Author: Mattes

Video – Channel 4 UK – Broadcast November 16, 2009

Dispatches investigates one of the most powerful and influential political lobbies in Britain, which is working in support of the interests of the State of Israel.

Despite wielding great influence among the highest realms of British politics and media, little is known about the individuals and groups which collectively are known as the pro-Israel lobby.

Political commentator Peter Oborne sets out to establish who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying.

He investigates how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby is, particularly in regard to its funding and financial support of MPs.

The pro-Israel lobby aims to shape the debate about Britain’s relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it.

Oborne examines how the lobby operates from within parliament and the tactics it employs behind the scenes when engaging with print and broadcast media.

Please wait a moment for video to load.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23997.htm
Banned on google….since ADL now is the official censor, no surprise.

Even before 1967, the Israeli army had been carrying out routine incursions into the West Bank, destroying poor people’s homes and killing innocent civilians, very much like what Israel has been doing in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Lebanon recently. I still vividly remember how the Israeli army, including tanks and warplanes, attacked the small nearby town of Sammou’, 25 kilometres south-west of Dura, in November 1966, destroying the town, virtually completely, and killing many civilians.  You see the condescending Zionist mentality. They are never interested in genuine peace and coexistence with the peoples of the Middle East, but are only intent on subjugating and tormenting people with brute force. This was as much the case 40 or even 60 years ago as it obviously is now.

In June 1967, I was ten years old. I remember how we were told to raise the white flag when the Israeli army surrounded our small village, Khorsa, 15 kilometres south-west of Hebron. We were told we would be shot and killed if we didn’t raise the white flag aloft. The Jordanian soldiers left in disgrace and headed eastward, a few donned traditional women’s clothing in order to disguise themselves, while King Hussein urged us via Amman Radio to fight the Israelis “with our fingernails, with our teeth.” Well, how could we possibly fend off the mighty Israeli army with our teeth and fingernails?

Frankly, the Arab armies didn’t really put up any real fight against the Israelis. snip  Fighting Israel and liberating Palestine were not a real priority for these Arab regimes, despite all the rhetoric.

snip
For many years, Israel and its allies claimed that it was Israel that was attacked by the Arabs in 1967 and that all that Israel did was fight back for its very survival, which was at stake.

This is, of course, a big lie, as Israeli leaders themselves came to admit many years later.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/the-1967-war-revisited-part-1/

Anyone that has followed the machinations of Israel in the last few years has few doubts of this account.

It’s all about the land, it’s always been about the land. And no lie is too big in their quest for Greater Israel.

Their soldiers are almost NEVER held accountable for their actions, take Gitmo times 60 years. Israel bitches about one soldiers…what about the over 10,000 Arabs being held in Israeli prisons? Men, woman and children, what are they….cattle?

Or I guess they are.

Popular Rabbi’s Comments on Treatment of Arabs Show a Different Side of Chabad

Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.

snip

Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.

snip
But Friedman’s words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman’s hometown, St. Paul. Minn., said: “The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here.”

“He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less,” said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World. “They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists.” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, “We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views.”

http://www.forward.com/articles/107112/

Updated: took out the Chabad comments.

Give me a break:

As Barack Obama prepares for his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Democratic Congress members are expressing concern over the pressure exerted by the president on Israel, the Politics website reported.

According to the report, the Congress members asked Obama to moderate his pressure on the settlement freeze issue.

 “My concern is that we are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute,” Politico quoted Rep. Shelley Berkley as saying. “I think it would serve America’s interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements.”

 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3725366,00.html

…genocide/ethnic cleansing is OK?

VERY interesting:

In March, former AIPAC chief lobbyist Douglas Bloomfield wrote a very interesting piece for the New Jersey Jewish News. In it, he revealed that although AIPAC publicly professed support for the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, it was secretly coordinating with then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and working behind the scenes to sabotage the process. By illustrating AIPAC’s willingness to work against the policies of both U.S. and Israeli governments when they proved insufficiently hawkish, Bloomfield noted, this information could “not only validate AIPAC’s critics, who accuse it of being a branch of the Likud, but also lead to an investigation of violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”

Bloomfield had another interesting piece in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post, in which he interviewed AIPAC’s former top Iran analyst Keith Weissman. Weissman, of course, is best known for his role in the recently-dropped “AIPAC Two” espionage case, which revolved around accusations that he and AIPAC political director Steve Rosen received classified information from Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin and passed it to reporters and Israeli embassy officials. snip

Now that he is out from under the espionage charges, Weissman is free to speak his mind, and in his interview with Bloomfield he attacks the Iran hawks (including, implicitly, his former bosses at AIPAC) in startlingly blunt terms. The whole thing is worth reading, but I’ve included a few excerpts below the fold.

MORE:
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=252

Dennis Ross vs. Obama: No link between Iran, Mideast peace

Dennis Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State’s special adviser on Iran, says in a new book that the United States will not make progress toward peace in the Middle East with the Obama administration’s new plan.

The book, written with David Makovsky and entitled “Myths, illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East,” opposes the Obama administration’s concept of linkage. The book is to be published by Viking Press next month.

Just why is Ross so anxious to argue that the unrest in the middle east has NOTHING to do with the massacre in Lebanon and Gaza?
All Arab leaders have confirmed the connection between Israeli aggression and Arab militant extremism. But Ross thinks he knows best:

In the second chapter, entitled “Linkage: The Mother of All Myths,” Ross writes: “Of all the policy myths that have kept us from making real progress in the Middle East, one stands out for its impact and longevity: the idea that if only the Palestinian conflict were solved, all other Middle East conflicts would melt away. This is the argument of ‘linkage.'”

Ross wrote the book with Makovsky, a former Jerusalem Post journalist who in recent years has been a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, considered a pro-Israel think tank.

The book was written before Ross took up his current position as senior State Department adviser. Ross’ appointment has been controversial because he is an observant Jew and is considered a strong supporter of Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088479.html

Obama brought him into the administration…and not poor Ross can’t promote his book.

Ross, still putting Israel ahead of America’s national defense. There are words for him.

I can only hope this article serious. Excuse the long quotes, please if you are at all interested in the subject, go read the whole thing. Gravy train might just be over!

Barack Obama is to deliver a blunt warning to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the era of the blank US cheque is over.

So about time:

The President will use a meeting with Mr Netanyahu in Washington on Monday to tell him that from now on Israel must earn its privileged relationship with America.

Mr Obama will make clear that he will not allow his foreign policy objectives to be dictated by the Jewish state’s interests, and that its leaders must resume working for peace with the Palestinians.

 

The President has already fired warning shots across the bows of the Israeli government to signal that he will not be pushed around by Mr Netanyahu’s newly elected right-wing coalition. Many within Israel’s government are openly hostile to two key aspects of American policy on the Middle East: statehood for the Palestinians and engagement with Iran.

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, said: “Netanyahu is caught between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the president’s determination to achieve a two-state solution and the hard place being his political base which opposes it. He’s inching toward the Obama position but trying to avoid saying the words, ‘two-state solution.'”

snip

But Mr Obama’s hand in confronting Mr Netanyahu was strengthened last week by a new Zogby poll revealing that voters who backed him in the election overwhelmingly support a policy which amounts to “get tough with Israel” – ending illegal Israeli settlements within Palestinian territory and establishing a Palestinian state. Jewish voters, 78 per cent of whom voted for Mr Obama, are among the strongest supporters of the plan.

Mr Obama has already shocked Israeli officials by publicly declaring that a two state solution was in America’s national interest – a clear sign that Washington will no longer automatically leap to support Israel regardless of the impact on the US.

The Obama administration has also broken a long-standing taboo against discussing Israel’s nuclear weapons, by calling for Israel to declare and give up its weapons arsenal, said to number around 50 warheads. A senior State Department official said the US wants Israel to sign the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and commit to disarmament. What he has not done yet, is query the $3 billion in military aid which US taxpayers send Israel every year, although that could yet happen given the straitened times.

But Israel is meanwhile rattled by Mr Obama’s willingness to attempt dialogue with Iran, seen by Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman as the biggest threat to the Jewish state.

snip
But alarm bells rang in Jerusalem earlier this month when it was reported that he had warned that efforts to stop Iran would depend on peace talks with the Palestinians.

Though protective towards Israel, both advisers are said to consider that for many years American policy has been skewed by hard-line allies of Israel who do not represent the majority Jewish American viewpoint. Both spent months during the presidential election campaign trail helping to brief Mr Obama on the intricacies of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and both are convinced of the need for a two-state solution.

snip

But there was concern in Israel when Mr Obama moved to allow US aid to flow to members of the Palestinian unity government who were backed by Hamas – a sign that the Obama administration may be prepared to talk to enemies it considers terrorists, if circumstances change.

Mr Obama also sent his CIA chief, Leon Panetta, on a discreet mission to Israel two weeks ago to warn Mr Netanyahu not to lose patience over Iran’s progress to nuclear weapons – and above all, not to launch preemptive air strikes against suspected nuclear enrichment facilities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/5335620/Obama-to-warn-Israels-PM-Benjami

n-Netanyahu-No-more-blank-cheques.html

What can I say. If I thought praying could help….I’d pray.

This is the right thing.

General McChrystal

Who was responsible for overseeing one of the worst torture and abuse centers in Iraq?

“Was the colonel ever actually there to observe this?” “Oh, yeah. He worked there. He had his desk there. They were working in a big room where the analysts, the report writers, the sergeant major, the colonel, some technical guys–they’re all in that room.”

To Garlasco, this is significant. This means that a full-bird colonel and all his support staff knew exactly what was going on at Camp Nama. “Do you know where the colonel was getting his orders from?” he asks. Jeff answers quickly, perhaps a little defiantly. “I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him there a couple of times.” Back when he was an intelligence analyst, Garlasco had briefed Stanley McChrystal once. He remembers him as a tall Irishman with a gentle manner. He was head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the logical person to oversee Task Force 121, and vice-director for operations for the Joint Chiefs.

He’s now running Obama’s war.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/stanley-mcchrystal-a-history-of-torture
.html
Cheney’s boy…..how did this happen? Someone is sticking it to Obama?

Hoyer doesn’t even write his own pro-Israel letters:

NOW, THAT’S LOBBYING

Speaking of Iran and that region, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sent out a “Dear Colleague” e-mail Tuesday asking for signatures “to the attached letter to President Obama regarding the Middle East peace process.”

The letter says the usual stuff, emphasizing that Washington “must be both a trusted mediator and a devoted friend to Israel” and noting: “Israel will be taking the greatest risks in any peace agreement.”

Curiously, when we opened the attachment, we noticed it was named “AIPAC Letter Hoyer Cantor May 2009.pdf.”

Seems as though someone forgot to change the name or something. AIPAC? The American Israel Public Affairs Committee? Is that how this stuff works?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051404242.html?hpid=sec-politi
cs

It’s all about Israel:

Jim Lobe is best known for his coverage of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration. With permission:

As he makes clear in this post, The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan has finally come to the conclusion that the democracy claptrap that neo-conservatives have spouted since 9/11 has been a facade for their core foreign-policy worldview with Israel at its heart.

“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what’s wrong with the Middle East, and seemed to have the only coherent strategic answer to the savagery of 9/11. I now realize that the answer – the permanent occupation of Iraq – was absurdly utopian and only made feasible by exploiting the psychic trauma of that dreadful day. The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That’s the conclusion I’ve been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into. Cheney saw America as Netanyahu sees Israel: a country built for permanent war and the “tough, mean, dirty, nasty business” of waging it (with a few war crimes to keep the enemy on their toes).”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/a-false-premise.html

(Sullivan’s post has predictably infuriated John Podhoretz, the keeper of the neo-con flame at Commentary.)

Given their long-established affinity for “friendly authoritarian” regimes, I never understood why so many foreign-policy and other intellectuals were gulled by the neo-cons’ efforts to dress up their Arabo- and Islamophobia in the guise of Wilsonianism and democracy promotion (although I accept that Wolfowitz — a neo-con who is not a Likudnik — may have been sincere). The contradictions in their arguments, let alone with their historical record, always seemed so glaringly obvious. (How can you be a Wilsonian and indefinitely deny self-determination to Palestinians or condition it on their becoming Finland, as one of Ariel Sharon’s closest advisers suggested?) Just this past week, I attended a presentation by Council on Foreign Relations fellow Stewart Patrick, the author of a new book on the origins of U.S. multilateralism, who described them as Wilsonians who disdain multilateral institutions. The sooner people disabuse themselves of the notion that the spread of Wilsonian democracy is a core tenet of neo-conservativism, the more realistic any discussion of the movement and its contribution to the disastrous situation both the United States and Israel now face in the Middle East will be.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=224

I have long argued that the Jewish State has no intention of ever recognizing a Palestinian state. But for the first time Washington and the Zionist Enterprise are not talking out of the same mouth.

Headlines:

Clinton calls for ‘viable’ Palestinian state:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090203/pl_afp/mideastconflictuspalestinians

Likud Charter (Netenyahu) Does Not Recognize Palestine:
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/63973/likud-charter-does-not-recognize-palestine.html

Here, I thought I was the only one that clearly witnessed the machinations of the Zionists, but the Arab world took notice:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s public snub of Israeli President Shimon Peres last Thursday in a television chat show on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meet in the Swiss resort of Davos has caught the imagination of the Islamic world and cuts across the Shi’ite-Sunni divide. snip

“You are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you hit and killed children on the beaches.”

Gaza beach massacre:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_beach_blast
Flashback to 2006, Bush and company pushed for elections in Palestine, making the argument that democracies will not make war on each other. His version of Bibi’s Clean Break Plan intended to reorganize the middle east. Hamas, an organization put aside it’s charter of fighting Israel, and providing services to it’s people, won the elections:

Jimmy Carter supervised the elections, international monitors observed a clean and democratic election:

BUT:

We know what happened next. To make a long story short, Israel and most of the international community refused to recognize Hamas as a legitimate party and then refused to recognize the newly-formed Palestinian unity government (formed in March 2007).

[this left Abbas no options, thereby creating a civil war]
Abbas, whose goal has always been to be recognized by the US and Israel, kicked Hamas out of the government and formed a new one with Salam Fayyad, a politician and economist made in the US, as PM. A violent pre-emptive war was launched by Hamas against Fatah and Israel/US-backed militias (led by Mohammed Dahlan) and Hamas “took over” the Gaza Strip.

[Israel has a history of killing Palestinian leaders and creating civil wars in Palestine]
Even if they reacted with surprise and strongly condemned this move, the US and Israel had reached one of their long-term objectives in Palestine. “Divide and Rule” (a strategy used with great success by the US in the course of its history) was back on again with the West Bank becoming the respectable (read: cooperative) Palestinian Authority territory and Gaza turning into the Islamic and evil Hamastan.

[I make a note here, Bush’s delusions were that he would be able to create a Palestine state as his legacy, thereby accomplishing what no other American president had done. BUT, he was outfoxed by the Zionist Enterprise with their never ending carrots [bail and switch], and Bush did not realize he had been had till his last year in office. Iran “was” on the schedule, but Bush realizing what had happened finally said “no” to Israel for the first time. He refused to sell the bombs Israel needed to take out Iranian nuclear plants and Bush refuse to sent more soldiers to fight Israel’s wars. Israel politicians screeched, to no avail.
To continue the story:]

An internationally-supported Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip followed and once more, to cut a long story short, the Gaza “war” was launched in December 2008 by Israel. We are here today, more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and 5,000 injured later.

But why did all this happen? What was the official reason given by the Israel and the International community for not recognizing Hamas?

The reason they gave was that Hamas refused to recognize Israel and had a Charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Everyone (politicians and corporate media leaders) accepted this without asking a few important questions. [ I did not and wrote about it on daily kos, and this is the real reason I was banned] Which Israel should Hamas recognize? Israel has not yet stated what its international borders are. Should Hamas recognize the Israel of 1948? The Israel of 1967? The Israel of 2009 with its apartheid wall, settlements (settlements building raised by 60 percent in 2008, the year of the Annapolis “Peace Process”, according to a Peace Now report), second class Arab citizens and with East Jerusalem annexed?

Any astute observer could also have objected by reminding people that Hamas (through Haniyeh and Meshal) had said many times over that it was willing to accept Israel as a political entity on the 1967 borders. You do not have to look hard for this, it was stated in the Guardian, Washington Post, amongst others, meaning that Hamas was now in line with most of the international community, accepting a two-state solution.

And so where are we now the political party of Bibi is about to come into power AGAIN:

In the “Peace and Security” chapter of the Likud Party platform, a recent document (1999) it says initially that:

“Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel. The Likud will strengthen the existing peace agreements with the Arab states and strive to achieve peace agreements with all of Israel’s neighbors with the aim of reaching a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

But then it says about settlements:

“The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.”

Therefore annihilating the slightest chance of a two-state solution.

On Palestinian self-rule it says:

“The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.”

Therefore annihilating any chance of seeing a Palestinian sovereign state.

On Jerusalem:

“Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz.”

Therefore annihilating any chance for future peace negotiations because east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state is non-negotiable for any Palestinian.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30203

And what will Bibi’s bail and switch be now, the US has to take out Iran before he will negotiate on Palestinian state. You bet ya.

Meanwhile, Bibi is making war on Arabs living as Israel second hand citizens, their NEW War on Terror:

Speaking at the third annual Herzliya conference, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his audience: “It is not the Palestinians who pose a demographic threat, since one day they will benefit from self-determination, but the Israeli-Arab population. The most important thing is maintaining the Jewish majority in the country and improving the economy to encourage more Jews from the Diaspora to immigrate.” If the Palestinians in Israel “reach 35 to 40 percent of the Israeli population, Israel will become a state with two nationalities,” he said. Palestinians currently represent more than 20 percent of the total population in Israel.

snip

Rachel Benziman, sent a letter to the minister, in which she strongly protested his reference to a fifth of Israel’s citizens as no more than a “demographic problem”. ACRI demanded that Palestinian citizens in Israel be recognized as human beings that are entitled to all the rights due to any citizen of the state. “Comments, like those made by the minister today, fan the flames of hatred, racism, and discrimination” that are the daily reality for Palestinians in Israel, and “undermine the basic trust that underpins a democratic society”, ACRI said. In the same statement ACRI stated that it could not “overstate the importance of the moral and legal duty of the government to respect all its citizens, to ensure their equal treatment, and to block any attempts to compromise any individual’s status.”

Earlier this year the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed its concerns about the “continuing difference in treatment between Jews and non-Jews, in particular Arab and Bedouin communities, with regard to their enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights” and reiterated its concern that the “excessive emphasis upon the State as a ‘Jewish State’ encourages discrimination and accords a second-class status to its non-Jewish citizens” (1998 concluding observations, para. 10).

This discriminatory attitude is apparent on the ground when one examines the lower standard of living of Palestinians in Israel — the result of higher unemployment rates, restricted access to and participation in trade unions, lack of access to housing, water, electricity, health care and a lower quality education system. Moreover, the indigenous population — Bedouins in particular — continue to be subjected on a regular basis to land confiscations, home demolitions, fines for building “illegally”, destruction of agricultural crops, fields and trees, and systematic harassment and persecution by the Green Patrol, in order to force Bedouins to resettle in “townships”.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2280.shtml

Let’s hope Obama does not fall for Bibi’s bait and switch.