Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation

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By James Petras*

The principle propaganda mouthpiece of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO), the Daily Alert (DA), has come out in full support for Israel's practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassination.

In the face of world-wide governmental condemnation (except from the Zionist-occupied White House and US Congress), the PMAJO slavishly backs any brutal murder committed by the Israeli secret police anywhere in the world and at anytime. The recent assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud Mabhouh, in Dubai is a case in point. The PMAJO has defended all of Mossad's criminal actions leading up to the murder, including extensive identity theft and the stealing or falsification of passports and official documents from several European countries, presumably allied to the Zionist state. Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, twelve agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens in order to commit murder in a sovereign nation.

Once again the PMAJO demonstrate that its first loyalty is to the Israeli secret police, even when they violate the sovereignty of major US allies. No doubt the PMAJO would readily support the Israeli Mossad, even if it were shown to have used U.S. documents to assassinate Mabhouh. In fact, two of the 26 Israeli assassins, carrying fake Irish and fake British passports, are known to have entered the United States after the killing and may still be here.

The position adopted by the Daily Alert and the PMAJO in defense of Israel's international terrorist act followed several lines of attack, which will be discussed below. These include: (1) blaming the victim, (2) claiming that extra-judicial, extra territorial murders are legal, (3) minimizing the murder of ‘one' individual, (4) deflecting attention from the Zionists by blaming ‘other Arab's, (5) favorably comparing Mossad assassinations to US killings in Afghanistan, (6) trivializing and relativizing world condemnation, (7) citing "self-defense", (8) praising the high tech ‘operational details' of the assassination and (9) discrediting the Dubai police investigators rather than the Israeli perpetrators.

Abridged articles, cited in the Daily Alert, have appeared in the op-ed pages of several US, UK, Canadian and Israeli newspapers, as well as in rightwing magazines like Forbes and Commentary. The mainline Zionist propaganda technique is to avoid any discussion of Israel's egregious crimes against sovereignty, due process, international law and the personal security of individuals. In doing so, the Daily Alert adopts the propaganda techniques common to all totalitarian regimes practicing state terrorism.

(1) Blaming the Victim

On February 22, the Daily Alert (DA) headlined two articles, which were entitled: "Killed Hamas Official betrayed by Associates says Dubai Police Chief" and "Hamas: Assassinated Operative put Himself at Risk". The DA forgot to mention that Israeli secret police had been tracking their prey for over a month (having failed to assassinate him on six previous attempts) and that the Dubai Police Chief was not blaming Hamas officials but was in the process of accumulating evidence, witness statements, videos and documents proving the Israeli identities of the assassins. Needless to say, if we were to accept the American Zionists' argument that any leading opponent of Israel, who travels without an army of bodyguards, is "putting himself at risk", then we must acknowledge that ours is a lawless world where Israeli hit squads are free to commit murder anywhere, any time.

(2) Extra-Judicial, Extra territorial Murder is "Legal" (At least if the killers are Mossad)

The February 22 and February 24 issues of the DA include two articles arguing that Israel's practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder is legal. One article is entitled, "The Legality of Killing of Hamas Mahmoud al Mabhoud" and the other, "The Proportionate Killing of Mahmoud al Mabhoud". These avoid any reference to international law, which emphatically rejects cross-border, state-sponsored murders. Legality, for the PMAJO, is whatever the Israel's secret police apparatus deems expedient in pursuit of its goal of eliminating leaders who oppose its colonial occupation and expropriation of Palestinian lands. If Israel's extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder of an adversary in Dubai is legal, why not assassinate opponents in the US, Canada, England or any other country where they might travel, live, work or write? What if the critics and opponents of Israel decided that it was now "legal" to murder Israel's supporters wherever they lived citing the Daily Alert's definition of legality? We would then find ourselves in a lawless world of "legal" murder and totalitarian cross-border surveillance.

(3) Minimizing the Murder

The Feb 22, 24, and 25 issues of the Daily Alert deflect attention from the Mossad murder by making comparison to the hundreds of Afghan civilians killed by US drone attacks. The claim is that "targeting individuals" is less a crime than mass killings. The problem with this argument is that for decades Mossad has "targeted" scores of opponents overseas and killed thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories (where they work with the domestic secret police, Shin Bet, and the military, IDF). Moreover, this argument linking Israel's extra judicial assassinations with US colonial killing of Afghans is hardly a defense of either. By implicating the US in its defense of state terror, Israel is holding up the worst aspects of American imperialism as a standard for its own political behavior. One state's crimes are no justification for another's.

(4) Blaming the Arabs: Deflecting Attention from Israel

The DA Feb. 22 article entitled "The Assassination Heard Around the World" insinuates that the murder was a "result of a Hamas power struggle" or by one of "many Arab groups who loathes the Islamist Hamas".

In other words, all the forged or stolen European passports of Israeli dual citizens, and the Dubai security videos of Mossad operatives in various costumes, not to mention the jubilant affirmation by top Israeli leaders of the killing, was in reality ‘Arab tricks'. This crude propaganda ploy by the most prominent Jewish American organization reveals their own descent into a fantasy land of self-delusion, possible only in the closed world of US Zionist politics.

(5) Technical Proficiency

The DA published several articles praising the technical details of the Mossad assassination in Dubai, an aspect of the operation, with which few Israel security experts would agree. The Feb. 24 DA article entitled, "Assassination Shows Skillful Planning" chastises Israel's critics for not recognizing the high quality of the "operational aspects" of the killings and recommends its "lessons for all intelligence services around the world". Like sociopaths and serial killers, US Zionists openly promote Israeli death squad techniques to all fellow state terrorists. In the DA, professional techniques of assassination are far more important than universal moral repugnance of political murders.

(6) Discrediting the Investigators While Defending the Perpetrators

The DA on Feb. 25 cited a long and tendentious attack on the Dubai police, published in Forbes Magazine, which ridiculed their meticulous investigations uncovering Mossad's roles in the murder. In this article, the Dubai authorities were condemned for uncovering Israeli involvement while not investigating the source of the murder victims' … Iraqi passport! Instead of encouraging the Dubai police pursuit of justice, the Daily Alert published a long diatribe implicating Dubai in the attacks of 9/11/2001, its continued trade with Iran, its ‘involvement' in international terrorism etc. There was no mention of Dubai's relatively friendly position to Israel and Israelis prior to Mossad's blatant violation of its sovereignty.

Conclusion

The American Zionist propaganda campaign in defense of Israeli state terror and, specifically, Mossad's murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai, relies on lies, evasions and specious legal arguments. This "defense" violates all precepts of a civilized society as well as the most recent American federal laws prohibiting all forms of support for international terrorism. The PMAJO can pursue its defense of Mossad's acts of international terrorism with impunity in the US because of its power over the US Congress, the Obama White House and the American mass media. This ensures that only its version of events, its definition of legality and its lies will be heard by legislators, echoed by Zionist activists and embellished by its solemn defenders in academic and journalistic circles. To counter the American Zionist defense of Israel's practice of extra-territorial, extra-judicial executions by the Mossad, we need American writers and academics to step forward. It is time to expose their flimsy arguments, bold-face lies and audacious immorality. It is time to speak out against their impunity, before another Israeli secret police murder takes place, possibly inside the USA itself and with the shameless complicity of Zionist accomplices.

The authorities in Dubai have found clear evidence that the Mossad assassination team received support from European Zionists. The hotels, air tickets and expenses were paid with credit cards issued in the US. Two of the killers may be in the US now. Will a time come when American Zionists, who are unconditional public defenders of Mossad killings, cross the line between propaganda for the deed to become accomplices of the deed? The robust American Zionist defense of Mossad's overseas assassinations does not augur well for the security of Americans in the face of Israel's willing U.S. accomplices.

* James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, New York, U.S., and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of 62 books and over 560 articles. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. He is winner of a Life Time Career Award of the American Sociology Association, Marxist Section.

Note: James Petras' latest books, Global Depression and Regional Wars (Atlanta, Clarity Press, 2009) is the third in a series, including Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel in the United States (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2006), analyzing the influence of militarism and Zionism in American foreign policy.

Jewish Victimology

Being a victim does not entitle any group to be insensitive to the suffering of others!

Hebrew original: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3703925,00.html

As victims, we’re allowed

Ariana Melamed

Mistakenly, we continue to believe that being historical victims completely frees us of the need to develop solidarity with humanity and of the duty to consecrate the living, not only the dead.

From one Holocaust Day to the next, one registers a worrisome rise in Israeli racism. Between one compulsory mourning siren and another, the official Israel flatly denies other holocausts and sells arms to countries that use them against civilians. The official daily command to remember those murdered during the Second World War will not prevent the soldier at the checkpoint from then abusing those who aren’t our citizens,. All the tours in Yad Vashem, even now that it is revamped and renovated, have evidently failed to have an impact on our society. We have apparently not learned that being children and relatives of victims does not justify our own injustices. Maybe it is too late for learning.

For too many years now we’ve been living within a false ethos of victimhood. In the name of those victims – those whose opinions were never sought – youths enshroud themselves in blue and white flags in Auschwitz and most of them immediately understand that a strong military is the key to our continued existence, but too few understand or question the benefit of such an army when our conscience is faltering.

For too many years we compelled the world to look at the horrors committed against the Jews. We made a visit to Yad Vashem obligatory for visiting dignitaries. We employed a sophisticated rhetoric that makes a connection between the Nazi and Iranian threats, between the Khmelnytsky-led pogroms and the Intifada, as though all these events – the actuality of which must never be underestimated – granted us a sweeping, almost automatic permit to mimic those nations we accuse of ignoring our victims; as though the Holocaust endowed us with exclusivity over suffering for all time.

As far as official Israel and most of its citizens are concerned, there are no other holocausts, and the arguments are always beautifully constructed: no regime in the history of humanity has made its aim to annihilate a whole people, nor has this ever been done with such monstrous efficiency. Therefore, when the Argentinean military regime wiped out tens of thousands of dissenters, official Israel said nothing; when villains in Cambodia slaughtered millions of their own people, this surely was no holocaust but an internal matter, and what’s happening in Darfur is something between Muslims anyway, while Rwanda – there are no Israelis in Rwanda. So there’s nothing to worry about. If they have an earthquake, we’ll send over crews with blankets.

The Armenian holocaust was not as sophisticated as the Nazi assembly-line of death, hence it is not worthy of attention either, particularly since our relationship with Turkey is more important than our clear conscience. Regarding the Tibetans, we really have nothing to say; this Dalai Lama is nice enough – but our amazing trade with China is much more advantageous than a denunciation, however weak and polite, of what was clearly genocide and the ongoing dispossession of millions of their land.

In the name of the dead

We are victims, so we are allowed: this is the immoral defiant assertion uttered in the Israeli discourse between one Holocaust Day and the next. We are victims of Arabs wherever they may be, so we shall also apply dollops of disgust and fear to Arab citizens of Israel as well. Why not? Such a manoeuvre is worth 15 electoral seats and an honoured place at the Israel government’s table.

We are victims, so when someone speaks of racism within, the horror is never real and is always placed in a totally foolish juxtaposition to the actions of the Nazis. No one remembers that those actions started with words. When no one is punished for calling an Ethiopian a “dirty nigger”; when soldiers can abuse Palestinians uninterrupted, knowing full well that their punishment will be, at worst, a rebuke; when a Jew massacres Arabs and his tombstone is consecrated with no one even contemplating removing the temple blockading his house. When the IDF showers Gazan civilians with molten lead, questions must not be asked in wartime and mistakes must not be admitted to. It is as if we are permitted to do so, because we were killed first.

On 9 May, sixty-four years will have passed since the Allies defeated the Nazis and freed the world. There were those who believed then that it was the last battle against murderous ideologies, but they were wrong. We continue to believe this mistake, and the even worse error, that our historical victimhood completely rids us of the need for human solidarity, of the duty to consecrate the living and not only the dead, and of the lesson that is as important as sovereignty and power: the duty to create a moral society that is sensitive to injustice.

For too many years we told ourselves that we do all this in the name and memory of the dead. This was too easy a lie. Would the dead and the survivors have rejected a more moral stance towards the world and the Other among us? Does the annual siren exempt us of the need to care for the Holocaust survivors, which is surely a more difficult matter than state-sponsored mourning, but no less important? Is the only thing the State can promise its citizens, as a real lesson from the Holocaust, is limitless military power – but not the knowledge that power alone will not be enough on a real day of reckoning?

A few years ago in a CNN broadcast dedicated to one of the periodic holocausts in Africa, a Baptist American priest stood before the camera holding a dead baby’s carrier. He said, “People ask where was God during Auschwitz and I want to know where was man.” And I want to know that this man, the man who possesses sufficient compassion to see the horror of others and know they are just like him, that this man is still among us. Perhaps.

[Translated from Hebrew by Keren Rubinstein.]

כקורבנות מותר לנו

אנחנו ממשיכים להחזיק בטעות בתפיסה שהיותנו קורבנות היסטוריים משחררת אותנו לגמרי מהצורך לפתח סולידריות אנושית, מהחובה לקדש את האדם החי ולא רק את הקורבן המת

פורסם:

20.04.09, 18:27

בין יום שואה למשנהו, נרשמת בישראל עליה מדאיגה בגזענות. בין צפירת אבל הכרחית לעוד צפירה, ישראל הרשמית מכחישה בפנים אטומות שואות של אחרים ומוכרת נשק למדינות שבהן מכוונים אותו נגד אזרחים. פקודת היום הרשמית לזכרם של הנרצחים במלחמת העולם השניה לא תמנע מן החייל במחסום את ההתעמרות הבאה במי שאינו אזרח, וכל הסיורים במוזיאון "יד ושם", אפילו המחודש והמשופץ, כנראה לא הועילו לנו כחברה: כנראה עדיין לא למדנו שהיותנו בנים וקרובים של קורבנות אינה מצדיקה את עוולותינו שלנו. אולי כבר מאוחר מדי ללמוד. שנים רבות מדי אנחנו חיים בתוך אתוס מזויף של קורבנות. בשמם של הקורבנות הללו – שלא נשאלו מעולם לדעתם – בני נוער מתעטפים בדגל כחול לבן באושוויץ ורובם מבינים מיד שצבא חזק הוא סוד קיומנו, אבל מעטים מדי מבינים או נשאלים, מה התועלת בצבא כזה כשהמצפון רופף. שנים רבות מדי הכרחנו את העולם להביט בזוועה שנעשתה ליהודים, אם בביקורי החובה של מנהיגים ביד ושם ואם ברטוריקה משוכללת שמחברת בין האיום הנאצי לאיראני, בין פרעות ת"ח ות"ט לאינתיפאדה, וכאילו כל אלה – שלעולם אין להקל ראש בממשיותם – נתנו לנו הכשר גורף, אוטומטי כמעט לנהוג כפי שנהגו האומות שהאשמנו אותן בהתעלמות מן הקורבנות שלנו: כאילו השואה העניקה לנו בלבדיות על הסבל, מאז ולתמיד. אין שואות אחרות, עד כמה שזה נוגע לישראל הרשמית ולרוב אזרחיה, והטיעונים תמיד מסודרים יפה: מעולם בהיסטוריה האנושית לא קם משטר ששם לעצמו מטרה לחסל את בניו של עם שלם, ומעולם לא נעשה הדבר ביעילות כה מפלצתית. לכן, כשמשטר הגנרלים בארגנטינה חיסל עשרות אלפי מתנגדים – ישראל הרשמית לא השמיעה קול, וכשנבלות בקמבודיה טבחו במליונים מבני עמם זו ודאי לא היתה שואה אלא ענין פנימי שכזה, ומה שקורה בדרפור זה ממילא ענין בין מוסלמים לבין עצמם, ורואנדה – אין ישראלים ברואנדה. אין מה לדאוג. אם תהיה להם רעידת אדמה, נשלח להם צוותים עם שמיכות. השואה הארמנית לא היתה פס ייצור משוכלל של הרג כמו זו של הנאצים, ולכן גם היא לא ראויה להתיחסות, מה גם שיחסינו עם תורכיה ודאי חשובים יותר מאשר מצפוננו. בענין הטיבטים, באמת אין לנו מה לומר, נחמד הדלאי למה הזה – אבל יחסי המסחר המדהימים שלנו עם סין מועילים הרבה יותר מגינוי, אפילו רפה ומנומס, של מה שהיה בעליל רציחת-עם ומה שעודנו נישול של מליונים מאדמתם. בשם המתים אנחנו קורבנות, ולכן מותר לנו: זו ההתרסה הלא-מוסרית איתה אנחנו מסתובבים בפרהסיה הישראלית בין יום שואה למשנהו. קורבנות של הערבים באשר הם, ולפיכך נחיל את אמות המידה של התיעוב והפחד גם על אזרחי ישראל הערבים. למה לא, המהלך הזה שווה 15 מנדטים בחירות ומקום של כבוד בממשלת ישראל. אנחנו קורבנות, ולכן כשמדברים על גזענות בתוכנו, החרדה לעולם אינה אמיתית ותמיד מועמדת בהשוואה מטומטמת לגמרי למעשי הנאצים. אף אחד אינו זוכר שהמעשים התחילו במלים. כשאיש אינו מעניש על הקריאה "כושי מלוכלך" כלפי אתיופי, כשחיילים יכולים להתעמר באין מפריע פלסטינים בידיעה ברורה שעונשם יהי נזיפה במקרה הגרוע, כשיהודי מבצע טבח בערבים מקדדים את מצבת הזכרון שלו ואיש לא עקר אותה או אטם את ביתו, כשצה"ל ממטיר עופרת יצוקה על אזרחים בעזה אין להעלות שאלות בזמן הקרב ואין להודות בטעויות. לנו כאילו כבר מותר, כי בנו הרגו קודם. 64 שנים ימלאו ב-9 במאי לניצחון של בעלות הברית על הנאצים ולשחרור העולם. היו מי שהאמינו אז כי זה הקרב האחרון נגד אידאלוגיות של רצח, והם טעו. אנחנו ממשיכים להחזיק בטעות הזאת ובטעות החמורה ממנה, שהיותנו קורבנות היסטוריים משחררת אותנו לגמרי מן הצורך לפתח סולידריות אנושית, מן החובה לקדש את האדם החי ולא רק את הקורבן המת, ומן הלקח החשוב בדיוק כמו ריבונות ועוצמה: החובה לבנות חברה מוסרית ורגישה לעוולות. אמרנו לעצמנו, שנים ארוכות מדי, שאת כל זה אנחנו עושים בשמם של מתים ולזכרם. השקר הזה היה קל מדי. האם המתים והשורדים כאחד היו בוחלים בעמדה מוסרית יותר שלנו כלפי העולם וכלפי האחר שבתוכנו? האם הצפירה החד שנתית משחררת אותנו מן הצורך לדאוג לניצולי השואה, שהוא ודאי עניין קשה יותר מסתם אבל ממלכתי, אבל חשוב לא פחות? האם כל מה שהמדינה יכולה להבטיח לאזרחיה, כלקח אמיתי מן השואה, הוא עוצמה צבאית חסרת גבולות – אבל לא ידיעה שהעוצמה לבדה לא תספיק, ביום פקודה אמיתי? חסרת גבולות – אבל לא ידיעה שהעוצמה לבדה לא תספיק, ביום פקודה אמיתי? לפני שנים אחדות, בשידור של סי.אן.אן שהוקדש לאחת מן השואות התקופתיות באפריקה, התייצב כומר בפטסטי אמריקני מול המצלמה ובידיו ערסל תינוק מת. הוא אמר, "אנשים שאולים איפה היה אלוהים באושוויץ, ואני רוצה לדעת איפה היה האדם". ואני רוצה לדעת כי האדם הזה, האדם שיש בו די חמלה לראות בזוועתם של אחרים ולדעת שהם בדיוק כמוהו – האדם הזה עודנו מצוי בינינו. אולי.