contract dispute with Disney, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the rights group whose state office is in Anaheim.
She and her support team insisted that Disney did not allow her to work because of discriminatory policies against Muslims.
However, theme park officials insisted in a press release that Disney offered Boudlal “reasonable accommodations” on her request to wear the headscarf.
Boudlal said those accommodations would have forced her to work in the back of the hotel, where she wouldn’t be seen, rather than greeting guests in her job as a hostess.
“Why should I have to hide?” Boudlal asked at a press conference conveniently Unite Here and CAIR organized at the intersection of Disney Way and the driveway leading to the Grand Californian.
“I’m not here to scare anyone,” she continued. She explained that she had requested that she be allowed to wear the headscarf in a written letter to her Disney employers. When she didn’t hear back for two months, she went to work anyway in early August.
Boudlal said when she went to work wearing the hijab, her manager told her early that day she could wear the headscarf, but she was later escorted from the hotel by security.
She said she understood that the headscarf didn’t comply with the “Disney look,” but she felt she was being discriminated against because other workers were allowed to wear symbols of Christian faith, tattoos and other symbols that didn’t comply with the rules.
Basically, things don’t look very good for Disney from a public relations standpoint. It doesn’t help that Boudlal’s supporters, Unite Here, have made it known they don’t like the way Goofy and Co. do business.
Neither does CAIR, apparently. Ameena Qazi, deputy executive director and staff attorney for the group, seemed downright hostile to Disney when she stood up to speak at the press conference.
“Disney is positioning itself as a company that discriminates,” Qazi said. “I suggest [Disney] take a ride on ‘It’s A Small World,’ a ride that celebrates diversity.”
Illegal Israeli PR in America: Declassified
By Grant Smith | Pulse Media | August 18, 2010
A huge trove of newly declassified documents subpoenaed during a 1962-1964 Senate investigation reveals how Israel’s lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed in America’s top news magazines with overseas funding. The Atlantic (and many others others) received hefty rewards for trumpeting Israel’s most vital – but damaging – PR initiatives across America.
The relevant documents are now online
Media strategies on display include:
Cover-ups: “The [Dimona] nuclear reactor story inspired comment from many sources; editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists. Most of the press seemed finally to accept the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs.”
Payola: “The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country. We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories… Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who’s Who in America…Our Committee is now planning articles for the women’s magazines for the trade and business publications.”
Pressure: “It can be said that the press of the nation…has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel’s position. There are, of course, exceptions, notably the Scripps-Howard chain where we still need to achieve a ‘break-through,’ the Pulliam chain (where some progress has been made) and some locally-owned papers.”
Ghost Writing: “We cannot pinpoint all that has already been accomplished by this Committee except to say that it has been responsible for the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America’s leading magazines….”
A defunct Dow Jones report noted “The Senate investigation closed down the conduit, but the extensive propaganda activities still go on…”
The Neoliberal Attack on Social Security
Why Democrats Are Not the Answer
By ALAN NASSER | August 18, 2010
Among Obama’s principal tasks right now are to reverse his dwindling popularity and to bolster the Democrats’ chances in the the upcoming fall elections. These are not unrelated objectives. He’s got to get people to perceive him as on their side with respect to matters that matter, and matter big, to the electorate, and to credibly distinguish himself from the Republicans on these same issues. After all, the cardinal political objective of liberal Democrats is to keep Republicans out of office.
Rasmussen Reports reveals that Obama’s popularity has plunged in the last three months As of Sunday, 43 percent of the nation’s voters “Strongly Disapprove” of his performance as president. Obama’s weekly radio address on Saturday was an effort to endear himself to the gullible by showing that he defends their most fundamental interests against clear and present Republican danger. With titanic irony, he chose Social Security as the issue that makes the difference.
Here is what he said:
“…some Republican leaders in Congress [are] pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall. It’s right up there on their to-do list with repealing some of the Medicare benefits and reforms that are adding at least a dozen years to the fiscal health of Medicare – the single longest extension in history.
That agenda is wrong for seniors, it’s wrong for America, and I won’t let it happen. Not while I’m President. I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street. Because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for – all you’ve earned – at risk. You should have the peace of mind of knowing that after meeting your responsibilities and paying into the system all your lives, you’ll get the benefits you deserve.”
These cynical remarks assume -correctly, one fears- an under- and misinformed public. Obama says he opposes “repealing some of the Medicare benefits”, even as the legislative “reforms” he has defended do just that, in the name of reducing the costs -to business and government, not to working people- of health care.
More audaciously, Obama talks about the threat to Social Security and deliberately misidentifies both its nature and its political agents.
The immediate threat to workers dependent upon Social Security benefits is not privatization, but rather the recommendations of the bipartisan panel to reduce the federal deficit. The panel is Obama’s, not the Republicans’, creation and is packed with opponents of Social Security. (A detailed discussion of the panel, its key members and its reactionary agenda can be found here. ) It is an open non-secret that the panel will recommend, after the fall elections of course, reductions in Social Security benefits and an extension of the retirement age. The fact is that “after meeting your responsibilities and paying into the system all your lives’, you will not “get the benefits you deserve.” That Obama can pretend to be a defender of the most popular social program in US history bespeaks his conviction that most Americans are either unaware of, or capable of being distracted from, his own promotion of an historic assault on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
If the Republicans did not exist, Democrats would have to invent them. The post-Carter Democratic Party’s race to the right is consistently masked by pointing, as Obama did on Saturday, to the more nakedly reactionary Republicans, a small number of whom do indeed press for the privatization of Social Security. But the more savvy privatizers of both Parties are fully aware that in the midst of an economic crisis and with an unstable and unpredictable stock market outright talk of privatization will not win hearts and minds. A creeping approach is now the favored strategy of the elite. Twelve years ago it was different. A then-editor of The New York Times, David Brock, wrote an article critical of the Social-Security-is-going-broke alarmists titled “Save Social Security? From What?” (Business section, November 1, 1998, p. 12). Brock attributed the faux hysteria to “hidden agendas…..Wall Street would love to get its hands on at least some of the billions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund . . . But knowing that the idea [of full privatization] won’t fly politically, [politicians] are pushing for partial privatization, in which individuals would invest a portion of their contribution in the stock market, all in the name of rescuing the system.”
That strategy has been rewritten. Partial privatization is at least for now off the page. Who would want to send their FICA obligations off to a stock broker? Reduced benefits and a shorter retirement are the favored starting points, in the name of reducing the deficit. But the Obama boys are too smart to talk about the coming blows to workers. Even as they are in the process of effecting the “reforms”, they’d have you worry about the Republicans. Liberal Democrats think that blaming the Republicans is essential if the Democrats’ constituency is to be made to remain faithful to the Party. That’s what Obama did on Saturday. The political game plan of the organization MoveOn displays this strategy in its unabashed purity.
MoveOn’s website (MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action) says that “The MoveOn family of organizations brings real Americans back into the political process.” In fact MoveOn shills for the Democratic Party. It’s recurrent theme is that the bad Republicans will take over unless we support the high-minded and properly liberal Democrats.
I receive all of MoveOn’s e-mail alerts. Here’s what they sent out on June 30:
“Breaking: Republicans to Cut Social Security
Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday news broke that John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives, believes that Congress should raise the retirement age to 70 and cut Social Security so that we can finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That’s right: Boehner told a reporter that he thinks we should cut Social Security to pay for war. And later in the day, several other Republicans came out and agreed with him…
The way things are looking, Republicans could actually win enough seats this fall to put them in charge and make that vision a reality.”
Republicans, Republicans, Republicans. MoveOn apparently wants you to know that there is a political movement among elites to assault Social Security, but you are to associate this threat with Republicans only. Not a word about alerting the electorate to Obama and his deficit reduction panel. No suggestion that the Democratic faithful announce that the president will lose their vote if he supports the recommendations of the panel. And of course no threat to bounce the president and his minions if they continue to champion “the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (Are they ok with Pakistan?) The whole idea is to keep the flock within the fold. Here is MoveOn’s opposition plan:
“Can you take a moment to print out a sign making clear that you’re against raising the retirement age to 70 and snap a quick photo of yourself with it? We’ll deliver them to Congress and use them in online ads.”
But perhaps I’m being unfair. For in fact MoveOn had informed its members of Obama’s panel and the ideological predilections of its members. In this message of June 14 we find this beautiful example of liberal self-deception:
“Alert: Social Security Cuts Coming
Dear MoveOn member,
It sounds like something Glenn Beck would cook up: a powerful cabal of right-wing ideologues hatches a secret plan to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and they’re on the verge of succeeding. But it’s true.
Right now, the stars are aligned for conservatives who’ve spent decades trying to cut Social Security—the heart of the New Deal. They’re focusing public anxiety over the economy on the deficit—and even though the deficit is almost entirely a result of Bush cutting taxes for the rich while waging two wars, the “deficit hawks” want us to cut the programs vulnerable Americans rely on to survive—Social Security and Medicare.
And instead of articulating a progressive response, Democrats seem frozen, like deer in the headlights.
Against this backdrop, the President has appointed a “deficit commission” stacked with deficit hawks. Right after the election Congress will vote on the commission’s recommendations.
Why does the deficit commission pose such a threat? Because almost all of its members have interests in seeing cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other safety net programs.
Here’s an introduction to some of the folks on the Commission that we’re up against:
Erskine Bowles, Co-Chair: An investment-banking millionaire who now sits on the Board of Directors for Morgan Stanley and General Motors. Bowles was Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, where he was called “Corporate America’s Friend in the White House” as he negotiated with Newt Gingrich for how best to cut safety net programs.
Alan Simpson, Co-Chair: A GOP power player during the Conservative movement’s heyday, he led Clinton-era attacks on Social Security and is already crusading publicly for cuts to Social Security and Medicare to address the deficit.
David M. Cote: CEO of Honeywell, a defense contractor making millions from the Department of Defense and responsible for costing us millions of dollars in misconduct—including failing to test bulletproof vests sent to US troops.”
The message’s title announces coming Social Security cuts, which are immediately associated with Glenn Beck, “ a powerful cabal of right-wing ideologues hatch[ing] a secret plan to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare”, and “conservatives who’ve spent decades trying to cut Social Security”. It’s not that MoveOn absolves the Democrats. It simply portrays them as passively unresponsive, “frozen, like deer in the headlights” in the face of aggressive “right-wing ideologues”.
But don’t they acknowledge that Obama himself appointed a deficit panel “stacked with deficit hawks”? They do, but this has happened “against this background” of unremitting Republican activism. MoveOn urges the president to cease yielding to Republican pressure.
But Obama’s neoliberalism is his own, not a response to external pressure. He made it clear before his election that he holds the New Deal and the Great Society in derision, and regards Ronald Reagan as America’s most prophetic post-War president. Were MoveOn a genuinely “progressive” organization its central task would be to mobilize the electorate in organized resistance to the president’s and his Party’s neoliberal agenda.
MoveOn’s comments above on Erskine Bowles’s dirty work when he was Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff illustrates perfectly the shifty means by which liberal organizations attempt to exculpate the Party and its leadership.
We are told by MoveOn that Bowles “negotiated with Newt Gingrich for how best to cut safety net programs.” It is as if this were done behind Clinton’s back. But the left-liberal economist Robert Kuttner, in his 2007 book The Squandering of America, detailed how Washington elites of both Parties had been planning to weaken Social Security since the Clinton Administration. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin prodded the president to cut a deal with Newt Gingrich to partially privatize Social Security. Clinton appointed Bowles as his intermediary. But in the plan’s initial stages the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted, causing both embarrassed Congressional Democrats and Gingrich to distance themselves from Clinton. The plan fell apart. Kuttner’s account has been filled out in greater detail in Steven Gillon’s 2008 book The Pact, in which letters and interviews with reliable sources illustrate the means by which Clinton and Gingrich would work to get Congress behind the partial privatization plan.
Republican-bashing seems beside the point and distracting. This is a Democratic administration whose neoliberal bona fides is beyond question. The Republicans are doing what we expect them to do. The Democrats put themselves forward as a meaningful alternative. But they are no such thing. The task is to expose the Democrats for what they are and to urge that the Democrats-or-Republicans alternative is not written in stone.
Alan Nasser is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He can be reached at nassera@evergreen.edu
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Who Rules America?
The Power Elite in the Time of Trump
By James Petras | Axis of Logic | September 6, 2017
Introduction
In the last few months, several competing political, economic and military sectors – linked to distinct ideological and ethnic groups – have clearly emerged at the centers of power.
We can identify some of the key competing and interlocking directorates of the power elite:
- Free marketers, with the ubiquitous presence of the ‘Israel First’ crowd.
- National capitalists, linked to rightwing ideologues.
- Generals, linked to the national security and the Pentagon apparatus, as well as defense industry.
- Business elites, linked to global capital.
This essay attempts to define the power wielders and evaluate their range of power and its impact. … continue
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- Expert Guts Claims That HPV Vaccine Reduces Cancer Risk
- No evidence Russia sabotaged Baltic cables – Finnish intel
- The Strategic Folly of a (Serious) US Ground Invasion of Iran
- US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran meant to reshape region: Omani FM
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- Macron’s aircraft carrier and warplanes to the Persian Gulf is a dangerous vanity project
- Meet The Ellisons: Zionists, Technocrats, Moguls
- US failures in Iran reveal Russia is key to South Korea’s strategic security
- If Americans Knew
- Are we on the precipice of World War III?
- ‘Catastrophic,’ Says UNICEF: 1,100+ Children Killed or Wounded in Mideast Since US-Israel Launched Iran War
- The Unbelievable Madness of Our War With Iran
- World Council of Churches calls on govts to hold Israel accountable for violations of intl law
- How to end the war on Iran that costs US taxpayers $1M per minute – Not a ceasefire Day 153
- Israeli strategic plans to “remake the Middle East” from the 1950s and since
- Honoring Gaza’s women who refused to let the world look away
- 97% of victims of war on Iran are Iranian, 98% of victims in war on Gaza are Gazans – Not a ceasefire Day 152
- Early Iran strikes cost $5.6 billion in munitions, Pentagon estimates
- Israel Decided the War, But Trump’s America Fights and Pays the Bill
- No Tricks Zone
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
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