Document: US Aid To Israel

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $115 billion in bilateral assistance. Almost all U.S. aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although in the past Israel also received significant economic assistance. Strong Congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not available to any other countries...

U.S. Foreign Aid To Israel [pdf]

Israel and the American Elections

Max Blumenthal: Major Jewish donors push candidates to support Netanyahu on Iran...

US Senate Betrays American People, Stands Behind Foreign Power

With much of the US Senate backing Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, are lawmakers more concerned with problems in the Middle East than in the US? Counter Punch Editor Alexander Cockburn says that Congress is "Israeli occupied territory" despite the government's attempts to appear impartial.


The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

http://www.counterpunch.org/

The United States of Israel?

Helen Thomas: "Congress, The White House, Hollywood & Wall Street Are Owned By The Zionists!"

You'll notice Helen Thomas didn't say "Jews", she said "Zionists", and there is a difference, in spite of the various smear campaigns against anyone who tells the truth about the Israel Lobby . Now, perhaps Thomas really is an anti-Semite Jew hater, which would be unfortunate if true, but that doesn't change the reality that someone who has no animosity whatsoever against Jews, but who said the exact same things she has (those things that have gotten media attention) would be just as quickly labeled anti-Semitic by the ruling elite and their lapdog "mainstream" media.

And sure, some may use the term Zionist as a code word, but the real, limited meaning of that word can be proven with just a reference to Christian Zionists, such as right-wing nutjob and Israel supporter John Hagee. I don't believe Hagee or the majority of his followers are Jewish.

The whole purpose of attacking and censuring someone like Helen Thomas is to send out the message that you will be ostracized by the state-controlled media if you dare to speak what's really on your mind, especially when it comes to U.S. foreign policy and our relationship with Israel, and the Israel Lobby's puppet U.S. Congress and White House.

Declassified Documents: Massive Israeli Manipulation of US Media Exposed

Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy

Jewish Groups Push US to Attack Iran

Secret files declassified in America have revealed covert public relations and lobbying activities by Israel. The National Archive made the documents public following a Senate investigation. Alison Weir of the Council for National Interest in the U.S. - a pressure group on Middle East policy - believes Israeli influence is corrupting the American media, which no longer represents the views of the country's people...




Council for the National Interest

High level former U.S. intelligence officers, including CNI Executive Director Philip Giraldi, have just published an analysis warning that Israel may plan to attack Iran as early as this month

We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to preempt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.-Former Intelligence Officers warn Israel may attack Iran this month and drag US into another war; discuss ways to stop it

Is Israel a Rogue State?

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

U.S. an Israeli Puppet Government

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Siege takes toll on Gaza children

International pressure has been mounting on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza since the deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Palestinian territory.

The UN has said 80 per cent of people there depend on food hand-outs.

But Israeli officials insist that there is no humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Maybe the above is an example of what New York Sen. Charles Schumer meant when he said:

And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go, makes sense.

Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, spoke to an event of Orthodox Jewish leaders on Wednesday and made comments that can only be described as bigoted and disgusting. Kudos to Zaid Jilani who, despite working for the Democratic Party-serving Center for American Progress, wrote about Schumer's remarks on CAP's ThinkProgress blog and explained the reasons they were filled with falsehoods, or -- as he put it -- "as offensive as they are wrong."

Chuck Schumer: Mainstream Democrat

By Way of Deception

Israel has long been waging war on the US by way of deception. To date, its operatives have worked from the shadows, hoping not to be detected. Their duplicity typically includes the displacement of facts with what the American public can be deceived to believe.

Thus, the need to create a widely held belief around Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda, Iraqi meetings in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraq’s purchase of uranium from Niger. Though all five “facts” were false, only the last claim was conceded as phony prior to inducing our invasion of Iraq.

There lies our national security challenge as the groundwork is being laid for another 911.

The same fact-displacing modus operandi is again at work. In the parlance of national security analysts, psy-ops specialists are “preparing the mind” to accept another generally accepted truth at odds with the facts. This time the objective is Iran. Or Pakistan.

When will Israel attack the USA – again?

The Israel Lobby’s New Butt Boy

It looks like the Israel Lobby has found itself a new butt boy in Robert Bernstein. And I know what you’re thinking. “Don, did you really just say butt boy?” And, yes, I did just say butt boy. Not sure why, but I’ve been trying to work that into a post for some time now.

Anyway, writing in the New York Times, Bernstein complains that Human Rights Watch, which he once headed, has lost its way. Specifically, he feels that HRW has been unfairly singling out Israel over the past few years. The Middle East, he writes, is “populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.”

Now I’m not sure if HRW does in fact spend more time criticizing Israel than its neighbors. As a regular reader of HRW’s news feed, I can tell you that it produces lots of reports on lots of different nations. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Bernstein is right in this accusation. In response, I can only say, so what? Really, so what?

As readers of this blog can testify, I myself spend much more time criticizing Israel than its neighbors. But this isn’t because I’m anti-Semitic. This isn’t because I hold a special place in my heart for ruthless Arab dictatorships. I don’t spend much time condemning the regimes in such places as Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia for the simple reason that there’s no need to. Everyone already knows how the governments in Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., oppress and brutalize their people.

But Israel’s a different story. Most people don’t see through the establishment’s rhetoric. Most people don’t understand the full extent of Israel’s crimes, not just in the Occupied Territories, but also in Israel Proper. Most people don’t understand that Israel has become a terrorist state. Therefore, I tend to focus on Israel, not because it’s worse than its neighbors, but because, unlike its neighbors, its sins still need to be brought to light. So if it’s true that HRW spends a disproportionate amount of time chronicling Israeli human rights abuses, then I imagine its being guided by similar motives.

Butt Boy Bernstein doesn’t buy this, however. “At Human Rights Watch,” he continues, “we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them—through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform. That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights.”

He makes a point, of course. There certainly is a difference between democratic and nondemocratic societies. I just wonder what this has to do with the State of Israel. Israel, you might have heard, currently rules over 11 million people. And of those 11 million people, 4 million of them (that is, everyone living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) cannot vote. Now I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t exactly sound like a democracy to me.

Bernstein continues in this vein, at one point all but justifying Israel’s January assault in the Gaza Strip, telling us that “there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense [Israel’s war crimes] and those perpetrated intentionally [Hamas’ war crimes].” Not surprisingly, he never explains exactly how killing defenseless Palestinians is a wrong “committed in self-defense.” Nor does he explain why dropping bombs in civilian population centers isn’t a wrong “perpetrated intentionally.” Call me crazy, but it seems pretty clear to me that if you know that civilians are living in a certain neighborhood but go ahead and bomb that neighborhood anyway, then you’re intentionally killing civilians.

Anyway, I’m not going to spend any more time dealing with Robert Bernstein and his non-arguments. He is, after all, just a butt boy.