Neocons try to run another forgery on the international public by Wayne Madsen

Neocons try to run another forgery on the international public

by Wayne Madsen

The one thing that neo-cons deserve credit on is persistence. Even after the neocons sought to fool the international public with obviously forged foreign ministry documents from Niger that were used by the George W. Bush administration to justify going to war with Iraq and forged Iraqi Oil Ministry documents that were used to tarnish the reputations of several political leaders who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the neocons are at it again. 

This time, a purported arrest warrant for Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman for reaching a deal with Iran to shield Iranian officials wanted for planning the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires was reportedly "found" by investigators in a rubbish bin at the home of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the alleged author of the arrest warrant. 

Nisman is said to have committed suicide in the bathroom of his Buenos Aires apartment on January 18 of this year. Forensics have shown that there was no other DNA found on the gun Nisman is said to have used to fire a single bullet into his head. Kirchner alleged that Nisman's death may have been a murder carried out by shadowy intelligence figures trying to discredit her and her administration. Kirchner has taken a decidedly anti-Israeli position with her support for Palestine and the establishment of friendly relations with Iran. Kirchner's foreign policy has irked the Israelis and Mossad, which have a heavy presence in Argentina. Kirchner announced that because of her suspicions about agents within the Argentine SIDE intelligence service carrying out a hit on Nisman, she was scrapping the agency and replacing it with a new federal intelligence agency. Presumably, such a move would clean out any Israeli intelligence plants who may have assisted in the possible murder of Nisman -- what would amount to a classic Mossad "false flag" operation in sacrificing a single Jew -- Nisman -- for the greater goals of Israel.

Only photographs of the alleged 26-page arrest warrant were published by the anti-Kirchner newspaper Clarin. Goldman Sachs is a major investor in the Clarin Group, Clarin's parent company. At first, Nisman's assistant prosecutor, Viviana Fein, denied the existence of the arrest warrant. However, she later changed her story and confirmed that the warrant published by Clarin was authentic and that she "mis-spoke" in her earlier statement. It is instructive to note that Nisman was Jewish as is Fein, an important fact that The New York Times chose to ignore in its reporting on the story.

The role of Clarin in disseminating anti-Kirchner is no surprise. The Western media has failed to report that Foreign Minister Timerman, named in the dubious "arrest warrant" is himself a newspaper editor and a longtime competitor, as was his father, Jacobo Timerman, of Clarin. The elder Timerman published the leftist La Opinion and his son, the present Foreign Minister, was editor-in-chief of La Tarde, also left-wing. Attempts by the Israel Lobby to tar Kirchner fall flat in the face of the fact that the Timermans are Jewish but not beholden to Israeli or Zionist interests in Argentina..

Nisman alleged that Kirchner has agreed to swap Argentine grain for Iranian oil in return for dropping Argentina's investigation of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA. On October 24, 2014, WMR reported on the steady warfare being waged by Israel and its allies against Kirchner, both at home and abroad:

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner witnessed her September 24 speech to the UN General Assembly interrupted by what UN officials called "technical difficulties." In fact, Kirchner's speech was censored by the UN amid catcalls from the Israeli delegation and New York Zionist Jews specifically placed by the Israelis in the public gallery to boo those world leaders who criticized the Jewish state's policies.

Kirchner has been subjected to a vicious Zionist campaign launched against its financial system by the Elliott Management Fund, the "vulture" hedge fund owned by New York Zionist and neo-conservative Republican Paul Singer. In 2002, after Argentina defaulted on its debt, Singer's Cayman Islands-based NML Capital Limited bought the devalued Argentina bonds knowing full well he would be lucky to get 30 cents on the dollar. However, Singer began a shake down of Argentina to squeeze more money out of its financially-troubled economy. NML convinced Ghana to seize the Argentine naval training ship Libertad in 2012. Mark Brodsky, Singer's former Elliott Management Fund executive and now head of Aurelius Capital Management, joined in the extortion of Argentina in demanding that a portion of the $1.2 billion debt be paid not only to Singer but also to his fund.

The Israeli media avoids the use of "vulture" funds to describe contrivances like those of Singer and Brodsky. It prefers to use "hold-out funds," which places the onus on the debtors and not the unscrupulous collectors.

A Singer-owned U.S. federal judge in New York, Thomas Griesa, ordered Argentina to pay all the money Singer was demanding instead of a reduced amount. Griesa is 85 years old and is known for taking naps on the bench while hearing cases.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court, on which three American Jews [Ruth Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan] sit and who did not recuse themselves from the case, decided to reject Argentina's appeal of Griesa's ruling.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Argentina case was purely political. Argentina had determined, contrary to Zionist and neocon myth, that Iran was not responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, which killed 84 people. Kirchner and other Argentine investigators later discovered that the bombing was an Israeli-inspired false flag operation intended to embarrass Argentina's President Carlos Saul Menem, who was the son of Syrian immigrants to Argentina.

Israel was upset with Menem because he strengthened Argentina's ties to Iran. Menem was forced to abandon an Argentine nuclear cooperation deal with Iran following the 1994 bombing of the AMIA.

The U.S. ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing James Cheek, told The Nation magazine, "To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [that Iran was responsible]. They never came up with anything." The only evidence of any links between the bombing and any Iranians is the fact that "evidence" of the Iranian government's alleged involvement was manufactured by the anti-Tehran Iranian terrorist group Mojaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), which receives funding and other support from Mossad and the CIA.

After the bombing of the AMIA, Mossad planted evidence at the scene. Two years earlier, after a bomb at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 22 people, Mossad also planted evidence suggesting Iran was behind the attack.

Realizing that Menem had been subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign by the Zionist media, Kirchner set about to inform the General Assembly of Israel's culpability in false flag attacks. Perhaps no better setting than the UN could have been used by Kirchner less than a two weeks after the commemoration of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which amounted to yet another false flag operation that bore all the trademark Mossad handiwork.

After the appearance of the dubious Nisman arrest warrant in Clarin, it was discovered in U.S. State Department cables released by WikiLeaks that Nisman had maintained extensive contacts with the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, which helped him prepare his "case" against Kirchner's government over the AMIA bombing. Nisman continuously met with U.S. embassy officials who helped him hammer out his strategy against Kirchner.

An October 28, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires states that Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes David S. Cohen, recently selected to be the deputy director of the CIA, met with Nisman to coordinate efforts to undermine Kirchner:

VZCZCXYZ0000 
OO RUEHWEB 
DE RUEHBU #1168/01 3011522 
ZNY CCCCC ZZH 
O 281522Z OCT 09 
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4526 
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY 
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO PRIORITY 0003 
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 001168 
SIPDIS 
TREASURY FOR RFEDEWA 
SAO PAULO FOR WBLOCK 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2029 
TAGS: ECON [Economic Conditions], EFIN [Financial and Monetary Affairs], 
PGOV [Internal Governmental Affairs], 
AR [Argentina] 
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA TRIP REPORT OF A/S TREASURY DAVID COHEN 
Classified By: DCM Tom Kelly for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).
¶1. (U) Summary. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes David S. Cohen traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 2 to address members of the U.S.-Latin America Private Sector Dialogue (U.S.-LA PSD) and conduct meetings with the Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina (BCRA) and Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (MOJ) . . .
¶7. (C) A/S Cohen also met with Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who in late 2006 formally accused the government of Iran of directing the 1994 Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing, and Hizballah for carrying out the bombing. Earlier this year, Nisman formally requested that the governments of Germany and France freeze four bank accounts containing over US $48 million associated with the AMIA suspects. Nismansaid that he has yet to receive a substantive reply from either Germany or France, and A/S Cohen offered, on behalf of the Treasury Department, to engage counterparts in these two countries to follow up on Nisman's requests. Nisman added that he has also requested that a judge order the arrest of former Argentine president Carlos Menem for participation in a cover-up after the AMIA attack. 
-----------
An additional cable, gated May 2009, shows that Nisman was in Washington to hold meetings with the State and Justice Departments and "other U.S. government agencies." Other cables indicate that the U.S. Justice Department and FBI assisted Nisman in preparfing INTERPOL arrest warrants for Iranian officials suspected in the AMIA bombing.
-----------
VZCZCXYZ0000 
OO RUEHWEB 
DE RUEHBU #0592 1392245 
ZNY CCCCC ZZH 
O 192245Z MAY 09 
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3744 
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE 
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 0051 
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 1896 
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC 
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC 
RHMCSUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC 
RHMFISS/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC 
RHMFISS/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC 
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000592 
SIPDIS 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/19/2029 
TAGS: PTER [Terrorists and Terrorism], PREL [External Political Relations], ASEC [Security], MASS [Military Assistance and Sales], 
PHUM [Human Rights], SNAR [Narcotics], KJUS [Administration of Justice], IR [Iran], 
LE [Lebanon], AR [Argentina] 
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: AMIA SPECIAL PROSECUTOR READY TO ANNOUNCE INDICTMENT OF AMIA BOMBING SUSPECT 

REF: BUENOS AIRES 0247 AND PREVIOUS 
Classified By: Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). 
¶1. (C) Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman called on the Ambassador May 19 to notify us that the following day he would ask Judge Rodolfo Canicoba-Corral to indict a new suspect in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA). Nisman described his painstaking effort to establish the suspect's links to both the environs of the AMIA site, a mosque in Buenos Aires, and his links via cell phone calls to Iranian diplomat and bomb plot suspect Mohsen Rabbani and a cell phone in the Tri-Border Area registered in the name of "Marques." Although the suspect, Samuel Salman El Reda, is Lebanese-Colombian, Nisman considered this a first step against a "local connection" -- that is a resident or Argentine citizen who had helped the Iranian and other suspects, a connection long of interest to the victims of the attack and AMIA. Nisman said El Reda has an Argentine wife and thought both are now living in Lebanon. 
¶2. (C) Nisman described the indictment of El Reda as a substantial breakthrough and as asked that we closely hold his name until it is made public, probably on May 20. Post notes that El Reda has been named in the past as a suspect in the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA bombing, based in part on investigations by the Argentine intelligence service (SIDE) and others. For Nisman, the breakthrough appears to be that he has pieced together enough evidence independently of the discredited first AMIA investigation to single out El Reda and pursue the indictment. 
¶3. (SBU) Post will report further on local reaction when the indictment is made public. 
¶4. (SBU) Action request: Nisman said that he will be in Washington June 15-20 and would be available to visit the Department of State or Department of Justice or other USG agencies for briefings. Washington offices are asked to contact Poloff Ted Craig by email (craigtj@state.gov) or phone (54 11-5777-4858) to arrange a meeting. 
WAYNE
***********

The alleged arrest warrant for Kirchner and Timerman was supposedly drafted by Nisman in June 2014. Two successive judges, Ariel Lijo and Daniel Refecas have passed on considering Nisman's case against Kirchner due to lack of evidence and other procedural issues. 





The alleged Argentine prosecutorial arrest warrant for Kirchner, Timerman, and National Deputy Andres Larroque has the same neocon "taint" about it as did the forged Niger government and Iraqi Oil Ministry documents. The neocons' stock-in-trade, thanks to the sometimes half-witted efforts of their Mossad allies, include crude forgeries, fake passports, and fake videos and photographs.



   
Forged Niger Foreign Ministry documents purprting to show that Iraq had obtained yellow cake uranium Niger. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the CIA determined the documents were crude forgeries.


British MP George Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz were used by the neocons to intimate that he had received bribes from Saddam's government as part of the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. Crudely forged documents, with "Liquid Paper" edits clearly visible were "found" by Western intelligence at the Oil Ministry and used to tarnish anti-war Western politicians in Britain, France, Russia, and other countries.

The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America

by James Petras / September 1st, 2010

Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government and the activities of local Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders.

There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix). The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes. Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history.¹ New heavily funded Zionist projects designed to capture young Jews and turn them into instruments of Israeli foreign policy includes “Taglit-Birthright” which has spent over $250 million dollars over the past decade sending over a quarter-million Jews (between 18-26) to Israel for 10 days of intense brainwashing.² Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill. The students are subject to a heavy dose of Israeli style militarism as they are accompanied by Israeli soldiers as part of their indoctrination; at no point do they visit the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem.² They are urged to become dual citizens and even encouraged to serve in the Israeli armed forces. In summary, the 52 member organizations of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations which we discuss are only the tip of the iceberg of the Zionist Power Configuration: taken together with the PACs, the propaganda mills, the commercial and University presses and mass media we have a matrix of power for understanding the tremendous influence they have on US foreign and domestic policy as it affects Israel and US Zionism.

While all their activity is dedicated first and foremost in ensuring that US Middle East policy serves Israel’s colonial expansion in Palestine and war aims in the Middle East, what B’nai B’rth euphemistically calls a “focus on Israel and its place in the world”, many groups ‘specialize’ in different spheres of activity. For example, the “Friends of the Israel Defense Force” is primarily concerned in their own words “to look after the IDF”, in other words provide financial resources and promote US volunteers for a foreign army (an illegal activity except when it involves Israel). Hillel is the student arm of the Zionist power configuration claiming a presence in 500 colleges and universities, all affiliates defending each and every human rights abuse of the Israeli state and organizing all expenses paid junkets for Jewish student recruits to travel to Israel where they are heavily propagandized and encouraged to ‘migrate’ or become ‘dual citizens’.
Method: Studying Zionist Power:

There are several approaches for measuring the power of the combined Zionist organizations and influential occupants of strategic positions in government and the economy. These include (a) reputational approach (b) self claims (c) decision-making analysis (d) structural inferences. Most of these approaches provide some clues about Zionist potential power. For example, newspaper pundits and journalists frequently rely on Washington insiders, congressional staff and notables to conclude that AIPAC has the reputation for being one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. This approach points to the need to empirically examine the operations of AIPAC in influencing Congressional votes, nomination of candidates, defeating incumbents who do not unconditionally support the Israeli line. In other words analyzing the Congressional and Executive decision-making process is one key to measuring Zionist power. But it is not the only one. Zionist power is a product of a historical context, where media ownership and wealth concentration and other institutional levers of power come into play and shape the current decision-making framework. Cumulative power over time and across institutions creates a heavy bias in the political outcomes favorable to Israel’s organized agents in America. Once again the mere presence of Jews or Zionists in positions of economic, cultural and political power does not tell us how they will use their resources and whether they will have the desired effect. Structural analysis, the location of Zionists in the class structure, is necessary but not sufficient for understanding Zionist power. One has to proceed and analyze the content of decisions made and not made regarding the agenda of Israel’s backers operating in the USA. The 52 major Zionists organizations are very open about their claims to power, their pursuit of Israel’s agenda and their subservience to each and every Israeli regime.

Those who deny Zionist power over US Mid East foreign policy are left-Zionists namely Noam Chomsky and his acolytes. They never analyze the legislative process, executive decision-making, the structures and activity of the million member Zionist grassroots and the appointments and background of key policy makers deciding strategic policies in the Middle East. Instead they resort to superficial generalizations and political demagogy, imputing policy to “Big Oil” and the “military-industrial complex” or “US imperialism”. Categories devoid of empirical content and historical context about real existing policy making regarding the Middle East.

The Making of Zionist Power in the US Government

To understand US submission to Israeli war policies in the Middle East one has to look beyond the role of lobbies pressuring Congress and the role of political action committees and wealthy Zionist campaign contributions. A much neglected but absolutely essential building block of Zionist power over US foreign economic, diplomatic and military policy is the Zionist presence in key policy positions, including the Departments of Treasury and State, the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the White House.

Operating within the top policymaking positions, Zionist officials have consistently pursued policies in line with Israel’s militarist policies, aimed at undermining and eliminating any country critical of the Jewish States’ colonial occupation of Palestine, its regional nuclear monopoly, its expansion of Jews only settlements and above all its strident efforts to remain the dominant power in the Arab East. The Zionist policymakers in Government are in constant consultation with the Israeli state, ensuring coordination with the Israeli military (IDF) command, its Foreign Office and secret police (MOSSAD) and compliance with the Jewish State’s political line. Over the past 24 months not a single Zionist policymaker has voiced any criticism of Israel’s most heinous crimes, ranging from the savaging of Gaza to the massacre of the humanitarian flotilla and the expansion of new settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank. A record of loyalty to a foreign power which even exceeds the subservience of the Stalinist and Nazi fellow travelers in Washington during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Zionist policymakers in strategic positions depend on the political backing and work closely with their counterparts in the “lobbies” (AIPAC) in Congress and in the national and local Jewish Zionist organizations. Many of the leading Zionist policymakers rose to power through a deliberate strategy of infiltrating the government to shape policy promoting Israel’s interest over and above the interests of the US populace. While a degree of cohesion resulting from a common allegiance to Tel Aviv can account for suspected nepotism and selection, it is also the case that the powerful Jewish lobbies can play a role in creating key positions in Government and ensuring that one of their own will occupy that position and pursue Israel’s agenda.

Stuart Levey: Israel’s Foremost Operative in the US Government

In 2004, AIPAC successfully pressured the Bush Administration to create the office of Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (UTFI) and to name its protégé Princeton graduate Stuart Levey to that position. Before, but especially after his appointment, Levey was in close collaboration with the Israeli state and was known as an over the top Zionist zealot with unbounded energy and blind worship of the Israeli state.

Within the confines of his Zionist ideological blinders, Levey applied his intelligence to the singular task of turning his office into the major foreign policy venue for setting US policy toward Iran. Levey more than any other appointed official in government or elected legislator, formulates and implements policies which profoundly influence US, European Union and UN economic relations with Iran. Levey elaborated the sanctions policies, which Washington imposed on the EU and the Security Council. Levey, organizes the entire staff under his control at Treasury to investigate trade and investment policies of all the world’s major manufacturing, banking, shipping, petroleum and trading corporations. He then criss-crosses the US and successfully pressures pension funds, investment houses, oil companies and economic institutions to disinvest from any companies dealing with Iran’s civilian economy. He has gone global, threatening sanctions and blackballing dissident companies in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America which refuse to surrender economic opportunities. They all understood Levey operated at the behest of Israel, services Levey has proudly performed.

Levey coordinates his campaign with Zionist leaders in Congress. He secures sanctions legislation in line with his campaigns. His policies clearly violate international law and national sovereignty, pressing the limits of extra territorial enforcement of his administrative fiats against a civilian economy. His violation of economic sovereignty parallels Obama’s announcement that US Special Forces would operate in violation of political sovereignty on four continents. For all intents and purposes, Levey makes US policy toward Iran. At each point he designs the escalation of sanctions, and then passes it on to the White House, which shoves it down the throats of the Security Council. Once new sanctions approved by Levey and staff are in place they are there to enforce them: identifying violators and implementing penalties. Treasury has become an outpost of Tel Aviv. Not a single leftist, liberal or social democratic publication highlights the role of Levey or even the terrible economic pain this Old Testament fanatic is inflicting on 75 million Iranian civilian workers and consumers. Indeed like Israel’s Judeo-fascist rabbis who preach a “final solution” for Israel’s enemies, Levey announces new and harsher “punishment” against the Iranian people.³ Perhaps at the appropriate moment the Jewish State will name a major avenue through the West Bank for his extraordinary services to this most unholy racist state.

The Strategic Role of Local Power

The Israel Lobby Archive recently released declassified documents of the American Zionist Council (AZC) subpoenaed during a US Senate investigation between 1962-63. The documents reveal how the Israeli state through its American Jewish conduits – the mainstream Zionist organizations – penetrated the US mass media and propagated its political line, unbeknownst to the American public. Stories written by a host of Jewish Zionist journalists and academics were solicited and planted in national media such as The Readers Digest, The Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post among others, including regional and local newspapers and radio stations.⁴ While the national Zionist organizations procured the journalists and academic writers and editors, it was the local affiliates who carried the message and implemented the line. The level of infiltration the Senate subpoenaed Zionist documents in the 1960’s reveal has multiplied a hundred fold over the past 50 years in terms of financing, paid functionaries and committed militants and above all in structural power and coercive capability.

While the national leaders in close consultation with Israeli officials receive instructions on which issues are of high priority, the implementation follows a vertical route to regional and local leaders, politicians, and notables who in turn target the local media and religious, academic and other opinion leaders. When national leaders ensure publication of pro Israeli propaganda, the locals reproduce and circulate it to local media and non-Zionist influentials on their “periphery”. Letter campaigns orchestrated at the top are implemented by thousands of militant Zionist doctors, lawyers and businesspeople. They praise pro-Israel scribes and attack critics; they pressure newspapers, publishing houses and magazines not to publish dissidents. The national and local leaders promote hostile reviews of books not promoting the Israeli line, influence library decisions to pack their shelves with pro Israeli books and censor and exclude more balanced or critical histories. Local militants in co-ordination with Israeli consuls saturate the public with thousands of public meetings and speakers targeting Christian churches, academic audiences and civic groups; at the same time local Zionist militants and, especially millionaire influentials, pressure local venues (university administrators, church authorities and civic associations) to disinvite any critic of Israel and their supporters from speaking. In the last resort, local Zionists demand that a pro-Israel propagandist be given equal time, something unheard of when an Israel apologist is scheduled to speak.

Local Zionist organizations make yeoman efforts to recruit mayors, governors, local celebrities, publishers, church people and promising young ethnic and minority leaders by offering them all expenses paid propaganda junkets to Israel and then to write or give interviews parroting what they were fed by Israeli officials. Local leaders mobilize thousands of militant activist Zionists to attack anti-Zionist Jews in public and private. They demand they be excluded from any media roundtables on the Middle East.

Local Zionist functionaries form rapid response committees to visit and threaten any local publisher and editorial staff publishing editorials or articles questioning the Israeli party line. Local leaders police (“monitor”) all local meetings, speaker invitations, as well as the speeches of public commentators, religious leaders and academics to detect any “anti-Zionist overtones’ (which they label “covert anti-Semitism”). Most of the major Jewish religious orders are lined up as the clerical backbone of local Israeli fundraising, including the financing of new “Jews only” settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.

Local functionaries are in the forefront of campaigns to deny independent Middle East specialists and public policy academics, appointments, tenure or promotion, independently of the quality of their scholarship. On the other hand, academic hacks who toe the pro-Israel line, by publishing books with blanket attacks on Israeli critics among Christians and Muslims and countries like Turkey, Iran or whoever is a target of Israeli policy, are promoted, lauded and put on the best seller list. Any book or writer critical of Zionist Power or Israel is put on a local and national ‘index’ and subject to an inquisition by slander from a stable of Jewish Torquemadas.

Conclusion

The power of Israel in the US does not reside only in the influence and leadership of powerful Washington based “pro-Israel lobbies”, like AIPAC. Without the hundreds of thousands of militant locally based dentists, podiatrists, stockbrokers, real estate brokers, professors and others, the “lobby” would be unable to sustain and implement its policy among hundreds of millions of Americans outside the major metropolises. As we have seen from the Senate declassified documents, over a half-century ago, local Zionist organizations began a systematic campaign of penetration, control and intimidation that has reached its pinnacle in the first decade of the 21st century. It is no accident or mere coincidence that University officials in Northern Minnesota or upstate New York are targeted to exclude speakers or fire faculty members critical of Israel. Local Zionists have computerized databanks operating with an index of prohibited speakers, as the Zionists themselves admit and flaunt in contrast to “liberal” Zionists who are prone to label as “anti-Semitic” or “conspiracy theorists” writers who cite official Zionist documents demonstrating their systematic perversion of our democratic freedoms.

Over the decades, the distinction between Zionist power exercised by a “lobby” outside the government and operatives “inside” the government has virtually vanished. As we have seen, in our case study, AIPAC secured the undersecretary position in Treasury, dictated the appointment of a key Zionist operative (Stuart Levey) and accompanies his global crusade to sanction Iran into starvation and destitution. The planting of operatives within key Middle East positions in government is not the simple result of individual career choices. The ascent of so many pro-Israel Zionist to government posts is part of their mission to serve Israel’s interest at least for a few years of their careers. Their presence in government precludes any Senate or Congressional investigations of Zionists organizations acting as agents of a foreign power as took place in the 1960’s.

As the major Zionist organizations and influentials have accumulated power and abused the exercise of power on behalf of an increasingly bloody racist state, which flaunts its dominance over US institutions, public opposition is growing. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is gaining strength even in the US (see Harvard divestment in Israeli companies). US public support for Israel, by all measures, has dropped below 50%, while polls in Western Europe show a marked increase in hostility to Israel’s ultra-rightist regime. Anti-Zionist Jews are growing in influence especially among young Jews who are appalled by the Israeli slaughter in Gaza and assault on the humanitarian flotilla. Equally important the presence of anti-Zionist Jews on panels and forums has given courage to many otherwise intimidated non-Jews who heretofore were fearful of being labeled “anti-Semitic”.

The Zionist power configuration rests on a declining population base: most young Jews marry outside the confines of the ethno-religious Jewish-Israeli nexus and many of them are not likely to form the bases for rabid campaigns on behalf of a racist state. The Zionist leadership’s high intensity and heavily endowed effort to fence in young people of Jewish ancestry via private schools, subsidized “summer programs” in Israel etc. are as much out of fear and recognition of the drift away from clerical chauvinism as it is an attempt to recruit a new generation of Israel First militants.

The danger is that the US Zionist support for the ultra-rightist and racist regime in Israel is leading them to join forces with the far right in the US. Today Jewish and Christian Manhattan rednecks are fermenting mass Islamic hatred (the so called “Mosque controversy”) as a distraction from the economic crises and rising unemployment. Zionist promotion of mass Islamofobia, so near to Wall Street, where many of their fat cats who profit from plundering the assets of America operate, is a dangerous game. If the same enraged masses turn their eyes upward toward the wealthy and powerful instead of downward to blacks and Muslims, some unpleasant and unanticipated surprises might rebound against, not only Israel’s operatives, but all those wrongly identified as related to a misconstrued Jewish Motherland.

Appendix
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Member Organizations

1. Ameinu
2. American Friends of Likud
3. American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
4. America-Israel Friendship League
5. American Israel Public Affairs Committee
6. American Jewish Committee
7. American Jewish Congress
8. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
9. American Sephardi Federation
10. American Zionist Movement
11. Americans for Peace Now
12. AMIT
13. Anti-Defamation League
14. Association of Reform Zionists of America
15. B’nai B’rith International
16. Bnai Zion
17. Central Conference of American Rabbis
18. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
19. Development Corporation for Israel/State of Israel Bonds
20. Emunah of America
21. Friends of Israel Defense Forces
22. Hadassah, Women’s Zionist Organization of America
23. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
24. Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
25. Jewish Community Centers Association
26. Jewish Council for Public Affairs
27. The Jewish Federations of North America
28. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
29. Jewish Labor Committee
30. Jewish National Fund
31. Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
32. Jewish War Veterans of the USA
33. Jewish Women International
34. MERCAZ USA, Zionist Organization of the Conservative Movement
35. NA’AMAT USA
36. MCSK” Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia
37. National Council of Jewish Women
38. National Council of Young Israel
39. ORT America
40. Rabbinical Assembly
41. Rabbinical Council of America
42. Religious Zionists of America
43. Union for Reform Judaism
44. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
45. United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
46. WIZO
47. Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
48. Women of Reform Judaism
49. Workmen’s Circle
50. World ORT
51. World Zionist Executive, US
52. Zionist Organization of America

1. Financial Times book review section August 28/29 2010. [↩]
2. Boston Globe August 26, 2010. [↩] [↩]
3. Stuart Levey, “Iran’s New Deceptions at Sea Must be Punished” FT 8/16/2010, p. 9. [↩]
4. Israel Lobby Archive, August 18, 2010. [↩]

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press, 2008). He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.

The Zionization of Disaster Relief

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Didn’t know there was anything particularly Zionist about providing disaster relief? You learn something new every day. This is a story of exploiting the suffering of poor, defenseless Haitians on behalf of Israeli triumphalism.

A baby named Israel...who, if he reaches adulthood, would never be welcome in Israel (IDF)

Sol Salbe translated an eye-opening column from Yediot by an Israeli doctor who was an integral member of all Israeli international disaster response teams until recently. Then he made the mistake of writing a mildly critical statement about Israeli disaster relief efforts. As a result, he was relieved of his obligation for further IDF service and further participation in the disaster relief program. The op ed is so revealing (and not yet available online in English) I’m going to quote large sections. An explanatory note–at Israel’s Haiti field hospital, they delivered what the Israeli PR flacks called “the first baby since the earthquake.” The medical staff urged the woman to name her baby “Israel” and she was only to eager to oblige. Another Israeli PR coup!

Public Relations instead of saving lives

Sending portable toilets to Haiti would have been a better option, but this does not provide good photo opportunities. Israeli missions to disaster areas in the past have shown that such activity was in vain.

Yoel Donchin

I received my final exemption from the army after I published an article which said that the State of Israel acts like the proverbial Boy Scout, who insists on doing a good deed daily and helping an old lady cross the road even against her will. How ungrateful of me to publish such a column when I had participated in almost all the rescue missions to overseas disaster areas! Suddenly I am no longer suitable to take part in such heroic endeavours. But in light of the experience I gained in such missions…we have wasted our effort.

Generally speaking, we start preparing for such a mission within hours of the announcement of a natural disaster. Most often the Israeli mission team is the first one to land in the area. Like those who climb Mount Everest, it plants its flag on the highest peak available, announcing to all and sundry that the site has been conquered. And in order to ensure that the public is aware of this sporting achievement, the mission is accompanied by media representatives, photographers, an IDF spokesman’s office squad and others.

I understood the purpose perfectly when the head of one of the delegations to a disaster zone was asked whether oxygen tanks and a number of doctors could be removed to make room for another TV network’s representatives with their equipment. (With unusual courage, the delegation head refused!)

The lesson learnt from the activities of those missions is that when there is a natural disaster, or when thousands of people are expelled from their homes by force, as happened in Kosovo, survivors may benefit from international assistance only if it responds to the region’s specific needs. Also assistance must be coordinated among the various aid agencies.

The competitive race to a disaster zone imposes a huge strain on the local health and administration authorities. Airports are clogged by transport planes unloading a lot of unnecessary but bulky equipment. Doctors and rescue organisations seek ways to utilise single carriageway roads and in fact they are a burden. The correct way to help is to send a small advance force to gauge the dimensions of the disaster…

Would they still call that child Israel?

Three components are crucial: shelter, water and food — these things are crucial in order to save the largest number of people. Water purification equipment, tents, basic food rations are needed. But they do lack the desired dramatic effect. If we went down that track we would miss out on seeing that child who was born with the assistance of our physicians. Most certainly, the excited mother wouldn’t give her child (who knows if he will ever reach a ripe old age?) the name Israel or that of the obstetrician or nurse. (Would he get citizenship because he was born in Israeli territory? There would be many opposed to that.) The drama is indeed classy, but its necessity is doubtful.

It being Israel, our current force contains a Kashrut supervisor, security personnel and more.

In the present disaster, which is of a more massive scale than anything we have encountered to date, the need is not so much for a field hospital but field, ie portable, toilets. There is more of a need for digging equipment to dig graves and sewage pipes.

A country which wants to provide humanitarian aid without concern for its media image should send whatever is required by the victims, and not whatever it wants to deliver. But would the evening news show the commander of the Israeli mission at the compound with 500 chemical toilets? Unlikely. It is much more media savvy to show an Israeli hospital, replete with stars of David and of course the dedicated doctors and nurses, dressed in their snazzy uniforms with an Israeli flag on the lapel.

…It is quite likely that financial assistance commensurate with Israel’s resources would be preferable to the enormous expense and complicated logistics involved in the maintenance of a medical unit in the field…

But apparently a minute of TV coverage is much more important…and in fact Israel is using disasters as [military] field training in rescue and medical care. After a fortnight, the mission will reportedly return to Israel. To be truly effective a field hospital needs to remain for two or three months, but that’s a condition that Israel cannot meet.

…It is only in the Israeli aid compound in Haiti that large signs carrying the donor country’s name hang for all to see.

Prof. Yoel Donchin is the director of the Patient Safety Unit at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem.
Translated by Sol Salbe, who directs the Middle East News Service for the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.

If after reading this you’re feeling either slightly soiled or angry, I urge you to perform a truly constructive, selfless act in reply to Israel’s self-promotional puffery. Make a gift to American Jewish World Service or Doctors Without Borders, who are each doing acts of mercy without thought of benefit to themselves or any narrow political movement. In fact, DWB’s flights of precious, desperately needed medical supplies have been repeatedly turned away by American forces controlling incoming air traffic, in favor of military equipment deemed needed for the occupation which seems to be taking shape there.

Somehow Israeli field hospitals and all their support equipment manage to get through this bottleneck. Could it be? Nah, I didn’t think so.

What is Anti-Semitism? (part of "The First Word War")

WRITTEN BY Anait Brutian

What is Anti-Semitism? Before attempting to answer the question, we must first define the word “Anti-Semite.” A dictionary definition describes Anti-Semitism as “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-semite). Also known as Judeophobia, the term is used to describe “prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture or religion” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism). The adjective “anti-Semitic” is used to describe a person “who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews” (Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000, Updated in 2009), or “having or showing a strong dislike of Jewish people, or treating them in a cruel and unfair way” (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=93608). The noun “anti-Semite” is used to describe “an anti-Semitic person” (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=93608).

The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the term as “a modern word expressing antagonism to the political and social equality of Jews,” assigning its origins to the “ethnological theory that the Jews, as Semites, are entirely different from the Aryan, or Indo-European populations and can never be amalgamated with them” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8jl7YQ3). According to Jewish Encyclopedia, the word “Anti-Semitism” does not imply opposition on account of religion but “on account of … racial characteristics,” such as “greed, a special aptitude for money-making, aversion to hard work, clannishness and obtrusiveness, lack of social tact, and especially of patriotism” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8jl7YQ3). Outlining the history of the term, the Jewish Encyclopedia ascertains that the word was first printed in 1880 (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b8uZ0yFX) but acknowledges the difficulty of tracing its first use. What appeared to have been employed in a philological sense in Franz Bopp’s (1791-1867) “Comparative Grammar,” later acquired a meaning imbued with ethnic characteristics (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b91hsaWJ). Christian Lassen (1800-76) was the first to draw a “picture of the Semites” as distinct from the Aryans. Ernest Renan (1823-92) came up with a theory of “inferiority of the Semites” – "The two words, which have served until now as a symbol for the progress of the human mind toward truth, science, and philosophy, were foreign to them." Renan credits the Aryans with all the “great military, political, and intellectual movements in the world's history,” while the Semites are credited with “the religious movements.” “The Semites have never had any comprehension of civilization in the sense in which we understand the word; they were at no time public-spirited. Intolerance was the natural consequence of their monotheism, which, if not imported from the Semitic world, would have remained foreign to the Aryans, who were impressed with the variety of the universe. The Jewish people, while not progressive, claimed that the future was theirs; and this illogical position accounts for the hatred which eighteen centuries were unable to mitigate” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b9AA28Uz). Renan’s influence can be felt in an article published by Hellwald in 1872: "The Jews are not merely a different religious community, but – and this is to us the most important factor – ethnically an altogether different race. The European feels instinctively that the Jew is a stranger who immigrated from Asia. The so-called prejudice is a natural sentiment. Civilization will overcome the antipathy against the Israelite who merely professes another religion, but never that against the racially different Jew. The Jew is cosmopolitan, and possesses a certain astuteness which makes him the master of the honest Aryan. In Eastern Europe the Jew is the cancer slowly eating into the flesh of the other nations. Exploitation of the people is his only aim. Selfishness and lack of personal courage are his chief characteristics; self-sacrifice and patriotism are altogether foreign to him" (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1603#4621#ixzz0b9HQtXQv).

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern Zionism, had experienced anti-Semitism first hand – he had seen the Parisian mob demanding the death of Dreyfus in 1895, and had heard the cheers of the middle-class Viennese that greeted the election victory of anti-Semitic Karl Lueger the same year (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). But Herzl failed to recognize the huge Gentile support for Dreyfus: the intellectuals of France with Emile Zola at the forefront, rallied behind Dreyfus, the right wing of the French society, the army, the clergy were discredited, and anti-Semitism was defeated. Instead of seizing the moment and mobilizing support for Dreyfus, Herzl, the most famous journalist in Vienna, used it as an opportunity to further the idea that “anti-Semitism could not be Beaten” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html) and the World Zionist Organization did not combat it. The very first entry of Herzl’s “new Zionist Diary” contains the following statement: “In Paris … I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). Karl Lueger's success in Vienna was used to develop a “pragmatic strategy of non-resistance to anti-Semitism coupled with emigration of a portion of the Jews to a Jewish state-in-the-making” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). While the Habsburg Emperor refused to confirm Karl Lueger in office – 8 per cent of the generals, considered the most loyal supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were Jews – Herzl favoured the confirmation. On November 3, 1895 he met the Prime Minister Count Casimir Badeni and told him to “accommodate Lueger” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).

A similar logic underlined the cooperation between Zionists and the new Nazi regime in mid-1930s. The ideological similarities between the two – “the contempt for liberalism,” the racism and the strong belief that “Germany could never be the homeland of its Jews” – convinced the Zionists to solicit the patronage and support of Adolf Hitler repeatedly after 1933 (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). Two months after Hitler’s rise to power on January 30, 1933, Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS and Kurt Tuchler, an executive of the ZVfD visited Palestine on the condition that upon his return the Baron would write a pro-Zionist article for the Nazi press (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). Rabbi Joachim Prinz’ comments of 1937 describe the “Zionist mood in the first months of 1933” and allude to a memorandum sent to the Nazi Party by the ZVfD on June 21, 1933: “Everyone in Germany knew that only the Zionists could responsibly represent the Jews in dealings with the Nazi government. We all felt sure that one day the government would arrange a round table conference with the Jews, at which – after the riots and atrocities of the revolution had passed – the new status of German Jewry could be considered. The government announced very solemnly that there was no country in the world which tried to solve the Jewish problem as seriously as did Germany. Solution of the Jewish question? It was our Zionist dream! We never denied the existence of the Jewish question! Dissimilation? It was our own appeal!” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).

The memorandum, unknown until 1962, was printed in German in Israel. It reveals the similarities between the Nazi and Zionist ideologies and the extent of collaboration between the two parties: “May we therefore be permitted to present our views, which, in our opinion, make possible a solution in keeping with the principles of the new German State of National Awakening and which at the same time might signify for Jews a new ordering of the conditions of their existence … An answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral renewal of Jewry… a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values … On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible… Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we, too, are against mixed marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group … The national distancing which the state desires would thus be brought about easily as the result of an organic development … For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews, because in dealing with the Jewish question no sentimentalities are involved but a real problem whose solution interests all peoples, and at the present moment especially the German people … Our observations, presented herewith, rest on the conviction that, in solving the Jewish problem according to its own lights, the German Government will have full understanding for a candid and clear Jewish posture that harmonizes with the interests of the state.” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html).

Speaking in the name of “self-conscious Jewry,” the Zionists acknowledged sharing the Nazi ideal of the “foundation of the new state” that had established the “principle of race.” The “principle of race” was at the heart of anti-Semitism. Yet, this fact did not discourage collaboration. Quite the contrary, the Zionists not only encouraged it – “we, too, are against mixed marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group” – but offered their cooperation – “We believe in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty between a group-conscious Jewry and the German state …” – and full support to a “government fundamentally hostile to Jews” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). The memorandum, “a treason to the Jews of Germany,” emphasized the level of collaboration between the Zionists and the Nazis, all in the name of a Jewish state. As for Hitler’s overt anti-Semitism, expressed in Mein Kampf, the Zionists had inherited Herzl’s conviction “that anti-Semitism could not be fought” (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.html). Besides, given their support for the Nazi “principle of race,” one can ascertain that the Zionist ideologies were not different from those of the Nazis. However, in recent years, dating from the 1967 Six-Day War, the term “anti-Semite” is used to discredit critics of the policies of the Zionist state (Gates, 124) and “to misdirect and intimidate” (Gates, xvi) those who seek the truth. These charges must vehemently be denied and people who believe in the validity of the charges must be given the chance to understand how they, unwillingly as it seems, have become reluctant participants and victims of a Zionist “Nationalistic Religious Orgy” (http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/print/4755/), a brainwash and propaganda apparatus that hides the truth from the population. Thus non-Jews who disagree with the agenda of Colonial Zionism are branded “anti-Semitic,” and dissenting Jews that deviate from the pro-Zionist “party-line” are smeared pejoratively as self-hating Jews (Gates, 124). Fuelling charges of anti-Semitism against anyone opposing Tel Aviv’s “land grab,” deemed lawful by the Jewish fundamentalists (Gates, 127), has become a strategic method of suppressing the opposition to Israel’s new colonialism. The aggressive strategy of “discredit[ing], isolat[ing], ostraciz[ing] or marginaliz[ing] anyone critical of Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies” (Gates, 127) proves to be an “effective” method of censorship – the fear of a smear campaign keeps many quiet – undermining a fundamental right to Free Speech.

The policy of silencing the critics follows a well-know pattern: the attacker usually starts with mentioning the “right to free speech” while attempting to hush the critic (Gates, 127). Norman Finkelstein’s 2005 book Beyond Chutzpah – The Misuse of Anti-Semitism caused Zionists “to hit the panic button” (Gates, 127). A Harvard-Zionist Professor Alan Dershowitz, whose book Chutzpah was the center of an extended critique by Norman Finkelstein, in a typical Zionist manner, attempted to halt the publication of Finkelstein’s “controversial book on Israel” (Gates, 253). At the age of 55, after teaching for six years at Chicago’s DePaul University, Finkelstein was denied tenure. His application had been approved at the departmental and college level but the Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences opposed it. Finkelstein accused Dershowitz of meddling in the tenure proceedings, and Dershowitz admitted sending a letter to the DePaul Faculty members, lobbying against Finkelstein’s tenure (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ENawcSliA&feature=related). At the end of the day, the University succumbed to the pressure exercised by Jewish organizations and Alan Dershowitz. To use Noam Chomsky’s words, Dershowitz had declared a “jihad against Finkelstein (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBclWDYuoxI&feature=related) that despite the latter’s outstanding scholarly credentials, cost him a tenure.

Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid published by Simon & Schuster on November 14, 2006, met with a barrage of criticism (see Carter’s defence of the book and the ideas contained therein in President Jimmy Carter Pounds Israelhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDKw0f95k7Q&feature=related). Abraham Foxman of ADL charged Carter, a supporter of the State of Israel and the sponsor of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace process, with anti-Semitism and Martin Peretz of the New Republic wrote: “[Carter] will go down in history as a Jew-hater” (Gates, 127). Similarly, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), an AIPAC media watchdog, bought full-page ads in The New York Times inciting readers to complain to the publisher about the new Carter book (Gates, 127). After the publication of the book, Alan Dershowitz made the following comment: “Jimmy Carter has literally become such an anti-Israel bigot that there’s a kind of special place in Hell reserved for somebody like that” (Alan Dershowitz Blasts President Jimmy Carter on Shalom TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FscSs-_IL0&feature=related).

Judge Richard Goldstone, an internationally respected jurist that headed the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, was assaulted by various leaders of the Jewish community and labelled an anti-Semite (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371) despite his impeccable credentials. He served as chair of the commission that investigated the crimes of the security forces during the apartheid regime in South Africa. He was the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/6006-gazas-goldstone-on-the-backseat). He is a member of the governing board of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/war-crimes-white-wash) and a life-long supporter of Israel (http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/6006-gazas-goldstone-on-the-backseat). The accusation is not only inconsistent with his heritage but also with the fact that he was a member of the International Panel, established in 1997 to investigate the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371). Nevertheless, in the eyes of those who choose to turn a blind eye to the inhuman treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Goldstone is a traitor that qualifies for the label “self-hating Jew,” if not for the warn-out version: “anti-Semite.”

Noam Chomsky, a renowned American linguist, philosopher, author, political activist and a key left-wing intellectual has been criticized for his views on Israeli policies. Dismissing Israel’s claims of self-defence (Noam Chomsky on the Israel-Palestine Conflict http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpw-h6WY8As&feature=related), Chomsky explained: “They [Israel] are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they’re crushing … You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying somebody else’s land. That’s not defense! Call it what you like. IT’S NOT DEFENCE! ” (Noam Chomsky on Israel's Policy of 'Self-Defense' – Palestine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SVaJLuNSo&feature=related).

In an interview on October 21, 2004 Amy Goodman of Democracy Now asked: “What do you say to those who call you anti-Semitic?” Noam Chomsky’s answer was as clear and logical as ever: “Depends who they are. If they're people like … [me] with a nice Jewish education … I’d tell them to read the Bible, where the concept is invented. It was used by King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible that calls … prophet Elijah – Elijah was what we would nowadays call a dissident intellectual, like most of the prophets were, giving geo-political analysis, calling for moral behaviour. He calls for Elijah, he says ‘why you are a hater of Israel’? What does that mean? You are criticizing me. I'm the king. I'm Israel. And therefore you're a hater of Israel. And that's what the concept means” (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041021.htm). Chomsky’s logic is based upon the principle of employing identical standards of evaluation when dealing with similar situations. Using the strategy of smearing the critics of a country’s policies would amount to charging Berlusconi’s critics with anti-Italianism, Bush’s critics with anti-Americanism, etc. “If you identify the country, the people, the culture with the rulers, accept the totalitarian doctrine, then … it's anti-Semitic to criticize the Israeli policy, and anti-American to criticize the American policy, and it was anti-Soviet when the dissidents criticized Russian policy. You have to accept deeply totalitarian assumptions not to laugh at this” (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041021.htm). Chomsky’s critic Alan Dershowitz sees things differently. Chomsky jokingly suggests that he, similar to Norman Finkelstein, probably is on Dershowitz’ “Hit List.” The comment has a tinge of irony but there is truth in it – for years, Chomsky admits, Dershowitz had produced “outlandish lies about him (Chomsky on Dershowitz' "jihad" against Finkelstein Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBclWDYuoxI&feature=related).

Chomsky is right in his analysis of King Ahab’s equation of his rule with Israel; the story comes to us from 1Kings 18:17. Elijah defies Ahab’s, thus also the State’s authority, but he does it in the name of God: “[36] O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I HAVE DONE ALL THESE THINGS AT YOUR BIDDING” (1Kings 18:36). And just like any other terrorist extremist, Elijah kills in the name of God: “[40] Elijah said to them [the Israelites], ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; DO NOT LET ONE OF THEM ESCAPE’. Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and KILLED THEM THERE” (1Kings 18:40).

All prophets of the Old Testament speak in the name of God, and the threats they utter stand as messages from God. Thus Hosea threatens Israel with exile: “[17] Because they have not listened to him, my God will reject them; they shall become wanderers among the nations” (Hosea 9:17). Jeremiah prophecies loss of land, property and servitude imposed as punishment: “[1] The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts … [3] … Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your sin throughout all your territory. [4] By your own act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever” (Jeremiah 17:1-4). Amos predicts disaster in the form of whole-sale massacre: “[1] Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: [2] Fallen, no more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to raise her up. [3] For thus says the Lord God: The city that marched out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which marched out a hundred shall have ten left” (Amos 5:1-3).

The words of Amos, a pre-exilic prophet from the time of King Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE), a period of territorial expansion and prosperity, ring true today. The wealthy in Amos reached prosperity through manipulation of debt and credit that gave rise to gross inequities between the ruling elite and the poor (NRSV, 1302 HB). “[7] Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!” (Amos 5:7). Small farmers lost their land and personal property and in many cases even their personal liberty (NRSV, 1302 HB), while the rich got richer: “[4] Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; [5] who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; [6] who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! [7] Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away” (Amos 6:4-7). Amos’ denouncement of the decadent opulence of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and his call to Justice is similar to the denouncement delivered by the modern critics of Israeli policies. Predictably, the reaction towards such criticisms essentially has remained the same: [10] They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth” (Amos 5:10).

The message delivered by the prophets in the name of God is ominous. There is war: “your sons, and daughters shall fall by the sword” (Amos 7: 17), “The sword is given to be polished … to be placed in the slayer’s hand … for… it is against all Israel’s princes; they are thrown to the sword, together with my people” (Ezekiel 20:11-12), destruction: “I will deliver up the city and all that is in it” (Amos 6:8), moral degradation: “Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city” (Amos 7:17), famine: “I will send a famine on the land” (Amos 8:11), exile: “Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land” (Amos 7: 17), “I will scatter them before the enemy” (Jeremiah 18:17), “And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes on them for harm and not for good” (Amos 9:4). But the promises of misfortune in Deuteronomy are graver than those of the prophets: “The Lord will send upon you disaster, panic, and frustration in everything you attempt to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly …” (Deuteronomy 28:20). Pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, ulcers, scurvy, itch, mildew, madness, confusion of mind, blindness, blight, barrenness of womb and of land, drought, hunger, thirst, siege of towns, military defeat before enemies, exile, servitude, continual abuse, robbery, nakedness, lack of everything are the punishments designed for Israel (Deuteronomy 28:15-52). A gruesome description of cannibalism is part of the threats: “[53] In the desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you. [54] Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children, [55] giving to none of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns. [56] She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter, [57] begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs, and the children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in your towns” (Deuteronomy 28: 53-57). Cannibalism resulting from siege is God’s ultimate weapon and as such it is also referred to in Leviticus 26:29, 2Kings 6:28-32, Jeremiah 19: 9, Lamentations 4:10, Ezekiel 5:10. In all instances God proudly displays this punishment delighting in its abhorrent nature: “[9] AND I WILL MAKE THEM EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR SONS AND THE FLESH OF THEIR DAUGHTERS, AND ALL SHALL EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR NEIGHBOURS in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them” (Jeremiah 19:9).

Reading these threats makes one wonder: is the God of the Hebrew Bible an anti-Semite? Or more properly, are the priests and scribes of the Second Temple – the writers of these texts – anti-Semitic? While because of the cultural-historical distance between the Second Temple Judaism and our own time these questions can be debated endlessly, we can affirm that the modern critics of Israeli policies are NOT anti-Semitic. Therefore, the charges of anti-Semitism must be rejected and exposed for what they are: “an attempt to deflect criticism from the actions of … Israeli government by declaring criticism of Israel out of bounds and invoking Europe's last great taboo – the fear of being declared an anti-Semite” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/17/1). The equation "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism" that has become the “new orthodoxy” has produced new ways of associating anti-Israel or anti-Zionist rhetoric with anti-Semitism (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020490.html). The study of serious anti-Semitism, presently “hijacked and debased by people lacking any serious expertise in the subject” (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020490.html), should, in reality, include the analysis of the dealing of the Zionists, who collaborated with the Nazi regime and were guilty of anti-Semitism by association. Next, it should deal with the Zionist State that ignores the guilt of the founders of Zionism, and is as guilty of anti-Semitism as the founders themselves.

Bibliography

Gates, Jeff. Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. Santa Barbara: State Street Publications, 2008.

The new Oxford Annotated Bible. Augmented Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.