By Kevin MacDonald on 02.06.2010
Jake Tapper, a reporter for ABC News writes that “there won’t be any daylight between the US and Israel.” The rationale? A senior administration official says “The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure.”
Of course, that’s nonsense. Israeli security has nothing to do with it. The reality is that Israeli aggression is possible only because Israel understands that the US is its poodle and that the US will work on its behalf in the UN and elsewhere, no matter what Israel does. The Israel Lobby is ultimately to blame, meaning ultimately the influence of Jewish money on the political process.
AIPAC’s spin on this is an amazing piece of propaganda. AIPAC’s article is headlined, “Radical Hamas Supporters Beat, Stab Israeli Soldiers“–a breathtaking lack of context. The ADL said pretty much the same thing, calling the flotilla “a deliberate provocation against Israel.”
From Israel’s point of view, “the government appeared anxious to make an example of this six-ship flotilla — the largest effort to date to break the blockade of Gaza — to show the world that it would not tolerate efforts to break the blockage, international condemnation notwithstanding.” The main Israeli talking point, apparent in the AIPAC press release and the ADL statement, is that they had offered to unload the cargo at the Israeli port of Ashdod where it would be shipped overland to Gaza.
But that doesn’t square with the common understanding that Israel has erected a barrier of red tape for getting supplies into Gaza. A 2009 Christian Science Monitor report pointed to delays and arbitrary exclusions and stated that around 25% of the pre-blockade supplies were getting into Gaza. Another CSM article from June 2009 pointed to growth stunting in Palestinian children.
Despite Israel’s claims, there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel’s actions will likely make it far more difficult to develop a consensus against Iran, and that’s all to the good. It will also greatly increase the cost of the Israeli-American alliance, as the US attempts to shore up support for Israel in the teeth of moral outrage around the world. That may well result in some push back here, as happened recently with the statement by General David Petraeus that Israeli policies oppose vital US interests in the Middle East. (He later denied it, doubtless under pressure.) Even Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad, acknowledges that Israel is becoming more and more of a burden to the US.
Israel’s supporters in the US never tire of playing the role of innocent victim. They will continue to do so, as indicated by the statements of AIPAC and the ADL. But such rhetoric is so far out of touch with reality that at some point politically aware Americans must realize that US support for Israel is based on nothing more than Jewish power with no moral justification at all. That doesn’t mean that the lobby will lose its power, but at least we will all know that it’s about power, and can’t be intellectually justified… Full article
Press TV – June 1, 2010
A defiant Israel downplays international condemnations of its deadly raid against a Gaza-bound aid convoy, vowing to prevent all aid ships trying to break the Gaza siege.
“We will not let any ships reach Gaza and supply what has become a terrorist base threatening the heart of Israel,” AFP quoted Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai as saying on Tuesday.
The remarks came in response to an announcement by organizers of Gaza Freedom Flotilla, saying they intended to send two more aid boats to Gaza, despite Israel’s deadly naval operation.
The commando raid killed some 20 people accompanying the six-ship fleet and left more than 50 others wounded, according to Palestinian sources.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that the MV Rachel Corrie, a converted merchant ship, would reach Gazan waters by Wednesday.
An unnamed Israeli marine lieutenant told the radio in an interview that he expected an easy takeover of the ship, saying the Israeli forces would be “ready” for the Rachel Corrie, Reuters reported.
Israel’s latest threat comes as a slap in the face of sharp criticism and envoy-summonings against Israel across the world, particularly in Muslim nations where a seething anti-Israeli sentiment erupted into angry street rallies.
On Tuesday, Israel announced a decision to hold 480 activists captured on Monday in jail, saying the international campaigners would face prosecution.
The UN Security Council condemned the bloodshed in the Monday’s attack and called for the immediate release of the civilians in the Israeli custody.
The 15-nation council also ordered an impartial investigation into the deadly Israeli attack on the freedom flotilla.
JAMES PETRAS | 01. Jun, 2010
On May 24, 2010, the Guardian (U.K.) published a highly confidential document released by the South African government. The 1975 document reveals a secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time (and today Israel’s President) and South Africa’s Defense Minister P. W. Botha. Israel offered to sell the apartheid regime, weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and conventional weaponry to destroy and defeat the million person African resistance movement. The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization, immediately set in motion the Lying Machine claiming the official minutes of the Israeli nuclear offer and a far reaching agreement on military ties between two apartheid regimes were merely a “conversation” (sic) and that Israel did not “make an offer”.1 Then without blinking Israel’s apologists went on to contradict themselves by speculating that a nuclear agreement would not have had the approval of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Daily Alert May 25, 2010). The documents were discovered by a US academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in South African archives and are published in his book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa. Apparently Israel’s regime thought the documents were more than a “conversation” because they pressured the post-apartheid South African government not to release them.2
The Israeli nuclear offer and the South African request took place at a time of rising popular struggles throughout South Africa, from Sharpeville to Soweto, including armed resistance and the beginning of international boycotts. South Africa expanded its military offensive invading Angola where they were eventually defeated by a joint Cuban-Angolan army. As a result it was facing problems buying the kinds of deadly weapons of mass destruction which would not only decapitate the leadership of the South African freedom movement but destroy its grass roots support and national allies. Israel was prepared to serve as a willing accomplice to a Nuclear Solution.
The Genocidal Implications of Israel’s Nuclear Offer
Most liberal commentators and critics of Israel’s offer to supply apartheid South Africa with nuclear warheads merely focused on Israel’s “irresponsible behavior” in violating the non-proliferation treaty.3 For others the issue was merely an “embarrassment” for the Jewish state, given a forthcoming meeting (June 2010) on non-proliferation.4 Few if any raised the great moral and political question of the profound human consequences of complicity in a genocidal nuclear assault on millions of Africans. The question is Israel’s moral responsibility, if South Africa had followed up the Jewish State’s offer, bought the nuclear warheads and sent the missiles raining down on millions of Africans demanding freedom. One might ask if complicity in a potential genocidal act is subject to a war crimes tribunal, in the same way that the German industrial manufacturers of poison gas for concentration camp prisoners were put on trial at Nuremberg for complicity in the war crimes of the Nazi State.?5
Israel’s offer to supply nuclear missiles if implemented would most likely have led to the shelling of shanty towns and refugee camps across the borders, housing millions of South Africans, killing hundreds of thousands and radiating many more to a slow painful death. Nuking a mass popular resistance in this case through the deliberate efforts of two racist regimes, is more than a ‘war crime’, it is a monstrous crime against humanity.
More than any other single factor, American Zionism’s defense of Israel’s military alliance and support of Apartheid South Africa deeply offended knowledgeable Afro-Americans and soured longstanding amicable relations between Jews and American blacks.
On the other hand, Israel had no compunctions about strengthening its military and economic ties with racist South Africa6, a relation backed by Zionist business leaders in Johannesburg.
Why Israel Offered Nukes to Botha
Israel’s decision to offer nuclear missiles to South Africa was based on commercial, political and ideological considerations. South Africa was an emphatic and unconditional backer of Israel’s invasions of Arab countries, its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Above all it sympathized with a likeminded settler-colonial regime at a time when Israel was condemned by the United Nations, most of Europe, and the newly independent post-colonial countries. Two pariah states had a lot of common enemies and a need to support each other in the face of the world’s rejection of colonial-settler regimes.
Secondly, the two had an ideological affinity based on a racial ideology rooted in biblical belief of Chosen People destined by Divine power as Superior People. Judaism and Christianity rooted in ethnic pre-eminence legitimated rule over blacks and Arabs! Equally important arms sales and military advisory services were the leading export sectors of the Israeli economy and the backbone of its manufacturing, technology and communications sectors. The Zionist-racist trade union confederation Histadrut was deeply rooted among workers in the war industries and was a champion of arms sales to South Africa. Israeli Uzis upheld white capital and repressed black labor especially in the mines.
The Central Role of the Zionist Labor Left in the Nuclear Arms Offer
Contrary to the assumptions of many gentile and Jewish leftists, liberals and progressives who attribute all of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians to neo-conservatives or “Likud” or rightwing religious parties, the authors and proponents of a nuclear weapons sales to South Africa were leaders of the Labor Party. Shimon Peres (the Defense Minister) and Yitzhak Rabin (Prime Minister) were the major figures involved in the nuclear deal. All of Israel’s early wars of conquests, massive expulsions of Palestinians and the construction of Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile were undertaken under the aegis of the Labor Party. The latter never lacked in socialist rhetoric [they are members of the “Socialist” International (sic)] or anti-racist speeches when the occasion warranted, but never lost an opportunity to sell conventional arms to a Latin dictator (Pinochet in Chile, Videla in Argentina, Rios Mont in Guatemala), or offer nukes to a brutal South African regime under siege from its black majority.
The central role of the Israeli Labor Party in offering a nuclear solution to the minority white regime demonstrates that all major Israeli parties are capable of pursuing a genocidal policy if it serves their perceptions of “Jewish interests”. The leading role of the Labor Party confirms the idea that there are no basic differences between the Israeli Left and Right when it comes to committing crimes against humanity. The underlying belief system is that Chosen People are exempt from the laws against war crimes.
Nuclear Revelation: The Reactions of the Leading American Jewish Organizations
The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations, true to their role as an unconditional transmission belt of the Israel state, echoed the line that Israel did not offer nuclear weapons to South Africa, denying the documented proof and predictably refused to condemn Israel’s complicity with the genocidal implications of nuking millions active in the African freedom movement7. One of the leading Zionist organizations the “Anti Defamation League”, in fact had a long standing relation with South Africa’s secret services, hiring private agents to collect information and spy on the anti-apartheid movement up through the 1980’s.8 Most of the Zionist influenced mass media including the New York Times, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN and the Washington Post blocked the story ,as if Israel’s complicity in a plan nuking millions of Africans was unworthy of publication, let alone an object of the harshest condemnation. Let us be clear about why this crime, comparable to the Holocaust was not consummated. It was not because of any influence of the Hebraic moral traditions or “Jewish guilt” or even irresolution because of fear of the subsequent worldwide outcry. The Israeli sale of nukes did not go through because, according to authoritative South African accounts, the latter decided not to go through with the purchase, relying on Israeli “conventional” arms instead.9 There is no definitive explanation for why Israel’s nuclear war industry lost a sale but there are several possible explanations, from the high price that the Jewish state was asking, to the fear that the fallout from nuclear weapons might radiate whites as well as blacks. The “collateral costs” to the white racist population may have caused the apartheid regime to rethink its purchase.
Let us be clear: Israeli complicity in this venture into nuclear genocide was freely given, under no duress. In fact the Jewish state in the best traditions of a Nazi haberdasher, offered the racist state a choice of three ‘styles’ of weapons: nuclear, chemical and conventional. Take your pick they all fit in nicely with protecting the user from any further annoyances by the black majority.
Given the enormity of this crime of complicity, is it surprising that the Zionist and even most of the anti-Zionist media and spokespeople gave scant attention to this crime against humanity. A mention one day, a pronouncement here or there, nothing more. More likely, if the genocidal act was carried out, the moral outrage would have focused exclusively on … the South Africans not their weapon suppliers and accomplices before the act.
What explains the fact that the vast majority of American Zionist Jews who play a leading role in defending and apologizing for Israel’s role in offering nukes to racist South Africa, are high income, well educated professionals, businesspeople, scientists, academics, media performers and the like? Many are respectable family persons and civic minded. A majority consider themselves liberals, defenders of the environment and social programs. A few even speak favorably of ‘democratic socialism’. Yet, they are the same individuals who willingly support and apologize for a regime ready and willing to supply the means to radiate millions of Africans in the past, nuke tens of millions of Iranians today and massacre scores of peaceful humaniarians on the high seas.
The key to this apparent “contradiction” is the capacity of pro-Israel Jews to compartmentalize their professional work, family life and civic activity from their obsessive commitment to Israeli war crimes and genocidal pathologies. We have a case of respectable and focused high achievers with intense irrational attachments to a state engaged in crimes against humanity. An attachment voluntarily given and with full access to the knowledge and information pertaining to the deadly consequences of the Jewish state’s acts. Actions sanctioned at the highest level of the Israeli state and approved by the most prominent members of the mainline Jewish organizations.
Some liberal Jewish critics of Israel take offense at gentile and anti-zionist Jewish critics, accusing them of “picking on Israel”. This is a deliberate evasion, knowing full well that many of these same critics denounce criminal acts around the world. But there are reasons why Israel warrants special attention. It is the only state to offer nuclear weapons to a racist regime to destroy a liberation movement, nay an entire people. Israel is the only country which has blockaded an entire people 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza, having bombed and destroyed their sources of water, food and habitation. Israel is the only country which butchers dozens of pacifists in international waters. More to the point, today Israel along with its Zionized supporters in the US government are the only two regimes which openly threaten to launch a nuclear war of mass destruction against 72 millions Iranians.
Given what we know about Israel’s nuclear complicity with South Africa this is not idle speculation. The precedent of collaborating with South Africa in the proposed nuking of millions of Africans, with absolutely no moral compunctions, makes Israel the major nuclear threat in the Middle East today.
Raising the issue of Israel’s sale of nukes to South Africa is not merely a historical incident of academic interest. Some liberal Zionists might say “after all Israel didn’t actually supply the nuclear missiles and the South Africans didn’t nuke the blacks” … More to the point, the same Israeli and American Zionist mindset that threatens to use nuclear weapons against Iran, especially evident in the rantings of Secretary of State Clinton, exhibits the same propensity to sell nuclear weapons as a means to resolve conflicts in the past. Worse still Israel and its American Zionist followers have instilled the same moral indifference to genocide among vast sectors of their captive mass media audience and their colonized American Congressional and White House leaders. One has only to glance at the news reports of how Clinton dismissed the Turkey-Brazil-Iran diplomatic resolution of the enriched uranium exchange.10 Clinton insists on proceeding with sanctions because her paymasters, led by ultra-Israel Firsters like Haim Saban, demand that Iran must be brought to its knees at best and nuked if necessary.11 Clinton knows that new sanctions will destroy the negotiated compromise, even if it is on the same terms proposed by the US several months earlier. A compromise which Israel never accepted and now insists, through each and every major Jewish Organization that the United States should sabotage via new harsh sanctions.
Despite Clinton’s claim of a “consensus” on new sanctions, Russia, China, India , the league of Arab States and even France have publicly praised the Iran-Turkish-Brazil diplomatic agreement.12 Only the British toadies themselves infested by Zionist parliamentarians at fundraisers toed the Clinton-Obama line. The question is whether the US Zionist power configuration, headed by Rahm Emmanuel and Hilary Clinton, will secure the sanctions over and above the wishes of governments representing two-thirds of mankind.
The policy of nuclear genocide by proxy, proposed by Israel toward Iran, is executed by its bimodal high achieving fifth columnists operating from the top positions in the State Department, National Security Council, Congress and above all in the White House. Let us remember and never forget that Israel’s willingness to supply nukes to South Africa has immense relevance to their efforts urging our own servile public officials to become perpetrators of nuclear genocide against 70 plus million Iranians. With racist South Africa, Israel was helping a racist ally and making a profit. With Iran it is destroying an adversary of colonial oppression. Today May 31,2010 American Zionists defend the Israeli assassination squad which machine gunned 600 pacifists, humanitarians, Nobel Prize winners, murdering 20 and wounding dozensin international waters. In both cases, Israel’s nuclear policy and its slaughter on the high seas, and their defense by American zionists are acts of moral depravity. The sooner the Middle East – namely Israel – is denuclearized, and demilitarized and the USA dezionized the safer the world will be.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles.
By Doug Steil | Aletho News | June 1, 2010
The recent storming by Israeli state terrorists of a Turkish humanitarian aid ship Mavi Marmara in international waters, killing of at least 15 people during the illegal seizure, and subsequent kidnapping of nearly seven hundred passengers, is yet another of numerous Israeli operations that have highlighted the essence of Zionism and its utter disregard for humanity.
The massacre of Turks and Arabs defending themselves from an unwarranted attack aboard the humanitarian aid ship was the consequence of a seriously botched operation that has certainly achieved the opposite of its intent. It demonstrates both the arrogance and sloppiness of those master terrorists who planned it, since it derived from various miscalculations. Not only were many of the passengers aboard the main ship awake and vigilant, even though it was during the wee hours of the morning and the ship was roughly 150 km offshore in international waters, but the military operation, using helicopters, was indeed being simultaneously broadcast by journalists to Turkish and Arabic television viewers through a live satellite feed (satellite phone service had reportedly been jammed). Within hours, millions of other people around the world could watch the recorded videos directly on their laptops, of the killers dropping from the Israeli helicopter.
The evidence that the operational planners did not anticipate that the Turkish ship was equipped with a direct satellite link to broadcast the attack for all to see derives from the basic fact, that perpetrators do not relish their crimes broadcast in real time, coupled with the fact that the live broadcast came through. Apparently, there were no applicable jamming attempts, nor were the Israeli operatives monitoring the Turkish television media to get a clue that their terror event was being broadcast live on air. The natural consequence was emotional outrage and almost immediate mass demonstrations in Turkey followed later in other major cities such as Athens, Paris, and London, where many people are surely also aware, at some level, that the current economic crisis affecting them is a consequence of blatant misdeeds by eight prominent and powerful Zionist Jews in America (Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner, Maurice Greenberg, Lloyd Blankfein, and Richard Fuld). That is to say, public outrage is accumulating amidst a discernible pattern of the usual suspects displaying contemptible hubris toward the general population.
Video cameras, held by reporters or amateurs, installed at hotels and airports, or inside mobile phones, tend to be ubiquitous nowadays. Earlier this year, during the course of a Mossad assassination operation at a luxury hotel in Dubai, images of the Israeli perpetrators were eventually broadcast around the world, though not in real time. The planners of this operation must have assumed in that case, that their victims were simply too stupid to discover, much less reconstruct the phases of, their conspiratorial plot. Similarly, the planners of the Israeli military operation of destruction in southern Lebanon must have assumed that Hezbollah was too disorganized and unsophisticated to have deployed fiber optic cables for their communications network, not subject to eavesdropping or jamming measures. This miscalculation ultimately gave the Hezbollah defenders the tactical edge on the battlefield that forced an Israeli retreat.
Whereas more than twenty years ago it was still possible for Israeli operatives to stage a false-flag event, such as the bombing of the PanAm jumbo jet over Scotland, without the public in the western world catching on, today, thanks to modern technologies and the Internet, many millions of people are no longer fooled by the insidious Jewish propaganda machine.
By now it is widely understood by millions of well-informed people throughout the world, that the attack on the World Trade Center by aircraft and the controlled implosion of three of the buildings using nano-thermite explosives was part of an elaborate Israeli operation. (The attack on lower Manhattan was thoroughly a Zionist operation, masterminded from Israel, with highly placed Jews in the media, among other places, actively participating in the subsequent cover-up.)
The masterminds of that spectacular operation certainly could not anticipate, more than a decade ago, the widespread availability of broadband Internet service in conjunction with the phenomenon of video file sharing and online blogging, along with the intelligence of thousands of people capable of analyzing slow motion video images and making logical inferences, shared with millions of others. Notwithstanding pervasive control over traditional motion picture, print, and broadcast media in America and elsewhere by Zionist Jews, who cultivate a strong emotional affinity to Israel, the facts, such as they are, can no longer be contained, due to modern technology, particularly the Internet.
A common thread in these instances of Israeli terror operations, cited above, including their inherent miscalculations, is the Talmudic based sense of Jewish supremacy, coupled with utter contempt for non-Jews. This sociopathic attitude is once again evident by the official public relation attempts to blame the victims for the crimes of the perpetrators. This is often accompanied by oblique innuendo invoking the conventional but increasingly discredited Holocaust narrative. Such behavior, of constant, habitual lying and bullying, insults the intelligence and dignity of millions of people, but appears to be a perpetual phenomenon throughout Jewish cultural history.
Zionism and support for Israel is merely the most expedient mechanism for attempting to attain the utopian goal of Jewish supremacy and domination, truly a lunatic fantasy, entertained by the enemies of humanity. To the extent that ordinary Jews not directly affiliated with the odious Zionist power nexus nonetheless express their support for Israel or provide apologies for its criminal actions in light of the continually emerging evidence, by extension or through their tacit complicity, they too risk becoming widely regarded as enemies of humanity by an informed and outraged population.
By Stuart Littlewood | My Catbird Seat | May 31, 2010
This morning I’m hearing reports of 20 or more dead and dozens injured after Israeli forces attacked the Free Gaza flotilla in international waters and gunned down unarmed crew and passengers.
This is no surprise. Israel had been threatening for weeks to use violence, as is its style, to intercept the peaceful mission.
And I have just watched Israel’s chief lie-monger, Mark Regev, on BBC TV. “We did everything we could to avoid violence,” he said. “They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation… This is elementary, we have to defend ourselves.” He claimed the Israeli boarding party was attacked! The week-kneed BBC failed to question this act of piracy in international waters and the blatant violation of maritime law.
Former British MP George Galloway, a mainspring behind the Free Gaza movement, called it “a murderous act of piracy” on innocent humanitarian aid workers and demanded a wholesale review of the international community’s relationship with “the criminal pirate state of Israel”.
When the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) just 3 weeks ago, made their woeful decision to admit Israel to their club, the Zionist regime’s plan to attack international ships attempting to bring relief to the 1.5 million innocent Gazans it had bombed and blockaded for 4 years, was already known. But the Organisation nevertheless went ahead… it does not, of course, explain what many would love to know: how Israel’s vile conduct is deemed to comply with the OECD’s fundamental values.
So I asked our ambassador. The office of Britain’s delegation to the OECD had to be prodded and goaded several times before making a half-baked reply to the simple question: Why did the British government give approval – in the British people’s name – for relaxing the rules to allow Israel to join?
Ambassador Dominic Martin was too lazy to issue a personal statement. Or maybe he was just too embarrassed by the thought of having to spout the sort of bilge I would receive 17 days later from one of his junior assistants.
When I finally got a reply it was from a lady who did not reveal her job title. But her previous job was with the Honours Unit in the Protocol Division so, clearly, here was somebody with deep background knowledge of Israel’s theft of the Holy Land and general lawlessness. This is what she said…
28 May: The rules for joining the OECD were not relaxed to allow Israel to join, and there was consensus among OECD members to admit Israel. Israel had to undergo a rigorous process of technical reforms to ensure that it met the standards of the OECD acquis in a wide range of diverse areas, from changing legislation in line with the Anti Bribery Convention to the environment. Israel has made commitments to bring its standards into line with those of the OECD in two areas, post accession – statistics (where it has been asked to disaggregate statistics for the Occupied Territories from those of Green Line Israel) and Intellectual Property Rights.
The UK has always been supportive of Israel’s application to the OECD and welcomes the successful conclusion of accession negotiations. Israel is a country with whom the OECD and its members have many natural synergies. We view the accession of Israel as a positive development for a number of reasons. It is significant that Israel believes that adherence to OECD values and standards is important and helpful in the country’s economic and social development, including its efforts to address high levels of poverty and deprivation, particularly among certain categories of the Israeli population.
The UK, together with EU member states, is confident that Israel’s accession to the OECD will open new areas of co-operation in our mutual interest. We do not believe that economic sanctions or boycotts are the way to engage or influence Israel.
You asked in your subsequent email about a statement or press release. Neither we, nor the FCO, issued a press release or statement when Israel joined the OECD.
– Tanya Collingridge, UK Delegation to the OECD
Who actually wrote that… Mrs Collingridge? Ambassador Martin? Or, more likely, some hack in the FCO’s Hasbara Unit quoting from the Israeli crapaganda manual?
Its mission statement says that the OECD “brings together the governments of countries committed to democracy”. And in December 2007 a roadmap towards Israeli membership set out the OECD’s “fundamental values” to which members must adhere. These include “a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and respect of human rights”.
Oh dear. Israel, as everyone has come to realize, is no western-style democracy and no respecter of the rights of others. It is an ethnocracy with deeply racist policies and criminal territorial ambitions. Since 1967 it has ruled over millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories without according them any democratic rights at all. It discriminates systematically against its Arab minority in numerous ways. For example, the OECD’s own report Israeli Child Policy and Outcomes finds that “government spending per child is much lower in the Arab sector than in the Jewish sector… average spending per child in the Arab localities is estimated to be 36.8% lower than in Jewish localities”.
Ongoing human rights violations are too numerous to list here – it’s latest murderous outrage has just been demonstrated on the high seas. Others range from preventing Gaza’s 3,500 licensed fisherman from earning a livelihood by shooting up their vessels whenever they put to sea, and preventing students from Gaza finishing their degree courses at West Bank universities such as Bethlehem and Birzeit, to what former prime minister Olmert himself described as “deliberate and insufferable” employment discrimination against their Arab minority.
Israel also operates discriminatory land laws that benefit Jews and prevent its non-Jewish Palestinian citizens (20% of the population) from exercising an equal right to own land. Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens are denied full legal status, thus excluding some 16,000 women from exercising their social rights such as accessing health care.
Basic services such as water and electricity are denied to Bedouin citizens of the Negev/Naqab. Their homes are frequently destroyed.
Has the OECD turned a blind eye to the terror and havoc wrought by Israel’s military? The sanctions and blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, and Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ blitzkrieg launched in December 2008 against the tiny enclave’s citizens and infrastructure have caused a massive humanitarian crisis. Promised relief and reconstruction are cruelly obstructed.
Between 2000 and the start of Cast Lead (according to Israel’s B’Tselem statistics), Israelis killed 4,790 Palestrinian civilians in their homeland. Of these, 952 were children. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israeli civilians within Israel, including just 84 children.
Yes, 952 Palestinian kiddies snuffed in their own streets. Israelis slaughtered at least 350 more during Cast Lead and have kept Gaza under daily air attack ever since. So the “most moral army in the world” must have eliminated nearly 1400 youngsters by now. The number left maimed and crippled doesn’t bear thinking about.
Israel’s claim to sovereignty over all of historic Palestine has no basis in law, yet land confiscation and illegal settlement building continues throughout the West Bank in blatant breach of UN resolutions and previous peace accords, as do home demolitions and displacements, especially in East Jerusalem.
Doesn’t the OECD know about the severe restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by Israeli checkpoints and bypass roads, to the extent that Palestinians cannot easily reach their place of work or their farmlands, or even access the meagre healthcare facilities, and both Arab Christians and Muslims are prevented from visiting their holy places?
Isn’t the OECD aware of the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli jails and detention centres, the widespread denial of children’s rights.and Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinian refugees the right of return?
Israel’s contemptuous disregard of international law, UN declarations and normal codes of conduct shows that it is not the slightest bit committed to the “attainment of the purposes of the United Nations”. Thanks to its never-ending aggression, the persistent expansion of its borders and refusal to end its illegal occupation, Israel has miserably – many would say purposely – failed to establish “peaceful and harmonious relations” with its closest neighbours. It regularly violates Lebanese and Palestinian airspace and makes armed incursions into Gaza whenever the mood takes it.
It has made no contribution whatever to the economic expansion of non-member countries and no attempt to abolish obstacles to the exchange of goods and services or enable the liberalisation of capital movements. On the contrary, it has used unrestrained military might to wreck and ruin its neighbours’ prospects and reduce them to permanent poverty.
The OECD surely knows these things.
Given the Israelis’ long crime sheet, are these the only commitments the OECD was able to wring from them? Why did it not, at the very least, insist on an end to the economic and military blockade of Gaza?
Israel believes quite the opposite, as its actions show.
Has anyone explained what interests and values we could possibly have in common with the Israeli regime?
Since when have we been squeamish about slapping crippling sanctions on other countries… Iraq since 1990 and Palestine especially when we didn’t like the outcome of their democratic elections in 2006 or the’ flavour’ of their fledgling but perfectly legitimate government? We eagerly joined with the bully-boys to crush it and pile on the misery for innocent Gazans.
Now we’re itching to “engage and influence” Iran with tougher sanctions. None of these countries have posed a threat to the UK.
For 62 years normal diplomacy has failed with Israel. People with a grain of sense have concluded that it’s time to change tack. The British thumbs-up for Israeli membership of the OECD is an obscene reward for previous bad behaviour and the first act of lunacy on the watch of our new Foreign Secretary, William Hague. But we can expect many more. Hague is so passionately pro-Israel that he’s determined to make the UK a safe haven for that regime’s thugs. This will be achieved by ducking out of our legally binding obligation to exercise universal jurisdiction over persons accused of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
He is reported in Haaretz as saying, “We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country and indeed not just Israel, but this could apply to many other nations as well. So this has to be put right. And that is well understood and agreed in the coalition government.”
How silly. Israeli politicians are welcome to visit the UK as long as their hands are clean. But Hague wants Mrs Livni, who is deeply implicated in the bloodbath in Gaza, and many more who are accused of crimes against humanity, to be able to come and do their shopping in London. I simply don’t believe that the entire coalition government shares Silly Willy’s protective attitude towards foreign war criminals. Besides, Hague’s coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are not as hopelessly hoodwinked by Zionism as he is.
And the public, one hopes, would regard sheltering Israelis wanted for war crimes as totally unacceptable.
It might be worth mentioning that Foreign Secretary Hague became a Friend of Israel at the tender age of 15, when still in short trousers. How can he possibly be fit for purpose? How clever is it to allow signed-up, card-carrying admirers of the rogue state anywhere the levers of international power?
The stark reality of Israeli terror
As I write, the fate of that altogether more gutsy coalition, the international Free Gaza flotilla, and its humanitarian cargoes and brave passengers, is still unknown. But after the callous murders at sea it can’t be good.
Some 30 British nationals are believed to be aboard, along with £millions-worth of humanitarian supplies donated by British citizens, peacefully going about their lawful business. Where was the Royal Navy? The Government had been alerted to Israel’s threats.
According to Aljazeera, Israel claimed the Free Gaza boats were embarked on “an act of provocation” against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza,
Last night I wrote to Nick Clegg, Britain’s deputy Prime Minister, saying: “What action is Her Majesty’s Government taking, please, to guarantee freedom of the seas and protect those going about their lawful business from Israeli piracy? Ministers were warned of Israel’s threats so had ample time to prepare for this development. Let’s have no whimpish driveling from the Foreign Office this time, please. What’s needed is firm, decisive intervention. Just for a change let us see our Government do us proud on the international stage.”
This was only one of many angry messages he and Prime Minister David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron must have received.
Every decent person this morning will feel great sorrow – but also tremendous admiration – for those who lost their lives or were wounded in a noble effort to relieve the endless suffering inflicted by the foulest professional politicians on earth. I fully expect their sacrifice to be marked by remembrance services across the world.
Meanwhile, hands up anyone who feels sorry for the OECD, which has been so comprehensively pissed on by the delinquent regime it welcomed with open arms only days ago.
Footnote: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is where a select group of 31 countries compare policy experiences, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies. Its roots go back to 1947 and the reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan. It is funded by its member countries to the tune of 328 million euros.
By M. Idrees | Pulse Media | May 31, 2010
The BBC proves its despicable subservience to the Israeli propaganda machine once again. Before it was shamed by Al Jazeera and others into covering the Freedom Flotilla massacre, it reported the story as a mere Hamas claim. Here is how it first appeared on the BBC’s website:
BBC News – Israel intercepts Gaza flotilla, says Hamas
The Palestinian movement Hamas says the Israeli navy has intercepted a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip.
The massacre soon became the top news story on Google News and Twitter. The BBC could no longer pretend that it couldn’t see. It finally reported it as a matter of fact, but appended this line: “Hamas, a militant palestinian group that controls the Gaza strip, has fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past decade.”
The victims weren’t innocent, you see. They were on their way to aid these terrible people who fire ‘thousands of rockets into Israel’. That’s all you need to know. And if you mention those hundreds of thousands of bombs, missiles and rockets that Israel has shot into Gaza…Why, you must be an anti-Semite!
I took the risk, and sent in a complaint. I am assuming I wasn’t the only one questioning the relevance of the line to the report because it was swiftly removed. In its place, it posted a short video segment in which the reporter went out of his way to ‘stress’ that according to the Israeli military no one was killed. He then went on to excuse the killings because ‘clearly when you have as many as 600 people on board these ships, at night, in high sees, it is a very very difficult situation…and you can imagine a rather chaotic situation. Of course the Israeli military is very well experienced with dealing with crowd control’. But turns out he wasn’t entirely shameless. He did add: ’but certainly if you’ve got live fire being fired as well as tear gas canisters which is what is being reported was fired, then that is a very dangerous situation in a very crowded space’.
The BBC has now added a sidebar in which ‘diplomatic correspondent’ Jonathan Marcus tells readers how terrible this massacre is…for Israel’s image! The clueless ass tells us that ‘this was always going to be a high-risk operation’… for Israel! He adds: ‘Taking over vessels at sea is no easy task, even if the units carrying out the mission are well-trained, and it is especially difficult if the people already on board the vessels resist.’ But at least he thinks the deaths are a tragedy…but for Israel! Because they ‘threaten to make what was always going to be a potential public relations disaster for Israel into a fully-fledged calamity.’ So the BBC pays a ‘diplomatic correspondent’ your tax money so he can worry about the myriad ways Israel hurts itself by killing innocent civilians in international waters!
Thanks to all who’ve written in. Don’t let them get away with using your tax money to feed you propaganda on behalf of a foreign criminal entity. For more on the BBC’s disgraceful record of whitewashing Israeli crimes here and here.
This is your money being used in the service of murderers and child molesters. You have a responsibility to act. At minimum, you can complain.
Chris McGreal | The Guardian | 24 May 2010
Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.
The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of “ambiguity” in neither confirming nor denying their existence.
The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa’s post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky’s request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week’s nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.
They will also undermine Israel’s attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a “responsible” power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.
A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were “never any negotiations” between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.
South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.
The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials “formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal”.
Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
The memo, marked “top secret” and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: “In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere.”
But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.
The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: “Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available.” The document then records: “Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice.” The “three sizes” are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.
The use of a euphemism, the “correct payload”, reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong’s memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.
In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.
Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel’s prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.
South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.
The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with “special warheads”. Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.
Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: “It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement… shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party”.
The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.
The existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.
Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.
Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. “The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date,” he said. “The South Africans didn’t seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime’s old allies.”
Press TV – May 22, 2010
Tehran has lodged a formal protest against Washington for deliberately preventing a senior Iranian diplomat from attending a key nuclear conference in New York.
Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh missed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which kicked off on May 3, after officials in Washington refused to issue him a US entry visa.
In a letter addressed to the UN Committee on Relations with the Host Country, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei said US officials “took advantage of their position as hosts of the world body when they decided to deny Akhoundzadeh an entry visa.”
“By denying Akhoundzadeh a visa to the United States, Washington officials kept a high-ranking Iranian diplomat from participating in a major conference on the review of the 40-year-old NPT,” he added in his Friday letter.
Khazaei said Akhoundzadeh’s presence in the meeting was crucial, primarily because of “his role as supervisor of Iran’s relations with the UN and secondly because of the meeting’s sharp focus on Tehran’s nuclear issue.”
He further added that Washington had defied its statutory obligation to issue visas for envoys of all UN member states, seeking to press forward its political agenda and apply pressure on certain countries.
At that rate Muslims would have 200 seats
By Stuart Littlewood | 21 May 2010
“Proportional Representation” is a big buzz-word in the UK these days. It implies fairer voting and fairer government. It is claimed to give minorities a better chance of being heard and therefore, they say, it should be incorporated into the “new politics” our shiny new coalition government has promised us.
But one minority group needs no help in that direction.
The Jewish Chronicle has published a list of Jewish MPs in Britain’s parliament. It names 24 – Conservatives 12, Labour 10 and Liberal Democrats two.
I thought it was more. But let us for the sake of argument accept the Jewish Chronicle’s figures.
The Jewish population in the UK is 280,000 or 0.46 per cent. There are 650 seats in the House of Commons so, as a proportion, Jewish entitlement is only three seats.
With 24 seats they are eight times over-represented. Which means, of course, that other groups must be under-represented, including Muslims.
The UK’s Muslim population is 2.4 million or 3.93 per cent. Their proportional entitlement is 25 seats but they have only eight – a serious shortfall. If Muslims were over-represented to the same extent as the Jews (i.e. eight times) they’d have 200 seats.
All hell would break loose.
Yes sir, in the name of fairness there’s plenty of work here for proportional representation. Bring it on!
Meanwhile two Jews – the Miliband brothers – are battling for the leadership of the beaten Labour Party. Ed Miliband (former energy secretary) is 40 and David Miliband (former foreign secretary) 44, both far too young to lead this country, especially when neither has achieved anything worthwhile in the real world outside politics.
It’s a reflection of the generally poor calibre of MP talent when such people, although academically gifted, can rise to the top. And indulging the young has had disastrous results. Think of Blair and the cult of arrogant youth he brought onto the political scene. Men of 40, especially politicians, think they know everything. They know nothing, as David Miliband (who backed the Iraq war) demonstrated in his blundering approach to the Middle East in Gordon Brown’s government.
Jewish over-representation is only part of our problem. An even bigger worry is the huge number of non-Jew Zionists that have stealthily infiltrated every level of political and institutional life. They swell the pro-Israel lobby to such a phenomenal extent that it accounts for an enormous 80 per cent of the Conservative Party, which is now in power with the Liberal Democrats in tow as their junior coalition partner.
Too many pro-Israel MPs speak and act as if they would rather wave the Israeli flag than the Union Jack. These “Israel-firsters” refuse to condemn the illegal occupation, the racist policies and the war crimes. As Israel’s interest often clashes with Britain’s, their defence of the indefensible inevitably raises questions about loyalty, a deadly serious issue given the number of Zionists in public life.
And still we are cursed with the cult of youth. Cameron, 43, had no significant achievement under his belt but was able to manoeuvre himself, with the help of Jewish backers, into Britain’s prime minister slot. He is also a self-declared Zionist and voted for the war in Iraq, so how can he be trusted?
William Hague, who has been a member of Conservative Friends of Israel since he was 15, is the new foreign secretary. Alistair Burt, an officer of the Parliamentary group of Conservative Friends of Israel, has been appointed Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, and David Lidington is now the Foreign Office minister for Europe. He has spoken of being a “staunch defender” of the State of Israel. So the stooges are safely installed and activated.
Nick Clegg, Cameron’s Liberal Democrat coalition partner, is also 43. He at least had a useful career before becoming an MP, as did his right-hand man Vince Cable, a person of more mature years and far greater stature than the two coalition leaders put together.
In their “programme for government” our new coalition has precious little to say about the stolen Holy Land except “We will push for peace in the Middle East, with a secure and universally recognized Israel living alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state”. Note it’s a secure Israel and only a viable Palestinian state, not the other way round or even equal status. And there’s no mention of action to end the Gaza blockade which Clegg called for in the Guardian last December.
So, stooging for Israel has made the transition from Labour to the Conservative-led coalition with seamless smoothness. It is business as usual between Britain and the rogue state’s amoral thugs, as Sir Gerald Kaufman calls them.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.
It is a Class War
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH | May 15, 2010
Never before has so much debt been imposed on so many people by so few financial operatives—operatives who work from Wall Street, the largest casino in history, and a handful of its junior counterparts around the world, especially Europe.
External sovereign debt, as well as occasional default on such debt, is not unprecedented [1]. What is rather unique in the case of the current global sovereign debt is that it is largely private debt billed as public debt; that is, debt that was accumulated by financial speculators and, then, offloaded onto governments to be paid by taxpayers as national debt. Having thus bailed out the insolvent banksters, many governments have now become insolvent or nearly insolvent themselves, and are asking the public to skimp on their bread and butter in order to service the debt that is not their responsibility.
After transferring trillions of dollars of bad debt or toxic assets from the books of financial speculators to those of governments, global financial moguls, their representatives in the State apparatus and corporate media are now blaming social spending (in effect, the people) as responsible for debt and deficit!
President Obama’s recent motto of “fiscal responsibility” and his frequent grumbles about “out of control government spending” are reflections of this insidious strategy of blaming victims for the crimes of perpetrators. They also reflect the fact that the powerful financial interests that received trillions of taxpayers’ dollars, which saved them from bankruptcy, are now dictating debt-collecting strategies through which governments can recoup those dollars from taxpayers. In effect, governments and multilateral institutions such as the IMF are acting as bailiffs or tax collectors on behalf of banksters and other financial wizards.
Not only is this unfair (it is, indeed, tantamount to robbery, and therefore criminal), it is also recessionary as it can increase unemployment and undermine economic growth. It is reminiscent of President Herbert Hoover’s notorious economic policy of cutting spending during a recession, a contractionary fiscal policy that is bound to worsen the recession. It is, indeed, a recipe for a vicious circle of debt and depression: as spending is cut to pay debt, the economy and (therefore) tax revenues will shrink, which would then increase debt and deficit, and call for more spending cuts!
Spending on national infrastructure, both physical (such as roads and schools) and social infrastructure (such as health and education) is key to the long-term socioeconomic developments. Cutting public spending to pay for the sins of Wall Street gamblers is bound to undermine the long-term health of a society in terms of productivity enhancement and sustained growth.
But the powerful financial interests and their debt collectors seem to be more interested in collecting debt claims than investing in economic recovery, job creation or long-term socioeconomic development. Like most debt-collecting agencies, the IMF and the states serving as banksters’ bailiffs through their austerity programs may shed a few crocodile tears in sympathy with the victims’ of their belt-tightening policies; but, again like any other debt-collecting agents, they seem to be saying: “sorry for the loss of your job or your house, but debt must be collected—regardless”!
A most outrageous aspect of the debt burden that is placed on the taxpayers’ shoulders since 2008 is that most of the underlying debt claims are fictitious and illegitimate: they are largely due to manipulated asset price bubbles, dubious or illegal financial speculations, and scandalous conversion of financial gamblers’ losses into public liability.
As noted earlier, onerous austerity measures to force the public to pay the largely fraudulent external debt is not new. Benignly calling such oppressive measures “Structural Adjustment Programs,” the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have for decades imposed them on many less developed countries to collect debt on behalf of international financial titans.
To “help” the indebted nations craft debt-servicing arrangements with external creditors, the IMF imposed severe conditions on the way they managed their economies—just as it is now imposing (in collaboration with the European and American bankers) those austerity policies on the debtor nations in Europe. The primary purpose of such restrictive conditions is to divert or transfer national resources from domestic use to external creditors. These include not only belt-tightening measures to cut social spending and/or raise taxes, but also selling-off public enterprises, national industries, and future tax revenues.
Calling such fire-sale privatization deals “briberization,” the ex-World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz revealed (in an interview with the renowned investigative reporter Greg Palast) how finance ministers and other bureaucratic authorities in the debtor countries often carried out the Bank’s demand to sell off their electricity, water, transportation and communication companies in return for some apparently irresistible sweetener. “You could see their eyes widen” at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billions off the sale price of national assets [2].
The IMF/World Bank/WTO “structural adjustment programs” also include neoliberal policies of “capital-market liberalization.” In theory, capital market deregulation is supposed to lead to the inflow and investment of foreign capital, thereby bringing about industrialization, job creation and economic expansion. In practice, however, financial liberalization often leads to more capital outflow (or capital flight) than inflow. To the extent that there is an inflow of capital it is not so much productive or industrial capital as it is unproductive or speculative capital (also known as “hot money”): massive amounts of capital that is constantly in transit across international borders in pursuit of real estate, currency, or interest rate speculation.
To attract foreign capital to the relatively vulnerable markets of debtor nations, the IMF frequently recommends drastic increases in interest rate. Higher interest rates are, however, both anti-developmental and detrimental to the goal of debt servicing. Higher interest rates tend to destroy property values, divert financial resources away from productive investment, and increase the burden of debt servicing.
For example, in the Philippines, which in 1980 adopted the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program, “Interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures went from 7 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1994. Capital expenditures, on the other hand, plunged from 26 percent to 16 percent.” By contrast, “the Philippines’ Southeast Asian neighbors ignored the IMF’s prescriptions. They limited debt servicing while ramping up government capital expenditures in support of growth. Not surprisingly, they grew by 6 to 10 percent from 1985 to 1995. . .while the Philippines barely grew and gained the reputation of a depressed market that repelled investors” [3].
A major condition of the IMF/World Bank/WTO’s “restructuring program” is trade liberalization. Free trade has always been the bible of the economically strong, self-righteously preached to the weak. It enables the strong to use their market power for economic gains, thereby perpetuating an international division of labor in which the technologically advanced countries would specialize in the production and export of high-tech, high-value added products while less developed countries would be condemned to the supply of less- or un-processed products. It is not surprising, then, that such a lop-sided policy of trade liberalization is sometimes called “free trade imperialism.”
Taking advantage of the so-called Third World debt crisis, the IMF, World Bank and WTO imposed free trade and other “adjustment programs” on 70 developing countries in the course of the 1980s and 1990s. “Because of this trade liberalization,” points out Walden Bello, member of the Philippines House of Representatives and president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, “gains in economic growth and poverty reduction posted by developing countries in the 1960s and 1970s had disappeared by the 1980s and 1990s. In practically all structurally adjusted countries, trade liberalization wiped out huge swathes of industry, and countries enjoying a surplus in agricultural trade became deficit countries.” Bello further points out, “The number of poor increased in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, the Arab states, and sub-Saharan Africa.” By contrast, in China and East Asia, where the neoliberal free trade and other Structural Adjustment Programs were rejected, significant economic development and considerable poverty reduction took place [3].
The attitude of the international financial parasites and their collection agencies such as the IMF regarding the disastrous consequences of their “restructuring” conditions is instructive.
An IMF official was quoted as acknowledging that the Fund’s austerity packages have often led to debt-collection without economic growth. But he added: “the Fund is a firefighter not a carpenter, and you cannot expect the firefighter to rebuild the house as well as put out the fire.” Obviously, what the “firefighter” tries to save from burning are external debt claims, not the economies or livelihoods of the indebted.
Another component of the IMF/World Bank’s “adjustment program” to service external debt is called elimination of “price distortions,” or establishment of “market-based pricing.” These are fancy, obfuscationist terms for raising prices on essential needs such as food, water and utilities. They also include elimination of subsidies on healthcare, education, transportation, housing, and the like; as well as curtailment of wages and benefits for the working class. In essence, these are roundabout ways of taxing the poor to pay the rich, the creditors.
Where such belt-tightening measures have made living conditions for the people intolerable, they have triggered what has come to be known as “the IMF riots.” The IMF riots are “painfully predictable. When a nation is, ‘down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,’ as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots. . . ” [2]. Other examples of the IMF riots include the Bolivian riots over the rise in water prices and the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices. As the IMF/World Bank riots create an insecure or uncertain economic environment, they often lead to a vicious circle of capital flight, deindustrialization, unemployment, and socio-economic disintegration.
Only when the riots have tended to lead to revolutions, the parasitic mega banks and their debt-collecting bailiffs, the IMF and/or the World Bank, have been forced to accept less onerous debt-servicing conditions, or even debt repudiation. The Argentine people deserve credit for having set a good example of this kind of debt restructuring.
In late 2001 and early 2002, they took to the streets to protest the escalated austerity measures imposed on them at the behest of the IMF and the World Bank. “Political demonstrations and the looting of grocery stores quickly spread across the country. . . . The government declared a state of siege, but police often stood by and watched the looting ‘with their hands behind their backs.’ There was little the government could do. Within a day after the demonstrations began, principal economic minister Domingo Cavallo had resigned; a few days later, President Fernando de la Rua stepped down. . . . In the wake of the resignations, a hastily assembled interim government immediately defaulted on $155 billion of Argentina’s foreign debt, the largest debt default in history” [4].
Argentina also freed its currency (peso) from the US dollar (it had been pegged to dollar in 1991). After defaulting on its external debt and dropping its currency peg to the dollar, Argentina has enjoyed a most robust economic growth in the world. Debt re-structuring a la Argentina, that is, debt repudiation, is what today’s debt-strapped nations in Europe and elsewhere need to do to free themselves from the shackles of debt peonage.
Having subjected many nations in the less-developed countries of the South to their notorious austerity measures, international knights of finance are now busy applying those impoverishing measures to the more developed countries of the North, especially those of Europe. For example, the Greek government has in recent months announced a series of wage and benefit cuts for public workers, a three-year freeze on pensions and a second increase this year in sales taxes, as well as in the price of fuel, alcohol and tobacco in return for a bailout plan promised by the IMF and the European Central Bank.
Debt collectors’ austerity requirements in a number of East European countries (such as Latvia and Lithuania) have been even more draconian. Thomas Landon Jr. of The New York Times recently reported that, threatened with bankruptcy, “Lithuania cut public spending by 30 percent — including slashing public sector wages 20 to 30 percent and reducing pensions by as much as 11 percent. . . . And the government didn’t stop there. It raised taxes on a wide variety of goods, like pharmaceutical products and alcohol. Corporate taxes rose to 20 percent, from 15 percent. The value-added tax rose to 21 percent, from 18 percent” (April 1, 2010).
As these oppressive measures led to the transfer of nine percent of gross domestic product (euphemistically called “national savings”) from domestic needs to debt collectors, they also further aggravated the economic crisis: “Unemployment jumped to a high of 14 percent, from single digits — and an already wobbly economy shrank 15 percent last year” [Ibid.].
In Latvia, another victim of the predatory global finance, the recessionary consequences of creditor-imposed austerity measures have been even more devastating: “Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record, losing more than 25% of GDP. It is projected to shrink further during the first half of this year. . . . With 22% unemployment . . . and cuts to education funding that will cause long-term damage, the social costs of this trajectory are also high” [5].
While the debt crises of the weaker European economies such as Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have reached critical stages of sustainability, the relatively stronger economies of Germany, France, and UK are also in danger of debt and deficit crises. Indeed, according to a recent IMF estimate, even in the more advanced economies of Europe the debt-to-GDP ratio will soon rise to an average of 100% [6].
Of course, the United States is also burdened by a mountain of debt that is fast approaching the size of its gross domestic product (of nearly $13.5 trillion). A major difference between the United States and other indebted nations is that the US is not as much at the mercy of its creditors or the IMF as are other debtor nations. Therefore, it can reasonably be argued that, on the basis of national or public interests, it could embark on an expansive fiscal policy, that is, a more aggressive stimulus package, that would take advantage of the power of “government as the employer of last resort,” more or less as FDR did, thereby creating jobs, incomes and economic growth. This would also add to government’s tax collection and reduce its debt and deficit.
Judging by the record, as well the budgetary projections, of the Obama administration and the lobby-infested Congress, however, such an expansionary fiscal policy seems very unlikely. Not only has the bulk of the government’s anti-recession assistance been devoted to the rescue of the Wall Street gamblers, but also the relatively small stimulus spending has largely been funneled into the pockets of the private/financial sector—through wasteful and ineffectual programs such as “cash for clunkers,” tax credit for new homebuyers, tax incentives for employers to hire, and the like. This stands in sharp contrast to what FDR did in the earlier years of the Great Depression: creating jobs and incomes directly and immediately by the government itself.
Not only is the administration’s feeble stimulus package soon coming to an end, but the government also recently imposed a three-year spending freeze on all public outlays except for military spending and the so-called entitlements. As their tax revenues, along with their traditional shares of federal assistance, are dwindling many states (especially California, Florida, New York, Arizona, Nevada and New Jersey) are facing serious financial difficulties. And as they curtail or shut down essential services at the libraries, museums, parks, schools, art centers, and hospitals, and give pink slips to their employees, the recessionary conditions are bound to exacerbate.
The wrenching economic hardship in the debt-ridden countries is not so much due to insufficient or lack of resources as it is the result of the lopsided and cruel distribution of those resources. It is increasingly becoming clear that the working majority around the world face a common enemy: an unproductive financial oligarchy that, like parasites, sucks the economic blood out of the working people, simply by trading and/or betting on claims of ownership.
Rectification of this unsavory situation poses stark alternatives: either the powerful financial interests, using the state power, succeed in collecting their debt claims by impoverishing the public; or the public will get tired of the vicious cycle of debt and depression, and will rise in protest—akin to the “IMF riots” in Argentina—to repudiate the largely fictitious and illegitimate debt. This is of course a class war. The real question is when the working people and other victims of the unjust debt burden will grasp the gravity of this challenge, and rise to the critical task of breaking free from the shackles of debt and depression.
While repudiation may cleanse the current toxic debt off the economies of the indebted societies, it would not prevent its recurrence in the future. To fend off such recurrences, it is also necessary to nationalize the banks and other financial intermediaries. It only stands to reason that national savings be placed under democratically controlled public management – not unelected, profit-driven private banks.
Ismael Hossein-zadeh, author of the recently published The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), teaches economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.
Notes.
[1] For a comprehensive account of the history of sovereign debt crises and/or defaults see, for example, Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
[2] Greg Palast, “The Globalizer Who Came In From the Cold,” gregpalast.com, October 10, 2001.
[3] Walden Bello, “The Poverty Trip – Is Corruption the Cause,” Counter Punch, April 30 – May 2, 2010.
[4] Arthur McEwan, “Economic Debacle in Argentina—The IMF Strikes Again,” Dollars & Sense, March-April 2002.
[5] Mark Weisbrot, “Baltic Countries Show What Greece May Look Forward to If It Follows EC/IMF Advice,” The Guardian Unlimited, April 28, 2010.
[6] Nouriel Roubini, “The Debt Death Trap,” Project Syndicate, April 16, 2010.
Al-Manar TV – May 13, 2010
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and other Western nations on Thursday against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
Countries facing Security Council sanctions “cannot under any circumstances be the subject of one-sided sanctions imposed by one or other government bypassing the Security Council”, Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax. “The position of the United States today does not display understanding of this absolutely clear truth.”
Russia is in talks with the United States and other UN Security Council members on a fourth round of sanctions. Moscow has indicated it could support broader sanctions but has stressed they must not harm the Iranian people. Russia’s position suggests that its may not agree to new tougher sanction on Iran at the UNSC.
Lavrov, speaking to deputies from Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the United States tended not to see international law as having pre-eminence over national laws. “We are now confronted with this problem during discussion of a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran.”
Permanent Security Council member China has joined Russia in opposing Washington’s plans to impose tough, wide-ranging sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Lavrov’s warning came just before the arrival in Russia on Thursday of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a non-permanent member of the Security Council that is also opposed to further sanctions against Iran. Lula was expected to meet senior Russian officials on Friday to discuss how to revive a stalled nuclear fuel swap deal meant to minimize the risk of Tehran using enrichment for military purposes. Lula will travel on to Iran on Sunday.
By James Petras | May 13, 2010
President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan for Justice of the United States Supreme Court on the basis of an academic publication record, which might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law school in the Texas Panhandle.
A review of her published scholarship after almost two decades in and out of academia turns up four law review articles, two brief pieces and several book reviews and in memoriam. There is nothing even remotely resembling a major legal text or research publication.
Her lack-luster academic publication record is only surpassed by her total lack of any practical experience as a judge: zero years in adjudication, unless one accepts the line of her exuberant advocates, who point to Kagan’s superb ability in adjudicating among the squabbling faculty at Harvard Law School when she served as Dean. No doubt Kagan had been very busy as the greatest fundraising Law School Dean in Harvard’s history ($400 million), which may account for the fact that she never found time to write a single academic article during her nine year tenure (2001-2009).
The criteria for her appointment to the Supreme Court have little to do with academic performance as it is understood today in all major universities. Nor does her total inexperience as a judicial advocate compensate for academic mediocrity.
The evidence points to a purely political appointment based, in part, on social networks and certainly not on her lack of affinity for the agenda of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Kagan’s approval of indefinite detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions on constitutional freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration and subsequently upheld by President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. It is no coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush torture advocate, the genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
Elena Kagan’s appointment certainly was not based on “diversity”. She will be the third Jew on the Supreme Court and, together with the six Roman Catholics, will decide the most critical cases with far-reaching and profound impact on citizens’ rights and protections. For the first time in US history the nation’s largest demographic group, the Protestants (of any hue or gender), will have no representative on the Court, thereby excluding the descendents, like retiring Justice Stevens, of the brilliant, strongly secular judicial heritage that formulated the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and its amendments.
Kagan’s nomination to the US Supreme Court is not exceptional if we consider many of Bush and now Obama’s choices of advisers and officials in top policymaking posts. Many of these officials combined their diplomas from Ivy League universities with their absolutely disastrous performances in public office, which no amount of mass media puff pieces could obscure. These Ivy League mediocrities include the foreign policy advocates for the destructive and unending wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and the leading economic advisers and officials responsible for the current financial debacles. The names are familiar enough: Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Levey, Greenspan, Axelrod, Emmanuel, Indyk, Ross, Summers, Rubin, et al: Prestigious credentials with mediocre, or worse, performances. What is the basis of their rise? What explains their ascent to the most influential positions in the US power structure?
One hypothesis is nepotism . . . of a certain kind. Elena Kagan got tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago in 1995 on the basis of one substantive article and one brief piece, neither outstanding. With this underwhelming record of legal scholarship, she became visiting professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only two more articles (one in Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima facie evidence strongly suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience.
The public utterances and political writings of innumerable Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, John Hopkins professors, whether it be on the speculative economy, Israel’s Middle East wars, preventative detention, broad presidential powers and constitutional freedoms are marked by a singular mediocrity, mendacity and an excess of hot air reeking of the barnyard.
If you do not qualify on the basis of excellent scholarship or broad-based practical experience, your ethnic tribesmen will wax ecstatic over you as a “wonder colleague”, a “superb teacher”, a “brilliant consensus builder” and a “world champion fund raiser”. In other words, if you have the right ethnic connections and political ambitions, they can adjust the criteria for tenure at the University of Chicago, the deanship at Harvard Law School and a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees who have long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago Judge Abner Mitva, an ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President Obama as “America’s first Jewish President”, probably his soundest judgment.
The issue of the composition of the US Supreme Court is increasingly crucial for all Americans, who are horrified by Israel’s devastation of Gaza, its threats to launch a nuclear attack on Iran and its Fifth Column’s efforts to drag us into a third war in ten years. With the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations pressing the compliant US Congress to declare “anti-Zionism” as a form of “anti-Semitism” and “opposition to Israel’s policies” as amounting to “support for terrorism”, thus criminalizing Americans critical of Israel, another active pro-Zionist advocate on the Court will provide a legal cover for the advance of Zionist-dictated authoritarianism over the American people.
Yes, Kagan would be another woman on the Supreme Court. Yes, she would probably adjudicate conflicts among the judges and strengthen Obama’s police powers. And yes, she would likely favor your indefinite detention if you support the right of Palestinians to struggle (“terrorism”) against the Israeli occupation . . . especially if you defend America against Israel’s Fifth Column.
But remember when you apply for Ivy League law school appointment or a top judicial post and your CV lacks the requisite publications or work experience, just ask Judge Abner Mikva or Larry Summers or Rahm Emmanuel for a recommendation. With such support you will shoot ahead of the competition. . . because you have the right ethnic connections.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles.
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
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