Did the Western Great Powers Ever Want to Stop the Iranian Nuke Program? -- The Same Powers Favored Mussolini with the Same Trick

UPDATING 1-13&3-13-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

It has been known for years that Iran was working on a nuclear program. Former Israeli prime minster Yits'haq Rabin was warning about it before he was killed in 1995. This program has long seemed aimed at producing an Iranian atomic bomb, despite Iran's commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in violation of that treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency was dealing with the issue years ago. Yet nothing concrete has been done by the major Western powers to stop the nuke program or, more precisely, nothing that we know of other than economic sanctions. And even those sanctions waited for years to be imposed. Iran was given a "last chance" to mend its nuclear ways as far back as 2003. But there were several subsequent "last chances."

The US delegate to the IAEA gave a rather good speech at the March 2006 meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors. But little if any concrete action came out of the meeting. One problem was the head of the IAEA at the time, Muhammad Barada'i, an Egyptian who consistently belittled warnings that the Iranian nuclear project was meant to produce a nuke bomb. He did this although his own government seems to have been concerned with Iranian aggressive actions and intentions toward the Sunni Muslim world, as were several other Sunni Arab powers, like Saudi Arabia.

All this time Iran's work on developing the nuke bomb has been progressing, and sanctions of any seriousness were only applied relatively recently. This means that US presidents going back to Bill Clinton were not acting against the threat of an Iranian nuke bomb. These presidents include Clinton, George Bush II [I don't know about his father], and Obama who openly declared a soft policy on Iran. Obama's policy is softer now even than that of Britain although the US and Britain are so often in lock-step on foreign policy issues. This article & this one indicate that the Obama administration is opposed to stronger sanctions on Iran called for by the House of Representatives. Here is a report of British actions imposed after rioters instigated by the Iranian govt attacked the UK embassy in Teheran.

Elliott Abrams, a former Bush Administration defense official, lists a number of recent Obama administration statements that discard any threat or possibility of military force to be used against Iran and/or its nuke program. Abrams interprets a recent declaration by an Obama "national official," the deputy national security advisor, as giving:

. . . a White House assurance that the United States does not intend to challenge an assertion of Iranian dominance in the region. [here]

For years the great powers avoided placing sanctions on Iran which was violating its commitment to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty]. Now, the great powers are imposing sanctions. But what does that mean? The game of great powers imposing sanctions that will not accomplish their ostensible purpose, in this case preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb, has a history. Consider the sanctions imposed by the League of Nations on Italy over the invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s.

The regime [Mussolini's regime] conquered its empire of stone and sand in Ethiopia, its "place in the sun." It succeeded in doing that, in fact, with Anglo-French backing. France and England, through the League of Nations which they controlled, had a fake economic embargo passed against Italy. However, excluded from it [the embargo] was the supply of Iraqi oil which our [Italian] troops marching on Addis Ababa could not do without. In any event, those sanctions were never applied and were even revoked immediately after the success of the Duce's colonial undertaking.
[Mario Jose Cereghino e Giovanni Fasanella, Il Golpe Inglese (Milano: Chiarelettere 2011), p 36-- emphasis added].
[The key phrase in this passage is "fake economic embargo". In the original it is "finto embargo economico"]

So fake or inadequate economic sanctions are an old trick of great powers. The authors of the passage quoted are saying in essence that Britain and France wanted Italy to conquer Ethiopia in that period. The delay of sanctions against Iran for years --let's say at least since 2003-- and the eventual imposition of inadequate sanctions just show that the powers can still get away with their old tricks. Nothing new under the sun.

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12-18-2011 Jonathan Tobin sees the sanctions as weak and notes the Obama administration's refusal to sanction dealings with Iran's central bank [National Bank of Iran].
1-5-2012 Jonathan Tobin sees Obama as reluctant or unwilling --and in case unlikely-- to enforce the sanctions against dealing with the Iranian Central Bank. Read him here.
1-8-2012 Michael Rubin believes that the Washington "foreign policy establishment" engages in doubletalk in order not to propose real and biting sanctions on Iran's ayatollahs [here]
1-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin wonders if the Obama administration condemnation of the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist conceals a reluctance to stop Iran's nuke project [here]
3-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin claims that Israel's hints that it might strike Iran's nuke project have brought Obama & Cameron together in antagonism to such an Israeli strike and have led the EU and USA to increase sanctions on Iran [here]

UNESCO Presented Ancient Israeli Mosaics -- Once Upon a Time

UNESCO was not always as hostile to Israel as it is now. This UN body, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was once not as corrupt as it is today. As recently as 1965, UNESCO published --together with the French publisher Flammarion-- the book Israeli Byzantine Mosaics [French title: "Mosaiques Byzantines Israeliennes", by Ernst Kitzinger (Paris: Flammarion 1965). At that time, UNESCO wanted to promote art to the masses. So they published, with Flammarion, a series called Great Art in Pocket Editions [Grand Art en Editions de Poche]. Israeli Byzantine Mosaics was part of that series. I bought it at the UN building in New York in those days. As I understand, books in the series were also published in English and maybe other languages besides French.

The mosaic was a highly developed art form in the Byzantine period preceding the Arab-Muslim conquests. It did not die off in the East --including Israel-- immediately after the conquest but it died out gradually, slowly, as did other features of civilization. Many more mosaics from that period have been found in Israel since Kitzinger's book was put out by UNESCO. Some of the mosaics are Jewish, as at Beyt Alpha and Tsipori [Sepphoris], others are Christian and pagan [early in Byzantine times]. Yet the techniques and workmanship are strikingly similar, indicating that the same workshop or workshops served Jews, Samaritans, Christians and pagans.

Here are two of the Jewish mosaics:

Huldah [location]: Mosaic floor with seven-branched menorah [candelabrum] from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem plus other Jewish ritual objects. These latter are, from right to left, a shofar [ram's horn used on the Rosh haShanah holiday]; an incense shovel as used in the Temple; an etrog [citron in English], a citrus fruit used on the Sukkot holiday; and what appears to be a lulav, a palm frond, also used on the Sukkot holiday. The Greek inscription says "Praise for the People." The mosaic is dated to the 6th century.

Beth Alpha [location -- Beyt Alfa בית אלפא]: Mosaic floor. The Binding of Isaac was a favorite Jewish theme in that historical period, since it is the story of the Jews' forefather being saved from death at the last moment by God. This theme appears in a number of Jewish mosaics from the Byzantine period which followed --as we know-- the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE [Hurban haBayit] by Roman legions and their auxiliary forces [including Arabs], and the exclusion of Jews from Jerusalem by Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE. The names Abraham [אברהם] and Yits'haq [יצחק = Isaac] written in Hebrew appear over the heads of those two persons, along with the Hebrew words Al Tishlahh [אל תשלח]. These words mean: "Do not send", part of the words of God's angel to Abraham in Genesis 22:12 , Biblical reading portion: Vayera. The Biblical verse is: Don't send your hand against the boy and don't do anything to him. A modern Jewish translation gives this as: Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him [The New Jewish Publication Society translation; Philadelphia: JPS 1985]. This mosaic too is dated to the 6th century.

The general importance of the Jewish mosaics is that they refute the present claim of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" and its offshoot, the "Palestinian Authority" that there is no Jewish history in the Land of Israel, the country that they now call "Palestine," the name imposed on the country by the Emperor Hadrian after he had suppressed the Jewish revolt led by Bar Kokhba, 132-135 CE. Note that two languages appear in the inscriptions on these mosaics, Hebrew and Greek. Arabic does not appear. The PLO's denial of Jewish history in the country is made in the PLO charter, Article 20:

The claim of historical or religious ties between the Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense. [PLO Charter, article 20]

The fact that photos of these mosaics were published by UNESCO is doubly important since UNESCO in recent decades has gone along with the lies of the PLO/PA, the Arab states, and the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. The OIC dominates UNESCO as it does the UN "human rights council" and the UN generally, with 56 or so UN member states belonging to it, more than a quarter of all UN member states. Recently, the UNESCO has admitted "palestine" as a member although Arab domination of the country goes back only to the Arab conquest, completed in 640 CE.

The PLO/PA intends to use UNESCO to impose its false version of history and to assert Muslim domination over Jewish holy places and historic sites in the country which have long been controlled by Muslims [such as the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Cave of Machpelah in Hebron]. More recently, in the 1990s, the PLO/PA has claimed Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb in Sh'khem [Nablus] as Muslim holy places, although in the past Rachel's Tomb was seen as a Jewish shrine and Joseph's Tomb was shared by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims.

Gingrich Told the Truth!!! Never a "palestinian people" in History

EXPANDED & REVISED 12-13-2011&1-18-2012

There never was a "palestinian people" in all history, and the present day sub-set of Arabs fashionably called "palestinians" have no special tie to the ancient Philistines, a people who disappeared with the Babylonian Conquest when the bulk of them were deported to Mesopotamia as were many or most of the Jews.

We know that before the 1960s nobody was talking about a "palestinian people" distinct from Arabs but somehow ethereally connected with them. Before the founding of the PLO in 1964, the Palestinian Arabs were typically Pan-Arabists. George Habash was the leader of an outfit called the Arab National Movement before the 1967 Six Day War. After that war, he founded the PFLP, the "popular front for the liberation of palestine." That is, even after founding of the PLO in 1964 many or most Palestinian Arabs saw themselves primarily as Arabs. So even after January 1, 1964, when the PLO was founded at a conclave in Cairo, the "palestinian people" continued to stress their Arab identity. Indeed the PLO charter stresses this pan-Arab identity of the "palestinian people" in its very first article.

Palestine Liberation Organization Covenant, Article One:
Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland, and the people of Palestine is an integral part of the Arab nation.

Gingrich pointed out that the "palestinian people" was an "invented people" [see video of Gingrich's interview here; transcript here].

I believe that the Jewish people have the right to have a state, and I believe that the commitments that were made at a time [commitments made from 1917 through 1922 by Britain, other major powers & the League of Nations]. . . remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. [links to video and transcript above]

Gingrich stressed that those later known as "palestinians" were part of the "Arab community" which is how they saw themselves and --I believe-- still see themselves. The PLO Covenant [or Charter] agrees with Gingrich. It is a clearly pan-Arab document, as we see above.

Further, many knowledgeable observers agree with Gingrich but I would like to address the issue by describing the political maneuvers of Haj Amin el-Husseini [also spelled al-Husayni]. Husseini was the chief Palestinian Arab leader from 1921 up to about 1950. In this capacity he was also a Nazi collaborator, as were other Arab nationalists. But Husseini was the most prominent Arab Nazi collaborator and a participant in the Holocaust of the Jews. A number of important books and articles have been published in recent years describing and detailing Arab-Nazi relations. But first a little on Husseini's career.

The British mandatory authorities in the Jewish National Home, to which Western powers gave the territorial name "Palestine," not used during rule by the Ottoman Empire, appointed Husseini to be Mufti [chief Muslim religious judge] of Jerusalem in 1921, also creating a new post for him near the end of that year at the newly created Supreme Muslim Council. He became notorious for promoting atrocities against Jews in the Land of Israel during the mandatory period [1920-1948]. He too was an Arab nationalist, a pan-Arabist, rather than a "palestinian nationalist" as he is so often mistakenly described today.

On this issue, I found some interesting documentation in a new book on Nazi-Arab collaboration. The authors write that while the Germans were winning the war --up to early 1943, the Battles of el-Alamein [1942] & Stalingrad [1943] -- Husseini and his comrade and rival, Rashid Ali al-Gailani [former prime minister of Iraq], vied for German recognition of one them as leader and absolute chief of "the Great Arab Empire" which they hoped that the Germans would help establish. They were both in Berlin for the bulk of the war. The authors write:

In June 1942, Al-Husseini brought up a new element. During a discussion with Ettel [a Nazi official], he claimed to be the president of a secret organization baptized "Arab Nation". This league had been founded in his time by Hussein, the sherif ofMecca [great-grandfather of Abdullah, present king of Jordan] and leader of the revolt against the Turks during the First World War. In their demand for independence, he explained, the Arabs attributed [to him, Husseini] the leadership role in this organization, which counted members and trusted persons in all of the Arab countries. Al-Gailani was also part of it and had only been prime minister of Iraq because of this recognition in fact of his [Husseini's] position. Al-Husseini stated to Ettel that he intended to have his role as leader recognized by the Germans. Thus he would fulfill his project of making himself uncontested leader of the Arab world.
[Martin Cuppers & Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Croissant fertile et croix gammee (Paris: Verdier 2009; trans. from German), p 131. The book has also been translated into English]

Now this "secret" organization may have been fictitious, a device for Husseini to advance his own ambitions. But those ambitions were not fictitious. The ambitions were seeing himself as the pan-Arab ruler. In this regard also see the record of his meeting with Hitler on November 28, 1941. Hitler actually fed or played up to Husseini's aspirations for pan-Arab leadership for himself. Hitler promised that when the Germans had conquered the Middle East, Husseini would be

. . . the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. [here]

So the chief leader of the Palestinian Arabs was in fact motivated by pan-Arab ambitions, not by narrow "palestinian" aspirations. All this supports Gingrich's position.
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12-15-2011 Prof. Richard Landes, a historian at Boston University, defends Newt Gingrich's assertion that the "palestinians" are an "invented people" [ici in French]
12-15-2011 "palestinian Media Watch" [PMW] presents facts supporting Gingrich's position.
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Daniel Pipes has a useful account of the development of the "palestinian people" notion [here], also go to the two links in his article. I have some reservations about Pipes' account. He ascribes the origin of the "pal ppl" notion to the year 1920. I say on the contrary that the Arab leadership in Israel recognized the existence of a country called "palestine" in that year, mainly because the Greater Syria that they aspired to be part of was rendered impossible by the French overthrow of Faisal the Hashemite's Syrian kingdom in July 1920 and the French-British division of what the Arabs called bilad ash-Sham --a traditional Arab geographical concept-- called Greater Syria in English. Neither Syria nor palestine are indigenous Middle Eastern geographical terms but were used by ancient Greek writers. Syria included the Syria, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon of today. "Palestinian" as an adjective for southwestern Syria was used by Herodotos, although Judea was the usual Greek and Latin name for the country, after Alexander's conquests and probably before then. But the Arab leadership/elite in Israel did not recognize or consider itself as a "palestinian people" in 1920. Rather they called "palestine" an Arab country. Consider the slogan "Palestine for the Arabs" which the Arab leadership issued on a decorative stamp in the 1930s [see Kimmerling & Migdal, The Palestinians, in Hebrew edition if not in English ed.].
1-18-2012 Robert R Reilly wrote an excellent piece for Crisis magazine in which he not only confirms Gingrich's assertion but expands his scope to include the Muslim religious motives which keep Arabs from recognizing and making peace with Israel [here]. See our post here for Quranic background to Reilly's article. While several verses in the Quran agree with the Biblical account that the Land of Israel [called Holy Land in the Quran] was divinely assigned to the Jews, these verses and other humane and universalistic verses are abrogated either by other verses in the Quran or by later Muslim teachings, hadiths, the sunna, etc.

Mad Falsehoods by Obama's Ambassador in Brussels

UPDATED 12-11-2011

Obama and his gang of clowns armed with a vast diplomatic and military apparatus never cease to amaze. Obama's man in Brussels, capital not only of Belgium but of the slyly Judeophobic European Union --plus a goodly supply of frankly bigoted, Judeophobic Muslims-- amazed with his ignorance and bigotry. Tragically, the man is son of a Holocaust survivor but has no understanding of what happened to his father and why. I will let Omri Ceren tell the story:

Muslim Anti-Semitism Is Not Israel’s Fault

It’s Israel’s fault:

Growing global anti-Semitism is linked to Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, the American ambassador to Belgium told stunned Jewish conference attendants in Brussels earlier this week…. [Howard] Gutman told participants he was apologizing in advance if his words are not to their liking. He then proceeded to make controversial statements about his views on Muslim anti-Semitism, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Gutman said. He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.

In no particular order:

(1) As a sheer historical matter, of course, he’s demonstrably wrong.

Muslim anti-Semitism stretches back centuries. Just last week we passed the 70th anniversary of the meeting between the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler, where the two of them conspired to wipe out European and Middle East Jewry. The Mufti, citing Muslim dogma and history, committed to helping the Nazis fulfill their genocidal ambitions. A few decades later, then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was explaining to Congress why the U.S. was withholding war planes from Israel while selling them to Saudi Arabia, and he explained that Muslim states “have felt for a long time – it goes back centuries – a very particular animosity toward the Jews because they credited the assassination of Mohammed to a Jew.”

It could be Dulles just didn’t realize that Muslim anti-Semitism had only existed for a couple of decades, and that the Mufti just didn’t know he was supposed to wait for the creation of Israel to become anti-Semitic. Although given how Muslim anti-Semitism is eschatological, and involves precise roles for Jews during the end-times and reserves an explicit place for them in hell, it’s more likely he hated Jews for religious reasons and that Gutman is making things up.

[Omri Ceren's article continues here][Gutman's speech is here, though it may be taken down in the near future]. My comments on this speech below.

Gutman's falsehood participates in slaying the whole concept of the innocent civilian. If Jewish civilians outside Israel [or inside Israel, of course] are guilty for what Israel does, however far they may be from decision-making in Jerusalem, then they are not innocent civilians or, in other words, the innocent civilian does not exist.
Consider as an example, the attacks on Jews in France after the al-Durah affair of 9-30-2000. They were justified by some "leftists" in France as deserved by those French Jews since they were not sufficiently vocal in opposing Israeli policy. That's also an endorsement of thuggery, of intimidating people into taking a certain political position. It is totally opposed to the democratic liberal ethos.

As another example, consider the town of Malmo in Sweden which has a large Muslim population which has been harassing Jews for a number of years. The mayor, Ilmar Reepalu (SDP), stated that the Jews' support for Israel directly correlates to a rise in Judeophobia [antisemitism], which he went on to explain doesn't exist in Malmö]. Jews need therefore to be more critical of Israel, Reepalu argued. [thanks to Tundra Tabloids]

Now, quite often, those who deny the existence of an innocent Jewish civilian, whine and moan over Arabs in Gaza who are all innocent civilians protected --supposedly-- by the Geneva Convention IV [of course, they don't know what it says -- check article 28]. On the other hand, Islamic law denies the existence of innocent civilians, since it believes in collective guilt of the dhimmi and kufar peoples. That is why it was just to many Muslims to kill any Christian after Pope Benedict made his remarks criticizing Islam through quoting a Byzantine emperor of hundreds of years ago. Several Christians were murdered, most were not even Catholics.

So these "leftists" and Muslims have slain the innocent civilian principle. Ambassador Gutman, Obama's man in Brussels, is doing that too. We should try to get them to admit that.
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Jonathan Tobin comments on Gutman's mad speech as well as on the rabid remarks of Obama's Secretary of Defense Panetta, threatening Israel not to take preemptive action against the genocidal ayatollahs of Iran and generally blaming Israel for everything untoward in the Middle East [here]
Ron Radosh too comments on Gutman and Panetta's verbal effusions [here]
12-5-2011 Jonathan Tobin takes apart Gutman's non-apology, non-disavowal of his offensive remarks [here].
12-11-2011 Omri Ceren defends Gutman's critics against the nasty and stupid criticism of them made by pro-Nazi [vichyite], vicious "leftists" on the "Jewish left" [here] in defense of Gutman. Ceren pays particular attention to a vicious pre-Vichyite named jjGoldberg, self-identified as a 1960s "leftist." Like cheap wine, Goldberg has turned sour over time and is now cheap vinegar חומץ בן יין. He's worse than ever.
Daniel Greenfield [Sultan Knish] comments on Gutman's offensive speech [here]
Gutman tries to wiggle out of the implications of his remarks. The actual text of the offending speech is as bad as previously reported [here]. "It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem," Gutman said as quoted by Foxnews.
Abe Foxman of ADL admits that, "Anti-Semitism, indeed Muslim anti-Semitism, was alive and well before the creation of Israel. Indeed, the extreme reaction to an independent Jewish state to this day in the Muslim world is connected to anti-Jewish attitudes that persisted for centuries" [here].
12-12-2011 Omri Ceren updates what we may call the Gutman-Muslim Affair [here]