As a new military confrontation over Syria is impending, thought out by Israel, prepared by the British and executed by the US, the West’s future depends greatly upon two mavericks, the US President Donald Trump and the UK Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn. These two men are as different as you can make. One is for capitalism, another one is a socialist, but both are considered soft on Russia, at least they do not foam at the mouth hearing Putin’s name. Both are enemies of Wall Street and the City, both stand against the Deep State, against NATO, both are enemies of globalism and of world government. One is a friend of Israel, another is a friend of Palestine, but both are charged with racism and anti-Semitism.
It is a quaint peculiarity of our time, that anti-Semitism is considered the great and unforgivable sin, trading places with Christ Denial. Negative attitude to Christ-denying Jews had been de rigueur at its time, and the Church, or its Tribunal, the Inquisition, had tried the charged. Nowadays, the heavily Jewish MSM is the accuser, the judge and jury, considering anti-Jewish attitude as a worst sort of racism. The two leaders aren’t guilty as charged, but the MSM court dispenses no acquittals.
Racism is indeed an ugly trend (though greed is worse), and hatred of Jews qua Jews is not nice, either. (You wouldn’t expect a different answer from the son of Jewish parents, would you?) Jews are entertaining, clever, cunning, sentimental and adventurous folk, able to do things. They can be good, that’s why the Church wants to bring them to Christ. If they were inherently bad, why bother with their souls? Are Jews greedy? Everyone would sell his grandma for a fistful of dollars, but only a Jew would actually deliver, say Jews. Jews tend to preach and claim high moral ground, but that is a tradition of the Nation of Priests. However, universalism and non-racism is not their strong point, and it is amazing that they appointed themselves the judges on racism.
Nazis were against Jews, ergo, Jews are the pukka anti-Nazis, this is the logic behind the appointment. It is easier to deal with ethnic or racial categories than with ideas. However, an easier way can lead to wrong results, as we shall prove by turning… no, not to bad Netanyahu or Sharon, but to the best of Jews.
Would you call “a leftist and a liberal” a man who wants to create a reservation for Blacks, a separate state for Blacks, to give them the voting rights in this separate state? A man whose motto was “you are there; we are here”? Hardly. Depending on his colour, you’d probably describe him a white racist, or a member of the Nation of Islam. But for Jews, there are different standards.
The recently demised Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery had been eulogised royally. Many Israelis came to part with him before his body was cremated and the ashes spread on Tel Aviv seashore. Mass media from all over the world, statesmen, politicians, activists dedicated many words to his memory. A brave man, a noble spirit, a fighter for peace, all that was said, and all that was true. But this the most progressive, the most left-liberal man in the whole of Israel was the godfather of the Separation Wall; he coined the slogan “you are there; we are here”. He did not want to live with Arabs in one state. He pushed for creation of ghetto for non-Jews.
He was fine to visit Arabs, to play chess with Arafat as he did during the siege; to defend them if they were mistreated by Jewish lowlifes. But to live with them as equal? No, no way. Avnery’s attitude was that of an old-time Boer Nationalist, a Bantustan creator. He would find himself at home with founders of Rhodesia.
There was a practical and pragmatic reason: Avnery and his ilk had robbed Palestinians of their lands and their livelihood in 1948, expelled them from their homes, corralled them into reservations, and split the booty. They became rich. They did not want to allow refugees back and give up the stolen loot, oh no.
Avnery believed peace was possible, for the Arabs should be grateful if they were left in peace in their Bantustans. He was for peace with Hamas, for he was sure they also will gratefully accept keeping what’s they’ve got.
This is the Israeli Left: people who had got enough of Arab goods, and do not need more.
Avnery’s adversaries weren’t Arabs; they were Jews who arrived in Palestine at a latter stage. They didn’t share in the Big Robbery of 1948; they wanted to get something for themselves.
This is the Israeli Right: people who want to squeeze more out of Palestinians, even if it means armed conflict will go on.
The common ground of Israeli Left and Israeli Right is their unwillingness to give Palestinians freedom and restore the stolen goods. The difference is that the Left, wealthy Jews, wanted to leave Palestinians in peace in their Bantustans. The Right, poorer Jews, want to keep squeezing Palestinians.
The late Mr Avnery greatly disliked the poorer Jews that migrated to Palestine after 1948. He denied they were mistreated by his pals. The talk about Oriental (or Sephardi) Jews being exploited and abused upon arrival annoyed him immensely.
He was, however, a very nice man. Regretfully I must admit that wealthy men looking for peace (even while keeping their booty) are more pleasant than poor guys keen on robbing somebody else.
Uri Avnery was one of the best of his kind. But he was not a liberal, nor a non-racist, neither a leftist by a long shot. As Ron Unz made a point in his widely read piece on Jews and Nazis, he was a living example of a Jew informed by Nazi Germany. He was brought up there; and upon arrival to Palestine, he joined a fascist terrorist group that courted Nazi Germany. He wrote in fascist newspapers, he actively participated in ethnic cleansing, and he freely admitted that.
His attitude to Arabs was similar of Adolf Eichmann to Jews in 1930s, mutatis mutandis. As Unz correctly stated, Eichmann was a big fan of Jews and a top liaison with Zionists at that time. He wanted Jews to prosper, just not in Germany. Avnery wanted Arabs to prosper, but on the other side of the border.
If he was the best, you can imagine the average of Israeli Left (Israeli Right is even worse). The previous leader of Israeli Labour, Mr Isaac Hertzog, became the head of the Jewish Agency and declared that his main task is to fight “the plague of mixed marriages”, that is marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The present leader of Israeli Labour, Avi Gabbay, told a meeting of party activists that “the Arabs have to be afraid of us”. He added: “They fire one missile – you fire 20. That’s all they understand in the Middle East”. He also vowed to never enter into a coalition with the non-Jewish party (the Joint List, a Knesset group representing Palestinian citizens).
Such views are totally unacceptable for any mainstream party in the US or the UK. Probably they are too radical for KKK, too.
Now sit tight and prepare yourself for a shock. This Israeli Labour Party, which would be considered a Nazi party elsewhere, decided to cut ties with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party for British Labour is “anti-Semitic”, they said. It is a shame that Corbyn hasn’t been the one to take this step first. If you maintain ties with any Israeli party, you should have no problem to fraternise with Hollywood Nazis, let alone the Ku Klux Klan. And Jeremy Corbyn quite correctly compared Zionists with Nazis. Now he is being skinned alive by British Jews.
They ran the same front page in their three newspapers saying that Corbyn is an existential threat to British Jews, because he does not agree with their definition of anti-Semitism. He is not anti-Jewish, but he doesn’t worship the Jew. And he is not a Jew. A young British Jewish Labour voter regretted that Ed Miliband, the Jewish former Labour leader, is not in power, for “there wouldn’t be Brexit, there wouldn’t be Jeremy Corbyn, and we’d just have a lovely Jewish prime minister.” Isn’t it a racist sentiment? But Jews are pukka anti-racists…
Corbyn had been trying his best to accommodate the Jews. He expelled his staunch supporters whenever the Jews demand their heads. He is going to a compromise after a compromise, he denounced the Jews who stayed with him despite community pressure. All in vain, because the Jews care little about definitions, but they are worried about Corbyn’s hostility to banksters, by his excessive (in their eyes) sympathy to British workers and by his unwillingness to fight wars for Israel. They can’t say that openly, that is why they keep pushing anti-Semitism button hoping to unseat Corbyn and return Blair-2.
My respected friend Jonathan Cook, the great British journalist based in Nazareth, summed it up well:
“Besieged for four years, Corbyn has been abandoned. Few respected politicians want to risk being cast out into the wilderness, like Ken Livingstone, as an anti-Semite. Corbyn himself has conceded too much ground on anti-semitism. He has tried to placate rather than defy the smearers.”
Cook points out that by conceding ground, Corbyn betrayed Palestinians and betrayed anti-Zionist Jews who were expelled by droves from Labour. Even Tony Greenstein, a Jewish nationalist though anti-Zionist, had been expelled; the same Tony Greenstein who attacked me and Gilad Atzmon for our anti-Semitism (I responded to him here). He was also sent home packing. The late Hajo Meyer, a Holocaust survivor and defender of Palestinian rights, a personal friend of Corbyn, had been denounced. Palestinians were betrayed, and we should care about them more than about Jewish fine feelings.
But why should we give a damn about Corbyn and/or Palestinians if we aren’t British voters? I’ll tell you.
In the British establishment, pro-Jewish forces decided to side with the Washington War Party to push us close to war. The recent visit of the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (the man on the shortlist of Israel’s agents within the British establishment) to Washington where Hunt delivered a speech calling for full-out war on Russia, “has been read as an intervention on the side of the anti-Russian faction in the split and divided US administration”, said the Guardian.
The speech is just an opening, missiles will follow soon. Today, I was informed by my contacts, the Russians have delivered a demarche to the State Department, warning the Americans to desist from their plans to attack Syria. Russian intelligence learned that eight tanks containing chlorine have been delivered to Halluz village of Idlib province where the group of specially trained militants has already been deployed in order to simulate the rescue of the victims of chemical attack. The militants were trained by the British private military company Olive (which had merged with the American Constellis Group.
The operation, the Russians say, had been planned by the British intelligence services to justify an impending airstrike directed against Syrian military and civil infrastructure. For this strike, USS The Sullivans guided missile destroyer with 56 cruise missiles onboard arrived to the Persian Gulf, and the US Air Force bomber B-1B with 24 cruise Air-to-Surface Missiles had been flown to the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar.
The idea is Israeli, the operational plans are British, weapons and vessels are American, and a possibility for confrontation grows stronger each day. The success of Corbyn would put a stop to these plans of war. But will he have a chance?
Ron Unz wrote that the British establishment together with Organised Jewry were able to push unwilling America into the world wars twice, and perhaps they will be able to repeat this feat a third time. It seems that the Question of Palestine, one of the reasons for America’s entry into the world wars, is likely to unleash another war.
Who is the master and who is the slave of the two, Organised Jewry or English establishment? This is the-chicken-and-the-egg dilemma, and there are conflicting answers.
* Indiana University Professor of Geography, Mohameden Ould-Mey provided strong arguments that the English were the Master. I presented his case here.
* The opposing view is that of the late Times correspondent Douglas Reed, presented in his Controversy of Zion, a cryptic book. Proponents of both views had been banned beyond marginalizing. You are just not allowed to ponder it.
I do not intend to rule who is right; however, the moot area where the twain intersect is definitely a trouble spot. Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel are the groups within this intersection. Their desire for war against Russia sends us a powerful signal of danger.
On the opposing side, there are two intersecting groups: (1) friends of Palestine, and (2) opponents of Jews.
The racial and tribal anti-Semites are of little value, for they are not particularly bright and are easily misled and manipulated. They do not like Jewish noses, but who cares?
But people rejecting globalism, rule of the banks, neoliberalism, impoverishment of native workers, uprooting, Christ-denial, mass migration and population replacement, the “invite and invade” mode – are the core of the resistance. They are called “anti-Semites”, even if they never mention Jews, even if they are Jewish.
Some people who strongly reject this paradigm prefer to dismiss a thought of Palestine. Bannon and his ilk, the British Nationalists never fail to express their admiration of Israel. It shows they are immoral and dishonest. As long as you choose between Banksters’ rule and Zionists’ yoke, you will get both.
Palestine is the heart of the matter. Palestine is why the Jews want the attack on Syria.
Palestine is the tool allowing us to unmask the racist nature of our adversary and defeat him. This is the way to compassion and the way to Christ. If the only escape from the anti-Semitism label leads through betrayal of Christ and Palestine, I’d rather bear this label with pride.
Trump and Corbyn are coming to the point from different sides. They are fighting a strong and well-entrenched adversary. Both are tired, both are full of imperfections, but they offer us a chance to save our beautiful world from destruction. It would be silly if they fail for antisemitism scare.
P.S. The first ever trial of a Holocaust Denier in Russia is taking place now in Perm, the Doctor Zhivago city. Roman Yushkov, a Perm University Professor, had been sacked; his social accounts erased, his YouTube presentations removed; there is practically no publicity at all. He re-posted an article expressing doubt of the amount of Jewish dead, and a local resident of Habad Chassid House reported him to authorities. There is no law forbidding H denial in Russia, but there is a law forbidding to cause inter-ethnic wrangle. The verdict is expected on September 4. You can write to Prof Yushkov <roman@prpc.ru>
After more than seven years of war with the goal of changing the Syrian regime, the target has now become Hezbollah. But the question remains: after the failure of the 2006 war, what can the enemies of this organization do to achieve their goal?
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said in his most recent speech that “Hezbollah is stronger than the Israeli army”. Israel responded by showing a drill of the Golani brigade and the 7th Armoured Brigade, in the presence of Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, simulating war against Hezbollah. This drill took place after routine ground forces exercises of the 36th Division to “improve coordination and readiness in case of war”.
In a message indicating that it will not distinguish civilians from militants, Israel has constructed a new training base in the occupied Golan Heights, the Snir facility, to simulate Lebanese villages. These mock Hezbollah villages are meant to be of the type Israeli soldiers might face in combat situations if an invasion of Lebanon is ordered.
Likewise, Hezbollah has constructed mock Israeli villages on the Lebanese-Syrian borders for combat training to prepare for war. Sayyed Nasrallah has promised to move the battle beyond the Lebanese borders and has asked his men to prepare to fight on “enemy ground” if war is imposed on Hezbollah.
Israel’s ongoing repetitive threats against Lebanon and Hezbollah are nothing new to Sayyed Nasrallah, who doesn’t give undue weight to these continuous menaces. In fact, he keeps himself informed about all news related to Israel, the Middle East and the world events of interest to him. A special team made of tens of translators and media expert collect daily all the news from open sources and keep the Hezbollah leader informed, as do his intelligence services, represented in various countries, and his own private contacts with allies he regularly meets.
He is not unfamiliar with reservist Major General Yitzhak Brik, the Israeli Army commissioner for the rights of soldiers, who talks of a serious crisis in an army that has become a “mediocre organization suffering from overburdening and exhaustion”.
Brik said top officials sell a false image (of the Army) that does not correspond to reality. “We have become a group of cowards. There is a serious crisis of motivation among young officers”.
The former head of the Israeli special service Nativ, Yaakov Kedmi, said that “the motivation to serve in the military has been reduced. Israeli society is no longer willing to grant privileges to the army”.
Sayyed Nasrallah did not mean that his organization has an air force (it has none, of course) stronger than that of Israel. Nor does Hezbollah receive financial support from Iran equivalent to that provided by the US to Israel, including “US forces ready to die for Israel”. Sayyed Nasrallah counts on a group of experienced young men, with strong ideology and a high level of training, not looking for death but also not afraid of it. Hezbollah’s goal is to stand against Israel and its allies who aim to eradicate the group: it is a matter of survival.
Hezbollah has proven its combat capability against the ISIS (Daesh) organization in Lebanon and Syria, as well as against al-Qaeda and other jihadist Takfiri groups. The Lebanese group lost only one battle over the last six years of war, a battle on the hill of el-Eiss in April 2016. This defeat resulted from a lack of coordination between allied forces. That day the military plan was for allied forces to occupy the el-Eiss hill surrounding the city of el-Eiss; the city itself was to be liberated by Hezbollah. The allies withdrew from the hill without informing the forces in the city. This lack of communication caused the death of 28 Hezbollah members whose bodies are still unrecovered and buried on the battlefield.
But this military setback did not affect the performance of the party, which was able to conduct both guerrilla battles on its own against different groups, and other battles alongside classical armies (Syrian and Russian). Together with its allies and the Syrian Army, Hezbollah managed to liberate territories at least 14 times bigger than Lebanon (the size of Syria is around 180,000 sqkm, while Lebanon is 10,453 sqkm).
Hezbollah has proven its fidelity to Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad rejected a recent offer from Saudi Arabia to rebuild everything the seven years of war has destroyed and to remain as president – with US backing – on the condition that he give up on Palestine and Hezbollah. Assad rejected the “generous” but poisoned offer – as he has described it in private.
The years of war taught Assad to distinguish between allies and countries such as Saudi Arabia who invested much to remove him from power at the cost of destroying the country: “An ideological ally (Hezbollah) is better than the richest of all countries because this real ally did not and would never abandon him, and has no ambitions in Syria but to see stability in the Levant and to prevent Takfiri Jihadists – supported by Arab and western countries – from creating a failed state”, Assad repeats often to his visitors.
Indeed, Hezbollah has given orders to evacuate its military units from all Syrian cities and villages, without exception: no Hezbollah military forces are to remain in urban areas. They (military) will be present only on the borders between the two countries.
Hezbollah is now on focusing its military attention on the border with Israel, preparing for a war that may happen tomorrow, or that may never happen.
A writer affiliated with a western think tank recently asked the West to “wake up“, claiming that Hezbollah is expanding into Europe and trading drugs to secure resources because Western pressure on Tehran threatens its sources of funding. Many other writers call for the elimination of Hezbollah as a threat to Lebanon. These articles reflect western ignorance about Hezbollah’s thinking, its work, power, funding and goals.
Hezbollah is stronger than the Lebanese army and all the Lebanese security forces combined. Nevertheless, it would never consider capturing, dominating or otherwise controlling Lebanon for many reasons unrelated to its superior combat capability.
The party is aware that Lebanon is a multi-ethnic country (with 18 sects and religions) and that an “Islamic republic” is unattainable because its conditions are currently unfavorable. Hezbollah does not want to and indeed cannot meet the demands of a state and the well-being of its entire population because it does not have the resources of a state. The group is not in a position to manage a country with little resources, a country receiving and dependent on foreign (Arab and western) aid and wealth, a country that cannot permit itself to be isolated from the world as it would be if ruled by Hezbollah.
Moreover, Hezbollah has agreed on an interior minister (Sunni), a political foe and friend of its greatest political enemy (Saudi Arabia), because it does not want to be responsible for the internal security of the country. Nor does the organization want to be accused of sectarianism, corruption or bribery, or of arresting Sunni jihadists on a sectarian basis.
Hezbollah believes it can continue to exist indefinitely only if the local population, and especially the Shiites in Lebanon, embrace the group and offer a safe environment for its operation. This is the key: Hezbollah’s militants, families, and supporters make up around 25% (Shia are estimated above 30% of the total sects and religion in Lebanon) of the Lebanese population.
Since 1945 the Lebanese state neglected the Shiite community, who lived for decades in worse conditions than residents of Palestinian refugee camps spread out all over Lebanon. When the opportunity arose for them to bear arms and build an identity, the community did not hesitate to take it.
Israel strengthened its raison d’être with its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah arose first to fight Israel, and then to liberate Lebanese territory in a second phase. It then moved on to supporting the “axis of resistance” in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Today, the Shiites of Lebanon are no longer in need of the Taqiya (concealing or disguising one’s beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of imminent danger) and shall not give up their arms in the face of any danger to their existence, domestic or international. No matter how seriously Israel and the US may threaten Shiite areas in Lebanon, they will not surrender the power, dignity, and status they have achieved in Lebanon.
Hezbollah today employs tens of thousands of Shiites – in the military and social activities – who positively contribute to the shaky Lebanese economy. These tens of thousands working in the ranks of “Hezbollah” did not come to Lebanon from another planet, country, or continent. They are the people of the Lebanon, the people of the southern suburbs, Beirut, Jubail, Saida,Tyre, Bekaa, Baalbek, Hermel, and all parts of Lebanon. Thus, those who demand the abolition of Hezbollah are in effect calling for the destruction of an intrinsic and significant part of the population of Lebanon.
The US has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to counter Hezbollah in Lebanon and distort its image to no avail. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri asked in a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (intercepted by US forces in Iraq on the 9th of July 2005), when he was targeting Shi’ites instead of the occupier during the first years of the US occupation of Iraq: has any Islamic State in history ever been successful in eliminating the Shiites?
For over a decade now, activists and truth-seekers have been watching the growing influence of the internet on society and politics, pointing out that when millions of people become informed to truth, it would drastically change the political landscape in America and around the world.
And it has.
At the same time, we’ve been warned that when mass, virtually free information sharing by the general public became a genuine threat to the establishment and status quo, that an ‘internet kill switch’ was ready behind the scenes to shut it all down.
And it is.
But while ten years ago, this prospect conjured up images of an actual switch in a DARPA facility somewhere in the Rocky Mountains that would literally power down the infrastructure and back bone of the world-wide web, we are seeing today what the ‘kill switch’ really looks like. It really is more a corporate/government affair that targets unwanted information.
This is the true form of the internet kill switch as it appears in 2018.
1.) “Violation of Community Guidelines” (The Outright Ban) – First and foremost is the now ubiquitous, blanket statement that users of corporate media platforms get when their pages, channels, accounts are shut down. It never points to anything specific, or offers an opportunity to right the transgression. It is legalese for ‘f$#k off, you’re not wanted around here.”
2.) Shadow Banning – This is the act of allowing a persona non grata to continue to use a corporate media platform, but not allowing their posts or content to actually be seen by anyone.
3.) Throttling of Reach – Businesses and media organizations across the board have been seeing a steady and dramatic decline in their ability to reach their audience. The number of page likes really means absolutely nothing, and while these people have signed up to receive content from you, the social media platforms make sure that only a tiny fraction of your audience actually gets what they signed up.
4.) Blacklisting Domains – Platforms like Facebook have demonstrated the ability to prevent a specific domain from getting any reach.
5.) Deleting Posts and Content – If a particular post or piece of content is unwanted on a platform, for whatever reason, it can be deleted.
6.) Flagging Content as ‘Fake News’ – This one is particularly insidious because social media platforms are using corporate news organizations like ABC and discredited private companies like Snopes to supposedly fact check independent content. These labels are often erroneous and can sometimes be appealed, but the flag itself damages the content providers reputation and reach.
7.) Downranking and Search Indexing – Google is using their algorithms to target and hide information from search results.
8.) Time Outs for ‘Bad Behavior’ – Twitter, Facebook and others will often time out a page or page admin for violating some hidden policy. Admins will be locked out of their pages for set periods or have their functionality reduced, thereby preventing them from posting content and reaching or communicating with their audiences.
9.) Shutting Down Websites and Confiscation of Content – WordPress.com is now shutting down sites hosted with its hosting services, again for the ambiguous ‘violation of community guidelines.’ Page owners are locked out without warning and are prohibited from accessing their content or backups of their sites, effectively stealing intellectual property from people.
10.) Shutting Down Business Services – Services such as Mailchimp, Spotify, Disqus and a variety of ad networks are now demonstrating the willingness to cease doing business with organizations for political reasons. This one is the most insidious ones, because it goes beyond content censorship and aims to shut people out of their legal right to conduct business.
Final Thoughts
The crisis of internet censorship in the West is unfolding now and just now coming into view. It appears that government agencies are heavily influencing these policies, along with monolithic tech companies who are now demonstrating the willingness to allow the political beliefs of executives to influence the business services they provide. Given that these are businesses, it stands to reason that it won’t be long before these companies suffer substantial backlash for crossing the line into censorship and thought control.
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was ostensibly a conflict between two ideologies, two socio-economic systems.
All that seems to be over. The day of a new socialism may dawn unexpectedly, but today capitalism rules the world. Now the United States and Russia are engaged in a no-holds-barred fight between capitalists. At first glance, it may seem to be a classic clash between rival capitalists. And yet, once again an ideological conflict is emerging, one which divides capitalists themselves, even in Russia and in the United States itself. It is the conflict between globalists and sovereignists, between a unipolar and a multipolar world. The conflict will not be confined to the two main nuclear powers.
The defeat of communism was brutally announced in a certain “capitalist manifesto” dating from the early 1990s that proclaimed: “Our guiding light is Profit, acquired in a strictly legal way. Our Lord is His Majesty, Money, for it is only He who can lead us to wealth as the norm in life.”
The authors of this bold tract were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went on to become the richest man in Russia, before spending ten years in a Russian jail, and his business partner at the time, Leonid Nevzlin, who has since retired comfortably to Israel.
Loans For Shares
Those were the good old days in the 1990s when the Clinton administration was propping up Yeltsin as he let Russia be ripped off by the joint efforts of such ambitious well-placed Russians and their Western sponsors, notably using the “loans for shares” trick.
In a 2012 Vanity Fairarticle on her hero, Khodorkovsky, the vehemently anti-Putin journalist Masha Gessen frankly summed up how this worked:
The new oligarchs—a dozen men who had begun to exercise the power that money brought—concocted a scheme. They would lend the government money, which it badly needed, and in return the government would put up as collateral blocks of stock amounting to a controlling interest in the major state-owned companies. When the government defaulted, as both the oligarchs and the government knew it would, the oligarchs would take them over. By this maneuver the Yeltsin administration privatized oil, gas, minerals, and other enterprises without parliamentary approval.
This worked so well that from his position in the Communist youth organization, Khodorkovsky used his connections to get control of Russia’s petroleum company Yukos and become the richest oligarch in Russia, worth some $15 billion, of which he still controls a chunk despite his years in jail (2003-2013). His arrest made him a hero of democracy in the United States, where he had many friends, especially those business partners who were helping him sell pieces of Yukos to Chevron and Exxon. Khodorkovsky, a charming and generous young man, easily convinced his American partners that he was Russia’s number one champion of democracy and the rule of law, especially of those laws which allow domestic capital to flee to foreign banks and foreign capital to take control of Russian resources.
Vladimir Putin didn’t see it that way. Without restoring socialism, he dispossessed Khodorkovsky of Yukos and essentially transformed the oil and gas industry from the “open society” model tolerated by Yeltsin to a national capitalist industry. Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev were accused of having stolen all the oil that Yukos had produced in the years 1998 to 2003, tried, convicted and sentenced to 14 years of prison each. This shift ruined US plans, already underway, to “balkanize” Russia between its many provinces, thereby allowing Western capital to pursue its capture of the Russian economy.
The dispossession of Khodorkovsky was certainly a major milestone in the conflict between President Putin and Washington. On November 18, 2005, the Senate unanimously adopted resolution 322 introduced by Joe Biden denouncing the treatment of the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev as politically motivated.
Who Influences Whom?
Now let’s take a look at the history of Russian influence in the United States. It is obvious that a Russian who can get the Senate to adopt a resolution in his favor has a certain influence. But when the “deep state” growls about Russian influence, it isn’t talking about Khodorkovsky. It’s talking about a joking response Trump made to a reporter’s snide question during the presidential campaign. In a variation of the classic “when did you stop beating your wife?” the reporter asked if he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stay out” of the election.
Since a stupid question does not deserve a serious answer, Trump said he had “nothing to do with Putin” before adding, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Aha! Went the Trump haters. This proves it! Irony is almost as unwelcome in American politics as honesty.
When President Trump revoked his security clearance earlier this month, former CIA chef John Brennan got his chance to spew out his hatred in the complacent pages of the New York Times.
Someone supposed to be smart enough to head an intelligence agency actually took Trump’s joking invitation as a genuine request. “By issuing such a statement,” Brennan wrote, “Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent.”
The Russians, Brennan declared, “troll political, business, and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters.”
Which Russians do that? And who are those “individuals”?
‘The Fixer in Chief’
To understand the way Washington works, nothing is more instructive than to examine the career of lawyer Jonathan M. Winer, who proudly repeats that in early 2017, the head of the Carnegie Endowment Bill Burns introduced him as “the Fixer in Chief”. Winer has long been unknown to the general public, but this may soon change.
Let’s see what the fixer has fixed.
Under the presidency of fellow Yalie Bill Clinton, Winer served as the State Department’s first Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Law Enforcement, from 1994-1999. One may question the selectivity of Bill Clinton’s concern for international law enforcement, which certainly did not cover violating international law by bombing defenseless countries. In any case, in 1999, Winer was awarded for “virtually unprecedented achievements”. Later we shall examine one of those important achievements.
At the end of the Clinton administration, from 2008 to 2013, the Fixer in Chief worked as high up consultant at one of the world’s most powerful PR and lobbying firms, APCO Worldwide. This is how the Washington revolving door functions: after a few years in government finding out how things work, one then goes into highly paid “consultancy” to sell this insider information and influential contacts to private clients.
APCO got off to a big start some thirty years ago lobbying for Philip Morris and the tobacco industry in general.
In 2002, APCO launched something called the “Friends of Science” to promote skepticism concerning the harmful effects of smoking. In 1993, the campaign described its goals and objectives “encouraging the public to question – from the grassroots up – the validity of scientific studies.”
While Winer was at APCO, one of its major activities was hyping the Clinton Global Initiative, an international networking platform promoting the Clinton Foundation. APCO president and CEO Margery Kraus explained that the consultancy was there to “help other CGI members garner interest for the causes they are addressing, demonstrate their success and highlight the wide-ranging achievements of CGI as a whole.” Considering that only five percent of Clinton Foundation turnover went to donations, they needed all the PR they could get.
Significantly, donations to the Clinton Global Initiative have dried up since Hillary lost the presidential election. According to the Observer : “Foreign governments began pulling out of annual donations, signaling the organization’s clout was predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather than its philanthropic work.”
This helps explain Hillary Clinton’s panic when she lost in 2016. How in the world can she ever reward her multi-million-dollar donors with the favors they expected?
As well as the tobacco industry and the Clinton Foundation, APCO also works for Khodorkovsky. To be precise, according to public listings, the fourth biggest of APCO’s many clients is the Corbiere Trust, owned by Khodorkovsky and registered in Guernsey. The trust tends and distributes some of the billions that the oligarch got out of Russia before he was jailed. Corbiere money was spent to lobby both for Resolution 322 (supporting Khodorkovky after his arrest in Russia) and for the Magnitsky Act (more later). Margery Kraus, APCO’s president and CEO, is a member of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel’s Institute of Modern Russia, devoted to “promoting democratic values” – in other words, to building political opposition to Vladimir Putin.
In 2009 Jonathan Winer went back to the State Department where he was given a distinguished service award for having somehow rescued thousands of stranded members of the Muhahedin-e Khalq from their bases in Iraq they were trying to overthrow the Iranian government. The MeK, once officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the State Department, has become a pet instrument in US and Israeli regime change operations directed at Iran.
However, it was Winer’s extracurricular activities at State that finally brought him into the public spotlight early this year – or rather, the spotlight of the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) named him as one of a network promoting the notorious “Steele Dossier” which accused Trump of illicit financial dealing and compromising sexual activities in Russia. By Winer’s own account, he had been friends with former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele since his days at APCO. Back at State, he regularly channeled Steele reports, ostensibly drawn from contacts with friendly Russian intelligence agents, to Victoria Nuland, in charge of Russian affairs, and top Russian experts. These included the infamous “Steele dossier”. In September 2016, Winer’s old friend Sidney Blumenthal – a particularly close advisor to Hillary Clinton – gave him notes written by a more mysterious Clinton insider named Cody Shearer, repeating the salacious attacks.
All this dirt was spread through government agencies and mainstream media before being revealed publicly just before Trump’s inauguration, used to stimulate the “Russiagate” investigation by Robert Mueller. The dossier has been discredited but the investigation goes on and on.
So, it is all right to take seriously information allegedly obtained from “Russian agents” and spread it around, so long as it can damage Trump. As with so much else in Washington, double standards are the rule.
Jonathan Winer and the Magnitsky Act
Jonathan Winer played a major role in Congressional adoption of the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012” (the Magnitsky Act), a measure that effectively ended post-Cold War hopes for normal relations between Washington and Moscow. This act was based on a highly contentious version of the November 16, 2009 death in prison of accountant Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky, as told to Congress by hedge fund manager Bill Browder (grandson of Earl Browder, head of the Communist Party USA 1934-1945). According to Browder, Magnitsky was a lawyer beaten to death in prison as a result of his crusade for human rights.
However, as convincingly established by dissident Russian film-maker Andrei Nekrasov’s (banned) investigative documentary, the unfortunate Magnitsky was neither a human rights crusader, nor a lawyer, nor beaten to death. He was an accountant jailed for his role in Browder’s business dealings, who died of natural causes as a result of inadequate medical treatment. The case was hyped up as a major human rights drama by Browder in order to discredit Russian charges against himself.
In any case, by adopting a law punishing Magnitsky’s alleged persecutors, the US Congress acted as a supreme court judging internal Russian legal issues.
The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Browder, on a much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during the Yeltsin years, and later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since Browder had given up his US citizenship in order to avoid paying US taxes, he had reason to fear Russian efforts to extradite him for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds.
It was Jonathan Winer who found a solution to Browder’s predicament.
When Browder consulted me, […] I suggested creating a new law to impose economic and travel sanctions on human-rights violators involved in grand corruption. Browder decided this could secure a measure of justice for Magnitsky. He initiated a campaign that led to the enactment of the Magnitsky Act. Soon other countries enacted their own Magnitsky Acts, including Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most recently, the United Kingdom.
Russian authorities are still trying to pursue their case against Browder. In his press conference following the Helsinki meeting with Trump, Vladimir Putin suggested allowing US authorities to question the Russians named in the Mueller indictment in exchange for allowing Russian officials to question individuals involved in the Browder case, including Winer and former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. Putin observed that such an exchange was possible under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between the two countries in 1999, back in the Yeltsin days when America was posing as Russia’s best friend.
But the naïve Russians did not measure the craftiness of American lawyers.
As Winer wrote:
“Under that treaty, Russia’s procurator general can ask the US attorney general … to arrange for Americans to be ordered to testify to assist in a criminal case. But there is a fundamental exception: The attorney general can provide no such assistance in a politically motivated case.” (My emphasis.)
“I know this”, he wrote, “because I was among those who helped put it there. Back in 1999, when we were negotiating the agreement with Russia, I was the senior State Department official managing US-Russia law-enforcement relations.”
So, the Fixer in Chief could have said to the worried Browder, “No problem. All that we need to do is make your case a politically motivated case. Then they can’t touch you.”
Winer’s clever treaty is a perfect Catch-22. The treaty doesn’t apply to a case if it is politically motivated, and if it is Russian, it must be politically motivated.
In a July 15, 2016, complaint to the Justice Department, Browder’s Heritage Capital Management accused both American and Russian opponents of the Magnitsky Act of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA; adopted in 1938 with Nazis in mind). Among the “lobbyists” cited was the late Ron Dellums (falsely identified in the complaint as a “former Republican congressman”).
The Heritage Capital Management brief declared that: “While lawyers representing foreign principals are exempt from filing under FARA, this is only true if the attorney does not try to influence policy at the behest of his client.” However, by disseminating anti-Magnitsky material to Congress, any Russian lawyer was “clearly trying to influence policy” was therefore in violation of FARA filing requirements.”
Catch-22 all over again.
Needless to say, Khodorkovsky’s Corbiere Trust lobbied heavily to get Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which also repeated its defense of Khodorkovsky himself. This type of “Russian interference intended to influence policy” is not even noticed, while US authorities scour cyberspace for evidence of trolls.
Conclusion
The basic ideological conflict here is between Unipolar America and Multipolar Russia. Russia’s position, as Vladimir Putin made clear in his historic speech at the 2007 Munich security conference, is to allow countries to enjoy national sovereignty and develop in their own way. The current Russian government is against interference in other countries’ politics on principle. It would naturally prefer an American government willing to allow this.
The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other countries on principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single “democratic” system, and considers itself the final authority as to which regime a country should have and how it should run its affairs.
So, if Russians were trying to interfere in US domestic politics, they would not be trying to change the US system but to prevent it from trying to change their own. Russian leaders clearly are sufficiently cultivated to realize that historic processes do not depend on some childish trick played on somebody’s computer.
US policy-makers practice interference every day. And they are perfectly willing to allow Russians to interfere in American politics – so long as those Russians are “unipolar” like themselves, like Khodorkovsky, who aspire to precisely the same unipolar world sought by the State Department and George Soros. Indeed, the American empire depends on such interference from Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Russians, Cubans – all those who come to Washington to try to get US power to settle old scores or overthrow the government in the country they came from. All those are perfectly welcome to lobby for a world ruled by America.
Russian interference in American politics is totally welcome so long as it helps turn public opinion against “multipolar” Putin, glorifies American democracy, serves US interests including the military-industrial complex, helps break down national borders (except those of the United States and Israel) and puts money in appropriate pockets in the halls of Congress.
Palestinian rights groups and local governments have challenged an Israeli law that seeks to the annex of parts of the West Bank. The Israeli government responded to the petition, stating that “the Knesset [is permitted] to legislate laws everywhere in the world” and that it is authorized “to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries via legislation that would be applied to events occurring in their territories.”
The Judea and Samaria Settlement Regulation Law, sometimes called the Regularization Law, is an Israeli law that aims to retroactively legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank Area C. It is meant to “regulate” the status of about 2,000 to 4,000 residences in 16 settlements which were built on Palestinian-owned lands. The Knesset passed the legislation 60 to 52, on February 6, 2017.
According to the law, the land on which the residences are built will remain that of the legal owners, but their usage will be expropriated by the State. In exchange, the Palestinian owners will be compensated at a rate of 125%, or receive alternate lands (whenever possible).
The Settlement Regularization Law aims to “legalize,” under Israeli law, illegal Israeli settlement outposts, which have been built on private Palestinian land.
The law sets out a new process to legalize about half of Israel’s settlement outposts, as well as about 3,000 additional homes built illegally in settlements, which Israel recognizes as legal. Essentially, this law authorizes a further massive land theft of private Palestinian land by Israel. The European Union and the United Nations strongly condemned the law.
Attorney General of Israel Avichai Mandelblit has announced that he will not be defending the law on behalf of the government at the Supreme Court because he deems it unconstitutional, and it may lead to a suit against Israel at the International Criminal Court. Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, whose party The Jewish Home was behind the legislation, responded by saying that the State plans to hire a private lawyer to represent it.
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is considered a breach of international law by all countries of the world, though Israel disputes this.
Challenged
2 days after the law was passed, on February 8 2017, a petition was brought before the Supreme Court of Israel by 17 Palestinian local governments and three human rights organizations, to cancel the controversial Settlement Regularization Law under the pretext that it violates international humanitarian law and is unconstitutional.
The petitioners said “the law not only harms the private property of Palestinians, but is also intended to impinge upon their right to dignity by clarifying – without hesitation – that the interests of the settlements and the Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank take priority over the rights of Palestinians and therefore is permitted to dispossess Palestinians from their property.”
Responses
In a written statement in response to the petition, the Israeli government declared on August 9 that “the Knesset [is permitted] to legislate laws everywhere in the world” and that it is authorized “to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries via legislation that would be applied to events occurring in their territories,” in legal materials it recently submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court.
The petitioners insist that the Knesset is not permitted to enact and impose laws on territory occupied by the State of Israel. Thus, the Knesset cannot enact laws that annex the West Bank or that violate the rights of Palestinian residents of the West Bank.
Attorney Arnon Harel, a private lawyer representing the Israeli government, also wrote in the new materials submitted to the Supreme Court that “the Knesset [is permitted] to impose the powers of the military commander of the [West Bank] region as it sees fit”; “the Knesset [is permitted] to define the authorities of the military commander as it sees fit”; “[the authority] of the Government of Israel to annex any territory or to enter into international conventions derives from its authority as determined by the Knesset”; and that [the Knesset] is allowed to ignore the directives of international law in any field it desires.”
Adalah Attorneys Suhad Bishara and Myssana Morany, who filed the petition against the Settlement Regularization Law, said in response: “The Israeli government’s extremist response has no parallel anywhere in the world. It stands in gross violation of international law and of the United Nations Charter which obligates member states to refrain from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity of other states – including occupied territories. The Israeli government’s extremist position is, in fact, a declaration of its intention to proceed with its annexation of the West Bank.”
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Kennedy assassination has been “anti-conspiracy theorists,” especially within the mainstream press. People are so scared of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that they will do everything they can to avoid making a careful examination of the circumstantial evidence pointing toward a national-security regime-change operation in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Consider, for example, Saundra Spencer, who I discuss both in my book The Kennedy Autopsy and in my current, ongoing video-podcast series on the JFK assassination.
Spencer was a U.S. Navy petty officer who was serving in the U.S. Navy’s photography lab in Washington D.C., in November 1963. She had a top-secret security clearance. Her job included the development of classified photographs. She worked closely with the White House. It would be virtually impossible to find a more credible and competent witness than Saundra Spencer. No one has ever questioned her veracity, integrity, and competence.
As most everyone knows, when someone in the military acquires what is known as “classified information,” he is required to keep it secret for the rest of his life, even if he leaves the military. Every member of the U.S. military — indeed, every employee of the U.S. national-security establishment — knows that if he ever breaches the secrecy principle, he is subject to severe punishment.
In the 1990s, Spencer was summoned to testify before the Assassination Records Review Board, the commission charged with enforcing the JFK Records Act, which forced the U.S. national-security establishment to disclose its records relating to the JFK assassination to the public.
Spencer related an astounding story, one that she had kept secret for some 30 years owing to its classified nature. After the ARRB released her from her obligation of secrecy, Spencer stated that on the weekend of the assassination, she had been asked to develop, on a top-secret basis, the photographs of the autopsy that the U.S. military had performed on President Kennedy’s body on the evening of the assassination.
The ARRB’s general counsel showed Spencer the official autopsy photographs, which she carefully examined. She stated directly, firmly, and unequivocally that those autopsy photographs were not the autopsy photographs that she developed on the weekend of the assassination. The ones she developed, she said, showed a large, exit-sized wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head. The official autopsy photographs showed the back of Kennedy’s head to be intact, that is, without a large exit-sized wound.
What are we to make of this? Well, according to anti-conspiracy theorists, nothing. We are not supposed to go down that road. We are not supposed to ask any questions, for to do so would mean that we have entered the dreaded realm of “conspiracy theory.”
Even the fact that the treating physicians at Dallas’s Parkland Hospital, who described the large, exit-sized wound in the lower back of the president’s head, from which, they said, was leaking cerebellum, which is the lower back part of the brain, is not supposed to cause us to wonder what is going on here. That could lead down the dangerous road to being called a “conspiracy theorist.”
As shown in Dallas businessman Abraham Zupruder’s famous film of the assassination, immediately after the president was shot Secret Service agent Clint Hill grabbed onto the back of the presidential limousine, pushed Jacqueline Kennedy back into her seat, and put his body on that of President Kennedy, in an attempt to shield the president from any more shots. For the 6-8 minutes that it took to get to Parkland Hospital, Hill said he was staring at the large, exit-sized wound in the back of the president’s head.
But we can’t go there either. That might make us a “conspiracy theorist.”
Parkland nurse Diana Bowrun was one of the hospital personnel helping to get the president out of the car and into the hospital. When she put her hand behind the president’s head, she felt the large, exit-sized wound in the back of Kennedy’s head.
Nurse Audrey Bell was helping the treating physicians inside the hospital. She later emphasized the large, exit-sized wound in the back of JFK’s head.
Don’t even think about what Bowrun and Bell said. It could make you a “conspiracy theorist.”
Charles Brehm was a bystander who was situated to the left rear of the presidential limousine when the president was shot. He saw (for lack of a better term) exit debris from the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head landing in the grass near him. A woman named Marilyn Willis, who was also behind the limousine said that she saw exit debris coming out of the back of Kennedy’s head. Her daughter said she saw the back side of the president’s head blow out. A motorcycle cop named Jimmy Hargis, who was situated to the left rear of the vehicle, got splattered with exit debris.
Don’t go down that road! Remember: Conspiracy theory!
FBI agents Francis O’Neil and James Sibert were at the autopsy that the U.S. military conducted on President Kennedy’s body. When the ARRB showed them the official autopsy photographs, they said that the autopsy photographs were incorrect because they failed to show the massive damage on the back of the president’s head. One of them used the term “doctored” to describe the photographs.
Just forget their testimony. It could lead you to being considered a “conspiracy theorist.”
In 1966, the official autopsy photographer, John Stringer, was summoned to a meeting to confirm an inventory of the official autopsy photographs, which were still being kept secret from the American people. After reviewing the inventory, Stringer said that it wasn’t accurate because it did not include all of the autopsy photographs he had taken. He was ordered to sign it anyway, which he did. When the ARRB asked him in the 1990s why he had signed the inventory knowing that it was false, he said he did so because he was ordered to do so. When the ARRB general counsel pointed out that some people in the military say no to such things, Stringer responded that such people don’t last long in the military.
But you’re not supposed to wonder about all this. You’re not supposed to question it. After all, why take the risk of being called a “conspiracy theorist”? Isn’t it much safer to just remain an “anti-conspiracy theorist,” even if that necessarily means that you believe that all of those people must have gotten together to concoct, for some unknown reason, the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head?
While the United States is making a scandal about the supposed Russian intervention in social networks to influence the 2016 elections won by Donald Trump, today evidence has been uncovered that the U.S. government is using Facebook to spread fake news about Cuba and clandestinely foment dissidence on the island.
The Florida weekly Miami New Times revealed Wednesday that it has had access to documents from the government’s Office of Broadcasting to Cuba (OCB), run by Radio and TV Martí. It reveals that the Trump administration has been using Facebook accounts for two years that appear “native” (from real people on the island) to spread propaganda without informing Cuban Facebook users that it is government advertising.
the OCB’s strategy has focused on an offensive through social networks, based on metrics that place YouTube, Google and Facebook among the most visited sites in Cuba. With the use of AVRA (Audio and Video for Radio) technology, Radio Martí’s programs began to be broadcast through Facebook Live along with TV Marti’s programming. This provides OCB with additional efficient and cost-effective distribution output for both its radio (now visual radio) and TV content.
In fiscal year 2018, OCB has been establishing itself with digital island equipment (read “dissidents” paid for by the US) that creates native and “unbranded” Facebook accounts to disseminate information. Native” pages increase the chances of appearing in the news for Cuban Facebook users. The same strategy will be replicated in other preferred social networks.
Miami New Times says that the documents do not explain what federal agents mean by “unbranded” or “native” Facebook pages, but it is clear that they must resemble the pages of regular social network users to persuade Cubans to read propaganda from Radio and TV Martí.
According to the weekly, both government broadcasters have spent more than $800 million from the U.S. taxpayer over the years in their unsuccessful effort to influence Cuban public opinion.
This plan fits into a long history of attempting to use technology to fit propaganda against Cuba, says University of Pennsylvania professor John S. Nichols.
“There are certainly warning signs here,” says Nichols, co-author of Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication (1987), about OCB’s efforts. “It is the latest plan in a long list of efforts by Radio and TV Martí and their predecessors to try to overcome the laws of physics…. Every time they fail to get their message to Cuba, they say there has to be some technological solution.
Instead, he adds, Congress “seems to fail to recognize that both stations are a colossal failure. It’s sad because they’re spending taxpayers’ money. But what’s really being wasted is our credibility as a great nation doing this kind of thing, dumb and stupid.
Prominent figures from both sides of the U.S. political spectrum, including Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, have described these OCB programs as counter-productive and a waste of money. Democratic representative Betty McCollum liquidated the AeroMartí platform in 2015 (to transmit to from an airplane to Cuba the broadcasts of Radio and TV Martí) and said that the OCB was an “unnecessary” office.
“Radio and television Martí are old-fashioned Cold War artifacts,” McCollum said in a statement in 2015. “Our taxpayers shouldn’t be funding propaganda broadcasts.”
But the programs continue to exist thanks to a handful of anti-Cuban lawmakers, including Miami representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a longtime promoter of Radio and TV Martí, says the Miami New Times.
Earlier this year, Senator Marco Rubio helped install Tomás Regalado, an old friend, as head of the Radio and TV Martí programs. Since then, Regalado has made great promises about how both stations have new plans to reach “5 million” Cuban citizens in the coming years. Regalado appeared last week on the Spanish-speaking MegaTV network to brag about the use of mysterious new technologies that the Cuban government supposedly cannot block. He said that 200 Cubans had received receivers that would help in this new attempt.
“It’s a technology that didn’t exist, and since the government doesn’t know about it, it will be almost impossible to block it,” Regalado told the cameras.
Nichols argued to the Florida weekly that this type of social media propaganda is damaging the U.S. position in the world.
“Third countries see what we are doing and say,’Here comes America again doing this nonsense,” and he adds,’It’s low, petty and not worthy of great power. Other countries will say,’If the U.S. is willing to violate international law, why should we obey our contractual obligations? And given what Radio Martí and TV Martí might be doing right now, we have a hard time complaining about what other countries might be doing against us.
The report that Miami New Times had access to is OCB’s budget request for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. It does not reveal the identities of fake “native” and “unbranded” accounts created on the social network, but Facebook administrators do know what they are. By these extravagant quirks in life, this information coincides with the decision of the social network founded by Marc Zuckerberg to eliminate hundreds of alleged false accounts of Russians and Iranians allegedly involved in several disinformation campaigns.
Will Facebook also eliminate the false accounts created by the U.S. government for regime change in Cuba and will the U.S. Attorney’s Office appoint Robert Mueller or another of his ilk to investigate these abuses, as it has done to determine alleged Russian interference through Facebook in the 2016 elections?
Failed saga of Radio and TV Martí
1985: Radio Martí began broadcasting, and five years later, the television aggression began when a television transmitter was put into service on board a captive aerostat at an altitude of 3,000 meters in one of the keys in the south of the state of Florida.
2005: Hurricane Dennis disappeared the captive balloon located at 10,000 feet above sea level in Cudjoe Key, from where Television Martí was broadcast. The OCB replaced it with the AeroMartí platform.
2014: OCB created the unwanted text messaging service Pyramid, which failed. Then it tried to smuggle small satellite devices into the island, but the project was aborted because in addition to being expensive, the “dissidents” used the terminals to view pornography.
2015: Deactivation of “AeroMartí”.
2018: President Trump created the Internet Task Force for Cuba, which according to the State Department “will examine the technological challenges and opportunities for expanding access to the Internet and independent media in Cuba. Clearly, this Task Force has encouraged OCB’s digital fantasy.
Several investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have acknowledged that there is strong evidence that Radio and Television Martí is not heard or seen in Cuba. According to the Miami New Times, this saga has cost the American taxpayer more than $800 million.
Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Cuban journalist, First Vice-President of UPEC and Vice-President of FELAP. She is a Doctor in Communication Sciences and author or co-author of the books “Antes de que se me olvide”, “Jineteros en La Habana”, “Clic Internet” and “Chávez Nuestro”, among others. She has been awarded the “Juan Gualberto Gómez” National Journalism Prize on several occasions. Founder of Cubadebate and its Editor-in-Chief until January 2017.
On twitter: @elizalderosa
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Israel advocate Samantha Ravich addresses the annual luncheon of the Israel Bonds Cleveland Women’s Division on June 21, 2017. At the luncheon it was announced that $1.49 million in Israel bonds sales had already been sold in Cleveland, with six months remaining in its 2017 campaign. Ravich is now Deputy Chair of the Intelligence Advisory Board, which helps shape U.S. intelligence policy.
Ravich has a long history of working for Israel in the U.S. She is a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential hawkish pro-Israel think tank; a senior adviser to the Chertoff Group (founded by Michael Chertoff, a Homeland Security secretary in the George W. Bush administration); and has worked with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an AIPAC spinoff. She was former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — On Wednesday, Israel’s Interior Ministry announced that it would revoke the citizenship of 19 Israelis who are alleged to have fought on behalf of Daesh (ISIS). The move comes after a new law went into effect, giving Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri the ability to strip Israelis deemed to be members of foreign terrorist organizations of their citizenship.
The alleged Daesh members were identified by Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, which provided the Interior Ministry with the names of 20 Israeli nationals who had joined Daesh. However, for reasons that are still unclear, one of the individuals on that list, who was left unnamed, did not have his or her citizenship revoked. Reports in Israeli media have claimed that the majority of individuals on the list were Israeli Arabs, though some were identified as Jewish Israelis.
Overall, Shin Bet estimated that 60 Israeli citizens have left the country since the conflict in Syria began in 2011 in order to fight on behalf of armed opposition groups, including Daesh and the Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front. Fewer than 10 are believed to have returned to Israel since fighting in Syria began. The Jerusalem Post further notes that “dozens” of Arab Israeli citizens have been arrested by Israeli authorities in recent years for allegedly seeking to join terror groups like Daesh.
With Syria lost, Daesh outlives its usefulness to Israel
While the recent decision to revoke the citizenship of alleged Daesh members has largely been framed as the Israeli government cracking down on terrorism, such narratives ignore Israel’s own past support for the terror group over the course of the Syrian conflict.
Indeed, from early on in the conflict, Israel made it clear that it “preferred” Daesh’s presence in Syria to the presence of Syria’s legitimate government, a preference soon followed by a report published by an Israeli government-funded think tank that called Daesh a “useful tool” against Israel’s regional rivals — Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.
Since then, considerable evidence, including a 2014 United Nations report, has shown that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have long been in regular contact with Daesh, even bringing wounded Daesh members into Israel for treatment. Particularly jarring was the 2016 statement made by Israel’s military intelligence chief, Major General Herzi Halevy, that Israel does not want to see Daesh in Syria defeated.
Even the very Israeli who declared ISIS an illegal terror organization, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, later went on to candidly admit last year that Israel maintains open communications with a Daesh cell active in the Golan Heights, even though communicating with any group deemed terrorist by the state is, without exception, illegal under Israeli law. Not only that, but Ya’alon also went on to describe a specific incident in which Daesh apologized to the IDF after opening fire on an IDF position, suggesting that the Israel-Daesh relationship is deeper than “open communications.”
Given Israel’s proven collaboration with Daesh over the course of the Syrian conflict in order to aid its own regional ambitions, the recent decision to revoke the citizenship of 19 Israeli Daesh members is hardly the straightforward counter-terrorism measure it is being made out to be.
Instead, it is likely an indicator of the quickly approaching end of the Syrian conflict, which has seen the Syrian government largely reconsolidate its territory despite the efforts of largely foreign-funded opposition groups. Indeed, though Daesh was once a “useful tool” to the Israeli government, it’s failure to dislodge the Syrian government means that the group has outlived its usefulness — as have the handful of Israelis who joined the group over the course of the conflict.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
Valorizing an ex-CIA director and bashing Trump obscures what is truly ominous.
Ever since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, every American president has held one or more summit meetings with the Kremlin leader, first and foremost in order to prevent miscalculations that could result in war between the two nuclear superpowers. Generally, they received bipartisan support for doing so. In July, President Trump continued that tradition by meeting with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, for which, unlike previous presidents, he was scathingly criticized by much of the US political media establishment.
John Brennan, CIA director under President Obama, however, went much further, characterizing Trump’s press conference with Putin as “nothing short of treasonous.” Presumably in reaction, Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance, the continuing access to classified information usually accorded to former security officials. In the political media furor that followed, Brennan was mostly heroized as an avatar of civil liberties and free speech, and Trump traduced as their enemy.
Leaving aside the missed occasion to discuss the “revolving door” involving former US security officials using their permanent clearances to enhance their lucrative positions outside government, Stephen Cohen thinks the subsequent political media furor obscures what is truly important and perhaps ominous:
Brennan’s allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.) Brennan clarified his charge: “Treasonous, which is to betray one’s trust and to aid and abet the enemy.” Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of related dark secrets, as he strongly hinted, the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump’s impeachment, but in another time, and in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array of influential publications and writers – among them a former acting CIA director -began branding him Putin’s “puppet,” “agent,” “client,” and “Manchurian candidate.” The Los Angeles Timeseven saw fit to print an article suggesting that the militarymight have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)
Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the “Godfather” of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in February. If so, we need to know Brennan’s unvarnished views on Russia.
They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in a New York Timesop-ed of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western “politicians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives . . . not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation. . . . I was well aware of Russia’s ability to work surreptitiously within the United States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential power. . . . These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters. Too often, those puppets are found.”
All this, Brennan assures readers, is based on his “deep insight.” All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible to “Russian puppet masters” under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no “cooperation” with the Kremlin’s grand “Puppet Master,” as Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for so long.)
And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies’ (implicitly including his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It’s a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden “deep state.” In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the Fourth Branch – such as David Ignatius and Joe Scarborough in the pages of the Washington Post – have been in full voice.
The result is, of course – and no less ominous – to criminalize any advocacy of “cooperating with Russia,” or détente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and – pending actual evidence against her – those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now preparing new “crippling sanctions” against Moscow and the editors and producers at the Times, Post, CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?) As the dangers grow of actual war with Russia – again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria – the capacity of US policymakers, above all the president, are increasingly diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.
Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats, could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism. (Brennan’s defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan’s charge of treason without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all, civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved – and not only Brennan’s and Trump’s. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian tells CNN viewers that “Brennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA was impeccable. We owe him so much.” Elsewhere the same historian assures readers, “There has always been a bipartisan spirit of support since the CIA was created in the Cold War.” In the same vein, two Post reporters write of the FBI’s “once venerated reputation.”
Is this liberal historical amnesia? Is it professional incompetence? A quick Google search would reveal Brennan’s less than “impeccable” record, FBI misdeeds under and after Hoover, as well as the Senate’s 1975 Church Committee’s investigation of the CIA and other intelligence agencies’ very serious abuses of their power. Or have liberals’ hatred of Trump nullified their own principles? The critical-minded Russian adage would say, “All three explanations are worst.”
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.
Getting into Afghanistan was easy. Working with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, US special forces and CIA paramilitaries quickly overcame resistance leading to the fall of the capital Kabul. American Marines and Army units soon followed to finish the job. By the time I arrived in Kabul in late December 2001 both a US Embassy and CIA Station were up and running and fully staffed. Soon thereafter, the country had an interim government to be followed by Hamid Karzai as the new president, reportedly because he was able to speak good English, which made him ipso facto the best qualified candidate.
To be sure, Usama bin Laden and many Taliban escaped to Pakistan due to the pusillanimous decision making of General Tommy Franks at the battle of Tora Bora, but the United States could nevertheless have pulled up stakes at that point and left the country to the Afghans to sort out. The Bush Administration thought otherwise and decided to stick around for a while to stabilize the situation and “build democracy.” More than 100,000 American soldiers eventually wound up in the country supplemented by NATO allies to suppress any Taliban or al-Qaeda resurgence while rebuilding the Afghan Army.
That was nearly seventeen years ago and 14,000 US troops remain in country. More than 2,000 Americans and 90,000 Afghans have died in the process of nation building while more than a million more Afghans are refugees. The Afghan Army continues to struggle with a 30% annual desertion rate and some are beginning to ask how it is that a lightly armed and relatively untrained Taliban is able to engage it with success, in the process reacquiring control over more than a third of the country. And al-Qaeda is still around while ISIS has also appeared, having been largely driven out of Iraq and Syria.
Even though President Donald Trump has taken his generals’ advise and increased the number of US soldiers in Afghanistan – yet another surge – many in Washington believe that he is seeking a way out and will order a staged withdrawal before the end of the year, possibly before the November elections. If that is so, the recent talks between US diplomats and Taliban representatives are significant in that they might lead to a political settlement in which the Taliban has some designated role in a new government arrangement. Skeptics, of course, note how such agreements are not worth the paper they are written on and the Taliban will simply bide its time before eliminating its weaker coalition partners.
Those who are arguing for what would appear to be a permanent US military presence backed up by air power believe that there are several good reasons for hanging on. The basic argument is that it is essential to keep the Islamist Taliban out. It is also argued that the appearance of ISIS and persistence of al-Qaeda suggest that a genuine terrorist threat remains. And then there is the always useful geostrategic issue, namely that the increasing role of China in seeking to develop a “new silk road” through Afghanistan to the West must be monitored lest it bring about a new political alignment in central Asia. China is, of course, the over-the-horizon threat to American military hegemony that the military industrial complex dreams about to keep the money flowing into the coffers of the defense contractors and congressmen.
There are several problems with the thinking behind the permanent garrison in Afghanistan that is being promoted:
First of all, there are no indications that the Afghan Army will ever become more effective, meaning that whatever happens the Taliban will continue to gain strength and territory until it again becomes the Afghan government. Trying to avert that outcome by way of a money pit training program is futile.
Second, the terrorist threat is greatly overstated. Both al-Qaeda and ISIS are non-government actors that are in Afghanistan and Pakistan only because it is currently available. They are not friends of the Taliban and any Taliban government would not share power with them with the understanding that the US would bomb Kabul back into the stone age if it were to accommodate them.
And third, what China does will not be seriously impacted whether it is being watched by Washington or not. Beijing has been successful exploiting its own form of economic imperialism and it is a neighbor to Afghanistan. An empowered US Embassy backed up by a few thousand troops will not change that.
So getting out of Afghanistan is a lot harder than getting in and the US military appears to be mired in a conflict where it is most engaged in avoiding defeat. A continued large US presence in Afghanistan does little more than create a group of hostages to a policy that is not working and which has already cost trillions of borrowed dollars. It is time to end the farce right now and leave. The Afghans are a fiercely independent people who recognize an invasion and occupation by foreign armies when they see it. They successfully resisted Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the Mughal Emperors of India, the British Empire, Soviet Russia and eventually they will also outlast the United States. Time for America to realize all that and pull the plug.
In the last few decades, public opinion in the West has shifted from the early, post- World War II period. Support for Israel has declined while support for the Palestinians has increased. This shift has been particularly pronounced among youth, especially those who are liberals or leftists.
The view was much different when Israel established its occupation of Palestine in 1948. But Israel has committed too many massacres and perpetrated too many invasions to maintain the status quo. Its war crimes have been televised too often for the world not to notice and popular opinion not to change. Mainstream print media no longer can control the narrative and mold the coverage of Israel and its offenses like it once did.
Still, while the base of the Socialist Party in France or the Labour Party in the United Kingdom has shifted in a more pro-Palestinian direction, much of the leadership of those parties continues to uphold Israeli dogmas. These are the same dogmas which all ruling parties of Europe and the U.S. and its establishment media have adhered to since the occupation began.
The U.S. is a prime example. Although the Democratic base has become more sympathetic to the Palestinians (and less supportive of Israel), the leadership of the Democratic Party has not wavered in its support for military and economic aid to Israel and for its unconditional support for Israeli wars and invasions with the mantra that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This fact remains as true with Bernie Sanders as it is does with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
Defining Anti-Semitism
Corbyn: Accused
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is the exception. Unlike Francois Hollande of France, Corbyn represents the progressive, youthful base of the his party on domestic and foreign policies.
His political rise poses a real problem for Israel. Therefore Tel Aviv’s latest target is Corbyn. Israel finds his stance worrisome because if he were to be elected prime minister, a real possibility, his views could influence a major shift in the foreign policies of other European ruling parties.
But the more he gave in, the more the pressure increased. No matter what he had to say, it was not enough, and the accusation of anti-Semitism has been hurled in his face at an increasingly frenzied pace.
Corbyn’s repeated denunciations of anti-Semitism haven’t been sufficient because this is not really about anti-Semitism and its repugnance. The beef that British Zionists (and other Zionists especially in Israel) have with Corbyn is with his views on Palestine. He was asked to accept—without hesitation or equivocation—an Israeli definition of anti-Semitism, which was provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Insistence on accepting this definition is an attempt to force Corbyn to tailor his statements and beliefs on the Arab-Israeli question to the Israeli position. The Israeli establishment wants to prevent grass-roots views on Palestine among British progressives from being reflected in the stances of party leaders.
The “working” definition of the IHRA in many ways is quite accurate: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” This statement is indisputable and sums up the various forms of hatred of Jewish people.
Exaggerating Jewish power in society and believing in a global Jewish conspiracy (or promoting grotesque fakes, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) are also manifestations of anti-Semitism. These ideas are not included in the IHRA definition (although some examples in the document later cover those forms).
Other examples the IHRA cites—such as “calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist religion”—cannot be debated. These vile sentiments are anti-Semitic and indeed represent a repugnant form of hatred. Of course anti-Semitism includes “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group.” (This same blanket denouncement of a group of people applies to Islamophobia today, incidentally.)
Prejudice vs. Propaganda
The IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism falters in its “guiding” examples and “illustrations” of anti-Semitism. In this regard, political considerations have been inserted into the definition. Combatting anti-Semitism always is—or should be—a humanitarian concern that goes beyond any political consideration. However, the IHRA reveals a political agenda: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
This is where we enter into the realm of Israeli propaganda. If one is to declare support for the rights of all religious groups to self-determination except the Jewish people, that would be anti-Semitism. But not every denial of religious rights of self-determination is anti-Semitic. What if one is opposed to the rights of self-determination for all religious groups without exception because one believes that the right of self-determination should be a political, and not religious, right?
Self-determination is tied to nationalist attachment to a piece of land. One has to ensure that a right of self-determination of one people does not impede or obstruct the right of self-determination of another people on the same piece of land. Maxime Rodinson, the French historian and sociologist, once observed, sarcastically, that there is no reason for one to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state, say, on the moon.
To support the right of Jews to self-determination when this self-determination has become bound up with Palestine—and only Palestine, when it wasn’t before the First Zionist Congress in 1897—is to deprive the native population of Palestine from their own right to self-determination.
Opposing the right of self-determination to Jews is not anti-Semitic if one is a) concerned about the right of the native population who were the original inhabitants of the lands or b) opposed to religious rights of self-determination as a matter of secular principle. If I am opposed to Muslim right of self-determination in California, can that be considered Islamophobic, if we follow the same Israeli logic?
As far as declaring Israel a racist state, that is hardly anti-Semitic. Remember, a majority of nations (75 to 35) in the world voted in the General Assembly of the United Nations in November 1975 (long before the U.S. imposed its will on the U.N. after the demise of the Soviet bloc) for the “Zionism-is-racism” resolution (which then was repealed in 1991). That is not in itself anti-Semitic.
Similarly, to accuse the Iranian regime or the Saudi regime of sexism or of repression is not Islamophobic. To criticize a state, or even to work for the dismantlement of its political institution, is not an act of hostility against the people of the state, even if that state—be it Israel, Saudi Arabia or Iran—may speak on behalf of the entire members of a particular religion in the world. (Just last week, the Saudi regime adopted the Israeli playbook and declared that any criticism of the regime is an insult to Islam and to Muslims).
Laws and practices in Israel are racist. Labeling them as such does not malign all Jewish people because all Jewish people should not be held responsible for the actions and crimes of the state of Israel. just as criticizing the misogyny of the Saudi regime is not Islamophobic. (There are, of course, critics of Israel who are anti-Semitic just as there are critics of Saudi Arabia or Iran who are Islamophobic, but the criticism in itself is not necessarily a form of prejudice).
On the contrary, to blame all Jews around the world collectively for the crimes and racism of Israel is anti-Semitism. And the Alliance concedes this last point, although it does not fit with the last example provided above.
Weaponizing the Holocaust
In recent years, Israel has resorted to classic manipulation tactics, perfected over decades, that conflate legitimate criticism about Israel with anti-Semitism. From early on in the history of Israeli immigration to Palestine, Israel attributed Palestinian opposition to its virtual invasion of Palestine to anti-Semitism—as if Palestinians would have been less opposed if Christians, Buddhist, or even other Muslims, were the ones taking over their homeland.
That Israel’s establishment took place in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust made it easier for the Israeli occupation state to present the takeover of Palestine as a tribute to Holocaust victims. Palestine was not the only place where a haven for Jewish refugees could be found. The takeover treated the native inhabitants of Palestine as though they didn’t exist.
Successive Palestinian and Arab leaders resisting this takeover have been compared to Adolf Hitler. Amos Oz and Elie Wiesel never hesitated to equate the Palestinian national movement with Nazism. Benjamin Netanyahu recently decided to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust and to instead blame Haj Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1948, for the designs and execution of Nazi war crimes. The more Israel finds itself in an untenable position, given the changes in world public opinion in favor of Palestinians and their rights, the more Israel and Israelis worldwide invoke the memory of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to silence critics.
The question of comparing Israeli policies and actions with those of the Nazis is not a simple one. There is indeed a uniqueness to the horrors of the Holocaust that require special respect for its victims. To throw around the word “rape” in situations where there is no rape, is offensive to victims of rape. Similarly, one should not use the word “holocaust” casually because it connotes one of the worst crimes of the last century.
Husseini: Worst than Hitler, says Netanyahu
But Israelis can’t have it both ways. If the reason for their rejection of a comparison between Israel and the Nazi regime is out of respect for the victims of the Holocaust, then why did most—if not all—Israeli organizations (in the U.S. and elsewhere) popularize the comparison between the Syrian regime and the Nazi regime over the last few years of the Syrian war? Why do Israelis compare the Palestinian national movement to Nazism?
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. took a leading role in the propaganda production about Syria. Shouldn’t that be considered anti-Semitic, if a comparison between Israel and the Nazi regime is anti-Semitic? Either we reject any analogy between the Nazi regime and any other regime regardless of how criminal it is, or we accept it as part of the propaganda of war. Israelis can’t ban others from what they themselves permit themselves to do.
True Lies and False Virtue
Propaganda is how Israel still manages to find new and different ways to silence debate and ostracize dissent. Israel has campaigned to deny tenure to professors who are critical of its abuses (see Norman Finkelstein, Joseph Massad, Steven Salaita and others). Israelis say the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement should be legally banned and have lobbied state governments in the United States to ban boycotting Israel, which the ACLU among others see as a violation of the First Amendment. Israel has also launched an app that directs users to make negative social media comments. In general, Israel wants to impose a rigid uniformity of discourse and terms about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israelis fight—and kill—Arabs all over the world (Israel has not been shy about murdering Arab scientists, and U.S. media casually report on those assassinations without comments or repudiation). Arabs and non-Arabs cannot speak and write uncensored thoughts about the Arab-Israeli conflict without risking severe repression from the Israeli occupation state, including censorship on social media.
The war on Corbyn is a prominent part of Israel’s war on free speech in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Corbyn and other politicians should be expected to never resort to anti-Semitic expressions. But so far only evidence of his pro-Palestinian statements have been found and that should never be confused with the scourge of genuine anti-Semitism.
As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism” (2002), and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004). He also runs the popular blog The Angry Arab News Service.
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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The IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism falters in its “guiding” examples and “illustrations” of anti-Semitism. In this regard, political considerations have been inserted into the definition. Combatting anti-Semitism always is—or should be—a humanitarian concern that goes beyond any political consideration. However, the IHRA reveals a political agenda: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
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