War Without End

Alpha · Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 9:34 am Post subject:

From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:43:03 -0800
Subject: Rami Khouri: Revisiting the Israeli lobby debate

"Walt and Mearsheimer are now completing a full length book on the subject of the Israeli lobby and its impact, to be published in the United States and a dozen other countries next year-- a good sign, given that the original American journal that has commissioned their article subsequently declined to publish it. Equally importantly, they have written a detailed 80-page point-by-point essay responding to all the accusations and criticisms made against them by a wide range of people.

"Their essay is a calm, specific rebuttal of every criticism made against their original paper, showing the criticisms to be overwhelmingly mistaken and invalid. Where they found some criticisms to be justified, they show why the points raised do not significantly affect their main arguments."

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093136374#top

Revisiting the Israeli lobby debate

Jordan Times - 15/12/2006

(MENAFN - Jordan Times)

Rami G. Khouri

Is there a rational, sensible middle ground between those who question or deny the holocaust against the Jews and threaten to wipe out Israel, and those who maintain that Israel can do no wrong and must receive total, perpetual American support?

That middle ground has been thin in recent years. In the United States, in particular, it is almost impossible to discuss in public the issues of Israel's policies, Israeli-American relations, and the impact these two have on America's degraded ties with the Arab world.

The prevalent tone of public and private discussions remains a questioning of why the Arabs and Iranians hate Israel and America, and make political or military war against them. The dominant litmus test of legitimacy is for Hamas and Hizbollah to recognise Israel's right to exist, without asking Israel to halt its continuing assaults on Arab lands and rights. That attitude, over decades, has understandably generated a strong reaction against Israel and the US throughout the region and the world.

This cyclical, cause-and-effect nature of Israeli-American-Arab relationships is rarely acknowledged in the United States. A rare exception was the paper published in March by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University. In "The Israel Lobby", they questioned whether the pro-Israel lobby in the United States served the best purposes of Israel and the US, or whether its virtual stranglehold on US policies in the Middle East actually is detrimental to both Israeli and American national interests.

Their original paper in the London Review of Books and the Harvard website generated fierce criticism, to which they initially offered only occasional, partial responses. They were accused of a wide range of terrible deeds and sentiments, including anti-Semitism, blaming the Jews for America's troubles in the Middle East, seeing American Jews as disloyal or even treasonous citizens, cavorting with racists like David Duke and other neo-Nazis, being anti-Zionists who do not feel that Israel's survival is important, exaggerating the power and nature of the pro-Israel lobby and its control of American foreign policy, and many other major and minor points.

To find out where things stand now and what might happen next in this important debate, I went to see Stephen Walt in his Kennedy School office at Harvard the other day. The authors knew their article would be controversial, Walt told me, because it addressed a set of important issues that few mainstream scholars or journalists had examined. They expected professional criticism and personal attacks, because they challenged some powerful individuals and organisations, and cast doubt on principal American-Israeli historical claims and policy positions. They feel they opened a space for an honest debate on the issue, where the focus should remain.

Walt and Mearsheimer are now completing a full length book on the subject of the Israeli lobby and its impact, to be published in the United States and a dozen other countries next year-- a good sign, given that the original American journal that has commissioned their article subsequently declined to publish it. Equally importantly, they have written a detailed 80-page point-by-point essay responding to all the accusations and criticisms made against them by a wide range of people.

Their essay is a calm, specific rebuttal of every criticism made against their original paper, showing the criticisms to be overwhelmingly mistaken and invalid. Where they found some criticisms to be justified, they show why the points raised do not significantly affect their main arguments.

They grouped the many attacks against them into three broad groups: unsupported ad hominem accusations of being anti-Semites, liars, or bigots who relied on neo-Nazi websites; clear misrepresentations of their views, by accusing them of arguments they did not make, or ignoring important points that they explicitly made; and, accusations that the original essay was riddled with factual errors and was sloppy scholarship.

Most criticisms aimed to discredit the authors, divert the discussion to tangential issues, or bury the original paper's core arguments about the questionable impact of the pro-Israel lobby. The rebuttal essay convincingly shreds the arguments of all the critics, whether respected scholars or others. It also reaffirms their original point: any honest discussion of US-Israel relations and policies will often be met with a broadside assault by the pro-Israel lobby to silence the debate.

The authors are respected, established and confident enough to withstand such an assault that would have felled lesser folks. Intelligently, they disdain the sort of cheap personal attacks and innuendo that were hurled at them, and instead maintain their sharp focus on the core issue that they feel deserves wider discussion.

"We feel that we have started an important public debate in the United States and abroad," Walt told me.

"The United States faces many challenges in the Middle East, and Americans need to be able to discuss all of the forces that shape US policy in this region in a candid and serious way," he added, reflecting the tone of their rebuttal essay.

"We are gratified that this conversation is now occurring, for what America needs is a sober and calm discussion of these issues based on logic and evidence, as opposed to a conversation filled with name calling and character assassination, or myths and misconceptions."

Sounds like the American way to me, and very much worth affirming in the United States and emulating around the world. Walt and Mearsheimer were right in March to raise this issue, and they are right again today to move the debate forward in a calm, facts-based manner.

Alpha · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:19 am Post subject:

From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:26:31 -0800
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] Ynet news: How US Paid for Israel's War on Lebanon

While shocking, this comes as no surprise. Nor should it come as a surprise that this critical vote was not reported in the Zionist controlled US media.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/ 0,7340,L-3338927,00.html
Ynet News

US to double emergency equipment stored in Israel

Emergency stockpiles in Israel meant for storing US army equipment in Middle East opened in Israel's favor during last Lebanon war

Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 12.12.06, 08:57

WASHINGTON - The American Congress gave Israel financial and security encouragement when the Senate and the House of Representatives gave their approval to double the emergency equipment the United States stores in Israeli stockpiles.
Jews in Politics

Jews take root in Capitol Hill / Ynet

Democrats may have conquered both houses of Congress, and so have Jewish politicians. Number of Jewish senators rises from 11 t o13 and number of Jewish representatives jumps to 30 thanks to six new faces creating all-time high of Jewish politicians in Congress. Another precedent: First Muslim elected to House
Full Story

Within the next two years the Americans will fill the military emergency stockpiles in Israel with double the equipment they now hold.

In addition, the US will allow Israel to use the remainder of the US's monetary guarantees given to them that have not been used yet, and add up to USD 4.5 billion, by 2011.

The emergency stockpiles are meant to store American military equipment in the Middle East in case of an emergency. However, in case of an emergency, Israel is allowed to use the stockpiles.

The value of the equipment currently stored in Israel amounts to USD 100 million and the American government approved doubling its value to USD 200 million in the coming year.

In 2008 the military stock will be doubled and refilled once again in the value of USD 200 million.
Pro-Israel decisions

The Congress decided to give special aid to Israel in order to minimize war damages, without having to give Israel additional direct financial aid.

The bill was approved by the Senate and House and it renewed authority to transfer equipment to be stored in Israel.

A great portion of the American equipment stored in Israel last year was used for combat in the summer war in Lebanon.

The US approved guarantees in the sum of USD 9 billion to Israeli to be used over a period of three years, and this period was then prolonged an additional year.
Israel has only used half of this amount and has requested the United States again extend the time limit on using these guarantees. Following the second Lebanon war the US agreed to extend this period until the year 2011.

These pro-Israel decisions were made due to the lobbying efforts of Senate heads Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Bill Frist, and through Head of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations John [sic] Biden and Richard Lugar.

The bill was lead by the House of Representatives' heads of the Democratic Committee on Foreign Relations Tom Lantos and the Republican Committee on Foreign Relations Ileana Ross-Lehtinen and the House's republican head Jo Bonner.

Alpha · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:26 am Post subject:

Putin reported 'furious' over US payment for Lebanon war, CIA Egypt terror ring

14.12.2006 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/85920-Putin_Lebanon-0

Reports from the Kremlin today are portraying President Putin as being 'furious' with the American War Leader Bush over his breaking of a promise to the Russian President to not provide US funding to the Israelis for their Lebanese War. Less than 3 weeks after making this promise the United States used a little known provision in their security agreements with Israel to fully pay for the war, and as we can read as reported by Israel's Ynet News Service in their article titled "US to double emergency equipment stored in Israel", and which says:
"The American Congress gave Israel financial and security encouragement when the Senate and the House of Representatives gave their approval to double the emergency equipment the United States stores in Israeli stockpiles. Within the next two years the Americans will fill the military emergency stockpiles in Israel with double the equipment they now hold.
In addition, the US will allow Israel to use the remainder of the US's monetary guarantees given to them that have not been used yet, and add up to USD 4.5 billion, by 2011. The emergency stockpiles are meant to store American military equipment in the Middle East in case of an emergency. However, in case of an emergency, Israel is allowed to use the stockpiles. The bill was approved by the Senate and House and it renewed authority to transfer equipment to be stored in Israel.
A great portion of the American equipment stored in Israel last year was used for combat in the summer war in Lebanon."
In an even greater affront to Russia, and its supposed Middle Eastern ally Egypt, these reports also accuse the United States of operating a CIA/French Intelligence backed terror ring on Egyptian territory for the recruitment of foreign fighters to be deployed in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars, but which Egyptian authorities had infiltrated and arrested the American and French Ringleaders, and as we can read as reported by the Forbes News Service in their article titled "Egypt Releases Details on American Man", and which says:
"Security officials in Egypt released new details Monday about an American man in their custody on suspicion of links to a terror network which allegedly recruits Muslims to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. In Washington, the administration said Monday it expected an American detained in Egypt as a suspected terrorist to be freed.
The American was arrested late last month along with 11 Europeans and an unknown number of Egyptians and Arabs from other countries who were accused of belonging to an Islamist terror cell plotting attacks. Egyptian authorities expelled eight French citizens and two Belgians on Thursday. Another French citizen was in custody along with the American.
The State Department has criticized Egypt for refusing to grant U.S. officials timely access to the arrested American."
Egyptian authorities became further outraged when the French Intelligence Agents plotting with the CIA, and who were deported to France with the understanding that they would be prosecuted, were released by French Authorities, and as we can read as reported by the International Herald Tribune in their article titled "French police release 8 terror suspects expelled from Egypt", and which says:
"French anti-terrorist police have freed eight Frenchmen accused by Egyptian authorities of plotting attacks in the Middle East and expelled from Egypt, judicial officials said Sunday. The eight Frenchmen were arrested upon their arrival in France on Friday. The DSAT anti-terrorist agency released four Saturday, and four more Sunday, the judicial officials said."
Aside from the tragedy of the American and French Governments having to recruit combatants to fight against their own soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is with noted irony that the CIA finds one of its own operatives in the custody of the Egyptian secret police forces at the same time that Italian authorities are preparing to indict 26 CIA agents for the kidnapping and turning over to those same Egyptian secret police an Egyptian Cleric, and as we can read as reported by the AP News Service in their article titled "Italian Court Moves Closer To Indicting CIA Agents", and which says:
"Italy has set a date to bring possible indictments against its own intelligence service in the case of an Egyptian cleric. Over 30 U.S. and Italian intelligence agents may face charges after the extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan.
According to prosecutors, 26 US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and five officials from the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI), including former SISMI chief Nicola Pollari, were involved in the abduction, where Nasr was sent to Egypt and tortured."
To the much greater danger of these actions by the United States, however, is the fueling of tensions and hostilities in a part of the World that needs little more incentive to ignite our entire Globe into a scenario of Total War.
By Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

Alpha

From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"

Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:13:21 -0800
Subject: Nation: Get Carter by Chris Hedges

Other than Hedges being too kind to the memory of Rabin, this piece represents another public exposure of the Zionist Fifth Column in America that is ready and willing to support the suppression of the 1st Amendment and whatever else is necessary to preserve support for Israel, no matter how many lives, Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and American, that support requires. Until and unless the anti-war movement and those who claim solidarity with the peoples of Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq are willing to take a public stand against this noxious cancer within the US body politic, they will continue to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.-JB

http://www.thenatio n.com/doc/ 20070108/ hedges
Get Carter
by CHRIS HEDGES

[from the January 8, 2007 issue] The Nation.

Jimmy Carter, by publishing his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, walked straight into the buzz saw that is the Israel lobby. Among the vitriolic attacks on the former President was the claim by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, that Carter is "outrageous" and "bigoted" and that his book raises "the old canard and conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government." Many Democratic Party leaders, anxious to keep the Israel lobby's money and support, have hotfooted it out the door, with incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing that Carter "does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."

Carter's book exposes little about Israel. The enforced segregation, abject humiliation and spiraling Israeli violence against Palestinians have been detailed in the Israeli and European press and, with remarkable consistency, by all the major human rights organizations. The assault against Carter, rather, says more about the failings of the American media--which have largely let Israel hawks heap calumny on Carter's book. It exposes the indifference of the Bush Administration and the Democratic leadership to the rule of law and basic human rights, the timidity of our intellectual class and the moral bankruptcy of institutions that claim to speak for American Jews and the Jewish state.

The bleakness of life for Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, is a mystery only to us. In the current Israeli campaign in Gaza, now sealed off from the outside world, almost 500 Palestinians, most unarmed, have been killed. Sanctions, demanded by Israel and imposed by the international community after the Hamas victory last January in what were universally acknowledged to be free and fair elections, have led to the collapse of civil society in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as widespread malnutrition. And Palestinians in the West Bank are being encased, in open violation of international law, in a series of podlike militarized ghettos with Israel's massive $2 billion project to build a "security barrier." This barrier will gobble up at least 10 percent of the West Bank, including most of the precious aquifers and at least 40,000 acres of Palestinian farmland. The project is being financed in large part through $9 billion in American loan guarantees, although when Congress approved the legislation in April 2003, Israel was told that the loans could be used "only to support activities in the geographic areas which were subject to the administration of the Government of Israel prior to June 5, 1967."

But it is in Gaza that conditions are currently reaching a full-blown humanitarian crisis. "Gaza is in its worst condition ever," Gideon Levy wrote recently in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. "The Israel Defense Forces have been rampaging through Gaza--there' s no other word to describe it--killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately. ... How contemptible all the sublime and nonsensical talk about 'the end of the occupation' and 'partitioning the land' now appears. Gaza is occupied, and with greater brutality than before.... This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment."

And as Gaza descends into civil war, with Hamas and Fatah factions carrying out gun battles in the streets, Ha'aretz reporter Amira Hass bitterly notes, "The experiment was a success: The Palestinians are killing each other. They are behaving as expected at the end of the extended experiment called 'what happens when you imprison 1.3 million human beings in an enclosed space like battery hens.'"

In fact, if there is a failing in Carter's stance, it is that he is too kind to the Israelis, bending over backward to assert that he is only writing about the occupied territories. Israel itself, he says, is a democracy. This would come as a surprise to the 1.3 million Israeli Arabs who live as second-class citizens in the Jewish state. The poverty rate among Israeli Arabs is more than twice that of the Jewish population. Those Israeli Arabs who marry Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank are not permitted to get Israeli residency for their spouses. And Israeli Arabs, who do not serve in the military or the country's intelligence services and thus lack the important personal connections and job networks available to veterans, are systematically shut out of good jobs. Any Jew, who may speak no Hebrew or ever been to Israel, can step off a plane and become an Israeli citizen, while a Palestinian living abroad whose family's roots in Palestine may go back generations is denied citizenship.

The Israel lobby in the United States does not serve Israel or the Jewish community--it serves the interests of the Israeli extreme right wing. Most Israelis have come to understand that peace will be possible only when their country complies with international law and permits Palestinians to build a viable and sustainable state based on the 1967 borders, including, in some configuration, East Jerusalem.

This stark demarcation between Israeli pragmatists and the extreme right wing was apparent when I was in the Middle East for the New York Times during Yitzhak Rabin's 1992 campaign for prime minister. The majority of American Jewish organizations and neoconservative intellectuals made no pretense of neutrality. They had morphed into extensions of the right-wing Likud Party. These American groups, to Rabin's dismay, had gone on to build, with Likud, an alliance with right-wing Christian groups filled with real anti-Semites whose cultural and historical ignorance of the Middle East was breathtaking. This collection of messianic Jews and Christians, leavened with rabid American imperialists, believed they had been handed a divine or moral mandate to rule the Middle East, whether the Arabs liked it or not.

When Rabin, who had come to despise what the occupation was doing to the citizenry of his own country, was sworn in as prime minister, the leaders of these American Jewish organizations, along with their buffoonish supporters on the Christian right, were conspicuous by their absence. On one of Rabin's first visits to Washington after he assumed office, according to one of his aides, he was informed that a group of American Jewish leaders were available to meet him. The surly old general, whose gravelly cigarette voice seemed to rise up from below his feet, curtly refused. He told his entourage he did not have time to waste on "scumbags."

Alpha

Why Condemning Israel and the Zionist Lobby is so Important

James Petras
December 22, 2006
“It’s no great secret why the Jewish agencies continue to trumpet support for the discredited policies of this failed administration. They see defense of Israel as their number-one goal, trumping all other items on the agenda. That single-mindedness binds them ever closer to a White House that has made combating Islamic terrorism its signature campaign. The campaign’s effects on the world have been catastrophic. But that is no concern of the Jewish agencies.” December 8, 2006 statement by JJ Goldberg, editor of Forward (the leading Jewish weekly in the United States)

Introduction:
Many Jewish writers, including those who are somewhat critical of Israel, have raised pointed questions about our critique of the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the United States and what they wrongly claim are our singular harsh critique of the state of Israel. Some of these accusers claim to see signs of ‘latent anti-Semitism’, others, of a more ‘leftist’ coloration, deny the influential role of the ZPC arguing that US foreign policy is a product of ‘geo-politics or the interests of big oil. With the recent publication of several widely circulated texts, highly critical of the power of the Zionist ‘lobby’, several liberal pro-Israel publicists generously conceded that it is a topic that should be debated (and not automatically stigmatized and dismissed) and perhaps be ‘taken into account.’
ZPC Deniers: Phony Arguments for Fake Claims
The main claims of ZPC deniers take several tacks: Some claim that the ZPC is just ‘another lobby’ like the Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club or the Society for the Protection of Goldfish. Others claim that by focusing mainly on Israel and by inference the ‘Lobby’, the critics of Zionism ignore the equally violent abuses of rulers, regimes and states elsewhere. This ‘exclusive focus’ on Israel, the deniers of ZPC argue, reveals a latent or overt anti-Semitism. They propose that human rights advocates condemn all human rights abusers everywhere (at the same time and with the same emphasis?). Others still argue that Israel is a democracy – at least outside of the Occupied Territories (OT) – and therefore is not as condemnable as other human rights violators and should be ‘credited’ for its civic virtues along with its human rights failings. Finally others still claim that, because of the Holocaust and ‘History-of-Two-Thousand-Years-of-Persecution’, criticism of Jewish-funded and led pro-Israel lobbies should be handled with great prudence, making it clear that one criticizes only specific abuses, investigates all charges – especially those from Arab/Palestinian/United Nations/European/Human Rights sources -- and recognizes that Israeli public opinion, the press and even the Courts or sectors of them may also be critical of regime policies.
These objections to treating the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict and the activities of Zionist Lobbies as central to peace and war serve to dilute, dissipate and deflate criticism and organized political activity directed at the ZPC and its directors in Israel.
The response of the critics of Israel and the ZPC to these attacks has been weak at best and cowardly at worst. Some critics have responded that their criticism is only directed toward a specific policy or leader, or to Israeli policies in the OT and that they recognize Israel is a democracy, that it requires secure borders, and that it is in the interests of the Israeli ‘people’ to lower their security barriers. Others argue that their criticism is directed at securing Israeli interests, influencing the Zionist Lobby or to opening a debate. They claim that the views of ‘most’ Jews’ in the US are not represented by the 52 organizations that make up the Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations of America, or the thousands of PACs, local federations, professional associations and weekly publications which speak with one voice as unconditional supporters of every twist and turn in the policy of the Zionist State.
There are numerous similar lines of criticism, which basically avoid the fundamental issues raised by the Israeli state and the ZPC, and which we are obliged to address. The reason that criticism and action directed against Israel and the ZPC is of central importance today in any discussion of US foreign policy, especially (but not exclusively) of Middle East policy and US domestic policymaking is that they play a decisive role and have a world-historic impact on the present and future of world peace and social justice. We turn now to examine the ‘big questions’ facing Americans as a result of the power of Israel in the United States.
The Big Questions Raised by the ZPC and Israeli Power in the USA:
War or Peace:
Critical study of the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq, US involvement in providing arms to Israel (cluster bombs, two-ton bunker buster bombs and satellite surveillance intelligence) prior to, during and after Israel’s abortive invasion of Lebanon, Washington’s backing of the starvation blockade of the Palestinian people and the White House and Congress’ demands for sanctions and war against Iran are directly linked to Israeli state policy and its Zionist policy-makers in the Executive branch and US Congress. One needs to look no further than the documents, testimony and reports of AIPAC and the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations to observe their claims of success in authoring legislation, providing (falsified) intelligence, engaging in espionage (AIPAC) and turning documents over to Israeli intelligence (now dubbed ‘free speech’ by liberal Zionists).
If, as the overwhelming evidence indicates, the ZPC played a major role in the major wars of our time, wars capable of igniting new armed conflicts, then it ill behooves us to dilute the role of the Zionist/Jewish Lobby in promoting future US wars. Given Israel’s militarist-theocratic approach to territorial aggrandizement and its announced plans for future wars with Iran and Syria, and given the fact that the ZPC acts as an unquestioning and highly disciplined transmission belt for the Israeli state, then US citizens opposed to present and future US engagement in Middle East wars must confront the ZPC and its Israeli mentors. Moreover, given the extended links among the Islamic nations, the Israel/ZPC proposed ‘new wars’ with Iran will result in Global wars. Hence what is at stake in confronting the ZPC are questions which go beyond the Israeli-Palestine peace process, or even regional Middle East conflicts: it involves the big question of World Peace or War.
Democracy or Authoritarianism
Without the bluster and public hearings of former Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Jewish Lobby has systematically undermined the principal pillars of our fragile democracy. While the US Congress, media, academics, retired military and public figures are free to criticize the President, any criticism of Israel, much less the Jewish Lobby, is met with vicious attacks in all the op-ed pages of major newspapers by an army of pro-Israeli ‘expert’ propagandists, demands for firings, purges and expulsions of the critics from their positions or denial of promotions or new appointments. In the face of any prominent critic calling into question the Lobby’s role in shaping US policy to suit Israel’s interests, the entire apparatus (from local Jewish federations, AIPAC, the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations etc) go into action – smearing, insulting and stigmatizing the critics as ‘anti-Semites’. By denying free speech and public debate through campaigns of calumny and real and threatened repercussions the Jewish Lobby has denied Americans one of their more basic freedoms and constitutional rights.
The massive, sustained and well-financed hate campaigns directed at any congressional candidate critical of Israel effectively eliminates free speech among the political elite. The overwhelming influence of wealthy Jewish contributors to both parties – but especially the Democrats – results in the effective screening out of any candidate who might question any part of the Lobby’s Israel agenda. The takeover of Democratic campaign finance by two ultra-Zionist zealots, Senator Charles Schumer and Israeli-American Congressman Rahm Emanuel ensured that every candidate was totally subordinated to the Lobby’s unconditional support of Israel. The result is that there is no Congressional debate, let alone investigation, over the key role of prominent Zionists in the Pentagon involved in fabricating reports on Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, and in designing and executing the war and the disastrous occupation policy. The Lobby’s ideologues posing as Middle East ‘experts’ dominate the op-ed and editorial pages of all the major newspapers (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post). In their pose as Middle East experts, they propagandize the Israeli line on the major television networks (CBS, NBC,ABC, Fox, and CNN) and their radio affiliates. The Lobby has played a prominent role in supporting and implementing highly repressive legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commission Act as well as modifying anti-corruption legislation to allow the Lobby to finance congressional ‘educational’ junkets to Israel. The head of Homeland Security with its over 150,000 functionaries and multi-billion dollar budget is none other than Zionist fanatic Michael Chertoff, head persecutor of Islamic charity organizations, Palestinian relief organizations and other ethnic Middle Eastern or Moslem constituencies in the US, which potentially might challenge the Lobby’s pro-Israel agenda.
The biggest threat to democracy in its fullest sense of the word – the right to debate, to elect, to legislate free of coercion – is found in the organized efforts of the Zionist lobby, to repress public debate, control candidate selection and campaigning, direct repressive legislation and security agencies against electoral constituencies opposing the Lobby’s agenda for Israel. No other lobby or political action group has as much sustained and direct influence over the political process – including the media, congressional debate and voting, candidate selection and financing of congressional allocation of foreign aid and Middle East agendas as the organized Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) and its indirect spokespeople heading key Congressional positions. A first step toward reversing the erosion of our democratic freedoms is recognizing and publicly exposing the ZPC’s nefarious organizational and financial activities and moving forward toward neutralizing their efforts.
Their Foreign Policy or Ours?
Intimately and directly related to the loss of democratic freedoms and a direct consequence of the Jewish lobby’s influence over the political process is the making of US Middle East policy and who benefits from it. The entire political effort of the Lobby (its spending, ethnic baiting, censorship and travel junkets) is directed toward controlling US foreign policy and, through US power, to influence the policy of US allies, clients and adversaries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The Lobby’s systematic curtailment of our democratic freedoms is intimately related to our own inability to influence our nation’s foreign policy. Our majoritarian position against the Iraq War, the repudiation of the main executioner of the War (the White House) and our horror in the face of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and destruction of Gaza are totally neutralized by Zionist influence over Congressional and White House policymakers. The recently victorious Congressional Democrats repudiate their electorate and follow the advice and dictates of the pro-Zionist leadership (Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, Stephan Israel and others) by backing an escalation of troops and an increase in military spending for the war in Iraq. Bush follows the war policy against Iran proposed by the zealous Zionist fanatics in the American Enterprise Institute, repudiating the diplomatic proposals of the bi-partisan Baker Commission. Congress quadruples US arms stored in Israel (supposedly for dual use) in the aftermath of Israel’s bombing of Southern Lebanon with one million anti-personnel bomblets from cluster bombs in direct defiance of US electoral opinion. While hundreds of millions of undernourished women and children suffer and die in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the Lobby ensures that over half of US foreign aid goes to Israeli Jews with per capita incomes of over $22,000 USD.
No other organized political action group or public relations firm acting on behalf of the Cuban and Venezuelan exiles or Arab, African, Chinese or European Union states comes remotely near the influence of the Zionist lobby in shaping US policy to serve the interest of Israel.
While the Lobby speaks for less than 2% of the US electorate, its influence on foreign policy far exceeds the great majority who have neither comparable organizational nor financial muscle to impose their views.
Never in the history of the US republic or empire has a powerful but tiny minority been able to wield so much influence in using out nation’s military and economic power and diplomatic arm-twisting in the service of a foreign government. Neither the Francophiles during the American Revolution, the Anglophiles in the Civil War and the German Bund in the run-up to World War Two, nor the (anti-China) Nationalist Taiwan Lobby possessed the organizational power and sustained political influence that the ZPC has on US foreign and domestic policy at the service of the State of Israel.
Confronting the Lobby Matters
The question of the power of the Lobby over US policies of war or peace, authoritarianism or democracy and over who defines the interests served by US foreign policy obviously go far beyond the politics of the Middle East, the Israeli-colonial land grabs in Palestine and even the savage occupation of Iraq. The playing out of Zionist influence over the greatest military power in the world, with the most far-reaching set of client states, military bases, deadly weapons and decisive voice in international bodies (IMF/World Bank/United Nations Security Council) means that the Lobby has a means to leverage its reach in most regions of the world. This leverage power extends over a range of issues, from defending the fortunes of murderous Russian-Jewish gangster oligarchs, to bludgeoning European allies of the US to complicity with Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The ZPC represents a basic threat to our existence as a sovereign state and our ability to influence whom we elect and what agendas and interests our representatives will pursue. Even worse, by serving Israeli interests, we are becoming complicit with a State whose Supreme Court legalizes political assassinations across national boundaries, torture, systematic violations of international law and a regime which repudiates United Nations resolutions and unilaterally invades and bombs its neighbors and practices military colonist expansionism. In a word Israel resonates and feeds into the most retrograde tendencies and brutal practices of contemporary American politics. In this sense the Lobby through its media, Congressional influence and think tanks is creating an Israeli look-alike. Like Israel, the US has established its own Pentagon assassination teams; like Israel, it invades and colonizes Iraq; like Israel, it violates and rejects any constitutional or international legal restraints and systematically tortures accused but untried prisoners.
Because of these fundamental considerations, we cannot oblige our Jewish ‘progressive’ colleagues and compatriots and refrain from confronting the Zionist Lobby with force and urgency. Too many of our freedoms are at stake; too little time is left before they succeed in securing a greater military escalation; too little of our sovereignty remains in the face of the concerted effort by the Lobby and its Middle Eastern ‘expert-ideologues’ to push and shove us into a new and more devastating war with Iran at the behest of Israel’s pursuit of Middle East dominance.
No other country, abuser or not, of human rights, with or without electoral systems, has the influence over our domestic and foreign policy as does the state of Israel. No other Lobby has the kind of financial power and organizational reach as the Jewish Lobby in eroding our domestic political freedoms or our war-making powers. For those reasons alone, it stands to reason, that we American have a necessity to put our fight against Israel and its Lobby at the very top of our political agenda. It is not because Israel has the worst human rights agenda in the world – other states have even worst democratic credentials – but because of its role in promoting its US supporters to degrade our democratic principles, robbing us of our freedom to debate and our sovereignty to decide our own interests. The Lobby puts the military and budgetary resources of the Empire at the service of Greater Israel – and that results in the worst human rights in the world.
Democratic, just and peaceful responses to the Big Questions that face Americans, Europeans, Muslims, Jews and other peoples of the world passes through the defeat and dismantlement of the Israeli-directed Zionist Power Configuration in America. Nothing less will allow us to engage in an open debate on the alternatives to repression at home and imperialism abroad.

Alpha

President Carter's use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israeli
policies - a debate

Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 10:42:04 -0800
From Jeff Blankfort

{Comment - JB} The Wall Street Journal ran two commentaries today (both
pasted below). The first, by Ali Abunimah, supports President Carter's
use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israeli policies and points out
the inequalities between Jews and non-Jews within Israel itself. The
second, by Michael Oren, an Israeli-American and former officer in the
Israel Occcupation Army, claims that President Carter has a religious
problem with Israel. Please take a minute to let the Wall Street
Journal hear from you.

Please write to <mailto:wsj.ltrs@wsj.com>wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Letters
should be 200 words or less and include your name, address and
telephone
(for identification purposes only). ***** {End}

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116709416381459276.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

COMMENTARY

Jimmy Carter's Book: A Palestinian View

By ALI ABUNIMAH
December 26, 2006; Page A12

President Carter has done what few American politicians have dared to
do: speak frankly about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He has done this
nation, and the cause of peace, an enormous service by focusing
attention on what he calls "the abominable oppression and persecution
in
the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required
passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish
settlers in the West Bank."

The 39th president of the United States, the most successful
Arab-Israeli peace negotiator to date, has braved a storm of criticism,
including the insinuation from the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League
that his arguments are anti-Semitic.

Mr. Carter has tried to mollify critics by suggesting that his is not a
commentary on Israeli policy inside Israel's own borders, as compared
with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem -- territories Israel
occupied in 1967. He told NPR, "I know that Israel is a wonderful
democracy with equal treatment of all citizens whether Arab or Jew. And
so I very carefully avoided talking about anything inside Israel."

Given the pressure he has faced, it may be understandable that Mr.
Carter says this, but he is wrong. In addition to nearly four million
Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied territories,
another one million live inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. These
Palestinians are descendants of those who were not forced out or did
not
flee when Israel was created in 1948.

They have nominal Israeli citizenship, and unlike blacks in apartheid
South Africa, they do vote for the country's parliament. Yet this is
where any sense of equality ends. In Israel's history, no Arab-led
party
has ever been asked to join a coalition government. And, among scores
of
Jewish ministers, there has only ever been one Arab minister, of junior
rank.

Discrimination against non-Jewish citizens both informal and legalized
is systematic. Non-Jewish children attend separate schools and live in
areas that receive a fraction of the funding of their Jewish
counterparts. The results can be seen in the much poorer educational
attainment, economic, health and life outcomes of Palestinian citizens
of Israel. Much of the land of the country, controlled by the
quasi-governmental Jewish National Fund, cannot be leased or sold to
non-Jews. This is similar in effect to the restrictive covenants that
in
many U.S. cities once kept nonwhites out of certain neighborhoods.

A 2003 law stipulates that an Israeli citizen may bring a non-citizen
spouse to live in Israel from anywhere in the world, excluding a
Palestinian from the occupied territories. A civil rights leader in
Israel likened it to the American anti-miscegenation measures from the
1950s, when mixed race couples had to leave the state of Virginia to
marry legally.

For Palestinians, the most blatant form of discrimination is Israel's
"Law of Return," that allows a Jewish person from any country to settle
in Israel. Meanwhile, family members of Palestinian citizens of Israel,
living in exile, sometimes in refugee camps just a few miles outside
Israel's borders, are not permitted to set foot in the country.

The rise of Avigdor Lieberman, the new deputy prime minister, who
openly
advocates stripping Palestinians in Israel of citizenship and
transferring them outside the state, reflects increasingly extremist
politics. In response to growing discrimination, leaders of
Palestinians
inside Israel recently issued a report, "The Future Vision of the
Palestinian Arabs in Israel." It calls for Israel to become a state
where all citizens and communities have equal rights, regardless of
religion. Many Israeli commentators reacted angrily, calling the
initiative an attempt to dismantle Israel as a "Jewish state." However,
even if Mr. Carter's recommendations are implemented, and Israel
withdraws from the territories occupied in 1967, the struggle over the
legitimacy of a state that privileges one ethno-religious group at the
expense of another will not disappear.

As other divided societies, like South Africa, Northern Ireland and
indeed our own are painfully learning, only equal rights and esteem for
all the people, in the diversity of their identities, can bring lasting
peace. This is an even harder discussion than the one President Carter
has courageously launched, but ultimately it is one we must confront if
peace is to come to Israel-Palestine.

Mr. Abunimah is the author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" (Metropolitan Books, 2006). ******

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116709330748759250.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/20/EDGOULJ69H1.DTL>

COMMENTARY

Jimmy Carter's Book:
An Israeli View

By MICHAEL B. OREN

December 26, 2006; Page A12

Several prominent scholars have taken issue with Jimmy Carter's book
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," cataloguing its historical
inaccuracies and lamenting its lack of balance. The journalist Jeffrey
Goldberg also critiqued the book's theological purpose, which, he
asserted, was to "convince American Evangelicals to reconsider their
support for Israel."

Mr. Carter indeed seems to have a religious problem with the Jewish
state. His book bewails the fact that Israel is not the reincarnation
of
ancient Judea but a modern, largely temporal democracy. "I had long
taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures," he recalls telling Prime
Minister Golda Meir during his first tour through the country. "A
common
historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders
turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned
about the secular nature of the Labor government."

He complains about the fact that the kibbutz synagogue he enters is
nearly empty on the sabbath and that the Bibles presented to Israeli
soldiers "was one of the few indications of a religious commitment that
I observed during our visit." But he also reproves contemporary
Israelis
for allegedly mistreating the Samaritans -- "the same complaint heard
by
Jesus almost two thousand years earlier" -- and for pilfering water
from
the Jordan River, "where . . . Jesus had been baptized by John the
Baptist."

Disturbed by secular Laborites, he is further unnerved by religiously
minded Israelis who seek to fulfill the biblical injunction to settle
the entire Land of Israel. There are "two Israels," Mr. Carter
concludes, one which embodies the "the ancient culture of the Jewish
people, defined by the Hebrew Scriptures," and the other in "the
occupied Palestinian territories," which refuses to "respect the basic
human rights of the citizens."

Whether in its secular and/or observant manifestations, Israel clearly
discomfits Mr. Carter, a man who, even as president, considered himself
in "full-time Christian service." Yet, in revealing his unease with the
idea of Jewish statehood, Mr. Carter sets himself apart from many U.S.
presidents before and after him, as well as from nearly 400 years of
American Christian thought.

Generations of Christians in this country, representing a variety of
dominations, laymen and clergy alike, have embraced the concept of
renewed Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. The passion was already
evident
in 1620 when William Bradford alighted on Plymouth Rock and exclaimed,
"Come, let us declare the word of God in Zion." Bradford was a leader
of
the Puritans, dissenting Protestants who, in their search for an
unsullied religion and the strength to resist state oppression, turned
to the Old Testament. There, they found a God who spoke directly to his
people, who promised to deliver them from bondage and return them to
their ancestral homeland. Appropriating this narrative, the Puritans
fashioned themselves as the New Jews and America as their New Promised
Land. They gave their children Hebrew names -- David, Benjamin, Sarah,
Rebecca -- and called over 1,000 of their towns after Biblical places,
including Bethlehem, Bethel and, of course, New Canaan.

Identifying with the Jews, a great many colonists endorsed the notion
of
restoring Palestine to Jewish control. Elias Boudinot, president of the
Continental Congress, predicted that the Jews, "however scattered . . .
are to be recovered by the mighty power of God, and restored to their
beloved . . . Palestine." John Adams imagined "a hundred thousand
Israelites" marching triumphantly into Palestine. "I really wish the
Jews in Judea an independent nation," he wrote. During the Revolution,
the association between America's struggle for independence and the
Jews' struggle for repatriation was illustrated by the proposed Great
Seal designed by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, showing Moses
leading the Children of Israel toward the Holy Land.

Restorationism became a major theme in antebellum religious thought and
a mainstay of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches. In his
1844 bestseller, "The Valley of the Vision," New York University Bible
scholar George Bush -- a forebear of two presidents of the same name --
called on the U.S. to devote its economic and military might toward
recreating a Jewish polity in Palestine. But merely envisioning such a
state was insufficient for some Americans, who, in the decades before
the Civil War, left home to build colonies in Palestine. Each of these
settlements had the same goal: to teach the Jews, long disenfranchised
from the land, to farm and so enable them to establish a modern
agrarian
society. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln said that "restoring the Jews to
their
homeland is a noble dream shared by many Americans," and that the U.S.
could work to realize that goal once the Union prevailed.

Nineteenth-century restorationism reached its fullest expression in an
1891 petition submitted by Midwestern magnate William Blackstone to
President Benjamin Harrison. The Blackstone Memorial, as it was called,
urged the president to convene an international conference to discuss
ways of reviving Jewish dominion in Palestine. Among the memorial's 400
signatories were some of America's most preeminent figures, including
John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, Charles Scribner and William
McKinley. By the century's turn, those advocating restored Jewish
sovereignty in Palestine had begun calling themselves Zionists, though
the vast majority of the movement's members remained Christian rather
than Jewish. "It seems to me that it is entirely proper to start a
Zionist State around Jerusalem," wrote Teddy Roosevelt, "and [that] the
Jews be given control of Palestine."

Such sentiments played a crucial role in gaining international
recognition for Zionist claims to Palestine during World War I, when
the
British government sought American approval for designating that area
as
the Jewish national home. Though his closest counselors warned him
against endorsing the move, Woodrow Wilson, the son and grandson of
Presbyterian preachers, rejected their advice. "To think that I the son
of the manse [parsonage] should be able to help restore the Holy Land
to
its people," he explained. With Wilson's imprimatur, Britain issued the
declaration that became the basis of its League of Nations mandate in
Palestine, and as the precursor to the 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution
creating the Jewish state.

The question of whether or not to recognize that state fell to Harry S.
Truman. Raised in a Baptist household where he learned much of the
Bible
by heart, Truman had been a member of the pro-Zionist American
Christian
Palestine Committee and an advocate of the right of Jews --
particularly
Holocaust survivors -- to immigrate to Palestine. He was naturally
inclined to acknowledge the nascent state but encountered fervid
opposition from the entire foreign policy establishment. If America
sided with the Zionists, officials in the State and Defense Departments
cautioned, the Arabs would cut off oil supplies to the West, undermine
America's economy and expose Europe to Soviet invasion. Hundreds of
thousands of U.S. troops would have to be sent to Palestine to save its
Jews from massacre.

Truman listened carefully to these warnings and then, at 6:11 on the
evening of May 14, he announced that the U.S. would be the first nation
to recognize the newly-declared State of Israel. While the decision may
have stemmed in part from domestic political considerations, it is
difficult to conceive that any politician, much less one of Truman's
character, would have risked global catastrophe by recognizing a frail
and miniscule country. More likely, the dramatic démarche reflected
Truman's religious background and his commitment to the restorationist
creed. Introduced a few weeks later to an American Jewish delegation as
the president who had helped create Israel, Truman took umbrage and
snapped, "What you mean 'helped create'? I am Cyrus" -- a reference to
the Persian king who returned the Jews from exile -- "I am Cyrus!"

Since 1948, some administrations (Eisenhower, Bush Sr.) have been less
ardent in their attachment to Israel, and others (Kennedy, Nixon) more
so. Throughout the last 60 years, though, the U.S. has never wavered in
its concern for Israel's survival and its support for the Jewish
people's right to statehood. While U.S.-Israel ties are no doubt
strengthened by common bonds of democracy and Western culture, religion
remains an integral component in that relationship. We know that Lyndon
Johnson's Baptist grandfather told him to "take care of the Jews, God's
chosen people," and that Bill Clinton's pastor, on his deathbed, made
the future president promise never to abandon the Jewish state. We know
how faith has impacted the policies of George W. Bush, who is perhaps
the most pro-Israel president in history.

In his apparent attempt to make American Christians rethink their
affection for Israel, Jimmy Carter is clearly departing from
time-honored practice. This has not been the legacy of evangelicals
alone, but of many religious denominations in the U.S., and not solely
the conviction of Mr. Bush, but of generations of American leaders. In
the controversial title of his book, Mr. Carter implicitly denounces
Israel for its separatist policies, but, by doing so, he isolates
himself from centuries of American tradition.

Mr. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the
author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East," to
be
published by Norton in January.

Alpha

From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"

Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:38:00 -0800
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] Weiss: I Witness the Israel Lobby in Action

"It was one thing to have Yehuda Shaul give a talk inside Israel, Glaser said. "Outside of Israel, you're playing with fire."

"This chilling statement was a candid expression of the goals of the Israel lobby. A member of a Jewish organization was saying that it's OK to have a wide-open discussion of these issues in Israel, but it's dangerous to have such a discussion here. Why? Because America is the mainstay of support allowing Israel to continue its policies in the Occupied Territories. The Israel lobby fears that Americans, if left to their own devices, will abandon Israel, out of indifference, or antisemitism. So Americans must be influenced—in this case by having the information they get about Israel/Palestine vetted, and by pressuring Jews on campus to toe the party line."

I Witness the Israel Lobby in Action
http://mondoweiss. observer. com/2006/ 12/i-witness- the-israel- lobby-in- action.html

A few weeks back at Columbia, I watched with amazement as the former Israel soldier Yehuda Shaul, who started the group Breaking the Silence, gave his presentation on the horrors of the occupation to about 75 students in a darkened hall. My amazement had to do with the fact that Shaul's visit was sponsored by a largely-Jewish group at Columbia—Pro-Israel Progressives—and was attended by members of the Hillel chapter at the school. Kudos to them.

After Shaul's speech, representing "my comrades and not just myself," he was bombarded by hostile questions from Israel supporters in the audience. Shaul handled them with strength and ease. (Q. "Do you know of a counterpart organization where Palestinians question their moral decisions?" A. "I really don't care—I am an Israeli who has to raise his children in Israel...")

Just as gripping to me was the discussion that took place after the event between Rachel Glaser, the campus coordinator of the rightwing Zionist Organization of America, and the students who had organized the event.

"What did this accomplish? What did it accomplish?" Glaser barked at the organizers.

"It achieved something important," one of the Jewish students said. "People perceive pro-Israel groups as monolithic. They think that we are not able to take responsibility for the bad things that happen."

Fine, Glaser said, but the students should have organized "a panel," in which Shaul was just one voice. "Have someone else," she said. (Just as the New York Theatre Workshop wanted to "contextualize" the Rachel Corrie play with pro-Israel voices.)

It was one thing to have Yehuda Shaul give a talk inside Israel, Glaser said. "Outside of Israel, you're playing with fire."

This chilling statement was a candid expression of the goals of the Israel lobby. A member of a Jewish organization was saying that it's OK to have a wide-open discussion of these issues in Israel, but it's dangerous to have such a discussion here. Why? Because America is the mainstay of support allowing Israel to continue its policies in the Occupied Territories. The Israel lobby fears that Americans, if left to their own devices, will abandon Israel, out of indifference, or antisemitism. So Americans must be influenced—in this case by having the information they get about Israel/Palestine vetted, and by pressuring Jews on campus to toe the party line.

I bring this up because Glaser's group, the Zionist Organization of America, is now trying to have the Jewish group that sponsored Shaul's tour, the Union of Progressive Zionists, kicked out of a consortium of campus groups that promote Israel's image on campuses. Why? Because (per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency) "Jewish money should not be spent on programming that provides fodder for Israel's most virulent critics."

This is shameful news. Jews are better than this, America is better than this...

Alpha

THE WALL AS A PRISON, by Jimmy Carter

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Jimmy Carter

Simon & Schuster New York 2006

{I will only provide this brief excerpt of this book, because it is
newly published}

{p. 189} 16 THE WALL AS A PRISON

With increasing control of East Jerusalem, with relative security from
the wall surrounding what is left of the West Bank, and with thousands
of remaining settlers east of the wall protected by a strong occupying
force, there is a temptation for some Israelis simply to avoid any
further efforts to seek a peace agreement based on the Quartet's
Roadmap
or good-faith negotiations on any other basis.

In this diplomatic vacuum, Israeli leaders have embarked on a series of
unilateral decisions, bypassing both Washington and the Palestinians.
Their presumption is that an encircling barrier will finally resolve
the
Palestinian problem. Utilizing their political and military dominance,
they are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and
apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied
territories. The driving purpose for the forced separation of the two
peoples is unlike that in South Africa — not

{p. 190} racism, but the acquisition of land. There has been a
determined and remarkably effective effort to isolate settlers from
Palestinians, so that a Jewish family can commute from Jerusalem to
their highly subsidized home deep in the West Bank on roads from which
others are excluded, without ever coming in contact with any facet of
Arab life.

Withdrawal from Gaza was the first unilateral step, leaving a tiny and
nonviable economic and political entity, circumscribed and isolated,
with no dependable access to the air, sea, or even other Palestinians.
The future prospects for the West Bank are even more dismal. Especially
troublesome is the huge dividing wall in populated areas and an
impassable fence in rural areas. The status of this barrier is a key to
future peace in the Middle East. The original idea of a physical
obstruction was promoted by Israeli moderates as a means of preventing
intrusive attacks after the withdrawal of Israel's occupation forces.
The first barrier, surrounding Gaza, proved that this was a valid
premise, in that there was a substantial decrease in cross-border
raids.
The plan was to continue construction of the barricade along the border
between Israel and the West Bank.

Instead, the governments of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert have built the
fence and wall entirely within Palestinian territory, intruding deeply
into the West Bank to encompass Israeli settlement blocs and large
areas
of other Palestinian land. It is projected to be at least three and a
half times as long as Israel's internationally recognized border

{p. 192} and already cuts directly through Palestinian villages,
divides
families from their gardens and farmland, and includes 375,000
Palestinians on the "Israeli" side of the wall, 175,000 of whom are
outside Jerusalem. One example is that the wandering wall almost
completely surrounds the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya with its 45,000
inhabitants, with most of the citizens' land and about one-third of
their water supply confiscated by the Israelis. Almost the same
encirclement has occurred around 170,000 citizens of Bethlehem, the
birthplace of Jesus.

First, a wide swath must be bulldozed through communities before the
wall can be built. In addition to the concrete and electrified fencing
materials used in the construction, the barrier includes two-meter-deep
trenches, roads for patrol vehicles, electronic ground and fence
sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, sniper towers, and razor
wire — all on Palestinian land. The area between the segregation
barrier
and the Israeli border has been designated a closed military region for
an indefinite period of time. lsraeli directives state that every
Palestinian over the age of twelve living in the closed area has to
obtain a "permanent resident permit" from the civil administration to
enable them to continue to live in their own homes. They are considered
to be aliens, without the rights of Israeli citizens.

To summarize, whatever territory Israel decides to confiscate will be
on
its side of the wall, but Israelis will still retain control of the
Palestinians who will he on the other side

{p. 193} of the barrier, enclosed between it and Israel's forces in the
Jordan River valley.

{p. 195} In addition to cutting off about 200,000 Palestinians in
Jerusalem from their relatives, property, schools, and businesses, the
wall is designed to complete the enclosure of a severely truncated
Palestine, a small portion of its original size, compartmentalized,
divided into cantons, occupied by Israeli security forces, and isolated
from the outside world. In addition, a network of exclusive highways is
being built across even these fragments of the West Bank to connect the
new Greater Israel in the west with the occupied Jordan River valley in
the east, where 7,000 Jews are living in twenty-one heavily protected
settlements among about 50,000 Palestinians who are still permitted to
stay there. The area along the Jordan River, which is now planned as
the
eastern leg of the encirclement of the Palestinians, is one of
Palestine's most lucrative and productive agricultural regions. Most of
its inhabitants were forcibly evicted in 1967, and the Israelis have
not
allowed these original families to return. Israeli customs officers
keep
lists of their names and are careful to prohibit their crossing any
international checkpoint into the occupied territory, where they might
lay claim to their homes and farmland.*

*The best description of the barrier, its routing and impact, is shown
in the film The Iron Wall, produced by the Palestinian Agricultural
Relief Committees. It is available for $10 from PARC, at
www.theironwall.ps/.

{inside back flap}

1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations
since
the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the
forefront
of achieving this long-delayed goal of a just agreement that both sides
can honor.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid is a challenging, provocative, and
courageous book.

{endquotes}

The statement on the inside back flap, that this is "a challenging,
provocative, and courageous book", would have been written by the
publisher.

What's amazing is the word "courageous".

So dominant has the Jewish lobby become, that it's even "courageous"
for
a former President to challenge its version of events.

The word "Chomsky" does not appear in the Index of this book. Nor
should
it. Chomsky, and the Trotskyists who try to control the anti-War
movement, have consistently argued that Israel is only America's
sheriff
in the Middle East; and that America is in Iraq for the Oil, not to
destroy Israel's enemies.

Leftists should abandon Chomsky, seeing him as part of the Jewish
Lobby.
Peter

Alpha · Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 4:02 am Post subject:

Jewish writer compares Israel's law to apartheid Haaretz Israel, Amira Hass Jan 17, 2007
The High Court of Justice is in no hurry

By Amira Hass

Had Defense Minister Amir Peretz wanted to prove in his actions that he views racism as despicable and dangerous - as it was possible to understand from his remarks on Monday to his colleague, Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman - he would have used his authority to cancel in a timely manner an instruction issued by GOC Central Command Yair Naveh that will go into effect on Friday. He has not, however, done so, and starting on January 19, 2007, Israelis and foreigners will be prohibited from taking Palestinians as passengers in their cars throughout the West Bank.

Had Education Minister Yuli Tamir truly wanted to change patterns that have become fixed in the education system during the course of 40 years of occupation, she would have already used her exalted position to raise an uproar in the Knesset and the government against the GOC's instruction, which undermines the right of Palestinians and Israelis to develop relationships on a friendly, familial and ideological basis. She has had sufficient time for this: The instruction was signed on November 19, 2006.

Had Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, who is shocked, shocked, by the situation in Hebron, and has come to the conclusion that the law does not operate effectively there, been interested - he could have blocked the instruction that adds another building-block to the rule of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank: Naveh's instruction allows only Israeli employers (mainly settlers and people who live inside Israel proper) to drive their Palestinian workers. That is, it makes explicit a perception whereby the only possible natural relationship between a Palestinian and an Israeli and Jew is that of employee and employer.

Had members of the Israeli media, who were appalled by the sight of the young Jewish settler woman cursing her Palestinian "neighbors" in Hebron, in master-like gestures, been interested in being effective as well - they would have organized in time to express their shock at Major General Naveh's instruction, which will make a criminal of every Israeli who gives a ride in the West Bank to a Palestinian friend or a family member who is not a first-degree relative. But the media as a whole, and the Journalists Association and jurists who specialize in media law, have left the fight to the human rights organizations and a few lone journalists. Had the media not forgotten the innumerable reports that it itself has published about the doings of the settlers in Hebron and the military government there - it would have concluded that the demographic separation that Naveh's new instruction imposes is the offspring of the same mode of thinking and action that has brought about ethnic cleansing in the old city of Hebron.

Had the chorus of shock at a single filmed settler woman not been a matter of "ratings," but rather the expression of a moral stance accepted by society, the High Court of Justice would have issued an interim order to delay implementation of Naveh's instruction. But it has not issued any such interim order, even though eight human rights organizations, represented by attorney Michael Sfard, have given it the opportunity to do so. Nor did the High Court's Justice Edmond Levy feel any urgency about the matter, and he postponed the hearing on the petition until February 12.

The Court has been in no hurry because Naveh's instruction is logical and very obvious, and the road to it has been carefully and gradually paved in recent years, in a series of orders, instructions and laws, as well as the policy of separate roads and the route of the separation barrier. Always with the approval of the High Court.

The instruction concords with other prohibitions on movement that Israel has imposed on Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in the very same territory where Jews have unimpeded movement, and residential, economic and trade rights.

For years now, these prohibitions on movement have been preventing thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank from visiting family and friends in Gaza. They are responsible for thousands of sagas about people who are not permitted to live with their families in their own homes or to care for their parents on their deathbeds. They prevent students from pursuing the studies of their choice at decent institutions of learning. They keep sick people away from clinics, women about to give birth from maternity wards, children from schools and workers from their workplaces.

These prohibitions have transformed about one-third of the area of the West Bank - the Jordan Valley - into a region that is empty of Palestinians, apart from about 50,000 whose official address, as it appears in their identity cards, is in the valley.

The instruction under discussion complements and completes one that was issued in October 2000 - and which under the well-known excuse of security prohibited Israelis from entering Areas A in the West Bank.

The new instruction is particularly efficient because it mainly endangers the Palestinians who may disobey it: For various legal reasons, it will be difficult to bring the Israelis to trial in a civilian court. The Palestinian "criminals," however, will be shunted in and out of military courts, be blacklisted and pursued by the Shin Bet security service, and find themselves facing prison terms of up to five years. This fact will deter Israelis from choosing to practice non-violent civil disobedience, as taught by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., by disobeying this flagrantly illegal command. The founders of apartheid in South Africa would have been proud.

Alpha · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:59 am Post subject:

Weekend Edition
January 20/21 2007

First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01202007.html

Suppose the movers and shakers in the Israel lobby here -- Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and the rest of the crew -- had simply decided to leave Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid alone. How long before the book would have been gathering dust on the remainder shelves? Suppose even that Dershowitz had rounded up his unacknowledged co-authors in all their tens of thousands and sallied forth to buy up every copy of Carter’s book and toss each one into the Charles River, would not that have been a more successful suppressor than the blitzkrieg strategy they did adopt?

Of course it would. For weeks now the lobby has hurled its legions into battle against Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who “flatly condones mass murder” of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch’s New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.)

Any day now I expect some janitors at the Carter Center to resign, declaring that they can no longer in all conscience mop bathrooms that might have been used by the former President, their letter of protest duly front-paged by the New York Times, just like the famous fourteen members of the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors. Actually there were, at the time of resignations, 224 people on this board, where membership is mostly a thank you for a financial donation to the center. So the headlines could be saying, “Nearly 95 per cent of Carter Center Board Members Back Former President.”

But the assault on Carter is all to no avail. With each gust of abuse, Carter’s book soars higher and higher on the bestseller lists, reaching number 4 on Amazon itself. This doesn’t prove the lobby has no power. It proves the lobby can be dumb. Adroit lobbying consists in preventing unpleasing material reaching the light of day. Lobbying thrives in furtive darkness: slipping language into a bill at the last moment, threatening to back a campaign opponent, making quiet phone calls to the Polish embassy. Pressure is now being exerted on Farrar, Straus and Giroux to abandon its impending publication of Mearsheimer and Walt’s attack on the lobby.

The Israel lobby retains its grip inside the Beltway, but it’s starting to lose its hold on the broader public debate. Why? You can’t brutalize the Palestinian people in the full light of day, decade after decade, without claims that Israel is a light among the nations getting more than a few serious dents. In the old days, Mearsheimer and Walt’s tract would have been deep-sixed by the University of Chicago and the Kennedy School long before it reached its final draft, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux wouldn’t have considered offering a six-figure advance for it. Simon & Schuster would have told President Carter that his manuscript had run into insurmountable objections from a distinguished board of internal reviewers. But once a book by a former president with weighty humanitarian credentials makes it into bookstores, it’s hard to shoot it down with volleys of wild abuse.

The trouble with the lobby and the Christian zealots who act as its echo chamber is that they believe their own propaganda about Israel’s equitable social arrangements and immaculate political and legal record in its relations with the Palestinians. Use the word apartheid and they howl with indignation. The shock is about thirty years out of date. Israeli writers have used the word apartheid to describe arrangements in the occupied territories for years. Hundreds of prominent South African Jews issued a statement six years ago making the same link.

As in so many things, conventional elite opinion lives in a bubble, believing mere assertion and ranting about anti-Semitism will carry the day. The New York Times featured a spectacularly disingenuous hatchet job by its deputy foreign editor, Ethan Bronner, and another assault by former Clinton-era Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross. The latter rolled out the ritual accusations about Arafat’s rejection of Clinton’s proposals in December 2000, which is nonsense, as Ross surely knows. Clinton himself acknowledged in 2001 what later historians have substantiated, that both sides accepted his proposals in principle, while filing reservations. (Israel’s amounted to 20 single-spaced pages.)

The Times’ attacks were matched in the Washington Post by Jeffrey Goldberg, formerly of the IDF and a notorious trafficker in fictions, such as the supposed terror ties between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Amazon ran his vulgar ravings under the “Editorial Reviews” heading—a space usually reserved for short blurbs from Publishers Weekly and the like.

But if the lobby is fighting rearguard and increasingly futile actions to suppress all discussion here of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, it continues to exercise very serious clout in such enclaves of timidity as the U.S. Congress. Bush was not foolish in singling out Iran for threats in his January 10 address. The Democratic reaction to Bush’s escalation against Iraq and Iran has mostly been confined to nervous talk of “symbolic votes.” This temperate posture is surely not unconnected to the fact that the lobby’s prime foreign policy task, joined by Israeli hawks like Bibi Netanyahu, has been to rally support for an assault on Iran.

What an irony! Desperate for an end to the war, the voters hand Congress to the Democrats. Barely more than two months later Bush is kidnapping Iranian diplomats from in their consulate in Irbil, Iraq -- a calculated provocation arousing scant tumult here. Bush is also deploying a larger naval force to the Persian Gulf, as Israel plants stories about its possible recourse to nuclear weapons. Some provocation, maybe a seizure by the U.S. of an Iranian tanker, is easy to imagine in February. In the Congress, there’s barely a whimper out of the Democrats amid these terrifying prospects. It may have made a mess of its war against Carter’s book, but as a ferryman across the Styx toward Armageddon the lobby is doing a competent job.

Be Fair to Ike!

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Jan. 24, 2006

Israeli Billionaire Saban is Biggest Donor to US Politicians
Ynet (Israel)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3355786,00.html

Israeli billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban is at the top of the list of donors to political campaigns in the US. Fox Network revealed over the weekend that Saban has donated approximately US $13 million to various candidates. According to the report, Saban, a close friend of the Clintons, is one of the major donors to the Democratic Party, though he has also contributed to Republican candidates, including President George Bush and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Hillary Clinton and the Pro-Israel Lobby
Joshua Frank

http://www.countercurrents.org/ us -frank230107.htm

AIPAC's hypocrisy is nauseating. The goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to cease to procure nukes while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. So who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? None other than Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. As one of the top Democratic recipients of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle, pocketing over $83,000, Senator Clinton now has Iran in her cross hairs... Similar to her husband and the current president, Hillary Clinton will never alter the U.S.' Middle East policy that so blatantly favors Israeli interests.

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Israel Lobby Targets Carter and Iran
Alexander Cockburn

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01202007.html

...For weeks now the [Israel] lobby has hurled its legions into battle against [former president Jimmy] Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who "flatly condones mass murder" of Israeli Jews... The Democratic reaction to Bush's escalation against Iraq and Iran has mostly been confined to nervous talk of "symbolic votes." This temperate posture is surely not unconnected to the fact that the lobby's prime foreign policy task, joined by Israeli hawks like Bibi Netanyahu, has been to rally support for an assault on Iran.

War Without End

The global war against terror, news about the illegal invasion of Iraq, the corporate puppet presidents, the war criminal Tony Blair, September 11th 2001, the USS Liberty and New World Order crimes against humanity.

Carter says Mearsheimer and Walt were right - page 2