Decoding the American Jewish Zionists’ Rise to Power
Readings in the Jewish Zionist Control of the United States: Interviews with Francis Boyle, James Petras, and Kim Petersen [Part 4]
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald tribune | April 24, 2017
Previously I argued that the phony war on “islamic terrorism”, the incessant attacks on and indictment of Islam as a violent religion, and the claim to bring so-called “democracy” to a region ruled by “dictators” are ploys for U.S. wars in the Middle East. Real motives instead, I further argued, are driving these wars with the objective to destabilize, remake, or destroy Arab societies, partition all states that are not in line with the U.S. and Israeli policies, and, in short, dismantle the Arab world. Two agendas converge to implement this effort.
The first has for a focus the aims of U.S. hyper-imperialism. Besides submitting the Arab nations to U.S. plans and military control, the quest for uncontested global hegemony is the core of this agenda. While such a quest is intrinsic to the making of the colonialist nature of the American state, the part related to the Arab world is a particular detail within the overall agenda. Explanation: The Arab regions in the Middle East and North Africa enjoy unrivaled geostrategic assets palatable to U.S. imperialism. However, targeting the Arab nations for war, destruction, and partition because of resources or geographic positions makes no sense in modern times unless a wider, deeper agenda is playing out in the U.S. calculation.
This raises a series of questions. What are the forces directing the Arab agenda of the United States? Are these forces responsible for the persistent hostility toward the Arabs and the active destruction of selective states? Did such a plan start with Kissinger-controlled U.S. foreign policy during the Nixon’s presidency or does it go further back in time? Were Sadat’s recognition of Israel, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Iraq’s American-induced invasion of Iran and Kuwait, and U.S. war on Iraq in 1991 the preparatory stages for that plan?
A vital question: Do such forces persuade or coerce the United States to oppose all equitable proposals to solve the Palestinian Question? And to close, who is keeping the interventionist agenda going? Who are the proponents of the Fascist Military Pacification Model the United States wants to impose on the Arab nations?
The second agenda belongs to Israel. Considering its complex logistics and interwoven interests with the global aims of the United States, this agenda is partly carried out by Israel and partly by the United States but with European and Arab vassals following orders. Israel’s agenda operates on nine levels each of which comes with own scope, parameters, and application tools:
General Level: To expand the scope of Zionist narratives on Palestine, so-called right of Jews to return to it, fake historical rights, and so on. Films, TV, false archeology, fake research books, internet, propagandists, and all type of media—even cookbooks—are the avenues for such efforts.
American Level: To preserve the duopoly system as is for easy management; keep the White House and Congress under tight Zionist control; keep the display of power as in AIPAC annual pageantries in order to demonstrate system’s obedience and Zionist control; conceive and implement U.S. foreign policy through American Jewish Zionists who occupy key posts in the American system.
America’s European Vassals Level: To keep European states under the U.S. umbrella for a stronger Israeli control.
Russian/Chinese Level: With over one million ethnic Russian Jews living in Israel, Israel has an advantage in Russia through organized Zionist lobbyists and oligarchs. The scope is to keep Russia out of the Middle East—it failed in Syria—and away from the Arabs. As for China, Israel provides American-designed military technology to increase influence thus preempting potential Chinese support for Arab causes.
International Level: The U.S. belligerent posturing toward North Korea is not its own. It is Israeli by all standards and terminologies. Explanation: N. Korea provided military technology to Iran and Pakistan. That is anathema to Israel. If N. Korea were to stop cooperating with countries deemed adversaries to Israel, the U.S. saber rattling would cease instantly. The other scope is to keep flaunting any U.N. resolution critical of Israel using the U.S. hegemon as a buffer.
America’s Arab vassals: The United States has practically ended, on behalf of Israel, the Arab system of nations through wars and interventions. Israel is now poised to submit all Arab regimes—not the peoples—to its military power and political will.
Regional Level: To maintain Israeli superiority by means of American military supplies, as well as its own. However, the United States is now doing the major job by smashing the Arab states–one by one. The partition of Sudan and the pending partition of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen are examples.
Palestinian Level: To implement the plan to settle the Palestinian Question on Israeli terms. This is how it works. Give the Palestinian a semblance of economic independence within the occupation regime; swallow what remains of historic Palestine; suffocate Gaza to death to stop the resistance; declare a “state” called “Palestine” in Gaza comprising lands taken from Egypt.
Israeli Level: To intensify the Zionization, fascistization, chauvinism, and racism of the Israeli Jewish society. This is important for the continuation of the Zionist project to create a “greater Israel”. Further, the Zionist project was not about creating a “homeland” for the Jews of Europe. It is about Zionist expansions and empire. According to this scheme, turning the racist ideology of and the colonialist core of Zionism into a permanent way of thinking could guarantee the continuation of Israel as a peculiar racist state.
DISCUSSION
What we want to see now is what did American Jewish Zionists do to rise to such an unprecedented power in the United States? There is a flipside to the coin. Was such a rise autonomous or dependent on factors rooted in the American system? In other words, who allowed Jewish Zionists to dominate the United States?
To answer, we need a starting point. Jewish Zionist propaganda would like the uninformed to believe that the United States was already in pre-Zionist sympathies at least since President John Adams. [1] An example of such propaganda outlets is the Zionist website Jewish Virtual Library. This so-called library made a compendium of U.S. presidents who, it claims, supported the idea of “restoring the lands of Israel” to its “people”. [2]
First, U.S. presidents prior to Theodore Roosevelt might have made favorable expressions to certain Jewish individuals. However, I view such expressions as apolitical, superficial, and ceremonial. Moreover, they had no bearing into the future—this was yet to unfold depending on world events. Nor did they set the path for Franklyn D. Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman to prepare for the installation of a Zionist entity in Palestine. It seems that the “Library” wants to convey the idea that rational political processes brought the United States to side with Zionism and later with Israel. Now, recalling that such “sympathies” might have been made in response to solicitations by Jewish personalities, they were not the political convictions of the American system. However, they became so after Woodrow Wilson publically endorsed the British Mandate for Palestine.
Second, because the American system depends on ideological continuity, it is expected that Roosevelt’s anti-Arab racism and Zionist outlook would pass to his successors. Such passage would also confirm that new patterns of domestic power were emerging. Explanation: in U.S. political settings, the presidents of the imperialist state invariably adopt and further expand on the foreign policies of their predecessors.
The pretense that what those presidents expressed had amounted to recognition of “Jewish claims” on Palestine is baseless. Needless to argue, the fate of Palestine, then under Ottoman rule until the end of WWI, was not a subject for U.S. presidents to decide. Colonialism, however, was the only historical force able to divide conquered nations according to self-interest or consequent to political machinations. Yet, those expressions revealed something interesting— the cultural ignorance of U.S. presidents. Fixated on biblical stories, they interchanged the religious affiliation of Europeans of Jewish faith with the ancient Hebrews. With this, a historical falsehood had been established. Later, this would become the rationalized basis to install a settler state in Palestine.
When American Jewish Zionists twisted the arms of FDR and Harry Truman to make them agree to their demands, and when both presidents gave up under pressure, it became evident that a Jewish Zionist force was born. Under this premise, I view Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklyn D. Roosevelt as the primary facilitators of U.S. Zionism and its ascending power.
Harry Truman is another story. Although, the Zionist state was born under his watch, he was not that essential in the gestation of Zionism toward power. It is true, however, that Truman, a war criminal and opportunist who sold out to Zionists to garner their vote, was a catalyst in turning American Jewish Zionists into the masters of the United States. Explanation: the installation of Israel gave momentum to the emergent power of Zionists. Still, during the transition from European Jewish invasion of Palestine to the installation of Israel, Truman did nothing but to continue with the moral cowardice and treachery of Franklyn D. Roosevelt toward the Arabs.
To back the views I just presented, I will discuss in this part Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; in the upcoming Part 5, I will discuss Franklyn D. Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt
Ever since New York Jewish Zionists supported his campaign for governor of New York, and later for president, Roosevelt, a racist and an avowed colonialist in the American tradition, set the stage for a long-lasting confrontational U.S. policy toward the Arabs. With that policy came the gradual elevation of American Jewish Zionists to the claimed status of “king makers” of American politics—especially in the making of foreign policy. Here I want to stress one aspect, which is how the hate of the Arabs became synonymous with the Jewish Zionist power. It works like this: If an American individual wants to run for office, he must declare or pledge in advance his support of Israel against all its “enemies”—the Arabs. On the other hand, opposing Israel (or Zionism) on any ground could mean losing elections and careers.
How did Theodore Roosevelt set the stage for a durable anti-Arab policy of the United States?
Let us reprise a quotation that appeared in Part 2. In a private meeting held in 1907, Roosevelt confided:
It is impossible to expect moral, intellectual, and material well-being where Mohammedanism is supreme. The Egyptians, for example, were a people of Moslem fellahin who have never in all time exercised any self-government whatever. Britain’s Lord Cromer, Roosevelt added, is one of the greatest modern colonial administrators, and he has handled Egypt just according to Egypt’s needs, military occupation, foreign tutelage, and Christian patience. [3] [Sic], [Italics added]
Roosevelt’s opinion on regions dominated by Mohammedanism—his word for Islam—was in tune with his bigoted ideology. Anyone, of course, is entitled to his opinion. But when an American president expresses racist remarks debasing peoples and their religion, the implication is enormous. Simply, it means that said president, his administration, and subsequent administrations would most likely take the same path. This is how political states stay in business. Eventually, a nurtured prejudice could evolve into state policy— the systematic destruction of the Original Peoples of the United States and the ideology of the Third Reich are examples. Consequently, it is not farfetched to say that Roosevelt’s prejudice had come a long way. Today, it has become the official philosophy of the United States.
A few decades after Roosevelt, John Kennedy, then a senator from New York, proved the assessment I just made. In search of the so-called Jewish vote, he had to go through the rituals of praise (allegiance) to Zionism and to exempt it from the disasters in the Middle East. In addressing a gathering at B’nai Zion Anniversary, he virtually licked the Zionist rear end without shame, pride, or, at least, a little cultivated historical and cultural knowledge. With his speech (1958), Kennedy proved beyond any doubt that 11 years after the installation of Israel (1947), the power of American Jewish Zionists had become a strong fixture in U.S. politics. He said:
This myth – with which you are all too familiar – is the assertion that it is Zionism which has been the unsettling and fevered infection in the Middle East, the belief that without Israel there would somehow be a natural harmony throughout the Middle East and the Arab world. Quite apart from the values and hopes which the State of Israel enshrines – and the past injuries which it redeems – it twists reality to suggest that it is the democratic tendency of Israel which has injected discord and dissention into the Near East. Even by the coldest calculations, the removal of Israel would not alter the basic crisis in the area. For, if there is any lesson which the melancholy events of the last two years and more taught us, it is that, though Arab states are generally united in opposition to Israel, their political unities do not rise above this negative position. The basic rivalries within the Arab world, the quarrels over boundaries, the tensions involved in lifting their economies from stagnation, the cross-pressures of nationalist – all of these factors would still be there even if there were no Israel. [4]
Comment: I could write a full dissertation on Kennedy’s speech and the excerpt I just cited . . . What Kennedy said is a classic example of political succumbence. It also shows how indoctrinations, political posturing, and the expected benefits from sycophancy seep from a political epoch to another. For instance, in his lengthy speech, he never uttered the words Palestine or Palestinians. And when he talked about the Palestinians kicked out of their lands by Jewish Zionist terrorists, he called them “Arab refugees”. (See pictures of Palestinians kicked out by Zionists in 1948). Beyond that, it confirms that the imperialist state had blindly embraced the Zionist narratives. And to close, it demonstrates a culture of obedience to Zionism, and acute prejudice against the Arabs. Above all, Kennedy’s speech highlighted the ascending power of American Jewish Zionism in the United States.
There is more. Kennedy externalized the standard political making of an American politician seeking office. When candidates confront the issue of Israel and the Arabs before Jewish Zionist gatherings, they invariably become arrogantly offensive toward the Arabs, but exceedingly flattering toward Zionism. (I added Italics to every sentence of the excerpt where a counter-argument can be made to demolish Kennedy’s assertions. I stop here, however, to avoid derailing this article.)
Let us go back to Roosevelt. When he made his racist feelings known, he appeared to have implied that only when Christianity is supreme, intellectual and well-being are guaranteed. In saying so, he gave Jewish Zionists the ideological weapons to fight Arab and Palestinian nationalisms.
To be noted, Roosevelt’ praise for Lord Cromer is revealing. In casting his praise with words such as, “the greatest modern colonial administrators”, he left no doubt that the guiding light of the United States is an ideology that glorifies colonialism and slavery while turning colonialist administrators into symbols of virtue and rectitude.
Aside from supremacist beliefs, Roosevelt’s use of the concept “Christian patience” lacks originality. He plagiarized Rudyard Kipling’s concept of “White’s man burden”. This observation is important: it shows how ideological contagion works. Knowing this little bit about Roosevelt’s sentiments, it should not be surprising, therefore, when he stated it is “entirely proper to start a Zionist state around Jerusalem.” [5]
The question one may ask, what were Roosevelt’s rationales and historic justification for a Zionist state “around Jerusalem”? Why is it “entirely proper to start a Zionist state”? What makes it proper: his ideology or bigotry? Why did he ignore the Palestinians who lived in, around, and beyond Jerusalem?
Woodrow Wilson
From studying how U.S. presidents interacted with Zionism and Israel, we may be able to draw some conclusions. For instance, from Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover, the trend was to mix theology, mythology, and colonialism. From FDR to George H. W. Bush the tunes changed to include the primacy of imperialism and the usefulness of Israel to America’s global agenda. From Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, theology and mythology resurfaced but this time the fuel is anti-Muslim Christian Zionism, anti-Arab Neocon Jewish Zionism, and the new plans to partition the Arab states.
It is known that the beginning of any process is a tone-setter for the next enterprise. Under this light, Wilson’s way of thinking about a Zionist state acquires special importance. It rested on four grounds: theological dogmas, Manifest Destiney beliefs, colonialist mindset, and on his conviction of the virtues of European colonialist states. When he (under suspicious circumstances [6] ), selected the Jewish Zionist Louis Dembitz Brandeis to be his informal advisor on foreign policy, he set the precedent for the rise of many Jewish Zionist advisors and chiefs of staff to presidents and vice presidents. [7] But when he appointed him to the Supreme Court, he initiated the process of the Zionist penetration into the American state.
To evaluate how Brandeis was working on the mind of Wilson, I am going to quote Jerry Klinger. Klinger is a Jewish Zionist propagandist and a founder of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. In his article Judge Brandeis, President Wilson and Reverend William E. Blackstone changed Jewish history Klinger details the intellectual and ideological interactions Between Wilson and Brandeis:
Brandeis knew and understood Wilson. He understood what influences Wilson would respond to. He understood the soul of President Wilson. Brandeis was a master politician and courtroom manipulator of opinion and direction. Wilson needed to be appealed to on the basis of faith but not by faith alone would the President act. Wilson needed to be sure of his political base of popular support for his actions. He needed to be sure it was the right thing for America. He weighed his actions carefully and not impulsively. [Emphasis added]
He continues further down,
Wilson further understood through Brandeis that there were delicate negotiations going on in Britain for a declaration of intentions regarding Jewish interests once Britain had wrested control of Palestine from the Turks. [Emphasis added]
Most important for Brandeis was that Wilson understood he had significant grassroots American political and faith based support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Blackstone Memorial was an American document and not a British document. It was important for Wilson and Brandeis to show that they were not the followers of the British. American foreign policy was not shaped and directed by the British but by American interests. [Emphasis added]
Comment
Well, now that we know how Wilson had gotten his political education on the claims of Zionism, let us move forward. Brandeis is a master manipulator. Klinger’s statement that Brandeis convinced Wilson that “supporting the British plan for Palestine means that American foreign policy was not shaped and directed by the British but by American interests” was a winning tactic. It gave self‑importance to a United States. I view that tactic as an early indication of how American Jewish Zionists intended to manipulate the United States.
Did Wilson comply with the coaching imparted to him by Brandeis?
Certainly, in his book, The Elected and the Chosen: Why American Presidents Have Supported Jews and Israel, page 179, Denis Brian, an Irish Christian Zionist provides an adequate answer:
“Like many previous presidents, Wilson compared the Jews of the old testament with the colonists and the early history of America,”
He then goes on to quote Wilson directly:
Recalling the previous experiences of the colonists in applying the Mosaic Code to the order of their internal life, it is not to be wondered at that the various passages in the Bible that serve to undermine royal authority, stripping the Crown of its cloak of divinity, held up before the pioneer Americans the Hebrew Commonwealth as a model government. In the spirit and essence of our Constitution, the influence of the Hebrew Commonwealth was paramount in that it was not only the highest authority for the principle, “that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” but also because it was in itself a divine precedent for a pure democracy, as distinguished from monarchy, aristocracy or any other form of government. To think that I, the son of the manse, should be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people.”
Comment
Despite academic credentials and a university post, Wilson manifested clear intellectual confusion. First, he mingled between diverse categories of thought. Second, his mix-up was so severe that he bundled theology (divinity, etc.) with mythology as in his “various passages in the Bible”. And, if that were not sufficient, he added to the mixture a dose of political gibberish as in the dictions “pure democracy”, “monarchy”, etc. Then he resorted to colonialism as in his phrase “to help restore … etc.
Not only that, but his approach to important U.S. policy directions that structurally overlooked the existence of the Palestinians—the future victims of his planned “restoration” smacks of ignorance, dishonesty, callousness, and ethical perfidy. I wonder how Wilson would have responded to a question such as this: Mr. President, did you ever think to restore the Original Peoples of the United States to the lands you and your predecessors have stolen by fire, forced relocations, and extermination?
Next, I will discuss Franklyn D. Roosevelt and other issues.
NEXT
Part 5:
Part 6: Interview with Francis Boyle
Part 7: Interview with James Petras
Part 8: Interview with Kim Petersen
NOTES
- The Austrian Nathan Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1890. I view any prior similar ideology as pre-Zionist
- Jewish Virtual Library,
- Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945, University of North Carolina Press, 2008, p. 16
- JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the B’nai Zion, February 9, 1958
- Quoted in Benjamin Glatt, Today in History: Teddy Roosevelt and the Jews, The Jerusalem Post, 2016
- Alleged Wilson’s adultery was seized to blackmail him. I’m no fan of hoaxes and allegations. However, unbiased research is needed to ascertain validity. The following link provides some background on this issue: The Making of Woodrow Wilson— An American Nero?
- Examples include Henry Kissinger, Samuel Berger, Irving Lewis Libby, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, etc.
*(Trump speaking at AIPAC. Image credit: Lorie Shaull/ flickr).
Proposed US anti-Hezbollah bill will harm Lebanon
Al-Manar – April 25, 2017
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said yesterday that the new anti-Hezbollah sanctions bill that the US Congress is considering would “greatly harm Lebanon and its people”.
Aoun told a delegation from the American Task Force for Lebanon, an organisation that includes Americans of Lebanese heritage and businessmen, that ”the draft law that is being prepared in Congress to slap new financial sanctions on Lebanese parties, institutions and individuals will greatly harm Lebanon and its people.”
The president pointed out that Lebanon is making the necessary contacts to prevent the issuance of the law and welcomed any effort by the American Task Force for Lebanon in this regard.
US Congress is planning to review additional and tougher sanctions against Hezbollah and all its affiliates and allies, a move that could have negative political and financial ramifications on Lebanon if the proposals pass without amendments.
The proposed law might for the first time target the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as well as senior Hezbollah officials, headed by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, members of his political bureau and parliamentarians.
Shambolic Doings in Washington
Will we survive the next 90 days?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 25, 2017
There remains one good thing to say about Donald Trump: he is not Hillary. The boneheaded cruise missile attack in Syria would have occurred even earlier under President Rodham Clinton and there would undoubtedly be no-fly and safe zones already in place. Oh, and Ukraine and Georgia would be negotiating their entries into NATO to make sure that old Vlad Putin would be put on notice and understand that the days of namby-pamby jaw-jaw-jaw that characterized the Obama Administration are now ancient history.
Apart from that, I can only observe dumbstruck how yet again a candidate promising peace and dialogue could be flipped so quickly. Or maybe he never believed in anything he said, which is perhaps more to the point. Be that as it may, we now, after only ninety days in office, have a neo-neocon foreign policy and the folks clustered around their water coolers in the Washington think tanks are again smiling. And as the ruinous Syrian civil war continues thanks to American intervention, there are probably plenty of high fives within Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu government. Bibi again rules the roost.
The Israelis are no doubt particularly delighted to hear Donald Trump’s latest factually exempt voyage into the outer reaches of the galaxy regarding Iran. Or perhaps The Donald is only having continuing digestive problems dealing with “most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen” when dining with mortified Chinese leader Xi Jinping while simultaneously launching cruise missiles intended to send a message to Beijing’s ally Russia. It is inevitably Iran’s turn for vilification, so Trump, while conceding that the Iranians have been compliant with the nuclear weapons agreement they signed, also felt compelled to add that they continue to be a threat and have not entered into the “spirit” of the pact. Apparently the spirit codicil was somehow left out of the final draft, an interpretation that will no doubt surprise the other signatories consisting of Russia, China and the European Union.
To make its point that Tehran is somehow a cheater, the White House has ordered a 90 day review of Iran policy which will empower hardliners in that country in upcoming elections as well as nut cases like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on this side of the Atlantic. Iranian opposition groups like the terrorist Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK) are already rising to the challenge by floating phony intelligence while Graham is currently advocating a preemptive attack on North Korea, conceding that it would be catastrophic for every country in the region while noting smugly that the carnage and destruction would not reach the United States. Too bad that Pyongyang’s fury cannot be directed straight to Graham’s house in South Carolina.
Graham is reportedly a good dancer and multitasker who can pivot back to Iran effortlessly as soon as Pyongyang is reduced to rubble, so those who want to deal with Iran sooner rather than later should not despair. As things continue to go south nearly everywhere, tension in the Middle East will no doubt lead to a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Persian Gulf that will require yet another ham-handed show of strength by the United States of Amnesia. There will be a war against Iran.
There have been a couple of other interesting stories circulating recently, all demonstrating that when Benjamin Franklin observed that we Americans had created a republic, “if we can keep it,” he was being particularly prescient. Robert Parry has observed that all the fuss about Russiagate is misleading as the only country that interferes with the political process in the U.S. persistently and successfully while also doing terrible damage to our national security is Israel. He wonders when we will have Congress convening investigative commissions to look into Israel-gate but then answers his own question by observing that it will never happen given who controls what in the United States. “No one dares suggest a probe of Israel-gate,” he concludes, but it is interesting and also encouraging to note that some Americans are actually starting to figure things out.
One of the curious things relating to the Russiagate scandal is the issue of who in the U.S. intelligence community leaked highly classified information to the media, a question which somehow seems to have disappeared from whatever final reckoning might be forthcoming. The issue is particularly relevant at the moment because there are reports that the Justice Department is pulling together a case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as part of a possible attempt to remove him forcibly from his refuge in Britain and try him for constituting what CIA Director Mike Pompeo describes as a “hostile intelligence service helped by Russia.” It all suggests that low hanging fruit is fair game while some “official” leakers at high levels are somehow being protected.
To cite another example of Justice Department hypocrisy, three current and four former U.S. officials leaked to Reuters last week’s story about a Russian think tank having created a plan to subvert the U.S. election. If that is so, their identities might be discernible or surmised. Why aren’t they in jail? Or is it that many in government now believe that Russia is fair game and are prepared to look the other way?
It is significant that the recent House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russiagate, featuring FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers, provided very little new information even as it confirmed troubling revelations that had already surfaced regarding the corruption of the nation’s security services. Given that former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) head John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) chief James Clapper have been most frequently cited as the Obama administration’s possible bag men in arranging for the generation, collection, dissemination, and leaking of information disparaging to Trump, why weren’t they also being questioned?
The latest focus on Brennan, an Obama/Clinton loyalist who might safely be regarded as the most likely candidate seeking to discredit Team Trump and reap the benefits from Hillary, explores some suspicions about what actually took place last year and how it might have been arranged. The story broke in The Guardian on April 13th, headlined “British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia.” The article rehashes much old information, but, relying on a “source close to UK intelligence,” it describes how Britain’s NSA equivalent GCHQ obtained information late in 2015 relating to suspect “interactions” between Trump associates and the Russian intelligence. GCHQ reportedly routinely passed the information on to its U.S. liaison counterparts, and continued to do so over the next six months. The information was supplemented by similar reporting from a number of European intelligence services as well as the remaining “Five Eyes”: Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
According to the Guardian source and reporters, who are clearly hostile to Trump, the collection was not directed or targeted but was rather part of random interception of Russian communications. This may or may not be true but it serves as a useful cover story if someone was up to something naughty. And it also makes one wonder about the highly incriminating British intelligence sourced “dossier” on Trump and his associates, which The Guardian strangely does not mention, that appeared in January. Another apparent Guardian source called GCHQ the “principal whistleblower” in sharing the information that led to the opening of an FBI investigation in July 2016, a suggestion that the British role was not exactly passive.
The article goes on to describe how John Brennan, then CIA Chief, was personally the recipient of the material passed hand-to-hand at “director level” because of its sensitivity. So the Guardian article is essentially saying that the information was both routine and extremely sensitive, which would seem to be contradictory. Brennan was reportedly then the driving force behind launching a “major inter-agency investigation” and he briefed selected members of Congress regarding what he had obtained. Shortly thereafter leaks began appearing in the British press followed subsequently by revelations in the media in the U.S.
An October request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court reportedly was initiated after particularly damaging information was received from Estonia concerning Trump associate Carter Page and also regarding allegations that a Russian bank was funneling money into the Trump campaign. This led to an investigation of Page and the tapping into servers in Trump Tower, where the presidential campaign offices were located. Estonia, it should be noted, was particularly concerned about Trump comments on de-emphasizing NATO and strongly supported a Hillary victory so it is fair to speculate that the intelligence provided might have been cherry picked to make a particular case, but The Guardian fails to make that obvious point.
It is interesting to note how for the first time, in this media account, Brennan surfaces as the central player in the investigation of Team Trump. And it is perhaps not out of line to suggest that the European reporting of information on Trump associates was not exactly due to random collection of information, as The Guardian seeks to demonstrate. It could just as easily have been arranged at the “director level” by Brennan and his counterparts to disrupt the Trump campaign and enhance the electability of Hillary Clinton, which would have directly benefited Brennan and his inner circle as well as the Europeans, all of whom feared a Trump victory. Intelligence can be skewed, “fixed around a policy” or even fabricated and can say whatever one wants it to say so it is fair to suggest that the role of a politically committed John Brennan remains to be explored much more fully.
It is now being reported that Brennan will be summoned to give testimony at a closed House Intelligence Committee meeting on May 2nd. Hopefully his comments will be somehow leaked to the media plus those of James Clapper, who is also scheduled to appear. Nevertheless, one imagines that, as was the case in Comey’s first appearance, both former officials will spend most of their time refusing to confirm or deny anything.
The active participation of Brennan in the background to the 2016 electoral campaign is unprecedented and it is also suggestive of what America’s national security agencies have become, basically creatures of the White House. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Benjamin Franklin would undoubtedly deplore the fact that we have failed to keep the republic that the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. That would be bad enough, but we are slipping into a pattern of foreign wars based on tissues of lies and deceptions by the very people who are in place to protect us, quite possibly exemplified by unscrupulous and ambitious ladder climbers like John Brennan, who was also the architect of Obama’s assassination policy. If we go to war because of suspected lack of “spirit” in our adversaries or merely because someone in the White House had a piece of chocolate cake and wanted something to talk about over his cup of espresso then we are doomed as a nation.
Israeli travel agencies will soon have to promise not to send tourists to the West Bank
Ma’an – April 24, 2017
BETHLEHEM – Israeli authorities have notified Israeli travel agencies that they will be forced to sign a commitment pledging not to take groups of tourists to the occupied West Bank, according to a copy the notification obtained by Ma’an on Sunday.
In the Hebrew-language document dated April 23, the Border Control Department of the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority notifies travel agencies that as of May 15, the day when Palestinians commemorate the 1948 Nakba, they will have to “attach, with each request to bring a group of tourists into the country, a special form pledging that they will not send tourists to Judea and Samaria,” using the Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.
The document only addresses Israeli tourism agencies, and not individual would-be tourists.
The forms must be signed and sent to one of three Population and Immigration Authority email addresses listed in the document.
The document warns tourism agencies that their requests to bring groups of tourists would “not be processed” if the pledge was not signed and attached.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Population and Migration Authority could not immediately be reached for comment.
If implemented, the new regulation described in the document would be an additional blow to a suffering tourism industry in the occupied West Bank, which already has to contend with numerous unequal laws and restrictions that have crippled the Palestinian market, while investing millions of dollars in the Israeli market.
A number of sites which attract thousands of visitors each year, such as the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, could be affected by this directive.
“Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestine is not limited only to its military elements, but is also manifested in its use of tourism as a political tool. It is a tool used to strengthen its position as occupying power, and to maintain its domination over Palestinian land and people, but also as an instrument for the dissemination of propaganda to millions of tourists, including politicians, community leaders and journalists who receive free-of-charge first class tours to Israel,” human rights lawyer and legal researcher Amjad Alqasis wrote in 2015.
As current regulations stand, when applying for visas, Israeli tourism agencies only need to submit names and passport numbers, while Palestinian agencies attempting the same are met with administrative obstacles, and cannot guarantee that their visa requests will be accepted.
Tourists who tell Israeli border control officials of their intention to visit the occupied West Bank also face the possibility of undergoing lengthy interrogations, or even deportation for alleged security reasons, or without being provided an explanation at all.
When tourists are able to reach the occupied West Bank, they are then forced to negotiate with hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and other military obstacles that restrict movement for Palestinians both within the West Bank and along its borders with Israel and Jordan.
“Another obstacle to operating a tour is the presence of 500,000 to 600,000 illegal Israeli Jewish settlers currently living in the occupied Palestinian territory,” who “constitute a growing and consistent threat to Palestinian livelihoods,” including Palestinian tour guides, Alqasis noted.
Fools Rush In: Europe Pursues Israel Gas Deal for Political Not Economic Reasons
Sputnik – April 24, 2017
An Israel-Europe gas pipeline deal elevates Israel to the status of a major Mediterranean energy exporter. However, critics suggest the move is about more than mere economics, and serves a number of greater geopolitical objectives – namely, immunizing Israel from criticism and sanctions, and damaging relations between Europe and Russia further.
Ministers from Israel, Greece, Italy and Cyprus, as well as the European Union Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, signed a joint declaration in April, codifying a commitment to constructing a gas pipeline that will bring newly discovered natural gas in Israel [sic] to Europe.
The pipeline, described by Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz as “the longest and deepest subsea gas pipeline in the world,” is expected to be in operation by 2025.
Designated as a “project of common interest” by the EU, the pipeline has been marketed by both sides as an ideal alternative to the bloc’s continuing dependence on Russian energy — an overt indication the deal is being pursued for political rather than economic purposes. After all, high infrastructure costs coupled with low gas prices will almost by definition make it considerably dearer than the existing energy relationship between Russia and Europe.
The Atlantic Council Global Energy Center has even suggested the proposed project may never come to fruition, once the commercial difficulties inherent in making it operational become reality. Current European energy demands in no way commercially justify an additional gas supply source for the continent.
Furthermore, independent Palestinian human rights advocacy group Al-Haq has said the pipeline agreement will benefit corporations which directly profit from the occupation of Palestine — incentivizing Israel to maintain its current policy of illegal settlement expansion and its blockade of Gaza. If constructed, the pipeline will pump gas from Israel’s giant Leviathan field, the discovery of which in 2010 transformed Israel from a net importer of energy into a potential regional energy player — the field is estimated to hold around 20 trillion cubic feet of gas. Despite Lebanon arguing Leviathan sits partially in Lebanese waters, Israel has pushed ahead with international deals, selling 39.7 percent to US-based Noble Energy.
In March, Jordan became the first country to sign up for Leviathan gas. The move ignited waves of protest, on the basis the agreement would increase Jordan’s dependency on Israel, and potentially finance Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Such concerns go beyond reflexive prejudice. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has noted the potential of gas deals to insulate the country from international condemnation and action.
“Ensuring the supply of gas is essential not only to the country’s functioning, but also to its existence. I regard the gas supply as a foundation of national security. A country that exports things crucial for other countries has far more power. The ability to export gas makes us more immune to international pressure. We don’t want to be vulnerable to boycotts,” Netanyahu said.
Moreover, in a report, Annexing Energy, Al-Haq noted it was “impossible” to geographically isolate gas fields in mainland Israel and characterize them as separate from the country’s ongoing conflict with Palestine.
“In 2011, Noble Energy, the lead operator of the Leviathan field, unilaterally extracted gas from a joint Palestinian gas field without Palestinian permission as required under customary international law and the Oslo Accords. Israel has also employed a brutal and unlawful naval operation to protect Noble Energy’s gas platforms beside the Gaza Strip, routinely attacking, killing and injuring civilian Palestinian fishermen who fish in the vicinity of Israel’s illegally imposed six-nautical-mile closure of Palestine’s territorial waters,” the report said.
In a perverse twist, the deal also comes at a time when Gaza continues to reel from a major energy crisis, which has seen power cuts lasting as long as 18 hours, and results from Israel blocking the region from developing its own resources.
The Al-Haq report concluded that if Palestinians were permitted to do so, their own energy needs would be satiated, and they would be economically self-sufficient, freed from their current aid dependency.
3 Syrian forces killed in fresh Israeli attack on military camp
Press TV – April 23, 2017
Three Syrian forces have been killed in a fresh Israeli attack on a military camp near the southwestern city of Quneitra, a military official says.
The attack hit the al-Fawwar camp on Sunday, wounding two others, the unnamed official told the French news agency AFP.
It was not clear whether the assault was an airstrike or shelling. The attack comes after Israel struck a Syrian army position in the province of Quneitra on the Golan plateau on Friday, “causing damage.”
A Syrian military source told the official SANA news agency that the Israeli aggression came after an attempt by terrorists to infiltrate military positions in Quneitra was foiled and the assailants suffered heavy losses.
The Israeli military confirmed the raid in a statement, saying it was conducted shortly after three mortar shells allegedly fired from Syria hit an open area in the northern occupied Golan Heights.
The Tel Aviv regime regularly hits positions held by the Syrian army in the Golan Heights, claiming that the attacks are retaliatory. Syria says the raids aim to help Takfiri militants fighting against government forces.
In the past, the Syrian army has confiscated Israeli-made arms and military equipment from terrorists fighting the government forces. There are also reports that Tel Aviv has been treating the extremists wounded in Syria.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.
The regime has built tens of illegal settlements in the area ever since and used the region to carry out military operations against the Syrian government.
Army advances against militants
Separately on Sunday, Syrian forces recaptured Halfaya town in the west-central Hama Province, the Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen TV channel reported.
Meanwhile, pro-opposition media reported fierce clashes between the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northern countryside of Hama.
US defense officials also told Fox News that the Daesh terrorist group is now centered in the city of Dayr al-Zawr, some 144 kilometers southeast of Raqqah, the Takfiri outfit’s de facto capital in Syria.
They said that US military drones have watched hundreds of Daesh “bureaucrats” or administrators, leaving Raqqah in the past two months.
Several Palestinians hospitalized over multiple settler attacks in Nablus area
Ma’an – April 22, 2017
NABLUS – Israeli forces shot and injured four Palestinians with rubber-coated steel bullets, after residents in a Palestinian village south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank gathered to defend their homes from a mob of Israeli settlers that stormed the community. Hours later, two Palestinians were hospitalized when a group of settlers attacked Palestinians in a nearby village.
Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settler activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that some 100 “extremist settlers” from the illegal Yitzhar settlement entered the village of Urif from its east side and proceeded to smash windows of houses, included one belonging to resident Munir al-Nouri.
He added that the settlers were about to break into the house before Palestinian villagers gathered and forced them away.
According to a Facebook group for Urif, loudspeakers from the village’s mosque were used to inform residents of the incident and to urge them to help defend the homes from the “herds of settlers” attacking the village.
Minutes later, Daghlas said, a number of Israeli military vehicles stormed the village to protect the Israelis.
Clashes erupted between Palestinians youth and Israeli forces who “haphazardly” fired tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinians, according to Daghlas.
Daghlas said that four Palestinians were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, one of whom was hit in the head. Medical sources said that Adel al-Safadi, Jihad Saad, Mustafa Fawzi, and Sharif Abd al-Hafith were taken to Rafidiya hospital to be treated for the gunshot injuries.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that a “violent dispute erupted between Israelis and Palestinians” who she said were “mutually throwing rocks at each other in an area around the village.” When Israeli forces arrived to “disperse the dispute, several Palestinians shot flares at (Israeli) forces.”
In response, Israeli forces used “riot dispersal means,” she said. No Israeli were reported injured
Later Saturday afternoon, Daghlas said that another group of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes in the town of Huwwara, just a few kilometers away from Urif, on the southeastern edge of Yitzhar.
Daghlas said that dozens of settlers attacked Palestinians and their homes with stones and “sharp objects.” A 72-year-old woman, Badiah Muhammad Hamdan, and a young man identified as Ahmad Yousif Udah were hospitalized. Daghlas said Hamdan sustained head injuries.
A video shared on social media showed the woman, bloodied and incapacitated, being evacuated in an ambulance.
Separately, a young Palestinian man was run over by an Israeli settler later Saturday afternoon in al-Masoudiyya west of Nablus city, Daghlas said.
Daghlas told Ma’an that 19-year-old Asim Salim from Nablus city was evacuated to Rafidiya hospital, where doctors said he sustained moderate wounds. Daghlas added that Salim was trying to cross the road in al-Masoudiyya when a settler’s vehicle hit him and fled the scene.
An Israeli border police spokesperson could not be reached for comment on the reported hit and run.
According to the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ), since the state of Israel confiscated land from Urif and other Palestinian villages to establish the illegal Yithzar settlement in the 1980s, “attacks and violence perpetrated by settlers has had a profoundly negative impact on Palestinian residents and their property,” stressing that Yitzhar “poses a daily threat to residents of the neighboring Palestinian villages.”
Settlers have also been known to steal crops, damage and burn trees and other plants, and attack places of worship in the area, in an attempt to intimidate Palestinian villagers and farmers from using their land.
On Friday, a video was released showing 15 masked Israeli settlers attacking Israeli activists in the central West Bank, throwing rocks and hitting the activists with clubs.
Many Palestinian activists and rights groups have meanwhile accused Israel of fostering a “culture of impunity” for Israeli settlers and soldiers committing violent acts against Palestinians.
In March, Israeli NGO Yesh Din revealed that Israeli authorities served indictments in only 8.2 percent of cases of Israeli settlers committing anti-Palestinian crimes in the occupied West Bank in the past three years.
Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the international community.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were a total of 221 reported settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2015, and 107 in 2016.
Pentagon chief in Israel to discuss Iran, Syria
Press TV – April 21, 2017
US Defense Secretary General James Mattis has arrived in Israel for talks expected to focus on Iran and Syria as well the strategic relations between Tel Aviv and Washington.
Mattis arrived in Tel Aviv Thursday afternoon from Cairo on the third leg of a week-long tour of the US allies in the Middle East.
Marking the first time he has visited Israel as the Pentagon chief, Mattis was greeted by an official honor guard at army headquarters in Tel Aviv on Friday morning.
He then met the Israeli minister for military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, and is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.
Mattis hopes to hear directly from Israeli leaders their concerns about regional issues, with Iran’s influence topping the list.
‘No doubt Syria has chemical weapons’
The conflict in Syria, where the US and Israel seek to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power, is also on the agenda, according to the prime minister’s office.
Israel was one of the first US allies to salute President Donald Trump for a recent missile strike on a Syrian airbase, where they alleged a suspected chemical attack originated.
Speaking during a press conference with Lieberman on Friday, Mattis said there can be “no doubt” that Syria has retained some chemical weapons and warned President Assad not to use them.
“There can be no doubt in the international community’s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt,” he said.
The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been pushing to overthrow the Syrian government through the use of proxy militant forces in the country.
Iran has been lending advisory support to Syria in its battle against the foreign-backed militants, but has avoided direct military involvement in the conflict.
Known as the “Mad Dog,” Mattis has famously said the three gravest threats to US national security were “Iran, Iran, Iran.”
While in Riyadh on Wednesday, the Pentagon chief reiterated the Trump administration’s position that Iran seeks to “destabilize” the region.
He told reporters after meeting with senior Saudi officials that “everywhere you look if there is trouble in the region, you find Iran.”
US-Israeli ties reached a low point over the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, including the United States.
Former President Barack Obama pushed for the agreement, to the dismay of Netanyahu who argued it would only strengthen Iran in the region.
Israeli leaders were emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, who has described the nuclear accord as “the worst deal ever negotiated” and threatened to “rip it up.”
In his latest criticism on Thursday, Trump blasted the deal as “a terrible agreement” that “shouldn’t have been signed,” and accused Iran of “not living up” to its spirit.
Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu making opening remarks at a joint White House press conference with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, 2017. (Screenshot from White House video)
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | April 20, 2017
The other day, I asked a longtime Democratic Party insider who is working on the Russia-gate investigation which country interfered more in U.S. politics, Russia or Israel. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Israel, of course.”
Which underscores my concern about the hysteria raging across Official Washington about “Russian meddling” in the 2016 presidential campaign: There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in U.S. politics. If there were, we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israel-gate.
The problem is that if anyone mentions the truth about Israel’s clout, the person is immediately smeared as “anti-Semitic” and targeted by Israel’s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many media/political allies for vilification and marginalization.
So, the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both appeared before AIPAC in 2016, with Clinton promising to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship “to the next level” – whatever that meant – and Trump vowing not to “pander” and then pandering like crazy.
Congress is no different. It has given Israel’s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record-tying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress (matching the number of times British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared). We then witnessed the Republicans and Democrats competing to see how often their members could bounce up and down and who could cheer Netanyahu the loudest, even when the Israeli prime minister was instructing the Congress to follow his position on Iran rather than President Obama’s.
Israeli officials and AIPAC also coordinate their strategies to maximize political influence, which is derived in large part by who gets the lobby’s largesse and who doesn’t. On the rare occasion when members of Congress step out of line – and take a stand that offends Israeli leaders – they can expect a well-funded opponent in their next race, a tactic that dates back decades.
Well-respected members, such as Rep. Paul Findley and Sen. Charles Percy (both Republicans from Illinois), were early victims of the Israeli lobby’s wrath when they opened channels of communication with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the cause of seeking peace. Findley was targeted and defeated in 1982; Percy in 1984.
Findley recounted his experience in a 1985 book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, in which Findley called the lobby “the 700-pound gorilla in Washington.” The book was harshly criticized in a New York Times review by Adam Clymer, who called it “an angry, one-sided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents.”
Enforced Silence
Since then, there have been fewer and fewer members of Congress or other American politicians who have dared to speak out, judging that – when it comes to the Israeli lobby – discretion is the better part of valor. Today, many U.S. pols grovel before the Israeli government seeking a sign of favor from Prime Minister Netanyahu, almost like Medieval kings courting the blessings of the Pope at the Vatican.
During the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama, whom Netanyahu viewed with suspicion, traveled to Israel to demonstrate sympathy for Israelis within rocket-range of Gaza while steering clear of showing much empathy for the Palestinians.
Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu
In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tried to exploit the tense Obama-Netanyahu relationship by stopping in Israel to win a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu. The 2016 campaign was no exception with both Clinton and Trump stressing their love of Israel in their appearances before AIPAC.
Money, of course, has become the lifeblood of American politics – and American supporters of Israel have been particularly strategic in how they have exploited that reality.
One of Israel’s most devoted advocates, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has poured millions of dollars in “dark money” into political candidates and groups that support Israel’s interests. Adelson, who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb inside Iran to coerce its government, is a Trump favorite having donated a record $5 million to Trump’s inaugural celebration.
Of course, many Israel-connected political donations are much smaller but no less influential. A quarter century ago, I was told how an aide to a Democratic foreign policy chairman, who faced a surprisingly tough race after redistricting, turned to the head of AIPAC for help and, almost overnight, donations were pouring in from all over the country. The chairman was most thankful.
The October Surprise Mystery
Israel’s involvement in U.S. politics also can be covert. For instance, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin played a key role in helping Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 strike a deal with Iran to frustrate President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to free 52 American hostages before Election Day.
Begin despised Carter for the Camp David Accords that forced Israel to give back the Sinai to Egypt. Begin also believed that Carter was too sympathetic to the Palestinians and – if he won a second term – would conspire with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to impose a two-state solution on Israel.
Begin’s contempt for Carter was not even a secret. In a 1991 book, The Last Option, senior Israeli intelligence and foreign policy official David Kimche explained Begin’s motive for dreading Carter’s reelection. Kimche said Israeli officials had gotten wind of “collusion” between Carter and Sadat “to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Kimche continued, “This plan prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge must rank as a unique attempt in United States diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.”
But Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, “he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.”
In a 1992 memoir, Profits of War, former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe also noted that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt.
“Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.”
So, in order to buy time for Israel to “change the facts on the ground” by moving Jewish settlers into the West Bank, Begin felt Carter’s reelection had to be prevented. A different president also presumably would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon.
Ben-Menashe was among a couple of dozen government officials and intelligence operatives who described how Reagan’s campaign, mostly through future CIA Director William Casey and past CIA Director George H.W. Bush, struck a deal in 1980 with senior Iranians who got promises of arms via Israel in exchange for keeping the hostages through the election and thus humiliating Carter. (The hostages were finally released on Jan. 20, 1981, after Reagan was sworn in as President.)
Discrediting History
Though the evidence of the so-called October Surprise deal is far stronger than the current case for believing that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media have refused to accept it, deeming it a “conspiracy theory.”
One of the reasons for the hostility directed against the 1980 case was the link to Israel, which did not want its hand in manipulating the election of a U.S. president to become an accepted part of American history. So, for instance, the Israeli government went to great lengths to discredit Ben-Menashe after he began to speak with reporters and to give testimony to the U.S. Congress.
When I was a Newsweek correspondent and first interviewed Ben-Menashe in 1990, the Israeli government initially insisted that he was an impostor, that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence.
However, when I obtained documentary evidence of Ben-Menashe’s work for a military intelligence unit, the Israelis admitted that they had lied but then insisted that he was just a low-level translator, a claim that was further contradicted by other documents showing that he had traveled widely around the world on missions to obtain weapons for the Israel-to-Iran arms pipeline.
Nevertheless, the Israeli government along with sympathetic American reporters and members of the U.S. Congress managed to shut down any serious investigation into the 1980 operation, which was, in effect, the prequel to Reagan’s Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1984-86. Thus, U.S. history was miswritten. [For more details, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative; Secrecy & Privilege; and Trick or Treason.]
Looking back over the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, it is clear that Israel exercised significant influence over U.S. presidents since its founding in 1948, but the rise of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party in the 1970s – led by former Jewish terrorists Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir – marked a time when Israel shed any inhibitions about interfering directly in U.S. politics.
Wanted Poster of the Palestine Police Force offering rewards for the capture of Stern Gang terrorists: 1. Jaacov Levstein (Eliav), 2. Yitzhak Yezernitzky (Shamir), 3. Natan Friedman-Yelin
Much as Begin and Shamir engaged in terror attacks on British officials and Palestinian civilians during Israel’s founding era, the Likudniks who held power in 1980 believed that the Zionist cause trumped normal restraints on their actions. In other words, the ends justified the means.
In the 1980s, Israel also mounted spying operations aimed at the U.S. government, including those of intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, who fed highly sensitive documents to Israel and – after being caught and spending almost three decades in prison – was paroled and welcomed as a hero inside Israel.
Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in the photo from his U.S. Naval Intelligence ID
A History of Interference
But it is true that foreign interference in U.S. politics is as old as the American Republic. In the 1790s, French agents – working with the Jeffersonians – tried to rally Americans behind France’s cause in its conflict with Great Britain. In part to frustrate the French operation, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts.
In the Twentieth Century, Great Britain undertook covert influence operations to ensure U.S. support in its conflicts with Germany, while German agents unsuccessfully sought the opposite.
So, the attempts by erstwhile allies and sometimes adversaries to move U.S. foreign policy in one direction or another is nothing new, and the U.S. government engages in similar operations in countries all over the world, both overtly and covertly.
It was the CIA’s job for decades to use propaganda and dirty tricks to ensure that pro-U.S. politicians were elected or put in power in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, pretty much everywhere the U.S. government perceived some interest. After the U.S. intelligence scandals of the 1970s, however, some of that responsibility was passed to other organizations, such as the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
NED, USAID and various “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) finance activists, journalists and other operatives to undermine political leaders who are deemed to be obstacles to U.S. foreign policy desires.
In particular, NED has been at the center of efforts to flip elections to U.S.-backed candidates, such as in Nicaragua in 1990, or to sponsor “color revolutions,” which typically organize around some color as the symbol for mass demonstrations. Ukraine – on Russia’s border – has been the target of two such operations, the Orange Revolution in 2004, which helped install anti-Russian President Viktor Yushchenko, and the Maidan ouster of elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
NED president Carl Gershman, a neoconservative who has run NED since its founding in 1983, openly declared that Ukraine was “the biggest prize” in September 2013 — just months before the Maidan protests — as well as calling it an important step toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Gershman called directly for regime change in Russia.
The Neoconservatives
Another key issue related to Israeli influence inside the United States is the role of the neocons, a political movement that emerged in the 1970s as a number of hawkish Democrats migrated to the Republican Party as a home for more aggressive policies to protect Israel and take on the Soviet Union and Arab states.
In some European circles, the neocons are described as “Israel’s American agents,” which may somewhat overstate the direct linkage between Israel and the neocons although a central tenet of neocon thinking is that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israel. The neocons say U.S. politicians must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel even if that means the Americans sidling up to the Israelis rather than any movement the other way.
Since the mid-1990s, American neocons have worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu. Several prominent neocons (including former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg) advised Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign and urged a new strategy for “securing the realm.” Essentially, the idea was to replace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states with “regime change” for governments that were viewed as troublesome to Israel, including Iraq and Syria.
By 1998, the Project for the New American Century (led by neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan) was pressuring President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq, a plan that was finally put in motion in 2003 under President George W. Bush.
But the follow-on plans to go after Syria and Iran were delayed because the Iraq War turned into a bloody mess, killing some 4,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bush could not turn to phase two until near the end of his presidency and then was frustrated by a U.S. intelligence estimate concluding that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb (which was to be the pretext for a bombing campaign).
Bush also could pursue “regime change” in Syria only as a proxy effort of subversion, rather than a full-scale U.S. invasion. President Barack Obama escalated the Syrian proxy war in 2011 with the support of Israel and its strange-bedfellow allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-ruled Gulf States, which hated Syria’s government because it was allied with Shiite-ruled Iran — and Sunnis and Shiites have been enemies since the Seventh Century. Israel insists that the U.S. take the Sunni side, even if that puts the U.S. in bed with Al Qaeda.
But Obama dragged his heels on a larger U.S. military intervention in Syria and angered Netanyahu further by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than bomb-bomb-bombing Iran.
Showing the Love
Obama’s perceived half-hearted commitment to Israeli interests explained Romney’s campaign 2012 trip to seek Netanyahu’s blessings. Even after winning a second term, Obama sought to appease Netanyahu by undertaking a three-day trip to Israel in 2013 to show his love.
Still, in 2015, when Obama pressed ahead with the Iran nuclear agreement, Netanyahu went over the President’s head directly to Congress where he was warmly received, although the Israeli prime minister ultimately failed to sink the Iran deal.
In Campaign 2016, both Clinton and Trump wore their love for Israel on their sleeves, Clinton promising to take the relationship to “the next level” (a phrase that young couples often use when deciding to go from heavy petting to intercourse). Trump reminded AIPAC that he had a Jewish grandchild and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Both also bristled with hatred toward Iran, repeating the popular falsehood that “Iran is the principal source of terrorism” when it is Saudi Arabia and other Sunni sheikdoms that have been the financial and military supporters of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the terror groups most threatening to Europe and the United States.
By contrast to Israel’s long history of playing games with U.S. politics, the Russian government stands accused of trying to undermine the U.S. political process recently by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee — revealing the DNC’s improper opposition to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign — and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — disclosing the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street and pay-to-play aspects of the Clinton Foundation — and sharing that information to the American people via WikiLeaks.
Although WikiLeaks denies getting the two batches of emails from the Russians, the U.S. intelligence community says it has high confidence in its conclusions about Russian meddling and the mainstream U.S. media treats the allegations as flat-fact.
The U.S. intelligence community also has accused the Russian government of raising doubts in the minds of Americans about their political system by having RT, the Russian-sponsored news network, hold debates for third-party candidates (who were excluded from the two-party Republican-Democratic debates) and by having RT report on protests such as Occupy Wall Street and issues such as “fracking.”
The major U.S. news media and Congress seem to agree that the only remaining question is whether evidence can be adduced showing that the Trump campaign colluded in this Russian operation. For that purpose, a number of people associated with the Trump campaign are to be hauled before Congress and made to testify on whether or not they are Russian agents.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other establishment-approved outlets are working with major technology companies on how to marginalize independent news sources and to purge “Russian propaganda” (often conflated with “fake news”) from the Internet.
It seems that no extreme is too extreme to protect the American people from the insidious Russians and their Russia-gate schemes to sow doubt about the U.S. political process. But God forbid if anyone were to suggest an investigation of Israel-gate.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
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- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
