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On the collaboration between the Mossad and the Sayanim, review carefully all the relevant PowerPoint slides and write a 100 to 150 word-essay in which you discuss whether or not “The Way Forward” suggested by Jeff Gates is feasible and/or desirable. needed in less than 48 hours from now.(8 pm Thursday EST)
Palestinian Dispossession and Dispersal 1948-2000
Palestine/Israel (4,715,000), Jordan (2,540,000), Lebanon (500,000), Syria (443,000), Saudi Arabia (334,000), Iraq (87,000), Egypt (72,000), Kuwait (35,000), Libya (31,000), Other Arab States (570,000). Source: De Blij, H.J. and Muller, P. O. (2002), Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 10th Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Page 314.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics there are 11.6 million Palestinians at the end of 2012, of whom 4.4 million are in the Palestinian Territory, 1.4 million in Israel, 5.1 million in Arab countries, and around 655,000 in other countries. http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_PalestiniansEOY2012E
Jewish Settlers in Palestine/Israel 1919-1999
About 3,237,000 Jewish settlers/immigrants arrived in Palestine/Israel between 1919 and 1999: Euro-American (71.2%) and Afro-Asian (28.8%). Source: Goldscheider, C. (2002), Israel’s Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development. Colorado: Westview Press. Page 51.
According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s Jewish population at the end of 2012 stands at 5.9 million. http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/palestinians-to-outnumber-jewish-population-by-2020-says-pa-report-1.491122
Geography of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
(1) The gravity of the conflict, (2) Genesis & dynamics of the conflict, (3) U.S. involvement in the conflict, and (4) The role of the Israel lobby in embroiling the U.S. into the conflict
CNN
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Today we have some 5.9 million Jewish settlers or Jewish Israelis who came from over 100 countries and who live in Palestine-Israel. We also have over some 11.6 million Muslim and Christian Palestinians who are the native of Palestine and who live inside and outside Palestine-Israel (many of them living in 59 UN registered Palestinian refugee camps in Palestine-Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon for more than six decades). The Palestinian refugees continue to struggle to return to the homes from which they were expelled or fled in 1948 and thereafter. Israel continues to deny the Palestinian refugees the right to return to their country because they are not Jewish. This is the core of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Review carefully the geography of the Palestinian refugee camps on the UNRWA map (right) online at: http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/20120317153744 and http://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work
The Core of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
“The Israeli Knesset passed The Law for Safeguarding the Rejection of the Right of Return, 2001”—Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), page 244
http://ilanpappe.com/
“No refugee can enter Israel as part of the peace process.”— Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations, 2/16/2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129979
The refugee problem must be solved outside of Israeli borders. Their return goes against the principle of Israel as a Jewish state.—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, BBC, 6/14/2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099757.stm
“It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”—Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969), Sunday Times, 6/15/1969. The Guardian, 6/6/2003 2003Ghada Karmi, “The map must show a way home: The Middle East plan will fail unless it allows the right of return,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,971664,00.html
“What are we doing in the villages that were abandoned… by friends without a battle…? Are we ready to protect these villages so that their residents may return, or do we want to erase all evidence that a village ever existed at the site?—Golda Meyerson (Meir) before the central committee of the Mapai (Land of Israel Workers Party), May 11, 1948. Source: Quoted in The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland, Shlomo Sand, Translated by Geremy Forman, Verso, 2102, page 257.
“I worked with David Ben-Gurion [first prime minister of Israel] and was at his side for eighteen consecutive years, including the War of Independence. Not only was Ben-Gurion against the Arabs leaving Israel, he did everything he could to keep them from departing and prevent them from feeling discriminated against.”– Israeli President Shimon Peres (2008), An Interview with Shimon Peres,” In Israel on Israel, 2008, edited by Michael Korinman and John Laughland, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008, pages 10-14, page 10.
In 1943, US Army Colonel Hoskins warned President Roosevelt against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine
In a 1943 secret memo to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, special envoy to the Middle East US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, warned against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine: “… Not only you as President but the American people as a whole should realize that, if the American government decides to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine… they are committing the American people to the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained.”—-Ben Bradley, “The secret files: Washington, Israel and the Gulf,” videocassette (60 min.), Washington, D.C.: WETA, 1991.
Source: Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association, page 180
“Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’”—Gore Vidal, Quoted in Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, page 27
U.S. President Harry Truman recognized Israel 11 minutes after its proclamation,
but he recognized it as a “provisional” government and a “non-Jewish” state
Palestine Refugees Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Affairs , House of Representative , Eighty-First Congress on Senate Joint Resolution 153
A Joint Resolution for the Authorization of a Contribution by the United States to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Washington, DC, February 16 and 17, 1950
Mr. [John M.] Vorys [House Committee on Foreign Affairs]. Looking at the Path of Immigration it would appear that 800,000 Jews came in , and 750,000 Arabs went out. Would that be a statement, nearly, of the cause and effect?
Mr. [George C.] McGhee [Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs]. No, sir, I do not think you can say there is a direct cause and effect relationship. Of course there was a considerable movement into Palestine, starting in 1919. One might reason that there is an indirect cause and effect.
Mr. Vorys [Ohio]. I have no further questions.
Chairman John Kee [West Virginia]. Mr. Battle?
Mr. [Laurie C.] Battle [Alabama]. I have no further questions.
Chairman Kee . Mr. Merrow?
Mr. [Chester E.] Merrow [New Hampshire]. I have no further questions.
NB: Members of Congress “have no further questions” after this obvious and acknowledged ethnic cleansing.
Sands of Sorrow (1950) Palestinian Arab Refugee Camps Video
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights
December 10, 1948
Article 13:
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
United Nations Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948 Backs the Right of Return for the Palestinians
The UN General Assembly Resolution 194:
11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations.
At the end of 2010, there were 11 million Palestinians in the World:
—4.1 million Palestinians were in the Palestinian Territory (of which 2.5 million were in the West Bank and 1.6 million in Gaza Strip),
—1.4 million in Israel
—5 million in Arab countries
—600 thousand in other countries.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Press Release, http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx?tabID=0&lang=en&ItemID=1603&mid=12235
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The Israeli Law of Return July 5, 1950
1. “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [a Jew immigrating]”
4. Every Jew who has immigrated into this country before the coming into force of this Law, and every Jew who was born in this country, whether before or after the coming into force of this Law, shall be deemed to be a person who has come to this country as an oleh under this Law.
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The Israeli Law of Return (Amendment of 1970)
4A. (a) The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law, 5712-1952***, as well as the rights of an oleh under any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.
4B. For the purposes of this Law, “Jew” means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.”
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The Interior Ministry [of the State of Israel] recently granted citizenship to a non-Jewish gay man married to a Jew, for the first time applying the Law of Return to a spouse in same-sex marriage… The case of Bayardo Alvarez, who is not Jewish, and Joshua Goldberg, both U.S. citizens who married in Canada four years ago, made headlines earlier this year, after the couple threatened to sue the ministry for refusing Alvarez citizenship. According to the Law of Return, every Jew and his or her spouse have the right to immigrate to Israel as citizens, but until the ruling, this had only applied to heterosexual couples… With same-sex marriage being recently being legalized in New York State, the ministry may soon see many more cases like Alvarez’s, according to Rabbi Seth Farber, whose Itim organization helps immigrants.
“There is a significant Jewish homosexual population in New York, many of them very strongly identify with the State of Israel. Haaretz, 9/2/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/ministry-grants-citizenship-to-gay-spouse-of-immigrant-1.382066
Ministry grants citizenship to gay spouse of immigrant
Joshua Goldberg, left, and Bayardo Alvarez in June.
Photo by Tali Mayer
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NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire heads to Israel after discovering Jewish roots
“U.S. Basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire is apparently on his way to Israel for a voyage of discovery after learning he has Jewish roots… According to an Army Radio report, Stoudemire plans to spend time in Israel learning Hebrew, having recently learned he has a Jewish mother”– Reuters, Haaretz, 7/28/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/nba-star-amar-e-stoudemire-heads-to-israel-after-discovering-jewish-roots-1.304552
“Stoudemire seeking Israeli citizenship”, JTA, August 2, 2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/08/02/arts-entertainment/stoudemire-seeks-israeli-citizenship
Israel to ramp up Birthright investment
NEW YORK (JTA) — Israel’s government will more than double its investment in the popular Birthright Israel program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement Thursday night before 3,000 program participants in Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“My government will give more than double its investment in Birthright, and over the next few years we will invest more than $100 million in Birthright,” said Netanyahu, according to the Post. “Together with private donations we can increase the number of people to 50,000 a year.”
Considered one of the most successful initiatives in the Jewish world, Birthright Israel provides free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults aged 18-26. Some 30,000 people participate in the program each year; more than a quarter-million have participated since its inception in 2000.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/06/2742445/israel-to-ramp-up-birthright-investment
Photo by: Reuters, Haaretz, 7/28/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/nba-star-amar-e-stoudemire-heads-to-israel-after-discovering-jewish-roots-1.304552
“All together, 16,465 people around the world moved [as Jewish settlers] to Israel in 2010, 16 per cent higher than the previous year. The number of North American Jews rose from 3,767 in 2009 to 3,980 in 2010”—Jewish Chronicle, 12/29/2010,
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/43060/aliyah-figures-uk-drop
[Israel’s] Cabinet agrees last Ethiopian Jews can move to Israel
The remaining members of the Ethiopian Jewish community are to move to Israel.
After years of wrangling, Israel’s cabinet voted in favour of giving the more than 7,800 Falash Mura Jews citizenship. The Jewish Chronicle,
http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/41254/cabinet-agrees-last-ethiopian-jews-can-move-israel
Vatican memo: Mideast conflict driving Christians out of region
By The Associated Press
Haaretz, 1/20/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143691.html
“A Vatican document released Tuesday [1/19/2010] blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupying of lands for fomenting most of the conflicts in the Middle East, driving Christians out and making life difficult for those who remain.”
“Political conflicts in the region have a direct influence on the lives of Christians, both as citizens and as Christians. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories makes daily life difficult with regard to freedom of movement, the economy and religious life (access to the Holy Places is dependent on military permission which is granted to some and denied to others on security grounds).” SYNOD OF BISHOPS, SPECIAL ASSEMBLY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE EAST: COMMUNION AND WITNESS. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20091208_lineamenta-mo_en.html
President Jimmy Carter describes the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories:
“Utilizing their political and military dominance,” the Israelis “are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories.”
Israel “has 150 nuclear weapons”— President Jimmy Carter, BBC, 5/26/2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7420573.stm
‘Shame on you, democracy,’ Vanunu yells as he returns to prison
Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, released in 2004 after 18 years in prison for leaking Israeli nuclear secrets, began serving an additional 3-month sentence on Sunday for refusing to carry out court-mandated community service… “Shame on you Israel,” he continued. “The stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies are putting me back in prison after 24 years of speaking nothing but the truth… The former nuclear technician had asked to be assigned community duties in Arab-majority East Jerusalem after claiming he risked attack by angry Israelis, many of whom see him as a traitor, in the city’s Jewish-populated west.
Haaretz, 5/23/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/shame-on-you-democracy-vanunu-yells-as-he-returns-to-prison-1.291687
Haaretz Editorial:
“The Security Council’s permanent members this week reiterated an old call to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The Arab states have no nuclear weapons – and when Iraq and Syria started developing them, the Israel Defense Forces attacked them. Therefore, this call is clearly directed at Israel…”, Haaretz, 5/8/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-needs-a-new-nuclear-policy-1.288851
Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons
Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons
…“The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.”
[Bottom right] “The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Photograph: Guardian” The Guardian, 5/24/2010, http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons
In 1961, South African prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd declared to the U.N. General Assembly that “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”-Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, New York: Pantheon Books, 2010, page 241. See photos on pages 82, 91, and 92.
at the Prime Minister’s Residence, Jerusalem, April 11, 1975
Similarities between Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa
Both were founded on exclusive ethnic foundations
Both developed exclusive ethno-national political systems
Both exercised exclusive ‘democracy’ or restricted ‘democracy’ for the ethnic group in power
Both continuously regenerate their respective ideologies—apartheid and Zionism
Membership is based on belonging to the exclusive ethnicity of the Volk, or on being a Jew
Claiming rights to land is based on settlement, biblical texts and historical connections
There is a felt need to have power and control over their own destiny
Both developed national identities in light of past trauma
Both held convictions and/or feelings of superiority (being God’s chosen people, and being culturally superior)
Both political systems developed to become highly centralized, i.e. strong states vis-a-vis their societies
Both cases fit with Gramsci’s argument on state-society and state-civil society relations , where hegemony of the political elite is achieved in a sophisticated manner, leading to voluntary consent
Both systems continue/d to exert almost total control over the moral order of their respective societies
Both political systems developed similar strategies towards the dominated side, adopting policies of discrimination and oppression
Discrimination by law has been widely used (in Israel, discriminatory laws included the ethnic-based citizenship or naturalization law (1952), the law of return (1950) and the state’s arrangements for land distribution (early 1950s). There are many more examples in the South African case, including the Native Act of 1913 for land distribution and the Population Registration Act of 1950
Policies of discrimination against the indigenous people were also translated by enforcing the settler society’s ethnic-national symbols while diminishing those of the natives
Both political systems which represented ethnic-national ideologies (have) also developed into highly militarized ones
Both political systems developed indoctrinated societies both before and after they had come to power in 1948 Education policies and the media contributed heavily to this task. They promoted the national ideological aims of the state, stressed the rightness of self-ethnic goals, prioritized security, de-legitimized the opponent, and projected a positive image and perception of themselves as being simultaneously heroes and victims.
Both political systems also adopted the vision of ‘separation’ as the prime option for reaching a settlement of the existing conflicts with the Other.
The author concludes that Zionist Israel represents another form of apartheid (more sophisticated, more subtle in some aspects, and more vicious)
Amneh Daoud Badran, Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa: Civil Society and Peace Building in Ethnic-National States, New York: Routledge, 2010, p 175-176.
Human Right Watch Report:
Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, December 19, 2010
“Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benefits. While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp – not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes.”—Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external relations at Human Rights Watch.
“This report shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control. The report is based on case studies comparing Israel’s starkly different treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law.”
“The case studies in this report show that discriminatory Israeli policies control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians who live in areas under exclusive Israeli control and that those policies often have no conceivable security justification. For example, Jubbet al-Dhib is a 160-person Palestinian village to the southeast of Bethlehem that is often accessible only by foot because its only connection to a paved road is a rough, 1.5 kilometer-long dirt track. Children from Jubbet al-Dhib must walk to schools in other villages several kilometers away because their own village has no school. Jubbet al-Dhib lacks electricity despite numerous requests to be connected to the Israeli electric grid, which Israeli authorities have rejected; Israeli authorities also rejected an internationally donor-funded project that would have provided the village with solar-powered streetlights. Any meat or milk in the village must be eaten the same day due to lack of refrigeration; residents often resort to eating preserved foods instead. Villagers depend for light on candles, kerosene lanterns, and, when they can afford to fill it with gasoline, a small generator.
Approximately 350 meters away is the Jewish community of Sde Bar. It has a paved access road for its population of around 50 people and is connected to Jerusalem by a new, multimillion dollar highway—the “Lieberman Road”—which bypasses Palestinian cities, towns, and villages like Jubbet al-Dhib. Sde Bar operates a high school, but Jubbet al-Dhib students are ineligible to attend; for Palestinians, settlements are closed military areas that may be entered only with special military permits. Residents of Sde Bar have the amenities common to any Israeli town, such as refrigerators and electric lights, which Jubbet al-Dhib villagers can see from their homes at night.” Human Right Watch Report, December 19, 2010, http://www.hrw.org/node/95061
“Is Judaism a race? Ask Israelis–Can Israeli racism be eliminated through law, trial and punishment, or is it already part of the Israeli identity? The recent demonstrations in Bat Yam, Tel Aviv’s Hatikva Quarter and Zion Square, in Jerusalem, featured a motley medley of paradoxical partners in racist positions: ultra-Orthodox rabbis and “liberal” rabbis standing together against the rental and sale of apartments to Arabs; working-class folk demanding that foreigners be deported; members of the middle class who “fear for our daughters’ welfare” and male chauvinists carrying signs that say “Jewish women for Jewish men.” This demographic array poses an impossible burden on the law: Using legal means to stifle the trend would be tantamount to putting Israeli identity on trial.” Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, 12/26/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/is-judaism-a-race-ask-israelis-1.332977
Supreme Court rejects citizens’ request to change nationality from ‘Jewish’ to ‘Israeli’
Court rules against change in identity card registration, citing that there is no proof of the existence of a uniquely ‘Israeli’ people.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by a group of Israelis to declare that they were members of the Israeli people and to allow them to change the ethnic registration on their identity cards from “Jewish” to “Israeli.”
Haaretz, 10/2/2103, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.550241
“By his own account, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks]’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. policy favoring Israel” page 147
When someone asked why he and Atta [one of the 9/11 highjackers] never laughed, Shehhi [one of the 9/11 highjackers] retorted, “How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine” page 162
The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report
Five Guantánamo detainees claim responsibility for September 11 attacks
The Guardian, 10 March 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/10/guantanamo-detainees-september-11-2001
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hawsawi, say the terrorist killings were a response to US support for Israel
U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feed anti-Americanism
“perceptions of U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feed anti-Americanism. A 2003 Pew Global Attitudes poll found that enormous majorities in Arab and Muslim countries (at least 90% in Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Morocco, and Lebanon) believed the U.S. favors Israel too much. Although our most recent survey did not ask this same question, it did find strongly negative views towards Jews in the Arab world. For example, no respondents in either Lebanon or Jordan had a favorable view of Jews (on the other hand, 91% of Lebanese and 58% of Jordanians had a favorable view of Christians)”–Testimony of Andrew Kohut, United States House of Representatives, International Relations Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations November 10, 2005, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/koh111005
One example of how U.S. Middle East Policy feed anti-Americanism:
1. Congressmen Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a bi-partisan letter urging her and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to veto the upcoming Security Council resolution condemning Israel (110 Democrat and Republican members co-signed the letter), Congressional Documents and Publications, Feb 18, 2011.
2. U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal, CNN, 2/18/11.
3. US Veto on Settlements Undermines International Law, Human Rights Watch, 2/18/11.
4. Israel ‘deeply appreciates’ U.S. veto on UN resolution condemning settlements, Haaretz, 2/19/11.
5. Palestinians plan ‘Day of Rage’ to protest U.S. veto on UN settlement resolution, Haaretz, 2/19/11.
“Not a day goes by — not one — when my colleagues and I do not work hard to defend Israel’s security and legitimacy at the United Nations”—Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, http
://
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/aipac-susan-rice-obama-israel_n_1323398.html
The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers resigned in March 2003 after acknowledging before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that “the gap between who we are and how we wish to be seen, and how we are in fact seen, is frighteningly wide.”
CNN.com, “Bush’s Muslim propaganda chief quits,” March 4, 2003.
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The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem
From 2005 to 2007 Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes made substantial efforts to
(1) increase the public diplomacy budget to nearly $900 million,
(2) energize the government-funded/Arabic language Radio Sawa, Alhurra satellite television, and Hi magazine,
(3) focus on winning the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims for the sake of the war on terrorism, and
(4) spend some time touring key Middle Eastern countries and speaking directly to the people.
CBS News, “Karen Hughes To Leave State Department:,” October 31, 2007.
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, left, joined by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, announces her decision to leave Bush Administration, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007, at the State Department in Washington. (AP)
The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem
Karen Hughes said the Iraq war was usually the second issue that Muslims and Arabs around the world raised with her, after the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Hughes said she advised Mr. Bush and Rice two years ago that U.S. help in ending the six-decade old fight over Israel would probably do more than anything else to improve the U.S. standing worldwide. CBS News 10/31/07, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/31/politics/main3436792.shtml
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
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George Mitchell stepping down as Middle East envoy
Washington (CNN) — Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell is resigning as the Obama administration’s Mideast envoy, a senior U.S. official told CNN Friday.
Mitchell, a former U.S. senator from Maine and prominent American diplomat, has served as President Barack Obama’s point man in the region as the administration has tried to keep Arab-Israeli peace talks on track.
CNN, 5/13/2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/13/mitchell.mideast.envoy/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs , said she was tired of seeing the president presented as a “caricature.”
The New York Times, 10/31/2007
President Bush told the AEI neoconservatives: “You are some of the best brains in our country and my government employs about 20 of you.” …”Employs” is too weak a verb,” wrote James Atlas.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
Israel
USA
Al-Majalla , 4/21/2001, http://www.al-majalla.com/ar/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
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America
Palestine
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Libya
Lebanon
Syria
Sudan
Iran
Islam
Etcetera
Etcetera
Israel
Adapted from Work by Ian Antonio, http://www.creative-holidays-spain.com/painting.html
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
“I know what America is.. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”–Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, “Fibi Netanyahu, In 2001, PM boasted of manipulating Oslo accords,” Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/39692/fibi-netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, when asked what 9/11 would mean for American-Israeli relations, responded: “It’s very good.” Realizing his maladroit gaffe, he then added: “Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy” for Israel from the United States: http://www.counterpunch.org/sugg10252005.html
“The U.S. can no longer afford $725 billion each year for defense, much of it borrowed. Given the poor return on our investment, it’s clear we need another strategy, one free of Zionist goals that advance behind serial conflicts and the debt incurred to fund them. We know what to do. What’s required is the leadership to do it.” Jeff Gates, 12/29/2010, http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/a-commonsense-solar-defense/
“There’s no question in my mind that months before 9/11, some ranking leaders at the top of the government already anticipated this strike scenario, and decided that Iraq would pay the ultimate price if and when this 9/11 style of attack occurred. They were already prepping parts of the Intelligence Community to accept the inevitability of War with Iraq in the aftermath….
In mid June [2001], an Al Qaeda video became public, in which Osama bin Laden announced, “Your brothers in Palestine are waiting for you. It’s time to penetrate America and Israel, and hit them where it hurts the most”—[“U.S. Asset”] Susan Lindauer, Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq , 2010, Made in the USA, Lexington, Kentucky, May 3, 2011, pages 21, 24.
It’s the case of
‘a minnow swallowing a whale’
‘the tail wagging the dog’
“who here is the elephant and who the ant? … when Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House, it will be hard to tell which one is the real leader of the world”—Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 3/4/2012
“only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained”–US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, 1943
Attorney Brian Shaughnessy wrote, “Ms. Lindauer was always competent to stand trial, only the Justice Department wanted to avoid embarrassing revelations from her case”, page vii
*
Islamic world
Israel
USA
alabonline, http://www.alarab.co.uk/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
President Bush Middle East Tour
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
The Israelis
The Americans
The Arabs
“Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden”
“Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden,” Meir Dagan, the chief of Israel’s Mossad spy service, reportedly told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday [6/1/2010]. Ron Kampeas, “Obama and Netanyahu: a few unfortunate incidents, or a clash of worldviews?” JTA, 6/1/2010, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/06/01/2739401/obama-and-netanyahu-a-few-unfortunate-incidents-or-a-clash-of-world-views
“[Mossad chief Meir] Dagan’s remarks to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee two days ago (it was clear he knew they would be published ) to the effect that Israel’s value in the eyes of Washington is declining, and it is increasingly seen as a liability rather than an asset, may indicate that he knows his term will end soon, and he’s not afraid to say things that are unpleasant for Benjamin Netanyahu to hear.” Yossi Melman, “Inside Intel / Is Dagan to blame for the flotilla failure?” Haaretz, 6/3/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/inside-intel-is-dagan-to-blame-for-the-flotilla-failure-1.293879
Palestinians and Israelis killed since 9/29/2000
At least 6,829 Palestinians (including 1,519 children) and 1,104 Israelis (including 129 children) have been killed since September 29, 2000
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Israel and its supporters in the United States depict Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing as “terrorism and aggression” and Israeli military operations as “counter-terrorism and self-defense.” They often depict facts (such as in this slide) as nothing but “Arab” or “Muslim” propaganda
Palestinians and Israelis injured since 9/29/2000
50,742 Palestinians and 9,104 Israelis have been injured since September 29, 2000
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Causes of Deaths of Israeli Soldiers in 2005
Committed Suicide 30
Illness 14
Accidents 26
Terror Incidents 6
Source: Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, Oct. 10, 2005, p. 6.
Note: The paper also reported that since 1992, 459 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide.
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Palestinians and Israelis currently imprisoned
4,900 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel, while 0 Israelis are being held prisoner by Palestinians
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
“Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). As the majority of those detained are male, the number of Palestinians detained forms approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian population in the OPT.”
A classified report by the Israel Bar Association obtained by Haaretz provides a glimpse into the harrowing conditions prisoners separated from the main jail population must endure. According to the document, which is the first external review of the Prison Service, the isolation wings at the Ayalon and Shikma prisons are not fit for human habitation and “look more like a dungeon,” while most solitary cells in prisons across the country are “crammed, rancid with smells of sewer and mold, and infested with insects.” “It’s difficult to ignore the feeling that isolation as practiced today serves a function of punishment rather than imprisonment,” wrote the authors of the report, Michael Atia – chairman of the prison service committee at the Israel Bar Association, and Moran Kabalo – chief of criminal law for the IBA… The report noted that prolonged stay isolated from the general prison population has profound psychological impacts. “Many isolated inmates testified to have developed paranoia, a tendency for uncontrollable fits of rage, and eyesight problems because of the lack of natural light through most hours of the day,” the lawyers wrote…The report provides a rare insight into life in isolation wings. “Most such cells are windowless and are lit by cold fluorescent lights,” the report says. “The meals are brought on trays and are inserted through a latch that is shut immediately afterwards, to prevent poisoning.” Haaretz, 12/27/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/groundbreaking-report-details-israel-s-inhumane-conditions-for-isolated-prisoners-1.333107
‘Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers’
As many as 90% of Palestinian prisoners are denied this basic right despite civilian and military legislation, says study produced by Public Committee Against Torture and Palestinian Prisoners’ Society. Haaretz, 12/28/2010,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/shin-bet-tortures-prisoners-and-denies-access-to-lawyers-1.333450
Palestinian and Israeli homes demolished
27,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel and 0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians since 1967
In addition to the homes demolished by Israel, thousands of Palestinian homes have been destroyed or significantly damaged by Israeli bombing and shelling. Perhaps over 20,000 in the Dec 2008/Jan 2009 assault on Gaza
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
B’Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Caterpillar , the Peoria, Illinois-based corporation, is Israel’s primary supplier of bulldozers
On the 16 March, 2003, 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer, while she stood between the Israeli bulldozer and a to-be-demolished Palestinian house
Palestinians and Israelis killed in Gaza Strip 12/27/2008-1/18/2009
As of 1/31/2009, Israeli air/land/sea raids on the blockaded Gaza Strip (12/27/2008-1/18/2009) killed 1,380 Palestinians, of whom 431 are children. The number of injuries stands at 5,380, of whom 1,872 are children.
Three Israelis have been killed and 183 injured by rocket and mortar fire outside the Gaza Strip. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed and 340 wounded.
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Palestinian children
Israeli children
“The Jordanian suicide bomber who killed several CIA agents in Afghanistan last week fooled Amman’s intelligence agency into believing that he was a reliable informant spying on the al-Qaeda leadership.
But Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was a triple-agent leading an extraordinary life on the front line of America’s war against militant Islam. An investigation by The Times has revealed that the trainee doctor became an open and public supporter of al-Qaeda, secretly pretended to work for Jordanian intelligence but ultimately sacrificed his life for the cause of jihad.
On December 30 al-Balawi infiltra-ted Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistan border. He detonated explosives strapped to his body and killed seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, Ali bin Zaid, an army captain and distant cousin of King Abdullah II. The Hashemite monarch, his wife, and other Royal Family members attended bin Zaid’s funeral on Friday.”
Jordanian suicide bomber who killed CIA agents ‘was triple agent’
TimesOnline, 1/6/2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6977047.ece
Al-Balawi practised medicine at this UN clinic in the Hittin Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan
He vowed to “take up arms, and to wear an explosive belt, to avenge the killing of children and women in the Gaza War”.
Israel’s Estimated Costs of the 3-Week Gaza War 12/27/2008-1/18/2009
“War costs take into account ammunition, reserves soldiers’ salaries, direct and indirect damage to towns and property, losses to businesses, and more. Total costs of the war are roughly estimated at 5.5 billion shekels ($1.43 billion).”
Source: Israel National News, 1/19/2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129502
Gaza economic losses estimated at 1.9 billion dollars
Preliminary estimates by Dr. Loai Shabana (the head of the Palestinian central bureau of statistics) indicated that the Israeli assault led to the complete and partial destruction of over 14 percent of the 147,437 buildings and facilities in the Gaza Strip [that would be over 20,600 buildings and facilities]
Source: The Palestinian Information Center, 1/19/2009
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7y2gM99H%2bLE0HpdGNrBjOgAeW6NbBC2iKkBjQoXWjiHsgesZ0cEJxP3zBHHGB2UByaXglnhD%2bqM%2fLFQbqNWUNgNYklve5lKRuN1rv00VyPYY%3d
Gaza Strip
Population: 1.5 million
Area: 360 sq km
Population density: 4,166/sq km
Unemployment rate: 41.3%
Land boundaries: Israel 51 km
Egypt 11 km
Mediterranean coastline: 40 km
Refugee Registered
Camps Refugees
Jabalia 106,691
Beach 78,768
Nuseirat 57,120
Bureij 28,770
Deir al-Balah 19,534
Maghazi 22,226
Khan Younis 63,219
Rafah 95,187
Source: UN (May 2005) and CIA (July 2008)
The map shows the main areas attacked in the three weeks of violence, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7812136.stm
Impunity for War Crimes in Gaza and Southern Israel a Recipe for Further Civilian Suffering, 2 July 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702
‘Most Cast Lead damage not repaired‘–UNDP: Small-scale repairs done using rubble, smuggled materials. As an eight-ship ‘Freedom Flotilla’ began to make its way from various Mediterranean ports toward Gaza Sunday morning, a UN agency said about three-quarters of the damage inflicted by Operation Cast Lead more than a year ago had not been repaired. Israel continues to bar construction material from entering Hamas-ruled Gaza as part of an overall blockade of the territory. The UN Development Program (UNDP) said in a report Sunday that Gazans have carried out small-scale repairs worth $173 million with recycled rubble or material smuggled through border tunnels. Jerusalem Post, 5/23/2010, http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=176184
Israel rejects Qatar bid to restore diplomatic ties
In exchange for renewed ties, Qatar demanded it be allowed to carry out a series of reconstruction projects in Gaza. Israel has rejected two proposals from Qatar to restore diplomatic relations and let Israel reopen its office in the capital of Doha. A senior source in Jerusalem said that in return for renewed diplomatic relations, the Qataris demanded that they be allowed to carry out a series of reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip and to import the necessary construction materials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were unwilling to agree to this, he said. Haaretz, 5/18/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-rejects-qatar-bid-to-restore-diplomatic-ties-1.290866
A woman and a child made homeless after the destruction of their home, Gaza, January 2009
© Amnesty International
“Israeli forces killed hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of homes in Gaza in attacks which breached the laws of war, Amnesty International concluded in a new report published on Thursday. Operation ‘Cast Lead’: 22 days of death and destruction, is the first comprehensive report to be published on the conflict, which took place earlier this year.”
Rights group: IDF killed Gazans waving ‘white flags’ during war
Haaretz, 8/13/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1107286.html
“Human Rights Watch called on Israel on Thursday [8/13/2009] to investigate seven incidents in which it said Israeli troops shot and killed Palestinian civilians who were flying white flags during the war in the Gaza Strip in January.”
UN urges Israel to investigate alleged torture
“Israel should investigate the secret detention facility known as 1391, halt punitive housing demolitions, investigate Operation Cast Lead and improve its treatment of security detainees, the United Nations Committee Against Torture said on Friday [5/15/2009] in Geneva.”
Jerusalem Post, 5/17/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1242212388431 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/UN_Calls_on_Israel_to_Reveal_Secret_Torture_Center.html
Sweden denies Israel request to condemn IDF organ harvest article
The Associated Press and Haaretz Service, 8/20/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109008.html
“Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has rejected Israeli calls for an official condemnation of a recent article by a top Swedish newspaper that alleged that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had asked Bildt to print a a state rebuttal to the piece, which was published earlier this week in Sweden’s top newspaper Aftonbladet. Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan was expected to make a similar request during a meeting Friday with Sweden’s Deputy Foreign Minister.”
Police smash Israeli organ-trafficking ring–A retired army brigadier general is among six suspects arrested by Israeli police investigating an organ-trafficking ring, police say. The organisation offered as much as $100,000 (£65,600) for kidneys, which were transplanted by doctors in poor countries, a sting operation uncovered. Police said they had been “shocked” by the extent of the smuggling ring. Retired Gen Meir Zamir, arrested in connection with the trafficking, won a medal of valour in the Yom Kippur War. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8608053.stm
Israeli Organ Harvesting–Last week Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years. Worse yet, some of the information reported in the article suggests that in some instances Palestinians may have been captured with this macabre purpose in mind. http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html
The organ harvesting controversy: Did Sweden fumble or Israel overreact?
JTA, August 24, 2009, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/24/1007429/did-israel-overreact-in-swedish-newspaper-controversy
“A Swedish newspaper is pushing forward with its far-fetched claims that the Israeli army harvested body organs from Palestinians. But for many Israel watchers the debate has shifted to whether the Swedish government fumbled the controversy or the Israeli government went overboard with its incensed reaction.”
“Our sons are plundered of their organs”
aftonbladet, 8/26/2009 http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5691805.ab
“Palestinians accuse the Israel Defense Forces of taking organs from their victims.
Donald Boström writes about an international organ trafficking scandal – and about the time he saw the cut-up dead body of a nineteen-year old Palestinian.
You could call me a ”matchmaker”, said Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, USA, in a secret recording with an FBI-agent whom he believed to be a client. Ten days later, at the end of July this year, Rosenbaum was arrested and a vast, Sopranos-like, imbroglio of money-laundering and illegal organ-trade was revealed in New Jersey: Rabbis, politicians and trusted civil servants had for years bin involved in money laundering and illegal organ-trade.
Rosenbaum’s matchmaking had nothing to do with romance. It was all about buying and selling kidneys from Israel on the black market. Rosenbaum says that he buys the kidneys for 10 000 dollars, from poor people. He then proceeds to sell the organs to desperate patients in the States for 160 000 dollars.
The accusations have shaken the American transplantation business. If they are true it means that organ trafficking is documented for the first time in the US, experts tell the New Jersey Real-Time News………………..”
Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19, was shot and taken away by Israeli soldiers. The body was returned stitched together from the belly to the neck.
Foto: Donald Boström
U.S. Congress members to EU: Condemn IDF organ harvesting article
Haaretz, 9/4/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112191.html
“Members of the U.S. Congress on Friday urged European foreign ministers to denounce an article published in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.”
Jenny Tonge stripped of Lords role
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has sacked controversial peer Jenny Tonge as the party’s health spokesperson in the Lords over her demands for an investigation into allegations of body parts harvesting by the Israeli Defence force in Haiti. The Jewish Chronicle, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/27160/jenny-tonge-stripped-lords-role
Israeli doctors, patients accused of involvement in trafficking kidneys
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 24, 2013
Israeli doctors, patients accused of involvement in trafficking kidneys
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An international organ trafficking ring that sold kidneys to patients in Israel and Eastern Europe was broken up by Costa Rica police and Interpol.
The ring also worked with Israeli doctors who have not yet been named, according to Haaretz. Israel’s Health Ministry denied any knowledge of the organ trafficking ring.
The Costa Rican Attorney General’s Office said last week that Israeli doctors had performed kidney-removal operations on some Costa Ricans who sold their organs, according to Haaretz.
Israeli patients have paid up to $20,000 for a black market kidney.
UN rights body adopts Goldstone Gaza Report
Haaretz, 10/16/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121610.html
The UN Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed a Gaza report that accused both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas of committing war crimes in their December-January conflict.
In a special session, 25 of the body’s members voted in favor of the resolution that chastised Israel for failing to cooperate with the UN mission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone [who is Jewish]. Another 6 voted against and 11 abstained.
U.S. Senate unanimously calls on U.N. to rescind Goldstone
Haaretz, 4/15/2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/04/15/3086892/senate-unanimously-calls-for-goldstone-rescinsion
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report… Similar legislation is now circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike the non-binding Senate resolution, those bills would tie U.N. funding to rescinsion of the Goldstone report”.
ISRAEL RATIONS PALESTINIANS TO TRICKLE OF WATER
Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies…
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]. ..
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water. Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent. The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River. While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much. In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations. Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater. In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools. Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million. In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza. ….“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera. Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.
Source: Amnesty International, 10/27/2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027
Viva Palestina Aid Convoy to Gaza moves on in 2010
Jan 1 2010: A delegation of Religious Orthodox Jews who joined British MP George Galloway in another Viva Palestina convoy to deliver aid to the citizens of Gaza report on their journey into Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Palestine. http://www.nkusa.org/
“Neturei Karta [a group of Orthodox Jews who refused to recognize Israel] is always committed to voice the traditional Religious Jewish opposition to the philosophy of Zionism and the existence of the state of “Israel”. According to the Torah teachings, Jews are in exile by divine decree. They are forbidden to leave exile and create their own state by physical means. Secondly, Jewish law forbids Jews to rebel against any other nations. Jews are required to be loyal citizens in the countries in which they reside. Hence, the state of “Israel” is forbidden.” http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20080123.cfm
Amnesty: U.S., Europe shielding Israel over Gaza war crimes
In its annual report, the rights group accuses Israel of continually violating human rights in Gaza with its ongoing economic siege.
Amnesty International complained in its annual report released Thursday that the U.S. and members of the European Union had obstructed international justice by using their positions on the UN Security Council to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes allegedly committed during last year’s Gaza war.
The rights group also accused Israel of continually violating human rights in the Gaza Strip. It cited Israel’s ongoing economic blockade as violating international law, leaving Gaza residents without adequate food or water supplies . Haaretz, 5/27/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/amnesty-u-s-europe-shielding-israel-over-gaza-war-crimes-1.292505
‘Israel is a Lunatic State’ – Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack
A cloud of smoke billows over Gaza after an Israel Defense Forces strike during the 2009 war.
Photo by: AP / Archive
Examples of Systematic Bias and Distorted Media Coverage of the Palestine-Israel Conflict in the United States
In the next 3 slides, compare and contrast:
Children’s Deaths Reported and Omitted in Headline or First Paragraph by The New York Times, First Year of Intifada 9/29/2000-9/28/2001
Percentage of Deaths Reported by ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news, First Year of Intifada 9/29/2000-9/28/2001
Percentage of Children’s Deaths Reported in Headline or First Paragraph by Associated Press newswire, 2004
Source: If Americans Knew
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
We’re being molded by our information environment
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains [2010], Nicholas Carr argues that we are losing our capacity for concentration and contemplation because of the impact of the Internet on our cognition. He stresses that the technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally REROUTE our neural pathways. He concludes that “we’re being molded by our new information environment” and “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (page 224)
CNN “The Situation Room”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer
News program and politics
Monday-Friday 5-7 pm ET, Saturday 6-7 pm ET http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room
/
In his book Myths and Facts 1978: A Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Wolf Blitzer wrote:
“Myth: Arabs were displaced by Jewish settlements. Fact: British inquiry showed that these complaints were groundless.” page 8.
Wolf Blitzer: From AIPAC Lobbyist to CNN’s Chief News Anchor
Reel Bad Arabs:
How Hollywood Vilifies a People
Mark Green and Wendy Campbell noted that since Ashkanazi Jewish immigrants created Hollywood’s studio system nearly a century ago, “business there still retains a Yiddish accent.” For example, Hollywood distribution moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein brothers did elect to distribute Michael Moore’s “much ballyhooed” Fahrenheit 9/11 because the film “actually managed to sidestep mentioning Israel, Zionism or neoconservatism throughout the entire film!”…. Michael Medved was quoted saying “It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. … Any Martian monitoring American television … would view Seinfeld, Friends, The Nanny, Northern Exposure, Mad About You, and other shows and be surprised to learn that fewer than 1 in 40 Americans is Jewish.” –Mark Green and Wendy Campbell, “What about Mel? Hollywood’s Passionate Attachment,” In Mark Green, ed., Persecution, Privilege & Power: Reconsidering the Zionist Narrative in American Life, Thirty Essential Articles on the Most Pressing Issue of our Time, 2007, pp 93-100, page 93, 98. Edmund Connelly, “The Jews of Prime Time,” In Mark Green, ed., Persecution, Privilege & Power: Reconsidering the Zionist Narrative in American Life, Thirty Essential Articles on the Most Pressing Issue of our Time, 2007, pp 101-126, page 101.
See the video/book “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.”
“Reel Bad Arabs takes a devastating tour of the American cinematic landscape, moving from the earliest days of silent film to today’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters to reveal an astonishing and persistent pattern of slanderous Arab stereotyping. Featuring acclaimed author and Hollywood film consultant Dr. Jack Shaheen, the documentary exposes American cinema’s long love affair with Arab villainy and buffoonery, from over-sexed Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheiks and blood-thirsty terrorists.”
Journalists and Diplomats Under Fire For Israel-Related Remarks
Helen Thomas: Bitter end for ‘dean’ of press corps
She is the only reporter to have had her name engraved on a chair in the White House press briefing room.
But after five decades of covering the White House, Helen Thomas, 89, retired under a cloud on Monday – caught on camera saying Israeli Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany, Poland and America.
BBC, 6/8/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10260512.stm
CNN sacks editor over Muslim cleric Twitter remark:
CNN has sacked a veteran Middle East editor after she wrote on Twitter that she “respected” a late senior Lebanese cleric said to have inspired Hezbollah.
BBC, 7/8/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10549106.stm
UK envoy’s praise for Lebanon cleric draws Israel anger:
Israel has criticised Britain’s ambassador to Lebanon for eulogising a recently deceased Lebanese cleric said to have inspired Hezbollah. Frances Guy wrote on her personal blog that Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was a “decent man” who rated among the people she most admired [“When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person”–Frances Guy, British ambassador to Lebanon]…The UK foreign office says it has taken down the blog after “mature consideration”.
BBC, 7/9/2010,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10572025.stm
CNN sacks Sanchez after dig at Jews
CNN fired anchorman Rick Sanchez after he suggested that Jews run the news business
WASHINGTON (JTA) — CNN fired anchorman Rick Sanchez after he suggested that Jews run the news business.
Sanchez made his remarks in a freewheeling exchange Sept. 30 with Pete Dominick, a Latino stand-up comedian and radio show host who is friends with Jon Stewart, the faux-news Comedy Central star who has made Sanchez’ robust style the butt of many jokes.
Sanchez, a native of Cuba, alleged that Stewart singled him out because of white bigotry.
Dominick pushed back, saying that Stewart, because he is Jewish, is himself a member of a minority.
“I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah,” he said.
On Oct. 1, Sanchez’s 3 p.m. broadcast did not appear. At 6 p.m., in a short statement, CNN said he no longer worked for the network.
JTA, October 2, 2010 , http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/02/2741092/cnn-sacks-sanchez-after-dig-at-jews
Israelis file $1.2 billion suit against Al Jazeera
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 13, 2010, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/07/13/2740039/israelis-sue-al-jazeera
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A group of Israelis has filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Al Jazeera news network.
Ninety-one Israeli plaintiffs, civilians who were injured during the monthlong 2006 Second Lebanon War or are relatives of victims, are charging in their suit that the Qatar-based network’s war coverage was designed to help Hezbollah. Al Jazeera has offices in New York.
The suit filed Monday in Manhattan Federal Court says that Al Jazeera, in violation of the Israeli military censorship rules, reported during live coverage the location of missile strikes on Israel, enabling Hezbollah to better aim ensuing missiles.
Israeli President Shimon Peres meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., as Peres launches his official page on the social networking site, March 6, 2012. (Moshe Milner/GPO/FLASH90)
Facebook IPO: Good for the Jews?
“…On the eve of Facebook’s initial public offering, scheduled for Friday, Jews — like everyone else — are still figuring out how Facebook can serve their personal or professional needs.
What started out in a college dorm room in 2003 as a way for Harvard students to rate women’s comparative “hotness” (it was then called Facemash.com) has morphed into a medium for more than 900 million people worldwide to communicate with each other, rally support or opposition, publicize news, make money, flirt and fulminate in ways both profound and mundane about the million and one things happening at any given moment…”
By Uriel Heilman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 15, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/05/15/3095541/facebook-ipo-good-for-the-jews
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/latuff-criticism-of-Israel1
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/HelenThomas
UK paper posts anti-Israel cartoon on Holocaust day [2013]–On Holocaust Memorial Day,’Sunday Times’ publishes cartoon depicting PM paving wall with Palestinian blood. http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld
/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=301128
Sunday Times apologizes for offensive editorial cartoon of Netanyahu–JERUSALEM (JTA)– The Sunday Times of London apologized for publishing an editorial cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall on the bodies of Palestinians and using their blood as cement.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/03/3118626/sunday-times-apologizes-for-offensive-editorial-cartoon
Sunday Times publishes editorial apologizing for Netanyahu cartoon–http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/sunday-times-publishes-editorial-apologizing-for-netanyahu-cartoon-1.501213
UK MP apologizes for Jews and Holocaust remark–http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=301028
Obama urges world to resist hate, persecution–http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=301111
http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=21
“Will cementing peace continue?”
Israeli “skunk” fouls West Bank protests
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/03/us-israel-palestinians-skunk-idUSBRE88208W20120903
(Reuters) – Imagine taking a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer, placing it in a blender and spraying the filthy liquid in your face. Your gag reflex goes off the charts and you can’t escape, because the nauseating stench persists for days.
This is “skunk”, a fearsome but non-lethal tool in Israel’s arsenal of weapons for crowd control. It comes in armored tanker trucks fitted with a cannon that can spray a jet of stinking fluid over crowds who know how to cope with plain old tear gas.
While the army calls skunk an attempt to minimize casualties, rights groups dismiss it as a fig-leaf for the use of deadlier force against protesters in the occupied West Bank.
IDF legal adviser: Detention of 5-year-old Palestinian boy was legitimate
The Israel Defense Forces’ detention of a five-year-old Palestinian boy in Hebron earlier this month was a legitimate step in order to “thwart the threat posed by the activities of a minor,” the IDF’s legal adviser in the West Bank has ruled. Haaretz, July 31, 2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.538995
An IDF PR disaster in Hebron in detainment of 5-year-old
The Jewish Question
of integration (assimilation) versus separation (Zionism*) continues to persist despite:
Over 100 years of Jewish emancipation in Europe
Nearly 100 years of Jewish emancipation in Russia
Over 100 of effective Jewish lobbying in America
Over 60 years of Jewish statehood in the Arab world
*Zionism refers more specifically to the international colonial movement designed to make Palestine an extraterritorial nation-state for world Jewry.
The Jewish Question continues to haunt and preoccupy the Jews themselves, the Europeans, the Russians, the Arabs
and the Americans
Jewish integration
Jewish separation
Jewish assimilation
Jewish emigration
Anti-Semitism
The State of Israel
The Israel lobby
The “American Jewish Question”
Editorial Page Editor Saul Singer carefully reported that an American Jewish Committee panel “distilled” what he called the “Jewish predicament” or the “American Jewish Question” in these terms:
“We as a people remain ensconced in exile like a bug trapped in sap and may not survive if we cannot extricate ourselves”—Saul Singer
The Jerusalem Post (5/12/2006) and The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California (5/19/2006)
‘Up, Up and Away’ for North American Jews
American and Canadian Jews resumed their annual one-way trek to Israel Wednesday morning, with 232 new immigrants arriving on the first of nearly a dozen flights that will bring 2,500 Jews to their new home this summer [2010]. IsraelNationalNews.com, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138476
The Essence of the Jewish Question
Integration versus separation
Israel defines itself as the Jewish State
Israel defines itself as the State of the Jews
Israel regards itself as the work of the whole Jewish people
Israel speaks and acts on behalf of world Jewry
Israel considers itself the center of Jewish loyalty
Israel treats its friends and enemies on behalf of the Jews
Israel prosecutes Nazis & collects reparations on behalf of Jews
Israel gets tremendous support from world Jewry
Israel imports Jews from almost all countries around the world
Israel’s Law of “Return” is taken for granted by most Jews
Israel relies heavily on Jewish foreign lobbies and sayanim
Israel does not consider its non-Jewish citizens as nationals
Israel is designed specifically for Jews living in it and in other countries
Think critically about how one can/should talk about the State of Israel without talking about the Jews or without being open to the charge of anti-Semitism
Currently there is a political debate about ‘granting’ all the Jews in the world the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Haaretz, 7/10/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/moshe-kantor-s-house-of-lords-1.238607
Where does ‘Russian’ tycoon Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor’s loyalty really lie?
Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor:
Is President of the European Jewish Congress
Is President of the Russian Jewish Congress
Is President of Russia’s largest fertilizer company (Acron agrochemical company)
Is President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation
Is Chairman of the European Jewish Fund
Is Co-Chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation
Holds Israeli citizenship and splits his time between Israel and Switzerland
Holds Honorary Doctorate from Tel-Aviv University
Compares his position in Russia to Joseph’s in Egypt & Esther’s in Persia
Grant Slater, “Kantor: European Jewry has bigger problems than Russian Jewry,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2/12/2009, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/12/1002981/russian-jewry-chief-stepping-down-to-focus-on-europes-woes
President [Kantor]’s Page, European Jewish Congress, 1/16/2009, http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/section.php?id_rubrique=97
Amiram Barkat, “Putin ally is frontrunner to head European Jewish Congress ,” Haaretz, 6/23/2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873804.html
The Essence of the Jewish Question
Integration versus separation
The Israeli Knesset enacted the Zionist Organization Status Law (5 December 1952) which declares that “The State of Israel regards itself as the work of the whole Jewish people…Under this law, the job of the State of Israel and the Zionist movement “calls for continuous efforts by the Jewish people in the countries of the Diaspora.”–David Ben-Gurion, Israel: a personal history, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1971, page 409.
David Ben Gurion wrote: “I believe that every Jew belongs to the Jewish people, and only to the Jewish people.”…“the moral greatness of Zionism in Germany and the other countries of Western Europe lay in the fact that by the force of the Zionist ideology it succeeded in uprooting many Jews from the German, French, or Italian worlds in which they had been immersed since the Emancipation.” –David Ben Gurion, “Zionism and Pseudo-Zionism,” in Carol Diament, ed., Zionism: The Sequel, New York: Hadessa, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., 1998, pp. 45-49, pages 46-47.
Geographies of Ashkenazi Jews
“Ashkenazim are descended from the medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland who migrated eastward to areas that became Poland, Hungary, Russia and Eastern Europe. Ashkenazi Jews make up approximately 85% of American Jews. Often applicable as a broad ethnicity, Ashkenazim became moneylenders in the 12th and 13th centuries for secular rulers. By the 1700s and 1800s, Poland was the center of Ashkenazi Jewry though many Polish Jews fled to Amsterdam and Germany. By the end of the 19th century, Jews immigrated to other areas of Europe, Australia, South Africa and the United States. After World War II, the U.S. became the primary home for Ashkenazi Jews”—Nathan Ausubel, Pictorial History of the Jewish People (New York: Crown Publishers, 1953), quoted and referenced in Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (Santa Barbara, CA: State Street Publications, 2008), pages xxiv and 195.
Some polls indicate that 82 to 85 percent of American Jews support Israel
According to a poll commissioned by The Israel Project (a pro-Israel public advocacy group) and conducted by pollster Frank Luntz, among the 800 American Jews that took part in the survey, 82% said they support Israel—Jerusalem Post, 1 December 2005.
According to a survey, commissioned by Stand for Israel, a project of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, polled 1200 Americans, with an oversampling of Jews and Evangelicals, and found that 85 percent of Jews expressed support for Israel, as did 62 percent of “conservative church-going Christians“—-Carl Schrag, “American Jews and Evangelical Christians: Anatomy of a Changing Relationship,” Jewish Political Studies Review 17:1-2 (Spring 2005)
According to Reuven Firestone, “most observant Jews now support Zionism and the State of Israel with great enthusiasm… the Orthodox see the secular Zionists as unknowingly doing God’s will by beginning the process of ultimate redemption”—- Reuven Firestone, Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims, A publication of the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding of the American Jewish Committee in association with Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 2001, page 141.
Europe’s Jews get a political lobby
THE JERUSALEM POST, 10/18/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694829571&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
BRUSSELS – Europe once had 80 to 90 percent of the world’s Jews, until the 20th century’s calamities brutally cut that figure down to the current estimate of 10%. Two very different societies – Israel and the United States – have replaced Europe as home of the major centers of Jewish life.
But Europe’s Jews are apparently no longer satisfied with accepting this verdict of history. They are increasingly organized and increasingly vocal. And now they have a lobby.
The inauguration in Brussels of a new branch office of the European Jewish Congress last week marks a dramatic development in European Jewish political activism, believes EJC president Moshe Kantor.
“In Europe we see both too much tolerance” – for example, toward the Iranian regime’s genocidal ambitions – “and too little” when it comes to Europe’s religious and ethnic minorities, Kantor says.
The office in Brussels will be charged with “triggering important processes in legislation, legal issues and research to advance tolerance. The goal is not to talk about tolerance, but to [engage] in a wide spectrum of real action,” he adds.
According to Raya Kalenova, the director of the new office, it will also focus on “educating against anti-Semitism and for reconciliation between the three great monotheistic religions.”
The message of the new Jewish presence in the heartland of European government “is that Europe’s Jews are European citizens with European values,” Kalenova explains.
The opening of the Brussels office on Wednesday seemed to suggest the organization already possessed the ability to reach the highest echelons of European politics. In attendance at the celebratory cocktail reception and dinner were Europe’s most senior officials, including European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Commission Vice President for Justice, Freedom and Security Jacques Barrot, and some 50 MEPs.
Israel also sent a high-ranking representative, in the person of National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau.
According to observers, however, it is too early to tell whether the new office will be influential or significant.
A comparison with the United States may be instructive, some argued. Mainstream American Jewish organizations maintain lobbies in Washington, but rarely are they influential if they don’t represent the broad consensus of American Jews.
Among the most powerful of the Jewish advocacy lobbies is the Washington office of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is focused almost exclusively on making US tax policy favorable to charitable giving. This is because American Jewish life does not exist outside its non-profit institutions, which include all its synagogues, schools, old-age homes and charities.
Also in keeping with the wide consensus of the American Jewish community, Jewish groups in Washington have been instrumental in developing civil rights legislation and in advocating in broad terms for American support for Israeli security. But they shy away from dealing with issues that lack an overwhelming Jewish consensus, such as the Afghan deployment, sex education or international trade policy.
What, one might ask, are the consensus issues of European Jewry?
Asked about the European Jewish “constituency,” Yossi Lempkowicz, founder of the European Jewish Press, a pan-European news agency based in Belgium, noted that it is not easy to pin down such issues of consensus.
“Europe’s Jews are citizens of Europe,” he says. “They care about many different issues as Europeans,” not in clearly defined Jewish blocs.
“For example, there is disagreement on the question of the expansion of Europe, or on [the rights of states to limit the wearing of] the Muslim veil,” he says.
Furthermore, domestic issues affecting the daily life of Europe’s Jews – taxation, law enforcement, regulations on religious life – are not handled at the European level, but in each country’s national institutions.
An even greater obstacle to European Jews’ ability to conduct political advocacy is their extreme diversity. One may fairly ask if Jewish Latvians, Belgians and Italians can really share an overarching agenda that can be represented in pan-European institutions.
In a sense, this question of a Jewish agenda for Europe is a microcosm of the larger question of European identity.
What does it mean to be “European?” asked one attendee at the reception. Is this an authentic popular identity or, as some complain, an invention by activist bureaucrats?
Another layer of complexity lies in the EJC’s own structure, which is also the umbrella for many communities outside the EU, including Russia, Macedonia and Norway. Can EJC Brussels have a position on EU-Russian energy spats? Or can it oppose Russia’s Iran policy within EU institutions without harming the political situation of the Russian Jewish organizations ostensibly represented in the Brussels office?
All these issues will have to be resolved in the new office’s first months of operation. It is not likely to be an easy task, and there are no guarantees of success.
Yet, according to many participants, the mere existence of the new office is a telling symbol of a nascent European Jewish consciousness that is emerging alongside the development of a broader European identity.
New European Jewish parliament riles existing European Jewish leaders
BERLIN (JTA) — A new European Jewish parliament is set to open in Brussels this week, the brainchild of two businessmen philanthropists on a mission to shake up the status quo.
Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich, the Ukrainian Jewish moguls behind the body, founded the European Jewish Union last spring and will fete their new parliament in ceremonies at the EU Parliament on Thursday. According to their invitation, 120 Jewish members of parliament have been chosen by 403,810 voters from all over Europe.
But who are these representatives? And what exactly will they do? That remains a mystery.
Among the candidates in the elections were soccer star David Beckham, filmmaker Roman Polanski, comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen and fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg, as well as other famous and less-famous European Jews — many of whom never expressed an interest in running and didn’t know anything about the planned parliament.
Toby Axelrod, “New European Jewish parliament riles existing European Jewish leaders,” JTA, February 14, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/02/14/3091671/new-european-jewish-parliament-riles-existing-european-jewish-leaders
European Jewish Parliament Convenes for Second Day: European Parliament Holds Panel Discussions
May 17, 2012
In the command center of pan-European politics, the European Jewish Parliament convened for a second day… At the European Parliament, panel discussions were held on the economic crisis in Europe and its impact on extremism, populism and anti-semitism… Dr. Antonyia Parvanova, a member of the European Parliament from Bulgaria, moderated… Parvanova says she and her colleagues are aware that baseless hatred for Jews is rearing its ugly head again in violent acts, in anti-Israeli sentiment and in politics…
Igor Kolomoisky, the President of the European Jewish Union, was the guiding light behind the first-ever Parliament for Jews and forging ties with other European leaders is one of its priorities. The European Jewish Parliament was modeled in some ways after the European Parliament. Its members are elected osein contrast to how other Jewish leaders in Europe are chosen which is usually by those inside existing organizations. The European Jewish Parliament hopes its system can attract young, unaffiliated Jews with fresh ideas.
A Jewish woman from Washington joined the EJP’s meetings…but she’s not an American working for President Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney…Her boss is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain… Hoodah Nunu is the Bahraini Ambassador to the US, a Jewish woman who represents her Muslim country. EJP members also expressed hope that they can help build bridges between Jews and Muslims wherever they clash. Nunu’s colleague — the Bahraini Ambassador to the EU — attended the panel discussions. Tomorrow these new Jewish reps of Europe will head back to their home countries after two days of sharing ideas, solutions and meeting like-minded politicians.
Jordana Miller, JN1, Brussels
Historical Background:
Theological and commercial interest in European Jews began to emerge with the Reformation and Mercantilism
The Protestants were interested in the Jews
as ammunition against the Catholics
as leaders of the interest-based economy
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
Theological and commercial interest in European Jews began to emerge with the Reformation and Mercantilism
Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly writings
Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of the Jews
The quasi-Judaization of the Puritans
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
German Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly pamphlet:
“That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew”
1523
“I will cite from Scripture the reasons that move me to believe that Christ was a Jew born of a virgin, that I might perhaps also win some Jews to the Christian faith… Accordingly, I beg my dear papists, should they be growing weary of denouncing me as a heretic, to seize the opportunity of denouncing me as a Jew.”
Source: Luther, Martin., The Christian in Society II, ed. Walther Sherman.Vol. 45 of Luther’s Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1971, pp. 200-201.
English-Dutch trade wars and Cromwell’s invitation of Amsterdam Jewish merchants (1650s)
Oliver Cromwell invited Amsterdam Jewish merchants to London in order to strengthen England in its trade war against Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, whose Jewish communities were known for their wealth, commercial skills, and business contacts abroad.
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
French Zionism & Napoleon’s Attempt to Estrange the Jews from their European & Ottoman Rulers
French National Assembly boosted Jewish emancipation (12/24/1789)
Napoleon Bonaparte’s Jewish “Proclamation” promised Palestine to the Jews (1799)
Emperor Napoleon I summoned representatives to the Jewish Great Sanhedrin in Paris (1807)
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
In reaction to Napoleon’s Great Sanhedrin in Paris (1807), the British established the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (1809)
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
The British reinvented Napoleon’s Zionist idea and linked the Eastern Question and the Jewish Question
“That which Napoleon designed in his violence and ambition, thinking “to destroy nations not a few,” we may wisely and legitimately undertake for the maintenance of our Empire”
Alexander Crawford Lindsay (Lord Lindsay), “Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land,” The Quarterly Review 125 (Dec.):166–92, 1838, pages 188-190.
Britain Stations a Vice-Consul in Jerusalem (1838)
“…his residence will be fixed at Jerusalem, but his jurisdiction will extend to the whole country within the ancient limits of the Holy Land; he is thus accredited, as it were, to the former kingdom of David and the Twelve Tribes.”—Quarterly Review of 1838
“The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain”
“The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and oil-olive is now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land. Capital and skill are alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them [the Jews] from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine” Alexander Crawford Lindsay (Lord Lindsay), “Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land,” The Quarterly Review 125 (Dec.):166–92, 1838, pages 188-190.
British Zionism opposed assimilation and preached separation for the Jews
An article in The Times of 24 January 1839 attacked the idea of assimilation and naturalization (“amalgamation”) of the Jews, of whom Numbers 23:9 says: “the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”
In 1972, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared that in her view when a Jew marries a non-Jewess he joins the six million victims of Nazism–Shlomo Sand, Comment le people juif fut inventé, Paris: Fayard, 2008, page 402.
Jewish assimilation is referred to in today’s Israeli media as “la bombe a retardement de l’assimilation” [the time-bomb of assimilation] Sand, p 402
The London Memorandum on the Restoration of the Jews (1839)
The Memorandum “urges upon the consideration of the powers addressed what may be the probable line of duty on the part of Protestant Christendom to the Jewish people in the present controversy in the East.”
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
British Colonel Charles Churchill’s letter to Moses Montefiore and Western Jewry (1841)
“MY DEAR SIR MOSES…I cannot conceal from you my most anxious desire to see your countrymen endeavour once more to resume their existence as a people. I consider the object to be perfectly attainable. But, two things are indispensably necessary. Firstly, that the Jews will themselves take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, that the European Powers will aid them in their views. It is for the Jews to make a commencement. Let the principal persons of their community place themselves at the head of the movement. Let them meet, concert and petition. In fact the agitation must be simultaneously throughout Europe.
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2
[British] Lieutenant-Colonel Gawler’s Tranquilization of Syria and the East: Observations and practical suggestions, in furtherance of the establishment of Jewish Colonies in Palestine, the most sober and sensible remedy for the miseries of Asiatic Turkey
(1845)
“Reduced to its practical form the question [of the tranquillization of Syria] becomes one of colonization [of Palestine]. THERE is a fertile country, nine-tenths of which lies desolate. ELSEWHERE, are civilized men, for whom it is desired to make of that almost forsaken country, an established home. For successful colonization three things are, in the highest degree, indispensable. The probability of SAFE SETTLEMENT in the colony—the facility of TRANSIT to it—and the will, or the obligation to embrace these opportunities. … On any other principle, the will of the proposed settler would be wanting. No members of the Jewish persuasion, worth sending to Palestine, would accept the boon so tauntingly proffered. We cannot, if we would, force them into colonization as convicts, under the moving agency of compulsory obligation, and must therefore carefully consult their feelings as well as our own desires”
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.p
Thomas Clarke’s India and Palestine: or, the Restoration of the Jews, viewed in relation to the nearest route to India (1861)
Thomas Clarke attempted to prove that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine “was not only a Prophetical but Political necessity.” With such a project, “England need have no fear of her darling Indian possessions.” Like his Zionist predecessors, he believed that planting Jews in Palestine would be inexpensive for the British, would serve British imperial interests, and would deny access to Britain’s rival powers.
Source: T. Clarke, India and Palestine, or the Restoration of the Jews viewed in Relation to the Nearest Route to India: In two parts, with a map, Manchester: William Bremner & CO., 11, Market Street; London: F. Pitman, 20 Paternoster Row, 1861, pages 1-2.
The Zionist novel Daniel Deronda (1876)
By George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans)
Daniel Deronda tries to pull out the “Semite” Jew from the “German” and the “Sclave” of Europe as one pulls a hair out of dough. This novel raised awareness about a new racial realignment and could indeed be viewed as another major milestone on the road to the anti-Jewish “agitation” of the late nineteenth century in Europe and Russia
The Jews Did Not Invent Zionism. Rather Zionism Invented the Jews
“During the Reformation and mercantilist era, Protestants were interested in the Jews as ammunition against the Catholics and as leaders of the interest-based rising capitalist sector. Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly writings in 1523, Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of the Jews to England in 1655, and the quasi-Judaization of the Puritans are graphic examples. With the Industrial Revolution and the European Enlightenment, Napoleon boosted the emancipation
of the Jews in an attempt to estrange them from their European and Ottoman rulers as part of his unsuccessful plans to destroy the power of England and Russia and dominate Europe. After Napoleon, the British articulated a complex set of imperialist and religious motives designed to make the Eastern Question fit the Jewish Question. Obviously all of this took place before the alleged founder of Zionism (Theodor Herzl) was born in 1860, as well as before anti-Semitism was encouraged as a propelling machine for Zionism.”
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.p
*
Geography of Russia’s Jews by Provinces and Regions in 1897
Provinces and Regions Jewish Population Percent of Total Population
Grodno Province 276,874 17.28
Kovno 212,230 13.71
Minsk 338,657 15.77
Mohilev 201,301 11.92
Vilna 205,261 12.80
Vitebsk 175,678 11.80
Kiev 427,863 12.03
Podolia 306,597 12.15
Poltava 111,417 4.02
Tchernigov 114,630 4.99
Volhynia 397,772 13.31
Bessarabia 225,637 11.65
Ekatrinoslav 100,736 4.77
Kherson 337,282 12.32
Tauride 66,125 4.57
Kalisz 72,339 8.59
Kielce 82,427 10.82
Lomza 90,912 15.69
Lublin 153,728 13.26
Piotrkow 222,299 15.83
Plock 50,473 9.13
Radom 113,277 13.89
Siedle 122,370 15.84
Suwalki 58,808 10.09
Warsaw 349,943 18.12
Caucasus Region 58,471 0.63
Siberia Region 34,477 0.60
Central Asia Region 12,729 0.16
Other Provinces/Regions 269,088
All Provinces/Regions 5,189,401 4.13
Source: Compiled from: Jewish Colonization Association, Recueil de matériaux sur la situation économique des Israélites de Russie, d’après l’enquête de la Jewish Colonization Association, Tome II: La Grande Industrie, Misère et Bienfaisance, Instruction, Paris: F. Alcan, 1908, Appendice, Tableau 1, 2, 3, and Carte (Note: the names of some provinces retain their French spelling). See also Jewish Colonization Association, Recueil de matériaux sur la situation économique des Israélites de Russie, d’après l’enquête de la Jewish Colonization Association, Tome I: Introduction, Agriculture, Artisans et Manoeuvres, Paris: F. Alcan, 1908, pages 21-23.
In 1917
the British government promised Palestine for world Jewry
*
The following are two DIFFERENT versions of the Balfour Declaration through which the British government promised Palestine for world Jewry. This British promise was expressed in a letter (dated November 2, 1917) by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leading member a Jewish banking family in London.
Find out the difference between the two versions and try to explain to yourself why it took a year for the British government to decide that the left column version of the declaration should be adopted.
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of the National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Soviet Government Plans Jewish Republic in Siberia, Kalenin Says
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 3, 1923,
http://archive.jta.org/article/1926/08/16/2762918/soviet-government-plans-jewish-republic-in-siberia-kalenin-says
The establishment of a Jewish republic in Siberia, under the auspices of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, is the latest plan of the Soviet Government, according to an article published in the New York “Herald-Tribune” by Elias Tobenkin, American Jewish writer and author of the novel “The God of Might”, who spent five months in Soviet Russia as correspondent for the “Herald-Tribune.”
Mr. Tobenkin reproduces in his article an interview with Michael Kalenin, President of the Soviet Republic, on this matter.
“‘I would like to see a Jewish republic established in Russia, in Siberia. It need not be a very big republic–half a million people would do. Nor need the whole of this half million population be exclusively landworkers. Such a Jewish republic could very well consist of a combination of peasants, with home artisans and skilled mechanics,’ Kalenin stated….
“The President of the Soviet Republic at this point found himself discussing Zionism. M. Kalenin did not seem familiar with the word ‘Palestine’ and regularly substituted the word ‘Mesopotamia’ for it.
“‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that there is a movement on foot in certain countries of Europe and in America to settle Jews on land in Mesopotamia [Palestine]. Of course, we are not going to hinder any one who wishes to leave the country to expatriate himself. But it is an insult to us to say that Jews need to go away from Russia to engage in agriculture or in any other pursuit. There is not the slightest juridical discrimination among nationalities in our country. There is not a trace of a Jewish question in law or in fact anywhere in the Soviet Union.‘… “The Jews, by reason of their not being permitted to take root in the soil, had, before the revolution, a merchant class running up to 42 per cent of the total Jewish inhabitants in Russia. The revolution, with its ban on private trade, left this class economically helpless…”‘It is the plan of the Jewish spokesmen in Soviet Russia to give their people a natural footing in the country by converting 20 per cent of the Jewish population into farmers.”
Soviet Joseph Stalin’s Promised Homeland for the Jews (1928)
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Original names and countries of the new* children of Abraham
Israeli Name O. Name O. Country Top Services to the State of Israel
David Ben-Gurion Grün Poland Prime Minister 1948-53 & 1955-63
Moshe Sharett Shertok Ukraine Prime Minister 1954-55
Levi Eshkol Shkolnik Ukraine Prime Minister 1963-69
Golda Meir Mabovitch Ukraine Prime Minister 1969-74
Yitzhak Rabin Rubitzov Ukraine Prime Minister 1974-77 & 1992-95
Menachem Begin Begin Belarus Prime Minister 1977-83
Yitzhak Shamir Yzernitzky Poland Prime Minister 1983-84 & 1992-95
Benjamin Netanyahu Milikowsky Lithuania Prime Minister 1996-99/2009-present
Ehud Barak Brug Belarus Prime Minister 1999-01
Ariel Sharon Sheinerman Belarus Prime Minister 2001-06
Ehud Olmert Olmert Ukraine Prime Minister 2006-2009
Chaim Weizmann Weizmann Belarus President 1949-52
Itzhak Ben-Zvi Shimshelevitz Ukraine President 1952-63
Zalman Shazar Rubashov Belarus President 1963-73
Yitzhak Navon Navon Spain President 1978-83
Chaim Herzog Herzog Poland President 1983-93
Ezer Weizman Weizman Belarus President 1993-00
Moshe Katsav Qassab Iran President 2000-07
Shimon Peres Perski Belarus President 2007-present
Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Personalities: The Presidents of the State of Israel and The Prime Ministers of the State of Israel,” 19 August 2006, http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa. A couple of the biographies were updated from the website of Wikepedia Free Encyclopedia, 11 February 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org
*The “Semitic” ancestry and inheritance claimed by Zionism and Israel in the name of contemporary Jews have been rejected and exposed by many scholars, including (1) Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage; (2) British archaeologist Michael Rice in his book False Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution, (3) Tel Aviv University Professor Paul Wexler in his four books (a) The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity, (b) The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, (c) Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect; (d) Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of “Jewish” Languages, and (4) Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand in his book Comment le peuple juif fut inventé: de la Bible au sionisme. Indeed the „Semitic‟ claim is essentially used to justify the dispossession, displacement, and impersonation of the native Muslim/Christian/Arab Palestinians by Jewish settlers in one of the most blatant and arrogant form of ethnic identity theft. See The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Jews, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/NSOCJ.PDF
“You can’t build a cultural heritage on a lie”
Hebrew University Professor of History Yehoshua Porath was quoted: “You can’t build a cultural heritage on a lie. Because when young people discover the truth, they can become cynical”
Fletcher E R (1995) ‘New’ Israeli History Gets Reviewed in the U.S. Press. Middle East Labor Bulletin (Spring):16
Quand le peuple juif fut-il créé ? Est-ce il y a quatre mille ans, ou bien sous la plume d’historiens juifs du XIXe siècle qui ont reconstitué rétrospectivement un peuple imaginé afin de façonner une nation future ? Dans le sillage de la « contre-histoire » née en Israël dans les année 1990, Shlomo Sand nous entraîne dans une plongée à travers l’histoire « de longue durée » des juifs. Les habitants de la Judée furent-ils exilés après la destruction du Second Temple, en l’an 70 de l’ère chrétienne, ou bien s’agit-il ici d’un mythe chrétien qui aurait infiltré la tradition juive ? Et, si les paysans des temps anciens n’ont pas été exilés, que sont-ils devenus L’auteur montre surtout comment, à partir du XIXe siècle, le temps biblique a commencé à être considéré par les premiers sionistes comme le temps historique, celui de la naissance d’une nation. Ce détour par le passé conduit l’historien à un questionnement beaucoup plus contemporain : à l’heure où certains biologistes israéliens cherchent encore à démontrer que les juifs forment un peuple doté d’un ADN spécifique, que cache aujourd’hui le concept d’« État juif », et pourquoi cette entité n’a-t-elle pas réussi jusqu’à maintenant à se constituer en une république appartenant à l’ensemble de ses citoyens, quelle que soit leur religion ? En dénonçant cette dérogation profonde au principe sur lequel se fonde toute démocratie moderne, Shlomo Sand délaisse le débat historiographique pour proposer une critique de la politique identitaire de son pays. Construit sur une analyse d’une grande originalité et pleine d’audace, cet ouvrage foisonnant aborde des questions qui touchent autant à l’origine historique des juifs qu’au statut civique des Israéliens. Paru au printemps 2008 en Israël, il y est très rapidement devenu un best-seller et donne encore lieu à des débats orageux.
Né en 1946, Shlomo Sand a fait ses études d’histoire à l’université de Tel-Aviv et à l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales à Paris. Depuis 1985, il enseigne l’histoire contemporaine à l’université de Tel-Aviv. Les Mots et la terre (Fayard, 2006), est son dernier ouvrage publié en français.
“Israeli wins French prize for book questioning origins of Jewish people” Haaretz, 3/12/2009
Professor Shlomo Sand, the Tel Aviv University history professor and author of a controversial book on the genetic origins of the Jews, received the Aujourd’hui Award (a top critics prize from French journalists), which is given to the best non-fiction political or historical work
Sand’s book “How Was the Jewish People Invented” deals with questions that remain taboo in Israeli society, among them the ancestral origins of the Jewish people and the genetic lineage shared with modern-day Israelis.
The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland
Following the acclaimed and controversial Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest running national struggle of the twentieth-century. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of ‘historical right’ and tracks the invention of the modern geopolitical concept of the ‘Land of Israel’ by nineteenth century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also what is threatening the existence of the Jewish state today. Amazon.com
The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Jews
The “Semitic” ancestry and “inheritance” claimed by Zionism and Israel in the name of contemporary Jews have been questioned, rejected, and exposed by many scholars, including:
Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage
Egyptian writer Abd Errahman Shakir in his book Dawlat al-Khazar al-jadidah aw Isra’il (The New Khazar State Or Israel)
British archaeologist Michael Rice in his book False Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution
Tel Aviv University Professor Paul Wexler in his four books (a) The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity, (b) The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, (c) Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect; (d) Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of “Jewish” Languages
Lebanese writer Farajullah Salih Deeb in his two books (a) Ettawrat Elarabiya wa Urshleem Elyemeniya (The Arabic Tawrah and the Yemenite Jerusalem) and (b) Kithbat Essamiya wa Haqiqat Elfiniqiya (The Semitic Lie and the Phoenician Truth)
American University of Beirut Professor Kamal Salibi in his book The Bible Came from Arabia
Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand in his two books: Comment le peuple juif fut inventé: de la Bible au sionisme (How Was the Jewish People Invented), and The Invention of the Land of Israel
The “Semitic” claim was essentially invented and used to ultimately ‘justify’ the dispossession, displacement, and impersonation of the native Muslim/Christian/Arab Palestinians by Jewish settlers in one of the most blatant and arrogant form of ethnic identity theft.
See also “The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Jews” manuscript: http://faculty.indstate.edu/melyassini/NSOCJ.PDF
The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Hebrew
“Eight conclusions follow from this study:
Modern Hebrew is a Slavic language.
Language revival is an impossibility.
The Ashkenazic Jews have a tradition of cyclical partial language shift.
The diglossic relationship between Yiddish and Yiddish whole Hebrew both resembled and differed from other instances of diglossia in Europe
Modern Hebrew is a fusion language in the sense that its Hebrew lexicon comes from two genetic stocks: Semitic and Slavic
The external history of a language provides indispensable clues for the interpretation of the internal history of a language.
The role of children in the development of Modern Hebrew differs from that in other speech communities.
The partial language shift from Yiddish lexicon (of all etymological components, including many hebraisms-aramaisms) to Biblical /Mishnaic Hebrew lexicon has altered the position of Yiddish within the Sprachbund of European languages.”
Paul Wexler, The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990, page 99.
Israeli scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi observed: “Israel looks like a place that more often than not replicates the Diaspora malaise through a pervasive feeling of existential insecurity. If Diaspora Jews were insecure, tense and nervous, being in their own homeland was supposed to cure all that. Today, Israelis are recognized as being an extremely tense people, leading a nervous existence. Tourists in Israel note the nervousness of Israelis and the serenity of Arabs, as do Israelis themselves. Most Jews in the world today are still subject to the Jewish condition, and their existence is still abnormal. The Israeli condition, offered as an alternative, is still abnormal, and likely to remain that way. In reaching for its main goal of creating a normal nation-state for the Jewish people, Zionism faced two major political problems. The first was that of redefining and creating the Jews. The second was that of removing the natives of Palestine, so that a new nation-state could be created there. The problem of the natives has led to colonialism and to permanent war” page 213.
“Israel is now a [world] problem and a trap as the Israeli question is heir to the Jewish question.” page 220.
“Justifications for the injustice involved in Zionism have been many and varied. Sometimes what we get are excuses, not justifications. The excuses, which are encountered often enough in our daily lives, usually take the following forms:
Denial— “I didn’t do it.”
Reduction— “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Yes, but …” Page 167
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993)
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)
by
Israeli historian and
political scientist
Ilan Pappe
http://ilanpappe.com/
Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe describes and documents the planning and execution of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by 11 Jewish settlers sitting in a room beneath Marxist-style posters that carried slogans such as ‘Brothers in Arms:’
“In this building [the Red House in the Jewish settlement of Tel-Aviv], on a cold Wednesday afternoon, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan [Plan Dalet] for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
“The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued with its own list of villages and neighbourhoods as the targets of this master plan.”
“The Faculty Club of Tel-Aviv University is called the Green House. Originally this was the house of the mukhtar of the village of Shaykh Muwannis, but you would never be able to tell that if you were ever invited there to have dinner, or to take part in a workshop on the history of the country or even on the city of Tel-Aviv itself. The menu card of the Faculty Club’s restaurant mentions that the place was built in the nineteenth century and used to belong to a rich man called ‘Shaykh Munis’ –a fictious and faceless person imagined in a fitious, placeless location, as are all the other ‘faceless’ people who once lived in the destroyed village of shaykh Muwannis, on whose ruins Tel-Aviv University built its campus. In other words, the Green House is the epitome of the denial of the Zionists’ master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was finalized not far away along the beach, in Yarkon Street, on the third floor of the Red House. Had the campus of Tel-Aviv University been dedicated to proper academic research, you would have thought that its economists, for example, would have assessed by now the extent of the Palestinian properties lost in the 1948 destruction, providing and inventory that could enable future negotiatiors to start working towards peace and reconciliation.” p. 257
Stages of Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims and Christians from Palestine by Jewish Settlers:
1948 war: (1) creation of Israel, (2) the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from 13 cities and 600 villages (i.e.., Deir Yassin massacre 4/9-11/1948), and (3) the birth of Palestinian refugees
1967 war: (1) Israel occupied all of Palestine and (2) continued the ethnic cleansing
After 1967: the Israeli government and Jewish settlers built settlements in the conquered territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip & continued the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians through (1) eviction, (2) expropriation, (3) border closures, (4) abuse at checkpoints, (5) house demolitions, (6) olive tree uprooting, (7) sanctions, (8) assassination of military and political activists, (9) large military operations (in the West Bank in 4/3-11/2002 and in the Gaza Strip in 12/27/2008-1/17/2009); (10) mass arrests, (11) walls of separation, (12) discriminatory legislation, (13) denial of right to return, and (14) other mean means (see the headline story below):
3,000 trees to be planted in Israel to memorialize Newtown victims: NEW YORK (JTA) – More than 2,000 people have donated funds to plant a grove of more than 3,000 trees in Israel in memory of the victims of the Newtown shooting… The idea for the Newtown grove grew from a request made by Veronique Pozner, whose son, Noah, was the only Jewish victim of the shooting at the Connecticut school. –Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 31, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/12/31/3115736/3000-trees-to-be-planted-in-israel-to-memorialize-newtown-victims
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Arab-Israeli Wars and other conflicts have cost the Middle East trillions of dollars
Six major Arab-Israeli wars
1948
1956
1967
1973
1982
2006
A January 2009 study by India’s Strategic Foresight Group concluded that 20 years of conflict has cost the Middle East $12 trillion.
Reuters, 1/23/2009, http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLN69708120090123
Top Left: President Clinton appears to pause while drinking from a cup with an Israeli flag printed on it–Al-Majalla Magazine’s cover-page photo, 11/2000
Top Right: President Bush offers chocolates wrapped in Israeli flags to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon during their meeting at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, 4/11/2005, Palestine Report, http://www.palestinereport.ps/article.php?article=733 4/11/2005,, http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/04/bush-and-sharon.html
“Why Do They Hate Us?” President George W. Bush
“It is critical that we send a message around the world we will stand with Israel, we want them around not just for 60 years, but for 600 years. ” — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (CNN.com, 5/8/2008)
أوباما يصلي أمام ما يسميه اليهود حائط المبكى في القدس المحتلة
“Obama prays facing what the Jews call the Wailing Wall in occupied Jerusalem” Aljazeera.net, 7/21/1429 AH
“a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.” President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796
“For these reasons America does not like us”
“[Israel is] the most cruel and racist regime… Wasn’t the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies”? —Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, UN anti-racism conference, Geneva, Switzerland, 4/20/2009
“Palestine is Arab” were the final words of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein
“We swore that America wouldn’t live in security until we live it truly in Palestine” —Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden “So [you believers], say, ‘We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to Him’” Quran 2:136
“Let him [Bush] tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example”— Bin Laden
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Presidential candidate John McCain views the Iraq war in light of Israel’s security
“If you believe that the State of Israel will be more secure if the United States fails in Iraq, you and I have a disagreement.” —
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (JTA, 10/30/2007) in Jerusalem
“The threats to Israel’s security are large and growing and America’s commitment must grow as well.”–McCain, Haaretz, 10/29/2008 http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1032258.html
Google, http://www.ccun.org/images/2008/July/24%20p/john%20mccain%20at%20the%20Western%20Wall%2019mar8ap
“I am a Zionist …You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist” —Biden, Shalom TV, 3/27/2007
Vice President Joseph Biden was a Senator from Delaware for 36 years—The White House
Senator Biden speaks his mind and makes no gaffe
“With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel.”–Vice President Joseph Biden, 5/5/2009 http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SpeechesByPolicymakers/VicePresidentBidenPC09
“There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security, and for that reason and many others addressing Iran’s nuclear program has been one of our administration’s priorities” –Vice President Joseph Biden, 3/9/2010, JTA, http://jta.org/news/article/2010/03/09/1010996/biden-no-space-between-us-israel
UN votes for new sanctions on Iran over nuclear issue
The UN Security Council has voted in favour of fresh sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. The council voted 12 to two, with one abstention, in favour of a fourth round of sanctions, including tighter finance curbs and an expanded arms embargo. US President Barack Obama said the sanctions were an unmistakable message on stopping the spread of nuclear arms. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the sanctions should be thrown in the dustbin like a “used handkerchief”. The US and its allies fear Iran is secretly trying to build a nuclear bomb, but Tehran insists its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use. BBC, 6/9/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10276276.stm
Israel Makes Case to China for Iran Sanctions
“JERUSALEM — During the many months China has wavered over whether to join the American-led effort to impose sanctions on Iran, Israeli officials have been waging their own quiet campaign to convince the Chinese that Iran should be punished for its renegade nuclear program… ‘The Chinese didn’t seem too surprised by the evidence we showed them, but they really sat up in their chairs when we described what a pre-emptive attack would do to the region and on oil supplies they have come to depend on, said an Israeli official with knowledge of the meeting and who asked for anonymity so as not to upset his Chinese counterparts… Israel’s outsized allure also stemmed from China’s regard for the country’s military prowess and a deeply held affection for Karl Marx and Albert Einstein, cornerstones of a Chinese fascination with Jews.” The New York Times, 6/8/2010
“They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not like”
“So we will mercilessly, viciously, effectively attack and destroy all kinds of symptoms. When the rubble has settled and the dust is gone, the disease is still going to be out there untouched. Because we don’t want to look at why, why it is that all of these people hate us. It’s not because of freedom. It’s not because Britney Spears has a belly button or because we export hamburgers. They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not like.” —Edward Peck, former chief of mission at the American embassy in Iraq, former ambassador to Mauritania, deputy director of covert intelligence programs at the State Department and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan Administration, in a CNN interview on October 11, 2001.
Leonard Fein, “If We Judge a Man by His Words,” Forward, New York, 4/4/2008 (Vol. 111, Iss. 31699; pg. 14, 1 pgs).
“Hillary Clinton kissing Suha Arafat [wife of Palestinian President Arafat], a November 1999 political mistake that she recovered from”
Source: Wikipedia, 3/20/2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_New_York%2C_2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hillaryandsuha
Hillary Clinton’s rival defends handshake with Arafat
NEW YORK (AP) — First the kiss, now the handshake. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rival for New York’s open senate seat found himself under fire after a photograph of him shaking Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s hand two years ago resurfaced. he photograph, which appeared in Sunday’s New York Post, was taken by a White House photographer in 1998 when Rep. Rick Lazio visited the Mideast with President Clinton and other U.S. officials. Source: CNN, 9/11/2000, http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/11/lazio.arafat.ap/
The flashpoint in the area of foreign policy in the New York Senate race can be summed up in one word: Israel
Rick Lazio and Hillary Rodham Clinton disagree more sharply about other foreign-policy issues – such as whether the United States should be isolationist or try to be the world’s policeman – but the Mideast, and the quest for the Jewish vote, has gotten most of the attention. New York Post, 10/31/2000, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_UufpsL70tsPX9r8UBXCOxO
Lazio’s controversial handshake with Arafat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/923248.stm
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton bears witness to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s deep commitment to Israel
“And let me be very clear: I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel. I know that Senator Obama shares my view that the next president must be ready to say to the world: America’s position is unchanging, our resolve unyielding, our stance nonnegotiable. The United States stands with Israel, now and forever.” —Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (AIPA Conference, 6/4/2008)
“Haim Saban, who’s a friend, a colleague, a mentor, an inspiration to so many of us here tonight. He certainly has always challenged me to make the most of America’s place in the world and especially our close friendship with Israel… President Obama and I stood before the international community and supported Israel’s right to defend itself from a threat no country would tolerate. The Iron Dome system – invented by Israel, underwritten by America – knocked rockets out of the sky like never before.” U.S. Secretary of State, November 30, 2012, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/11/201343.htm
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton —The White House
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton visits the Western Wall—11/14/2005, http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/no-kisses-for-suha-as-hillary-condemns.html
EXCERPTS from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speech to AIPAC Policy Conference 2010
“Given the shared challenges we face, the relationship between the United States and Israel has never been more important. The United States has long recognized that a strong and secure Israel is vital to our own strategic interests. We know that the forces that threaten Israel also threatened the United States. And we firmly believe that when we strengthen Israel’s security, we strengthen America’s security.”
“We know that to make progress in this region, there must be no gap between the United States and Israel on security. And there will not be. For President Obama, for me, and for this entire administration, our commitment to Israel’s security and Israel’s future is rock solid.”
“Guaranteeing Israel’s security is more than a policy position for me. It is a personal commitment that will never waiver.”
“This administration will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.”
“The Iranian leadership funds and arms terrorists who have murdered Americans and Israelis alike.
“The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
“Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite.”
“We will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring these weapons.”
“It is true that heightened security measures have reduced the number of suicide bombings”
“Hizballah has amazed tens of thousands of rockets on Israel’s northern border. Hamas has a substantial number in Gaza.”
“Our message to Hamas is clear: renounce violence, recognize Israel, and abide by previous signed agreements. And I will repeat today what I have said many times before: Gilad Shalit must be released immediately and reunited with his family.”
“A comprehensive peace that is real and not a slogan, that is rooted in genuine recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and that offers the best way to ensure Israel’s enduring survival and well-being.”
Regarding Israel’s Arab neighbors and the peace process, “their rhetoric must now be backed up by action.”
“We commend Prime Minister Netanyahu for embracing the vision of the two-state solution and for acting to lift road-blocks and east movement throughout the West Bank.”
“From addressing climate change and energy to hunger, poverty and disease, Israel has so much to offer. Look at the spread of high-tech start-ups, the influx of venture capital, the number of Nobel laureates.”
AIPAC, http://www.aipac.org/PC2010/webPlayer/mon_clinton10.asp
EXCERPTS from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speech to AIPAC Policy Conference 2010
And let me assure you, as I have assured you on previous occasions with large groups like this and small intimate settings, for President Obama and for me, and for this entire Administration, our commitment to Israel’s security and Israel’s future is rock solid, unwavering, enduring, and forever. (Applause.)
And why is that? Why is that? Is it because AIPAC can put 7,500 people into a room in the Convention Center? I don’t think so. Is it because some of the most active Americans in politics and who care about our government also care about Israel? That’s not the explanation. Our countries and our peoples are bound together by our shared values of freedom, equality, democracy, the right to live free from fear, and our common aspirations for a future of peace, security and prosperity, where we can see our children and our children’s children, should we be so lucky – and as a future mother of the bride [emphasis added], I’m certainly hoping for that – (applause) – to see those children, those generations come of age in peace, with the opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potentials.
Americans honor Israel as a homeland for a people too long oppressed and a democracy that has had to defend itself at every turn, a dream nurtured for generations and made real by men and women who refused to bow to the toughest of odds. In Israel’s story, we see our own. We see, in fact, the story of all people who struggle for freedom and the right to chart their own destinies.
That’s why it took President Harry Truman only 11 minutes to recognize the new nation of Israel – (applause) – and ever since, our two countries have stood in solidarity. So guaranteeing Israel’s security is more than a policy position for me; it is a personal commitment that will never waver. (Applause.). AIPAC, http://www.aipac.org/PC2010/webPlayer/mon_clinton10.asp
It’s official – Chelsea Clinton to wed Jewish boyfriend
By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press, 12/1/2009
“Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of America’s most powerful political couple will soon wed a “member of the tribe,” according to various media reports.
Clinton is set to marry her Jewish boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, ABC News reported on Monday.
Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met Mezvinsky when both were teenagers in Washington, according to reports. They also both attended Stanford University in California.”
“It is critical that we send a message around the world we will stand with Israel, we want them around not just for 60 years, but for 600 years. And when I am president of the United States they will have an unwavering ally in me.” — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (CNN.com, 5/8/2008)
“I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.”––Abner Mikva, former Congressman, Federal Judge, and White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton, Pauline Dubkin Yearwood , “Obama and the Jews,” Chicago Jewish News, 10/24/2008, http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
“I’ve got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate”—President Obama, Haaretz, 7/10/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-israelis-suspicious-of-me-because-my-middle-name-is-hussein-1.300793
“Obama to pick Jew for Supreme Court”–Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
“U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday picked Jacob Lew, an Orthodox Jew, as the new White House budget chief”–Haaretz, 7/13/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/obama-nominates-jacob-lew-for-white-house-budget-chief-post-1.301772
أوباما يصلي أمام ما يسميه اليهود حائط المبكى في القدس المحتلة
“Obama prays facing what the Jews call the Wailing Wall in occupied Jerusalem” [my translation]–Aljazeera.net, 7/21/1429 AH هـ
“Let me be clear. Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable.”— Presidential candidate Obama, 6/4/2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/27/obama.aipac/index.html
“Obama pushes ahead with plan to rejuvenate black-Jewish alliance”—JTA, January 13, 2009, http://www.jta.org/2009/01/13/news-opinion/politics/obama-pushes-ahead-with-plan-to-rejuvenate-black-jewish-alliance
“Jews made him. Wherever you look, there is a Jewish presence” – Chicago Jewish News , 10/24/2008
http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
“I first became familiar with the story of Israel when I was 11 years old”– Obama, NPR, 6/4/2008
“Close to 70 percent of American Jews who voted in the 2012 presidential election cast their ballots for Barack Obama, an expression of the resiliency of the black-Jewish alliance”—Forward, 1/25/2013, http://forward.com/articles/169571/dr-kings-memory-and-the-jewish-conscience/
*
“Obama to pick Jew for Supreme Court” By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/10/2010 , The Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
[If confirmed] She would be the third Jewish justice along with six Catholics. With [Justice John Paul] Stevens’ retirement, the court will have no Protestants, the most prevalent denomination in the US. The Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
Photo by: Associated Press
U.S. political commentator Pat Buchanan on the campaign trail in 1999.
Photo by: Elise Amendola
Pat Buchanan suggests: Too many Jews on U.S. Supreme Court bench
American conservative political commentator decries Obama nomination of Elena Kagan, laments absence of Protestants in Supreme Court.
Haaretz, 5/16/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/pat-buchanan-suggests-too-many-jews-on-u-s-supreme-court-bench-1.290692
“The evidence points to a purely political appointment… Elena Kagan’s appointment certainly was not based on “diversity”… Prima facie evidence strongly suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience… Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees who have long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago Judge Abner Mitva, an ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President Obama as “America’s first Jewish President”, probably his soundest judgment.” Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University James Petras, “Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Chicago, Harvard and Washington,” 05.13.2010, http://lahaine.org/petras/articulo.php?p=1806&more=1&c=1
Jewish groups file Jerusalem brief with U.S. high court: (JTA, August 7, 2011) — American Jewish groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Jerusalem-born American citizens to have their birthplace listed as Israel on their birth certificates and passports. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/07/3088875/jewish-groups-file-jerusalem-brief-with-high-court
“A superb day for the Jewish people”: U.S. Senate approves Kagan as Supreme Court judge—Haaretz, 8/7/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/a-superb-day-for-the-jewish-people-u-s-senate-approves-kagan-as-supreme-court-judge-1.306278
Hypocrisy & Deception
“Only 6% of Israelis see US gov’t as pro-Israel” according to a Jerusalem Post-sponsored Smith Research poll.—Jerusalem Post, 6/19/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184872947&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
يهود في مظاهرة منددة بباراك أوباما في تل أبيب الشهر الماضي —الجريرة—7/14/2009
Breakdown of the Jewish vote in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, according to initial exit polling data—Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/2008
Campaign finance law and money can win lawmakers/policymakers as easily as the media can mislead the public
Conservative movement ordains first openly gay rabbi–(Jewish Telegraphic Agency) – The Conservative movement ordained its first openly gay rabbi during ceremonies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. GTA, May 29, 2011 http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/05/29/3087914/conservative-movement-ordains-first-openly-gay-rabbi
Israel is hypocritical when it comes to Iran nuclear sanctions–The Israeli industrialists, the Ofer Brothers, did business with Iran, defying United Nations sanctions that Israel pressed for.
Haaretz, 5/30/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-is-hypocritical-when-it-comes-to-iran-nuclear-sanctions-1.364852
President Barack Obama signs the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, Friday, July 27, 2012, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Photo by Natasha Mozgovaya
“Obama signed the bill using five pens, at his desk, flanked by Senator Barbara Boxer, sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, Rep. Howard Berman, the House version author, Lee Rosenberg, chairman of the board of AIPAC and Howard Friedman, the former Chair, as well as Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations [these are American Jewish leaders working for Israel; apparently no “Israeli” needs to be present at this important bilateral agreement]” http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-announces-new-military-assistance-to-israel-on-eve-of-romney-trip-1.454118
Obama announces new military assistance to Israel on eve of Romney trip
One day before Mitt Romney’s visit to Jerusalem, U.S. president signs bill expanding military and civilian cooperation with Israel.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Friday that he will be releasing an additional $70 million in military assistance to Israel, a previously announced move that appeared timed to upstage Republican rival Mitt Romney’s trip to Jerusalem this weekend.
Haaretz, July 27, 2012, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-announces-new-military-assistance-to-israel-on-eve-of-romney-trip-1.454118
“On eve of Romney visit, U.S. Jews continue to favor Obama by 68%-25%, new poll shows”—Jerusalem Post, July 27, 2012, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/on-eve-of-romney-visit-u-s-jews-continue-to-favor-obama-by-68-25-new-poll-shows.premium-1.454126
Romney raises more than $1 million at end of Israel trip
Reuters, July 29, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/30/us-usa-campaign-romney-idUSBRE86Q1DO20120730
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney places a note in the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City July 29, 2012. Romney would respect an Israeli decision to use military force to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, a senior aide said on Sunday. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Reuters, July 29, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USBRE86Q1DO20120730&slide=7#a=7
“In Jerusalem speech, it was Romney’s voice but Netanyahu’s words”, Haaretz, July 30, 2012,
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/in-jerusalem-speech-it-was-romney-s-voice-but-netanyahu-s-words.premium-1.454521
Mitt Romney has angered Palestinians with his hint that he will recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital should he win November’s presidential election.
JC, July 30, 2012, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/70618/romney-upsets-palestinians-jerusalem-embassy-remark
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,
http://www.wrmea.org/archives/519-washington-report-archives-2011-2015/october-2012/11410-two-views-mitt-romney-election-year-in-jerusalem.html
Petraeus denies saying Israel endangers lives of U.S. troops:
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Military’s Central Command, telephoned Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi Wednesday to deny the reports he had blamed Israeli policy for the failure to reach a regional solution and for endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. … Earlier this month, Petraeus warned the Pentagon that “America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers,” in a posting on the Foreign Policy Web site. In a 56-page report, the Central Command had written: “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests….apparently it was important for the general not to be seen as hostile to Israel, for Israeli consumption but also for the American public…there is talk of him as a candidate for the presidency… ”
Haaretz, 3/28/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159295.html
‘Israel made world better’
WASHINGTON – The Holocaust survivors who helped build Israel “made our world better,” US Gen. David Petraeus said Thursday. “The men and women who walked or were carried out of the death camps, and their descendents, have enriched our world immeasurably in the sciences and in the arts, in literature and in philanthropy,” said Petraeus, the key note speaker at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration in the Capitol Rotunda. “They have made extraordinary contributions in academia, in business, and in government. And, they have, of course, helped build a nation that stands as one of our great allies. The survivors have, in short, made our country and our world better, leaving lasting achievements wherever they settled.”
Jerusalem Post, 4/17/2010 (by JTA, 4/16/2010), http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=173335
“I got there, our class got there, right on the heels of the Six Day War. Everybody was thrilled with what Israel had accomplished on its own behalf… But now what one writer has called “the oldest hatred” is back again, in new forms and from very new and strange quarters. We didn’t get a chance to hear the speech that Mr. Foxman [National Director of ADL] prepared for tonight, but I’m going to go get it and you should too, because I bet it catalogues, as so many folks have recently, the astonishing virulence and widespread nature of anti-Semitism in this world. It is a matter of both surprise and also enormous alarm to me, and I hope to you. How strange to me that sectors and people who I once thought of as allies of the Jewish people in the fight against anti-Semitism have changed uniforms and changed sides, completely… the UN today… is a hotbed of animosity, lies, and hatred for the state of Israel and the people that created it… I have some great news for you, some proud news, and I have permission to share it. I stumbled onto it as I was thinking about tonight, reading and re-reading some things I’d saved about the new anti-Semitism. I called Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld down at Indiana University, who’d given two speeches that I had in my file, just to see if he had any thoughts about the topic. And he gave me the greatest news, and I’m so pleased that President McRobbie of Indiana University is here. By his leave and Dr. Rosenfeld’s, I share it with you. Very, very soon on the campus of Indiana University, will be born a new institute: The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism. I am so proud that that is happening, and happening here in our state. Michael, thank you very, very much. [Applause] I just look forward to the work that is done there, the scholarship that occurs, and I hope the frontal response to a would-be new wave of terror, so that we don’t have to ask “What if?” in our later days and our children never have to ask it of us… Thank you for this recognition, but mostly for your commitment to this most urgent of causes.”—Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels
“Anti-Defamation League Remarks”: Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels receives the Man of Achievement Award from the Anti-Defamation League, November 23, 2009, : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-UlDOGWZVY
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels “has been a strong friend of the State of Israel and the Indianapolis Jewish community and he has spoken to our forums and been available to counsel with us on issues of concern.” –Remarks by Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, November 23, 2009, http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_Domestic/Indiana_Achievement_Address.htm
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels receives the Man of Achievement Award from the [pro-Israel] Anti-Defamation League, November 23, 2009
*
UN Resolutions Targeting Israel and the Palestinians, 1955 – 1992
Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none.
IfAmericansKnew
New PAC hopes to unseat Burke
“TERRE HAUTE — A group of Vigo County Democrats on Monday announced they are throwing their support to a Republican in hopes of unseating Mayor Kevin D. Burke in November’s general election. “Democrats-for-Duke” is a political action committee formed on July 18, with Eva Kor serving as its chairwoman. Burke, a Democrat, is being opposed in the general election by Republican Duke Bennett, director of operations at Hamilton Center Inc. Kor, founding director of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and a Terre Haute Realtor, said she feels Terre Haute residents do not have a voice in city government. “I am backing Duke Bennett for whom I have known for about five years. He was instrumental in rebuilding CANDLES Holocaust Museum.” Howard Greninger, “New PAC hopes to unseat Burke,” The Tribune-Star, August 13, 2007, http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_225235708.html
Bennett Wins ’07
“Duke Bennett edges past Kevin Burke to become first Republican mayor since 1971
Duke Bennett defeated incumbent Kevin Burke in the election for Terre Haute mayor Tuesday, making him the first Republican elected in 40 years. Bennett defeated Burke by a mere 107 votes, securing approximately 50.4 percent” Indiana Statesman, “BENNETT WINS ’07,” November 7, 2007, http://www.indianastatesman.com/2.3880/bennett-wins-07-1.457938
Ceremonies commemorates 65th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation
“OSWIECIEM, Poland — “That was wild – to my right, I had the president of Poland, and to my left, I had the prime minister of Israel,” said Eva Mozes Kor, Holocaust survivor and founder of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute. Kor, leading a group of 55 travelers from the United States, participated Wednesday in the official ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Poland… The group led by Kor included teachers, students and Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett.” Gerald Z. Slaughter, “Ceremonies commemorates 65th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation” Tribune Star, http://www.tribstar.com/archivesearch/local_story_027230242.html
Auschwitz Revisited: Krakow Life (Special Pt.3)
There were more lessons-of a much different kind–to take home from Poland. Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett was taking notes as we visited the thriving city of Krakow. WTWO, Mywabashvalley.com, http://mywabashvalley.com/content/video/?cid=104972
No Tolerance
For
Anti-Zionist
In Madrid
“Madrid- A top American Muslim leader and American Jewish groups formed an unlikely alliance this week against a fiercely anti-Zionist chasidic group at an interfaith conference in Madrid, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah…
Dr. Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America, said he was upset by the planned participation in the conference, which opened this week, of Rabbi Yisrael Dovid Weiss, a representative of Neturei Karta from upstate Monsey. Rabbi Weiss was to be the only Jewish leader to address the gathering sponsored by the Saudi-affiliated Muslim World League.
Syeed said he immediately called Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi ambassador to the U.S., to complain about the Neturei Karta invitation. “I told the ambassador that we strongly protested the invitation, which was not only an affront to our friends in the Jewish community, but to us as well.” Syeed’s organization, considered one of the most influential Muslim groups in North America, has instituted joint programming in the past several years with Jewish groups like the Union for Reform Judaism and Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.” The New York Times, July 18, 2008
.
Prominent U.S. Muslims call for Shalit’s release
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 30, 2011
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/30/3089178/prominent-us-muslims-urge-hamas-to-release-shalit
NEW YORK (JTA) — A group of prominent American Muslims issued a letter urging Hamas to immediately release captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
The Aug. 26 letter’s 11 signatories include the two Muslim members of Congress – Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Andre Carson (D-IN) — as well as Muslim academics and communal figures.
“We believe Hamas’ harsh treatment and five-year detention of Shalit is wrong,” the Muslim leaders wrote in their letter, which was addressed to Khaled Mashal, the Syrian-based chairman of Hamas’ political bureau.
The letter said that Hamas has complained about the conditions under which Israel holds thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Citing the teachings of Muhammad, the letter’s signatories wrote that Muslims are “instructed to ‘repel the evil deed with one that is better.’”
“The struggle for Palestinian human rights and self-determination must be based on this ethical and moral code,” the letter said. “Hamas’ inhumane detention of Shalit undermines the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations for human rights and a state of their own, existing in peace and security beside Israel.”
Along with the two congressmen, the letter’s signatories include Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, who was involved initially in the controversial effort to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero; Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances; and Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United Kingdom who now teaches at American University.
Rabbi Marc Schneier* quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. saying “I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.” page 169
*Rabbi Marc Schneier is chairman of the World Jewish Congress American Section, founder and president of the Jewish-Muslim Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and author of Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Jewish Community
Rabbi Marc Schneier* wrote that “Throughout his adult life, Martin Luther King, Jr., had Jewish friends: political advisers Stanley Levison and Harry Wachtel; literary agent Joan Daves; rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel, Maurice Eisendrath, and Israel Dresner; attorneys William Kunstler, Jack Greenberg, and Morris Abram” page 171
*Rabbi Marc Schneier is chairman of the World Jewish Congress American Section, founder and president of the Jewish-Muslim Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and author of Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Jewish Community
Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Acts of anti -Semitism in countries throughout the world, including some of the world’s strongest democracies, have increased significantly in frequency and scope over the last several years. …
(10) Anti -Semitism has at times taken the form of vilification of Zionism, the Jewish national movement, and incitement against Israel.
It is the sense of Congress that–
(1) the United States Government should continue to strongly support efforts to combat anti -Semitism worldwide through bilateral relationships and interaction with international organizations such as the OSCE, the European Union, and the United Nations; and
(2) the Department of State should thoroughly document acts of anti -Semitism that occur around the world. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/globalantisemtext.html
NB: This Global Anti-Semitism Review Act commits the United States to rate countries on their treatment of Jews, not their treatment of other American or non-American ethnic groups
Anti-Semitism in Europe. (AP)
Political Science Professor Norman Finkelstein noted that “the new anti-Semitism pops up every 10 years” when pressure is put on Israel to negotiate with its neighbors (as in 1974, 982, and 2000). See the relevant publications by the [Jewish] Anti-Defamation League on anti-Semitism. Norman G. Finkelstein, Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict [videorecording], C-SPAN, National Cable Satellite Corp., 2005.
“The new anti-Semitism–From time immemorial, the Jew has been the hated “other.” Though the term anti-Semitism was probably first coined in 1860, the phenomenon has existed since Jews first became a people in Egypt. Pagan Greeks and Romans singled out Jews because of their stubborn refusal to work on Shabbat or because they “defaced” their body with circumcision. With the rise of Christianity and Islam, Diaspora Jews were hated for rejecting Jesus and Muhammad. In its most murderous mutation, anti-Semitism was fueled by racism. For a time, Hitler, history’s most conscientious anti-Semite, gave Jew-hatred a bad name. In the aftermath of the Shoah, anti-Semitism waned. But that inexplicable, ageless phenomenon is enjoying a new heyday.
The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, in a new report released in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, establishes that 2009 was a record year for anti-Semitism. “The year in the wake of Operation Cast Lead was the worst since monitoring of anti- Semitic manifestations began two decades ago in terms of both major anti-Semitic violence and the hostile atmosphere generated worldwide by the mass demonstrations and verbal and visual expressions against Israel and the Jews,” note the institute’s scholars.” The Jerusalem Post, April 13, 2010.
American Jewish organizations laud U.S. decision not to attend Durban 3
“The American Jewish Committee lauded the Obama administration for its decision not to take part in the upcoming United Nations’ Commemoration of the Durban World Conference Against Racism, set to take place in September in New York. The conference, referred to as “Durban 3″, is to mark the 10-year anniversary of the contentious 2001 conference in the South African city of Durban… The U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the eight-day meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism – the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state – to racism.” Haaretz, 6/2/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/american-jewish-organizations-laud-u-s-decision-not-to-attend-durban-3-1.365512
Near East: Office of International Religious Freedom Funds Middle East Media Research Institute Project
The Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East. This grant will enable MEMRI to expand its efforts to monitor the media, translate materials into ten languages, analyze trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification, and increase distribution of materials through its website and other outlets.
Through translations and research, MEMRI aims to inform and educate journalists, government leaders, academia, and the general public about trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East and South Asia, thus generating awareness and response to these issues. MEMRI is a non-governmental organization based in Washington, DC, whose research is translated into ten languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew.
The Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (SEAS) advocates U.S. policy on anti-Semitism both in the U.S. and internationally, developing and implementing policies and projects to support efforts to combat anti-Semitism. The Special Envoy was created by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, and is a part of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Source: US Department of State, Media Note Office of the Spokesperson, Washington, DC, August 11, 2011.
“Why Do They Hate Us?”
“[Israel Shahak wrote:]In dealing with political factors in our book, we did not specify many of the often petty forms of hatred of Christianity that are officially approved. One case in point is that “Israeli educational authorities removed the international plus sign from the textbooks of elementary arithmetic used in the first grade of Israeli schools. Allegedly, this plus sign, which is a cross, could religiously corrupt little Jewish children. Instead of the offending cross, the authorities substituted a capital ‘T’. This substitution was made some years after Israel became a state”; the influence of Jewish fundamentalism was responsible. If this substitution had been made by the Taliban in Afghanistan, by the Iranian regime or by China during the cultural revolution, it would probably have been discussed at length. In contrast, this easily discoverable fact has been omitted in English-language articles and books concerned with Israeli Jewish society and Judaism. This omission is one piece of the existent evidence that most books of this genre are unreliable.”—Israel Shahak and N. Mezvinsky, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. London: Pluto Press, 1999, p. 154.
“Vatican irked by ‘blasphemous’ Virgin Mary TV spoof in Israel
The Vatican said Friday [2/20/2009] it has formally complained to the Israeli government about an Israeli TV show that ridiculed Jesus and Mary in an offensive act of intolerance… In the show, Mary is said to have become pregnant at 15, thanks to a schoolmate.” Jack Khoury and The Associated Press, “Vatican irked by ‘blasphemous’ Virgin Mary TV spoof in Israel,”Haaretz, 2/20/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065809.html
Israel’s top Reform rabbi: Israeli society falling into deep pit of racism
Rabbi Gilad Kariv condemns letter by 30 rabbis’ wives calling on Jewish girls to stay away from Arab men.
The head of Israel’s Reform Judaism movement on Tuesday harshly criticized a letter by 30 rabbis’ wives calling on Jewish girls not to date Arabs, work with them or perform national service in the same places where they work.
“Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia,” said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who two weeks ago also vocally condemned a move by a number of leading rabbis who signed on a ruling to forbid the rental of homes to Arabs. Haaretz, 12/29/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-top-reform-rabbi-israeli-society-falling-into-deep-pit-of-racism-1.333996
How Hasidic Jews ‘celebrate’ Christmas: On Nittel Nacht – otherwise known to the world as Christmas Eve – Hasidic Jews believe that evil inclinations are at full force. In order to prevent any damages that may be caused from such phenomena, they abstain from learning Torah. Haaretz, 12/25/2012, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/how-hasidic-jews-celebrate-christmas.premium-1.489734
Jewish Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl (the alleged founder of Zionism) reported that he presented the rationale of the British Zionist argument to the Pope in Rome during a 25 minute audience on 26 January 1903. But the Pope was not impressed by the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. Herzl wrote that the Pope “answered sternly and resolutely” by saying:
“We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people … The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day.”
Source: Theodor Herzl, Complete diaries (New York: Herzl Press, 1960), pages 1602-1603.
US Military Commitment to Israel
The United States is currently involved in four major wars involving the security of Israel:
(1) the war in Palestine-Israel since the late 1940s
(2) the war in Afghanistan since the early 1980s
(3) the war in Iraq since the early 1990s
(4) the war on terrorism since September 11, 2001
The United States is also involved in other conflicts (in Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon) involving the security of Israel
Without Israel’s security concerns and US commitment to Israel’s security, the United States would not be involved in all those wars and conflicts
In his book Breaking Ranks, Norman Podhoretz pinpoints the focus of the neoconservative branch of the Israel lobby: (1) “The inextricable connection between the survival of Israel and American military strength” (p. 351), and (2) therefore supporting Israel means supporting “the [U.S.] defense appropriations out of which aid to Israel had to come” (p. 357).–Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A political Memoir (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979), pp. 351, 357.
“The U.S. defense budget has more than doubled since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.” CNN, 5/10/2010, “Gates: Pentagon must cut overhead, restrain spending,” http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/09/gates.defense/index.html?hpt=T2
Obama authorizes $205 million for Iron Dome:
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration authorized $205 million to allow Israel to complete its Iron Dome short-range missile defense system… A senior administration official set the figure at $205 million and said it was over and above the $3 billion that the United States annually allocates to Israel in defense assistance… JTA, 5/13/2010, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/05/13/2394806/obama-authorizes-205-million-for-iron-dome
“By a 410-4 margin, the House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly backed President Obama’s request for $205 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program.” AIPAC, 5/21/2010, http://www.aipac.org/
“We will continue to shield Israel, militarily and diplomatically, U.S. official [U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice] says”–Haaretz, 7/15/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/we-will-continue-to-shield-israel-militarily-and-diplomatically-u-s-official-says-1.302208
U.S. Deploys Radar, Troops To Israel
“U.S. European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent U.S. military presence on Israeli soil. Gayle s. Putrich, “U.S. Deploys Radar, Troops To Israel,” Defense News, 9/26/2008, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3744319&c=MID&s=LAN
More than a dozen aircraft were required to transport an AN/TPY-2 X-band radar to Israel. (U.S. Missile Defense Agency)
Text of U.S.-Israel agreement to end Gaza arms smuggling
Haaretz, 1/17/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056175.html
Recalling the steadfast commitment of the United States to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats;
Reaffirming that such commitment is reflected in the security, military and intelligence cooperation between the United States and Israel, the Strategic Dialogue between them, and the level and kind of assistance provided by the United States to Israel;
Taking note of the efforts of Egyptian President Mubarak, particularly the recognition that securing Gaza’s border is indispensable to realizing a durable and sustainable end to fighting in Gaza;
Unequivocally condemning all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism as unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed and whatever the motivation, in particular, the recent rocket and mortar attacks and other hostile activity perpetrated against Israel from Gaza by terrorist organizations;
Recognizing that suppression of acts of international terrorism, including denying the provision of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations, is an essential element for the maintenance of international peace and security;
Recognizing that the acquisition and use of arms and related materiel by terrorists against Israel were the direct causes of recent hostilities;
Recognizing the threat to Israel of hostile and terrorist activity from Gaza, including weapons smuggling and the build-up of terrorist capabilities, weapons and infrastructure; and understanding that Israel, like all nations, enjoys the inherent right of self defense, including the right to defend itself against terrorism through appropriate action;
Desiring to improve bilateral, regional and multilateral efforts to prevent the provision of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations, particularly those currently operating in the Gaza Strip, such as Hamas;
Recognizing that achieving and maintaining a durable and sustainable cessation of hostilities is dependent upon prevention of smuggling and re-supply of weapons into Gaza for Hamas, a terrorist organization, and other terrorist groups, and affirming that Gaza should not be used as a base from which Israel may be attacked;
Recognizing also that combating weapons and explosives supply to Gaza is a multi-dimensional, results-oriented effort with a regional focus and international components working in parallel, and that this is a priority of the United States? and Israel?s efforts, independently and with each other, to ensure a durable and sustainable end to hostilities;
Recognizing further the crucial need for the unimpeded, safe and secure provision of humanitarian assistance to the residents of Gaza;
Intending to work with international partners to ensure the enforcement of relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions on counterterrorism in relation to terrorist activity in Gaza;
Have reached the following understandings:
1. The Parties will work cooperatively with neighbors and in parallel with others in the international community to prevent the supply of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations that threaten either party, with a particular focus on the supply of arms, related materiel and explosives into Gaza to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
2. The United States will work with regional and NATO partners to address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, including through the Mediterranean, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and eastern Africa, through improvements in existing arrangements or the launching of new initiatives to increase the effectiveness of those arrangements as they relate to the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza. Among the tools that will be pursued are:
· Enhanced U.S. security and intelligence cooperation with regional governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories; including through the involvement of relevant components of the U.S. Government, such as U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, and U.S. Special Operations Command.
· Enhanced intelligence fusion with key international and coalition naval forces and other appropriate entities to address weapons supply to Gaza;
· Enhancement of the existing international sanctions and enforcement mechanisms against provision of material support to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including through an international response to those states, such as Iran, who are determined to be sources of weapons and explosives supply to Gaza.
3. The United States and Israel will assist each other in these efforts through enhanced sharing of information and intelligence that would assist in identifying the origin and routing of weapons being supplied to terrorist organizations in Gaza.
4. The United States will accelerate its efforts to provide logistical and technical assistance and to train and equip regional security forces in counter-smuggling tactics, working towards augmenting its existing assistance programs.
5. The United States will consult and work with its regional partners on expanding international assistance programs to affected communities in order to provide an alternative income/employment to those formerly involved in smuggling.
6. The Parties will establish mechanisms as appropriate for military and intelligence cooperation to share intelligence information and to monitor implementation of the steps undertaken in the context of this Memorandum of Understanding and to recommend additional measures to advance the goals of this Memorandum of Understanding. In so far as military cooperation is concerned, the relevant mechanism will be the United States-Israel Joint Counterterrorism Group, the annual Military to Military discussion, and the Joint Political Military Group.
7. This Memorandum of Understanding of ongoing political commitments between the Parties will be subject to the laws and regulations of the respective parties, as applicable, including those governing the availability of funds and the sharing of information and intelligence
Gazans cut through Egypt’s border barrier:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8664316.stm
The Financial Cost of Israel to the United States
Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington, estimates that between 1973 and 2002 Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion.—David Francis, “Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US,” The Christian Science Monitor, 12/9/2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
“A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: Almost $114 Billion,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008, pages 10-11, [“It must be emphasized that this analysis is a conservative, defensible accounting of U.S. direct aid to Israel, NOT of Israel’s cost to the U.S. or the American taxpayer, nor of the benefits to Israel of U.S. aid.”], http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2008/0811010.html
“The engine that has run the Israeli economy for decades has been American aid…Israel is heavily in debt to the U.S. Treasury, its commercial banks, and its Jews and other citizens and organizations that have purchased millions of Israel bonds or donated money to Jewish causes.” Edward Tivnan, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, page 217.
In 2002, Hebrew University Professor of Economics and former Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Finance Avi Ben-Bassat edited the book “The Israeli Economy, 1985-1998,” without including a single word about “American aid” (the engine of the Israeli economy) in the Table of Contents or the Index of the 529-page book (published simultaneously by The MIT Press in the United States, Britain, and Israel).
Jeffrey Blankfort wrote: “While not officially part of the lobby, since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the AFL-CIO has been one of its most solid cornerstones. It has provided millions of dollars for pro-Israel Democrats; it has blocked all international efforts to punish Israel for its exploitation and abuse of Palestinian workers, and it has encouraged its member unions to invest millions of dollars of their pension funds in State of Israel Bonds, thereby linking their members’ retirement to the health of the Israeli economy. Over the past year, the lobby has cemented ties with the Christian evangelical right, which gives it clout in states where there are few Jews and access to hundreds of thousands of new donors to Israel cause. ” Jeff Blankfort : The Israel Lobby and the Left: Uneasy Questions , 4/30/2010, http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/04/jeff-blankfort-the-israel-lobby-and-the-left-uneasy-questions/
Israel’s Major Source of Financing
Israel’s three major sources of financing have been world Jewry, the U.S. government, and the government of West Germany.
World Jewry (falling from 30-50% to about 25% in 1978)
Funds raised by institutions connected to the World Zionist Organization and other smaller institutions
Private transfers, including immigrants’ remittances
The sale abroad of State of Israel Bonds
U.S. government (over half of all long-term and unilateral transfers)
Grants and loans since 1949
Agricultural surplus program
Hard currency loans from different specialized agencies
German reparations (40% per long-term transfers in 1957-1961)
Federal Republic of Germany provided Israel with $815 millions in the form of goods in 1953-1965
In 1954 Israeli residents began receiving personal restitution in the form of lump-sum payments or pensions from the German government
In 1963 Germany agreed to provide some loan capital as substitute continuation of aid
Source: Yoram Ben-Porath, ed., The Israeli Economy: Maturing through Crises, Harvard University Press, 1986, pages 257-258
Israel “depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by tourism and other service exports, as well as significant foreign investment inflows.” CIA Factbook, December 2012
Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy
According to former CIA analyst Michael F. Scheuer, this book exposes how Israel’s intelligence services have created a domestic espionage network in the United states whose operatives do the following:
(a) Steal secret business data that benefits Israel’s economy and costs America intellectual property, business revenues, and domestic jobs.
(b) Shield the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) from having to register as an agent of a foreign government. AIPAC mission is to coordinate with the Israeli government in order to push U.S. policies that economically benefit Israel at high costs to U.S. business and workers. This agency relationship has corrupted the U.S. legislative, electoral, and judicial processes, and guarantees that American—not Israeli—kids die fighting wars pushed by Israel and its lobby’s leaders.
(c) Purloin highly classified military technology that Israel then sells to the highest bidders, who use it to negate the technical superiority of U.S. weaponry, or even resell it to enemies intent on killing U.S. soldiers and Marines in the field.
(d) Run covert operations against a host of government agencies—from the Pentagon to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office—stealing and passing information to Israel that compromises U.S. foreign, economic, and defense policies.
(e) Gain preferential and corrupting access—via illegally coordinated campaign contributions, influence, and intimidation—to leading politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as serving presidents, congressmen, senior law enforcement officials, journalists, judges, bureaucrats, and even intelligence officers.
(f) Buy pardons from presidents to expunge the criminal records of the handful of operatives who have been convicted of theft and/or espionage-related activity.
Source: Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, Forward by Michael Scheuer, pages 15-16.
U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement
(USIFTA)
Since 1990 USIFTA has generated a cumulative U.S. trade deficit of $71 billion, the equivalent of 100,000 American jobs for each of the last 10 years. It is the only bilateral trade deal consistently generating deficits, major market access complaints from U.S. industries, and ongoing disputes over misappropriated U.S. intellectual property…
The USIFTA is an anomaly among other bilateral intergovernmental managed trade pacts negotiated by the U.S. USIFTA offers benefits to only one party while presenting threats to major industries. The core drivers of USIFTA trade policies, which sacrifice U.S. worker income and wealth creation along with the nation’s competitiveness, have subsequently been imbedded in much larger multilateral treaties such as NAFTA.
The lack of coordination by U.S. enforcement and regulatory agencies places American firms at a disadvantage against “at risk” pharmaceutical launches that violate patents. The USTR refuses to treat Israeli espionage as an intellectual property or treaty violation issue, instead of referring it to agencies enforcing arms and other export controls.
At the regional level, the Israel lobby has used its influence to successfully undermine and thwart greater U.S. export access to the Arab market while financing illegal activity—from settlement construction to counterfeit pharmaceuticals—that is only possible due to Israel’s preferential access to U.S. consumer markets and proprietary American innovations.
“The fact is that the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement served as a wedge that opened up the Congress to Free Trade Agreements throughout the world, including NAFTA agreement.” Martin Indyk, Brookings Institution Saban Center for Middle East Policy
The first such treaty between America and another nation, it [USIFTA] provides the impetus for explosive growth in trade and investment and sets a precedent for future agreements between the United States and other nations.” 1998 AIPAC “Fifty Years of Friendship” brochure
Source: Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, pages 20, 110, 111.
1996 U.S. Defense Investigation Service Memo
Documented Incidents:
a) The most highly publicized incident involving Israeli espionage directed against the United Sates is the 1985 arrest of Navy Intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard. Pollard conveyed vast quantities of classified information to Israel for ideological reasons and personal financial gain.
b) In 1986, Israeli agents stole property information from Chicago-based Recon Optical, Inc., an Illinois optics firm. Significant financial damages were incurred by Recon an[d] in 1993, the Israeli agreed to pay three million dollars in damage.
c) In the mid-eighties, a large DoD contractor hosting Israeli visitors experienced the loss of test equipment during filed testing relating to the manufacture of a radar system. Two years later, a request was received from Israel to repair the piece of missing equipment.
d) In 1994, a small firm utilizing a proprietary PC-based product to upgrade Israeli radar system sent an engineer to Israel with its product. Upon arrival, the PC-based equipment was malfunctioning. Examination by the engineer traveling to Israel revealed the proprietary chip had been tampered with.
e) Israel is suspected of furnishing the People’s Republic of China with U.S. export-controlled technology desired by the Chinese to upgrade their indigenous capability to develop a fighter aircraft.
f) Author Peter Schweizer maintains Israeli Air Force personnel have repeatedly gained access to top secret military research projects by paying off Pentagon employees.
Source: Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, Forward by Michael Scheuer, pages 15-16
Israel Has Received $104 billion
from Congress since 1948
U.S. Aid to Israel ($USD Million):
Year Total Military Grant Economic Grant Immigrant ASHA* All Other
1949-1996 68030.9 29014.9 23122.4 868.9 2.1 14903.3
1997 3132.1 1800 1200 80 2.1 50
1998 3080 1800 1200 80 ? ?
1999 3010 1860 1080 70 ? ?
2000 4131.85 3120 949.1 60 2.75 ?
2001 2876.05 1975.6 838.2 60 2.25 ?
2002 2850.65 2040 720 60 2.65 28
2003 3745.15 3086.4 596.1 59.6 3.05 ?
2004 2687.25 2147.3 477.2 49.7 3.15 9.9
2005 2612.15 2202.2 357 50 2.95 ?
2006 2534.53 2257 237 40 ? 0.53
2007 2500.24 2340 120 40 ? 0.24
2008 2423.8 2380.6 0 39.7 3 0.5
Total 103614.67 56024 30897 1557.9 143.3 14992.47
This statistic does not represent the total cost of Israel to the United States (see Thomas Stauffer)
* American Schools and Hospitals Abroad multi-agency funding
Source: Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, page 35
U.S. FY 2009 International Affairs Request for the State of Israel
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100014
Foreign Military Financing: $2,550,000,000
Migration and Refugee Assistance (including transportation to Israel, Hebrew language instruction, transitional housing, education, and vocational training): $30,000,000
FY2008 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, provides a total of $155.5 million for U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs ( out of which $98 million is allocated for the Arrow II missile program; $20 million for A High Altitude Missile Defense System; $37 million for David’s Sling, a short range missile defense program ).
To keep the piece with Israel, U.S. FY 2009 International Affairs Request for Egypt and Jordan amounted to $1,535,000,000
Multilateral Force and Observers: $21,750,000
The 1952 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and subsequent arms agreements between Israel and the United States limit the use of U.S. military equipment to defensive purposes.
Signing of Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the United States [$30 billion]
Haaretz, 8/16/2007
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2007/Signing%20of%20Memorandum%20of%20Understanding%20between%20Israel%20and%20the%20United%20States%2016-Aug-2007
“As president, I [Obama] will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009.” NPR, “Transcript: Obama’s Speech at AIPAC,” NPR, 4 June 2008
Israel is world’s largest exporter of drones, study finds—In eight years, Israel exported $4.6 billion worth of UAVs to countries ranging from Britain to India and Uganda. Haaretz, 5/19/2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-is-world-s-largest-exporter-of-drones-study-finds.premium-1.524771
AIPAC head testifies on Israel aid
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, By Eric Fingerhut · March 27, 2009, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/27/1004048/aipac-head-testifies-on-israel-aid
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The head of a pro-Israel lobby group testified on Capitol Hill about the importance of U.S. aid to Israel.
Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, told the House Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee that “American assistance to Israel serves vital U.S. national security interests and advances critical U.S. foreign policy goals.”
He requested that Israel receive $2.775 billion in military aid in fiscal year 2010, as called for in the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel that allocates $30 billion in aid for the Jewish state over 10 years.
Kohr noted that the military hardware Israel must purchase to face the increased threat of terrorism and Islamic radicalism is increasingly expensive, and that “windfall oil profits” have fuled the growth rate of military spending in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran in recent years.
He added that Israel will do its part by increasing its own defense spending. The Jewish state is slated to spend $150 billion on defense during the next decade, a 50 percent increase over the previous 10-year period, he said.
The U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.5 million each day* in military aid and is giving the Palestinians $0** in military aid during Fiscal Year 2011.
*The source for US military aid to Israel during Fiscal Year 2012 is the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated March 12, 2012. According to this report, the Obama Administration requested $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Israel for the fiscal year 2013.
** The source for US aid to the Palestinians during Fiscal Year 2009 is the Congressional Research Service’s Report “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians”, written by Jim Zanotti, Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated August 12, 2010. According to the report the U.S. has never provided Palestinians with military aid (although we have provided Palestinians with aid for policing their own people as well as with humanitarian and development assistance). IfAmericansKnew
Daily U.S. Military Aid to Israel and the Palestinians, FY2011
Congress conditions Palestinian aid on dropping statehood bid
GTA, December 23, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/23/3090884/us-funds-for-palestinians-conditional-on-statehood-maneuvers
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A newly passed congressional appropriations bill maintains the level of assistance for Israel while conditioning funds for the Palestinians on them dropping their statehood recognition bid.
An omnibus appropriations bill passed last week and awaiting President Obama’s signature funds assistance to Israel at $3.075 billion, consistent with a 2007 memorandum of understanding that averages such aid at $3 billion annually over 10 years.
The funding was spared from across-the-board cuts toward slashing the deficit.
Funding for Palestinians is also approved by the legislation, but no amounts are specified. Instead, the president must submit specific requests to appropriators in both Houses, allowing Congress greater leverage over how the money is spent.
Furthermore, should the Palestinians gain statehood recognition through any international body in the absence of negotiations, the funding will be suspended, although the president is able to waive the provision.
The Israeli embassy in Washington welcomed the new conditions.
KIDS LIVING IN POVERTY IN VALLEY
Percent of area children ages 0-17 living in poverty in 2007 by county
Parke County 28.1 percent
Vigo County 22.9 percent
Sullivan County 19.4 percent
Greene County 19.0 percent
Clay County 16.4 percent
Vermillion County 15.0 percent
Statewide average 17 percent
National average 18 percent
Poverty is defined as a family of two adults and two children with an income less than $21,027 in 2007.
Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation, Quoted by The Tribune Star, 7/30/2009, http://links.tribstar.com/leaderboard/frontpage
Schools slated to get budgets cut in January [2010]
Associated Press
Tribune Star, 12/28/2009
http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_362214320.html
“INDIANAPOLIS — Gov. Mitch Daniels says Indiana will start cutting school funding starting in January.
Daniels previously announced the K-12 cuts of about $300 million. Schools will lose about 3.5 percent of current state funding in 2010, starting with their January payment. The State Board of Education had recommended that the cuts begin in January.
State Superintendent Tony Bennett says school districts can find 3 percent savings without laying off teachers.
Daniels says education is such a big part of the state budget that cuts were unavoidable to ensure Indiana doesn’t have a deficit when the budget ends in July 2011. The Republican governor has already ordered cuts at state agencies and universities.
In a news release, the governor’s office stated the reduction “will be applied evenly to all school corporations using the current funding formula. It represents 2.7 percent of the total $11 billion schools receive from all sources or 3.5 percent of current state funding.”
K-12 spending is half of the state’s budget or about $6.5 billion annually. Daniels has said repeatedly that education reductions were a last resort and that every other area would be trimmed first.
School corporation officials are still awaiting details to determine how much the cuts will affect them.
A cut of 3 to 3.5 percent for the Vigo County School Corp. would be about $3 million to $3.5 million, said Donna Wilson, the district’s chief financial officer.”
Year in review:
Indiana State University
By Sue Loughlin
The Tribune-Star [1/1/2010, http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_365223040.html]
“TERRE HAUTE — As a new year begins, Indiana State University faces the unpleasant task of cutting $10.5 million from its budget over the next 18 months as the result of the state’s revenue shortfalls.
“The reductions will result in an elimination of positions,” ISU President Dan Bradley told the campus community Dec. 23. “The majority of our operating budget is dedicated to personnel costs.”
Recently, Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered a $150 million cut in state higher education spending because tax revenues are far below previous projections.
Among the state’s seven public colleges and universities, ISU took the hardest hit in its proportional share of the cuts, which amounted to 6.64 percent, or $3.8 million in the current fiscal year with the remaining $6.7 million in 2010-11.”
U.S. poverty on track
to be highest since ’60s
Associated Press, July 23, 2012
http://tribstar.com/bigstory3/x228005597/U-S-poverty-on-track-to-be-highest-since-60s
“WASHINGTON — The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.
Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.
The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965…
The 2010 poverty level was $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for an individual, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.
An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.”
The Israel Lobby in the United States
Paul Findley’s They dare to speak out (1985)
Edward Tivnan’s The Lobby (1987)
Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg’s Jewish power (1996)
James Petras’s The Power of Israel in the United States (2006)
Mearsheimer & Walt’s The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007).
Mark Green (ed.)’s Persecution, Privilege & Power (2008) http://persecutionprivilegeandpower.com/
Jeff Gates‟ Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008)
“A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.” —Steve J. Rosen, AIPAC Director of Policy
Source: Grant F. Smith, Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal, Washington, DC: Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., 2007, page [7].
The founder of the AIPAC (one of the main branches of the Israel lobby), I. L. “Si” Kenen, was head of the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs in 1951, which was registered as a foreign lobbying group [required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/611.html]. Kenen reorganized it as a U.S. lobbying organization—the American Zionst Committee for Public Affairs—in 1953-54, and the new organization was renamed AIPAC in 1959. Kenen relied on psersonal contacts with key legislators rather than public campaigns or mass mobilization, and AIPAC generally followed “Kenen’s Rules” to advance Israel’s cause. Rule No. 1. was: “Get behind legislation; don’t step out in front of it (that is, keep a low profile)” —Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby, p. 118.
“Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official who has been indicted for allegedly passing classified documents to Israel, illustrated AIPAC’s power for the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in from of him and saying, ‘In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkins.’ These are not idle boasts”—The Israel Lobby, p. 10-11.
“76 senators sign AIPAC-backed letter seeking added pressure on Iran: WASHINGTON (JTA) — An AIPAC-backed letter urging President Obama to exert greater pressure on Iran to end its suspected nuclear weapons program garnered the signatures of 76 senators.”–– Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 4, 2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/08/04/news-opinion/politics/aipac-backed-letter-on-iran-garners-76-senate-signatures
In this book, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt demonstrated that the US supports Israel NOT because of moral or strategic interests BUT because of the Israel Lobby which focuses on:
influencing Congress
influencing the executive
manipulating the media
dominating think tanks
policing academia
misusing anti-Semitism
demonizing the Palestinians
—Mearsheimer & Walt
Who Is Part of the Israel Lobby?
Why Does the US Support Israel?
University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Professor Stephen Walt, the authors of the book THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND US FOREIGN POLICY, do not consider themselves members of the Israel lobby, nonetheless they wrote:
“The authors of this book are ‘pro-Israel,’ in the sense that we support its right to exist, admire its many achievements, want its citizens to enjoy secure and prosperous lives, and believe that the United States should come to Israel’s aid if its survival is in danger. But we are obviously not part of the Israel lobby. Nor does it imply that every American official who supports Israel is part of the lobby either. A senator who consistently votes in favor of aid to Israel is not necessarily part of the lobby, because he or she may simply be responding to political pressure from pro-Israel interest groups. To be part of the lobby, in other words, one has to actively work to move American foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction…. Thus, although it would clearly be wrong to think of the lobby as a single-minded monolith, much less portray it as a cabal or conspiracy, it would be equally mistaken to exclude anyone who works actively to preserve America’s special relationship with the Jewish state.” … John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, pages 113-114.
In an interview with Bruce Feiler (from bloggingheads.tv), University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer said: “I–by the way–would describe [Palestinian-American and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University] Rashid Khalidi as pro-Israel, I don’t think he is anti-Israel, I mean he is critical of Israeli policy, for sure, but he obviously does not fit in the [Israel] lobby.” –“Debating the Israel Lobby,” University of Chicago John Mearsheimer (niterviewed by Bruce Feiler ), Recorded: December 2 and Posted: December 27, [2007], http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/7689
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“Guilt by Association makes treason transparent. The corruption that plagues American politics is traced to an alliance with elites and extremists loyal to the Land of Israel. Unable to rid politics of campaign finance corruption, the U.S. finds its security imperiled by those skilled at deceiving America into waging wars for the Zionist state… Guilt by Association documents how—by operating in the realms of politics, media, academia, think tanks and popular culture—corruption came to dominate politics, as shown by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama”
The McCain-Feingold’s reform of campaign finance law was a “perfect fit” for the Diaspora-based fundraising used by the Israel lobby. With the emergence of “joint fundraising committees” that “funneled funds to the candidates’ primary campaigns, an individual can donate up to $65,500 to parties and political action committees. “The process works like this. Candidates are summoned for in-depth interviews by the Israel lobby—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those found sufficiently committed to AIPAC’s agenda are provided a list of donors who can be relied on to “max out” their campaign contributions.” This amounts to the repeal of representative government, which was meant to ensure that members of Congress represent the concerns of Americans who reside in states or Congressional districts within the states, “not a nationally dispersed network (a Diaspora) concerned about a foreign country (Israel). Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (State Street Publications, 2008), pages xviii-xx.
In November 2009, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will have spent more than $250 million on his three bids for mayor. The New York Times 10/24/2009
The Israel Lobby in the United States
“…a collection of American Jewish organizations, campaign contributors and think tanks — aided by Christian conservatives and other non-Jewish supporters — that arose over the second half of the 20th century and that sees as a principle goal the support and promotion of the interests of the state of Israel.”
“All David Ben-Gurion wanted was 15 minutes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s time. Israel’s founding father, one of the indomitable political leaders of the 20th century, came to Washington in December 1941 yearning to present the case for a Jewish state directly to the American president. He took a two-room suite at the old Ambassador Hotel at 14th and K for $1,000 a month and cooled his heels for 10 weeks, writing letters and reports and making passes at Miriam Cohen, his attractive American secretary. But Ben-Gurion didn’t get the meeting. Not then, not ever. Not even a pair of presidential cuff links. Now let’s fast-forward 64 years to late May and a news conference in the East Room of the White House. That tall, freckled, slightly nervous-looking man with the rust-colored hair standing alongside President Bush at matching lecterns is Ehud Olmert 12th prime minister of Israel. The two leaders and their advisers have just spent two hours together in the Oval Office. .. Afterward, they’ll adjourn for a private session without aides or note-takers and then go to dinner together. And the next day Olmert will address a joint session of Congress, whose members will interrupt his speech with 16 standing ovations [The Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act bill passed the House, on the day before Olmert addressed Congress, by 361 to 37. A milder version of the bill unanimously passed the Senate late last month.]. Ben-Gurion, whose remains rest in a simple grave overlooking the Negev Desert, would be stunned…”
“AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is the best-known of a handful of groups that have made support for Israel a centerpiece of their agendas, including the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. But when it comes to Washington, AIPAC wields the real clout.” Source: Glenn Frankel, “A Beautiful Friendship? In search of the truth about the Israel lobby’s influence on Washington,” The Washington Post, July 16, 2006
The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America
James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.
“Introduction: Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government and the activities of local Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders. There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix). The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes. Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history (Financial Times book review section August 28/29 2010). New heavily funded Zionist projects designed to capture young Jews and turn them into instruments of Israeli foreign policy includes “Taglit-Birthright” which has spent over $250 million dollars over the past decade sending over a quarter-million Jews (between 18-26) to Israel for 10 days of intense brainwashing (Boston Globe August 26, 2010). Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill. The students are subject to a heavy dose of Israeli style militarism as they are accompanied by Israeli soldiers as part of their indoctrination; at no point do they visit the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem (Boston Globe August 26, 2010). They are urged to become dual citizens and even encouraged to serve in the Israeli armed forces. In summary the 52 member organizations of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations which we discuss are only the tip of the iceberg of the Zionist Power Configuration: taken together with the PACs, the propaganda mills, the commercial and University presses and mass media we have a matrix of power for understanding the tremendous influence they have on US foreign and domestic policy as it affects Israel and US Zionism. While all their activity is dedicated first and foremost in ensuring that US Middle East policy serves Israel’s colonial expansion in Palestine and war aims in the Middle East, what B’nai B’rth euphemistically calls a “focus on Israel and its place in the world”, many groups ‘specialize’ in different spheres of activity. For example, the “Friends of the Israel Defense Force” is primarily concerned in their own words “to look after the IDF”, in other words provide financial resources and promote US volunteers for a foreign =army (an illegal activity except when it involves Israel). Hillel is the student arm of the Zionist power configuration claiming a presence in 500 colleges and universities, all affiliates defending each and every human rights abuse of the Israeli state and organizing all expenses paid junkets for Jewish student recruits to travel to Israel where they are heavily propagandized and encouraged to migrate’ or become ‘dual citizens’…. The danger is that the US Zionist support for the ultra-rightist and racist regime in Israel is leading them to join forces with the far right in the US. Today Jewish and Christian Manhattan rednecks are fermenting mass Islamic hatred (the so called “Mosque controversy”) as a distraction from the economic crises and rising unemployment. Zionist promotion of mass Islamofobia, so near to Wall Street, where many of their fat cats who profit from plundering the assets of America operate, is a dangerous game. If the same enraged masses turn their eyes upward toward the wealthy and powerful instead of downward to blacks and Muslims, some unpleasant and unanticipated surprises might rebound against, not only Israel’s operatives, but all those wrongly identified as related to a misconstrued Jewish Motherland.” http://www.lahaine.org/petras/b2-img/petras_thest
“In 1976, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dnitz, working with representatives from the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, developed two principles to guide behavior within the Jewish community. The first principle, Goldberg notes, was that ‘Israelis were the only ones entitled to decide Israeli policy’ and the second was that ‘America Jews should stand publicly united with Israel and air disputes only in private.” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007), page 123-124.
Jeffrey Blankfort on Who Makes up the Lobby? “It is important to note that the Israel lobby is much more than AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), which primarily focuses on Congress and directs funding from Jewish PACs and individuals to those politicians it considers to be deserving. Its other more visible components are the biggest Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, but there are also a number of others, not the least of which is the extreme right wing Zionist Organization of America, which at the moment is extremely influential in Washington. All of these organizations form part of the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, whose current president is Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the NY Daily News and US News and World Report. Its job is to lobby the President. At the grass-roots you have hundreds of local Jewish federations and councils that cultivate the support of city councilors and supervisors and select the more promising among them to run for Congress, assured that they will be solid votes for Israel. While not officially part of the lobby, since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the AFL-CIO has been one of its most solid cornerstones. It has provided millions of dollars for pro-Israel Democrats; it has blocked all international efforts to punish Israel for its exploitation and abuse of Palestinian workers, and it has encouraged its member unions to invest millions of dollars of their pension funds in State of Israel Bonds, thereby linking their members’ retirement to the health of the Israeli economy. Over the past year, the lobby has cemented ties with the Christian evangelical right, which gives it clout in states where there are few Jews and access to hundreds of thousands of new donors to Israel’s cause.” Source: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-blankfort.html
The lobby includes another important group of gentiles, the Christian Zionists, who can be thought of as an important “junior partner” to the various pro-Israel groups in the American Jewish community. They provide financial support to the settler movement, oppose any territorial concession to the Palestinians, and contributes to tourism in Israel, a lucrative economic sector generating $2.8 billion in 2004 p138 and 400. But in sharp contrast to the groups like AIPAC, Christian Zionists lack (1) the organizational capacity to analyze national security topic or to offer specific legislation guidance on concrete foreign policy issues, (2) the financial power of the major pro-Israel groups, and (3) the media presence when it come to the Middle East issues. Therefore they “are best seen as a significant adjunct to the Jewish elements of the lobby, but not its most important part.” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007), pages 132-139.
In his book Stealth PACs: How Israel’s American Lobby Seeks to Control U.S. Middle East Policy (1990), Richard Curtiss listed 114 pro-Israel PACs (political action committees) active during the 1978-1988 election cycles. Out of the 114 PACs only two (Women’s Pro-Israel National PAC and Jewish Republican PAC, both in the District of Columbia) are listed under names that indicate their pro-Israel affiliation. The remaining 112 are stealth PACs whose names vary from Hollywood Women’s Political Committee (California) and Desert Caucus (Arizona) to Tennesseans for a Better Government (Tennessee) and Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania). Source: Richard Curtiss, Stealth PACs: How Israel’s American Lobby Seeks to Control U.S. Middle East Policy, Washington, DC: American Educational Trust, 1990, pp 159-162.
When Edward Tivnan decided to examine the influence of the Jewish lobby in the making (and unmaking) of U.S. Middle East policy, he “quickly discovered” that even the title “Jewish lobby” “needed some fune-tuning” to become “the pro-Israel lobby” or simply “the lobby.” Tivnan said that he also discovered that “nobody will talk to you” because “the subject was too hot, too touchy, too politically dangerous for all concerned. Jewish leaders, the lobbyists, their friends—and enemies—in Congress preferred to keep this subject under wraps.” He said he was told that he cannot write about the subject without being critical of Israel and the American Jewish community, that no New York publisher will accept his manuscript, that if the book did eventually get published Jewish groups would pressure bookstores to remove it from the shelves or would even buy up all the copies to keep it from wider circulation. Source: Edward Tivnan, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, pages 10-11.
Israeli lobby president resigns over promises;
Bragged to contributor about lies to Clinton
“The president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee resigned yesterday after statements he made to a prospective contributor raised questions about the lobbying group’s connections with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. In a taped telephone conversation, obtained by The Washington Times, with a man he believed would back pro-Israel politicians, AIPAC President David Steiner said his organization was “negotiating” with Mr. Clinton over who would be named secretary of state and national security adviser in a Clinton administration. “We have a dozen people in [Mr. Clinton’s] headquarters,” Mr. Steiner told Harry Katz, a New York City businessman who said he wanted to contribute $100,000 to candidates supported by AIPAC. “And they are all going to get big jobs.” “I’ll tell you I have friends on the Clinton campaign, close associates. [Sen. Al] Gore is very committed to us,” said Mr. Steiner, who is also a trustee of the Democratic National Committee. Neither AIPAC nor Mr. Steiner dispute the authenticity of the tape.” The Washington Times, November 4, 1992
Mr. Steiner also described what he said was a secret negotiation with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III in which “I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies [besides stated U.S. aid to Israel] that people don’t even know about.”
Mr. Katz said he taped the telephone conversation with Mr. Steiner because, “as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including the Jews.
“If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it.”
A search of the files of New York newspapers reveals a long and often contentious relationship between Mr. Katz and several Jewish groups there. He has been a small contributor to AIPAC, and he has sued Jewish groups and others in New York to settle personal grievances.
AIPAC, a grass-roots group with tens of thousands of members, is the principal pro-Israel lobbying body in the United States and is widely regarded as the most influential lobbying organization in the country. Its member-financed budget grew from $1.4 million in 1980 to $12 million in 1991.
Because it is a registered lobbying group, AIPAC cannot by federal law raise money for congressional or presidential candidates, or recommend to potential contributors to whom they direct their money.
When Mr. Katz asked who Mr. Steiner thought would be secretary of state under President Clinton, Mr. Steiner replied: “I don’t know yet, we’re negotiating.” Asked whether AIPAC would have a role in the selection, Mr. Steiner said, “We’ll have access.”
Mr. Steiner spoke candidly of animosity he felt toward President Bush and Mr. Baker. Referring to allegations that Mr. Baker used an expletive to describe Jews, which Mr. Baker denied, Mr. Steiner said: “Do you think I’m ever going to forgive him for that? . . . Do you think I could ever forgive Bush for what he did September 12th a year ago? What he said about the Jews for lobbying in Washington?”
Mr. Bush had criticized the lobbying efforts of pro-Israel groups during the congressional debate over $10 billion in loan guarantees by the United States to Israel, which were later approved.
Mr. Clinton “is going to help us,” Mr. Steiner said. “He has something in his heart for the Jews, he’s got Jewish friends. Bush has no Jewish friends.”
In response to written questions from The Times, AIPAC specifically denied many of Mr. Steiner’s claims, including that the organization played a role in a “deal” with Mr. Baker, and that it was negotiating with Mr. Clinton on political appointees.
Mr. Steiner, in a one-paragraph statement announcing his resignation yesterday, also denied the truth of several statements on the tape.
“In an effort to encourage and impress what I thought was a potential political activist calling on the telephone, I made statements which went beyond overzealousness and exaggeration and were simply and totally untrue. I apologize to Governor Clinton, chief of staff Baker and AIPAC for these actions.”
AIPAC has been accused of violating Federal Election Commission rules governing the involvement of special interest groups in raising money for political candidates, but in late 1990 the FEC ruled there was “insufficient evidence that AIPAC controlled a collection of political action committees that contributed millions of dollars to congressional candidates.
The Steiner-Katz conversation, taped without Mr. Steiner’s knowledge, occurred Oct. 22. Under New York law, such taping is not illegal. In the conversation, Mr. Katz asked for advice on how to divide his proposed contribution to political candidates, which he had earlier said would total $100,000.
Mr. Steiner told Mr. Katz that “the political information I give you, they’re personal choices, AIPAC does not rate or endorse candidates, does not solicit money.” He gave Mr. Katz detailed information about elections from Hawaii to North Dakota to Wisconsin, recommending that he consider contributing to candidates who were friendly toward Israel.
Mr. Steiner discussed commissioning a poll and sending other support to Sen. Daniel Inouye, Hawaii Democrat. “We commissioned a poll and got some people, and I’ve got to raise $27,000 to pay for the poll,” he said.
Toby Dershowitz, a spokesman for AIPAC, said AIPAC had no role in paying for the poll in Hawaii.
“The president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s largest pro-Israel lobby, has resigned after being secretly tape-recorded boasting that AIPAC was “negotiating” with the Clinton campaign about key appointments, and claiming he “cut a deal” with then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III to get Israel extra aid.” The Washington Post, November 5, 1992
“The president of the leading pro-Israel lobby has resigned after making a series of exaggerated statements on tape about negotiating with the Clinton campaign over Cabinet choices and making deals with James A. Baker, former Secretary of State, officials of the lobby said today.” The New York Times, November 4, 1992
1. Ameinu [“Our People”]
2. American Friends of Likud
3. American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
4. America-Israel Friendship League
5. American Israel Public Affairs Committee
6. American Jewish Committee
7. American Jewish Congress
8. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
9. American Sephardi Federation
10. American Zionist Movement
11. Americans for Peace Now
12. AMIT
13. Anti-Defamation League
14. Association of Reform Zionists of America
15. B’nai B’rith International
16. Bnai Zion
17. Central Conference of American Rabbis
18. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
19. Development Corporation for Israel / State of Israel Bonds
20. Emunah of America
21. Friends of Israel Defense Forces
22. Hadassah, Women’s Zionist Organization of America
23. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
24. Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
25. Jewish Community Centers Association
26. Jewish Council for Public Affairs
27. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
28. Jewish Labor Committee
29. Jewish National Fund
30. Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
31. Jewish War Veterans of the USA
32. Jewish Women International
33. MERCAZ USA, Zionist Organization of the Conservative Movement
34. NA’AMAT USA
35. NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia
36. National Council of Jewish Women
37. National Council of Young Israel
38. ORT America
39. Rabbinical Assembly
40. Rabbinical Council of America
41. Religious Zionists of America
42. Union for Reform Judaism
43. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
44. United Jewish Communities
45. United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
46. WIZO
47. Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
48. Women of Reform Judaism
49. Workmen’s Circle
50. World ORT
51. World Zionist Executive, US
52. Zionist Organization of America
The Backbone of the Jewish or Israel Lobby in the U.S.
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
“The central coordinating body representing 50 [sic] national Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern” http://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/content.asp?id=55#
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
AIPAC is registered as a domestic lobby… AIPAC works to secure vital U.S. foreign aid for Israel… Each year, AIPAC is involved in more than 100 legislative and policy initiatives involving Middle East policy or aimed at broadening and deepening the U.S.-Israel bond… AIPAC sponsors exciting events and educational programs featuring leading members of Congress, policymakers and top analysts. AIPAC also works on hundreds of college campuses, teaching student activists how to answer Israel’s detractors and how to use political involvement to build support for Israel… In addition to working closely with Congress, AIPAC also actively educates and works with candidates for federal office, White House, Pentagon and State Department officials, and other policymakers whose decisions affect Israel’s future and America’s policies in the Middle East… Among our most recent efforts is the Synagogue Initiative, which makes AIPAC information and staff available to congregations across America. http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/Learn_About_AIPAC/26.asp
Reporters’ Notebook: AIPAC 2011
GTA, May 24, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/05/24/3087857/reporters-notebook-aipac-2011
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The centerpiece of AIPAC’s annual conference, the gala banquet, is a little like the Oscars: The room is full of celebrities, speeches are interspersed with emotional video montages, the highlight that everyone’s waiting for comes at the end, and the main event is followed by exclusive after-parties.
There are a few differences, too, of course.
Instead of Hollywood’s elite, it’s the political elite that shows up. This year, 67 members of the U.S. Senate and 286 members of the House of Representatives came, along with a smattering of Obama administration officials, Knesset members and diplomats from around the world. Former NBA All-Star Allan Houston helped emcee the evening.
At the after-parties, instead of inebriated celebs showing off their evening gowns, or what’s under them, Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) hosted parties in conference rooms with kosher brownies and chocolate chip cookies, and the buzz was about the next presidential election.
And unlike the Oscars, the AIPAC dinner is a little less exclusive: As long as you pay your registration fee, you get a seat at a table. This year as every year, the dinner for 10,000 — approximately 1,500 of whom were bumped to a satellite ballroom — marked the world’s largest single kosher meal. The menu? Stuffed Cornish hen.
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AIPAC, grappling with America’s changing demographics, is and reaching out big time to minorities.
Monday night’s dinner featured lots of black-and-white optics: Houston, now the assistant general manager of the NBA’s Knicks, joined Betsy Berns, who writes guides for women on watching sports, to crack wise about hoops and Israel and get sincere about AIPAC. They talked about last year’s tour of Israel by 10 current and former NBA pros.
Then there was the parade of student leaders, which started with the leader of the student body at Morehouse College, a historically black school. The evening’s convocation was delivered by a black Baptist preacher from Detroit and a Conservative rabbi from New Jersey. They hugged and invoked the civil rights era.
Finally, there were the black and white leaders who spoke at the conference: Obama and Netanyahu.
* * * ….
On Tuesday, thousands of activists headed to Capitol Hill for lobbying, with meetings in all 100 Senate offices, and 426 out of 435 House offices.
Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney Jr. Source: The Christian Science Monitor, June 2005
“If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.”—Source: Forward (Volume 109, Issue 31,583), January 6, 2006, page 12.
In hi book Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax America, Gary Dorrien admits that “virtually all neocons are Likud-style Zionists” Source: Gary Dorrien. 2004. Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax America, New York: Routledge. Page 3.
Key neoconservative figures
Compare/contrast the views of the neoconservatives (who support Israel) and the conservatives (who oppose Israel)
Pat Buchanan: Hitler wasn’t a threat to U.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk5WwroXY&feature=related
CNN – David Duke vs. Blitzer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpTKbrgUz-s&feature=related
The Neoconservative Branch of the Israel Lobby
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The Christian Zionist Branch of the Israel Lobby
(1) provides financial support to the settler movement
(2) opposes any territorial concession to the Palestinians
(3) contributes to tourism in Israel, a lucrative economic sector generating $2.8 billion in 2004 p138 and 400
(4) Yet the influence of the Christian Zionists should not be overstated
(5) In sharp contrast to the groups like AIPAC, Christian Zionists lack the organizational capacity to analyze national security topic
(6) They lack the organizational capacity to offer specific legislation guidance on concrete foreign policy issues
(7) They also lack the financial power of the major pro-Israel groups
(8) They do not have the same media presence when it comes to the Middle East issues
(9) Therefore Christian Zionists “are best seen as a significant adjunct to the Jewish elements of the lobby, but not its most important part”
Source: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007)
The Evangelical-Jewish Alliance
Donald Wagner The Christian Century, June 28, 2003, pp. 20-24 http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2717
“Christian Zionism grows out of a particular theological system called premillennial dispensationalism, which originated in early 19th-century England. The preaching and writings of a renegade Irish clergyman, John Nelson Darby, and a Scottish evangelist, Edward Irving, emphasized the literal and future fulfillment of such teachings as the Rapture, the rise of the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon, and the central role that a revived state of Israel would play during the end days. Darby and Irving argued that portions of the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Revelation predict when Jesus will return and how the final battle of history will take place.
Darby brought these doctrines to the U.S. during eight missionary journeys. They captured the hearts and minds of those who attended Bible and prophecy conferences in the years after the Civil War. Darby’s teachings were featured in the sermons of some of the great preachers of the 1880-1920 period: the evangelists Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday; major Presbyterian preachers such as James Brooks; Philadelphia radio preacher Harry B. Ironsides; and Cyrus I. Scofield. Scofield applied Darby’s eschatology to his version of the scriptures and provided an outline of premillennial dispensationalist notations on the text. The Scofield Bible (1909) gave dispensationalist teachings much of their prominence and popularity. It became the Bible version used by most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians for the next 60 years.”
Chicago ZOA* Chapter Honors Televangelist Robertson
Newhouse, Alana. Forward, 7/12/2002. New York, N.Y.: . Vol. CVI, Iss. 31,401; pg. 4
“The Chicago chapter of the ZOA selected Robertson for its State of Israel Friendship Award because of the decidedly pro-Israel slant of his Christian Broadcasting Network and his television show, “The 700 Club,” as well as Robertson’s personal support for Israel at a time when the Jewish state has been isolated in world opinion.”
*ZOA stands for The Zionist Organization of America
U.S. Presbyterians urge government to end Israel aid over settlements
Presbyterian Church publishes report on Middle East issues that was approved with 82% of the vote during the church’s annual general assembly in Minneapolis.
Haaretz, 7/10/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071
J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans
“The J Street family consists of three legally independent organizations:
J Street is itself a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, and a registered lobbying organization, which uses online organizing, advocacy, and education to achieve its goals on Capitol Hill and with the Executive Branch.
JStreetPAC is a legally independent political action committee and is the first PAC specifically established to endorse and raise money for candidates for federal office who support active American leadership to bring peace and security to Israel and the Middle East. In its first year, JStreetPAC raised nearly $600,000 for its 42 endorsed candidates for U.S. Congress, 34 of whom won their races.
J Street Education Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. It aims to educate targeted communities about the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, raise the visibility of a mainstream pro-Israel, pro-peace presence within the American Jewish community, and promote open, dynamic and spirited conversation about how to best advance the interests and future of a democratic, Jewish Israel. J Street Local, J Street’s national field program and J Street U, J Street’s on campus movement are programs of the J Street Education Fund.” http://www.jstreet.org/about/about-us
“We support:
Consistent and concerted diplomatic engagement by the United States to achieve Israeli-Arab peace. A negotiated end to the Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts serves both U.S. and Israeli strategic and security interests. Achieving it must be a priority for the current U.S. administration;
An enduring relationship between the US and Israel that promotes their common interests. We recognize and support Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, a democratic country that promises equal rights for all its citizens and that has the right to defend itself against external threats;
The creation of a viable Palestinian state as part of a negotiated two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps. The future Palestinian state will require unprecedented levels of international economic and political support to succeed, including a resolution of the refugee issue within the new Palestinian state and in current host countries”– http://www.jstreet.org/page/j-street-statement-principles
Jewish People Policy Planning Institute
The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) is an independent think tank incorporated in Israel … JPPPI makes an annual presentation to the Israeli Cabinet as a whole on main developments in the Jewish world… JPPPI annually briefs the leadership of major Jewish organization, such as the Conference of Presidents, AIPAC, ADL, Jewish Agency and the leadership UJC in North America… JPPPI has held several retreats of Jewish leaders and thinkers at which major studies have been presented and in turn enriched by wide-ranging brainstorming
JPPPI’s most recent publication in 2010: “2030 ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE”—“The year 2030 is not exactly around the corner, but it is the time horizon we need to look at when it comes to strategic thinking and policy planning for the Jewish People and the thriving of the Jewish civilization. It is not accidental that this project was one of the first to be initiated when JPPPI was founded in 2003. Together with the Institute’s Annual Assessments and other strategic papers, it may serve as a base for future planning –for us, the State of Israel and Jewish organizations… A variable significantly shaping the Jewish future (for example: the number of children in out-marriage families who choose to identify with the Jewish People is a driver of the total number of the Jewish People). We use drivers on a middle level of analysis, recognizing that behind each driver operate deeper ones (for example, the soft power of the Jewish People influences the number of children in out-mar riage fami l ies who choose to identify with the Jewish People).”
http://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI
Jewish People Policy Planning Institute
Geography of world Jewry in 2009: 13,309,000 (including 5,569,000 in Israel, 5,275,000 in the United States, 485,000 in France, 375,000 in Canada, 293,000 in the United Kingdom, 210,000 in Russia, 183,000 in Argentina, 120,000 in Germany, 107,000 in Australia, 96,000 in Brazil, 74,000 in Ukraine, 71,000 in South Africa, 49,000 in Hungary, 40,000 in Mexico, other countries 362,000)
“Jewish hard and soft power and influence: The Jewish People has never been as powerful as now, including the military power and global standing of Israel… Jewish economics: The Jewish People today is at a historical zenith of wealth creation. With the vast majority of Jews living in countries that are among the world’s wealthiest, and with the majority of those Jews belonging to middle and upper socio-economic strata in those countries (excluding Israel) the Jewish People as a whole enjoys access to wealth as never before…
Jewish Economics–Background: The Jewish economics dimension examines both the aspect of the accumulation of wealth in Jewish hands as well as its distribution for specifically Jewish causes. These aspects are treated separately as it is quite possible for Jews to accumulate greater wealth individually while distributing a smaller share, relatively and absolutely, to Jewish causes. Overall Trends: World Jewry today is at a historical zenith of absolute wealth creation. With the vast majority of Jews living in countries that are among the world’s wealthiest, and with the majority of those Jews belonging to the middle and upper socio-economic strata of those countries (excluding Israel) the Jewish People as a whole enjoys access to wealth as never before. On average, the social and economic status of Jews in most Diaspora communities is better than that of the general population: Jews earn more, are better educated, have superior professional training, and are attracted to the more profitable sectors of the market. Jews continue to be at the forefront of the technological revolution and economic know-how, and take senior positions in the global economic and business system. There is more money per capita in Jewish hands -absolutely and perhaps, even relatively- than anytime in history. There are no data comparing Jewish and non-Jewish levels of accumulated wealth. One can base the predictions only on non-scientific analysis such as the prominence of Jews among: Nobel laureates, lists of rich people and the “Russian oligarchs,” leaders of financial institutions, entertainment, hi-tech industries, and political representatives. Based on these observations, one can say that Jewish wealth is higher than almost any other ethnic group worldwide. Barring a financial catastrophe that would impoverish large numbers of Jews, given Jewish professional selection, levels of education and global mobility these trends are likely to continue in the next 20 years. The urban skilled occupations remain the distinctive mark of the Jewish People, as it has been for most of their history: in the countries that hosted the largest Jewish communities in the early 20th century (countries in East Europe, Russia, North Africa, the United States, the Middle East and Canada), almost all Jews were engaged in non-agricultural occupations even though they were not always prohibited from 54 being farmers. In the United States, more than half of adult Jewish men are engaged in professions such as law, medicine, and academia, whereas the percentage for white non-Jewish men is about 20 %. In contrast, only 6 % of adult Jewish men are employed in the construction, transportation, and production sectors compared to about 40 % of adult non-Jewish men. This distinctive mark of the Jews in the US is most likely the same for all Jews outside of Israel (although data are unavailable today for European and other Jewish Diaspora communities besides the US).” Source: Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, “2030 ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE,” January 2010, http://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI
Elliott Abrams
Marcos Aguinis
Jacques Attali
Sanford (Sandy) Baklor
Aluf Benn
Yehudi t Bi rk
Gabriella Blum
Judit Bokser Liwerant
Charles Burson
Yuval Cherlow
Irwin Cotler
Lester Crown
Ruth Deech
Dennis Ross
Alisa Rubin Kurshan
John Ruskay
Shalom Saar
William Safire z”l
Steven Schwager
Dan Shapiro
Natan Sharansky
Rene Samuel Sirat
Hermona Soreq
Michael Steinhardt
Lawrence Summers
Harold Tanner
Shmuel Trigano
Moshe Vigdor
Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
Ariel Weiss
Aharon Yadlin
David Young
Henry Kissinger
Bernardo Kliksberg
Howard Kohr
Charles Krauthammer
Suzanne Last Stone
Morlie Levin
Glen Lewy
Daniel Liwerant
Edward Luttwak
David Makovsky
Dan Mariaschin
Sallai Meridor
Isaac Molho
Steven Nasatir
Leonid Nevzlin
Steven Popper
Sheizaf Rafaeli
Jehuda Reinharz
Alan Dershowitz
Stuart Eizenstat
David Ellenson
Maxyne Finkelstein
Wayne Firestone
Rachel Fish
Abe Foxman
Sami Friedrich
Misha Galperin
Ruth Gavison
Todd Gitlin
Charles Goodman
Stanley Greenberg
Nicole Guedj
David Harris
Roger Hertog
Malcolm Hoenlein
Steve Hoffman
Jeremy Issacharoff
Richard Joel
Arlene Kaufman
Jewish People Policy Planning Institute Brainstormings Participants
Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, “2030 ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE,”
January 2010, http://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI
Counting Jews
A newly-released World Jewish Population Report has been making waves. Some critics, especially in Israel, charge that the report, in claiming the existence of a non-Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, is both slanted and unduly pessimistic. Other critics, especially in the Diaspora, complain that the report is too old-fashioned in its definition of Jewishness.
According to the report, whose principal author is the demographer Sergio DellaPergola of the Hebrew University, there are now about 13 million Jews in the world. The largest concentration—5.7 million, as determined by Orthodox standards of religious law—live in Israel. Of the Diaspora’s 7.7 million, most—5,275,000 “core” Jews, defined as people who identify themselves as Jews or who are identified as Jews by those they reside with, and who have no other monotheistic religion—live in the United States. Thus, 82 percent of all Jews live in either Israel or America, trailed by France (483,500), Canada (375,000), the United Kingdom (292,000), the Russian Federation (205,000), Argentina (182,300), Germany (119,000), Australia (107,500), and various other communities numbering under 100,000 souls each.
The report certainly offers grounds for demographic pessimism. With the singular exception of Israel, worldwide Jewish fertility continues to be low, the population continues to age, intermarriage continues to increase (over three-fifths of all recently married Jews have non-Jewish spouses), and relatively few children of intermarried couples are raised as Jews.
Zionists may take satisfaction in that Israel is the bright spot: not only is it the center of Jewish civilization, but it has become home to the world’s largest Jewish population, especially when to the figure of 5.7 million are added the 313,000 halakhically non-Jewish members of Jewish households (mostly from the former Soviet Union). More Jews now live in greater Tel Aviv than in metropolitan New York.
Still, what worries many Zionists is the shrinking of Israel’s Jewish majority via-à-vis its Arab minority. The combined Jewish and Arab population in sovereign Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza is 11,222,100. This leaves the total core Jewish population between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River at just 50.8 percent. That figure can be adjusted up or down according to which variables are taken into consideration. If the non-halakhically Jewish population is counted, the Jewish percentage climbs to 53.6; if Gaza is subtracted from the Arab total, the Jewish percentage rises to 58.5 percent; but if neither is done, and if the over 200,000 foreign workers within the country are factored into the equation, the Jewish percentage slips to 49.8 percent.
Challenged in the past for accepting census numbers from the Palestinian Authority at face value, DellaPergola has strongly defended the integrity of his data. In this report, though, he appears to acknowledge that Palestinian figures were once “overestimated,” and also that the Arab birthrate inside Israel and in the West Bank is slowly decreasing. Nevertheless, and no matter how the data are juggled, he insists that “The Jewish majority is constantly decreasing—if extant at all—over the whole territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and more particularly within the state of Israel.”
Population surveys are intrinsically political documents. Experts with agendas will clash over methodology, data collection, definitions, and interpretation. Some Diaspora leaders will lobby for more “inclusive” criteria in defining Jews and a rosier interpretation of the Jewish predicament. (If the non-halakhic criteria under Israel’s Law of Return were applied in the American setting, DellaPergola concedes that the U.S. Jewish population would jump to at least 6.7 million.) Some Israeli critics and their American allies will argue that talk of Arabs outnumbering Jews is alarmist or that, in any case, Israel’s political system can be tweaked so that even an outsized Arab minority would be neither disenfranchised nor dominant.
But on one point there is no dispute: the figures generate such visceral reactions because at stake in the Diaspora is nothing less than Jewish continuity, and in Israel nothing less than Jewish sovereignty.
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2010/12/1/main-feature/1/counting-jews/r&jtahome
World Jewish Population, 2010
Sergio DellaPergola, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
At the beginning of 2010, the world’s Jewish population was estimated at 13,428,300—an increase of 80,300 (0.6 percent) over the 2009 revised estimate.1 The world’s total population increased by 1.25 percent in 2009.2 World Jewry hence increased at half the general population growth rate.
http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Reports/World_Jewish_Population_2010
U.S. Jewish population larger than thought, survey shows
The suburban Boston university’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute is estimating that there are some 6.5 million people in the United States who are either Jewish by religion or who self-identify as Jewish. The figure represents a 20 percent increase in the number of Jews since 1990. The numbers were drawn from a synthesis of data from more than 150 nationwide surveys conducted by the U.S. government and other agencies, as well as from national polling organizations. They refute information gathered in the last National Jewish Population Survey, a census-like study that had been conducted every decade by the Jewish federation system before being discontinued this year. The final survey showed that between 1990 and 2000-01, the population dropped from 5.5 million to 5.2 million. http://
www.jta.org/news/article/2010/12/21/2742276/new-survey-suggests-that-there-are-65-million-american-jews
“The 1980 Census Ancestry Question
Facsimile of questionnaire item 14.
14. What is this person’s ancestry? If uncertain about how to report ancestry, see instruction guide. (For example: Afro-Amer., English, French, German, Honduran, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Korean, Lebanese, Mexican, Nigerian, Polish, Ukrainian, Venezuelan, etc.)
Facsimile of instructions to the respondent for questionnaire item 14.
14. Print the ancestry group with which the person identifies. Ancestry (or origin or descent) may be viewed as the nationality group, the lineage, or the country in which the person or person’s parents or ancestors were born before their arrival in the United States. Persons who are of more than one origin and who cannot identify with a single group should print their multiple ancestry (for example, German-Irish).
Be specific; for example, if ancestry is “Indian,” specify whether American Indian, Asian Indian, or West Indian. Distinguish Cape Verdean from Portuguese, and French Canadian fro Canadian.
A religious group should not be reported as a person’s ancestry.” [emphasis added]
Source: Bureau of the Census 1980b
Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, page 169.
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Collaboration between the Israeli Mossad and the Jewish Sayanim
According to former Israeli Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky, a KGB [the legendary Soviet spy organization] station would employ about 100 people, while a comparable Mossad [the legendary Israeli spy organization] station would need only a “skeleton staff” of six or seven people because the Mossad works with the Sayanim, or Jews who live outside Israel as foreign citizens and who volunteer to provide assistance to the Israeli Mossad.
It is believed that the Mossad had the best capability of all for cracking locks. “This is recognized to the extent that when various British lock manufacturers send new mechanisms to British intelligence for security testing, they in turn send them on to the Mossad for analysis.”
“The one problem with the system is that the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it could be to the status of the Jewish people in the Diaspora if it was known. The answer you get if you ask is: “So what’s the worst that could happen to those Jews? They’d all come to Israel? Great.”
Source: Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, pages 86-88.
Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of working as a Sayan before he was elected president
“The influential French daily Le Figaro last week revealed that the French leader once worked for — and perhaps still does, it hinted — Israeli intelligence as a sayan (Hebrew for helper), one of the thousands of Jewish citizens of countries other than Israel who cooperate with the katsas (Mossad case-officers).”
“Furl the flag: Gamal Nkrumah reflects on Sarkozy’s bad week,” Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 25 – 31 October 2007, Issue No. 868, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/868/in2.htm
JEAN-MARC LECLERC, Les étranges accusations d’un cybercorbeau, Le Figaro, 10/22/2007, http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2007/10/12/01001-20071012ARTFIG90291-les_etranges_accusations_d_un_cybercorbeau.php
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Mossad spy and founding father David Kimche dies
“The former leading Mossad agent and diplomat David Kimche has died aged 82. Born in London, Mr Kimche made aliyah aged 18 and fought in the War of Independence before joining Mossad in the early 1950s. He became one of the organisation’s leading figures, helping to formulate its mission statement. He also founded Mossad’s research department. He recruited and directed agents for the intelligence agency, which infiltrated Arab countries, and spent time undercover in Africa, posing as a journalist, in the late 1960s. He later became deputy head of Mossad… In 1975 Mr Kimche gave UK passport officials a fright, when he applied to renew his British passport. It was at the height of a scandal over a Mossad agent who used a British passport when he travelled to kill a man in Sweden, whom he mistook for a Palestinian terrorist. A Mr S Weir noted in government archives: “This is really extraordinary. At the same time as the minister of state is about to protest to the Israeli embassy over the misuse of British passports for Israeli intelligence operations, we are apparently contemplating issuing a British passport to the man who may have been in charge of the operation complained of!”
Mossad spy and founding father David Kimche dies, The Jewish Chronicle, 3/9/2010, http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/29199/mossad-spy-and-founding-father-david-kimche-dies
Pictures of 26 ‘agents’ sought over Hamas killing
Images show suspected agents with the names and nationalities of the faked European and Australian passports they used.
The government in Dubai has issued pictures of 26 “agents” with faked European and Australian passports that it suspects of involvement in the assassination of a top Hamas official last month.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, accused Israeli agents of killing him. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. Reports said he was in Dubai to buy weapons for Hamas.
Dubai’s police said 12 of the suspects had British passports, six had Irish passports, four had French, three had Australian and one had a German passport. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8517716.stm
“INTERPOL [the world’s largest international police organization]: Broadening Dubai murder investigation sees INTERPOL join international task force as it issues 16 additional Red Notices– INTERPOL media release, 3/8/2010, http://www.interpol.int/public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2010/PR016.asp
Robert Fisk: Dubai police hunt Briton over murder of Hamas official, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-dubai-police-hunt-briton-over-murder-of-hamas-official-1974688.html
New Mossad chief to apologise for use of UK passports in Dubai killing: The new head of Israel’s secret service, Mossad, is ready to apologise for the use of forged British passports during the assassination of a leading Hamas militant in Dubai. Daily Telegraph, 12/25/2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8224391/New-Mossad-chief-to-apologise-for-use-of-UK-passports-in-Dubai-killing.html
Mossad agent ‘brought down Egypt’s internet‘: An Egyptian national accused of spying for Mossad has allegedly told his interrogators that Israeli sabotage brought down the country’s internet network two years ago. Daily Telegraph, 12/27/2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8227098/Mossad-agent-brought-down-Egypts-internet.html
“Iran executed a man convicted of spying for Israel”–Jerusalem Post, 12/28/2010, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/12/28/2742339/iranian-executed-for-spyng-for-israel
http://gulfnews.com/polopoly_fs/1.588332!menu/standard/file/suspects
The suspects gathered in Dubai and dispersed to various locations before pairing up again in different teams and heading off to other destinations
BBC, 2/24/10, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/24_02_10_dubai_suspects_routes
Police in Dubai have identified 15 more suspects in last month’s killing of a senior member of Palestinian militant group Hamas, taking the total to 26
Mabhouh [above] was found dead in a hotel room in the Gulf emirate on January 20, 2010
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni applauded the killing, which Dubai believes Israel was behind.
“American investigators, cooperating in a probe of the January assassination of a top Palestinian leader in Dubai, have identified a handful of U.S.-based companies believed to have been used to transfer money to suspects in the case, a finding that brings international authorities closer to identifying who funded the operation.
The findings show American authorities playing a bigger role in the investigation than previously revealed. The case is especially delicate for the U.S., because Dubai police have said their prime suspect in the case is Mossad, the intelligence service of Israel, a key U.S. ally. International investigators see money transfers made through the U.S. companies as key clues in a globe-spanning manhunt aimed at identifying more than two dozen suspects in the case, according to officials familiar with the matter.
The U.S. companies identified by investigators include Internet-based businesses that match freelance job-seekers with employers and process payments between the two sides. Authorities have identified financial transfers from several of these intermediary businesses into prepaid, cash-card accounts used by suspects in the Dubai killing, according to international investigators”
Chip Cummins in Dubai and Evan Perez in Washington, “Hamas Probe Leads to American Firms,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/31/2020, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703314904575399091233047622.html
Russia refuses Israel cultural center over spy fears
Lieberman has been trying to obtain Russia’s permission for the cultural center, to be run by the Israeli Liaison Bureau.
Moscow has refused repeated requests from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to open an Israeli cultural center in Russia, for fear it would operate as an intelligence agency, Israeli officials said.
Lieberman has been trying to obtain Russia’s permission for the cultural center, to be run by Nativ – the Israeli Liaison Bureau – in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city.
Haaretz, 7/1/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/russia-refuses-israel-cultural-center-over-spy-fears-1.299272
Ireland seeks to block Israel access to data on EU citizens
Irish government retaliates over use of forged Irish passports by alleged Mossad spies in Dubai assassination
Ireland is seeking to stop a European Union initiative that would enable Israel to receive sensitive information about European citizens, due to concerns about the use that Israel would make of this information, the Irish minister for justice said over the weekend…
Under a plan put forward at the beginning of the year, the European organizations for protecting individuals’ privacy agreed that Israeli companies and European companies should be able to exchange information about customers.
For example, this would mean that an Israeli customer of a local cell phone company, say, Pelephone, would be able to use his phone to connect to the Internet, say, in Italy, and the Italian telecom would be able to receive his personal data from Pelephone and charge his account accordingly. The same would be true for people with European cell phones in Israel who wanted to use Israeli networks.
In addition, multinational corporations would be able to entrust Israeli companies to secure their databases, and the data could be stored on servers in Israel. Plus, information about employees could be passed freely between European and Israeli branches of the same company. Haaretz, 7/11/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/ireland-seeks-to-block-israel-access-to-data-on-eu-citizens-1.301180
So far Israel Stance on Iran and Palestine was Vindicated by Wikileaks
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-wikileaks-cables-prove-israel-is-right-on-iran-1.327653
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/wikileaks-israel-iran-sta_n_789260.html
SUBJECT: CODELS ACKERMAN AND CASEY MEETINGS WITH PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU–Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he was pleased with President Obama’s approach to engagement with Iran, and reiterated his view that the Palestinian Authority must declare its recognition of Israel as a Jewish state… Chairman Ackerman said that in his meetings with Arab leaders, he found them all concerned about Iran. They said it would helpful to resolve the Palestinian issue, but Israel-Palestine is not the main threat to the region. Netanyahu, following a similar comment during his meeting with CODEL Casey, responded that there are no Arab leaders who would tell the U.S. to wait on Iran until there is a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/06/09TELAVIV1184.html
SUBJECT: REP. WEXLER DISCUSSES IRAN WITH IDF INTELLIGENCE CHIEF YADLIN
http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/05/09TELAVIV1060.html
SUBJECT: CODEL CARDIN DISCUSSES IRAN, SYRIA, PALESTINIANS, AND ISRAEL ELECTION WITH BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/02/09TELAVIV457.html
SUBJECT: CODELS CASEY AND ACKERMAN MEET WITH DEFENSE MINISTER BARAK
Summary: Post hosted two CODELS during the week of May 25: one from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by Senator Casey, the other from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs led by Congressman Ackerman. Both delegations met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who conveyed similar points on the Peace Process and Israel’s concerns about Iran. End summary…By avoiding confrontation with Iran, Barak argued, the U.S. faces a perception of weakness in the region. http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/06/09TELAVIV1177.html
‘WikiLeaks to publish Israel cables on Second Lebanon War, Dubai assassination’
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Assange said that only very few files related to Israel were published so far and that WikiLeaks intends on releasing many more documents over the next six months. Assange, who was recently released from a British prison, said that he holds 3,700 more files related to Israel, and the main source of them is the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv… Assange said that WikiLeaks had not had any direct or indirect relations with Israel, but said he was sure Israeli intelligence is monitoring WikiLeaks’ activities closely.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/wikileaks-to-publish-israel-cables-on-second-lebanon-war-dubai-assassination-1.332416
“WikiLeaks successfully removed peace talks from the news and restored talk of war with Iran.”—Jeff Gates, http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/why-is-jonathan-pollard-back-in-the-news/
Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association, p. 191
Jewish security network to be national model
“WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Jewish security network will be used as a national model by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Secure Community Network, established 4 1/2 years ago by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America, will be expanded “to include other communities as well,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a speech late last month on preparedness.
“They’re a benchmark of what we’d like to be doing with other groups,” said William Flynn, acting assistant secretary of infrastructure protection for the Department of Homeland Security in an interview with JTA. “They’ve got a network and a means of reaching out — they’re proactive.”
For example, Flynn said his department has 96 infrastructure security specialists throughout the United States that SCN has been connecting with local Jewish organizations for security reviews. Homeland Security also partners with SCN to hold webinars providing advice to Jewish groups on how to spot security risks. And the department has worked with SCN on special Jewish community events such as the annual JCC Maccabi Games.
With a four-person staff, SCN also disseminates information it receives from Homeland Security on security threats through its alert system to more than 500 member institutions.”
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano accepts certificates of appreciation from Secure Community Network officials Stephen Hoffman, center, and Paul Goldenberg. Napolitano cited SCN as a national model for security networks. (SCN)
JTA, 10/12/2009,
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/12/1008462/jewish-security-network
[U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano and Israeli President Shimon Peres Monday—Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Package to U.S. homeland security chief ignites in Washington
Police say postal worker was tossing mail into a bin when package addressed to Janet Napolitano was discovered ‘popping, smoking and with a brief flash of fire.’
A package addressed to United States Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ignited on Friday at a postal facility in Washington, D.C. but was quickly extinguished and no one was injured, authorities said. Haaretz, 1/8/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/package-to-u-s-homeland-security-chief-ignites-in-washington-1.335865
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said she was impressed
“Visiting Israel yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed the naysayers, insisting, “There are many differences in the United States system versus Israel. Part of that is driven by sheer size.” She did say she was impressed after receiving a security-focused tour of Ben Gurion Airport—a good reminder that security expertise is likely to be an increasing Israeli export over the coming years. Just don’t expect the whole system.” Marc Tracy, Tablet, 1/5/2011, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/55104/we-have-seen-israeli-security-and-it-is-not-ours/
Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.
The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.
Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily
Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama–http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the Verizon court order had been in place for seven years. “People want the homeland kept safe,” Feinstein said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/obama-administration-nsa-verizon-records
Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA
Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, is having a busy year — hopping around the country, cutting ribbons at secret bases and bringing to life the agency’s greatly expanded eavesdropping network.
In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia.
Designed to house about 4,000 earphone-clad intercept operators, analysts and other specialists, many of them employed by private contractors, it will have a 2,800-square-foot fitness center open 24/7, 47 conference rooms and VTCs, and “22 caves,” according to an NSA brochure from the event. No television news cameras were allowed within two miles of the ceremony…
According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters.
At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment.
What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.
In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.”…
But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later, four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.”
Narus was formed in Israel in November 1997 by six Israelis with much of its money coming from Walden Israel, an Israeli venture capital company. Its founder and former chairman, Ori Cohen, once told Israel’s Fortune Magazine that his partners have done technology work for Israeli intelligence. And among the five founders was Stanislav Khirman, a husky, bearded Russian who had previously worked for Elta Systems, Inc. A division of Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Elta specializes in developing advanced eavesdropping systems for Israeli defense and intelligence organizations. At Narus, Khirman became the chief technology officer.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/shady-companies-nsa/all/1
What was the Israeli involvement in collecting U.S. communications intel for NSA?
Israeli high-tech firms Verint and Narus have had connections with U.S. companies and Israeli intelligence in the past, and ties between the countries’ intelligence agencies remain strong. Were Israeli companies Verint and Narus the ones that collected information from the U.S. communications network for the National Security Agency?
According to an article in the American technology magazine “Wired” from April 2012, two Israeli companies – which the magazine describes as having close connections to the Israeli security community – conduct bugging and wiretapping for the NSA… Both Verint and Narus have ties to the Israeli intelligence agency and the Israel Defense Forces intelligence-gathering unit 8200. Haaretz, June 8, 2013,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/how-was-israel-involved-in-collecting-u-s-communications-intel-for-nsa-1.528529
[European Union] Parliament to launch in-depth inquiry into US surveillance programmes
Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee will conduct an “in-depth inquiry” into the US surveillance programmes, including the bugging of EU premises and other spying allegations, and present its results by the end of this year, says a resolution passed by the full House on Thursday. Parliament’s President and political group leaders formally confirmed the launch of the inquiry. European Parliament, July 4, 2013, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pressroom/content/20130701IPR14770/html/Parliament-to-launch-in-depth-inquiry-into-US-surveillance-programmes
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who is to be named national security adviser, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, October 2009. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty), http://www.jta.org/2013/06/05/news-opinion/politics/in-new-white-house-role-israel-will-still-keep-susan-rice-busy
In new White House role, Israel will still keep Susan Rice busy
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Susan Rice has said that a “huge” portion of her work at the United Nations was defending Israel’s legitimacy. Her new job will likely be no less Israel-centric. President Obama plans Wednesday to name Rice his national security adviser and replace her at the U.N. with Samantha Power, one of his top White House advisers… Rice has scored mostly high marks from Jewish groups for her defense of Israel at the United Nations… Last month, she was honored by the American Jewish Committee with its Distinguished Public Service Award… http://www.jta.org/2013/06/05/news-opinion/politics/in-new-white-house-role-israel-will-still-keep-susan-rice-busy
Peres Congratulates Susan Rice on Appointment
[Israeli] President Shim’on Peres congratulated Doctor Susan Rice, Thursday [June 6, 2013], on her being appointed National Security Advisor of the United States. Peres told the outgoing United Nations ambassador that she was the right person for the job and that she would be successful. She responded by saying she intended to do her best for everyone. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/269810
“The Way Forward”
Law enforcement must identify and depose the sayanim
To access the active lists of sayanim may require suspension of the diplomatic immunity that Israel has thus far enjoyed
With those lists, FBI personnel can interview the sayanim corps to clarify the scope, scale, duraton and long-term goals of this transgenerational operation
U.S. attorneys should be allowed to grant limited immunity for those willing to testify
Amnesty should be considered for those who identify operative sayanim networks
Testimony should be sought from those who declined to be recruited as sayanim
The FBI should offer cash rewards for evidence of Israeli espionage and the disclosure of active sayanim networks
Should an investigation uncover complicity by Israeli officials, Israel’s embassy and its consular offices should be closed, its diplomatic corps expelled and its staff (Israeli and American alike) detained for questioning. U.S. diplomats should be withdrawn from Israel and the embassy closed and replaced with a modest interest section
Should an investigation identify evidence of complicity within community centers or places of worship, federal investigators should search there for evidence of sayanim support systems
Former U.S. military officers who were dispatched by the Pentagon to offer expert commentary on the Iraq war should be interviewed to identify all those who conceived, organized and directed that program
Those commentators should identify all those with whom they collaborated in acting for the Pentagon as “message-force multipliers”
To determine personal responsibility for the media component of this opinion-shaping operation, television and radio producers as well as print media editors should be interviewed and profiles prepared of all participants and collaborators in this Pentagon directed program—Source: compiled from Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association, p. 181
The following is Victor Ostrovsky’s description of how the Mossad poisoned Palestinian leader Khaled Meshal in Amman, Jordan, in 1997:
“On Sept. 19, six members of the Israeli hit squad arrived in Amman and registered at the Amman Intercontinental Hotel. Two had come on a flight from New York and registered as Canadian tourists. The others arrived from Europe, three with Canadian passports, one under the assumed name of Guy Erez, and the fourth on a French passport. All four posed as businessmen, and also had fake Egyptian passports in their possession to be left behind in the event of an accident, to point a finger in a different direction. The passports did not attract the attention of Jordanian officials because all passports used in such operations are replicas of the real thing, and the persons to whom the real passports belong actually reside in Israel. These persons turn in their passports willingly, and promise not to report them stolen. Unknown to them, however, they are unable to leave the country while their passports are in use by Mossad agents unless they are active, in which case their addresses and phone numbers are used as umbilical cords for operatives in the field. The two triggermen, using the names of Shawn Kendall, 28, and Barry Beads, 36, set out to see the city and did not associate with the other team members. They already knew details of the plan and they went over their planned escape route. The other agents rented a Hyundai automobile and several cellular phones….
On Sept. 25, “Kendall” and “Beads” accosted Meshal as he sought to enter his office in Amman. One stepped in front of him while the other assaulted him from behind, placing a pressure-gas injector against his neck and releasing a toxin that immediately penetrated the skin without breaking it. As they fled, one of Meshal’s two bodyguards, Mohammad Abu Saif, sprinted after them. He was gaining on them until they turned a corner and jumped into the Hyundai, driven by “Guy Erez,” who was waiting for them with his motor running. Abu Saif then flagged down a passing vehicle and continued the pursuit. He caught up with them when the Hyundai stopped and the two triggermen got out, as part of a prearranged plan to switch cars. When they saw Abu Saif, however, “Kendall” and “Beads” ran across the street and then attempted to disappear into an alley while the Hyundai sped off to the Israeli Embassy. But Abu Saif overtook them, knocked one of the two to the ground, was in turn gashed in the head, and then pushed the other triggerman down a slope, plunging after him. At this time a Jordanian security guard who was passing by came to Saif’s assistance and, together, they managed to subdue the two triggermen, get them into a taxi, and deliver them to the police….
By that time Meshal was in the hospital in critical condition. Jordanian interrogators then turned their attention to the two men in custody and, after several hours of intense interrogation, they broke down and admitted their real identity. Soon negotiations were underway between Israel and Jordan in an attempt by the Israeli government to contain the storm. King Hussein warned that if Meshal died, Jordan would try the triggermen and have them publicly hanged for murder. He insisted that Israel could avoid this only by handing over the antidote the Mossad back-up team, now holed up in the Israeli Embassy in Jordan, must be carrying in case of an accident. The Israelis insisted on the release of their agents and claimed the antidote the agents had been carrying had been discarded. They offered to send some antidote from Israel. Hussein, not trusting Netanyahu and suspecting the antidote sent from Israel would be nothing more than another dose of poison, demanded to know what the poison was. Netanyahu, through emissaries, since at this point the king would not talk directly to Netanyahu, refused, stating the poison was a state secret. King Hussein asked U.S. President Bill Clinton to intervene. The frustrated president declared Netanyahu an impossible man, but finally the prime minister agreed. The poison was identified, the Jordanians applied the antidote, and Meshal’s life was saved. As quid pro quo, the Jordanian government allowed the Mossad back-up team holed up in the Israeli Embassy to leave for Israel. By this time some of the information was in the hands of the media, and events moved rapidly. …
Netanyahu suggested that if he released the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, [a nearly blind and a paraplegic man in a wheelchair whom the Israelis assassinated later by Hellfire missile while he was wheeled out of an early morning prayer in a mosque in Gaza City on March 22, 2004], who had spent eight years in Israeli prisons, the king would be seen as the man who brought about his release, putting a different spin on the matter. (Several months earlier, Netanyahu turned down a similar American request, saying that Sheikh Yassin’s release would be a direct threat to Israeli security by bolstering Hamas.)….
After the release and return of Sheikh Yassin to Gaza, the release from Israeli jails of 20 Hamas members accused of “terrorism,” and a promise of 50 more releases, the Jordanians returned the two triggermen and Netanyahu hoped that the story dubbed by the Israeli media as “the Jordanian affair” would come to an end.” Source: Victor Ostrovsky, “Bungled Amman Assassination Plot Exposes Rift Within Israeli Government Over Peace Negotiations,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, pages 7-8, 92.
The following is Aaron J. Klein’s description of how the Mossad poisoned Dr. Wadi Haddad:
“He died a slow, painful death in a grim East German hospital. The Palestinian doctor flew to Germany from Iraq, terminally ill. Once a fat man, he was now weak and emaciated, confined to his bed, waiting out his days. He died on March 30, 1978, only forty-eight years old…
He died of an unknown terminal disease that attacked and debilitated his immune system. They could not be certain if his death was natural or induced… For years Israel kept silent on the matter. Now it is possible to reveal that Dr. Haddad died an unnatural death. Poison was slipped into his food…
[In the spring of 1977] an assassination plan took shape and was authorized by newly inaugurated Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Dr. Haddad had a weak point: his sweet tooth. The man loved good chocolate, Belgian chocolate, particularly; Tzomet, the human intelligence collection arm of the Mossad, was taken to capitalize on that weakness. The plan called for a reliable Palestinian agent, a member of Dr. Haddad‟s organization, to bring the doctor a gift of Belgian chocolates upon return from travels in Europe. The valuable gift, unattainable in Iraq in those years, was coated by Mossad specialists with a lethal biological poison. Tzomet had good reason to believe that the chocoholic would eat the creamy squares alone, unwilling to share the delectable gift. And so it was. The agent brought his boss the gift when he got back from Europe and the doctor gleefully devoured it—alone. Weeks later he began to lose weight. He lost his appetite. Blood tests showed that his immune system was compromised. It took him a few long months to die.” Aaron J. Klein, Striking Back, New York: Random House, 2005, page 208.
The following is Gordon Thomas’ description of how the Mossad assassinated Palestinian Yasser Arafat’s deputy, Khalil Al-Wazir (known on Mossad’s Honeywell computer as Abu Jihad), in his villa on the outskirts of Tunis, Tunisia, in 1988:
“For two months Mossad agents conducted an exhaustive reconnaissance of Abu Jihad’s villa in the resort of Sidi Bou Said on the outskirts of Tunis. Access roads, points of entry, fence heights and types, windows, doors, locks, defenses, the routing employed by Abu Jihad’s guards: everything was monitored, checked, and checked again.
They watched Abu Jihad’s wife play with her children; they came alongside her as she shopped and went to the hair dresser. They listened to her husband’s phone calls, bugged their bedroom, listened to their lovemaking. They calculated distances from one room to another, found out what the neighbors did, when they were at home, and logged the makes, colors, and registrations of all the vehicles that came and went from the villa.
The rules for preparing an assassination Meir Amit had laid down all those years ago was constantly in their minds: Think like your target and only stop being him when you pull the trigger.
Satisfied, the team returned to Tel Aviv. For the next month they practiced their deadly mission in and around a Mossad safe house near Haifa that matched the target villa. From the time they would enter Abu Jihad’s house, it should take the unit just twenty-two seconds to murder him.
On April 16, 1988, the order was given for the operation to go ahead.
That night several Israeli air force Boeing 707s took off from a military base south of Tel Aviv. One carried [Israel Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin and other high ranking Israeli officers. Their aircraft was in constant touch by safe radio with the execution team already in position and led by an operative code-named “Sword.” The other aircraft was crammed with jamming and monitoring devices. Two more 707s acted as fuel tankers. High above the villa the fleet of aircraft circulated, following every move on the ground through a secure radio frequency. A little after midnight on April 17 the airborne officers heard Abu Jihad had returned home in the Mercedes Yasser Arafat had given him as a wedding gift. Prior to that the hit team had set up sensitive listening devices able to hear everything inside the villa.
From his vantage point near the villa, Sword announced into his lip mike that he could hear Abu Jihad climbing the stairs, going to his bedroom, whispering to his wife, tiptoeing to an adjoining bedroom to kiss his sleeping son, before finally going to his study on the ground floor. The details were picked up by the electronic warfare plane—the Israeli version of an American AWAC and relayed to Rabin’s command aircraft. At 12:17 A.M. he ordered : “Go!”
Outside the villa, Abu Jihad’s driver was asleep in the Mercedes. One of Sword’s men ran forward, pressed a silenced Beretta into his ear, and pulled the trigger. The driver slumped dead across the front seat.
Next, Sword and another member of the hit team laid and explosive charge at the base of the villa’s heavy iron front door. A new type of “silent” plastic explosive, it made little sound as it blew the doors clean off their hinges. Inside, two of Abu Jihad’s body guards were standing in the entrance hall, too stunned by the explosion to move. They, too, were shot dead by silenced weapons.
Running to the study, Sword found Abu Jihad watching video footage of the PLO. As he rose to his feet. Sword shot him twice in the chest. Abu Jihad crashed heavily to the floor. Sword stepped quickly forward and put two more bullets through his head.” Source: Gordon Thomas, Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, updated for 2009 (New York: Thomas Dunne St Martin’s Griffin , 2009), pages 111-113.
The following is Victor Ostrovsky’s description of how the Mossad designed operation “Trojan” in order to embroil the United States into (among other things) a military confrontation with Libya in 1986:
“Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the prerecorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain. The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse. Further, the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad. The only catch was that the Trojan itself would have to be located as close as possible to the normal origin of such transmissions, because of the sophisticated methods of triangulation the Americans and others would use to verify the source.”
On the night of 17-18 February 1986, the Mossad planted the Trojan device in Tripoli, Libya. By the end of March 1986, “the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan, which was only activated during heavy communication traffic hours. Using the Trojan, the Mossad tried to make it appear that a long series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples’ Bureaus). As the Mossad has hoped, the transmissions were deciphered by the Americans and construed as ample proof that the Libyans were active sponsors of terrorism. What’s more, the Americans pointed out, Mossad reports confirmed it. The French and the Spanish, though, were not buying into the new steam of information.” The Mossad was tied in to many of the European terrorist organizations, and it was convinced that in the volatile atmosphere that had engulfed Europe, a bombing with an American victim was just a matter of time.” That’s what actually happened when a planted bomb killed one American serviceman and wounded several others in La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on 5 April 1986. The Mossad was counting on “the American promise to retaliate with vengeance” against Libya. “The Trojan gave the Americans the proof they needed. The Mossad also plugged into the equation Qadhafi’s lunatic image and momentous declarations, which were really only meant for internal consumption”…
“Operation Trojan was one of the Mossad’s greatest success. It brought about the air strike on Libya that President Reagan had promised—a strike that had three important consequences. First, it derailed a deal for the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, thus preserving Hizballah (Party of God) as the number one enemy in the eyes of the West. Second, it sent a message to the entire Arab world, telling them exactly where the United States stood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Third, it boosted the Mossad’s image of itself, since it was they who, by ingenious sleight of hand, had prodded the United States to do what was right.” “After the bombing, the Hizballah broke off negotiations regarding the hostages they held in Beirut and executed three of them, including one American named Peter Kilburn.” …
Ephraim, the Mossad agent, said “After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We’re starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there’s no doubt it’ll work.” Source: Victor Ostrovsky, The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda, New York: Harper Colins Publishers, 1994, pages 113-117.
Reagan’s El Dorado Canyon operation against Libya
On the second day [March 24, 1986] of the operation the director of the Libyan intelligence service sent a cable to Libyan agents in the people’s bureaus in Belgrade, East Berlin, Geneva, Madrid, Paris, and Rome [Bolger, Daniel P. Americans at War, 1975-1986: An Era of Violent Peace, Novato, California: Presidio, 1988, p. 402; Martin, David C., and John Walcott, Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War against Terrorism, New York: Harper and Row, 1988, p. 284; Watson, Russell, et al. “Kaddafi”s Crusade” Newsweek, 7 April 1986, pp. 20-24], and ordered them to carry out terrorist attacks against America military and civilian targets that woul “cause maximum and indiscriminate casualties.” The cable was intercepted and decoded by the national Security Agency [Vox Militaris, “The U.S. Strike against Libya: Operation El Dorado Canyon”, Army Quarterly and Defense Journal 116 (April 1986)134-48]. With the issuance of this order Qaddafi “crossed the Rubicon” in his conflict with Reagan> The United States and Libya were irreversibly headed for a deadly showdown> On 26 March the State Department announced that it had sent warnings to U.S. diplomatic posts and military installations abroad. It advised Americans to be aware of the increased likelihood of terrorist activity and to take added precautions. The department also issued travel advisories for Americans planning to travel overseas. On 27 March the administration alos took the extraordinary step to save American lives when a U.S. diplomat met secretly with representatives of the Soviet and East German governments. The American official apprised them of the threat that the people’s bureau in East Berlin posed to American citizens and property in West Berlin and called on them to use their influence to forestall any terrorist attacks planned by Libyan agents in East Berlin. The Soviet and East Germna diplomats promised no action. Instead they demanded that the U.S. government produce evidence of its allegations against Libya” Joseph T. Stanik, El Dorado Canyon, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2003, pp. 142-143.
The following is Gordon Thomas’ description of how the Mossad assassinated Dr. Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist and the world’s greatest expert on barrel ballistics, in Brussels, Belgium, in 1990:
Dr. Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was the world’s greatest expert on barrel ballistics. Israel had made several unsuccessful attempt to buy his expertise. Each time Bull made his distaste for the Jewish state. Instead he had offered his services to Saddam Hussein to build a supergun ….
On February 17, 1990, a katsa [a Mossad case officer] in Brussels obtained copies of documents setting Babylon’s technical goals: the supergun was really going to be an intermediate range ballistics missile…
Mossad’s director general, Nahum Admoni, sought an immediate meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir…
Shamir spent only a short time studying Mossad’s file on Bull….
On the afternoon of March 20, 1990, in the prime minsiter’s office, Yitzhak Shamir agreed with Nahum Admoni that Gerald had to die.
Two days later after the decision was taken, a two-man kideon team arrived in Brussels. Waiting for them was the katsa who had been closely monitoring Bull’s activities.
At 6:45 on the evening of March 22, 1990, the three men drove in a hired car to the apartment block where Bull lived. Each kideon carried a handgun in a holster under his jacket.
Twenty minutes later, the sixty-one-year-old Bull answered the chiming doorbell of his luxury apartment. He was shot five times in the head and the neck, the kideons firing their 7.65-mm pistols in turn, leaving Bull dead outside his doorway….
Once the kideon team was safely back home, Mossad’s Department of Psychological Warfare began to feed stories to the media , strongly suggesting that Gerald Bull had died because he had planned to renege on his deal with Saddam Hussein.” Source: Gordon Thomas, Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, updated for 2009 (New York: Thomas Dunne St Martin’s Griffin , 2009), pages 119-121.
SUSPICIONS that former Palestinian leader and Nobel Prize winner Yasser Arafat was poisoned in 2004 by the Government of Israel with the radioactive element polonium-210 have prompted his widow Suha to ask that her former husband’s body be exhumed for testing following new findings by the Swiss Institute of Radiology in Lausanne. The Palestinian Authority has cleared the way for a possible autopsy as of July 4, 2012.
Policing Academia
Since the late 1970s, “AIPAC more than tripled its spending on college programs as Israel came under fire… In 2003, AIPAC brought 240 college students on all-expenses-paid to Washington, D.C., for four days of intensive advocacy training”–Mearsheimer & Walt
The Campus Watch branch of the Israel lobby works to blacklist and silence North American Middle East Studies professors whose scholarship could be considered critical of Israel and Zionism.
Read about the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s “attempt to determine what should be read in our nation’s schools, what should be read in our nation’s libraries, and what should publicly be discussed at public forums. Through its 31 offices across the country, the ADL monitors school curricula, library acquisition lists, and public conferences and symposiums, working behind the scenes to stifle intellectual freedom.” Source: An Act of a Censorship–American Library Association Becomes Another Israeli Occupied Territory, By Jeffrey Blankfort, Middle East Labor Bulletin, Vol. 4 No. 3, Fall 1993, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0019749.html
See also “Campus Watch” at: http://www.campus-watch.org/about.php
Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus
The World Union of Jewish Students, March 2002, http://www.muzzlewatch.com/wp-content/wujshasbara
“Seven Basic Propaganda Devices” that “engage the emotions” & “downplay rationality”:
1. Name Calling (attaching negative meanings to ideas or people)
2. Glittering Generality (name calling in reverse )
3. Transfer (transfer the prestige of one concept/symbol to another)
4. Testimonial (enlist the support of somebody admired or famous)
5. Plain Folks (convince listeners that the speaker is a ‘regular guy’)
6. Fear (remind people that Palestinian terrorists operate globally, see next slide for this one)
7. Bandwagon (bandwagon effect through poorly conducted polls)
The World Union of Jewish Students seeks
“To promote Zionism, strengthen the ties of Jewish students worldwide with the State of Israel as the central creative factor in Jewish life, and to pursue this through the encouragement of Aliya, strengthening the State of Israel and increasing the ties between the Jewish communities in Israel and the Diaspora.”—Mission Statement
Compare/contrast with the Mission Statement of The Muslim Student’s Association of the United States and Canada:
“The aims and purposes of MSA shall be to serve the best interest of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Canada so as to enable them to practice Islam as a complete way of life.” http://www.msanational.org/about/constitution/
Israel Hasbara Committee
What happens when a fly falls into a coffee cup? http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=4/d/190620022
The Englishman throws away the cup of coffee and walks away.
The American takes out the fly and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese eats the fly and throws away the coffee.
The Japanese drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra.
The Israeli sells the coffee to the American, the fly to the Chinese, and buys himself a new cup of coffee.
The Palestinian blames the Israeli for the violent act of putting the fly in his coffee; asks the UN for aid, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee; uses the money to purchase explosives, then blows up the coffee house, where the Englishman, the American, the Chinese, and the Japanese are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he was too aggressive.
European Union countries remained divided over how to deal with Holocaust denial: “We would really have problems with arresting one of our citizens and handing him over to another country for denying the Holocaust.” Haaretz, 2/15/2007. Reuters, “Diplomats: EU still divided over how to handle Holocaust denial,” Haaretz, 15 February 2007, accessed 24 December 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/826540.html
Satloff said he wants to make the Holocaust an “Arab story” even though it was once a “European story.” R. Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories of the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands, New York: Public Affairs, 2006, page 18
“the holocaust represents an ideological weapon to silence critics of Israel and an industry of extortion to enrich a number of Jewish organizations.” Finkelstein, After Auschwitz : Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, New York: Verso, 2000, page 149.
Paul Yule, Henry Kissinger, Peter Novick, Norman G Finkelstein, Gulie Ne’eman Arad, Elan Steinberg, and Elie Wiesel, After Auschwitz: Battle for the holocaust, Videorecording, New York, N.Y.: Cinema Guild [distributor], 2001.
Speaking at the dedication of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993, Present Clinton said that the holocaust “contributed, indeed made certain the long overdue creation of the nation of Israel” After Auschwitz. The Holocaust in American Life, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999, page 1.
The Nazi Holocaust in Europe has been used by the Israel lobby as an ideological weapon to excite pity for Israel and silence its critics
Furioso sees in the Holocaust a new religion (Holocaustianity) that exhibits “a grotesque mimicry of Christianity” Furioso listed 20 examples of similarities such as “Christianity blamed the Jews for the crucifixion. Jewry blames Christianity for the Holocaust…” Giuseppe Furioso, “A New Religion,” In Mark Green, ed., Persecution, Privilege & Power: Reconsidering the Zionist Narrative in American Life, Thirty Essential Articles on the Most Pressing Issue of our Time, 2007, pp 131-133.
In 1980 the US Congress created the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council with a mandate to sponsor annual national and local observances (Days of Remembrances) and to create the U.S. Holocaust memorial Museum. “[Since] there is no museum of slavery, what would we think of the Germans if they said well of course the holocaust was terrible thing, but what is really important is to build a Berlin museum for American black slavery”–P. Novick , After Auschwitz
Paul Yule, Henry Kissinger, Peter Novick, Norman G Finkelstein, Gulie Ne’eman Arad, Elan Steinberg, and Elie Wiesel, After Auschwitz: Battle for the holocaust, Videorecording, New York, N.Y.: Cinema Guild [distributor], 2001.
Oliver Stone: Jewish control of the media is preventing free Holocaust debate
Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times… adding that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed]”… Stone said that Israel had distorted “United States foreign policy for years,” adding he felt U.S. policy toward Iran was “horrible.”–Haaretz, 7/30/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/oliver-stone-jewish-control-of-the-media-is-preventing-free-holocaust-debate-1.304108
An empire of their own: how the Jews invented Hollywood / Neal Gabler
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history, this “wonderful history of the golden age of the movie moguls” (Chicago Tribune ) is a provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America’s motion picture industry. Amazon.com
On September 12, 1991, President George Bush complained on television about the Israel Lobby
the “powerful political forces” lined up against “the lonely little guy” in the White House who wanted no more than a four-month delay of $10 billion loan guarantees requested by Israel to resettle Soviet Jewry in Israel following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Source: Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish power: inside the American Jewish power establishment, New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1996, pages xvi-xvii.
The Soviet Jewry migration movement claimed that “the Soviet Jewish community was suffering a slow death of assimilation” Gal Beckerman, “Soviet Jewry: The Struggle to Lift the Iron Curtain,” JTA Archive, http://archive.jta.org/topic/soviet-jewry
Sen. Edward Kennedy – ‘A great friend of Israel’
Jerusalem Post, 08/27/2009
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NB: On the eve of the assassination of President JF Kennedy in November 1963, his administration was battling to (1) register the Israel lobby as a foreign lobby and (2) reverse Israel’s Dimona nuclear weapons development program through U.S. inspections.
Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, page 29.
Israel clashed with the Soviet Union over Jewish emigration
“The main objective of Zionism was to bring about mass immigration into Israel of Jews from the countries to which they had been ‘dispersed,’ with particular attention focused on the Soviet Union… Stalin might have permitted a small stream of emigration, as an investment in Israel’s socialist beginnings, but what the Israeli leadership had set in progress was a mass exodus, which could only be seen as a damaging brain drain. Israel staged a series of political propaganda events to further this end, some of them on Soviet territory. For example, Stalin himself was aware that Golda Meir, then Israel’s ambassador to Moscow, was very active among Soviet Jews; her sphere of influence included several high-ranking figures and their family members. The Soviet foreign ministry was irritated by Israel’s repeated demands for permission to hold ‘cultural and educational events’ on Soviet territory, events that would involve Soviet Jews… This gave rise to the Doctors’ Plot, an alleged attempts to poison Stalin; a campaign was also launched to combat the so-called cosmopolitans, and restrictions were placed on the number of Jews hired to work for the government apparatus or admitted to higher education and training for state institutions. Matters came to a head in February 1953 when a bomb was detonated outside the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv, wounding three embassy staff. Although the Israeli government was quick to apologize and vowed to find the perpetrators, the Kremlin announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations. Within four months of Stalin’s death, however, diplomatic relations with Israel had been restored. This came after a crackdown by the new Soviet leadership on the organizers or perpetrators of any blatantly anti-Semitic activity… During the Six-Day War, Israel ignored Soviet demands for an immediate cease-fire. After the Golan Heights were captured, the USSR severed its diplomatic relations.” Source: [former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service] Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold War to the Present, Translated from the Russian by Paul Gould, New York: Basic Books, 2009, pages 255-259
President Nixon was reported saying (in the Nixon-era Oval Office tapes released by the Nixon Library) that the United States “can’t blow up the world because of it [the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union].”—JTA, 12/13/2010, http://blogs.jta.org/politics/
Kissinger said Jews were ‘self-serving’
By Ron Kampeas · November 18, 2011
http://
www.jta.org/news/article/2011/11/18/3090358/kissinger-said-jews-were-self-serving
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Henry Kissinger in 1972 called Jews “self-serving” because of pleas from the community for the Nixon administration to increase the pressure on the Soviet Union to allow its Jews to leave.
“Is there a more self-serving group of people than the Jewish community?” Kissinger, who is Jewish, asks Leonard Garment, also Jewish, in transcripts of a 1972 exchange released this week by the State Department and reported by The Associated Press.
Garment, a special counsel to President Nixon, replied: “None in the world.”
The Jackson-Vanik Amendment
[“the United States shall not conclude any commercial agreement with any such country, during the period beginning with the date on which the President determines that such country— (1) denies its citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate”]
“During the Cold War, the United States and the West used the issue of human rights as a platform to question the policies and ultimately the legitimacy of the Soviet Union. One aspect of that strategy was the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, which denied normal trading relations to non-market economies that restricted emigration rights. The amendment was particularly targeted to the Soviet Union’s practice at the time to deny Jews permission to emigrate.” The Legacy and Consequences of Jackson-Vanik: Reassessing Human Rights in 21st Century Russia , When: February 4, 2010; Where: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=588828
According to some, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s duplicity regarding Jackson-Vanik “would come to involve hiding a secret letter in which the Soviets backed off from a deal under which they would be waived from Jackson-Vanik in exchange for allowing 60,000 Jews to emigrate. (The jig was up only when the Soviets angrily printed the letter in one of their newspapers.)” JTA, 12/13/2010, http://blogs.jta.org/politics/
The Administration has begun consultations with Congress and interested groups on the possibility of graduating Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union from the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
“The Jackson-Vanik Amendment is contained in Title IV of the 1974 Trade Act. It effectively denies unconditional normal trade relations to certain countries, including Russia, that had non-market economies and that restricted emigration rights. Normal trade relations may be extended, on a conditional basis, to a country subject to the law only if the President determines that it complies with the freedom of emigration requirements of the amendment. Semi-annual reports on continued compliance of that country must be submitted to Congress. The President may also waive the emigration requirements.
Since 1994, Russia has been found in compliance with the Amendment’s freedom of emigration requirements. It continues to be subject to semi-annual compliance reviews. Ending the application of the Jackson-Vanik provisions to Russia requires legislation by Congress. This is a prerequisite to the extending unconditional or permanent normal trade relations to Russia.
Jackson-Vanik has been an extraordinary success in securing freedom of emigration in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Since 1975, 573,000 refugees — many of them Jews, evangelical Christians and Catholics — from areas of the former Soviet Union have been resettled in the United States. The Russian Jewish community in the United States today numbers between 750,000 and 1 million, though some estimates are twice as high. An estimated 1 million more Jews have immigrated to Israel during that time. For fiscal year 2001, 3,875 refugees from Russia were resettled.”–The White House, http://georgewbush-
whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-16.html
“That [Jewish] emigration [from the Soviet Union] existed at all was due to the actions of “realists” in the White House… In 1969, we introduced it into the presidential channel as a humanitarian issue because we judged that a foreign policy confrontation would lead to rejection and an increase of tensions with the Soviets. As a result, Jewish emigration rose from 700 a year in 1969 to near 40,000 in 1972. The total in Nixon’s first term was more than 100,000. We also submitted, with some success, several hundred hardship cases at regular intervals. To maintain this flow by quiet diplomacy, we never used these figures for political purposes.” Henry Kissing, Washington Post, 12/26/2010, http
://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122304552.html
Israel backs lifting Jackson-Vanik
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 22, 2012, h
ttp://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/06/22/3098876/israel-backs-lifting-jackson-vanik
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel endorsed removing Russia from Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions.
“Israel supports Russia’s graduation from Jackson-Vanik,” a senior Israeli official told JTA this week. “The reasons Russia is included in Jackson-Vanik are no longer relevant.“ The official made the comment in the wake of a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this week by a bipartisan slate of senators that would find Russia “in full compliance with the freedom of emigration requirements” of the law. The original amendment, named for the late U.S. Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and the late U.S. Rep. Charles Vanick (D-Ohio) was passed in the early 1970s — over the strident objections of the Nixon administration — at a time when the former Soviet Union was inhibiting Jewish emigration.
At the behest of Jewish groups, Congress set to rid Russia of Jackson-Vanik restraints
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 14, 2012,
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/11/14/3111881/at-the-behest-of-jewish-groups-congress-set-to-sunset-jackson-vanik-for-russia
WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the behest of leading U.S. Jewish groups, Congress is set to free Russia from the Jackson-Vanik restrictions, the Soviet-era law aimed at exerting pressure on Russia to loosen its emigration restrictions… The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote Friday to graduate Russia from the 1974 law named for the late Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and Rep. Charlie Vanik (D-Ohio), which conditioned trade on freedom of emigration… A letter to Congress in June from eight Jewish groups was seen as key to advancing the legislation, which is likely to be considered by the Senate after Thanksgiving. The bill has bipartisan support and is expected to pass and be signed by President Obama. “Our argument was and is that the amendment was intended to gain the freedom of Soviet Jews and it’s accomplished that 10 times over,” said Mark Levin, the executive director of NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia, which originally lobbied for Jackson-Vanik and has led the Jewish organizational push for its removal…
Vietnam and Yom Kippur Wars were closely connected, newly released U.S. documents reveal
Secret documents contain Henry Kissinger’s conversations with Golda Meir and former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu
… Fortunately for Israel, Washington does not only consist of the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department, but also Congress. Thanks to Israel’s power in Congress, it has fared better than other, smaller allies, like South Vietnam. In the absence of congressional support, they did not win the administration’s affection; this is why Saigon fell and Jerusalem hasn’t… When [Richard] Holbrooke [now representing President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tangle] considers the present challenges, he remembers Vietnam, as does Gen. David Petreus, the commander of the forces in Afghanistan, who also wrote his doctorate at Princeton about the relations between the diplomatic echelon and the military echelon in the Vietnam War.
Haaretz, 10/17/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/vietnam-and-yom-kippur-wars-were-closely-connected-newly-released-u-s-documents-reveal-1.319467
Watch this video clip: Former US Secretary Hillary Clinton explains how the US government created the Al Qada jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s but she did not explain that the reason was to force the Soviet Union to lift a ban on the emigration of Soviet Jews to Palestine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs
An estimated 1 million more Jews have immigrated to Israel [since 1975]-–The White House, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-16.html
See the next four slides from topic 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs
Fulbright Called for U.S. Defense Pact With Israel But Was Labeled Anti-Semite
Neff, Donald. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Washington: Sep 30, 1997. Vol. XVI, Iss. 2; pg. 96
It was Zionists who especially despised him. [J. William Fulbright] had earned the ever-lasting enmity of Israel and its friends as early as 1963, when his Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on foreign lobbies, including Israel’s lobby. The hearings concluded that Israel operated “one of the most effective networks of foreign influence” in the United States. It found that Israel used tax-free dollars donated to the United Jewish Appeal for charities in Israel in the United States to influence U.S. opinion.
These funds eventually were used to purchase the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, to establish and maintain the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and to pressure U.S. newspapers to support Israel and to attack critics of Israel, among other activities. Fulbright revealed that the Zionist pursuit of promoting Israel included “placement of articles on Israel in some of America’s leading magazines,” arranging for radio and TV programs sympathetic to Israel, and subsidizing trips to Israel by such “public opinion molders” as Christian clergymen, academics and mass media representatives.(2)
As the years went on, Fulbright became an increasingly outspoken critic of Israel. During the 1973 war in the Middle East said that the best way to have peace was the United States and the Soviet Union refuse to provide Arabs and Israelis weapons, adding: “but we are not going to do that…. Somewhere around 80 percent of the Senate of the United States is completely in support of Israel and of anything Israel wants.” In December, while the Senate debated the award to Israel of more aid, Ful-bright observed that “instead of rearming Israel, we could have peace in the Middle East at once if we just told Tel Aviv to withdraw behind the 1967 borders and guarantee them.”(3)
In this book Stealth PACs: How Israel’s American Lobby Seeks to Control U.S. Middle East Policy (1990), Richard Curtiss listed 114 pro-Israel PACs (political action committees) active during the 1978-1988 election cycles. Out of th 114 PACs only two (Women’s Pro-Israel National PAC and Jewish Republican PAC, both in the District of Columbia) are listed under names that indicate their pro-Israel affiliation. The remaining 112 are stealth PACs whose names vary from Hollywood Women’s Political Committee (California) and Desert Caucus (Arizona) to Tennesseans for a Better Government (Tennessee) and Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania).
Political Suicide
“It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.”— President Jimmy Carter, 12/8/2006, http://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/latimes_palestine_081206.html
Political Fear
“I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear—fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress—at least when I served there—have any affection for Israel or for its Lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel. I’ve heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they’re pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby’s animosity by making their feelings public… if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well… The Lobby’s principal objectives are to keep money flowing from the U.S. treasury to Israel, requiring a docile Congress and a compliant administration.” James Abourezk, Former US Senator from South Dakota, December 3, 2006, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-abourezk.html
London Times: “Carefully documented. Mr. Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler’s”
1986
“A minnow can swallow a whale…It’s by now an open secret that in 1957 the American Jewish Committee interceded with the Bureau of the Census in Washington and besought it not to ask questions about income related to national groupings in the 1960 census, for fear that the comparatively high income levels of the Jewish minority would lead to anti-Semitic outrages. The Bureau complied.” Pages 58 and 61
“Again the Jewish Committee asked that they [the special issue’s staff of Forbes magazine who were preparing the 1985 list of the 400 richest Americans] not focus on the ethnicity or religion of their subjects. Forbes decided that such forebearance is prudent.” Page 64
“The Intelligentsia, Israel, and the Jews…The New York Times, easily the most important daily, is owned by the Sulzbergers. Katherine Graham, of Jewish descent, owns the Washongton Post and Newsweek. Wlater Annenberg owns TV Guide, the world’s largest selling magazine. US News and World Report and The Atlantic Monthly are owned by Mort Zuckerman. Leonard Stern owns the Village Voice. Sam Newhouse owns Vanity Fair, Vogue, Gentleman’s Quarterly, Mademoiselle and The New Yorker… Jews founded the three TV networks [CBS, ABC, and NBC].” Pages 323-324
Money can lead the elite as the media can lead & mislead the public
PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2010 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES: http://www.washington-report.org/pdf/2010pac_charts_november
Politicians collect money for their own campaigns — we all know that. But many of them also raise a separate pot of money, commonly called a leadership political action committee, to help other politicians: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q03&cycle=2010
“The Jews ho run America…with the election of councilman Eric Garcetti to the position of Los Angeles mayor, the three most populated cities in America will soon have Jewish mayors. Michael Bloomberg has been mayor of New York City for 12 years. Rahm Emanuel, after finishing up his service as Obama’s Chief of Staff, has been mayor of Chicago for two years. Now Garcetti rounds out the triumvirate.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5/22/2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/05/22/news-opinion/the-telegraph/the-jews-who-run-america
Party Politics and Pressure Groups
“Two characteristics almost always set political parties apart from pressure groups: the manner in which they participate in political conflicts, and their membership base. In the first place, political parties have as their primary goal the conquest of power or a share in its exercise. They try to win seats at elections, to name deputies and ministers, and to take control of the government. Pressure groups, on the contrary, do not seek to win power themselves, or to participate in the exercise of power; they endeavor, instead, to exert an influence on those who wield power, to bring “pressure” upon them: hence their name. Secondly, political parties draw their support from a broad base, whereas pressure groups represent a limited number with a particular or private interest… Political parties strive to acquire power and to exercise it—by electing town councilors, local officials, mayors, senators, and deputies, and by choosing cabinet ministers and the head of state… Pressure groups seek to influence the men who wield power, not to place their own men in power, at least not officially. However, certain powerful groups actually have their own representatives in governments and legislative bodies, but the relationship between these individuals and the groups they represent remains secret or circumspect” page 101.
Source: Maurice Duverger, Party Politics and Pressure Groups: A Comparative Introduction, Translated by David Wagoner, Maritime College of the city University of New York, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1972, pages 1-2, 101.
Committee on Agriculture
Committee on Appropriations
Committee on Armed Services
Committee on the Budget
Committee on Education and Labor
Committee on Energy and Commerce
Committee on Financial Services
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Homeland Security
Committee on House Administration
Committee on the Judiciary
Committee on Natural Resources
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Committee on Rules
Committee on Science and Technology
Committee on Small Business
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Committee on Ways and Means
Joint Economic Committee
Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies
Joint Committee on Taxation
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
111th Congress
United States House of Representatives
Committee Offices
http://www.house.gov/house/CommitteeWWW.shtml
“. . .it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work”–Woodrow Wilson
The committee is “the eye, the ear, the hand, and very often the brain” of Congress–Speaker Reed
Subcommittee Jurisdiction
The regional subcommittees shall have jurisdiction over the following within their respective regions:
Matters affecting the political relations between the United States and other countries and regions, including resolutions or other legislative measures directed to such relations.
Legislation with respect to disaster assistance outside the Foreign Assistance Act, boundary issues, and international claims.
Legislation with respect to region- or country-specific loans or other financial relations outside the Foreign Assistance Act.
Resolutions of disapproval under section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, with respect to foreign military sales.
Legislation and oversight regarding human rights practices in particular countries.
Oversight of regional lending institutions.
Oversight of matters related to the regional activities of the United Nations, of its affiliated agencies, and of other multilateral institutions.
Identification and development of options for meeting future problems and issues relating to U.S. interests in the region.
Base rights and other facilities access agreements and regional security pacts.
Oversight of matters relating to parliamentary conferences and exchanges involving the region.
Concurrent oversight jurisdiction with respect to matters assigned to the functional subcommittees insofar as they may affect the region.
Oversight of all foreign assistance activities affecting the region.
Such other matters as the Chairman of the Full Committee may determine.
U.S. SENATE
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) Norm Coleman (R-Minn.)**
Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.)
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Al Franklen (D-Minn)
Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.)*
Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)**
Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)
Carl Levin (D-Mich.)**
Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)
Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
14. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.)
15. John Adler (D-N.J.)*
16. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.)
17. Howard Berman (D-Calif.)
18. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
19. Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.)
20. Susan Davis (D-Calif.)
21. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.)
22. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
23. Bob Filner (D-Calif.)
24. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
25. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)
26. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)
27. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.)
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
28. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.)
29. Steve Kagen (D-Wisc.)
30. Ron Klein (D-Fla.)
31. Sander Levin (D-Mich.)
32. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)
33. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)
34. Jared Polis (D-Colo.)*
35. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)
36. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
37. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.)
38. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
39. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.)
40. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
41. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
42. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)
43. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)
44. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)
Elected to Congress for the first time–** Senators who were re-elected…Democrat Rahm Emanuel was re-elected to his Illinois House seat, but left Congress to serve in the Obama administration as White House chief of staff… At least two senators, Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Michael Bennet (D-Col.), have Jewish roots, but do not identify as Jewish. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 1, 2009 http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/05/1000795/the-chosen-jewish-members-in-the-111th-us-congress#
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 2008, http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/05/1000795/the-chosen-jewish-members-in-the-111th-us-congress#
“Obama kick-starts transition, eyes Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff,” Haaretz, November 5, 2008
“The Chosen: Jewish members in the 111th U.S. Congress”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/2008 and 7/1/2009
There are 13 Jews (out of 5 million), 3 Hispanics (out of 46 million), 2 Asians (out of 17 million), and 1African American (out of 38 million) in the Senate of the 111th Congress.
There are 2 Muslim Americans and 3 Arab Americans in the House of Representatives of the 111th Congress
U.S. SENATE
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)**
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
Ben Cardin (D-Md.)**
Carl Levin (D-Mich.)
Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)**
(Note: Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is projected to win his re-election bid, does not identify a religion, but notes that his mother is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor.)
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Susan Davis (D-Calif.)
Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.)*
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
Brad Sherman (D-Calif.)
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
Jared Polis (D-Colo.)
Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)
Lois Frankel (D-Fla.)*
Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)*
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
Brad Schneider (D-Ill.)*
John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)
Sander Levin (D-Mich.)
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
Steve Israel (D-N.Y.)
Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)
Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)
Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.)
David Cicilline (D-R.I.)
Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
* Newly elected to House in Tuesday’s elections. (Note: Alan Grayson had served in the House but lost his seat in the 2010 midterm elections.)
** Senators who were re-elected Tuesday.
“The Chosen: Jews in the 113th Congress”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 7, 2012
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/11/07/3111351/jews-in-the-113th-congress
Weiner admits to lying about underwear photo
GTA, June 6, 2011
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/06/3088039/weiner-acknowledges-inappropriate-relationships
“(JTA) — U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner acknowledged inappropriate Internet relationships with at least six women but said he would not resign or split up with his wife.
Weiner (D-N.Y.) said he had lied last week when he denied sending a lewd underwear photo to a 21-year-old college student over Twitter and claimed that his account had been hacked.
“I’ve brought pain to people I care about the most and people who believe in me,” Weiner said at a news conference Monday in New York. “I apologize to my wife and family. I apologize to my friends and supporters.”
Weiner, who is Jewish and an ardent pro-Israel lawmaker [emphasis added], said none of the relationships had ever become physical, nor had he met any of the women.
In saying he would not resign, Weiner said, “Nothing about this should reflect in any way on my official duties or on my oath of office.”
He is married to Huma Abedin, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
111th Congress
United States House of Representatives
[Jewish Members of] Committee on Foreign Affairs
Howard L. Berman Chairman
D-CA, 28th District
Gary L. Ackerman Vice Chair
D-NY, 5th District
Brad Sherman D-CA, 27th District
Robert Wexler D-FL, 19th District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
[All] Members of the Committee
Howard L. Berman Chairman
D-CA, 28th District
Gary L. Ackerman Vice Chair
D-NY, 5th District
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega D-American Samoa
Donald M. Payne D-NJ, 10th District
Brad Sherman D-CA, 27th District
Robert Wexler D-FL, 19th District
Eliot L. Engel D-NY, 17th District
Bill Delahunt D-MA, 10th District
Gregory W. Meeks D-NY, 6th District
Diane E. Watson D-CA, 33rd District
Russ Carnahan D-MO, 3rd District
Albio Sires D-NJ, 13th District
Gerald E. Connolly D-VA, 11th District
Michael E. McMahon D-NY, 13th District
John S. Tanner D-TN, 8th District
Gene Green D-TX, 29th District
Lynn Woolsey D-CA, 6th District
Sheila Jackson Lee D-TX, 18th District
Barbara Lee D-CA, 9th District
Shelley Berkley D-NV, 1st District
Joseph Crowley D-NY, 7th District
Mike Ross D-AR, 4th District
Brad Miller D-NC, 13th District
David Scott D-GA, 13th District
Jim Costa D-CA, 20th District
Keith Ellison D-MN, 5th District
Gabrielle Giffords D-AZ, 8th District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Ranking Member
R-FL, 18th District
Christopher H. Smith R-NJ, 4th District
Dan Burton R-IN, 5th District
Elton Gallegly R-CA, 24th District
Dana Rohrabacher R-CA, 46th District
Donald A. Manzullo R-IL, 16th District
Edward R. Royce R-CA, 40th District
Ron Paul R-TX, 14th District
Jeff Flake R-AZ, 6th District
Mike Pence R-IN, 6th District
Joe Wilson R-SC, 2nd District
John Boozman R-AR, 3rd District
J. Gresham Barrett R-SC, 3rd District
Connie Mack R-FL, 14th District
Jeff Fortenberry R-NE, 1st District
Michael T. McCaul R-TX, 10th District
Ted Poe R-TX, 2nd District
Bob Inglis R-SC, 4th District
Gus Bilirakis R-FL, 9th District
Shelley Berkley D-NV, 1st District
Congressional delegation presses China on Iran, JTA, 8/20/2009
The delegation expressed “deep disappointment with recent multi-billion-dollar energy deals signed with Iran by Chinese state-owned companies,” said a statement from the office of U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee who is leading the bipartisan delegation.
See also: “Israel Makes Case to China for Iran Sanctions”, The New York Times, 6/8/2010
Wexler urges Pollard release: WASHINGTON (JTA, August 5, 2011) — Robert Wexler, one of President Obama’s closest Jewish confidantes, urged him to release Jonathan Pollard… Wexler, who now directs the Center for Middle East Peace, was the Obama campaign’s chief Jewish proxy in the 2008 election and remains close to the White House. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/05/3088865/wexler-urges-pollard-release
111th Congress
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
[Jewish Members of] Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
Gary L. Ackerman Chairman
D-NY, 5th District
Brad Sherman D-CA, 27th District
Robert Wexler D-FL, 19th District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
[All] Subcommittee Members
Gary L. Ackerman Chairman
D-NY, 5th District
Russ Carnahan D-MO, 3rd District
Michael E. McMahon D-NY, 13th District
Sheila Jackson Lee D-TX, 18th District
Shelley Berkley D-NV, 1st District
Joseph Crowley D-NY, 7th District
Mike Ross D-AR, 4th District
Jim Costa D-CA, 20th District
Keith Ellison D-MN, 5th District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
Brad Sherman D-CA, 27th District
Robert Wexler D-FL, 19th District
Eliot L. Engel D-NY, 17th District
Gerald E. Connolly D-VA, 11th District
Gene Green D-TX, 29th District
Dan Burton Ranking Member
R-IN, 5th District
Joe Wilson R-SC, 2nd District
J. Gresham Barrett R-SC, 3rd District
Jeff Fortenberry R-NE, 1st District
Michael T. McCaul R-TX, 10th District
Bob Inglis R-SC, 4th District
Gus Bilirakis R-FL, 9th District
Dana Rohrabacher R-CA, 46th District
Edward R. Royce R-CA, 40th District
Shelley Berkley D-NV, 1st District
111th Congress
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
[Jewish Members of] Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade
Brad Sherman D-CA, 27th District
Chairman
[All] Subcommittee Members
Brad Sherman Chairman
D-CA, 27th District
Gerald E. Connolly D-VA, 11th District
David Scott D-GA, 13th District
Diane E. Watson D-CA, 33rd District
Michael E. McMahon D-NY, 13th District
Sheila Jackson Lee D-TX, 18th District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
Edward R. Royce Ranking Member
R-CA, 40th District
Ted Poe R-TX, 2nd District
Donald A. Manzullo R-IL, 16th District
John Boozman R-AR, 3rd District
J. Gresham Barrett R-SC, 3rd District
Ron Klein D-FL, 22nd District
111th Congress
United States House of Representatives
[Jewish Members of]
Committee on Financial Services
The Committee oversees all components of the nation’s housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and international development and finance agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman
Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY)
Brad Sherman (D-CA)
Ron Klein (D-FL)
John Adler (D-NJ)
[ALL] Members of the Committee
Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, PA
Rep. Maxine Waters, CA
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, NY
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, IL
Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, NY
Rep. Melvin L. Watt, NC
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, NY
Rep. Brad Sherman, CA
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, NY
Rep. Dennis Moore, KS
Rep. Michael E. Capuano, MA
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, TX
Rep. William Lacy Clay, MO
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, NY
Rep. Joe Baca, CA
Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, MA
Rep. Brad Miller, NC
Rep. David Scott, GA
Rep. Al Green, TX
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, MO
Rep. Melissa L. Bean, IL
Rep. Gwen Moore, WI
Rep. Paul W. Hodes, NH
Rep. Keith Ellison, MN
Rep. Ron Klein, FL
Rep. Charles Wilson, OH
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, CO
Rep. Joe Donnelly, IN
Rep. Bill Foster, IL
Rep. Andre Carson, IN
Rep. Jackie Speier, CA
Rep. Travis Childers, MS
Rep. Walt Minnick, ID
Rep. John Adler, NJ
Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, OH
Rep. Steve Driehaus, OH
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, FL
Rep. Alan Grayson, FL
Rep. Jim Himes, CT
Rep. Gary Peters, MI
Rep. Dan Maffei, NY
Republican Members
Rep. Spencer Bachus, AL
Rep. Michael N. Castle, DE
Rep. Peter King, NY
Rep. Edward R. Royce, CA
Rep. Frank D. Lucas, OK
Rep. Ron Paul, TX
Rep. Donald A. Manzullo, IL
Rep. Walter B. Jones , NC
Rep. Judy Biggert, IL
Rep. Gary G. Miller, CA
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, WV
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, TX
Rep. Scott Garrett, NJ
Rep. J. Gresham Barrett, SC
Rep. Jim Gerlach, PA
Rep. Randy Neugebauer, TX
Rep. Tom Price, GA
Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, NC
Rep. John Campbell, CA
Rep. Adam Putnam, FL
Rep. Michele Bachmann, MN
Rep. Kenny Marchant, TX
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, MI
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, CA
Rep. Bill Posey, FL
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, KS
Rep. Christopher Lee, NY
Rep. Erik Paulsen, MN
Rep. Leonard Lance, NJ
Barney Frank marries longtime partner
July 8, 2012
(JTA) — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) married his longtime partner Jim Ready.
Frank and Ready were married Saturday evening in a ceremony officiated by the governor of Massachusetts.
Frank, 72, who will retire from Congress at the end of the current term after 16 terms in the House of Representatives, came out as gay in 1987, the first congressman to do so of his own volition.
He is reportedly the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage.
Frank and Ready, 42, met at a November 2005 political fund-raiser in support of gay rights in Ready’s hometown of Ogunquit, Maine.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first American state to allow same-sex couples to be legally married; today eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriages.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/08/3100111/barney-frank-marries-longtime-partner
Committees
Standing
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Appropriations
Armed Services
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Budget
Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Energy and Natural Resources
Environment and Public Works
Finance
Foreign Relations
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Judiciary
Rules and Administration
Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Veterans’ Affairs
Special, Select, and Other
Indian Affairs
Select Committee on Ethics
Select Committee on Intelligence
Special Committee on Aging
Joint
Joint Committee on Printing
Joint Committee on Taxation
Joint Committee on the Library
Joint Economic Committee
111th Congress
United States Senate
Committees
“. . .it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work”–Woodrow Wilson
The committee is “the eye, the ear, the hand, and very often the brain” of Congress–Speaker Reed
111th Congress United States Senate
[Jewish Members of]
Armed Services Committee
Carl Levin (Michigan)
Chairman
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
[All] Members of the Committee
DEMOCRATS
Carl Levin (Michigan)
Chairman
Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Jim Webb (Virginia)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Mark Udall (Colorado)
Kay R. Hagan (North Carolina)
Mark Begich (Alaska)
Roland W. Burris (Illinois)
REPUBLICANS
John McCain (Arizona)
Ranking Member
James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
Saxby Chambliss (Georgia)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
John Thune (South Dakota)
Mel Martinez (Florida)
Roger F. Wicker (Mississippi)
Richard Burr (North Carolina)
David Vitter (Louisiana)
Susan M. Collins (Maine
Watch:
Fmr. Sen. Hagel Testifies at Senate Confirmation Washington, DC, Thursday, January 31, 2013
Hearing–Confirmation Hearing: US Senator Lindsey Graham [38th mn to 51st mn]:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Fmr-Sen-Hagel-Testifies-at-Senate-Confirmation-Hearing/10737437704-3/
Fmr. Sen. Hagel Testifies at Senate Confirmation Hearing–Confirmation Hearing: US Senator Edward “Ted” Cruz [1:45th mn to 1:55th mn]:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Fmr-Sen-Hagel-Testifies-at-Senate-Confirmation-Hearing/10737437704-4/
“Jewish Michigan Senator Carl Levin… heads the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, and in that capacity has been influential in defense policy, helping to maintain record levels of defense assistance for Israel.” Haaretz, March 8, 2013
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/jewish-michigan-senator-carl-levin-won-t-seek-re-election-in-2014-1.508080
111th Congress United States Senate
Armed Services Committee
[Jewish Members of] SUBCOMMITTEE ON AIRLAND
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Subcommittee Chairman
[All] SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS ON AIRLAND
Senator Lieberman
Subcommittee Chairman
Senator Bayh
Senator Webb
Senator McCaskill
Senator Hagan
Senator Begich
Senator Burris
Senator Thune
Ranking Member
Senator Inhofe
Senator Sessions
Senator Chambliss
Senator Burr
111th Congress United States Senate
[Jewish Members of]
Committee on Rules and Administration
Charles E. Schumer, NY
Chairman
Dianne Feinstein, CA
[All] Members of the Committee
Members
Charles E. Schumer, NY
Chairman
Robert Bennett, UT
Ranking Member
Majority Members
Robert C. Byrd, WV
Daniel K. Inouye, HI
Christopher J. Dodd, CT
Dianne Feinstein, CA
Richard J. Durbin, IL
E. Benjamin Nelson, NE
Patty Murray, WA
Mark L. Pryor, AR
Tom Udall, NM
Mark Warner, VA
Jean Parvin Bordewich, Staff Director
Jason Abel, Chief Counsel
Minority Members
Mitch McConnell, KY
Thad Cochran, MS
Kay Bailey Hutchison, TX
C. Saxby Chambliss, GA
Lamar Alexander, TN
John Ensign, NV
Pat Roberts, KS
111th Congress United States Senate
[Jewish Members of]
Select Committee on Intelligence
[All] Members of the Committee
2009-2010
Democrats
Republicans
Dianne Feinstein, California
Chairman
Christopher S. Bond,
Missouri
Vice Chairman
John D. Rockefeller IV,
West Virginia
Orrin Hatch, Utah
Ron Wyden, Oregon
Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
Evan Bayh, Indiana
Saxby Chambliss, Georgia
Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
Richard Burr, North Carolina
Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin
Tom Coburn, Oklahoma
Bill Nelson, Florida
James Risch, Idaho
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Dianne Feinstein, CA
Chairman [sic]
111th Congress
United States Senate
[Jewish Members of]
Committee on Foreign Relations
Kerry, John F. (D-MA) , Chairman [a Catholic of Jewish background]
Feingold, Russell D. (D-WI)
Boxer, Barbara (D-CA)
[All] Members of the Committee
Kerry, John F. (MA) , Chairman
Dodd, Christopher J. (CT)
Feingold, Russell D. (WI)
Boxer, Barbara (CA)
Menendez, Robert (NJ)
Cardin, Benjamin L. (MD)
Casey, Robert P. (PA)
Webb, Jim (VA)
Shaheen, Jeanne (NH)
Kaufman, Edward E. (DE)
Gillibrand, Kirsten E. (NY)
Lugar, Richard G. (IN), Ranking Member
Corker, Bob (TN)
Isakson, Johnny (GA)
Risch, James E. (ID)
DeMint, Jim (SC)
Barrasso, John (WY)
Wicker, Roger F. (MS)
The Israel Lobby’s Sources of Power
The wide-open nature of the American political system
Small groups committed to a single issue can exercise considerable influence if the rest of the population is largely indifferent—When asked why he and his colleagues signed a controversial legislation pushed by the Israel lobby, one U.S. Senator said: “There is no political advantage in not signing. If you do sign you don’t offend anyone. If you don’t you might offend some Jews in your state.”
American Jews are relatively prosperous and well educated
Favorable image of Israel
Absence of effective opposition
Mearsheimer and Walt, p. 140-141
It should be emphasized that Israel controls the lobby, not the other way around
1. “Israelis were the only ones entitled to decide Israeli policy”
2. “American Jews should stand publicly united with Israel and air disputes only in private.”
Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007), page 123-124.
Poll: 65% of Jewish Israelis say U.S. Jews should criticize Obama’s Mideast policy:
B’nai B’rith survey also found 54% of Jewish Israelis believe Jewish advocacy groups who work with foreign governments should always support Israeli policy. Sixty-five percent of Jewish Israelis believe U.S. Jews should criticize the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel, according to a survey published in June that was conducted on behalf of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem. Haaretz, 6/15/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/poll-65-of-jewish-israelis-say-u-s-jews-should-criticize-obama-s-mideast-policy-1.296386
Jerusalem/El-Quds in Quran 17:1, John 19:18, and Psalm 137:5
“Glory to Him who made His servant travel by night from the sacred place of worship [in Mecca] to the furthest place of worship [in Jerusalem], whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him some of Our signs: He alone is the All Hearing, the All Seeing”—Quran 17:1
“Here [in Jerusalem] they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle”—John 19:18
“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill”—Psalm 137:5
The Aqsa Mosque
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Western/
Buraq Wall
The Planning Crisis in East Jerusalem
UNITED NATIONS, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, occupied Palestinian territory, Special focus, APRIL 2009
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_planning_crisis_east_jerusalem_april_2009_english
“Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished thousands of Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied Palestinian territory, including an estimated 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem.”
Fairuz’s “Zahrat al-Mada’in” (“The Flower of All Cities”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cVRDNcQkKA&feature=related
I
To you, oh City of Prayer
I pray.
To you, the one with the most beautiful buildings
The flower of all cities.
To you Jerusalem,
The City of Prayer,
I pray.
II
It is to you that our eyes journey everyday;
They roam through the narrow streets of your temples
And reach out to the old churches,
Wiping out the sorrow from the mosques.
III
Oh the night of Isra,
The path for those who ascended to heaven,
Our eyes journey to you every day
And I pray.
IV
The child in the cave
And His mother Mary
Are two crying faces.
Crying for those who have been forced out of their homes,
Children without shelter
Those who defended it and died in the smoke of wars.
And peace became a martyr
In the Land of Peace
And justice collapsed by the smoke of wars.
When the city of Jerusalem fell
Love subsided
And in your hearts, war resided.
V
The glowing anger is coming
And I am full of faith
The glowing anger is coming
I’ll overcome my sorrows.
From all paths,
Riding horses of fear,
And like the glowing face of God,
It’s coming.
The gate to our city will never shut
For I am going to pray.
I will knock on doors,
And I’ll open all doors.
And you, oh river of Jordan,
Will wash my face with your holy water,
And you will wash away all traces of barbarism
And we’ll defeat the forces of evil.
VI
The house is ours,
And Jerusalem is ours.
And with our hands,
We will bring to Jerusalem
Its beauty and peace.
And to Jerusalem
Peace is coming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cVRDNcQkKA&feature=related
One of the most popular Arabic songs about Jerusalem is Fairuz’s “Zahrat al-Mada’in” (“The Flower of All Cities”). Fairuz, an Arab-Christian, sings about the significance of Jerusalem to humanity, to peace, and to the three monotheistic religions. She also hints to the Israeli occupation of the city, the dispossession of the Palestinians, and their eventual return.
Nasser Al-Taee, “Voices of peace and the legacy of reconciliation: popular music, nationalism, and the quest for peace in the Middle East,” Popular Music 21/1, 2002, pp. 41–61).
Khamenei: Iran prepared to assist those who confront Israel
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 3, 2012
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/02/03/3091508/khameini-iran-prepared-to-assist-those-who-confront-israel
(JTA) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country is prepared to assist those who would confront Israel and the United States. “From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help,” the leader of Iran’s theocracy said in a Friday sermon translated by the Associated Press. “We have no fear expressing this.” Khamenei called Israel “a cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”
U.S. Unconstitutional Commitment to the Security of the State of Israel
1. “The bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad… I and my administration have made the security of Israel a priority. It‘s why we‘ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. It‘s why we‘re making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies. It‘s why, despite tough fiscal times, we‘ve increased foreign military financing to record levels. And that includes additional support –- beyond regular military aid -– for the Iron Dome anti-rocket system… So make no mistake, we will maintain Israel‘s qualitative military edge… You also see our commitment to our shared security in our determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Here in the United States, we‘ve imposed the toughest sanctions ever on the Iranian regime… You also see our commitment to Israel‘s security in our steadfast opposition to any attempt to de-legitimize the State of Israel. As I said at the United Nations last year, ‗Israel‘s existence must not be a subject for debate,‘ and ‗efforts to chip away at Israel‘s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.‘ So when the Durban Review Conference advanced anti-Israel sentiment, we withdrew. In the wake of the Goldstone Report, we stood up strongly for Israel‘s right to defend itself. When an effort was made to insert the United Nations into matters that should be resolved through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, we vetoed it… No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state. And the United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations or in any international forum. Israel‘s legitimacy is not a matter for debate. That is my commitment; that is my pledge to all of you [AIPAC Policy Conference 2011].‖–President Barack Obama (5/22/2011)
2. “I am a Zionist… You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist‖— U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden (Shalom TV, 3/27/2007).
3. “I have a deep personal commitment to Israel.” —Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Haaretz, 4/20/2010)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Publisher of the ‘Atlanta Jewish Times’ suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama: Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper serving Atlanta’s Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thorny problem of the U.S. and Israel’s diverging views on the threat posed by Iran. Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas, strike Iran, or “Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”
Adam Horowitz, “Publisher of the ‘Atlanta Jewish Times’ suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama,” MondoWeiss, January 20, 2012, http://
mondoweiss.net/2012/01/publisher-of-the-atlanta-jewish-times-suggests-mossad-should-assassinate-obama.html
U.N. General Assembly adopts nine resolutions condemning Israel
JTA, December 19, 2012
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/12/19/3114936/un-general-assembly-adopts-nine-resolutions-condemning-israel
“(JTA) — The United Nations General Assembly adopted nine resolutions on the topics of Palestinian rights and the Golan Heights.
The resolutions adopted Tuesday criticized Israel for “the continuing systematic violation of the human rights of the Palestinian people,” and focused on “the extremely difficult socioeconomic conditions being faced by the Palestine refugees” in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. One resolution condemned Israel for continuing to hold the Golan Heights, and demanded Israel to return the land to Syria…
By the end of this week, the current 2012 UN General Assembly session is set to adopt 22 country-specific resolutions on Israel — and only four on the rest of the world combined”
Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS
Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights
One year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal; Israel continues its construction of the colonial Wall with total disregard to the Court’s decision. Thirty eight years into Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel continues to expand Jewish colonies. It has unilaterally annexed occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and is now de facto annexing large parts of the West Bank by means of the Wall. Israel is also preparing – in the shadow of its lanned redeployment from the Gaza Strip – to build and expand colonies in the West Bank. Fifty seven years after the state of Israel was built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners, a majority of Palestinians are refugees, most of whom are stateless. Moreover, Israel’s entrenched system of racial discrimination against its own Arab-Palestinian citizens remains intact… We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.
9 July 2005, http://www.bdsmovement.net/call
“…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification”—President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796, http://web.archive.org/web/20080924022539/http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/farewell/sd106-21
The United States is currently involved in
five major wars involving the security of Israel:
(1) the war in Palestine-Israel since the late 1940s
(2) the war in Afghanistan since the early 1980s
(3) the war in Iraq since the early 1990s
(4) the war on terrorism since September 11, 2001
(5) the war in Libya since March 2011
The United States is also involved in other conflicts
(in Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon) involving the security of Israel
Without Israel’s security concerns and U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, the United States would not be involved in all those costly and unnecessary wars and conflicts which have tarnished the image of the United States around the world and contributed heavily to the Federal government debt of nearly $16 trillion in 2012
Veteran Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus has urged the U.S. administration to reevaluate the extent of the defense aid that the United States provides to Israel. Pincus, who has been reporting on intelligence, defense and foreign policy for the Washington Post for 45 years, says “If Israel can reduce its defense spending because of its domestic economic problems, shouldn’t the United States – which must cut military costs because of its major budget deficit – consider reducing its aid to Israel?” Haaretz, 10/24/2011,
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/leading-u-s-columnist-says-defense-aid-to-israel-should-be-slashed-1.391623
America on the Zionist rack (cartoonist: John Kloss), http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/10/30/uncle-sams-israel-lobby-triple-major-influence
*
