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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

The real reasons behind the cancellation of Israel – Africa Summit

By Thembisa Fakude | MEMO | September 13, 2017

It is another bad September for Israel in Africa. Sixteen years ago in Durban, Israel suffered a political blow at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. The conference ended up with a walk out by Israel and the US after the draft declaration equated Zionism to racism.

Similarly, the NGO Forum of the conference was equally critical of Israel. The conference was regarded as a serious drawback against the pro-Israeli forces at the conference.

On 11 September 2017, the organisers of the first Israeli – Africa Summit which was scheduled to take place in Togo in October announced that the conference had been “postponed indefinitely”.

The controversial conference has been very divisive since its announcement, many criticised it for undermining the African Union (AU). Those critical of the conference argue that any pan African political gathering should involve and take queue from the AU not a particular country.

Secondly, African countries reject the idea of legitimizing Israel, hosting a conference of such nature would have certainly legitimised the Israel. Israel has been engaged in an aggressive charm offensive in Africa under the slogans “Israel is returning to Africa”.

It is all about numbers, the 54 African countries matter when it comes to voting at various global political platforms. Israel has already a significant presence outside the government in many countries particularly in East and West Africa. These organisation are tasked with facilitating people-to-people interactions. Moreover, Israel – like many countries – is queuing up to exploit the African economic opportunities. However, the continued atrocities Israel commits in Palestine remain an obstacle to expand in Africa.

The hosting of a pan African summit in a small country, with a long track record of dictatorship and sociopolitical instability, then call it “ Israeli – Africa Summit” is nothing short of arrogance by Israel. Indeed Africa often embraces a bloc position on difficult foreign policy issues; understandably most African countries are too small and weak to tackle big global political issues on their own. Israel is clearly trying to destroy that position.

It wants to exploit that weakness in Africa by courting smaller countries and forcing them to go against the political trend. The summit would have undermined the unity and seriousness of the African Union (AU). The AU is the only platform that can organise a summit of such a nature and magnitude with that kind of a title.

The Africa- Israeli conference in Togo has exposed a certain number of very important factors in the development of African politics. First, the rejection of this summit by most African nations had little to do with the influence of Arab – African relationship, it had a lot to do with a strong solidarity with Palestine. This is important to mention because the rejection of the Israeli – Africa Summit could easily be misinterpreted or credited to wrong political phenomenon.

Morocco’s efforts in discrediting the summit where by and large self-serving. It used the opportunity as a “public relations fanfare as it reenters the AU”. Many African countries remain committed to the struggle of the Palestinians, and it is that which made them assume a position against the summit.

It is common knowledge that the people-to-people relationships between Arabs and Africans have deteriorated over the years due to racism and the treatment of Africans, particularly African refugees and workers. The number of African leaders who were willing to attend the Israeli- Africa Summit also suggests a change even at the government level.

The conference’s postponement is certainly a diplomatic setback for Israel. However what has been surprising is the number of African countries who were willing to travel to Togo for the summit. Besides Nigeria, whose position was muted by the absence of its president, almost all members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had endorsed and were willing to attend the summit. Furthermore, there is already evidence that the disagreements that have occurred during the discussions leading up to the summit have created cracks and mistrust in Africa.

The biggest question is whether this is the last charm offensive attempt by Israel in Africa? If not, how is Africa going to react next time a big country like Israel makes similar attempts? Will the postponement strengthen the AU or are African countries going to begin overtly embracing standalone foreign policies? What will this mean to the AU’s ambition in maintaining a united position on African foreign policy?

The choice of Togo as the host country without consulting the AU was a serious miscalculation by Israel. Togo is going through political challenges of its own. It was political opportunism by Israel, taking advantage of a weak government hoping to be rescued from its own internal political challenge. The Togolese government was hoping to use Israel’s sociopolitical and economic pledges through the summit to stretch its political tenure, pacify political rumblings in the country and weaken the political opposition.

Read: Togo’s summit cancellation is “victory to African struggle,” says Hamas leader

September 13, 2017 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Africa, Israel, Togo, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli Media Begs US to Prepare For War With Syria, Russia, Iran

By Andrew Illingworth | Al Masdar News | September 9, 2017

BEIRUT, LEBANON – Israeli media has reached the new moral low of openly begging the United States to prepare for war in Syria even if it means coming into direct confrontation with major Syrian allies like Russia and Iran.

In a recent article titled “Why Israel needs to prepare America for the upcoming conflict in Syria,” Jerusalem Post writer Eric R. Mandel (an American Zionist) proposes that the US government and people must be made war-willing partners of Israel in the event of any future attack by the Israeli Defense Forces against Syrian, Russian and/ or Iranian military targets.

The article by Mandel is an outstanding example of how Israeli pro-war interest groups – speaking through right-wing Zionists in top American military and foreign policy circles – try to entice the US government and population into participating in wars that only benefit the hegemonic ambitions of Israel’s deep state.

At a time when violence in the Syrian conflict has reached an all time low due to the patient diplomatic efforts of Russia and Iran in establishing de-escalation zones, Mandel delivers a well-placed lie in his article that is designed to scare American audiences into supporting military actions that would effectively destroy such hard earned achievements towards peace.

The myth claimed by Mandel to be fact is that the Lebanese rebel movement Hezbollah completely controls the Lebanese government as well as a number of (unnamed) South American governments and that its own puppet master in this insidious conspiracy against Israel is Iran.

Indeed, Mandel’s lie is highly reminiscent of the now proven-to-be-nonsense ‘axis of evil’ conspiracy theory (in which Ba’athist Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Al-Qaeda were all in cahoots with one another) that was pushed by US politicians, and reverberated by the Western media, in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.

September 13, 2017 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Syria, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli support for Kurdish statehood is a poisoned chalice

By Mahan Abedin | MEMO | September 12, 2107

With the referendum on proposed Kurdish independence just two weeks away, the stage is being set for the gravest political and potential military crisis in post-Baathist Iraq. Months of intense lobbying by Iranian, Turkish and even American officials and interlocutors has failed to dissuade the Iraqi Kurdish leadership from staging this catastrophically divisive referendum.

In his combative interview with the BBC, the president of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, left no doubt that the referendum is the first formal step in the march toward full independence. More ominously, Barzani appeared to acknowledge that plans to officially annex Kirkuk may well spark a major war.

Every regional and extra-regional power, including the United States, is opposed to Kurdish statehood, with one exception. Israel. Whilst sections of the Iraqi Kurdish media are jubilant at this rhetorical support, Kurdish leaders will have to carefully weigh up the pros and cons of Israeli support before they formally declare statehood.

While Israel will undoubtedly prove a strong ally of an independent Kurdish state, it is the support it is willing to offer in the run-up to independence that will prove decisive. Even rhetorical Israeli support will drastically inflame the situation and bring the Kurds into armed conflict with the pro-Iranian Shia militias massed to the south of Kirkuk.

A peripheral policy

Israel’s support for nationalist Kurdish movements is strong and long-standing, dating back to the early 1960s. This policy is part of Israel’s “Alliance of the Periphery” doctrine, which in short amounts to developing strong ties to non-Arab states on the periphery of the Middle East with a view to combating the Arab boycott of the Jewish state.

Whilst the periphery doctrine was originally aimed at Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia, with time it expanded to incorporate non-state actors, principally the Kurds, whose quest for statehood Israel has consistently supported for decades.

Analysis centred on the putative “collapse” of the periphery doctrine is likely to prove premature. Whilst it is true that Turkey can no longer be regarded as a reliable Israeli partner, this will motivate Israeli strategists and operatives to seek out and develop new peripheral partners. Moreover, the peripheral policy survived its biggest crisis nearly forty years ago when almost overnight Iran went from an informal Israeli ally to the most vociferous enemy of the Jewish state.

Given this chequered history of missteps and strategic miscalculations, analysts are right to be wary of how useful this periphery doctrine is. However, as long as Israel’s occupation of Palestine continues to draw strong Arab, Muslim and broader international opposition, Israel will seek to identify and develop stealthy means by which to undermine, isolate and eventually exhaust this opposition.

It is in this context that leading Israeli strategists, including former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, push the case for Kurdish independence, primarily by trying to align Kurdish statehood with the interests of the United States and the West in general. This devious perspective is entirely in keeping with the perennial Israeli policy of equating its own core interests with that of the West. In this instance, Israeli diplomacy and wider lobbying efforts will try to sell Kurdish independence to policymakers in Washington, by presenting it as the best long-term strategy to contain Iranian influence in Iraq.

The road to war

Apart from strong rhetorical support, what practical steps can Israel take to support the Iraqi Kurdish quest for statehood? This is a vexing question, as on the face of it Israeli influence in Iraqi Kurdistan is practically non-existent. This author spent the first half of 2009 in Iraqi Kurdistan working as a journalist and despite widespread rumours didn’t uncover any evidence of Israeli involvement in Kurdish affairs.

Yet this influence surely exists, particularly at the security and intelligence level. It is in part due to the Israeli connection that the Kurdish intelligence agency, the Asayish, has developed into one of the most capable intelligence agencies in the Middle East. In keeping with Kurdish national aspirations, the Asayish has grown in reach and capability, not only spying on regional countries, but even managing to run modest operations as far afield as the United Kingdom.

Indeed, qualified Kurdish independence in Iraq now seems all but inevitable. This appears to be the assessment of US intelligence services, Washington’s stated opposition to the issue notwithstanding. Qualified independence in this context implies highly contested statehood, lacking widespread international support and drawing immediate internal and external opposition.

The most immediate opponents to Kurdish statehood in Iraq are the Shia paramilitary forces, who alongside their political patrons in Baghdad, have deep-seated interests in Kirkuk, which is home to a sizeable Shia Turkmen population. The collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of Daesh’s sweeping advance in June 2014 has significantly changed the military security landscape in Kirkuk and the immediate areas to the south, bringing the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia paramilitaries into dangerously close proximity.

The Shia paramilitaries, organised as Popular Mobilisation Units, reportedly maintain six military bases close to Kirkuk and are poised to engage the Peshmerga militarily should the need arise. From a purely speculative point of view, limited military engagements may follow the independence referendum as a means of deterring the Kurdish leadership from taking further steps toward formal independence.

From a broader strategic perspective, Israeli support for the Kurdish cause is a poisoned chalice for Kurdish nationalists in so far as it makes a sustainable Kurdish state unacceptable to Iran and by extension to its Shia allies in Iraq. But judging from Masoud Barzani’s combative rhetoric, he appears to be willing to take the risk.

Read: Israeli flag will be raised in independent Kurdistan, claims prominent Likud member

September 12, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Syria, Turkey, Zionism | Leave a comment

NY Times op-ed: Mainstream 9/11 narrative “totally false, literally from the first minutes”

By Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today | September 11, 2017

Today, on the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 neocon coup d’état, the New York Times editorial page has published a column by economist Paul Krugman calling the official narrative “totally false” – and accusing the Bush-Cheney Administration of “rejoicing” at the successful attack on America.

Here is Krugman’s key passage:

In the weeks and months after the atrocity, news media had a narrative about what it meant – basically, that it was a Pearl Harbor moment that brought America together with a new seriousness and resolve. This was comforting and reassuring. It was also totally false, literally from the first minutes.

The truth, as we now know, is that Bush administration officials rejoiced, even as the fires were still burning, at the opportunity they now had to fight the unrelated war they always wanted.”

Krugman does not come right out and say that the Bush-Cheney gang “rejoiced” because they were celebrating a successful covert operation. Nor does he mention the many Israelis who were even more blatantly celebrating their New Pearl Harbor deception:

*The “dancing Israelis,” Mossad agents all, who according to the NYPD had been pre-positioned to film the attacks, and who photographed themselves cheering wildly and flicking cigarette lighters in front of the burning and exploding Twin Towers.

*Benjamin Netanyahu, whose first reaction was that the attacks were “very good,” and who reaffirmed that years later by saying “We are benefitting from one thing” – 9/11.

*Mike Harrari, the legendary Mossad chief, who threw a celebratory party and openly claimed credit for 9/11, according to self-proclaimed eyewitness Dmitri Khalezov.

From ex-Chief Harrari to its agents on the ground in New York, the Mossad wildly and openly celebrated 9/11. The CIA’s reaction was somewhat more ambivalent. According to CIA Iraq Desk asset Susan Lindauer, her Case Officer, Richard Fuisz —who had known ahead of time that a big terror attack would be hitting Lower Manhattan — was on the phone with her on the morning of 9/11 as live television showed the Towers burning and then, suddenly, exploding. Lindauer says that as the Towers exploded, Fuisz’s reaction was an anguished scream: “The goddamn Israelis!”

But just a few weeks later, Bush called a celebratory party at the CIA, broke out the champagne all around, reassured everyone that their jobs were safe, and called 9/11 “just a memory” amidst an atmosphere of relief and rejoicing. (T.H. Meyer, Reality, Truth, and Evil.)

What does “liberal with a conscience” Paul Krugman know about the Bush Administration’s (and Israel’s) celebrations of 9/11? Presumably more than he’s telling us.

Why won’t Krugman just come right out and tell us what he really thinks? Presumably because he knows the New York Times would never publish it.

So Krugman’s breakthrough op-ed — the most truthful assessment of 9/11 ever published in a leading American newspaper — uses the kind of double-speak championed by neoconservative guru Leo Strauss. According to Strauss, ordinary people cannot handle the truth, so “philosophers” (i.e. neocons) should feed them comforting lies…while at the same time letting the truth slip through, from between the lines, in such a way that the philosophers, who are careful readers alert to multiple meanings, will understand the half-hidden message.

Krugman passes the buck for his, and the rest of the liberal media’s, failure to report 9/11 honestly:

The thing was, people just didn’t want to hear about this reality.

Maybe they didn’t want to hear it. But if the New York Times had published screaming headline after screaming headline from 9/12/2001 onward about…

*the controlled demolitions

*the bizarre “failure” of America’s air defenses

*the Israeli celebrations (and huge pre-9/11 operation in America)

*the Secret Service’s behavior in the Florida school where Bush was reading about pet goats

*the absurdity of the “hijackings” narrative

*the grotesquely un-Islamic behavior of the “Islamic extremist” alleged hijackers

*the complete lack of evidence of a plane crash at the Shanksville “Flight 93 crash site”

*the fact that at least nine alleged hijackers turned up alive afterwards

… the American people would have listened, risen up, and overthrown an evil regime that was bent on shredding the Constitution, doubling the military budget, and bankrupting America with wars aimed primarily at genocidally destroying the Middle East for the benefit of expansionist Israel.

The biggest and worst failure after 9/11 was the failure of the media to report the facts. Krugman and the rest of his liberal media colleagues who dropped the ball are complicit in the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated: The murder of 32 million Muslims in a genocidal war aimed at utterly destroying the Middle East, the annihilation of American Constitutional democracy, the bankrupting of the US and global economies, and the wholesale shifting of scarce resources away from taking care of people and building sustainable infrastructure, towards ever-escalating technologies and practices of wholesale destruction and mass murder.

The CONSCIENCE of a liberal?! I suspect that Krugman is suffering from bad conscience, and the disguised doublespeak version of 9/11 truth that he is telling in the NY Times op-ed pages is the rather pathetic result.

I hope and pray that Krugman and others in similar positions will follow the lead of those who, like leading Islamic Studies expert Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, have been driven by their consciences to speak more forthrightly about 9/11.

September 11, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | 9/11, Israel, Middle East, New York Times, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

BDS – Expressing Solidarity while Conducting Trade with Israel Is Hypocrisy

By Miko Peled | American Herald Tribune | September 11, 2017

Israel is all geared up for war against all for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and the de-legitimization of the Zionist state. The ministry of strategic affairs headed by Gil’ad Erdan – which is charged with this task – is now equipped with a budget, a former Israeli army general, retired Brig. General Sima Vakini-Gil who acts as the ministry’s General Director and a new assistant to the General Director, Tsahi Gavrieli who has brought a new wind to the sails of the anti-BDS ship. Gavrieli brought in a team that includes legal experts, economists and media people and according to a story recently published in Hebrew on Ynet they call on the Israeli public to take part in the campaign. According to the story, some parts of the campaign are overt and some covert, and the ministry will no longer be on the defensive but take an active, offensive position. Israelis are now encouraged to join this campaign with apps like ACT.IL which shows how to take the fight on social media and combat the “slurs” against Israel.

According to Gavrieli the BDS movement is losing ground in the US, and he brings as examples recent laws passed by over twenty states that criminalize the call to boycott Israel. Among those states are California, New York and New Jersey, to name a few. Currently there is a bill being proposed in the United States Senate that proposed to make the call to boycott Israel a federal offense that will carry a twenty-year prison sentence and a one million dollar fine. This bill was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU in a letter that was sent to members of the United States Senate. Gavrieli also claims that the BDS call is a “masked attempt to de-legitimize Israel by calling for Palestinian rights.” He said that the claim made by the BDS movement that Israel is an apartheid regime “is insulting to South Africans” and that it is “baseless.” “I call on every Israeli,” says Gavrieli “to take part in this.”

The aims of the BDS movement could not be more clearly stated, and all one needs to do is read them to see that the lies being spread by the State of Israel and its supporters, are unfounded. The call for BDS calls to impose Boycott, divestment and sanctions on the state of Israel until such time that the military occupation is ended, Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy equal rights, and Palestinian refugees are permitted to return to their homes and their land. There is no racism, no hate and no discrimination of any kind is suggested or implied. It is an unequivocal demand to bring the Zionist State to do what is needed to achieve these goals. We must remember that negotiations with consecutive Israeli governments have all have failed and Israel has made it clear that it has no intention to end its policies of occupation, killing, dispossession and racist discrimination and its demand that the Palestinians capitulate.

It is worth reviewing and replying to remarks made by Senator Chuck Schumer regarding BDS at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum on June 5, 2017. “Sometimes anti-Semitism is cloaked, hidden by certain movements that profess no bias but suspiciously hold Israel—and, by extension, the Jewish people—to a different standard than others.” This is in fact a very dangerous statement that could very well be misconstrued. Is the Senator implying that that all Jews should be held accountable for the acts of the government of Israel?

“There is no greater example than this insidious effort to harm the Jewish state than through the boycotts, divestment and sanctions” Schumer continued, and the question that begs to be asked here is, was South Africa harmed by the call to boycott the Apartheid regime? Certainly not the Black South Africans. “The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish state,” Schumer says, yet nothing in the demands of the BDS call or the actions of the BDS movement speak of destroying or getting rid of the Jewish State. Rather, the demands call to improve the conditions in which Palestinians live, conditions that were created by Israel and for which Israel is responsible. The demands of the BDS call seek to repair the inequities within which Palestinians live, like the military occupation and lack of rights. “And” Schumer adds, “its supporters, sometimes wittingly, sometimes unwittingly, but all of them practice a modern form of anti-Semitism.” Indeed, is it wise to refer to calls for justice and equality anti-Semitism. What modern form of anti-Semitism is it which does not incite against Jews, does not call for the killing of or discrimination against Jews but rather demands inclusion of all people so that they all may enjoy the same privileges. Is Senator Schumer saying that the call for justice and freedom is antithetical to Judaism?

Tsahi Gavrieli says that there is something even more serious than the BDS movement, it is the de-legitimization of the Jewish state particularly within Jewish communities. He is right, this is a serious issue because from its very inception there was no way in which the state of Israel could be legitimized except by fraud and deception. It is a state that was established by a settler colonial movement, which means that like all settler colonial movements, it was founded on racism and the use of violence against indigenous people. Israel has been engaged in genocide, a claim easily proven by reading the Geneva Convention on the crime of Genocide: particularly article 2, a, b, and c and article 3. Furthermore, the state of Israel has been engaged in ethnic cleansing and has a legal system in which Palestinians are denied rights that are provided to Jews. Legitimizing such a state is indeed a serious if not an impossible task.

The Jerusalem Post recently published an article by Adnan Oktar who claims that BDS “serves the continuity if not the escalation of the conflict.” Indeed all resistance movements may be accused of “escalating” conflicts. According to this argument the French should not have fought the Germans during WW-2; the Algerians should not have fought the French; the Vietnamese should not have insisted on fighting the French and then the Americans. Certainly the Lebanese should not have fought the Israelis to end the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Indeed, an entire movement that we know today as Hezbollah was created by the Lebanese for that purpose and it was successful. According to Mr. Oktar’s argument had all oppressed people been willing to die in silence the world would be a peaceful place. But would it indeed? The oppressed are always to blame for their unwillingness to remain oppressed – but resistance is a response to violence, it is never the cause of violence.

What is clear from the many articles written, conferences held, strategies contrived and laws passed regarding BDS is the following: there is nothing in this world that can stop the Palestinian struggle for justice. The call for BDS and the movement which was created because of it cannot be defeated. Boycotting Israel is the right thing to do, indeed the demands listed by the BDS call are just, reasonable and measured and every person of conscience and every government must heed this call. One would want to remind governments that claim to support the Palestinian cause, that expressing solidarity while conducting trade with Israel is hypocrisy.

September 11, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Syrian conflict is ending but US stays put

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | September 11, 2017

The Syrian government forces have broken through the ISIS’ 3-year long siege of the air base in the eastern city of Dier Ezzor. The dramatic developments in the weekend signifies for all purposes the end of the conflict in Syria. The capture of the city itself is now a forgone conclusion and with that ISIS becomes a spent force in Syria.

The covert US operation to evacuate by helicopter the ISIS commanders in Dier Ezzor last week suggests that the Pentagon accepts that the ISIS saga is ending in Syria, finally. Presumably, the ISIS and its “advisors” will now be reassigned to new theatres – such as Afghanistan. The lingering question will be: Is the US winding up business in Syria? A Russian commentary seems to think so.

On the other hand, there are reports that the rebel forces supported by the US Special Forces (with air cover) are making a dash from northern Syria to take a piece of Dier Ezzor, leaving behind the unfinished business of capturing Raqqa, ISIS’ “capital”. This risks a potential flashpoint involving them and the Russia-supported government forces in a struggle for supremacy in eastern Syria. (Reuters )

At stake are two things – one, seizure of the vast oil fields that lie to the east and north of Dier Ezzor that are the jewel in the crown of the Syrian economy; two, control of the Syrian-Iraqi border along the Euphrates and down south across which a “land bridge” could potentially connect Damascus with Tehran via Baghdad. Thus, both in economic terms as well as for geopolitical reasons, the US (encouraged by Israel) is racing against time in the final phase of the conflict to establish a military presence in the eastern and south-eastern regions of Syria.

The geopolitical reasons are three-fold: a) US would seek a “say” in any Syrian settlement; b) US hopes to challenge Iran’s cascading influence in Syria and Lebanon; and, c) US feels obliged to be a provider of security for Israel. All three factors are inter-connected. The point is, as a report in the Times of Israel underscores, Israel understands its limitations in taking on the Iranian militarily on its own steam. Gen. Yair Golan, former deputy chief of staff in the Israeli military has been quoted as saying in a stunning speech at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy last Thursday,

We (Israel) live in a world where we cannot operate alone not just because we have no expeditionary forces in Israel… And while we can achieve decisive victory over Hezbollah… and while we can defeat any Shia militia in Syria … we cannot fight Iran alone… So, all right, they could affect us, we could affect them. But it’s all about attrition… If you want to gain something which is deeper, we cannot do it alone. And this is a fact of life. It’s better to admit that. We need to know our limitations.

Suffice to say, Israel will not allow the Trump administration to countenance a total US troop withdrawal from Syria. Put differently, some sort of US presence along the eastern banks of the Euphrates is on the cards on Israel’s insistence. Read an opinion piece titled Trump’s Big Decision in Syria by David Ignatius in the Washington Post last week on the debate in Washington.

Will Russia accept such an outcome? Arguably, it may suit Russia if the US is present in the region in some token form, necessitating, in turn, some sort of continued engagement with Russia, which has always been Moscow’s strategic priority. What about Turkey? Indeed, continued US alliance with the Syria Kurdish militia can only lead to the eventual consolidation of a Kurdistan in northern Syria, which Ankara abhors. But on the other hand, Turkey takes care not to collide with the US in Syria. Equally, Iran’s approach also may not be to simply “sidestep” the token American presence of a few hundred soldiers from the Special Forces and concentrate instead on the serious business of expanding its regional influence in Syria and Lebanon. Indeed, the US is unlikely to directly challenge Russia or Iran in eastern Syria, either.

What matters will be the new facts on the ground. The Syrian government forces (backed by Iranian and Hezbollah militia and Russian air power) have an edge over the US-led thrust from the north of Dier Ezzor. The highway connecting Damascus with Dier Ezzor is open for the first time in years. The Syrian forces are occupying the strategic heights in the region. On the contrary, the US has no reliable local ally other than the Syrian Kurdish militia, who from now onward will be fighting in regions inhabited by Sunni Arab tribes that are even further beyond the borders of their traditional homeland in northern Syria.

In the final analysis, therefore, at some point wisdom will dawn on the Pentagon that it is foolhardy to dream about carving out a “zone of influence” within Syria. With Saudi Arabia Qatar closing shop in Syria, and Jordan coming to terms with the Syrian regime, the US is finding that it is pretty much alone in that desolate region in the middle of nowhere. Some Iranian reports suggest that even the British bulldog is pulling out.

September 11, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Dier Ezzor, Iran, ISIS, Israel, Syria, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Thousands of Palestinians march in mass funeral for slain imprisoned youth Raed Salhi

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – September 9, 2017

Thousands of Palestinians participated in a mass funeral on Saturday, 9 September for Raed Salhi, the Palestinian youth killed by Israeli occupation forces outside his home when they invaded Dheisheh refugee camp on 9 August in an “arrest raid.” They shot the unarmed youth nine times, left him to bleed in the streets of the camp and then imprisoned him under armed guard in the hospital for nearly a month until his death from his injuries on 3 September. The date of his funeral would have been Salhi’s 22nd birthday.

His body continued to be imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces until Karim Ajwa, Salhi’s lawyer who had been advocating for his release, filed an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court. Raed’s body was finally turned over to his family on Friday evening, 8 September, before the mass funeral on Saturday afternoon following noon prayers. The funeral was led by a group of Salhi’s young comrades from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carrying his body wrapped in a Palestinian flag and a PFLP banner, and all Palestinian political organizations – as well as masses of Palestinians – participated in the funeral.

His relatives, friends and comrades joined the massive procession from the Beit Jala Government Hospital to the family home in the camp to the boys’ school to the martyrs’ cemetery. The funeral was accompanied by a commercial and general strike in the city of Bethlehem which lasted until 3:00 pm. Salhi’s brother, Bassam, has also been imprisoned by occupation forces; they seized him in the camp one week after shooting Raed. He was ordered to four months in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.

The return of Salhi’s body was accompanied by the return of the body of Qutaiba Zahran, whose body had been held captive by the Israeli occupation since last month, when he was shot and killed by occupation forces at the Zaatara checkpoint south of Nablus, accused of attempting to stab occupation soldiers at the checkpoint. Qutaiba, 17, was also buried on Saturday in a funeral procession in Tulkarem.

When Salhi’s body was returned, it was met with hundreds of Palestinians who marched demanding justice and accountability for the assassination and extrajudicial killing of Salhi. Following Salhi’s funeral, intense protests broke out against occupation forces as Palestinian youth confronted occupation forces at checkpoints and military occupation sites around the city of Bethlehem.

Raed Salhi was remembered as a beloved and active member of his community. In an interview published in Middle East Eye, his brother Khaled spoke about both his love for animals and his political commitment. “Raed, whom his brother Khaled described as a cat lover who would rescue stray kittens from the street, much to his family’s displeasure, was described by several Dheisheh residents as loved by the community….Raed had also been a committed member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the main Palestinian leftist political party, since he was 15…and was imprisoned by Israel for around four months in 2014. ‘He was a good-hearted guy, he was always smiling and joking,’ Khaled said.”

“Raed was from one of the very poorest families in the camp… but he wanted to help the people as much as he could, and to educate them more,” said Naji Owdah, the director of Laylac Community Center in Dheisheh, to Middle East Eye. Salhi was involved in a number of volunteer projects, including voluntary health days and a campaign to set up small libraries around the camp.

Salhi had been held under high security guard within Hadassah hospital, despite being unconscious and in a coma. His impoverished family members, including his mother, were denied family visits or the ability to see him, while his detention was extended several times by the Ofer military court as he lay in a coma, dying.

Before the raid in which Raed was fatally shot by invading occupation forces, he had been theatened by occupation forces, including the infamous “Captain Nidal,” the pseudonym used by the local Israeli occupation military official in charge of Dheisheh – specifically, that “Nidal” would “shoot [Raed] in front of [his] mother.” Palestinian NGO Badil reported that Captain Nidal had threatened to “make all the youth of (Deheisha) camp disabled,” saying “I will have all of you walking with crutches and in wheelchairs.”

September 10, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

President Trump Should Seek the Apprehension of 9-11 Perpetrators and Co-Conspirators

By D.E. Steil | Aletho News | September 9, 2017

It did not take more than a few hours after jets flew into buildings in lower Manhattan on September 11 sixteen years ago for analytical and critical observers to conclude that the official narrative being propagated by television and print media, regarding what had happened and who was to blame for it, was a bold lie concocted to induce a shocked population to support an agenda of sacrificing US troops to wage a perpetual war against Israel’s perceived adversaries in the Middle East, in order to create the preconditions for carrying out their long-term Oded Yinon Plan, published in 1982, in pursuit of the Zionist Utopia of a “Greater Israel”. Since Internet technology back then was not yet as advanced as it is today, it took a while for alert critics to compile and disseminate key video evidence extracted and compiled from the non-stop television coverage on that day, to expose the numerous contradictions in the official story, that covered up the facts, accompanied by rational arguments that made a compelling case for who the perpetrators of this attack were, and what specific motives compelled their involvement.

Meanwhile, after so many years of investigations published in the alternative media, anyone who was sufficiently curious, open-minded and capable of drawing logical and plausible inferences from the evidence disregarded the official lies and had to admit to themselves: Israel did it! What could have been a more obvious giveaway than former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, just “coincidentally”, appearing at BBC headquarters in London to suggest, as the tragic events were still unfolding, who should be blamed, and how the United States ought to respond? While he was out of high office in Israel, this same individual just happened to have earlier been an “advisor” to a private equity company in the US, which had in its portfolio a metallurgical company with the expertise to produce the type of super-thermite that had been methodically placed inside the three World Trade Center buildings beforehand, to facilitate their controlled demolitions. Larry Silverstein, who held a long-term lease to these buildings, even candidly admitted in a documentary film to having consented to the controlled demolition (“pulling”) of Building 7, which had not been hit by any aircraft, later in the afternoon.

Apparently the “hijackers” turned out to be a few influential and well-connected Zionist Jews in Israel and in the United States, who succeeded in taking over US foreign policy in the Middle East. For many, this realization led to a state of cognitive dissonance, and pointing out the obvious openly was made to be taboo under the threat of being reflexively denounced as being “anti-Semitic” by some Zionist stooge, even though nowadays this term has been so heavily abused to now be nearly meaningless. Nonetheless, given the power dynamics of top-level media control, a situation still prevails that is somewhat analogous to the famous fairy tale for children by Hans Christian Andersen, published 180 years ago in Copenhagen, The Emperor’s New Clothes, which was itself derivative of one of many stories in a book first published in 1335, Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio. A German translation of this particular story, So ist der Lauf der Welt, translates to This is the course of the world. That etymology, describing certain psychological realities of human nature, explains why this particular fairy tale by Andersen remains so popular — variations on this general theme, describing indications of blind and convenient conformist behavior, continue to regularly manifest themselves in contemporary political life. For instance, it is evident that, even within the ranks of the so-called alternative media, too many bloggers and other personalities have been shy about addressing this topic with the deserved degree of openness and honesty.

Three years ago an American investigative reporter, Christopher Bollyn, who had compiled a book on the topic of this milestone false-flag event, entitled Solving 911: The Deception that Changed the World, appeared on a one-hour broadcast on KPFA radio in Berkeley, to openly spill the beans on the airwaves in a matter-of-fact style, just like the proverbial young boy in Andersen’s tale shouted out the truth in a crowd of doubting onlookers as the naked emperor passed by in a procession. We live in a technologically based world in which scientific and logical inquiry reigns supreme over fantasy, lies, misdirection, and other forms of false propaganda. Therefore, maintaining a rational approach in confronting the realities surrounding the 9-11 event must take precedence over timid exercises in self-deception. Confronting a corrosive agenda of waging wars that are not in the national public interest entails not just understanding what actually happened sixteen years ago — staging yet another circus-like public sham investigation would only be counterproductive in light of the accumulated evidence — but also drawing the necessary consequences therefrom, namely apprehending and putting on trial the numerous perpetrators, most of whom are known by name.

For the first time in sixteen years America has a president who has promised the American people that he will “drain the swamp”, a prospect that many fear, which has led to an internal power-feud within the centers of power inside DC Beltway. Uncovering the truth has remained elusive because hiding behind crafted lies has permitted the swamp dwellers to thrive. Notwithstanding likely media distractions premised on covering a dangerous hurricane in Florida, Donald Trump, on the occasion of the annual 9-11 anniversary commemoration — his first as US President — should rise to the occasion and announce a new tone in dealing with the unresolved consequences of that mass murder event. This is essential and necessary, so that the country can begin to move forward and correct the dangerous war path it has been pursuing for so long. A simple Tweet, comprising no more than 120 characters, would be sufficient to finally get the ball rolling, for instance:

After 16 years: 911 perpetrators of those terror acts still remain free. I will seek their apprehension to face justice!

September 9, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Syria’s Survival Is Blow to Jihadists

By Alastair Crooke | Consortium News | September 8, 2107

Syria’s victory in remaining still standing – still on its feet, as it were – amid the ruins of all that has been visited upon her, marks effectively the demise of the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East (of “the New Middle East”). It signals the beginning of the end – not just of the political “regime change” project, but also of the Sunni jihadi project which has been used as the coercive tool for bringing into being a “New Middle East.”

Just as the region has reached a geopolitical inflection point, however, so too, has Sunni Islam. Wahhabi-inspired Islam has taken a major hit. It is now widely discredited amongst Sunnis, and reviled by just about everyone else.

Just to be clear how linked were the two projects:

In the wake of the first Gulf War (1990-91), General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, recalled: “In 1991, [Paul Wolfowitz] was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy … And I had gone to see him (…)

“And I said, ‘Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm.’

“And he said: ‘Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn’t … But one thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region?—?in the Middle East?—?and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes?—?Syria, Iran, Iraq?—?before the next great superpower comes on, to challenge us.’”

Wolfowitz’s thinking was then taken up more explicitly by David Wurmser in his 1996 document, Coping with Crumbling States (following on from his contribution to the infamous Clean Break policy strategy paper written by Richard Pearle for Bibi Netanyahu earlier in the same year). The aim here for both these seminal documents was to directly counter the allegedly “isolationist” thinking of Pat Buchanan (now arisen again in parts of the U.S. New Right and Alt-Right).

Libertarian writer Daniel Sanchez has noted: “Wurmser characterized regime change in Iraq and Syria (both ruled by Baathist regimes) as ‘expediting the chaotic collapse’ of secular-Arab nationalism in general, and Baathism in particular. He [asserted that] ‘the phenomenon of Baathism,’ was, from the very beginning, ‘an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy’ … [and therefore advised] the West to put this anachronistic adversary ‘out of its misery’ – and to press America’s Cold War victory on toward its final culmination. Baathism should be supplanted by what he called the ‘Hashemite option.’ After their chaotic collapse, Iraq and Syria would be Hashemite possessions once again. Both would be dominated by the royal house of Jordan, which in turn, happens to be dominated by the US and Israel.”

Influencing Washington

Wurmser’s tract, Coping with Crumbling States, which together with Clean Break was to have a major impact on Washington’s thinking during the George W. Bush administration (in which David Wurmser also served). What aroused the deep-seated neocon ire in respect to the secular-Arab nationalist states was not just that they were, in the neo-con view, crumbling relics of the “evil” USSR, but that from 1953 onwards, Russia sided with these secular-nationalist states in all their conflicts regarding Israel. This was something the neo-cons could neither tolerate, nor forgive.

Both Clean Break and the 1997 Project for a New American Century(PNAC) were exclusively premised on the wider U.S. policy aim of securing Israel. The point here is that while Wurmser stressed that demolishing Baathism must be the foremost priority in the region, he added: “Secular-Arab nationalism should be given no quarter” – not even, he added, “for the sake of stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism”. (Emphasis added).

In fact, America had no interest in stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism. The U.S. was using it liberally: It had already sent in armed, fired-up Islamist insurgents into Afghanistan in 1979 precisely in order to “induce” a Soviet invasion (one which subsequently duly occurred).

Asked, much later, in view of the terrorism that subsequently occurred, whether he regretted stoking Islamic extremism in this way, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbig Brzezinski replied:

“Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’”

Fired-up Sunni radicals have now been used by Western states to counter Nasserism, Ba’athism, the USSR, Iranian influence, and latterly to try to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. One former CIA official in 1999, described the thinking at the time thus:

“In the West, the words Islamic fundamentalism conjure up images of bearded men with turbans and women covered in black shrouds. And some Islamist movements do indeed contain reactionary and violent elements. But we should not let stereotypes blind us to the fact that there are also powerful modernizing forces at work within these movements. Political Islam is about change. In this sense, modern Islamist movements may be the main vehicle for bringing about change in the Muslim world and the break-up of the old ‘dinosaur’ regimes.” (Emphasis added).

Protecting the Emirs

Precisely: This was what the Arab Spring was about. The role allocated to Islamist movements was to break up the nationalist-secular Arab world (Wurmser’s “Secular-Arab nationalism should be given no quarter”), but additionally to protect the kings and Emirs of the Gulf, to whom America was obliged to tie itself – as Wurmser explicitly acknowledges – as the direct counter-party in the project of dissolving the nationalist secular Arab world. The kings and emirs of course, feared the socialism that was associated with Arab nationalism (— as did the Neocons).

Dan Sanchez perceptively writes (well before Russia’s intervention into the Middle East), that Robert Kagan and fellow neocon, Bill Kristol, in their 1996 Foreign Affairs article, Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy, sought to inoculate both the conservative movement and U.S. foreign policy against the isolationism of Pat Buchanan:

“The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation, and to instead capitalize on America’s new peerless pre-eminence … [that] must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped in the bud, and the new ‘unipolar moment’ would last forever … What made this neocon dream seem within reach, was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia.”

And, the year after the Berlin Wall fell, war against Iraq marked the début of the re-making the Middle East: for America to assert uni-polar power globally (through military bases); to destroy Iraq and Iran; to “roll-back Syria” (as Clean Break had advocated) – and to secure Israel.

Russia Is Back

Well, Russia is back in the Middle East – and Russia is no longer “indifferent” to America’s actions – and now “civil war” has erupted in America between those who want to punish Putin for spoiling America’s unipolar moment in the region so thoroughly, and so finally – with Syria – and the other policy orientation, led by Steve Bannon, which advocates precisely the Buchanan-esque U.S. foreign policy which the neocons had so hoped to despoil (… plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose).

It is very plain however, that one thing has changed: Sunni jihadists’ long “run” as the tool of choice for re-making the Middle East is over. The signs are everywhere:

The leaders of the five emerging market BRICS powers have for the first time named militant groups based in Pakistan as a regional security concern and called for their patrons to be held to account:

“We, in this regard, express concern on the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, (Islamic State) …, Al-Qaeda and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir,” the leaders said in the declaration. (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will need to take note).

Similarly, an article published in an Egyptian newspaper written by Britain’s Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, suggests that London now whole-heartedly supports the Sisi regime in Egypt in its war on the Muslim Brotherhood. Burt attacked the M.B. for links to extremism, while emphasizing that Britain has imposed an outright ban on any contact with the organization since 2013 – adding that “now is the time for everyone who defends the Brotherhood in London or Cairo to put an end to this confusion and ambiguity.” Not surprisingly, Burt’s remarks have been greeted with profound pleasure in Cairo. … Full article

September 8, 2017 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

U.N. Enablers of ‘Aggressive War’

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | September 8, 2017

Many people still want to believe that the United Nations engages in impartial investigations and thus is more trustworthy than, say, self-interested governments, whether Russia or the United States. But trust in U.N. agencies is no longer well placed; whatever independence they may have once had has been broken, a reality relevant to recent “investigations” of Syrian chemical weapons use.

There is also the larger issue of the United Nations’ peculiar silence about one of its primary and original responsibilities, shouldered after the horrors of World War II – to stop wars of aggression, which today include “regime change” wars organized, funded and armed by the United States and other Western powers, such as the Iraq invasion in 2003, the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011, and a series of proxy wars including the ongoing Syrian conflict.

After World War II, the Nuremberg Tribunals declared that a “war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

That recognition became a guiding principle of the United Nations Charter, which specifically prohibits aggression or even threats of aggression against sovereign states.

The Charter declares in Article One that it is a chief U.N. purpose “to take effective collective measures … for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.” Article Two, which defines the appropriate behavior of U.N. members, adds that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…”

However, instead of enforcing this fundamental rule, the United Nations has, in effect, caved in to the political and financial pressure brought to bear by the United States and its allies. A similar disregard for international law also pervades the U.S. mainstream media and much of the European and Israeli press as well.

There is an assumption that the United States and its allies have the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world at anytime solely at their own discretion. Though U.S. diplomats and mainstream journalists still voice outrage when adversaries deviate from international law – such as denunciations of Russia over Ukraine’s civil war – there is silence or support when a U.S. president or, say, an Israeli prime minister orders military strikes inside another country. Then, we hear only justifications for these attacks.

Shielding Israel

For instance, on Friday, The New York Times published an article about Israel conducting a bombing raid inside Syria that reportedly killed two Syrians. The article is notable because it contains not a single reference to international law and Israel’s clear-cut violation of it. Instead, the article amounts to a lengthy rationalization for Israel’s aggression, framing the attacks as Israeli self-defense or, as the Times put it, “an escalation of Israel’s efforts to prevent its enemies from gaining access to sophisticated weapons.”

The article also contains no reference to the fact that Israel maintains a sophisticated nuclear arsenal and is known to possess chemical and biological weapons as well. Implicit in the Times article is that the U.S. and Israel live under one set of rules while countries on the U.S.-Israeli enemies list must abide by another. Not to state the obvious but this is a clear violation of the journalistic principle of objectivity.

But the Times is far from alone in applying endless double standards. Hypocrisy now permeates international agencies, including the United Nations, which instead of pressing for accountability in cases of U.S. or Israeli aggression has become an aider and abettor, issuing one-sided reports that justify further aggression while doing little or nothing to stop U.S.-backed acts of aggression.

For instance, there was no serious demand that U.S. and British leaders who organized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, should face any accountability for committing the “supreme international crime” of an aggressive war. As far as the U.N. is concerned, war-crimes tribunals are for the little guys.

This breakdown in the integrity of the U.N. and related agencies has developed over the past few decades as one U.S. administration after another has exploited U.S. clout as the world’s “unipolar power” to ensure that international bureaucrats conform to U.S. interests. Any U.N. official who deviates from this unwritten rule can expect to have his or her reputation besmirched and career truncated.

So, while harshly critical of alleged abuses by the Syrian military, U.N. officials are notoriously silent when it comes to condemning the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and other countries that have been “covertly” backing anti-government “rebels” who have engaged in grave crimes against humanity in Syria.

The U.S. and its allies have even mounted overt military operations inside Syrian territory, including airstrikes against the Syrian military and its allies, without permission of the internationally recognized government in Damascus. Yet, the U.N. does nothing to curtail or condemn these clear violations of its own Charter.

Breaking the Independence

The reason is that, for much of this century, the U.S. government has worked to bring key agencies, such as the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), under U.S. control and domination.

This drive to neutralize the U.N.’s independence gained powerful momentum after the 9/11 attacks and President George W. Bush’s launching of his “global war on terror.” But this effort continued under President Obama and now under President Trump.

In 2002, after opening the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and effectively waiving the Geneva Convention’s protections for prisoners of war, Bush bristled at criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary C. Robinson.

Soon, Robinson was targeted for removal. Her fierce independence, which also included criticism of Israel, was unacceptable. The Bush administration lobbied hard against her reappointment, leading to her retirement in 2002.

Also, in 2002, the Bush administration engineered the firing of OPCW’s Director General Jose Mauricio Bustani who was viewed as an obstacle to the U.S. plans for invading Iraq.

Bustani, who had been reelected unanimously to the post less than a year earlier, described his removal in a 2013 interview with Marlise Simons of The New York Times, citing how Bush’s emissary, Under-Secretary of State John Bolton, marched into Bustani’s office and announced that he (Bustani) would be fired.

“The story behind [Bustani’s] ouster has been the subject of interpretation and speculation for years, and Mr. Bustani, a Brazilian diplomat, has kept a low profile since then,” wrote Simons. “But with the agency [OPCW] thrust into the spotlight with news of the Nobel [Peace] Prize [in October 2013], Mr. Bustani agreed to discuss what he said was the real reason: the Bush administration’s fear that chemical weapons inspections in Iraq would conflict with Washington’s rationale for invading it. Several officials involved in the events, some speaking publicly about them for the first time, confirmed his account.”

The official U.S. explanation for getting rid of Bustani was incompetence, but Bustani and the other diplomats close to the case reported that Bustani’s real offense was drawing Iraq into acceptance of the OPCW’s conventions for eliminating chemical weapons, just as the Bush administration was planning to pin its propaganda campaign for invading Iraq on the country’s alleged secret stockpile of WMD.

Bustani’s ouster gave President Bush a clearer path to the invasion by letting him frighten Americans with the prospect of Iraq sharing its chemical weapons and possibly a nuclear bomb with Al Qaeda terrorists.

Dismissing Iraq’s insistence that it had destroyed its chemical weapons and didn’t have a nuclear weapons project, Bush launched the invasion in March 2003, only for the world to discover later that the Iraqi government was telling the truth.

Compliant Replacements

In comparison to the independent-minded Bustani, the biography of the current OPCW director general, Ahmet Uzumcu, a career Turkish diplomat, suggests that the OPCW could be expected to slant its case against the Syrian government in the current Syrian conflict.

Not only has Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, been a key player in supporting the proxy war to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Uzumcu also served as Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, which has long sought regime change in Syria and has publicly come out in favor of the anti-government rebels.

Another one-time thorn in the side of the U.S. “unipolar power” was the IAEA when it was under the control of Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian. The IAEA challenged the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq having a nuclear program, when one really didn’t exist.

However, being right is no protection when U.S. officials want to bring an agency into line with U.S. policy and propaganda. So, early in the Obama administration – as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pushing for a hardline on Iran over its nascent nuclear program – the U.S. government engineered the insertion of a pliable Japanese diplomat, Yukiya Amano, into the IAEA’s top job.

Before his appointment, Amano had portrayed himself as an independent-minded fellow who was resisting U.S.-Israeli propaganda about the Iranian nuclear program. Yet behind the scenes, he was meeting with U.S. and Israeli officials to coordinate on how to serve their interests (even though Israel is an actual rogue nuclear state, not a hypothetical or fictional one).

Amano’s professed doubts about an Iranian nuclear-bomb project, which even the U.S. intelligence community agreed no longer existed, was just a theatrical device to intensify the later impact if he were to declare that Iran indeed was building a secret nuke, thus justifying the desire of Israeli leaders and American neoconservatives to “bomb-bomb-bomb” Iran.

But this U.S. ploy was spoiled by Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning’s leaking of hundreds of thousands of pages of U.S. diplomatic cables. Among them were reports on Amano’s hidden collaboration with U.S. and Israeli officials; his agreement with U.S. emissaries on who to fire and who to retain among IAEA officials; and even Amano’s request for additional U.S. financial contributions.

The U.S. embassy cables revealing the truth about Amano were published by the U.K. Guardian in 2011 (although ignored by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mainstream U.S. news outlets). Despite the silence of the major U.S. news media, Internet outlets, such as Consortiumnews.com, highlighted the Amano cables, meaning that enough Americans knew the facts not to be fooled again. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Did Manning Help Avert War with Iran?”]

A Collective Collapse

So, over the years, there has been a collective collapse of the independence at U.N.-related agencies. An international bureaucrat who gets on the wrong side of the United States or Israel can expect to be fired and humiliated, while those who play ball can be assured of a comfortable life as a “respected” diplomat.

But this reality is little known to most Americans so they are still inclined to be influenced when a “U.N. investigation” reaches some conclusion condemning some country that already is on the receiving end of negative U.S. propaganda.

The New York Times, CNN and other major U.S. news outlets are sure to trumpet these “findings” with great seriousness and respect and to treat any remaining doubters as outside the mainstream. Of course, there’s an entirely different response on the rare occasion when some brave or foolhardy human rights bureaucrat criticizes Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Then, the U.N. finding is just a sign of anti-Israeli bias and should be discounted.

In the far more frequent cases when a U.N. report is in line with U.S. propaganda, American journalists almost never turn a critical eye toward the quality of the evidence or the leaps of logic. We saw that happen this week with a thinly sourced and highly dubious U.N. report blaming the Syrian government for an alleged sarin incident on April 4. A major contradiction in the evidence – testimony given to OPCW investigators undercutting the conclusion that a Syrian warplane could have dropped a sarin bomb – was brushed aside by the U.N. human rights investigators and was ignored by the Times and other major U.S. news outlets.

But what is perhaps most troubling is that these biased U.N. reports are now used to justify continued wars of aggression by stronger countries against weaker ones. So, instead of acting as a bulwark to protect the powerless from the powerful as the U.N. Charter intended, the U.N. bureaucracy has turned the original noble purpose of the institution on its head by becoming an enabler of the “supreme international crime,” wars of aggression.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

September 8, 2017 Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Hillary Clinton, Israel, Mary C. Robinson, New York Times, United Nations, United States, Yukiya Amano | Leave a comment

Illinois governor candidate ditches running mate in Israel boycott row

RT | September 8, 2017

Illinois governor candidate Daniel Bliss has dropped Carlos Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate following Rosa’s alleged support of a Palestinian group calling to boycott Israel.

Rosa’s support for the Palestinian-led ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) movement was the reason he was dropped from the ticket, Biss said in a statement.

BDS calls for companies to stop doing business with Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories.

The Democratic state senator wrote that Rosa told him he opposed the group prior to being chosen. Rosa’s position on the issue then changed, Biss claimed.

“I strongly support a two-state solution. I support Israel’s right to exist, and I support Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. I also care deeply about justice for Palestinians, and believe that a vision for the Middle East must include political and economic freedom for Palestinians,” Biss wrote, adding “That’s why I oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, as I believe it moves us further away from a peaceful solution.”

In a Facebook post, Rosa wrote that while he and Biss “both oppose pursuing BDS at the state level, the difference of opinion we have on the role the BDS movement plays at the federal level would make it impossible to continue moving forward as a ticket.”

Rosa did not immediately respond to RT’s request for comment.

Before Biss made his decision to drop Rosa, he lost the endorsement of Democratic Congressman Brad Schneider, who cited Rosa’s “past comments about the United States support of our ally Israel, and his affiliation with a group that is an outspoken supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.”

Schneider was referring to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a political organization, which passed a resolution supporting BDS.

Rosa joined DSA in March.

“I said, if someone could run for president of the United States and say ‘I’m a democratic socialist,’ then, hell, I can come out of the closet. I’ve come out of the closet before,” Rosa told the Chicago Reader, referring to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Rosa, 28, is the first openly gay Latino to serve on Chicago’s City Council. He is also the youngest current alderman.

“I was asked to join the ticket to even more strongly advocate for the critical issues facing this state, such as medicare for all, a $15 living wage today, affordable childcare, and free college tuition,” Rose wrote in his statement.

On Friday, Biss announced his new running mate – Democratic State Congresswoman Litesa Wallace.

“As a woman of color, she understands that justice and opportunity are not equally distributed and in fact are not available to many. As a champion for social and economic justice, she’s a proven fighter for the issues and people that Illinois government so often forgets about,” Biss said of Wallace in a video statement.

Wallace’s views on BDS were not immediately clear.

The international community has long called for a two-state solution in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians where the two peoples would eventually live in separate states. Israel had formally agreed to the two-state solution but has yet to take any practical steps to make it happen.

In August, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Israel’s continued construction of settlements on what the UN recognizes as Palestinian territories was illegal and a “major obstacle” to achieving a two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

Israel Army stages mock war against Hezbollah, biggest exercise in 20yrs

September 8, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

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A decade of lies: The US-funded biolab denial saga

RT | May 15, 2026

Russia’s allegations that the US funded clandestine biological laboratories near its borders – claims denied until recently by Washington – have remained a persistent flashpoint in the steadily deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West for nearly a decade.

The biolabs affair was revealed in a 2017 exposé by RT that questioned a shady US military tender seeking the genetic material of living Russians. Over the years, Moscow has raised allegations against Washington of conducting clandestine bio-research, including potential WMD development and illicit human testing, in a network of labs located across multiple nations, the bulk of which operated in Ukraine. The claims were met with a blanket denial in the West, which repeatedly dismissed them as “Russian propaganda.”

This abruptly changed the past week when US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories in 30 countries, with over a third of them located in Ukraine. The agency is now working to “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world,” according to Gabbard.

RT looks back at the timeline of the biolabs saga and the US denial of its existence until now. … continue

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ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

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.

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

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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.

By D.E. Steil | Aletho News | September 9, 2017

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