Israeli firms operating in Iraq
Press TV | December 24, 2010
The head of an Iraqi clerical association, Harith al-Dhari, says companies affiliated with the Israeli spy agency Mossad are freely operating all over Iraq.
Al-Dhari, the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, says Israeli companies are particularly concentrated in the countries northern Kurdistan region.
“The companies are directly working with Zionist spy agencies,” said al-Dhari, Iraq’s most influential Sunni cleric and a prominent anti-American figure.
“Israeli companies infiltrating Iraq work under Arabic, English and Turkish names,” he added.
Reports say at least 70 Israeli firms operate in Iraq, using proxy Arab or European companies.
Earlier this year, Syrian customs officials seized several trucks loaded with Israeli goods heading to Iraq.
In 2008, Iraq’s Yaqen News Agency unveiled that more than 55 Israeli companies were working in Iraq under assumed names. The agency added that the Zionist firms operate in a variety of fields, including infrastructure and marketing. It also said that Israel exports more than $300 million in goods to Iraq annually.
The companies, the report said, won contracts for construction projects in Iraq, thanks to help “the US Agency for International Development that oversees the allocation of building contracts in Iraq.”
WIKILEAKS — WHOSE AGENDA?
By Jeff Gates | Intifada Palestine | December 19, 2010
Those tracking the agenda now advancing behind the WikiLeaks façade should check for the undisclosed bias among editors at the four newspapers chosen to select what was leaked. And when it was leaked.
The pro-Israeli bias of The New York Times needs no citations. In London, WikiLeaks releases are overseen by Deputy Editor Ian Katz at The Guardian. What about Le Monde in Paris and Der Spiegel in Berlin?
The tipping point for German media dates to 2003 when Haim Saban purchased ProSiebenSat1, Germany’s second largest media conglomerate. Why this particular acquisition? Because “Germany is critical to Israel” conceded Steve Rattner, Saban’s investment banker—now under indictment in New York for fraud.
Saban’s support was key to putting Angela Merkel in office in 2005. Thus Netanyahu’s comment on November 29th about Germany becoming Israel’s new ‘partner for peace’ in the Middle East—while Tel Aviv collapsed U.S.-sponsored peace talks.
On December 10th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington to announce the end of this latest charade of talks.
Saban has long been close to the Clintons. Ex-President Bill Clinton helped him sell advertising. Though Saban paid for the building now housing the Democratic National Committee, he is doubtless thrilled that Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, a Jewish-Zionist, will take the reins in January as House Majority Leader.
Both political parties are critical to Israel.
Entropy — Again
The collapse of peace talks marked the success of yet another Israeli entropy strategy. When negotiating with Zionists, the relevant question is always: What’s Next From Israel: Entropy or Outrage? Take your pick: perpetual delay or another well-timed provocation. Or both.
In 2007, Saban, a self-described Zionist, acquired control of Univision, the most popular U.S. media outlet for Latinos. As America’s fastest-growing voting bloc, their support is also critical to Israel. This latest acquisition confirms the systematic imbedding of pro-Israeli influence in opinion-shaping domains, including media, think tanks and politics.
Israel is waging war on the U.S. by way of deception. That strategy can only succeed if this war is waged in plain sight by its adept game theory war planners.
Tel Aviv’s agenda requires a critical mass of control over key “in between” domains — between “the mark” (that’s us) and the facts that We The People require for a system of governance reliant on our informed consent.
The modus operandi on display at every turn: displacement of facts with false beliefs.
Thus the role of media, think tanks and pro-Israeli policy-makers in selling Americans on consensus beliefs around Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi uranium from Niger. All were false yet all were widely believed.
The entirety of the phony intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq is traceable to Israeli or pro-Israeli sources. The invasion was marketed to a trusting American public by a mainstream media dominated by those sharing the same undisclosed bias.
In the Information Age, if that’s not treason, what is?
With Friends Like This….
When in human history were fabricated beliefs first deployed to deceive? At the heart of this ancient craft one finds proponents of the oldest of the three “religions of the book” promoting a “Clash” between its two derivatives: Christianity and Islam.
Displacement is the key to this mental and emotional manipulation. Within hours of WikiLeak’s November release of diplomatic cables, peace talks were displaced by renewed talk of war with Iran. WikiLeaks concedes it had those cables since May.
Barack Obama has no better grasp of this long-running treachery than George Bush, Bill Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, Coolidge, Harding or Wilson.
Only with clarity on the common source of this duplicity can a long-deceived global public ensure accountability for the many conflicts engineered by those skilled at pitting two sides against the middle while profiting off the misery of both.
By wielding their influence in key in-between domains, those complicit prey on the good faith of others. We Americans will remain unwitting players in a fabricated drama (The Clash of Civilizations) so long as we believe a narrative sustained in plain sight by those skilled at deception.
To betray, one must first befriend; to deceive, one must first create a relationship of trust. No one can persuade Americans to forfeit their freedom. We must be induced to freely embrace the forces that, step-by-step, displace our freedom. That’s called Zionism.
To restore the true self to self-governance requires that Americans recover enough self-confidence to follow facts wherever they may lead. And trust in themselves enough to act consistent with those facts — despite what those complicit would deceive them to believe.
Our freedom now depends on it.
Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association—How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. See www.criminalstate.com
US House passes anti-Palestine bill
Unless the US Congress takes a tougher line on lobbyists, Israel will continue building settlements on Palestinian land.
MJ Rosenberg | Al-Jazeera | 16 Dec 2010
At last the United States is responding to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s refusal to freeze settlements and re-start negotiations with the Palestinians.
Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, rushed to the House floor with a resolution drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] condemning the Palestinians for publicly suggesting that, in the wake of Netanyahu’s refusal to freeze settlements and negotiate, they will consider a unilateral declaration of statehood.
Congress passed the Berman bill, drafted only this week, on Wednesday. When it comes to pleasing AIPAC, there are simply no limits.
This remains true even though AIPAC is embroiled in an espionage/sex scandal that has it scrambling to find $20m to pay off a former top employee who is threatening to produce documents exposing the lobby.
Washington lobbying
The Berman bill passed overwhelmingly because that is how things work in a city where policy is driven by campaign contributions — and not just on this issue.
The only difference between how AIPAC lobbyists dictate US Middle East policy and pretty much every other major lobby is that AIPAC works to advance the interests of a foreign country.
In other words, comparisons to the National Rifle Association [NRA] would only be applicable if the gun owners that the NRA claims to represent lived in, say, Greece. Oh, and NRA-backed bills usually take longer than a day to get to the House floor.
And here you have the root of the problem. And it is not just an American problem. It is just as much an Israeli problem, a Palestinian problem, and an international problem.
There is only one reason that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations collapsed. It is the power of the “pro-Israel lobby” (led by AIPAC) which prevents the United States from saying publicly what it says privately: that resolution of a conflict which is so damaging to US interests is consistently being blocked by the intransigence of the Netanyahu government and its determination to maintain the occupation.
Unequal power
This is not a situation where responsibility attaches equally to both sides. The Israelis hold all of the disputed territories. Yes, the Palestinians have administrative control of some parts of the West Bank but its authority — and it is very small — derives from the Israelis.
Gaza is controlled by Hamas but it is a reservation or ghetto, not a free entity. Its borders are entirely blocked by the Israelis (and the Egyptians who do whatever Israel demands on their border with Gaza).
It remains under Israeli blockade, lightened only a bit since Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted that the blockade was not necessary for Israel’s security. And then there is Arab East Jerusalem, where the Netanyahu government has expanded efforts to push Palestinians out of their homes and replace them with settlers.
The Palestinians have no power at all although they have done everything that Israel and the United States demanded.
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) fully recognised Israel and pledged itself to fighting terrorism and resorting exclusively to negotiations to achieve a state. They agreed that their state would be limited to the 22 per cent of historic Palestine that is the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — recognising that Israel would have the other 78 per cent.
Even Hamas, which still insists that Israel has no right to be there, says that if the Palestinian Authority negotiates a deal with Israel that is accepted by the Palestinian people, it too will join in and end its war with Israel.
And what has Israel offered in exchange for these historic concessions? Absolutely nothing.
Yes, it has played at negotiations.
Losing Palestine
Israel’s advocates argue that, at Camp David in 2000, it offered the Palestinians 94 per cent of the 22 per cent or 98 per cent or whatever.
Netanyahu’s current offer is 60 per cent of the 22 per cent. But the supposed offer came with the standard conditions and caveats when there should be only one condition. In exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinians must agree to absolute security for Israel with ironclad guarantees backed up with surveillance systems to ensure that there are no violations.
In fact, the Palestinians agreed to those terms as far back as the Yasser Arafat era, when, in the late nineties, Israelis and Palestinians adopted a security plan brokered by the CIA to combat terrorism.
President Arafat’s efforts were so thorough, fighting a virtual civil war with Hamas, that Prime Minister Netanyahu told Arafat both in person and by telephone how much he appreciated Arafat’s help.
But neither Arafat nor his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, got anything in return.
That nothing is easily defined. During the entire 17-year period since the historic Rabin-Arafat agreement — and the famed handshake on the White House lawn — the Israelis never ceased confiscating land and building settlements in the areas that are supposed to constitute the Palestinian state.
That was and is the clearest measure of Israel’s intentions. The Israeli government does not intend to give up territory it wants; it gave up Gaza because it decided that it better served Israeli interests to just blockade it.
Why would Palestinians believe that Israel is negotiating seriously when it keeps building inside the future Palestinian state?
All this is obvious to anyone paying attention — especially since Prime Minister Netanyahu absolutely refused to freeze settlements for even 90 days in exchange for the United States doubling the aid package. Really, if he won’t freeze for 90 days for $3.5bn, only a fool would believe that he would ever actually give up any land permanently.
Marching to Israel’s tune
And yet the United States government keeps playing this game. No matter what Israel does, it is fine by America.
It does not have to be that way. If the administration and Congress put US interests (and Israel’s too) over the craving for campaign contributions, the United States could tell the Israeli government that, from now on, our aid package comes with strings.
Like a loan from the International Monetary Fund (although aid to Israel is a gift, not a loan), the US could say that in exchange for our billions, our UN vetoes of resolutions criticising Israel, and our silence in the face of war crimes like Gaza, we want Israel to end the occupation within, say, 24 months. And Israel would have to comply because our military assistance is, as AIPAC likes to call it, “Israel’s lifeline”.
If we did that, many Israelis would be very angry (just as many would appreciate America forcing an end to the occupation).
But the lobby would be furious because, above all else, it needs to feel that it controls US policy in the Middle East. Not for America’s sake. Not for Israel’s. But for its own. As with most Washington lobbies, it is not in business to make the world a better place. It is not pro-Israel; it is pro-AIPAC.
When will all this change? Who knows?
The AIPAC scandals are weakening the group, although not enough to prevent Congress from passing its latest bill condemning Palestinians. And younger American Jews, especially progressives (which is most of them), simply don’t buy the AIPAC line. American Jews are, after all, Americans.
But, for now, the bottom line is money. The US government dances to Israel’s tune because it is afraid to risk campaign contributions from a few dozen fat cats. That is the whole story.
Meanwhile, as General David Petraeus has said, US interests — including the lives of our men and women in uniform — are threatened by the belief in the Middle East that United States is Israel’s puppet. Petraeus’ view is common throughout the military which, unaffected by politics, manages to actually see the obvious. When will the rest of our government allow itself to do the same?
MJ Rosenberg is a senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
Individuals who profit exceedingly well for “non-profit” organizations
Kenny’s Side Show | December 13, 2010
Haaretz reports on How much do U.S. Jewish leaders make? It is taken from the Jewish Daily Forward’s article that focuses not on some of the excessive salaries but on the disparity between the positions and pay of men and women. Without looking into each and every one, I take it they all are ‘classified’ as non-profits, charities, religious and educational organizations.
The entire chart is here but let’s look at one of them, the Anti-Defamation League and their ‘leader’ Abe Foxman.
Over a half a mil a year is a lot of profit for Foxman for his anti-truth hate speech. The ADL is classified as a not-for-profit organization recognized as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3). What does the IRS say are the requirements?
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates. source
In general, no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying). A 501(c)(3) organization may engage in some lobbying, but too much lobbying activity risks loss of tax-exempt status.
An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation. source
“Some lobbying but not too much?” Who defines that? As a current example, is this the ADL advocating adoption of legislation in disregard to IRS rules?
“We urge the Senate to do its part and to pass the DREAM Act without delay.”
It sure seems as if they are advocating legislation to me. I guess the ADL gets around the rules by just saying yeah we’re lobbying, but not too much. No one in Congress or the IRS is going to call them out on it anyway.
AIPAC is a 501C4 non-profit and they pay their top dog very well for the job of seeing to it that we give Israel billions of dollars each year and fight their wars for them. Something’s very wrong when a nest of spies is classified as a non-profit.
The IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement has filed a 1,389 page complaint demanding that AIPAC’s tax exempt status be retroactively revoked.
They have the details, a rock solid case, but don’t hold your breath on that one.
So check out the chart. If we had the time we could go on and on about most of them. These are not the soup kitchens and charitable groups we tend to think of non-profits as being but propagandists, Israel firsters and agenda driven profiteers. Some could be even be called thieves, sanctioned by the IRS.
Obama’s beginning of the end
By Eric S. Margolis | Khaleej Times | 12 December 2010
In 1956, Britain, France and Israel colluded to invade Egypt to overthrow its hugely popular nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. US President Dwight Eisenhower deemed the tripartite Suez aggression immoral and damaging to American interests in the Muslim world. “Ike” ordered the British, French and Israelis to get out of Egypt at once – or else. They got out.
Fast forward to 2010. President Barack Obama demands Israel stop building illegal Jewish settlements around Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Obama rightly concludes the ongoing agony of Palestine has turned the Muslim world against the United States. It is also the primary cause of what Washington calls “terrorism.”
After the Suez invasion, Israel’s American partisans set about building an influence network that would ensure no American president could ever force Israel to do anything against its will. Their brilliant success was again confirmed this week as Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel’s rightist coalition, literally spit in Obama’s face, sneeringly rejecting the president’s pleas to create a viable Palestinian state. The US Congress and rightwing media actually applauded the public humiliation of their president and vice president. How the mighty have fallen. Obama has shown himself utterly without spine, and terrified of the Israel lobby at a time when his political fortunes are plummeting. The White House understands that America’s vital interests in the Mideast are being increasingly undermined by Israel’s adamant refusal to allow a workable Palestinian state instead of apartheid-style Arab Bantustans.
A triumphant Netanyahu made clear Israel would retain all of Jerusalem, settlement blocks around it, water resources, key roads, the West Bank high ground and the Jordan River valley. In short, “useful Palestine.” The rest, waterless scrub and slums, might be left to the Arabs. Nothing was said about Israel’s illegal occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.
Even Obama’s shameful offer of a multi-billion dollar bribe to Israel of 20 F-35 warplanes and unlimited diplomatic support, in exchange for a flimsy 90-day building freeze, was contemptuously rejected by Netanyahu. He knows the US Congress would give Israel the moon if asked. The US has already given Israel at least $114 billion since its creation in 1947.
What does Obama’s humiliation mean? His chances of being defeated in the next presidential election are growing. Obama’s arch-rival, the pro-Israeli Hillary Clinton, is positioning herself to take over the Democratic Party from Obama.
The US diplomatic, intelligence and military establishment has got the message, loud and clear: don’t mess with Israel. The last US president who tried to restrain Israel’s West Bank colonisation, George H.W. Bush, failed to win re-election; his able secretary of state, James Baker, was slandered as an “anti-Semite.” By caving in to Israel’s hard right over the West Bank, Obama sends a message of profound weakness to the rest of the world. He is signaling that Israel, not the White House, really makes America’s Mideast policy. Israel also increasingly influences US policy towards Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran and North Korea. The humiliated Palestinian Authority is shown as a helpless puppet of the Americans and Israelis, as rival Hamas has long charged.
Obama’s defeat suggests Israel now has “carte blanche” to move ahead and attack Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, Syria, and eventually Iran. In fact, Israel now seems to have the power to plunge the US into war against Iran whenever it decides the time is right and the risk worthwhile.
Since the US has become a helpless giant, it’s up to the rest of the world to end the suffering in Palestine. Brazil and Argentina have taken an important step forward by recognising a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders. The 2002 Saudi peace plan still offers all parties concerned the fairest, most practical road to peace.
The UN General Assembly should again endorse this plan and call for more pressure on Israel. But Netanyahu and his fellow rightwing zealots are determined to hold on to every meter of the West Bank and Golan. Some far rightists want to expand Israel into Lebanon and Syria. Israel’s refusal to compromise over Palestine is at the heart of its increasingly dangerous confrontation with Iran.
Obama’s shameful failure will haunt the world for decades.
Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of “Anti-Terrorism” Law Targeting Activists
By Michael Deutsch | t r u t h o u t | 11 December 2010
In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy “coordinated with” or “under the direction of” a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as “terrorist” was a crime.
The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of providing “material support” through their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC “threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic interests,” a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).
In 1996, Congress made it a crime – then punishable by 10 years, which was later increased to 15 years – to anyone in the US who provides “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization or attempts or conspires to do so.” The present statute defines “material support or resources” as:
… any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or religious materials.
In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which the evidence is heard secretly.
Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law Project’s speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the law since it “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends,” and also helps lend “legitimacy” to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to “intimidate, harass or destruct” its adversaries, and that even peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. Thus, the Court’s opinion criminalizes efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.
The Court distinguishes what it refers to as “independent advocacy,” which it finds is not prohibited by the statute, from “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization,” which is, for the first time, found to be a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating where independent advocacy becomes impermissible coordination is left open and vague.
Seizing on this overbroad definition of “material support,” the US government is now moving in on political groups and activists who are clearly exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by vocally opposing the government’s branding of foreign liberation movements as terrorist and supporting their struggles against US-backed repressive regimes and illegal occupations.
Under the new definition of “material support,” the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other designated groups by The New York Times or The Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs by human rights attorneys arguing against a group’s terrorist designation or the statute itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, the first targets of this draconian expansion of the material support law will not be a former president or the establishment media, but members of a Marxist organization who are vocal opponents of the governments of Israel and Colombia and the US policies supporting these repressive governments.
In his foreword to Nelson Mandela’s recent autobiography “Conversations with Myself,” President Obama wrote that “Mandela’s sacrifice was so great that it called upon people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. … The first time I became politically active was during my college years, when I joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end apartheid in South Africa.” At the time of Mr. Obama’s First Amendment advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as terrorist by the US government. If the “material support” law had been in effect back then, Mr. Obama would have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It is ironic – and the height of hypocrisy – that this same man who speaks with such reverence for Mr. Mandela and recalls his own support for the struggle against apartheid now allows the Justice Department under his command to criminalize similar First Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and repressive foreign governments.
Senate Hawks Push ‘Zero Enrichment’ for Tehran
By Ali Gharib | IPS | December 9, 2010
WASHINGTON – Five senators sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Monday warning the administration not to offer concessions in upcoming talks with Iran over its nuclear programme. If Obama takes the advice, experts say, it could sink his engagement efforts with Tehran.
The letter, first reported by Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin, calls for zero enrichment on Iranian soil as a U.S. pre- condition for any negotiated deal to end Iran’s standoff with the West over its nuclear programme.
“[G]iven the government of Iran’s patterns of deception and noncooperation, its government cannot be permitted to maintain any enrichment or reprocessing activities on its territory for the foreseeable future,” said the letter. “We would strongly oppose any proposal for diplomat endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue these activities in any form.”
But the Iranians have placed a high priority on domestic enrichment, and would likely oppose a deal precluding such activity. Iran denies accusations from the West that eventual weaponisation is the goal of its nuclear programme, which is widely considered a point of Iranian national pride.
Even some U.S.-based non-proliferation experts are questioning the wisdom of taking such a hard line as the senators’ letter.
“There are mixed views in the arms control community,” said Peter Crail, a non-proliferation analyst at the Arms Control Association (ACA). “But there seems to be growing sentiment that if we’re looking at a negotiated solution, ‘zero enrichment’ is not going to be an option.”
“This attempt by congress to bind the administration would kill negotiations,” he added.
Signed by Senators Jon Kyl, Mark Kirk, Kirsten Gillibrand, Robert Casey and Joe Lieberman, with John McCain reportedly later adding his name, the letter also called on Obama to “continue ratcheting up” U.S. and international pressure on Iran.
Iran should be squeezed until it freezes enrichment and passes International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, including submitting to the Additional Protocols, an extended set of safeguards measures, the letter said.
The senators wrote that their positions are “reflective of a consensus among a broad, bipartisan majority in Congress”. Despite Peter Baker of the New York Times’s suggestion that the Senators’ letter was a show of “bipartisan support”, it appeared to instead be a threat of push-back from Congress should Obama pursue a deal that allows any Iranian enrichment.
“[T]he letter makes the point that there will be very strong opposition to any kind of proposal that allows the Iranians to keep some sort of enrichment capability,” an anonymous Senate aide, explaining the “thinking behind the letter”, wrote the Washington Post’s new neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin. “This is an extremely dangerous idea that it is important to knock down.”
But experts think the tack – pressure for strict pre- conditions to talks – could be repeating the same mistakes of recent U.S.-Iran relations, where Iran was further isolated as its nuclear programmes continued.
“This again shows that part of the problem in negotiations has been a lack of political space domestically for both sides,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council and a Woodrow Wilson Center fellow. “Obama realises that in order to get a deal, there needs to be mutual compromises on both sides.”
“What you have now is that some members of Congress are adopting the (President George W.) Bush position, that, ‘No, we’re not going to compromise on anything, It has to be maximalist approach,” Parsi said. “That has caused problems in the past because it makes it impossible to have a real negotiation.”
The senators pressed Obama just as the first two-day round of talks between the P5+1 group, which includes the U.S., were getting underway. Little had been accomplished as the negotiations drew to a close Tuesday, but another round is expected in January. Going into the latest round, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted in an interview in Bahrain that the U.S. might be willing to accept Iranian enrichment.
“They can enrich uranium at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner in accordance with international obligations,” Clinton reportedly told the BBC.
“During the Obama period, there has been some ambiguity about whether (zero enrichment) is the American red line,” said NIAC’s Parsi, pointing to Clinton’s comments. “The position that these lawmakers are taking (in the letter) is identical with the Israeli and Bush red lines, and seems to be at odds with the Obama red line.”
Rumors are already flying that the second round of the latest talks, to be held in Turkey, could see the U.S. offer a deal whereby a fuel swap agreement – involving sending nuclear fuel to Russia for reprocessing – would allow Iran to maintain domestic enrichment.
While Iran says it has a right to domestic enrichment as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Crail of the ACA notes that the treaty only guarantees “a peaceful nuclear programme.”
“In the end, there is an implicit understanding that, yes, countries can enrich,” he said, adding, however, that he prefers that the technology not spread and all nuclear fuel production be internationalised.
But Crail emphasised that Iran, too, must be willing to make some concessions: “According to the NPT, in order for Iran to get all its rights under the NPT, Iran needs to cooperate with international inspections.”
WikiLeaks: Advancing an Israeli Agenda?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | Intifada Palestine | December 11th, 2010
Like 9/11, WikiLeaks has been singularly good for Israel.
Asked on the night of September 11, 2001 what the terrorist attacks meant for U.S.-Israel relations, Benjamin Netanyahu, the then former prime minister, tactlessly but accurately replied, “It’s very good.” And on the day after WikiLeaks’ publication of U.S. diplomatic cables, Netanyahu “strode” into a press conference at the Israeli Journalists Association, looking “undoubtedly delighted” with the group’s latest embarrassment of U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Thanks to WikiLeaks,” Aluf Benn wrote in Haaretz, “there is now no fear Washington will exert heavy pressure on Israel to freeze settlement construction or to accelerate negotiations on a withdrawal from the territories.” Instead, also courtesy of WikiLeaks, the world’s attention had been shifted exactly where a “vindicated” Netanyahu wanted it – toward Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons programme.
“Our region has been hostage to a narrative that is the result of 60 years of propaganda, which paints Israel as the greatest threat,” Netanyahu told the assembled journalists. “In reality leaders understand that that view is bankrupt. For the first time in history there is agreement that Iran is the threat.” While there is considerable dispute about the extent to which Arab leaders share Netanyahu’s understanding of “the Iranian threat,” the Arab public overwhelmingly considers Israel to be a far greater threat.
Nevertheless, according to Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit, Julian Assange “has shattered the accepted dogma on the understanding in the Middle East in the 21st century.” WikiLeaks, crowed Shavit, “proved” that the Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestine was not the main cause of instability in the Middle East. Instead, the secret cables “revealed” that “the entire Arab world” is concerned about “one problem only — Iran, Iran, Iran.” Thus, Shavit concluded, the only way to bring peace to the region was to deal with “Iran first.”
Strangely, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seems to accept the Israeli vision of “war is peace” in the Middle East. In an interview with Time magazine, Assange singled out Netanyahu as an example of a world leader who believed the publication of Arab leaders’ provocative privately expressed comments “will lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran.”
Even more puzzling, Assange had an op-ed piece in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, in which he quoted something the media mogul had written in 1958: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.” In choosing another pro-Israel apologist as a model of transparency, is it possible that Assange is ignorant of the key role played by Murdoch’s media empire in propagating the lies that led the New York Times to dub the war in Iraq “Mr. Murdoch’s War”?
Assange seems equally oblivious to the significant contribution made by the New York Times itself to the war whose conduct he now claims to oppose. On September 8, 2002, the paper of record led with a front-page story by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, which falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy aluminium tubes as part of its “worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb.” As Michael Massing later wrote, “In the following months, the tubes would become a key prop in the administration’s case for war, and the Times played a critical part in legitimizing it.” Chosen by Assange to publish its leaked documents because it is one of “the best newspapers in the world for investigative research,” the pro-Israel Times is now busily spinning the leaks to push America into an equally unnecessary but even more disastrous war with Iran.
Given that the WikiLeaks revelations have been such an unexpected “diplomatic coup” for Israel, its American lobby appears to be strangely divided over the issue. On one side, there are those like David Frum, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Michael Ledeen who delight in being able henceforth to cloak their incessant Iran warmongering behind a specious Arab cover. “Those who suggest that it’s some ‘Israel lobby’ or Jewish cabal that is driving the confrontation with Iran” should be embarrassed by the leaks, writes Frum. “WikiLeaks confirms that the region’s Arab governments express even more anxiety than Israel about the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”
Meanwhile, the most virulent attacks on WikiLeaks have come from some of Israel’s staunchest supporters. William Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard, wants Congress to enable Obama to “Whack WikiLeaks.” Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, appear only too willing to oblige. Both senators have called for the prosecution of Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act. Feinstein is also working with Senator Charles Schumer on media legislation that would allow the prosecution of organizations like WikiLeaks.
How do we reconcile the Israel lobby’s apparently schizophrenic reaction to WikiLeaks? Could it be that Julian Assange has killed two birds for Israel with one document dump?
Thanks to WikiLeaks, the well-publicised remarks of a few Arab leaders provide much-needed cover for pro-Israelis as they relentlessly press America to whack Iran. At the same time, the disclosure of U.S. diplomatic secrets has given the likes of Joe Lieberman another excuse to “kill the internet” — to prevent Americans from ever finding out how they got into such a mess in the Middle East.
But just like 9/11, no matter how much WikiLeaks has benefited Israel, most observers still seem loath to consider the Tel Aviv connection.
Maidhc Ó Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.
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$1.5bn up in smoke: US THAAD missile stockpile dries up defending Israel against Iran
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | July 2, 2025
According to American media, defense news outlets, and independent analysts, the 12-day Israeli military aggression against Iran significantly depleted the US stockpile of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptor missiles.
Citing official sources, American magazine Newsweek reported on Friday that the US transferred a substantial portion of its advanced missile defense capabilities to support the Israeli regime, an effort with questionable results and a critical impact on US strategic reserves.
THAAD, developed by Lockheed Martin arms manufacturing company, is a key component of Israel’s multi-layered air defense architecture. It is designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles, including those launched from Iran and Yemen.
The US-made system is capable of targeting short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, whether inside or outside Earth’s atmosphere.
THAAD uses a “hit-to-kill” method, relying on kinetic energy rather than explosive warheads to destroy incoming threats, intercepting at altitudes of up to 150 km and ranges between 150-200 km.
Operated exclusively by American personnel, the US military maintains eight THAAD batteries with an estimated 350–400 interceptors in total. The eighth battery was activated during the June 20 Israeli aggression against Iran and is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. … continue
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