Thursday, August 27, 2009

Appeasing Israel—At What Cost?

By Jeff Gates

www.thepeoplesvoice.org


Barack Hussein Obama’s June 4th speech in Cairo was awaited with keen anticipation by a global population of 1.3 billion Muslims outraged at the abuse that Zionism has long inflicted on its neighbors—with U.S. support. Ten weeks have since passed. The potentially positive impact of his remarks was immediately offset when he appeared the next day at the Buchenwald death camp in Germany. The timing of that Holocaust photo-op resolved all doubts about who stage-manages this presidency.

Media attention immediately shifted back to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the lead-up to the Cairo speech, Obama’s White House handlers enabled this right-winger to proclaim—from the White House—that peace with the Palestinians ranked a distant second to Tel Aviv’s concerns about Iran. Soon after the Cairo speech, Netanyahu reluctantly referenced a “two state solution”—though only under duress from Middle East envoy George Mitchell. Obama quickly portrayed as an “important step forward” this grudging referral to an agreed-to strategy.

In truth, Netanyahu announced several giant steps backward. Rather than agree to negotiate a two state solution, he set preconditions certain to preclude two states, leaving nothing to negotiate. Again negating the potentially positive impact from Cairo, Obama praised the Israeli leader even as he insisted that Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” where Jerusalem as “Israel’s capital will remain united.”

Netanyahu also insisted on Israel’s right to colonize even more Palestinian land by expanding the very settlements destined to preclude a viable Palestinian state. By applauding this defiant speech, Obama inflamed the very conditions that have precluded peace in the Middle East for more than six decades. In the ensuing ten weeks, Netanyahu’s stance has only further hardened—with Obama’s tacit approval.

Anticipating pressure to negotiate in good faith, Tel Aviv opened a three-front assault. First, Foreign Minister Avignor Lieberman (from Moldova) began talks in Moscow. By conducting diplomacy in fluent Russian, he showed that Israel could—and would—turn elsewhere for the “special relationship” that Tel Aviv has long enjoyed with the U.S.

Second, the Israel lobby opened a domestic assault on Obama by announcing, “Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives.” The lobby also reminded Obama, a political product of Ashkenazi funding from West Side Chicago, just where his presidential bread is buttered.

Third, as soon as Middle East envoy George Mitchell opened talks with Damascus, the first negotiations since the U.S. withdrew its ambassador in 2005, Netanyahu gave a speech on Syria in which he made no mention of the Golan Heights (seized during Israel’s preemptive 1967 war) while including terms certain to ensure that peace with Syria would also remain beyond reach.

Yet again the Obama team appeased the Israeli leader. With no need to cite the high-profile Holocaust photo-op, the official Syrian newspaper noted simply, “This is the principle that always guides Israel when approaching the Zionist-Arab conflict. The Israelis see themselves as victims rather than the aggressor.”

By again failing to stand up to the Zionist state and its extensive lobby in the U.S., Obama once again enabled the very conduct that most endangers U.S. national security. While his words in Cairo promised a “new beginning,” his actions both before and after that speech signaled business-as-usual.

If he continues to placate Israeli extremists, his conduct may well induce another terrorist attack. Should another attack occur, recent history suggests that an orgy of evidence will point to Iran-backed Hezbollah while Israel again portrays itself as a hapless victim in need of U.S. protection from an “existential threat.” Absent presidential resolve to ensure that “special” is expunged from the U.S.-Israeli relationship, this entangled alliance will continue to ensure that the U.S. can be portrayed as guilty by its association with this enclave’s extremist behavior.

With his remarks, Netanyahu transformed the two state solution into a bargaining chip. By his insistence on terms that preclude a final settlement, he reconfirmed Tel Aviv’s commitment to sustain this conflict. By continuing Israel’s expansion of the settlements, he ensured that peace would remain beyond reach. Obama’s propensity to appease at time-critical junctures suggests he will continue on a course that invites more terrorism—either by Israel or by those provoked by U.S. support of its extremism.

Any objective assessment of this presidency would reveal its disproportionate pro-Israeli composition. Democrat Harry Truman, a Christian-Zionist, extended nation-state recognition to this Zionist enclave. Republican G.W. Bush, another Christian-Zionist, staffed his presidency virtually the same as Democrat Obama—with a vast cadre of pro-Israelis. With so little difference in perspective, it is little wonder there is so little difference in Israeli behavior. Or in the risks that this relationship imposes on the U.S.

This trans-partisan “insider” operation shares an allegiance neither to party nor president. Its only loyalty is to a shared covenant whose obligations to an expansive Greater Israel take precedence over U.S. interests. The scope and scale of this shared bias suggest that the only way for the U.S. to restore its security is to withhold funding for Israel, withdraw its diplomats and reshape its foreign policy around U.S. interests.

Should this latest occupant of the White House continue to act inconsistent with U.S. interests, this young Commander in Chief must be reminded why the Framers set such a low evidentiary standard for proving treason. As a former professor of constitutional law, surely he knows that a conviction for that capital offense requires only proof of “adhering” (or granting “aid and comfort”) to an enemy—whether domestic or foreign.

The costs of this entangled alliance in blood, treasure and hard-earned credibility are known. By his concessions to the Israel lobby and by his appeasing an extremist minority at the expense of the majority, Barack Obama invites a charge of treason.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Israeli Policy: Evil Stupidity or Stupidly Evil?

PeoplesGeography


Cited in a recent Ha’aretz piece about the decline of the israeli left, the late academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz is described as remarking that he is not sure whether Israel’s policies since 1967 are evil stupidity or stupidly evil. In another, verbatim citation, Leibowitz is quoted as having said, more resolutely, in 1990: "Everything Israel has done, and I emphasize everything, in the past 23 years is either evil stupidity or stupidly evil."

Along with a number of other academics such as Ilan Pappe and Neve Gordon, journalists such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, and other critics of conscience such as David Grossman, it is good to see instances of intellectuals fulfilling their proper role of speaking up.

In Liebowitz’s case, he is not as well known outside Israel. In 1969 he reportedly began describing the “inevitable Nazification” of Israeli society. Further, by the time of the (first major, 1982) Lebanon War, he became known for using the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Israeli army. He also called for soldiers to refuse to serve in the IOF.

Interestingly, an online search for the Liebowitz quote cited above returns less than 10 hits — presumably because it was originally in Hebrew — which makes it all the more worthwhile to highlight for a critical English-speaking audience. There is a sizeable collection available online of incriminating quotes of past — and presentisraeli “leaders”, few of them in dispute (usually the few that are disputed are because they were attributed but not authoritatively recorded. One recalls the infamous and hotly contested and denied Menachem Begin quote attributed to him by the late Amnon Kapeliouk, for example). Yet not all the critics make it to the Anglophone media.

A Latvian-born Orthodox Jew, Yeshayahu Leibowitz moved to Palestine in 1935 and reportedly opposed a religiously-based state. More about his interesting life and career can be gleaned in English here, and there are a number of videos on YouTube.

For quotation references, see Edward Alexander, ‘Israelis Against Themselves’, chapter three in Alexander and Bogdanor (eds.), The Jewish Divide Over Israel (2006), p. 36. The same author repeats much of the content in this piece at an academic “monitor” site, apparently in the same likudnik thought-police vein as the execrable Campus Watch.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Dostoyevsky on the Jewish Question

By Nathaniel Kapner, Real Zionist News
http://www.realzionistnews.com/


Fyodor Dostoyevsky left us a prophecy of the threat to Christian civilization by emancipated Jewry.

In his book, Diary Of A Writer, published in 1877, Dostoevsky penned a journal entry entitled "The Jewish Question." With alarming and frightening foresight, by which he penetrated into today’s events, Dostoevsky predicted a growing domination over social and political affairs by the Jews with their newly acquired rights:

“The Jews look forward to world domination. This requires them to maintain their own close-knit identity. If the Jews are given equal legal rights in Russia, but are allowed to keep their ‘State within a State,’ they would be more privileged than the Russians. The consequences of this situation are already clear in Europe.”

Expressing his concern regarding Jewry’s agenda for world domination, Dostoevsky demonstrated how Jewish bankers had taken over Europe by the mid 1800’s:

“It is not for nothing that everywhere in Europe the Jews are reigning over the stock exchanges, not for nothing that they control capital, not for nothing that they are masters of credit, and not for nothing, I repeat, that they are the masters of all international politics.

"What is coming is the complete triumph of Jewish ideas, before which, sentiments of humanity, the thirst for truth, Christian feelings, and the national and popular pride of Europe must bow.
And what will be in the future is known also to the Jews themselves: Their reign is approaching, their complete reign!” View Entire Article Here

In light of Jewry's control of Europe’s financial & social sphere, Dostoevsky then voiced his fears regarding Jewry’s threat to Russia:

“What if there were only three million Russians and there were eighty million Jews? How would they treat Russians and how would they lord it over them? What rights would Jews give Russians?

"Wouldn’t they turn them into slaves? Worse then that, wouldn’t they skin them altogether? Wouldn’t they slaughter them to the last man, to the point of complete extermination?”

Dostoyevsky brought his prophecy to a head by predicting that Jewry’s religious dictates, coupled with the control of the “Yid and his bank,” would bring the Gentiles into complete subjugation:

“It is impossible to conceive of a Jew apart from his religion. They are all waiting for their messiah, all of them, from the lowest Yid to the highest and most learned philosopher and rabbi-Kabalist. They all believe that their messiah will unite them in Jerusalem and bring by his sword, all nations to their feet.

"The Yid and his bank are now ruling over everything: over Europe, education, civilization, socialism, especially socialism, for he will use it to uproot Christianity and destroy its civilization. And when only anarchy remains, the Yid will be in command of everything.

"For while the Jew goes about preaching socialism, he will stick together with his own, and after all the riches of Europe have been wasted, the Yid’s bank will still be there. The Antichrist will come and stand over the anarchy.”