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Old August 9th, 2011 #21
littlefieldjohn
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Default US "Deeply concerned" By new Israeli Construction Plans

US Israel Construction Plans Cause Of Concern


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it is "deeply concerned" by Israeli approval of new housing construction in disputed east Jerusalem.

The State Department says such "unilateral actions work against efforts to resume direct negotiations" and the spirit of the peace process. In a statement, the department says it has raised its objections with the Israeli government.

Last week, an Israeli planning commission approved 930 new housing units in the Har Homa neighborhood in east Jerusalem. Actual building is at least two years off.

Alongside its rare rebuke of a close ally, the State Department said Israelis and Palestinians should settle their differences on Jerusalem through negotiation.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and claims it as part of its capital. Palestinians hope to establish their future capital there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_922667.html
 
Old September 15th, 2011 #22
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US Ambassador: Support for Israel Drives All US Mideast Policies

Alison Weir, September 14, 2011


While many Americans may believe that US policies are designed to address American needs, America’s new Ambassador to Israel explains that this is far from the case.

In a recent speech before the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), Ambassador Daniel Shapiro clarified what drives US policies: "The test of every policy the Administration develops in the Middle East is whether it is consistent with the goal of ensuring Israel’s future as a secure, Jewish, democratic state. That is a commitment that runs as a common thread through our entire government."

Shapiro went on to say: "This test explains our extraordinary security cooperation, our stand against the delegitimization of Israel, our efforts on Iran, our response to the Arab Spring, and our efforts on Israeli-Palestinian peace."

It also explains a factor in the downward slide in American prosperity and standing in the world.

US funding of Israel and its weapons industry

Shapiro elaborated: ‘Israel will receive over $3 billion in U.S. funding for training and equipment in the coming fiscal year. This assistance allows Israel to purchase the sophisticated defense equipment it needs to protect itself, by itself, including the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Our assistance has also helped boost Israel’s domestic defense industry."



On top of this, Shapiro pointed out, "Congress, at the request of President Obama, provided $205 million to accelerate production and deployment of the Iron Dome short-range missile system, a project to which I devoted particular attention during my tenure at the White House."

Shapiro failed to note that this system competes with American defense firms, causing still further job loss for Americans, who have a higher unemployment rate than Israel.

Shapiro said that one of his first visits as Ambassador to Israel was to see an Iron Dome battery deployed near Ashkelon, where he "had very moving visits with the victims of rocket attacks in Ashdod." Palestinian rocket attacks have killed approximately 20 Israelis. There is no report that Shapiro has visited the victims of Israeli shelling attacks on Gaza, where over 1,400 have been killed.

Opposing international initiatives, undermining US needs

Shapiro continued: "The test of our policy – that it advances Israel’s status as a secure, Jewish, democratic state – also explains our commitment to vigorously battle against those who would attempt to isolate or delegitimize Israel in the international community."

As a result, Shapiro said, the US withdrew from the South African conference on racism in Durban and vetoed UN efforts on Israel (which otherwise would have passed).

Currently, he said, the administration is "doing everything we can" to oppose the Palestinian bid for UN membership to come later this month. "We are taking our opposition to capitals around the world."

This campaign is reminiscent of previous pro-Israel campaigns, including the original pressure brought by Israel partisans in 1947 on the UN General Assembly to pass a recommendation to give over half of Palestine to a Jewish state.

It could also be a major blow to the US.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of the Saudi Royal Family who headed up its intelligence service for many years, has just published Veto a State, Lose an Ally, in which he warns that if the US vetoes Palestinian UN membership, "Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has."

He writes that it would "provoke uproar among Muslims worldwide," further undermining American relations with the Muslim world (over 1.2 billion people), "threaten regional stability," and increase "the chances of another war in the region."

In 1973 Saudi Arabia, which has been an extremely important US ally, issued a warning based on a similarly reasonable request that Israel obey international law (see discussion below). When Henry Kissinger ignored this, the US was thrown into a major recession and thousands of Americans lost their jobs and homes.

Author and international attorney John Whitbeck writes: "The adverse consequences for the United States of blocking Palestine’s membership are dazzlingly obvious. An American veto would constitute a shotgun blast in both of its own feet, further isolating the United States from the rest of mankind and outraging the already agitated and unstable Arab and Muslim worlds (notably including Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey).

Since 120 nations have already recognized Palestine, such a veto would outrage countries all over the globe.

Policies on Iran based on Israeli concerns

Shapiro went on to say:

"The test of our policy – to advance Israel’s status as a secure, Jewish democratic state – explains our persistent efforts and the President’s determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"Since 2009, the United States has led the world in imposing the toughest sanctions ever against Iran, through U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, through the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions and Divestment Act, and through additional sanctions imposed by European and other partners beyond those mandated by the U.N. Security Council… We are working to increase pressure on Iran through additional means, and have taken no option off the table.

Twenty years ago similar pressure on Iraq created a humanitarian catastrophe in which, according to the World Health Organization, over 5,000 children under the age of five died each month from "embargo-related causes."

Arab Spring actions predicated on Israeli interests

Shapiro explained that concerns for Israel also drive the Administration’s actions regarding the Arab Spring:

"The test of our policy explains President Obama’s original outreach to the Muslim world, and his response to the Arab Spring.

"Israel’s interests were not served by the deep anger felt toward the United States in many Muslim communities, and the President made clear that those who would accept his outstretched hand must do so knowing that the United States will remain a fierce defender of Israel’s legitimacy and call on others to build their own connections with Israel.

"As the unprecedented events of the Arab Spring have unfolded, we have recognized the opportunity presented by the possible emergence of more open, transparent, peaceful, and democratic governments, who will make better neighbors, while remaining vigilant about the risks these changes could present. We know the stakes for Israel are high, and in a situation where neither of us can control outcomes, we are working closely together to chart a common strategy."

Shapiro said that US support for a "two-state solution" is also based on Israeli desires, explaining that he and the Administration are "convinced that a two-state solution is the only way to guarantee Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state." Therefore, he said, the administration’s "vigorous pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace" also meets the pro-Israel test.

Need to bolster pro-Israel ties among Jewish Americans

Shapiro spoke of the close allegiance that most Jewish Americans feel for Israel, but expressed concern that "much research has shown that growing numbers of younger American Jews feel disconnected, or at best ambivalent, toward Israel. Valuable programs like Birthright have exposed many to this connection, but many more have not been reached."

He said that "a stronger commitment to Zionist education for American Jewish youth could do much to strengthen bonds that we want to be even stronger in the next generation, but may not be if left untended."

Helping Israeli finances even further

Shapiro said that "one of the most fruitful opportunities for deepening ties" between Americans and Israelis is in the economic sphere:

"There are approximately one dozen American-Israel Chambers of Commerce throughout the United States, based in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. These organizations are run and organized by Americans who care deeply about the U.S.- Israel relationship and strive to facilitate U.S.-Israel business connections."

Shapiro pointed out:

"In 2010 alone the U.S. imported $21 billion of Israeli goods and services; that’s 10 percent of Israel’s GDP. American companies and their representatives here directly employ about 60,000 Israelis; that’s fully 2 percent of Israel’s entire workforce. This figure does not include the many thousands more that are supported by American companies here as subcontractors or in downstream businesses.

"American companies have opened two-thirds of all foreign R&D facilities in Israel and brought in nearly 60 percent of all foreign direct investment. In 2011, American companies have acquired ten Israeli startups to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, not just for their products, but to establish leading international R&D centers tapping into the greatest asset of Israel’s people, their brainpower. American-sourced venture capitalism provides more than half of all money for nascent technology companies to get off the ground.

"Just as other Diaspora communities are often in the lead in promoting economic ties with their countries of origin, many of these projects began because of Jewish-American ‘champions’ of corporate interaction with Israel."

Ambassador Shapiro failed to mention that Israel’s current account balance is 29th in the world; the U.S. comes in at 196th.

1973 War and Shapiro’s personal ties to Israel

In his speech, Ambassador Shapiro recounted his personal history "for the insights it can give us about the connection of the American Jewish community to the U.S.-Israel relationship." He stated:

“I am a proud member of our Jewish community in Washington, DC, active in a Conservative synagogue and the Jewish day school that my children attend and where my wife, Julie, worked for many years. And my profound respect for the State of Israel and its remarkable achievements stems from a lifetime of exposure to the extraordinary people who brought Theodore Herzl’s Zionist dream to life.”

Shapiro explained that his close attachment to Israel began in 1973 when he was four years old and his family spent a fall semester in Israel. They were there during the war in which Egypt and Syria tried to retrieve land that had been taken by Israel seven years before.

While Ambassador Shapiro didn’t go into this, there is a close US connection to the 1973 war, called by Israel and US media the "Yom Kippur War."

Before and during this war, Saudi Arabia called on the US to pressure Israel to return the lands that it had taken and held since 1967, in violation of international law. Instead, Henry Kissinger arranged a massive airlift of US weaponry to Israel, saving Israel from losing the war. This support led to the oil embargo against the US that caused a deep depression and cost thousands of Americans their jobs.

As historian Donald Neff later wrote, this boycott, induced by Kissinger’s weapons to Israel, left "economies around the world shattered and many individuals living poorer lives." Neff wrote that while "Kissinger admitted, ‘I made a mistake,’ skeptics might wonder whether it was a mistake, or wanton disregard of U.S. interests during a passionate effort to help Israel."

Shapiro explained that the 1973 war had a major impact on his family:

"By the end of the war, and even more so, by the end of our stay, our family’s relationship with Israel had been utterly transformed, from a solid but light connection to the deepest of bonds. Throughout the remainder of my childhood, family dinner conversations turned easily to events in Israel, from the thrill of the peace with Egypt to the anguish of the Lebanon War [initiated by Israel; fatalities were approximately 25:1 Lebanese to Israelis]. The ample bookshelves in my parents’ home grew laden with studies in Zionism, Jewish history, and Israeli literature.

"A product of the Reform Movement, I nurtured my own connection to Israel primarily through summer camp experiences at the Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, an unlikely setting for some of the most innovative Jewish and Zionist education to be found anywhere.

"These experiences led me to spend half a year after high school in Israel on a Reform Movement program, living with an Israeli family in Jerusalem, studying at Hebrew Union College, traveling widely throughout the country, and volunteering on Kibbutz Yahel in the Arava.

"I returned for my sophomore year of college at Hebrew University, supplementing my studies with work as a waiter at the wedding hall in the Beit Knesset HaGadol and long walks in Rehavia, where my girlfriend – who is now my wife of 19 years – took an apartment.

"In the years since, I have made Israel, its history and people, its quest for peace and security in the Middle East, and its relationship with the United States, the centerpiece of my academic studies at Brandeis and Harvard, my work on Capitol Hill, and my service in the Clinton and Obama Administrations."

Shapiro emphasized that in many ways his story is not unique, stating that "it is impossible to deny the special connection that most in the American Jewish community feel for Israel…. wherever they fall on the political spectrum, and whatever their views on American policy, Israeli policy or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vast majority of American Jews care deeply about Israel…"

Shapiro said that he is “deeply honored” that President Obama has entrusted him with the "task and responsibility of strengthening and deepening" US ties to Israel.

Shapiro concluded: "… as a committed Jewish American, with deep roots in the American Jewish community and warm bonds of affection with Israel, I will have an opportunity to draw on those associations to help make the U.S.-Israel relationship, strong as it is, even stronger in the years ahead."



Alison Weir is Executive Director of If Americans Knew and President of the Council for the National Interest. She can be reached at contact@CNIonline.org.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/09/...east-policies/
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Old September 16th, 2011 #23
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Isn't it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most?

We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples
to lead our country to destruction.

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Old October 4th, 2011 #24
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It's now time for the West to recognise Palestinian statehood

Malcolm Fraser
October 4, 2011
Opinion

The current negative approach is damaging and can't be justified.

The arguments against recognition of a Palestinian state seem to rest on the simple proposition that agreement must be reached through negotiation and that a resolution granting statehood would set that process back.

If that argument was valid it would have been true in 1948 when the United Nations recognised Israel as an independent state. People should then have argued the Israelis must negotiate with the Palestinians, the people who were being pushed out, and once they had come to an agreement, we could recognise Israel.

If the argument is so thin, why are some Western powers so strongly against recognition of a Palestinian state? I suggest it is because of the lock that Israel has over the policies of too many Western countries. There is an Israeli lobby that governments are not prepared to offend.

There have been two major stumbling blocks to peace. The first is the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, the daily diminution of what might become Palestine. US President Barack Obama, to his credit, tried to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the expansions. He did not succeed. If other Western countries had supported Obama at the time, that result may have been better.

The second problem concerns the divisions between Fatah and Hamas, and here both Israel and the West have played their part in perpetuating that division. Hamas won a legitimate election. Nobody claimed it was fraudulent. Indeed, people working in Palestine had predicted a Hamas victory because, in small communities across the territory, if people had needed help it was Hamas that would provide it and not Fatah, which was seen as self-serving and corrupt.

After Hamas's election victory, much of the West, led by Israel and the US, said: ''Well, you are going to have to change your policy before we will talk to you. You must now accept the existence of the Israeli state.'' That stand forced Hamas back to the weapons it had known for too long, most of which were psychological. Its rocket attacks on Israel caused little damage relative to the retribution exacted by the Israeli army against the people of Gaza. The main effect of those rockets has been, and remains, the propaganda weapon that it provides Israel.

The ineffective use of power by Hamas has been regarded as totally illegitimate, while Israel has used its official forces time and again in provocation or retribution. The violence is endless and who is responsible for cause and effect will depend very much on who you are talking to. There is no absolute truth.

If the West had said to Hamas, ''we will talk with you, we will negotiate with you, but we oppose absolutely your failure to recognise the state of Israel'', it could have done much to heal the wounds between Hamas and Fatah and provide a strong Palestinian entity that could negotiate with Israel. The West could also have said very clearly to Hamas, and I believe Hamas would have accepted this, ''while you do not recognise the existence of Israel now, once there are agreed boundaries of a Palestinian state, from that moment on you must recognise the existence and permanence of the Jewish state of Israel''.

Many would regard that as a fair bargain. Why should Palestinians recognise Israel when Israel refuses to talk substantively about realistic boundaries to a Palestinian state and while Israeli settlers are diminishing what might be and should be a Palestinian state?

One could almost argue that Israel, the US and Fatah are in an unholy alliance to destroy Hamas. They have not done so. To talk of negotiations leading to peace while ignoring the reality of Hamas is to talk nonsense. So Prime Minister Abbas is correct in pressing for United Nations recognition.

There are other reasons a new approach is needed urgently. The power of the US under current policies is diminishing in the Middle East. Its capacity to influence events in future will be less than it has been. Turkey has changed the substance of its relationship with Israel in major ways. It will never return to the old subservience to Israeli and American wishes. Likewise in Egypt. Whether the generals allow a true democratic state to emerge may be doubtful, but it is clear that the pro-Israeli policies followed by former president Hosni Mubarak are not now being followed by Egypt. As time passes without progress, Egypt's stand is likely to become stronger and more effective. Saudi Arabia has also pressed the US very hard on this issue.

Recognition by the United Nations could give greater weight to Palestinian arguments and would put pressure on Israel of a new kind to end the policy of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. That is an essential part of an ultimate settlement.

The lack of progress over 18 years is due not so much to Palestinian division or to the ineffective rocketry of Hamas, but to the determination of Israel and its closest friends to make sure that nothing is done that Israel does not support. The changes in the Middle East, not only in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia but across North Africa, will end in greater support for the Palestinian cause. These important relationships for the West may be irretrievably damaged if the West persists in its negative approach to the question of Palestinian statehood.

Malcolm Fraser was prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1982.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politi...#ixzz1ZorbqauC
 
Old January 20th, 2012 #25
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Quote:
The Return of the Smear Bund

Phony charges of "anti-Semitism" are nothing new



by Justin Raimondo, January 20, 2012


The tale of the DC Five – the five Beltway bloggers at two prominent Democratic Washington thinktanks who have been smacked down (and one fired) for being insufficiently pro-Israel – is hardly a shock to those who know their history. But before we get into that, a few details on what is only the latest chapter in the story of how the War Party operates in this country.


The DC Five are Matt Duss, Ali Gharib, Eli Clifton and Zaid Jilani, bloggers at the Center for American Progress group blog, ThinkProgress, and former AIPAC employee MJ Rosenberg who currently writes for Media Matters. The Washington Post details the charges against them:

“The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House, is embroiled in a dispute with several major Jewish organizations over statements on Israel and charges that some center staffers have used anti-Semitic language to attack pro-Israel Americans.


“… Among the points of contention are several Twitter posts by one CAP writer on his personal account referring to “Israel-firsters.” Some experts say the phrase has its roots in the anti-Semitic charge that American Jews are more loyal to a foreign country. In another case, a second staffer described a U.S. senator as showing more fealty to the prime U.S. pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, than to his own constituents, replacing a standard identifier of party affiliation and state with “R-AIPAC” on his personal Twitter account. The first writer has since left the staff.”



The campaign to purge CAP was apparently launched by one Josh Block, an analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a Beltway thinktank whose progressivism is largely measured by their enthusiasm as we “progress” to a state of permanent war. This self-appointed arbiter of political correctness has certain standards we all had better abide by, as he told Politico:


“As a progressive Democrat, I am convinced that on issues as important as the US-Israel alliance and the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, there is no room for uncivil discourse or name calling, like ‘Israel Firster or ‘Likudnik’, and policy or political rhetoric that is hostile to Israel, or suggests that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, has no place in the mainstream Democratic party discourse. I also believe that when it occurs, progressive institutions, have a responsibility not to tolerate such speech or arguments.”


So let’s get this straight: there is “no room” among those engaging in “civil discourse” to in any way cast doubt on the proposition that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program: to even suggest such a thing is prima facie proof of “anti-Semitism.”


Glenn Greenwald tears this nonsense to pieces here: it’s an admirable piece, rich with detail and electric with indignation, but I have to say I can’t quite get as exercised by all this as Glenn does. After all, smearing opponents of whatever war we’re currently engaged in as “anti-Semites” is hardly a new phenomenon.


Indeed, practically every major war we’ve fought since World War II has witnessed identical accusations hurled at anti-interventionists. Before, during, and even after World War II, opponents of US intervention in the European war were routinely smeared as proponents of Nazism. The antiwar writer and former New Republic columnist John T. Flynn detected a pattern in the activities of the pro-war groups, which were well-funded and relentless: he called them the “Smear Bund” because they specialized in tarring war opponents with the Nazi brush. Right up to today, the biggest antiwar movement in American history – the America First Committee, which had a membership of 800,000 – and which opposed US entry into World War II is widely considered to have been a pro-Nazi anti-Semitic organization, a lie that has long outlived its pro-Communist and pro-British perpetrators.


While opponents of the Korean “police action” and the Vietnam disaster were regularly denounced as pro-Communists and “fellow travelers,” the “anti-Semite” canard gained new currency in the run-up to the first Gulf War. When Patrick J. Buchanan attributed the beating of war drums to “Israel’s amen corner,” he was attacked by both the right and the left as a hate criminal for daring to point out what was patently true: that the pro-Israel lobby in the US was pushing hard for “regime change” in Iraq. The same “Israel first” crowd was leading the charge in the months prior to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, only this time the “anti-Semitic” charge was pushed even harder. Andrew Sullivan claimed The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was being peddled at antiwar demonstrations. As fanatically pro-Israel neoconservatives pushed their war agenda, in part, to “ensure Israel’s position,” as Gen. Anthony Zinni put it, the War Party used the “anti-Semitism” charge as a toxic meme to discredit war opponents.


The Post piece singles out the phrase “Israel-firsters” and a blog post by Eli Clifton entitled “AIPAC’s Iran Strategy on Sanctions Mirrors Mimics Run-Up to Iraq War Tactics” as indicative of the crimes of the DC Five. Attacking a statement from more than 90 US Senators calling for draconian sanctions to be placed on Iraq’s central bank, and the subsequent hailing of this by AIPAC, Clifton noted that such a move would be in itself an act of war:

“But that doesn’t seem to bother AIPAC. Indeed, they’ve been down this sanctions road once before before the invasion of Iraq. In June, Robert Dreyfuss interviewed former AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman who offered details of how its allies in the Bush administration pushed the allegation that Saddam Hussein was in league with al Qaeda.”


Let’s stop here, for station identification: Weissman, formerly AIPAC’s top Iran analyst, was indicted along with AIPAC’s top lobbyist, Steve Rosen, for committing espionage against the United States for the benefit of Israel. The duo was busted after not one but two FBI raids on AIPAC’s posh Washington headquarters. However, the case ground to a halt when the defense, in effect, greymailed the government into dropping legal proceedings by insisting on the release of highly classified information as part and parcel of their clients getting a “fair trial.” As it was, there was no trial, and neither Rosen nor Weissman was ever cleared of the charges. The Rosen-Weissman tag team had been milking Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin for all the classified information they could lay their hands on, and funneling it to Israeli government officials: when the FBI came to Franklin’s door, they found a treasure trove of top secret documents in his home going back many years. Sneaking around Washington, the traitorous trio met on dark street corners and held meetings in out of the way restaurants, changing venues regularly for fear of being followed. They were caught anyway, and the FBI – having snagged and “turned” Franklin first – lured the conspirators into a well-laid trap, which was sprung just as the two AIPAC officials thought they were reeling in a really big fish – top secret information promised them by Franklin, who was wearing a wire.


Having established the context, let us proceed with Clifton’s blog post:


“More importantly, Weissman discusses AIPAC’s plans for ultimately bringing regime change in Iran. Dreyfuss writes:

“’Weissman says that Iran was alarmed at the possibility that the United States might engage in overt and covert efforts to instigate opposition inside Iran. He says that many in AIPAC, especially among its lay leadership and biggest donors, strongly backed regime change in Iran. ‘That was what Larry [Franklin] and his friends wanted,’ he says. ‘It included lots of different parts, like broadcasts, giving money to groups that would conduct sabotage, it included bringing the Mojahedin[-e Khalgh], bringing them out of Iraq and letting them go back to Iran to carry out missions for the United States. Harold Rhode backed this…. There were all these guys, Michael Ledeen, ‘Next stop Tehran, next stop Damascus.’

Clifton then goes on to note: “Indeed, as shown in the AIPAC press release, Iran is now the target of similar sanctions and bellicose rhetoric similar to those that targeted Iraq in the late 1990s and early 2000s.” He also notes AIPAC’s cozy relationship with the Saudis, saying they welcomed sanctions on Iranian oil because it would drive up the price of the Kingdom’s petroleum exports. Weissman recalls:

“Prince Bandar used to send us messages. I used to meet with Adel al-Jubeir a couple times a year. Adel used to joke that if we could force an American embargo on Iranian oil, he’d buy us all Mercedes! Because Saudi [Arabia] would have had the excess capacity to make up for Iran at that time.”


Here we have someone who spied on the US on behalf of Israel giving us the inside scoop on the Israel Lobby’s machinations around the issue of war with Iran. What could be clearer than the testimony of this veteran fifth columnist, who — for whatever reason — has come clean about Israel’s campaign to drag us into war with Iran? This is the real reason for the Israel Lobby’s phony outrage at CAP and its heavy-handed tactics of suppression. They don’t want the American people to know that the Lobby is doing everything in its power to provoke war with Iran – a natural function of its role as the Israeli government’s Washington mouthpiece. Clifton’s citing of Weissman hit a particularly sensitive spot, and that’s no doubt what had the Lobby howling: even mentioning Israel’s extensive covert activities in the US, including aggressive technology theft as well as traditional spying, is considered prima facie evidence of “anti-Semitism” by the Lobby.


Oh, but don’tcha know it’s a hate crime to even use the term “Israel-firster? It is because Eli Lake says so: You see, Eli — prodigy that he is– has traced the terminological origins of this phrase, and discovered that Willis Carto, nut-job extraordinaire, was supposedly the first to use it. So even if you’ve never heard of Carto, and are as Jewish as M.J. Rosenberg, you’re still an “anti-Semite” if you use it. (Naturally Jamie Kirchick, self-proclaimed “homosexual warrior” and lately an “analyst” at the ultra-Likudnik Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, re-tweeted Lake’s “discovery.”)


We aren’t allowed to say Iran gave up its nuclear program in 2003, just like the US intelligence community said in its National Intelligence Estimate on the subject (don’t you know the CIA is full of “anti-Semites”?): we aren’t allowed to say that people who passed classified data to Israeli officials are “Israel-firsters,” not even if they are named Jonathan Pollard. The reason is because these are “toxic” themes which are” corrosive and unacceptable,” according to Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, denounced the writings of the DC Five as “anti-Semitic and borderline anti-Semitic.” Jason Isaacson, of the American Jewish Committee, averred:


“For any serious policy center there are certain lines of fairness and objectivity and good sense that should not be crossed, and yet, disturbingly, those lines have regularly been crossed.”

You’re not Serious if you fail to give Israel and its American partisans a free pass: once you “cross the line,” you’re relegated to the fever swamps of “anti-Semitism” and “extremism” – oh, and by way, the very real extremism of fanatic Zionists is also never to be mentioned by Serious People. Giving this regime of strict thought control an academic imprimatur, the Post article cites one Jeffrey Herf, a historian at the University of Maryland, “who has published books on anti-Semitism” (impressive!) and who says:


The suggestion of Jewish ‘dual loyalty,’ along with the accusation that AIPAC was pushing for war with Iran, hearkened back to the early days of World War II, when certain people accused the U.S. government of entering the war as a response to powerful Jewish interests. ‘This kind of nonsense is all over the place on the Internet,’ Herf said. ‘The fact that some of this is showing up on the Center for American Progress Web site makes it important.’”


Well then, that settles it: we have a college professor who says poor little Israel is being “singled out” for “unfair” and quite possibly bigoted criticism, and is subjected (by bigots) to a standard not applied to other countries. We have Josh Block, who thinks anyone doubting the “evidence” for Iran’s alleged nuke program is a Hitlerite; Abe Foxman, who sees anti-Semites everywhere; and last, but hardly least, Jamie Kirchick, who used to work for – and regularly defend – an editor who routinely compared Arabs to “animals.” All these sterling examples of human virtue and politically correct righteousness are telling the White House it’s time for a purge at the Center for American Progress. And, guess what – they are getting their wish.


The DC Five have been muzzled: CAP management has clamped down on the ThinkProgress blog. You’ll find no more talk of “Israel-firsters” there – because the Israel-firsters don’t want to be identified as such. Being foreign agents, they prefer to operate under cover of night: but they’ll gladly execute their enemies in broad daylight, if need be, in order to make an example.


This they have certainly done in the case of the DC Five: they’ve shown that any thinktank close to the White House must be “purified” of elements whose loyalty to the “special relationship” is in doubt. The White House, according to the Post, was horrified by the reports from the complainers, and no doubt laid down the law to CAP. The Post reports Ken Gude, chief of staff and vice president for CAP, saying:

“We have a zero-tolerance policy for racism, sexism, anti-Semitism or any form of discrimination,” Gude wrote. He said CAP has adopted a new policy requiring staffers to adhere to professional standards on Twitter. In addition, Zaid Jilani, the author of the ‘Israel-firster’ tweets, apologized and left CAP’s staff in recent days to take another job. Jilani could not be reached for comment.”

“Professional standards” = no criticism of Israel. That’s the Washington thinktank rule, and you break it at your peril.


For the Smear Bund, it’s always 1939, and the Eternal Enemy is always “Hitler,” or an unreasonable facsimile thereof. If you oppose their war agenda, then you’re an “anti-Semite,” plain and simple. They been using these tactics for many years– even bending the language to suit their propagandistic purposes.


Where else do you think the term “isolationist” came from? “Anti-Semitism” used to mean hatred of Jews per se, for being Jews: today it has morphed into “disproportionate criticism” of Israel. If you don’t denounce every violent act ever perpetrated by Arabs in the same breath you critique Israel’s policy of subjecting Palestinians to conditions of helotry, then you’re spreading “hatred,” according to the learned Prof. Herf. Whether this means that every criticism of, say, Saddam Hussein’s atrocities ought to have been accompanied by denunciations of war crimes perpetrated by Americans, I’ll leave that as an open question: somehow, however, I suspect that isn’t what Prof. Herf means.


The Smear Bund has always been with us, and it will continue to be there, looking over our shoulder and parsing our words for thought-crimes, unto eternity. Indeed, I expect to hear from them shortly that anyone who advocates peace, under any circumstances, is an “anti-Semite” and a “conspiracy theorist” who deserves to be banished to intellectual Coventry for their crimes.


As we approach a state of war with Iran, this tired old accusation is going to be hauled out and pushed with renewed zeal. The Isra-bots will “argue” that since Iran represents an “existential threat” to Israel’s very existence, anyone who opposes a war with Tehran is calling for a replay of the Holocaust. If you’re for peace, and see no vital US interest in going to war with Iran, well then you’re a “Holocaust-denier.” And, hey, didn’t Willis Carto “invent” the term “Israel-firster”? Why, how dare you advocate a policy of non-intervention – what are you, some kind of Nazi? When the price of oil quadruples as US warplanes bomb Tehran, don’t even think of complaining – unless you want to be tagged as an “anti-Semite.” And if you’re caught wondering what we are doing fighting Israel’s wars, at great cost to our own interests – well then, don’t even think about working for the Center for American Progress, or, indeed, any “serious” thinktank.


Israel’s lobby in the US is reflexively defensive, and covertly authoritarian: they can’t afford to have an open discussion of our “special relationship” with Israel — and Israel’s sick relationship with its Arab helots – and so must resort to silencing their opponents. The case of the DC Five is meant to sow fear among the policy analysts and thinktankers who inhabit the Washington Beltway: “do not cross the line,” they are telling them – and the closer we get to war with Iran, the faster the boundaries of the impermissible are growing. There is a method to this madness: it is a preemptive strike aimed at opponents of US intervention, and on the left as well as the right it is turning out to be quite effective.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2...he-smear-bund/
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Old March 1st, 2012 #26
Ty Grant
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Charles E. Carlson Feb 29, 2012


A look at American Israeli Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) website, reveals that Israel is selling war at the Washington DC Convention Center on the first week in March. Every front page story is about war against Iran, except one that is against Palestinian statehood. AIPAC is in Washington to get Americans to pay for its war of choice upon its distant neighbor that just happens to produce a great deal of oil.

Our American president will address this foreign lobby. Newt Gingrich and many members of Congress will also be there. Is AIPAC a danger to world peace? Sure it is.

A second danger to world peace is the Christian Zionist churches that are selling their congregations on the need to finance Israel's wars. (1)

Zionist Christianity has some 70 million Americans under its influence; it is AIPAC's trump card. We, who claim to follow Christ, must examine the forces that are deliberately pushing for war; we must know why and how they do it, and we must figure out how we can generate peace else we will be locked into in wars unending. Can't happen? The USA first attacked Iraq 21 years ago! Can we afford AIPAC and Christian Zionism?

We asked our Christian pastor and writer friends in the DC area to name the most influential Zionist Christian mega church. They named Pastor Lon Solomon's McLean Bible Church, located in Vienna, Virginia, about fifteen miles northeast of the Washington Convention Center where AIPAC will meet on Sunday, and where hundreds of protesters calling themselves “Occupy AIPAC” will picket.

But hours earlier on that day, in front of Pastor Solomon’s giant church in Vienna, WHTT"S Project Strait Gate will confront and challenge some 13,000 members of his congregation. We will appeal to the good sense of those congregants, who are being indoctrinated with Zionism and Pastor Solomon's own personal "Messianic Christianity."

Solomon’s congregation members are family oriented, racially mixed, businessmen, academics, and university educated federal employees. His sermons are controlled and moderate, by compare to many. He is awaiting a "rapture" to take him and his congregation to Heaven, but he does not claim earthy health miracle cures, as Bennie Hinn does; he does not pray for war, or, as far as I know, ask his followers to blow Israeli horns at the start of service or sing Jewish ethnic songs, as burlesque- like John Hagee does. * ( Hagee/Hinn)

First and foremost, Pastor Solomon tells everyone he is a Jew who was rescued from a hippy past by Christianity. He preaches against Islam, but he does not scream or demand that his followers burn Qur'an, as Terry Jones in Florida. Pastor Solomon is polished, intelligent, and smooth. He sells Zionist Christianity like Geico sells insurance, with humor and geniality.

Solomon bends the Bible cleverly to his Zionist needs; he teaches that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy; one detects a holy connection. In Solomon’s Zionist Christianity, the political state that is peddling war and controlling America through AIPAC and other lobbies, is the same "tribe of Israel" named after Abraham's grandson three thousand years ago. Lon teaches the land God gave Abraham now belongs to today’s Jews in the state of Israel, never mind the UN mandate in 1948.

The only record of there ever being an "Abraham" is in the book of Genesis, referred to in later books of the Hebrew bible, none of which were written down until a thousand years after Abraham is supposed to have lived. Abraham only exists as a matter of faith in the minds of a billion or so Christians. Christ followers do not require proof he lived, because we do not use the tale to claim the property of others. Only Christian Zionists do that.

Here are a few quotes from one of Solomon's sermon's notes entitled, "The Life of Moses, The Origin of the Jewish People, Gen. 12, 1-9," dated October 16, 2005.

Two major headings of Solomon's sermon notes were:
1. "How the Jewish people came into being"
2. "How the Promised Land became their inheritance"... "the origin of the Jewish People all start with a man named Abraham"

We are told in these few words that the "Jews" of today are the same lineage as those in Abraham's time, and that God gave the land of the Philistines to the present day state of Israel, which Lon assumes are Abraham's "seed."

Solomon continues with six headings listing the promises God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12:1-3. The last three are:
"v-3, all the people of the earth will be blessed through you"
"v-7, to your offspring I will give this land"
"v-3, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."

It is important to note Solomon believes God blessed is imputed to today's political Israel. He does not say why the alleged promises to Abraham and “his seed,” as the King James Bible words it, would accrue to himself or today’s Jews in Palestine. The United Nations divided the land more or less 50-50, but AIPAC and Solomon justify taking the other half by force, based on this "Abrahamic covenant" from Genesis.

Solomon teaches (in his notes) that God's ancient curses and blessings apply to states that did not exist when Abraham, or even Jesus, lived: among those he claims are cursed by God are "the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Philistines, Haman (from the book of Esther) Spain, Russia under the Tzars and Russia under Communism, and Hitler." among the blessed are "Persians, Alexander the Great, and the USA." Needless to say, Solomon did read any of this from the Christian Bible. Note "Philistine" is the Arab word for Palestine.

Solomon claimed God blessed the "Persians," but what he would say today is probably quite different. If Iran is, in fact, "blessed by God," it would be blasphemy for Solomon to join AIPAC in wanting to destroy Iran! But, since Israel wants to bomb Iran and Israel is holy, to Solomon, a preemptive strike by the US or Israel on the people of Iran is justifiable. Solomon must have overcome his former belief that the Iranians are blessed by God. This makes an interesting point, Christian Zionists modify their concepts of history to meet the needs of their sermons; they rewrite history to conform to their ideas of Bible prophesy. Sadly, most would vote to bomb Iran without giving a thought to the human and financial cost.

Solomon and the Israel-first politicians who attend AIPAC conferences to ensure Jewish donations to their campaigns base. Solomon's claim that Jews own the land of the Philistines on Bible revisions, going back to Cyrus Scofield, John Nelson Darby, and others in the evangelical movement in the 19th Century. It is easy to see from reading Lon Solomon's quotes that he gets most of his ideas on Scripture from the Zionist Scofield Reference Bible, 1967 edition, which, on page 19, interprets Genesis 12, in the footnotes nearly word for word those found above in as in his 2005 sermon notes. For instance:

"2) That God made an unconditional promise... to the present day nation of Israel to inherit a specific land territory forever..."
(Therefore the Palestinians have no claim to any land upon which they live)
"3) God made a promise of blessing on individuals and nations who bless Abram's descendants, and a curse laid on those who persecute the Jews..."

There is not a scrap of writing, physical evidence, archeological or DNA evidence that proves “Abraham” was more real than a character in a folk tale. Not one delegate at AIPAC can prove a drop of blood or strand of DNA in common with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Joseph, etc. Israeli scholars, including Professor Shlomo Sands, in "The Invention of the Jewish People," join those of us with simple common sense in saying there is no connection between biblical Israel and today’s state of Israel, 2-3000 years apart. Pastor Solomon’s legitimization of AIPAC and Israeli land theft makes him dangerous to every Palestinian child who wants to grow up free and to every member of his congregation that might have become a follower of Jesus, the Peacemaker, instead.

Traditional Christianity abhors wars and killing and respects legal and just property rights. The words of Jesus tell us over and over again that: Christ is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, and Jesus does not share that throne with Israel or the USA or any other man-made government or God; land changes hands by acts of men (some of whom are violent), and God is not in the real estate business; Jesus said he would judge each man, never did He say he would judge countries, tribes, states, or churches, and finally, Jesus is a peacemaker, never a warmaker.

Christ Following is Jesus teaching plus the first 10 commandments. Jesus said added only one more,"Love your brother...even your enemy." We do not enjoy hard evidence to prove it, belief comes only from faith, which is why it is called a "faith."

Lon Solomon claims to be both a Jew and a Christian. If he lived in Israel today as a Christian, could other Jews kick him out of his home as they do to Palestinian Christians when they want his land for a "settlement"? Or if he lived as an ethnic Jew, could he invoke the Abrahamic covenant, claim to be the "seed" of Abraham, and kick out Christians who happen to be Arabs? Which would Pastor Solomon choose to be, a Jew or a Christian? Both? In fact one can not be both in Gods kingdom any more than you can be both in AIPAC'S Kingdom.

"Messianic" or Jewish Christians, are the the ultimate Christians Zionist. As Caesar Aharon, a Jew by history, and a true Christ follower once said, "Messianic Jews run churches whose attendees are largely Christian, and who are slowly converted to a form of Judaism." He might have said "convert to Christians Zionism", but the term was not in wide use then.

Pastor Solomon writes in The Life of Moses, The Origin of the Jewish People, dated October 16, 2005, that God cursed a man called Haman. He is found in he Hebrew book of Esther, which is the basis of the Jewish celebration of Purim. But the name of God is not even mentioned in the book of Esther, and the celebration of Purim celebrates the "Jewish" murder by hanging of Haman and his 12 sons. What civilized people would hang the children of an enemies. Judaism fashions a national holiday around the event?

The book of Esther and the celebration of Purim is good reason to understand why Talmudic Judaism plus Jesus does not equal Christianity, as Messianic Christian like Lon Solomon would have us believe. Instead, Judaism is corrupted Israelite-ism, which is what Jesus said and why Christ Followers believe God sent Jesus. It is corrupted by 30 or 40 books called the Talmud, with thousands of rules no one person can understand.

Traditional Christianity is also corrupted by the 1908 Scofield Reference Bible footnotes, and by many other books written by various men. Can two wrongs combined make a right? Corrupted "Israelite-ism" plus corrupted "Christianity," as combined in the Messianic Christian church by Pastor Solomon, can not produce truth. This is why Project Strait Gate is challenging McLean Bible Church on Sunday, March 4.

A recent Poll by The Hill found that 49% of Americans who are likely to vote, think war on Iran is justifiable to keep it from getting nukes; all AIPAC has to do is convince a majority that Iran is trying to get fuel for nuclear weapons, and war against Iran will have the support of a simple majority. Who are these warring 49%? You may depend upon this: the majority is influenced by hundreds of Christian Zionists like Lon Solomon.
 
Old March 30th, 2012 #27
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James Abourezk: Tales of the Israel Lobby: Threats, Dershowitz, & Embedded Lobbyists



James Abourezk represented South Dakota in Congress from 1971 to 1979. CNI asked Senator Abourezk about his experiences with the Israel Lobby. In his first response he told of an Israeli plot to assassinate him. In this column he discusses threats to his family, Alan Dershowitz, and Israeli lobbyists embedded in the U.S. State Department:

When I was Chairman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), we had two bombing incidents. I had no idea who was responsible, but I had a guess.

Someone unknown placed a bomb in the doorway of ADC’s Boston headquarters. The staff there called the Boston police, who came and were in the process of disarming the pipe bomb that they found there. If I recall correctly, the police had put the bomb in a metal barrel, and it exploded in the face of one of the police officers, seriously injuring him. We all felt terrible about the policeman being injured and we tried as best we could to console his family. The whole incident was covered by a Boston TV station, and I assume they still have the footage of the explosion on file.

At around the same time, someone unknown firebombed the ADC headquarters in Washington, D.C. I was out of town at the time, but no one was hurt, and I was able to get back in time to accompany the arson expert with the D.C. police department, who showed us exactly where the bomb was thrown and how the fire had spread from that point.

Because we were all gripped with fear of what might be next, I decided to tighten up the security on my home, if nothing more than to calm down my family. I had bought a Rottweiler dog sometime earlier both for protection of my family and of our home. I learned that Rottweilers would automatically attack anyone who came near our home, unless we had introduced the dog to person visiting. I had a security expert—someone who had once worked as a Secret Service agent in the White House—make recommendations to insure that we would be a difficult target for someone who would wish us harm. We followed his advice and made the house a bit more invulnerable. He also told us that it would be impossible to make any home 100 per cent safe, but we could make it so a potential bomber would be discouraged enough to give up trying.

I also hired a 24 hour guard for the house. The first night the guard, a young man wearing a blue blazer and armed with a weapon situated himself inside, near the front door. At one point during the night, he ran upstairs to our bedrooms and shouted that there was something making noises outside. I suggested that, since he had the gun, that he should check it out, but he wanted me to go with him. So I dressed, took the Rottweiler with me on a leash and the guard and I did a search around the house. Finding nothing we went back in. The guard spent the rest of the night immediately outside my bedroom door, I suspect more frightened that I was, and the next day, I fired the security service.

After the bombing of the ADC headquarters in Washington, I was still extremely nervous about what might happen, but I put on my brave face and held a press conference, announcing to the world that “we would not be intimidated” by these kind of terrorists, and that we were going to work harder than ever to bring justice to the Palestinians and others in the Middle East who were victims of Israel’s aggression. But I honestly had a hard time staying calm and preventing myself from running out of the room to find a safe place to hide.

What Has Been Your Experience with Alan Dershowitz?

I remember Alan Dershowitz, not as a Harvard Law Professor, but as the person who wrote an op-ed column in one of our national newspapers in which he said that Palestinians need not worry about justice in the Occupied Territories, as the Israeli Supreme Court would always make certain that they were fairly treated. I’ve been reading Mondoweiss online, which has a daily list of Palestinians whose homes are leveled by U.S.-made bulldozers, of land outright stolen by Israeli settlers for the use of the settlers, most of whom come from the United States to live in the West Bank. I know that Dershowitz’s words about the Israeli Supreme Court are a great comfort to those Palestinians in the West Bank who have been killed, maimed, and their property stolen.

A few short years ago when I was in Damascus, I did an interview on Al Manar Television, which is Hizbollah’s channel in Lebanon. During the interview I mentioned that Alan Dershowitz was a “snake.”

There is a pro-Israeli group here in the U.S. which calls itself “MEMRI” which tapes television shows broadcast in the Middle East. They had taped my interview, which I suppose is where Alan Dershowitz heard about my description of him. He thereupon wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post in which he called me an “anti-Semite.” That slur is the favorite of Pro-Israeli Lobbyists and it works a lot of the time, often succeeding in silencing critics of Israel or of its policies.

Later, when I was invited to speak to the ADC gathering in Washington honoring Helen Thomas, who was herself the target of the same anti-semite smear, I spoke about Dershowitz’s attempt to silence me by calling me an anti-Semite. I told the audience at that dinner that anti-semitism means that the person charged disliked Jews as Jews. I further said that I do not dislike Jews, but I only disliked Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman, the head of the B’nai B’rith, and that my dislike of them had nothing to do with anti-semitism, but with how they operated.

My speech that night was later published on the Counterpunch site, which prompted the ever vigilant Dershowitz, after he had read the speech, to vehemently deny that he had labeled me an anti-semite. The co-editor of Counterpunch, Alex Cockburn, somehow located the old Jerusalem Post column written by Dershowitz, and there it was, plain as day, with him very cleverly saying about me that, when it comes to anti-semitism, “if the shoe fits, wear it.”

Here is the relevant portion of Alexander Cockburn’s column, quoting Dershowitz:

“In his [CounterPunch] article entitled ‘Honoring Helen Thomas’ dated November 22, 2010, James Abourezk makes the following statement:

‘I once called Alan Dershowitz a snake on Al Manar television. Al Manar is Hezbollah’s news channel in Lebanon. When he found out what I had said, he wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post, calling me an anti-Semite.’

[That] is a lie. Here is a link to my article to which he refers. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-d...tml?view=print) I challenge him to find the term ‘anti-Semite’ in the article. I also challenge your readers to read the article and judge Abourezk’s credibility. Now I will characterize Abourezk: He is a liar.”

Cockburn went on:

“I duly clicked on the Huffington Post link thoughtfully provided by prof. Dershowitz and indeed, there is no use of the term ‘anti-Semite’ in the column by the noted Harvard law professor, published on September 21, 2007. But since the prof. is a notoriously slippery fellow, I put a couple of sentences from that same column into the google search engine, pressed button A and, hey presto, up came the same Sep 21, 2007 Dershowitz column, printed that same day on the site of the United Jewish Foundation. And lo! there was a final paragraph, omitted from the Huffpost version. Here it is.

‘Well maybe former Senator Abourezk isn’t so different from the late Senator Bilbo after all. He uses the word ‘Zionist’ in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo used ‘kike.’ [Huffington Post version ends here.]

‘It is true that not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, but just because it is anti-Zionist does not mean it is not also anti-Semitic. If the shoe fits…’ (C2007 FrontPageMagazine.com 09/21/07).

“Anti-Semite”… “anti-Semitic” … A minute difference on which the slippery prof. would no doubt try to hang his hat, but to any impartial observer it’s plain enough that Abourezk’s memory is true. Dershowitz was sliming the former distinguished Senator from South Dakota as an anti-Semite. It’s maybe why Huffington Post dropped the final paragraph as libelous, unless Dershowitz reserved the slime for the version he sent FrontPageMagazine which, the vigilant reader will have noted, was credited as its source by the United Jerusalem Foundation.”

And here is my response to Alex after he found the “anti-semite” article:

Alex:

Dershowitz is neither a good lawyer nor a good liar. He is trying to slither out of what has become nearly a full time occupation–that of branding any criticism of Israel as coming from someone who hates Jews. That does not work on me, as I’m secure in my anti-racist feelings. I’ve had any number of Zionists who are devoid of any reasonable argument throw the anti-semitism charge at me. Sorry, but it doesn’t work, and Dershowitz is not clever enough to make the "shoe fit" no matter how hard he tries. Does he think that pointing to an incomplete article reprinted in Huffington Post will do the trick? Obviously he does, which makes his lie even more prominent. That’s a trick that even a first year law student would be smart enough not to try. He’s been caught lying and no amount of his flailing about will make that vanish. I hadn’t realized that it would be that easy getting a job teaching law at Harvard. Had I been younger, armed with this knowledge I would have applied for the job.

Jim Abourezk

I guess my failing in this episode was not to apologize to the snakes.

We’ve heard nothing from Dershowitz since that time, but he’s still out there somewhere, apologizing for Israel’s dirty deeds.

Letters of 76 Senators

When Gerald Ford was President and Henry Kissinger was his Secretary of State, the two decided, during U.S. backed peace talks to bring Israel around to U.S. thinking by withholding American aid to Israel. That effort ended quickly when 76 U.S. Senators signed an AIPAC drafted letter to President Ford containing a thinly veiled threat to Mr. Ford if he continued to withhold military aid to Israel. The letter prompted President Ford to give in to the Lobby’s demand and to resume aid to Israel.

What happened leading up to the publication of the letter in the U.S. press is an interesting story. I had dinner with one Senator—who shall go unnamed here—the night before the letter was released to the press. He told me that he had no intention of signing it.

The next day, when the letter appeared in the Washington Post his name was on the list, I asked my friend what had happened.

“Jim, I received phone call after phone call all during the day yesterday, calls from people who had gone beyond just supporting me in my election, but people—lawyers, doctors, professional people and businessmen—who had interrupted their careers to work in my campaign. I couldn’t say no to them, which is why you saw my name on the letter.”

Later, in the Senate cloakroom, a number of us were standing together, talking about the letter. Ted Kennedy spoke first. “I knew that’s what would happen when I was approached to sign the letter, and I don’t like it at all. We should, next time, get together before signing such a letter, and all of us say no at the same time.” What Kennedy was referring to was the Israeli Lobby’s practice of picking off the Senators by going to one Senator, saying, “Senator So- and-so has signed, and you’d better not be the only potential presidential candidate not on the letter.” They would then go to Senator So-and-so and say the same thing. Ultimately, all of the leading Senators—especially those who wanted to run for President—would put their signature on the letter.

Kennedy’s statement was what spurred me to say something, during a mini-debate I had with Hyman Bookbinder before a section of the D.C. Bar Association’s meeting in D.C. We were promoting a book we had written together as a debate on the Middle East—Through Different Eyes—and I mentioned that Senators would cheer on Israel in public but would bad mouth both Israel and the Lobby in private. One lawyer raised his hand and asked, “name just one U.S. Senator who would do that.”

I said, simply, “Ted Kennedy,” hoping he was politically strong enough to resist the Lobby’s counter-attack.

Two or three days later, Ted Kennedy called me and said, “Abourezk, what the hell have you done to me?” I guess Ted had underestimated his own political strength, or at least, did not want any of it diluted in a tiff over the Middle East. And he for sure did not want to spend his time defending himself from the Israeli Lobby.

Getting help from the lobby

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1948, at age 17, immediately after I graduated from High School. After training in San Diego, I was ordered to Japan to become a member of the occupation. I was stationed on quasi-shore duty in Japan, actually aboard a non-propulsion barracks ship tied up in the heart of Tokyo, on the Sumida River. The ship was essentially the barracks for members of the Admiral’s staff. Early on in my tour there, the Kodokan Judo University in Tokyo sent a few Judo instructors to our ship in order to recruit students for their Judo school. The delegation included the then world champion, Ishikawa-san, and a slightly built man in his eighties, named “never fall Mifune.” We converted a large empty cabin on the ship into a Judo room, with mats on the metal floors to break our falls.

There I learned the essence of the art of Judo—using your opponent’s strength and momentum against him in order to win.

That lesson was very useful in helping me get a Committee assignment I wanted while in the Senate. When North Carolina’s celebrated Senator Sam Ervin retired from the Senate after masterfully chairing the Senate Watergate Committee, I decided to try for his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Jim Allen, from Alabama, also decided to try for the seat. But he was senior to me so it was obvious to everyone that I had an uphill battle.

With the lessons I learned studying Judo in mind, I caught David Brody, one of the Israeli Lobbyists, in the corridor, telling him that I was trying for the Judiciary Committee seat that Sam Ervin was vacating. I casually mentioned that if I didn’t get on Judiciary, I would then try for Foreign Relations. That, I knew, would get his attention.

Although I never saw any evidence of the Lobby’s actions, even though Allen was senior to me, I surprisingly got the most votes from the Senate Steering Committee, which makes Committee assignments. So I later thanked Dave Brody for his help, but he never acknowledged that he had done the job.

Embedded Lobbyists.

It is difficult to describe how deep into the U.S. Government the Israel Lobby is embedded, but occasionally signs of the depth of its penetration become obvious. I can cite two instances where it was more than obvious.

I received a call one day from a career State Department diplomat, someone I had met during a trip I had made to the Middle East. He was my “control officer” when I was in Egypt on that trip, the diplomat whose job it was to stay with me during my stay there.

His call came out of the blue, at least two or three years after having met him in Cairo. He sounded both desperate and frantic, telling me he had to come to my apartment to talk to me about something.

When we met, he was totally different than when I had met him in Cairo, then a very suave professional diplomat. The day he came to my apartment he was both nervous and frantic, telling me that someone had to do something about the Israeli Lobby. They were “everywhere” in the State Department, he said, leaning on anyone who had anything to do with the Middle East. By that, he explained, he had witnessed both Lobby representatives and Israeli officials working over U.S. diplomats in every kind of setting, that is, he saw them doing so in restaurants, in State Department offices, virtually everywhere. All he wanted to do, he said, was to stop it, and he didn’t know how. I had to confess that I didn’t either.

I’m not certain that anyone in Washington, D.C. knows the total amount of money and favors our government gives to Israel, largely due to its Lobby. Aside from the several billions of dollars in aid that goes from our Treasury to Israel, there are a great number of top secret contracts that we sign with the Israeli government that could not stand the light of day should they be disclosed. I do remember that our taxpayers funded the “Arrow” air defense system Israel has now to deter incoming rockets and missiles.

I also knew about Israeli Aircraft Industries having an office at the airport in Wilmington, Delaware, presumably to handle air force contracts between Israel and the U.S. government. Why else would there be such an office in Delaware?

Other avenues for the Lobby to Pursue?

After I left the Senate and began practicing law in Washington, D.C. I was retained by a very wealthy Palestinian who had spent a number of years attending schools in the United States. He received a PhD from Columbia University in New York, and had spent a lot of time making money and investing it in real estate in various parts of America, as well as in Europe. He was married to a Palestinian woman and they had two sons, both of whom were born in New York during his schooling there.

My client was building a satisfying life, traveling in Europe and the United States to tend to his business interests, until, one day, he was surprisingly denied entry into the United States. He was accused of being a member of the PLO. Other than all Palestinians considering themselves belonging to the Palestinian liberation movement, he had never done anything that would brand him as a terrorist. He suspected that someone who was an enemy had deliberately told the U.S. government that he was a PLO member, hoping to cause him problems.

This was during the Reagan Administration, so my first move was to hire a Republican law firm to help lobby for a visa for him. He not only had business interests in the United States, but his two sons were both in college here, so not being allowed to come into the U.S. was a decided handicap.

Aside from the law firm charging great amounts of money for whatever time they spent on his case, the lawyer assigned to his case was ultimately never able to get him cleared to enter the U.S. Finally, the lawyer/lobbyist told my client that he had a Jewish partner in the firm who was well connected in Israel, and would be able, he said, to travel to Israel to plead his case and to obtain Israel’s approval for his entry visa into the United States. He was told that the cost would be extra for the service.

My client looked at him, dumbfounded, and to his credit, said that he would prefer not to enter the U.S. if it came to relying on the Israeli government’s intervention to get him a visa.

#

JAMES ABOUREZK is a board member of the Council for the National Interest (CNI) and is a contributor to CounterPunch and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including Advise & Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. His e mail address is: [email protected]

http://www.councilforthenationalinte...e-israel-lobby
 
Old December 14th, 2012 #28
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Congress Pushes Massive Increase in US Funding for Israeli Anti-Missile System

Senators Claim Funding 'Critical to American Interests'


by Jason Ditz, December 13, 2012

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Nothing makes a budget grow faster than trying to out “pro-Israel” each other. That’s the lesson of today’s story on how Congress continues to grow funding for Israel’s Iron Dome system at a time when the system’s effectiveness is in serious doubt.

The initial proposal from President Obama was $210 million in funding. To prove they are even more pro-Israel, the Senate made it $420 million, insisting it is “critical to American interests.”

Did the Senate win? Not so fast, as the House is now recommending $680 million. Senators are now pushing to at least match if not exceed the House’s funding.The money is in addition to the $3.1 billion in foreign military aid already planned to send to Israel.

The extremely expensive Iron Dome system was initially scrapped by the IDF as impractical, but was eventually fully funded by the US. Israel has talked up the possibility of exporting it to other nations, but experts say the claimed success rate is dramatically overstated and the system probably doesn’t work nearly as well as it is being hyped.


http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/13/c...issile-system/
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Old February 3rd, 2013 #29
littlefieldjohn
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Quote:
These are the kinds of selfish, arrogant Zionist creeps that get good American soldiers and innocent civilian foreigners, KILLED.
Make note that Fred and Kim Kagan, were recently exposed during the General Petraeus affair with Queen Esther Jewess, Patricia KRANZ Broadwell. Seems the two supposed civilians, were “advising” Petraeus in Afghanistan on which Afghani “terrorists” to kill in the dark of the night.

Military staff members were shocked on how these two creeps moved freely around without the necessary high security clearances, seemingly without a care in the world. Kind of like how Jews now act in DC, come to think.

These Jews and their ambitious, corrupt Shabbos Goys are clearly the worst thing to have happened to America. They work to brainwash this country’s population, not only with Multicult crap, but also murderous Zionist propaganda. No wonder the entire planet thinks we’re all a bunch of idiot Jew tools.


http://incogman.net/2013/02/buh-bye-...ch/#more-92767
 
Old June 10th, 2014 #30
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How the Israel Lobby Works

Pressuring Candidates Even Before They Are Nominated


By Philip Giraldi • June 3, 2014 • 1,400 Words • 52 Comments



The major organizations that comprise the Israel Lobby are well known: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Christians United For Israel (CUFI). All are well known, benefiting from large budgets and staffs. They are extremely effective, having excellent access to politicians and the media to promote their points of view, and are, as a group, regular visitors to the White House. AIPAC is without doubt the most powerful lobby in the United States that is focused on a foreign policy issue.

The institutional Israel boosters are in turn backed by a cluster of think tanks and institutes that spout a relentlessly pro-Likud line. They include Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Emergency Committee for Israel, The American Enterprise Institute, The Hudson Institute, Brookings and The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A recent op-ed at The National Interest (formerly the Nixon Center) “Why Israel Fears Containment of a Nuclear Iran,” written by two Israelis with government ties, illustrates to what extent spokesmen for Tel Aviv have access to the media across the political spectrum to make their points while contrary views rarely surface. It would be difficult to imagine a similar piece appearing advancing Iranian views on Israel, for example, and one might well question whose “National Interest” is being promoted by providing a platform to current or former foreign government officials.

And backing the think tanks up are the enablers in the media who suppress stories critical of Israel and consistently editorialize supporting policies favored by Tel Aviv. Israeli Ambassadors, uniquely, regularly write op-eds for publications like the Washington Post and The New York Times. Prominent among the consistently pro-Israel media are the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch publications in general and magazines like Mortimer Zuckerman owned US News and World Report, but it would be fair to say that nearly all mainstream media outlets are to some extent wary of offending Israel and its backers.

But as Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in their groundbreaking expose of the Israel Lobby, the lobbying effort extends well beyond the organizational level to include friends of Israel who labor assiduously and voluntarily at state and local levels as well as at universities and from within professional organizations to maintain a positive viewpoint on Israel while promoting a negative narrative regarding its increasing number of critics. Most recently they have been focused on halting the growth of BDS, “boycott, divestment, and sanctions,” particularly in attempts to use “Lawfare” to make such activity illegal when it singles out Israel.

Israel’s friends quite rightly see Congress as their major ally in keeping the United States Israel-friendly, so much so that Pat Buchanan once dubbed America’s legislative body as “Israeli occupied territory.” And so it remains with legislation favorable to Israel passing by unanimous consent voice votes or grossly lopsided margins when a tally actually takes place. The White House too is into the charade that Israel is a major US ally and friend, in spite of mounting evidence that Tel Aviv consistently spies on Washington, is not interested in any peace process with the Palestinians and works against genuine American interests.

I have recently obtained a handout memo relating to a congressional race in Virginia that illustrates how the process works at the political entry level. Congressman Jim Moran has announced that he will not seek reelection in the heavily Democratic district that encompasses Alexandria Virginia. Moran has fallen afoul of the pro-Israel establishment by telling attendees at a 2003 antiwar forum, “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.” He added that Jewish leaders were “influential enough” to change the course of US policy. Moran inevitably apologized for those remarks, but the damage was done and he was considered to be unreliable on the issue of Israel, a view reflected in the handout which quotes Debbie Linick, Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, asserting that Moran had been “lacking the nuances of understanding the peace process. It is crucial that the next representative from the 8th District be a strong supporter of Israel.”

The handout described a Jewish Community Relations Council Political Forum for the 8th District that was to be held on May 18th in Alexandria at the Council’s Early Childhood Learning Center. All prospective candidates for the 8th District were invited to participate to present their positions on various issues of interest to those attending. The access to the event was by paid tickets only, presumably to permit screening to control the make-up of the audience. The handout again quotes Linick as stating that “all area synagogues will be asked to participate” even if they were not in the voting district.

The memo suggests that someone at the forum might ask every candidate to publish his or her signed Israel Position paper, which AIPAC “requires” all candidates for office to personally sign. It also recommends that signs be placed on the street outside demanding release of the paper and notes that if there should happen to be demonstrators present they will not be allowed to block the entrance, which is behind the building on private property.

The Northern Virginia Council might well be more than usually politically active and is unlikely to have a counterpart in most congressional districts, but the handout reveals how AIPAC has an impact on all viable congressional candidates, often before they are even nominated. Once nominated, candidates go through a vetting process in which they meet with an AIPAC official and are asked to write and sign a position paper on Israel, if they have not already done so. Many of the papers are subsequently highlighted on the AIPAC website.

Few if any candidates refuse to cooperate because to do so would mean that AIPAC and its friends would find and fund an opponent and use their media access to distort the politician’s record. This type of blackballing most recently occurred in the case of Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina, who was on the receiving end of a vicious and well-funded campaign because he is an anti-war candidate strongly opposed by the pro-Israel establishment.

To be sure Americans have a constitutional right to both demand to know and challenge the views of those running for office but the important thing to note here is that the discussion is not about healthcare, immigration or government programs – it is rather about unconditional support for the policies of a foreign country. I can think of no other advocacy group in the United States that is comparable to the Israel Lobby in terms of its promotion of positions that are demonstrably not beneficial to the United States with the only possible exception being the prominent Cubans in Congress who vet candidates based on their willingness to continue to punish the regime in Havana. The Cubans, unlike the Israel Firsters, have, however, only regional impact, mostly concentrated in Florida, though it is interesting note that they – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, Joe Garcia and Robert Menendez – are also all passionate supporters of Israel.

Americans really have little choice when it comes to Congress and Israel as anyone who refuses to cooperate with AIPAC is unlikely to find himself in the running, but there should at least be some awareness of what happens routinely to prospective candidates to insure conformity with the Lobby’s viewpoint. If unconditional loyalty to a foreign country is a sine qua non for election to congress perhaps there should be some discussion of what that is likely to mean and the promoters of such policies should be held accountable when they produce a bad result, as they did in Iraq and are promising to do vis-a-vis Iran. It is one thing to be all for Israel due to cultural or familial affinity or even as an abstraction but it is quite another to persist in that view when it does genuine harm to the United States, regarding which a case certainly can and has already been made.


http://www.unz.com/article/how-the-israel-lobby-works/
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Old June 22nd, 2014 #31
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Default Alison Weir : The Origins of the Israel Lobby in the US

“Against Our Better Judgment” presents many facts that could help end “the passionate attachment” that U.S. State Department officials warned President Truman against.

Quote:
America’s Role in the Creation of the State of Israel


Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver

The immediate precursor to today’s pro-Israel lobby began in 1939[i]under the leadership of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, originally from Lithuania. He created the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), which by 1943 had acquired a budget of half a million dollars at a time when a nickel bought a loaf of bread.[ii]

Read more: http://mycatbirdseat.com/2014/03/520...bby-in-the-us/



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Old June 22nd, 2014 #32
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How the Israel Lobby Works

Pressuring Candidates Even Before They Are Nominated

Quote:
The major organizations that comprise the Israel Lobby are well known: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Christians United For Israel (CUFI). All are well known, benefiting from large budgets and staffs. They are extremely effective, having excellent access to politicians and the media to promote their points of view, and are, as a group, regular visitors to the White House. AIPAC is without doubt the most powerful lobby in the United States that is focused on a foreign policy issue.

The institutional Israel boosters are in turn backed by a cluster of think tanks and institutes that spout a relentlessly pro-Likud line. They include Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Emergency Committee for Israel, The American Enterprise Institute, The Hudson Institute, Brookings and The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A recent op-ed at The National Interest (formerly the Nixon Center) “Why Israel Fears Containment of a Nuclear Iran,” written by two Israelis with government ties, illustrates to what extent spokesmen for Tel Aviv have access to the media across the political spectrum to make their points while contrary views rarely surface. It would be difficult to imagine a similar piece appearing advancing Iranian views on Israel, for example, and one might well question whose “National Interest” is being promoted by providing a platform to current or former foreign government officials.

And backing the think tanks up are the enablers in the media who suppress stories critical of Israel and consistently editorialize supporting policies favored by Tel Aviv. Israeli Ambassadors, uniquely, regularly write op-eds for publications like the Washington Post and The New York Times. Prominent among the consistently pro-Israel media are the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch publications in general and magazines like Mortimer Zuckerman owned US News and World Report, but it would be fair to say that nearly all mainstream media outlets are to some extent wary of offending Israel and its backers.

But as Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in their groundbreaking expose of the Israel Lobby, the lobbying effort extends well beyond the organizational level to include friends of Israel who labor assiduously and voluntarily at state and local levels as well as at universities and from within professional organizations to maintain a positive viewpoint on Israel while promoting a negative narrative regarding its increasing number of critics. Most recently they have been focused on halting the growth of BDS, “boycott, divestment, and sanctions,” particularly in attempts to use “Lawfare” to make such activity illegal when it singles out Israel.

Israel’s friends quite rightly see Congress as their major ally in keeping the United States Israel-friendly, so much so that Pat Buchanan once dubbed America’s legislative body as “Israeli occupied territory.” And so it remains with legislation favorable to Israel passing by unanimous consent voice votes or grossly lopsided margins when a tally actually takes place. The White House too is into the charade that Israel is a major US ally and friend, in spite of mounting evidence that Tel Aviv consistently spies on Washington, is not interested in any peace process with the Palestinians and works against genuine American interests.

I have recently obtained a handout memo relating to a congressional race in Virginia that illustrates how the process works at the political entry level. Congressman Jim Moran has announced that he will not seek reelection in the heavily Democratic district that encompasses Alexandria Virginia. Moran has fallen afoul of the pro-Israel establishment by telling attendees at a 2003 antiwar forum, “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.” He added that Jewish leaders were “influential enough” to change the course of US policy. Moran inevitably apologized for those remarks, but the damage was done and he was considered to be unreliable on the issue of Israel, a view reflected in the handout which quotes Debbie Linick, Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, asserting that Moran had been “lacking the nuances of understanding the peace process. It is crucial that the next representative from the 8th District be a strong supporter of Israel.”

The handout described a Jewish Community Relations Council Political Forum for the 8th District that was to be held on May 18th in Alexandria at the Council’s Early Childhood Learning Center. All prospective candidates for the 8th District were invited to participate to present their positions on various issues of interest to those attending. The access to the event was by paid tickets only, presumably to permit screening to control the make-up of the audience. The handout again quotes Linick as stating that “all area synagogues will be asked to participate” even if they were not in the voting district.

The memo suggests that someone at the forum might ask every candidate to publish his or her signed Israel Position paper, which AIPAC “requires” all candidates for office to personally sign. It also recommends that signs be placed on the street outside demanding release of the paper and notes that if there should happen to be demonstrators present they will not be allowed to block the entrance, which is behind the building on private property.

The Northern Virginia Council might well be more than usually politically active and is unlikely to have a counterpart in most congressional districts, but the handout reveals how AIPAC has an impact on all viable congressional candidates, often before they are even nominated. Once nominated, candidates go through a vetting process in which they meet with an AIPAC official and are asked to write and sign a position paper on Israel, if they have not already done so. Many of the papers are subsequently highlighted on the AIPAC website.

Few if any candidates refuse to cooperate because to do so would mean that AIPAC and its friends would find and fund an opponent and use their media access to distort the politician’s record. This type of blackballing most recently occurred in the case of Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina, who was on the receiving end of a vicious and well-funded campaign because he is an anti-war candidate strongly opposed by the pro-Israel establishment.

To be sure Americans have a constitutional right to both demand to know and challenge the views of those running for office but the important thing to note here is that the discussion is not about healthcare, immigration or government programs – it is rather about unconditional support for the policies of a foreign country. I can think of no other advocacy group in the United States that is comparable to the Israel Lobby in terms of its promotion of positions that are demonstrably not beneficial to the United States with the only possible exception being the prominent Cubans in Congress who vet candidates based on their willingness to continue to punish the regime in Havana. The Cubans, unlike the Israel Firsters, have, however, only regional impact, mostly concentrated in Florida, though it is interesting note that they – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, Joe Garcia and Robert Menendez – are also all passionate supporters of Israel.

Americans really have little choice when it comes to Congress and Israel as anyone who refuses to cooperate with AIPAC is unlikely to find himself in the running, but there should at least be some awareness of what happens routinely to prospective candidates to insure conformity with the Lobby’s viewpoint. If unconditional loyalty to a foreign country is a sine qua non for election to congress perhaps there should be some discussion of what that is likely to mean and the promoters of such policies should be held accountable when they produce a bad result, as they did in Iraq and are promising to do vis-a-vis Iran. It is one thing to be all for Israel due to cultural or familial affinity or even as an abstraction but it is quite another to persist in that view when it does genuine harm to the United States, regarding which a case certainly can and has already been made.
http://www.unz.com/article/how-the-israel-lobby-works/
__________________
Only force rules. Force is the first law - Adolf H. http://erectuswalksamongst.us/ http://tinyurl.com/cglnpdj Man has become great through struggle - Adolf H. http://tinyurl.com/mo92r4z Strength lies not in defense but in attack - Adolf H.
 
Old August 19th, 2014 #33
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How the U.S. "Special Relationship" with Israel came about


Louis Brandeis, flanked by Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, founding secretary of the American Federation of Zionists (right) and Nathan Straus, co-owner of Macy’s (Source: Library of Congress)

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/history.html

Quote:
“Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”

- John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
*Source: The Congressional Research Service’s report “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, dated April 11, 2014.

According to this report, the Obama Administration gave $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Israel for the Fiscal Year 2014. In addition, the U.S contributed $504 million to the joint U.S.-Israel Missile Defense Program during FY 2014. If we include that number, American taxpayers give Israel $9.9 million per day.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html
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Only force rules. Force is the first law - Adolf H. http://erectuswalksamongst.us/ http://tinyurl.com/cglnpdj Man has become great through struggle - Adolf H. http://tinyurl.com/mo92r4z Strength lies not in defense but in attack - Adolf H.
 
Old August 25th, 2014 #34
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Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea married a kike. Obongo's brother in law is a kike rabbi. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of Jack and Jackie, also married a kike. The yids' control of U.S. foreign policy has always been blatant. Face it, the yids don't care what people think of them, their goal is world rule by exterminating the White European people and they use niggers and mudslimes to accomplish it.
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Old August 29th, 2014 #35
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Obama Signs Law Providing $225 Million for Israel's Iron Dome

US passes $225 million assistance package for Israeli missile defense system.

Quote:
President Barack Obama signed a bill Monday granting an additional $225 million in US taxpayer dollars for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

The defense system has been highly effective in the current round of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. It allows Israel's military to shoot down incoming rockets or mortars headed toward major population centers in Israel. Israeli officials say it has a success rate as high as 90 percent.

The US has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for Iron Dome in the past. The new package is intended to replenish Israel's capabilities.

Congress approved the money last week before lawmakers left for their annual summer break. Obama signed the bill in the late afternoon in the Oval Office with a handful of photographers present.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...555008,00.html

http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama...ome-1407193842

Friends of Israel



Quote:
On July 23rd, officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the powerful lobbying group known as AIPAC—gathered in a conference room at the Capitol for a closed meeting with a dozen Democratic senators. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by other Jewish leaders as well, was the war in the Gaza Strip. In the century-long conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the previous two weeks had been particularly harrowing. In Israeli towns and cities, families heard sirens warning of incoming rockets and raced to shelters. In Gaza, there were scenes of utter devastation, with hundreds of Palestinian children dead from bombing and mortar fire. The Israeli government claimed that it had taken extraordinary measures to minimize civilian casualties, but the United Nations was launching an inquiry into possible war crimes. Even before the fighting escalated, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, had made little secret of its frustration with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “How will it have peace if it is unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation, and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security, and dignity?” Philip Gordon, the White House coördinator for the Middle East, said in early July. “It cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely. Doing so is not only wrong but a recipe for resentment and recurring instability.” Although the Administration repeatedly reaffirmed its support for Israel, it was clearly uncomfortable with the scale of Israel’s aggression. AIPAC did not share this unease; it endorsed a Senate resolution in support of Israel’s “right to defend its citizens,” which had seventy-nine co-sponsors and passed without a word of dissent.

AIPAC is prideful about its influence. Its promotional literature points out that a reception during its annual policy conference, in Washington, “will be attended by more members of Congress than almost any other event, except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union address.” A former AIPAC executive, Steven Rosen, was fond of telling people that he could take out a napkin at any Senate hangout and get signatures of support for one issue or another from scores of senators. AIPAC has more than a hundred thousand members, a network of seventeen regional offices, and a vast pool of donors. The lobby does not raise funds directly. Its members do, and the amount of money they channel to political candidates is difficult to track. But everybody in Congress recognizes its influence in elections, and the effect is evident. In 2011, when the Palestinians announced that they would petition the U.N. for statehood, AIPAC helped persuade four hundred and forty-six members of Congress to co-sponsor resolutions opposing the idea.

During the Gaza conflict, AIPAC has made a priority of sending a message of bipartisan congressional support for all of Israel’s actions. Pro-Israel resolutions passed by unanimous consent carry weight, but not nearly so much as military funding. During the fighting, Israel has relied on the Iron Dome system, a U.S.-funded missile defense that has largely neutralized Hamas’s rockets. Although the U.S. was scheduled to deliver $351 million for the system starting in October, AIPAC wanted more money right away. On July 22nd, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had sent a letter to Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, seeking an immediate payment of $225 million.

In the conference room, the senators sat on one side of a long table, the Jewish leaders on the other. Robert Cohen, the president of AIPAC, justified Israel’s assault, agreeing with Netanyahu that Hamas was ultimately responsible for the deaths of its own citizens. At one point, Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, asked about conservative trends in Israel, a participant recalled. “He said that he supports Israel, but he’s concerned that Israel is headed toward a one-state solution—and that would be so damaging and dangerous for everyone involved.”

Charles Schumer, the senior Democrat from New York, interrupted. Turning to address the room, he said, “It troubles me when I hear people equate Israel and Hamas. That’s wrong, that’s terrible!” Kaine protested, “That’s not what I meant!” Cohen simply repeated that Hamas was to blame for everything that was happening.

The Senate, preparing for its August recess, hastened to vote on the Iron Dome funding. At first, the appropriation was bundled into an emergency bill that also included money to address the underage refugees flooding across the Mexican border. But, with only a few days left before the break began, that bill got mired in a partisan fight. Reid tried to package Iron Dome with money for fighting wildfires, and then offered it by itself; both efforts failed, stopped largely by budget hawks. “If you can’t get it done the night before recess, you bemoan the fact that you couldn’t get it done, and everybody goes home,” a congressional staffer said. Instead, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, the Republican leader, decided to stay over, even if it meant missing an event at home. The next morning, with the halls of the Senate all but empty, an unusual session was convened so that McConnell and Reid could try again to pass the bill; Tim Kaine was also there, along with the Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham. “There were five senators present and literally no one else!” the staffer said. “They reintroduced it and passed it. This was one of the more amazing feats, for AIPAC.”

In a press conference, Graham, who has been a major recipient of campaign contributions connected to AIPAC, pointed out that the funding for Iron Dome was intended as a gesture of solidarity with Israel. “Not only are we going to give you more missiles—we’re going to be a better friend,” Graham said. “We’re going to fight for you in the international court of public opinion. We’re going to fight for you in the United Nations.”

The influence of AIPAC, like that of the lobbies for firearms, banking, defense, and energy interests, has long been a feature of politics in Washington, particularly on Capitol Hill. But that influence, like the community that AIPAC intends to represent, is not static. For decades, AIPAC has thrived on bipartisanship, exerting its influence on congressional Democrats and Republicans alike. But Israel’s government, now dominated by a coalition of right-wing parties led by Likud, has made compromise far less likely than it was a generation ago. Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of Likud and an unabashed partisan of the Republican view of the world, took office at about the same time as President Obama, and the two have clashed frequently over the expansion of Israeli settlements and the contours of a potential peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Although both men repeatedly speak of the unshakable bond between the U.S. and Israel, their relationship has been fraught from the start. In 2012, Netanyahu made little secret of the fact that he hoped Mitt Romney would win the election. Time and again—over issues ranging from Iran to the Palestinians—AIPAC has sided strongly with Netanyahu against Obama.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...friends-israel
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Old April 12th, 2015 #36
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Kerry and top negotiator meet Jewish leaders to discuss Iran deal

April 12, 2015 6:12am

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Top Obama administration officials met for two hours with U.S. Jewish community leaders to discuss the emerging Iran nuclear deal.

Represented at the April 8 meeting were Secretary of State John Kerry and his undersecretary, Wendy Sherman, who is leading the U.S. side in the nuclear talks.

On the Jewish organizational side, representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, and the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative streams were present.

A State Department official said the meeting was part of the administration’s regular outreach to various civil society groups in the United States.

Kerry, the official told JTA, discussed “the U.S.-Israel relationship and the latest developments in our negotiations with the EU, P5+1 and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.” P5+1 refers to the countries negotiating with Iran, including the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.

Kerry stayed for an hour in the room, which was cleared of leavened goods in honor of Passover week, and Sherman remained for an additional hour.

The Jewish officials present would not describe the content of the off-the-record meeting, but they did say that they raised concerns about the deal.

“Both the secretary and the undersecretary articulated with depth, rigor and passion the deal and explained it,” one Jewish official said. “There was an opportunity for real engagement. Secretary Kerry was reaching out to those who need more engagement and convincing.”

The deal outline presented earlier this month by Iran and the major powers exchanges sanctions relief for restrictions aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Israel and a number of Jewish groups have expressed concerns about the degree of the sanctions relief and whether the structures in place go far enough to keep Iran from achieving nuclear capability.

http://www.jta.org/2015/04/12/news-o...cuss-iran-deal
 
Old September 19th, 2017 #37
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America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars

Shouldn't they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?

PHILIP GIRALDI • SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 • 1,500 WORDS • LEAVE A COMMENT

I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”

It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel.

Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of an impending war with Iran. To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic congressmen as well as much of the media seem to be convinced that Iran needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S. military, and the sooner the better.

And while they are doing it, the issue that nearly all the Iran haters are Jewish has somehow fallen out of sight, as if it does not matter. But it should matter. A recent article in the New Yorker on stopping the impending war with Iran strangely suggests that the current generation “Iran hawks” might be a force of moderation regarding policy options given the lessons learned from Iraq. The article cites as hardliners on Iran David Frum, Max Boot, Bill Kristol and Bret Stephens.

Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative has a good review of the New Yorker piece entitled “Yes, Iran Hawks Want Conflict with Iran,” which identifies the four above cited hawks by name before describing them as “…a Who’s Who of consistently lousy foreign policy thinking. If they have been right about any major foreign policy issue in the last twenty years, it would be news to the entire world. Every single one of them hates the nuclear deal with Iran with a passion, and they have argued in favor of military action against Iran at one point or another. There is zero evidence that any of them would oppose attacking Iran.”

And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine; Elliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute; Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War; and Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute. And you can also throw into the hopper entire organizations like The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Hudson Institute. And yep, they’re all Jewish, plus most of them would self-describe as neo-conservatives. And I might add that only one of the named individuals has ever served in any branch of the American military – David Wurmser was once in the Navy reserve. These individuals largely constitute a cabal of sanctimonious chairborne warriors who prefer to do the heavy thinking while they let others do the fighting and dying.

So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews. Indeed, I would opine that most of the fury from Congress re Iran comes from the same source, with AIPAC showering our Solons on the Potomac with “fact sheets” explaining how Iran is worthy of annihilation because it has pledged to “destroy Israel,” which is both a lie and an impossibility as Tehran does not have the resources to carry out such a task. The AIPAC lies are then picked up and replayed by an obliging media, where nearly every “expert” who speaks about the Middle East on television and radio or who is interviewed for newspaper stories is Jewish.

One might also add that neocons as a group were founded by Jews and are largely Jewish, hence their universal attachment to the state of Israel. They first rose into prominence when they obtained a number of national security positions during the Reagan Administration and their ascendancy was completed when they staffed senior positions in the Pentagon and White House under George W. Bush. Recall for a moment Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. Yes, all Jewish and all conduits for the false information that led to a war that has spread and effectively destroyed much of the Middle East. Except for Israel, of course. Philip Zelikow, also Jewish, in a moment of candor, admitted that the Iraq War, in his opinion, was fought for Israel.

Add to the folly a Jewish U.S. Ambassador to Israel who identifies with the most right-wing Israeli settler elements, a White House appointed chief negotiator who is Jewish and a Jewish son-in-law who is also involved in formulating Middle East policy. Is anyone providing an alternative viewpoint to eternal and uncritical support for Benjamin Netanyahu and his kleptocratic regime of racist thugs? I think not.

There are a couple of simple fixes for the dominant involvement of American Jews in foreign policy issues where they have a personal interest due to their ethnicity or family ties. First of all, don’t put them into national security positions involving the Middle East, where they will potentially be conflicted. Let them worry instead about North Korea, which does not have a Jewish minority and which was not involved in the holocaust. This type of solution was, in fact, somewhat of a policy regarding the U.S. Ambassador position in Israel. No Jew was appointed to avoid any conflict of interest prior to 1995, an understanding that was violated by Bill Clinton (wouldn’t you know it!) who named Martin Indyk to the post. Indyk was not even an American citizen at the time and had to be naturalized quickly prior to being approved by congress.

Those American Jews who are strongly attached to Israel and somehow find themselves in senior policy making positions involving the Middle East and who actually possess any integrity on the issue should recuse themselves, just as any judge would do if he were presiding over a case in which he had a personal interest. Any American should be free to exercise first amendment rights to debate possible options regarding policy, up to and including embracing positions that damage the United States and benefit a foreign nation. But if he or she is in a position to actually create those policies, he or she should butt out and leave the policy generation to those who have no personal baggage.

For those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is “Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.” That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as “ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.”

As none of the above is likely to happen, the only alternative is for American citizens who are tired of having their country’s national security interests hijacked by a group that is in thrall to a foreign government to become more assertive about what is happening. Shine a little light into the darkness and recognize who is being diddled and by whom. Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad. We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need it.

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas...americas-wars/
 
Old December 23rd, 2017 #38
littlefieldjohn
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 8,105
jewsign Top DC Jew: “Jewish Lobby Writes US Policy”

Quote:
The sole purpose of American “negotiations” in the Middle East is to advance Israel’s interests, not to achieve peace, and that policy is written by the Jewish lobby in the US, M.J. Rosenberg, a former top Washington DC insider in the Democratic Party’s House and Senate has openly admitted in the Huffington Post.

Rosenberg was a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network who used to work for numerous Democratic members of the House and Senate for 20 years, and was a Clinton appointee on the USAID board.


In an article titled “Trump’s Deadly Embrace of Israel,” (Huffington Post, 12/22/2017), Rosenberg—writing from a pro-Israeli viewpoint, argues that US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel—an act which sparked off condemnation from almost everyone at the United Nations—is in fact a victory for the Palestinians.

Saying that “Trump is doing a real job on Israel, specifically a hit job,” Rosenberg said that the United Nations vote on Jerusalem in “which exactly seven countries in the entire world stood with Israel and the United States in favor of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — made Israel look as isolated as South Africa at the height of apartheid.”

Rosenberg went on to add that the vote was totally unnecessary because “Israel’s illegal (according to the United Nations) hold on every inch of Jerusalem was totally secure.”

Now however, Rosenberg argued, this was no longer so sure following the events this week.

“Thanks to Trump’s forcing of a UN vote, it is now more clear than ever before that pretty much no one outside of Washington and Israel recognizes Israel’s right to the entire city.

“Whenever negotiations resume (probably after the next war, if the historic pattern holds), Jerusalem will undoubtedly be at the top of issues that must be resolved.”

He points out that this is the “last thing the Netanyahu government wants but, thanks to Trump, this is what it (or a successor government) is going to get. Score one for the Palestinians thanks to Trump.”

Rosenberg then goes on to openly admit what everyone already knows—but what the Jewish Supremacists such as the ADL and SPLC always claim is “anti-Semitic”—namely that the Jewish lobby controls the US government and always acts on Israel’s behalf.

http://newobserveronline.com/top-dc-...tes-us-policy/
 
Old November 22nd, 2018 #39
littlefieldjohn
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 8,105
Default Study: Jewish Lobby Neocon US Wars Have Cost $5.9 trillion, 1 Million Dead Since 2001

Quote:
Study: Jewish Lobby Neocon US Wars Have Cost $5.9 trillion, 1 Million Dead Since 2001



The wars waged by America on behalf of the pro-Israel Jewish lobby neocons since 2001 have cost $5.9 trillion and killed at least one million people, including nearly 15,000 Americans, a new study has revealed.


https://watson.brown.edu/files/watso...0FY2019%20.pdf

Issued by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and titled “The most recent study from the Costs of War Project, United States Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars Through FY2019: $5.9 Trillion Spent and Obligated,” the study said that the “US military is conducting counterterror activities in 76 countries, or about 39 percent of the world’s nations, vastly expanding [its mission] across the globe.”

In addition, these operations “have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad.”

Overall, researchers estimated that “between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States’ post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

This toll does not include
the more than 500,000 deaths from the war in Syria, raging since 2011” when a West-backed "rebel" and jihadi terrorist uprising challenged the government.


(That same year, the U.S.-led NATO Western military alliance intervened in Libya and helped "insurgents" overthrow longtime leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, leaving the nation in an ongoing state of civil war.
)



The combined human cost for the U.S. throughout its actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan was 6,951 troops, 21 civilians and 7,820 contractors.

“While we often know how many US soldiers die, most other numbers are to a degree uncertain. Indeed, we may never know the total direct death toll in these wars.


“In addition, this tally does not include ‘indirect deaths.’ Indirect harm occurs when wars’ destruction leads to long term, ‘indirect,’ consequences for people’s health in war zones, for example because of loss of access to food, water, health facilities, electricity or other infrastructure,” it added.

The $5.9 trillion U.S. cost includes Pentagon spending through fiscal year 2019, such as direct and indirect spending as well as future war-related costs for post-9/11 war veterans. It represents U.S. spending in the war zones of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other locations designated as “overseas contingency operations.”


It also includes war-related spending by other agencies, such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, costs of veterans care as well as debt used to pay for the wars.

“Veterans benefits and disability spending, and the cost of interest on borrowing to pay for the wars, will comprise an increasingly large share of the costs,” said Neta Crawford, a political science professor at the institute, who authored the study.

Even if the wars were to end by 2023, the United States is on track to spend an additional $808 billion, bringing the overall tally to at least $6.7 trillion, according to the study. That doesn’t include future interest payments on the spending.

War appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan are funded by deficit spending and borrowing, and not new taxes or war bonds, the study notes. This adds to interest costs, it concludes.

Those interest payments could shift with the winds of the economy and other factors, with some experts estimating those fees alone could total trillions.

“The U.S. continues to fund the wars by borrowing, so this is a conservative estimate of the consequences of funding the war as if on a credit card, in which we are only paying interest even as we continue to spend,” Crawford said.

“In sum, high costs in war and war-related spending pose a national security concern because they are unsustainable,” Crawford said.

“The public would be better served by increased transparency and by the development of a comprehensive strategy to end the wars and deal with other urgent national security priorities.”

The study also tallied the number of soldiers and sailors injured in the wars. Since 2001, more than 53,700 U.S. service members have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those injuries, 62 percent were hurt in Iraq, while 38 percent were injured in Afghanistan.
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