Norwegian Judeophobia in Cartoons -- Expel the Norwegian Ambassador!! Stop the Quislings Now!!

The bad faith of Norway's government is blatant and outrageous. Not only does Norway recognize the Hamas government of the "Palestinian Authority" zones, which indeed rejects the Oslo Accords negotiated by Norwegian mediation --indeed rejects any peace with Israel-- but most of the Norwegian press insults Israel and the Jewish people. Here is an acount by Erez Uriely who lives in Norway.

ANTI-SEMITISM IN CONTEMPORARY NORWEGIAN CARICATURES

Erez Uriely

Jewish mainstream media associate Norway with efforts to bring peace to Israel and the Middle East. Accordingly, we would expect the Norwegian media to propagate tolerance towards Jews. But in reality, the Norwegian media (and its politicians!) imprint in the public mind the ideas that Jews are a negative and arrogant people who care little for others; that they steal and cheat; that they are the source of violence, the cause of wars and therefore a danger to world peace. This anti-Jewish propaganda must be taken seriously, since everybody knows that pests must be eliminated – a central idea that enabled the Holocaust and other persecutions of Jews throughout history.

As usual these days, rather than blaming the “Jews”, the target is defined as “Israel” – the land and the country of the Jews. This propaganda is served in a sophisticated manner: packed in nice words, moral motives and love for humanity. Thus, the old
attitude towards the Jews continues its venomous life, more intensive and stronger than ever. Contrary to the common myth, anti-Judaism does not originate from the masses, but from leading politicians, major church leaders and leaders of major state-sponsored organizations, who expend vast efforts to present “Israel”, i.e., the Jews, as evil.

The most active anti-Jewish campaigners in Norway are of the “left-wing”, including politicians and the journalists who control the mass communication media. The mainstream newspapers demonize the Jews of Israel, creating sympathy for their enemies. The fastest and most effective means to spread that message is through caricatures.

Norwegian caricatures are not as crude and grotesque as the anti-Jewish caricatures that are so common in the Muslim world, but they are worse than the caricatures spread by the Nazi Germans. We must wake up and resolutely stop anti-Judaism propaganda from being distributed by the main Norwegian communication channels to the people. This propaganda was spread before the Holocaust and it must not be allowed again, against those who survived. [English summary of Hebrew article, Nativ March 2007]

Erez Uriely is the founder and director of the Norwegian Israel Center against Anti-Semitism (NIS) which focuses on uncovering expressions of hostility in the media and public organizations against Jews and Israel. EU has published numerous articles in the Norwegian media.

One of the main ways in which Norway does its work of wrecking the peace throughout the world is the Orwellian "peace prize." The Nobel Peace Prize was endowed by the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel. He assigned the Norwegian government [which appoints a committee for the purpose] to award the yearly prize, which entails a substantial amount of money. Otherwise, some awardees might turn it down for the sake of their honor. The Nobel Peace Prize is separate from the Nobel literature and science prizes which are awarded by Sweden.

Here is a cartoon from the Israeli press [the cartoonist Shiloh] about the absurdity and hypocrisy of the "peace prize."

Hanging on the wall alongside the pictures of mass murderers Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, and Nasrallah, is "Nobel Peace Prize." Arafat asks his American guest, pointing at the prize certificate, "Did Sharon ever get anything like that?"

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Coming: more on Norway, peace follies, Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem, etc.

How the Arabs Treated the Europeans before Israel Was Reborn

The Judeophobic paranoia of some people in the West gets the better of them from time to time, overcoming their reason, although it is hard to say that it overcomes their knowledge of history which is probably minuscule in any event. We are often told nowadays by politicians in Europe and the USA [Carter, Baker, etc] that the West's problems with Arabs derive from alleged EU or American support for Israel. But being ignorant as they are about history, and perhaps not caring at all to know the historical truth, knowing mainly whom they don't like and cultivating their own Judeophobia, they do not support their claim with any historical perspective. Indeed, the Barbary pirates of the North African coast regularly attacked European shipping in the Mediterranean, as well as the coasts of Italy, France, and Spain, as well as sailing as far as Cornwall in southwestern England, and Ireland, and even Iceland. They were seeking to capture slaves among the kufar [kaffirs = unbelievers; or harbis = enemies]. Cesar Famin pointed out in 1853 that this was not simple piracy but was religiously motivated, was part of jihad.

More recently, a British researcher has published the account of an English boy taken captive by the Barbary Pirates --also called Sally Rovers by the British-- hundreds of years ago, while Michael Oren has published his book on the history of United States relations with the Arab-Muslim world going back to the time of American independence more than 200 years ago [Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, 2006. Oren's book supplies abundant details about the jihad piracy of the 18th and 19th centuries.]

Here is an account by a French Catholic author of the impact on France of this piracy:

From Tripoli to Mogador, the Barbary provinces of the Ottoman Empire lived in semi-independence, presenting an inhospitable coast to the Western Mediterranean, a dream haven for piracy. Every year, European fleets paid heavy tribute in goods and men to the Muslim corsairs. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 17th century, three thousand Frenchmen were held as slaves at Algiers and the same number at Marrakesh.

Meanwhile, we had been in diplomatic relations with Algiers since 1564, with Fez and Marrakesh since 1577, with Tunis starting from 1582. But our consuls in these different cities were practically without influence in dealing with the Turkish authorities, [who were] derelict in their duty, and our treaties made with them remained dead letters. Only piracy made the law. If politics was powerless to prevent enslavement, charity [by churchmen] was used to alleviate the fate of the slaves, even to ransom them. [Jean-Marie Sedes, pp 26-27; see data below]

De Tripoli a` Mogador, les provinces barbaresques de l'Empire ottoman vivaient dans une quasi-independance et presentaient, face a la Mediterranee occidentale, une cote inhospitaliere, repaire reve' pour la piraterie. Chaque annee, les flottes europeennes payaient un lourd tribut en marchandise et en hommes aux corsaires musulmans. On estimait au debut du XVIIe siecle, que trois mille Francais etaient retenus comme esclaves en Alger et autant a Marrakesh.

Nous etions cependant en relations diplomatiques avec Alger, des 1564, avec Fez et Marrakech depuis 1577, avec Tunis a partir de 1582. Mais nos consuls dans ces differentes villes etaient pratiquement sans influence aupres d'autorites turques defaillantes, et nos traites passes avec elles demeuraient lettres mortes. Seule, la piraterie faisait la loi. Si la politique etait impuissante a empecher l'esclavage, la charite s'employait a soulager le sort des esclaves, voire meme a les racheter. [Jean-Marie Sedes, Histoire des Missions francaises ("Que Sais-Je" Paris: PUF 1950), p 26-27, aussi pp 54-55]

NOTE that Barbary means North Africa, the region from Libya to Morocco of today, presumably named after the indigenous Berber people, whose remnants today are subject to Arab states.
Sally Rovers was a British name for the Barbary pirates, specifically referring to the port of Sale' on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Morocco, by the way, was never part of the Ottoman Empire as the author, Sedes, mistakenly indicates. It was an independent kingdom with its own sultan and various local rulers. The rulers of the pirate ports --Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Marrakesh, etc.-- were Muslims, they were not necessarily Turks, although the word Turk used to be used to apply to Muslims generally. The Barbary Coast rulers could be Arabs, Berbers, Turks, or other Muslims.

Note also that France --as well as other European states-- did little to free their subjects enslaved by the pirates, although there was a flourishing business in arranging ransom for pirate captives whose families had the means to pay. The recent capture by Iran of British sailors fits the older pattern. Iran and Britain have been at peace and have diplomatic relations. So jailing them and not letting British diplomats in Iran meet with them is a violation of international law. Most likely, the Iranian government wants to bargain with them to alleviate or cancel the embargo voted by the Security Council. Yet, international law requires that states at peace allow diplomats to visit their prisoners who are citizens of the other state. The capture by Hamas and Hizbullah of Israeli soldiers and holding them incomunicado fits the pattern too, although Israel has been at war with these terrorist groups that do not formally or officially represent states [albeit both Hamas & Hizbullah are funded and guided by Iran].

International law requires states at war to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross [IRCR] to visit prisoners, bring them and take from them messages for their families, plus give them personal supplies [i.e., toothpaste]. Yet Hamas, which is part of the government of the "Palestinian Authority," and Hizbullah, which has been part of the Lebanese government, have not allowed the ICRC to visit the Israeli prisoners. Three Israeli prisoners [one of them a Muslim Arab himself] were captured by Hizbullah in 2000. They were killed in captivity, although later their bodies were returned to Israel in exchange for the release of hundreds of Hizbullah prisoners in Israel's hands. These violations of international law which victimized Israel do not seem to bother either the major Western powers [which finance the Hamas' "Palestinian Authority"] or the International Committee of the Red Cross itself, which just happened to have collaborated in the German Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the associated Holocaust.

Cesar Famin's explanation of Barbary piracy was insightful, although some later writers seem to lack his understanding of the phenomenon. Famin clearly saw it as an expression of jihad, of an unending Muslim war on the Dar al-Harb, those parts of the world not under Islamic rule.
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Coming: more on Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, more on James Baker, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

Expel the Norwegian Ambassador!! Stop the Quislings Now!!

Norway has compounded its original sin of facilitating the lethal Oslo Accords. It has renewed relations with a government in the "Palestinian Authority" zones that does not accept those accords, that does not agree to make peace with Israel, that calls for terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians. The Hamas Charter is clear enough in its anti-Jewish theological hatred. There is little mystery about that. Yet none of this matters to the Quisling Judeophobes ruling Norway now. The socialist government in Norway today is the heir of Vidkun Quisling, the Nazi collaborationist ruler of Norway during World War 2 and the Holocaust. For centuries Jews were not allowed to live in Norway. Then exclusionary laws were changed and a small Jewish community developed there in the 19th century. These few Jews were subject to German Nazi and Norwegian Quisling persecution. Although some Jews were aided by Norwegians in escaping to neutral Sweden, others were sent to the Nazi death camps by both Germans and Norwegians. The Jewish people does not owe any moral debt to Norway as a whole.

Now, by eagerly accepting the Hamas-led government, Norway has demonstrated its bad faith in regard to the Oslo Accords. Precisely Norway, as the facilitator of those accords, should have been the most stringent European state in insisting on Arab fulfillment of those accords, even the hypocritical fig leaf for the accords which was that the Arab side would renounce terrorism and violence. Of course, arafat never fulfilled the accords and was constantly inciting his own people to mass murderous attacks on Jews. Now, the Hamas government has thrown away the fig leaf and openly calls for violence, mass murder, declares the Jews to be inferior, peddles Nazi-like lies based on the Protocols of Zion, and emphasizes age-old Muslim Judeophobic bigotry. Hence, there is no way to pretend that the new PA government even pays lip service to the Oslo Accords. Norway's eager formation of ties with this criminal entity is an act of bad faith, an act of Judeophobia, an act of Nazi collaboration like that of Quisling in 1940. And it was precisely Norway that should have stayed loyal to those accords that it facilitated. The Oslo Accords stated that the Oslo Declaration of Principles was supposed to be a path to peace, to lasting peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. Yet Hamas' Charter and statements by its leaders frankly disavow peace even as a goal for the future.

What can Israel do? Israel can expel the Norwegian ambassador and other diplomats down to the level of charge' d'affaires. There needs to be some Norwegian representative here and it is not advisable to break relations altogether. Of course, the Norwegians can retaliate by expelling Israeli diplomats from Oslo down to the level of charge' d'affaires. That's all well and good. There are too many Norwegian diplomats here as it is, whereas the Israeli diplomats in Oslo don't seem to be doing much good.

What do the Norwegian diplomats do here? They aid the PLO/PA/Hamas. They try to persuade Israelis to kowtow to the Arabs. Further, their diplomatic passports allow them to cross between Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Gaza and Ramallah. Who knows what they carry since their persons and their baggage are exempt from inspection [the sacred "diplomatic pouch"]? They are involved in various sorts of subversive, pro-Nazi [=pro-PLO, pro-Hamas] activities, also working through so-called NGOs [which are "non-governmental" in name only]. Hence, getting rid of these diplomats/pro-terrorism agents would be beneficial in lessening the Western pro-terrorist presence on the ground in the Land of Israel. Giving the Norwegian Quislings the comeuppance that they deserve could serve as a lesson to other Europeans thirsting for Jewish blood. Again, Norwegian acceptance of the Hamas government that openly favors terrorism and rejects peace is an act of extreme bad faith and dishonesty, not to mention hostility to Jews by the Quislings.

Further, permits for Norwegian citizens to stay in Israel beyond the regulation stay for tourism or pilgrimage purposes should be severely curtailed. Each such permit for each individual should be stringently examined. The activities of Norwegian "NGO"s should be curtailed, and their personnel subject to careful review. Those who have exploited a "humanitarian" cover for inhumane acts should be excluded --or expelled if already within the country. The pro-Nazi anti-human rights, anti-humanitarian NGOs already enjoy too comfortable a situation here. They can give money, weapons, aid and comfort to mass murderers in Ramallah or Jenin or Gaza, then go back to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, parts of their intended victim, and enjoy all the amenities of modern civilization. Norwegian citizens should no longer be allowed to play this treacherous role.

If you agree, tell Israeli government officials, embassies, consulates, etc. Let Olmert and Tsipi Livni know how you feel.
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Coming: more on Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, more on James Baker, etc.

Javier Solana & Pierre Laval, Roughriders of the Desert Sands -- The EU Stirs Up Flames of War

Carolyn Glick points out that Javier Solana's declaration in Damascus in favor of restoring Syrian control of the Golan Heights [see previous post], an ancient part of the Land of Israel -- encourages the Syrian Baathist fascists to make war on Israel. As if they needed all that much encouragement.

This is an interesting about-face [or volte face] for the ever hypocritical and sinister European Union. Just several months ago, Solana, the EU's top diplomat, told a group of Knesset members that he rejected Syrian policy. Now he's diplomatically encouraging a Syrian war on Israel, while Syria is known to have recently much reinforced its offensive missile capacity precisely in the Syrian-held sector of the Golan Heights.
Knesset member Ofir Pines of the Labor Party, an avowed dove, responded angrily to Solana's bellicose remarks in Damascus. He also placed a resolution on the Knesset's agenda for an urgent discussion of this matter:

These remarks do not fit the remarks that Solana made several months ago in a forum with the participation of Knesset members. In those remarks Solana rejected Syrian foreign policy.
[Yisraeli, 3-15-2007]

So MK Pines points out that Solana is a double dealer, a double talker, a promise-breaker, much like his template Pierre Laval, onetime prime minister of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy government in France. Like Laval, Solana was long a socialist. Are people unaware that the Vichy government in France included Communists, socialists, even Trotskyists, besides French racist nationalists, French fascists and conservatives? Check out names like Jacques Doriot, Marcel De'at, Laval of course, Xavier Vallat, etc. Anyway, Solana's warmongering is very dangerous to peace, although he may have performed the minor service of waking up MK Pines to the EU's treachery.

Solana's capitulation to the Syro-Nazis came while the blood was still freshly spilled in Lebanon of young Pierre Jumayyil [Gemayel], nephew of Bashir Jumayyil, assassinated by a Syrian bomb that killed some 25 other people in 1982. Young Jumayyil was killed only a few months ago, as part of Syria's policy to make sure that Lebanon stays under its thumb as a forward base for the Syrian-Iranian war on Israel, as well as becoming once again a source of profit for Assad & Co. There was some outrage in Europe after the Syrians had Rafiq Hariri murdered by a large bomb --that killed many other people too, by the way-- in 2005. Hariri's murder upset Europe. Maybe because Hariri was a billionaire and there may be an unwritten law in the arcane inner sancta of the international community that one must not kill billionaires [mere millionaires? OK, but not billionaires]. Further, Hariri seems to have made generous gifts to Jacques Chirac and Chirac is loyal to friends, although maybe not so loyal to France. So Chirac influenced EU and Western diplomacy generally to pressure and punish Assad Junior, lord of the family estate of Syria. Now, Solana is announcing that Europe wants to make up with Assad Junior so that the world's return to barbarism can proceed. None of the crimes of the Assad regime --listed in our previous post-- dissuaded Solana from his reptilian crawl.
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FLASH: Michael Oren refutes Walt-Mearsheimer by name. Implicitly, he is also refuting parts of the arguments of Jimmy Carter, James Baker, Professor Polk, etc.

A year ago. . . Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago published an 80-page paper entitled "The Israel Lobby." . . . . Walt and Mearsheimer alleged that since 1948 the cornerstone, the centerpiece of American foreign policy in the Middle East has been unequivocal support for the State of Israel . . . [which] has led to a great diversion in America's search for interest in the Middle East and has led America away from its inherent interest in supporting the regimes of Iran and of Syria, of organizations like Hizbullah and Hamas which of course bear no inherent animus toward the United States and its people. [from an address by Oren to the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee on 11 March 2007--to access the pdf file of Oren's article, hit this link or go into the Martin Kramer site and look on the list of links]

Note that Walt-Mearsheimer repeat one of the false claims made by ostensible "ultra-leftist", Noam Chomsky. This is the false claim about the US having a policy of "unequivocal support for the State of Israel" since 1948. Left and Right lie together. Curious, isn't it? In any event, the performance of Walt-Mearsheimer and of chomsky prove the moral corruption of many American academics, willing to lie for money, status, or prejudicial and fanatic passions.
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Coming: more on James Baker, Jews in Jerusalem, Jews in Hebron over the ages, peace follies, etc.

Pierre Solana & Javier Laval Ride Again!!! -- The EU Nostalgically Harks back to Vichy

Javier Solana confirms once again that he is a spiritual reincarnation of Pierre Laval, if not Laval's biological offspring. He just went to Damascus to fawn and grovel before the Damascus Dictator, young Bashar Assad, who inherited the family estate --sometimes known as Syria-- from Dad. Bashar's dad was Assad Senior, called Hafiz.

Javier Laval or Solana's message for the Syrian Supremo was:

We [the European Union] intend to make an effort as much as possible so that Syria can get back the areas conquered [occupied] from it in 1967. [Yisraeli, 3-15-2007]

Damascus, 14 March (AKI) - The European Union supports Syria in its endeavours to regain the Golan Heights from Israel, the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has stated. "We would like to work as much as possible to see your country Syria recuperate the territory taken in 1967," Javier Solana told a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem after meeting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday. [ADNKronos-Italian news service in English, Italian, and Arabic]

This EU demarche should get more attention than it has. It clearly demonstrates the Vichyite inclinations of EU policy today.
1) hatred for Jews
2) fawning over murderous fascist dictators
3) disregarding history and justice
4) cowardice, looking out for short term economic interests, etc.

For the record, the Syrian regime promotes age-old and modern Nazi lies about Jews, such as the blood libel [that Jews use Christian blood for baking Passover matsoh], the accusation of deicide, of killing Jesus, which lie led to many many thousands of Jewish victims over the ages.
The Golan Heights was Jewish inhabited and ruled in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine times, before the Arab Conquest, after which many areas in the Middle East were depopulated and/or economically ruined. This is confirmed by abundant archeological findings on the Golan Heights, including synagogues, miqveh baths, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek-language Jewish inscriptions, etc.
The Syrian regime has murdered many prominent Lebanese who were even slightly opposed to Syrian rule over Lebanon. The victims in Lebanon go back to 1977 with Kamal Jumblatt [father of Walid Jumblatt], then in later years, Bashir Jumayyil [Gemayel], Rene Mu`awad, Rafiq Hariri, Samir Kassir, Ghassan Tueini, and many others, not to mention failed assassinations, etc., not to mention the masses killed in Syrian bombardments, etc. Jumayyil and Mu`awad were both presidents of Lebanon.
Last but not least, Assad's Syria sponsors, finances, arms, and trains several Arab anti-Israel jihadist terrorist groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah.

It seems that the European Union has no shame. And it's a dangerous outfit.
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Coming: more on James Baker, peace follies, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, propaganda tricks, etc.

More on Britain and the Holocaust

Some of our previous posts have taken up the problem of Britain and the Holocaust, especially the harmful role of the BBC, an arm of the British foreign office then as now. Here is another little detail about Britain and the Holocaust, which fits into what we have reported about British hostility to Zionism and to Israel becoming a state.

To this very day, however, many aspects of British policy towards the Nazi persecution and extermination of the Jews remain shrouded in mystery. For instance, according to a German source, in 1937 Hitler proposed to the British that all the Jews of Germany be sent to Palestine; the British rejected this idea. On this particular point, see Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938-1943: Aufzeichnungen des Major Engel, herausgegeben und kommentiert von Hildegard von Kotze, Stuttgart, 1974, pp 65, 95.
[in Some Aspects of the Historical Significance of the Holocaust, Jerusalem Quarterly Reprint, the Middle East Institute, Jerusalem [not Washington DC], 1977; {reprinted from The Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 1 (Fall 1976)}, p 15 fn 26].

The quoted article, originally a lecture or address, was written by Prof Saul Friedlander of the Hebrew University. He is a well-known historian of the Holocaust, considered to be "leftist."
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Coming: more on James Baker, more on Jews in Jerusalem, recent archeology, peace follies, the policy of USA and UK towards rebirth of Israel, etc.

More on Whether US & UK Supported Zionism & Israel in the Crucial 1940s -- Relevant to Baker-Hamilton, Walt-Mearsheimer, Polk, Carter

One of the big lies in the ongoing campaign to besmirch the glory of the struggle for Israel is to falsely claim that Israel was set up by the United States and Britain. This story is very relevant to the background of James Baker, to which we will return.

The UK was in fact openly hostile to an independent Jewish state in the Land of Israel, in fact Britain opposed Jews becoming a majority in the Land of Israel or even a sizable minority. This policy was expressed in the 1939 "White Paper on Palestine," a British policy statement that severely restricted Jewish immigration into Israel during the Holocaust, as well as Jewish land purchases in the country designated as the Jewish National Home in international law. Meanwhile, the British air force did not bomb the gas chambers or the crematoria or the railroad tracks up to the death camps, despite the repeated requests of Jewish leaders. Neither did the United States or the Communist Soviet Union. Communist and "Western imperialist" policy converged, since the Allied air forces could have reached Auschwitz and other death camps in the midst of the war --if they had wanted to. These locations were within reach. Further, British official policy dictated that the BBC --an arm of the UK Foreign Office then as now-- delay, restrict and minimize reporting on the Holocaust and Jewish suffering. Britain clearly was a silent partner in the Holocaust [see links re BBC below].
Moreover, British policy in Iraq allowed Arabs to massacre Jews when it was in British power to stop the massacre. Meanwhile, Britain --in the person of Anthony Eden encouraged the Arabs to form the Arab League, thus aiding and abetting an achievement of pan-Arab nationalism.

Here are some quotes about British siding with the Arabs [for whatever reason] in the late 1930s and the forties:

The late thirties was the period of England's appeasement of the Axis. It is understandable that in Palestine this political style led to seeking out the bully in the situation and --indeed the one most likely to go over to the Axis if not adequately appeased -- and attempting to come to terms with him. . . when the role of British imperialism is understood, the growing polarization between Arabs and Jews in the late thirties is altogether compatible with the view supported above. . .
[Joseph Neyer, "The Myth of Zionist 'Original Sin'," in I Howe & C Gershman, eds., Israel, the Arabs, and the Middle East (New York: Quadrangle 1972), p 150]

They [the Jews in Israel] were completely disillusioned with the original outside sponsor [the power mandated to foster development of the Jewish National Home], the United Kingdom, as mandatory power. The struggle against immigration and land purchase regulations had persisted for a decade. Both Arabs and British threatened the very existence of the Jewish national home at the very time of its conversion into a state. Neither the Arabs nor the British fully appreciated in the spring of 1948 the intensity of the determination of the Palestine Jews to defend their rights as they understood them, or the devotion of the Palestine Jews to the land. [J C Hurewitz, "Nationalism in Israel," in Nationalism in the Middle East (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute 1952), p 9]

These quotes show British-Arab collaboration and convergence. The following does likewise. It is a vignette of the "Palestine"-Egypt border in April 1948, still under British control -

Yallah! We climbed into the truck and rode until we reached the Palestine border ["We" = a group of armed Egyptian volunteers, Green Shirts, eager to fight for the Arab cause against Israel, plus an American journalist]. There we were halted by British soldiers. Two tanks stood near by. Beyond was a large British camp. The Green Shirts had now hidden their own guns and insignia, and posed as native Palestinians. The English went through the formality of asking: "Any guns on the truck?" We said: "No," laughing. The soldiers smiled back, took down our license number and, lifting the wooden barrier, let us through. We were in Palestine![John Roy Carlson, Cairo to Damascus (New York: Alfred A Knopf 1951), p 160]

Note that the British soldiers knew that the Arabs were bringing guns with them, but did NOT search their belongings, while sharing the joke of an inspection with them.

The State Department was [and is] anti-Israel

The senior officials of the State Department have been described as a "largely elitist, continuous, and homogeneous group." They sought to promote abroad what they regarded as the "American national interest," which meant not only national power and prestige but equally "profitable business opportunities for American private interests.". . .

The State Department viewed Palestine as an integral part of the Arab world. Thus, anything non-Arab was by definition "inherently foreign." The Department's Division of Near Eastern and African Affairs (NEA) did recognize the existence of the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv) and Palestine's status as terra sancta to three religions, but these non-Arab factors were regarded as "incidentals, hardly enough to change the Department's view that Palestine was, and must remain, an Arab area." The department downplayed the reality of entrenched minorities and communal differences in the Middle East and naively expected that those minorities would simply be absorbed by the "native majority," much the same as waves of new immigrants were, or at least were supposed to be, assimilated in the United States. [Michael J Cohen, Truman and Israel (Berkeley: Univ of California Press 1990), p 87; the quotes are from Philip Baram, The Department of State in the Middle East, 1919-1945 (Philadelphia: Univ of Pennsylvania Press 1978)]

In the Department's view. . . Zionism jeopardized the consummation of an Arab-American entente. The greatest departmental fear, played upon . . . by the Washington oil lobby, was that the administration's support for the Zionist cause would turn Ibn Saud [king of Saudi Arabia, modestly named after his dynasty in 1932] against ARAMCO and drive the Arabs into the arms of the Russians. [Cohen, p 88]

Perhaps the most critical period came between the UN [General Assembly] decision on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine and the de facto establishment of Israel in May 1948. During this time, the State Department, ably assisted by the Defense Department, the National Security Council, and the CIA, determined to reverse American support for partition [meaning at that time support for Israel in part of the Land]. In this battle. . . waged in Washington the oil lobby helped to provide the administration with background material on real or alleged threats to American interests in the Arab world. [Cohen, p 97]

We see that in the time before establishment of the State of Israel, powerful diplomatic and intelligence agencies, as well as the immensely rich and influential oil lobby, strenuously opposed Israel's rebirth. James Baker comes of course out of the oil milieu. Now, "leftists" scribbling today often claim that the "capitalists" and "imperialists" backed Israel. Close study of the events of that time show the very opposite. Another fact that we may cite here is that the USA put an embargo on weapons sales to the Middle East at that time, while Britain was openly arming Arabs. However, both the Soviet Union [through Czechoslovakia] and France sent weapons to the Jews in Israel. Note that support for Israel was ambivalent in both the USSR and France. The French foreign ministry [Quai d'Orsay] was hostile. In any event, the usual "imperialist" motives did not dominate American policy towards Israel in that period. Indeed, the "capitalists" and "imperialists" in the oil lobby, State Department and CIA openly opposed Israel. I L Kenen, a journalist very knowledgeable about Washington policy in that period, wrote that after 11-29-47:

. . . pro-Arab forces mounted a propaganda offensive to reverse the [UN General Assembly] partition resolution. Their coalition included Arabists and Anglophiles, oil lobbyists, missionaries, and diplomats. [I L Kenen, Israel's Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington (Buffalo: Prometheus Books 1981), p 49]

Elsewhere in the book cited [p 114] and in other publications, Kenen called these pro-Arab forces [which he saw as also including the CIA] The Petro-Diplomatic Complex. In any event, today's common narrative --or fable-- about who and what interests supported Israel in that period is false.

On US policy in the fateful years of the British White Paper, the Holocaust, and the Jewish underground against the British, see:
Frank Gervasi, The Case for Israel (New York: Viking Press 1967).
Joseph B Schechtman, The United States and the Jewish State Movement: The Crucial Decade, 1939-1949 (New York: Thomas Yoseloff 1966).
For an account of the BBC policy toward the Holocaust, see:
here & here & here & here & here
For Owen Lattimore's comments and analysis, see here.
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Coming: more on James Baker, more on Jews in Jerusalem, recent archeology in Israel, peace follies, etc.

Who Is James Baker? -- Part 2

Funny, isn't it, that so-called "leftists" like edward said and chomsky --and assorted and sundry Communists, Trotskyists, and left-over New Leftists-- have views on Israel and advocate policies on Israel similar to those advocated by Establishment pillars like jimmy carter & Jim Baker? In the course of the anti-Israel struggle, hired academics --like Walt & Mearsheimer-- falsely claim that Israel has been supported by the US government from the beginning. This is very misleading. In fact, there has been a dispute or struggle over Israel policy within various branches of the US Government since before Israel became a state. The State Department was hostile to Zionism and to Israeli statehood before Israeli independence on 15 May 1948, in tune with its British allies and cothinkers. In fact, neither the British nor the United States governments gave effective aid to the Jews during the Holocaust. The gas chambers and crematoria and the railroad tracks leading to the camps were not bombed by the Allies, neither the UK, nor the US, nor the Communist USSR. See previous posts on BBC policy and the British pro-Arab policy during the war on this blog.

Here we continue quoting Michel Gurfinkiel's article on James Baker's background, including observations on US policy towards Israel over the years:

In the eyes of the oil businessmen and their friends, the American support for Israel was a nuisance, a "mistake": the new state "interposed itself" in effect between the American and Arab "natural partners." The other considerations --the survival of the Jewish people, the geopolitical dangers linked to Arab nationalism or militant Islam did not touch them.

To be sure, the largest segment of the American leadership class shared this analysis in the 1940s and 1950s, including the "wise men" of the immediate post-war era (George Marshall, John Forrestal, Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, etc.). Truman by-passed them by ordering the American representative. . . [to the UN] to vote for the partition of Palestine into two states on 29 November 1947, then by recognizing Israel on 14 May 1948.

In other words, Truman overruled the State Department and other official agencies by his support for Israel. Today, the facts are overwhelmed by lies sponsored by the "left" and by establishment hired pens [like Walt & Mearsheimer]. This is how history is falsified for the sake of policy.
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Source: one source among many: Joseph Schechtman, The United States and the Jewish State Movement: The Crucial Decade, 1939-1949 (New York: Thomas Yoseloff 1966)
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Coming: more on Baker, more on Jews in Jerusalem, peace follies, etc.

The Carter/Baker/Walt-Mearsheimer/Polk Assault on Israel Part I -- Who Is James Baker?

Baker, Carter, and their allies are not new at being Israel's enemies. What is new is the coordinated attack against Israel by certain wealthy and powerful Establishment personalities. Carter's receipt of funding from Arab potentates in the Persian Gulf is fairly well known. So are Baker's ties to Arab big money. However, Baker's background was not known to me before reading an article by Michel Gurfinkiel, "Report on Baker" [France-Israel Information, Oct-Nov-Dec 2006]. Gurfinkiel is on the editorial board of the French weekly newsmagazine, Valeurs Actuelles. Full disclosure: I met Gurfinkiel in Paris years ago and held lengthy talks with him].

His article is important both for his description of Baker's personal background and for his account of US policy towards Israel over the years. I will add information of my own to my excerpts from Gurfinkiel's article.

Baker was a close and trusted advisor of Bush Senior for many years. The Baker-Hamilton Commission

was mandated by Congress with White House assent. But it was managed by three private foundations, one of them Mr Baker's own foundation.

Joseph Farah, a Lebanese American journalist, called Baker "a legal pimp for Saudi Arabia" [World Net Daily, 8 December 2006]. True enough, in my opinion. But it doesn't go far enough.

James Addison Baker III is the heir of a law firm founded in 1840, when Texas was still an independent state by . . . [among others] Judge James Baker, first of the name.

In 1874, one of the partners

was named to the Texas Supreme Court, sold his shares to his partners, the firm taking the name Baker & Botts. In 2000 it became Baker Botts LLP
According to its official history on line [www.bakerbotts.com], the firm worked at first for the biggest fortunes in Texas, coming out of large estate agriculture: the kings of cotton, of rice, of sugar cane, and of wood. It later turned toward port activities and railroads. Starting in 1901, it specialized in oil. Among its clients: Humble Oil [forerunner of Exxon], Gulf Oil [which later incorporated Chevron], Texas Co. [today Texaco]. This is not to speak of Howard Hughes' oil drilling company, bought out by the Baker family and known today under the name of Baker Hughes.

In contrast to certain "conservatives" and advocates of "realism" in foreign policy, who see Baker as purely loyal to America, to the United States, supposedly unlike the Jewish lobby considered loyal to Israel, it might be accurate to view Baker as loyal to oil first, last, and always.

Born in 1930, James Addison Baker III followed in his youth the course of patricians: college at Princeton, miltary service in the Marines [he reached the rank of lieutenant], law school at the University of Texas, practicing law in the firm of friends, Andrews & Kurth.
But his passion was politics. As a good Texan, that is, a Southerner, he first belonged to the Democratic Party: the Republicans had, during the Civil War, been the party of Lincoln, hence the party of the anti-slavery North, while the Democrats were in fact for nearly a century, from the 1880s to the 1960s, the party of the South, vanquished then restored, where slavery was replaced by racial segregation.

This may characterize most Southern Democrats of that period but --to be fair-- not all Democrats in the country. However, jimmy carter and ramsey clark grew up in the thirties and forties in the South with racial segregation, often called jimcrow. Their families supported and most likely benefitted from that system, and belonged to the KuKluxKlan. Carter made racist statements while appealing for votes during his election campaigns in Georgia before running for president. Even then, in 1976, he made appeals to racist and segregationist sentiment [see earlier post]. Hence, it's especially galling to hear ramsey clark pretend to champion civil liberties [by befriending Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, inter alia] and to hear Carter smear Israel with the "apartheid" label. In this context, the crowd that applauded carter at Brandeis University [Brandeis was a Zionist, by the way] displayed stupidity and/or ignorance and/or moral corruption. Simply to applaud carter is morally corrupt. One of Carter's fakeries was --during the 1976 presidential campaign-- to pretend to be a poor, Southern country boy. That was part of his appeal at the time to an electorate fed up with the Washington politicians. But the people caught up with carter four years later and threw him out of office by a large margin of votes. Carter's denial of Jewish rights to live in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, is racist and represents an apartheid policy.

Back to Baker, when the Democratic presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, promoted black civil rights in the 1960s, ending legal racial segregation in the USA, the bulk of

Southern Whites passed over as a block to the Republican Party. James Baker followed this movement.
In his new party, he was first the campaign director for George HW Bush, a Republican patrician from New England transplanted into the South, who ran for the post of senator from Texas after two years in the House of Representatives. This first experience ended quickly. Bush Senior had been in the 1960s a partisan of racial segregation and of the death penalty for "recidivist homosexuals." On the threshold of the 1970s, he displayed a more moderate face, that of a "classic Republican." That did not convince the liberal Texans --including the black electorate, which was now important. But it prevented him from mobilizing his old friends of the extreme right.

I state at this point that Eliyah m'Tsiyon does not believe in primitive, misleading notions and labels like "right" and "left." To continue:

In spite of this failure, Bush Senior and Baker became friends. They have the same sensibilities, the same reflexes. And the same interests in the Texas oil industry.
. . . .
. . . in 1980, he directed Bush Senior's campaign in the Republican primaries. He failed again. The "classic Republican" was beaten by Ronald Reagan, a populist Republican and --already-- a "neo-conservative."

Serving in the Reagan administration, Baker and his sponsor, Bush Senior, took anti-Israel positions, whereas Reagan, Cheney, Alexander Haig, and George Shultz were considered pro-Israel. Meanwhile, the law firm of

Baker Botts was one of the official legal representatives of Saudi Arabia in the United States.

[to be continued]
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Coming: More on Baker/Carter, more on propaganda, peace follies, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.