IDF order will enable mass deportation from West Bank

Haaretz reports:

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

When the order comes into effect, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.

Given the security authorities' actions over the past decade, the first Palestinians likely to be targeted under the new rules will be those whose ID cards bear home addresses in the Gaza Strip - people born in Gaza and their West Bank-born children - or those born in the West Bank or abroad who for various reasons lost their residency status. Also likely to be targeted are foreign-born spouses of Palestinians.

Until now, Israeli civil courts have occasionally prevented the expulsion of these three groups from the West Bank. The new order, however, puts them under the sole jurisdiction of Israeli military courts.

The new order defines anyone who enters the West Bank illegally as an infiltrator, as well as "a person who is present in the area and does not lawfully hold a permit." The order takes the original 1969 definition of infiltrator to the extreme, as the term originally applied only to those illegally staying in Israel after having passed through countries then classified as enemy states - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.

The order's language is both general and ambiguous, stipulating that the term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with which Israel has friendly ties (such as the United States) and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish. All this depends on the judgment of Israel Defense Forces commanders in the field.

The Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual was the first Israeli human rights to issue warnings against the order, signed six months ago by then-commander of IDF forces in Judea and Samaria Area Gadi Shamni.

Two weeks ago, Hamoked director Dalia Kerstein sent GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi a request to delay the order, given "the dramatic change it causes in relation to the human rights of a tremendous number of people."

According to the provisions, "a person is presumed to be an infiltrator if he is present in the area without a document or permit which attest to his lawful presence in the area without reasonable justification." Such documentation, it says, must be "issued by the commander of IDF forces in the Judea and Samaria area or someone acting on his behalf."

The instructions, however, are unclear over whether the permits referred to are those currently in force, or also refer to new permits that military commanders might issue in the future. The provision are also unclear about the status of bearers of West Bank residency cards, and disregards the existence of the Palestinian Authority and the agreements Israel signed with it and the PLO.

The order stipulates that if a commander discovers that an infiltrator has recently entered a given area, he "may order his deportation before 72 hours elapse from the time he is served the written deportation order, provided the infiltrator is deported to the country or area from whence he infiltrated."

The order also allows for criminal proceedings against suspected infiltrators that could produce sentences of up to seven years. Individuals able to prove that they entered the West Bank legally but without permission to remain there will also be tried, on charges carrying a maximum sentence of three years. (According to current Israeli law, illegal residents typically receive one-year sentences.)

The new provision also allow the IDF commander in the area to require that the infiltrator pay for the cost of his own detention, custody and expulsion, up to a total of NIS 7,500.

The fear that Palestinians with Gaza addresses will be the first to be targeted by this order is based on measures that Israel has taken in recent years to curtail their right to live, work, study or even visit the West Bank. These measures violated the Oslo Accords.

According to a decision by the West Bank commander that was not backed by military legislation, since 2007, Palestinians with Gaza addresses must request a permit to stay in the West Bank. Since 2000, they have been defined as illegal sojourners if they have Gaza addresses, as if they were citizens of a foreign state. Many of them have been deported to Gaza, including those born in the West Bank.

Currently, Palestinians need special permits to enter areas near the separation fence, even if their homes are there, and Palestinians have long been barred from the Jordan Valley without special authorization. Until 2009, East Jerusalemites needed permission to enter Area A, territory under full PA control.

Another group expected to be particularly harmed by the new rules are Palestinians who moved to the West Bank under family reunification provisions, which Israel stopped granting for several years.

In 2007, amid a number of Hamoked petitions and as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, tens of thousands of people received Palestinian residency cards. The PA distributed the cards, but Israel had exclusive control over who could receive them. Thousands of Palestinians, however, remained classified as "illegal sojourners," including many who are not citizens of any other country.

The new order is the latest step by the Israeli government in recent years to require permits that limit the freedom of movement and residency previously conferred by Palestinian ID cards. The new regulations are particularly sweeping, allowing for criminal measures and the mass expulsion of people from their homes.

The IDF Spokesman's Office said in response, "The amendments to the order on preventing infiltration, signed by GOC Central Command, were issued as part of a series of manifests, orders and appointments in Judea and Samaria, in Hebrew and Arabic as required, and will be posted in the offices of the Civil Administration and military courts' defense attorneys in Judea and Samaria. The IDF is ready to implement the order, which is not intended to apply to Israelis, but to illegal sojourners in Judea and Samaria."

Email – Was 9/11 a Mossad Operation?

I just came across an email published on the site Citizens America Party (http://citizensamericaparty.org/mossadoperationemail.htm) which also sums up my own position at this point and I have therefore decided to publish here. I would only add that I have personally attempted to get in touch with Dr Sabrosky but that he never replied to my emails.

The Saker

PS: I would note that *indirect* evidence of an Israeli role in 9/11 is still slowly accumulating. Check out the latest one here: Full El Al flight took off on 9/11 from JFK to Tel Aviv

----- Original Message -----

From: John Bursill
To: 'Kevin Barrett'
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 2:13 AM
Subject: Barrett interview with Sabrosky — Was 9/11 a Mossad operation?

Hello all and Kevin,

I have been opposed to many things Kevin Barrett has done over the years and the provocative approach he takes with the truth of 9/11. Recently Barrett accused www.911Blogger.com and www.911Truth.org of censorship and of possibly being on the payroll of the Zionists because they failed to report the interview done on the "Ugly Truth" pod-cast with Dr Alan Sabrosky. Sabrosky said that he "knows" 100% that MOSSAD and Israel did 9/11. The problem was that this ex military studies lecturer and expert provided NO proof of his claims?

I think it is prudent to be careful with what our two premier 9/11 Truth sites report if it is possible that the public may think we support a particular view, especially if it could lead to more Anti-Semitic smears against us. It is also simply idiotic in my view for 911Truth.org to publicise an interview where the participants are openly calling for war with Israel!

Now to get to the point of this e-mail....Kevin Barrett did an interview a few days ago with Dr Alan Sabrosky for No Lies Radio and he did attempt to draw some evidence from Sabrosky to support his case that "MOSSAD" did 9/11. Well in my view the Doctor presented nil new evidence rather all he provided was a conclusion based on a limited analysis looking at "who befitted" as a "country" and who had the "skills", "media control" and the "access" to pull off such an attack.

Listen here: http://noliesradio.org/archives/14342

While finding his argument plausible, it is definitely only one of many hypothesis's "out there".

Sabrosky did say that he can put an evidence based case together and he will be presenting another essay for us all soon.

The recent success of the 9/11 Truth Movement has been based around painstaking scientific research, and a strict non violent peaceful approach. I suggest the greatest caution when looking into and supporting a certain agenda over a clear call for a criminal investigation.

Did MOSSAD do 9/11? Well it is a possibility and that's nothing that all of us have not already considered! So in my view Dr Alan Sabrosky has not really made the news just yet, rather he has simply stirred the pot. I look forward to seeing the evidence and the analysis Sabrosky has promised us, soon?

Kind regards John

PS - If you think a program at the "Visibility 9-11" program is warranted on this issue or an essay please let me know?

PPS - Kevin if you could forward this to Dr Sabrosky, I would appreciate it.

--
9/11 24/7 until justice!

The boundless arrogance of AIPAC's leaders

How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley? We’re going to make certain that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. That is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.

Jonathan Kessler, AIPAC

Check out this video (kindly sent to me by T. - thanks T!!) which shows how AIPAC is doing what the CIA used to do on US campuses: identifying and trying to coopt/recruit 'promising' students:



The big difference is, of course, that while the CIA does this on behalf on the US government and, theoretically, in the interest of the USA, AIPAC is doing this on behalf of a foreign government (one which does not even have a record of being a loyal ally to the USA; amazingly, AIPAC still is not registered as an agent acting on behalf of a foreign power).

Listening to the likes of Kessler and Dershowitz I marvel at their boundless arrogance. They will probably be outraged and surprised when, inevitably, the chickens come home to roost.

The Saker

Political Prisoners in Venezuela?

by Eva Gollinger for the Correo del Orinoco via Venezuela Analysis

When politicians and political actors commit crimes, can they hide behind cries of persecution? As international organizations backed by Washington condemn the Chavez administration for alleged political persecution, the facts shed light on the difference between activism and crime.

Amnesty International sent out an urgent action appeal last week, claiming five individuals were under intense political persecution by the Venezuelan government. The international human rights defense organization alleged that “over recent years, the Venezuelan government appears to have established a pattern of clamping down on dissent through the use of legislative and administrative methods to silence and harrass critics. Laws are being used to justify what essentially seem to be politically motivated charges, which would indicate that the Venezuelan government is deliberately targeting opponents”.

What Amnesty International fails to outline or detail is who the individuals at issue really are and what the facts behind the crimes they are accused of actually contain. The urgent action appeal mentions Venezuelan Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, an ex governor of the State of Zulia who was arrested and charged with “public instigation of criminality” and “spreading false information” two weeks ago. Alvarez Paz, who participated in the April 2002 coup d’etat against the Venezuelan government and has consistently promoted publicly the violent overthrow of the Chavez administration, stated on live television that the Venezuelan government was supporting terrorist groups and facilitating drug trafficking. In the context of his statements, Alvarez Paz was supporting allegations from a Spanish court and several right-wing international organizations that were calling for international condemnation of the Venezuelan government.

Those defending Alvarez Paz shield themselves behind concepts of freedom of expression. But are citizens free to go on live national television and accuse the president of a nation of drug trafficking and terrorism without presenting any evidence? Would that happen in any other country without consequence? Imagine a former governor in the United States going live on NBC news and accusing President Barack Obama of terrorism and drug trafficking with no evidence to back such dangerous claims. The individual would be immediately arrested by Secret Service and prosecuted to the full extent of the law for not only spreading false information, but also for endangering the life and image of the US presidency.

In most democracies that recognize and cherish the right to freedom of expression, limitations are imposed when it comes to jeopardizing the security of a nation or its leaders. Furthermore, no one has the freedom to defame and slander others publicly with no evidence and no consequences. Hence, Alvarez Paz’s actions violated not only Venezuelan laws, but also international principles of free speech. Freedom of expression is not absolute under international law – it’s limitations are imposed when such speech clearly infringes on the rights and safety of others.

But in Venezuela, many believe they are above the law, especially those from the ruling class that dominated the nation during the last century. Most of those involved in the April 2002 coup d’etat that overthrew the government, for example, haven’t been prosecuted for their crimes, and they continue to organize to bring down the Chavez administration. Only three police commissioners were brought to justice for the April 2002 coup, after a court ruled they were responsible for ordering the massacre of Venezuelans protesting in the streets eight years ago. Nevertheless, the three police commissioners, Ivan Simonovis, Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas have appealed to international organizations claiming they are political prisoners because they oppose President Chavez. Their conviction was upheld this week in Venezuela by an appeals court.

Releasing Prisoners Illegally, a Right?

Another case mentioned by the Amnesty International alert is that of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a Venezuelan judge arrested on December 10, 2009 for aiding a prisoner to escape from a courtroom and flee the country. Judge Afiuni was charged with allowing Eligio Cedeno, a Venezuelan banker prosecuted and imprisoned for corruption and embezzlement, to exit her courtroom out a back door. She had called Cedeno into a hearing without notifying the prosecutor’s office, in clear violation of legal proceedings, and once she had him physically in the courtroom, she released him through a back door, allowing for his escape to Miami.

Judge Afiuni was subsequently detained and charged with corruption. President Chavez did publicly cite the case as evidence of corruption in the legal system and called on the Attorney General’s office to take action. But, the Venezuelan President was not responsible for the Judge’s detention, and her arrest was not arbitrary, but rather was based on solid evidence of judicial misconduct and abuse.

Violent Protest and Corruption

A New York Times article from last Sunday brutally attacked the Chavez administration and accused it of “stifling dissent” through the arrests of these individuals. The article cited the case of General Raul Isaias Baduel, a former Defense Minister and Chavez ally currently imprisoned for corruption. The Times article attempted to portray Baduel as a victim of President Chavez, yet failed to mention the former military official was caught red-handed with stealing more than $30 million USD while in office. Baduel had acquired businesses, farms and properties inside and outside of Venezuela while in his capacity as Defense Minister. Only after Chavez forced his resignation and he was later investigated for corruption did General Baduel claim he was a victim of political persecution.

Richard Blanco, an opposition leader, was also cited in the Amnesty International alert, alleging some kind of political persecution. Yet Blanco was detained in broad daylight after physically attacking a police officer during a public protest and inciting others present at the demonstration to violate the police barricade and engage in violent protest. His actions took place on live television and can hardly be disputed.

Other opposition leaders charged with crimes such as corruption have fled the country, unwilling to face charges or undergo the judicial process. Several of these higher profile individuals have obtained asylum in the US and Peru, both havens for criminals from Latin America. Former governor of Zulia, Manuel Rosales, who was found with millions of dollars of stolen wealth from his years as governor and mass, illegal land accumulation, fled justice last year after initial charges were brought against him. From Peru, where he was given asylum, Rosales alleges he is a political prisoner of the Chavez government. He is joined by other corrupt and violent criminals, including Nixon Moreno, charged with attempted rape of a female police officer and Oscar Perez, charged with armed violence and criminal incitement during protests last year.

Ideology is not an exemption from criminality. After a lengthy period of impunity in Venezuela, the judicial system is finally beginning to risk imposing the law, at whatever cost. In November 2004, Federal Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, charged with investigating individuals involved in the April 2002 coup d’etat, was assassinated in an atypical terrorist act after his vehicle was blown up. To date, his case remains unsolved.

Growing Hunger in America

by Stephen Lendman for The People's Voice

In January 2010, Feeding America (FA, formerly America's Second Harvest) released its disturbing new report on growing hunger titled, "Hunger in America 2010." The Chicago-based organization is the nation's "leading domestic hunger-relief charity," serving the needy "through a nationwide network of member food banks, over 200 in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico."

Its study is based on interviews with over 62,000 clients served by the FA network, as well as information provided by 37,000 FA agencies - emergency food providers, including food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency shelters for short-term residents.

FA's system serves an estimated 37 million people annually, up 46% since 2005, including 33.9 million pantry users, 1.8 million kitchen ones, and 1.3 million in shelters.

About 5.7 million people (or 1 in 50) get emergency food aid from the system in any given week, an increase of 27% since 2005, and one in eight Americans (37 million people, including 14 million children and three million seniors) are food insecure, meaning they don't get enough to eat. As a result, they need emergency help from food banks throughout the country. The latest data represent "a staggering 46 percent increase since" FA's 2006 study.

"Indeed, the existence of so many people without secure access to adequate nutritious food represents a serious national concern....More than one in three client households are experiencing very low food security - or hunger - a 54 percent increase" compared to 2006.

FA calls food insecurity "a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that varies along a continuum of successive stages as it becomes more severe." In contrast, food security enables "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, health life."

FA agencies serve households across America:

-- 38% of their members are children under 18, compared to 36% in 2005;

-- 8% of household members are elderly, down from 10% in 2005;

-- about 40% are white; 34% black; 20% Hispanic; and the remainder from other racial groups;

-- 36% of households include at least one employed adult, the same as in 2005;

-- 71% of households have incomes below the federal poverty level during the month preceding the survey, up from 69% in 2005;

-- median monthly household income decreased by 7% from $825 to $770 in 2009 dollars; and

-- 10% are homeless, compared to 12% in 2005.

Overall, 75% of client households are food insecure (based on the government's food security scale), an increase from 70% in 2005; 39% of households have low food security; 36% very low.

Client households with children are 78% food insecure, up from 73% in 2005. "Many clients report having to choose between food and other necessities:"

-- 46% between food and paying for utilities, including heating oil, up from 42% in 2005;

-- 39% between food and paying rent or mortgages, compared to 35% in 2005;

-- 34% between food and medical care, including drugs, up from 32% in 2005;

-- 35% between food and transportation; and

-- 36% between food and gasoline for a car.

Government-Provided Help

-- 41% of households get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aid, up from 35% in 2005;

-- 54% of households with children aged up to three get Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) help, compared to 51% in 2005; and

-- 62% of households with school-age children participate in federal school lunch programs, unchanged from 2005; 54% participate in school breakfast programs, up from 51% in 2005; 14% participate in the summer food program.

As in 2005, 29% of households report at least one member in poor health. Most clients are grateful for FA help - 92% very or somewhat satisfied and 93% with food quality. The FA network includes about 33,500 food pantries, 4,500 soup kitchens, and 3,600 emergency shelters, up 13% for pantries from 2005, and down 20% for kitchens and shelters.

Faith-based agencies run 72% of pantries, 62% of kitchens, and 39% of shelters. Some also offer other services.

Sources of Food Provided

-- food banks account for 75% of pantry distributions, 50% for kitchens, and 41% for shelters;

-- religious organizations, government, and direct wholesale and retail purchases are other important sources;

-- the Commodity Supplemental Food Program supplies 33% of pantries, 24% of kitchens, and 22% of shelters;

-- The Emergency Food Assistance Program supplies 54% of pantries, 34% of kitchens, and 31% of shelters; and

-- the Emergency Program on Indian Reservations supplies 2% of pantries, 1% of kitchens, and 2% of shelters.

FA's president and CEO, Vicki Escarra said:

"Clearly, the economic recession, resulting in dramatically increasing unemployment nationwide, has driven unprecedented, sharp increases in the need for emergency food assistance and enrollment in federal nutrition programs. Hunger in America 2010 exposes the absolutely tragic reality of just how many people in our nation don't have enough to eat. Millions of our clients are families with children finding themselves in need of food assistance for the very first time. It's morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic services."

In November 2009, the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA) reported that 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, are food insecure; that is, they "had difficulty providing enough food for all their (family) members due to a lack of resources. The prevalence of food insecurity was....the highest observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995."

In September 2009, the US Census Bureau reported rising poverty, falling incomes, and growing numbers of uninsured US households. Even by the Bureau's conservative estimates, 39.8 million Americans were impoverished, the highest level since 1960, and 17.1 million lived in extreme poverty at below one-half the official threshold.

A revised October 2009 Census analysis showed 47.4 million (15.8% of the population, including one-fifth of the elderly) below the poverty line, much higher than the above figure and rising.

The official poverty level for a family of four is $21,203, a way outdated threshold developed over 40 years ago. In 2007, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said a family of four in Peoria, IL needed $42,900 to be above poverty. In Chicago, it was $49,000 and in New York nearly $72,000. The same reality exists in large and smaller cities throughout America.

A recent Brookings Institute report titled, "The Effects of the Recession on Child Poverty" was equally disturbing, showing one in five US children under age 18 in families below the official poverty level, based on September 2009 Census data. According to Brookings' Julia Isaacs:

Census 2008 information "lag considerably behind current economic conditions. Job losses and wage reductions occurring in 2009 were obviously not captured. In addition, many adverse events in 2008 were only partially captured."

As a result, current conditions are far worse than reported and will keep deteriorating ahead, for at least several years according to Isaacs. She called the situation "sobering."

It showed in late November when reported food stamp usage was at record levels, and according to a study by Cornell University's Thomas Hirschl and Washington University in St. Louis' Mark Rank, half the children in America will need food stamps at some point in their childhood, 90% for black children.

Despite a growing national crisis, Obama proposed less, not more, saying "our fiscal situation remains unacceptable," not growing poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair at levels not seen since the 1930s.

On February 1, he sent Congress a budget freezing social spending for three years, a de facto cut in real terms. At the same time, he lets Wall Street keep pillaging, plans more wealth transfers to the rich, and proposed the largest ever defense and homeland security budgets, leaving little for cash-strapped states and growing millions of desperate people out of luck and on their own.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://republicbroadcasting.org/Lendman

Bosnia Redux - George Kenny inteviews Dr. Steven E. Meyer

George Kenny has interviewed Dr. Steven E. Meyer, formerly at the CIA and during the 1990s Deputy Director of the Interagency Balkan Task Force - he's now at the National Defense University, for his website Electric Politics. You can listen to this very interesting interview here (streaming and download on this page).

I HIGHLY recommend this conversation to you all.

The Saker

The Major Jewish American Organizations Defend Israel’s Humiliation of America

by James Petras for Atlantic Free Press


“The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, and spat in the face of the President … they wiped the spit off their faces and smiled politely … as the saying goes: when you spit in the face of a weakling, he pretends that it is raining”

- Uri Avnery Israeli Jewish journalist 13/3/2010.

“We (Israel) possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets … most European capitals are targets of our air force … the Palestinians should all be deported. Two years ago, only 7 or 8 per cent of Israelis were of the opinion that this would be the best solution, two months ago, (January 2010), it was 33 percent and now according to a Gallup poll, the figure is 44 percent”.

- Martin Van Crevel Israeli, professor of military history at Hebrew University at Jerusalem and top adviser to the Israeli Armed Forces, March 2, 2010.

Introduction

When Israel announced a major new Jews-only building project of 1600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem, it was not only “spitting in the face” of visiting Vice President Biden, it was demonstrating its power to humiliate America and Americans. Netanyahu was sending a message to world: Israel backed by its billionaire-financed Presidents of the 51 Major American Jewish Organizations, leads the US by the nose. The Jewish State can make an agreement with the White House one day and revoke it the next (with characteristic arrogance), US public opinion be damned. No sooner did the Obama Administration react to this most public show of impudence with Biden privately telling the Israeli Prime Minister that, “What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.", than Netanyahu openly called on the “American Jewish community” (the major Zionist organizations) to come to the defense of Israel and its claim on all of Jerusalem. And respond they did: turning the insulted victim (America) into the bully and blaming the US, not the Israeli government, for the “crisis” and for the breakdown of Israel’s agreement not to expand colonial settlements on occupied Palestinian land. As we shall describe, the entire Zionist power configuration in the United States (with a few notable exceptions) defended Israel’s effrontery and condemned any attempt by the US government to peacefully resolve a conflict, which threatened US lives, economic interests and prestige. This just confirmed world public opinion, which sees an American electorate willing to be humiliated by this economically insignificant state.

The Bigger Issue: Beyond the Biden – Netanyahu Caper

Whatever the insults and crimes of the moment, the conflict between Israel and the US is not about Netanyahu’s hyper-arrogance or a new series of Jerusalem land grabs, or even the frothy spittle on Vice President Biden’s face. It is, in essence, about the relation between states or, better still, the relation between peoples where one group (Israeli Jews and their powerful one percent fifth column agents in the US) exacts tribute and imposes wars in its own interests on another group (the US tax payers, soldiers, workers and businessmen). It arrogates power, not merely yesterday or today, but for the last 50 years.

In a broader historic context, the public humiliation of Vice President Biden in Tel Aviv pales in comparison to the Israeli’s cold blooded sneak attack, which killed and wounded over 200 American servicemen on the USS Liberty in June 1967. An arrogant and homicidal Israel humiliated the US through this attack, confident that then-President Lyndon Johnson would not retaliate but would even silence the survivors from ever telling their story to the American people. When Netanyahu calls on the “Jewish Communities” in the US he is not referring to the majority of American Jews. He, in fact, is addressing the Zionist power configuration whose strategically-placed members designed and promoted the Iraq war policy, which has caused the deaths and mutilation of thousands of US soldiers as well as over one million Iraqi civilians. In essence, the US soldier victims of the invasion of Iraq lost their lives, limbs and sanity for the interests of the Zionist “homeland”.

It is not merely that American Zionists defend the illegal construction of another Jews-only neighborhood in the middle of Palestinian East Jerusalem; the announcement was calculated to humiliate the visiting US Vice President. It’s not just a matter of US Zionist support for Netanyahu’s sabotage of a US peace initiative; nor is it about the unconditional ZPC support for Israeli crimes as they were being denounced by the United Nations and the peoples of the world. The fundamental issue is that the ZPC in the United States is turning our country and its people into defenders of Israel’s sordid crimes, casting the American people as accomplices to ethnic cleansing and degrading our moral sensibilities before the whole world.

Today and Yesterday: Castrating America

Netanyahu’s symbolic spitting in Biden’s face was a calculated act of grave significance. It marked out Israel’s ‘will to power’ – its willingness to publicly humiliate US leaders and flaunt its power over the US before the world. Israel exposed US impotence in the Middle East and beyond. This incident has world-historic consequences for anyone who is not blind. The US is a declining power, which cannot create a secure environment for its soldiers, corporations and citizens anywhere in the Middle East or beyond. No European, Asian, Latin American or Muslim country can look at the US and its citizens without thinking, “Here is a country at the feet of Israeli leaders and at the throat of Israel’s designated ‘enemies’. It is an understatement to say that the US, as a nation and as a people, has “lost prestige”.

Israel has a long and ignoble history of sabotaging peace talks in favor of grabbing land. From its very foundation, Tel Aviv undermined peace offers through unprovoked military attacks. Israel, along with Britain and France, launched a full-scale surprise invasion of Egypt to grab the Suez Canal, after it had promised to consider Egyptian President Nasser’s proposal to negotiate. In more recent times, as soon as Arafat agreed to formally recognize Israel as a state and sign a peace agreement, Jewish tanks and jets attacked the West Bank killing hundreds and surrounding Arafat’s headquarters for months. At the same time it increased the number of the Jews-only settlements in the West Bank ten fold to accommodate over 500,000 fanatical paramilitary Jewish settlers. When the elected Hamas administration implemented a unilateral cease fire, Israel launched a major military assault, ultimately devastating Gaza and killing 1400 mostly unarmed Palestinians.

Israel’s actions, past and present, including land grabs, Jews-only apartheid roads and settlements and military invasions of Palestinian refugee camps and towns have destroyed the possibility of a negotiated peace agreement, which would compromise the Zionists’ vision of an ethnically-cleansed “Greater Israel”.

Given this spiteful history, it not surprising that Israel’s current apologists claim that the current land grab to build more Jews-only apartment blocks in Jerusalem is “nothing new”, that it is “part of our history”, that Jews “need the living space” and that “three thousand years of Biblical history tells us that all this land is ours” (quotes from the Daily Alert, March 15 -17, 2010, official mouthpiece of the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations).

The humiliation of Biden was not the first time that Israel acted publicly to embarrass the Obama Administration. In his first meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu openly rejected any freeze in new settlements. Indeed, Israel escalated its settlement building right after Obama addressed the Muslim-Arab world in his ‘Cairo Speech’.

What is behind Netanyahu’s perverse behavior and his US supporters’ overweening arrogance? How can the US media, hundreds of Congressional Representatives and all the leading Jewish American organizations, support an extremist racist regime, which attacked and humiliated our country with impunity? How can the American Zionists side with a foreign country over issues detrimental to basic US security interests and not be viewed as traitors by other Americans?

In the first place, Netanyahu has the support of 80% of the Israeli-Jewish population as he pursues the policy of evicting the Palestinians and expanding exclusively Jewish settlements on occupied lands despite US President Obama’s ‘peace overtures’. Humiliating the visiting US Vice President on a ‘peace mission’ from Obama only increased Netanyahu’s popularity with Israelis.

Secondly, this impudent projection of Israeli power over the reputed American ‘superpower’ appeals to the self-image of the far-right religious settlers whose leaders form the backbone of the current governing coalition (especially the Shas party).

Thirdly, insulting a gentile President and Vice President would find approval among the supporters of Netanyahu’s gangster Foreign Minister, Avi Lieberman and with the tough Eastern European Hasidic youth who routinely spit on elderly Christian monks and priests in their ancient Armenian and Greek quarters of Jerusalem.

It might seem strange for Israelis, who face increasing isolation throughout the Middle East and are condemned throughout Europe for their brutal colonial crimes, to glorify their thuggish leader as he heaps contempt on their most important military ally and economic supporter, its elected leaders and its citizens. Accumulated Israeli political resentment against world condemnation for their war crimes found an emotional outlet by identifying with Netanyahu’s antics: His relentless brutality against the ‘Untermenschen’ of Palestine and his willingness to openly defy the US Administration, even as Israel extracts $3 billion dollars a year from the Americans, re-enforces their sense of superiority. It is clear that Netanyahu’s totalitarian policies have a mass popular base among Israelis and his swaggering arrogance faithfully reflects the national psyche of Israel.

Netanyahu and his ministers calculated that no matter how hard they squeeze the hapless US taxpayers, themselves caught in the a profound economic crisis, and no matter how often the Israelis threaten to provoke a wider regional war and cause more American soldier casualties, they can always count on the unconditional support of the Zionist Power Configuration in the US to promote Israel’s interest. The entire US mass media applauded the Great Humiliator and even attacked the few American public figures as they (at least temporarily) defended American dignity against Israeli insults. The major Zionist leaders all rushed to support Israel’s humiliation of the US and to denigrate its critics. An endless parade of US politicians, editorial writers, columnists, opinion-makers, “think” tankers, and TV commentators demonstrated their special loyalty to Israel against an American president who was timidly seeking a negotiated peace in the Middle East.

The recent ‘conflict’ between Israel and America over peace in the Middle East –brought on by a crude Israeli provocation – exposed far more profound issues: At the center of power in America, there is an influential group of power-brokers willing to exploit and humiliate the American people in the service of a foreign power. In the past, patriots would have called them ‘traitors’.

Netanyahu’s Hubris ‘Rebuked’

In response to the official Washington show of anger, Netanyahu issued a half-hearted “explanation”: The problem was not the policy of building new settlements in violation of their agreement with Washington; the problem was the timing of the announcement. It was a regrettable “error” by a minor functionary in the Israeli Interior Ministry who made his announcement right after US Vice President Biden had finished groveling at Netanyahu’s feet and was busy pressuring the Palestinian Authority collaborators to rejoin the ‘peace’ charade sponsored by Washington. According to the Israeli media and their US mouthpieces it was a public relations breakdown, not a matter of strategic political and military significance affecting the US in the Middle East. In other words: With Biden out of Israel and collaborator Abbas back at the ‘table’, any announcement violating the “freeze on settlements” would be merely an Israeli “internal policy” and a “continuation of past practices”.

Netanyahu Comes to Washington: Backhanders for Obama, Cheers from AIPAC

Netanyahu, fresh from spitting on Vice President Biden in Tel Aviv, administered a series of humiliating ‘back-handed’ slaps in the smiling face of President Obama, right under the glaring lights of the mass media in the US capital.

Bibi Netanyahu delivered a rabble rousing speech to over 7,000 cheering Zionists at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, DC. He asserted Israel’s will to construct Jews-only housing throughout occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, repeating Israel’s illegal claim that Jerusalem was the undivided capital of the Jewish people. He then demanded and secured a two-hour meeting with Obama, despite his arrogant insult against the US Administration. Adding further humiliation to the already weak US President, the Israel government announced another Jews-only housing project in Arab East Jerusalem to be built on confiscated Palestinian property. This announcement, just hours before the planned Bibi-Barack meeting, carried an additional threat that the White House charade of ‘peace negotiations’ would be put off the table if the Americans protested this new round of illegal construction. Netanyahu, demonstrating his utter contempt for the White House and the America people, went straight to the Zion-colonized US Congress and secured the House Majority leader Pelosi’s ‘unconditional support…’ for Israeli expansion. And, as if to celebrate its victory and establish its own definition of ‘peace’, the Israeli military assassinated four un-armed Palestinians, two impoverished job-seekers and two young teenage protesters.

Loyalty to the Israeli masters was evident when thousands of Zionists fanatics jumped to their feet and cheered Bibi Netanyahu’s crude repudiation of the American efforts to protect its soldiers’ lives by promoting a peace initiative. Hillary Clinton’s call for a ‘peace settlement based on two states for two people’ was met with dead silence. The entire Zionist-dominated media and all the leading Jewish organizations backed an unprecedented series of humiliations directed against the elected US Administration and the American people. Netanyahu’s demagogic display of Israeli power over the US Congress and the American mass media and his crude willingness to degrade US political leaders in the nation’s capital mocks the very notion of the American people having any voice in their nation’s policies and subordinates America’s military high command over issues of war and peace in the Middle East.

For Pelosi and the Zionized Congress, the thousands of campaign shekels from the AIPAC crowd to fund their re-elections are far more crucial to their careers than the lives and limbs of thousands of US soldiers lost to an agenda of Israel and its domestic Fifth Column.

Israel’s Arrogance Prejudices US Interests

Israel’s leaders not only raised their domestic prestige by undermining the US Administration’s peace initiatives, they also managed to extract billions of dollars from the US taxpayers. The humiliation of the Obama regime derailed efforts by the Pentagon and the State Department to regain influence and credibility among the conservative Arab regimes, non-Arab Muslim nations and among hundred of millions of Muslims around the world. This humbling of the US Administration by a sneering Netanyahu further jeopardizes the work and security of American businessmen and officials operating in the Middle East and undermines relations with their Muslim and Arab counterparts.

There will be major setbacks for the US in its efforts to gain support for its wars in the Middle East and South Asia and its propaganda campaign to discourage young Muslims from joining the anti-US resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The symbolic image of Vice President wiping away Israeli spittle during an official visit will encourage thousands of young Muslims to resist US occupation, which they view as promoting Israel’s agenda. If an economically insignificant Israel state can defy the superpower, why can’t they? The logic is simple: The greater the Israeli land-grab, the more submissive the Obama regime, the more extended and profound the hostility of the Muslim people against the Americans, the more emboldened the armed resistance movements and the greater the number of dead and maimed American soldiers stuck in wars promoted by the Zionists.

While the losses of American soldiers in the Middle East have never figured in Tel Aviv’s policy moves, nor influenced the activities of its Fifth Colum in the USA, these losses do affect millions of American families and over 200 million American taxpayers. Even an occasional American General finds the courage to point out that Israel’s colonial dispossession of the Palestinian people has prolonged the war, tied up hundreds of thousands of US troops and undermined the capacity of the US armed forces to successfully operate on multiple fronts to promote US imperial interests.

When the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Petraeus’ team of senior officers, identified “Israeli intransigence” as “jeopardizing US standing and the lives of American solders in the region (Middle East)” in a briefing before the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on January 16, 2010, Petraeus met an onslaught of severe questioning from the ZPC. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullens received the same rebuke from the powerful Israel-Firsters. This was not the first time US military and security considerations were subsumed to Israel’s agenda. Only two years earlier in 2007, the ZPC denounced and successfully buried the annual National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) prepared by 16 US military and civilian intelligence agencies, which had concluded that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons and did not pose a major threat to the US, in favor of Israeli disinformation arguing the opposite. And the same ZPC has been taking the Obama regime to task for daring to criticize Netanyahu.

Over 300 members of the US Congress signed an extraordinary letter supporting Israel against their own Administration, pledging their commitment to "the unbreakable bond that exists between [U.S.] and the State of Israel". Hundreds of congress men and officials joined the over 7,000 participants at the March 2010 AIPAC conference to cheer Netanyahu and witness the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hail the leader of the Israeli settler state – who had pledged “to continue building in all of Jerusalem just as it does in Tel Aviv”.

General David Petraeus, whose senior officers had expressed his concern about Israel’s policies undermining US military interests to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullins, was no match for the AIPAC. The CENTCOM commander contacted his Israeli counterpart General Gabi Ashkenazi to repudiate his own criticism of Israeli policies and, in effect, pledge his unconditional support to the Jewish state even when it jeopardizes US troops.

In January, General Petraeus correctly identified how Israeli intransigence had damaged US interests and operations in the Middle East, infuriated Arabs and ultimately increased attacks on American troops. But in March, the politically ambitious General hastened to retract his briefing before the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are few more cravenly disloyal spectacles in US military history than this bemedaled American general prostrating himself for the Zionist lobby.

And yet, for a brief moment, a few desperate anti-Zionists leftists, looked to General Petraeus and Admiral Mullen as potential allies against Israeli-Zionist control of US policy in the Middle East. They ignored the fact that these are the commanders in charge of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and were preparing to confront Iran. Petraeus’ difference with Israel was over specific policies as they undermined the smooth operations of the US war machine in the Middle East and his ‘recantation’ before the Israelis has certainly thrown cold water of this romantic fantasy of a ‘nationalist’ US General.

The tradition of ‘civilian supremacy’ in the US ensures that the military will never confront the issue of Zionist control over the Congress and White House. Petraeus’ briefing will be soon forgotten and the General’s subsequent repudiation is an eloquent example of the grotesquely opportunistic nature of the American high military command.

When civilian leaders point out how Israel’s oppression of 5 million Palestinians jeopardizes American lives and interests in the Middle East, the Zionist power configuration deflects attention from Israel and blames the US (and its ‘permissive’ society) for having instigated the growing Islamist movement, Arab hostility and attacks. When American military leaders, strategists and intelligence officers assert that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is a leading cause of regional conflict based on their decades of field expertise, the arm-chair Generals among the Zionists re-interpret this straightforward identification of Israeli policy with attacks on American interests and troops as “another point of view”. In the meantime the ZPC rounds up the usual Congressional or White House Israel Firsters to “disown” their own military.

Israel’s narrowly conceived colonial policy, the eviction of massive numbers of Palestinians and the land grabs to construct Jews-only colonial settlements, undermines US authority in the Middle East among its allies. Israel’s brazen willingness and ability to openly bash President Obama, thoroughly discredits the contention among liberal Zionist apologists like Noam Chomsky that Imperial Washington is “in command” of Western policy in the Middle East and is acting on behalf of much broader Euro-American interests.

In a wider context, Israel’s arrogance damages attempts by US private investors to broker oil deals for multi-national corporations. Arab oil countries, which see themselves as threatened by a regional militarist power like Israel, with its colonial expansion and hegemonic ambitions, are unlikely to cooperate with the American, especially when the superpower is impotent to curb Israel’s worst excesses.

Israeli Colonial Ambitions and US Strategic Interests

For Israel and its Fifth Column backers none of the US strategic concerns are as important as the Jewish state’s colonial conquests and its regional projections of power. Nor are the interests of the American people given much consideration when they come in conflict with Israeli expansionist colonial goals. The ZPC never considers or even discusses the fact that Americans have suffered major losses as a result of Israel’s relentless pursuit of military-driven power in the Middle East.

Israel’s primary goal of grabbing land and dispossessing Palestinians goes against the post-colonial ethos of the American people, who experience increased hostility overseas. The only beneficiaries of Israel colonial expansion are the small but powerful 51 American Jewish Zionist organizations which identify with and are loyal to the Israeli state.

Israel’s unilateral military aggression and threats against neighboring countries, including Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and its cross-border covert assassinations, most recently in Dubai, are of great importance to Israeli militarists as Israel projects power in the Middle East. The self-esteem of Israel’s militarized citizens is directly linked to their policy of aggression and assassinations without regard to national sovereignty. On the other hand, Israeli power projections have undermined the US efforts to diplomatically expand its own sphere of influence and negotiate multi-billion dollar military sales, trade and investment agreements in the Middle East. The fact that Israeli policies have jeopardized millions of jobs for American workers is an issue of no importance to the Jewish state and its affluent Israel First backers in the US.

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon forced the pro-US Harari faction to form a coalition with the anti-imperialist Hezbollah political-military movement. Israel’s attempt to impose its will on Lebanon through its bombing campaign, torpedoed US diplomatic and political efforts to consolidate its influence with President Harari.

Netanyahu’s successful bullying of Obama and Biden simply reinforced the ties between the pro-Western Lebanese and the anti-colonial Muslim left, in the face of Washington’s incapacity to constrain the Israeli ‘wildmen’ or resist the ‘internal rot’ eroding an independent American initiative: Better to join forces with Hezbollah, which after all fought Israel to a standstill in 2006.

Israel’s loyal accomplices in the US government have caused enormous damage to the US economy and threaten even greater loss of American lives, as the Israel seeks to direct US policy toward Iran. Under the forceful and aggressive direction of Israel Firsters and the powerful Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, every major US oil and gas company, bank, petroleum exploration and drilling firms and countless other business concerns have given up hundreds of billion dollars in lucrative economic trade an investment deals in the interest of Israel, which has extracted over $60 billion dollars of US taxpayer money and handouts and aid during the last decade.

Iran, which backed the US imperial attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, provided the US military with far more strategic assistance than all the Israeli advisers, ‘experts’ and contracted ‘interrogators’ in Baghdad and Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’ put together. Despite the US recognition of Iranian assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is demonized as ‘the enemy’ by Israeli agents within the US because Tehran opposes Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Israel’s Fifth Column churns out hundreds of articles a month demanding brutal economic sanctions against Iran and a pre-emptive military blitz aimed at destroying the Iranian economy and a nation of over 70 million. Every US military commander in the Middle East has acknowledged that an attack on Iran will expand the war, cut vital shipping of oil in the Persian Gulf plunging the world economy into recession, and threaten the lives of scores of thousands of American soldiers. They also are aware that the prospect of thousands of American casualties would not deter the 51 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations, the AIPAC-controlled US Congress members, or the likes of Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey from promoting or provoking a war with Iran. The leading Israel-First advocates for war with Iran are unconcerned with the inevitable thousands of US military casualties and the millions of American jobs lost, as they promote the expansion and supremacy of “Greater Israel” in all its arrogance and glory throughout the Middle East.

Zionist Power Configuration: How Dare You Resist Humiliation!

Is it any wonder that, when visiting American leaders are openly insulted by the racist regime of Prime Minister ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, American Zionists automatically side with Israel and condemn those who protest in defense of American dignity?

The Daily Alert, principle bulletin of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, provides a useful compilation of the articles, editorials and government documents, defending Israel against the US Administration’s efforts to seek diplomatic solutions. From March 15 – 19, 2010 the Israeli-ZPC juggernaut released a remarkable propaganda offensive, vividly underscoring the immense power of the Zionist power configuration in the US. As soon as the White House publicly rebuked Prime Minister Netanyahu for insulting Vice President Biden during his official visit to Israel, the Zionist power configuration, claiming to speak for all the “Jewish communities”, came out in defense of Israel and attacked the Obama Administration. A barrage of articles, editorials and press conferences materialized overnight, with the usual parade of zombie-like Congressional mouthpieces parroting the Zionist line and applying direct pressure on the White House. This multi-prong Zionist offensive, under Netanyahu’s direction, was successful in persuading the White House to return to its characteristic belly-crawl: Clinton, Biden and the rest of their gang retreated, reasserting the US “unconditional defense of Israel”, declaring the ‘non-existence’ of the crisis and asserting the ‘rock solid’ American relation with Israel. The chain of command is revealing: The Israeli state orders the Zionist power configuration into action; the mass media disseminates the line; Congress marches lock-step for the Zionists and the White House retreats. Delighted with their success, Zionist propagandists roll out their own polls claiming the US public support for Israel -- a public saturated with Israeli manufactured and American Zionist trumpeted propaganda. Clearly what such “polls” measure is the effectiveness of a monolithic mass media campaign.

The propaganda tactics utilized in this blitzkrieg media campaign involved placing blame on the insulted victim and attacking “the Administration for sparking a full blown crisis” (Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2010). It went on to denounce the US Administration officials for “condemning” and “pushing” Israel (Washington Post, March 15 – 19, 2010). Other publications accused President Obama of ‘playing into the hand’ of Arab extremists and “fanning the flames” ,(Fox News and Christian Science Monitor, March 18, 2010). It was the US President, who had been “hindering the peace talks” by “encouraging Palestinian intransigence”. Haaretz, the Israeli’s liberal newspaper, which has published articles critical of the Israeli Occupation, released a series of articles, opinion pieces and editorials by ‘experts’ and ‘military strategists’ accusing the US Administration of “orchestrating the crises” (March 14, 2010) and called for the Israeli government not to ‘grovel’ by apologizing to the US Vice President (March 15). CBS claimed that “Obama was pushing the US-Israeli alliance to the brink” (March 15). And on March 17, the Boston Globe accused Obama of “aggravating Israel’s mistake”. AIPAC methodically contacted its usual Congressional flunkeys to denounce the White House for rebuking the Israeli government.

By March 19, the Washington Post had published over a dozen diatribes calling for US acceptance of Israel’s settlement expansion. Zionist think tanks and front groups with deceptive names, like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, blamed the displaced Palestinians for sabotaging “the peace process” by protesting the accelerated Israeli land confiscation and settlements (Scripps – Howard and Fox News, March 18, 2010). Predictably, the New York Times provided a slightly liberal gloss by calling for reconciliation and an end to the crises, while never mentioning the public Israeli humiliation of Vice President Biden or considering how Israel’s latest grab of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem might endanger US lives and interests. The Times ignored General Petraeus testimony before Congress and his briefing, critical of Israeli policy, before the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while giving prominence to Netanyahu’s “peace talks” (March 18, 2010).

A few fissures have appeared in the pro-Israel monolith: David Axelrod, Obama’s chief adviser, condemned Netanyahu’s provocation as an “insult”; New York Times top columnist, Thomas Friedman, described the Israeli leaders as “drunken drivers”; and a leading US rabbi called for a building freeze in Jerusalem. These few liberal Zionist critics were overwhelmed by scores parroting ZPC ‘talking points’: Bronner and Sanger of the New York Times, Walter Mead of American (SIC) Interest and Goldberg of the New Yorker, among others.

The craven capitulation, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was inevitable. On March 16 Secretary Clinton declared that, “we have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close unshakeable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people”. To prove her fealty to Israeli and Zionist interests, Clinton became featured speaker at the APAC Conference, March 21 – 26, 2010, sharing the platform with a triumphant Bibi Netanyahu.

Conclusion

Israel had to openly humiliate the US as a show of its power. Given Israel’s strategic domination of the US political system and the ZPC control over mass media and their enormous wealth, a Zionist-controlled administration, like Obama’s, would have to capitulate. Israeli and US Zionist pressure forced the American leaders to subordinate their international image and national self-respect and accept the unlimited expansion of Jews-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, no matter how this might undermine US standing in the region and jeopardize US troops. By ‘whipping’ the Obama Administration into line, Israel has set the stage for the launching of its top priority: Forcing a direct US military confrontation with Iran in Israel’s strategic interests. It is clear that the entire ZPC will stand with Israel as it promotes its militarist agenda against Iran, regardless of the consequences to the United States.

It has been proven beyond a doubt by the recent events, that the ZPC has the ultimate say with the Obama Administration, against the advice of top US military officials and against the basic interests of the American people. In plain English, we are a people colonized and directed by a small, extremist and militarist ‘ally’ which operates through domestic proxies, who, under any other circumstance, would be openly denounced as traitors.

Can the ZPC be defeated? They are the “most powerful lobby in Washington”, to whom Presidents, Administration officials, Generals and Congress people must submit or risk having their careers ruined and being ousted from public office. Meanwhile,outside of the United States, the international community openly despises Israel as a brutal, racist colonial state, a war criminal and chronic violator of human rights and international law. The Middle East Quartet, made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, has condemned Israel’s plan to build another 1,600 homes exclusively for Jewish extremist settlers in Arab East Jerusalem. The Quartet demanded “the speedy creation of a Palestinian state and the end to provocative actions”. But the ‘Quartet’ is powerless to stop Israeli plans. The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations tell their followers that global “anti-Semitism” motivates the ‘Quartet’. The huge AIPAC “Hail Israel” Conference in Washington D.C. in late March celebrated the triumph of unfettered Israeli expansionism.

Nevertheless, some Israelis are beginning to express unease. After their initial euphoria over Netanyahu’s slap-down of Biden and face-up to Clinton, there is growing fear of Israeli being ‘weaned’ away from the American treasury and losing their unfettered access to the US latest military technology. A poll published on March 19 in Yedroth Ahronoth, one of Israel’s biggest dailies, revealed that 46% of their readers responded that the government should freeze settlement building in East Jerusalem, much to the chagrin of the US Israel Firsters, who might in other circumstances, have labeled these Jews anti-Semites.

Fissures in the Zionist monolith are beginning to appear. These would deepen if and when the American public realizes that Israel’s’ dispossession of Palestinians is raising havoc with American lives and with American interests in a vital part of the world populated by 1.5 billion Muslim. As more issues arise, the critical choice between following the lead of the ZPC in pledging unconditional allegiance to Israel and enduring its provocations and humiliations, or standing up for the dignity, basic interests and integrity of America, will have to be made. More fissures will appear and the AIPAC and other members of the ZPC will be seen for what they are: Swaggering bullies acting on behalf of a foreign power.

Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central Asia

by Rick Rozoff for Stop NATO

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed five years after and in the same manner as he came to power, in a bloody uprising.

Elected president two months after the so-called Tulip Revolution of 2005 he helped engineer, he was since then head of state of the main transit nation for the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon secured the Manas Air Base (as of last year known as the Transit Center at Manas) in Kyrgyzstan shortly after its invasion of Afghanistan in October of 2001 and in the interim, according to a U.S. armed forces publication last June, “More than 170,000 coalition personnel passed through the base on their way in or out of Afghanistan, and Manas was the transit point for 5,000 tons of cargo, including spare parts and equipment, uniforms and various items to support personnel and mission needs.

“Currently, around 1,000 U.S. troops, along with a few hundred from Spain and France, are assigned to the base.” [1]

The White House’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke paid his first visit in his current position to Kyrgyzstan – and the three other former Soviet Central Asian republics which border it, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – in February and said “35,000 US troops were transiting each month on their way in and out of Afghanistan.” [2] At the rate he mentioned, 420,000 troops annually.

The U.S. and NATO also established military bases in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for the war in South Asia, but on a smaller scale. (U.S. military forces were ordered out of the second country following what the government claimed was a Tulip Revolution-type armed uprising in its province of Andijan less than two months after the Kyrgyz precedent. Germany maintains a base near the Uzbek city of Termez to transit troops and military equipment to Afghanistan’s Kunduz province where the bulk of its 4,300 forces is concentrated.)

In February of 2009 the Bakiyev government announced that it was also evicting U.S. and NATO forces from its country, but relented in June when Washington offered it $60 million to reverse its decision.

Kyrgyzstan borders China.

It not only borders China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, but is only separated from Russia by a single nation, Kazakhstan. To gain an appreciation of Russian and Chinese concerns over hundreds of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops passing through Kyrgyzstan, imagine a comparable amount of Chinese and Russian soldiers regularly passing through Mexico and Guatemala, respectively. For almost nine years and at an accelerating rate.

It is not only a military “hard power” but also a “soft power” threat that the Western role in Kyrgyzstan poses to Russia and China.

The nation is a member of the post-Soviet Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) along with Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – seen by many as the only counterpart to NATO on former Soviet space – and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with China, Russia and the three above-mentioned Central Asian nations.

According to U.S. officials, during and after the Tulip Revolution of 2005 not a single U.S. or NATO flight into the Manas Air Base was cancelled or even delayed. But a six-nation CSTO exercise scheduled for days afterward was cancelled.

The uprising and the deposing of standing president Askar Akayev in March of 2005 was the third self-styled “color revolution” in the former Soviet Union in sixteen months, following the Rose Revolution in Georgia in late 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005.

As the Kyrgyz version was underway Western news media were asking the question “Who’s next?” Candidates included other former Soviet states like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Uzbekistan. And Russia. Along with Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan those nations accounted for ten of the twelve members of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

As Agence France-Presse detailed in early April of 2005: “The CIS was founded in December 1991 on the very day the Soviet Union disappeared….But over the past year and a half, three faithful Kremlin allies were toppled in…revolutions: Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine, and, last week, Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan….Even though Kyrgyzstan’s new interim leaders have vowed to continue their deposed predecessor’s Moscow-friendly policies, the lightning toppling of the government there has spawned speculation that the CIS would soon collapse.” [3]

The leader of the “color revolution” prototype, Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, gloated over the Kyrgyz “regime change,” attributing the “brave” actions of the opposition in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan “to the Georgia factor,” and added, “We are not waiting for the development of events, but are doing our best to destroy the empire in the CIS.” [4]

Shortly after the uprising former Indian diplomat and political analyst M.K. Bhadrakumar wrote of the then seemingly inexorable momentum of “color” revolts in the former Soviet Union:

“[A]ll the three countries [Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan] are strategically placed in the post-Soviet space. They comprise Russia’s ‘near abroad.’

“Washington has been expanding its influence in the arc of former Soviet republics — in the Baltics…the Caucasus, and Central Asia – in recent years with a tenacity that worries Moscow.

“Ever since 2003 when Mr. Akayev decided on allowing Russia to establish a full-fledged military base in Kant he knew he was on the American ‘watch list.’ The political temperature within Kyrgyzstan began to rise.

“The Americans made it clear in many ways that they desired a regime change in Bishkek….The ‘revolution’ in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan has already thrown up surprises. A comparison with the two earlier ‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia and Ukraine will be a good starting point.

“First, the striking similarities between the three ‘revolutions’ must be duly noted. All three are meant to signify the unstoppable spread of the fire of liberty lit by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11.

“But behind the rhetoric, the truth is that the U.S. wanted regime change in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan because of difficulties with the incumbent leadership. The leaders of all the three countries — Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine, and Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan — had enjoyed the support of the U.S. during most of their rule.

“Washington had cited them repeatedly as the beacons of hope for democracy and globalisation in the territories of the former Soviet Union.

“Their trouble began when they incrementally began to edge towards a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin.” [5]

Seven weeks after Bhadrakumar’s column appeared his analysis would be confirmed by no less an authority on the matter than U.S. President George W. Bush.

Visiting the capital of Georgia a year and a half after its “Rose Revolution,” he was hosted by his counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili, former State Department fellowship recipient and U.S. resident, who seized power in what can only be described as a putsch but nevertheless said:

“Georgia will become the main partner of the United States in spreading democracy and freedom in the post-Soviet space. This is our proposal. We will always be with you in protecting freedom and democracy.”

Bush reflected Saakashvili’s inflated estimate of himself: “You are making many important contributions to freedom’s cause, but your most important contribution is your example. Hopeful changes are taking places from Baghdad to Beirut and Bishkek [Kyrgyzstan]. But before there was a Purple Revolution in Iraq or Orange Revolution in Ukraine or a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, there was a Rose Revolution in Georgia.” [6]

A few days after the Kyrgyz coup Bush welcomed Ukraine’s “orange” president Viktor Yushchenko – who this January only received 5.45 per cent of the vote in his reelection bid – and applauded his U.S.-assisted ascent to power, saying it “may have looked like it was only a part of the history of Ukraine, but the Orange Revolution represented revolutions elsewhere as well….We share a goal to spread freedom to other nations.” [7]

Beyond the threat of the dissolution of the CIS and of the CSTO, in April of 2005 Der Spiegel featured a report with the title “Revolutions Speed Russia’s Disintegration.”

In part it revealed the prime movers behind the events in Kyrgyzstan:

“As early as February,” Roza Otunbayeva – now the apparent head of the provisional government – “pledged allegiance to a small group of partners and sponsors of the Kyrgyz revolution, to ‘our American friends’ at Freedom House (who donated a printing press in Bishkek to the opposition), and to George Soros, a speculator who previously helped unseat Edward Shevardnadze’s government in Georgia.

“Trying to help the democratic process, the Americans poured some $12 million into Kyrgyzstan in the form of scholarships and donations – and that was last year alone. Washington’s State Department even funded TV station equipment in the rebellious southern province town of Osh.” [8]

In June George Soros was obliging enough to confirm Otunbayeva’s gratitude was not without foundation by stating, “I provided for Georgian public servants to get $1,200 a month….And now I am ready to support the creation of a fund like this in Kyrgyzstan.” [9]

The two Georges – Bush and Soros – were not alone in fathering the “color” geostrategic transformations from the Balkans to the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. They received generous assistance from the likes of Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and other alleged non-governmental organizations.

A week after the “tulip” takeover the project director for Freedom House, Mike Stone, summed up the role of his organization with two words: “Mission accomplished.” [10]

A British newspaper that interviewed him added, “US involvement in the small, mountainous country is higher proportionally than it was for Georgia’s ‘rose’ revolution or Ukraine’s ‘orange’ uprising. [11]

Assistance also was provided by Western-funded and -trained “youth activists” modeled after and trained by those organized in Yugoslavia to topple the government of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000:

Compare the names:

Yugoslavia: Otpor! (Resistance!)
Ukraine: Pora! (It’s Time!)
Georgia: Kmara (Enough)
Kyrgyzstan: KelKel (Stand Up and Go)

Behind them all, deposed Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev identified the true architects of his ouster. On April 2 he stated “There were international organisations who supported and financed the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.

“A week before these events I saw a letter on the internet signed by the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. It contained a detailed plan for the revolution.” [12]

The Kyrgyz Tulip (formerly Lemon, Pink and Daffodil) Revolution was as unconstitutional and as disruptive to the nation as its Georgian and Ukrainian predecessors were, but far more violent. Deaths and injuries occurred in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal Abad (Jalalabad, Jalal-Abad) and in the capital of Bishkek.

It was also the first “color” revolt in a nation bordering China. Not only did Russia and China voice grave concerns over the developments in Kyrgyzstan, Iran did also, seeing where the trajectory of “regime change” campaigns was headed.

….

In the four decades of the Cold War political changes through elections or otherwise in any nation in the world – no matter how small, impoverished, isolated and seemingly insignificant – assumed importance far exceeding their domestic effects. World political analysts and policy makers asked the key question: Which way would the new government align itself, with the U.S. or the Soviet Union?

In the post-Cold War period the question is no longer one of political philosophy or socio-economic orientation, but this: How will the new administration support or oppose U.S. plans for regional and global dominance?

With Roza Otunbayeva as chief spokesperson if not head of a new Kyrgyz “people’s government,” there is reason to believe that Washington will not be dissatisfied with the overthrow of her former “tulip” partner Bakiyev. She has already confirmed that the American base at Manas will not be closed.

Less than two months after the 2005 coup Otunbayeva, then acting foreign minister, met with her U.S. counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Washington during which the latter assured her that “the U.S. administration will continue to help the Kyrgyz government promote democratic processes in the country.” [13]

Shortly after the March “democratic transformation,” its patron saint, Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, boasted that “Roza Otunbayeva worked in Tbilisi in recent years and was the head of UN office in Abkhazia. During the Rose Revolution she was in Georgia and knew everything that was happening…the Georgian factor was a catalyst of many things going on there [in Kyrgyzstan].”[14]

From the U.S. perspective she appears to have reliable bona fides.

Russia has put its air base in Kyrgyzstan on high alert, though comments from leading Russian government officials – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in particular – indicate an acceptance of the uprising which has already caused 65 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

But Russia attempted to put the best face on the revolt five years ago also.

Which direction the next Kyrgyz government takes will have repercussions far beyond the nation’s small size and population (slightly over five million).

It could affect U.S. and NATO plans for the largest military offensive of the Afghan war scheduled to begin in two months in Kandahar province.

It could determine the future of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the two major potential barriers to Western military penetration of vast tracts of Eurasia.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

1) Stars and Stripes, June 16, 2009
2) Agence France-Presse, March 4, 2010
3) Agence France-Presse, April 3, 2005
4) The Messenger, March 31, 2005
5) The Hindu, March 28, 2005
6) Civil Georgia, May 10, 2005
7) Associated Press, April 4, 2005
8) Der Spiegel, April 4, 2005
9) Russian Information Agency Novosti, June 16, 2005
10) The Telegraph, April 2, 2005
11) Ibid
12) Associated Press, April 2, 2005
13) Interfax, June 15, 2005
14) Civil Georgia, March 30, 2005

The latest bombing and a personal note

Dear friends,

The putatively 'Chechen' terrorists have detonated two more bombs in Russia, this time in Dagestan. In think that the trend here is clear - 'Chechen' terrorism is on the rise again, striking at strategic Russian targets (such as the Moscow-Petersburg train or the Moscow subway). The curious thing is that this is all happening while in Chechnia proper there is comparatively very little insurgent activity. I would like to offer you a hypothesis, a 'version of events', which makes sense to me but for which I have no proof whatsoever. I already mentioned it several times in the comments section, but I would like to submit it to you all for consideration:

The recent upsurge in 'Chechen' terrorism might have little or nothing to do with Chechnia. Yes, the executors of these operations are probably ethnic Chechens and they are probably acting under the orders of Doku Umarov, the modestly self-styled 'First Emir of the Caucasus Emirate". But so what? How does that explain anything?

Osama bin-Laden was a CIA agent for most of his life (he is probably dead by now) and there is overwhelming evidence that the entire Chechen insurgency was CIA supported via what came to be known as al-Qaeda. It is also quite clear that the British secret services have been working hand in hand with Boris Berezovsky and, therefore, with his Chechen agents, for many years too. So instead of referring to 'Chechen' terrorism, would it not make far more sense to speak of US and British terrorism? Are the Chechen insurgents not the Caucasian version of Jundallah - yet another CIA controlled terrorist network and is Doku Umarov not just the local Abdolmalek Rigi?

If this is true, what would explain the sudden surge in 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia? I would submit that all of the following:

• Payback for the US/NATO defeat in the 08.08.08 war in Georgia in which Russian forces easily crushed NATO-funded, NATO-trained and NATO-commanded Georgian forces even though the latter achieved strategic and tactical surprise and had the numerical superiority up until the last day of the war.
• The need to put Russian under pressure to yield to US demands over Iran, be it sanctions, the Russian completion of the Bushehr, the sale of S-300 air defense systems and the need to get a UN resolution against Iran.
• Payback for the US defeat in the Ukraine where the end of the color-coded revolution (orange, this time) is a crushing disaster for US geostrategic interests.
• The need to weaken Russian influence in the Caucasus (who would want to follow Saakashvili's example now?) and in Central Asia by showing that Russia is not nearly as strong as some might have perceived it to be.
• Payback for Russian support (weapons and credits) for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
  

I think that it is far more likely that this explains the sudden surge of 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia than a rather inexplicable, apparently cause-less, truly 'Chechen' hypothesis. To repeat, there is no sign whatsoever that the Chechen insurgency has recovered from its close to total defeat in the 2nd Chechen war. All, and I mean all, the reports from Chechnia proper seem to indicate that the security situation is Chechnia is actually very good and that Moscow's control of the region, via Ramazan Kadyrov's 'heavy-handed' security services, is actually rather good. This is a little reported fact, but the Russian military is not, at the moment, actively involved in Chechnia at all. The security mission is shared by the FSB, the MVD and local police forces.

I might be wrong, of course. We might be seeing the first phases of a real resurgence of Chechen terrorism. I personally don't trust Kadyrov and his thugs one bit. But right now, there is no explanation for the 'Chechen terror' theory at all. Moreover, reports out of Moscow claim that the FSB is looking into contacts which the Chechens had with the Georgians (again!). If the Georgians are involved in any way at all, that would point straight to Langley, at least in my opinion.

Anway - I submit to you this hypothesis and I hope that you will share your views on that we me and the rest of us.

On a personal note: I am taking a week off and, barring some truly major event, I shall not post new pieces here until next Thursday. I will be reading comments though, and I will try to post (very short) replies if needed.

Please feel free to use the comments section as a free for all forum, and post anything you want. On my blog there is no such thing as 'off-topic' and you need not worry about that.

Kind regards and many thanks,

The Saker