north-korea-leader-kim-jong-un-talks-with-army-representatives-data(Image: Sir Lanka Guardian)

By George Katsiaficas

The current threat of a major war in Korea is akin to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the US and the USSR nearly waged nuclear war. Peaceful coexistence was assured only after an agreement was reached for Russia to withdraw its missiles from Cuba and for the US to pull its own out of Turkey.

In recent weeks, as a similar standoff has escalated in Korea, the US has sent B-2 bombers from Missouri and B-52s from Guam to fly up to the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea. These flights are as close to a threat of a first strike—possibly a nuclear one—that the US can make.

President Obama’s recent policy shift to an “Asian pivot” is perceived in North Korea as a direct threat to its existence.  Before the Asian pivot, Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm, after which Iraq was invaded and he was killed. Gaddafi faced a similar fate after he destroyed his major weapons systems. North Korea is clearly interpreting these events as reasons NOT to disarm. The harder the US now presses North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, the more they feel menaced.

In 1993, the US came quite close to bombing North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant. Harvard professor Ashton Carter publicly stated he was telephoned by the Pentagon and asked to assist them in determining bomb targets. Only the personal intervention of former President Jimmy Carter prevented a US first strike. Carter flew to Pyongyang, met Kim Il-sung (Kim Jong Un’s grandfather) and negotiated an “Agreed Framework,” according to which North Korea shut down Yongbyon and the US and its allies were supposed to supply fuel oil to the North.

For decades now, North Korea has stated that it will forsake its nuclear weapons and rocket program if the US Senate signs a peace treaty to end the state of war. (The armistice of 1953 was only a cease fire.) Whether one believes them or not, isn’t diplomacy worth another attempt to diminish the threat of war?

As the world’s preeminent military power, the US has a responsibility to prevent wars. One such means to do so in Korea would be for President Obama publicly to state that the US will not make a first strike against North Korea. Rather than seeking to reduce tensions, however, the US has ratcheted them up, and as a result, US companies will sell billions of dollars of missile systems to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

President Obama has repeated stated that our main strategic partner in Asia is Japan, even as Japan presses territorial claims against China, both Koreas, Vietnam, and the Philippines concerning islands it took when the Japanese Empire expanded before the end of the second world war. Unlike Germany, which has apologized for Nazism, educated its citizens, and paid reparations, Japan has never apologized for the war, never properly explained its atrocities to its citizens, and refuses to express its regret to the more than 100,000 “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery. In fact, Japan has repeatedly refused to apologize to these women even when pressed by US congressional resolutions. In the long run, the US should consider multilateral alliances, rather than a preeminent one with Japan, in order to diminish regional tensions.

In the past few days, Fox News and others have repeatedly called attention to that “nut” in North Korea who’s trying to prove himself. Yet Kim Jong Un is a mere figurehead in the world’s most Confucian society, where young people must respect their elders and listen to them. An aging military bureaucracy runs North Korea, not the young grandson of their “Dear Leader.” If we allow Kim Jong Un to be demonized while a major war breaks out, hundreds of thousands of people will perish in its first hours—no matter who is to blame.

It is not too late for the Obama administration to change course and find a peaceful solution to this crisis—if that is what they want to do.

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George Katsiaficas is a professor, sociologist, author, and activist. He teaches at the Wentworth Institute of Technology and specializes in social movements, Asian politics, U.S. foreign policy, and comparative and historical studies. He is the author or editor of eleven books including The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life (AK Press, 2006); Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party (co-edited with Kathleen Cleaver, Routledge, 2001); The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (South End Press, 1999) and the forthcoming Asia’s Unknown Uprisings (PM Press, Fall 2011). His writings can be found at www.ErosEffect.com.

The Skunk is a foul-smelling liquid developed by the Israel Police for dispersing demonstrations. (images courtesy of: my catbird seat)

 by Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Part I – Something Is Rotten in the State of Israel

It is said that the devil has about him the smell of fire and brimstone (sulphur). Evil deeds are often described as “most foul.” On the other hand, people who appear, accurately or not, as always innocent are described as “smelling like roses.” There seems, then, to be a long standing, if improbable, association between behavior and smells.

The Israeli army has recently dedicated itself to demonstrating this association. Back on 6 March 2013 the Middle East Monitor reported that

Israeli occupation forces spray skunk on citizen’s houses at Al-Nabi Salah village

 Israeli forces have sprayed Palestinian homes in the village of Nabi Saleh with Skunk as a punishment for organizing weekly protests against the Apartheid Wall built on occupied land. Human rights watchdog B’Tselem published a video showing Israel’s armored tanker trucks fitted with “water canons” [spraying] the foul fluid. 

  Skunk is a fluid so offensive smelling that people automatically retreat from anywhere or anyone doused with it.

This is not the first time the Israelis have used such noxious tactics. Zionist settlers are fond of diverting the sewage from their illegal settlements, which are usually placed on high ground,  into the fields and towns of Palestinians living in the valleys below. This is apparently done with the knowledge and approval of the Israeli state.

I doubt if many of the Israelis involved in these maneuvers have ever read Dante’s Inferno. In that epic poem, Hell is a place steeped in sewage and rot, and Israeli actions seem intent on reproducing this scenario.  Are the Israelis then trying to turn the Holy Land into Hell?  Well, yes, for the Palestinians. To  this end the settlers and soldiers mimic Dante’s demons.

Part II – Selective Smelling

How far does the bad smell of Israeli actions reach? We can be sure that it reaches as far as London, where MP David Ward of the Liberal Democratic Party recently wrote in a Holocaust Memorial book that,

 having visited Auschwitz twice . . . I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ward’s reference to “the Jews” has been qualified, because not all Jews support Zionism or Israel’s claim to “Judea and Samaria,” much less the pogrom-like way the Israelis are going about ethnically cleansing the areas under their control. In fact, an increasing number of American Jews are, if you will, washing their hands of Israel in general. Yet Ward was correct when it comes to the “Jewish state’s” behavior. Perhaps Mr. Ward’s confusion was a product of Israel’s constant insistence that it represents all the world’s Jews.

Not everyone seems to smell the odor emanating from Israel. Mr. Ward’s Liberal Democratic Party called him to account for daring to draw attention to the fact that foul acts continue to be committed against the Palestinians by the self-proclaimed representative of the Jews. A quiet word to Ward about avoiding generalizations would probably have sufficed but, using a process similar to those carried out by totalitarian regimes, Ward’s party ordered him “to meet with the party’s ‘Friends of Israel’ chapter to ‘identify and agree on language that will be proportionate and precise when he speaks out again on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.” He did so and issued the required apology. This    smells like censorship to me.

Part III – Foul Is Fair

It’s one thing to punish someone for calling attention to Israel’s rank behavior. It is something else to insist that foul is actually fair–-to say the sewage smells like roses. Who would be reckless enough to imply such a nauseating thing and do so with a straight face before cameras with the whole world watching? How about the President of the United States? He lives in Washington D.C., where denial of Israel’s malodorous nature is almost unanimous.

President Obama had an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV station on 15 March 2013, just before he left to visit that country. In the interview he stated that he admires Israel’s “core values.” The Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who has an honest nose for these things, editorially asked Obama,

 which values he was talking about? The dehumanization of the Palestinians? The attitude toward African migrants? The arrogance, racism and nationalism? Is this what he admires? Don’t separate buses for Palestinians remind him of something? Doesn’t two communities living on the same land, one with full rights and the other with no rights, ring a bell . . . ? 

 To admire “core values” while knowing we’re talking about one of the most racist countries there is, with a separation wall and apartheid-like policies, means betraying the core values of the American civil rights movement that made the Obama miracle possible.

 Nonetheless, upon arriving in Israel, President Obama said that U.S. support for the very same Israel Levy describes will “be forever.” It might be added that, at the same time, the president insisted that the Palestinians cease demanding a halt to the building of settlements, with their targeted open- sewer policies, before any further “peace” negotiations with the Israelis.

When it comes to Israel, President Obama, and most of the Congress as well, can’t tell the difference between fair and foul. That is because they live in a peculiar professional world whose parameters, in reference to Israel and Palestine, are defined by a Zionist lobby with Orwellian powers. In this special world, double-think abounds. Racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the tactical use of Skunk and raw sewage disappear and are replaced by imaginary “core values” that smell like roses.

Part IV – Conclusion

 The president can privately smell garbage and call it roses all he wants. But when he tries to sell the rest of us on this connection, the credibility of his language sinks into the gutter. Remember what George Orwell tells us about the potential for harm in the misuse of political language. Misused, such language offers a “defense of the indefensible” and is “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” That is what most politicians’ language has sunk to when it comes to Israel/Palestine.

That this should go on “forever,” as the president claims, is just hyperbole. Consider the fact that a recent CIA report calls into question the Zionist state’s ability to last for more than another twenty years. No, the bad smell coming from Israel denotes internal socio-political rot, as well as rotten tactics toward non-Jewish inhabitants. Sooner or later everyone possessing a humane conscience, to say nothing of a functioning honest nose, will refuse to have anything to do with this “apartheid-like” state.

******

Dr. Lawrence Davidson is the co-author of A Concise History of the Middle East and author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; Islamic Fundamentalism; and The Alexian Brothers: An Evolutionary Look at the Monastery and Modern Health Care. A member of West Chester University’s history faculty since 1986, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and completed his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Georgetown University and the University of Alberta in Canada, respectively. Email : ldavidson@wcupa.edu Website : http://www.tothepointanalyses.com

 By JAMAL KANJ

EGYPT is an experimental democracy in progress, but when the evolution of this process turns bloody it begs the question: is it worth it?

An Egyptian tourist guide who has lost his job, or a businessman affected by ongoing street violence, would probably respond with a resounding no.

This should be a wake-up call for current and aspiring political leaders.

It has been established that Mohamed Mursi became Egypt’s first democratically elected president following a public uprising, with 13.23 million votes (51.73 per cent).

While Mursi was the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) nominee, votes from across the political spectrum were crucial in defeating the old regime’s candidate.

In fact, Mursi’s victory was only possible thanks to votes cast by the same people protesting in the streets of Cairo today.

His victory belonged to those who toiled and laboured to end the dictatorship of former president Hosni Mubarak.

It was obvious to all – except perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood – that many of Mursi’s votes were simply a rejection of the old system, rather than a vote of confidence in him as a candidate.

After promising during his campaign to seek a wide coalition to lead Egypt, he back-pedalled and instead opted to govern based on a narrow minded, ideological political party line.

There are umpteen occasions when Mursi has made poor choices, from his backing down from early promises to reach outside the MB hierarchy to his handling of a vote on the constitution. But should that disqualify him from serving his elected term? I say no.

Mursi’s failure is typical of doctrinal, elected leaders endeavouring to satisfy their organised ideological base and the public at large. Trying to balance the two is impossible and they end up failing both constituencies.

I loathe quoting Winston Churchill, but he was right when he said democracy was not perfect. Voters have every right to change their opinion of officials they elect. But that right comes with an obligation to endure the results of the ballot box.

Other than impeachable constitutional violations, in an “imperfect” democracy elected officials must be ousted through a vote only – not street violence.

But the president must not turn into a mini-dictator. There should be adequate checks and balances in the legislative and judicial branches, as well as a free media, to collectively avert the slide into the abyss of a despotic system of government.

In chaotic settings subversive elements have better chance infiltrating protests and goading susceptible zealots into acts of destructive violence, while provoking cruelty by security forces.

In fact, an alleged Arabic-speaking Israeli spy posing as a protester was arrested in Cairo in 2011. Ilan Grapel was an ex-paratrooper who was injured in Southern Lebanon in August 2006. He used an American passport to enter Egypt shortly after the January 25 uprising and lied on his visa application, claiming to be Muslim. The alleged spy was accused of burning public buildings and after first denying culpability, the Israeli government agreed four months later to exchange Grapel with 25 imprisoned Egyptians.

There are no shortcuts in democracy and the ballot box is its best guarantee.

To violently force an elected official to step down sets a dangerous precedent.

Tolerating a one-term, despised, elected president is safer than unpredictable anarchy on the streets.

SEE ALSO:

INTIFADA PALESTINE – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – With Jamal K. Kanj: Author Children of Catastrophe

Courtesy: Veterans Today

by Rupert Cornwell

As public grovels go, this one was pretty spectacular. Former Senator Chuck Hagel, who may or may not become the next US Secretary of Defense, was back in his old haunts on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearings, trying to explain a remark he made a few years back, that “the Jewish lobby intimidated Congress” and did some “dumb things”.

Name a “dumb thing”, he was asked by Lindsey Graham, his Republican colleague for six years until 2009 – though you wouldn’t have guessed it from the venom of the exchanges on Thursday. Hagel couldn’t. Graham persisted. “Name one person who’s intimidated by the Israel lobby in the United States Senate.” A taut silence, then Hagel limply responded, “I don’t know.”

Public hearings, especially confirmation hearings, are one of the great shows of Congress. Hagel’s made especially good theatre, largely because the reek of treachery was in the air. Here was a Republican who had abandoned his party and colleagues like Graham and John McCain, his one-time friend and fellow Vietnam war hero, by turning against the Iraq war begun by a Republican president.

Worse still, Hagel had backed Barack Obama, not McCain, in the 2008 election, even accompanying the Democratic candidate on a high-profile campaign visit to Iraq and Israel. And now here he was, back on Capitol Hill as Obama’s choice to lead the Pentagon, about to collect his 30 pieces of silver. If anything, McCain’s own grilling of his former pal was even more poisonous.

In the end the public drama may make little difference. Hagel did pretty poorly, seeming to be taken aback by the hostility of the Republicans, even though the latter had made no secret of it beforehand. But performances at confirmation hearings rarely change minds – and even more rarely is a President’s nominee to an important post actually rejected. The Democrats and their allies hold a 14-12 majority on the Armed Services Committee, and 55 of the 100 Senate seats. That should be enough. The only way Republicans can block Hagel is by using the filibuster to prevent a final vote on the floor.

But what lingered in the mind was not the set-to over Iraq, or the suggestions that Hagel was “soft” on Iran (he once had the temerity to suggest direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran) but his exchanges with Graham over the “Jewish lobby”. It’s always a mistake to use that expression, and not primarily because it sounds anti-Semitic. I did so in a sloppy opening paragraph a few years ago, and was rightly excoriated by American readers. “Jewish lobby” is wrong on two counts. First, the lobby includes many non-Jews, most notably Christian conservatives. Second, many American Jews do not support the group’s hardline policies over Israel. The correct term, as Hagel quickly acknowledged last week, is “Israel lobby”.

And that is precisely what it is: one of the most potent advocacy groups in Washington DC, and not only here. Few of its spokesmen were more forceful than Ed Koch, the colourful former mayor of New York who died on Friday. Koch, child of Jewish immigrants from Poland, was a passionate Israel supporter, and accused Obama of “turning his back on Israel” by naming Hagel to the Pentagon, which he called “a terrible appointment”.

There are those who claim that the lobby’s clout is vastly exaggerated, insisting that far from being a sinister body subverting US foreign policy in one of the world’s most unstable regions, it is pushing at an open door. Even without a lobby, the thesis runs, Americans would be overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. Which may be true, but misses the point.

Power lies in the perception of power, and the Israel lobby, led by Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is perceived to have a heck of a lot of it. Fall foul of the Israel lobby, with its financial muscle and ability to put the word out, and, it is said, your political career may be doomed. That, presumably, was what Hagel was getting at when he spoke of people in Congress being “intimidated”.

Exhibit A in this argument is Chuck Percy, the three-term Republican Senator from Illinois said to have been defeated in 1984 as a result of an Aipac-led campaign against him. Percy’s offence, according to a committee official at the time, was to have shown “insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns”. Also mentioned is George Bush Snr’s failed 1992 re-election campaign, to which his short-lived block on loan guarantees to Israel while it continued to expand settlements may have contributed.

True or false? It’s impossible to say. What matters is the perception. But one thing is incontestable. Congress is overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. Probably no more than a dozen of the 435 Representatives can remotely be described as “pro-Palestinian”, while the mood in the Senate may be divined from a 2000 resolution expressing support for Israel, signed by 96 of its members (Hagel was one of the four who did not).

Not for nothing did Pat Buchanan once describe Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory” – so much so that an Israeli prime minister at odds with the White House can bypass the President, making his case directly to an Aipac conference or on Capitol Hill. Take Benjamin Netanyahu when he delivered an address to Congress in May 2011. I remember the assembled lawmakers jumping up and down like jack-in-the-boxes to give him 29 standing ovations. Whatever else, Bibi would never have received an acclamation like that in the Knesset.

If Chuck Hagel doesn’t make it to the Pentagon, opposition to him from the Israel lobby won’t have been the only reason, or even the main reason. But one thing you can be sure of. A good few more on Capitol Hill will have been “intimidated”.

Source: The Independent

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Rupert Cornwell is known for his commentary on international relations and US politics, Rupert Cornwell also contributes obituaries and occasionally even a column for the sports pages. With The Independent since its launch in 1986, he was the paper’s first Moscow correspondent – covering the collapse of the Soviet Union – during which time he won two British Press Awards. Previously a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times and Reuters, he has also been a diplomatic correspondent, leader writer and columnist, and has served as Washington bureau editor. In 1983 he published God’s Banker, about Roberto Calvi, the Italian banker found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge.

by Franklin Lamb

Damascus

There are more than 9000 of them. Predominately young but of all ages. Volunteers everyone. Often risking their lives just to come for a twelve hour work-shift, as many as seven days a week at the Syrian Arab Republic Red Crescent Society (SARCS) Emergency Operation center.

Located at The New Zahera (blooming flowers) Hospital in Damascus just to the south of Yarmouk refugee camp, SARCS has its main emergency response teams HQ.  It is here where Syrians, some Palestinians and even a few from the region and the West receive training as qualified para-medics. Maybe two-thirds of those this observer spent a day with a few days ago are students and graduates. Nationalists all, and in the main, but not everyone, supporting the government, but sympathetic towards whomever can end the killing and return life even to “pre-events normalcy”.

In the Operations Center main room, volunteers take phone calls and as they are being spoken to they stare at a large computer screen that shows a Google Earth close up view of the areas where emergency responders are urgently needed. Some of the volunteers, being tech savvy, have outlined and regularly update with a green line, the most recent safest routes to the crisis that their ambulances should take.  The dispatchers get input from police, neighbors, even troops and “others” advising them which streets are currently relatively safe for travel.  Periodic snipers is a fact of daily life for the responders whenever they are “on mission.

One shift manager told this observer that something the operations room really wants to help them with their work is something he called “google live”.  Apparently is can some activity as it happens.  His team has two problems as they try to secure this capability. One problem is that GL is forbidden by the US-led sanctions. But frankly, his team could care less and already knows how to hack into something to secure it. The main problem is that they need Syrian government approval to set up Google live and they are hoping to get it soon.  This GL capability will help SARCS emergency teams get to their destination faster and safer.

The main emergency operation center is an exciting beehive of activity staffed by friendly people urgently working to help others. Dressed in bright orange overalls plainly marked with “SARCS” in red letters.  As are their dozen ambulances and other vehicles.  The reason?  To emphatically distinguish themselves from the other rescue vehicles operated by the Ministry of Health.  The reason this is important is because rebels types of do not histitate to target their ambulances with RPG’s and other weapons whereas the Al Nursa Front and others insist SARCS ambulances will not be targeted. For example, the day Yarmouk Palestinian Refugees camp was bombed  three weeks ago leaving many dead and three times the number wounded, SARCS ambulances raced into the camp and pulled out 30 victims in half a day.

Volunteers advised this observer that the reason their vehicles are rather less likely to be targeted is that SARCS strictly complies with the Hippocratic oath and keeps politics out of their work as best they can.  As this observer witnessed several times first hand, when an emergency call comes in on the # 133 line, the dispatcher asks only the location,  injury assessment if available, employing the Red, Yellow, Green system.  No questions are asked whether the victim is pro or anti-government, sect, nationality, or political affiliation. If the victim has a weapon the ambulance driver instructs friends of the victim at the scene to take the weapon as none are allowed on the stretcher or in SARCS vehicles.  While giving medical care it is prohibited for SARCS volunteers to inquire about political views or details about the circumstances surrounding the injury.

An observer might conclude that this is one of the reasons that SARCS emergency response teams have won the general trust of Syrians and NGO’s, who by Syrian law are obliged to work with and consult with other departments of SARCS, such as Disaster Management, to  get the international aid as fast as possible to where it is most needed.

There are places and times that the emergency vehicles cannot go.  More than four dozen SARCS volunteers have been reported killed or injured while performing their humanitarian work. Every bombing and disaster in Syria these days brings more applications to join the SARC volunteer teams.  Such is the character of the Syrian people, an amalgam of their history, culture, Arab nationalism and resistance stance.

Current shortages for emergency services in Syria include medicines, medical equipment, fuel, food boxes, blankets and cooking utensils.  Some of these shortages are the direct and foreseeable result of the US-led sanctions daily targeting the civilian population of Syria with the hope that riots from the cold, malnourished, suffering civilian population will cause the elected Government of Syria to falter and the Western goal of regime change will follow. As the history of sanctions targeting civilian populations makes plane, these inhumane sanctions fail in their political objectives and simply engender the wrath of the civilian population which frankly inures to the political benefit of the government in power.

As current events are demonstrating, the designers of the US-led sanctions, who are housed on the second floor of the US Treasury building in Washington DC, including the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC) , have once more failed to understand the nature and the quality of the Syrian people.

One wonders if the same process unfolding the past few weeks of whereby foreign interests, now may be realizing  they have committed major “assessment errors” in Syria and reportedly reassessing their objectives, may now be willing to come to the negotiating table which currently has on it four serious proposals for discussion.

Only the presence of those currently absent from the dialogue table is needed to end the killing and start rebuilding homes, hospitals, infrastructures of every sort and equally essential, democratic freedoms for everyone in Syria.

Waiting also is the Syrian population, and the Syrian Arab Republic Red Crescent Society (SARCS) emergency responders, who 24/7 are doing life-saving national and humanitarian work for their country and for anyone who calls their emergency responders on 133.

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Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

By JAMAL KANJ

LAST week was the ninth anniversary of Edward Said’s death. He died in New York following 12-year battle with lymphocytic leukaemia.

He was born in Jerusalem 12 years prior to joining hundreds of thousands of his compatriots in a force, lifelong journey into exile or refugee camps.

He was a towering figure in American academia and distinguished cultural critic best known for his 1978 book Orientalism.

In it, he believed Western perception of the East was based on false colonial, self-serving rationalisation to justify imperial domination.

According to him: “Western scholars appropriated the task of exploration and interpretation of the Orient’s languages, history and culture for themselves, with the implication that the East was not capable of composing its own narrative.”

More than 30 years after its publication, Orientalism continues to dominate academic discourse and Western media bias when covering the East.

On the heels of Orientalism, Said wrote The Question of Palestine in 1979 followed by Covering Islam in 1983, in which he used the Orientalism theory to expose contemporary media bias when covering the Islamic world.

In Covering Islam, he asserts that most professed Western experts were politically motivated by self-interest and influenced by discreet cultural biases.

He makes a compelling argument that “untruth and falsehood about Islam” is propagated and filtered in the Western media under the cover of objectivity, democracy and freedom.

I was fortunate to have met him at a small dinner table when he was a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in 1989.

He was eloquent in critiquing shortcomings of the Palestinian leadership and as articulate when making the Palestinian case before a standing room only lecture later that night.

After meeting and studying Said, you couldn’t help but feel you were in the company of a genius. He was an accomplished pianist and an authority on topics ranging from literature and politics to culture, art and music.

His memoir Out of Place, which he wrote during the sunset years of his life, was the quintessential Palestinian story of people yearning for a place to belong. It was an account most Palestinians would identify with, whether they lived in refugee camps or had a successful life in exile.

I have read many of Said’s books and confess that most are not easy to read. His subject writing is certain to challenge the most erudite and intellectual reader.

Exceptional scholars are typically celebrated in the West. Said was the recipient of many academic awards, but the lack of official US acknowledgement of his talent was mainly due to his tireless efforts fighting the most powerful and organised single-issue group in America.

For instance, the charge of anti-Semitism has become a psychological weapon in the hands of Zionists, who use it to numb Israel’s opponents and stifle its critics.

Said questioned this dilemma extensively in his 2003 book Culture and Resistance, pointing out that “there is a great difference between acknowledging Jewish oppression and using that as a cover for the oppression of another people”.

At a time when it became convenient for Western intellectuals to ignore Israel’s brutality to avoid the wrath of national Jewish organisations, he refused to be silenced. For Said, “injustice was to be rectified, not rationalised”.

******

* Mr Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) writes a weekly column on Arab issues and is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. This article was first published by the Gulf Daily News newspaper.

by Stuart Littlewood   Intifada Palestine

So the Albuquerque Episcopalians got jumpy and ‘disinvited’ the Friends of Sabeel who had booked their cathedral for a conference.

Sabeel is an international peace movement which calls itself the Voice of Palestinian Christians.

Why would one Christian group snub another? The excuse for turning away the conference was concocted by the Dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. J. Mark Goodman. “We said our prayers and deliberated thoughtfully and purposefully,” he explained.

It seems he and his Episcopalian colleagues didn’t like the way the conference would be dealing with “a political issue that has polarized people in ways that we felt were unhelpful. We did not want to introduce a polarized issue into the life of the Cathedral that would have the potential to divide rather than unite. Our decision was not based upon anti-Palestinian positions. In fact, many on the Vestry [i.e. the church directors] are very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people, yet they were concerned about the rhetoric of the literature from Sabeel.”

He denied they were put under pressure from Zionists. Nevertheless they had invited a local rabbi to come and speak to the Vestry, a rather odd thing to do when, presumably, they were all acquainted with the endless crimes committed by the Jewish State against the Christian communities in the Holy Land. Do they usually turn to rabbis for advice?

Goodman also said Vestry members had attended his recent Forum classes, after which they had misgivings about serving as conference hosts.

“This summer at General Convention, I served on a committee that dealt in a focused way with resolutions about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians,” he went on. “It was my personal prayer that we would craft resolutions that were balanced and offered a way forward with positive engagement with each side, seeking a way forward that would bring security, dignity and peace to a region that has known strife for too long. I believe we succeeded.”

Note the reliance on “positive engagement”. What exactly does that mean – more interfaith dialogue? “We succeeded”, he says. But how does he measure success? And why is he not pressing for the enforcement of international and humanitarian law and the implementation of UN resolutions, the only route to justice? The Episcopalian approach implies that some sort of equivalence, or level playing field, already exists between the powerful aggressor and the weak victim, the robber and the robbed, the armed occupier and his unarmed dispossessed prisoner.

How did these churchmen, far removed from the rotten reality, become experts on “security, dignity and peace” in the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom? Have they been there, rolled up their sleeves and immersed themselves in the snakepit that the Holy Land has been allowed to become? What makes him and his mates think they’ve found a way forward while Palestine remains under brutal occupation?

The mission statement provided by Goodman’s church says: “The Cathedral continues to honor its responsibility to be a good steward and shepherd in the community and the world.” A huge and worthy commitment indeed. However, the cathedral’s own relatively peaceful community and inconsequential little world have been rudely rocked by scandal http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/29044 following claims that it was headed for bankruptcy and members were deserting. The cathedral accountant blew the whistle and allegations were made about the misuse of collection money, liberal imbibing of expensive wine and Vestry members “trashing the cathedral’s endowment by $2 million through complacency, and of not disciplining the dean”.

The regional bishop moved quickly to hush it up in an operation that local church workers said was “like a quiet version of the Spanish Inquisition”. There’s more about it here http://www.examiner.com/review/readers-seek-solace-book-about-episcopal-church

If only this sort of tomfoolery were all that Christian churches in the Holy Land had to worry about. Unfortunately the Episcopalians seem pretty confused, or downright ignorant, about the depths of evil to which the Israeli occupation has sunk. This is from their official report ‘Israel-Palestine: Convention supports positive investment – Bishops agree to postpone indefinitely debate on corporate engagement’ http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/07/10/israel-palestine-convention-supports-positive-investment/ ….

Bishop John Tarrant of South Dakota urged opposition to Resolution C060 [which calls on the church to engage “in corporate social responsibility by more vigorous and public corporate engagement with companies in the church’s investment portfolio that contribute to the infrastructure of the Occupation”]. He spoke about the town of Rawabi, currently under construction north of Ramallah in the West Bank, that will provide opportunities for affordable home ownership, employment and education. Tarrant said that the project, envisioned by a group of Palestinian businessmen, would inject about $80 million into the Israeli economy.

“It gave me the sense that there are Palestinians that understand the importance of mutuality if the two states are going to exist side by side,” he said.

He reminded the house of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s charge for Episcopalians ‘to go as emissaries…to go into the world of God’s dream’. “I believe there are Palestinians and Israelis now that are going into the world with God’s dream.”

Has Bishop Schori been to the world of God’s dream and seen what’s there?

And why would Bishop Tarrant want to inject all those $millions into the Israeli economy when Israel has been strangling the Palestinian economy to death, seizing its land and water and withholding Palestine’s tax revenues?

Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania said the movement to support boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel was unwise. “We need more, not fewer, economic ties to Israel. The more isolated Israel becomes the more dangerous the situation becomes.”

It turns out that Episcopalians are against boycott and divestment. Instead the bishops have supported a resolution on positive investment in the Palestinian Territories, as if that will do the slightest good while the illegal occupation and blockade continue. Meanwhile they agreed to postpone indefinitely the conversation on corporate engagement.

To them, it seems, going as emissaries into God’s dream involves kicking the can down the road like the rest of wretched Christendom (with a few honourable exceptions). Was anybody at the Convention truly concerned with right versus wrong, good versus evil, the rule of international law versus the rule of the gun-butt, the F-16, the helicopter gun-ship, the tank shell, illegal detention and the hard-to-get permit to go anywhere.

Their own Bishop is a victim of Israel’s apartheid policies

The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem himself is a classic victim of the machinations of the cruel occupation. Suheil Dawani is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which is a part of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and The Middle East. This covers Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He was installed in April 2007, but in March 2011 Israel cancelled his residency permit making it well nigh impossible for him to carry out his duties. As a non-Israeli he needs a temporary residence permit. The Israelis played fast and loose, granting a permit initially then turning him down.

Here’s the explanation http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=17766 . “The bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry there, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus, in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but has not been annexed to Israel. East Jerusalem, on the other hand, where the Anglican Cathedral and Diocesan offices are situated, was also occupied at the same time, but Israel annexed it and considers it part of its national territory (although no other country in the world recognizes this annexation). Therefore, Bishop Dawani is considered by Israel to be a foreigner who can only visit – let alone live in – East Jerusalem with a special permit, which the Israeli authorities can either grant or deny at their sole discretion.”

Get it?

There’s a religious war going on in the Holy Land and Dawani was wide open to this sort of dirty trick. After six months of aggravation and international pressure, during which Israel’s Interior Ministry accused him of “improper” land dealings on behalf of the church and the Palestinian Authority, the illegal occupiers granted residency permits to the bishop and his family.

But here’s the catch… those permits will have to be renewed when they expire, whenever that may be or whenever the Israelis choose.

So the Israelis have the bishop’s balls in a vice. Keep quiet Dawani and all you Anglicans/Episcopalians while we carry on with our ethnic cleansing. Keep quiet while we trash the Palestinian economy, confiscate their lands and water resources, continue the blockade, erase their culture and humiliate their families, drive out the Christians and Muslims and disrupt the religious life of those who stubbornly remain.

Keep quiet or we’ll revoke your permit again.

The Catholics similarly walk on eggshells and are mercilessly bullied in their homeland. Their priests are harassed and obstructed and often prevented from going about their pastoral duties. Many are ‘imprisoned’ in their parish – if they leave it to visit relatives or holiday in another part of the Occupied Territories or in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon, the Israelis may not let them back in.

So imagine what it’s like for the Muslims.

The simple truth is that the Jewish State is the world leader in rampant lawlessness and interfaith bullying, while the wet and wimpish Anglicans respond with their clapped-out formula of interfaith dialogue and other verbal diarrhoea. For 64 years it has got us and our Palestinian brothers and sisters precisely nowhere.

The good folks of Sabeel must now be wondering what they’ve done to deserve same-faith friends like the Albuquerque Episcopalians.

Stuart Littlewood

******

Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword by Jeff Halper, can now be read on the internet by visiting www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk.

Dr. Elias Akelh

By Dr. Elias Akleh   Intifada Palestine

Iran poses a great threat to Zionist terrorist state of Israel. Iran poses even greater threat to the present hegemonic world order controlled by the Western power elite through their financial institutions and the undemocratic United Nation with all its many branches. In the perspective of both Israel and the Western power elite, Iran, as a threat, needs to be weakened and eliminated through regime change, through economic sanctions, through terror attacks, and if need be through war.

The roots of Iran’s confrontation with the West go back to 1908 when oil was discovered in Iran by Burmah Oil Company, later called Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), and finally became British Petroleum (BP). During WWI the British government bought a controlling share of the company because it needed Iran’s oil for its Royal Navy.

When the Persians expressed their dissatisfaction with their meager share of 16% of the net profits a British caused coup in 1925 got rid of Shah Mozzafar al-Din and installed Reza Pahlavi in his place. Pahlavi served the British until WWII during which he became friendlier with Germany after it invaded USSR in 1941. The British and the Red Army, then, invaded Iran, got rid of Pahlavi and installed his 22 years old son Mohammad in his place. American forces also entered Iran and operated the southern part of the Trans-Iranian Railway that transported oil. After the war the allied forces withdrew from Iran but AIOC kept its monopoly over the oil fields.

Iranians kept asking for a fair share of their oil industry, but the AIOC refused to re-negotiate and rejected all proposed compromise. In 1951 the pro-Western Iranian Prime Minister Ali Razmara was assassinated and replaced by Mohammad Mosaddegh. The Parliament created the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the oil fields were nationalized.

The United Kingdom was furious and raised an anti-nationalization case at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. After losing their case British Prime Minister Winston Churchill resorted to the US for help, but president, then, Harry Truman was very busy with his war in Korea. However, in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower became the president and authorized Operation Ajax, a joined British MI6 and American CIA coup led by Kermit Roosevelt, which overthrew the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh and transformed the government into an oppressive constitutional monarchy led by Mohammad Pahlavi until 1979. As a result of the coup AIOC returned to Iran but accompanied with five other American oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell with their own shares of Iran’s oil monopoly.

In January 1978 the Iranian Islamic Revolution ignited causing the Shah to leave the country in January 1979, and an Islamic Republic with Ayatollah Khomeini as supreme leader was established. On 4^th of November 1979 a group of Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran taking 52 American hostages accused of being CIA operatives plotting to overthrow the revolutionary government as was done to Mosaddegh’s government in 1953. President Carter’s military and diplomatic rescue attempts failed and the hostages were not freed until January 1981 according to the Algiers Accords.

Encouraged by the CIA and financed by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, CIA man Saddam Hussein, then President of Iraq, engaged Iran into what is known as the Eight Years War 1980 – 1988. The aim was to engage both countries into a war of attrition that weakens both countries and brings huge profits to the Western military complex. To lengthen the war and to increase the casualties and the devastation both Israel and the US provided intelligence information to both parties and sold them weapons including chemical weapons, sold by Donald Rumsfeld to Saddam Hussein, that resulted in, among many, the massacre of Halabja. The war finally ended in August 1988 according to UN Resolution 598 without any territorial gain by either party.

The CIA had also failed to topple Ahmadinejad’s administration during the 2009 Iranian election through the use of social media; internet, twitter and facebook, to push people into the streets demonstrating against the election.

Iran had become a real thorny bone in the throat of Zionist controlled American administrations when the Iranian government financed and armed Lebanese Hezbollah, whose armed struggle forced Israeli occupation forces to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000, and also inflicted heavy casualties on the Israeli tanks during Israel’s aggression against Lebanon in 2006.

Iran had to be dealt with. Iran became the target of huge media propaganda attempting to demonize its leadership especially Ahmadinejad, who was accused of anti-Semitism, holocaust denying, and threatening to wipe Israel off the map. Iran also was accused of developing nuclear weapons without any real evidence and even with continuous sudden and stringent IAEA inspections. Economic sanctions and oil embargo were imposed on Iran. Penalty and punishment was imposed on countries who would buy Iranian oil, although lax exemptions were later granted to virtually all countries due to failure of the embargo and to the rise of oil prices. Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated by Mossad/CIA backed assassins. American-backed terrorist Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MKO) conducted terrorist attacks against government buildings and against ethnic civilian minorities to incite ethnic conflict. American administration has just removed the MKO from its terrorist list. Cyber war had been waged against Iranian nuclear facilities, and nuclear equipment sold to Iran by German Seimens company contained explosives aimed at sabotaging Iranian nuclear facilities.

In violation of international laws Israel continues to threaten to attack Iran and bomb its nuclear facilities. Israel is the only country possessing nuclear weapons in the Middle East as revealed by their own nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. There are indisputable evidence that Israel had stolen weapons-grade uranium for its nuclear weapons program from American Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation in Apollo, Pennsylvania in 1950s and 1960s. Israel did not just build nuclear weapons but is also proliferating nuclear weapons as evidence show that Israeli Shimon Peres, now Israel president, was trying to sell three sizes of nuclear bombs to apartheid South Africa’s defense minister PW Botha in 1975. This was also documented by the book “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa” by Sasha Polakow-Suransky. God knows who else had bought nuclear weapons from Israel. Israel did not sign, and refuse to sign the NPT.

Not mentioning its many wars of aggression against Palestine and its neighboring Arab countries, its violation of international and humanitarian laws and daily terror attacks against Palestinian civilians, its assassinations of officials and terror attacks all over the globe, its illegal bombardments of Iraq and Syria, its illegal piracy against freedom flotillas in international seas, and its international laws violating threats to devastate Lebanon and to nuke Iran, Israel is accusing Iran of being threat to the region and to the world, although Iran have not committed or threatened to commit any war of aggression against any other country during the last 200 years.

One can easily discern who is the war mongering threat to world peace when comparing Iranian Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN with Israeli Netanyahu’s pathetic “this is a bomb, this is a fuse” speech. When Ahmadinejad addresses heads of states with logic and respect, Netanyahu insults their intelligence by his condescending demeanor as if talking to third grade students. When Ahmadinejad talks peace, Netanyahu talks war. When Ahmadinejad talks global interests, Netanyahu talks Israeli only interests. When Ahmadinejad talks harmonious religious utopia, Netanyahu talks racist religious elitism. When Ahmadinejad talks global consciousness, Netanyahu talks egocentric Judaic consciousness. When Ahmadinejad talks global holocausts, Netanyahu talks Jewish only holocaust. When Ahmadinejad addresses the concerns of all nations, Netanyahu addresses only Israeli concerns and talks us vs others. When Ahmadinejad speaks of citizenship of the whole world, Netanyahu speaks Jewish only state. When Ahmadinejad calls for return to monotheism and cites Jewish, Christian, and Moslem prophets and messengers such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad, Netanyahu cites his racist god and Jewish only prophets; Isaiah, Amos and Jeremiah. Netanyahu accuses Iranian leaders of waiting for a medieval holy man to appear after a devastating holy war to spread radical Islam, yet he forgets that Zionist Israeli Jews are waiting for a Messiah, a cosmic terrorist, who would wage a holy war to purge the promised land from all non-Jewish heathens; Christians as well as Moslems, and build a temple, from which to rule the whole world.

Iran poses a great threat to the present Western hegemonic world order because its leader is pointing to the utter failure of the present world order in maintaining peace and prosperity and is calling for a new joint global management of the world with fundamental changes and structural reforms to the UN and to the Security Council based on real democracy and equal rights to all member nations by eliminating the veto power of few countries, who dominate and manipulate global politics, economy and culture to attain their racist ambitions. Iran is calling for an end to expansionist capitalism, to the elimination of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and to a return to monotheism to eliminate sectarian wars. Iran is also calling for reforming the current unjust and unfair economic structures and setting up a new international economic order based on human and moral values and obligation to allow potential talents of all nations to flourish. Ahmadinejad called for the elimination of present centers of power that seek supremacy based on domination and conquer of others through wars.

What makes Iran more dangerous is not the fact that it possesses advanced long range weapons that could destroy American military bases in the Arabian Gulf States and all the foreign naval armadas crowding the Persian Gulf and could also reach and devastate the state of Israel, but the fact that Iran will be heading the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for the next three years. NAM consists of 120 member countries from across the globe making two thirds of world countries and 60% of world population and represents the biggest single voting bloc in the 193-member General Assembly at the UN. NAM countries support Iran’s call for the new joint global management, assert Iran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, oppose war against Iran and deplore Israeli continuous threat to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran has become a major global player that could not be isolated nor ignored on the global theater.

Of course the present pro-Zionist Western hegemonic world order will not sit idle and will muster every way to ruin Iran. Western military has been very busy devising military actions against Iran and studying their costs and effects. “Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran” is an analytical report by the Iran Project and authored by 32 respected national security experts such as former security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, and military generals such as Anthony Zinni. The report indicates that military action against Iran would be very costly to the US. “Given Iran’s large size and population, and the strength of Iranian nationalism, we estimate that the occupation of Iran would require a commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the US has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined” the report stated. Despite this analysis the US and Israel continue to conduct war games in the Persian Gulf testing the feasibility of each new war scenario drawn by American military.

The big question that poses itself is whether Iran would become the nucleus of a global spring that would create a real democratic new world order, or would it be the target of a comprehensive Middle Eastern war, possibly nuclear, whose devastating effects would hit all countries without exception.

*********

About the Author

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

Patrick Clawson of the influential neo-con Washington Institute for Near East Studies OPENLY suggests that the US should provoke Iran into taking the first shot.

by William A. Cook

Clowns befuddle a crowd. They appear a pretense of the normal but caricatured to evoke laughter, surprise, at times derision, but always in context where they absorb self-deprecation, become the butt of jokes, become the audiences’ self, a make believe self, receiving the jibes, jests and buffoonery never allowed when alone. Thus do they become vessels of deep seated self- ridicule, inhibited expression, personal inadequacy, a self-conscious parody of the normal.  They are used images, commodities to be bought and sold for the purchaser’s benefit, set amidst their fellows as manikins to be pinched and probed, facsimiles of all, but receivers of ridicule to protect their brethren.

Such is the figure of Patrick Clawson, Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as he appeared before his fellows, his scholarly brethren seated silently in respectful adulation at WINEP’s self-proclaimed international conference on near East policy. He appeared as all clowns appear from the side curtains, an Ichabod figure from Irving’s legend’s, lanky, thin, staccato stepping toward the podium, a believer in mystical gods, historical covenants, justifications of actions found encrypted in the yellow stained pages of ancient scrolls, called upon to deliver his sacred yet startling message to his colleagues.

They after all exist as aborted children of the State of Israel, a direct issue of AIPAC, a think-tank of intellectuals created for the sole purpose of extolling the State of Israel while condemning all who would question Israel’s policies or people. They are guardians of G-d’s chosen, paid exorbitant salaries to praise and justify Israel’s actions, a bastion of constant comment to blunt the cries of the world’s communities to bring Israel to justice. They labor hard and long to cloak their owners’ illicit behaviors, their illegal wars, their deception and deceit that it may continue with impunity. They like the clowns garb themselves in costumes to hide their true purpose; they create icons that mask their true intent, lease a suite of offices in prestige towers in the heart of Washington, ride in chauffeur driven limousines, dress in Italian styled pin striped suits, sit at mahogany desks behind sophisticated computers, and rest comfortably in cushioned chairs as the atmosphere is regulated to apt comfort levels. All this splendor belies their reality as the raucous romp of the clowns beneath the big top, surrounded by balloons and cotton candy and parade music, belies their function to become the receptacle of their audiences’ anxiety and frustrations.

Watch Clown Clawson amble to the podium, nonchalantly glancing to his presumed peers who sit at either side of the podium awaiting his intervention and words of wisdom as they face a crisis of apparent calamity, how to force the United States to attack Iran. Obama’s intransigence against an attack, while Netanyahu’s absolute determination to attack necessitates a swift mental solution, a strategy heretofore not considered, one for the unencumbered mental concentration of their Clown. “Send in the Clown” that he may perform before all the fools that incestuously congregate at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

As he gathers his wits mumbling at the podium, he notes the dilemma that confronts these masterminds of strategic planning, a stalled action plan against the Iranian people. How to solve it? Clawson acts like the trickster of Native myths, the buffoon brought forth to unveil the truth behind the intellectual drivel that poured from the scholars as they pontificated on the existential threat to Israel of the impending existence of an Iranian atomic bomb, of the unfortunate limits to an Israeli unilateral response and the consequent need for the United States to step into the breach, an act, indeed, of moral significance.

Send in the clown to unmask the hidden agenda that lurked beneath the recorded time of this conference, the unstated purpose of holding forth in discourse for the public’s benefit that the occupant of the White House might hear what his next step on behalf of the American people must be. After all, these intellectual presentations become tomorrow’s news and their presenter tomorrow’s expert guest on countless talk shows that all Americans might understand that they too are under existential threat, that their fear level should be rising to red, that there is no solution but the one afforded by these brilliant minds.

Send in the Clown to utter in fool fashion the obvious, “be nasty,” “after all people, we’re in the game,” it’s time to jump start the war with Iran with a little imagination, follow the examples of prior American Presidents, let Pearl Harbor happen, fix a Gulf of Tonkin attack, do something, anything to “force” an American reaction in support of Israel, and since we know the current President is not disposed to such actions, we need to take matters into our own hands, “after all people, we are in the game,” we are already undertaking clandestine action in Iran, and we do this even though we are not appointed to be representing Americans, even though we do not engage ourselves in real action, no boots for us on the ground, just type away at our computers, comfortable with our Starbucks, a lunch with cocktail, and an opera in the evening, “after all people, we are in the game” and if we don’t make it happen it won’t, and think how grateful the American people will be as they shoulder once more their responsibility to make the world safe for democracy, shield their only friend in the mid-east, and kill and slaughter yet another people that did nothing to them on behalf of Israel. Send in the Clown!

How cute the Clown who raises his eyebrows as his head bobs forward to utter yet again “after all people, we are in the game,” and his shoulders rise jerkily in step with his image of the submarine that just might not rise from the oceans depths, it happens and “who would know why?” And that sophisticated audience, scholars all, titter and clap at the clever solution offered by their clown. So simple, so clever, so monstrous– the diabolicalness is masked in the jovial mannerisms of the Clown.

As he retreats from the podium, the viewer awakes to the inhumanity of this figure, this Scholar, Researcher, this Clown. Perhaps it is his lack of experience, his absenteeism from the battlefield, his life played out in college, in fraternities, in business classes that teach the value of loyalty to the company, in churches that teach devotion to a faith and the comfort it brings in knowing one is on the right side of g-d, even in economics where his expertise would recognize the necessity of success in the form of wealth and the means to acquire it, that without it there is no “standard of living” like that provided in the US, that one’s goal in life is self, self-gratification, self-determination with your peers, self-aggrandizement, an objectivism that drives roughshod over any and all who get in your way—the American way of life that expunges from his mind what is “nasty” and excludes from concern the lives of any not part of one’s personal club, indeed, it is his job not to worry about those kinds of people. “After all people, we are in the game.”

But what of the sailors on that submarine that disappeared, who left port believing their nation was not at war, but who become, at the ravings of a Clown, victims of faceless men who have determined that they must be sacrificed to jump start their war while innocent men and women are blamed for it, the virtues of impunity that attend “false flag” operations.  Here lie the vanquished beneath the never changing sea, lost in the darkness of its depths and the absolute darkness of this soulless Clown who joked his brilliance before his peers oblivious to the consequences of his jollity.  No thought here of the sailor’s mother or father, no thought here of the children of this man or of his future snuffed out because this idiot vomited out of his mouth the way to move forward with his agenda and that of his peers, “after all people, we are in the game.”

But the consequences are far greater than the lost sailors in our Clown’s descriptive false flag; “after all people,” this act will propel the world into a catastrophic war, and we will “not be in a game.” Put this in context; here’s the Clown, an appointed researcher for an exclusive think tank the purpose of which is to push the Israeli agenda in the United States at all costs. These un-appointed individuals draw up strategic plans for the US government, maneuver them into strategic places in the Pentagon, the Congress, the State Department, and into the Executive Branch in order to bring them to action. This action is to force the US to go to war on behalf of Israel. That the people of the US do not favor such a war, that hundreds and thousands of their soldiers, the sons and daughters, the fathers and mothers of American families will be the fodder for WINEP’s war is irrelevant to them since they work for Israel and for AIPAC. The end purpose alone counts—their end purpose. That is what Patrick Clawson told us in that released video, a video I suspect WINEP wishes never saw the light of day. The absolute arrogance of his presentation, the total commitment he uttered in his remarks tell of a man incapable of human sympathy, oblivious to international law, uncaring, bestial.

 

How does one contend with such affectation, such pedantry, such charlatanism posing as enlightened man? How brutally ugly is this suggestion to recommend slaughter of those who have done nothing illegal, nothing personal to you or your family, who are to be but pawns in the hands of ruthless men, men who hide themselves in the garb of others forcing blame on the  innocent while gaining impunity from dastardly crimes. How lacking in human sympathy the acts designed by a nation willing and capable of carrying out such uncivilized acts while it touts in advertisements across this nation, “In a war of civilized men against savages, support the civilized men, support Israel.” How ironic that the clowns have become the savages beneath their huge floppy feet, their bulging bellies, their bulbous red noses, their rabbit like protruding eyes, and their flopping ears, proclaiming to the world, this is what we really believe, deceive all, destroy all, for the sake of Israel. “After all people, we are in the game.”

********

Prof. William A. Cook

 William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His works include Psalms for the 21st Century, Mellon Poetry Press, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, and most recently in 2010, The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com.

by Franklin Lamb

The American Israel public affairs committee (AIPAC) has seen headier days according to US congressional staffers forced to work regularly with the pro-Zionist agent of Israel.  The grip of fear and the lock on Congress that the Israel first organization has long touted in its service to Israel may be weakening against a backdrop of American Jews rejecting the increasing rants of Prime Minister Netanyahu that are driving many Jews to distance themselves from him, from AIPAC, from other Arabphobic US Zionist organizations, and from Israel.

AIPAC tells some Congressional aids that fund raising is hurting and it can’t keep promises it made to certain candidates that it would arrange “indirect” funding for their current election campaigns.  This at the same time Netanyahu is increasingly becoming the butt of jokes across the Israeli and American political spectrum. Several in his cabinet and member s of the US Congress reportedly consider him an embarrassment.  A perception likely added to by his recent General Assembly cartoon gimmick and his repeated Nazi style arm and hand gestures that were widely distributed by the main stream American media outlets especially Reuters, AP and even the Zionist Drudge Report.

In addition, there are signs that some members of congress and their staffs, who are heavily lobbied by AIPAC to donate cash, are beginning to chaff at heavy handed AIPAC fundraising tactics.

 Perhaps reflecting financial pressures on its free spending policies  including astronomical administration costs in the 75% range, on 9/24/12, Jonathan Missner, AIPAC’s Director of National Affairs and Development sent out  more 500,000 emails in a desperate and thinly veiled bid to raise cash to defeat Obama.

Wrote Missner:

 Dear Friend of Israel:

I am writing because we have not yet heard from you, and your support is greatly needed by September 30th.

As I’m sure you know, Israel and America are now facing serious threats throughout the Middle East. In recent months alone we have seen:

• Protestors in multiple Arab countries storm U.S. embassies, burn American and Israeli flags, and chant “death to America, death to Israel,” amidst false reports that a video was created by an Israeli Jew and backed by 100 Jewish financiers.

• Iran sent military personnel and large quantities of weapons across to Syria to aid the Assad regime’s violent crackdown.

• A deadly terror attack along the Egypt-Israel border that killed 16 Egyptians and enabled terrorists to penetrate into Israel.

• Leaders in Iran and its regional proxies increased their vitriol against Israel. The frequency and intensity of these recent statements has been troubling: “Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (August 17th).
• If you’re like most pro-Israel Americans, these events have made you more scared for Israel’s existence than you’ve likely felt in many years.
• But as you watch these dangers continue to unfold, it is important to remember there is something you can do to help keep Israel safe.
• You can join AIPAC, and help ensure that our leaders in Washington speak out clearly and unequivocally in support of Israel and that the aggressions shown toward our greatest ally Israel must immediately cease.
• At this dangerous time, the number one strategic answer to the threats facing Israel is for America to express – in every possible way- an unwavering, unshakable commitment to Israel.
• We must ensure that President Obama speaks out for Israel.
• We must ensure that America stands by its full commitment to Israel’s security assistance for fiscal year 2013, which is vital for Israel to be able to defend herself.
• And we must ensure that America continues to pledge 100% of its diplomatic support to Israel.
• We must do all of this, so that we can send a strong and loud message that America stands by Israel and that any attacks on Israel’s security is an attack on America’s security.”

AIPAC appears to be failing in carrying out its orders from the Israeli Embassy in Washington “to defeat Obama, whatever is required.” The latest polls, including two commissioned by the American Jewish Committee and one from the Anti-Defamation League show  Obama likely  avoiding  defeat  on November 6^th that Tel Aviv hoped his combative attitude toward Israel would produce. Obama currently leads Mitt Romney by a 69-20 percent margin among likely Jewish voters. If these polls hold, while they represent a marked decline from the 78 percent of the Jewish vote Obama got in 2008, they show Romney’s promise to put Israel “first no matter what “ is not resonating with American Jews. By even garnering 25% of the Jewish vote this shows there is plenty of resistance to the Romney  candidacy on a variety of  domestic social issues that increasingly among the American public matter more than Israel’s  perceived zany schemes. These poll projections may have been reflected at the UN last week when Netanyahu appeared to back off a bit from his pillorying of the Obama administration as being weak on terrorism.

Meanwhile, according to an Arab American Institute (AAI)  poll, 52 percent of all Arab-Americans say they plan to vote for Obama, compared to 26 percent who have declared their support for Romney. Broken down by religion, Arab American Muslims support Obama overwhelmingly (75% to 8%), while Orthodox/Protestants support Romney by a 16% margin.  According to the poll, Arab American Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-1 margin (46% to 22%), continuing a steady migration away from the GOP toward the Democratic Party since 2002.

Congressional staffers report that the Obama White House is rejecting the tactics being employed behind its back to assert pressure for the “red lines” that Netanyahu’s has been pushing and that the administration is aware that AIPAC is actively working to defeat President Obama on November 6^th.

What is confusing many in the American Jewish community appears to be the same as what perplexes a growing segment of the non-Jewish American public. And that is Netanyahu’s nonsense over Iranian progress in having nuclear weapons and the history of this “the sky is falling-we must cry wolf!” canard.

It was back in April  of 1984, that the British defense magazine Jane’s Defense Weekly got things started with its false claim that Iran was “engaged in the production of an atomic bomb, likely to be ready within two years.”

Jane’s became embarrassed since it could offer no proof to back its sensationalist claim and soon admitted that its speculation was based on a West German intelligence source which turned out to be an assistant engineer who visited the unfinished Bushehr nuclear reactor that year and became curious. Soon, a pillar of the US Zionist lobby,  US Senator Alan Cranston’s  picked up on the report and declared that Iran would have nuclear weapons by 1991.

The next year, Benjamin Netanyahu, a onetime campaign volunteer for Cranston, now an Israeli parliamentarian, began a campaign to inform the World that Iran could develop nuclear weapons within “three to five years” and therefore must be stopped through “an international front headed by the US.”

The current President of Israel Shimon Peres announced in 1992 that Iran would have nuclear weapons by 1999.  As noted by Robert Fisk in the UK Independent, current Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in 1996 that Iran would have a nuclear arsenal by 2004.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld joined the project and reported to Congress in 1998 that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear or a biological payload that could hit the US within five years. Secretary of State Colin Powell soon claimed in 2004 that if fact, Iran had been working on technology to fit a nuclear warhead onto a missile. These allegations boldly came from Powell’s less than one year after his Iraqi weapons of mass destruction assertions were being proven to be false.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld joined the project and reported to Congress in 1998 that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear or a biological payload that could hit the US within five years. Secretary of State Colin Powell soon claimed in 2004 that if fact, Iran had been working on technology to fit a nuclear warhead onto a missile. These allegations boldly came from Powell’s less than one year after his Iraqi weapons of mass destruction assertions were being proven to be false.

For his part, Netanyahu reportedly got into an ugly argument with the American ambassador to Israel last month over the Obama administration’s unwillingness to take matters regarding Iran to a more aggressive level. The Israeli prime minister was, according to the New York Times, “at his wit’s end” because, he claimed, Iran was “only four to six weeks away from a nuclear bomb”. A few weeks later, Netanyahu backtracked and pushed the deadline “to six or seven months away.”

And round and round it goes.

Congressional sources insist that White House staff will not forget Netanyahu’s blatant attempts to humiliate and defeat their boss.

The American public, as well as the international community are exhibiting exhaustion over this incessant hysteria which was summed up recently by Professor Stephen M. Walt, writing in Foreign Policy. “Those prophesying war with Iran are starting to sound like those wacky cult leaders who keep predicting the End of the World, and then keep moving the date when the world doesn’t end on schedule. At what point are we going to stop paying attention?”

One Congressional source emailed this observer: “Time will tell if next year’s AIPAC conference finds President Obama or any of his top aides on its program.”

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About the Author

Franklin Lamb, former Assistant Counsel, US House Judiciary Committee and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil., and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. Following three years at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Lamb was visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Center. Lamb is the author of Israel’s 1982 War in Lebanon, International Legal Responsibility for the Sabra-Shatila Massacre, The Price We Pay. His latest book, The Case for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon, is due out shortly. Currently based in Lebanon, he volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and the Sabra-Shatila Foundation