Friday, August 20, 2010
Declassified Senate Investigation Files Reveal Clandestine Israeli PR Campaign in America
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Israel lobby gets its man—and tips its hand.
Charles Freeman Jr.’s withdrawal of his acceptance of a high-level intelligence position in the Obama administration was a national-security drama more riveting than an episode of “24.” The moral was clear: even a president who owes his job to a progressive movement in American politics could not support a longtime public servant who had made the mistake of criticizing Israel. Fierce advocates of the Jewish state, notably Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman and Reps. Eric Cantor and Steve Israel, played important roles in Freeman’s exit, while present and former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee flitted in and out of the wings.
The message to all office-seekers is obvious. “They want to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. They want other people to be intimidated,” Freeman told The American Conservative just before he withdrew his name to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He went on, “If the administration does not stick with me, then it’s destroying the argument that the Israel lobby is only a mythic entity and does not control the public space. … It will show the world that it is not able to exercise independent thinking on these issues.”
If there was encouraging news in the administration’s collapse, there it was. When Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair announced Freeman’s withdrawal late on the afternoon of March 10, the matter was on center stage, in plain sight of what Freeman calls “the American political class.”
Three hours later, Freeman issued a statement directly accusing the Israel lobby of “doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.” He wrote that its tactics “plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.” He continued:
I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for U.S. policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.
Freeman’s ability to say so to a wide audience was electrifying and unique. His charge was soon mentioned in the chief boroughs of liberal opinion, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Time’s Joe Klein called his exit “an assassination,” and The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan said it was a “scalping.” Unlike countless other incidents in which American policy on the Middle East has been compromised behind closed doors, this time the Israel lobby was seen fleeing the scene of the crime.
The drama began on Feb. 19, when the Foreign Policy blog reported that Blair, a retired Navy admiral, was planning to name Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council, which sorts out the reports of the many intelligence agencies and presents them to the White House. In 2007, one of its assessments, concluding that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program following the invasion of Iraq, chilled the neoconservative drive to attack Iran. “No one has ever made the case that it’s a primary policy-making role,” says William Quandt, the longtime expert on the Middle East.
Freeman is hardly a cipher. An outspoken and formidable thinker firmly in the realist camp, he spent four decades in the State Department marked by his poise in the presence of heads of state. In 1972, at age 29, having mastered Mandarin, he was saving Richard Nixon, whom he regarded as “totally lacking in personal grace, with no sense of the proper distance to keep in human relations,” from embarrassment with Zhou En-Lai on the famous trip to China. Twenty years later, as an Arabic speaker, he was interpreting George H.W. Bush—a fellow Yaleman and blueblood who fixed his name forever as “Chas”—to King Fahd as ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Freeman is a throwback. He celebrates his Puritan roots and the idea of wide historical reading for its own sake. He is also completely dedicated. He lost his third son in India because of poor medical treatment. He lost a 30-year marriage in Saudi Arabia during the long hours of the Gulf War.
“Frankly I was hoping to see him become a secretary of state,” says Edward Kane, a former CIA official who heads the Cosmos Club’s program on foreign affairs.
Freeman’s position on the Middle East made such ambitions pointless. In fact, he had resisted being sent to the region in the 1980s because of the “totalitarian” character of debate over American policies there—the lobby’s “virtual hammerlock on American foreign policy,” as he told an interviewer in the mid-’90s. He went on bluntly:
The American Jewish community, which had always been extremely suspicious of people who trafficked with the Arabs … became increasingly hostile to Arabists in the State Department. It essentially became difficult, if not impossible, for Foreign Service officers dealing with the Arab world, or with the Middle East generally, to take anything other than a stance that was assertively loyal to causes espoused by the Israelis… By the ’80s, as AIPAC … achieved the transcendent influence in the Congress that it did, there was an atmosphere of intimidation, worthy of the McCarthy era, in many respects, imposed on Arabists.
Following his retirement from government in 1995, Freeman took over from George McGovern as head of the Middle East Policy Council, a think tank that gets Saudi support and seeks to educate Americans about the Arab and Muslim world.
I asked him whether he is an Arabist. “What is an Arabist?” he countered. “Maybe it’s just someone who speaks Arabic. Someone who understands the Arabs. Obviously, that’s a bad thing. We shouldn’t understand the Arabs. We might actually think they have justice on their side. We might want to negotiate with them rather than clobber them.”
Freeman openly admires Israel: “The good has outweighed the bad in Israel for a long time. I would like to see Israel survive and prosper. Right now it is doing itself in and taking us with it.” Years ago, he became aware of how fierce adherence to Israel in our political class was damaging both nations. “I came to all this really very late,” he says. “I was an admirer of what I thought was a humane society in Israel. What really got me was when I was in Abu Dhabi many years ago and turned on the local TV. There was a home video of two Israeli plainclothesmen pulling a Palestinian teenager out of his house and kicking him in the head, and when he was semiconscious, they shot him in the back of the head. And the same story was on the back page of the English language newspaper, with six panels from the video. I thought, when this hits the U.S. press, all hell will break loose. Well, it didn’t ever hit our press. The self-censorship extended to a point that it was really dangerous to our society.”
Freeman made no secret of these views at the Middle East Policy Council. After the cancellation of the Dubai ports contract in 2006, he denounced the political class for exploiting the popular prejudice of “Arabophobia.” Soon after, when the London Review of Books published Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s bombshell essay on the Israel lobby, Freeman unapologetically celebrated the scholars.
“He does not hide his light under a bushel, and we’ve been waiting a long time for these ideas,” Edward Kane says. Adds Jim Lobe, a foreign-policy correspondent for Interpress, “I can tell you from personal experience that he is absolutely brilliant and incredibly well-rounded in his knowledge.”
In 2005, Freeman’s friend Boyden Gray saw his appointment to be ambassador to the EU held up for months because of his association with realist thinking on the Middle East, and he had to visit with AIPAC before he could take the job. Freeman’s case was far more serious. His appointment had only been leaked when it drew the wrath of the Israel lobby. Steve Rosen, a former AIPAC staffer who is under indictment for allegedly passing secrets to the Israelis, immediately attacked Freeman on the website of the Middle East Forum, a neoconservative think tank. “Freeman is a strident critic of Israel and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the state of Israel was born,” Rosen said. He quoted this horrifying statement by Freeman: “Israeli occupation and settlement of Arab lands is inherently violent. ... And as long as such Israeli violence against Palestinians continues, it is utterly unrealistic to expect that Palestinians will stand down from violent resistance and retaliation against Israelis.”
At least Rosen was straightforward about his concern with Israel. The same cannot be said of the pack that followed him. They focused on the money that the Middle East Policy Council receives from Saudi Arabia and several cold-blooded statements that Freeman had made justifying Chinese repression in Tiananmen Square and Tibet (which his supporters attempted to dignify, not always persuasively, as “realist”). The group included Gabriel Schoenfeld at the Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Chait and Martin Peretz at The New Republic, Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, and Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard. All Jewish, all supporters of the Iraq War, which Freeman vigorously opposed.
The focus on the China and Saudi connections is typical of the Israel lobby’s work. While it quietly spreads the word about its ability to take scalps, it does not like to do so publicly. That might force Americans to debate the slaughter in Gaza or the ongoing oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank. Far better for Freeman’s critics in Congress—notably Joe Lieberman in the Senate and Eric Cantor, Shelly Berkley, and Mark Kirk in the House—to talk about Saudi Arabian money, which was never an impediment to Hillary Clinton’s appointment to be secretary of state, though her husband’s library was showered in it.
The good news in the Freeman case is that he was even named in the first place and that he got a public defense. Writers Joe Klein, Richard Silverstein, M.J. Rosenberg, and Glenn Greenwald, all Jews, said that the issue was whether there was any room in the discourse for critics of Israel. Klein called the attackers a “mob.” Robert Dreyfuss at the Nation denounced the “thunderous, coordinated assault.” Steve Walt characterized the campaign as a McCarthyite witchhunt with an important negative function: making ambitious public servants afraid to say anything about Israel. “Freeman might be too smart, too senior, and too well-qualified to stop,” he wrote before the appointment was scuttled, “but there are plenty of younger people eager to rise in the foreign policy establishment and they need to be reminded that their careers could be jeopardized if they followed in Freeman’s footsteps and said what they thought.”
There could be little doubt what was at stake. Jim Lobe said on Scott Horton’s radio show that the fight was the “first big test of the influence of the so-called Israel lobby in the Administration.” Freeman wrote to friends, “I suspect that my appointment won’t be final till the fat lady at AIPAC sighs.”
The fight dragged on for nearly three weeks. Freeman’s critics circulated e-mailed comments he had made about China on a foreign-policy listserv, and eight congressmen, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, called on Blair to investigate Freeman’s links to Saudi Arabia. Blair wrote back that Freeman had his “full support” and said that he “has never received any income directly from Saudi Arabia or any Saudi-controlled entity.” He defended him against angry questioning by Joe Lieberman on the morning of March 10. But by then, several Republican senators were demanding answers from the White House. Dianne Feinstein reportedly called for a meeting of senators with Freeman. He was gaining endorsements from influential journalists like Andrew Sullivan and James Fallows, but no congressman was lifting his head above the melee to support Freeman.
As for Obama, he said not a word, just as he said nothing about Gaza. Finally, by the afternoon of March 10, Blair had changed his mind. “I came to a conclusion, as did Denny Blair at the same time,” Freeman told TAC, “that I couldn’t accomplish what I wanted to do.” Yes, he could come up with quality intelligence products, but his presence would hurt their credibility. “I left for the same reason that I accepted the job, for the best interests of my country.”
Chuck Schumer quickly made clear that this was a White House decision, and it was all about Israel. “Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position,” Schumer said. “His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing.”
Then Freeman issued his barnburner of a statement saying it was all about “a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.” “There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government—in this case, the government of Israel,” he wrote. “This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.”
National Public Radio’s Robert Siegel described Freeman’s charge as “angry” and suggested that he was merely the Marty Peretz of the Arabs. The Washington Post called it a “crackpot” conspiracy theory and tirade. Meanwhile, Freeman’s supporters rallied to his side. Steve Walt called Obama a “wimp.” “Caving on Freeman was a blunder that could come back to haunt any subsequent effort to address the deteriorating situation in the region,” he wrote. Andrew Sullivan said that the affair showed that when push comes to shove, Obama is behind AIPAC “110 percent.” Joe Klein noted that Schumer and company have made Washington “even less hospitable for those who aren’t afraid to speak their minds, for those who are reflexively contentious, who would defy the conventional wisdom.”
This is where I differ from Chas Freeman’s new friends. Years ago, he understood that the Israel lobby produced secret resentment among its victims throughout Washington. More recently, John Mearsheimer told me that Israel’s critics are engaged in a kind of “mortal combat” in which career and reputation are at stake. Having long battled the Israel lobby, these men have no illusions about how it operates and still dare to speak out. Others—for instance those who say that it just controls Congress, not the White House—are now awaking to its methods. This is the great lesson, and even joy, of Chas Freeman’s mugging. A lobby operates best as a “night flower,” Steve Rosen once said. The Freeman takedown happened in broad daylight. Sunshine means everything in a democracy. Now the diverse political forces who want to change our Mideast policy can find one another.
Speaking to this magazine two days after his withdrawal, a reflective Freeman framed the episode as a chance to educate Americans. He only regretted imprecision—that he had blasted the lobby rather than doing more to emphasize the reflexive organizational American support for the policies of the right-wing Israeli government.
Of the Gaza assault, he said, “I don’t think they wanted to do anything but beat the living daylights out of the Palestinian people. Schrecklichkeit [a World War I German policy of intimidation] is the basis of this policy, and it makes it harder and harder for more and more people here to overlook.”
Freeman was gratified by the wide support he had gotten from Jewish writers. “I think the most courageous people on this issue are those of Jewish origin or faith. They have the most at stake in this. These things are being done in their name.” He said he hoped that his withdrawal would allow Americans to talk about what Israel is doing in a historical and diplomatic light:
I am interested in seeing the survival of a humane and not a thuggish Jewish state in the Middle East. I am interested in finding ways of coming to grips with the fact that the perpetrators of the Holocaust and those who halted it accept Israel’s right to exist, but in the region in which it does exist, no one accepts its right to exist. That’s the problem we must overcome.
As for himself, at 66, having severed his institutional connections, Freeman has a chance to “redefine myself.” He doesn’t expect to have any role in government, directly or indirectly, “but one thing I’m not going to do is shut up.”
Philip Weiss blogs at www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/.Freeman and the lobby: Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
The Zionists are playing a dangerous game by scuttling Freeman’s appointment, warns Eric Walberg
The remarkable hegemony of Zionists in US -- and by implication -- world politics continues unabated, as demonstrated starkly by the withdrawal of Chas Freeman as United States President Barack Obama’s nominee to chair his National Intelligence Council (NIC).
Unlike cabinet positions, the NIC chair is not subject to Senate approval, but when Freeman was subjected to a campaign of slander led by AIPAC functionary Steve Rosen, joined by a chorus of senators, he withdrew, relating in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the “libelous distortions of my record”, the “efforts to smear me and destroy my credibility ... by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.”
Jews have more of a tradition of being liberals and supporting Democrats. But nowadays, more important than shades of pink are the Zionist colours one flaunts, and no US politician, left or right, dares to buck the Zionist tide. Whether or not Freeman -- or any other US public figure -- is Jewish is now a moot point. So it is not really so important to point out that Obama’s closest advisers are Jewish, such as his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, his veepee’s chief of staff Ron Klain, senior advisor David Axelrod, and his domestic cabinet members Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volker, Peter Orszag, and Jason Furman and Jamie Rubin. It is more to the point to emphasise that they are Zionists one and all, including his WASP veepee Joseph Biden (“You don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist”) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The waning of Jewish liberalism and the growing irrelevance of tribal affinity in American politics began with the rise of the neocons under president Ronald Reagan and is reflected in Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman’s endorsement of Republican John McCain for president in 2008. That Lieberman was not expelled, and managed to retain his chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee, shows who’s in control.
Zionists are the essential second leg that Obama stands on, along with his imperial support. As Democratic Caucus chairman, Emanuel helped make sure that 60 per cent of Democratic congressmen and virtually all the senators will continue to support the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan , with the possibility of an attack on Iran still on the table, despite that fact that 60 per cent of Americans (80 per cent of Demcrats) are against such policies. Emanuel served in the IDF during the 1990 Gulf war, which would have resulted in his arrest and the end of his political career if he had been involved in any other country’s war as a foreign soldier. His father was a member of the terrorist organisation Irgun and no doubt murdered dozens of Palestinians fighting to protect their homeland. “Rahm-bo” also knocked on doors for AIPAC as a student in the 1980s in AIPAC’s successful effort to unseat former Republican congressman Paul Findley just because he was for balance in US Middle East policy.
Ironically Zionism has become a bit of a dirty word around Washington , and the Jewish press prefers to brag -- in the words of former president Clinton counsel Abner Mikvner -- that “Barack Obama is the first Jewish President.” Whatever epithetic is used, Israeli political leaders, too, brag about their clout at the highest levels of US politics. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert crowed about his telephone call to president George W Bush in January 2009 -- interrupting him in the middle of a speech -- to insist that secretary of state Condoleezza Rice vote against her own Gaza ceasefire motion in the UN Security Council. Jewish chutzpah celebrates the November 2008 US elections, where more Jews were elected than ever -- 10 per cent of congressmen, four times their proportion in the population. This leaves aside the fact that more than 90 per cent of congressmen and senators vote for all motions concerning Israel which are approved, if not formulated, by AIPAC.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, inspired by the Zionists and their stranglehold on politics and media, have led to mounting frustration, allowing occasional, if carefully modulated criticism to trickle down into the mainstream media. Time columnist Joe Klein, who supported Bush’s war against Iraq and considers himself “a strong supporter of Israel”, wrote (in a lowly blog) that the “fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives -- people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd at Commentary -- plumped for this war [in Iraq], and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties.” Within a day, Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, accused Klein of espousing “age-old anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government.”
Other brave souls include Norm Finkelstein, author of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Jimmy Carter (Palestine: Peace not Apartheid), Mearsheimer and Walt (The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. Whether or not their efforts mark the beginning of a decline in the Zionists’ hegemony is yet to be seen.
That their power is still formidable was brought home by the Freeman debacle. “The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views,” writes Freeman.
The Zionists made no mention of the real reason for scuttling his nomination, instead inventing the charge that he was a lobbyist for Saudi and Chinese interests. A career diplomat, he was president Richard Nixon’s personal interpreter during the first meetings with Mao Tse Tung. Since 1997, he has presided over the Middle East Policy Council, a nonprofit organisation that is partly funded by Saudi money. “There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments ... by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government -- in this case, the government of Israel ... policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel .”
Fighting the Zionists is not easy. Jewish scholars like Finkelstein argue that Zionists generally refuse to answer the content of critiques of Israel , invariably reducing the argument to an ad hominem attack, questioning the legitimacy of the critic, as they did with Freeman. Finkelstein was personally the target of their wrath, losing his university tenure battle due to their protests that he was too impartial. Where ad hominem is not enough, they merely ignore valid criticisms and relying on control of the public discourse, including laws forbidding anti-Semitism, racism or slander, to bury the issue.
Dozens of Jewish and overtly Zionist lobby groups throughout the US monitor all school and university teaching content, regularly denouncing critics and lobbying for their dismissal. As part of the campaign to vilify Islam, David Horowitz organised “Islamofascism Awareness Week” (IFAW) on close to a hundred college campuses in October 2007. At Michigan State University, the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom invited a bona fide fascist -- Nick Griffin, the head of the British National Party -- to speak on how Europe is becoming “Eurabia”. IFAW is now an annual event, with seminars on jihad and Islamic totalitarianism.
But there is a silver lining. Formerly schemes to control the discourse took place behind the scenes. Steve Rosen, who led the attack on Freeman, says, “A lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.” That Rosen is now indicted as a spy, that the Finkelstein, Mearsheimer and Carter books even saw the light of day, and that Freeman was able to blast the lobby so witheringly in the WSJ suggest that broader US society may be awakening to the devastation that the Zionists have wrought on America.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Israel Lobby scores another huge victory
By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe for IPS news
WASHINGTON, Mar 10 (IPS) - Amb. Chas Freeman withdrew from consideration for a top intelligence post in the Obama administration on Tuesday, following a vitriolic battle that pitted Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel hardliners opposed to his appointment against liberals and members of the intelligence and diplomatic communities who had come to his defence.
Freeman’s withdrawal came as a surprise to many in Washington, particularly since it came only hours after Adm. Dennis Blair, the administration’s director of national intelligence (DNI) who made the appointment, issued a strong defence of Freeman during his testimony before the U.S. Senate.
His withdrawal is likely to be viewed as a significant victory for hardliners within the so-called "Israel lobby," who led the movement to scuttle his appointment, and a blow to hopes for a new approach to Israel-Palestine issues under the Obama administration.
A brief notice posted late Tuesday on the DNI website stated that "Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret."
The DNI did not provide any further reason for Freeman's withdrawal.
Senator Chuck Schumer, a critic of Freeman who privately conveyed his concerns to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel last week, released a statement taking credit for the withdrawal, according to Greg Sargent of the Plum Line blog.
"Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position," Schumer's statement read. "His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing."
The battle over Freeman began in late February, soon after Blair appointed him as chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The NIC, among other responsibilities, is tasked with producing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), which are consensus judgments of all 16 intelligence agencies.
Freeman was reportedly Blair’s hand-picked choice for the job. He is a polyglot with unusually wide-ranging foreign-policy experience - his previous jobs have included chief translator during President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to China, ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs.
But Freeman is also known for his outspoken and often caustic political views. He has been especially critical of the Bush administration’s conduct of the "war on terror" and of Israeli policies in the occupied territories.
Initial resistance to the appointment came from neoconservatives and other pro-Israel hardliners who were opposed to Freeman’s critical views of Israeli policies. The campaign against Freeman was spearheaded by Steve Rosen, a former official for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who is currently facing trial for allegedly passing classified information to the Israeli government.
It was quickly taken up by neoconservative commentators in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and the New Republic, among other places.
However, Freeman’s critics soon shifted their focus from his views on Israel to his ties with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family has provided funding to the Middle East Policy Council, a think tank that Freeman headed, leading to allegations that he was "on the Saudi payroll" or even a "Saudi puppet."
Last week, 11 congressional representatives - including several with major financial ties to AIPAC and other right-wing pro-Israel groups - called on the DNI’s inspector-general to investigate Freeman’s financial ties to Saudi Arabia.
Later in the week, Blair sent the representatives a letter offering his "full support" for Freeman and praising the appointee’s "exceptional talent and experience." The letter also discussed Freeman’s financial ties to Saudi Arabia, stressing that "he has never lobbied for any government or business (domestic or foreign)" and that he "has never received any income directly from Saudi Arabia or any Saudi-controlled entity."
Blair’s letter appeared to have defused the case against Freeman based on his Saudi ties.
On Monday, the seven Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sent their letter of concern to Blair, but they made no mention of the Saudi charges that formed the backbone of their House colleagues’ letter from the previous week. Instead, the senators focused on Freeman’s alleged intelligence inexperience and his "highly controversial statements about China and Israel."
It was the China issue that had become the central attack against Freeman in recent days. Critics pointed to a leaked email that he sent to a private listserv about the Chinese government’s 1989 repression of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, in which he appeared to argue that the Chinese authorities’ true mistake was not the violent repression but their "failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud."
Blair and others countered that the email was taken out of context, and that Freeman was not describing his own views but what he referred to as "the dominant view in China."
One member of the listserv who did not wish to be identified said that Freeman’s email came in the context of an extended conversation about what lessons the Chinese leadership took from the Tiananmen Square events, and that Freeman himself has always regarded the events as a "tragedy."
Regardless, the leaked email became the focal point of the debate over Freeman. On Thursday, 87 Chinese dissidents and human rights activists released a letter conveying their "intense dismay" at his appointment and asking President Obama to withdraw it.
But others stepped in to defend Freeman’s record on human rights in China. China scholar Sidney Rittenberg told James Fallows of the Atlantic that Freeman was "a stalwart supporter of human rights who helped many individuals in need" during his diplomatic career in Beijing. Jerome Cohen, an expert in Chinese law, told Fallows that the allegations that Freeman endorsed the Tiananmen Square repression were "ludicrous."
Fallows was one of several prominent media figures - including Joe Klein of Time and Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic - who came to Freeman’s defence in recent days. While many of them disagree with Freeman’s outspoken views, they warned against what Fallows calls the "self-lobotomisation" of U.S. foreign policy that results from shutting out dissenting voices.
Diplomatic and intelligence professionals in the foreign policy bureaucracy - in which Freeman was seen as enjoying strong support - also rallied to his defence.
Last week, 17 former U.S. ambassadors – including former ambassador to the U.N. Thomas Pickering and former ambassador to Israel Samuel Lewis – wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal praising Freeman as "a man of integrity and high intelligence who would never let his personal views shade or distort intelligence estimates."
On Tuesday, seven former senior intelligence officials wrote to Blair in support of Freeman. They called the attacks on him "unprecedented in their vehemence, scope, and target" and perpetrated by "pundits and public figures... [who are] aghast at the appointment of a senior intelligence official able to take a more balanced view of the Arab-Israel issue".
These endorsements by figures with solidly establishmentarian credentials appeared to have strengthened Freeman’s position. This made Tuesday’s announcement especially unexpected, since many felt that Freeman had succeeded in riding out the storm.
Despite the Saudi and Chinese angles of the Freeman controversy, many still saw it as heart a neoconservative campaign to shut out critics of Israel from positions of power.
"The whole anti-Freeman effort was engineered by the people who fear that Obama will abandon current policies toward Israel from acceptance of the occupation to forceful opposition to it," M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum wrote on the Huffington Post.
The timing of Freeman’s withdrawal is likely to prove especially bad for the Obama administration, since it came after Blair had committed a significant amount of political capital to defending his appointee.
In his testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, Blair responded to concerns raised by Lieberman by praising Freeman’s "inventive mind" and argued that his critics "misunderstand the role of the development of analysis that produces policy."
"I can do a better job if I’m getting strong analytical viewpoints to sort out and pass on to you and the president than if I’m getting precooked pablum judgments that don’t really challenge," Blair told Lieberman.
Lieberman seemed unsatisfied with Blair’s answer. "OK, I guess I would say, ‘to be continued’," he replied.
As it turned out, Lieberman did not have to wait long to get the response he wanted.
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The tactics of the Israel Lobby
by Charles Freeman in the Wall Street Journal
To all who supported me or gave me words of encouragement during the controversy of the past two weeks, you have my gratitude and respect.
You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.
I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was "asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse." I added that I wondered "whether there wasn't some sort of downside to this offer." I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.
I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.
The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.
The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.
In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.
Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else's, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.
I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.
Monday, February 2, 2009
George Kenney interviews James Petras
You can listen to the interview by clicking here.
I do not always agree with Petras, but his opinion and expertise is definitely worth paying attention to. Hope you enjoy this 50min interview.
The Saker
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Compare and contrast: the USA and Bolivia - which is the 'smaller' country?
Should one weep or laugh...?
Thursday, January 8, 2009
AIPAC praises Senate support of Israel
The resolution, which was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, "conveys America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense," according to a statement from the pro-Israel lobby group.
Reid was quoted in the statement as telling the Senate floor that the legislative body would "strengthen our historic bond with the State of Israel by reaffirming Israel's inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza, as well as our support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."
The resolution itself promoted a "durable and sustainable" cease-fire in Gaza, which "would not allow a reestablishment of the status quo ante where Hamas can continue to launch rockets out of Gaza."
It also noted that Hamas "was founded with the stated goal of destroying the State of Israel," and deplored the 2006 capturing of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, who is still held in Gaza.
The Republican leader was quoted voicing strong support of Israel, saying that the country was "responding exactly the same way [the US] would if rockets were being launched into the United States from Canada or Mexico." He too reaffirmed Israel's right to self defense.
The AIPAC statement went on to "applaud" US President George W. Bush's recent statements in support of Israel.
Last week Bush branded Hamas rocket attacks on Israel an "act of terror" and said that no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups.
"Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable," he had said.
AP contributed to this report.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Report by Mohamed Khodr - How Zionists Occupy Two Nations: America and Palestine
by Mohamed Khodr for Palestine Think Tank
From America’s “Jewish Triangle” to Iraqi’s “Sunni Triangle: Government Job Notice: No Gentiles Need Apply
“The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in particular, is the Jewish Century.”
–Yuri Slezkine, Professor of History at University of California, Berkeley, “The Jewish Century”; Princeton University Press (Russian Jewish immigrant to the U.S.)
No, America, there is no Zionist Conspiracy running our nation; just well funded organized Zionist Coincidences
From Truman, to Clinton, to Obama, to…..
In a Nov. 10, 1945 meeting with American diplomats brought in from their posts in the Middle East to urge Truman not to heed Zionist urgings to recognize Israel, Truman bluntly explained his motivation:
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents”
–Harry Truman, 33rd President
“Clinton drew applause for his own commitment to Israel when he stated that should the Iraqis ever cross over the Israeli border for aggression, “I would personally get in a ditch, grab a rifle, and fight and die.”
–President Bill Clinton, speaking at a Toronto Jewish Fund Raiser, July 30, 2002 (thestar.com) (BUT he avoided fighting for America)
Sixty years after Truman’s recognition of Israel, the 44th President Elect of the United States, Barack Obama, in true allegiance to the Flag of Israel, continues the expected, no, the demanded subservience and pandering to America’s Zionists.
Four Examples of Obama’s Allegiance to Israel at the expense of our national interest in the Middle East. This man of “hope” is nevertheless “hopelessly” devoted to Israel.
1. “Obama Asks Shimon Peres (President of Israel): What can I do for Israel?”
–Haaretz, November 17, 2008
2. Obama’s Letter to President Bush on Israel, June 25, 2008
“A fundamental principle of America’s Middle East policy must be our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. I believe that is a bipartisan commitment and I will work to continue and advance that consensus. …The Arab states should support the Palestinians and prepare their own people for peace by making gestures of normalization toward Israel.”
(OBAMA is uninformed: The Arab League did offer just such a Peace Plan to Israel three times, 1981, 2002, 2007); but Israel rejected it each time.
3. Obama’s conference call with 900 U.S. Jewish Rabbis: September 18, 2008 (Ynet.com)
“The senator spoke of his recent trip to Israel, and reaffirmed personal commitment to Israel’s security, calling it sacrosanct: “I think that it’s also important to recognize that throughout my career in the State Legislature and now in the US Senate I have been a stalwart friend of Israel. On every single issue related to Israel’s security, I have been unwavering, and will continue to be unwavering….”My belief is that Israel’s security is sacrosanct and we have to ensure that as the sole democracy in the Middle East, one of our greatest allies in the world, one that shares a special relationship with us and shares our values, we have to make sure that they have the support whether its financial or military to sustain their security and the hostile environment.”
As with all American politicians, Obama made the requisite pilgrimage to Israel to pay homage to the great democracy living in a constant existential threat from its impotent, incompetent, weak, illiterate, unproductive, and failed Arab neighbors, as well as his more important pledge of allegiance to AIPAC where political careers are made or destroyed. The path to the White House or Congress goes through AIPAC.
4. Obama’s Speech to AIPAC, March 2, 2007
“And I can tell you that as a candidate for the president of the United States and as a president of the United States, I vow to work as diligently and as consistently and as determinedly as possible with AIPAC and with the Great State of Israel to bring that vision about.”
–Obama’s Speech at AIPAC, March 2, 2007: Read full text to see the full fledged love fest replete with the lies, myths, and clichés provided by AIPAC to all political cowards and hypocrites seeking office.
Mr. Obama, you’re simply the last in a long line of American politicians who’ve never taken notice of Israel’s true contempt of the only “friend” it has in the entire world. Without our recognition, support and hundreds of billions of tax dollars of aid (Israel is the world’s 16th richest nation), there would be no Israel. Beware of Israel’s rabid bite of the hand that feeds it.
“Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice. “
–Moshe Dayan, America’s hero of the 1967 Preemptive attack on Arab nations
When, in all our history, has anyone with ideas so bizarre, so archaic, so self-confounding, so remote from the basic American consensus, ever got so far? —Richard Hofstadter
Israel and its Jewish supporters around the world navigate the paradox oxymoronic paradigm between their boastful pride of Jewish “tribal” power that wields enormous political, economic, and military might around the world—the power to invade, massacre, occupy foreign lands at will with total impunity and immunity from world action; a power to silence and intimidate world governments, none more so than the “wag the tail superpower”, America; and between milking the image of eternal victimhood, weakness, and s constant existential threat by a hate filled hostile world; a world genetically born and inbred with “Anti-Semitism”.
While in reality Israel is the military occupier and slum lord of Palestine, Southern Lebanon’s Shebaa farms, and Syria’s Golan Heights. It possesses between 200 – 300 nuclear weapons while Arabs/Iran have none. It has the second most powerful air force in the world (after the U.S.). It is the fourth largest exporter of military weapons and possesses the world’s latest spy technology including access to all U.S. Spy intelligence.
It has the might to destroy the entire world should it come under a doomsday attack.
’’Prime Minister Golda Meir also told me, on-the-record during the course of an interview I did with her for the BBC’s Panorama programme, that in a doomsday situation Israel would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it. (Her full quote with its context is as set down on page xii of Waiting for the Apocalypse, the Prologue to Volume One of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews).
–Alan Hart, ICH, June 8, 2008. Mr. Hart was a BBC correspondent, an author, his latest: “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews”, Vol. 1 and 2, and a researcher.
BUT, it is also the little victim that maybe extinguished by its “bad neighbors”.
“Looking at Zionism without taboos means seeing the hard reality of the domination and oppression it has created. Out of the original sins of the world against the Jews grew the original sins of Zionism against the Palestinians.”
–Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “Original Sins”; An Israeli Scholar at Haifa University (Israel) and author of:
“The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why”
“The war’s seventh day, which began on June 12, 1967 (Six Day War) , and has continued to this day, is the product of our choice. We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justifications for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories we developed two judicial systems: One—-progressive, liberal—in Israel; and the Other—cruel, injurious—-in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an APARTHEID regime in the occupied territories immediately after their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.”
–Michael Ben-Yar, Israeli Attorney General in Yitzhak Rabin’s government in mid 1990’s.
(Quoted in “Herzl’s Nightmare, One Land, Two Peoples” by Peter Rodgers, former Australian Ambassador to Israel, pg. 32 – 33)
“What struck me most about the biblical narrative was that the divine promise of land was integrally linked with the mandate to exterminate the indigenous peoples, and I had to wrestle with my perception that those traditions were inherently oppressive and morally reprehensible….It was some shock to realize that the narrative presents “ethnic cleansing” as not only legitimate, but as required by the deity….By modern standards of international law and human rights, what these biblical narratives mandate are “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity…Was there a way of reading the traditions which could rescue the Bible from being a blunt instrument of oppression, and acquit God of the charge of being the Great Ethnic-Cleanser?
–Dr. Michael Prior, C.M., “Confronting the Bible’s Ethnic Cleansing In Palestine”; The Link, December 2000 (Americans for Middle East Understanding. http://www.ameu.org/)
Dr. Prior is Professor of Biblical Studies in the University of Surrey, England, and visiting professor in Bethlehem University, Palestine. He is a biblical scholar and author of “Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry” and “The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique.”
World Jewry constitutes 0.0019% of the world’s population and less then two percent of the U.S. population. But despite their very small numbers they are without a doubt the richest, most educated, successful, organized, ambitious and motivated tribe in the world. Their intelligence, brilliance, and high education have given the world its most creative thinkers, inventors, artists, physicians, writers, and Noble Prize winners. The world owes a great deal to world Jewry for the enormous contributions they’ve made to this world. They’ve been in the forefront of civil rights, liberal causes, and justice.
No one should begrudge the extraordinary success and accomplishments of Jewish Americans. They worked hard and deserve the respect and admiration of all Americans.
BUT, and here’s the really big rub—organized Jewry has translated their enormous “Jewish Power” of wealth, political activism, media, Hollywood, and industry dominance to ensure that our government is willfully complicity in supporting Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians, refugees on their own land (living on only 18% of their original Palestine) while Israel defies all divine and human laws against its barbaric treatment and occupation of millions of Palestinians.
It is this “Jewish Power/Israel Lobby” that the entire world must have the courage to publicly and forcefully condemn and do all things necessary, sooner rather than later, to end its power and put Israel in its place.
Only when the western governments are free from the albatross of the Israel Lobby will Palestine, the Middle East and the Muslim world be free to cohabit this world in peace and good relations with the West.
Ending Israel’s political and military terrorism will end Muslim terrorism.
In Middle East politics:
Israel manipulates America—America manipulates Arab Dictators—therefore Israel manipulates Arab Dictators.
For almost twenty months Israel, with the full knowledge and support of our U.S. government, has besieged the lives and land of Gaza. Today Gaza is slowly dying without food, water, medicines, fuel, electricity and oxygen for its premature infants and sick elderly. Surgeons don’t have the lights, medicines, or equipment to remove the bullets and shrapnels from Palestinian children courtesy of the American taxpayer and Israeli soldiers. Poverty, mass unemployment, malnutrition, and disease are rampant in Gaza but thanks to decades of a Jewish dominated U.S. media that has dehumanized Palestinians, their lives are not newsworthy, easily ignored and deleteable from western consciousness. The only useful purpose Palestinian children serve is as target practice for the training of new Israeli soldiers.
The useless, incompetent, and inept Arab League lip synchs again to help the Palestinians while in reality their cry is —-with our souls, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves to thee O America.
Why are the Palestinians dying and suffering for decades amidst world silence?
Answer: Jewish Power and the Israel Lobby:
Which includes the Armageddon pushing Christian Fundamentalists; an oxymoronic group of the followers of the prince of peace who seek a world holocaust against Non-Christians; but as long as they support Israel, organized U.S. Jewry will accept them as partners.
“His name is Yusuf Samir, and he is a reporter for the Israeli Arabic service. He tells us….”The Palestinians are animals,” he says. “They are less than human. They are savage beasts. Israel is a land of love. People in Israel love one another. But the Palestinians do not love. They hate. They should be destroyed. We should put fire to them. We should take back Beit Jala, Bethlehem, take back all the land and get rid of them.”
Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered—death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred….Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo—but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.
It was in Gaza, where I lived for weeks at a time during the seven years I spent in the Middle East, that I came to know the dark side of the Israeli Defense Force”.
–Chris Hedges (former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief), “A Gaza Diary”; Harper’s Magazine; October 2001
In East Jerusalem, Israel continues the Judaization of the Holy City to three faiths. As part of that official policy the Israeli police in an early morning raid on November 9 forcibly evicted Fawzia al-Kurd, 57, and her partially paralyzed wheel chair bound husband from their home of 52 years. They couldn’t collect any possession and Fawzia’s was still wearing her pajamas upon their eviction. Fawzia was forced to move into a tent while her very ill husband is living with relatives. Not satisfied with just evicting and confiscating their home, the Israeli soldiers chased Fawzia to her make shift tent and destroyed that too. Fawzia is cold, hungry, homeless and separated from her very ill husband. Why? According to Israel she set up the tent “without permission.” This is the democracy we as Americans are paying and dying for in absolute ignorance and silence.
Only Israel of all nations can literally get away with murder. As long as our government is held in the palms of the Israel Lobby; such murder is committed with regularity and impunity.
“New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.” George Bernard Shaw
Thankfully, several prominent Jews have formed a new lobby, J Street, to oppose the influence of the Israel Lobby and its stranglehold on US foreign policy that emphasizes force over diplomacy. J Street supports a peaceful negotiated settlement of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the formation of two independent states although it avoids delineating the borders of such states; for example, by supporting the 1967 borders.
The Iraq War: The “Jewish/Israel Lobby” Triangle
No greater example of the power of the “The Israel Lobby” and the mainly Jewish cabal in the Bush administration than this nation being forced into an illegal, immoral, and destructive war, the Iraq War, that has bankrupted this nation and shed the blood of our youth while killing over a million Iraqi’s. To this date and in our alleged democracy no one, not one single person, has been held accountable for this deliberately manufactured war and genocide against the innocent Iraqi’s; not for the lies, not for shredding our Constitutional system of government and guaranteed civil liberties, not for the trillions of wasted dollars, not for the rivers of blood, not for the torture, rape, murder, and crimes against humanity committed by the war criminals in Washington D.C. . All will or have left office to better financial careers and future book and movie deals.
America has forgotten Abeer Qasim Hamza, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, gang raped by five U.S. soldiers then shot in the head along with her parents and her five year old sister, Hadeel. Abeer’s crime was that she was an Iraqi girl and a Muslim, thus fodder for the “liberators” for freedom. She is dispensable trash as no doubt thousands of other Iraqi girls and women both in and out of prison.
American and Israeli soldiers can kill in cold blood and gang rape at will in their respective occupied territories and know they won’t face prosecution as they simply were carrying their actions in self defense and according to terms of “engagement”, which obviously includes rape.
Would our government, media, Hollywood, think tanks, business leaders have reacted differently if this was a Jewish girl gang raped in Syria or Iran? Would there be hysterical cries for blood and wiping out the two nations?
When Daniel Pearl, Jewish journalist for the Wall Street Journal, was killed in Pakistan, the western media was in rage mode for weeks. Hollywood further enshrined this incident with a movie, “A Mighty Heart” that received endless press. However, most shockingly and as far as I know for the first time, our federal government provided free propaganda for this movie.
The Department of State, the nation’s premier diplomatic agency, had its tax funded website serve as a commercial billboard for this movie about a “Jewish” journalist. It posted a three-part video discussion on Daniel Pearl’s murder and the capture of his killers on its home page under the title “The Daniel Pearl Murder: A First Person Account.”
In an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “White Man’s Burden”, (May 4, 2003), Ari Shavit wrote:
“The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. ..Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It’s the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman (Thomas Friedman of the New York Times) says. It’s the war the neoconservatives marketed… Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.”
An overwhelming majority of political, economic, military experts in the U.S. and around the world have documented in print and interviews that the Pro Israel mainly Jewish Neocons pushed for this war.
“With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel….You don’t come to town and announce your Israel policy is to invade Iraq”.
–Former Senator Ernest Hollings May 6, 2004 Charleston Post and Courier
“The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of “President Bush” is easier to understand, but weird nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it. The reason is obvious and admirable: Neither supporters nor opponents of a war against Iraq wish to evoke the classic anti-Semitic image of the king’s Jewish advisers whispering poison into his ear and betraying the country to foreign interests.”
–Michael Kinsley (Jewish journalist), “What Bush Isn’t Saying About Iraq. President Bush won’t discuss two big reasons he wants to invade Iraq”; Slate, October 24, 2002
“They are the so-called neo-cons, or neo-conservatives. A compact group, almost all of whose members are Jewish. They hold the key positions in the Bush administration, as well as in the think-tanks that play an important role in formulating American policy and the op-ed pages of the influential newspapers….Seemingly; all this is good for Israel. America controls the world, we control America. Never before have Jews exerted such an immense influence on the center of world power”.
–Uri Avnery, “The Night After”, Counterpunch, April 10, 2003 (Mr. Avnery is a former Israeli soldier and Knesset Member)
“Jews hold stunningly powerful positions and clout in the United States. The combination of the American state’s power and the Jewish power in the areas of legislation, administration, media, law, business, culture, and entertainment have made the Jews a defining factor of contemporary America. Because Israel is inseparable from the identity of American Jews, Israel is inseparable from the American experience.”
–Avraham Burg, in his book: “The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes”, (Oct. 2008) Served as Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and Chair of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization.
“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?… It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles…The extent and depth to which organized Jewry reached – and reaches – in the U.S. is indeed awesome … The most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control …Jewish wealth and acumen wields unprecedented power in the area of finance and investment banking, playing an important role in influencing U.S. policy toward the Middle East … In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles.”
–Alfred Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 209, 212, 218, 228, 229.
“We killed them out of a certain naive hubris. Believing with absolute certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate, and much of the American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own…”
–Ari Shavit, May 27, 1996 New York Times, (expressing sorrow and anger at Israel’s deliberate massacre of over 100 Lebanese civilians under U.N. protection in Qana, Lebanon; April 1996)
“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times… The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked.
—Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (Univ. of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103.
“The President of the United States, on issue after issue, has reflected the thinking of neoconservatives.”
- Richard Perle
This is NOT a discourse or criticism of Judaism or of Jews in general but of an elite of Jewish Americans who dominate the Tripartite triangle of power in this country, what is termed “Jewish Power”; centered in the triangle of Washington D.C. (Government); New York City (Financial/Banking Institutions), and Hollywood/Media.
Thus the power of the Jewish Triangle arising from their dominance in Government, the Financial/Banking Sector, and Hollywood/Media, forced this nation into a war of choice for the sake of Israel and Oil.
Coincidentally, Lieutenant General Jay Garner, a staunch supporter of Israel, was appointed after Iraq’s invasion in 2003 as Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, replaced later by Paul Bremer.
Harvard Professor of Law Noah Feldman (Jewish) was the man most responsible for writing Iraq’s constitution.
The most striking facet of the establishment Jewish American “elite” is their rotating political life cycle, playing musical chairs if you will, between top government positions and the private sector be it in business, academia, influential policy “think tanks”, the media and entertainment industry. This has given the Israel Lobby enormous knowledge, insight, and leverage to singularly ensure America’s foreign policy is dominated by Israel’s interests.
Examples of Outrageous Arrogance of Power by Jewish Americans and the Israel Lobby:
“In October 1980, Thomas Dine, became the new staff director of AIPAC…In a 1992 interview (he said):… I wanted APAC to have a much broader reach into the policy-making processes of our own government. And that meant both the Legislative and Executive branches”….Dine’s AIPAC (in addition to Congress would be)…working directly with officials in the executive branch to shape policy at the Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, and anywhere else Israel had business…Dine boasted of a “Jewish Political Power.”
–J. J. Goldberg; “Jewish Power” page 200-201
“Why didn’t Jimmy Carter speak from the podium at the Democratic National Convention? Alan Dershowitz said he had something to do with it…..In an interview with Shalom TV, the Harvard Law School professor says he “pushed” Barack Obama “very hard to make that decision,” Dershowitz said in
an interview with Shalom TV. “Barack Obama had to make a choice between his
Jewish supporters and his anti-Israel supporters like Jimmy Carter, and he
did not choose Jimmy Carter. And that was an embarrassment for Jimmy Carter
and a show of disrespect.”
–Alan Dershowitz, “I helped keep Carter Silent”, Jewish Telegraph Agency, November 13, 2008
“According to the Washington Times, November 4, 1992, AIPAC’s President David Steiner in a taped telephone conversation with AIPAC donor Howard Katz boasted that the lobbying organization was “negotiating” with Clinton over whom the Democratic candidate would appoint as secretary of state and as his national security adviser should he win the election. When asked if AIPAC would participate in the selection of the new secretary of state, Steiner said, “We’ll have access….We have a dozen people in (the Clinton) headquarters. And they are all going to get big jobs,” Steiner, a trustee of the Democratic National Committee, told Katz, who had said he wanted to donate $100,000 to AIPAC-supported candidates.
Katz told the Washington Times that he taped the conversation because “as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it”
–Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; “Jews and Israel, AIPAC President Resigns”
December/January 1992/93, Page 69
“In his [Powell’s] own State Department there was a keen awareness of the strength of the Jewish lobbyists. Secretaries of State did not usually meet with lobbyists, but both Jewish officials and Jews that did not officially represent specific groups from Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League to Ronald Lauder, could meet with Powell on short notice…. At the State Department, Foxman had an aura of omnipotence. He was held responsible for the appointment of Indyk as Undersecretary of State under Clinton, and was thought to have played a role in the appointments of Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright. Powell related to Foxman almost as if he were someone to whom he must capitulate. Once Foxman told one of his deputies that Powell was the weak link. When the Secretary of State heard this he began to worry. He knew that in Washington a confrontation with the Jewish lobby would make his life difficult. Once he arranged a meeting with Foxman, but the busy Foxman postponed the meeting three times. When they eventually met, the head of the Anti-Defamation League apologized to the Secretary of State [for the postponements]. “You call, we come,” replied Powell, paraphrasing a well known advertisement for a freight company. That statement had much more meaning than just a humorous polite reply.
–Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah, “Boomerang: The Failure of Leadership in the Second Intafada”, page 132-133
Let us analyze some aspects of the Jewish Triangle:
1. GOVERNMENT:
Jewish Americans usually dominate top government positions on economic and foreign policy, especially as it relates to the Middle East. During the Clinton Administration the National Security Advisor was Sandy Berger (followed by Anthony Lake) with James Steinberg as his Deputy. Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, and Martin Indyk served as MidEast envoys. Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State with Stuart Eizenstat, Peter Tarnoff, and James Rubin (son of Robert Rubin) as top Under Secretaries and Deputies. Wililam Cohen was Secretary of Defense.
“The American people…understand the real gamble is having the same old folks doing things over and over and over again and somehow expecting a different result.” —President Elect Barack Obama
BUT: His appointees reflect the recycling of Jewish Americans most responsible for the deregulation of Wall Street that led to our economic meltdown. Not one of the 23 Senators or 133 members of the House of Representatives who voted against the Iraq War (his campaign hallmark) are on Obama’s transition team or been among the appointees thus far.
Examples of Top Positions held by Jewish Americans in Government:
White House Chiefs of Staff: Second most powerful position in the White House. All Jews.
–Reagan: Ken Duberstein
–Bush: Joshua Bolten
–Obama: Rahm Emanuel (who volunteered to serve in the Israeli army, not America’s)
–V.P. Cheney: I. Scooter Libby
–V.P. Joe Biden: Ron Klain (former Chief of Staff to V.P. Al Gore)
Additionally: V.P. Al Gore had Leon Fuerth, National Security Advisor
Treasury Secretaries:
–Bill Clinton: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers
–Obama: Timothy Geithner, (President of the New York Federal Reserve: dealt with meltdown of Wall Street Banks, Insurance Companies, and Financial Service Companies). Served as Treasury Under Secretary under both Rubin and Summers.
Director, National Economic Council:
–Bill Clinton: Robert Rubin, Gene Sperling, Stephen Friedman
–Obama: Lawrence Summers
Federal Reserve Chairmen: All Jews
–Carter to Reagan: Paul Volcker
–Reagan (1987) to George W. Bush (2006): Alan Greenspan
–George W. Bush: Paul Wolfowitz; Ben Bernanke
Barack Obama has nominated Paul Volcker as Chariman of the newly created “Economic Recovery Advisory Board”.
Currently 5 out of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank Districts in the country are led by Jewish Americans. (Four others are reported to be Jewish, but couldn’t be confirmed) All Jews.
–Eric S. Rosengren (Boston); Timothy Geithner (New York City, now nominated as Treasury Secretary); –Jeffrey M. Lacker (Richmond); Gary H. Stern (Minneapolis); Janet Yellin (San Francisco)
World Bank:
Always headed by an American has enormous power over third world country’s political and economic stability. Seen as an extension of U.S. foreign policy.
–Recent World Bank Presidents: James Wolfensohn, Paul Wolfowitz, currently Robert Zoellick (Jews)
(Zoellick was previously a managing director of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and Bush’s U.S. Trade Representative).
Congress:
Congress is the premier institution where the Jewish/Israel lobby has its most influence. It’s been called an “Israeli Occupied Territory” and “The Little Knesset”. In reality, it’s Congressmen who lobby the Jewish/Israeli Lobby for financial, political, and good public relation favors. It is the most damning shameful display of a superpower surrendering and pandering its dignity, and honor to a Pro Israel Lobby. When Congress has to choose between U.S. and Israel’s interests it adopts Israel’s interests.
One Example of Who Congress Really Serves:
June 11, 2008: Americans denied more Unemployment Benefits.
According to an Associated Press Report the House of Representatives defeated an attempt to give unemployed Americans an extra three months of jobless benefits, i.e. extending the average $300 a week benefit check for 13 weeks for all unemployed Americans.
June 27, 2008: Instead, Israel gets the money
According to an A.F.P. report, just sixteen days later the Congress approved a 170 million dollar increase in security assistance to Israel as part of its new 10-year, 30 billion dollar defense aid commitment to the Jewish state. The legislation gained final approval in a 92-6 Senate vote.
Israel’s automatic access to our tax dollars began in 1948 with a $100 Million grant by President Truman, an extraordinary amount in those days.
While Israel sends Israel $30 Billion ‘EXTRA” in aid, that same amount was denied to expand America’s Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), to the 3 American automakers whose industry employs over 1.3 million Americans, and to extend unemployment benefits suffering American families during this Wall Street manufactured economic meltdown. But, in good government fashion Wall Street is getting trillions while Joe the Plumber has to sell his plunger to eat.
“Unbeknownst to most Americans, Israel’s westernmost settlement is not located in Palestine-Israel, but is 6000 miles away on the high ground overlooking Foggy Bottom in Washington D.C. This Capital Hill settlement of pro-Israel lobbies and think tanks strategically controls the high ground overlooking the United States’ Middle East policy landscape by having made kibbutzniks of most members of the executive and legislative branches of the government—including President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden (a wannabe Zionist), and future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (a born Zionist).”
–Robert Weitzel, “Israel’s Settlement on Capitol Hill, Counterpunch, November 28, 2008: MUST READ
“An attack on Israel is an attack on America, in my estimation. My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel.”
–Richard “Dick” Armey, former House of Representatives Majority Leader (1995-2003), in an interview with Jake Tapper, New York Times, “The Way we live now 9-1-02: Questions for Dick Armey, Retiring, Not Shy”, September 1, 2002
–On MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, May 1, 2001, Rep. Dick Armey called for the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories.
“It’s almost political suicide . . . for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government.”
–President Jimmy Carter, “Palestine—Peace or Apartheid”
Former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, wrote in his 2006 book, “Target Iran:
“Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”
“You can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here,”
–Former Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) on Senate Floor upon leaving office, Congressional Record – Senate, May 20, 2004, pages S5921-S5925.
“The real cost of our so-called “strategic relationship” with Israel is not just in dollars but in American lives. AIPAC, as Israel’s chief representative in Washington, promotes an agenda that undermines U.S. credibility and threatens to draw us into more needless wars in Iran and Syria.”
–Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL): author of “They Dare to Speak”, and, “Deliberate Deceptions”; and Founding Chairman of the “Council for the National Interest” (http://cnionline.org/)
“The U.S. Congress is not even handed for “domestic political reason”; and, “Israeli leaders understand our system very, very well [and] because they understand our system they can exploit it.”
–Former Congressman Lee Hamilton, was ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee speaking at a Middle East Symposium October 22-23 on “Conflict and Peace in the Middle East
at Carbondale, IL.
Mr. Hamilton was Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission. In an article by Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute, 9/11 Commission Chairmen Admit Whitewashing the Cause of the Attacks, August 7, 2006; Mr. Eland wrote:
“As both the Bush administration and its client government in Israel, with their invasions of Arab states in Iraq and Lebanon, respectively, make the United States ever more hated in the Islamic world, a new book by the chairmen of the 9/11 commission admits that the commission whitewashed the root cause of the 9/11 attacks—that same interventionist U.S. foreign policy……Former Governor Tom Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairmen of the 9/11 Commission—have written a tell-all book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (Knopf, Aug. 15, 2006)… makes the shocking admission that some commission members deliberately wanted to distort an even more important issue. Apparently, unidentified commissioners wanted to cover up the fact that U.S. support for Israel was one of the motivating factors behind al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Although Hamilton, to his credit, argued for saying that the reasons al Qaeda committed the heinous strike were the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and American support for Israel, the panel watered down that frank conclusion to state that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. policy on Iraq are “dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”
111th Congress: 100 Senators: 435 House Representatives
Jews: <2% style=""> 13 Senators; 32 Members of House of Representatives.
African Americans: 13% of Population: 0 Senators, 42 Members of the House of Representatives.
Hispanics: 14% of Population: 3 Senators, ~25 Members of House of Representatives.
In the Senate’s entire History only 5 African Americans have been Senators, including Obama.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
The most important Congressional Committee serving Israel’s interests is the Foreign Relations Committee in both the Senate and House.
–Senate Chairs of Foreign Relations Committee: Joe Biden (I am a Zionist), to be followed by John Kerry (of Jewish descent), staunch Israeli supporter.
–House Chairs of Foreign Relations Committee:
–Tom Lantos (deceased): Israel’s premier Congressman and sponsor/co-sponsor of every Congressional Resolution supporting Israel and attacking Arab nations.
–Howard Berman: In a Jerusalem Post interview, June 23, 2008, the following was reported:
””Howard Berman likes to joke that he became a Zionist before he became a Democrat.. He has the helm of one of the most powerful bodies shaping US foreign policy, and he says his decision to run for Congress and focus on international relations while in office was intimately connected to his Jewish background and ties to the Jewish state. “Israel’s security and the US-Israeli relationship is for me an issue that shapes my whole agenda [in] Congress, and guides it,”.
Senator Carl Levin (Jewish) is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
–Oversee all Military budgets and policies (ensures military aid to Israel)
Sub-Committee Chairs of House Foreign Relations Committee:
(Below, Jews Chair 4 out of the 7 Sub-Committees). Notice the influence on the Middle East, Terrorism, and Western nations.
–Rep. Gary Ackerman: Sub-Committee on Middle East and Asia
–Rep. Brad Sherman: Sub-Committee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation, and Trade
–Rep. Eliot Engel: Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere
–Rep. Robert Wexler: Sub-Committee on Europe
Additionally Rep. Henry Waxman (Jewish) replaced Rep. John Dingell (Catholic, been Congressmen for 53 years) as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senator Joe Lieberman despite his opposition to Obama kept his Chairmanship of the powerful Homeland Security Committee. Do you think the Senate feared the Lobby’s backlash if they removed Joe “the traitor” Lieberman?
The following officials are responsible for Homeland Security, Justice Department, Terrorism, and Financial Intelligence. They have access to the most sensitive intelligence, military, technology, and international financial transactions. All Jews.
–Michael Chertoff: Secretary of Homeland Security
–Sen. Joe Lieberman: Chair of Senate Committee on Homeland Security
–Michael Mukasey: Attorney General of the Justice Department
–Stuart Levey: Under Secretary Treasury Department for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Man most responsible for closing most Muslim Charities in U.S. that assist Palestinians; accusing any Pro Palestinian individual or organization of Terrorism and imprisoning such persons for years (Dr. Sami Al Arian) without charges; and limiting the access and services of the Arab Bank in New York City.
Two Jews who’ve served as Chairs of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees. (there have been others such as Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Chair of DNC in 2000)
That’s Jewish power.
Steve Grossman (Jewish): Chair of Democratic National Committee
Went from Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party (1990-1992)—to-Chairman of AIPAC (Israel’s powerful lobby; 1992-1997)—to—Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC: 1997-1999). Only in America can the head of a lobbing group for a foreign nation become chair of one of the two major political parties.
According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency , January 17, 1997 (AIPAC’s Steve Grossman takes Democratic Post), Grossman, in a phone interview, stated: “One part of my life will always be dedicated to grass-roots activism in the Jewish community….”My commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship is unwavering.”
Kenneth Mehlmen (Jewish). Chair of Republican National Committee
Served as campaign manager for George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. Became Chairman of the Republican National Committee (2005-2007).
In addition:
Rahm Emanuel (Jewish):
Served as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (decides which candidates gets election funds: a controlling power) for the 2006 election. After the Democratic Party regained control of the House, he was elected as the next Chairman of the Democratic Caucus becoming the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the House after the Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Rep. Eric Cantor (Jewish):
Within 2 years of being elected to the House of Representatives he was selected to serve as Chief Deputy Majority Whip, the highest appointed position in the House of Representatives. On November 19, 2008, he was elected to the position of Minority Whip for the 111th Congress becoming the second highest-ranking Republican in the House.
He’s on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which is the chief tax-writing committee of the House with broad responsibilities on several programs.
He’s also the Chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.
Additionally, Representative Sander M. Levin (Jewish) Chairs the Subcommittee on Trade of the Ways and Means Committee.
2. BANKING/FINANCE:
Referring to Vanity Fair’s 100 List of the world’s most powerful people, the Jerusalem Post reports:
“It’s a list of “the world’s most powerful people,” 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of billions. More than half its members, at least by one count, are Jewish….Joseph Aaron, the editor of The Chicago Jewish News, thinks it’s a list his readers should “feel very, very good about….Talk about us being accepted into this society, talk about us having power in this society,”
–Jerusalem Post, Oct. 11, 2007, “Jewish Power Dominates at Vanity Fair”,
Wall Street Banks, Insurance Companies, and Financial Centers were mostly founded by Jews and usually have Jewish executives:
All institutions below are part of the Wall Street economic meltdown, either going bankrupt, failing, or restructuring. The U.S. taxpayer has poured over $8 Trillion into Wall Street’s financial institutions. It’s an enormous asset to these mainly Jewish firms that their executives rotate in and out of the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and Securities and Exchange Commission. Many sit on each other’s Board of Directors.
- Goldman Sachs: (Jewish) founded in 1869 by German Jewish immigrant Marcus Goldman. Later joined by his son in law Samuel Sachs to form Goldman Sachs. Henry Paulson was Chair and CEO before leaving to become Bush’s Treasury Secretary. Robert Rubin was a Co Senior Partner.
- Lehman Brothers: (Jewish) founded by Henry and Mayer Lehman. CEO: Richard S. Fuld, Jr. (Jewish) who also is a member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank along with Michael Geinther, Obama’s Treasury Secretary.
- Citigroup: Robert Rubin served as Chairman and now is a Director and Senior Counselor. Served as Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. Was mentor to Obama’s economic team and is Obama’s financial advisor. Sanford A. Weill was CEO and later Chairman of Citicorp. He also was a Director of the N.Y. Federal Reserve Board…
- AIG: (American International Group) Maurice R. Greenberg, Chairman for 35 years.
- Bear Stearns: (Jewish), Alan D. Schwartz, President and CEO, Alan Greenberg, Chairm.
The quote below is from an article published in the Jewish Ledger March 19, 2008.
“Bear Stearns” will always be associated with financial failure rather than with its long history of success, a history from which the Jewish community was a major beneficiary….Through it all and until recently, Bear was also Wall Street’s quintessential Jewish firm. That says much in an industry that was distinguished by so many great Jewish names and fortunes: The Seligmans, Hallgartens, Goldman Sachses, Wertheims, Kuhn Loebs, Lehmans, Warburgs, Neubergers, Baches and many others had Jewish roots”.
Software and Internet: Below All Jews.
* Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
* Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founder of Google
* Lawrence Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation
* Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland
3. HOLLYWOOD/MEDIA: Jews founded all the Hollywood Studios and the 3 Major Television Networks.
Hollywood:
Hollywood has historically portrayed minorities in a negative often barbaric fashion beginning with Native Americans and ending with today’s Arab/Muslim villains. (Read Prof. Jack Shaheen’s “Reel Bad Arabs”). Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians are constantly portrayed as terrorists, barbaric, evil, dirty, and oppressors of women. Dehumanizing a people legitimizes wars, invasions, colonialism, and occupation.
According to the historian Neal Gable, author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, “Jews invented Hollywood”.
“Hollywood studios were founded by a few Jewish immigrants like Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky (Paramount Studios; Carl Laemmele (Universal); Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn and the Schenks (MGM), Harry Cohn (Columbia); William Fox (Fox Film Corporation); Brothers Harry, Sam, Jack , and Albert Warner (Warner Brothers); Marcus Loew (Loew’s Theatres}, along with a dominance of Jewish attorney’s and talent agents in Hollywood”.
“It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture,” acknowledges Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. “Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names.”
–Michael Medved (Jewish), “Is Hollywood Too Jewish?,” Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996), p. 37.
Jonathan J. Goldberg, editor of the influential Jewish community weekly Forward. in his 1996 book, “Jewish Power”, wrote:
“In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation”.
–Jonathan Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See also pp. 39-40, 290-291.
MEDIA:
Mostly owned, controlled, and run by Jewish publishers, executives, editors, and a plethora of Jewish journalists.
“In the world according to U.S. Media, the high moral ground in the Middle East belongs to Israel’s government—even when it slaughters Lebanese civilians as a matter of policy. In news coverage , Israeli casualties are apt to have names, faces, and bereaved relatives, while Arab victims are likely to be fleeting images: nameless, faceless, distant….Israel’s most crucial allies include the mass media of the United States. Together with top official in Washington, news outlets keep reinforcing the assumption that the Israeli government can do little wrong”.
–Norman Solomon & Jeff Cohen, “Wizards of Media Oz”; p. 243 (courageous Jewish journalists)
–Founders of the 3 Television Networks: All Jews
–William S. Paley: founder of CBS
–David Sarnoff: founder of NBC
–Leonard Goldenson: founder of ABC
“The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home”
–Prof. Paul Craig Roberts, “What We Know and Don’t Know About 9/11”, Vdare.com, August 16, 2006
Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration,
THE BIG FIVE Media Conglomerates:
Conglomerates are responsible for over 80% of all news, editorial, sports, and entertainment information in the U.S. Each conglomerate owns many television, cable and radio stations, movie studios, daily newspapers, weekly magazines, and publishing companies in the U.S. and around the world. Below is only a small list of the overwhelming Jewish executives in all facets of these Conglomerate Medias.
–Viacom (CBS): Sumner Redstone (Jewish), Chairman
39 television stations, 185 radio stations, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, UPN, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster
–Les Moonves, (Jewish): CEO of CBS Television
–Zev Shalev (Jewish): Executive Producer of CBS “The Early Show” (daily morning show)
–60 Minutes: Don Hewitt (Jewish), Executive Producer for 36 years) followed by Jeff Fager, main Jewish Correspondents: Mike Wallace (retired), Leslie Stahl, Bob Simon, Morley Safer (attacked CBS for not showing Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons, called it cowardly): ALL Jewish
–Time/Warner (CNN): Jeffrey Lawrence Bewkes, President and CEO (Jewish)
Time Warner Cable, Warner Bros. Pictures, TNN, HBO, Warner Music Group, Time Publishing (Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Money Magazine).
–Jonathan Klein (Jewish) President of CNN/U.S.
–Barry Meyer: (Jewish) Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
–Richard Stengel (Jewish) Time Magazine’s Managing Editor.
–News Corporation: Rupert Murdoch, Chair and CEO (gentile, but some report Jewish mother)
Here’s what the editor in chief of the New Jersey Jewish News, “How now, Dow Jones?”, May 5, 2007 said of Rupert Murdoch.
“Murdoch is popular in the pro-Israel community for his newspaper’s and network’s unflinching support for Israel, and he should be. The Journal’s editorial writers also tend to take Israel’s side. But opinion is opinion, and fact is fact. You can rely on the columnists and editorial writers at Murdoch’s New York Post for a rousingly pro-Israel take on the day’s news…..For years the Post’s Israel correspondent was Uri Dan, a right-hand man to Ariel Sharon”.
Murdoch:
Owns Fox Entertainment Group, includes Fox Television (owns 60 television stations with 188 affiliates), Fox Cable (sports, movie channels, National Geographic Channel, 20th Century Fox Movie Studio). World’s largest publisher of english language newspapers, including the New York Post, owns Harper Collins Publishers.
–Peter Chernin (Jewish) President, and Chief Operating Officers of News Corp.; Chair and CEO of Fox Group.
– Roger Ailes (Jewish). President of Fox News Channel and Chair of Fox Television Stations Group
In an interview with the Vindicator paper of Youngstown Ohio, November 11, 2008, Roger Ailes was quoted as saying: “I defend the United States, Israel and the Constitution.”
–“The Weekly Standard”: most influential right wing magazine is owned by Rupert Murdoch with a Jewish Neocon Editor, William Kristol
–General Electric: Jeff Zucker (Jewish); President & CEO of NBC Universal (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC)
NBC serves 220 affiliated TV stations, operates 28 TV broadcasting stations, four cable/satellite networks around the world, investments in the Internet, multimedia, cable television, Universal Studios, plus owns Telemundo, one of the two largest Hispanic broadcasting networks.
–Mark Hoffman, (Jewish): President of CNBC (Business channel):
–Ben Silverman, (Jewish): Co-Chair, NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal TV Studio
–Ron Meyer, (Jewish): President and Chief Operating Officer, Universal Studios
–Walt Disney Company: Robert Iger (Jewish): President and CEO
Operates ABC Network with 226 affiliated stations, Cable TV including ESPN Sports Network, Movie Studios, International Stations, Retail Store, Internet, Music, Theatres, Theme Parks, ABC Radio Networks with the largest radio sports network in the country; also owns 10 television stations, 44 AM and 18 FM Radio Stations. Publishing, Magazines,
–David Westin (Jewish), President of ABC News
–George Bodenheimer, (Jewish): President of ESPN (Sports Network)
According to a research and network analysis done by Sonoma University on the Boards of Directors of the ten big media organizations, only 118 people comprise the membership of all ten boards. These 118 persons also sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. In fact, eight out of the ten big media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other.
This is the greatest and purest monopoly of power, influence, and intimidation by a small cabal of men and women who run the world’s access to information. They formulate public opinion, create or destroy governments and careers, and regularly shape and influence government policy.
This is the greatest danger to democracy, not the terrorism of a few thousand murderous fanatics.
Jewish media power is not limited to the U.S. but is found in Europe, Canada, Australia, and other nations.
Major Jewish Newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post (Owns Newsweek), Wall Street Journal
–Tribune Company: Sam Zell (Jewish), Chairman, President and CEO
Owns the following papers: Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel (South Florida), Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, Morning Call and Daily Press (among others)
All three major News Magazines are owned or run by Jews:
–TIME: Jewish Chairman of Time/Warner
–Newsweek: Owned by the Washington Post, a Jewish owned Media Company
–U.S. News and World Report: Owned by Jewish billionaire, Mortimer Zuckerman; who also served as President of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; a staunch supporter of Israel.
Special Mention:
1. Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Chair, Cheryl Feldman Halpern (Jewish)
–CPB was created by Congress in 1967 under the Public Broadcasting Act. It receives federal funding and in turn funds PBS and NPR (National Public Radio). Ms. Halpern was appointed by Bush to this post in 2005. Previously she was Chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition for eight years. As such she was a strong critic of NPR, accusing the public network of anti-Israel bias. Now America’s public radio networks are run by a Zionist. That’s power.
2. M.E.M.R.I.: Middle East Media Research Institute, headquartered in Washington D.C.
Founded in 1998 by former Israeli military intelligence officer, Yogi Carmon, and the Israeli born Dr. Meyrav Wurmser (left for the Hudson Institute), wife of David Wurmser, former Middle East Advisor to V.P. Dick Cheney and now Director of Middle East Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
–The sole purpose of this organization is to “translate” Arab and Persian media reports into English and other languages. It’s highly inflammatory, selective, wrong and biased translation is done deliberately to further antagonize western governments and peoples against Arabs and Muslims to further entrench Israel’s sole narrative as a victim of hate and violence. Expectedly MEMRI has received wide flung mention, praise, and free propaganda in the Jewish owned media such as the New York Times.
THINK TANKS
Jews, Neocons, and Pro Israel supporters dominate the landscape of Washington “think?” tanks that basically provides the “thinking” for the White House and Congress. Their policy papers, talking points, and dominance on television news programs as “experts” as well as columnists and opinion writers for the major papers is overwhelming. They’re funded by Jewish philanthropists and wealthy conservative foundations.
A review of their board of directors and advisors reads like a who’s who of the Executive, Legislative, Judicial branches of government; corporate America, media owners, editors, columnists, television broadcasters, academia, entertainment personalities, even foreign governmental officials.
As one example, let’s take the AIPAC founded (Martin Indyk) Washington Institute for Near East Policy:
Its Executive Director is Robert Satloff (Jewish), who served on Richard Perle’s Defense Policy Board in the Pentagon (reported to Paul Wolfowitz called the “Architect” of the Iraq War) that pushed for the Iraq War. Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Bush, and Obama’s Mideast Envoy) is a Consultant.
Shockingly, the Board of Directors of this AIPAC formed “think tank” has 4 (bipartisan) Former Secretaries of State: Warren Christopher, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, and George Shultz.
Plus Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor, R. James Woolsey, former CIA Director, Richard Perle, James G. Roche, former Secretary of Air Force, and Publisher Mortimer Zuckerman.
The same goes for other Pro Israel think tanks as well; like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI: Chairman Bruce Kovner, Jewish), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA: Chair, Mark Broxmeyer, Jewish), Project for the New American Century (Chair, William Kristol, Jewish), Council on Foreign Relations (President: Richard Haass: Jewish); Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (President: Clifford May: Jewish); Center for Security Policy (President: Frank Gaffney, Jewish)
Obama, especially with Hilary “Zionist” Clinton as Secretary of State, will not be able to waver from the path of allegiance to Israel. He talks the talk but he walks the Zionist walk. He projects confidence but in reality has shown the same insecurity, lack of confidence, and willingness to sell his political soul and nation to powerful Pro Israel Jews who’ve surrounded him and built him up from the very beginning.
Given America’s propensity to avoid confrontation, to seek a happy medium, it’s general ignorance on all matters political, especially on “foreign affairs”; coupled with the high education, wordsmith eloquence, assertiveness and projection of confidence by the “Jewish” elite who swarm around every politician; Americans willingly surrender the purview of political “expertise” to such an elite trusting that they know what’s best for America. The Cabal Jews tell America—-trust us— we know money, and we know Arabs and Muslims, we know their violent faith, their addiction to terrorism, and the fact that they only understand power.
So trust us, America, we know what’s good for them and what’s best for you. Amen, Shalom.
“Until Israel’s hilltop settlement in our nation’s capital is dismantled, allowing for the possibility of a just and lasting peace in Palestine-Israel, its influence on both branches of our government and its insidious affect on US Middle East policy will continue to make willing—or unwitting—kibbutzniks of all Americans. We will be held as complicit, and as culpable, as the citizens of the country whose leaders sat in the dock at Nuremberg. .The world will ask, “Why didn’t you do something to stop it?”
–Robert Weitzel, “Israel’s Settlement on Capitol Hill”, Counterpunch, November 28, 2008 (a must read)
America, our manufactured friend, a friend that loves us to death, that even wallows in the murder of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 as long as it benefits its interests—-with friends like these….well you know the rest.
“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,”
–Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Haaretz, April 16, 2008, “Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks GOOD for Israel (as quoted in Ma’ariv )
As an American who loves freedom and justice for all people I pledge to first work for the freedom of our nation from such foreign influence and betrayal by the few, the rich, the shameless, who commandeer our national interests to serve their allegiance to Israel, not America.
Americans have long endured in silence and ignorance the power of the few who’ve fostered in our psyche a herd mentality that absorbs their lies, myths, and propaganda without question causing this great nation to serve and further the political interests of a foreign nation with the blood and fortunes of our young generation.
In honoring the dead at Gettysburg, President Lincoln left a recording for history on this nation’s eternal vigilance for freedom, equality, and liberty: “that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”
The time for Israel and its Lobby’s stranglehold on our government and future is soon to be over.
Can you hear the Liberty Bell ring again?
“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.” Henri Amiel
MUST WATCH VIDEOS:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589 (MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY) “Occupation 101” on Israel’s Founding, Terrorism, and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians out of their land)
http://ahmedismailibrahim.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/for-those-who-want-to-see-the-ugly-truth-of-israel-you-gotta-see-this-video-shot-in-1950/ (A Moving Video of Palestinian ethnic cleansing filmed in 1950)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vWZTTrceV8
BBC’s “THE WAR PARTY—Zionism and in Neocon Foreign Policy”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20155.htm (Must watch Danish Video on: THE ISRAEL Lobby)
Sources:
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0591/9105017.htm (Truman on having Jewish, not Arab, Constituents)
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/moshe_dayan.html (Moshe Dayan Quote on American aid)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20443.htm (jAlan Hart, ICH, June 8, 2008: Mr. Hart was a BBC journalist, an author, and researcher)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7729487.stm
Eviction in battle for East Jerusalem, November 15, 2008 (Fawzia al-Kurd)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081119/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictexpulsionjerusalem
Tent of expelled Jerusalem Palestinian family torn down, November 19, 2008
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3560118,00.html
(Obama ‘s Letter to Bush: Hamas must recognize Israel 6?25/08 )
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3598462,00.html
(Obama in a Conference call with 900 Rabbis: Israel’s security is “sacrosanct”, Ynet, 9/18/08)
http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SpeechesByPolicymakers/Barack_Obama_-_AIPAC_Policy_Forum_2007.pdf (AIPAC: Barack Obama’s Speech: March 2, 2007)
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/86530.htm (State Dept. Website and the Daniel Pearl Story)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E7DB1E3CF932A3575AC0A9649C8B63
(Interview with Dick Armey, NYT, Sept 1, 2002: The Way We Live now, Questions for Dick Armey—‘an attack on Israel is an attack on America”
http://www.counterpunch.org/armey0502.html
(Counterpunch: “Rep. Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians, May 2, 2002)
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neoconQuotes.html
(Empire Builders: NeoConservatives and their Blueprint for U.S. Power: Almost all are Jewish)
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/11/lets-dont-be-naive-about-obama-and-the-jewish-establishment.html (Avraham Burg Quote)
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2008/11/13/1000960/ders
“Dershowitz: I Helped Keep Carter Silent”, Jewish Telegraph Agency; November 13, 2008
http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/12/steve-sheffey-g.html
(December 04, 2007; “DEMOCRATS & ISRAEL” A summary of Democrats pandering to Israel)
(White Man’s Burden, Ari Shavit; Haaretz), May 4, 2003)
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=648 (How the Jewish Lobby Pushed for the Iraq War)
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0410-34.htm
“Abraham Foxman and Intimidation of Colin Powell”
Book by two Israeli Journalists: Drucker, Raviv and Shelah, Ofer, Boomerang…, Keter, 2005, pps. 132-133.
http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/owners/ (Columbia Journal Review) “Who Owns What” in Media)
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm
Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America, 6/24/08)
(Sonoma University Research: 118 people compost membership of boards of directors of 10 biggest media)
http://www.corp-research.org (Info on Top 5 Media Conglomerates)
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Media-conglomerate
(Comprehensive Info on Media Conglomerates)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
“The Weekly Standard”/ Owned by Rupert Murdoch, William Kristol, Editor
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/5306/edition_id/98/format/html/displaystory.html (On Steve Grossman)
http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/051007/edcolHowNow.html
(Editor of New Jersey Jewish News on Rupert Murdoch)
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery04102003.html
Uri Avnery, “The Night After”, April 10, 2003
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1785
“9/11 Commission Chairmen Admit Whitewashing the Cause of the Attacks, August 7, 2006;”
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
“Project for American Century” (List of signatories of Letter to Clinton, June 3, 1997 to attack Iraq)
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1292/9212069b.html
Washington Report on the Middle East, Jews and Israel, AIPAC President Resigns After Being Taped Boasting of negotiating “Sect of State” for Clinton”; December/January 1992/93, Page 69
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/05/1000795/the-chosen-jewish-members-in-the-111th-us-congress
“The Chosen: Jewish members in the 111th U.S. Congress”, Jewish Telegraph Agency, Nov. 5, 2008
List of 13 Jewish Senators and 32 Members of House of Representatives
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214132663714&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“Time to Rethink”; Jun. 23, 2008 Interview with Rep. Howard Berman
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1191257286817
On Vanity Fair’s List of 100 most powerful men and women in the world (51% Jewish)
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/newestablishment/ (Vanity Fair 100)
http://www.jewishledger.com/articles/2008/07/17/editorials/edit930.txt (On Bear Stearns, Jews in Wall Street)
http://www.cjh.org/education/essays.php?action=show&id=10 Center for Jewish History)
“All That Glitters is not Goldwyn: Early Hollywood Moguls”
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Barrier_Report_July_2008.pdf (United Nations: The Humanitarian Impact of Israel’s Wall))
http://www.kibush.co.il/datapage.asp?lang=1%20§ion=10
(Occupation Magazine: Articles, Maps, Stats)
http://jinsa.org/ (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs)
“America’s Pro Israel LOBBY” (quote from its website)
http://adl.org/ (Anti Defamation League)
http://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/
“Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations” – See List of 50 Major Jewish Organizations; Malcolm I. Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/clinton-obama-and-the-jews/
“Clinton, Obama and the Jews”, Feb. 1, 2008: “an embarrassment of riches for Jews to have both these candidates)
(American Enterprise Institute:
President Bush proudly proclaimed that he had 20 of AEI’s members in his administration
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateI01.php (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
Heritage Foundation: A Conservative Think Tank
Cato Institute: funded by two Jews: Charles Koch and Murray Rothbard
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1296.html
Good Search Site on Right Wing persons and organizations
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/
Center for Foundation of Democracies: President, Clifford May (Jewish)
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Republican-Propaganda1sep04.htm
“Tentacles or Rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history”; MUST READ
Lewis Lapham / Harpers Magazine v.309, n.1852, September 2004 1sep04
http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/nov/11/fox-news-chairman-ailes-comes-home-discusses/
“Interview with Roger Ailes, Nov 11, 2008: “I defend…Israel”
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/060816_what_know.htm
Prof. Paul Craig Roberts, “What We Know and Don’t Know about 9/11)
http://www.jewishachievement.com/domains/ceos.html
Overview of Jewish CEO’s, past and present
http://jiw.blogspot.com/2008/11/good-news-about-obama-appointments.html MUST READ
(Jewish Issues Watchdog)
“Good News About Obama Appointments”. November 24, 2008
From Middle East Forum, by Steve Rosen, Wed, 19 Nov 2008:
Previous postings raised questions about potential nominees to Obama Administration positions regarding their views on Israel, Iran, the Palestinians, and other issues. Today, I focus on reasons to have confidence that the incoming team will do positive things in the Middle East. Many of the candidates already nominated or rumored to be likely appointees, are well known to and highly regarded by AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations. My colleagues, and in some cases I, had contacts and dealings with each of these people over the years, and we had evidence that gave us confidence. This includes
* Rahm Emmanuel, Chief of Staff to the President;
* Ron Klain, Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden;
* Jim Steinberg, likely to be Deputy National Security Adviser or National Security Adviser to Obama;
* Tony Blinken, likely to be National Security Adviser to the Vice President;
* Greg Craig, White House Counsel;
* Pete Rouse, White House adviser;
* Jim Messina, Deputy Chief of Staff to the president;
* Phil Schiliro, Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs;
* Dennis Ross, rumored for several top diplomatic positions;
* Jack Lew, rumored to head the National Economic Council;
* Jane Harman and Tony Lake, rumored for top intelligence positions;
* Janet Napolitano, who will head the Department of Homeland Security;
* Richard Danzig, probable Deputy Secretary of Defense;
* Richard Clarke, rumored for a ntational security post,; and many others.
Not to mention Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. That certainly doesn’t mean we never had disagreements or will never, but this looks like it will be an Administration full of people quite capable of making wise decisions in the Middle East.
That said, I will continue to look for potential problems among possible nominees and policy developments.
Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC foreign policy chief who now writes a blog hosted by the Middle East Forum.
He has been under federal indictment since August 4, 2005 for alleged violations of the Espionage Act in the conduct of AIPAC’s work
http://www.counterpunch.org/weitzel11282008.html
Robert Weitzel, Israel’s Settlement on Capitol Hill, Counterpunch, Nov. 28, 2008: MUST READ)
http://www.masada2000.org/shit-list.html
List of Self Hating Israel Threatening Jews
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Note: some will agree with Mohamed Khodr, others will not. My point in re-printing this piece here is not to endorse it (nor is this note intended as a way to denounce it). My point is to offer it to your attention in the hope, as usual, of generating an interesting discussion.
The Saker
