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STATIN NATION

View another excerpt from the documentary film Statin Nation.

For more information, please visit www.statinnation.net

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March 3, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , , , , | Comments Off on STATIN NATION

AIPAC aims to play ‘major strategic ally’ card to save aid for Israel from US cuts?

RT | March 03, 2013

US aid to Israel may be saved from sequestration and moved into Pentagon budget. That might be the result if the Israeli lobby in Washington gets its way and the American people aren’t paying attention, political analyst Robert Naiman told RT.

The annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is reportedly focused on the congressional designation of Israel as a “major strategic ally” of the US, a unique status that would be enjoyed only by the Jewish state. The move is seen as facilitating Israel’s military action against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, which also appears on the conference agenda.

But according to the policy director at Just Foreign Policy Robert Naiman, the pro-Israel conference is focusing on Iran so as not to draw attention to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict – as well as protecting US funding of Israel from budget cuts.

RT: The US has been Israel’s faithful ally since the foundation of the state. Why does it need to become official, why the formalization?

RN: Well, according to lobbyists associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, it has to do with the coming threat of budget cuts. Under this sequester… there’re supposed to be across-the-board cuts to the US budget. So that should mean that the US aid to Israel, which is substantial, billions of dollars a year, should also be cut – but the Israel lobby doesn’t want the aid to Israel to be cut. So their long game is that with this designation of ‘major strategic ally’ they would move things that are currently paid out of the US aid to Israel into the base Pentagon budget. They’ll argue, ‘well, this is about the national security needs…’

So their goal here is to exempt aid to Israel from the so-called across-the-board cuts. But of course they don’t want to announce that on the marquee, because Americans are going to be told: ‘oh, now we have to cut Head Start early childhood education because of the sequester cuts, but meanwhile aid to Israel is going to be protected.’ That’s going to make a lot of people in the United States very angry.

RT: It’s clear how Israel would benefit from this. But the US rubber-stamping the status of Israel as its ‘major strategic ally’ – how do they benefit from it?

RN: Well, they don’t – it has nothing to do with the benefit to the US. This is about what you can get away with if you’re lobbyist in Washington and the American people aren’t paying attention. If AIPAC and members of Congress are in a closed room, they’re going to agree on one thing. If the American people don’t find that out, it’s not reported in the press. This isn’t in the New York Times, it’s not in the Washington Post. It’s in the insider press that covers the stuff, Jewish telegraphic agency, for example, that covers AIPAC. So outside the people who follow such news, this is not in the mainstream American media yet.

RT: The conference will focus mainly on Iran, which is seen as the emerging threat. But the conflict with the Palestinians is very real and has been for decades. Why isn’t solving that on the agenda?

RN: Well, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee doesn’t want to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they’re completely content with the status quo. They want Israel to retain control of the West Bank, they want Israeli settlements in the West Bank to expand, so they’re completely happy with that. In fact, these are the people that do a lot to drive the focus on Iran, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Israeli government, which are like two twin brothers. This focus now actually helps them change the channel from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They don’t want anybody to think about or talk about… three million Palestinians who don’t get to vote for the government that rules their lives, while their neighbors can stir in the Israeli Knesset.

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March 3, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on AIPAC aims to play ‘major strategic ally’ card to save aid for Israel from US cuts?

Israel segregates West Bank bus line

Al-Akhbar | March 3, 2013

Israel on Monday will begin segregating certain buses in the occupied West Bank to appease Jewish settlers who say they are afraid of sharing a ride with Palestinians, Israeli media reported.

Buses operated by the Afikim bus company that transport passengers from the Eyal checkpoint into central Israel will now have separate lines for settlers and Palestinians.

Unnamed sources from Israel’s transportation ministry told Ynet that the project was developed to calm the nerves of settlers who say that Arabs pose a security threat.

But officially, the ministry has billed the controversial move as a plan to “improve services.”

“The new lines are not separate lines for Palestinians but rather two designated lines meant to improve the services offered to Palestinian workers who enter Israel through Eyal Crossing,” Ynet quoted a ministry statement as saying.

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March 3, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Jewish Voice for Weizmann

By Gilad Atzmon | March 3, 2013

I just came across a JVP press release (Jewish Voice for Peace) reporting a 
massive advertising campaign to counter the AIPAC Annual Conference in Washington. Apparently, from today 100 billboards will be stationed in DC Metro bearing a simple but important message.

“AIPAC Does Not Speak for Me”.

AIPAC is certainly a danger to world peace and yes, it is a positive development that a Jewish organization should confront its impact on American foreign policy.

But still, JVP’s tactics are problematic. If anything, they reveal the deep confusion inherent in Jewish politics in general, and Jewish progressive thinking in particular.

On the one hand, JVP’s campaign is simple and transparent: it states “AIPAC does not speak for me. Most Jewish Americans are pro-peace. AIPAC is not.” But on the other hand, JVP falls short in offering any universal or ethical solution to the conflict in the Middle East.

“According to a recent poll by pollster Jim Gerstein” reads the JVP’s press release, “82% of Jewish Americans support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

So, if I understand it correctly, 82% of Jewish Americans support a solution that dismisses the most essential and elementary Palestinian right to return to their land, in effect supporting  the existence of a Jewish State in historic Palestine, at the expense of the Palestinians and their rights. In other words, the so-called ‘good peace-seeking Jews’ ,who are the vast majority of Jewish Americans (according to JVP), support an utterly non-ethical solution.

But the reference to Gerstein’s statistics is even more embarrassing. Are we interested in what the Dutch think about the solution of the conflict in Ireland? Do we care if Indians approve the Italian recent polls? No, we don’t but, for some reason, we are desperate to find out what ‘Jewish Americans’ think of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The reason for this is obvious – Israel defines itself as the Jewish State and many Jewish Americans see Israel as their homeland and obviously, they care about their homeland and its politics. In that respect, Zionism should be seen as a success story – a trap into which JVP is foolish enough to fall. By referring to Gerstein’s statistics, JVP actually confirms that Jews are bonded spiritually and politically with their Jewish state and so are subject to an intense conflict of identity.

Chaim Weizmann, the legendary Zionist and the first Israeli President, somehow knew of all those JVPs to come. Already in the early days of Zionism, he observed the Jewish political inclination towards marginalism; he wrote “there are no English, French, German or American Jews, but only Jews living in England, France, Germany or America.” Whether Weizmann was correct or not is open to discussion, but clearly, JVP accepts Weizmann’s observation. JVP refers to the American Jews as ‘Jewish Americans’. It regards Jewishness as a primary political quality and it refers to Jews as a distinctive marginal ethno-centric group.

Interestingly, the ‘anti’ Zionist JVP is actually the embodiment of Weizmann’s Zionist wet dream. It may not agree with AIPAC on some side issues to do with settlements, occupation and Israeli policies, but it agrees on the fundamentals – “there are no American Jews, but only Jews living in America.” And as if this is not enough, JVP, like AIPAC supports the existence of a Jews only State in Palestine.

I guess that from Weizmann’s perspective JVP is Zionist to the bone. It openly promotes the two state solution because, like AIPAC, it is primarily concerned with Jewish tribal interests rather than human rights, ethics, or universal thinking.

JVP, like any other Jews-only ‘progressive’ organisation, may speak universal but it still thinks tribal.

March 3, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 4 Comments

Don’t Mention the War!

By Lesley Docksey | Dissident Voice | March 2nd, 2013

Why is it, just when you think the British Government can sink no lower and visit no more embarrassment and shame upon the country they are supposedly there to represent, that within a week or less one of the Ministers will open his mouth or put pen to paper and demonstrate just how arrogant and useless they are?  Arrogant because they believe that whatever they say will be accepted as the final word on the subject; useless because they apparently can’t foresee how their statements will be received.

Foreign Secretary William Hague, who makes a career of talking down to people, has excelled himself.  According to the Guardian, with the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaching, he has written to all his fellow Ministers and asked them not to discuss the case for, or the legality of, the Iraq war.

According to a source close to Hague: ‘The foreign secretary has written to colleagues to remind them that the agreed position of the coalition government is not to comment on the case or justification for the war until Chilcot has reported.  This is about allowing the inquiry to reach its conclusion, not having the government prejudge them.’  Has Hague forgotten why the long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry cannot deliver its report?

In November 2011 we were told that the report would be delayed until the summer of 2012 because Whitehall departments were continuing to block the disclosure of documents about the circumstances surrounding the invasion of Iraq.  Chilcot’s panel, having read all these classified documents, knew how important it is that they are made public.  And unless they are, it is very difficult for them to produce an accurate, evidence-based judgment on why this country invaded Iraq, and the lessons that need to be learned from this disastrous error of judgment.

In July 2012 we were told the report had been delayed again, when we learned that the Inquiry panel were ‘deeply frustrated by Whitehall’s refusal to release papers, including those that reveal which ministers, legal advisers and officials were excluded from discussions on military action. The papers still kept secret include those relating to MI6 and the government’s electronic eavesdropping centre, GCHQ’.  Chilcot’s letter to David Cameron referred to the ‘sharp exchanges’ with the former cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell over disclosing details ‘of correspondence and conversations between Blair and Bush….which would illuminate Mr Blair’s position at critical points in the runup to war.’

In late 2012 there was news of a further delay as the issue about disclosing the documents was still being fought over by the Inquiry and the Cabinet Office.  Publication is now postponed until late 2013 or even sometime in 2014.  It is not as if the interested public, with good reason, doesn’t already have a pretty accurate idea of what those documents contain.  And it is clear from much of the evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry how deals were made, legal advice ignored and vital people were kept out of the discussions.  It was certainly clear to Chilcot and his panel; they had to recall several people, Tony Blair among them, as much of their previous evidence had been rubbished by other witnesses.  And how about this for two-handed dealing?  Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary, told the inquiry that the cabinet should have been told of the Attorney General’s doubts about the legality of invading Iraq before Blair went to war.  Sir Gus, before he retired, was the one blocking the much sought after publication of the classified documents.  Diss Blair with one hand and protect with the other.

Hague wants to block all meaningful discussion on the justifications and the ‘legal’ basis for invading Iraq until Chilcot has delivered his report, while at the same time the Government, including Hague’s own Ministry, are busy blocking the very action Chilcot needs from them in order to finalise his report.  But Hague goes further.  His letter to the cabinet made clear that ‘not prejudging Chilcot should not prevent [ministers] acknowledging the sacrifices of the armed forces’.   However, an honest confronting of the illegality of the invasion would necessarily have to acknowledge that the armed forces did not die in defence of this country but were sacrificed on the altar of Blair’s delusional ambitions.

Why should the Conservatives support Hague’s letter?  Because to a man – and occasional woman, as the Conservatives, looking at their record, also support gender inequality – they voted to go to war.  Labour can comfort itself in a small way with the thought that some Labour MPs disobeyed their Prime Minister and voted against the invasion.  But most of them will keep their heads down.  And the LibDems?  They have suddenly discovered their principles again after recently having one MP found guilty of perverting the course of justice and facing prison, and their former chief executive accused of sexual harassment while Nick Clegg, our deputy Prime Minister prevaricated about knowing of the abuse.  So Hague’s letter has allowed Clegg to climb back on his rather small soapbox to deliver a speech sometime before the anniversary.  For the LibDems were in theory all against the invasion – until we invaded and then, of course, they had to ‘support our brave troops’ and the sacrifices ‘our boys’ were making etc.  So William Hague can rest easy; very few of those in Parliament really want to discuss the war.  It brings up too much embarrassment.  It is too much of a reminder that they were and are a very active part of Perfidious Albion.

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March 3, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Comments Off on Don’t Mention the War!