Israel/Palestine THE FOLLOWING CONSISTS OF articles I have posted on the subject of Palestine since the start of the Israeli genocidal assault on the population of Gaza and the corresponding ramp-up of land thefts and assaults on the Palestinian population of the West Bank. Articles are reproduced here in the order originally posted, with the original posting date and link given at the beginning of each. A Few Comments On Israel And Hamas ...reluctantly offered, because this subject is so polluted by dis- and mis-information that I hate to even think about it. THERE'S A PLACE THAT used to be called Palestine up until just lately, when terrorists drove the native population from its homes, farms, orchards and industries, and seized those generations-in-the-making places, possessions and resources. Since that invasion/expropriation the region has been renamed "Israel". An important understanding of the events thus briefly described-- which will be very controversial or outright shocking to some readers-- can be gained by study of a couple of resources I posted back in 2018 the last time events called for comments on this ugly bit of history. Here are those resources and the introduction I provided for them, which I think offers an always useful tip on research practices generally: A Pair Of Old And Useful Windows On Current Events In The Middle East Reaching into the past for information thwarts the agenda of present-day "fake news" mongers. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY EXPERIENCE that one of the best ways to shield oneself from the effects of propaganda is to look to sources of information from before an issue became someone's cause, or before the spin war began, or became sophisticated, or became self-referential and self-sustaining. Early information is unspun and far more likely to be accurate. In that vein, I would like to share two older documents regarding places and people in the Middle East, in the hope that they might help support clear thinking about the present-day situation insulated from what has long been a ferocious disinformation campaign attempting to gain control over the future by exercising control over what people are to believe true about the past. What value these docs may have will be up to each reader. THE FIRST DOCUMENT I'M OFFERING is a transcription I have done of an excerpt from a Geography text by the prolific, very widely-read and very well-respected historian journalist and polymath Hendrik Willem van Loon written in 1932 and describing the population distribution and general demographic character of what was then Palestine and is now Israel. Find it here. The other doc presenting an historical perspective on the same subject is a declassified CIA "Information Report" on Israel and the Arab states from March 18, 1949. I downloaded the report in 2008, but, interestingly, have been unable to find it on the CIA website during revisits in more recent years. The quality of the doc, which is apparently a scan of an ancient type-written report, is abysmal. Nonetheless, it can be made out with some effort, and I have provided a helpful transcription. The document contains interesting revelations about very early events after the 1948 violation by Jewish settlers of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine which had been designed pursuant to Great Britain's 1917 Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in a part thereof (which contained the specification that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities"). They are worth the trouble. Find that report here. FINALLY, I HAVE LONG ENCOURAGED the reading of a very well-written and comprehensive history of 20th-Century Middle-East events written for the Cato Institute by Sheldon Richman, which can be found here. I recommend it again, after the other two documents have been taken in. Students of the subject might also be interested in the comments here and here. "A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." -James Madison *** IN ADDITION TO THE FOREGOING INFORMATION RESOURCES, I'd like to share a few comments reactive to the furious spin by which public discourse on the recent breach by Hamas of the decades-long concentration-camp confinement of a couple of million dispossessed Palestinians and their descendants in the Gaza Strip has been deeply bent. Let's start with this: Criticism of Israeli policies or practices is NOT "anti-Semitism". Indeed, such criticism could be deemed tainted by anti-Semitism solely through the argument that only "Semites" (which, in this context, means "Jews") would or could do the things Israel is criticized for doing. In making or implying that argument, of course, it would ironically be those throwing around the "anti-Semite" slur who are shown to be actually guilty of that bigotry. In fact, criticism or condemnation of Israeli policies and practices is just that-- criticism or condemnation of the institutional behavior of a political entity. Personally, I would criticize some Israeli policies and practices (particularly those involving the dispossessed Palestinian population) if Israel were populated and run by relocated Swedish Lutherans or Saudi Arabian Muslims, and I suspect that the same could be said for any and all critics of Israel. On the other hand, Palestinians are real objects and victims of American bigotry-- at least institutionally. Long before any Palestinian had ever done anything for which that people has been labeled "terrorist" by any American politician or pundit, the US callously and contemptuously acted against them, in a deeply and enduringly harmful way, as you will have seen in reading through the resources linked above. That scornful and abusive treatment has continued for 75 years, and was preceded by the same dismissive abuse by the British and its allies (including the US) by way of the Balfour Declaration and the imposition of its goals during the years after World War I. (As a relevant aside, I think it grossly improper and intellectually deceitful to label-- without explanatory context-- any person or group forced by circumstances into the conduct of defensive asymmetrical warfare as "terrorists". Even violence against civilian targets under such circumstances must properly be recognized as simply warfare, in keeping with Clausewitz' dictum that "warfare is the continuation of politics by other means". It is true that when an offending policy is implemented or enforced exclusively by an dictatorship, only the dictator(s) and his/their enforcers are the proper targets of attack. But if the offending policy is that of a popularly-chosen government, those doing the choosing are valid targets as well.) ALL TOLD, America has no real cause for taking sides against the Palestinians as it has done relentlessly for 75 years. At the same time, there is also no good reason for American embrace of the Israelis. In fact, in addition to its foundational behavior creating a festering sore in the Middle East that has roiled the region and other affected places for decades (and doing so through terrorism-- in this case, real terrorism, in that no political motive existed and no offense to be redressed had been given by the peaceful Palestinians) Israel has routinely acted against and to the harm of America and American interests. Consider the repeated theft of American resources, materials and technology (and the implicit callous and criminal exercise of influence over American officials)-- along with other heinous acts against our interests-- documented in the VERY IMPORTANT discussion below (originally posted in May of 2021) of the Israeli nuclear weapons program and the offenses committed by many US presidents in regard to same. Read all the material in this article, and at the links within that material. These are very serious matters. Clinton, Bush, Obama And Trump All Committed This Crime; Will Biden Do The Same? Current events make the otherwise predictable "Yes" a little less certain. THE RECENTLY RENEWED STATE-SANCTIONED attempts to dispossess Palestinian homeowners in East Jerusalem and turn their property over to Jewish squatters-- just the latest in a long series of such abusive assaults, all illegal under international law (and all morally wrong without regard to the ethnicity or religion of any party involved)-- prompted understandable but ineffectual militant responses from previously-dispossessed Palestinians in the open-air prison of Gaza. This fierce-looking but nearly harmless barrage of what appear to be glorified fireworks (~4,000 rockets fired over ten days, causing only 13 casualties) was used as the excuse for a devastating series of attacks on the blockaded and impoverished Gazans by the vastly better-armed Israeli Defense Force, leaving hundreds dead amidst massive property devastation. Much of the latest death and destruction in Gaza was carried out with weapons made, supplied, or subsidized by the US through annual handouts to Israel of military and cash aid. All of that aid-- since 1977, or at least since 1986 when details of Israel's nuclear weapons program were revealed-- has been illegal under the clear and plain language of the nuclear non-proliferation controls codified at 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1. Nonetheless, a long succession of US presidents have systematically violated the law, and been allowed to get away with it unscathed. It's unlikely, but perhaps this latest widely-observed abuse of that aid by Israel against an essentially helpless and long-suffering Palestinian population will prompt Joe Biden to finally put an end to this corrupt tradition. The Law 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa AND 2799aa-1 REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT to determine when any country is in possession of nuclear weapons and/or has acquired nuclear-weapons-related technology or shared nuclear-weapons-related technology, while having not subjected itself to International Atomic Energy Agency oversight and controls. Upon the dutiful making of this determination, all United States foreign aid to the errant country-- economic and military-- must cease. Here is the language of 22 U.S.C. § 2799aa: 22 U.S. Code § 2799aa - Nuclear enrichment transfers (a) Prohibitions; safeguards and management Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, no funds made available to carry out the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 [22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.] or this chapter may be used for the purpose of providing economic assistance (including assistance under chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 [22 U.S.C. 2346 et seq.]), providing military assistance or grant military education and training, providing assistance under chapter 6 of part II of that Act [22 U.S.C. 2348 et seq.], or extending military credits or making guarantees, to any country which the President determines delivers nuclear enrichment equipment, materials, or technology to any other country on or after August 4, 1977, or receives such equipment, materials, or technology from any other country on or after August 4, 1977, unless before such delivery— (1) the supplying country and receiving country have reached agreement to place all such equipment, materials, or technology, upon delivery, under multilateral auspices and management when available; and (2) the recipient country has entered into an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to place all such equipment, materials, technology, and all nuclear fuel and facilities in such country under the safeguards system of such Agency. (b) Certification by President of necessity of continued assistance; disapproval by Congress (1) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, the President may furnish assistance which would otherwise be prohibited under such subsection if he determines and certifies in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate that— (A) the termination of such assistance would have a serious adverse effect on vital United States interests; and (B) he has received reliable assurances that the country in question will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons or assist other nations in doing so. Such certification shall set forth the reasons supporting such determination in each particular case. (2) (A) A certification under paragraph (1) of this subsection shall take effect on the date on which the certification is received by the Congress. However, if, within thirty calendar days after receiving this certification, the Congress enacts a joint resolution stating in substance that the Congress disapproves the furnishing of assistance pursuant to the certification, then upon the enactment of that resolution the certification shall cease to be effective and all deliveries of assistance furnished under the authority of that certification shall be suspended immediately. (B) Any joint resolution under this paragraph shall be considered in the Senate in accordance with the provisions of section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976. 22 U.S.C. § 2799aa-1 covers much the same territory, but with its focus on a few different violative acts. So, again, 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1 require the president to determine when any country is in possession of nuclear weapons and/or has acquired nuclear-weapons-related technology or shared nuclear-weapons-related technology, while having not subjected itself to International Atomic Energy Agency oversight and controls. Upon the dutiful making of this determination, all United States foreign aid to the errant country-- economic and military-- must cease. As will be shown below, Israel thoroughly qualifies as being in possession of nuclear weapons, as well as having both acquired (by theft and espionage against the USA) and having shared nuclear-weapon technology (with what was at the time the noxious apartheid regime of South Africa, no less), all while having refused any kind of oversight or control. And yet it has long been far-and-away the biggest recipient of United States economic and military foreign aid. The Relevant Facts IT IS WELL ESTABLISHED THAT ISRAEL is a country about which the determination mandated by 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1 is required. Israeli nuclear technician Mordecai Vanunu revealed extensive details of his country's nuclear programs and arsenal in 1986. Prior to that the program had been less formally "outed" but was nonetheless known to exist-- indeed, as far back as 1963 John Kennedy was demanding access to Israel's Dimona reactor site due to suspicions that it was a secret nuclear-weapons facility. See here and here. Not long after these increasingly impatient demands began to escalate Kennedy was conveniently disappeared into the ground-- the Israeli reaction to Kennedy's pressure, according to Vanunu. Lyndon Johnson, a fawning, religiously-deluded Israeli sycophant, was elevated to the presidency in Kennedy's place, and the inspection and oversight demands ceased. Johnson was not just willing to turn a blind eye to Israeli acquisition and development of weapons of mass destruction. He was such an abject Israeli puppet that he actually assisted in the cover-up of the Israeli murder of 34 American sailors and wounding of 171 more on the USS Liberty while trying to sink that American naval vessel, presumably either to keep the Liberty from reporting on Israeli war crimes in the 1967 war or to blame its sinking on Egypt in order to pull the US into the war on Israel's side. More to the immediate point, also during Johnson's "watch", American agents of Israel clandestinely secured large amounts of fissile material from American sources under false pretenses and transferred it to the rogue state. Israeli spies continued to steal materials and knowledge over the subsequent decades (and not just nuclear secrets). During the same period, Israel shared the stolen nuclear technology with its sister apartheid regime in Boer South Africa. By at least 2009, Israel had co-opted the US National Security Agency into handing over all data collected by the spy agency from 24/7 surveillance of every American-- in raw (that is, unredacted) form. A risible fig-leaf in the form of an Israeli promise to ignore and destroy material concerning American government officials will ease the concerns of only the extraordinarily gullible over what is obviously the acquisition by a foreign interest of the means to directly control American politicians, media moguls and other wielders of power and influence. IN RECENT YEARS Israel has devoted its well-developed expertise at re-investing last year's foreign aid as this year's campaign contributions-- and its ability to intimidate, marginalize or blackmail the few American politicians who will not be bought-- into a broad, self-serving capture of American resources far beyond the already enormous economic and military foreign aid it receives. Leveraging the bizarre and still unexplained events of 9/11, the little Middle Eastern state has induced the pissing away of $trillions taken from American men and women-- or saddled onto American children as debt-- along with the lives of tens of thousands of our young people, either dead or grievously wounded, and American moral stature world-wide as well. This treasure, blood and international respect has been spent on the facilitation of Israeli expansion through the violent destabilization and outright destruction of regional roadblocks and competitors in the form of Iraq, Libya and a seriously wounded but still surviving Syria. The received and ridiculous story-line supporting all these American sacrifices has been that we are fighting "terrorists" "over there". Somehow these "terrorists" harbor a deadly hatred of our values and unique enmity for the United States, but are mysteriously disinterested in coming here to do anything about it. That is, for some reason, we are to believe, these "terrorists" prefer that their own homes be the devastated fields of battle instead of ours. Guess they don't really hate us THAT much... By a further remarkable coincidence, these "American values-hating terrorists" all happen to live exclusively in places "over there" which stand in the way of Israeli ambitions. None, somehow, happen to live in equally-Muslim Indonesia, or Azerbaijan, or Bangladesh, or anywhere else not inconvenient to Israel. Current efforts are devoted to pushing the U.S. into violent aggression against Iran, as well, at the same but ever-more acute risk of a fatal confrontation with Russia that has attended the assault on Syria over the last several years. Iran is a target of particular Israeli interest due to its generous support of Lebanese defense against repeated Israeli invasions and long-standing plans to seize its neighbor's water resources. What It All Means THE POINT OF THE FOREGOING HISTORY LESSON, of course, is that not only is Israel a state prohibited from receiving US aid under 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1, but it is a particularly egregious violator of the practices condemned by these statutes. It is also plainly a violator which has clearly become utterly contemptuous of the America that has so steadily failed to punish it for its many and continuing offenses. The legal obligation of the Biden administration to sanction Israel for these many and continuing offenses, in fidelity to the law and in defense of America's national dignity, is correspondingly stark and grave. The question, then, is whether the law will prevail or the long-standing corruption will continue. I'm keeping a happy thought, based on the widespread condemnation of Israel being prompted by its current escalation of crimes against Palestinians dispossessed in 1948 (and their descendants) and the effect that disapprobation might have on the relevant political calculus. STILL, WHILE PANDERING and outright subordination to Israel will generally be made more difficult (or breaking free from those habits will be made easier) by the abuses now being committed in Jerusalem and Gaza, no one in Washington will even think to deploy the sanctions mandated by 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1. Indeed, no one in Washington will even bring these provisions up, hoping that they are, and will remain, unknown to the American people. Thus, the opportunity before us for dramatic correction of a decades-old presidential criminal practice won't be realized without some grassroots agitation and the sharing of this article with as many people as possible. Raise your voice and be the storm. (At the same time, don't forget this: If the political class refuses to obey the law and cut off Israel's foreign aid, YOU AND I can make it happen all on our own.) *** None of this is to say that any particular Israeli deserved any harm suffered during the recent Hamas attack. But it is to say that Israel as a whole does not deserve lockstep and unquestioned US support or defense, either diplomatically, economically or militarily. After all, as has recently been well said about Ukraine, Israel is not the 51st state. Indeed, contrary to self-serving rhetoric from Israel sycophants and clients, ignorant pundits, and defense contractors and clients salivating over any US military engagement, Israel is not even an ally of the United States and has never made a formal commitment to shed a drop of blood or spend a single shekel on America's behalf. On the contrary, and as has been thoroughly documented above, Israel has always been more an enemy to America's interests than a friend. NOW, LET'S TALK about Iran. To begin with, let us put to rest the nonsense about Iran having had returned to it $6bn that was always its own money in the first place being somehow a factor in the attack by Hamas. As even rabid neocons now cannot dispute-- and as was obvious from the get go-- the Hamas attack was the culmination of as much as a year or more of preparation and planning. The relinquishment of Iran's stolen money only took place last month. Nonetheless, the usual suspects are relentlessly using the attack to beat the bellicose drum against Iran (channeling the shade of the late nutcase John McCain). This should raise the eyebrows of anyone familiar with Benjamin Netanyahu's long history of seizing upon any pretext to urge hostility toward that sorely-abused country, whose transformational experience with the United States was 'Operation Ajax'-- a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 to overthrow Iran's first democratically-elected leader and replace him with the horrendous dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Rezi Pahlavi, under which the Iranian people suffered for the next 25 years. (Btw, many will not be aware that the US embassy in Tehran, from which all the hostages were famously taken in the Iranian Revolution of 1978, was the HQ of the CIA in the country...) Indeed, the mystifying failure of Israel's extremely elaborate security structure ensuring the integrity of the Gaza strip enclosure behind which its two million inmates have been confined (see here for more on that) strongly suggests that the Netanyahu government allowed the breach and the killings, in order to distract from Natanyahu's persistent corruption scandals and to give it the pretext for its dual desires to wipe out (or at least seriously diminish) the Palestinians in Gaza and, more importantly, to foment and/or justify hostile action against Iran (preferably by the United States, since Israel itself would take serious, and possibly fatal damage if it went to war with Iran on its own). On that last point, Netanyahu is once again warning everyone who will listen (i.e., the neo-con cabal in Washington) that Iran is about to start making nukes, and horror of horrors, might then end up with a strong defensive deterrent just like the one Israel itself has. But of course, Iran, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, and has a plainly stated, long-standing policy in the form of a religious proscription against nuclear weapons, deeming them an immoral abomination. Further, had that proscription been a facade, Iran could have had nukes at any time, being perfectly capable of buying them from places like Pakistan, or Russia, or even perhaps receiving them from Russia just as gifts, the two countries having long been friendly and now closely aligned. (It is not much reported in the West, but Russia recently gave North Korea the capability of hitting Washington, DC with nukes, apparently as a strategic move in light of US missile placements in close proximity to Moscow and the general US encirclement of the Russian federation with military bases. It would surely view gifting a few ready-to-fly's to Tehran in the same light, if asked. But Iran does not ask.) PLAINLY, THERE IS MUCH MORE that could be said on this highly-charged situation in the Middle East, but it will have to await another day. For now, let us end in wisdom with a portion of George Washington's Farewell Address that is very suited to the current American political discourse: "...[N]othing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim. "So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation." *** Good-Bye, Ron DeSantis My once ardently-supported candidate has shockingly revealed himself to be a merely fair-weather respecter of Americans' rights and a mindless enthusiast for injustice, oppression and outright war crimes. WITH CONSIDERABLE UNHAPPINESS, I have been compelled to withdraw what had been my ardent support for Ron DeSantis' campaign for the White House. DeSantis has reflexively aligned himself with Israel, even after the onset of its grossly disproportionate and frankly murderous 'collective punishment' of Palestinians (half of them children) as punishment for the violent prison break on October 7 by a handful of the millions of Palestinians whose parents and grandparents were dispossessed of their land 75 years ago and who have spent their entire lives wasting away in captivity, squalor, poverty and misery in ghettos like Gaza. Worse, DeSantis has distinguished himself (negatively) by issuing blatantly illegal orders suppressing the speech rights of students in Florida universities, an offense which is way-over-the-top even amongst the disturbingly widespread Pavolvian responses on behalf of Israel in most other quarters of the political landscape. (Glenn Greenwald has a good presentation on this subject here.) In these behaviors DeSantis shows himself willing to open his mouth and exercise power entrusted to him even while appallingly ignorant of the subject in regard to which he acts (here, the history of Israel, both in its formation and its actions since). He also shows himself to be very dangerously blind or dismissive in regard to the very real dangers to Americans (and the rest of the world) in doing anything but calling for Israel to shake itself awake and start the painful process of acknowledging and beginning to undo the wrongs it has committed against the Palestinians. IN THAT LATTER REGARD, it is important to recognize that the dispatch of warships to the Middle East by the usual neocon nutcases in Washington (and the enthusiasm for such irresponsibility by many others, including DeSantis) is an exhibition of either rank stupidity or deliberate recklessness in service to private agenda-- either monetary or ideological-- at the expense of the American citizenry whose interests are supposed to be paramount in the minds and hearts of everyone graced with an office of trust and honor. Those warships are little more than sitting ducks waiting for a salvo of hypersonic missiles to send them and everyone aboard them to the seafloor as soon as they attempt to act in support of the Israeli destruction of Gaza. In fact, the only plausible real reason for the dispatch of such ships, which will be of little or no benefit to Israel in the brief moments they survive once any kinetic effort is undertaken, is to provide the neocon nutcases and their moronic chorus with a few boatloads of bloody shirts to wave in order to excite the weak-minded among the general American population into baying for even more imprudent militarism a la the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin and 9-11. I pray that this cynical sacrifice of American lives, if not avoided by a prompt withdrawal of the carrier groups involved, fails in its mission. If the latter-day "Remember the Maine" ploy does work, and the US does gets public support for doubling-down upon the slaughter of those on the carrier strike groups, we will immediately be subjected to huge jumps in fuel prices, and hence, in ALL prices. We will also likely be subjected to attacks by opponents of the Israeli war crimes we will be supporting who are among the millions let into the country willy-nilly by the Biden administration over the last three years. At the same time the world, in large part, will form up into battle lines. The vast majority will be on the anti-American side, although in truth, that will likely be irrelevant. As the conflict metastasizes, the odds are that the conventionally-overmatched side (Israel and the US) will go nuclear-- a lunatic choice which will not go unanswered, and will result in the end of life on Earth. Let it not be so. People like DeSantis, the unhinged Nikki Haley, and all others plumping for war and lining up in solidarity with Israeli flattening of what little the dispossessed Palestinians have been left with to take a tiny bit of the edge off their otherwise utterly abject and undeserved misery need to be loudly denounced and defrocked. Prudent, well-educated Americans must stand up and replace them as candidates for office and as voices of influence. Prudent, well-educated Americans also need to vigorously share this document, by which everyone else can learn how to shut down the Leviathan state by which we have all been victimized for all our lives, and which now threatens to cut those lives short. P.S. As disappointed as I am with Ron DeSantus I will admit to be willing to consider reconsideration, should the governor, who in most other respects has shown himself to be an outstanding office-holder, come to his senses. Should DeSantis renounce his ill-chosen path on this matter, become a loud voice for the embrace of George Washington's wise warning against "permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others", and throw himself on the mercy of the offended electorate, I think he would find his struggling candidacy fortified with an enormous burst of energy as he gains the sudden enthusiastic support of the huge number of regular Americans (a strong majority, I suspect) who have long been sick and tired of Washington DC's slavish, lapdog devotion to Israel. *** Now, a few more observations in the same vein, but of less moment... I AM STRUCK BY THE NAIVETE of those uncritically taking in claims that Israeli bombing of Gaza is "targeted" on Hamas emplacements or personnel. These claims are made by the same folks who are apparently so lacking in knowledge of Hamas and its movements as to have been utterly surprised by the largish-scale breach of the Gaza prison walls and other aspects of the outbreak on October 7-- an outbreak clearly planned and prepared-for over many months, if not a full year or more. The proposition that the Israelis suddenly know not only the identities but even the day-to-day locations of every Hamas leader so as to be able to precision target such persons with airstrikes that-- just by unfortunate and unavoidable coincidence, we are told, also cause what might be seen by those wanting a "final solution" to "the Palestinian problem" as convenient massive "collateral damage" and infrastructure destruction-- is worse than ludicrous. It is, in fact, evilly cynical and contemptuous mendacity of the blackest sort. *** SO, ONE HAS TO WONDER how much conditioned enthusiasm and invested interest in the abandonment of so-called "fossil-fuel" use in favor of the electric vehicle will encourage an accepting attitude (or even advocacy) for war in the Middle East. After all, as noted above, one guaranteed side effect of such a war will be a giant boost in the price of oil. *** ISN'T THE ASCRIPTION OF "ANTISEMITISM" as the motive for Palestinian (and other) hostility toward Israeli crimes just as lame as the absurd Bush-era version: "they hate us for our freedoms", and just as much a propagandistic contrivance? Will it go unchallenged until the damage it is meant to facilitate is accomplished, just as happened in Bush's "war on terror"? Or will we dig in our heels and insist on reality, truthful words, and all the consequences of facing the facts, regardless of whose oxen are thereby gored? *** I CAN'T HELP BUT OBSERVE THE ROLE OF HARRY TRUMAN in all of this-- a man with a history of disastrous decisions. It was the Missouri haberdasher who fastened upon us the CIA, the NSA, the "state secrets privilege", the "police action" ploy, and the shameful distinction of being the first (and, so far, only) country to ever vaporize people with nuclear weapons (and entirely civilian victims, to boot), when he could have accepted the Japanese offer of surrender, or continued the massive but conventional bombing of Tokyo, or simply had a high-ranking Japanese official observe a nuclear detonation in the desert or the ocean. And, oh yes, he gave us the Israel quagmire, too... What a record! (To be fair, Truman isn't solely responsible for the ensconcement of the state of Israel on Palestinian land. Britain's Arthur Balfour is the one who came up with the arrogant and idiotic notion of taking the gifted land from within an already-inhabited territory. One has to wonder and despair that he didn't he pick harmlessly empty land somewhere, or land from within his own country...) Finally, ABSENT FROM WESTERN MEDIA REPORTING on the October 7 attack by Hamas and its aftermath are stories like this one of the gratuitous ongoing offense against Muslim sensibilities in Jerusalem, which escalated three days prior to the perhaps not coincidentally-following Hamas attack. Nor is the long-standing Israeli practice of "mowing the lawn" ever brought up, or the fact that Hamas itself was deliberately created by Israel. And, of course, the detailed history of Israel's original appearance in Palestine and its behavior subsequently is never presented by the MSM (or by most alt-media outlets, either). Instead, we get endless propaganda and the pretense that relevant history and context only began accumulating on October 7, 2023-- just as in any managed narrative spun by those serving special interests. How tedious. *** Israel: It Gets Worse And Worse I'd rather be writing about anything else, but it would irresponsible to do so as mindless or corrupted policy-makers spiral us closer and closer to the black hole of nuclear Armageddon. SO, ANOTHER COMMENTARY ABOUT the current and ongoing ugliness in Palestine... This is the third in a row, and I am as disturbed at the need to stay on this subject as you probably are to see me do so. But the one thing that good people may not do is dither and divert their gaze from evil. Right now, the Israelis are working hard and fast to "change the facts on the ground". At the moment, the dispossessed Palestinians in Gaza are a living, present and visible rebuke, impossible for the world to ignore and still somewhat able to resume life in Gaza. Given a little more time to bomb and kill, the Israelis will soon have erased that fact, rendering Gaza a wasteland incapable of being inhabited, even as the sardine-can prison it has been (and even with the Palestinian population that might resume life there decimated to a fraction of its former numbers), and rendering the handful of survivors invisible in the Egyptian desert or scattered as refugees elsewhere. Calls for an end to the bombing are now made urgent by there being something yet to be preserved. But soon there will be no such urgency, because soon there will be nothing left to preserve. The bombing will then, of course, stop, and the strident calls against Israeli violence will, of course, also stop. A new stasis will take hold in which the dispossession of the Palestinians hitherto confined in Gaza will be yet more complete-- Israelis will take up residence in Gaza as in the greater area of the previously stolen lands of Palestine (and as has been steadily proceeding over recent decades as another "change in the facts on the ground" in the West Bank with constant encroachment by "settlers")-- and begin the exploitation of the estimated $453bn+ in oil and gas reserves found not long ago in that place. Decent people must continue to stand up for for the Palestinian victims of this 75-year crime, who have watched their own children wither in imprisonment, impoverishment and oppression while their oppressors' children thrive on the lands stolen from them. In service to that imperative, it is necessary to counter or debunk the managed narrative and other propaganda spun out in a constant assault on clear-and-forthright thinking which might be inconvenient to the plans of the Israelis and their neo-con and other collaborators in America. Here are a few such counters and debunks: 1. There is no inherent "genocidal" or "antisemitic" aspect to calls for the elimination of Israel, or "wiping Israel off the map" by Palestinians or their supporters. All that is inherently meant by such calls is the dissolution of geopolitical Israel where it now is recognized by many other countries and where it now appears on most maps of the Middle East. Such calls have nothing to do with the citizens of that geopolitical Israel-- there is nothing in such calls to imply a wish or intent that those citizens be killed. All that is implied is that those citizens either become citizens of Palestine, as the district resumes its ancient name and sovereignty of the last 2,700 years up until as recently as 1948-- or move elsewhere to a different (and hopefully, this time uninhabited) area to live, which new location all parties, including those now calling for the elimination of "Israel" as currently configured, would be happy to call "Israel". Indeed, the Muslim populations of the Middle East have never had any historical animosity or "antisemitism" toward Jews. Many thousands of Jews lived in most countries of the region, up to 1948, when the Jewish immigrants to Palestine erupted in terrorist attacks against the native population, driving those native inhabitants from their homes and fields and into the ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank, or out of the country entirely. At that point, and for that reason, animosity toward the Jewish populations living among the Muslims increased and the numbers so living decreased, but around 10,000 still live in Iran, for instance, to this day. 2. Why are Palestinian children in Israeli prisons to be exchangeable for prisoners taken by Hamas on October 7? How many children are there in those prisons (or were children at the time of imprisonment), and how long have they been so held? For some reason we never see anything about this subject on NBC... 3. Since 2008 (a starting point picked seemingly at random, but nonetheless offering a useful sampling), 6,621 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action in Gaza, the West Bank or "Israel", while only 311 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian actions, according to the UN. This excludes the period since October 7, 2023, for which final numbers are yet to be available, but which, as reported so far, would make the Palestinian casualty number jump to 17,621 (plus an estimated 6,000 - 7,000 buried in rubble and hence uncountable), versus a total of 1,511 Israelis. Injuries since 2008 (subject to the same exclusion of Oct. 7 and since) total 156,227 for the Palestinians versus 6,338 for Israelis. Plainly, the violence suffered by the Palestinians has long been grossly disproportional to that suffered by Israelis, and it is hard to imagine any persuasive justification for outraged and draconian Israeli "punishment" of recent Palestinian retaliation (and for American facilitation of same). On the contrary, these data suggest instead that the Hamas attack of October 7 was encouraged or deliberately unhindered in order to provide a faux pretext for an ethnic cleansing operation by the Israelis which would be reflexively supported and defended by the usual crowd of Israel apologists in Washington and elsewhere, and to cloud the minds of others who only get their news of world affairs by the aforementioned partisans and presstitutes. 4. From the time of what is biblically reported to have been God's promise to Abraham of sovereignty over Palestine (or "Greater Israel" as is said by Israel supporters), Jewish tribes actually never had sovereignty over significant portions of the area for more than a total of a few hundred years. During that brief period the Jewish-held portions shrank and swelled and appeared and disappeared just like those of any other people in any other place in the world, and it all came to an end ~2,698 years ago (until 1948 and events set in motion by the British). In light of these facts it would appear that either the Jewish people long, long ago broke their covenant with the Lord and forfeited their claim to God's special dispensation, or that what was reported as a divine intent that the Jewish people should, or have a right to, rule Palestine-- especially by way of the violent expulsion and sustained oppression of the native population-- was more self-serving fancy than well-supported fact. Either way, those turning a blind eye to Israeli atrocities on the basis of the "divine plan" argument should cultivate less certainty and more humility as regards their understanding of the plans of Heaven, especially when Palestinian children are dying in great numbers. Such confident Israeli apologists should also consider the fact that not long ago, European monarchs claimed sovereignty on the basis, in part, of their alleged divine right to rule... That convenient "divine right" notion was rejected by America's Founders. The currently-exploited Israeli version should be rejected, as well. 5. I have an uncomfortable feeling that few have troubled themselves to actually read through my recent previous posts on this subject, and hence have missed the portion of my first such post detailing and documenting Israeli access to NSA surveillance of US citizens, including government officials and other persons of influence in America, and alluding to its pernicious implications for US policy which we are likely seeing play out in a big way right before our eyes today: By at least 2009, Israel had co-opted the US National Security Agency into handing over all data collected by the spy agency from 24/7 surveillance of every American-- in raw (that is, unredacted) form. A risible fig-leaf in the form of an Israeli promise to ignore and destroy material concerning American government officials will ease the concerns of only the extraordinarily gullible over what is obviously the acquisition by a foreign interest of the means to directly control American politicians, media moguls and other wielders of power and influence. 6. Let it not be so. Prudent, well-educated Americans need to vigorously share this document, by which everyone else can learn how to shut down the (likely co-opted, and in any event always dangerous) Leviathan state by which we have all been victimized for all our lives, and which now threatens to cut those lives short. *** "Like a muddied stream or a polluted fountain is the righteous man who gives way before the wicked." -Proverbs 25:26
"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do." -Everett Hale
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they have been resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress." -Frederick Douglass
"Be the change you want to see in the world." -Mohandas Gandhi
*** A Few Final Thoughts (For This Year) On Current Events Mostly on the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East, but also some comments on Moore v. United States, which has caught the attention of a lot of folks in the community, mostly due to hype about the case by outsiders who misunderstand the true nature of the income tax. TO THOSE WHO ENTHUSE about (or quietly cheer for) war in the Middle East, or the continued barbaric genocidal behavior of Israel against the remnants of the Palestinian people, due to notions about the 'Revelations' chapter in the Bible, I have this to say: Even if your notions about the validity of that chapter and your interpretation of its meaning are correct, what will happen, and when, is God's call, not yours, and nothing you can do is either capable of, or necessary to, making it happen. On the other hand, and very relevantly, Jesus, whose teachings are a repudiation of the primitive, exclusionary barbarism that pervades the Old Testamnet, instructed us all as to what IS within our power, and what IS proper for our attention and efforts, when he said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the Sons of God"; "Blessed are the poor in spirit [humble], for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"; and "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy". Think hard about all this as Christmas approaches. *** IS IT POSSIBLE THAT rather than otherwise incomprehensibly supporting Israeli war crimes because of religious piety (an unlikely thing to control the behavior of at least some of the people in question) or political considerations (an unlikely thing because the majority of the American electorate does not favor such support, and donor money is less and less a significant factor in American politics where an appearance on Tucker Carlson's or Joe Rogan's podcast will reach more voters and more effectively than $100,000,000 spent on ads), the denizens of Washington are instead literally afraid of Israel? Like, afraid of being murdered by an Israeli assassin? Or of Israel setting off a nuke they've concealed someplace in the DC 30 years ago, in the execution of its blackly evil, utterly grotesque "Samson Option"? Understand, this "option is not solely a deterrent aimed at a belligerent, as is commonly misunderstood. Rather, the "Samson Option" is also a coercion doctrine, meant to threaten even non-belligerents into supporting Israel, or at minimum to not stand against it, at peril of losing an urban population or two-- atrocities which would be committed, many in Israel (and some elsewhere) likely believe, with divine approval. As Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has said in regard to the question of whether the world would permit the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine: 'That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.' Or perhaps the DC swamp creatures are simply afraid of being outed as criminals or degenerates by Israel, which has been hoovering up all electronic communication in the US since at least 2011 (see this article, within which will be found the documentation of that fact)? *** A Prescription Against Today's Dangerous "DEI" Infection ...and brief commentaries on a number of other current topics, including events in the Middle East, the government's duty to protect speech rights even from "private" infringement, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and more. ... A Few Additional Observations In Brief EVERYONE SHOULD STOP USING THE EXPRESSION "October 7 attack by Hamas" in discourse on the matter of the war going on in Palestine. The more accurate and more propaganda-free formulation would be: "October 7 retaliatory strike by Hamas". After all, Israel has been murdering huge numbers of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and in foreign refugee camps, for decades (since its illegal inception, in fact), always in vast disproportion to the nearly harmless previous retaliatory lash-outs by a virtually unarmed and 75-year deeply oppressed and victimized native Palestinian population. October 7 was just the first significant return punch managed by the Palestinians, but again, only in response, and in a fight they didn't start. *** IT IS INTERESTING, in light of the way Israel is now bad-mouthing South Africa in every way possible, that back when it was an apartheid state under the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, Israel was South Africa's good friend-- even sharing its stolen nuclear-weapons technology with the Boer government (as discussed and documented in this article)... *** IT'S VERY TIRESOME to hear the "Iran-backed" nonsense from talking heads in government and media pretending that attacks by Syrians and Iraqis on Americans stationed in each of those countries, and by Houthis on shipping in the Red Sea, respectively, are Iranian proxy attacks. Why on earth would attacks on American invasion and occupation forces in Syria and Iraq-- in both cases strongly opposed and despised by the people of each country-- or by Houthis on Western-benefiting Red Sea shipping, need to be inspired or directed by Iran? Syrians and Iraqis and Houthis-- millions of whom, in the aggregate, have been killed or displaced by the US or its allies over the last twenty years or so-- have plenty of reasons of their own to want to attack these American troops or assets, and kill them or drive them out or make the West think twice about its support of Israeli crimes against Palestinians. Plainly the "Iran-backed" phrase is just a propagandistic tool used in an effort to build support for an eventual attack on Iran (or to support the pretense that a just or sincere cause exists for such an attack, when it commences). The phrase should be rebutted and denounced by everyone every time it is deployed. ***
The hypocrisy of this particular behavior by Israeli politicians and influencers, who claim to speak as, or on behalf of, "the Jewish people", is revolting, considering the history of the those people and the earlier "master race" proponents. This is especially so while those politicians and influencers beat the drums for their "final solution" effort against their own "untermenchen problem". That revolting hypocrisy taints all those in America who also beat those drums, and especially those who do so while risibly claiming that the obvious genocide being conducted against Palestinians standing in the way of Israeli expansionist ambitions is just an act of "self-defense". I can't link to evidence without more research than I have time to undertake at the moment, but I would bet that at least here and there some Nazi apologists also argued that dealing with "the Jewish problem" was also an act of "self-defense". *** It's Time For A New Law... ...embodying some key Constitutional provisions and the time-tested and well-proven wisdom of America's Founding Father.
(I characterize this as a new law here, but perhaps it would be necessary to enact it as a Constitutional amendment, since the current crop of deeply-compromised office-holders are unlikely to enact it as mere legislation. In this case the text would consist only of what follows the first comma in paragraph 3:
*** I'M SORRY TO SAY IT, but even many of the supposedly conservative and law-respecting "right" in America have become censorship enthusiasts in service to an Israeli agenda (and in likewise corrupt and hypocritical service to Ukrainian interests-- whether directly or as an expression of festering hostility to Russia). It's time the adults in the room step up and forcibly kick all the compromised foreign-policy nutcases to the curb, and really and meaningfully put us back on the path to America first. The hands of those in thrall to affections or hostilities to other countries or peoples have no business on any levers of power here. Now and then American interests might align with favoring one place or group, or disfavoring another place or group, but those calls should never be made by people predisposed in such matters-- enslaved in such matters, in fact, as George Washington put it in his deeply wise and prescient Farewell Address. As it happens, when Israel was engaged in one of its prior suppression exercises in Gaza back in April of 2018, I was moved to bring Washington's thoughtful words to the attention of the CtC community (in hopes that members would help spread them further). What I said then is, if anything, even more important today than it was back then, and so, here it is again (updated with some additions concerning Ukraine, which was not, back then, the festering boil of exactly what Washington warns us against, as it surely is now...): A Word To America's Policy Makers From The Father Of Our Country There's never been a better time for revisiting this wisdom. ON SEPTEMBER 19, 1796, George Washington's farewell address was published as an open letter to the American public. Among much other wisdom, the man so universally respected by the Founders as to have been unanimously elected president of the convention that drafted our current United States Constitution made the following observations regarding prudent, productive, and liberty-protective foreign policy: "...[N]othing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim. "So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation." WHAT DOES THIS SAY TO US (and especially to current denizens of Washington, DC)? Here's what: Sh*t-can the bad attitude toward Russia and Iran, dammit, and fire anyone who harbors it! Russia is a country whose people heroically threw off a deeply-embedded vicious totalitarian state not long ago (maybe this is why some folks hate it so much?). It is properly secular and tolerant of all faiths (while being more Christian than the USA has been for decades), has far lower taxes than those imposed by the United States and a much more lasseiz-faire regulatory demeanor, and has been doing everything possible to be a good neighbor to the rest of the world for many, many years. The United States should be doing everything possible to be its friend. Iran, though a theocracy, is religiously and ethnically open (for example, Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in Iran right now; Sunnis Muslims live there alongside the Shi'ite majority; and Jews are a protected religious minority with expressly-reserved seats in Parliament). It has a long history of non-aggression, and has been relentlessly and viciously victimized by the United States over the last 65 years. We owe it our good behavior. Sh*t-can the creepy mooning over Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, dammit, and fire anyone afflicted by it! Britain for many years now has been a political and cultural embarrassment to Western civilization, and even before that had a long history of deception as a routine tool of "statecraft", lawless "might makes right" military aggressions, and basic unscrupulousness in regard to the rest of the world. Israel and Saudi Arabia are apartheid-esque theocracies which have succeeded in establishing "Master-Blaster" relationships with the United States (with them in the "master" seat) by buying influence in Washington (often with money taken from Americans). Israel is aggressively, disruptively and unscrupulously expansionist; Saudi Arabia is the source of Wahabbist Islamic radicalism. Both are responsible for endless Middle-East conflicts and abuses of poorly-defended victims; both have been eating meals taken from the tables of American citizens for decades; and both should be kept at arm's length rather than hugged so closely that we get their fleas. Ukraine is a relatively new barnacle on the American ship of state, but is no more deserving of affectionate attachment than the rest while bringing into the picture a greater physical risk to our country and people than any of the others. LET'S REMEMBER Washington's wisdom: NO OTHER COUNTRY'S INTERESTS ARE WORTH ONE DROP OF AMERICAN BLOOD, OR ONE DOLLAR OF AMERICAN TREASURE. Their enemies are NOT our enemies, and their friends are NOT our friends, and this can't be evaded by any pretenses about "strategic" considerations. America First, and that means not swaggering around the world creating pretexts for pissing away American treasure through hostile posturing-- or outright aggression-- against people who haven't invaded our shores. Listen to Father George. AND HERE'S MY WORD TO EVERYONE ELSE: Stop leaving critical calls like these up to political hacks. How has that ever worked for you in the past? Use the tools the Founders provided for us all, as discussed here. Take seriously Saruman's question: ...and: Other Voices (followed by an important afterword) Would Israel Go Nuclear Against Iran? Douglass Macgregor In August 1961, during a period when tensions between Washington and Moscow were at a high point, Admiral Konstantin I. Derevyanko penned a letter to Premier Krushchev. His purpose was to alert Krushchev to what the Admiral called the “nuclear romanticism” of the Soviet General Staff. The Admiral’s words still carry the force of logic and common sense and are still worthy of our attention today: Which planet do these people [the Soviet General Staff] intend to live on in the future, and to which Earth do they plan to send their troops to conquer territories?... By this indiscriminately massive use of nuclear weapons on a small and narrow area like Western Europe, we would not only be accepting millions of radioactively contaminated civilians, but, because of the prevailing westerly winds, would also be radioactively contaminating millions of our own people for decades—our armed forces and the populations of the socialist countries, including our own country as far as the Urals. According to an unnamed official of the U.S. Government, President Joe Biden has told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States will not participate in a counterstrike against Iran. This is gratifying news. Israel does not contemplate operations against Iran or any other state that challenges Israel’s bid for strategic dominance in exclusively conventional military terms. In other words, for Israel’s national leadership, the use of a nuclear weapon is always on the table. Israel’s fundamental deterrence is still asymmetric nuclear capability. Until now, Washington’s unconditional support for any action Netanyahu wants to take has made Washington an accomplice in Israel’s deliberate slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s Arab population and in the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria, a violation of international law. This collaborative support erodes the power and authority of the American People. It’s time to ask whether American national interest and common sense are finally intruding in the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy. No one in the United States, Europe, or Asia benefits economically, politically, or financially from a regional war in the Middle East that closes the Straits of Hormuz and potentially invites direct Russian military intervention on Iran’s side. Is it also possible that Biden might object to the destruction of life in Gaza? In this connection, the revelation that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin allegedly asked Minister Yoav Gallant, his Israeli counterpart, to inform the United States in advance of any possible counterattack by Israel is small comfort. Americans should not forget that Netanyahu wields considerable influence on the Hill, and in the mainstream media. Already legislators are falling all over themselves to send additional billions to Israel while U.S. borders remain open, Americans die of fentanyl poisoning, criminality rises, and children are being trafficked. It may be too soon to answer the question of whether U.S. foreign policy is changing. Why? Because Israeli Media reports that there were intense debates during the last two meetings of the Israeli war Cabinet on whether to launch a large-scale strike against Iran. Such an attack would likely target Iranian command-and-control, potential long-range missile sites, airbases, naval bases, and oil infrastructure. On the other hand, there was reportedly a discussion about an Israeli response that might be more “measured” to prevent a wider regional conflict. What Americans know is that Iran targeted Israeli military installations, not Israel’s population. And Iran used a small fraction of its arsenal and very few of their newest weapons. Hezbollah effectively sat out the event. Though it is speculated that two Israeli airfields and possibly an intelligence station on the Golan Heights sustained some damage, the entire Iranian operation had a theatrical air about it. No one was surprised. Certainly not the Israeli air forces or their colleagues in the U.S. and British air forces. As noted above, with few exceptions, most of the 300-plus drones and missiles were intercepted and shot down. Nevertheless, Iran understood what was required to overwhelm Israeli and allied air defenses. We may infer that there was also a desire in Tehran to avoid escalating the conflict. Consider what would happen if Iran launched 1500 drones and 800 ballistic missiles over several hours, or even days. Iran made its point. It’s simple: Iran can destroy Israel. Tehran created new conditions of deterrence that favor Iran. Iran announced through their UN mission that they consider the issue of the Israeli strikes on their consular offices in Syria closed. But nothing is solved. Little has changed. A million are starving in Gaza, and Americans should expect the Israeli campaign of murder and expulsion in Gaza to resume shortly. Click here to read the rest of this article ...and then proceed to the afterword below...
Afterword COLONEL MACGREGOR POSES an important question, and the sociopathic character of the Israeli state that has been revealed to the world more starkly than ever before since the October 7, 2023 pretext began being exploited to accomplish the long-sought eradication of the remaining native population of Palestine suggests a very unwelcome answer. Israel appears fully in gear right now with the "chosen people" psycho-gimmick of a supposed divine mandate to do whatever it wants without any sense of moral responsibility, and it is hard to imagine any sudden awakening from that mania, and adoption of restraint. The only real hope in that regard is that the message delivered last week by Iran-- that its military technologies and strategies enable its complete destruction of Israel at its pleasure-- will sink in, despite the interference with that epiphany by the idiots in Washington with their weekend indication of continuing support for Israeli craziness. On that latter point about the (grossly irresponsible) idiots in Washington, and in light of Colonel Macgregor's very valid concern about Israel going nuclear, what the idiots REALLY should be doing is impeaching Joe Biden for his refusal to obey the law at 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa AND 2799aa-1. Those provisions require presidential recognition of Israel as a nuclear-weapons-possessing state not in compliance with international law, and the consequent cessation of all aid to that country. UNFORTUNATELY, THE SWAMP CREATURES in Washington won't themselves act to restrain rogue states like Israel because they themselves operate a rogue state, and wish to remain free to do so, as well. They can't imagine pointing a finger at others of their own ilk and issuing denunciations and sanctions-- that would mean pointing a finger at themselves, and embracing restraint, and this they will not do. Instead, that important task falls to us. Here is how it can be accomplished: The Founders' Defense Against Sociopaths In Office "In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty." -Leo Tolstoy IT IS WELL ESTABLISHED that there are an inordinate number of sociopaths in public office as compared to the general population. As observed by Martha Stout, clinical psychologist and author of The Sociopath Next Door, "[P]oliticians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths. I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this..." These sociopaths are people of the "power sickness", characterized by narcissism, self-importance, a willingness to manipulate others and the charm to do it effectively, and a perpetual habit of deflecting blame when their self-interested actions cause harm to others, all stemming from a basic lack of conscience. See here, here, here and here. This overrepresentation of sociopaths in the "political class" is no surprise. After all, public office offers all the things gratifying to such people. Office-holders get lots of attention from others, much of it fawning; they get easy money and lots of it; they get the opportunity to rule over other people; and they face a standard of success that relies more on a skill at bullsh*tting than on the hard work needed to actually gratify the needs and desires of strangers, such as is required in any other occupation. Further, the skills needed to achieve public office-- being willing and able to convincingly paint a rosier, more desirable picture than any honest opponent would have the moral turpitude to offer; charisma; and an obsession with self-aggrandizement-- are all the natural traits of the sociopath. Healthy men and women are hard-pressed to compete against these political "naturals" in any but the most extraordinary circumstances. Given this remarkably-aligned package of requirements and rewards, it's no surprise that sociopaths gravitate toward public office and achieve it in numbers disproportionate to their representation within the general population of healthy men and women. The top prizes go to the very worst of them, and the losers satisfy themselves by joining the swarm of petty functionaries with clipboards that fills government buildings coast-to-coast. SO, PUBLIC OFFICES ARE TYPICALLY nests of snakes, supported by nests of lesser but just-as-reptilian creatures, including, of course, all the appointees selected by the chief sociopaths (judges, department heads, commission members and so forth), who are from the ranks of those congenial to their benefactors' characters and desires. This has always been the case, from the very beginning of any kind of hierarchic ruling structure in any human society. And sociopaths in positions of authority are dangerous! No one in his or her right mind wants these folks wielding significant power that is capable of causing harm on any kind of mass scale, whether at home or abroad. HAPPILY, THOSE WHO FOUNDED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA knew all about sociopaths, their lusts, and their skills. Adams, Jefferson, Madison and the rest were close and accomplished students of history and psychology, and had their own personal lifelong experiences with public office-holders, both elected and appointed. The Founders recognized the danger these mentally-ill but eminently-functional types represented to decent society and the principles of liberty. At the same time, the Founders also recognized that some form of power-managing societal organization was inevitable, whether theoretically "necessary" or not. So, they made provisions to structure that organization so as to provide for the accommodation of the inevitable while strictly protecting against the threat of sociopaths using the structure to do great harm or to become an existential threat to the liberty of the People. Click here to read the rest of this article *** Support For Israel Is Giving Christianity A Bad Name ...along with a few other observations on current events. I CAN THINK OF NOTHING better calculated to destroy the stature and persuasive power of Christian theology than the treatment, by many of its prominent nominal representatives, of modern-day Israel as some kind of especially holy or deference-meriting state. Think about it. Young people (especially) will look at the very deliberate genocidal policies of the goblins wielding power in Israel and the population which largely supports them. They will listen to the heaping helpings of steaming bs served up by those same goblins and their counterparts and water-carriers here in the US about it all, largely (and transparently) dished out in order to keep the picture confusing and good people frozen while the endlessly-abused Palestinian population of Gaza reaches starvation and silently disappears forever. Seeing and hearing those things, these young people will gag and turn away. They will conclude that the "Christianity" on display is barbaric, or a psy-op of some kind. How could they think anything else? The pseudo-Christians selfishly supporting Israeli monstrosities in the belief that doing so will bring on the "Rapture" they desire, or due to a mentally and morally lazy contentment with the idea that somehow today's nation of Israel is the same entity as the one of the same name spoken of in the Old Testament, are the worst possible ambassadors for the faith they profess. They should be ashamed of themselves, and shamed by every sincere, serious and thoughtful Christian. *** YOU'LL RECALL THAT in the last newsletter I posted the text and reasoning behind a proposed new law designed to prohibit those with less than strict and uncompromised fidelity to America from holding office in the United States. I was prompted to do so after numerous Democrat members of the House brazenly displayed their compromised loyalty to America by not only voting for a massive giveaway of borrowed money to Ukraine-- while doing nothing whatsoever to stem the invasion of America steadily proceeding at our effectively undefended southern border-- but waving Ukrainian flags on the floor of the USD House of Representatives (in violation of federal law) in celebration of their perfidy. (Lots of Republican congresscritters voted for this sell-out, also.) (Click the image to see the short video.) Since then Congress has treated us to an even more brazen display of compromised loyalty. This began with a similar massive giveaway of American treasure (plus interest into the foreseeable future) to Israel to facilitate its continued war crime of indiscriminately bombing the population of Gaza at the same time as the Ukraine giveaway referred-to above, but in this latter case, the give-away was not only a betrayal of the American people but also flatly illegal under several different US laws, most notably 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa AND 2799aa-1 (the text of which, and discussion of their application to US aid to Israel, can be found here, in an article I STRONGLY urge everyone to read through). Further, this giveaway not only makes the Unites States (and by extension, the American people in whose name and under whose nominal control it acts) complicit in all of Israel's criminal behavior vis-a-vis the Palestinians, but also drags the American people closer to being dragged directly into at least a regional war in the Middle East, if not what will quickly be a thermonuclear world war. The idiot or bought and paid for folks in Congress and the Biden administration don't seem to care (or are oblivious to this manifest danger), and simply appear to do what Israel wants them to do, without question.
But it got much, much worse. Little more than a week after the illegal giveaway vote, Congress approved, with a large bipartisan majority, a bill seeking to criminalize criticism of Israel, in direct and unmistakable conflict with the First Amendment. This odious legislation (which was first introduced in October of 2023, long before any campus protests had been available or incited for manipulation into a justification for its appearance) not only seeks to create and enforce a thought crime ("anti-Semitism"), but adopts as its formal legal definition of "anti-Semitism" whatever a non-American organization-- the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), of which Israel itself is a part-- deems to be "anti-Semitism". That IHRA "definition" already includes various criticisms of Israeli policies and practices as being supposed "anti-Semitism", with additional and more detailed prohibitions able to be added in the future as the self-serving organization thinks of or encounters other speech and behaviors which it finds politically or economically inconvenient to Israel. Ironically, one of the expressions already made illegal under that IHRA "living definition" invoked by the 'Anti-Semitism Awareness Act' is the view that Israel has inordinate influence over the US government, a fact soundly confirmed by... the adoption of the 'Anti-Semitism Awareness Act'... This enactment by Congress is a step way beyond the pale. The US Constitution, and the government it brought into being, were created by the Unites States of America as a bulwark for the security of the American people. To thus disregard and hence disparage that Constitution's First Amendment certainly gives aid and comfort to the enemies of those states and those people, and to do so in the interest of a foreign state, especially, smacks of treason, in my view. *** BY THE WAY, I imagine that many on the Republican side of the aisle are counting on Biden's support for Israel costing him much of the very important "young voter" numbers that were so significant to the Democrats in 2022, especially. I think this reliance is ill founded. For one thing, as reflected in the events discussed above, Republicans in general have no better a record on supporting the Israeli apartheid (and now "Amolek"-genocidal) state than Democrats, and over the long haul, are worse than their rivals in that regard. More importantly Donald Trump's record on that front is glaringly worse. Unless Trump lays down a marker convincingly reversing his own prior (and long-standing) abject prostration before Israel and its interests and wishes as shown steadily and in very big, significant ways during his first term, younger voters will see nothing better about a Trump victory than the re-election of Biden on the Israel front. At the same time they will still oppose Trump on all the same grounds as they had done in the past. Thus, absent that Trump reversal on Israel, those young voters will still turn out for Biden. Bad as he is, Biden will still be seen as being, on the whole, the lesser of two evils compared to Trump, even despite his own abject prostration before Israel. (I don't think Trump is going to make any such reversal. Maybe the Republicans will have a wake up moment before it is too late and somehow manage to nominate Vivek Ramaswamy when the time comes...) *** An Important Message To The Christian Community ...from a pastor with the kind of good sense and sand rarely seen in that crowd in recent years; and a little history lesson to debunk an Israeli narrative myth. CHUCK BALDWIN HAS POSTED a pretty powerful rebuttal to the "Israelis-as-God's-Chosen-People" narrative by which certain Christian sects here in America are easily exploited for the benefit of Israeli (and American neocon) interests. This is a big deal because Israeli (and neocon) interests are rarely, if ever, aligned with legitimate American interests. It is also a big deal because that "Chosen People" narrative appears to be in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus Christ. As a result, it seems to me, all those seduced by it are (however inadvertently) thereby led to betray their professed Christian faith. I'll let Baldwin explain: [A]s I have shown in my Israel and Prophecy messages, Christ’s New Covenant has completely abolished the Old Covenant made with Biblical Israel; in fact, the remnant of Biblical Israel in Jerusalem and Judea was completely destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman army in fulfillment of both Old and New Testament prophecies. Zionist Israel is a complete counterfeit, and the modern city of Jerusalem is NOT the Jerusalem of the Bible. Under Christ’s New Covenant, the “Jews” are NOT God’s chosen people. God’s elect are people of every race who come to faith in Christ. Therefore, it is absolutely untrue that modern Israel is promised any sort of “blessing,” “protection” or “perpetuity” in Holy Scripture. Israel is just another pagan antichrist state that opposes Jesus Christ, Christian people and everything the New Covenant stands for. As such, it sits under the judgment and condemnation of Almighty God. I challenge people to read again the books of the Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The vast majority of what they wrote pronounced God’s judgment and destruction upon the wicked, apostate nations of Israel and Judah—prophecies which ALL came true. The Assyrian Empire completely destroyed Israel (the ten northern tribes) in 721 BC, as prophesied by God’s prophets. The Babylonians destroyed Judah (the two southern tribes), including the city of Jerusalem and the temple, in 586 BC, as prophesied by God’s prophets. The remnant of the Judahites was completely annihilated by the Romans in 70 AD, as prophesied by God’s prophets, the New Testament apostles, John the Baptist and Jesus Himself. Bottom line: The covenant with national Israel has been abolished for 2,000 years. There are no more prophecies for Old Covenant Israel. There are no “Jewish signs” portending Christ’s Second Coming. And the Roman city of “Jerusalem” in Palestine today (originally named Aelia Capitolina, meaning “The City of Hadrian and Jupiter,” in 135 AD) has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible, prophecy or the return of Christ. NOTHING. NOW, I AM BY NO MEANS a Biblical scholar, nor intimately familiar with Chuck Baldwin's work or credentials. I cannot independently argue in any depth for or against much of Baldwin's wide-ranging reasoning and the authorities on which he claims it is based (either in the excerpt above or the totality of his column). But it certainly is my understanding that core principles behind the Christian redemption message include universalism and the realization of the promise behind Christ's sacrifice lying in faith and adherence to Jesus' teachings rather than in mere ethnicity or tribal connections-- especially ethnicity or tribal connections in which Christ's divinity is denied. In accordance with these principles, the New Testament, as Baldwin says, inarguably presents a new covenant which necessarily dissolves and replaces the old one. In accordance with that fact, adherence to the trappings of the old covenant-- such as the notion that today's state of Israel is somehow special, rather than just another nation or society with a good propaganda machine and a gullible audience in certain quarters, is a rejection of the new covenant and thus, profoundly UN-Christian. Still, as said, I am no great Biblical scholar. I leave conclusions to be reached by each of you on your own, recognizing this to be a highly personal matter for anyone with whom any of the foregoing resonates. But if you agree with my conclusions, it seems to me that the properly Christian thing to do is to share those conclusions and the admonition they entail with others-- especially including people like Mike Johnson and other members of Congress, and those who might be tempted to support them in their reflexive (or performative) prostration before Bibi Netanyahu and crew. *** Secondly, contrary to an Israeli-flogged myth meant to confuse discourse on the "Israel-Palestine" situation... ...PALESTINE WAS NOT "GIFTED" to the Jewish people out of sympathy for the horrors of the Holocaust. Rather, in a heinous exercise of arrogant colonialism, an extra-large helping of Palestine was offered by the British to Zionists, in response to their persistent requests for someone else's land, in 1917-- decades before World War II. Over the intervening years-- most of which preceded WWII-- Jewish settlers who chose to take advantage of the offer and relocate to Palestine smuggled large caches of weapons into the country (and see this for some further insight into pre-1948 Zionist expansionist ambitions), even while the UN eventually formalized the British offer with an explicit division of Palestine into a Jewish portion and a native Palestinian portion:
The division was still being argued about by the native Palestinian side even though they had reluctantly come to terms with the idea of giving up much of their country to a foreign colony, due in large part to the fact that its population was far greater than that of the Jewish immigrants at that time, and yet the immigrants were being given 57% of the Palestinian's lands (only 10% of which had been actually paid for by immigrants) with only 43% left for the native Palestinians. However, in May of 1948, immediately upon the withdrawal of the British forces that had administered the country since World War I (a withdrawal hurried along by Jewish terrorism against those administrators, most notably the bombing of the King David hotel), the well-armed Jewish immigrants erupted in a sweeping surprise assault on the native Palestinians. Over the course of the subsequent 12 months or so a large percentage of that native population was killed or driven into refugee status outside the country, with the remainder herded into imprisoning enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Since that initial prolonged assault, those now calling all of Palestine "Israel" have continuously and with increasing violence and brutality encroached further and further upon the remaining native Palestinian population, in a slow but steady program of land theft and ethnic cleansing until October 7 of 2023, when the pedal was put to the metal after the suspiciously convenient total failure of the Gaza prison apparatus and the slow-walk Israeli response that day. At the same time, over all those years from 1948 on, the Israelis have been systematically abusive of America's ill-considered good will toward them. A by-no-means exhaustive list of examples of those villainous abuses can be found in "The Relevant Facts" section of this article, right after the discussion of 22 U.S.C. §§ 2799aa and 2799aa-1 and its specific mandate for presidential action in regard to states like Israel (a mandate of which Joe Biden is currently in violation). NOW, IT MIGHT STILL BE ARGUED that the Holocaust influenced some decision-making by those who chose to recognize the newly-declared state of Israel upon (or despite) that violent seizure of Palestinian land in 1948-- people like the wide-ranging disaster that was Harry Truman, for example. But by no means does the current state of Israel exist or have a "right" to do so as recompense for abuses visited upon the Jewish people during WWII or at any other time. Rather, it exists as a consequence of brutal, abusive acts by the Zionist immigrants themselves against another people, with the help of arrogant Brits who themselves came to regret what they had done. Please help set the record straight whenever you encounter the myth, so we can all have the honest and informed discourse in all respects that is called for in regard to the ongoing madness and escalating danger to the world which is festering in the Middle East today. ...and: The Distortion of Campus Protests over Gaza How the Right Has Weaponized Antisemitism to Distract from Israel's War By Helen Benedict Helicopters have been throbbing overhead for days now. Nights, too. Police are swarming the streets of Broadway, many in riot gear. Police vans, some as big as a city bus, are lined up along side streets and Broadway. Outside the gates of the Columbia University campus, a penned-in group of pro-Israel demonstrators has faced off against a penned-in group of anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian protesters. These groups are usually small, often vastly outnumbered by the police around them, but they are loud and they are not Columbia students. They’ve been coming every day this April to shout, chant, and hold up signs, some of which are filled with hateful speech directed at the other side, equating protests against the slaughter in Gaza with being pro-Hamas, and calls to bring home the hostages with being pro-genocide. Inside the locked gates of the campus, the atmosphere is entirely different. Even as the now-notorious student tent encampment there stretches through its second week, all is calm. Inside the camp, students sleep, eat, and sit on bedspreads studying together and making signs saying, “Nerds for Palestine,” “Passover is for Liberation,” and “Stop the Genocide.” The Jewish students there held a seder on Passover. The protesters even asked faculty to come into the encampment and teach because they miss their classes. Indeed, it’s so quiet on campus that you can hear birds singing in the background. The camp, if anything, is hushed. The Real Story on Campus Those protesters who have been so demonized, for whom the riot police are waiting outside — the same kinds of students Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, invited the police to arrest, zip-tie, and cart away on April 18th — are mostly undergraduate women, along with a smaller number of undergraduate men, 18 to 20 years old, standing up for what they have a right to stand up for: their beliefs. Furthermore, for those who don’t know the Columbia campus, the encampment is blocking nobody’s way and presents a danger to no one. It is on a patch of lawn inside a little fence buffered by hedges. As I write, those students are not preventing anyone from walking anywhere, nor occupying any buildings, perpetrating any violence, or even making much noise. (In the early hours of April 30th, however, student protesters did occupy Hamilton Hall in reaction to a sweep of suspensions the day before.) As a tenured professor at Columbia’s Journalism School, I’ve been watching the student protests ever since the brutal Hamas attack of October 7th, and I’ve been struck by the decorum of the protesting students, as angry and upset as they are on both sides. This has particularly impressed me knowing that several students are directly affected by the ongoing war. I have a Jewish student who has lost family and friends to the attack by Hamas, and a Palestinian student who learned of the deaths of her family and friends in Gaza while she was sitting in my class. Given how horrific this war is, it’s not surprising that there have been a few protesters who lose control and shout hideous things, but for the most part, such people have been quietly walked away by other students or campus security guards. All along, the main messages from the students have been “Bring back our hostages” on the Israeli side and “Stop slaughtering Gazan civilians” on the antiwar and pro-Palestinian-rights side. Curiously enough, those messages are not so far apart, for almost everyone wants the hostages safe and almost everyone is calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take a different direction and protect the innocent. Unfortunately, instead of allowing students to have their say and disciplining those who overstep boundaries, Columbia President Shafik and her administration suspended two of the most vocal groups protesting Israel’s war on Gaza: the student chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. This only enraged and galvanized students and some faculty more. The Right Seizes and Distorts the Narrative Then the right got involved, using accusations of widespread antisemitism to take eyes off the astronomical death toll in Gaza — more than 34,000 reportedly dead as I write this, more than 14,500 of them children — while fretting about the safety of Jewish students instead. The faculty of Columbia takes antisemitism seriously and we have methods in place to deal with it. We also recognize that some of the chants of the protesters do make certain Jewish students and faculty uncomfortable. But as a group of Jewish faculty pointed out in an op-ed for the student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, it’s absurd to claim that antisemitism, which is defined by the Jerusalem Declaration as “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews,” is rampant on our campus. “To argue that taking a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza is antisemitic is to pervert the meaning of the term,” we wrote. “Labeling pro-Palestinian expression as anti-Jewish hate speech requires a dangerous and false conflation of Zionism with Jewishness.” Sadly, that’s exactly what the right has succeeded in doing. Not only is the slaughter in Gaza getting lost in the growing fog of hysterical speech about antisemitism on American college campuses, but so is the fact that Arab and Muslim students are being targeted, too. Some students even reported they were sprayed with a Mace-like material, possibly manufactured by the Israeli military, and that, as a result, several protesters had to go to the hospital. My own students told me they have been targeted with hate mail and threats over social media. I even saw a doxxing truck sponsored by the far-right group Accuracy in Media driving around the Columbia neighborhood bearing photographs of Muslim students, naming them and calling them terrorists. Again, it’s important to note that most of the harassers have been outsiders, not students. No, the real threat to American Jews comes not from students but from the very white nationalist MAGA Republicans who are shouting about antisemitism the loudest. Then came the Republican hearings. The Congressional Hearings Click here to read the rest of this article ...and then proceed to the afterword below...
Afterword I AM VERY CONSCIOUS OF THE FACT that I have been spending a lot of pixels over the last several months on the subject of Israel and Palestine, largely to the exclusion of other subjects. Aside from sheer revulsion at the murderous rampage by which the Palestinians are being victimized, the reason for this is simple, but profound: the insidious effort to capture and exploit the support of the Washington blob on behalf of the foreign country of Israel is doing bull-in-a-china-shop damage to the invaluable American experiment. That effort takes the form of bribery (through campaign contributions and institutional donations mostly, I assume-- and often, if not always, paid with our money), threats (to massively finance political opponents of those who don't knuckle under or withhold donations), blackmail (perhaps-- see the revelations about the transfer of all domestic NSA spying data to Israel since at least 2009 shown in "The Relevant Facts" section of this article) and cynical-- indeed, despicable-- false charges of anti-Semitism. All of this is accompanied by an endless mind-numbing drumbeat in the media, all on behalf of the initiating and ongoing aggressor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, complete with shameless contortions and distortions of facts, historical and current (such as those so ably and usefully exposed by Helen Benedict in the article above, despite her somewhat leftist bent). Most significantly, perhaps, that effort involves an attack on America's crown jewel-- the First Amendment-- the likes of which it has never faced. Damage has already been done to that cornerstone of liberty, and should this assault not be thwarted right now, the damage will continue. Soon, the American experiment will have failed. All that is not to mention the generalized corruption of our political and social institutions, the waste of our blood and treasure, or the high possibility that our continued shielding of Israel from the consequences of its actions will result in further escalation of hostilities in the Middle East with the very real potential of leading to widespread war between the tottering remnants of Western Civilization against the other 80% of the world. So, figure my single-mindedness, please. NOW, MY USUAL ENDING to these "Other Voices" segments is to explain that the answer to the problem outlined in the guest column is the widespread implementation of the revelations of CtC. This will be no exception, but in keeping with my focused voice lately, as and for the reasons described above, I will let a column of mine from a few years ago serve that purpose. Please read it through. What Breaking The Iran Deal Is Really All About In two words: Screwing Lebanon... May 14, 2018: EVERYONE REMEMBERS 'Master-Blaster', right? This was the combination of the big, powerful and manipulable hulk ('Blaster') and the malevolent dwarf ('Master') who rode the brute's back and exploited his strength for the bullying and domination of others in the 1985 film 'Mad Max- Beyond Thunderdome'. Well, the real world has a version of this same character. The United States, in the person of Donald Trump, is "Blaster" to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's "Master". (This is not a role unique to Trump, of course-- the same was certainly true of George W. Bush, and is and has been also true of many similarly compromised members of Congress.) Master says, "Jump"; Blaster asks, "On who, boss?"
THE CURRENT "MASTER PLAN" which is driving the United States' violation of the Iran Nuclear Agreement is two-fold. First there is the general Israeli program of achieving regional hegemony by destabilization and destruction of all competitors in the Middle East, preferably through the expenditure of American blood and treasure, rather than its own. Second there is the particular Israeli desire to seize Lebanon's oil and gas fields (see here), and more importantly, its fresh-water resources-- an ambition dating back to 1919, and blocked now by Hezbollah, thanks to support by its ally Iran (see here and here). In order to realize that long-standing ambition of seizing Southern Lebanese resources (under some sort of "self-defense" pretext, of course), Israel needs Iranian support for Hezbollah thwarted. The effort to accomplish this by cutting the Iranian supply-line to Lebanon through regime-change in Syria having failed, Iran must now be dealt with directly. Click here for the rest of this article *** This page is permalinked here. |