[Blunderov] Lol! What has Israel staunchly done for Canada lately? Perhaps I am ignorant but I don't recall any reports of any actual action by Israeli regiments on the frontlines of Iraq, Afghansitan or Pakistan during recent times.
[Fritz]Israel is one of only 4 countries we have a free trade agreement with. What that actually means I don't know. I can't imagine the growing Islamic community in Canada agrees with Harper, but again I don't know. Some Chatter on the subject:http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110402135656AAH80KC
[Fritz]Memes abound; Pour a stiff drink, light up if you got them; sit back - way back, before you watch this. (NOTE: hide any sharp objects and heavy items that could case blunt force trauma)
[i][Fritz]Israel is one of only 4 countries we have a free trade agreement with.
[Blunderov] I did not know this. Thank you for the instruction. I must pass on the chatter though - my blood pressure is high enough as it is.: I will gladly take your word for the contents.
Reverting to another facet for a moment. A good friend of mine has pointed out that nuclear weapons are strategic in nature. Essentially this means that, as the great Chess Grandmaster Nimzowitsch once remarked, "the threat is greater than the execution". Nuclear weapons are something with which states, or blocs of states, must reckon in their calculations of risk reward ratios. They are tools of foreign policy and are not applicable to domestic politics. As they say, you don't shit on your own doorstep. So unless some outside state actor intervenes in the struggle for Palestine, Israeli nukes will not come into play.
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #17 on: 2011-05-22 20:27:17 »
[Blunderov] let's take a sneak peek at the cards that the Zionists are holding - a rather sorry little collection of vegetables they are. No wonder Bibi blinked.
In 1918, the United States proved militarily decisive in the defeat of the Kaiser’s Germany and emerged as first power on earth.
World War II, ending in 1945, produced two truly victorious nations, the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin and the America of Harry Truman.
Out of the Cold War that lasted from Truman to the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of Ronald Reagan’s term came a lone victor: the last superpower, the United States.
Who emerged triumphant from the post-Cold War era, 1991-2011?
Indisputably, it is China, whose 10-12 percent annual growth vaulted her past Italy, France, Britain, Germany, and Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy and America’s lone rival for first manufacturing power.
If we use a metric called “purchasing power parity,” China overtakes America in 2016. Says the International Monetary Fund, the American era is over.
Strategically, too, the United States seems in retreat, nowhere more so than in that region that was the focus of George W. Bush’s “global democratic revolution.” And no nation reflects more the relative loss of U.S. power and influence than does Israel, whose isolation is today unprecedented.
A decade ago, Turkey, a NATO ally of 50 years, was a quiet friend and partner to Israel. Today, the Palestinians in Gaza view the Turks as among their staunchest friends in the Middle East.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt scrupulously adhered to the terms of his predecessor’s peace treaty with Israel and maintained the western end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Since he fell, the interim Egyptian regime has midwifed a unity government of Fatah and Hamas, moved to establish diplomatic relations with Tehran for the first time since the fall of the shah, and begun to lift the Gaza blockade. September’s elections are almost guaranteed to deliver to parliament a huge if not controlling bloc from the Muslim Brotherhood.
While the Brotherhood appears to be the strongest party in Egypt, it has held back from openly seeking the presidency or absolute power in the legislature. It appears to be playing a waiting game. After them, us.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader who had looked to President Obama to bring a halt to new Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and preside over peace talks, appears to have given up on the Americans.
Though the beneficiary of hundreds of millions in U.S. aid, he has entered a coalition with his old enemy Hamas, and together—if they can stay together—they plan to seek recognition of an independent Palestine by vote of the U.N. General Assembly in September.
The likelihood is that the overwhelming majority, including many of America’s allies, will vote to recognize Palestine and seat it in the General Assembly, where it can make demands on Israel, backed by U.N. sanctions, to terminate its occupation and vacate its national territory.
The General Assembly resolution will set as the borders of Palestine those that existed between 1948 and 1967. But, today, beyond those borders live no fewer than 500,000 Israeli Jews.
While the United States vetoed a recent Security Council resolution condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued expansion of settlements, we have no veto in the General Assembly. If Obama opposes the U.N. resolution, we and Israel will stand virtually alone.
Nor are these the only crises Israel confronts.
To Israel’s north is Hezbollah, which has become the dominant force in Lebanon. To the south is Gaza, dominated by Hamas, which has never accepted Israel’s existence. Israel has fought wars with both.
To the east is the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority appears to have given up on U.S.-sponsored peace talks. Beyond lies Jordan, whose King Abdullah rules over millions of Palestinians, who is under pressure to take a tougher stand against Israel and who has no love for Bibi Netanyahu.
And what happened Sunday on the 63rd anniversary of Israel’s independence and the Palestinian “nakba,” or “catastrophe,” where 700,000 fled or were driven into exile, is perhaps the most ominous portent of all.
Palestinian protesters approached the fence separating Lebanon and Israel and climbed the fence on the Israeli-occupied Golan heights to come and reclaim Palestinian lands. Fifteen to 20 were shot to death and scores were wounded by Israeli troops.*
Though the White House backed Israel, across Europe what Israel did to these protesters seemed exactly what the king of Bahrain and the president of Yemen had done to theirs.
Given the coordination of the Palestinian actions, we may be on the verge either of a Facebook revolution or a “third intifada,” an uprising by Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of descendants of the original exiles still live.
Such an uprising would divert the attention of Arab peoples from the failures of their own regimes and isolate Israel and her principal—indeed, only—ally, the United States, as they have never been before in the Arab world.
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #18 on: 2011-05-23 07:16:01 »
[Blunderov] Obama's speech to the AIPAC conference on Sunday was masterful. First were all the crowd pleasing platitudes which have served so trustily down the years (including a side swipe at Iran) and then he slipped them the bitter pill: that the times they are a changin'. Futhermore, Obama repeated, emphasised, - "by itself". He then skillfully segued back to the bonds of friendship and mutual interest which the USA and Israel both enjoy. (Bl. Especially Israel enjoys them lol! but O did not actually say this.)
I thought these excerpts were significant.
[Obama]"the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace."
[Bl. Translation: "is a huge problem because divide-and-rule is not working anymore."]
[Obama] "The status quo is unsustainable. And that is why on Thursday I stated publicly the principles that the United States believes can provide a foundation for negotiations toward an agreement to end the conflict and all claims—the broad outlines of which have been known for many years, and have been the template for discussions between the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians since at least the Clinton administration."
[Bl. Translation: "The Israeli strategy of endless prevarication about meanigful negotiations is not going to work anymore.]
[Obama] "Here are the facts we all must confront. First, the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian Territories. This will make it harder and harder—without a peace deal—to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state.
Second, technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of a genuine peace.
Third, a new generation of Arabs is reshaping the region. A just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders. Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.
And just as the context has changed in the Middle East, so too has it been changing in the international community over the last several years. There’s a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process, or the absence of one, not just in the Arab World—in Latin America, in Asia, and in Europe. And that impatience is growing, and it’s already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.
And those are the facts."
[Bl. The golem is at the gate.]
[Obama] "What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately. I’ve done so because we can’t afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades to achieve peace. (Applause.) The world is moving too fast. The world is moving too fast. The extraordinary challenges facing Israel will only grow. Delay will undermine Israel’s security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve."
[Bl. Yup. The golem really is there. Large as life and twice as ugly.]
[Obama] "Israel must be able to defend itself –- by itself -– against any threat. (Applause.)"
[Bl. Translation: This the beginning of the post-American era. Don't start anything you can't finish.]
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #19 on: 2011-05-25 18:00:42 »
[Blunderov] Bibi sets about the scuppering of the latest peace initiative as Israel always does. Israel is not interested in peace and never has been.
But my rant-in-main is this.
“Israeli PM reiterates that Israel will never* return to the boundaries that preceded the 1967 war.”
The fact that reasoning is not taught in junior school alongside reading, writing and 'rithmatic is, IMO, the reason why politicians can get away with this kind of rubbish all the time. Not even the so called educated classes have seen fit (if they even realise it) to point out to Netanyahoo (or anybody else) that nobody is asking him to get behind the 1967 borders. He is being required to negotiate upon the basis of those borders, (in accordance with the same international law that actually created Israel - legitimacy anyone?) in a spirit of quid pro quo. Is that so hard to understand? Why does he not get called on this elementary straw-man argument?
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #21 on: 2011-08-30 20:46:29 »
[Blunderov] Recently I saw a petition on Facebook to the effect that it was undesirable and grossly unfair to permit the UN to "unilaterally" (yes really!) declare a Palestinian state seperate from Israel. (Given that the formation of the Israeli state in 1948 was itself a very one sided affair involving, as it did, absolutely no votes from the Palestinians themselves, the complaint seems somewhat obtuse.) So, the message has gone out to the diaspora that all hands are urgently required to hasten unto the breach but, sadly for Israel, the world is showing signs that it is now weary of the same old hysterical Zionist posturings and may well ratify a two state solution. (Indeed Israeli emmigrations now exceed immigrations and have been doing so for some while). Israel is terrified shitless that a two state solution will be formalised because then it will be compelled to cease and desist from their pogram, err I mean program, of dispossesing the Palestinians entirely of any future, property or rights in the region whatsoever. They are so alarmed at this prospect that they are even prepared to pretend to negotiate some other solution - just so long as no actual conclusion is ever reached. The irony is that, should they persist in their habitual obduracy, they are doomed to eventually accept a properly democratic one state solution instead. The horror, the horror.
We are indebted to hermit.net for this report and analysis.
UN envoy Prosor: Israel has no chance of stopping recognition of Palestinian state
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office say Netanyahu is considering sitting out this year's General Assembly, sending Peres to face likely diplomatic barrage in his stead.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, sent a classified cable to the Foreign Ministry last week, stating that Israel stands no chance of rallying a substantial number of states to oppose a resolution at the UN General Assembly recognizing a Palestinian state in September.
[ Emilie wonders : And why ever should they? Israel is terrified of this move, and has infected the US Government with their terror for excellent reason - one not addressed by any mainstream media I could identify. Here is one part of the reason (Wikipedia):
The Court can generally exercise jurisdiction only in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council [ Emilie says : Which won't happen while the US supports Israel with her Security Council veto ]. It is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore left to individual states.
The Reason that the ICC terrifies Israel, and the USA, may be that when the UN General Assembly voted, completely without legal foundation, to partition the Palestine to create Israel in 1947, they effectively surrendered the "sacred trust" which the predecesor organization, the League of Nations, had held the Palestine for the Palestinians (with the proviso, inserted by the British, for a "home" (not a "state") "for the Jews" within the borders of the Palestine. While the UN went far beyond a "home" in partitioning the Palestine, it did at least set borders, and these have never been legally varied, even though Israel has engaged in widescale ethnic cleansing of the native population and alienation of Palestinian (and Arab) land, assets and natural resources. This means that, contra Obama's (and Israel's) assertions about the 1967 ceasefire boundaries, the 1947 borders (or, it has been argued, IMO not very convincingly given multiple subsequent on-point ICJ decisions, the 1949 cease-fire lines) remain the legal foundation for any border and reparition negotiations; as is the "right to return" - guaranteed to the Palestinians and their descendants by the UN in 1949, and insisted upon by the USA in 1952 - when the Palestinians were excluded from the rights granted to other refugees at the founding of the UN High Commission for Refugees. If there are no satisfactory negotiations, then the long ignored 1947 borders remain the current legal boundaries of Israel, the Palestinians continue to have a 'right of return' (to Israel as well as the occupied territories), Israel remains a scofflaw in contempt of hundreds of UN declarations (far more than Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea put together) and America is equally criminal in facilitating this ongoing breach of International treaties asceded to by the US - which renders its actions assisting Israel both unconstitutional and 'contra bonos mores'.
Following a finding by the UN General Assembly (which is how Israel was founded - so declaring a country founded on this basis 'ultra vires' would remove Israel's legitimacy too - a fact that may have eluded most US Congressmen - the government of the Palestine (whether PNA, Hamas, or maybe both or even neither, is up in the air (and this may suggest how Israel might respond - by continuing to ensure the impossibility of a valid government)) will have standing to act in court on behalf of the Palestinians. I hypothesize a sequence possibly including attempted suits against Israel in Palestinian courts, and a potential action before the US Supreme Court, demanding a writ of mandamus based on the sixth (Wikipedia Supremacy Clause) article of the US Constitution:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
purporting to force the US to begin following its own laws - and if they are (as would be expected) rejected - then relying on those rejections to provide unassailable justification to take the US and Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to obtain orders and reparations. Damages would likely be ignored by the US (and Israel), as the USA did with the ICJ's order for reparations after the finding that the US had engaged in terrorism in Nicaragua. This process might not work out quite as well for the defendants as it was for the USA the last time around, as the USA has now built legal mechanisms around the world to enforce financial judgements and seizures to assist in its insane "war on terror", which it may now find used against herself. An even graver peril for Israel would be if the Palestinians apply to have Israel's founding annulled by the ICJ on the grounds that Israel has signally breached her founding obligations to [Wikipedia]:
The UN followed the practice of the Peace Conference of Paris and the League of Nations regarding the creation of states. Religious and minority rights were placed under the protection of the United Nations and recognition of the new states was conditioned upon acceptance of a constitutional plan of legal protections. Israel acknowledged that obligation, and Israel's declaration of independence stated that the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. In the hearings before the Ad Hoc Political Committee that considered Israel's application for membership in the United Nations, Abba Eban said that the rights stipulated in section C. Declaration, chapters 1 and 2 of UN resolution 181(II) had been constitutionally embodied as the fundamental law of the state of Israel as required by the resolution. The instruments that he cited were the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, and various cables and letters of confirmation addressed to the Secretary General. Eban's explanations and Israel's undertakings were noted in the text of General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) Admission of Israel to membership in the United Nations, 11 May 1949.
Israel, particularly under Netanyahu is signally in breach of these obligations - and knows it. They are also aware that [Wikipedia]:
The consensus view of the international community is that the existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is in violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention includes statements such as "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".
At present, the predominant view of the international community, as reflected in numerous UN resolutions, regards the building and existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as a violation of international law. UN Security Council Resolution 446 refers to the Fourth Geneva Convention as the applicable international legal instrument, and calls upon Israel to desist from transferring its own population into the territories or changing their demographic makeup. The reconvened Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions has declared the settlements illegal as has the primary judicial organ of the UN, the International Court of Justice.
And this was without the Palestines having standing to pursue Israel in International Courts over these and other matters. Israel fears, with complete justification, that International law and opinion will be lined up against her. That she has brought this upon her own head may well make them even less disposed to liking the idea. The fact that Israel has already made a two-party state untenable without massive and politically unacceptable roll-backs, surrender of territory, acceptence of refugees and reparations that will move it from 42 wealthiest country (for her Jewish population) to somewhere much lower down on the list - even with continued American largess to maintain her socialist lifestyle, means that Israel will continue to fight peace on any terms until she figures out a "final solution" for the Palestinians. This step, accepting that the Palestinians have a state, will allow them to negotiate on mitigating the apartheid underwhich they currently cling to survival on slightly less unbalanced terms with Israel and should be supported by anyone sane, on the grounds that the alternative is apartheid and potentially genocide by one-side or the other, most likely by Israel on the Palestinians.
The media may understand this fascinating story and be engaged in suppressing it, or maybe does not understand it, and perhaps doesn't want to. Whatever the reasons, the complete lack of discussion on these issues means that anyone dependent on the media for their information is missing the entire reason behind Israel's blatant panic attack - and the USA's government's implacable opposition - to the Palestinian's assertedly "symbolic" gesture. ]
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office, meanwhile, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering not participating in this year's General Assembly. Instead President Shimon Peres is likely to represent Israel.
Under the headline "Report from the frontline at the UN," Prosor - considered one of the most experienced and senior Israeli diplomats - offered a very pessimistic estimate as to Israel's ability to significantly affect the results of the vote. Even though he did not state so explicitly, Prosor implies that Israel will sustain a diplomatic defeat.
"The maximum that we can hope to gain [at the UN vote] is for a group of states who will abstain or be absent during the vote," Prosor wrote, adding that his comments are based on more than 60 meetings he held during the past few weeks with his counterparts at the UN. "Only a few countries will vote against the Palestinian initiative," he wrote.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to contact the UN secretary general on September 20 and ask for recognition of Palestine as a full member state of the UN. At the Foreign Ministry, the assessment is that in order to avoid an American veto, the Palestinians will seek a vote at the General Assembly and not at the Security Council, even though the former is less binding. The vote at the General Assembly will probably take place in October.
Foreign Ministry sources estimate that 130-140 states will vote in favor of the Palestinians. A major question mark remains over the position of the 27 member states of the European Union.
The EU's head of foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Jerusalem today, ahead of a meeting of the EU's foreign ministers on September 3.
A senior source at the Foreign Ministry, which is busy trying to foil the Palestinian move at the UN, said that so far only five western countries have promised Israel they would vote against recognition of a Palestinian state - the U.S., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
"Most western countries will not be willing to be in the hall and vote against a Palestinian state," the senior Foreign Ministry source said.
However, the stance of the four European countries may change in line with the wording of the resolution that the Palestinians will propose. If the text is moderate and includes the possibility of returning to the negotiating table immediately following the vote at the UN, these four states may alter their opposition and abstain.
At the Foreign Ministry they believe the EU's 27 member states will be split between a large group that will support the Palestinians and two smaller groups that will abstain and oppose the resolution.
The Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said over the weekend that the Palestinian Authority is close to gaining the support of 130 states which will recognize a Palestinian state. This follows the recent recognition of a Palestinian state by Honduras and El Salvador.
China also announced it will support the Palestinian resolution at the UN.
The Palestinians estimate that Guatemala and several Caribbean island-states will also announce their recognition of a Palestinian state in coming weeks. Israel is continuing its international campaign to avert support for the resolution and a number of ministers are being dispatched to Africa and Asia.
Nonetheless, it appears that Benjamin Netanyahu has given up on the effort with his decision to avoid the UN General Assembly next month. "At this time the PM does not believe that his trip to the UN will contribute to a change in the vote on the resolution for Palestinian state recognition," one of Netanyahu's advisers said.
President Peres is probably going to take Netanyahu's place. Lieberman, who will also travel to the UN, recommended to the PM that Peres address the General Assembly, so that the Israeli position which will be heard at the UN will be as conciliatory and moderate as possible. Most senior Israeli officials believe that Israel should treat the UN vote as it did the Goldstone Report - as something unavoidable which must be condemned. A smaller group of officials, which includes foreign ministry officials, Shin Bet and IDF planning officers, believe Israel should try to influence the language of the resolution, aiming at a resumption of negotiations after the vote.
[ Emilie says : The Palestinians may well acede to such a condition, after all, it has not been the Palestinians who have deliberately engineered the repeated failure of negotiations. But the Palestinians would be idiots if they returned to the table to negotiations based on the Oslo accords (which were, in any case, massively biased against them) after Israel has spent the past 50 years and vast amounts of money rewriting the "facts on the ground" as shown by the adjacent maps. ]
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #22 on: 2011-09-13 05:08:40 »
[Blunderov] The Zionist strategy of "Shooting and crying" is proving less effective now than formerly: seemingly, 60 years on, there is a certain holocaust weariness abroad. Upon reflection, this is not surprising. Apparently the downside of claiming The Holcaust for Israel's own exclusive cultural property (many, many non-Jews were also murdered by the Nazis) is that it can come to be perceived as arrogant, facile and self serving. Israel has historically been most vociferous about Jewish rights but not so much about the rights of others and as regards the Palestinians, well, not at all.
If Israel is to survive it will (IMHO) need to acquire a new raison detre: one that (I would suggest) is inclusive of being in, of and for the world as opposed to being exceptional to it.
Recent developments suggest that the Golem is now roaring at the gate.
Israel and Turkey: How a Close Relationship Disintegrated Posted by Karl Vick Monday, September 12, 2011 at 1:08 pm
<snip>Pro-Islamic Turks stage a protest to show their solidarity with Palestinians and to protest against Israel on the "Jerusalem Day" outside the Israeli embassy residence in Ankara on August 26, 2011. (Photo: Adem Altan / AFP / Getty Images) Many are the challenges facing Israel on the cusp of a new season.
The Palestinians' approach to the United Nations for statehood looms. The bid, set for Sept. 21, bears down on Jerusalem with the certainty of an autumn chill.
The weekend desecration of the Israeli embassy by a Cairean mob was one of those shocks that is not quite a surprise, given the longstanding antipathy of the Egyptian public toward the Jewish State. More telling was the response of the Egypt's military rulers, who according to Israeli officials went missing during the hours that mobs laid siege as Israeli guards awaited rescue from Egyptian commandos who didn't show up til 4 a.m. How fraught are relations between Egypt and Israel? On Sunday, an Israeli army vehicle patrolling near the site of the Aug. 18 terror attack near the resort city of Eilat took fire from the Egyptian side of the border. The Israelis did not return fire. Who knew who was shooting at them?
And yet, the trash talk with Turkey qualifies in many ways as the great crisis of the moment. It's not just that Turkey's Prime Minister was threatening to send warships to confront the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, calling the 2010 deaths of eight Turks at the hands of Israeli commandos "a casus belli," or act of war. Nor is it reports that, in response, Israel's reliably bellicose Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, mulled aloud about reaching out to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK — regarded by the U.S. as a terrorist organization — just to mess with the Turks.
It's that, not five years ago, these two countries were not merely allies, but strategic allies, the kind a nation forms a foreign policy around.</snip>
<snip>Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg reports that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (2006-2011) strongly criticized PM Netanyahu at a meeting of the U.S.'s National Security Council Principals Committee. Goldberg's article is scant on actual quotes, unfortunately, but he reports that:
"Senior administration officials told me that Gates argued to the president directly that Netanyahu is not only ungrateful, but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank."</snip>
US told: support Palestinian UN bid or risk 'toxic' reputation in Arab world
Edited on Mon Sep-12-11 12:59 PM by G_j Source: Guardian UK
US told: support Palestinian UN bid or risk 'toxic' reputation in Arab world
Ex-Saudi ambassador to Washington says US will jeopardise position with Arab allies if it votes against membership proposal
Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 September 2011 17.15 BST
A former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence and ex-ambassador to Washington, Turki al-Faisal, has warned that an American veto of Palestinian membership of the United Nations would end the "special relationship" between the two countries, and make the US "toxic" in the Arab world.
The warning comes as Washington is scrambling to avoid a scenario where it alone casts a veto in the UN security council against the Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood, which is expected to be formally requested next week. The US is putting considerable pressure on the Palestinians not to submit the request, and on Britain – the only other permanent member of the security council that has not publicly supported the Palestinian request – to also exercise its veto if necessary.
Al-Faisal says in an article in the New York Times that the US will jeopardise its close ties with Saudi Arabia and further undermine its position in a changing Arab world if it again sides with Israel.
"The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region," al-Faisal says.
Published on Monday, September 12, 2011 by the Guardian/UK
UN Recognition of a Palestinian State Receives Public Approval in Europe
Polls in France, UK and Germany show the majority of people back recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN
by Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
The majority of people in the UK, France and Germany want their governments to vote in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state if a resolution is brought before the United Nations in the next few weeks, according to an opinion poll.
Portraits of youths pasted on the West Bank barrier show the flags of countries backing the Palestinian bid for statehood. Photograph: Darren Whiteside/Reuters The three European countries are seen as crucial votes in the battle over the Palestinians' bid for statehood at the UN, which meets next week. All three are pressing for a return to peace negotiations as an alternative to pursuing the statehood strategy, but they have not declared their intentions if it comes to a UN vote.
[Bl.] Either way the looming vote at the UN promises to be a watershed in ME political dynamics. Probably the US and the UK will indeed veto but that will come at a heavy price and it is just possible Israel will, for once, be expected by it's allies to bear some of the expense itself. With a bit of luck this might take the form of sincere and meaningful Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians.
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #23 on: 2011-09-13 13:52:04 »
[Blunderov] The USA finds itself on the horns of it's contradictory, if expedient, allegiances. The impression gained is one not so much of foreign affairs as one of international bigamy. It's all rather lulzy.
Attack on Israeli embassy, talk in Turkey raise concern over regional stability
The simultaneous trouble between the Jewish state and two Muslim nations that have been a security and diplomatic bulwark for Israel comes as the Palestinians prepare to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations this month. The U.N. action, which the U.S. has fought without success, is likely to further complicate peace efforts, leave Israel even more isolated and force the Obama administration into the uncomfortable position of appearing to side with Israel over other allies and partners.
Story: Beyond Cairo, Israel sensing a wider siege
A flurry of weekend phone calls among President Barack Obama, his top national security aides and their Israeli, Egyptian and regional counterparts over Friday's assault on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo underscored U.S. concerns about developments. The attack could have jeopardized the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal, which has been a bedrock of Mideast stability for three decades. Along with the Egypt-Israel concerns, U.S. officials worry about recent tough talk from Turkey about the slide in its relations with Israel.
Obama personally reassured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of U.S. support in a Friday phone as Egyptian protesters sacked Israel's embassy. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke twice to Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammed Amr to remind him of Egypt's obligation to protect diplomatic property and personnel as well as to emphasize the importance the United States places on Egyptian-Israeli peace.
Story: Israeli PM condemns embassy attack in Cairo
The State Department said the administration was "gratified" by statements from both Israeli and Egyptian officials seeking to ease tensions. But officials left no doubt as to the seriousness of the matter and its implications, particularly given the already precarious nature of the Israel's relationship with Turkey and the impending Palestinian bid at the U.N.
Grave concern over embassy attack
Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the embassy attack an "extreme" and "very serious incident" that prompted grave concern at the highest levels of the administration.
"It's not simply about this isolated incident; it's about the importance of maintaining stability and peace across the region not only day to day, week to week, but month to month, which takes us back to the messages that we've been sending on the way to the meetings in New York next week," she told reporters, referring to the annual U.N. General Assembly session that begins Sept. 20.
In addition to Obama's call to Netanyahu on Friday and Clinton's calls to Amr, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian military leader Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi on Friday, the Pentagon said. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Israeli counterpart on Friday and his Egyptian counterpart on Sunday.
Story: Egypt's military and protesters move farther apart
As those calls progressed, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, spoke with the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council and senior officials from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
"Our hope is to avoid any spillover into the larger region," Nuland said. "The fact that both the Egyptian and the Israeli governments spoke strongly about the importance of bringing this situation under control and the fact that it has now been brought under control gives us some hope going forward. But, obviously, we all need to be vigilant."
Feltman urged each official to counsel calm and encourage a return to a situation "where Egypt and Israel could be confident in their relationship (and) could be confident in the agreements that they have with each other," Nuland said.
It is "important not simply to settle the immediate problem of security around the Israeli mission in Cairo but also with regard to the region as a whole as we move into a very complicated period heading towards the meetings in New York."
US vows veto of Palestinian state
The administration has threatened to veto a Palestinian statehood resolution at the U.N. Security Council but it cannot kill the move in the larger General Assembly, where passage is all but assured. Approval of Palestinian statehood by the General Assembly would be largely symbolic, but it would validate the Palestinian argument that it must go ahead on its own rather than wait for Israel to strike a deal over borders and other issues that have held up statehood for years. Israel and the U.S. maintain that Palestinian statehood is their goal but that it must be reached through negotiation.
"A unilateral Palestinian effort to achieve statehood at the U.N. would be counterproductive," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday. "Even if these actions are well-intentioned, they will not achieve statehood."
Direct negotiations, Carney said, are "the only path to the kind of solution that the Palestinians rightfully want and that the Israelis rightfully want. You have to do it through direct negotiations. You won't get it through the U.N."
Both Egypt and Turkey are likely to side with the Palestinians, leaving the U.S. and only a handful of other nations taking Israel's side.
Administration officials continue to press the Palestinians to drop their U.N. aspirations for an alternative, possibly a statement of support from the international diplomatic quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. However, in a blow to quartet unity, Russia said Monday it would support any Palestinian effort at the United Nations. Further complicating matters, an influential former Saudi diplomat said his country's relations with the U.S. would suffer if Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution.
Into this mix, Israeli-Turkish relations have plummeted in recent weeks as Israel has refused Turkish demands for an apology over its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last year that killed eight Turks and a Turkish American on board a Turkish ship trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that the raid was "cause for war" but added that his country showed "patience" and refrained from taking any action.
But this month, Turkey suspended its military ties with Israel, expelled top Israeli diplomats, pledged to campaign in support of the Palestinians' statehood bid and vowed to send the Turkish navy to escort Gaza-bound aid ships in the future.
[Bl.] Not so much chatter about Iran lately we notice. Seemingly everybody has enough to chew on for now. Again the lulz are there for all to see. The way it looks, the West needs to be a lot more afraid of it's own nuclear installations than it does of Iran's. More proof, if it were needed, that the irony particle is real
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #24 on: 2011-09-16 03:56:20 »
[Blunderov] On the subject of the ME "chessboard": in chess when one has a good game it is not always necessary to find the absolutely best continuation, one may win one way or one may win another. (The thing to do is not to waste too much time on the clock in making up one's mind.) But when one has a bad game, fine evaluation becomes critical. When all options are discouraging it is vital to find those nuances which offer some prospect of keeping any sort of foothold in the game at all. This is difficult to do well and requires supremely steady nerves.
The USA and Israel find themselves with a very shaky game at the moment.
by Pepe Escobar Global Research, September 15, 2011 Asian Times
Finally. Crystal clear. Someone finally said it - what the whole world, except Washington and Tel Aviv, knows in its collective heart; the recognition of a Palestinian state is "not an option but an obligation".
It did wonders that the man who said it was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Cairo, at the Arab League, in front of all Arab foreign ministers and with virtually the whole Arab world glued to satellite networks scrutinizing his every word.
The current Erdogan Arab Spring tour - as it was billed by the Turkish press - comprising Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, has already rocketed him to the status of a geopolitical cross between U2's Bono and Barcelona's superstar Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.
Erdogan received a rock/soccer star welcome at Cairo's airport - complete with "Hero Erdogan" banners brandished by the Muslim Brotherhood. He even addressed the crowd in Arabic (from "Greetings to the Egyptian youth and people, how are you?" to "Peace be upon you").
Erdogan repeatedly stressed, "Egypt and Turkey are hand-in-hand." But it's the subtext that is even more incendiary. While Israel's former good friends Egypt and Turkey are now hand-in-hand, Israel is left isolated facing a wall. There could not be a more earth-shattering development in the Levant - unheard of since the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978.
A model campaigner
Erdogan's tour is a realpolitik master class. He's positioning Turkey as the forefront supporter of the Palestinian cause. He's also positioning Turkey at the core of the Arab Spring - as a supporter and as an inspirational model, even though there have been no full-fledged revolutions so far. He's emphasizing solid Turkish-Arab unity - for instance planning a strategic cooperation council between Egypt and Turkey.
Plus the whole thing makes good business sense. Erdogan's caravan includes six ministers and nearly 200 Turkish businessmen - bent on investing heavily all across northern Africa. In Egypt, they may not match the billions of dollars already committed by the House of Saud to the military junta led by Air Marshall Mohammed Tantawi. But in 2010, Turkish trade with the Middle East and North Africa was already at $30 billion, representing 27% of Turkish exports. Over 250 Turkish companies have already invested $1.5 billion in Egypt.
Crucially, Erdogan told Egyptian TV channel Dream, "Do not be wary of secularism. I hope there will be a secular state in Egypt." Erdogan was subtly referring to Turkey's secular constitution; and at the same time he was very careful to remind Egyptians that secularism is compatible with Islam.
The current Turkish model is enormously popular among the Egyptian street, featuring a moderate Islamic party (the Justice and Development Party - AKP) in power; a secular constitution; the military - albeit strong - back in the barracks; and an ongoing economic boom (Turkey was the world's fastest growing economy in the first half of 2001). [1]
This model is not exactly what the regressive House of Saud wants. They would prefer a heavily Islamist government controlled by the most conservative factions of the Muslim Brotherhood. Worse; as far as Libya is concerned, the House of Saud would love to have a friendly emirate, or at least a government peppered with Islamic fundamentalists.
Erdogan also stressed that the "aggressiveness" of Israel "threatens the future of the Israeli people". That's music for the Arab street. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Erdogan in Cairo - and confirmed he'll go ahead with Palestine's bid to be fully recognized as a state by the United Nations Security Council later this month.
Palestine will definitely be accepted as a non-voting state by the UN General Assembly floor. The problem is the extremely non-representative Security Council - which sanctions full UN membership with state voting rights. It's a done deal that Washington will veto it. The fractured European Union (EU), true to its character, still has not decided on a unified vote. There's a strong possibility Britain and France will also veto the Palestinian bid at the Security Council.
Yet even with the consolation price of "only" becoming a non-voting state, Palestine strikes a moral victory - aligned with world public opinion. Moreover, Palestine can become a member of the International Criminal Curt and sue the hell out of Israel over its serial violations of international law.
Follow the leader
Turkey's game goes way beyond "neo-Ottomanism" - or nostalgia to revive the superpower days of the 16th and 17th centuries. It's a natural development of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's policy of "zero problems with our neighbors" - moving to forge deeper bonds with most of these neighbors, and consolidating what Davutoglu himself defines as Turkey's strategic destiny (see Turkey: the sultans of swing Asia Times Online, April 7, 2011).
Turkey, for some years now, had decisively abandoned an isolationist brand of Turkish nationalism. The country seems to have finally surmounted the trauma associated to its dream of joining the EU; for all practical purposes the dream was shattered by France and Germany.
As for the Israeli-Turkey alliance, in fact it kept the Arab world at bay and confined Turkey to a passive role of ineffective outsider in the Middle East. Not anymore. Erdogan can now afford to send multiple simultaneous messages to Israel, the US, the EU, assorted Arab leaders and most of all the Arab street.
Davutoglu has been relatively magnanimous towards Israel, saying it is "out of touch with the region and unable to perceive the changes taking place, which makes it impossible for the country to have healthy relations with its neighbors".
What he could have added is with "friends" like that - Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, former Moldova bouncer Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, rabid settlers dictating policy - Israel does not need enemies; or rather fabricates enemies en masse. It is the Israeli government itself that accelerated Turkey's rapprochement with Egypt - which is leaving Israel totally isolated. The touch of genius in the whole process is that Erdogan represents a democracy in a Muslim majority country strongly supporting both the Palestinians and the real pro-democrats in the Arab Spring. This provides a direct connection between the Palestinian tragedy and the spirit of the Arab Spring (which has nothing to do, it must be stressed, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing Libya or a military junta running Egypt).
It will be crucial to watch Erdogan's Islam-rooted AKP's follow-up. It's virtually certain that in the next Egyptian elections the Muslim Brotherhood will come out swinging. It's also virtually certain the Brotherhood will press for a minimalist relationship with Israel, including a full revision of the Camp David accords. In theory, Turkey would be fully behind it.
Then there's the Libya front. In his first public address in Tripoli, the chairman of the dodgy Transitional National Council (TNC), Mustafa Abdel Jailil, stressed Islamic sharia law would be the main source of legislation. But he crucially added, "We will not accept any extremist ideology, on the right or the left. We are a Muslim people, for a moderate Islam."
There's no evidence yet the TNC will be even able to hold the country together, not to mention promote "moderate Islam". The (foreign) vultures continue circling. NATO's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has been warning that Libya is in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists who would "try to exploit" the current power vacuum. It's unclear what role Turkey - a key NATO member - would have inside a NATO fully implanted in Libya.
Heavy metal birth pangs
And all this while the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies - horrified by the Arab Spring - have proposed $2 billion in annual direct aid to Jordan so it will become part of the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as the Gulf Counter-revolutionary Club. As a monarchical club, the GCC wants Jordan and Morocco as new members. The icing on the cake, though, would be a monarchical Libya.
On a parallel track, the counter-revolutionaries have been forced by Turkey to step up - at least verbally - their support for Palestine. Even Jordan's King Abdullah, staunch US ally and Israel's only "friend" left in the Middle East, has claimed that "the future Palestine are stronger than Israel is today".
Well, Israel did look for it - after the invasion of Lebanon in 2006, the massacre in Gaza in 2008 and the attack on the Turkish flotilla in 2010. In terms of world public opinion, Israel is toast - and even the Arab counter-revolution had to notice.
That includes the House of Saud. None other than former Saudi intelligence supremo Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote a New York Times op-ed piece stating outright, "Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy" if the US vetoes the Palestinian bid at the Security Council.
Prince Turki also stressed that everything must evolve around a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders, which every grain of sand in the Sinai knows Israel will never accept.
In the event of a US veto, Prince Turki threatened Saudi Arabia would be "opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq" and would "part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well".
Now imagine the House of Saud lavishly funding a double guerrilla war all across the Pentagon's "arc of instability" - Sunnis against Shi'ites in Iraq plus the already turbocharged Taliban in Afghanistan - while lobbying for an Islamist government in both Egypt and Turkey; and this while Egypt and Turkey for their part fully collide with an isolated and angry Israel. Now that's what the "birth pangs of the new Middle East" are all about.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #25 on: 2011-09-22 12:33:19 »
[Blunderov] Quite why there is a presumption that a Palestinian state cannot be created without Israeli consent escapes me. After all, the Israeli state was created without Palestinian consent so evidently the difficulty is not legal or procedural. It may have something to do with political will though and quite clearly Obama "will" go totally flaccid at the meerest glimpse of AIPAC. (Who wouldn't?) Not that it matters. The Golem is coming anyway.
'This time we should reach* for what's best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel. ' -- Obama's speech before the General Assembly, September 23, 2010
September 21, 2011 "Palestine Chronicle" -- Cairo - When Barack Obama uttered these lines, the assembled delegates rewarded him with a standing ovation. That was last year’s promise. This year, Obama is promising to veto a Palestinian state for reasons that he has yet to clearly articulate. The president could always come out and explain his dramatic change of heart in plain language – but that might prove a little embarrassing. When it comes to matters of state, plain language can have a disastrous impact on America’s standing in the world. In the midst of the great Arab awakening – this single veto will not be cost-free. Lest we forget, this is the same president who supported Mubarak before he supported the Egyptian revolution. So let it never be said that Obama is inconsistent. He’ll always do the right thing when it’s convenient.
But that’s neither here nor there. If Obama was to speak plainly, we know exactly what he’d say.
“I was for the Palestinian State before I was against it. What the world needs to understand is that I am not the president of AIPAC – I’m just POTUS and I want a second term. Before casting the first stone, compare my poll numbers to the reception Netanyahu got in Congress after he refused to halt the construction of illegal settlements.”
“Even after I cast my veto, I expect Republicans and members of my own party to accuse me of throwing Israel under the bus for not imposing sanctions on the 150 states that are likely to support the Palestinian state.”
“I’ve seen the BBC polls. I know that people around the world support the justice of the Palestinian cause. I’m also aware that most Americans favor universal recognition of an independent Palestinian state. To be honest, I share their sentiment. It’s a rational and sensible position to take - if it doesn’t affect your job security.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not a private citizen. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, acting on my conscience is not a privilege accorded the President of the United States. I share the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people and I yearn for their freedom but there is not a damn thing I can do about it. One way or the other, every president and every senator and every congressman has to answer to AIPAC. “
“As President of the United States of America, I have to do what I have to do which is pretty much what I’m told to do by the Israeli Lobby. I’ve got to parrot the line that direct negotiations must be given a chance knowing full well that after two decades of negotiations, Israel has done nothing but create obstacles to a two state solution. I’m obliged to feign Ignorance of the fact that the number of settlers in the West Bank have tripled since the Oslo agreement. My assigned duties require me to constantly raise a fuss about the illusionary security threats to an expansionist apartheid state that has a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the entire Middle East. Part of my job is to get along with psychotic dispensationalist congressmen and senators who believe that a ‘peace-loving’ Israel was doing God’s work when it murdered 1,500 Palestinians and demolished the entire infrastructure of Gaza in operation Cast Lead. And after doing the obligatory dog and pony routine, I’ve got to sign the annual three billion foreign aid check to a country that has a per capita income that earned it the right to join the Organization of Economically Developed Nations.”
“Seriously, what choice do I have in the matter? It’s part of my job description. If I don’t follow through with my marching orders, I won’t have to answer to the Republicans; my White House eviction orders will come from my own party.”
“Deep down, I’m hoping my veto will inspire responsible governments around the world to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As long as America monopolizes and dominates the ‘peace process’ – there will be plenty of ‘process’ but there will never be peace. So to those of you who understand the dynamics of American domestic politics, I beg you – take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off my plate before AIPAC sets the dogs on me. Call me a hypocrite if you must but don’t call on me to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; I’m not Jimmy Carter and I don’t want to change my address before 2016.”
- Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of The Sheep and the Guardians – Diary of a SEC sanctioned swindle. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
* [Bl] Must be a typo: "retch" is probably correct given the context.
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #26 on: 2011-10-11 07:31:58 »
[Blunderov] The fuss about Palestine humbly applying to have it's legitimacy recognised by the world stands in stark contrast to the ruthless skullduggery and violence with which Zionist Israel was shoved down the throat of the Middle East. Lest we forget.
The Real Story of How Israel Was Created by Alison Weir, October 11, 2011
To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 U.N. action on Israel-Palestine.
The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the U.N. created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the U.S. governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.
In reality, while the U.N. General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.
Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.
Third, the U.S. administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.
It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.
Let us look at the specifics.
Background of the U.N. Partition Recommendation
In 1947 the U.N. took up the question of Palestine, a territory that was then administered by the British.
Approximately 50 years before, a movement called political Zionism had begun in Europe. Its intention was to create a Jewish state in Palestine through pushing out the Christian and Muslim inhabitants who made up over 95 percent of its population and replacing them with Jewish immigrants.
As this colonial project grew through subsequent years, the indigenous Palestinians reacted with occasional bouts of violence; Zionists had anticipated this since people usually resist being expelled from their land. In various written documents cited by numerous Palestinian and Israeli historians, they discussed their strategy: They would either buy up the land until all the previous inhabitants had emigrated or, failing this, use violence to force them out.
When the buy-out effort was able to obtain only a few percent of the land, Zionists created a number of terrorist groups to fight against both the Palestinians and the British. Terrorist and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin later bragged that Zionists had brought terrorism both to the Middle East and to the world at large.
Finally, in 1947 the British announced that they would be ending their control of Palestine, which had been created through the League of Nations following World War I, and turned the question of Palestine over to the United Nations.
At this time, the Zionist immigration and buyout project had increased the Jewish population of Palestine to 30 percent and land ownership from 1 percent to approximately 6 percent.
Since a founding principle of the U.N. was “self-determination of peoples,” one would have expected to the U.N. to support fair, democratic elections in which inhabitants could create their own independent country.
Instead, Zionists pushed for a General Assembly resolution in which they would be given a disproportionate 55 percent of Palestine. (While they rarely announced this publicly, their stated plan was to later take the rest of Palestine.)
U.S. Officials Oppose Partition Plan
The U.S. State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously, considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and U.S. interests.
Author Donald Neff reports that Loy Henderson, Director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, wrote a memo to the secretary of state warning:
[S]upport by the Government of the United States of a policy favoring the setting up of a Jewish State in Palestine would be contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the local inhabitants with respect to their form of government. Furthermore, it would have a strongly adverse effect upon American interests throughout the Near and Middle East ….” [Citations.]
Henderson went on to emphasize:
At the present time the United States has a moral prestige in the Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power. We would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves have enunciated during the period of the war.
When Zionists began pushing for a partition plan through the U.N., Henderson recommended strongly against supporting their proposal. He warned that such a partition would have to be implemented by force and emphasized that it was “not based on any principle.” He went on to write:
[Partition] would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future ….
Henderson went on to emphasize:
[proposals for partition] are in definite contravention to various principles laid down in the [U.N.] Charter as well as to principles on which American concepts of Government are based. These proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race ….
Henderson was far from alone in making his recommendations. He wrote that his views were not only those of the entire Near East Division but were shared by “nearly every member of the Foreign Service or of the Department who has worked to any appreciable extent on Near Eastern problems.”
Henderson wasn’t exaggerating. Official after official and agency after agency opposed Zionism.
In 1947 the CIA reported that Zionist leadership was pursuing objectives that would endanger both Jews and “the strategic interests of the Western powers in the Near and Middle East.”
Truman Accedes to Pro-Israel Lobby
President Harry Truman, however, ignored this advice. Truman’s political adviser, Clark Clifford, believed that the Jewish vote and contributions were essential to winning the upcoming presidential election and that supporting the partition plan would garner that support. (Truman’s opponent, Dewey, took similar stands for similar reasons.)
Secretary of State George Marshall, the renowned World War II general and author of the Marshall Plan, was furious to see electoral considerations taking precedence over policies based on national interest. He condemned what he called a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which would cause “[t]he great dignity of the office of president [to be] seriously diminished.”
Marshall wrote that the counsel offered by Clifford “was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem which confronted us was international. I said bluntly that if the president were to follow Mr. Clifford’s advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the president ….”
Henry F. Grady, who has been called “America’s top diplomatic soldier for a critical period of the Cold War,” headed a 1946 commission aimed at coming up with a solution for Palestine. Grady later wrote about the Zionist lobby and its damaging effect on U.S. national interests.
Grady argued that without Zionist pressure, the U.S. would not have had “the ill-will with the Arab states, which are of such strategic importance in our ‘cold war’ with the Soviets.” He also described the decisive power of the lobby:
I have had a good deal of experience with lobbies but this group started where those of my experience had ended …. I have headed a number of government missions but in no other have I ever experienced so much disloyalty …. [I]n the United States, since there is no political force to counterbalance Zionism, its campaigns are apt to be decisive.
Former Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson also opposed Zionism. Acheson’s biographer writes that Acheson “worried that the West would pay a high price for Israel.” Another Author, John Mulhall, records Acheson’s warning:
[T]o transform [Palestine] into a Jewish State capable of receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the political problem and imperil not only American but all Western interests in the Near East.
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal also tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose the Zionists. He was outraged that Truman’s Mideast policy was based on what he called “squalid political purposes,” asserting that “United States policy should be based on United States national interests and not on domestic political considerations.”
Forrestal represented the general Pentagon view when he said that “no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point where it could endanger our national security.”
A report by the National Security Council warned that the Palestine turmoil was acutely endangering the security of the United States. A CIA report stressed the strategic importance of the Middle East and its oil resources.
Similarly, George F. Kennan, the State Department’s director of policy planning, issued a top-secret document on Jan. 19, 1947, that outlined the enormous damage done to the U.S. by the partition plan (“Report by the Policy Planning Staff on Position of the United States with Respect to Palestine”).
Kennan cautioned that “important U.S. oil concessions and air base rights” could be lost through U.S. support for partition and warned that the USSR stood to gain by the partition plan.
Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s nephew and a legendary intelligence agent, was another who was deeply disturbed by events. He noted:
The process by which Zionist Jews have been able to promote American support for the partition of Palestine demonstrates the vital need of a foreign policy based on national rather than partisan interests …. Only when the national interests of the United States, in their highest terms, take precedence over all other considerations, can a logical, farseeing foreign policy be evolved. No American political leader has the right to compromise American interests to gain partisan votes ….
He went on:
The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict. It is to be hoped that American Zionists and non-Zionists alike will come to grips with the realities of the problem.
The head of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Gordon P. Merriam, warned against the partition plan on moral grounds:
U.S. support for partition of Palestine as a solution to that problem can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish consent. Otherwise we should violate the principle of self-determination which has been written into the Atlantic Charter, the declaration of the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter — a principle that is deeply embedded in our foreign policy. Even a United Nations determination in favor of partition would be, in the absence of such consent, a stultification and violation of U.N.’s own charter.
Merriam added that without consent, “bloodshed and chaos” would follow, a tragically accurate prediction.
An internal State Department memorandum accurately predicted how Israel would be born through armed aggression masked as defense:
[T]he Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were traced by the U.N. …. In the event of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside which is the cause of Arab counter-attack.
And American Vice Consul William J. Porter foresaw another outcome of the partition plan: that no Arab State would actually ever come to be in Palestine.
Pro-Israel Pressure on General Assembly Members
When it was clear that the partition recommendation did not have the required two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly to pass, Zionists pushed through a delay in the vote. They then used this period to pressure numerous nations into voting for the recommendation. A number of people later described this campaign.
Robert Nathan, a Zionist who had worked for the U.S. government and who was particularly active in the Jewish Agency, wrote afterward, “We used any tools at hand,” such as telling certain delegations that the Zionists would use their influence to block economic aid to any countries that did not vote the right way.
Another Zionist proudly stated, “Every clue was meticulously checked and pursued. Not the smallest or the remotest of nations, but was contacted and wooed. Nothing was left to chance.”
Financier and longtime presidential adviser Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition. Top White House executive assistant David Niles organized pressure on Liberia through rubber magnate Harvey Firestone, who told the Liberian president that if Liberia did not vote in favor of partition, Firestone would revoke his planned expansion in the country. Liberia voted yes.
Latin American delegates were told that the pan-American highway construction project would be more likely if they voted yes. Delegates’ wives received mink coats (the wife of the Cuban delegate returned hers); Costa Rica’s President Jose Figueres reportedly received a blank checkbook. Haiti was promised economic aid if it would change its original vote opposing partition.
Longtime Zionist Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, along with 10 senators and Truman domestic adviser Clark Clifford, threatened the Philippines (seven bills were pending on the Philippines in Congress).
Before the vote on the plan, the Philippine delegate had given a passionate speech against partition, defending the inviolable “primordial rights of a people to determine their political future and to preserve the territorial integrity of their native land.”
He went on to say that he could not believe that the General Assembly would sanction a move that would place the world “back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic documents of theocratic governments.”
Twenty-four hours later, after intense Zionist pressure, the delegate voted in favor of partition.
The U.S. delegation to the U.N. was so outraged when Truman insisted that they support partition that the State Department director of U.N. affairs was sent to New York to prevent the delegates from resigning en masse.
On Nov. 29, 1947, the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation,” which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly Resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states.
What it did do, however, was increase the fighting in Palestine. Within months (and before Israel dates the beginning of its founding war) the Zionists had forced out 413,794 people. Zionist military units had stealthily been preparing for war before the U.N. vote and had acquired massive weaponry, some of it through a widespread network of illicit gunrunning operations in the U.S. under a number of front groups.
The U.N. eventually managed to create a temporary and very partial cease-fire. A Swedish U.N. mediator who had previously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis was dispatched to negotiate an end to the violence. Israeli assassins killed him, and Israel continued what it was to call its “war of independence.”
At the end of this war, through a larger military force than that of its adversaries and the ruthless implementation of plans to push out as many non-Jews as possible, Israel came into existence on 78 percent of Palestine.
At least 33 massacres of Palestinian civilians were perpetrated, half of them before a single Arab army had entered the conflict, hundreds of villages were depopulated and razed, and a team of cartographers was sent out to give every town, village, river, and hillock a new Hebrew name. All vestiges of Palestinian habitation, history, and culture were to be erased from history, an effort that almost succeeded.
Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day. In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law. It has continued this campaign of growth through armed acquisition and illegal confiscation of land ever since.
Individual Israelis, like Palestinians and all people, are legally and morally entitled to an array of human rights.
On the other hand, the state of Israel’s vaunted “right to exist” is based on an alleged “right” derived from might, an outmoded concept that international legal conventions do not recognize and in fact specifically prohibit.
[Detailed citations for the above information are available at "The History of Israel-U.S. Relations, Part One."]
Read more by Alison Weir •American Taxpayers Subsidize Israel’s Prosperity – August 31st, 2011 •Israeli Video Games in Gaza – August 23rd, 2011 •Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up – August 10th, 2011 •Critical Connections: Egypt, the US, and Israel – February 4th, 2011 •Israel’s Flotilla ‘Investigation’ – June 17th, 2010
Panetta to Netanyahu: "Israel may not survive the current Arab/Islamic awakening"
By Franklin Lamb
opednews.com
Beirut
Three weeks after being named by President Obama in January 2009 as the 19th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and during his first day on the job which was February 12, 2009, Leon Panetta, now US Secretary of defense, signed off on a March 2009 "eyes only" CIA Report that had just been completed by his new agency.
As reported at the time, the CIA Report predicted the demise of Israel within 20 years, if present political trends in the region continued. The CIA intelligence analysts concluded that it was unlikely that Israeli leaders would grant even minimal concessions in order to achieve a settlement with their neighbors, which comprise increasingly disillusioned and rapidly growing dignity and justice seeking populations.
The CIA Report noted that Israeli officials felt emboldened in taking Palestinian land by the myriad support Israel was receiving from the leadership of Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and three other Arab leaders.
Israel and its two most powerful US lobbies, the US Congress and AIPAC, quickly squelched the 2009 Report and only seven copies were eventually acknowledged, one by AIPAC and the others by staffers of select supporters of Israel on key Congressional Committees.
During last week's meetings with Israeli officials, both sides knew that the 2009 CIA study was front and center even without Panetta being the first one to refer to it.
President Obama sent Panetta to engage in frank discussions which included the White House displeasure at Netanyahu's repeated humiliation of the President over the past 18 months and Israeli threats to cut off Jewish aid to Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.
Panetta did deliver public statements which allowed Netanyahu to put the best hasbara face on the meetings and he thanked the US Secretary of Defense for "helping to improve US-Israeli relations."
Panetta repeated at a news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, some pointed generalizations. "At this dramatic time in the Middle East, when there have been so many changes, it's not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that is what's happening," he said.
"There's not much question in my mind that they maintain that (military) edge." But the question you have to ask, he added is: "was it enough to maintain a military edge, if you're isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena? At this dramatic time in the Middle East, when there have been so many changes, it's not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that is what's happening," he said.
In private, according to Washington sources, the atmosphere was quite different. Panetta reportedly made plain that given recent changes among Middle East countries, meaning the Arab Spring and Islamic Awakening, Israel was quickly running out of time. Its only choice was to make peace with the Palestinians and her neighbors -- or perish.
During frank and sometimes heated exchanges, Panetta told the Israelis that time is running out for a two-state solution, which means time is running out for Zionist Israel and that, similar to apartheid South Africa, following the Reagan years, the days of American propping up Israel are coming to a close.
Seemingly dwelling on the subject of the US being unable to continue funding Israel in real terms with more than $6 billion every year and being able to continue to guarantee Israel's Qualitative Military Edge (QME), Panetta told the Israelis that it was out of the question given American domestic problems and the US process of substantial, if partial, disengagement from the region.
At issue with the American inability and increasing unwillingness to prop up Israel's QME is the innocuous sounding 2008 Naval Vessel Transfer Act shepherded through the Congress a month before the 2008 US Presidential election by one of Israel's unwavering lobbyists, Rep. Howard Berman.
In its essence, this law shackles every American president with a legal obligation to ensure that Israel maintains its military dominance over the Middle East.
It is designed to assure that Israel's regional hegemony is legally mandated via Israel's "Qualitative Military Edge" (QME). The US Government must guarantee that "the sale or export of the defense articles or defense services will not adversely affect Israel's qualitative military edge over any military threats to Israel."
The term "qualitative military edge" means the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.
Panetta reportedly reminded Ehud Barak, during heated discussions between the two defense ministers, of the statement of an Egyptian general back in 1973 as reported by then President Nixon. According to Nixon, an Israeli official asked an Egyptian general convalescing in a hospital, "We have defeated you Arabs three times (1948, 1967 1973); why do you continue to resist us?" The Egyptian replied, "You may have defeated us three times, and you may defeat us 11 times. But the 12th time we will win and Palestine will be liberated."
The unavoidable signs seen by Panetta, as by his predecessor, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, include nearly one dozen uprisings in the region that share the goal, among others, of returning Palestine to its rightful inhabitants.
The Egyptian people are reclaiming Egypt's proud Arab position and helping lead the cause to liberate Palestine as evidenced by their intentions to expel the Israeli Embassy, scrap Camp David, abrogate the capitulation agreements, including Egypt's natural gas giveaway to Israel subsidized by the Egyptian people, and made by the Mubarak family doing business with Israeli officials. Panetta, and an increasing number of American officials as well as the American public, knows that the genie has been released and that Arabs, Muslims, and all people of good will continue to inexorably confront the remaining 19th Century colonial enterprise, which is the artificial and illegitimate Zionist implantation on Palestinian land.
Re:The Golem Cometh
« Reply #28 on: 2011-11-27 14:17:15 »
[Blunderov] In Pakistan the rift in the lute is becoming more and more apparent. This is very serious business. The USA is not accustomed to taking on countries that can effectively defend themselves, much less nuclear armed countries who also have the backing of a superpower. Israel might do well to consider just who might get thrown to the wolves first should the US sled of state require lightening.
Which well it might. An ally (or should that be former ally?) of the USA is demanding that that the USA vacate a military base. The needs of Israel suddenly look very secondary in this context.
Pakistan demands US vacate air base after deadly strikes
Pakistan blames NATO forces for killing up to 28 Pakistani soldiers at military outposts
updated 11/27/2011 1:19:51 AM ET
Pakistan has blocked vital supply routes for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan and demanded Washington vacate a base used by American drones after coalition aircraft allegedly killed 24 Pakistani troops at two posts along a mountainous frontier that serves as a safe haven for militants. The incident Saturday was a major blow to American efforts to rebuild an already tattered alliance vital to winding down the 10-year-old Afghan war. Islamabad called the bloodshed in one of its tribal areas a "grave infringement" of the country's sovereignty, and it could make it even more difficult for the U.S. to enlist Pakistan's help in pushing Afghan insurgents to engage in peace talks. A NATO spokesman said it was likely that coalition airstrikes caused Pakistani casualties, but an investigation was being conducted to determine the details. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest friendly fire incident by NATO against Pakistani troops since the Afghan war began a decade ago. The White House said senior U.S. civilian and military officials extended condolences to their Pakistani counterparts following the airstrike. The unidentified officials also expressed a desire to work with Pakistan to investigate the deaths.
Col. Gary Kolb, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, said the aircraft were taking part in a strike that was a coordinated effort with ISAF, Pakistani military and the Pakistani border authorities, NBC News reported. He said they had responded to small arms fire, according to NBC News. Asked to confirm that it was retaliatory, he said yes. ISAF was still determining the exact circumstances. "This has the highest priority to ensure that we get all the facts straight," Kolb said, NBC News reported. A prolonged closure of Pakistan's two Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies could cause serious problems for the coalition. The U.S., which is the largest member of the NATO force in Afghanistan, ships more than 30 percent of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan. The coalition has alternative routes through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan, but they are costlier and less efficient. Kolb noted that even if some of supply routes through Pakistan were closed, there were "contingencies built into the system" to deal with these types of disruptions. Pakistan temporarily closed one of its Afghan crossings to NATO supplies last year after U.S. helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers. Suspected militants took advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks carrying NATO supplies. The government reopened the border after about 10 days when the U.S. apologized. NATO said at the time the relatively short closure did not significantly affect its ability to keep its troops supplied. But the reported casualties are much greater this time, and the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has severely deteriorated over the last year, especially following the covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town in May. Islamabad was outraged that it wasn't told about the operation beforehand.
Losing air base for drones?
The government announced it closed its border crossings to NATO in a statement issued after an emergency meeting of the Cabinet's defense committee chaired by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. It also said that within 15 days the U.S. must vacate Shamsi Air Base, which is located in southwestern Baluchistan province. The U.S. uses the base to service drones that target al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal region when they cannot return to their bases inside Afghanistan because of weather conditions or mechanical difficulty, said U.S. and Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic matters. The government also plans to review all diplomatic, military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. and other NATO forces, according to the statement issued after the defense committee meeting. Video: White House treads lightly around Pakistan situation (on this page) The White House said that senior U.S. civilian and military officials had expressed their condolences to their Pakistani counterparts. The White House statement said the officials expressed "our desire to work together to determine what took place, and our commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan partnership which advances our shared interests, including fighting terrorism in the region." The White House statement did not address Pakistan's decision to block supply routes for the war in Afghanistan or its demand that the U.S. vacate the drone base. 'Blatant and unacceptable'
The Pakistani army said Saturday that NATO helicopters and fighter jets carried out an "unprovoked" attack on two of its border posts in the Mohmand tribal area before dawn, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others. The troops responded in self-defense "with all available weapons," an army statement said. Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani condemned the attack, calling it a "blatant and unacceptable act," according to the statement. A spokesman for NATO forces, Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, said Afghan and coalition troops were operating in the border area of eastern Afghanistan when "a tactical situation" prompted them to call in close air support. It is "highly likely" that the airstrikes caused Pakistani casualties, he told BBC television. "My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan security forces who may have been killed or injured," Gen. John Allen, the top overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. The border issue is a major source of tension between Islamabad and Washington, which is committed to withdrawing its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Much of the violence in Afghanistan is carried out by insurgents who are based just across the border in Pakistan. Coalition forces are not allowed to cross the frontier to attack the militants. However, the militants sometimes fire artillery and rockets across the line, reportedly from locations close to Pakistani army posts. American officials have repeatedly accused Pakistani forces of supporting — or turning a blind eye — to militants using its territory for cross-border attacks. But militants based in Afghanistan have also been attacking Pakistan recently, prompting complaints from Islamabad.
Mountaintop posts
The two posts that were attacked Saturday were located about 1,000 feet apart on a mountain top and were set up recently to stop Pakistani Taliban militants holed up in Afghanistan from crossing the border and staging attacks, said local government and security officials. There was no militant activity in the area when the alleged NATO attack occurred, local officials said. Some of the soldiers were standing guard, while others were asleep, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said map references of all of the force's border posts have been given to NATO several times. Video: Pakistan blaming NATO for soldiers' deaths (on this page) Pakistan's prime minister summoned U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter to protest the alleged NATO strike, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. It said the attack was a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty" and could have serious repercussions on Pakistan's cooperation with NATO. Munter said in a statement that he regretted any Pakistani deaths and promised to work closely with Islamabad to investigate the incident. The U.S., Pakistan, and Afghan militaries have long wrestled with the technical difficulties of patrolling a border that in many places is disputed or poorly marked. Saturday's incident took place a day after a meeting between NATO's Gen. Allen and Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Islamabad to discuss border operations. The meeting tackled "coordination, communication and procedures ... aimed at enhancing border control on both sides," according to a statement from the Pakistani side. The U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sept. 30 of last year took place south of Mohmand in the Kurram tribal area. A joint U.S.-Pakistan investigation found that Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times. A U.S. airstrike in June 2008 reportedly killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops during a clash between militants and coalition forces in the tribal region.
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