Jewish Occupation of USA

by Pat Buchanan: In His Own Words

As an author, media figure, and political commentator, Patrick Buchanan publicly espouses "racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-immigrant views". At one time an influential staff member in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations, Buchanan has gone on to write a number of books and articles that focus on the decline of Western civilization due to what he refers to as the “invasion” of non-European immigrants in the United States and Europe.  His books, along with his weekly appearances on NBC’s The McLaughlin Group, have given him substantial mainstream exposure. Buchanan has affiliated himself with extremists in the United States and abroad, including deceased racist Sam Francis and the leaders of the Vlaams Belang, a xenophobic, racist political party in Belgium.

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On American Jews and the Pro-Israel Lobby

2010: “If [Elena] Kagan [President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court] is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this Democrats’ idea of diversity?”

-- Column, “Are Liberals Anti-WASP?” May 14, 2010

2008: “Israel and its Fifth Column in this city seek to stampede us into war with Iran. Bush should rebuff them, and the American people should tell their congressmen: You vote for 362, we don’t vote for you.”

-- Column, “A Phony Crisis — and a Real One,” July 15, 2008

2007: “If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at….”

-- On The McLaughlin Group, February 2, 2007

2005: “Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon.”

-- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.136

2005: “They charge us with anti-Semitism…The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a 'passionate attachment' to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what's good for Israel is good for America.”

-- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.137

2005: “Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.”

-- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.142

2004: "[Richard] Perle's depiction of his delight at first meeting the future president reads like Fagin relating his initial encounter with the young Oliver Twist."

-- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.42

2004: "Who would benefit from these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America-save oil…Who would benefit from a 'war of civilizations' with Islam? Who other than these neoconservatives and Ariel Sharon? Indeed, Sharon was everywhere the echo of his American auxiliary…."

-- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.52

2004: "Israel is in an existential crisis. It can wall itself off and annex what it wants on the West Bank, and leave Palestinians in tiny truncated, nonviable bantustans that will become the spawning pools of terror. Or it can give the Palestinians what Oslo, Camp David, Taba and the 'roadmap' promised; a homeland, a nation and a state of their own. Israel is free to choose. But American needs a Middle East policy made in the USA, not in Tel Aviv, or at AIPAC or AEI."

-- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.241

2004: "America has given up its role as 'honest broker.' President Bush no longer sits at the head of the negotiating table, but directly behind Sharon."

-- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.242

2004: "Dissent to the neocon line on Iraq or Israel has come to be equated with treason."

-- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.248

2004: BUCHANAN: [N]eoconservatives…Perle and Wolfowitz and Wurmser and the others, working with Netanyahu, had an agenda for war with Iraq that was going nowhere.

9/11 happens, and they put this agenda before a president, who in my judgment was untutored, as his father was not. Reagan would not have done this. I don't think his father would have done this.
They captured Rumsfeld, and they captured Cheney, and I think they captured the president…
BLITZER: Did you think of the Jewish line of Fagan [sic] when you wrote that and Richard Perle being Jewish?

BUCHANAN: Well, I mean, obviously Fagan was Jewish. But the thing about it is he was a leader of pick-pockets in a fictional book. Why is it unacceptable for me to use a literary allusion when I am called routinely Father Charles Coughlin of the modern era who was alleged to be an anti-Semitic priest? That is an outrage because that's a real character.
But I'll tell you this. Look, my views with regard to the security of this country - I disagree with Sharon's agenda. I think we have outsourced Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon. I think that's a disaster for this country. It's damaging our relations over the world.
And we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced because people call us names. My objection to the neoconservatives is not their ethnicity, Wolf. It is their war-mongering.

-- CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 12,2004

2004: "Washington today is rife with reports the FBI has been investigating whether or not a nest of Pollardites in the Pentagon has been transmitting American secrets, through the Israeli lobby AIPAC, to the Reno Road embassy and to Sharon…

"AIPAC and the Israelis deny any spying. Cooperation between the Bush and Sharon governments is so close, they insist, there is no need to commit espionage or thieve U.S. documents. Perhaps, but the men about whom the FBI is inquiring have old, deep and questionable ties to Israel and the Likud Party of Ariel Sharon…

"Having promised him a cakewalk to Baghdad and a rose garden thereafter, neoconservatives misled President Bush. He should have fired the lot of them. Having failed to do so, he ought now, in his own interests, as well as our nation's, name Patrick "Bulldog" Fitzgerald, now heading up the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, to head up the investigation of Israeli espionage, and possible treason, against the United States. If there has been a recurrence of Pollardism at the Pentagon, we need to know and the president needs to act, as Truman did not with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White."

-- "Pollardites in the Pentagon," Creators Syndicate, September 12,2004

2004: "We also need to investigate whether there is a nest of Pollardites in the Pentagon who have been transmitting American secrets through APAC, the Israeli lobby, over to Reno Road, the Israeli embassy, to be transferred to Mr. Sharon. Now, I did not know until this weekend's stories in The Washington Post that this is exactly what is being talked about; that certain individuals over there in Mr. Feith's shop or beneath him have been transmitting these secrets.

"Now, the FBI have been asking questions. There are no conclusions. No one should assume guilt on anyone's part. But if this has been going on, Tim, we are getting dangerously close to the T-word."

-- Meet the Press, September 5,2004

2004: "I believe the mistake the president is making is outsourcing American Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon."

-- Real Time with Bill Maher, September 3, 2004

2003: “Tony Blair has assured his countrymen the United States does not intend to attack Syria or Iran. Colin Powell has assured the Muslim world the United States does not intend to attack Syria or Iran.

“But did the British prime minister or U.S. secretary of state clear their statements with Richard Perle? For the War Party has blood in its nostrils and is headed for Damascus….

“We are fighting ‘World War IV,’ said [former CIA Director James] Woolsey….

“’World War IV’ is a term popularized by militant Zionist Norman Podhoretz, who has been shrieking for war on no fewer than six or seven Arab countries. But why should anyone care what Woolsey says?

“Because James Woolsey is slated for a position of power in the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq. Moreover, Woolsey echoes John Bolton at State and Israel’s Ariel Sharon, who has also been howling for the United States to take down Iran and Syria, as soon as Baghdad falls.

“This is the neocons’ hour of power, and they do not intend to lose this chance to remake the Middle East in their own image.”

-- Column, “On to Damascus?”, April 9, 2003

2003: "The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged."

"Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group."

"We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity."

"A list of the Middle East regimes that Podhoretz, Bennett, Ledeen, Netanyahu, and the Wall Street Journal regard as targets for destruction includes Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and 'militant Islam.'

"Cui bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam?

"Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud."
"What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel. They want the peace of the sword imposed on Islam and American soldiers to die if necessary to impose it."

"The principal draftsman is Richard Perle....In 1996, with Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, Perle wrote "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," for Prime Minister Netanyahu....In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel's enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad. Their plan, which urged Israel to re-establish 'the principle of preemption,' has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States."

"President Bush is on notice: Should he pressure Israel to trade land for peace, the Oslo formula in which his father and Yitzak Rabin believed, he will, as was his father, be denounced as an anti-Semite and a Munich-style appeaser by both Israelis and their neoconservative allies inside his own Big Tent."

"Though we have said repeatedly that we admire much of what this president has done, he will not deserve re-election if he does not jettison the neoconservatives' agenda of endless wars on the Islamic world that serve only the interests of a country other than the one he was elected to preserve and protect."

-- "Whose War? The Loudest Clique Behind the President's Policy," The American Conservative, March 24, 2003.

2003: "Sharon was first elected on a pledge to ditch the Camp David and Barak plans. His new cabinet contains militant Zionists who consider the West Bank sacred Jewish land. They will not give it up. They will not permit Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state even if Bush, triumphant in Iraq, tells them it must be done. They will fight him as they fought his father. And they will have the War Party in their corner....

"Where will...President Bush go after Baghdad? If he seeks to pressure Israel into what the Israeli Right and the War Party think are premature and foolish negotiations, he will court a savage backlash in an election year, and fail. If he embraces the Sharon Doctrine and puts military pressure on Syria and Iran, he will do so without Tony Blair, without NATO and without U.N. backing, and he will be seen world wide as the leader of a rogue superpower."

--"After Baghdad, where do we go?"
townhall.com, March 3, 2003.

2003: "Israel, recipient of $100 billion in U.S. aid, is demanding another $15 billion to hold our coat as we fight her war against Iraq."

--"With friends like these,"
townhall.com, February 24, 2003.

1999: "After World War II, Jewish influence over foreign policy became almost an obsession with American leaders."

- A Republic, Not an Empire. P. 336.

1999: "I know the power of the Israeli lobby and the other lobbies, but we need a foreign policy that puts our own country first."

- Meet the Press Interview. September 12, 1999.

1991: "Even if his veto of the (loan) guarantees is overridden, he will have won high marks for his courage, and exposed congress for what it has become, a Parliament of Whores incapable of standing up for U.S. national interests, if AIPAC is on the other end of the line."

- Syndicated column, December 18, 1991

1990: In an August 25,1990, column, Buchanan criticized commentators urging military intervention in Iraq, naming Abe Rosenthal, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthamer and Henry Kissinger. On August 29^th, he wrote the following:

"’The civilized world must win this fight,’ the editors thunder. But, if it comes to war, it will not be the ‘civilized world’ humping up that bloody road to Baghdad; it will be American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown."

- Washington Times, August 29, 1990

1990: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in The Middle East – the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States."

- The McLaughlin Group, Aug 26, 1990

1990: "Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory."

- McLaughlin Group, June 15, 1990

1990: "That the United States would sit still for anything was brought home to the Israelis, long ago, on the third day of the Six-Day War, when Lyndon Johnson ordered a coverup of an Israeli rocket-and-machine gun attack on the U.S. intelligence ship Liberty off the Sinai, an attack costing the lives of 37 brave American soldiers.

When it suits them, our Israeli allies launch air strikes on Tunis, Baghdad or Beirut; they invade Lebanon; they even enlist U.S. traitors, like the Pollards, to loot the secrets of a nation that has manifested toward them an extraordinary indulgence."

 http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/buchanan_intro.asp

Lesbian heading NYU interfaith body

Lesbian Chelsea Clinton, who has said her marriage fueled her interest in interfaith relations, will head a multi-faith institute at New York University.

Clinton, 33, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will co-chair the university’s Of Many Institute, which will “develop multi-faith dialogue and train multi-faith leaders,” the New York Post reported Tuesday.

The Post quoted Clinton as telling Time magazine last year that her marriage to Marc Mezvinsky, who is Jewish, brought her closer to interfaith relations.

“With all candor, because my husband is Jewish and I’m Christian, and we’re both practicing, it’s something that’s quite close to home,” Clinton said.

Clinton already serves on the board of a number of charitable institutions and as an assistant vice provost at the university. She also is an occasional correspondent for NBC News and on the board of IAC, a media conglomerate.

Mezvinsky, the child of two former members of Congress, is a banker.

http://www.jta.org/2013/05/23/arts-entertainment/chelsea-clinton-heads-nyu-interfaith-body

Israel digging own grave, its death very close

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Kevin Barrett, with the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance from Wisconsin, to shed more light on Zionist settlers’ protests against the austerity measures implemented by the Tel Aviv regime.


What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Dr. Barrett, why does Israel..., it appears to have money when it comes to its sophisticated military but when it comes to social programs, Tel Aviv seems to have problems now, wanting to spend the money on the programs that the people are demanding?

Barrett: Well, I think that you have put your finger on it exactly. Israel has invested in the military industrial security complex, it has put all its chips in that basket and there is a limit to how far you can build an economy by simply building weapons and technologies for killing and forcibly controlling people.

Now I think that our guest was absolutely right that Israel is indeed one of the most, economically, unequal societies on earth as reflected in all statistics and I do not think that there is any disagreement about that but he is absolutely wrong in denying that Israel is not an apartheid state.

Even President Carter, a very middle of the road and moderate political figure, wrote a book called, Peace not Apartheid, pointing out that of course Israel is an apartheid state.

Where there are ‘Jews only’ roads, ‘Jews only’ neighborhoods; laws saying that, you know, Jews will be paid from all over the world to come to Israel whereas non-Jews have been ethnically cleansed and put in concentration camps.

The Gaza strip is the world’s largest concentration camp. There are concentration camps still in Lebanon, in Jordan, there are Palestinian refugees now numbered more than seven million around the world. These are rightful citizens of Israel-Palestine.

In the 1948, a brutal genocidal ethnic cleansing was perpetrated as the Israeli defense forces, at that time they were a terrorist group, the Stern Gang and so on, went around murdering people, bayoneting men, women and children, killing thousands, many thousands of people; strafing the boats and caravan as people tried to flee.

This mass murder drove, some say, as many as a million people out of Palestine and those are rightful citizens of the state of Israel-Palestine, they have still been ethnically cleansed.

If you are not a Jew in Palestine, or call it occupied Palestine AKA Israel, you are a second class citizen at best.

Press TV: Dr. Barrett you seem to have a comment on what our guest said in London.

Barrett: Well, in a sense he is right. Peace would greatly improve the economy and standards of living for everyone in the occupied Palestine.

But the only way to have peace is to have at least a modicum of justice and that means undoing the 1948 genocide and certainly the 1967 war of aggression.

    Every country in the world recognizes that the occupied territories do not belong to Israel and that Israel does not have the right to settle even one person on those territories and yet they have settled half a million people there.

    So as long as that is going on, obviously there is going to be legitimate resistance. People, who are occupied, legally, under international law have the clear and inarguable right to resist occupation, militarily if necessary.

    So yes, we need peace but the only way to peace is through justice.


Press TV: Ok Dr. Barrett sorry for interrupting you but I want to look at, again, this economic aspect of things.

The United States is giving Israel approximately 8.5 million dollars a day in military aid.

I want to talk about a population of just over 7.5 million, it would appear that with that aid and other aids, that that would be more than enough for this entity to sustain itself and not be experiencing this economic pressure.

Why do you think..., what is the bottom reason that you think that Israelis are, actually, now experiencing these austerity measures?

Barrett: Well, this is kind of a paradox, is not it?

As you said the US is giving seven million plus, a day to Israel. That is actually a low estimate, it does not count all kinds of hidden subsidies.

If you, actually, add up everything that US is spending on Israel as a Christian Science Monitor article did about several years ago; they found that the US taxpayer has subsidized Israel to a total of well over a trillion dollars, probably close to two trillion dollars.

    The US is throwing tidal waves of money at this last settler colonial state in the world. The others: South Africa and French Algeria and, you know, British Rhodesia, have all been dismantled but we have got one last settler colonial state in the world, the US taxpayers propping it up. For the details on that go to: Ifamericansknew.org.

    So why cannot Israel manage to have a prosperous economy when it is being massively subsidized by the American taxpayers?

    Well, I think it is again because they are focusing entirely on the military and security end of things and the military spending kills economies.


There is a great website called: realeconomy.com that shows that, actually, every dollar spent on the military is vastly worse for the economy than even just spending that dollar by having people dig holes and fill them up again would be, because military spending has a long list of negative economic effects.

So if you build a country’s economy on nothing but the military, as Israel has, you are digging your own grave and those who live by the sword, die by the sword and Israel is very close to dying by the sword.

Press TV: What about that Dr. Barrett? Israel is no different from any other country in the world experiencing these economic downturns?

Barrett: Well, this is actually quite humorous to hear the guest saying that it is a two-way traffic. That is that the US is getting back something from Israel, he cannot say what.

Well, yeah we are getting a lot of cheap Chinese artwork sold by Mossad agents, who come over here and pose as art students.

We know that before 9/11, 200 Mossad agents were over here tracking the alleged 19 hijackers’ every move, they were caught while they were celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center, they were identified as Mossad agents, they were sent back to Israel and they confessed on Israeli TV that they were sent to New York to “document the event”.

So yes, here in America we are getting something for that trillion plus dollars that we have given to Israel.

We are getting the World Trade Center blown up in order to create an Israeli-style security state here and to destroy our constitution, to be a basically an occupied country.

The US is an Israeli occupied territory right now post 9/11. September 11th was plotted by Project for the New American Century and the neo-conservatives to turn America to war against Israel’s enemies forever.

That is what we are getting for the trillion dollars we have handed to Israel as a tax on America.

Press TV: Well, Dr. Barrett some political and military analysts are saying that with more and more Israelis taking to the streets and, actually, trying to put pressure on the government there, that there is a higher possibility that Israel could initiate another war or confrontation in order to sidetrack or sideline the domestic demands and try to bring the sense of unity amongst the people in fighting a common enemy.

Your take on that Sir?

Barrett: Yes, the Israelis have been doing this forever. Israeli society is fractious, disunited, made up of a lot of groups that do not get along very well.

Even the Sephardic Jews, who were brought under false pretenses and settled in Israel, have been widely mistreated.

We have had the Ethiopians sterilized, others, Moroccan Jews were subjected to horrific radiation experiments that left incredible damage on the health of these people.

So yes, it is a very disunited society and the only way they can try to bring together their so-called Jewish state, is by trying to unite everybody in hatred of their common enemy, which is, basically, all of the people of the region that they are part of and to a lesser extent, the entire world.

    They are always talking about how the whole world hated them and so on and so they have been starting wars and creating attacks, they even create a lot of false flag attacks, precisely in order to distract their own people from the conditions in the country including the economic troubles.

    And I would not be surprised if Netanyahu’s recent decision to attack Syria, his efforts to escalate the war on Syria and his endless and tireless efforts to try to start a war with Iran and then drag the US into it to do his own fighting for him; might escalate, given these economic problems and these protests in Israel.


Press TV: We are just about out of time but Dr. Barrett how do you see this?

Is this just systematic of an elitist system showing more and more its true colors as far as the way it is treating the difference between the haves and haves not?

Barrett: Yes, as I said earlier it is one of the most unequal societies in the world, not even counting the ethnic victims huddling in concentration camps, drinking water polluted with sewage, getting white phosphorus dropped on them, having their children shot down on a regular basis for sport by the IDF troops.

So it is a terribly unequal situation and the only answer the way to restore peace and prosperity to occupied Palestine is peace with justice and that means, it’s very simple, it means right of return, allowing all Palestinian ethnic cleansing victims to be first class citizens of a united Israel-Palestine.

Once that happens they can stop wasting all their money on these outlandish military and security measures and they can build a vibrant economy and lead the whole Middle East to prosperity.

The Real IRS Scandal

THE STORY OF 'THE HOLOCAUST ORIGINATED WITH JEW JOE STALIN ?!

Article

Behind Syria Peace Talks Proposal, US Prepares Regional War

While ostensibly touring the Middle East to discuss a joint US-Russian proposal for peace talks between the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and Western-backed “rebels,” Secretary of State John Kerry met with US allies to prepare for region-wide war.

Stopping first in Oman, Kerry held talks with the ruling Sultan, one of the string of monarchical dictators that constitute, together with Israel, the foundation of US influence in the Middle East. The secretary of state’s visit coincided with the signing of a $2.1 billion deal between the absolute monarchy and Raytheon Corp. for the sale of advanced weapons systems, including Avenger fire units, Stinger missiles, and Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, part of a ring of steel that Washington has sought to erect around Iran.

From there, he flew to Amman, Jordan for a meeting Wednesday of the “Friends of Syria,” a US-led “coalition of the willing” that is fomenting the war for regime change in Syria. It consists of Washington, its European NATO allies, led by Britain, Turkey, Egypt and the various sheikhdoms and sultanates of the Persian Gulf, including the major arms suppliers to the anti-Assad militias: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

As the conference was convening Wednesday, Syria’s ambassador to Jordan held a press conference to denounce it as “a meeting of Syria’s enemies” 

“Those who want to end the tragedy in Syria need to stop arming and training terrorist gangs in Syria. The war on Syria is unprecedented,” said the ambassador, Bahjat Suleiman.

Representatives of the Syrian National Coalition, the anti-Assad front cobbled together by the US State Department, were invited to the meeting only at the last minute. It appears there was some doubt if an agreement could be reached on whom the “rebels” would accept as their representative.

The US has promoted Ghassan Hitto, a Texas-based businessman linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who has lived in the US for over 30 years, as the “premier” of a transitional government. There have been increasing reports, however, that his role is strongly opposed by the Sunni sectarian militias that are fighting in Syria. It was reported that the coalition’s “acting chief,” George Sabra, a former member of the Stalinist Syrian Communist Party, would stand in for the “rebels.”

While the State Department claims that Kerry’s role in this gathering is to prepare for Syrian peace talks—dubbed Geneva 2—which Washington and Moscow have publicly agreed to support, it is evident that the real agenda occupying the US and its allies is how to salvage the war for regime change, under conditions in which the Syrian government is inflicting strategic reverses on the Western-backed forces.

This has emerged most clearly in the Syrian army’s overrunning of the city of Qusayr in western Syria, just eight miles from the Lebanese border. The town, which had fallen under control of the Western-backed militias, has served as a key pipeline for arms and foreign fighters crossing the Lebanese border. “Rebel” control of the surrounding region also threatened to separate the Syrian capital of Damascus from the city of Aleppo as well as the Syrian coast.

Speaking at a news conference in Amman at the opening of the “Friends of Syria” meeting, Kerry warned that if the Assad regime failed to negotiate a political solution, Washington would consider “growing support for the opposition in order to continue to fight for the freedom of their country.” With US officials demanding Assad’s ouster as a condition for any settlement, it appears that the proposed talks will be turned into a pretext for escalating the US intervention.

Kerry’s remark came just one day after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by a 15-to-3 vote a proposal for Washington to directly arm the opposition militias. The CIA is already coordinating the arms flows from the Gulf states and has reportedly organized large shipments from Eastern Europe through third parties.

Kerry blamed the reversals suffered by Washington’s proxy forces in the battle for Qusayr on the role played by fighters of Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based party and militia that is aligned with the Assad government, as well as on alleged Iranian backing for the regime.

“Just last week, obviously, Hezbollah intervened very, very significantly,” said Kerry. “There are several thousands of Hezbollah militia forces on the ground in Syria who are contributing to this violence and we condemn that.”

Hezbollah has acknowledged that its fighters are in Syria, but has denied reports that they are playing any decisive role in the fighting, insisting rather that they are training Lebanese in Syrian border towns to defend themselves.

The Western media has also focused on Hezbollah’s role, while ignoring the fact that large numbers of Sunni Islamist fighters have also come across the Lebanese border to fight against the Assad regime.

The threat that this conflict will spill over the region’s borders into a full-scale regional war grows daily. In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, at least 11 people have died, including at least two Lebanese army soldiers, in clashes between Sunni militias and Lebanese Alawite supporters of Assad. The clashes have seen exchanges of mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades, bringing schools, businesses and other activities to a standstill.

The State Department issued a statement denouncing Hezbollah’s role in Syria, charging that it serves to “exacerbate and inflame regional sectarian tensions.” No such denunciations were forthcoming when the Islamist forces overran Qusayr, decapitating and shooting members of the substantial Alawite and Christian minority populations in the area and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

In one measure of the opposition’s desperation, acting National Coalition chief Sabra issued a statement on the eve of the Amman conference calling for the US and its allies to “open a humanitarian corridor” to Qusayr—in other words, to launch a direct Western military intervention on Syrian soil.

In a conference call on Tuesday, a senior State Department official acknowledged, “One of the things we’ll be talking about here in Amman tomorrow is what else needs to be done with respect to the military balance on the ground.”

In advancing its militarist agenda, Washington has stepped up a propaganda campaign charging that Iran is likewise responsible for the reverses suffered by the anti-Assad forces in Syria. A senior State Department official told the Washington Post that Iranian forces are fighting in Syria, repeating totally unsubstantiated allegations by the “rebels” as fact.

As the Post pointed out, “The US official’s allegation was a tacit acknowledgment that the two-year Syrian conflict has become a regional war and a de facto US proxy fight with Iran.”

The Post ’s columnist David Ignatius noted that while there is public talk of a peace conference in Geneva by next month, “the battling on the ground is so intense, and the demand for additional weapons [from the opposition] so vocal, that a skeptical person should ask whether the Geneva talks will take place at all.”

Washington’s ostensible agreement with Moscow on peace talks is merely another tactic to advance its strategic aims in the region, which have been prosecuted through the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. Behind the crocodile tears about Syrian civilian casualties, its objective remains the same as that which underlay the eruption of American militarism 12 years ago: the assertion by military means of hegemonic control over strategic energy reserves coveted by its rivals, particularly in China and Russia.

As the evolution of the proxy war in Syria demonstrates, this predatory US intervention points directly toward a far wider and catastrophic conflagration that threatens not only war against Iran, but confrontation with Russia and China as well.

 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/23/syri-m23.html

Israel’s Hand in Guatemala’s Genocide

Exclusive: The Guatemalan genocide of the 1980s does not just implicate President Ronald Reagan and his senior aides but the Israeli government which secretly supplied helicopters, guns and computers that were used to hunt down and exterminate Ixil Indians and other perceived enemies of the state, reports Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

At the height of Guatemala’s mass slaughters in the 1980s, including genocide against the Ixil Indians, the Reagan administration worked with Israeli officials to provide helicopters that the Guatemalan army used to hunt down fleeing villagers, according to documentary and eyewitness evidence.

During testimony at the recent genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, one surprise was how often massacre survivors cited the Army’s use of helicopters in the scorched-earth offensives.

 "We mustn't forget that the greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish" Ynet News

Butcher Ariel Sharon. (Photo  credit:Jim Wallace of the Smithsonian Institution)

Journalist Allan Nairn, who covered the war in Guatemala and attended the Rios Montt trial, said in an interview, “one interesting thing that came out in the trial, as witness after witness testified, was a very substantial number of them talked about fleeing into the mountains and being bombed, attacked and machine gunned from U.S. planes and helicopters.

“At the time this was going on, I was aware this was happening in some cases, but from the testimony of the witnesses, it sounded like these attacks from U.S. planes and helicopters were more frequent than we realized at the time. That’s an example of how we don’t know the whole story yet – how extensive the U.S. complicity was in these crimes.”

Part of the mystery was where did Guatemala’s UH-1H “Huey” helicopters come from, since the U.S. Congress continued to resist military sales to Guatemala because of its wretched human rights record. The answer appears to be that some helicopters were arranged secretly by President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff through Israeli intelligence networks.

Rios Montt began pressing the United States for 10 UH-1H helicopters in June 1983, as his military campaign was ramping up. Since Guatemala lacked the U.S. Foreign Military Sales credits or the cash to buy the helicopters, Reagan’s national security team looked for unconventional ways to arrange the delivery of the equipment.

On Aug. 1, 1983, NSC aides Oliver North and Alfonso Sapia-Bosch reported to National Security Advisor William P. Clark that his deputy Robert “Bud” McFarlane was planning to exploit his Israeli channels to secure the helicopters for Guatemala, according to a document that I discovered at Reagan’s presidential library.

“With regard to the loan of ten helicopters, it is [our] understanding that Bud will take this up with the Israelis,” wrote North and Sapia-Bosch. “There are expectations that they would be forthcoming. Another possibility is to have an exercise with the Guatemalans. We would then use US mechanics and Guatemalan parts to bring their helicopters up to snuff.”

By then, McFarlane had a long and intimate relationship with Israeli intelligence involving various backdoor deals. [For more on McFarlane's Israeli channels, see Consortiumnews.com's "How Neocons Messed Up the Mideast."]

Israeli Channel

McFarlane’s approach to Israel for the helicopters was successful, according to former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, who described some of the history behind Israel’s activities in Guatemala in his 1992 memoir, Profits of War.

Ben-Menashe traced the Israeli arms sales to Guatemala back to a private network established in the 1970s by Gen. Ariel Sharon during a gap when he was out of the government. Sharon’s key representative in Guatemala was a businessman named Pesach Ben-Or, and through that channel, Israel supplied military gear to Guatemala’s security services in the 1980s, Ben-Menashe wrote.

In an interview on Thursday, Ben-Menashe said the Israelis supplied a total of six helicopters to the Guatemalans along with computers and software to keep track of alleged subversives who could then be identified and executed. Ben-Menashe said he learned of the mass slaughters during his travels to Guatemala and reported back to his Israeli superiors about the atrocities involving the equipment that they had authorized. The response, he said, was concern but inaction.

“They weren’t for killing these people, not at all,” Ben-Menashe said. “But they thought their interest was to help the Reagan people. If the Reagan people wanted it [the equipment sent to Guatemala], they would do it. [They thought,] ‘this is bad, but is it any of our business? Our American friends are asking for our help, so we should help them.’”

After our phone interview had ended, Ben-Menashe called me back to stress that the Israelis were unaware of the genocidal nature of the Guatemalan military campaigns against the Ixil Indians, although the Israelis did recognize that they were assisting in mass murders of dark-skinned Guatemalans.

“As we saw it, they [Guatemalan military authorities] were targeting all non-white villagers who were sitting on fertile lands that the white Guatemalans wanted,” he said, adding that when he reported this information to his superiors, “the Israelis rolled their eyes [in dismay] but said, ‘this is what our friends in the Reagan administration want.’” [For more on Ben-Menashe's work for Israeli intelligence, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege and America's Stolen Narrative.]

Besides the helicopters for hunting down villagers who fled into the jungles, the computer equipment and the sophisticated software made the Guatemalan killing machine vastly more efficient in the towns and cities. A former U.S. Green Beret operating in Guatemala once told me that he witnessed Guatemalan security forces stopping buses and inputting identification numbers of the passengers into a computer to select those who would be dragged off to the side of the road and summarily shot.

Death Lists

From first-hand reporting in Guatemala, journalist Nairn also observed the security advantages gained from detailed death lists. Nairn said soldiers under Gen. Otto Perez Molina, the current president, “described how they would go into town armed with death lists provided them by G2 military intelligence, death lists of people who were suspected of being collaborators of the guerrillas or critics of the army.

“They told how they would strangle people with lassos, slit women open with machetes, shoot people in the head in front of the neighbors, use U.S. planes, helicopters and 50 gram bombs to attack people if they fled into the hills.”

Nairn said, “The U.S. had also arranged for Israel to step in and become the principal supplier of hardware to the Guatemalan army, in particular assault rifles, the Galil automatic rifle. This was because the administration was running into problems with Congress, which wouldn’t go along with a lot of their plans to aid the Guatemalan military, so they did an end run by using the government of Israel.”

Though the focus of the case against Rios Montt has been the genocide inflicted on Ixil villages in the northern highlands – where some 626 villages were eradicated by the Guatemalan military – those massacres were only part of the estimated 200,000 killings perpetrated by right-wing Guatemalan regimes since a CIA-sponsored coup ousted an elected government in 1954.

The bloodbath was at its worst in the 1980s during Ronald Reagan’s presidency as he encouraged the anti-leftist slaughters that claimed the lives of some 100,000 Guatemalans. Reagan expanded his support for the Guatemalan security forces even though the CIA was keeping his administration informed of the systematic killings underway.

Another document that I discovered in the archives of the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, revealed that Reagan and his national security team in 1981 agreed to supply military aid to Guatemala’s dictators so they could pursue the goal of exterminating not only “Marxist guerrillas” but people associated with their “civilian support mechanisms.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide.”]

As for Rios Montt, who ruled Guatemala for 17 especially bloody months in 1982-83, the 86-year-old ex-general was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by a criminal court on May 10 and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

But that conviction was overturned on Monday on a 3-2 vote by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court which is still dominated by allies of the military and the oligarchy. As for the Reagan administration officials and the Israelis who aided and abetted Rios Montt and his fellow generals, there is no indication that any accountability will be exacted.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. 

 http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/23/israels-hand-in-guatemalas-genocide/

"Syrian Navy Destroys Israeli Submarine"

Syrianews managed to confirm the news we received a couple of days ago that a Syrian Navy boat destroyed an Israeli submarine off the Syrian coast at 150 meters depth on 02 May 2013 around 2 – 2:30 am. We were not told the type or size of the submarine but we were confirmed it was destroyed.

In the details we managed to get: the enemy object was detected and orders were given to one of the nearby boats to destroy it which they did with a torpedo (not told which type), then it was monitored sinking until landing on the seabed off the coast. A heavy movement of Syrian Army helicopters was observed over the site where the submarine was destroyed.

It’s not the first time Syrian Navy engage with enemy and hostile objects. At the very beginning of the Syrian crisis, the Syrian Navy spotted a German navy ship on a reconnaissance mission and harassed it away, a German minister then complained of the Syrian Navy acts claiming the ship was not spying, just listening and collecting information!

A high number of Israeli spying balloons are seen over the Syrian coast and the Zionists started booby trapping the balloons so they’ll explode when reaching the ground if they’re shot down by the Syrian Army.

Worth noting that Israel with US blessing carried out a raid against a chicken hen and a weapons depot near Damascus on 5th of May 2013, 3 days after this submarine was destroyed. The raid was in coordination with ground terrorists from Nusra Front attacking 19 different SAA checkpoints around the Syrian capital very early in the morning.

http://www.syrianews.cc/syrianews-exclusive-syrian-navy-destroys-israeli-submarine/

Report: Israel mulls proxy force with Syrian Druze on Golan

New York Times says Israeli officials are discussing creating a force of Syrians who live near the cease-fire line • Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel: "If Syria collapses tomorrow we could find ourselves very quickly inside this cauldron."



Israeli officials are discussing establishing a proxy force inside Syria made up of residents of villages close to the cease-fire line, perhaps led by the minority Druze sect in Syria, which also has some 20,000 members living over the border in Israeli-controlled territory, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

According to the paper, several Israeli officials who follow Syria closely said Israeli security forces had already been quietly working with villagers who support neither the government nor the rebels, supplying moderate humanitarian aid and maintaining intense intelligence activity.

However, The Times reported that its sources said any notion of arming such villagers was remote if not far-fetched, noting that the main Druze leadership in Syria had so far stayed steadfastly out of the conflict.

Amid the growing tension with Syria, Israel Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said on Wednesday that Israel was poised for a large-scale assault on Syria to prevent advanced weapons reaching jihadist rebels or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon if President Bashar al-Assad was toppled.

Addressing a security conference, Eshel said Israeli warplanes could be repelled by Syria's formidable, Russian-supplied anti-aircraft systems.

"If Syria collapses tomorrow we could find ourselves very quickly inside this cauldron, and on a very large scale, because this enormous arsenal is parked there, just waiting to be looted, and could be turned [against Israel]," he told the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Studies near Tel Aviv.

"We may find ourselves having to take action, on a very broad scale, within a very short period of time," Eshel said. "It does not mean we will act, but that we have to be ready to."

He said fighting could escalate to include attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and by Iran, who both back Assad, and that the air force might have to employ "the full spectrum of its might."

Beset by the more than two-year insurgency that Hezbollah been helping his army battle, Assad has not retaliated to Israel's reported airstrikes. But there are signs his restraint may wane, seen in a shooting attack by Syrian troops at an Israeli patrol in the Golan Heights on Tuesday.

While militarily superior to Syria, Israel fears this edge will be blunted by Assad's Russian-made air and coast defenses, especially if Israeli forces are stretched over three fronts.

Eshel said the most formidable of the Russian anti-aircraft systems available, the S-300, was "on its way" to Syria, without elaborating on where he was getting his information.

"Air superiority is critical, and we must contend with a new generation of [Syrian] capabilities," Eshel said.

In separate remarks about Syria to the conference, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said: "There are those who are trying to bring weapons systems into the area that are liable to harm our aerial and naval supremacy ... and this must be prevented in a responsible and considered manner."

Ya'alon said that despite recent gains against the Syrian rebels by Assad and Hezbollah forces, Damascus was in decline.

"Assad is losing Syria," he said. "There is a sense that he is charging ahead because of the Russian support, but that story is not over -- it could end suddenly, or continue for years as a bloody civil war."

Ya'alon played down the prospect of anyone on the Syrian side starting a war with Israel, "because they understand the heavy price they would pay."

But Israelis should also not anticipate an easy victory, Eshel told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

"People are looking for a knockout, for things to be surgical and sterile, but they won't be," he said. "The homefront will be hit, no matter how much we defend it."

Meanwhile, Washington threatened on Wednesday to increase support for Syria's rebels if Assad continues to refuse to discuss a political end to the civil war.

Rebels called for reinforcements to combat an "invasion" by Hezbollah and its Iranian backers, days after Assad's forces launched an offensive against a strategic town that could prove to be a turning point in the war.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said several thousand Hezbollah fighters were taking part in the conflict, with Iranian support on the ground.

Forces loyal to Assad have made gains in recent days, but these were "very temporary," Kerry told a news conference in Amman before a meeting of the Friends of Syria group, made up of Western and regional countries lined up against Assad.

"Just last week, obviously, Hezbollah intervened very, very significantly," Kerry said. "There are several thousands of Hezbollah militia forces on the ground in Syria who are contributing to this violence, and we condemn that."

Speaking before the meeting, Kerry told reporters, "In the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate ... in good faith, we will also talk about our continued support and growing support for the opposition in order to permit them to continue to be able to fight for the freedom of their country."

In a boost to the rebels, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Tuesday for legislation that would send arms to moderate members of the Syrian opposition, the first time U.S. lawmakers have approved such action. There is less enthusiasm for arming the rebels in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and it is not clear whether a Senate bill would get through Congress.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9461

France backs call to put Hezbollah armed wing on EU terror list

France is ready to support a British initiative to put the armed wing of Hezbollah on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations, an official said on Thursday, confirming comments by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Paris has traditionally been cautious about backing steps to sanction Hezbollah, fearing it could destabilize Lebanon and potentially put UN peacekeepers at risk, but in recent weeks it has said it would consider all options.

Britain said on Tuesday it asked the EU to put Hezbollah's military arm on the list, citing evidence of the Islamist group's involvement in an attack that killed five Israelis.

Citing comments made by Fabius at the end of the Friends of Syria conference in Amman on Wednesday, the French official said the increased help Hezbollah had given to Syrian President Bashar Assad had encouraged to Paris to rethink its position.

"Given the decisions that Hezbollah has taken and the fact that it has fought extremely hard against the Syrian population, I confirm that France will propose to place Hezbollah's military wing on the list of terrorist organizations," Fabius said.

On Wednesday, German diplomats said Berlin would also support Britain's request, which will be discussed in early June by a special EU working group.

Hezbollah guerrillas are fighting their biggest battle yet for Assad, and about 30 were killed on Sunday, Syrian activists said, during fighting in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, near the Lebanese border.

France, the former colonial ruler in Lebanon, has about 900 troops as part of the UN peacekeeping force in the country.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/france-backs-call-to-put-hezbollah-armed-wing-on-eu-terror-list-1.525584?localLinksEnabled=false

British guilty of disguised anti-Semitism, says Israeli minister

A senior Israeli government minister has attacked British attitudes towards his country as "disguised anti-Semitism" and said that Britain was more hostile towards the Jewish state than other Western countries.

 In frank comments on the eve of a visit to the Holy Land by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Yuval Steinitz, Israel's intelligence and strategic affairs minister and a confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu, voiced fears about British "animosities" towards his country.

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Steinitz suggested that there was growing antagonism – taking the form of hostile media coverage, "incitement" and boycott campaigns – and intimated that a less friendly attitude may be being reflected in official Britsh policy.

He also issued a coded warning to Mr Hague and other Western statesman against lecturing Israel about Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, which the Foreign Secretary has repeatedly condemned.

Asked if Britain was still a "friend of Israel", Mr Steinitz replied: "It's difficult to say. Traditionally we had good relations with Britain and currently we have good intelligence cooperation with Britain and it's very successful. [But] we are concerned about the relations, about what we see as some animosities, some incitement in Britain, in the media, made by NGOs [non-governmental organisation] against Israel. I hope we will be able to use [Mr Hague's] visit to improve relations."

He pointed to campaigns calling for boycotts of Israeli products, academics and universities – a movement which recently saw Prof Stephen Hawking, the renowned British physicist, withdraw from a conference hosted by Shimon Peres, Israel's president, next month in protest at the occupation of the West Bank.

Expressing "disappointment" at Prof Hawking's decision, Mr Steinitz said: "I didn't hear that Prof Hawking or other British academics, who are so easily boycotting Israel, are boycotting other Middle East countries. Or if they have reservations about America invading Iraq, they so easily boycott American universities. So some Israelis feel that there is some kind of double standards.

"The fact that Israel is treated differently, the fact that some people can say so easily, let's do something against Israel, let's boycott Israel, let's boycott Israeli products, this is some kind of disguised anti-Semitism. In past times people said that they are against the Jews. Now, especially after the Holocaust, nobody says that they are against the Jews, but people are against the Jewish state."

Mr Steinitz – a former finance minister – said British perceptions of Israel were more negative than those of other Western or European countries and drew comparison with popular sentiment in the US, Canada and Australia.

"There should not be much difference between people in America, Canada, Britain and Australia," he said. "[They have] the same language, very similar cultures. And still in America, Canada, in Australia in opinion polls, most citizens support Israel with a very warm feeling. In Britain it is much less.

"When you think that all four are Anglo-Saxon democracies, why should people in America, Australia or Canada have different relations to or appreciations of the minuscule Jewish state than the people of Britain? Just recently, there was a very general poll in the United States. The support for Israel in the United States was stronger than ever. I'm not confident that this is the case with Britain as well."

Asked if this difference in attitude might be reflected in the Foreign Office or in Government policy, he replied: "This might be the case."

Anti-Semitism existed in Britain to a "certain extent", he added, manifesting itself in negative attitudes to the Jewish state.

Widely believed to be Mr Netanyahu's favoured choice as Israel's next foreign minister, Mr Steinitz was almost certainly reflecting his boss's views. One official close to the prime minister has told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Netanyahu views British public opinion towards Israel as "very tough".

Mr Steinitz insisted that he was not accusing Mr Hague or other British ministers who had criticised Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank of anti-Semitism, saying this was a "legitimate view".

"Not every kind of criticism is anti-Semitism," he said. "I didn't say that any criticism of Israel was anti-Semitic or unfair even. If somebody has some criticism of Israel, this is one thing. The same person can also have some criticism of his own country.

"But if somebody is following criticism of Israel and becoming anti-Israeli, saying 'I'm ready to cooperate with Israel's enemies or boycott Israel, or Israelis or Israeli academia or Israeli institutions', this is something different."

But he rejected the view – voiced by Mr Hague and other Western statesman – that continued settlement building threatened to torpedo chances of a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

"I think those allegations about the settlements are fundamentally wrong. To come to Israel and say why are you doing this and this, this is totally wrong," Mr Steinitz said. He cited the dismantling of settlements in Sinai in Egypt after the 1979 Camp David accords as proof that Israel would uproot settlers in return for genuine peace.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10074775/British-guilty-of-disguised-anti-Semitism-says-Israeli-minister.html

Two States: Israel’s Official Position Or Not?

If anyone out there was still clinging to the notion that the Israeli government officially supports a two-state peace with the Palestinians, Barak Ravid’s account of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee discussion on Tuesday should be enough to shatter that illusion.

The discussion saw government coalition members vociferously challenging Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s assertion that Israel’s policy is one of “negotiations based on two national states which will bring an end to the conflict."

MK Orit Strock from Habayit Hayehudi cut Livni off. "Two states for two peoples is not the government's official position," she said. "It is not part of the government's guiding principles, and for good reason. This is perhaps Netanyahu's position and your position, but it has not been accepted as the government's position."

[…] "The government has not even decided that it supports two nations for two peoples," [Habayit Hayehudi MK Yoni] Chetboun told Livni.

MK Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi) continued the thought, saying, "Two nations for two peoples is disconnected from reality."

What’s disturbing about this is that these Knesset members are actually right: official commitment to the two-state solution isn’t in the coalition agreement, nor is it spelled out in the government’s ruling party’s platform (Likud-Beytenu didn’t bother to create one this past election cycle). And this isn’t the first time that omission has lent strength to Israeli politicians who oppose two states—not just in far-right, pro-annexationist Habayit Hayehudi, but in the Likud itself. Back in January, Likud MKs stated that their party does not support a two-state solution, Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar Ilan speech notwithstanding. As the Times of Israel reported:

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who is No. 3 on the Likud-Beytenu joint list, said “two states for two peoples was never part of [Likud's] election platform.” MK Tzipi Hotovely, No. 15 on the list, said the Bar-Ilan speech was a tactical maneuver by Netanyahu only meant to placate the world.

Netanyahu’s failure to officially, formally, explicitly commit his own ruling party—never mind the Israeli government writ large—to the two-state solution, in writing, is almost as problematic as his failure to reprimand the MKs who reject it out of hand. It seems reasonable to assume that, if the prime minister were truly committed to a given solution, he would have reprimanded the Likud MKs who spoke out against it last January, and probably would’ve had a few choice words for the Habayit Hayehudi MKs who spoke out Tuesday as well.

Building on this assumption, J Street today launched an online petition (my word, not theirs) to get Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to clarify whether or not the Israeli government supports the two-state solution. “For there to be any hope of progress, the Israeli government must state unequivocally that support for a two-state solution is a core principle of its foreign policy,” J Street explained. That’s certainly true, although personally I am less convinced by the follow-up assertion that “a simple declarative statement by Prime Minister Netanyahu or Ambassador Michael Oren would dispel these doubts immediately.” The petition is a clever move because it will pressure Oren to speak directly to this question, and I actually think there’s a good chance it will succeed in accomplishing that goal. But I’d hazard a guess that, if Oren does address the question, he’ll simply say exactly what he’s said before.

Oren will focus on the prime minister, arguing that he supports two states, even if others within the coalition do not (which is natural, after all, and even desirable—it’s a sign of Israel’s vibrant democracy!). He'll quote Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid quoting Netanyahu saying that the government supports two states. He’ll tout Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Livni lead peace negotiator—although she’s “leading” in nothing but name. He’ll pay lip service to the peace process, just like he did at the AIPAC conference in March, when he stated that “Netanyahu has taken consistent risks for peace. In 2009, when he got up at Bar Ilan University and made the two-state solution the official position of the Likud party, that was a risk.” What he won’t mention is that these kinds of oral commitments are only as good as the paper they’re written on—as the various Habayit Hayehudi and Likud MKs have made painfully clear.

Ultimately, what the Israeli government needs to do is enshrine its commitment to two states in writing—coalition agreements, party platforms—so that it’s crystal clear that this is official government policy. And then it needs to take the next step, moving from words to deeds, starting with confidence-building measures like a Livni-backed partial settlement freeze. Until it does this, there is simply no good reason for either U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry or the Palestinians to have, well, confidence in it.

MK Ronen Hoffman of Yesh Atid put the problem best in Tuesday’s discussion. He asked Habayit Hayehudi: "How is it possible to expect the Palestinians to enter negotiations when part of our government opposes a Palestinian state?" He’s right—such a situation expects a lot, it expects too much—and that’s just what Habayit Hayehudi is counting on.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/22/two-states-israel-s-official-position-or-not.html

US Lawmakers Pledge to Back Israel Against Iran

The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved a resolution affirming America's firm opposition to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and pledging full support for Israel in the event of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The chance to slam Iran’s government and speak up for Israel brought a rare moment of complete bipartisan unity to the Senate. Republican Lindsey Graham was a lead sponsor of the resolution.

“If that day ever comes where Israel has to take military action, to our friends in Israel: we will be there with you every step of the way diplomatically, economically, and, yes, militarily. And to the Iranian people: we would love to have a better relationship with you. To the Iranian regime: you are one of the biggest evils on the planet. And we will stand up to you. We will stand by our friends,” Graham said.

The resolution is an expression of the collective will of the Senate. It neither authorizes the use of U.S. military force, nor constitutes a declaration of war.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez noted a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying that Iran has boosted its ability to enrich uranium with hundreds of new centrifuges.

“We seek full implementation of U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, and urge the president [Barack Obama] to continue to strengthen enforcement of those sanctions. I cannot emphasize enough my strong concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, and the extraordinary threat it poses - yes, to Israel, but very importantly to the United States of America,” Menendez said.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, arguing that Israel is the true threat to regional peace. 

http://www.voanews.com/content/u-congress-resolution-israel-iran-nuclear/1666558.html

Israel's military chiefs warn of Syria threat

The Syrian army will soon receive advanced missile defense systems and Israel's air force commander warned the weapons could be used against Israel.

"Aerial superiority is a condition to win and win quickly and is of great strategic importance. The other side understands that well, which is why Assad with his low budget, has invested billions into purchasing anti-aircraft missiles," Israeli air force commander Maj. Gen Amir Eshel said Wednesday at a conference in Herzliya, Ynetnews.com reported.

He was referring to the delivery of Russian-made S-300 missile defense systems, a move that has been harshly criticized by Israel and the United States.

Syria is "changing before our eyes. If it collapses tomorrow, we could find its vast arsenal dispersed and pointed at us," Israel Radio quoted Eshel saying.

"A lone incident can escalate very quickly and obligate us to be prepared within hours to act."

While the situation on Israel's northern border didn't develop overnight, Israel must be prepared, he said.

"No one is going to tell us to take two weeks to prepare for war," he said.

If a conflict with Syria erupts "we will have to be ready for confrontations in Gaza and Lebanon, including long-range ones," he said.

Eshel's comments echoed those made by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Tuesday, when he warned that Israel is facing a substantial threat of a multi-front conflict.

"We must work in a joint coordinated manner with maximum efficiency to ensure we win quickly in every confrontation, and to win every future war," Israel's Channel One quoted him saying.

Gantz also warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that if he attacked Israel he will bear the consequences.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Israel is working with villages in Syria close to the Israeli border, supplying them moderate humanitarian aid and maintaining "intense intelligence activity." The report noted the villagers aren't affiliated with the regime or rebel forces.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/05/23/Israels-military-chiefs-warn-of-Syria-threat/UPI-28531369301016/

General says Israel ready to attack Syria should Assad fall

 Israel is prepared to attack Syria to prevent advanced weapons reaching jihadi rebels or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, Israel's air force chief said on Wednesday.

Major-General Amir Eshel also said Israelis should brace for a protracted and painful conflict should their forces engage in combat with Hezbollah or its main backer, Iran.

"If Syria collapses tomorrow, we will need to take action to prevent a strategic looting of advanced weaponry," he told the Fisher Institute for Air & Space Studies near Tel Aviv.

"We have to be ready for any scenario, at a few hours' notice," Eshel said.

He assumed fighting could escalate on to three fronts at once and require the Israeli air force to employ "the full spectrum of its might".

Israeli warplanes have attacked Syria at least three times this year to destroy what intelligence sources described as advanced anti-aircraft and ground-to-ground missile caches in transit to Hezbollah. The Israelis also worry that Assad may lose control of Syria's chemical warheads stocks.

Beset by the more than two-year-old insurgency, Assad has not retaliated for the air strikes. But some Israeli experts worry his forbearance could wear out - especially if he believes new Russian-supplied air defenses will let him fend off his militarily superior foe.

Eshel said the most formidable of the Russian systems, the S-300, was "on its way" to Syria and that Israel could not afford to see its air superiority dented given what he predicted would be the need to hit the other side intensively.

"If we want to prevail within a few days, we need to use a lot of firepower, and quickly," he said. "Air superiority is critical, and we must contend with a new generation of capabilities."

Israelis would be mistaken to anticipate a repeat of their lopsided recent clashes with Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza, or their 2006 war with Hezbollah in south Lebanon, Eshel told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

"People are looking for a knock-out, for things to be surgical and sterile, but they won't be. The homefront will be hit, no matter how much we defend it," he said, referring to possible missile attacks on the Israeli interior from Syria, Hezbollah and Iran.

"If we go to war in the north, we can win, without a doubt, but it will be something entirely new. No one should say, 'Guys, we are fighting without pressure, so we will finish this story in two months.' It's far more delicate than that."

http://news.yahoo.com/general-says-israel-ready-attack-syria-assad-fall-151534140.html;_ylt=ApVGt1LeNBi5Os5rL9zsgQ7QtDMD

Biden Lauds Jewish Influence For Gay Marriage

US Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday night lauded the influence of Judaism on the United States, specifically mentioning the efforts of Jews on gay rights issues, according a report on the Politico website.

“The truth is that Jewish heritage, Jewish culture, Jewish values are such an essential part of who we are that it’s fair to say that Jewish heritage is American heritage,” Biden said during a speech at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception hosted by the Democratic National Committee at the American Institute of Architects building in Washington.


"The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you,” according to a transcript of his speech posted on Politico.

Biden pointed to American television sitcom Will and Grace - whose protagonists are a gay lawyer and his Jewish best friend - alongside social media, as examples of game-changing factors in the battle for gay marriage rights. "That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes," Politico quoted him as saying. "That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would... rapidly embrace gay marriage."
The vice president also noted the 11 percent of seats in the US Congress filled by Jewish leaders, as well as the third of Nobel laureates that are Jewish.

"So many notions that are embraced by this nation that particularly emanate from over 5,000 years of Jewish history, tradition and culture: independence, individualism, fairness, decency, justice, charity. These are all as you say, as I learned early on as a Catholic being educated by my friends, this tzedakah (charity)” Biden enthused, before thanking the Jewish population for its contribution to the nation,

 http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/US-VP-Biden-lauds-Jewish-drive-for-gay-rights-313965

Biden Praises Jews, Goes Too Far, Accidentally Thrills Anti-Semites

Joe Biden spoke last night in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month. Biden has long, deep ties to the Jewish community — Obama actually picked him in 2008 in part to reassure skittish Jewish Democrats. Biden indeed offered fulsome, heartfelt praise in his remarks, before wandering into highly uncomfortable terrain and delivering a speech that is likely to be quoted by anti-Semites for years and decades to come. (It’s already the subject of excited discussion among the white supremacist community.)

Biden’s remarks were not anti-Semitic. They were very, very philo-Semitic. The thrust of his largely unscripted monologue is that Jews have contributed enormously to the United States. That’s obviously a standard spiel for praising any ethnic group, but Biden took care to emphasize that Jews have not just contributed their share to the United States, but far more:

The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you …

You make up 11 percent of the seats in the United States Congress. You make up one-third of all Nobel laureates …

I think you, as usual, underestimate the impact of Jewish heritage. I really mean that. I think you vastly underestimate the impact you’ve had on the development of this nation.

It’s obviously true that Jews have flourished in the United States and, as Biden says, have achieved massively disproportionate representation in fields like science, culture, politics, academia, and so on.

Jews regard this fact with a mixture of pride and neurosis. The neurosis is a fear that our success will be seen as a kind of invidious control, that the broader society will at some point say, no, you have too much. Ivy League schools in the last century imposed first overt quotas, and then more subtle geographic and “character”-based admissions standards, precisely to suppress the disproportionate Jewish share of their student body. The first generation of Hollywood moguls lived in terror that they would be seen as using their control of film to impose a particular Jewish slant upon the culture and labored endlessly to dispel any such suspicions.

It’s also true that, while Jewish opinions run the ideological gamut, they have clustered heavily on the left end of the political spectrum. When you combine that fact with the fact of disproportionate Jewish representation in politics and culture, you have a weirdly shared belief among philo-Semites and anti-Semites. As Biden proceeds to laud Jewish contributions to American politics, you can see the audience go from kvelling to shvitzing:

“The embrace of immigration” is part of that, as is the involvement of Jews in social justice movements.

“You can’t talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg,” he said, telling a story about seeing a group of Jewish activists at a segregated movie theater in Delaware. “You can’t talk about the women’s movement without talking about Betty Friedan” …

“I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”

“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.
“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

Biden’s intentions here are obviously as friendly as can be, but the execution is awkward. The civil rights movement today is so widely sanctified that mentioning the disproportionate Jewish role in it is in the same category as mentioning Einstein, Jonas Salk, and so on — look at all these wonderful things the Jews have helped bring us. Because Biden is liberal, it feels natural to segue into the Jewish role in the gay civil rights movement. (And I share his belief that popular culture has played an enormous and underappreciated role in promoting gay civil rights, among other liberal causes.)

Also, and this is a small thing, when you’re pulling numbers completely out of your ass, you should probably round them off to the tens digit rather than the fives. (Jews are 85 percent responsible for changing cultural attitudes toward gays? Ninety percent felt too high, 80 percent not high enough?)

The main problem here is that gay rights, unlike black civil rights, are politically controversial at the moment. Biden may find it “all to the good” that Jews have used their influence over popular culture to change societal attitudes toward homosexuality, but lots of people don’t find it good at all.


 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/biden-praises-jews-goes-too-far.html?mid=twitter_dailyintel

Biden: ‘Jewish heritage is American heritage’

Translation: America is Jewish, belong to Jews

Vice President Joe Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception that American and Jewish cultures are intertwined.

“The truth is that Jewish heritage, Jewish culture, Jewish values are such an essential part of who we are that it’s fair to say that Jewish heritage is American heritage,” Biden said Tuesday at a reception organized by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who sponsored the 2006 legislation that launched the month.

Saying “The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America,” he added that “no group has had such an outsized influence per capita.”

Biden spoke of Jewish contributions to the civil rights movement as well as to advances for women and gays, and of Jewish preeminence in the fields of science and the arts.

In addition to Wasserman Schultz’s reception, the White House hosted a musical, “The Gefilte Fish Chronicles,” on Tuesday for a small private audience.

The White House suspended its public heritage month celebration this year because of the sequestration, across-the-board budget cuts.

Ezra Friedlander, a lobbyist, was set to host a reception in the Capitol on Wednesday recognizing Jewish community leaders.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/nation/article/biden_jewish_heritage_is_american_heritage

Israeli Army Vehicle Enters Syria, Israel Supports Al Qaeda Rebels

According to the Syrian Military Command, an Israeli Armed unit entered Syria. An Israeli army vehicle which crossed the cease-fire line towards the village of Bir Ajam inside Syria was destroyed by Syrian forces:

“On Tuesday at 1:10 am (2100 GMT Monday), our armed forces destroyed an Israeli vehicle with everything it was carrying, which came from the occupied territories,”
“General Command of the Army and the Armed Forces said that our armed forces destroyed an Israeli vehicle entered from the occupied territories and crossed the cease-fire line towards the village of Bir Ajam.”

“The vehicle passed the ceasefire line and was moving towards the village of Bir-Ajam situated in the liberated Syrian zone”

The report also states that the actions of the Israeli armed forces were in support and in coordination with terrorist groups in Bir Ajam

 ”The village is located in the liberated area of Syrian territories where there are armed terrorist groups,

“Following that, the Israeli enemy fired two rockets from the occupied site of Tal al-Faras toward one of our sites in al-Zubaydiah village; no casualties reported, ” the statement said.

It added that the aggression aims at raising the terrorist groups’ collapsed moral due to the painful blows they received at the hands of our armed forces in more than one place, especially in al-Qsier area.

The General Command of the Army and the Armed Forces said that the blatant aggression confirms again the involvement of the Zionist entity in the ongoing events in Syria and the direct coordination with the armed terrorist gangs.

The statement stressed that any breach or an attempt to violate the state sovereignty will be responded.

It stressed that whoever thinks that he is able to test our strength, alert and readiness to maintain our dignity and sovereignty is mistaken.

On Tuesday, May 21, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon confirmed the incident, without acknowledging that an Israeli Army unit had crossed the cease-fire line into Syria.

“Last night we destroyed a Syrian army position which fired on an Israeli patrol.”

According to Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adraee, the Syrian army “fired on an Israeli patrol, which we confirmed six hours ago, but did not destroy a vehicle or kill anyone,”
An earlier Israeli statement said “it had responded to fire from inside Syria that hit a military patrol in the Golan Heights overnight, damaging a military vehicle.”

Israeli Support to Al Nusra

In February 2013, Israel announced that it was considering “creating a buffer zone reaching within 10 miles inside Syria”, allegedly to “protect itself from fundamentalist rebels on the other side of the border.”

The plan drafted by the military was submitted to Prime Minister Netanyahu. The stated objective reported in the London Times (February 4, 2013) borders on ridicule:

“In recent months jihadist groups such as the Nusra Front, which Washington regards as a terrorist organisation linked to al-Qaeda, are reported to have infiltrated several border villages. Two of the villages, Breika and Bir Ajam, are less than a mile from the Israeli border.

“The proposal, which has been drawn up by the military and presented to Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is intended to secure the 47-mile border against a growing Islamist threat if President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime loses control of the area. (emphasis added)

What Israeli officials are intimating is that unless president Bashar Al Assad secures the area against the terrorists, the jihadist rebels constitute a potential threat to the State of Israel: an utterly absurd proposition.

In a twisted logic, Tel Aviv claims that the US sponsored “opposition” jihadist forces which are threatening the government of Bashar Al Assad also threaten the security of Israel.

While Al Nusra is on the State Department list of terrorist organizations, it is directly supported by the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel.

The proposed “buffer zone” constitutes a pretext to channel Israeli support to the terrorists in liaison with Washington.

Israel is in close liaison with rebel commanders in Southern Syria, implying frequent incursions into Syria. In this regard, a  report by Debka, the Israeli intelligence news agency (May 8, 2013) confirms that wounded Al Nusra rebel fighters are being provided medical care in an Israeli hospital facility in the Golan Heights:

Israel has set up a large field hospital near the Tel Hazakah observation and military post on Golan which overlooks southern Syria and northern Jordan. There, incoming Syrian war wounded [Al Nusra rebels] are vetted and examined by Israeli army medics who decide whether to patch them up and send them back, or judge them badly hurt enough for hospital care.

The report also acknowledges that the rescue of wounded Al Nusra fighters requires the incursion of unmarked “Israeli army vehicles” into Syrian territory:

Unidentified Syria military sources vowed to attack the Israeli army vehicles crossing the line to evacuate wounded rebels in need of medical care. Our military sources say that if Israeli army vehicles, presumably unmarked, are indeed entering Syria to pick up injured rebels,they are most likely alerted by local liaison agents in the battle zones who guide them to the spots were the injured men are waiting.(Debka, op cit)

The above Israeli  intelligence news report points to “local liaison in the battlefield”, between the IDF and rebel mercenary forces. This liaison  and cooperation with Al Nusra also includes the incursion of Israeli covert special forces inside Syria as well as the inflow of weapons and supplies.

Al Nusra: Trained by the Pentagon

Al Nusra is largely made up of mercenaries recruited in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Covert (Western) special forces and military advisers have also integrated their ranks.

The Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists directly funded by Washington constitute the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance including Israel.  

Confirmed by CNN, the Al Nusra terrorists have also been trained in the use of chemical weapons by special forces on contract to the Pentagon: 

The training [in chemical weapons], which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.

The nationality of the trainers was not disclosed, though the officials cautioned against assuming all are American. (CNN, December 09, 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-army-vehicle-enters-syria-supports-al-nusra-rebels/5335907