Egyptian Uprising Overthrows its Zionist Master
By Bob Finch | The Mundi Club | February 21, 2011
Global Strategic Factors
During the cold war period no liberation movement in any third world country was left to its own devices to fulfill the will of the people through the creation of democratic institutions and a more just society. They were continually corrupted by the superpowers seeking to enhance their global strategic interests in pursuit of global political dominion. The soviets generally tended to support secretive revolutionary movements which invariably aimed at creating one party states that would be sympathetic to their interests whilst the Americans, aiming to take over from former colonial powers, sought to install dictators who would promote their interests. It might have been thought that, with the end of the cold war, the days when overarching global strategic factors were able to corrupt domestic struggles for a better society would be long gone but the January 15, 2011 uprising in Egypt confirmed the existence of a new strategic factor. This threatened to stymie Egyptians’ liberation struggle. Although this struggle was eventually successful, the new strategic factor could still end up deterring or delaying the completion of this struggle i.e. the creation of a new constitution and democratic institutions.
Since the second world war, most Arab countries have been run by tyrants who have either been installed by America or have aligned themselves with American interests – even Nasser made overtures to the Americans but was rebuffed. Most of these dictators have enriched themselves, their families and friends, whilst ruthlessly suppressing domestic demands for political reforms and independent foreign policies. Like bank robbers they have stolen whatever riches their economies generated. As a consequence Arab societies have ossified preventing indigenous economic development thereby locking tens of millions into poverty. Since 1979, one of the great turning points in middle eastern history, these dictators have increasingly implemented American/Zionist friendly foreign policies.
At the start of the Egyptian uprising western public opinion responded positively to the mostly young, middle class, people who took to the streets demanding greater political freedoms which many westerners interpreted as western style political institutions.[i] But western politicians and the western media quickly began to oppose Egyptians’ prospects for liberation and their right to bring about a revolutionary foundation of democratic institutions. This opposition was couched in what seemed to be straightforward nationalist terms. ‘Mubarak has ensured stability in Egypt and the middle east and has deterred the rise of both Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.’ ‘He may be a dictator but he’s our ‘son of a bitch’.’ The suggestion here was that it was in the west’s national interests to continue protecting this dictator. In order create doubts about the consequences of the Egyptian protestors’ uprising, western politicians/commentators sought to popularize the fear that it would lead to the rise of an extreme Islamic government hostile to the west. Egypt’s Muslim brotherhood were touted as a major threat to western interests even though it was nothing of the kind.[ii]
The proposition that the Egyptian uprising was against western interests, however, ran counter to the commonly held belief in western states that democracy is important not merely to protect political freedoms, guarantee property rights, and ensure justice, but to give people the opportunity to run and develop their own businesses and thus enhance national economic growth. So, if this belief is valid domestically then it must also be valid globally. It is therefore in the national interests of western states to encourage the widest possible democratic reforms in Egypt, and in all other countries, not merely because this would narcissistically imitate western political principles but because, more mundanely, it would promote Egyptian, and thus global, economic growth. Western companies would have another growing consumer market which would enable them to increase output and profits and thereby boost their own countries’ economy. A comparison between the economies of democratic turkey and dictatorial Egypt suggests that democracy makes a critical difference to the economic development. “… its (Egypt’s) economy is today a quarter the size of Turkey’s (though both countries have populations of similar size).” (Daniel Levy ‘After Mubarak – What Does Israel Do?’ Feb 11, 2011).
It is said that ‘imitation is the greatest form of flattery’ and so the west should have been proud that Egyptian protestors wanted to emulate its humanitarian values, political principles, and prosperity. Surely what westerners want is a thriving Egyptian democracy leading to a thriving economy with which they could freely do business? Surely westerners should have been exhilarated at the prospects of Egypt becoming more westernized?
The Zionist State’s support for Mubarak
The question then is why so many western politicians/commentators insisted that it was in western interests to protect Mubarak and thereby try so intensely to discourage democratic reforms? The critical strategic factor that, once again, was exposed by their attitude was the primary importance they attached to the security of the Jews-only state in Palestine. The all too obvious implication was that it didn’t matter to them what their country’s interests were: all that mattered was protecting the Zionist colonial state.
The Zionist state was virtually the only country in the world, outside of the world of Arab dictators, who disapproved of what the Egyptians were doing. It adamantly insisted that its security interests would be best served by the west continuing to support Mubarak, and other Arab dictators, no matter how much they crushed the will of their people for democratic reforms and nationalistic foreign policies.[iii] This was not unexpected since it has always helped to install and sustain Arab dictators who have pledged their allegiance to Zionist expansionism rather than the welfare of their own people.
Mubarak was a Zionist puppet. He’d helped to establish the Camp David accord which in effect gave the Zionist state the freedom to wage war against the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states. He denounced Hezbollah[iv]; urged the Zionist state to crush Hamas[v]; accused Iran of fomenting an arc of Shi’ite interests in the middle east[vi]; and even encouraged the Jews-only state to bomb Iran[vii]. It has also been alleged that he sold subsidized gas to the Zionist state.[viii] Egypt had once been self sufficient in oil and food but such was the corruption and incompetence of the Mubarak regime that the country was having to import both.[ix] Here was a leader of country which could no longer feed itself and in which tens of millions of people were living in poverty, who was exporting gas at subsidized rates to a far richer country. Quite revealingly, during the uprising, Mubarak poured out his Zionist heart to a Zionist confidante, “a member of the Israeli Knesset, one Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a former cabinet minister who dealt with the Egyptian tyrant during the negotiations that set up the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.” [x]
In the western world, Zionist politicians and Jewish lobbies echoed the Jews-only state’s stance and went into over-drive pressuring western governments into propping up Mubarak and his fellow Arab dictators.[xi] The Zionist owned western media put even more pressure on western politicians to stop sympathizing with Egyptian protestors. No sooner had Netanyahu raised the spectre that ‘Egypt is Iran’ than his minions were diligently spreading the message around the west. “We are watching these events, said Netanyahu, with “vigilance and worry.” The worry is rooted, he said, in the possibility that “in a situation of chaos, an organized Islamist body can seize control of a country. It happened in Iran. It happened in other instances.” No sooner had these words escaped his mouth than Israel’s amen corner in the US and around the world echoed the “Egypt is Iran” meme until it had found its way into nearly every news report, and virtually every public statement by a major politician on the Egyptian events.” (Justin Raimondo ‘It’s Always About Israel. Even when it isn’t…’ February 14, 2011).
It was shocking that in the western world Jewish lobbies and Zionist politicians/commentators were simply regurgitating the Zionist state’s line. It was more shocking to hear supposedly democratic politicians/commentators defending a brutal and corrupt dictator. But what was even more shocking was that they were promoting the interests of a foreign state rather than their own country’s national interests. They were sacrificing their democratic principles and the interests of the country they were living in for the sake of a colonial state that was perpetuating dictators throughout the Arab world. Most shockingly of all, however, was that they seemed entirely comfortable arguing that it was in the interests of democratic states to sustain dictators because they knew that nobody, not even those on the left, would challenge such nonsense and highlight their treachery. Zionist politicians/commentators in America were promoting blatantly un-American policies whilst, similarly, Zionist politicians/commentators throughout the rest of the western world were promoting blatantly anti-western policies, and nobody was challenging them about why they were giving priority to the interests of a foreign state.
There is very little difference between the cold war bogey of ‘reds under the bed’ and Zionists’ transformation of the moderate Muslim Brotherhood into an Islamic bogeyman. Since the formation of the Zionist state, Zionists have fabricated a long list of Islamic bogeymen from Nasser to Saddam Hussein. They have become specialists at conjuring up nightmarish Islamic threats to frighten the west into supporting Zionist interests and it was easy for them to demonize the Muslim Brotherhood given that most westerners knew little about the group. Contrary to Zionists’ accusations, the group was not run by Islamic extremists. It had not triggered the uprising.[xii] And it had not orchestrated the protests.[xiii] What do facts matter to Zionists when they can churn out lies to an ignorant western public which is usually disinterested in anything beyond their Zionist inspired prejudices? Zionist propagandists invented, and popularized, a fear and loathing for the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ to pressure western states into supporting Mubarak solely in order to protect the security of the Zionist state. Western citizens who regurgitated this new strategic bogey were gullible for not understanding that they were undermining their own country’s national interests for the sake of promoting the security of the warmongering colonial state in Palestine.
The Dominance of Zionist Propaganda
This wouldn’t be the first time, however, that extreme Zionist propagandists have managed to manipulate western states into pursuing policies supposedly promoting western interests when in reality all they were doing was undermining such interests for the sake of boosting the security of the Zionist state. This was their great propaganda achievement in provoking the first and second gulf wars. If the Zionist state could invent and then popularize amongst western politicians/media the gigantic fiction that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction then it could easily dupe the west into believing the smaller lie that if it didn’t continue supporting Mubarak then it wouldn’t be long before Egypt was being run by an extreme Islamic government intent on developing nuclear weapons aimed at the western world. After all, the Zionist state had already succeeded in conning the west into believing that Iran poses the same nuclear threat to the west as Saddam was supposed to have done. “Beyond the Arab world, U.S. policy on Iran is dictated more or less totally by Israel.” (Kathleen Christison ‘The US as Israel’s Enabler in the Middle East’ February 16, 2011).
There are, of course, those who would scoff at the idea of Jewish lobbies in the west corrupting western political principles, values, and national interests by trying to turn western public opinion against young, middle class, Egyptian protestors in order to promote the strategic interests of the Jews-only state. There are those who would be scornful of the idea of western Zionist politicians pretending to pursue their country’s national interests whilst in reality undermining such interests for the sake of protecting the Zionist state in Palestine. And there are those who would dismiss the idea that much of the western media is owned, managed, or manned by Zionists whose primary political goal is protecting a foreign state even if this is at the expense of the country in which they are living and working.[xiv] Surely the west cannot be dominated to such an extent by Zionists putting the interests of a foreign state above that of the countries they are supposedly protecting?
The truth of these accusations is all too easy to appreciate when it is considered that the ruling elites throughout the western world have never mentioned that the Jews-only state developed nuclear weapons in the 1960s. It is easy to measure the scale of Zionist domination over the western world by the fact that no politician/commentator has been willing to mention Zionists’ nukes. Even though this has been the most critical factor in middle eastern politics, western politicians/commentators ignore their existence and assiduously formulate policies on the grounds of their non-existence. They prefer to promote fantasies about Saddam’s nuclear weapons, and more recently Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, rather than telling the truth about Zionists all too real nuclear weapons.[xv] What could be further from the west’s national interests than ignoring the threat that Zionists’ nukes pose to the west?
Any visitor from outer space analyzing the views of the west’s mainstream politicians/commentators would be astounded to discover they were promoting foreign policies in the middle east that ran counter to western humanitarian values, political principles, and economic interests. That the west could support the Zionists’ hideous oppression of Palestinians shows that its humanitarian values are vacuous, that its political principles are a sham, and that its economic interests are being undermined because the Palestinians, just like all Arab people being oppressed by Arab dictators, are being denied the right to establish businesses that would promote economic growth both nationally and globally. The west’s support for Zionist colonialism and Zionist domination over the middle east is shameful, grossly undemocratic, and counter to its economic interests.[xvi]
Hypothetically speaking, it was a fortunate that in 1948 Zionists didn’t create a Zionist state in the centre of Europe, perhaps in place of Switzerland. If they had they would have inflicted on westerners the same miseries they have inflicted on Arabs. They would have created Zionist quisling dictatorships across the continent to defend their interests. European countries would have found themselves as impoverished as those in the Arab world. America would also be poorer without its current vast trade with Europe. Zionist politicians would have spent the next half century undermining the idea of neighbouring countries establishing democracies because of the threat they would supposedly pose to the security of the Zionist state. They would have denounced European patriots seeking to liberate their country from Zionist dictators as terrorists. Of course, on the bright side, if the Zionist state had been founded in central Europe, then the Islamic world from Morocco through to Tajikistan would now be almost totally democratic and economically booming.[xvii] But, then again, Zionist lobbies would have doubtlessly infiltrated these wealthy Arab democracies and sought to develop an ideological alliance with them, based on a pseudo Judeo-Arabic civilization, invoking Europhobia in order to win their support for propping up quisling Zionist dictatorships across the European continent. It has to be suspected, however, that these rich Arab democracies wouldn’t have been so gullible as to believe that it was in their economic and political interests to perpetuate fabulously wealthy, European dictators ransacking their impoverished economies. The Zionist state is a black hole decimating democratic aspirations and economic opportunities in surrounding countries in order to preserve its economic and military supremacy.
What was so marvelous about the Egyptians’ uprising was not merely the overthrow of a tyrant, but the overthrow of a Zionist puppet who’d been imposed upon them by the Zionist state and its gigantic American satellite. It was also the western public’s refusal to be manipulated by Zionists’ propaganda onslaught against the uprising. Many ordinary people continued to sympathize with the Egyptian protestors despite Zionist politicians/editors/commentators and Jewish lobbies doing their best to provoke yet another wave of Islamophobia. The efforts of the west’s Zionist leaders to insist that western governments should continue propping up Mubarak, and thereby keep sacrificing the lives of tens of millions of Egyptians, was a revolting example of naked Zionist self-interest. Fortunately, the more determined that protestors in Egypt became to rid themselves of a Zionist tyrant, the more the western public sympathized with their aspirations, the more revolting these reactionary Zionists politicians/commentators/lobbyists appeared to become.
Yet again the Zionists in the western world showed themselves to be a bunch of reactionary traitors who not merely supported a tyrant at the expense of people wanting democratic institutions but who were willing to sacrifice the interests of the countries they were living and working in for the sake of their beloved Zionist state. Western Zionists in politics and the media constantly denounce western Moslems for their alleged dual loyalties but the uprising in Egypt revealed that the Zionists themselves have no such duality: they are devoted to the interests of a foreign state.
During the Egyptian uprising, it cannot be said, however, that all western politicians were total shills to the Zionist cause. President Obama initially supported the uprising but was quickly forced to recant under pressure from the Zionist think tanks dug in on the lawns of the white house. He sent a personal envoy to the Pharaoh, supposedly to have a chat about him taking early retirement but, after the meeting, the envoy publicly announced that Mubarak should stay in office. “After turning against Mubarak, he suddenly opined that he must stay in power, in order to carry out democratic reforms. As his representative he sent to Egypt a retired diplomat whose current employer is a law firm that represents the Mubarak family (much as Bill Clinton used to send committed Jewish Zionists to “mediate” between Israel and the Palestinians).” (Uri Avnery ‘Tsunami in Egypt’ February 14, 2011).
However, Obama would not be beaten into submission by Zionist politicians/media/lobbies. On the morning of Thursday February 10, 2011, it was reported that Mubarak would announce his retirement that evening. Obama couldn’t hide his jubilation even though he knew this would provoke Zionist scorn and, sooner or later, revenge. When Mubarak finally resigned who could doubt the adoration Obama heaped upon the Egyptian protestors? His speech outlined with crystal clarity the best of western political principles and values. Those who opposed Egypt’s western style protestors were nothing less than un-American and anti-western traitors. It was all too symbolic that after his enforced resignation Mubarak moved to a part of Egypt which is as close to the Zionist state as he could get without actually leaving the country. Clearly he feared that if the Egyptian people launched a violent uprising which threatened his life and that of his family, then their safe haven would be only a few miles away.[xviii] Doubtlessly the Zionist state would have welcomed into its midst yet another criminal with vast amounts of wealth just as it had done with Robert Maxwell and the Russian oligarchs not to mention a few American-Jews who’d fled there to escape justice in America.
There were two factors that might have persuaded Mubarak to stay on in power albeit, in the end, only for less than 24 hours. Firstly, Ehud Barack, the Zionists’ defence minister, flew to Washington to denounce the Obama administration for showing concern for the aspirations of Egyptian protestors when it should have supported Mubarak in crushing the uprising – doubtlessly with the same ferocity the Zionist state uses in crushing Palestinian protests.[xix] Secondly, the Saudi leader, fearing an uprising in his own personal fiefdom, offered to fund Mubarak’s armed forces if the Obama administration ever decided to withdraw its annual funding for the Egyptian military.[xx] These dramatic interventions must have convinced Mubarak he still had enough international support to survive.
The State of Global Politics
So what does the Egyptian uprising indicate about the state of global politics? America is commonly recognized as the only remaining superpower. Some commentators go much further and refer to it as an American empire. But most American politicians couldn’t muster the political power to celebrate Egyptians’ democratic protests because of the pressure being exerted on them by the Zionist state and its vastly wealthy allies in America. When American politicians turned their backs on people who seemed to be trying to replicate American values and democratic institutions this suggests there are profoundly suspicious factors at work. The reality is that America’s ruling elite consists substantially of Zionists who care more about the Zionist state in Palestine than they do about America or American democracy and that they are willing to use American military power to promote that foreign state no matter how much it undermines America’s military capabilities or the country’s financial resources and political prestige around the world.
Since the end of the cold war, the key global strategic criterion guiding the west’s formulation of political policies has increasingly become whether these policies enhance or detract from the security of the Zionist state in Palestine.[xxi] Whether this political phenomenon can be categorized as a global Zionist empire or Zionist world domination is open to debate but when the west goes out of its way to prop up a tiny, virulently aggressive, illegal, colonial state with no raw resources and a tiny population of 6 million, and thereby alienates a multiplicity of Arab/Islamic countries with vast quantities of natural resources and a combined population of hundreds of millions, it has to be one or the other.
Over the last sixty years, the Zionist state has heaped a flood of humiliations upon American presidents and politicians. These are humiliations that the powerful inflict on the powerless, not the pin pricks that satellite states occasionally inflict on their colonial masters. No American president has dared to criticize let alone insult political leaders in the Zionist state but Zionist politicians insult American presidents with impunity because they know that America’s Zionist lobby is powerful enough to prevent American presidents from seeking revenge.
It doesn’t matter what shameful, disgusting, or downright criminal, acts the Zionist state carries out whether this might be starving Palestinians into submission, denying them medical supplies, slaughtering innocent people, or even attacking American military ships such as the U.S.S. liberty, American politicians cheer it on and protect it in the united nations. There is no barbarism carried out by the Zionist state that American politicians have not slavishly defended to their utmost. There is no limit to the amount of hatred they are willing to suffer for the sake of by defending the barbarity of the Zionist state. The Zionist state beats its American dog whenever it wants and the poor dog’s inbred loyalty just keeps leading it back to its master for more abuse and punishment. It is a testimony to the Zionist domination in America, that the Zionist state can repeatedly humiliate American presidents and yet the American public shows no sense of patriotic anger about it.
Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the boomerang effect’ when colonial/imperial powers suffered ethically, financially, politically, and militarily, because of the appalling activities of their colonists/imperialists in foreign countries. America has suffered considerably, militarily, financially, and in terms of its political reputation, for its contribution to the growth of the Zionist empire – the holding of American hostages during the first Islamic revolution in Iran, the wars against Saddam Hussein, the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan. And yet still the American dog faithfully serves its master.
Another, even more stark indicator that America is a gigantic satellite of the Zionist state is that no American president has been able to limit, let alone withdraw, what are frequently referred to as subsidies to the Zionist state in order to punish it for its misdeeds. The reason for this is that these are not subsidies but tribute payments. Satellites are supposed to make tribute payments to their colonial/imperial powers, not vice versa and this is precisely what is happening when America hands over vast sums of money to the Zionist state which it then uses in whatever way it thinks fit even if it embarrasses America.
Even more critical for appreciating America’s subservient role to the Zionist master is that America has no influence over the Zionist state’s domestic policies especially those affecting the Palestinians. Indeed, it could be argued the Zionist state has more influence over America’s domestic policies than the reverse. And the same is true in terms of foreign policies. America has little control over Zionists’ foreign policies but Zionists have a critical influence over America’s foreign policies. America’s foreign policies are being determined by its so-called satellite across an ever increasing area of the world not merely the middle east nor even the greater middle east but the entire Moslem world. “… Israel is at the center of virtually every move the United States makes in the region.” (Kathleen Christison ‘The US as Israel’s Enabler in the Middle East’ February 16, 2011). [xxii]
Prospects for Democracy in Egypt
The prospects for democracy in Egypt do not look good but, then again, just a few months ago the prospects for overthrowing Mubarak seemed non-existent.[xxiii] The Egyptian uprising seemed to be an entirely modern, high tech, liberation brought about with the aid of mobile phones and social networking websites. Such websites are notorious for organizing spontaneous, one-off, anarchic, street parties so whether they are suitable for formulating a revolution has yet to be seen. However, the protests seemed so highly co-ordinated and tactically astute, successfully managing to maintain the momentum of the protests despite the efforts made to counter them, that this bodes well for the next, much more difficult, stage of founding democratic institutions.[xxiv]
Although social networking websites creep into the public domain the Egyptian protestors seemed to be able to organize themselves either without the authorities and international secret agencies being aware of what they were doing or, if the authorities were aware, of being unable to counter what the protestors were doing. [xxv] Little is known about the protestors or what motivated them. Western commentators are only now beginning to ascertain such motivations. “It’s fair to say that at this stage the Egyptian street keeps close to its heart those that supported it, from al-Jazeera and assorted Arab nationalists to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And knows very well those that despised it – from the House of Saud and assorted Wahhabi extremists to Israel. No one will forget that Saudi King Abdullah accused the street of “meddling in the security and stability of Arab and Muslim Egypt”.” (Pepe Escobar ‘Under the (Egyptian) volcano’ February 15, 2011).
Having been so successful in liberating themselves, it is to be hoped they can take the next revolutionary step. Whether they will be able to do so is difficult to assess especially since the protestors relinquished their main political leverage, the occupation of Tahrir square, within days of the pharaoh’s overthrow. It has to be suspected that the egyptian army will be reluctant to stop issuing communiqués. “There’s no way a new Egypt may be born without overthrowing this whole system. Ergo, the street has to take on the army. Expect major fireworks ahead. Forget about the army swiftly handing over power to a civilian-led interim government.” (Pepe Escobar ‘Under the (Egyptian) volcano’ February 15, 2011).
However, Egypt’s protestors face an even more insidious enemy than the Egyptian army – the Zionist state and its global allies who will pressure the army to stay in power. The Zionist state will do its utmost to restore another Zionist quisling as dictator. The Zionists may have been thrown off guard by the spontaneity of Egypt’s struggle for liberation but they are not going to allow the much longer, and far more complex, process of establishing democracy to proceed without doing their best to manipulate events in order to restore their power. Watch out for fabrications such as ‘Iraqi soldiers bayonet babies in incubators’.
In a future democracy, Egyptians may wish to change or abandon the Camp David accords. They may refuse to continue supporting the siege of Gaza, the continuing war crimes against the Palestinian people, and the Zionist colonization of Palestine. They may refuse Zionist ships passage through the Suez canal,[xxvi] and stop subsidizing gas exports to the Zionist state.[xxvii] They may oppose Zionist wars against its neighbours and its regional supremacy.[xxviii] They will want to develop new, independent, foreign policies. Such policy changes would be unacceptable to the Zionist state but there may be even worse to follow, the Egyptian people will invariably demand precisely what westerners have and what the Iranian people have now also: nuclear energy. This will almost certainly lead to demands for the acquisition of nuclear weapons to ensure their military defence and bring about a less unbalanced military situation in the middle east.
Although such changes in Egypt may not be in the least bit detrimental to the long term interests of the Zionist state, they would certainly be perceived as anathema by the current bunch of warmongers occupying Palestine. From the perspective of the warmongering Zionist state it would lose too much for it to allow democratic reforms in Egypt especially if this might lead to the country acquiring nuclear weapons. They will deem it imperative to scupper any move to democracy in favour of restoring a Zionist quisling who would once again put Zionist interests before those of the Egyptian people.
The west’s values, political principles, and national interests, would be best served through the creation of a democratic Egypt similar to that in turkey. Its primary strategic concern would be the Suez canal but given the Egyptians’ open attitude to the west this shouldn’t be a problem. The west doesn’t have to fear Egypt’s development of an independent foreign policy – only those suffering from Zionist paranoia would fear the worst.[xxix] But given Zionist domination of America’s political system, Zionist propagandists will doubtlessly terrify American politicians and the American public by conjuring up even more fantastic Islamic bogeymen in Egypt. The foundation of freedom in Egypt is thus a test of Zionist world domination. Zionists may have lost out because of the Egyptian uprising, and the refusal of a significant part of western public opinion to denounce Egyptian freedom fighters, but they will certainly try to restore their dominance.
After the second world war, the cold war became the primary global political preoccupation. The foundation of the Zionist state was a relatively insignificant issue in the worldwide competition for global supremacy. But during this time the Zionists’ military successes led them install pliant Arab dictators and to use Islamophobia to whip up opposition against Palestinian freedom fighters and hostile Moslem states across the African-Asian continents. After the demise of the cold war, the west’s Zionist ruling elites, its Zionist owned media, and its Zionist lobbies succeeded in pressuring western politicians into adopting their Islamophobia. Western political leaders increasingly see Zionist colonialism as their own cause. Zionists’ achievement of manipulating the west, and the rest of the world including Russia and China who also have their Islamic minorities who object to their second class status, into adopting the Zionist creed is the most blatant manifestation of Zionist global dominion. After the demise of the Russian empire, many commentators in the west wondered what the next global conflict would be since both superpowers seemed to rely on a cold war conflict to keep their military-industrial complexes in profit and an ideology that unified their peoples. Many thought it might be china or Asian tigers. The Zionists have successfully conned the west into supporting Zionism against fictitious Islamic bogeymen. The best way that people in the west can help Egyptian protestors to defeat their adversaries i.e. the Egyptian army and Zionist colonialists, is to challenge Zionist dominance at home.
February 22, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
UN vetoes for Israel
From WikiSpooks
The following table lists vetoes cast on proposed UN Security Council resolutions critical of the State of Israel since 1972. These are cases where there has been a single NO vote by just one of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council who alone have the power of veto over its resolutions. In every single case, the veto has been wielded by the USA. One or more of the other Permanent Members have occasionally abstained.
The USA, acting alone, has used its UN Security Council veto in support of Israel on 42 occasions since 1972
This table shows these resolutions up to, and including, the one vetoed on 18 February 2011 which was supposedly written to be in exact aligment with the US’s stated position on Israeli settlements.
| Resolution subject | Number | Date | For-Veto-Abstain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palestine: Syrian-Lebanese Complaint. 3 power draft resolution | S/10784 | 10 Sep 1972 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Palestine: Examination of Middle East Situation. 8-power draft resolution | S/10974 | 2 Jul 1973 | 13 – 1 – 0 |
| Palestine: Egyptian-Lebanese Complaint. 5-power draft power resolution | S/11898 | 8 Dec 1975 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Palestine: Middle East Problem, including Palestinian question. 6-power draft resolution | S/11940 | 26 Jan 1976 | 9 – 1 – 3 |
| Palestine: Situation in Occupied Arab Territories. 5-power draft resolution | S/12022 | 25 Mar 1976 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Palestine: Report on Committee on Rights of Palestinian People. 4-power draft resolution | S/12119 | 29 Jun 1976 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| Palestine: Palestinian Rights. Tunisian draft resolution | S/13911 | 30 April 1980 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| Palestine: Golan Heights. Jordan draft resolution | S/14832 | 20 Jan 1982 | 9 – 1 – 5 |
| Palestine: Situation in Occupied Territories, Jordan draft resolution | S/14943 | 2 Apr 1982 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Palestine: Incident at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. 4-power draft resolution | S/14985 | 20 Apr 1982 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Palestine: Conflict in Lebanon. Spain draft resolution | S/15185 | 8 Jun 1982 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Palestine: Conflict in Lebanon. France draft resolution | S/15255 | 26 Jun 1982 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Palestine: Conflict in Lebanon. USSR draft resolution | S/15347 | 6 Aug 1982 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| Palestine: Situation in Occupied Territories, 20-power draft resolution | S/15895 | 1 Aug 1983 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| S. Lebanon: Condemns Israeli action in southern Lebanon | S/16732 | 6 Sep 1984 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Occupied Territories: Deplores “repressive measures” by Israel against Arab population | S/17459 | 13 Sep 1985 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| Lebanon: Condemns Israeli practices against civilians in southern Lebanon | S/17000 | 12 Mar 1985 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| Occupied Territories: Calls upon Israel to respect Muslim holy places | S/17769 | 30 Jan 1986 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Lebanon: Condemns Israeli practices against civilians in southern Lebanon | S/17730 | 17 Jan 1986 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| Libya/Israel: Condemns Israeli interception of Libyan plane | S/17796 | 6 Feb 1986 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| Lebanon: Draft strongly deplored repeated Israeli attacks against Lebanese territory and other measures and practices against the civilian population | S/19434 | 18 Jan 1988 | 13 – 1 – 1 |
| Lebanon: Draft condemned recent invasion by Israeli forces of Southern Lebanon and repeated a call for the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Lebanese territory | S/19868 | 10 May 1988 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Lebanon: Draft strongly deplored the recent Israeli attack against Lebanese territory on 9 December 1988 | S/20322 | 14 Dec 1988 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: Draft called on Israel to accept de jure applicability of the 4th Geneva Convention | S/19466 | 29 Jan 1988 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: Draft urged Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention, rescind the order to deport Palestinian civilians, and condemned policies and practices of Israel that violate the human rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories | S/19780 | 14 Apr 1988 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: Strongly deplored Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories, and strongly deplored also Israel’s continued disregard of relevant Security Council decisions. | S/20463 | 17 Feb 1989 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: Condemned Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories | S/20677 | 9 Jun 1989 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: Deplored Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied territories | S/20945 | 7 Nov 1989 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Occupied territories: NAM draft resolution to create a commission and send three security council members to Rishon Lezion, where an Israeli gunmen shot down seven Palestinian workers. | S/21326 | 31 May 1990 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Middle East: Confirms that the expropriation of land by Israel in East Jerusalem is invalid and in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions and provisions of the Fourth Geneva convention; expresses support of peace process, including the Declaration of Principles of 9/13/1993 | S/1995/394 | 17 May 1995 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Middle East: Calling upon Israel to refrain from East Jerusalem settlement activites | S/1997/199 | 7 Mar 1997 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Middle East: Demands that Israel cease construction of the settlement in east Jerusalem (called Jabal Abu Ghneim by the Palestinians and Har Homa by Israel), as well as all the other Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories | S/1997/241 | 21 Mar 1997 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
| Call for UN Observers Force in West Bank, Gaza | S/2001/270 | 27 Mar 2001 | 9 – 1 – 4 |
| Condemned acts of terror, demanded an end to violence and the establishment of a monitoring mechanism to bring in observers. | S/2001/1199 | 14 Dec 2001 | 12 – 1 – 2 |
| On the killing by Israeli forces of several UN employees and the destruction of the World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse | S/2002/1385 | 19 Dec 2002 | 12 – 1 – 2 |
| Demand that Israel halt threats to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat | S/2003/891 | 16 Sep 2003 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| Seeks to bar Israel from extending security fence | S/2003/980 | 14 Oct 2003 | 12 – 1 – 2 |
| on the condemnation of the killing of Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas | S/2004/240 | 25 Mar 2004 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| On the demand to Israel to halt all military operations in northern Gaza and withdraw from the area. | S/2004/783 | 5 Oct 2004 | 11 – 1 – 3 |
| On the demand for the unconditional release of an Israeli soldier captured earlier as well as Israel’s immediate withdrawal from Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinian officials detained by Israel. | S/2006/508 | 13 Jul 2006 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| On the Israeli military operations in Gaza, the Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, the call for immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a cessation of violence from both parties in the conflict. | S/2006/878 | 11 Nov 2006 | 10 – 1 – 4 |
| That “Israel, as the occupying power, immediately and completely ceases all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and that it fully respect its legal obligations in this regard” | S/xxxxxxx | 18 Feb 2011 | 14 – 1 – 0 |
February 22, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Steve Walt: Time to start thinking beyond ‘impossible’ two state solution
By Philip Weiss on February 21, 2011
Glenn Greenwald describes the sad tidings from New York– and acknowledges that the Israel lobby effected Obama’s first veto in the UN Security Council. Note that he uses the language of national interests:
at one of the most critical times in that region in more than a century, the U.S. openly subverts the world consensus to protect the Israelis from censure over blatantly illegal acts — all to avoid angering “its supporters” in the U.S.
Remember, though: talking about the power of the Israel Lobby and the way it causes the U.S. to sacrifice its own interests for this foreign country is strictly prohibited and a sure sign of deep malice. And the only possible reason why Muslims in that region might harbor hostility toward the U.S. is because of primitive, crazed religious fanaticism and a contempt for Our Freedoms.
Steve Walt also talks about the Israel lobby, of course, but gets to the point about two states. Excerpts:
Thus far, all that Obama’s Middle East team has managed to do in two years is to further undermine U.S. credibility as a potential mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and to dash the early hopes that the United States was serious about “two states for two peoples.” And while Obama, Mitchell, Clinton, Ross, and the rest of the team have floundered, the Netanyahu government has continued to evict Palestinian residents from their homes, its bulldozers and construction crews continuing to seize more and more of the land on which the Palestinians hoped to create a state.
Needless to say, the United States is all by its lonesome on this issue. …
As [many] commentators recognize, the real reason for Obama’s misguided decision was the profound influence of the Israel lobby. Indeed, few observers have missed this simple and obvious fact. One can only conclude that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s repeated claims that they are “friends of Israel” and devoted to its security are nothing more than empty, politically expedient rhetoric. Whatever they may say, the policies they are pursuing — including this latest veto — are in fact harmful to Israel’s long-term future. The man who declared in Cairo on June 4, 2009 that a two-state solution was “in the “Israel’s interest, the Palestinians’ interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest” must have changed his mind, because his actions ever since have merely hastened the moment when creating two viable states will be impossible (if that is not already the case). Then remember what former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2007, “if the two-state solution fails, Israel will face a South African style struggle for political rights.” And “once that happens,” he warned, “the state of Israel is finished.”…
If the United States hopes to be on the right side of history, it is time to start thinking about what its policy should be when everybody finally acknowledges that “two states for two peoples” is no longer a practical possibility. This is going to happen sooner or later, and anyone who is still advocating for a two-state solution at that point is going to sound like an ignorant fool. Not because of the flaws in that option, but simply because it will be impossible to implement. What alternative solution will the president and secretary of state support then? Ethnic cleansing? A binational, liberal democracy in which all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine have equal civil and political rights? Or permanent apartheid, in the form of disconnected Palestinian Bantustans under de facto Israeli control?
February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Craven US veto costs Washington its last shred of credibility
By Stuart Littlewood | Redress | 22 February 2011
Hang your head in shame, O Peace Prize laureate.
The Nobel award, said Barack Obama at the time, was “an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations” and must be shared with everyone who strives for “justice and dignity”. Where was the justice and dignity in the sad story of America’s UN veto?
Having blocked the United Nations Security Council draft resolution on 18 February, which would have condemned Israeli squatter colonies as illegal, Obama has now written America completely out of the script on Middle East peace.
Many will see it as a blessing that the US has so spectacularly disqualified itself from serious discussion, and that Obama has finally lifted the scales from the eyes of all those who unwisely invested high hopes in him.
Netanyahu’s office was cock-a-hoop and said Israel was “deeply grateful” to be let off the hook and being rewarded for the delinquent promises to be a good boy and “pursue negotiations vigorously” with the Palestinians. The US veto made it clear that “the only path to such a peace will come through direct negotiations and not through the decisions of international bodies”.
Some people will do anything to stop the United Nations getting a grip on the crisis. It would be more than a tad inconvenient to the crazed Greater Israel project. No doubt the champagne corks were popping in the US-Israeli Combined Operations headquarters as the Zionists danced late into the night to celebrate their victory.
The resolution, besides condemning the continuation of settlement activities and other measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the occupied Palestinian territories, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions, demanded that Israel cease forthwith and fully respect all of its legal obligations in that regard.
The US argued that although it opposes Israeli settlements, taking the issue to the UN would only complicate efforts to resume stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution. Why that should be the case wasn’t explained. Nor was the reason why negotiations should be restarted in the teeth of Israel’s uncompromising territorial objectives and clear dislike of peace.
It seems, from what US ambassador Susan Rice says, that craven Washington cannot bring itself to call Israel’s settlements on stolen Palestinian land what they really are – illegal – and is only prepared to label them “illegitimate”, presumably in case the correct term ruffles too many Israel lobby feathers.
Falling back onto the administration’s familiar double-speak, Rice explained that the veto “should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity” but the US thinks it “unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians”.
In other words, the United States would much prefer to have the Israel-Palestine question resolved by arm-twisting behind closed doors, in the guise of “direct talks”, than let the Security Council intervene with another binding resolution.
This latest resolution had nearly 120 co-sponsors and the other 14 Security Council members all voted in favour. There are reports that Washington earlier threatened to slash aid to the Palestinian Authority if it wasn’t withdrawn, as if to remove any lingering doubt as to the crooked purpose of America’s meddling. When this failed the US, as one of the five permanent council members with blocking power, struck it down.
In doing so, the United States has advertised itself to the whole wide world as the willing tool of Zionist ambition and branded itself an enemy of Palestine and of all other countries threatened by the Israeli regime.
Sucked into the swamp of “direct negotiations”
Right on cue, British Foreign Secretary William Hague chimed in with some carefully-crafted balderdash:
I have made clear my serious concern about the current stalemate in the Middle East peace process. Today the UK voted with others, including France and Germany, to reinforce this and our longstanding view that settlements, including in East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace and constitute a threat to a two-state solution…
He started well but quickly showed his eagerness to be sucked down by the US and Israel into the swamp of direct negotiations.
I call on both parties to return as soon as possible to direct negotiations towards a two-state solution, on the basis of clear parameters…
- An agreement on the borders of the two states, based on 4 June 1967 lines with equivalent land swaps as may be agreed between the parties.
- Security arrangements that, for Palestinians, respect their sovereignty and show that the occupation is over; and, for Israelis, protect their security, prevent the resurgence of terrorism and deal effectively with new and emerging threats.
- A just, fair and agreed solution to the refugee question.
- Fulfillment of the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem. A way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states.
Just pause there, please, Mr Hague. First, if a state is doing something that’s illegal and an obstacle to peace, and won’t stop when asked, it surely becomes the responsibility of international community and its law courts, and especially the United Nations, to sort it out. The victim can hardly be expected to NEGOTIATE an end to it.
Secondly, why are Israel’s accumulated crimes now deemed negotiable when the issues were long ago determined by the UN and by international law and still wait to be implemented? Not once do you mention delivering that long-awaited justice. Instead you are obsessed with endless, unequal negotiations that are dishonestly convened and favour a very strong party that literally holds a gun to the weak party’s head.
And always the talk is of security for the Israelis rather than the Palestinians. You mention security arrangements to “prevent the resurgence of terrorism and deal effectively with new and emerging threats” against Israel. I don’t hear you pressing for equivalent arrangements to prevent Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians.
Mr Hague says:
We therefore look to both parties to return to negotiations as soon as possible on this basis. Our goal remains an agreement on all final status issues and the welcoming of Palestine as a full member by September 2011. We will contribute to achieving this goal in any and every way that we can.
What has the British government done over the years to pave the way towards Palestinian statehood, Mr Hague? Now you’re in an all-fired hurry to rush it through in six months but still unwilling to act positively to establish any likelihood of a JUST solution.
According to Mr Hague:
We understand Israel’s deep and justified security concerns. As friends of Israel, we share those concerns, and will strive with Israel to preserve her security and the stability of the region around her. It is precisely because of those concerns that we vote today in favour of this resolution.
And not for the key reason that the settlements are illegal and moving Israeli squatters onto occupied territory seriously breaches the Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime? Is that not of sufficient concern for you to say so loudly and clearly?
For Mr Hague:
We regret anything which sets back the prospects for peace because we believe it also sets back Israel’s security.
There you go again – this slavish attachment to Israel’s security above all else. How can Britain be seen as an honest broker any more than the Zionist lackeys of the US administration?
The fact is, Mr Hague, the country you represent does not regard itself particularly as a friends of Israel and is not interested in preserving Israel’s security at the expense of its neighbours. It certainly doesn’t wish to be thought of as an enemy of Palestine just to appease your funny friends in Tel Aviv and Washington.
February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Egypt-Israel “peace treaty” brought more war than peace
By Richard Irvine, The Electronic Intifada, 21 February 2011
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Without its ally Hosni Mubarak in power in Egypt, Israel will have to think twice before it wages attacks in the region. (Pete Souza/White House Photo) |
As the Egyptian revolution approached its climax the first priority of Israel and the West was that the so-called cornerstone of Middle East peace and security remain in place — the much-fabled 1979 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated the almost sacred truth that the “longstanding peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has greatly contributed to both countries and is the cornerstone for peace and stability in the entire Middle East.” Going further, military expert Amos Harel warned that any break in the treaty could have dire consequences for Israel and so consequently the Egyptian revolution represented “a nightmare to Israeli intelligence leaders and planners” (Cairo Tremors Will Be Felt Here, Haaretz, 30 January 2011).
This certainly would be understandable if an Egyptian abrogation of the treaty would be likely to lead to war, or if Israel had implemented the peace accords in good faith. The truth however is that Israel absolutely ignored its obligations under Part 1 of the treaty — to allow representative self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip leading to independence — while using the sure knowledge of Egypt’s neutrality to launch a series of devastating wars. Indeed, when one looks at the historical record there can surely be few treaties that have brought so little peace and so much war.
That Israel always viewed the Camp David Accords as a blank check is evident both in its behavior and in Western and Israeli commentators’ fears that the abrogation of the treaty might mean Israel will have to curtail its military interventions.
Writing in Israel’s Haaretz on 14 February, Aluf Benn declared, “Israel will find it difficult to take action far to the east when it cannot rely on the tacit agreement to its actions on its western border. Without Mubarak there is no Israeli attack on Iran.” Thus Benn concludes that Mubarak’s departure has actually prevented a new Israeli war.
Certainly Israel has used the absence of any significant Arab counterweight to pursue policies that have either repeatedly brought war, or in the case of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, presented “serious obstruction[s] to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East” as UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 478 put it.
What is evident from the record is that Israel wasted no time putting the treaty to the test. In 1980 it illegally annexed East Jerusalem, and the following year the Syrian Golan Heights. In 1981 it launched an illegal attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor.
More significantly Israel also used the accords as a means to continue the destruction and dispossession of Palestinian society. Under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who won the Nobel Peace Prize with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israel developed a twin track approach with regard to the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip: a collaborationist “village league” form of governance was established, although due to Palestinian resistance it failed to take root, while simultaneously the number of illegal colonists in the West Bank and Gaza more than quadrupled (according to data published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, and collated by Peace Now, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew from 5,000 in the early 1970s to more than 20,000 in 1983).
This was a negation of the accords that led Israeli cabinet minister Ezer Weizman to resign after declaring that no one in the cabinet was interested in peace. Begin however was undeterred, which was not at all surprising as after the 1978 establishment of the illegal colony of Elon Moreh outside Nablus he had boasted that there would be “many more Elon Morehs to come” — a prophecy that has become only too true, as today there are over half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
However Begin’s primary use of the accords was as a means to wage war. In the first instance this meant the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the war against the Palestine Liberation Organization — a war launched without provocation and in the midst of what Noam Chomsky has described as a PLO “peace offensive.” During the course of this war Israel not only devastated the Palestinian and Lebanese populations of Lebanon but also systematically trashed the country and trounced the Syrian army when it sought to defend itself. At its end the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that 17,825 civilians had been killed. Would this have been possible without Israel knowing that Egypt was permanently out of the conflict?
The same of course holds true for subsequent Israeli military actions, whether it was the brutal crushing of unarmed resistance during the first Intifada from 1987 to 1993, or the 1996 and 2006 reinvasions of Lebanon, or the mass casualties of the second intifada and the 2008-09 invasion of Gaza. In every case knowledge that Egypt would either stand idly by or indeed approve has made Israel confident that it could act with impunity.
Yet this was not always the case. For many years leading up to the Camp David Accords the Arab League had insisted that a final peace agreement must be a comprehensive one involving all parties to the conflict. Tragically Egypt under Sadat chose to break that consensus and by putting its own interests first effectively undermined the negotiating positions of all other Arab parties whilst giving Israel a free hand to militarily enforce its vision on the Middle East. If then the Camp David Accords do breakdown this should not be read as a sign that peace is further away than ever, but rather that perhaps at long last an all-embracing peace amongst equals may be possible.
Speaking at the time of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty signing, the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat commented, “Let them sign what they like. False peace will not last.” For Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and indeed Israelis, he has been proven only too correct.
~
Richard Irvine teaches a course at Queen’s University Belfast entitled “The Battle for Palestine” which explores the entire history of the conflict. Irvine has also worked voluntarily in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and taken part in olive planting and harvesting in the West Bank.
February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Heated Israeli Suez Rhetoric Burden On U.S.?
Ali Gharib | Lobe Log | February 21st, 2011
The earth reportedly shook as two Iranian naval boats approached the Suez Canal on Monday morning. For the U.S., though, the building tension over the (delayed, for now) passage could result in diplomatic, not literal, earthquakes.
When the news was first announced last week that the two warships would pass through the canal, Israeli reaction appeared split. Now it seems Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined his foreign minister in ratcheting up the rhetoric, saying, “Israel takes a grave view of this Iranian step.”
Following closely on the U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israeli settlements, Israel’s blustering approach to the Iranian warships may provide yet another instance where the “special relationship” causes the U.S. to choose between its ally Israel, on one hand, and international law and maintaining regional influence on the other.
Egyptian approval of passage for the Iranian ships was first reported when Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the move amounted to a “provocation” by Iran. “The international community must understand that Israel cannot forever ignore these provocations,” he warned ominously.
Covering the comments, the Wall Street Journal pointed to fissures over Lieberman’s blustering and the quieter approach preferred Ehud Barak and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
At the time, Lieberman’s comments seemed to be made for U.S. consumption. Ethan Bronner’s New York Times piece had this nugget (my emphasis):
The first word came from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in an address to a group of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The speech, which hinted at a possible response, was closed to reporters…
The bellicose comments led National Interest writer Jacob Heilbrunn to comment: “Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman isn’t just a thug. He’s also a moron.”
“A former State Department senior intelligence official called on Israel “to stand down and avoid any provocative actions.” Middle East Institute scholar Wayne White told LobeLog that Israeli “muscle-flexing” and a perception of “high-handedness” now could be harmful to U.S. (and even Israeli) interests on a wide range of issues. He mentioned the still-developing and fluid situation in Egypt, anti-regime protests in Iran itself, and uncertainty in Jordan, which is facing some unrest and, like Egypt, has a peace deal with Israel.
White’s list of examples gives a taste of just how many crises the U.S. is facing in the region. With protests in several U.S.-allied countries like Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia, and even Iraq, the U.S. wants to keep things relatively calm. As White points out, another crisis, with Israel and the U.S. pitted against Iran and Syria (whose waters the Iranian ships are reportedly bound for), could easily inject anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli sentiments into the anti-government movements that have been sweeping the region or permit besieged autocrats to divert popular attention and agitation.
The other elephant in the room is the notion of Suez passage itself. So far, the U.S. has taken a measured tone. State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said on Friday: “If the ships move through the canal, we’ll evaluate what they actually do.” He said the potential issues were the ships’ cargo and destination. Crowley seemed eager to move onto a new topic, repeatedly interrupting the questioner(s).
The lack of U.S. focus on passage itself is perhaps a nod to both the Constantinople Convention (1988) governing Suez Passage and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983, in force 1994), which allows “innocent passage” through even territorial waters. The Constantinople convention states:
The Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.
Consequently, the High Contracting Parties agree not in any way to interfere with the free use of the Canal, in time of war as in time of peace.
One of those contracting parties is, of course, Egypt, which may not interfere or block anyone’s passage. The U.S. relies on this status quo as much, if not more, than any other country. Indeed, if the right of “innocent passage” is questioned in this case, think of all the possible ramifications for the U.S. Navy and its 11 aircraft carrier groups that span the globe, if not always to the acclaim of the natives. It’s not for nothing that the Navy has been the country’s biggest advocate for Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention.
For now, it appears that the passage of the Iranian ships has been delayed, without any reason given. But if the Israelis keep pushing back against Iran, rumblings of the diplomatic sort could soon follow for the U.S. Once again, as when Israel backed ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak until his last days and relentlessly pressed the Obama administration to cast his UN Security Council veto on a resolution that was entirely consistent with U.S. policy since 1967, Washington’s “special relationship” with the Jewish State could become burdensome to broader U.S. strategic interests.
February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
US vetoes UN resolution on Illegal Jewish only settlements
Aletho News | February 19, 2011
Despite receiving the backing of 14 out of 15 members of the United Nations’ security council, a UN resolution branding Israeli settlements illegal was vetoed by the United States Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice.
Susan Rice is not related to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but there is a connection between Condoleeza Rice and Susan Rice’s godmother, Madeleine Albright. Condoleezza Rice was Dr. Joseph Korbel’s star student at the University of Denver. Madeleine Albright is Korbel’s daughter. Rice has said that her role at the U.N. will be to battle “the anti-Israel crap.”
Rice has been involved with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) a hawkish pro-Israel think tank which has been a home for many of the neocon architects of the invasion of Iraq. WINEP’s advisory board has included militarists such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Edward Luttwak, James Woolsey (who is also ostensibly a Democrat), and Mort Zuckerman. Susan Rice took part in a WINEP “2008 Presidential Task Force” study which resulted in a report entitled, “Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen US-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge”. WINEP was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Al Jazeera spoke with Susan Rice about the Obama administration’s veto of the Security Council resolution:
February 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Author: Atheo, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Omar Barghouti kept from entering the U.S. for BDS speaking tour
February 18, 2011
The following press release was just issued by the publisher of Omar Barghouti’s upcoming book:
Effectively canceling a planned speaking tour, the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has inexplicably delayed the granting of a visa for Omar Barghouti, founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) campaign, due to tour the United States this April for the release of his new book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.
Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the book “lucid and morally compelling… perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.” Former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel d’’Escoto Brockmann called it “timely and responsibly written by a man who understands that creative nonviolence is the only way out of the dire situation in Palestine.””
In recent years, numerous foreign scholars and experts have been subject to visa delays and denials that have prohibited them from speaking and teaching in the U.S.—a process the American Civil Liberties Union describes as “Ideological Exclusion,” which they say violates Americans’ First Amendment right to hear constitutionally protected speech by denying foreign scholars, artists, politicians and others entry to the United States. Foreign nationals who have recently been denied visas include Fulbright scholar Marixa Lasso; Iraqi doctor Riyadh Lafta, who disputed the official Iraqi civilian death numbers in the respected British medical journal The Lancet; respected South African scholar and vocal Iraq War critic Dr. Adam Habib, and Oxford’s Tariq Ramadan, who have both recently received visas to speak in the United States after many years of delays and denials.
For the release of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, Barghouti has standing invitations for events in New York City, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Brandeis University, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. Barghouti studied, lived and worked in the United States for 11 years before permanently relocating to Jerusalem. He attended Columbia University, receiving both Bachelors and Masters degrees from the school. His U.S. born child, whom he needs a visa to visit, currently attends college in Indiana. Between 2005-2010, Barghouti visited the U.S. extensively without incident, on a 5 year visa, which only recently expired.
Barghouti’s publisher, Anthony Arnove of Haymarket Books, stated that “It’s essential authors be able to travel to promote their books and ideas, and as publishers we believe the free exchange of ideas is vital to a democratic culture. We find it frustrating that Omar’s visa is being delayed and potentially denied for political reasons and hope the Consulate will grant his visa immediately.”
Barghouti tour sponsors are calling on supporters to contact the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and the Department of State to ask them to fulfill the promise from the Obama Administration of “promoting the global marketplace of ideas” and grant Barghouti’s visa immediately.
U.S. Consulate:
Consul General Daniel Rubinstein
U.S. Consulate General, Jerusalem
18 Agron Road, Jerusalem 94190
Tel.: +972.2.622.7230, Fax: +972.2.625.9270
jerusalemvisa@state.gov
UsConGenJerusalem@state.govDepartment of State:
Visa Services
Public Inquiries Division
202-663-1225
usvisa@state.gov*
On Facebook: Join the group “Let Omar Barghouti Be Heard” and invite your friends
February 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Obama’s 2012 Budget, A Tool for Class War
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | CounterPunch | February 18, 2011
Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class. Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets. The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.
Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose–the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.
The U.S. has no enemies except those that the U.S. creates by bombing and invading other countries and by overthrowing foreign leaders and installing American puppets in their place.
China does not conduct naval exercises off the California coast, but the U.S. conducts war games in the China Sea off China’s coast. Russia does not mass troops on Europe’s borders, but the U.S. places missiles on Russia’s borders. The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex.
The U.S. government actually spends $56 billion a year, that is, $56,000 million, in order that American air travelers can be porno-scanned and sexually groped so that firms represented by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff can make large profits selling the scanning equipment.
With a perpetual budget deficit driven by the military/security complex’s desire for profits, the real cause of America’s enormous budget deficit is off-limits for discussion.
The U.S. Secretary of War-Mongering, Robert Gates, declared: “We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril.” The military brass warns of cutting any of the billions of aid to Israel and Egypt, two functionaries for its Middle East “policy.”
But what are “our” global security responsibilities? Where did they come from? Why would America be at peril if America stopped bombing and invading other countries and interfering in their internal affairs? The perils America faces are all self-created.
The answer to this question used to be that otherwise we would be murdered in our beds by “the worldwide communist conspiracy.” Today the answer is that we will be murdered in our airplanes, train stations, and shopping centers by “Muslim terrorists” and by a newly created imaginary threat–”domestic extremists,” that is, war protesters and environmentalists.
The U.S. military/security complex is capable of creating any number of false flag events in order to make these threats seem real to a public whose intelligence is limited to TV, shopping mall experiences, and football games.
So Americans are stuck with enormous budget deficits that the Federal Reserve must finance by printing new money, money that sooner or later will destroy the purchasing power of the dollar and its role as world reserve currency. When the dollar goes, American power goes.
For the ruling oligarchies, the question is: how to save their power.
Their answer is: make the people pay.
And that is what their latest puppet, President Obama, is doing.
With the U.S. in the worst recession since the Great Depression, a great recession that John Williams and Gerald Celente, along with myself, have said is deepening, the “Obama budget” takes aim at support programs for the poor and out-of-work. The American elites are transforming themselves into idiots as they seek to replicate in America the conditions that have led to the overthrows of similarly corrupt elites in Tunisia and Egypt and mounting challenges to U.S. puppet governments elsewhere.
All we need is a few million more Americans with nothing to lose in order to bring the disturbances in the Middle East home to America. With the U.S. military bogged down in wars abroad, an American revolution would have the best chance of success.
American politicians have to fund Israel as the money returns in campaign contributions.
The U.S. government must fund the Egyptian military if there is to be any hope of turning the next Egyptian government into another American puppet that will serve Israel by continuing the blockade of the Palestinians herded into the Gaza ghetto.
These goals are far more important to the American elite than Pell Grants that enable poor Americans to obtain an education, or clean water, or community block grants, or the low income energy assistance program (cut by the amount that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give to Israel).
There are also $7,700 million of cuts in Medicaid and other health programs over the next five years.
Given the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, these sums are a pittance. The cuts will have no effect on U.S. Treasury financing needs. They will put no brakes on the Federal Reserve’s need to print money in order to keep the U.S. government in operation.
These cuts serve one purpose: to further the Republican Party’s myth that America is in economic trouble because of the poor: The poor are shiftless. They won’t work. The only reason unemployment is high is that the poor had rather be on welfare.
A new addition to the welfare myth is that recent middle class college graduates won’t take the jobs offered them, because their parents have too much money, and the kids like living at home without having to do anything. A spoiled generation, they come out of university refusing any job that doesn’t start out as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The reason that engineering graduates do not get job interviews is that they do not want them.
What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15 per cent of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?
The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.
Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is not in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.
The American elite’s solution for America’s problems is not merely to foreclose on the homes of Americans whose jobs were sent offshore, but to add to the numbers of distressed Americans with nothing to lose the sick and the dispossessed retirees, and the university graduates who cannot find jobs that have been sent to Chine and India.
Of all the countries in the world, none need a revolution as bad as the United States, a country ruled by a handful of selfish oligarchs who have more income and wealth than can be spent in a lifetime.
~
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
February 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
‘Israeli filter’ colors U.S. response to Egyptian revolution
By Alex Kane | February 15, 2011
Hosni Mubarak’s former regime got many things wrong, but Egyptian officials sure knew how to accurately read at least some parts of U.S. foreign policy. A State Department cable written in December 2007 recently released by WikiLeaks describes how the Egyptian government believed that “their discussions with the United States” passed “through a perceived ‘Israeli filter.’” It’s fair to assume that Egypt was referring to how, as Helena Cobban writes in Salon, “pro-Israeli groups and individuals in Congress and the rest of the American political elite” have enormous influence on how Washington conducts foreign policy.
The pro-Israel apparatus’ influence, which has created a powerful “Israeli filter” that affects the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, was fully on display during the Obama administration’s noticeably confused and flat-footed response to the anti-Mubarak popular uprising.
Immediately after the beginning of the uprising, President “Obama began placing calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel,” according to the New York Times. Netanyahu “feared regional instability” and “urged the United States to stick with Mr. Mubarak.”
The administration itself was split over what do to about Mubarak. The faction of the administration that favored having Omar Suleiman–the former Egyptian VP who was also Israel’s favorite– lead a “transition” included Dennis Ross, a core pillar of the Israel lobby inside the administration. The Los Angeles Times explained:
The other camp includes Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ross, who has strong ties to Israel, is the author of a 2007 book that advised against treating the Muslim Brotherhood as a potential partner in Egypt’s political future, noting the group’s refusal to renounce violence “as a tool of other Islamists.”
Apart from managing the crisis, the White House is consulting with outside interest groups and foreign governments to ensure that its message is getting through.
National Security Council member Daniel Shapiro has sought to reassure pro-Israel groups that the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s political negotiations would not undermine the country’s peace treaty with Israel, according to people who have talked with him. Shapiro, who led outreach to Jewish voters in Obama’s presidential campaign, has tended to the president’s relations with Israel and other regional partners, as well as with Jewish leaders in the U.S.
While the Egyptian protesters forced Mubarak out, as well as ending any possibility that Suleiman would be the new dictator, the U.S. remains deeply concerned with how the revolution will affect Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt. Following Mubarak’s resignation, the White House insisted that “it’s important that the next government of Egypt recognize the accords that have been signed with Israel.”
February 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Egyptian People Power Versus the Oligarchy
By Michael Barker | Pulse Media | February 13, 2011
The ongoing insurrection in Egypt is fantastic, but the barriers standing between the people and any substantive form of democracy are formidable and will need to be overcome in the near future. As one might expect there are plenty of ‘reformers’ waiting amongst the counter-revolutionaries to undermine any forthcoming revolution, ready and willing to proudly take on the mantle of power in the name of the democracy. Leading neoconservative ideologue, Paul Wolfowitz, suggests that Hossam Badrawi, the “recently appointed head of Egypt’s government party may be emerging as an interesting and reasonable transition figure.” Acknowledging that there are many such leaders who stand between the Egyptian people and a successful revolution, this article will focus on the elites in Badrawi’s higher circles in an attempt to draw attention to just a few of the many of the powerful groups and individuals ready and willing to smash/co-opt the peoples movement under the iron heel/velvet slipper of the Oligarchy.[1]
Until recently Hossam Badrawi served on the board of governors of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP), but with the en masse resignations of many of the members of the NDP’s top executive committee, Badrawi a founding member of Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption, became their new Secretary General. To gain an idea of Badrawi’s reformist ambitions for Egypt one might turn to look at some of his colleagues at Egypt’s International Economic Forum, a group whose “ultimate objective” is “fully integrating the Egyptian economy into the world economy on favourable terms.”
Notable elites serving alongside Badrawi on Egypt’s International Economic Forum’s executive committee include Taher Helmy, who is the founder and chair of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, a think-tank has been supported for the past two decades by the imperialist National Endowment for Democracy. In fact, the International Economic Forum’s current chairman, M. Shafik Gabr, also serves as a board member of Helmy’s think tank, and as a member of a World Economic Forum project called the Community of West and Islam Dialogue (C-100). Next up, the treasurer of Egypt’s International Economic Forum, Shahira Magdy Zeid, just so happens to be a board member of the Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement — which is headed (of course) by the dictators wife, Suzanne. (Likewise, Taher Helmy is a board member of Mubarak’s ‘peace’ movement.)
Egypt’s International Economic Forum boasts of a small but impressive advisory board of just five individuals, the three most significant being: the former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Robert Pelletreau; World Economic Forum president, Klaus Schwab (a devotee of Orwellian politics who counts himself as a ‘peace’ advocate because of his service on the board of governors at the Shimon Peres Center for Peace); and Frank G. Wisner, Jr. , an important imperial power broker who after serving as U.S. Ambassador to Egypt (1986-91), went on to become the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, where he supervised the aftermath of their recent transition from U.S.-backed dictatorship to ‘democracy.’ That the Philippines’ immensely powerful people-powered movement could be co-opted by the U.S. governments ‘democracy promotion’ apparatus provides a stark example of what the Oligarchy has in store for Egypt; that is, if they are not thwarted by what may turn out to be a truly revolutionary movement for change.[2]
Last but not least, especially considering their advisors’ special imperial pedigree, it makes sense to briefly examine some of the members of the Egypt’s International Economic Forum’s board of trustees. We might start here with the former information secretary of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, Ali Eldin Helal (who resigned earlier this month). In addition to his central role in dispensing state propaganda, Eldin Helal was the first vice president of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (1985-7) — a group that received annual support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) between 1994 and 2005. Furthermore it is important to point out that at the same time as he worked for this human rights group he served on the council of the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (1983-92).[3]
Other trustees of Egypt’s International Economic Forum include Ahmed Ezz and Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who are both board members of a business orientated nonprofit called Future Generation Foundation that is headed by Mubarak’s son, Gamal; and Mona Makram-Ebeid, who is a founding member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs — an elite think tank that models itself on the imperial brains trust that is the Council on Foreign Relations.
Here it is interesting to point out that a particularly influential member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs is Naguib Sawiris, the eldest son of Orascom-empire patriarch, Onsi Sawiris. Naguib Sawiris presently serves on the international advisory committee to the New York Stock Exchange board of directors, and is a recent board member of the ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ nonprofit, Foundation for the Future. In fact, Sawiris was linked to this group in 2007, during the time at which the romantic partner of Paul Wolfowitz, Shaha Riza (a former NED-scholar herself) managed this highly profitable neoconservative enterprise (for a critique of this group, see “The Foundation for the Future: What FOIA Documents Reveal,” pdf).[4]
Finally, another significant member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs is Mamdouh Salim, who is a member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (see later), and is the vice president of the Forum of Dialogue and Partnership for Development’s board of trustees. This latter group provides a connection to another important group that has received funding from the NED, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies; this is because Ayat M. Abul-Futtouh acted as the program manager for the Forum of Dialogue and Partnership for Development from 2001 until 2003, before she moved on to become the managing director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies. Abul-Futtouh also happens to be a founder and a steering committee member of the Network for Democrats in the Arab World, and in 2006 she was invited to give a talk at Paul Wolfowitz’s current nominal home, the American Enterprise Institute; this talk was later published in 2008 the Institutes’s book Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats.
The current chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center’s board of trustees is Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Arab Organization for Human Rights founder, Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Although widely celebrated as a leading Egyptian pro-democracy activist, Ibrahim maintains intimate connections to U.S. neoconservatives and a wide variety of ‘democracy promoting’ organizations connected to the work of the NED (for a critical examination of his background, see “The Violence of Nonviolence”). Recently Ibrahim even joined the advisory board of a neoconservative group called Cyberdissidents.org, whose web site says they are “dedicated to supporting human liberty by promoting the voices of online dissidents.” Founded in 2008 this project is headed by their cofounder, David Keyes, who previously served as coordinator for democracy programs under the right-wing Zionist Natan Sharansky while based at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies.
Retaining the theme on ‘democracy’ obsessed neoconservatives, it is significant that Sherif Mansour, the former program manager for the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, is a current program officer for Middle East and North Africa at the neoconservative outfit, Freedom House. He is the coeditor with Maria Stephan of the book Civilian Resistance in the Middle East (Routledge, 2009).[5] Based at Freedom House, Mansour runs the New Generation program which advocates for political reform in Egypt and North Africa. Needless to say such ‘peace’ activists do not want the popular insurrection in Egypt to escalate to become a successful revolution that dismantles Egypt’s brutal state apparatus and creates a vibrant people-powered democracy. This helps explain why conservative commentators based in the United States are now asking: “Will Venezuela Be the Next Egypt?” The answer to that ridiculous question is a definitive no!
– Michael Barker is an independent researcher who currently resides in the UK. His other articles can be accessed here.
– Notes –
[1] This is a reference to the Jack London’s 1907 book The Iron Heel. In a forthcoming article titled “The Velvet Slipper and the Military-Peace Nonprofit Complex,”I elaborate on what I refer to as the velvet slipper approach to manipulating social movements — an approach currently in vogue among leading neoconservatives.
[2] For further details, see Kim Scipes, KMU: Building Genuine Trade Unionism in the Philippines, 1980-1994 (New Day Publishers, 1996); and William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Chapter 3.
[3] Incidentally, elite ‘peace’-broker Peter Ackerman joined the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London as a visiting scholar, undertaking research which led him to co-authoring a book with Christopher Kruegler (the president of the controversial NED-funded Albert Einstein Institution) called Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Praeger, 1994). Ackerman is a current board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the founding chair and primary funder of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and former chair of the neoconservative Freedom House.
[4] One might add that Naguib’s brother, Nassef Onsi Sawiris, is a board member of the cement behemoth, Lafarge, where he alongside numerous high-rolling members of the ruling class.
[5] It is noteworthy that Maria Stephan worked on this book while based at Peter Ackerman’s ‘democracy promoting’ International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. (See footnote #3)
February 13, 2011 Posted by aletho | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
ElBaradei: Soros’s Man in Cairo
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | February 11, 2011
In a February 3 Washington Post op-ed piece titled “Why Obama has to get Egypt right,” George Soros wrote that the U.S. president had “much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy.” Notwithstanding the reasonableness of his advice, past experience suggests that the Hungarian-born hedge fund manager has something to gain himself from regime change in Cairo.
In his public memo to the president he helped elect, Soros noted that it was a “hopeful sign” that the Muslim Brotherhood was cooperating with Mohamed ElBaradei, whom he disinterestedly described as “the Nobel laureate who is seeking to run for president.” He neglected to mention, however, that up to ElBaradei’s January 27 return to crisis-torn Egypt, the former IAEA chief had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, which Soros, the thirty-fifth richest person in the world, helped create and finance.
The International Crisis Group describes itself as “an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict,” but self-descriptions can often be misleading. “The ICG is a fascinating case study of the way human rights organizations, governments and international corporations work hand in glove these days,” George Szamuely wrote of the influential think tank’s role in the Balkans. “‘Independent’ figures like Soros identify a ‘crisis’ demanding urgent government attention. Governments act on them and then parcel out the lucrative contracts to Soros and his pals.”
One of Soros’s more notorious “pals” is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former head of Yukos Oil, who by the age of 32 had amassed assets worth more than $30 billion in the rigged post-Soviet “privatisation” of state-owned property. When the Jewish oligarch was arrested for tax evasion, embezzlement and fraud in 2003, Soros denounced the charges as “political persecution,” called for the expulsion of Russia from the G-8, and urged the West to intervene. Khodorkovsky’s partner in crime, Leonid Nevzlin, fled to Israel before he was found guilty in absentia of ordering the murders of several politicians and businesspeople that got in the way of Yukos’s expansion plans. Like Soros and Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin has since attempted to rebrand himself as a “philanthropist.”
Tel Aviv’s concerns about the loss of a friendly dictator next door, however, should be assuaged somewhat by the fact that ElBaradei could collaborate with the considerable number of Israel partisans at ICG. Former U.S. Congressman Stephen Solarz, who helped start the group, was once dubbed “the Israel lobby’s chief legislative tactician on Capitol Hill,” and in 1998 led a group of neoconservatives who urged President Clinton to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Fellow neocon Kenneth Adelman assured Americans in a 2002 Washington Post op-ed that the Israeli-induced invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk.” Even more reassuring for nervous Israelis must be the presence of Nahum Barnea, the prominent Israeli columnist who sharply criticised fellow journalists Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and Akiva Eldar for their “mission” of support for the Palestinians.
And among ICG’s elite international list of senior advisers—defined as “former Board Members (to the extent consistent with any other office they may be holding at the time) who maintain an association with Crisis Group, and whose advice and support are called on from time to time”—we find Shlomo Ben-Ami, former foreign minister of Israel; Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel; and Shimon Peres, current president of Israel.
On the face of it, it seems hard to reconcile the substantial pro-Israel presence at ICG with Soros’s claims to be a “non-Zionist.” But things are seldom what they seem with Soros. Two years after the founding of J Street, it emerged that he had given substantial donations to the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. Not everyone is convinced by J Street’s claims to be a genuine alternative to AIPAC either. As one astute commentator put it, J Street is “little more than a spin-off of the existing Israel Lobby to make it more palatable to the liberal Democrats that make up the Obama Administration.”
Moreover, some of Israel’s most fervent advocates on Capitol Hill have received donations from Soros, who has become “one of the largest political-campaign contributors in American history.” In an interview with a conservative Jewish radio talk show, Senator Charles Schumer said he believed that HaShem (Orthodox Jewish term for “God”) gave him his name—which means “guardian”—so that he could fulfill his “very important” role in the U.S. Senate as a “guardian of Israel.”
Essentially filling the same role in the House of Representatives until 2008 was the late Congressman Tom Lantos, whom a former U.S. diplomat referred to as “the Hungarian-American guardian of Israel’s interests in Congress.” As co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Lantos knowingly deceived his co-chairman and the public about the identity of “Nayirah,” whose incubator atrocity story helped justify American intervention in the 1991 Gulf War. Lantos, who is said to have “shared a common drive for promoting democracy and human rights” with his close friend Soros, also championed the fugitive Nevzlin as an innocent victim of anti-Semitism.
“I hope President Obama will expeditiously support the people of Egypt,” Soros wrote in his Post op-ed. “My foundations are prepared to contribute what they can.” If the Egyptian people have as much sense as they have courage and determination, however, they will tell this self-described “committed advocate of democracy and open society” what to do with his “philanthropy”—and his Nobel laureate.
Maidhc Ó Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. He also edits The Passionate Attachment blog.
February 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
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Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
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At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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