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Jewish Voices from the Past make Mincemeat of Zionism and anti-Semitism

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | November 4, 2016

Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom.

— Lord Edwin Montagu

Show me one time where a Jew was persecuted in any country because of his religion…. It’s always their impact on the political, social, or economic customs and traditions of the community in which they settle.

— Benjamin Freedman

The latest anti-Semitism witch-hunt being conducted by the Zio-Inquisition in the UK is all hogwash if the statements of two leading Jews are to be believed.

One is the speech by successful Jewish businessman Benjamin Freedman at the Willard Hotel, Washington, in 1961. The other is a letter in 1917 by Lord Edwin Samuel Montagu, a prominnent British Jew, disagreeing with the Balfour Declaration.

I had seen neither before. My attention was drawn to Freedman by reader comments to a recent article of mine on the Balfour Declaration (many thanks ‘Bill Rollinson’ and ‘frog’).

Freedman kicked off his his remarks at the Willard by saying that just before the elections of 1960 Senator Kennedy (afterwards President of the United States) went to New York and delivered an address to the Zionist Organization of America.

In that address…. he stated that he would use the armed forces of the United States to preserve the existence of the regime set up in Palestine by the Zionists who are now in occupation of that area.

In other words, Christian boys are going to be yanked out of their homes, away from their families, and sent abroad to fight in Palestine against the Christian and Moslem Arabs who merely want to return to their homes. And these Christian boys are going to be asked to shoot to kill these innocent [Arab Palestinians] people who only want to follow out fifteen resolutions passed by the United Nations in the last twelve years calling upon the Zionists to allow these people to return to their homes.

And he warned that if the US went to war in Palestine “to help the thieves retain possession of what they have stolen from these innocent people”, no-one would fight alongside Americans as their ally.

Harking back to WW1 Freedman explained that by 1916 Germany had effectively won. Thanks to the success of the U-boats Britain was alone, almost out of ammunition and on the edge of starvation. Germany offered peace terms, and while Britain chewed it over the Zionists of Germany (representing the Zionists of Eastern Europe who wanted to see an end to the Czar) came to London and said:

We will guarantee to bring the United States into the war as your ally, to fight with you on your side, if you will promise us Palestine after you win the war.

Balfour’s shabby promissory note

How could they make such a promise?

Because the newspapers here were controlled by Jews, the bankers were Jews, all the media of mass communications in this country were controlled by Jews, and they were pro-German because their people, in the majority of cases came from Germany, and they wanted to see Germany lick the Czar…. they didn’t want Russia to win this war. So the German bankers – the German-Jews – Kuhn Loeb and the other big banking firms in the United States refused to finance France or England to the extent of one dollar. They stood aside and they said: ‘As long as France and England are tied up with Russia, not one cent!’ But they poured money into Germany, they fought with Germany against Russia, trying to lick the Czarist regime.

Now those same Jews, when they saw the possibility of getting Palestine, they went to England and they made this deal….  Where the newspapers had been all pro-German, where they’d been telling the people of the difficulties that Germany was having fighting Great Britain commercially and in other respects, all of a sudden the Germans were no good. They were villains….  Well, shortly after that, Mr. Wilson declared war on Germany.

Freedman went on to say it was “absolutely absurd” for Great Britain to offer Palestine as “coin of the realm” to pay the Zionists for bringing the United States into the war. But that was the bargain they struck, in October 1916, ignoring pledges made to the Arabs for their help. After they’d done their bit, the Zionists wanted a ‘receipt’ – written confirmation of Britain’s pledge. Hence Balfour’s infamous ‘declaration’, a grubby promissory note addressed to Lord Rothschild.

The way Freedman tells it, when the war was over and the Germans went to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, it was attended by a huge delegation of Jews. Freedman says he was there. As the Great Powers carved up the losers’ territories – German and Ottoman – the Jewish delegation, of course, claimed Palestine.

They produced, for the first time to the knowledge of the Germans, this Balfour Declaration. So the Germans, for the first time realized, ‘Oh, that was the game! That’s why the United States came into the war.

When the Germans realized this, they naturally resented it. Up to that time, the Jews had never been better off in any country in the world than they had been in Germany.

And that, according to Freedman, is why Jews eventually came to pay such a horrendous price.

On the subject of Jews and anti-Semitism he made the crucial point that the eastern European Jews accounted for 92 per cent of the world’s Jews and were originally Khazars.

It’s ridiculous to call them ‘people of the Holy Land’…. they outnumber all the rest by so many that they create the impression that they are the Jewish ‘race’; that they are the Jewish nation;  that they are the Jewish people. . . and the Christians swallow it like a cream puff.

As for Semites:

The Christians talk about people who don’t like Jews as anti-Semites, and they call all the Arabs anti-Semites. The only Semites in the world are the Arabs.  There isn’t one Jew who’s a Semite. They’re all Turkothean Mongoloids. The Eastern European Jews…. they brainwashed the public.

And he neatly disposed of the anti-Semitism kerfuffle by saying:

Show me one time where a Jew was persecuted in any country because of his religion. It has never happened. It’s always their impact on the political, social, or economic customs and traditions of the community in which they settle.

No such thing as a Jewish nation

An earlier bombshell had been dropped by Lord Montagu, only the second Jew to serve in a British cabinet. Coincidentally he was Minister of Munitions in 1916 when, according to Freedman, Britain was running out of ammunition.

In August 1917, while the Palestine deal was still being discussed but before Balfour issued his Declaration, Montagu penned a memorandum to the British Cabinet headed ‘On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government’.

He said he wanted to place on record his view that the policy of the British Government was anti-Semitic because it would provide a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country in the world.

Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman.

He said those who indulged in the Zionist creed were spurred by the oppression of Jews in Russia. He assumed:

Zionism meant that Mahommedans and Christians were to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners….

When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe.

He argued that there was no such thing as a Jewish nation, and it was no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it was to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation. He wanted Jews in the UK to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons.

Montagu was well aware of the unpopularity of the Jewish community.

We have obtained a far greater share of this country’s goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to…. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us….

As for the Balfour Declaration itself he felt the Government was carrying out the wishes of a Zionist organisation “largely run by men of enemy descent or birth” and had thus “dealt a severe blow to the liberties, position and opportunities of service of their Jewish fellow-countrymen”. Furthermore, he said, “I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest.”

His message to Lord Rothschild was that the Government should help Jews in Palestine enjoy liberty of settlement and life on equal terms with the inhabitants of that country who hold other religious beliefs, but go no further.

*****

I wonder what either of them would say if they’d lived to see the situation today on both sides of the Atlantic where Zionist bully-boys run amok, and the degradation of the Holy Land where indigenous Christian and Muslim communities are still horribly abused and dispossessed by incomers with no ancestral connection with the region.

I wonder too how Benjamin Freedman would react to finding that the US was still handing Israel billions of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and military equipment “to help the thieves retain possession of what they have stolen”.

How many of us share Lord Montagu’s subtle distinction between American Jews and Jewish Americans, or in our case British Jews and Jewish Brits?

And how many agree with Freedman that it’s the impact Jews have on the customs and traditions of the community in which they settle, rather than their religion that causes problems?

The words of Benjamin Freedman and Lord Montagu reinforce what we’ve heard from other knowledgeable sources.  The truth is out there for those who bother to listen.

Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine can now be read on the internet by visiting radiofreepalestine.org.uk.

November 5, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Mideast partition plot meant to ensure Israel’s security: Velayati

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Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei
Press TV – November 1, 2016

A senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned of plots hatched by the US and its regional allies to divide the Middle East countries, saying such a move aims to safeguard the Israeli regime’s security.

“The Americans and some of their regional allies are trying to sow discord and break up the region and want to partition and weaken big, strong and ancient countries in the region in order to [ensure] Israel’s security and meet their own excessive demands,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the Leader’s top adviser on international affairs, said in a meeting with Mala Bakhtiar, chief of Executive Body of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), in Tehran on Tuesday.

The senior Iranian official stressed the importance of resisting such a malicious plot, saying that the enemies of Islam are committing crimes against oppressed nations in the region, including the Iraqis and Syrians, in the name of Islam by waging “proxy wars” and creating extremist and Takfiri terrorist groups.

Velayati added that plotters and reactionary countries in the region seek to sow discord among Muslim nations; however, regional people would certainly be the final victors.

He further pointed to the great cultural and religious commonalities between the Iranian and Iraqi people and said both countries give priority to the development of relations.

Bakhtiar, for his part, said the era of hegemony and arrogance is over and added that plotters would fail to achieve their divisive goals in the region.

The PUK official added that Iran is carrying out effective measures to promote regional peace and stability.

November 1, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who Will Weed Out the Warmongers?

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | October 30, 2016

If Hillary Clinton hangs on to win the presidency, liberal Democrats have vowed to block her appointment of Wall Street-friendly officials to key Cabinet and sub-Cabinet jobs. But there has been little organized resistance to her choosing hawkish foreign policy advisers.

Indeed, Washington’s foreign policy establishment has purged almost anyone who isn’t part of the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist “group think.” That’s why pretty much everyone who “matters” agrees about the need to push around Russia, China, Syria, Iran, etc.

Reflecting that attitude, Sunday’s lead editorial in the neocon Washington Post hailed the broad consensus within the Establishment for more warlike actions once President Obama is gone, taking with him what the Post calls Obama’s “self-defeating passivity.”

The Post praised a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress which calls for bombing the Syrian military and getting tough to “counter Iran’s negative influence” in line with what all the neocons — as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia — want the next President to do.

The absence of any significant counter to this neocon/liberal-hawk “group think” represents one of the greatest dangers to the future of the human species, since this new hubris comes with a cavalier assumption that nuclear-armed Russia and China will simply accept humiliation dished out by the “indispensable nation.”

If they don’t, we can expect Official Washington to ratchet up tensions in a game of nuclear chicken with the expectation that the leaders in Moscow and Beijing will bow down to U.S. “exceptionalism’ and slink away with their tails between their legs.

Surely, that is what the armchair warriors at The Washington Post will demand and they have, of course, a spotless record of infallibility, such as their certainty that Iraq was hiding stockpiles of WMD in 2003. Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt was so sure of that he wrote it as flat fact.

Given the Iraq War catastrophe and the failure to find the WMD, you might have assumed that Hiatt was summarily fired and has never worked in journalism again. But, of course, you’d be wrong. He is still the editorial-page editor of The Washington Post continuing to ladle out his extraordinary wisdom and brilliant insights.

The New McCarthyism

And, if you dare question those new certainties or note the risks of stumbling into a nuclear conflagration, the Post’s editorial pages label you a Moscow stooge repeating Russian propaganda.

That is what Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump when he warned about the risks of World War III if a President Hillary Clinton starts shooting down Russian planes over Syria.

Rather than acknowledge the genuine risk of getting into a shooting war with Russia, neocon Applebaum declares such concerns unacceptable and offers a whiff of McCarthyism toward anyone who thinks such a thing.

“Why is Russian state media using such extreme language?” she asks darkly. “And why is Trump repeating it?”

Then, with the typical perceptiveness of a neocon ideologue, Applebaum determines that the Kremlin is warning its citizens about the growing risks of nuclear war to scare them into line amid a recession that the U.S. helped create as part of its “regime change” strategy to destabilize Russia by making its economy scream.

A thoughtful person might stop here and wonder if the use of economic sanctions and other means to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia is such a good idea, but no mainstream person is allowed to raise such questions inside Official Washington. That would just make you a Russian puppet, in Applebaum’s view.

Applebaum then rants on with some wild conspiracy theories about Russian plans to exploit the U.S. presidential transition:

“Whatever the outcome on Nov. 8, political uncertainty will follow: the months of transition, a change of White House staff, perhaps even the violent backlash that Trump may incite. This could be an excellent moment for a major Russian offensive: a land grab in Ukraine, a foray into the Baltic states, a much bigger intervention in the Middle East — anything to ‘test’ the new president.

“If that’s coming, Putin needs to prepare his public to fight much bigger wars and to persuade the rest of the world not to stop him. He needs to get his generals into the right mind-set, and his soldiers ready to go. A little nuclear war rhetoric never fails to focus attention, and I’m sure it has.”

Reckless Drivel

Perhaps the more immediate question here is why a major American newspaper runs such crazy and reckless drivel from one of its regular columnists. But the fact that the Post does so indicates how dangerous the moment is for humanity. For those of us who read the Post regularly, such insane rhetoric barely registers since we see similar nuttiness on a daily basis.

But the “group think” that the Post and other mainstream publications create and then enforce explains why there is such unity among the Establishment as it presses ahead with these dangerous policies in much the same manner that almost the same cast of insiders “group thought” their way into the disastrous Iraq War.

So, the wannabe insiders at the Center for American Progress and the more established pooh-bahs at the Brookings Institution and other preeminent think tanks know they have to promote “regime change” strategies and other forms of warmongering to appease Hiatt and his fellow neocon editorialists and columnists.

In Washington, this “group think” has moved beyond the usual careerist and conformist “conventional wisdom” into something more akin to totalitarianism, at least on foreign policy issues.

That is why it is hard to even come up with a list of sensible people who could survive the onslaught of character assassinations if they were to be proposed as senior advisers to a President Hillary Clinton.

That is also why the attention of progressives, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, only on vetting domestic officials in a prospective Hillary Clinton administration is so insufficient.

If a hawkish President Clinton surrounds herself with like-minded neocons and liberal hawks, the costs of their warmongering would surely swallow up the tax dollars necessary for domestic priorities – on infrastructure, education, health care, the environment and other pressing concerns.

And, if the McCarthyistic intolerance of The Washington Post influences or infects her administration, the genuine risks of World War III will dwarf any other worries.

October 31, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

UK to open permanent military base in Bahrain: Report

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Britain’s then Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond boards a UK military ship docked in Manama, Bahrain, in November 2015.
Press TV – October 29, 2016

The United Kingdom will open a massive permanent military base in Bahrain and deploy warships in the Persian Gulf, a new report has revealed.

The military base, which is the first such facility being opened by Britain in 40 years in the Persian Gulf region, will be launched next month, Britain’s Express newspaper reported on Saturday.

Britain will station around 600 military forces at the Royal Navy Facility and will deploy its warships to patrol the surrounding waters and guard oil and gas shipments in the waters.

The base located in Bahrain’s Mina Salman Port, will also be used by Special forces, Navy destroyers and frigates to launch operations against the Daesh takfiri terrorist group in the region, according to the report.

“The project could save the Ministry of Defense millions because they won’t have to travel back to the UK,” the newspaper quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying.

The base, which will be used as a weapons store, will allow Britain to take part in any possible emergency operation if any country tries to block UK commercial ships from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, said a navy source.

“If we miss out on too much oil and gas then the lights will start to go out,” the source added.

When Britain kicked off the project in 2014, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon described it as “a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy’s footprint” in the Persian Gulf.

“It will enable Britain to send more and larger ships to reinforce stability in the [Persian] Gulf,” he said.

Critics, however, raised concerns over the legality of the base, saying the project had not been discussed in Bahrain’s parliament.

Human rights campaigners criticized the plan at the time, arguing that the Royal Navy named HMS Juffair, is reminiscent of the colonial era because it’s named after a previous naval base, Britain maintained in the country during colonial times.

Opposition activists also said Britain’s move strengthens the ruling al Khalifa family which, has long been carrying out crackdown on human rights activists in the kingdom.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in the Bahraini crackdown on the anti-regime activists, who have been holding protests on an almost daily basis since February 14, 2011.

October 29, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Israel settlements legal, Trump aide says, playing anti-Iran video message on Mount Zion

Press TV – October 27, 2016

GOP nominee Donald Trump does not believe that settlements built by the Zionist regime of Israel in Palestine are illegal, his advisor on Israel says.

David Friedman, who was campaigning for the New York billionaire at a restaurant on Mount Zion (Jabel Sahyoun) in East Jerusalem al-Quds, made the comments to AFP after the Wednesday rally.

“I don’t think he believes that the settlements are illegal,” Friedman said.

He also said the former reality TV star is “tremendously skeptical” about the so-called two-state solution, promoted by the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama during his eight years in office, but to no avail.

The Obama administration has already voiced criticism over Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies, considered illegal by the international community.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Guaranteeing enmity with Tehran

Some 150 people, including extremist Israelis and evangelical Christians, took part in the Trump rally in on Wednesday.

Friedman echoed previous remarks by Trump, saying the real estate mogul would recognize East Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel if he wins the White House in the US 2016 presidential election.

A short video message by Trump was also played at the event, in which he said, “Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on destroying Israel and her people. Together we will make America and Israel safe again.”

According to leaked emails from March 2015 by former US secretary of state Colin Powell, the regime has pointed 200 nuclear weapons at the Iranian capital.

October 28, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel worsening Palestinian plight, Middle East tensions: Iran diplomat

Press TV – October 20, 2016

Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations has held the Israel regime responsible for the desperate plight of the Palestinian nation and exacerbation of tensions in the Middle East.

“The illegal and brutal Israeli occupation continues and causes so much anguish to the Palestinian people, and dangerously inflames tensions on the volatile situation in the region. The Israeli regime continues to breach international law, including humanitarian and human rights. By doing so, it inflicts widespread suffering to civilians and deliberately destabilizes the situation, with far–reaching and serious consequences for peace and security in the Middle East and beyond,” Gholam Ali Khoshroo stated at a Security Council Open Debate on “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question” on Wednesday.

He further lambasted the Tel Aviv regime’s systematic violations of Palestinians’ rights and international law, including house demolitions, forced displacement of civilians, detentions of minors, and incessant provocations by illegal settlers and extremists at revered sites, particularly al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Khoshroo said the Israeli regime has continually intensified its illegal and oppressive measures against the defenseless Palestinian population over the past years, killed and injured many civilians, and deprived Palestinians of their right to protection.

The Iranian diplomat then pointed to Israel’s settlement expansion activities in the occupied West Bank, stating that they are in clear breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, constitute war crimes under Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and demonstrate that Israel has never had any interest in peace with the Palestinians and its participation in the so-called peace process has only been aimed at covering up its policy of aggression.

Turning to Israel’s blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip, the Iranian UN ambassador said the siege “is causing massive deprivation, hopelessness and a grave humanitarian crisis. The destructive impact of such Israeli violations is immense as reflected in rising tensions, deteriorating socio-economic conditions, and deepening among the Palestinian civilian population.”

Khoshroo also blamed illegal foreign intervention, extremism and violence for the ongoing conflicts in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

“These problems have persisted and deepened because the international community has failed to do its part in dealing with the root causes, and naive trans-regional players have done erroneous actions,” he pointed out.

Saudi Arabia’s military aggression on Yemen

Elsewhere in his remarks, Khoshroo referred to Riyadh’s aerial bombardment campaign against its crisis-hit southern neighbor, stressing that the airstrikes have killed or permanently maimed thousands of civilians, including women and children, displaced millions of people, and turned Yemen from a disadvantaged country into a devastated one.

“All these horrendous and heinous attacks, which display total disregard for human life and international law are happening under the watch of Security Council, which has failed to take any action to stop them,” the Iranian diplomat said.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in an atrocious campaign against Yemen since March 2015. The United Nations puts the death toll from the onslaught at about 10,000.

October 20, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WikiLeaks: The two faces of Hillary Clinton on Syria

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By Sharmine Narwani | RT | October 14, 2016

“People don’t trust Hillary Clinton, and no one can agree on why,” begins a sympathetic piece on the Democratic Party presidential candidate in Fast Company last July.

In a CNN poll that same month, only 30 percent of Americans believed Clinton to be “honest and trustworthy.”

If voters don’t know what to make of Clinton or how to read her, the blame may lie directly with the candidate herself. In an April 2013 speech made public by WikiLeaks last week, Clinton confided:

Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.

That last “public vs. private” comment quickly made the media rounds, and confirmed – for her critics – Clinton’s deliberate duplicity on a number of policy positions.

WikiLeaks has provided an opportunity to delve into some of these, so let’s take a look at one very prominent feature of Clinton’s foreign policy agenda: Syria, a country that stands at the center of a potential global confrontation today.

Not a Syrian uprising; a regime change plan

A 2012 email released by WikiLeaks last year shows that, behind the scenes, Clinton’s State Department was calculating its Syria policy using entirely different metrics than its publicly-stated narrative of supporting reforms and rejecting violence:

It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security — not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria. The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.

The email, written by an unidentified person and included within the WikiLeaks ‘Clinton archive,’ lays out a plan:

Washington should start by expressing its willingness to work with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces. The announcement of such a decision would, by itself, likely cause substantial defections from the Syrian military. Then, using territory in Turkey and possibly Jordan, US diplomats and Pentagon officials can start strengthening the opposition… Arming the Syrian rebels and using Western air power to ground Syrian helicopters and airplanes is a low-cost high payoff approach.

Arming a Syrian rebellion from outside the country was already a consideration “from the very beginning,” according to a recent WikiLeaks release of a June 2013 speech by Clinton:

So, the problem for the US and the Europeans has been from the very beginning: What is it you – who is it you are going to try to arm. And you probably read in the papers my view was we should try to find some of the groups that were there that we thought we could build relationships with and develop some covert connections that might then at least give us some insight into what is going on inside Syria.

Certainly, we know that by early 2012, the Obama and Erdogan administrations had struck a deal to establish a rat-line transporting weapons and ammunition from Libya to Syria – via the CIA and MI6, and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi which killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was only a temporary setback. Weapons and financial assistance to militants in Syria, however, continued to flow from America’s regional allies without any US push-back, even though Washington clearly knew arms were being siphoned to extremists.

A declassified DIA document from August 2012 circulated to Clinton’s State Department states plainly that “the Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” and that “the West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition.”

But if US Special Forces were involved in driving arms and fighters into Syria in early 2012, the groundwork would have had to have begun many, many months before. The US military’s unconventional warfare (UW) strategy requires that target-state population perceptions are first “groomed” into accepting an armed insurrection, using “propaganda and political and psychological efforts to discredit the government”… creating “local and national ‘agitation’”… helping organize “boycotts, strikes and other efforts to suggest public discontent”… before beginning the “infiltration of foreign organizers and advisors and foreign propaganda, material, money, weapons and equipment.”

You get an idea of how this “propaganda” and “grooming” works in a June 2011 email from Clinton’s recently-departed Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter, who openly calls for fabricating sectarian narratives to incite Syrian protestors:

This suggests US should be making much more of the ways in which Syrian regime is simulating violence. Can’t we call for a meeting of the UNSC where we do not call for action but simply present information along the lines of what is recounted below so as to ‘bring it to the attention of the Council’ in a way that then has greater credibility globally? Making the point repeatedly that the regime wants this to look like/turn into sectarian violence? At the very least that can be broadcast back into Syria in various ways that will encourage protestors. There is an information war going on; we can do much more to elevate and legitimate the truth.

This is business as usual for a US State Department well-versed in sowing sectarian discord in the Middle East – all while publicly denouncing sectarian strife. A WikiLeaks email from 2006 shows that this thinking was already well-entrenched in Foggy Bottom, with a focus on “exploiting vulnerabilities” – particularly “sectarian” ones – inside Syria.

Fueling the sectarian Jihad

By late 2011, US intelligence had assessed that Al-Qaeda was operating inside Syria. This information was public, but not widely disseminated. Instead, Clinton’s team focused heavily on flogging the narrative that “Assad must go” because of his government’s widespread human rights violations.

Clinton liberally used the “humanitarian” pretext to advance a regime change agenda – pushing, behind the scenes, for increased assistance to militants and direct US military intervention, while publicly decrying the escalating violence inside Syria.

But did she give a toss about keeping Syrians safe? The evidence suggests otherwise. In this new WikiLeaks release of a speech to the Jewish United Fund in August 2013 – “flagged,” incidentally, by her staffers who worried about its content – Clinton outlines one possible Syria policy option:

One way is a very hands off, step back, we don’t have a dog in this hunt, let them kill themselves until they get exhausted, and then we’ll figure out how to deal with what the remnants are. That’s a position held by people who believe there is no way, not just for the United States but others, to stop the killing before the people doing the killing and the return killing are tired of killing each other. So it’s a very hands off approach.

To any observer of the foreign-fueled Syrian war of attrition, it looks very much like Clinton opted for this course of action.

And given that Washington’s allies in the Syrian fight consisted mainly of head-chopping, jihadist foot soldiers, Clinton’s scenario of a killing field to keep all sides “exhausted” may have even been the starting plan.

These fighters came equipped with a militant, sectarian mindset courtesy of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar – under the supervision, of course, of a CIA that cut its teeth doing the exact same thing with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

A WikiLeaks email sent from Hillary Clinton to her now-campaign chief John Podesta in August 2014 shows that the former Secretary of State is fully aware that her allies were partial to supporting terrorists:

While this military/paramilitary operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are, of course, two staunch US allies in the region that host American military bases and, apparently, also support ISIL.

Another October 2013 Clinton speech “flagged” by her campaign staff, and released by WikiLeaks this week, has her saying:

The Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons – and pretty indiscriminately – not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future.

The State Department knows all too well that both fighters and weapons are fungible in the Syrian militant marketplace. It is a key reason the US has always resisted naming those groups it considers “moderate” rebels. Arms and supplies to US-backed groups have often found their way to ISIL and Al-Qaeda, with photo evidence aplenty making the social media rounds.

Despite these loaded disclosures, Clinton and other US policymakers still flog outdated narratives about an “evil Syrian regime killing innocent civilians” while ignoring the narrative they know to be true: bloodthirsty jihadists armed to the teeth by ideologically-aligned US allies.

This Syrian conflict – privately, at least – is about regime change at all costs for the hawkish side of the policy establishment which includes the CIA, Pentagon brass and Clinton. Publicly, however, it’s still about “crimes against humanity” – whatever that means today.

Earlier this month, Clinton began to publicly reveal that truth in advance of the November presidential election. Reuters reports Clinton as saying “removing President Bashar al-Assad is the top priority in Syria.”

She is also once again touting a “no-fly zone” over Syria – much as she did with Libya. In yet another speech ‘flagged’ by her campaign and released by WikiLeaks – this one delivered to Goldman Sachs at their CEO conference in June 2013 – Clinton explains:

To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.

So Clinton is advocating for a no-fly zone despite the fact that she recognizes she’s “going to kill a lot of Syrians.” Which then puts that other speech of hers about letting Syrians “kill themselves until they get exhausted” into context.

Her only regional allies in this endeavor will be the Saudis and Qataris, who we now know support ISIL and other terrorists inside Syria. We also know that Clinton will continue to ignore this indiscretion – not because of what she says, but because of what she does.

Her public-versus-private position on the Saudis, after all, has been bandied about since the 2010 WikiLeaks State Department cables were released.

In 2009, a secret WikiLeaks cable signed off by then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reads, in part:

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide… Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Laskhar-e Taiba), and other terrorist groups… It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.

Yet by 2011, Clinton was ushering through the biggest weapons sale to Saudi Arabia in US history – a massive $67 Billion arms dump into the epicenter of global terror.

Clinton is not averse to cashing in on Saudi riches for her and her family’s foundation either. The Clinton Foundation has received millions of dollars from Saudi, Qatari and other Gulf sources, despite the role their governments have played in funding global Jihad. And her campaign manager’s brother, Tony Podesta, just signed on to furnish the Saudi government with very expensive public relations services earlier this year.

There is something schizophrenic about Hillary Clinton’s compartmentalization of issues that speaks to the very competence of her judgment. Her whole private-versus-public-positions shtick is antithetical to the transparency, process and accountability demanded by democracy.

She speaks of her Iraq “mistake,” yet we have still not heard what lessons she has learned. And it grates, because we can see she has repeated them again and again, in Libya and in Syria.

The “public” Hillary Clinton supports self-determination, freedom and human rights for Syrians. The “private” Hillary Clinton supports the wholesale massacre of Syrians by a closely allied network of depraved sectarian terrorists – in order to weaken Iran and strengthen Israel.

If you’re one of those Americans who don’t trust her, you have good reason. At this point it is hard to ascertain if Clinton herself knows what her truth is anymore.

October 16, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stop! Decency demands we smoke out the real perpetrators of war crimes against Aleppo and Gaza

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | October 14, 2016

As Western outrage erupts over the relentless destruction of Aleppo and its people, why is there no similar clamour for a halt to the more prolonged pulverising of Gaza and the continuing slaughter of civilians there?

The UK’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, said the other day:

“Russia’s actions in recent weeks have exposed just how hollow Russia’s commitment to the political process is. Today we have seen that commitment for what it really is; a sham….

“I echo the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury who described the destruction of Aleppo as the absolute contempt for the human spirit, for the dignity of the human being…. There can be no military justification for aerial attacks that indiscriminately hit civilians, and their homes and their hospitals.”

Aleppo or Gaza: what’s the difference?

A few days later we were treated to the spectacle of our recently-appointed Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson calling for anti-war protesters to demonstrate outside the Russian embassy in London. Russia, he said, risks becoming a pariah nation and should be investigated for war crimes in Aleppo. He predicted those responsible for war crimes in Syria would eventually face charges before the international criminal court.

Johnson was speaking in a Commons debate in which he apparently rejected the idea of a no-fly zone, warning that we might have to confront and perhaps shoot down Russian and Syrian planes or helicopters that violate the zone. In other words: go to war. “We need to think very carefully about the consequences.” Too right, Boris. All the same, he’s looking at “kintetic” options such as military action as well as intensifying sanctions against the Assad regime and Russia. Perhaps he has forgotten how the last proposal for air strikes in Syria, in 2013, was thrown out by the Westminster Parliament.

One is immediately prompted to ask why Boris Johnson busies himself accusing Russia of war crimes and drumming up demos outside its embassy while remaining stoically silent about the diabolical crimes of top pariah state Israel. Shouldn’t he be at least evenhanded in his criticism of regimes that repeatedly violate all decent norms of human behaviour?

Why won’t Boris go “kinetic” over Gaza?

Israel and its terrorist founders have been slaughtering and robbing the Palestinian people for nearly 70 years. The Tel Aviv regime continues to illegally occupy Palestinian territory and keep its defenceless citizens bottled up in the shredded left-overs of their homeland, and even commits murder and piracy on the high seas to prevent visitors reaching them. Yet we’ve seen no NATO ships or warplanes off the Gaza coast, no no-fly zones imposed over the still-occupied Holy Land, no boots on the ground, and no arms or military advisers for the Palestinian resistance. In fact, nothing that could be described by Boris as “kinetic”.

Israel, whose “absolute contempt for the human spirit” is extremely profitable, simply doesn’t attract the same high-level indignation. So the evil regime’s demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes for so-called administrative and planning reasons, its wholesale destruction of businesses and infrastructure, its excessive violence against non-combatants, its abductions, imprisonments and assassinations, and especially its programme of blitzkriegs on Gaza slaughtering thousands including many hundreds of children, and reducing the place to rubble… they all go unpunished. None of these crimes can be justified on grounds of defence or security. And in the Palestinians’ case they have nowhere to run. They cannot escape. To the best of my knowledge Boris Johnson has never called for those responsible to be brought before the ICC. He hasn’t even threatened sanctions.

Nor is he likely to. For he’s a “very outspoken friend of Israel” according to former ambassador to London Daniel Taub. Yessir, “he is a very enthusiastic supporter, and his relationship with Israel goes back a long way”. Taub also says Johnson’s enthusiasm is such that “he jumped on our idea of an Israeli cultural festival in London, and thanks to his backing it will be happening next year”. We all know how eagerly Britain’s Foreign Office supports the EU-Israel Association Agreement despite Israel’s blatant violation of its key conditions from the very start.

On his visit to Israel last November some Palestinian groups refused to meet Boris after he dismissed British supporters of BDS (that’s the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) as “lefty academics who have no real standing in the matter and I think are unlikely to be influential… ” BDS is civil society’s non-violent response not just to the international community’s inaction but the major powers’ perverse habit of rewarding Israel for its crimes. Boris said he couldn’t think of “anything more foolish” than to boycott Israel, which he described as “the only democracy in the region, the only place that has in my view a pluralist open society.”

So amusing. But if the boycotts are foolish and ineffectual, as Boris claims, why so many frantic efforts around the world to have BDS outlawed?

Let’s face it. Boris Johnson is a very senior member of the Conservative Party in which 80% of MPs, it is said, are signed-up Friends of Israel. As PM Theresa May recently proclaimed, “the Conservative Party would not be the Conservative Party without CFI [Conservative Friends of Israel].” They wax lyrical about the odious foreign power whose flag they wave in Parliament, as do their fellow stooges in Washington. The insane focus on regime-change in Syria is primarily for the benefit of Israeli expansionism, and the army of highly-placed useful idiots have their orders.

By being part of this grotesque admiration society, and one of Israel’s keenest rewarders, Boris has become the buffoon he always pretended to be. And nudging us towards a second cold war with Russia just to tick another box for Israel’s grisly ambition confirms him as dangerous as well as daft.

October 15, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who is Really Behind the US-Based Organization ‘United Against Nuclear Iran’?

Sputnik – 12.10.2016

A US-based organization, which calls itself “United Against Nuclear Iran,” (UANI) is trying to portray Iran as a nuclear threat to peace and impose sanctions against Tehran’s economic partners around the world.

In an interview with Sputnik, Rahman Hariri, a foreign relations expert in Tehran, took a closer look at this organization.

“UANI was established in 2008 by Mark Wallace, former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross. Mark Wallace is a former US ambassador to the UN, a prominent member of the Republican Party and a personal friend of ex-President George Bush Sr. The organization is presided over by Gary Samore, who once advised President Obama on arms control and weapons of mass destruction. This group is trying to hamper Iran’s economic relations with the outside world with the help of negative media coverage and threats to companies doing business with Tehran,” Rahman Hariri said.

Even though “United Against Nuclear Iran” poses as a nongovernmental organization, its leaders have close links to the White House and the US Congress, and have played a role in Washington’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran.

“Judging by what this organization and its supporters are doing, it looks like they are stoking up anti-Iranian sentiment in the world and undermining the Islamic Republic’s foreign trade, especially after Iran and the P5+1 Group came to a final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program in July 2015,” Hariri noted.

United Against Nuclear Iran is a nonprofit advocacy group that aims to inform the public about the nature of the political regime now existing in Iran, to raise US and global awareness of the threat a nuclear-armed Iran could pose to the world, and to promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures in this direction.

“This means that the organization is opposed to Iran’s nuclear program and is working to economically and politically isolate the Islamic Republic and prevent US companies from doing business with Iran even by using threats against the families of US company employees,” Rahman Hariri said.

They make it look as if Iran is posing a triple threat to the world with the development of its nuclear program, human rights violation and sponsoring international terrorism. Who are the sponsors?

Rahman Hariri said that UANI is sponsored by members of the American-Israeli lobby, including the 100,000-strong American-Israeli Public Relations Committee which spends millions of dollars each a year on its efforts to influence US policy.

The list of other sponsors includes the Gulf states, Western and Asian countries, which have always tried to minimize Iran’s trade and military ties with the outside world and who gained much from the international sanctions imposed on Tehran.

These are also the US Republican Party, the anti-Iranian lobby in the US and the EU, the intelligence agencies of the United States, the European Union and of a number of Arab countries. And also big cartels and major US companies which come out against Iran’s nuclear program in a bid to phase out competition and be the only ones working in the country.

Who is behind UANI? Rahman Hariri said that, first and foremost, these are certain political, military and intelligence organizations in the US, as well as the Republicans and members of the Israeli lobby who are against President Obama’s policy and the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran and the P5+1 signed last year.

Secondly, this is the US government which, contrary to its officially declared policy, is providing covert support to UANI thus discouraging Tehran from implementing the JCPOA.

“UANI is using diplomatic resources available to it to undermine Iran’s positions in the world and is working hard to intimidate US and foreign companies willing to do business with Tehran,” he noted.

He added that in order to effectively neutralize the destructive work done by organizations like UANI the world needed to strengthen international nongovernmental institutions, pursue a policy of relaxation of global tensions and provide an undistorted picture of Iran in the media and in the minds of millions of people around the world.

October 12, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Syria no-fly zone would mean ‘killing a lot of Syrians’ – leaked Clinton speech

RT | October 9, 2016

Amid the increasingly hawkish approach the US government has taken towards the Syrian government, it has been clear for its strategists that a no-fly zone over Syria would mean mass civilian casualties, leaked quotes from a 2013 Hillary Clinton speech have shown.

One of the problems with the no-fly zone, which Western hawks have long insisted should be imposed over Syria, would be the need to “take out” the country’s “very sophisticated” air defenses, Hillary Clinton noted in a Wall Street speech posted by WikiLeaks in the latest trove of classified emails.

“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk— you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians,” Clinton admitted.

She then expressed concern that would make that “intervention that people talk about so glibly” a full-fledged “American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”

WikiLeaks on Friday opened a Pandora’s box of emails leaked from the account of Clinton’s campaign chairman, unleashing thousands of messages with excerpts of her paid speeches for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others in between her job as secretary of state and the current presidential campaign.

Syria proved to be a hot topic for Clinton in 2013. During her speech for Deutsche Bank, she was asked by an audience member whether she would support US airstrike or boots on the ground in Syria, and if there was indisputable evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its people.

“Well, you’ve asked a very, very difficult question,” Clinton replied, “because we obviously talked about this at great length, and both the United States and Europe, as well as Israel, have said that’s a red line. And if there is indisputable evidence, then there is the stated commitment to take action.”

“What that action is and what would work is extremely difficult to plan and execute,” she added.

Clinton asserted the US had some “potential” interests in Syria, the leaked document shows.

“It depends upon how you define national interest. We certainly do with chemical weapons,” she said during her October 2013 speech at the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner.

Clinton then justified Syria being “a national interest” by what she claimed was a possibility of it becoming “a training ground for extremists, a launching pad for attacks on Turkey, Jordan, the non-tetarian[sic] elements in Lebanon and, eventually, even in Israel.”

Another challenge mentioned by Clinton was for the West to “develop covert connections with the Syrian opposition to gain insight,” she said during the 2013 speech to Goldman Sachs.

“So the problem for the US and the Europeans has been from the very beginning: What is it you – who is it you are going to try to arm? And you probably read in the papers my view was we should try to find some of the groups that were there that we thought we could build relationships with and develop some covert connections that might then at least give us some insight into what is going on inside Syria.”

Clinton said she actually favored “more robust, covert action trying to vet, identify, train and arm cadres of rebels” in Syria, adding that things have been “complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons—and pretty indiscriminately.”

Clinton also said she has heard advice about Syria to “let them kill themselves until they get exhausted, and then we’ll figure out how to deal with what the remnants are,” according to another quote from the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner in 2013. She called it “a very hands-off approach.”

While journalists may still be combing through hundreds of the leaked emails, Clinton’s Republican rivals have already used leaks to hit out at her for hiding the transcripts of Wall Street speeches and running a “fraud” campaign.

“With today’s WikiLeaks revelations we are finding out who Hillary Clinton really is, and it’s not hard to see why she fought so hard to keep her transcripts of speeches to Wall Street banks paying her millions of dollars secret,” the Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus said in a statement. “The truth that has been exposed here is that the persona Hillary Clinton has adopted for her campaign is a complete and utter fraud. How can Bernie Sanders and many like-minded Democrats continue to support her candidacy in light of these revelations?”

Meanwhile, on Friday the Obama administration accused Moscow of being behind the hacking of Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers in June.

“Earlier today the US government removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy,” Clinton campaign spokesman Glen Caplin said. “We are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by Julian Assange, who has made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the US allegations “nonsense.”

“This whipping up of emotions regarding ‘Russian hackers’ is used in the US election campaign, and the current [US] administration taking part in this fight is not averse to using dirty tricks,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Saturday in comments posted on the ministry’s website.

“There is no proof whatsoever for such grave accusations,” Ryabkov said. “They are fabricated by those who are now serving an obvious political order in Washington, continuing to whip up unprecedented anti-Russian hysteria,” he added.

October 9, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Boeing casts fresh doubt on Iran deal

Press TV – October 5, 2016

Fresh skepticism springs up about the fate of a deal which Boeing has signed to provide Iran Air with over 80 jetliners after the US aircraft maker says none will be delivered this year.

Since Boeing announced a tentative deal to sell jetliners to Iran in June, US lawmakers have been trying to block it. Under the agreement, Boeing must supply Iran some 80 passenger jets worth $25 billion at price lists.

On Tuesday, Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said while the two sides were making progress on the deal, no deliveries would take place this year.

“We won’t deliver any aircraft under that deal this year – these are deliveries that are a year, two, three downstream,” Muilenburg told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Chicago on future technologies.

Boeing’s deal is similar to another provisional agreement which Iran Air has signed with Airbus to get 118 jetliners from the European aircraft maker.

However, no formal contracts have been signed yet, meaning all of these deals could fail, given the volatile dynamics of the West’s relations with Iran.

Presidential election factor

The tentative deals have already hit a speed bump because major global banks are refusing to handle transactions with Iran for fear of running afoul of US sanctions on the country.

One major roadblock was lifted last month when the US government granted Airbus and Boeing permission to sell aircraft to the Islamic Republic.

Some Iranians, however, believe the US is most likely to put up new hurdles even if it does not scrap the deal entirely.

They are disheartened by what the next presidential elections in the United States might have in store for the patchy relations between Tehran and Washington. Both current US presidential candidates are expected to adopt a much stricter line than President Barack Obama toward Iran.

Another detracting factor which could scupper the deals is opposition from the US Congress.

The US House of Representatives has already passed a motion to block the Boeing deal, with further measures proposed in Congress to bar certain transactions by US financial institutions connected to the export of aircraft.

If the proposed bills to restrict the deal become law, they would also affect other companies’ sales to Iran, including those by Airbus.

Looking for new options

Last month, Iran indicated that it was cutting the Airbus deal by six aircraft and clipping the contract with Boeing by one jet.

Reports also have it that Iran Air has been cooling towards the purchase of 12 A380 superjumbos that were part of the provisional deal.

Iranian airlines, meanwhile, are looking for other options. They have approached smaller aircraft manufacturers which they believe are easier to deal with.

Tentative deals have been signed with France’s ATR and Brazil’s Embraer, while Japan’s Mitsubishi and China’s Comac have held talks with Iranian aviation companies.

Such developments have taken the shine off the deals with Airbus and Boeing – the biggest for Western aviation companies in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

However, neither of the two airline behemoths wants to lose one of the last untapped aviation markets in the world.

On Tuesday, Muilenberg described Iran “significant opportunity for us.”

“And I’m pleased to see that we’re making steady progress,” he said, adding Boeing was “in the final stages of working through the deal structure with our customers in Iran” while also working through the US government licensing process.

October 5, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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