From: Sidney Blumenthal To: Hillary Clinton Date: 2012-07-23
Quoting an Israeli security source Sidney Blumenthal wrote:
“[I]f the Assad regime topples, Iran would lose its only ally in the Middle East and would be isolated. At the same time, the fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies.” (https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12171)
In 1982, Oded Yinon an Israeli journalist, formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, published a document titled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.’ The strategic plan later named ‘The Yinon Plan’ suggested that for Israel to maintain its regional superiority, it must break its neighboring Arab states into smaller sectarian units engaged in endless tribal wars. The Yinon Plan implied that Arabs and Muslims killing each other was an insurance policy for Israel.
Most commentators on the Middle East and American foreign affairs now realise that the chaos in the Middle East has a lot to do with Israel and its supportive Jewish lobbies around the world. However, thanks to the newly leaked Clinton email archive we may have a document that provides confirmation that the Yinon Plan was, de facto, an Israeli strategy to create sectarian chaos in the Middle East.
According to the Wikileaks archive of former US Secretary of State Clinton, it appears that in 2012 the Israeli intelligence service considered a potential Sunni-Shiite war in Syria a favorable development for the Jewish State and the West.
In an email sent by Sidney Blumenthal to Hilary Clinton, an Israeli source is quoted suggesting that Iran would lose “its only ally” in the Middle East if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad collapses. Such a development in the view of Israeli commanders “would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies,” Blumenthal wrote.
It is crucial to point out that in his email to Clinton, Blumenthal also quotes an alternative view that is more reasonable and is far less enthusiastic about the escalation in Syria. “Israeli security officials believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is convinced that these developments (expanding Arab civil war) will leave them [Israelis] vulnerable, with only enemies on their borders.”
This email allows us to look at a vivid Israeli political debate that occurred back in 2012. The Jewish State had to decide whether to destroy the Syrian people just to weaken Iran or alternatively to destroy Iran for the sake of destroying Iran. History suggests that a decision was taken to destroy the Syrians first. And the outcome must be disappointing for Israel —Iran is now stronger than ever.
Shockingly, in late 2015, after three years of disastrous Syrian civil war with hundreds of thousands of fatalities and millions of displaced people, Clinton, so it seems, still clung to the formula that Israel’s concerns with Iran should be fought on the expense of the Syrian people. In an email that US presidential candidate Hillary Clintonsent to an unknown account on 11/30/2015 Clinton wrote:
“The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.”
Israel is not the only one to blame for the Syrian shoah; Hilary Clinton shares some of the responsibility. I suggest that Ms. Clinton consider inviting at least a few Syrian refugees to settle in Clinton’s suburban home. Such a move would prove that she can be empathetic, merciful and hopefully regretful.
The intelligence service of Israel considers a potential Sunni-Shiite war in Syria a favorable development for the country and the West, according to an email archive of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, released by WikiLeaks.
The author of the email, forwarded by Clinton in July 2012, argued that Israel is convinced Iran would lose “its only ally” in the Middle East, if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad collapses.
“The fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies,” an email stated.
In addition, the author underscored that a potential Sunni-Shiite war would delay the Iranian nuclear program.”In the opinion of this [Israeli intelligence] individual, such a scenario would distract and might obstruct Iran from its nuclear activities for a good deal of time,” the email said.
The Israeli intelligence also considered the possible Sunni-Shiite war as a factor that could contribute to the collapse of the government in Iran.
“In addition, certain senior Israeli intelligence analysts believe that this turn of events may even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current government of Iran,” the email said.
In March, WikiLeaks created a searchable archive for emails sent to and from Clinton’s private email server, while she served as the secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Six Jewish vigilantes were jailed in Paris yesterday over a “savage gang attack” targeting attendees at a fundraising event for Gaza in 2009 in the French capital.
The defendants used iron bars, baseball bats and bike chains in the onslaught, in which they deliberately targeted anybody who looked like a Muslim.
Among their victims was a 22-year-old singer who suffered a “lynching” by the 20-strong mob who chanted “Death to Arabs” and “Long live Israel”.
All were leading members of the Jewish Defence League (JDL), a notorious vigilante group that is outlawed in both America and Israel because of its links with terrorism.
Despite this, the JDL is allowed to demonstrate openly in France, and its yellow and black clenched fist flags are regularly seen at events across the country.
Video of JDL disrupting a pro-Palestinian gathering. Defendent, Jason Tibi, is the tall thug who has the Israeli flag snatched from his hands, and ends up with bloodied face.
The 10th Chamber of the Paris Correctional Court heard how all had beaten up Hatem Essabbak and Mustapha Belkhir outside a Paris theatre in April 2009.
The case is considered one of the most sensitive in recent legal history, because of the way it illustrates how the Israel-Palestine conflict has been exported to the streets of major French cities.
No less than five examining judges were involved in the Paris enquiry, with four resigning one after the other because of the intense pressure.
The six men found guilty of carrying out aggravated violent assaults were Jason Tibi, Rudy Lalou, Azar Cohen, Maxime Schaffier, Yoia Bensimou and Yoni Sulman.
Other JDL gang members are said to have fled to Israel to avoid prosecution, while Tibi has admitted serving in the Israeli army while waiting for his case to come to court. At least two of those convicted today have since fled to Israel.
The damning verdict reads: “The facts of this case illustrate how the violence was aggravated by victims being targeted because of their race and religion.”
Dominique Cochain, Essabbak’s barrister, said: “Normally, this type of case is dealt with within three months. It has to be said that this is a very sensitive issue.”
Video of the JDL rioting in Central Paris, and then hiding behind the French police once the pro-Palestinian group charges.
Essabbak, a 22-year-old singer at the time, was with his girlfriend outside the Adyar Theatre, close to the Eiffel Tower, on Sunday 12 April 2009.
Both were taking part in “Our Talents for Gaza” – a showbiz event raising money for the surviving families of more than 1,400 Palestinians, including 400 children, killed by Israeli forces during an offensive a few weeks earlier.
Essabbak was surrounded by the JDL men who used their iron bars, bats, bike chains, crash helmets and fists in the “unprovoked lynching”, the court heard.
Essabbak said: “I was repeatedly hit in the face, around the head and on both legs. I then fell to the ground, and was hit again around the head. They carried on until they saw I wasn’t moving. My life stopped on April 12 2009.’
Mustapha Belkhir went to help Essabbak, and was also badly beaten up. Both men ended up in hospital.
Witnesses heard the attackers shouting: “Have this, it’s for Gaza, you dirty Arab”, and “Us Jews are going to f*** you, you dirty race”.
Most of the JDL members had their faces covered, but their mobile phones were later traced to the scene of the attack.
Tibi – who was described in court as the leader of the group – at first denied any knowledge of the attacks, but admitted taking part when confronted with evidence.
Tibi and Sulman received two year sentences, while the others were handed sentences of between nine months and a year.
Twenty-seven-year-old Tibi has a previous prison conviction for smashing up a Palestinian book shop in Paris, and has been filmed fighting in Marseille.
Essabbak’s lawyer Cochain told the court: “The evidence is that Mr Tibi has not changed. Videos on Google show that in 2011 he disrupted a pro-Palestine meeting in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, accompanied by JDL members, and wanted to stop debate.”
“They were shouting slogans like ‘F*** Palestine’. He was also in Marseille in June 2011 to protest against the Gaza flotilla taking supplies to the blockaded Palestinian territory. His face was covered in blood and he was saying ‘I’m here to protest’, ‘Israel will live, Israel will vanquish’.”
The JDL is regularly involved in attacks on pro-Palestine activists, politicians, journalists and other perceived enemies across France.
There have been numerous calls to ban the JDL in France, with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve condemning their behaviour as ‘excessive’.
MOSCOW — The Russian Foreign Ministry called illegal the new expropriation of land by Israel in the Palestinian territories, according to a statement issued on Friday.
Moscow expressed “concern about the settlement projects of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
“A few days ago, the Israeli authorities announced the expropriation of 154.5 hectares of land near the town of Jericho in the West Bank of the Jordan River. This area has been declared ‘the land of the Israeli state,'” the statement reads.
“These actions are illegal under international law and the decisions on them should be reviewed,” the ministry stressed.
Moscow urged “all the sides to refrain from unilateral steps that undermine the prospects of the Palestinian issue settlement on the internationally recognized basis.”
JERUSALEM – The Israeli authorities early Friday shut down streets across Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem and detained four in preparation for the annual Jerusalem marathon, locals said.
Locals told Ma’an that a number of roads were blocked by iron barricades and buses, as thousands of Israeli runners joined in the marathon for the sixth year in a row.
Four residents of al-Issawiya neighborhood were detained prior to the marathon. Two of them, identified by locals as Fadi Matwar and Jad al-Ghoul, were reportedly warned against being in Jerusalem during the marathon.
Al-Issawiya popular committee spokesman Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, who was detained prior to the marathon last year, was also detained Friday morning.
Locals told Ma’an that Israeli intelligence also summoned Jihad Oweida, the secretary-general of the National Committee against Normalization. The committee has in the past been a vocal opponent of the Jerusalem marathon for going through occupied territory.
Participants in the marathon run through West Jerusalem as well as segments of Jerusalem’s occupied eastern half, including along the walls of the Old City and near other historical sites.
The marathon last year drew large numbers of Palestinian protesters to places where the run passes through neighborhoods under Israeli military occupation, with residents waving Palestinian flags and proclaiming slogans supporting Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as Palestinian territory, but Israel occupied it in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never considered legitimate abroad.
Friday’s marathon comes weeks before an annual marathon is expected to be held in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
This year will mark the fourth consecutive “Right to Movement” marathon, which is comprised of two 11 kilometer loops, as race organizers were unable to find a contiguous stretch of 42 kilometers due to Israeli military restrictions on Palestinian movement.
Declassified emails released in January and February reveal that Hillary Clinton was one of the main instruments in spreading chaos and extremism in Libya when the U.S. secretary of state personally pushed for the ousting of late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.
Clinton’s emails reveal that she and her staff were aware that civilians they claimed to be protecting were not actually in danger from government forces.
Less than a month ahead of the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, a resolution which authorized a no-fly zone to protect civilians on March 17, 2011, Hillary’s assistant, Huma Abedin, in an email dated Feb. 21, 2011, stated: “Based on numerous eyewitness reports, it is the Embassy’s assessment that the government no longer controls Benghazi. This is likely the case for Ajdabiyah as well.”
Abedin went on to write that sources in Benghazi reported that Libyan Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younes had “changed sides” and was “now with the protesters in Benghazi.” The mood in Benghazi and Ajdabiyah, according to the email, was “celebratory” and all posters of Gadhafi had been “knocked down.”
Crucially, this email was written at a time when Clinton was aware that no government crackdown was taking place in either Benghazi or Ajdabiyah.
This was despite anti-government protests kicking off in Benghazi and Ajdabiyah a few days before, at a time when the U.S. and France and other Western governments were claiming government forces were involved in the mass-killing of protesters and civilians.
However, on March 2, 2011, a few days before the passage of the U.N. resolution, U.S. State Department official Harriet Spanos sent an email informing Clinton that “Security Reports . . . confirm that Benghazi has been calm over the past couple of days.”
“Economic activity is going on in Benghazi,” she added in the email, with shops and banks open and “[m]obile and landline phones… working… and Internet has returned.”
The moment of truth came 11 days into the NATO bombing, which continued for several months, when Clinton’s top adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, who was not employed by the state department but by the private Clinton Foundation, laid out the reasons for the Washington-led intervention and the eventual ousting of Gadhafi.
Without once mentioning “humanitarian” purposes, in a March 27, 2011 email Blumenthal stressed to Clinton the importance of pressing for a “final win” by ousting Gadhafi in order to boost U.S. President Barack Obama’s then low approval ratings.
Ousting the Libyan strongman, argued Blumenthal, would further establish “security in North Africa, securing democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, economic development, effect throughout Arab world and Africa, extending U.S. influence, counter-balancing Iran, etc.”
Further highlighting his complete and utter disregard for the human cost of the intervention, in the same email Blumenthal informed Clinton about the horrors committed by U.S.-backed forces in Libya, which included members of al-Qaida.
“Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries in the fighting.” Such actions are considered war crimes and in violation of international resolutions and conventions.
The emails also reveal that the Obama administration and Clinton were aware of the threat of al-Qaida in the eastern part of the country, which had for years been suppressed by the Libyan leader.
The emails also show that claims made by NATO at the time, including alleged atrocities committed by Gadhafi’s forces such as rape and mass killings, were rumors used by Clinton and the Obama administration to help sell the intervention to the world.
It is clear the NATO intervention was not intended for humanitarian purposes. So what were the intentions of Clinton and the Obama administration? [Beyond the long planned and ongoing destruction of any and all enemies of Israel*] The same as most U.S. interventions: financial interest.
The emails reveal that most of the intelligence Clinton received on Libya was from Blumenthal, who was preparing to make substantial financial gains from the fall of the Libyan leader.
According to Vice News, the intel briefs on Libya were “prepared by Blumenthal’s business partner and former CIA operative Tyler Drumheller, a consultant with plans to take advantage of economic opportunities in a post-war Libya.”
Both men worked with the U.S.-based security company Osprey, a start-up that hoped to profit from medical and military contracts with Libyan rebels amid the chaos of the conflict, according to Vice News.
Five years later, the opportunism of Clinton and the Obama administration which resulted in one of the most disastrous interventions in recent decades, aiding the rise of extremist groups in the oil-rich African country and contributing to Europe’s ongoing refugee situation can be seen for what it was: a devastating assault on the people of Libya rooted in lies, deceit and narrow, imperial self-interest.
*Also in the cited Vice article but not presented by teleSUR:
… Much of the intelligence Blumenthal fed to Clinton was quite odd. One email suggested that Libyan elites wanted warm relations with Israel, another that European spy agencies were encouraging tribal leaders to declare a semi-autonomous tribal zone in the east of the country. […]
On Aug. 27, 2012, for instance, Blumenthal’s intelligence claimed that a new Libyan president would “seek a discreet relationship with Israel.” Then, Clinton forwarded on the e-mail to her top policy aide Jacob Sullivan with a note attached: “If true, this is encouraging. Should consider passing to Israelis.”
“For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.” —Robert Kagan
“I have a sense that she’s one of the more competent members of the current administration and it would be interesting to speculate about how she might perform were she to be president.” —Dick Cheney
“I’ve known her for many years now, and I respect her intellect. And she ran the State Department in the most effective way that I’ve ever seen.” —Henry Kissinger
Nobody Beats This Record
She says President Obama was wrong not to launch missile strikes on Syria in 2013.
She pushed hard for the overthrow of Qadaffi in 2011.
She supported the coup government in Honduras in 2009.
She has backed escalation and prolongation of war in Afghanistan.
She voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
She skillfully promoted the White House justification for the war on Iraq.
She does not hesitate to back the use of drones for targeted killing.
She has consistently backed the military initiatives of Israel.
She was not ashamed to laugh at the killing of Qadaffi.
She has not hesitated to warn that she could obliterate Iran.
She is not afraid to antagonize Russia.
She helped facilitate a military coup in Ukraine.
She has the financial support of the arms makers and many of their foreign customers.
She waived restrictions at the State Department on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all states wise enough to donate to the Clinton Foundation.
She supported President Bill Clinton’s wars and the power of the president to make war without Congress.
She has advocated for arming fighters in Syria.
She supported a surge in Iraq even before President Bush did.
On March 10, leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei met the newly elected Assembly of Experts. He said the United States harbors plans to change the state structure of Iran, but an attempt to stage a coup d’état is doomed to fail.
The Iranian spiritual leader noted that Iranians must not forget what the West has done to their country. They must always remember who Iran has to deal with. The West does not represent the entire world community; it’s just part of it. The Ayatollah warned that those who wish Iran ill will soon have to stay in line willing to normalize the relations.
The Assembly of Experts of Iran is a deliberative body of eighty-eight mujtahids (Islamic theologians) that is charged with electing and removing the supreme leader of Iran and supervising his activities. The members are elected from lists of candidates by direct public vote for eight-year terms. President Hassan Rouhani is a member of the Assembly, as well as other top officials. If Ayatollah Khamenei (76) is not able to continue in the office, the Assembly will elect another person to perform his duties. The spiritual leader called on the Assembly members to serve the interests of the state and preserve allegiance to the values of Islamic revolution.
According to him, today the normalization of the relationship with the United States does not serve the Iranian interests. The US is still viewed as a threat.
The Iranian nuclear dossier was closed in July 2015, but it did not lead to normalization of the relationship. The US continues to exert economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. The United States lifted the sanctions against Iran only partially with numerous reservations unlike America’s European allies who lifted them all on January 17. Obama’s temporary softening his position on Iran was nothing more than just another tactical move.
President Obama extended the status of national emergency vis-a-vis Tehran despite the recent lifting of nuclear-related sanctions stipulated in Iran’s agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, President Barack Obama told the Speaker of the US House of Representatives in a letter on March 9.
“Certain actions and policies of the Government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United States in the region and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to Iran and to maintain in force comprehensive sanctions,” the President informed the Congress.
US firms will still be largely left out of the market. Washington tries to expand the sanctions regime internationally.
This time the United States wants to impose additional sanctions related to Iran’s recent launches of ballistic missiles. The US Congress wants the administration to immediately bring the issue before the UN Security Council. It’s not clear what the Security Council has to consider. Could the Iranian missiles be nuclear-tipped? Probably yes, but Iran has no nuclear warheads to be fitted on the missiles. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) created the Iran Task Force within the Department of Safeguards, reporting directly to the deputy director-general for safeguards. The task force is responsible for all technical activities that now are carried out under the Joint Plan of Action and to be carried out under the new agreement between Iran and the P5+1 upon its entering into force. The Joint Plan of Action is being implemented according to the United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 and the decisions taken in December 2015. The Council simply has nothing to discuss.
Still, the US continues to stick to its present course. The US wants the discussion on Iran to go beyond the missiles program to include the destabilization role of Iran in the region, especially the security of Israel. During the recent visit of US Vice President to Israel, it was stated that Tehran’s Middle East policy was no less dangerous than the activities of international terrorist organizations. Israel’s motivation for rising tensions is clear. Tel Aviv is involved in a bargain deal with the United States over increased military aid in view of the nuclear deal concluded with Iran. It’s hard to understand why the Obama administration puts Israeli security interests above the interests of the United States and why the mission to counter Iran is given higher priority than the fight against terrorism.
Surprisingly, that’s what US military top leaders do. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the head of the US Central Command and Gen. Joseph Votel – the head of the US Special Operations Command who has been nominated to replace Austin – told lawmakers that Islamic State fighters represent the greatest short-term threat to US security in the Middle East.
But over the long-term, both men are more concerned with Iranian support for terrorist groups and interference in neighboring governments’ operations.
In reality, Tehran’s regional policy is focused on providing aid to the Syrian government in its fight against the terrorist organizations that have seized parts of the Syrian national territory. In 2015, 37 thousand foreign mercenaries were fighting the Syrian army. The absolute majority of them infiltrated Syria from Turkey. Ankara’s main enemy are not terrorist groups, but the Syrian Kurds – the only ground force capable of fighting the Islamic State on the ground. It’s an open secret that in 2013 President Obama allowed the CIA to arm rebels. The arms shipments were paid for by another US vassal state – Saudi Arabia, which provided recommendations on who the weapons should go to. As a result, the weapons went right into wrong hands.
By accusing Iran of supporting international terrorism, the US does not shy away from outright provocations.
For instance, Iran was ordered by a US judge to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to a group of insurers.
US District Judge George Daniels in New York issued a default judgment Wednesday against Iran for $7.5 billion to the estates and families of people who died at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It includes $2 million to each estate for the victims’ pain and suffering plus $6.88 million in punitive damages. Daniels also awarded $3 billion to insurers including Chubb Ltd. that paid property damage, business interruption and other claims. Earlier in the case, Daniels found that Iran had failed to defend claims that it aided the Sept. 11 hijackers and was therefore liable for damages tied to the attacks. Daniels’s March 9 ruling adopts damages findings by a US magistrate judge in December. While it is difficult to collect damages from an unwilling foreign nation, the plaintiffs may try to collect part of the judgments using a law that permits parties to tap terrorists’ assets frozen by the government.
It’s clear, the US wants to rob Iran. For instance, a new US export restriction against China’s ZTE Corp. for alleged Iran sanctions violations is likely to disrupt the telecom manufacturer’s sprawling global supply chain and could create substantial parts shortages, according to sanctions experts. Under the measure announced by the Commerce Department on March 7, US manufacturers will be banned from selling components to ZTE, which is a major global supplier of telecom-networking equipment. In addition, foreign manufacturers will be prohibited from selling products containing a significant amount of US-made parts to the Chinese company. The Commerce Department said ZTE planned to use a series of shell companies “to illicitly re-export controlled items to Iran in violation of US export control laws.” It said ZTE acted “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Under the circumstances, there is no alternative to the decision made by the Iranian top leadership to improve relations with the whole world, except the United States. Sticking to such a policy seems to be a natural thing to do. It’s also easily understandable why Tehran is reluctant to seek ways to normalize the relations with the United States.
There is no thaw in the bilateral relationship. Instead, the countries are in for a new round of confrontation.
1. Congress comprises the House of Representatives with 435 members plus 100 members in the Senate. So altogether Congress has 535 voting members. The US Constitution provides that in the majority of foreign policy decisions, and also in domestic legislation, any decision or proposal by the elected president, or the White House, must be ratified by Congress otherwise it cannot proceed. The foregoing is not in dispute.
2. AIPAC the American Israel lobby, aka the American Zionist Committee, has a reported 100,000 members across the United States plus the support of some 50 million, or so, Evangelicals, otherwise known as Christian Zionists, in the Bible Belt of Middle America. They represent between 16 to 20% of the US electorate. Put another way, about 80% of Americans are not members of AIPAC or any other Zionist organisation.
3. The Israel lobby has but one agenda, which is to support with military and civil aid the 5 or 6 million inhabitants of a foreign state in the Middle East. That aid is currently estimated to be in the region of US$6 billion every 12 months, sourced from taxpayers’ funds.
4. Who funds and controls AIPAC? The short answer is: the Lobby is funded by individual American Zionists and business enterprises. These financiers are closely allied to the Israeli government currently headed by the Likud Party leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. They control AIPAC through their paid executives whose brief is to ensure that the majority in Congress support the Likud Political Zionist agenda.
5. Correctly, AIPAC and the entire Israel lobby should legally be designated, as a ‘Foreign Agent’ representing a foreign state. It remains a matter for conjecture why this provision within the law has never been implemented in this case. AIPAC was not established and is not in existence to support, or for the benefit of, the government or people of the United States.
6. AIPAC’s influence over Congress is achieved by ensuring that wherever possible no candidate for the House or Senate will be elected, or reelected, unless that candidate specifically confirms his/her support for AIPAC’s agenda of Political Zionism.
7. The result is that the Israeli government effectively controls AIPAC the Israel lobby, which then has an undue influence over Congress that, in turn, either empowers or disempowers the elected President in the White House.
8. It’s known as ‘DAS’ (Democracy American Style) but, in reality is the political and economic control of the state by an unelected oligarchy. It is certainly not ‘democracy’ in any meaningful sense in that in America today, the elected representatives of the people apparently seek to serve the interests of a foreign state before the interests of their own constituents
TULKAREM – Israeli forces on Tuesday raided al-Khadouri University in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tulkarem for the second consecutive day, the university’s administration said in a statement.
The administration said Israeli forces raided the university on Monday, forcing staff to open the main doors of the university’s engineering department. During the raid forces reportedly ransacked the building and seized posters and brochures from the campus.
Eighteen hours later, on Tuesday, the administration said Israeli forces returned, and ransacked more of the campus.
The university administration condemned the “Israeli violations against the university.”
The administration urged that international organizations take action against Israel’s disregard for education facilities.
Israeli forces have regularly stormed university campuses across the occupied Palestinian territory in recent months.
Since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory in October, Abu Dis’ Al-Quds University in particular has found itself a focal point of violent clashes between Palestinian students and Israeli soldiers.
On January 29, Hundreds of Israeli soldiers stormed Abu Dis’ al-Quds Open University and confiscated equipment and documents belonging to its student union.
Earlier in January, Birzeit University in Ramallah condemned an Israeli army raid into its campus, during which Israeli forces confiscated and damaged university equipment.
“Birzeit University condemns this attack and the direct violation of the sanctity of the university campus,” the university said. “This is a belligerent military attack on the university and our right to education and all the principles involved in the freedom of education.”
Demonstrating once again the sniveling and shameless fealty to the wealthy that she and her husband have elevated to a high art over the last 30 years, Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban last July 6th in which she said that:
I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority. I am seeking your advice on how we can work together across party lines and with a diverse array of voices to reverse this trend with information and advocacy, and fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel.
One of the key reasons for the extraordinary success of the Zionist lobby in America over the last six decades or so has been its ability to generate and repeat sound bites whose discursive purpose is not to enrich the breadth and texture of a debate on the Middle East, but rather to impoverish and attenuate it.
Long before GOP operative Frank Luntz began trawling focus groups for emotionally-charged terms capable of crippling the public’s rational faculties during political campaigns, the people at AIPAC and the many pundits in the mainstream media who faithfully carry their water (e.g. ex-AIPAC employee Wolf Blitzer) were already experts at this game.
Perhaps the most well-known of the tropes employed by Israel’s more fervent advocates is to challenge someone who is criticizing its policies if they support that state’s “right to exist”.
The beauty of the query, at least from the point of view of those that deploy it, is its seeming innocuousness. We all, especially Americans, have an instinctively positive relationship to the idea of “rights”.
And who would want to go on record as being against the idea of some one’s or some country’s “existence”?
So, when our interlocutor says, “Don’t you support Israel’s right to exist,?” most of us freeze and then retreat.
And that is exactly the effect desired by those posing the question.
But of course criticizing someone’s or some thing’s comportment is not the same as seeking their death and destruction. To portray these two activities as being one in the same is nothing short of absurd.
It is similarly absurd to speak—here again I am referring to the above-mentioned question/rejoinder—of a “right” existing in isolation from other values and concerns.
Every social or political “right” is necessarily constructed upon a matrix of tradeoffs. My “right to live” and my “right to pursue happiness” are necessarily and without exception mediated by a need to be cognizant of, and responsive to, the rights and needs of others around me.
So the real question when it comes to Israel (and every other national polity for that matter) is under what specific legal and moral conditions— both in relation to its geographical neighbors and all those subject to its forms of organized power—can and should be permitted and/or encouraged perpetuate its present modes of existence?
And this, of course, is the very this conversation that the ridiculously unspecific and often smugly issued challenge regarding Israel’s “right to exist” is specifically designed to head off.
Those issuing it understand all too well that, should such a detailed discussion ensue, Israel, with its ongoing record of ethnic-cleansing and deeply institutionalized racism, would not fare very well among most fair-minded people.
We are now witnessing the widespread and seemingly concerted re-deployment of yet another trope: one that holds that the central goal of the BDS movement is to cruelly effect the “delegitimization” of the state of Israel.
According to the Collins on-line dictionary, to delegitimize means “to make invalid, illegal, or unacceptable”.
On one level, then, the use of the term by Israel’s defenders is fairly accurate. Those in favor of BDS do indeed seek to invalidate and eventually render illegal and unacceptable the racist and expansionist practices of the Israeli government.
On another level, however, they are clearly exaggerating when, as they often do, they simplistically equate drive to dismantle odious racist practices with the destruction of the state itself (What does it say about a society when the abolishment of blood-based schemes of citizenship and legalized ethnic supremacy are widely viewed by its members as tantamount to annihilation?), something that all BDS statements of purpose explicitly disavow.
For anyone who has followed the Israel lobby’s actions over the years, such exaggerations and cynically purposeful conflations are, of course old—very old—hat.
What is much more interesting to me is the righteous indignation that almost inevitably accompanies Zionists’ mention of the carefully circumscribed “delegitimizing” efforts of the BDS movement.
After all, it is not as if delegitmization as a tactic is new to Zionism.
Indeed, a strong case could be made that it has been perhaps the single most ubiquitous and effective tool of the movement in the US and elsewhere over much of the last century.
And, generally speaking, its use in Zionist circles has not been marked with any of the thoughtful circumscription employed by the BDS movement in its campaign to modify Israeli behavior toward the captive Palestinians under its control.
Rather, it has usually conformed to the behavior implicit in a second, much more harsh, definition of the term found on Wikipedia which speaks of delegitimization as the process of classifying “groups into extreme social categories which are ultimately excluded from society” and an activity that provides “the moral and the discursive basis to harm the delegitimized group, even in the most inhumane ways”.
What am I talking about?
For example, how, back in the first decade of the 20th century, the influential British Zionist Israel Zangwill famously wrote “Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews are a people without a country”.
Could there be any more direct and forceful delegitmization of a people than to have them ontologically disappeared by another group covetous of their land?
When, after the fledgling Israeli government engaged (despite all you might have read or been told about spontaneously fleeing Arabs) in a well-orchestrated plan to terrorize Palestinians into leaving their houses and lands in the new state in 1948, a number of the same refugees came back and sought to reclaim their properties, the Ben-Gurion government quickly labeled these people as “infiltrators”.
Could there be any more eloquent case of delegitimization than describing people returning to their lawfully titled homes after being driven out of them at the point of gun and/or the demonstrable threat of summary assassination as “infiltrators”?
When, after capturing the so-called West Bank thanks to a war in 1967 that—again, despite all you might have read or been told—Israel clearly initiated, some of the occupied Palestinians, seeing absolutely no attempts on the part of the Israeli government to begin the process of territorial devolution, or to abide by international conventions governing the behavior occupying armies, began to pursue their UN-sanctioned right to engage in armed resistance to that occupation, they were quickly and universally tarred by Israel as “terrorists”, a term designed to morally delegitimize them and their struggle in the eyes of the world.
When a non-Jew criticizes Israeli political and military behavior in exactly the same manner and tone that he or she might use to criticize analogous Russian, Spanish, French or American comportments, many Zionists have little or no compunction about quickly labeling such a person an Anti-Semite, which is to say a person possessed by a malign moral sickness, rooted in a wholly irrational hatred, for which there is therefore no cure.
The goal in quickly slapping this toxic label on a person is to effectively remove him or her from the field of “respectable” debate, that is, to delegitimize them and the set of often quite valid and universally-grounded critiques they might be trying to bring to the public square.
Similarly, when a Jew decides (judging from the cases I have known, almost always after a period of gruelingly careful consideration), to reject the political ideology of Zionism, many of those still working within the fold of this school of thought will show little hesitancy in delegitimizing this person, and with it, his or her freely-arrived-at moral choice, by labeling them with the implicitly pathological label of “self-hating Jew”.
Even former US Presidents are not immune from organized Zionist campaigns of delegitimization.
In 2006, former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter published a book in which he described the obvious: that in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, Israel runs a confiscatory colonial enterprise wherein Jews and non-Jews enjoy vastly disparate privileges and legal protections.
What did Carter get for this simple and irrefutable statement fact?
An organized Zionist campaign of delegitimization that culminated in his being, at least to my knowledge, the first living ex-president to be forcibly barred from speaking to the assembled delegates of his own party’s presidential nominating convention.
In October of 1988 the comic actor and writer John Cleese donated $140,000 to the University of Sussex in England to finance a study on psychological projection and denial, describing those phenomena to be “frightfully important” to understanding many life conflicts, especially those that play out in realm of politics.
Looking at irony-free use of delegitimization in certain Zionist reactions to BDS, it seems safe to say that the famous jester’s intuitions about the importance of these phenomena in public life were spot on.
Syria is teetering on the brink and it will be difficult to rebuild it as a united country, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told Sputnik in an interview.
“Syria tinkers on the brink. I do not know if or how it will be possible to rebuild Syria as a united country. For Israel, we are greatly concerned by the threat of Hezbollah, and importantly it is clear that there is a need to prevent Iran from promoting instability in the region, else no solution to the problems has a real chance to hold,” Rivlin said in regard to resolving the political crisis in Syria.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said that Syria had been effectively partitioned and is unlikely to be reunified into the state it had been in the recent past.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously endorsed the creation of an independent Kurdish state, arguing it would be a bulwark of stability in the region.
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces fighting numerous opposition factions and radical Islamists. The Swiss city of Geneva currently hosts the UN-backed proximity talks between the Syrian opposition and the government’s delegation to put an end to the deadly conflict.
Discussion of Syria’s federalization during the ongoing peace talks has been supported by opposition factions represented in Geneva, as well Syrian Kurds. Meanwhile, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has rejected both federalization and the partition of the country.
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
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