In Their Own Words

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A MUST read Blankfort interview

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Tel-Aviv and Washington are linked in the Middle East. That's a fact. But the importance of this link in Washington's colonial politics is being debated in the anti-imperialist movement. For the US, Jewish, anti-Zionist journalist Jeffrey Blankfort, Israeli influence is central to US policy and the anti-war movement has failed because of its inability to understand the importance of this lobby. Having developed a radical approach to this question, going so far as to deny the energy factor in the war in Iraq, Mr. Blankfort nonetheless opens interesting paths on Zionist influence in the United States. We reproduce an interview he gave to journalist Silvia Cattori.

Jeffrey Blankfort is a US journalist and producer of radio programs on KPOO in San Francisco and KZYX in Mendocino, in Northern California, and was formerly at KPFT/Pacifica in Houston, until they purged the political programming to better lull their listeners to sleep with music. Engaged in the political fight in favor of the Palestinians and for the creation of one binational state in Palestine since the 70s, he has become one of the favorite targets of US Zionists while also attracting the animosity of a part of the US left grouped around Noam Chomsky, who reproaches Blankfort for his "lobby obsession". He was editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. Also, he was a founding member of the November 29 Coalition on Palestine.

Silvia Cattori: Washington and Tel-Aviv are intensifying their threats against Iran. In your opinion, does Israel have a precise national interest in weakening, or destroying, numerous Arab neighbors and to what degree does it succeed in orienting US policy towards new aggression in the Middle East?

Jeffrey Blankfort: My position is, and I have written an article about it, that the war in Iraq was not a war for oil, but was a war conceived by the neo-cons and the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States to benefit Israel, and to elevate Israel to a very important position in the Middle East, as a part of a plan to achieve overall US global control. This is what was called for in the document of the "Project for a New American Century" or PNAC. And even though a number of prominent people, politicians as well as military people, have said that this was a war for Israel, the anti-war movement will not consider that at all.

And right at this moment, the only segment of the American society that is pushing the US administration to confront Iran, happens to be the Jewish establishment or the lobby, whose main focus for months – groups like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but also other Jewish organizations-- has been to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The left and the anti-war movement are so focused on blaming everything on US imperialism on one hand, and avoiding the provoking of what they fear will be "anti-Semitism" on the other, that they have gone further from putting any blame on Israel than have elements of the mainstream. And so, having paid no price for pushing the US into the war in Iraq – and not only this war, but the first Gulf war – they are preparing to do the same with Iran. There is no lobby like it.

S.C.: In other words, the US has become a satellite of Israel and acts in function with Israel's interests? Is this thesis not the opposite of that of Chomsky and of the left in general, for whom it is the US that uses Israel? That there is a convergence of interests between the US and Israel, and that Israel is simply the US's cop on the ground in exchange for services rendered by the US in the Middle East?

Jeffrey Blankfort: Yes, Chomsky tends to simplify US politics, blaming everything on the elites and whoever is in the White House while avoiding the role of Congress. Today, eleven members of the Senate are Jewish, that is 11% of the 100 members while only 2% of the American population is Jewish. He and his supporters, either directly or indirectly, raise the spectre of anti-Semitism, of provoking anti-Semitism, and what happens is that people keep their mouth shut. Now, Chomsky, who was a Zionist when he was younger--he lived in Israel, he has friends in Israel, was considering moving to Israel-- admitted in 1974 that this might influence his perspective – and he wanted his readers to know that. He wrote this in 1974 and yet few people who read Chomsky today know that. They do not know that he was Zionist, that he considered living in Israel.

In fact, for years he did not speak about Israel while he was speaking out about the US in Central America and Vietnam. It was a mutual friend of ours, Dr. Israel Shahak, who convinced Chomsky that he should speak up against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. It is interesting that the most important book that Chomsky wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, The Fateful Triangle, begins actually with a defence of Israel, a defence in the sense that while acknowledging all the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, he blames the US for allowing it to happen. Now, this defence, I would say, could be used by Pinochet in Chile or any dictator the US has supported around the world, to take the primary responsibility from them and place it on the US. And I don't buy this. And most people who understand the situation, don't buy it either when they come to look at it. A number of friends of mine, who are friends of Chomsky, have come to agree with me. The problem is, I would say, as fellow academics, that they don't feel comfortable criticizing Chomsky, particularly since he is often attacked by the right wing.

He has defended many people who have been under attack and has thus gained their loyalty. He also has been a mentor to a number of academics, and ironically, Chomsky has been the doorway for so many people to become involved in politics. They read Chomsky, and they become excited about political work. And it is only later, if they are fortunate, that they discover that Chomsky not only opens the door, he closes it as well!

S.C.: Which would mean that Chomsky gives less importance to the pro-Israeli lobby than it has? Has Chomsky upheld unjust options for the Palestinians in order to preserve Israel, for which he has an emotional attachment? Is this a unique case or has Chomsky defended the indefensible?

Jeffrey Blankfort: For the most part. On most other subjects, he is more open. On this particular one, he won't even debate the issue. In 1991 we had an exchange that was published in a left newspaper in New York, the National Guardian, and a friend there wanted to set up a debate between Chomsky and myself on the issue of the Israel lobby at the Socialist Scholars Conference. Chomsky refused, writing "that it would not be useful." After his refusal, I asked a professor in California, Joel Beinin, whom I know, and who takes Chomsky's position, if he would debate me. His response was identical: "it would not be useful!"

S.C.: On Iran, which today is caught in a vise, is Chomsky, in your opinion, also minimizing the role of the lobby acting in favor of Israel in the United States?

Jeffrey Blankfort: Regarding Iran, Chomsky and the others seem to be ignoring the campaign that the lobby is waging to get us into another war, one that will be far more catastrophic than the disaster that has taken place in Iraq. There is a coalition of the 12 leading Jewish women's organizations, representing a million Jewish women, calling itself "One Voice for Israel," that formed in 2002 in response to the bad publicity Israel received over the destruction of Jenin. Each year, in what it calls "Take-5," it gets it gets it members to call the White House at the same time and then on another day, to do the same to Congress. Each time they have done it, they have tied up the Capitol switchboard. It is one of the ways in which they show their power.

This coming February 22nd, they will be phoning President Bush to express their opinion on what he should do about Iran, and its development of nuclear energy or weapons. This a kind of operation that goes on all the time, but it is not even an issue or even known about by the anti-war movement, or by the left, and Professor Chomsky has written to me and others that he is not interested in the issue.

When two years ago, the same person who invited him to have a debate with me in 1991, asked Chomsky again if he would do it, he refused, dismissing my "preoccupation" with the lobby. He also writes that he refuses to read the article that I wrote about him. This is hardly the response of an intellectual. I find it interesting that he is willing to debate Alan Dershowitz, because that is fairly easy, but he won't debate someone on the left or at least on this issue. And that is where the debate should take place.

S.C.: Do you think that other countries have their equivalent of AIPAC?

Jeffrey Blankfort: AIPAC is very unusual because while it is a registered lobby for Israel, it does not have to register as a foreign lobby. And that gives it a unique situation in the country. In every hearing in the Congress that involves Middle East issues, you have staff members of AIPAC sitting in these committee hearings. No other lobbies, foreign lobbies, have this privilege. And they also write the legislation that Congress passes regarding the Middle East. For example, the recent Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which was passed a couple of years ago and which lead to what we see in Lebanon and Syria today was written by AIPAC which later bragged about it. It is not a secret. The only people that pretend they don't know it is the Left. It's on AIPAC's website, it is in their publications. AIPAC also provides interns - young, bright Jewish college students to work in the offices of members of Congress. They go to a member of Congress and say: "We have this young person who is interested in working on Capitol Hill, they will come one year and they will work in your office." No member of Congress is about to refuse a volunteer.

Also AIPAC has a special foundation that provides free trips for members of Congress to Israel. Last year over a hundred members of Congress went to Israel, on a free trip, paid for by this foundation. Now there is a big debate about such trips in Congress paid for by various lobbies, but I do not believe that anything is going to happen there that would negatively affect AIPAC. Congress will make an exception when it comes to Israel. What is interesting is we have a country to the South of us called Mexico. Mexico is far more important to the United States, to our economy, and also there are many more people of Mexican-American extraction than Jews.

There are thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who work here and are responsible for growing and picking the farm produce in the United States. And yet we don't have Congressional delegations going to Mexico, we don't have Congress talking about the importance of Mexico. If they go to Mexico, they go for a vacation, and yet here the focus is on Israel simply because of two things: money and intimidation. The Democratic Party has for years relied on wealthy Jewish donors for the majority of its contributions. AIPAC itself does not give money. AIPAC coordinates where the money should go, so if you are a wealthy Jewish donor and you want to do something to help Israel's cause, AIPAC will let you know where to give it. Also, around the country, there are now about three dozen political action committees or PACs that exist only to give money to candidates who support Israel. None of them are identified by a name that has anything to do with Israel; so here in California we have something called the Northern Californians for Good Government". You have in St.Louis, Missouri, the St. Louisans for Good Government. The biggest one is called the National PAC, NPAC. Then you have the Hudson Valley Political Action committee, Desert Caucus, et cetera.

If you look at the name of these committees, you have no idea what they are for, whereas the other lobbies identify themselves by their special interest. Why not Jewish supporters of Israel? But even more important for Democrats, and for some Republicans, is the money contributed by individual Jews. For example, in 2002, an Egyptian-born Israeli, named Haim Saban, who came to the United States and made billions of dollars with a Saturday morning children's program, gave $12.3 million dollars to the Democratic party, which was only about a million and a half dollars less than the arm manufacturers political action committees gave to the both political parties.

Now, this is just one man. And also Haim Saban, who founded the Saban Institute at the Brookings Institute which deals with Israeli issues,is also a big supporter AIPAC, and he funds events in Washington where AIPAC trains college students for pro-Israel advocacy. University campuses are a main battleground for the Jewish forces lobbying for Israel they have come together as the Israel Campus Coalition, 28 organizations, including AIPAC with Israel at the top of their agenda.

Today, a main lobby focus is to get to the colleges campuses to stop divestment programs directed towards Israel. They also are trying to influence the next generation of community leaders who are in the universities at the moment to act in Israel's behalf.

S.C.: To help the Palestinians get justice, those who support them -- or who at least pretend to -- must speak the truth. However, it seems as if, even in their own camp, this truth is suffocated. Do you think that in the US, as in Europe, this solidarity has failed because it is led by people who are there to put breaks on any criticism of Israel? Do you think Chomsky's influence is exercised in this way?

Jeffrey Blankfort: The pro-Palestinian movement has been totally ineffectual here for a couple of reasons. One is they refuse to recognize the role the lobby plays. That's like going out to play a football game, but you don't go to the stadium, you go a shopping mall instead. If you are not on the field where the game is played you are not going to win.

So here is the most powerful lobby in the United States, which the Palestinian solidarity movement has ignored with the exception of an occasional picket of AIPAC. One of the reasons is it has been influenced by certain ideological Marxist groups that are still living in another day and age where lobbies did not play a part. I have been told by political activists that to talk about the lobby is not Marxist, or talk about the lobby is not socialist. And my response is that it exists, it's real, and that is what's important. Also, there are many self-styled Jewish anti-Zionists in the leadership positions in the movement who claim that to blame the lobby is to provoke anti-Semitism. In this, they are what I call, "Jewish exceptionalists" who bar any criticism from acts that Jews do collectively, such as lobbying for Israel which makes them, in practice, scarcely distinguishable from Zionists.
And what happens is I hear all of these people dismissing the lobby and quoting Chomsky verbatim without even mentioning his name.

His influence on them is so critical, so powerful, that they internalize Chomsky. And so what happens is you have a movement that refuses to recognize the major opponent of the Palestinians on American soil.

Chomsky came out against divestment at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches, and where he was able to water down a divestment resolution. Then he came out two weeks later and attacked the whole divestment issue. He is against sanctions against Israel, he is against divestment, he has not revealed any kind of agenda that would change things other than having people "write letters to the editor".

He never mentions Congress, he never mentions the Appropriation committees. If he mentions aid to Congress, he won't say you have to stop it. He will mention it like it a fact of life, like it's raining or it's sunny. I wrote to him about this and he was not very friendly when he wrote back.

In 1988-95 I published a magazine called the Middle East Labor Bulletin which Chomsky subscribed to. In the magazine I had a special section on the Israel lobby and Congress, in which I revealed the names of the Congress people who were in bed with the lobby and I published the sources, most of which came from the Jewish press. So anyone reading the magazine would have had ample proof about control by the lobby of Congress. I recently reread some of the issues published twelve years ago, and they could have been written today, so he can't play ignorant. I just believe his early Zionist leanings and his fears for the future of Jews is so great that it's like he's a child refusing to face the truth. It is unfortunate.

Chomsky is what we call here in this country, a gatekeeper. He is also a gatekeeper on another critical subject, the events of 9/11, dismissing the many questions that have been raised about the official narrative of the Bush administration on the attack on the World Trade Centre. Chomsky says there is no basis to question Mr. Bush's 9/11 story. So most of the criticism that he is getting is from people who have been doing research on 9/11, while he continues to say the story that the Bush administration has told is the truth. So the role he pushes today on the international stage is, as far as I am concerned, a reactionary one.

He says a lot of very positive things much of which I agree with, and again, I know many people who say they were introduced to the political world by Chomsky. He has clearly turned people on. But today, it may be a dialectical situation, now he turns people off, or in the wrong direction.

S.C.: Is your thesis on Chomsky, that he ignores the influence of AIPAC and other similar institutions in US wars in the Middle East, and has a negative impact on solidarity movements, shared by many other intellectuals?

Jeffrey Blankfort: I am in a minority, but I do have an extensive mailing list, I do have a radio program, actually I have two radio programs, and one radio program happens to be in an area which is not Israeli occupied territory and where I can talk about the lobby, I can talk about Israel the way I am talking about it now. The Zionists tried to get me off the air but they were not effective.

One of the ways they intimidate people is through the various Jewish organizations. Each has taken on a different role to play. One important one is the Anti-Defamation League, whose main job is to defame, intimidate and spy on people who are critical of Israel. I was one of them who was spied on.

Its agent infiltrated our organization, the Labor Committee on the Middle East of which I was the co-founder in 1987. Then we learned that they were spying on hundreds of organizations across the political spectrum and thousands of individuals, twelve thousand individuals, six hundred organizations.

I was able to get my ADL files to find out that they had spied on me illegally, and I sued them.

I went out to court with two other activists and after ten years they agreed to settle without me having to sign a confidentiality agreement. So I always talk about this organization.

The person who spied on me for the ADL, was also working for South African intelligence. We had a big anti-apartheid movement in this country. Basically, Israel, the Israel lobby and South Africa were on the same page, very close allies. They were allies socially, culturally and militarily. This is something that unfortunately the anti-apartheid movement also refused to deal with because of Zionist pressure.

I would say the problem with building a real political movement in the United States is blocked by Zionists and their refusal, like Chomsky, to openly deal with Zionism and its role in this country.

Back in 1988, when in the early months of the first Intifada, the anti-intervention movement refused to support a demand that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian land, a Native American a leader told me that the problem with the American movement was that there are too many Liberal Zionists in it. And this is the truth.

I never use his name, because if I publish it, he will then be attacked as being anti-Semitic. I have been attacked as a self-hating Jew, as an anti-Semite, but it does not matter to me because I consider the accusation of anti-Semitism to be the first refuge of scoundrels. Patriotism is the last refuge, anti-Semitism is the first. In this country it has been used to silence so many people. And this is one of the reasons I am against specifically Jewish organizations wanting to lead the fight for Palestine. What happens is that there are many anti-Zionist Jews, or who claim to be anti-Zionist, who say "we, as anti-Zionists Jews, should provide the leadership so that other people will see that not all the Jews are for Israel".

And I am totally against that because all Americans pay their taxes and thus support Israel. And this is an American issue. And by putting it out that Jews are the leaders, that Jews, anti Zionists Jews are doing this, what it says to non-Jews is: they can do this because they are Jewish. It has been tried, so far it has been a failure.

So when I speak, I speak not as a Jew, but as a human being. That's why when I first went to the Middle East in 1970, to Lebanon and Jordan, I did not tell people I was Jewish. I did not go there as a Jew, I went there as a journalist.

It was not important to be South African to oppose apartheid, it was not necessary to be a Nicaraguan to oppose the Contras, or to be a Vietnamese to oppose the Vietnam war. What does being Jewish have to do with opposing what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. In fact, Jews should be very careful about the leadership role. It is not the place for Jews, for people who identify as Jews. The irony is that the people who are most quoted, who speak most on this issue in the US are all Jews who are ultimately protective of Israel.

Chomsky, of course, is the most important one. They criticize Israel, you see, because that's important, you have to do that, but they deflect the main responsibility on to the US and thus while not absolving Israel, shield it from punishment such as sanctions, boycotts and divestment.

S.C.: You just said that you were accused of anti-Semitism. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, for example, was recently accused by the French dailies "Liberation" and "Le Monde" of having uttered "anti-Semitic" remarks. Do you not think that this accusation has become more difficult to exploit in the face of a pubic opinion that has discovered that it has been manipulated for political ends?

Jeffrey Blankfort: Well, they see it, but they are afraid to speak of it. Because the price for criticizing Jews, as Jews, is big in the US. But also, as you see, in France, in Germany, in Canada, and so on, Austria. You can criticize any other national group, but to criticize Jews collectively, not Jews as Jews, but the Jewish establishment is to jeopardize your career.

So even if, privately, people say one thing, they won't say it publicly. I occasional help to get progressive Palestinians and Israelis interview ed by the media in the San Francisco area. It used to be more open, I would say, on mainstream radio than it is today. Back in 1984, I was able to place an Israeli soldier, a reservist, who refused to serve in Lebanon, on the biggest radio talk show in San Francisco. He told the truth about the Lebanon war, that the Palestinians were not shelling Lebanon, and in second hour of the program, which was broadcast to a national audience, someone, with a strong accent, called and asked "who is responsible for putting this communist on the air?" The talk show host said that he was, but in fact it was the producer who had arranged for my friend to be on the air. Very soon afterward, that talk show host, who was the most popular radio programmer in San Francisco, was replaced by a Zionist who is there to this day and who is such a Zionist that every year, when they have an Israeli Day celebration in San Francisco, he is the master of ceremonies. On the airwaves, on the major networks, you will find either among the owners or the more important decision making positions, people who are clearly Zionists. The head of CBS news, Leslie Moonves, for example, is the great-nephew of David Ben Gurion.

Most people cannot or don't want to believe it when I speak of Jewish influence in the media. I read the Jewish press, and they have information on that subject that does not get published in the mainstream press. This is basically where I get most of my information, and I have found it to be credible. One paper that is particularly useful is The Forward, a Jewish weekly that is like the Wall Street Journal for Jews, because it has a lot of good information that you don't find in any other publication.

What is most interesting is that most of the people I know, who are fighting for the Palestinians in the US, never read the Jewish press. And to me, if you don't do that, you are not serious. Because we cannot do anything in this country about what is happening in Palestine directly. But what we can do in the United States is work to weaken Israel's support here, to expose the Israel lobby and undermine Israel's position in the United States. When we weaken Israel's support, we strengthen the Palestinian position.

S.C.: Aren't a number of people, touched by the misery of the Palestinians and the Iraqis, more and more conscious that the media lies?

Jeffrey Blankfort: Well, of course, the newspapers are lying, but while there is more information on the internet, that, too, even from our side, is not always reliable and we have to be careful not just to believe something we read there because it is what we want to believe.

The Bay Area, used to have seven or eight newspapers. Now there are barely two and a half. And they have become more like English tabloids, they are competing with television. Unlike Europe, the quality of television here is very poor, and people have become addicted to it. And they are also addicted to portable musical instruments like CD and MP3 players, and now there is the iPod. It is not very promising and also the political arena here doesn't give much opportunity to play. We have two parties that, essentially, are the same, two wings of the capitalist party. One pacifies the people, that's the Democrats, and the other eliminates them, that's the Republicans. They argue or pretend to about domestic issues, but when it comes to Israel they lock arms together. So for example you may have women in Congress fighting for the right to have an abortion. They join with the most right wing, anti-women members of Congress in the Senate when it comes to supporting Israel. This is never commented on or discussed within the left! It is very depressing because I don't see much change although there were a couple of protests at local AIPAC meetings, but there is no clear connection made between the lobby and Congress and what is going on in Israel-Palestine. And I don't see much improvement taking place. So, I cannot even say what can happen that will change it. At some point, there will be a change. I don't know how it's going to come around, how it's going to come about. But I don't see at the moment any bright prospect for the future.

S.C.: If the orientation of the media doesn't change, and if the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby continues apace in the States without ever being denounced by the left, don't you think that will give Israel a free hand to continue to foment wars against Iran, Syria, and Palestine?

Jeffrey Blankfort: The neo-cons who are almost exclusively Jewish and the Israel lobby got the US into the war in Iraq. The father of the President, the first George Bush was against it, the oil companies were against it. And despite the fact that the war is going so badly, they did not have to pay a political price because only a few isolated columnists, and but a few from the left, and none representing the anti-war movement in this country, wrote articles about that. So now, the same forces are now pushing for a US confrontation with Iran, although I don't think that will happen, simply because the United States is bogged down in Iraq. Besides, should the US attack Iran, the troops that the US has trained in Iraq who are very pro-Iranian and connected to the two parties the SCIRI and the Dawa that were founded in Iran in 1982 and fought on the side of Iran against Saddam, will certainly respond and Iraq will explode even more than it already has. That is why I don't think the US is going to do it, even though everybody over here seems to think so. But if the US does attack Iran, that is the ultimate proof that the Zionist lobby has total control over US policy, and I don't think it is at that point now. What is happening is interesting: Bush is weak at the moment, Republicans are deserting him, he has lost votes in Congress, he will get his Supreme Court Justice, Alito, approved but AIPAC has criticized him for being soft on Iran; AIPAC has criticized him publicly for not pushing Iran before the Security Council, even though AIPAC knows that if the US brought Iran before the Security Council they w ill not get the vote against Iran. There is considerable speculation that Israel will attack Iran, even if the US is hesitant, because this is an election year and Israel knows and the lobby knows that anything Israel does at such times will be applauded by Congress and we may end up with the same result in Iraq.

It's interesting that newspapers note as do newscasters on the air, that no criticism is likely to be made of Israel by the president or members of Congress during an election year but they never explain why. The left, led by Chomsky, pretends to be unaware that the question even exists. The irony is, if you read the mainstream press, you will find more about what is going on in terms of the lobby, than if you read the left press, such as it is. The newspaper, The Forward, is a more important newspaper to read because it tells what's going on with the lobby, and more recently the investigation into AIPAC which the left, again, pays no attention to. Others ask, if AIPAC is so strong, why would they investigate AIPAC? My response is there are people in Washington, in the intelligence department, in the intelligence agencies who, for their own reasons, are very much worried about the Israelization of US foreign policy. And these people in Washington, or people who used to work in Washington, have had a long term fight against the Israel lobby. The left, again, is not a participant in this, unfortunately. And this is why you have people who know what Israel is doing in Washington, what the lobby is doing in Washington and they want to stop it.

S.C.: To come back to that which separates you from Chomsky on the Palestinian question, could we say that you want the Palestinians to win while Chomsky doesn't want the Israelis to lose?

Jeffrey Blankfort: I wouldn't put it exactly that way but I do believe that the Palestinians have the priority to decide what happens in Israel and Palestine and that Chomsky is more concerned about the future of Israel and the welfare of Jews. He opposes a one-state solution and I believe single state is the only answer but I don't argue here for that because we are not the ones to determine that. But I do give the priority to the Palestinians and he gives it to the Israelis. And that's the difference between us.

Original in French: http://www.voltairenet.org/article135702.html

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs_TheChomskyBlankfortPolemic.

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Ted Rall Nails the "Special" Relationship

Ted Rall http://www.gocomics.com/rallcom/2006/07/20/

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What about Jews who think the same or worse as Mel Gibson?

The long link is all the way at the bottom.

What about Jews who think the same or worse as Mel Gibson?

August 3, 2006

What about Jews who think the same or worse as Mel Gibson?

by Michael Santomauro
RePorterNoteBook@aol.com

I have met a sizable number of Jews who think that Jews create most of the problems in the world. Except for a few most are boastful about it! This is the major reason I got so enthralled with the subject matter I address: The Jewish Question.

I remember about 25 years ago explaining to a Jewish-American woman I was having a dinner date with, that an author I was reading was saying that Galileo, Newton and Darwin are the hinges for the modern advancement of our civilization. I thought to myself, Galileo more so than Descarte? Then I tried to express to her that I thought it was sloppy thinking not to see the nuances of dozens of other great thinkers in the sciences in between the era's of these great men, that contributed to their work either in a direct or indirect way. Before I could finish she says "and they were all Jewish." I asked "who?" She says "the three men you mentioned"

My mind was so far removed from knowing who was Jewish and who was not. There was a delayed reaction on my part to her interjection, that had nothing to do with my conversation with her. I then said that I didn't know if Isaac Newton was Jewish, but that Galileo was excommunicated from the Catholic church for his thought crimes and I was pretty sure if Darwin was Jewish I would have heard about it from my many ethnocentric Jewish friends. For the sake of the conversation I granted her wanting need for Newton to be Jewish, since I did not know or care. But, she kept insisting that Darwin was Jewish too! My head was spinning with why are Jews so obsessed on who is Jewish and should I confront her about that. Or keep my mouth shut and play dumb, since my goal after dessert was to get intimate with her. Sex or debate? I decided on the debate!

"What difference does it make?" I asked. Well, it got more interesting then any possible sex I could have had with her. She blurted out "Jews are the greatest people on this earth and the worst!" I focused on why she thought the worst. She went on to explain that her father told her that Jews are the ones that create the problems in the world through revolutionary warfare. She thought Napoleon was Jewish. Later she suggested that Hitler was a secret Jew, because who else would cause such havoc. And she was sure Leonardo da Vinci was Jewish, "because he was a genius." The woman was a college graduate!

At a later time frame I relay this to my two Jewish friends who happened to be in the movie industry. Andy Boxer whose father won the Oscar for sound engineering for the movie Apocalypse Now. What I decided to relay was the essence of her thinking, not the fact that she thought every great thinker was Jewish. Much to my chagrin Andy agreed, that Jews cause the problems in the world, but expressed it with pride "it's because we are smarter." My friend Ethan, at the time a film student, was able to see her point of view. And later I would discover that he had a hate and love relationship with his Judaism always saying to me "Jews are always messing things-up and so many have no class." The problem with Ethan is that he thought Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball and what he thought was the classiest guy in show business Bob Hope were all Jewish. I corrected him with the first two comics. At that moment, I didn't have it in me to correct him about Bob Hope after he just told me he thought most Jews had no class. At a later date when I told him Bob Hope was as a WASP, he had an emotional fit.

More recently, I ran into a Rabbi on the street who was visiting his apartment building he owned. We got talking about New York politics and was a big time Rudolph Guliani fan. He told me he would always vote for Italians if any were on the ballot or for any white Gentile conservative for political office over Jews. He just did not trust Jews to run the government. "Too liberal" he would say. His views on Blacks was worse, pointing his finger to his head. Yet he would be boastful and say that Jews financed all the wars in world history in the last 300 years including the U. S. Civil War. He went on to explain that if it was not for Jews since the First World War, the US would not be the super power in the world today if not for Jewish capital. The repetitiveness of his discourse was like a mantra saying that Jews are behind the scenes because "we have the capital and when Jews are in charge they are a disaster. Better to have the Italian's or the WASPs running America. This country needs a Mussolini." The whole time he thought I was Jewish!

I remember having a four hour conversation with an Israeli woman who was a lesbian, and who had the look of a thinner version of Bella Abzug wearing one of those big floppy hats. She thought two problems plagued mankind. Technology and the Jews.

She felt Hitler was right, that the Jews cause most of the problems. And said it with so much joyful glee. And felt Hitler had to have been part Jewish saying "who else could hate Jews so much but another Jew." She felt technology should be destroyed for the benefit of mankind. "Destoyed? Then what about the Jews?" I asked. She would say in essence that the Jews run the world and they can't be destroyed, they are the chosen people. God will always protect them.

Many Jews really believe this zany stuff and most are boastful in a perverse way.

Including another Rabbi I met who thinks God punished the Jews through Hitler saying that Hitler could not have done what he did without the intervention of God's hand. My question to this slow talking Rabbi was why would God want to punish the Jews through Hitler. He said "because they did not obey the Torah." His prediction, God will punish the people of the book again with another Holocaust since most Jews are secular.

The difference about Jews that I know and meet that think like Mel Gibson is that they are not drunk when they express this stuff!

So my statement to the general public at large: Don't tell me you have not met Jews who don't think like Mel Gibson or worse.

Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023

http://www.tadp.org
212-787-7891


+++++++

"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews - reminds us who we are." --Jay Lefkowitz (NYT Magazine. Feb.12, 1995. Page 65). Jay Lefkowitz is now Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.
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http://www.network54.com/Forum/145962/thread/1154625921/last-1154625921/What%20about%20Jews%20who%20think%20the%20same%20or%20worse%20as%20Mel%20Gibson-

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Israel's Most Powerful Weapon--The Holocaust

Israel's Most Powerful Weapon--The Holocaust

by Robert L. Johnson

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Emeritus Professor on

World Famous Professor
Questions The Holocaust

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Look Who's NOT on the SHITlist

Daryl Bradford Smith's excellent site has a link to The Self-Hating and/or Israel Threateing List of Jews (www.masada2000.org/shit-list.html).  Very curiously neither Arthur Koestler or David Cole make the list of dangerous Jews. 

Informed readers will know that Koestler has explained the fact that most Jews are not Semites which is highly problematic for those who use the charge of "anti-Semitism" to intimidate and prevent open discussion of many important topics.  

Cole is even more taboo for the SHIT list mongers.  His video taped interview at Auschwitz is devastating to the holocaust story.  Follow the links below and make sure to encourage others to do the  same.

www.iamthewitness.com/Koestler13thTribe.htm

www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Cole.html

Here's an excerpt from the SHIT list's take on Professor Norman Finkelstein:

Finkelstein, Norman G.  Holocaust denier and author of "The Holocaust Industry," who once famously asked, "If all these people survived the Holocaust, who actually died?"  He has also referred to  Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as the "clown in the Holocaust circus." [So, besides being a Holocaust denier, he's also a heartless bastard!]  Further, he claimed that the Holocaust is being used by racist Jews to justify their presence in Palestine and to oppress Arabs. He agrees that the use of the Holocaust as "extortion" to extract money from Germans and others is a crime and, according to Finkelstein, just more proof of the fact that Jews care for nothing but money.

Israel is not immune from his castigation either.  In a December 200l speech in Beirut, Lebanon, Finkelstein compared Israeli behavior to "Nazi practices" during World War II.  Finkelstein refers to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis as the "Six Million" in quotation marks, and says that nearly every Holocaust survivor is a fraud, a thief and a liar. (Finkelstein's own parents are Holocaust survivors and Finkelstein has long tried to capitalize on this as a way to legitimize his own anti-Semitism.)

 It¡¯s inconceivable to me that Finkelstein might achieve tenure at De Paul University in Chicago, where he presently teaches his bizarre theories. That he is an assistant professor there is, in my view, a badge of shame for De Paul.

His true occupation is as a member of a traveling circus, a freak show of anti-Semites who promote anti-Israel propaganda from campus to campus. He openly admits to having high regard for Hezbollah on his Web site, and he promotes the false notion that "scholars widely agree that Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinian people in 1948."

And dear friends let us all keep in mind the words of Admiral Moorer:

"I've never seen a President I don't care who he is stand up to the Israelis. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on" www.ihr.org/news/040901_weber.shtml

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9/11 Theory of Luck

Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

Statement

March 31, 2003

My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for them to return.

This war is being fought on two fronts, overseas as well as here on our shores; this means that we are all soldiers in this fight against terrorism. As the threat of terrorism mounts here in the United States, the need to address the failures of September 11 is more important than ever. It is an essential part of "lessons learned".

As such, this commission has an extremely important task before it. I am here today to ask you, the commissioners, to help us understand how this could have happened; help us understand where the breakdown was in our nation's defense capabilities.

Where were we on the morning of September 11th?

On the morning of September 11th my three-year-old son, Sam, and I walked Jacob 10, and Lauren, 7 to the bus stop at about 8:40 a.m. It was the fourth day of a new school year and you could still feel everyone's excitement. It was such a beautiful day that Sam and I literally skipped home oblivious to what was happening in NYC.

At around 8:55 I was confirming play date plans for Sam with a friend when she said, "I can't believe what I am watching on TV, a plane has just hit the World Trade Center." For some reason it did not register with me until a few minutes later when I calmly asked, "what building did you say?" "Oh that's Alan's building I have to call you back."

There was no answer when I tried to reach him at the office. By now my house started filling with people--his mother, my parents, our sisters and friends. The seriousness of the situation was beginning to register. We spent the rest of the day calling hospitals, and the Red Cross and any place else we could think of to see if we could find him.

I'll never forget thinking all day long, "how am I going to tell Jacob and Lauren that their father was missing?"

They came home to a house filled with people but no Daddy. How were they going to be able to wait calmly for his return? What if he was really hurt? This was their hero, their king their best friend, their father. The thoughts of that day replay over and over in our heads always wishing for a different outcome.

We are trying to learn to live with the pain. We will never forget where we were or how we felt on September 11th. But where was our government, its agencies, and institutions prior to and on the morning of September 11th?

The Theory of Luck

With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once: they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate.

The SEC

The terrorist's lucky streak began the week before September 11th with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has sophisticated software programs that are used in "real-time" to watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may indicate a present or future crime. In the week prior to September 11th both the SEC and U.S. intelligence agencies ignored one major stock market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable information with regard to the September 11th attacks.

On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks.

Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.

Why these aberrant trades were not discovered prior to 9/11? Who were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities? Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction?

The INS

Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.

With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied.

Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."

Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect.

Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the US wrote "myself" and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in the US as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even listed his destination as "no".

Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11th, 2001.

Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn't happening?

Airline and Airport Security

On the morning of September 11th, the terrorists' luck commenced with airline and airport security. When the 19 hijackers went to purchase their tickets (with cash and/or credit cards) and to receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with their mission.

But, the terrorist's luck didn't end at the ticket counter; it also accompanied them through airport security, as well. Because how else would the hijackers get specifically contraband items such as box-cutters, pepper spray or, according to one FAA executive summary, a gun on those planes?

Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers to gain access to the flight controls and carryout their suicide mission.

FAA and NORAD

Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full blown hijackings.

These "protocols" were in place and were practiced regularly for a good reason--with heavily trafficked air space; airliners without radio and transponder contact are collisions and/or calamities waiting to happen.

Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot.

If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian". This meant that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board."

Lucky for the terrorists none of this mattered on the morning of September 11th.

Let me illustrate using just flight 11 as an example.

American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon thereafter, transponder contact was lost - (although planes can still be seen on radar - even without their transponders).

Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency. Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m. -- a full 32 minutes after the loss of contact with flight 11.

Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace?

Flight's 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the WTC

Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m. one hour and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why?

So the hijackers luck had continued. On September 11th both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures .Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed.

Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, MACH-12, they would have reached NYC and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives.

Leadership

Joint Chief Of Staff

The acting Joint Chief of staff on Sept 11th was on the morning of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting . Acting Joint Chief of staff Myers stated that he saw a TV. report about a plane hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane or something like that. So, he went ahead with his meeting. "Meanwhile the second World Trade Center was hit by another jet. Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. By the time he came out of the meeting the Pentagon had been hit.

Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint Chief of Staff? Have they been held accountable for their error? Surely this represents a breakdown of protocol.

Secretary of Defense

The Secretary of Defense, was at his desk doing paperwork when AA77 crashed into the Pentagon.

As reported, Secretary Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went into the 'War Room'.

How is it possible that the National Military Command Center, located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m. did not communicate to the Secretary of Defense also at the Pentagon about the other hijacked planes especially the one headed to Washington? How is that Secretary of Defense could have remained at this desk until the crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to him? Is he then supposed to go to the war room?

President

At 6:15 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, my husband Alan left for work; he drove into New York City, and was at his desk and working at his NASDAQ Security Trading position with Cantor Fitzgerald, in Tower One of the WTC by 7:30 a.m. In contrast, on the morning of September 11, President Bush was scheduled to listen to elementary school children read. Before the President walked into the classroom NORAD had sufficient information that the plane that hit the WTC was hijacked. At that time, they also had knowledge that two other commercial airliners, in the air, were also hijacked. It would seem that a national emergency was in progress.

Yet President Bush was allowed to enter a classroom full of young children and listen to the students read.

Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national emergency? When is a President supposed to be notified of everything the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? Was this Secret Service protocol?

In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that our government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to insure that these top officials are among the first to be informed--not the last. Where were these individuals who did not properly inform these top officials? Where was the breakdown in communication?

Was it luck or No Fault Government

Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis?

To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck.

If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever expect for terrorists not to get lucky again?

And, that is why I am here with all of you today. Because, we must find the answers as to what happened that day so as to ensure that another September 11th can never happen again.

Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions. You are the Generals in the terrorism fight on our shores. In answering our questions, you have the ability to make this nation a safer place and in turn, minimize the damage if there is another terrorist attack. And, if there is another attack, the next time, our systems will be in place and working and luck will not be an issue.

-------

Mindy Kleinberg is a founding member of September 11th Advocates, a family advocacy group that spearheaded the grassroots effort for the establishment of the independent commission on September 11th. Her husband Alan Kleinberg was a NASDAQ security trader with Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the WTC on the 104th Floor. He was 39 and had been a NASDAQ security trader for 15 years.

http://www.dvmx.com/kleinberg.html

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Theft of Palestine

This little charmer is from http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/landloss.html. 

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Theft of Palestine Handout

Theft of Palestine Clarified

Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves...we are the aggressors and they defend themselvesthe country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle, and in their view we want to take away their country from them

-          Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion,

from Simha Flapans Zionism and the Palestinians pp. 141-2

"Our Fathers reached the frontiers which were recognized in the Palestine Partition Plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949. Now the Six-day generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan, and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present cease-fire lines there will be the new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan; perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well" - Israeli Commnader Moshe Dayan

"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" - Israeli General Matityahu Peled

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population" - David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff.   From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978

"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more"

- Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

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