A handy dictionary/rules book for anyone writing on the Middle East issues in the mainstream media. To get published as a news journalist, it seems you have to follow these rules.
Definitions:
Caught in the Crossfire:When Palestinian civilians are killed.
Retaliation: When Israeli army or settlers kill Palestinians.
Escalation: Any act of violence or resistance by the Palestinians.
Murdered: When Israeli Civilians are killed.
Brutal/cowardly/ghastly: adjectives describing attacks on Israelis.
Self defense: Any act of violence by Israelis.
Terrorism: Any act of violence by the Palestinians.
Civilians: Armed settlers are civilians when killed. Try to avoid using this term for Palestinians.
Neighborhoods: Areas inhabited by Israeli settlers.
Positions: Any Palestinian towns and villages especially when bombed by helicopter gunships or raked with large caliber machine guns.
Tragedy: Any Israeli death.
Deserved: Any Palestinian death.
Squatters: Palestinian natives.
Democratic ally: Synonym for Israel.
Disputed Areas: Any Palestinian or Arab land occupied by Israel in defiance of International law.
Anti-Semite: Person condemns Israeli violations of Palestinian civil and human rights.
Victims: Any Jewish Israeli.
Attacker: Any Palestinian engaging in any form of resistance.
Targets: Palestinian buildings, homes, offices – What the Israeli military designates as military targets.
Attack/bombing/murder: Acts the Palestinians commit when directed at Israelis.
Clashes: This is a difficult term to understand but is generally used when Palestinians die.
Measures (e.g. Economic measures, security measures): Any acts the Israelis commit (blockades, collective punishment, shelling neighborhoods, starving a population etc).
Security: Anything the Israeli government chooses to do. This can include land confiscation, extra-judicial killings, home demolitions, destruction of groves, uprooting trees, blockades etc. The term security is reserved for use only with the word Israel or Israeli and must never be applied to Palestinians. Lashing out: A term reserved for Palestinians and acts they commit against Israelis.
Under siege: Again a term for use by the Israelis as in Palestinians have put Israelis under siege. Exact meaning depends on the circumstances. Never use for Palestinian towns or villages.
Rules:
When to use Passive voice: If the violent action is committed by Israelis (e.g. 2 Palestinians were killed, one of them a 9 year old).
When to use active voice: If the action is committed by Palestinians (e.g. Palestinians killed a Jewish child, Palestinians kills teenager).
While reporting about Israelis: “2 Israelis were injured”, while reporting about Palestinian use the verbs claimed, say etc.“Palestinians say woman dies of teargas inhalation in West Bank” (e.g. Ha’aretz)
Names: Must be included for any Jewish victims, always avoid names for Muslim or Christian victims but use numbers in stead (remember in the passive voice, e.g. 2 Palestinians died in clashes).
When an Israeli is killed: It is important to note his or her profession, where he/she is from and was going, whether or not he/she is religious, and whether or not he/she is an immigrant from the U.S. or Russia. If the dead person is survived by a spouse and children, this should be noted. If the victim is a youngster, the school they attended should be mentioned, and their friends’ feelings should be noted. in general, people who knew the dead person should testify to their humanity.
When a Palestinian is killed, they should not be personalized in any way.
When an Israeli is killed, it is useful to include graphic descriptions of the death scene – the covered body, the fragments of flesh, the path of flowing blood, etc.
Please ensure that your local media editor/journalist receives this list.
You cannot negotiate with Iran. That is what they told us for years. The Iranian leadership is too fanatical, they are not rational actors, they are “not like us.” One US official even recently said that deception is part of the Iranian DNA. But just over a week ago negotiations between the five permanent UN Security Council Members plus Germany and the Iranians produced an historic agreement that may be the first step toward a new era in US relations with the Middle East.
As Middle East expert Eric Margolis pointed out this week, for Iran’s major concessions it will only receive “$7 billion – of its own money, which has been frozen abroad by US-led sanctions.” That sounds like quite a bit of compromise for such a “fanatical” country.
Earlier this summer the same people made the same arguments about Syria. You cannot negotiate with Syrian President Assad, they said. He is insane; he is another Hitler. But not only was it possible, a deal was signed ending the threat of a US strike in exchange for Syria agreeing to give up its chemical weapons and the ability to manufacture new ones. Syria upheld its end of the agreement and the chemicals were all accounted for on schedule.
Why have the interventionists, the neocons, and the special interest groups claimed for so long that negotiation and diplomacy was tantamount to surrender; that countries such as Iran and Syria “only understand force”? It is because these groups are afraid of diplomacy. They do not want a peaceful resolution to these conflicts. They see US foreign relations only in the starkest terms: do what we say and we will give you aid, disobey us and we will bomb you.
Now the warmongers who call themselves “foreign policy experts” have been exposed. The whole world sees that they are wrong. Their advice is bad. Their limited vision of how foreign affairs should be conducted is actually dangerous to the United States. It is now clear that there are workable alternatives.
As with the US threats against Syria, public opinion polls on talks with Iran demonstrate that the American people are solidly behind diplomacy and opposed to another war. According to one recent poll, Americans support the deal reached with Iran by a margin of two-to-one.
Congress, however, is once again far behind the American people. Even as US negotiators were reaching agreement with their Iranian counterparts, US representatives and Senators were drafting legislation to increase sanctions on Iran. Instead of listening to the American people, many in Congress seem attached to special interests like the Israel and Saudi lobbies, which oppose anything less than full Iranian capitulation. Israel refuses to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty yet it seeks to dictate the rules of the treaty to those who have signed it. Saudi Arabia is desperate to control the region politically and economically, and it views an Iran that is free to sell oil and other products on the open market as a threat to Saudi power.
For too long both Israel and the Saudis have benefited from a US military guarantee. It has created “moral hazard” that only encourages more belligerent behavior on both of their parts. It remains to be seen whether this six month trial period will develop into a permanent move toward normalization of relations with Iran. What if Congress refuses to give Iran its own money back? But we are moving in the right direction and we should be optimistic.
A better US relationship with Iran may signal the beginning of the end of US meddling in the region and serve as an incentive for Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Gulf States to solve their problems themselves. This would be a great boost to US national security, just as an Iran open to US business and trade would be a great boost to our economic security. Is peace finally breaking out? Let’s hope so.
Well my first show on The People’s Voice will air on Sunday from 1600-1800 GMT.
It is a great programme with Gilad Atzmon and I having a conversation about the control of language and Jewish power, politically incorrect through and through.
I am also very happy to debut the series of stories about families in Gaza I met in 2011 when I lived there for 6 months. These are powerful, emotional stories and I must thank brother Ashraf Elwakhery for being the man who finally edited all the raw footage. There are 24 stories about 21 families and we are starting off with the heartbreaking story of Zeinat Samouni, it brings tears to my eyes to watch this story every single time, if you are not moved by what this beautiful woman and her children have been through then you have clearly lost your humanity. And lastly, I am very happy to have sister Noor Harazeen as our TPV Correspondent in Gaza, she will be giving us regular reports and also giving us an update about Zeinat and her children.
Please share this far and wide, please tune in, the show is called ‘Ken O’Keefe’s Middle East’, it will repeat later in the day, prime time in the US and other places throughout the week. We may have call in opportunities, stayed tuned for info for that.
The war of narratives shaped as a “slam dunk” win for the Palestinian people, and had the potential to change the lineup of forces in the struggle for a just solution to the Middle East crisis. After all, unlike the Zionists, the Palestinians are a singular people, speak a common language, have common customs, and lived a shared history. They inhabited the area for centuries, if not for millennia, and tilled and watered the land to which they had legal title. Western nations restructured the Middle East, denied the Palestinians a country, and placed them in a British Mandate. Refusal to agree to surrendering any of their lands to the UN Partition Plan led to the catastrophe in 1948 (Al-Nakba), which left them stateless and subject to Israeli occupation and oppression. As a community, the Palestinians are now headed toward destruction. Can they prevent that destruction by winning the war of narratives?
A Palestinian Negligence
Despite their more compelling narrative, the Palestinians have been unable to successfully articulate their experiences or implement a powerful rebuttal to Israel’s narrations, and Israel has prevailed in the war of narratives, a feat that defies the possible. Adding to the failure is the perplexing manner by which Palestinian institutions and persons unknowingly validate portions of the Zionist narrative and its falsifications of history. As an example, this excerpt appears on the website of the Palestine center, the foremost Palestinian “think tank” in Washington, DC:
The Canaanites were the earliest known inhabitants of Palestine. They became urbanized and lived in city-states, one of which was Jericho. Thus Jericho is considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth.
“The Israelites, a confederation of Hebrew tribes, defeated the Canaanites, but found the struggle with the Philistines more difficult. The Philistines had established an independent state on the southern coast of Palestine and controlled the Canaanite town of Jerusalem. The Philistines were superior in military organization to the Israelites [and] severely defeated them about 1050 BCE.
“David, Israel’s king, united the Hebrew tribes and eventually defeated the Philistines. The three groups assimilated with each other over the years. The unity of Israelite tribes enabled David to establish a large independent state, with its capital at Jerusalem. However, that did not last long as that state split into two: Israel in the north and Judea in the south.
Unknowingly, The Palestine Center has published a dubious biblical history, which Israel’s propagandists use to advantage. History and archaeology contest the presentation:
(1) Jericho, one of the earliest cities, no longer existed at the time of the later Canaanites (it eventually recovered), which means it was not continually inhabited, and there was no Jericho for Joshua, and probably no conquest by a Joshua of other tribes.
(2) The Exodus, Conquest and lives of David and Solomon are myths. If a David and/or Solomon existed, they were minor chieftains and not leaders with a capital in Jerusalem.
Exodus and Lack of Proof
Although the ancient Egyptians kept meticulous records, no manuscripts, drawings or documents describe Hebrew slaves in Egypt or an exodus. Besides, Egypt was not, as Rome, a slave state and only kept foreigners captured in war as slaves. If they wandered 40 years in the desert, would not the 100,000 plus Hebrews have left some traces for future collaboration – pottery shards, implements, shreds of garments, or weapons? If they had the latter, which they needed for conquest, how were they obtained or forged? Lastly, because the earliest examples of written Hebrew date from the 10th century B.C. would not the Hebrews, after being captive in Egypt for centuries, have spoken and written a Middle Egyptian language? What language did they speak?
Did Joshua Assault Jericho?
Archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, in her book Digging up Jericho: The Results of the Jericho Excavations, 1952-1956, Praeger, New York, estimated the city was destroyed before 1550 BC, 150 years prior to Joshua’s supposed arrival, and remained dormant until the 11th century B.C. Radiocarbon tests by Hendrink J. Burns, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho): Radiocarbon results of short-lived cereal and multiyear charcoal samples from the end of the middle Bronze age, Jacob Blaustein, Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, confirmed Ms. Kenyon’s conclusions.
Jericho: Was There any Conquest?
The most definitive rebuttal to biblical history before the 9th century B.C. comes from recognized Tel Aviv University archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, who documented their explorations in The Bible Unearthed : Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Their archaeological diggings demonstrated that “the Israelites were simply Canaanites who developed into a distinct culture. Recent surveys of long-term settlement patterns in the Israelite heartlands show no sign of violent invasion or even peaceful infiltration, but rather a sudden demographic transformation about 1200 BCE in which villages appear.”
Finkelstein and Silberman continue with discoveries, which “suggest that Jerusalem was sparsely populated and only a village during the time of David and of Solomon. During the time of Solomon, the northern kingdom of Israel had an insignificant existence, too poor to be able to pay for a vast army, and with too little bureaucracy to be able to administer a kingdom, certainly not an empire.” It was not until the eighth century B.C., 200 years after David, that Jerusalem began to grow.
Control of Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s status is furiously debated in “balanced” discussions. Israel demands total control of a “united city,” which it claims is essential to its heritage, and Palestinians are willing to defer to Jerusalem becoming a shared city. In these “balanced” meetings, the Palestinians cannot gain the offensive, and are unable to obtain a reply to a simple question: Why are Jews allowed to settle in East Jerusalem and reclaim a few dubious properties, while Palestinians are not allowed to settle in West Jerusalem and regain multitudes of usurped properties?
Examine the Holy Basin. The Holy Basin contains well-marked Christian and Muslim institutions and holy places that have had historical placement for more than a millennium – Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Al Asqua Mosque, Dome of the Rock, and Mosque of Omar.
Although Hebrews had major presence in Jerusalem during the centuries of biblical Jerusalem, which included rule by several kingdoms and control by the Hasmonean dynasties, their control and major presence were interrupted between the kingdom and dynasty and became insignificant after 70 A.D. Commentary has enabled the more than two thousand years of lack of control and presence to seem as if they never happened, and that today is only a short interval from the ancient years of King Hezekiah. Centuries of Christian and Crusader rule and more than one thousand years of Muslim rule are less noted, and their tremendous constructions and creations in Jerusalem are downplayed. The Christian and Muslim everythings become nothing and a minor Hebrew something becomes everything. Myth replaces reality. Ethereal spirituality replaces physical presence.
Some remains of Jewish dwellings, burial grounds and ritual baths can be found, but few, if any, major Jewish monuments, buildings or institutions from the Biblical era exist within the “Old City” of today’s Jerusalem. The oft cited Western Wall is the supporting wall for Herod’s platform and is not directly related to the Second Temple. No remains of that Temple have been located.
The Western Wall, which erroneously entered the vernacular as the Wailing Wall by someone during the 19th century, is considered to be close to the “holiest of the holies,” the most revered site in Judaism. According to historian Karen Armstrong, in her book Jerusalem, Ballantine Books; April 29, 1997, Jews did not pray at this part of the Western Wall until the Mamluks in the 15th century allowed them to move their congregations from a dangerous Mount of Olives and pray daily at the Wall. At that time, she estimates that there may have been no more than 70 Jewish families in Jerusalem.
This portion of the Western Wall lacks absolute proof of its being close to the “holiest of the holies,” and therefore has religious significance by default – there is no other readily apparent religious construction from the ancient Hebrew’s Jerusalem. Or, is it significant because Israel wants control of part of the wall that surrounds the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif, a site it hopes to control one day?
In an attempt to connect ancient Israel to present day Jerusalem, Israeli authorities apply spurious labels to Holy Basin landmarks.
• Neither King David’s Tower nor King David’s Citadel relate to the time of King David.
• Neither the Pools of Solomon nor the Stables of Solomon relate to the time or life of King Solomon.
• Absalom’s Tomb is an obvious Greek sculptured edifice and therefore cannot be the tomb of David’s son.
Why should anyone acquiesce to Israel’s demand for incorporating all of a Jerusalem that has no ancient religious institution standing? The answer is conditioning – the constant repetitions of “If I forsake thee Jerusalem,” and “Jerusalem is indivisible” – internalization of a dubious argument and done for covert reasons.
Israel is a physically small and new country with an eager population and big ambitions. It needs more prestige and wants to be viewed as a power broker on the world stage. To gain those perspectives, Israel needs a capital city that commands respect, contains ancient traditions and is recognized as one of the world’s most important and leading municipalities. To assure the objectives, there can be only one Jerusalem and it must be the one that contains the Holy City. A united Jerusalem with a single tourist and business authority is worth a lot of Shekels.
It is distressing to witness “balanced” discussions characterize Jewish identity in Jerusalem as the same, if not of greater intensity, than that of the Palestinians (Muslim and Christian), not have this “balance’ politely refuted, and be tacitly approved by audiences.
And not only is Jewish identity in Jerusalem questioned; modern Judaism’s roots also deserve to be questioned.
Modern Judaism and the Holy Land
In a posted interview on Nov 18, 2008 of an American PBS program Archeology of the Hebrew Bible, William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, who has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years, exclaimed, “This is awkward for some people, the notion that Israelite religion was not exclusively monotheistic. But we know now that it wasn’t. Monotheism was a late development. Not until the Babylonian Exile and beyond does Israelite and Judean religion—Judaism—become monotheistic.”
The last sentence is significant.
After the prophets returned from Babylonian exile, possibly influenced by Zoroastrianism, a religion whose God of good and light fought evil and dark, the Hebrews became Jews, instilled with a change in belief from monolatry, exclusive worship of one God without excluding foreigners to worship other Gods, to monotheism, exclusive worship of one universal God. David Danzig in an article Evidence for Survivals of Mesopotamian Civilization in the Babylonian Talmud: clarifies the reason: “The concept of a single God whom all nations would eventually worship evolved among a conquered and exiled people no longer assured of their divinely protected status.”
Many Jews remained in the regions of their exile. Later, hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in Mesopotamia and Persia during the Persian Parthian and Sassasian Empires, (248 B.C. to 641 A.D.) In this area, schools of Judaism flourished, eventually codifying the oral and written laws and producing the Babylonian Talmud, which, rather then the Jerusalem Talmud, became the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the basis for all Jewish law. In Iraq and Persia, from 500 B.C. and through the Middle Ages, the Jews from Judah shed themselves from the restraints of arid lands and a controlling priestly class, achieved almost total male literacy, developed intellectual prowess, and by 650 A.D., had changed their occupations from artisans, and struggling farmers to those of agriculturists, merchants, and traders, many becoming wealthy from the silk trade.
The biblical “Exodus” story did not free the Jews. Just the opposite, it has been used to keep Jews in perpetual bondage to a spurious history and to promote an attitude of constant victim hood, while distracting them from realizing they might also play a role in the injustices done to others.
The Jewish exodus from their birth lands to Babylonia and Persia (and throughout the Roman Empire), during the centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. and several centuries after its occurrence, freed the Jews from a pastoral life, arid conditions, and restricted economics. The already weakened and dispersed Israelite tribes completely disintegrated, and the Hebrews lost a place in an ongoing history. As in the hypothesis of punctured equilibrium, where new species suddenly arise to replace a dying species, new communities of Mesopotamian Jews, knowledgeable and worldly, quickly appeared in the Fertile Crescent. In that region, which soon housed the three great Jewish universities of Surah, Pumbadita and Nehardea, the legacy and heritage of modern Jews and Judaism are best expressed. In The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492, winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship, by Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein, Princeton University press, 2012, the authors claim that “Judaism reached its Golden Age in 800 -1200 A.D. During that time, Mesopotamia and Persia contained 75% of world Jewry with the rest in North Africa and Western Europe.”
Battle between Dead and Dying
The World War II Holocaust, which cost the lives of several million Jews, is firmly established in the Israeli conscience and its history is continually circulated throughout the world. The Palestinian catastrophe, Al-Nakba, hides in the shadows of the World War II onslaught. Why is it not more revealed?
Because the Zionist movement to Palestine started decades before World War II and almost all refugees from the conflagration had been relocated before establishment of the state of Israel, the relationship between the state of Israel and the European Holocaust is tenuous. Nevertheless, Israel makes full use of the Jewish tragedy to secure sympathy, periodically reminding the world of previous era horrors, repeating them daily to its children, as if they are being threatened, and convincing a world they need to define their own security in order to prevent the next genocidal attack against them.
The Palestinians have not been alert in changing the direction of the dispute, still regarding it as a conflict between them and the Israelis, when it is now only a crisis for them. The initial disputes between the Zionists and the Palestinians erupted into a conflict. After Israel achieved military victory in 1967, the conflict essentially ended; the Palestinian allies had been defeated and the Palestinians were subjected to Israeli occupation. From then on it has been a growing crisis, which could lead to total destruction of the Palestinian community. This is not semantics; it focuses on the real problem and prevents resources and attention from being diverted to useless activities. As a matter of fact, the attacks on the Palestine community resemble the UN definition of genocide:
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Israeli forces have been continuously guilty of the first four acts. Without assistance from international organizations, Arab countries, philanthropies, individuals and private fund raisers, all of whom have supplied the Palestinians with food, energy, training, funds, education and resources that counter Israeli oppression, the precarious plight of the Palestinians would have reached a critical level a long time ago.
Genocide is not necessarily broadcasted; it can be silent and stealth – breaking bones and imprisoning males to deny children of working fathers, preventing expansion of food, water and housing supplies so a population is economically deprived and exists at subsistence levels, confining families to limited areas to stifle education, knowledge and community interaction, restricting travel so that people are not able to contact others and learn the new tools and mechanisms for adaptation to a modern world, planting harassment and sowing fear to create psychological disturbances. Recipients of these policies applied by the Israeli government in the West Bank and Gaza have no recourse to reply, except to leave the area or suffer until death.
The World War II Holocaust is over, the dead cannot be reclaimed and yet their lives are continually discussed. In Palestine, the destruction continues, lives can be reclaimed and yet the threat to their existence is insufficiently discussed. The crisis started with Al-Nakba and the Palestinians have not been able to make the world react to the seriousness of the growing catastrophe.
War of Narratives
What have Jews accomplished by in-gathering and becoming citizens of the state of Israel? They have bolstered a spurious interpretation of history, and identified themselves with twelve tribes who established some states and administration, but apparently vanished from history and left little imprint of having been a strong or extensive civilization for a long period of time. By incorporating biblical history into its ‘reason to be,’ Israel has exalted Joshua the warrior, guilty of nine genocides, David, a bandit, suspected murderer of those who barred his route to kingship, and philanderer who coveted the wives of others, and Solomon, who used forced labor and exorbitant taxes to build huge construction projects (For this, Moses took them out of Egypt?), and kept a harem of 700 wives. Evidently, the Israelis intend to accomplish in real life what a mythical Joshua and his Israelites accomplished – conquer the city of Jericho, lay the entire West Bank to waste and “let the people be hewers of wood and water carriers in the service of the whole assembly.”
It seems strange that Jews embrace the dubious connection with wandering tribes and errant kings and reject the well established memories of their most precious epochs and proud moments of history – their centuries of sojourn in Mesopotamia and Persia. Readily absorbing the new wisdom they encountered after their exodus to ancient Iraq and Persia, the Jews compiled the Talmud, and moved rapidly into achieving almost total male literacy, obtaining economic advancement, and becoming leaders for progress and modernity. Hopefully, Jews who absorb actual history will awaken other Jews to the destructive impulses generating from Israel, which prevents them from recognizing the roots of modern Judaism and instead reverts them to become atavistic and reactionary relics of the ancient Hebrew world.
The Palestinians have found themselves thrust in an unenviable role with specific challenges – expose the contrived narrative of the Israelis and impress the world with their narrative of continuous transitory life as Canaanites, or possibly Hebrews, to Christians, to Muslims, to Arabs, to citizens of the Ottoman Empire and finally to suffering the Al-Nakba, which started their route to being oppressed. Despite decades of mental, physical and emotional fatigue, they owe this task to themselves, to their communities in Diasporas, to Jews who don’t want to be involved in the injustices, to a Middle East that suffers from the expansion of the crisis, and to a world that might soon face a related catastrophe. They owe it and should show it.
The agreement between the US and Iran is the best news coming out of the Middle East for some time. As Iran is not developing nuclear weapons it is not giving away too much, although it still went a long way to meeting US demands. Israel is furious. Netanyahu has done his best to prevent this point being reached and will be striving hard to make sure it goes no further. He will be appealing to Congress over the head of the president, the traditional tactic of Israeli prime ministers when they can’t get their own way. Israel’s lobbyists will be fully mobilizing for what is being represented as the greatest challenge to Israel in its history.
This is a major blow to Israel and a well-deserved slap in the face for Netanyahu. He has lost no opportunity to humiliate the US president so there is probably a personal element in all of this amidst the grander strategic considerations. But the outcome is good for the Middle East and good for the US. The agreement sets up the development of a relationship which will reconfigure geostrategic realities. By signing it the US is implicitly accepting Iran’s right to maintain its own special relationship with Syria and Hizbullah. The Syria experience has clearly been a sharp learning curve. In the name of political transition the so-called ‘Friends of the Syrian People’ have unleashed the hounds of hell at the geographic heart of the Middle East. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is only the worst of the pack. The US administration has been backing away from its involvement and now clearly accepts that Bashar staying in power is the best option.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are dismayed at the refusal of their erstwhile allies to push the assault on Syria any further. Now they have the agreement with Iran to contend with and they are furious. Some of the commentary in the Israeli media is nothing short of demented. These two states have now formed their own axis of resistance – resistance to change, resistance to peace, resistance to the end of occupation, resistance to the White House and resistance to common sense. The recent bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut can safely be regarded as the work of one of them if not involving both. The Saudis are completely obsessed with destroying Shi’ism and Shia across the region. If they keep going like this their own special relationship with the US is going to suffer as well but they have already dropped hints that they don’t care.
Now that the Americans are talking to Iran they might start wondering what all the fuss was about. They are getting on with the Iranian negotiators, who are far more civilized and sophisticated than shills like Netanyahu and louts like Avigdor Lieberman. Furthermore, while Israel is an occupying state that has repeatedly gone to war to defend its ill-gotten gains, Iran, as commentators are pointing out, has not launched an aggressive war for more than two centuries, so which country shapes up as the most stable ally for the US in the region?
Saudi Arabia is another story. It is one of the most reactionary states in the world. It buys people, politicians, entire governments and newspaper editors. Money is its true god. Much of the revenue from its oil has gone into arms purchases from the US and European governments, all of which know that if they want this bonanza to continue they have to remain silent in the face of Saudi Arabia’s flagrant abuses of human rights. If there ever was a case for ‘regime change’ it is surely smack bang in the middle of Riyadh.
The agreement with Iran opens the way to significant commercial, political and strategic benefits for the US. It may well not be to Russia’s liking. By comparison, Israel is a dead weight around America’s neck from any perspective. It bleeds the US Treasury of more than $3 billion in arms and economic aid every year. It spies on the US and regularly defies the US. It has killed US servicemen in pursuit of its own strategic ends. It opens no doors and is of no commercial or economic benefit to the US and the days when it might have served some purpose as an armory during US military actions in the Middle East have probably gone for good. The American people have made it perfectly clear they do not want their government to be involved in any more wars in the Middle East and peace certainly offers the US far greater rewards than war.
The nuclear issue always was a distraction. The real issue for Israel is Iran’s growing influence across the region and its refusal to back away from its strategic alliance with Syria and Hizbullah despite economic sanctions and regular threats of war. The ruins of Gaza are testimony to Israel’s determination to destroy anyone and any thing standing in its way. Palestine is the wellspring but dig deep enough into the ruins of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and you will find Israel at the bottom. It will see the whole Middle East flattened rather than retreat from the territory it has seized through its wars of aggression. Since the war of conquest of 1948 it has launched six other wars against Egypt, Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, apart from shorter incursions, assassinations and aerial attacks such as those launched on Syria this year. By comparison the only war involving the Islamic republic of Iran is the one launched by Saddam Hussein in 1980.
Israel cannot afford to alienate the US. It needs American economic aid and weapons and it will need US support if it ever gets into a war which it can’t win. Israel’s defeats at the hands of Hizbullah confirm a picture of relative military decline over the past three decades. Even Gaza with its miniscule defences has been able to withstand the fury of Israeli assaults. The fortress state is beginning to crumble at its foundations and if Israel continues to alienate even its friends the day will come when it finds itself alone with its nuclear bombs.
This is an existential moment for Israel. It refuses to change, expecting its friends endlessly to accommodate its outrageous behavior. The White House is sending signals that it has had enough and indeed the agreement with Iran may even mark the beginning of the setting of the sun on the US-Israel ‘special relationship.’
– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
More than ever, Israel is isolated from world opinion and the squishy entity known as “the international community.” The Israeli government keeps condemning the Iran nuclear deal, by any rational standard a positive step away from the threat of catastrophic war.
In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.
While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.
A widespread fear is that some political precedent might be set, undercutting “pro-Israel” leverage over U.S. government decisions. Such dread is inherent in the negative reactions from Netanyahu (“a historic mistake”), GOP lawmakers like House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers (“a permission slip to continue enrichment”) and Senator Saxby Chambliss (“we’ve let them out of the trap”), and Democratic lawmakers like Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Robert Menendez (“this agreement did not proportionately reduce Iran’s nuclear program”) and Senator Charles Schumer (“it does not seem proportional”).
Netanyahu and many other Israelis — as well as the powerhouse U.S. lobbying group AIPAC and many with similar outlooks in U.S. media and politics — fear that Israel’s capacity to hold sway over Washington policymakers has begun to slip away. “Our job is to be the ones to warn,” Israel’s powerful finance minister, Yair Lapid, told Israeli Army Radio on Sunday. “We need to make the Americans to listen to us like they have listened in the past.”
This winter and spring, the Israeli government and its allies are sure to strafe U.S. media and political realms with intense barrages of messaging. “Israel will supplement its public and private diplomacy with other tools,” the New York Times reported Monday from Jerusalem. “Several officials and analysts here said Israel would unleash its intelligence industry to highlight anticipated violations of the interim agreement.” Translation: Israel will do everything it can to undermine the next stage of negotiations and prevent a peaceful resolution of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.
Looking ahead, as a practical political matter, can the U.S. government implement a major policy shift in the Middle East without at least grudging acceptance from the Israeli government? Such questions go to the core of the Israeli occupation now in its 47th year.
Israel keeps building illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank; suppression of the basic human rights of Palestinian people continues every day on a large scale in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no reason to expect otherwise unless Israel’s main political, military and economic patron, the United States, puts its foot down and refuses to backstop those reprehensible policies. They can end only when the “special relationship” between the USA and Israel becomes less special, in keeping with a single standard for human rights and against military aggression.
Such talk is abhorrent to those who are steeped in the notion that the United States must serve as a reliable enabler of Israel’s policies. But in every way that those policies are wrong, the U.S. government should stop enabling them.
The longstanding obstacles to such a halt stand a bit less tall today, but they remain huge. No less than before, as William Faulkner said, “The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” This certainly applies to the history of gaining and maintaining unequivocal U.S. support for Israel.
Today’s high-impact American groups such as AIPAC (which calls itself “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby”), Christians United for Israel (“the largest pro-Israel organization in the U.S., with more than a million members,” according to the Jerusalem Post) and similar outfits have built on 65 years of broad and successful Israel advocacy in the United States.
Baked into the foundation of their work was the premise of mutuality and compatibility of Israeli and American interests. Until the end of the Cold War, routine spin portrayed aid to Israel as a way to stymie Soviet power in the region. Especially since 9/11, U.S. support for Israel has been equated with support for a precious bulwark against terrorism.
Ever since the successful 1947 campaign to press for UN General Assembly approval of Palestine partition, Israel’s leaders have closely coordinated with American Jewish organizations. Israeli government representatives in the United States regularly meet with top officers of American Jewish groups to convey what Israel wants and to identify the key U.S. officials who handle relevant issues. Those meetings have included discussions about images of Israel to promote for the American public, with phrases familiar to us, such as “making the desert bloom” and “outpost of democracy.”
As any member of Congress is well aware, campaign donations and media messaging continue to nurture public officials cooperative and sympathetic to Israel. For the rare officeholders and office seekers who stand out as uncooperative and insufficiently sympathetic, a formulaic remedy has been applied: withholding campaign donations, backing opponents and launching of media vilification. Those political correctives have proved effective — along the way, serving as cautionary tales for politicians who might be tempted to step too far out of line.
The mainstream American Jewish Committee decided in 1953 that for its pro-Israel advocacy, “To the utmost extent, non-Jewish and non-sectarian organizations should be used as spokesmen.” Such a strategic approach has borne fruit for the overall Israel advocacy project in the USA. It is time-tested and mature; broadly distributing messages through organizations of most political flavors; and adept at touching almost all sizable media.
This year, Israeli leaders have intensified their lurid casting of Iran as the next genocidal Third Reich, and Israel as the protector absent for Jews during the Holocaust. For some, the theme is emotionally powerful. But it must not be allowed to prevent a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear dispute with Iran.
From now till next summer, the struggle over talks with Iran will be fierce and fateful. All signs point to determined efforts by Israel — and its many allies in the United States — to wreck prospects for a peaceful solution.
Oil prices dropped on Monday morning in Asia’s exchange markets after Iran and world powers reached an agreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran holds the fourth largest oil reserves in the world. Brent price fell by 2.26 per cent, or $2.51 down to $108.54 per barrel, while US light sweet crude fell by 89 cents to $93.95 per barrel (a less than one per cent decline).
After five days of intense negotiations, the major world powers and Iran announced a deal on Saturday evening stipulating that Iran will curb its nuclear activities in return for an easing of the economic sanctions against it. The interim deal paves the way for a new phase of negotiations in six months’ time. Western countries and Israel suspect Tehran of secretly developing nuclear military capabilities behind its civilian programme, but this is a claim that Tehran denies.
The oil markets had been intensely following the negotiations in Geneva. Economic analysts believe the deal could eventually lead to lifting the ban on Iran’s oil exports, which would supply the markets with a million additional barrels a day and help to reduce oil prices, which have dramatically risen as a result of the Iranian crisis and the geopolitical unrest in the Middle East.
Victor Shum, the managing director of IHS Purvin & Gertz Group in Singapore, observed on Monday that: “the impact of the deal on the global oil supply will be limited in the short term because the majority of the sanctions remain.”
Experts also confirmed that if sanctions are indeed lifted, then Iranian exports will increase while Saudi exports will decrease. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
An oil expert told the Dow Jones newswire that the agreement “does not mean that we will see an influx of oil exports in the markets, because Iran is a member of OPEC and any increase in the Iranian oil supply should be done within the quota system.”
Potential failure to reach an interim agreement at the P5+1 negotiations in Geneva this week can be attributed to various factors: The lingering damage to confidence caused by the French spoiler lobbed into the previous round earlier this month; the subsequent lack of commitment by the US to pursue the undoubted progress that had been achieved towards closing a deal; and the intrusive lobbying by Israel and its formidable American supporters in Congress creating unhelpful background tensions.
But another major factor is this: Western arrogance. The United States, Britain and France are still behaving as hegemonic powers whose arrogance blinds them to their own outrageous double standards and hypocrisy, and prevents them from treating Iran with mutual respect.
Without this basic ingredient of mutual respect, any negotiations will continue to be frustrated.
French arrogance was perhaps most salient at this particular time. Three days before the opening of the third round of P5+1 talks in Geneva, French President Francois Hollande travelled to Israel in a display of pathetic kowtowing.
On the eve of sensitive talks in Geneva, Hollande’s theatrical rhetoric about “taking a tough stance in support of Israel against a nuclear-armed Iran” was a reckless confidence-sinking salvo.
But more than this, the French leader betrayed the kind of counterproductive arrogance that characterizes the Western attitude generally towards Iran. This hegemonic mentality is at the root of ongoing political deadlock and the continued imposition of unethical economic sanctions on the Iranian population.
Why should France be allowed to have some 60 nuclear power stations operating on its territory supplying 80 per cent of that country’s total energy needs? Why should France be allowed full control of all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment to unrestricted concentrations? Why should France possess up to 500 nuclear weapons? Yet when Iran asserts its legally entitled right to develop peaceful atomic technology, France and the other Western powers impede with unreasonable objections.
Such thinking – displayed by the French, but pervading the other Western powers too – is surely the apex of arrogant doublethink. And it is this mindset that must be addressed if the P5+1 talks are to progress.
This astounding Western arrogance was again revealed in the preposterous claim by the French leader before the Israeli parliament that his country stands against proliferation of nuclear weapons. How can a Western leader spout such arrant nonsense without being ridiculed and held to account? It is a well-known historical fact that it was France that played a crucial role in illegally proliferating nuclear weapons in the Middle East by arming Israel during the 1950s and 60s.
Washington and London also share due blame for creating this dangerous and criminal double standard of nuclear weaponry in the Middle East.
Countless investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency verify Iran’s claims of pursuing legitimate civilian nuclear energy. Iranian assurances have been issued numerous times, most recently this week, by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Nevertheless, the Western powers continue to thwart progress towards a mutual settlement by a) not acknowledging Iran’s fundamental legal right to enrich uranium as bestowed to all signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty; and b) by continuing to cast aspersions on Iran’s avowed nuclear plans.
This attitude of the Western powers is arrogant and insulting to the integrity of Iran and its revered leader; it is hegemonic and presents an unreasonable, unlawful block on resolving the dispute.
The Western hegemons’ opinions and prejudices are simply being allowed to warp what is a legal process enshrining inalienable rights.
Hollande’s words and actions this week are ample proof of that. But here is another illustration of the Western arrogance from a quarter that shows how deep and problematic that mindset runs. In a debate televised earlier this week on Press TV between Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi and American commentator Lawrence Korb, it was notable just how regressive Western thinking is. The more troubling aspect perhaps is that Mr Korb is considered to be a voice of reason among the Washington establishment, who is in favor of diplomatic rapprochement and a deal at the P5+1 talks.
Korb sought to make an equivalence between the US and Iran, saying that “mistakes have been made on all sides.” He cited in particular the siege of the American embassy in Tehran some 34 years ago as an example of alleged Iranian transgressions.
As Prof Marandi cogently pointed out, there is no comparison between Iran and US “mistakes.” The crimes committed by the US against the people of Iran are incomparable and inordinate, including the installation of the vicious CIA-backed police state of the Shah until 1979, the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner with the loss of hundreds of lives, the US-backed Iraqi war on Iran between 1980-88, including the American-assisted use of chemical weapons against Iranian civilians. Plus the ongoing raft of economic sanctions that target sick children and terminally ill cancer patients.
In all these crimes committed against the Iranian nation, the US has been supported directly by Britain and France.
Americans, including many supposedly progressive voices, are oblivious to the scale of horror that their country has inflicted on Iran (and many other nations besides). This obliviousness is the blind outlook of arrogance that infects the brain of Washington, London and Paris, and a good many of their citizens.
Americans need to listen more and talk less; they need to do some serious soul-searching instead of pontificating all the time.
Until that arrogance is eradicated, negotiations with these powers will always prove to be frustrating and may be even futile.
In all the media coverage of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with its predictably misleading analysis of the attendant conspiracy theories, there are a few intriguing facts that you are unlikely to read.
Fact #1: When John F. Kennedy demanded in a personal letter dated May 18, 1963 that David Ben-Gurion end Israel’s nuclear weapons program — considered by one leading Israel advocate in a 2010 Jerusalem Postop-ed to be “necessary to ensure Jewish survival in a very hostile world” — the Israeli Prime Minister “abruptly resigned” in order to avoid answering.
Fact #2: Kennedy’s alleged lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was assassinated by Jacob Rubenstein, whose rabbi recently told The Jewish Daily Forward that he thinks Ruby told him when he visited the mobster from Chicago the next day in jail, “I did it for the Jewish people.”
Fact #3: Oliver Stone’s conspiratorial “JFK” movie was produced by Arnon Milchan, described in a 2011 biography as “one of the most important covert agents that Israeli intelligence has ever fielded,” who according to recently declassified FBI files played a key role in the stealth acquisition of U.S. nuclear triggers by the Middle East’s sole albeit “unmentionable” nuclear power.
At no point have more than 36% of Americans believed Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. What is it about human psychology that makes conspiracy theories so appealing?
Perhaps it has something to do with many people’s healthy, well-founded skepticism of the media’s rather selective reporting of the facts. Or that no matter how manyconspiracy theories they are prepared to discuss, journalists will rarely, if ever, look into the one conspiracy that might tell us who had the most to gain from Kennedy’s abrupt death 50 years ago today.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst. He is also the creator and editor of The Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the U.S.-Israeli relationship. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter @O_Cathail.
The recent high-drama nuclear negotiations in Geneva were riveting, to be sure. Old foes shuttled between conference rooms, chatted amiably in corridors, colluded to guard the sensitive details of their discussions from an eager global media.
Every utterance from officials, every smile, grimace and gesture made its way onto the twitter feeds of foreign policy wonks and commentators, mostly frustrated by the lack of substance to report.
When a deal did not materialize between Iran and the P5+1, off went the pundits to dig up further minutiae. Who scuttled the agreement? What were the terms of the agreement on the table? Why are the Saudis, Israelis, Congress and the French being such spoilsports?
Hang. On. One. Minute.
For any dedicated critic of western policies in the Middle East, this last bit was just mind-boggling. For a change, nobody was blaming the Iranians for anything much. Instead, an atypical set of people and parties were being held accountable as “spoilers.”
Really, in that moment, the world turned a fraction faster. Brought us into the future, it did.
Because here’s the actual deal: deal or no deal at the negotiating table in Geneva, we have entered a new era in the Middle East. Iran is the center of all things important to all the parties that count. Today, nothing of consequence can be done in any of the major military and political theaters in the region without the cooperation of the Islamic Republic.
Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain… If Washington is keen to exit from its myriad of Mideast entanglements without leaving behind more chaos, it will need an able local intermediary with the clout to promote stability. None of its allies can do this job – not its economically distressed western partners, not a war-wary NATO, not an isolated Israel, not a sectarian Saudi Arabia, not a politically diminished Turkey, and not an Egypt in turmoil.
Deal or no deal, phase 1 in Geneva was already a success. It set the scene for what-comes-next quite effectively. Whether you noticed it or not, your view of good-guys and bad-guys in the Middle East changed in a Swiss conference room. Your perceptions shifted while you were cheering on a historical agreement with Iran, while you watched world-class foreign ministers sweep into town in deference to the importance of this moment, while you rolled your eyes at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s protestations and suspected France of trading “peace” for Saudi cash.
And nobody corrected you much on this perception shift in the days to follow.
Washington and Tehran – the two main poles in this 30+ year standoff – have already figured out that they will both have to put enough on the table to satisfy each other’s most difficult constituencies and walk away with a few victories.
If there are spoilers – and there are plenty out there with interest in undermining a historic rapprochement – a deal may not get done, but a new set of understandings will nevertheless exist between the US and Iran that will allow them to move ahead and tackle regional dangers critical to both.
Iran can live with sanctions for a while longer. International tolerance for unilateral sanctions has plateaued anyway, with courts turning back some, and Iran’s trading partners finding innovative ways to bypass others. If there’s no Geneva deal, the US Department of Treasury can also soft-peddle its responses to sanctions violations at the will of the White House – even if Congress remains belligerent.
Washington can live with Iran’s nuclear program for a while longer too. The Geneva talks spawned a measure of public confidence in Iranian goodwill – and Iran seized this momentum by striking further agreements with the IAEA on nuclear transparencies.
The US and Iran have bigger fish to fry. Deal or no deal, the attention has shifted to new arenas.
Fixing some big problems
As hesitant as the US has been over direct military engagement in Syria for the duration of that country’s 32-month conflict, it played the “strike” card in September – and lost.
Washington blinked because it couldn’t predict the “outcome” of military strikes. The only option left after that escalation was an “exit” which was quickly pursued with the Russian-brokered proposal to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
But in the works was a much more important strategic shift in regional priorities and alliances:
Despite a decade-long “war on terror,” there has never been a greater threat of extremism than in the Middle East today. Arab uprisings produced power vacuums that were rapidly filled by aggressively competing interests – and increasingly, by the kinds of Islamist militants who thrive in chaos.
There are jihadists in every state touched by uprisings, and they are crossing borders to destabilize neighbors with impunity. While a certain amount of “controlled instability” has always been a favored western lever to keep client states and adversaries in check, the regional landscape has suddenly moved into an “uncontrolled” and highly unpredictable zone.
And the US’s traditional regional partners are in no position to help reverse that trend. Israel views itself as a beneficiary of Arab instability – it believes that conflict will weaken and divide its neighbors, leaving Arabs unable to challenge Israel’s political and economic hegemony in the region.
Saudi Arabia is a primary financier and promoter of the Salafist extremist groups and networks engaged in terror and destabilization activities. The Saudis have aggressively sought to militarize various conflicts in the region to roll back revolts against friendly regimes and unseat unfriendly ones. And they are pursuing these policies with a single-mindedness that Washington has been unable to impact or reverse.
To the US’s endless frustration, the Israelis and Saudis have also sought to draw Washington into fronting their Mideast agendas at a time when Americans are keen to exit the region and focus on matters closer to home.
But who in the region shares these new Washington priorities? Which country in the Mideast is willing and able to take on militant jihadists, to promote stability, to provide a security blanket in the strategic Levant and Persian Gulf areas?
Bordering Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and the Gulf states, Iran straddles the danger zone and extends its influence into Syria and Lebanon, two other hot spots. Arguably one of the more advanced and stable democracies in the region, many US analysts point to the Iranian leadership as pragmatic, opportunistic, rational and shrewd in their political calculations. In the past two years, Iran has also come under the protective umbrella of Russia, China and other BRICS states, the former two states also proactively concerned about the rise in influence and presence of Salafi terror networks in their own regions.
Together with its newest regional ally Iraq, Iran is set to become the Mideast’s main energy hub, which is already of paramount strategic interest to countries emerging as the next-generation global economic powerhouses.
Hostilities aside, Washington and Tehran have cooperated in Afghanistan and even in Iraq when interests occasionally converged. The US is also intimately familiar with the disastrous consequences of going up against the Islamic Republic in those arenas. But today, Iran can help the US exit landlocked-Afghanistan by its 2014 year-end target date – and can play a role in maintaining stability on borders and in pockets within the country. In Iraq, where the Islamic Republic wields significant influence, Iran can be an able partner in defusing sectarian tensions, tackling political violence and mediating disputes.
The Iranians are also capable of brokering political solutions inside Syria and Lebanon, leveraging Turkish clout when “Sunni” solutions are required, thwarting the rogue behaviors of an increasingly belligerent Saudi Arabia, checking Qatari delusions of grandeur, mediating with and for the Kurds, de-escalating the battle in Yemen, guaranteeing the security of the Persian Gulf, and wielding a necessary “stick” to deter Israel’s regional aggressions.
In short, there is simply no other Mideast state as well positioned as Iran to troubleshoot, mediate, cajole and push its neighbors into action – to lead the way, as it were.
And Washington is out of “useful” allies right now. Like it or not, its primary regional adversary Iran is its only solution to a wide range of problems.
Not out of the woods yet
Last week, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned that the region could head to war if a US-Iran deal is not struck. If that sounds too dramatic, think again. The Mideast is a tinderbox at this moment – any constellation of events could set off a conflagration in multiple countries, and there are parties now gunning for this outcome.
We had a taste of this in Beirut on Tuesday – on the eve of Iran nuclear talks in Geneva – when a massive suicide bombing attack outside the Iranian embassy threatened to raise the temperature in the Levant/Persian Gulf yet again.
The US is uncomfortably aware that its closest regional allies Israel and Saudi Arabia would like nothing better than a last-ditch war to try to turn the tide back in their favor. Both nations eagerly pushed Washington to the brink in Syria two months ago.
The fact is that even if phase 1 of the Geneva deal goes through, there’s a good six months in which spoilers can try to sabotage a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. And let’s not kid ourselves here: the west and Iran have little in common after decades of hostilities – just a few urgent mutual interests and much room to exploit differences.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking on regional dangers – and the US, Russians and Iranians want to get down to business to thwart these.
Yes, an agreement over the Iranian nuclear file will help smooth the way, but the new priorities and tentative alliances have already been cast far away from Swiss conference rooms. The verdict? Iran is a necessary partner in the Middle East today. At the next round of talks in Geneva this week – deal or no deal – that reality will define the way forward.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.
Speaking at the 2013 Annual Arab Banking Conference, Daniel Glaser, the US assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, warned local banks against any kind of dealing with Hezbollah and its allies.
In a talk titled “Protecting the Lebanese Financial Sector from Illicit Finance,” Glaser first noted the importance of Lebanon’s financial sector to the region’s economic well-being, remarking, “Lebanon’s ability to retain its position as an important regional and international financial center requires constant vigilance, leaving no stone unturned in our collective efforts to uproot money laundering, terrorist financing, and other forms of illicit finance from the Lebanese financial system.”
“Failing to do so,” he continued in a threatening tone, “would not only represent a missed opportunity to contribute to global efforts to uphold the rule of law and disrupt criminal and illicit groups, but might also allow regulators and financial institutions around the world to draw the conclusion that business with Lebanon comes at too high a risk.”
In particular, Glaser designated finances related to “organized criminal groups, narcotraffickers, terrorist organizations, WMD proliferators, and regimes such as Iran and Syria” as illegal activity that must be closely watched by regulators of the banking system.
The American official explained that the Lebanese banking sector’s “studied neutrality and the guarantee of bank secrecy for all” in the past “is no longer tenable. Moving forward, that professionalism and stability, which have been the hallmark of the Lebanese financial system, can be maintained only through the efforts of both the public and private sectors to ensure a hostile environment for terrorists, criminals, narcotraffickers, and sanctioned regimes such as Iran and Syria. Working together, we can stop the illicit financial activities of groups that seek to destabilize the region such as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.”
The target here became abundantly clear as Iran, Syria, and the Lebanese Resistance were placed alongside drug traffickers in order to prevent them from accessing Lebanon’s banks…or else!
In an attempt to link Washington’s political opponents to criminal activities, Glaser noted, “It is important at the outset to identify the illicit finance threats that Lebanese financial institutions face. Some of the threats, such as narcotics-related money laundering, are universal challenges confronting financial centers around the world. Others, such as terrorist financing and sanctions evasion, while certainly not unique to Lebanon, are amplified by Lebanon’s geographic, historic, and political circumstances.”
In a more direct wink in the direction of Hezbollah, he referred to the case of the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB), maintaining that the “scheme involved the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds through the Lebanese financial system using bulk cash shipments and trade-based money laundering involving used car sales and consumer goods.”
Glaser, however, forgot to mention that his administration neglected to pursue the LCB in the courts and instead struck a back-room deal, in which the bank paid $102 million in exchange for the case against them being dropped, after it was accused of laundering money on behalf of Hezbollah.
So after closing the LCB file in Washington, the US Treasury official nevertheless insisted that “this should not be surprising given Hezbollah’s involvement in a wide range of illicit activities. These illicit activities, combined with its ties to sanctioned regimes such as Iran and Syria, should call into question all financial relationships with Hezbollah or its agents.”
Glazer took his threats against any financial dealings with the Resistance one step further, saying, “The risks of engaging in such relationships will only increase as more countries apply sanctions on Hezbollah, which continues to engage in destabilizing military activity in Syria and attacks in Europe.”
He also did not fail to warn Lebanon’s banks against the danger of conducting business with Syria and Iran: “Lebanese financial institutions must also be alert to the threat of sanctions evasion. As a nearby regional banking hub, regimes such as Syria and Iran will continue to look to Lebanon as a potential financial access point into the global system. Lebanese financial institutions are therefore an important component of international efforts to isolate these regimes, and Lebanon’s resistance to any attempts to use Lebanese banks as a gateway to the international financial system is essential.”
In his concluding statement, Glaser got to the heart of his message by warning the bank officials present that “the United States is prepared and will continue to take action to protect our financial system from threats when we deem it necessary.”
Israel is mobilizing its supporters in America (and in Europe) to push the Bush administration into yet another proxy Zionist war – this time against Iran. In America, the political pressure for a war against Iran is coming overwhelmingly from one sector of American society: the Jewish sayanim network of Mossad collaborators, the Zionists in the Jewish dominated American media, the Israel lobby, the Zionist-owned congress, and the Ziocons who have infiltrated the Bush administration. The proposed war against Iran is the most blatant example of a war concocted, planned, and marketed, by Zionists around the world solely for the benefit of the Jews-only state in Palestine. It is not the American oil industry which is leading the charge for such a war, “Except for the Israeli lobby in the US and its grass root Jewish American supporters and allies among the Presidents of the Major Jewish organizations there are no other organized lobbies pressuring for or against this war. The ritualistic denunciations of “Big Oil” whenever there is a Middle East conflict involving the US is in this instance a totally bogus issue, lacking any substance. All the evidence is to the contrary – big oil is opposed to any conflicts, which will upset their first major entry into Middle Eastern oil fields since they were nationalized in the 1970’s.” (James Petras ‘Israel’s War with Iran’). It is not the American military which wants such a war. It is not American economists wishing to promote American economic interests around the world. It is the Zionists living in America – parasites who have colonized the American political system. Their sole concern is to promote policies which benefit the Jews-only state in Palestine no matter how damaging this might be to America’s economic and national interests.
The Commentators who believe the Jewish Lobby is Primarily Responsible for Stirring up a War against Iran
Eric Margolis:
“The growing clamour over Iran’s nuclear intentions, with rumblings about air strikes against Iran’s reactors in the fall, may prove to be a part of just such a manufactured crisis. Remember, these latest fevered claims about Iran come from the same “reliable intelligence sources” and neo-conservative hawks who insisted Iraq had a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that threatened the U.S., with intimate links to al-Qaida.” (Eric Margolis ‘Those who deceived America into attacking Iraq may be at it again’).
James Petras:
“Israel’s political and military leadership have repeatedly and openly declared their preparation to militarily attack Iran in the immediate future. Their influential supporters in the US have made Israel’s war policy the number one priority in their efforts to secure Presidential and Congressional backing. The arguments put forth by the Israeli government and echoed by their followers in the US regarding Iran’s nuclear threat are without substance or fact and have aroused opposition and misgivings throughout the world, among European governments, international agencies, among most US military leaders and the public, the world oil industry and even among sectors of the Bush Administration. An Israeli air and commando attack on Iran will have catastrophic military consequences for US forces and severe loss of human life in Iraq, most likely ignite political and military violence against pro-US Arab-Muslim regimes, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, perhaps leading to their overthrow. Without a doubt Israeli war preparations are the greatest immediate threat to world peace and political stability.” (James Petras ‘Israel’s War with Iran’).
William S. Lind:
“In Washington, the same brilliant crowd who said invading Iraq would be a cakewalk is still in power. While a few prominent neocons have left the limelight, others remain highly influential behind the scenes. For them, the question is not whether to attack Iran (and Syria), but when. Their answer will be the same as Israel’s.” (William S. Lind ‘The Next Act’).
Edward S. Herman:
“The (american jewish) lobby and its representatives in the Bush administration were eager supporters of the attack on Iraq, and they are now fighting energetically for war against Iran- in fact the lobby is the only sector of society calling for a confrontation with Iran and it is already engaged in a major campaign on Bush and Congress to get the United States to take action.” (Edward S. Herman ‘Western Approval for Long-Term Israeli Ethnic Cleansing’ Z Magazine March 2006).
Antony Loewenstein:
“Sadly, Israel and many of its supporters are at the forefront of demonising Iran and advocating military action. Not unlike Iraq, Iran is a perceived threat to the Jewish state and must therefore be obliterated. Israeli generals and politicians know Iran is not a serious threat but they never underestimate the political need to create a regional bogeyman to rally an ever-fearful Israeli population.” (Antony Loewenstein ‘An Aussie Perspective: Spinning Us to War with Iran’).
American Zionists Stirring Up a War on Iran
Zionist attempts to whip America into a war against Iran have a long history. There have been a succession of anti-Iran propaganda campaigns launched by America’s Zionist dominated establishment. There is virtually no opposition to such a war amongst America’s Jewish community.
1990s
Israel the Jewish sayanim network of Mossad collaborators in America, the Jewish dominated media in America, the Israel lobby in America, the Zionist-owned politicians in congress, and the Ziocons in the Clinton administration, started their political attack on Iran in the early 1990s. In 1991, almost immediately after Saddam Hussein had been ejected from Kuwait, and much of his army decimated, Zionist Americans began highlighting the threats allegedly posed to the Jews-only state by its other major adversary.
The Israel lobby in America eventually forced the Clinton administration into passing punitive economic measures against Iran. “Pushing the US into a confrontation with Iran, via economic sanctions and military attack has been a top priority for Israel and its supporters in the US for more than a decade.” (Jewish Times/Jewish Telegraph Agency, Dec. 6, 2005); “In 1995, former President Bill Clinton, in a speech to the World Jewish Congress, announced that he would not permit Conoco to make a petroleum deal with Iran. Clinton betrayed the interests of the American people.” (Paul Sheldon Foote ‘James Petras’ “Israel’s War with Iran”’ pfoote@fullerton.edu December 30, 2005).
1996: A Clean Break
In 1996, two so-called American politicians decided to write a foreign policy paper for a foreign power, the Jews-only state – a paper which suggested ways in which that foreign power might increase its independence from the country these politicians were living in and supposed to be serving. Let’s put aside the possibility that this might be treasonous. What is important here is that this paper advocated a Jews-only state attack on Iran. “In 1996, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, two neo-conservatives later to play an important role in formulation of Bush administration’s Pentagon policy in the Middle East, authored a paper for then newly elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That advisory paper, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, called on Netanyahu to make a “clean break from the peace process”. Perle and Feith also called on Netanyahu to strengthen Israel’s defenses against Syria and Iraq, and to go after Iran as the prop of Syria.” (F William Engdahl ‘Why Iran’s oil bourse can’t break the buck’).
1997: The Project for the New American Century
It was not possible to publish ‘A Clean Break’ in America and hope the American government would be persuaded to implement the foreign policies of the Jews-only state. So, instead, in 1997, an Israeli writer living in America, rewrote the paper from an American perspective in which all the policies that were beneficial to the Jews-only state were miraculously transformed, by sheer loquacity, into policies that were beneficial for the United States. Although Americans might be persuaded to think these policies were policies which boosted American interests they were really policies which served the interests only of the Jews-only state and were, in reality, contrary to American interests. The new pamphlet the ‘Project for the New American Century’ proposed the use of American military power to attack Iran – supposedly for the benefit of the United States but, in actuality, for the benefit only of the Jews-only state. “That strategy (the plans for the attack on Iran) was worked out long ago in documents like the Project for the New American Century ..” (Mike Whitney ‘Edging Towards Disaster with Iran’). This Zionist manifesto, signed by the leading Jewish neocons, was an updated version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. “Fukuyama, after all, was the most prominent intellectual who signed the 1997 “Project for the New American Century,” the founding manifesto of neoconservatism drawn up by William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, the house journal of the neoconservative movement. The Project for the New American Century aimed to cement for all time America’s triumph in the Cold War, by increasing defense spending, challenging regimes that were hostile to U.S. interests and promoting freedom and democracy around the world. Its goal was “an international order friendly to our security, prosperity and values.” The war on Iraq, spuriously justified by the supposed threat posed by Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, was the test run of this theory. It was touted as a panacea for every ill of the Middle East. The road to Jerusalem, the neocons argued, led through Baghdad. And after Iraq, why not Syria, Iran and anyone else who stood in Washington’s way?” (Rupert Cornwell ‘What the neocons failed to foresee about Iraq’).
2002, President Bush’s Axis of Evil
Despite the help Iran gave to America during the invasion of Afghanistan, president Bush turned his back on Iran, “Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush officials started meeting with Iranian officials. The two countries shared an interest in overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and they took cooperative steps toward that common goal; two decades of mutual hostility began to melt away. Then, in January 2002, President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address – linking Iran with Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” – and the Iranians instantly ended all talks.” (Fred Kaplan ‘Condi’s Baffling New Iran Strategy’).
Ziocons Push Americans to Lay Down Their Lives for the Zionist Cause in Tehran
Even before Bush had made any public decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Jews-only state in Palestine, and its Zionist allies in America, had mounted a propaganda offensive against the next target on their hit list of enemies. In early 2003, Ariel Sharon said Iran should be targeted “the day after” the invasion of Iraq. “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. “These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve,” Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen.” (Aluf Benn ‘Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran, Libya and Syria’). This theme was quickly taken up by the Ziocons in the Bush administration, “Remember the braggadocio of Bush’s advisers in March 2003 when they joked that taking Baghdad wouldn’t be enough, nor would taking Damascus, because “real men go to Tehran.” (Robert Parry ‘Neocon Amorality’).
Reuel Gerecht, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle:
“Indeed, immediately after the invasion of Iraq, the neocons, led by ex-CIA spook Reuel Gerecht, Iran-Contra alumnus Michael Ledeen, and war profiteer Richard Perle, were arguing that Iran should be targeted next for a regime change. Inside the administration, Rumsfeld and Feith were advancing those ideas, suggesting that unlike Iraq, the transformation of Iran could take place peacefully through diplomatic pressure.” (Leon Hadar ‘Target: Tehran?’). The Israeli neocons believed the invasion of Iraq would be a cakewalk and that America would soon march into Iran.
John Bolton, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security: Bolton co-operated with his Zionist masters to promote a war against iran. “Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and international security, is in Israel for meetings on preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials that he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea.” (Aluf Benn ‘Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran, Libya and Syria’).
Donald Rumsfeld:
“Speaking to reporters after talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Rumsfeld noted that Iran had been on a list of countries that the United States describes as terrorist states for many years. “One of the gravest concerns the world faces is the nexus between a terrorist state that has weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks,” he said. “So it’s understandable that nations, not just in this region but throughout the world, are so deeply concerned about what’s taking place in Iran.” (World worried about Iran nuclear aims: Rumsfeld’).
Rachel Neuwirth:
“Iran is moving rapidly to become a nuclear power. The Iranian mullahs have publicly promised to use nuclear weapons to exterminate Israel even if Israel were to achieve peace with the Palestinians. They also claim that Iran, with 70 million people, could absorb and survive any response from Israel while Israel, with only 5.5 million Jews, is vulnerable to devastating losses if only a few of Iran’s missiles got through.” (Rachel Neuwirth ‘Israel May Be Compelled to Pre-empt’).
Charles Krauthammer:
“The comments from Bolton and Rice come within weeks of leading neo-conservative pundits and activists in Washington proclaiming that Iran’s nuclear program had to be destroyed, even if waging war was the only way to do it. Influential neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote July 23 column in The Washington Post: “The long awaited revolution (in Iran) is not happening. Which (makes) the question of pre-emptive attack all the more urgent. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of ‘the Great Satan’ will have both nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or pre-emptive attack.” (Martin Sieff ‘Iran’s Very Real War Threat’).
Alan Dershowitz:
“Intelligence reports about Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons aimed at Israel are becoming ominous. Unless diplomatic pressure causes the Iranian mullahs to stop the project, Iran may be ready to deliver nuclear bombs against Israeli civilian targets within a few short years. Some Iranian leaders, such as former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, have made it clear that this is precisely what they intend to do. Killing 5 million Jews would be worth losing 15 million Iranians in a retaliatory Israeli strike, according to Rafsanjani’s calculations. Israel, with the help of the United States, should try everything short of military action first: diplomacy, threats, bribery, sabotage, targeted killings of individuals essential to the Iranian nuclear program and other covert actions. But if all else fails, Israel, or the United States, must be allowed under international law to take out the Iranian nuclear threat before it is capable of the genocide for which it is being built.” (Alan Dershowitz ‘Amend International Law To Allow Preemptive Strike on Iran’). According to this paranoid Zionist, Iran should already be in possession of nuclear weapons and on the verge of bombing the Jews into oblivion.
Douglas Feith:
“Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith is the neocon Likudnik who was tasked with cooking up the false “intelligence” that President Bush used to deceive the U.S. public into supporting an illegal invasion of Iraq. With the U.S. military now trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, Feith wants the U.S. to attack Iran.” (Paul Craig Roberts ‘Dangerous Delusions About Iran’).
Richard Perle:
“If Iran is on the verge of a nuclear weapon, I think we will have no choice but to take decisive action,” said ex-Pentagon advisor Richard Perle as he drew loud cheers from the AIPAC loyalists. New York Senator Hillary Clinton, before she introduced Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the crowd, said that a nuclear-armed Iran would be “unacceptable”. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House also chimed in, saying, “The greatest threat to Israel’s right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran.”” (Joshua Frank ‘Bombing Iran: The Facts Don’t Matter’); “Richard Perle, a key architect of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, said on Saturday the West should not make the mistake of waiting too long to use military force if Iran comes close to getting an atomic weapon. “If you want to try to wait until the very last minute, you’d better be very confident of your intelligence because if you’re not, you won’t know when the last minute is,” Perle told Reuters on the sidelines of an annual security conference in Munich. “And so, ironically, one of the lessons of the inadequate intelligence of Iraq is you’d better be careful how long you choose to wait.” (Richard Perle quoted in Reuters ‘Iraq errors show West must act fast on Iran-Perle’)
Jewish Institute for Security Affairs’ Dick Cheney:
Cheney is a Zionist-owned politician, an Israeli collaborator, whose power base in the United States congress, organized by Tom Delay, had been financed by bribes provided by super-Zionist Jack Abramoff. “Other reports are that the vice president, we might say the “spiritual leader” of the US hawks, Cheney, has been covertly aiding the Benjamin Netanyahu candidacy as new head of the right-wing Likud. Netanyahu is also directly tied to the indicted US Republican money-launderer, Jack Abramoff, during the time Netanyahu was Sharon’s finance minister.” (F William Engdahl ‘A high-risk game of nuclear chicken’).
In january 2005 Cheney gave the Jews-only state the go-ahead to attack Iran, “One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked… Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,” (Dick Cheney quoted from an MSNBC Interview Jan 2005. Michel Chossudovsky ‘Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran’); “In a January 2005 interview with MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that Iran has a “fairly robust nuclear program,” charging that the Islamic republic’s prime “objective is the destruction of Israel.”
Even more ominously, although an attack on Iran has been publicly discussed for many years, Cheney was the first to float the idea, in july 2005, that the United States might have to resort to the use of nuclear weapons, “Philip Giraldi’s report in the American Conservative that Vice President Cheney has asked the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to draw up concrete, short term contingency plans for an attack on Iran, to involve “a large-scale air assault employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.” This would occur in the aftermath of a terror attack on the U.S. which, whatever its origins, would be politically used to justify an attack on Iran, just as the al-Qaeda attack was used to justify the attack on Iraq. Cheney has also declared matter-of-factly that if the U.S. doesn’t attack Iran, Israel might do so.” (Gary Leupp ‘Goss Builds the Case for Turkey-Based Attacks: Targeting Iran and Syria’)
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:
“Predictably the biggest Jewish organization in the US, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations immediately echoed the Israeli state line. Malcolm Hoenlan, President of the Conference, lambasted Washington for a “failure of leadership on Iran” and “contracting the issue to Europe” (Forward, December 9, 2005). He went on to attack the Bush Administration for not following Israel’s demands by delaying referral of Iran to the UN Security Council for sanction.” (James Petras ‘Israel’s War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs’).
Forward:
“The Jewish weekly newspaper, Forward, has reported a number of Israeli attacks on the Bush Administration for not acting more aggressively on behalf of Israel’s policy. According to the Forward, “Jerusalem is increasingly concerned that the Bush Administration is not doing enough to block Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons” (December 9, 2005).” (James Petras ‘Israel’s War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs’).
AIPAC:
“AIPAC is credited for pushing Congress and the administration towards a number of legislative initiatives hostile to Iran and for placing Tehran’s nuclear programme at the top of the international agenda.” (Emad Mekay ‘Groundhog day in Washington’). “The role of AIPAC, the Conference and other pro-Israeli organizations as transmission belts for Israel’s war plans was evident in their November 28, 2005 condemnation of the Bush Administration agreement to give Russia a chance to negotiate a plan under which Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium for non-military purposes under international supervision. AIPAC’s rejection of negotiations and demands for an immediate confrontation were based on the specious argument that it would “facilitate Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons” – an argument which flies in the face of all known intelligence data which says Iran is at least 3 to 10 years away from even approaching nuclear weaponry. AIPAC’s unconditional and uncritical transmission of Israeli demands and criticism is usually clothed in the rhetoric of US interests or security in order to manipulate US policy. AIPAC chastised the Bush regime for endangering US security. By relying on negotiations, AIPAC accused the Bush Administration of “giving Iran yet another chance to manipulate (sic) the international community” and “pose a severe danger to the United States” (Forward, Dec. 9, 2005).”
Leon Hadar:
Hadar is supposedly anti-war and yet here he provides a justification for a military attack on Iran – albeit not a full scale invasion, “Doing nothing about Iran would not only demolish what remains of the U.S.-led nuclear arms-control regime, it would also turn the balance of power in Iraq and the Persian Gulf against the United States and create incentives for the Saudis and others to make deals with Tehran. Short of trying to open direct diplomatic channels with Iran (very unlikely), the United States will probably try to increase the diplomatic and military pressure on Iran in the coming months, demonstrating that the Pax Americana project in the Middle East is becoming more expensive. That the central banks of China and other Asian economies are paying for it is probably the most intriguing element in this evolving story.” (Leon Hadar ‘US Headed for Confrontation With Iran – But probably not all-out war’).
Daniel Pipes:
Pipes is director of the Middle East forum. He helped to set up campus watch to encourage Jews living in America to spy on American academics. In the 1970s, his father was the author of ‘Plan B’ which fabricated evidence that the soviet union posed an overwhelming military threat to the United States when no such threat existed, “The most dangerous leaders in modern history are those (like Hitler) equipped with a totalitarian ideology and a mystical belief in their own mission. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fulfills both these criteria, as revealed by his U.N. comments. That combined with his expected nuclear arsenal make him an adversary who must be stopped, and urgently.” (Daniel Pipes ‘Iran’s Messianic Menace’). This loony paranoid Ziocon believes that Osama bin Laden was Hitler, Yasser Arafat was Hitler, and now mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler. It would be safer to say that Pipes sees Hitler everywhere under every bed wherever there is resistance to Zionist expansion.
Haim Saban and Martin Indyk:
“Kenneth M Pollack, director of research at the Saban Centre on Middle East Policy told a Congressional hearing in September that the US should study the possibility of waging a targeted air campaign aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities as a last resort. The Saban Centre is funded by a grant from Haim Saban, an Egyptian-born Israeli American billionaire who made his money in the entertainment business. Martin Indyk, a staunchly pro-Israel former US diplomat who once served as US ambassador to Israel, directs it.” (Emad Mekay ‘Groundhog day in Washington’).
William Kristol:
“More indicative of all is how William Kristol, editor of the neo-conservative publication The Weekly Standard, entitled in his column: “And now Iran.” (Emad Mekay ‘Groundhog day in Washington’).
Kenneth R. Timmerman and Carl Limbacher:
“World renowned investigative reporter and terror expert Kenneth R. Timmerman, author of the bestselling book “Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran,” and Carl Limbacher, reporter for NewsMax.com, reveal that the US and Israel will destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities in less than 10 weeks from now.” (‘Military Attack against Iran Now Imminent’ On A7radio January 20th 2006).
American Jewish Committee:
… “the most powerful Israeli lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In an unprecedented action in November, the group publicly criticized the Bush administration for failing to act more aggressively against Iran. The influential American Jewish Committee also announced its own international campaign to impose a global and diplomatic and economic embargo against Iran until it halts its nuclear program.” (Jim Lobe ‘The Iranian neo-cons love to hate’).
Reuel Marc Gerecht:
Gerecht works for the American Enterprise Institute, one of the most important Zionist think tanks, “Eventually, assuming the State Department’s European strategy falls apart because the Europeans will not play, we will have to make up our minds whether nukes in the hands of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and Ahmadinejad are “intolerable” or not. If so, then we will have to prepare to bomb.” (Reuel Marc Gerecht ‘How to Head Off the Imam Bomb’ The Weekly Standard).
Jeff Jacoby:
“It is not yet unreasonable to hope that Tehran can be forced to back down by a combination of economic sanctions, political isolation, and diplomatic heat. But if a nonmilitary strategy is to have any chance of success, it must be very clear that military action is Plan B – and that United States is quite prepared to wield that ”big stick” if Iran will not abandon its atomic ambitions. Under no circumstances can such enemies be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons – or to doubt that we will do what we must to make sure that they don’t.” (Jeff Jacoby ‘Don’t go wobbly on Iran’). Yet another zionist manipulating the american people into supporting a war against iran which the Jews-only state cannot fight. But then why should the Jews-only state attack Iran when the Ziocons living in America seem confident they can get america to do their dirty business for them even if it involves a colossal financial cost and large numbers of American lives?
Mortimer B. Zuckerman:
Zuckerman owns the NY Post and the Atlantic Monthly and was formerly the chair of the conference of presidents of the major jewish american organizations. “Military action, such as bombing the Iranian plants with cruise missiles and strike aircraft, would be justified in the circumstances. But that is hugely difficult politically, and covert action is very difficult operationally. Still, the risks may have to be taken because the alternative is so awful. There may now be a window of opportunity for effective preventive action, but this window is more likely to be measured in months than years.” (Mortimer B. Zuckerman ‘Moscow’s Mad Gamble’). This paranoid zionist who’s trying to stir up world war three believes, “Within a very few years, in all likelihood, Iran will be able to launch nuclear missiles.” This view is a total fabrication. But, this is the propaganda being pumped out by the Zionist dominated ruling classes in America, Britain, and occupied Palestine.
Kenneth R. Timmerman:
Who is Ken Timmerman? “Notably, prominent Washington neo-conservative, Kenneth Timmerman, told Israeli radio…that he expected an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran “within the next 60 days”. Timmerman is close to Richard Perle, the indicted Cheney chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Douglas Feith and Michael Ledeen.” (F William Engdahl ‘A high-risk game of nuclear chicken’).
Robert Joseph:
“Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control, said Tehran had to be dissuaded by “whatever means are necessary” from acquiring nuclear arms, but added the West was “giving every chance for diplomacy to work.” Speaking two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to report Tehran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear work, Joseph gave a worrying assessment of Iran’s nuclear progress. “I would say that Iran does have the capability to develop nuclear weapons and the delivery means for those weapons,” Joseph told a news conference at the Foreign Press Center here. He went a step further than President George W. Bush, who said in a statement hailing the IAEA action Saturday that Iran was “continuing to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons.” He sidestepped questions on the use of force yet said, “No options are off the table. We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, but we are giving every chance for diplomacy to work. What is necessary to stop Iran is a firm indication that the international community … will take whatever measures are necessary to convince Iran that it is in its interest to forego a nuclear weapons capability.” (‘Iran has the Ability to develop a Nuclear Weapon: US Official’). Joseph was one of the Ziocon liars, a traitor to America, who thought nothing about deceiving the American public into believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. “Not a high-profile hardliner like Bolton or Feith, Joseph successfully avoided the public limelight-that is until the scandal of the 16 words in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons development program. According to president, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The State of the Union Address, which laid out the administration’s case for a preemptive invasion of Iraq, used unconfirmed intelligence reports about Iraq’s WMD programs. Press reports and congressional testimony by CIA officials later revealed that the CIA had vigorously protested the inclusion of any assertion that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons since their intelligence would not support such a conclusion. Alan Foley, the CIA’s top expert on weapons of mass destruction, told Congress that Robert Joseph repeatedly pressed the CIA to back the inclusion in Bush’s speech of a statement about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium from Niger. Following these revelations about the inclusion of erroneous and disputed intelligence estimates in this major speech that readied the U.S. public for war against Iraq, Joseph said he did not recall Foley’s raising concerns about the credibility of the information to be included in the speech.” (Tom Barry ‘Meet John Bolton’s Replacement’). Joseph’s reward for lying and pushing America into a war against Iraq which has incurred vast economic costs and the loss of over four thousand American lives, was promotion, “The top U.S. government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the neoconservative political camp . Moving into John Bolton’s old job, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing’s advance man for counterproliferation as the conceptual core of a new U.S. military policy. Within the administration, he leads a band of counter-proliferationists who – working closely with such militarist policy institutes as the National Institute for Public Policy and the Center for Security Policy – have placed preemptive attacks and weapons of mass destruction at the center of U.S. national security strategy. Joseph replaced John Bolton at the State Department as the new undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. Like the controversial Bolton, Joseph has established a reputation for breaking or undermining arms control treaties, rather than supporting or strengthening international arms control. Joseph, too, has long believed that U.S. military strategy should be more offensive than defensive.” (Tom Barry ‘Meet John Bolton’s Replacement’). Joseph is one of the many Israelis who have been drafted into the Bush administration to promote the interests of the Jews-only state in Palestine. “Although not self-identified as a neoconservative, Joseph moves in the same circles as other military strategists such as the CSP’s Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz. In a Washington Post article (May 2, 2002), “Who’s Pulling the Foreign Policy Strings,” Dana Milbank wrote: “The vice president sometimes stays neutral but his sympathies undoubtedly are with the Perle crowd. Cheney deputies Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Eric Edelman relay neoconservative views to Rice at the National Security Council. At the NSC, they have a sympathetic audience in Elliott Abrams, Robert Joseph, Wayne Downing, and Zalmay Khalilzad.”
Wall Street Journal:
“Today, the editorial page is a fount of neoconservative war propaganda. All intelligence has vanished. Consider the “Review & Outlook” of Feb. 3, which declares Iran to be “an intolerable threat.” Iran is portrayed as a threat because the country’s new president has used threatening rhetoric against Israel. But, of course, Bush and Israel are constantly using threatening rhetoric against Iran. To avoid being regarded as a wimp by his countrymen and by the Muslim world, the new Iranian president has to answer back. It doesn’t occur to the editorialists that Iranians might see the nuclear weapons of Israel and the U.S. as intolerable threats.” (Paul Craig Roberts ‘How Conservatives Went Crazy’).
Max Boot and Nicholas Goldberg:
“Max Boot just wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “In sum, a terrorist-sponsoring state led by an apocalyptic lunatic will soon have the ability to incinerate Tel Aviv or New York,” which “leaves only one serious option – air strikes by Israel or the U.S.” Nicholas Goldberg, who edits the Times’ opinion page, studiously avoids publishing any alternative viewpoints. A similar approach is taken by the rest of the mainstream media in the U.S. and Western Europe. Is it surprising that a few days after these two opinion pieces were published the Los Angeles Times found that 57 percent of the U.S. public backs a military strike on Iran?” (Jorge Hirsch ‘America and Iran: At the Brink of the Abyss’).
Joe Lieberman:
“Nevertheless, Dick Cheney himself last year ordered a study of a plan for an attack on Iran -and leading politicians are beating the war drums, including Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).” (Lee Sustar ‘Target: Iran’).
Zionist owned American media in general:
“The media has assumed its traditional role of fanning the flames for war by providing ample space for the spurious allegations of administration officials, right-wing pundits, and disgruntled Iranian exiles, while carefully omitting the relevant facts in Iran’s defense. As always, the New York Times has spearheaded the propaganda war with an article by Richard Bernstein and Steven Weisman which lays out the sketchy case against Iran. In the first paragraph the Bernstein-Weisman combo suggest that Iran has restarted “research that could give it technology to create nuclear weapons.”” (Mike Whitney ‘The Bombs of March. Countdown to War with Iran?’).
The same commentators who manipulated America into a war against Iraq are now manipulating America into a war against Iran, “Besides convincing the public that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a critical task of the neo-cons was to convince the American public that there was a link between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein. Their colleagues among the nation’s major syndicated columnists such as Safire, Will, Tom Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, Jeff Jacoby, and Paul Greenberg were all too willing accomplices. By the time, the U.S. launched its invasion, more than half of the public was convinced that Saddam had been behind the attacks.” (Jeffrey Blankfort ‘A War for Israel’).
John Bolton, as US ambassador to the UN:
“Significantly, the most hawkish of hawks had to be the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. In a speech, not by accident, at the annual convention of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel US lobby, he said Iran’s nuclear program could be “taken out”.” (Pepe Escobar ‘The old lovers’ nuclear tango’).
Bush professes to fight proxy Zionist war:
Bush is making it clear that he is pushing America into a war against Iran for the sake of the Jews-only state – this incidentally will not be America’s first proxy Zionist war. “What President George W. Bush, Fox News, and the Washington Times were saying about Iraq three years ago they are now saying about Iran. After Saturday’s vote by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran’s suspicious nuclear activities to the UN Security Council, the president wasted no time in warning, “The world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons.” More recently, in the case of Iran, President Bush has been unabashed in naming Israel as the most probable target of any Iranian nuclear weapons. He has also created a rhetorical lash-up of the U.S. and Israel, referring three times in the past two weeks to Israel as an “ally” of the U.S., as if to condition Americans to the notion that the U.S. is required to join Israel in any confrontation with Iran. For example, on Feb. 1 the president told the press, “Israel is a solid ally of the United States; we will rise to Israel’s defense if need be.” Asked if he meant the U.S. would rise to Israel’s defense militarily, Bush replied with a startlingly open-ended commitment, “You bet, we’ll defend Israel.”” (Ray McGovern `Juggernaut Gathering Momentum: Next Stop, Iran’). F william engdahl raises the pertinent issue as regards America’s national interests as opposed to the interests of the Jews-only state in Palestine, “It is useful to keep in mind that even were Iran to possess nuclear missiles, the strike range would not reach the territory of the US. Israel would be the closest potential target. A U.S. preemptive nuclear strike to defend Israel would raise the issue of what the military agreements between Tel Aviv and Washington actually encompass, a subject neither the Bush administration nor its predecessors have seen fit to inform the American public about.” (F William Engdahl ‘A high-risk game of nuclear chicken’).
By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
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It is a great programme with Gilad Atzmon and I having a conversation about the control of language and Jewish power, politically incorrect through and through.
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