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Where Does the USA Unequivocally Stand on Israeli Annexation of Palestine?

By Jim Surfer | Dissident Voice | October 28, 2013

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

– Art. 49, Fourth Geneva Convention

American news agencies (AP, Reuters, any major news organization or outlet) in reference to Israeli settlements (which could more accurately be termed “colonies”), routinely comment that these settlements are “considered illegal by most nations.” This is dishonest, as it creates the impression that the legality of settlement activity is murky and subject to debate. When I encounter this phrase I often ask the source to identify which nations consider settlement building on occupied territory legal. I neither receive or expect a reply because, of course, no nation besides Israel itself would argue their legality.

In order to drive this to ground, on August 8 I sent requests to both the U.S. Dept. of State and to Senator Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to provide a written statement of official U.S. policy on the legality of settlement building on occupied territory.

With no response being offered, on August 16 I began placing calls to State and the Congress, which I continued over the the following twenty-five days. By email and/or by telephone I contacted several offices at State along with spokespersons for Senators Menedez and Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) and the Congressional Representative of my home district, Loretta Sanchez. Specifically, I spoke to Kerry, Carlos, Kirby, Jose, Jennifer and Cameron, a gaggle of bright young staffers who ranged from earnest to annoyed and aloof. They all shared an abject inability to summon a response to my question. This includes the emailed response I finally received from Sen. Menendez on September 9, which reads as follows:

Dear  Mr. Hurt :

Thank you for contacting me to express your views regarding a two-state solution to the Israel – Palestinian conflict.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter and having the opportunity to respond.

As you may know, the Palestinian Authority proposed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) regarding issues under direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, namely borders and settlements.  Regardless of the content of such a resolution, our country’s consistent position has been that this and other issues linked to the Middle East peace process can only be resolved by the two parties negotiating directly with each other.

A peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is long overdue, and we must ensure that peace is sustainable and both parties are fully committed to a resolution.  The merits of any peace proposal between the Israelis and the Palestinians will have to be weighed against the assurances Israel requires for its security.  Israel’s right to exist and defend itself is inalienable and must be explicitly recognized by its neighbors.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.   Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

The reader will note that Sen. Menendez’s response is mere boilerplate and utterly fails to address the question. It also opens with a striking disregard for the truth: At no point did I “express (my) views regarding a two-state solution…” I immediately hit “Reply” and sent a polite, carefully worded message pointing out that my question remained unaddressed. In return, I was summarily notified by an entity labeled “senatepostmaster” that my reply was undeliverable.

Sen. Menendez has a spotty political record, often taking positions closer to Republican than Democratic. When it comes to Israel, however, he is reliably and staunchly in support, and maintains a close relationship with AIPAC. (Please read his address to AIPAC, March of this year.) He has recently sent a letter to the president laying out conditions for the Iranian nuclear negotiations that appear to be penned by Netanyahu himself, going far beyond Obama’s objectives and well beyond anything the Iranians could accept. Not surprising then that in his letter above, Menendez speaks entirely from an Israeli perspective, for example stressing the Israeli security requirements with nary a word about Palestinian security.

I had also forwarded this question (our nation’s official position on the legality of Israeli settlements) to the Council on Foreign Relations, and was pleased to receive a reply penned by Elliot Abrams, who, though still encumbered by significant moral and legal baggage (Central American death squads, Iran-Contra), must be respected as a scion of American diplomacy. Mr. Abrams, whose reply provides a neat history of the issue, from Reagan (“not illegal”) to Obama (“illegitimate”), while still failing to state our national position on legality, which position quite clearly does not currently exist.

The episode described clearly illustrates that our “representative democracy” is a charade. A representative democracy whose government declines to discuss or even express policy is nothing more than a plutocracy and our elections become merely an opportunity to select from a limited pool of plutocrats. It also calls into question our ability to perform an elemental and essential role of government: to create and conduct policy. It further questions the quality, capability and experience of our leadership and certainly our commitment to fundamental American values, namely the rule of law. The Fourth Geneva Convention was incorporated into Customary International Law in 1993, making it applicable to all nations. It’s clear that in this case our government willfully ignores and refuses to even acknowledge international law.

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November 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

BICOM and the peace process façade: On the views of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre

By Hilary Aked, Tom Mills, David Miller and Tom Griffin | MEMO | November 4, 2013

Renewed ‘peace talks’ between Israeli and the Palestinian Authority officials have quietly been going on behind closed doors and a U.S.-imposed media blackout for three months now. Like all previous such exercises they will almost certainly break down without delivering justice or bringing peace.

Even though the Palestine Papers made it clear that the leaders of the PA, a creation of the Oslo process, have offered huge concessions in past rounds of talks, pro-Israel commentators are nonetheless pre-emptively rehearsing their arguments to blame the Palestinian side and obfuscate the fundamental longstanding issue: Israeli intransigence. A key – though little known – organisation engaged in this activity in British political circles is BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre.

‘BICOM: Giving peace a chance?’, a new report published by Spinwatch, subjects this organisation to detailed scrutiny for the first time. It concludes that BICOM, like Israel itself, seeks to maintain the façade of progress towards peace, but in practice exhibits deep disdain for international law.

BICOM was established in 2001 in the wake of the Second Intifada and increasing international exasperation with Israel. Looking back a decade later, its primary funder, the billionaire businessman Poju Zabludowicz, neatly articulated its raison d’etre: ‘We have learnt over the last 10 years… that the key to creating a more supportive environment for Israel in Britain is convincing people in this country that Israel seeks a lasting peace… As long as this argument remains credible then people will generally forgive mistakes and difficulties even if peace continues to be elusive’, he wrote.

So BICOM’s aim is not to contribute to peace, but to convince people that peace is what Israel wants. The professions of support for a two state solution BICOM issues seem to be little more than a rhetorical device to foster, in Zabludowicz’s words, a ‘supportive environment’ in which people will ‘forgive’ Israel for its ‘mistakes’.

The existence of a broad international consensus in support of Palestinian statehood is enough to explain why BICOM judges it must pay lip service to the abstract idea of a Palestinian state. But the devil is in the detail. Though BICOM poses as the voice of sensible centrism, its political positions, when subjected to scrutiny, are far from moderate. In practice BICOM opposes key tenets of international law that serve as the framework for implementing the recognised prerequisites of a Palestinian state. It echoes Israeli exceptionalism on the four key issues of the conflict: borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees. The following is based on an analysis of BICOM’s own statements.

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the UN Security Council passed resolution 242 which called for Israel to end its occupation of territories captured during the war. Following the Israeli government’s unique interpretation, however, BICOM argues that the absence of either the word ‘the’ or ‘all’ from the English language version of resolution 242 when referring to ‘territories captured’, means that Israel need not withdraw to pre-67 borders. This, despite the resolution’s preamble clearly asserting the ‘inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war’.

On settlements too, despite international consensus on their illegality as articulated in UN Security Council resolutions and reiterated in 2004 by the International Court of Justice, BICOM stands by the Israeli government’s position which is, again, at odds with the international community. Israel disputes the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention which outlaws the transfer of civilians into the occupied territories. Indeed, whilst engaging in talks supposedly intended to demonstrate its commitment to achieving peace, Israel yet again announced more settlement construction and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a letter of solidarity to Israeli settlers in Hebron.

While BICOM, for obvious reasons, generally tries to avoid spelling out the extent to which its positions contradict with the requirements of international law, Luke Akehurst, who manages the BICOM spin-off group We Believe in Israel, has explicitly challenged the internationally accepted interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. But more frequently, since Israel is in violation of so many laws and UN resolutions, BICOM simply dispenses with international legal principles as an explanatory framework. Instead its stances are frequently premised upon – and justified by way of reference to – what Israelis are ‘willing to contemplate’ or the ‘broad consensus in Israel’.

On Jerusalem, for example, BICOM asserts that ‘most Israelis would not be willing to contemplate’ Israeli ‘loss of Israeli sovereignty’ over the city. Thus it endorses the Israeli government’s unilateral rejection of the international political and legal consensus. BICOM’s attitude is illustrated in its use of language too. It euphemistically refers to settlements as ‘communities’ or ‘neighbourhoods’, to the West Bank as ‘disputed’ rather than occupied territory and calls the Jerusalem ‘the capital of Israel’ – though even the United States does not recognise this and therefore maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.

On the thorny issue of the Palestinian refugees BICOM claims that in the 1948 war ‘there was no deliberate, co-ordinated Jewish policy to expel the Arabs’. This Zionist myth has long been disproved by Israel’s so-called New Historians, such as Ilan Pappe, who have shown convincingly that the contrary is in fact true. At any rate, the right of the approximately 700,000 refugees – and their descendants – to return to their homes is upheld in UN resolution 194. Yet BICOM’s take on the refugee issue appears, once more to ignore international law and UN resolutions. Instead it offers the legally insubstantial argument that ‘Israel does not believe it is responsible for resettling the refugees, believing their plight to be the responsibility of the Arab states that rejected the 1947 Partition Plan [and] started the war’.

Cutting to the heart of the situation is BICOM’s statement (again couched in terms of Israeli desires, not legality) that ‘no Israeli government will accept a solution that would allow millions of Palestinians to settle in Israel [as] this would effectively spell the end of the Jewish majority’. Even without reference to the return of refugees, BICOM’s research director, Toby Greene, writing in BICOM’s recently launched glossy publication ‘Fathom‘, speaks of a ‘demographic threat’ posed to Israel – and its self-definition as a Jewish state – by natural Palestinian population growth alone. This illuminates the underlying ethnic exclusivism in BICOM’s vision of ‘two states for two peoples’.

Just as the ‘peace process’ functions as a fig leaf for continuation of the status quo, BICOM’s lobbying activities – which focus on encouraging the British media to take what it paradoxically refers to as ‘the most objectively favourable line‘ – serve to ward off condemnation of Israel. This seems to be true amongst the strategically vital political elite at least, though grassroots trends show increasing pro-Palestinian feeling.

Ultimately it is symptomatic of the tenuous nature of democracy in the UK that by maintaining close relationships at the top – with the likes of the influential Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel groups – BICOM is able to inculcate in the political class the idea that Israel is a benign and reasonable actor in search of peace, while its underlying arguments and Israel’s actions, belie this narrative.

The report BICOM: Giving peace a chance? will be launched on the 7th of November. Register to attend the launch event here.

November 4, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cut Zionist genocide, feed Americans instead

Press TV – November 2, 2013

Some 47 million poor Americans – one in four children – see their already meager federal food allowances slashed this week.

The cuts amount to $4 billion a year over the next decade.

That $4 billion figure should ring a bell. It is equivalent to the official annual subvention that the US government sends to Israel – courtesy of the American taxpayer.

This week that $4 billion annual donation to the regime in Tel Aviv was on display with the following items: Israeli tanks, warplanes and troops carried out deadly raids on occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in at least nine deaths and dozens of wounded; dozens of Palestinians continued to be kidnapped (“arrested”) from their homes and streets by Israeli troops; also the dominant Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu announced that illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Al Quds “will be intensified” with plans to build an additional 5,000 housing units.

The accelerated construction on Palestinian land is in blatant contravention of international law.

In other words, this week, as in every other week, the war crimes that the US-backed Israeli regime has been committing since at least 1967 continued apace. This in the same week that millions of Americans are on notice that they are being put on starvation rations because their government would rather send $4 billion to a genocidal regime than pay for basic human nutrition.

The fact is that the Israeli criminal regime gets away with this genocide only because the US rulers hand over $4 billion every year to a state that comprises some seven million Israeli nationals.

It is astounding that tens of millions of Americans are going hungry because the same amount of money being cut from their social welfare is bankrolling Israel.

Ironically, some 900,000 of those hungry Americans are believed to be former US soldiers, many of whom are mentally and physically broken from fighting in the so-called Wars on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Israeli regime, its American lobbyists and its bought-and-paid-for politicians created the false premises for these criminal wars – and many others besides.

But the men and women who served as cannon fodder in these criminal wars are now being abandoned in hunger, while the regime that helped cause their misery is still creaming off American taxpayers.

Hunger, poverty, suffering, death, genocide are all consonant and consistent in this grotesque system deified as capitalism.

Here are a few other figures to round out the abject picture. If just 0.6 per cent were shaved off the annual $700 billion US military budget, that would be enough to cover the cuts in the food stamp program this year.

If the $52-billion-a-year NSA spying program that is operated against our own citizens was cancelled that would pay for the immediate food needs of all Americans and, moreover, help build an economy for genuine social development, with good paying jobs, welfare and infrastructure. But, again, that won’t happen because the US economy is a war economy based on fear and paranoia.

US lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat – they are all the same puppets – want to axe a total of $40 billion from the food program over 10 years. This is the same figure – $40 billion – that these same minions throw at Wall Street and the mega-banks every two weeks under the scam known as “Quantitative Easing.” Taxpayers, many of them on food stamps, are bailing out corporations that crashed the world economy and which are up to their necks in militarism. Yet, this bloated elite turns around and snatches the crumbs out of people’s mouths.

But we return to the Zionist regime. These crimes are subsidized and enabled by money that would otherwise feed hungry Americans. People will die this year in the US simply from poverty and the lack of food. These American deaths will be for the same reason that Palestinians will die from poverty and hunger.

The choice is revealingly simple. Stop funding genocide in the Middle East or start feeding Americans.

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November 3, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

70% want BBC licence fee to be cut or abolished, poll finds

Press TV – November 3, 2013

Seventy percent of voters paticipating in a new ICM poll for The Telegraph believe the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) exclusive right to the television licence fee should be cut or scrapped.

According to the poll, 21 percent of voters believe the BBC must face a cut in the amount it receives or have to share with other broadcasters while about 50 percent said the charge should be scrapped entirely.

Only 10 percent of the voters say they want to see the fee increase in the BBC’s Charter in 2016.

Chairman of the Commons media select committee John Whittingdale said the poll shows “considerable public dissatisfaction” with the current system of funding.

He added that there was a strong case for allowing other broadcasters to compete for licence fee funding to put an end on the BBC’s “monopoly”.

According to earlier reports, British ministers are willing to consider licence fee reforms if the BBC fails to undertake changes in the wake of a series of scandals hitting the corporation.

Earlier last week, the Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps said the corporation needs to tackle a culture of “secrecy” following the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall scandals as well as disclosures about pay-offs to senior executives.

The licence fee, which is currently frozen at £145.50 annually, brings the broadcaster some £3.6 billion in revenue.

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November 3, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

The role of the BBC in the Syrian conflict

“The following report contains disturbing images”

This is how the BBC website introduces a report by its BBC Panorama’s Syria correspondents Ian Pannell and Darren Conway on August the 30th, 2013. The story contained a video, ostensibly shot near Aleppo, Northern Syria, by an anonymous school headmaster, and documenting the aftermath of a napalm attack on his school, supposedly perpetrated by the Syrian armed forces on August 26th. According to the story, the “evil” forces of Bashar al-Assad, at a time when they had just about established their strategic advantage over the anti-government rebel forces and the foreign mercenaries they had been fighting for over two years, had found nothing better to do than attack a school, a target which presented no military interest whatsoever, with napalm – no less – just so the international media, and BBC Panorama in particular, could pick the story and broadcast it to Western audiences, in perfect timing to coincide with the British Parliament’s vote on the so-called “humanitarian intervention” in Syria, which was being pushed for by Prime Minister David Cameron, ostensibly to prevent precisely this kind of atrocities.

Were Assad’s forces really that stupid? Of course not.

It did not take long before several international commentators and observers pointed out the many implausibilities in the video and the story in general. Among them, Italian author Francesco Santoianni, showed how incongruent the whole story was, sparking the suspicion that the entire video might have been a fabrication. What follows is his analysis.

First of all, Napalm is a substance which generates temperatures between 800 and 1,200 degrees Celsius: in other words, no one has ever survived direct exposure. These physical characteristics mean that when Napalm was utilised in theatres of war, it was primarily used to defoliate areas covered with thick vegetation, and not urban areas, where white phosphorus is more often used, as the United States Armed Forces did in Falluja in 2005, and the Israeli Defence Forces did in Gaza in 2008. Nevertheless, the BBC expected its viewers to believe that Assad’s forces had employed the obsolete napalm on a school. Of course, a school with no teaching resources in sight, but somehow a swimming pool in the back. Oh, and a swing. Case closed: it MUST be a school. Although, we are told by our sources in Syria that the school year did not start until September 15: so what exactly were all those people doing in a locked-up school?

In the video, we were also shown a pair of winter shoes – not clear how they ended up there: it was after all August – and a woman’s shoe. Was all this footwear worn by the victims? How did it remain intact?

Almost every British newspaper which reported the story informed us that “The attack killed more than ten pupils and left many more seriously injured”: and yet, despite the warning against graphic images, we are not shown the bodies, or the grieving parents.

There is – to be sure – a child, seeing shaking in one scene. His skin is actually intact, and so is his hair: certainly not consistent with napalm, or anything like it. And what is the white stuff on his body? Surely, it cannot be the chemical fired from the fighter jets – that wouldn’t have left his hair intact – therefore we must assume that it’s some kind of first-aid ointment, of sorts? Whoever administered it could not even be bothered to remove the watch from the kid’s wrist. In fact, no one seems to be attending this child: the only person with some kind of interest is the cameraman.

Somewhat less convincing is a couple, seen in the video going through the well-rehearsed motions of cursing in Arabic. There is a problem though: the woman’s face is covered in that same white stuff: and the couple has just arrived to the so-called hospital, so it cannot be “some kind of first-aid ointment”. It must be the “napalm-like chemical”. We are expected to believe that a “napalm-like” chemical, fired from a fighter jet, somehow ended up sprayed on this woman’s face leaving her veil intact?

We also see what is supposed to be a makeshift hospital. On the floor, five adult males are shaking – three of them still have their clothes perfectly intact, of course – although one of them at some point stands up and walks off, having presumably decided that he’s had enough.

By the way, we keep seeing paramedics from the so-called charity Hand in Hand for Syria supposedly handling chemical burns victims without any gloves on – but wearing gas masks, for some reason. And even a dust mask: what’s that? The woman in question is of course Dr. Rola, the star of this video [segment introducing Dr. Rola]

Then, of course, we get the obligatory segment showing a distraught local, venting his powerless rage at the International Community, invariably denounced as inefficient and perennially locked in futile negotiations. The Public Relations rules dictate that such a character must be somehow connected with the tragedy (no details given), and that, when he addresses the camera, he must not speak in the local language – which would only sound like terrorist gibberish to most Western audiences: rather, he has to produce an impromptu speech in an impeccable English, so impeccable to the point of sounding scripted and well-rehearsed, or even read off a prompter. After all, these PR rules did work for Libya.

All these absurdities were exposed almost immediately after the release of the video on the BBC’s channels. So why talk about them again now?

Well, one reason is that the BBC itself, presumably after receiving dozens of complaints from viewers who didn’t appreciate their intelligence being insulted, decided to salvage what little they could from the story, and delete the biggest blooper of all. And this is where it gets creepy. Because what follows leads one to believe that this was not the case of the BBC naively buying into a story packaged and sold to them by the anti-Assad PR machine (it wouldn’t have been the first time), but rather that the BBC itself actively created a product that was intended to steer the public opinion towards a more interventionist position. For such a product, there can only be one definition: propaganda.

What happened was that Human Rights activist Craig Murray, among others, realised that, between the first and the second release of the video, something was different in the lines spoken by Dr. Rola. Listen to the original one, containing references to napalm.

The reference to napalm has disappeared in the redacted version.

Both audio clips have the same identical sound quality: of course, there is very little that cannot be accomplished with the kind of technology that’s available to the British Broadcasting Corporation, thanks in part to the fact that Dr. Rola was wearing her exaggerated dust mask, which conveniently did away with all the challenges involved in dubbing, lip-synch, etc. However, the redacted audio clip must have been added at a much later stage, for reasons we have just explored, which prompts us to ask: how can we even be sure that the original audio clip was not scripted and recorded in a studio? Also, Robert Stuart, writing on the Media Lenses Forum, points out that Dr Saleyha Ahsan, featured in the new version of the video, is a filmmaker with a military background: a former Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps and a freelance current affairs journalist. Was she involved in packaging this product?

The background of Dr. Rola herself is also interesting. Of course, she’s no stranger to the BBC:here she can be seen appearing on a political programme, advocating for the bombing of Syria.

Also of interest is the fact that the Charity Hand in Hand for Syria, where Dr. Rola supposedly works as a volunteer medic, happens to sport a flag of the French colonial era on its logo – a flag now adopted by the Anti-Assad Coalition. This is an affiliation which the BBC did not see fit to disclose to its viewers.

For those who still believe in whatever is left of the BBC’s reputation for upholding the mediatic standards of fair and balanced reporting, here is some useful information about another so-called “charity”. The BBC Media Action (formerly the BBC World Service Trust), with its catchy slogan: “Transforming Lives through Media around the World”.

In an interesting report available on its website, BBC Media Action explains: “In 2008, BBC Media Action launched its three-year project ‘Socially Responsible Media Platforms in the Arab World’ with funding from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Syria News was the official Syrian partner, endorsed by the Ministry of Information on behalf of the BBC. The project aimed to set up an interactive online training platform, the Ara2 [opinions] Academy, for Syria’s journalistic and blogging communities, creating networks between the two. This reflected the changing status of bloggers in the regional media and responded to their aspiration to be seen as credible social commentators. The project also supported Syria News as an example of a sustainable independent media organisation, with managerial staff taking part in study tours in London and in business development training. BBC Media Action did not work with a local partner on blogger training, as this could have alienated and excluded parts of the blogging community. Instead, the BBC collaborated with an informal network of bloggers from across the country and recruited mentors for the distance learning system (the Ara2 Academy) who were trained at workshops in London and Damascus”.

One could not have wished for a clearer description of a Trojan horse, funded by one government in order to destabilize another. Just to go over the timeline again: the three-year BBC Action Syria Project started in 2008. The “Syrian uprising” began in February 2011.

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November 3, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘It’s Your Father’ – Each Stretcher is a Tragedy

By Tamar Fleishman | Palestine Chronicle | November 1, 2013

Qalandiya – Each time it seems like we have reached the bottom of the pit, but reality proves there to be an even deeper one.

Perhaps to those who do not stand in front of the ambulances, the stretchers and the back-to-back procedures the pictures seem the same. But they really aren’t. Each person is a story and on each stretcher is a tragedy. Only the occupation is the same, as well as the rifles, the regulations and the orders.

And because of the regulations a six year old child who had severely injured his head at 10 AM with a metal bar had arrived at Qalandiya checkpoint at only 3 PM, although his father immediately after the injury phoned a brain specialist in Amman who told him that the child must be on the operation table within the hour.

By the time the mechanism of the occupation had permitted the child and his mother (not his father) to pass through to a hospital in Jerusalem, five hours had past. Five hours is a time frame that hands out the verdict of life and death.

The child was hazy, his eyes were open but they weren’t focused; his hands rose without purpose and fell down as though on their own, and the father begged that they take him as well with the child to the hospital, so that he be with his child- but no, only the mother could go.

The man stood by the child who couldn’t really see him, and touched the child who couldn’t really feel, and talked to him, and the child didn’t really hear, and said to him: “it’s your father, my child, it’s your father…” and kept saying it again and again.

The man bent over and touched the child’s body and hands and the tip of his head that remained exposed, as though saying goodbye, and keeping it together until the ambulance drove off and only then did tears come bursting out of his eyes.

And from mine once I was on my own.

(Translated by Ruth Fleishman)

– As a member of Machsomwatch, once a week Tamar Fleishman heads out to document the checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

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November 3, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu orders building of wall in the Jordan Valley along borders with Jordan

Palestine Information Center – 03/11/2013

RAMALLAH — Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has given instructions for the building of a wall along the borders with Jordan in the Jordan Valley, Hebrew press reported on Sunday.

Maariv daily said that the instructions were given for planning that wall, which would entail full Israeli control of the area.

The decision was taken despite the ongoing negotiations between Israel and the PA with the Jordan Valley being one of the negotiated issues.

The paper quoted Netanyahu as saying that one of the reasons for building the wall was fears of alleged influx of Syrian refugees from Jordan in addition to sending a message to the Palestinians who object to the presence of Israel on the Jordan Valley mainly that Israel does not intend to withdraw from the Jordan Valley in any future settlement.

November 3, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Bahraini court sentences four activists to life

Press TV – November 3, 2013

A court in Bahrain has sentenced four anti-regime activists to life in prison and six others to 15-year jail terms, as the country’s prosecutors begin interrogation of opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman.

Bahraini opposition sources said on Sunday that the activists were handed prison sentences for taking part in anti-regime protests.

Earlier this week, ten protesters were also imprisoned over similar charges.

The court rulings are issued at a time when Bahraini regime forces have intensified their crackdown on opposition leaders.

Reports say the Manama regime has begun the interrogation of Sheikh Ali Salman, the secretary-general of the main opposition group, al-Wefaq.

The Saturday summoning of Sheikh Salman sparked protests across Bahrain.

The demonstrators expressed solidarity with the al-Wefaq leader.

The Bahraini opposition group believes the summoning of Salman “to be part of the political blackmail and revenge against the peaceful opposition that is asking for democracy.”

The Manama regime is under fire for its heavy-handed crackdown on protests.

On October 30, Bahraini regime forces stormed and shut down an exhibition, dubbed the revolution museum, which was opened by al-Wefaq.

The party says it will lodge a complaint with the United Nations over the raid on the exhibition, which had been organized in an effort to portray the brutal regime clampdown on peaceful protests.

In September, Wefaq’s deputy leader, Khalil al-Marzouq, was arrested on charges of “inciting protests” against the ruling Al Khalifa family. The opposition party said the detention was “a clear attack on political activism in Bahrain.”

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising began in Bahrain in early 2011.

November 3, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin Signs Law Punishing Terrorists’ Relatives

RIA Novosti | November 3, 2013

MOSCOW  – President Vladimir Putin signed a law Sunday forcing the relatives of terrorists to pay for the damages caused by their attacks.

The law submitted by President Putin in September that includes measures to criminalize training in terrorist camps was approved by the country’s parliament in late October.

Effort to target the families of militants marks the latest attempt by Russian authorities to stamp out an insurgency in the turbulent North Caucasus that has claimed thousands of lives over more than a decade.

Under the law, material and moral damages inflicted as a result of a terrorist attack should be compensated “by the perpetrator and his or her family members, relatives, in-laws and other people, whose lives, health and well-being are significant to him or her because of established personal relations.”

The new law stipulates closer scrutiny toward property belonging to the relatives and loved ones of people who have “committed a terrorist act,” with the goal of verifying whether such money or goods were acquired legally.

People found guilty of training with the aim of carrying out terrorist activities will now face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines of up to 500,000 rubles ($15,700). Anybody found guilty of creating terrorist networks could be sentenced to 20 years behind bars and fines of up to one million rubles.

Individuals found to be parts of terrorist organizations can now be punished with 10-year jail sentences and 500,000 ruble fines.

The new legislation increases penalties for setting up, leading or financing armed groups to up to 10 years. Participation in such groups, including those based abroad, is punishable with up to six years in jail.

November 3, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

US won’t ignore Israeli interest at N-talks: Sherman

Press TV – November 3, 2013

US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman says Washington will take into consideration Israel’s security interests at the upcoming talks between Iran and the group of six major world powers.

According to a report published by the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, Sherman said the US will not ignore Israel’s security interests at the forthcoming nuclear talks, which are slated to be held in the Swiss city of Geneva on November 7-8.

Sherman made the remarks in an interview with Channel 10, which is set to be broadcast later on Sunday.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany held two days of talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 15-16.

During the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif presented Tehran’s proposal titled, “Closing an Unnecessary Crisis, Opening a New Horizon” to the six countries.

Sherman also rejected reports about Washington offering Iran relief from unilateral sanctions imposed over the country’s nuclear energy program.

“We have not offered any sanctions relief on Iran, and we have not removed any sanctions,” the US official added.

Under pressures by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the US Senate is ratcheting up pressure on the White House to tighten the sanctions against Iran in line with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for more pressure against Tehran.

In a statement on Saturday, the AIPAC said there would be “no pause, delay or moratorium in our efforts” to seek new sanctions on Iran.

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November 3, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Buys the US Congress: Sabotaging the US-Iran Peace Negotiations

By James Petras | November 2, 2013

Pro-Israel Policy groups such as AIPAC work with unlimited funding to divert US policy in the region (Middle East).

– Jack Straw, Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary of the British Labor Party

The United States should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to spur the country to end its nuclear program.

– Sheldon Adelson, biggest donor to the Republican Party and major fundraiser for pro-Israel political action committees, speech at Yeshiva University, New York City, October 22, 2013

The question of war or peace with Iran rests with the policies adopted by the White House and the US Congress. The peace overtures by newly elected Iranian President Rohani have resonated favorably around the world, except with Israel and its Zionist acolytes in North America and Europe. The first negotiating session proceeded without recrimination and resulted in an optimistic assessment by both sides. Precisely because of the initial favorable response among the participants, the Israeli government escalated its propaganda war against Iran. Its agents in the US Congress, the mass media and in the Executive branch moved to undermine the peace process. What is at stake is Israel’s capacity to wage proxy wars using the US military and its NATO allies against any government challenging Israeli military supremacy in the Middle East, its violent annexation of Palestinian territory and its ability to attack any adversary with impunity.

To understand what is at stake in the current peace negotiations one must envision the consequences of failure: Under Israeli pressure, the US announced that its ‘military option’ could be activated – resulting in missile strikes and a bombing campaign against 76 million Iranians in order to destroy their government and economy. Tehran could retaliate against such aggression by targeting US military bases in the region and Gulf oil installations resulting in a global crisis. This is what Israel wants.

We will begin by examining the context of Israel’s military supremacy in the Middle East. We will then proceed to analyze Israel’s incredible power over the US political process and how it shapes the negotiation process today, with special emphasis on Zionist power in the US Congress.

The Context of Israeli Military Supremacy in the Middle East

Since the end of World War II, Israel has bombed, invaded and occupied more countries in the Middle East and Africa than any previous colonial power, except the US. The list of Israel’s victims includes: Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Sudan, and Yemen. If we include countries where Israel has launched quasi-clandestine terrorist attacks and assassinations, the list would be greatly expanded to include a dozen countries in Europe and Asia – including the US through its Zionist terror network.

Israel’s projection of military power, its capacity for waging offensive wars at will, is matched by its near-total impunity. Despite their repeated violations of international law, including war crimes, Israel has never been censored at an international tribunal or subjected to economic sanctions because the US government uses its position to veto UN Security Council resolutions and pressure its NATO-EU allies.

Israel’s military supremacy has less to do with the native techno-industrial ‘brilliance’ of its war-mongers and more to do with the transfers and outright theft of nuclear, chemical, and biological technology and weapons from the US.1 Overseas Zionists in the US and France have played a strategic (and treasonous) role in stealing and illegally shipping nuclear technology and weapon components to Israel, according to an investigation by former CIA Director Richard Helms.

Israel maintains huge nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon stockpiles, refusing any access to international arms inspectors and is not obliged to abide by the non-proliferation treaty because of US diplomatic intervention. Under pressure from the local ‘Zionist power configuration’ (ZPC), the US government has blocked any action which might constrain Israel’s production of weapons of mass destruction. In fact the US continues to provide Israel with strategic weapons of mass destruction for use against its neighbors – in violation of international law.

US military aid and technology transfers to Israel exceed $100 billion dollars over the past half century. US diplomatic and military intervention was crucial in rescuing Israel from defeat during the 1973 war. US President Lyndon Johnson’s refusal to defend the unarmed intelligence ship, the USS Liberty in 1967, after it had been bombed and napalmed by Israeli fighter planes and warships in international waters, constituted a tremendous victory for Israel, thanks to Johnson’s Zionist advisers. Because of its impunity, even in killing American servicemen, Israel has been given a free hand to wage aggressive wars to dominate its neighbors, commit acts of terrorism, and assassinate its adversaries throughout the world without fear of retaliation.

Israel’s uncontested military superiority has converted several of its neighbors to quasi-client collaborators: Egypt and Jordan have served as de facto allies, along with the Gulf monarchies, helping Israel repress the region’s nationalist and pro-Palestinian movements.

The most decisive factor in the rise and consolidation of Israel’s power in the Middle East has not been its military prowess but its political reach and influence via its Zionist agents in the US. Washington’s wars against Iraq and Libya, and its current support of the mercenary assault against Syria, have destroyed three major secular nationalist opponents of Israel’s hegemonic ambitions.

As Israel accumulates more power in the region, expanding its colonization of Palestinian territory, it looks eastward toward destroying the last remaining obstacle to its colonial policies: Iran.

For at least two decades, Israel has directed its overseas agents – (the ZPC) – to destroy the government of Iran by destabilizing its society, assassinating its scientists, bombing its military establishments and laboratories, and strangling its economy.

After the ZPC successfully pushed the US into war against Iraq in 2003 – literally shredding its complex secular society and killing over a million Iraqis – it turned its sights on destroying Lebanon (Hezbollah) and the secular government of Syria as a way to isolate Iran and prepare for an attack. While thousands of Lebanese civilians were slaughtered in 2006, Israel’s attack on Lebanon failed, despite the support of the US government and the ZPC’s wild propaganda campaign. Hysterical at its failure and to ‘compensate’ for its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah and to ‘boost morale,’ Israel invaded and destroyed much of Gaza (2008/9) – the world’s largest open air prison camp.

Lacking military capacity to attack Iran on its own, Israel directed its agents to manipulate the US government to start a war with Tehran. The militarist leaders in Tel Aviv have unleashed their political assets (ZPC) throughout the US to work to destroy Iran – the last formidable adversary to Israeli supremacy in the Middle East.

The Israeli-ZPC strategy is designed to set the stage for a US confrontation with Iran, using its agents in the Executive branch as well as its ongoing corruption, bribery and control of the US Congress. ZPC control over the mass media enhances its propaganda campaign: Everyday the New York Times and the Washington Post publish articles and editorials promoting Israel’s war agenda. The ZPC uses the US State Department to force other NATO states to likewise confront Iran.

Israel’s Proxy War with Iran: US Political Pressure, Economic Sanctions and Military Threats

Alone, Israel’s ‘war’ with Iran would not amount to much more than its cyber sabotage, the periodic assassinations of Iranian scientists using its paid agents among Iranian terrorist groups and non-stop brow-beating from Israeli politicians and their ‘amen crowd’. Outside of Israel, this campaign has had little impact on public opinion. Israel’s ‘war’ on Iran depends exclusively on its capacity to manipulate US policy using its local agents and groups who dominate the US Congress and through the appointments of officials in key positions in the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and Justice , and as Middle East ‘advisors’. Israel cannot organize an effective sanction campaign against Iran; nor could it influence any major power to abide by such a campaign. Only the US has that power. Israel’s dominance in the Middle East comes entirely from its capacity to mobilize its proxies in the United States who are assigned the task of securing total submission to Israel’s interests from elected and appointed government officials – especially in regard to Israel’s regional adversaries.

Strategically placed, ‘dual US-Israeli citizens’ have used their US citizenship to secure high security positions in the Government directly involved in policies affecting Israel. As Israelis, their activities are in line with the dictates of Tel Aviv. In the Bush administration (2001-2008) high placed ‘Israel Firsters’ dominated the Pentagon (Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith), Middle East Security (Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross), the Vice President’s office (‘Scooter’ Libby), Treasury (Levey) and Homeland Security (Michael Chertoff). In the Obama administration the ‘Israel Firsters’ include Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel, David Cohen, Secretary of Treasury Jack “Jake the Snake” Lew, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Michael Froman as Trade Representative among others.

Israel’s Proxy Power within the Executive branch is matched by its dominance of the US Congress. Contrary to some critics, Israel is neither an ‘ally’ or ‘client’ of the US. Evidence of the gross asymmetry of the relationship abounds over the past half century. Because of these powerful proxies in Congress and the Executive branch, Israel has received over a $100 billion dollar tribute from the US the past 30 years, or $3 billion plus a year. The US Pentagon has transferred the most up-to-date military technology and engaged in several wars on Israel’s behalf. The US Treasury has imposed sanctions against potentially lucrative trading and investment partners in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq and Syria) depriving US agricultural and manufacturing exporters and oil companies of over $500 billion in revenues. The White House sacrificed the lives of over 4,400 US soldiers in the Iraq War – a war promoted by Israel’s proxies at the behest of Israel’s leaders. The State Department has rejected friendly and profitable relations with over 1.5 billion Muslims by backing the illegal settlement of over half million Jewish colonists on military-occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The strategic question is how and why this one-sided relationship between the US and Israel persists for so long, even as it goes counter to so many strategic and elite US interests? The more immediate and pressing question is how this historically lopsided relationship effects contemporary US-Iran sanctions and nuclear negotiations?

Iran and the Peace Negotiations

Undoubtedly the newly elected Iranian President and his Foreign Minister are prepared to negotiate an end to hostilities with the US by making major concessions ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy. They have stated they are open to reducing or even ending the production of highly enriched uranium; reducing the number of centrifuges and even allowing intrusive, unannounced inspections, among other promising proposals. The Iranian government proposes a roadmap with end goals as part of the initial agreements. The European Union’s Foreign Secretary Lady Ashton has commented favorably on the initial meeting.

The US Administration has given conflicting signals following the Iranian overtures and the opening meeting. Some individual comments are guardedly positive; others are less encouraging and rigid. Administration Zionists like Jack ‘Jake’ Lew, the Treasury Secretary, insist sanctions will remain until Iran meets all US (read ‘Israeli’) demands. The US Congress, bought and controlled by the ZPC, rejects the promising Iranian overtures and flexibility, insisting on military ‘options’ or the total dismantling of Iran’s legal and peaceful nuclear program – ZPC positions designed to sabotage the negotiations. To that end, Congress has passed new, more extreme, economic sanctions to strangle Iran’s oil economy.

How Israel’s Political Action Committees Control the US Congress and Prepare War with Iran

The Zionist Power Configuration uses its financial firepower to dictate Congressional policy on the Middle East and to ensure that the US Congress and Senate do not stray one iota from serving Israel’s interests. The Zionist instrument used in the purchase of elected officials in the US is the political action committee (PAC).

Thanks to a 2010 US Supreme Court decision, Super PACs-linked to Israel spend enormous sums to elect or destroy candidates – depending on the candidate’s political work on behalf of Israel. As long as these funds do not go directly to the candidate, these Super PACs do not have to reveal how much they spend or how it is spent. Conservative estimates of ZPC-linked direct and indirect funds to US legislators run close to $100 million dollars over the past 30-years. The ZPC channels these funds to legislative leaders and members of Congressional committees dealing with foreign policy, especially sub-committee chairpersons dealing with the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, the largest Congressional recipients of ZPC money are those who have aggressively promoted Israel’s hard-line policies. Elsewhere around the world, such large scale payoffs for legislative votes would be considered blatant bribery and subject to felony prosecution­ and imprisonment for both parties. In the US, the purchase and sale of a politician’s vote is called ‘lobbying’ and is legal and open. The legislative branch of the US government has come to resemble a high-price brothel or white slavers’ auction – but with the lives of thousands at stake.

The ZPC has purchased the alliance of US Congress people and Senators on a massive scale: Of 435 members of the US House of Representatives (sic), 219 have received payments from the ZPC in exchange for their votes on behalf of the state of Israel. Corruption is even more rampant among the 100 US Senators, 94 of whom have accepted pro-Israel PAC and Super PAC money for their loyalty to Israel. The ZPC showers money on both Republicans and Democrats, thus securing incredible (in this era of Congressional deadlock), near unanimous (‘bipartisan’) votes in favor of the ‘Jewish State’, including its war crimes, like the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon as well as the annual $3 billion dollar plus US tax-payer tribute to Tel Aviv. At least 50 US Senators have each collected between $100 thousand and $1 million in ZPC money over the past decades. In exchange, they have voted for over $100 billion in tribute payments to Israel … in addition to other ‘services and payments’. The members of the US Congress are cheaper: 25 legislators have received between $238,000 and $50,000, while the rest got peanuts. Regardless of the amount, the net result is the same: Congressional members pick up their script from their Zionist mentors in the PACs, Super PACs and AIPAC and back all of Israel’s wars in the Middle East and promote US aggression on behalf of Israel.

The most outspoken and influential legislators get the biggest chunk of Zionist payola: Senator Mark Kirk (Bombs over Tehran!) tops the ‘pigs at the trough’ list with $925,000 in ZPC payoffs, followed by John McCain (Bombs over Damascus!) with $771,000, while Senators Mitch McConnell, Carl Levin, Robert Menendez, Richard Durban and other Zionophilic politicos are not shy about holding out their little begging bowls when the pro-Israel PAC bagmen arrive! Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen tops the ‘House’ list with $238,000 for her 100% pro-Israel record as well as for being more war-mongering than even Netanyahu! Eric Cantor got $209,000 for championing ‘wars for Israel’ with American lives while cutting Social Security payments to US seniors in order to increase military aid to Tel Aviv. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, got $144,000 for ‘whipping the few wobbly’ Democrats back into Israel’s ‘camp’. House Majority Leader John Boehner was paid $130,000 to do the same among the Republicans.

The ZPC has spent huge amounts to punish and destroy a dozen or so dissident legislators who had stood up to Israel’s wars and grotesque human rights record. The ZPC has poured millions into individual campaigns, not only financing opposition candidates who pledged allegiance to the Israel but mounting scurrilous character assassinations of Israel’s critics in office. These campaigns have been mounted in the most obscure parts of the US, including in majority African-American districts, where local Zionist interests and influence are otherwise absolutely nil.

There are no comparable PACs, Super PACs, party leaders, or civic organizations that can contest the power of Israel’s Fifth Column. According to documents archived by the courageous researcher, Grant Smith of IRMEP, when it comes to Israel, the US Justice Department has adamantly refused to enforce its own federal laws requiring the prosecution of US citizens who fail to register as foreign agents while working for a foreign country – at least since 1963. On the other hand, the ZPC, through the so-call ‘Anti-Defamation League’, has successfully pressured the Justice Department, the FBI and NSA to investigate and prosecute law-abiding, patriotic US citizens critical of Israel’s land grabs in Palestine and the Zionist corruptors of the US political system on behalf of their foreign master.

The corruption and degradation of US democracy is made possible by the equally compromised and corrupted ‘respectable press’. Media critic, Steve Lendman, has pointed out the direct link between Israel and the mass media in his investigation of the New York Times. The leading (‘fair and balanced’) journalists reporting on Israel have strong family and political ties to that country and their articles have been little more than propaganda. Times reporter Ethan Bronner, whose son served in the Israel Defense Forces, is a long-time apologist for the Zionist state. Times reporter Isabel Kershner, whose ‘writing’ seems to come straight out of the Israeli Foreign Office, is married to Hirsh Goodman an adviser to the Netanyahu regime on ‘security affairs’. The Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren, lives comfortably in the ancestral home of a Palestinian family dispossessed from that ancient city.

The Times unflinching pro-Israel posture provides a political cover and justification for the corrupted US politicians as they beat the war drums for Israel. It is no surprise that the New York Times, like the Washington Post, is deeply engaged in disparaging and denouncing the current US-Iran negotiations – and providing ample space for the one-sided rhetoric of Israeli politicians and their US mouthpieces, while studiously excluding the more rational, pro-rapprochement voices of experienced former US diplomats, war-weary military leaders and representatives of the US business and academic communities.

To understand Congress’ hostility to the nuclear negotiations with Iran and their efforts to scuttle them through the imposition of ridiculous new sanctions, it is important to get to the source of the problem, namely the statements of key Israeli politicians, who set the line of march for their US proxies.

In late October, 2013, Former Israeli Defense Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin spoke of ‘having to choose between ‘the bomb’ or the bombing’ – a message which immediately resonated with the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations.2 On October 22, 2013, Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, called for harsh new sanctions on Iran and insisted that the US use them as leverage to demand that Iran agree to entirely abandon its peaceful nuclear energy and enrichment program. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon affirmed that ‘Israel will not accept any deal that allows Iran to enrich uranium’. It is Israel’s position to threaten war (via the US) if Iran does not submit to unconditional surrender of its nuclear program. This defines the position of all the major pro-Israel PACs, Super PACs and AIPAC. They in turn proceed to dictate policy to their ‘lick-spittles’ in the US Congress. As a result, Congress passes even more extreme economic sanctions on Iran in order to sabotage the ongoing negotiations.

Those who have received the biggest Zionist pay-offs from the pro-Israel PACs are the most vociferous: Senator Mark Kirk ($925,379), author of a previous sanctions bill, demands that Iran end its entire nuclear and ballistic missile program (!) and declared that the US Senate “should immediately move forward with a new round of economic sanctions targeting all remaining Iranian government revenue and reserves.”3 The US House of Representatives (sic) has already passed a bill sharply limiting Iran’s ability to sell its main export, oil. Once again, the Israel-ZPC-Congressional axis seeks to impose Israel’s war agenda on the American people! In late October 2013, Secretary of State Kerry was ‘grilled’ for 7 hours by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with the craven Kerry promising to promote Israel’s agenda on dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

To counter the campaign to strangle Iran’s oil economy, promoted by Israel’s flunkeys in the Congress, the Iranian government has offered generous contracts to the US and EU oil companies.4 Existing nationalist provisions are being removed. Under the new terms, foreign companies book reserves or take equity stakes in Iranian projects. Iran hopes to attract at least $100 billion dollars in investments over the next three years. This stable country boasts the world’s largest gas and the fourth largest oil reserves. Because of the current US (Israel)-imposed sanctions, production has fallen from 3.5 million barrels per day in 2011 to 2.58 million barrels per day in 2013. The question is whether Big Oil and the giant US and EU companies have the power to challenge the ZPC-stranglehold over US-EU sanction policy. So far, the ZPC has dominated this critical policy and marginalized ‘Big Oil’ using threats, blackmail and coercion against US policymakers. This has effectively shut out US companies from the lucrative Iranian market.

Conclusion

As the US and the 5 other countries attempt to negotiate with Iran, they face enormous obstacles overcoming Israel’s power over the US Congress. Over past decades Israel’s agents have bought the loyalties of the vast majority of Congress people, training them to recognize and obey the whistles, signals and script from the war mongers in Tel Aviv.

This Axis of War, has inflicted enormous damage on the world resulting in the deaths of millions of victims of US wars in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and North Africa. The gross corruption and widely recognized bankruptcy of the US legislative system is due to its slavish submission to a foreign power. What remains in Washington is a debased vassal state despised by its own citizens. If the ZPC controlled Congress succeeds once again in destroying the negotiations between the US and Iran via new war-like resolutions, we, the American people, will have to pay an enormous price in lives and treasure.

The time to act is now. It is time to stand up and expose the role played by the Israeli PACs, Super PACs, and the 52 Major American Jewish Organization in corrupting Congress and turning our elected representatives into flunkeys for Israel’s wars. There has been a deafening silence from our noted critics – few alternative media critics have attacked Israel’s power over the US Congress. The evidence is openly available, the crimes are undeniable. The American people need real political leaders with the courage to root out the corrupted and corruptors and force their elected members in the House and Senate to represent the interest of the American people.

  1. Grant Smith “Ten Explosive US Government Secrets of Israel,” IRMEP.
  2. Daily Alert, October 24, 2013.
  3. Financial Times, 10/18/13, p. 6.
  4. Financial Times, 10/29/2013, p. 1.
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November 2, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistani minister says U.S. drone attack sabotages Taliban talks

Xinhua | November 1, 2013

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Friday condemned the latest U.S. drone attack and termed it as an attempt to sabotage the proposed peace talks with the Taliban.

The U.S. unmanned aircraft fired missiles on a house and vehicles of the Pakistani Taliban leaders in North Waziristan tribal region and killed six of them.

Local media said the American drone launched the strike at a time when the Taliban leaders were holding a meeting in their stronghold Dandey Darpakhel area.

Two Taliban figures, Tariq Mehsood, personal guard of the Taliban Chief Hakimullah Mehsood, and another commander identified as Abdullah were among those killed, local media reported.

Geo television reported that the vehicle targeted in the strike was being used by the chief of Pakistani Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsood. But it was not clear if Hakimullah Mehsood was in the vehicle at the time of the strike.

Dunya TV quoted security sources that Hakimullah Mehsood was killed in the strike.

Taliban and the government have not officially confirmed the reports.

The interior minister angrily reacted to the U.S. attack as it was carried out at a time when the government was set to begin talks with Taliban militants.

He said in a statement that the government has planned to send a three member delegation for initial discussion with the Taliban on Saturday. “We think that the latest drone attack was an attempt to sabotage the dialogue,” Chaudhry Nisar said.

Local media quoted security sources as saying that the American spy aircraft struck the Taliban compound when the Taliban were holding a meeting of their central council. Hakimullah Mehsood was scheduled to preside over the council’s meeting.

Some sources said the meeting was called to discuss strategy for talks with the government.

Reports suggested that the Taliban were holding the meeting when the U.S. drone rained missiles into the area.

Another report said that local Taliban chief, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Friday asked the residents to leave North Waziristan for a week in view of the deteriorating situation in the region.

A pamphlet distributed in the region asked the people to take their precious items with them.

November 2, 2013 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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