A Declaration of War -- The "Palestinian Authority's" UDI [unilateral declaration of independence] Gambit at the UN

UPDATED 10-2-2011 at bottom

Barry Rubin points out that the PA/PLO's gambit of asking the UN --whether the Security Council or General Assembly is secondary-- to approve an Arab state in the Land of Israel without negotiating borders and other issues with Israel could lead to a lot of violence and violates all prior agreements with Israel as well --I would add-- as violating Security Council resolutions 242 & 338 that call for Israel and its Arab neighbors to negotiate the issues between them in order to make peace. I will quote from 242 at the end [338 is just a reconfirmation of 242] so that readers can see that the PLO/PA is violating the Security Council's own resolutions that are supposed to be binding, according to the UN charter.

Bear in mind that if borders are not agreed on with Israel, then the PLO/PA will be declaring a state which will spread over land that rightly belongs to Israel or --in any event-- is claimed by Israel or perhaps their own declaration will be phrased in such a way as to claim all of Israel --all the land from the Jordan to the sea. This is what the PLO did in its 1988 Algiers Declaration --its previous declaration of a state-- by implication. Now, if today's PLO/PA claims any land that Israel also claims and that can be shown to already belong to Israel or is claimed by Israel, then a PLO/PA UDI [unilateral declaration of independence] will essentially be a declaration of war.

Rubin starts by quoting from the cynical and amoral Obama henchman, Rahm Emanuel:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” –Rahm Emanuel

By Barry Rubin

One of the amazing things about the amazing incompetence of the Obama Administration is that we’ve become so accustomed to it that we take for granted things that would have made opinion makers during past presidencies clutch the upper left side of their chests and collapse, writhing in agony.

Or to put it another way, if an Obama policy falls in the public arena and the mass media acts deaf will anyone say: “OMG! Can this really be happening?” Well, I will follow Rahm Emanuel’s advice and hope that this serious crisis could be for this administration an “opportunity…to do things you think you could not do before” or to start looking for a new policymaker.

Consider that the United States is on the verge of a foreign policy disaster that could easily have been averted by proper statecraft. The Palestinian Authority (PA, technically speaking, along with its Hamas partner) is about to demand that the United Nations break every Israel-Palestinian agreement over almost twenty years, destroy any possibility of serious future negotiation, reward Palestinian intransigence, and generally make a mess of the Middle East.

The specific issue is recognition of a Palestinian state as existing right now. The result, as I’ve outlined previously, would be catastrophic and don’t let anyone get away with pretending that this isn’t a bad thing or won’t make much difference.

A “normal” U.S. policy would have begun pressing the PA to back down from this strategy almost a year ago, when PA leaders began talking about it. Rather than take quick action—or, indeed, punish, pressure, or even criticize the PA for anything it did—the Obama Administration stood by and made disapproving murmurs from time to time.

We are now facing the consequences of the policy of: let’s be weak so people will like us; leading from behind; not rewarding friends or punishing enemies,; refusing to use U.S. leverage (Turkey votes against sanctions on Iran? Let’s put them in charge of Syria’s future!); and generally letting other countries walk all over the United States. I’d love to list other examples of similar issues here but don’t want to take your time so you can fill in the additional details.

Now, the cloud once the size of a man’s hand has turned into a more serious big brother of Hurricane Irene. If you don’t mind my mixing hurricanes, think of U.S. foreign policy as New Orleans.

A colleague suggests that the administration is now panicked. I think it isn’t panicking but should be. A sign of not understanding the magnitude of the problem is that it is only now starting to do what should have begun around September 2010, not September 2011. If you are a U.S. citizen living in a Muslim-majority country you might think about what you will be doing later this month.

As a result, the United States has no leverage over the PA, a client that depends on Washington for any possibility of actual peace, having a real state, and paying its bills. Equally, it has no leverage over virtually any other country in the world in terms of voting on this issue. America has been transformed from superpower to super-cower, begging the PA to take pity on it and back down from an obviously successful strategy.

I love the way the New York Times’ article puts it:

“The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians recognition as a state at the United Nations. It may already be too late, according to senior American officials and foreign diplomats.”

Yes, it might also be too late—just maybe—to stop the American Civil War or prevent the 1929 stock market crash. What the Obama Administration has done is to:

–Propose a new round of PA talks with Israel.

–Made clear that it will veto the PA bid in the Security Council.

This is about the most serious threat since a small mammal (I don’t want to offend anyone by mentioning its precise species) told the Big Bad Wolf not to blow down its house of straw and eat him or he’d bleed all over the Wolf’s clothes.

First, the PA doesn’t want negotiations with Israel. It has been rejecting talks for two years, even refusing them during a requested Israeli freeze of construction on West Bank settlements, even when an east Jerusalem freeze was added to it. The PA also rejected talks within minutes after Obama laid his personal prestige on the line in September 2009 to announce a high-level summit at Camp David.

Let’s face it: these people don’t want serious negotiations. Why? Because they don’t want a peace agreement with Israel; they want a state unfettered by concessions or compromise so they can pursue total victory and Israel’s destruction. (There’s nothing “right-wing” about that conclusion. All the facts point to it and only wishful thinking says differently.)

As for the U.S. vetoing the proposal, what does the PA care about that? It will mainly hurt the United States. There will be a vote in the General Assembly with a margin of support for the PA (cowardly Western democracies which know the idea is terrible will abstain and let the United States take the heat) similar to the size of the majority in the U.S. Congress supporting a declaration endorsing Mother’s Day. Second, there will probably be anti-American riots throughout the Muslim-majority world. Any good done by Obama’s almost three-year-long effort to make Arab and Muslims like him will be cancelled out.

Fortunately, though, Obama doesn’t hold a grudge, at least against foreign enemies who “diss” him and America.

I know that I’ve tried to be entertaining here through the use of sarcasm and humor. But my warning and critique are not exaggerated. This was an avoidable crisis and will be much worse than almost anyone recognizes.

The non-EPA approved icing on the cake is that afterward the Obama Administration will do absolutely nothing to the PA or to affect negatively those who voted for it which will, of course, encourage additional acts of diplomatic hostility and real world disasters of this type. The Obama Administration’s apparent motto is expressed by wearing a large sign that says, “Kick me.” Unfortunately, the object being kicked isn’t the personal property of the chief executive but belongs to the United States of America.
- - - - end of Rubin article [see at Pajamas Media here]- - - - -

UN Security Council resolution 242 [relevant excerpts]:
The Security Council
. . . .
Affirms that the fulfillment of [UN] Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace. . .
Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats or acts of force. . . .
Requests the Secretary-General to . . . promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement. . . --end--

Obviously, a declaration of a state that has not obtained the agreement of Israel violates the Security Council's principle of agreement and is not likely to be peaceful and accepted, nor is it likely to lead to a just and lasting peace. In addition, secure. . . boundaries refers to defensible borders. Otherwise, indefensible borders can tempt a belligerent power that wants to land from another state to go to war. Not only do the PLO/PA reject secure boundaries for Israel but by refusing to negotiate boundaries with Israel and by implicitly or explicitly claiming all of the land from the Jordan to the sea, the PLO/PA is rejecting peace with Israel. It is important to note that Obama himself, in his notorious May 19, 2011, speech, also rejected secure boundaries for Israel by demanding that Israel agree to go back to the very insecure 1949 armistice lines [he said "1967 lines"]. Let us bear in mind that those insecure lines tempted Jordan, Egypt and Syria to instigate war on Israel in June 1967. Curiously, Jordan is now warning against a PLO/PA UDI which it believes will be negative for Jordan. Jordan has also stated that it would vote against the UDI in the General Assembly.

Furthermore, whereas Rubin addresses the likely real world outcomes and causes of a PLO/PA UDI, we ought to also mention the injustice that it would represent. Here is an immoral, unjust, murderous entity, speaking in the name of a people that no one had heard of 100 years ago, that now demands a state without negotiating with Israel. Indeed the Arab leadership in the Land of Israel [Arab Higher Committee] had denied the very existence of a country called "palestine" in testimony in 1946 before the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine. And in the name of this entity, invented apparently by psychological warfare/cognitive warfare experts after Israel's reestablishment as a state in 1948, a new state might be recognized in the name of a people that did not exist in history. And this injustice is being perpetrated against the Jews, oppressed, exploited, humiliated and reviled for centuries in both Christendom and Islam.
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10-2-2011 Emanuele Ottolenghi discusses the PLO/PA's UDI gambit at the UN [here]. Ottolenghi, Jerry Gordon, & Mike Bates in discussion. Ottolenghi points out the PLO/PA side refuses to negotiate, instead making impossible demands for pre-conditions.

Influencing American Foreign Policy -- The Impotence of Jews & Arabs Together

UPDATING links added 12-15-2010

The Wikileaks are telling the broad public some truths that were earlier mainly known only to the very well-informed. Jeffrey Goldberg explains that American foreign policy is made by US officials, although I would not say that policy is necessarily made in the American interest. That interest is itself a matter of interpretation and controversy.

The Impotence of the

Pan-Semitic Front

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Here's a fact that might astonish Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose book, "The Israel Lobby," posits the existence of a nefarious, all-powerful Jewish lobby that works in direct opposition to American interests: The "Lobby" (they love to capitalize the word, to accentuate its alleged uniqueness) has failed to convince two successive American administrations, one Republican and one Democratic, to attack Iran's nuclear sites. So much for Jewish power.

Here's another fact that might astonish Walt and Mearsheimer: It turns out that the Jewish lobby wasn't even the main lobby working to bring about an attack on Iran. It was, according to the treasure trove of State Department cables released by Wikileaks, the Arab lobby -- whose lead lobbyist is, by the way, the King of Saudi Arabia (which is a big job, since he's also in charge of the world's oil supply) -- that was at the forefront of an intensive, even ferocious, anti-Iran lobbying effort. For Walt and Mearsheimer to acknowledge that the Arab lobby, and not the Jewish lobby, was the prime mover of this issue would mean that they would have to recall their book, and somehow stuff back into a bottle all of the anti-Semitic invective they unleashed in the book's wake. So don't expect an apology anytime soon.

In sum, what we have here is a situation in which all of the Semites in combination have been proven impotent in their attempt to move American foreign policy. Which suggests that American foreign policy might actually be made by Americans. This is definitely a tough week for the neo-Lindberghians.

This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/the-impotence-of-the-pan-semitic-front/67222/ Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

I'm not sure that Goldberg believes that walt-mearsheimer really believe in what they wrote in their own book called The Israel Lobby. In fact, Mearsheimer himself was interviewed on NPR several years ago and contradicted the claims made by walt & himself in their book, which might better be called a non-book, to use terminology from the 1960s and 1970s. Goldberg would have done better to write: Here's a fact that might astonish walt & mearsheimer if they really believed what they wrote in their book The Israel Lobby.

The revelation discussed by Goldberg is that Arab rulers too, not only Israel, were very concerned by the Iranian nuclear bomb project. This was known long ago and even reported fairly frankly in early 2009 by an Arab reporter with the Associated Press. Maybe the phoney experts on Middle Eastern affairs who proliferate and swarm in the major mass media and the "think tanks" don't read AP reports. Otherwise, why were they so ignorant and misleading?? A Jerusalem Post editorial mentions some of the names: Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy, Robert Dreyfuss of the once rational The Nation, and of course walt-mearsheimer. There are many more lesser and greater lights who reiterated the same silliness.

Getting back to Goldberg's point that the influence of the Semites in Washington, of Jews and Arabs taken either separately or together, was not enough to move Washington to a really firm policy against the Iranian Bomb, a policy not ruling out military action, as several Arab rulers called for, what do we conclude. First of all, the actual US policy was made by Americans, not Arabs or Jews or both, and not necessarily in the true, paramount interest of the American people which would be to limit nuclear proliferation. Secondly, it seems that --despite many fine words over the many years history of the Iran nuke endeavor-- the Washington policymakers did not want to stop the Iranian Bomb project. They want Iran to have the Bomb.

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Barry Rubin on Wikileaks and the Iranian Bomb [here]
David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post on Obama's duplicity concerning the Iranian Bomb Project [here]
Judith Apter Klinghoffer covers disappointment among Western "leftists" that Arabs too opposed the Iranian Bomb [here]. She also argued that "Obama lied when he pretended that he needed to kick Israel to convince Arabs to support his anti-Iran policy" [here].
12-8-2010 Tariq al-Mohayed admits that the wikileaks revelations about Arab opposition to the Iranian Bomb Project were true [here]. He calls them: "leaked US diplomatic cables."
12-15-2010 Martin Kramer brings a lecture from two years ago explaining that Arab states feared an Iranian Bomb [here].

Barack Hussein Obama: Slick, Subtle, Sinister and Deceitful -- And Racist against Jews

UPDATING 9-28-2009. Diagram of Obama's insinuations at bottom. 11-2-2009

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Many lies resembling truth, Hesiod

Barack Hussein Obama's UN General Assembly speech was racist in denying Jewish rights to settle in Judea-Samaria and Gaza [settlements are not "legitimate"]. It also subtly justified Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. How so?

We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It's not paid by politicians. It's paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It's paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are all God's children. And after all the politics and all the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land.

Here Obama insinuates that Israel is to blame for the "boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own." This is done by juxtaposition with the Sderot girl under rocket attack, obviously a deliberate act of Arab terrorists in Gaza, and the carry over from that situation to the "boy in Gaza who has no clean water. . ." Israel regularly supplies water to Gaza despite the de facto state of war with that territory. Hamas, which has governed Gaza since January 2006 is responsible for the lack of clean water of Gaza, if the claim is true at all. Huge sums of international aid from rich Arab states, from the EU, the USA, and Japan, as well as various EU states separately, have been available to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority [PLO/Fatah] before it for building infrastructure, for an improved society and for a state. But Hamas and the PA have generally avoided building water and sewage facilities, homes, hospitals, etc., for their people. It is more politically useful to keep them visibly poor so that they have something to blame Israel for. Meanwhile, the foreign funds go to the insiders whose hands are close to the plate, as well as for buying weapons, explosives, etc. Indeed Hamas and the Palestinian Authority both don't much care for building infrastructure. Both would rather use the money to fight jihad. Certainly, good, clean drinking water for that Gaza boy is far down on the list of priorities.

Obama also lies in the claim about the boy in Gaza having "no country to call his own." After all, Gaza is governed by Arabs, by his fellow Palestinian Arabs.


Candidate Barack Obama in Sderot receiving a T-shirt saying "I love Sderot" from then Sderot mayor Eli Moyal [summer 2008]. Note the horizontal stacks of remnants of rockets shot at Sderot from Gaza. This collection is kept at the Sderot police station.

Now, if Israel is to blame for a Gaza child lacking clean water, then maybe Hamas is right to shoot rockets at the civilian population of the oppressor state. Hence, Obama was justifying Hamas shooting rockets by insinuation, by comparing deliberate acts of Hamas and other Gaza terrorist groups [shooting rockets] with the supposed lack of "clean water" which is Hamas and PA's fault, if it is true at all, not Israel's fault.

This is a very slick attack by Obama on Israel. The part of his UN GA speech dealing with Israel was a rather clever propaganda/psychological warfare assault on Israel. To wit, Israel has things and denies them to the poor folk of Gaza. Israel causes their deprivation.

Barack Hussein Obama is also signaling an overture to Hamas by these basically soft comments, in which seeming criticism of Hamas for rocket shooting is vitiated by blaming Israel for deprivation in Gaza.

Of Obama's denial of "legitimacy" to Jewish rights to live across the 1949 armistice line in Judea-Samaria is a racist position. Is he a friend of Israel?
- - - - - - - - - -
UPDATING 9-28-2009
Obama draws false parallels in his UN GA speech
He clearly insinuates Israeli moral equivalency with Hamas, making Israel at fault for Hamas' rockets, blaming Israel for infrastructure and political problems in Gaza.
Let's look at this in diagram form:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A Child Victim on Each Side //\\ What Does Each Suffer & Who Causes It?

1)
the Israeli girl in Sderot } She fears "that a rocket will take her life" --
the Israeli girl in Sderot } - - a rocket shot by Hamas or other Gaza terrorists,
the Israeli girl in Sderot } - - but Obama doesn't say who shoots the rockets.
2)
the Palestinian boy in Gaza} He "has no clean water and no country" --
the Palestinian boy in Gaza} Obama doesn't say who denies the
the Palestinian boy in Gaza} boy "clean water" and a "country." but he insinuates that it is Israel because if her suffering is caused by the other side [Hamas/other Gaza terrorists], then his suffering too is caused by the other side [that is, Israel].

So Israel is guilty by insinuation of denying "clean water" and a "country" to the Gaza boy. This is bad enough, but these alleged denials by Israel could also be considered justified reasons for war [casus belli] and therefore Israel may be or is guilty that Hamas and other Gaza terrorists shoot rockets at its civilian population.

As said above, in fact Israel supplies drinking water to Gaza. If there are shortages in drinking water in Gaza, then Hamas is responsible as explained above. Further, does the Gaza boy really lack a country? After all, Gaza is self-governing and generously supplied with funds by outside donors. Perhaps the boy doesn't have the country that he wants. Maybe. Then we could ask about the Jews' lack of a country, their country, for more than a thousand years, partly because of Arab rule in the Land of Israel. Maybe the Hamas' program for genocide of the Jews [as per Article 7 of the Hamas charter] is good reason for Israel not to let Hamas expand its sphere of territorial control.

Obama is using the gestalt effect here. This effect depends on insinuation and following a logical pattern even to where it is not explicit.
Besides the obnoxious moral equivalency here, Obama is justifying Hamas attacks on Israel and uttering lies.
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Also see Meryl Yourish on the UN speech [here]
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UPDATING 11-2-2009 Obama's remarks on the boy in Gaza quoted above seem, on further thought, to touch on old, traditional Judeophobic themes. I wonder what his speechwriter intended. These themes are:
1- Jews harming an innocent boy, as in the typical ritual murder charge [Hugh of Lincoln, Simon of Trent, the Beilis case], &
2-- Jews poisoning wells, since Israel denies "clean water" to "the Palestinian boy in Gaza." He is not making the innuendo that Israel denies water to the boy in Gaza, but that the water, if supplied, is not "clean," that it is --somehow-- unhealthy, maybe poisonous.

Camera confirms that Israel sends water to Gaza:
". . . despite the virtural declaration of war against Israel by the Hamas rulers of Gaza, Israel still sends to Gaza another 4 MCM of Israeli water annually. "

What Prime Minister Netanyahu Ought to Tell the UN General Assembly

PM Netanyahu ought to tell the world through the UN Assembly several things that he failed to mention in previous speeches.

1- The Jews have been historically oppressed, persecuted, exploited monetarily and humiliated over the centuries in both the West and the Arab-ruled lands.

2- Arabs collaborated in the Holocaust, most notably the chief Palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni].

3- The continuing dehumanization and demonization of Jews in most Arabs lands, in the broadcast and print media, in the schools, mosques, public discourse, are an obstacle to peace.

4- Likewise, the continuing dehumanization, etc. of Jews in some European lands [including EU states] is an obstacle to peace.

5- Poverty and lack of good drinking water and other failures of infrastructure in Gaza and the other Palestinian Authority zones are the fault of the PLO, PA, and Hamas which have not used the billions of dollars and euros received from international donors for constructive purposes
like water and sewage plants, housing, homes, hospitals, and the like. They prefer to use the money for funding terrorism and enriching the in crowd, the top leaders and their associates who are closest to the plate, to the pie pan.

6- Jewish rights to live in Judea-Samaria are grounded in historical reality of Jewish history, as well as being recognized by the League of Nations in 1922.

Miracle of Miracles -- Arab States, like Israel, Fear an Obama "Engagement" with A-jad's Iran

UPDATING 5-(7&10&11)-2009 LINK REPLACED 12-2-2010

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The half-brights and all-dumbs and smart ignoramuses in the Obama Administration have run into a likely unforeseen obstacle to their obsessive dream of helping the Iranian ayatollahs obtain the Bomb. The six Arab sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf have

. . . concerns [about this policy that] . . . sound strikingly like those coming from the mouths of Israeli officials.
[AP, Salah Nasrawi, 6 May 2009 updated link as of 12-2-2010]

Like Israel, they fear the prospect of a fanatic Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Once upon a time the US claimed to fear nuclear proliferation. A treaty against nuclear proliferation [NPT] was duly drawn up and signed by most states, including Iran, which is now violating it. However, after years of European negotiations with A-jad's government over stopping nuclear weapons development, with new deadlines repeatedly offered when Iran did not comply with previous deadlines, the new wet-behind-the-ears administration of Barack Obama declares that it opposes the military option against the nuclear weapons development of Iran.

Obama and his crowd --divided into young wackos and scary, white starched shirt old and middle-aged white men-- claim that they know of some magical diplomatic means to stop Iran's nuclear development. They forget --or pretend not to know-- that the threat of force is also a tool of diplomacy and that "tough diplomacy" [an Obama term?] needs the threat or potential of military force to back it up, and not just tough, angry words. Or maybe the "engagement" policy is not meant at all to lead to peace but to cause more chaos in the Middle East. Anyhow, the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council [the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates] plus Egypt seem to think that any deal ensuing from the "engagement" process might endanger them and their interests.

US allies in Mideast cautious over Iran overtures -- Salah Nasrawi, [AP 6 May 2009 updated link as 12-2-2010]

Washington's efforts to start a dialogue with Iran have sent ripples of alarm through the capitals of America's closest Arab allies, who accuse Tehran of playing a destabilizing role in the Middle East.

The concerns being raised by Arab leaders sound strikingly like those coming from the mouths of Israeli officials.
"We hope that any dialogue between countries will not come at our expense," said a statement Tuesday by the six oil-rich nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, who have long relied on U.S. protection in the region.

The Obama administration has been reaching out to Iran in a marked shift after shunning contacts for decades. But U.S. allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel, say Tehran is not a positive force in the region with its support for Islamic militant groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit conveyed the concerns this week when U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, who is dealing with Iran, visited Cairo.
"Iran's behavior in the region is negative in many aspects and does not help in advancing security, stability and peace," he [Aboul-Gheit] told Ross.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was in Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week, has sought to reassure the Arab allies that any contacts with Iran would be "open and transparent" and regional allies would be kept informed "so nobody gets surprised."
. . . . .

Israel and the U.S. suspect Iran's program to enrich uranium is aimed at developing nuclear weapons — a concern shared by the GCC.

"There exists a strategic and military threat (to Gulf countries) and we are against any nuclear program that isn't approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency because we believe that the Iranian nuclear program should not destabilize the region," the organization said in its statement.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son, an increasingly influential figure in the regime, said Tuesday that Egypt and Iran also do not always see eye to eye.

"Both Egypt and Iran are key countries in the region, but we have our differences regarding the future of the region and peace," said Gamal Mubarak. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, has long seen Iran as a regional rival.

Egypt has become increasingly vocal over its concerns about Iran, especially following its discovery in April of what it described as a "Hezbollah cell" plotting to destabilize the country. The Iranian-backed Lebanese group has denied the accusations, while admitting it did have an operative in Egypt supervising weapons shipments to the Palestinian Hamas group.

In a rare confluence of interests with its Arab neighbors, Israel has also singled out Iran as the greatest threat to stability in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with President Barack Obama later this month and is expected to push for a tough U.S. stance on Iran. Israel argues that progress in peace with the Palestinians can't happen unless Iran is reined in.

The London-based Palestinian daily, Al-Quds Al-Arabi even said the Arab moderates governments are actively working on building an alliance with Israel to counter Iranian influence in the region.
[full article - AP, 6 May 2009 updated link as of 12-2010]

Adding to its credibility is that this report comes from the Associated Press, signed by Salah Nasrawi, who bears an Arab name. Despite what Hilary [Obama's secretary of state] as well as one of Obama's Jewish flunkeys, Rahm ["Kapo"] Emanuel said, to the effect that if Israel did not come to terms with the "palestinians," Israel would not get support against Iran from Arab states, it seems that the Arabs are not listening. It seems that they too fear Iran first of all more than they worry about "progress . . . in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians. [Jerusalem Post, 5-4 & 5-5-2009]

Apparently, Hilary and Rahm Kapo were just making empty threats to Israel, since the Arab states in question seem to be much closer to Israel's position --on this issue-- than to the American or, perhaps, the Anglo-American position of appeasing the ayatollahs of Iran.
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UPDATING 5-(7&10)-2009 Jennifer Rubin at the Contentions blog also noticed this story. See her comment and 25 reader comments.
Caroline Glick on Arab rejection of linkage between Arab-Israeli issues and the Iranian nuclear weapons development.
Yoram Ettinger on linkage between the Iranian bomb project and Arab-Israeli negotiations.
David Hazony on linkage here, particularly on "national security advisor" Jones.
LINK ADDED 12-2-2010: I have replaced the original link to this story. I found it at first on the Yahoo site whence it has unfortunately vanished. The link now shown here is to HaArets which left out the reporter's name, Salah Nasrawi.

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.

What Does Obama's Speech Mean? Are Jews Less Important than Muslims for Obama?

Obama's inaugural speech was eloquent and full of lofty phrases, not to mention platitudinous rhetoric, as such speeches usually are. John F Kennedy's inaugural speech is still remembered. Yet, Obama inserted a few novelties into the speech, novelties concerning both Jews and Muslims. Jews have long outnumbered Muslims in the United States. Indeed, Muslim numbers were once very small. They have much increased in recent years, but there are still more Jews. So what does it mean that Obama put Muslims before Jews in his speech, as if the Muslims were more numerous? Hugh Fitzgerald makes the additional point that the United States was founded in part on Judaic ideas taken from the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, I point out the aggression against American shipping by the Barbary Pirates, the subsequent wars by American forces against the pirate ports of North Africa, and the suspicion towards Muslims of early American leaders on account of what they learned about Islamic jihad as a motivation for this piracy. This is not to forget the sympathy for Jews and/or a Jewish restoration to the Land of Israel expressed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and others.
Here is part of Obama's speech:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Note that Muslims take precedence over Jews despite American tradition and the historical record. What does it mean? Here are Hugh Fitzgerald's impressions:

The Inaugural Speech was thankfully sober and unsoaring, but it contained one phrase that disturbs.
That phrase is this:
"The United States is a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers."
The traditional formulation has always paired "Christians" with "Jews" -- "Christians and Jews." Such a blatant change, then, in that traditional formulation is sure to attract notice. It invites inspection. It disturbs. The order in which these adherents of different faiths are named, and which is paired with the obviously, and rightly, dominant “Christians” (this country was both founded on Christian or, to include the Old Testament, Judeo-Christian principles, and owes its development right up to the present day to those same ideas, enshrined in our political and legal institutions which are, after all, the best thing America has to offer) both count. [Hugh Fitzgerald at jihadwatch]

. . . on what basis did Obama make the decision to move up “Muslims” in the ranking, right after, or even possibly paired with, Christians, leaving the Jews demoted, in a sense? It cannot be on the basis of population, for there are twice as many Jews in the United States as there are Muslims (and of the approximately 3 million Muslims, 2 million are unorthodox Black Muslims). And if he did not wish, after the word “Christians,” to give any pride of place, why not mix it up still more: “Christians, and Buddhists, and Jews, and Hindus, and people of other faiths, and people of no faith at all, nonbelievers of every level of doubt”? Was this one more attempt to impress on the public the notion that we must appease Muslims, we must make of them something they are not in this country, in order to hold onto their loyalty that otherwise is in danger of being lost? What exactly is the justification for putting "Muslims" right after, or even paired with, “Christians”?

Full text of Obama's inaugural speech here. Obama continues:

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Why a special appeal to the "Muslim world"? Why not Russia and/or China? Or India? Does this mean because many in the Muslim world have been threatening and expressing hatred toward the United States that a special effort must be made to appease them? Then, what about Latin America? There are many there too who hate and are suspicious of the United States. Why doesn't Obama want to appease them? After all, they are closer neighbors to the USA than any Muslim state. And then there's Africa, the native continent of Obama's father. What about them? Neither Africa nor Latin America are mentioned in the speech. Russia and China are suspicious of the United States. If the USA is going to appease, then why not appease them?

Why Muslims yes, and those nations and continents no? Does he mean to appease Muslims? How? What would appeasing Muslims mean for the Jews? Are Jews lives and rights less important than those of Muslims, in particular of those Muslims now called "palestinians"?

Then Obama tells us that he believes that "the old hatreds shall someday pass." Does he really believe --or care-- that Muslims will stop hating non-Muslims, whether Jews, Christians, Hindus, or Buddhists for that matter?

Then he argues, "America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace." This is the same Obama who told his mass audience in Berlin that "the Afghan people need our troops and your troops." Maybe peace can only be achieved by sending American troops to Afghanistan. Is that the role that Obama sees America playing in bringing about peace? Does peacemaking also mean pressuring Israel to allow the Arabs to obtain a strategic-territorial position that will allow them to destroy Israel and cut the Jews' throats? Obama sent Senator George Mitchell, son of a Lebanese mother, to Israel to urge Israeli concessions that cancel out Jewish rights. He already demanded preventing Jews from building homes in Judea-Samaria. This was eight years ago in his notorious Mitchell Report. He now claims that the American interest requires a "solution" [a Final Solution?] in the Middle East, a solution of the Arab-Israeli or "palestinian-Israeli" conflict. Indeed, is this solution meant to be a Final Solution of the Jewish Problem? Mitchell has already proven his anti-Jewish racism. And Mitchell is the agent of Obama. Hence, Obama is an anti-Jewish racist.
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Judith Apter Klinghoffer comments on Obama here.
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Coming: More on Zbig's schemes, Obama's dishonesty, the "Left's" lies, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, archeology, propaganda analysis, peace follies, etc

The Pretended -and False- Premises of the "peace Process" & Lies Contributing to It

The whole so-called "peace process" is rife with fraud, if it deserves at all to be called a "peace process." Shmuel Trigano for one suggests that the very term "peace process" does not fit what is really going on.

Here are some of the "peace process" frauds:
1) There is an ancient people called "Palestinians," somehow separate and distinct from the Arabs as a whole, who deserve a state. The notion of a "palestinian people" is a crude lie. But this does not hold back the diplomats. False history is very much in vogue. Just look at how UK and US misinformation organs, like the BBC, have been able to keep hidden the real history of Bosnia and Kossovo. That is, they have managed to erase the centuries-long oppression of Serbs in Bosnia and Kossovo by Bosnian Muslims and Kossovo Muslim Albanians, encouraged by the Ottoman Empire when it ruled those areas. Further, the more recent enlistment by many Bosnian and Kossovo Muslims in German Nazi SS units [the Handschar (= khanjar) and the Skanderbeg] has been officially and unofficially erased by Western communications media. Likewise, Arab-Nazi collaboration has been officially forgotten, particularly Palestinian Arab collaboration in the Holocaust in the person of Haj Amin el-Husseini [Husayni]. Coincidentally, Husseini helped organize the Bosnian Muslim Handschar SS division & the Kossovo Albanian Muslim Skanderbeg SS division.
The "palestinian" Arabs themselves did not speak of a "palestinian people" until the 1960s, under the guidance of Western psywar specialists.

2) that "peace processes" in general, or the so-called Arab-Israeli or "palestinian-Israeli" "peace process" in particular, can bring peace or are even meant to bring peace. The "peace process" with the so-called "palestinians" has been going on for many years and has brought more war than peace, mass murder bombings, euphemistically called "terrorism," rocket attacks on civilians, etc. The "peace" in the "peace process" is Peace of Mind for Antisemites.
Yet, Terje Larsen, the Norwegian diplomat and first rank "peace processor," lied a few years ago when he claimed [in an op ed column in the Judeophobic International Herald Tribune] that Israel had benefitted from the "peace process" in the form of a reduction of violence and terrorism. This is not merely a lie but a very gross lie, so far is it from the truth.

3- All Mideastern problems are because of Israel. This one is a favorite in London. Tony Blair himself has said it. Of course, a lot has to do with how one defines "Middle Eastern problem." When the Barbary Pirates of North Africa were attacking the shipping and maritime trade of European nations and the new United States for several centuries up till the French conquest of Algeria in 1830 [stealing cargo and enslaving crew and passengers], was that a "problem" for Britain?? Maybe not since the Mediterranean countries suffered more than Britain did. When the Ottoman Empire was massacring Armenians in the late 19th century, apparently that was a British problem, since British and other European diplomats at the Congress of Berlin [1878] demanded a change in Ottoman treatment of the Armenians. However, there was no State of Israel at that time nor was there a Political Zionist movement. Zionism was limited to Jews returning to the Land of Israel and accepting Ottoman rule. Likewise, the tribal-dynastic struggles on the Arabian peninsula between the Saudis and the Rashids in the Nejd [central Arabia] and the conflict between Hashemites and Saudis over the Hijaz [NW Arabia] up to 1925 were not motivated by Israel or Zionism.

4- Israel is occupying Arab land or "palestinian" land. Further, the settlements are "illegal" according to the usual suspects, such as the BBC. See this BBC report.
The lie about Jewish settlements in Judea-Samaria being illegal is one of the false bases of the so-called "peace process" and of the recent racist event at Annapolis, euphemistically called "a peace conference." This lie is based on two other lies, first, that Judea-Samaria & Gaza are or were "occupied" by Israel; second, that Geneva Convention IV forbids settlement in "occupied territory." However, Geneva IV forbids an occupying power to "transfer" parts of its population to occupied territory. Needless to say, the Jews who went to live in Judea-Samaria [& Gaza up to 2005] were not "transferred." They went to live in Judea-Samaria & Gaza voluntarily, even eagerly. So even if those areas were "occupied," which they are not, it would not be against international law for Jews to go live in those places. Let's look at the situation historically.

In fact, much real estate in Judea-Samaria & Gaza was recognized as Jewish property before 1939, when the British Empire forbid Jews to buy real estate in most of Judea-Samaria and in Gaza by the notorious "Palestine White Paper," a ban implemented in 1940. This policy was found illegal by the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission. It was part of Britain's contribution to the Holocaust. Today's British anti-Zionists might take pride in it if they knew about it. In fact, the Jewish National Home principle encouraged Jews to settle in the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland, the Jewish National Home designated by the San Remo Conference [1920] and the League of Nations [1922], confirmed by the UN charter [article 80]. Hence, the claim commonly made that Judea-Samaria are "occupied" by Israel is false, as is the claim that Geneva Convention IV forbids Jews to voluntarily go live in Judea-Samaria, even if they are "occupied," which they are not. Again, no real international law forbids Jewish settlement in Judea-Samaria, the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland and the internationally designated Jewish National Home. Only racist, Judeophobic laws enacted by Judeophobes could forbid Jewish settlement, Judeophobes like the EU Commission and EU parliament, the UK, the US State Department, and the Arabs. On the Land of Israel's international law status see here & here & here. Readers of French can look for articles on this matter by Prof David Ruzie', perhaps on the Association France-Israel website. The US State Department's opposition to Jews living in Judea-Samaria & Gaza is racism, even if the secretary of state belongs to a previously discriminated against group.
Of course, the EU countries that share that position have not even that fig leaf excuse, since they traditionally restricted Jewish residence rights in their countries.

5- The major powers promoting the "peace process" want peace. But how could they really want peace if they continue to disregard the Nazi-like jihad indoctrination in the "palestinian authority" schools, mass communications media, controlled mosques, etc., and continue to fund this criminal entity with ever more billions after the previously supplied billions had been mainly used either for terrorism purposes or to line the pockets of the PA insiders?

The peacemakers --such as Tony Blair, Kofi Annan, George Bush II, the Norwegian govt, etc-- supposedly want to make peace. If they want peace, then why are they so eager to finance PA security forces and security agents who so very often join terrorist groups where they apply their Western training and expertise to very evil terrorist deeds??? Why did Norway openly establish relations with the avowedly genocidal Hamas regime in Gaza?

The last international donors conference for the palestinian authority came up with pledges of 7.8 billion dollars, more than requested. What is the real aim of giving this money if not Judeophobia? Likewise, how can these powers be seen as wanting peace if they continue to fund the anti-peace United Nations?

6- Most Israelis support establishment of a "palestinian" state or "palestinian" Arab state. This claim has been made variously by convicted sex offender, Hayim Ramon, olmert's favorite deputy prime minister, by Shim`on Peres, who helped bring us the Oslo tragedy, and by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. However, the claim has been shown up as false by this recent public opinion poll in Israel [posted on IMRA].

7- Israel is an apartheid state or jimcrow state. This claim was made by US secretary of state Rice at a meeting at Annapolis after the main meeting. Rice said that the so-called "palestinians" suffered as she had as a child in the American South, forbidden to use water fountains reserved for whites and forbidden to eat in restaurants with whites---this article appeared Thursday morning -Israel time-- and was apparently removed on Friday after Annapolis so as not to alarm the Jews about Condi and not embarass Condi with her own words.

8- The so-called "palestinian people" have always been oppressed by the Jews & Zionists, so they need a state for that reason. This is a total lie. Since the Arab Conquest of the 7th century, Arabs/Muslims have been oppressing, exploiting, and humiliating Jews in the dhimmi status. Even in the period of the Conquest itself, Arab forces massacred and deported Jews and other conquered peoples, and seized their real estate, as described in earlier posts on this site. Jews have always suffered an inferior, oppressed status in Arab/Muslim society, including in the Land of Israel, including in Jerusalem, as reported in earlier posts at Emet m'Tsiyon. Certain Western governments do not shrink from falsifying history through their propaganda organs --such as the BBC-- as they have also done recently against the Serbs, in order to set up Muslim states in both Bosnia & Kossovo.
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More to come on frauds and lies contributing to and of the essence of the "peace process." -- Peace follies, propaganda, Jews in the Land of Israel, etc.

Who Is James Baker?? -- Part 3

President Harry Truman essentially defied the policy wish of the State Department, War Department [now called "Defense Dept"], and the CIA when he supported Israel's rebirth in 1948, albeit only lukewarmly. We have shown this in previous posts. Now, let's resume quotes from Michel Gurfinkiel's article "Report on Baker" [Rapport sur Baker]. After pointing out that Truman supported Israel's reestablishment in the 1947-1948 period, he points out that this friendly, if not warmly supportive, policy did not last.

From 1949 to 1961, during the major part of Truman's second term, and during Eisenhower's two terms, America adopted a cold, if not hostile, attitude towards Israel: No economic aid (with the exception of 'charitable' gifts from the Jewish community), no military aid (an embargo forbid even in that period the export of American military equipment to the Jewish state), no diplomatic cooperation (the United States imposed the immediate evacuation of Sinai [on Israel] after the Suez Campaign in 1956).

First a minor correction, there was some very minor US economic aid to Israel in this period, mostly involving purchases of US food. However, starting in 1951, the USA started a policy of enriching Saudi Arabia's royal parasites through ARAMCO. This policy had the Saudis legislate a per barrel "oil income tax" on ARAMCO. Then, ARAMCO was allowed to deduct the full amount of this "tax" [really a royalty] from its US corporate income tax on the grounds of the Foreign Tax Credit Law. This meant a heavy US subsidy for the Saudis, a disguised form of foreign aid. Hence, Saudi Arabia has probably received more US foreign monetary aid than any other state.

Gurfinkiel goes on to point out that starting in the 1960s with the Kennedy Administration, and then under Johnson and Nixon,

Washington started a rapprochement with Jerusalem

This relationship resulted in major sales of US weapons to Israel, including fighter aircraft, whereas Israel had fought and won the Six Day War of 1967 with an air force almost entirely made up of French military aircraft. In that war, the Egyptian and Syrian air forces were mainly Soviet. The Israeli victory gave French military aircraft a very good reputation among the world's air forces, leading to increased sales. France did not return the favor. Instead, De Gaulle declared an embargo on major military sales to Israel just as the USA was eliminating its embargo.

Nevertheless, not everyone was pleased with the US-Israel alliance. The Petro-Diplomatic Complex was not happy.

In the eyes of the oil men and their friends, the most powerful lobby in the country [America], this [pro-Israel] 'deviation' could only be explained by the action of a 'Jewish lobby," at least as powerful [as itself]. This was a classic case of projecting on one's adversary one's own behavior.

Gurfinkiel does not mention it, but one of the ways that the Petro-Diplomatic Complex countered pro-Israel forces in the United States was to work through foundations like the Ford Foundation, which in turn directed and funded all sorts of fake "human rights" and "peace" groups to unfairly attack and libel Israel. The pro-Arab, anti-Israel bodies agitating at the 2001 Durban Conference to smear Israel were to a large extent coordinated and/or funded by the Ford Foundation, according to articles by Edwin Black for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Source: Michel Gurfinkiel, "Rapport sur Baker," France-Israel Information no. 335, Oct-Nov-Dec 2006.

UPDATE ON THE PETRO-DIPLOMATIC COMPLEX: See this article by John R MacArthur on the Saudi Lobby in the USA and on its friends in the Petro-Diplomatic Complex.
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Coming: more on James Baker, on Carter's support for apartheid against Jews, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, Jewish antiquities, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

How the Arabs Treated the Europeans before Israel Was Reborn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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