Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Does Israel Really Have a Right to Exist?

Following Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech, politicians and journalists, like mindless automatons, have set about repeating Israel's tired mantra that Palestinians should recognize Israel's right to exist. Never mind the fact that the PLO and Palestine Authority have obliged this ludicrous call, not once, but four times. And never mind that Israel has always denied Palestine's right to exist, not only as a nation, but as individuals seeking a dignified life in our own homeland.

Does anyone find it interesting that Israel is the only country on the planet going around with this incessant insistence that everyone recognize her right to exist? Given that we Palestinians are the ones who have been dispossessed, occupied, and oppressed, one might expect that we should be the ones making such a demand. But that isn't the case. Why? Because our right to exist as a nation is self-evident. We are the natives of that land! We know we have that right. The world knows it. That's why Palestine doesn't need Israel or any other country to recognize her right to exist. We are the rightful heirs to that land and this can be verified legally, historically, culturally, and even genetically. And as such, the only true legitimacy Israel will ever have must come from us abdicating our inheritance, our history, and our culture to Israel. That's why Israel insists we declare she had a right to take everything we ever had - from home and property, cemeteries, churches and mosques, to culture and history and hope.

Israel is a country that was founded by Europeans who came to Palestine, formed terrorist gangs who set about a systematic ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians from their homes on 78% of Historic Palestine in 1948. Those Palestinians and their descendants still languish in refugee camps. Israel attempted a similar scenario in 1967 when they conquered the remainder of Palestine, but Palestinians then couldn't be dislodged from their homes as easily. This remains true, despite 40 years of Israel's violent and oppressive military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Despite home demolitions, land confiscations, rapacious building of Jewish-only colonies, endless checkpoints, targeted assassinations, bombings of schools, hospitals, municipal buildings and malls, closures and denials; despite the massive human rights abuses, the imprisonment and torture of men women and children alike, the separation of families, the daily humiliations; despite the massive killings - Palestinians remain. We still resist. We still live, love, and have babies. As much as we can, we rebuild what Israel destroys. Such are rights!

Rights are inherent and inherently just, like the right to live with dignity and to be masters of one's own fate. It is a human right not be persecuted and oppressed because you happen to belong to one religion and not another.

That Israelis simply take property belonging to Palestinians is not a right. That is theft. That Israel cut off the movement of food, medicine and other basic goods to the Gaza strip, causing massive malnutrition, economic collapse and misery because Palestinians elected particular leaders is not a right. That is an affront to humanity. That Israel rain death from the skies on an already battered and starved Gaza, murdering over 3000 human beings and maiming thousands more in a single month is not a right. It's a war crime. That Israel has employed every imperialistic tactic to subjugate, humiliate, break, and expel an entire nation of principally unarmed civilians because of their religion is not a right. It is a moral obscenity. That every Jew from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia be entitled to dual citizenship, one in their native country and one in Israel, while the rightful heirs to the land linger as refugees without citizenship anywhere is not a right. It is an outrage.

I'm sure my words will be twisted in some way to imply that I'm advocating pushing Israelis "into the sea" or some other asinine claim. So let me be explicit: We all have the right to exist, to live, to be masters of our own destiny. We all have the right not to be oppressed by others. Such rights are inherent to every individual living in that land: Jew, Muslim, or Christian. But Israelis do not have the right to create particular religious demographics by causing the demise of the natives. To be a Jewish [or Muslim or Christian] state, where privilege is accorded to those belonging to a particular religion at the expense of those who do not is not a right.

A nation that discriminates against and oppresses those who do not belong to a particular religious, racial, or ethnic group is not a light onto nations. It is a blight. And to recognize such racism as a human or national right goes against every tenet of international law. It defies the basic sense that the worth of a human being should not be measured by their religion, any more than it should be measured by the color of their skin or the language they speak.

Susan Abulhawa is the author of The Scar of David, a work of historic fiction. She is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, www.PlaygroundsforPalestine.org and Board Member of Deir Yassin Remembered. She can be reached at: sjabulhawa@yahoo.com.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Criminalizing Criticism of Israel -- The End of Free Speech?




On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby's bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn't been mopping floors at the White House.

As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.
a
It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament's account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.

It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.

In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.

Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel's military assault on Gaza's civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of "excessive" criticism of Israel?

This is a serious question.

A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is "tendentious, patently biased," which puts the UN report into the State Department's category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.

It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers' T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, "One shot, two kills." These T-shirts are an indication that Israel's policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.

It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel's crimes are covered up and even praised.

Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for "spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act"?

Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists.

A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson's crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel's invasion of Gaza.

The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.

The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?

Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.

To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.

Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.

Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn't need to be protected by thought control.

Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Who Will Stop the AIPAC Jews Before it is Too Late?

While I was being tackled by security guards at Washington's Convention Center during the AIPAC conference for unfurling a banner that asked "What about Gaza?," my heart was aching. I wasn't bothered so much by the burly guards who were yanking my arms behind by back and dragging me-along with 5 other CODEPINK members-out of the hall. They were doing their job.

What made my heart ache was the hatred I felt from the AIPAC staff who tore up the banner and slammed their hands across my mouth as I tried to yell out: "What about Gaza? What about the children?"

"Shut the f--- up. Shut the f--- up." one staffer yelled, red-faced and sweating as he ran beside me. "This is not the place to be saying that shit. Get the f--- out of here."

What makes my heart ache is thinking about the traumatized children I met on my recent trip to Gaza, and how their suffering is denied by the 6,000 AIPAC conventioneers who are living in a bubble-a bubble where Israel is the victim and all critics are anti-Semitic, terrorist lovers or, as in my case, self-hating Jews.

I found it fascinating that AIPAC's executive director Howard Kohr opened the conference admitting that there was now a huge, international campaign against the policies of Israel. He painted a picture of 30,000 people marching in Spain, Italian trade unionists calling for a boycott of Israeli products, the UN Human Rights Council passing 26 resolutions condemning Israel, an Israeli Apartheid Week that is building a global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.

This global movement, he warned, emanates from the Middle East, echoes in the halls of the United Nations and the capitals of Europe, is voiced in meetings of international peace organizations, and is spreading throughout the United States-from the media to town hall meetings, from campuses to city squares. "No longer is this campaign confined to the ravings of the political far left or far right," he lamented, "but increasingly it is entering the American mainstream."

But Kohr failed to explain why there has been such an explosion in this movement, even among the American Jewish community. He didn't tell the attendees that the world was shocked and outraged by Israel's devastating 22-day attack on Gaza that left over 1,300 people dead - mostly women and children. He didn't mention the killing of civilians fleeing their homes, the use of white phosphorous, the bombing of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, factories. He didn't talk about the continuing, cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip that is keeping desperately needed humanitarian aid from reaching 1.5 million people and making rebuilding impossible.

There were no seminars at the conference by human rights groups like Amnesty International that are calling for an immediate and comprehensive suspension of arms to Israel. Instead, one after another, U.S. elected officials eager to curry favor with AIPAC pledged continued U.S. financial support for Israel. Senator Kerry, despite that fact that he was one of only a handful of legislators who visited Gaza, didn't say one word about the massive destruction he witnessed and pledged that as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he would do everything to ensure that the $30 billion in military aid to Israel is "delivered in full." "America will continue our military aid, and Israel will keep its military strength," he insisted. Instead of calling for talks with the democratically elected government of Hamas, Kerry said: "Hamas has already won one election-we cannot allow them to win another." He ended his speech shouting several times in Hebrew, "Am Yisrael Chai-Israel lives!"

Even Vice President Biden, who at least told AIPAC that Israel should freeze new settlement activity, didn't say a word about the ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's invasion and continued blockade of Gaza. No U.S. officials, and there were hundreds at the conference, dared echo the call of the United Nations or the world community to lift the siege of Gaza.

Republican Congressman Eric Cantor was one of the most emotional speakers, portraying Israel as the victim of an evil global movement determined to wipe out Israel and all Jews. Evoking the "shivering, naked victims who were herded into the gas chambers," he wondered when it would become too late to protect Israel. "When is it too late?", he repeated over and over.

I wonder the same thing. When is it too late, I wonder, to stop Israel from destroying itself? When is it too late to tell AIPAC attendees that more violence and hatred is not the answer? When is it too late to open the hardened hearts of my people, once victims of a terrible holocaust, to realize that by occupying Palestine we have become they evil we deplore? When is it too late to restore meaning to the Hebrew term "tikkun olam" by truly working to heal the world? When is it too late for the Jews of the world to weep for the children of Gaza, recognizing that they, too, are the children of God?

I couldn't ask my questions at AIPAC. My mouth was muzzled by the sweaty hands of hate-filled staffers demanding that I "shut the f--- up." But despite AIPAC's massive funds and influence, I feel certain that more and more members of the Jewish community will step forward and refuse to be silent. I just pray it is not too late.

For information on upcoming delegations to Gaza, see www.codepinkalert.org/gaza.

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

AIPAC: The Lobby Wants War

© Unknown
We own you, so what are you going to do about it?
The Israel lobby has been running into a few problems lately, but it's nothing they don't think they can handle: a charge of treason, a strong suspicion of obstructing justice, and a gathering storm of criticism from a few dissident intellectuals and policy types. Nothing to get too exercised about. Having felled Charles "Chas" Freeman, smitten Gen. Zinni, and sidelined those in the Obama administration who question the nature and utility of America's "special relationship" with Israel, the Lobby's flagship organization, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is primed to hold their national conference in Washington next week, with Jane "This Conversation Doesn't Exist" Harman slated to address the gathering.

The focus of the conference, and the legislative centerpiece of the event, will be passage of the Iran Diplomatic Enhancement Act, which would ban US companies from providing Iran with refined petroleum products, and seeks to punish European companies - particularly the Swiss, who come in for two specific mentions in the text of the bill - for doing so.

To begin with, the name affixed to this piece of legislative legerdemain is a prime example of congressional doublethink: will it really enhance diplomatic relations with Iran to impose draconian sanctions, the equivalent of an economic chokehold and a prelude to a military blockade? Hardly, and that is very far from its clear intent.

This bill is all about provoking the Iranians, effectively sabotaging efforts to engage in a mutual dialogue with Tehran. Why the egregious packaging? Well, it seems the American people are sick and tired of war, and preparations for war, and so it is far less incriminating if a member of Congress can say he (or she) voted for "the Iran Diplomatic Enhancement Act" than it is to admit they supported isolating Iran economically.

While it's true that the Swiss provide up to 80 percent of the Iranians' refined petroleum imports, as stated in the bill, what's really at stake here is a spat between the Israelis and the government of Switzerland over a recent meeting between Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the UN's recent anti-racism conference held in Geneva.

Reflecting the new hysteria that's been injected into the Jewish state's relations with the rest of the world, Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland in protest. Even talking to the Iranians, in any context, is considered by the Israelis to be an "existential" threat to the Jewish state, and anyone who engages in such conversation is considered an enemy - thus the clauses of the bill that target the Swiss. The message this is sending is clear: if you cross the Israelis, you cross the Americans, too - yes, even under the Obama administration.

Speaking of Obama, this campaign to isolate Iran is aimed at him just as much as it is at the Iranians, and the Swiss - it is a shot across the bow, a flexing of legislative muscle on the part of the Lobby that shows the newly-elected American president even he can't stand up to the Lobby's power. If he tries to reach out to the Iranians, and short-circuit the march to war, he'll be subverted, opposed, and reined in by the American Congress, which is, as Pat Buchanan famously - and accurately - observed, "Israeli-occupied territory."

The main "argument" in favor of this bill, which enjoys wide bipartisan support, is that it will supposedly be an aid to the diplomatic initiative promised by President Obama, and it quotes the President during the campaign when he said: "Iran right now imports gasoline... if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need... that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."

With the introduction of this bill in the House, and a similar one introduced in the Senate by (who else?) Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republican John Kyl, the Lobby is putting the squeeze on Obama, displaying its power over the legislative branch and daring the American president to step out of line. In the months leading up to the election, and since, the Obamaites have been eager to avoid an early confrontation with the Lobby, which would use up a good deal of political capital and split the Democrats at a crucial time. Unless he's agreeable to signing on to a war with Iran, however, Obama can only put this fight off for so long. Eventually, and inevitably, it will come to a showdown, and the Lobby will come to that fight well-prepared - albeit a bit nervous in light of recent developments.

That nervousness is manifested in a new, more aggressive tone and tactics. The leering arrogance of the Lobby and its public spokespersons in the face of mounting public criticism and organized opposition really is a sight to behold: exhibit "A" is their latest response to the recent scandal involving Rep. Jane Harman.

The California Democrat was overheard on an FBI eavesdropping tape offering to help get the charges against two AIPAC officials accused of espionage reduced, in exchange for piles of Haim Saban's money and lobbying by AIPAC to get Harman appointed chair of the House intelligence committee. When Jeff Stein of the Congressional Quarterly exposed this fact, Harman went on a one-day media blitz, appearing on cable news outlets and National Public Radio, hysterically (and ineffectively) denying her obvious guilt. The next day she hired Lanny Davis, the well-connected Clintonite lawyer and public relations flack whose specialty is bailing out Democrats in hot water. From that point, the Harman camp's pushback went from Harman's screeching denials and her comically self-contradictory "explanations," to dismissive "humor," as Congressional Quarterly reports:
"Embattled California Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., shrugged off woes over a wiretapping controversy Wednesday and claimed 'Best Team Name Honors' for this year's Capital Challenge mini-marathon race.

"'Tapped Out,' an obvious reference to revelations that Harman was overheard by government wiretappers in conversations with a suspected Israeli intelligence agent in 2005, evidently won the judges' hearts as best team moniker."
It's all a joke, nothing to get too excited about - that's how the Lobby thumbs its nose at the American people, and, with the collusion of our elected officials, continues to get away with fatally distorting American foreign policy and taking us down the road to war.

Whether this strategy will work, or whether the American people will wake up in time to arrest the ongoing corruption of their government and social institutions by a foreign entity, remains to be seen. It is an indication, however, of the deep contempt with which the Lobby views American law and institutions, and, as such, is utterly reprehensible. These are the same people, by the way, who yelp about the alleged increase in anti-Semitism, here as well as in Europe - and then do everything in their power to ensure that their worst fears and direst prophecies are fulfilled.

Harman's chutzpah knows no bounds. "I am challenging CQ's Jeff Stein," she brayed in a press release, "who got my age wrong and denigrated my previous race time in a recent blog post, to a road race. Bring it on, Jeff!" She smugly adds: "Clearly, our sense of humor is intact."

Yes, Jane, even if your credibility isn't. I liked Jeff Stein's counter-challenge, however:
"To race Harman from her Capitol Hill office to the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on May 3 at the Washington Convention Center, where Harman is giving an address."
Speaking of chutzpah, isn't that what AIPAC is displaying a surfeit of by not rescinding their invitation to Harman? After all, she stands exposed as having colluded in a corrupt deal to let off two of their top employees who are charged with spying for Israel. Yes, we know they're a fifth column working on behalf of a foreign power, but do they have to flaunt their disloyalty as if it were a badge of honor?

Chutzpah is one word for it, hubris is another. In any case, the Lobby is riding for a fall, in spite of its political power, its financial resources, its stranglehold on Capitol Hill and the policymaking apparatus of the US government. If the US is drawn into yet another war with the Lobby's fingerprints all over it, the American people - after having voted for a presidential candidate many thought was intent on reversing the relentless warmongering of the past eight years - are bound to react. As the Lobby jeers at and otherwise disrespects our laws and our nation's security, sooner or later popular revulsion against this faction of brazen fifth columnists is bound to give AIPAC and its allies a monumental slapping down.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals

Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals
israel spy
© 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.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Retired U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman rips Israel Lobby after backing out of appointment

Retired U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman rips Israel Lobby after backing out of appointment
You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was "asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse." I added that I wondered "whether there wasn't some sort of downside to this offer." I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.

I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government - in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.

Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else's, and with my return to private life, I will once again - to my pleasure - serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.

Comment: It wasn't just a matter of having an "anti-Israel" director of the National Intelligence Council. It looks like AIPAC was terribly afraid that they would be exposed and lose their inside connection to using the NIC as an Israeli propaganda weapon for US policy if Freeman became head of NIC.

As it turns out, the first person to vocalize opposition to his appointment was none other than Steve Rosen, who is on trial for espionage along with Keith Weissman for passing state secrets to Israel.

There seems to be a lot riding on the AIPAC trial, for despite AIPAC's denials that they knew nothing of what Rosen and Weissman were doing, it appears that they are quite afraid of some dirty laundry being aired.
One of the topics AIPAC won't want discussed, say these sources, is how closely it coordinated with Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1990s, when he led the Israeli Likud opposition and later when he was prime minister, to impede the Oslo peace process being pressed by President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

That could not only validate AIPAC's critics, who accuse it of being a branch of the Likud, but also lead to an investigation of violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

"What they don't want out is that even though they publicly sounded like they were supporting the Oslo process, they were working all the time to undermine it," said a well-informed source.
And now isn't it interesting that the first announcement from Israeli Premier-designate, Netanyahu, is not a visit to Obama at the White House, but a trip to Washington to attend an AIPAC conference in May. How many other countries can so blatantly get away with espionage right under the noses of those who's task it is to investigate such criminal activity?

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Netanyahu, Israel's Mussolini

Once again, it's time to take a step back and look at the larger picture of the mess in the Middle East. SOTT provides a crack analysis of one of the principle drivers of the continuing conflict.

Blue Ibis
*************************************************************************
Netanyahu, Israel's Mussolini


Image


Andrew Lobaczewski studied at close range a deviant category of humans who, when they manage to grab pivotal positions of power, hold a devastating potential for raining death and destruction down on humanity, simply to further their own interests. These individuals are known as psychopaths, and they move skillfully and purposely throughout the higher echelons of the global body politic. And like clockwork, they slot themselves into all the significant seats of power.

One such individual interests us today. It seems that dangerous moves are afoot which threaten the safety of the entire planet, and that he plays a key role.

At present, it is very clear that the global psychopathic manoeuvres gravitate significantly around the state of Israel, which takes its place at the centre of an horrific downward-spiral of violence, blood, despair and devastation almost beyond human imagining, which spews forth across the surrounding areas, and threatens to envelope the entire earth in its darkness.

A significant part of this phenomenon is the astounding ability of denial, to insist that reality is not represented by the evidence, but instead reality must conform to how "I say it is". When a whole society becomes infected with pathological influence then this affliction of denial becomes endemic throughout the general population. But essentially, this is the 'skill' of the psychopath.

Amos Gunsburg clearly describes this:
They make pronouncements without substantiation. To them, these pronouncements represent what reality is ... pronouncement by pronouncement. The present pronouncement may contradict what they said a moment ago. This means nothing to them. They make no attempt to deal with the contradiction.

They demonstrate a total lack of understanding what we mean by a "fact." In their writings and in their speech, they do not use that word.

We humans find this hard to believe. The use of facts is such a basic part of our lives. We base our conclusions and our actions on them. We go on from there to test things and establish more facts. When we debate, we present facts, and show how we derive our observations and our positions from them.

Without facts, all we have is what we call "fantasy."

Since these creatures have a human appearance, we assume they must think like us ... be aware of what we are aware. We think they MUST know what facts are. When they don't address the facts, we say they are playing a game. We think they do know what the facts are, but don't want to admit it.

Not so! They DON'T know what a fact is. When we speak of facts and ask them to address the facts, they look at us with vacant eyes. They don't know what we're talking about.

They study us because their strategy is to pass as human. They hear us use the words - facts, evidence, substantiation. They lack the human capacity to understand what we mean. What they do is ignore our reference to facts, ignore our requests for them to supply facts, and hope we won't notice it's due to their lack of comprehension.

From "Beyond Insanity" - Amos M. Gunsberg
It is a trademark feature of the Bush Neocon administration, as former Wall Street Journal reporter and author Ron Suskind wrote in New York Times Magazine:
"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
Nowhere does this mindset have more of a stranglehold, than in Ehud Olmert's Israeli Zionist administration, with its insistent and increasingly hysterical denial of the worsening Palestinian holocaust.

The war of words against Iran has also definitely intensified lately. And there are other things going on at the same time, so perhaps all these things are linked?
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
We see this exact same brutal unblinking denial of reality when we study some of the rhetoric being issued from the mouth of Benjamin Netanyahu:
Drawing a direct analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu asserted Monday that the Iranian nuclear program posed a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire western world. There was "still time," however, to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he said.

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."
So perhaps we should pay more attention to the skillful adept of the "repeated lies will be accepted as truth" doctrine?

The more one looks, the more one finds that next to Netanyahu, Olmert is nothing but an amateur. Netanyahu has friends in high places - it seems he is high up on the psychopathic power elite hierarchy, with the requesite mindset to match.

If this is so, let's see if we can spot those who buttered his bread and sponsored his meteoric rise to the top of the Israeli political and economical scene. Along with economic achievements, we see his professional track record is characterized by an unusually large number of Intelligence ties. Quite exceptional for a 'bright and ambitious young man'.

21 Oct 1949 - Born in Tel-Aviv

1956 - 58, 1963 - 67 - Grows up in the U.S., where his father, the historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu, taught history. Later, mainstream sources will trace Netanyahu's so called 'philosophy' to his father, who was a proponent of the idea 'that the historic bitterness between Arab and Jew made for a seemingly intractable situation'.

A pretty interesting philosophy, especially when Jewish historians and archeologists took an active role in fabricating the myth called the Jewish nation.

1967 - 1972 - Returns to Israel in order to serve in the IDF in the years 1967-72, and reaches the rank of captain in the elite unit, "Sayeret Matkal", the fighting branch of the Israeli Intelligence Services. He participates in a number of missions including the Beirut Airport operation and the rescue of hijacked Sabena Airlines hostages.

One wonders if it wasn't an early rehearsal and stage preparation for Operation Entebbe.

1972 - 1976 - Studies in the U.S. and receives a first degree in Architecture and a second degree in Business Administration at M.I.T, and also studies political science at MIT and Harvard University.

Then he takes a position at the Boston Consulting Group - where his boss is Ira Magaziner, a later aide and policy advisor to President Clinton. Magaziner is best known for leading, along with Hillary Clinton, the failed 'Task Force to Reform Health Care' in the early Clinton administration.

A bit of curious trivia: Magaziner is currently chairman of Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative and and the Clinton Climate Initiative. It looks like he may be one of those who help to maintain a scientific 'dominant paradigm' and conformity built into the system of government grants.

04 July 1976 - His brother Jonathan (Yonni), regarded as something of a war hero having already been awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service in Yom Kippur, is killed in the course of Operation Entebbe. Recently released documents show that it was Shin Bet/Mossad cover operation. Netanyahu's brother was the leader of the assault, and the only Israeli military casualty of the raid.

Was his death a necessary sacrifice in order to inculcate in Israelis psyche Netanyahu's image as a brother of a hero?

1979 - Returns once again to Israel, leaving his blossoming career at prestigious consulting firm behind him; sets up the 'Jonathan Institute for the Study of Terrorism' and organises an international Anti-Terrorism Conference, which is attended by various high profile and powerful figures such as George Bush, George Shultz (U.S. Secretary to the treasury, and professor at the infamous Chicago Graduate School of Business), and Richard Perle (President Reagan's Assistant secretary of Defense). In this way he rapidly becomes established on the global stage, making key connections in politics, economics and the military.

After such apparent success he makes a surprising move and takes a senior position at Rim Industries (furniture manufacturer) in Jerusalem, as marketing manager.

Another bit of trivia: Shultz, who's considered to be Netanyahu's protégé, is called the father of Bush doctrine, which evidently advocates fabricating evidence and staging false flag operations in order to embark on so called 'preemptive wars'.

Today Shultz is the chairman of the JPMorgan Chase. The same JPMorgan that is a shareholder in the Federal Reserve, and the one who bought Bear Stearns for 2$ a share after it was funded up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns' less liquid assets.

1982 - Rises instantly through the diplomatic ranks to a highly visible position: he is invited by Israel's Washington Ambassador, Moshe Arens, to be his deputy.

It looks as though Arens was directed by the same people in the Reagan administration who attended Netanyahu's conference three years earlier. He was quoted saying:
"People got a good laugh when they heard I phoned a furniture factory to find a deputy. What sold me on Bibi was his organization of the anti-terror conference and the strong impression he made on American leaders who participated."
1984 - 1988 - Rapid political climb continues: he is appointed as Israel's ambassador to the UN, where he becomes a media figure, with regular TV appearances on Ted Koppel's Nightline and Larry King Live.

Less than three months earlier while in New York, he is visited by George Bush and George Shultz, who further invest in his growing publicity and organizes another conference on terrorism in Washington.
The Washington conference, held on June 24-27, 1984, was a mega-event. Some 36 experts on terrorism spoke during the four-day conference, including the self-described universal fascist Michael Ledeen, and many others from the U.S. neo-con stable who would later play an essential role in spreading the intelligence lies that were used for the invasion of Iraq.
Netanyahu continues to expand his circle of friends who later will play a major role in his election to the Prime Minister post.
[Stephen] Friedman, a 50-year-old attorney from Philadelphia, serves as the lawyer for the Likud Party in the United States. He is one of Netanyahu's oldest childhood pals and also part of whole new cast of American Jewish players that might be called the Friends of Bibi, or FOBB.

Like the celebrated inner circle surrounding Bill Clinton, Netanyahu's American friends, a small fraternity of influential and like-minded Jewish lawyers, businessmen, financiers and columnists, have been helping finance his ambitions and carrying Netanyahu's political water ever since he set his sights on the Israeli premiership in the early 1980s. [...]

FOBB can be divided into two distinct categories: his small inner circle of close male pals, some of whom date back to his high school days outside Philadelphia in the 1960s, and the somewhat larger second string of associates who met and bonded with Bibi while he served as Israel's deputy ambassador to Washington and ambassador to the United Nations in the 1980s.[...]

One of those Netanyahu met at this time and brought into his inner circle was Merv Adelson, ex-husband of TV journalist Barbara Walters and former head of Lorimar studios.[...] Adelson became Netanyahu's Hollywood connection.

Another member of Netanyahu's inner circle is Ronald Lauder, a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and wealthy international businessman. [...] Lauder, 50, has hosted a number of gatherings at his Manhattan apartment, where he introduced Netanyahu to State Department officials, members of Congress, wealthy investors and financiers.
1988 - 1993 - After returning from the U.S. and acquiring powerful neocon allies, Netanyahu is elected to the 12th Knesset as Likud member and appointed as Deputy Foreign Minister and later the Prime Minister's spokesman.

His close ties with big-shots of the mainstream media turned out to be worthwhile. During the Gulf War he practically dominates CNN network's airtime.
According to a March 1991 story in the Washingtonian, a Palestine Liberation Organization official phoned CNN's headquarters in Atlanta during the first week of the war. "This Israeli has been on the air for more than half an hour," he fumed, referring to Netanyahu. "CNN is becoming a propagandist for the Israelis."
March 25, 1993 - Netanyahu elected as Likud Party Chairman and the party's candidate for Prime Minister.

1996 - 1999 - Acts as Israel's 9th Prime Minister.

By winning the election, Netanyahu surprised many who thought that pre-election favorite Shimon Peres was going to win. But it seems that his election wasn't exactly based on luck. Apart from being supported and helped behind the scenes by U.S. businessmen, lawyers and Hollywood moguls, there was one additional curious element, a wave of suicide bombing shortly before the election. This fact was considered as a main catalyst in Peres' downfall. As described by the National Review:
Before the assassination, Netanyahu was running neck and neck with Rabin in opinion polls. This despite the fact that Netanyahu had only a fraction of Rabin's enormous experience as a soldier and statesman. Netanyahu and his strategists were confident of victory. But after Rabin's death, Netanyahu at once plunged 20 to 30 points behind Peres. It took the slaughter of dozens of Israelis in a wave of Arab bomb attacks to switch the momentum back to Netanyahu, who had repeatedly warned of such attacks.
This makes an astounding preview of the events of 9/11, in which it also took an unprecedented attack on home soil with numerous casualties, to turn around Bush's failing popularity in the US. We see the telltale signs of the ubiquitous Mossad 'false flag' operation. As always, one has to ask "who benefits?" This opens up a horrific window into the possibilities of the psychopathic mindset: where lives are sacrificed without hesitation, in order to further one's own agenda.

But, like Bush's presidency, Netenyahu's reign as Prime Minister will be marked as a period of record levels of failure and embarrassment. Such was the failed assassination of Hamas leader Khalid Meshal. Considering that Hamas was a creation of Mossad and frequently used in order to maintain the myth of Palestinian bomber, we get a story with an additional manipulation twist.
The attack on Khalid Meshal by five or six Israeli agents disguised as Canadian tourists looked like of a rushed mission mounted without Mossad's usual meticulous preparation, suggesting someone high up ordered an immediate hit.[...]

[W]hat would killing Meshal have accomplished? His murder would certainly have triggered new Hamas bombings.[...] Two days before attempting to kill Meshal, Israel apparently received a message from Hamas offering a 10-year cease fire in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and ending Jewish settlements. Netanyahu claims he only got this exceptionally important message after the botched assassination. His supporters blame Mossad chief Danny Yatom for sitting on the message. Yatom denies it.

This is part of a furious battle of leaks raging between Mossad and Netanyahu's cabinet. Some Netanyahu supporters claim the Mossad hit was a rogue operation never authorized by the prime minister.

Mossad partisans leak back that it was all Netanyahu's harebrained idea - and that he's now trying to make Mossad chief Yatom fall guy for the fiasco. Other critics say a hard-line cabal inside Mossad is determined to thwart any peace with Palestinians - which is likely true.

Meanwhile, the failed plot has ignited a train of strange events. To divert blame from Israel, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel endangered his countrymen's lives by suggesting Canada was involved in the plot.

In another bizarre twist, while publically ordering Arafat to keep arresting Hamas members, Netanyahu freed from prison Hamas founder Sheik Yassin, and 70 other Hamas 'terrorists' in order to get his Mossad assassins back from Jordanian custody.
Apparently top psychopaths don't like amateurs, especially if it is one of their own. The failed assassination triggered harsh response from the White House, expressing dissatisfaction with Netanyahu's performance.
It is being called the worst fiasco in the history of Israel's once-vaunted intelligence service, the Mossad. It raises, once again, serious questions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mental fitness. It provoked unprecedented expressions of disgust from the Clinton administration -- "we loathe him," one White House official remarked -- and left experienced observers to wonder what other disastrous pratfalls the Israeli leader has in store for the dying Middle East peace process.
Perhaps that might explain forced resignation of the agency's then chief, Danny Yatom after another bungled operation, this time in Switzerland in 1998. Netanyahu was eager to set the record right.

But this spy fever weirdness was only the tip of the iceberg. There was another curious story uncovered by Biranit Goren and Einat Berkovitch journalists from Ha'ir who tried to dig into Natanyahu's past.

They discovered that in 1987, Netanyahu applied for credit using his American social security number 020364537. There were four requests and each request applied with a different name: Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Nitai, John Jay Sullivan and John Jay Sullivan, Jr.
Binyamin Netanyahu is the name Israel's current prime minister was given at birth and which he now uses. In June 1973, during his studies at MIT, Netanyahu submitted a petition to the Boston court, asking to change his name from Netanyahu to Nitai; "I prefer a shorter name", he wrote on the request form. The petition was approved, thus the second name has an explanation. The last two names, however, remain a mystery. Furthermore, the address attached to these names - somewhere in Malibu, California - does not exist. Who, then, is John Jay Sullivan?

Biranit Goren and Einat Berkovitch from Ha'ir tried to find out. They looked into Netanyahu's credit account. This file is supposed to hold information regarding bank accounts, loans, credit cards and so forth; yet, surprisingly, the file was empty. It is as if Netanyahu never had a debt, had never taken out a loan, and always paid his bills up front and in cash.

Goren and Berkovitch then attempted to examine Netanyahu's social security file, but were denied access. They did, however, find out that Netanyahu's file has a different classification than most. They were denied access not merely due to the 1974 privacy act, but because the file had a "confidential" classification. Goren and Berkovitch have explained that such a classification only applies to five categories of people: those who work for one of three federal agencies - FBI, CIA, IRS - or those who are considered to be terrorists or criminals. Since it is unlikely that Netanyahu fits the latter two categories, or that he worked for the IRS, it appears that he was on the payroll of a security agency - the CIA or FBI.
Obviously, an official explanation and denial were offered without delay, but the bad taste remained, especially when Netanyahu's Intelligence ties were popping up from all directions.

Benjamin Gilman, one of Netanyahu's closest allies in Congress, had close relations with Shabtai Kalmanovitch, 'a charming, tanned Russian-Israeli entrepreneur'. He was an operative for Mossad until 1988 when Mossad discovered that Kalmanovitch wasn't such a valuable asset as they thought. He was arrested in Tel Aviv and charged with being a KGB spy.

And then we have stories like this:
Perhaps the most secret and worrying ties concern what is supposedly a high-tech services company. Yediot Ahronot relates how Netanyahu wooed a local Likud leader. "He was invited by Netanyahu to a meeting in his office at Systematics in Ramat Gan. The head of the company, Oded Levental is a candidate for a financial post in the new government."

Systematics is at the core of serious research by American alternative publications, including the usually reliable Media Bypass. In short, the allegations are that the National Security Agency had handed Systematics stolen software called Promis that opened a trap door to the world's secret banking transactions. About 250 Americans, mostly politicians, had their illegal foreign accounts emptied of over $3.5 billion in the operation. It is claimed that Colin Powell dropped out of the presidential race after his account electronically vanished.

Leading figures in the operation included George Bush, Caspar Weinberger and two Arkansas attorneys, Vince Foster Jr. and Hillary Rodham Clinton on behalf of Clinton financier Jackson Stephens. The research invariably concludes that Foster was murdered because he knew too much about the scam.

A leading investigative writer, Sherman Skolnick, writes:
"Some contend Systematics is an NSA proprietary and spies on banks overseas. Can Systematics rightfully deny spying actually done by buffers or cut-outs between Systematics and NSA? Systematics, through a spokesperson, vigorously denies Foster assisted it in any spying on foreign banks but remains apparently silent on whether Hillary Rodham Clinton assisted Systematics in some nefarious activities."
Is it fair to ask why Systematics provided Netanyahu office space and if this was the sum total of its involvement with him?
The Economic angle: But having his hand in various clandestine operations was only part of his activities. In the position of Prime Minister he begins to implement a controversial free market economy program.

As discussed here he 'transferred the Israeli economy towards free market principles'. And when we refer to 'free market principles' we are talking about the very same Friedman Chicago School of Economics that has been used to systematically rape and pillage the entire planet, as Naomi Klein describes in 'The Shock Doctrine'

One of Netanyahu's immediate actions after taking the post was to introduce an aggressive policy of privatization backed by two economic think-tanks. One of the think tanks is Hoover Institution with George Shultz as one of his high profile conservatives.

By taking the road of mass privatization, Netanyahu mimicked his U.S. and British progenitors - Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

After being defeated by Ehud Barak in the 1999 election for Prime Minister, Netanyahu decided to 'retire' from politics. Perhaps he was requested to retreat into the background for a while in order to make preparations for the next round. He conveniently surfaced again right after 9/11.

12 September 2001 - In the aftermath of 9/11, Netanyahu starts to show his true colors. He can hardly contain his delight. Compare his reaction (as reported by the New York Times):
"It's very good." Then he edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel]."
to that of his Palestinian counterpart:
Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Authority, looked shaken as he appeared before reporters in Gaza to deplore "this terrible act." "We are completely shocked," Mr. Arafat said. "Completely shocked."
2002 - 2005 - In 2002 appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs and then, in the course of 2003, as Minister of Finance.

07 July 2005 - During the London 7/7 bombings, again Netanyahu appears to be more than just a neutral bystander, though the relevant events were conspicuous only by their absence from the mainstream press. SoTT observed:
Guess where Rudolf Giuliani just happened to be on the morning of July 7th 2005? Rudy was lounging at the Great Eastern hotel just a few yards from Liverpool street station where one of the bombs went off. In the same Great Eastern hotel where Giuliani was staying, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange just happened to be hosting its economic conference. Guess who the keynote speaker was? Israel's then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As it turned out, Netanyahu never arrived at the Great Eastern Hotel because, as news reports in the days after July 7th informed us, Netanyahu had in fact received a warning from the Israeli embassy, (by way of the British Metropolitan police) that bombings were to occur and that he should stay in his hotel in Mayfair. Again, the official British government report makes no attempt to address how British police knew at least 6 minutes (probably longer) in advance that the bombings were to occur when, 'officially', British authorities were not even aware that they were dealing with bombs, believing that the explosions were the result of a power surge, until the bus bombing one hour after the first train explosion.
Undoubtedly, one of his friends in high places has tipped him off.

August 2005 - He resigns from Mr Sharon's cabinet in protest at Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

May 2006 - His popularity among the ranks of the pathocracy (rather than the 'average Israeli'), and his affinity with Dick Cheney are clearly visible during AIPAC's annual meeting, as described by Rabbi Bruce Warshal:
Let's zero in on AIPAC. It is controlled by right-wing, rich Jewish neo-conservatives. As one manifestation of the truth of this assertion one merely has to look at its annual meeting this past month. At a time when Vice President Cheney's popularity has dropped below 20 percent, the 4,500 delegates to the AIPAC convention gave him a standing ovation for almost a minute before he even opened his mouth and then proceeded to give him 48 rounds of applause in a 35-minute speech. (As my colleague Leonard Fein pointed out, that's once every 43.7 seconds). Considering that 75 percent of American Jews voted for Kerry, it is obvious that these people are out of the mainstream of Jewish thought.

At the same conference, preceding the recent Israeli elections, these delegates were addressed by Ehud Olmert (Kadima), Amir Peretz (Labor) and Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) by video link from Israel. Olmert and Peretz received polite applause. The AIPAC delegates cheered enthusiastically for Netanyahu, especially when he presented his hard line that was overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli electorate. Once a great organization, today AIPAC does not even represent the feelings of the average Israeli, let alone the average American Jew.
2005 - 2007 - From the political background, he continues to exert his significant influence for the Zionist cause. He visits London (causing considerable scandal over his funding) on a personal mission to patch up the media image in England during the bombing of Lebanon, In his own words:
"During my trip in August 2006, I worked 20 hours a day giving interviews, lecturing, meeting journalists, editors, political leaders and Jewish leaders to repel Arab propaganda."
And he appears to be very much in control, though at arm's length, within Israel too:
Although Olmert thinks he has out-maneuvered his great rival, in reality he has become Bibi's puppet. Aluf Benn, the leading political correspondent for Ha'aretz, wrote on Oct. 25:
"Olmert has adopted the positions of Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu [who] is steering the government policy from the opposition benches. The hands are the hands of Ehud, but the voice is the voice of Bibi. Now Olmert is carrying out the Netanyahu policy, point by point. The Prime Minister is sending veiled threats to Iran, burying the convergence plan [withdrawal from the Occupied Territories] and allowing accelerated construction in settlements. His social economic policy, too, was copied from Netanyahu...."
Israeli political observers say that Netanyahu is biding his time, while Olmert's own Kadima Party continues to be on the verge of splitting, with half its members likely to return to the Likud. The Labor Party, sitting at the same table with fascist Lieberman, could self-destruct before the year's end, these sources say, and the next government will be led by Bibi, with Lieberman by his side.
Well, he is not only 'biding his time', but is playing out his role within his particular circle of friends, which includes those in the U.S.:
"According to Israeli intelligence sources, since the end of the Lebanon war, Cheney and his neo-con allies have been working to bring into power their real candidate as Israel's Mussolini, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, chairman of the Likud Party and protégé of U.S. synarchist George Shultz."
August 14, 2007 - Reelected as chairman of the Likud.

So we reach recent times, and there are various related and converging threads. Everything points towards a consolidation of psychopathic power, for whatever may follow.

Netanyahu continues to play a significant role in 'foreign relations', which on the surface would be rather surprising, given that he is only the leader of the opposition, but makes perfect sense in light of his pathocratic tendencies and the nature of his 'friends'. Clearly, he has an important part to play in whatever plan is to unfold.

The present - Now we have the recent round of political scandals surrounding both Olmert and Netanyahu. What is interesting that while there was a gag order imposed on revealing any details about Olmert's investigation, the New York Post posted an exclusive with the name of this 'businessman' - Morris Talansky. The indications are that this is weakening Olmert's position, to leave the way clear for Netanyahu to regain power:
"It's the straw that broke the camel's back, considering all the previous investigations," said Eytan Cabel, secretary general of the Labour party said on Friday.[...]

The justice ministry said on Thursday that Olmert was being investigated over suspicions he unlawfully received payments from a foreign businessman during his time as mayor of Jerusalem and as industry minister. [...]

Olmert: "If the attorney general decides to file an indictment against me I shall resign immediately, even though I am not required to do so by law."

When a premier resigns it is up to the president, currently Shimon Peres, to pick a successor who can try to form a government. Failing that, early elections must be held. [...]

Former prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu also faced corruption investigations, none of which ever led to indictments.
And we see that Netanyahu is still staying busy reinforcing friendships wherever he can:
"Israel has no better friends in the world than Christian Zionists", Likud opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"This is a friendship of the heart, a friendship of common roots, and a friendship of common civilization," Netanyahu told a conference of American Evangelicals in Jerusalem.

The event, which was organized by the San Antonio, Texas-based Christians United for Israel, drew 1,000 Israel supporters led by the conservative evangelical Pastor John Hagee, who has been a stalwart supporter of Israel for the past three decades.

Hagee on Sunday announced donations of $6 million to a number of Israeli causes and declared that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem. [...]

Hagee has united evangelical Christian supporters of Israel in the US under one umbrella organization, dubbed the Christian Aipac, which focuses solely on support for Israel and does not work to convert Jews to Christianity.

Netanyahu's remarks come just days after the head of the left-leaning Reform Movement in the US Rabbi Eric Yoffie said that Israel should not deal with Christian Zionists like Hagee, calling him an "extremist" who rejected territorial compromise with the Palestinians and disparages Catholics.

Hagee has vehemently denied being anti-Catholic and said his remarks have been mischaracterized, and based on statements that were "totally false." The head of the Knesset's increasingly influential Christian Allies Caucus MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party), who has spearheaded Israel's relations with the evangelical Christian world, called Yoffie's politically based remarks "shameful," and called Hagee a "visionary man of courage" and an "outstanding spiritual leader." [text-cache]
It seems that every leader who comes to Israel, goes to see Netanyahu. It is not a normal thing in politics to have a meeting with the opposition leader every time someone makes a diplomatic visit. So who really calls the shots and runs things behind the curtain?

All the while, the warmongering rhetoric ramps up, with the continued propaganda campaign from both Israel and the U.S. over Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program (Saddam Hussein's WMD's, anyone?). Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter predicts that some kind of attack on Iran is a "virtual guarantee". The description of Iran as the world's "worst Hitlerite nightmare", does not bode well, when we consider the psychopath's penchant for projecting their own qualities onto their intended victim.

The future? - It looks that Netanyahu's rise to power will be the final step before the total collapse. Because he is a full blown unashamed psychopath. And just like a true psychopath, he cannot see that his action will lead to his own doom - and to everyone else's doom.
"The following question thus suggests itself: what happens if the network of understandings among psychopaths achieves power in leadership positions with international exposure? This can happen, especially during the later phases of the phenomenon. Goaded by their character, such people thirst for just that even though it would conflict with their own life interest... They do not understand that a catastrophe would ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing."

from 'Political Ponerology' by Andrew Lobaczewski