The Danger and Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power
Mark Weber addressing the ‘London Forum’ meeting, April 11, 2015
Text of an address given at the “London Forum” meeting at the Grosvenor Hotel in London, England, on April 11, 2015, and, slightly modified, at the “International Identitarian Congress” in Guadalajara, Mexico, on May 2, 2015. The text has been edited for posting here, and source references have been added.
By Mark Weber, Institute for Historical Review
For many years Israel has violated well established standards of international law and has defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in repeated acts of military aggression.
Most of the world regards Israel’s policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as illegal and outrageous. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities.
In October 2003, for example, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning Israel’s so-called “security barrier,” a grotesque thing, parts of it much larger and more formidable than the Berlin Wall, that Israel has built on occupied Palestinian territory. Supporting the resolution were 144 countries, representing nearly the entire world’s population. Twelve countries abstained. Just four countries opposed the resolution. They were: Israel, the United States, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. The latter two member states are small island countries in the Pacific Ocean, with a combined population of 180,000, that are utterly dependent on the US. / 1
In December 2003, to take another example, the members of the UN General Assembly considered a resolution re-affirming the principle of Palestinian sovereignty. It received the backing of 142 states, including all the nations of Europe and South America. In this case as well, just four countries voted against the resolution: Israel, the US, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. / 2
“The whole world,” said United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan some years ago, “is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don’t think the whole world … can be wrong.” / 3
Why is it that the United States stands out among the world’s nations in such matchless support of the Zionist state?
With very few exceptions, even those American politicians and media figures who might sometimes criticize a particular Israeli policy are, nonetheless, all but unanimous in their enthusiastic support for Israel — and not just as a country, but as an emphatically Jewish ethnic-religious state. In spite of occasional disputes over specific policies, the US continues, as it has for years, to provide Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid.
Why is it that support for Israel by politicians and in the media is more vehement and unquestioning in the United States than anywhere else? Well, one possible explanation for this unparalleled level of support is that Americans are vastly more aware, enlightened or principled than people anywhere else in the world.
One person who has spoken candidly about the real reason is Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Addressing an audience in Boston, he said: “But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic … People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful.” / 4
Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only two or three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence – much more than any other ethnic or religious group.
As Jewish author and political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg has pointed out: / 5
“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times … The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked…
“Jews are only three percent of the nation’s population and comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation’s elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants.”
Stephen Steinlight, one-time Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, has likewise noted what he calls the “disproportionate political power” of Jews, which, as he puts it, is “pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/ cultural group in America.” He goes on to explain that “Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry.” / 6
Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: / 7
“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals … 20 percent of professors at the leading universities … 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington … 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series.”
Vanity Fair magazine in 2007 published a list of what it calls “the world’s most powerful people” – a lineup of the one hundred most influential media bosses, bankers, publishers, image makers, and so forth, who determine how we view ourselves and the world, and who – directly and indirectly — shape our lives and our futures. Jews made up more than half of the powerful men and women on the Vanity Fair list, reported a leading Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post. / 8
The Jewish role in American political life is similarly formidable and lopsided. One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations “estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.” / 9 The American magazine Mother Jones compiled a listing of the 400 leading contributors to the 2000 US national elections. Seven of the first ten were Jewish, as were twelve of the top 20, and 125 of the top 250. / 10
In recent years the single biggest donor to American politicians, by far, has been Sheldon Adelson, a vehemently pro-Zionist Jewish billionaire. In the 2012 US election campaign, the gambling casino magnate and his wife gave tens of millions of dollars to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and other pro-Israel candidates, groups and organizations. As The New York Times reported: “Mr. Adelson, whose $38 billion fortune makes him among the richest men in the world, poured roughly $100 million into Republican campaigns in 2012 …” / 11
The biggest donor to Democratic Party candidates in recent years has been Haim Saban, an Israeli billionaire and global media mogul. Taking note of Saban’s ardent devotion to the Jewish state, The New York Times reported: “He has since emerged as perhaps the most politically connected mogul in Hollywood, throwing his weight and money around Washington, and increasingly, the world, trying to influence all things Israeli. ‘I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,’ he said.” / 12 M. J. Rosenberg, a political affairs analyst for The Nation observed: “Adelson and Saban are top funders, respectively, of the Republican and Democratic parties, although as Adelson points out, ‘when it comes to Israel we’re on the same side’.” / 13
Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic, has written: “It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture … Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names.” / 14
One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, editor of the influential Jewish community weekly Forward. In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: / 15 “In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation …”
Goldberg went on to point out:
“Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish — one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films.
“The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America’s most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates.”
Joel Stein, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has written: “As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood … I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.” / 16
Over the years, this clout has had a profound impact on how Americans feel, think and act. One prominent political figure who has publicly acknowledged this reality is Vice President Joe Biden. In a remarkable address in May 2013, he said that what he called the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life is the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural- political changes. / 17 Vice President Biden said: “I bet you 85 percent of those [social-political] changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense.” He went on to say: “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us, us, me – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact.”
As Biden mentions, this is by no means a new phenomenon. Forty-three years ago — during a private White House meeting that was secretly recorded, President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham — the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist — spoke frankly about the Jewish grip on the media. Graham said: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” To which the president responded: “You believe that?” “Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Oh, boy,” replied Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that [publicly, that is], but I believe it.” / 18
How could all this have happened? Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal provided an answer in his detailed 1978 study, The Zionist Connection. He wrote: / 19
“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people? … It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles …
“The extent and depth to which organized Jewry reached – and reaches – in the U.S. is indeed awesome … The most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control … Jews, toughened by centuries of persecution, have risen to places of prime importance in the business and financial world … Jewish wealth and acumen wields unprecedented power in the area of finance and investment banking, playing an important role in influencing U.S. policy toward the Middle East … In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles.”
Because US military might is the most formidable and intrusive in the world, by far, the Jewish-Zionist role in setting American policy has consequences for people far beyond the borders of the United States. In the administration of President George W. Bush a group — a cabal — of high-level, so-called “neoconservative” Jews played a key role in prodding the United States into war in Iraq. They included: Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Richard Perle of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; David Wurmser in the State Department; and, Douglas Feith, the Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Policy. These men acted in accord with Zionist plans to overthrow the Iraqi regime that were already in place well before Bush became president in early 2001. / 20
For well-informed people, this reality is no secret. In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons candidly declared in May 2003 that pro-Israel Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US and Britain into war in Iraq. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy known as “Father of the House” because he was the longest-serving Member of Parliament, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians …”, and, he added: “There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.” / 21
In Washington, Senator Ernest Hollings was moved to declare that Iraq was invaded, as he put it, to “secure Israel,” and that “everybody” knows it. Referring to the reluctance of his Congressional colleagues to openly acknowledge this reality, Hollings said that “nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.” Members of Congress, with few exceptions, uncritically support Israel and its policies due to what Hollings called, “the pressures that we get politically.” / 22
Americans have paid a high price for the US alliance with Israel. This includes tens of billions of dollars in economic and military aid to the Jewish state, the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Iraq war and occupation have cost, and the deaths there of more than four thousand American military personnel. Directly and indirectly, America’s so-called “special relationship” with Israel has also generated unprecedented distrust, fear and loathing of the United States around the world. By supporting Israel and its policies, the United States betrays not only its own national interests, but the principles it claims to embody and defend.
In truth, if the United States held Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq, Serbia, and other countries, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American officials would be putting Israeli leaders behind bars for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
With Zionist leaders now prodding the United States into new wars against Israel’s adversaries, the cost of the US alliance with the Zionist state is likely to rise much higher in the years to come. / 23
Israeli and Jewish- Zionist leaders affirm that Jews constitute a “people” or a “nation” – that is, a distinct nationality group to which Jews everywhere are supposed to feel and express a primary loyalty. / 24 Some American Jewish leaders have been explicit about this. Louis Brandeis, a US Supreme Court justice and a leading American Zionist, said: “Let us all recognize that we Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member.” / 25
While Zionist Jews routinely speak of the “Jewish people” as a distinct ethic-religious group, and often affirm that Jews are members of a separate nationality to which they must be loyal, Zionists simultaneously insist that Jews must be welcomed as full and equal citizens in whatever country they may wish to live – with no social, legal or institutional obstacles to Jewish power and influence in public life. In short, Jewish-Zionist leaders and organizations (such as the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee) demand full citizen rights for Zionist Jews not only in “their country,” Israel, but everywhere.
Major Jewish-Zionist organizations, and, more broadly, the organized Jewish community, also promote so-called “pluralism,” “tolerance” and “diversity” in the United States and other countries. They believe this is useful for Jews. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the world’s most influential Jewish- Zionist organizations, puts it this way: “America’s pluralistic society … is at the heart of Jewish security … In the long run, what has made American Jewish life a uniquely positive experience in Diaspora history and which has enabled us to be such important allies for the State of Israel, is the health of a pluralistic, tolerant and inclusive American society.” / 26
Consistent with this outlook, the ADL has for years promoted the slogan “Diversity is Our Strength.” In keeping with this motto, which it claims to have invented, the ADL has devoted great effort and resources to persuading Americans — especially younger Americans — to welcome and embrace ever more social, cultural and racial “diversity.” / 27
This campaign has been very successful. American politicians and educators, and virtually the entire US mass media, promote “diversity,” “multiculturalism” and “pluralism,” and portray those who do not embrace these objectives as hateful and ignorant. At the same time, influential Jewish-Zionist organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, insist that the US must recognize and defend Israel as a specifically Jewish ethnic-religious state. Pluralism and diversity, it seems, are only for non-Jews. What’s good for Jews in their own homeland, Jewish-Zionist leaders seem to say, is not diversity and multiculturalism, but a tribalistic nationalism.
There are some people who object to the power of the so-called “Jewish lobby” because it supports and makes possible Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Others object because they are unhappy with this or that aspect of the lobby’s agenda. But to me this is beside the point. Apart from the harmful consequences of any particular policy that the Jewish community makes possible, is the injustice and danger inherent in permitting any distinct minority group or interest to wield immense, disproportionate power and influence — and especially in the country that is the world’s foremost military and financial power, and most important cultural factor.
Imagine the response, for example, if evangelical Christians, or Muslims, or African-Americans, were to secure a grip on the American media and on America’s political life comparable to that held by Jews. In reality, the Jewish hold on American life is far more dangerous than one that, in theory, might be held by any of those other groups I’ve mentioned.
There are two main reasons for this:
First, Jews in America have, manifestly, a strong loyalty to a foreign country, Israel, that since its founding in 1948 has been embroiled in seemingly endless crises and conflicts with its neighbors, and which is now a formidable military power with a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, the Jewish grip is especially dangerous because of the distrustful and sometimes even adversarial way that Jews view the rest of us.
Over the centuries, the Jewish community, more than any other single group, has demonstrated a pronounced sense of separateness from the rest of humanity, and, accordingly, views its interests as quite distinct from those of everyone else. This “chosen people” mindset – this “Us vs. Them” attitude – is anchored in centuries of Jewish history and heritage, and is deeply rooted in the collective Jewish psyche.
The ancient Jewish sense of alienation from, and abiding distrust of, non-Jews is manifest in a remarkable essay published in the Forward, the prominent Jewish community weekly. Entitled “We’re Right, the Whole World’s Wrong,” it is written by Rabbi Dov Fischer, an attorney and a member of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. Rabbi Fischer is also national vice president of the Zionist Organization of America. / 28
So this essay was written not by an obscure scribbler, but rather by a prominent Jewish community figure. And it did not appear in the some marginal periodical, but rather in what is perhaps the most literate and thoughtful Jewish weekly in America, and certainly one of the most influential.
In his essay, Rabbi Fischer tells readers: “If we Jews are anything, we are a people of history … Our history provides the strength to know that we can be right and the whole world wrong.”
He goes on: “We were right, and the whole world was wrong. The Crusades. The blood libels and the Talmud burnings in England and France, leading those nations to expel Jews for centuries. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. The ghettos and the Mortara case in Italy. Dreyfus in France. Beilis in Russia and a century’s persecution of Soviet Jewry.
“The Holocaust. Kurt Waldheim in Austria. Each time, Europe stood by silently — or actively participated in murdering us — and we alone were right, and the whole world was wrong.
“Today, once again, we alone are right and the whole world is wrong. The Arabs, the Russians, the Africans, the Vatican proffer their aggregated insights into and accumulated knowledge of the ethics of massacre. And the Europeans. Although we appreciate the half-century of West European democracy more than we appreciated the prior millennia of European brutality, we recognize who they are, what they have done — and what’s what. …
“We remember that the food they [Europeans] eat is grown from soil fertilized by 2,000 years of Jewish blood they have sprinkled onto it. Atavistic Jew-hatred lingers in the air into which the ashes rose from the crematoria …
“Yes, once again, we are right and the whole world is wrong. It doesn’t change a thing, but after 25 centuries it’s nice to know.”
I want to emphasize here that to deal candidly with the reality of Jewish-Zionist power is not, as we so often hear, “hate” or bigoted “anti-Semitism.” We wish no harm to any individual, Jewish or not, because of his or her ancestry, religion or background. At the same time, we must not permit intimidation, malicious smears or threats to keep us from affirming what is true, and doing what is right.
The most direct and obvious victims of Jewish-Zionist power are, of course, the Palestinians who live under Israel’s harsh rule. But we Americans are also victims. Through the Jewish-Zionist grip on the media, and the organized Jewish-Zionist corruption of our political system, we are pressured, seduced, cajoled, and deceived into propping up the Jewish state, providing it with billions of dollars yearly and state-of-the-art weaponry, and even sacrificing American lives.
But it is also the truth that we Americans share some responsibility for all this. We have allowed immense power, affecting every aspect of our lives and our future, to be wielded by members of an ethnic-religious minority group that views the American people with suspicion as potential enemies. Put another way, Americans have permitted people who regard them with wariness and distrust to play a major role in determining how we live our lives, and in determining our future both as individuals and as a nation. To permit such power to pass into the hands of people who clearly do not have our best interests at heart — indeed, do not even trust us — is, to put it mildly, irresponsible.
As long as the power of what Desmond Tutu calls “the very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.
That’s why no task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.
Today, we are engaged in a great, global struggle — in which two distinct and irreconcilable sides confront each other: A struggle that pits a self-assured and diabolical power which feels ordained to rule over others, on one side, and all other nations and societies — indeed, humanity itself — on the other.
This struggle is not a new one. It is the latest enactment of a great drama that has played itself out again and again, over centuries, and in many different societies, cultures and historical eras. In the past this drama has played itself out on a local, national, regional, or, sometimes, continental stage. Today this is a global drama, and a global clash.
It is a struggle for the welfare and future not merely of the Middle East, or of America, but a great historical battle for our global well-being — a struggle that calls all of us who share a sense of responsibility for the future of our own nation and of humankind.
Source Notes
1. “General Assembly, in Resumed Emergency Session, Demands Israel Stop Construction of Wall, Calls on Both Parties to Fulfill Road Map Obligations.” United Nations Press Release, Oct. 21, 2003. ( http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/c4963112ac76556d85256dc7005047aa )
2. UN General Assembly vote on Dec. 23, 2003, on draft resolution 58/ 229.
( http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/77660E5C1B79EF8C85256EA90068A58B )
3. On April 8, 2002, in Madrid. J. Brinkley, “Israel Starts Leaving … ,” The New York Times’, April 9, 2002.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/08/international/08CND-MIDE.html )
4. D. Tutu, “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” The Guardian (Britain), April 29, 2002.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html )
5. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103.
6. S. Steinlight, “The Jewish Stake in America’s Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy,” Center for Immigration Studies, Nov. 2001.
( http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html )
7. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 26-27.
8. N. Burstein, “Jewish power dominates at ‘Vanity Fair’,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Oct.11 (12?), 2007.
( http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Jewish-power-dominates-at-Vanity-Fair )
9. Janine Zacharia, “The Unofficial Ambassadors of the Jewish State,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), April 2, 2000. Reprinted in “Other Voices,” June 2000, p. OV-4, a supplement to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
10. A. Cockburn, “The Row Over the Israel Lobby,” May 8 (or 5?), 2006.
( http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05082006.html )
11. N. Confessore, E. Lipton, “Seeking to Ban Online Betting, G.O.P. Donor Tests Influence,” The New York Times, March 27, 2014
( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/us/politics/major-gop-donor-tests-his-influence-in-push-to-ban-online-gambling.html ); J. Horowitz, “Republican Contenders Reach Out to Sheldon Adelson, Palms Up,” The New York Times, April 26, 2015
( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/us/politics/republican-contenders-reach-out-to-sheldon-adelson-palms-up.html ) ; E. Lipton, “G.O.P.’s Israel Support Deepens as Political Contributions Shift,” The New York Times, April 4, 2015
( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/politics/gops-israel-support-deepens-as-political-contributions-shift.html ) ;
See also: M. Gold, P. Rucker, “Billionaire mogul Sheldon Adelson looks for mainstream Republican who can win in 2016,” The Washington Post, March 25, 2015
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/billionaire-mogul-sheldon-adelson-looks-for-mainstream-republican-who-can-win-in-2016/2014/03/25/e2f47bb0-b3c2-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html ); P. Stone, “Sheldon Adelson Spent Far More On Campaign Than Previously Known,” The Huffington Post, Dec. 12, 2012 ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/sheldon-adelson-2012-election_n_2223589.html )
12. A. R. Sorkin, “Schlepping to Moguldom,” The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2004.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05sab.html ) ;
13. M. J. Rosenberg, “Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban: Billionaire Funders for Israel,” The Nation, Dec. 8, 2014
( http://www.thenation.com/article/192065/sheldon-adelson-and-haim-saban-want-be-koch-brothers-israel )
14. M. Medved, “Is Hollywood Too Jewish?,” Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996), p. 37.
15. Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment/ (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See also pp. 39-40, 290-291.
16. J. Stein, “How Jewish Is Hollywood?,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 19, 2008.
( http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column )
17. Jennifer Epstein, “Biden: ‘Jewish heritage is American heritage’,” Politico, May 21, 2013.
( http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525.html ); Daniel Halper, “Biden Talks of ‘Outsized Influence’ of Jews: ‘The Influence Is Immense’,” The Weekly Standard, May 22, 2013.
( http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-talks-outsized-influence-jews-influence-immense_728765.html ) See also: M. Weber , “Vice President Biden Acknowledges ‘Immense’ Jewish Role in American Mass Media and Cultural Life,” July 2013.
( http://ihr.org/other/biden_jewish_role )
18. “Nixon, Billy Graham Make Derogatory Comments About Jews on Tapes,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2002 (or Feb. 28, 2002)
( http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/02/Graham_Nixon.html );
“Billy Graham Apologizes for ’72 Remarks,” Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2002. “Graham Regrets Jewish Slur,” BBC News, March 2, 2002.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1850077.stm ) The conversation apparently took place on Feb. 1, 1972.
19. A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 209, 212, 218, 228, 229.
20. See: John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
21. F. Nelson, “Anger Over Dalyell’s ‘Jewish Cabal’ Slur,” The Scotsman (Edinburgh), May 5, 2003 ( http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-13027250.html ) ; M. White, “Dalyell Steps Up Attack On Levy,” The Guardian (London), May 6, 2003. ( http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/06/race.politics ).
22. M. Weber, “`Iraq Was Invaded to Secure Israel,’ Says Senator Hollings,” July 16, 2004
( http://www.ihr.org/news/040716_hollings.shtml )
23. See, for example: M. Weber, “Behind the Campaign for War Against Iran,” April 2013.
( http://www.ihr.org/other/behindwarcampaign )
24. See: Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique. Praeger, 1998 (Softcover edition, 2002); Review by S. Hornbeck of The Culture of Critique in a 1999 issue of American Renaissance (http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/review-AR.html) ; M. Weber, “The Weight of Tradition: Why Judaism is Not Like Other Religions.” Oct. 2010
( http://www.ihr.org/judaism0709.html ) ; M. Weber, “Jews: A Religious Community, a People, or a Race?,” March-April 2000 ( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n2p63_Weber.html ) ; Israel even claims to speak on behalf of Jews who lived and died before the state was established. “Holocaust Victims Given Posthumous Citizenship by Israel,” The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1985.
( http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-09/news/mn-6754_1_posthumous-citizenship ) ;
25. Louis D. Brandeis, “The Jewish Problem and How to Solve It.” Speech of April 25, 1915. ( http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/sources_document11.html )
26. Foxman letter of Nov. 11, 2005. Published in The Jerusalem Post, Nov. 18, 2005.
( http://archive.adl.org/media_watch/newspapers/20051111-JPost.htm )
27. ADLOn the Frontline (New York), Summer 1997, p. 8. This issue of the ADL bulletin also noted with some pride that President Clinton, in his Feb. 1997 “State of the Union” address, had given an unexpected boost to what it called the “ADL tag line.” In that address, Clinton said: “My fellow Americans, we must never, ever believe that our diversity is a weakness. It is our greatest strength.”
28. Dov Fischer, “We’re Right, the Whole World’s Wrong,” Forward (New York), April 19, 2002, p. 11.
( http://ravfischer.blogspot.com/2008/05/april-19-2002-forward-were-right-whole.html )
Some of Fischer’s remarks here are gross distortions of history. For example, his mention of “a century’s persecution of Soviet Jewry” is a breathtaking falsehood. For one thing, the entire Soviet period lasted 74 years, not 100. And during at least some of that period, above all during the first ten years of the Soviet era, Jews wielded tremendous, if not dominant power. Rabbi Fischer seems to have forgotten such figures as Leon Trotsky, commander in chief of the young Soviet state’s Red Army, Grigori Zinoviev, head of the Communist International, and Yakov Sverdlov, the first Soviet president. (See: M. Weber, “The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s Early Soviet Regime,” The Journal of Historical Review, Jan.-Feb. 1994.[ (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html ]. )
For Further Reading
Norman F. Cantor. The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews. New York: Harper, 1994.
Benjamin Ginsberg. The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993.
Peter Harrison, “What Causes Anti-Semitism?” Review of Macdonald’s Separation and Its Discontents. The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1998.
( http://ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n3p28_Harrison )
Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab. Jews and the New American Scene. Harvard University Press, 1995.
Kevin MacDonald, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy. Praeger, 1994.
Kevin MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism. Praeger,1998
Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. Praeger, 1998 (Softcover edition, 2002).
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
W. D. Rubinstein. The Left, The Right and the Jews. New York: Universe Books, 1982.
Israel Shahak. Jewish History, Jewish Religion. London: Pluto Press, 1994
Goldwin Smith. “The Jewish Question.” From: Essays on Questions of the Day. New York: Macmillan, 1894.
( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n1p16_Smith.html )
Mark Weber, “Anti-Semitism: Why Does It Exist? And Why Does it Persist?,” Jan. 2014.
( http://ihr.org/other/anti-semitism-why-does-it-exist-dec-2013 ).
M. Weber, “Behind the Campaign for War Against Iran,” April 2013.
( http://www.ihr.org/other/behindwarcampaign )
M. Weber, “Iraq: A War for Israel.” March 2008
(http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/iraqwar.shtml)
Mark Weber, “Jews: A Religious Community, a People, or a Race?,” March-April 2000.
( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n2p63_Weber.html )
M. Weber, “A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby,” August 2012.
( http://ihr.org/leaflets/jewishlobby.shtml )
M. Weber, “Straight Talk About Zionism: What Jewish Nationalism Means,” April 2009.
( http://www.ihr.org/zionism0409.html )
M. Weber, “Vice President Biden Acknowledges `Immense’ Jewish Role in American Mass Media and Cultural Life,” July 2013.
( http://ihr.org/other/biden_jewish_role )
M. Weber, “The Weight of Tradition: Why Judaism is Not Like Other Religions.” Oct. 2010.
( http://www.ihr.org/judaism0709.html )
New details emerge of Saudi Arabia’s treatment of Hariri
Press TV – December 25, 2017
A leading US daily has revealed new details of Saudi Arabia’s degrading treatment of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri during a recent trip to Riyadh, where the Lebanese leader was coerced into reading a prepared resignation speech under conditions similar to that of a captive.
Prime Minister Hariri abruptly declared his resignation from a then-unknown location in Saudi Arabia and from Saudi-owned television on November 4, accusing Iran and Hezbollah of interfering in the region and signaling that that was his reason to quit.
But Lebanese President Michel Aoun, who suspected early on that Hariri hadn’t resigned of his free will, refused to accept his resignation and demanded his return from Saudi Arabia first. Lebanese intelligence sources soon concluded that Hariri was under restrictions in Riyadh.
That drama ended when Hariri returned to Lebanon on November 22 — partially after a diplomatic intervention by France — and rescinded his resignation on December 5.
While some details had already emerged of the circumstances of Hariri’s three-week stay in Saudi Arabia, more appeared in a Sunday report by The New York Times, which used information from “a dozen Western, Lebanese and regional officials and associates of Mr. Hariri” to draw a better picture of what happened to him in Riyadh.
Hariri, who reached a power-sharing deal with Hezbollah in 2016 and who had formerly attempted to convince Riyadh of the need to work with Hezbollah, met with Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior Iranian adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, on November 3.
“That may have been the last straw for the Saudis,” the report said, adding, ” Within hours, Mr. Hariri received a message from the Saudi king — come now — ahead of a meeting that had been scheduled days later.”
A well-connected Lebanese analyst was cited as saying that Hariri was also invited to spend a day in the desert with the prince.
“But when he (Hariri) landed in Riyadh, Saudi officials took Mr. Hariri to his house and told him to wait — not for the king, but for the prince. He waited, from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. No one came,” it said.
The next morning, he was “summoned at 8:30 a.m. to the Saudi royal offices — unseemly early, by the kingdom’s standards.”
Thinking that he would go camping with the prince, Hariri wore jeans and a T-shirt to the Saudi royal offices.
“But instead he was stripped of his cellphones, separated from all but one of his usual cluster of bodyguards, and shoved and insulted by Saudi security officers,” the report said. “Then came the ultimate indignity: He was handed a pre-written resignation speech and forced to read it on Saudi television.”
“Before going on TV, he was not even allowed to go to the house he owns there; he had to ask guards to bring him a suit.”
‘Down the hall from the prince’s office’
Information on what happened between Hariri’s arrival in Riyadh and the resignation is missing. The Times cited Lebanese officials as describing that interval as the “black box.”
“They (the Lebanese officials) said they were reluctant to press Mr. Hariri for details. When asked, one of them said, Mr. Hariri just looked down at the table and said it was worse than they knew.”
Hariri, who runs a private business in Saudi Arabia, was “manhandled” by Saudi officials and was also threatened that he would face “corruption charges,” according to one official.
He read the resignation speech he had been given “from a room an official said was down the hall from the prince’s office.”
‘Our prime minister has been detained’
“Lebanese officials,” the report said, “began making the rounds to puzzled Western diplomats with an unusual message: We have reason to believe our prime minister has been detained.”
Hariri “was eventually placed with Saudi guards in a guesthouse on his own property, forbidden to see his wife and children.”
Some Western diplomats were allowed to meet with the Lebanese prime minister there. “There were two Saudi guards in the room [during those meetings]… and when the diplomats asked if the guards could leave, Mr. Hariri said no, they could stay.”
Opposite effect
The drama was seen as a Saudi attempt to disrupt the political balance in Lebanon to the disadvantage of Hezbollah, which shared power both in the parliament and Hariri’s government with other Lebanese factions.
The Times report pointed to how Mohammed bin Salman was looking to use Hariri as a “pawn” against Iran, “as if he were an employee [of Riyadh] and not a sovereign leader.”
But instead, the Lebanese people of all political inclinations soon came out with massive support for their prime minister, demanding that he safely return and continue work. Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also voiced support for Hariri.
The report said Western officials were wondering what Saudi Arabia “hoped to accomplish with all this intrigue.”
“Several do not rule out the possibility that they aimed to foment internal unrest in Lebanon, or even war.”
Mohammed bin Salman has orchestrated a war on Yemen already. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a number of its allies in pounding Yemen — already the Arab world’s poorest state — causing famine and a cholera epidemic there.
The report said Saudi [Persian] Gulf Affairs Minister Thaber al-Sabhan, who is believed to have been a key figure in the Hariri scheme, “got a withering reception” on a visit later to Washington, where US officials “demanded that Mr. Sabhan explain why Riyadh was destabilizing Lebanon.”
Prime Minister Hariri, in the meantime, has been continuing work with renewed support and stronger unity among Lebanese people and political groups.
“Now, Mr. Hariri remains in office with new popularity, and Hezbollah is stronger than before,” the Times said.
Nikki Haley: The De Facto Agent of Influence
(US Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017. Image credit: US Embassy Tel Aviv/ flickr)
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | December 24, 2017
The most recent claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “running” Donald Trump as if the U.S. president is a Russian intelligence asset comes from former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. “[Putin] knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president,” Clapper told CNN last Monday.
Clapper, who served as DNI under President Barack Obama, and who has repeatedly disparaged Trump both before and since the 2016 election, called the Russian president a “great case officer,” which might be the only nice thing said about Putin by a former senior U.S. official in quite some time.
Clapper was asked by CNN’s Jim Sciutto, “You’re saying that Russia is handling President Trump as an asset?” He responded “That seems to be… that’s the appearance to me.” Later in the conversation, Clapper backtracked slightly, clarifying his remarks by adding “I’m saying this figuratively.”
It was not the first time that a former senior intelligence official rendered a judgment that Trump is an intelligence asset being exploited by the Russians. Back during the campaign, former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “I Ran the CIA: Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.”
Morell reasoned that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, is “trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them… In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” Morell went on to explain that he based his critique on his assessment that “Mr. Trump has… taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests…”
Having actually been a Case Officer, unlike “experts” in tradecraft Clapper and Morell, I am not sure what figuratively or unwitting really mean. But I will accept the Morell definition that acting for a foreign power fits the definition of an “agent of influence.” Based on that, I do think that there are some individuals in the Trump administration who are more-or-less being directed by a foreign government and its intelligence service and that government would be Israel.
I would like to know more, for example, about the ties that the President’s son-in-law and family have to Israel and to its leadership. The Kushners are reported to be extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, if media reports are correct, they have engaged in the financial support of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which the United States as well as the rest of the world consider to be illegal. And then there is America’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who is known to be a supporter of the settlers and Jason Greenblatt, the designated regional “negotiator.” What exactly is their relationship to Israel? Do any of them have dual nationality? Shouldn’t U.S. taxpayers who pony up their salaries and expenses while also having to suffer the damage they are doing to America’s reputation through their identification with an apartheid regime know who they are really loyal to? Maybe a little transparency is in order.
Per Morell’s model, Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt might all be considered agents of influence since their brief as U.S. officials seems to include making sure that Israel is both happy and in the loop on everything they do. How often do they meet privately with Israeli officials? Are intelligence officers involved in their meetings? What do they not report back to Washington?
Nevertheless, my candidate for most likely to be a de facto Israeli agent of influence is America’s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Haley has from the start made it clear that she is all about Israel and she has done nothing since to change that impression, most dramatically so over the past week when she was “taking names” and threatened retaliation against any country that was so “disrespectful” as to dare to vote against Washington’s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which she also helped to bring about.
As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that “nowhere has the U.N.’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel” and vowed that the “days of Israel bashing are over.” On a recent visit to Israel, she was applauded honored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In February, Haley blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing this past week, she was asked about the decision: “Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?” Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking every Palestinian.
Haley is inevitably a hardliner on Syria and Iran, reflecting the Israeli bias. She has said that regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority. A recent foray involved the White House warning that it had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime.” Haley elaborated in a tweet, “… further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.” At one point, Haley warned “We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.”
I would point out that none of these positions taken by Haley is an actual American interest, but they all involve Israeli preferences. As in the cases of Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt, I would like to know how frequently she meets alone with Israeli officials and, most particularly, intelligence officers. Is she taking direction from the Israeli government? Is she an Israeli agent of influence or just a gullible fool? The American public, which pays her, and has to bear the consequences of her actions need to know.
Claim of Iran military aid to Yemen sheer lie: Larijani
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani (C) speaks to reporters following the Meeting of the PUIC Presidential Troika in the Iranian capital Tehran on December 18, 2017. (Photo by ICANA)
Press TV – December 18, 2017
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says the Islamic Republic is not providing military assistance to Yemen and all claims to this effect are false.
Larijani made the remarks while addressing the extraordinary meeting of the Palestinian Committee of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Member States (PUOICM) in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday.
“We are not a country that would deny providing military assistance to anybody,” Larijani said.
He added that Iran was providing military assistance to Palestine, but had not helped Yemeni fighters in their war with Saudi Arabia in military terms, dismissing any claim to this effect as a lie.
“The Yemenis’ missiles belong to themselves and some countries cannot achieve their goals by making such claims,” the top Iranian parliamentarian said.
On Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared in a staged show in front of a large and charred tube that she claimed was “concrete evidence” that Iran was providing missiles to Yemeni forces fighting against Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression on their country.
A Saudi Arabian-led coalition launched a war against Yemen in 2015 and has ever since been indiscriminately hitting targets in the country. Yemeni Houthi fighters have been firing missiles in retaliatory attacks against Saudi targets every now and then.
On November 4, a missile fired from Yemen targeted King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Larijani said terrorism has tremendously grown in recent years both in quantitative and qualitative terms, emphasizing that such growth would not have been possible without the support of the US and some countries in the region.
Israel and terrorism are the two sides of the same coin and pursue similar goals, he said.
Larijani also emphasized that US-backed terrorists sought to create chaos in the Middle East and pointed to the recent announcement by the Israeli regime that it enjoyed the best conditions since Muslim countries were grappling with terrorism.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, on Sunday dismissed as “baseless and ridiculous” the recent US claim about Iran providing missiles to Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, saying that even international experts had mocked the accusation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has never given missiles to Yemen,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Friday that the United States was complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen.
He added that the US had sold weapons to its allies enabling them to “kill civilians and impose famine,” in reference to Washington’s arms deal with Riyadh in its aggression against Yemen.
US House passes bill scrutinizing Iran plane sales
Press TV – December 15, 2017
US lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill that will bring the sales of American planes to Iran under the close scrutiny of the Congress.
The bill passed 252-167 — all but four Republicans supported it, and they were joined by 23 Democrats.
It would require the Treasury Department to report to Congress on Iranian purchases of US aircraft and how those sales would be financed.
The key company that would be the primary target of the bill would be US aviation giant Boeing. In December 2016, Boeing sealed deals with Iran’s flag-carrier airliner Iran Air over sales of 80 jets valued at $16.6 billion. They include 50 narrow-body Boeing 737 passenger jets and 30 wide-body 777 aircraft.
US media reported that the new Congress bill had once again brought into the spotlight the question whether undermining plane sales to Iran would break US commitments under the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Republicans argued that the legislation would not bar any aircraft sales to Iran. Instead, it would require the Treasury Department to notify Congress about the activities of the Iranian company that purchases the planes, as well as the financing used for the deal, according to a report by the Washington Examiner.
House Democrats maintained that the bill might provoke Iran to abandon the nuclear agreement, however, by interfering with their ability to work with US corporations as promised under the pact.
“[This bill] would impose a new condition,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said on the House floor. “A new condition which would require certification by [the executive branch] and all of the process which would ensue. It is not a stretch, in fact it is fairly clear, that if [this bill] were to pass, the Iranians and others could credibly claim that we have violated our obligations under the JCPOA,” Himes was quoted as saying by the Washington Examiner.
Iran sealed the JCPOA in 2015 with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China – plus Germany.
Based on it, Iran would restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities. In return, the parties that signed the JCPOA with Iran – the P5+1 – would act to lift the economic sanctions imposed against the country – generally described as the toughest in modern history.
Iran has previously announced that the US was falling short of its commitments toward the JCPOA by failing to remove the sanctions against the country and even by moving to impose new sanctions against it.
This is while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – which reports Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA – has for multiple times emphasized that the country is fully implementing its commitments toward the nuclear deal.
Saudi Arabia & ‘their Western handlers’ behind Syria peace talks failure – Damascus envoy
RT | December 15, 2017
The ultimatum that President Bashar Assad must go if there is to be peace in Syria, drawn up by the anti-Assad opposition backed by Saudi Arabia and the West, derailed the latest peace talks in Geneva, Damascus’s envoy to the negotiations has said.
The eighth round of Syria peace negotiations in Geneva has ended in failure, after Damascus officials refused to engage in direct talks with the opposition, which continues to demand the removal of President Bashar Assad as a precondition for ending the six-year conflict.
“The Riyadh 2 Communique is a blackmail of the Geneva process,” Syrian government negotiator Bashar Ja’afari told the media, referring to a document adopted during a Syrian opposition summit in the Saudi capital last month. As a result of the conference, attended by 140 participants and backers in the conflict, a communique was adopted insisting that the Syrian president must leave at the start of any transition period following the cessation of hostilities. The conflict has taken more than 400,000 lives.
“Those who drew up the Riyadh 2 statement were the ones who sabotaged this round. I mean by that the other side. I mean the Saudis and the Saudi handlers themselves who are the Western countries. They do not want the Geneva process to succeed.”
Ja’afari insisted that the proposal contradicted previous UN resolutions, and said that outside forces wanted to turn Syria into “another Libya or Iraq.”
The Syrian negotiator also criticized the long-time mediator of the talks, Staffan de Mistura, who on Wednesday urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to put pressure on Assad to accept constitutional reforms and fresh elections.
Ja’afari called de Mistura’s words an “error” that could “derail his mandate as a facilitator of the talks, which will have an impact on the Geneva process altogether.”
In turn, de Mistura said that Damascus’s refusal to engage with the opposition delegation, whom it has branded both unrepresentative and envoys of “terrorists,” as “regrettable.”
“Despite a lot of effort by my whole team, day and night with all sorts of creative formula, we did not have real negotiations,” said de Mistura, who earlier suggested that Syria was on the verge of permanent fragmentation. “It is a big missed opportunity, a golden opportunity missed at the end of this year.”
Congress takes no action on Iran sanctions as deadline passes
Press TV – December 13, 2017
The US Congress misses a deadline to decide on re-imposing anti-Iran sanctions, which were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, with reports saying the lawmakers sought to kick the decision on the issue back to President Donald Trump.
On October 13, Trump refused to certify that the Islamic Republic was complying with the agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under a domestic US law and directed his administration “to work closely with Congress and our allies to address the deal’s many serious flaws.”
The US Congress was given until December 12 to decide whether to slap economic sanctions on Tehran anew.
On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a press briefing that the Trump administration “continues to make encouraging progress with Congress to fix the US–Iran deal and address long-term proliferation issues.”
“There was actually no deadline to act by this week as the administration did not ask that Congress to introduce legislation to re-impose JCPOA-related sanctions,” she added.
Micah Johnson, a spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, told ABC News on Monday that “productive discussions” were underway “about the appropriate path forward.”
However, the Congress has so far announced no plans to introduce a resolution to re-impose sanctions. Congressional aides said on Tuesday that the American lawmakers would let the deadline pass without action, Reuters reported.
By doing that, Congress passed the ball back to Trump, who must decide in mid-January if he wants to continue to waive sanctions on Iran.
Trump’s failure to do so would blow apart the deal, a course opposed by European allies, Russia and China, the other parties to the accord.
Eight reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, have so far confirmed Iran’s full commitment to its side of the bargain.
Trump, however, has defied the IAEA reports and warned that he might ultimately “terminate” the Iran deal.
A new poll conducted by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, showed that 70 percent of Americans agree that the JCPOA is beneficial for US interests, while 26 percent disagree.
The JCPOA was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.
Under the accord, Iran undertook to apply certain limits to its nuclear program in exchange for the termination of all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.
Other parties to the deal, along with the entire international community, have voiced firm support for the JCPOA, warning Washington against attempts at undermining the landmark deal.
Since Trump’s refusal to certify Iran’s compliance, senior European officials have been intensely lobbying Congress to decide against the re-imposition of anti-Iran bans.
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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