Worry at NSA that Kushner gave away the store to Israel - By The Wayne Madsen Report

Worry at NSA that Kushner gave away the store to Israel

                                                   By The Wayne Madsen Report

There are increasing worries that Donald Trump's special adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, specifically requested Top Secret intelligence files to pass gleaned information to Israeli intelligence. WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources that Kushner's compromise of National Security Agency and allied FIVE EYES partners' intercepts of foreign leaders led to his losing his temporary access to Top Secret/Special Compartmented Information (SCI).

According to our sources, NSA intelligence analysts became suspicious when Israeli companies specializing in not only gathering signals intelligence (SIGINT) information, but also protecting against such collection, began aggressively marketing their services to particular countries, especially those in Africa.

Kushner has already been accused of passing NSA communications intercept transcripts on key government and business leaders in Saudi Arabia to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). After determining who in the House of Saud and Saudi business community were opposed to his rise to power, MbS singled them out for arrest and torture. In a few cases, MbS's targets were executed.

NSA fears that not only transcripts of its intercepts of Saudi officials were passed by Kushner to MbS, but also to the Israeli government. [right, Kushner pictured with his Israeli handlers in Jerusalem] This not only compromised targets of NSA's wide surveillance net, but also the agency's sensitive sources and methods for collecting such intelligence.

What alarmed NSA officials more than anything else is their observation that Israeli signals intelligence (SIGINT) companies, comprised of former SIGINT officers with Israel's Unit 8200 communications intercept agency, began aggressively marketing offensive and defensive SIGINT capabilities to other countries. These countries are routine targets for NSA collection efforts. Through the use of the joint NSA-Central Intelligence Agency Special Collection Service (SCS), intercepts of diplomatic, military, and other official communications are provided in either full or abridged transcript form to cleared U.S. policymakers. These are the files that were routinely requested by Kushner for no apparent reason, raising eyebrows within the upper echelon of the National Security Council. One of those who raised concerns about Kushner's "curiosity" for such information was Lt. General H. R. McMaster, who was recently fired by Trump, largely at the urging of Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. National Security Adviser John Bolton, a pro-Israeli neo-conservative, has vowed to fire those who questioned Kushner's motives and those of his father-in-law in not taking immediate steps to curtail Kushner's access to such intelligence.

Kushner, who has no intelligence or military experience, specifically requested intercept transcripts on governments that are now on the receiving end of aggressive Israeli marketing efforts. Although Kushner has reported responsibilities for U.S. relations with the Middle East, Mexico, and China, there is no valid reason for him to have requested and read NSA transcripts of intercepted communications of such African leaders as Senegal's President Macky Sall, Cote d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouatarra, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, or Gabon's President Ali Bongo.
Many African countries use low-level forms of encryption, mostly supplied by French firms, that are easy to break. NSA is able to decrypt foreign communications, including those transmitted over Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), using a system code-named BIRDWATCHER, which forwards such coded communications to other NSA systems for code-breaking. However, Israeli firms are now able to sell more sophisticated systems to such governments. What the foreign governments do not realize is that Israeli intelligence has the decryption keys. Upgrading foreign government encryption with Israeli products also makes it that much harder for NSA to decrypt the communications, including e-mail. By providing such information on communication security vulnerabilities to the Israelis, Kushner has caused irreparable harm to U.S. national security. If such a security violation resulted in a criminal indictment, Kushner could be looking at multiple life terms in federal prison.
One such Israeli company that has moved into Africa to the chagrin of NSA and its partners in Britain and Canada is SAFNA, a firm headquartered in Israel's "intelligence city" of Herzliya, where Unit 8200, [pictured left] the lesser known Unit 8100, and various Mossad operations are located. The company's president is a Moroccan-born Jew named Didier Sabag, who also runs two Israeli firms based in Hong Kong, Hamsa Ltd. and Orot Ltd., both of which appear to be Israeli intelligence fronts. NSA is concerned that SAFNA will stymie its ability to monitor governments in the Sahel region that are also targets for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda jihadists. Governments courted by SAFNA include Morocco, Guinea-Bissau (a major transshipment point for narcotics from Latin America to North Africa and Europe), Benin, and the Central African Republic.

Another Israeli firm, A.D. Consultants of Nes-Ziona, Israel is marketing communications intercept and security equipment to President Alpha Condé of Guinea. Guinea is the location of mining resources coveted by Kushner's real estate business partners, the Steinmetz family of Israel. Other African countries receiving full-court presses from A.D. Consultants, include Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Cote d'Ivoire, Cabo Verde, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Gabon, Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Niger.

Other Israeli SIGINT firms are marketing their services in India. A recent visit by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to India cemented growing military and intelligence links between Tel Aviv and Delhi. Similar aggressive Israeli SIGINT marketing is being reported from Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran; Angola; Mozambique; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain; and the United Arab Emirates.

The compromise of SIGINT by Kushner followed the revelation that Lt. General Michael Flynn, Trump's short-lived National Security Adviser, had a contractual relationship with another large Israeli cyber-warfare firm specializing in hacking computer systems. The firm was NSO Group Technologies, also located in the Herzliya espionage metroplex. Trump --whose presidential campaign's links to the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica have been established -- may also be linked to another Israeli electronic surveillance firm, Black Cube, primarily consisting of ex-Mossad officers. Black Cube cyber-spies were retained to penetrate the email and medical records of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, while he was a presidential candidate; and to dig up dirt on Kenyan opposition politicians; Mexican, United Arab Emirates, Moroccan, and Bahraini human rights activists; and women who accused disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault.

The Unites States Navy most decorated ship (in a single action) by Miko Peled

The Unites States Navy most decorated ship (in a single action)

Part 1: The attack on the USS Liberty, forty-eight years later

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I asked my daughter Tali if she would like to spend Memorial Day this year doing something significant. She is thirteen and even though there are two more weeks of school, Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer. So the weekend is always spent doing fun things, being outdoors with friends, and rarely if ever doing anything that signifies what Memorial Day is about.

“What kind of thing? Are you giving a lecture somewhere?”

“Yes and no,” I replied, “come read this.”

I let her read a message I received from Ronald Kukal, who was the first class petty officer on the USS Liberty, a US navy ship that was attacked and destroyed by the Israeli military on June 8, 1967. Ron is one of the Liberty survivors.

Tali read the message carefully, then looked at me and said:

“Dad, we have to go to this!”

“This” was a Memorial Day in event Maricopa, Arizona in the heart of the Arizona desert, commemorating the USS Liberty.

The USS Liberty is the most decorated ship in the US Navy for a single action, though it was not engaged in battle, in fact being an intelligence gathering ship, it had no battle capabilities and was only armed with 4 fifty caliber machine guns to ward off unwanted boarders. The crew were awarded, collectively, one Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, eleven Silver Stars, twenty Bronze Stars (with “V” on it for valor), nine Navy Commendation Medals, and two hundred and four Purple Hearts. The ship was also awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. But all the survivors were ordered never to speak of what they had experienced. It took many years and a great deal of suffering before the survivors reached the point where they felt they could no longer keep in inside and had to speak up.

On the morning of June 8, 1967, in the midst of a war that Israel had initiated just a few days earlier - and was clearly winning - against Egypt, Syria and Jordan - the USS Liberty was about 17 miles off the Gaza coast, in international waters. For several hours throughout that day Israeli air force reconnaissance planes had been flying over the Liberty, in what seemed like attempts to identify it. The crew felt no threat – quite the opposite, Israel was a US ally. During one recorded debriefing a naval observer from the reconnaissance flight arrived at Israeli air force HQ and sat down with the air-naval liaison officer there. The two officers consulted Janes’ Fighting Ships and learned that the ship they saw earlier in the day was the USS Liberty, a United States Navy technical research ship. [1]

Then, at 1400 hours, (2:00 PM local time) without any warning, Israeli fighter jets launched an attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking with rockets and internal cannons. After the first group of fighter jets had exhausted their ammunition, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter jets continued to attack with rockets, cannon fire, and even napalm. The use of napalm is significant because it is made of a toxic, flammable combination of gel and petroleum that sticks to the skin and causes severe burns. Eight men died as a result of the air attack and the shrapnel and shock of exploding rockets had wounded 75 men.

After the Israeli jets completed their attacks, Israeli torpedo boats began firing torpedoes, killing 26 more men. Survivors reported that the Israeli torpedo boat crews swept the decks of USS Liberty with continuous machine gun fire, targeting communications equipment and any crewmembers that ventured above decks. Survivor Glen Oliphant said, “I personally recall very clearly from my position outside the wardroom -- that the torpedo boats then circled the ship for a long time firing at close range at anything that moved. Men trying to aid their wounded shipmates on deck were fired upon. Men fighting fires were fired upon and I recall seeing their fire hoses punctured by machinegun fire. This went on for several minutes. At one point the boatmen concentrated their fire near the waterline amidships, presumably hoping to blow up the boilers to hasten our demise.” 
Although communication systems were severely damaged the crew somehow managed to get a distress signal to the Sixth Fleet command which then sent out aircraft to defend the Liberty. Shortly after the Sixth Fleet command transmitted an authorization for the rescue aircraft to destroy the attackers, the Israeli torpedo boats halted their attack. At the same time, the Israeli military notified the US Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv that Israeli forces had mistakenly attacked a United States Navy ship, and apologized. The commander of the Sixth Fleet received an order from Washington, DC to turn the rescue planes around. According to several sources the commander questioned the order which was then reiterated to him by President Johnson himself.

Israeli sources claim that Israeli helicopters flew over the Liberty after the attack and offered assistance but their offer was turned down. Several of the survivors mentioned that at one point after the attack an Israeli combat helicopter flew over with civilians which included the US Naval Attaché. A bag with a message for the captain was dropped from the hovering helicopter, which read: “Do you have any casualties?” At this point the ship was barely afloat, bullet ridden, with gaping holes as a result of the torpedo attacks and the blood and body parts of the dead and the wounded were everywhere. Two thirds of the crew had become casualties. According to the survivors, the Captain looked up at the chopper and gave them the finger. The ship and survivors were left to float in the Mediterranean, miraculously not capsizing, for 17 long hours before help arrived to rescue the survivors and take care of the wounded.

Ronald Kukal was first class Petty Officer on the Liberty, this is how he described to me the very moments after the torpedo attack, “I could hear shrapnel flying over my head, and little did I know that shrapnel was killing almost all my men down there.” Ron was also put in charge of body recovery and identification. This took place several days after the attack, which meant that the bodies, many of them in pieces, had been in the water for days. His very words to me were, “I went about the dismal job of picking up the pieces of a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. Can't put it any other way. Most of my shipmates couldn't stand the smell. I smelled nothing.” For many years the survivors were forced to remain silent and the US government and the press said little about the attack.

In his message to me, a message that convinced my daughter to join me on this long road trip from San Diego to Maricopa, rather than stay in town and spend the weekend with friends, he writes:

“The men who survived the Liberty are slowly making their way out of this world, so to speak. This meeting in Maricopa is sort of a last effort on our part to keep the memory of the ship alive […] what our government is hoping for and always has, is the death of all of us, and then the matter will be over […] I don’t know how we have held together but we have. There is no hatred in this group, and really there never has been, we have only wanted justice. I doubt if we will get it.”

Endnote 

1. http://www.ussliberty.org/report/report.htm

 USS Liberty

WRITER

MIKO PELED

Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative. He has written a book about his journey from the sphere of the privileged Israeli to that of the oppressed Palestinians. His book is titled “The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.” Peled speaks nationally and internationally on the issue of Palestine. Peled supports the creation of a single democratic state in all of Palestine, he is also a firm supporter of BDS.

Israeli links to Al Qaeda/ISIL now reported by corporate media by Wayne Madsen

 Israeli links to Al Qaeda/ISIL now reported by corporate media 

by Wayne Madsen

For well over a decade, WMR's editor has been reporting on the links between Israel and the terrorist group known as "Al Qaeda," particularly in reference to the attacks of 9/11. The Wall Street Journal, which has provided the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with editorial support, recently reported that Israel has provided logistical support in Syria to Al Qaeda and its affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. The paper reported that Al-Nusra "hasn't bothered Israel since seizing the border area last summer" along the Golan Heights. In fact, the core Al Qaeda and its official branches have never "bothered" Israel. Israel has provided medical assistance to some 2000 Syrians, a number of them members of the Nusa Front and Al Qaeda.

Recently, the leader of Lebanon's Druze Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, who has been an erratic on-and-off supporter of Israel, concluded an agreement with the Al Nusra Front and its Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate. Jumblatt concluded the agreement even though his fellow Druze in Idlib, Syria have been given an ultimatum by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to convert to Wahhabi Islam and destroy their shrines and mausoleums to their religious icons or face execution. Jumblatt is reported by the Lebanese press to have arranged for the forced conversions of the Idlib Druze in exchange for their lives using the offices of the United Arab Emirates.

It has also been reported in the Lebanese press that Israel has helped arrange for contacts, using Jordanian intelligence interlocutors, between Al Nusra/Al Qaeda and the Syrian Druze. Israel has offered military and intelligence support to the Syrian Druze if they attack Syrian government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies in Syria.

 
The word is out on ISIL or "Daesh" -- it is made in Israel. Left: Graffiti on wall in Ma'an, Jordan.

Arab media has also reported that Iraqi Hezbollah captured three U.S.-Israeli "advisers," along with their U.S. and Israeli passports, and a fourth Israeli citizen in possession of a passport from an unnamed Persian Gulf country, at an ISIL command center in Mosul province. The ISIL command center was captured by Iraqi special forces troops in "Operation Scorpion Sting" after word reached the authorities in Baghdad that U.S. and Israeli advisers had helped set up a state-of-the-art command center in Tal Abat, in Mosul province. WMR previously reported that Iraqi troops and local Sunni tribes have witnessed Israeli commandos handing over weapons to ISIL guerrillas in Anbar province

Other Israeli fingerprints on ISIL: The Israeli press reported that gardeners in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth Illit discovered a bag containing about 25 new black-and-white ISIL flags. The discovery of the flags further implicates the Israeli government in providing not only military and logistical support to ISIL, but propaganda support, as well. Israeli picnickers on the Golan Heights amused themselves by watching through field glasses and telescopes ISIL/Al Nusra rebels battling Syrian army units from the Golan highlands. Never once were the Israelis Israelis concerned about receiving fire from ISIL/Al Nusra positions. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu revealed that Turkish authorities arrested a foreign intelligence agent, believed to be an asset of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), who was charged with helping three British schoolgirls travel from Britain through Turkey and then into Syria to join ISIL. Under the Stephen Harper government, Canadian intelligence has been ordered to assist Mossad in all matters requested by the Israelis. The arrested agent is Mohammed Mehmet Rashid, aka "Doctor Mehmet Rashid," Mohammed al Rashid, and Mohammad Al Rashed, who reported to Bruno Saccomani, the Canadian ambassador to Jordan and Iraq and a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who was the head of Harper’s personal security detail until he was appointed ambassador to Amman. Saccomani was criticized by other RCMP officers for his "bullying" tactics. The appointment was roundly criticized by the Canadian opposition because Saccomani had no diplomatic experience. Al Rashid met the three British school girls at Gaziantep near the Syrian border and personally delivered them into ISIL hands in Syria. Saccomani served as the RCMP liaison officer at the Canadian embassy in Rome in 1997 where he developed a close working relationship with Israeli intelligence and law enforcement officials. Russian President Vladimir Putin's aide Alexander Prokhanov charged last December that Mossad was training ISIL's leadership. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that British and U.S. intelligence and Mossad worked together to create ISIL in an operation dubbed "Hornet's Nest." News reports from around the Middle East revealed that Abu Bakr Al Baghdad, the self-proclaimed ISIL "caliph" who was photographed in Syria with visiting U.S. Senator John McCain. received a year oif intensive language and Islamic theology training from Mossad handlers. Adrian Kaba, who represents Sweden's ruling Social Democratic Party on the Malmo City Council and the regional government, wrote in 2014 that Mossad provided training to ISIL. Kaba wrote on his Facebook page that “ISIS is being trained by the Israeli Mossad. Muslims are not waging war, they are being used as pawns by other peoples’ game." Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested ISIL-style beheadings for Israeli Arabs suspected of supporting terrorism.             One would think that committed Islamist jihadis would know in what direction to pray to Mecca for photo ops like those above. These photos are yet another example of the artificial Israeli and Western intelligence construct of ISIL.

Israel, Iran and the Bomb: A Love Story By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Israel, Iran and the Bomb: A Love Story

Netanyahu wants to talk about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but why isn’t anybody talking about Israel’s not-so-secret arsenal?

By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

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On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to Washington, D.C., and appeared before a joint session of Congress — not the Knesset — to give a speech on the dangers of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu declared, poses a clear and present danger not just to the Jewish state he heads, but to the entire region, and the United States, too. In stern tones the implied “Senator from Tel Aviv” warned Congress that the nuclear deal being cobbled together by Washington and Tehran in order to ward off war between them was a bad deal that would leave Iran unacceptably close to possessing a bomb.

By his calculations, with the in-place nuclear infrastructure Washington’s deal would likely allow Iran to keep, Netanyahu estimated Iran would be able to build a nuclear weapon in a year or less.

“This is a bad deal — a very bad deal,” intoned Netanyahu. “We’re better off without it.”

It’s not exactly clear who the “we” Netanyahu referred to was – assuming, of course, that one sees some degree of difference between the interests of the U.S. and Israel. Yet the message the prime minister was trying to convey was easy enough to understand: Iran is a cheat and a liar that cannot under any circumstances be trusted.

The 200-kiloton elephant in the room

Israel’s Sorek nuclear reactor center near the central Israeli town of Yavne.

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Left totally unmentioned by Netanyahu and nearly all discussion of the speech in the U.S. media is any note of, no matter how slight, Israel’s own nuclear weapons program. Indeed, although Israel’s nuclear arms are undeclared and the state is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its possession of these weapons has been an open secret since the 1980s, when a low-level Israeli nuclear technician by the name ofMordechai Vanunu leaked details of the program to a British newspaper. Vanunu was arrested, tried in a secret court and convicted. He would ultimately serve 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement.

What Vanunu revealed to the public was widely known in official circles for years, and in 1987 the U.S. Defense Department noted that, “as far as nuclear technology is concerned, the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field circa 1955-1960.” The DOD went on to say that U.S. intelligence believed Israel was also well on its way to developing the technology it would need to produce hydrogen bombs, which are also now widely believed to be present in the Israeli arsenal. Although estimates of the size of the Israeli inventory vary, minimum calculations place it at 75 weapons and maximum at 400, with most placing it somewhere between 100-200 warheads.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute provides perhaps the best guess, which is that Israel has 80 intact nuclear weapons, with enough material for many more. Of that 80, it says, 50 are deployed on Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles and the remaining 30 are aircraft-delivered gravity bombs. There is also speculation that some of Israel’s weapons are based at sea on its new Dolphin submarines, which means that Israel has not only nuclear weapons, but a fully functioning deterrent triad of missiles, bombers and subs. Israel, in other words, not only has a nuclear force as big as or bigger than North Korea’s, Pakistan’s or India’s, but one that possibly approaches the United Kingdom’s in terms of size and sophistication.

The story of the Israeli bomb

While there is debate over the size of Israel’s stockpile, how Israel got the bomb in the first place is far better known. Starting shortly after the birth of the Israeli state itself, David Ben-Gurion gave his country’s scientific establishment the mission of creating what was termed at the time “the bomb in the basement” – a last-resort option that would stave off final defeat by Arab armies, or at least make achieving that hideously costly. Funds gathered from overseas, including Jewish contributions to the State of Israel, were in part funneled to this project, and Israeli scientists and intelligence officials were directed to acquire information from foreign sources on how to build a bomb.

The best efforts to achieve this came in France, where a close relationship between the Israeli and the French defense establishments gave Israeli scientists access to French nuclear research sites. This relationship also eventually led to the purchase of the Dimona reactor complex. Indeed, during the late 1950s over 2,500 French technical experts were present at the reactor site and operated behind a veil of secrecy so thick that the workers were forbidden to write directly to relatives lest they give away their location. When questioned by the British and Americans, Israelis claimed Dimona was a grasslands research institute or a manganese processing plant. After Charles de Gaulle came to power in 1959, however, the Franco-Israeli nuclear alliance chilled — but not before Israel was able to acquire enough material and expertise to begin a full-fledged, independent weapons program of its own.

To succeed, though, Israel would have to overcome what was probably its greatest obstacle to acquiring nuclear weapons: the U.S. It should be remembered that in the early years of the Cold War Israel and the U.S. were not as close as they are today. At best Israel was seen as a nuisance and an electoral prop for Democrats like Harry Truman, and under Dwight D. Eisenhower the U.S. was often actively hostile. Indeed, Eisenhower opposed not just Israeli participation in the Suez Crisis of 1956 but forced Israel as well as Britain and France to retreat from their assault on Egypt with their tails tucked firmly between their legs.

Although not as skeptical of the utility of Israel as an ally as Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy nonetheless put the screws to Israel over its nuclear ambitions due to the experience he gained during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Seeing a need to push back against the threat of nuclear war after the close call over Cuba, Kennedy offered the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the world and pushed for countries to sign. Among the requirements, of course, were vigorous inspections to ensure that existing nuclear facilities in non-nuclear states would not be used to build weapons.

Although the U.S. was aware of Israel’s Dimona reactor by 1958, when U2 flights and on-the-ground assessments observed what the Israelis were doing, inspections of the type Kennedy was championing would expose just exactly what the Israelis were up to — drawing the wrath of the proliferation-phobic Kennedy and handing a propaganda coup to the Soviets and Moscow’s Arab allies. The Israelis did eventually give in and allow inspectors, but what ensued as U.S. technical experts poked and prodded Dimona was a kabuki-esque affair, wherein the American teams were stymied in almost every way via tactics any contemporary U.N. weapons inspector would recognize as an attempt to obfuscate, distract and cheat.

Acceptance of the Israeli bomb

This song and dance went on for the remainder of the Kennedy administration, only waning under the far more pro-Israel Lyndon Johnson, who, like Truman, used his support of Israel as a political prop. What’s more, as Moscow made inroads in Egypt and Syria and the likelihood of war between Arabs and Israelis increased, the decision was made in the U.S. and other Western countries to look the other way and, in effect, allow the Israelis to build their bomb.  By 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War, it is believed that this acquiescence allowed the Israelis to secretly accumulate enough fissile material to build a crude nuclear bomb prior to the outbreak of hostilities on June 5 of that year.

Although Israel’s crushing victory in that war assured its bomb would not be used, the frightening encounter between Israel and its enemies led Israel to a crash program geared toward mass-producing nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. As in the 1950s resources were leveraged, the biggest obstacle to physically increasing Israel’s stockpile was overcome in 1968 via an audacious covert operation that stole up to 200 tons of yellowcake uranium from a Belgian mining company that the Mossad, in a complex operation, had shipped from Antwerp to Genoa and thence on to Israel.

Indeed, the Belgians weren’t the only ones who were robbed. In a memo on Israeli nuclear activities prepared for President Richard Nixon by Henry Kissinger himself, Kissinger noted that Israel’s nuclear program “is one where the Israelis have persistently deceived and may even have stolen from us.” Here, this was further implied when in 1976 CIA Deputy Director Carl Duckett informed officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the agency suspected some 200-600 pounds of highly enriched uranium had been stolen by Israel from a processing plant in Pennsylvania owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. It was, according to one of the officials privy to the secret at the time, one of the most glaring cases of diverted nuclear materials in history.

Eventually acknowledging their failure, the White House under Johnson and then Nixon created the present regime of official lies about Israeli nuclear capabilities by getting the Israelis to pledge to be the first to “not introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East — which the Israelis defined as agreeing to not officially test weapons or state officially that they possessed them. This concordant became a foundation of U.S.-Israeli relations when Nixon met Golda Meier after U.S. intervention in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which itself may have been forced by Israeli desperation and Israel’s implied threat to use their bombs to stave off imminent battlefield defeat.

A rogue is a rogue is a rogue

In the context of the Cold War, when Israeli actions against a Soviet client could have forced a nuclear response by Moscow — a response which would lead inevitably to an exchange with the U.S. and its other allies — it made eminent sense to protect Israel so it would not be forced to use its weapons and so cause that chain of events to occur, which came close to actually happening in 1973. It may have unfairly privileged Israeli interests over nearly everyone else in the Middle East in official Washington circles, but it nonetheless kept an unstable region and its nuclear powder keg under wraps for the remaining duration of America’s conflict with the Soviet Union.

But does this same logic hold sway today? To be sure, relations between Russia and the U.S. are frosty, but the degree to which American and Russian security interests are tied to the fates of their client states in the Middle East is far less than what it once was. Furthermore, American guarantees of security have profited the U.S. very little. In exchange for providing carte blanche protection for Israel in exchange for its nuclear silence, the U.S. has received little but Israeli intransigence on the issue of Palestine and next to no help on other important regional issues. Indeed, America’s very protection of Israel makes the U.S. widely hated in the region. The U.S. alliance with Israel is thus for the most part a one-way street from which America derives very little benefit.

So when you click on the news and see Netanyahu talk about the dangers of a bad deal and the threat of a rogue nuclear state, understand that he knows what he is talking about. After all, his country is experienced in fooling inspectors and lying to the U.S. about its nuclear intentions. It, too, has stolen nuclear materials and broken numerous international laws to build a secret nuclear weapons lab and stockpile. If the emerging narrative about what actually happened in 1973 is correct, it has even engaged in nuclear blackmail to get its way. Given all this, one wonders if maybe Israel couldn’t teach Iran a lesson or two in this particular area of statecraft.

Israel: Human Rights Abuser Writ Large by Stephen Lendman #JSIL

Israel: Human Rights Abuser Writ Large

by Stephen Lendman

Israeli policy is longstanding. Reflecting anti-Palestinian state terror. Institutionalized racism writ large. Vicious repression.

Brutalizing Muslims for not being Jews. Enforcing militarized occupation harshness. Denying Palestinians rights everyone deserves.

According to Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) director Jeff Halper:

"…(T)he 'Zionist answer' to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself" includes:

"house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the 'residency' of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen (Abbas)." 

"Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution." 

"This is what happens when a powerful country forgoes any effort to address the grievances of a people under its control and descends into raw oppression."

Netanyahu lied. He's a serial liar. Everything he says lacks credibility. Big Lies substitute. Claiming Israel locked in "the grip of a terrorist onslaught." 

Palestinians face brutalizing Israeli state terror. Police state barbarism writ large. Provoking justifiable Palestinian anger.

Inciting violence. Able to boil over uncontrollably any time. Perhaps into a third intifada. Or pretext for Israeli all-out war on millions of Palestinians.

Risking carnage and displacement matching Israel's so-called War of Independence. Western leaders able to intervene responsibly turn a blind eye. Ignore Israel's worst crimes.

Palestinians isolated on their own. Defenseless against Israel's onslaught. Its killing machine.

Palestinian human rights group Al Haq reported PA forces abusing civilians. Instead of defending them against Israeli state terror.

Targeting peaceful protestors. Demonstrating against IDF and police brutality.

Longtime Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas unleashing PA forces against his own people. Imad Addin Jamal Amro one of many victims.

After Friday, November 7 prayers. Accosting him. Beating him viciously. Until no longer able to stand. Preventing bystanders from helping him.

Arresting him. Beating him severely at Preventive Security headquarters. An officer shouting "die, die." Accusing him of offenses he didn't commit.

Al Haq expressing outrage. Citing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Articles 7, 9 and 14 prohibiting arbitrary arrests and mistreatment.

Article 19 affirming freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Without interference. Prohibiting coercing practices denying them.

Regardless of views. Respecting those of others. In writing, print or orally.

Article 20 prohibiting incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, and state-sponsored propaganda for war.

Article 21 affirming the right of peaceful assembly. Prohibiting any restrictions.

Article 19 of Palestinian Basic Law affirming free expression rights. Mandating criminal punishment for violators.

Article 11 affirming personal freedom as a natural right. Article 13 stating "no person shall be subject to any duress or torture, and that detainees should receive proper treatment."

Israel violates ICCPR and other human rights laws unaccountably. So do PA forces against their own people. 

It bears repeating. Abbas is a longtime Israeli collaborator. Abusing his own people for special benefits he derives.

According to an unnamed PA source, he ordered no public discussions of Tuesday's synagogue attack.

Canceling media appearances. Issuing a statement following John Kerry saying:

"The Palestinian leadership must condemn this and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement." 

Abbas then "condemn(ing) the killings of worshipers at the synagogue in Jerusalem and condemn(ing) acts of violence no matter their source."

Equating Tuesday's incident with terrorism. Ignoring Kerry saying:

"To have this kind of act, which is a pure result of incitement, of calls for 'days of rage,' of just irresponsibility, is unacceptable."

Kerry turning a blind eye to daily Israeli state terror. Brutalizing millions of Palestinians.

Murdering them. Torturing them. Including young children. 

Incarcerating thousands in gulag prison hell. Unaccountably. For demanding fundamental democratic freedoms.

Dominating Palestinians through repressive control. Kafkaesque and then some.

Physical control through land theft. Home demolitions. Settlements. Checkpoints. Ghettoization. Agricultural restrictions. 

Permit permission for virtually everything. Military zones. Jews only development. Resource theft.

Borders, air space and offshore waters control. Jews only public spaces. Separation Wall repression. Harassment and intimidation.

Diaspora Palestinians prevented from returning. Claiming Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital.

Gazans locked in the world's largest open-air prison. Bureaucratic/legal/militarized control. Including hundreds of restrictive policies. 

Covering virtual all aspects of Palestinian life. Imposing politically motivated conditions virtually impossible to live with. Including:

• allowable home and village construction; 

• building permit restrictions;

• home demolitions for any reason or none at all;

• land expropriation designated for Israeli "public purposes;"

• agricultural restrictions;

• crop destruction for violations;

• licensing and inspection of Palestinian businesses;

• closures anywhere, any time, for any reason; and

• movement and travel restrictions within and outside Israel and Occupied Territories.

Denying fundamental international law guaranteeing human and civil rights. Brazenly ignoring dozens of UN resolutions. Going back decades. 

Condemning or censuring Israeli lawlessness. Deploring its actions. Demanding state-sponsored repression end.

Israel flaunts rule of law principles with impunity. Arrogating to itself the right to do what it damn pleases.

Law or no law. Because Western leaders able to change things do nothing. Turning a blind eye to Israel's worst crimes. 

Washington partnering through military aid. Political support. Mindless of fundamental Palestinian rights. Horrific Israeli mistreatment.

Using violence. Other forms of repression for political, economic and social control. 

Flagrantly violating core international humanitarian and human rights laws. Police state harshness writ large.

In November alone, lawlessly arresting nearly 400 Palestinians. Including young children. In largely pre-dawn raids,

In West Bank and East Jerusalem communities. Around two dozen detained on Thursday alone. Collective punishment writ large. Mass arrests and detentions continue.

Following Operation Protective Edge. Premeditated naked aggression. Murdering over 2,200 Palestinians. Injuring about 11,000 more. 

Affecting hundreds of young children, women, the elderly and infirm. Unrelated to Hamas rockets. Or Israeli national security. 

Launched to prevent Palestinian self-determination. Maintain occupation harshness.

Continue Gaza's blockade. Sabotage Fatah/Hamas unity. Facilitate longstanding Israeli slow-motion genocide. 

Get away with mass murder and then some. Violate international law with impunity.

Academically lynched University of Illinois Professor Steven Salaita calling Israel the only nation able to murder hundreds of Palestinian children and claim victimization.

Western leaders able to make a difference turning a blind eye.

Horrific Palestinian suffering continues. 

Widespread Israeli crackdowns followed Tuesday's synagogue incident. Responding to longstanding Palestinian mistreatment. 

Especially vicious under Netanyahu. Exceeding the worst of Sharonian evil. 

Including extremist settler violence. Notably against children. At play. To and from school. Running errands for parents.

Targeting Palestinian communities. Farmers in fields. Committing vandalism. Mistreatment. At times murder. Unaccountably.

Israeli security forces able to intervene responsibly do nothing. Facilitating wrongdoing.

B'Tselem calling Israeli punitive home demolitions "fundamentally wrong." Ineffective. 

Contravening "basic moral standards." Punishing "people for the of misdeeds of others." Without just cause. Flagrantly violating human rights laws.

Following Tuesday's incident, Israeli security forces are everywhere. Harassing Palestinians. Intimidating them. 

Ignoring settler provocations. Helicopters and drones monitor things overhead. Police violence against Palestinian women in Jerusalem increased.

Dozens of children arrested. Brutally interrogated. Detained without just cause.

Tuesday's incident a pretext for escalated Israeli repression. Its ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, equating Palestinian resisters with Nazis. Terrorists.

Ignoring decades of occupation harshness. Longstanding Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. Slow-motion genocide.

Dermer outrageously suggesting Palestinians intend targeting America. Hamas no different from IS.

Neocon US Senator Ted Cruz (R. TX) expressing "unequivocal support as the Israeli people continue the fight against the terrorists who have declared war on both our nations."

CNN shamelessly giving him air time to express outlandish views. Other media scoundrels operating the same way.

Reporting one-sided views. Proliferating Big Lies. Burying hard truths. 

Ignoring Israeli high crimes. Vilifying Palestinians unjustly. Equating Tuesday's incident with terrorism. 

Indicting all Palestinians for crimes of the few. Turning a blind eye to Israel holding entire communities hostage. 

Collective punishment. State-sponsored terrorism.  Mindless of international law. Palestinians isolated on their own. Victimized for not being Jews.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.