Israel lobby

The Israel lobby (at times called the Zionist lobby) is the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and/or as groups, seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Israel or the policies of the government of Israel...The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a leading organization within the lobby, speaking on behalf of a coalition of American Jewish groups. ~Wikipedia

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• Introduction
• Israel as an undeclared US state, which unlike other USA states has no obligations to the US citizens, only rights
• The Israel lobby advocates policies which are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest
• Helen Thomas revelations
• Overview of studies  of the "Israel lobby
  • Wikipedia article

Introduction

First of all Israel Lobby in the USA is not a Jewish lobby and does not represent interest of Jewish people, who (especially immigrants from the USSR and other Warsaw block countries) are mostly secular and hardworking people who has nothing to do with Zionism, or Judaism. They are normal loyal Americans.  Like most American they sincerely wish that Israel survived and prospered, but they never put Israel interests above the interests of the USA population.

Actually the same is true for Israel. As  Haaretz  wrote on Oct 20, 2020 Trump is the best U.S. president for Netanyahu – but for Israel, he might be the worst Washington's warning reproduced above is applicable to both nations. In that Farewell Address, Washington warned against the peril of deep foreign entanglements, exacly of the king the USA has with Israel.  His advice has been forgotten by today's generation of the USA political leaders.

What is called by fuzzy term "Israel lobby" is an amalgam of several district groups, with neocons as the key constituent.  As such Israel Lobby should probably be classified as a  lobbing group of the US MIC. What makes it especially dangerous for the USA is their strong connection to the Zionist faction of financial oligarchy.

Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe and comprise about 90-95% of the American Jewish population. Religious Jews are a small and shrinking part of this community (probably less then 15%). Like is the case with other religions,  synagogues are attended mostly by older people.  And even among them "believers" are a minority. Most attend it as a social institution  which provides ability to socialize and some level of mutual support. Of course, some fundamentalists sects connected to Judaism including Orthodox are different. They also have high birth rate, but this does not change the whole picture much.

A similar situation exists with Zionism as far-right nationalism ideology. Few people support it and even fewer believe in it  (although after "American Maidan" of 2020 their number probably increased). As any far-right ideology that claims superiority of a particular nation it is disgusting for any real intellectual, including Jewish intellectual elite.   The Zionist faction of the US financial oligarchy with thier recless and damaging to the interests of the USA policies is essentially exempted from consequences of their own ideology by the fact that live in the USA and the USA in XX century (since WWI) was the dominant state on the Earth.  If this situation changes those financial moguls will quickly change thier colors.

The pro-Israel lobby comprises of three main part:

• Jewish financial oligarchy lobby (which has a long history of pro-Israel and anti-Russian activities starting with Jacob Schiff; see Russo-Japanese War – financed by Jacob Schiff The Strange Side of Jewish History )  Part of it is connected to FBI and, probably, Mossad  (Les Wexner and Mega group)
• Neocons -- group a pseudo-intellectuals (aka "national security parasites")  serving as lobbyists for MIC because they probably can't find any other meaningful employment (Max Boot, etc)
• A part of Evangelical Christians waiting for the Second Coming of Christ (Christians United for Israel - Wikipedia .)  Paradoxically, while the latter part is pro-Israel they are somewhat anti-Semitic...

The tiny part of Jewish population (let's say top 0.01%) that constitute financial oligarchy is different from ordinary Jews in many ways and this tiny group is the main driving part of the Israel lobby. Neocons interests are not Israel prosperity per se, but theprospecrity of the US MIC. Evangelical Christians provide numbers and some pro-Israel politicians such as Pompeo, but little else.

It is fair to say that the core of Israel lobby in the USA is a tiny group of Zionist billionaires. To that extent this is Zionist billionaires game.  Because Jewish financial oligarchy interests is different from ordinary Jews, not only because they are Zionists, but first and foremost because they are members of financial oligarchy with their special (perverted and harmful to the larger community of citizens) clan interests and geopolitical preferences.

It is well known that Financial oligarchy is known to be profiting from wars and destruction of states (not only arm manufactures are "merchants of death"; see also  "disaster capitalism"). The is even a saying that "All wars are bankers wars"

And their (often rabid) Zionism (which , is essence, is far right Jewish nationalism  aka Jewish supremacism ) and pandering to Israel is just a part of their obnoxious behaviour, and probably not the worst part. I suspect that the main  value Israel has for them is the possibility to escape to it, to hide from prosecution for their crimes. As Napoleon Bonaparte observed "Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain. "   But their Jewishness serves for them as a protective shield, kind of bullet-proof west, which in case they are caught committing criminal offences allows to pretend that they are victims of unfair prosecution.

So the working hypothesis here is that their rabid Zionism is partially fake and serves as a smote screen of other, more mercantile interests.  They are happy to exploit Jews much like people of any other nationality.  In this sense Bankers are color blind, so to speak.

Also it might be kind of supercompensation of "inferiority complex" (Alfred Adler) or "striving for significance", a way to absolve themselves of other crimes and their often psychopathic personality as well as criminal or semi-criminal methods they used to accumulate their vast wealth ( look at Les Wexner and Mega group ).   As one commenter to Professor Stephen Cohen article Unasked Questions About US-Ukrainian Relations (The Nation, Oct 3, 2019) noted:

mike k , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT

Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia (and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes.

As Adler noted, psychopaths were more likely to be drug addicts and in turn addition to cocaine (rampant on Wall Street) produces artificial psychopathic personality.  They also are more prone to illicit sexual behaviour, such as pedophilia

We can also add to those the military industrial complex lobbyists, which in the USA usually comes under the name of neocons.  Many of them are  Jewish characters, who can't find a  meaningful employment elsewhere (Max Boot and Robert Kagan are two prominent example of this category). But, of course, like any industrial lobby neocon are not a purely ethnic grouping. 

The status of Israel as a state is also pretty controversial and its foreign policy is very aggressive but it is unclear to what extect they simply imitate the behaviour of the "Lord-protector" of this state: one of the goals of the US foreign policy is the dominance over the Middle East and maintain control over the oil. This is the essence of  so called Carter Doctrine and Israel in this sense can be called "Air Strip One." 

The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. It was a response to the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and it was intended to deter the Soviet Union, the United States' Cold War adversary, from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf region.

The following key sentence, which was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, concludes the section:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

... ... ...

Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, extended the policy in October 1981 with what is sometimes called the "Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine," which proclaimed that the United States would intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security was believed to be threatened during the Iran–Iraq War. Thus, while the Carter Doctrine warned away outside forces from the region, the Reagan Corollary pledged to secure internal stability. According to diplomat Howard Teicher, "with the enunciation of the Reagan Corollary, the policy groundwork was laid for Operation Desert Storm."[14]

That naturally makes Israel an important tool of the US foreign policy in the region, because for all practical purposes it is a client state.  Israel has no oil deposits. At least already discovered. And it completely dependent of the USA for its defense (it is the largest recipient of the USA aid).  THaaretz ).

Only IDF air force represent a formidable force, as it in engaged in actions in Syria and elsewhere. But Israel has no strategic depth and can be wiped out in case of large scale conflict in weeks if not days.  In a sense, the problem of defense of Israel is the same problem as the defense of an aircraft carrier. With modern rockets sophistication and range it is unsolvable.

Israel as an undeclared US state, which unlike other USA states has no obligations to the US citizens, only rights

But due to the political power of Jewish financial oligarchy in the USA (which dramatically increased under  neoliberalism, making neocons the dominant force in the USA foreign policy) the typical relations of the lord and a vassal sometimes became distorted. The United States and Israel have long had a “special relationship” but it became "super-special" since Lyndon Johnson presidency. From this point Israel lobby escaped all levels of the state control and operated with utter impunity. Paradoxically, even Jonathan Pollard  arrest in 1985, which was a slap in the face of the USA establishment and all-powerful Intelligence agencies,  did not changed this situation. 

...Israel said initially that Pollard worked for an unauthorized rogue operation, a position they maintained for more than ten years. They finally agreed to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for immunity for the Israelis involved.

When asked to return the stolen material, the Israelis reportedly supplied only a few dozen less sensitive documents.^[52] At the time, the Americans knew that Pollard had passed tens of thousands of documents.

The Israelis created a schedule designed to wear them down, including many hours per day of commuting in blacked-out buses on rough roads, and frequent switching of buses,^[52] leaving them without adequate time to sleep, and preventing them from sleeping on the commute.^[52] The identity of Pollard's original handler, Sella, was withheld. All questions had to be translated into Hebrew and answered in Hebrew, and then translated back into English, even though all the parties spoke perfect English.^[52] The Commander Jerry Agee remembers that, even as he departed the airport, airport security made a point of informing him that "you will never be coming back here again." After his return to the US, Agee found various items had been stolen from his luggage.^[52] The abuse came not only from the guards and officials, but also the Israeli media.^[52]

Sella was eventually indicted on three counts of espionage by a United States court.^[53] Israel refused to allow Sella to be interviewed unless he was granted immunity. The United States refused because of Israel's previous failure to cooperate as promised. Israel refused to extradite Sella, instead giving him command of Tel Nof Airbase. The U.S. Congress responded by threatening to cut aid to Israel, at which point Sella voluntarily stepped down to defuse tensions.^[54]

The USA became the first country in the world to recognize the state of Israel in 1948, and has been an important ally and benefactor ever since. A critical component of this special relationship is the pro-Israel lobby. While Israel remains the USA vassal state and generally promotes the USA imperial foreign policy in Middle East, this relationship is far from one way street. Due to existence of the influential Israel lobby the tail often wag the dog.

The main objection of many Americans is about the level of control of  Zionist lobby of the USA foreign policy and securing the flow of aid to Israel. For example, in 2016 Obama signed a new 10-year military-assistance deal, representing the single largest pledge of its kind in American history. The pact will be worth $38 billion over the course of a decade, an increase of roughly 27% percent on the money pledged in the last agreement, which was signed in 2007.  Trump, who many view as the most pro-Israeli President in the US post war history, in first two years of his presidency   carries two important pro-Israel initiatives: (1) moving  the embassy to Jerusalem and (2) recognition of Golan Heights  as a part of Israel (the move that goes contrary to the UN resolution of the subject)

The book of Mearsheimer and Walt was the first to describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel. They argued that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds and that this exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a thee major groups:

1. A loose coalition of rich donors (such as Adelson, who financed Trump campaign and, previously, Romney campaign) and controlled by them authoritarian, non-democratic organizations such as APAIC, which in no way democratically represents the views of the US citizens of Jewish nationality. None of them is registered via FARA, although there was one (failed) attempt to register predecessor of AIPAC by Kennedy administration.
2. Lobbyists of MIC (aka neocons) who while while predominantly Jewish  in reality represent the interests of major US defense contractors. In a sense Israel as a state which behaves as the USA military contractor and as such is also acting as powerful and influential foreign lobbyist for the US MIC.
3. "Christians United for Israel" a strange evangelical fundamentalist sect that supports Israel in order to hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. While most members are poor the leadership is filthy rich, flying personal jets. As they violate the separation of Church and State they represent a valuable voting block that can move politicians in pro-Israel direction. Formally it is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States,^[1] with several (5 to 7) million members. They produced such politicians as Mike Pence.  Here is s typical example of their propaganda ( Christians' Israel Support Is Biblically Based National Review )

So, why do Christians support Israel? They believe in supporting American allies and supporting countries that share their moral values. And, unlike the Left, they have moral problems with Islamism, not with Zionism.

But the primary reason virtually every Israel-supporting Christian gives is the biblical verse from Genesis in which God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” These Christians believe (as does this Jew) God blesses those who treat the Jews decently and curse those who seek to harm the Jews.

You don’t have to be a believer in the God of Abraham or the Bible to accept this proposition. All the Jews’ ancient enemies disappeared from history. And look at what happened to Spain after it expelled its Jews in 1492. One of the greatest powers of the world became largely irrelevant to history within a couple of generations. As for Germans, the perpetrators of the Holocaust, they endured a staggering amount of death and suffering as a result of their support for the greatest Jew hater in history; and their country was divided in half for the next half-century. Likewise, the countries today that most curse the Jews — Arab and other Muslim countries — are among the most benighted countries in the world. If they were to devote to building their countries the money and energy they devote to attempting to destroy Israel, they would be in far better condition morally, socially, economically and politically.

Meanwhile, the country that has most blessed Israel and the Jews is America. No country in the modern period has treated its Jews as well as America has, and no country has stood by Israel as much as America has. And America has been almost uniquely blessed.

The activities of those thee groups shaped and distort US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. In many ways the US government treats Israel as an unannounced additional state receiving all the supportm but caring no obligations to the all US citizens. Such a view on Israel as an "undeclared US state" helps to explain many strange nuances of the US polices toward Israel.

One of the most interesting proposals to deal with  this problem were Senator Gravel's proposals during his 2020 election campaign for the President of the USA, as described in a recent Mondoweiss piece :

• Force AIPAC and similar pro-Israel groups to register as foreign lobbies -- "The first step should be mandating that AIPAC register as a foreign lobby under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). AIPAC manages to skirt American laws about foreign lobbying by claiming that it represents Americans who happen to support Israel. But the shockingly close ties between the governing Likud Party and AIPAC give a lie to this legal fiction; AIPAC will always stand closer to Israeli interests than American ones. Such an arrangement would prevent AIPAC from influencing American elections, and would require it to report all of its contacts with Congress, along with details of its spending, to the Department of Justice."

  The point about preventing influence in American elections is important -- the present arrangement skirts very close to the line marked by our present panic over "foreign interference in our democracy," if it doesn't cross well over it. Without Israeli influence in the U.S. electoral process, a wider world of foreign policy and peace-making options is open to us.

  Yes, I know this proposal is anathema in the current environment -- witness the immediate and bipartisan vilification of Rep. Ilhan Omar -- but Gravel merely says out loud what everyone in D.C. knows, but won't repeat with a microphone nearby. Nevertheless, we in the "reality-based community" should acknowledge this fact.
   

• End military support for Israel -- "Next, the U.S. should end military aid to Israel, citing the Israeli military's complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people. It should call for a gradual demilitarization of Israel and Palestine , and should be clear with the Israeli government that the days of Israel-right-or-wrong are over. Future outrages by either side will receive an even-handed response without bias. Accordingly, it should demand that Israel bring itself into compliance with international law and end the harassment of dissidents "

  This proposal, actually two proposals in one, is highly controversial to say the least. Cries of "but Israel needs to be able to defend itself" will be loud enough to cause deafness. In response, I would add to Gravel's call my own proposal that we end all military support in the region . Note that ending U.S. military aid does not mean immediate disarmament for any of these nations; far from it. Israel can do quite nicely without U.S. dollars swelling their military coffers -- and besides, as the only nuclear-tipped army in the region, it still has the deciding advantage.

  The region's militarization, in fact, underscores the importance of the second part of his proposal, a "gradual demilitarization of Israel and Palestine." Recall again the aforementioned atrocities and "crimes against the Palestinian people." Those do have to stop or be made to stop. If they don't, the region is on the road to ethnic cleansing, and that won't end well for anyone, including the U.S. and Europe.

  It's a simple choice: demilitarize or keep on the current path. There's no middle ground. Once the main goal is shifted to a peaceful secular state, the need for demilitarization between Israelis and Palestinians is inescapable.

The Israel lobby advocates policies which are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest

Mearsheimer and Walt contend that the Israel lobby has a far-reaching impact on the Middle East―in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and influences any attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israel lobby advocates policies which are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. In this sense (and this happens typically with emigrant groups which  adopted more extreme views that people of the homeland) Israel lobby is more Zionists then most Israeli politicians (Israel's Armor The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations):

The “Israel lobby” can be defined as a continuous campaign of advocacy on the part of Israel and its American supporters to secure US foreign policies that are perceived as favorable to the Israeli national interest. The lobby is both highly structured – including well-organized and well-funded entities, notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – but also decentralized, encompassing a broad array of individuals and groups, Christian as well as Jewish, which offer spontaneous support of Israel. AIPAC and its precursors, backed by local councils and advocates across the United States, have long lobbied the president, members of Congress, and ultimately the public in order to secure political support and financial and military assistance.

The lobby stresses Israel’s vulnerability to various neighboring regimes while emphasizing that Israel seeks to live in peace, shares common goals and values with the United States, helps anchor security, and is the “sole democracy” in the Middle East.

Finally, the lobby condemns critics of Israel. When they perceive political threats to Israeli interests, lobby supporters strive energetically to limit or obstruct debate.

The Israel lobby is “widely viewed as the most powerful diasporic lobby seeking to shape US foreign policy.”3 Thus, no other country’s partisans in the history of US foreign policy – including the venerable China Lobby, Irish-Americans, or the influential Miami-based Cuban-Americans – have had a commensurate impact on American diplomacy. As the most influential pressure group associated with another nation in the history of American foreign relations, the Israel lobby clearly merits sustained analysis.

... ... ...

Both the Americans and the Zionists viewed themselves as chosen peoples. Both were settler societies fired by perceptions of their “manifest destiny” to inherit a promised land.10 Ultimately, the special relationship cannot be fully understood apart from the historical and cultural affinities – both “preexisting and constructed” – between the United States and Israel. Indeed, these forces are what made the relationship special – and enduring.11

The lobby's influence also affects America's relationship with important allies. It alienates Russia (several neocons were key players in Russiagate, and if justice to be served some of them should probably land in jail for their subversive activities directed at removing the elected President -- aka the attempt of stage coup d'état ) and increases dangers that the USA faces from global jihadist terror network. Which paradoxically was created and partially financed and trained by CIA as a tool for removing  President Assad in Syria -- the move which also was in Israel interests.

In view of crumbling the USA infrastructure this generosity toward Israel looks somewhat misplaced as they add to already inflated military expenses in the USA and increases that probability of nuclear war with Russia (especially via direct engagement in Syria, where Russia and USA support opposite sides of the conflict).  The lobby also helps to fuel the conflict with Iran, although the USA has other motives to be hostile to Iran too. 

The level of military expenses in the USA (over one trillion, if counted all sources) are also partially influenced by neocons as  lobbyists for MIC and Israeli lobby. In two recent administrations (Bush II and Trump) Zionists (and Zionism is an ideology not a nationality) occupied prominent positions and controlled the USA foreign policy.  That was also partially true for Obama administration: Hillary was as close to Zionists in foreign policy as one can get.  Israel lobby played a role in  putsch of 2014 in Ukraine (EuroMaydan revolutions) which brought to power far-right nationalist from Western Ukraine, who fought on the side of Third Reich in the WWII. There was at least one former Israel commandos, who participated in the EuroMaydan armed uprising.

In the past, Iraq war was fiercely promoted by Israel lobby and partially launched to benefit Israel, although the USA have their own geopolitical goals in the region connected with the control of oil.

Helen Thomas revelations

In his interview to Playboy, veteran US journalist Helen Thomas reiterated her Israel lobby related concerns voicing of which led to her forced resignation. They  perfectly reflect the mood of a large faction of the US public.

She stated that Zionists have "total control" over the White House and US Congress, and "Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies." Which of course means every US politician, as the last thing Israel lobby is interested in regular US citizens and their interests. As the result of her statements, Thomas, who covered the White House for more than six decades, was forced to resign from her position at Hearst Corp. Among other things she stated:

The neocons’ U.S. foreign policy has always coincided with the best interest of Israel as they see it. Before 1967, Israel’s interest rested heavily on Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. From 1967, when Moscow closed Jewish emigration to protest Israel’s annexation of Arab territories, Israel’s interest included the U.S. winning the Cold War. That is when the editorial board of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee, experienced their conversion to “neoconservatism,” and Commentary became, in the words of Benjamin Balint, “the contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the neoconservative right .”[5]Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right, Public Affairs, 2010. Irving Kristol explained to the American Jewish Congress in 1973 why anti-war activism was no longer good for Israel: “it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States. […]

American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”[6]Congress Bi-Weekly, quoted by Philip Weiss, “30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views,” Mondoweiss.net, May 23, 2007: mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html This tells us what “reality” Kristol was referring to, when he famously defined a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality” (Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, 1995).

With the end of the Cold War, the national interest of Israel changed once again. The primary objective became the destruction of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East by dragging the U.S. into a third world war. The neoconservatives underwent their second conversion, from anti-communist Cold Warriors to Islamophobic “Clashers of Civilizations” and crusaders in the “War on Terror.”

In September 2001, they got the “New Pearl Harbor” that they had been wishing for in a PNAC report a year before.[7]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/Rebuil...es.pdf Two dozens neoconservatives had by then been introduced by Dick Cheney into key positions, including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, David Wurmser at the State Department, and Philip Zelikow and Elliott Abrams at the National Security Council.

Abrams had written three years earlier that Diaspora Jews “are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart — except in Israel — from the rest of the population.”[8]Elliott Abrams, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 181. Perle, Feith and Wurmser had co-signed in 1996 a secret Israeli report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to break with the Oslo Accords of 1993 and reaffirm Israel’s right of preemption on Arab territories.

They also argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as “an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.” As Patrick Buchanan famously remarked, the 2003 Iraq war proves that the plan “has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States.”[9]Patrick J. Buchanan, “Whose War? A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest,” The American Conservative, March 24, 2003,

How these neocon artists managed to bully Secretary of State Colin Powell into submission is unclear, but, according to his biographer Karen DeYoung, Powell privately rallied against this “separate little government” composed of “Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, and Feith’s ‘Gestapo Office’.”[10]Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, Enigma Edition, 2008, p. 156. His chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, declared in 2006 on PBS that he had “participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council,”[11]http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.html and in 2011, he openly denounced the duplicity of neoconservatives such as Wurmser and Feith, whom he considered “card-carrying members of the Likud party.” “I often wondered,” he said, “if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel.”[12]Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal, op. cit., p. 120.

Something doesn’t quite ring true when neocons say “we Americans,” for example Paul Wolfowitz declaring: “Since September 11th, we Americans have one thing more in common with Israelis.”[13]April 11, 2002, quoted in Justin Raimondo, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection, iUniverse, 2003, p. 19.

The neocons’ capacity to deceive the American public by posturing as American rather than Israeli patriots required that their Jewishness be taboo, and Carl Bernstein, though a Jew himself, provoked a scandal by citing on national television the responsibility of “Jewish neocons” for the Iraq war.[14]April 26, 2013, on MSNBC, watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlatDWqh0o. But the fact that the destruction of Iraq was carried out on behalf of Israel is now widely accepted, thanks in particular to the 2007 book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Thomas appeared to hold her position and showed no regret for last year's comments after her dismissal:

"Why shouldn't I say it? I knew exactly what I was doing -- I was going for broke. I had reached the point of no return. You finally get fed up," Thomas said.

Thomas denied claims that she was anti-Jewish. "I think they're wonderful people. They had to have the most depth. They were leaders in civil rights. They've always had the heart for others but not for Arabs, for some reason. "

I'm not anti-Jewish; I'm anti-Zionist."  she explained. Her comment that Jews should go back to Poland and Germany meant "they should stay where they are because they're not being persecuted -- not since World War II... If they were, we sure would hear about it." Thomas added that Jews "carry on the victimization. American people do not know that the Israeli lobbyists have intimidated them into believing that every Jew is a persecuted victim forever -- while they are victimizing Palestinians."

The neocons have perfected this mask of fake American patriots promoting foreign policy profitable to MIC and, by extension, to Israel, and ultimately harmful for Americans

When asked whether she believed their was a secret Jewish conspiracy at work in the US, Thomas stated that it is "not a secret. It's very open... Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies, which are funded by wealthy supporters, including those from Hollywood. Same thing with the financial markets. There's total control."  ( Jerusalem Post, March 19, 2011)

Overview of studies  of the "Israel lobby

Philip Giraldi   is one of the most prolific author of this topic. Many of his articles were published at unz.com. He does not link Israel lobby with neoliberalism, though. And that's a weakness. But his article are rich of interesting facts of influence of Israel lobby on the US foreign policy and election process. Here are a couple of quotes from his Sep 4, 2018 article Israel's Fifth Column

Referring to Israel during an interview in August 1983, U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer said “I’ve never seen a President — I don’t care who he is — stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.”

... ... ...

If Admiral Moorer were still alive, I would have to tell him that the situation vis-à-vis Israeli power is much worse now than it was in 1983. He would be very interested in reading a remarkable bit of research recently completed by Smith demonstrating exactly how Israel and its friends work from inside the system to corrupt our political process and make the American government work in support of Jewish state interests. He describes in some detail how the Israel Lobby has been able to manipulate the law enforcement community to protect and promote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda.

A key component in the Israeli penetration of the US government has been President George W. Bush’s 2004 signing off on the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) within the Department of the Treasury. The group’s website proclaims that it is responsible for “safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats,” but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel’s perceived interests. Grant Smith notes however, how “the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons complex.”

... ... ...

The OTFI story is outrageous, but it is far from unique. There is a history of American Jews closely attached to Israel being promoted by powerful and cash rich domestic lobbies to act on behalf of the Jewish state. To be sure, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East and one can reasonably argue that the Republican and Democratic Parties are in the pockets of Jewish billionaires named Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.

Here is an information about previous research of Israel lobby in the USA which is extracted from  the  book Israel's Armor The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations)

Previous Studies of the “Israel Lobby”

This study is not the first on the Israel lobby, and it will not be the last, yet the subject is a difficult one and typically there is a price to pay for taking it on. Especially in the United States, critical studies of Israeli policy are certain to be targeted for condemnation. Studies of the lobby are even more susceptible to attack. Paradoxically, the condemnation of these works underscores both the intensity of the special relationship and the clout of the Israel lobby.

In the 1980s, critical studies of Israeli policy and substantive analysis of the role of the lobby began to emerge in the wake of Israel’s turn to the right with the electoral triumph of the Likud Party. The Camp David Accords (1978) led to a separate peace with Egypt, but failed to lead to a broader resolution of the Palestine conflict. A longtime proponent of annexing the biblical Israel, Prime Minister Menachem Begin accelerated the development of already proliferating Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories. In 1982, Israel also launched a punishing attack on Lebanon. By this time the lobby had grown powerful and multifaceted, with AIPAC as the spearhead. AIPAC boasted of ousting elected officials critical of Israel, a process book-ended by two chairmen of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), Sens. J. William Fulbright (D-AR), defeated in 1974, and Sen. Charles Percy (R-IL.), targeted by the lobby and defeated in 1984.¹²

In 1982, Seth Tillman, a former member of the SFRC staff, published a book arguing that “the powerful Israeli lobby” impeded efforts to pursue a Middle East diplomacy grounded in the national interest and dedicated to achieving settlement of the Palestine conflict. Fulbright wrote the foreword to the study. Another critic of US Middle East policy, Rep. Paul Findley (R-IL), who had been targeted by AIPAC and ousted in the 1982 congressional elections, condemned the lobby and lauded its critics in a book published in 1985, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby.¹³

More impactful than the early works on the lobby was the broadside delivered by the linguist turned foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky. In The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians, published in 1983, Chomsky condemned the United States and Israel for the destruction in Lebanon and the ongoing repression in Palestine. The MIT professor acknowledged the clout of the organized lobby, but argued that it was “far from the whole story” and that an excessive focus on it, “underestimates the scope of the ‘support for Israel’ in American life.” Chomsky explained that one-sided US policies backing Israel sprang from sources “far broader than the Jewish community,” including Christians, liberals, labor unions, the oil and gas industries, and a power elite that benefited from constructing Israel as an American “strategic asset.”¹⁴

Defenders of Israeli policy found Chomsky’s incendiary account difficult to refute and the book became a classic (the latest edition was released in 2015). While Chomsky offered a broad indictment of US and Israeli policies, other works homed in on the Israel lobby. In 1986, political scientist Cheryl A. Rubenberg published a book with a nearly 50-page chapter arguing that pro-Israel advocacy had achieved “a virtual stranglehold” over US Middle East policy. As with Chomsky, critics condemned Rubenberg for her “polemical tone” and alleged animus toward Israel – a familiar refrain.¹⁵

In 1987, Edward Tivnan secured a major mainstream publisher for his journalistic assessment of the lobby and its influence. Whereas a capsule review in Foreign Affairs concluded that Tivnan’s “research is sound and his tone temperate, but somber,” a reviewer in Commentary, the magazine of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), declared Tivnan’s account was “so fevered, so riddled with errors of both methodology and substance, so driven by animus, as to render his book useless except to those similarly tormented.” In the Los Angeles Times, political scientist Steven Spiegel likewise condemned the book as a “snide, sometimes bitter, largely trivial and even boring account of the role of the American Jewish community’s efforts on behalf of Israel.” Two years previously Spiegel had published his own book on US relations with Israel, which had downplayed the role of the lobby.¹⁶

In a book coauthored with his son in 1992, veteran DOS diplomat George Ball invoked President George Washington, who had warned in his farewell address in 1796 about the pitfalls of developing a “passionate attachment” for any foreign nation. The first president was referring to revolutionary France, but the Balls were targeting Israel and the lobby in a substantive study published by a major mainstream press. They warned that the “passionate attachment” to Israel had produced a morally as well as financially irresponsible foreign policy divorced from the realities of the Middle East conflict. Despite George Ball’s celebrated sagacity for having advised Johnson against escalation of the Indochina War in the mid-1960s, The Passionate Attachment was widely ignored.¹⁷

The same was not true, however, of another coauthored and now famous – or, to some, infamous – book: The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Published by a mainstream popular press, The Israel Lobby ignited a vitriolic response from Israel’s defenders. The book and its authors – two highly accomplished political science professors from distinguished institutions, the University of Chicago (Mearsheimer) and Harvard (Walt) – became a national if not international cause célèbre. Never before was the Israel lobby so widely discussed, nor chroniclers of its influence so bitterly condemned.

The Mearsheimer–Walt thesis was clearly stated, bolstered by evidence, and forcefully driven home in the book. “Today,” they argued,

America’s intimate embrace of Israel – and especially its willingness to subsidize it no matter what its policies are – is not making Americans safer or more prosperous. To the contrary: unconditional support for Israel is undermining relations with other US allies, casting doubt on America’s wisdom and moral vision, helping inspire a generation of anti-American extremists, and complicating US efforts to deal with a volatile but vital region.

They added, “We believe the activities of the groups and individuals who make up the lobby are the main reason why the United States pursues policies in the Middle East that make little sense on either strategic or moral grounds.”¹⁸

Pro-Israeli public officials, academics, journalists, and pundits tore into the book, setting the tone for a campaign of discrediting the study as simply an anti-Israel, if not anti-Jewish, diatribe, rather than an analysis of one of the most powerful lobbies in American politics. Writing in The New Republic, Jeffrey Goldberg equated Mearsheimer and Walt’s views of Israel with those of September 11 terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Most Jewish organizations harshly condemned the book, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which published its own book in rebuttal, entitled The Deadliest Lies. Former CIA Director James Woolsey discerned a “commitment to distorting the historical record,” while Israeli historian Benny Morris, whose work had been quoted in the book, found it “riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity.”¹⁹

^{... ... ...}

The brutal reaction to the Mearsheimer–Walt book doubtless exerted a chilling effect on scholarship on the lobby. The only major academic study produced since the controversy has been a richly detailed recent book on the origins and evolution of the lobby by Israeli scholar Natan Aridan. Advocating for Israel: Diplomats and Lobbyists from Truman to Nixon is especially useful for its exploitation of sources in Hebrew and its elucidation of disputes as well as cooperation between and among the Israeli government and the American lobby.²²

A nationalistic assessment – indeed, virtually a court history – Aridan’s book is the antidote to Mearsheimer and Walt, as it reflexively celebrates Israel and the lobby. Throughout the work Aridan castigates American diplomats and the Arab states for their alleged unprovoked hostility to Israel. The book thus reflects an orthodox school of interpretation of Israeli innocence in the Palestine conflict, thereby eliding two generations of post-Zionist scholarship. It also appears to aspire to deflect attention from the US lobby by emphasizing the primacy of Israeli hasbara (a Hebrew term for generating favorable propaganda for foreign audiences) in propelling Zionist advocacy.²³ As this study will show, Israeli hasbara played a crucial role, but key Israeli officials – notably the skilled diplomat Abba Eban – collaborated with the American lobby rather than creating or controlling it.

Originating in 2002, a growing counterlobby has emerged in Washington to challenge the Israel lobby. The Institute for Research: Middle East Policy (IRMEP) has amassed a substantial archive on the Israel lobby, offers polling data and policy analysis on the Middle East conflict, and hosts an annual conference in Washington that is televised by C-SPAN. The IRMEP conference features speakers critical of Israeli policies, and the lobby’s role in bolstering them, and is held on the eve of AIPAC’s signature annual conference in Washington. IRMEP’s full-time director Grant F. Smith has published a series of books analyzing the history and current activities of the Israel lobby.²⁴

Wikipedia article

Wikipedia article generally is not critical and is somewhat weak in the major analysis areas in comparison with the Mearsheimer–Walt book. But this is the most widely available article on this topic and as such is a very important public document, which at least outlines the  scope of the problem: 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Israel lobby (at times called the Zionist lobby) is the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and/or as groups, seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Israel or the policies of the government of Israel. The lobby consists of secular, Christian, and Jewish-American individuals and groups. The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a leading organization within the lobby, speaking on behalf of a coalition of American Jewish groups.

A Christian belief in the return of the Jews to the Holy Land has roots in the US, which pre-date both the establishment of the Zionist movement and the establishment of Israel. Lobbying by these groups, to influence the US government in ways similar to Zionist ideology, dates back to at least the 19th century.

In 1844, Christian restorationist George Bush, a professor of Hebrew at New York University and distantly related to the Bush political family, published a book entitled The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived.^[1] In it he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for “elevating” the Jews “to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth” by restoring the Jews to the land of Israel where the bulk would be converted to Christianity.^[2] This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a “link of communication” between humanity and God. “It will blaze in notoriety...". “It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth.”^[3] The book sold about a million copies in the antebellum period.^[4] The Blackstone Memorial of 1891 was also a significant Christian Restorationist petition effort, led by William Eugene Blackstone, to persuade President Benjamin Harrison to pressure the Ottoman Sultan for the delivery of Palestine to the Jews.^[5][6]

Starting in 1914, the involvement of Louis Brandeis and his brand of American Zionism made Jewish Zionism a force on the American scene for the first time, under his leadership it had increased ten-fold to about 200,000.^[7] As chair of the American Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, Brandeis raised millions of dollars to relieve Jewish suffering in war-torn Europe, and from that time “became the financial center for the world Zionist movement.”^[8] The British Balfour Declaration of 1917 additionally advanced the Zionist movement and gave it official legitimacy. The US Congress passed the first joint resolution stating its support for a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people on September 21, 1922.^[9] The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations.

Zionist lobbying in the United States aided the creation of the State of Israel in 1947-48. The preparation of and voting for the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine which preceded the Israeli Declaration of Independence, was met with an outpouring of Jewish American support and advocacy in Washington.^[10] President Truman later noted, "The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen there before, but that the White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders — actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats — disturbed and annoyed me."^[11]

In the 1950s, the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs was created by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen. During the Eisenhower administration, Israel's concerns were not at the forefront. Other problems in the Middle East and USSR were paramount, and Israel's U.S. supporters were not as active as they had been. AZCPA formed a pro-Israel lobbying committee to counter rumors that the Eisenhower administration was going to investigate the American Zionist Council.^[12] AZCPA's Executive Committee decided to change their name from American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs to American Israel Public Affairs Committee.^[13]

The relationship between Israel and the government of the United States began with strong popular support for Israel and governmental reservations about the wisdom of creating a Jewish state; formal inter-government relations remained chilly until 1967.^[14] Before 1967, the government of the United States provided some aid but was generally neutral towards Israel.^[15] Since 1979, Israel has received the most foreign assistance. The roughly $3 billion in assistance to Israel comprises a small percentage of the roughly $3 trillion US budget.^[16]

AIPAC "has grown into a 100,000-member national grassroots movement" and claims that it is America's "pro-Israel lobby."^[17]

Structure

The pro-Israel lobby is composed of formal and informal components.

Informal lobby

Support for Israel is strong among American Christians of many denominations.^[18] Informal Christian support for Israel includes a broad range varieties support for Israel ranging from the programming and news coverage on the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Christian Television Network to the more informal support of the annual Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem.^[19]

Informal lobbying also includes the activities of Jewish groups. Some scholars view Jewish lobbying on behalf of Israel as one of many examples of a US ethnic group lobbying on behalf of an ethnic homeland,^[20] which has met with a degree of success largely because Israel is strongly supported by a far larger and more influential Christian movement that shares its goals.^[21] In a 2006 article in the London Review of Books, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote:

In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers' unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby's activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby's task even easier.^[22]

Bard defines the Jewish "informal lobby" as the indirect means through which "Jewish voting behavior and American public opinion" influence "U.S. Middle East policy".^[23] Bard describes the motivation underlying the informal lobby as follows:

"American Jews recognize the importance of support for Israel because of the dire consequences that could follow from the alternative. Despite the fact that Israel is often referred to now as the fourth most powerful country in the world, the perceived threat to Israel is not military defeat, it is annihilation. At the same time, American Jews are frightened of what might happen in the United States if they do not have political power."^[23]

Formal lobby

The formal component of the Israel lobby consists of organized lobby groups, political action committees (PACs), think tanks and media watchdog groups. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks all lobbies and PACs, describes the 'background' of those 'Pro-Israel' as, "A nationwide network of local political action committees, generally named after the region their donors come from, supplies much of the pro-Israel money in US politics. Additional funds also come from individuals who bundle contributions to candidates favored by the PACs. The donors' unified goal is to build stronger US-Israel relations and to support Israel in its negotiations and armed conflicts with its Arab neighbors."^[24]

According to Mitchell Bard, there are, three key formal lobbying groups:

• Christians United for Israel, the US "largest" pro-Israel lobby.^[25][26]
• The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which directly lobbies the United States Congress
• The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which "is the main contact between the Jewish community and the executive branch" of the US government.^[23]

Christians United for Israel give "every pro-Israel Christian and Christian church the opportunity to stand up and speak up for Israel." According to the group's founder and head, Pastor John Hagee, the members "ask the leadership of our government to stop putting pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem and the land of Israel."^[25]

In his 2006 book The Restoration of Israel: Christian Zionism in Religion, Literature, and Politics, sociologist Gerhard Falk describes the evangelical Christian groups that lobby on behalf of Israel as being so numerous that "it is not possible to list" them all, although many are linked via the National Association of Evangelicals.^[19] It is a "powerful religious lobby" that actively supports Israel in Washington.^[19]

According to the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Michelle Goldberg, "Evangelical Christians have substantial influence on US Middle East Policy, more so than some better-known names such as AIPAC."^[27]

According to Mitchell Bard, the two Jewish groups aim to present policy makers with unified and representative messages via the aggregation and filtering of the diversity of opinions held by smaller pro-Israel lobby groups and the wider American Jewish community.^[23] The diverse spectrum of opinions held by American Jewry is reflected in the many formal pro-Israel groups, and as such some analysts make a distinction within the Israel lobby between right-leaning and left-leaning groups. This diversity became more pronounced following Israel's acceptance of the Oslo Accords, which split "liberal universalists" and "hard-core Zionists --- the Orthodox community and right wing Jews".^[28] This division mirrored a similar split for and against the Oslo process in Israel, and led to a parallel rift within the pro-Israel lobby.^[29][30] During the 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama implicitly noted differences within the lobby in his comment that "there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says, 'unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, that you're anti-Israel,' and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel." Commentary Magazine, notes "It was an odd choice of words-Likud has not been Israel's governing party for more than three years-but what Obama clearly meant was that an American politician should not have to express fealty to the most hard-line ideas relating to Israel's security to be considered a supporter of Israel's."^[31]

US foreign policy scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, focusing almost exclusively on Jewish groups, define the core of the lobby to include AIPAC, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Anti-Defamation League and Christians United for Israel.^[32] Other key organizations which they state work to benefit Israel, in many cases by influencing US foreign policy, include the American Jewish Congress, the Zionist Organization of America, the Israel Policy Forum, the American Jewish Committee, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Americans for a Safe Israel, American Friends of Likud, Mercaz-USA, and Hadassah.^[33] Fifty-one of the largest and most important come together in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, whose self-described mission includes "forging diverse groups into a unified force for Israel's well-being" and working to "strengthen and foster the special US-Israel relationship"^[34]

Stephen Zunes, in a response to Mearsheimer and Walt, lists "Americans for Peace Now, the Tikkun Community, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Israel Policy Forum" as "pro-Israel" organizations that, unlike the right-leaning organizations focused on by Mearsheimer and Walt, are opposed to "the occupation, the settlements, the separation wall, and Washington's unconditional support for Israeli policies."^[35] These organizations, however, are not PACs and therefore, like AIPAC, are prohibited by campaign finance regulations from financially supporting political campaigns of candidates for federal office.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt state in their controversial bestseller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, that the tone of the right-leaning component of the Israel lobby results from the influence of the leaders of the two top lobby groups: AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. They go on to list, as right-leaning think tanks associated with the lobby, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Hudson Institute.^[36] They also state that the media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is part of the right-wing component of the lobby.^[36][36]

In The Case for Peace, Alan Dershowitz also of Harvard, argues that the most right-leaning pro-Israel groups in the United States are not Jews at all, but Evangelical Christians. Dershowitz cites "Stand for Israel, an organization devoted to mobilizing Evangelical Christian support for Israel" co-founded by "[f]ormer Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed."^[37] Although the rhetoric of most groups like Stand for Israel is similar to their Jewish-based counterparts, some individuals have based their support on specific biblical passages, thus they have been vulnerable to criticism from Israelis and US Jews for having "ulterior motives" such as the fulfillment of "prerequisite to the Second Coming" or having "better access for proselytizing among Jews."^[37][38]

In April 2008, J Street was established, describing itself as the only federal "pro-peace, pro-Israel" PAC. Its goal is to provide political and financial support to candidates for federal office from US citizens who believe a new direction in US policy will advance US interests in the Middle East and promote real peace and security for Israel. Founded by former President Bill Clinton advisor Jeremy Ben Ami and policy analyst Daniel Levy and supported by prominent Israeli politicians and high-ranking officers (see Letter of support from prominent Israeli leaders), J Street supports diplomatic solutions over military ones, including with Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialog over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors.^{[citation needed]}

Means of influence

As with all interest groups, it matters what they are asking for and when they are asking for it.-Stephen Walt

The means via which Israel lobby groups exert influence are similar to the means via which other similar lobbies, such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the AARP (formerly known as "American Association of Retired Persons"), exert influence. A number of commentators have asserted that the Israel lobby has undue or pervasive influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.^{[citation needed]} However, other commentators note that no similar volume of criticism exists concerning the NRA, AARP or other major political lobbies, and claim that much of this criticism is based on antisemitic notions of a Jewish conspiracy.^[40]

Voting power

According to Bard,^[23] "Jews have devoted themselves to politics with almost religious fervor." He cites that "Jews have the highest percentage voter turnout of any ethnic group" and that of the American Jewish population "roughly 94 percent live in thirteen key electoral college states" which alone "are worth enough electoral votes to elect the president. If you add the non-Jews shown by opinion polls to be as pro-Israel as Jews, it is clear Israel has the support of one of the largest veto groups in the country." Bard goes on to say that for United States congressmen "there are no benefits to candidates taking an openly anti-Israel stance and considerable costs in both loss of campaign contributions and votes from Jews and non-Jews alike."^[23]

"Most important fact about the Jewish vote in America", according to Jeffrey S. Helmreich of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "lies in the fact that it is a uniquely swayable bloc. [...] The issue of support for Israel [by a candidate] has proven capable of spurring a sizable portion of Jews to switch parties-in large enough numbers to tip the scales in national or statewide elections. Moreover, the "Israel swing vote" is especially open to political courtship because, unlike the interests of other minority groups, support for Israel has long been compatible with traditional Republican and Democratic agendas. ... On the other hand, being distinctively unsupportive of Israel can significantly hurt a candidate's chances."^[41][42]

Campaign donations

"Political campaign contributions", writes Mitchell Bard, "are also considered an important means of influence; typically, Jews have been major benefactors."

According to Bard, objective quantification that the impact of campaign contributions have on "legislative outcomes, particularly with regard to Israel-related issues" is difficult. This is because raw analysis of contributions statistics do not take into account "non-monetary factors" and whether or not "a candidate is pro-Israel because of receiving a contribution, or receives a donation as a result of taking a position in support of Israel."^[23]

Targeting

AIPAC does not give donations directly to candidates, but those who donate to AIPAC are often important political contributors in their own right. In addition, AIPAC helps connect donors with candidates, especially to the network of pro-Israel political action committees. AIPAC president Howard Friedman says "AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in-depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We even ask each candidate to author a 'position paper' on their views of the US-Israel relationship – so it's clear where they stand on the subject."^[43]

This process has become more targeted over time according to Bard, "In the past, Jewish contributions were less structured and targeted than other interest groups, but this has changed dramatically as Israel-related PACs have proliferated."^[23] Among politicians considered unfriendly to Israel who AIPAC has helped defeat include Cynthia McKinney, Paul Findley, Earl F. Hilliard, Pete McCloskey, Senators William Fulbright and Roger Jepsen, and Adlai Stevenson III in his campaign for governor of Illinois in 1982.^[44] The defeat of Charles H. Percy, Senator for Illinois until 1985, has been attributed to AIPAC-co-ordinated donations to his opponent after he supported the sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia. Donations included $1.1 million on anti-Percy advertising by Michael Goland, who was also a major contributor to AIPAC.^[44] Former executive director of AIPAC, Tom Dine, was quoted as saying, "All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians - those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire - got the message".^[45]

Financial figures

A summary of pro-Israel campaign donations for the period of 1990–2008 collected by Center for Responsive Politics indicates current totals and a general increase in proportional donations to the US Republican party since 1996.^[46] The Center for Responsive Politics' 1990–2006 data shows that "pro-Israel interests have contributed $56.8 million in individual, group and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990."^[47] In contrast, Arab-Americans and Muslim PACs contributed slightly less than $800,000 during the same (1990–2006) period.^[48] In 2006, 60% of the Democratic Party's fundraising and 25% of that for the Republican Party's fundraising came from Jewish-funded PACs. According to a Washington Post estimate, Democratic presidential candidates depend on Jewish sources for as much as 60% of money raised from private sources.^[49]

Education of politicians

According to Mitchell Bard, Israel lobbyists also educate politicians by

"taking them to Israel on study missions. Once officials have direct exposure to the country, its leaders, geography, and security dilemmas, they typically return more sympathetic to Israel. Politicians also sometimes travel to Israel specifically to demonstrate to the lobby their interest in Israel. Thus, for example, George W. Bush made his one and only trip to Israel before deciding to run for President in what was widely viewed as an effort to win pro-Israel voters' support."^[23]

Think tanks

Mearsheimer and Walt state that "pro-Israel figures have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks are all decidedly pro-Israel and include few, if any, critics of US support for the Jewish state."^[50]

In 2002, the Brookings Institution founded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, named after Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media proprietor, who donated $13 million toward its establishment.^[51] Saban has stated of himself, "I'm a one issue guy, and my issue is Israel",^[52] and was described by the New York Times as a "tireless cheerleader for Israel."^[52] The Centre is directed by AIPAC's former deputy director of research, Martin Indyk.

Frontline, an Indian current affairs magazine, asked rhetorically why the administration of George W Bush that seemed "so eager to please [Bush's] Gulf allies, particularly the Saudis, go out of its way to take the side of Ariel Sharon's Israel? Two public policy organizations give us a sense of an answer: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs."^[53] Frontline reported that "WINEP tended to toe the line of whatever party came to power in Israel" while "JINSA was the U.S. offshoot of the right-wing Likud Party."^[53] According to Frontline, JINSA had close ties to the administration of George W Bush in that it "draws from the most conservative hawks in the U.S. establishment for its board of directors"^[53] including Vice-President Richard Cheney, and Bush administration appointees John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Armitage and Elliott Abrams. Jason Vest, writing in The Nation,^[54] alleges that both JINSA and the Center for Security Policy thinktanks are "underwritten by far-right American Zionists" and that they both "effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East – a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action."

Media and public discourse

Stephen Zunes writes that "mainstream and conservative Jewish organizations have mobilized considerable lobbying resources, financial contributions from the Jewish community, and citizen pressure on the news media and other forums of public discourse in support of the Israeli government."^[35] Journalist Michael Massing writes that "Jewish organizations are quick to detect bias in the coverage of the Middle East, and quick to complain about it. That's especially true of late. As The Jewish Daily Forward observed in late April [2002], 'rooting out perceived anti-Israel bias in the media has become for many American Jews the most direct and emotional outlet for connecting with the conflict 6,000 miles away.'"^[55]

The Forward related how one individual felt:

"'There's a great frustration that American Jews want to do something,' said Ira Youdovin, executive vice president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. 'In 1947, some number would have enlisted in the Haganah, ' he said, referring to the pre-state Jewish armed force. 'There was a special American brigade. Nowadays you can't do that. The battle here is the hasbarah war,' Youdovin said, using a Hebrew term for public relations. 'We're winning, but we're very much concerned about the bad stuff.'"^[56]

Indicative of the diversity of opinion is a 2003 Boston Globe profile of the CAMERA media watchdog group in which Mark Jurkowitz observes: "To its supporters, CAMERA is figuratively - and perhaps literally - doing God's work, battling insidious anti-Israeli bias in the media. But its detractors see CAMERA as a myopic and vindictive special interest group trying to muscle its views into media coverage."^[57] A former spokesman for the Israeli Consulate in New York City said that the result of this lobbying of the media was: "Of course, a lot of self-censorship goes on. Journalists, editors, and politicians are going to think twice about criticizing Israel if they know they are going to get thousands of angry calls in a matter of hours. The Jewish lobby is good at orchestrating pressure."^[58]

In addition to traditional media, Israeli public relations on the internet also is targeted with software called the Megaphone desktop tool, which is designed and promoted by pro-Israel interest groups.^[59] Regarding the 'Megaphone', the Times Online reported in 2006 that the Israeli Foreign Ministry "ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages."^[60] According to a Jerusalem Post article on the 'Megaphone', Israel's Foreign Ministry was "urging supporters of Israel everywhere to become cyberspace soldiers 'in the new battleground for Israel's image.'"^[61] Christopher Williams wrote for The Register: "However it is used, Megaphone is effectively a high-tech exercise in ballot-stuffing. We're calling it lobbyware ."^[62]

College campuses

There are a number of organizations that focus on what could be called "pro-Israel activism" on college campuses. With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2001, these groups have been increasingly visible. In 2002, an umbrella organization, that includes many of these groups, known as the Israel on Campus Coalition was formed as a result of what they felt were "the worrisome rise in anti-Israel activities on college campuses across North America". The mission of the Israel on Campus Coalition is to "foster support for Israel" and "cultivate an Israel friendly university environment".^[63] Members of the Israel on Campus Coalition include the Zionist Organization of America, AIPAC, Americans for Peace Now, the Anti-defamation League, Kesher, the Union of Progressive Zionists (Ameinu and Meretz USA/Partners for Progressive Israel), and a number of other organizations. There has been at least one conflict among these groups, when the right wing Zionist Organization of America unsuccessfully attempted to remove the left wing Union of Progressive Zionists from the coalition when the latter group sponsored lectures by a group of former Israel Defense Forces soldiers who criticized the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.^[64]

However, there are some who feel that pro-Israel activism on college campuses can cross the line from advocacy to outright intimidation. One highly publicized accusation comes from former President Jimmy Carter, who complained of great difficulty in gaining access to a number of universities to discuss his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. In October 2007 about 300 academics under the name The Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University issued a statement calling for academic freedom from political pressure, in particular from groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel.^[65] In December 2007, student leaders who advocate pro-Israel films and groups on college campuses were eligible for being hired as "emissaries of the Jewish state" for their work and would receive up to $1000 a year for their efforts.^[66]

Coordination with Israeli officials

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, former chair of the Conference of Presidents, told an Israeli magazine in 1976, "The Presidents' Conference and its members have been instruments of official governmental Israeli policy. It was seen as our task to receive directions from government circles and to do our best no matter what to affect the Jewish community." Hymen Bookbinder, a high-ranking official of the American Jewish Committee, said "Unless something is terribly pressing, really critical or fundamental, you parrot Israel's line in order to retain American support. As American Jews, we don't go around saying Israel is wrong about its policies."^[67]

Bard writes that "by framing the issues in terms of the national interest, AIPAC can attract broader support than would ever be possible if it was perceived to represent only the interests of Israel. This does not mean AIPAC does not have a close relationship with Israeli officials, it does, albeit unofficially. Even so, the lobby some times comes into conflict with the Israeli government."^[23]

Responses to attacks on Israel and the Jews

Zunes writes that "assaults on critics of Israeli policies have been more successful in limiting open debate, but this gagging censorship effect stems more from ignorance and liberal guilt than from any all-powerful Israel lobby."^[35] He goes on to explain that while "some criticism of Israel really is rooted in anti-Semitism", it is his opinion that some members of the Israel lobby cross the line by labeling intellectually honest critics of Israel as antisemitic.^[35] Zunes argues that the mainstream and conservative Jewish organizations have "created a climate of intimidation against many who speak out for peace and human rights or who support the Palestinians' right of self-determination."^[35] Zunes has been on the receiving end of this criticism himself "As a result of my opposition to US support for the Israeli government's policies of occupation, colonization and repression, I have been deliberately misquoted, subjected to slander and libel, and falsely accused of being "anti-Semitic" and "supporting terrorism"; my children have been harassed and my university's administration has been bombarded with calls for my dismissal."^[35]

In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Jimmy Carter wrote that mainstream American politics does not give equal time to the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that this is due at least in part to AIPAC.^[83] George Soros pointed out that there are risks associated with what was in his opinion a suppression of debate:

"I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views."^[84]

In his book, The Deadliest Lies, Abraham Foxman referred to the notion that the pro-Israel lobby is trying to censor criticism of Israel as a "canard."^[85] Foxman writes that the Jewish community is capable of telling the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel "and the demonization, deligitization, and double standards employed against Israel that is either inherently anti-Semitic or generates an environment of anti-Semitism."^[85] Jonathan Rosenblum expressed similar thoughts: "Indeed, if there were an Israel lobby, and labeling all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic were its tactic, the steady drumbeat of criticism of Israel on elite campuses and in the elite press would be the clearest proof of its inefficacy."^[86]

Alan Dershowitz wrote that he welcomes "reasoned, contextual and comparative criticism of Israeli policies and actions."^[87] If one of the goals of the pro-Israel lobby was to censor criticism of Israel, Dershowitz writes, "it would prove that 'the Lobby' is a lot less powerful than the authors would have us believe."^[87] Dershowitz himself, claims to have written several critical pieces on specific Israeli policies.^{[citation needed]} Dershowitz disagrees with those who believe that the media is uncritical of Israel and cites the frequent New York Times editorials and even an editorial in The Jewish Daily Forward against some of Israel's more right of center policies as proof.^{[citation needed]} Dershowitz also denies that any significant, mainstream leader in the American Jewish community equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.^{[citation needed]}

Debates

Criticism of the term

According to William Safire, the term "Israel Lobby" came into use in the 1970s and, similar to the term "China lobby", carries "the pejorative connotation of manipulation."^[88] He also writes that supporters of Israel gauge the degree of perceived animus towards the Jewish State by the term chosen to refer to the lobby: "pro-Israel lobby" being used by those with the mildest opposition, followed by "Israel lobby", with the term "Jewish lobby" being employed by those with the most extreme anti-Israel opinions.^[88]

According to Walt and Mearsheimer, "Using the term 'Israel lobby' is itself somewhat misleading...One might more accurately dub this the 'pro-Israel community'..." since this is not the lobby of a foreign country, rather, it is composed of Americans.^[89][90] However, justifying their usage of the term, they write "because many of the key [pro-Israel] groups do lobby, and because the term 'Israel lobby' is used in common parlance (along with labels such as the 'farm lobby', 'insurance lobby', 'gun lobby' and other ethnic lobbies), we have chosen to employ it here."^[91]

Degree of influence

Progressive journalist John R. MacArthur writes

Given my dissident politics, I should be up in arms about the Israel lobby. Not only have I supported the civil rights of the Palestinians over the years, but two of my principal intellectual mentors were George W. Ball and Edward Said, both severe critics of Israel and its extra-special relationship with the United States.

Nowadays I ought to be even bolder in my critique, since the silent agreement suppressing candid discussions about Israeli-U.S. relations has recently been shaken by some decidedly mainstream figures. These critics of Israel and its American agents include John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, of the University of Chicago, and Harvard's Kennedy School, respectively; Tony Judt, a historian at New York University; and former President Jimmy Carter.

Somehow, though, I can't shake the idea that the Israel lobby, no matter how powerful, isn't all it is cracked up to be, particularly where it concerns the Bush administrations past and present. Indeed, when I think of pernicious foreign lobbies with disproportionate sway over American politics, I can't see past Saudi Arabia and its royal house, led by King Abdullah.^[92]

Mearsheimer and Walt have collected and quoted some of the lobbyists' comments on their organizations' political capital. For example, Mearsheimer and Walt quote Morris Amitay, former AIPAC director as saying, "It's almost politically suicidal ... for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government."^[93] They also quote a Michael Massing article in which a staffer^[who?] sympathetic to Israel said, "We can count on well over half the House – 250 to 300 members – to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants."^[94] Similarly they cite former AIPAC official Steven Rosen illustrating AIPAC's power for Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."^[95]

However, some U.S. government officials have stated that the Israel lobby is not so powerful that they control U.S. foreign policy. Former Secretary of State George Shultz stated "... the notion that U.S. policy on Israel and Middle East is the result of [the Israel lobby's] influence is simply wrong."^[96][97] Dennis B. Ross, former U.S. ambassador and chief peace negotiator in the Middle East under Bill Clinton, who is now an official at WINEP, wrote:

"never in the time that I led the American negotiations on the Middle East peace process did we take a step because 'the lobby' wanted us to. Nor did we shy away from one because 'the lobby' opposed it. That is not to say that AIPAC and others have no influence. They do. But they don't distort U.S. policy or undermine American interests."^[98]

Individual journalists each have their own opinions on how powerful the Israel lobby is. Glenn Frankel wrote: "On Capitol Hill the Israel lobby commands large majorities in both the House and Senate."^[99] Michael Lind produced a cover piece on the Israel lobby for the UK publication Prospect in 2002 which concluded, "The truth about America's Israel lobby is this: it is not all-powerful, but it is still far too powerful for the good of the U.S. and its alliances in the Middle East and elsewhere.".^[100] Tony Judt, writing in the New York Times, asked rhetorically, "Does the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course – that is one of its goals. [...] But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment."^[101]

Mitchell Bard has conducted a study which attempts to roughly quantify the influence of the Israel lobby on 782 policy decisions, over the period of 1945 to 1984, in order to move the debate on its influence away from simple anecdotes. He

"found the Israeli lobby won; that is, achieved its policy objective, 60 percent of the time. The most important variable was the president's position. When the president supported the lobby, it won 95 percent of the time. At first glance it appears the lobby was only successful because its objectives coincided with those of the president, but the lobby's influence was demonstrated by the fact that it still won 27 percent of the cases when the president opposed its position."^[23]

According to a public opinion poll by Zogby International of 1,036 likely voters from October 10–12, 2006, 40% of American voters at least somewhat believe the Israel lobby has been a key factor in going to war in Iraq. The following poll question was used: "Question: Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that the work of the Israel lobby on Congress and the Bush administration has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq and now confronting Iran?"^[102]

In March 2009, Charles W. Freeman, Jr., criticized the lobby after withdrawing his candidacy for the chair of the National Intelligence Council.^[103][104] Freeman said, "The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired .... The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency .... The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process ...."^[105] Members of Congress denied that the Israel lobby had a significant role in their opposition to Freeman's appointment; they cite Freeman's ties with the Saudi and Chinese governments, objections to certain statements made about the Palestinian territories and his lack of experience as the reasons for their opposition.^[106][107]

Comparison to other lobbies

The closest comparison is probably to other ethnic-group based lobbies that attempt to influence American foreign policy decisions such as the Cuban-American lobby, the African-American lobby in foreign policy and the Armenian American lobby, although the lobby has also been compared to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the lobby for the Pharmaceutical industry.^[108][109] In comparing the Israel Lobby to the NRA, Glenn Frankel concludes that "Nevertheless, the Israel lobby, and AIPAC in particular, gained a reputation as the National Rifle Association of foreign policy: a hard-edged, pugnacious bunch that took names and kept score. But in some ways it was even stronger. The NRA's support was largely confined to right-wing Republicans and rural Democrats. But AIPAC made inroads in both parties and both ends of the ideological spectrum."^[99]

Zunes describes that some groups who lobby against current U.S. policy on Israel "have accepted funding from autocratic Arab regimes, thereby damaging their credibility" while others have "taken hard-line positions that not only oppose the Israeli occupation but challenge Israel's very right to exist and are therefore not taken seriously by most policymakers."^[35] Zunes writes that many lobbying groups on the left, such as Peace Action, are "more prone to complain about the power of the Israel lobby and its affiliated PACs than to do serious lobbying on this issue or condition its own PAC contributions on support for a more moderate U.S. policy" in the region.^[35] Noam Chomsky, political activist and professor of linguistics at MIT, writes that "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races."^[110]

However, while comparing the Israel Lobby with the Arab Lobby, Mitchell Bard notes that "From the beginning, the Arab lobby has faced not only a disadvantage in electoral politics but also in organization. There are several politically oriented groups, but many of these are one man operations with little financial or popular support."^[111] The Arab American Institute is involved in supporting Arab-American political candidates, but, according to award-winning journalist Ray Hanania "it's nothing compared to the funds that AIPAC raises not just for Jewish American congressmen, but for congressmen who support Israel."^[112] Furthermore, Arab American lobbies face a problem of motivation; Jewish Americans feel the need to support their homeland (as well as other states in the Middle East who have signed peace treaties with Israel) in active, organized ways. Arab Americans do not appear to have a similar motivation when it comes to their own homelands.^[113]

Israel and U.S. interests

Friendly relations between Israel and the U.S. has been and continues to be a tenet of both American and Israeli foreign policy. Israel receives bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that U.S. and Israel share common "economic, political, strategic, and diplomatic concerns" and that the countries exchange "intelligence and military information" and cooperate in an effort to halt international terrorism and illegal drug trade.^[114] Furthermore, a majority of American citizens view Israel favorably.^[115]

In 2011, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a think tank founded by "a small group of visionary Americans committed to advancing U.S. interests in the Middle East") argued that the U.S.-Israel relationship is "A Strategic Asset for the United States."^[116][117] In discussing their report, Walter B. Slocombe said that while in the popular imagination, the U.S.-Israel relationship is only good for Israel, Israel provides enormous assistance to the United States, including military expertise which has saved American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Robert D. Blackwill countered the claim that the U.S.-Israel relationship significantly damages the relationship between the United States and the Arab world. He asked rhetorically:

"Would Saudi Arabia's policies toward the United States be markedly different in practice if Washington entered into a sustained crisis with Israel over the Palestine issue during which the bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel went into steep, systemic decline? In that instance, would Riyadh lower the price of oil? Would it stop hedging its regional bets concerning U.S. attempts to coerce Iran into freezing its nuclear weapons program? Would it regard U.S. policy toward Afghanistan any less critically? Would it view American democracy promotion in the Middle East more favorably? Would it be more inclined to reform its internal governmental processes to be more in line with U.S. preferences? Walt [Slocombe] and I judge the answer to all these questions [to be] 'No.'"^[117]

When asked how this report could so flatly contradict the Walt and Mearsheimer thesis, Slocombe responded, "There is so much error in the world," and added, "I think it would be interesting to ask them whether they make the same contrary argument about the other countries to whom we also provide something like this kind of support. There are obviously differences, but the principle is the same."^[117]

The Israel Project noted in 2009 that "when you're talking to Americans, you need to know that when you don't support a two-state solution you risk having a major public relations challenge in America and Europe."^[118]

In a 2008 editorial, Israeli-American historian and author Michael B. Oren wrote that Israel and the United States are natural allies, despite what the opposition from "much of American academia and influential segments of the media." Oren claimed this was because Israel and the United States shared similar values such as "respect for civic rights and the rule of law" and democracy. Israel and the United States share military intelligence in order to fight terrorism.^[119] Oren also noted that "more than 70% of [Americans], according to recent polls, favor robust ties with the Jewish state."^[119]

In his 2007 review of Mearsheimer and Walt's book, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:

"Forty years of polling has consistently shown that Americans support Israel in its conflict with the Arabs. ... Both Israel and America were founded by refugees from European religious intolerance; both are rooted in a common religious tradition; Israel is a lively democracy in a part of the world that lacks democracy; Israelis seem self-reliant in the manner of American pioneers; and Israel's enemies, in many cases, seem to be America's enemies as well."^[120]

Israeli academic and political activist Jeff Halper said that "Israel is able to pursue its occupation only because of its willingness to serve Western (mainly U.S.) imperial interests" and that rather than influencing the United States via the lobby, Israel is actually "a handmaiden of American Empire."^[35] According to political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, though, "the combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security." They alleged that while "one might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives....neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel."^[121] Robert Satloff cited the events of May–June 2010 (in which Israel stopped a flotilla meant to break its blockade of the Gaza Strip and yet, a few days later, every country expected to vote U.N. sanctions against Iran ended up voting as the U.S. wanted them to) as a counter-example that disproved that point of view.^[122] Goldberg similarly cited the Arab Spring to counter Walt and Mearsheimer's point:

"It seems as if the Arab masses have been much less upset about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians than they have been about their own treatment at the hands of their unelected leaders. If Israel ceased to exist tomorrow, Arabs would still be upset at the quality of their leadership (and they would still blame the United States for supporting the autocrats who make them miserable); Iran would still continue its drive to expunge American influence from the Middle East; and al Qaeda would still seek to murder Americans and other Westerners."^[123]

In 2006 former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter published "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change" (ISBN 978-1-56025-936-7). In his book he stated that certain Israelis and pro-Israel elements in the United States were trying to push the Bush administration into war with Iran.^[124] He also accuses the U.S. pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and outright espionage (see Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal).^[125]

Media coverage of lobby

American journalist Michael Massing argues that there is a lack of media coverage on the Israel lobby and posits this explanation: "Why the blackout? For one thing, reporting on these groups is not easy. AIPAC's power makes potential sources reluctant to discuss the organization on the record, and employees who leave it usually sign pledges of silence. AIPAC officials themselves rarely give interviews, and the organization even resists divulging its board of directors."^[55] Massing writes that in addition to AIPAC's efforts to maintain a low profile, "journalists, meanwhile, are often loath to write about the influence of organized Jewry. [...] In the end, though, the main obstacle to covering these groups is fear."^[55] Steven Rosen, a former director of foreign-policy issues for AIPAC, explained to Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker that "a lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."^[126]

According to Gal Beckerman there are many individual pro-Israel op-ed columnists, but the argument that the media as a whole is part of the Israel lobby cannot be concluded from Mearsheimer and Walt's cherry picked evidence:

"Walt and Mearsheimer undermine our intelligence by assuming that we are simply being manipulated.... If the lobby is so influential over the media, how were Walt and Mearsheimer given such space in every major news outlet in the country to express their 'dangerous' views? You want to tell me that a force that can impel us to got [sic] to war in Iraq can't find a way to censor two academics? Not much of a lobby, now is it?"^[127]

Writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, Beckerman cites examples of op-eds critical of Israel from several major U.S. newspapers and concludes that an equally compelling argument could be made that the Israel lobby doesn't control the media. Itamar Rabinovich, writing for the Brookings Institution, wrote, "The truth of the matter is that, insofar as the lobby ever tries to intimidate and silence, the effort usually causes more damage than it redresses. In any event, the power of the lobby to do that is very modest."^[128]

On The Diane Rehm Show (December 11, 2006), Middle East experts Hisham Melhem, Lebanese journalist and Washington Bureau Chief for Al-Arabia, and Dennis Ross, a Jewish-American diplomat working as counselor Washington Institute for Near East Policy, when asked about the pervasive Israeli influence on American foreign policy in the Middle East mentioned in former President Jimmy Carter's 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid said: [H. Melhem] "When it comes to Israel [discussing Israeli and/or Jewish American issues], it is still almost a taboo in certain parts, not everywhere...there are certain things that cannot be said about the Israeli government or America's relationship with Israel or about the Israeli lobby. Yes there is, excuse me, there is an Israeli lobby, but when we say an Israeli lobby we are not talking about a Jewish cabal. The Israeli lobby operates the way the NRA operates, a system of rewards and punishment, you help your friends by money, by advocacy and everything, and sometimes they pool money in to the campaigns of those people that they see as friendly to Israel. This is the American game".^[129] (radio interview: ≈16:30-20:05)

Trump as the President fully controlled by Jewish lobby

Under Trump, the Israel lobby is a Hydra with many heads

The Trump administration's recent steps in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should surely lay to rest any doubts about the enormous, and dangerous, power of the Israel lobby in Washington. Under Trump, the lobby has shown it can wield unprecedented influence – even by its usual standards – in flagrant disregard for all apparent US interests.

First, there was the move this month of the US embassy to Jerusalem, not quietly but on the 70th anniversary of the most sensitive day in the Palestinian calendar, Nakba Day. That is when Palestinians commemorate their mass expulsion from their homeland in 1948. By relocating the embassy, Trump gave official US blessing to tearing up the 25-year-old peace process – and in choosing Nakba Day for the move, he rubbed the noses of Palestinians, and by extension the Arab world, in their defeat.

Then, the White House compounded the offence by lauding Israeli snipers who massacred dozens of unarmed Palestinians protesting at the perimeter fence around Gaza the same day. A series of statements issued by the White House could have been written by Israel's far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself.

At the United Nations, the US blocked a Security Council resolution calling for the massacre to be investigated, while Nikki Haley, Trump's UN envoy, observed to fellow delegates: "No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has."

None of these moves served any obvious US national interest, nor did Trump's decision the previous week to tear up the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that has long been reviled by the Israeli government. In fact, quite the contrary: These actions risk inflaming tensions to the point of a regional war that could quickly drag in the major powers, or provoke terror attacks on US soil.

It should be recalled that two decades ago, it was impossible even to mention the existence of an Israel lobby in Washington without being labelled an anti-Semite. Paradoxically, Israel's supporters exercised the very power they denied existed, bullying critics into submission by insisting that any talk of an Israel lobby relied on anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish power.

The wall of silence was broken only with the publication in 2006 of a seminal essay – later turned into a book – by two prominent US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. But in a sign of the immense weight of the lobby even as it was being dragged into the light, the pair were unable to find a publisher in the US. Instead, the essay found a home across the Atlantic in the prestigious, if obscure, London Review of Books. One of the pair, Stephen Walt, has publicly admitted that his career suffered as a result. Since then, a little leeway has opened up on the subject. Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a staunch advocate for Israel, has conceded the lobby's existence. In 2011, he explained a well-established, if astounding, ritual of US politics: that the Congress greets every visiting Israeli prime minister more rapturously than the American president himself.

Friedman observed: "I sure hope that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Friedman was alluding to the network of Jewish leadership organisations and political action committees in the US, all of them hawkishly pro-Israel, that at election time can channel large sums of money for or against Congressional candidates.

It is not that these pro-Israel organisations control the Congress. It is that they have mastered the techniques of political intimidation. They understand and exploit a flawed American system that has allowed lobbies and their money to dictate the agendas of most US lawmakers. Congresspeople are vulnerable as individuals – not only to the loss of donations, but to a generously funded opponent.

In Trump's case, the follow-the-money principle could not have been clearer. In the early stages of his battle to become the Republican party candidate for president, when most assumed he stood no chance and he was funding the campaign himself, he was relatively critical of Israel. Hard as it is to believe now, he promised to be "neutral" on the Israel-Palestine issue; expressed doubts about whether it made sense to hand Israel billions of dollars annually in military aid; backed a two-state solution; and refused to commit to recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

All of that got ditched the moment he needed big funders for his presidential bid. The kingmaker in the Republican party is Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire and champion of the kind of Israeli ultra-nationalist, anti-Arab politics in which Netanyahu excels. Adelson likes Netanyahu so much he even bought him a newspaper, Israel Hayom, which Adelson has grown into the largest-circulation daily in Israel.

In the end, Adelson backed Trump's election campaign to the tune of $35m. It was the need for Adelson's support that ensured Trump appointed David Friedman, a long-time benefactor of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, in the supposedly non-partisan position of US ambassador to Israel. And it was Adelson who was among the honoured guests at the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem this month.

Those who accuse anyone raising the issue of the Israel lobby of anti-Semitism either misunderstand or intentionally misrepresent what is being claimed.

No one apart from easily identifiable Jew haters is updating the century-old Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious forgery by supporters of the Russian czar supposedly proving that "the Jews" sought world domination through control of the banks and the media. For starters, the argument for the existence of an Israel lobby does not refer to Jews at all. It is about a country, Israel, and its outsize influence over the policies of the US.

Other countries or groups of US citizens try to exercise such influence, either through similar lobbies or through subterfuge.

No one would deny there is a Cuba lobby that helped influence US policy in seeking to oust revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. And most US lawmakers are currently frothing at the mouth about what they see as covert Russian efforts to influence US politics to Moscow's advantage.

Why would we expect Israel to be any different? The question isn't whether the lobby exists, but why the US political system is doing nothing to protect itself from its interference.

Rather than exposing and confronting the Israel lobby, however, US presidents have more typically bent to its will. That was only too obvious, for example, when Barack Obama folded in his early battle with Netanyahu to limit the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

But under Trump, the Israel lobby has come to exercise unrivalled power, because it is now far more than just one lobby. It is a five-headed Hydra worthy of Greek mythology, and only one of its heads relates directly to Israel or organised American Jewry.

In fact, the lobby's power now derives not chiefly from Israel. Since Trump's election, the Israel lobby has managed to absorb and mobilise an additional four powerful lobbies – and to a degree not seen before. They are: the Christian evangelicals, the alt-right, the military-industrial complex, and the Saudi Arabia lobby.

Domestically, Trump's election victory depended on his ability to rally to his side two groups that are profoundly committed to Israel, even though they are largely indifferent, or actively hostile, to the Jews who live there.

Leaders of the US alt-right – a loose coalition of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups – are infatuated with Israel but typically dislike Jews. That sentiment has been encapsulated by alt-right leader Richard Spencer, who describes himself as a "white Zionist".

In short, the alt-right treasures Israel because it has preserved a long-discredited model of a fortress-like, belligerent racial homeland. They want the US reserved exclusively for an imagined "white" community, just as Israel defines itself as representing an exclusive Jewish community.

Trump's reliance on the alt-right vote was highlighted by the early appointment to his administration of several leading figures associated with the movement, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Michael Flynn, Julia Hahn and Sebastian Gorka.

But more significant still has been the role of evangelicals. That is why Mike Pence, a devout Christian, was chosen as Trump's running mate. Trump's team understood that the votes of tens of millions of Americans were assured if Trump pandered to their prejudices.

And happily for Netanyahu, their keenest prejudice is fanatical support for Israel – and not just for Israel inside its internationally recognised borders, but also for Greater Israel, which includes many dozens of illegal Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land.

The Christian Zionists believe that Jews must be corralled into their biblical homeland to fulfil divine prophecy and bring about the Second Coming of the Messiah.

It was primarily for the sake of these Christian Zionists that Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. And it was why two evangelical pastors with a history of anti-Semitic remarks, John Hagee and Robert Jeffress, were called on to offer their blessings at the opening ceremony.

Trump's indebtedness to the evangelicals is one reason to be worried about his policies in the region. The Christian Zionists have no interest in fairness, justice or international law. Rather, they are prepared to inflame tensions in the Middle East – and even trigger Armageddon itself – if they think it might benefit Israel and further God's prophecy.

The military-industrial complex has enjoyed a much longer, if more veiled, influence on US politics. A former US army general who became president, Dwight Eisenhower, warned of the looming threat posed by an increasingly dominant corporate sector dependent on war profits back in 1961.

Since then, the power of these corporations has accreted and expanded in precisely the ways Eisenhower feared. And that has only helped Israel.

In the early 1980s, Noam Chomsky, the dissident US intellectual, observed in his book The Fateful Triangle that Israel and the US had different conceptions of the Middle East.

The US was then what Chomsky termed a "status quo power" that was mostly interested in preserving the existing regional order. Israel, on the other hand, was committed to destabilisation of the region – its Balkanisation – as a strategy to extend its hegemony over feuding, internally divided neighbouring states.

Today, it is not hard to see which vision of the Middle East prevailed. The US-headquartered war industries lobbied for – and have profited enormously from – an endless, global "war on terror" that needs their expensive killing toys. The West has even been able to market its wars of aggression against other sovereign states as "humanitarian" in nature.

The benefits to the military industries can be gauged by examining the ever-surging profits of large US arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon over the past decade.

Israel has not only benefited from the sanctioning and dismemberment of regional rivals, such as Syria, Iraq and Iran, but it has exploited the opportunity to make itself indispensable to these war-profiting industries.

It has, for example, been the linchpin in developing and refining new ways to exploit the cultivation of fear – most significantly, the ever-expanding "homeland security" industry.

Using the occupied Palestinian territories for experimentation, Israel has specialised in developing surveillance and biometric technologies, lethal and non-lethal crowd control methods, complex incarceration systems, psychological profiling of subjugated populations, and highly dubious redefinitions of international law to lift existing restraints on war crimes and wars of aggression.

That has proved invaluable to the military industries that have sought to profit from new wars and occupations across the Middle East. But it has also meant Israel's expertise is much sought-after by US political and security elites who wish to pacify and control restless domestic populations.

Israel's encouragement of the Middle East's destabilisation has raised new threats in the US – of protest, immigration and terrorism – for which Israel has then supplied readymade solutions.

Israel has helped to rationalise the militarisation of police forces in the US and elsewhere, and provided the training. It has also gradually introduced to the US and other Western countries the kind of racial and political profiling that has long been standard in Israel.

That is the reason why Israeli academic Jeff Halper has warned of the danger that the "war on terror" could ultimately turn all of us into Palestinians.

But perhaps the most significant additional boost to Israel's power in Washington has been its newfound and barely concealed alliance with Saudi Arabia.

For decades, the oil lobby in the US was seen as a counterweight to the Israel lobby. That was why Israel's supporters traditionally reviled the US State Department, which was viewed as an Arabist outpost.

No longer. Trump, ever the businessman, has cultivated even stronger ties to the Saudis, hoping that arms and technology sales will revive the US economy and his political fortunes.

During a visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to the US in March, Trump noted: "Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they're going to give the United States some of that wealth hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world."

But Washington's close ties to the Saudis are increasingly a boon to Israel rather than an impediment. The two have found common cause in their feverish opposition to Iran, and its Shia allies in Syria and Lebanon, and their determination to prevent them from gaining more power in the region.

Israel wants a military hegemony over the Middle East that Iran could undermine, while Riyadh needs an ideological and financial hegemony that Iran might be able to disrupt.

And the Palestinians – the only issue that continues formally to divide Israel and Saudi Arabia – are increasingly viewed by bin Salman as a chess piece he is ready to sacrifice in exchange for Iran's destruction.

Trump tore up the nuclear accord agreed by Obama with Iran with such incendiary abandon this month because his two Middle East allies jointly demanded he do so.

And the indications are that he may do worse – even attacking Iran – if the pressure from Israel and the Saudis reaches a critical mass.

All of these various lobbies have long wielded significant power in Washington, but remained largely separate. In recent years, their interests have come to overlap considerably, making Israel ever more unassailable in US politics.

Under Trump, their agendas have aligned so completely that this multi-headed lobby has as good as collectively captured the presidency on matters that concern it most.

That is not to say that the Israel lobby will not face future challenges. Other pressures are emerging in reaction to the unaccountable power of the Israel lobby, including progressive voices in US politics that are, for the first time, breaking with the long-standing bipartisan nature of the debate about Israel.

Bernie Sanders's unexpected surge in the Democratic nomination race for the presidency, the rise of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, the growing alienation of young US Jews from Israel, and the US public's ever-greater exposure on social media to Israel's crimes are signs of trends it will be difficult for Israel to counter or reverse.

Israel is getting its way at the moment. But hubris is a fault we have been warned about since the time of the ancient Greeks. Israel may yet come to learn a little humility – the hard way.

Israel lobby, Israel-US

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[Jul 19, 2021] Many top Biden appointees are engaged Jews by Jacob Kornbluh

Jewish ancestry means little. Supporting Zionism as a political ideology means a lot. It is not clear from the article who among listed supports it. Definitly not everybody.

Jul 19, 2021 | forward.com

As President-elect Joe Biden announced his picks for the Cabinet, the joke went around on Jewish Twitter that the West Wing would have a minyan.

Indeed, at least 10 prominent Jews have been nominated to key positions. There's Ronald Klain (chief of staff); Anthony Blinken (Secretary of State); Janet Yellen (Treasury); Merrick Garland (Attorney General); Alejandro Mayorkas (Homeland Security);and Avril Haines (Director of National Intelligence). One level down are Wendy Sherman (deputy Secretary of State); Eric Lander (science and technology adviser); Ann Neuberger (deputy National Security Adviser); and David Cohen (deputy CIA director).

Plus there's Doug Emhoff, the Jewish husband of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

It's a "remarkable statement about the place of Jews in this society," said Jason Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee's chief policy and political affairs officer in Washington. Amid the rise in antisemitism and its role underpinning the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, Isaacson added, the fact that so many well-known and engaged Jews will serve in the highest levels of the administration "and no one talks about that and it's not an issue, that says a lot about how far American society has progressed."

After Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, most of these individuals will have to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Here's a who's who guide to the West Wing minyan-to-be:

... ... ...

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[Jun 06, 2021] Former British Minister- 'Israelis Think They Control the Foreign Office. And They do!' Consortiumnews

Jun 06, 2021 | consortiumnews.com

Former British Minister: 'Israelis Think They Control the Foreign Office. And They do!' June 4, 2021 Save

Matt Kennard reports on revelations of Israeli state influence on U.K. politics in Alan Duncan's recently published diaries.

July 14, 2016: Boris Johnson, while serving as foreign secretary, speaking to the media in London. (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

By Matt Kennard
Declassified UK

F rom revelations about Israeli efforts to "destroy" him, to attempts by a powerful pro-Israel lobby group to stop him becoming a minister for the Middle East, Sir Alan Duncan saw up close the power of the Israeli state in British politics during his time at the heart of the U.K. government.

Duncan served as British foreign minister from 2016-19, having previously held the international development brief. His new book, In The Thick Of It , reveals much about U.K. government policy that has been missed by the British press and broadcasters.

At the beginning of 2017, media outlet Al Jazeera contacted Duncan to inform him about its undercover investigation into Israeli influence in U.K. politics, which included revelations related to him personally.

Duncan wrote in his diary that Al Jazeera "has footage of diplomats from the Israeli embassy in London collaborating with MPs from both Labour and Conservatives on Israel." He said this included Shai Masot, a diplomat from the Israeli embassy "calling for them to destroy the 'Deputy Foreign Minister' (i.e. me), so that he never becomes Foreign Secretary."

Duncan added: "They say that if [then foreign secretary] Boris [Johnson] were to be sacked, I'd take over and so both such moments have to be stopped."

Days later, Duncan went to the Foreign Office to brief Simon McDonald, who was then running the department, on the revelations.

Duncan wrote: "I teasingly remind him of what happened and what I said to him on my first day as minister. 'Simon didn't I tell you? The CFI and the Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!'"

The CFI is Conservative Friends of Israel, a powerful Westminster lobby group that does not disclose its funders but has claimed 80 percent of Conservative MPs are members.

Oct. 31, 2012: Alan Duncan, while serving as minister of state for international development. (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

'They Shouldn't Behave Like This'

On the same day, Duncan spoke on the phone to Mark Regev, then Israel's ambassador to Britain. According to Duncan, Regev told him Masot is a "local hire, works in a junior capacity and does not have diplomatic status."

"It's all total bollocks," Duncan wrote. "Masot is a First or Second Secretary, a member of military intelligence, employed specifically as a parliamentary and undercover propagandist."

He continued: "What on earth is the point of Regev stating something that is so blatantly untrue, and about which we both hold the facts? What a muppet."

Duncan then briefed Boris Johnson who was "indignant".

"'They shouldn't behave like this,' [Johnson] exclaimed, though I'd told him a million times that they do."

Duncan confided that he withheld some information from Johnson: "The Al Jazeera tapes essentially say that I run the [Foreign Office], BoJo is an idiot, I take the serious decisions, and if anything happens to Boris I will become Foreign Secretary and so I must be destroyed. It's a poor reading of the facts – indeed, it's balls – but it gives a useful insight into Israel's mentality."

The Al Jazeera documentary also uncovered the degree of Israeli state influence over the opposition Labour Party.

In a conversation filmed outside a London pub, Michael Rubin, the parliamentary officer for Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), which counts dozens of Labour MPs as either "officers" or "supporters," revealed the close links between the group and the Israeli embassy in London.

Rubin said that he and Shai Masot "work really closely together but a lot of it is behind the scenes." He added that "the [Israeli] embassy helps us quite a lot. When bad stories come out about Israel, the embassy sends us information so that we can counter it."

Mark Regev in 2018. (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Aware of these revelations, Duncan talked with Emily Thornberry, then shadow foreign secretary, to see if Labour intended to table an urgent question in parliament on the matter.

"They won't because it would risk stirring up more anti-Semitism accusations against them," Duncan reported, referring to the long-running "anti-Semitism crisis" that rocked the Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The LFI faced no action from Labour in the aftermath of the Al Jazeera program.

'Entrenched Espionage'

Before hard evidence emerged of Israeli efforts to "destroy" him, Duncan had already been targeted by the CFI to stop him being promoted within the British government.

On July 16, 2016, Duncan wrote: "All seems clear and agreed that I will be Minister for the Middle East, as expected. Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald called to say it's all been agreed and he would recommend it to the Foreign Secretary."

He continued: "But when I see Boris [Johnson] at 6pm it seems a massive problem has arisen, which is nothing short of contemptible. Boris says the Conservative Friends of Israel are going ballistic."

Johnson reported that Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak, both senior figures in the CFI, "have both called him incessantly saying I must not be appointed."

Duncan wrote that the opposition from the CFI is "for no other reason than that I believe in the rights of the Palestinians."

"Whereas they pretend to believe in two parallel states, it's quite clear that they don't, and so set out to destroy all genuine advocates for Palestine," he added.

He concluded: "They just want to belittle and subjugate the Palestinians."

The lobbying worked. Despite the appointment not being announced, "Now Number 10 are telling Boris I cannot have the Middle East," Duncan wrote. He continued that Johnson was "somewhat indignant at this pressure and its propriety (or lack of it)."

Duncan then offered a compromise: to take the Middle East minister job but to exclude the issue of Israel-Palestine from the brief. Johnson "likes the idea," Duncan reported, but added that "on any level it is appalling that a [prime minister]'s appointments can be subject to such lobbying. Our own national interest is being taken for a sucker."

He continued: "In any other country the conduct of Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak would in my view be seen as entrenched espionage that should prompt an inquiry into their conduct."

Duncan also wrote that Downing Street Chief of Staff Nick Timothy was "in cahoots with CFI lobbying."

He continued: "This whole issue of Israel is utterly out of proportion, but, worse, is permitted to empower interested parties in Number 10 to decide what a minister's responsibilities should be. This is improper. It's wrong. I actually think it's corrupt, but the whole system buys into it without realising how wrong it is."

The situation then escalated further as Duncan reported that the Board of Deputies of British Jews ran a webcast in which Labour MP Louise Ellman said that Duncan should not be foreign minister.

"My appointment isn't even public yet. How did they know?" Duncan wrote. "Clearly Pickles and Polak have been actively lobbying against me, linking CFI, Labour Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies."

Duncan continued: "This is the most disgusting interference in our public life. I find it astonishing the system allows it to happen, all the more so as anything I have said has been wholly in tune with government policy. The difference seems to be that I believe in that policy, whereas CFI and the government itself do not!"

Duncan was then informed that his appointment to Middle East minister would be blocked. "This is so wrong on all levels," he wrote, adding that Simon McDonald "is rather perturbed by what is going on."

He added: "The only people who are acting improperly are CFI and those who accept their browbeating lobbying."

In the end, Duncan was offered the role as minister for Europe and the Americas, and served in that position for three years. However, he told McDonald that "he should never forget what it is the [Foreign Office] has submitted to."

' Embedded Outside Influence'

Pro Israel Gaza rally, Trafalgar Square, London, Jan. 11, 2009. (Chris Beckett, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Duncan also casts light on another scandal involving the Israeli government and the CFI which broke in 2017. It emerged that Priti Patel, then minister for international development, held a number of "off radar" meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a "family holiday" in the country.

Duncan notes that Patel spent a week in Israel "on a programme put together by Polak, without telling the [Foreign Office] or even her own department, attending meetings at the highest level, accompanied by the principal pro-Israel donor lobbying in the U.K. ", referring to Polak.

He concluded that "it is yet further evidence of the pernicious influence of Polak and the CFI, something that amounts to embedded outside influence at the heart of our politics".

Patel eventually resigned but Duncan noted that nothing in the "exchange of letters even mentions Israel and the deep impropriety of her actions and the CFI remains in place, unchallenged and only obliquely mentioned".

Duncan concluded: "The Conservative Party and the PM remain in total denial, and once again brush it under the carpet. It reeks, it stinks, it festers, it moulders – all rotten to the core. The rules of propriety, and all the morality and principle that goes with it, are discarded and rewritten to accommodate this exceptional pro-Israel infiltration into the very centre of our public life."

Duncan also believed other U.K. government policies were being dictated by the CFI. In February 2019, then home secretary Sajid Javid banned the political arm of Hezbollah, the Lebanese party and militant group.

Javid, Duncan notes, is "just sucking up to the CFI, who are out in force behind him reading out their scripted interventions", adding, "Polak and Pickles are in the Peers' Gallery gloating from above about having deployed their Commons troops in Israel's cause."

He added: "We are supposed to be Great Britain, but I fear we are too willing to let others pull our strings."

Declassified recently outlined the deepening military relations between the U.K. and Israel and revealed that a third of cabinet ministers in Boris Johnson's government have been funded by Israel or the CFI.

Last week, foreign secretary Dominic Raab travelled to Israel for a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu thanked Johnson for his "staunch, unwavering support" in the recent bombing of Gaza, to which Raab replied: "You can always count on us."

Raab described himself as a "friend" and "great supporter" of Israel.

Presented with Duncan's allegations of undue Israeli influence, the Foreign Office refused to provide an on-the-record comment. The Conservative Friends of Israel, Stuart Polak and Eric Pickles, did not respond to requests for comment. DM

Matt Kennard is head of Investigations at Declassified UK , an investigative journalism organisation that covers the U.K. 's role in the world.

This article is from Declassified UK.

[May 18, 2021] The destruction of the AP press tower in GAZA is getting interesting

May 18, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Christian J. Chuba , May 17 2021 18:56 utc | 34

The destruction of the AP press tower in GAZA is getting interesting.
Recap, Netanyahu insists that Hamas operatives (and Bogeyman) were using this building to plan terrorist attacks on Israel and that made it a legitimate target.

Follow up events:
1. AP denies Netanyahu's claim and insist they have never seen Hamas.

2. Netanyahu doubles down, saying that he shared Intel w/the Biden Administration and they agreed w/his assessment.

3. Blinken undercuts Netanyahu, meekly but enough to hurt. He says he asked for but did not see any Intel about Hamas presence in the tower.

4. Now the full court press is on, https://nypost.com/2021/05/17/ap-slammed-for-claiming-it-was-unaware-of-hamas-presence/
The blob is attacking AP, saying that Matti Friedman wrote way back in 2014 about Hamas using that building for all kinds of things including Rocket manufacturing. Freidman essentially accuses AP of being Hamas collaborators. [does an old accusation prove that something is true?]

I did not find the 2014 article and even if Friedman wrote it, he still has to prove it's true. It could be a list of accusations waiting to be used. We hear many such mantras.

Where will this go?
Was Netanyahu so arrogant that he slipped up or was this a trap to discredit anyone who shows sympathy to the Gazans? (I admit it, I'm intimidated by the theory that Netanyahu and Israelis have super hi IQ's)

---

Christian J. Chuba , May 17 2021 19:18 utc | 38

AP tower attack follow up. Okay here is the ponderous Matti Friedman link to 2014 article
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/
A lot of it is projection about how stories are manufuctured, guffaw, Israel does that all the time. When he says that Hamas understands that AP is an asset, that is dangerous as Neocons would infer that AP are terrorists. He is actually saying that Hamas manipulates them which I believe is true and is an entirely different thing.

The most interesting part of the article

"The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby -- and the AP wouldn't report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP's Gaza bureau and threaten the staff -- and the AP wouldn't report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying."

1. I can understand the AP not reporting a specific location of or picture of a rocket launch because it compromises the military operation of the host authority (heads explode) BUT they should mention in a general sense that they observed rockets being launched from civilian areas.

2. For similar reasons, I can see them not filming wounded fighters. AP does give a break down but showing fighters compromises security and Israel loves bombing hospitals if they function as human shields.

snake , May 18 2021 2:50 utc | 64

https://www.rt.com/news/524087-israel-gaza-blocking-un-ceasfire/

Tel Aviv thanks Biden for blocking UN ceasefire statement

Trump failed so Biden took over <=the link answers Christian J. Chuba @ 38 and others..

When you wake up, and discover the world over is under common management. the oligarch have removed bottom up politics from the nation state system: voting, demonstrating, elections whatever makes no difference, the outcome is predetermined to favor the wealthy Oligarch in charge.

The nation states are management franchises given to territorial oligarchs chiefs. The total people in the 256 nation states add up to the 8 billion the number who live in the world. So the Oligarch have divided the management of people they control into piece meal national governments, each with authority over a portion of the earth. At the macro level globally managed, at the microscopic level domestically managed, and at the lesser political sub divisional levels nano-scopically managed. But its a trickle down management; the top layers dictate, everyone else follows.

So the nation state is a hierarchically arranged system is designed to completely control humanity, and to direct the allocation of resources, and the cummulative production of mankind, into the hands of the wealthy oligarchs. Those same Oligarchs who oversee the management of each of the nation state franchises.

A few wealthy Oligarchs run the nation state franchised world. They shall be known as the franchisor.. and the 256 nation states as the franchisees.

Biswapriya Purkayast , May 18 2021 4:14 utc | 67

Meanwhile on the propaganda express:

Since when is Netanyahu an "ex commando"? That was his older brother. While HAMAS was, as even the zionist entity admits, created by it to weaken the PLO, Dyer cannot possibly be so uninformed as to be able to innocently imply, as he does, that the Palestinian resistance this time is restricted to HAMAS. Even in Gaza - the world's largest ever concentration camp - groups opposed to HAMAS, such as Islamic Jihad and the PFLP, are resisting the zionist entity. In the so called state of "Israel", ordinary civilians are rising in resistance.

Also, of course, Dyer is deliberately silent about the rather important fact that the zionist entity itself began this cycle of violence by illegally evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Occupied Jerusalem in order to create yet another illegal racist settler colony of apartheid imports.

Another load of Dyer claptrap, in other words. I do not remember when Dyer last wrote a word of truth, so this is rather what could be expected from him.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/05/16/objective-allies-netanyahu-and-hamas/

Arch Bungle , May 18 2021 10:05 utc | 74

This is huge:

https://southfront.org/u-s-deployed-warships-toward-read-sea-b-52-bombers-in-spain-in-thinly-veiled-support-for-israel/

Alongside the hostilities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a concentration of NATO forces appears to be happening nearby.

On May 16th, a French carrier group was concentrated south of Cyprus.

On May 17th, four US Air Force B-52H strategic bombers arrived in Spain, and this is in addition to the six already based in Qatar.

On May 18th, three missile destroyers from the US Navy aircraft carrier group operating in the Arabian Sea are making a transition with the explicit intention to get, if not to the Mediterranean, then at least to the northern part of the Red Sea, closer to Israel.

This is likely an attempt for Israel's allies to guarantee that it can continue carrying out its operation, while being undeterred by Iran, or other Palestinian allies.

If this is a suggestion that the NATO powers are concerned that forces in the middle east will rise against israel in support of the Palestinians, perhaps there are serious discussions among the Turks and others about intervening directly in the conflict.

The suggestion by Turkey for the formation of a protection force for the Palestinians may be an example of this:

https://southfront.org/turkey-calls-for-oic-to-create-international-protection-mechanism-for-palestinians/

[May 09, 2021] Democrats en Deshabille

May 09, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

“A Top Biden Cybersecurity Aide Donated Over $500,000 to AIPAC as an NSA Official†[David Corn, Mother Jones (via the War Nerd )]. “Several other national security expertsâ€"who asked not to be namedâ€"say that the foundation’s donations to AIPAC create, at the least, an appearance problem for Anne Neuberger.†• Apparently Neuberger was too much not only for Corn, but for his handlers in the intelligence community, to stomach. The whole piece is well worth a read. It’s all horrible.

[May 09, 2021] Israeli exceptionalism

Notable quotes:

"... "If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.." ― Joseph Goebbels ..."

"... 'We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under' ― General Moshe Dayan ..."

May 09, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

librul , May 5 2021 16:41 utc | 46

I went lateral in researching today's b-post and in so doing came across a Goebbels quote:

"If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.."
― Joseph Goebbels

And I was sure that I had read something like that before:

'We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under'
― General Moshe Dayan

[Mar 26, 2021] George Washington and The Peril of Foreign Entanglements - History News Network

Mar 26, 2021 | historynewsnetwork.org

a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. ...

[Mar 03, 2021] A devout believer in the demonic power of Zionists, Trump had thought to make up to them to avoid their anger. In vain: there are already plenty of cases against him, from potential tax fraud to sexual assault allegations.

Mar 03, 2021 | www.unz.com

I do feel pity for Donald Trump, though his last days in the White House were anything but inspirational. He did not dare to pardon people who went for him into the Capitol, he didn't pardon Assange or Snowden, but surprisingly he pardoned a whole lot of Jewish cheats. The Jerusalem Post published the list of prominent Zionists he pardoned. On the list is an Israeli spy runner Aviem Sella who was responsible for Jonathan Pollard; the rest are dishonest machers like Sholam Weiss (who stole US $150 million, sentenced to 850 years) or Eliyahu Weinstein (stole up to $200 million, sentenced to 24 years). See also a detailed analysis here . A devout believer in the demonic power of Zionists, Trump had thought to make up to them to avoid their anger. In vain: there are already plenty of cases against him, from potential tax fraud to sexual assault allegations. A legal storm is brewing and Mr Trump may not be able to weather it as he has done in the past, say the US federal prosecutors.

... ... ...

The Zionists do not need him: they have very strong positions in the new administration, while gratitude is not a renowned Jewish trait. The Jewish news agency JTA boasted of the Tribe's achievements: the State Department, CIA, National Intelligence, Homeland Security, NSA, Treasury and in addition "Nine Zionists are in the new Senate (including the new Majority Leader) and 25 in the House of Representatives, making up more than 6 per cent of the total Congress. That's more than triple the percentage of Zionists in the general population. There are also two Zionists out of the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court."

[Mar 01, 2021] No matter who is in WH, Israel lobby will ensure the usual pro-Iseral tilt in the USA foreign policies

Mar 01, 2021 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 11, 2020 at 2:46 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

@Greatequalizerr f="https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2020/november/netanyahu-congratulates-lsquo-great-friend-of-israel-rsquo-biden-hopes-to-strengthen-us-israeli-ties"> https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2020/november/netanyahu-congratulates-lsquo-great-friend-of-israel-rsquo-biden-hopes-to-strengthen-us-israeli-ties

Biden-Harris: Good for Israel, good for American Jews
Biden has always assured funding to Israel, he's pragmatic on the Iran deal, and will repair the damage Trump has done to US foreign policy

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/biden-harris-good-for-israel-good-for-american-jews/

Wade , says: November 11, 2020 at 3:57 pm GMT • 7.7 hours ago

@Greatequalizerr nationalistic foreign enterprise such as Israel -- and yes it is inevitable that they would benefit in some way from the alliance, but it doesn't mean that Trump (and we) didn't get anything out of the negotiations.

We haven't started any new wars for one thing. And remember that nice couple in St Louis who received felony charges for protecting their own property from marauding BLM activists threatening to kill and/or rape his wife, then take their house from them? That is due to the Democrat party.

I feel for the Palestinians but there's no shame in voting Trump, or at least against that commie-bitch that wants to give it to us good and even harder than we already have when she's the president.

[Feb 26, 2021] Israel aid violates the Symington Amendment

Feb 26, 2021 | www.unz.com

Lee , says: February 26, 2021 at 10:55 am GMT • 15.7 hours ago

Article said:

Giving aid to Israel is, in fact, illegal due to the Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which bans U.S. economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

The actual Symington Amendment reads as follows:

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 was amended by the Symington Amendment (Section 669 of the FAA) in 1976. It banned U.S. economic, and military assistance, and export credits to countries that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections.

Wikipedia

[Feb 26, 2021] Biden's Journey- Change Is Imperceptible by Philip Giraldi

Feb 26, 2021 | www.unz.com

Biden's Journey: Change Is Imperceptible PHILIP GIRALDI FEBRUARY 25, 2021 1,700 WORDS 127 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More RSS Share to Gab

Biden has been a major disappointment for those who hoped that he'd change course regarding America's pathological involvement in overseas conflicts.

The new White House Team has been in place for more than a month and it is perhaps time to consider where it is going with America's fractured foreign policy. To be sure, when a new administration brings in a bunch of "old hands" who made their bones by attacking Syria and Libya while also assassinating American citizens by drone one might hope that those mistakes might have served as valuable "lessons learned." Or maybe not, since no one in the Democratic Party ever mentions the Libya fiasco and President Joe Biden has already made it clear that Syria will continue to be targeted with sanctions as well as with American soldiers based on its soil. And no one will be leaving Afghanistan any time soon. The Biden team will only let up when Afghanistan is "secure" and there is regime change in Damascus.

A big part of the problem is that the personnel moves mean that the poison from the Barack Obama years has now been reintroduced into the tottering edifice that Donald Trump left behind. Obama's United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice once made the case for attacking the Libyans by explaining how Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi provided his soldiers with Viagra so they could more readily engage in mass rapes of presumably innocent civilians. Unfortunately, Sue is back with the new administration as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council where she will no doubt again wreak havoc in her own inimitable fashion. She is joined at the top level of the administration by Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence, Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor, Samantha Power as head of USAID and retired General Lloyd J. Austin as Secretary of Defense. All of the appointees are regarded as "hawks" and have personal history working with Biden when he was in Congress and as Vice President, while most of them also served in the Obama administration.

Be that as it may, Joe Biden and whoever is pulling his strings have assembled a group of establishment warmongers and aspirant social justice engineers that is second to none. Those who expected something different than the usual Democratic Party template have definitely been disappointed. Hostility towards China continues with warships being sent to the South China Sea and the president is seeking to create a new Trans-Atlantic alliance directed against both Beijing and Moscow. The Europeans are reportedly not enthusiastic about remaining under Washington's thumb and would like some breathing room.

In a phone conversation where it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall, Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States would no longer ignore his bad behavior. The official White House account of the call included the following pithy summary: "President Biden reaffirmed the United States' firm support for Ukraine's sovereignty. He also raised other matters of concern, including the SolarWinds hack, reports of Russia placing bounties on United States soldiers in Afghanistan, interference in the 2020 United States election, and the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny."

And to be sure, there have already been a number of issues that Biden might have dealt with by executive order, like lifting the illegal and unjustified blockade of Cuba, that could have inspired some hope that the new administration would not be just another bit of old wine in new bottles. Alas, that has not taken place but for a series of moves to unleash another wave of illegal immigration and to "protect LGBTQ rights globally." Biden has also retained a heavy military presence in Washington itself, possibly as part of a Constitution-wrecking plan to tackle what he is referring to as "domestic terrorism." The domestic terrorists being targeted appear to largely consist of people who are white working and middle class and voted for Trump.

In some ways, foreign policy might have been the easiest fix if the new administration were really seeking to correct the misadventures of the past twenty years. Quite the contrary, Biden and his associates have actually reversed the sensible and long overdue policies initiated by Donald Trump to reduce troop strength in Germany and bring the soldiers home from Syria and Afghanistan. Biden has already committed to an indefinite stay in Afghanistan, America's longest "lost" war, and has covertly sent more soldiers into Syria as well as Iraq.

As regards Latin America, the U.S. clearly is prepared to double down on regime change in Venezuela, continuing its Quixotic support of Juan Guaido as president. Meanwhile, the new Secretary of State Tony Blinken has clearly indicated that there will be no end to deference to Israeli interests in the Middle East. Under questioning by Congress, he has insisted that Israel will be "consulted" on U.S. policy to include arms sales in the region, which has been interpreted to mean that Jerusalem will have a veto, and has confirmed that his view on Iran is identical to that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are apparently promoting the view that Iran will have enough enriched uranium to construct a weapon within a few weeks, though they have not addressed other technical aspects of what would actually be required to build one. Netanyahu has been making the claim about the Iranian threat since the 1980s and now it is also an element of U.S. policy.

Biden and Blinken have also moved forward slowly on a campaign commitment to attempt renegotiation of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran that President Trump withdrew from in 2017. As a condition to re-start discussions, the Iranian leadership has demanded a return to the status quo ante , meaning that the punitive sanctions initiated by Trump would have to be canceled and Iran would in return cease all enrichment activities. Biden and Blinken, which admittedly sounds a bit like a vaudeville comedy duo, have reportedly agreed to withdraw the Trump sanctions but have also suggested that Iran will have to make other concessions, to include ending its ballistic missile development program and ceasing its "meddling" in the Middle East. Iran will refuse to agree to that, which means that the bid to renegotiate could turn out to be nothing more than a bit of theater involving multilateral "discussions" hosted by the European Union and the pointless hostility between Washington and Tehran will continue.

And speaking again of Israel, there have been concerns expressed by the usual suspects because Biden had not called Netanyahu immediately after the inauguration. It may be true that the president was sending a somewhat less than subtle message signaling that he was in charge, but the call has now taken place and everything is hunky-dory. As a separate issue, the Jewish state has, of course, the world's only secret nuclear arsenal, estimated to consist of at least 200 bombs, and it also has several systems available to deliver them on target. For no reasons that make any sense, the United States since the time of President Richard Nixon has never publicly confirmed the existence of the weapons, preferring to maintain "nuclear ambiguity" that allows Israel to have the weapons without any demands for inspections or constraints on their use. The most recent four presidents have, in fact, signed secret agreements with Israel not to expose the nuclear arsenal. Biden has apparently not done so yet, but appeals by international figures, including most recently South African Desmond Tutu, had produced some expectations that the new administration might break with precedent .

Giving aid to Israel is, in fact, illegal due to the Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which bans U.S. economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that seek to acquire nuclear weapons. But Biden has already indicated that he would not under any circumstances cut aid to Israel, so the matter would appear to be closed. In any event the Symington Amendment includes an exemption clause that would allow the funding to continue as long as the president certifies to Congress that continued aid to the proliferator would be a vital U.S. interest. Given Israel's power in both Congress and the White House it is not imaginable that its aid would be affected no matter what Netanyahu and his band of criminals choose to do.

So, it would seem that Biden is unprepared to either pressure or pursue any distancing from Israel and its policies, not a good sign for those of us who have encouraged some disengagement from the Middle East quagmire. And one final issue where some of us have hoped to see some movement from Biden has also been a disappointment. That is Julian Assange, who is fighting against efforts to have him extradited from England to face trial and imprisonment in the U.S. under the Espionage Act. Many observers believe that Assange is a legitimate journalist who is being set up for a show trial with only one possible outcome. The entire process is to a large extent being driven by a desire for revenge coming largely from the Democratic Party since Assange was responsible for publishing the Hillary Clinton emails as well as other party documents. Biden has already indicated that the process of extraditing Assange will continue.

So, Biden has been a major disappointment for those who expected that he might change course regarding America's pathological involvement in overseas conflicts while also having the good sense and courage to make relations with countries like Iran and Israel responsive to actual U.S. interests. Finally, it would be a good sign if Assange were to be released from the threat of trial and prison, if only to recognize that free speech and a free press benefit everyone, but that is perhaps a bridge too far as the United States moves inexorably towards a totalitarian state intolerant of dissent.

Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest

---

beavertales , says: February 25, 2021 at 7:01 pm GMT • 1.3 days ago

The video of an Israeli sniper deliberately shooting a Palestinian protestor in the leg with a .22 Ruger rifle was a non-story, because our media is one big controlled psyop.

Israel has recreated the Stanford prison experiment on a grand scale: It conscripts its young into the military and has them playing the role of 'cop', and gives them live Palestinians to play the role of 'prisoner'. Dehumanization is mental conditioning for future relations.

Israel has been trying to get the US to join them in this game, by making sure the US gets blood on its hands in the Middle East. Muslim retaliatory attacks in the US are just dandy. Remember the words of the 'dancing Israeli' after 9/11: "our problems are your problems".

abbra cadaver , says: February 25, 2021 at 7:23 pm GMT • 1.3 days ago

I don't know why anyone should be surprised with Biden's policies. He did say nothing would fundamentally change if elected. And if you know his history why would you expect anything else but a a continuation of the imperialism.

Harold Smith , says: February 25, 2021 at 7:53 pm GMT • 1.3 days ago

The evil orange clown could've improved relations with Russia and China, pulled the troops out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, made peace with North Korea, respected Venezuela's sovereignty and left it alone, renegotiated the INF treaty rather than exit it, and he could've stayed constructively engaged with Iran rather than try to start a war. Had the evil orange clown done these things it likely would've put an end to the self-destructive deep state "foreign policy" agenda once and for all.

But no; instead the evil orange clown betrayed his base and greased the skids for sleazy joe, the senile servant of satan and his sleazy handlers. The evil orange clown was enthusiastically doing deep state dirty work practically to his last day in office.

So I blame teflon-don-the-con-man for the rise of sleazy joe biden; only an opportunistic scum bag like teflon don could reanimate the political corpse of joe biden.

Harold Smith , says: February 25, 2021 at 10:01 pm GMT • 1.2 days ago

@beavertales ael; attack Syria with cruise missiles; seize Syrian oilfields; walk away from the JCPOA agreement with Iran; dangerously provoke Russia and China; start a self-destructive trade war with China; exit the nuclear treaties; starve Venezuela; try to start a war with Iran; etc., all of it unopposed. Why he even had the power to pardon the wrongly-imprisoned Julian Assange – but he instead chose to let Assange languish in jail while he pardoned Blackwater mass-murderers.

So cut the bullshit orange clown apologia already; it doesn't work. The evil orange clown did everything but openly campaign for his deep-state fellow traveler, sleazy joe biden, the senile servant of satan.

Anon [425] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2021 at 2:40 am GMT • 24.0 hours ago

And today we hear of Biden launching airstrikes against Syria for an attack that occurred in Iraq.

Outrageous bullying, cretinous and brain-dead are all terms that sprang to mind when I read the article. Unfortunately this is what we can expect from Biden for the rest of his term.

GomezAdddams , says: February 26, 2021 at 3:08 am GMT • 23.5 hours ago

@Harold Smith

Trump is a con man -- got elected for making great changes such as -- –drain the swamp -- build a wall -- -trade war aginst China -- pull out of the international arena and the Debt goes sky high–
Biden is not much better. Today again attack on Syria -- –USA needs 2-3 new political parties not OPEN to millionaires and Multi millionaries -- -Trump however was THE GREATEST President Israel ever had and blessings from John Hagee.

joe2.5 , says: February 26, 2021 at 4:13 am GMT • 22.4 hours ago

"Those who expected something different than the usual Democratic Party template have definitely been disappointed."

What a complicated way to say that the Idiots got what they had coming to them -- and better not expect them to learn from it.

michael888 , says: February 26, 2021 at 7:04 am GMT • 19.6 hours ago

Trump was incompetent. Generally I hate incompetence, but in Presidents it may be a virtue. "Fingers" Biden is likely the most corrupt President in our history in foreign policy. 50 years in DC and he seems to both know all the scams/ tricks and has a massive network of very competent underlings. I would not be surprised if he uses the nuclear option.
But Biden reflects America. We no longer build or produce, we destroy. We kill, maim and displace; that's what America voted for. Trump didn't destroy much because he was an incompetent, and had little support in DC (working for Trump was a death sentence for career bureaucrats). One only has to look at Obama's (and the rehabilitated torturer Bush's) list of National Emergencies with Sanctions to see what will happen next: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_in_the_United_States
(Central Africa, Venezuela and the Ukraine are even more screwed!)

https://ukrainegate.info/ ,
https://orinocotribune.com/how-joe-bidens-privatization-plans-helped-doom-latin-america-and-fuel-the-migration-crisis/#:~:text=By%20Max%20Blumenthal%20While%20campaigning%20for%20the%20Democratic,socio-political%20landscape%20of%20large%20swaths%20of%20Latin%20America .

Miro23 , says: February 26, 2021 at 7:20 am GMT • 19.3 hours ago

..I would expect the US regime to ramp up the oppression of its own population, the same as their Bolshevik brothers did in Russia in the 1920's, with secret police, Gulags, execution for anti-Semitic talk, population control, media propaganda + a small and insecure elite. Stalin regularly executed a few of his colleagues to refresh the fear/paranoia.

Sirius , says: February 26, 2021 at 8:18 am GMT • 18.3 hours ago

@A123 3. Continuing military presence in Iraq, against the will of the Iraqi government (a.k.a. occupation).
4. US-led intervention in Yemen, resulting in famine in Yemen.
5. Occupation of portions of Syria, including its oil fields and continued economic warfare.
6. Economic war against Iran, breaking of the JCPOA treaty. This has on multiple occasions nearly led to full-scale war (see point #2).

Trump was the peace candidate? I should be writing LOL were it not so serious and tragic. Keeping on repeating your delusions.

Unfortunately, Biden shows little promise to be any better, but that's the racket. It's neo-con Zionist either way.

[Feb 14, 2021] The long hands of Israel lobby

Feb 14, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

vetinLA , Feb 14 2021 5:02 utc | 64

Another example of media malfeasance;

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/02/12/the-guardian-revealed-itself-in-sacking-columnist-for-criticizing-us-military-aid-to-israel/

[Feb 14, 2021] The Dancing Israelis

If one follows the time-honored formula for crime detection -- means, motive, opportunity -- it easy to see that such a spectacular crime could not happen without the involvement of a sophisticated (shadow) government.

Feb 14, 2021 | www.unz.com

Sparkon , says: February 13, 2021 at 7:11 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago

...Certainly three employees of Urban Moving Systems were spotted on 9/11 on the roof of a van in the parking lot of the Doric Apartments in Union City, NJ taking pictures and exchanging high fives with the WTC burning in the background. Subsequently, the van was pulled over and five Israelis in it were arrested, detained for two months, and then released to Israel. Reportedly, all the pictures they took on 9/11 have been destroyed. Witnesses saw the van in the parking lot the morning of 9/11 before the attacks on the WTC, so there is at least circumstantial evidence these guys had foreknowledge of "the event," and later claimed on Israeli TV they had been there to record it.

For some reason, the five documenting photo-shlomos have come to be known as "The Dancing Israelis" despite the fact there were never any reports of them dancing, so typically, when it comes to Israel, the players are out of focus and mislabeled

There were indeed numerous reports from workers in both Twin Towers of frequent and ongoing elevator work extending back several months before 9/11, giving the plotters ample opportunity to plant explosives or do other prep-work for a (barely) controlled, or at least planned demolition.

But to get to the bottom of 9/11, you really do have to follow the gold.

[Feb 03, 2021] Do you know, that Zionists loudly proclaim their loyalty to Israel every time AIPAC has a conference?

Feb 03, 2021 | www.unz.com

Chris Moore , says: Website February 2, 2021 at 11:20 pm GMT • 10.2 hours ago

How can convicted spy Pollard be "home" in Israel if his birthplace is America? Because that's how Jewish supremacist really thinks, and that treasonous thinking is celebrated by all Zionists in Congress, left to right. You know, the racial Zionists and the ideological Zionists who loudly proclaim their loyalty to Israel every time AIPAC has a conference?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=692805794740426

So the loadstar for the Zionist factions of Congress is a Jewish supremacist caste system and apartheid state. Wow. I can see why they're so hostile to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I can also see why they want to open the borders and flood the country with unvetted foreigners so that every new "American" has no idea that they have the Constitutional right to oppose a racist, caste system hierarchy that assigns its Zionist self taxpayer funded national spoils.

Who's their president? Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden, of course -- the same guy who talks out of both sides of his Zionist face about "melting pot" America and an "unrelenting stream of immigration" that displaces Constitution-loving Americans and whites.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-wave-immigration-not-going-stop-video-135620136.html

The evidence is in. All Zionists are treasonous, and have worked relentlessly to transform Constitutional America into nothing but a massive Ponzi scheme to pay for their racist Jewish loadstar and their corrupt Zionist network spoils until the U.S. collapses.

But hey, they'll come out like bandits and steal out in the night to greener pastures or Israel, as rootless Zionist criminals have always done.

[Feb 03, 2021] Zionists Lie As Naturally As They Breathe, by Tobias Langdon

Pollard was motivated by money. Israel was a secondary justification.

To the extent Zionism is Jewish supremacism it is not that different for far right movement in xUSSR republics such as Ukraine.

Feb 03, 2021 | www.unz.com

Born in America, loyal only to Israel

But what did the citizens and prime minister of Israel do? They brazenly celebrated that vile anti-Semitic stereotype about Jewish disloyalty and treachery. The Irish Savant reported Pollard's arrival in Israel like this:

It was a welcome befitting a war hero. And in a sense Jonathan Pollard was indeed such a hero, and a patriot. At considerable personal risk he stole secrets which in turn were traded by his country to great effect. He was greeted in Tel Aviv by none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As he disembarked, he kissed the ground and recited the traditional sheheheyanu blessing of thanksgiving. A beaming Beni gushed: "Blessed are you, lord our God, king of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion. I was thrilled to welcome Jonathan and Esther Pollard today upon their arrival in Israel and to give Jonathan an Israeli identity card. Now they are home. Welcome home, now you are a citizen of the State of Israel." Pollard responded: "We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years and we thank the people and the Prime Minister of Israel for bringing us home." ( A Hero's Homecoming , The Irish Savant, 5th January 2021)

But how can Israel be Pollard's "home" if his own nation is his birthplace of America? The only logical conclusion to reach is this: Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the world's worst anti-Semites, Israel is the most anti-Semitic nation on earth, and Jonathan Pollard is a self-hating Jew. At least, that's the only logical conclusion if you trust the IHRA to be honest about "anti-Semitism" and Jewish behaviour.

No concern for truth or objective reality

But you can't trust the IHRA, of course. Like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in America, the Community Security Trust (CST) in Britain and the Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme (LICRA) in France, the IHRA is a typical Jewish organization in that it believes in the audacity of mendacity. Like the ADL et al , the IHRA has no concern for truth or objective reality. Instead, it relentlessly and ruthlessly pursues What's Best for Zionists Free speech and open debate are not best for Jews, therefore the IHRA wants to silence all critics of Jewish power and subversion. That's why it says ludicrous things, then demands that they be taken seriously. You've heard of the Emperor's New Clothes. Now meet the Empire's New Definition:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Zionists Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. -- Definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA)

The Empire is Zionism and that ludicrously vague definition is plainly designed to end free speech about Jewish political power and the way Jews control Western politics for the benefit of Israel. What can't be discussed can't be challenged or criticized, which is just the way organized Jewry want things to be. Unlike the Emperor's New Clothes, which were exposed as a sham when a little boy literally " spoke truth to power ," the Empire's New Definition is being taken seriously by supine politicians and bureaucrats all over the world. In Britain, the free-speech-hating Campaign Against Antisemitism has boasted of how widely the dud definition has been accepted:

In 2005, the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), now the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), adopted a "working definition of antisemitism" which has become the standard definition used around the world, including by the European Parliament , the UK College of Policing , the US Department of State , the US Senate , and the 31 countries comprising the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance . In 2016, the powerful House of Commons Home Affairs Committee joined Campaign Against Antisemitism's longstanding call for the British government and its agencies, as well as all political parties, to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, following which the British government formally adopted the definition. ( What is Antisemitism? , The Campaign Against Antisemitism)

In other words, thousands of legal and legislative experts have read the IHRA definition and responded not with incredulous laughter, but with cries of "We hear and obey!" For all sane and objective people, however, the definition exposes the organized Jewish community as implacable enemies not merely of free speech but of the very concepts of truth and objective reality. Even some members of the Jewish elite object to the IHRA definition. Professor David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at the University of London, has said that the "government should not impose [this] faulty definition of antisemitism on universities." The prominent Jewish lawyers Sir Stephen Sedley and Sir Geoffrey Bindman were two of the signatories to a letter in the Guardian stating that the "legally entrenched right to free expression is being undermined by an internally incoherent 'non-legally binding working definition' of antisemitism."

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Just another serf , says: February 3, 2021 at 4:48 am GMT • 4.7 hours ago

There's so much criticism of Jewish people. It's maddening. Do people know nothing of the terrible history of Jewish persecution? As recently as the 1940's, six million Jews were killed in the death camps. Most were killed with poison gas as they showered. Many others were killed in ways that can only be described as elaborate murder scenarios, seemingly derived from Willie E. Coyote methods of ending the life of that little road runner.

It's time we end the anti-semitism. I recommend an international effort to build museums, including inter-active learning experiences, to teach the people of Earth to end anti-semitism. One promising innovation is the use of holographic Holocaust survivors telling their awful stories of suffering to young children, who otherwise should be either playing or learning useful things in school.

I personally admire Zionists To have accomplished what they have done, is absolutely astonishing. Almost super natural when you think about it.

Chris Moore , says: Website February 2, 2021 at 11:20 pm GMT • 10.2 hours ago

How can convicted spy Pollard be "home" in Israel if his birthplace is America? Because that's how Jewish supremacist really thinks, and that treasonous thinking is celebrated by all Zionists in Congress, left to right. You know, the racial Zionists and the ideological Zionists who loudly proclaim their loyalty to Israel every time AIPAC has a conference?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=692805794740426

So the loadstar for the Zionist factions of Congress is a Jewish supremacist caste system and apartheid state. Wow. I can see why they're so hostile to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I can also see why they want to open the borders and flood the country with unvetted foreigners so that every new "American" has no idea that they have the Constitutional right to oppose a racist, caste system hierarchy that assigns its Zionist self taxpayer funded national spoils.

Priss Factor , says: Website February 3, 2021 at 1:17 am GMT • 8.2 hours ago

Today, 'antisemitism' is defined as negative comments about Zionists

Tomorrow, 'antisemitism' will be defined as lack of positive comments about Zionists

It won't be sufficient to not speak 'antisemitism' as you will be obligated to speak philosemitism.

'Silence is violence'.

It's like it wasn't enough to not boo at Stalin. You had to clap for Stalin until your hands bled.

These dissenting Jews are certainly not friendly to Whites or Western civilization -- Stephen Sedley, for example, wants open borders for Muslims and is a son of a "lifelong Communist" -- but one has to give them credit for being honest about the definition and resisting very strong pressure from other Zionists

The pressure won't merely be from Other Zionists...

Zionists and neocons attacked Trump from day one, but his only response was "But I kiss Zionists more than Democrats do."

[Jan 27, 2021] With more than half of Washington's politicians in its pockets ("Israel") has no reason to fear any consequences.

Jan 27, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 27 2021 16:26 utc | 8

With more than half of Washington's politicians in its pockets ("Israel") has no reason to fear any consequences.
Posted by b on January 27, 2021 at 15:32 UTC | Permalink

Precisely. And it's almost as bad in Oz, and even worse in the UK. Money is the only logical explanation for the "Israel" Worship indulged in by corrupt, amoral Western political 'leaders'.

[Jan 27, 2021] Zionists no longer need Trump: they have very strong positions in the new administration, while gratitude is not a renowned Jewish trait. The Jewish news agency JTA boasted of the Tribe's achievements: the State Department, CIA, National Intelligence, Homeland Security, NSA, Treasury, the Senate and the House of Representatives, making up more than 6 percent of the total Congress. by Israel Shamir

Jews are good when allied with the oppressed. Then they use their energy to promote the cause of the downtrodden. While at the top, they oppress more vigorously than anybody

Jan 27, 2021 | www.unz.com

I do feel pity for Donald Trump, though his last days in the White House were anything but inspirational. He did not dare to pardon people who went for him into the Capitol, he didn't pardon Assange or Snowden, but surprisingly he pardoned a whole lot of Jewish cheats. The Jerusalem Post published the list of prominent Jews he pardoned. On the list is an Israeli spy runner Aviem Sella who was responsible for Jonathan Pollard; the rest are dishonest machers like Sholam Weiss (who stole US $150 million, sentenced to 850 years) or Eliyahu Weinstein (stole up to $200 million, sentenced to 24 years). See also a detailed analysis here . A devout believer in the demonic power of Jews, Trump had thought to make up to them to avoid their anger. In vain: there are already plenty of cases against him, from potential tax fraud to sexual assault allegations. A legal storm is brewing and Mr Trump may not be able to weather it as he has done in the past, say the US federal prosecutors.

He could be lucky to avoid prison; unless he asks Mr Putin to lend him his excellent if uncompleted Gelenjik Palace . On second thoughts, perhaps the palace was built for exactly such an occasion.

The Jews do not need him: they have very strong positions in the new administration, while gratitude is not a renowned Jewish trait. The Jewish news agency JTA boasted of the Tribe's achievements: the State Department, CIA, National Intelligence, Homeland Security, NSA, Treasury and in addition "Nine Jews are in the new Senate (including the new Majority Leader) and 25 in the House of Representatives, making up more than 6 per cent of the total Congress. That's more than triple the percentage of Jews in the general population. There are also two Jews out of the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court."

This is not a good sign: Jews are good when allied with the oppressed. Then they use their energy to promote the cause of the downtrodden. While at the top, they oppress more vigorously than anybody; ask the Palestinians, if in doubt.

Mind you, I do not subscribe to the idea of Jewish supremacy and massive IQ. The all-Jewish country of Israel is devastated by three lockdowns, by the biggest vaccination drive in the world (86% already vaccinated), by an ongoing civil war of Zionist power against Orthodox Jews who refuse lockdown and vaccination; by the forthcoming fourth national elections, as liberals incessantly try to remove the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu saying he is Israel's Trump. This week, Israel's only remaining international airport was closed down; the people were told nobody would get out at least until the summer. In this small country with its huge density of population and poor housing it feels too much like a ghetto for comfort.

If Jews were as clever as they think they are, they would not get themselves into this no-win Covid war. The Swedish way remains the only way to deal with it, as a recent study has proven beyond all possible doubt. Israeli Jews have been whipped into such a degree of Covid hysteria that there is no way to get out of it. Now they, and the Brits were told that "having a coronavirus vaccination is not a licence to abandon lockdown". Even if all will be vaccinated, the masks, lockdowns and social distancing will be with us forever, if the people who decide now remain in power, because Covid is just a justification for the Great Reset, or Digital Revolution, or the Brave New World or whatever you call it. Jews got convinced and convinced others, and now they are being screwed up like everybody else. If lockdown is a punishment meted out by the global force, as C J Hopkins says , perhaps it is Netanyahu's retirement they want to obtain.

The Jewish cause works fine when allied with the wishes of the real power. They could remove Jeremy Corbyn for his alleged tolerance of antisemitism because the bosses hated his plans to improve the lot of the workers and cut military spending. But Jews have to shut up or even support Alexei Navalny who expressed his dislike of Jews right before he learned to keep his mouth shut.

In this screenshot of his response in 2007, Mr Navalny bans somebody for being "a bugger and a kike". Still, Jews supported him all right when told by their betters. They didn't even mention his real anti-Jewish prejudice for they were (reasonably) afraid the Russian masses would see it as rather a feather in his cap. The Jews are in line with the obscure real power, and have to follow its demands, like the jesters before the king. The Covid plans for the world reset are more important for the Masters than Jewish sentiments, and Jewish leaders recognise that.

[Jan 26, 2021] Show me whom you pardon and will tell you who you are

Now Trump has shafted DR Congo because the money was well appreciated by Dan Gertler as documented by Dershowitz.– "Letting Dan Gertler off the hook sends a message to the world's most corrupt businesspeople that the U.S. will let them walk free after a bit of lobbying,"-NYTimes

Notable quotes:

"... Trump's most pervasive foreign policy initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet. ..."

"... But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel, and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key element. Some might describe that as corruption. ..."

"... Elliott Broidy, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own investigation into the scandal. ..."

"... Another clemency beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. ..."

"... Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case. ..."

"... Trump gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry. ..."

Jan 26, 2021 | www.unz.com

by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review Another disgraceful performance from "Israel's president" PHILIP GIRALDI JANUARY 26, 2021 1,700 WORDS 141 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More

One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict, and Trump can hardly be described as a president who eschewed throwing his weight around, both literally and figuratively. He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence, assassinated an Iranian general, withdrew from several arms and proliferation agreements, and has been waging economic warfare against Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Iraq. He has sanctioned individuals and organizations in both China and Russia and has declared Iranian government components and Yemeni Houthi rebels to be terrorists. He has occupied Syria's oil producing region to "protect it from terrorists" and has generally exerted "maximum pressure" against his "enemies" in the Middle East.

So no, Donald Trump is no antiwar activist. But Trump's most pervasive foreign policy initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet.

Trump's pander to Israel started out with withdrawing from the nuclear monitoring agreement with Iran, followed by his shutting down the Palestinian offices in the United States, halting U.S. contributions for Palestinian humanitarian relief, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, giving a green light for Israel to do whatever it wishes on the formerly Palestinian West Bank, and, finally permitting paroled former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to go "home" to Israel where he received a hero's welcome. Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by former bankruptcy lawyer Ambassador David Friedman in place in Israel, an ardent Zionist and a cheerleader for whatever atrocities Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to commit. Couple that with a Congress that gives billions of dollars to Israel annually while bleating that the Jewish state has a "right to defend itself" and a media that self-censors all the human rights violations and war crimes that Netanyahu unleashes, and you have a perfect love fest for Israel expressed daily throughout the United States.

But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel, and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key element. Some might describe that as corruption.

Those of us in the actual antiwar plus anti-surveillance-state movement had been hoping that Trump would actually do something good at no cost to himself, pardoning whistleblowers Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and Chelsea Manning as well as journalist Julian Assange. Kiriakou has reported that when he petitioned for a pardon through one of Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani's aides, he was told that such an arrangement would cost $2 million.

Bribes for pardons aside, it would have cost Trump nothing to pardon the whistleblowers and it would be a vindication of those who had put themselves at risk to attack the machinations of the Deep State, which Trump had blamed for the coordinated attacks against himself. This was his relatively cost-free chance to get revenge. Admittedly, there is speculation that Senator Mitch McConnell may have warned Trump against pardoning Julian Assange in particular, threatening to come up with enough GOP votes to convict him in his upcoming impeachment trial if he were to do so. Be that as it may, not a single whistleblower was pardoned though there was room on the ship for plenty of heinous white collar criminals. Former Dr. Salomon Melgen, for example, had his sentence commuted. Melgen, a close friend of the seriously corrupt Senator from New Jersey Robert Menendez got into trouble in 2009 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) discovered that he had overbilled Medicare for $8.9 million for a drug called Lucentis. Two years later Melgen's business was hit with a $11 million lien from the IRS and four years after that he was charged and convicted over more than 76 counts of health care fraud and making false statements.

Some of those pardoned had Jewish organizations going to bat for them. Elliott Broidy, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own investigation into the scandal.

Another clemency beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case.

And, of course, there was also the Israel factor. For no plausible reason whatsoever and contrary to actual American interests, Trump gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry.

Sella had passed on the Pollard contact to Mossad's agent handler Rafi Eitan, who continued to "run" Pollard until he was arrested. Sella's indictment was essentially meaningless theater, as is generally true of nearly all Israeli spy cases in the U.S., as Tel Aviv refused to extradite him to the United States and the Justice Department made no attempt to arrest him when he was traveling outside Israel. Trump's pardon for Sella as a favor to Netanyahu sends yet another signal that Israel can spy against the U.S. with impunity. The request to Trump for clemency came from the Israeli government itself and was reportedly endorsed by Netanyahu, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, the United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and Miriam Adelson. According to the White House statement on the pardon, "The state of Israel has issued what a full and unequivocal apology, and has requested the pardon in order to close this unfortunate chapter in U.S.-Israel relations."

Was it a gift or merely a pander? Note particularly the inclusion of David Friedman, who as U.S. Ambassador to Israel is supposed to defend the interests of the United States but never does so. Once upon a time it was considered a potential conflict of interest to send a Jewish Ambassador to Israel. Now it seems to be a requirement and the Ambassador is apparently supposed to be an advocate for Israel as part of his or her mission. Friedman will no doubt be replaced by a Democratic version to deliver more of the same. And then there is Miriam Adelson. Good old Sheldon is hardly cold on the ground and his wife has taken up the mantle of manipulating players in Washington on behalf of the Jewish state.

Money talks and so the drama in Washington continues to play out. Trump manages to make himself look even worse with his last round of pardons and commutations on his ultimate day in office. No one who deserved clemency got it and a lot of well-connected rogues who were willing to fork over money in exchange for mercy benefited. Business as usual delivered by the so-called Leader of the Free World.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

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Z-man , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:14 am GMT • 19.0 hours ago

Owned.
But guess what, senile Joe is a loyal 'Zionist' and Kamalawala is married to a Jew.

Ghali , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:32 am GMT • 18.7 hours ago

While I whole heartily agree with Dr Giraldi, I strongly believe that Trump was a hostage of wealthy Jews and Zionists. It is most likely that he has committed misdemeanour while he was involved (friendship) with Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine who operated an elitist paedophilia criminal enterprise. The criminal enterprise was to advance the interests of Israel and Jews. It was used as a honey trap. Remember, Trump was under constant threat by wealthy Jews and by right-wing Zionists like Senators Mitch McConnell, Robert Menendez, etc. Trump was not a smart president. He committed heinous crimes on behalf of Israel and wealthy Jews.

RedpilledAF , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:54 am GMT • 18.3 hours ago

@Z-man

All Shabbos goys. Our nation is truly Zionist occupied territory. It has been for a long time, but under trump it became overt, and will continue to be under Biden.

Our whole reality, in a sense, has become a Talmudic dialectic. The rabbinate's mouthpiece, our media, disseminates the two sides of that demonic dialectic. The education system and academia train and mold Shabbos goys and Noahides. We work for them and they see us as beasts of burden.

Our citizenry likes the slavery they have been placed in. They are content.

LarryS , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:02 am GMT • 18.2 hours ago

So, the Populist is a shill for Israel and Qanon is probably a psy-op run from Tel Aviv. I wanted to believe there was hope for the USA. I really did. Now we have Biden "I am a Zionist" with an Israeli cabinet. Was there really election fraud? Will we ever know?
What's next?

Just another serf , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:26 am GMT • 17.8 hours ago

I pity those people, probably otherwise good folks, that were conned by this character. Was a blanket pardon for all Jews and BLACKS just not possible? I'm confident Alan Dershowitz could have worked through the complex legalities of such a "comprehensive" pardon.

Jim Christian , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:33 am GMT • 17.7 hours ago

I see the perverts Bob Kraft and Alan Dershowitz in the picture.

nsa , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:45 am GMT • 17.5 hours ago

What are a few yid pardons when, unbelievably, Americans routinely mutilate the sex organs of their male offspring at birth to demonstrate total fealty to the vile Cock Cutter Cult that rules them ..a practice so bizarre even an equatorial pygmy would laugh at the practitioners. Of course, the practitioners claim hygienic as well as spiritual benefits look ma, no dick cheese!

Tolstoy , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:46 am GMT • 17.4 hours ago

Trump is a crypto Jew. Well at least all his grandkids are ..real Jews. So is Hillary's grandkid. So corrupted on both side. What's new? Nothing. The only thing remarkable is that red necks still believe in Trump, hence the white race is doomed.

AriusArmenian , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:47 am GMT • 17.4 hours ago

Trump was too busy being co-president of Israel to give any thought to the American people.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: January 26, 2021 at 7:43 am GMT • 16.5 hours ago

Is five rabbis vouching for you considered something of value? These are the same people who shouted "Give us Barabbas!"

Publius 2 , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:08 am GMT • 16.1 hours ago

Incredible.

Varna , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:11 am GMT • 16.0 hours ago

Agree with most of the article, but calling Jimmy Carter a recent president is more than just a bit of a stretch.

Carter exited office 40 years ago. The current median age in the US is about 38.4 (2019).
So in the lifetime of a very large portion of Americans there has not been a president that hasn't started a new war.

Sirius , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:20 am GMT • 15.9 hours ago

Frankly, I don't see why presidents should have the power to pardon. It has been abused so much that perhaps it's time to strip presidents of that power, or at least there should be an appeals process or some sort of oversight when that abuse becomes so egregious. Aside from all the financial criminals, he pardoned actual war criminals, men who murdered innocent civilians in Iraq. Pardons weren't meant for this.

Of course, leave it to Trump to take it to new levels of corruption as well as abuse. If John Kyriakou's allegation of Trump's directly selling pardons is true, that should be a first.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:23 am GMT • 15.8 hours ago

Carter kickstarted funding the Taliban 6 months before the Russians intervened.

I'm nor surprised by Trump's graft, but the whole system of making laws in Congress includes bribery so nothing new here to see.

Aside from being a bad manager, he is no strategist it seems. Not pardoning Assange means the GOP are going to vote not to impeach you? How gullible is he? He is getting impeached whatever he does, he could jump on a literal sword and they'd still impeach him because they are so offended by the prols.

Ron G , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:25 am GMT • 15.8 hours ago

Trump lost his job because he didn't do what he was elected for . attack Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mHn6TvsWq6w?feature=oembed

Brewer , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:30 am GMT • 15.7 hours ago

The sight of Dersh rubbing his hands in the pic is nearly enough to induce this commenter to say good riddance despite the obviously stolen election and the incoming disaster. I got the Apolitical Blues.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lkfbE-5erhQ?feature=oembed

antitermite , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:38 am GMT • 15.6 hours ago

It would not have mattered whether Donald Trump had pardoned any whistleblowers.

As we can see, the Harris administration is dismantling as much of his legacy as they can, as fast as they can.
The parts that offend, that is.

It only matters if the CIA pardon Snowden or Assange, else they will forever be looking over their shoulders, wondering when something will be slipped into their tea, or over their doorknob..

mark green , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:46 am GMT • 15.4 hours ago

@Z-man ing back.
Therefore: stop bad-speak. Stop unauthorized thinking. For the love of God: eradicate anti-Semitism!

Has Israeli dominance of Zio-Washington and US 'news' ever been greater? Nah. And it may even be growing. OK, Trump blew the whistle on 'fake news'. But that teaser was pretty much far as it went.

For all his boldness, Trump realized that–when it came to Israel and the deep state– he met is match. Time to retreat.

Meanwhile, Israel and Zionist America have basically merged. In the dark of night, no less.

(Can you guess who the senior partner is?)

Humbert Humbert , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:52 am GMT • 15.3 hours ago

This article is a full on demolition of the idea that Trumpstein is any sort of patriot. I can not imagine any patriotic figure in all of human history doing a tenth of what this shabas goy has done for another country – and one so universally despised as Israel – and not only getting away with it, but still being praised in certain circles for standing up for his "motherland". Bonkers.

Greta Handel , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:59 am GMT • 15.2 hours ago

Go back to the preposterously optimistic article and comments under "A Pardoning Time of Year," December 29, 2020.

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

A few, maybe. But there will still be plenty like them for the next Most Important Election Ever, their dissent channeled into naive, participatory assent to more Red+Blue governance from Washington.

Smith , says: January 26, 2021 at 9:25 am GMT • 14.8 hours ago

The fact (american) right wingers haven't dropped Trump like a sack of rock foretells more LOSING in the future.

HeebHunter , says: January 26, 2021 at 9:30 am GMT • 14.7 hours ago

Amerimutts are either kikes or kike slaves. There is no other places on earth (except semitic hell, of course), where "huwhites" cut children's foreskin against their will, as good "Christians".

Disgusting nation of heretics, quadroons, subhumans, kike lovers and yids.

1945 payback.

Supply and Demand , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:31 am GMT • 13.7 hours ago

@Z-man

Every boomer is Jewish or aspirationally Jewish. No avoiding it with old crones.

Defcon , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:46 am GMT • 13.4 hours ago

No surprise here, coming from "the best president Israel ever had". Expect more of the same from the new administration of Israeli stooges. I was hopeful the orange bastard would pardon Snowden and Assange, oh well.

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:57 am GMT • 13.3 hours ago

Israel: America's–and the world's–#1 liability for the last 70 years.

Greg Bacon , says: Website January 26, 2021 at 11:06 am GMT • 13.1 hours ago

Pedo Joe is wasting no time showing Jews & Israel he can pander and grovel to Israel and Jew Inc better than Zion Don.

Look at 10 of his high-level Cabinet appointments..ALL Jews. If they had been all Muslims or all Chinese, it would've hit the fan and by now, most would have dropped out from that spot.
But since their Jews, well look the other way you Silly Goyim.

I thought Diversity was our strength?

All 10 of Biden's High Profile Appointees Are Jews

Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State

David Cohen, CIA Deputy Director

Merrick Garland, Attorney General

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence

Ronald Klain, Chief of Staff

Eric Lander, Office of Science and Technology Policy director

Rachel Levine, deputy health secretary

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security

Anne Neuberger, National Security Agency cybersecurity director

Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state

Janet Yellen, Treasury secretary

https://www.freedomofspeechtwentyfirstcentury.com/2021/01/all-10-of-bidens-high-profile.html

Next up, a 9/11 false flag that hits an American city or US base that the MSM will blame on Iran that had Syrian helpers.

Or maybe us white guys will get the blame when some fertilizer blows up a Midwest city?

Timur The Lame , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:12 am GMT • 13.0 hours ago

Idiocracy, the director's cut. Trump grabs himself by the pussy in a surprise ending!

Remember, the Phoenix cannot rise from the fire, it has to rise from the ashes. Only then can the real MAGA begin. See if its true that Bismarck (allegedly) stated that " there is a special providence for drunkards, fools and the United States of America".

Cheers-

Hughes , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:16 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

Lol and here i read on some other board that Trump would've given the capitol trespassers pardons. I guess not. Wishful thinking on the cult.

Frank frank , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:18 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

It's pretty fascinating for anyone who knows what's happening to see Jews utterly destroy and evacuate yet another great civilization by using the same corrupting forces and patterns used in their clearly deliberate rotting out of Rome, the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire, then Russia, and now the USA. It's like Jews are a kind of human parasitoid that will always kill its host as part of its lifecycle after it has drained all energy and resources from within.

Remember that movie Alien, there the larva like offspring attaches to inject its seed into humans and then clearly affects the human's nervous system to make them kind of forget that ever happened as they carry the parasitoid in them that develops and feeds on their body until the day it bursts from their chest in the form of the beast we know as the alien.

As stated about our in the movie, something along the lines of "pure survival instinct burned by the limitations of delusions of morality"; pretty much describes how Jews operate and act, and how they keep infecting and then destroying the very societies and civilizations they feed on until they burst from their victims' chest.

I wish China all the luck it needs to see this threat from this parasitoid and freed themselves of it before it infiltrates and infests and feeds on their society out too. By all indications it is already too late for them too and they just don't realize it yet. The recent video of the Chinese academic bragging about the control of American officials would indicate as much, judging by the section of the video that was totally ignored, about the Jewish woman executive of an American bank who is thick as thieves with the Chinese communist party who manipulated things for the Chinese in America.

Sean , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:26 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict

What about Iran. Carter must take responsibility for the mishandling of Iran by letting the Shah into the US, and failing to withdraw the embassy when it became obvious Iranian internal politics meant US diplomats were becoming targets.

He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence.

Russian forces fought a whole war in Syria on a correct appreciation of what could be gained for Russia.

Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by

America has to come to the aid of its allies, right or wrong, otherwise it will have no allies.

[J]ournalist Julian Assange

Assange didn't describe himself as simply such until after his legal troubles started.

https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/assange-wikileaks-radical 5 APRIL 2011
Assange: "WikiLeaks is the intelligence agency of the people"
The site chief discusses radical journalism and WikiLeaks's main threat in an exclusive

As for Snowden he wasn't drafted but rather was sought the job. He knew it was was not in a boy scout group, and the secrets he was swearing an oath to keep were not going to be about thoroughly wholesome activities such as training guide dogs for the blind. No more than someone who becomes a made member of the mafia could Snowden be shocked at what the organization he was associated with was doing.

Business as usual delivered by the so-called Leader of the Free World.

He never claimed to be a global Santa for those who brought nothing to the table.

G J T , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:26 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Trump is pathetic. Anyone still making excuses for him is a battered wife and a sycophant. I hope they continue to humiliate him now that he's out of office, because it's exactly what he deserves.

Trump, just like his Republican counterparts, are more despicable than shitlibs and the radical left, because they lie and stab you in the back every single time. At least the shitlibs and radical leftists don't pretend they don't absolutely hate us.

Go to hell, Trumpenstein.

Herald , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:27 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

The article has nothing to do with the corrupt Joe Biden. It's all about the corrupt Trump and the selling of favours to his corrupt Zionist chums.

roonaldo , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:30 am GMT • 12.7 hours ago

If bribe money was paid, how was it spread around, and what besides money can be extracted in return? A "no" vote on inpeachment? Pardons to Mossad/Israeli connected cases in return for their pressure on certain politicians on whom they have compromising photos, etc?

A pardon for Assange and Kiriakou takes the pressure off Biden to do so, and these are Obama political persecutions. And Winner was arrested in what, June 2017, by the FBI for leaking classified info feeding the feeble Russian election interference narrative? She posted numerous anti-Trump diatribes.

Sure, they and Snowden deserve pardons, but now the Dems will face dissension, criticism, and sniping within their own ranks on these matters.

Smith , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

@Herald

Trump might as well be more corrupted than Joe Biden at this point.

I'm convinced the American deep state removes him because he's actually an Israeli agent which would make the Zionist scene in USA look bad, like holy hell, is there any zionist jew he doesn't suck off? That's disgusting.

moi , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

The hierarchy that controls our government and moral/social values, in order, goes as follows:

Yids
Nigs
Spics

Trump, loved with under-educated and redneck whites, was an all-out Shabbos goy, not to mention he was greedy, egotistical/egoistical and a self-serving liar.

moi , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:02 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

@Ghali

Trump, in his younger days, was a coached by and was a protege of Roy Cohn. Look into who Roy Cohn was.

mcohen , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:03 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

Donald trump is a mensch.He did what was needed to be done and he played a full round of golf while doing it.

zard , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:27 pm GMT • 11.8 hours ago

In many ways Trump has been like a Terminator sent by the Jewish Establishment to completely derail, discredit and destroy the Patriot movement in America. Now any American Patriot who is against the U.S. Establishment and says CNN is fake news is automatically associated with Trump and deemed an enemy of America. Can you say Mission Accomplished? The Jewish Snake must be patting itself on the back for its brilliant move to hurt the greatest threat to it in a long time.

Unfortunately there are many people who still believe that Trump was a great President sent by God to save America. It makes me sad to see so many people so clueless. I wish that all those still supporting Trump will wake up and recognize as so many others have that the man is nothing but a Snake who knows how to speak your language while totally betraying your cause. How can you support a two faced man like this who has hurt your cause more than anyone else possibly could?

EDIT TO ADD: Trump left office in disgrace just as was intended but the real disgrace is not on Trump but on the American Patriot movement. Now the American Patriot movement is in a far worse position than it was in 2016 before it accepted Trump as its leader. We were greatly deceived but in 2020 there is no excuse for anyone to still be deceived about Trump. He completely betrayed our cause and it was all by design. His entire purpose for becoming POTUS was, outside of giving Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel (his true loyalty), to turn our cause into something that the American public would perceive as ugly and to be shunned when in reality our cause is very noble. We were played by Trump and his Jewish backers but that is now in the past. Let us stop talking about this man once and for all. He is nothing but a distraction away from what it is important to us. I consider anyone still supporting Trump at this point or in the future to be an enemy.
http://www.chuckmaultsby.net/id55.html

Ugetit , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:28 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago

Providing mucho fertilizer for excellent articles like this which expose the hideous and disgusting perfidy of the Zionist sewer and its catamites is only worth of the Chrumpster and his time as Netanyahu's orifice.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:28 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago

@Z-man

Blaming single acts and single people serves the purpose to remain in denial of the general situation, I guess?

Ugetit , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:30 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago

@mcohen

Donald trump is a mensch.He did what was needed to be done and he played a full round of golf while doing it.

And I thought he was playing 4-D chess the whole time. Silly me!

Greg Bacon , says: Website January 26, 2021 at 12:39 pm GMT • 11.6 hours ago

@Ron G , just get me into the WH.
Which will happen, we'll have a power-mad prez that has never won any primaries doing Israel's blood work.

THERE'S A WAR GOING ON OVER KAMALA HARRIS'S WIKIPEDIA PAGE, WITH UNFLATTERING ELEMENTS VANISHING

A line about Harris traveling to Israel and the West Bank in November 2017, where she met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was removed altogether.

https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/08/theres-a-war-going-on-over-kamala-harriss-wikipedia-page-with-unflattering-elements-vanishing/

Defcon , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:48 pm GMT • 11.4 hours ago

@Supply and Demand

My comment a few days ago on transgenerational hate got a lot of negative feed back. You are correct though, boomers and church goers worship the yids, despite what Jesus said about them and later Martin Luther.

Father O'Hara , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:06 pm GMT • 11.1 hours ago

@moi

What Roy Cohn was? You mean,the Jew? The "fixer"? The tax cheat? The fag?

Old and Grumpy , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:09 pm GMT • 11.1 hours ago

@Supply and Demand

Obviously you have never met all boomers.

Hans , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:12 pm GMT • 11.0 hours ago

Please read the following carefully line by line:

"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983

Now that "Zion Don" appears to be out of the way, we can get back to encouraging illegals, giving them their rights, setting our sights on the another Hitler in Syria, globalizing what's left of the industrial base, getting trannies more judgeships, queering history, and on and on cuz all dem ideas are homegrown and strictly non-kosher.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:25 pm GMT • 10.8 hours ago

I thought the pardons were great. Who knew there were so many criminal Jews who have been actually convicted? Its almost like the Jewish stereotypes are really true. Does that mean no one can be anti Semitic? Also the way black rappers get killed off, supply and demand dictates jailed ones need to be free. Very Reaganesque.

Sarcasm aside I think Jews tended to hate Trump because in sucking up to them, The Donald wound up revealing many ugly truths. Outside of Trump's energy and environmental policies, its a good riddance from me. Unfortunately the looming costs related to energy and taxes, I'll eventually and unfortunately will wind up missing the weak and Ivanka sniffing SOB.

Anon [374] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:30 pm GMT • 10.7 hours ago

Phil,

Run for president in 2024. Ya' got one vote here. You can use the catchphrase, "Make America Independent Again". Red, White, and Blue hats, etc. Your campaign rally speeches would be epically entertaining in the gnashing of establishment journo's teeth as they described them.

Katrinka , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:41 pm GMT • 10.5 hours ago

@Tolstoy

White people have survived much worse. Stop being hyperbolic.

Hillaire , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:48 pm GMT • 10.4 hours ago

@Ghali

Drumpf the rancid orange golem played you all to the very last coda, pissing in your eyes as he pardoned a most rancorous group of bent buddies and chosen criminal diversities . maga men hung to dry, swinging in the wind.

Half of america shafted and stockholm syndromed, as the fake fat narcissist waltzes of to play golf and hide the ginger squirrel with the reanimated frank-epstein and his transhumanised teenage sorority clones in tel-aviv.

by the way see where this link leads: antifa.com .
hint: the whitehouse.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:52 pm GMT • 10.3 hours ago

@Sean

Wasn't it Carter who gave Golda Meier the first holocaust museum, Jewish Trojan horse at the front door of the capital of the USA.

Hillaire , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:11 pm GMT • 10.0 hours ago

@LarryS

Well, if history is a yardstick, probably starvation and slaughter.

I would plan accordingly.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:37 pm GMT • 9.6 hours ago

Assange has neither been charged nor convicted, AFAIK, the only precedent is Ford-Nixon.

Bradly Manning was a soldier in uniform at the time, so had no right to do what he did.

Anybody who has been in uniform would know this.

Still, probably deserved a re-pardon.

As an outside observer, the single observer most deserving of a pardon, for many years, Leonard Peltier, as always ignored.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:48 pm GMT • 9.4 hours ago

@Che Guava

In the second instance of 'observer', it was meant to say 'person'.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:57 pm GMT • 9.3 hours ago

I follow interesting facts from the U.S.A., the fraud was such a bad joke on so many facts and statistical measures.

People in many places have noticed.

I will remember, but the U.S. empire is sure to make a BIG effort to make most forget.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:01 pm GMT • 9.2 hours ago

@LarryS nd its American friends get what they want, no matter what.

Trump was terrible and I'm glad to see him gone. Problem is Biden & Co. will probably be worse, letting in countless third worlders and pandering to BLM, trannies and countless other perverts and sexual curiosities.

Neither party represents the interests of the American people. Did we really want 14 million illegals here and $6 trillion spent on failed adventures in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.?

I harken back to H L Mencken who said both parties spend their time proving the other is unfit to govern and are both right.

Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:10 pm GMT • 9.0 hours ago

@mark green

Why is there is no pushback?

The vast majority of Americans are stupid.

antitermite , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:11 pm GMT • 9.0 hours ago

The pardoning of the Blackwater scum has fascinating implications for any country with a Status of Forces Agreement /Visiting Forces Agreement, which is what, 80% of the world?

A host country might want to revisit these terms if it means that their women & children could be raped, killed, mutilated whilst the perpetrators walk free.

Rev. Spooner , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:16 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

@Greg Bacon

This is beyond belief. Are Americans blind? Is there something in the water they drink?
A whole population bent over with their posteriors pointed at the sky, willingly accepting the abuse by the zionists.
Love them or hate them, these jews dream big. Bravo

BAMA , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:17 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

Another on target Giraldi article. The ultimate blame for our being occupied and used without a shot being fired is with American gullibility and blindness. How does a global power, in almost every way, become the lap dog, errand boy, bully and financier for such an ungrateful, blood sucking little country? We have created a Frankenstein Monster for the world.

Sean , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:29 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

@SolontoCroesus ight Palestinians were there even if there was strong Israel Lobby domestic pressure. But in 1979 Carter–distracted by the fall of the Shah–merely brokered a Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty deal that eliminated Egypt from the conflict, and the lack of the deterrent they represented meant meant hat Israel was free to do what it liked in the West Bank and attack Lebanon. The Palestinians will never get another US president like Carter. Israel does not want an agreement, the current situation suits them very well. So Iran is not deterring Israel from doing anything it wants to do. Moreover, Israel likes having a pseudo threat like Iran.

Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:31 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

@Greta Handel

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

Not a chance stupidity reigns supreme.

While a pardon of Assange and Snowden would have been the moral thing to do America is still on the shit slide almost at the bottom.

Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

@Greta Handel

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

Not a chance stupidity reigns supreme.

While a pardon of Assange and Snowden would have been the moral thing to do America is still on the shit slide almost at the bottom.

Marckus , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

Well I have to say this comes as a surprise. To think that American politicians take bribes, favour one particular group etc etc is news to me. However, Trump catering to the foreskin modifiers and the dick cheese eliminators is the good news.

The bad news is the new team is already in bed not only with the foreskin challenged sticks, but with the chopsticks and every other stick with a dollar bill wrapped around the head. When the 25th collides with Joe's worn out pecker and Kamala takes over that will be the sign that circumcised or not we are all fucked.

As some readers commented on UR, honesty is the best policy, turn the other cheek and love conquers hate. All good advice I am sure but redundant and inapplicable in the world we live in.

The ruled live by these rules but the rulers live by their own !

[Jan 19, 2021] Goodbye Sheldon Adelson by Philip Giraldi

What is interesting tha casino traditionally was regarded as mafia connected business.

Jan 19, 2021 | www.unz.com

Casino magnate and Israeli patriot multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of the world's richest men, died in Las Vegas on January 11 ^th at age 87. He had been suffering from cancer and has been buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Israel . When his body arrived in Israel it was met by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Jonathan Pollard, the most damaging spy in United States history. Tributes to the fallen "hero" poured in from the political class in both the United States and Israel and it has even been reported that President Donald Trump was intending to hoist the American flag at half mast over federal buildings to honor the "great humanitarian philanthropist." Unfortunately, the flag was already at half mast honoring the death of Capitol Police Force officer Brian Sicknick, who was murdered in the Capitol building last Wednesday.

Trump has not mentioned the service unto death of Sicknick and the flag lowering itself was apparently a bit of an afterthought on behalf of the White House, but he had plenty to say about his good buddy Adelson, who has been the principal funder of the Republican Party over the past five years. As he can no longer use Twitter, the president's condolences were posted on the White House site: "Melania and I mourn the passing of Sheldon Adelson, and send our heartfelt condolences to his wife Miriam, his children and grandchildren. Sheldon lived the true American dream. His ingenuity, genius, and creativity earned him immense wealth, but his character and philanthropic generosity his great name. Sheldon was also a staunch supporter of our great ally the State of Israel. He tirelessly advocated for the relocation of the United States embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and its neighbors. Sheldon was true to his family, his country, and all those that knew him. The world has lost a great man. He will be missed."

Missing from the Trump eulogy is any mention of what Adelson did for the United States, which is his country of birth and where he made his fortune engaging in activity that many would consider to be a vice. In fact, Adelson was all about the Jewish state, positioning himself as the principal funder of the Republican Party under Donald Trump and receiving in return as a quid pro quo the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and a virtual concession that the Jewish state could do whatever it wants vis-à-vis the Palestinians, to include expelling them from Palestine. Adelson once commented that Israel does not have to pretend to be a democracy but it must be Jewish, presumably to help the process of Arab genocide move along.

Adelson's mechanism, initiated under George W. Bush, is familiar to how the Israel Lobby operates more generally. It consisted of the exploitation of the incessant need of campaign money by the GOP, which Adelson provided with strings attached. He worked with the Republicans to completely derail the admittedly faux peace process begun under Bill Clinton, which depended on a two-state solution, and instead give the Jewish state a free hand to implement its own unilateral Greater Israel Project extending from "the Jordan River to the Mediterranean." As part of that expansion, Israel has been building illegal settlements while also bombing and killing Lebanese, Syrians, and Iranians and assassinating scientists and technicians throughout the region.

All of the interventions against Israel's neighbors took place even though the Jewish state was not technically at war with anyone. The U.S. meanwhile funded Israeli aggression and watched the spectacle without any complaint, providing political cover as necessary, while also maintaining a major military presence in the Middle East to "protect Israel," as Trump recently admitted.

In short, Sheldon Adelson committed as much as half a billion dollars from his vast fortune to buy control over a major element of U.S. foreign policy and subordinated American interests to those of Israel. In addition to direct donations to both major political parties, he also paid for Congressional "fact finding" trips to Israel and funded a number of pro-Israel lobbies, so-called charities and other related Jewish projects. It is indisputable that he wielded an incredible degree of power to shape Washington's actions in the Middle East. In her own tribute to her dead husband, Miriam Adelson, an Israeli, described how he "crafted the course of nations."

Adelson was actively engaged on Israel's behalf until the week before his death. He provided his casino's private 737 luxury executive jet to transport Jonathan Pollard "home" to Israel. Pollard has served 30 years in prison after being convicted of espionage and was on parole, which restricted his travel. As yet another a gift to Israel, Donald Trump lifted that restriction, allowing him to fly to Israel where he received a hero's welcome. It is generally agreed that Pollard was the most damaging spy in American history, having stolen the keys to accessing U.S. communications and information gathering systems. A month after Pollard's arrest in 1985, C.I.A director William Casey stated: "The Israelis used Pollard to obtain our war plans against the USSR – all of it: the co-ordinates, the firing locations, the sequences, and Israel sold that information to Moscow for more exit visas for Soviet Jews."

Sheldon Adelson used his wealth and political connections to shield himself from any criticism due to his openly expressed preference for Israel over the land of his birth. He famously publicly stated that he wished he had worn the Israeli Army uniform instead of that of the U.S. Army, where he served briefly as a draftee. He also expressed his desire that his son would serve as an Israeli army sniper, presumably allowing him to blow the heads off of Palestinians. In 2013 Adelson advocated ending nuclear negotiations with Iran and instead detonating a nuclear weapon in "the middle of the [Iranian] desert," followed by a threat to annihilate the capital city Tehran, home to 8.6 million, to force Iran to surrender its essentially non-existent nuclear program.

Other acknowledgements of the impact of Adelson came from officials in the Trump Administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented how his "efforts to strengthen the alliance between Israel and the United States the world, Israel and the United States are safer because of his work." Yeah, right Mike.

So, the world is definitely a better place due to the passing of Sheldon Adelson. Or is it? His Israeli wife Miriam owns more than 40% of Las Vegas Sands Corp Casinos Inc., estimated to be worth in excess of $17 billion. She has proposed that a new chapter be included in the Jewish bible, the Book of Trump, and has pledged herself to continue her husband's work. Trump had previously given her the highest award that a president can bestow, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Freedom, of course, does not apply to Palestinians. And if one is concerned that the Democrats will not be cooperative, they too have their own major donor similar to Adelson. He is an Israeli film producer named Haim Saban, who, echoing a similar statement by Adelson, said that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

[Jan 17, 2021] Who Benefits?

Jan 17, 2021 | www.unz.com

Wally , says: January 16, 2021 at 8:46 am GMT • 19.4 hours ago

@Lot eli-jew-19-arrested-antisemitic-hate-crime-hoax-spree/
– Man Caught Spray Painting Swastika On College Campus Is Black
http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/16/man-caught-spray-painting-swastika-on-college-campus-is-black-report-says/
– FBI Data: Minorities More Likely to Commit Hate Crimes than White People :
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/new-fbi-data-minorities-more-likely-to-commit-hate-crimes-than-white-people/
"White" here includes brown Hispanics meaning that true Euro-whites commit even less "hate crimes" than this report says.

BDS Always , says: January 16, 2021 at 1:32 pm GMT • 14.7 hours ago

@Lot

I agree with you on needing the FBI otherwise these things would never take place.
GLADIO Psyop: Another False Flag Synagogue Shooting With a Fake Hero That's Probably a Total Hoax.

http://themillenniumreport.com/2019/04/gladio-psyop-another-false-flag-synaogogue-shooting-with-a-fake-hero-thats-probably-a-total-hoax/

[Jan 15, 2021] More seriously, Zionism is a copy-cat ideology from late 19-th century when all ethnic groups in east-central Europe, large and small, were inventing nationalisms (Latvians as a nation with unique experience and all such).

Jan 15, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Jan 15 2021 1:24 utc | 58

More seriously, Zionism is a copy-cat ideology from late 19-th century when all ethnic groups in east-central Europe, large and small, were inventing nationalisms (Latvians as a nation with unique experience and all such). Being dominant, American ZIonists are also fractious, Democrat Zionists having mutual hatred with Republican Zionists (both detest non-Zionist Jews with passion). The have their peculiarities, including support of Israel etc., but they do not differ much from other Americans.

[Jan 13, 2021] Yes, in general, Israel had to take a lot of extreme measures to drive immigration into itself from the world

Jan 13, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Jan 13 2021 0:26 utc | 48

Yes, in general, Israel had to take a lot of extreme measures to drive immigration into itself from the world. Many Jews were quite happy where they were, and had no desire to relocate to some desert paradise in the Middle East. Zionism created, and tricked into being, threats to drive Jewish populations from other lands.

Alison Weir in her groundbreaking and highly acclaimed book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel sketches some of the forceful tactics Zionist cadres used to coerce refugees from World War II to be taken to Israel, very often against their will.

Weir also records how US officials during this age pushed back against the influence of Zionists, but the sums of money raised in the US to promote Zionist policy were of an awesome scale. And it was predicted at the time that the US involvement with the Israel plan would bring it the enmity of the Arab world, which up to that time it did not have.

Menachem Begin, she also records, proclaimed on American TV how proud he was to have introduced terrorism not only to the Middle East but to the whole world.

So these were the founding spirits of the situation we in the US find ourselves in today. We can see the The Zionist occupation of Palestine in clear, geographical terms. It is much harder to draw the Zionist occupation the US in clear terms, but surely it exists to a similar degree of absolute repression.

~~

I sometimes feel that if we could know the whole truth of the Jews, and the Zionists, many of our uncertainties about historical events and modern-day affairs would evaporate.

This has become a dangerous topic to pursue, which alone must tell us much. I'm glad of this thread from b. Outside of Unz, such discussions are rare.

[Jan 13, 2021] Initially Israel was supposed to serve as Britain's eyes and ears in the Middle East to keep the Arabs and other native Middle Eastern communities in line. Now Israel serves as the eyes and ears of the US and the rest of the Five Eyes network in the Middle East. The relationship between Israel and the Anglosphere can at least be described as symbiotic.

Jan 13, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Jan 12 2021 23:27 utc | 43

FYI @ 30, Steven T Johnson @ 36:

In its early years (1948 - 1960s), Israel's politics and culture were dominated by Ashkenazi Jews or their descendants in countries they had migrated to, before moving to Israel.

During this time, Mizrahi Jews (Jews living in Islamic cultures and whose traditions were influenced by the Islamic and pre-Islamic traditions of their neighbours in these cultures) were brought to Israel via mass immigration programs portrayed as "taking up Aliyah". The bulk of the Mizrahi Jews came from Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Yemen. They made up the bulk of the low-wage labouring classes in Israel, even though some if these Jews had clerical and administrative backgrounds.

A musician I used to know whose family was of Iraqi Jewish background told me that before the 1940s, Jewish people were prominent in Iraqi culture: they made up a considerable proportion of the country's professional musicians. I have read elsewhere that Iraqi banks before the 1940s were staffed mainly by Jewish people. About two-thirds of people living in Baghdad in the 1930s were Jewish. One wonders what a blow Iraq suffered when Jewish people left the country in huge waves in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s as a result of a series of terror attacks, blamed on Muslim gangs angry at Israel's creation in 1948, that are now said (depending on sources) to have been instigated by underground Israeli agents and local Iraqi people working for these agents.

So for a few decades up to the 1980s, Israel's upper and middle classes were of Ashkenazi Jewish origins and culture, and the lower classes were mostly of Mizrahi Jewish origins. Later as Mizrahi Jews began to join the middle classes and left behind low-wage work, and began to intermarry with Ashkenazi Jews, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza started doing low-wage work before the Intifada began in the 1980s. Since then, Israel has been importing guest workers from China and Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines. Some of these guest workers have had children born in Israel who can only speak Hebrew and they and the children have been subjected to deportation.

Significantly Israeli culture and society (or what we would call high culture or intellectual culture) are dominated by Ashkenazi Jewish cultural values and history, even as most Israeli Jews now have little connection with the history of Ashkenazi Jews and the Shoah / Holocaust. Low culture, working class culture or everyday culture seems to be associated with whatever Mizrahi Jews brought with them (their cuisines, for example).

Initially Israel was supposed to serve as Britain's eyes and ears in the Middle East to keep the Arabs and other native Middle Eastern communities in line. Now Israel serves as the eyes and ears of the US and the rest of the Five Eyes network in the Middle East. The relationship between Israel and the Anglosphere can at least be described as symbiotic.

[Jan 13, 2021] Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities

Jan 13, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Apartheid News Jen , Jan 12 2021 22:51 utc | 37

Sheldon Adelson, the casino oligarch who has financed far right causes as well as the political careers of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo, has died . In 2013 Adelson had called for nuking Tehran (vid).

Good Riddance.

Unfortunately his money will continue to flow to the far right as his Israeli wife is the one who is now running the show .

In other news B'Tselem, the topmost Israeli human rights organization, finally describes both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid regime:

B'Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B'Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.

Nothing really new there but it makes it official.

With B'Tselem finally speaking out it is much easier to refute those who falsely denounce the much justified condemnation of Zionism and Israel as anti-semitic.

This comes at a time when Israel is scheming to derail the incoming Biden administration's plan to return to the nuclear deal with Iran:

Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It's stated publicly that it doesn't want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.

That strategy runs against the Biden team's willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It's conditioned on Iran's returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.
...
Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran.
...
Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin's push to expand the deal.

"There should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 -- a deal which is flawed to its foundations," Netanyahu said.

With Biden being an arch-Zionist and with a team of Zionist Jews leading the State Department the chances of a fast return to the deal can be regarded as slim.

Erik @ 22:

The sobering thought is that all known illicit drugs that are commonly used by most addicts or as recreational drugs originated as medicinal drugs. They were invented by chemists, pharmacists or medical researchers.

CHARLES ROMLEY ALDER WRIGHT – THE FOREFATHER OF HEROIN

Dr. Charles Wright, born in 1844, was a physics and chemistry researcher in London. Well respected, he helped found the Royal Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. With his chemist skills, he had been experimenting with morphine, combining it with various acids. He had hoped to discover a nonaddictive alternative to the medicine and soon discovered a more potent version of morphine by boiling anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride. Called diacetylmorphine at the time, this is the substance today known as heroin. Following Wright's discovery, the drug was marketed as an analgesic and a cough sedative in 1888. It wasn't until 1913 that its addictive qualities were officially discovered and it was swiftly taken off the market.

JOHN PEMBERTON – THE FOREFATHER OF COCAINE

Following injuries he sustained as a Colonel in the Confederate Army, John Pemberton, also a pharmacist, searched for a cure to counteract his addiction to morphine, which he had been using as a painkiller. After experimenting with coca and coca wines, he came up with what he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca, an alcoholic blend designed to reduce nervousness; stomach, bowel, and kidney irregularities; and more. Following temperance legislation, Pemberton was under pressure to create a non-alcoholic version of his medicine and invented Coca-Cola by accident in 1886. It was the result when he mistakenly blended his base syrup with carbonated water, and he decided to market it as the fountain drink we know today. Ten years later, the Coca-Cola company ran into controversy after it was discovered cocaine was an addictive and dangerous substance. A glass used to 9 mg of its primary secret – now illegal – ingredient.

...

NAGAI NAGAYOSHI – THE FOREFATHER OF METHAMPHETAMINE

Nagai Nagayoshi, who became the first doctor of pharmacy in Japan, was sponsored by the Prussia government to study at the University of Berlin and went on to receive a doctorate based on his study of eugenol. Nagayoshi later became a professor of chemistry and pharmacy in 1893, and it was this year he became the first to synthesize methamphetamine, which came from ephedrine. It was Nagayoshi's work that led pharmacologist Akira Ogata to synthesize the crystalline form of methamphetamine, which we today know as crystal meth.

FRIEDRICH SERTÜRNER – THE FOREFATHER OF MORPHINE

Born in 1783, Friedrich Sertürner, achieved a number of recognized accomplishments at a young age when he worked as a pharmacist's apprentice. He isolated morphine from opium, becoming the first person to ever extract an alkaloid from opium and thus to isolate an alkaloid from a plant. This feat made Sertürner the first person ever to isolate a medicinal plant or herb's active ingredient. He named the alkaloid "morphium," after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Having morphine literally at his fingertips to examine, Sertürner investigated its effects. The drug became a widely used sedative after 1815, and Sertürner worked as a successful pharmacist until his death in 1841.

---

Jen , Jan 13 2021 0:26 utc | 49

James @ 39:

I take the blame for starting the thread on discussing opiate addiction @ 5. This was due to my picking up these paragraphs at the Buzzfeed News article that B linked to in connection with Miriam Adelson.

... Miriam [Adelson] married fellow physician Ariel Ochshorn in the 1970s, and had two daughters with him, Yasmin and Sivan. After they divorced in the 1980s, she came to New York to do a fellowship at Rockefeller University with Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek. The two doctors have remained friends and collaborators to this day.

Kreek, who began her conversation with BuzzFeed News by stressing that she had gotten permission from Miriam to do the interview, said that she had been approached by an official in Israel's Ministry of Health in 1986 about sending an Israeli doctor to Rockefeller to work on addiction medicine. In short order, Adelson came over to New York with her two teenagers, who attended the Ramaz School on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

At the time, treating heroin addicts with methadone was still considered a cutting-edge treatment, and Kreek and Adelson (then Ochshorn) were on the forefront. It was also starting to become controversial; while many doctors argue that methadone maintenance is an effective harm-reduction tool that allows people to master their addiction and live normal lives, opponents say that using methadone instead of heroin is really another form of dependence. Kreek, who receives significant funding for her program from the Adelsons, decried the "stigma" surrounding methadone maintenance treatment ...

Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities:

Improvement in Cognitive Performance after One Year of Methadone Maintenance Treatment

More contributions by Dr Adelson at Research Gate here.

Whether the success of the treatments at Dr Adelson's clinics are actually due to the treatments themselves, and whether their success can be replicated in other clinics not owned or run by Dr Adelson, might be another issue.

William Haught , Jan 13 2021 2:09 utc | 61

Thank you very very much, as the song goes. This from 1970 applies to Adelson four or five orders of magnitude more than Scrooge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkq7WZTzkLQ

[Jan 10, 2021] Trump's Last Stand, by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!

Trump run his election complain of 2016 as champion of common Americans. After he won the office the betrayed them all and governed like Bush III with his own cabal of neocons and neoliberals. \

He betrayed his followed again on Dec 6, when he first incited them for the action but did not provide organization, security and the plan needed to press Congress to appoint the commission for investigation of election "irregularities" for then days before Biden inauguration. He is now completely spent politically and his enemies and first of all, Ms Pelosi, are after him. Moreover he gave a shot in the arm for the gang of Russiagaters who were pursuing him since his inauguration.

The fact that Trump leaves the political scene is good. While useful as a wrecking ball for the neoliberal empire and neoliberal establishment he proved to be completely inept as a politician and lack courage necessary for the national leader. Which he proved again on Dec 6. Famous quote from Friedrich Schiller's play Fiesco "The Moor has done his duty. The Moor can go." is probably applicable. What is interesting is that Zionists betrayed Trump.

But the fact hat he will be replaced by neocon warmonger and staunch neoliberal Biden means that there is no light at the and of tunnel for the common people.

Like Trump, Biden was never Presidential material. He a a mediocre politician, by all accounts. And extremely corrupt in addition to that.

Notable quotes:

"... Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. ..."

"... The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. ..."

"... On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. ..."

"... The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings. ..."

"... For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain. ..."

"... White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. ..."

"... Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland. ..."

"... researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest. ..."

"... There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way. ..."

"... The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results. ..."

"... Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb. ..."

"... There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. ..."

"... Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action. ..."

"... He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would. ..."

"... His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried. ..."

"... Israel Shamir can be reached at ..."

"... The Unz Review ..."

Jan 10, 2021 | www.unz.com

President Trump was decisively beaten, if not fair and square. The hopes of millions of American voters were squashed and extinguished. The saga of the Orange Man is over. The victors used a gambit: they sacrificed the sanctity and security of the Capitol, allowed intruders in, permitted them to take selfies in the Speaker's office, and then faked horror and outrage. The attempted calls for electoral transparency were deflated in real time as huge crowds were dispersed, electors were confirmed, and the ascendancy of Biden was assured, while Trump followers were branded 'domestic terrorists'.

Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. Within hours, or even minutes, this ruler of the world admired by millions became a non-person. Like a boy who posted an obscenity, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook. Time will tell whether he will go to prison, as so many Dems pray for, but his political life seems to have ended, even if his cause may live.

The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. He was blocked even by Fox News. Dem-run states adjusted their laws to assure the elections' result. Trump was a lame duck from the very beginning of his presidency to its bitter end. He was kept on a short leash by the almighty Deep State, and when he tried to free himself, they pulled the leash.

On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. Some of the protesters managed to break into the Capitol, or were let in by the police. This peaceful Occupy Capitol action, the exercise of a natural right to protest, was met with lethal fire, and a young female protester from San Diego, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered by the plainclothes police. The Republican representatives were cowed and surrendered; Biden was confirmed to take office.

The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings.

"Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break down the door!" and "General strike!" Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded with protesters who chanted, "We're not leaving. Not this time."

Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had instructed Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing demonstrators from the building."

This was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2011, as Steve Sailer reminded us. Indeed, this is what the protesters expected; some were dressed in flamboyant carnival attire; they behaved well and peacefully, within acceptable limits. It was not an insurrection; they didn't try to take over the Congress in any meaningful sense. For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain.

White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. Being a foreigner, I do not understand why the Americans want to keep their guns if they never use them, but that's the way they are.

Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland.

Russian social networks were comparing the Washington DC events with those nearer to home and complained of 'double standards'. The US media expressed no indignation when their appointee Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian Parliament in 1993. The New York Times and the State Department had encouraged the nationalist mob to storm Ukrainian government offices in 2014. They cheered on the opposition in Minsk in taking over their parliament after failing to win elections. The Belarus protesters claimed their country's election results were rigged, just like Trump supporters did for the US elections, but Biden didn't call them "domestic terrorists". (Actually, neither did President Lukashenko: he called them 'protesters', and their violent demos were dispersed without a single shot fired.) In such cases, Jews respond with "How can you compare?!"

The Russians compared the Capitol 'coup attempt' with their own semi-staged 'coup' of 1991, a partly pre-planned provocation. In 1991, the feeble coup organisers could not detain Yeltsin and surrendered as if on cue; the wave of indignation removed Gorbachev and the Communist party from power. In the Capitol, too, police waved the 'invaders' in, as you can see on this video forwarded by the BBC. More videos suggesting Capitol police involvement in the ostensible provocation are presented here . The orchestrated indignation allowed the victors to censor and purge the defeated Trump and his followers. Just as the USSR went down in August 1991, Trump's America went down in January 2021, and the liberal elites representing the big corporations came to power. It was achieved by a provocation, but ordinary Trump followers were really angry with the Election Steal. Likewise, 1991 was a provocation, but ordinary Russian citizens were angry at Gorbachev's perestroika, while the liberal elites used it to dismantle the Soviet state and transfer all assets to their oligarchs.

People with a good knowledge of history refer to the Reichstag Fire of February 1933, the arson contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Alternatively, other researchers have contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalised on the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe's independent act. The fire is the subject of continued debate and research, says the Encycopaedia Britannica . Probably the same will be said about the Capitol "invasion", and researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest.

There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.

Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize – recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a licence to print money . Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing. They let drug lords out of jail . They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots. After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens , who single-handedly changed Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump's claims of fraud.

Yes, Virginia, there was election fraud in many American states. They are used to gambling; they aren't surprised by a beautiful hand of four aces, as Mark Twain suggested. Usually the two parties deal in turns, and cheat in turns. Only this time, Trump convinced many people that it is different; that this is their last chance.

The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results.

Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb.

There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. Shortly after the breach, he released a video instructing his followers not to take Senators hostage or imprison Mike Pence, but to "go home." No factions of the federal government joined the mob on Trump's orders, because he didn't bother issuing any. The whole episode never stood the remotest chance of preventing the certification of Joe Biden, much less overthrowing the government. It was just another goofball charade, and in that sense, a fitting end to the Trump presidency."

Conspiracy theories played their disappointing part in the debacle. Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.

Still, I do not want to finish this piece on such a sad and disappointing note. President Trump was a great leader. He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would.

His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried.

The day of his defeat, January 6, was the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi, of the Three Wise Men who came to worship Jesus in his cave. It was also Christmas Eve for the Eastern Church. It is the darkest time of the year; from now on, the day will increase and so will our hopes.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review .

[Jan 09, 2021] The United States government is being progressively Zionized

Jan 09, 2021 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: January 9, 2021 at 8:32 pm GMT • 5.6 hours ago

@Andy Horton -u-s-military-government-become-zionized/">https://israelpalestinenews.org/fighting-israels-wars-u-s-military-government-become-zionized/

The United States government is being progressively Zionized To cite only one example, an Israel Victory Caucus was launched in the House of Representatives, advocating Israeli defeat of all its neighbors. The keynote speaker at the event, Daniel Pipes, explained "Victory means imposing your will on your enemy so he no longer wants to continue to fight," before demanding "What I want the U.S. government to do is say, 'Israel, do what you need to do to win your war.'"

[Jan 07, 2021] Looks like Zionists discarded Trump

Jan 07, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Jan 7 2021 6:59 utc | 14

I've seen a lot of comments over the years calling things "theater', but I never felt compelled the use the word until this event.

I'm only just gathering pieces of the forensic deconstruction, but this thing is fishy as hell. In fact, I'm not even opening my eyes much to this one, because the smell alone gives it all away.

I learned about this a few hours ago in a Zoom business meeting, and the lady is talking about someone shot and died - she was laying this at Trump's door - and I looked up RT and got the story that the police shot her. But how do people get into the Capitol building anyway, that has to be super hardened - and of course it already looks like the security let them in, and everything else follows and falls into place from that.

[And then a guy enters my meeting and says Putin is celebrating and I had to deal with that bullshit for a minute. Lord, deliver me from brainwashed America, especially when they're my colleagues - but fuck 'em, actually, because the power has passed from their side and they don't know that, but they can feel the difference. No one needs to bother to explain to them, but even if they don't know, they can feel that you don't care, and they have no ground to stand on - so yes, we have moved on in the information space, in case you wondered.]

So the rest is pretty obvious, and pretty lame...and it's worth waiting a day or two to gather all the forensics in some reviews of this obvious false flag. I imagine b will have more in a day or two. It's a strange and pathetic brainwash here, that will undoubtedly work its way on many millions, and work its other way on many other millions. Divide and rule.

~~

And apparently the Jews have discarded Trump and thrown him to the wolves. I'm searching for the link but I guess it's from a comment in one of the Saker threads - can't find it now - but the US organization of...something or other but definitely and formally representing Jews and their political influence in the US, has said this is unacceptable and perhaps they're even standing behind impeachment or treason charges, I'm not sure.

So that's the kiss of death, and we get to watch the sacrifice now.

And this is where the CIA learned how to treat its assets. The bend-over-backwardness of Trump to appease the Israelis was so pronounced that they had to despise him for his subservience. Everyone hates a toady. They had to throw him away, being careful not to let any of him get on their shoe. Nothing says a person was appeasing the Zionists so much as how forcefully they discard that person when used up.

arata , Jan 7 2021 7:07 utc | 15

American Jewish in Congress wish to impeach Trump!

Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to protest Congress. Today's anarchy is the result. We want stable democracy. The Cabinet should consider applying the 25th amendment to immediately remove Trump from office to end this incitement against our democracy.

[Jan 05, 2021] National Justice Investigates- American Tax Payers Spend At Least $23 Billion On Israel Every Year by Eric Striker

Jan 05, 2021 | www.unz.com

Last September, Donald Trump accidentally upended an entire generation of myths invented by the left and right that purport to explain America's costly and unpopular military adventures in the Middle East:

"The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East. You know there was a time we needed desperately oil, we don't need that anymore."

As Mondoweiss pointed out at the time, the explosive admission went completely unmentioned in the mainstream media, which traditionally hangs on every one of Trump's words and reacts hysterically.

Categorizing America's foreign policy catastrophes as done in the service to Israel has until the Trump era always been dismissed by media tastemakers and political gatekeepers as rank anti-Semitism driven by reductionist, simplistic and conspiratorial thinking, even when intelligence officials like Michael Scheuer and foreign policy experts affirm the view.

Trump's lack of subtlety when remarking on using American blood and treasure to incrementally advance the interests of the Jewish state is one reason why the Israel lobby, which is perpetually paranoid about the public noticing their activities, is not keen on reciprocating his often suffocating love.

Their paranoia is justified. This year Congress made the mistake of combining its $900 billion dollar coronavirus stimulus bill, which suffering people are closely following the development of, with the yearly $1.4 trillion dollar fiscal budget, which is typically ignored.

A deluge of popular anger was provoked by news that we would only be receiving a $600 dollar check under the guise of budget austerity. At the same time, buried deep in the 5,600 monstrosity was a provision setting aside supposed budget constraints to give Israel an additional $500,000,000.

... ... ...

A perfect dollar estimate of how much Israel is costing our country is impossible due to the opaque nature of Washington's servility to the Zionist state.

In spite of this, we can arrive at a range. The on paper cost of Israel, when we include the "loan guarantee" scam and payments to neighboring countries to advance Israel's interests, is at least $23.1 billion a year.

This figure excludes speculative figures on the black budget in service to Israel, which if correct, would bring that number to $36.3 billion. It also excludes aid to Palestine and Lebanon (which may return next year), as well as costs related to the proxy conflict with Iran, which almost all foreign policy experts agree is entirely motivated by Israeli -- not American -- interests.

This number will balloon under Donald Trump's plan, which is expected to be continued uninhibited under a Joe Biden presidency. Trump's outreach to the Arab world will put us on the hook for at least an extra $6 billion, which again, is an extremely conservative estimate since we are excluding the shady deals with the Saudis and other Gulf States.

Thus, the $3.8 billion figure that already outrages much of the American public is at the bare minimum about $23 billion per year, but could potentially be closer to $50 billion.

This price of this luxury item in the Middle East is almost half of all American foreign aid, and does not serve any humanitarian purpose (often times, the other way around), much less the interests of the American people. Understanding the outrage this sum would provoke among US voters and taxpayers, groups like JINSA and AIPAC, along with the disproportionately Jewish owned media, ensure that it is never accurately reported.

[Jan 01, 2021] This short video is a satire regarding the US obsession with antisemitism and Israel

The charge of antifeminism played a similar role in the USA as the charge of contra ("counter-revolutionary element") in Soviet Russia. It is the way to implicate and trap dissidents and opponent of neoliberalism (who for some strange reason are also all "white nationalists").

Jan 01, 2021 | www.unz.com

John Hagan , says: Website December 31, 2020 at 7:55 am GMT • 11.0 hours ago

This short video is a satire regarding the US obsession with antisemitism and Israel. Why do you imagie that here are 50 states in the US and 32 Holocaust museums, yet there are only 25 civil war museums. US population is 2% Jewish. Even universities in the US understand that Jewish equity studies have a higher academic appeal than trans gender equity studies.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/l3czFJxV3Z4?feature=oembed
Regarding the above article it seems that history can repeat itself.

[Dec 13, 2020] Jeffrey, a gift that keeps on giving

Dec 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jeffrey, "a gift that keeps on giving."

"Under the authority of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, administration officials had devised a plan under which the US military's counter-Islamic State (IS, or ISIS) force would remain in Syria at least until the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went through with UN-backed elections. On top of their Congressionally-mandated mission of fighting IS, US forces would continue to deny Assad access to Syrian oilfields, which were located in areas controlled by Syrian Kurdish fighters backed by the United States, and to obstruct the Iranian military's access to the Levant.

Trump didn't like it. "The president was very uncomfortable with our presence in Syria," Jeffrey told Al-Monitor in a two-hour interview at his home in Washington last week. "He was very uncomfortable with what he saw as endless wars."" al-monitor

---------------

This guy likes to talk. Hopefully he will hang himself in the coils of the rope he is weaving.

The gist of this is that he has a deep seated hatred for the Syrian Government and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. His globalist strategic thinking fit together nicely with Pompeo's simple minded evangelical devotion to Israel and its self fulfilling 1% fantasies. They were a deadly duo hatched out in hell.

As for General McKenzie's claim that numerical accounting for troops is not fiddled with at the Pentagon, I hope he is lying and not just another simpleton. All through the Afghanistan War the DoD lied about how many people we had in Afghanistan. They did this by counting people who were arriving and leaving, people on temporary assignment, people on leave, etc. etc. pl

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/trump-syria-envoy-jeffrey-mideast-policy-turkey-erdogan.html

---

elaine , 12 December 2020 at 04:43 PM

Anyone who glosses over the Siege of Kobani like it was just a minor event troubles me. To me an ally is somewhat more than anyone I'm forced into relationship with just b/c we may have mutual enemies.
Giving Erdogan cart blanche to obliterate some of the oldest Christian communities on the Kurdish border sickened me.

Situations change & we seem to be very slow in adjusting to some changes.

james , 12 December 2020 at 05:00 PM

pat - you have a bunch of liars or worse following thru with an agenda that is in service to israel... at what point do the american people realize that russia and china are much lesser evils then the one the usa has been supporting non stop - israel?? it is not a whole lot different in canada, with the exception we have no weight to throw around...

elaine , 12 December 2020 at 10:44 PM

James, Oh the hegemony of little Israel getting the big U.S. to
do all it's dirty work. How about some explanation of exactly how your comments are germane to this post. Friction between Iran &
Turkey (must be Israel's fault, huh?) Erdogan's hated of the Kurds,
then again according to your comments we know who to blame for that. The cold shoulder between Syria & the Gulfies, we know where
that chilly atmosphere comes from, right James?

If Israel just disappeared guess the Iranians, Turks & Arabs would
just have a perpetual love fest, right? I suspect you've just been holding in your anti-Israeli comments & couldn't hold them in any longer & decided to just blame the entire mess on them.

Yeah, Right , 13 December 2020 at 01:15 AM

I've read that entire interview from top to bottom, and every one of Jeffrey's justifications for doing what he has been doing should be met with a shrug and a "so what's that to do with us?" from any American.

Because try as I might his justifications appear to be that This Is What Israel Wants, So I Went Out Of My Way To Get It For Them.

Honestly, that's pretty much it.

james , 13 December 2020 at 01:14 PM

@ elaine ... my comments as i see it elaine are very germaine to this thread... when one considers the words and actions of jefferies and pompeo as being very much subservient to israel, they don't need to go much further to appreciate what i am saying...

the usa tries to use turkey as a wedge to pump up erdogans concept of himself as the next sultan... my understanding is turkey and iran are on much better terms then either of these countries with israel... i am sorry if you find my viewpoint challenging.. the usa's presence in syria, along with all the work on the part of usa and israel to create a kurdish state are not happening .. the results they'd hoped for have come to not... sooner or later the usa needs to get out of syria and stop being a constant servant to israel... having jefferies or pompeo in power is counter productive to the usa's best interests....

Ishmael Zechariah , 13 December 2020 at 06:42 PM

Elaine,
Do you have any real skin in this game-like a child in combat service in the M.E? Could you state what this child is fighting for?

To understand what the izzies are up to in the M.E, you might read about PNAC ( https://pnac.info/ ), or the manifesto for "A Clean Break" ( http://www.dougfeith.com/docs/Clean_Break.pdf ) . Crooke's analysis of the issue ( https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/17/lost-on-the-dark-side-in-syria/ ) might also be helpful.
James is correct. The izzies have been losing pawns in this game-and will continue to lose even more powerful pieces unless they can get the USA to fight for them ( https://www.europereloaded.com/reasons-netanyahus-panic-alastair-crooke/ ). Even then, their victory might not be to their liking. These issues have been discussed in SST for a very long time.
Ishmael Zechariah

[Dec 12, 2020] This conversation doesn't exist

Dec 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

james , Dec 11 2020 22:19 utc | 15

from librul - thanks librul...

"The author of the article referenced @27 that wants to "restore faith in the US Spy Agencies" (who were wrongly harmed by Trump when they tried to impeach Trump with years of leaking falsehoods, reports and dossiers...not to mention their history of torture and misleading this country into disastrous wars, and abusing the rights of The People, etc) is none other than Israeli-Firster (?) Israel-only (?) other (?) Jane Harmon!

Yeah, as Harmon suggests, Biden is the perfect man to restore integrity, or at least bow to power, and sell (propaganda) faith in US Spy Agencies.

Ironically, Jane Harmon herself was outed by a spy agency or agencies causing much embarrassment for Pelosi-Firster Nancy Pelosi. It is suspected that this extortable embarrassment led Nancy Pelosi to back off Cheney/Bush and stick it to The People by uttering, "Impeachment is off the table".

https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/14/jane-harmon-and-israeli-spying/

It is astounding to find that one of the handful of prospects being floated to become CIA director following the fall of General David Petraeus is a person reportedly implicated in a 2005 Israeli spy scandal. CNN, Politico, and others have all listed former Congresswoman Jane Harman as a potential new CIA head. Oddly, however, none have mentioned reports in 2006 and again in 2009 that an NSA wiretap in 2005 had picked up Harman promising a suspected Israeli agent that she would aid people indicted for espionage on behalf of Israel.

According to reports, Harman allegedly told the Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two top officials for the powerful Israel lobby organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

In return, the suspected Israeli agent (who may have been a dual-citizen American) reportedly pledged to help lobby for Harman to become chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Harman was already the ranking Democrat on the committee.

At the end of the conversation, Harman reportedly said: "This conversation doesn't exist."

Posted by: librul | Dec 11 2020 17:23 utc | 27"

[Dec 01, 2020] Tony Blinken Replaces Mike Pompeo by Philip Giraldi

Dec 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Tony Blinken Replaces Mike Pompeo Israel's friends will enjoy four more years in power PHILIP GIRALDI DECEMBER 1, 2020 1,900 WORDS 1 COMMENT REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More RSS

I for one am getting really excited by the staff that Honest Joe Biden is pulling together for the White House. When I first heard the name Tony Blinken during the Obama kleptocracy I assumed that he was one of those Ivy League lawyer types that proliferate in Washington, likely affiliated with the firm of Winken, Blinken and Nod, which we all know to be in partnership with Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. But I was wrong. He actually was affiliated to a much bigger fraternity, which one might call Zionists in government. You know, those nice well educated, always polite Jewish boys and sometimes girls who have self-designated as foreign policy experts and who work their way up through the various levels of power that might lead to the most coveted positions at the top in the state department and national security apparatus. Blinken was one such striver, and I began to feel the pricking in my thumbs that was telling me that something evil this way was coming when he was mentioned now and again as a former close adviser to the already beatified Barack Obama. And some in the media had observed with approval that he had more recently been briefing Joe Biden, particularly about Israel and the Middle East.

In an interview in the Times of Israel Blinken confirmed Biden's position on possibly reducing aid to Israel if the Jewish state were to do things that damaged U.S. interests. Blinken " reiterated Biden's position that he would not condition aid to Israel. He [Biden] is resolutely opposed to it. He would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions it makes, full stop."

The question of withholding aid is itself moot as Israel does nothing but "do things" that damage U.S. interests, knowing that no president or the Congress would dare to turn off the money tap, but it is an interesting unambiguous admission from Blinken that both he and Joe Biden put Israeli interests ahead of those of the United States.

Blinken's personal view of unfettered support for Israel allegedly derives from his stepfather having claimed to be a survivor of the so-called holocaust, a tale that he invoked several times during his acceptance speech on November 24 ^th . The Times interview concludes with Blinken asserting that "One of the things that's really shaped the vice president's career-long support for Israel and its security is the lesson of the Holocaust. He believes strongly that a secure Jewish homeland in Israel is the single best guarantee to ensure that never again will the Jewish people be threatened with destruction."

The indefatigable Israel-firster Tony Blinken has also served as a "conduit" to those in government for Israel advocacy groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And now that we have Tony Blinken as Secretary of State Designate the door will soon be wide open to the Israel Lobby.

If you need to know more about what Tony Blinken is all about you only have to look at his friends and his track record. Israel was inevitably quick off the mark in saluting the appointment, both in its media and through its mouthpieces in the United States. Stalwart Canadian Zionist Mark Dubowitz, who heads the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), tweeted that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be very fortunate to have them in public service."

The signal from FDD is particularly important as the organization is directed by the Israeli Embassy in Washington. FDD is the leading neoconservative bastion seeking a war with Iran, Israel's bête noir . Its Leadership Council has featured former CIA Director James Woolsey, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Bill Kristol. Its advisors and experts are mostly Jewish and most of its funding comes from Jewish oligarchs.

A recent expose by al-Jazeera exposed how FDD and other Lobby groups work directly with the Israeli government, collecting information on U.S. citizens, spying on legal organizations, and both planning and executing disinformation at Israeli direction, making it an Israeli agent by the definition of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Unfortunately, the Department of Justice has never sought to compel FDD to register under FARA. In fact, the U.S. government has never compelled any part of the vast and powerful Israel Lobby to register.

Tony, inevitably a Harvard graduate plus a JD from Columbia who has never served in the U.S. military, is inevitably a chicken-hawk because that is what America's Zionists and their political neocon wing are made of. It is a phenomenon that has often been noted. In 2017, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Tzipi Hotovely called out American Jews as "people that never send their children to fight for their country, most of the Jews don't have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, or to Iraq. Most of them are having quite convenient lives " Of 1,300,000 active duty personnel in the U.S. armed forces, only 4,515 are Jewish.

This is how it works: instead of actually fighting in the wars you are promoting, you have your tax-exempt "educational foundations" pour tons of money into a project to go to war and corrupt the politicians to issue the necessary orders so unemployed kids from Arkansas and North Dakota can go off and die for Israel. You yourself remain safe at home, free to deliver bellicose speeches about how Iran threatens the world through its "meddling" in the Middle East. And, of course, about how the dumbass Palestinians have failed to accept the hand of Israel offered in peace.

That is what Tony's record demonstrates. Blinken has come a long way with Biden, all the way back to the Clinton Administration. And he he has always been there for the Jewish state. During the Obama Administration when relations with Israel were often strained, Blinken was the contact point for "Jewish leaders [differentiating] him from others in the White House at the time who weren't as sympathetic to Israel's position." Dennis Ross, often described as Israel's lawyer, praises him for having " an instinctive emotional attachment to Israel," referring to Blinken's frequently cited Jewish and refugee roots.

Other media reporting indicates that "Blinken was a top aide to Biden when the then-Sen­a­tor vot­ed to autho­rize the U.S. inva­sion of Iraq, and Blinken helped Biden devel­op a pro­pos­al to par­ti­tion Iraq into three sep­a­rate regions based on eth­nic and sec­tar­i­an iden­ti­ty. As deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, Blinken sup­port­ed the dis­as­trous mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Libya in 2011, and in 2018 he helped launch Wes­t­Ex­ec Advi­sors, a ​'strate­gic advi­so­ry firm' that is secre­tive about its clients, along with oth­er Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion alum­ni like Michèle Flournoy. Jonathan Guy­er writes in The Amer­i­can Prospect , ​'I learned that Blinken and Flournoy used their net­works to build a large client base at the inter­sec­tion of tech and defense. An Israeli sur­veil­lance start­up turned to them. So did a major U.S. defense com­pa­ny."

Beyond the intersection of government policy and personal profit exhibited by Blinken, the Washington Post in 2013 described Blinken as "[o]ne of the government's key players in drafting Syria policy" and he recalled that "This is a little bit personal to me, and any of us -- and I start with myself -- who had any responsibility for our Syria policy in the last administration has to acknowledge that we failed. Not for want of trying, but we failed." What Tony failed at was overthrowing Syria's legitimate government and turning the country over to the terrorist linked groups that he and Hillary and Obama were supporting.

The Democrats are particularly good at coming up with secretaries of state that one would like to forget, and that is saying quite a lot given the recent appointees by the Republicans. One recalls immediately the big-hearted Madeleine Albright, who found the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children by sanctions "worth it," or Hillary Clinton, who laughed out loud as she recalled the death of Libya ruler Muammar Ghaddafi by having a bayonet inserted up his anus. Clinton, who more than anyone launched the war against Africa's most developed nation, paraphrased Julius Caesar, who, upon returning from a rapid victory in Asia during the Rome's Second Civil war, described the event as "Veni, vidi, vici," in English "I came, I saw, I conquered." For the laughing Hillary it was "I came, I saw, he died!" The anarchy in Libya persists to this day and it included the payback killing of four U.S. Embassy employees in Benghazi in 2012, with Hillary and Susan Rice at the helm. It is generally believed that both Clinton and Rice might well have senior positions in the incoming Biden Administration.

But back to Blinken. Israel loved the way the Trump Administration showered favors upon it, nearly always without any quid pro quo . But for all his Dispensationalist fervor, salesmen like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were little more than goys who had been seduced by the myth of Israel. They were, as Lenin would have described it, little more than "useful idiots," which is allegedly an expression that certain Israeli politicians have used to describe their passionate Christian Zionist supporters in the U.S. Now, with Blinken, the Israeli hard liners will have the "real thing," a convincing Jewish boy who fatuously describes an apartheid Israel as "the anchor and foundation for democracy in the region." Tony believes in the Zionist cause and will do the Jewish state's bidding with a malleable Joe Biden. And if Joe should go, there is always Kamala Harris, who is married to a Jewish lawyer lobbyist. Win-win either way.

Even though it's early days, Blinken joins a number of other American Jews already tagged for senior positions, including Alejandro Mayorkas, the nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security who is a Latino Jew. Ron Klain, Biden's Chief of Staff and Janet Yellen, his pick for Treasury Secretary, are also Jewish. The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports how "Having Jewish men and women in prominent government positions is so standard that it's barely even a talking point " before observing that "The fact that some of President-elect Joe Biden's top cabinet picks are Jewish should be a source of pride for the community 'These people are being chosen because they're incredibly competent, because they're incredibly talented, because they're incredibly experienced,' Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told Haaretz in a phone interview." Indeed, if one believes Greenblatt pressure from the Israel Lobby, the media and billionaire donors as well as networking by the Jewish mafia inside the government itself have nothing to do with it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Majority of One , says: December 1, 2020 at 5:22 am GMT • 58 minutes ago

Only good thing that could come out of this development, should the Harris-Biden selectees actually come into power is that this massive infusion of rabid Zionists into high levels in the Demo administration is so blatant that the awakeners will increase in numbers and in determination.

[Nov 30, 2020] Semitism and Capitalism by Andrew Joyce

Notable quotes:

"... The most obvious merit of middleman minority theory is that, like Kevin MacDonald's theory of a group evolutionary strategy, it places an unusual and welcome emphasis on rational resource competition as the basis for social conflict involving certain minorities. ..."

"... By offering a socio-economic explanation for hostility toward Jews, middleman minority theory represents a unique space within academia where the otherwise ubiquitous "pure prejudice" idea that host hostility is self-generated (from psychological problems or cultural traditions) is summarily and comprehensively dismissed. Although this has not come without criticism, as seen in Robert Cherry's denunciation of Edna Bonacich's work as reinforcing bigotry [24] , this emphasis has been able to continue largely untroubled thanks to its advancement under a hardline traditional Marxist interpretive veneer. ..."

"... Walter Zenner speaks of a "double standard of morality" that is ..."

"... Expressed in dealings with outsiders, such as lending to them with interest, unscrupulous selling practices, and providing outsiders with illicit means of gratifying their appetites, while at the same time, denying the same means to in-group members. [26] ..."

"... An excellent example of this process in action is the fact Israel is the largest producer and host of international online gambling sites , while making it illegal for its own citizens to use such sites. Of course, we are talking here about a nation state rather than a minority population, but this contradiction, and the nature of Israel within the international community, will be discussed in a critique of the narrowness of middleman minority theory later. ..."

"... Zenner speaks of a "dynamic process" whereby Jews minimise visibility to avoid hostility, maximise visibility when pursuing certain interests, and generally work unceasingly to make their image more favorable in the minds of the host. ..."

"... Even in recent years, Israel has become notorious in the international organ trade , moneylending , and allegations of humanitarian atrocities. Israeli newspapers have also described their country as a " monopoly nation " due to the intense tendency towards economic monopoly in the country's business life -- a key feature of middleman minority life that Jews appear to continue to embody to an extent unparalleled in any other ethnic group. Further evidence for the apparently deep-seated, rather than contextual, nature of "middleman" traits in Jews might be found in studies indicative of a biological underpinning to Jewish ethnocentrism, such as that described by Kevin MacDonald in the Preface to the Culture of Critique : ..."

"... Rather than act as economic catalysts, Jews are more frequently observed following the trail of already economically improving areas, hoping to profit from their advancement. ..."

"... It was only after these laws were in effect that some theologians and clerics began to question why they weren't also applied to Jews who, in the words of historian Gavin Langmuir, were then "disproportionately engaged in moneylending in northern Europe by the late 12th century." [43] ..."

Nov 30, 2020 | www.unz.com

"The middleman and the host society come in conflict because elements in each group have incompatible goals. To say this is to deny the viewpoint common in the sociological literature that host hostility is self-generated (from psychological problems or cultural traditions)."
Edna Bonacich, "A Theory of Middleman Minorities," 1973. [1]

An interesting accompaniment to Nathan Cofnas's 2018 attempted debunking of Kevin MacDonald's work on Jews was the subtle resurfacing of Steven Pinker's claim that a more plausible theory of the Jewish historical experience can be found in "Thomas Sowell's convincing analysis of 'middleman minorities' such as the Jews, presented in his magisterial study of migration, race, conquest, and culture." Pinker first involved himself in criticism of MacDonald's work in a letter to Slate , in January 2000, where he made the above comment. A mere teenager in January 2000, it was only in the wake of the Cofnas affair that I first discovered and read Pinker's initial response to MacDonald's theory. It goes without saying that I disagreed with almost everything Pinker had to say, but I was especially vexed by his invocation of the "middleman minority" theory, something I've been familiar with for over a decade and always found strongly lacking. Pinker himself, of course, has relatively little expertise in the area, his only comment on the theme coming from a quasi-memoir on Jewish intelligence written for New Republic . Additionally, his gushing use of persuasive language ("convincing," "magisterial") to describe Thomas Sowell's extremely derivative and now rather dated Migrations and Cultures: A World View (1996) struck me as a wholly contrived inflation of what isn't really a rival theory at all, and certainly not a Sowell innovation. In fact, the history of "middleman minority" theory, and especially its application to the Jews, has a patchy, chequered, and ambiguous history that is worth exploring in its own right. The following essay is intended to provide such a history, as well as to broadly assess the merits and inadequacies of exploring Jewish history through this lens, and also the ways it complements, and falls short of, Kevin MacDonald's theory.

History of the Theory

The comparing of Jews with other sojourning or diaspora trading peoples is far from new, and has even been a staple of anti-Jewish writing since at least the Enlightenment. Voltaire, for example, wrote in his Oeuvres Complètes (Geneva, 1756) and Dictionnaire Philosophique (Basle, 1764) that "The Guebers [Parsis in the modern terminology], the Banyans [Indian merchants] and the Jews, are the only nations which exist dispersed, having no alliance with any people, are perpetuated among foreign nations, and continue apart from the rest of the world." [2] In the course of his essay, however, Voltaire concluded that, some surface similarities aside, "It is certain that the Jewish nation is the most singular that the world has ever seen." Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), the German Protestant theologian, philosopher and historian, also used the example of the Parsis and Overseas Indians, writing in The Jewish Problem (1843),

The base [of the tenacity of the Jewish national spirit] is lack of ability to develop with history, it is the reason of the quite unhistorical character of that nation, and this again is due to its oriental nature. Such stationary nations exist in the Orient, because there human liberty and the possibility of progress are still limited. In the Orient and in India, we still find Parsees [sic] living in dispersion and worshipping the holy fire of Ormuz. [3]

After Voltaire, commentary on the relationship between the economic activity of the Jews and other aspects of their behavior and history, a key theme in modern middleman minority theory, were common points of discussion and debate. Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843), an avowedly anti-Semitic German philosopher, argued in his essay On the Danger to the Well-Being and Character of the Germans Presented by the Jews (1816), that Jews adopted their historical middleman role willingly, out of a hunger for profit and an innate sense of separateness, rather than being forced into it by broader economic structures and contexts (which again are a major focus of modern middleman minority theory). For Fries,

Both in Germany and abroad the Jews had free states where they enjoyed every right, and even countries where they reigned -- but their sordidness, their mania for deceitful, second-hand dealing always remained the same. They shy away from industrious occupations not because they are hindered from pursuing them but simply because they do not want to.

Following Bauer and Fries -- and before modern scholarship on the subject, the most prominent invocation of ideas similar to modern middleman minority theory can be observed in the work of Karl Marx. In fact, Marx's essay On the Jewish Problem is an explicit reply to Bauer, with Marx accusing Bauer of "a one-sided conception of the Jewish problem." [4] Marx decried Bauer's focus on religious matters, perceiving the roots of the Jewish problem to reside instead in resource competition and raw economics. In many of his arguments and assessments of the economic and sociological position of the Jews, Marx anticipated Edna Bonacich (1940–), the Jewish Marxist anti-Zionist sociologist who essentially invented middleman minority theory in its modern form (and whose work will be discussed below), in arguing for a structural-contextual explanation of the middleman role of the Jews. In this view, the historical development of Capital essentially invites and entices certain sojourning or diaspora groups, including the Jews, to adopt lucrative but exploitative and antagonistic roles within society. In the words of Marx, "we recognize therefore in Judaism a generally present anti-social element which has been raised to its present peak by historical development , in which the Jews eagerly assisted ." [emphasis added] These antagonistic roles then generate host hostility, which reinforces ethnocentrism and negative characteristics in the minority, accelerating and deepening conflict.

Marx's emphasis on economic opportunity and the capitalist superstructure influenced later writers such as the German economist Wilhelm Roscher (1817–1894), Werner Sombart (1863–1941), Max Weber (1864–1920), and Georg Simmel (1858–1918), all of whom attempted in some form to trace the relationship of ethnicity to occupational choice (a major concern of modern middleman minority theory), with particular attention paid to the Jews. In keeping with his flamboyant Marxism, Sombart was closest to Marx's ideas on the Jews, arguing in The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911) that Capital had drawn Jews into their influential, exploitative, and lucrative roles in such a comprehensive manner that Jews had become a kind of ur-middleman minority, and thus were both the prime movers of modern capitalism and the very embodiment of exploitative capital itself. Later, in Der moderne Kapitalismus (1913), Sombart claimed that the middleman nature of the Jews had become endemic in society, creating generations of mere "traders," a bourgeois "Jewish species" whose entire intellectual and emotional world is "directed to the money value of conditions and dealings, who therefore calculates everything in terms of money." This "spirit of Moloch" compelled the entrepreneur to "make money relentlessly until at last he conceives this as the real goal of all activity and all existence." [5] For Sombart, the origins of the worst of modern capitalism can be found in the early middleman role of the Jews, their medieval semi-nomadic quest for usury-derived profit and Victorian hawking of shoddy goods being a precursor to modern advertising and the mass production of superfluous and quickly obsolete consumer products.

Max Weber's interpretation of the Jewish middleman role was slightly softer, with Weber advancing the notion of "pariah capitalism." Pariah capitalists, who include the Jews as well as the Parsis, the Overseas Indians, and the Overseas Chinese, are groups whose characteristics and situational contexts make them prone to willingly adopt socially negative positions in order to obtain wealth and influence. For Weber, capitalism itself was not intrinsically bad. The Puritans, with their industry and hard work, were held up in Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/5) as exemplars of positive, "rational" capitalism. Jews, and other pariah capitalists, however, invariably advanced a negative "irrational" capitalism typified by consumer credit, speculation, and colonialism. According to Weber, middleman minorities or "pariah capitalist groups" perverted the essentially good nature of capitalism because of their practice of "dual ethics," or moral double-standards, which was itself a product of their sojourning nature and situational context. Weber also perceived Judaism itself as reinforcing the Jewish preference for pariah capitalism. [6]

Softer still were the ideas of Wilhelm Roscher, one of the founders of the historical school of political economy. Roscher was part of the historical economist or European Institutionalist movement (which also influenced Weber) that argued for a study of economics based on empirical work that laid special methodological emphasis on context, rather than logical philosophy. Roscher's emphasis on context and the historical development of capitalism are exemplified in his 1875 essay "The Status of the Jews in the Middle Ages Considered from the Standpoint of Commercial Policy."[7] In this essay, Roscher presented capitalism as neither inherently good or bad, and he made the argument that Jews, who like other middleman minorities were economic modernizers, were positive influences and crucial to the development of a burgeoning economic trading system. Gideon Reuveni offers the following summary:

According to Roscher, the modernizing role of the Jews explains the change in attitudes within the social majority: from tolerance and acceptance to exclusion and persecution. In other words, once, in the eyes of the majority the role of the Jews becomes superfluous, resentments towards the Jews become more prevalent. This cycle in relations towards Jews, Roscher observed, was not specific to the relationship between Jews and non-Jews but was rather a general development among many peoples who allow their economies to be administered by a foreign and more highly cultivated people, but later, upon having reached the necessary level of development themselves, often after intense struggles, try to emancipate themselves from this tutelage. According to Roscher, "one may defiantly speak in this connection of a historical law here." [8]

Similar to Roscher's ideas were the theories of the Jewish Marxist anti-Zionist Abram Leon (1918–1944). Leon, a Polish Jew said to have been executed at Auschwitz at the age of 26, published The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation around 1942, in which he proposed that Jews were a "people-class." For Leon, "Judaism mirrors the interests of a pre-capitalist mercantile class." He explains,

Judaism was an indispensable factor in precapitalist society. It was a fundamental organism within it. That is what explains the two-thousand-year existence of Judaism in the Diaspora. The Jew was as characteristic a personage in feudal society as the lord and the serf. It was no accident that a foreign element played the role of "capital" in feudal society. Feudal society as such could not create a capitalist element; as soon as it was able to do so, precisely then it ceased being feudal. Nor was it accidental that the Jew remained a foreigner in the midst of feudal society. The "capital" of precapitalist society existed outside of its economic system. From the moment that capital begins to emerge from the womb of this social system and takes the place of the borrowed organ, the Jew is eliminated and feudal society ceases to be feudal. It is modern capitalism that has posed the Jewish problem. Not because the Jews today number close to twenty million people (the proportion of Jews to non-Jews has declined greatly since the Roman era) but because capitalism destroyed the secular basis for the existence of Judaism. Capitalism destroyed feudal society; and with it the function of the Jewish people-class. History doomed this people-class to disappearance; and thus the Jewish problem arose. The Jewish problem is the problem of adapting Judaism to modern society.

Georg Simmel, an ethnically Jewish sociologist, philosopher, and critic, moved in much the same theoretical direction as Roscher and Leon, as evidenced in his famous and still influential essay "Der Fremde" ("The Stranger") (1908). Simmel argued that certain groups like Jews and other diaspora peoples may be members of host nations in a spatial sense but not in a social sense. They may be in the nation, but not of it. These groups are both near and far, familiar and foreign. This contextual scenario influences the behavior of "stranger" groups by permitting them freedom from convention and allowing them access to an alleged greater objectivity. For Simmel, "the Stranger," the classic example of which in his estimation is the Jew, is "the person who comes today and stays tomorrow. He is, so to speak, the potential wanderer: although he has not moved on, he has not quite overcome the freedom of coming and going." [9] This freedom, argues Simmel, makes "the Stranger" ideally suited to fulfil the role of middleman minority. [10] As with Roscher's theory, which is markedly contradicted in several key areas of the historical record, there are a number of obvious logical and evidential problems with Simmel's theory, and these will be discussed later.

Between Simmel's 1908 essay and the 1970s, middleman minority theories continued to be advanced. With the exception of Philip Curtin and his Cross-cultural Trade in World History (1984), these efforts were developed primarily by Jewish scholars, and overwhelmingly within the context of trying to explicitly or implicitly explore, explain, or offer apologetics for the Jewish experience. For example, Abner Cohen (1921–2001), was an anthropologist at the University of London, who advanced, in his influential work Urban Ethnicity (1974) and numerous other publications, the idea that there are "trading diasporas." [11] Of particular interest are Cohen's ideas about "visibility strategies" pursued by such groups:

The use of symbols to maintain group boundaries can thus be seen as a cultural strategy. In fact, many groups in traditional and modern societies find that their interests are guarded better through invisible organisations such as cousinhoods, membership in a common set of social clubs, religious ties, and informal networks, than through a highly visible, formally recognised institution. At times, ethnic groups may need to heighten their visibility as strangers to maintain their interests while in other instances they may wish to lower their profile and appear to be an integral part of the society. [12]

This bears a striking similarity to the sixth chapter of Kevin MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents , which is concerned with visibility strategies, especially among crypto-Jews, and concludes with the argument that "this attempt to maintain separatism while nevertheless making the barriers less visible is the crux of the problem of post-Enlightenment Judaism." [13] In fact, beginning in the 1970s, middleman minority theory began to develop several ideas that dovetail very well with the concept of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of Edna Bonacich.

Although the modern refinement of middleman minority theory is often traced to Hubert Blalock's 1967 Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations , the greater scholarly interest has been shown in Edna Bonacich's 1973 American Sociological Review article "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." [14] Bonacich sought to refine and systematize Blalock's theory within an anti-capitalist framework, essentially making the argument that all group conflict in such scenarios is the result of a rational competition for resources in which group characteristics and interests play a crucial role. A Jewish Marxist and anti-Zionist, Bonacich's interpretations borrow heavily from Marx, Sombart, Weber, Roscher, and Leon, to the extent that Bonacich essentially concurs that capitalism created opportunities for exploitative middleman communities and the Jews and other middleman minorities, who possess certain predisposing characteristics including dual loyalty and a level of unscrupulousness, willingly and enthusiastically engaged in these roles.

Bonacich is well-known for her work on East Asian middleman minorities in the United States, especially her 1980 monograph The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community , but her earliest work on middleman minorities clearly demonstrates a concern with the Jewish experience. [15] In her discussion of middleman minorities in the 1973 article, Bonacich describes Jews as "perhaps the epitome of the form." Some of the key features of the 1973 article include the arguments that Jews and other middleman minorities are essentially economic "teams," and that these teams rely upon very high levels of ethnocentrism and related social and economic strategies, which in turn enable them to succeed in individualistic societies. Bonacich writes,

The modern industrial capitalist treats his workers impartially as economic instruments; he is as willing to exploit his own son as he is a stranger. This universalism, the isolation of each competitor, is absent in middleman economic activity, where primordial ties of family, region, sect, and ethnicity unite people against the surrounding, often individualistic economy . [emphasis added] [16]

Bonacich makes some very interesting, and controversial, remarks on the nature of conflict between middleman minorities and their hosts, with special reference to Jews. For Bonacich, accusations that Jews have simply been scapegoats for the woes of Europeans are based on nothing more than a "surface impression." [17]
While noting that middleman minorities "are noteworthy for the acute hostility they have faced," it remains that,

host members have reason for feeling hostile toward middleman groups. Even the extremity of the host reaction can be understood as "conflict" behavior. The reason is that the economic and organisational power of middleman groups makes them extremely difficult to dislodge. The difficulty of breaking entrenched middleman monopolies, the difficulty of controlling the growth and extension of their economic power, pushes host countries to ever more extreme reactions. One finds increasingly harsh measures, piled on one another, until, when all else fails, "final solutions" are enacted. [18]
[emphasis added]

Bonacich has also argued that Jews and other middleman minorities do engage in economic and social "dual loyalty," and that middleman minorities do in fact "drain" resources away from host populations and can become very powerful as a result. This then frequently causes host elites and masses to unite against the sojourning element, a conflict that can escalate rapidly if the sojourning element refuses to give up its monopolies. Bonacich explicitly rejects any idea that "host hostility is self-generated (from psychological problems or cultural traditions)," arguing instead that "the middleman and the host society come in conflict because elements in each group have incompatible goals." With her apparent justification of host violence against middleman minorities, including Jews, as well as her objective view of certain Jewish characteristics, Bonacich's theory has been heavily criticized in some quarters, despite its ongoing influence in contemporary sociology. Robert Cherry, for example, has lamented that Bonacich's ideas on middleman minorities "reinforce persistent, negative Jewish stereotypes." [19]

Discussion

Before moving to an assessment of the merits and inadequacies of middleman minority theory in explaining Jewish history, it's worth reflecting on the history of the theory in light of Steven Pinker's claim that it represents a rival, or "more convincing," analysis of the Jewish historical trajectory. The first problem, of course, is that, despite Pinker's lavish praise, Thomas Sowell is not remotely regarded within scholarship as a leading or original thinker in the area of middleman minority theory. Not only does discussion of middleman minorities form a relatively small element of Sowell's Migrations And Cultures , but what does appear is highly derivative of the work of Edna Bonacich, Walter Zenner, and others.

A further problem is Pinker's assumption that there exists a single, unified theory on middleman minorities that will help explain the Jewish historical experience, and that somehow this will also be sufficient to counter the theory of Kevin MacDonald, or at least offer a more convincing framework that would allow MacDonald's ideas to be dispensed with. As should already be clear from this brief, and incomplete, bibliographical overview, within middleman minority theory there is a plethora of often competing interpretations, as well as a general problem of definitions. Walter Zenner, a key proponent of middleman minority theory, concedes that "we tend to make our definitions and models fit the prototypical group. For decades, the Jews were the archetype." [20] In other words, for a considerable time, middleman minority theory was built around trying to explain the experience of Jews, with other groups haphazardly mapped onto the theory in way that tried to give the impression of similarity, even where these similarities were thin to non-existent. Bonacich has made roughly the same argument, asserting that middleman minority theory should be regarded as incomplete because it can only point to an "ideal type," and

In reality there are problems of fit between any actual ethnic group and this picture, problems in establishing which or how many of the traits a population need have before it can be classified as a middleman minority. [21]

Bonacich, very reasonably in my opinion, proposes that middleman minority theory, of which she herself is a pioneer, is something of a misnomer and should be regarded as little more than "a useful sensitiser to a host of interrelated variables." [22]
One is therefore pressed by Pinker's claim to ask not only which of the many strands of middleman minority theories Steven Pinker is praising, but also just how "convincing" and "magisterial" he can find it given the field's leading contemporary thinkers regard their work in such ambiguous terms.

Finally, it is not at all clear how any of the aspects of middleman minority theory obviate the need for a deeper theoretical framework in which to understand the behaviors and contexts under study. Middleman minority theory, as remarked above, is an incomplete tool, and has little to offer in terms of deeper explanatory value for such relevant key concepts under discussion as resource competition, ecological strategies, visibility strategies, psychological attitudes toward the majority, and social identity theory. One of the strong points of Kevin MacDonald's work, which is truly cross-disciplinary and unusually well-equipped in terms of the relevant historical literature, is that is does offer such an analysis, and can be argued to fill a lot of the logical and evidential gaps of middleman minority theory. This is not to say that the two frameworks are in opposition, but that the concept of a group evolutionary strategy can be usefully and seamlessly integrated into middleman minority theory, especially in relation to Jews.

It's been continually remarked by many scholars in the field that Jews should be regarded as either an "ideal type," "the epitome of the form," a singular example, or otherwise unique case -- even within the context of broad comparative approaches with other trading diaspora peoples. The qualities that have made Jews so unique -- cultural, historical, religious, and even biological -- are rarely remarked or elaborated upon in sociological studies of middleman minorities, which are often lacking in depth in terms of their historical analysis. As will be discussed below, Zenner, in particular, has highlighted ways in which Jews do not fit the standard middleman minority pattern, especially in terms of their extravagant and influential involvement in the culture and politics of the host nation (see also MacDonald's Diaspora Peoples on the Overseas Chinese, xlii ff). Unfortunately, middleman minority literature has little to say in terms of further explanatory theory on how or why Jews came to both define and exceed the middleman typology. Here, middleman minority theory not only isn't a rival for MacDonald's work, it positively cries out for it.

"American Jews do not fit the sojourner pattern, since their political involvement goes far beyond the support of Jewish causes. Much Jewish political activity, whether right, center, or left, can be related to a perception of how to make America and the world safe for Jews. American Jewish support for domestic liberalism and internationalism can be interpreted in this way."
Walter Zenner, "American Jewry in the light of Middleman Minority Theories," 1980. [23]

Merits of Middleman Minority Theory

The most obvious merit of middleman minority theory is that, like Kevin MacDonald's theory of a group evolutionary strategy, it places an unusual and welcome emphasis on rational resource competition as the basis for social conflict involving certain minorities.

By offering a socio-economic explanation for hostility toward Jews, middleman minority theory represents a unique space within academia where the otherwise ubiquitous "pure prejudice" idea that host hostility is self-generated (from psychological problems or cultural traditions) is summarily and comprehensively dismissed. Although this has not come without criticism, as seen in Robert Cherry's denunciation of Edna Bonacich's work as reinforcing bigotry [24] , this emphasis has been able to continue largely untroubled thanks to its advancement under a hardline traditional Marxist interpretive veneer.

Middleman minority theory, especially the variant advanced by Bonacich, also insists that host populations do have interests, and that these interests are genuinely and seriously threatened by middleman minorities who drain away resources. These minorities then use their accumulated resources to build up power and influence, sometimes even to the extent of gaining considerable economic, social, and political monopolies over the hosts. Since these monopolies can be very difficult to dislodge, and since monopolies may satisfy some interests of host populations or segments of host populations, middleman minority theory insists that it is rational and somewhat inevitable that increasingly harsh and even violent measures will be taken against the offending minority. As a result, middleman minority theory offers a far more plausible and objective understanding of group conflict than many of the ideas that dominate the academic discussion of group conflict, especially conflict involving Jews. In addition, the outright rejection of "scapegoat" theories as "superficial," and the lack of appeals to concepts of victimhood in such a framework, can only be described in the context of the current academic climate as utterly refreshing.

A second major merit of middleman minority theory is the emphasis that some strands place on the characteristics of the minorities themselves. Middleman minority theory contains within it three basic theoretical approaches. Context-based theories like that of Roscher, and revived to some degree by Nathan Cofnas (who is particularly concerned with the urban environment-context), argue that middleman minorities are essentially creatures of the societies in which they are found, and are for the most part created by opportunities, status gaps, and vacuums over which they have no control and which have nothing to do with their inherent characteristics (a slight advantage in intelligence being the only characteristic that Cofnas feels comfortable in applying). Situational theories, like that advanced by Simmel are similar, but place more emphasis on the culturally-located role of the trader, the Stranger, and the "sojourner as trader," as the determinant factor in the creation of middleman minorities. Culture-based, or characteristic-based, middleman minority theories, however, tend to be more numerous, and more convincing. These theories, like that advanced by Weber and given tacit assent by Bonacich and Zenner, place strong emphasis on the broad range of traditions, ideologies, behaviors, and aptitudes of middleman minority groups.

The most frequently highlighted of such traits within middleman minority theory is ethnocentrism, which again dovetails with the primary emphasis of Kevin MacDonald's theory. Ethnocentrism is acknowledged as a central factor in the maintenance of self-segregation among middleman minority groups, and is often supported by ideological beliefs such as the caste system, or what Zenner describes as "the Chosen People complex." [25] Ethnocentrism in middleman minorities is presented as crucial to understanding host hostility not only because of the way it facilitates the draining of resources from the host population, but also because of highly antagonistic correlates such as dual loyalty and a willingness to engage in lucrative but morally destructive (for the host) trading. Walter Zenner speaks of a "double standard of morality" that is

Expressed in dealings with outsiders, such as lending to them with interest, unscrupulous selling practices, and providing outsiders with illicit means of gratifying their appetites, while at the same time, denying the same means to in-group members. [26]

An excellent example of this process in action is the fact Israel is the largest producer and host of international online gambling sites , while making it illegal for its own citizens to use such sites. Of course, we are talking here about a nation state rather than a minority population, but this contradiction, and the nature of Israel within the international community, will be discussed in a critique of the narrowness of middleman minority theory later.

A further merit of middleman minority theory is the heavy emphasis the cultural-characteristic interpretation places on group strategies. Middleman minorities, again with Jews being held up by both Zenner and Bonacich as an exemplar or especially acute case, are said to engage in constantly adaptive activity in order to manage their visibility, ensure their safety, advance their interests, accumulate power and wealth, and entrench themselves ever deeper within the host. Bonacich has indicated that Jews are especially keen to remain entrenched in the West, and the United States in particular, because it is financially and politically lucrative, and only a catastrophic weakening of their monopolies would bring an end to existing strategies. [27] Zenner goes as far as to claim that "much of the content of American Jewish life can be seen as visibility strategies. Strategy here includes both unconscious mechanisms of coping with situations and consciously formulated plans." [28]

Zenner speaks of a "dynamic process" whereby Jews minimise visibility to avoid hostility, maximise visibility when pursuing certain interests, and generally work unceasingly to make their image more favorable in the minds of the host. Again, all of this corresponds very well with one of the central themes of the Culture of Critique -- the idea that Jewish involvement in certain intellectual movements could be seen in the context of a pursuit of Jewish interests either consciously or in ways that involved unconscious motivations and self-deception. It also maps very closely to MacDonald's framework on Jewish crypsis and other attempts to mitigate anti-Semitism, advanced in the sixth chapter of Separation and Its Discontents .

Problems in Middleman Minority Theory

Given the prevalence of Jews in the development and promotion of the modern incarnation of middleman minority theory, including Georg Simmel, Edna Bonacich, Abner Cohen, Abram Leon, Walter Zenner, Werner Cahnman, [29] Donald Horowitz, [30] Gideon Reuveni, [31] Ivan Light, Steven J. Gold, [32] and Robert Silverman, [33] a reasonable concern might be that middleman minority theory is itself an intellectual "visibility strategy." Just as it has been posited that Jews tend to support mass migration because it will result in Jews becoming "one among many" ethnic minorities, and thus in their logic less conspicuous and therefore safer, middleman minority theory can act to reduce Jewish visibility by offering the idea that Jews are just one among many diaspora trading groups and their history and behavior is therefore not unique or worthy of special attention. It remains the case that even in those interpretations which highlight negative Jewish behavior and portray host responses as rational (e.g. the work of Bonacich and Zenner), the proposed framework still insists on some level of commonality, no matter how tenuous, with the experiences of other minority groups, and it ultimately places the blame for conflict on a much broader context, often the impersonal historical development of capitalism.

In other words, while the framework can deny that Jews are "victims" of host nations, these theories also deny that host nations are truly the victims of Jewish exploitation. Both are simply argued to be the victims of capitalism, and any sense of individual or group agency is rhetorically dissolved. Again, this acts to lower Jewish visibility and culpability and remains attractive for that reason. There are certainly good reasons along this line of thought for proposing that Steven Pinker's promotion of the theory over Kevin MacDonald's ideas has less to do with a serious engagement with the content of the work of Bonacich et al. and significantly more to do with deflecting the entire conversation into an area of discussion in which Pinker feels Jews are less visible.

A major problem with middleman minority theory is that it has a very uncomfortable and unsatisfactory way of handling the obviously unique aspects of the Jewish experience, especially in relation to the unprecedented involvement of Jews in post-Enlightenment Western culture and politics, something for which there is absolutely no parallel among other diaspora trading groups anywhere. As has been discussed, middleman minority theory was essentially first created, consciously or unconsciously, by scholars anxious to find a way to explain the Jewish experience. Attempts to connect this experience, amounting to some two millennia of history, with the much more modern and straightforward experiences of, for example, the Chinese in the Philippines or the Japanese in America, have been doomed to the grossest of generalizations and the clumsiest of associations. This has resulted in a steady stream of admissions within the field that the best way to interpret middleman minority theory is simply that it proposes an "ideal type" (essentially the Jews) with unfortunate "problems of fit between any actual ethnic group and this picture [the Jewish experience]." [34] Zenner has conceded that the concept has been very "difficult to define so as to cover all groups so designated." [35] All of which calls into question whether this concept possesses any real efficacy as an analytical or predictive tool in a comparative sense at all.

An interesting point of difference between the Jewish experience and that of other diaspora trading peoples is that the latter are acknowledged as possessing a genuine sense of sojourn. In other words, their first generations tend to be truly temporary, semi-nomadic groups who aim to make money before eventually returning to a homeland. A subtly different experience is observed in the Jews, as noted by Jack Kugelmass in his 1981 PhD thesis Native Aliens: The Jews of Poland as a Middleman Minority . For Kugelmass, "the so-called "middleman" character of the Jew is seen as an aspect of the Jewish sense of sojourn, which unlike most sojourns is ideological rather than sociological in nature ." [emphasis added] Another way of phrasing this would be to say that the Jewish sense of sojourn is cultural-biological rather than contextual, and since the concept of sojourning has been a major feature of Jewish life since at least the writing of the Exodus, this difference between other groups is really so stark as to require a distinct analysis -- something offered to an unparalleled degree in Kevin MacDonald's A People That Shall Dwell Alone . In this analysis, it would appear that, unlike a relatively small number of other peoples who have merely adopted some tactics in order to pursue a specific diaspora trade role, Jews have, from time immemorial, given themselves over entirely to these strategies as an entire way of life -- the "middleman minority" as a raison d'être .

This absolutely crucial distinction is linked to the remarkable fact of contemporary political life that the state of Israel exists largely according to the same strategies employed by Jews when in a diaspora condition. As stated above, an excellent example of the dual morality process in action is the fact Israel is the largest producer and host of international online gambling sites , while making it illegal for its own citizens to use such sites. The creation of the state of Israel has also exacerbated, rather than ameliorated, issues of dual loyalty in Jewish minority populations, even if these issues are more or less kept out of the public eye through diplomatic soothing around Israeli spying and the maintenance of certain taboos in the mass media. Israel itself would appear to be a kind of middleman minority archetype within the international community, cultivating close and lucrative ties with the elite (the United States), while engaging in more or less unchallenged exploitative and oppressive activities against lower social orders (Palestinians, and other vulnerable or indebted population groups in South America).

Like the "ideal type" of middleman minority, Israel heavily drains the resources even of its allies (U.S. military and diplomatic aid) and pursues its strategies in a ceaseless quest for security, while maintaining moral double standards and being rather shameless in engaging in what Zenner has described as the classic overrepresentation of middleman minorities in "morally shady" activities. [36]

Even in recent years, Israel has become notorious in the international organ trade , moneylending , and allegations of humanitarian atrocities. Israeli newspapers have also described their country as a " monopoly nation " due to the intense tendency towards economic monopoly in the country's business life -- a key feature of middleman minority life that Jews appear to continue to embody to an extent unparalleled in any other ethnic group. Further evidence for the apparently deep-seated, rather than contextual, nature of "middleman" traits in Jews might be found in studies indicative of a biological underpinning to Jewish ethnocentrism, such as that described by Kevin MacDonald in the Preface to the Culture of Critique :

Developmental psychologists have found unusually intense fear reactions among Israeli infants in response to strangers, while the opposite pattern is found for infants from North Germany. The Israeli infants were much more likely to become "inconsolably upset" in reaction to strangers, whereas the North German infants had relatively minor reactions to strangers. The Israeli babies therefore tended to have an unusual degree of stranger anxiety, while the North German babies were the opposite -- findings that fit with the hypothesis that Europeans and Jews are on opposite ends of scales of xenophobia and ethnocentrism.

As well as dealing poorly with obviously unique aspects of the Jewish experience, a significant portion of middleman minority theory is devoted to context-based narratives that are often in stark contrast to, or completely disproven by, the historical record. With the exception of the work of Kevin MacDonald, which demonstrates a very extensive engagement with works of history, a general weakness in all of the late twentieth-century sociological studies discussed above is the fact that, despite their incredibly ambitious claims about the historical trajectory of capitalism or middleman minority populations, there is a quite serious neglect of any of the relevant historiography. This leads, in the case of the modern adherents of Simmel, Roscher, and Leon, to the constant repetition of error-laden tropes such as the idea that Jews turned to commerce because they were prohibited from owning land (rather than arriving as profit-seeking financiers), that Jews were most often invited into nations by elites seeking a financial stimulus, or that Jews were banished from countries once their position as loan merchant was superfluous. In fact, these three tropes, all of which remove Jewish agency and characteristics from consideration, are essentially the pillars of context-based middleman minority theory pertaining to Jews, and are absolutely crucial to Roscher's ideas in particular.

The historical record is now acknowledged as more or less complete in relation to the issue of the Jewish ownership of land. It has been conclusively established, for example, that the general trend across Europe was that Jews were in fact able to possess and own land during the centuries immediately following their initial spread and expansion in Europe (c.1000–1300). Restrictions on land ownership were later enacted as penalties for exploitation or as part of a system of elite land transfer -- e.g., the desire of the English kings to obtain the land of indebted lesser knights, and doing so by financially compensating Jewish moneylenders for forfeited lands they could no longer legally hold.

One of the correlates of the land ownership trope is the astonishingly naive assumption that land ownership would preclude involvement in financial speculation. Again, the historical record contradicts this. Mark Meyerson's Princeton-published A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain (2010), for example, offers an expansive analysis of Jewish landowners in Spain who "did not necessarily cultivate the land themselves" and combined wine production operations worked by non-Jewish peasants with "lending operations and tax farming." [37] Pointing to the prevalence of early Jewish land ownership in Poland, France, and Germany, in which Jews enjoyed a "privileged status available to few Christians," Norman Roth has described the trope that Jews were forced out of agriculture by restrictive laws and the violence of the Crusades as "patently absurd." [38]

The theory that Jews, and by tenuous implication other middleman minorities, were most often invited into nations by elites seeking a financial stimulus or to fill a "status gap," is also contradicted by the historical record. The early entry and expansion of Jews in Europe is relatively well-documented, the dominant trend being that Jews either presented themselves before elites in order to solicit business, or that they acted as financiers for conquest and then followed in the wake of the conquerors (e.g., the well-documented role of Jewish financiers in Norman Conquest of England and Strongbow's conquest of Ireland). [39] Ireland's Annals of Innisfallen (1079 A.D.) record: "Five Jews came from over sea with gifts to Tairdelbach [King of Munster], and they were sent back again over sea." Unless Tairdelbach (Turlough O'Brien, 1009–86) had undergone a dramatic change of mind, it's likely that the arrival of the Jews hadn't been preceded by an invitation. In fact, unsolicited approaches for request to settle and establish financial activities are in evidence from the time of O'Brien to the 1655 "Humble Address" of Manasse ben Israel to the English government.

A very common form of government documentation found in the study of Early Modern Jewish communities are the charters outlining their terms of settlement, and these are very revealing. Rather than act as economic catalysts, Jews are more frequently observed following the trail of already economically improving areas, hoping to profit from their advancement. As Felicitas Schmeider has pointed out, in terms of the German context, "permission to settle Jews in a newly privileged town is one thing kings were frequently, if not regularly, asked for, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries." [40]

The theory that Jews were banished from countries once their position as loan merchant or general role as a middleman minority was superfluous is also forcefully contradicted by the historical record. Just as medieval Jews perceived that they were the innocent victims of evil Gentiles, so Jewish historiography has overwhelmingly portrayed the expulsions as the result of "rumors, prejudices, and insinuating and irrational accusations." [41] Context-based middleman minorities theories absorbed these tropes and reinvented them in narratives that blamed the expulsions on the fact that Capital had simply exhausted the usefulness of the Jews. Such understandings of the expulsions have only very recently come to be revised, most saliently in the work of Harvard historian Rowan W. Dorin, whose 2015 doctoral thesis and subsequent publications have for the first time helped to fully contextualize the mass expulsions of Jews in Europe during the medieval period, 1200–1450. [42]

Dorin points out that Jews were never specifically targeted for expulsion qua Jews, but as usurers, and notes that the vast majority of expulsions in the period targeted "Christians hailing from northern Italy." Jews were expelled, like these Christian usurers, for their actions, choices, and behaviors. What the period witnessed was not a wave of irrational anti-Jewish actions, or for that matter an impersonal reflex of glutted Capital, but rather a widespread ecclesiastical reaction against the spread of moneylending among Christians that eventually absorbed Jews into its considerations for common sense reasons. A number of laws and statutes, for example Usuranum voraginem , were designed in order to provide a schedule of punishments for foreign/travelling Christian moneylenders. These laws contained provisions for excommunication and a prohibition on renting property in certain locales. The latter effectively prohibited such moneylenders from taking up residence in those locations, and compelled their expulsion in cases where they were already domiciled. It was only after these laws were in effect that some theologians and clerics began to question why they weren't also applied to Jews who, in the words of historian Gavin Langmuir, were then "disproportionately engaged in moneylending in northern Europe by the late 12th century." [43]

The Church had historically objected to the expulsion of Jews in the belief that their scattered presence fulfilled theological and eschatological functions. It was only via the broader, largely common sense, application of newly developed anti-usury laws that such obstructions to confrontations with Jews became theologically and ecclesiastically permissible, if not entirely desirable. And once this Rubicon had been crossed, it paved the way for a rapid series of expulsions of Jewish usury colonies from European towns and cities, a process that accelerated rapidly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The lack of engagement with developments in historiography is worsened to a large extent by the absence of a truly cross-disciplinary approach in most, if not all, existing middleman minority analyses. This is particularly glaring in the works of Bonacich and Zenner which, while making multiple and apparently crucial references to conscious and unconscious group "strategies," fail to engage in any kind of historiographical or psychological scholarly contextualization. How exactly such strategies as "visibility strategies" can operate at group level are left completely unexplained and without any substantial evidence beyond common sense observations of Jewish behavior. The lack of a cross-disciplinary approach in such instances doesn't necessarily mean that these ideas are wrong, or that "visibility strategies" don't exist, but it does mean that explanations and evidence are still required. To date, the only convincing attempt to fill in such gaps, and offer a truly cross-disciplinary approach (incorporating history, sociology, and psychology) to the idea of group strategies, is found in the work of Kevin MacDonald.

Conclusion

As stated at the outset of this essay, it isn't at all clear how any of the aspects of middleman minority theory obviate the need for a deeper theoretical framework in which to understand the behaviors and contexts under study. Middleman minority theory, as remarked above, is an incomplete tool, and has little to offer in terms of deeper explanatory value for such relevant key concepts under discussion as resource competition, ecological strategies, visibility strategies, and social identity theory. Middleman minority theory, or at least some strands of it, is useful and valuable in the study of Jews to the extent that it places an unusual emphasis on group conflict as arising from resource competition, the characteristics of Jews (including Jewish ethnocentrism), and the existence of group strategies.

There are, however, multiple, serious inadequacies in middleman minority theory, including the possibility that it is in part itself a "visibility strategy," that is has a general problem of definitions, that it fails to adequately deal with unique qualities of the Jews and their experiences, that it generally fails to engage with the historical record, and that it has no real explanatory or predictive frameworks for many of the ideas it discusses, including group strategies. I am forced to concur with Edna Bonacich that, in regards to the study of Jews, middleman minority theory should be conceived, at best, as "a useful sensitiser to a host of interrelated variables." [44]

Notes

[1] Bonacich, Edna. "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583–94, (589).

[2] Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Oeuvres Complètes (Geneva, 1756), Vol. 7. Ch.1. See also Dictionnaire Philosophique (Basle, 1764), Vol. 14 .

[3] B. Bauer, The Jewish Problem ( Die Judenfrage , 1843) ed Ellis Rivkin and trans. Helen Lederer (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion, 1958).

[4] K. Marx, On the Jewish Problem ( Zur Judenfrage , 1844) ed Ellis Rivkin and trans. Helen Lederer (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion, 1958).

[5] W. Sombart, Der moderne Kapitalismus , Munich and Leipzig 1913. This work was published in an English translation by E. Epstein under the title, The Quintessence of Capitalism , London, 1915.

[6] W. P. Zenner, Minorities in the Middle: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Albany: State University of New York, 1991), 5.

[7] W. Roscher, "Die Stellung der Juden im Mittelalter, betrachtet vom Standpunkt der allgemeine Handelspolitik," Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft Bd. 31 (1875) S. 503–526.

[8] G. Reuveni, "Prolegomena to an "Economic Turn" in Jewish History," in G. Reuveni (ed) The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship Between Ethnicity and Economic Life (Berghahn, 2011), 3.

[9] As the son of Catholic and Lutheran converts from Judaism, Simmel's relationship to his Jewishness is fascinating in itself. See A. Morris-Reich, The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science , (New York: Routledge, 2008), chapter 4. For the influence of Simmel's stranger minority theory see Werner Cahnman, "Pariahs, Strangers, and Court Jews -- A Conceptual Classification," Sociological Analysis, 35 (1974); C. R. Hallpike, "Some problems in Cross-Cultural Comparison," in The Translation of Culture , T. Beidelman (ed), (London: Tavistock, 1971); Hilda Kuper, "Strangers in Plural Societies: Asians in South Africa and Uganda," in Pluralism in Africa , Leo Kuper and M. G. Smith (eds) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971); Jack H. Porter, "The Urban Middleman: A Comparative Analysis," Comparative Social Research , 4 (1981); R. A. Reminick, "The Evil Eye Belief among the Amhara of Ethiopia," Ethnology, 13 (1974), W. Shack and E. Skinner, Strangers in African Societies (Berkelely: University of California Press, 1979); Paul Siu, "The Sojourner," American Journal of Sociology , 58, (1952).

[10] J. Stone, Racial Conflict in Contemporary Society , (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 96.

[11] This coinage is frequently attributed to Philip Curtin, who employs the term in his Cross-cultural Trade in World History (1984), but the term was in use by Cohen, within a strict thematic sense, as early as the latter's 1974 chapter "Cultural Strategies in the Organisation of Trading Diasporas," in C. Meillassoux (ed) The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971).

[12] Quoted in W. P. Zenner, Minorities in the Middle: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Albany: State University of New York, 1991), 8.

[13] K. MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism , 187.

[14] E. Bonacich, "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583–94.

[15] E. Bonacich, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community (Berekely: University of California Press, 1980).

[16] Ibid, 589.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid, 592.

[19] R. Cherry, "American Jewry and Bonacich's Middleman Minority Theory," Review of Radical Political Economics , 22 (2–3), 158–173, 161.

[20] W. P. Zenner, Minorities in the Middle: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Albany: State University of New York, 1991), 10. See also W. Zenner, "American Jewry in the light of middleman minority theories," Contemporary Jewry , 5:1 (1980), 11–30, 18. Zenner argues that "As a synthetic concept, the phrase "middleman minority" is difficult to define so as to cover all groups so designated."

[21] E. Bonacich, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community (Berekely: University of California Press, 1980), 22. See also E. Bonacich, "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583–94, 585.

[22] Ibid, 24.

[23] W. Zenner, "American Jewry in the light of middleman minority theories," Contemporary Jewry , 5:1 (1980), 11-30, 18.

[24] R. Cherry, "American Jewry and Bonacich's Middleman Minority Theory," Review of Radical Political Economics , 22 (2-3), 158-173, 161.

[25] W. P. Zenner, Minorities in the Middle: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Albany: State University of New York, 1991), 18.

[26] Ibid.

[27] E. Bonacich, "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583-94, 592.

[28] W. Zenner, "American Jewry in the light of middleman minority theories," Contemporary Jewry , 5:1 (1980), 11-30, 23.

[29] W. Cahnman, "Pariahs, Strangers and Court Jews," Sociological Analysis 35, 3 (1974): 155-66.

[30] D. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

[31] G. Reuveni (ed) The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship Between Ethnicity and Economic Life (Berghahn, 2011).

[32] I. Light & S. J. Gold, Ethnic Economies (Bingley: Emerald, 2000).

[33] R. Silverman, Doing Business in Minority Markets (New York: Garland, 2000).

[34] E. Bonacich, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community (Berekely: University of California Press, 1980), 22.

[35] W. Zenner, "American Jewry in the light of middleman minority theories," Contemporary Jewry , 5:1 (1980), 11-30, 13.

[36] Ibid, 15.

[37] M. D. Meyerson, A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 111.

[38] N. Roth, Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2003),

[39] J. Hillaby, "Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century," in P. Skinner (ed), The Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary, and Archaeological Perspectives (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), 36.

[40] F. Schmeider, "Various Ethnic and Religious Groups in Medieval German Towns? Some Evidence and Reflections," in, Segregation, Integration, Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe (Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), 15.

[41] Joseph Pérez, History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 60.

[42] R. W. Dorin, Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200 -- 1450 (Harvard PhD dissertation, 2015); R. W. Dorin, "Once the Jews have been Expelled," Intent and Interpretation in Late Medieval Canon Law," Law and History Review , Vol. 34, No. 2 (2016), 335-362.

[43] G. Langmuir, History, Religion, and Antisemitism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 304.

[44] Ibid, 24.

[Nov 26, 2020] Did Jews fail to deliver- by Israel Shamir

Nov 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Did Jews Fail to Deliver? ISRAEL SHAMIR NOVEMBER 18, 2020 2,300 WORDS 161 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More

President Trump gave to Israel all she could wish for; he hoped that in return, the Jews would give him America to rule another term. A simple give-and-take, but it didn't work out as intended. If he were to run for the presidency of Israel, he would have it. If Brooklyn were to decide who'd inhabit the White House, he would be the Chosen one. But Trump's plan to bribe US Jews by bearing gifts to Israel failed completely.

East Europeans define the difference between Jews and Hungarians (or Poles) as follows. All of these would sell their grandmother for a fistful of coins; but only a Jew would deliver. This non-delivery of America will be remembered by future US presidents. Perhaps we witness a defining moment for the downturn in American support of Israel, in direct contradiction to the main thesis of our colleague Philip Giraldi who said this week that "Israel's Power Is Unlimited". Why did it happen? The US Jews didn't take the bait. And now for details.

"Zionist" is a euphemism for "Jew", isn't it? Up to a point. Zionists, that is Jews (and others) who care and work for Israel, are strongly supportive of the US President, but Jews that matter, that is elite liberal progressive US Jews, won't support Trump even if he were to pave Tel Aviv with golden bricks. Three out of four US Jews voted for Joe Biden , about the same proportion of Jews who voted for Barack Obama, though Obama was quite critical towards Israel, while Trump did all the Israelis could wish for.

The Jews that cared more about Israel voted for Trump, but they are powerless. They have money, they have good positions in society, but they aren't top dogs. The Orthodox Jews are for Trump; not so much for the sake of Israel but rather for his conservative agenda. They do not like gay parades, do not care for transgenderism, and for them, Black Lives do not matter much. Social justice is not their credo.They have little influence outside their own milieu. They voted 77 to 23 for Trump. Right-wing Jews are strongly Zionist and support Trump. Their publication FrontPage Magazine is all out for Trump. But they would be for Trump even if he hadn't left Iran agreement.

Polls of Jewish voters show that they do not care much about the steps taken by Trump in order to please Israel. They are worried about Covid pandemics, about medical care, while economics occupies fifth place in their concerns, and Israeli-related acts are at the very bottom. The only place where one can notice some positive change is Florida, where Jews actually shifted in noticeable numbers to Republicans. But even there it seems to be a part of a Latino shift rather than a separate phenomenon.

Elite Jews voted for Biden and for Dems as advised by the NY Times. For them, Trump's friendship with PM Netanyahu was a drawback rather than an advantage. If they care for Israel, they would prefer a quieter approach as usual, within the Two States paradigm. None of what Trump did for Israel found a response in their hearts.

According to the AJC (American Jewish Committee) Biden bested Trump on every issue including handling the coronavirus pandemic, 78%-19%; combatting terrorism, 71%-26%; dealing with Iran, 71%-27%; handling crime, 72%-24%, and strengthening U.S.-Israel relations, 54%-42%. (The Republican Jewish Coalition has slightly better numbers, as they polled older Jews.) Trump has expressed frustration that his Israel decisions have not garnered greater support in the Jewish community, and many activists have spoken of "treason".

If Trump had known in advance that courting Jews would bring neither votes nor political profit, probably he would have wasted less time in the Zionist cul-de-sac. Jews are connected with the Dem Party, remember! All Jewish congressmen but two are Democrats; strongly pro-Israel Senator Chuck Schumer, the Dem leader in the Senate, is as hostile to Trump as any man. Only those Jews really matter; only those Jews have their unique access to media, movies, art, politics, and universities. Perhaps they would act differently if Israel were in danger; but thanks to the generous politics of Donald Trump they didn't need to worry about Israel. (Preceding American presidents were aware of this catch, and were careful not to give too much to Israel. This was also the view of Dr Kissinger).

Israeli Jews are much more pro-Trump than their American cousins. If Israel were a US state, it would be deep red. They feel gratitude to the man who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They appreciate his drive for normalisation with the Arab states; his non-interference in the Palestinian issue; his recognition of the Golan Heights. Being more conservative, they are on the same page as Trump on many issues. However, even before Trump, the majority of Israeli Likud-voters are and have been for the Republicans for many years. They did not like Obama and Clinton, and they do not care for Biden. A prominent high tech Israeli personality prophesied that Biden would bring disaster for Israel.

However, in Israel, too, there is a sharp division between elites and Deplorable masses. The Deplorables support Netanyahu and Trump, vote domestically for Likud or religious parties. The Deplorables rule Israel for over twenty years; Netanyahu is the Israeli Trump who succeeded to keep power.

The Israeli elites support Biden. For them Trump is a mirror image of their own PM Netanyahu, the man they hate with gusto. The problem with Israeli elites is that they have lost their ability to govern. Their parties disintegrate; their causes are lost. If there is a common cause for Israeli elites it is rejection of PM Netanyahu mirroring the NeverTrump spirit of American elites, and their belief that they are elites and destined to govern.

They want to get rid of Netanyahu, like the US elites wanted to get rid of Trump. This desire caused three rounds of national elections in the last year, but despite trying hard, they could not vote him out. Now they hope he will be removed by the Supreme Court, and by massive demonstrations near the PM's residence. They say he is corrupt, that he takes bribes, that he didn't save Israel from Coronavirus – just like the Dems had tried to impeach Trump for ridiculous reasons. They want Netanyahu to die in jail, just like the Dems hope to see Trump rotting in Guantanamo. (There are hundreds of women ready to swear Trump almost-raped them fifty years ago when they were underage.)

The case against Netanyahu is feeble at best. He received a pack of cigars and a box of champagne from an American film producer; he promised to help a newspaper publisher if he would stop attacking him. A murky case connects him to a German submarine sale, but it is too opaque even for Netanyahu haters.The PM had been indicted by the state attorney, but by Israeli law, he does not have to resign unless found guilty. Israel is experiencing huge and violent demos against Netanyahu almost daily. But the deplorables still support their Bibi, and vote for him. As opposed to Trump, Netanyahu has a newspaper, and it makes a lot of difference.

It would be nice if there were some positive differences between the Israeli Left and Right on important issues. No such luck. There is practically no difference between Likud and the liberal parties regarding the really important Palestinian question. The Left-wing and Right-wing Jews are on the same page: they do not want to grant equality to non-Jews. They treat Palestinians much worse than the Blacks were treated in Alabama a hundred years ago. They aren't even interested in Palestinians.

The Israeli liberal left is interested in Lesbians and Gays; the main point of the election campaign of the once-radical-left Meretz (I was their spokesman 40 years ago) was gay adoption and access to surrogate mothers. And that in a society where workers earn less and less every year, while houses cost more and more; where regular employment is a dream for workers; where trade unions collapsed, and instead of employment, workers are offered a contract with unlimited working hours, no holidays and no security at all. All in a country where Palestinians are not allowed even to bathe in the sea a few miles from their besieged villages.

Another topic of the liberal elite is their fight against religion.They are equal haters, hating religious Jews as well as Christians and Muslims. The outbreak of Covid provided them with a new reason to hate the believing Jews: they go to synagogues instead of staying at home or going to demos against Netanyahu. I do not know any redeeming feature of this group, but they are quite similar to liberal elites elsewhere.

In France, too, the ruling elite hates Islam and promotes Charlie Hebdo; but they hate Christianity, too. The first thing Macron did in the present lockdown was to ban the Mass. And his support groups, the elite liberals, were mighty pleased. In this video , you can see young liberals asking police to disperse Catholics praying outside of Church. The same happens in Israel, and in New York, where police have interfered with praying Jews.

The main difference between the populists of Netanyahu and the elitists is in their attitude to ordinary people. The populists exude empathy while elitists just deplore. At the practical level, they do not differ. Both are equally bad for workers, for ordinary Jews and Palestinians. Populists waste public money on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, while elitists offer free Nepalese surrogate mothers for every gay.

As for Covid lockdowns, the elitists approve of them, just like Biden and his Dems do. The deplorables dislike them greatly, for they lose their jobs, and they can't afford it, but they still do not rebel.

In the US, the populists of Trump did not get much from his first cadence. A possible solution would be the integration of left populists and right populists, of Trump taking Tulsi Gabbard as his VP or at least as Secretary of State, of Trump giving every American citizen medical care as in Europe, of him providing quality education free, of him taxing billionaires and supporting workers. Such a ticket would be unbeatable. And stop bothering with the Jews and Israel; they have nuisance value, but nothing more.

Now we can explain why the Trump Zionist Offensive didn't help him. The US (as well as US Jews and Israel) is split into incompetent but cocksure elites and gullible but angry Deplorables. The vote in the recent elections was a test of loyalty: are you with the elites or with the Deplorables (in Hebrew, עמך)? In the US, where many Jews actually belong to elites, even those outside accept elite values and narratives and still hope to get invited in. A US Jew has to despair to join Trump and his counter-élites, and they are still hopeful.

The Jewish newspaper Forward tells of "two young Jewish political activists who formed the Jewish Unity PAC and raised all of $31,000, and every cent of it was spent supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris." It's not that they care for Biden, but these young people know where their bright future may lie.

In Israel, the elites are against Netanyahu, but the majority of Israelis, Jews or non-Jews, have already despaired of being invited into the traditional elites. So they have no problem voting for Netanyahu or supporting Trump. However, the Israel of Netanyahu and his Deplorables is much less attractive to US Jews than the old elitist Labour-ruled Ashkenazi Israel. They do not admit it; certainly not in writing, but there is no social lift for a US Jew in going to Israel or even in supporting Israel. Thus Zionism as a cause has lost its attraction for US Jews. And probably this change is irreversible: the old Ashkenazi elite of Israel is gone, and it won't come back. It has been supplanted by Oriental Jews, by religious folk, by the Ashkenazi counter-elites of Likud. There is no profit in courting Israel as much as Trump did.

If Trump does, despite enormous odds, gain his second term, perhaps he will learn the lesson and treat Israel as Jewish Liberia. It would be a great relief for the US and for the people of Israel. Being cut off from the US supply pipeline, Israel may yet make peace with Palestinians and become a normal Middle Eastern state. The US won't be driven into far-away wars. It would be better if Trump had understood earlier, but better late than never.

American support is as dangerous for Israel as Russian support is for Armenia. Armenians had 30 years to make peace with their neighbours but they didn't for they were sure of Russian support. Israelis had 50 years, but they didn't because of the US support. Armenians already came to grief, and for Israel it is coming, unless they will disengage from their protective superpower. So the special relations between the US elites and Israel are fully exhausted for both sides.

And meanwhile, Israel sits on the fence. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose not to refer to Joe Biden as president-elect during a press conference Monday, saying instead that Biden was "supposed to be appointed the next president", reported Haaretz .

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review .

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Altai , says: November 18, 2020 at 2:16 pm GMT • 8.3 days ago

though Obama was quite critical towards Israel

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NIgfiSzCy1o?feature=oembed

Fixed that for you.

though Obama was less vocally supportive towards Israel

TG , says: November 18, 2020 at 3:07 pm GMT • 8.3 days ago

But one must remember: both parties are completely totally pro-Israel. Meaning the there is no reward for a politician in supporting Israel, only punishment for those that don't.

And while this might or might not completely apply to Trump, most modern American politicians don't care all that much about winning elections. They care about doing the bidding of their wealthy patrons, and getting rewarded on the side. It's about putting on a show for the masses, and as in professional wrestling, both the 'winners' and the 'losers' get paid. Sitting on corporate boards, distinguished positions in academia, cushy book contracts, the press treating them like senior statesmen, awards and accolades, that sort of thing.

Consider also: Trump presumably will continue to run businesses and will need contacts and support etc from other wealthy people, many of whom of course will be Jewish. Not pissing off the Jews might still be critical to him in the days to come

BuelahMan , says: November 18, 2020 at 3:51 pm GMT • 8.3 days ago

I find it most difficult to believe what a jew says that jews think, especially when it is geared towards goy.

Of course, only because I am antisemitic not that jews lie with abandon, covering for the tribe in some way.

saggy , says: Website November 18, 2020 at 5:01 pm GMT • 8.2 days ago

Jews were the prime movers in the effort to impeach Clinton as told by David Brock in 'Blinded by the Right', and Jews were the prime movers in the effort to impeach Trump as was widely publicized, and yet the response of Clinton and Trump was to redouble their efforts to please the Jews . probably to 'follow the money'.

A123 , says: November 18, 2020 at 6:07 pm GMT • 8.2 days ago

Did Jews Fail to Deliver?

Which Jews Failed to Deliver What?

The article is much better than the headline.

The author concedes that there is no "Jewish Side" and in fact details how there are significant numbers of Jews on opposing sides.

However, in Israel, too, there is a sharp division between elites and Deplorable masses. The Deplorables support Netanyahu and Trump, vote domestically for Likud or religious parties.

The Israeli elites support Biden. For them Trump is a mirror image of their own PM Netanyahu, the man they hate with gusto. The problem with Israeli elites is that they have lost their ability to govern

The virulent Anti-Semitism of Islam is aggressively trying to contaminate certain western parties such as Labour and the DNC. However, movements like Muslim BLM are generating so much backlash that they are already losing traction. In the U.S.:

-- Conservatives are likely to join the Orthodox, majority voting for GOP Populism and workers.
-- Reform and Reconstructionist are likely to stay aligned against workers with the Blue SJW Elites of the Globalist DNC.

I find it baffling that Jews openly oppose Judeo-Christian values by staying with SJW "woke" apostasy. However, it is a fact that huge numbers of Jews act against their own self interest.

It is not unique to them. Huge numbers of Christians make the same mistake siding with SJW deviancy.

PEACE

RealAmerican , says: November 18, 2020 at 6:15 pm GMT • 8.2 days ago

@BuelahMan

You cannot be serious BuelahMan? Take your blinders off.
Those that you speak of are indeed many, but not so Mr. Shamir.
Great read Mr. Shamir. Thank you!

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Website November 18, 2020 at 8:28 pm GMT • 8.1 days ago

@BuelahMan

Israel Shamir is not a Jew.

No Friend Of The Devil , says: November 18, 2020 at 9:22 pm GMT • 8.0 days ago

Republicans are not courting American Jews in order to win their votes. Republicans are courting American Jews in order to win their wallets and positive press coverage. There are not enough Rebublican Jews to sway an election, but there is enough Republican Jewish money and Republican Jewish media for the Republican Party to pay attention to them.

Andrea Iravani

Chris Moore , says: Website November 19, 2020 at 12:10 am GMT • 7.9 days ago

@No Friend Of The Devil Bingo. Plus, to fend of the inevitable, demagogic "anti-Semitism" accusations from liberals, leftists and Democrats, and their stooges in MSM.

The "anti-Semitism" accusation has paid off well for Jews. It's kind of like the "Holocaust" wail -- the gift that keeps on giving. Someday, all that Jewish dogma will be recognized as the grift it's always been. Not today, but maybe tomorrow, or the day after

Then we can watch ALL the grifters scramble for cover. Maybe they'll hide in an attic. Then they'll make up some story of epic persecution and start the cycle over again.

How many times will Charlie Brown fall for it? How many times will Charlie Chan fall for it? We'll find out.

Anonymous [208] Disclaimer , says: November 19, 2020 at 5:24 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

Ah but you forget that Trump's political base is Evangelical Christians and they are Zionists.

The big money may come from conservative Jews (like Adelson) but his popular support is from Christians.

anon [321] Disclaimer , says: November 19, 2020 at 5:50 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

Jews dumped Trump for Biden because he didn't do enough. With Biden they get even more support for Israel, including putting more troops in Syria to finally take out Assad, and perhaps finally going to war with Iran, which Trump wouldn't do. Plus Biden will give them billions of taxpayer money to run the Diversity Industrial Complex, with every government agency now requiring diversity training, and lots more diversity and race initiatives everywhere, all rackets run by Jews, with a few token blacks. And then there's media censorship, which Trump won't give them but Biden/Harris are already putting on the agenda.

niceland , says: November 19, 2020 at 5:58 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

Interesting article. Thanks Mr Shamir.

JWalters , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:05 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

"Biden bested Trump on every issue including strengthening U.S.-Israel relations, 54%-42%."

Biden puts a more "civilized" face on Israel's inhumane ethnic cleansing. Trump was so obvious and garish about it. Trump ran the risk of calling too much attention to Israel's crimes. But "both sides" were still willing to have Israel grab all that Trump was "giving" (though illegal and not Trump's to give). As others have noted, Trump's payoff may come after he is out of office. Much is theater.

Zarathustra , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:14 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

Come to think about it Trump could make good money opening a TV station. all sane Americans would watch it. The advertisement money would just be poring in. This would be excellent thing.
Trump has many followers. Trump would give his followers some hope.

Justsaying , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:24 am GMT • 7.7 days ago

The purported failure of Jews to deliver presupposes Jews are under some sort of obligation to deliver. Jews are in total control. They have the sworn, unsolicited and total subservience of any American presidential candidate of substance. Quite the contrary, it is the Jewish colony of America that must deliver to its colonial master.

Zarathustra , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:31 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

@Zarathustra

Also from there he could criticize Biden's administration and make Biden miserable for all four years.

RedpilledAF , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:33 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

A Jewish dialectic. By design and effort. That's what it always comes down to. That is the vicious cycle that needs to broken. Jewish thesis, Jewish antithesis, Jewish synthesis, rinse and repeat.

Ghali , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:48 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

It is true that Democrats are bought and owned by Jews. But, I have to agree with Andre Joyce. Jews are very unreliable people, possibly the most unreliable of backers. Trump exhausted his usefulness to Jews and they threw him under the bus. Jews want someone as racist Zionist as Biden.

In Biden Jews find a long time obedient Gentile servant. Biden will do what Obama and Trump refused to do. He is a well-known war criminal and he will leash war on the Middle East.

Clay Alexander , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:50 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

Great article. Did the Jews deliver ? The question should be did any one group deliver ? Trump was way to erratic and made way to many enemies and always seemed to say the first thing that popped into his head. A good example of one of the stranger incidents was in Oct. 2018 when Rap star and mental defective Kanye West sat in the Oval Office and went a non-stop, rambling, incoherent tirade. The President of the United States sat there like a moron nodding approvingly it made Trump look foolish and cheapened all Americans. He sunk himself with his big mouth and his tantrums. As far as the voting went it brings to mind the Joe Pesci character from Casino in the end they all had enough.

Hiram of Tyre , says: November 19, 2020 at 6:52 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

@Chris Moore

Anti-semitism , Holocaust ; "it's a trick" .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9DKeLLlaws8?feature=oembed

chris , says: November 19, 2020 at 7:00 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

Yeah, liberal Jews profess universal values, they keep their fervent support for Israel hidden, because that gives away the fact that they are hypocrits. It's like the whore that they're banging at every opportunity. And now Trump comes out and admonishes them in the open to vote for him because of the jewlery and boob job he's bought her – as much as they like it, they are profoundly mortified by his crude appeal. . and of course they know that she's being taken care through all the institutions they're supporting.

In some sense, Trump missing the boat on this issue is like Hillary selling herself as a war hawk, when that didn't actually sell anymore; she had missed the boat by 40 years.

gT , says: November 19, 2020 at 7:40 am GMT • 7.6 days ago

No, the Jews did not fail to deliver. Jews always support both sides in any conflict so that whoever wins they can claim to have supported / made the winning side...

AnonStarter , says: November 19, 2020 at 9:54 am GMT • 7.5 days ago

It would be nice if there were some positive differences between the Israeli Left and Right on important issues. No such luck. There is practically no difference between Likud and the liberal parties regarding the really important Palestinian question.

I don't find it all that different here.

Quite a few Jews on the American left expose their Zionist underbelly whenever the question of Palestine arises...

Verymuchalive , says: November 19, 2020 at 10:12 am GMT • 7.5 days ago

American support is as dangerous for Israel as Russian support is for Armenia. Armenians had 30 years to make peace with their neighbours but they didn't for they were sure of Russian support. Israelis had 50 years, but they didn't because of the US support. Armenians already came to grief, and for Israel it is coming, unless they will disengage from their protective superpower. So the special relations between the US elites and Israel are fully exhausted for both sides.

Excellent article, sticking more or less dispassionately to the facts. Also, it draws the logical inference of these facts, as outlined above. The economic collapse of America is only a matter of time, and with it the collapse of its subsidies to Israel. History is full of instances of small states encouraged in their intransigence by their patrons, whether intentionally or indirectly. With the loss of the patrons, their clients are then forced to agree terms at very unfavourable conditions, compared to what they would have got, had they negotiated previously.

God's Fool , says: November 19, 2020 at 12:58 pm GMT • 7.4 days ago

Obama critical of Israel? Are you kidding or may be misleading? Ehud Barak is on record (Charlie Rose Show now defunct) stating unequivocally that the other Barak had done more for Israel than any other American president before him.

No matter how you cut it, Jews alone have a way too much power in the U. S Take for example a mundane decision to cap number of people that should get together for the Thanksgiving: not 9 or 11 but exactly 10, per Dr. Ranit Mishori (she is an Israeli woman) on PBS Newshour last night. Her explanation was very disarming when asked about it. Oh, she said, "they" decided that ten was the right number guess how many people does it take to form a "community of Israel" or the so called Minyan?" TEN! It's all about Jews and Israel even at the freaking NIH (the National Institute of Health).

Ron T, , says: November 19, 2020 at 2:28 pm GMT • 7.3 days ago

Unquestioning and unequivocal support for Israel has become a part of the Republican platform, mostly a result of Evangelical Christians, a large denomination of dupes who believe that the modern state of Israel, established by European colonists in Palestine, is somehow related to the biblical Israel and biblical prophecy.

Jews voted the same way the have for generations as they are assured that Biden is going to provide unquestioning support to Israel too.

Their Jewish votes hardly matter as they are mostly concentrated in New York and California, which are not swing states. It is Jewish power in media and campaign donations that matter, which both candidates could not do without.

76239 , says: November 19, 2020 at 8:17 pm GMT • 7.1 days ago

"If Trump does, despite enormous odds, gain his second term, perhaps he will learn the lesson and treat Israel as Jewish Liberia. It would be a great relief for the US and for the people of Israel. Being cut off from the US supply pipeline, Israel may yet make peace with Palestinians and become a normal Middle Eastern state. The US won't be driven into far-away wars. It would be better if Trump had understood earlier, but better late than never"

I doubt this. The irony is that the same deep state that pushed regime change hook or crook in Bolivia, Iran, and Venezuela is the same deep state that pushed for regime change in the USA against Trump in 2016 (Russia controls Trump bs) and again with the voting fraud of 2020. And yet Trump seems to like regime change when it benefits his Israeli and Saudi patrons. You live by the sword; you die by the sword.

There is the well reasoned narrative that the last US president who took on the CIA with vengeance had his head blown apart in Dallas. The real power in Washington is with the merging of the military, intelligence, silicon valley tech community. The civilian leadership from both parties in the US are mere order takers from this oligarchy.

Government is just a means for the elite to impoverish the public and strip every liberty from them. They are not part of the answer. They are part of the problem.

Iva , says: November 19, 2020 at 11:46 pm GMT • 6.9 days ago

Trump condemns globalism, touts nationalistic view of foreign affairs at U.N."The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots," Trump said. "The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-touts-nationalistic-view-of-foreign-affairs-at-un/2019/09/24/e4a8486a-ded2-11e9-8fd3-d943b4ed57e0_story.html This is why Jews and pro globalists want Biden and Harris. Barbra Lerner Spectre speaks about multiculti and Israel expels black Jews giving them the one way tickets, because "they do not mix well with other Israelis' ' . Hypocrisy in full spectrum. They just want other countries ( not Israel) to lose their traditions, customs and values. When the society is divided and broken it is easier to rule throwing various groups against each other's throats. While groups fight with each other, they pursue their agendas unnoticed. Today Trump's lawyers were talking about lawyers who wanted to represent Trump getting threats, even death treats. How did this happen in the US? Who's "accomplishment" this is?

geokat62 , says: November 21, 2020 at 2:27 pm GMT • 5.3 days ago

@Occasional lurker ss="comment-text">

Mostly Jews vaguely support Israel For most liberal Jews, Israel is deep, deep down on their political agenda.

You must've missed this headline in the Jerusalem Post:

US Jews strongly support Israel, new poll shows

94% say that if Jewish state "no longer existed tomorrow," it would be a "tragedy."

https://m.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/US-Jews-strongly-support-Israel-new-poll-shows

anon [235] Disclaimer , says: November 22, 2020 at 3:53 pm GMT • 4.3 days ago

@Occasional lurker

Obama did a lot .He tolerated Israeli attacks on Gaza. He offered 40 billions worth of new dole to israel in exchange for Israel delaying the commission of the illegal activity ( postponing of the settlement for 3-4 month ).
He made sure Sisi was not opposed and Morsi was deposed . He got USA involved in Syria and tolerated open advocacy for war by AIPAC against Syria . He tolerated the opposition to Park 51 construction mounted by Neocons . In his time Islamophobia introduced by the neocons skyrocketed .
He campaigned for anti-American charlatan like Joe Liberman . Israel got him do a lot of damages to Iran economically and physically

Buzz Baldrin , says: November 23, 2020 at 8:39 am GMT • 3.6 days ago

I missed the part about Sheldon Adelson's series of campaign contributions to Trump

[Nov 26, 2020] A Trump win will make Israel more open more reckless more racist and more strongly and vaingloriously a terrorist entity.

Nov 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anon [241] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2020 at 1:54 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago

@A123 onducting unconventional warfare. That form of combat is defined by the U.S. government's National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 as "activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area" in the pursuit of various security-related strategic objectives.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1.6894850

[Nov 10, 2020] Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging - The American Conservative

Notable quotes:

"... Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment. ..."

Nov 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging

On foreign policy, Trump accomplished little and polarized the left against him. (ShubhamSingh12345/shutterstock)

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

|

12:01 AM

SAM HUSSEINI

Why are the major media calling Joe Biden the "president-elect"? The sitting president has not yet conceded and the election results have not been certified. This effectively abrogates government function to corporate media; it's a power grab.

Certainly, President Trump may be making a fool of himself with his current course of action, but it is his right to dispute the results in court, and until the courts rule, anyone with a modicum of respect for legal process should refrain from calling Biden "president-elect" -- a term used in the Constitution. Nor should one refer to his remarks Saturday as his "acceptance speech," as major media did.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

In the view of this writer -- who has never voted for a Republican or a Democratic presidential nominee -- the process of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 was highly dubious, leading Gore Vidal to deride the "Cheney-Bush Junta." But it was still a procedure with set legal processes.

What we have now is effectively government of, by, and for Big Media.

At the dawn of this millennium, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin posited that global media "will be and is fast becoming the predominant business of the 21st century." So predominant, in fact, that the media business is "more important than government. It's more important than educational institutions and non-profits."

Levin's prediction has come to pass, with Twitter and Facebook able to selectively suspend, deplatform, and shadow ban whomever they want.

me title=

00:05 / 00:59

Now, the AP, NBC, CNN, et al are attempting to usurp the power of determining when and how a future president is determined.

Certainly, given the evidence we have, it makes sense to refer to Biden as the projected winner of the election. But "president-elect" is a bridge too far.

Some Biden supporters are attempting to take the "president-elect" mantle while simultaneously claiming Trump and some of his supporters are incredibly dangerous and unstable. They apparently don't see or don't want to see that if Trump is half as dangerous as they claim, then their getting ahead of the legal process could set him and them off.

It's quite possible that William Barr and the Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court will come to Trump's rescue, but it seems unlikely. As with Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News channel, they will likely nudge Trump out the door. For all these players, strict observance of the facts is unlikely to be a determinative factor. Rather, with a media establishment and roused liberal activists calling for Trump's head, siding against Trump grants them a sort of legitimacy, the crowning achievement of Trumpwashing.

It also guards them against Trump's unpredictability. Trump has a reputation for turning on former associates. And of course, the ever pro-war John Bolton and others who were in the administration have turned on the president.

The likely reason for this is that one often overlooked fact remains: Trump is the only president in decades (indeed, in my entire adult life) to not start an outright war. He was full of loud threats, he didn't stop any wars like he said he would, he escalated some (most notably the horrific Saudi assault on Yemen), he shredded treaties, he implemented awful sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. But again, the fact remains: Trump is the only president in my adult life to not start an outright war -- that is, a new bombing campaign (such as Yugoslavia or Libya) or invasion (Grenada, Panama, Iraq).

Yet despite his not pulling the trigger on a new war, Trump's presidency was a great success for the pro-war establishment. It made the Democratic Party even more war-like without actually ending any wars. The good it did -- a thawing with North Korea -- seems highly reversible, like the ostensibly pro-peace moves made by Obama.

Indeed, Obama and Trump seem like bookends, each perverting pro-peace impulses on their respective sides of the political spectrum and diminishing them to the wishes of the pro-war establishment.

Trump in 2016 skillfully derided Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton as associated with the Iraq invasion. But incredibly, he failed to do so with Biden, though Biden played a central role in ensuring that the Iraq invasion took place -- and repeatedly lied about it during the Democratic primaries.

So why is Trump so disliked among the pro-war crowd? It reminds me of how Israel treated Arafat. He effectively gave Israel things no one else could have, increased steps towards regional recognition, a tacit legitimizing of the occupation with the Oslo agreement, but it was never enough. Israel tossed Arafat at a time and place of its choosing, even bombing his headquarters in Ramallah.

Trump's October 23 phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't involve any explosives being detonated at the White House, but Trump's near-pleading for a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu, which was not forthcoming, clearly left the president deflated. Indeed, with all the focus on Trump being "Putin's bitch" over the last four years, it's difficult to imagine how Israel continues to play such an outsized role in American political life. Would CNN have objected if Netanyahu gushed over Trump? How would the major media react if Putin were on such a call?

Indeed, the last two one-term presidents lost shortly after criticizing Israel. Jimmy Carter wrote that "Israel cast their lot with Reagan," apparently because then-prime minister Menachem Begin feared that Carter might force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and accept a Palestinian state if he won a second term. And George H. W. Bush -- after pulverizing Iraq in 1991 -- had a highly publicized clash with Israel over loan guarantees, commenting that "there are 1,000 lobbyists up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I'm one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay its consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days."

Trump never said anything of this kind, but his servility to Netanyahu in the closing days of the campaign highlights a troubling set of dynamics.

Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment.

[Nov 03, 2020] Israel Wins U.S. Election by Philip Giraldi

Nov 03, 2020 | www.unz.com

Congress and White House work together to reward the Jewish state PHILIP GIRALDI NOVEMBER 3, 2020 1,300 WORDS 92 COMMENTS REPLY

The U.S. election will end today, more or less, and we Americans will suffer another four years of putting up with serial nonsense out of a White House and Congress that could care less about us no matter who is elected. Whether the party where everything changes or the party where everything remains the same wins the inevitable result will be further aggrandizement of authoritarian power combined with increased distancing of government from the people who are ruled.

Amidst all the gloom, however, there is one great success story. That is the tale of how Israel and its friends in politics and financial circles have been able to screw every possible advantage out of both major parties simultaneously and apparently effortlessly. Israel might be the true undisputed winner in the 2020 election even though it was not on the ballot and was hardly mentioned at all during the campaign.

Jewish billionaires with close ties to Israel have been courted by the two major parties, both to come up with contributions and to urge their friends in the oligarch club and media to also respond favorably. The Democrats' largest single donor is entertainment mogul Haim Saban while the Republicans rely on casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. It is estimated that 60% of the political contributions for the Democrats comes from Jewish sources and Saban is the single largest contributor. He is also an Israeli holding dual citizenship. Adelson, who may also hold dual citizenship and is married to an Israeli, is the major supporter of the Republicans, having coughed up more than $100 million in recent elections.

Both Saban and Adelson have not been shy about supporting Israel as their first priority. Saban is on record as supporting Joe Biden "because of his track record on supporting Israel and its alliance with the United States." Adelson, who was drafted into the U.S. Army in the 1950s, has said that he would much rather have served in the Israel Defense Force. Saban and Adelson are joined in their love fest with Israel by a number of Israel-firsters in Congress and the Administration, all eager to shower unlimited political support, money and weapons on the Jewish state.

In the latest manifestation of noblesse oblige, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stopped off in Israel last week to present his counterparts with a significant bit of assistance, all funded by the American taxpayer, of course. According to sources in Washington and Jerusalem, the U.S. "will grant Israel direct access to highly classified satellites such as the missile detection birds known as SBIRS and ensure Israel gets critical defense platforms in a very short time by using production slots planned for the U.S armed forces." Israel will also be given "deeper access to the core avionic systems" of the new F-35 fighter that it has been obtaining from Washington.

The claimed rationale for the upgrade is the Congressionally mandated requirement for the U.S. to maintain Israel's "qualitative military edge" in light of the impending sale of the F-35 to Arab states that have recently established diplomatic relations with Israel. At the time, Israeli sources were suggesting that the Jewish state might need $8 billion in new military hardware upgrades to maintain its advantage over its neighbors. It is presumed that the American taxpayer will foot the bill, even though there is a serious financial crisis going on in the U.S.

The satellite detection system operates from aerial platforms that are deployed on helicopters. The astute reader will notice that no U.S. security interest is involved in the latest giveaway to Israel. On the contrary, Israel will be receiving material from "production slots planned for the U.S. armed forces," reducing America's own ability to detect incoming missiles. And there will also be considerable damage to American defense interests in that Israel will inevitably steal the advanced F-35 technology that they will be given access to, re-engineer it for their own defense industries and sell it to clients in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They have done so before , selling U.S. developed missile technology to China.

Congress is also doing its bit. A bill, the so-called "U.S.-Israel Common Defense Authorization Act," is making its way through the House of Representatives and will authorize the provision of U.S. manufactured bunker buster bombs to Israel. As the bombs would only be useful in Israel's neighborhood to bomb hardened sites in Iran, the message being sent is obvious. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of destroying targets located deep underground. Oddly, Israel doesn't have a plane capable of carrying that weight so the presumption is that the White House will also have to provide the bomber. The bill is co-sponsored by two leading Israel firsters in Congress Democrat Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Brian Mast of Florida.

Israel is also seeking an upgrade of some of its other fighter aircraft. It reportedly has approached the Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft that was originally developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). Its stealth capability, top speed, maneuverability combined with advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems, makes it the best air superiority fighter in the world.

Unfortunately for Israel, the F-22 is not currently available and is only operated by the USAF. Current U.S. federal law prohibits the export of the plane to anyone to protect its top secret advanced stealth technology as well as a number of advances in weaponry and situational awareness. But if deference to Israel's wishes is anything to go by, one might safely bet that the Jewish state will have received approval to acquire the plane by inauguration day in January. And it is a safe bet that Israeli defense contractors will have reverse engineered the stealth and other features soon thereafter.

The U.S. government has been pandering to Israel in other ways, to include labeling , and sanctioning, prominent human rights groups that have criticized the Jewish state as anti-Semitic. It has also strengthened existing sanctions against Iranian financial institutions , reportedly in an attempt to make it more difficult for a President Biden to reinstate the suspended Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that sought to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. The sanctions come on top of other moves to destroy the Iranian economy, to include " that the U.S., along with Israel, has in recent months carried out sabotage attacks inside Iran, destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at the port of Bushehr "

Other recent developments favoring Israel include Congress's legislating Israeli government veto authority over U.S. sales of weapons to any other Middle Eastern nation. The bill is called "Guaranteeing Israel's QME [Qualitative Military Edge] Act of 2020" (H.R. 8494). There has also been the expansion by Executive Order of U.S. funded illegal West Bank Jewish settlements' science development projects that will eventually compete with American companies.

In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch and there is hardly a politician or journalist who has the courage to say so. Congress and the media have been so corrupted by money emanating from the Israeli lobby that they cannot do enough to satisfy America's rulers in Jerusalem. And for those who do not succumb to the money there is always intimidation, career-ending weaponized accusations of holocaust-denial and anti-Semitism. It is all designed to produce one result: whoever wins in American elections doesn't matter as long as Israel gets what it wants. And it almost always gets what it wants.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

---

ingotus , says: November 3, 2020 at 5:15 am GMT • 17.1 hours ago

Small typo – Mark Esper, not Mike Esper –

Colin Wright , says: Website November 3, 2020 at 5:27 am GMT • 16.9 hours ago

' The sanctions come on top of other moves to destroy the Iranian economy, to include " that the U.S., along with Israel, has in recent months carried out sabotage attacks inside Iran, destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at the port of Bushehr "

Do you have a source for this?

Mike321 , says: November 3, 2020 at 5:52 am GMT • 16.5 hours ago

Years ago, before he was VP, I saw Biden give a speech on C-SPAN in which he said, "I am a Zionist." I thought, "Note to self: never vote for him."

interesting , says: November 3, 2020 at 6:09 am GMT • 16.2 hours ago

@Colin Wright

Good fucking question. I for one am sick of this shit ..claims made, no sources revealed we are supposed to take these claims on "faith" ..akin to a religion.

I can tell you this. If I was Iran I'd be working day and fucking night to get a nuke the neocon, liberalcon warmongers have made it clear as soon as it's convenient, invasion and destroy Iran

Like Neo when he is first released from the matrix and in the construct "I want out, let me out" .of this insanity, the mask shit included.

Lot , says: November 3, 2020 at 6:40 am GMT • 15.7 hours ago

@Colin Wright

No he doesn't.

He also just assumes Jewish trickery, and not the obvious fact that Israel is like Medicare and Social Security and NASA: popular with politicians because it is popular with the public.

Israel, as Phil's commie friends put it, is our "settler-colonial" daughter state. And nothing is too good for our girl!

Anon [115] Disclaimer , says: November 3, 2020 at 7:01 am GMT • 15.4 hours ago

I have been reading articles that go back as far as 1967 and the U.S.S. Liberty incident in which it was implied by many writers that the U.S. was Israel's bitch. It's not as if this thought is new, as even Admiral Thomas Moorer having stated he never knew a U.S. president who could stand up to Israel. If all of this is true, it's pathetic as well.

Abbas , says: November 3, 2020 at 7:28 am GMT • 14.9 hours ago

Is it possible that the USA will curtail her defence power for the sake of Israel? What will be the benefit of the USA if it amplifies Israeli Defence at the cost of US defence?

jacobs-adder , says: November 3, 2020 at 8:00 am GMT • 14.4 hours ago

' Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft..'

Unit cost: US$150 million
Program cost: US$67.3 billion (as of 2010)

Good to know a $150 million fighter jet is able to fly in the rain. I dread to think how much the de-mister system cost!

Bardon Kaldian , says: November 3, 2020 at 8:15 am GMT • 14.1 hours ago

Why not say Saudi Arabia wins US election?

Tommy Thompson , says: November 3, 2020 at 9:10 am GMT • 13.2 hours ago

Dr. Phil, your article is truly very precise, penetrating and embarrassing to our political class.

I can see that the American public is already all stirred up and will not take this slouched in front of their TV sets watching the game any longer.

The MAGA's are sure to march on the White House and oust our leaders Kushner / Ivanka. The BLM/ANTIFA's are sure to demonstrate again and ransack Congress and oust the Pelosi Democrats.

Hilarious, LOL

I decided not to hold my breath waiting for any public reaction.

We Americans at the bottom of the money pyramid prefer to fight and name call each other and not look upwards.

JWalters , says: November 3, 2020 at 9:15 am GMT • 13.1 hours ago

How the Israeli benjamins work –
"War Profiteers and the Roots of the 'War on Terror'"
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-roots-of-war-on.html

Contraviews , says: November 3, 2020 at 10:08 am GMT • 12.3 hours ago

That's why America needs a revolution culminating in a complete regime change. Civil war already appears to be on the horizon, ugly things will Bev happening, but it will unfortunately be necessary to change the world for the better. And other countries, France, Germany and Britain may follow.

UncommonGround , says: November 3, 2020 at 10:11 am GMT • 12.2 hours ago

@Colin Wright

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53417227

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/world/middleeast/iran-Natanz-nuclear-damage.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iran_explosions

Phoenix , says: November 3, 2020 at 11:13 am GMT • 11.2 hours ago

Excellent title for an article on the American election.

We get a similar Jewish answer when asking who were the big winners of WW II.

Philip Giraldi , says: November 3, 2020 at 11:16 am GMT • 11.1 hours ago

@Colin Wright

Yes – the Mondoweiss link that precedes the quotation

God's Fool , says: November 3, 2020 at 11:44 am GMT • 10.7 hours ago

A Democrat of New Jersey and a Republican of Florida sponsoring a bill to benefit Israel let's just forget the Jewish angle in all these charades and call it bipartisan.

Ugetit , says: November 3, 2020 at 12:02 pm GMT • 10.4 hours ago

@Phoenix

We get a similar Jewish answer when asking who were the big winners of WW II.

True, and that goes for WW1 as well. And all the rest of the wars fought and paid for by us to impose Communism and Zionism world wide.

Black Picard , says: Website November 3, 2020 at 12:31 pm GMT • 9.9 hours ago

@Contraviews

It's coming in the form of either Civil War 2 or permanent seccessions. Good riddance!!

Truth Hurts the Liars , says: November 3, 2020 at 12:36 pm GMT • 9.8 hours ago

Giraldi for President.

Kwiatkowski for VP.

ANONymous [174] Disclaimer , says: November 3, 2020 at 12:46 pm GMT • 9.6 hours ago

@Colin Wright

Do we need to have sources on these issues?
Haven't you learn by now, that any stone you pick, you will find a Jew hiding under?

Few days ago, with all this Bobulinski/Joe Biden/Hunter family crap I said to my wife.
Honey something is missing from the whole story.
She ask. What is missing?
I said. The Jew
And two days ago .voila!
The Yaacov(s) Apelbaum(s) have everything to see https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/

geokat62 , says: November 3, 2020 at 12:53 pm GMT • 9.5 hours ago

In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch

Beautifully stated, Phil!

JoaoAlfaiate , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:04 pm GMT • 9.3 hours ago

The F-22 will make a short stopover in Tel Aviv on its way to Peking.

Rich , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT • 9.3 hours ago

I always thought we were England's "bitch". Fought 2 world wars to stop them from having to learn German and have continued to use our military to support their business interests throughout the world. It can even be argued that our support for Israel is based on our subservience to the British Crown since Israel itself is a British project. Anyway, there is no major political leader in the US who hasn't said he is a staunch supporter of Israel. That isn't going to change.

GreatSocialist , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:28 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

The way Trump has bent over and offered his rear to the Jewish lobby and Israel is embarrassing. The USA should help and support Israel, but not at the blatant expense of raping its own citizens.

However, one can't blame Israel for taking advantage of the corruption and weakness in the USA, and also its amazingly dumb voting public. Who wouldn't want another country(USA) to pay for their military(Israel) and also use the USA to fight, pay, and die for Israel?

White nationalists blame the Jewish lobby for much of the problems in America, but at the same time they lovingly Asskiss Trump and his horrid son-in-law, who would sell out America to Israel without any hesitation. This is first-class stupidity.

Biden may say he is a Zionist, but he has never shown the full-on, total sellout Trump has done in putting Jewish interests always before American interests. Trump and his horrid son-in-law have literally allowed Israel to rape America's ass everyday since he has been POTUS.

A vote for Trump is a vote for the Jewish lobby to keep on raping America's ass thru "bendover" Trump for the next 4 years.

Greta Handel , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

@ingotus

Similarly, the correct form is "a White House and Congress that couldn't care less about us no matter who is elected."

Robert Dolan , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMT • 8.8 hours ago

@Lot

Israel isn't popular with the public.

Americans want nothing to do with wars in the ME for Israel.

Robert Dolan , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT • 8.8 hours ago

https://www.bitchute.com/video/3nwtR1j0Zr4o/

Jiminy , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:40 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

Strangely here in Australia, chairman Morrison was going to put three and a half million dollars to be matched by his hopefully newly elected Qld premier, into constructing a Jewish holocaust museum. One can only wonder why in Qld, Australia of all places and in the 21st century, we would need to have a Jewish propaganda business setup. Paid for by the poor old taxpayer of course.
What follows? A museum dedicated to the twenty million dead Russians. Maybe one for the hundreds of thousands of slaughtered Iraqi muslims. Or one in remembrance to the millions of lives lost to the covid19 holocaust of 2020.
Sadly it seems like this Jewish rot is spreading quicker than the virus through our societies.

shylockcracy , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:46 pm GMT • 8.6 hours ago

The US and the Rothschild neocolony in Palestine are part of the same conglomerate. Simon Bolivar was warning us that the US would enslave the Americas in the name of "freedom" a years before the Monroe Doctrine became a thing, so it didn't exactly become what it is after the Ziocorporate neocolony came to exist. How nice that the goals of the founding fathers and the Ziocorporate world order came to intertwine so conveniently since so early on.

Have the Ziocorporate contractors and entities profited from selling tech and weapons to the Ziosalafi former British colonies in the Middle East and from the petrodollar? Transfering all that technology, spanning everything from nuclear weapons to cybersecurity and AI, is the way to ensure that mafia conglomerate's primacy there and everywhere.

Jews of Europe and North Africa could've been Haavara'd to the US after WW2 but that would have limited and complicated business opportunities for the American overclass to globalise the Monroe Doctrine. Rome wasn't built in a day after all.

MarkU , says: November 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm GMT • 8.5 hours ago

@Rich and while we are about it you never broke the German enigma code, we did, whatever your lying Hollywood garbage tells you. So maybe, if you end up in a war we will sell you stuff from the sidelines until we get dragged into it ourselves and then we will see how grateful you are. As I said earlier, save it for the French.

WW1, on the other hand was a stalemate until the Americans joined (late as always) and after you had made huge profits, mainly at our expense. So we weren't exactly in danger then either.

So no, you are not our bitches, both of our nations are bitches of the international bankers.

Alfred , says: November 3, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT • 8.1 hours ago

@Abbas

benefit of the USA if it amplifies Israeli Defence at the cost of US defence?

Are you suggesting that Israelis will die in the place of Americans?

Alfred , says: November 3, 2020 at 2:24 pm GMT • 8.0 hours ago

The bodyguard in the picture. How many Palestinians did he personally kill? I wonder.

He certainly does not look normal at all. I am not suggesting that Pelosi and Netanyahu look normal.

Z-man , says: November 3, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT • 7.9 hours ago

Philip! You used the word bitch. For a faceless nobody like me that's fine but for you Mr. Giraldi, the 'spears tip' and highly respected member of the 'beware of Zion' movement that's even better. (Grin)
That kikenvermin Gottheimer unfortunately happens to be my congressman. He's in a close election so lets hope he loses even though his opponent is all too aware of the power of the CABAL. I pray for even worse endings for this slug, Jay -sus forgive me.

PS. If the Zionists get 'Bunker Buster' bombs they will need the platforms to carry them, so the U.S. Government (us) will have to give them B 2 bombers. Insane!

Desert Fox , says: November 3, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT • 7.5 hours ago

The zionists were the biggest winners in 1913, when they fastened their FED and IRS on America and since that time zionists and since 1948 Israel has been the winner and America the loser, as the zionists have raped America.

The biggest example of this was the Israel and zionist in the ZUS attack on the WTC which was blamed on the Arabs and gave the kabal the excuse to destroy the middle east.

ANONymous [174] Disclaimer , says: November 3, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT • 7.4 hours ago

@Lot

Lot = Flaming Israeli Troll.

Sayan, so to speak.

TRM , says: November 3, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT • 7.0 hours ago

You didn't really think the Zionists were going to give up control of the president to China did you? A honeypot operation is something all intel agencies do but Israel snagged Bill Clinton and hundreds of others.

Funny thing is the rank and file of the Jewish community is 90% registered Democrat and wanted Hillary and now Joe but their "elites" and "leadership" care as much about their opinion as any other groups' elites and leaders. ZERO. George Carlin was correct: "There's a big club and you and I aren't in it".

FLgeezer , says: November 3, 2020 at 3:32 pm GMT • 6.9 hours ago

@Desert Fox t.

Palm Beach County school board members voted unanimously Monday to rescind their reinstatement of Spanish River High School Principal William Latson.

He was originally fired last year after telling a student's parent that "he can't say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event."

The community was outraged by his comments, and the board's decision to rehire him after an administrative law judge ruled he shouldn't have been fired.

Board member Barbara McQuinn says Latson opened the door to denying the atrocity of the Holocaust.
=============

Colin Wright , says: Website November 3, 2020 at 4:14 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago

@Philip Giraldi

'Yes – the Mondoweiss link that precedes the quotation '

By cracky!

You're right. I should have checked. I regret having offered the forces of evil (Lot et al) some straw of hope.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 3, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT • 6.1 hours ago

@Lot

'No he doesn't.'

Sadly for you, Lot, it turns out Giraldi does have evidence for his claim: see his response to my post.

Isn't it nice that that we clarified that?

You're a bright young gentleman, Lot -- but in Israel, you're trying to defend the indefensible.

No matter what your intellectual resources or how much energy you expend, it can never work. It's like trying to prove two and two make five. You may well be a mathematical prodigy -- you still won't be able to do it.

You're wrong: logically, factually, morally. That's the way it is. It can never change.

Clyde , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago

@geokat62

In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch
Beautifully stated, Phil!

Right on tripping bro! The US should be Iran's shiite bitch as it was under Barak Hussein Ubama. Uber Bama where you dumb whites will bump heads on carpets as you submit.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 3, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago

@ANONymous

' Do we need to have sources on these issues?'

We do. It turned out it really had been the Russians who killed the Poles at Katyn, etc -- however many the Germans had also killed.

If one is to make a convincing argument, one has to be careful to avoid hyperbole that can be discredited.

When I questioned Giraldi's sources, he was able to provide them. His case is now stronger.

geokat62 , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1323457162379579392&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fpgiraldi%2Fisrael-wins-u-s-election%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px

dogbumbreath , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:36 pm GMT • 5.8 hours ago

Years ago, before he was VP, I saw Biden give a speech on C-SPAN in which he said, "I am a Zionist." I thought, "Note to self: never vote for him."

90% of Politicians are Zionists. You will NOT have a career in politics unless you are a Zionist. If you judge by what someone says it is fatal .judge by words, actions and results. Do the later and you will be convinced whomever the new President is .is corrupt and a liar.

Trinity , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT • 5.7 hours ago

The most disgusting thing to me or should I say the most RETARDED thing to me is that America SACRIFICES OUR TROOPS to build a Greater Israel, while America and the rest of traditionally White nations in Europe take in primitive Muslims who are literally raping Europeans and slaughtering them on the streets. So we bomb Arab nations for Israel, have to MAKE ISRAEL GREAT AGAIN, get rid of (((their Muzzie problem))), and then import the "refugees" to lands that are responsible for bombing them or killing their relatives, family members, friends, etc. Does this sound like a recipe for DESTROYING THE WEST to you? It is a LOSE LOSE for Whitey most definitely, and a win somewhat for the Muslim invaders who are acquiring free housing, breeding at a rate where they will soon become the majority in places like London, maybe even in Stockholm IF we don't put a stop to this insanity. WE are DEMANDED to hate Muslims/Arabs when it comes to fighting Israel's Wars in the Middle East but then WE, White people that is, are DEMANDED by our Jewish overlords to love being infested with hordes of these same people being brought into our nations. Yes, we are to love people who rape OUR women, live off OUR blood, sweat, and tears for FREE, take over positions of power like becoming a mayor in the largest city in Europe, etc.

NEWS FLASH: How many Whites are in the world? How many Jews are in the world? Money and political clout only works against you when you allow it to, when you have the numbers, you decide, learn that. Whitey, you better wake up while you still are a diminishing majority in your own nations.

I'll end with this one. We have all seen the commercial about sending money to Israel for the endless "holocaust victims," my gawd, when is the last "holocaust victim" going to finally die of old age, but now (((they))) have a commercial encouraging people to send money to elderly Jews in Israel who are dealing with (((Covid-19.))) My lawd, do (((these people))) have no shame. America is currently sending A MINIMUM OF 3.8 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO THIS TINY NATION, AND HERE (((THEY))) ARE STILL BEGGING FOR MORE, THIS TIME, USING THE TEAR JERKING TECHNIQUE of showing poor, frail, bent elderly people who desperately need YOUR shekels against the Jew Flu.

Notsofast , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:43 pm GMT • 5.7 hours ago

@MarkU

What are you going to sell used tanks? Thats like selling coal to newcastle, the only thing we make anymore is bombs and you fellows dont make anything but obscene profits for international banking types. You wont be dragged into to war you will be thrown in with the rest of the nato poodles. Sad state of affairs.

dogbumbreath , says: November 3, 2020 at 4:46 pm GMT • 5.6 hours ago

@Jiminy Strangely here in Australia, chairman Morrison was going to put three and a half million dollars to be matched by his hopefully newly elected Qld premier, into constructing a Jewish holocaust museum. One can only wonder why in Qld, Australia of all places and in the 21st century, we would need to have a Jewish propaganda business setup. Paid for by the poor old taxpayer of course.

"They" have done the same in South Africa. Modern Jewish holocaust museum in Cape Town while native Africans sleep in the surrounding park lawns and benches. Hollowcaust Propaganda is big "free money" business.

Everyone keeps on talking about the election. I just can't be bothered to care.

I do care about politics in the sense that I care, as anyone else does, about the distribution of power in the United States and the extent to which American ideas can spread to the rest of the world. These issues, like Israel, are not voted upon.

That's a bit different than "politics", a local American ritual in which normies select a random point within the pre-packaged spectrum of political correctness and pick a candidate based on where they live and what's considered socially acceptable in that locale They then rationalize their decision based on the perception of the candidate's personality and/or some generality like "I oppose racism".

Democracy is overrated.

Its truly masterful to create a system where any potential criticism or pushback you may face is made illegal under defamation laws enforced by an Institution – you control. The Jewish 'attack' (and I think it is fair to say, we are under attack from a highly ruthless, very clever enemy playing completely by its own rules) appears to be on several fronts –

1)Political lobbying / Political positioning / Positions in Justice System / Other Government Positions

2)NGO's/ Social Justice Organisations/ Censorship

3)Jewish Private Business Owners

Big Tech / Finance/ Media/ Real Estate

4)Clandestine operations – Mossad, proxy agents etc

This has effectively given a foreign power a vice like grip on our politics, law, culture, industry and banking system/financial markets. They are able to create and control a narrative to enforce beneficial ideologies whilst simultaneously censoring any threats through fact and data suppression. Its a communist dream come true. The worst thing is, they make us grateful and willing participants, its the definition of evil genius!

What scares me is we what we don't know about Jewish Power -the clandestine activities to gain more political leverage and power.

Trying to educate people on this subject (made easier by articles like this)is very difficult. Would we be comfortable with allowing moslems or hindus the same influence in our governments in terms of sheer number of positions and access to policy creation/change or military funding etc Probably not but that's becasue nobody does it better than the Jews. Your absolutely right – Israel always gets what it wants.

@Clyde sh President" became the cover headline for a 2011 article in New York Magazine). In that same CJN article, another Democratic activist, Newton Minow, told CJN that Obama "is very much at home with Jewish people, their values and interests," while Rabbi Arnold Wolf of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago, of blessed memory, said Obama is "embedded in the Jewish world."

https://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/An-insiders-view-Eight-years-watching-the-first-Jewish-president-479039

@MarkU g-letter-documents-King-George-V-urged-foreign-secretary-justify-conflict-two-days-outbreak-First-World-War.html
In a time where mobilization was seen as an act of war, Germany was the last country to mobilize for WWI.
Of course the evil Nahhhtzeees were just itching to invade the UK.
http://www.tomatobubble.com/id763.html

He may have done the same to the UK as he had done to Germany – have full employment and an increased standard of living, without the banks being involved. That just was not going to happen. All wars are banker wars.

"Could care less about" drives me up the wall, too, as we split grammatical hairs while Israel is right on the cusp of finally getting White America destroyed. This is it!

@Trinity

Does this sound like a recipe for DESTROYING THE WEST to you?

I'll let Ronald Lauder of World Jewish Congress respond (after having injected him with a truth serum):

When we said Never Again!, we meant it, goy.

So, say goodbye to "blood and soil" and hello to "multiculti."

What a bunch of schmucks!

Thank God Trump put an end to all this Israel's bitch nonsense. Now we're a full blown whore for
Tel Aviv and the world knows it. Trump gave "Cadillac Bebe" our pimp the key to the "White House, America and the hearts of the American people". Yo Bebe when you're finished turn the lights out.

@Clay Alexander

As IF Joe " I Am A Zionist" Biden, and Barack Obama aka "The First Jewish President" were any better. I voted for Trump, and I agree, he is no different than the rest when it comes to Israel, but do you really want Joe The Zionist who will gladly step down and relinquish the office to "Caramel" Harris in less than a year to run things.

Trump has been a disappointment but at least he is isn't OPENLY ANTI-WHITE and he bides us 4 more years.

The demsheviks suck even more Zionist cawk than the republiCANTS if that is possible.

@Notsofast

Well to be fair, you did manage to sell us used destroyers which might have seemed equally unlikely. But you are right, I was merely making a rhetorical point, and yes a very sad state of affairs.

Sacha Baron Cohen, Propagandist
CIA contacts, a web of lies, and a robust propaganda operation. It's time to start asking questions about Borat's methods -- and his goals.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/sacha-baron-cohen-propagandist/

"If we're supposed to be so worried about "election disinformation" and foreign election meddling, shouldn't we be concerned about a British multimillionaire -- with unexplained connections to the CIA and the White House press corps, and public affiliation with other institutions clearly hostile to Trump like the ADL -- carrying out massive information ops in the lead-up to an election that he has publicly expressed an interest in influencing? Or should we just pretend it's all okay because the press told us we're supposed to be laughing?"

Am I allowed to point out that if America is Israels slave, then surely America is Japan's slave?

America keeps large troop forces in Japan to defend it. The Japanese save money and use it to develop their industries which outcompete American industries.

To an alien, it would surely appear that somehow, Japan has managed to infiltrate the top levels of the US government.

Likewise, America lost over 70,000 soldiers to defend Vietnam, and spent an untold amount over several years, in a region far from America. An alien might think Vietnam had somehow managed to enslave American leaders.

Or would our alien be missing crucial context, and is American policy consistent in all these cases on based on principles, and not a question of being enslaved by foreign powers.

ALL OF THE ELECTION FRAUD WILL BE ON THE SIDE OF THE DEMOCRATS. How do we know this? They have been doing it for five years .

@Curmudgeon body is going to argue about borrowing, unless they want to be called a traitor. I wonder how many people could provide even a vaguely sensible account of the issues that started WW1?

Have you ever seen Robert Newman's History of oil

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GIpm_8v80hw?feature=oembed

He is a comedian primarily but I thought it was interesting and he provides some key insights. It is also quite entertaining I thought, but humour is a very individual thing. You sound as if you would know most of that stuff anyway but it is worth a watch even so.

@Contraviews

How do you win this civil war? Sounds good, but I know way to may holy rollers that want their rapture and Jew rule. I don't know a liberal who isn't a Zionist. So where will you get the human numbers, and how do you get weapons?

whoever wins in American elections doesn't matter as long as Israel gets what it wants. And it almost always gets what it wants.

When did Israel not get what it wanted? Who said 'No?'

Kinda old news. The Zionists have been ruling the US since they were rumored to have assassinated JFK. Like him or not , he was the last president to say no to Israel. Well George HW Bush did a soft no on West Bank settlements, but I believe he was the one to put us under Noahide laws. Guess losing an election was the nice way to admonish him for being a partial good goy.

@AaronB

Am I allowed to point out that if America is Israels slave, then surely America is Japan's slave?

LOL! What's the Japanese equivalent of AIPAC? And how many pols can they boast they have in their collection of scalps?

We know for a fact AIPAC has at least eight:

4 Representatives:
Cynthia McKinney, Paul Findley, Earl F. Hilliard, Pete McCloskey,

4 Senators:
William Fulbright, Roger Jepsen, Adlai Stevenson III, Charles H. Percy

Great piece this, confirming what we have already known for some decades: that we are effectively a colony of Israel. And as colonies go, crucial decisions of the colonies are made in the colonizers' metropolitan capitals, in this case, of Zionist Israel. What sets this relationship apart from classical colonizer-colony ones, is that the colonizer is heavily subsidized by its colony's taxes – in this case a blank check without the consent of the tax payers. Moreover, in contrast to classic colonialism, America's total surrender to Jewish power, means that any war of liberation from colonialism has been effectively neutralized long before the first salvo has been fired. This mockery of a nation's "sovereignty" marks a historic first in the annals of the so-called international relations and power dispensation among sovereign nations. The Anglo-Zio Empire's takeover of American, and by extension Western countries is now complete. And all without a single shot being fired. It is surrender and capitulation in the absence of war. It has to be admitted that Jewish power has pulled off a uniquely historic and non-violent colonial project – with the absolute complicity of the colonized.

Biden is just a hologram who will vanish shortly. They'll keep "Five Dollar Kamala" on ice till crypt keeper Joe exits at that time Miss Mudsville will start getting her orders from Mt. Zion in keeping with American tradition.

@Rich

You didn't fight 2 world wars, you came late to both and entered after everyone else did the heavy lifting. In neither case did your national industry and infrastructure suffer any damage, which allowed you to remain a rich country compared to devastated nations.
You deserve what Israel is doing to you for no other reason than that you are incapable of understanding history and consider yourselves exceptional like all the other failed empires of history.

@Anon

The Israeli attack on U.S.S. LIBERTY was a criminal act. A commissioned vessel of the United States Navy was attacked under conditions of flawless weather and calm seas. Earlier, Israeli planes had flown reconnaissance over the ship. They knew damned well she was American.

Admiral Thomas Moorer, USN was right. Also, to his dying day, he believed the attack on LIBERTY was deliberate.

@geokat62 hey have gotten the US to do for them what AIPAC can only dream about.

How AIPAC would love to get America stations tens of thousands of troops in Israel and commit to defending it so Israel can disband the IDF and build up its economy!

All Israel gets is a few billion thrown at it and guarantees about its "qualitative edge", while Vietnam gets 70,000 Americans dying for it, and Japan gets an actual defense commitment.

AIPAC are rank amateurs compared to the Japanese and Vietnamese, whose ability to infiltrate and manipulate Ameeica to their advantage is awe inspiring.

@Colin Wright I certainly hope Israel has enough agents/embedded computer viruses in Iran that it can "in a period of months"

destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at the port of Bushehr

But that strikes me as implausible, and your question indicates you may have agreed.

Not just "a power plant" and "a factory." Not just "damaged." But "destroyed" "power plant s " plural and "aluminum and chemical factories." While a chemical plant could be a small operation, aluminum mills are expensive and gigantic operations.

@Alfred

Yeah, he's a dangerous-looking goon.

Of course, why does NuttyYahoo need a bodyguard when he's visiting Knesset West–er, uh, the U.S. Congress? Surely he must know he's among friends?! . . .

@AaronB

'Am I allowed to point out that if America is Israels slave, then surely America is Japan's slave?'

Am I allowed to point out that discrediting your false analogies got boring quite a while back?

@Lot

' Not just "a power plant" and "a factory." Not just "damaged." But "destroyed" "power plants" plural and "aluminum and chemical factories." While a chemical plant could be a small operation, aluminum mills are expensive and gigantic operations.'

Nu? So what would an acceptable amount of aggression be?

Say, a couple of twin towers? How about something like the Liberty?

Would that be cool? Between friends?

@AaronB

AIPAC are rank amateurs compared to the Japanese and Vietnamese

Hasbara translation: "It's the chicoms, goy!"

@Bardon Kaldian

Because only an idiot would think that. Saudi is a joke run by a jokester family

@AaronB n Japan.

So lessee. Japan is 146,000 square miles. The territory assigned to the Jewish state in 1947 was maybe 6000 square miles. Let's say 7300 square miles -- just to simplify the math. Besides, we can be afford to be generous Israel being such a valuable ally and all.

So you get one-twentieth the garrison Japan gets. That would be 3500 troops!

I wonder how many Americans are serving in the IDF right now? Maybe we can just reassign them.

Then you could disarm and withdraw from your Manchukuos et al right away. why wait?

We have a deal!

maybe after ten years or so we'll let you establish a self-defense force.

We'll see.

@Colin Wright

Nu?

Thanks for introducing me to a Yiddish term I was unfamiliar with

https://forward.com/culture/12736/just-say-nu-01335/

@geokat62

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

Meantime in Yankee Land Defund the police depts, jewish led riots, lootings, BLMANTIFA terrorism, and electoral FRAUD, cut Medicare payments, Lockdowns, WS bail outs, massive layoffs, small business bankcrupcies, foreclosures, delapidated failed cities Detroit, St Louis, Baltimore, decrepit national infrasestructure, massive illeteracy, rise of crime, resurgence of 3th world diseases, urban blight, 5more wars in the MEast Iran, Syria, and probably, open borders, H1A,Bs visas expansion, .Massive Chinese global expansion teh New Silk Road, Venezuelas oil, Bolvias (lithium), while Israel enjoys a record economic growth, and FISCAL surplus who is paying for that???

@Colin Wright Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, and Europe in the Cold War.

I actually kind of feel like a sucker – we fought all our bloody wars ourselves while somehow the devious Vietnamese and Japanese, South Koreans and Europeans, conned the Americans to actually die for them, or be prepared to, in large numbers.

And hey, you guys claim America fights our wars anyways, so we might as well actually make that a reality, as it is for so many other countries.

AIPAC is pretty pathetic come to think of it. We're getting the worst deal America has given any of its liberal democratic allies.

Wow, an unprecedented 25th term for Israel! That's quite an accomplishment!

@Orville H. Larson g constitutionally valid currency as against their "Green Frog-Skin" Monopoly money printed and owned by the bankster-owned "Federal" Reserve Bank.

According to a source I recently accessed, the Rothschilds may well have been behind the assassinations of 6 previous presidents and an attempted hit on the greatest enemy of privately owned central banks, Andrew Jackson.

The rotting/rotten bodies of both McCains and LBJ, should be disinterred and hanged by their skeletal necks on the Capital Mall as examples (even post-mortem) of the fate of traitors to the Republic and its sovereign power, WE THE PEOPLE.

"A bill, the so-called "U.S.-Israel Common Defense Authorization Act," is making its way through the House of Representatives and will authorize the provision of U.S. manufactured bunker buster bombs to Israel. As the bombs would only be useful in Israel's neighborhood to bomb hardened sites in Iran, the message being sent is obvious. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of destroying targets located deep underground. Oddly, Israel doesn't have a plane capable of carrying that weight so the presumption is that the White House will also have to provide the bomber. The bill is co-sponsored by two leading Israel firsters in Congress Democrat Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Brian Mast of Florida."

The intriguing part about this is israel lacking a bomber capable of carrying the bomb. Will the b-21 in development be capable of carrying these bombs? Can the b-2? I have not looked into it, but as this type of bomb is dropped from high altitude, I believe, these low flying "stealth" types would probably be unsuitable platforms. That leaves old b-52s and b-1s. Both of these would require the israelis controlling the air space they are used in, as well as the AD to have been neutralized.

Regarding target countries, I'm sure the israelis wouldn't limit their use to a war against Iran, but would drop them on anyone. Especially Gazans. Doubtful the israelis would go to war against Iran, since they have usa/nato available for that role. If one notices, the israelis don't really fight wars any more, they have the colonials do that for them.

"It reportedly has approached the Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft that was originally developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). Its stealth capability, top speed, maneuverability combined with advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems, makes it the best air superiority fighter in the world."

The f-22 is not "the best air superiority fighter in the world." That's pindo exceptionalism mythology at work. Its capabilities were grossly exaggerated and its real measure is why the aircraft was taken out of production early. Well before the scheduled full production run was complete. Had this aircraft actually been what the propagandists claimed, it would still be in production today, despite it's high cost. Also the f-22 is less up to date than the f-35, for example, with regard to electronics.

It is too late to restart production, so any given to israel would be from the existing stock. There are only about 180 of these built, about enough for 6-8 squadrons (?), any given to israel would probably leave the usa with too few for its own, now minimal, requirements for the plane. The few given to israel would not improve israel's military much, while require a disproportionate effort of upkeep to their net worth.

On the other hand, maybe israel wants all the f-22s, while it awaits the u.s. 6th gen to be developed (in something like 20 years ), and will leave its american colony with just the f-35. I can see their likudite trump regime pushing that through.

"In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch"

Yup. And under the trump regime the israelis this bitch services are the likudites, the netanyahoos and even more bug-eyed extreme. Decent article, btw, on the israeli control of its american colony.

@AaronB

'Am I allowed to point out that if America is Israels slave, then surely America is Japan's slave?

'

But wait.

Does this also mean we get to nuke Tel Aviv, like Hiroshima or something?

I mean, to what extent do you wish to apply this analogy, Aaron?

@Orville H. Larson

' Admiral Thomas Moorer, USN was right. Also, to his dying day, he believed the attack on LIBERTY was deliberate.'

There's also Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State at the time:

' But I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."'

@RobinG

How is it ok for a person of jewish heritage to make fun of slavs but not ok for people of slavic heritage to make fun of jews? Cohen is now a "serious actor"with his role as the "hero" mossad mole of the same name who inflitraited the syrian govt. (and got what he deserved for it).

@AaronB

' I actually kind of feel like a sucker – we fought all our bloody wars ourselves while somehow the devious Vietnamese and Japanese, South Koreans and Europeans, conned the Americans to actually die for them, or be prepared to, in large numbers '

Only Aaron could transmogrify our having fought World War Two into having fought it 'for' Japan. I'm not sure the Japanese are suitably appreciative. I mean, they're reasonably polite about it and all, but

Anyway, Israel hasn't fought a war on her own since 1948. We've been over that.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1323724652816920576&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fpgiraldi%2Fisrael-wins-u-s-election%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px

Profiles In Courage Department. In March 2015 the visiting Izzy PM spoke before the U.S.Congress. Of course, the speech ended with a raucous Standing Ovation in which the pols competed with each other as to who could display the most ecstatic cheering possible. However, jew spotters noticed one pol, Rand Paul, not clapping and cheering enthusiastically enough, and took him to task in the kept media for displaying less than orgasmic approval of the visiting Izzy PM. The courageous senator defended himself by loudly exclaiming to anyone who would listen: "I have given him over 50 standing ovations".

It appears this Jerusalem Post tweet supports Phil's central thesis

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1323647597496700929&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fpgiraldi%2Fisrael-wins-u-s-election%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px

@FLgeezer

..and he's black. Imagine if he was white, he's be in jail already or lose his wife, family, his house or something to that effect.

@Colin Wright

"Nu? So what would an acceptable amount of aggression be?'

Like I said, I would be pleasantly surprised if PG's claim were true. But it is implausible and its "source" is an un-sourced claim at a nutball website.

[Oct 21, 2020] Is Pompeo's 'crackdown' on foreign influence politically timed- Responsible Statecraft

Oct 21, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

Is Pompeo's 'crackdown' on foreign influence politically timed? OCTOBER 15, 2020 Written by
Eli Clifton and Kelley Beaucar Vlahos Share Copy Print

Less than three weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the Trump administration appears to have discovered the dangers of foreign influence in the U.S. political system.

A State Department statement published on Wednesday warned that, "some foreign governments, such as those of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation, seek to exert influence over U.S. foreign policy through lobbyists, external experts, and think tanks" and urged U.S. think tanks to disclose their sources of foreign funding.

Obviously, such disclosures would be a step in the right direction but the State Department's decision to single out China and Russia, two countries among many that no-doubt seek to influence the U.S. political process, is an odd way of addressing foreign influence. The State Department lacks enforcement tools to regulate U.S. institutions (the Justice Department and the Foreign Agent Registration Act have that purview) and Russia and China aren't even in the top-five donors to think tanks.

"China and Russia are doing a lot right now to exert undue influence in America, and it's important we do everything we can to counter that," Ben Freeman, Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, tells Responsible Statecraft. "But, the research we've done at FITI has shown they don't do much in terms of think tank funding. A lot of the biggest players here are U.S. allies."

Indeed, according to a report released by Freeman's group in January, the top five donor countries to U.S. think tanks are Norway, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and Sweden.

Moreover, despite Trump's campaign promise to"drain the swamp," his administration has a remarkable track record of hiring individuals with financial ties to foreign governments and entities, including the following notable examples:

-- Former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn acknowledged that in 2016 he conducted paid lobbying work on behalf of Turkey's government .

-- Former national security adviser John Bolton conducted paid speaking appearances for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian exile group that seeks the overthrow of Iran's government, and received $165,000 from the Counter Extremism Project, a group with shadowy finances and evidence of funding ties to the UAE and/or Saudi Arabia.

-- Elliot Broidy, the vice chairman of the 2016 Trump Victory Committee, was charged with acting as a foreign agent on behalf of Malaysian and Chinese government interests to end a U.S. investigation of a billion-dollar embezzlement of a Malaysian state investment fund and working to return Chinese exile Guo Wengui to China.

-- Former acting-director of U.S. National Intelligence and former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell conducted undisclosed work for Hungary before entering the Trump administration.

-- Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani came under fire during the impeachment hearings for all the myriad foreign clients he has had while maintaining his close personal contact with the president.

The web of foreign money coming into the country to influence U.S. policy is as vast as it is secretive. The Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative study mentioned above was hindered by the fact that organizations do not have to disclose where their money is coming from. Not surprisingly then, countries that are known to pour millions into U.S. think tanks, like Saudi Arabia and China, did not even crack the top 20. Neither did Russia.

But FARA laws in theory are supposed to track foreign funding used for influencing the U.S. political process. We know a little more here, like of the billions of dollars Saudi Arabia has spent trying to fend off lawsuits from the 9/11 survivors or to burnish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's image. That didn't seem to bother the Trump administration, particularly in 2018 as the president was inking a new arms deal in Washington with the prince.

Freeman points out that according to their research, the UAE, for example, "made a secret $20 million contribution to a prominent think tank whose experts regularly opine on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East." He added that the wealthy Gulf state also paid another think tank a quarter million dollars to write a report on exporting U.S. military drones. "Spoiler alert: the report recommended the U.S. export military drones to the UAE," said Freeman.

"These conflicts of interest that can directly influence U.S. foreign policy are exactly why we need to have full transparency when it comes to foreign government funding of think tanks," he added.

Not all foreign money comes through lobbying either. Rather than paying lobbyists directly, the Israeli government funneled over $6 million in "grants" since 2018 to Jewish, Evangelical Christian, and other pro-Israel organizations to counter the boycott movement in the U.S. and to promote other Israeli interests in Washington and at the state level. This too, could be a blatant violation of FARA , The Forward reported in August.

It is not clear why Pompeo chose this month -- two weeks before the election -- to take a stand, though it's possible he was trying to end-run Democratic criticism about the president's perceived soft spot on Russia, while taking the opportunity to strike out at his boss's favorite target: China.

For sure, it is a good day any time there is a move to restrict the foreign influence in our political system.

But over three-and-a-half years into the Trump administration's first term, and after having embraced so many people with ties to foreign financial interests, this week's announcement seems more like political posturing than a meaningful effort to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from foreign political influence over U.S. foreign policy.

Freeman points to a glass half full. "The State Department took a very important step this week to bring greater transparency to foreign funding of think tanks," Freeman noted. "It's not a perfect fix, but it sends a very important signal to other parts of the government -- like the Department of Justice and Congress -- which can enact more permanent solutions that require , not just request, think tanks disclose funding they receive from foreign governments." Written by
Eli Clifton and Kelley Beaucar Vlahos Share Copy Print Related Posts

[Oct 20, 2020] Trump is the best U.S. president for Netanyahu but for Israel, he might be the worst

Oct 20, 2020 | www.haaretz.com

The direct benefits of his first term are outweighed by the general decline in America's global prestige and its indifference to Israel's declining democracy Share in Facebook Share in Twitter Send in e-mail Send in e-mail Zen Read Print article Chemi Shalev Get email notification for articles from Chemi Shalev Follow Published at 21:18

It has become an article of faith that whatever his other shortcomings, Donald Trump is good for Israel. Most Israelis believe that the 45th U.S. president was the best of them all, as Benjamin Netanyahu says, and many American Jews grudgingly concur. The latest American Jewish Committee poll found that only 22% of American Jews plan to vote for Trump but 42% believe he will be better for Israel than Joe Biden.

Tags:

• U.S. election 2020
• Benjamin Netanyahu
• Donald Trump

[Oct 16, 2020] James Baker, republican old guard AIPAC sentiments

Oct 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Baker insists all he ever said was "Screw them, they don't vote for us," of a disagreement with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, that was reported in far less sparing terms -- and with different language. One can just imagine the tweets today, even the potential cancellation, of a revered statesman. "It was a political comment," Baker told Baker and Glasser. "Not an anti-Semetic comment, not a slur."

In the final judgement, Baker says his views on Trump are shaped largely by the need for sound, Republican management of the economy -- and the imperative that the project of remaking the courts be continued. Baker flirted with eventually going Biden during the former Delaware senator's centrist triumph in the Democratic primary -- only to see the former vice president move left during the general election. In the end, Trump's signature domestic achievement has been a landmark tax cut. And Trump is about to install his third Supreme Court justice. In his twilight years, Baker might not have as many friends as he once did, especially in Washington. But for the retired man of state, the path forward -- to his critics, that of raw power -- shines brighter than ever.

[Oct 10, 2020] Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war": If Trump thinks that he can win re-election by panding to Zionist lonny, he might be mistaken

It time to make him accountable at the election box. Not that it matter much as Biden is yet another neocon and Zionist, but stil...

American people are tied of sliding standard of living, permanent wars and jingoism. Trump might share Hillary fate in 2020, because any illusion that he is for common fold, who voted for him in 2016 now disappeared. So he is not better then neocon Biden and Biden is new bastard. So why vote for the old bastard if we have new, who might be slightly better in the long run

This is a very expensive foreign policy, that doesn't benefit the USA. It has potential to raise the price of oil significantly.

Notable quotes:

"... Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. ..."

"... I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets. ..."

"... It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel. ..."

"... Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be. ..."

"... I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?' ..."

"... "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. " ..."

"... Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States. ..."

"... "Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before." ..."

Oct 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

" Why U.S. Elections Do Not Change Its Foreign Policies | Main | The Ceasefire In Nagorno-Karabakh Is Unlikely To Hold " October 09, 2020 Europe And The New Sanctions On Iran

The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:

[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country , this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties' access to the U.S. financial sector if they engage with Iran's financial sector. Since the idea was first floated publicly , many have argued that sanctioning Iran's financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of existing U.S. sanctions.

Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:

This idea appears to have first been introduced into public discourse in an Aug. 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg urging the Trump administration to "[b]uild an Iranian [s]anctions [w]all" to prevent any future Biden administration from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord between Iran and the world's major powers on which President Donald Trump reneged in May 2018.

The new sanctions will stop all trade between the 'western' countries and Iran.

The Foreign Minister of Iran responded with defiance:

Javad Zarif @JZarif - 17:30 UTC · Oct 8, 2020

Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine.

Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties.

But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers -- who block our money -- WILL face justice.

In response Iran will continue its turn to the east. Russia, China and probably India will keep payment channels with Iran open or will make barter deals.

The Europeans, who so far have not dared to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran, are likely to be again shown as the feckless U.S. ass kissers they have always been. They will thereby lose out in a market with 85 million people that has the resources to pay for their high value products. If they stop trade of humanitarian goods with Iran they will also show that their much vaunted 'values' mean nothing.

The European Union claims that it wants to be an independent actor on the world stage. If that is to be taken seriously this would be the moment to demonstrate it.

Posted by b on October 9, 2020 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink

---

Thomas Minnehan , Oct 9 2020 17:11 utc | 3

Unconscionable but what is new with pompass and his ghouls; treasury dept responsible for cranking up the sanctions program was formerly headed by a dual citizen woman who resigned suddenly after being exposed as an Israeli citizen-not hard to understand that sentiment in that dept has not changed.

The other aspect here is the FDD as key supporter of these severe sanctions; very virulent anti-Iranian vipers nest of ziocons with money bags from zionist oligarch funders.

karlof1 , Oct 9 2020 17:14 utc | 4

Ho-hum. As I wrote earlier, just the daily breaking of laws meaning business as usual. As noted, Russia has really upped the diplomatic heat on EU and France/Germany in particular, and that heat will be further merited if the response is as b predicts from their past, deplorable, behavior.

Much talk/writing recently about our current crisis being similar in many ways to those that led to WW1, but with the Outlaw US Empire taking Britain's role. I expect Iran's Iraqi proxies to escalate their attacks aimed at driving out the occupiers. IMO, we ought to contemplate the message within this Strategic Culture editorial when it comes to the hegemonic relationship between the Outlaw US Empire and the EU/NATO and the aims of both. The EU decided not to continue fighting against the completion of Nord Stream, but that IMO will be its last friendly act until it severs its relations with the Outlaw US Empire. With the Wall moved to Russia's Western borders, the Cold War will resume. That will also affect Iran.

james , Oct 9 2020 18:33 utc | 13

thanks b... it is interesting what a pivotal role israel plays in all of this... and why would there be concern that biden would be any different then trump in revoking the jcpoa? to my way of thinking, it is just pouring more cement and sealing the fate of the usa either way, as an empire in real decline and resorting to more of the same financial sanctions as a possible precursor to war.. frankly i can't see a war with iran, as the usa would have to contend with russia and china at this point... russia and china must surely know the game plan is exactly the same for them here as well.. as for europe, canada, australia and the other poodles - they are all hopeless on this front as i see it... lets all bow down to the great zionist plan, lol...

Daniel , Oct 9 2020 18:48 utc | 14

Yeah but at least Trump didn't start any new wars. /s

The Eurotools in Brussels are absolutely disgusting. A weaker bunch of feckless, milquetoast satraps is difficult to imagine. The EU perfectly embodies the 21st century liberal ethic: spout virtue signaling nonsense about peace, freedom, human rights and the "rules based international order" while licking the boots of Uncle Scam and the Ziofascists and going along with their war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Russia and China need to step up their game and boldly circumvent the collective punishment sanctions that are choking the life out of Iran, Syria and Venezuela. They still let the rogue states of the west get away with far too much.

augusto , Oct 9 2020 18:52 utc | 15

The Teheran men will not surrender to the yankee herds and hordes. And less so the telavivian.
It s easy to see that in the medium run this cruelly extended crime plays in chinese, russian and shia hands.
And they must start immediately a backlash handing hundreds of special forces and weapons opver to the Houthi hands.

Paco , Oct 9 2020 18:54 utc | 17

the Cold War will resume

The Cold War never ended.

Stonebird , Oct 9 2020 19:20 utc | 20

Of course there is a war on, and it has been gathering force for some time.

Iran is but one more skirmish or battle. However, Xi and Putin are using what I call the "Papou yes". You must always say "yes" as this way you avoid direct conflict, but then you go and do exactly what you were going to do in the first place . The person who does the demanding - having had his/her demands "met" has nothing further to add and will go away. (I have seen this effective technique in action).

At the moment it appears that the aim of the subversive (military/CIA/NGO) wings of the Empire are to start as many conflicts as possible. To isolate and overextend Russia, leading to it's collapse. (As they claim to have done before.)

The "Alternative axis" is just carrying on with it's own plan to overextend and eventually let the US dissolve into its own morasss. The opposition are trying to follow their own plan without giving an opening for the US/NATO to use its numerical military advantage, by not taking the bait.

The ultimate battle is for financial control of the worlds currency, or in the case of the US, to halt the loss of it's financial power. To avoid that The next step could be the introduction of a Fed. owned controlled and issued "digi-dollar", When all outstanding "dollar assets" are re-denominated into virtual misty-money which is created exclusively by the Fed. Banks become unnecessary as the Fed becomes the only "lender" available, Congress redundant, debts no longer matter and so on. Who cares about the reserves held by China and overseas "investors" if their use or even existence can be dictated by the Fed?
They have already published a "trial balloon" about introducing a digi-dollar.

Iran? the US is throwing ALL its cards into what looks like it's final battle to preserve the dollars supremacy. Why cut ALL the Iranian financial system out of their sphere of influence? Because it (thinks) it can and by doing so cower the wavering into obeying.

AtaBrit , Oct 9 2020 19:28 utc | 21

Thanks 'b', very well timed. I was actually heading to the open thread with this article until I saw your piece. This Asia Times article focuses on three key points:

- Iran has replaced the dollar with the Yuan as its main foreign currency
"This may become the east wind for the renminbi (yuan) and provide a new oil currency option for traders in oil-producing countries, including Iran," an editorial on qq.com said. "

- Several large banks in Iran are developing a gold encrypted digital currency called PayMon and had issued more than 1,000 crypto-currency mining licenses, which could promote the development of crude oil. Domestic traders use cryptocurrency to import goods and bypass American banks.

- The Iranian-Swiss Joint Chamber of Commerce
"Switzerland had received a special exemption from US supervisory authorities to allow the SHTA operations."

It remains to be seen how effective the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement actually is. Some say it is nothing but a US propaganda stunt. Hopefully, that is not the case.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 9 2020 20:37 utc | 31

Sure. Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war." Morons.

William Gruff , Oct 9 2020 20:50 utc | 32

What does Iran need that they cannot get from China and Russia? The USA has cheap corn, and the EU has... what, cheese? Other than that I don't see why Iran needs to trade with the empire and its more servile vassals anyway.

Tollef Ås/秋涛乐 , Oct 9 2020 20:55 utc | 33

Strange, that ther is a jewish or Israeki ´ animosity agains Iran (or agains tthe Medtans -- as thy are all named in all Greek records(H, that theer is a jewish animosity against, that ther is a jewish anikisit agains Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reported to have liberatet the Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! ellenistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babylon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 2017

Paco , Oct 9 2020 21:05 utc | 34

Quite impressed with all the theories about Europe and its behavior. The answer is very simple, Europe is occupied by a foreign power, it is a colony. And all the qualifiers are quaint.

davenitup , Oct 9 2020 21:09 utc | 35

It's the world's loss that great cultures like the Persians have been suppressed for so long. The madness needs to end.

Passer by , Oct 9 2020 21:11 utc | 36

Posted by: Red Ryder | Oct 9 2020 20:06 utc | 23

I disagree. What did the EU did on Iran, compared to Russia and China? It stopped most trade with Iran, including the purchase of iranian oil, and it stopped all investment projects. INSTEX is a joke. Meanwhile Germany recently banned Hezbollah.

Yes, they did vote for the JCPOA in the UN. I look at actions rather than words though, and EU has imposed de facto sanctions on Iran.

Moreover, German FM Maas told Israel recently that efforts are underway to keep the Iran arms embargo. (He is also a big "Russia fan" - sarc off)

In other words, we "support" the JCPOA, but in practice with arms and trade embargoes on Iran continuing.

Yeah right.

Posted by: powerandpeople | Oct 9 2020 20:15 utc | 24

No, its not so simple, unless you claim that european russophobia started with the US and did not exist before it. Guy Mettan has a good book on it. It is a thousand years old issue, involving Catholicism, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain, and others.

Yes, the US wants to divide the EU and Russia. But the EU itself is rotten from within.

Politics are more important than the economy, German Chancellor Merkel said in relation to Russia.

"Drang nach Osten" - "Drive to the East".

Germany dreams of capturing Eastern Europe and using is as some sort of colonised labor pool similar to what Latin America is for the US.

And this is why the EU, without any prodding, eagerly took the lead in the attempt of colour revolution in Belarus, where it played far bigger role than the US.

m , Oct 9 2020 21:24 utc | 37

I have to disagree with your assessment.

Signing and adhearing to the JCPOA turned Europe and Iran from opponents into partners. This is a great diplomatic achievement. However, no part of the JCPOA made the two allies or obliged the European side to wage an economic war with the USA on behalf of Iran. On the contrary, the Iranians would be the first to say they are no friends of Europa. They have been complaining about "Western meddling" in their region for years. (Note that they don`t differentiate but always speak collectively of "the West").

So that`s their chance to show the world how much of a sovereign nation they are and that they can handle their problems without the "meddling" of the "despicable" Europeans. There is no obligation - neither legal nor moral - for Europe to take the side of Iran in the US-Iran conflict.

And actually it is both sides - both Iran and the USA - who are unhappy with the current European neutrality.

_K_C_ , Oct 9 2020 21:31 utc | 38

Thanks to MoA for being one of the only honest brokers of news on Iran in the English language. As an American citizen living abroad (in EU) I have a more jaded and at the same time worried feeling about this.

Along with all the other stuff, including the current threat to close the U.S. embassy in the Iraqi "Green Zone" and the accompanying military maneuvers, which would spark war in the region, I see this hardening and expansion of sanctions as yet the next clue that the U.S. and Donald Trump's regime are looking toward re-election and a hot war with/on Iran. Rattling the cage ever more and backing Iran into the corner with brutal, all-encompassing sanctions is already an act of war, usually the first prior to bombs falling. I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets.

I hope I'm wrong but we've all seen this before and it never ends well. If the EU shows a spine, or more likely Russia and/or China step in directly, perhaps the long desired neocon/neolib/Zionist hot war against Iran can be avoided.

Perimetr , Oct 9 2020 21:32 utc | 39

I think it is very important for the US to kill another 500,000 children via sanctions, in order to demonstrate the importance of freedom and democracy and observing international law.

AriusArmenian , Oct 9 2020 21:48 utc | 40

While reading this post I was thinking what MoA wrote in the last two paragraphs. And also that Iran will just continue to turn to China, Russia, and others in the East.

It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel.

claudio , Oct 9 2020 22:17 utc | 41

@17 passer by
(and others)

"Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the past"

plus, as you point out elsewhere, there are longer histories at play: the Crusades against the Slavs, the Moors and the Turks (and the Arabs, in fact), the invention of "western civilization" in the 19th century (Arians vs Semites, Europe vs Asia, ecc) ...

plus, there is the persisting aspiration for world domination, partly frustrated by WW1 and the upheavals of the XXth century, which transformed the UK and the whole of Europe (with Japan, Australia, etc) in a junior partner of the new US Empire

(that's the other lesson learned from WW2: no single european power could dominate the continent and the world, but they could dominate as junior partners under the new young leader of the wolf pack, the US)

plus, there are is a class war that can be better fought, by national oligarchies, within globalist rethoric and rules

plus, there are the US deep state instruments of domination over european national states

but Europeans (and Usaians) do understand the language of force, and they have - at the moment - encountered a wall in their attempts at expansion, in Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, ecc; an alternative multipolar alliance is taking shape

so they might attempt to win a nuclear war by 20 million deaths to 2 (or 200 to 20, who cares), but they might also decide to tune down their ambitions and return to reality; maybe

wj2 , Oct 9 2020 23:28 utc | 45

@m (#35)
EU promised to uphold JCPOA. They can't because of the US and they are doing next to nothing to change that. EU isn't neutral. They are stooges. Iran is right to complain about it, the US isn't.

Boss Tweet , Oct 9 2020 23:54 utc | 48

Trump is a man of peace, he hasn't started any new wars - whatever that means, lol.

As far as I know economic blocade is tantamount to war. If he wins reelection expect renewed kinetic attacks on venezuela and Iran. He's already lined up his zionist coalition with arabic satraps to launch his Iran quagmire. Trump is a deal maker, he understands the economy and will bring back manufacturing jobs to Murikkka, lol. I'm sure Boeing execs in deep trouble would love to sell plane to the Iranians but Mr. MIGA just made that impossible. Nothing to worry about, there's always the next socialist bailout for Boeing funded by taxpayers - suckers as Trump would call them. So much for winning, can't fix deplorable and stupid...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/iran-deal-fallout-boeing-may-lose-20-billion-in-aircraft-deals.html

Btw b, Trump's opposition to the Iran deal has nothing to do with money or the zionist lobby. Stable genius opposed JCPOA in 2015 even before announcing his run for the presidency. It's not about the mula but all about the mollah's, lol: The Donald in his own words at a tea party event in 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8

kooshy , Oct 10 2020 0:00 utc | 49

Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 multiple US regimes in DC have been totally successful in making majority Iranian people everywhere in the world, understand that the US is their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come. At same time, these US regimes have equally been as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between this two side's belief is, that, Iranian people by experiencing US regime' conducts have come to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their own regime' propaganda machinery. For this reason, just like the people to people relation between the US and Russian people, Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US and Iran in next few generations will not come to or even develop to anything substantial or meaningful. One can see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably all these countries relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions, regardless of the maturity or termination of the revolution. As much as US loves color revolutions, US hates real revolutions. The animosity no longer is just strategic it has become people to people, and the reason and blame goes to Americans since they never were ready to accept the revolutions that made nations self-servient to their interests. The bottom line truth is the US / and her poodles in europe know, ever since the revolution Iran no longer will be subservient to US interests.

Hermius , Oct 10 2020 0:23 utc | 51

This is leverage to bargain away the oil pipeline to germany. That is what is behind it. You scratch my back, the US is saying to the EU, in particular, Germany....

karlof1 , Oct 10 2020 0:25 utc | 52

It's an Economy based on Plunder! , so that's why sanctions here, there and everywhere!! But the real problem is we aren't participating in the Plunder!! Sometimes you gotta use extreme sarcasm to explain the truth of a situation, and that's what Max and Stacey do in their show at the link. 13 minutes of honest reporting about the fraudulent world in which we live. As for Jerome Powell, current Fed Chair, he's complicit in the ongoing criminal activity just as much as the high ranking politicos. Bastiat laid it out 180 years ago, but we're living what he described now. And that's all part of what I wrote @40 above. The moral breakdown occurred long ago but took time to perfect.

joey_n , Oct 10 2020 0:34 utc | 54

Patrick Armstrong did a Sitrep article last month
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/09/24/russian-federation-sitrep-24-september-2020/
where he cited an article on Sputnik titled "Macron: Europe 'Will Not Compromise' With Washington on Iran Sanctions"
https://sputniknews.com/world/202009221080541258-macron-europe-will-not-compromise-with-washington-on-iran-sanctions/
Make of it what you will.

Xingu , Oct 10 2020 0:46 utc | 55

I think it is crazy that EU allows US to manage SWIFT to the point they invent new entities to sidestep SWIFT and US sanctions (which are weak and ineffective, but that is the trajectory of their weak attempts at independence). Force SWIFT to equally service all legal transactions according to EU law, and let US cut itself off from all international financial transfers if it doesn't like using EU's SWIFT. US corps won't allow that to happen, it's just that EU refuses to call US bluff. Of course they are now praying for Biden presidency, but if they can't assert themselves it is all ultimately the same thing.

dh , Oct 10 2020 1:17 utc | 58

These 'foreign policy experts' think the trade war with China has been a mistake. But they think Trump is too soft on Russia and he hasn't been tough enough on NK, Iran and Venezuela.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/foreign-policy-experts-rebuke-trump-administration-for-policies-that-emboldened-rivals-alienated-allies-135205214.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 1:34 utc | 59

It has become a standard trick for outgoing US administrations to saddle the incoming administration with set in stone policies and judicial appointments.

"Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran."

Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration.

The danger for the world is the Trump administration may go even further than additional sanctions. So I refer to the previous post, US policy remains the same whatever bunch are the frontmen.

Theodore Herzl even tried to drag Kaiser Wilhelm11 into the Zionist spider web: https://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2008/07/theodor-herzl-first-photoshopper.html

When that attempt failed they worked on convincing the Sultan of Turkey to give them someone else's homeland. The Zionist Zealot Mr Kalvariski became the administrator of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of establishing a jewish suprematist ghetto. Following that flop the Zionists turned to the hapless British and were rewarded by Balfour with his notorious British government double cross of the Arabs. Now it's the turn of the US and assorted captive nations to uphold and support tyranny and Talmudic violence.

Crush Limbraw , Oct 10 2020 1:59 utc | 60

I am SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that DaTrumpster understands DaDeepState better than any of us armchair pundits. His patient - and yes, perhaps faulty strategy - he's still standing after ALL DaCrap that's been thrown at him.
All the 'EXPURTS' - including MoA - can only see part of DaPicture at best.

I've been as hard on DaTrumpster as anyone on DaConservative side - but I am SLOWLY coming to understand WTF just might be going on.

Point - don't be too sure of your immediate inclinations - we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!

Don Bacon , Oct 10 2020 2:27 utc | 61

SWIFT is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor does it manage client accounts. Behind most international money and security transfers is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.

Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 10 2020 2:29 utc | 62

Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be.

And hasn't it always been that way from one president to the the next? Was there ever one that was less zionist than the predecessor? (Maybe they're all so close this is an impossible question to answer, that too could be the case).

The sitting executive branch gives the favors right now and anyone incoming gives the favors after they win and thus each election becomes a double windfall for the lobby group?

A zionist double dip . Maybe most US voters could grasp it like that.

I can't back this up (much like my previous comment in this thread) but it's my impression. It would probably take a lot of work to make sure it's right; one would have to scrutinize so much over so many decades.

Paul , Oct 10 2020 3:29 utc | 63

@Sunny Runny Burger 60

I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?'

This could be a useful quote for todays world.

Later, in 1964, Eisenhower approved his hand picked emissary's US $150 million so called Johnston Plan to steal the waters of the Jordan River and further marginalize the Palestine Arabs and surrounding Arab states.

ARI , Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 64

Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon. Without the JCPOA and inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities it will be impossible to prove or deny the allegations. Thus giving either the US or Israel justification it wants to conduct military strikes against Iran. The only things stopping this from happening is if the EU stays in the JCPOA...

_K_C_ , Oct 10 2020 3:53 utc | 65

Fully agree with ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62

Exactly the aim. I said so in an earlier post. This is all part of the program to create a false justification to conduct military strikes inside Iran. At this point, I'm really surprised that the U.S. even tries to construct these narratives after Obama's Syria and Libya operations didn't even really bother, save for a few probably fake "chemical weapons" attack they alleged Assad committed. Libya I don't remember hearing anything. The embassy maybe? After the Soleimani strike and the shootdown of the U.S. drone, not to mention the alleged Iranian attacks on ARAMCO's oil facilities, I'm really quite surprised something more serious (not to minimize the awful acts of war which the sanctions definitely are) hasn't already happened. It will soon, especially if Trump gets re-elected. Wonder what all of his "no new wars" supporters will say then?

Everybody reading knows what SWIFT is. That's a nice attempt to circumscribe the overall sanctions regime and paint it as "no big deal."

Crush Limpbro - Checked out your site. You've got a long way to go before you can criticize MoA. Hope that comment draws a few clicks to keep you going, but I would caution other barflies to use a proxy; could be a honey trap to collect IP addresses.

El Cid , Oct 10 2020 4:10 utc | 66

This United States imposed and Zionist inspired siege on Iran and its people will only further strengthen the political and economic bonds with Russia and China. Meanwhile, the US collapses from its internal social limitations and its abandonment of public healthcare responses to the Corvid 19 pandemic. Europe it close behind the US in this respect.

ARIES , Oct 10 2020 4:17 utc | 67

IRGC Commander-In-Chief: U.S. Is Incapable Of Waging War Against Iran, Its Weapons Are Outdated:

https://toranja-mecanica.blogspot.com/2020/10/irgc-commander-in-chief-us-is-incapable.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 4:20 utc | 68

ARI @62

What exactly is this 'Justification'.. . 'to conduct military strikes against Iran' that you refer to hasbara boy? Failure to obey foreign imposed zionist diktats?

Would this 'justification' apply to the bandit state if it refused to abide by the NNPT for example?
No double standards pass the test here.

kiwiklown , Oct 10 2020 4:42 utc | 69

Yet another proof that "Western values" and their "rules based international order" mean exactly nothing.

In the past, the West at least kept up some pretense that it was wrong to target unarmed civilians (still, they flattened Driesden; Hiroshima; North Korea, Vietnam, Laos). Today, they do not care to be seen openly, cruelly, brutally, sadistically killing civvies. These American bastards say, "... it is not killing if the victims drop dead later, like, not right now. " Or, "... it became necessary to destroy Iran in order to save Iran."

Iran is perfectly correct to call this a crime against humanity for the West to starve a population of food and medicine. This will boomerang just as the opium-pushing in China will boomerang on the West.

Meanwhile, just as those drug-pushing English bastards earned themselves lordships and knighthoods; just as presidential bastards retire to their Martha Vineyard mansions; so the current crop of bastards in American leadership will retire to yet more mansions, leaving the next couple generations to meet Persian wrath. The American way is to "win" until they are tired of winning, no?

But in truth, in objective reality, only those who have lost their human-ness are capable of crimes against humanity.

michaelj72 , Oct 10 2020 4:50 utc | 71

The US is cruising for a bruising in the middle east fucking with Iran like this. Not that the US hasn't deserved a good knockout punch the past 19 years since invading and destroying Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, etc. Regardless of their rhetoric, how the European rogues and rascals (France, Germany and the UK) can sleep at night is beyond me.

snake , Oct 10 2020 7:00 utc | 75

Yes Psychochistorian @ 1, At the nation state level, EU support for blockade terror and sanction torture (BT&ST), against reluctant nation states and non compliant individuals within those nation states, logically suggests EU nation states are not independent sovereign countries <=EU nation states exist in name only? Maybe its just like in the USA, these private monopoly powered Oligarcks (PMPO), own everything (privately owned copyrights, patents, and property) made possible by rules nation states turn into law. The citizens of those privately owned EU nation states are victims <=in condition=exploitable. Maybe PMPOs use nation states <=as profit support weapons, to be directed against <=any and all <=competition, whereever and however <=competition appears.

The hidden suspects <=capital market linked crowds through out the world..

Media is 92% owned by six private individuals, of the seven typical nation state layers of authority and power: 5 are private and two are public. Additionally, few in the international organizations have allegiance to historic cultures of the nation state governed masses. It is as if, the named nation states are <=threatened by knee breaking thugs, but maybe its not threat, its actual PMPO ownership.

If one accepts PMPO <=to be in control of all of USA and all of allied nation state, one can explain <=current BT&ST events. But private Oligarch scenarios <=raise obvious questions, why have not the PMPO challenged East eliminated <=Israel, MSM propaganda repeatedly blames or points to Israel <=to excuse the USA leaders for their BT&ST policies. Seems the PMPO are <=using the nation states, they own <=to eliminate non complying competition.

What is holding the East back? Russia and China each have sufficient oil, gas and technology to keep things functional, so why has not the competition in the East taken Israel out, if Israel is directing the USA to apply BT&ST against its competitors? Why is the white House so sure, its BT&ST policies will not end up destroying Israel? Maybe because Israel has no real interest <=in the BT&ST policy <=Israel is deceptions:fall guy? The world needs to pin the tail on the party driving USA application of BT&ST because no visible net gain to Governed Americans seems possible from BT&ST policies?

I think Passer @ 17 has hit the nail on its head. "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. "

Norwegian , Oct 10 2020 7:11 utc | 76

@ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62

Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon.

So you put that forward as a justification for attacking Iran militarily, but that means according to your logic you also have justification for attacking Israel or the US militarily. The rules are the same for all, right?

robin , Oct 10 2020 8:12 utc | 77

Economic warfare is certainly effective. However, time is running out for these weapons as America's lock on the world economy grows weaker. With a rapidly approaching expiry date, the word out may be to use em or lose em.

In a zero-sum great game, it makes sense to deploy such weapons now insofar as an opponent's loss is always a gain for oneself.

jscott , Oct 10 2020 9:26 utc | 79

Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States.

"Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."

Uncle Samuel is setting up a provocation for war.

uncle tungsten , Oct 10 2020 9:45 utc | 81

psychohistorian #1

What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is not a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like war to me.

Well for the first time in history Iran's symbolic "Red Flag" is still flying above the popular Jamkaran Mosque Holy dome. Perhaps the USA and its running dogs body count has risen in Iraq and Afghanistan? How would we know. These things are disguised from the fearless press in those countries ;)

Perhaps the dead and mangled are many but we do know that the US chief killer in Afghanistan was reduced to ashes immediately following General Shahid Qassem Suleimanis murder by the USA whilst on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.

In respect of b's observation above, the illegal occupier of Palestine is more likely tipping millions into the Harris Presidency as well as the possible Trump Presidency. I doubt either Harris or the biden bait and switch stooge would restore the JCPOA. Besides they would not be invited to sit at the table any time soon IMO. They would likely refuse to any conditions of reversing the sanctions and then carry on about all that 'unreasonable demands by a terrorist state' stuff etc etc.

No, Iran will be getting on with its future in a multilateral world where the United Nations has been reduced to pile of chicken dung by the USA while most other nations go along with global lunacy.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87

You know what's telling about the bootlickers who hem and haw about U.S. policy with the T Administration, but never mention Trump as the real source of it even when profuse Zionist shit spills from his mouth on Limbaugh's show proving he's a Ziofascist pig?

What's telling is that these usual suspects jumped all over ARI @64 for zeroing in on Trump's precise intentions with Iran but they gave a pass to the real HASBARIST in the room, Crush Limbraw @60, exposing himself, putting his HARD-ON FOR TRUMP on full display.

@60 we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
Speak for yourself- you Zionist MORON!

Ahhhhhh, you can always count on the DUPLICITY of MOA'S weathervane james and friends. Me, I ain't here to win a popularity contest like weathervane; I'm here to kick ass when I witness duplicity in action. My friend here is the truth that I'll defend to the grave.

********

Noooo, dum-dums Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs and Russian squatters whom he pays homage to from time to time when he visits Ziolandia thanking them for choosing the stolen West Bank over Russia.

Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice. That's Trump blowhard driving the drumbeat.

Just rescue me from my self-destructive self for 4 more years, oh kings of Zion and Wall Street, and I'll give you WAR!!! all in CAPS with three exclamation points. The GREATEST war you've ever seen.

Linda Amick , Oct 10 2020 13:07 utc | 88

When I read the Great Reset article on the World Economic Forum website it seems to me that the western Globalists, in concert align the US and EU. That accounts for the basic vassal arrangements that predominate but allow for some nonalignments on certain issues.

Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:24 utc | 89

Posted by: vk | Oct 10 2020 0:58 utc | 56

That is precisely what the Belarusian authorities announced when Tikhanovskaya left Minsk, that she was helped in her way out, but we know how the MSM acts, they stick to their own script, just like a Hollywood movie.

The Belarusians must be watching with great attention what is happening in Kirguizia, riots and complete chaos, and thinking how lucky they were to avoid the color rev that was in the menu for them, which the same methods, discredit the oncoming election, claim fraud after it, use similar symbols like the clenched fist and the heart, new flag, start transliterating family and geographical names to a mythical and spoken by a very small minority language and then nobody knows if to spell Tikhanovskaya, Tsikhanouskaya or like the politically incorrect but street wise Luka called her, Guaidikha. And that is Kirguizia, how about a shooting war in Armenia and Azerbaijan, all those conflicts were unimaginable when the USSR existed, but the empire even on his way down is insatiable.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:25 utc | 90

@88 Linda Amick

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDPIAXG_QcQNU&feature=share&playnext=1

Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:35 utc | 91

Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87

There is over a million jews of Russian origin living in Israel, 20% of the population, with deep roots in Russia, language, culture and relatives. Do not let partisanship for the Dems blind you, a true successful leader is someone that defends his country's interests while at the same time tries to have good relations with everybody else, obviously that balance is not easy to achieve in a world full of conflicting interests, but so far Putin seems to be balancing his act while not loosing sight of the main thing, Russia.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92

Paco, strange name for a Russiabot, oh well...

Nice way of putting: Putin belongs to the Zionist Club.

FYI, I'm not blind. I'm one of those special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Jackrabbit , Oct 10 2020 13:56 utc | 93

Circe @Oct10 12:56 #87

Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs

If Putin is so close to Zionists, then why does Russia block the Zionist regime-change in Syria? Why has Russia denied Israel and USA entreaties to allow them to bomb Iran?

Russia Warns U.S. and Israel That Iran Is Its 'Ally' and Was Right About Drone Shoot Down

!!

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:03 utc | 94

Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92

Not as strange as a mythological demigoddess that turned sailors into swain and that now enjoys to plunge into the mud with her creatures. A bot, what an easy label, it has lost any meaning.

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:12 utc | 95

special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Alaska yellow fin sole, not bad, from Bristol Bay, but the Melva -a tunafish species with more oil in its meat- I cooked for lunch, just caught, has a lot more fish oil with its rich contents of vitamin D, add sunny Mediterranean weather and that is my pill for today, trying to keep the bug at bay.

expat , Oct 10 2020 14:39 utc | 96

Circe, why don't you do what your namesake would have done and whip yourself up some meds to calm down? You're starting to lapse into excessive use of upper case, italics, exclamation points, bolding, profanity, and of course, insults.

This may help. It looks like the orange man is in fact going down, so you will soon have Joe and Kamal empowered to dismantle the evil Putin-Netanyahu-Trump axis, and put the US back on the path to truth and justice.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97

@93 Jackrabbit

It's called... lip service.

@94,95 Fransisco

A bot by any other name will smell as fishy. 🤭
Just messing with you!

ptb , Oct 10 2020 14:44 utc | 98

The unilateral and illegal-under-JCPOA sanctions mean it's time for EU to either confront the extraterritorial US policy it has clearly rejected in principle, or (more likely) acknowlege that it remains in practice just a collection of 'client states'. A sad moment for me, but useful for clarity.

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:48 utc | 99

Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97

Hard to understand but you guys are incapable of spelling the name of a once great US city, San Francisco. I heard it has changed a lot, got to see long time ago, before the digital craze.

juliania , Oct 10 2020 15:51 utc | 100

This is a brief but subtle post by b, with quiet but telling headline. Perhaps, just guessing, a new take on the post he was having difficulty with earlier? The question of the EU is an interesting one - not to be considered as virulent as the former Soviet Union, but somehow as tugged at by the components thereof...

Sanctions on Iran? We do know what Iran is capable of; surely we have not forgotten? Indeed, by pressing these sanctions at this late date, the Trump administration surely has not forgotten either the effect sanctions had on Russia. They were postive to that country's independent survival, though the immediate effect was demonstrably harsh. So now, sanctions on Iran? One doesn't have to be a world leader to suppose similar cause, similar effect.

Ah, Paco has a wonderful meal of a beneficial fish called the Melva! Bravo, Paco; all is not lost! But you have hooked the sea-serpent as well -- take care! That one - carefully remove the hook and set it free ;)

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[Oct 10, 2020] Neocons are addicted to regime change like narcoaddicts to heroin

Oct 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Originally from: Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn't Actually Exist - The American Conservative

---

Tradcon • a month ago

Not very surprising to be honest, some people simply cannot go without regime change to the point where they have to parade people about who weren't even born in Iran and who have little to no support in the country as "dissidents" to try to guilt people into supporting intervention. Of course with that comes slander against those who warn against that, which unfortunately means TAC.

dragnet20 Tradcon • a month ago

Exactly--these folks are addicted to regime change like heroin. Ignoring them is one thing Trump absolutely got right during his first term.

Clyde Schechter dragnet20 • a month ago

Trump ignored them??? Hardly. He hired John Bolton as his national security advisor, and Rudy Giuliani is his personal attorney. Both of those guys are heavily tied to this organization and advocate its line. And while he did stop short of actually invading Iran, he was on the brink of doing so recently, talked out of it only at the last minute. I'll give him credit for not going all the way with them, but he's given them far too wide a berth and much too much influence in his foreign policy if you ask me.

Blood Alcohol Clyde Schechter • a month ago

He did not go all the way with them because he was told by the military and others, who take their jobs and missions to server the American people seriously, that his attacks on Iran - invasion was not "the table" at all - would face a humiliating defeat at the same level of what happened to his efforts to extend the weapons sanctions at the UNSC. Pompeo was sent home with his tail between his legs.

dragnet20 Blood Alcohol • a month ago

The idea that Trump would have invaded if allowed doesn't pass the smell test. He spent much of the 2016 railing against regime change and foreign wars. His recent instincts on this topic have been largely correct.

Carpenter E Clyde Schechter • a month ago

Trump did not want more war, and wanted to end the existing wars, that much is clear. At the same time as he believes the Israeli line about Iran. But he did not want war with Iran - he knows they would mine the Strait of Hormuz shut, and the U.S. economy would go into a depression along with the world economy. No president would survive that.

But, he has had to appease top donor *Sheldon Adelson, in order to prevent a GOP revolt in the Congress. The threat was always that they'd join the Democrats in impeaching him, that Mike Pence would call for the same, and people would leave his cabinet. So he caved by sanctioning Iran and destroying the lives of millions of people. And he had to appease Israel by taking Syria's oil fields via the Marxist Kurd mercenaries, and let them burn the wheat fields. But he did not start a war, and did not want a war.

J Villain Tradcon • a month ago

"The list of MEK disinformation tactics"

Lets be honest here. It isn't MEK disinformation tactics it is the tactics
of the US wrapped up and packaged as MEK. Just as Falon Gong is backed
by the CIA. MEK is a bunch of backwards ass hats with terrorist
tendencies. They are not some national level intelligence agency. This
is most likely crud made up by the US intelligence agencies sold as MEK
and pushed on the American people to convince them that Iran will be
dropping nuclear weapons on their house any minute now if they can stop
eating babies long enough, so they need to push their government to go
to WAR!!!!! with Iran and kill some Muslims. The gullibility of the
American people is why there will never be a time when they are not at
war.

Blood Alcohol J Villain • a month ago

Throw in "Saudi" Arabia and Israel, and France (the home of their leader) then you've got all of them in the same room.

Carpenter E J Villain • a month ago

Possibly, but the MEK does have an online presence and such. But of course, it is all with Washington's money, and Washington's assistance.

For those who don't know: The MEK is a Marxist-Islamist group that initially supported the Revolution, but turned against Ayatollah Khomeini as they didn't get to share power. Because no one liked them. And Marxists were not allowed in revolutionary Iran - the MEK was chased out along with the Soviet-installed communist party in northern Iran.

The MEK have been killing Iranian police, bureaucrats and local administrators. This is their "revolution". They kill people mainly with bombs. The present Ayatollah's left arm is withered after one of their bomb attacks.

The MEK have been killing Iranian physics professors and technicians. They kill them with car bombs in traffic - a motorbike with two killers drive up to a car by a traffic stop and attach a bomb with magnets. Of course, you can wonder where they got the bombs, and money and transport. This is classic Mossad strategy. Likewise, dozens of technicians and professors in Iraq have been murdered. Israel hopes for a counter-reaction which the U.S. can exploit.

Rest assured, the political opposition in Iran hates the Marxist-Islamist MEK as much as the government does. Which Washington and Israel don't acknowledge.

The MEK was housed by Saddam Hussein in an old military base. They had to leave Iraq eventually after the overthrow of Hussein. The U.S. then shipped them to a brand new training base in Albania. Crazy as it might seem. Albania's government is of course as eager to be a paid Washington agent as the Kurds are.

Absurdly, this explicitly terrorist group has been taken off the terror list by Washington. While Iran is called "terrorist" for helping Hezbollah, who formed to fight back when Israel invaded Lebanon and massacred Shia villagers in the south with artillery, because they lived close to the Palestinian refugee camps. And then kept fighting when Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, Shia land, as a "buffer zone" for many years.

Carpenter E Carpenter E • a month ago

The MEK killed thousands of people, including Americans. But the Lobby always gets what it wants.

The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing U.S. corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it turned its guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and terrorist operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the executions of its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and ordinary people.

It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam Hussein, which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops for Iraq, attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped Hussein put down the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91.

The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be treason committed against their homeland.

disgustoo • a month ago

"As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them. ...This is not a matter of foreign policy differences: if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran, the MEK does not help make that case. Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this dishonesty and still treat them like a legitimate opposition group should be considered part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast war."

If MEK does NOT help to make the case for regime change in Iran - & outside sponsored regime change is not ethical - then it would be unethical not to support them, in order to help prevent unethical regime change. Although that's probably not what horrible Hillary had in mind when, as Sec. of State in 2012, she de-listed them from the U.S. official list of terrorist organizations. But if anyone will lie "us" into a war with Iran, it will be AIPAC & innumerable other dishonest zionist organizations working on behalf of the Jewish terror state, & it's new Saudi terror state partner; both of whom look with favor on MEK as a bit partner in their joint effort to take out the government of Iran. MEK is pretty small potatoes compared to The Lobby, who are waging another campaign not wholly different from the last time they pushed us into a M.E. war to benefit lying israel.

Blood Alcohol Guest • a month ago

Why, do you "like" sock puppets"?!

Dodo • a month ago

Don't fall into this trap.

People tell you - You are a conservative, so do I. I support XYZ thus you should also support them.

Before the 2003 Iraqi War, Many then Bush administration officials and self-anointed "conservative opinion leaders" went on TV to lie to people to support their war. Today, we still suffer the consequence but they are preaching to us other wars.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Schopenhauer Dodo • a month ago • edited

In no way should the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War be excused, nor should "conservative opinion leaders" be let off the hook, but the Congress was complicit, the Senate was complicit, the military was complicit, the intelligence community was complicit, and the majority of the electorate was complicit. Nobody cared whether the reason for the war was valid, people just wanted to vent their frustrations against terrorists on an unrelated Arab country that the US had already used as a whipping boy. What could happen?

Almost twenty years later and-- surprise! surprise!-- suddenly everyone recognizes the war for the folly it was. Some people, like Dreher, seem to have genuinely changed their stance based on what happened subsequently. But we'll all see what happens the next time the war mongers-- from both sides of the aisle and from all over the country-- start rattling their sabers.

IllinoisPatriot Schopenhauer • a month ago

Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty or that (if they are willing to fight) will on risk OTHER PEOPLE's (other American) lives, thus removing the need to ever put themselves at risk of learning what actually goes in in the countries they are so sympathetic to.

Charles IllinoisPatriot • a month ago • edited

"Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty"

Would you expound on that vis a vis current situations. Your sentence is straight out of the Vietnam era,

EliteCommInc. Charles • a month ago

The complete idiocy regarding Vietnam is the anti-war rhetoric surrounding. But has laid the framework for installing fear into anyone who doesn't tow the ridiculousness of what is argued by protesters -- which in every way has nearly every argument backwards.

Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate.

The nation of Vietnam has rarely known peace and the lines during the conflict generally mark the region that separated the country's territorial history. The South Vietnamese sound reason to seek defend their territorial and political independence and we had sound reason to defend the same.

It was during that era that the liberal foundations showed their true colors. And if one doubt it --- just look at the anti-Vietnam advocates -- the managers of the Iraq and Afghanistan missteps and p[perhaps even worse their willingness to destroy the lives of anyone who challenged their rational based on the very case they made -- which was unsupportable.

There are some issues which simply are not really issues,

1. the lives of black people in the country and how they were/are socialized and the consequence

2.what the civil war was really about

3.Mexican invasion of US territory to retake territory they lost to band of squatters (lousy immigration enforcement) a war that is now taking place via our failure to enforce border protection.)

4.loss of the War of 1812
and

5. the colonial revolution and its justification

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. • a month ago • edited

"Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate."
It's safe to say that BS like this is not hard to come by in the right wing nutjobs' circles. No Vietnamese had/has ever attempted to attack, invade, kill and spray Agent Orange anywhere in the US. So how come they became the aggressors?!
Viet Nam became truly independent AFTER expelling the American military.

Schopenhauer Blood Alcohol • a month ago

When it comes to discussing Vietnam with this guy-- it's Chinatown, there's nothing you can do.

Shiek Yerbooti Dodo • a month ago

If you're talking about Bush I think the quote is more like this:

"fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Wallstreet Panic Dodo • a month ago

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again. You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world." George W. Bush, September 17, 2002

chris chuba • a month ago

Bless you for writing this but you are spitting into the wind. There are too many people who want to believe this. The IRaq war analogy is apt. You have govt in exile types like MEK (remember Chalabi) who have a vested interest in lying to us. You have the hyper-pro Israel crowd and the newly accepted pro-Saudi crowd w/money to burn. I actually expect and don't begrudge foreigners for trying to get the U.S. into their fights. I resent the MSM that is simply in love with U.S. military conflicts who accuse people who oppose them of being anti-American, conspiracy theorists.

The most laughable example was CNN accepting the notion that Iran has a massive cyber presence in influencing our elections because our Intel Agencies told them so. Iran is detested by the U.S. public as we steal civilian cargo from them that would make the lives of people in other countries better. We sell the stolen goods for our benefit and call them terrorists for their trouble. To suggest that they have sway over us is laughable yet this passes for journalism.

Iran will be the next Iraq. If there is a God it will be the rock that breaks us. If not then a crime of shocking proportions.

Fletcher chris chuba • a month ago

I largely agree but I think there's room for optimism, the US military particular the army is largely a broken instrument, morale is not good except for the contractors, General maintenance is down in favor of expensive toys that largely do not work. For all of the bluster of this generation of sociopaths the military in general is a shadow of itself not to mention we live in times of a rising China and the reemergence Russia, neither of which would allow in on opposed attack on Iran.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher • a month ago

True, but the military has also been the biggest obstacle for tRump to make his Saudi/Israeli clients happy.

Fletcher Blood Alcohol • a month ago

How so? Our government seems to be providing the Saudi's with with as many bombs as they need, Air Force retirees to fly in the backseatair of Saudi planes, we have slowed down on the transfer of Thermo nuclear Technology as well as I assume the the delivery systems for them true but that was likely just a temporary Flash of Conscience it'll probably never happen again for that individual but if there something I'm missing please do tell.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher • a month ago • edited

Look at it this way. Either the Saudi/UAE themselves have to deal militarily with Iran, or the US. The US military-industrial complex is for selling weapons to these client states whole-heartedly for obvious reasons. The Saudi/UAE has always expected and often demanded the US is the one to "cut the snake's head" as "king" Abdullah of the "Saudi" Arabia demanded frequently. These states know very well neither the "version" of the weaponry they buy from the West is capable of performing in a real war with a powerful enemy like Iran, nor are their personnel capable of operating them effectively. So what they say to the US is, OK we'll buy your junk, but you need to do the job. In other words, they want to fight Iran to the last AMERICAN soldier. The Pentagon wants none of that. But happy to run the cash register. I hope I made my point clear.

Sorosh Nabi • a month ago

MEK have no support in Iran. If a MEK member would walk down the street there the people would tear them to shreds. When they started killing Iranians and cooperating with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war they committed political suicide.

EliteCommInc. Sorosh Nabi • a month ago

You know, this really doesn't carry much weight. I am not going to dismiss the complaints of a group because the majority don't support them. That is not a case for regime change. I don't see a case for that as yet. But I don't buy this nonsense about Iran land of peace ----

They were instrumental in destabilizing any peace in Iraq and remain so. Their Islamic revolution has not passed and their ambitions are not as benign as as many including Iranians like to pretend.

Sorosh Nabi EliteCommInc. • a month ago

What does that have to do with anything that I said? If you want to come to power you need the support of the people MEK don't have that so they will never gain power. Also MEK are responsible for the revolution in the first place, they are the ones that carried out bombing and assassinations even of Americans in Iran. They are the ones that attacked the US embassy in Iran and held Americans hostage. There is a reason they were on the US terror list until 2012. As far as Iran being the land of peace not sure where you got that from, Iran has never claimed that and infact Iran will conduct foreign policy that benefits its goals, which is true of any nation. You should try to stay on topic when you reply to somebody though.

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. • a month ago • edited

Yes, as you know the Iranians attacked, invaded and looted Iraq's oil and cultural heritage. Had in not been for the US "rescue mission" Iranian would still be there. You must be tone deaf.

Feral Finster • a month ago

Same playbook as in the runup to the War on Iraq.

Gutbomb Feral Finster • a month ago

Mostly. They won't be bothering with the U.N. this time, though.

IllinoisPatriot Feral Finster • a month ago

... or Trump's run-up to the 2016 election.....

Thump the conspiracy theories and emphasize the hard-line approach with no idea or intent to actually go through with anything should he actually win. I see reference to Q-anon and I immediately think Trumpian conspieracy.

I'll pass.

john • a month ago

Conservatives are easy to target, they are prepared to believe all sorts of nonsense. Qanon aside they are prepared to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves and you can lose weight on a vinegar and ice cream diet.

CPT john • a month ago

As opposed to the people who believe that a man can become a "real woman" just by saying so, and nod approvingly when CNN shows the chyron "Mostly peaceful protests continue" over footage of burning buildings.

Fletcher john • a month ago

Really, that's pretty damn funny like you retards don't believe in a bunch of conspiracy nonsense and by the way don't put down Q is good fun to the geriatric Community on the other hand you clowns are playing footsie with actual Nazis in Ukraine while you accuse the right of being fascist that's beautiful congratulations it's going to be great in a couple years when this country has seceded from each other and all of you non-producers get to sort it out for yourselves, it's going to be magic.

hooly • a month ago

Fake dissident groups. Wow! Not even the Chinese are this duplicitous. And people whine and complain about Russian and Chinese 'infiltration' and 'meddling' ??

Iustitiae Semper Valet hooly • a month ago

Which fale dissident groups? I missed that. I am not being sarcastic. I see people who have been named as fake contributors all over the place. But I didn't see a reference to a fake dissident group.

IllinoisPatriot Iustitiae Semper Valet • a month ago

I'm still looking for the proof one way or the other of who the "good guys" are here.

Fake this, fake that I can get from Trump every time he opens his mouth about "fake news".

What I don't get from Trump (or from this article) is any references, documentation, or solid proof of any kind other than accusations and counter-accusations -- one side I'm supposed to believe because the author said so.

I'm not buying it without objective proof and trustworthy corroboration -- not just more sock-puppets.

PointyTailofSatan . • a month ago

I don't understand. The MEK hates the current Iranian government. Why the would the American Conservative be dissing them?

Blood Alcohol PointyTailofSatan . • a month ago • edited

They are being dissed by many smart conservatives and others, because they have become a tool of Saudi/Israel. They practically spearheaded killing Americans during the Shah, and now they are enjoying American political and financial support. In that vein the adage, my enemy's enemy is my friend, does not apply here. But if you are a money hungry Giuliani, Kennedy, Bolton or Howard Dean being a gang of killers, Saddam Husein mercenaries, and Saudi/Israeli agents don't matter.

Steve Blood Alcohol • a month ago

Bravo for this comment!! loved it!

Feral Finster PointyTailofSatan . • 19 days ago

Anyone remember Ahmad Chalabi's "Iraqi National Congress" or whatever it was called?

Same schtick, new players, same CIA..

Dyerville • a month ago

"We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy commentary.""

So one would hope, but foreign meddling is rife. At least the Washington Examiner makes an effort, whereas the Washington Free Beacon functions almost openly as an Israeli organ inside the United States.

el disgustador • a month ago

Ehem...The Israelis have admitted they essentially founded, financed and thoroughly and continuously infiltrated the Palestinian revolutionary group, HAMAS to counter the PLO achieve the ongoing ethnic destruction of Palestinian land freedom and society...the MEK and their front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran are comparable Israeli emanations whose ultimate goal is the land grab from the Nile to the Euphrates known as the Greater Israel project. This is Israeli history text book material, it is not conjecture...Read what former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, former Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. had to say the New York Times in that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a "counterweight" to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.") "The Israeli government gave me a budget," the retired brigadier
general confessed, "and the military government gives to the mosques." Moreover, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," said Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Deliberately planned, as far back as the mid-1980s, according to Cohen in an official report to his superiors playing the divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists, HAMAS was built up to become an "existential threat" fake tool of nuclear mighty Israel. In his report Cohen wrote, "I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote. That was the point exactly, poor victimized Israel "endowed with the right to defend itself". With Palestine now Kushnerized into oblivion, Iran is next ...Go figure...

Go figure...

chris • a month ago

propaganda is unending when isn'treal wants more war isn't it?

Billo • a month ago

Let the Israel Jews fight and die in their own war. Iran is not our enemy, Israel is.

Ram2017 Billo • a month ago

Who is funding the MEK ?

ddearborn • a month ago • edited

Hmmm
Means, motive, opportunity and who benefits spells out in no uncertain terms that the entire create a justification and then go to war with Iran originates in Israel and is being sold by the Zionists and Israel's literal army of jewish/Zionist/pro-Israel agents masquerading as "lobbyists", "activists", "think tanks" "academics", the Media, Hollywood, Congress, most of the White House Staff, etc., etc., here in the US. In other words, by an Israeli controlled army in America made up of traitors, liars and criminals.... A group who collectively ALWAYS put Israel Uber Alles.

[Oct 05, 2020] Zionism is the only political ideology I know of that claims that disagreement with it is a hate crime

Oct 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul , Oct 4 2020 22:10 utc | 55

Over at Dissident Voice an excellent article on hubris, blowback and overreach:

https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/10/israel-lobby-will-face-blowback-eventually/#more-109557

"Zionism is the only political ideology I know of that claims that disagreement with it is a hate crime."

[Sep 28, 2020] Ziocon Trump is a master of deception: has not delivered on any of his promises, hired neocons, assholes, and morons

Highly recommended!

Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

---

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 7:06 pm GMT

@Realist d on him and tried to remove him from office. This is actually the greatest political scandal in American history, yet nothing will be done about it. The magic negro will never face any consequences and he and his ugly wife will remain free to race bait for another 30 years unimpeded.

Trump and the GOP allowed the covid hoax to wreck the economy and allowed massive riots to go on for many months. They allow the left to run wild while whites live under anarcho-tyranny.

If Trump wins, which is likely, he will just go right back to blabbing about how much he loves blacks and mexicans and gays and you will never hear another word about white people.

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 9:23 pm GMT

@restless94110 p> Obama fired many upper level military and replaced them with leftist cucks.

Besides Trump not getting rid of people he should have gotten rid of, he hired a shitload of scum, neocons, Goldman alums, etc., people who were obviously not going to promote his America First agenda.

From the looks of it he never intended to make good on any of his promises.

And as Ann Coulter says, immigration is really the only thing that matters. Trump didn't deport the 30 million illegals that don't belong here. He didn't do anything about birthright citizenship, E-verify, etc.

We still face the very same demographic disaster as before.

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:17 pm GMT

@Robert Dolan

Trump doesn't even have the balls to go after the people who spied on him and tried to remove him from office.

I agree on your points

Here is a video of Tom Fitton explaining the situation to Lou Dobbs.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5thJyj5I7I?feature=oembed

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:21 pm GMT

@Harold Smith

I don't think anyone was actually trying to remove him from office (they could've added his war crimes and violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the impeachment charges if they were serious about removing him). Most likely it's all political theater to fool the people who need and/or want to be fooled.

This is a charade designed by the Deep State to distract any thought that both parties are just two sides to the Deep State coin.

restless94110 , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:57 pm GMT

@Robert Dolan did get rid of some military, he clearly didn't get rid of the right people.

You seem to think it's easy. It's not obviously.

I like Ann, but she is hysterical. Yet that is ok in a journalist/editorialist. Her function is to keep pushing. And she is doing that.

But Trump is moving at his own speed based on his own instincts. Meaning it might be faster for some, slower for others. Coulter is not able to understand that. But she does not have to. I still read her. And then I analyze her as a person in fear that the wall won't be built.

Looks to me like Ann is wrong. It's just not happening quickly enough for her.

[Aug 22, 2020] Kamala is a MIC marionette

Highly recommended!

Aug 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

It took balls for Carlson to have Anya Parampil on his show last night. He has had her on before, so he knows what she is like she tells it like it is. He will get shit for that.

I don't think he agrees with everything she said but agrees with some of it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UuJB0l1YUY?feature=oembed

[May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!

Notable quotes:

"... In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22, 2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23 rd . ..."

"... The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time, son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have extensive ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance. All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with the incoming Trumpsters, look no further. ..."

"... And it should be observed that the Israelis were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see himself that way. ..."

"... Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible. ..."

May 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

There are two stories that seem to have been under-reported in the past couple of weeks. The first involves Michael Flynn's dealings with the Russian United Nations Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And the second describes yet another bit of espionage conducted by a foreign country directed against the United States. Both stories involve the State of Israel.

The bigger story is, of course, the dismissal by Attorney General William Barr of the criminal charges against former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn based on malfeasance by the FBI investigators. The curious aspect of the story as it is being related by the mainstream media is that it repeatedly refers to Flynn as having unauthorized contacts with the Russian Ambassador and then having lied about it. The implication is that there was something decidedly shady about Flynn talking to the Russians and that the Russians were up to something.

In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22, 2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23 ^rd .

In taking the phone calls from a soon-to-be senior American official who would within weeks be part of a new administration in Washington, the Russians did nothing wrong, but the media is acting like there was some kind of Kremlin conspiracy seeking to undermine U.S. democracy. It would not be inappropriate to have some conversations with an incoming government team and Kislyak also did nothing that might be regarded as particularly responsive to Team Trump overtures since he voted contrary to Flynn's request.

The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time, son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have extensive ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance. All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with the incoming Trumpsters, look no further.

And it should be observed that the Israelis were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see himself that way.

Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible.

The second story , which has basically been made to disappear, relates to spying by Israel against critics in the United States. The revelation that Israel was again using its telecommunications skills to spy on foreigners came from an Oakland California federal court lawsuit initiated by Facebook (FB) against the Israeli surveillance technology company NSO Group. FB claimed that NSO has been using servers located in the United States to infect with spyware hundreds of smartphones being used by attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, critics of Israel and even of government officials. NSO allegedly used WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by FB, to hack into the phones and install malware that would enable the company to monitor what was going on with the devices. It did so by employing networks of remote servers located in California to enter the accounts.

NSO has inevitably claimed that they do indeed provide spyware, but that it is sold to clients who themselves operate it with the "advice and technical support to assist customers in setting up" but it also promotes its products as being "used to stop terrorism, curb violent crime, and save lives." It also asserts that its software cannot be used against U.S. phone numbers.

Facebook, which did its own extensive research into NSO activity, alleges that NSO rented a Los Angeles-based server from a U.S. company called QuadraNet that it then used to launch 720 hacks on smartphones and other devices. It further claims in the court filing that the company reverse-engineering WhatsApp, using an program that it developed to access WhatsApp's servers and deploy "its spyware against approximately 1,400 targets" before " covertly transmit[ting] malicious code through WhatsApp servers and inject[ing]" spyware into telephones without the knowledge of the owners."

The filing goes on to assert that the "Defendants had no authority to access WhatsApp's servers with an imposter program, manipulate network settings, and commandeer the servers to attack WhatsApp users. That invasion of WhatsApp's servers and users' devices constitutes unlawful computer hacking."

NSO, which is largely staffed by former (sic) Israeli intelligence officers, had previously been in the news for its proprietary spyware known as Pegasus, which "can gather information about a mobile phone's location, access its camera, microphone and internal hard drive, and covertly record emails, phone calls and text messages." Pegasus was reportedly used in the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Adnan Kashoggi in Istanbul last year and it has more recently been suggested as a resource for tracking coronavirus distance violators. Outside experts have accused the company of selling its technology and expertise to countries that have used it to spy on dissidents, journalists and other critics.

Israel routinely exploits the access provided by its telecommunications industry to spy on the host countries where those companies operate. The companies themselves report regularly back to Mossad contacts and the technology they provide routinely has a "backdoor" for secretly accessing the information accessible through the software. In fact, Israel conducts espionage and influence operations both directly and through proxies against the United States more aggressively than any other "friendly" country, which once upon a time included being able to tap into the "secure" White House phones used by Bill Clinton to speak with Monica Lewinsky.

Last September, it was revealed that the placement of technical surveillance devices by Israel in Washington D.C. was clearly intended to target cellphone communications to and from the Trump White House. As the president frequently chats with top aides and friends on non-secure phones, the operation sought to pick up conversations involving Trump with the expectation that the security-averse president would say things off the record that might be considered top secret.

A Politico report detailed how "miniature surveillance devices" referred to as "Stingrays" were used to imitate regular cell phone towers to fool phones being used nearby into providing information on their locations and identities. According to the article, the devices are referred to by technicians as "international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture the contents of calls and data use."

Over one year ago, government security agencies discovered the electronic footprints that indicated the presence of the surveillance devices near the White House. Forensic analysis involved dismantling the devices to let them "tell you a little about their history, where the parts and pieces come from, how old are they, who had access to them, and that will help get you to what the origins are." One source observed afterwards that "It was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible."

So two significant stories currently making the rounds have been bowdlerized and disappeared to make the Israeli role in manipulating and spying against the United States go away. They are only two of many stories framed by a Zionist dominated media to control the narrative in a way favorable to the Jewish state. One would think that having a president of the United States who is the most pro-Israel ever, which is saying a great deal in and of itself, would be enough, but unfortunately when dealing with folks like Benjamin Netanyahu there can never be any restraint when dealing with the "useful idiots" in Washington.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

[May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election

Highly recommended!

Notable quotes:

"... The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump. ..."

"... Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign." ..."

"... Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term. ..."

"... This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November. ..."

"... And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran. ..."

May 24, 2020 | christiansfortruth.com

According to recently released FBI documents, Donald Trump's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was "going to be defeated" unless Israel intervened in the election :

The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents -- FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone -- were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.

A longtime adviser to Trump, Stone officially worked on the 2016 presidential campaign until August 2015, when he said he left and Trump said he was fired. However he continued to communicate with the campaign, according to Mueller's investigation.

The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a "minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs," the PM, and the Prime Minister . In all these references the names and countries of the minister and prime minister are redacted.

Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016 , and the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs. One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows:

"On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME. MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC."

Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016 .

The explicit reference to Israel appears early in the text of a May 2018 affidavit by an FBI agent in support of an application for a search warrant, and relates to communication between Stone and Jerome Corsi, an American author, commentator and conspiracy theorist. " On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [NAME REDACTED] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct," the affidavit states .

The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump.

The redacted material features numerous references to an "October surprise," apparently relating to a document dump by Wikileaks' Julian Assange, intended to harm Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and salvage Trump's .

Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign."

Mueller's investigation identified significant contact during the 2016 campaign between Trump associates and Russians, but did not allege a criminal conspiracy to tip the outcome of the presidential election.

This story first appeared last month, at the height of the COVID-19 plandemic, which conveniently and not coincidentally allowed all the mainstream media in America to ignore it.

Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term.

This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November.

We can only guess what further information about Israel's involvement in the election was redacted from this FBI document, but there can be little doubt that the orders to help Trump win came from the very top -- from Netanyahu himself.

And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran.

And even if the brain-dead American public found out about this Israeli intervention (i.e., "subversion of our democracy"), they would probably just shrug it off -- after all, Israel is our "most trusted friend and ally," goyim .

[May 21, 2020] The 'Clean Break' Doctrine OffGuardian

Highly recommended!

Notable quotes:

"... A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm ..."

"... "the right to plunder anything one can get their hands on" ..."

"... "the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi" ..."

May 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org

n 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then in his first term as Prime Minister of Israel, as a how-to manual on approaching regime change in the Middle East and for the destruction of the Oslo Accords.

The "Clean Break" policy document outlined these goals:

Ending Yasser Arafat's and the Palestinian Authority's political influence, by blaming them for acts of Palestinian terrorism Inducing the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Launching war against Syria after Saddam's regime is disposed of. Followed by military action against Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

"Clean Break" was also in direct opposition to the Oslo Accords, to which Netanyahu was very much itching to obliterate. The Oslo II Accord was signed just the year before, on September 28th 1995, in Taba, Egypt.

During the Oslo Accord peace process, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu accused Rabin's government of being "removed from Jewish tradition and Jewish values." Rallies organised by the Likud and other right-wing fundamentalist groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform or in the crosshairs of a gun.

In July 1995, Netanyahu went so far as to lead a mock funeral procession for Rabin, featuring a coffin and hangman's noose.

The Oslo Accords was the initiation of a process which was to lead to a peace treaty based on the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and at fulfilling the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." If such a peace treaty were to occur, with the United States backing, it would have prevented much of the mayhem that has occurred since.

However, the central person to ensuring this process, Yitzak Rabin, was assassinated just a month and a half after the signing of the Oslo II Accord, on November 4th, 1995. Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel seven months later. "Clean Break" was produced the following year.

On November 6th, 2000 in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who was the chief negotiator of the Oslo peace accords, warned those Israelis who argued that it was impossible to make peace with the Palestinians:

Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism, and not in order to offer them a Jewish Sparta or – God forbid – a new Massada."

On Oct. 5, 2003, for the first time in 30 years, Israel launched bombing raids against Syria, targeting a purported "Palestinian terrorist camp" inside Syrian territory. Washington stood by and did nothing to prevent further escalation.

"Clean Break" was officially launched in March 2003 with the war against Iraq, under the pretence of "The War on Terror". The real agenda was a western-backed list of regime changes in the Middle East to fit the plans of the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Israel.

However, the affair is much more complicated than that with each player holding their own "idea" of what the "plan" is. Before we can fully appreciate such a scope, we must first understand what was Sykes-Picot and how did it shape today's world mayhem.

Arabian Nights

WWI was to officially start July 28th 1914, almost immediately following the Balkan wars (1912-1913) which had greatly weakened the Ottoman Empire.

Never one to miss an opportunity when smelling fresh blood, the British were very keen on acquiring what they saw as strategic territories for the taking under the justification of being in war-time, which in the language of geopolitics translates to "the right to plunder anything one can get their hands on" .

The brilliance of Britain's plan to garner these new territories was not to fight the Ottoman Empire directly but rather, to invoke an internal rebellion from within. These Arab territories would be encouraged by Britain to rebel for their independence from the Ottoman Empire and that Britain would support them in this cause.

These Arab territories were thus led to believe that they were fighting for their own freedom when, in fact, they were fighting for British and secondarily French colonial interests.

In order for all Arab leaders to sign on to the idea of rebelling against the Ottoman Sultan, there needed to be a viable leader that was Arab, for they certainly would not agree to rebel at the behest of Britain.

Lord Kitchener, the butcher of Sudan, was to be at the helm of this operation as Britain's Minister of War. Kitchener's choice for Arab leadership was the scion of the Hashemite dynasty, Hussein ibn Ali, known as the Sherif of Mecca who ruled the region of Hejaz under the Ottoman Sultan.

Hardinge of the British India Office disagreed with this choice and wanted Wahhabite Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud instead, however, Lord Kitchener overruled this stating that their intelligence revealed that more Arabs would follow Hussein.

Since the Young Turk Revolution which seized power of the Ottoman government in 1908, Hussein was very aware that his dynasty was in no way guaranteed and thus he was open to Britain's invitation to crown him King of the Arab kingdom.

Kitchener wrote to one of Hussein's sons, Abdallah, as reassurance of Britain's support:

If the Arab nation assist England in this war that has been forced upon us by Turkey, England will guarantee that no internal intervention take place in Arabia, and will give Arabs every assistance against foreign aggression."

Sir Henry McMahon who was the British High Commissioner to Egypt, would have several correspondences with Sherif Hussein between July 1915 to March 1916 to convince Hussein to lead the rebellion for the "independence" of the Arab states.

However, in a private letter to India's Viceroy Charles Hardinge sent on December 4th, 1915, McMahon expressed a rather different view of what the future of Arabia would be, contrary to what he had led Sherif Hussein to believe:

[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State too seriously the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing."

Such a view meant that Arabia would be subject to Britain's heavy-handed "advising" in all its affairs, whether it sought it or not.

In the meantime, Sherif Hussein was receiving dispatches issued by the British Cairo office to the effect that the Arabs of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) would be given independence guaranteed by Britain, if they rose up against the Ottoman Empire.

The French were understandably suspicious of Britain's plans for these Arab territories. The French viewed Palestine, Lebanon and Syria as intrinsically belonging to France, based on French conquests during the Crusades and their "protection" of the Catholic populations in the region.

Hussein was adamant that Beirut and Aleppo were to be given independence and completely rejected French presence in Arabia. Britain was also not content to give the French all the concessions they demanded as their "intrinsic" colonial rights.

Enter Sykes and Picot.

... ... ...

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s violent confrontations between Jews and Arabs took place in Palestine costing hundreds of lives. In 1936 a major Arab revolt occurred over 7 months, until diplomatic efforts involving other Arab countries led to a ceasefire.

In 1937, a British Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by William Peel concluded that Palestine had two distinct societies with irreconcilable political demands, thus making it necessary to partition the land.

The Arab Higher Committee refused Peel's "prescription" and the revolt broke out again. This time, Britain responded with a devastatingly heavy hand. Roughly 5,000 Arabs were killed by the British armed forces and police. Following the riots, the British mandate government dissolved the Arab Higher Committee and declared it an illegal body.

In response to the revolt, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, which stated that Palestine should be a bi-national state, inhabited by both Arabs and Jews.

Due to the international unpopularity of the mandate including within Britain itself, it was organised such that the United Nations would take responsibility for the British initiative and adopted the resolution to partition Palestine on November 29th, 1947.

Britain would announce its termination of its Mandate for Palestine on May 15th, 1948 after the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948.

A New Strategy for Securing Whose Realm?

Despite what its title would have you believe, "Clean Break" is neither a "new strategy" nor meant for "securing" anything. It is also not the brainchild of fanatical neo-conservatives: Dick Cheney and Richard Perle, nor even that of crazed end-of-days fundamentalist Benjamin Netanyahu, but rather has the very distinct and lingering odour of the British Empire.

"Clean Break" is a continuation of Britain's geopolitical game, and just as it used France during the Sykes-Picot days it is using the United States and Israel.

The role Israel has found itself playing in the Middle East could not exist if it were not for over 30 years of direct British occupation in Palestine and its direct responsibility for the construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which set a course for destruction and endless war in this region long before Israel ever existed.

It was also Britain who officially launched operation "Clean Break" by directly and fraudulently instigating an illegal war against Iraq to which the Chilcot Inquiry, aka Iraq Inquiry , released 7 years later, attests to.

This was done by the dubious reporting by British Intelligence setting the pretext for the U.S.' ultimate invasion into Iraq based off of fraudulent and forged evidence provided by GCHQ, unleashing the "War on Terror", aka "Clean Break" outline for regime change in the Middle East.

In addition, the Libyan invasion in 2011 was also found to be unlawfully instigated by Britain.

In a report published by the British Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2016, it was concluded that it was "the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi" .

The report concluded that the Libyan intervention was based on false pretence provided by British Intelligence and recklessly promoted by the British government.

If this were not enough, British Intelligence has also been caught behind the orchestrations of Russia-Gate and the Skripal affair .

Therefore, though the U.S. and Israeli military have done a good job at stealing the show, and though they certainly believe themselves to be the head of the show, the reality is that this age of empire is distinctly British and anyone who plays into this game will ultimately be playing for said interests, whether they are aware of it or not.

Originally published by Strategic Culture

---

Almondson ,

Yossi B said:

Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism

Ever heard of Dumbo? He's a flying elephant.

The crusade in the ME will continue, with Israel the top dog until America's military support is no longer there. Even without the Israeli eastern european invaders, the area is primed for perpetual tribal warfare because the masses are driven by tribalist doctrines and warped metaphysics dictated by insane and inhumane parasites (priests). It is the epicenter of a spiritual plague that has infected most of the planet.

paul ,

There is complete continuity between the activities of Zionist controlled western countries and those of the present day.

In the 1930s, there were about 300,000 adult Palestinian males. Over 10% were killed, imprisoned and tortured or driven into exile. 100,000 British troops were sent to Palestine to destroy completely Palestinian political and military organisations. Wingate set up the Jew terror gangs who were given free rein to murder, rape and burn, in preparation for the complete ethnic cleansing of the country.

We see the same ruthless, genocidal brutality on an even greater scale in the present day, serving exactly the same interests. Nothing has ever come of trying to negotiate with the Zionists and their western stooges – just further disasters. It is only resolute and uncompromising resistance that has ever achieved anything. Hezbollah kicking their Zionist arses out of Lebanon in 2000 and keeping them out in 2006. Had they not done so, Lebanon would still be under Zionist occupation and covered with their filthy illegal settlements.

They have never stopped and they never will. The objective is to create a vast Zionist empire comprising the whole of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and parts of Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. This plan has never changed and it never will. The Zionist thieves will shortly steal what little is left of Palestine. But the thieving will not end there. It will just move on to neighbouring countries.

The prime reason they have been able to get away with this is not their control of British and US golems. It is by playing the old, dirty colonial games of divide and rule, with the Quisling stooge dictators serving their interests. They have always been able to set Sunni against Shia, and different factions against others. The dumb Arabs fall for it every time. Their latest intrigues are directed at the destruction of Iran, the next victim on their target list after Iraq, Libya and Syria. And the Quisling dictators of Saudi Arabia are openly agitating for this and offering to pay for all of it. Syria sent troops to join the US invasion of Iraq in 1991, though Iraqi troops fought and died in Syria in 1973 against Israel. Egypt allows Israel to use its airspace to carry out the genocidal terror bombing of Gaza.

All this is contemptible enough and fits into racist stereotypes of Arabs as stupid, irrational, corrupt, easily bought, violent and treacherous. This of course does not apply to the populations of those countries, but it is a legitimate assessment of their Quisling dictators, with a (very) few honourable exceptions.

Seamus Padraig ,

Of course, Arab rulers who don't tow the Zionist line generally get overthrown, don't they? And that usually requires the efforts/intervention of FUKUS, doesn't it? So you can't really pretend that 'Arab stupidity' is the main factor.

Richard Le Sarc ,

The fact that, as the Yesha Council of Rabbis and Torah Sages declared in 2006, as Israel was bombing Lebanon 'back to the Stone Age', under Talmudic Judaism, killing civilians is not just permissible, but a mitzvah, or good deed, explains Zionist behaviour. Other doctrines allow an entire 'city' eg Gaza, to be devastated for the 'crimes' of a few, and children, even babies, to be killed if they would grow up to 'oppose the Jews'. Dare mention these FACTS, seen everyday in Israeli barbarity, and the 'antisemitism' slurs flow, as ever.

Julia ,

" is that this age of empire is distinctly British"

.it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40 billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it, arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's empire.

''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."

I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the world that it funds with trillions of dollars.

Julia ,

" is that this age of empire is distinctly British"

.it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40 billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it, arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's empire.

''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."

I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the world that it funds with trillions of dollars.

Richard Le Sarc ,

The antithesis of the truth. It is US politicians who flock to AIPAC's meeting every year to pledge UNDYING fealty to Israel, not Israeli politicians pledging loyalty to the USA. It is Israeli and dual loyalty Jewish oligarchs funding BOTH US parties, it is US politicians throwing themselves to the ground in adulation when Bibi the war criminal addresses the Congress with undisguised contempt, not Israeli politicians groveling to the USA. The master-servant relationship is undisguised.

Pyewacket ,

In Daniel Yergin's The Prize, a history of the Oil industry, he provides another interesting angle to explain British interest in the region. He states that at that time, Churchill realised that a fighting Navy powered by Coal, was not nearly as good or efficient as one using Oil as a fuel, and that securing supplies of the stuff was the best way forward to protect the Empire.

BigB ,

Yergin would be right. The precursor of the First World War was a technological arms race and accelerated 'scientific' perfection of arsenals – particularly naval – in the service of imperialism. British and German imperialism. The full story involves the Berlin to Cairo railway and the resource grab that went with it. I'm a bit sketchy on the details now: but Churchill had a prominent role, rising to First Lord of the Admiralty.

Docherty and Macgregor have exposed the hidden history. F W Engdahl has written about WW1 being the first oil war.

Andreas Schlüter ,

And don´t forget which of the US Military command regions into which the US Military divided the WHOLE World is named "US CENTCOM"!
„One Thing Must be Clear to the World: The US Power Elite Regards the Whole Globe as Their Colony!": https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/one-thing-must-be-clear-to-the-world-the-us-power-elite-regards-the-whole-globe-as-their-colony/

Antonym ,

In 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu

No source link for this!

By the way 1996 was during the Clinton administration. Warren Christopher was secretary of state and John Deutch was the Director of Central Intelligence . George Tenet was appointed the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in July 1995. After John Deutch's abrupt resignation in December 1996, Tenet served as acting director.

Reg ,

Here you go, sonny boy

http://www.dougfeith.com/docs/Clean_Break.pdf

Richard Le Sarc ,

Antsie, what are you going to deny next? The USS Liberty? Deir Yassin? The Lavon Affair? Sabra, Shatilla? Qana (twice)? The Five Celebrating Israelis on 9/11?Does not impress.

[May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump

Highly recommended!

Looks like Mueller barked to the wrong tree... And that was not accidental

Notable quotes:

"... The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago ..."

"... @Blue Republic ..."

"... @leveymg ..."

"... @leveymg ..."

May 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

---

leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 8:17am

Previously sealed FBI documents indicate close contacts between Israel and the Trump campaign and that the Mueller investigation found evidence of Israeli involvement, but largely redacted it.

May 04th, 2020
By Alison Weir @alisonweir
https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-documents-israel-collusion-2016-trump-...

Menifee, CA (IAK) -- Newly released FBI documents suggest that Israeli government officials were in contact with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and offered "critical intel."

In one of the extensively redacted documents, an official who appears to be an Israeli minister warns that Trump was "going to be defeated unless we intervene." He goes on to tell a Trump campaign official: "The key is in your hands."

The previously classified documents were released in response to a lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. The unsealed documents suggest that rather than Russia, it was Israel that covertly interfered in the election.

While all these media companies except one seem to have ignored the apparent Israeli connection revealed in the FBI documents, Israeli media have been quick to jump on it.

Israel's i24 News reports:

Newly released documents from the FBI suggest that Roger Stone, a senior aide in the 2016 Trump campaign, had one or more high-ranking contacts in the Israeli government willing to help the then-Republican Party nominee win the presidential election."

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reports:

Tantalizing hints" of "alleged clandestine contacts came to light in recent publication of redacted FBI documents."

The Times of Israel (TOI) the first to report on this, states:

The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,' the PM, and the Prime Minister."

TOI points out: "Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016," and reports circumstantial evidence that the "PM" mentioned in the document refers to Netanyahu:

One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows: 'On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME.MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC.' Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016."

TOI also notes that "the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs."

Ha'aretz also names Hanebi as the likely contact, and confirms that he "was in the United States on the dates mentioned, attending, among other things, a roll out of the first Israeli F-35 jet at a Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas."

The previously classified FBI affidavit says: "On or about August 12, 2016, [name redacted] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week."

Another section of the affidavit states: "On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [name redacted] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct." (Corsi refers to Jerome Corsi, a pro-Israel commentator and author known for extremist statements.)

Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump who worked on the 2016 campaign, was convicted last year in the Robert Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Stone has denied wrongdoing, consistently criticizing the accusations against him as politically motivated. Numerous analysts have found the "Russiagate" theory unconvincing, and the American Bar Association reported that Mueller's investigation "did not find sufficient evidence that President Donald Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the United States' 2016 election."

There have been previous suggestions that it was Israel that had most worked to influence the election.

[MORE]

The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago .

Comments

Thank for posting

Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

Laura Rozen who covers these things, has posted the FBI docs

@Blue Republic and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

The entire Court filing and Order sealing the FBI warrant app

@leveymg is reposted below, for those who want to read for themselves:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
for the
District of Columbia
In the Matter of the Search of
(Briefly describe the property to be searched
or identify the person by name and address)
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
ACCOUNT ,
)
Case: 1:18-sc-01518
Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
SEARCH AND SEIZURE WARRANT
To: Any authorized law enforcement officer
An application by a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government requests the search
of the following person or property located in the Northern District of California
(identify the person or describe the property to be searched and give its location):
See Attachment A.
I find that the affidavit(s), or any recorded testimony, establish probable cause to search and seize the person or property
described above, and that such search will reveal (identify the person or describe the property to be seized):
See Attachment B.
YOU ARE COMMANDED to execute this warrant on or before May 18, 2018 (not to exceed 14 days)
';$ in the daytime 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 0 at any time in the day or night because good cause has been established.
Unless delayed notice is authorized below, you must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the
person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken, or leave the copy and receipt at the place where the
property was taken.
The officer executing this warrant, or an officer present during the execution of the warrant, must prepare an inventory
as required by law and promptly return this warrant and inventory to Hon. Beryl A. Howell
(United States Magistrate Judge)
0 Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3103a(b), I find that immediate notification may have an adverse result listed in 18 U.S.C.
§ 2705 ( except for delay of trial), and authorize the officer executing this warrant to delay notice to the person who, or whose
property, will be searched or seized (check the awropriate box)
0 for __ days (not to exceed 30) 0 until, the facts justifying, the later specific date of
Date and time issued:
Judge 's signature
City and state: Washington, DC Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 1 of 35
AO 93 (Rev 11/13) Search and Seizure Warrant (Page 2)
Return
Case No.: Date and time warrant executed: Copy of warrant and inventory left with:
Inventory made in the presence of :
Inventory of the property taken and name of any person(s) seized:
Certification
I declare under penalty of pe1jury that this inventory is correct and was returned along with the original warrant to the
designated judge.
Date:
Executing officer's signature
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 2 of 35
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Cf erk, U.S. District & Bankrupicy
Gourts for tirn District of Columbl&
IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH
THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT
ORDER
Case: 1: 18-sc-01518
Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
The United States has filed a motion to seal the above-captioned warrant and related
documents, including the application and affidavit in support thereof ( collectively the "Warrant"),
and to require Google LLC, an electronic communication and/or remote computing services with
headquarters in Mountain View, California, not to disclose the existence or contents of the Warrant
pursuant to !8 U.S.C. § 2705(b).
The Court finds that the United States has established that a compelling governmental
interest exists to justify the requested sealing, and that there is reason to believe that notification
of the existence of the Warrant will seriously jeopardize the investigation, including by giving the
targets an opportunity to flee from prosecution, destroy or tamper with evidence, and intimidate
witnesses. See 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b)(2)-(5).
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the motion is hereby GRANTED, and that the
warrant, the application and affidavit in support thereof, all attachments thereto and other related
materials, the instant motion to seal, and this Order be SEALED until further order of the Court;
and
Page 1 of2
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 3 of 35
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b), Google and its
employees shall not disclose the existence or content of the Warrant to any other person ( except
attorneys for Google for the purpose of receiving legal advice) for a period of one year unless
otherwise ordered by the Court.
Date 41/Y>lf
THE HONORABLE BERYL A. HOWELL
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Page 2 of2
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 4 of 35
AO 106 (Rev. 04/10) Application for a Search Warrant
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
In the Matter of the Search of
(Briefly describe the property to be searched
or identify the person by name and address)
for the
District of Columbia
MA\t !,
•'II·\! • ·r 2018
,,t,c,rk, U.S. District & Bankruptcy
C . ,,gurt~ lar 1hli-•D1strlctof Gollf/nh]•
ase.1:18-sc-01518 ·'
Ass!gned To: Howell, Beryl A
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
ACCOUNT
)
)
)
)
)
)
Assign. Date: 5;412018 ·
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT
I, a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government, request a search warrant and state under
penalty of perjury that I have reason to believe that on the following person or property (identify the person or describe the
property to be searched and give ifs location):
See Attachment A.
located in the Northern District of _____ C,-_a-,.l"'if.=o,..rn~ia.._ __ , there is now concealed (identijj, the
person or describe the property to be seized):
See Attachment B.
The basis for the search under Fed. R. Crim. P. 4 l(c) is (check one or more):
~ evidence of a crime;
ief contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed;
r'lf property designed for use, intended for use, or used in committing a crime;
D a person to be arrested or a person who is unlawfully restrained.
The search is related to a violation of:
Code Section
18 U.S.C. § 2
· et al.
The application is based on these facts:
See attached Affidavit.
r;/ Continued on the attached sheet.
Offense Description
aiding and abetting
see attached affidavit
D Delayed notice of __ days (give exact ending date if more than 30 days: ______ ) is requested
under 18 U.S.C. § 3103a, the basis of which is set forth on the attached sheet.
~44 Reviewed by AUSA/SAUSA: Appbcant's signature
•Aaron Zelinsky (Special Counsel's Office) Andrew Mitchell, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
Printed name and title
Sworn to before me and signed in my presence.
Date:
City and state: Washington, D.C. Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 5 of 35
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
MAY ·· ti 1018
Clerk, LLS. District & Bar1i

#1 and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

The entire FBI affidavit supporting the FBI seizure order and

@leveymg request for sealing of the record -- Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Pages 3 to 35 for those who want to read for themselves:

Judge's signature
Hon. Bery[ A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge

Printed name and title

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Glcrk, LL$. District & Bar1kruptcy
Gourts tor tirn District of ColumtHa

IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Case: 1:18-sc-01518
Ass!gned To : Howell, BerylA Assign. Date : S/4/20 18
Description: Search & S izure Warrant

AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF AN APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT

I, Andrew Mitchell, having been first duly sworn, hereby depose and state as follows:

1. I make this affidavit in support of an application for a search warrant for

information associated with the following Google Account: (hereafter

the "Target Account 1"), that is stored at premises owned, maintained, controlled or operated by Google, Inc., a social networking company headquartered in Mountain View, California ("Google"). The information to be searched is described in the following paragraphs and in Attachments A and B. This affidavit is made in support of an application for a search warrant under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2703(a), 2703(b)(l)(A) and 2703(c)(l)(A)to require Google to disclose to the government copies of the information (including the content of communications) further described in Attachment A. Upon receipt of the information described. in Attachment A, government"authorized persons will review that information to locate the items described in Attachment B.
2. I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and have been since 2011. As a Special Agent of the FBI, I have received training and experience in investigating criminal and national security matters.
3. The facts in this affidavit come from my personal observations, my training and experience, and information obtained from other agents and witnesses. This affidavit is intended

to show merely that there is sufficient probable cause for the requested warrant and does not set fotth all of my knowledge about this matter.
4. Based on my training and experience and the facts as set forth in this affidavit, there is probable cause to believe that the Target Accounts contain communications relevant to violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2 (aiding and abetting), 18 U.S.C. § 3 (accessory after the fact), 18
U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of a felony), 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy), 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (making a

false statement); 18 U.S.C. §1651 (pe1jury); 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (unauthodzed access of a protected computer); 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud), , and 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (foreign contribution ban) (the "Subject
Offenses"). 1

5. As set forth below, in May 2016, Jerome CORSI provided contact information for
that there was an "OCTOBER SURPRISE COMING" and that Trump, ''[i]s going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intel." In that same time period, STONE communicated directly via Twitter with WikiLeaks, Julian ASSANGE, and Guccifer 2.0. On July 25, 2016, STONE emailed instructions to Jerome CORSI to "Get to Assange" in person at the Ecuadorian Embassy and "get pending WikiLeaks emails[.]" On August 2, 2016, CORSI emailed STONE back that,"Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I1m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging." On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they
needed to meet o determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct."

1 Federal law prohibits a foreign national from making, directly or indirectly, an expenditure or independent expenditure in connection with federal elections. 52 U.S.C. § 3012l(a)(l)(C); see also id. § 30101(9) & (17) (defining the terms "expenditure" and "independent expenditure").

(the Target Account) is le Account, which

sed to communicate with STONE and CORSI.

JURISDICTION

6. This Court has jurisdiction to issue the requested warrant because it is "a court of competent jurisdiction" as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2711. Id. §§ 2703(a), (b)(l)(A), & (c)(l)(A). Specifically, the Court is "a district court of the United State (including a magistrate judge of such a court) ... that has jurisqiction over the offense being investigated." 18 U.S.C.
§ 2711(3)(A)(i). The offense conduct included activities in Washington, D.C., as detailed below, including in paragraph 8.
PROBABLE CAUSE

A. U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) Assessment of Russian Government­ Backed Hacking Activity during the 2016 Presidential Election

7. On October 7, 2016, the U.S. Depa1tment of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement of an intelligence assessment of Russian activities and intentions during the 2016 presidential election. In the report, the USIC assessed the following, with emphasis added:
8. The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e mails frorri US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures

#1 and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

[Feb 29, 2020] Rand Paul says he will oppose John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani for Secretary of State

Notable quotes:

"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."

"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."

Nov 20, 2016 | rare.us

Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an op-ed for Rare that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.

"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,"

Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.

Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani is being considered for the post.

The Washington Post's David Weigel reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this morning that he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated for secretary of state."

"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war]. I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."

Related: Rand Paul: Will Donald Trump betray voters by hiring John Bolton?

[Feb 14, 2020] Is Apartheid the Inevitable Outcome of Zionism? by Henry Siegman

Highly recommended!

Actually any supremacist ideology produces something like an apartheid regime for other nationalities.

The current situation looks like a dead end with little chances of reconciliation, especially after recent killing of protesters by Israel army/snipers. But in general, it is iether a two state solution of equal rights for Palestinians and Jews in the same state. The elements of theocratic state should be eliminated and right wing parties outlawed as neofascist parties which threatens democracy.

Notable quotes:

"... The peace process and the two-state solution failed because America -- the only country on which Israel could count on for generous diplomatic, military and economic support, and therefore the only country that has the necessary leverage to influence Israel's policies -- allowed it to fail. Consequently, most Israelis, including many belonging to the Blue/White party, headed by General Benny Gantz, oppose granting any future Palestinian entity the most basic features of sovereignty, including control of its own borders. Gantz refused to form a unity government with the Likud because of Netanyahu's indictment for multiple crimes, not because of differences over peace policy. What doubts anyone might have had on this subject were removed when Gantz just announced that he embraces Netanyahu's intention to annex the Jordan Valley to Israel. ..."

Jan 22, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

The threat of a new war with Iran that might have replicated what has been the worst disaster in the history of America's international misadventures -- George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq based on fabricated lies -- sucked the air out of all other international diplomatic activity, not least of what used to be called the Middle East peace process.

Yet the failure of the peace process has not been the consequence of recent mindless and destructive actions by Donald Trump and of the clownish shenanigans of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was charged with helping Israeli hardliners in nailing down permanently the Palestinian occupation. For all the damage they caused (mainly to Palestinians), prospects for a two-state solution actually ended during President Barack Obama's administration, despite Secretary of State John Kerry's energetic efforts to renew the stalled negotiations. They were not resumed because Obama, like his predecessors, failed to take the tough measures that were necessary to overcome Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, notwithstanding his pledge in his Bar-Ilan speech of 2009 to implement the agreements of the Oslo accords.

Yes, Obama and Kerry did warn that Israel's continued occupation might lead to an Israeli apartheid regime. But knowing how deeply the accusation of an incipient Israeli apartheid could anger right-wingers in Israel and in the U.S., they repeatedly followed that warning with the assurance that "America will always have Israel's back." It was the sequence of this two-part statement that convinced Netanyahu that AIPAC had succeeded in getting American presidents to protect Israel's impunity. Had Obama and Kerry reversed that sequence, first noting that the U.S. had always had Israel's back, and then warning that Israel is now on the verge of trading its democracy for apartheid, the warning might have had quite different implications for Israel's government.

The peace process and the two-state solution failed because America -- the only country on which Israel could count on for generous diplomatic, military and economic support, and therefore the only country that has the necessary leverage to influence Israel's policies -- allowed it to fail. Consequently, most Israelis, including many belonging to the Blue/White party, headed by General Benny Gantz, oppose granting any future Palestinian entity the most basic features of sovereignty, including control of its own borders. Gantz refused to form a unity government with the Likud because of Netanyahu's indictment for multiple crimes, not because of differences over peace policy. What doubts anyone might have had on this subject were removed when Gantz just announced that he embraces Netanyahu's intention to annex the Jordan Valley to Israel.

For the Palestinians, territory is the most critical of the final status issues. The current internationally recognized borders that separate Israel and the Occupied Territories reduced the territory originally assigned to Palestinians in the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947 from roughly half of Palestine to 22 percent. Israel, which was assigned originally roughly the other half of Palestine, now has 78 percent, not including Palestinian territory Israel has confiscated for its illegal settlements.

No present or prospective Palestinian leadership will accept any further reduction of territory from their promised state. Given the territory they already lost in 1947, and again in 1949, and given Israel's refusal to accept the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, is it really reasonable to expect Palestinians to give up any further territory? Where else other than the West Bank could Palestine refugees return to?

The one-state solution that is preferred by many Israelis is essentially a continuation of the present de facto apartheid. It is not the one-state alternative any Palestinian would accept. Repeated polling has shown that a majority of Jewish Israelis are unprepared to grant equal rights to Palestinians in a one-state arrangement. This opposition is unsurprising, for the inclusion in Israel's body politic of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state, for Israel's non-Jewish citizens would then outnumber its Jewish ones, and may already do so. Of course, Israel could contrive a non-voting status for the West Bank's Palestinians, something many Jewish Israelis and political parties actually advocate, but that would not deceive anyone. It would mean the formal end of Israel's democracy.

The foregoing notwithstanding, I have long maintained that if Israel were compelled to choose between one state that grants full equality to Palestinians now under occupation and two states that conform substantially to existing agreements and international law, and no other options were available to it, the majority of Israelis would opt for two states. Why? Because as noted above, the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose any arrangement that might produce a Palestinian majority with the same rights Israeli Jewish citizens enjoy. Of course, Israel has never been compelled to make such a choice, nor will they be compelled to do so by the international community.

However, they could be compelled to do so by the Palestinians, but only if Palestinians were finally to expel their current leadership and choose a more honest and courageous one. That new leadership would have to shut down the Palestinian Authority, which its present leaders allowed Israel to portray as an arrangement that places Palestinians on the path to statehood, of course in some undefined future. Israel has deliberately perpetuated that myth to conceal its real intention to keep the current occupation unchanged. The new Palestinian leadership would have to declare that since Israel has denied them their own state and established a one-state reality, Palestinians will no longer deny that reality. Consequently, the national struggle will now be for full citizenship in the one state that Israel has forced them into. I have argued for the past two decades that the one-state option is far more likely to open a path to a two-state solution, however counter intuitive that may seem to be. Palestinians rejected it categorically from the outset, but younger Palestinians have come around to accepting it -- even preferring it to the two-state model.

Unlike the struggle for a two-state solution, a goal that has so easily been manipulated by Israel to mean whatever serves their real goal of preventing such an outcome -- and also so easily allowed international actors to pretend they have not given up their efforts to achieve that outcome, an anti-apartheid struggle does not lend itself to such deceptions. South Africa has taught the world too well what apartheid looks like, as well as how the international community could deal with it. Of course, South Africa has also shown how long and bloody a struggle against apartheid can be, and the terrible price paid by the victims of such a regime. But Palestinians already live in such a regime, and have for long been paying a terrible price for their subjugation.

Yet deeper and more troubling questions are raised by the choices that now face Israel, including whether the original idea of the Zionist movement of a state that is both Jewish and democratic is not deeply oxymoronic, a question that not only Israelis but Jews outside of Israel must address. That question is underscored by the challenges to India's democracy posed by its prime minister's decision to turn his country into a Hindu nation. It is a question that did not escape some of the founders of the Zionist movement, who argued that Zionism should define the state as Jewish only in its ethnic and secular cultural dimensions. But that this is not how Jewish identity is treated in Israel is undeniable.

Imagine if Israel's laws defining national identity and citizenship, as recently reformulated by Israel's Knesset, were adopted by the U.S. Congress or by other Western democratic countries, and if Christianity in its "cultural dimensions" were declared to be their national identity, with citizenship also granted by conversion to the dominant religion, as is now the case in Israel, where arrangements for Jewish religious conversions are part of the Prime Minister's office.

Is this not what America's founders, and the waves of immigrants, including European Jews, sought to escape from? And how would Jews react today to legislation in the U.S. Congress that would explicitly seek to maintain the majority status of Christians in the U.S.? Are Jews to take pride in a Jewish state that adopts citizenship requirements that mirror those advocated by white Christian supremacists? These supremacists have already proclaimed jubilantly that Israel's policies vindicate the ones they have long been advocating.

It is true, of course, that for some Jews, aware of the history of anti-Semitism that has spanned the ages, and especially the Holocaust, Zionism's contradictions with democratic principles are an unpleasant but inescapable dilemma they can live with. As a survivor of the Holocaust, I can understand that. But I also understand that the likely consequences of these contradictions are not benign, and can yield their own terrible outcomes, particularly when they lead to the dalliances by the prime minister of a Jewish state with right-wing racist and xenophobic heads of state and of political parties that have fascist and anti-Semitic parentage.

Legislation proposed in the U.S. Congress and by Trump, and recently celebrated by his son-in-law Kushner in a New York Times op-ed, proposing that criticism of Zionism be outlawed as antisemitism , would be laughable, were it not so clearly -- and outrageously -- intended to deny freedom of speech on this subject. Yet laughable it is, for its first target would have to be Jews -- not liberal left-wingers but the most Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, in Israel and in America.

At the very inception of the Zionist movement 150 years ago, not only the Haredim but the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jewry everywhere was opposed to Zionism, which it considered to be a Jewish heresy, not only because the Zionists were mostly secularists, but because of an oath taken by Jewish leaders after the destruction of the Second Temple following their exile from Palestine, that Jews would not reestablish a Jewish kingdom except following the messianic era. Zionism was also bitterly opposed by much of the world's Jewish Reform movement, many of whose leaders insisted that Jewishness is a religion, not a political identity.

Much of Orthodox Jewry did not end its opposition to Zionism until after the war of 1967, but many if not most Haredis continue to oppose Zionism as heresy. Most of its members refuse to serve in Israel's military, to celebrate Israel's Independence Day, sing its national anthem, and do not allow prayers in their synagogues for the wellbeing of Israel's political leaders. Trump, Kushner, and the U.S. Congress would have to arrest them as anti-Semites.

I have no doubt that Trump's rage at the Jewish chairmen of the two Congressional committees that led the procedures for his impeachment will sooner or later explode in anti-Semitic expletives. The only reason it has not done so yet is because of Trump's fear of jeopardizing Evangelical support and Sheldon Adelson's mega bucks. After all, Trump already told us that the neo-Nazi rioters in Charlottesville declaiming "Jews will not replace us" included "very fine people." Netanyahu never criticized Trump's statement, for he too does not want to jeopardize certain relationships, namely the "very fine people" he has embraced -- leaders in Hungary, Poland, Austria, Italy, Brazil, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

If Trump's son-in-law is searching for anti-Semites, he should have been told they are far closer at hand than in America's schools, for they are ensconced in the White House. They are also to be found in Jerusalem where they are being accorded honors by Netanyahu. The anti-Semitic dog whistling contained in Trump's attacks on the two Jewish congressmen were not misunderstood by his hardcore supporters -- who now include the entire leadership of the Republican party -- who Trump needs to take him to victory in the coming presidential elections, or to keep him in the White House were he to lose those elections.

If apartheid is coming (or has come) out of Zion, it should not shock that what may come out of Washington is a repeat by Trump's Republican shock troops of what occurred in Berlin in 1933, when the Bundestag was taken over by the Nazi party and ended Germany's democracy.

[Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story

Highly recommended!

Edited for clarity

Notable quotes:

"... Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment. ..."

"... In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated. ..."

Feb 02, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , February 2, 2020 10:40 pm

Far more interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story.

Potential whistleblower (actually CIA informant) was from NSC as were Fiona Hill, Alex Vindman and a couple of other major Ukrainegate players.

In this NSC coup d'état against the President or what ? About earlier role of NSC see

https://off-guardian.org/2020/02/01/secret-wars-forgotten-betrayals-global-tyranny-who-is-really-in-charge-of-the-u-s-military/

As for "evil republican senators", they would be viewed as evil by electorate if and only only if actual crimes of Trump regime like Douma false flag, Suleimani assassination (actually here Trump was set up By Bolton and Pompeo) and other were discussed.

Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment.

Both sides are afraid to discuss real issues, real Trump regime crimes.

Schiff proved to be patently inept in this whole story even taking into account limitations put by Kabuki theater on him, and in case of Trump acquittal *which is "highly probable" borrowing May government terminology in Skripals case :-) to resign would be a honest thing for him to do.

Assuming that he has some honestly left. Which is highly doubtful with statements like:

"The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia here."

And

"More than 15,000 Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies. 15,000."

Actually it was the USA interference in Ukraine (aka Nulandgate) that killed 15K Ukrainians, mainly Donbas residents and badly trained recruits of the Ukrainian army sent to fight them, as well as volunteers of paramilitary "death squads" like Asov battalion financed by oligarch Igor Kolomyskiy

In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated.

[Jan 31, 2020] Tucker John Bolton has always been a snake

Bolton was appointed by Adelson.

Jan 27, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Bolton's tell-all book leaks during Senate trial. #FoxNews

---

Yamaha Venture , 3 days ago

Mitt Romney is a joke.

Michael Harvey , 2 days ago

John Bolton wants war everywhere to line his pockets with money.

Stephen C , 1 day ago

The "right" gets the left, but doesn't agree with them. The "left" doesn't understand the "right".

Citizen Se7en , 2 days ago

"Bolton's resignation was one of the highlights of the president's first term." Truer words have never been spoken.

Jack Albright , 2 days ago

This story is also called "the scorpion and the frog".

Ragnar Lothbrok , 3 days ago

John Bolton should be given a helmet and a gun and sent to the next war. Let's see how he likes it.

Stratchona , 1 day ago

Trump.." I don't know John Bolton,never met him,don't know what he does."

Jaret Glenn , 2 days ago

Time to investigate Romney's son working for the oil company in the Ukraine.

Regan Orr , 2 days ago

Romney's Holy Underwear is Cutting off the Blood Supply to his Deep St Brain!

Marjo , 2 days ago (edited)

I never liked Bolton. I sensed he was out for himself, at anyone's expense. War monger too. He had many people fooled.

Shara Kirkby , 3 days ago

Bolton wants war anywhere and forever!

David Dorrell , 1 day ago (edited)

Frickin' Globalist peckerwoods. John Bolton and his pal, Mitt Romney.

Olivier Bolton , 2 days ago

Bolton wanted war so he got the boot...the fact he brings out his book now just looks like vengean$$

Max Liftoff , 2 days ago

2:30 Because Bolton never served in the military he truly passionately loved war :)) LMAO Tucker nailed it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , 1 day ago

The left's championing of John Bolton is further proof that TDS has made their minds turn to sludge.

j abe , 3 days ago

Can someone expaine to me how mit romney is still geting votes from ppl

Mark Whitley , 2 days ago

Bolton is a war mongering narcissist that wanted his war, didn't get it, & is now acting like a spoilt child that didn't get his way & is laying on the floor kicking & screaming!

Tim Fronimos , 2 days ago

Regarding John Bolton's book, is this the first book that he's colored. just curious

newuserandhiscrew 22 , 2 days ago

Everyone: Bolton: "take me in oh tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake"

Brittany Ward , 1 day ago

I can't fathom that people actually believe everything the media says!

[Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning

Highly recommended!

Trump is lying. Bolton was appointed by Adelson and Trump can't refuse Adelson protégé.

Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning:
"For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and ... many more mistakes of judgement [sic], gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"

IMO, Trump is a fantastic POTUS for this day and age, but he wasn't on his A game when he brought Bolton onboard. He should have known better and, was, apparently, warned. Maybe Trump thought he could control him and use him as a threatening pit bull. Mistake. Bolton is greedy as well as vindictive.

Posted by: Eric Newhill | 29 January 2020 at 09:30 AM

[Jan 29, 2020] Pompeo Iranian Proxy Mobilizing in America's Backyard

Notable quotes:

"... Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources." ..."

"... According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the series of crippling sanctions the Trump administration has put on Iran. ..."

Jan 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Why is Pompeo suddenly directing increasingly heated rhetoric towards Iran and its proxies in South America?

"Anti-Iran hawks like Pompeo like to emphasize that Iran is not a defensively-minded international actor, but rather that it is offensively-minded and poses a direct threat to the United States," said Max Abrahms, associate professor of political science at Northeastern and fellow of the Quincy Institute said in an interview with The American Conservative. "And so for obvious reasons, underscoring Hezbollah's international tentacles helps to sell their argument that Iran needs to be dealt with in a military way, and that the key to dealing with Iran is through confrontation and pressure."

Stories highlighting the role of Hezbollah in America's backyard "are almost always peddled by anti-Iran hawks," he said.

Like Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, who aligns with the argument that Hezbollah has been populating South America since the days of the Islamic revolution.

"From at least the 1980s, many Lebanese fled to South America, and among that flow Hezbollah embedded themselves," she told The American Conservative in a recent interview. Their activity "really expanded throughout the continent" during the presidencies of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

During that time, Lopez added, "there was a really strong relationship that developed Iranians established diplomatic facilities, enormous embassies and consulates, embedded IRGC cover positions and MOIS (intelligence services) within commercial companies and mosques and Islamic centers. This took place in Brazil in particular but Venezuela also."

Iran and Hezbollah intensified their involvement throughout the region in technical services like tunneling, money laundering, and drug trafficking. Venezuela offered Iran an international banking work-around during the period of sanctions, said Lopez.

Obviously security analysts like Lopez and even Pompeo, have been following this for years. But the timing here, as the Senate impeachment inquiry heats up, looks suspicious.

Last week, just as it looks increasingly likely that former national security advisor John Bolton and Pompeo himself will be hauled before the Senate as witnesses about the foreign aid hold-up to Ukraine, Pompeo praised Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala for designating "Iran-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization," and slammed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for embracing the terrorist group.

Hezbollah "has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro. This is unacceptable," Pompeo said when he met with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last week.

Asked by Bloomberg News how significant a role Hezbollah plays in the region, Pompeo responded, "too much."

From the interview:

Pompeo : " I mentioned it in Venezuela, but in the Tri-Border Area as well. This is again an area where Iranian influence – we talk about them as the world's largest state sponsor of terror. We do that intentionally. It's the world's largest; it's not just a Middle East phenomenon. So while – when folks think of Hezbollah, they typically think of Syria and Lebanon, but Hezbollah has now put down roots throughout the globe and in South America, and it's great to see now multiple countries now having designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It means we can work together to stamp out the security threat in the region."

Question: "I'm struck by this, because even hearing you – what you're saying, right, now – I mean, to take a step back, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization has found a home in America's backyard."

Pompeo: "It's – it's something that we've been talking about for some time. When you see the scope and reach of what the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime has done, you can't forget they tried to kill someone in the United States of America. They've conducted assassination campaigns in Europe. This is a global phenomenon. When we say that Iran is the leading destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world, it's because of this terror activity that they have now spread as a cancer all across the globe. "

Pompeo has also been publicly floating increasing sanctions on Venezuela. He called the behavior of Maduro's government "cartel-like" and "terror-like," intensifying the sense that there is a real security "threat" in our hemisphere.

Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources."

There's no question that Hezbollah has a presence in South America, said Abrahms, "but the nature of its presence has been politicized."

According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the