Category: Israel Lobby

Why is Democracy Now shielding “war for oil” against reality?

In its headlines for December 14, Democracy Now followed the report on Blair’s confession about his committment to regime change in Iraq regardless of the absence of WMDs, with this:

Iraq Signs Oil Deals with 10 Foreign Companies

Blair’s comments come just as Iraq has signed a series of major oil deals. A two-day auction ended Saturday with ten foreign companies winning access to Iraq’s massive reserves. The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell won the rights to the Manjoon oilfield near Basra, one of the world’s largest. The US-based Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum also submitted winning bids.

The wording is careful: it appears to suggest a connection between what Blair said and the Iraqi oil contracts. The war in other words was for oil. That is a remrkable conclusion to draw from news about an auction in which US companies were the big losers (hence DN’s careful choice of the words ‘foreign companies’). Unless Democracy Now is suggesting that the US waged a war for Russia, Norway and China — biggest winners in the auction — it is not clear why it continues to insist on the discredited “war for oil” argument? Why is it so difficult to admit who actually conceived the war?

Continue reading “Why is Democracy Now shielding “war for oil” against reality?”

What the US Elite Really Thinks About Israel

Senator William Fulbright had first called the US Congress an Israeli Occupied Territory

Our friend Jeffrey Blankfort on the surprising results of CFR survey — surprising, to the extent that it goes against the lefitst conventional wisdom which has accorded Israel the status of a ‘strategic asset’; much less so, however, when it comes to revealing the level ignorance about the situation in Pakistan. For background, also see Blankfort’s rejoinder to Joseph Massad’s fatuous attack on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

The Council on Foreign Relations is always near the top of the Left’s list of bogeymen that stand accused of pulling the strings of US foreign policy. It is right up there with the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, right? Wrong. If that was the case,  those arguing that US support for Israel is based on it being a “strategic asset”  will have a hard time explaining a Pew Research Center survey on America’s Place in the World, taken of 642 CFR members between October 2 and November 16. The Pew poll  not only reveals that the overwhelming majority, two-thirds of the members of this elite foreign policy institution, believes that the United States has gone overboard in favoring Israel, it doesn’t consider Israel to have have much importance to the US in the first place.

Continue reading “What the US Elite Really Thinks About Israel”

Bay Area Premier of “My Name is Rachel Corrie”

by Charlotte Silver

On November 19, 2009, My Name is Rachel Corrie made its Bay Area premier at Stanford University.  Amanda Gelender, senior at Stanford University, produced a staged reading of the play as a part of her senior thesis at Stanford University. Amanda is my friend. She was also my college classmate and we worked together in several campus political organizations, including the student-led Israel divestment campaign.

I attended opening night and along with a sold-out audience was struck by the poignancy of the play and Amanda’s subtle and deeply moving performance. Rachel Corrie was a 23 year-old American woman who traveled to Gaza in 2003 during the Second Intifada. She was killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer driven by Israeli Defense Forces as she attempted to prevent the IDF from demolishing the home of a Palestinian family. My Name is Rachel Corrie consists entirely of words written by Corrie herself, recorded in diary entries and emails from Rachel’s early childhood until a few days before her death. Gelender breathes vivid life into Rachel’s words, which themselves reveal the keen sensitivity and eloquence of a poetic nature.

Amanda Gelender, the lead and visionary behind this production, had been waiting to obtain the rights for the play for nearly two years. But obtaining rights is not always the only hurdle to securing a production of Rachel. Since its London premier in 2005, several professional American and Canadian theaters have seen their efforts to mount a production of this one-woman show quashed by vigorous opposition from powerful forces.  The charge is always the same: the play is anti-Semitic. Gelender’s successful production reflects the changing tide that is occurring within the American public’s relationship to Israel and anti-Semitism.

Continue reading “Bay Area Premier of “My Name is Rachel Corrie””

Réalité EU: Front group for the Washington based Israel Project?

A Spinwatch Investigation: by Tom Mills and David Miller, 30 October 2009

Realite EU - Not actually based in the EU at all

Spinwatch has uncovered evidence that an apparently London based organisation offering expertise on Iran to journalists and politicians is a covert propaganda operation run by a pro-Israel organisation in the United States.

The organisation, which is called Réalité-EU, has direct connections to the Israel Project, a hardline pro Israel organisation based in Washington DC. Both Réalité-EU and the Israel Project also appear to be connected to a Jewish organisation – B’nai B’rith International, which is also active in pro Israel campaigning

Réalité-EU was at one time linked to the former Shadow Security Minister Patrick Mercer, raising further concerns about the Conservative MP’s links to individuals and groups involved in exaggerating and even fabricating domestic and international threats for personal and political ends. These activities have previously been reported by Spinwatch as well as other sources.

Réalité-EU has claimed to be based at offices in London, but e-mails received from the organisation were sent from a mail server registered to the Washington offices of B’nai B’rith International.[1] An expert from Réalité-EU who spoke to Spinwatch denied ‘any connection whatsoever’ with B’nai B’rith

Asked whether Réalité-EU receives any funding or direct support from the pro-Israel pressure group, the expert replied, ‘Definitely not,’ but added, ‘I’m not at all involved in any development [i.e. funding] questions so I really don’t know exactly who the individuals are and where they come from.’[2]

Continue reading “Réalité EU: Front group for the Washington based Israel Project?”

John Mearsheimer on Israel National Radio

John Mearsheimer
John Mearsheimer

John Mearsheimer, during his 2008 visit to Israel, interviewed on Arutz Sheva‘s Israel National Radio show.

John does a great job arguing for his positions yet his extremist pro-settlement hosts seem determined to paint him as an anti-Semite. All Mearsheimer really argues is that he wants it to be possible to criticise Israel’s bad policies in the United States – it’s difficult to see why any sensible person could have a problem with this.

Toward the end, after they’ve ditched John, they even claim the next Holocaust will be in America and that it’s being brought about by a new sophisticated anti-Semitism, contained in Mearsheimers & Walt’s book The Israel Lobby, and this new anti-Semitism is the “most dangerous thing on the market today.”

Mearsheimer on Israel National Radio (48:31) | MP3

Continue reading “John Mearsheimer on Israel National Radio”

US: Israel’s Puppet Government

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, on Russia Today, explains that when it comes to the Middle East, the US Government is the puppet of Israel (or rather its lobby).

Included below is his recent counterpunch article on Israel’s kidnapping of the  ‘Spirit of Humanity’ activists titled Pirates of the Mediterranean.

Continue reading “US: Israel’s Puppet Government”

Web 2.0 warfare from Gaza to Iran

Twitterati hack official Iranian websites
Twitterati hack official Iranian websites

by Tom Griffin

Recent weeks have seen an explosion of interest in Twitter, a social networking application which has been used by thousands of internet users to pass on news, views and rumours about the situation unfolding in Iran in the wake of the disputed presidential election.

The Iranian struggle is not however, the first conflict in which emerging ‘Web 2.0’ social media technologies have played a significant role. Israel’s offensive in Gaza in December 2008 – January 2009 provides an important precedent which shows that, despite its undoubted potential for empowering new forms of bottom-up organisation, the social web is not immune from very traditional propaganda techniques.

Operation Cast Lead – The First Social Media War
The roots of Israel’s media strategy in Gaza emerged in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War. The Winograd Commission appointed by the Israeli Government to look into the conflict criticised a lack of co-ordination in the country’s media effort. This led to the creation of the National Information Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office to co-ordinate efforts across government departments.[1][2]

Continue reading “Web 2.0 warfare from Gaza to Iran”

Liberals, Conservatives battle for Jewish support in Canada

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, celebrating the
60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The following is an illuminating look at Canada where a perverse race to the bottom is taking place to gain Zionist electoral support.  Apparently Michael Ignatieff is trying to out-Zion that staunch supporter of Israeli crimes Stephen Harper.  Quite a task: one that has Ignatieff appologising for daring to call the bombing of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, 2006, a war-crime.

By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press:

The fact Liberal MP Anita Neville is Jewish just didn’t seem to hold as much sway with her Winnipeg community last election.

Neville watched as some of her formerly faithful Jewish supporters left for the Conservative party, impressed by its unequivocal pro-Israel stance.

It was a phenomenon felt in other Liberal ridings with significant Jewish populations. One of those ridings actually went blue.

“I have some constituents who for them, (Israel) is the only issue, and they will vote based on that issue and we were not in a good place at that time and not clear in our responses,” Neville said of the period before the 2008 campaign.

Continue reading “Liberals, Conservatives battle for Jewish support in Canada”

Are British Jews ending their affair with Labour?

David “I am a Zionist” Cameron, leader of the opposition, said recently, at the Conservative Friends of Israel (CfI) annual business lunch, that his belief in Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself was “indestructible”. No surprises there.  He did however refer to old supporters giving a special thank you to some of the party’s biggest donors and, more importantly, he welcomed new arrivals such as Victor Blank.  Victor, former chairman of Llyods Banking Group and one of Gordon Brown’s favourite businessmen, is more commonly associated with Labour Friends of Israel (LfI) and this switching of sides seems to have prompted the Guardian podcast show Sounds Jewish to ask “are British Jews ending their affair with New Labour and returning to the Tories?”

Stuart Polak, director of Conservative Friends of Israel (13:35): MP3

Continue reading “Are British Jews ending their affair with Labour?”

Iraq Inquiry: Freedman & Gilbert

Notorious propagandist Martin Gilbert
Notorious propagandist Martin Gilbert

The Iraq war was driven by the neo-conservative, Israel firsters, as the beginning of a plan to reshape the Middle East in Israel’s favour. In the Independent, Richard Ingrams explains that by having at least two Zionists, on a committee of five, the Iraq war inquiry is unlikely to explore this.

For more on Freedman and Gilbert see Michael Crick’s Newsnight blog where he opines that “critics of the war might argue Sir Lawrence was himself one of the causes of the war!”

Sir Martin Gilbert, the allegedly distinguished historian who is one of those appointed to investigate the Iraq war, has let it be known that one day in the future Bush and Blair might be seen in the same light as Roosevelt and Churchill. A good example of the rule that when it comes to talking nonsense it’s hard to beat a historian.

Continue reading “Iraq Inquiry: Freedman & Gilbert”