Obama Administration Supports Israeli Crimes in Occupied Territories

Obama’s First UN Veto: US to Stop Security Council Calling Israeli Settlements ‘Illegal’

Jason Ditz,
February 16, 2011
Antiwar Forum

The Obama Administration is threatening to use its first ever UN Security Council veto this week when the Palestinian Authority moves forward with a non-binding resolution referring to the settlement construction in the Occupied Territories as “illegal.”

The case for the illegality of conquering territory, depopulating it, and building government subsidized, religiously exclusive cities over the ruins does not appear to be in serious doubt over much of the world, but of course it is a topic of debate in Israel, and like any good topic of debate in Israel the most ignorant and hawkish position has become law of the land in the US, to the point that suggestions to the contrary are considered outrageous. 

Which has left the administration offering to support a watered-down draft calling the settlements “not legitimate” instead, but skirting the question of legality.

Of course neither resolution means much of anything in the long run, settlements will still be built and the US will still throw money at Israel as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. The fact that the Obama Administration is willing to throw its “first veto” at something as frivolous as a dispute of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on settlements, however, seems troubling.

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Obama Warned Palestinians Of Repercussions if Abbas Goes to UN

By AFP

February 18, 2011 "AFP" -- RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories --- US President Barack Obama warned the Palestinians of "repercussions" if they pushed for a UN Security Council vote against Jewish settlements, an official said on Friday.

"President Obama threatened on Thursday night to take measures against the Palestinian Authority if it insists on going to the Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity, and demand that it be stopped," a senior Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Obama's remarks came during an hour-long telephone conversation between the two late on Thursday, in which the US leader tried to dissuade Abbas from supporting a UN Security Council vote due to take place later on Friday.

During the call, Obama told Abbas: "There will be repercussions for Palestinian-American relations if you continue your attempts to go to the Security Council and ignore our requests in this matter, especially as we suggested other alternatives."

He was referring to a package of incentives laid out earlier this week aimed at enticing the Palestinians to withdraw their support for the draft resolution on settlements which is being put before the Security Council.

After the Palestinians had rejected the initial offer, Obama rang Abbas late on Thursday to suggest that the Security Council issue a non-binding statement calling on Israel to implement a settlement freeze.

During the conversation, Abbas had rejected the offer, saying: "Stopping settlement activity is a Palestinian demand that will not be taken back because it was the reason the peace process fell apart," the official quoted him as saying.

"It was a decision taken by the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people are sticking to this demand."

It was not immediately clear at what stage in the phone call Obama had warned Abbas against rejecting the US overtures.

US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians stalled in late 2010 after the expiry of a temporary freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.

Efforts by Washington to coax Israel into reimposing a freeze collapsed in December, and the Palestinians are refusing to continue negotiating while Israel builds on land they want for their promised state.

The United States, which regularly uses its Security Council veto power to stop anti-Israeli initiatives, is very keen to avoid the vote because it does not want to be forced to cast a veto.

Should it do so, it would be the first time the United States has used its veto power since Obama took office in January 2009.

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U.S. veto thwarts UN resolution condemning settlements


Palestinian Authority leadership brought draft resolution against Israeli settlements to the UN security council, despite pressure from the U.S. to withdraw it.

By Shlomo Shamir, Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid

Haaretz
Latest update 23:19 18.02.11

The United States on Friday voted against a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as illegal. The veto by the U.S., a permanent council member, prevented the resolution from being adopted. (Editor: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and are patently immoral. It is outrageous that the United States stands alone in supporting Israel's crimes, a testiment to the power of the Zionist Lobby in America)

The other 14 Security Council members voted in favor of the draft resolution. But the U.S., as one of five permanent council members with the power to block any action by the Security Council, struck it down.

The resolution had nearly 120 co-sponsors, exclusively Arab and other non-aligned nations.

The Obama administration's veto is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world.

The U.S. opposes new Israeli settlements but says taking the issue to the UN will only complicate efforts to resume stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution.

Palestinians say continued settlement building flouts the internationally-backed peace plan that will permit them to create a viable, contiguous state on the land after a treaty with Israel to end its occupation and 62 years of conflict.

Israel says this is an excuse for avoiding peace talks and a precondition never demanded before during 17 years of negotiation, which has so far produced no agreement.

Hundreds of Palestinian protesters rallied in support of the UN vote on Friday near Ramallah displaying banners demanding: "Veto settlements. Vote justice".

Israel Looks More and More Like a Fascist Regime

Egypt's Revolution and Israel: "Bad for the Jews"

By Ilan Pappe


Is Arab democracy bad for Israel? (Matthew Cassel)

February 15, 2011 "The Electronic Intifada" -- The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are bad, very bad. Educated Arabs -- not all of them dressed as "Islamists," quite a few of them speaking perfect English whose wish for democracy is articulated without resorting to "anti-Western" rhetoric -- are bad for Israel.

Arab armies that do not shoot at these demonstrators are as bad as are many other images that moved and enthused so many people around the world, even in the West. This world reaction is also bad, very bad. It makes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its apartheid policies inside the state look like the acts of a typical "Arab" regime.

For a while you could not tell what official Israel thought. In his first ever commonsensical message to his colleagues, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers, generals and politicians not to comment in public on the events in Egypt. For a brief moment one thought that Israel turned from the neighborhood's thug to what it always was: a visitor or permanent resident.

It seems Netanyahu was particularly embarrassed by the unfortunate remarks on the situation uttered publicly by General Aviv Kochavi, the head of Israeli military intelligence. This top Israeli expert on Arab affairs stated confidently two weeks ago in the Knesset that the Mubarak regime is as solid and resilient as ever. But Netanyahu could not keep his mouth shut for that long. And when the boss talked all the others followed. And when they all responded, their commentary made Fox News' commentators look like a bunch of peaceniks and free-loving hippies from the 1960s.

The gist of the Israeli narrative is simple: this is an Iranian-like revolution helped by Al Jazeera and stupidly allowed by US President Barack Obama, who is a new Jimmy Carter, and a stupefied world. Spearheading the Israeli interpretation are the former Israeli ambassadors to Egypt. All their frustration from being locked in an apartment in a Cairean high-rise is now erupting like an unstoppable volcano. Their tirade can be summarized in the words of one of them, Zvi Mazael who told Israeli television's Channel One on 28 January, "this is bad for the Jews; very bad."

In Israel of course when you say "bad for the Jews," you mean the Israelis -- but you also mean that whatever is bad for Israel is bad for the Jews all around the world (despite the evidence to the contrary since the foundation of the state).

But what is really bad for Israel is the comparison. Regardless of how all this would end, it exposes the fallacies and pretense of Israel like never before. Egypt is experiencing a peaceful Intifada with the deadly violence coming from the side of the regime. The army did not shoot at the demonstrators; and even before the departure of Mubarak, already seven days into the protests, the minister of interior who directed his thugs to violently crash the demonstrations had been sacked and will probably be brought to justice.

Yes, this was done in order to win time and try to persuade the demonstrators to go home. But even this scene, by now forgotten, can never happen in Israel. Israel is a place where all the generals who ordered the shootings of Palestinian and Jewish anti-occupation demonstrators now compete for the highest post of Chief of the General Staff.

One of them is Yair Naveh, who gave orders in 2008 to kill Palestinian suspects even if they could be peacefully arrested. He is not going to jail; but the young woman, Anat Kamm, who exposed these orders is now facing nine years in jail for leaking them to Israeli daily Haaretz. Not one Israeli general or politician has or is going to spend one day in jail for ordering the troops to shoot at unarmed demonstrators, innocent civilians, women, old men and children. The light radiating from Egypt and Tunisia is so strong that it also illuminates the darker spaces of the "only democracy in the Middle East."

Nonviolent, democratic (be they religious or not) Arabs are bad for Israel. But maybe these Arabs were there all along, not only in Egypt, but also in Palestine. The insistence of Israeli commentators that the most important issue at stake -- the Israeli peace treaty with Egypt -- is a diversion, and has very little relevance to the powerful impulse that is shaking the Arab world as a whole.

The peace treaties with Israel are the symptoms of moral corruption not the disease itself -- this is why Syrian President Bashar Asad, undoubtedly an anti-Israeli leader, is not immune from this wave of change. No, what is at stake here is the pretense that Israel is a stable, civilized, western island in a rough sea of Islamic barbarism and Arab fanaticism. The "danger" for Israel is that the cartography would be the same but the geography would change. It would still be an island but of barbarism and fanaticism in a sea of newly formed egalitarian and democratic states.

In the eyes of large sections of Western civil society the democratic image of Israel has long ago vanished; but it may now be dimmed and tarnished in the eyes of others who are in power and politics. How important is the old, positive image of Israel for maintaining its special relationship with the United States? Only time will tell.

But one way or another the cry rising from Cairo's Tahrir Square is a warning that fake mythologies of the "only democracy in the Middle East," hardcore Christian fundamentalism (far more sinister and corrupt than that of the Muslim Brotherhood), cynical military-industrial corporate profiteering, neo-conservatism and brutal lobbying will not guarantee the sustainability of the special relationship between Israel and the United States forever.

And even if the special relationship perseveres for a while, it is now based on even shakier foundations. The diametrically-opposed case studies of the so far resilient anti-American regional powers of Iran and Syria, and to some extent Turkey, on the one hand, and the fallen ultimate pro-American tyrants, on the other are indicative: even if it is sustained, American support may not be enough in future to maintain an ethnic and racist "Jewish state" in the heart of a changing Arab world. (Editor: one can only hope)

This could be good news for the Jews, even for the Jews in Israel in the long run. To be surrounded by peoples who cherish freedom, social justice and spirituality and navigating sometimes safely and sometimes roughly between tradition and modernity, nationalism and humanity, aggressive capitalist globalization and daily survival, is not going to be easy.

Yet it has a horizon, and it carries hope of triggering similar changes in Palestine. It can bring a closure to more than a century of Zionist colonization and dispossession, to be replaced by more equitable reconciliation between the Palestinian victims of these criminal policies wherever they are and the Jewish community. This reconciliation would be built on the basis of the Palestinian right of return and on all the other rights the people of Egypt so bravely fought for in the last twenty days.

But trust the Israelis not to miss an opportunity to miss peace. They would cry wolf. They would demand, and receive, more funds from the American taxpayer due to the new "developments." They would interfere clandestinely and destructively to undermine any transition to democracy (remember what force and viciousness characterized their reaction to democratization in Palestinian society?), and they would elevate the Islamophobic campaign to new and unprecedented heights.


But who knows, maybe the American taxpayer would not budge this time. And maybe the European politicians would follow the general sentiment of their public and allow not only Egypt to be dramatically transformed, but also welcome a similar change in Israel and Palestine. In such a scenario the Jews of Israel have a chance to become part of the real Middle East and not an alien and aggressive member of a Middle East which was the figment of the hallucinatory Zionist imagination.  (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).

Staunch Zionist Congresswoman Jane Harman Quits to Head Wilson Center

"Jane Harman, the centrist Democratic congresswoman from California, is quitting Congress to take over the presidency of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars." She has been an aggressive supporter of AIPAC's agenda in the US House of Representatives.

Harman assumes the post currently held by Lee Hamilton who co-chaired (with Thomas Keane) the now discredited 911 Commission Investigation  and Report of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September of 2001.

It is unclear how Harman's new position at the Wilson Center might be used in service of AIPAC in particular and the Zionist cause of creating a Greater Israel in general.  Stay tuned...

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

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Anti-Bill of Rights Jane Harman to resign from Congress

Coto Report
Posted on February 7, 2011

Rep. Jane Harman, a blue-dog Democrat from California, announced today she will resign from office, to head the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Harman’s pro-business, anti-liberty stance is world-renowned. She introduced HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, otherwise known at the Thought Crimes bill.

In 2005, she voted to make the Un-PATRIOT Act permanent, but in 2010 opposed some provisions of the bill.

In addition to serving on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment and Subcommittee on Health, she also Chairs the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment.

AIPAC controversy


In October 2006, Time magazine, quoting anonymous sources, asserted that an FBI and US Department of Justice investigation of Harman was underway. The magazine alleged that Harman had agreed to lobby the Department of Justice to reduce espionage charges against Steve J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, two officials at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In exchange, Time said there was a quid pro quo in which AIPAC would lobby then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee if the Democrats captured the House after the 2006 elections. Harman, the FBI, the Justice Department and Pelosi’s office have all denied knowledge of or involvement with any investigation. AIPAC denied it had engaged in a quid pro quo with Harman. “AIPAC would never engage in a quid pro quo in relation to a federal investigation or any federal matter and the notion that it would do so is preposterous,” a spokesperson said at the time.

In April 2009, CQ Politics, also quoting anonymous sources, said Harman had been captured on a National Security Agency wiretap prior to the 2006 elections, telling an “Israeli agent” that she would “waddle into” lobbying the Department of Justice on the AIPAC case. Harman ended the phone call, according to CQ, by saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.” Harman denied the allegations, saying:

 “These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact. I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.” According to CQ, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pressed CIA Director Porter Goss to drop the agency’s investigation of Harman, because he wanted Harman’s support during the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, about to break in The New York Times. Harman called The New York Times and urged them not to publish details on the program. Gonzales and Goss declined to comment.

A strong supporter of the military, she rejects the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, believing “authorities” should read mail and email, tap phones, and conduct random searches without a warrant, backing the Bush regime while lobbying the New York Times not to run the story in 2004.

Armenian Genocide

Harman was a co-sponsor of the Armenian Genocide recognition resolution bill in 2007. However, while still cosponsoring the bill, she wrote a letter to House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Tom Lantos urging him to withdraw the bill. Her argument was that while the genocide deserves recognition, it was not a good time to embarrass Turkey given that country’s role in moderating extremism in the Middle East.

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Fein criticizes Harman over husband's rumored purchase of Newsweek

By Art Marroquin Staff Writer
Posted: 07/13/2010 06:52:57 PM PDT
Dailybreeze.com

Republican congressional candidate Mattie Fein has jumped on a rumor that the spouse of her Democratic rival, South Bay Rep. Jane Harman, is considering whether to purchase Newsweek magazine.

Stereo industry entrepreneur Sidney Harman is among the many suitors who have shown interest in buying the political weekly magazine since it was put up for sale by The Washington Post Co., according to a blog item posted earlier this month on Politico.

Fein claims the Harmans would try to kill stories that were unflattering to the congresswoman or the Democratic Party. She cited a similar instance in 2004, when Jane Harman urged the New York Times not to publish a story about the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program.

If Harman International acquires Newsweek, Congresswoman Jane Harman would be in the catbird's seat controlling the news magazine's reporting or editorializing because she owns millions of dollars of its stock," Fein wrote in an open letter delivered last week to Newsweek's managing editor, Jon Meacham. "That would bode ill for your reporters and editors," Fein wrote "Harman is an ardent foe of freedom of the press."...

Editor's NOTE:

Since the above piece, the Harman's completed the purchase of Newsweek.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

AIPAC Strikes Again

US House Approves Large Increase in Military Aid to Israel

Short-range missile program gets $205m. allocation in Congressional resolution.

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER

December 11,2010 "Jerusalem Post" -- -WASHINGTON – Despite freezing funding for most aspects of the US government at 2010 levels, the US House agreed Wednesday evening to increase military aid to Israel substantially.

Most significantly, the House added $205 million in first-time funding for the Iron Dome project, a short-range rocket defense system. The money was pledged by President Barack Obama last May, but had been stalled until now.

In addition, military aid allocations from Israel should increase from 2010 levels of $2.775 billion to $3b. for fiscal year 2011, while those for Egypt and Jordan will hold constant from 2010. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

That increase is dictated by the 10-year memorandum of understanding the US has negotiated with Israel, but it could have been frozen along with other spending increases since the House passed a continuing resolution for 2010 budget levels as a stopgap funding measure so government didn’t shut down, after Congress failed to pass a FY2011 spending bill through the normal process.

Other expenditures for Israel, including more than $200m. for the Arrow long-range missile defense system and the medium-range David’s Sling, will also keep the same amounts as their 2010 levels.

The continuing resolution with its increased funding for Israel was passed 212-206 by the House and still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by Obama.

“Given the scrutiny that our nation is appropriately giving to every dollar expended for all purposes – including the defense of the United States and its allies – it is a mark of the great importance of these projects that they were included in this funding bill,” said Rep. Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat, who helped shepherd through the additional money. “This funding sends a strong message, to both our enemies and allies, by providing more total dollars than ever before toward these rocket and missile defense programs.”

© The Jerusalem Post 1995 - 2010

"Racists and Hypocrites When it Comes to Palestinians"

Francis Boyle Tells Truth about Zionist Lobby Power



Harvard, Yale, NYU Law Schools all Zionist Controlled says Boyle!

Radical Zionist Congresswoman Increases Access to Media

The Harman's buy Newsweek

Non-Alligned Press Network
7 August 2010

For the token price of 1 U.S. dollar, business tycoon Sydney Harman and his wife bought Newsweek, assuming all the company’s obligations.

Sydney Harman amassed a fortune as manufacturer of high-fidelity equipment and chairman of Haman International Industries. He was President Carter’s Under-Secretary of Commerce in 1977 and 1978. At present, he is chairman of the Business Executives for National Security (BENS), chairman of the Aspen Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He is married to Jane Harman, California Representative (the third richest member of Congress in the country). This ultra-conservative Democrat is the appointed spokesperson for the military-industrial complex and an all-out supporter of Israel. She used her influence to inhibit an investigation into espionnage activities attributed to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ultimately, the Bush Administration failed to press charges against her to obtain her support during the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.

Israeli Occupation of Palestine

Occupation 101 Video (Excellent and Informative)



Editor's NOTE:

The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza are grossly immoral. Modern Israel was established and today is maintained by the use of ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs. It can accurately be termed an Apartheid state in which international and humanitarian law are broken on a daily basis by Israel.

The United Nations should insist that (1)the Jewish state accept pre-1967 borders and (2)Palestinian Arabs are treated as equal citizens with the same rights as Jews in Israel/Palestine. This should also be the position of the United States government as well. All US aid to Israel should be conditional and tied to Israeli acceptance of these two policy planks.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

More on the Zionist Power Configuration

The Israel Lobbies and Breitbartism: Dirty Tricks, Taboos and the threat to American Democracy

by Juan Cole
Informed Comment
Posted on July 23, 2010

Phil Weiss notes that another of the Dirty Tricks divisions of the Israel lobbies in the US, CAMERA, has denounced CNN´s Ben Wedeman for retweeting a post of mine on Turkey-Israel relations.

By the way, I am particularly proud of that posting, which examines the political economy of “re-Ottomanization” and Turkey´s emergence as a significant and independent player in the Middle East in the past decade. I haven´t seen a similar analysis elsewhere, of the way in which Turkish external trade intersects with its various policy initiatives.

Whenever a journalist is attacked for referencing an academic, it is an attempt to make that scholar´s work taboo and to forbid its public mention. It would be perfectly all right for an advocacy group to say “In that blog posting, Cole gets the Turkish economy and its impact on relations with Israel wrong for reasons X, Y and Z.¨” But CAMERA did not engage with my substantive points. They simply propagandized.

CAMERA wrote,

“Cole’s article claimed: “[Israel's] isolation derives from Israeli policies, of illegal blockades … and systematic land theft and displacement of occupied civilians under its control, along with aggressive wars on neighbors, which target infrastructure and civilians and are clearly intended to keep neighbors poor and backward. In other words, Cole and Wedeman promote the argument that Israelis send their sons and daughters to war not for the country’s security and preservation, but out of sheer malice. The Six-Day War, according to this view, did not stem from Egyptian acts of war and threats of annihilation. “

But the article was not about 1967. It was about now. The reference was obviously to Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, Mr. Wedeman specifically pointed to my comments on Israel-Turkish relations as what he found interesting, and did not anyway say I was right about everything. He certainly said nothing about the 1967 war (nor did I in that posting)! Yet CAMERA has invented such a statement and then damned him with it falsely.

Wedeman has risked his life to cover the Middle East for us for many years and has long experience of the region on the ground. The CAMERA offices are not filled with similar people and they have no idea what they are talking about most of the time. They have no standing to go after Wedeman. All they are doing is trying to mark him with a taboo (me), which is a fundamentally undemocratic tactic. Liberal democracy is about open discussion and substantive debate, not about saying “Voltaire cannot be quoted in the press because he was a harsh critic of the Christian Church.” That is the form of CAMERA´s discourse, and it is against everything the Founding Generation of Americas stood for.

CAMERA is not in fact an organization devoted to fairness in journalism. It incorrectly and dishonestly maintains that only the Carter administration ever said that Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank is illegal. Its members also mounted a covert and conspiratorial attempt to edit all Wikipedia articles to slant them toward a rightwing Zionist perspective, and they were banned from Wikipedia when the plot was outed. The organization occasionally succeeds in correcting errors, but only in the same way that a fanatical Khomeinist would easily be able to find and correct errors in US journalism about the Islamic Republic of Iran. It isn´t that ideologues want fairness– they want to impose their blindered narrative on everyone else. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The insidious damage that CAMERA and other such far rightwing organizations do to the United States of America is incalculable. They try to get journalists fired for not being as fanatical and narrow-minded as themselves, and they often succeed. We do not know their full impact because such decisions are taken behind closed doors by cowardly editors or corporate middle managers.

By accusing Mr. Wedeman of saying that all Israeli wars have been aggressive in character, when he said no such thing, CAMERA is functioning in his regard just as Andrew Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod. Selective editing of texts and videos, innuendo, framing statements unfairly, trying to make certain authors taboo, and other such dirty tricks are the bread and butter of the far right, because they do not have truth on their side to begin with.

Luckily, in this case CAMERA over-reached and as far as I can tell nobody cares what they think about my analysis of Israel-Turkish relations or about Mr. Wedeman´s citation of it. Nobody should care what they think of anything else, and should be doubly careful when they accuse journalists in future of getting some fact wrong about Israel, because they have repeatedly shown themselves dishonest.

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Sayanim: Israeli Operatives in the US

By Jeff Gates

July 20, 2010 "Veterans Today" -- Americans know that something fundamental is amiss. They sense—rightly—that they are being misled no matter which political party does the leading.

A long misinformed public lacks the tools to grasp how they are being deceived. Without those tools, Americans will continue to be frustrated at being played for the fool.

When the “con” is clearly seen, “the mark” (that’s us) will see that all roads lead to the same duplicitous source: Israel and its operatives. The secret to Israel’s force-multiplier in the U.S. is its use of agents, assets and sayanim (Hebrew for volunteers).

When Israeli-American Jonathan Pollard was arrested for spying in 1986, Tel Aviv assured us that he was not an Israeli agent but part of a “rogue” operation. That was a lie.

Only 12 years later did Tel Aviv concede that he was an Israeli spy the entire time he was stealing U.S. military secrets. That espionage—by a purported ally—damaged our national security more than any operation in U.S. history.

In short, Israel played us for the fool.

From 1981-1985, this U.S. Navy intelligence analyst provided Israel with 360 cubic feet of classified military documents on Soviet arms shipments, Pakistani nuclear weapons, Libyan air defense systems and other intelligence sought by Tel Aviv to advance its geopolitical agenda.

Agents differ from assets and sayanim. Agents possess the requisite mental state to be convicted of treason, a capital crime. Under U.S. law, that internal state is what distinguishes premeditated murder from a lesser crime such as involuntary manslaughter. Though there’s a death in either case, the legal liabilities are different—for a reason.

Intent is the factor that determines personal culpability. That distinction traces its roots to a widely shared belief in free will as a key component that distinguishes humans from animals.

Agents operate with premeditation and “extreme malice” or what the law describes as an “evil mind.” Though that describes the mental state of Jonathan Pollard, Israeli leaders assured us otherwise—another example of an evil mind as the U.S. was played for the fool.

Played for the Fool, Again

Pollard took from his office more than one million documents for copying by his Israeli handler. When those classified materials were transferred to the Soviets, reportedly in exchange for the emigration of Russian Jews, this spy operation shifted the entire dynamics of the Cold War.

To put a price tag on this espionage, imagine $20 trillion in U.S. Cold War defense outlays from 1948-1989 (in 2010 dollars). The bulk of that investment in national security was negated by a spy working for a nation that pretended throughout to be a U.S. ally.

Pollard was sentenced to life in prison. Israel suffered no consequences. None. Zero. Nada. Not then. Not now. Then as now, we were played for the fool.

At trial, Pollard claimed he wasn’t stealing from the U.S.; he was stealing secrets for Israel—with whom the U.S. has long had a “special relationship.” He thought we should have shared our military secrets with them. That’s chutzpah. That also confirms we were played for the fool.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how seamlessly we segued from a global Cold War to a global War on Terrorism. In retrospect, the false intelligence used to induce our invasion of Iraq was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or Israeli assets such as John McCain (see below).

Even while in prison, Pollard’s iconic status among Israelis played a strategic role. Was it just coincidence that Tel Aviv announced a $1 million grant to their master spy less than two weeks before 911? Is that how Israel signaled its operatives in the U.S.?

Did that grant have any relationship to the “dancing Israelis” who were found filming and celebrating that mass murder as both jets smashed into the World Trade Center?

Absent that provocation, would we now find ourselves at war in the Middle East? Surely no one still believes that America’s interests are being advanced in a quagmire that has now become the longest war in U.S. history.

“I know what America is,” Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israelis in 2001, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”

Let’s face it: the U.S. was again played for the fool.

With oversight by Israeli case officers (katsas), Israeli operations proceed in the U.S. by using agents, assets and volunteers (sayanim). Let’s take a closer look at each.

The Sayanim System

Sayanim (singular sayan) are shielded from conventional legal culpability by being told only enough to perform their narrow role. Though their help may be essential to the success of an Israeli operation, these volunteers (sayanim also means helpers) could pass a polygraph test because their recruiters ensure they remain ignorant of the overall goals of an operation.

In other words, a sayan can operate as an accomplice but still not be legally liable due to a lack of the requisite intent regarding the broader goals—of which they are purposely kept ignorant. Does that intentional “ignorance” absolve them of liability under U.S. law? So far, yes.

Much like military reservists, sayanim are activated when needed to support an operation. By agreeing to be available to help Israel, they provide an on-call undercover corps and force-multiplier that can be deployed on short notice.

How are sayanim called to action? To date, there’s been no attempt by U.S. officials to clarify that key point. This may explain why Pollard was again in the news on July 13th with a high-profile Israeli commemoration of his 9000th day of incarceration.

To show solidarity with this Israeli-American traitor, the lights encircling Jerusalem were darkened while an appeal was projected onto the walls of the Old City urging that President Obama order Pollard’s release from federal prison.

Pollard has long been a rallying point for Jewish nationalists, Zionist extremists and ultra-orthodox ideologues. In short, just the sort of people who would be likely recruits as sayanim. The news coverage given this Day of Adoration may help explain how Israel signals its helpers that an operation is underway and in need of their help.

Are pro-Israelis once again playing Americans for the fool?

When not aiding an ongoing operation, sayanim gather and report intelligence useful to Israel. This volunteer corps is deeply imbedded in legislative bodies, particularly in the U.S.

Thus far, this Israeli operation has advanced with legal impunity as the Israel lobby—though acting as a foreign agent—continues even now to pose as a “domestic” operation.

Morris Amitay, former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, explains how this invisible cadre aids the Israel lobby in advancing its geopolitical agenda:

“There are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill]…who happen to be Jewish, who are willing…to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness…These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators…You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.”

What sayanim are not told by their katsas is that an Israeli operation may endanger not only Israel but also the broader Jewish community when these operations are linked to extremism, terrorism, organized crime, espionage and treason. Though sayanim “must be 100 percent Jewish,” Ostrovsky reports in By Way of Deception (1990):

“…the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it could be to the status of the Jewish people in the Diaspora if it was known. The answer you get if you ask is: “So what’s the worst that could happen to those Jews? They’d all come to Israel. Great!” [Mossad is the intelligence and foreign operations directorate for Israel.]

Assets, Agents and Sayanim

Assets are people profiled in sufficient depth that they can be relied upon to perform consistent with their profile. Such people typically lack the state of mind required for criminal culpability because they lack the requisite intent to commit a crime.

Nevertheless, assets are critical to the success of Israeli operations in the U.S. They help simply by pursuing their profiled personal needs—typically for recognition, influence, money, sex, drugs or the greatest drug of all: ideology.

Thus the mission-critical task fulfilled by political assets that the Israel lobby “produces” for long-term service in the Congress—while appearing to represent their U.S. constituents.

Put a profiled asset in a pre-staged time, place and circumstance—over which the Israel lobby can exert considerable influence—and Israeli psy-ops specialists can be confident that, within an acceptable range of probabilities, an asset will act consistent with his or her profile.

Democrat or Republican is irrelevant; the strategic point remains the same: to ensure that lawmakers perform consistent with Israel’s interests. With the help of McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform,” the Israel lobby attained virtual control over the U.S. Congress.

The performance of assets in the political sphere can be anticipated with sufficient confidence that outcomes become foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. How difficult was it to predict the outcome when Bill Clinton, a classic asset, encountered White House intern Monica Lewinsky?

Senator John McCain has long been a predictable asset. His political career traces its origins to organized crime from the 1920s. It was organized crime that first drew him to Arizona to run for Congress four years before the 1986 retirement of Senator Barry Goldwater.

By marketing his “brand” as a Vietnam-era prisoner of war, he became a reliable spokesman for Tel Aviv while being portrayed as a “war hero.” No media outlet dares mention that Colonel Ted Guy, McCain’s commanding officer while a POW, sought his indictment for treason for his many broadcasts for the North Vietnamese that assured the death of many U.S. airmen.

As a typical asset, it came as no surprise to see McCain and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a self-professed Zionist, used to market the phony intelligence that took us to war in Iraq. McCain’s ongoing alliance with transnational organized crime spans three decades.

His 1980’s advocacy for S&L crook Charles Keating of “The Keating 5” finds a counterpart in his recent meetings with Russian-Israeli mobster Oleg Deripaska who at age 40 held $40 billion in wealth defrauded from his fellow Russians.

McCain conceded earlier this month in a town hall meeting in Tempe, Arizona that he met in a small dinner in Switzerland with mega-thief Deripaska and Lord Rothschild V.

For assets such as McCain to be indicted for treason, the American public must grasp the critical role that such pliable personalities play in political manipulations. McCain is a “poster boy” for how assets are deployed to shape decisions such as those that took our military to war. In the Information Age, if that’s not treason, what is?

The predictability of a politician’s conduct confirms his or her qualifications as an asset. They are routinely developed and “produced” over lengthy periods of time and then—as with John McCain—maintained in key positions to influence decision-making at key junctures.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was candid in his assessment four weeks after 911. He may have been thinking about John McCain when he made this revealing comment:

“I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.” [October 3, 2001]

Indictments for Treason

Are assets culpable? Do they have the requisite intent to indict them for treason? Does John McCain possess an evil mind? Did he betray this nation of his own free will or is he typical of those assets with personalities so weak and malleable that they can easily be manipulated?

As federal grand juries are impaneled to identify and indict participants in this trans-generational operation, how many sayanim should the Federal Bureau of Investigation expect to uncover in the U.S.? No one knows because this subtle form of treason is not yet well understood.

Victor Ostrovksy, a former Mossad katsa (case officer) wrote in 1990 that the Mossad had 7,000 sayanim in London alone. In London’s 1990 population of 6.8 million, Israel’s all-volunteer corps represented one-tenth of one percent of the residents of that capital city.

If Washington, DC is ten times more critical to Israel’s geopolitical goals (an understatement), does that mean the FBI should expect to find ten times more sayanim per capita in Washington?

What about sayanim in Manhattan, Miami, Beverly Hills, Atlanta, Boston, Charleston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Toledo?

No one knows. And Tel Aviv is unlikely to volunteer the information. This we know for certain: America has been played for the fool. And so has our military.

This duplicity dates back well before British Foreign Secretary Alfred Balfour wrote to an earlier Lord Rothschild in 1917 citing UK approval for a “Jewish homeland.” In practical effect, that “homeland” now ensures non-extradition for senior operatives in transnational organized crime.

To date, America has blinded itself even to the possibility of such a trans-generational operation inside our borders and imbedded inside our government. Instead the toxic charge of “anti-Semitism” is routinely hurled at those chronicling the “how” component of this systemic treason.

Making this treason transparent is essential to restore U.S. national security. That transparency may initially appear unfair to the many moderate and secular Jews who join others appalled at this systemic corruption of the U.S. political system.

Yet they are also concerned that somehow they may be portrayed as guilty by association due to a shared faith tradition. That would be not only unjust to them but also ineffective in identifying and indicting those complicit.

This much is certain: a Democrat as president offers no real alternative to a Republican on those issues affecting U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Today’s corruption predates the duplicity in 1948 that induced Harry Truman to extend recognition to this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation state. Our troubles date from then.

That fateful decision must be revisited in light of what can now be proven about the “how” of this ongoing duplicity—unless Americans want to continue to be played for the fool. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

____________


CROTCH BOMBER’S “RADICAL CLERIC,” ANWAR AL-AWLAKI WORKED FOR FBI
JEFF GATES
Veterans Today
February 6, 2010

Christmas Day Crotch Bomber Tied to Israel, FBI

“Agent Butler paid rent and cashed checks for the two hijackers while they were being advised by Al-Awlaki. What did Butler want to know? Was Ghazal funding Mel Rockefeller with whom he had traveled to Iraq in 1997. While in Baghdad they confirmed that Saddam Hussein had mothballed his WMD program after the 1991 Gulf War and that he was prepared to negotiate his departure—without this war. The FBI has yet to speak with Mel Rockefeller.”

The Christmas Day “terrorist” is the latest in a series of staged incidents meant to make The Clash of Civilizations appear plausible and “the war on terrorism” rational.

The storyline does not hold together. Not even a little bit. As usual, the source of this media-fueled fear campaign traces directly to Tel Aviv—with a supporting role by the FBI.

How did a young Nigerian Muslim without a passport “slip through” security at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport? Not only did his itinerary feature an illogical travel route, he paid cash for a high-priced last-minute ticket and boarded without checked baggage. How?

ICTS International, the security screening company at Schiphol, was founded by former members of Shin Bet, Israel’s civil security agency, and Israeli executives in charge of El Al security. ICTS had already proven its expertise in mounting this type of operation.

In December 2001, Richard “The Shoe Bomber” Reid “slipped through” ICTS security at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Huntleigh USA, an ICTS subsidiary, shared responsibility for security at Logan International Airport in Boston where hijackers for two of the four 911 jets “slipped through” airport security. It gets better.

The Crotch Bomber told U.S. authorities that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki counseled him on the incident. Born and raised in New Mexico, Al-Awlaki moved to Yemen in 2004 after advising the two 911 hijackers who trained in San Diego. He also advised U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan who is charged with shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009.

It’s not yet clear whether FBI agents were monitoring the Nigerian while he too was advised by Al-Awlaki. If not, that would be an anomaly in a repetitive pattern of FBI complicity.

FBI agents not only monitored Major Hasan and Al-Awlaki before the Fort Hood shootings, they also monitored the San Diego hijackers while they were advised by Al-Awlaki. It gets better.

Though the Nigerian was foiled while trying to ignite 80 grams of PETN, an explosive sewn into his underwear, that amount was barely enough to dislodge the arm on his seat – of course that assumes it could have been ignited.

Without a blasting cap, this “terrorist incident” was doomed to failure even before he “slipped through” security. Could this get even better? Oh yeah.

We were told about his father alerting the C.I.A. station chief in Lagos However we were not informed that his father, a banker, oversaw a Nigerian defense firm that hired Israeli Defense Forces personnel to train Nigerians—in security.

Nor were we told that, for decades, Nigeria has been a central hub for Israelis laundering the proceeds of their transnational organized crime. That’s not all.

The Iraq War Connection

Four days after 911, San Diego special agent Steven Butler came to the San Diego home of Iraqi-American Munther Ghazal, the Iraqi closest to Saddam Hussein then living in the U.S.

That’s the same day Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz proposed in a principal’s meeting at Camp David that the U.S. should invade Iraq. Iraq?!

Agent Butler paid rent and cashed checks for the two San Diego hijackers while they were being advised by Al-Awlaki. What did Butler want to know? Was Ghazal funding Mel Rockefeller with whom he had traveled to Iraq in 1997.

While in Baghdad, they confirmed that Saddam Hussein had mothballed Iraq’s WMD program after the 1991 Gulf War—and was prepared to negotiate his departure without this war. That was four years before 911. The FBI has yet to interview Mel Rockefeller.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects are once again profiting off the misery of both sides in a “Clash” that they played a key role in creating. It was Jewish Zionist Bernard Lewis who first coined the term, The Clash of Civilizations.

Only later was Harvard professor Samuel Huntington branded with that premise when his book by that name was published in 1996, five years before 911.

Israeli-American Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security (aka the rabbi’s son), now promotes firms that manufacturer highly intrusive body scanners that are terrific for spotting crotch bombers unless, of course, an Israeli firm is in charge of security.

News reports suggest that the stock of body-scanning firms soared $3 billion in value after this latest “terrorist” incident. Imagine the glee among clients of the Chertoff Group.

Meanwhile the U.S. has been transformed from the wealthiest nation to the world’s largest debtor. Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz projects a $3 trillion tab for a war based on fixed, flawed and outright fabricated intelligence—every cent of it borrowed, including $700 billion in interest.

Tel Aviv: The Common Source of Terror

That’s not all. Controlling shares in ICTS are held by Menachem Atzmon, board chairman since 2004. While treasurer of Israel’s long-dominant Likud Party, Atzmon was convicted of campaign finance fraud. His co-treasurer, Ehud Olmert, resigned as Prime Minister in 2008 after being acquitted of fraud amid multiple corruption charges.

Did I forget to mention that ICTS was also handling security for London’s bus system when the U.K. was targeted for its terrorist attack? Did I neglect to note that six months prior to the Shoe Bomber’s flight on American Airlines, Richard Reid was stopped at Schiphol while boarding an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. Shin Bet allowed him to board so he could be monitored in Israel.

Did the Israelis inform their loyal ally about Richard Reid? What do you think?

Remember the October 1983 truck bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut that left 241 Americans dead? A former Mossad case officer conceded they had a description of the truck. Did our ally tell us? What do you think?

Our withdrawal from Lebanon left the field open to those who specialize in displacing facts with what targeted populations (including our own) can be deceived to believe.

Recall our belief in Iraqi WMD? Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda? Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories? Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger? Iraqi meetings in Prague? All were false. All were traceable to Tel Aviv. Are you still having trouble connecting the dots?

As the U.S. sinks into bankruptcy, we are ridiculed abroad for failing to acknowledge the obvious: Americans have long been the target of a fraud operated by Israelis, pro-Israelis and those supportive of their goals for the region. (Editor's bold emphasis)

What better way to wage war on the U.S. than from within? How else can Israel expand except by duping its super power ally to wage wars for Greater Israel? Never mind the cost in blood and treasure. As an ally, the U.S. is easily portrayed as guilty by association.

Those promoting the Crotch Bomber scare are part of the problem. In the Information Age, this latest false flag operation is typical of how treason proceeds in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Those media outlets marketing this latest lie are an enemy within.

More Evidence of Zionist Lobby's Power: On With Creation of "Greater Israel"

They're All Grovelling and You Can Guess the Reason

By Robert Fisk

July 17, 2010 "The Independent" -- It is the season of grovelling.

Only a week after CNN's Octavia Nasr and the British ambassador to Beirut, Frances Guy, dared to suggest that Sayyed Hassan Fadlallah of Lebanon was a nice old chap rather than the super-terrorist the Americans have always claimed him to be, the grovelling began. First Ms Nasr, already fired by the grovelling CNN for her effrontery in calling Fadlallah a "giant", grovelled herself. Rather than tell the world what a cowardly outfit she had been working for, she announced that hers was "a simplistic comment and I'm sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah's life's work. That's not the case at all".

What is this garbage? Nasr never gave the impression that she supported "Fadlallah's life's work". She merely expressed her regret that the old boy was dead, adding - inaccurately - that he had been part of Hizbollah. I don't know what her pompous (and, of course, equally grovelling) "senior vice president" said to her when she was given her marching orders. But like victims of the Spanish Inquisition, Nasr actually ended up apologizing for sins she had never even been accused of. Then within hours, British ambassador Guy began her own self-flagellation, expressing her regrets that she may have offended anyone (and we all know what that means) by her "personal attempt to offer some reflections of a figure who, while controversial, was also highly influential in Lebanon's history and who offered spiritual guidance to many Muslims in need".

I loved the "controversial" bit - the usual "fuck you" word for anyone you want to praise without incurring the wrath of, well, you know who. The Foreign Office itself took down poor Ms Guy's blogapop on old Fadlallah, thus proving - as Arab journalists leapt to point out this week - that while Britain proclaims the virtues of democracy and the free press to the grovelling newspaper owners and grotty emirs of the Middle East, it is the first to grovel when anything might offend you know who.

For that was the collective sin of Misses Nasr and Guy. What they said might have made Israel's supporters angry. And that will never do. The reality is that CNN should have told Israel's lobbyists to get lost, and the Foreign Office - which was indeed upbraided by the Israeli foreign ministry - should have asked the Israeli government when it is going to stop thieving Arab land. But as my old mate Rami Khoury put it in the Jordanian press this week, "We in the Middle East are used to this sort of racist intellectual terrorism. American and British citizens who occasionally dare to speak accurately about the Middle East and its people are still learning about the full price of the truth when Israeli interests are in the room."

Which brings us, of course, to the Grovel of the Week, the unctuous, weak-willed, cringing figure of Barack "Change" Obama as he strode the White House lawn with Netanyahu himself. For here was the champion of the underdog, the "understanding" president who could fix the Middle East - finding it "harder that he thought", according to his spokesman - proving that mid-term elections are more important than all the injustice in the Middle East. It is more than a year now since Netanyahu responded in cabinet to Obama's first criticisms with the remark: "This guy doesn't get it, does he?" (The quote comes from an excellent Israeli source of mine.) Ever since, Netanyahu has been McChrystalling Obama on a near-weekly basis, and Obama has been alternatively hissing and purring, banning Netanyahu from photo calls, but then - as those elections draw nearer - rolling over and talking about how the brave Netanyahu, whose government has just destroyed some more Arab homes in East Jerusalem, is taking "risks for peace".

Needless to say, the only good guys in this story are the courageous Jewish Americans who oppose the thieves in Netanyahu's government and the racism of his foreign minister, the Ahmadinejad-like Avigdor Lieberman. And which Western newspaper was bold enough to point out that the house destruction in Jerusalem "effectively end(ed) an unofficial freeze of such internationally condemned demolitions"? The New York Times? The Washington Post? No, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, of course. And anyone who thinks Haaretz is alone in condemning the illegal actions of the Israelis should read the excellent Jewish magazine Tikun in the US, which goes for Israel's Likud lobbyists - for they are Likudists - like a tiger. Their latest target was Neal Sher, the Likudist who used to be in the US Justice Department and who is trying to persuade La Clintone to ban Judge Goldstone from America (where he holds a university professorship) for accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza. And whose government was it that also condemned Goldstone's report? Well, Obama's of course.

Looking back, the Obama grovelling started in that famous Cairo reach-out-to-the-Muslim-world speech, when he referred to the Palestinian "relocation" of 1948 (as if the Palestinian Arabs got up one morning on the birth of Israel and decided that they all wanted to go on holiday to Lebanon). But the moment the world should have got wise was when Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. A man of greater dignity would have acknowledged the honor of such an award, but explained that his own unworthiness prevented him from accepting. But he did accept. He wanted the Nobel Prize. It was more important to accept it even though he did not deserve it. And now? Well, we've all been watching the little groveler this week. Middle East peace? Further colonization of Arab land? Crisis in southern Lebanon? The continued siege of Gaza? Forget it. Think of mid-term elections. Remember the fate of Nasr and Guy. And grovel.

____________


Tricky Bibi

Israel has had many rightist leaders since Menachem Begin promised "many Elon Morehs," but there has never been one like Netanyahu, who wants to do it by deceit.

By Gideon Levy
Haaretz.com
Published 03:14 15.07.10 Latest update 03:14 15.07.10

This video should have been banned for broadcast to minors. This video should have been shown in every home in Israel, then sent to Washington and Ramallah. Banned for viewing by children so as not to corrupt them, and distributed around the country and the world so that everyone will know who leads the government of Israel. Channel 10 presented: The real (and deceitful ) face of Binyamin Netanyahu. Broadcast on Friday night on "This Week with Miki Rosenthal," it was filmed secretly in 2001, during a visit by Citizen Netanyahu to the home of a bereaved family in the settlement of Ofra, and astoundingly, it has not created a stir.

The scene was both pathetic and outrageous. The last of Netanyahu's devoted followers, who believe he is the man who will bring peace, would have immediately changed their minds. Presidents Barack Obama and Shimon Peres, who continue to maintain that Netanyahu will bring peace, would be talking differently had they seen this secretly filmed video clip. Even the objection of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to conducting direct negotiations with the man from the video would be understandable. What is there to discuss with a huckster whose sole purpose is "to give 2 percent in order to prevent 100 percent," as his father told him, quoting his grandfather.

Israel has had many rightist leaders since Menachem Begin promised "many Elon Morehs," but there has never been one like Netanyahu, who wants to do it by deceit, to mock America, trick the Palestinians and lead us all astray. The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist, and now he is again prime minister of Israel. Don't try to claim that he has changed since then. Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years.

Forget the Bar-Ilan University speech, forget the virtual achievements in his last visit to the United States; this is the real Netanyahu. No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he's even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse's mouth.

And how did he do it? He recalled how he conditioned his signing of the 1997 Hebron agreement on American consent that there be no withdrawals from "specified military locations," and insisted he choose those same locations, such as the whole of the Jordan Valley, for example. "Why is that important? Because from that moment on I stopped the Oslo Accords," he boasts. The real Netanyahu also brags about his knowledge of America: "I know what America is. America is something that can be moved easily." For the White House's information.

He calls then-U.S. President Bill Clinton "extremely pro-Palestinian," and says the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea. With such retrograde beliefs, no one can convincingly argue that he wants an agreement.

These remarks are profoundly depressing. They bear out all of our fears and suspicions: that the government of Israel is led by a man who doesn't believe the Palestinians and doesn't believe in the chance of an agreement with them, who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes. There's no point in talking about Netanyahu's impossible rightist coalition as an obstacle to progress. From now on, just say that Netanyahu doesn't want it.

What if Kadima joins the government and Yisrael Beiteinu leaves? Nothing will change. What if Danny Danon goes leftist and Tzipi Hotovely joins Peace Now? Netanyahu doesn't want it.

If he had said so honestly, as he did when he thought the camera in Ofra was turned off, then he could have been forgiven for his extreme positions. It's his right to think that way and get elected for it. The people will have gotten what they chose. But when Netanyahu hides his real positions under camouflage netting and entangles them in webs of deceit, he not only reduces the chances of reaching an agreement, he also damages Israel's political culture. Many people may want a right-wing, nationalist prime minister, but a prime minister who is a con artist? Is is too much to expect of Netanyahu that he speak to us precisely as he spoke in Ofra? Why do a handful of settlers deserve to know the truth, and not us? Tell us the truth, Netanyahu. Talk to us as if the cameras were off, just as you thought then, in 2001 in Ofra.

More Evidence of Zionist Influence over US Policy

On Being Led By the Nose:
The Unchallenged Power of the Israel Lobby

By JAMES ABOUREZK
Counterpunch
July 12, 2010

I picked up a copy of a memoir written by the long-gone CIA Director, George Tenet. On the first page of the book's preface, Mr. Tenet described what it was like on the day after the World Trade Towers had exploded as a result of the terrorists' actions on 9-11-01.

I quote Mr. Tenet here:

“All this weighed heavy on my mind as I walked beneath the awning that leads to the West Wing and saw Richard Perle exiting the building just as I was about to enter. Perle is one of the godfathers of the neoconservative movement and, at the time, was head of the Defense Policy Board, an independent advisory group attached to the Secretary of Defense. Ours was little more than a passing acquaintance. As the doors closed behind him, we made eye contact and nodded. I had just reached the door myself when Perle turned to me and said, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. 'They bear responsibility.' (Italics added).

“I was stunned but said nothing. Eighteen hours earlier, I had scanned passenger manifests for the four hijacked airplanes that showed beyond a doubt that al-Qa'ida was behind the attacks. Over the months and years to follow, we would carefully examine the potential of a collaborative role for state sponsors. The intelligence then and now, however, showed no evidence of Iraqi complicity."

The idea that George W. Bush's neocon advisers--Perle included--convinced him that the U.S. should invade Iraq received some attention after the Iraqi war started. But to my knowledge, no one, either in politics or the media, pressed the case too hard, lest they discover that those who wanted to invade Iraq had, not America's interest, but Israel's interest in mind.

There was never a threat to the United States from Saddam Hussein. He was a threat to his own people, but not to our country, a fact which became much more clear as the war went on. But Bush's critics stopped short of implicating Israel's interests as a reason for invading Iraq. A great many people believe, myself included, that Israel wanted Saddam out of the way because, while he was not really a military threat to Israel, he was a political threat. He was someone, like Hizbollah, who stood in the way of Israeli hegemony over the entire Middle East.

That desire by Israel goes a long way toward explaining why Israel has launched so many attacks on Lebanon and Syria. During the last several decades, Israel tried very hard to tame the country of Lebanon by using one excuse or another to invade that battered country. Each time, Israel came away without achieving its objective of control of Lebanon. It had installed Bashir Jamail as president only to see him assassinated during the confusion of the Lebanese Civil War. It conquered militarily the south of Lebanon in 1982, holding on to enough Lebanese territory to allow it to steal water out of the Litani River. By the year 2000, Hizbollah was strong enough to chase Israel out of Lebanon, remaining as a threat to Israel's hegemony from that time onward.

And Syria was warned not to get too rambunctious when Israel bombed Syria using one or another pretense to do so.

The most recent military planning by Israel to solidify what little hegemony it has over the area is the way it is shaking its fist at Iran, with the United States looking over its shoulder, adding weight to its threats against Iran.

What is different about this most recent threat is that Iran is no Iraq. Iran has the ways and means to retaliate against not only Israel, but against the United States as Israel's principal supporter in its efforts to tame Iran.

If we were to look rationally at the situation, we would soon realize that, while Iran is able to defend itself with the kind of military it possesses, it is quite incapable of invading another country, particularly one as militarily powerful as Israel. If we assume that Iran's nuclear program is intended to make a bomb, what earthly reason would it have to start a nuclear war against either Israel or the United States? Iran's leadership, while mouthy, and cruel toward its political dissidents, is not crazy enough to ask for someone to come in and wipe out their entire country, which is what certainly would happen should it start a war with nuclear weapons. Certainly, military and political people both in Israel and in the United States must realize this fact.

The most likely and rational reason behind such a nuclear program is one of self-defense against Israel, which has had a minimum of 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

What, then, is behind this most recent insanity by Israel's supporters in America and by Israel itself? We can almost certainly agree that Iran is another country standing in the way of Israel's desired hegemony. I've been told by those who should know that the publicity given to Iran's nuclear program is cutting down on Jews either visiting or emigrating to Israel. That is an economic argument that the United States should not enter into, especially by going to war on Israel's behalf. But it's clear that is what Israel and its supporters here want.

One wonders what to make of the American politicians who are very much like an echo chamber for Israel's talking points concerning Iran. Do they realize that by being led around by the nose by Israel and its Lobby is very much against U.S. interests? Do they realize that even if Israel begins bombing Iran, the United States will pay the price?

Do our politicians understand, that while it is good for their campaign contributions to be solicitous of Israel's objectives, it would be devastating for America to be threatened by even more terrorist attacks than we have been.What has been unspoken by the media and by political leaders is that our continuing support of Israel's objectives by not only financing Israel's military, but by invading Muslim countries for whatever reason only creates more danger for American interests?

This has been largely unspoken by our military and political leaders, but on occasion something will accidentally slip out, exposing the dangers to us for our blind support of Israel. George W. Bush, for example, blurted out, during a statement on the Iraq War, that it was not Israel's fault that we invaded Iraq. And lately, some of our generals are voicing their concerns about the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. But by and large, there is total silence on the issue by the media. Our leaders choose to remain silent on why our complicity with Israel puts us in danger from terrorist groups around the world, but plain and simple, that's what is causing the attacks on our interests. G.W. Bush tried to put a different face on it by saying that "they" hated our freedoms. We deserve better by our presidents.

It does not appear that any of our leaders, from President Obama on down to state legislators, care to rally solve our terrorism problem. (Last year, the South Dakota legislature enacted a resolution approving the 1998 Israeli slaughter in the Gaza Strip).

Iran has offered to join a nuclear weapons free Middle East, but it does not appear that our President cares to take them up on that offer. He would, it appears, need permission from Israel's right wing government to do so. After witnessing his most recent surrender to Netanyahu and his policies, it's not likely that he ever will join. For now, it is sufficient that a nuclear country like the United States can lecture other, smaller countries on who can and who can't have a nuclear weapon.

Are we asking too much that all nations foreswear possession of nuclear weapons, and not just those who are smaller than us?

Does anyone beside a few people in the United States see the danger to our country in being led around by the nose by the Israeli government?

____________


American Jewish Youth may Hold Key to Ending Radical Zionism


The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

by Peter Beinart
The New York Review of Books
June 10, 2010

In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus criticism of Israel. In response, he unwittingly produced the most damning indictment of the organized American Jewish community that I have ever seen.

The philanthropists wanted to know what Jewish students thought about Israel. Luntz found that they mostly didn’t. “Six times we have brought Jewish youth together as a group to talk about their Jewishness and connection to Israel,” he reported. “Six times the topic of Israel did not come up until it was prompted. Six times these Jewish youth used the word ‘they‘ rather than ‘us‘ to describe the situation.”

That Luntz encountered indifference was not surprising. In recent years, several studies have revealed, in the words of Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Kelman of the University of California at Davis, that “non-Orthodox younger Jews, on the whole, feel much less attached to Israel than their elders,” with many professing “a near-total absence of positive feelings.” In 2008, the student senate at Brandeis, the only nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored university in America, rejected a resolution commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Jewish state. MORE...

Zionist Update: Israeli Nuke's, Netanyahu, "Christian" Millenialism

Exposed: The Truth About Israel's Land Grab In The West Bank

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem and David Usborne

July 08, 2010 "The Independent" -- Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed.

The jurisdiction of some 200 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land.

Drawing on official Israeli military maps and population statistics, the leading Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, compiled the new findings, which were released just as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in Washington to try to heal a gaping rift with US President Barack Obama over the issue of settlements.

"The settlement enterprise has been characterised, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank," the report concluded.

Mr Obama's demand for a freeze on illegal building has caused months of friction between his administration and the Israeli government. But the US president, facing mid-term elections in November, appeared eager to end the dispute with Israel yesterday.

He said the country was making "real progress" on improving conditions in the Gaza Strip and was serious about achieving peace.

The two men made a joint public appearance, carefully choreographed to convey mutual ease and friendship.

When Mr Netanyahu last visited the White House, in March, US anger at his refusal to end construction meant the Israeli premier was denied a joint appearance with Mr Obama before the cameras. This time the photo-op was granted and the two men afterwards shared a meal – although not a state dinner but a working lunch.

"Reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relationship aren't premature, they are just flat wrong," Mr Netanyahu said, in response to a reporter's question about the perceived tensions. Playing to the same script, Mr Obama said that the "bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable".

But the revelations in the B'Tselem report suggest that despite Mr Netanyahu's stated desire for peace, his policy on settlements remains a dangerous obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and therefore to a durable peace.

They cast an uncompromising spotlight on Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories that have long drawn international criticism for establishing "facts on the ground" hampering the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

While most of the Jewish settlement activity is concentrated in 1 per cent of the West Bank, settler councils have in fact fenced off or earmarked massive tracts of land, comprising some 42 per cent of the West Bank, B'Tselem said.

And despite the outlawing by Israel of settlement expansion on private Palestinian land, settlers have seized 21 per cent of land that Israel recognises is privately-owned.

B'Tselem alleged that Israel had devised an extensive system of loopholes to requisition Palestinian land.

At the same time, Israel has built bypass roads, erected new checkpoints, and taken control of scarce water resources to the benefit of the settlers. The measures have effectively created Palestinian enclaves within the West Bank, the report said.

Under international law, any Jewish settlements built on occupied territory are illegal. These include all the settlements in the West Bank, and thousands of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, the Arab-dominated sector of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War. The international community still regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory. Despite firm commitments from successive Israeli governments to dismantle illegal outposts built after 2001 and to cease expansion of the settlements, Israel has provided millions of dollars worth of incentives to encourage poorer families to move into the West Bank. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank.

Settlers immediately attacked the report, claiming it was timed as a spoiler to the Washington meeting.

In Washington, no concrete breakthroughs were announced but Mr Obama said that he believed the Israeli leader was ready to move towards direct talks with the Palestinians. Indirect talks began earlier this year, mediated by special US envoy George Mitchell.

Mr Netanyahu showed signs of responding to the pressure. "Peace is the best option for all of us and I think we have a unique opportunity to do it," he said. "If we work together with [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas then we can bring a great message of hope to our peoples, to the region and to the world."

The Palestinians continue to refuse direct talks with Israel while new settlement construction is allowed. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) Settlement activity continues in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians aim to include in a new state.

With US-Israel ties already frayed, Mr Netanyahu postponed a visit to the White House last month in the aftermath of Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish-led flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian goods to Gaza.

For Mr Obama, the danger is clear that any long-lasting record of animosity towards Israel could translate into lost votes at the mid-term elections.


Norman Finkelstein: Results, Not Rhetoric

By GRITtv
Laura Flanders
July 8, 2010

Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussing their countries' foreign relations resembles two lovers discussing their future together. Though they have squabbled in the past over trivial things (things like settlement expansion that most other countries deem flagrant violations of international law), their July 6th meeting at the White House showed that their "unbreakable bond" cannot be shaken... Obama has certainly given enough lip service to settlement moratoriums, proximity talks, and direct talks, but what are the results? Since the Oslo Accords in 1993, there are three times as many settlers and Israel has annexed 42% of Palestinian land for even more expansion. Though Obama waxes eloquently about "direct negotiations," there are no signs of Israel withdrawing to the 1967 borders that would only begin to indicate a successful peace process.

Norman Finkelstein joins us (Grit TV with Laura Flanders) in the studio to report that one should judge the alleged "peace process" with results, not rhetoric.



Editor's NOTE:

The Laura Flanders interview of Norman Finkelstein above is excellent! Professor Finkelstein made several key points:

1. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords and the so-called Peace Process, Israel has engaged in a "Colonizataion" process not a peace process in direct contravention of international law.

2. The Blockade of Gaza is illegal. Under international law, since Israel is a frequent violator of human rights, all weapons intended for Israel should be embargoed not just items which could be used in weapon-making which are headed for Gaza.

3. The Obama/Netanyahu meeting was essentially a charade as there is no evidence that Israel intends to abide by the 1967 boundaries or to cease settlement building in the West Bank ergo: the "peace process" is going nowhere!

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


"Christian-Zionism" Is Trouble for Israel and the USA

By Frank Schaeffer

July 08, 2010 "Huffington Post" - -Some of the nuttiest American religious leaders today (and in the past) have latched on to one form or another of Christian Zionism. These days Reverend John Hagee (pastor of a mega church with thousands of members in Houston) is a leading Far Right Evangelical and ardent fan of Israeli expansion into the disputed West Bank.

And the bestselling books of the Left Behind series of novels have fed the Evangelicals' fixation on End Times prophecy and the "imminent" return of Christ. To put it mildly, the Evangelical theological/biblical "reasons" have deformed US policy and made America act against its self interest. This has also harmed the state of Israel.

Here's a story in the New York Times that handily illustrates the price both America and Israel pay for allowing Evangelical mythology to inform, or should I say deform, US foreign policy.

According to the New York Times, "Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank" (July 6, 2010), evangelical fans of the Apocalypse are hock deep in aiding and abetting illegal settlements while our government looks the other way!

HAR BRACHA, West Bank -- Twice a year, American evangelicals show up at a winery in this Jewish settlement in the hills of ancient Samaria to play a direct role in biblical prophecy, picking grapes and pruning vines.

Believing that Christian help for Jewish winemakers here in the occupied West Bank foretells Christ's second coming, they are recruited by a Tennessee-based charity called HaYovel that invites volunteers "to labor side by side with the people of Israel" and "to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in Yeshua, messiah."
...
"Israel exists because of a covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 3,500 years ago -- and that covenant still stands," Mr. Hagee thundered. "World leaders do not have the authority to tell Israel and the Jewish people what they can and cannot do in the city of Jerusalem." (Rapture [Millenialist] Dispensationalist Evangelical's do not recognize that Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection fullfilled Old Testament biblical prophecy and that the Church which he started is the new Israel thereby replacing the old covenant. The modern state of Israel has nothing whatsoever to do with the ancient peoples to whom God made His covenant. The predominantly Zionist [nationalist/racist] Israeli Jews currently inhabiting Palestine have no "right" to it. The ancient Jews who did have a right to the land lost that right and were dispersed in the diaspora due to their failure to keep the tennets of the Abrahamic and Noetic Covenants--Editor).

Conflict, Armageddon and the "End Times" is the Christian-Zionist agenda, not helping a child in Tel Aviv or Gaza live happily, have a normal life and walk to school safely. The Evangelicals who "love" the state of Israel would rather see an innocent Jewish or Palestinian child blown up in a rocket attack as long as the "Promised Land" is "fully reclaimed" to fulfill their harebrained ideas of biblical prophecy. With "friends" like the Christian Zionists Israel needs no enemies. With "citizens" like the Evangelicals rooting for Armageddon, America needs no traitors.

Hold the emails! The state of Israel has every much as a right to exist as countries like the United States, New Zealand and Australia where the land was also (relatively recently) forcibly taken from the previous occupants (which is to say no moral "right" at all especially without making proper restitution to those from whom it was stolen--Editor). And yes, Israel suffers from slander from many hypocrites in the world (Arab and otherwise).

That said, American Evangelicals have an unhealthy affinity with the idea of religion-based states. A bedrock article of faith among American Evangelicals is that America had "Christian origins," and that today America must be "restored" to our "Christian heritage." The "Puritan heritage" of America is constantly cited as evidence for our need to "return" to our biblical roots. (In order to "fulfill Biblical prophecy," so-called "Dispensationalists" have been working to ensure that the world's Jews return to Israel and occupy all of Palestine. Dispensationalists have been leading "pilgrims" to Israel ever since since Pastor Jerry Falwell's first visit in order to win financial and political support for the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.)

(Dispensationalism is incompatible with the Church that Jesus Christ started, is a relatively recent invention of Protestant Evangelicalism and in fact is not Christian at all--Editor).
As I discuss in my book Crazy For God Puritans believed that they were carrying "authentic Christianity" to America, especially as written in the Old Testament. They said that they were on a divine mission, even called themselves; "the New Israel" and a "city set upon a hill." John Winthrop (governor of Massachusetts Bay) transferred the idea of "nationhood" in biblical Israel to the Massachusetts Bay Company. Puritans even said the Bible confirmed their status as the New Israel!

It is no coincidence that the self-consciously religious states of the Middle East are in perpetual conflict with other equally religion-based countries, for instance Islamic states like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia (that postures as the keeper of Islam) and Iran are in perpetual conflict with Israel the Jewish homeland. And it's no coincidence that America has paid dearly in blood and treasure in one Middle Eastern-incited and/or actual military entanglement after another because of our theology-based relationship with the state of Israel as well as our meddling in the affairs of the Islamic states like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

What would you expect but conflict when modernity tangles with Bronze Age tribalism that's been given a biblical Evangelical "End Times" twist?!

As the Times story illustrates, Evangelical hardliners have a "prophetic" agenda when pushing Israel to keep all the West Bank and to be "tough on the Palestinians" that has nothing to do with what might bring peace (let alone justice) to the actual Jews and actual Arabs who are fated to be neighbors. Gleeful -- shamefully tax-deductible -- war mongering in the name of Jesus and/or "protecting Israel" -- from a safe distance, say from Houston! -- has everything to do with Evangelicals' ideas about what will hasten the "return of Christ" and nothing to do with what is actually good for the Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs, let alone the rest of us who long for peace.


Obama administration: Israel has right to nuclear capability for deterrence purposes

By Barak Ravid
Published 00:54 08.07.10
Haaretz.com

NEW YORK - The Obama administration has revealed to the public, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, a series of understandings between the two countries on Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" - which to date had been kept under wraps.



Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Blair House in Washington, July 7, 2010.

At the center of these understandings lies an Israeli veto on the holding of an international conference for a nuclear-free Middle East, as well as an unprecedented American willingness to cooperate with Israel in the field of nuclear power for civil use.

The revelations come in the wake of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference held in May, which called on Israel to agree to international inspection of its nuclear installations, and to the holding of an international conference for a nuclear-free Middle East. The conference's final document was passed despite Israel's strong protests to the Americans.

In talks since the conference, the Americans made it clear that that decision had been a "mistake." In an effort to clarify the administration's stance on the Israeli nuclear question, it was determined that - in coordination with Israel - the full details of the high-level understandings between the two sides, reached during the 1960s, would finally be revealed.

The understandings have been updated over the years, including during this past year.

Washington's aim through these revelations was to clear the air and correct the impression given at the May conference that the United States did not back Israel.

Following their meeting at the White House Tuesday, a special announcement was made an hour later concerning assurances given to Netanyahu by U.S. President Barack Obama.

According to the announcement, "The president told the prime minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs. The president pledged to continue U.S. efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel."

"The president emphasized that the United States will continue its long standing practice to work closely with Israel to ensure that arms control initiatives and policies do not detract from Israel's security, and support our common efforts to strengthen international peace and stability," the statement continued.

In the event that the proposed conference on a nuclear-free Middle East is held, "the United States will insist that such a conference will be for discussion aimed at an exchange of views on a broad agenda, to include regional security issues, verification and compliance, and all categories of weapons of mass destruction and systems for their delivery."

"The president emphasized that the conference will only take place if all countries feel confident that they can attend, and that any efforts to single out Israel will make the prospects of convening such a conference unlikely. In this regard, the two leaders also agreed to work together to oppose efforts to single out Israel at the IAEA General Conference in September."

Meanwhile, prior to departing for New York, Netanyahu met with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and presented him with Israel's security needs as part of a permanent agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Editor's NOTE:

As long as Israel continues to deny its terrorist beginnings and continued terrorist activity to date without having at least attempted a just compensation to the victims, it will never be recognized as a legitimate nation-state in much of the (Muslim/Arab/Persian world.

American President's and US administrations do not help Israel attain peace and security by cooperating with the Jewish state's denial of its trangressions. The latest statements by President Obama only serve to further complicate the problem. His lack of clarity and honesty on this issue is no doubt due to the power of the Zionist Lobby. Until its power is eclipsed, US foreign policy will remain counterproductive as far as the American people and those of Israel are concerned.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


An excellent Meeting

Published 00:54 08.07.10
Gideon Levy
Haaretz.com

Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps.

By Gideon Levy It really was an excellent meeting: The chance that a binational state will be established has improved as a result; relations between Israel and the United States are indeed "marvelous." Israel can continue with the whims of its occupation. The president of the United States proved Tuesday that perhaps there has been change, but not as far as we are concerned.

If there remained any vestiges of hope in the Middle East from Barack Obama, they have dissipated; if some people still expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead a courageous move, they now know they made a mistake (and misled others ).

The masked ball is at its peak: Preening each other, Obama and Netanyahu have proved that even their heavy layer of makeup can no longer hide the wrinkles. The worn-out, wizened old face of the longest "peace process" in history has been awarded another surprising and incomprehensible extention. It's on its way nowhere.

The "warm" and "sympathetic" reception, albeit a little forced, including the presidential dog, Bo, the meeting of the wives, with the U.S. president accompanying the Israeli prime minister to the car in an "unprecedented" way, as the press enthused, cannot obscure reality. The reality is that Israel has again managed to fool not only America, but even its most promising president in years.

It was enough to listen to the joint press conference to understand, or better yet, not understand, where we are headed. Will the freeze continue? Obama and Netanyahu squirmed, formulated and obfuscated, and no clear answer was forthcoming. If there was a time when people marveled at Henry Kissinger's "constructive ambiguity," now we have destructive ambiguity. Even when it came to the minimum move of a construction freeze, without which there is no proof of serious intent on Israel's part, the two leaders threw up a smoke screen. A cowardly yes-and-no by both.

More than anything, the meeting proved that the criminal waste of time will go on. A year and a half has passed since the two took office, and almost nothing has changed except lip service to the freeze. A few lifted roadblocks here, a little less blockade of Gaza there - all relatively marginal matters, a bogus substitute for a bold jump over the abyss, without which nothing will move.

When direct talks become a goal, without anyone having a clue what Israel's position is - a strange negotiation in which everyone knows what the Palestinians want and no one knows for sure what Israel wants - the wheel not only does not go forward, it goes backward. There are plenty of excuses and explanations: Obama has the congressional elections ahead of him, so he mustn't make Netanyahu angry.

After that, the footfalls of the presidential elections can be heard, and then he certainly must not anger the Jews. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is pressuring Netanyahu now; tomorrow it might be Likud MK Danny Danon, and after all, you can't expect Netanyahu to commit political suicide. And there you have it, his term in office is over, with no achievements. Good for you, Obama; bravo Netanyahu. You managed to make a mockery of each other, and together, of us all.

Netanyahu will be coming back to Israel over the weekend, adorned with false accomplishments. The settlers will mark a major achievement. Even if they don't not admit it - they are never satisfied, after all - they can rejoice secretly. Their project will continue to prosper. If they have doubled their numbers since the Oslo Accords, now they can triple them.

And then what? Here then is a question for Obama and Netanyahu: Where to? No playing for time can blur the question. Where are they headed? What will improve in another year? What will be more promising in another two years? The Syrian president is knocking at the door begging for peace with Israel, and the two leaders are ignoring him. Will he still be knocking in two years? The Arab League's initiative is still valid; terror has almost ceased. What will the situation be after they have finished compromising over the freeze in construction of balconies and ritual baths?

Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps. They have decided not to decide, which in itself is a decision. When the chance of a two-state solution has long since entered injury time, they have decided on more extra time. Get ready for the binational state, or the next round of bloodletting.