Global food justice
With more than one billion people around the world considered overweight, why are so many others still starving and struggling to fill their plates?
Israeli army still using children as human shields in 2010
Defence for Children International | 22 November 2010
One day after an Israeli military court imposed a suspended sentence on two Givati Brigade soldiers for using a nine-year-old boy as a human shield in Gaza, DCI-Palestine has just obtained an affidavit from a 13-year-old boy who reports being used as a human shield on 19 August 2010. This brings to three, the number of human shield cases documented by DCI-Palestine in 2010.
18 February 2010 – Voices From The Occupation (16-year-old girl from Nablus)
16 April 2010 – Voices From The Occupation (14-year-old boy from Beit Ummar)
19 August 2010 – Voices From The Occupation (13-year-old boy from near Nablus)
The practice of using human shields involves forcing civilians to directly assist in military operations or using them to shield an area or troops from attack. Both of these circumstances expose civilians to physical, and sometimes, mortal danger. Civilians are usually threatened and/or physically coerced into performing these tasks, most of the time at gunpoint. The practice is illegal under both international and Israeli domestic law.
In the latest case documented by DCI-Palestine, a 13-year-old boy from a village near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, was beaten and then forced at gunpoint to search and open doors in a house where the army suspected a wanted person might be hiding – Nazzal A. – Voices From The Occupation.
Since April 2004, DCI-Palestine has documented 16 cases involving Palestinian children being used as human shields by the Israeli army. Fifteen of the 16 cases, occurred after the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled the practice to be illegal in October 2005, suggesting that the army is not effectively implementing the Court’s decision, or simply disregarding the Court’s order altogether.
On Sunday, 21 November 2010, two soldiers from the Givati Brigade became the first soldiers to be charged and convicted of using a child as a human shield. The two soldiers were demoted from the rank of staff sergeant to sergeant and each given a three-month suspended prison sentence. DCI-Palestine is of the view that the lenient sentences handed down on Sunday are unlikely to deter the future use of children as human shields – Majed J. – Voices From The Occupation.
Israel has put 200,000 Palestinians before military tribunals since 1990
MEMO | November 26, 2010
A report from the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs has claimed that 200,000 Palestinians have been tried by Israeli military tribunals since 1990. What the report describes as “unfair and arbitrary” trials in Israel have led to thousands of Palestinians languishing in the Zionist state’s prisons.
“Military court rooms surrounded by the fences of military bases have operated since the beginning of the Occupation shrouded in mystery,” said the report. “Journalists are prevented from attending the trials and so the proceedings are not reported.” The sentences passed in these courts don’t provoke any discussion or controversy inside Israel; neither the judicial nor academic communities take any interest, it added.
The military tribunals are, claims the report, the backbone of Israel’s occupation apparatus. The official and civic silence about the courts’ affairs strengthens the Israeli security forces by allowing violations of international law to occur with impunity. Israel’s military courts reject international law although the latter obliges occupying powers to implement its provisions.
Israel First, America’s National Security Second
By Maggie Sager | Resisting Occupation | November 23, 2010
In one of the United States Congress’ most recent displays of “Israel First” policy, 39 Representatives, all democrats, have requested that President Obama pardon Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for the State of Israel in 1987. Pollard is currently serving a life sentence for his crimes.
According to American Muslims for Palestine:
Pollard, who was a civilian research analyst with high security clearance for the U.S. Navy, had agreed to spy for Israel for 10 years in exchange for more than $500,000. According to a January 1999 article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh, Pollard “betrayed elements of four major American intelligence systems.” Pollard caused extensive damage to U.S. intelligence and U.S. national security because of the nature of the highly sensitive documents he sold to Israel.
In many cases, Israel bartered top-secret U.S. intelligence documents it received from Pollard with the Soviet Union, in exchange for Soviet Jewish colonial emigration to historic Palestine, Hersh wrote. [1]
During sentencing the prosecutor, in compliance with an agreement in which Pollard pled guilty, asked for “only a substantial number of years in prison”; Judge Aubrey Robinson, Jr., not being obligated to follow the recommendation of the prosecutor, and after hearing a “damage-assessment memorandum” from the Secretary of Defense, imposed a life sentence. [2]
In the letter sent to President Obama, the Representatives explain that “such an exercise of the clemency power would not in any way imply doubt about [Pollard’s] guilt, nor cast any aspersions on the process by which he was convicted.”
This seems paradoxical. According these representatives, Pollard is indeed guilty of the charges against him. What’s more, they find nothing to disparage about the proceedings which resulted in his sentence. So why must Obama set him free?
Because, you see, pardoning him would correct the disparity “between the amount of time Mr. Pollard has served and the time that has been served — or not served at all — by many others who were found guilty of similar activity on behalf of nations that, like Israel, are not adversarial to us.”
It is true that Pollard is the only American serving a life sentence for spying on behalf of a neutral country (only 15% of all convicted spies are attempting to transmit information to a neutral country). However, according to a recent study which examined every espionage conviction in the United States from 1947-2001, at least 13% of all spies convicted were sentenced to life in prison, while another 22% were sentenced to between 20 and 40 years. [3] Could it perhaps be that the damage that resulted from his crimes was severe enough to render the judge’s harsh decision? For the answer, we must look at the methodology judges use to determine sentencing.
The study’s authors reveal: “Prison sentences for espionage or attempted espionage varied depending on factors such as the importance of information lost, the length of time of the spying, the venue of the trial, the then-current policies of the federal government on espionage prosecution, the context of the time (e.g. wartime or peace, chilly Cold War or detente) and the then-current relationship of the United States with the country that received the information.”
Thus, the relationship between Israel and the United States was only one component determining Pollard’s sentence. With the information at hand, namely the fact that as stated above, Israel was at the time handing Pollard’s stolen documents off to the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, and having just heard the damage-assessment memorandum by the Secretary of Defense, Judge Robinson issued his sentence. This sentence was the result of the evidence brought against Pollard as well as his own confession. He was convicted based on the severity of his crime and in the midst of one of the largest resurgences of espionage in American history (see Keeping the Nation’s Secrets by the Stilwell Commission, published in 1985).
In this way, seeking “clemency for Mr. Pollard as an act of compassion justified by the way others have been treated by our justice system” is ridiculous. While the United States is not at war with Israel, Pollard’s sentencing in relation to the severity of his crime per the Secretary of Defense’s testimony rendered him the same sentence as at least 16 other spies.
Do these Representatives offer any evidence, other than comparisons to (what must be) lesser crimes by other individuals, to justify commuting Pollard’s sentence? Do they take issue with the denials of appeal made by appellate courts in the case or the merits thereof? Do they contend that Pollard was harshly sentenced because of some prejudice harbored by the presiding judge? No. They simply think that his incarceration, which has only strengthened his ties to Israel (he became a citizen while in prison), will somehow serve as a deterrent.
Where is the logic in such a stance? In the name of security, the US government will eavesdrop on its own citizens. In the name of security, the US government will torture foreigners, holding them without charge or trial and bomb Pakistani civilians with drones. In the name of security, the US government will grope and prod passengers as they board airplanes if they refuse to be seen naked through scanners. And yet, in the same breath, elected representatives who quietly reauthorized provisions of the PATRIOT act in February 2010 would argue for the rights of a confessed, convicted spy passing intelligence secrets, and do so in the name of justice and compassion!
Do these Representatives know anything about justice at all? If they do, why do they feel compelled to stand up to perceived injustice in the name of an avowed Israeli spy and yet remain utterly mute when it comes to the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, at least 55% of whom do not have sufficient evidence against them to determine that they have committed any hostile acts against the United States, at least 40% of whom have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda and least 18% of whom have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda or Taliban? [4]
Is it because they only care about Americans? Then why haven’t any of them stepped up to defend Rachel Corrie, murdered by an IDF bulldozer as she non-violently attempted to block it from destroying a Palestinian home? Why haven’t they petitioned Obama to seek justice for Furkan Doğan, a Turkish American who was shot by the IDF at point blank range while lying on his back? Why hasn’t congress properly investigated the death of 37 American Citizens aboard the USS Liberty which was attacked by Israel in 1967?
Such a request by House democrats is an insult to our justice system, and one that should not be tolerated. The truth of the matter is that Pollard, if granted clemency, will be a benefactor of the United States’ “special relationship” with Israel, a relationship that apparently knows no bounds.
Yet this request is altogether unsurprising in light of Israel’s consistent method of portraying itself in a completely sympathetic light. Israelis are not aggressors, but victims of aggression. They are not bigoted, but victims of anti-semetism. They are not lawbreakers, but victims of the justice system.
Americans suffer every day at the hands of abstract, fleeting “threats to national security” and yet when our national security has been conclusively violated…this is what our congressmen come up with. To buy into such a subversion of moral decency is utterly treacherous.
[1] American Muslims for Palestine, 39 Congressmen advocating for release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, November 2010 (Accessed 11/23/10)
[2] Best, Jr., Richard A.; Clyde Mark, Jonathan Pollard: Background and Considerations for Presidential Clemency” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress., January 2001 (Accessed 11/23/10)
[3] PERSEREC, Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens 1947-2001, July 2002 (Accessed 11/23/10)
[4] Amnesty International, Guantanamo Bay Fact Sheet (Accessed 11/23/10)
Huffpo gives platform to Israel lobbyist’s claim based on 3000-year-old artifacts
By Philip Weiss on November 23, 2010
Marty Kaplan at Huffpo: “I take Israel personally.” Further proof that the left is permeated by the Israel lobby. Further proof that Zionism has produced a giant IQ drop in what I grew up thinking were the smartest people in the country. Note that Kaplan hadn’t been to Israel in 40 years till he visited lately; but he regards the wall there as his wall. And note the 3000-year-old artifacts of Jewish civilization Kaplan sees at the Israel Museum that combined with genealogical records at the Holocaust museum justify Zionist land claims for him and the rest of the “Jewish people.”
If Christians said this kind of stuff, Huffpo would scream that they are religious nuts. When Shlomo Sand tried to contest this type of racial thinking, he was eviscerated in our country as being “political,” when his only politics are trying to save Jewish minds from mythology that blinds them to the facts before them.
Re mythology, note the “competing narratives” claim at the end of this excerpt. Tony Kushner once said to me that most American Jews have an idea of Israel that is a delusion on top of a fantasy; and that’s what we see here. A guy who hasn’t been to a place in 40 years, who is happily making his life as an empowered minority in the U.S., declares that a western “narrative” about a Jewish right to the land is equal to the Palestinian narrative of 63 years of actual dispossession. I am not saying there is not an Israeli narrative; but it is shot through with all sorts of diaspora projection on the part of people who haven’t been there in decades and whose ideas of Jewish powerlessness are fed by a visit to the Holocaust museum, and who can thereby elide the plain history of Palestinian expulsion/discrimination. Young Jews will have to save us from these ideas… Kaplan:
[T]his is the point where I have to, leap to, declare my love and support for the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. I think the international campaign to delegitimize Israel is based on a malicious misreading of history, abetted by a level of naïveté, ignorance and racism that would surprise me if I hadn’t just lived through the past two years of media and politics. I reject the contention that Zionism is racism, colonialism or any other -ism designed to steal land, disenfranchise citizens or exterminate enemies. The 3,000-year-old artifacts of Jewish civilization that I saw in the Israel Museum and the Nazi Who-is-a-Jew? genealogical charts that I saw at Yad Vashem and the secular Israeli majority I saw in the streets and know from the Diaspora, reminded me that Israel’s nationhood derives from its existence as a people, not as a religion.
I actually came back from Israel more of a hawk than when I left. I am more respectful of the security fence — my security fence — than I was before. Yes, I know the case against it, but I’ve returned convinced that its designers are motivated by fighting terrorism, not by appropriating land or humiliating Palestinians. I haven’t concluded that a pre-emptive strike on Iran is a good idea, but I’m less inclined to think that the threat Iran poses is only a politically pumped-up neocon job. I no longer think that “settlements” is a useful, or necessarily pejorative, term; it encompasses too wide a variety and history of dwellings to be deployed as a shorthand for obstructionism. Like everything else in Israel, it’s complicated.
But don’t get me wrong: I’m closer to J Street than to AIPAC. When Netanyahu acts as though the status quo can go on indefinitely, I not only despair at his delusion; I wear it as my own albatross, whether I want to or not. When he catastrophically bungled the response to the Gaza flotilla stunt, I was unable to prevent myself from feeling personally soiled….
Israel is a battleground between two competing narratives. The Palestinian account of history, its assignment of right and wrong, is a mirror image of the Israeli version; just about everything is flipped. No negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians can settle the matter of which narrative is right. No historian, journalist, political figure or international tribune can sort through the dueling accounts and create a composite that either side will accept.
The Israelification of America
By Paul Woodward | War in Context | November 22, 2010
As the Transportation Security Administration faces a barrage of criticism, some indignant Americans are calling for the “Israelification” of US airports — as though the security procedures used in a tiny Middle Eastern ethnocracy with one international airport could easily be scaled up for America.
Ironically, Israelification is not what we need — it’s what we already have.
Consider the real outrages of the last decade that, simply because they were done in the name of national security, the majority of Americans found tolerable:
- a global war on terrorism that led to massive increases in defense spending, the creation of multiple new intelligence and security agencies, and Washington’s enslavement to fear-based politics — that was OK;
- with disregard for international law, the invasion of Iraq on a false pretext — that was OK;
- the kidnapping, secret imprisonment and torture of individuals most of whom had nothing to do with 9/11 — that was OK;
- the authorization of warrantless wiretaps — that was OK;
- the implementation of a remote-controlled assassination program — that was OK;
- in short, the normalization of war crimes all of which were deemed justifiable because of 9/11 — that was OK;
- but “don’t touch my junk” — there are limits to what Americans will tolerate.
TSA administrators are no doubt frustrated by the fact that had the new pat-down procedures been implemented in late 2001, they would probably have been welcomed by a population that widely supported the idea of doing “whatever it takes” to stop “the terrorists.”
The problem, then and now, is that air transportation security is imagined to be about catching terrorists. On this count, the TSA seems to have a poor record.
At Slate, Juliet Lapidos notes:
In May, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that SPOT’s [“Screening of Passengers by Observational Techniques”] annual cost is more than $200 million and that as of March 2010 some 3,000 behavior detection officers [BDOs] were deployed at 161 airports but had not apprehended a single terrorist. (Hundreds of illegal aliens and drug smugglers, however, were arrested due to the program between 2004 and 2008.) What’s more, the GAO noted that at least 16 individuals later accused of involvement in terrorist plots flew 23 different times through U.S. airports since 2004, but TSA behavior-detection officers didn’t sniff out any of them.
Does this imply that the TSA’s BDOs have yet to pinpoint the way a terrorist walks, talks, or dresses? The TSA’s “failure” in this instance might simply mean that the individuals who escaped their attention were not at those times actually doing anything suspicious.
The point is, there are justifiable and unjustifiable grounds to turn a person into an object of suspicion. A system that simply on the basis of religion, ethnicity or nationality, regards a person with suspicion, is unjust and will be ineffective. Indeed, a system which even regards its targets as “the terrorists” conjures up the false notion that it is dealing with a class of people rather than a class of behavior.
Which brings me back to my initial claim that the Israelification of America is already deeply entrenched. Israel’s fear of the Arab world has been transplanted into American consciousness to such a degree that we are moving toward the absurd conclusion that if this country operated even more like Israel than it already does, then we would be able to feel as safe as the Israelis do.
Living inside a fortress and defining ones existence in terms of threats posed by eternal enemies, is a good way of justifying spending more and more on increasingly elaborate fortifications. But those who invest deeply in this mindset and who profit from its perpetuation, have the least interest in exploring what we need to understand most: why our enemies think the way they do. Delve into that question, and the notion of eternal enmity quickly evaporates — thus the perpetuation of the myth that we are under threat not because of what we do but because of who we are.
Meanwhile, next time a TSA officer offends your dignity, spare a thought for the Palestinians who while passing through IDF checkpoints suffer vastly worse when attempting no more than to travel from one town to the next.
Honoring Helen Thomas
By JAMES ABOUREZK | November 22, 2010
These remarks were delivered at a tribute for Helen Thomas, Thursday, November 18, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC D.C., sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
I’m very proud to be asked to speak at a tribute to one of the great journalists in the history of this country – Helen Thomas. I say she is a great journalist because she was never cuddled up in the lap of the President – any president – when she was doing her job. She is someone my old friend, I.F. Stone, would be very proud of if he were still alive.
To say that she made a long succession of Presidents uncomfortable with her sharp questioning would be an understatement. Even Barack Obama, who has been advertised as a tolerant man, had to join in the denunciations of Helen. He, along with the others in the press corps, acted very much like children in a school yard. When one of the children falls down, the rest start kicking.
Helen was not necessarily done in by her statement about Israel. What she said is what I’ve been saying for years – the Zionists should get the hell out of Palestine.
Where they go when they leave there is not my concern, just as it is not the Zionists’ concern where the Palestinians went when they were driven out of Palestine. She was done in because she embarrassed the group of lap dogs who call themselves White House reporters. She has been doing what each and every one of them wishes they had the temerity to do – find out what the government is doing to us on a day by day basis.
She has consistently posed serious questions to each administration in turn – questions that affect the financial and emotional and security health of our country. She refused to go along with the game played by the national press – that is, to be very, very polite to the President during his press conferences so that they may stay in the good graces of the government they are supposed to be reporting on.
I’m especially proud because now ADC has been called anti-semitic by the Director of the Bnai Brith Defamation League, Abe Foxman. You remember Dr Johnson’s saying, that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel? Well, anti-semitism has become the last gasp of the worn-out old Zionists who, instead of trying to make America a better place in which to live, make their living snarling at anyone who might criticize what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese, and to the Syrians.
I once called Alan Dershowitz a snake on Al Manar television. Al Manar is Hezbollah’s news channel in Lebanon. When he found out what I had said, he wrote a column in the Jerusalem post, calling me an anti-Semite. My response has been – to him and to anyone else – that an anti-Semite is synonymous with disliking Jews, and that I do not dislike Jews, I only dislike Alan Dershowitz, and Abe Foxman, and Bibi Netanyahu.
I also know now that I should have apologized to the snakes.
As for Abe Foxman, he is the head of the B’Nai Brith, whose stated mission is to promote tolerance and to fight against racism. He demonstrated that tolerance when he came out bleating that he was opposed to a mosque being built near the World Trade Center site. And he has made a living equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, which, so far as tolerance goes, promotes only hatred and racism.
The truth is, that Israel has very little to do with Judaism, but it has a lot to do with fascism.
For the Zionist supporters of Israel, it’s OK for Israel to kill on the average of at least one Palestinian a day during its illegal occupation;.
It’s OK for Israel to use the million and a half people in Gaza as living targets in a shooting gallery.
It’s OK to bomb Syria and Lebanon any time such an attack is needed to bolster the military credentials of Israel=s politicians.
It’s OK to invade Lebanon whenever they feel like it. In my memory, Israel’s military has killed at least 30,000 civilians in their Lebanon invasions. But lately, with Hezbollah standing up to them, it=s happening on fewer and fewer occasions, and fewer and fewer Lebanese are being slaughtered by Israel.
It’s OK to destroy the olive groves of Palestinian farmers. It’s OK to move them off their land to make room for Jewish settlements.
It’s OK for Israel to send agents to spy on the United States, and it’s OK for the Obama Administration to dismiss charges against those of Israel’s spies who have been caught red-handed.
It’s OK for Israel to commit an act of criminal piracy on the high seas by boarding a ship full of people and food and medicine on their way to help stem the starvation brought on by Israel’s policy in Gaza, and to outright murder 9 people, including an American citizen out on the high seas. Have you heard much lately about the American boy who was assassinated by the Israeli military on board one of those aid ships? Have you wondered why you haven’t heard anything about it from those great American journalists who so bravely ganged up on Helen Thomas?
It’s OK to do all of those things I’ve listed, but it’s not OK to send money and food to Palestinian refugees to help them survive.
And it’s not OK for Helen Thomas to tell Israel to get the hell out of Palestine.
And it’s not OK for anyone else to say that Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine is wrong and against the law, and that American taxpayers’ money is being used to help Israel commit these crimes against humanity. That kind of criticism brings down calls of “anti-Semitism” from the likes of Foxman and Dershowitz.
As an American citizen, I am deeply worried, among other things, about the direction our government has taken and is taking with respect to its financing of Israel’s crimes. There is no one left in the press corps to ask such questions now that they’ve drummed Helen out of journalism.
Helen’s fatal, and final, sin was, during a discussion of Iran’s nuclear program during a press conference, to ask President Obama if anyone else in the Middle East -beside Iran – has nuclear weapons. Of course, he didn’t answer the question, which probably explains why he joined the chorus of denouncers to drum Helen Thomas out of the White House press room. He simply didn’t want the question coming up again at a future press conference.
But you can easily see the service Helen performed by asking that question. As the Zionists and the Israelis are working very hard to get our country into a war with Iran, there remains almost no voice in the press or in the Congress to call a halt to this madness.
That is why we are all paying tribute to Helen tonight, and I hope, for a long time after this night. We pay tribute to all soldiers who act with bravery, and tonight, we add Helen Thomas to that company. She deserves our thanks, and she deserves the thanks of our nation.
Thank you.
James Abourezk is a former U.S. Senator, who practices law in Sioux Falls. He can be reached at georgepatton45@gmail.com.
Is Israel to blame for the Iraq War?
American Goy | March 10, 2008
I am so tired of this old canard that “Israel had nothing to do with USA’s war with Iraq – in fact, it officially advised America against it”.
Bullshit.
Quoting the Guardian newspaper:
The OSP (Office of Special Plans) was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.
“None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels,” said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith’s authority without having to fill in the usual forms.
The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel’s Likud party.
What was the OSP again?
Dick Cheney’s private CIA/NSA, the Office of Special Plans, designed to sort the CIA and NSA information on Iraq and only pick those which proved that Iraq had WMD. If the CIA had a report (as they did, multiple times) that Iraq was almost destroyed and had no WMD capability, no chemical, biological nor nuclear program, that information was ignored. Only information that “proved” Iraq had WMD capability was needed… and the CIA refused to supply it, because they are both patriots and professionals.
And this is where the representatives from Israel come in – they literally came to the USA and provided the OSP with the “proof” OSP required to lie to Congress, and make Colin Powell lie to the UN.
I am sorry, but when on the one hand we have newspaper articles stating that “Israel advised the USA not to invade Iraq”, and on the other hand we have Israeli government officials visiting the USA to dump “proof” and “intelligence” that Iraq had WMD, what am I, a poor goy, supposed to think?
How about the fact that American citizens, who were American government employees in their previous jobs were advisers to the Israeli LIKUD government – did you know about that from the CNN? Perhaps there was no time to run the following story, as Britney Spears is much more important:
In 1996, he (Feith -AG) and Richard Perle – now an influential Pentagon figure – served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.
May I urge you to stop by the most important article on this blog; pretty please with sugar on top?
We have American citizens, who are United States government officials, who base ALL their decisions on one thing – is this good for Israel?
Proof?
“He (Congressman Berman -AG) said Israel “is why I went on the Foreign Affairs Committee–” he corrected himself– “it’s part of why I went on the Foreign Affairs committee in the first place. I’m a great supporter of Israel.”
How blatant can you be? I became a member of the Foreign Affairs committee to help out Israel. And he is still a US congressman? Hello, Earth to Americans?! Anybody here still cares about this country or can we just sell it all to the highest lobby money bidder?
And of course behind the scenes experts are hard at work to make America attack Iran, because as we all know, not attacking Iran is anti-semitic and racist.
We really do live in a bizzarro world now, where up is down, war is peace, and actions that clearly harm American interests must be done because otherwise one is unpatriotic!
Says Hagel (Senator Chuck Hagel): “The political reality is that… the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” Hagel then related a meeting he had in New York with a group of supporters of Israel who are pushing the U.S. to attack Iran. When Hagel said it hadn’t worked out that well in Iraq, a couple of members of the group said he wasn’t supportive enough of Israel.”
No shit? So how does an American react to this criticism?
When Hagel said it hadn’t worked out that well in Iraq, a couple of members of the group said he wasn’t supportive enough of Israel.
Hagel spoke firmly: “Let me clear something up here if there’s any doubt in your mind. I’m a U.S. Senator. I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a U.S. Senator. I support Israel… But my first interest is, I take an oath to the constitution of the United States. Not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel.
Right on Mr. Hagel!
John Sununu, republican:
It’s like a handful of pebbles in the shoe. It’s there all the time, and this process of not permitting anything that’s trying to tug in the other direction, to gain root and thrive, is almost automatic. And it’s not just AIPAC, it happens all the time, everywhere. Every congressman, every senator, before they win, is being soft lobbied on the issue. Whether it’s their friend that owns 40 acres down the street whose grandfather happened to have come from Kiev, goes in and talks to him about helping him, developing a social relationship on an issue that has nothing to do with the district, begins to communicate their interest. And rightly so– pulling on their end of the rope. It happens almost invisibly. But across the board. There is nobody who has run for office in this country who has not been soft lobbied the day they announce that they are going to run and not been hard lobbied after they win.
Again, I wrote all this before, but I need to harp on this because we Americans have the attention span of a 4 year old child on a sugar high, and perhaps we need our information spoon fed us. Well, consider yourself fed, AmericanGoy style.
Our government has been hijacked by extremists, who are putting the interests of Israel above that of the United States. Something needs to be done – and the first thing is to be free to talk about it, in the open, on TV, radio, newspaper columns, blogs.
The Left Wing, the phoenix that never shall rise in America
The left wing, being as clueless as the rest of America, looks for a conspiracy theory when this is all in the open. There is no conspiracy if everything is explained, it is out there in newspaper articles, in books; it is not a conspiracy when a person can use google for 10 minutes and find this all out.
So the political left in this country latched on to the idea that this was a war for oil. Looking at it from the perspective of watching CNN, MSNBC and FOX this seems a plausible theory. After all, Iraq has supposedly 2nd most oil on the planet, 2nd only to Saudi Arabia – for the lazy or naysayers, link here.
Of course, we have the incomparable Mr. Weiss to destroy another canard for us in his analysis here.
He uses an upcoming book, Wrestling with Zion and quotes it:
This is one of those very difficult moments. Certainly one would not say that Jews have ‘taken control of U.S. foreign policy,’ but it’s certainly the case–and I think a very ominous case–that the Bush administration, to a much greater degree than any previous administration, has people in it who are ardent right-wing Zionists and who have actually been advisors in upper echelons of government. We don’t want to talk about ‘The Jews.’ But I think it is important to talk about people with a very strong militant imperialist sort of Zionist mentality.
The fact of the matter is that these people are substantially more powerful in this administration than they have been in any other. These are also the same people who are leading the United States into a kind of preemptive mode, which is so appalling and terrifying to the whole world.
I disagree with what Mitchell [Plitnick] just said on that subject. I think we have to learn ways to speak about the actualities of Zionism without falling into the abyss of anti-Semitism. That’s a very, very difficult question. It’s something that’s inhibited critique of Israel for many, many years. We have to be very forthright and say that this kind of rational critique of the Zionist project is really necessary. It’s necessary in order to prevent anti-Semitism, among other things.
Mr. Weiss explains it all:
Plitnick has succeeded in the years since the war began. He (and Stephen Zunes, and Norman Finkelstein, and Noam Chomsky) has stemmed the belief that Zionists had a role in the Iraq war policy, I believe out of fear that Jews would be persecuted if the connection were made. Other liberal Jews have gone along with this anti-intellectual ideology. Smart guys like Jerrold Nadler and Glenn Greenwald have fingered the neocons for their authorship of the war but declined to link their fervent Zionism to the war project. Jacob Heilbrunn came close to saying that the Iraq-planning neocons were motivated by Israel’s security in his book, They Knew They Were Right, but has seemed to back away from any such suggestion in his public statements on the book. Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Glenn Kessler bravely wrote, in his Condi Rice bio, that the Iraq war was planned in part to “help Israel,” but has this assertion ever been explored in the pages of the Washington Post? When Walt and Mearsheimer made that claim in their groundbreaking book, the Post repeatedly attacked them as antisemites, while the liberal Forward editorialized, “In Dark Times, Blame the Jews.”
Got all that?
No?
Conclusion
Let me then just point out the obvious – at least to me – and analyze this for you.
The Right Wing.
The pro-Israel lobby in the USA, the hardcore LIKUD sympathizers, the people who are really far to the right of the Israeli political spectrum, actively steered the USA foreign policy into a war with Iraq. These influential people were Jews, some of them American citizens, some of them Israeli citizens (those who shuttled to and from Israel to Dick Cheney’s OSP), but all working towards the same goal – to promote Israel’s goal (as understood by them), which was for America to take out Israel’s enemies.
The Left Wing.
The left wing in America – intellectuals like Finkelstein, Chomsky and Zunes, and many, many others promote the idea that the Iraq fiasco was an oil grab, and try to steer the discussion away from the fact that the neocon movement is mainly a Jewish-American movement, of a particual brand of American-Jew – that of a hard core pitiless right winger, whose main aim is to promote Israel’s goals over any other nation’s (even those that they are the citizens of – e.g. the United States).
Bonus Material – the charge of anti-semitism.
I am an American; I am an American citizen. Everything I do in the political sense has one prism – just like pro-Israel people ask themselves first and foremost “Is this good for Israel”, I ask myself always, first and foremost “Is this good for the United States of America”.
In my view, our country’s unquestioning support of Israel is not good for America.
Enough said.
One must realize, when reading articles such as the ones found on this blog, or Mr. Weiss’ blog, or Silverstein’s blog, that Americans who are Jewish have an incredible range of political opinion and it is not a monolithic blob of people, robotically following their master’s voice from Israel. There are extreme right wingers (aka LIKUD supporters), there are centrists, there are left wingers, the hippies, communists, etc etc. Just like you cannot say that because America invaded Iraq, that all Americans are evil bullies, and stupid to boot.
Just like Israelis themselves represent a whole gamut of political views, from extreme right wingers thru centrists to left wingers, hippies and communists. There were Israeli Defense Force generals and lower ranks who openly advised for the USA to NOT attack and occupy Iraq. Mossad specialists also advised the same, just like the CIA in this country.
The trouble is that the US government officials in power now, under bush jr., ARE evil, stupid bullies – hard core right wing.
The trouble is that the American Jews present in this administration, are not just sympathetic to Israel, but ARE ALSO hard core right wing LIKUD supporters type – no Finkelstein is present in that crowd, believe you me.
I believe that criticizing Israel, the country, is valid.
I believe that pointing out the influence of the pro-Israel lobby power in the United States is being a patriot and adding to the discussion.
I believe that a question needs to be posed to Clinton, Obama, John McCain, the American Congressm, in fact, all American politicians – what is your view on the United States support for Israel and what do you think the USA gets out of it?
I believe Americans need to know these facts and decide what their country should do – regarding not just Israel-Arab conflict, but a whole slew of issues.
In a democracy, secrecy is it’s greatest enemy.
Lets fight it.
Let us stop being American citizens, who watch American Idol, Lost and internet porn, and start being American Citizens, who give a damn about this nation.
After all, we live here. It is our sons and daughters dying in Iraq. It is our tax money. It is our nation.
See also:
Israel To U.S.: Don’t Delay Iraq Attack
Sharon Government Urges Prompt Action Against Saddam
CBS News, August 16 2002
Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday.
Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin.
“Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose,” Gissin said. “It will only give him (Saddam) more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction.” …
US to spend $413bn more on Afghan war
Press TV – November 21, 2010
A decision by US President Barack Obama to extend the presence of American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 is likely to increase the remaining cost of the unpopular war to USD 413 billion.
The US president, who was expected to announce an exit strategy from Afghanistan at the recent NATO summit in Lisbon, pushed for an indefinite postponement of troop withdrawal instead.
Obama declared in a nationally televised address in December that the transfer of the US forces out of Afghanistan would begin in July 2011. He, however, later redefined the previous timeline stating that Afghan forces would only begin taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014.
On Saturday, NATO Secretary General said the US-led military alliance will remain in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to finish off its enemies there.
The newly defined deadline comes with a heavy price tag at a time when the US and many of its allies are facing increasing deficit cuts at home.
“I don’t think anyone is seriously talking about cutting war funding as a way of handling the deficit,” said Todd Harrison, a Defense funding expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Calculating costs based on USD 1.1 million per soldier per year, Harrison assesses that the new description of the deadline will cost the American taxpayers an additional USD 125 billion through 2014 alone.
The remaining war cost had been estimated to be USD 288 billion assuming that the troops involved in Obama’s surge would be withdrawn by 2012.
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Iran Delenda Est
By Stephen J. Sniegoski • Unz Review • July 25, 2019
After Carthage had been significantly weakened by Rome in the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC), Cato the Elder, a leading Roman senator, is said to have ended all his speeches with the words: “Carthago delenda est!” (“Carthage must be destroyed!”). This destruction ultimately took place in the Third Punic War (149–146 BC). A somewhat similar situation exists today in the United States, where war hawks demand that Iran–which in no way could effectively attack the United States, or even conquer America’s Middle East so-called allies—be stripped of its ability to protect itself.
Of course, what makes the American situation different from ancient Rome’s is that Rome sought to eliminate Carthage for its own interests whereas the United States is largely acting to advance the military interests of Israel… continue
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