Obama & Kerry to Iran: If you like your nuke you can keep your nuke!!

If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.
Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, 
to the AMA 15 June 2009 

Prez Obama lied to his own people when he wanted to push through his so-called Obamacare medical plan, in order to quiet down opposition and prevent his electoral base from verging into opposition to that plan. In fact, his plan has led to a severe reduction in medical care for many Americans, including those retired people living on Social Security and used to receiving medical care under the previous Medicare plan. And under Obamacare, many Americans cannot keep their doctor. Obama is lying again today. If Obama is capable of lying to his own people so as to negatively affect their medical care, and thus their health, why would he not lie to nations outside the USA?

He sent secretary of state Kerry to lie for him to the Arab states opposed to and threatened by a nuclear Iran, as well as to Israel which shares common ground with Arab states, at least on this one issue on which both Israel and most Arab states share fears of an Iranian Bomb. Last night [Saturday night]  I heard Kerry say on Israel TV channel 10:

"We will have inspectors in there every single day. That's not a 10-year deal. That's forever. There have to be inspections," he said. [Also see Jerusalem Post, 2 May 2015, Internet ed.]

Every day? Have the Iranians agreed to that? In fact, Iran has been legally bound for several decades to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which already obliged Iran to undergo inspections of nuclear sites or suspected nuclear sites. But Iran has long resisted compliance with the treaty and prevented inspectors from the IAEA [international atomic energy agency] from inspecting in Iran as they had the legal right to do by virtue of the treaty. Which Iran has been violating for years by that fact alone, among others. Nonetheless, major Western powers, the UK, France, Germany and the USA have given Iran several "last chances." The first "last chance" was in 2003. Hence, you have to ask whether these powers really wanted to stop Iran from obtaining The Bomb --- or did they quietly want Iran to have The Bomb?

Anyhow, with Obama & Kerry and their team of lethal clowns in power, things are getting worse from the nuclear non-proliferation standpoint. Now, in order to calm down Arab opposition to the Iran nuke deal, the White House is said to be offering them high tech weapons never offered to them before (which they are however well able to pay for). But the USA is already committed to maintaining an Israeli upper hand over the Arabs in armaments, in view of the fact that the  Arabs were long threatening Israel but Israel was not threatening them. Since Obama has no compunctions about violating the international obligations of the United States, including treaties, it might sell these Arab states the very most advanced weapons. This will create a very dangerous situation in the Middle East which will be worse than the present dangerous situation. Some Arab states may work to develop their own nuke weapons to reinforce themselves, supposedly, against Iranian aggression. 

So Obama's "peace efforts" are looking more and more like war efforts. Nevertheless, Kerry claimed that:
"I say it again. We will not sign a deal that does not close off Iran's pathways to a bomb and that doesn't give us the confidence to all of our experts and global experts, that we will be able to know what Iran is doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon."

A sure way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon would be to make sure that Iran divests itself of its nuke bomb making capacity. The Lausanne framework as proclaimed by Obama and by Iranian officials [who did not agree on the content of the framework] is meant to contain Iran's capacity to produce a nuke bomb, not to eliminate that capacity. Hence, according to what Obama and his minions are admitting to now, the agreement which is not yet an agreement will allow Iran to keep its nuke bombmaking capacity. Hence there is always the danger that it will make a bomb, The Bomb, once it has decided to do so. And in a short time. Furthermore, Kerry's claim about "inspectors in there [watching Iran's nuke project] every single day" sounds groundless, given the fact that Iran has been preventing IAEA inspectors from viewing its nuke project for years, and when not preventing access for the inspectors, it has been making things difficult for them. 

So other regional governments, Arabs, Israel, and others, believe that Iran will have The Bomb sooner or later and most likely sooner. Therefore, 

"Leading Persian Gulf states want major new weapons systems and security guarantees from the White House in exchange for backing a nuclear agreement with Iran, according to U.S. and Arab officials." . . . [Wall Street Journal, JAY SOLOMON And  CAROL E. LEE, May 2, 2015]

". . . The demands underscore what complicated diplomatic terrain Mr. Obama is navigating as he drives toward one of his top foreign-policy goals, and they demonstrate how a nuclear deal with Iran aimed at stabilizing the Middle East risks further militarizing an already volatile region." [Ibid, WSJ, 2 May 2015]

Although these Arab countries are mainly interested in having the most advanced weapons to counter the Iranian threat, which will grow if Iran has The Bomb,  their having these weapons will also threaten Israel. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares the Arab governments’ belief that Iran poses the greatest security challenge to their region. But there remains fear in Israel that over the long term any sophisticated systems sold to the GCC countries could eventually be turned on Israel, according to Israeli officials. [Ibid.]

Another danger is that the failure to enforce existing and longstanding treaties, like the NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty] or the laws of the sea treaties or the treaty guaranteeing US defense of the Marshall Islands, relevant in regard to the ship seized by Iran last week that was flying the Marshall Islands flag, is dangerous.

Assuming America does not act to enforce international conventions, however, Iran will have proved her point that the conventions are no longer enforced. [Cmdr J E Dyer, USN ret here]

This means that the USA under Obama is helping make treaties ridiculous, and thereby increasing the risk to peace in other ways than simply letting Iran build The Bomb.

Once again, Obama and Kerry's "peace efforts" turn out to be war efforts.
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Sarah Honig supplies additional reasons not to trust Obama's administration [here].
Karen Elliott House explains and describes Saudi Arabia's new diplomacy [here] on 1 May 2015 in Wall Street Journal. See this paragraph: 
". . .  in two weeks . . . Mr. Obama hosts a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a collection of small Gulf countries plus Saudi Arabia, that Riyadh is seeking to lead in combating Iran’s Middle East expansion. The Saudis still hope to persuade Washington to be more active in the fight not just against Islamic State forces but also against Bashar Assad in Syria.
Mr. Obama seems to see the summit as simply an opportunity to encourage these nations to fend for themselves, showing U.S. concern for their security without offering concrete action. As Saudis point out, there is a chasm between Mr. Obama’s words and actions—as seen in his unilateral erasing of the “red line” he declared regarding Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria."

More Arab Corruption of the Academy

The latest ranking of mathematics departments in universities around the world shows the department of math in a Saudi Arabian university coming out in seventh place, behind the top three, Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton, in that order, but ahead of the renowned MIT in only eleventh place.
Taking seventh place was King Abdulaziz University in Jedda. This institution was founded only in 1967 (Osama bin Laden studied there in 1975, by the way), unlike the other, more venerable institutions mentioned above. Its math department only began to offer a doctoral research program just two years ago. And the department chairman Professor Abdullah Mathker Al-Otaibi (he got his doctorate in 2005) , has no academic publications to his credit in the field of math -- or any other apparently. So with its recent beginnings and its undistinguished department head, how did this Saudi math department manage to beat out MIT?  [come si chiede Daniele Raineri, "Come fa il dipartimento saudita a battere il Mit di Boston?" -- Il Foglio, 4 Novembre 2014]. Just how did something so seemingly unlikely happen?
   
Daniele Raineri writing in Il Foglio, says that he is on to the trick. If you think that the trick has to do with all of that Saudi money, well then, you would be -- right.

The rating drawn up by US News & World Report [published in USNWR about a week ago] is based on the number of academic publications  by department members and on how often these publications have been cited by other scholars and by researchers. This is a common enough method of academic evaluation. So how did King Abdulaziz University's math department manage to beat out the department at MIT? Representatives of the Saudi university went around to prominent scholars in the field and asked them to "also" be scholars in the math department in Jedda. That is, in return for compensation, they would identify themselves when publishing their articles as professors in the math department of wherever they had positions and add to that they were "also" on the faculty at King Abdulaziz. As compensation they would get $ 6,000 dollars per month. The contract also stipulated that they had to spend three weeks per year in Jedda, staying at a 5-star hotel as part of their compensation, The three weeks need not be consecutive. The eminent profs would fly business class with expenses included. And meanwhile, they would still have their positions in their present institutions and get paid by them too. of course.

Raineri's source referred to an article in Science in 2011 entitled --backtranslating from the Italian translation-- "The Saudi universities offer cash in exchange for academic prestige"  [“Le università saudite offrono cash in cambio di prestigio accademico”]. Raineri adds that the trick works with mathematical precision. Such are the standards in the academic world today. 

Arab money also functions in the field of Middle Eastern studies [who would have imagined?]. 
There is no need to take the opinions of university "experts" as representing truth or wisdom. And scholarship is obviously not always pure. Consider too all of the university departments of Middle Eastern studies that are Arab-funded. How about professors who are on the take from Saudis or Kuwatis or Qataris or Dubaians? How about the famous Yale University which allowed its hunger for Arab money to eliminate a center studying antisemitism? The academy ought to be judged by its reality that is very much down to earth and interested in filthy lucre like everybody else. And has prejudices and bigotries and so on and so forth.

Here is a link to Raineri's article:
http://www.ilfoglio.it/articoli/v/122520/rubriche/arabia-saudita/universita-con-questo-trucco-i-matematici-sauditi-battono-pure-il-mit-di-boston.htm

The Obama Administration Moves into a Full Pro-Nazi, Judeophobic Position

When fascism comes to America,
it will be called anti-fascism.
[attributed to Huey Long]

Little comment from me is needed on Evelyn Gordon's short essay below on the Obama administration anti-Israel position. It is implicitly and fundamentally pro-Nazi. That is, it means to take away Jewish rights in the Land of Israel, national rights to govern the land, rights of residency throughout the Land, rights to Jewish religious and archeological sites, and so on. It means to set up a genocidal Arab terrorist state alongside Israel.

By implicitly rejecting Security Council resolution 242 of 1967 it means to throw Israel to the Arab wolves, without the "secure and defensible boundaries" that SC res. 242 called for. Mitchell is in fact rejecting any real negotiations. He is embracing the position of the Judeophobic Saudi wahhabite Muslim kingdom that actively spreads Islamic fanaticism around the world. Mitchell, Obama & Company are flouting the real international law that recognized the Jewish right to reconstitute the ancient Jewish state in the Jewish national home [Preamble to the League of Nations mandate].

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Evelyn Gordon

HONEST BROKER, ANYONE?

Nothing in George Mitchell’s interview with PBS last week received more attention than the envoy’s implied threat to revoke American loan guarantees to Israel. That’s a pity — because far more worrisome is the goal he set for the negotiations, as highlighted by Aluf Benn in today’s Haaretz. “We think the way forward … is full implementation of the Arab peace initiative,” Mitchell declared. “That’s the comprehensive peace in the region that is the objective set forth by the president.”

The Arab initiative mandates a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines — every last inch of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. It also demands a solution to the refugee problem “in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194,” which Arabs interpret as allowing the refugees to “return” to Israel.

Later in the interview, Mitchell says this initiative requires “a negotiation and a discussion,” and that you can’t negotiate by telling “one side you have to agree in advance to what the other side wants.” Yet by saying his goal is “full implementation” of this initiative, he’s effectively saying, “You can have your negotiation and discussion, but Washington has no intention of being an honest broker: it fully backs the Arab position on borders, Jerusalem, and even (to some extent) the refugees.”

This is the administration’s clearest statement yet that it’s abandoning the position held by every previous U.S. administration: that Israel needs “defensible borders” — which everyone agrees the 1967 lines are not. Mitchell also thereby abandoned the position, held by every previous administration, that any deal must acknowledge Israel’s historic ties to the Temple Mount via some Israeli role there, even if only symbolic (see Bill Clinton’s idea of “sovereignty under the Mount”). The Arab initiative requires Israel to just get out.

And Mitchell effectively took Syria’s side on that border dispute: no Israeli government ever agreed to withdraw farther than the international border, whereas the Arab initiative mandates the 1967 lines — i.e., including the territory Syria illegally annexed pre-1967.

Even worse, the Arab initiative addresses none of Israel’s concerns, such as recognition as a Jewish state or security arrangements. That means Mitchell just announced support for all Arab demands without obtaining any parallel concession to Israel. Under those circumstances, why would the Arabs bother making any?

And his repeated demand that Israeli-Palestinian talks deal with borders first indicates that this was no slip of the tongue. After all, the only thing Israel has to give is territory; having once ceded that via an agreement on borders, it has nothing left to trade for, say, security arrangements — which, as a veteran Israeli negotiator told Benn, has actually proved one of the hardest issues to resolve in previous rounds of talks. Borders first, an Israeli minister summed up, is “a trap. We only give, we don’t get anything.”

George Bush’s Road Map viewed the Arab initiative as merely one of many “foundations” for talks. Mitchell’s adoption of its “full implementation” as a goal thus represents a deterioration in U.S. positions that ought to worry all Israel supporters.

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This stance by Mitchell is Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jimmy Carter's dream. It fulfills their Judeophobic hatred. It was for the purpose of promoting such Judeophobic, pro-Nazi policies that the JStreet lobby was set up using the money of George Soros, the multi-billionaire. Mitchell of course is a flunkey not only for Obama but for the foreign policy establishment. No doubt the British partners in crime of the US foreign policy establishment will soon join in to support this position.

Fake Human Rights Outfits like Human Rights Watch Form a Central Axis of the MSM's Anti-Israel Strategy

UPDATING link added 10 September 2009

. . . Many Lies resembling Truth. . .
Hesiod, Theogony

Sources of fake "information" that present themselves as ostensibly loyal to lofty ideals are part of a well-developed propaganda-cum-indoctrination machine. A fake outfit, ostensibly devoted to a lofty principle, such as human rights, uses its undeserved image of decency, idealism, truthfulness and impartiality to smear a target, a designated enemy. It doesn't use bullets or guns but words. Yet in the long run, the words are meant to play a military role too. The process entails a fake human rights group or fake "peace group" etc, like Human Rights Watch, drawing up a report falsely accusing Israel of killing civilians in warfare, either intentionally or negligently/carelessly. The report is passed on to the complicit Mainstream Media or --to use a somewhat dated term-- the Establishment media. The various media/press/broadcasting organizations --not all to be sure-- report on the report, perhaps further dramatizing it. A smear, a libel, a slander spreads throughout the world. The target has been effectively smeared. The smear is especially effective among readers or listeners who are weak in their knowledge of history, sociology, political science, comparative religion and so on and so forth, as well as being weak in their ability to carefully read what is written, to discount speculative accounts without well-identified credible witnesses, and so on. That is how Human Rights Watch and similar entities can operate.

A commenter on the Augean Stables site, which was founded precisely to deal with frauds and distortions in the media, sees the link between the media and the fake "NGOs" and groups with ostensibly lofty goals, as follows. He points out part of the strategy of the MSM in promoting false "news":

Denting the credibility of ‘trusted sources’ like HRW is precisely what the MSNM carefully tries to avoid even while pretending balance. It regularly uses apparently neutral sources which are actually deeply committed players to force a covert agenda on the audience as a magician forces a card on a dupe. [Lorenz Gude at Augean Stables 8-14-09]

By the way, Gude goes on to mention the impact of the Internet and intelligent blogs on MSM/Establishment control of the "narrative."

Now an unruly audience gets to point out when the magician is pulling a fast one.

That is probably true but the MSM still have more power than the blogs.

Another trick is to pretend that one is neutral, maybe merely interested in having the law obeyed or that one is opposed to one's own ally and allied with one's enemy. This trick is often used against Israel, with the MSM and State Dept pretending to defend Israel against Arab enemies while the truth is the opposite. The Israeli govt also plays along with this lie, which is another problem.

Academic international relations specialists Walt & Mearsheimer were well regarded in the United States in their profession and specialty. They were also both State Department consultants. The State Dept has almost always been hostile to Israel and Jews since before the rebirth of the State of Israel. However, public opinion in the United States has often been sympathetic to Israel and this sympathy has sometimes thwarted State Dept policies hostile to Israel. It seems that one purpose of Walt & Mearsheimer's notorious book, The Israel Lobby, was to create a hostile atmosphere for Israel in the United States, a hostile body of public opinion in order to replace or counter the body of opinion sympathetic to Israel. In that way, the State Dept would be less restricted by public opinion in what it does to harm Israel. W & M falsely claimed that Israel had controlled even dictated American Middle East policy through the so-called Israel Lobby which is at best a very amorphous body of public opinion, often pulling in different directions.

They went so far as to claim or insinuate that the US-led invasion of Iraq --in which Israel's old nemesis, the UK-- took a major role-- had been dictated or forced on America by Israel. W & M knew that this was a lie. Indeed, Mearsheimer went on at length in an interview on National Public Radio [the US Govt broadcaster; also see here] that when Israeli officials had learned of the US intention to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, they --the Israelis-- had tried to dissuade the Americans from doing this and to convince them [the Americans] that, if they were going to go to war anyway, it would be better to attack Iran than Iraq, since Iran was more dangerous in the Israeli view, with its undisrupted efforts to develop a nuclear bomb, etc. Needless to say, the Israelis did not succeed in convincing the Americans and the invasion of Iraq went ahead. This admission by Mearsheimer, probably inadvertent, did not stop W & M from lying afterwards about Israeli control of US policy. And of course the MSM routinely claim that Israel is a favored ally of US policy whereas, especially under Obama, Israel is a target, an enemy meant to be attacked. While doing their "book," W & M, overlooked the close ties and cozy financial relationships between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, American administrations, the State Dept and -- former State Dept employes who had worked in Saudi Arabia and later got on the Saudi payroll. Charles Freeman, whom Obama had originally wanted to appoint to a highly sensitive intelligence post, was one of these. Of course, W & M were aware of the Saudi-American connection, especially close under the two Bush administrations [Sr & Jr], as described in detail in Craig Unger's book on the House of Saud.

In another example, Pres Obama has been denouncing "special interests" such as insurance companies and big pharmaceutical outfits for being opposed to his so-called health plan. In fact, he is already allied with Big Pharma [see here too] and seems to have the insurance industry on board as well. This is a blatant example of this technique. He denounces the big drug companies, whom he and his advisors knew were disliked and distrusted by the public, in order to win public support for his program. They, the Big Pharma firms, are against Me, against Little Me. Meanwhile, Obama and Big Pharma are allied.

Further, Obama's supporters throw out the label "astroturf" to smear opponents of his plan. Astroturf is a brand name for a kind of imitation grass used in some sports stadiums. The label is meant to say that opponents of his plan do not represent the real "grass roots" but are fake grass, astroturf, organized by the Republican Party or the Big Interests, such as Big Pharma [as insinuated]. There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with Obama's health plan.

In tsarist Russia, the government conducted an anti-Jewish campaign in various ways. One way was to finance and encourage a group called the Black Hundreds [tshernotentsy] that blamed the Jews for all of the Russian Empire's troubles and carried out anti-Jewish pogroms. When such pogroms broke out, often instigated and organized by the Black Hundreds, the police often did little or nothing to protect the Jews. They pretended to be helpless before such a "spontaneous" outburst of popular hatred of Jews.

Getting back to "human rights watch," it pretends to objectivity and impartiality. These pretenses have been easily disproven by a number of serious reports in various publications and blogs. Among these, see the Augean Stables blog and --especially-- the NGO Monitor blog, both linked to on our blog roll. Emet m'Tsiyon has considered hrw's tragi-farcical charade several times in the past [see here & ici & aqui & qui ]

HRW ought to be severely discredited due to recent revelations that it sent some of its top officials to Saudi Arabia for fundraising [see here & NGO Monitor & Augean Stables], with three Saudi officials present at meetings [according to an AFP report]. Bear in mind that Saudi Arabia, with its Wahhabi Muslim ideology and legal system, rejects the whole notion of human rights in principle. Likewise discrediting is the fanatically anti-Israel career of top HRW operative Joe Stork, who has not changed his extreme anti-Israel views since he openly identified himself as a "radical leftist" years ago. This too ought to discredit HRW. See Stork's background here.
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UPDATING link added on 10 Sept 2009
David Bernstein on HRW seeking funds in Saudi Arabia, from the Wall Street Journal [published 16 July 2009].
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Coming soon: Arabs and State Dept helping to fund the "J Street" lobby outfit, Lies supporting the "peace process" and Obama/State Dept policy.

fake hr outfit hrw drops its mask, raising dough in saudiarabia by promising to fight israel, downplaying saudi hr cirimes

The fake "human rights" outfit, "human rights watch," has lately hit a new low. It sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia of all places to raise funds, telling the Saudis of how eagerly they had smeared Israel's good name over the Gaza war in January of this year. This fund-raising mission was written up in the Arab News published in Saudi Arabia. The Arab News report was then discovered by NGO Monitor which was shocked by the blatant hypocrisy of raising funds to fight alleged Israeli violations of human rights by seeking donors in Saudi Arabia, a land where the laws explicitly deny human rights, instead embodying traditional Islamic supremacy which has long oppressed scores of millions, indeed hundreds of millions of non-Muslims since the Muslim conquests began in the seventh century.

The controversy ensuing on the revelations of hrw's unscrupulous acts was covered by NGO Monitor, by a column in the Wall Street Journal, by Jeffrey Goldberg's blog in the Atlantic Monthly, and on many web sites including Augean Stables. It is interesting in this context to note that at least two Saudi government officials were present at one of the hrw fund-raising meetings in Riyadh, according to the admission of Kenneth Roth, HRW executive director. Note the cutesy deceit employed by hrw when referring to Saudi Arabia.

The organization recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers [in the Arab News report].

As far as I know, the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia violates the human rights of domestic workers, particularly foreigners, rather than protecting them. Indeed, wealthy Saudis belonging to the kingdom's elite often have slaves. One Saudi couple brought a young girl as a slave with them to live in the United States, in Colorado, I think. This was discovered a few years ago and the couple had to go to jail. Seems to me that the Saudis have an awful lot of human rights improvement to do right there in the kingdom before they point their fingers at Jews whose human rights are rather explicitly rejected by Saudi law.

Here are several links on the issue which I will follow with my own comments made first on Augean Stables.
1. The Arab News report here

2. The first NGO Monitor report here.

3. The CAMERA report ici, later CAMERA report [7-28-2009]

4. Law professor David Bernstein in the Wall Street Journal.

5. Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic [qui] . Goldberg also interviewed Kenneth Roth, executive director of hrw, who revealed that two Saudi govt officials were at one of the fund-raising sessions.

We certainly weren't soliciting Saudi government funds and would never take them. As for whether any government people were there, the closest was a guy from the national human rights commission and someone from the Shura Council

Now, isn't Roth being just a bit too disingenuous? Isn't the very presence of govt officials [one from the human rights commission no less!] in a state that violates human rights regularly in accord with its own laws compromising when the emphasis of the fund-raising appeal was Israel's alleged hr violations, not those of Saudi Arabia, which I repeat rejects the very idea of human rights??

6. NGO Monitor article of May 27, 2009, report of 16 June 2009 and NGO Monitor fact sheet on hrw & fresh article by NGO Monitor director, Gerald Steinberg כאן

7. Posts and discussion threads on the Augean Stables blog on this issue.
a) here - b) aqui c) ici

Here are some of my own comments on the hrw/Saudi scandal first made on Augean Stables:

Here’s a sincerity test for whitson and roth. Whitson says the following, insinuating that she may have harshly criticized Saudi anti-human rights policies while in the kingdom. [In an interview with the Jerusalem Post,]

Whitson dismissed the impression left in the Arab News report that the organization’s sales pitch in Saudi Arabia had been based on its work slamming Israel, saying there was Saudi press censorship, and it was clear that HRW’s work in Gaza was the angle that the authorities in Riyadh would want to highlight.
Most of this sentence is true enough and I agree that the Riyadh govt would want to highlight critiques of Israel. But, if she did criticize Saudi practices and policies, and such criticism was omitted from the Arab News report, then why did she not make it forcefully clear once she had returned to the USA that she strongly disapproved of the ban on religious worship other than Muslim worship in Saudi Arabia [isn’t this an HR issue?] and she disapproved of the severe limits on women’s freedom, and cruel treatment of foreign workers, especially, but not only, non-Muslims, etc???
Since she did not make such a critical attitude towards Saudi practices clear once she had come back to the US [as far as I know], one must assume that she had little if anything to say about these matters while in the kingdom. Hence, her insinuation about omissions in the Arab News Report was meant to mislead, that is, to lie.

I would go further. Why do we hear so much about HRW “reports” and “critiques” of Israeli policy in the media but so little, if any, about “reports” and critiques of Arab regimes practices, including those of Saudi Arabia, which is near an extreme even within the Arab world?? Then, in the course of criticizing alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, has hrw ever discussed the anti-human rights implications of the Hamas charter [inc. Article 7] which now governs Gaza??

RL sarcastically remarks, “And, of course, the HRW fundraisers paid no attention to Saudi preferences.” Obviously. Further, making a funds appeal to the Saudis on the grounds of HRW’s leading role in anti-Israel propaganda or, if you like, “information” warfare or agitprop or perhaps “public spirited, disinterested, testimony to Congress based purely on principled concerns, already shows a bias on hrw’s part. That is, stressing anti-Israel efforts to Saudi donors implies that hrw has taken sides.

One of the problems here is that the US MSM are already in the pockets of the anti-Israel, pro-Arab forces in the establishment.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of HR policies by Arabs govts, what about genocide going on in the Sudan since independence in 1956?

To continue:

The Hamas charter is clearly a pro-genocide document. This is very clear in Article 7, which quotes a medieval Muslim Hadith fable foretelling the genocide of the Jews at Judgement Day, a genocide to be performed by Muslims. The loyal Muslim, reading that fable, might logically ask, Why wait till Judgement Day. Now, if HRW still considers genocide an offense against HR, if it ever did, then Hamas’s pro-genocide position ought to be taken into account in any treatment of the Gaza War of January 2009. In other words, Hamas is a political/religious body that is blatantly opposed to human rights. The Gaza War has to be seen in that light.

Since HR are supposed to be universal, then opposing Jews’ HR means opposing HR as such. Also, supporting Hamas means opposing Jews’ HR. This applies to HRW’s wealthy Saudi donors too, obviously. Now, we come to another point, which no doubt bothers many critics of HRW. Was hrw’s ostensible concern for “civilians” in Gaza merely a pretext for supporting Hamas’ war against Israel, Hamas’ genocidal war on Israel??? No doubt, this belief caused some previous hrw donors to stop funding the fake HR body. I have not closely examined hrw’s indictment of Israel regarding that war. However, if hrw accepted false claims made by Hamas and other Arab interested parties that members of the Hamas armed forces [inc. the Hamas Gaza police] were “civilians”, then hrw not only lacks credibility but is consciously supporting Hamas’ genocidal efforts. This is because various sources identified persons claimed by name by Hamas and other Arab sources as civilians as being in fact Hamas policemen or members of other Hamas armed forces. Hamas had even claimed that commanders of its armed forces that had been killed were civilians. Since such claims by Hamas were belied, then hrw is taking the Hamas side by accepting its claims.

Next, what are the human rights bona fides of hrw’s Saudi donors? Are they supporters in good faith of human rights in Saudi Arabia while living in luxury in their palaces in Riyahdh, with their servants, foreign and domestic –or slaves, dare we ask?? Do these people accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN, for example??? Or do they adhere to the Cairo Declaration of human rights in Islam, which is a clearly anti-hr manifesto??? More particularly, do these donors accept the traditional Islamic doctrine that Jews are not only kufar [unbelievers] but the worst of unbelievers?? That Jews are destined to be humiliated by Muslims, slaughtered at Judgement Day, etc?? Do they agree with the endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Hamas charter??

In short, I would like to see proof in both word and deed that the Saudi donors to hrw are supporters of human rights as such, and not merely cleverly using HR against Jews and Israel. Until Whitson and Roth supply convincing indications about the hr commitment of their Saudi donors, then whitson, roth and hrw should be considered human rights fakers.

--end of my comments on Augean Stables--

To sum up about hrw's Saudi donors. Here are a few questions for hrw to answer about them:
Did or do hrw's Saudi benefactors acknowledge the humanity of Jews; are these contributors in Saudi Arabia people who believe in universal humanity? In the humanity of Jews in particular?
Or do hrw's Saudi donors believe in regime propaganda, in the Saudi school system, in the official Saudi Wahhabite creed which dehumanizes sectarian Muslims, let alone Jews and other non-believers in Islam?
Do the Saudi benefactors of hrw accept the Islamic prejudices against Jews that go back to the early days of Islam?

Or do they just see the utility and expediency in smearing Israel with the fake "human rights" brush?

As far as hrw is concerned, what has it done for violations of the human rights of Jews?? This is a big subject, but let us just ask about the human rights of Jonathan Pollard. Did hrw ever defend his rights? Pollard received a sentence that violates the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution which forbids "cruel and unusual punishments." Pollard life sentence --in practice-- is much longer than that of other persons convicted of espionage by the United States. Where was the voice of hrw to protest this miscarriage of justice?

Of course, our fake "human rights" outfit, hrw, went to Saudi Arabia in order to raise money against Israel. They did not ask for money for general human rights advocacy but for anti-Israel advocacy in particular. So the human rights of some are more equal than the hr of others.

Now, far be it from me to criticize HRW alone and neglect other phoney "human rights" outfits. Another one is Amnesty International. Here is a truly shocking example of "amnesty" deploring a film against stoning of women in Iran. This film exposed the ugly reality of that phenomenon. In short, amnesty international defends hr violations, provided that authorized human rights violators do the violating. In this case, the government of Iran and Muslim bigots there are allowed to violate the human rights of women.

"Human Rights" is very often a corrupt racket, just a political, propaganda club for beating designated targets, like Israel, while Hamas and Iranian Muslim bigots are allowed to get away with it.

Obama's Starched-Shirt Old & Middle-Aged White Men Mentors, like Lee Hamilton, Chaz Freeman and Others

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Obama is probably the greatest faker to become president since 1900 --and he has a lot of competition. Like George Bush Jr's pretense at being against "terrorism," whereas George B played ball with many a terrorist. Arafat was only one of them. But we think Obama takes the cake as a fraud. He came to power on the slogan of Change. Hence, a lot of the fools thought that he was against that old Establishment of middle-aged white men wearing ties, jackets, and starched shirts who have so long dominated Washington. In fact, Obama has long been taking counsel with the worst of these Establishment white men. Shortly before the inauguration, it came out that he met discreetly with Lee Hamilton, an ex-congressman, veteran hater of Israel, director of the Wilson Center, and the Hamilton of the Baker-Hamilton Report put out by the so-called Iraq Study Group. Note that George B Jr had already begun to implement their recommendations about two years ago. So much for Change.

It now turns out that Hamilton is the gray eminence [eminence grise] behind young, fresh-faced, innocent Obama who naively sat in Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years and never heard him say a mean word about white folk, like his dear granny. Maybe Obama is hard of hearing or has some sort of auditory problem. Anyway, it now turns out that he not only looks up to Zbig Brzezinski, an old white feller, but he looks up to another old white feller, that is, Lee Hamilton [see link].

Another example of the kind of white folk that Obama's appointees hang around with and pal around with is Chaz Freeman, the kind of guy who likes to get close to the hog trough so that he can slurp up the goodies. After being ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chaz then became a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia [and for Communist China]. No doubt his loyal services to his Saudi employers were decently compensated from a pecuniary point of view. And then one of Obama's not so intelligent intelligence experts came along and wanted to appoint Chaz F to a sensitive job in editing the daily intelligence reports that go the president. Daily Beast claims Freeman is tied to the bin Laden family.

It is true that in the end Freeman was induced to decline the appointment although the NYTimes and other MSM "news" outlets did their best to cover up for him.

James Kirchick was one of those who wrote up the Chaz Freeman story that the NYTimes thought was "not fit to print" [here]. Here are some highlights from Kirchick:

The Chinese Communists are not the only authoritarians for whom Freeman seems to have a soft spot. From 1989 to 1992, he served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, where he developed an affinity for the monarchs who run the kingdom as their own personal fiefdom. “I believe King Abdullah is very rapidly becoming Abdullah the Great,” he said last October. In 1997, he became president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Saudi-funded think tank in Washington. There, he bragged about publishing an “unabridged” version of “The Israel Lobby” by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, which purports to expose the Jewish state’s nefarious power and the dual loyalties of Jewish government officials, journalists and political activists. A man who for a decade presided over a front group for a theocratic kleptocracy and who believes the title of “king” isn’t sufficient for the fat oil baron who rules that benighted land should pause before endorsing a work that questions the loyalty of others.

The elevation of Freeman provides welcome opportunity for a debate about a lobby, one just as well-financed and professionally staffed as the groups that support America’s strong relationship with Israel — that is, the one shilling for the House of Saud. While a pro-Saudi Arabia lobby does not enjoy nearly the same level of domestic support as the pro-Israel lobby (primarily because Saudi Arabia, unlike Israel, does things like behead homosexuals, ban women from driving and outlaw the practice of Christianity), the Saudis — and the Gulf states in general — have far more sympathizers in high-level positions in the State Department than does Israel, which is, and always has been, friendless at Foggy Bottom.

What Kirchick wrote several weeks ago about Foggy Bottom [the State Dept] is still true today. Next we ought to look at the anti-Jewish Racism of Obama/Hamilton/Freeman's opposition to Jews living in Judea-Samaria, as well as the anti-Black Racism of the Obama Administration's willingness to appease the genocidal regime of `Umar [Omar] al-Bashir in the Sudan [see link].

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

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More obamoid appeasement -- they want iran to have A-bomb capability.

Uncle Tom Obama Bows Down to the Massa

UPDATINGS 4-6-2009 & 4-9-2009

Is it fair to call Obama an Uncle Tom just because he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, a country where slavery was not outlawed --on paper-- until 1962 and continued there in practice? Obama seems to have gone farther in obeisance to the Saudis than previous American high officials. But actually he is only going in the same direction as they did --but farther. After all, John Foster Dulles, a State Department veteran and secretary of state for Pres. Eisenhower, bestowed an expensive pistol on King Saud of Saudi Arabia who visited the United States in 1957. Presidents George Bush I & II were both very considerate of and compliant with Saudi desires and demands. But I don't know that either of them ever bowed down to a Saudi royal. In that way, Obama may be the first. Certainly that is Change that we can believe in.

Here is a still photo of Obama bowing down, taken from the back [hat tip-Flopping Aces]. If you want to be sure that Obama is the one bowing down, if you want see him approach King PastaFazoolah, watch the video showing the scene at the G20 meeting before and after Obama's craven bow [From Michelle Malkin].

John Foster Dulles testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committe in February 1956 on the issue of why the United States was selling war planes to Saudi Arabia but not to Israel. He also justified the US Army policy of not sending Jewish soldiers in the US Armed Forces to bases in Saudi Arabia. Senators had criticized the fact that:

"the agreement for the US airbase at Dhahran permitted Saudi Arabia to exclude any 'objectionable' individuals. The United States was required to submit a detailed list of the names and identities of personnel and employees. Dulles. . . went on to explain why American Jews could not be assigned to an American base. There was an audible gasp when he said that Saudi Arabia practices 'very rigorously certain religious doctrines, and they 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' [actually, to a Jewess said to have poisoned him]. Dulles later revised his testimony to read:
'a very particular animosity toward the Jews since the time of Mohammed.' While the Secretary [JFDulles] personally disapproved such practices, we had to recognize that Saudi Arabia was an 'ally.' "'We perforce accomodate ourselves to certain practices they have which we do not like; they perhaps accomodate themselves to certain of our idiosyncrasies which they do not like, but on the whole they have a pretty arbitrary rule, largely dictated by the strict tenets of the Moslem faith.'" [I L Kenen, Israel's Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington (Buffalo NY: Prometheus 1981), pp 127-128].

What is bizarre nowadays is that the medieval religious bigotry of Islam in general and the Saudi kingdom in particular now enjoy the approval and patronage of what is called the "Left." The catering to and fawning over Arab kings that typified the State Dept, the Republican Eisenhower administration and the US oil companies that were partners in ARAMCO in the 1950s is now identified as "leftist." The Islamic laws that govern life in Saudi Arabia have not much changed in the last fifty years since the heyday of the Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen, but today it is all done with the approval of the "Left."

On the US Treasury's financial support or hidden foreign aid for Saudi Arabia through the Foreign Tax Credit, see here & here. See our previous posts on Saudi influence in the West here & here.

Can anyone who is intelligent, knowledgeable and serious take seriously the walt-mearsheimer claim that Israel controls Washington policy toward the Middle East??

It is also of interest that Dulles, no friend of Israel as should be clear from the above, traces Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews back to Muhammad. He does not blame it on "occupation" or the Arab refugee problem or any other alleged offense of the State of Israel. Today, of course, anti-Israel [read: Judeophobic] propaganda and psywar have become much more sophisticated.
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More commentary on the Bow and obeisance to the Saudis: here & here & here & David Pryce-Jones here, & a stong Washington Times editorial here.

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UPDATING 4-6-2009 & 4-9-2009 --- John F Kennedy was photographed in a friendly scene with King Saud arriving at the White House in a US Army helicopter. JFK is not bowing however [see here]. On the other hand, Prez George Bush II bows down before the present king, Abdullah, down to only a 30 degree angle approx. [see here from Little Green Footballs] and perhaps only to let the king place a medal or decoration on a ribbon around his neck, whereas Obama's bow is deeper, about 90 degrees. I now have to be slightly more charitable to Obama about his sycophancy, his toadying, to the Saudis --after all, his forerunner, George II did too, apparently not as deeply-- but my conclusion about Saudi influence in Washington is reinforced.

Saudi Power/Influence in the United KIngdom -- Her Majesty's Britain

Saudi Arabia has the power/influence not only to have American newspapers --that like to see themselves as "talking truth to power"-- bend over backwards to justify Saudi massacres of civilians but they have power/influence in the UK --Britain-- too. David Pryce-Jones reports several cases, one of which we have reported on Emet m'Tsiyon. In Britain Saudi demands have perverted the normal system of criminal investigation and caused injustice against British citizens oppressed ["mistreated"] by the Saudi kingdom. The situation is outrageous but it seems that there is not enough outrage to correct it.

Here is our previous post on Saudi-demanded perversion of political and journalistic decency in the United States. What does it mean that the press and universities and judicial systems in supposedly democratic countries pervert their own conduct in order to please the superrich bigots who represent Wahhabi Islam?

Many of Israel's enemies in America try to have things both ways. On one hand, they claim that support for Israel is harmful for "American interests" in the Arab world, in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, or even in the whole "Third World." Of course, one problem with this claim is just how American interests are to be defined. Should the United States favor a democratic state or an autocracy that rules in the name of religious bigotry in its own country?

On the other hand, some of the same critics of Israel claim quite conveniently that Israel is immoral, oppressive, alien to the Middle East, racist, apartheid, and/or whatever other pejoratives that you can think of. They want to have everything both ways.

The Mecca Massacre 1987 -- The Power/Influence of Saudi Arabia in the USA

UPDATING 3-19 & 3-21 & 3-26-2009 & 1-19-2010

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

A bloody event in Mecca on July 31, 1987, demonstrated the power or influence of Saudi Arabia in the United States, and over the communications media in particular. During the yearly Muslim haj pilgrimage to Mecca --occurring in July that year according to the Gregorian calendar-- Saudi police beat to death [or shot] a mass of Iranian pilgrims, estimated in numbers from 400 to 1500. Either the minimal or maximal number would be a shocking number of victims of police brutality. Now, police brutality had become a theme for outrage for many Americans, especially those considering themselves "liberals", "progressives", "leftists" and "radicals". If this shocking incident would end up by applying the label of "police brutality" to Saudi Arabia, that could cause difficulties for the Saudi-American relationship, a relationship which was profitable in money terms not only for the Saudi royal family but for their numerous American associates, followers, hangers on, hirelings, and so on. It should be added that the US-Saudi relationship provided military security/protection for the Wahhabite monarchy which would in any case be threatened by enemies within the Arab and Islamic worlds for all sorts of reasons.

What happened that day in Mecca? Other than the issue of just how many were killed, which I cannot pretend to answer with authority, there is the issue of who began the incident and how, the issue of how to describe the incident [massacre of civilians unprovoked by them, a riot by these Iranian pilgrims, a mere political demonstration by the Iranians in favor of Khomeini which the Saudi royals could not tolerate for various reasons, including the Sunni-Shi`ite split, etc], and the issues of who were killed [only Iranians or Saudi police too] and how [by shooting or beating]. From what I know, the Iranians were sent on pilgrimage by their government --by Khomeini's regime-- with the purpose of embarassing the Sunni Saudis by staging a pro-Khomeini demonstration during the pilgrimage. When they staged their demo, with prepared signs featuring political-religious slogans, the Saudi police reacted by beating them, perhaps on the orders of their commanders. And they beat them to death. At least 400 Iranian demonstrators, according to the low figure of which I am aware, were killed.

At that time, the Iran of the ayatollahs was winning its war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a war that began with an Iraqi attack on Iran in 1981, that is, Iraqi aggresssion. Since Israel was not involved, the UN security council was not much concerned, nor was the international press nor were the so-called pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-civil rights NGOs excessively perturbed by the massive loss of life in the war. Now in the summer of 1987 the war had gone on for six years. Since Iran had come from behind to gain the upper hand, there was the danger that the Mecca massacre might provoke a retaliatory Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia. Many wars in history had begun with much less provocation. Of course, we bear in mind that the USA had supported both Saudi Arabia and Khomeini's regime [quite openly at its very beginning]. One difference between the two Muslim states was that many prominent Americans had a major financial interest in the continued generosity towards them of the House of Saud--we need only mention the House of Bush [two recent American presidents] and the "bright, analytic mind" and foul mouth of one Charles Freeman, a paid Saudi lobbyist who blamed criticism of his appointment to a high intelligence post on another lobby, the Israel lobby, whereas his critics were in the main not paid lobbyists for anyone.

The Freeman case reopens the question of whether Israel and its American supporters, or Saudi Arabia and its American supporters, hired hands or not, are more influential. The Mecca massacre can be instructive in settling the issue. The reaction in the American media shows that Saudi power/influence was much stronger than Israeli at that time and, it is reasonable to conclude, since then up till now. Curiously, although Freeman was a lobbyist for both Saudi Arabia and China, the Tien An Men Square massacre of 1989 in Peking was generally deemed bad and evil, in the USA, whereas the Mecca Massacre was JUSTIFIED by many high US officials and prominent journalists writing in the NYTimes and the Washington Post, Time and Newsweek, and so on. Newspaper readers were told that the Saudis just HAD TO DO IT!! Tien An Men was bad; Mecca was good.

Chaz Freeman stands on the common ground of two states that both massacre civilians when necessary. These are two states that he represents for cash compensation. Yet, Saudi massacres and other illiberal Saudi deeds or misdeeds are forgiven --even justified-- whereas American politicians and mass media often scold China for abusing human rights, although China does this much less than Saudi Arabia does. Freeman, to be sure, defended the Tien An Men massacre, complaining only that suppressive action should have been taken earlier. If nothing else, Freeman was consistent in supporting both governments over their massacres.

Clearly, Saudi Arabia, then, and since, has enjoyed a much more favorable approach than either Israel or China from the US mass media, often called the MSM, despite its vast social inequalities, medieval punishments of offenders, massacres of civilians, training and subsidizing of Islamic religious fanatics at home and abroad, prohibitions on non-Muslim religious worship, a ban on Jews entering the kingdom [sometimes waived for stars like Kissinger], the abuse of foreign workers, the fact that 15 out of 19 9/11 terrorist hijackers were Saudis, etc.

Let us note that whereas Israel is constantly scrutinized for the purpose of detecting offenses to liberal principles, civil rights, human rights and so on, and often found wanting, on the grounds of fact or imagination or invention, Saudi Arabia's offenses are overlooked, minimized, etc. Saudi inequalities include the much inferior status of women, the humiliating treatment of foreigners, especially non-Muslims, even Westerners, the abuse of Saudis who happen to be Shi`ites, the legal/judicial system where non-Muslims get Muslim justice, shari`ah justice, not the justice held to be part of 20th or 21st century civilization, etc. Heads, hands and feet are still chopped off in Saudi Arabia according to the offense under shari`ah. Yet Saudi Arabia is spared the opprobrium that other states would receive for the same kinds of actions and social practices. Israel is often charged with offenses against the palestinian Arabs, while the terrorist bodies that dominate palestinian Arab society are often funded in large part by -- Saudi Arabia. But Saudi offenses are overlooked and quite often, so are those of the Saudis' palestinian Arab proteges. Hence, we deduce that for the American mass media, the MSM, human rights and civil rights are out or perhaps simply a stick to beat Israel with.. The so-called "Left" follows the same line as the MSM, likewise the "civil rights" and "human rights" so-called "Non-governmental organizations" funded by governments. Saudi Arabia is over all, uber alles, beyond reproach no matter what. The Mecca Massacre of 1987 is hardly remembered today, unlike Tien An Men.

To close, isn't it insufferably arrogant of Chaz Freeman, a PAID lobbyist for the Saudi royals, to point the finger of blame at the so-called Israel Lobby, when most of those many who opposed him were not paid or professional lobbyists, albeit many were probably supporters of Israel, although not all?? Saudi influence is stronger in Washington but it must work in the shadows. It withers in the light of publicity.

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

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Researching the July 31, 1987, Mecca Massacre:
First of all, I recommend going back to the American and British press of the time. Check especially the accounts of the events in Mecca plus the editorial and op ed commentary in the New York Times, Washington Post, TimeMagazine, Newsweek, The International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor.
Martin Kramer [here]
MedLibrary [here]
Lastly, see the book by Gilles Kepel & Anthony F Roberts, Jihad: The Trial of Political Islam [2006]
On how American, British and French oil policy helps enrich Saudi Arabia and other oil states.
[here & here with references].
On the Bush family's ties to the al-Sa`ud family, see
Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud (expanded edition; London: Gibson Square 2007).
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If there were ever any company closely connected to the US and its presence in Saudi Arabia, it's the Saudi Bin Ladin Group.
Charles Freeman, quoted in Craig Unger [book ref above], p 6; and Wall Street Journal, 9-27-2001.
Tony Blair claimed that a huge weapons sale by a British firm to Saudi Arabia was a "strategic interest" of the United Kingdom.
UPDATE 3-26-2009 Saudi Arabia's hired mouthpiece, Chaz Freeman, hits Israel again [here].

UPDATE 1-19-2010 Kuwait newspaper reports on recent Iran-Saudi hostility arising from Sunni-Shi`ite differences and also brings up the 1987 massacre:
"A week ago, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament slammed a Saudi Friday prayer leader, saying he insulted neighbouring Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini Al-Sistani. MPs urged the Saudi government to take legal action against prayer leader Mohammed Al-Areefi for allegedly calling Sistani an "atheist and debauched". The Muslim holy places and the annual pilgrimage there which is one of the pillars of Islam have been repeated bones of contention between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the past.

"In 1987, Saudi police attempts to stifle a protest by Iranian pilgrims chanting "death to America," and "death to Israel," in the streets of Makkah led to a riot in which 402 people died, 275 of them Iranians. When Saudi Arabia sided with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its 1980-88 war with Iran, Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the kingdom of being a lackey of the United States that was incapable of looking after the holy places. Riyadh cut relations between 1988 and 1991. - AFP" [see Kuwait Times, 18 January 2010, here]
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Coming: Obama's anti-peace peacemongering, dancing with the ayatollahs, adopting the Commie policy of a "Two State Final Solution," Jerusalem archeology, propaganda analysis, etc.

Obama flunkey denies that Obama supports Saudi "peace plan"

UPDATED 11-20-2008
see at bottom

Dennis Ross, now an Obama flunkey, formerly a "peace processor" in the State Dept during Clinton's tenure, has denied that the so-called "Arab peace plan," first proposed by Saudi Arabia, will be part of president-elect Obama's foreign policy. We all recognize the peaceful role played by Saudi Arabia for many years in financing Hamas and before that funding arafat and the Fatah. We also acknowledge that Saudi Arabia is the right country to propose peace plans because of its known devotion to religious tolerance, human rights and justice for all, especially Jews.

However, the trouble with Ross' denial is that a flunkey made it, not Obama himself. It cannot be taken seriously if The One himself does not make it. On the other hand, BHO has contradicted himself so often that we can never be sure where he stands on any issue. And where he stands today might not be where he stands two weeks from now.

As to the Saudi plan, it is also called the "Arab peace plan" because the Arab League adopted it in 2002 during a massive Arab campaign to mass murder Jews by bombings, suicide and otherwise. All this notwithstanding, one could be more trusting about Arab "peace plans" if the Arabs were more at peace with each other. Instead, we have Arab slaughter of fellow Arabs in Iraq [mainly Sunnites against Shi`ites], in Lebanon: Muslims against Arabic-speaking Christians, in Algeria: [Sunni Muslims against Sunni Muslims], Sudan: Arabic-speaking black Muslims against tribal, non-Arabic speaking Muslims, and lastly, in Gaza, Fatah against Hamas, etc etc.

Getting back to Obama & Co., he is still surrounded by the ilk of Zbig B, Brent Scowcroft, Lee Hamilton, Rashid al-Khalidi, etc. Obama has never sent a signal that he supports the human and civil rights of Jews. Does he favor pardon or clemency for Jonathan Pollard, a victim of a "cruel and unusual punishment," sentenced virtually to life in jail for espionage whereas others sentenced for espionage in the same period --for instance, in behalf of Egypt-- got light sentences of a few years. Does Obama oppose the racist exclusion of Jews from purchasing land in Judea-Samaria which was imposed by the British mandate govt in 1939-1940 or the even more racist denial by Jordan from 1948 to 1967 of the Jewish right to even inhabit Judea-Samaria?? If the answer to both questions is No, then Obama is an anti-Jewish racist.
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Here is commentary on this matter from the Italian "leftist" press.
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Coming: Obama's corruption and Israelophobia, UK Holocaust partnership, the UK threat towards Israel, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, the Land of Israel, archeology, etc.

Did a Hidden Saudi Hand Help Obama Rise to Fame and Fortune?

UPDATING 9-25-2008 at botttom

Percy Sutton, former president of Manhattan Borough [that is, Manhattan island, a separate borough within New York City], disclosed in a TV interview that he had written letters to influential persons at Harvard to help Obama get into the law school. Sutton had done this on the recommendation of one Khalid al-Mansour, a Muslim convert and --according to Sutton-- "the principal advisor to one of the world's richest men." Since al-Mansour's Saudi ties are known, it is quite possible or even likely that certain Saudis, in particular, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, helped Obama with money and with influence, or string-pulling in plain English.

Here is a video of the interview. This post on Judith Klinghoffer's blog also gives links to some background info on Khalid al-Mansour.

Here is a report in Investor's Business Daily.

Here is more commentary on israpundit.

Is Obama a Manchurian Candidate representing Saudi interests?

UPDATINGb 9-25-2008: Obama's campaign denies link to Sutton and Khalid al-Mansour. Reporter discovers another Obama fraud.

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Coming: More on Obama the war candidate, More on the anti-Jewish racism of the "Peace Process," Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, the Land of Israel, archeological updates, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

KINDLY MAKING ARABIA RICH

The mighty American taxpayer is a very generous fellow, sometimes without even knowing it. The fabulous wealth of the kings of Arabia, which pays for Cadillacs and air conditioners, desert palaces, falcon trainers, and explosives for the Hamas [and Fatah, etc.], is due in substantial part to his generosity. Maimonides says that the highest degree of charity is when the recipient doesn't know the identity of the donor or the donor that of the recipient. In the case of the Saudi dynasty, the donor wasn't even aware of just how generous he was. How noble!

This poignant, heartwarming tale of charity and affection unfolds as follows:
Oil was discovered in Arabia around 1930, during the reign of the newly installed Saudi dynasty which very kindly allowed its dynastic name to be attached to that of the country. Oil was flowing out of Arabia by the late 1930s in a river of black gold. The Arabian-American Oil Company, ARAMCO, was formed in the 1940s as a consortium of American firms to extract and ship the oil. Now, as Leonard Mosley tells the tale, ARAMCO executives were expected to produce profits for the members of the consortium. On the other hand, "they had to keep the king supplied with more and more money." The monarch had a certain loving affection for the filthy lucre. "There was little they [ARAMCO] could do about the fact that it was promptly wasted in foolish extravagances or poured into the coffers of the swindlers around the court. What Ibn Saud's ministers wanted was not advice but more revenues, and the more they were paid, the more they spent and the deeper the kingdom slid into debt." What an unbecoming situation.

Fred Davies of ARAMCO testified before a Senate Committee in 1957:

"They asked us as early as 1948. 'Isn't there some way in which we can get a greater take?'"

Mosley goes on:

"Now they began demanding so much money that ARAMCO's lawyers in the United States believed that in order to satisfy them the whole nature of the company's concession might have to be altered in order to provide it . . . Moreover, if made out of ARAMCO's revenues, the payments would have wiped out a large proportion of the company's profits, and the parent companies [of ARAMCO] were in no mood to accept that. . .

"But how could a way be found to satisfy the greedy demands of the king's courtiers without dealing a death blow to Aramco's profitability?"

Now, ARAMCO paid more in US federal corporate income tax in 1949 than it paid in royalties to the Saudi Treasury, that is, more than it was pouring into the private piggybank of the Saudi royals.

"In 1950 . . . the figures were leaked to the Saudis. The result was, in the words of Fred Davies, that 'they weren't a darn bit happy about it.' Soon after they were asking the question that anyone with ARAMCO's profitability at heart would have wanted them to ask: 'Isn't there some way in which the income tax you pay to the United States can be diverted to us in whole or in part?'

"At this point the company suggested that the Saudi government consult the U.S. Treasury. ARAMCO had already discussed its problems with George McGhee, of the Treasury Department, who, according to Davies, 'appreciated our difficulties.' The result had been the dispatch to Jidda of a Treasury Department official, George A Eddy, who had conferred with Saudi officials about their money problems. When asked a direct question by a Saudi official about how more money might be raised from 'foreign firms,' Eddy had first consulted the U.S. ambassador in Jidda as to whether he might answer the question, and then, given permission, had pointed out that several methods were available. . . one of them was to demand an increase in royalties on oil produced; the other was to institute an income-tax system and get more money from the company by direct taxation. Eddy added: 'I did explain to him [the Saudi official] the difference of the effect on the company of a royalty and an income tax.'"

Here Mosley is being cute, less than frank. He does not mention the actual legal mechanism by which the Saudis could get more money for the oil without the money coming out of ARAMCO's pocket. This is called the Foreign Tax Credit. As a means of encouraging American companies to invest abroad, it had been on the books since about 1920. It provided that US companies doing business abroad could deduct the full amount of taxes paid to foreign governments from their US corporate income tax. Hence, if the Saudi kingdom imposed a per barrel "oil income tax," then such payments by ARAMCO would be deducted dollar for dollar from the company's corporate income tax. So this semantic subtlety meant that the money paid to keep the kingdom in Cadillacs was essentially paid by the US taxpayers as a whole. Semantically disguising royalties as a Saudi "oil income tax" placed the burden of payment --that is, of enriching the Saudis on the shoulders of the taxpayers.

Mosley explains this without actually naming the law.

". . . if the Saudi government simply increased the amount of royalty it was receiving from ARAMCO per barrel of oil, it would have a direct and damaging effect on the profits of the company. If however, the Saudi government were to start an income-tax system, any such money paid to them by ARAMCO could, under US law, be deducted from the amount of tax the company was liable for in the United States . . .

". . . a Washington lawyer, John F Greaney . . . subsequently drafted an Income Tax Law for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which was instituted by royal decree on December 26, 1950. . . a munificent Christmas present for both the Saudi government and ARAMCO. . .

"From ARAMCO's point of view, the nicest aspect of the new system was that it didn't cost them a penny. They simply wrote off their Saudi Arabian taxes [sic!] against their liabilities for US tax." [quotes from Leonard Mosley, Powerplay: Oil in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 1973), pp 193-195]

This information should be contrasted with the usual claims by the Israelophobes, whether "right" or "left," that Israel is favored against the Arabs by the West, by the United States, or by the "capitalists," etc. Why doesn't the "left" before any others talk about this situation? To the extent that the "left" does not talk about such massive transfers of capital, it falsifies the whole Middle Eastern situation.

UPDATING to July 19, 2007, see link below to Tariq Ali article
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More info on this matter available in:
Tariq Ali - a review [click on link] in the Establishment-controlled London Review of Books [19 July 2007] of two new books on Saudi Arabia [July 2007]
John Blair - The Control of Oil
James Ridgway - New Energy