The Bomb-Bomb-Iran 'Parlor Game'

By Robert Parry
April 2, 2010

Normally, if two countries with powerful nuclear arsenals were openly musing about attacking a third country over mere suspicions that it might want to join the nuclear club, we’d tend to sympathize with the non-nuclear underdog as the victim of bullying and possible aggression.

You might think that – unless you were told that the two nuclear-armed countries are Israel and the United States and the non-nuclear country is Iran. Then, different rules apply, especially it seems in leading American news outlets like the New York Times.

In what reads like a replay of the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Times and other major U.S. news media appear onboard for war, again happy to make the likely aggressors the “victims,” and to turn the prospect of a bloody conflict in a Muslim country into a parlor game.

Indeed, the New York Times on March 28 presented the idea of “imagining a strike on Iran” as “Washington’s grimmest but most urgent parlor game,” assessing how a military strike by Israel, “acting on its fears that Iran threatens its existence,” would play out.

That same day, the Times also led its front page with an alarmist story about Iranian atomic energy official Ali Akbar Salehi saying Iran might soon begin work on two new nuclear enrichment sites built into mountains to protect against bombings.

The article by reporters David E. Sanger and William J. Broad repeated a recurring falsehood in the Times, that it was President Barack Obama who “publicly revealed the evidence of a [previous] hidden site,” a hardened facility near Qum.

The actual chronology was that Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about the non-operational Qum site on Sept. 21, four days before Obama joined with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in highlighting its existence.

At the time, the Obama administration spun Iran’s earlier disclosure of the Qum facility as having been prompted by Tehran’s awareness that the United States was onto the plant’s existence, but there was no independent evidence of that and the undisputed fact is that Iran disclosed the facility’s existence before Obama’s revelation.

Yet, the Times has now altered the chronology to put Obama’s announcement first, and thus cast Iran into a more sinister light.

Who’s the Victim?

The Times’ biased approach toward the Iranian nuclear issue is underscored further by the Times’ refusal to mention that the presumed “victim” in this story, Israel, possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenals yet has neither publicly admitted that it has nukes nor signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Indeed, it is the fact that Iran is a treaty signatory -- and renounces any interest in building a nuclear bomb -- that is the basis for IAEA inspections of its facilities and for the legal requirement that it disclose new facilities, such as the one at Qum.

But the through-the-looking-glass quality of the Times coverage is that it portrays Israel as the “victim,” although it is a rogue nuclear-weapons state and refuses to abide by international inspections or other safeguards, restrictions that Iran accepts.

Even more remarkable, Israel is openly contemplating bombing Iran, an act that supposedly would be justified by Israel's assertion that a possible Iranian nuclear bomb would represent "an existential threat" to Israel.

It is true that some Iranian leaders favor a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian impasse, i.e. making the territory of Israel and the West Bank into a non-religious state where both Jews and Arabs would live as equals. Israel also has cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's wish that the “Jewish state” would disappear.

This claim of an “existential threat," in turn, has become the rationale for Israel openly plotting to bomb Iran and its nuclear facilities.

On March 28, David Sanger wrote a “Week in Review” story about the unabashed discussions underway in Tel Aviv and Washington about the geopolitical consequences of attacking Iran, doing what Sen. John McCain once playfully sang about as “bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.”

Sanger’s article noted that in 2008, “the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s … nuclear sites. They were turned down, but the request added urgency to the question: Would Israel take the risk of a strike? And if so, what would follow?

“Now that parlor game question has turned into more formal war games simulations. The [U.S.] government’s own simulations are classified, but the Saban Center for Middle East Policy [a neoconservative adjunct] at the Brookings Institution created its own in December.”

The war game, directed by Kenneth M. Pollack, assumed that Israel would attack Iran without notifying the Obama administration, which would then demand that Israel halt the bombing even as Washington beefed up its own military forces in the Persian Gulf.

As the war game played out, Iran would retaliate against both Israeli targets and Saudi oil fields, spiking oil prices and pushing the United States toward the brink of its own attacks to destroy Iran’s military capability to disrupt oil supplies. At that point – a hypothetical eight days into the conflict – the war game ended.

Interestingly, the Times’ accompanying graphic included a rare – though indirect – acknowledgement of Israel’s undeclared nuclear-weapons capability. In a box entitled “Iran Strikes Back,” the war game anticipated that Iran would fire “missiles at Israel, including its nuclear weapons complex at Dimona.”

It would seem that if the Times truly wanted to provide an objective assessment of the Iranian nuclear issue – including Tehran’s possible motives for wanting a nuclear bomb – the Times would routinely make reference to the region's rogue nuclear states of Israel, India and Pakistan.

That the Times typically ignores that key fact suggests the Times sees its journalism on Iran as similar to its credulous reporting about Iraq’s non-existent WMD in 2002-03, more as propaganda than as a fair-minded presentation of the relevant facts.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.  

Let The Sun Shine In......

Is Sarah Palin The Neocon Messiah?

  
I imagine anyone they can manipulate will fit that bill.

By Robert Scheer

Judge them by their enemies. More evidence that Barack Obama might be shaping up as a good president is that Norman Podhoretz hates him so much. In a Wall Street Journal column Monday the guru of the neoconservatives declared: “I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.”

I know that does not properly address all of the serious questions raised about the Obama presidency by progressives, myself included, and as of today we must now add offshore oil drilling to the list. But it is somewhat reassuring that the surviving father of the neocon movement should be left so totally unglued. He is joined in this embrace of the Palin rage by Bill Kristol, whose late father, Irving, was Podhoretz’s comrade in the long march from the far left to the far right. That shift brought the neoconservatives to the pinnacle of power in the Bush administration before they flamed out over the distortions of fact and logic they peddled as justification for the invasion of Iraq.

Among other things—and this was particularly important for Podhoretz, who for 35 years had edited Commentary, a leading journal in the Jewish community—the elimination of Saddam Hussein was supposed to leave Israel more secure. Instead, just the opposite has occurred as a consequence of the vastly increased power of Iran in the region thanks to the elimination of its most feared local adversary. Any effort to contain the power of Iran has been compromised by the leading role of the disciples of the Iranian ayatollahs in the politics of Iraq.

Obama had opposed that war, but he has certainly done his bit to carry on the Bush policy and has furthered it in Afghanistan as well. There is no sign of Obama abandoning those failed adventures, and his fitful efforts to contain Iran while negotiating a much needed settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict are quite consistent with those of previous administrations. Indeed, the U.S. policy agenda for the region seems to be set by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, as her warm reception at the recent AIPAC conference indicates, has long been regarded as a fervent friend of Israel.

Indeed, from health care, the banking bailout and on to Mideast peace, it is difficult to find a single policy proposal from Obama that Bill and Hillary Clinton had not both previously embraced. So why the particularly strident animus toward Obama? The answer lies in that fear so common to the tea party core—that Obama is a false prophet leading the good God-fearing folk astray. Since Podhoretz claims to be writing out of the Jewish tradition he does not embrace the possibility of Obama being the Antichrist, but his language is as descriptively bizarre.

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In a WSJ article from last September headlined “Why Are Jews Liberals?” which is also the title of his latest book, Podhoretz complained bitterly, “One of the most extraordinary features of Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain was his capture of 78% of the Jewish vote.” What followed was a self-hating tirade against his own: “Jews are by far the most liberal of any group in America.” In support of that view he quotes the sociologist Nathan Glazer, who argued that Jews, as opposed to any other immigrant group in America, have ignored their improving economic status and instead consistently supported “increased government spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater regulations on business, and the power of organized labor.”

What a great testament to the enduring decency of Jewish values that they have proved so capable of embracing social goals that transcend narrow class interest. What a wonderful refutation of historical anti-Semitism that Jews so consistently ignore personal economic gain to serve the larger good. Not so in the eyes of Podhoretz, who was immensely disappointed that the commitment of Jews to those enlightened views did not dissipate with the nomination of Obama but rather increased somewhat.

He bemoans the fact that the vast majority of Jews did not share his fear that Obama was too liberal or anti-Israel, but instead of chalking that up to an honest disagreement he invokes the language of the devil’s deception: “I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal.”

So what does that make Sarah Palin—the true messiah?


Let The Sun Shine In......

Good Bye.......

Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.

Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.

Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.

Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. “Free market economists” are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. 

High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by “the New Economy,” a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this “new economy” are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.

Economists who were once respectable took money to contribute to this myth of “the New Economy.”

And not only economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. Recently we have had reports of medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted “studies” that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the “studies.”

The Council of Europe is investigating the drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dollars in sales of the vaccine.

The media helped the US military hype its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is not urban but a collection of village farms.

And there is the global warming scandal, in which  NGOs. the UN, and the nuclear industry colluded in concocting  a doomsday scenario in order to create profit in pollution.

Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.

Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.

I remember when, following CIA director William Colby’s testimony before the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued executive orders preventing the CIA and U.S. black-op groups from assassinating foreign leaders.  In 2010 the US Congress was told by Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, that the US now assassinates its own citizens in addition to foreign leaders.

When Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that US citizens no longer needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of a capital crime, just murdered on suspicion  alone of being a “threat,” he wasn’t impeached. No investigation pursued. Nothing happened. There was no Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. Today it is American citizens who are on the hit list. Whatever objections there might be don’t carry any weight. No one in government is in any trouble over the assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government. 

As an economist, I am astonished that the American economics profession has no awareness whatsoever that the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the offshoring of U.S. GDP to overseas countries. U.S. corporations, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “performance bonuses,” have moved the production of goods and services marketed to Americans to China, India, and elsewhere abroad. When I read economists describe offshoring as free trade based on comparative advantage, I realize that there is no intelligence or integrity in the American economics profession.

Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money. The transnational or global U.S. corporations pay multi-million dollar compensation packages to top managers, who achieve these “performance awards” by replacing U.S. labor with foreign labor. While Washington worries about “the Muslim threat,” Wall Street, U.S. corporations and “free market” shills destroy the U.S. economy and the prospects of tens of millions of Americans.

Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.

Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.

Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.

I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”

For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.

For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.

The American corporate media does not serve the truth.  It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.

America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.

These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called “entitlements” as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.

With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.

The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.  His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Let The Sun Shine In......

Why East Jerusalem Does Not Belong To The Jewish People of Israel.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Top Ten Reasons East Jerusalem does not belong to Jewish-Israelis

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the American Israel Public Affairs Council on Monday that "Jerusalem is not a settlement." He continued that the historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel cannot be denied. He added that neither could the historical connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem. He insisted, "The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today." He said, "Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital." He told his applauding audience of 7500 that he was simply following the policies of all Israeli governments since the 1967 conquest of Jerusalem in the Six Day War.

Netanyahu mixed together Romantic-nationalist cliches with a series of historically false assertions. But even more important was everything he left out of the history, and his citation of his warped and inaccurate history instead of considering laws, rights or common human decency toward others not of his ethnic group.

So here are the reasons that Netanyahu is profoundly wrong, and East Jerusalem does not belong to him.

1. In international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, as are the parts of the West Bank that Israel unilaterally annexed to its district of Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 forbid occupying powers to alter the lifeways of civilians who are occupied, and forbid the settling of people from the occupiers' country in the occupied territory. Israel's expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, its usurpation of Palestinian property there, and its settling of Israelis on Palestinian land are all gross violations of international law. Israeli claims that they are not occupying Palestinians because the Palestinians have no state are cruel and tautological. Israeli claims that they are building on empty territory are laughable. My back yard is empty, but that does not give Netanyahu the right to put up an apartment complex on it.

2. Israeli governments have not in fact been united or consistent about what to do with East Jerusalem and the West Bank, contrary to what Netanyahu says. The Galili Plan for settlements in the West Bank was adopted only in 1973. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave undertakings as part of the Oslo Peace Process to withdraw from Palestinian territory and grant Palestinians a state, promises for which he was assassinated by the Israeli far right (elements of which are now supporting Netanyahu's government). As late as 2000, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak claims that he gave oral assurances that Palestinians could have almost all of the West Bank and could have some arrangement by which East Jerusalem could be its capital. Netanyahu tried to give the impression that far rightwing Likud policy on East Jerusalem and the West Bank has been shared by all previous Israeli governments, but this is simply not true.

3. Romantic nationalism imagines a "people" as eternal and as having an eternal connection with a specific piece of land. This way of thinking is fantastic and mythological. Peoples are formed and change and sometimes cease to be, though they might have descendants who abandoned that religion or ethnicity or language. Human beings have moved all around and are not directly tied to any territory in an exclusive way, since many groups have lived on most pieces of land. Jerusalem was not founded by Jews, i.e. adherents of the Jewish religion. It was founded between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE by a West Semitic people or possibly the Canaanites, the common ancestors of Palestinians, Lebanese, many Syrians and Jordanians, and many Jews. But when it was founded Jews did not exist.

4. Jerusalem was founded in honor of the ancient god Shalem. It does not mean City of Peace but rather 'built-up place of Shalem."

5. The "Jewish people" were not building Jerusalem 3000 years ago, i.e. 1000 BCE. First of all, it is not clear when exactly Judaism as a religion centered on the worship of the one God took firm form. It appears to have been a late development since no evidence of worship of anything but ordinary Canaanite deities has been found in archeological sites through 1000 BCE. There was no invasion of geographical Palestine from Egypt by former slaves in the 1200s BCE. The pyramids had been built much earlier and had not used slave labor. The chronicle of the events of the reign of Ramses II on the wall in Luxor does not know about any major slave revolts or flights by same into the Sinai peninsula. Egyptian sources never heard of Moses or the 12 plagues & etc. Jews and Judaism emerged from a certain social class of Canaanites over a period of centuries inside Palestine.

6. Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent "Jewish people" in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for the united kingdom under David and Solomon. So Jerusalem was not 'the city of David,' since there was no city when he is said to have lived. No sign of magnificent palaces or great states has been found in the archeology of this period, and the Assyrian tablets, which recorded even minor events throughout the Middle East, such as the actions of Arab queens, don't know about any great kingdom of David and Solomon in geographical Palestine.

7. Since archeology does not show the existence of a Jewish kingdom or kingdoms in the so-called First Temple Period, it is not clear when exactly the Jewish people would have ruled Jerusalem except for the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Assyrians conquered Jerusalem in 722. The Babylonians took it in 597 and ruled it until they were themselves conquered in 539 BCE by the Achaemenids of ancient Iran, who ruled Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took the Levant in the 330s BCE. Alexander's descendants, the Ptolemies ruled Jerusalem until 198 when Alexander's other descendants, the Seleucids, took the city. With the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom did rule Jerusalem until 37 BCE, though Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean, only took over Jerusalem with the help of the Parthian dynasty in 40 BCE. Herod ruled 37 BCE until the Romans conquered what they called Palestine in 6 CE (CE= 'Common Era' or what Christians call AD). The Romans and then the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium ruled Jerusalem from 6 CE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sasanian Empire Conquered it, ruling until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back.

The Muslims conquered Jerusalem in 638 and ruled it until 1099 when the Crusaders conquered it. The Crusaders killed or expelled Jews and Muslims from the city. The Muslims under Saladin took it back in 1187 CE and allowed Jews to return, and Muslims ruled it until the end of World War I, or altogether for about 1192 years.

Adherents of Judaism did not found Jerusalem. It existed for perhaps 2700 years before anything we might recognize as Judaism arose. Jewish rule may have been no longer than 170 years or so, i.e., the kingdom of the Hasmoneans.

8. Therefore if historical building of Jerusalem and historical connection with Jerusalem establishes sovereignty over it as Netanyahu claims, here are the groups that have the greatest claim to the city:

A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.

B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second millennium BCE.

C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 CE.

D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under the Sasanids.

E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and introduce a Syrian one.

F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.

G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin's dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.

9. Of course, Jews are historically connected to Jerusalem by the Temple, whenever that connection is dated to. But that link mostly was pursued when Jews were not in political control of the city, under Iranian, Greek and Roman rule. It cannot therefore be deployed to make a demand for political control of the whole city.

10. The Jews of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine did not for the most part leave after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans in 136 CE. They continued to live there and to farm in Palestine under Roman rule and then Byzantine. They gradually converted to Christianity. After 638 CE all but 10 percent gradually converted to Islam. The present-day Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Jews and have every right to live where their ancestors have lived for centuries.

---

posted by Juan Cole @ 3/23/2010 02:01:00 AM

Let The Sun Shine In......

Western antisemitism at World War Two high

In the Interest of fairness, I post this. 

If it's true, it is sad and alarming. But I do not believe that being appalled at some Israeli policies is the same thing as "hating Jews." As I have said before, Israel is a nation; one to which we, the American taxpayers, give billions of dollars each year. We, therefore, have a right to speak out when we see Israel doing things we find appalling.

I haven't seem or heard that much anti-antisemitism coming from Europe and here, in America, there is far less anti-antisemitism than there was before WWII. There are, however, many more questions about Israeli policies and cooperation, or non-cooperation, toward peace in that bloody land. 

I do not here anyone totally blaming Israel. On the other hand, many of us can no longer hold them blameless.

By Stan Goodenough

Mar 16, 2010

According to figures released by the Jewish Agency, acts of Jew hatred in western Europe in 2009 were pegged at their highest level since the Second World War.

Distorted media coverage (really?) of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza at the start of last year, along with the legally-flawed Goldstone Report which charged Israel with deliberately murdering innocent civilians in that conflict, have been identified as major fanners of the ever-present — if sometimes muted — flames of international antisemitism.

The unique and unparalleled form of racism has dogged the Jewish people since the earliest days of their national existence.

Since paving the way for - and driving the forces of - the Holocaust, the tide of this prejudice has ebbed and flowed. Whereas historically the exiled Jewish people were endlessly scapegoated for the ills plaguing their host nations, since 1948 that ingrained animus has increasingly focused on the reborn nation state into which they have been  regathered.

Wait a minute. Is this guy saying that the Jews have been herded down to land that did not belong to them by the allied occupiers of that land? Is he saying that there was no Zionist movement since WWI? Is he saying that the Jewish people are being drives to this terrible unsafe land?  

The majority of anti-Israel officials, journalists and organizations strongly reject charges of bias, maintaining that criticism of Israel cannot be labelled (sic) antisemitism. (and I agree)

Their readiness to believe lies and distortions about the behavior of Israel's armed forces, the policies of Israel's governments and the intentions of Israel as a nation — however — give the lie to their protestations.

There is something seriously wrong with this!

---

© Jerusalem Newswire 2002-2006

Let The Sun Shine In......

JERUSALEM (AP) -- The U.S. is pressing Israel to scrap a contentious east Jerusalem building project whose approval has touched off the most serious diplomatic feud with Washington in years, said Israeli officials Monday.

(This feud has been a long-time coming.)


Tensions in the city at the center of the spat were high, with police out in large numbers in Jerusalem's volatile Old City in expectation of renewed clashes and Palestinian shopkeepers shuttering their stores for several hours to protest Israel's actions in the city.

J-E-R-U-S-A-L-E-M = City of Peace. Really?

Top U.S. officials have lined up in recent days to condemn the Israeli plan to build 1,600 apartments in east Jerusalem, the sector of the city that the Palestinians claim for their future capital.

The project was announced during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region last week, badly embarrassing the U.S. and complicating its efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

U.S. officials have not disclosed what steps they want Israel to take to defuse the crisis, and Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment Monday. But Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because no official decision has been made public, said Washington wants the construction project canceled.

Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the timing of the project's approval, he has not said he will cancel it.

Israel does not stand to benefit from antagonizing its most important ally, but Netanyahu has historically taken a hard line against territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and a curb on east Jerusalem construction would threaten to fracture his hawkish coalition.

The Israeli officials said the U.S. also wants Israel to make a significant confidence-building gesture toward the Palestinians, including possibly releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners or turning over additional areas of the West Bank to Palestinian control.
Washington, they added, also has demanded that Israel officially declare that talks with the Palestinians will deal with all the conflict's big issues, including final borders, the status of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees who lost their homes during the war around Israel's 1948 creation.

Possibly the worst mistake made by the allied powers after WWII. Perhaps the intentions were good, but it hasn't turned out so well. Israel has never been a safe place for the Jewish people. The allies took land that did not belong to them and gave it to a people so horribly persecuted. Can that ever been such a good idea. The abused almost always become abusers. I remember the pictures of Jena.  

The unusually harsh U.S. criticism has undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to suggest that the crisis had passed. Israeli newspapers reported Monday that Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, told Israeli diplomats in a conference call Saturday night that their country's relations with the U.S. haven't been this tense in decades.
The Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.

U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell is expected in the region this week to try to salvage peace efforts.

East Jerusalem has been perhaps the most intractable issue dividing Israelis and Palestinians. Israel annexed the territory after capturing it in the 1967 Mideast war, and Israelis tend not to see the Jewish "neighborhoods" in east Jerusalem -- home to some 180,000 people -- as settlements or as particularly controversial. Proposed peace agreements in the past have left them in Israel's hands.

The Palestinians and the international community reject Israel's position.

For a fourth straight day, Israel deployed hundreds of police around east Jerusalem's Old City, home to important Jewish, Muslim and Christian shrines, and restricted Palestinian access to the area in anticipation of possible unrest. Israel also maintained a closure that barred virtually all West Bank Palestinians from entering Israel.

A Holy land made unholy by the blood of innocents for over 60 years.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said access to the city's most sensitive holy site -- the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary -- was restricted because police "have received clear indications that Palestinians are intending to cause disturbances."

The compound is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine. It is Judaism's holiest site because two biblical Jewish temples once stood there.

Not far from the compound, inside the Old City's Jewish Quarter, Jewish residents were to rededicate a historic synagogue that had been destroyed twice, most recently in 1948 by the Jordanian army, and was recently rebuilt.

Some Palestinians charge that Jewish extremists were planning to use the rededication to try to rebuild the Jewish Third Temple. Similar rumors in the past have brought out Palestinian protesters and sparked violence.

The Palestinian Authority's minister of religious affairs, Jamal Bawatneh, condemned the synagogue rededication as "an attack on the rights of Palestinians."

Is Peace possible? I cannot be the only one who doubts that it is. The Palestinians hear what our fundamentalists say on a regular basis. No wonder they sound so insane when they say things like this. They are being well-informed by our news media and newspapers from around the world


Let The Sun Shine In......

Israel is REALLY getting on my nerves

Getting in bed with our religiously insane is cynical and despicable. Eithet that or just plain stupid.

Now we have more settlements in Jerusalem. When is Israel going to cut it out?

MIDDLE EAST

A Partner For Peace?

This week, Vice President Biden arrived in the Middle East to attempt to restart peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. On Tuesday, shortly after he assured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, "Every time progress is made, it's been made when the rest of the world knows there's no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," the Israeli Interior Ministry announced plans "to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews" in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In response, Biden issued an unusually strong statement: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel." Jerusalem is an especially sensitive area; Israel insists that it will remain its "undivided" capital, but the Palestinians claim Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. A European Union investigation last year found that the Israeli government was "working deliberately to alter the city's demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his position on Wednesday that he would not move forward with proposed peace talks with Israel unless settlements were halted. In an emergency meeting Wednesday, the Arab League "demanded that Israel reverse the East Jerusalem housing decision," but did not revoke its endorsement of proximity talks.

APOLOGY FROM NETANYAHU: As former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk noted on MSNBC yesterday, it's unfortunately a common occurrence for the Israeli government to announce new settlements either just before or after a visit with U.S. officials, which damages American credibility in the region. This happened numerous times under the Bush administration. It also happened the day before Biden arrived in Israel, when the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. It is uncommon, however, for Israel to announce new settlements during a visit from a high official like the vice president of the United States, especially when he had come to deliver a message of support. Interior Minister Eli Yishai apologized on Wednesday "for causing domestic and international distress" with the timing of the announcement, and Netanyahu reportedly told Biden, "No one was seeking to embarrass you or undermine your visit -- on the contrary, you are a true friend to Israel." According to the New York Times, aides say Netanyahu "was blindsided by the announcement from Israel's Interior Ministry, led by the leader of right-wing Shas Party. But he didn't disavow the plan." Meir Margalit, a member of Jerusalem's City Council told Israel's Ynet News that the Interior ministry "meant to sabotage the announcement that Netanyahu issued today regarding the renewal of indirect negotiations with the Palestinians. It is also a kind of slap in the face of the American administration."

A DEEPLY INGRAINED SETTLEMENT ENTERPRISE: A New York Times editorial suggested that President Obama "miscalculated... when he insisted that Israel impose a full stop on all new settlement building," noting that "one of the basic rules of diplomacy is that American presidents never publicly insist on something they aren't sure of getting -- at least not without a backup plan." Israel committed to freeze settlements under the "road map for peace" promulgated by the Bush administration in 2002, but has consistently failed to meet that commitment. While agreeing to a partial settlement moratorium last November (which specifically exempted Jerusalem), Netanyahu's own position in favor of settlement expansion is clear. The evening before Biden's arrival, "Netanyahu appeared onstage with Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem." Hagee is a conservative American preacher who opposes the two-state solution and supports unlimited Israeli settlement expansion with millions of private American dollars. Hagee has said that "[i]f America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness." Israeli planning officials also told Haaretz that "some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval," and that "Jerusalem's construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem." In a recent article examining how deeply ingrained the settlement enterprise is in the various institutions of the state of Israel, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer writes, "The challenge for the United States is how to pursue the issue in a persistent and intelligent manner. It should do so with the confidence that, ultimately, it will end up aligned not only on the right side of history generally, but even on the right side of the history of Zionism."

HOLDING ALL PARTIES ACCOUNTABLE: The Obama administration has made clear that resolving the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is one of its highest priorities, but the last year has been a frustrating one. None of the parties -- Israelis, Palestinians, or the Arab states -- seem willing to take the necessary bold steps to move the process forward. There is also the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a major source of resentment among Palestinians and in the broader region. In a Center for American Progress report last July, authors Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and Robert Adler stated that "the window of opportunity for achieving a viable two-state solution is rapidly closing -- at a time when Israelis and Palestinians seem incapable and unwilling to achieve a sustainable peace agreement." The report called on the Obama administration "to reassure Israel that it will continue to support its security and work to maintain a close bilateral relationship while also pushing forcefully for a two-state solution which it sees as in the best interests of the region," which is precisely what Biden's trip to Israel was intended to do. Meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, Biden said, "Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state that is independent, viable, and contiguous. Everyone should know, everyone should know by now, that there is no viable alternative to a two-state solution, which must be an integral part of any comprehensive peace plan." In a speech earlier today in Tel Aviv, Biden promised that "the US will continue to hold both sides accountable for any statements or any actions that will inflame tension or prejudice the actions of these talks."
All hail the Court Jesters and others who tell truth to power

Let The Sun Shine In......

Disapproving of Israeli Policy.......

.........is not the same thing as being antisemitic or anti-Jewish in any way.  Given the aid Americans give to Israel every year, we have a right to have an opinion and I'm afraid that my opinion of Israel has slid downward over the last 7 years or so. I'll write more at Pelican's Perch on this topic.

MIDDLE EAST

A Partner For Peace?

This week, Vice President Biden arrived in the Middle East to attempt to restart peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. On Tuesday, shortly after he assured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, "Every time progress is made, it's been made when the rest of the world knows there's no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," the Israeli Interior Ministry announced plans "to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews" in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In response, Biden issued an unusually strong statement: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel." Jerusalem is an especially sensitive area; Israel insists that it will remain its "undivided" capital, but the Palestinians claim Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. A European Union investigation last year found that the Israeli government was "working deliberately to alter the city's demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his position on Wednesday that he would not move forward with proposed peace talks with Israel unless settlements were halted. In an emergency meeting Wednesday, the Arab League "demanded that Israel reverse the East Jerusalem housing decision," but did not revoke its endorsement of proximity talks.
 
APOLOGY FROM NETANYAHU: As former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk noted on MSNBC yesterday, it's unfortunately a common occurrence for the Israeli government to announce new settlements either just before or after a visit with U.S. officials, which damages American credibility in the region. This happened numerous times under the Bush administration. It also happened the day before Biden arrived in Israel, when the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. It is uncommon, however, for Israel to announce new settlements during a visit from a high official like the vice president of the United States, especially when he had come to deliver a message of support. Interior Minister Eli Yishai apologized on Wednesday "for causing domestic and international distress" with the timing of the announcement, and Netanyahu reportedly told Biden, "No one was seeking to embarrass you or undermine your visit -- on the contrary, you are a true friend to Israel." According to the New York Times, aides say Netanyahu "was blindsided by the announcement from Israel's Interior Ministry, led by the leader of right-wing Shas Party. But he didn't disavow the plan." Meir Margalit, a member of Jerusalem's City Council told Israel's Ynet News that the Interior ministry "meant to sabotage the announcement that Netanyahu issued today regarding the renewal of indirect negotiations with the Palestinians. It is also a kind of slap in the face of the American administration."

A DEEPLY INGRAINED SETTLEMENT ENTERPRISE: A New York Times editorial suggested that President Obama "miscalculated... when he insisted that Israel impose a full stop on all new settlement building," noting that "one of the basic rules of diplomacy is that American presidents never publicly insist on something they aren't sure of getting -- at least not without a backup plan." Israel committed to freeze settlements under the "road map for peace" promulgated by the Bush administration in 2002, but has consistently failed to meet that commitment. While agreeing to a partial settlement moratorium last November (which specifically exempted Jerusalem), Netanyahu's own position in favor of settlement expansion is clear. The evening before Biden's arrival, "Netanyahu appeared onstage with Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem." Hagee is a conservative American preacher who opposes the two-state solution and supports unlimited Israeli settlement expansion with millions of private American dollars. Hagee has said that "[i]f America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness." Israeli planning officials also told Haaretz that "some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval," and that "Jerusalem's construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem." In a recent article examining how deeply ingrained the settlement enterprise is in the various institutions of the state of Israel, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer writes, "The challenge for the United States is how to pursue the issue in a persistent and intelligent manner. It should do so with the confidence that, ultimately, it will end up aligned not only on the right side of history generally, but even on the right side of the history of Zionism."

HOLDING ALL PARTIES ACCOUNTABLE: The Obama administration has made clear that resolving the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is one of its highest priorities, but the last year has been a frustrating one. None of the parties -- Israelis, Palestinians, or the Arab states -- seem willing to take the necessary bold steps to move the process forward. There is also the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a major source of resentment among Palestinians and in the broader region. In a Center for American Progress report last July, authors Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and Robert Adler stated that "the window of opportunity for achieving a viable two-state solution is rapidly closing -- at a time when Israelis and Palestinians seem incapable and unwilling to achieve a sustainable peace agreement." The report called on the Obama administration "to reassure Israel that it will continue to support its security and work to maintain a close bilateral relationship while also pushing forcefully for a two-state solution which it sees as in the best interests of the region," which is precisely what Biden's trip to Israel was intended to do. Meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, Biden said, "Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state that is independent, viable, and contiguous. Everyone should know, everyone should know by now, that there is no viable alternative to a two-state solution, which must be an integral part of any comprehensive peace plan." In a speech earlier today in Tel Aviv, Biden promised that "the US will continue to hold both sides accountable for any statements or any actions that will inflame tension or prejudice the actions of these talks."


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Let The Sun Shine In......

bin Laden Campaigns For Republicans....Again

Yep, here we ago again. 

1) Osama takes credit for failed pantie-bomber. Why do we believe this? We all agree that Osama is a low-down-dirty, lying, stinking terrorist. Why do we assume he is even alive, let alone telling the truth about being responsible for this failed bombing attempt? 

2) Osama does seem to know us better than we know ourselves, even when the truth is leading the news for months on end. The worst attack by a foreign entity on American soil since the war of 1812 while the GOP had controlled congress since 1994 and during a GOP administration, one that had been warned repeatedly by an out-going administration and practically every head-of state the world over than Osama, who had declared war on the U.S. in the late 90s, planned to hit the U.S. at home. He had had, apparently, great success abroad. So what made the Bushies think he wasn't much of a threat at home? Nevertheless, an apparent majority of Americans still believe that the GOP is so much better for our security than Democrats. Osama knew that from merely observing us from afar when we were otherwise engaged. So right before the 2004 election, just when it looked as though Americans might actually vote their own interests, for a change, instead of Al Qaeda's, Osama went on Teevee and announced that Bush was a total  idiot and a cowardly one at that, thus changing changed the minds of millions who voted for Bush and Cheney. (That Osama! Who the hell does he think he is insulting our preznit like that? We'll show him. We'll, by god, vote for the gang who couldn't shoot straight, the ones who had let Osama get away at Tora Bora and attacked a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, the ones who were busy wrecking the economy by waging two wars off the books among other foul policies, thus murdering our own kids and a whole bunch of other kids as a result. 

2) Osama says that Al Qaeda will continue attacks on America as long as America supports Israel. (I do not recall bin Laden being all that pro-Palestinian until after 9/11. Before that, he was all about kicking Uncle Sam's giant military butt out of Saudi Arabia, Islam's holy land))  But let's say that he really is all about Palestine now. After all, he can afford to be, since he managed to accomplish his first goal. Bush and Cheney, at the first possible moment after 9/11 moved our troops out of Saudi Arabia, showing all of the world that if you manage to cause Americans great shock and awe, our preznit will do whatever you want him to. 

Nevertheless, with that statement, Osama has defeated Obama no matter what he does. If Obama takes a more balanced approached to middle east policy, the GOP will say that Obama is giving-in to the terrorists, even though we all hoped Obama would do just that, a balanced approach, when we voted for him. By more balanced, we mean that the U.S. stops it's knee-jerk, reactionary support of Israel no matter what they are caught doing. We won't even allow a meaningless, but well-deserved, U.N. resolution against Israel to pass, without a swift veto. If Obama states that our reactionary support for Israel will simply get more reactionary, the U.S. loses support with the rest of the world. Since Americans do not seem to think that the latter matters, even after the loss of world support has had such devastating effects on everything from  military to our economic strength, putting us on a similar path to destruction that the Soviets walked not all that long ago, we will vote for those knee-jerk goopers again.

 

Bin Laden takes responsibility for Christmas Day airline bombing attempt

Los Angeles Times - Jim Puzzanghera - ‎1 hour ago‎

The Al Qaeda leader addresses President Obama directly, vowing to continue attacking the US as long as Washington backs Israel. On the tape, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said: "The message we want to communicate to you through the plane of the hero, ...

 

Video: Alleged Osama Bin Laden audio tape released ITN NEWS

 

New Bin Laden Message Warns of More Attacks Voice of America

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Let The Sun Shine In......

A Crying Shame!

In my 61 years on this planet, I never imagined that I would come anywhere near agreeing with an article such as this. I doubt I would have finished the article before I discounted it as anti-Semitic drivel, until recently.

 I hate to say it. It makes me sick to my stomach to write these words, but the events of the last 8 years, on top of all the policies and behavior I have managed to ignore in the so-called holy land and surrounding areas as well as at home for the last 40 or so years, have caused me to question everything. I guess it took something like 9/11 to jar me out of habitual thinking drummed into me as a child.

I was raised under the cloud of the, then, recent horror of the Nazi crimes against humanity. My mother, in particular, was extremely impressed by the criminal cruelty to the Jewish people. By impressed, I mean it caused her to be very protective of the Jewish people. She would not countenance “Jew jokes” nor anything else she considered anti-Jewish. I grew up to be like her in that way. A friend of mine once said that she always thought of me when something “god-awful” happened in the place called Palestine by some and Israel by others. (”I know you’ll be looking for a Jew to protect.” LOL!)

I have, at times, been very outspoken in my defense of Jewish people everywhere.

Mother warned me often that I should never think that “it” can’t happen here. Of course, she was talking about the wholesale persecution, even unto death, of any hated minority. (I never knew if she had read C.S. Lewis or had merely come up with the warning on her own. ) It didn’t take much to convince me. I grew up in the deep south. I never doubted that “it” could happen.

Now, I must be equally outspoken in questioning my country’s knee jerk defense of Israel as if it is somehow exceptional in the same way that the Neocons see the U.S. as exceptional; entitled to do any damn thing they want to in the name of something I no longer understand as I once thought I did.

I have one Jewish friend where I live now. (Of course, I still I have others across the country in the many places where I have lived in the past.) Several years ago she said that she might move to Israel where she could feel safe. My jaw hit the floor. This woman is a highly educated professional. I stammered, asking her to listen to what she was saying. “You can’t possibly think that Israel is a safe place to be!”

Sometimes I cannot help but think that some of our fellow citizens are not always rational about the issue of Israel and Jewish Neocons are not alone in their crusade to defend Israel, no matter what it takes or who gets hurt in the process, even when Israeli policies are responsible for the misery, suffering and death of an untold number of Palestinians.

What’s worse, Neocons in both Israel and the U.S. have allied themselves with christian fundamentalist (end-timers, rapture Christians, Dominionists and others of the far-right religious fringe). In my mind, this is an unholy alliance if there ever was one. “Cynical” is the word that comes to mind and cynicism is a state of mind that should be avoided at all costs; it shows a pathological disintegration in the nation of Israel and in her supporters in the U.S..

The ghettos in which the Palestinians live are reminiscent of other ghettos filled with Europe’s Jewish population before and during the terror that was Nazi Germany.

Allow me to make clear that I am aghast at terrorist atrocities by Hamas or any other group or nation, no matter at whom it is directed. Nevertheless, the U.S. has lost all credibility as an honest broker of peace and, of course, social and economic justice that must accompany a lasting peace in a land made unholy by the blood of innocents and the theft of the land itself.

Who are the innocents? The people from all three Abrahamic traditions who can envision true peace, even in this historically war-torn area of the world; those yet too young to hate others simply because it is “tradition” to do so and those who refuse to live a hateful life.

The Allied powers of WWII made a mistake when they took land away from people who had lived in the land known as Palestine for as long as anyone can remember and by giving that land to Eastern and Western European Jews, among others.

What’s done is done in the modern land of Palestine/Israel. I doubt we can ever undo it, at least not in my lifetime. Nevertheless, it is time to find the best of the religious teachings of the three traditions to which this land is of such apparently great importance and apply those teachings to the conflict which has, in may ways, consumed the world for the last 60 some odd years, if not since the beginning of recorded history.

In doing so, we must not ignore the deeply corrupting effects of corporatism, sometimes quite obvious and at other times hidden just beneath the excuse of religion.

And by “we,” I mean the concerned people of the world; those who are sick and tired of the carnage over a city named peace.

Kristol Clear: The Source of America’s Wars

by Maidhc Ó Cathail / December 18th, 2009

One reason neocons have been able to sow so much mischief is that they feed into deeply embedded American beliefs about democratism and ‘chosenness.’
– Paul Gottfried¹

Americans feeling let down by Barack Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan should take careful note of those who welcomed yet another “surge.”² It might help them to identify the source of their seemingly endless wars.


For instance, in a recent Washington Post opinion piece, William Kristol described Obama’s West Point speech as “encouraging.” It was “a good thing,” he said, that Obama was finally speaking as “a war president.”³

 
But if the comments on the Post website are anything to go by, few ordinary Americans take Kristol’s
armchair warmongering seriously anymore. After all, as one poster quizzically asked, “A column by William Kristol the neocon that was wrong about everything from 2000-2008?”



Although Kristol, like the rest of the neocons, “erred” about Iraq’s WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda and 9/11, it would be a fatal error indeed to dismiss him as a fool.

In order to understand what motivates Bill Kristol’s professed hyper-patriotism, with its consistently disastrous prescriptions, it’s worth recalling how his father, Irving Kristol, reacted to Vietnam War critic Senator George McGovern. The presidential contender’s proposed cut in U.S. military expenditure would, according to the “godfather” of neoconservatism, “drive a knife in the heart of Israel.”

“Jews don’t like big military budgets,” the elder Kristol explained in a Jewish publication in 1973. “But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States … American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”⁴

American Greatness

Following his father’s advice, William Kristol has been a fervent supporter of massive U.S. military spending. In 1996, he co-authored with Robert Kagan an influential neocon manifesto titled “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy.” It recommended that “America should pursue a vision of benevolent hegemony as bold as Reagan’s in the 1980s and wield its authority unabashedly.


“The defense budget should be increased dramatically, citizens should be educated to appreciate the military’s vital work abroad, and moral clarity should direct a foreign policy that puts the heat on dictators and
 authoritarian regimes.”


In response, another influential opinion-maker, Charles Krauthammer, hailed Kristol and Kagan as “the main proponents of what you might call the American greatness school.” It is hardly a coincidence, however, that all three advocates of “American greatness” care passionately about what Irving Kristol euphemistically referred to as “the survival of the state of Israel.” Or that many of those “dictators and authoritarian regimes” just happened to stand in the way of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.


The following year, Kristol and Kagan co-founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a pressure group which sought to advance their “neo-Reaganite” vision. In the late 1990s, they did this mainly by writing letters to Bill Clinton, urging him to oust Saddam Hussein.


In September 2000, PNAC published “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” in which they famously acknowledged that “the process of transformation … is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”


One year later, they got their wished for “new Pearl Harbor” on September 11. The mass murder of almost 3,000 Americans was, as Benjamin Netanyahu indelicately put it, “very good” for Israel.⁵


Kristol’s War


Immediately, Kristol’s Weekly Standard began linking Iraq to the attacks. Writing in The American Conservative, Scott McConnell explained the strategy: “Their rhetoric – which laid down a line from which the magazine would not waver over the next 18 months – was to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in virtually every paragraph, to join them at the hip in the minds of readers.”⁶


The “Saddam must go” campaign, begun in a Kristol and Kagan editorial as far back as 1997, became so relentless that Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen dubbed it “Kristol’s War.”⁷
The Iraq War has, of course, also been called “Wolfowitz’s War.” But it could just as aptly have been named after Perle, Feith, Libby, Zelikow, Lieberman, or any of the other pro-Israeli insiders who took America to war by way of deception.⁸


In “Irving Kristol, RIP,” Antiwar.com editor Justin Raimondo described Kristol’s legacy as “war, war, and yet more war, as far as the eye can see.”⁹


Unless Americans soon realize that they’ve been deceived by those for whom “American greatness” is merely a means to advance “the survival of the state of Israel,” that legacy promises to be an enduring one.

1.  Paul Gottfried, “The Transparent Cabal,” Taki’s Magazine, September 17, 2008. [↩]
2. Frederick W. Kagan, “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” AEI Online, January 5, 2007. [↩]
3. William Kristol, “A War President,” Washington Post, December 1, 2009. [↩]
4. Philip Weiss, “30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views,” Mondoweiss, May 23, 2007. [↩]
5. James Bennet, “Spilled Blood Is Seen as Bond That Draws 2 Nations Closer,” New York Times, September 12, 2001. [↩]
6. Scott McConnell, “The Weekly Standard’s War,” American Conservative, November 21, 2005. [↩]
7. Richard H. Curtiss, “Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol: Using the Press to Advance Israel’s Interests,” Washington Report, June 2003. [↩]
8. Jeff Gates, Guilt By Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War, 2008. [↩]
9. Justin Raimondo, “Irving Kristol, RIP,” Antiwar.com, September 21, 2009. [↩]

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a freelance writer. His work has been published by Al Jazeera Magazine, Antiwar.com, Dissident Voice, Khaleej Times, Palestine Chronicle and many other publications. Read other articles by Maidhc.

This article was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 9:00am and is filed under General, Israel/Palestine.



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Let The Sun Shine In......