The rank-and-file of Fatah has long known that Mahmoud Abbas’ habit of jumping through hoops for Condi Rice was political suicide, and that much has been confirmed in recent weeks: Hamas has emerged from the Gaza war stronger than ever politically, and Abbas’ blaming of Hamas for the carnage at the beginning of Israel’s operation cast him as a collaborator in the eyes of many of his own people. Abbas has spent eight years sitting politely in the back seat of the Bush/Condi limo, pretending that endless photo ops with Olmert and Livni were actually part of a process towards ending the occupation. But they couldn’t even give him a “shelf” agreement for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem. If Olmert couldn’t do even the fetish deal envisaged by Bush, then what could Abbas expect from an Israeli government that will be ten steps to the right?
As I wrote on TIME.com this week,
Many members of Abbas’ Fatah movement, seeing themselves steadily eclipsed by Hamas, are urging a break from their President’s strategy of negotiating with the Israelis and a return to confronting the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Fatah leaders see the Israeli election as confirming what they already knew: there’s nothing to be gained by continuing the charade of U.S.-sponsored talks about talks with the Israelis. Palestinians could not get what they needed from Olmert, and they know that his successors will take even more of a hard line. From the Palestinian perspective, the past eight years of waiting for negotiations with Israel have left Abbas empty-handed, while the latest Gaza conflict has put Hamas in a stronger position than ever in the court of Palestinian public opinion. Despite the violence by Hamas gunmen against Fatah activists in Gaza since the Israeli offensive, many in Fatah view their movement’s only hope of re-establishing a leading role in Palestinian politics as being to join a unity government with Hamas — and begin to directly challenge the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The fact that such a sentiment coincides with Israel’s electing a more hawkish government suggests that the Middle East could be in for a long, hot summer.
Fatah is to hold a national congress next month, in Cairo or Amman, and while Abbas might survive as its titular head, the mantle of leadership will pass to the Barghouti generation. The terms of the unity government being brokered by Egypt include planning new elections, and many in Fatah know that their chances of prevailing are slim — and improve somewhat if they oust Abbas and replace him with Barghouti as their presidential candidate. Strategically, Barghouti may have more in common with the Hamas pragmatists than with those who have been toeing Washington’s line for the past eight years.
Even Abbas is making a turn, calling for a Likud-led Israel to face diplomatic isolation. And Fatah officials began petitioning the International Criminal Court in the Hague to investigate war crimes allegations in Gaza.
In other words, Fatah — whether on the diplomatic front, or on the organizational front on the ground in the West Bank — looks set to try and redeem itself by reverting to the path of struggle.
Israel abandoned Oslo eight years ago when Sharon was elected; now, the Palestinian leadership appear to realize that it’s over, and that there’s no diplomatic route in the near term to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. For the new Administration in Washington, that means their working assumptions need to be those of 1988, not 1998 or 2008.
Not a moment to soon, Tony. Wasn’t it Gideon Levy who said it best, Abbas is no longer Israel’s enemy? And you negotiate peace with enemies.
Being Israel’s friend would be fine–if Abbas had achieved a state. But to be Israel’s friend while still under Occupation makes him an Arab Quisling.
It has long been clear that Israel has no interest in peace while it continues to settle occupied Palestinian land. As Sharon himself put it, it was about putting irreversible facts on the ground, and putting peace talks in formaldehyde.
There will be no peace until Israel accepts that the only solution, if indeed it is any longer a solution, is a return to the green line, two states and resolution of the refugee issue. To that end, both UN resolutions and the Saudi proposal are the only game in town. The alternative, and one with growing support, is a one nation entity with Jews in the minority.
It may take the growth of international sanctions, divestment and boycott to finally bring Israel to its senses, but its current state of delusion cannot last. The savage genocidal massacre in Gaza over the turn of the year has been seen around the world, and attitudes are changing, and no amount of hasbara propaganda can cover over this festering evil.
I believe that Israel has crossed a threshold, the consequences of which will not be immediately apparent, but which will over time make the Jewish state unviable. Israel must make peace now, while is has a strong hand. It’s position is likely to become much weaker over time.
Razor Edge so many agree with you BUT seemingly not the israeli electorate. The big four parties all have leaders geared up for war.
Given the confluence of crises, it is hard to imagine events going in Israel’s favour at all.
The Parties (and media) must be concealing vested interests and high finance otherwise surely they would see the inhumanity and the changing tide.
– Agree again–
On reflection two states won’t do away with conflict or the wall and its apartheid. Which does mean one state. So many say the Jews control America, IMF, Fed and Worldbank etc. What trouble would the underdeveloped Palestinians offer?
Ultimately it is all tied up with World Jewry and the existing economic order. The only way the Jews could be threatened in a one state Israel even as a minority, is if Islamic economic laws were more efficient. And that is a possibilty.
Razor Edge said:
————————————-
There will be no peace until Israel accepts that the only solution, if indeed it is any longer a solution, is a return to the green line, two states and resolution of the refugee issue.
————————————
Ah, yes, there’s the rub. Sounds like a reasonable solution, doesn’t it. Only problem is the details. What is a “reasonable” solution to the Refugee issues. One reasonable to you? Or reasonable to Israel? Or reasonable to the Arabs? What makes you think that the Arab side is dying for an agreement so that they are willing to compromise on this existential matter? Maybe they prefer the status-quot (i.e. no peace) to that of making concessions that will mark them for eternity as traitors selling out to the Zionists? (do you remember what happened to Sadat?). Food for thought.
“Food for thought”? No, it sounds more like the usual excuse for Israel continuing to do what it has been doing for decades–taking more and more land and constructing more settlements.
Y Ben-David is a man of Palestinian consensus. He miffs like the Palestinians prefer the status quo over a two-state solution. I wonder how many will see it his way. (Certainly it will be a mixed response but he seems to know everything about them.)
We all know someone is going to lose out here. Any solution will leave either Israelis, Palestinians and their Diasporas pissed off and accusing their leaders of “selling out”. Israelis did it over Gaza and Lebanon, Palestinians do it over the PA and the peace process that goes nowhere.
What’s important is that lives don’t be taken anymore over the occupation. This isn’t simple at all. Not one bit but what is infinite with ALL Palestinians is for the occupation to end. Stop that, withdraw and then we can work out which solution works best.
The blueprint for a resolution of the refugee issue has already been outlined. I have no doubt that if there were a real desire and determination for peace in Israel, the refugee issue would not be an obstacle. The growing consensus seems to be for a limited return to Israel proper, to a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, and appropriate compensation for those not returning to their lands/homes in Israel proper.
The problem is there is no desire or determination for peace in Israel, nor in the realms of international zionism, nor in the Jewish disapora. This was clearly indicated in the recent election where over 90% of Jewish Israelis supported the genocidal war against a defenceless people, as could be seen from the obscene pictures of picnic day trippers enjoying their spectacle overlooking the slaughter in Gaza, as they laughed and had fun. At least as far as we know, the Nazis did not turn their war crimes into spectator sports for the hoi polloi. Even in their depravity, they had some sense of decorum and perhaps even shame.
Razor Edge:
————————————-
The growing consensus seems to be for a limited return to Israel proper, to a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, and appropriate compensation for those not returning to their lands/homes in Israel proper.
——————————-
“Consensus” by whom? Israeli and Western “progressives”? Sari Nusseibeh? Sari Nusseibeh doesn’t speak for anybody. Geneva Agreement participants? Can you give me the name of an authoritative Palestinian source that says they are willing to accept this “consensus”?
@YBD
Obviously not by paid nazi propagandists like you.
Which is why only getting directly at paid nazi propagandists like you stands any chance at breaking the impasse.
Ofcourse it has to be done by people who do not fit into the siege mentality driven narrative of your propaganda, can’t be dismissed as ‘antisemites’ or ‘islamofascists’.
It has to be done by Jews.
So far i have to say: Congrat’s, YBD. You ar winning. SIEG HEIL!!!
Jewish children must stay away from schools with many Arab students
“There’s plenty of aggression in the air,” a school leader says about the Arab pupils who would give Jewish students a hard time if they dared to enter the school.
Yesterday Humlehave School in Vollsmose made it known that it wants to dissuade Jewish children from attending the school on account of the many Arab children who attend it. Now two other schools with many Arab children have announced the same thing in Jyllands-Posten.
“I don’t have anything against it, but I would not advise Jewish parents to send their children here. The well-being of the children must come first. We have a large group of Palestinian students, and, particularly at this time, there’s plenty of aggression in the air,” says Lise Egholm, principal of the Rådmandsgade School in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, to the newspaper.
Her colleague at the Klostervængets School, in Nørrebro, Karen-Margrethe Grønlund has the same message:
“There is no doubt that a Jewish child would be bullied and have a hard time at our school.”
– – – – – – – – –
In Århus, the schools don’t plan on recommending that Jewish children use other schools.
“We must defend the openness that we have, and work with the mutual understanding of the children. You can’t do that if it means beginning to say no to some pupils,” says Anne Graah, principal of Skjoldhøjskolen.
According to Chief Rabbi Bent Lexner the question is entirely theoretical. Jewish parents simply keep their children away from Arab-dominated schools.
“In reality, of course Jewish parents don’t send their children to school in, for instance, Nørrebro. They simply choose another school. But for democracy, it’s a problem”, Bent Lexner says to Jyllands-Posten.
He is, however, often sought out by parents who ask for advice about which high schools their children should avoid.
Zealot-
When Arabs and others like yourself call us Zionists “Nazis”, I am never sure whether it is meant as a compliment or criticism. After all, Holocaust denial is popular in the Arab world, so that means Hitler was not as bad as people think he was, so thus Zionists must not be so bad, either. Or, on the other hand, Hitler and Nazism were and remain popular in the Arab world. Mein Kampf is a best seller throughout the Arab world. During World War II, outside the “Aryan world”, Nazi Germany was most popular in Latin America and the Arab Middle East. Arafat’s cousin, the Mufti Husseini allied himself with Hitler, helped participate in the Holocaust and encouraged the Arab world to actively support Nazi Germany. Many, like Anwar Sadat, did so. So Hitler was and is viewed as a hero to a lot of Arabs. So when they call us Zionists, are they complimenting us? What is your opinion, Zealot?
As you have before when answering me , again you resort to the cut’n’paste acusation of holocaust denier and and antisemitism.
FUCK YOU NAZI
I have spent my whole adult life arguing against nazi of all stripe, and protecting the name of the Jewish nation whenever I had to.
And it is filthy nazi scum such as your self that makes my efforts look mnaive and pointless. No one has done as much as your kind to make the nazi bullshit popular among Muslims, and you now work hard to bring it back here in Europe.
For this, for undoing what your ancestors bought with their blood, I hate you even more then for what you do to the Palestinians.
And in case you will try to accuse me of antisemitism, for example because i use the words ‘your kind’, your kind is the Zionist.
And because I know you have a problem with recognising the diference between a Zionist and a Jew yourself, here’s an explanation:
Its the same as the diference between a Nazi and a German. Thou you probably don’t get that either.
Cause you are a fucking NAZI, and no argument against you is complete unless it states that simple fact (Looking at you, Arie).
Zealot-
Ho hum.
Stumped?
Oh well. Not realy that interested in a nazi’s oppinion, there are others here whose oppinion matters. And they know you for what you are. So fuck you, your ho, and your hum.
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Zealot-
I really think you should calm down for your own good. Even if you upgrade your epithets directed at me, it isn’t going make me or my fellow Zionists change our positions.
Of course it won’t change your positions, I don’t expect it to. The only thing that will do that with regard to nazis once they are in power, is that which worked eventually with the german ones. Short drop.
This is what antizionist here seem to not get.
And as for my language, I’ve had it up to here with reading otherwhise inteligent people, who unlike you seem to have not forfeithed their humanity, trying to have a civil discussion with a fucking nazi.
Nazis have civil discussions with their victims, to make themselves feel even more ubermenshlich.
Human beings, faced with a nazi RAGE!
Another stinkbomb?
Ben-David wrote:
“Arafat’s cousin, the Mufti Husseini allied himself with Hitler, helped participate in the Holocaust and encouraged the Arab world to actively support Nazi Germany.”
Ah, the Mufti. One of the enduring Zionist myths. Trust YBD to bring it out.
Let me repeat here what I wrote elsewhere a few years ago:
If there hadn’t been a Grand Mufti the Zionists would have had to invent him. In fact they seem to have partly succeeded in doing so. Let us have a look at his case.
The evidence that somehow he “helped participate in the holocaust” (your words) is, at best, a matter of double hearsay, the kind of thing that would be thrown out in any decent court.
Dr. Rudolf Kasztner, a Zionist leader, allegedly testified that Dieter Wisliceny, a deputy of Eichmann, had told him that he ‘was convinced’ that the Mufti ‘had played a role in the decision to exterminate the European Jews…’ (Wikipedia)
Now this Kasztner was, in fact, a rather controversial character who eventually got involved in a libel case in Israel concerning his wartime past and was subsequently murdered (by an Israeli Jew).
There was, as is well known, another Zionist leader, Joel Brand (no relation), who in his – doomed – effort to save the lives of one million Hungarian Jews, was in contact with Wisliceny and Eichmann at roughly the same time and place as Kasztner. Since he, contrary to Kasztner, came out of that affair with an unsullied reputation, his testimony on the role of the Mufti, if any, might be slightly more interesting. I have, however, not been able to find anything on this.
It has also been claimed that Wisliceny repeated, at Nuremberg, this accusation regarding the Mufti’s role in the ‘final solution’. However, the testimony he gave at Nuremberg on 3rd January 1946, as a witness for the prosecution, on what he knew of the ‘final solution’ makes no mention of the Mufti at all. Wisliceny wasn’t high up enough in the Nazi hierarchy anyway to know at first hand what went on at the Wannsee Conference (where neither he, nor, needless to say, the Mufti, were among the 15 participants – who, themselves, belonged to the second echelon of Nazi leaders).
Yet the role of the Mufti in this all, has, mainly on the basis of this shaky 2nd or 3rd hand testimony of Kasztner, assumed mythical proportions.
Peter Novick, whose reputation as a scholar has probably largely saved him from that easiest of accusations, to be a ‘self-hating Jew’, wrote in his path breaking study ‘The holocaust in American life’:
“The claims of Palestinian complicity in the murder of the European Jews were to some extent a defensive strategy, a preemptive response to the Palestinian complaint that if Israel was recompensed for the Holocaust, it was unjust that Palestinian Muslims should pick up the bill for the crimes of European Christians. The assertion that Palestinians were complicit in the Holocaust was mostly based on the case of the Mufti of Jerusalem, a pre-World War II Palestinian nationalist leader who, to escape imprisonment by the British, sought refuge during the war in Germany. The Mufti was in many ways a disreputable character, but post-war claims that he played any significant part in the Holocaust have never been sustained. This did not prevent the editors of the four-volume ‘Encyclopedia of the Holocaust” from giving him a starring role. The article on the Mufti is more than twice as long as the articles on Goebbels and Goering, longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined, longer than the article on Eichmann – of all the biographical articles, it is exceeded in length, but only slightly, by the entry for Hitler.”
Spurred on by this I checked this Encyclopedia for a few things myself. I looked, first of all, for an entry on Hans Albin Rauter, the Austrian SS-General, who during the war years was the highest SS and police leader (like Heydrich he had the SS rank of ‘Obergruppenfuehrer’) in occupied Holland and played a crucial role in the destruction of more than one hundred thousand Dutch Jews (the Dutch executed him in 1949). To my surprise there was no entry for him at all.
Then I checked up on Seyss-Inquart, Hitler’s deputy in Holland (executed at Nuremberg), and Anton Mussert, the leader of the Dutch Nazis (executed in Holland). These both had entries but together they only mustered about 60 % of the space allocated to the Mufti.
It seems to me plain what has happened here. A man, who in the Nazi scheme of things, was probably no more than a pawn, has, exactly for the reasons suggested by Novick, been transformed into a main player.
What seems to be clear is that the Mufti sought to prevent the transfer to Palestine of any such Jews who the Nazis might decide to expel. He has also been accused of having played a role in the formation of regiments of Bosnian (not Palestinian!) Muslims who fought on the side of the Germans.
All in all his role doesn’t seem to have been very much different from that of another nationalist leader who organized fighting units (in his case of his countrymen) on behalf of the Germans: Subhas Chandra Bose, president of the Indian National Congress. I think that both the Mufti and Bose acted on the same motto: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I cannot recall, however, that the British ever argued that Indian rights to independence should be curtailed because of Bose’s wartime role; because here is a point that holds for both Bose and the Mufti and needs to be made most explicitly: one cannot claim that the Indians, respectively the Palestinians, were implicated collectively in the wartime deeds of these leaders.
To focus on the Mufti again: even if he committed the dire deeds he is being accused of he did not receive instructions on these points from a representative body of his countrymen. It can even be questioned to what extent he could at that stage still be regarded as a ‘national leader’ at all.
In one of the most important pre-war decisions for instance, the acceptance, or otherwise, of the 1939 British White Paper, he found, according to Rashid Khalidi, ‘most of the rest of the Palestinian leadership’ (which was in favour of acceptance) against him. The Mufti, assisted by some ‘younger and more militant advisors’, carried the day, but in exile, says Khalidi, he ‘was increasingly out of touch with events on the ground, and his policies became more and more unrealistic in the years that followed’.
No 18 was originally posted, a few months ago, on a bodybuilders’forum. I am fully in favour of our Zionist friends having their say here, however misguided, but I think Tony should throw out such obvious attempts to sabotage this site.
Done Arie, sorry I don’t pay as much attention as I ought to to the discussion board…
Also, good stuff on unpacking the red herring about the mufti and the Nazis… The people who throw this around don’t like being reminded that the Stern Gang, whose leadership included Yitzhak Shamir, later Israel’s PM, sought a formal alliance with Nazi Germany against the British in 1942… Or the history of collaboration between the Yishuv and Nazi Germany in the form of the Transfer Agreement and efforts to help the Nazis beat the boycott of German goods imposed at the urging of American Jews…
You make some very good points, guys. Again.
How long have you been making them now?
How many people representing your views did you get into Knesset?
How many Palestinians did you save?
How much did you manage to slow the collapse of Israeli/Jewish reputation in the world?
You blog.
They shoot.
You loose.
Tony-simply throwing out a comment “well, if you are going to mention the Mufti with the Nazis, then I am going to throw the LEHI contacts with the Nazis back in your face.
The question then is: what actual assistance did the Mufti give the Nazis? What he did is documented.
Then you have to answer: what actual assistance did the LEHI people give to the Nazis? To say they are the same simply because both had contacts is NOT ENOUGH!
Tony-I just came across this article that describest the LEHI’s contacts with Nazi Germany. The article does not say who wrote it, but it conforms to other things I read about it in the past.
“Yair” is Avraham Stern, who founded the LEHI which broke away from the Irgun whose mentor was Jabotinsky.
————————————
As the war began to engulf the globe, Jabotinsky instructed the Irgun
to suspend all military actions against Great Britain. Although in the
past, the Irgun high command had disregarded Jabotinsky’s pro-British
directives, they now reasoned that since the British army was engaged
in fighting the Nazis it would be wrong to continue an armed struggle
against England. Many in the Irgun, including Raziel, enlisted in the
British army in order to assist them in their war against Hitler.
Yair, by contrast, recognized that the British constituted the enemy
of Israel no less than the Germans, as they were actively preventing
Hebrew lives from being saved. He saw that the Allies were fighting a
war for their own interests against the Axis, but not battling against
the Nazi ideology of hate. The rescue of European Jewry was not part
of the Allied war effort. Nor was the establishment of a sovereign
Hebrew state. Yair declared that in order for Israel to support either
side, there must be a Jewish interest in the war. He claimed that to
put on British uniforms and fight without Israeli aspirations being
fulfilled was idolatry. At the very least, Jewish enlistment to the
British army should require the opening of Palestine’s shores to
immigration. Yair further argued that the fate of European Jewry would
be determined by an independent Jewish state, and the greatest
obstacle to that freedom was England. If Israel wished to save its
people from Hitler in time, the British occupier would have to be
driven out.
In 5700 (1940), Yair broke away from the Irgun Zvai Leumi and founded
what would later become known as the Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi –
“Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”). Lehi declared an all out war
against the British Empire in hopes of ejecting them from the Land of
Israel and establishing a Hebrew state. While this later became a
common line of thought among Revisionist Zionists, the idea was
exceptionally radical when first proposed.
Due to their small numbers and limited resources, Yair’s followers
engaged in personal acts of terror against key British colonial
leaders and policemen. They operated as a revolutionary underground,
blazing a trail to freedom for the nation to follow. But the nation
did not follow. Hounded by the British regime and cast out from the
Jewish community, Yair’s men committed a series of bank robberies in
order to finance their urban guerrilla activities. These robberies
further alienated the public from Yair’s cause. Instead of viewing his
group as Zionist freedom fighters, the media portrayed them as a gang
of criminal adventurers. The British administration referred to them
as the “Stern Gang” and promised a high reward to anyone assisting in
their capture.
Undeterred by his negative persona, Yair plowed ahead with his
radical struggle for liberty. Although the community did not
understand or support him, he was determined to fight to the end on
their behalf. Following the example of Herzl’s meeting with Plevye
(the Russian Minister of Interior responsible for the Kishinev
pogrom), Yair attempted to contact German agents in order to see if an
agreement could be forged. In those years, before the notorious
Wannsee Conference, the Nazis were engaged in attempts to transfer the
Jews from Europe. In fact, Adolph Eichmann’s task at that time was to
find a country willing to accept Europe’s Jews. Only later, when it
was clear that no nation would accept them, did Hitler realize he had
silent approval to annihilate the Jews. Yair believed that if the
Nazis wanted the Jews out of Europe and he wanted them all home in
Palestine, a mutually beneficial arrangement could be reached. After
all, both Yair and the Nazis were at war against Great Britain. By
working together, the British could be expelled from the Land of
Israel and Europe would be rid of its Jews, who instead of going to
Auschwitz would set sail for their homeland.
In the winter of 5701 (late 1940), Yair sent Naftali Lubenchik to
Beirut where he met with Otto Warren von Hentig of the German Foreign
Office. In Beirut, Lubenchik attempted to convince the Nazis to
transfer Europe’s Jews to Eretz Yisrael in exchange for assistance in
the fight against Great Britain. The Battle of Britain was then at its
height and Hitler himself had publicly stated that he was willing to
“exploit any combination and coalition to isolate England and destroy
her”. An alliance with the Jews, however, was not what he had in mind.
Following his unsuccessful meeting in Beirut, Lubenchik reported that
there was a debate being waged among the Nazi leadership. Those who
advocated practicality wished to rid Europe of Jews through mass
emigration while Nazi idealists sought a mass annihilation. News that
the pragmatic Nazi elements were prevailing in this conflict
encouraged Yair to attempt a second meeting. A year later, he
dispatched Natan Friedman-Yellin to again propose an alliance with the
Germans, but Friedman-Yellin was arrested by the British near Aleppo.
The mission was aborted and news of the attempts to forge an alliance
with the Nazis further alienated Yair from the Jewish community.
Unlike Herzl’s meeting with Plevye, where the Jewish public realized
that he was working on their behalf, Yair was viewed as a traitor as
if he were contacting Germany in order to harm the Jewish people.
There were no more attempts to contact the Nazis. In the following
months Yair would be neutralized and the Wannsee Conference would seal
the fate of Europe’s Jews.
Euro geht langsam als papier
von Raivo Pommer
Ulrich Nußbaum wird neuer Finanzsenator
Der frühere Bremer Finanzsenator Ulrich Nußbaum (parteilos) wird neuer Finanzsenator in Berlin. Das gab der Regierende Bürgermeister Klaus Wowereit (SPD) bekannt. Der 51 Jahre alte Jurist war von 2003 bis 2007 Finanzsenator in Bremen. Er war außerdem als Rechtsanwalt tätig und ist Vizepräsident der Handelskammer Bremerhaven. Er folgt Thilo Sarrazin nach, der zum 1. Mai in den Vorstand der Bundesbank in Frankfurt/Main wechselt.
Sarrazin war sieben Jahre Finanzsenator in Berlin. Der Regierende Bürgermeister Wowereit sagte, Nußbaum kenne sichals früherer Finanzsenator von Bremen mit Problemen wie Verschuldungund Länderfinanzausgleich bestens aus.
If there hadn’t been a Grand Mufti the Zionists would have had to invent him.
If there hadn’t been a Hitler the Zionists would have had to invent him.
Tony-pls comment on this release
Khalid Al-Jawary, the Black September terrorist served 16 years for planting car bombs in New York City.
written by Reporters at Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Khalid Al-Jawary, the Black September terrorist served 16 years for planting car bombs in New York City.CIA investigative notes obtained by the AP reveal Abu Walid al-Iraqi was the nom de guerre of Al-Jawary, who is slated to be released by federal authorities this month. His impending release and new details about his violent past uncovered in an AP investigation have outraged people who believe he should not be set free.Al-Jawary, 63, was convicted in 1993 of placing two bomb-rigged cars on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and a third at JFK’s El-Al cargo terminal. The bombs were set to explode at noon on March 4, 1973 — the day Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was scheduled to arrive in New York.The National Security Agency intercepted a message that helped reveal the location of the bombs, which had failed to detonate.
But another attack did result in an explosion — and this time, Al-Jawary was a target, not a bomber.Lebanese newspapers, along with the clandestine PLO-owned radio station known as the Voice of Palestine, reported that an attempt to kill “Abu Walid al-Iraqi” in Beirut had failed on Oct. 25, 1980.The radio report blamed the hit on “suspect forces known for their connections with the Zionist enemy,” as it called Israel. “As a result of the treacherous attack, two aides were wounded, one of them seriously; Brother Abu al-Walid escaped unhurt.”It’s not clear if Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, was indeed behind the hit in which someone fired a rocket at Al-Jawary’s white Fiat. A spokesman with the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.Yehudit Barsky, the director of the American Jewish Committee’s division on Middle East and International Terrorism, cautioned that the assertion of Mossad involvement in the hit could have been bogus, meant to bolster Al-Jawary’s credentials in the PLO.Surviving a purported Israeli assassination, she said, would have made him a hero in Palestinian circles.”That’s the part of this that could be propaganda,” Barsky said.The PLO radio report also noted “al-Iraqi” was in charge of the technical section of the “Unified Security Organization.”Former intelligence officials say Salah Khalaf, better known as Abu Iyad, headed the Unified Security Organization. Iyad was a top commander in Fatah, the PLO’s military wing. Al-Jawary, who lived in Beirut at the time of the attempted assassination, was Iyad’s aide for many years.Iyad was killed in Tunisia by a rival Palestinian faction in 1991. Al-Jawary was apprehended passing through Rome in January 1991 to attend Iyad’s funeral.
Iyad was part of a cadre of Black September terrorists that Israel believed carried out the murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.Former U.S. intelligence officials who operated in Beirut in the 1980s said Mossad agents could have directly tried to kill Al-Jawary like they did with Black September terrorist Ali Hassan Salameh or hired another group to do the job.There’s also the possibility that a rival Palestinian group tried to kill Al-Jawary.
“That’s a murky world he lived in,” said Mike Finnegan, the former FBI counterterrorism agent who tracked down Al-Jawary. Al-Jawary once told Finnegan that Mossad had tried to kill him.
Al-Jawary is scheduled to be released Feb. 19 after serving about half of a 30-year sentence in maximum security prisons. He claims he had nothing to do with the attempted attack in 1973.
For YBD:
“To me the Zionists, who want to go back to the Jewish state of 70 AD (destruction of Jerusalem by Titus), are just as offensive as the Nazis. With their nosing after blood, their ancient ‘cultural roots’, their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world, they are altogether a match for the National Socialists.” – Victor Klemperer, 13 June 1934
Attachment to Lenni Brenner “ZIonism in the Age of the Dictators”:
“Fundamental Features of the Proposal of the National Military Organization in Palestine (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning
the Solution of the Jewish Question
in Europe and
the Participation of the NMO in the War
on the Side of Germany
(1941)
————————————————————————
It is often stated in the speeches and utterances of the leading statesmen of National Socialist Germany that a prerequisite of the New Order in Europe requires the radical solution of the Jewish question through evacuation (“Jew-free Europe”).
The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historic boundaries.
The solving in this manner of the Jewish problem, thus bringing with it once and for all the liberation of the Jewish people, is the objective of the political activity and the years-long struggle of the Israeli freedom movement, the National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) in Palestine.
The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:
Common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.
Cooperation between the new Germany and a RENEWED FOLKISH-NATIONAL (my emphasis AB) Hebraium would be possible and,
The establishment of the historic Jewish state on a NATIONAL AND TOTALITARIAN BASIS (my emphasis AB), bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.
Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively lake part in the war on Germany’s side.
This offer by the NMO, covering activity in the military, political and information fields, in Palestine and, according to our determined preparations, outside Palestine, would be connected to the military training and organizing of Jewish manpower in Europe, under the leadership and command of the NMO. These military units would take part in the fight to conquer Palestine, should such a front be decided upon.
The indirect participation of the Israeli freedom movement in the New Order in Europe, already in the preparatory stage, would be linked with a positive-radical solution of the European Jewish problem in conformity with the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Jewish people. This would extraordinarily strengthen the moral basis of the New Order in the eyes of all humanity.
The cooperation of the Israeli freedom movement would also be along the lines of one of the last speeches of the German Reich Chancellor, in which Herr Hitler emphasized that he would utilize every combination and coalition in order to isolate and defeat England.
A brief general view of the formation, essence, and activity of the NMO in Palestine:
The NMO developed partly out of the Jewish self-defense in Palestine and the Revisionist movement (New Zionist Organization), with which the NMO was loosely connected through the person of Mr. V. Jabotinsky until his death.
The pro-English attitude of the Revisionist Organization in Palestine, which prevented the renewal of the personal union, led in the autumn of this year to a complete break between it and the NMO as well as to a thereupon following split in the Revisionist movement.
The goal of the NMO is the establishment of the Jewish state within its historic borders.
The NMO, in contrast to all Zionist trends, rejects colonizatory infiltration as the only means of making accessible and gradually taking possession of the fatherland and practices its slogan, the struggle and the sacrifice, as the only true means for the conquest and liberation of Palestine.
On account of its militant character and its anti-English disposition the NMO is forced, under constant persecutions by the English administration, to exercise its political activity and the military training of its members in Palestine in secret.
The NMO, whose TERRORIST (my emphasis AB) activities began as early as the autumn of the year 1936, became, after the publication of the British White Papers, especially prominent in the summer of 1939 through successful intensification of its TERRORISTIC (my emphasis AB) activity and sabotage of English property. At that lime these activities, as well as daily secret radio broadcasts, were noticed and discussed by virtually the entire world press.
The NMO maintained independent political offices in Warsaw, Paris. London and New York until the beginning of the war.
The office in Warsaw was mainly concerned with the military organization and training of the national Zionist youth and was closely connected with the Jewish masseswho, especially in Poland, sustained and enthusiastically supported, in every manner, the fight of the NMO in Palestine. Two newspapers were published in Warsaw (The Deed and Liberated Jerusalem): these were organs of the NMO.
The office in Warsaw maintained close relations with the former Polish government and those military circles, who brought greatest sympathy and understanding towards the aims of the NMO. Thus, in the year 1939 selected groups of NMO members were sent from Palestine to Poland, where their military training was completed in barracks by Polish officers.
The negotiations, for the purpose of activating and concertizing their aid, took place between the NMO and the Polish government in Warsaw – the evidence of which can easily be found in the archives of the former Polish government – were terminated because of the beginning of the war.
The NMO IS CLOSELY RELATED TO THE TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENTS OF EUROPE IN ITS IDEOLOGY AND STRUCTURE (my emphasis AB).
The fighting capacity of the NMO could never be paralyzed or seriously weakened, neither through strong defensive measures by the English administration and the Arabs, nor by those of the Jewish socialists.
Brand wrote:
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The NMO IS CLOSELY RELATED TO THE TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENTS OF EUROPE IN ITS IDEOLOGY AND STRUCTURE (my emphasis AB).
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I don’t understand your point is. The ETZEL (what you call the “NMO”) disbanded over 60 years ago. Many of its leaders and members formed the Herut party, led by Menachem Begin which is a component of today’s Likud Party. Herut and Likud are what you might call “liberal nationalist movements”. Nothing “totalitarian” about them at all.
One could say maybe that today’s Lefist MERETZ party of which an important component was MAPAM who were slavish followers of Stalin and the USSR in the past, before become disillusioned, has totalitarian roots.
The quote you ascribed to me was in fact a paragraph in the letter that was sent by NMO to the Nazi authorities. It is clearly indicated above this document that it constitutes an attachment to Lenni Brenner’s “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators”.
I recommend you read this book (it is online). It might make you a bit more circumspect in shooting your mouth off about the Mufti.
Brand-
I have a book documenting the connection between the Nazis and the Mufti. The Nazis checked his physiognomy (sp?) and ruled that he was an Aryan. In any event, as a pro-Palestinian, why should it bother you if he was an active collaborator of the Nazis? So what if he was? What does that have to do with what you view as the justice of the Palestinian cause?
After you apparently mistook the self description of some of your spiritual forbears (much as you might like to disown them)for something I wrote, you now formulate the question I can rightfully ask you. I didn’t come up with the Mufti, you did.
I see you have no mental space for Brenner’s book – because you already have a book. Oh my.
May you all rot in some dark library, with dust clogging your lungs and your eyeballs turning blind and cracking from staring at the computer screens.
How many times before have you been flogging that horse, in the exact same company?
I can just abut understand why YBD and other nazis commit to this kind of futile arguments. They have actual men on the ground, the settlers and the killers, and they need this continuous rehashing of their screed and self-afirmation of their ideology. Its a common practice among conquistadores, missionaries and revolutionaries of all stripe, so it fits.
As far as YBD is concerned, you provide him a valuable service, he has someone on whom he can wank off at will.
But what is the point for you to indulge him? You have no one on the ground to be cheerleading and encouraging in their firm resolve.
I doubt Palestinians read you, you are the last people they need encouragement from.
Plus, what Palestinians do no longer matters any more than what the Jews in Germany or Natives in USA did.
The Goyim do read you, and you provide us with some valuable information, but so what? In the unlikely event that westerners withdraw en-masse their support for the white descendants of european Jews who live in picket-fenced condos and swich it to the brown middle-easterners who live in a slum, they will just speed up the ‘final solution of the Palestinian question’.
And if individuals like me get sufficiently pissed of to do something meaningful, we will be dismissed as antisemites.
The antizionist Jews? How many of them are there? And more importantly, what have they ever DONE that proved useful? Blog?
So who are you talking to?
And why?
As far as YBD is concerned, you provide him a valuable service, he has someone on whom he can wank off at will.
And probably get paid for it, too.
Zealot, I don’t know what you want? Us bombing an Israeli Embassy somewhere? If you don’t believe in writing why don’t you shut up instead of trying to deter others?
The Israeli case is supported by a ‘climate of opinion’ in many Western countries. I have seen that change, particularly in my country of origin, and believe that humble activities like blogging now are contributing to that change. We are waiting for a ‘tipping point’ after which politicians will regard batting for Israel an electoral hazard.
“Zealot, I don’t know what you want? Us bombing an Israeli Embassy somewhere? ”
I have said before: a violent breaking up of Israeli and Jewish unity under the banner of Zionism, undermining that Zionist legitimacy in a way that is impossible to ignore.
So yes, a Jewish group blowing up an Israeli embassy would fit the bill. Even better, something in Israel itself, so that it cannot be externalized by Zionist spin.
“If you don’t believe in writing why don’t you shut up instead of trying to deter others?”
-Discouraging you from writing is not my main objective. Rather, by arguing that this wrighting is ineffectual, I think I’m ‘sowing the seeds’.
I’m sure that among the (very?) few antizionist Jews, at least some are frustrated by the continued failure to achieve any signs of success on the ground, while the Palestinins continue to be massacered. And perhaps even shocked by the fact that the recent massacre was cheered on by almost the entire population of Israel, and actually succesfully served it’s main purpose of saving the electoral chances of Livni. So perhaps some of those people are disillusioned sufficiently to give it a go?
“The Israeli case is supported by a ‘climate of opinion’ in many Western countries. I have seen that change, particularly in my country of origin, and believe that humble activities like blogging now are contributing to that change. We are waiting for a ‘tipping point’ after which politicians will regard batting for Israel an electoral hazard.”
-So you are managing to undermine some of the international support that the nazis enjoyed so far. Remind me, how did it end for the Jews when the original nazis started feeling that the ground is burning under their feet?
I will reiterate my argument.
The only people whose oppinions/actions still matter in saving Palestinians in Palestine from genocide are Jews.
The Palestinians have been effectively dehumanized in the israeli political discourse, their pleas simply don’t figure into it anymore, their military capabilities are barely a nuisance, but conveniently sufficient to justify continued repression.
The world outside Israel may turn against Zionists, but that will fit perfectly with Zionist narrative of siege mentality. It will also precipitate and help to promote within the Israeli population.
a ‘final solution’, genocide of Palestinians while resources last.
It is necessary to break the Zionist controlled narrative within the Israeli society, that violence against Jews in Israel is something external.
It has to be made clear that violence is what Israel is built on, and that this heritage WILL assert itself. There WILL be violence and/or opressive regime in Israel even (especially) after Palestinians are gone. You yourself (or Tony) said that hidden conflicts are rife. Add to it the inherent violence of that state, shake and stir.
Resorting to internal violence now, ahead of time, could convince at least some in the Israeli populace that Zionist project is not viable without the violence, that there will never be pece, that violence and Israel are inseparable, Palestinians or not.
PERHAPS it would allow to save the Palestinians, PERHAPS it would convince more sections of the Israeli society to leave, out of sheer hopelesness. It would help delegitimize Zionists by proving they can’t provide the protection they prommissed, because there will always be something. It would force Jews to consider other Jews with suspicion. Hopefully, it would force the regime to impose security measures ON JEWS – se what that does to their image.
Now, I am not very optimistic about anyone amongst you actually commiting themselves to that course, but I believe it had to be presented on a forum visited by people who might consider it.
Well your plea may hold for those who are actually in Israel – as for the rest of us : we just write.
Your view that delegitimation of the Israeli state would reinforce Israelis’ siege mentality (and worsen the fate of the Palestinians) was in the past also used for South Africa. It was called ‘laager mentality’ then. And it didn’t have the outcome you now predict for the Palestinians.
I think you underestimate to what extent the viability of Israel is based on outside support, especially that of the US. That support looks very solid now but cannot be taken for granted. As far as Europe is concerned: the recent announcement that talks regarding a privileged status for Israel in trade would for the time being not be continued could be the first step in a delegitimation process. That kind of process is often slow – two steps forward and one step backward. It is like hollowing out a stone with water – but it is hollowed out all the same.
Ok, so you are an optimist, Im a pesimist. I’m not sure if the past performance of the strategy(in SA) guarantees its success now. Mabe, mabe not. And as for delegitimation of the Zionist regime and ideology, perhaps achieving it outside Israel will help, perhaps it won’t, but achieving it within Israel certainly would.
And as for you, and perhaps some others in the diaspora who read this but remain less vocal, the Zionist vaterland accepts eagerly all its Jewish children. How about a trip? And can you imagine what it would do to their screaning process and admission rates?
The embassy wasn’t a bad idea either. And I’m sure you get state visits wherever you live. Just let them know that even Jews aren’t safe to be trusted anymore.
It’s good to work all the angles, is all I’m saying. And if not you, perhaps there are other takers out there?
While most Americans were busy celebrating Valentine’s Day, last Saturdaythe Obama administration announced that it would send a delegation to Genevato participate in planning the UN’s so-called Durban II conference,scheduled to take place in late April. Although largely overlooked in theUS, the announcement sent shock waves through Jerusalem. The Durban II conference was announced in the summer of 2007. Its statedpurpose is to review the implementation of the declaration adopted at theUN’s anti-Israel hate-fest that took place in Durban, South Africa, the weekbefore the September 11, 2001, attacks against America. At Durban, both the UN-sponsored NGO conclave and the UN’s governmentalconference passed declarations denouncing Israel as a racist state. The NGOconference called for a coordinated international campaign aimed atdelegitimizing Israel and the right of the Jewish people toself-determination, and belittling the Holocaust. The NGO conference also called for curbs on freedom of expression throughoutthe world in order to prevent critical discussion of Islam. As far as theworld’s leading NGOs – including Amnesty International and Human RightsWatch – were concerned, critical discussions of Islam are inherently racist. In defending US participation in the Durban II planning sessions, GordonDuguid, the State Department’s spokesman, argued, “If you are not engaged,you don’t have a voice.” He continued, “We wanted to put forward our view and see if there is someway we can make the document [which sets the agenda and dictates the outcomeof the Durban II conference] a better document than it appears it is goingto be.” WHILE THIS seems like a noble goal, both the State Department and the ObamaWhite House ought to know that there is absolutely no chance that they canaccomplish it. This is the case for two reasons. First, since the stated purpose of the Durban II conference is to overseethe implementation of the first Durban conference’s decisions, and sincethose decisions include the anti-Israel assertion that Israel is a raciststate, it is clear that the Durban II conference is inherently, andnecessarily, anti-Israel. The second reason that both the State Department and the White House mustrealize that they are powerless to affect the conference’s agenda is becausethat agenda was already set in previous planning sessions chaired by thelikes of Libya, Cuba, Iran and Pakistan. And that agenda includes multipleassertions of the basic illegitimacy of the Jewish people’s right toself-determination. The conference agenda also largely adopted the languageof the 2001 NGO conference that called for the criminalization of criticaldiscussion of Islam as a form of hate speech and racism. That is, the 2009conference’s agenda is not only openly anti-Israel, it is also openlypro-tyranny, and so seemingly antithetical to US interests. Beyond all that, assuming that the Obama administration truly wishes tochange the agenda, the fact is that the US is powerless to do so. As was thecase in 2001, so too, today, the Islamic bloc, supported by the Third Worldbloc, has an automatic voting majority. Beyond chipping away at the margins,the US has no ability whatsoever to change the conference’s agenda orexpected outcome. SINCE IT came into office a month ago, every single Middle East policy theObama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel’snational security interests. From President Barack Obama’s intense desire toappease Iran’s mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment toestablish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible despite thePalestinians’ open rejection of Israel’s right to exist and support forterrorism; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan,which would require Israel to commit national suicide by contracting towithin indefensible borders and accepting millions of hostile, foreign-bornArabs as citizens and residents of the rump Jewish state; to his decision toend US sanctions against Syria and return the US ambassador to Damascus; tohis plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq and so give Iran an arc ofuninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concretepolicy Obama has enunciated harms Israel. At the same time, none of the policies that Obama has adopted can beconstrued as directed against Israel. In and of themselves, none can beviewed as expressing specific hostility toward Israel. Rather, they areexpressions of naiveté, or ignorance, or – at worst – deliberate denial ofthe nature of the problems of the Arab and Islamic world on the part ofObama and his advisers. The same cannot be said of the administration’s decision to send itsdelegation to the Durban II planning session this past week in Geneva.Unlike every other Obama policy, this is a hostile act against Israel. Thisis true first of all because the decision was announced in the face ofrepeated Israeli requests that the US join Israel and Canada in boycottingthe Durban II conference. Some could chalk up the US’s rejection of Israel’s urgent entreaties as anhonest difference of opinion. But what lies behind Israel’s requests for aUS boycott is not a partisan agenda, but a clearheaded acknowledgement thatthe Durban II conference is inherently devoted to the delegitimization anddestruction of the Jewish state. And by joining in the planning sessions,the US has become a full participant in legitimizing and so advancing thisovertly anti-Jewish agenda. On Thursday, Prof. Anne Bayefsky, the senior editor of the EyeontheUN Website, demonstrated that by participating in the planning sessions the US isaccepting the conference’s anti-Israel agenda. Bayefsky reported that at theplanning session in Geneva on Thursday, the Palestinian delegation proposedthat a paragraph be added to the conference’s agenda. Their draft “calls forimplementation of… the advisory opinion of the ICJ [International Court ofJustice] on the wall, [i.e., Israel’s security fence], and the internationalprotection of Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinianterritory.” The American delegation raised no objection to the Palestinian draft. Issued in 2004, the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the security fence claimedthat Israel has no right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. Atthe time, both the US and Israel rejected the ICJ’s authority to issue anopinion on the subject. On Thursday, by not objecting to this Palestinian draft, not only did the USeffectively accept the ICJ’s authority, for practical purposes it grantedthe anti-Israel claim that Jews may be murdered with impunity. This assertion aligns naturally with the language already in the Durban IIagenda, which calls Israel’s Law of Return racist. This law, which grantsautomatic citizenship to any Jew who wishes to live here, is the embodimentof Jewish peoplehood and the vehicle through which the Jewish people hasbuilt our nation-state. In alleging that the Law of Return is racist, theDurban II conference asserts that the Jews are not a people and we have noright to self-determination in our homeland. And Thursday, by participatingin the process of demonizing Israel and its people, the US lent its owncredibility to this bigoted campaign. OBAMA’S SPOKESMEN and defenders claim that by participating in the planningsessions in Geneva, the administration is doing nothing more than attemptingto prevent the conference from being the anti-Jewish diplomatic pogrom itwas in 2001. If they are unsuccessful, they will boycott the conference. Noharm done. But this claim rings hollow. As Bayefsky and others argued this week, by entering into the Durbanpreparatory process, the US has done two things. First, it has made it allbut impossible for European states like France, Britain, the Czech Republicand the Netherlands, which were all considering boycotting the conference,to do so. They cannot afford to be seen as more opposed to its anti-Israeland anti-freedom agenda than Israel’s closest ally and the world’s greatestdemocracy. So just by participating in the planning sessions the US haslegitimized a clearly bigoted, morally illegitimate process, making itimpossible for Europe to disengage. Second, through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, theUS has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, theadministration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way.The US delegation’s decision not to object to the Palestinian draft, as wellits silence in the face of Iran’s rejection of a clause in the conferencedeclaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join theplanning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US isparticipating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate inthe conference. The Durban II conference, like its predecessor, is part and parcel of acampaign to coordinate the diplomatic and legal war against the Jewishstate. By walking out of the 2001 Durban conference, and refusing toparticipate, support or finance any aspect of this UN-sponsored campaignuntil last Saturday, for seven years the US made clear that it opposed thiswar and believed its aim of destroying Israel is unacceptable. By embracing the Durban campaign now, it is possible that the Obamaadministration will water down some of the most noxious language inconference’s draft declaration. But this doesn’t balance out the harm USparticipation will cause to Israel, or to the Jewish people. Byparticipating in the conference, the US today is effectively giving Americansupport to the war against the Jewish state. The open hostility toward Israel expressed by the Obama administration’sdecision to participate in the Durban process should be a red flag for boththe Israeli government and for Israel’s supporters in the US. Both Israeland its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters must openly condemn theadministration’s move and demand that it reverse its decision immediately. FOR THE past two years, the American Jewish Committee has been instrumentalin convincing the American Jewish community to reject repeated Israelirequests that they call for a US boycott of Durban II. To secure USparticipation over Israel’s objections, the AJC even went so far as to signa letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her not to boycott theconference. In return for the AJC’s labors, its senior operative Felice Gaer is now amember of the US delegation in Geneva. Happily ensconced in the Swissconference room where the Holocaust is denied, the Jewish people’s right toself-determination is reviled, and Israel’s right to defend itself isrejected, Gaer now sits silently, all the while using the fact of hermembership in the US delegation as proof that the Obama administration isserious about protecting Israel at Durban II. Whatever the AJC may have gained for its support for Durban II, Israel andits supporters have clearly been harmed. Some might argue that no Israeli interest is served by openly condemning theWhite House. But when the White House is participating in a process thatlegitimizes and so advances the war against the Jewish state, suchcondemnation is not only richly deserved but required. It is theadministration, not Israel that threw down the gauntlet. If Israel and itssupporters refrain from vigorously criticizing this move, we guarantee itsrepetition.
This post was of course not sent by Glick, who is probably preparing for her next bout as foreign policy adviser of Netanyahu (a function she had when N. was PM) but by some joker who apparently thinks that her tirade will win some hearts and minds for the Zionist cause.
In this s/he is as ill advised as Glick herself who sees an anti-semite around every corner and employs in her paranoiac warnings such shrill language that the effect outside the Likud crowd can only be to make her look like a fool and the cause she defends highly suspect.
Some examples: when Columbia university invited Ahmadinejad to air his views, even its president’s rudeness to his guest could not protect him against Glick’s accusation that he “just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table”. Of Columbia she claimed that it had descended into the “depths of evil”. By inviting this guest it had stated openly that “Columbia is a depraved institution”.
When the AIPAC officials Rosen and Weissman were indicted in 2005 for having handed classified information to Israeli officials (a crime for which the former top Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin meanwhile has been sentenced to twelve years in prison) Glick called, under the headline “Show-Trial”, the forthcoming trial (which has, as it happens, not yet eventuated after more than three years) a “trial of Zionism and World Jewry” which had received a hefty “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic build up”.
And now Glick is calling for Israel’s open condemnation of the White House because Washington has on the issue of Durban “thrown down the gauntlet”. What has happened is that the US has not yet obeyed Israel’s call to boycot the Durban Review Conference and will send a delegation to Geneva to assist in its preparation (which does not seem to imply its eventual participation ). The irony of the situation is that the American Jewish Committee has explicitly requested the US to participate in the conference and is sending one of its senior operatives there, Felice Gaer.
And where will Gaer be in Geneva. She will, says Glick, be “happily ensconced in the Swiss conference room where the holocaust is denied, the Jewish people’s right to self determination is reviled, and Israel’s right to defend itself is rejected”.
Glick’s call for the condemnation of the Obama White House was of course already anticipated in her comments on the election campaign in which she called the future President all but an anti-semite on the grounds that he had been to an Indonesian school and had a Moslem stepfather, had been in the audience of a “black Nazi” (the Reverend Wright) and had then a foreign policy adviser who was among Washington’s greatest“foes of Israel” (Brzezinski). The latter probably earned Glick’s wrath because he had spoken positively of Walt and Mearsheimer’s book on the Israel lobby.
We can only hope that Glick will continue in this vein because “this most prominent woman in Israel” (as Maariv called her in 2005) is more effective in showing up the Likud crowd than any attack from its opponents would be able to achieve.
Perhaps the most serious and most dangerous problem we face is the normalization of evil. That’s the title of an essay published on Feb. 3, 2009 in the Wall Street Journal by Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, the 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by Islamofascist terrorists in Pakistan.
The title of the article, “The Normalization of Terror,” and its theme carry a devastating message, showing how the mainstream media, many of our leading universities, and people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers have succeeded in transforming the most despicable, immoral, genocidal degenerates into a respectable category freedom fighters, part of a resistance movement even though they are using the most illegitimate, immoral, and illegal ends to achieve their political goals.
These are the real moral degenerates of our time, with the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers leading the parade of evil, followed by many in our elite universities and the mainstream media. They speak in Orwellian language, turning evil into good, murder and genocide into resistance, and blowing the brains out of young children into acts of heroism. What is most disturbing about this terrible trend is that barbarism seems to be going mainstream even in America.
This is the story that Judea Pearl tells so well and so powerfully that it is a classic of the English language and a message that should be engraved on the mind and soul of every civilized person.
At the end of his powerful message to establish moral clarity in a world gone mad, Mr. Pearl writes, “Danny’s picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.”
Mr. Pearl says it is now seven years after the murder of his son, and then asks, “Would Danny have believed that today’s world emerged after his tragedy?
“The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
“Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South American reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheiky Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of the sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of ‘the resistance.’ Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnapers deserve international recognition.”
Judea Pearl would have thought that the murder of his son, Danny, would actually be a turning point in man’s inhumanity to man, and that the slaughter of innocents to communicate political messages would once and for all be universally condemned by civilized people and sent to the ashcan of history, where such gross barbarism is no longer tolerated, the place reserved for such atrocities as slavery, human sacrifice, and other shocking and totally discredited practices of an era long gone.
But the moral degenerates mentioned above have given these icons of evil, these most degenerate of moral degenerates, moral standing in our society and acceptance in elite circles of universities, of the media, and of political leadership. Mr. Pearl says we have reached the point where we are no longer disgusted by evil: “Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.”
I am not so sure we have been numbed by violence into acceptance of evil. I don’t think people like those moral degenerates Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers are numbed by anything. That would be an excuse. They are not numbed but have placed themselves in the hands of the devil by dark prejudices of various sorts that are lodged deep in their psyches. The people I associate with have not been numbed and they can still recognize evil, be disgusted by it, and reject it. Mr. Carter and Mr. Moyers can no longer do that, but that is due to dark prejudice, not numbness.
This is the way Mr. Pearl explains the described descent into evil. He reasons that well-meaning analysts in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy but only a tactic. Thus the mechanism that drives terrorism was made to disappear and in its place we now have the more “manageable ‘tactical’ considerations.”
Armed with that kind of reasoning, the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in July 2005 could tell Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man’s second nature: “In an unfair balance, that’s what people use.” So the slaughter of innocents, the blowing the brains out of babies, was suddenly transformed into human nature, an almost reflex-like inevitability with moral neutrality. It’s not a choice or a moral decision, but more like breathing out and breathing in. Terrorism is magically transformed into the morally acceptable.
But our former president, Jimmy Carter, the most degenerate of the moral degenerates of our time, makes the clearest argument for terrorism and the slaughter of innocents. In his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, this is the way Mr. Carter slyly justifies terrorism with what is an appeal to suicide bombers: “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel.” Translation: Acts of terror are no longer taboo, but are just a legitimate means to a political end. Until you get what you want, terrorism is perfectly acceptable. Jimmy Carter, in effect says, “Keep killing women and children, and blowing up babies; as a former president of the U.S. I find your terrorism and even genocide perfectly acceptable.” And a subtext of that translation: The Palestinians should continue the slaughter of innocents until Israel yields to their demands, however reasonable or unreasonable, and without regard to whether the acceptance of those demands would spell the eventual destruction of Israel. Whenever I hear of Mr. Carter’s foreign policies misadventures, I wonder if there is a way to impeach an ex-president. If the answer is yes, I recommend starting with Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter, whose ability to do evil knows no bounds, has put forth the dominant paradigm now widely used to justify, humanize and legitimize terrorism. When Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, was asked what Israel should do to end rocket attacks aimed at innocent civilians, she replied, “They should end the occupation.” In other words, terrorists must have their demands met before they agree to stop murdering innocents and blowing the brains out of babies.
Mr. Pearl also notes that the media, in the U.S. and abroad, have played a major role in making terrorism acceptable. Qatari-based al-Jazeera television keeps providing Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi hours of free television time to spew the murderous interpretation of the Quran, authorize suicide bombings, and call for jihad against Americans and Jews.
Don’t think it can’t get worse, as it always does thanks to the international media and our own mainstream media. In August 2008 came the birthday of Samir Kuntar, an unrepentant killer, who is 1979 smashed the head of a 4-year-old Israeli with his rifle after first killing her father before her eyes. (But remember, Jimmy Carter, in effect, gave him the OK to do that.) al-Jazeera elevated Mr. Kuntar to heroic heights, writes Mr. Pearl, “with orchestras, fireworks and sword dancers, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society’s role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose al-Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera’s management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.”
American pundits like Bill Moyers see the world just like al-Jazeera, so they should not be surprised to find the blood of innocents dripping from their hands. Mr. Moyers, after the war in Gaza, was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a “resistance movement.” And he resorted to the old cycle of violence, to make moral equivalence between Hamas’ deliberate slaughter of innocents and the Israeli attempts at self-defense.
He said, each side greases the “cycle of violence” and one man’s terrorism becomes another’s resistance to oppression. Thus, whether blowing up innocents or acting in self defense, it’s all the same. There is moral equivalence and neutrality; anything goes in this immoral world of Mr. Moyers, Mr. Carter and much of our mainstream media. Mr. Moyers uses this moral equivalence to indict the victims of terrorism as if they are merely actors in the endless cycle of violence.
Then Mr. Pearl turns to the universities, which he says are being manipulated into the support of terrorist and genocidal organizations like Hamas. He uses his own university, UCLA, where he is a professor of computer science, to illustrate the point. At UCLA there was a symposium on human rights, which was turned into a recruiting tool for Hamas. The director of the UCLA Center for Near East Studies selected only Israel bashers for the panel, and every member of the panel concluded Israel is the greatest criminal in human history.
Here is the way this human rights symposium turned out: “ The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, ‘Scholars says: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza,’ to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western mind.” For more on the sorry state of our colleges and universities read David Horowitz’s classic, The Professors, and his second book on the subject, Indoctrination U.
So, as Mr. Pearl’s article so artfully documents, we are losing our ability to distinguish between good and evil. We are being brainwashed into thinking that evil is good. Our media, our academics, and some of our political leaders are transforming terrorists and genocidal murdering maniacs into freedom fighters. If we lose our moral clarity, losing everything else we hold dear may not be far behind.
I have often written about the mainstream media, our academic institutions, and some of our political leaders seem to have become pro-terror and even anti-American. The Pearl essay is another classic statement of this theme. If I were editing one of those “Patriot’s Handbooks,” I would put Pearl’s piece in it. I would recommend it for inclusion in the second edition of William Bennett’s fine book, The American Patriot’s Almanac.
I was struck by something else about the article. I missed it when it originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 3, 2009, the seventh anniversary of the death of Daniel Pearl. In retrospect, I thought it significant that it appeared in the Wall Street Journal, one of the few major American papers that has retained its moral clarity and that is able to distinguish between good and enable. You would not find this article in the New York Times or Philadelphia Inquirer, as they are part of the problem, the part that gives legitimacy to terror, murder and genocide.
And where did I come across the Pearl piece after missing it in the Journal? It is reprinted on Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism Web site ( http://www.investigativeproject.com). It is significant, that one of the most powerful forces in identifying and fighting terrorists and terrorism has the moral clarity to see the importance of Mr. Pearl’s message, and consequently pay for the republication of the piece on its Web site. People like Steven Emerson have more moral clarity and common sense than the mainstream media put together. It is also significant that the mainstream media, which did not and probably would not publish the Pearl piece or one like it, are also that segment of America that has lost moral clarity and that has virtually become friends and advocates of terrorists and other enemies of America.
Can we fight and win the war on terror when such powerful opinion makers as the mainstream media and our elite academic institutions often seem to be on the side of terror? Can we fight and win the war on terror when political leaders such as the moral degenerate Jimmy Carter are dedicated to legitimizing terrorism, terrorists and their organizations?
Let me clarify one point, as in the course of this column I may have paid the likes of the Jimmy Carters and Bill Moyers of this land, the mainstream media, and our elite academic institutions an undue compliment. I’ve done that by implying they are on the same moral level as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the world’s other terrorist and genocidal organizations. The compliment is undue because I said they were on the same level as the terrorist and genocidal organizations. I should make it clear they are on a lower level. They have had the advantages of living in the greatest country in the history of the world, reaping all of its limitless advantages, and enjoying its right of citizenship. Yet they turn on their own country in favor of terrorists and the other enemies of America. This puts them on an even lower plain than the terrorist organizations. They, like Jimmy Carter, are indeed among the most morally degenerate of the morally degenerate.
Perhaps this all raises an even more fundamental question: Has America lost its moral bearings? We’ve seen Europe lose its moral bearings, where even religion is virtually disappearing from the scene. We’ve seen powerful observers of the scene, such as Mark Steyn in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and Bat Ye’or in Eurabia, show us how Europe has pretty much surrendered to Islam and Shariah. Is that one more sign it has lost its moral bearings and doesn’t even defend its values? Like Europe, are we too becoming victims of multiculturalism (all cultures are of equal value) and political correctness? When you observe the pathetic moral and verbal gyrations of the mainstream media, our academic elite, and leaders such as the moral degenerate Jimmy Carter, you tend to answer America may be far along on the road traveled by Europe.
Perhaps this suggests we better get back to fundamentals, and have less tolerance for who clearly can’t distinguish between good and evil. We better start treating the likes of the mainstream media, those academic elites, and the political leader exemplified by Jimmy Carter for what they are worse than the terrorists and genocidal maniacs we are at war with. That means no support for such political leaders, media outlets, and academic institutions where these types hold forth (such as Columbia and UCLA). If Americans don’t make a stand on this issue, no one else will. If Americans don’t make a stand now, America itself may be lost.
Arie, I think you’ve noticed the change in how the Zionist’s post began to look ever snce they set up that blogging program? making you refute every one of them at lenght is the whole point.
It is designed to wear you out, while all they have to do is re-post something they got given from their handlers, cut’n’paste from agit-prop press releases and screed from some rabid zionist pages.
Also, on encountering a chain of such boring tirades, many readers will just give up on reading further, nevere getting to your rebuttal.
I appeal to the non-Zionist Jews like yourself to break out of the box they’ve been put into and become proper anti-Zionists, commiting to actions against the regime that the regime cannot dismiss.
Similarily, I think Tony needs to get out of a similar box he (and you) agrees to be kept in if he wants his site not to get swamped. Their resources are greater! Please, stop treating these guys and their posts as a part of legitimate dialogue where participants play fair, recognise for the sabotage that they are and treat accordingly. That means not replying, but erasing.
If he decides to erase mine, so be it.
At least, if he doesn’t want to be a censor, perhaps he can insert some kind of stinkbomb alert before them, preferably mentioning the organisation that spews them?
Just a little ilustration to my claim that Israel, built on violence is condemned to violence,in case someone finds it far fetched . Wouldn’t it be beneficial to impart that message on the saner parts of Israeli public while it can still make a difference, even if it ment resorting to unconventional methods?
This from Justin Raimondo (who like most libertarians, is a nazionalist lite, and so often over-stresses the AIPAC’s influences in USA to avoid admitting his own people’s responsibility)here’s the quote:
To begin with, Lieberman is no defender of traditional cultural norms and religious values, championed by both Le Pen and Haider. The former bouncer has earned the opprobrium of the religious parties, which denounced him as an agent of Satan for taking on the prohibitions against pork – a favored food of his Russian immigrant constituency – and for trying to break the Orthodox monopoly on marriage by allowing secular ceremonies. More importantly, the Le Pen and Haider movements are anti-immigrant. That is their major platform plank, whereas Lieberman is himself a Russian immigrant and the leader of a party of recent arrivals. Le Pen, for all his shenanigans, is a Poujadist, not a Vichyite, and Haider’s party was and is very similar: a movement of middle-class burghers who object to the expense of subsidizing recent immigrants with all the accoutrements of the Austrian welfare state.
Sorry I dropped a piece of the quote:
Lieberman and his party are quite a different breed. Like the German National Socialists, they are avowed enemies of religion and tradition, revolutionaries impatient to sweep away the failed remnants of the old order and root out an internal “fifth column” they claim represents a threat to the nation. As I put it some months ago, what we have in Lieberman is the final proof that we are, indeed, living in Bizarro World, and reality has been turned on its head. Because what we are seeing in Israel today is the rise to power of a Jewish Hitler.
In a state constantly at war, where security aparatus had decades to perfect its disdain for human life and dignity and where everything is built on black or white, friend or foe, victory or holocaust type of siege mentality, where do you think the divisions described above lead?
The article by Caroline Glick was lifted in its entirety from the Jerusalem Post – that by Denenberg from “The Bulletin – Philadelphia’s Family Newspaper”. It is also quite improbable that either of these articles was posted by the original author. So there are copyright issues here. Tony could refuse to post them unless he had the direct permission of the copyright holder. Mentioning this permission could serve as a warning signal.
Having said this I would like to emphasize that the right of free speech is quite counter productive for these Zionist shysters, because they habitually make fools of themselves. I hope to have demonstrated this for Glick. As far as Denenberg is concerned one doesn’t even have to come up with comments.One only has to read as far as the phrase “blowing the brains out of young children” (that Israeli specialty here attributed to Israel’s helots) to know that one is dealing here with the most stinking hypocrisy. Speaking about “moral degenerates” …
Again, I think you are being overly optimistic:
“free speech is quite counter productive for these Zionist shysters, because they habitually make fools of themselves”
Yes, they do, in your eyes, because you already know it’s bullshit. So posting it on this page, where most visitors are fairly well informed, may be counterproductive.
But accepting that still means giving up ground, because it gives free pass to the attempts at repelling/confusing those less informed who happen to link here.
And those are the only people whose reaching justifies your form of resistance.
If you depend on them already being able to tell the grain from the chaff, then you very possibly overestimate the level of awareness of an average westerner, especialy an anglo.
Remember, exactly this type of Zionist message is mostly all they get to hear, and so, usually they don’t experience the cognitive/moral dissonance that comes with knowing who does most brain-blowing. They just see emotive language and just indignation.
Remember, you are still on the margin, they still have hold on the mainstream, even if somewhat weakened (BTW, thanks to the vanishingly small attention span of the public, they already began recouping their PR losses). Overall, and for all that you comfort yourself, so far they are winning. Not the time to take anything for granted.
Time for direct measures. Not allowing them more space to spew their vomit is the absolute LEAST one can do.
Somehow I dont think that Caroline Glick or Herb Denenberg will sue anyone for posting their articles and getting more readership
Zealot, is a character like Denenberg really in the mainstream? I can imagine that somebody disagrees with Carter but if you say of him, as Denenberg does, that he is “among the most morally degenerate of the morally degenerate” then you can only invite ridicule and contempt. Those who fall for this kind of thing fell long ago and will hardly be converted by anything we say.
When Denenberg was lying through his teeth about Obama he got the following reaction from the then editor of Daily Kos:
“Have you lost your mind? This piece of smut has no place in an American newspaper. At least, not the America I grew up in. What in the name of God have they done to your brain? Or have they just bought off your conscience? This is one of the most shamefully dishonest articles I have ever read. Shame on you, Herb Denenberg. Your blatant lies disgrace the field of journalism”
So here somebody judges that Denenberg is not mainstream at all – that there is, or should be, no place for him in American journalism.
It is up to Tony to consider whether there is a place for him on his blog.
‘The Bulletin – Philadelphia’s Family Newspaper’ – Obviously I don’t know the rag but sounds like mainstream to me.
‘Daily kos’ on the other hand, I know for a fact tobe pretty far to the left. It may have a sizable readership within the ‘liberal’ community, but mainstream it ain’t. They’ve got a mainpage that looks like it was designed by Lenin. And I doubt you can find Jeeeesus anywhere. No mainstream they.
And what is it about Carter, isn’t he’s current main role in american public’s awarenes that of the butt of political jokes, simply for trying to do the right thing (that’s what I get looking from the outside in, correct me if I’m wrong)?
With perceptions like that dominant, the reader of ‘the Bulletin’ might perhaps see the attack on him as exagerated, but would it arise universal contempt outside the ‘Daily Kos’ readership? I don’t think so.
I understand that getting some traction with the public after an eternity of crying out in the wilderness may feel like a giddy success, but it is just a minor fluke, and temporary.
It was handed to you by the massacre of Gaza, which the Zionists decided they could afford, just like they could afford the massacres in Lebanon. The outcry quickly subsides, because people are bussy, and afterwards Zionists still control the mainstream.
In England, BBC and Sky refused to air the Gaza aid appeal, on the grounds that it would be seen in the Middle East and it’s not impartial. Only the stations that don’t air in USA aired it.
When I talk about Gaza massacres, at work or with familly, I still have to clarify that Its the Israelis doing it, not the palestinians. The memes are firmly set in public reality, “brown muslim guy with a beard living in a slum = terrorist”. That is, still, the mainstream reality. Jews blowing up Jews would do far more to dislodge it than any amount of blogging.
You don’t win an argument with that kind of people. You can only try to win a fight.
As for the decision on what to do with these kinds of posts (including mine), it is up to Tony. We can but appeal.
Hi Zealot, we will need a Philadelphian to tell us how mainstream the Bulletin is.
The original paper of that name was for a long time very mainstream but went bankrupt in 1982 (after more than a century of publishing).
The name of the paper was bought in 2004 by a certain Thomas Rice, a gent Wikipedia describes as an investment banker. The thing he came on the market with is ‘right-leaning’, again according to Wikipedia.
It all doesn’t sound very mainstream to me. Daily Kos, on the other hand, is one of the most successful blogs with hundreds of thousands of hits a day. I have often found references to it, but never heard of the Philadelphia Bulletin until now.
But I am also looking in from the outside.