Tim King – Salem-News.com

Israeli influence over U.S. policy is reaching new record levels, as word is announced that the U.S. is moving serious weapons into place for a possible strike on the people of Iran.

(SALEM, Ore.) – Iran has never attacked another nation, and according to the international group that oversees nuclear activities, Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

Israel, on the other hand, possesses at least 150 nuclear warheads that could take the world out several times over. Undeclared nukes illegal with the world community. Who should we really question?

Iran’s infrastructure does not support the ability and the country has firmly stated that it is not developing nuclear arms, only nuclear power, like so many other countries on this earth.

Israel’s nuclear warheads were revealed in a report featuring the words of President Jimmy Carter in May of 2008 on Salem-News.com^[1].

All of the years with Israel at the world negotiation tables stating that it was a non-nuclear entity, using that “defenseless” line to gain political ground, were blatant, false statements, and so the sympathy they elicited was also totally false. The U.S. government was aware of it the whole time, according to Carter, supplying the deadly parts that comprise Israel’s nuclear arsenal today.

People in many circles have known this for a long time, since an Israeli nuclear scientist defected to England and told the Times all about what was taking place with the development of nuclear warheads that are not registered or claimed under the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty well over twenty years ago^[2].

Why the commotion over this today? Because the United States may be preparing for another dirty unilateral war.

The Sunday Herald reports that hundreds of powerful US bunker-buster bombs are in transit from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where they will be used in preparation for a “possible” attack on Iran.

The newspaper in London also revealed that Americans signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to Diego Garcia.

The Sunday Herald wrote: “According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 ‘Blu’ bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.”

This newspaper in the UK also reported in 2007, that stealth bomber hangars on the island were constructed to take bunker-buster bombs.

Damned if you do, or if you Don’t

“If they run they’re VC. If they stand still, they’re a well-disciplined VC”.
- Marine door gunner in the movie, Full Metal Jacket

Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear capabilities, but we were convinced under Bush that they were steps away from launching an attack on the U.S., which in retrospect is ridiculous. We stepped in, saw over 5,000 Americans killed, tens of thousands injured, hundreds of thousands caused to suffer from PTSD, and Iraq is a total mess. We divided the Sunni and Shi’ite populations, we caused a civil war. The United States devastated a functioning country with infrastructure.

Iran has no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear capabilities, and they state that to be the case. Still, the people who hate Iran and want to see it wiped off the map, with Joseph Lieberman at the head of the list, will state over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… that Iran is “developing” nuclear weapons, when every piece of evidence states the opposite^[3][4][5].

Deadly nukes; the Israelis have them – they have driven this whole modern warfare snafu according to a growing list of reliable and documented sources. Israel is a nation driven by a racist ideology guided by the religious philosophy Zionism, i.e. “The Chosen People” – which is the excuse used by Israel in quickly claiming almost all of the Palestinian land for itself, and killing a countless number of Palestinians along the way, while at times losing many of their own^[6].

Our writers have, on different occasions, very recently in fact, drawn the lines connecting the dots between the U.S. war in Iraq, and Israel. The belief is that Israel is trying to destabilize this entire part of the Arab world in an effort to speed its ultimate claim of all of Palestine’s land^[7].

You see, Egypt is playing ball with Israel and the U.S. these days. It used to be a hotbed of anti-Israeli activity, today they are staying out of it. In the process Egypt has sealed off the southern border of Gaza in concert with the U.S. and Israel, furthering the concentration camp atmosphere for these abused people, who are treated like animals and guarded on all sides^[8].

But Iran is one of the few countries that will stand up and say something about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, and that is why all of this is taking place. It also makes the Iranians better humanitarians than the U.S. or Canada in particular^[9]{10].

Iran’s History with the West

I have written before about how the U.S. and England ripped off Iran in the years following WWII for oil, treating their national representatives with prejudice and overall disdain. Racism is a nightmare^[11].

The U.S. helped the British SAS take out the first Democratically elected President of Iran in 1953 because he spoke about nationalizing Iran’s oil and cutting the west out. The ‘Shah’ was kidnapped, brainwashed, threatened, and went back to Iran to be a western friendly leader until the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The Iranians took Americans hostage as part of this Revolution, though they were eventually released, and that has been the central point for all American animosity toward Iran in recent years^[12].

They were pissed off that we had for all intents and purposes, ruled their country from 1953 to 1979, and who wouldn’t be? Some Americans seem to sport this vast ignorance about patriotism and nationalism in the world. For them it is hard to understand that it exists in every nation and place. It is hard for any person to separate their loyalty from the place of their birth, it is a simple human dynamic. The people who side with and work with the U.S. in many cases, are viewed as traitors. As usual, those who worked with Americans benefited in some, even many cases, and many fled after the Revolution.

Iraq was financed by the United States to invade Iran and the horrible Iran-Iraq War ensued, costing thousands of lives on both sides. A friend of mine in Tehran, says people everywhere in her country still suffer from what we know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD from those years, and they are not people who were even in the military.

Then after starting the Iran-Iraq War and watching it rage for years, the U.S. blew an Iranian airliner out of the sky in 2008, an absolutely scandalous act of mass murder by the U.S. Navy, as Iran was in the process of defeating the U.S. financed attack against their country.

According to Wikipedia:

“The cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 with the loss of all 290 passengers and crew on 3 July 1988. The American government claimed that the airliner had been mistaken for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat, and that the Vincennes was operating in international waters at the time and feared that it was under attack, which later appeared to be untrue. The Iranians, however, maintain that the Vincennes was in fact in Iranian territorial waters, and that the Iranian passenger jet was turning away and increasing altitude after take-off. U.S. Admiral William J. Crowe also admitted on Nightline that the Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles. At the time, the captain of the Vincennes claimed that the Iranian plane did not identify itself and sent no response to warning signals from the Vincennes. Apart from Iran, other independent sources, for example the airport of Dubai, have confirmed that the plane did indeed identify itself to the American naval ship and also confirmed that ‘the civilian aircraft was ascending and therefore could not have posed a threat,’ agreeing with Iranian officials.”^[13]

Israel Murdering Farmers

Israel built division walls through Palestinian land on the West Bank in recent years and now their soldiers shoot the farmers who dare to use their land.

According to Investigators with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and eye-witness testimony, Friday, 4 September 2009, Maher Ghazi al-Za’anin drove his four children, including Ghazi, 14, to their farm, 500 meters away from the border with Israel, in the northeast of Beit Hanoun town. On their way to the farm, they were surprised by an Israeli military jeep. Al-Za’anin and his children were frightened, and ran away. Israeli soldiers in the jeep immediately opened fire. Ghazi was wounded by a bullet to the head and fell to the ground.

“If they run they’re VC. If they stand still, they’re a well-disciplined VC”

The father carried the child to their car, whereupon IDF soldiers fired at the car, hitting it with two bullets. The father drove to Beit Hanoun Hospital and the child was transferred to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in critical condition. Ghazi was admitted to the intensive care unit, where he was pronounced dead on the following morning, Saturday, 5 September 2009.^[14].

Israel carefully planned and killed over 1400 in Gaza, including approximately 400 children, while injuring tens of thousands. The abuse of Israel toward the Palestinians is the single worst thing taking place in the world today. There is no more brutal regime in place than Israel’s.

So if Lieberman and the boys manage to actually build the position for attacking Iran, I would start packing the canned food, many boxes of it. I am not alone in saying that we would never accept this as Americans.

Any move to attack either Iran or Venezuela for that matter, will not be supported by the American public. Massive campaigns will be launched to support military desertion and protests will begin and people will take to the streets and it will not end, ever.

If a plan is actually devised to attack Iran, then Barack Obama will be remembered as a President actually worse than George W. Bush, something most have always believed was nearly impossible. Bush got the world’s death machine revved up a couple of thousand RPM’s, but any plan to actually take military action against Iran will blow the American military engine, guaranteed. That is an engine made of delicate things called human beings. American human beings are not supposed to be wasted in stupid needless wars based on lies.

Iran has never attacked the U.S. or talked about it. The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said something once that was misconstrued as “wiping Israel off the map”. It is the same old thing over and over and over and over and over and over again. Whereas Israel can make plans to outwardly attack Iran and then suck its pawns, the Americans into it, and insult people and brand an entire religion as “terrorists” when nobody does more terrorizing than the Israeli Defense Forces.

During the 1930’s and 40’s in Germany, genocide took place and the Red Cross was at least tricked into believing that Warsaw Ghetto wasn’t as bad as it really was, in the years preceding the main events of WWII. Gaza is clear, YouTube, all over Al Jazeera, Salem-News.com and other serious sites. Anyone who cares can see the civilian destruction and devastation wrought by the IDF against the people of Gaza. Doctors said they saw no militants, only civilian men, women and children, plenty of children with injuries too severe to describe.

It is disgusting that the U.S. government ignores this clear case of genocide and series of war crimes documented against Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008/09 called “Operation Cast Lead”. A Jewish War Crimes Tribunal Judge, Richard Goldstone, wrote the report that cites numerous violations of International Law; targeting schools, hospitals, and directing civilians to evacuate to certain areas, which were in turn attacked with millions and millions of dollars worth of bombs supplied mostly by U.S. taxpayers. They used white phosphorous, which is totally illegal to drop on homes, which they did. There are no excuses for killing 1,400 in retaliation for the 4-6 Israelis who died in Hamas rocket attacks.

And while the primary western nations ignore this genocidal insanity, the U.S. government is up to its old tricks and wants to thrust our nation into its final conflict, on behalf of Israel. Nice knowing you guys, maybe all that stuff about the Mayan Calendar is right on target, but it is all because of willful human aggression from the United States and Israel.

Not to mention that a damned war is taking place in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, less than a stone’s throw from the back door of the good old U.S.A. No, let’s not take care of things at home, even on this continent for that matter, let’s just plot the end of mankind by attacking a country that has only defended and avenged itself by taking hostages, in all of this time. Let’s rely on the FOX New Channel to misinterpret the words of people like the Iranian President, and to get everyone good and stirred up in a general sense by repeating those pat terms that the Zionists have rammed down our throats. “Nuclear weapons”, “Wipe Israel off the Map”, these are the lame things that Israel will use to justify this action. I personally think that a square-off between Israel and Iran would be one matter, but having the U.S. involved on behalf of a country that commits genocide, will be the final straw.

Attacking Iran would be the end of everything as we know it, and Americans will turn away from their leadership if such a dirty and dastardly move is attempted. It’ll quickly become a third world nation, as if we aren’t in all reality totally broke and in debt anyway, thanks to the last few years of Bush.

On a selfish level, our combat troops are tired and broken and have been wasted and it continues. Starting another war in another theater could only be a move to bring about an end to the United States that we know, one way or another. Iraq was a bad idea, nobody serving there is happy about it. The deaths are ugly and there have been too many. Afghanistan includes a fight against people who treat women and girls badly, so there is some justification as the Taliban are not real Muslims according to my Islamic friends, but a walking distortion of it. Taliban are Afghanistan’s Westboro Baptist Church, only much larger.

^[1] May-29-2008: Carter Reveals Israel’s Possession of 150 Nuclear Weapons – Tim King Salem-News.com

^[2] May-11-1995: THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATIONOF NUCLEAR WEAPONS UN

^[3] Feb-25-2010 : WHY IRAN? Give Iran a Break! – Debbie Menon for Salem-News.com

^[4] Jun-11-2007: Lieberman’s Demands for War in Iran are Cowardly – Op-Ed by: Tim King Salem-News.com

^[5] Jul-03-2008 : Iran Doesn’t Have Illegal Nukes; but Israel Has Hundreds – Tim King Salem-News.com

^[6] Oct-18-2009:Apartheid Government Panicking: Time to Increase Actions – Political Commentary by Mazin Qumsiyeh for Salem-News.com

^[7] Mar-13-2010: Who’s to Blame for the Iraq War? – Maidhc Ó Cathail Salem-News.com

^[8] Iran–Iraq War From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

^[9] Feb-28-2010: UN Extends Goldstone Investigation of Israel for Gaza War Crimes – Tim King Salem-News.com

^[10] Apr-30-2009: Iran’s Ahmadinejad Calls West’s Claims of Democracy ‘Sheer Lies’ – Tim King Salem-News.com

^[11] Jul-14-2008: Lies and Fabrications are Behind the Drive to Attack Iran – Tim King Salem-News.com

^[12] Jun-18-2009 Iran, 1953 – Daniel Johnson Salem-News.com

^[13] Dec-21-2009: Egypt Seeks to Halt Gaza Peace March – Salem-News.com

^[14] Sep-07-2009: IOF Willfully Kill a Child in Beit Hanoun Town, Northern Gaza – Salem-News.com

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com’s Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation’s only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

by Maidhc Ó Cathail

This month marks the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Despite the passage of time, there is still much confusion, some of it deliberate, about why America made that fateful decision. The following questions are intended to clarify who’s to blame for the Iraq war.

1. Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false “intelligence” about Iraqi WMD, was introduced to his biggest boosters Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz by their mentor, a University of Chicago professor who had known the Iraqi con man since the 1960s. Who was this influential Cold War hawk who has an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference centre named in his honour?

2. In 1982, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s” appeared in Kivunim, a journal published by the World Zionist Organization, which stated: “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.” Who wrote this seminal article?
3. “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a report prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommended “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq-an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.” Which then member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board was the study group leader?

4. A November 1997 Weekly Standard editorial titled “Saddam Must Go” stated: “We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable.” The following year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a “hazard” to “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” The co-founders of PNAC were also the authors of the “Saddam Must Go” editorial. Who are they?

5. In Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published by AEI Press in 1999, he argued that Clinton policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country and proposed that the US use its military to redraw the map of the Middle East. Who was this Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to mid-2007?

6. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, the Deputy Defense Secretary attempted to justify a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was “doable.”
In the lead-up to the war, he said that it was “wildly off the mark” to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis “are going to welcome us as liberators”; and that “it is just wrong” to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war. Who is this chief architect of the Iraq war?

7. On September 23, 2001, which US senator, who had pushed for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there was evidence that “suggests Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, perhaps [was] even involved in the September 11 attack”?

8. A November 12, 2001 New York Times editorial called an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague an “undisputed fact”? Who was the columnist, celebrated for his linguistic prowess, who was sloppy in his use of language here?

9. A November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that the US should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism, claiming, “Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction.” Who is the professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University who made these spurious claims?

10. George W. Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union address described Iraq as part of an “axis of evil.” Who was Bush’s Canadian-born speechwriter who coined the provocative phrase?

11. “Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power”? Who is the longtime editor of Commentary magazine who made this assertion in a February 2002 article titled “How to win World War IV”?

12. Which Pentagon Defense Policy Board member and PNAC signatory wrote in the Washington Post on February 13, 2002, “I believe that demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”?

13. “If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful.” Who is the psychiatrist-turned- Washington Post columnist who tempted Americans with this illusory carrot on August 3, 2002?

14. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “The Case of Toppling Saddam,” which current national leader claimed that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material “in centrifuges the size of washing machines” throughout the country?

15. “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990-it’s the threat against Israel.” Despite this candid admission to a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, he authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq. Who was this member of President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board?

16. According to a December 7, 2002 New York Times article, during Secretary of State Powell’s efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations, this Iran-Contra conspirator’s role was “to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution’s wording, pressing a hard-line view.” Who was this senior director of Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration?

17. Who was Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, until he was indicted for lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame case, who drafted Colin Powell’s fraudulent February 5, 2003 UN speech?

18. According to Julian Borger’s July 17, 2003 Guardian article titled “The spies who pushed for war,” the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP) “forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel” to provide the Bush administration with alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq. Who was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who headed the OSP?

19. Which British-born professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, whose 1990 essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” introduced the dubious concept of a “Clash of Civilizations,” has been called “perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq”?

20. Apart from their key role in taking America to war against Iraq, what do the answers to questions 1 to 19 all have in common?

Answers: 1. Albert Wohlstetter 2. Oded Yinon 3. Richard Perle 4. William Kristol and Robert Kagan 5. David Wurmser 6. Paul Wolfowitz 7. Joseph Lieberman 8. William Safire 9. Eliot Cohen 10. David Frum 11. Norman Podhoretz 12. Kenneth Adelman 13. Charles Krauthammer 14. Benjamin Netanyahu 15. Philip Zelikow 16. Elliott Abrams 17. Lewis “Scooter” Libby 18. Douglas Feith 19. Bernard Lewis 20. They are all  Zionists.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an educator and widely published writer based in Japan.

Source: Islam Times

by William Cook

As an American living under Bush’s Military Commission’s Act, I feel a bit unnerved when charged with “allegations” of hate crimes issued by Canada’s Council on Human Rights, “allegations” made by an unidentified group against the editors of “Peace, Earth and Justice,” (PEJ Internet publications), and specifically against certain unidentified authors for articles claimed to be anti-Semitic. One might expect from a democratic government that the accused would be notified of such charges, be provided with the details of the allegations, and offered an opportunity to rebut the points raised.

But no. The charges are made, the Council brings the charges to the editors who are prone to protect the publication by removing the articles, and the goal of the group bringing the charges is accomplished — silencing the messengers who raise issues of significance that can no longer be seen or read. Such is democracy and the free press in the 21st century.

Thank God for our last domain of free speech, the Internet, and in this instance the Internet publication Dissident Voice. On May 28th, 2007, Kim Petersen wrote “When Monopolization of the Media Fails, then Squash Freedom of Speech.” It is there that I found out that I was charged before the Council on Human Rights with anti-Semitism by a Mr. Harry Abrams with the support of the B’nai B’rith of Canada. .

Since neither the Canadian Government or the accusers have seen fit to notify me that I am charged with a “hate crime,” I am forced to present my case before the public lest Council members and others made aware of these accusations assume that the allegations are true, a conclusion that could result from such slanderous allegations and cast aspersions on my personal and professional character.

Let me undertake my own defense by quoting from “The Nizkor Project” of the League of Human Rights of B’nai B’rith Canada. “The international community has recognized the need to deal with human rights violations and hate propaganda under the law. The foundation of Canada’s hate laws can be found in several international treaties which Canada has ratified. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, established the basic principles upon which subsequent anti-racist legislation would be based, including legislation designed to afford identifiable groups protection against racist attacks. Hate propaganda, the promotion of hatred against identifiable groups, became a criminal offense in Canada in 1970 (Criminal Code, Sections 318-320).” Additionally, Canada adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966, a convention that requires states “to criminalize hate propaganda and other activities which promote racism.”

Canada’s acceptance of these international laws and conventions indicates that the state is sensitive to its various populations and the potential for discrimination that can be brought against them. As the Nizkor Project notes: “The premise underlying Canada’s anti-hate laws is that in a democratic society, identifiable groups must be protected against racism, including its verbal manifestations, in order not to limit their basic freedoms and thereby their full participation in Canadian society.” I agree with Nizkor’s assertion that the catalyst for this legislation might well have been the experience of Nazism, “that unchecked racism and hate propaganda could lead even a highly educated, cultured and democratic society to justify the most heinous crimes against humanity.”

Now let me turn to the actual sections of the Criminal Code that are applicable here: Section 318: Advocating Genocide and section 319: Defining Genocide. “The criminal act of ‘advocating genocide’ is defined as supporting or arguing for the killing of members of an ‘identifiable group’ – persons distinguished by their colour, race, religion or ethnic origin. The intention would be the destruction of members of the targeted group. Any person who promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence, and liable to imprisonment…” Section 319 defines genocide as “any acts committed with intent to destroy an identifiable group – such as killing members of the group, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction.”

Section 319(3) makes explicit acceptable defences that prohibit conviction based on the following: “statements in question are established to be true; were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds it was believed to be true; ….; were expressed in good faith and intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.”

I provide this background to establish this profound truth: my article published by PEJ, “The Hamas Challenge to Israel,” provides a disturbing picture of a Prime Minister in Israel who has undertaken, with the collaboration of a distinct minority of like mind, a concerted effort to commit genocide against an identifiable group, the Palestinians, because of “race, ethnicity, and religion,” by “promoting the killing of members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction.”

The article was not written specifically for Canadians or any state, but rather to make known to the community of nations the reality of the actions undertaken by Sharon and his government (and subsequently by Ehud Olmert and his administration). Every statement in the litany of accusations made against this man has been substantiated by scholars, journalists, resolutions by the UNSC and the UNGA, and even the International Court of Justice. Nothing in the article condemns the Jews as a people; indeed, the article sympathizes with the Jews as they, like Americans under Bush, must endure racist actions of the Israeli government acting in their name.

The article is in every particular a graphic defense of the Canadian Criminal Code against hate, but hate perpetrated by a hard core Zionist group (See for example statements by Olmert’s colleague Avigdor Lieberman) that has aligned itself with the Olmert government to inflict genocidal acts against the Palestinians. Books have been written on this subject. It is not my invention. (See for example, Dr. Uri Davis’ Apartheid Israel, Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Cook’s “The Rape of Palestine,” and most recently this week, Richard Falk’s “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust.”). I believe that publication of the article provided Canadians with documentable evidence of these heinous acts, information beneficial to the public if they are to become sensitized to the plight of Palestinians and Arabs living within their state. They are the ones at risk. Only through the availability of such information can the Islamophobic hysteria present in America and Canada be blunted.

I will end this piece with two passages from the article in question, an article you cannot now read because an unidentified group has made insidious allegations against this writer, one of a number, without providing him (or them) his due rights before the law, a most slanderous and clandestine way to silence voices one does not wish to hear.

“Shouldn’t it be clear by now, today, that Israel and its obedient partner in war crime, the United States, has no intention of seeking peace with the Palestinians? How else maintain an unending war of terror? How else fuel division, hatred, vengeance, retaliation and destruction than to systematically strangle by slow, insidious suffocation the rights of a people declared openly in a mutually accepted Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How else continue expansion and acquisition of another’s land than to foster violence with violence and cry aloud to the world your pain even as the cries and torment of the Palestinians are muffled behind a Wall of Fear Sharon leaves as his memorial to a life time of savagery and death?”

“When this Wall of silence is breached, when the truth is made manifest, what the world will see and what Jews around the world will see, is that Sharon has destroyed the moral fiber of Judaism. What Jews suffered under the boots of Nazi Germany – the humiliation, torture, powerlessness, and fear – impressed on them by a racist nation arrogant in their superiority, the Israelis now inflict on the hapless people of Palestine.”

William Cook, A contributing editor of MWC News, is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Deception: Bush’s Mideast Policy The  Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, a novella and a forthcoming anthology The Plight of the Palestinians due in June.

Operations Ezra & Nechemia: The Aliyah of Iraqi Jews

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

March 15, 2010

Although Zionism typically represents itself as the solution to anti-Semitism, the truth is less flattering. In fact, hostility toward Jews is indispensable to the cause of Jewish nationalism. If anti-Semitism didn’t exist, Zionists would have to invent it. And in many cases that is precisely what they have done.

Contrary to the widespread perception that Zionism opposes anti-Semitism, its adherents have occasionally revealed a more ambivalent attitude to Jew-hatred. In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, prophetically wrote in his Diaries, “Anti-Semites will become our surest friends, anti-Semitic countries our allies.” Even the suffering inflicted on European Jewry by the Nazi holocaust doesn’t seem to have unduly tempered such cynicism. In 1995, Jay Lefkowitz, an American government official, told the New York Times Magazine, “Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews— reminds them who they are.”

If Zionist extremists can’t provoke the desired level of anti-Semitism to advance their goals, they are even prepared to fake it. A 1952 article in Davar, the official organ of Mapai, the party of the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, suggested sending a team of saboteurs “to help redeem Jews” from the countries where they are “absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction.”

“The task of these young men,” the article explained,

“would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews, and, acting upon the brutal Zionism, plague these Jews with anti-Semitic slogans, such as ‘Bloody Jew,’ ‘Jews go to Palestine,’ and similar ‘intimacies.’”

Lest anyone doubt that the Israeli government would ever contemplate carrying out such a cynical plot to encourage Jews to move to Israel, the “rescue” of about 125,000 Iraqi Jews in the early 1950s involved far worse acts. “In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews,” wrote former CIA officer Wilbur Eveland in Ropes of Sand, “the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel.”

Whatever about posing as “Arab anti-Semites,” one might think that Zionists would draw the line at a post-Holocaust sponsorship of Nazism. Yet this is exactly what a leading Canadian Zionist organization has been accused of. “In the 1960s, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) paid John Garrity, a small-time mercenary, to build up the fledgling Canadian Nazi Party,” reveals Ezra Levant in Shakedown. When the embarrassing truth emerged, it was justified by the CJC as an attempt to learn more about neo-Nazism. However, the real purpose, according to the Jewish Canadian writer, was to provide “a pretext for the addition of ‘hate’ laws to the criminal code.”

While “hate” sounds like something that all decent people would condemn, one man’s hate may be another man’s righteous indignation. Zionists, for example, tend to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and, therefore, as something that could be considered a “hate crime.”

But are Professors Mearsheimer and Walt engaged in hate propaganda by documenting the harmful influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy? Or is former US President Jimmy Carter a “bigot” for comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestine to apartheid South Africa? Are the survivors of the USS Liberty who refuse to remain silent about Israel’s deliberate attack on their ship merely motivated by hatred of Jews? Is Professor Norman Finkelstein a “self-hating Jew” for exposing the Holocaust Industry’s corruption of history and memory in the service of an extortion racket? And is UN special rapporteur Richard Falk also “self-hating” for likening Israel’s actions against the besieged Gazans to what the Nazis did to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto?

In each of these cases, by no means an exhaustive list, the charge of anti-Semitism, rather than serving to protect Jewish people from defamation, has been used to obscure Zionist crimes.

However, as Zionist criminality becomes increasingly transparent, there will most likely be a sharp rise in anti-Semitism worldwide. No doubt much of it will be the result of genuine, albeit misdirected, anger as the extent of Zionist crimes against humanity becomes more widely known. But considering Zionism’s history of faking attacks on Jews, we can expect at least some of this “hate” to be the work of Jewish extremists who disingenuously claim to be fighting anti-Semitism.

Perhaps it’s time for those who are genuinely concerned about combating hatred in the world to heed the words of Israel Shahak. As the great Israeli humanist concluded in his classic Jewish History, Jewish Religion, “Although the struggle against antisemitism (and of all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism … is now of equal or greater importance.”

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an educator and widely published writer, based in Japan. To read more of his writing go to: Maidhc Ó Cathail: Writing and Analysis

By Alan Hart, March 15, 2010

There are two definitions of anti-Semitism in its Jewish context. One was born in real history and represents a truth. The other is part and parcel of Zionist mythology and was invented for the purpose of blackmailing non-Jewish Europeans and North Americans into refraining from criticising Israel or, to be more precise, staying silent when its leaders resort to state terrorism and demonstrate in many ways their absolute contempt for international law.

Anti-Semitism properly and honestly defined is prejudice against and loathing and even hatred of Jews, all Jews everywhere, just because they are Jews.

Anti-Semitism as defined by Zionism, the colonial, ethnic cleansing enterprise of some Jews, has come to mean almost all criticism of Israel’s policies and actions, in particular its oppression of the Palestinians, and, also, criticism on the basis of revelations from the documented truth of history which expose Zionism’s propaganda for the nonsense it is. Put another way, anti-Semitism as defined by supporters of Israel right or wrong is anything written or said by anybody that challenges and contradicts Zionism’s version of events. In effect Zionists say, “If you disagree with us, you’re anti-Semitic.”

As a blackmail card to silence criticism of Israel and prevent informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East, Zionism’s false charge of anti-Semitism has worked wonderfully well to date. Why? In the long (and still present) shadow of the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, a European crime for which, effectively, the Arabs were punished, there are few things Westerners in public life, politicians and media people especially, fear more than being accused of anti-Semitism.

Unable to refute the substance of documented and objective messages of challenge and criticism, Zionism’s policy always was, and still is, to shoot the messengers with false charges of anti-Semitism.

For complete understanding of what anti-Semitism is and is not, it’s necessary to know what Zionism is and is not.

Zionism claims to be the nationalist movement of the Jews, all Jews everywhere. If this was so, the assertion that anti-Zionism is almost by definition a manifestation of anti-Semitism might appear to have a degree of credibility. But this Zionist claim does not bear examination.

As I document in detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, the truth is that from Zionism’s foundation in 1897 until the Nazi holocaust, its colonial enterprise was endorsed and supported by only a tiny minority of the world’s Jews and was opposed by many of them.

Also true is that from Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1948 until the final countdown to the 1967 war, most Jews of the world had no great affinity with Israel. That changed when most Jews believed – because they were conditioned by Zionism and the mainstream Western media to believe – that poor little Israel was in danger of annihilation. In that light Israel’s stunning victory was a source of great pride for most Jews of the world.

Though most Jews didn’t and still don’t want to know it, the truth was different. The Arabs did not attack first and were not intending to attack. The 1967 war was one of Israeli aggression.

Today much  of what supporters of Israel right or wrong claim to be anti-Semitism is actually anti-Israelism, which in my view is best described as anti-Zionism. And contrary to the assertions of Zionism’s spin doctors, anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitism.

Short or long, any discussion of anti-Semitism should include the fact that Zionism needs it. The first to acknowledge this was none other than Theodore Herzl, Zionism’s founding father. In one of his diaries, not published until 1962, Herzl wrote the following:

“Anti-Semitism is a propelling force which, like the wave of the future, will bring Jews into the promised land. Anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow – and so do I.”

He was right. Without the anti-Semitism unleashed by Adolf Hitler in his Germany and Nazi occupied Europe, Zionism’s colonial enterprise would have been doomed to failure for lack of enough Jewish support.

Today Zionism needs anti-Semitism or what it can present as anti-Semitism to go on justifying its policies and actions.

Any discussion of anti-Semitism should also take note of the words of Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest serving Director of Military Intelligence. In his book Israel’s Fateful Hour, he wrote: “I believe it was a damaging error on Menachem Begin’s part to insinuate that criticism of Israel is a manifestation of anti-Semitism.” In the same book Harkabi gave this warning:

“Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.”

From the early 1980’s when those words were written, Israel’s “misconduct” has been the prime cause in the rise of what Zionism presents as anti-Semitism but which is actually anti-Israelism/anti-Zionism. Today the biggest danger to the Jews of the world is, as Harkabi warned, that anti-Israelism/anti-Zionism will be transformed into anti-Semitism, with the consequence at some point of another great turning against Jews.

My own view is that such a catastrophe will happen unless the citizens of the mainly Gentile Western world among whom most Jews live are made aware of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. As I have previously written and never tire of repeating, knowledge of this difference is the key to understanding two things.

One is why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism’s still on-going colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic.

The other is why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hardest core Zionist few in Israel.

In my analysis, the day when citizens of the Western world understand those two things and what anti-Semitism is and is not, is the day that will mark the beginning of the end of Zionism’s freedom and ability to impose its will on the Palestinians, the whole of the Arab world and the governments of the major Western powers, and to remain above and beyond international law.

Alan Hart

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

Several of us among the incurably curious asked ourselves a simple question: what is anti-Semitism? The fact that it must be written with a capital “S” says a lot.

Then we realized it also morphs. To that feature I can attest. In November 2002, I met a “John Doe” in London who proposed a research challenge. While meeting that challenge, I encountered various versions of anti-Semitism.

A colleague advised against this challenge. First he fretted at the criminal nature of what the research has since confirmed. Then he inquired about my safety. That said a lot.

The colleague was M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky. For his criticism of Israeli policy, he was attacked as a self-hating Jew. Were he not Jewish, doubtless he would have been an anti-Semite. For critics of Israel, those are the only two options. He cautioned me:

You’ll get the same thing: anti-Semitic, Holocaust denier, want to kill all the Jews, etc. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Bear in mind that you are dealing with intellectuals, that is, what we call ‘commissars’ and ‘apparatchiks’ in enemy states.

Is anti-Semitism a geopolitical strategy? If so, for what purpose? Character assassination?

Ten months ago, I met with Professor William Robinson on the University of California Santa Barbara campus. We met soon after he was attacked by the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) and its smear team.

Robinson had read Guilt By Association, the first release based on this research. His question mirrored Prof. Chomsky’s concern: “Are they going to kill me?” he asked. They are those who smear anyone critical of Israeli policy.

Anti-Semitism—A License to Kill?

To his class on globalization, Robinson provided an email link to a photo essay critical of Israeli policy that had been circulating online for weeks. When two students complained to the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), its attack troops insisted on Robinson’s removal while its national network urged alumni to threaten the withholding of gifts and bequests to the university.

Word quickly spread among academics nationwide. That time-critical ADL strategy silenced on-campus criticism of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Is it anti-Semitic to suggest that’s how anti-Semitism works?

When the ADL (Anti-Defamation league) intimidates on a national scale, does anti-Semitism morph into something even more sinister? The Gaza assault killed 1,400, including 400 Palestinian children. That slaughter was scheduled during America’s political and media “down time”—between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 inaugural of Barack Obama.

From top left: Tun Mahathir, Desmond Tutu, Cynthia McKinney, James
Carter. Bottom left: Nelson Mandela, Mearsheimer and Walt, William Robinson.

Is it anti-Semitic to suggest a strategic motive behind the timing of Israel’s latest barbarity?

Then there’s the motive for 911. Is it anti-Semitic to raise that taboo subject? Ask those members of the 911 Commission who objected—successfully—when the chair and vice-chair proposed hearings on the motivation for that high-profile provocation.

Instead, Americans were left to cope with the results of an overwrought reaction to an unexplained mass murder too quickly blamed on “Islamo” fascism. Only now can we see the full costs in blood and treasure of a war waged on fixed intelligence and false pretenses.

The fiscal tab alone is projected to top $3 Trillion, including the future costs of military pensions, disabilities, record-level post-traumatic stress, suicides and so forth.

All of the money has been borrowed, a first for an American war. The interest cost could reach $700 billion. Is it anti-Semitic to point out that debt is always the prize?

At the end of WWII, the victorious U.S. was home to 50% of the world’s productive power. Our bonds were guaranteed to be gilt-edged for at least two generations. Now we are widely hated, our credibility is shot, our credit rating is slipping and our economy teeters on a meltdown.

Is it anti-Semitic to ask, “What happened?”

Is it anti-Semitic to report that the so-called “mastermind” behind 911 cited as his motive the U.S.-Israeli relationship? Is it anti-Semitic to ask for an accounting of the “but for” costs of this relationship?

But for this “special relationship” what would be the current condition of the U.S.—financially, militarily, diplomatically, geopolitically? Would the computation of those costs be an exercise in anti-Semitism?

Is it Anti-Semitic to call for a New 911 Commission?

America was misled to wage war in Iraq. Who had a relationship with us that was privileged enough to succeed with such duplicity in plain sight?

Who had the means, motive, opportunity and—importantly—the stable nation state intelligence to deceive us from inside our own government? Is that question anti-Semitic?

We were betrayed. Does that betrayal trace to those who befriended us? We were defrauded. Does that treason trace to those we were induced to trust?

As counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (1980 to 1987), I crafted federal tax law that governs the bulk of funds under management. Those funds surged from $800 billion in 1980 to more than $17,000 billion by the spring of 2007.

The result created a vast pool of “money-on-autopilot.” Today’s consensus belief can be simply put: money should be allowed to pursue more of itself—freely.

The unspoken assumption is that money is smarter than people. That’s the generally accepted truth behind the finance-fixated obsession now known as “economics.”

Legions of consensus-touting consultants insist that this One True Faith must guide lawmaking worldwide. By law, financial freedom has now become a proxy for personal freedom. Tribunals under the World Trade Organization may yet enforce that worldview.

How did that narrow perspective become a widely agreed-to mindset? How were we induced to set America’s course by those values peculiar to money?

Rather than the civil rights refrain, “Let my people go,” the consensus refrain is “Let my money go.” Were we induced by a subculture within a subculture…within a subculture to freely embrace the very money myopic mindset that now endangers our freedom?

This mindset first surfaced as the “Chicago model” before morphing over decades into the “Washington” consensus.

How were we as a nation induced to brand American democracy with a point of view that, by law, displaces those values not denominated in money? Is it anti-Semitic to pose that question?

Shutting Down Debate

‘Favorite’ self-hating Jews From top left: Ilan Pappe, Mordechai Vanunu,
Joel Kovel. Center: Norman Finkelstein, Richard Goldstone, Ronnie Kasrils.
Bottom row: Kedy Epstein, Judity Weisman, Richard Falk.

Early on in this challenge, I included the noun “Jew” in a Google search. I received in return an automated response from the ADL implying that I was an anti-Semite. Why?

More importantly, how did a Google response appear in my email inbox—automatically—from the ADL?

The ADL now conducts trainings for law enforcement under recently enacted federal hate crimes legislation. By my use of a common noun in an online search, am I now identified in a database as wanting to kill all the Jews?

Mark Yudoff, president of the University of California, could have intervened in the on-campus events that caused Professor Robinson to fear for his life. He declined. Richard Blum, chair of the state’s Board of Regents, could have intervened. He too declined.

Judith Yudoff is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. Blum’s wife, U. S. Senator Diane Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Is it anti-Semitic to report these facts?

My apologies. Clearly I don’t yet grasp what anti-Semitism is. Thus I throw the challenge to you the reader: what is it? Together perhaps we can sort this out.

Jeff Gates: A widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates’ latest book is Guilt By Association —How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series. His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. For two decades, an adviser to policy-makers worldwide. Counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (1980-87). See www.criminalstate.com
Also See:

Jeff Gates – ARE HATE CRIME LAWS LEGALIZING TREASON?

Jeff Gates – TREASON IN PLAIN SIGHT?

March 10, 2010

Amazing! While in Israel, an American vice president explicitly condemns an Israeli decision to build yet more homes, 1,600 apartments, in occupied Arab East Jerusalem. “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” Joe Biden said. “It’s the kind of step that undermines the trust we need”. Yes, but…

They were only words. And they call to mind a comment made by Uri Avnery, the grandfather of the Israeli peace movement, in a piece he wrote for Tikkun on 23 September 2009, after President Obama’s call for a complete freeze had been rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

“There’s no point in denying it”, Avnery wrote. “In the first round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was beaten… In the words of the ancient proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Netanyahu has tripped Obama on his first step. The President of the United States has stumbled.” And Netanyahu had won in a big way. “Not only did he survive, not only has he shown that he is no ‘sucker’ (a word he uses all the time), he has proven to his people – and to the public at large – that there is nothing to fear: Obama is nothing but a paper tiger. The settlements can go on expanding without hindrance. Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them.”

Whether or not Netanyahu himself had advance knowledge of the decision to humiliate Biden is not the point. It is that Biden and so Obama were humiliated, the president for a second time. And that begs my headline question – Can he, Obama, live with a third humiliation?

If the history of previous American attempts to give life to a peace process is a good guide, Obama will have no choice but to live with a third humiliation, and no doubt others, at least for a while. An explanation of why is offered in the Epilogue of the forthcoming Volume 3 of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. (The Epilogue is titled Is Peace Possible?) Explaining why Obama moved so quickly with his demand for a total settlement freeze, I put it this way:

He knew something that all American presidents know about when serious initiatives for peace in the Middle East can and cannot be taken. (I know what that something is because one of them told me a few months after events had denied him a second term in office). Any American president has only two windows of opportunity to break or try to break the Zionist lobby’s stranglehold on Congress on matters to do with Israel/Palestine.

The first window is during the first nine months of his first term because after that the soliciting of funds for the mid-term elections begins. (Presidents don’t have to worry on their own account about funds for the mid-term elections, but with their approach no president can do or say anything that would cost his party seats in Congress. In Obama’s case that is going to be an extremely critical consideration because of the Democrats’ loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat, on 19 January 2010, to a Republican who had demonstrated his ability to read from Zionism’s script during the campaigning).

The second window of opportunity is the last year of his second term if he has one. In that year, because he can’t run for a third term, no president has a personal need for election campaign funds or organised votes.

And that calls to mind the words of an eminent Arab-American, actually a Palestinian-American, who knew Obama very well and, before the race for the White House entered its final, decisive stage, had private conversations with him. A few months before Obama’s victory, this gentleman said to a very dear friend of mine, “Don’t expect any real pressure on Israel from Obama until he is well into his second term.”

I am inclined to the view that after the mid-term elections of a second term, Obama could indeed be the president to do whatever is necessary to bring Zionism to heel in order to best protect America’s own real interests. But the prospects of him winning as second term don’t look very good at the moment.

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent

The National

April 05. 2009

Nazareth, Israel // The new administrations in the United States and Israel could collide over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, threatening to strain their close, long-standing relationship. The White House under Barack Obama has made conciliatory gestures towards Tehran, culminating in a video statement from the president a fortnight ago in which he appealed for a “new beginning” in relations between the two countries. But since Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israeli prime minister on Tuesday, he has preferred to highlight the military option as a way to prevent what Israel and the United States have claimed are Iranian plans to acquire a nuclear warhead under the guise of a civilian energy programme. Statements from Mr Netanyahu and his officials over the past few days have been designed to suggest that Israel is preparing to launch such a strike, even if it contravenes the wishes of the White House. The public differences between Israel and the United States on Iran have accelerated since Israel’s military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, published an assessment last month that Tehran had passed the “point of no return” in developing nuclear technology. He concluded that sanctions had failed and that, if Tehran gave the go-ahead, its scientists had the technology to assemble a warhead within a year or so. The US director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, has dismissed such claims as a “worst-case” scenario. The National Intelligence Estimate, the consensual assessment of the 16 leading US intelligence agencies, advised in 2007 that Iran had most probably abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, after the United States ended the military threat from neighbouring Iraq by toppling Saddam Hussein. The estimate’s publication scotched Israeli hopes that George W Bush, president at the time, would agree to a military attack. The Bush administration, nonetheless, maintained an openly hostile stance towards Tehran that accorded with Israel’s own posture. Mr Obama, however, has softened the US position, offering dialogue and seeking to ease tensions between the two countries that have dominated since an Islamic revolution overthrew the shah three decades ago. On Wednesday Mr Obama made a break with his predecessor by issuing a statement – jointly with Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart – recognising Iran’s right to a civilian nuclear programme. The pair asked that Tehran restore confidence in the “exclusively peaceful nature” of its project. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had strictly monitored the uranium Iran is enriching for its energy programme and could verify that none had been diverted to military use. The United States is expected to use the diplomatic track to press for restraint from Tehran, with the threat of further sanctions later in the year if it believes Iran is failing to comply. In opposition, Mr Netanyahu was outspoken in denouncing the Iranian regime. He compared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, to Hitler and repeatedly argued that Tehran was planning a holocaust with nuclear weapons against Israel. He was also dismissive of the existing sanctions against Iran. Analysts had expected Mr Netanyahu to tone down his rhetoric in office, particularly given the policies of the Obama administration. So far, however, he has chosen to do the precise opposite. A recent editorial in Haaretz, a left-wing daily newspaper, warned that Mr Netanyahu’s approach threatened to damage relations with Washington: “While the Americans are actively seeking a way to start a dialogue, Israel is preaching confrontation and the toppling of the government in Tehran.” Hours before he was sworn in, Mr Netanyahu gave an interview to The Atlantic, a US magazine, whose online article was headlined “Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran – Or I Will”. The author, Jeffrey Goldberg, called Mr Netanyahu’s “challenge” to the White House “unusually blunt”. He did not directly quote the prime minister’s warning, but reported his saying in their interview that Mr Obama “must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – and quickly – or an imperilled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself”. The article quoted an unnamed aide to Mr Netanyahu saying that Israel’s time limit for acting was calculated in months, “not years”, adding that Israel had the military capability to overcome Iran’s defences and might launch an attack even without a green light from the United States. Aluf Benn, a political commentator with Haaretz, noted last week: “Politicians in touch with Netanyahu say he has already made up his mind to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations.” This view was backed by Amir Oren, an analyst close to the Israeli military, who reported on Friday that Israeli officials hope to persuade the White House to turn a blind eye to an Israeli strike next year, possibly in the summer. By then the bulk of US forces would be out of neighbouring Iraq, offering fewer targets for revenge attacks. Israel, Mr Oren reported, would also have installed interception systems to offer a protective umbrella both against long-range missiles from Iran and retaliatory rocket fire from Hamas and Hizbollah, which Iran supports. Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in the Middle East, told Congress last week that Israel was assuming the worst about Iran. “The Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.” Although Israeli officials play up the supposed threat of annihilation from a nuclear-armed Iran, the major concern is that an Iranian bomb would end Israel’s exclusive possession of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and undermine its dominance of the region. Iran might then be able to force major territorial concessions on behalf of the Palestinians. Mr Netanyahu hinted at this during his interview. A nuclear-armed Iran, he said, would “create a great sea change in the balance of power in our area”.

Analysis by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem