Thursday, April 30, 2009

Israeli Use of Palestinians As Human Shields

As to the accusations of Hamas using Palestinians as shields in Gaza, where are 1.5 million people supposed to go in a postage stamp of a prison 10 miles long and 3 miles wide? It's called living in one's "home", if that's what that miserable Israeli-created ghetto can be called.

Blue Ibis
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human shield
© unknown

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a Gaza-based Palestinian NGO mandated "to promote, protect and prevent violations of human rights in general, and economic, social and cultural rights in particular, to provide effective aid to those victims of such violations, and to enhance the quality of life of the community in (Gaza's) marginalized sectors."

It monitors and documents violations, provides legal aid and advocacy, and helps Gazans on "fundamental issues such as basic human rights, democracy, and international humanitarian" matters. It also produces reports and publications on its work.

In April, it published a seven-case study update of its July 2008 report titled: "Hiding Behind Civilians - The Continued Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields by the Israeli Occupation Forces." This article reviews both reports to highlight what international law unequivocally prohibits. Nonetheless, it's customary IDF practice even though Israel's Supreme Court banned it on October 6, 2005.

One Palestinian woman described her experience:
They handcuffed and blindfolded me. Then, they forced us to move out of the room, pushing me with their hands and guns to move although I was blindfolded and pregnant. I heard them pushing others to hurry up as well. I got exhausted and fell down many times. I told them that I was four months pregnant and couldn't continue but a soldier threatened to shoot me.
Other witness testimonies related similar stories, at times with tragic consequences for its victims. Israel is a party to various human rights laws and conventions. As a result, it's obligated to respect and protect the rights of people it controls.

Under Article 3 of the UN General Assembly's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Under Article 5: "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Under Article 9: "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

The General Assembly's 1977 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) affirms the same rights. Under Article 17: "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence."

Both international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) protect life, well-being and dignity. ILH deals with armed conflicts while IHRL applies to peace as well as war. Hague and Geneva Conventions comprise the main body of IHL, and strike a balance between military necessity and humanitarian considerations. As an occupying power, Israel is obligated under them.

Fourth Geneva protects civilians in war time, including those in Occupied Palestine. It restricts the use of force and prohibits seizing non-combatants as hostages, including persons who've laid down their arms or can't fight because of illness, injury or any other reason.

Article 34 states: "the taking of hostages is prohibited." Article 28 states: "the presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." Article 29 states: "the Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred."

Protocol I, Article 51, paragraph 7 states: "the presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations." In other words, using civilians as human shields is prohibited under all circumstances.

Further, the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Rome Statute, Article 8 prohibits the "Taking of hostages." Israel isn't a Court member but is obligated under international law. Nonetheless, it flaunts it with impunity.

Al Mezan collected sworn testimonies of people's homes seized and used as military posts for days with their residents confined for prolonged periods, beaten and abused, prevented from normal activities, and put in harm's way.

Another practice was called the "neighbor procedure," later changed to "the prior warning procedure" to get around a Court prohibition. Israel commandeers civilians, has them knock on neighbors' doors, usually at night, to deliver military orders to submit to arrest. Hostages are put in harm's way when violence at times erupts that may result in deaths or injuries.

Finally the practice was banned, but Israel blatantly disregarded its own High Court ruling as well as its clear obligation under IHL. It continues to use civilian men, women and children as human shields.

During the Second Intifada (especially for Israel's large-scale West Bank Operation Defensive Shield incursion), Amnesty International (AI) said the following in October 2005:
[AI] investigated tens of cases where the Israeli army used Palestinians, children as well as adults, as 'human shields' during military operations in towns and refugee camps throughout the Occupied Territories. Palestinians were forced to walk in front of Israeli soldiers who, at times, fired their weapons while shielding themselves behind the civilians. As well (they) were made to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers to check for explosives or gunmen hiding inside, to inspect suspicious objects, to stay in their houses when Israeli soldiers took them over to use as sniper positions, or to enter the houses of wanted, possibly armed, Palestinians to tell them to surrender to Israeli forces.
B'Tselem reports that Israel routinely uses "human shields (as) an integral part of the orders received by Israeli soldiers...." Al Mezan documented "dozens of cases" in Gaza in spite of specific High Court prohibitions, usually at times of incursions. Case studies below refute Israeli claims about respecting civilians, not using them as shields, and abiding strictly according to international and its own case law.

Israeli officials lie. As standard practice, they seize Palestinian civilians randomly, including women and young children, then force them into harm's way. Usually to:

-- let soldiers commandeer their homes as military posts and for sniper positions;

-- check for possible booby-traps in buildings;

-- order occupants inside to leave;

-- remove suspicious objects anywhere soldiers may go;

-- shield them from gunfire or thrown rocks; and

-- perform whatever other tasks soldiers order under very real threats they'll be shot if they refuse.

Orders to conduct these practices come from top commanders, not soldiers in the field.

Case Study Examples - 2008 and 2009

Number 1

On July 10, 2008, the IDF forced Rana Mofeed Awad An-Nabaheen, age 11, to visit a relative's house delivering orders to leave. On return, she was shot in the stomach by other soldiers, unaware she was acting under orders. Family member Mahir Hamdan Mheisin An-Nabaheen provided eyewitness sworn testimony. At about 4:30AM, vehicles, helicopters and gunfire woke him.

"I peeked through a window and saw Israeli soldiers breaking into my family member's house and forcing them to get out." Rana delivered orders to leave. He then heard heavy gunfire. "I peeked out and saw Rana near the gate screaming and saying: 'I am injured.' I stepped back into the house and gave her my hand....I pulled her back into the house. The gunfire became heavier. I left Rana bleeding and took cover behind a wall. Rana crawled two steps and lay on the floor....I saw her entrails coming out of her abdomen.
A physician in military uniform came, brought a bandage, and put it on her abdomen. The commander fastened Rana to a carrier, then ordered two soldiers to carry her." This case is typical of many others.

Number 2

It involves the arrest of civilians, including a pregnant woman, from the As-Sreij neighborhood in eastern Al-Qarara village in Khan Younis. They were held in an agricultural field and forced to accompany soldiers towards the separation border. The men were detained, women and children ordered to leave. They were shot at en route, then used as human shields during the operation. Out of fear of reprisals, the witness remained anonymous.

On April 3, 2008, at 7:30AM, her husband wasn't answering his mobile at the time an Israeli force entered the area where he was working. She rushed there with his ID card. "When I was on my way, I heard somebody shouting and ordering me to stop and come towards him....I tried to explain that I had come to give my husband his ID card but they threatened to shoot me."

"They led me to a room where I saw seven men and a woman with her two daughters, who were detained. The men were handcuffed and blindfolded. They handcuffed and blindfolded me. Then, they forced us to move out of the room, pushing me with their hands and guns although I was blindfolded and pregnant....They stopped for a while and took off my blindfold....I saw them taking the men across the border, and then heard one of them ordering us to leave the area....I heard heavy gunfire."

"I had to crawl for a long time to leave the area....I found (soldiers) who forced me to stop. I tried to explain what happened but they threatened to shoot me and forced me to sit down with a child of (a) family....One soldier forced the child to take his shirt off and tied his hands with it. There were many explosions and intensive firing."

"I managed to go home at around 13:00 on the same day. My husband returned home at around 21:00 on the same day. I knew he was detained in a military post close to the border line."

This is another human shield example that "demonstrates the complete disregard of the soldiers for the life of a pregnant woman and her unborn child." They were used as cover for Israeli forces to withdraw from the area.

Other cases were of medical teams forced to carry out life-threatening tasks, homes used as military posts and their residents as human shields, and a 14 year old boy used for the same purpose.

On April 9, 2009, Al Mezan presented an updated report, containing seven new case studies "based on comprehensive field investigations and witness statements," these based on incidents during Operation Cast Lead and one earlier in 2008.

"In endangering the lives of civilian men, women and children through systematically using them as human shields, the (IDF committed) crimes against humanity according to IHL." This is one of many violations against non-combatant Palestinian civilians.

Number 1: 15-year-old child used as a human shield

After being used for that purpose, the child was detained in a hole in the ground with about 100 others for four days. He now suffers from serious mental health difficulties and refuses to speak to strangers. With help from his parents, Al Mezan got him to tell his story and presented excepts from it below. At home with his parents, he was terrified by days of conflict.

"I was lying on the floor sheltering with my mother." His uncle then said: 'Come downstairs.' "So we all went downstairs. As soon as we opened the door, I saw a large number of soldiers. One of them was pointing his weapon at me....I saw my uncle and brothers lined up against the wall. I saw the soldier signaling at me to stand beside them. So I did....he wanted me to put my hands up. So I did. Another soldier came and searched me from top to bottom....He tied my hands to the hands of the people next to me."

"I stood by the wall. A few minutes later one of the soldiers came and kicked me. About two hours later, they ordered us to walk....they made us go into Khalil al-Attar's house....Then they told us all go, as a chain, into one of the rooms." They took us outside the house....I heard the sound of a huge explosion in the area. From there they took us to a farm."

"They made us sit on the ground until dawn the following day. Then they took us outside the field (and) blindfolded my eyes....they led us to a low-lying area. They made us sit on the ground....They tied my hands in front of my stomach. They searched me a third time and made me sit on the ground....After they took of my blindfold....I realized where the low-lying area was. It was a hole made by Israeli forces....south of the American school."

"We spent the whole night in this hole. I couldn't sleep. The weather was really cold and I wasn't wearing a lot of clothing. We stayed in this hole for four days....I could hear the sound of shooting and explosions" close by. We got one meal each afternoon...."On the third day I saw a soldier making a wire fence around the hole (and bring) a lot of people to the hole until the number reached around 100. On the morning of the fourth day, an Israeli soldier untied me, my brother Ali, my cousins Hussein and Khalil. They told us and the women to go to Jabalia.

Case 2: Majdi al-Abed Ahmed Abed Rabbo, male, age 40

On January 5 at 9:30AM, he was at home when he heard a loud sound and someone say, "Open the door....I arrived at the door and opened it. I was surprised to see an (IDF) soldier hiding behind a man in his twenties and pointing a gun at me. He said in Arabic, 'Take off your pants.' I took" them off. He ordered him to strip naked, then get dressed. About "15 - 20 Israeli soldiers then entered the courtyard of my house....one grabbed my neck from behind and put his gun to the back of my head."

"Two other soldiers hid behind me....They told me to lead them to the roof, where they searched pigeon coups that I keep in two rooms there." A soldier then asked about the adjacent house, belonging to his cousin and connected to his home by a common roof. "There's no space between the two houses, just the wall."

"After that, one of the soldiers brought a demolition tool and said, 'Drill a hole there.'....Then three soldiers went through the hole to (his cousin's) house." He was told to come as well along with more soldiers, then told, "Get up. Get up," and grabbed violently. "I got up and entered with them through the hole back to my roof, and they all went as a group down the stairs. This happened quickly....The whole group was running."

"The soldiers led me outside. I found myself in a mud road....One of the soldiers was holding me and making me run with him. Another soldier was bringing the young man with him the same way, and (he) had his hands tied. They pushed me in the mosque through its main door to the north....They tied my hands in front of my stomach and tied my legs and sat me down (in one corner). We entered the house adjacent to the mosque. They took us out and turned us toward another house," then sat us down nearby.

In one house, a soldier said, there were gunmen and we killed them. "Go take their clothes off and bring their guns and come back."

"I refused. I asked him to let me return to my family. I said to him:" going into that house "means death, and I don't want to die." The soldier responded, 'You are here to do what we tell you (and said) Go.'

"I walked about 200 meters to the house....I went in...I went alone....but couldn't find anyone. I expected the worst." He encountered three armed men wearing badges saying Al Qassam Brigades. He said he was forced to come. They told him to go back and say what he saw - "three gunmen in the house, still alive....then the soldier said to me, 'The officer says he's crazy and if you are lying to him he swears by his mother he will shoot you."

"A short time later, I heard the sound of heavy gunfire nearby. Twenty minutes passed....and a soldier said to me; 'We killed them now. Go get them.' I refused. I told them that they had told me that if I returned they would kill me, and he shouted at me: 'We killed them.' "

He went again and found one man seriously injured and bleeding and the others alive. He reported back what he saw, then heard heavy gunfire and a very loud explosion. A soldier said; 'Go and make sure they are dead. We bombed the house again with planes...."With difficulty, I entered the apartment. Inside, I saw the three men still living, but they were under the rubble."

Majdi al-Abed Ahmed Abed Rabbo located his wife and children after the IDF released him. His home was totally destroyed by military bulldozers, and he's deeply distressed. Numerous other examples are similar to his account - human shields illegally used by IDF soldiers in violation of international law and Israel's High Court ruling.

Conclusions

The above cases are examples of customary Israeli practice in gross violation of international law and Israel's High Court ruling. They endanger civilian lives and cause "long-lasting psychological trauma."

IHL considers using civilian human shields a war crime and when used systematically against non-combatants a crime against humanity. It's essential to hold parties guilty of these crimes accountable as the way to stop this heinous practice.

Al Mezan condemns Israel's disregard for the law and says that "the continued failure of the international community to fulfill its obligations and its silence on Israeli violations encourages" similar acts in the future - by Israel and others engaged in this outrageous practice.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

When Zionists Murder Jews: The Story of the Ringworm Children

When Zionists Murder Jews: The Story of the Ringworm Children
ringworm_child1
© Unknown
Child victim of the 'ringworm' x-rays

On August 14, at 9 PM, Israel's Channel Ten television screened a documentary film which exposes the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor party founders: the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths of a generation.

"The Ringworm Children" (translated in Hebrew as "100,000 Rays"), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for "best documentary" at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries -- Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this:

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen.

To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like. "I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."

To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street. "I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."

To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children: "They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"

Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"

The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.

The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.

David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."

ringworm_child2
© Unknown

The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."

David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. "All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing." Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in: "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."

We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it. Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:

Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion; Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan; Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol; Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett; Health Minister - Yosef Burg; Labor Minister - Golda Meir; Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion.

The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.

That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion had to have been in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.

Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor. Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.

After the film ended, there was a panel discussion which included a Moroccan singer, David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.

TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. He explained meekly that "the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities which the Sephardi children endured.

But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."

There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.

But here is why that won't happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel's talent-hunt show: "A Star Is Born." The next day, the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about "The Ringworm Children" in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Video: BBC Newsnight presenter grills UK diplomat on the co-ordinated pro-Zionist walkout at the UN

See a more complete version here

BBC reporter for Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman grills the UK Ambassador on the walk-out. This video wasn't available for anyone outside the UK, and after a few hours, even they couldn't watch it anymore! It is an incredibly important excerpt of a document on the nature of what the journalist clearly recognises as a "stunt" and the Ambassador insists upon calling a "protest", fallling all over his own rhetoric in the process.

Jeremy Paxman: What is the difference between Zionism and racism? Peter Gooderham: Well we see the two as being quite distinct...

Jeremy Paxman: Yeah what's the difference? Peter Gooderham: Well Zionism is a political movement related to the establishment of a homeland...

Jeremy Paxman [quietly]: So are some forms of racism.

Peter Gooderham:...a Jewish homeland, in the er...in what is now Israel and racism is something else. I mean racism is, I think we all know it when we see it and it's not, it's not that, and we have fought long and hard at the United Nations to keep that, to maintain that distinction.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals

Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals
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© middleeast.org

At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy." This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome." [CBS News]


Once again Israel denies wrongdoing, or faced with incontrovertible evidence (in this case one of the spies has reportedly cooperated with the FBI) dismisses the spying with the claim that such spying is harmless, because Israel and the United States are such good friends.

Well, let us take a closer look at that idea of "harmless espionage" by recalling Israel's most famous failed spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Jonathan Pollard is an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. There have been many theories offered as to why Pollard decided to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state, but that Pollard did betray his country of birth to Israel is beyond all doubt. Pollard's defense was that he did not spy so much against the United States, only that he spied for Israel, sending them documents that in his opinion the US should have shared with Israel anyway.

That it was never Pollards job to decide what documents Israel should have was apparently irrelevant. Pollard arrogated that authority to himself. From his position of trust within the US Navy, Pollard delivered over 1000 classified documents to Israel for which he was well paid. Included in those documents were the names of over 150 US agents in the Mideast, who were eventually "turned" into agents for Israel.

But by far the most egregious damage done by Pollard was to steal classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to the USSR and send them to Israel. According to sources in the US State Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from the USSR to Israel. Other information that found its way from the US to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents operating inside the USSR. Casper Weinberger, in his affidavit opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard, described the damage done to the United States thus, "[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by... Pollard's treasonous behavior."

This should end the suggestion that Israel's spies are harmless. They are not. The United States' nuclear deterrent cost an estimated five trillion taxpayer dollars during the 50s and 60s to build and maintain, and less than $100,000 for Pollard to undermine. Israel waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship.

Pollard is hardly the only Israeli spy operating in the United States. He just had the misfortune to get caught. Here are just a few examples of the Israeli spy operations that have been detected.

1947 Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL's reports on suspected communists as "hearsay."

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attaché in Tel Aviv.

1954 "The Lavon Affair". Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.

1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.")

1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See Assault on the Liberty, by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). In 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty's lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel's side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a "Honey Trap", using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels"

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, is serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant -- with security clearance -- on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 The Samson Option, by Seymour M. Hersh reports, "Illicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: "Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts."

1993 The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo warning US military contractors that "Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology." The report stated that Israel obtains information using "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report "Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors" found that according to intelligence sources "Country A" (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally." The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, "Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country." The report described "An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was "a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel's LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information."

The GAO report also noted that "Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes."

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare reported that "US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology." Jane's Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that "until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China." The report noted that this "represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation." (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, "inadvertently" gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as "Dov", had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega", the code name for Israel's top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky's phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI's hunt for "Mega" is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents' communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL's Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 Police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to "deliver furniture." The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were "false positived" by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

This brings us to the present scandal. Two years into an investigation of AIPAC's possible role as a spy front for Israel, Larry Franklin, a mid-level Pentagon Analyst is observed by the FBI giving classified information to two officials of AIPAC suspected of being Israeli spies. AIPAC hires lawyer Nathan Lewin to handle their legal defense, the same lawyer who defended suspected Israeli spy Stephen Bryen in 1978.

Larry Franklin worked in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, run by Richard Perle, at the time Perle (who was caught giving classified information to Israel back in 1970) was insisting that Iraq was crawling with weapons of mass destruction requiring the United States to invade and conquer Iraq. There were no WMDs, of course, and Perle has dumped the blame for the "bad intelligence" on George Tenet. But what is known is that the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was coordinating with a similar group in Israel, in Ariel Sharon's office.

With two suspected Israeli spies (at least) inside the office from which the lies that launched the war in Iraq originated, it appears that the people of the United States are the victims of a deadly hoax, a hoax that started a war.

The leaking of the investigation of AIPAC to the media on August 28th, 2004 gave advance warning to other spies working with Franklin. The damage to the FBI's investigation was completed when United States Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the FBI to stop all arrests in the case. Like the Stephen Bryen case and the hunt for "Mega", this latest spy scandal seems destined to be buried by officials who have their own secret allegiances to protect, barring a massive public outcry.

The organization at the heart of the latest spy investigation, AIPAC, wields tremendous influence over the US Congress. Through its members and affiliated PACs, AIPAC directs a huge flow of campaign cash in favor of, and occasionally against, Senators and Representatives solely on the basis of their willingness to support Israel. As an example, in 2002, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham received so much help from pro-Israeli pacs that 76% of his campaign budget came from OUTSIDE the state of Alabama, mostly from New York.

Let me repeat that. A Congressman AIPAC wanted elected received more money from pro-Israel groups outside his state than from his own constituents inside his state. Who is that Congressman going to be thinking of when he votes in Congress?

So here is the mother of all scandals.

For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for the benefit of a foreign government.

And THAT is the mother of all scandals.

Think about that as billions of your tax dollars flow to Israel while your roads and schools crumble and decay and services are cut.

Think about that as the coffins come home with your loved ones inside.

Think about that when you and a million of your fellow citizens march down the streets of America opposing wars built on lies and deceptions and wonder why the government just doesn't want to listen to you any more.