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Are you, or have you ever been, an RT or Sputnik pundit?

By Neil Clark | RT | September 19, 2017

The demands from the NATO/military-industrial complex-funded Atlantic Council and neocon hawks for RT and Sputnik to be forced to register as ‘foreign agents’ in the US, brings to mind similarly disturbing events which took place in the ‘Land of the Free’ in the early 1950s.

The question asked by the original McCarthyite witch-hunters to people who held the ’wrong’ views back in the era of Rosemary Clooney and the Andrews Sisters was “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”

Today, in the era of Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, the neo-McCarthyites ask: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a guest or pundit on RT or Sputnik?” The wording might be slightly different, (and the background music more in your face), but the aim is the same. Namely, to try and scare people from speaking out against a foreign policy which relies on war and the threat of war, for fear they’ll be branded a Soviet, or Russian ‘agent’.

A 79-year-old piece of legislation, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, initially passed to counter Nazi propaganda activities before the start of World War Two, is the latest weapon being utilized by the ‘Pro-Freedom and Democracy’ Imperial Truth Enforcers, in their campaign against news organizations which don‘t toe the line. All genuine supporters of free speech and media pluralism, whether or not they are fans of RT or Sputnik, should be alarmed at recent developments.

You don’t have to be the owner of a giant magnifying glass or possess the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes to see whose fingerprints are on the ’Get RT and Sputnik to register under FARA’ operation. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand why they are so keen to tarnish the RT and Sputnik brands.

Let’s go back to January 13th. On that day, the Atlantic Council, whose donors include leading US arms companies, NATO, several foreign governments, as well as lobby groups such as AIPAC, posted an article on its website entitled ‘US Should Require Russia’s RT to Register as Foreign Agent’ by one Elena Postnikova, a JD candidate at Georgetown University Law Center and a former DC Events and Outreach Officer at the US government-funded Freedom House.

Postnikova’s article of 13th January was republished by Newsweek and the Kyiv Post.

Then on 1st September, the Atlantic Council published a longer report by Ms. Postnikova entitled ‘Agent of Influence: Should Russia’s RT Register as a Foreign Agent?’

The Atlantic Coundil explained:

“In Agent of Influence, author Elena Postnikova, not only argues that RT should register with FARA but makes a legal case for it while laying out recommendations for policymakers. At a minimum, RT’s activities warrant a thorough investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ).”

You can just imagine Senator Joe McCarthy punching the air on hearing that last statement, can’t you?

In her paper, Postnikova mentions the benefits of the DOJ getting RT to register. “FARA registration means that RT would need to conspicuously label its information as ‘distributed by an agent on behalf of the foreign principal’ and include these statements on its website, social media accounts, and in all broadcasts.” This would, she says be “warranted to alert the US public about the origin of RT’s information.” Showing that she possesses a fine sense of humor, Postnikova claims that getting RT to register as a ‘foreign agent‘ would actually boost free speech. “The disclosure would serve the First Amendment by supplementing information about the agent and ensuring that the public is not misled that it represents a disinterested source.”

A week after the 1st September publication, the Atlantic Council held a special meeting in Washington to discuss the paper (giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘AC/DC‘).

Then a few days after that the news broke that the FBI was getting involved, to question an ex-Sputnik employee called Andrew Feinberg. Feinberg, it was reported, had handed over to the FBI a thumbnail containing hundreds of internal emails and documents.

The anti-Russian media crowd couldn’t conceal their excitement.

Jamie Kirchick, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, who had spoken at the 8th September Atlantic Council panel, and who had been high-fived by other neocons on social media for ‘ambushing’ RT live on air a few years back, tweeted triumphantly “Three days after our Atlantic Council panel both RT.com and Sputnik under investigation as foreign agents.”

If the McCarthyite hawks of the Atlantic Council get their way and the authorities in the US do force RT and Sputnik to register under FARA, under threat of a large fine and/or civil/criminal prosecution, then a disturbing precedent will have been set. FARA wasn’t designed to target bona fide news or press services not directly controlled by foreign governments, so to take action the authorities will have to find that RT and Sputnik aren’t kosher.

Of course, claiming that RT and Sputnik are not “proper newsgathering organizations” like CNN and the BBC and that the journalists who work for them are ‘fakes’ too, is standard fare for War Lobby propagandists and their fart-smelling groupies. If the robotic nature of these smears strikes you, then all you need to do is to turn to Sharyl Attkisson’s new book The Smear for an explanation. You can read my review of the book here.

Having aggressively pushed the case for FARA registration, those responsible are now keen to stress that it’s really no big deal. The Colombia Journalism Review ran a piece by one Jon Allsop, entitled ‘Concerns over FBI investigation into Russian ‘news’ are overblown.’ (Note how ‘news’ is put in inverted commas).

“FARA doesn’t add up to press censorship in this case: Outlets like Sputnik and RT aren’t conventionally seen as ‘the press,’ and the law in no way prohibits their activities,” Allsop explained. He cites Jamie Kirchick, who says “There is no concern about slippery slopes,” but there’s no mention that Kirchick described merely as “a journalist and writer who has covered Russia and the former Soviet Union,” was on the Atlantic Council panel that called for RT and Sputnik to be registered under FARA.

In similar fashion, a 9/11 Yahoo report on the Atlantic Council’s demands neglects to mention how the ‘Washington think tank’ is funded by NATO and the arms industry, and ironically enough given the subject matter, several foreign governments as well.

The move to get RT and Sputnik branded as ‘foreign agents’ is being presented by ‘mainstream’ outlets as a neutral process. In fact, it’s about as ‘neutral’ as General Franco refereeing a football match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, or The Joker having the casting vote on a jury deciding on whether to indict Batman for speeding.

What we are witnessing is a well-coordinated, well-synchronized and well-oiled campaign to marginalize all dissenting views on foreign policy.

Think back to November, when a mysterious new anonymous website called ’Prop Or Not’ popped up to publish a list of US news sites which it accused of “reliably echoing Russian propaganda,” and called on the G-men to investigate them for espionage.

‘The List’ included RT and Sputnik, but also sites from across the political spectrum with absolutely no connection to Russia. Prop or Not’s blacklist was then promoted as the work of ‘experts’ by the neocon Washington Post.

Again you can imagine Senator McCarthy’s whoop of delight.

We’ve reached the stage now when, as in the early Fifties, anyone who opposes a hawkish foreign policy is accused of either being in the pay of Moscow, i.e. a Russian agent, or of ‘echoing Russian propaganda.’ Against the overthrow of the secular, Christian-protecting government in Syria? Then you’re a stooge of Vladimir Putin!

It’s not just Donald Trump who’s been smeared in this way, but the likes of Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader, and Labour’s left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn too. All you have to do is to say “I want to end the wars and have better relations with Moscow,” and you’ll get the label.

And if you want to lose the label? Well, you have to do what the War Lobby demands of you, like sign a bill imposing even more draconian sanctions on Russia, bomb a Syrian air force base, or publicly condemn ‘Russian aggression’ in Ukraine.

The great irony behind all of this is that the ’realist’ Russian line on foreign policy is far more in tune with public opinion in the US and UK than the actual policies carried out by the neocon influenced US and UK regimes. Russia opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq, which directly led to the rise of ISIS. It has also stood firmly on the side of government forces fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda groups in Syria, instead of trying to undermine them, as the West has done.

It’s because people reject the fraudulent War Party narrative that people across the world are increasingly turning to networks such as RT and Sputnik which provide a very different perspective on world affairs. These organizations provide a platform to people from the left and the right, who are kept off the ‘mainstream’ networks because they don’t meet with establishment approval. I remember the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq when programs such as the BBC’s Newsnight trotted out a series of ‘think tank pundits’ who assured us that Saddam possessed WMDs which threatened the entire world. These ‘experts’ went largely unchallenged, and we got a disastrous war which led to the deaths of one million people. The cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion would love us to go back to the halcyon days of 2002/3 when they had control of the narrative and could dictate who could and couldn’t appear on television. It was much easier to sell illegal wars to the public without ’pesky’ stations like RT and Sputnik around, much easier to peddle WMDs-style BS, much easier to launch phony ‘humanitarian interventions’ against the governments of resource-rich [or AIPAC-targeted] independent countries.

Fake news and ‘foreign agents‘?

Physician heal thyself.

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at http://www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66

September 19, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | AIPAC, Andrew Feinberg, Newsweek, United States | Leave a comment

ADL Campus guide describes how to block events about Palestine

The ADL claims to oppose injustice, but spends much of its huge budget defaming Palestinians and their allies who work for an end to Israel’s human rights abuses.

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | September 13, 2107

The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has just launched a new initiative for college students called “ADL CAMPUS: Tools for Dealing with Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Incidents on Campus.”

This resource contains much useful information about addressing anti-Semitism, endorses such valuable principles as freedom of speech and non-violence, and recommends that students talk to others who may hold different perspectives.

It also, however, contains some deeply problematic components for anyone who believes that human rights and justice should apply to all people without exception.

Unfortunately, the ADL does not share this belief. While it announces prominently, “We protect the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all,” in reality the ADL supports Israeli injustice against Palestinians.

Its recent campus resource exemplifies this, and distorts facts and words in order to do so.

First of all, ADL Campus conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Rather than meaning bigotry against Jewish people, the ADL’s use of the term anti-Semitism includes many forms of criticism of Israel. The Israeli government and certain of its partisans have been pushing this new, expanded definition in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

Below, this article will look in more detail at what kinds of criticism of Israel the ADL considers unacceptable, and why its parameters will include virtually all speakers truly critical of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. First, however, let us turn to the ADL’s advice on blocking events championing Palestinian human rights (and undermining free speech and academic inquiry).

ADL strategies to prevent events about Palestine

ADL Campus provides an entire section on how to block events on Palestine. The section starts out by assuring students that they have tremendous resources on their campuses to help them in this: faculty, Hillel, Chabad, J Street U, Stand With Us, The David Project, off-campus organizations like ADL, the Israel Action Network, Israel on Campus Coalition, AIPAC, and “your local Israeli Consulate.”

It provides an array of “Proactive Strategies to Prevent Anti-Israel Activity” – “steps you can take year-round to prevent an anti-Israel event from taking place on your campus, and to be prepared if and when an anti-Israel event does take place.”

They are advised to join – and lead, when possible – student organizations so that they can use this position to advocate for Israel and prevent campus activism on Palestine. The guide advises students to:

“Run for student government. Write for the campus newspaper. Join committees and other student organizations. Holding leadership positions on campus provides a great opportunity to meet new people, build coalitions, and exchange views with your peers. With a seat at the table, you can more effectively speak out (or even vote) against anti-Israel actions, including divestment resolutions.”

This is not a new idea. In 2010 an AIPAC official (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) said that AIPAC was going to take over student governments in order to block resolutions on behalf of Palestinian rights:

More recently, pro-Israel students have been working to insert an Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism into student governments. This then blocks university funding for student groups wishing to bring speakers on Palestine.

ADL Campus expands further upon the value of building relationships with other students as a strategy to prevent Palestine activism:

“Build coalitions with other student groups. Take the time to understand the needs and priorities of other groups and learn how to be an ally to other communities. Attend their events and meetings. Join advocacy efforts for issues you care about. Think about opportunities for co-sponsoring events with these groups.”

Another suggested strategy is to put on Israel-related events; again the document suggests resources students can tap into:

“Hillel, the Israeli consulate responsible for the region in which your campus is located, ADL and other organizations, on campus and off, can help provide you with speakers and ideas.”

What to do if an event about Palestine is scheduled

If, despite their efforts, a program on Palestine is scheduled for their campus, ADL Campus tells students what to do next: investigate the speaker by contacting Hillel, ADL, ICC (Israel on Campus), or other organizations. (Some of these groups compile witch-hunt-like dossiers on Palestinian rights speakers which often contain inaccurate information, grossly exaggerated ad hominem attacks and claims that they are “anti-Semitic.”)

If they find that the speaker has engaged in alleged “hate speech, including anti-Semitic comments [sic],” ADL Campus tells them to contact the administration about it. Given that the ADL labels numerous valid statements about Israel “anti-Semitic (see below),” this could apply to virtually all honest and committed speakers on Palestine, and is often used in attempts to impugn the speaker’s integrity and block his or her talk. Such misrepresentations sometimes cause academic departments and other organizations to back out of sponsoring a lecture.

If an event does go forward with speakers that don’t pass ADL muster, ADL Campus tells students they should consider “an active, organized effort.” It advises them to “send a small contingent of pro-Israel students to the event to question the speaker about their views. Prepare some questions in advance based on what you’ve learned about the speaker [sic] in your research.”

ADL Campus also tells students: “Share information with fellow students attending the event about the speakers and organizations they’re about to hear from. Prepare fact sheets [sic] in advance that highlight how extreme the views of the speaker really are. ADL and other organizations make it easy to access information on extreme speakers who frequently appear on campuses.”

In reality, such “fact sheets” typically misrepresent speakers’ statements and contain non-factual information about Israel-Palestine in general and about the speaker in particular.

The ADL “deciphers” anti-Semitism

ADL Campus contains an entire section and video that claim to help students decipher when something is anti-Semitic or contains “anti-Israel bias” (the latter seems to be anti-Semitism’s almost equally objectionable sister sin).

According to the ADL, you are anti-Semitic if you who fail to affirm Israel’s alleged “right to exist as a Jewish state.”

Palestinians forced out in 1948 by Israel’s founding war

Affirming such a “right” may seem benign. In reality, it means affirming Israel’s “right” to have created its state through the violent expulsion of the majority indigenous population and confiscation of their land, simply because they were not Jewish. It also means you believe Israel has the “right” to prohibit these families from returning to their homes because they are of the “wrong” ethnicity or religion (even though returning to one’s home is an internationally recognized human right.)

In actuality, saying that Israel has a “right to exist as a Jewish state” entails the morally untenable position that universal human rights do not apply to the residents and indigenous people Israel does not want in its ethnically preferential state.

ADL Campus also states that BDS (Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions), the international nonviolent movement that works to require Israel to adhere to international law and end its violations of human rights, is “anti-Semitic.”

In fact, the ADL head has just endorsed legislation that would make Americans who support boycotts targeting Israel criminals to be punished by fines of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. Once again, we see the ADL turning morality on its head. Those who stand up for justice and who oppose oppression and discrimination are not bigots or criminals, they are human rights champions.

While the ADL Campus video allows in theory that “people can support the Palestinian cause without being anti-Israel,” it censures what the ADL claims is “illegitimate criticism.” As the narrator’s voice intones that this consists of “false accusations,” the screen shows the words apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

Screenshot from ADL Campus video

Far from being “false accusations” and “illegitimate criticism,” however, all three characterizations of Israel and its actions are based on factual conditions and have been argued for by diverse scholars, institutions, and human rights advocates (see links below*).

ADL campus also decrees that statements comparing Israel to Nazis are “anti-Semitic” (reflecting the international redefinition of the term mentioned above). However, Israeli leaders themselves at times have referred to one another this way, beginning with Ben Gurion, who compared both Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky and future Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Hitler (Begin returned the epithet). An article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is headlined: Calling your political rival a Nazi is a time-hallowed tradition in Israel.

And while such comparisons are exaggerated and imprecise, some years ago there was an uproar in Israel when an Israeli military officer suggested that studying how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto could be useful in finding strategies to use in seizing “a densely populated refugee camp, or take over the casbah in Nablus.” Author Melvin Goodman, describing the cruel situation in Gaza, concludes: “Perhaps the comparison with the Warsaw Ghetto is not completely far-fetched after all.”

ADL helps mislead people, then calls them “anti-Semitic”

In one case, the ADL’s characterization of some statements about Israel as “anti-Semitic” may be legitimate. The ADL accuses individuals of being “anti-Semitic”– i.e. bigots – if they suggest that all Jewish people are responsible for the actions of Israel.

Such a conflation is erroneous and should be corrected. However, it is important to understand that the state of Israel itself and its strongest partisans, including the ADL, actively work to conflate Judaism and Jewish identity with Israel. This intentional conflation has gone on for decades. A century ago Supreme Court Justice and Zionist leader Louis Brandeis was known for specifically working to conflate Zionism with being Jewish at a time when most Jewish people were not Zionists.

Israeli flag featuring the “Star of David” Jewish identity symbol

Israel specifically calls itself “the Jewish state” and often claims to represent Jews worldwide, a claim specifically rejected by certain Jewish individuals and organizations.

The Israeli flag, which adorns tanks, helicopter gunships, and fighter jets that periodically attack Gaza civilians, consists of a star of David, thus working to symbolically conflate Israel and its actions with Judaism and Jews. Israelis regularly call the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. “the Jewish lobby.”

In addition, virtually every mainstream national Jewish institution in the U.S. publicly supports Israel, numerous synagogues and schools across the country exhibit the Israeli flag and affirm their attachment to Israel, and Jewish Community Relations Councils and Jewish Federations advocate for Israel in cities throughout the country.

The ADL’s 2015 Annual Report itself conflates Israel and “the Jewish people,” stating: “Since the founding purpose of ADL is to protect the Jewish people, our work on behalf of and in support of the State of Israel is a significant way of fulfilling that mission.” The ADL Campus video itself uses an image of a menorah, a religious symbol, to represent Israel.

Graphic featuring the menorah used in ADL Campus video

If some people critical of human rights abuses or other actions by the government of Israel or certain Israel partisans connect all Jews to Israel’s actions, this intentional conflation is part of the problem, not the solution. Those taken in by it are mistaken, not necessarily prejudiced.

ADL: Advocate for Israel

For many years the ADL has been held in high regard by many Americans who believe its purpose is to oppose bigotry and assist those being treated unfairly, and who are unaware of the ADL’s work to defame human rights defenders and maintain Israel’s power over Palestinians, one of the world’s most oppressed populations.

Through its own well-funded efforts combined with the support of media figures who may also be pro-Israel, the ADL has attained considerable power. Its frequent reports on alleged anti-Semitism are cited regularly as though they are the work of an objective, official, accountable entity.

In reality, the ADL is a non-governmental organization without public accountability whose work is non-transparent, lacks objective review, and which has a publicly stated goal of advocating for a foreign country—a nation whose system is antithetical to the principles held by most Americans, and whose actions are frequently harmful to the United States.

With its $142 million assets, the ADL crows that it helps “shape laws locally and nationally, and develop groundbreaking model legislation,” thus exerting influence from the highest levels of the U.S. government down to American campuses.

ADL Campus is its latest effort to maintain US taxpayers’ $10 million+ per day to Israel, and thus maintain Israel’s hegemony over Palestinians and others in the region.

Opposing bigotry, prejudice, and racism are noble actions that benefit everyone. Sadly, that’s not what the ADL is about.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

* According to the ADL, statements suggesting that Israeli actions and/or policies have constituted apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing are “false claims” and therefore constitute “anti-Israel bias,” a phrase that the ADL seems to suggest is tantamount to anti-Semitism. In reality, however, there is considerable evidence that such statements are accurate; at minimum, they are valid criticisms worthy of investigation. Below are a few of the many resources available on these topics:

Apartheid

Genocide

Ethnic Cleansing

September 13, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | ADL, AIPAC, Hillel, Human rights, Israel, Israel Action Network, Israel on Campus Coalition, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Tillerson Caves, Will Appoint Special Anti-Semitism Envoy Who Monitors Criticism of Israel

Anti-Semitism Envoy Hannah Rosenthal adopted a new Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism and used it to train American diplomats.

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | August 29, 2017

After continuing pressure, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has announced that he will name a special envoy and maintain an office to monitor alleged anti-Semitism.

All three previous anti-semitism envoys have been fervent Israel partisans, two of them working for AIPAC. The first envoy endorsed a new definition of the word “anti-Semitism” to include criticism of Israel; the second adopted the new, Israel-centric definition; and the third helped to disseminate the definition world-wide.

This was part of an international campaign to expand the definition of anti-Semitism and embed this in governments and law enforcement agencies, potentially criminalizing support for Palestinian rights.

When it appeared in June that Trump might eliminate the office in a cost-cutting measure, he and Tillerson came under immediate attack by Jewish organizations and some others, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.

According to a letter from Tillerson to the Senate released yesterday, a number of similar special envoys and ambassadorships will be maintained, including the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations (currently filled by Frank Lowenstein), the Special Envoy as well as the Special Advisor for Holocaust Issues (which, among other things, works with Israel and supports the anti-Semitism envoy; currently the Special Advisor is Stuart E. Eizenstat), and the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom; Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, a strong supporter of Israel despite its record of religious discrimination, has been nominated for the position.

Dozens of other special envoy positions are being eliminated or combined, including ones concerned with Tibet, disabilities rights, global food security, cyber issues, global youth issues, conflict diamonds, the closing of Guantanamo, and a number that focus on the environment.

August 29, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | AIPAC, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel’s Chorus Sings Again

Less than total loyalty to Israel is un-American

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 15, 2017

Congress is on a one-month summer recess. You would think that given the recent turmoil over the bill to eliminate Obamacare and the upcoming debate over tax policy the nation’s legislators would be back in their home districts talking to the voters. Some are, but many are not. “More than fifty” Congressmen are off on an all-expenses paid trip to Israel to demonstrate that “there is no stronger bond with any ally we have.” Yes indeed, a congress which cannot pass legislation to benefit the American people finds that it has only one voice when it comes to our troublesome little client state that also doubles as the leading recipient of U.S. tax dollars in the world.

How do they do it? They do it by relentless courting of the congress critters and media talking heads, all of whom know how to repay a favor. Some readers might be asking how Congress (spouses included) can accept these free trips from a foreign government? The current trip is estimated to be costing $10,000 per person. Well, the answer is that they can’t do it directly, which would be illegal, so the clever rascals at the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have created an “charitable” foundation that pays the bills. It’s called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). AIEF is a tax exempt 501(c)3 foundation that had income of more than $80 million in 2015. As it is tax exempt that means that its activities are, in effect, being subsidized by the U.S. Treasury so the congressmen are being “charitably educated” while they are also being wined and dined and propagandized in part on the taxpayers’ dime. A couple of the congress critters hardly hit the ground before they were singing the praises of their hosts, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy crooning “We have shared values! Shared security interests! No stronger bond!” And plenty of feel-good all around as Israel is “The Only Democracy in the Middle East!”

Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who has had his head up the Israeli derriere for decades, was also quick on the uptake, enthusing how support for Israel is completely bipartisan, “We are not here as Democrats and Republicans, we are here as Americans who support Israel’s security, its sovereignty and the safety of its people.” And as if it is not enough to go around bragging how one is subordinating U.S. sovereignty to that of Israel, the gnomes are hard at work back at home preparing to pass into law the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which will criminalize for many Americans their First Amendment right to criticize Israel, and a completely bipartisan bit of new legislation being pushed by the Israeli government that will take away aid currently given to the Palestinians as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to provide subsidies to help support the families of those individuals being held prisoner by the Israelis. As most aid actually goes towards training Palestinian security forces that are intended to prevent terror attacks against Israelis, the bill is as wrong-headed as can be, but it just goes to show how far Congress will go to punish Arabs on behalf of Israel.

And finally there has been a series of Israel-centric attacks on leading members of the Trump Administration. A month ago, the State Department released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2016. The report, as always, describes threats of violence in the Middle East from an Israeli perspective, but it was honest enough to also include two sentences that state that “Continued drivers of violence included a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians… and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive. The PA has [also] taken significant steps… to not create or disseminate content that incites violence.”

B’nai B’rith immediately blasted the report for “parroting the false Palestinian narrative” and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) demanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson resign because the report was “bigoted, biased, anti-Semitic, Israel hating, error ridden.” ZOA went on to praise the co-chairman of the Republican Israel Caucus, Congressman Peter Roskam for demanding that the State Department correct the “numerous mischaracterizations” in the report.

Tillerson has long been a target of the American-Jewish media because of the perception that oil company executives are traditionally not friendly to Israel. There have also been claims that he is “less hard” on Iran than the Israel Lobby would like. But what Tillerson is really experiencing is the hard truth regarding Israel: that its Lobby and friends in congress are both unrelenting and unforgiving. Even when they get 90% of the pie they are furious over someone else getting 10%.

Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has also been under siege for the past several weeks and his “loyalty” to Israel is now under the microscope. McMaster made the mistake of firing three National Security Council officials that were brought in by his predecessor Michael Flynn. The three – Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Rich Higgins, and Derek Harvey – are all regarded by the Israel Lobby as passionately pro-Israel and virulently anti-Iran. It was therefore inevitable that McMaster would take some heat, but the “speed and intensity” of the attacks has surprised even The Atlantic, which failed to note in its thorough examination of the development that while much of the anger flows from extreme right-wing sources there is also considerable pressure coming directly from friends of Israel.

It is interesting to note just how and by whom the argument against McMaster is being framed. Caroline Glick, an American-born Israeli journalist who might reasonably be described as extreme right wing, has led the charge in a posting that described McMaster as “deeply hostile to Israel.” She cites anonymous sources to claim that he refers to Israel as an occupying power and also has the audacity to claim that there once existed a place called Palestine. Oh, and he apparently also supports the nuclear agreement with Iran, as does Tillerson.

McMaster’s other crimes consist of allegedly altering the agenda of Donald Trump’s recent trip to Israel in ways that are somewhat arcane but which no doubt contributed to Glick’s sense of grievance. What is most interesting, however, is the unstated premise supporting Glick’s point of view, which is that the United States national security team should be subject to approval by Israel. Her view is not dissimilar to what lies behind the attacks on Tillerson and the real irony is that neither Tillerson nor McMaster has actually demonstrated any genuine animosity towards Israel, so the whole process is part of a perverse mindset that inevitably sees nearly everything as a threat.

We Americans are way beyond the point where we might simply demand that Israel and its partisans butt out of our politics. Israel-firsters are literally deeply embedded everywhere in the media, in politics at all levels, in academia, and in the professions. They are well funded and highly disciplined to respond to any threats to their hegemony. Their policy is to never give an inch on anything relating to Israel and their relentless grinding is characteristic of how they behave. The Israel Lobby controls Congress and can literally get any bill it wants through the legislature. And it also has its hooks in the White House, though the unpredictable Trump obviously makes many American Zionists nervous because it is rightly believed that once the president takes a position on anything he cannot be trusted either to understand what he has committed to or to stick with it subsequently.

So what is to be done? To match the passion of the Israel Lobby we Americans have to become passionate ourselves. Do what they do but in reverse. Write letters to congressmen and newspapers opposing the junkets to Israel. When a congress critter has a town hall, show up and complain about our involvement in the Middle East. Keep mentioning the pocket book issues, i.e. how Israel costs the taxpayer $9 million a day. Explain how its behavior puts our diplomats and soldiers overseas in danger. The reality is that Israel is built on a lot of lies promoted by people who frequently cite the holocaust every time they turn around but who have no actual regard for humanity outside their own tribe. The hypocrisy must stop if the United States is to survive as a nation. Pandering to Israel and engaging in constant wars to directly or indirectly defend it, be they against Iran or in Syria, will wear our country down and erode our freedoms. We are already on a slippery slope and it is past time to put our own interests first.

August 15, 2017 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Israel, Palestine, Steny Hoyer, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

AIPAC video describes decades-long role in US laws against BDS

If Americans Knew – August 14, 2017

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is a powerful Washington DC lobbying organization. In this 2016 video, AIPAC describes how it has successfully worked to create U.S. laws against boycotting Israel over its multitudinous violations of human rights and international law.

The video doesn’t mention the anti-boycott legislation working its way through Congress right now (S.720 / H.R. 1697) that AIPAC helped draft: iak.salsalabs.org/antiboycottbill

Such anti-boycott laws hurt everyone.

They interfere with Americans’ fundamental consumer rights and freedom of speech, often harm American businesses and thereby the U.S. economy, and damage American international relations.

They prevent peace and perpetuate violence in the Middle East. By helping to sustain Israel’s enormous power over Palestinians, they cause Israeli leaders to believe two things: they can ignore international law, and they don’t need to negotiate with Palestinians in good faith to reach a fair and lasting peaceful resolution.

Ultimately, AIPAC’s actions have hurt Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, and the many of others impacted by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and by Israel’s various wars against its neighbors.

August 14, 2017 Posted by aletho | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | AIPAC, European Union, Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Canada’s NDP backs American Empire

By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | August 10, 2017

Does the NDP consistently support a foreign policy that benefits ordinary people around the world? Or does the social democratic party often simply fall in line with whatever the American Empire demands?

Hélène Laverdière certainly seems to support the US-led geopolitical order. While the NDP foreign critic has called for stronger arms control measures and regulations on Canada’s international mining industry, she’s aligned with the Empire on issues ranging from Venezuela to Palestine, Ukraine to Syria.

Echoing Washington and Ottawa, Laverdière recently attacked the Venezuelan government. “On the heels of Sunday’s illegitimate constituent assembly vote, it’s more important than ever for Canada to work with our allies and through multilateral groups like the OAS to secure a lasting resolution to the crisis,” she told the CBC.

But, the constituent assembly vote wasn’t “illegitimate”. Venezuela’s current constitution empowers the president to call a constituent assembly to draft a new one. If the population endorses the revised constitution in a referendum, the president – and all other governmental bodies – are legally required to follow the new constitutional framework.

Additionally, calling on Ottawa to “work with our allies” through the OAS may sound reasonable, but in practice it means backing Trudeau’s efforts to weaken Venezuela through that body. Previously, Laverdière promoted that Washington-led policy. In a June 2016 press release bemoaning “the erosion of democracy” and the need for Ottawa to “defend democracy in Venezuela”, Laverdière said “the OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro has invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter regarding Venezuela, and Canada, as a member of the OAS, should support his efforts.” But, the former Uruguayan Foreign Minister’s actions as head of the OAS have been highly controversial. They even prompted Almagro’s past boss, former Uruguayan president José Mujica, to condemn his bias against the Venezuelan government.

Laverdière has also cozied up to pro-Israel groups. Last year she spoke to the notorious anti-Palestinian lobby organization American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Months after AIPAC paid for her to speak at their conference in Washington, Laverdière visited Israel with Canada’s governor general, even participating in a ceremony put on by the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund.

The only Quebec MP to endorse Jagmeet Singh as next party leader, Laverdière has attended other events put on by groups aligned with Washington. She publicized and spoke to the weirdly themed “Demonstration for human and democratic rights in Venezuela, in solidarity with Ukraine and Syria.”

Laverdière supports deploying troops to the Russian border and repeatedly called for more sanctions on that country. She said the plan to send military trainers to the Ukraine “sounds good in principle” and only called for a debate in Parliament about sending 450 Canadians to head up a 1,000-strong NATO force in Latvia.

Since 2014 Laverdière has repeatedly called for stronger sanctions on Russia. In 2014 Laverdière told the Ottawa Citizen that “for sanctions to work, it’s not about the number of people but it’s about actually sanctioning the right people. They have to be comprehensive. And they have to target mainly the people who are very close to Putin. Our sanctions, the Canadian sanctions, still fail to do that.”

In May Laverdière applauded a bill modeled after the US Magnitsky Act that will further strain relations between Ottawa and Moscow by sanctioning Russian officials. “Several countries have adopted similar legislation and we are encouraged that the Liberals are finally taking this important step to support the Global Magnitsky movement,” she said.

In another region where the US and Russia were in conflict Laverdière aligned with the Washington-Riyadh position. In the midst of growing calls for the US to impose a “no-fly zone” on Syria last year, the NDP’s foreign critic recommended Canada nominate the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize. A letter Laverdière co-wrote to foreign minister Stéphane Dion noted: “Canada has a proud and long-standing commitment to human rights, humanitarianism and international peacekeeping. It is surely our place to recognize the selflessness, bravery, and fundamental commitment to human dignity of these brave women and men.”

Also known as the Syrian Civil Defence, the White Helmets were credited with rescuing many people from bombed out buildings. But, they also fostered opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime. The White Helmets operated almost entirely in areas of Syria occupied by the Saudi Arabia–Washington backed Al Nusra/Al Qaeda rebels. They criticized the Syrian government and disseminated images of its violence, but largely ignored those people targeted by the opposition and reportedly enabled some of their executions.

The White Helmets are closely associated with the Syria Campaign, which was set up by Ayman Asfari, a British billionaire of Syrian descent actively opposed to Assad. The White Helmets also received at least $23 million from USAID and Global Affairs Canada sponsored a five-city White Helmets tour of Canada in late 2016.

Early in the Syrian conflict Laverdière condemned the Harper government for failing to take stronger action against Assad. She urged Harper to raise the Syrian conflict with China, recall Canada’s ambassador to Syria and complained that energy giant Suncor was exempted from sanctions, calling on Canada to “put our money where our mouth is.”

Prior to running in the 2011 federal election Laverdière worked for Foreign Affairs. She held a number of Foreign Affairs positions over a decade, even winning the Foreign Minister’s Award for her contribution to Canadian foreign policy.

Laverdière was chummy with Harper’s foreign minister. John Baird said, “I’m getting to know Hélène Laverdière and I’m off to a good start with her” and when Baird retired CBC reported that she was “among the first to line up in the House on Tuesday to hug the departing minister.”

On a number of issues the former Canadian diplomat has aligned with the US Empire. Whoever takes charge of the NDP in October should think about whether Laverdière is the right person to keep Canadian foreign policy decision makers accountable.

Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.

August 11, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | AIPAC, Canada, Latin America, NATO, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela | Leave a comment

‘The Palestine Exception’: War on BDS is now a war on American democracy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 7, 2017

There is something immoral in Washington D.C., and its consequences can be dire for many people, particularly for the health of US democracy.

The US government is declaring war on the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The fight to defeat BDS has been ongoing for several years, but most notably since 2014.

Since then, 11 US states have passed and enacted legislation to criminalise the movement, backed by civil society, which aims to put pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestine.

Washington is now leading the fight, thus legitimising the anti-democratic behaviour of individual states. If the efforts of the US government are successful, an already struggling US democracy will take yet another step back, and many good people could potentially be punished for behaving in accordance with their political and moral values.

Senate Bill 720 (S.720), also known as the “Anti-Israel Boycott Act”, was largely drafted by the notorious and powerful Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

According to its own “2017 Lobbying Agenda”, AIPAC has made the passing of the bill its top priority.

The US Congress is beholden by Israel’s interests and by the “stranglehold” of AIPAC over the elected representatives of the American people.

Thus, it was no surprise to see 43 senators and 234 House representatives backing the bill, which was first introduced in March.

Although the Congress has habitually backed Israel and condemned Palestinians – and any politician or entity that dared recognise Palestinian rights – this time, the Congress is going too far and is jeopardising the very basic rights of its own constituencies.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution has been the pillar in defense of people’s right to free speech, freedom of the press, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This right, however, has often been curtailed when it applies to Israel. The Centre for Constitutional Rights refers to this fact as “The Palestine Exception”.

S.720, however, if it passes, will cement the new US status, that of “flawed democracy” as opposed to a full democratic nation that legislates and applies all laws fairly and equally to all of its citizens. The law would make it a “felony” for Americans to support the boycott of Israel.

Punishment of those who violate the proposed law ranges from $250,000 to $1 million, and/or 20 years in prison.

The bill has already had chilling effects on many groups in the country, especially among African American activists, who are fighting institutionalised racism. If the bill becomes law, the precedent will become the norm, and dissidents will find themselves standing trial for their mere opinions.

With regard to Israel, the US Congress is united. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers often act in ways contrary to the interests of their own country, just to appease the Israeli government. This is no secret.

However, the real danger is that such laws go beyond the traditional blind allegiance to Israel – into a whole level of acquiescence, where the government punishes people and organisations for the choices they make, the values they hold dear or the mere inquiry of information about an issue that they may find compelling.

On 17 July, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a letter calling on lawmakers who signed the Senate version of the bill to reconsider. The bill would punish businesses and individuals, based solely on their point of view. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment ACLU stated.

Only one person, thus far, has reportedly reconsidered her support, junior Democratic Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand. She requested for her name to be removed from the list of co-signatories.

AIPAC’s reaction was immediate, calling on its army of supporters to pressure the Senator to reinstate her name on the list and to “reaffirm her commitment to fighting the international de-legitimisation of Israel.”

Dire as it may seem, there is something positive in this. For many years, it has been wrongly perceived that Israel’s solicitation of American support against Palestinians and Arabs is, by no means, a foreign country meddling or interfering in the US political system or undermining US democracy.

The “Israel Anti-Boycott Act”, however, is the most egregious of such interventions, for it strikes down the First Amendment, the very foundation of American democracy, by using America’s own lawmakers to carry out the terrible deed.

This bill exposes Israel, as well as its hordes of supporters, in Congress. Moreover, it presents human rights defenders with the opportunity to champion BDS, thus the rights of the Palestinian people and also the rights of all Americans. It would be the first time in many years that the battle for Palestinian rights can be openly discussed and contextualised in a way that most Americans find relevant to their everyday life.

Actually, this was one of the aims of BDS, from the start. While the boycott and de-legitimisation of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinians is at the core of the civil society-backed movement, BDS also aims at generating an urgent discussion on Israel and Palestine.

Although inadvertently, the Congress is now making this very much possible.

The bill, and the larger legislative efforts across the US – and Europe – are also a source of hope in the sense that it is recreating the very events that preceded the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The US and British governments, in particular, opposed the South African liberation movement, condemned the boycott and backed the racist authoritarian role of P. W. Botha to the very end. Former President, Ronald Reagan, perceived Nelson Mandela to be a terrorist. Mandela was not removed from the US terror list until 2008.

It is quite telling that the US, UK and Israel were the most ardent supporters of South Africa’s apartheid.

Now, it is as if history is repeating itself. The Israeli version of apartheid is fighting for legitimacy and refuses to concede. It wants to colonise all of Palestine, mistreat its people and violate international law without a mere word of censure from an individual or an organisation.

The US government has not changed much, either. It carries on supporting the Israeli form of apartheid, while shamelessly paying lip service to the legacy of Mandela and his anti-apartheid struggle.

Although the new chapter of the anti-apartheid struggle is called “Palestine”, the US and its western backers continue to repeat the same costly policies they committed against the South African people.

As for true champions of human rights, regardless of their race, religion or citizenship, this is their moment. No meaningful change ever occurs without people being united in struggle and sacrifice.

In one of his speeches, an American abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

The US Congress, with the help of AIPAC, is criminalising this very demand of justice.

Americans should not stand for this, if not for the sake of Palestinians, then for their own sake.

August 7, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | AIPAC, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

How Donald Trump Threw Peace and Prosperity Under an AIPAC Bus

By Phil Butler | New Eastern Outlook | 04.08.2017

Shortly after 11:00 AM, Wednesday August 2, 2017 US President Donald Trump declared full scale economic war on Russia. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is joined by millions of us who’ve now lost all hope of peace and reconciliation in the world. Cold War II is on.

Dmitry Medvedev attacked Trump’s decision to sign the bill in the same way most of us analysts will, chastising the US President after his clear bow to a US Congress unified in its hysteria against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the Russian Prime Minister did not delve into just “why” Trump is praying to the altar of neo-conservatism today. Trump feigned disagreement with sections of the law his team said are “unconstitutional”, but the force behind these sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea is hidden. Let me enlighten you on what is really taking place in Washington.

Two days ago, a close colleague of mine was on the line from Greenwich, Connecticut to discuss my upcoming book when the conversation turned to these new Russia sanctions. My colleague related a story from Capital Hill and an insider who explained the vote on the sanctions law. The gist of this insider’s revelation was that the overwhelming “yes vote” in Congress indicated one powerful player behind the curtain – America’s pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

When I heard AIPAC stood behind, my mind immediately reverted to images and sound bites of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Their mutual gratification society handshakes, the syrupy sweetness of the Israeli’s recollections on young Trump – and then I thought on the Saudi arms deal and the wider frame of the Arab Spring. Sorry to consolidate so many facets here, but if Trump and all of Washington has acquiesced totally to the will of AIPAC, then America is all done. Looking again at Russia’s Medvedev:

“Trump’s administration has demonstrated total impotence by surrendering its executive authority to Congress in the most humiliating way.”

The point of this new sanctions law is revealed simply. If AIPAC controls the Unites States Congress, and if the President of the United States has surrendered his executive authority to that body, then the Israeli lobby controls the Government of the United States – lock stock and barrel. In other words, a foreign sovereign nation and ideology rules America – and it rules it with impunity.

Turning to the law itself, even the Trump administration admitted there are sections that are “unconstitutional”, which means illegal. “Illegal!” Is a Barack Obama infused Supreme Court going to overturn the law? This question is rhetorical, for no justice will ever even read through this law. Looking at the Israel lobby and the Zionist influence on America overall, it’s becoming stunningly clear “legality” has little to do with American policy either internally or internationally. When I heard AIPAC was “all in” on this law, I did a two minute analysis of their digital and social media footprint. It’s important to run down the lobby’s online rhetoric here.

The website is replete with Trump administration ambassadors and evangelists for Israel “likes”, as well as Congressional “yes men” who I found to be key in pushing this law down our throats. The Twitter feed of AIPAC the last few weeks reads like an online gambling casino SPAM attack. And until this sanctions bill was signed by Trump, the scrolling Twitter message from AIPAC endeavored to lump Russia in with marginalized Iran and North Korea – today the feed reverts to bashing the Palestinians. With Russia now “punished” for foiling the “Syria plan” with more crippling sanctions, the Zionists are hot on the trail of destroying funding from America for Palestinians. The controversial AIPAC pressure to pass the so-called Taylor Force Act, is being pressed in order to ruin $300 million annually in U.S. economic support to the Palestinian cause. Reverting back to the Russia sanctions law though, the Israelis tout every supporter in Washington and aboard who bends to its will. A Tweet retweeted by AIPAC from Senator Bob Menendez‏ is emblematic:

“Russia, Iran & NK cant violate int’l order w/o consequence. Proud many sanctions I wrote included in bipartisan bill”

Menendez is a lunatic in my view. The New Jersey Senator’s efforts to please the Israel lobby in the bag today, the member of Foreign Relations Committee is out to strip Russia of the upcoming FIFA World Cup today. This Tweet reveals the deep state seemingly bent on all out war on Russia.

“#ICYMI FIFA must dismiss Russia as host of @FIFAWorldCup if forced labor reports are true. Ignoring them=complicity”ttps

Some may recall that Menendez is the senator who was indicted in federal corruption charges involving convicted South Florida Dr. Salomon Melgen, who was found guilty recently of sixty-seven criminal counts of fraud. Menendez was turned down this month in his attempt to have a September trial postponed. He’s accused of taking bribes from Melgen, who allegedly paid him over $1 million. Menendez gave a rousing speech at the 2017 AIPAC conference back in March. The last to speak at the Tuesday session of the conference, Menendez framed a future for us all without even meaning to. In his Netanyahu praising cap off, the New Jersey sellout offers this with regard to America’s intentions in the Middle East:

“I was proud to help secure our record breaking $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding you all advocated for it — an agreement that ensures that Israel’s defenses will remain unmatched in the region and that together, the United States and Israel will continue developing defense technologies of astounding sophistication, like Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow-3 missile defense systems.”

“Record breaking!” The arrogance and cutting clarity of that stinks of money, control, and a militarism these new Russia sanctions signal. Yes, Israel will be secure for a while, as secure as she was during the first Cold War. Armed to the teeth, with tentacles in every power structure in the western hemisphere and near Asia, a tiny nation is insulated from catastrophe, while surrounding neighbors burn. Donald Trump just sealed a “record breaking” deal for Saudi Arabia to blast neighbors to hell. Now Iran is the psychosis for AIPAC and Israel. So, Russia must be penalized, and North Korea must be glued to an evil axis in order that Americans can identify.

AIPAC has exerted a massive pressure, and the message could not be more clear, the Zionists who control Israel are at the wheel. Just read the list of speakers at the conference. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI), United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and Vice President of the United States Mike Pence stood tall in their unwavering support for Israel – no matter what. With the unseeing and deaf American public preoccupied elsewhere, a free democracy has been taken over by the agnostic hierarchy of Zion. And Judaism is used as the cloak of invisibility and viability for the most evil and biased ideas on Earth.

Donald Trump threw his constituents under the bus this week. But the American president’s crime will be registered when more trillions are spent uselessly on weapons, and when the souls of innocent dead reach God. This sanctions law ruined all of our work to restore moderation and peaceful calm to a crisis ridden world. I place fifty percent of the blame on the people behind this Israeli lobby, and the other fifty percent on the one man who might have prevented it.

August 4, 2017 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Donald Trump, Middle East, Taylor Force Act, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

AIPAC threat to free speech

By Ron Forthofer | Dissident Voice | July 26, 2017

There is a Senate bill, along with a companion bill in the House, working its way through Congress with strong bipartisan support, that poses a significant danger to free speech. One would think this bill would be a big deal but, surprisingly, the bill has not received much coverage in the mainstream media.

Fortunately the American Civil Liberties Union is alert to efforts undermining free speech. Thus, in a July 20th article on the ACLU website about S. 720/H.R. 1697, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Bryan Hauss, Staff Attorney, wrote:

The bill would amend existing law to prohibit people in the United States from supporting boycotts targeting Israel — making it a felony to choose not to engage in commerce with companies doing business in Israel and its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Violations would be punishable by a civil penalty that could reach $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.

Hauss continues:

The bill is aimed at advocates of boycotts targeting Israel, most notably the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement — a global campaign that seeks to apply economic and political pressure on Israel to comply with international law. Specifically, the bill sponsors intend the act as a response to the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 2016 resolution calling on companies to respect human rights, including in occupied Palestinian territories. No matter what you think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one thing is clear: The First Amendment protects the right to engage in political boycotts.

Amazingly, supporters of this bill seem to have a problem with calling on companies to respect human rights! Who would draft such a problematic bill that stifles free speech and nonviolent political action?

The Intercept website carried a July 19th article by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Grim that said:

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the bill “was drafted with the assistance of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.” Indeed, AIPAC, in its 2017 lobbying agenda, identified passage of this bill as one of its top lobbying priorities for the year.

This AIPAC-influenced bill is consistent with AIPAC’s long-term pattern of advocating for the interests of a foreign nation, Israel. AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, D.C. and many members of Congress seem to automatically toe its line. Thus it is not surprising that 46 senators and 245 representatives have already signed on to the bill originally introduced on March 23rd.

Greenwald and Grim added that cosponsors include liberal Senators Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Maria Cantwell as well as conservative Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse. In the House, cosponsors include conservatives such as Jason Chaffetz, Liz Cheney, and Peter King as well as liberals Ted Lieu, Adam Schiff, and Eric Swalwell. Greenwald and Grim noted that these latter three members, who have built a wide public following by posturing as opponents of authoritarianism, are cosponsoring one of the most oppressive and authoritarian bills that has pended before Congress in quite some time.

Many of the cosponsors claim they were unaware of the penalties that could be applied in the bill whereas a few others state that they have a different reading of the bill, particularly related to the criminal penalties.

In addition to using AIPAC and other groups to lobby Congress, Israel previously directly inserted itself into our legislative process. For example, in 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blatantly campaigned to derail the nuclear agreement with Iran. Also of concern, many U.S. and Israeli political experts thought Netanyahu clearly tried to sway the outcome in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

We must protect our free speech by opposing this highly questionable bill designed to benefit a foreign nation. In Colorado this means questioning Senator Bennet and Representatives Lamborn, Coffman and Buck, about their support for this appalling bill. We can also thank the other members of the Colorado delegation for not cosponsoring this terrible affront to free speech and the Constitution.

Ron Forthofer is a retired professor of biostatistics from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston and was a Green Party candidate for Congress and also for governor of Colorado.

July 27, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Adam Schiff, AIPAC, Ben Sasse, Eric Swalwell, Human rights, Israel, Marco Rubio, Maria Cantwell, Palestine, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Ted Cruz, Ted Lieu, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

US senators propose $558mn more for Israeli missile defense

RT | June 29, 2017

A Senate committee markup of the 2018 Pentagon funding bill would give $705 million to Israeli “cooperative” missile defense programs, a $588 million increase from the budget request made by President Donald Trump.

The Senate Armed Services Committee draft of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would allocate $268.5 million for research, development, testing and evaluation for “multi-tiered missile defense systems” and another $290 million for purchasing them.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) identified the systems that would benefit from the funding as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow-2 and Arrow-3.

“These funds will help Israel defend its citizens against rocket and missile threats, and contribute to America’s missile defense programs,” AIPAC said Thursday, in a statement thanking the Senate and House armed services committees.

The David’s Sling weapon system and the Arrow program would receive $120 million apiece, while $92 million would go towards Israeli procurement of Tamir interceptors for the Iron Dome short-range system through co-production in the United States, according to the Senate committee markup.

The 2018 Senate proposal would be a $105 million increase over the funds approved for 2017, AIPAC noted.

“As Israel faces dramatically rising security challenges, AIPAC urges inclusion of these vital funds in the final versions of the Fiscal Year 2018 defense authorization and appropriations bills,” the lobbying group said.

The US has “a very strong cooperative missile defense partnership” with Israel, the head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) told lawmakers earlier this month.

The MDA budget includes funding for “co-development and co-production” of the David’s Sling and Arrow weapon systems. The Senate markup of the 2018 NDAA allocates $8.5 billion to the agency “to strengthen homeland, regional, and space missile defenses.”

MDA also plans to test the Arrow-3 system, intended to defeat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), from a site at Kodiak Island, Alaska sometime in 2018.

Despite the substantial investments, missile defense remains a hit-or-miss proposition. Earlier this month, the MDA made the first successful intercept on an ICBM-like target over the Pacific Ocean. However, last week’s test of a joint US-Japanese ship-mounted interceptor off the coast of Hawaii was a failure.

Missile defense funding was one of the bones of contention during the 2016 negotiations between the US and Israel over a 10-year military aid package. One of the conditions the Obama administration insisted on was that eventually all the funding would go back to purchases of US weapons, which Israel eventually agreed to.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has enjoyed a more cordial relationship with Trump, calling him a “good friend.” Trump visited Israel as part of his first overseas tour in May, becoming the first serving US president to pray at the Western Wall.

June 29, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | AIPAC, Israel, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel’s Dirty Little Secret

How it drives US policies exploiting a spineless Congress and White House

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • June 20, 2017

At a recent panel discussion in Washington, screenwriter, film director and producer Oliver Stone briefly addressed the issue of alleged Russian interference in the recent national election, observing that “Israel interfered in the U.S. election far more than Russia and nobody is investigating them.” A few days later, in an interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show, Stone returned to the theme, responding to an aggressive claim that Russia had interfered in the election by challenging Colbert with “Israel had far more involvement in the U.S. election than Russia. Why don’t you ask me about that?”

Don’t look for the exchange with Colbert on YouTube. CBS deleted it from its broadcast and website, demonstrating once again that the “I” word cannot be disparaged on national television. Stone was, of course, referring to the fact that the Israel Lobby, most notably acting through its American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is undeniably a foreign lobby, no less so than anyone representing the presumed interests of Russia or China. It operates with complete impunity on Capitol Hill and also at state and local levels and no one dares to require it to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would permit scrutiny of its finances and also end its tax-exempt “educational” status. Nor does Congress or the media see fit to inquire into AIPAC’s empowerment of candidates based on their fidelity to Israel, not to mention the direct interference in the American electoral process which surfaced most visibly in its support of candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.

The last president that sought to compel the predecessor organization of AIPAC to register was John F. Kennedy, who also was about to take steps to rein in Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program when he was assassinated, which was a lucky break for Israel, particularly as Kennedy was replaced by the passionate Zionist Lyndon Baines Johnson. Funny how things sometimes work out. The Warren Commission looked deeply into a possible Cuban connection in the shooting and came up with nothing but one has to wonder if they also investigated the possible roles of other countries. Likewise, the 9/11 Commission Report failed to examine the possible involvement of Israel in the terrorist attack in spite of a considerable body of evidence suggesting that there were a number of Israeli-sourced covert operations running in the U.S. at that time.

Looking back from the perspective of his more than 40 years of military service, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer described the consequences of Jewish power vis-à-vis U.S. policy towards Israel, stating that “I’ve never seen a president – I don’t care who he is – stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.”

He also addressed the 1967 Israeli assault on the USS Liberty, saying “Israel attempted to prevent the Liberty’s radio operators from sending a call for help by jamming American emergency radio channels. [And that] Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned lifeboats at close range that had been lowered to rescue the most-seriously wounded.” He concluded with “our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own? If so, Why? Does our government continue to subordinate American interests to Israeli interests?”

It is a question that might well be asked today, as the subservience to Israeli interests is, if anything, more pervasive in 2017 Washington than it was in 2002 when Moorer spoke up. And, as in Moorer’s day, much of the partiality towards Israel makes its way through congress with little or no media coverage lest anyone begin to wonder whose tail is wagging which dog. To put it succinctly, there is an Israeli hand in much of what the United States does internationally, and the involvement is not intended to do anything good for the American people.

During the past several weeks alone there has been a flurry of legislation backed by Israel and its Lobby. One bill might actually have been written by AIPAC. It is called Senate 722, Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017. The bill has 63 co-sponsors, most of whom are the usual suspects, but it also included an astonishingly large number of Democrats who describe themselves as progressive, including Corey Booker and Kamila Harris, both of whom are apparently terrified lest they say “no” to Israel. With 63 co-sponsors out of 100 senators the bill was certain to pass overwhelmingly, and it was indeed approved 98 to 2, with only Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voting “no.”

And there’s more to S.722 than Iran – it’s subtitle is “An act to provide congressional review and to counter Iranian and Russian governments’ aggression.” Much of it is designed to increase sanctions on both Iran and Russia while also limiting the White House’s ability to relieve any sanctions without approval by congress. Regarding Iran, the bill mandates that “Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 2 years thereafter, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Director of National Intelligence shall jointly develop and submit to the appropriate congressional committees a strategy for deterring conventional and asymmetric Iranian activities and threats that directly threaten the United States and key allies in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond.”

The premise is of course nonsensical as Iran’s ability to threaten anyone, least of all the United States, is limited. It is far outgunned by its neighbors and even more so by the U.S., but it has become the enemy of choice for congress as well as for the former generals who serve as White House advisers. The animus against Iran comes directly from Israel and from the Saudi Arabians, who have managed to sell their version of developments in their part of the world through a completely acquiescent and heavily Jewish influenced western media.

And there’s more. A bill has surfaced in the House of Representatives that will require the United States to “consult” with Israel regarding any prospective arms sales to Arab countries in the Middle East. In other words, Israel will have a say, backed up undoubtedly by Congress and the media, over what the United States does in terms of its weapons sales abroad. The sponsors of the bill, one Brad Schneider of Illinois, and Claudia Tenney of New York, want “closer scrutiny of future military arms sales” to maintain the “qualitative military edge” that Israel currently enjoys.

Schneider is, of course, Jewish and a life member of AIPAC, so it is hardly as if he is a disinterested party. Tenny runs for office in New York State, so it is hardly as if she is disinterested either, but the net result of all this is that American jobs and U.S. international security arrangements through weapons sales will be at least in part subject to Israeli veto. And you know that is precisely what will happen as Israel could give a damn what happens to the struggling American entity that it so successfully feeds off of.

And there’s still more. Bill HR 672 Combating European Anti-Semitism Act of 2017 was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives on June 14^th. Yes, I said “unanimously.” The bill requires the State Department of monitor what European nations and their police forces are doing about anti-Semitism and encourages them to adopt “a uniform definition of anti-Semitism.” That means that criticism of Israel must be considered anti-Semitism and will therefore be a hate crime and prosecutable, a status that is already de facto true in Britain and France. If the Europeans don’t play ball, there is the possibility of repercussions in trade negotiations. The bill was co-sponsored by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida and Nita Lowey of New York, both of whom are Jewish.

There is also a Senate companion bill on offer in the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2017. The bill will make the Anti-Semitism Envoy a full American Ambassador and will empower him or her with a full staff and a budget permitting meddling worldwide. The bill is sponsored by Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Marco Rubio of Florida. Gillibrand is unlikely to miss co-sponsoring anything relating to Israel due to her own self-interest and Rubio wants to be president real bad so he is following the money.

And finally, the U.S. Senate has also approved a resolution celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem. Again, the vote was unanimous. The resolution was co-sponsored by Senators Charles Schumer and Mitch McConnell, two reptiles who give snakes a bad name and about whom the less said the better. Schumer is Jewish and has described himself as the “shomer” or guardian of Israel in the Senate. That the resolution opposes long established U.S. government policy that the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israel is in contravention of international law and is an impediment to any peace process with the Palestinians apparently bothered not even one Senator.

I might note in passing that there has been no Senate resolution commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the bravery exhibited by the officers and crew of the USS Liberty as they were being slaughtered by the Israelis at the same time as Jerusalem was being “liberated.” There is probably even more to say, to include secret agreements with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, but I will stop at this point with one final observation. President Donald Trump traveled to the Middle East claiming to be desirous of starting serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but it was all a sham. Benjamin Netanyahu took him aside and came out with the usual Israeli bullshit about the Palestinians “inciting” violence and hatred of Jews and Trump bought into it. He then went to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and shouted at him for being a liar and opposed to peace based on what Netanyahu had told him. That is what passes for even-handed in the U.S. government, no matter who is president. A few days later the Israelis announced the building of the largest bloc of illegal new settlements on the West Bank since 1992, an action that they claim is being coordinated with Washington.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once boasted about owning the United States. I guess he was right.

June 20, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Oliver Stone: Israel is more dangerous than Russia

Do we have enough evidence which points to the idea that Israel has been meddling in U.S. elections and foreign affairs? Yes.

“You can’t mention Israel, Bro!”

By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | June 16, 2017

Oliver Stone probably didn’t know that he was attacking the Neoconservative hawks, warmongers, and ethnic cleansers in Washington when he told Stephen Colbert that “Israel had far more involvement in the US election than Russia.”[1]

That statement indeed was a political bomb, and it almost certainly took Colbert by surprise. In response to this claim, the Jewish Press declared:

“Stone was obviously pulling the old anti-Israel, leftist line about how AIPAC is controlling Washington (much the way the ‘Jews’ control Hollywood) – and in his haste to save face apparently forgot the difference between contributing to political campaigns and hacking DNC computers.”[2]

Well, obviously Stone stroke a nerve, for we all know by now that AIPAC has had and continues to have a tremendously powerful influence on U.S. foreign policy. Once again, this is not conspiracy stuff. The scholarly studies on this issue are just an embarrassment to riches:

Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (New York: Columbia University Pres, 2011).

Michael MacDonald, Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).

John M. Schuessler, Deceit on the Road to War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democracy (New York: Cornell University Press, 2015).

John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar & Straus, 2007).

Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Random House, 2006).

But the simple question is this: do we have enough evidence which points to the idea that Israel has been meddling in U.S. elections and foreign affairs? Yes.

In 1987, Jewish American Jonathan Jay Pollard was sent to prison for life for spying for Israel. In 1995, Israel publicly denied that Pollard was a spy, but recanted that statement three years later. BBC News itself declared,

“Israel has officially acknowledged for the first time that an American Jew, Jonathan Pollard, who was arrested in the United States 13 years ago, was one of its spies. Pollard, a former intelligence analyst for the United States Navy, is serving a life sentence in North Carolina for passing classified military documents to Israel. Until now, the Israeli authorities had always denied that Pollard was working under their direction.”[3]

For years the Israelis “refused to tell the United States what Pollard gave them.”[4] Then in 2010 Netanyahu made it clear that Pollard was an Israeli spy who was working for the Israeli government, “for which Israel took full responsibility.” Yet even after this admission, Ambassador Michael Oren said he hoped for Pollard’s earliest release.[5]

In 2005, Steve J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who served for twenty-three years as top officials for American Israel Public Affairs (AIPAC), were accused of similar charges. As the trial was nearing, both the Israel Lobby and the defense team “described the proceedings as a frame-up, the result of an intra-bureaucratic struggle within the government, and a plot by anti-Semites in Bush’s Justice Department to carry out a Washington pogrom.”[6]

Neither man was convicted, thanks again to their Jewish friends: “While most of the more cautious elements in the Jewish community are staying well away from this case, the radicals, such as Rabbi Avi Weiss and his AMCHA Coalition for Jewish Concerns, who have previously devoted their efforts to freeing Jonathan Pollard, have now turned their attention to Rosen and Weissman.”[7]

Neoconservative Daniel Pipes declared that “we worried about the ramifications for us [meaning Jews] if [Rosen] were found guilty.”[8] He ended the article by congratulating both Rosen and Weissman. Pulitzer winner Dorothy Rabinowitz also praised them, characterizing their actions as “activities that go on every day in Washington, and that are clearly protected under the First Amendment.”[9]

The implication seems to be that Americans spying for Israel are protected by the First Amendment. In fact, “several prominent Neocons have been investigated on credible charges of spying for Israel: Perle, Wolfowitz, Stephen Bryen, Douglas Feith, and Michael Ledeen.”[10]

“In 1970 Perle was recorded by the FBI discussing classified information with the Israeli embassy. In 1981 he was on the payroll of an Israeli defense contractor shortly before being appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy…During his tenure in the Reagan administration, Perle recommended purchase of an artillery shell made by Soltan, an Israeli munitions manufacturer…

“At the present time, Perle is on the board of directors of Onset Technology, a technology company founded by Israelis Gadi Mazor and Ron Maor with research companies and investment funds. He was also a close personal friend of Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.”[11]

Similarly, “Feith has been suspected of spying for Israel. In 1972 Feith was fired from a position with the National Security Council because of an investigation into whether he had provided documents to the Israeli embassy. Nevertheless, Perle, who was Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy, hired him as his ‘special counsel,’ and then as his deputy. Feith worked for Perle until 1986 when he left government service to form a law firm, Feith and Zell, which was originally based in Israel and best known for obtaining a pardon for the notorious Marc Rich during the final days of the Clinton administration.”[12]

In 1997, Army tank engineer David A. Tenenbaum “gave classified military information on Patriot missiles and armored military vehicles to Israeli officials,” which was sent “to every Israeli military liaison official posted to the command over the last 10 years.”[13]

The Israel government, of course, “denied that any inappropriate activity had taken place.”166 David Bar Illan, chief spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, put out a statement, saying, “There has been no improper contact between Tenenbaum and anybody or institution of the Israeli Government.” According to the affidavit, “Tenenbaum admitted to divulging non-releasable classified information to every Israeli liaison officer.”[14] So Tenenbaum admitted, but Israel denied.

Justin Raimondo writes that if Rabinowitz is right in saying that the actions of Jewish spies are covered by the First Amendment, then “we are all in big trouble,” since it would mean that organized Jewry is betraying the American people. In 2004, the FBI came to the same conclusion.[15] In fact, in 2003 the FBI decided not to hire Jews for Arabic translation jobs, since they tended to present an opposite story of the actual event.

In 2004, a former intelligence official who was familiar with the latest FBI probe and who had recently left government work told the Los Angeles Times, “There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States. Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.”[16]

The shocking fact is that “the FBI has investigated several incidents of suspected intelligence breaches involving Israel since the Pollard case, including a 1997 case in which the National Security Agency bugged two Israeli intelligence officials in Washington discussing efforts to obtain a sensitive U.S. diplomatic document. Israel denied wrongdoing in that case and all others, and no one has been prosecuted.”[17]

Yet World Net Daily, a thoroughly Zionist outlet, accused the FBI of fostering anti-Semitism.[18] Since the Pollard affair, the FBI has suspected Israel of espionage, gathering enough evidence that they had continuing reason for suspicion through to the Clinton administration.[19] Even the Washington Post declares that there were “possible espionage” cases in which Israel was of major concern, especially “among those who translate and oversee some of the FBI’s most sensitive, top-secret wiretaps in counterintelligence and counterterrorist investigations.”[20]

The FBI’s suspicions were firmly based on documentation, considering that they had formerly had historical confrontations with Israel and Jewish spies. Even in December of 2008, Israeli traitor Ben-Ami Kadish, then 85 years old, was arrested and pleaded guilty for passing classified documents to Israel in the 1980s. To Judge William H. Pauley III, this was a disgrace to our security, because Kadish should have been charged years ago for many more charges.[21]

Again, in 2009, scientist Stewart Nozette, who worked for years in NASA, was caught spying for Israel. The New York Times article was titled “The Scientist Who Mistook Himself for a Spy.”[22] These acts of disloyalty are quite embarrassing, yet pointing out serious cases in which the United States is being wounded from within by the Israeli regime is like finding yourself in the middle of World War III.

Even in Britain in 2010, senior officials (particularly a senior Mossad agent) in Israel were accused of forging British passports used in a plot to kill a Hamas leader in the United Arab Emirates. “Police in Dubai have already said they are ‘99% certain’ the Mossad was behind Mabhouh’s killing, and [David] Miliband’s remarks represented the first official endorsement of that view by a western government.”[23] Miliband is British Foreign Secretary.

But involvement in espionage is just the tip of the iceberg. Ludwig Fainberg was a notorious mobster; “according to the FBI, he was the middleman for an international drugs and weapons smuggling conspiracy linking Colombian drug lords with the Russian Mafia in Miami. Fainberg’s claim to fame was that in the mid-1990s, he ventured onto a high-security naval base in the far northern reaches of Russia. His mission was to negotiate the purchase of a Russian Cold War-era diesel submarine—complete with a retired naval captain and a twenty-five-men crew—for the Colombian cartel. The price tag: a cool $5.5 million…From 1990 until he was arrested and charged in Miami in February 1997 for smuggling and racketeering, Fainberg ran an infamous strip club called Spoky’s.”[24]

It has also been documented that the Mossad—the Israeli secret service—was responsible for the murder of Jewish media mogul Robert Maxwell. After Jewish journalist Seymour Hersh wrote The Sampson Option: Israel, America and the Bomb, which shows that Maxwell had secret ties with the Israeli secret service, which then decided to do away with Maxwell to prevent him from ever revealing those ties.[25]

In 2001, the FBI charged Irving D. Rubin, chairman of the Jewish Defense League—an organization “whose aim was to defend Jews with ‘all necessary means,’ including the use of violence”[26]—with conspiracy to bomb private and government property, particularly the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the office of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, an Arab-American.[27]

However, Neocon hawks and warmongers have never touched on these vitally crucial issues. Instead of discussing events like these, Neoconservatives prefer to highlight Islamic suicide bombings, keeping the average American’s focus on hating or fearing the Muslim world and away from their own subversive actions at home.

Michael Hoffman points out that “when a Jewish bus is bombed by a Palestinian, graphic photos of the carnage and interviews with survivors are immediately beamed around the world. But when Palestinians are massacred by the Israeli army, the killings are perpetrated in secret, behind the veil of a ‘closed military zone.’”[28] If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to be resolved, we cannot afford double standards.

Pointing out terrorism in other countries is one thing, and acting in the manner of terrorism is another issue altogether. Mearsheimer and Walt write:

“Zionists used terrorism when they were trying to drive the British out of Palestine and establish their own state—for example, by bombing the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 and assassinating UN mediator Folke Bernadotte in 1948, among other acts—and the United States has backed a number of “terrorist” organizations in the past…American presidents have also welcomed a number of former terrorists to the White House (including PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, and Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who played key roles in the main Zionist terror organizations), which merely underscores the fact that terrorism is a tactic and not a unified movement.”[29]

This brings us to our conclusion: it is really silly to say that Russia is an enemy of the United States when U.S. officials are still making diabolical pacts with the Israeli regime and even Saudi Arabia. It just doesn’t add up, and it is interesting to see that even a person like Oliver Stone is realizing that the press, the media and other news outlets are essentially shooting themselves in the toes when they are not reporting the real thing.

[1] Quoted in David Israel, “Oliver Stone Tells Colbert Israel Had More Influence than Russia on 2016 Election,” Jewish Press, June 14, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Israel Admits It Spied on US,” BBC, May 12, 1998.

[4] “Netanyahu and Foe Tangle over Pollard,” Daily News, January 19, 1999.

[5] “Netanyahu: Pollard was an Israeli Spy,” Haaretz, June 26, 2010.

[6] Justin Raimondo, “AIPAC on Trial,” American Conservative, May 7, 2007.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Daniel Pipes, “Standing with Steven J. Rosen,” DanielPipes.org, May 5, 2009.

[9] Raimondo, “AIPAC on Trial,” American Conservative, May 7, 2007.

[10] MacDonald, Cultural Insurrections, 152.

[11] Ibid., 177.

[12] Ibid., 181.

[13] Keith Bradsher, “Army Engineer Gave Military Data to Israel,” NY Times, Feb. 20, 1997; “Civilian Engineer Gave Military Secrets to Israelis,” Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1997.

[14] Ibid.

[15] “FBI Suspects Israel Has Mole in Pentagon—CBS,” Washington Post, August 27, 2004; Curt Anderson, “Alleged Leak to Israel Probed for a Year,” Washington Post, August 28, 2004.

[16] Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, “Israel Has Long Spied on US, Says Officials,” LA Times, September 3, 2004.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Paul Sperry, “FBI: Jews Need Not Apply for Arabic Linguist Job,” WorldNetDaily.com, October 9, 2003.

[19] J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez, “FBI Probes Espionage at Clinton White House,” Insight Magazine, May 6, 2000.

[20] James V. Grimaldi, “Two FBI Whistle-Blowers Allege Lax Security, Possible Espionage,” Washington Post, June 19, 2002.

[21] Benjamin Weiser, “Man, 85, Avoids Jail Time for Giving Military Secret,” NY Times, May 29, 2009.

[22] Robert Mackey, “The Scientist Who Mistook Himself for a Spy,” NY Times, October 21, 2009.

[23] Julian Borger, “Britain Expels Mossad Agent over Forged Passport Plot,” Guardian, March 23, 2010.

[24] See Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade.

[25] See Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Robert Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy.

[26] Murray Friedman, Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 102.

[27] Tom Tugen, “JDL Head Arrested,” JewishJournal.com, December 13, 2001.

[28] Hoffman and Lieberman, The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians, 66.

[29] Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby, 63.

June 17, 2017 Posted by aletho | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Israel, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

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