Nited States Is Indeed One with Israel

NITED STATES ISAEL –Our Eyes Wide Shut–

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Published by af4p.com Printed in Canada Contents

Preface...... iv Introduction...... xv

Chapter 1: Media...... 1 Chapter 2: Terror...... 17 Chapter 3: Israel First...... 35 Chapter 4: Lockstep...... 53 Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09...... 69 Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14...... 85 Chapter 7: Free Speech?...... 99 Chapter 8: Apartheid...... 115 Chapter 9: Hypocrisy...... 137 Chapter 10: The Lobby...... 155 Chapter 11: Iran...... 175 Chapter 12: Iraq...... 189 Chapter 13: Holocaust...... 207 Chapter 14: Peace...... 225

Epilogue...... 241 About the Author...... 244

To the Palestinians, the citizens and armed services of the United States and Great Britain, and any other victims of the most widespread and diabolical public relations campaign in the history of the world.

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon [a thick stick used as a weapon] is to the totalitarian state.”

NOAM CHOMSKY, activist, scholar, from his book Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda.

Preface

Establishing a cutoff date for the compilation of this book’s material presented a challenging dilemma. It’s extremely difficult because the atrocities or lies that come out of Israel and from its fanatical support - ers in the US on a weekly or daily basis never cease to infuriate and amaze. The ultimate in ongoing gall. But after years, even decades, of piling up material to choose from, we selected July 2020 as the cutoff. Surely a few more mind boggling items will sneak in before publishing. According to The Guardian in Britain, between March 2018 and April 2019, more than 190 unarmed Palestinian border protestors were killed in Gaza, and another 28,000 injured or wounded, with no outrage or backlash from the United States whatsoever. Despite essentially paying for it, Americans were left in the dark about Israel’s criminal behavior, with any mention of the border protests in the US media somehow taking a pro-Israeli slant. This book continues with examples of Israeli settlers terrorizing Pal- estinian land owners and stealing and destroying Palestinian property.

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Make no mistake, with Israeli and American government cooperation, the terror and the theft is institutionally supported. In April 2018, Michael Moore, the hyper-liberal documentarian, once went this far with a tweet: “A documentary filmmaker, Yaser Mur- taja, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on Fri. while wearing helmet & vest w/ “PRESS” marked on them. He was filming a nurse, a doctor & a 12-yr-old student who were protesting. I ask the documentary community 2 pls speak up about this travesty.” This was a rare baby step. You’ll hear Moore criticize a lot of right wingers, but even he never dares to cross the line and roundly criticize Israeli policies, even when Palestinians are openly murdered. Fox News, the voice-box for the Trump presidency and the right wing of the Republican Party tweeted: “UN Holds Emergency Meeting on Gaza Clashes” and “Gaza Clashes Leave 7 Dead and Hundreds Injured.” The seven dead and the hundreds injured were Palestinians. Unarmed. “Armed” in this case would have meant teenagers slinging rocks against a nuclear power. “Clashes” are a common fallback term in the US media. It’s so they don’t have to say “unarmed Palestinians were killed by well-armed Israeli soldiers standing hundreds of feet away on the other side of a fence.” Another popular term heard often in the media is Zionist. Networks can assume that Americans don’t know what “Zionist” means. So on the rare occasion that they’ll actually play a clip from an Arab leader, that politician’s edited words will feature something about “evil Zionists.” The oblivious public will think “Crazy Arab. What the hell is he talking about?” What he’s talking about are fanatically religious Jews terrorizing Palestinian land owners, burning their crops, and stealing their land, all under the watchful eye of the Israeli military (the Israel Defense Forces or IDF), the occupiers of what would be Palestine. Zionists are Jews and others who participate in and/or support this general concept, with the ultimate goal of eliminating all hopes Palestinians have for a homeland. They are led by Israel’s head of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Preface | xi

(“Bibi”) Netanyahu. Generally speaking, Zionist means Jewish/Israel nationalist, and not all are fanatics. Small problem: In the original United Nations decree that created Israel from a former British-held territory in 1948, it also created the future state of Palestine. Simply put, Israel has its land and has kept its portion of the holy city of Jerusalem, and Palestine has not. The Jews have essentially imprisoned one portion (Gaza Strip) of the Palestin- ian population, while occupying and terrorizing the other portion (the West Bank). Europeans, not just those considered liberals, moderates, or intellectuals, speak out regularly about Israel’s occupation and oppression of the Palestinians, as do liberals inside Israel. There are many movements afoot to put an end to the existing apartheid state that has come about as a result of Israel’s policies and plans. It’s closer to home for the Europe- ans, and they are an educated bunch. Americans literally only hear the Israeli perspective or nothing at all. National radio, national television, and national newspaper chains—a great majority of which are owned and run by a grand total of six multi-national companies in the United States—are sympathetic to the Jewish regime’s propaganda. This is regardless of whether the outlet is considered “conservative”, “moderate”, or “liberal”. It is literally a mo- nopoly of the collective mind, the dangerous day-to-day reality of living in the United States of Israel (US of I). By the way, it was revealed in the summer of 2018 that wealthy Jewish-American interests, apparently led by a gentleman named Adam Milstein, helped fund the Canary Mission website (see chapter 10), a site that blacklists college students and professors in the US who speak out against Israel’s atrocities. These campus dwellers support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. In other words, they suggest boycotting Israeli businesses and products, particularly those established on Palestinian land. So in this case, xii | Preface

freedom-of-speech equals blacklist, which equals “we’ll make sure you don’t get a job.” Support Israel or starve. Do blacklists of American businessmen and individual media people exist? Hopefully it’s only a short matter of time before we find out. Since Donald Trump took office in early 2017, the Netanyahu government in Israel has been doing cartwheels. Just as the scholarly book The Israel Lobby from 2007 represents the most honest and accurate assessment of America-Israel foreign policy, an article in the June 1, 2018 issue of the New Yorker magazine by Adam Entous represents the most robust and detailed description of how these two right-wing Jewish governments (US and Israel) have aligned. Three paragraphs will suffice for a synopsis: Parenthetical [ ] information is mine, intended for clarification:

BY OBAMA’S SECOND term, his aides no longer bothered to mask their frustration with the Israelis. “They were never sincere to their commitment to peace,” Benjamin Rhodes, one of Obama’s closest foreign-policy advisers told me. “They used us as cover, to make it look like they were in a peace process. They were running a play, killing time, waiting out the administration.”

Entous later describes the body language of Netanyahu after getting off a phone call with Donald Trump two days after the latter became President. Via an aide: “He was like a small child who got the best birth- day present he could ever imagine.”

THE ISRAELIS ALREADY had ties to the Trump family: Net- anyahu had a long friendship with Charles Kushner, the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner. In recent years, the Kushners, Orthodox Jews who made their fortune in the real-es- tate business and hold conservative views on Israel, have donated Preface | xiii

large sums of money to Israeli causes and charities, including tens of thousands of dollars to a yeshiva [an educational institution that studies religious text] in the Beit El settlement, in the West Bank. When Netanyahu visited the Kushners at their home in New Jer- sey, he sometimes stayed overnight and slept in Jared’s bedroom, while Jared was relegated to the basement.

The Trump administration put that same Jared Kushner, with absolutely no foreign policy experience and 100-percent pro-Israel bias, in charge of overseeing the Israel-Palestine “peace process.”

THE ISRAELIS FOUND the Trump circle easy to persuade. Trump and his closest advisers shared Netanyahu’s antipathy [dislike, hos- tility] toward Obama. They had no government or diplomatic experience, and were eager to please their staunchly pro-Israel and pro- Likud [right wing, pro Zionist political party in Israel] base.

Trump’s American ambassador to Israel, David Freidman, might as well work for the government of Israel. Meanwhile, Trump’s biggest individual political donor, and likely Netanyahu’s as well, was Jewish-American casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who gave about $25-million to the 2016 Trump campaign. Adelson demanded that the US move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which of course Trump did once in office. Adelson donated more than $90 million to Republican candidates and causes during the 2018 midterm election cycle. Ever wonder why people stand aside and let certain other people get away with the things they get away with, regardless of how dishonest and horrifying? That is correct: Money. (See chapter 10.) The slaughter of Palestinian protestors continued from the spring into the summer and fall of 2018. Orthodox Jewish settlers continue xiv | Preface

to harass and terrorize Arab farmers and villagers and work in cooperation with Israel’s government to colonize Palestinian land. No one in America says boo. Hatred overseas for Israel therefore means hatred for its enabler America, land of the free and home of the brave. This long developing hate is understandable because, for all intents and purposes, Israel and the US are one and the same. “People are sheep, TV is the shepherd.”

JESS C. SCOTT, author

Introduction

To “dumb down” is to fill people’s minds with meaningless “entertainment,” to draw focus away from the topics that really matter to an individual, their community, and their nation. We are exposed to it all the time in the form of reality TV, celebrity worship, or video games. It is sensationalized drivel that makes the producers of this content rich while making fools of the general public. We were warned of this half a century ago by William J. Lederer in his book Nation of Sheep. So, do you get your “news” from TMZ and Entertainment Tonight, or do you get it from the New York Times and BBC World? According to a Nielsen report, in 2017 American adults watched an average of five hours of television a day. That’s 35 hours a week, whether it’s commercial TV, pay-per-view channels or streaming services. That’s the average for the 120 million American television households. A dedicated, captive audience, ready to be thoughtfully informed or led to the promised land of the brainwashed. Imagine having the ability to step into someone’s home and deliver a message

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designed for a specific purpose, every hour of every day of a person’s life. It’s like a superhero power, yet so real it’s taken for granted. America is commercially homogenized (internally uniform or similar), isolated, and cut off from its neighbors culturally. If one drove from Nebraska to Michigan, little would change. You would see the same signs for the same ubiquitous (common and plentiful) fast-food restaurants, accommodations and truck stops. The corporate nature of the experience is a major part of that homogenization. It’s the same for those commuting an hour in each direction every day for work. Imagine having the power to hop into someone’s car via the radio and deliver the same message almost every single day of a person’s working life. To make an eleven-hour drive in Europe would mean crossing through the national boundaries of at least three countries. The cultural experience would vary dramatically. The languages would change, as would the offerings catering to the traveling public. People who travel in the United States lack that exposure to cultural differences. Instead, the US, according to a May 2019 Pew Research Center poll, is made up of a white, male, Republican population, 49 percent of which gets bothered or uncomfortable when it hears someone speak a language foreign to their own. How insecure can such a society be? Where does such a threat come from? What if, while driving, you came across a national radio personality referring to Iranians as “Islama-Nazis” on a daily basis. This radio personality relentlessly continues to drill this garbage into your head using lies and exaggerations to make a “convincing” case that Muslims are evil and Jews are good. Or calling out Iraq or Iran as evil empires, while Is- rael is a shining example of a law-abiding country and a force for good. What if this radio personality was joined by four or five other nationally syndicated radio hosts to spout the same message. They, like your national politicians, fall right in line. Introduction | xvii

All the while, it is not in the best interests of the United States of America to be “one with Israel.” It’s only in the best interests of Israel and in particular certain Jewish interests in both countries for the United States to be “one with Israel.” Yet, as the facts, articles, and arguments contained in this book will bear out, for all practical, economic, military, and governmental purposes, the United States is indeed one with Israel. Americans live in the United States of Israel. This is not to profess dislike or distrust of the Jewish population. It is a minority of the population that seeks to horde all power and to build an empire in any sect. Radicalism or fanaticism or extreme nationalism is dangerous in any form, under any religion or flag. It just so happens that only one “culture” presently controls the reins of the world’s lone English-speaking superpower. America is Israel’s pawn, and the leaders of Israel periodically admit or boast of this fact. As Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon put it in 2001 during a political argument, “I want to tell you something very clear: don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” For all intents and purposes, American media and culture are under the thumb of a Jewish hierarchy, therefore giving this hierarchy control of the most complex and powerful public relations apparatus the world has ever known. This is not a “conspiracy theory”; this is fact—from movies, to television, to news, to radio programming, to the written word. This is a book based on fact, and its purpose is to seek peaceful solu- tions to violence and war. The message is geared towards the best interests of the United States of America and all of its citizens. This book offers articles and reports written by journalists, as well as public statements made on the record by politicians and officials over the last three decades. It is written in as simple and nontechnical a manner as possible, so that everyone can read it, debate the ideas, and draw their own conclusions about the issues presented. xviii | Introduction

Specifically, this book explores a peaceful two-state solution in Pal- estine, an end to Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid, and ways to end the dangerous influence Israel has over the US State Department and military. This book will strive to never “bury the lede.” That’s when an editor buries the most important subject matter or headline of a story inside a story of lesser importance. This occurs on a regular basis as it relates to the coverage of Israel in the United States, and it happened again on August 11, 2011, in a story about the Israeli economy. In Ethan Bronner’s story headlined “Protests Force Israel to Confront Wealth Gap” in the New York Times, Bronner eventually comes round to this point: the protestors “point to things like a swollen defense budget, subsidies for the ultra-Orthodox and the cost of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the Interior Ministry said Thurs- day that it would build 1,600 units and announced plans for 2,700 more.” Oh really!? That should have been your headline, conveniently lost in paragraph eight. The United States hands over three to four billion dollars in defense money every year to Israel, despite the fact that Israel has been building and expanding settlements (a.k.a. stealing land) from the Palestin- ians for almost half a century. Israel keeps expanding and while the US sometimes protests half-heartedly, it keeps on handing over the cash— American taxpayer cash. Burying the lede is just a raindrop in the gigantic ocean of public relations carried out by Israel and its Jewish interests in the United States on a daily basis. This book, like any other book, article, or comment critical of Israel and related American foreign policy will draw the usual responses: “hatred of Jews”, “anti-Semitism”, and/or “Jewish conspiracy theories.” Fear not these common labels and scare tactics; it’s time to take back Introduction | xix

your country and hold your elected officials, some of them unwitting agents of Israeli policy, accountable. Don’t be afraid to read this book, don’t be afraid to share it, and don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. It won’t be easy, because true freedom of speech is presently a myth in America. Wake up, educate yourself, and fear nothing.

“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. … I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”

ARIEL SHARON, prime minister of Israel, at his cabinet meeting October 3, 2001

Chapter 1 Media

Sometimes just out of habit we skip the preface and the introduction of a book. Stop! If you did skip them, go back and read them first. It’s important that you do. Thank you.

Ariel Sharon’s words, also included in the introduction, are on the record, but were not reported in the American media. His words express a fact that those in power in the United States do not want the American people to know. To put it in modern street terminology, the United States is Israel’s bitch. The foreign policy of the world’s predominant superpower is ultimately controlled by Israel, the Jewish state, through its wealthy and powerful representatives and supporters. It isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s simply a fact. Control of American politicians and of public conversation in America is centered in a power block of wealthy Jewish donors and through this same block’s utter ownership and dominance of American media and entertainment. The same could be said about Great Britain, Australia, and increasingly Canada, but our focus is on the United States of Israel (US of I).

1 2 | The United States of Israel

In an article on the Mondoweiss.net website on February 17, 2008, the Jewish founder of the site, Philip Weiss, pointed out: “Even if you’re a secular [not actively religious] Jewish professional who prides himself on his objectivity, there is a ton of cultural pressure on you to support Israel or at least not to betray Israel.” He also refers to a comment from former CNN correspondent Linda Scherzer: “[We], as Jews, must understand that we come with a certain bias … we believe in the Israeli narrative of history … thus we see news reporting through our own prism.” Over time, everyone in the US must report through that prism, as no conflicting lens is allowed. Weiss also quotes Dov Zackheim, also Jewish and former advisor to President George W. Bush, who said, “Jews don’t dominate the policy-making process, but the media is a different story.” Who’s fooling who? When one controls practically everything that is said, one determines policy. Of course, by bringing this to light, a fact that is very obvious to anyone who works in North American print or broadcast media, the standard reactionary outcry will follow—“It’s anti-Semitic!”, whatever that means. The accusation has been used so often to decry any measure of Israeli policy or action, it’s somewhat lost its meaning. It’s been the ultimate crutch, all a part of the rhetoric (propaganda) package. Don’t criticize Israel. If one does, labeling and blacklisting follows.

●●●

In the must-watch 2018 undercover documentary The Lobby—USA, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an organization that works closely with the Israeli government’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, admitted on hidden camera, “Anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used to be.” Chapter 1: Media | 3

That’s not to suggest one won’t hear it used often, but the Israeli lobbyists and agencies have moved on to pressing their agenda in more practical and hardcore ways. For example, in 2019, the powerful Zion- ist lobby (nationalists who support expanding Israel territory by taking land from the Palestinians) coerced US legislatures at the national and state levels to create laws that made criticism of Israel a crime. Read that again. It’s true. Such a law criminalizing criticism of Israel easily passed in South Carolina. In mid-January 2020, we read the headline in Israel’s oldest newspaper Haaretz: “South Dakota Governor Signs Executive Order Prohibiting Israel Boycotts.” South Dakota! The story tells us that South Dakota is the twenty-eighth state to have enacted with executive order or legislation that the boycotting of, or in some cases criticizing Israel, is illegal. Gilad Atzmon is a Jewish jazz musician, political activist, and writer from Tel Aviv. He is a critic of the politicians in power in Israel, so he’s not so popular with the current ruling class. He sums up the ongoing state of affairs nicely: “Jewish power is the ability to get us to stop talking about Jewish power.” Oh yes, he’s been described by the other common term for a detractor in the nationalist empire, if that detractor is Jewish: a “self-hating Jew.” This media control practice goes back decades. In a remarkable article in Mother Jones magazine from the February/March 1987 issue, writer Robert I. Friedman spilled the beans about Jewish dominance of Amer- ican media and the watering down of reports detailing atrocities committed against Arabs. He begins the story by describing events from the viewpoint of a local newspaper reporter in Israel who receives a phone call from an Arab who says his brother was murdered by Israeli soldiers:

FOR DANNY RUBINSTEIN, veteran West Bank correspondent of the Israeli labor movement’s daily newspaper Davar, the unfold- ing story was hardly shocking. On any given night the 48-year-old 4 | The United States of Israel

reporter is confronted with a stack of similar horror stories from every corner of the West Bank [the Palestinian territory the Israelis are gradually stealing]: in Hebron, Arab shopkeepers are pushed and insulted by militant Jewish settlers; in Ramallah, Palestinian students are beaten by soldiers, slapped and humiliated; Palestinian prisoners in Tulkarem declare a hunger strike; in the village of B’nai Na’im, Arab lands are expropriated [taken] and Jewish settlers vandalize Arab cars. Even documented cases of the torture of Arabs by Israeli soldiers—front-page news in the United States if editors dared publish it—are not unfamiliar to Davar’s readers.

Again, this is from three-plus decades ago. The Israeli military occupation of land that is supposed to belong to the future Palestinian state, and the related daily terror has gone on for at least five decades. More from 1987:

AT THE OPENING of a three-day international conference of Jewish journalists organized by the World Zionist Organization, the [Israeli] government press office, and the World Union of Jewish Journalists in January 1985, “Commentary” editor Norman Podho- retz declared: “The role of Jews who write in both the Jewish and general press is to defend Israel, and not join in the attacks on Isra- el.” Critical reporting of Israel,” he stated, “helps Israel’s enemies— and they are legion [plentiful] in the US—to say more and more openly that Israel is not a democratic country.” Podhoretz, whose opinion magazine is published by the American Jewish Committee, also lambasted the Israeli press, which he said damaged the country’s image by reporting so extensively on Israel’s internal problems. Many mainstream US journalists share some of Podhoretz’s views on covering Israel. And many others who have tried to defy this orthodoxy [doctrine] have come under unrelenting attack from the Chapter 1: Media | 5

Israel lobby—a coalition of editors and publishers, pro-Israel PACs [Political Action Committees] and wealthy businessmen, which tried to silence dissidents with accusations of anti-Israel bias or anti-Semitism.

As Friedman points out, one intense public relations effort came as a result of American news coverage of Israel’s war with Lebanon and its slaughter of thousands of unarmed Palestinians in two refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila, in 1982. Instead of concerning itself with matters at or near the border with Lebanon, Israeli war planes continued to pound Beirut, killing helpless civilians well after the conflict’s result had apparently been determined. US news programs were beaming live images back to America. “What is this? What’s going on?” the reporters and anchors asked. “Why are they bombing civilians?” The man in charge of the refugee camp slaughters was none other than Israel’s then- defense minister (and future prime minister) Ariel Sharon, whom Friedman calls “the architect of the war, [who] lied about the war’s aim, released false casualty figures, imposed rigid censorship, and restricted access to the war zone.” The Israelis, via wealthy supporters in the US, took legal action on multiple levels to squash the coverage In protest, then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin famously shouted, “We don’t care what the goyim [non-Jews] think!” Closing areas to the press where Arabs are being slaughtered has since become standard practice (see chapter 5). In a highlighted story in the same issue, Friedman shared “Confes- sions of an Israeli Press Officer”:

WHEN A TOP Israeli government official comes to the United States, fully 40 percent of his or her time, estimated [press officer Menachem] Shalev, is devoted to meeting the press. Israel can 6 | The United States of Israel

also call on a legion of scientists, soldiers, artists, and academics to promote the Zionist cause. Israel’s ten consulates in the United States monitor the local media and develop relations with journalists. “Israel’s presence in America is all-pervasive,” said Shalev. … Getting previews of network programming is helpful to the Israe- lis: the same official said he knows of at least three recent instances in which Israel was able to get “negative” network news segments killed. … Newspapers, Shalev concluded, are easier to pressure than the networks because “newspaper executives are usually more accessible. And the chances are, we have a good relationship with the publisher.”

Three to four decades later, with many newspapers dying, those similar interests continue to run the digital and broadcast media. But now that news travels anywhere and everywhere via social media, the Israelis can’t hide all the visuals. So now when Israel slaughters Muslims, it just lies about the details, and/or labels it as something it isn’t. In the fourth and final episode ofThe Lobby—USA, we hear an extensive description of the dishonest efforts of The Israel Project (TIP), the main force behind pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian public relations efforts. The TIP manipulates reporters, editors, and even entire networks. The narrator states:

DURING HIS VOLUNTEER-SHIP, Tony [the undercover reporter] read an annual report to TIP’s board of directors. It lauded their social media coverage of the 2016 shooting at Sarona market in Tel Aviv. It said TIP’s video was the most watched online content about the attack; the video claimed to show video of Palestinians celebrating the killing of Israelis, something the mainstream media overlooked. But this was not true; this image was taken in Ramallah two years earlier. Chapter 1: Media | 7

The image shows two men playing with fireworks with heavy traffic in the background. They weren’t militants; rather, they were young adults in dress shirts, who literally could have been celebrating a holiday or the results of a football (soccer) match. We then hear from the president of TIP at the time, Josh Block: “There are also other things that we do that are completely off the radar. We work together with a lot of other organizations. We produce content that they then publish with their own name on it.” About six months after the release of The Lobby—USA online, Block surprisingly resigned his position at TIP, as did a number of officials from other organizations who were exposed in the documentary.

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Keep in mind that six major conglomerates own 90 percent of the media in the United States, with more potential mergers on the horizon. Cen- tralized control of information is intensified control of information. The six are General Electric/Comcast, News Corp (Fox), Disney, Viacom/ CBS, Time Warner, and Sony. Their sizes and structures change and morph with every merger or acquisition. Are media ownership lists a conspiracy theory? No. Do they suggest collusion? No, these are competitive businesspeople. A coincidence of control? Maybe. Do they share common interests? Very likely. Do people with this much power have an influence over politics, public opinion and sentiment regardless of their age, color, creed or ethnic origin? Absolutely. CBS and its sixty or so other cable networks, publishing houses, and video entities were until recently headed by Sumner Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein), a Jew now in his early nineties. His grand- children will eventually receive most of his $5-billion fortune while his daughter Shari may or may not oversee the basics of the business. In the 8 | The United States of Israel

meantime, he turned control of the CBS side over to another Jew named Leslie Moonves (deposed in 2018 for alleged sexual harassment), and the Viacom monstrosity to Philippe Dauman (also Jewish). Disney, until early 2020, was run by a succession of Jews: Robert (Bob) Iger and his predecessor Disney chairman Michael Eisner. Eisner worked for Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left after about a decade to form Dreamworks SKG with fellow Jewish gentlemen Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Eisner then replaced Katzenberg with Mi- chael Ovitz. Disney owns ESPN, Marvel, ABC, and about eighty other networks. It purchased 20th Century Fox entertainment in 2019. Time Warner is run by Jeff Bewkes (who is not Jewish). Time War- ner owns HBO, run by a Jew named Richard Plepler. Warner Brothers is run by the first Asian-American to be the CEO of a major studio, Kevin Tsujihara, who replaced his thirty-year predecessor, a Jewish man named Barry Meyer. CNN is overseen by Jeff Zucker (also Jew- ish), who formerly ran NBC Entertainment. The chairman and CEO of Comcast/NBC is a Jew named Brian Rob- erts, originally from Philadelphia. Comcast owns and runs at least one hundred different networks and digital ventures. The head man at News Corp/Fox is the famous and somewhat controversial Rupert Murdoch, whose net worth is listed at more than $15 billion and whose entities include forty different networks and a couple dozen publishing entities. He’s Australian with Scottish ancestry. Fox provides a platform for nationalist/Zionist support. Sony is a Japanese-owned and -led conglomerate. Its North Ameri- can production entity Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group is run by a Jew named Tim Rothman. He oversees worldwide operations that include Columbia Pictures after spending almost two decades at Fox. Not one of the news or information entities within any of the aforementioned corporations took any interest whatsoever in discussing Chapter 1: Media | 9

the content of “The Israel Lobby,” an article published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, and later expanded into a book published in 2007. The authors, John Mearsheimer, a distinguished political science scholar at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were never invited to make a mainstream network appearance on radio or television in North America, despite producing what some would consider the most accurate assessment of American foreign policy in the Middle East. The book questioned America’s relationship with Israel and evaluated the extreme power held by Jewish donors and lobbyists over the politics and policy making decisions in both countries. From page viii of the book’s preface:

THE CASE ADVANCED in the article was straightforward. After describing the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel, we argued that this support could not be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. Instead, it was due largely to the political power of the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seeks to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel. In addition to encouraging the United States to back Israel more or less unconditionally, groups and individuals in the lobby played key roles in shaping American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and the ongoing confrontations with Syria and Iran. We suggested that these policies were not in the US’s national interest and were in fact harmful to Israel’s long-term interests as well.

Heavily researched and footnoted by two scholars, this seemed like a reasonable and interesting discussion. Not a chance. Not even the Charlie Rose program on public broadcasting would touch it. What some considered a liberal to centrist think-tank, the program hosted 10 | The United States of Israel

by Charley Rose featured long-form sit-down conversations about a diversity of topics in entertainment, politics, and government, and even visits from the man many Jews loved to hate, then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was allowed on the show because he could be grilled and ridiculed while trying to master the English language. But there was no way those in power were going to allow two qualified English-speaking intellectuals to jump on the air and criticize Israel. No Face the Nation, no Meet the Press. Mearsheimer and Walt were ostracized [banished and ridiculed] by prominent Jews inside and outside the media and relegated to the fringe. If the mainstream media is looking for “experts” to discuss a topic, they turn to a stable of readily available regulars. Meanwhile, for decades, the CBS-TV news magazine program 60 Minutes, broadcast into our homes on Sunday evenings, has been the absolute go-to for Americans looking for an hour of investigative reporting and compelling interviews with celebrities and world leaders. The viewing demographic skews a bit conservative and older, as has been the network’s trademark for many years. But many families, regardless of socio-economic status, or at least the adults in those households, anticipate the show each week. The late Don Hewitt, the Jewish executive producer of the program, ran it from 1968 to 2014. Longtime stalwart host Mike Wallace, also Jewish, took the greatest liberties in tilting viewer sentiments in favor of Israel and against Mus- lims in general. His one hatchet job in 2006 made an impact that effec- tively lingers today, negatively affecting important sentiments almost a decade since his death. It was as egregious [shocking, horrible] an act of manipulation you will find in the history of journalism. It was a great Mike Wallace/60 Minutes fabrication, and naturally for his efforts he was presented an Emmy Award. What Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said to Wallace in an interview in Tehran in the summer of 2006 is as follows: Chapter 1: Media | 11

I THINK THAT the Israeli government is a fabricated government, and I have talked about the solution. The solution is democracy. We have said “allow Palestinian people to participate in a free and fair referendum to express their views.” What we are saying only serves the cause of durable peace. We want durable peace in that part of the world. A durable peace will only come about once the views of the people are met. So we said “allow the people of Palestine to participate in a referendum to choose their desired government,” and, of course, for the war to come to an end as well. Why are they refusing to allow this to go ahead? Even the Pales- tinian administration and government, which has been elected by the people, is being attacked on a daily basis, and its high-ranking officials are assassinated and arrested. Yesterday, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament was arrested, elected by the people, mind you. So how long can this go on? We believe that this problem has to be dealt with fundamentally. I believe that the American government is blindly supporting this government of occupation. It should lift its support, allow the people to participate in free and fair elections. Whatever happens, let it be. We will accept and go along. The result will be as you said earlier, sir.

The interview was shown on television on August 6, 2006, but the editors cut Ahmadinejad’s words after he spoke “I think that the Israeli government is a fabricated government, and I have talked about the solution.” At that point, an interjection from Wallace is voiced over: “Fabricated from the Holocaust, which he said may also have been fabricated.” Ahmadinejad didn’t say that—Wallace did. But the quote has been attributed to Ahmadinejad and repeated ad nauseam by the likes of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Ahmadinejad’s actual response, aired on C-Span days later, uned- ited, was logical, reasonable, and peaceful. But who watches C-Span? 12 | The United States of Israel

Millions watched the 60 Minutes interview that rigidly followed the Zionist playbook: lie, promote hate of Iran, war with Iran (an earlier lie worked in Iraq), and demonize an adversary of Israel. At one point, after dealing with aggressive questions, the Iranian felt forced to ask Wallace, “Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?” Apparently Wallace was both. As summed up in the Mondoweiss.net article of April 12, 2012, headlined “Wallace Interview with Ahmadinejad Was Little More than Deliberate Demonization”:

THE INTERVIEW MADE headlines around the world and Ah- madinejad’s reputation as a genocidal threat to Israel and a confron- tational denier of the Holocaust was truly cemented in the hearts and minds of Western audiences. But those threats and denials came from Wallace’s voice-over, not Ahmadinejad’s actual words. … No military threats, only a call for democratic elections and a government that represents the will of the people. But none of that made it into the final cut of the interview shown on CBS.

A far more dangerous ongoing element of the pro-Israel media dominance is the utter control over the messaging on national syndicated radio. This is not surprising given media ownership; the top-rated national programs are all blatantly pro-Israel. As of early 2020, nine (!) of the top twenty programs in the United States of Israel fall under a “conservative talk” format, a format that automatically promises the listener a pro-Israel slant. Some are more aggressive than others. While the top-rated Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity clearly follow along, Mark Levin and Michael Savage fearlessly make things a bit more provocative. Levin loves to use the term “Islama-Nazis” to describe the Iranian regime and certain other Muslims. This is a putrid generalization, mis- characterization, and the simplest form of fear mongering. This is what Chapter 1: Media | 13

is fed to white, middle class, poor, middle-America, the heart-landers listening daily on their car or truck radios. There is one “progressive talk” categorized program in the top-20 in the United States, but as it is business-centric, you likely won’t hear Thom Hartmann critiquing Israel on his namesake program. Regional radio can be just as influenced, and influential. WashingA - ton Post article talks about “big conservative donors who have helped fuel the rise of local radio networks such as Salem Radio Network, BOTT Radio Network, and American Family Radio.” The article by Sarah Ellison on January 23, 2020 is entitled: “Trump- world Has Converted the Nation’s Regional Talk Radio Hosts into a Loyal Army.” The likelihood of these entities supporting Israel when the topic comes up is very, very, very high:

SALEM STARTED OUT as a small fundamentalist Christian operation run out of Southern California and has expanded aggressively in recent years, particularly in swing states. It supports nationally syndicated hosts such as Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, and Joe Walsh, in addition to a host of regional personalities largely unknown outside their areas. According to Salem, it now serves more than 2,000 radio stations across the country. Conservative groups such as the secre- tive Council for National Policy, backed by billionaire conservative families such as the Kochs, the Mercers, and the family of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, whose sister is Education Secretary Betsy De- Vos, have fueled that expansion, according to a new book by Anne Nelson, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. “These conservative networks have expanded even as local newspapers around the country have dwindled,” Nelson said in an interview. They have “gobbled up independent and local stations, boosted their signals, and made them into an unseen powerhouse in the middle of the country.” 14 | The United States of Israel

Not so independent or local anymore. News programs provide rhetoric, talk programs promote propaganda; ultimately both are one and the same. American taxpayers provide about $4 billion every year to Israel, a country led by hawkish [aggressive, merciless] right-wing Prime Min- ister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is in full support of stealing Palestinian land, terrorizing Muslims, and treating Jewish and Arab residents of Israel by separate rules and regulations. His ultimate goal, and the goal of those in power who think like him or support him, is to see Palestine eliminated and a greater Israel populated by Jews alone. The latter part is unrealistic on many levels, but then again having a working class and/or servant class of Arabs and Africans living with limited rights is well within his reality. Ironic, considering Netanyahu often says it’s the Palestinians who want to wipe Israel off the map, as he wipes Palestine off the map. This job became a lot easier with the arrival of Donald Trump. As referenced in the preface, in a remarkably detailed and honest expose by Adam Entous in the June 18, 2018 edition of the New Yorker, we learn that with the changeover from Obama, conditions for the Pal- estinians would only get worse, and Israel’s theft of land, settlement development and the terrorizing of the Arab population would now move ahead unabated. “Trump tried to cast himself as an honest broker who was ‘right down the middle,’ but his advisers—Kushner, David Fried- man, and Jason Greenblatt—couldn’t be more aligned with Netanyahu if he had chosen them himself.” While all of this should be urgently important to Americans, they’re purposely left in the dark. For one, the Israelis and their powerful lobby want the US to attack Iran for them, just like the US attacked Iraq for them in 2003 (see chapter 11). Meanwhile, Israel’s treatment of Israeli Arabs living in Israel proper resembles the former Apartheid state in South Africa (see chapter 8), Chapter 1: Media | 15

condemned by America and most of the world until it was overturned. Arabs as second-class citizens with fewer rights, freedoms, and privileges than Jews is being institutionalized by a recent “Nation-State” law passed in Israel’s Knesset [national legislature], while just outside Netanyahu’s empire, ongoing Israeli terror and war crimes against Palestinians on Pal- estinian land continues. This terror and destruction takes place before, during, and after the stealing of Palestinian property. The United States and its citizens are along for the ride. Hatred toward America from around the world due to its support of Israel has left American citizens who travel outside the US and its military personnel in danger. One could argue worldwide Islamic terror against “Western nations” begins and ends with the Palestinian issue and is simply a response to Jewish terror and American cooperation. This dislike and mistrust is not because the United States has Cadillacs and dancing girls. Early in 2019, Egyptian President al-Sissi reconfirmed what remains obvious. In the opening sentence of an article by Noa Landau published on February 2, 2019 in Haaretz, she summarized:

THE FAILURE TO reach a fair and final settlement in the Israe- li-Palestinian conflict represents the main source of instability in the Middle East, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi said Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. Sissi’s remark came two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bureau leaked a video in which the prime minister of Bahrain [an Arabic island kingdom in the Persian Gulf] is heard at a closed dinner telling Warsaw conference participants that the Iranian issue is more “toxic” than the Palestinian issue.

Pivoting the focus from Palestine to Iran (see chapter 12) by any means necessary, whenever possible, is the ongoing propaganda mission 16 | The United States of Israel

of Mr. Netanyahu, who’s well aware of his completely captive American audience. This chapter began with a quote from former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and it ends with one from Netanyahu in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in our way.” “The media’s the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power.”

MALCOLM X

Chapter 2 Terror

Prior to 1948, the entire area that makes up what is now Israel and Palestine was called British Palestine and controlled by Great Britain through World War II. It was an example of classic British colonialism, and as was often the case with French, Dutch, or British holdings overseas, the natives living within the colony became restless. In the case of the Jews wanting to found Israel, a country to call their own, they turned to terrorism to get it. There is acute irony in the fact that Jewish snipers were gunning down British officers on the streets of Jerusalem after the war had ended, killing allies that had forced Germany to sur- render and liberated concentration camps. These Jewish snipers and bombers are considered heroes, many of whom went on to become Israel’s future statesmen and ministers. At the time of his death on March 9, 1992, Menachem Begin, the former Israeli prime minister, had his New York Times obituary written by James Feron. It was entitled “Menachem Begin, Guerrilla Leader Who Became Peacemaker”:

17 18 | The United States of Israel

HE BELIEVED FIERCELY, and contentiously, that the Jews had a right to a national homeland and that it would range over the land of their biblical forebears. This was Zion and he was a dedicated Zion- ist. … The pursuit of those goals was an easily identifiable thread running through his life. He was to spend much time explaining and trying to justify what some considered extreme actions and statements.

Over the course of a two-year period between 1945 and 1947, more than 140 British police officers and soldiers were killed by Jew- ish guerillas:

THE BEST KNOWN of those occurred in 1946, when Irgun Zvai Leumi, the underground terrorist faction he headed during the final years of the British mandate in Palestine, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which served as headquarters of the British administrators of Palestine. The attack killed 90 people, among them Jewish and Arab employees as well as British officials. The most infamous incident was the Irgun’s attack on an Arab village, Deir Yassin, in April 1948, in which more than 200 men, women and children were killed.

So, in the case of the hotel bomb, the Israelis sacrificed some of their own to kill others. That same year, another future Israeli prime minister, Yitzak Shamir, conspired in the assassination of the United Nations (UN) mediator, and the terrorists’ quest to acquire a nation would soon be successful. As British public opinion turned against its colonial occupation, the Brits divided up Palestine via the United Nations and departed. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that the Palestinians also “had a right to a national homeland and it should range over the land of their biblical forebears?” Chapter 2: Terror | 19

The Palestinians were supposed to have their own nation state, as determined by the original 1948 “two-state” plan. Israel got its nation as a result of the UN act that year; Palestine technically has not. (Note: unbeknownst to Americans, 138 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, including China and Russia, actually recognize the State of Pal- estine. The most recent of the advanced countries to do so was Sweden in 2014.) The landscape changed over time with a number of Israeli-Arab conflicts along the way, most notably the Six-Day War of 1967. This conflict redefined boundaries and restricted access to holy sites following Israel’s victory over Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Israel had a right to attack Egypt in June of 1967 as the war drums were already beating. With conflict inevitable, Israel got the jump with a preemptive attack after Egypt cut off Israel’s access to shipping lanes. After the war the victorious Israelis began returning territory and access in what amounted to a “land for peace” process. The last true war between Israel and Arab nations occurred in Oc- tober of 1973 with the Yom Kippur War. (Yom Kippur is a most holy day in Judaism.) Egypt to the southwest and Syria to the northeast attacked to regain some of the land lost and not returned after the 1967 war. Israel prevailed again, but it was much more perilous and costly. The United States was the lone backer of Israel in the conflict, providing money, supplies, and weapons. The Soviet Union and other nations backed Egypt and Syria. Cold War politics was one of the catalysts behind the US-Israel relationship at this stage. With the Soviets allied with so many Arab and Persian Gulf countries, the United States desperately needed a regional entity of its own to support. Israel happily fit the bill. The relationship obviously grew and became more complex, thus affecting the US’s relationship with other countries in the Middle East. Many subsequent and recent peace initiatives, including the one described at the end of this book, allow Israel to keep some territories 20 | The United States of Israel

acquired in conflict, with slight modifications to the borders anddi- visions established in 1967. Unfortunately for the current and recent Jewish regimes, that’s not good enough. They aggressively want all of what was called Mandatory Palestine and they are again resorting to a diabolical combination of violence and public relations to get it.

●●●

The Israeli public relations machinery relentlessly refers to Palestinians as terrorists, slamming them as members of radical Arab groups and mythical “Islama-Nazis. In reality, the Palestinians are the victims of relentless terror. In North America, this level of terror and the deplorable conditions of the Israeli occupation and the apartheid situation Palestin- ians live in goes unreported. What does get documented is any protest by the Palestinians. This is the “terror” that gets mentioned across all platforms by the six multinational corporate media conglomerates in the United States that are owned and/or operated by persons involved with or sympathetic to the Israeli cause. As pointed out in chapter 1, many local and national news outlets in the US are largely supportive of Zi- onism and Israel’s territorial expansion under any circumstances at the expense of the Palestinians, putting unwanted pressure on the foreign policies of Israel’s few true allies. For many years the militant wing of the Palestinian political organization Hamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, as did the Islamic Jihad. These inferior shells generally failed to hit populous areas, and occasionally rockets still are launched at Israel. Air-raid sirens sound and Israeli residents hide. Militarily, these armaments are rudimentary in relation to the Israeli arsenal, similar in proportion to Palestinian teenagers throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers who are firing assault rifles. An athletic analogy: It’s a desperate middle school basketball team playing against the Chicago Bulls. Chapter 2: Terror | 21

Again, rocket attacks have been in retaliation to Israel’s decades-long occupation, the confiscation (stealing) of Palestinian lands and the constant harassment and terror that comes as part of that package. Similar to how British colonialism “created” Jewish terrorists, the Jew- ish occupation has “created” Arab ones. Hezbollah in Lebanon was founded in 1985, Hamas in Palestine in 1987. (The future of both is discussed in chapter 14.) In 2000, with settlers continuously claiming Palestinian land in Gaza, the natives decided they’d had enough. Fewer than two hundred thousand Jews occupied 40 percent of the Strip, leaving the other 60 percent to the local Arabs, with a population of 1.5 million. (From the perspective of historical “claims,” Gaza in 1945 consisted of about 145,000 Muslims and fewer than four thousand Jews.) A violent uprising ensued. Arab militants began lobbing rockets into Israel and attacks on civilians in Israel proper began. Israel responded heavy-handedly. This back and forth went on for about five years before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to remove all the settlements from Gaza. It’s a pattern seen over and over and over. Jews harass, occupy and take, Palestinians retaliate, and the Israelis retaliate back with excessive force. After giving up the Gaza Strip, Sharon and Israel decided the trade-off was to gobble up even more land in the West Bank, the much larger hunk of Palestinian land to the northeast that is supposed to make up their future state. On August 28, 2005, reporter Scott Wilson wrote in the Wash- ington Post under the headline “In West Bank, Israel Sees Room to Grow—Government Moves Swiftly to Capitalize on Pullout from Gaza despite Criticism”:

ENJOYING A MOMENT of international sympathy, Sharon’s government is moving swiftly to capitalize on its unilateral withdrawal and ongoing demolition of 25 Jewish settlements [in Gaza]. The 22 | The United States of Israel

government’s efforts are focused largely in the West Bank, land of far more religious and strategic importance to Israel than the remote slice of coastline it has left behind.

Four days earlier, Greg Myre reported similar information in the New York Times under “As Israel Leaves Gaza, It Strengthens West Bank Presence”:

ISRAELI SOLDIERS WORKED today to wrap up the military portion of the Gaza Strip withdrawal, and the defense minister said all but a small number of soldiers could be removed from the territory by mid-September. At the same time, Israeli officials confirmed that the government had issued orders to seize West Bank land to build the separation barrier around the largest Jewish settlement, Maale Ad- umim, and link it up to nearby Jerusalem. The Palestinian leadership said the developments reflected its concerns that Israel would use the Gaza withdrawal, and the international goodwill it had generated, to consolidate its hold on the large settlement blocs in the West Bank.

In the Post article, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was quoted as saying, “I hope Israel is not going to use the fact it has done something right in withdrawing from Gaza in order to do a lot wrong regarding settlement activities, the wall, and other matters. I hope they will use this to stay the course and to return to negotiations.” Since then there have been legitimate negotiations once, in Annap- olis, Maryland in 2007 led by centrist Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. There have never been sincere negotiations since Prime Min- ister Netanyahu and his hawkish foreign minister Avignor Lieberman took over in 2009. In the New York Times, on April 2, 2009, Isabel Kershner in her column “Israeli Minister Dismisses Peace Effort” quoted Lieberman Chapter 2: Terror | 23

as saying, “Those who wish for peace should prepare for war,” and continued:

THE AIM OF the Annapolis process, as it became known, was to agree on the framework for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2008, a goal that was not achieved. Mr. Lieberman said that the Israeli government “never ratified Annapolis, nor did Parliament,” and that it therefore “had no validity.” … Often con- tradictory and contrary in his positions, Mr. Lieberman, a resident of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, has said that he advocates the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Yet in January 2008 he pulled his party out of the last governing coalition, led by [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert and the centrist Kadima Party, in protest against the Annapolis-inspired talks.

Since 2009 Israel has only pretended to have an interest in negotiations. During any periods of calm between the two sides, Israel has sent soldiers into Palestinian villages, often in the middle of the night to make raids on homes more terrifying, and to make unjustified accusations and arrests. Once the locals retaliated, the battles were back on, as was the coverage in the news media. Israeli provocation meant legitimate talks of a “two-state solution” could be avoided. Meanwhile, Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank continues. Headlines like the one in the New York Times on August 24, 2004 were common: “Israel Adds to Plans for More Housing Units in Settle- ments,” as in 533 more housing units in the West Bank close to Jerusa- lem. Steven Erlanger wrote:

THE ANNOUNCEMENT CAME a week after the government issued tenders for the construction of 1,001 new housing units on the West Bank and said it was planning to issue tenders for another 633 24 | The United States of Israel

units, though it has not done so yet. Together with the new units from rezoning, this would amount to 2,167 permits to build dwellings beyond Israel’s 1967 boundaries. By comparison, 908 new units were offered for sale in those areas in 2003, 647 were offered in 2002 and 917 in 2001, the year Ariel Sharon became prime minister, according to the daily (Israeli newspaper) Yediot Aharonot.

Israel managed to convince the United States to allow for “natural growth” in all existing settlements. A nifty and useful catchphrase that carried added building development through this time period, before things became more brazen under Netanyahu. Immediately after the 2005 Gaza pullout, both Israel and the US demanded Palestinian elections, expecting a unified government without Hamas. Hamas won in the Gaza Strip in early 2006 and infighting began between the rival Palestinian factions in Gaza and the West Bank. The United States of Israel didn’t like that. Tempers flared, aid money was cut off, and Hamas made the mistake of firing rockets. It wasn’t long before Israeli troops were once again invading Gaza. According to an article in the Jerusalem Post on December 29, 2016, between 2006 and the end of 2016, there were 10,412 rockets fired into Israel—more than half of them, 5,622, during the “wars” of 2008- 09, 2012, and 2014. The number has been minimalized in recent times; only twenty-four rockets in 2015 and fifteen in total for all of 2016. Thirty-three Israelis died as a result of rocket fire between 2004 and 2016. The rocket fire, retaliatory or not, should be and has been deemed a “war crime” by the same international humanitarian groups that also consider Israel’s occupation illegal. In 2017, thirty-five rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, none resulting in death or injury. A December barrage that year was in response to Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. In late 2018, almost four hundred rockets were fired, a third of them Chapter 2: Terror | 25

intercepted by the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense system paid for by the United States. Hundreds and then dozens were fired in 2019 and 2020 respectively, the flare-ups part of border skirmishes and protests against Israel’s treatment of Gaza. Personal retaliatory attacks, frequent in the early 2000s, occurred again mostly between 2015 and 2017, with a few desperate Palestinians who worked or snuck into Israel resorting to knife and car ramming attacks against Israeli citizens. As a result during the two years, six times more Palestinian civilians, attackers, and rioters were killed than Israelis. Also as a result of these activities, Israel finished a series of walls to keep the general Palestinian public out of Israel proper. Palestinian workers who have to cross into Israel do so at a series of checkpoints. Gaza was enclosed while in the West Bank more Palestinian land was stolen to make room for the barrier. In a Washington Post article from May 30, 2006 entitled “In the Vil- lage of Nowhere, a Fate Soon Sealed—Wall to Enclose Palestinians Inside Jewish State,” writer Scott Wilson told of local shepherds whose families have lived and worked in their village for hundreds of years:.

THE 1993 OSLO accords [peace talks held in Norway with limited agreements] began a process of separation between Israel and the Palestinians and established a semi-autonomous [partially independent] Palestinian government in the occupied territories. But the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, including suicide bomb attacks on Israeli civilians, led Israel to build a towering barrier to keep Palestinians out. The course of the wall, drawn by Israel, is now also separating thousands of Palestinians from their property and from each other.

Jerusalem is considered the holy center and capital for both peoples. It was generally split in half by the United Nations in 1948 with East 26 | The United States of Israel

Jerusalem designated for the Arabs. The city is centralized on the map and serves as a gateway and border where the two nations share access to holy sites. Israel to the left; Palestine to the right. Gradually, the Pal- estinians have lost much of their land inside the city and around it. “Israeli Barrier in Jerusalem Will Cut Off 55,000 Arabs” proclaimed the New York Times on July 11, 2005. It’s only gotten worse.

●●●

Meanwhile, real terror continued on a regular basis against the Palestin- ians not only in the Gaza Strip, termed an oversized “prison” by many, but also in the occupied and unoccupied territories of the West Bank. Among other things, it’s a classic case of bullying. Israel has the money, the weapons, and practically 100 percent of the mainstream media support in the United States. As part of their security plan, the Israelis were among the first in the world to introduce the widespread use of drones. Occasional use of drones in the 1980s has progressed to standard operating procedure today. Scott Wilson, in his Washington Post column on December 3, 2011 titled “In Gaza, Lives Shaped by Drones,” defined the Arabic wordzena - na, which roughly translated means “buzz.” He wrote, “In neighboring Egypt, a source of Gaza custom and culture, the term is slang used to describe a relentlessly nagging wife.” He then contrasted that light-hearted description with historical reality:

ISRAEL WITHDREW ITS soldiers and settlers from Gaza in the summer of 2005, ending a nearly 40-year presence in a territory its forces occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. In 2006 Hamas gunmen captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit just outside Gaza’s for- tified boundary, and since then, Israel has stepped up military operations and aerial surveillance in the strip. The Palestinian Center for Chapter 2: Terror | 27

Human Rights says 825 people have been killed by drones in Gaza since the capture of Shalit, who was released in October [2011].

Fair trade-off? Wilson goes on to say: “Most of those killed, according to the organization, have been civilians mistakenly targeted or caught in the deadly shrapnel shower of a drone strike.” Four of those civilians were young Gazan boys, killed while playing on a beach in 2014. The Israelis said “the military will conduct an investigation.” A secret investigation finally revealed the truth four years later. Robert Mackey for The Intercept wrote an article on August 11, 2018 headlined “Secret Israeli Report Reveals Armed Drone Killed Four Boys Playing on Gaza Beach in 2014”:

TESTIMONY FROM THE officers involved in the attack, which has been concealed from the public until now, confirms for the first time that the children—four cousins ages 10 and 11—were pursued and killed by drone operators who somehow mistook them, in broad daylight, for Hamas militants. The testimony raises new questions about whether the attack, which unfolded in front of dozens of journalists and triggered global outrage, was carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life and without proper authorization. After killing the first boy, the drone operators told investigators, they had sought clarification from their superiors as to how far along the beach, used by civilians, they could pursue the fleeing survivors. Less than a minute later, as the boys ran for their lives, the drone operators decided to launch a second missile, killing three more children, despite never getting an answer to their question.

Damn secret reports. Flash back to a week after the incident itself, to the Washington Post on June 14, 2006. The Israeli’s initial report was included in a story with a different slaughter: “Israeli Airstrike Kills 28 | The United States of Israel

10 Palestinians—Eight Civilians among Dead; Israel Denies Role in Last Week’s Fatal Beach Explosion. The Post wrote, “Later in the day, the Israeli military said an internal investigation showed that it was not responsible for a deadly explosion on a Gaza beach last week that Pales- tinian officials have called a war crime.” Here’s a shocker: the Israelis were lying. The Washington Post, May 18, 2004, “Israelis Kill 19 in Gaza Raids”: “Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army was investigating the deaths of the children. ‘We don’t know exactly what happened there,’ he said.” The New York Times, November 3, 2006, “Israel Kills 2 Women during Mosque Seige”: Israeli troops fired at a large group of unarmed Palestinian women …” The Washington Post, November 9, 2006, “‘Shells Kept Falling’ on Gaza Apartment, Killing 17 in Family”: “Israeli leader expresses regret …” Endless. Unlike the stock market, past performance does guarantee future results as it relates to the Israeli Defense Forces’ behavior. Often enough, murder, mayhem for fun or target practice are the sole motivation behind killing. In 2014, Mackey’s story pointed out that on the very same day of the beach murders, the IDF’s public relations unit had released footage for journalistic consumption, showing three examples of times where drone operators had held off on carrying out a strike because civilians were nearby: “Those images were released one week into Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, a fifty-day offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza in which Israel would eventually kill 1,391 civilians, including 526 children.” (See chapter 6 for a discussion of how fanatical religious doctrine plays a part in this.) Eventually Israel would blame Hamas for the killings, stating that the militants were using these people as “human shields.” This is a popular, emotion-jarring catchphrase that’s a standard part of the propaganda Chapter 2: Terror | 29

package. Media outlets in the US of I are more than happy to follow along and utilize it, as opposed to contemplating the fact that Israel was killing indiscriminately (randomly) with as much force as possible. Like the time when Israel blew up a United Nations school in Gaza, knowing it was full of panicked civilians (see chapter 5). In his Al Jazeera article from November 28, 2013, “Gaza: Life and Death under Israel’s Drones,” Jonathan Cook pointed to the residual effects of drone warfare, outside of the obvious destruction:

A SURVEY IN medical journal the Lancet following Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s month-long attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09, found large percentages of children suffered from symptoms of psy- chological trauma: Fifty-eight percent permanently feared the dark; 43 percent reported regular nightmares; 37 percent wet the bed and 42 percent had crying attacks. [Psychologist Ahmed] Tawahina described the sense of being constantly observed as a “form of psy- chological torture, which exhausts people’s mental and emotional resources. Among children at school, this can be seen in poor concentration and unruly behavior.”

One could easily point out that this isn’t unique to Gaza. Children who grow up in poverty or with certain levels of trauma anywhere in the world are less likely to do well in school, less likely to advance socio-economically, and therefore less likely to become upstanding and productive citizens. They’re doomed to everlasting hardship as long as conditions remain the same. Remarkably, this doesn’t mean they’ve lost their sense of humor. In “Sleepless in Gaza—Israeli Drone War on the Gaza Strip” by Dr. Atef Abu Saif, published on the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation website in March 2014, the doctor’s article describes life firsthand. He described drones as the new face of the occupation in Gaza: 30 | The United States of Israel

THE DRONE HAS become a part of everyday life for Gazans. They wake up in the morning to its noise, and it’s the same noise they hear while trying to sleep. It is always there, to the extent that one might even momentarily forget it is there. Young activists make fun of the situation by inventing names of movies with the word drone such as “Drones in Black”, “A Drone to Remember”, “Drone and Prejudice”, “Gone with the Drones”, “Honey I Blew Up Gaza” … “Sleepless in Gaza”, “Harry Potter and the Deadly Drones”, “Gazans of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Drone”, “Israeli Mission Impossible IV: Erase Gaza”, and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Drone.”

Meanwhile, the in-your-face version of the occupation unfolds in the West Bank, where Jewish religious fanatics, known as settlers, harass and terrorize Palestinians land owners and farmers. They ter - rorize, squat on and steal land with the help of the Israeli government and army. Set aside physical violence and vandalism for a moment and just imagine what it might be like knowing that at some point strangers are going to come along and steal your land. They might also burn your crops first, or set fire to your home, but ultimately your property will be gone. If you react violently, you’re arrested or shot. These aren’t remote warring tribes in a developing sub-Saharan African nation, cut off from the rest of the world. The criminals are Jews from Israel, a country touted as “the lone democracy in the Mid - dle East.” In the March 14, 2007 New York Times article called “West Bank Sites on Private Land, Data Shows,” writer Steven Erlanger informed us that an advocacy group had sued the Israeli government to obtain the data, which showed that 32.4 percent of property held by Israeli settlements was on private land: Chapter 2: Terror | 31

THE GROUP, PEACE Now, prepared an earlier report in Novem- ber, also provided to the New York Times, based on a 2004 version of the Israeli government database that had been provided by an official who wanted the information published. Those figures showed that 38.8 percent of the land on which Israeli settlements were built was listed as private Palestinian land. The data shows a pattern of illegal seizure of private land that the Israeli government has been reluctant to acknowledge or to prosecute, according to the Peace Now report. Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and takes land there only legally or, for security reasons, temporarily.

The settlers’ actual justifications are based on religious fanaticism, claiming alleged ownership based on unverifiable ancient history. The Palestinians have possessed much of their land for hundreds of years if not longer. Part of the occupation is also likely based on pure and simple greed. For economists, Israel is ahead of many western nations in terms of its gross domestic product, which annually approaches US$400 billion. The United Nations refers to it as having a “highly advanced free-market, primarily knowledge based economy.” If having someone from a country of this caliber stealing their neighbor’s land isn’t bizarre enough, how about when they throw in state-approved terror? On April 22, 2017, Haaretz published a video online “Settlers At- tack, Injure Activists Accompanying Palestinian Shepherds in West Bank.” Yotam Berger wrote:

ACTIVISTS ACCOMPANYING PALESTINIAN shepherds near a West Bank settlement were attacked by settlers on Friday. Settlers threw stones at the activists, who belong to the Ta’ayush [Arab-Jew- ish partnership] organization, and tried to hit them with clubs near 32 | The United States of Israel

the Baladim [settler] outpost. Four of the activists were lightly hurt, according to a complaint filed with the police.

The masked figures attacked and then fled. The Ta’ayush website posts weekly updates of harassment, violence, and illegal land confiscation. In their update “This Week—April 5-12, 2020—in the Occupied Territories,” the website reported that settlers were taking advantage of the Corona-virus pandemic:

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF the general closure—imposed by Israel to prevent Corona-virus spread—the Jewish settler-colonists are con- structing a series of new settler-colonist outposts on the hill range around Auja, expanding and building in the illegal outposts already existing in the South Hebron Hills, invade with their flocks sown Pal- estinian fields inside Area C and causing extensive damage to their Palestinian neighbors, nearly always without any interference by Is- raeli army and police …

There are times when the Israeli army has and does intervene on behalf of the Palestinians, particularly when the violent settlers are considered “extreme.” The most extreme Jewish religious fanatics will actually attack IDF soldiers who are protecting Arabs and the land in question. But there is no consistent policy. For the police and the soldiers, defense of Arabs and their land comes down to where the land is located, how much of it is tied up in the Israeli judicial process (the Supreme Court has intervened and delayed settlements in instances), or simply the mindset of the soldiers themselves. How much intestinal fortitude do they have to fend off fellow Jews, or just how racist are they? Most will stand by and watch. The headline and sub-headline of Carol Cook’s story in Haaretz on April 22, 2017 are self-explanatory: “Over Passover, Settlers At- tacked Three Grandmothers. I Was One of Them”: Chapter 2: Terror | 33

“We, three women in our 60s and 70s, wanted to see the settlement reality for ourselves. We got a smaller but bitter taste of the violence and hatred Palestinians in the area experience as routine.” Another Jewish writer for the same paper, Amira Hass, brings up a different form of terror, although Apartheid (see chapter 8) is potentially a more accurate word. In “Israel Incapable of Telling Truth about Water It Steals from Palestinians” on June 22, 2016, she goes into great detail about water amounts used by the various constituents, various levels of dishonesty on both sides, and the lies Israel tells in order to justify its actions. The final paragraph provides an emotional summary with a bit of sarcasm:

BUT IN FARKHA, Salfit and Deir al-Hatab people describe, on the verge of tears, how humiliating it is to live for weeks without running water. And we have not even spoken about the dozens of Palestinian communities on both sides of the Green Line that Israel, a light unto the nations, refuses to allow to connect to the water infrastructure.

For the government of Israel, Hass would be considered a liberal. A Jew interested in peace. She would be hated by the extremists and mocked by those in power, despite being quietly supported by close to half the population. There are millions of Jews in Israel and the United States who support the plight of the Palestinians. The most fascinating among them are former IDF soldiers. In the early 2000s, the Breaking the Silence exhibition and movement began, as documented by the Washington Post on June 24, 2004. “‘Breaking the Silence’ on West Bank Abuse—Israeli Soldiers Exhibit Depicts Mistreatment of Palestinians by Troops, Settlers in Hebron,” by Molly Moore. In the exhibition film, soldiers narrate while photos display incidents they were involved in. 34 | The United States of Israel

“WE GET OUT of the jeep,” he says. “You see the groom, you see the bride, the father. As they go out [of their car] you see on their faces the fear.” The deputy commander did not want to allow the wedding party to pass, according to the soldier, who adds: “He wants to spoil everything, so they go home. He takes the car keys. “The bride is crying, the father of the groom is really begging,” he continues. “You see on their face how they are anxious about the most significant day in their life. On the other hand, I can see the deputy commander looks at them and does not see them as humans.”

Moore describes some of the other standard-operating-procedures of abuse and humiliation. Like a teenager being blindfolded and hand- cuffed to a chair for sixteen hours, accused of throwing stones. The top of the story:

MILITARY POLICE ON Wednesday interrogated three Israeli reserve soldiers who organized an exhibit of photographs and video- tapes chronicling mistreatment of Palestinians by troops and Jewish settlers. A statement issued by the military said the three men were ordered to provide testimony as part of an investigation into the “allegedly violent crimes against Palestinians and damage to Palestinian property” depicted in the show. “The army wants to keep us quiet and scare us away,” Micha Kurz, 22, said after what he described as seven hours of questioning by investigators. “They’re not going to shut us up, because we have a lot to say, and they’re not going to scare us off.”

Peace-mongers! A dirty word to both governments of the United States of Israel. “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq … swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Israeli Prime Minister, BENJAMIN NETANYAHU April 16, 2008

Chapter 3 Israel First

On January 13, 2012, the digital edition of Foreign Policy published Mark Perry’s article “False Flag.” The subtext read: “A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad [Israel’s spy/espionage service] agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.” One small section leaps off the page:

THE [AMERICAN] OFFICIALS did not know whether the Israeli program to recruit and use Jundallah is ongoing. Nevertheless, they were stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts. “It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” the intelligence officer said. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”

According to US intelligence, the Israeli spies were equipped with American money and fake American passports, and posed as CIA agents—known as a “false flag” operation— to recruit Jundallah terrorists

35 36 | The United States of Israel

from Pakistan to attack Iranians. Jundallah is a radical Sunni Muslim group, while Iran is 95-percent Shia Muslim. The Sunni Muslims and the Shia Muslims are the two main—and opposing—sects within the Is- lamic religion. Iran is a declared enemy of the United States, a sworn enemy of Israel, and a target for certain radical Sunni groups. For Israel, finding a way to attack Iran without being condemned as an aggressor was highly desirable. So the Israeli spies posed as Americans to recruit Sunnis to their cause, putting Americans in peril, as Perry wrote:

[MY ARTICLE] “SPARKED White House concerns that Israel’s program was putting Americans at risk,” the [American] Intelli- gence officer told me. “There’s no question that the US hasco- operated with Israel in Intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we’re not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians.”

However, Israel is in that business and it’s well documented. Perry’s article continued:

ISRAEL’S RELATIONSHIP WITH Jundallah continued to roil [piss off] the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same Intelligence officer noted. Israel’s activities jeopardized the administration’s fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined US claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks on US personnel. “It’s easy to understand why Bush was so angry,” a former intelligence officer said. “After all, it’s hard to engage with a foreign government if they’re convinced you’re killing their people. Once you start doing that, they feel they can do the same.” A senior administration official vowed Chapter 3: Israel First | 37

to “take the gloves off” with Israel, according to a US intelligence officer. But the United States did nothing—a result that the officer attributed to “political and bureaucratic inertia [a tendency to remain unchanged].”

There were general similarities to the war in Iraq. Israel wants an enemy removed, they can’t, won’t, and don’t do it, so they get the US to do it for them, regardless of the potential negative and deadly consequences for Americans.

●●●

On Saturday, August 28, 2004, the Washington Post published an article by Bradley Graham and Thomas E. Ricks entitled “FBI Probe Targets Pentagon Official.” The official in question was Larry Franklin, who worked as a desk officer in what’s known as the Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of the regional policy sections of the Pentagon. He was being investigated for allegedly passing classified information to Israel. Franklin, who was Jewish, had a boss named William J. Luti, also Jewish, who previously helped run the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, which worked on policy for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to Graham and Ricks,

THAT OFFICE IS one of two Pentagon offices that Bush administration critics have claimed were set up by Defense Department hawks to bypass the CIA and other Intelligence agencies, providing information that President Bush and others used to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Another Jew, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, ran that exaggeration department. His boss was Paul D. Wolfowitz, the 38 | The United States of Israel

deputy defense secretary, who was also Jewish. Wolfowitz, an emphatic and outspoken fan of the invasion of Iraq, reported directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The article continued:

A LAW ENFORCEMENT official said that the information allegedly passed by Franklin went to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying organization. The information was said to have been the draft of a presidential directive related to US policies toward Iran.

The story mentions that two employees of AIPAC were also being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). An AIPAC spokesman Josh Block issued a written statement insisting the allegations were baseless and false.

ANOTHER AIPAC OFFICIAL said: “Our folks are pretty outraged about this. We’ve had these kinds of accusations before, and none of them ever proved to be true.” David Seigel, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, said: “We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous.” Israel is a close ally of the United States, but espionage investigations here involving its government are not unprecedented. In 1987, a US Navy intelligence analyst, Jon- athan J. Pollard (also Jewish), admitted to selling state secrets to Israel and was sentenced to life in prison.

As the investigations continued, the New York Times continued elements of the story on September 6, 2004 with “Spy Case Renews Debate over Pro-Israel Lobby’s Ties to Pentagon,” by James Risen and David Johnston. Risen and Johnston mention that the two AIPAC officials being interviewed by the FBI were Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. They wrote: Chapter 3: Israel First | 39

BUT LEADING CRITICS of the Pentagon hard-liners have repeatedly argued that Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith and others have used the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to pursue issues that in some ways mirror the interests of Israel’s conservative Likud government. One piece of evidence repeatedly cited by the critics is a 1996 paper issued by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, calling for the toppling of Saddam Hussein in order to enhance Israeli security. Entitled A Clean Break, the 1996 paper was intended to offer a foreign policy agenda for the new Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper argued: “Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right—as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” Among those who signed the paper were Mr. Feith; [ Jewish] David Wurmser, who later worked for Mr. Feith at the Pentagon and now works for Vice President Dick Cheney; and [Jewish] Richard Perle, a leading conservative who previously served as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside consultants to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

A year later, on August 6, 2005, when the New York Times published “Use of Espionage Law in Secrets Case Troubles Analysts” by Eric Lichtblau and David Johnston, we learn that Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weiss- man had been fired by AIPAC and that they and Mr. Franklin would be charged with what amounted to “conspiracy to communicate national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it.” Lichtblau and Johnston conclude that the “indictment stops short of accusing the three defendants of espionage, but it strongly suggests that they were improp- erly acting as emissaries to Israeli diplomats.” 40 | The United States of Israel

Four (!) years later, after legal haggling and multiple motions, this case against the duo was dismissed. On May 1, 2009, Politico.com reported in a story by Ben Smith and Josh Gerstein that the Justice De- partment was dropping the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman and quoted US Attorney Dana Boente:

“GIVEN THE DIMINISHED likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment,” Boente said.

In the interim, Mr. Franklin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twelve and one-half years in prison.

●●●

AIPAC meanwhile, through its wealthy supporters, made out just fine. In a New York Times article from March 5, 2006 entitled “Pro-Israel Group Roiled by Prosecution of Two Ex-Officials,” the authors Scott Shane and David Johnston uncovered internal sentiment:

“THE FEELING IN the Jewish community is one of indignation [shocked disgust] at AIPAC’s being unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors for trying to find out what everyone in this town is trying to find out, [which is] what the government is thinking,” said Douglas M. Bloomfield, who was a legislative director of AIPAC in the 1980s, and who now writes a syndicated column on American Mideast policy. As the marquee conference speakers attest, AIPAC’s clout has not visibly diminished by the criminal case. Membership has increased 25 percent in the last two years to more than 100,000, Chapter 3: Israel First | 41

and the budget has grown to $45 million, the group said. “As always, the organization is completely focused on its core mission, the strengthening of the US-Israel relationship,” said Patrick Dorton, an AIPAC spokesman.

By about 2016, AIPAC’s income was close to $80 million, and its related American Israel Education Foundation was separately budget- ed close to $60 million. The education foundation pays for dozens of American politicians to visit Israel for a week every couple of years. Most would argue “propaganda” is a better word than “education” to describe these sponsored trips. The aforementioned scholars Walt and Mearsheimer (see chapter 1) described AIPAC this way in their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy:

AIPAC’S SUCCESS IS due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. … AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad [very many, diverse] pro-Israel PACs [political action committees that can legally donate to campaigns]. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. … The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto [unofficial] agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the US Congress. Open debate about US policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.

In 1992, David Steiner, the president of AIPAC, was forced to resign after he was recorded bragging about AIPAC’s influence over elections and officials. In late December 1992 the website Washington Report on 42 | The United States of Israel

Middle East Affairs published Steiner’s entire conversation with Jewish New York businessman Haim (“Harry”) Katz, who was apparently pos- ing as a potential donor. After first cautiously clearing Katz’s credentials as a Jew and potential supporter, Steiner talked about certain US politicians and their level of dedication to Israel. The call began with his disclaimer “AIPAC does not rate or endorse candidates, does not solicit money …”, but after Steiner let his guard down it became “We commissioned a poll and got some people, and I’ve got to raise $27,000 to pay for the poll … so I have, so what I’m trying to do is make a priority list, because I don’t know how far you want to go … how old are your kids anyway? … You have three children that could write checks; do they have their own checking accounts?” Along the way Steiner and Katz bring up Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a “good friend” who was involved in a sexual harassment scandal, before the discussion switches gears:

KATZ (HK): Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to … Inouye, by the way, is in real trouble? He’s been there forever …

STEINER (DS): Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There’s been such a sea of change, such trouble this year—I can’t believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there’s an anti-incumbency mood, and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [US Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they’re looking for the Jewish votes, and I’ll tell him whatever he wants to hear …

HK: Right.

DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing; $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don’t even know about.

HK: Such as? Chapter 3: Israel First | 43

DS: Seven hundred million [dollars] in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army’s going to give to Israel; $200 million which Israel can draw upon; puts them in the global warning protection system, so when there’s a missile fired, they’ll get the same advanced notification that the US [has] … joint military exercises—I’ve got a whole shopping list of things.

HK: So this is from Baker?

DS: Baker and the Pentagon.

The conversation was recorded on October 22, 1992, about two weeks before the American presidential election. After mentioning how he helped raise a million dollars for Bill Clinton in New Jersey, the conversation continued:

DS: We’ve also raised for other guys who are running too, because they’re friends. [Iowa’s Tom] Harkin, the senator, you know you have to be with everybody.

HK: Let me ask you. Clinton, if he becomes, I mean what will he do for Israel, better than [George H.W.] Bush, if he becomes [president]. I know Bush gave you a hard time, this and that …

DS: I’ll tell you, I have friends on the Clinton campaign, close asso- ciates. [Soon to be Vice President Al] Gore is very committed to us.

HK: Right. Clinton, if he … have you spoken to him?

DS: I’ve known Bill for seven, eight years from the National Gov- ernors Association. I know him on a personal basis. I have friends. One of my friends is Hillary Clinton’s scheduler, one of my officers’ daughters works there. We gave two employees from AIPAC leave of absences to work on the campaign. I mean, we have a dozen people in that campaign, in the headquarters.

HK: You mean in Little Rock? [The capital city of Arkansas. Clinton was governor.] 44 | The United States of Israel

DS: In Little Rock, and they’re all going to get big jobs. We have friends. I also work with a think tank, the Washington Institute. I have Michael Mandelbaum and Martin Indyk being foreign policy advisers. Steve Speigel—we’ve got friends—this is my business.

Thomas L. Friedman published an article in the New York Times on November 5, 1002 entitled “Pro-Israel Lobbyist Quits over Au- diotaped Boasts”:

IN A STATEMENT on Tuesday night, Mr. Steiner said: “In an effort to encourage and impress what I thought was a potential political activist, calling on the telephone, I made statements which went beyond overzealousness and exaggeration and were simply and totally untrue. This included, among other statements, false statements about a meeting with Jim Baker, and false statements about the Clinton campaign.”

Nice try. The undercover reporter in the 2018 TV production The Lobby— USA discovered similar information:

WE EXAMINE HOW the lobby, led by AIPAC, the American Is- rael Public Affairs Committee, secured unwavering support in Con- gress. (We then hear the voice of David Ochs, founder of Halev, which helps pay for Jewish young adults to attend the AIPAC annual conference.) “Congressmen don’t do anything unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money.”

In the last couple of years it appears AIPAC’s influence is waning to a degree as more American politicians, particularly Democrats, question its actions and those of the country it represents. But there are dozens of other pro-Zionist organizations in the United States to pick up the slack. Chapter 3: Israel First | 45

●●●

As for espionage, there have been other cases of Jews in the United States passing along delicate information. On December 31, 2008, a Washington Post headline read “Retiree Pleads Guilty to Giving U.S. Secrets to Israel in the 1980s.” Carrie Johnson wrote:

A RETIRED ENGINEER from New Jersey whose clandestine [secret] activities went undetected for more than two decades pleaded guilty yesterday to a criminal charge accusing him of serving as an unregistered agent for Israel. Ben-Ami Kadish passed classified documents to an Israeli handler between about 1980 and 1985, when he worked at a US Army research and engineering center at the Picat- inny Arsenal in Dover, N.J. authorities say.

Kadish apparently received only nominal gifts and dinners in exchange for fifty to one hundred documents, handled by the same man who had handled Jonathan Pollard’s efforts. Johnson continued:

KADISH, A US citizen born in Connecticut, checked classified pa- pers out of an Army research library and passed them to an Israel official, identified for the first time by prosecutors yesterday as Yossi Yagur. Yagur photographed materials related to nuclear weapons, the F-15 fighter jet program and the US Patriot missile defense system, according to reports.

So, not so “delicate” information. Meanwhile, Israel not only does what it wants with American interests, as we have seen it also feels free to use US allies for “false flag” operations. In the article “Fake Passports Fuel Questions about Israeli Role in Hamas (Palestinian) Official’s Slaying” by Howard Schneider in 46 | The United States of Israel

the Washington Post on February 18, 2010, we see another example of Israel doing whatever it wants. The story explains that six of the eleven agents who carried out the assassination in Dubai were carrying fake British passports containing the names of Israeli citizens. It was widely understood the operation was carried out by Israel’s Mossad spy agency. The outrage over the maneuver reached all the way to then-British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown:

“THE BRITISH PASSPORT is an important document that has got to be held with care,” Brown said. “The evidence has got to be as- sembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened.”

It happened because the Israelis will do whatever it takes to kill whoever they want to kill, even if it embarrasses or compromises the security of their “allies,” as Schneider reveals:

ISRAEL HAS A record of using foreign passports to conceal the movements of its undercover operatives and has run into diplomatic trouble with Canada, New Zealand, Britain and others over the practice. The Mossad agents who tried to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan in 1997, for example, carried Canadian documents. The Dubai case has the added wrinkle that the names and some other data on the passports match those of Israeli citizens who emigrated here from Europe, and who were shocked to find themselves mentioned in the material released by Dubai police. That has left Israeli officials in a quandary; on the one hand trying to maintain the country’s “policy of ambiguity”—neither confirming nor denying its involvement in covert operations—and on the other, having to explain how the names of some of its citizens ended up on forged documents cited in an international murder investigation. In Chapter 3: Israel First | 47

Israel’s first official comments on the matter, Foreign Minister Av- igdor Lieberman told Army Radio on Wednesday that despite the presence of the names, there is “no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other service or country up to some mischief.”

A comment bordering on the comical if it weren’t so appalling. On the battlefield as well, Israel is no stranger to tossing aside standards and agreements while committing offenses. As one will learn in the chapters that follow, rules and conventions are meaningless. From simple international violations to atrocities, there is never an expression of remorse. On January 27, 2007, David S. Cloud and Greg Myre wrote in the New York Times under the headline “Israel May Have Violated Arms Pact, US Says” that the Bush administration would report to Congress that Israel had “fired American-supplied cluster munitions into southern Lebanon during its fight with Hezbollah last summer”:

CLUSTER MUNITIONS ARE anti-personnel weapons that scatter tiny but deadly bomblets over a wide area. The grenade-like munitions, tens of thousands of which have been found in southern Leb- anon, have caused 30 deaths and 180 injuries among civilians since the end of the war, according to the United Nations Mine Action Ser- vice. … Any sanctions against Israel would be an extraordinary move by the Bush administration, a strong backer of Israel, and several officials said they expected little further action, if any, on the matter. But sanctions against Israel for misusing the weapons would not be unprecedented. The Reagan administration imposed a six-year ban on cluster-weapon sales to Israel in 1982, after a Congressional investigation found that Israel had used the weapons in civilian areas during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. 48 | The United States of Israel

Which raises the obvious question, why ever provide such a vicious weapon to Israel, knowing that Israel will use cluster munitions regardless of any accepted rules of war. After the invasion of Lebanon, it was up to the United Nations to send crews in to clean up and detonate the leftovers, bomblets that would have otherwise maimed and killed hundreds of innocents, if not more. Israel didn’t have to clean up after itself, but naturally it was investigating. Cloud and Myre noted that the “investigation is still under way, and military officials have refused to divulge any details in public.” Accusations against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are wide ranging, some more harrowing than others. In Haaretz on August 17, 2009, Morten Berthelsen and Barak Ravid wrote a story under the headline “Top Sweden Newspaper Says IDF Kills Palestinians for Their Organs”:

A LEADING SWEDISH newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication. … The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.

Sometimes alive, sometimes dead. Another revelation from Berth- elsen and Ravid:

[WRITER DONALD] BOSTROM’S article makes a link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in New Jersey. The syndicate includes several American rabbis, and one Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who faces charges of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. Chapter 3: Israel First | 49

Rosenbaum was convicted and sentenced three years later in July of 2012, as reported by NBC-4 New York in an online article “Brooklyn Man Sentenced 2-1/2 Years in Fed Organ Trafficking Case”: “Prose- cutors allege Rosenbaum would buy organs from vulnerable people in Israel for as little as $10,000 and sell them to desperate patients for more than $100,000.” Two-and-a-half years later, CBS-2 in New York picked up the story in an article published online “Black Market Kidney Broker, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, Released from Prison”:

… ROSENBAUM, AN Israeli citizen, won’t be deported because federal immigration officials found that his crime was not one of “moral turpitude” that would have subjected him to being kicked out of the US, lawyer Edward Schulman said. … Rosenbaum, now 63, was arrested in 2009 in what became the biggest corruption case ever in New Jersey. He had been living legally in the US.

There was no distinct connection made between Rosenbaum and the IDF, but the original Swedish story by Bostrom does refer to al - leged organ harvesting by the IDF as far back as 1992. The afore - mentioned Haaretz article, summarizing the Swedish article, makes reference:

“THE SHARP SOUNDS from the shovels were mixed with the occasional laughter from the soldiers who were joking with each other, waiting to go home. When Bilal was put into his grave, his chest was revealed and suddenly it became clear to those present what abuse he had been put through. Bilal was far from the only one who was bur- ied cut-up from his stomach to his chin and the speculations about the reason why had already started,” he writes. 50 | The United States of Israel

Imagine an orthodox Jew finding out he was receiving a kidney from what he would consider an Arab “sub-human.” It would never happen—as in, they’d never tell him. Fast-forward to June 7, 2020. The Haaretz headline read “Ne- tanyahu Calls Police Killing of Autistic Palestinian Eyad Hallaq ‘A Tragedy’—During weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu tells ministers he expects their ‘complete examinations’ of the shooting.” In the story, journalist Noa Landau points out that the shooting of the disabled man brought worldwide outrage and condemnation to Israel, drawing comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the US, where riots and protests ensued in Minneapolis and beyond. The two fatalities occurred within days of one another. Place your bets: A sincere interest by Netanyahu for an investigation, or a public relations maneuver, a month before he planned on annexing huge chunks of Palestinian land in the West Bank? He only commented because somehow people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean had heard about it:

“THIS IS A person with disabilities, autism, who was suspected—as we know, wrongly—of being a terrorist in a very sensitive place. We all share in the grief of the family,” Netanyahu told the ministers. “I expect your complete examinations into this matter.” Hallaq, 32, was shot dead by Israeli policemen in Jerusalem’s Old City. A resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz, he attended and worked in a special needs school in the Old City, just meters away from where he was shot on Saturday.

Another Haaretz headline link ran: “’He’s disabled,’ the caregiver screamed. ‘I’m with her,’ Eyad cried. The cop opened fire anyway: The last 5 minutes of Eyad’s life.” Chapter 3: Israel First | 51

Police departments in the US and Israel have shared weapons and training in recent decades. They also appear to share similar views and treatment of their minority populations. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was formed in the summer of 2013 after multiple highly publicized police murders of innocent black civilians in the United States. Released in August 2016, BLM’s platform position regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians should be noted, if you can find it. In the August 3, 2016 article in the Times of Israel called “In Plat- form, Black Lives Matter Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’, backs BDS,” the writer Eric Cortellessa refers to some of the platform’s language:

FOLLOWING THE REPUBLICAN and Democratic national conventions, groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement released a platform Monday that labels Israel an “apartheid state” and excoriates [severely criticizes] the United States for its alliance with a country it alleges systematically perpetrates a “genocide” against the Palestinians. The platform, which demands “an end to the war against Black people,” marks the campaigns first official entry into American’s debate over specific federal policies.

When one clicks the color-highlighted word “platform,” which at one point would have taken a reader to the policy language in its entirety, it instead takes a reader to a dead-end and closed link. A similar result occurs when one attempts to link from any other related news story or website. The BLM 2016 Palestinian platform has been censored. All links to the platform have been purged from the internet, while stories criticizing the BLM statement are readily available. Fortunately a document from the previous year entitled 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine is still viewable. It appears to have 52 | The United States of Israel

served as a template for the provocative BLM version that included the word “genocide,” raising the ire of Zionists. The 2015 document could be seen on the host site blackforpalestine.com, and although reviewable, it seems to have gone dormant in 2019. You may turn to chapter 7 to read the declaration in its entirety. “Israel is a right-wing country, where racism is politically correct and personal corruption is irrelevant.”

GIDEON LEVY, Israeli journalist, March 3, 2020

Chapter 4 Lockstep

US policies are in lockstep with those of Israel. Only the staunchest of news followers will remember that one week before 9/11, the US and Israel walked out of the United Nations World Conference on Racism, hosted by South Africa. Israel was upset over wording that most of the rest of the world had agreed on, wording that declared Israel as an oppressive racist state for its illegal militant occupation and treatment of Palestinians. While the declaration had nothing to do with the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC a week later, the US sentiment for Israel and its tolerance of Israeli oppression has contributed to the pure hatred, or at least anger and utter distrust, of the United States around much of the world. What isn’t a coincidence is this: the Saudi Arabian terrorists listed America’s relationship with Israel as the number one motivation behind the 9/11 attacks. In Colum Lynch’s Washington Post article “UN Demands that Israel Remove ‘Security Barrier’” on July 21, 2004, one can hear echoes of the World Conference in Durban:

53 54 | The United States of Israel

THE UNITED NATIONS General Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday night demanding that Israel abide by a world court ruling to dismantle a 451-mile “security barrier” that cuts through Palestinian territory. The resolution in the 191-member assembly passed by a vote of 150 to 6, with 10 governments abstaining. The United States opposes the resolution, saying that the international court and the General Assembly are inappro- priate venues for resolving the Middle East crisis. Israel, Austra - lia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau also opposed the resolution.

Time and time again, under the political guidance and control of Israeli interests, the United States has opposed and vetoed measures attempting at limit or punish Israel for its actions. It’s an automatic reaction regardless of the nature or degree of the offense or maneuver. The deputy US ambassador to the United Nations at the time, James B. Cunningham, echoed his predecessors and those who would follow him in the position with the standard response: “A durable solution is only to be found in a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians,” knowing that Israel rarely has, and doesn’t now, have any interest in negotiating a two-state solution (in which Israel and Palestine are formally and legally acknowledged as sovereign na - tions). Under the Netanyahu empire, the plan is to simply wipe the Palestinians off the map, as made clear by Dan Gillerman, Israel’s UN ambassador, who “dismissed the ruling as ‘one-sided,’ saying it did not address a Palestinian terrorism campaign against Israelis.” In this instance, it didn’t address the ongoing daily Israeli terror - ist campaign against the Palestinians either. With Israel having the Western world’s lone superpower in its back pocket, it can fall back on saying the same thing month after month, year after year. Vote all you want, nothing will happen. Chapter 4: Lockstep | 55

Two years later, Justin Bergman’s article in the Washington Post on November 12, 2006 was entitled “US Vetoes UN Measure on Israeli Action in Gaza.”

THE UNITED STATES vetoed a UN Security Council resolution Saturday that condemned an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demanded that Israeli troops pull out of the territory. US Ambassador [to the UN] John R. Bolton said the Arab-backed draft resolution was “biased against Israel and politically motivated.”… It was the second US veto this year of a Security Council draft resolution concerning Israeli military operations in Gaza. The other came this summer after an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas-linked Palestinian militants and Israel responded by launching an offensive … Palestinians strengthened calls for Security Council action after Is- raeli artillery shelled the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, killing 20 civilians Wednesday.

So how does this veto work? The United Nations Security Council has five permanent members: the US, Russia, China, France, and Great Britain (United Kingdom). It also has ten non-permanent members that serve two-year terms, which are elected by the UN General As- sembly. In June of 2020, the non-permanent members were Belgium, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Germany, Indonesia, Niger, Saint Vin- cent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Tunisia, and Viet Nam. The list is provided simply to exhibit the great variety of countries represented. Measures passed by the Security Council over the decades represent opinions and positions expressed by peoples from all parts of the globe. Those opinions and positions are expressed via Security Council Resolutions. Any one of the five permanent members can veto a resolution on its own, regardless of how one-sided the vote was in an attempt to pass it. 56 | The United States of Israel

Even if countries vote 14-0 on something, the United States or one of the other four permanent members can veto the measure. Since April 1988, the Council has passed twenty resolutions condemning Israel’s behavior during conflicts in Gaza and the West Bank or related to their Palestinian detention measures, settlement construction or the separation barrier building efforts. The United States has vetoed all of them but one. As he left office, President Barak Obama allowed his Security Coun- cil representative, Ambassador Samantha Power, to abstain on a vote that was otherwise 14-0 in favor of declaring Israel’s settlement activity illegal. Resolution 2334 passed on December 23, 2016. Israel expressed its outrage for the US abstention, as did hardcore Zionist organizations in the US. Israel accused Obama of secretly arranging the vote and then issued sanctions against non-permanent members of the Council as a penalty for voting in favor of the declaration. The following are just three examples of standard operating procedure when it comes to US-Israeli collusion.

Example 1: Blame Hamas for Everything When Kuwait introduced resolution 8274 in May 2018, Donald Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley made it quite clear the US would not be joining the other Council members in supporting a draft that condemned Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in response to border demonstrations and rocket launches from Hamas. One hundred and twenty Palestinians had been killed and more than four thousand wounded. Haley explained, “The draft resolution presented by Kuwait represents a grossly one-sided view of what has taken place in Gaza in recent weeks. Anyone who cares about the peace process should vote against it. But make no mistake: regardless of how others choose to vote, the United States will oppose the draft resolution and we will veto it if we must.” To what “peace process” was she referring? Chapter 4: Lockstep | 57

Haley was correct with one section of her dissertation: “One of those realities is that Hamas is a major impediment to peace.” The radical element of that group, similar to the radical element of the Jewish settlers stealing Palestinian land, is one that must be controlled if any actual peace process were to move forward. That’s a given. She then went on to repeat typical Israeli excuses and blame Hamas for everything. It represented extreme obedience to Israel, the occupier and oppressive force.

Example 2: US Chooses to Ignore Illegal Israeli Settlements Even Obama’s administration, generally distrustful of the Israeli government, at times catered to the Israelis. In February 2011, more than one hundred UN member states agreed to sponsor a draft resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal. The Council vote was 14-0 in favor of the resolution; however, the US voted no. Presenting Security Council representative Mr. Salam of Lebanon stated:

“AT THE BEGINNING of this week, on Monday, 14 February, the occupying Power’s municipal authorities in Jerusalem adopted a plan to construct 124 new housing units in what is known as the Ra- mat settlement. On 16 January, the Israeli occupying authorities approved a plan to construct 1,400 new housing units in what is known as the Gilo settlement, south of East Jerusalem. And on 9 January, the Israeli occupying authorities demolished the Shepherd Hotel in occupied Jerusalem—a well-known historic landmark and important part of Palestinian heritage—in a measure to pave the way to establishing a settlement of approximately 400 housing units.”

The rest of world has always deemed the settlements on Palestinian land illegal. Israel says they’re not, keeps building, and does so even when the US protests. The American government, whether led by a Democrat or Republican president, has always expressed its angst over 58 | The United States of Israel

settlement activity and occasionally threatened penalties, but has never taken concrete, long-lasting action to stop the illegal settlements. The US has opted to engage in a diplomatic, public relations tap-dance. Headlines like “Over US Objections, Israel Approves West Bank Homes” have been seen ad nauseam over the last two decades. An example appeared in the New York Times on September 5, 2006, when Steven Erlanger wrote:

THE ISRAELI PRIME minister, Ehud Olmert, authorized construction bids on Monday for another 690 homes in the occupied West Bank in the face of pro forma [standard, routine] American criticism. The houses will be built in Maale Adumin and Betar Illit, two settlements near Jerusalem that the Israeli government says it intends to keep in any agreement with the Palestinians.

Another standard line and practice each and every time Israel builds illegal settlements: Israel will keep this land and/or these homes regardless of any future agreement with the Palestinians. That theme took a twist in a Washington Post article by Glenn Kessler on April 24, 2008, titled “Israelis Claim Secret Agreement with US.” The Israelis cite a letter President George W. Bush had given then- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004:

EHUD OLMERT, THE current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush’s letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush’s peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories in the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring Chapter 4: Lockstep | 59

of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza. US officials say no such agreement exists, and in recent months Rice has publicly criticized even settlement expansion on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which Israel does not officially count as settlements. But as peace negotiations have stepped up in recent months, so has the pace of settlement construction, infuriating Palestinian officials, and Washington has taken no punitive action against Israel for its settlement efforts.

So, to clarify the US position: there is no such secret agreement. The US’s position is that we definitely don’t want you (Israel) building settlements, but go ahead and do it anyway. Of course this concept, and this secret agreement reference, continued under the even more aggressive administration of Netanyahu. The New York Times published “Israelis Say Bush Agreed to West Bank Growth” by Ethan Bronner on June 4, 2009. The Israelis were accusing President Obama of failing to acknowledge what they called a clear understanding from six years earlier:

WHEN ISRAEL SIGNED onto the so-called road-map for a two- state solution in 2003, with a provision that says its government “freezes all settlement activity” (including natural growth of settlements), the officials said it did so after a detailed discussion with Bush administration officials that laid out those explicit exceptions. “Not everything is written down,” one of the officials said.

This is called finding-another-way-to-not-honor-an-agreement. And whether it is by methods like this, or via violent incursions into Palestine, Israel’s activities routinely get called out by the rest of the world, then vetoed by the US of I. Here is an example from 1989. In his address, presenting council representative Mr. Belonogov of the Soviet Union said: 60 | The United States of Israel

“A LITTLE MORE than a month ago, the widespread outrage of the international community was aroused by the violence in the Palestinian village of Nahhalin. The General Assembly, in its resolution 43/233, adopted by an overwhelming majority, once again condemned the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied territory and requested the Security Council to consider with urgency the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory with a view to the adoption of measures needed to provide international protection to the Palestinian inhabitants. … Because of the negative position taken by one of its permanent members [the US], however, it was not able to take a decision calling on Israel to halt illegal actions in that part of the world.”

The vote in favor of the resolution was 14-0, by a group as diverse as Algeria, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Malaysia, Nepal, Senegal, USSR, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia. The US vetoed it. Yes, thirty-plus years ago, the United States of Israel was well entrenched. More recently, this lockstep has become a synchronized goosestep.

Example 3: A “Peace Plan”: Shared Lies and Cruel Disdain Fast-forward to Netanyahu and Trump, two right-wing nationalists working from the same playbook. Although one is a savvy, cynical, intelligent operator and the other a narcissistic con-artist, the synchronized offense works when you’re on the same page. One lies a little, the other lies a lot. In the April 22, 2019 “The Talk of the Town” section of the New Yorker, David Remnick wrote:

JUST AS NETANYAHU provided Trump instruction on the political possibilities of right-wing populism, Trump has provided Chapter 4: Lockstep | 61

Netanyahu with instruction on the possibilities of outrageous invec- tive [insulting or abusive language], voter suppression and disdain for the law. Netanyahu now delights in the use of such phrases as “fake news.” Investigations into his financial adventures are “witch hunts.” To suppress the Arab vote in last week’s election, his supporters mounted more than a thousand cameras at polling places where Arab citizens ordinarily vote, the better to intimidate them. And, of course, both men like a wall. As Trump puts it, “Walls work. Just ask Israel.”

Remnick goes on to describe what many have called out—Netanyahu’s lip service to peace with the Palestinians. He’s never had any intention of coming to a peaceful two-state solution, because he’s never had any interest in allowing the Palestinians to keep their land. The beauty of the “we can’t let international courts, or the UN, or other countries dictate the terms of the State of Palestine—it has to come from face- to-face negotiation” excuse is the hard truth that the Israelis will never agree to a sincere and outcome-based negotiation face-to-face. Like the “anti-Semitism” crutch and many others, it’s a gift that keeps on giving. The “a durable solution is only to be found in a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians” bullshit was thrown out the window again in the spring of 2020 when Netanyahu announced plans to annex 30 percent of the West Bank. This was based on a Trump “peace plan” constructed by his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, a man with no international diplomacy experience and a dear friend of the Netanyahus. Trump had a top donor who also happened to be a billionaire militant Zionist. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson also created intense excite- ment and joy for the Netanyahu regime. Adelson and the Israelis knew that Trump, regardless of his personal opinion of the Jewish nation, would kiss Jewish butt. Show him the money, says Remnick: 62 | The United States of Israel

TRUMP HAS GIVEN Netanyahu one long-desired prize after another. He pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and, in the midst of the Israeli election campaign, recognized that nation’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Remnick also points out that like Trump, Netanyahu’s paramount interest is self-interest. He’s the longest serving prime minister in the country’s history and he’s working hard to continue his reign, which means appeasing the Zionists with the annexation of those Jewish settlements:

BY AT LEAST speaking the language of annexation, he could try to win the enduring support of the racists and the absolutists in a potential right-wing coalition, who might, in turn, quash the multiple corruption indictments that he faces.

Netanyahu’s bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust trial began in the spring of 2020. Trump was impeached in the winter of 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Racism as a personal trait is another sad commonality, as is deflect- ing responsibility and blame for multiple sins. In 2019 both regimes began to throw around the “deep state” term, to suggest that they were innocent and honest, and that secret enemies were simply conspiring against them. “Netanyahu Copies Trump’s ‘They’re Not after Me, They’re after You’ Meme” was the title of a story in Haaretz on December 22, 2019 by Allison Kaplan Sommer. She and other political observers weren’t sur- prised by the copycat nature of the strategy. The only difference was the expressions on their faces, Trump pointing straight ahead like an old Uncle Sam “I Want You” (for US Army) pose; Netanyahu pointing Chapter 4: Lockstep | 63

with a bigger smile. Both were copying an original effort by another nationalistic leader, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who first used the slogan. Sommer wrote:

THE CROSS-POLLINATION BETWEEN Trump and Netanyahu may not be a coincidence. Two weeks ago, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, Trump’s former campaign manager and deputy campaign manager, respectively, visited Israel to discuss the possibility of joining Netanyahu’s campaign as he heads into his third election in less than 12 months, following his failure to form a governing coalition after the past two elections.

Yes, the US President and Israeli prime minister were sharing election strategists, not only legitimate ones, but also those considered more controversial and inflammatory. The headline and subtext in Haaretz on June 14, 2020 for a piece by Alexander Griffing says it all: “From Trump, Breitbart, and Bannon with Love and Conspiracy Theories: Meet Netanyahu’s New Media Ad- visor—Will Breitbart’s Aaron Klein use his Trumpworld experience to accelerate the deterioration of Israel’s political discourse?”

KLEIN, 41, HAS long been a frontline figure in the fringe - con servative media in the U.S. and has helped mainstream far-right conspiracy theories from his time at World Net Daily (WND) onwards. The Washington Post dubbed WND “the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy sites,” and it was one of the first places to push the “birther” conspiracy theory falsely alleging Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and was thus an illegitimate president. … Klein even told now de-platformed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in 2013 Obama “might be with” Al-Qaida (the terrorist group) given his “Islamic background.” 64 | The United States of Israel

Dear citizens, meet the Israeli prime minister’s media adviser, Aaron Klein. Meanwhile, feel free to compare and contrast the Christian activities and church-going habits of Obama with those of Trump. Congress, particularly the Republican Party contingent, remains owned. The headline and subtext on June 23, 2020 in Haaretz read “Majority of House Republicans Sign Letter Endorsing Israeli Annexation. The letter, signed by 120 out of the 198 House Republicans, praises the Trump administration’s Mideast vision and blames the Palestinian leadership for choosing to reject it.” The story, written by Amir Tibon, included some good news:

AT THE SAME time, more than 170 House (of Representatives) Democrats have signed a letter opposing annexation, including Ma- jority Leader Steny Hoyer. The letter is still being circulated on Cap- itol Hill, and the final number of signatures could be close to 200. Several Democrats who are considered close to AIPAC, the influential pro-Israeli lobby group, have also signed.

These Democrats obviously recognized the comically one-sided nature of the US of I’s peace plan, which was “negotiated” and built without any input from the Palestinians. All parties involved in its construction were Jewish. Provisions included the following: Israel could annex 30 percent of the West Bank, the Palestinian capitol would be outside of Jerusalem and include a refugee camp, and any benefits to Palestine would only kick in after they agreed to recognize a separate set of pre-conditions, including abandonment of any legal action against Israel or the United States. Further detail is unnecessary. Know that neutral parties have referred to this deal as “the joke of the century” and “the fraud of the century,” and a Vanity Fair writer described it as “the Monty Python sketch of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives.” Chapter 4: Lockstep | 65

●●●

One of the men who helped develop the plan is US ambassador to Israel David Friedman. A lawyer who helped Trump with his casino bankruptcies, a US citizen of course, and a vocal member of the administration, he might as well be on the Israeli payroll. He’s a dedicated, hardcore Zionist. The Haaretz editors offer insights in their official daily editorial published on June 17, 2020:

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC and the wave of protests are preoccupying President Donald Trump, especially since elections are round the corner and his position in the polls has slipped. But none of this has cooled the enthusiasm of the champion of the whole Land of Israel within the White House, US ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Friedman supports annexation and is pushing for it, cer- tainly more than either Israel’s prime minister or its alternate prime minister, and he’s more determined than either of them not to let the settler’s window of opportunity close without annexing as much territory as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.

It’s almost mind boggling the level of foreign-policy influence consistently set aside for Zionists, while Jews make up less than 3 percent of the US population. It only feels like 30 percent:

AS AN “HONEST broker,” Friedman’s behavior is unprecedented. Instead of mediating between Israel and the Palestinians and getting the Palestinian president to return to the negotiating table, Friedman has spent the last few weeks energetically mediating between Netanyahu and his alternate prime minister, Benny Gantz. For anyone observing from the sidelines, from any side, it’s clear 66 | The United States of Israel

that the only consensus Friedman seeks as a “broker” is an internal Israeli one.

At the announcement of the plan, Friedman rallied for immediate annexation and stated “we will recognize it” as if he was speaking on behalf of the United States. He wasn’t, but he is the not-so-attractive poster boy for the United States of Israel. Also on annexation, In “Today’s Worldview” in the Washington Post on June 15, 2020, Ishaan Tharoor and Ruby Mellen point out the following:

THE PROBLEM FOR Netanyahu and his allies is that much of the world opposes their plans. … Though Netanyahu and Trump pay lip service to the future viability of an independent Palestinian state, no serious expert believes it would be more likely once the internationally brokered understandings of the past three decades get cleaved apart by a unilateral act of annexation. Instead, the specter of an entrenched apartheid looms.

Note the distinct use of the word “unilateral,” meaning “performed by one person, group, or country.” Any time the Palestinians have threatened a United Nations vote on granting legal statehood, the Israelis have screamed “no unilateral actions by Palestine allowed!” Again, the annexation process stemmed from a Trump “peace plan” categorically rejected by the Palestinians. There was no negotiation or agreement, just a unilateral Israeli maneuver. In reference to in-sync racism against black and “brown” people in both countries, nothing is more symbolic than the police activities in Minneapolis and Jerusalem three weeks apart in the late spring of 2020. The police murder of George Floyd in Minnesota that led to unrest and weeks of national protest in the US was followed by this eerily similar Chapter 4: Lockstep | 67

incident in Israel. From the Americans for Peace Now (APN) website on June 15, 2020, they summarize the news:

QUOTE OF THE day: “I can’t breathe.” – Arab-Israeli diplomat Ismail Khalidi said to Israeli security guards who pinned him to the ground and put a knee on his neck at the entrance to the Jerusa- lem Central Bus Station.

Racism in the United States is largely a function of ignorance, a lack of exposure and education both formal and informal. When granddad tells his son to hate blacks, and son passes that on to grandson, etc., etc., i.e. the concept of hating someone for the color of their skin, it is difficult or impossible to make integration inroads culturally or systematically. The same phenomena routinely rear their ugly head in Israel even at the “highest levels.” On the same day on the same website, APN published what it calls its “you’ve got to be kidding” news snippet:

“THE RIOTS PROVE that there is no chance for coexistence in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and all the minorities must leave the city.” – Yair Net- anyahu, son of the prime minister, called to ethnically cleanse Jaffa from Arabs following Arab-Israeli protests in Jaffa.

Yair is his father, minus the public relations and lies. What Donald Trump, Jr. is, in a more timid way, to Donald. Two families and countries acting as one. Police tactics and weapons aren’t the only things being shared. Just a few months earlier another common headline was found online at Ynet News: “Joint Israeli-US military drill begins.” The routine story was by Yoav Zitun on March 24, 2020 was basically presented like a weather or traffic alert—pretty much ho hum scheduled information. But now we go from the routine to the diabolical. 68 | The United States of Israel

On June 11, 2020, Noa Landau wrote in Haaretz under the headline “US Decision to Sanction International Crime Court Was Coor- dinated with Israel, Source Says.” “Netanyahu congratulated Trump on decision to sanction ‘kangaroo court’ that he says is ‘obsessed with conducting witch hunts against Israel, the United States and other democracies that respect human rights.” A remarkably appalling and ironic statement that manages to work in their common catchphrase “witch hunt”:

THE MOVE WAS discussed in a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Je- rusalem last month, the source said on Thursday. Trump announced that his administration is placing sanctions on the International Criminal Court in retaliation for the court’s intention to probe the conduct of US forces in Afghanistan.

Summarily, the ICC began as an official entity in 2002 and as of December 2019 had 123 member states. Eighteen judges oversee international cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, etc., and it’s more often than not it’s the country being investigated that calls for the ICC’s demise. Israel is often complaining. Trump’s actions included visa withdrawals and economic sanctions against the judges themselves and threats against any of the 120 countries caught cooperating. The court called the moves an attack against the interests of victims of atrocity crimes and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law. The judges hail from all over the world and when selected must be “persons of high moral character, impartiality, and integrity.” That doesn’t fly in the US of I. “[This report] concludes that what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

JUDGE RICHARD GOLDSTONE of South Africa In his report on the UN Fact-Finding Mission in the Gaza Conflict Chapter 5 Slaughter ’09

On the tenth anniversary of this so-called conflict, a column published in the UK newspaper The Guardian on January 7, 2019 recalled the facts of the Israeli operation Cast Lead. Oxford professor Avi Shlaim wrote, “Ten years after the first war on Gaza, Israel still plans endless brute force.” He called up statistics from the twenty-two-day attack: “13 dead Israelis, 1,417 dead Palestinians, including 313 children, and more than 5,500 wounded. According to one estimate 83% of the casualties were civilians.” Shlaim continued:

OPERATION CAST LEAD was just the first in a series of Israeli mini-wars on Gaza. It was followed by Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 and Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. The fancy names given to these operations were fraudulent, dressing up offensive attacks on defenseless civilians and civilian infrastructure in the sanctimonious [morally superior or justified] language of self-defense. They are typical examples of Orwel- lian double-speak. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called the

69 70 | The United States of Israel

Israeli attack on 1 August 2014 on Rafah, in which a large number of civilians sheltering in UN schools were killed, “a moral outrage and a criminal act”. This description applies equally to Israel’s entire policy of waging war on the inmates of the Gaza prison. Israeli generals talk about their recurrent military incursions into Gaza as “mowing the lawn”. This operative metaphor implies a task that has to be performed regularly and mechanically and without end. It also alludes to the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and infliction of damage on civilian infrastructure that takes several years to repair.

The professor who wrote the newspaper article is Jewish. Richard Goldstone, a distinguished judge from South Africa and the author of the UN report, is also a Zionist Jew. This is by way of saying the Israelis may have expected a sympathetic report. Instead, Goldstone fulfilled his mandate and filed an unbiased report, to which Israel reacted in its predictable manner. In a Ynet news-dot-com (online version of daily Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth) article from September 16, 2009, the Israeli prime minister expressed his outrage:

“THE GOLDSTONE REPORT is a field court-martial, and its findings were prewritten,” Netanyahu said in a closed forum. “This is a prize for terror. The report makes it difficult for democracies to fight terror.” Netanyahu joined other Israeli officials who criticized the report, including President Shimon Peres, who said earlier Wednesday that the report “makes a mockery of history” and “does not distin- guish between the aggressor and the defender.”

One could easily argue these are remarkable claims considering the statistics, the geographic strategic positions of the two sides, and the unfathomable difference in firepower. Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 71

Just as troubling as Israeli outrage was the situation leading up to Operation Cast Lead, which Shlaim described:

IN JUNE 2008, Egypt had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement that rules Gaza. The agreement called on both sides to cease hostilities and required Israel to gradually ease the illegal blockade it had imposed on the Gaza Strip in June 2007. This ceasefire worked remarkably well— until Israel violated it by a raid on 4 November in which six Hamas fighters were killed. The monthly average of rockets fired from Gaza on Israel fell from 179 in the first half of 2008 to [a total of] three between June and October. The story of the missed opportunity to avoid war was told to me by Robert Pastor, a professor of political science at the American University in Washington DC and a senior adviser on conflict resolution in the Middle East at the Carter Center NGO [non-government organization]. Here is what Pastor told me over the phone and later confirmed in an email to Dr. Mary Elizabeth King, another close associate of Pres- ident Carter, on 8 December 2013, a month before Pastor’s death. Pastor met Khaled Mashal, the Hamas politburo [policy making committee] chief, in Damascus in December 2008. Mashal handed him a written proposal on how to restore the ceasefire. In effect, it was a proposal to renew the June 2008 ceasefire agreement on the original terms. Pastor then travelled to Tel Aviv and met Major General (Ret’d) Amos Gilad, head of the defense ministry’s political affairs bureau. Gilad promised that he would communicate the proposal directly to defense minister Ehud Barak, and expected to have an answer either that evening or the following day. Then next day, Pastor phoned Gilad’s office three times and got no response. Shortly afterwards, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead. 72 | The United States of Israel

The incitement and the timing of the events were purposeful and diabolical. What better day to raid Gaza, break the ceasefire and spark unrest, than on November 4, the day of a presidential election in the US? No one in America was paying any attention, especially with the country on the cusp of electing its first ever black president. The slaughter then occurred during the lame duck period of George W. Bush’s presidency, that interim period of transition to Barack Obama’s first term. It conveniently concluded three weeks before Israeli elections. On January 5, 2009, the New York Times published Scott Shane’s article “Israel strikes before an ally departs,” where the writer referred to Bush’s “eight-year record of stalwart support for Israel.” A not-at-all surprising record since his administration and its staff epitomized the concept of the United State of Israel:

MANY MIDDLE EAST experts say Israel timed its move against Hamas, which began with airstrikes on Dec. 27, 24 days before Mr. Bush leaves office, with the expectation of such backing in Washing- ton. Israeli officials could not be certain that President-elect Barack Obama, despite past statements of sympathy for Israel’s right of self-defense, would match the Bush administration’s unconditional endorsement.

There’s another convenient and ironic catchphrase often employed: “Israel’s right to self-defense.” Wouldn’t “Palestine’s right to self-defense” to describe its actions be just as appropriate and accurate, if not more so.

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As disgusting as it sounds, and as despicable as it is, Israel has routinely created conflict over the decades by running violent raids into Gaza and the West Bank and terrorizing Palestinians in their own homes. Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 73

This bare-faced provocation is calculated to energize the Israeli public relations machine. The Israeli government and its army are in the full-time business of public relations. You can’t justify occupying and stealing land from another people, another nation, if you don’t have a “terrorism” crutch to lean on. Calling Palestinians “terrorists” is as common and convenient as calling someone who disagrees with Israel’s policies as “anti-Semitic.” Under the guidelines of a peaceful solution, if and when two states in close proximity can co-exist, the Muslim fanatics who want to eradicate Israel must be controlled, and so must the Jewish fanatics who are violently gobbling up Palestinian land. Also, that peaceful solution (see chapter 14) cannot be achieved as long as Netanyahu is the dictator of the country. On Sunday, February 15, 2009, the Washington Post published an editorial entitled “Israel’s step backward,” four weeks after the Opera- tion Cast Lead slaughter and just before Netanyahu was anointed prime minister once again:

AS IN THE 1980s the right has the upper hand: Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu appears to have the best chance to become prime minister, even though his party finished second behind the centrist Kadima [party]. Americans who remember Mr. Netanya- hu’s last stint as prime minister in the 1990s—and there are several in the Obama administration who were working on Mideast policy then—have to be concerned that he would repeat his strategy of seeking to delay or undermine all peace negotiations with the Pales- tinians. He might also press for Israeli or American military action against Iran, and he has promised to “topple” and “uproot” Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

The concerns as expressed by the Post are best described as “spot on.” The State of Israel already exists. One of Netanyahu’s ongoing 74 | The United States of Israel

preconditions to peace talks over the years has been “no two-state solution until Hamas recognizes Israel as the Jewish state.” Netanyahu is fully aware that the likelihood of Muslim extremists recognizing Israel as the Jewish state is about as likely as extremist Jewish settlers recognizing the State of Palestine. Although Netanyahu’s rationale for not engaging in peace talks is transparent and childish in its simplicity, it is willingly accepted by politicians in the US of I. No diplomacy, just violence. The MSNBC online article on Saturday, December 27, 2008, prepared by the Associated Press and entitled “Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill 192” stated:

IN THE WEST Bank, Hamas’ [Palestinian] rival [President Mahmoud] Abbas, said in a statement that he “condemns this aggression” and called for restraint, according to an aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh. Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since the Islamic Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007, was in contact with Arab leaders, and his West Bank Cabinet convened an emergency session. Israel has targeted Gaza in the past, but the number of simultaneous attacks was unprecedented. Israel left Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but the withdrawal did not lead to better relations with Palestinians in the territory as Israeli officials had hoped.

Those relations faltered because Hamas performed very well in parliamentary elections in early 2006 against the hopes and expectations of the US of I. Hamas won a mini-civil war against Abbas’s Fatah (West Bank-based Palestinian Authority) faction, and the militant wing of Hamas continued to shoot rockets at Israel. After two years of intermit- tent violence, Israel ended a six-month-long ceasefire with its provocative incursion in November 2008. Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 75

The massacre of civilians as part of Operation Cast Lead served as the perfect transition to the start of the ongoing racist empire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has rarely minced words in discussing his hatred for Arabs and his plans for their demise. It also represented the realization of a shocking and terrifying Orthodox Jewish doctrine, accepted and promoted by religious leaders, the government, and the army, which calls for the slaughter of non-Jewish children. (See chapter 6.) The day after the Associated Press story, the New York Times published an item that included a quote from a US of I official repeating a lie, and a readily accepted lie, that worked as propaganda for Israel. On December 28 in the column “White House puts onus on Hamas to end escalation of violence” by Robert Pear, the misinformation that had become readily accepted was repeated:

IN WASHINGTON, SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice issued a statement that said, “The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza. The cease-fire should be restored immediately. The United States calls on all concerned to address the urgent humanitarian needs of the innocent people of Gaza.”

Again, Israel provoked the end of the ceasefire when it hunted down six members of Hamas on November 4 and then intentionally avoided re-negotiation or reinstatement. The misinformation is accepted as fact, and is uniformly reported as such for the benefit of Israel. As for those “urgent humanitarian needs,” we learn more with “Israel rejects intensified push for cease-fire” in the Washington Post by Craig Whitlock on January 6, 2009: 76 | The United States of Israel

MORE THAN 40 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Monday. Al- most half of them children, and five civilians, were killed early Tues- day when a shell fired by an Israeli ship hit their house, according to local medical workers. Palestinian officials said the death toll in Gaza has risen to about 550 since Israel began airstrikes on Dec. 27. More than 2,500 people were reported wounded. At least eight Israelis have died overall, including three soldiers killed Monday evening when they were struck by an Israeli tank shell outside Gaza City, according to military officials. Two dozen others were injured by the errant shell.

How exact, considering the density of the civilian population, would one expect shelling from an offshore ship to be? Logically, one wouldn’t think precision was a priority. On the same day, the Washington Post also published “Afghans Rally in Support of Palestinians—Many Link United States to Israeli Assault in Gaza” by Pamela Constable. They should link the United States to the assault, since American taxpayers were footing the bill. Hatred across the Muslim world, and elsewhere, directed toward the United States due to its unconditional support of Israel, is a concept John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, warned us about blowback on American civilians and military:

THOSE NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS have strengthened the hand of conservative religious and political leaders here [Afghanistan] who mistrust the United States, and the fresh perception of US backing for Israel’s attack on Palestinian territory has further reinforced their arguments.

Establishing that theme, a telltale Q&A was provided by Washington Post staff writer Scott Wilson with his readers on January 27, 2006, after Hamas won the election: Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 77

QUESTION FROM READER: The way George Bush snubbed the Palestinians and Abu Mazen [another name for Abbas], is it surprising that they voted for Hamas?

WILSON: Fatah and Hamas agree on one thing: The Bush administration’s steady condemnation of Hamas helped it at the polls. Fatah also complains that the US government’s lack of pressure on Israel to ease the occupation in the West Bank—i.e., removing checkpoints, turning over Palestinian cities to Palestinian security services— helped Hamas as well by making negotiations seem useless.

The next question harkens back to the United States and Britain over- throwing a democratic government in Iran in 1953, ultimately for oil, and ultimately leading to the Islamic revolution and installation of the hardcore government there in 1979. More similarities between the two branches of the US of I:

QUESTION FROM READER: Isn’t it true that Israel was instru- mental in the creation of Hamas in the late 1970’s? Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years to undermine [then Palestinian leader] Yassir Arafat’s Fatah party and the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization]. Why is Israel now upset about a Hamas victory? The Israelis themselves created this Frankenstein. Now the monster has turned against its creator.

WILSON: This is true. Israel nurtured the Islamic movement as an alternative to the secular-nationalist [non-religion-based] PLO at the time. And, yes, be careful what you wish for …

In 2006, the United States wished for, and got, democratic elections, and then didn’t like the results. In answering another question Wilson points out, “Hypocrisy is a word you hear a lot in this part of the world when the Bush administration’s push for democracy in the region is raised.” 78 | The United States of Israel

Bush administration actions led to a rise in radical Islam, period. The void left following the invasion of Iraq led directly to the creation of the Islamic State (ISIS):

QUESTION FROM READER: Is the victory of Hamas a consequence of our invasion of Iraq? Did we take our eye off the ball and, by neglect, gave rise to Hamas?

WILSON: Our invasion of Iraq has, generally speaking, energized Islamic parties in the region, including Hamas. It’s hard to say more than that.

Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times encapsulates (summarizes and supports) the aforementioned concepts with his piece “The Gaza Boomerang” on January 8, 2009:

WHEN HAMAS WAS founded in 1987, Israel was mostly concerned with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and figured that a religious Pal- estinian organization would help undermine Fatah. Israel calculated that all those Muslim fundamentalists would spend their time pray- ing in the mosques, so it cracked down on Fatah and allowed Hamas to rise as a counterforce. What we’re seeing in the Middle East is the Boomerang Syndrome. Arab terrorists built support for right-wing Israeli politicians, who took harsh actions against Palestinians, who responded with more terrorism, and so on. Extremists on each side sustain the other, and the excessive Israeli ground assault in Gaza is likely to create more terrorists in the long run.

The most infamous event of the operation occurred on January 6, 2009, as reported the next day by the Washington Post’s Foreign Service writers Griff Witte and Sudarsan Raghavan with “Israel hits U.N.-run school in Gaza—40 die at shelter that military says Hamas was firing from”: Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 79

THE ISRAELI MILITARY said its soldiers fired in self-defense after Hamas fighters launched mortar shells from the school. The United Nations condemned the attack and called for an independent investigation. “We are completely devastated. There is nowhere safe in Gaza,” said John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip.

According to the story, the United Nations had opened twenty-three of its schools to serve as shelters for the population of 1.5 million. By the time of the incident, fifteen thousand people were sheltered at the various institutions. Two days later the Post reported “100 survivors rescued in Gaza from ruins blocked by Israelis—relief agencies fear more are trapped—days after neighborhood was shelled” by Craig Whitlock and Reyham Abdel Ka- reem. Whitlock and Kareem describe Red Cross workers, one of whom gave an eye-witness statement, discovering seven women, six children and three men, all members of the same family, dead in the large room of a house in Zaytoun:

“MOST HAD SUSTAINED trauma injuries from shelling, but many had gunshot wounds as well,” he said. “Four children, weak but alive, were found lying under blankets, nestled next to their dead mothers.”

“He” is Kahled Abuzaid, an ambulance driver for the Red Cross, who had his account corroborated by Red Cross officials. He said Israeli soldiers told a crew of ten paramedics and workers that they couldn’t take cameras, radios or cellphones to the area, despite being necessary items during rescue missions:

THE RED CROSS has accused the Israeli military of repeatedly refusing to grant permission for ambulances to go to Zaytoun, even 80 | The United States of Israel

though soldiers were stationed outside the houses and were aware people were wounded inside. In a statement issued early Thursday, the agency called the episode “unacceptable” and said the Israeli military had “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.” The Israeli military said it was investigating but declined to respond to specific allegations by the Red Cross.

It makes sense that Israel wouldn’t want anyone recording war crimes. For them, it’s standard public relations procedure. It’s easier to lie when there’s less documentation. On January 7, 2009, the New York Times published “Israel puts media clamp on Gaza” by Ethan Bronner:

THREE TIMES IN recent days, a small group of foreign correspon- dents was told to appear at the border crossing to Gaza. The reporters were to be permitted in to cover firsthand the Israeli war on Hamas in keeping with a Supreme Court ruling against the two- month-old Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza.

That would be Israel’s Supreme Court, attempting to rule in a democratic manner, only to be ignored:

EACH TIME, THEY were turned back by security guards, even as relief workers and other foreign citizens were permitted to cross the border. On Tuesday the reporters were told to not even bother going to the border. And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it waited in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering, but with full access to Israeli political and military commentators eager to show them around southern Israel, where Hamas rockets have been terrorizing civilians. Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 81

The next sentence says it all: “A slew of private groups financed mostly by Americans are helping guide the press around Israel.” Whether it’s domestically or internationally, it seems the U.S. of I. loves to kill “brown people” and then attempt to cover it up. “In dense Gaza, civilians suffer” published on January 1, 2009 in the New York Times by Taghreed El-Khodary, we are told “The Unit- ed States military has also faced much criticism for killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite what officials say is the utmost precaution against doing so.” Tens of thousands of civilians died in Iraq as a direct result of the US of I’s invasion and the anarchy that followed. The Iraq Body Count Project estimates just more than two hundred thousand civilians were slain between 2003 and 2020. Obviously, the American and Israeli politicians in power felt these families were expendable. Any outcry was especially limited in America with the government using fear-mongering to make (even bigger) racists of its citizens. (See chapter 11.) As for the public relations effort following Operation Cast Lead, it continued for months. In Haaretz on September 18, 2009, Barak Ravid wrote under the headline “Netanyahu Asks World to Reject Goldstone Findings”:

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN Netanyahu on Thursday rejected a United Nations report alleging Israeli war crimes during its three-week offensive in Gaza last winter, warning world leaders that they and their anti-terror forces could be targets for similar charges.

It would be a challenge then and now to think of any other government in the world involved in an “anti-terror” effort resembling Israel’s occupation and settlement operation: 82 | The United States of Israel

“I AM TELLING international leaders: You are telling us that you support our right of self-defense. Don’t tell us that after the next agreement, tell us now. Reject the findings of this commission,” Net- anyahu told Channel 2 TV.

The United States of course backed him up with its “serious concerns”:

SUSAN RICE, THE US ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington has had “serious concerns” about the mandate given to the Goldstone led four-member mission by the Geneva-based (United Nations Human Rights) council. The US officially took its seat in the 46-member body in early September.

Remarkably, almost two-and-a-half years after the events, Richard Goldstone apparently came to his senses. He wrote an op-ed in The Guardian, and on April 3, 2011 Conal Urquhart of the Guardian wrote a follow-up entitled “Judge Goldstone Expresses Regrets about His Re- port into Gaza War”:

RICHARD GOLDSTONE, WHO led the committee that produced the Goldstone report, said in a newspaper article that “if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a very different document.” The judge’s article was welcomed by Is- raeli leaders. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told ministers on Sunday: “There are very few incidents in which false accusations are taken back, and this is the case with the Goldstone report”. He said that Israel would now try to get the report retracted by the UN.

Of course, none of the religious fanatics or politicians would have made life difficult for Goldstone and his family, would they? Were the Chapter 5: Slaughter ’09 | 83

Goldstones ostracized (ridiculed, persecuted), or threatened? The timing of the reconsideration seemed questionable:

“GOLDSTONE WAS VILIFIED after the publication of the report by supporters of Israel who accused him of a ‘blood libel,’ a false accusation that had been used to demonize Jews in the past.”

As per the US of I’s standard public relations playbook, the criminals are portrayed as the victims:

HE CITED THE killing of 29 members of the Al-Simouni family as evidence that Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians. “The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Is- raeli officer is under investigation for ordering the attack.”

Oh, it was an oops-y-daisy that’s (still) being investigated. That’s okay then. Read that again and again and contemplate the gall required to have Goldstone backtrack in this manner and then have the US accept it as expected:

HE ALSO NOTED that the Israeli army had begun 400 investigations into allegations against Israeli soldiers but regretted that, more than two years later, few had been finished and none had been held in public.

It became a twisted farce. In an interview with the Associated Press after the Guardian article appeared, according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article published on April 6, 2011, Goldstone told the Associated Press he would not retract the report and that his op-ed only said that 84 | The United States of Israel

INFORMATION SUBSEQUENT TO publication of the report did meet with the view that one correction should be made with regard to intentionality on the part of Israel. Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration, but as presently advised, I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.

In June of 2018, an obliging and obedient Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council. “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”

JIM MORRISON, musician

Chapter 6 Slaughter ’14

A perfect example of the utter one-sidedness of Israeli-Palestinian coverage in the United States occurred during the Gaza Palestinian slaughter of 2014, also known to the Jewish army as Operation Protective Edge. Bill Maher, the usually staunchly liberal host of one of HBO’s sig- nature programs Real Time with Bill Maher, hosted a panel discussion. The panel for the episode of the program that aired the week of July 21, during the middle of the “war.” The panelists, all Jewish, consisted of Jane Harman, a former member of the House of Representatives, with deep ties to the American-Israeli foreign intelligence communities, who, while in office, intervened on behalf of two pro-Israeli lobbyists accused of espionage; Nate Silver, a highly regarded sports and elections statistician who works as an editor-in-chief for ESPN and a correspondent for ABC News; and Jamie Weinstein, the senior editor of the Daily Caller, a DC-based conservative website. Jamie Weinstein did most of the talking, with all panelists following the Zionist propaganda lines that Hamas fighters defending Gaza were using civilians as “human shields” and that Israel had a right to defend

85 86 | The United States of Israel

itself against the “rockets raining down on them.” Of course, again, as in 2009 when the Israel Defense Forces slaughtered civilians, Israel needed an excuse, one with catch-phrases which American politicians could readily repeat. There was absolutely no discussion or mention of the Palestinian perspective of the conflict. Three Jews defending the slaughter. No counterpoints allowed. This was a microcosm of Middle East coverage in the US media over the last decades. When he and his commission released their UN report on the 2009 slaughter, Judge Richard Goldstone contributed an op-ed piece to the New York Times on September 17, 2009, where he referred to the fact he and his fellow commissioners were committed to conducting an objective, fact-based investigation. In his op-ed he placed most of the blame on Israel, finding “that in many cases Israel could have done much more to spare civilians without sacrificing its stated and legitimate military aims.” The moral to the story came in his final two short paragraphs:

PURSUING JUSTICE IN this case is essential because no state or armed group should be above the law. Western governments in particular face a challenge because they have pushed for accountability in places like Darfur, but now must do the same with Israel, an ally and a democratic state. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during the fighting will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy. As a service to the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and for the equal appli- cation of international justice, the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account.

They weren’t, and the US of I made sure of it. On the Institute for Middle East Understanding website, on January 4, Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 87

2012, under the heading Operation Cast Lead, an article references the UN investigation and points out “Israel refused to cooperate with the inquiry, denying the mission the opportunity to meet with Israeli officials or visit the West Bank.” In contrast, Goldstone’s team conducted 188 interviews, reviewed ten thousand pages of documents, thirty videos and 1200 photographs. What the commission hoped not to ever see repeated: up to 1,419 dead Palestinians and five thousand more wounded, mostly civilians, with thirteen Israelis dead. More than 3,540 housing units destroyed and 2800 severely damaged. Twenty thousand Palestinians made homeless, many of them already refugees. $139 million in damage to Gaza businesses and to 107 United Nations Relief Works Agency installa- tions. Eighteen schools destroyed and 262 more damaged. After an investigation of the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of violating the international ban on “wanton destruction” found in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Amnesty International (a human rights organization, “independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion” founded in 1961, now with 2-plus million supporters and active in 150 countries) came to the same conclusion Goldstone did, and called on Israel to

ENSURE NATIONAL, IMPARTIAL and thorough investigations, in accordance with international standards, of the evidence indicat- ing that its forces committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the conflict, including war crimes, and wherever there is sufficient admissible evidence, prosecute any alleged perpetrator in proceedings that fully respect international fair trial standards.

Nope. 88 | The United States of Israel

REVISE ITS INTERPRETATION of the rules and principles relat- ing to the concepts of military objective, military advantage and pro- portionality, to ensure that these concepts are fully consistent with international humanitarian law.

Nope.

ENSURE THAT THE Israeli military comply fully with the duty to take precautionary measures when carrying out attacks, as well as in defense, and do not carry out attacks as a form of collective punishment.

Nope.

PUBLICLY COMMIT NOT to use artillery and white phosphorus weapons in densely populated areas.

Nope.

PROVIDE FULL REPARATIONS for the consequences of its unlawful acts and omissions.

Not a chance.

IMMEDIATELY END THE blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is collectively punishing the entire population of Gaza, in breach of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.

Nope. The stark conclusion presented by Amnesty International in July Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 89

2009 was that “Impunity (exemption from punishment) for war crimes in Gaza and southern Israel are a recipe for further civilian suffering.”

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And so it happened all over again, in a similar fashion and on a larger scale, in 2014. During the five-year interim between the slaughters, the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, twice managed to merge two governing bodies into one unity government, in 2011 and 2014. Much of the world, although leery of Hamas’ involvement, was willing to cautiously accept the arrangements and view them as diplomatic opportunities. On both occasions Israel’s power block and Prime Minister Netanyahu used Hamas’ presence as an excuse to end potential peace talks. In fact, when the first unity government was announced in 2011, Israel murdered two Hamas activists in what was called a “pre- meditated escalation.” If and when Hamas militants responded, Israel could always use the US media, as we have seen, to blame Hamas for the escalation. Israel’s maneuver was successful, with both sides conducting a variety of smaller-scale attacks that led to a 2012 ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Mission accomplished for Netanyahu; peace talks stalled. In June of 2014, the Palestinians agreed to another unity government. While the rest of the world again agreed to diplomacy with the new faction, Netanyahu announced he wouldn’t negotiate with the new government and would introduce punitive measures. Israel refused to lift a long-term embargo and blockade for supplies to Gaza. Hamas, or a radical splinter group attempting to undermine Hamas’ legitimacy, then escalated matters by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers. At that point, Operation Protective Edge was under way in early July and lasted seven weeks. 90 | The United States of Israel

The statistics of damage and destruction far exceed those from five years earlier. As for death, 1,462 Palestinian civilians were killed, 551 of them children, along with six civilians in Israel. One hundred thousand Gazans were left homeless. In its full report two years after the operation, Amnesty International said both Israeli and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes during the hostilities:

ON WHAT BECAME known as “Black Friday” [August 1, 2014], Israel launched an unrelenting onslaught against civilians in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip. Between 1 and 4 August, Israeli forces killed at least 135 civilians, including 75 children, in Rafah, and there is strong evidence they committed war crimes. The heavily populated area was bombarded by artillery fire and other imprecise explosive weaponry in attacks which were indiscriminate and disproportionate.

It’s believed this particular massacre was revenge for the capture of one Israeli soldier in the area. Wiping out innocent school children never seems to bother Israel. In fact, doing so has apparently become part of the Israel Defense Forces doctrine. The IDF’s supporters refer to it as “the world’s most moral army,” a description that takes the brazen gall of its public relations machine to an unfathomable level. On page 303 of his 2013 book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, Max Blumenthal tells the story of entering a book shop in Jerusa- lem in 2010 to peruse a book called Torat HaMelech, or The King’s To- rah. It is a manual that purports to use Jewish law to commit violence. He writes (with asides in parentheses):

ACCORDING TO THE authors, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rab- bi Yosef Elitzur, non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 91

may have been killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has violated one of the seven commandments (of Noah) … there is nothing wrong with murder,” Shapira and Elitzur insisted. (Shapira), citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it),declared, “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

Blumenthal goes on to explain that the book was written as a directive for army personnel seeking religious guidance during conflict, and that the authors urge ruthless treatment for non-Jews and maintain that an enemy population is fair game for slaughtering. He later tells of standing in a hotel conference room audience of 250 settlers and hardline right-wingers at a presentation of Israel’s top fundamentalist rabbis and listening in astonishment as government-backed religious leaders spoke out in support of Torat HaMelech. In his book Judaism, Zionism and the Land of Israel, a pro-Israel propaganda publication, author and rabbi Yotav Eliach tells of being handed his Bible and a rifle. Using the fiction of time travel, he describes what he would take along to show Jews at different times and places around the world:

I WOULD TELL them about the Knesset, the Israeli flag, and the menorah, which is the emblem of the Jewish State. I would tell them about the IDF and what it has accomplished since 1948. I would show them my own swearing-in ceremony when I received my Tanach [Hebrew bible] and M16.

Here’s more of what the IDF has accomplished since 1948, even in just the last few months, summed up succinctly by Gideon Levy in his 92 | The United States of Israel

article “The Israeli Army, Seeking Mild Sentence for Unlawful Shoot- ing, Encourages Soldiers to Kill Innocent Palestinians.” This was published by Haaretz on August 18, 2020:

A CRIMINAL SHOOTING, for no reason, of a Palestinian whose car had gotten stuck, and then the unbearable shooting death of a man who had only stopped to help him. An execution on a cold and rainy night. It was one of those stories that enrage because it keeps being repeated. The shooting was done in cold blood by someone who wasn’t in any danger, standing safe in a reinforced guard-post from which he shot like a madman, aiming at a young man who did nothing but try to flee for his life. Six bullets pierced the body of Ah- mad Manasra, just as he was returning from the wedding of a friend. The soldier could have predicted that nothing bad would happen to him. The Israel Defense Forces allows him to shoot at will, so long as he’s shooting a Palestinian. The IDF is telling its soldiers to keep it up, kill innocent people, its fine. Not a hair on your head will be harmed.

Levy describes the “grotesque” military court system that prepared to approve a plea agreement for the soldier with a sentence calling for three months of community service. For cold-blooded murder:

THE UNITED STATES is up in arms about the killing of George Floyd. Israel yawns about the killing of Ahmad Manasra. Who even heard about it?

Definitely wasn’t allowed into the news cycle in the United States of Israel. Levy mentions that it seems the only place to turn would be the In- ternational Criminal Court at The Hague. The ICC was sanctioned by Donald Trump in May of 2020 for its investigation of American war Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 93

crimes in Afghanistan. Israel, again, a regular target of the ICC for obvious reasons, fully supported Trump’s move.

●●●

As for the international reaction to the massive 2014 slaughter, it was similar to that of 2009, summed up in a New York Times article dated November 23, 2014 titled “Europe Takes Stronger Measures, Albeit Symbolic, to Condemn Israeli Policies. By Steven Erlanger:

LAST WEEK, EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers issued a statement that condemned the growing violence in the Israeli-Palestin- ian relationship, Israeli expropriation of land near Bethlehem in the West Bank, and plans for new settlement construction, and urged Israel to change its policy on Gaza.

Urging Israel to change obviously does nothing. Voting diplomat- ically to condemn Israel does nothing. The United States vetoes UN resolutions and Israel once again laughs it off. Which simply leads to more Israeli bad behavior. Between the 2009 and 2014 slaughters came the infamous boat massacre. In late May 2010, a flotilla of international activists in six vessels attempted to reach the Gaza Strip from Turkey. They were hoping to bring provisions as well as building and medical supplies to a Palestinian population being starved of basic human needs. The aid activists represented forty to fifty different countries and included academics, human rights group representatives, clergymen and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Five vessels made the approach by sea (one boat had broken down and had to turn back). Based on the experience of previous human rights flotillas to Gaza, the activists assumed the worst that could happen to them would be an Israeli navy escort into 94 | The United States of Israel

shore and the confiscation and potential distribution of the supplies. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military leaders had other ideas. They planned a raid with commandos from Zodiac boats and Blackhawk helicopters. It was time to make an example of these peaceniks and put an end to these flotillas. As the Zodiacs arrived, those aboard the flotilla threw bottles at the Israeli military. The commandoes who repelled from helicopters onto the main relief ship the Mavi Marmara were met by crew members who defended themselves with metal sticks and knives. That’s when the indiscriminate firing of live weapons and the executions began. Nine passengers were killed, dozens injured. Any soldiers that were injured were taken below deck by passengers and treated immediately for injuries. Blumenthal summarizes this carnage in Goliath as well, in chapter 20 at page 105. I have added definitions in parentheses:

AS SOON AS the Israelis gained control of the Marmara, they rushed to the ship’s kitchen and gathered up all of the knives they could find. Then they laid them out beside keffiyehs [scarf, Arabi- an headdress], Qurans [Islamic religious texts], and any object that might convince the average Western news consumer that the flotilla was in fact a covert terrorist convoy. As the soldiers followed ap- parent orders to prepare the groundwork for a massive propaganda campaign, [activist Lubna] Masarwa noticed that “letters written by hundreds of children to children in Gaza were on the floor, under the soldiers’ boots. I realized that we must not be human in the eyes of the Israeli soldiers when I saw them joking with each other—one of them was petting his dog—after they had just killed people in cold blood.”

Blumenthal cites that an IDF officer later sold laptops that were stolen from the vessels, while stolen passenger credit cards were used by soldiers for drunken nights out on the town. Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 95

With the tenth fatality, a Turkish activist who died days later, relations between Israel and its only Islamic semi-ally were strained to say the least. The United Nations report stated “the circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal (beyond the authority of the law), arbitrary and summary execution.” The only error the Israeli military found following its investigation was that its navy, army and intelligence services had misjudged the resistance on board. Ethan Bronner’s article in the New York Times on July 12, 2010 was titled “Israeli Military Finds Flotilla Killings Justified”:

AN ISRAELI MILITARY investigation into its naval takeover of a Gaza-bound flotilla six weeks ago found that it was plagued by errors of planning, intelligence and coordination but that the killing of nine Turks on board were justified, according to an official summary of the findings released Monday.

Netanyahu would eventually apologize officially in 2013 to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a financial settlement and agreement were reached in 2016.

●●●

Extra-legal summary executions of innocent internationals by IDF soldiers is not unusual. In May of 2003, thirty-four-year-old British cameraman James Miller was shot in the neck, murdered by an Israeli soldier while working on a documentary about the suffering of Pales- tinian children. In a 2006 inquest, experts testified that the shooting was “deliberate” and Miller’s family charged the Israeli government and military with a cover-up. 96 | The United States of Israel

Vikram Dodd wrote in the Guardian on April 5, 2006 under the headline “Shooting of British Cameraman by Israeli Soldier Cold-blooded Murder, Inquest Told”:

MR. COBB-SMITH, A former British army officer and UN weapons inspector, said Mr. Miller and his colleagues would have been visible to the Israeli soldiers, who had night vision goggles. The sky was cloudless, the moon was shining and electric lights were shining from nearby houses. “My conclusion is this was calculated and cold-blooded murder, without a shadow of a doubt,” Mr. Cobb- Smith told the jury at St. Pancras coroner’s court in London.

The Israeli government declined to take part in the inquest and they skirted the legalities. According to Dodd’s story, the Israeli embassy in London said:

AFTER A VERY thorough investigation using laboratories in Israel and abroad and after reviewing all the available evidence, it was not possible to reach a reliable conclusion that could provide a basis for proceedings under criminal law.

Two months prior to Miller being shot, twenty-three-year-old Amer- ican activist Rachel Corrie was murdered by a bulldozer on March 16, 2003. She had gone to Palestine to protest the demolition of residents’ homes by the Israeli military. As part of its seventeen-year commemo- ration of the calamity on March 16 of 2020, the independent Turkish news website Anadolu Agency included a story by Vakkas Dogantekin called “American Hero Rachel Corrie Killed by Israel Remembered”:

CORRIE BELIEVED THAT her western features and blonde hair would deter the bulldozer, but she was wrong. She was crushed to Chapter 6: Slaughter ’14 | 97

death when the Israeli bulldozer ran over her repeatedly, according to eye witnesses. The people of Gaza described her as a “martyr” and staged a massive funeral for their American friend. No US senator attended her funeral. An Israeli investigation into her death concluded that it was an accident.

Of course it did. And no way, in 2003, would a politician from the United States of Israel dare attend the funeral of an American citizen supporting Palestine. That would have brought condemnation and a quick political death. Corrie’s parents filed a civil lawsuit against Israel while seeking just a single US dollar in symbolic damages. The Israeli courts eventually threw the case out. The Palestinians named a street after her in Gaza and with her family in attendance dedicated a memorial in Nablus in the West Bank in 2008. Iran named a street after her in Tehran. Vakkas Dogantekin noted:

AN IRISH AID ship that set out for Gaza in 2010 named itself after Rachel, and her story has been told in several documentary films portraying the plight of Palestinians.

But again, ultimately, as with the slaughters of 2009 and 2014, the Israelis were not blameless but neither were they held to account.

“South Carolina just passed a law deeming any criticism of Israel in public schools or universities to be anti-Semitic.”

THE WASHINGTON POST May 18, 2018.

Chapter 7 Free Speech?

The Black Lives Matter Movement began really taking hold in 2014 and gathered momentum through 2016 as African Americans and their supporters protested and rallied against police violence and harassment. Yet, an enormous announcement made by the BLM Movement in August of 2016 was utterly ignored by the North American media and may have ushered in what turned out to be a lengthy pause in the power of their efforts. CNN, CBS, USA Today, and other news outlets ignored what you might think would be an earth-shattering proclamation that would make headline news:“Black Lives Matter Endorses BDS: Israel Is an Apartheid State.” This is how it was reported that day on the International Middle East Media Center website:

BLACK LIVES MATTER and The Movement of Black Lives, a coalition of more than 50 organizations representing African Ameri- cans, published a comprehensive platform Friday of last week, which addresses the systematic racism, violence, oppression, and discrimination faced by black communities in the United States. Along with

99 100 | The United States of Israel

calling for “an end to the war against black people,” the policy platform has unambiguously declared its solidarity with the Palestinian people, as it calls Israel an “apartheid state” and endorses Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of the Israeli state.

Not a whiff of the BLM’s position on Israel in the US media. So, what is worse? Not being able to speak your mind without fear of being black- listed, or being able to speak your mind while others are essentially not allowed to hear it? Both are equally tragic. In the US of I, this is the state of affairs. Freedom of speech, unless pro-Israel, is a myth. An original declaration of support for the Palestinians was actually made by BLM leaders in the late summer of 2015 and quickly gained momentum among activists. You wouldn’t have heard about that either, at least not on NBC or ABC News. It did make it onto the inthesetimes. com website on October 15, 2015. “The same urban police departments that harass, brutalize and murder black folks here train with Israeli law enforcement—who oppress Palestin- ians,” said Boston-based activist Khury Petersen-Smith. This was after it was discovered in 2014 that the tear gas canisters used to break up the riots in Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of a black man by police were the exact same ones used by the Israelis against Palestinians. We didn’t hear anything about this as it would have been very bad public relations for Israel. Here is the 2015 activist letter, endorsed by more than a thousand artists and activists:

BLACK SOLIDARITY STATEMENT WITH PALESTINE The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Pal- estinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 101

and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestin- ians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Pales- tinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, At- lanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestin- ians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:

ON THE ANNIVERSARY of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel’s ethnic cleansing)—and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States—we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people. We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life 102 | The United States of Israel

and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre’s effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come. Israel’s injustice and cruelty toward Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and its problem is not with any particular Palestinian party. The oppression of Palestinians extends throughout the occupied territories, within Israel’s 1948 borders, and into neighboring countries. The Israeli Occupation forces continue to kill protesters—including children—conduct night raids on civilians, hold hundreds of people under indefinite detention, and demolish homes while expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements. Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu , incite against Palestinian citizens within Israel’s recognized borders, where over 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish people. Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7-million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Isra- el is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians. Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people. Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 103

to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have wit- nessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by- side. US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the U.S. We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea “infil- trators” and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white suprem- acy, and Zionism. We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with more than $3-billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and U.S. institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Pales- tinian liberation as a key matter of our time. As the BDS movement grows, we offer G4S, the world’s largest private security company, as a target for further joint struggle. G4S harms thousands of Pal- estinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US. The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. 104 | The United States of Israel

We reject notions of “security” that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are. We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestin- ian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.

TOWARDS LIBERATION.

Arguably, that is why BLM faded for four years; BLM pointed to facts about Israel. When the movement surged again in 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Israeli element of the platform continued to be left off the official website, a result of heavy lobbying and pressure from Jewish groups. If you search with the word “Palestine” or “Palestinian” on the BLM website, the words “sorry, no results were found” appear. The topic is also absent from the Movement For Black Lives (M4BL) website. Of course, it didn’t stop the pro-Israel side, often militant Zionists, from voicing their outrage over the movement in general. Outrage as in outrageous, comments so extreme that if the equivalent came from the BLM side, they would have been forced to apologize. Take for example Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 105

Morton Klein’s tweet on June 6, 2020. Klein is the president of the Zi- onist Organization of America:

I URGE THE SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] to immediately put BlackLivesMatter on their list of hate groups. BLM is a Jew hating, white hating, Israel hating, conservative black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros-funded extremist group of haters.

Even threw in a little conspiracy theory at the end. (George Soros is a liberal Jewish billionaire who people like Klein suggest is ruling the world). At the time of his tweet, Klein had fewer than five thousand Twitter followers. But many who think and behave like him have many more. Mark R. Levin, a Philadelphia-born Jew, has 2-plus million followers and a radio show syndicated across the US (see chapter 1). A tweet of his on the very same day included this sentence:

DESPITE THE OVERWHELMING evidence, the anti-Semitic nature of this movement is being utterly ignored by major news- rooms throughout the country—including the Holocaust- denying NY Times and Washington Post.

Really?! That’s a new one. Or maybe it’s not. Not sure how many times Billy and Bella in Oklahoma have heard that claim, but chances are they probably believe it by now. Maybe as much as they believe Iran is full of “Islama-Nazis.” President Trump also loves to trash those two newspapers, as they’re the nationally respected entities most likely to hold him accountable. Remarkable similarities of message. They don’t seem at all concerned about the dead Black folks. Forget about supporting reform—the main concern for Zionists like Klein is protecting Israel’s actions. 106 | The United States of Israel

The BLM Israel pronouncement being brushed under the rug reminds us again of how this works; recall that ten years earlier no debate was permitted or editorials written regarding The Israel Lobby. Mainstream public discussion regarding the 2007 publication began and ended with the book’s review in the New York Times by William Grimes on September 6, 2007. The book describes the inordinate amount of power a loose coalition of pro-Israel groups, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has over US government policy. Grimes:

The Israel Lobby, an extended, more fully argued version of the Lon- don Review [of Books, 2006] article, has done nothing to calm the waters. The authors have been barred from making appearances by at least one university and several cultural centers to discuss their subject, and continue to reap a whirlwind of criticism and abuse. If they were looking for a fight, they have found it.

Grimes described these side effects matter-of-factly as if they were to be expected, as opposed to expressing outrage against the repres- sion of freedom of speech guaranteed in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Why weren’t the authors allowed to discuss their work openly? They didn’t use racial slurs, they weren’t suggesting outlandish punitive measures against a country or race. Instead, they we’re revealing well thought out, scholarly arguments. “Incredibly, they were banned by a university,” would have seemed a more appropriate response, while the tenor of Grimes’ review only bolsters their arguments.

THIS LOBBY IS particularly adept at stifling debate where it begins, the authors argue. “Whether the issue is abortion, arms control, affirmative action, gay rights, the environment, trade policy, health care, immigration or welfare, there is almost always a lively debate Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 107

on Capitol Hill,” they write. “But where Israel is concerned, potential critics fall silent and there is hardly any debate at all.”

In a Boston Globe article from March 29, 2006, reacting to the scholars’ article before it was expanded and became a book, writer Charles A. Radin pointed out:

THE AUTHORS SAY that Israel long ago outlived its strategic use- fulness to the United States and has become a strategic burden. In a brief telephone interview yesterday, [Stephen] Walt said: “My coau- thor and I stand behind our paper, and we welcome serious scholarly discussion of its arguments and evidence. Period.”

Scholarly widespread public discussion never happened. Attacks from prominent Jews did. In 2006, former President Jimmy Carter released the book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.” In a letter to the Los Angeles Times following the book’s release, published on December 8, 2006, Carter stated the following goal:

THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

A lofty goal knowing that expressing one’s views honestly about Israel in the US is next to impossible. President Carter refers to this fact earlier in the letter: 108 | The United States of Israel

IT WOULD BE almost political suicide for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians.

Jewish author, scholar and Israel-critic Norman Finkelstein supported Carter’s conclusions. He wrote:

AFTER FOUR DECADES of Israeli occupation, the infrastructure and superstructure of apartheid have been put in place. Outside of the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and US media, this reality is barely disputed.

In 2009, not remarkably, Carter was forced to apologize for some of his terminology in the book, mainly because his grandson was running for a Georgia state senate seat in a district with an influential Jewish presence. Jason Carter won the seat in 2010.

●●●

Almost a decade later at the federal level, as part of the “blue wave” of Democratic Party victories across the country in 2018, two Muslim women were elected to Congress for the very first time. They were Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar, from Minnesota’s fifth district. They quickly learned of the myth that is “freedom of speech.” Ms. Omar has been the more outspoken of the two. A more accurate description would be that she has gotten into trouble for telling it like it is. In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on February 20, 2019, the headline for Amir Tibon’s story said: “Ilhan Omar Apologizes to US Jewish Lead- ers for ‘Benjamins’ Remark”: Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 109

WASHINGTON – REP. Ilhan Omar apologized to Jewish groups, mostly from the left, for her tweets stating that support for Israel in DC, and specifically the work of pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, is “all about the Benjamins.”

It would have been a cute pun had she included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but she didn’t—she was referring to US$100 bills that feature the likeness of American founding father Benjamin Franklin. How dare she suggest Jewish interests use money to buy the influence of politicians! Imagine! As noted, Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson reportedly gave $30 million to the Trump campaign for 2016. Within a year Trump had the US quit the United Nations Human Rights Council, a group often critical of Israel’s actions, he moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the longtime dream of Adelson and other empire builders, and he awarded Adelson’s wife Mariam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. From the British newspaper The Guardian on November 16, 2018.

ELVIS PRESLEY, BABE Ruth and Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court justice were among seven people Donald Trump honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Friday. Among the living, Miriam Adelson—a doctor, philanthropist and humanitarian, and the wife of Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate considered one of the nation’s most powerful Republican donors—was also honored. She represented a controversial choice for the highest honor America can give a civilian. The Adelsons gave Trump’s presidential campaign a $30-million boost in the final months of the 2016 race. The couple followed that up this election cycle by donating $100 million to the Republican Party for last week’s midterm elections [2018]. 110 | The United States of Israel

That’s a lot of Benjamins. Miriam, how would you like a medal? The embassy move by the way, refused by all previous US presidents, was marked by what seemed to be a private ceremony, as opposed to a grand diplomatic occasion. The Trumps were there, the Netanyahus, the Adel- sons, and a handful of others, mostly “hawk” politicians from Netanya- hu’s regime.

TRUMP MOVED THE embassy in May [2018], and Sheldon Adel- son, who had offered to personally fund the move, was seated in the front row for the ceremony. … Robert Weissman, president of public interest group Public Citizen, said it was difficult to believe the decision to recognize Miriam Adelson was based on merit. … “It’s emblematic of the corrupt and transactional presidency of Donald Trump, and it is a shame, but not a surprise, that he is corroding and corrupting a civic treasure, an honor like the Medal of Freedom,” Weissman said.

So Representative Omar had to apologize for suggesting Jewish influence was tied to money. Cue Donald Trump: “I think she should resign from Congress.” Before Trump landed Adelson for the general election in 2016, the billionaire had leaned toward the Miami-based Florida senator Marco Rubio during the Republican primaries. Adelson wasn’t the only one courting the pliable candidate. In the New York Times on October 15, 2015, an article by Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore was entitled “Paul Singer, Influential Billionaire, Throws Support to Marco Rubio for President”:

MR. RUBIO HAS aggressively embraced the cause of wealthy pro-Israel donors like Mr. Adelson, whom the senator is said to call frequently, and Mr. Singer, who both serve on the board of the Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 111

Republican Jewish Coalition, an umbrella group for Republican Jew- ish donors and officials.

Five months earlier there was another story of support for Rubio from the Jewish billionaire Norman Braman. “Billionaire Lifts Rubio, Politi- cally and Personally” by Michael Barbaro and Steve Eder was published on the front page of the New York Times on May 10, 2015:

A DETAILED REVIEW of their relationship shows that Mr. Bra- man, 82, has left few corners of Mr. Rubio’s world untouched. He hired Mr. Rubio, then a Senate candidate, as a lawyer; employed his wife to advise the Braman family’s philanthropic foundation; helped cover the cost of Mr. Rubio’s salary as an instructor at a Miami college; and gave Mr. Rubio access to his private plane.

In the caption under the photograph of the two men together on page 19, it partially reads, “Positions on Israel Helped Bring Them Together”:

THE MONEY HAS flowed both ways. Mr. Rubio has steered taxpayer funds to Mr. Braman’s favored causes, successfully pushing for an $80-million state grant to finance a genomics center at a private university and securing $5-million for cancer research at a Miami institute for which Mr. Braman is a major donor.

Mr. Rubio has been over-the-top obedient with supporting all causes pro-Israel, and quick to tweet or re-tweet the propaganda. Check his social media.

AS MR. RUBIO has ascended in the ranks of Republican politics, Mr. Braman has emerged a remarkable and unusual patron; simultaneously bankrolling Mr. Rubio’s campaigns and legislative agendas, 112 | The United States of Israel

even while subsidizing his personal finances, long strained by heavy debt and big swings in income.

So why would anyone think those “Benjamins” flying around would have any influence on policy? AIPAC technically can’t give money directly to a campaign, but the law that prevents it would be considered a joke, because like with any other powerful lobby, the money simply comes from its patrons. So much for a technicality. The aforementioned Haaretz article adds substance.

AT AIPAC’S ANNUAL policy conference, a highlight has been the roll call: Top staff and lay leaders gather on stage and shout out the names of every lawmaker who has been in attendance. AIPAC mo- bilizes an army of supporters who are inclined to support pro-Israel candidates with their votes, time and money. Walk out the big glass doors of the Washington Convention Center and get yourself invited to a private suite in a hotel within walking distance and, yes, AI- PAC’s top donors are raising money for favored candidates. It’s not exactly a secret: Since the early 1980s, AIPAC had a least trained its activists to cultivate friendly lawmakers by donating to their campaigns and campaigning for them.

Critics of Omar also used historical angles and labels to criticize her words. In Amir Tibon and Danielle Ziri’s Haaretz article on February 11, 2019: “Ilhan Omar Criticized by Fellow Democratic Lawmakers: ‘No Place for Anti-Semitism’”:

SPEAKER OF THE House Nancy Pelosi released a statement on the issue. “Anti-Semitism must be called out, confronted and condemned Chapter 7: Free Speech? | 113

whenever it is encountered, without exception,” the statement said. It was co-signed by other members of the Democratic House leadership. “Legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies is protected by the values of free speech, but Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes is deeply offensive.”

What the hell is an “anti-Semitic trope”? A trope, from the Greek, is a significant or recurrent theme; a motif. It’s like a reusable insult or label. Kind of like throwing around the trope “anti-Semitic.” Trope was the word used by the politicians because Americans would have no idea what the hell trope meant. But it sure sounds bad, it belit- tles her, so let’s tag her. It then gets (more) ridiculous. In the Washington Post on March 4, 2019 by Deanna Paul, the headline read, “Top Democrat Demands Another Apology from Rep. Ilhan Omar, accusing her of ‘a vile anti-Semitic slur.’” Congresswoman Omar’s “slur” came during comments she made in

A TOWN HALL in Washington while speaking about liberal issues. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Congresswoman Omar is of course referring to Israel. Americans are told over and over and over again, whenever the opportunity arises for a politician or commentator on any mainstream media to voice their standard lines, that Israel is our strongest ally and needs our support and will have it forever. Nancy Pelosi may mouth that “legitimate criticism of Israel’s poli - cies is protected by the values of free speech,” but it doesn’t happen and doesn’t exist. There is only the pushing for the allegiance of a kind to which Congresswoman Omar refers. And for that, from the 114 | The United States of Israel

same article, the reaction from Jewish Congressman of New York, Eliot Engel:

IN A STATEMENT Friday, Eliot said he welcomed debate in Con- gress but that it was “unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens because of their political views, including support for the US-Israel relationship.”

Read again what Congresswoman Omar said and then read Congress- man Engel’s reaction again. Does the “punishment fit the crime”? This is where it becomes clear that the Jewish-Israel block in the government and media had cemented their anti-Omar campaign. She was making comments questioning blind devotion to Israel, and no matter what she says, to whatever degree, she’s going to get hyper-tropes in return. En- gel continued:

“HER COMMENTS WERE outrageous and deeply hurtful, and I ask that she retract them, apologize, and commit to making her case on policy issues without resorting to attacks that have no place in the Foreign Affairs Committee or the House of Representatives.”

Engel won’t be returning to office anytime soon; he lost his primary in 2020. “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. To impose on them a wretched life of hunger and deprivation is to dehumanize them.”

NELSON MANDELA, to a Joint Session of Congress, June 26, 1990

Chapter 8 Apartheid

Mandela was referring to the people of South Africa. “But such has been the terrible fate of all black persons in our country under the systems of apartheid,” he said. Apartheid essentially means “separate and unequal,” as defined on the Encyclopedia Britannica website. To summarize, formal apartheid laws passed in South Africa around 1950 as voted by the White government (Whites made up 10 percent of the population), led to the control over and discrimination against the majority of the population, who were Black or of mixed race. Similar to the “Jim Crow” laws in the American south that developed after the abolition of slavery and continued well into the civil rights era of the 1960s, apartheid was institutionalized racism. Everything from train stations to beaches to entire living areas were segregated, and contact between the race groups was forbidden. Rich and entitled Whites ran the government, businesses and society, while poor slums-ridden Blacks had no status and no say at all. Criticism of this system was forbidden and censured by government-run media. Eventually the Blacks, at times with help from conscientious Whites,

115 116 | The United States of Israel

began protesting and rioting. Social unrest grew. Violence ensued, international outrage and pressure to end the system grew, and eventually in the early-1990s the apartheid fabric began to fall apart. Inclusive national elections were held in 1994 and a black majority government led by Mandela took control. Then President of the United States Bill Clinton later said, “If you understand the devastation that apartheid caused, it’s completely unrealistic to believe that that legacy can be wiped out in five, ten, or even fifteen or twenty years.” But the process was underway. The powers that be in Israel dismiss any notion that apartheid is a word that could be applied to the conditions suffered by Palestinians in Israel proper and in the occupied West Bank. But only because it means bad public relations. Israel has no problem whatsoever actually imple- menting the tactics of apartheid policies. In the summer of 2018, the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) passed the Nation State Law, which formalized permanent characteristics of an apartheid state. Three keys features are that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jew- ish people”; “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”; and “the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” Arabs make up approximately one-fifth of Israel’s population. Months later, in early 2019, the country’s Supreme Court convened to discuss the constitutionality of the act. At the same time, Prime Min- ister Netanyahu was campaigning for an upcoming national election. In the Times of Israel on March 11, 2019, Raoul Wootliff’s article “Defending Nation-State Law, PM Says Israeli Arabs Have [an Affil- iation with] 22 Other Countries” referenced critical comments made “over the weekend” by popular TV host and model Rotem Sela, who blasted the country’s culture minister “for claiming that Benny Gantz Chapter 8: Apartheid | 117

(Netanyahu’s election opponent) and Yair Lapid’s Blue and White party wanted to establish a government with the help of Arab parties:

“WHAT IS THE problem with the Arabs??? Sela wrote on her Ins- tagram account. “Dear God, there are also Arab citizens in this country. When the hell will someone in this government convey to the public that Israel is a state of all its citizens and that all people were created equal, and that even the Arabs and the Druze [minority Is- lamic sect] and the LGBT’s and—shock—the leftists are human.”

Netanyahu characteristically responded to her post with “an important correction,” saying that Israel “is not a state of all its citizens,” but the nation-state of the Jewish people only. The door for apartheid policies within Israel’s boundaries and continued harassment and terrorism against Palestinians in the occupied territories was kicked wide open. In November 2019, Israel’s Supreme Court pushed hearings and analysis of the law back to the summer of 2020. Not un-coincidentally, on November 7 the Middle East Monitor reported “A UN Body Has Announced that Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law Contravenes Interna- tional Human Rights Laws Ratified and Adopted by Israel”:

… THE UN body called on Israel to respond to its concerns regarding aggravation of already-existing ethnic segregation and increasing budgetary discrimination in other concluding observations.

Naturally, Israel’s leaders responded the way they always do—go ahead and prove it, and no one here or in the United States of Israel cares one iota when you prove it. Very few in the US of I mainstream would have read them, but the reasons why the Palestinians and peace negotiators were always against 118 | The United States of Israel

the recognition of the Jewish state and the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem have often been repeated. One example arises in the Washington Post article from June 14, 2009, “Netanyahu’s Speech to Inject Zionist Perspective,” written by Howard Schneider:

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas has said he will not agree to restart peace negotiations unless Israel agrees to a settlement freeze. Palestinian officials say that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would undermine the status of Israel’s Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, and also would prejudge the fate of Palestinian refugees living in other Arab countries. Any resolution of the “right of return” for those refugees, Palestinians say, should be part of final negotiations.

As for the US embassy move, Alexia Underwood, in her article on the Vox website, “The Controversial US Jerusalem Embassy Opening, Explained” from May 16, 2018 wrote:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP announced his decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem back in December, calling it “a long-overdue step to advance the peace process and to work towards a lasting agreement.”

Which is, of course, the exact opposite of its effect. From the same article:

BUT NONE OF the previous presidents followed through, one reason being that the move would appear to put the US squarely on the side of Israel. Chapter 8: Apartheid | 119

Yes, a tragically comical statement considering the US is no longer even remotely hiding the fact that it is squarely on the side of Israel. Underwood continued:

ILAN GOLDENBERG, A Middle East expert with the Center for New American Security, told me that Trump’s decision significantly undercuts the US’s credibility as a neutral party in the conflict.

Conflict? On the day of the ceremony celebrating the US embassy move to Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians protested on the other side of the barrier to Gaza. In the New York Times article “Jerusalem Embas- sy Is a Victory for Trump, and a Complication for Middle East Peace” by Julie Hirschfeld Davis on May 14, 2019, she wrote:

BUT BARELY 40 miles from the festivities in Jerusalem, mass protests that erupted six weeks ago raged anew, smoke rising into the air as more than 2,000 people were injured and the death toll climbed beyond 50.

All dead and injured were Palestinian.

THE VIOLENCE DREW international rebukes. Turkey pulled its ambassadors from Israel and Washington, and South Africa withdrew its envoys from Israel. France called on Israel to exercise restraint.

The opening of the piece was the most painful.

WASHINGTON – PRESIDENT Trump asnd senior members of his administration exalted on Monday over the opening of the Unit- ed States’ new embassy in Jerusalem, dismissing the violence raging 120 | The United States of Israel

along the border with Gaza as the ceremony unfolded as “unfortunate propaganda.”

Thousands of unarmed protestors living in what amounts to an open- air prison getting shot are equated to “unfortunate propaganda.” Ultimately, establishing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital appeased Trump’s greatest benefactor (campaign donator) Sheldon Adelson. Money talks.

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On November 24, 2019, Hagar Shezaf reported in Haaretz under the headline “Israel Limits West Bank Farmers’ Access to Lands Near Green Line” that Israel’s civil administration in the West Bank was imposing new limits on Palestinians’ ability to access and harvest their lands cut off by Israel’s security wall. Shezaf wrote:

THE NEW PURPOSE is defined as “enabling agricultural land to be worked based on agricultural needs derived from the size of the plot and the type of produce, while maintaining the connection to these lands. … With the size of the plot and the type of produce in mind, the maximum number of entries is 40 times a year for olives and on- ions, 50 times for figs and 220 for tomatoes or strawberries. If a farmer has exhausted his entry quota, he must apply for a new permit …

One farmer responded:

LET THEM CONFISCATE the land and be done with it. I’m not willing to accept this.” The story points out that the fence has 84 gates but only nine are open daily and the rejection rate for agricultural permits jumped to 72-percent in 2018, up from 24-percent in 2014. Chapter 8: Apartheid | 121

Bottom line, “This creates a new bureaucratic hurdle for Palestinian farmers.” Two other headlines on the Americans for Peace Now daily newsletter that same day were notable:

FIVE PALESTINIANS WOUNDED AFTER ISRAEL SET- TLERS ATTACK IN HEBRON, RED CRESCENT [RED CROSS] REPORTS – Clashes Saturday are a continuation of Friday night’s events in Hebron where according to local reports, 12 wounded were evacuated to hospitals as a result of settler aggression. Among the injured was an 18-month-old baby hit in the head by a rock.

CARS SET ABLAZE, GRAFFITI SCRAWLED IN SUSPECT- ED WEST BANK HATE CRIME – Vandals targeted four different Palestinian villages Friday night, by setting afire cars and olive trees, and leaving on the walls of more than 20 homes graffiti slo- gans linking incident to the illegal outpost of Kumi Ori near the settlement of Yitzhar.

You will never ever see these stories, daily stories of Jewish terror, in the US media, but if one Palestinian were to retaliate and get caught with violence, there’s a good chance Fox News would show it. Those who determine what you see would make sure of it. Welcome to apartheid, a system established long ago. In a Haaretz.com excerpt displayed on the website of Jews For Justice for Palestinians on March 5, 2012, translator/writer Sol Salbe describes an opinion piece written on the front page of Haaretz “last Friday” that “wasn’t just an ordinary opinion piece—it was written by one of the country’s foremost novelists, David Grossman” in Hebrew. Grossman wrote it on February 12, and it described an incident in 2008 involving Omar Abu Jariban, a resident of the Gaza Strip. Jariban 122 | The United States of Israel

had stolen a car in Israel and was injured in a crash. Grossman raises a number of hypothetical scenarios, viewpoints, and conversations as he tells the story of how three Israeli police officers took him from a medical center in Israel where he was still in serious condition, put him in a van, took him across a border checkpoint and dumped him by the side of the road. Two days later his dead body was found. At the culmination of his story, Grossman wrote:

I KNOW THAT they do not represent the police. Nor do they represent our society or the state. It’s only a handful of bad apples or un- welcome weeds. But then I think about a people which has dumped a whole other nation on the side of the road and has backed the process to the hilt over 45 years, all the while having not a bad life at all, thank you. I think about a people which has been engaging in a brilliant genius-like denial of its own responsibility for the situation. I think of a people which has managed to ignore the warping and distorting of its own society and the madness that the process has had on its own national values. Why should such people get all excited over a single such Omar?

Folks were reminded of this story with a similar occurrence during the start of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Americans for Peace Now included it in their news clips on Wednesday March 25, 2020:

“WITHOUT COORDINATING HIS arrival with the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Police dumped a very sick Palestinian laborer, who was working illegally in Israel, at a West Bank checkpoint.

There was a video published of the man lying by the side of the road. Earlier in the month, Haaretz published the story “Israel Ap- proves Plans for ‘Separate Road for Palestinians’ to Enable Settlement Chapter 8: Apartheid | 123

Construction” by Hagar Shezaf on March 9. The subtext read, “Follow- ing the revival of the controversial E-1 plan, which would cut parts of the northern West Bank off from the south, Defense Minister Bennett hails ‘sovereignty road’ construction”:

BENNETT: “The construction of the road is meant to serve as a solution to a controversial settlement plan, known as E-1 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revived two weeks ago. The plan to construct 3,500 homes, has been put on hold for years largely due to international criticism as the homes would cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part, making it more difficult to create a viable Palestinian state. The new road will not pass through any Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

Mr. Bennett never concerns himself with the need to mince words.

“THE PROJECT WILL improve the quality of life of the [Jewish] residents of the area, prevent unnecessary friction with the Pales- tinian population and, most importantly, enable the continuation of building in the settlements. Imposing sovereignty in deeds, not in words. We will continue that way.”

Placing the superiority of one race over another; the textbook definition of discrimination.

IN JANUARY 2019, Route 4370, which separates Israeli and Pales- tinian drivers, was opened northeast of Jerusalem. The road connects the Geva Binyamin region and Route 1, as well as the French Hill intersection and the Naomi Shemer Tunnel that leads to Mount Sco- pus. The road has been referred to as the “apartheid road” due to the fact that it is divided down the center by an eight-meter-high wall. 124 | The United States of Israel

The issue of Israel building separate and unequal roads on Palestinian land dates back to the 1980s. On the same day for the same paper, Ori Nir wrote a startling opinion piece called “The Dangerous Irony of Letting David Friedman Carve Up the West Bank.” David Friedman? Political henchman for Netanyahu? Religious zealot, extreme Zionist? Works for the Israeli government? Well, yes, he does. He was the US ambassador to Israel and might as well be on Israel’s payroll, because that’s who he has worked for, first and foremost. His main interest was to gobble up as much land as he could for Israel before Trump left office. Nir wrote:

LET IT SINK in: After decades of efforts by Republican and Dem- ocratic US administrations to reign in Israeli governments’ West Bank settlement practices, the Trump administration is now leading the effort to determine the contours of the settlements, recognizing them as part of sovereign Israel. And who is the US government representative leading this process? Who is the head of the committee? It is the person who in the past three years has been the chief architect of the Trump administration’s policy on Israel. It is President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Fried- man, an ultra-nationalist settlement-supporter, a religious zealot [fanatic], who called President Barack Obama an anti-Semite, referred to pro-peace American Jews as “worse than kapos” (Jews who worked with or for the Nazis in concentration camps), and utterly dismissed the two-state solution. Now he’s deciding where the future border will be between Greater Israel and the remaining Swiss-cheesed portions of the West Bank, over which the US will allow the Palestinians to negotiate a future limited autonomy [self-rule]—if that. Chapter 8: Apartheid | 125

A quick recap: Friedman works for the United States of Israel. His country’s policies represent support for Israel’s occupation and oppression of five decades. The Arab world, and much of Western civilization for that matter, hates the US of I’s foreign policy. Only those living in the US of I are unaware of it. American troops, and at times civilians, are therefore put in harm’s way. Meanwhile, on a mostly daily basis, one of those pro-peace groups, Americans for Peace Now, publishes an e-mail newsletter. Under their brief “You Must Be Kidding” notes on February 27, 2020, they wrote:

ISRAEL HALTED THE removal of an illegal West Bank settlement at the request of a settler, but did remove a Palestinian protest tent in the area, based on the same regulations by which it originally planned to remove the outpost.

This is standard operating procedure in the Occupied Territories. What was more startling was the “Quote of the day” above it, from writer B. Michael, referring to Israel and its Prime Minister Netanyahu. It came from an opinion piece in Haaretz:

EVERY OCCUPYING STATE has gone down this path—a coars- ening of the soul, a loss of good character, burgeoning violence and oppression, an addiction to authority, hatred, evil and lucre [dirty money]. And then, riding on all this, a contemptible [despicable] man always attains power, a corrupt man devoid of restraint who gathers evil men in his own image around him—people who market hatred and wickedness, who dance on the blood of others, holy priests with the greatness of God in their mouths and bribes in their pockets. And the masses are always drawn to their charm, because hatred is always stronger than enlightenment. 126 | The United States of Israel

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The APN daily newsletter includes headlines and stories from four to six different Israeli newspapers, from left to far right. On February 22, 2020, Gideon Levy and Alex Levac wrote a story in Haaretz headlined “Israeli Soldier Kills Palestinian Cop at His Own Station. No Explanation Is Offered.” Based on security camera footage, Tarek Badwan, a police sergeant, was murdered by an Israeli sniper, while on break, chatting with two of his cohorts:

THE PALESTINIAN POLICE are perhaps the most submissive and collaborationist organization confronting Israel’s security forces. Ev- ery time the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] invades a Palestinian city in Area A—which is supposed to be under the full control of the Pal- estinian Authority—thereby crudely violating the terms of the Oslo Accords [agreements signed by the Israelis and Palestinians in 1993 and 1995], the Palestinian forces beat a retreat into their stations and stay there, not so much as sticking their noses out into the street, until things blow over and the invader leaves. That way the police don’t interfere with the army troops who perpetuate the occupation with their patrols, searches, arrests, displays of force and demolitions of homes. Meanwhile, Palestinians residing in urban areas in the West Bank are for the most part left unprotected by their own security forces which, in a different, saner reality would safeguard them and their property. Instead, they are left utterly defenseless, with no one to look after their interests. That’s the vaunted “security coordination”: It’s intended to protect one side and only one. This month, Israel “rewarded” the obedient Palestinian police by killing one of them, inside his station, where he had retreated during his night shift with other officers, following an IDF incursion. Chapter 8: Apartheid | 127

In the January 8, 2009 New York Times in the op-ed section, Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York, wrote a guest piece entitled “What You Don’t Know About Gaza.” In it, he included the following:

THE OCCUPATION THE Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

Khalidi goes on to describe elements of Israel’s blockade that became more stringent after Hamas won Palestinian Legislative Council elections in early 2006. Israel routinely chokes off the Strip from the movement of people or goods, particularly when its “prisoners” act up or protest. The IDF will run planned raids to spark a violent reaction, thus opening the door for Netanyahu to present the “terrorist” label, and for a retaliatory “self-defense” slaughter.

THE BLOCKADE HAS subjected many to unemployment, pen- ury [extreme poverty] and malnutrition. This amounts to collective punishment—with the tacit [silent, understood] support of the United States—of a civilian population for exercising its dem - ocratic rights.

“Pro-democracy” Israel did what it could to derail that democratic process. Weeks before the January, 2006 election, Greg Myre and Dina 128 | The United States of Israel

Kraft reported in the New York Times under “Israel Threatens to Hin- der Palestinian Vote” on December 22, 2005:

ISRAEL SAID WEDNESDAY that if the militant faction Hamas took part in next month’s elections for the Palestinian parliament, Palestinians would not be allowed to cast ballots in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian leadership responded by saying that it might post- pone the voting, which is scheduled for Jan. 25.

The US of I didn’t get the results it wanted. Hamas, as noted, a group Israel had created earlier for disruptive tactical purposes, ruled the day. Similarly, fourteen years later, the American Trump regime that shared Israeli political consultants, was doing its best to limit minority voting in the United States by whatever means necessary. Also fourteen years later, for practical purposes, little has changed for the 1.5-million people living in the 140-square-mile area. In a tweet on August 23, 2020 by Gisha, a Israeli charity focused on protecting Palestinian freedom-of-movement, expressed the following:

ISRAEL’S COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF GAZA IN PAST 2 WEEKS: 8.11 ban on entry of construction materials 8.12 fishing zone reduced 8.13 ban on entry of fuel 8.16 ban on access to the sea 8.18 power plant shuts down for lack of fuel Today: (8.23) Israel limits entry of goods to medicine & food

The Israeli regime and its supporters will claim these acts are necessary to control terrorism in a Palestinian area, stating apartheid in Israel-proper doesn’t exist and is an insult. Chapter 8: Apartheid | 129

Examples prove this assertion laughable. Discrimination and apartheid run rampant, ideologically and institutionally. It’s the word “apartheid” Israel doesn’t like, simply because it’s bad public relations. Period. Scott Wilson wrote in the Washington Post on December 7, 2007, under “For Israel’s Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion”:

FATINA AND AHMAD Zubeidat, young Arab citizens of Israel, met on the first day of class at the prestigious Bezalel arts and archi- tecture academy in Jerusalem. Married last year, the couple rents an airy house here in the Galilee filled with stylish furniture and other modern grace notes. But this is not where they wanted to live. They had hoped to be in Rakefet, a nearby town where 150 Jewish families live on state land close to the mall project Ahmad is building. After months of interviews and testing, the town’s admission committee rejected the Arab couple on the grounds of “social incompatibility.”

The Zubeidats speak both Arabic and Hebrew fluently. Officials weren’t impressed; they were more concerned with upholding segregation. The massive irony of all this is that Semites, ancient Semitic-speak - ing peoples, is a group that includes Arabs and Jews alike. The term anti-Semitic was hijacked and could technically mean “anti-Arab.” The historical Semitic classification takes in a large area of what is now the Middle East and includes most, if not all, “non-Caucasians.” The Jewish and Arab origins, Christian, Muslim or otherwise, are intertwined. Most, if not all of the fanaticism on both sides, is religion based. On May 7, 2008, the story by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times was called “After 60 Years, Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders”:

AS ISRAEL TOASTS its 60th anniversary in the coming weeks, rejoicing in Jewish national rebirth and democratic values, the Arabs 130 | The United States of Israel

who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be celebrating. Better off and better integrated than ever in their history, freer than a vast majority of other Arabs, Israel’s 1.2 million Arab citizens are still far less well off than Israeli Jews and feel increasingly unwanted.

A portion of that writing sample seems to promote some level of optimism, and alludes to some type of effective integration (see chapter 14: Peace). The optimism might have arisen from the fact that at the time of the article, peace talks and the “two-state solution” language were still lingering in the picture. A decade later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has burned that imagery. The militaristic and fanatical approach from him and his supporters undercuts any and all optimism. Despite being a renowned liar and public relations clinician, it definitely didn’t begin with “Bibi.” The hardline approach was well established when he took office for his second tenure as prime minister in late March of 2009. “Israeli Soldier Says Military Rabbis Framed Gaza Mission as Reli- gious” was the headline for a story Howard Schneider in the Washington Post on March 21 of that year:

A SOLDIER INVOLVED in Israel’s recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip said in published reports Friday that the military’s rab- binical staff distributed material characterizing the operation as a religious mission to “get rid of the gentiles [non-Jews, usually Chris- tians] who disturb us from conquering the holy land.”

More frightening racism in the New York Times article about a soccer game by Jodi Rudoren on January 31, 2013. The match featured a team from an Arab-Israeli town against one of Israel’s premier league team’s Beitar Jersusalem. The fans from the two sides chanted threats and insults at one another, the Jewish fans taking much more of an Chapter 8: Apartheid | 131

extreme approach. The article was called “Some Fear a Soccer Team’s Racist Fans Hold a Mirror Up to Israel”:

THE ANGRY, DEFIANT exchanges that punctuated Tuesday night’s unusually tense game here came amid intense protests by Be- itar Jerusalem supporters over the team owner’s plans to recruit two Muslim players from Chechnya. Some young men had unfurled a banner at the previous game declaring “Beitar pure forever,” which reminded many here of Nazi Germany’s purging of Jews from athlet- ics in 1933 and prompted statewide discussion about racism on and off the field.

Rudoren points out that Beitar is the only one of Israel’s thirty professional soccer teams never to have had an Arab player and its fans are legendarily ugly.

BUT SUCH CONFLAGRATIONS [an uprising like a fire] are not limited to soccer. Last summer, a mob of Jewish teenagers pummeled a Palestinian youth nearly to death in what was widely condemned as an attempted lynching.

That sounds like something one would have heard about in the southern US in the 20th century in its treatment of Blacks. It also sounds like something else: entrenched apartheid.

LAST SPRING, ISRAELI lawmakers used racial slurs during protests against the influx of migrant workers from Africa, with one eventually apologizing for calling them “a cancer in our body.”

Among many other things, racism in the United States and Israel is in lockstep, and in the recent US election we saw a president and certain 132 | The United States of Israel

US states trying to find ways to discourage minority voting by whatever means necessary. It seems the apartheid concept is percolating in the US. It’s a matter of routine in Israel. There is no shortage of Israeli Jews and Zionists who will dutifully point to the facts. In Haaretz on August 23, 2009, one could see the headline “Education Minister Slams Israeli Lecturer’s Apartheid” over Barak Ravid’s story. Israeli professor Dr. Neve Gordon from Ben Gurion University wrote the following in an editorial for the Los Angeles Times in which he calls for a boycott of Israel:

3.5 MILLION PALESTINIANS and almost half million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews—whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel—are citizens of the state of Israel.

Other academics from the university were critical of Gordon, and although presumed educated, they responded in one of the most un- educated manners imaginable, the way a “redneck” in America might respond to a fellow citizen criticizing the US. Professor Rivka Carmi’s comments were representative of the outrage:

THE VILE AND audacious criticism of the state of Israel damages the excellent academic work being done in Israel and its universities. … Academics with such feelings about their country are welcome to look for another home, whether personal or professional. If you don’t like it, leave.

It’s a common simplistic refrain in response to someone actually looking to improve a society, seeking reform for a nation they likely love as Chapter 8: Apartheid | 133

much as or more so than anyone else. Why would one leave what one is trying to fix? Three months earlier, a very common headline appeared in the Washington Post on May 2, 2009 for a story by Howard Schneider: “UN Finds 60,000 Palestinians Risk Eviction in East Jerusalem”:

PALESTINIAN RESIDENTS OF East Jerusalem find themselves confronting a serious housing shortage caused by Israel’s failure to provide Palestinian neighborhoods with adequate planning,” the OCHA [UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] report says. “Because of the difficulties in trying to obtain building permits from Israeli authorities, and due to the lack of feasible alternatives, many Palestinians risk building on their land without a permit.”

No permit means the home eventually gets bulldozed. The variety and scope of harassment under apartheid is remarkable. On February 2, 2007, the Associated Press reported “Report: Israel Navy Harassing and Humiliating Palestinian Fishermen”:

THE FISHERMEN SAID they were forced to undress, leaving only their underwear, and made to swim to the Israeli ships, and then they were taken to the nearby port of Ashdod for questioning. Some said Israeli forces fired at them.

Naturally a claim was presented, that these measures were carried out for security purposes, that the fishermen were suspected of smug- gling weapons. The IDF says it provided the men food and medical treatment. The AP report continued:

ISRAEL HAS TIGHTENED restrictions on fishing off the Gaza coast, during the past six years of Palestinian-Israeli violence. The 134 | The United States of Israel

limits have driven many of the territory’s 3,000 fishermen into poverty.

On May 30, 2008, the New York Times published “US Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza” by Ethan Bronner:

THE AMERICAN STATE Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced de- grees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

This could be interpreted as collective punishment, because that’s exactly what it was. There was no legitimate justification to deny the seven students furthering their education, nor was one given. Americans are completely unaware of the full range of raids, terror, and harassment inflicted upon the Palestinian population on a routine basis. If they were aware, they might understand justification for this repressed people’s frustration and need to sometimes respond violently. Again, Europeans and the Israelis themselves are fully aware of the situation. Israel would rather keep their greatest benefactor, the US taxpayers, in the dark. It’s apartheid and it has been for a very long time. So why not throw in a little blackmail? On August 5, 2008, Linda Gradstein wrote in the Washington Post “Gazans’ Access to Care Faulted”:

ISRAEL’S DOMESTIC SECURITY service requires Gazans who wish to enter Israel for medical treatment to submit to detailed interviews about their knowledge of political and militant groups, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, a nonprofit group based in Tel-Aviv. The Israeli security service “uses the Chapter 8: Apartheid | 135

weakness, the helplessness of the Palestinian patients in Gaza in trying to pressure them to be collaborators,” said Ruchama Mar- ton, the group’s founder. In a report released Monday, the group documents 32 cases of Palestinians who said they were told that a permit to enter Israel for medical care was conditional on being willing to deliver information.

It all adds up. One more example of separate and unequal comes from the New York Times on August 3, 2009. “Israel Evicts Palestinians from Homes,” written by Isabel Kershner is a corruption combo-platter:

ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem early Sunday after the families lost a long legal battle to remain in the contested properties, furthering a plan for Jewish settlement in the predominantly Arab area. The move, days after senior American officials visited Jerusalem to press for a settlement freeze, prompted sharp international criticism. Later Sunday, the Israeli police said they had evidence to support indict- ing Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman on charges including taking bribes, laundering money, and committing fraud.

In 2013 Lieberman was cleared of two charges and another was dropped:

IN A VISIT in March, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clin- ton warned against threatened evictions and demolitions in East Jerusalem.

A warning that didn’t exactly have the rulers of the US of I shaking in its boots: 136 | The United States of Israel

COUNTERING CRITICISM OF another Jewish building project planned for Sheikh Jarrah, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Net- anyahu, said recently that Jerusalem residents had the right to live anywhere in the city. Israel’s sovereignty over the city “cannot be challenged.”

“King Bibi,” as Netanyahu is often called by critics in Israel, served as prime minister from June of 1996 to July of 1999 and then took over again just eight months before this news story was written. He’s been in power since. Bibi is the leader of an apartheid state, one that’s grown more dom- ineering and stringent under his watch. While the term Apartheid is synonymous with South Africa, it shouldn’t be. That apartheid ended three decades ago. Israel’s is flourishing. The ties between Israel and the South African apartheid state are not only symbolic or coincidental. It should seem impossible but it’s true, as documented in these pages, Israel was the last nation to reluctantly stop selling arms to South Africa’s apartheid masters. (See chapter 13.) And despite the obvious and appalling irony, Israel’s support of minority deprivation in its most extreme forms, summons comparisons to the German Nazi state it abhorred. “It would be in the long-term interests of peace in the Middle East for there to be a state of Palestine, a modern functioning state that is on the same footing as other states.”

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, First Lady of the United States, 1998

Chapter 9 Hypocrisy

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (“King Bibi”) is a literal fountain of hypocrisy. The dictionary definition of the noun “hypocrisy” is “a pretense [or stance] of having desirable or publicly approved attitudes, beliefs, principals, etc. that one does not actually possess.” A hypocrite most often says one thing and does the opposite. A favorite Bibi claim is “the Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map.” Meanwhile, for the past forty years, Israel has been intent on wiping Palestine off the map. The Palestinians are one thorn; Iran is another. Netanyahu resumed his campaign to get the United States to attack Iran soon after he was re-elected as prime minister. In his speech to the United Nations in September, 2009 he repeatedly invoked comparisons between Nazi Germany and Iran, Al Qaeda (which has nothing to do with Iran) and Iran, and global terrorism. Thus Netanyahu teased out the overused yet mildly effective propaganda thread to his US audience:

137 138 | The United States of Israel

“IT PITS CIVILIZATION against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death,” he said.

The “21st century” reference is to Israel’s civility as a nation compared to the barbarism that had befallen the world in the 9th century. Interesting, no? It is Israel that shamelessly and gratuitously ends innocent human life as a matter of routine, via the country’s most es- teemed institution, its army. Modern barbarism on a weekly basis from a regime living in a perpetual state of pompous exceptionalism where anything and everything is justified. Meanwhile Persia, a.k.a. Iran, has arguably the deepest cultural development in human history, while the work ethic, the intellectual drive and capacity of its modern citizens is comparable to those of any country anywhere. As is the case in the United States and Israel, its people are simply the victims of its leadership, and in the case of Iran, of previous foreign overlords. The Iranian and Israeli regimes have one thing in common, for propaganda purposes they’d both like us to believe that almost all Iranians are devoutly Islamic. Not true, based on multiple demographic sources, most Iranians are outwardly or covertly secular (non-religious). As of 2017, due to an executive order from an obedient Donald Trump, Iran’s scholars aren’t allowed to visit the US of I. He banned visitors from seven Muslim countries from entering the US, creating great indirect publicity for Israel while reinforcing a misleading or purely false stigma. Jewish columnist Roger Cohen, who has spent extended periods of time in Israel, Germany, and Iran, points out the realities in his piece in the New York Times on March 2, 2009 called “Iran, the Jews and Germany.” He often receives correspondence from outraged Ameri- can Jews who are “unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany”: Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 139

I WAS BASED in Berlin for three years; Germany’s confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let’s be clear: Iran’s Islamic Re- public is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state. Munich allowed Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.

He points to the Jewish community in Iran, who were about 25,000-strong at the time, and who worship in relative tranquility. Yes, the morality police are strict, and yes, there are fanatics. What country discussed within these pages doesn’t have them?

ITS STREETS AT dusk hum with life—not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear—but the vibrancy of a changing, highly educated society.

●●●

We often hear the Islamaphobes and pro-Israel commentators ranting about the fanaticism of Muslims and Arabs, which by the way are not necessarily the same thing. In fact, the majority of Arabs who live in the United States are Christian. Sexism is one of the popular topics, particularly when referring to the archaic (old, ancient) and misogynistic (strongly prejudiced against women) rules that apply to the two genders, particularly in the more fundamentalist countries. But they’re not alone. Try Israel. This passage is from Shahar Ilan’s article “An Ultra-Orthodox Woman Who Refuses to Sit at the Back of the Bus” in Haaretz on July 15, 2015:

THE SEGREGATED BUSES only stop at stops in Haredi [orthodox] areas, even some out-of-the-way stops, and skip over stops in non-Haredi areas, even major stops. They expect secular 140 | The United States of Israel

[non-religious] and religious-Zionist women not to get on and cause problems. The proliferation [growing number] of segregated bus lines in certain areas is badly damaging the quality of service to non-Haredi people.

The article points to a private 2010 report that found there were sixty-three official segregated bus lines in Israel and ten unofficial ones. The same practice has occurred on New York City bus lines in heavily populated Jewish orthodox areas in Brooklyn. Women to the back of the bus. The late Rosa Parks became a civil rights icon for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was sitting in the “colored section” and the “white section” was full. That was in 1955. On June 29, 2018, the Times of Israel’s staff wrote a story under “Ultra-Orthodox Men again Hold Up Plane, Refusing to Sit beside Women.” The subtext ran “Captain of Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna forced to intervene, asks women to move; plane arrives over an hour late; MK [member of legislature] Lapid calls to remove such passengers immediately.” The flight left forty minutes late and arrived an hour behind schedule, causing many passengers to miss connections. The legis- lator Yair Lapid was quoted in the story:

“ONCE AGAIN A primitive group of Haredis moved and humiliated women on a flight. If for once they’re removed [the Haredis’s] from the flight without hesitation or recompense, this disgrace will end.”

A similar event had occurred the previous week on an El Al flight from New York to Israel. The CEO of the airline said that in the future that men who refused to take their seat would be immediately removed from the flight. In dramatic fashion, and in contrast to Yair Lapid, an Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 141

orthodox member of the Israeli parliament, Yisrael Eichler, responded by saying their community would boycott:

“I’M TELLING EL Al that if you give in to the terrorism of Hare- di-hating groups and remove a passenger who behaved properly and asked nicely to sit next to a man, we will remove hundreds of thousands of your passengers every year. Terror against terror.”

Just to clarify, he’s suggesting that making men sit next to women is a form of terror. The threat of violence from within Israel’s borders was the focus of Linda Gradstein’s special column in the Washington Post on November 3, 2008 under the headline “Security Chief Cites Threat to Top Israelis”:

THE DIRECTOR OF Israel’s domestic security service told a cabinet meeting Sunday that he is very concerned that Jewish extremists could attempt to assassinate Israeli leaders who seek peace with the Palestinians, according to meeting participants.

It had happened before:

DISKIN’S WARNING CAME two days before Israel marks the anniversary of the killing of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was slain in 1995 by a young Israeli angered by Rabin’s concessions to Palestinians under the Oslo peace accords. The assassin, Yigal Amir, approached Rabin as he left the stage at a peace rally in Tel Aviv and fired three shots into his back. The shots killed Rabin almost instantly.

The story says Amir showed no remorse and that he has said he was influenced by Israeli military leaders. 142 | The United States of Israel

Terrorism is a flammable word conveniently thrown around to justify many of the US of I’s policies, procedures and expenditures. How ironic. “Jewish Arsonists Suspected in West Bank Fire That Killed Toddler” by Diaa Hadid and Jodi Rudoren made the front page of the international section of the New York Times on August 1, 2015:

RESIDENTS OF THIS Palestinian hamlet still awake on a hot summer night heard the screams and rushed to the Dawabsheh home. Outside, Saad, 32, lay writhing on the ground. Nearby, his wife, Ri- ham, 27, was still on fire. Their 4-year-old son, Ahmad, could be heard crying inside the burning hose, and his brother, 18-month- old Ali, was already dead.

It took place in the village of Duma in the West Bank.

TWO WITNESSES SAID they saw two masked men outside the house watching as the family burned. … Saeb Erekat, the chief Pales- tinian negotiator, called the arson attack a “brutal assassination” and said it was a direct consequence of decades of impunity [free will] given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism.”

American media commentators often like to single out Israel as America’s dear friend in the Middle East, a “lone democracy” that’s open-minded, accepting, and free in a sea of fanatical Arab intolerance. On Friday July 31, 2015 on page A4, the New York Times published “Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Stabs 6 at a Gay Pride Parade” by Isa- bel Kershner:

[THE ASSAILANT] MR. Schlissel wounded three marchers a decade ago and was convicted of attempted murder. He was said to have told the police that he had come “to kill in the name of God.” Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 143

The Israeli news media reported that he was released from prison three weeks ago.”

Regardless of affiliation or denomination, Christian, Muslim or Jew- ish; a fanatic, is a fanatic, is a fanatic.

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Interestingly, on the same page of the New York Times, just below the stabbing story, was the following headline: “Israel Allows Hunger-Strik- ing Prisoners to Be Force-Fed.” Diaa Hadid wrote the story:

ISRAEL LEGISLATORS VOTED Thursday to allow the force-feed- ing of hunger-striking prisoners in extreme cases, a move that appeared to be aimed at preventing Palestinian inmates from using fasts to win their release, particularly from indefinite incarceration. Rights groups condemned the move, and the Israeli Medical As- sociation called it torture and vowed to appeal the legislation.

For those who may think “indefinite incarceration” means the person was guilty of some heinous crime and deserves to be there and treated however necessary, think again. According to Max Blumenthal in his 2013 book Goliath, at page 151 we learn more of Israel’s judicial “democracy”:

SINCE 1967, THE State of Israel has detained at least 750,000 Pales- tinians in is prisons, including 10,000 women. According to the Pal- estinian prisoner rights group, Adameer, Israel currently holds 4,500 political prisoners, including more than 200 children and 322 jailed without charges—those it has labeled as “administrative detainees.” In its prosecutions of so-called security prisoners like Makhoul, the state 144 | The United States of Israel

boasts a 99.74 percent conviction rate. Many of the magistrate judges who rule in such cases gained their initial legal experience presiding over the military justice system that rules the occupied West Bank, learning through a day-to-day routine of show trials to accept Shin Bet [Israel’s FBI] and army’s arguments as gospel.

Makhoul refers to Ameer Makhoul. In the book, Blumenthal tells his story. Makhoul is a Palestinian human rights activist and environmentalist who was the former president of the Arab delegation at the United Na- tions Durban Conference Against Racism in 2001, where Israel was first indicted for apartheid. They must not have taken too kindly to it. In June 2010, fifteen or sixteen Israeli law enforcement agents showed up to raid his house in Haifa, West Bank, in the middle of the night and drag him away in front of his wife and two daughters. He was jailed and tortured on falsified charges. The government’s domestic spy and law enforcement agency, Shin Bet, issued a gag-order to the Israeli media, as in, no reporting on the case or Makhoul’s arrest, which for a “democracy” shouldn’t be standard operating procedure. Blumenthal explains how the nation’s mainstream media complied, and despite some exposure from international human rights’ bloggers, rigged justice was carried out as usual. If he took a plea bargain, ad - mitted guilt, Makhoul would get nine years. Failing to admit guilt, he’d go to trial for “assisting an enemy in war” and live the rest of his life in prison. Blackmailed and helpless, he chose the nine years so he could see his family again. He never came close to assisting any enemy in war. It should come as no surprise that the plea-bargain-to-avoid-trial scenario is common in the US, particularly for minorities. And once the “guilty” tag is placed, employment becomes difficult and the hamster wheel of injustice, with probation, fines, and re-arrests, starts spinning. Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 145

In an action paper dated April 13, 2020, the Defense for Children In- ternational—Palestine (DCIP) issued the demand “Israel must release all Palestinian child detainees amid Covid-19 pandemic.” Here is an excerpt:

ISRAEL HAS THE dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically detains and prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel detains and prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year. Nearly three out of four children detained by Israeli forces experiences some form of physical violence, according to documentation col- lected by DCIP. Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military courts.

Yet we’ll often hear some form of this: “We are not an apartheid state, and it’s anti-Semitic to say that we are.”

●●●

Presumably it would be considered anti-Semitic to compare Israel to Nazi Germany as well, but it happens. The religious purity laws in the Jewish state are unmatched in the modern world. The Washington Post article by Griff Witte August 30, 2008 was called “In Israel, A Clash over Who Is a Jew”:

YAEL CONVERTED TO Judaism in 1992, and for the next 15 years she lived in Israel, celebrating the major holidays and teaching her children about the Jewish faith. 146 | The United States of Israel

But when her and her husband sought a divorce last year, she said, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in charge of the process had some questions. Among them: Did Yael observe the Sabbath? Did she obey the prohibition on sex during and after menstruation? Dissat- isfied with the answers, the rabbis nullified her conversion. Yael did not need a divorce, they ruled, because she had never been married. She had never been married because she had never been Jewish. And because she had never been Jewish, her children were not, either.

The universal rule is, if your mother is Jewish, then you’re Jewish. Unless of course you’re a convert, then maybe that’s not good enough. “I was in shock, I couldn’t believe it,” Yael said in the article. “My kids grew up Jewish. They don’t know anything else.” Doesn’t matter. They’re not pure. It’s not in your blood. There is a different level of fanaticism, with conflicting motives, as it relates to devotion to Judaism and Israel from some in America’s fundamentalist Christian community. An embrace that comes with built-in hypocrisy. In the Washington Post on January 8, 2006, Alan Cooperman wrote a story under “Among Evangelicals, A Kinship with Jews—Some Skepti- cal of Growing Phenomenon”:

JULIE GALAMBUSH, A former American Baptist minister who converted to Judaism 11 years ago, has seen both sides of the divide. She said many Jews suspect that evangelical’s support for Israel is rooted in belief that the return of Jews to the Promised Land will trigger the Second Coming of Jesus, the battle of Armageddon and mass conversion. “This hope is felt and expressed by Christians as a kind, benev- olent hope,” said Galambush, author of The Reluctant Parting, a Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 147

new book on the Jewish roots of Christianity. “But believing that someday Jews will stop being Jews and become Christians is still a form of hoping that someday there will be no more Jews.”

Cooperman writes that many Jews are distrustful of this “Philo-Sem- itism,” the opposite of anti-Semitism, because of its motives and to the fact the two religions disagree on many or most other issues. Reverend John Hagee of Texas founded Christians United for Israel, a pro-Israel evangelical lobby begun in 2006. During Israel’s war with Lebanon that year, the group’s message was delivered straight to George W. Bush’s White House, “to let Israel do their job” in destroying the Lebanese militia. The quote is from a story by David D. Kirkpatrick in the Washington Post on November 13, 2006 called “For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy”:

MANY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East.

A new dynamic in the ongoing concern for separation of church and state.

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As for hypocritical foreign policy moves or statements, one of the greatest of all time came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The article in the New York Times on February 24, 2012 by Steven Lee Myers, 148 | The United States of Israel

called “Nations Press Halt in Attacks to Allow Aid to Syrian Cities,” documented the Syrian government’s relentless attacks on civilians in areas held by anti-government reformists, protestors, and militants. Pres- ident Obama was quoted as saying “It’s time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government,” while backpedaling on providing arms to the opposition because the administration said it didn’t want to further “militarize” the situation. Russia and China, supporters of the perpetrator, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, blocked efforts by the UN Security Council to make moves against him and in support of the opposition. Cue Hillary:

“IT’S QUITE DISTRESSING to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered: women, children, brave young men,” Mrs. Clinton said Friday at the close of the conference, referring to last month’s veto of a United Nations resolution calling for a political solution along the lines pro- posed by the Arab League. “It’s just despicable,” she went on.

Oh the painful irony—with a dash of Israeli-style gall. This, after years, decades of the US of I vetoing otherwise unanimous Security Council resolutions condemning Israel and offering aide and support to innocent Palestinians during or after multiple slaughters. Or even after Israel used cluster bombs in its war against civilians in Lebanon. In the New York Times on August 11, 2006, David S. Cloud wrote under “Hostilities in the Mideast: Weapons; Israel Asks US to Ship Rockets with Wide Blast”:

DURING MUCH OF the 1980s, the United States maintained a moratorium on selling cluster munitions to Israel, following disclo- sures that civilians in Lebanon had been killed with the weapons during the 1982 Israeli invasion. But the moratorium was lifted late Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 149

in the Reagan administration, and since then, the United States has sold Israel some types of cluster munitions, the senior official said.

Which leads to the inevitable story also by David Cloud in the New York Times two weeks later, on August 25, 2006: “Inquiry Opened into Israeli Use of US Bombs”:

THE STATE DEPARTMENT is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said. The investigation by the department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls began this week, after reports that three types of American cluster munitions, anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area, have been found in many areas of southern Lebanon and were responsible for civilian casualties.

Like giving a pyromaniac a large gas can and a book of matches and saying “now remember, we don’t want you to burn down that school.” And of course it only gets much worse. Two stories printed the day before, on August 24, 2006, directly reported on different Israel atrocities. The first in the New York Times entitled “Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of War Crimes” was by John Kifner:

“MANY OF THE violations examined in this report are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” Amnesty Inter- national, the London-based human rights group, said in a report on the Israeli campaign. “They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.” “During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment 150 | The United States of Israel

by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale,” the report said, contending this was “an integral part of the military strategy.” “Israeli forces pound- ed buildings into the ground,” the report went on, “reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns as their inhabitants fled the bombardments.”

Speaking of fleeing inhabitants, the Washington Post story on the same day was even more disturbing. Edward Cody wrote with the headline, “Negotiations Preceded Attack on Convoy of Fleeing Lebanese”:

DARKNESS HAD DESCENDED on the Bekaa Valley when the long convoy of cars snaked up a gentle slope toward Kefraya. In better times, the little town was celebrated for its wine. But to the Lebanese fleeing the war that night, it was a way station on the road to safety. Or so they thought. A dry boom rang out without warning shortly before 10 p.m., and the second car in the convoy exploded in flames, witnesses recounted. In the blackness, no one under - stood at first. People alighted from their cars to see what was the matter. The buzz of an Israeli drone was heard overhead—some recalled hearing two drones—and the awful realization settled over the travelers that they were under attack. “I could never have imagined that there could be an attack on this convoy of 3,000 civilians, men, women and children,” said Karamallah Da- her, who was driving to Beirut that night with his 80-year-old mother, Neifeh.

The story says a half a dozen missiles were fired, seven people were killed, including a Red Cross volunteer, and thirty-six people wounded. Other details make it worse: Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 151

THE ISRAELI MILITARY issued a statement early the next morning saying the column was attacked because of suspicions—which the military later acknowledged were baseless—that the cars were smug- gling arms for Hezbollah fighters. In the same statement, the military said it had received a request for safe passage for the convoy from the United Nations but that it had been turned down.

Another miraculously disturbing detail comes in the subtext, “Israeli Military Places Blame for Killings on UN Force.” What was that Hillary said again? America has invaded a lot of countries over the decades, has overthrown regimes around the world, including a democratic one in Iran in 1953, and conducted destabilizing operations across the planet, usually, sometimes ironically, in the name of democracy. The two biggest “hypocrisy elephants” in the room involving Israel is that it’s an “open democracy” and the fact they’re the only country in the world with a nuclear program that can openly lie about it. Start with the latter. In a Reuters article published by Haaretz on September 18, 2009, the headline read “UN Body Urges Israel to Allow Nuclear Inspection”:

ARAB STATES IN the United Nations nuclear assembly on Friday won narrow approval of a resolution urging Israel to put all its atom- ic sites under the world body’s inspection and join the Non-Prolifer- ation Treaty [NPT]. Israel deplored the measure for singling it out while many of its neighbors remained hostile to its existence, and said it would not cooperate with it.

As it often does, Israel struck the victim pose. They’re actually being singled out because they’re the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear weapons program: 152 | The United States of Israel

ISRAEL IS ONE of only three countries worldwide along with India and Pakistan outside the nuclear NPT and is widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, though it has never confirmed or denied this.

Nothing to see here. The US of I fully plays along with this and the notion that Israel is an open democracy. It’s open until it comes across anything that contradicts or threatens its public relations. The Associated Press briefly told this story on August 10, 2009 under “Israel: Court Blocks Rights Activist from Traveling”:

THE SUPREME COURT barred a Palestinian activist on Tuesday from traveling to Amsterdam to receive a human rights prize. The activist, Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian organization Al Haq, had hoped to travel to the Netherlands to receive the Geuzen Medal on Friday on behalf of his group. A court spokes- woman, Ayelet Filo, said the court ruled that he was involved with terrorist organizations.

The New York Times published an example by Jodi Rudoren on August 5, 2012 entitled “Israel Bars Foreign Envoys from West Bank Meeting”:

ISRAEL ON SUNDAY barred the delegations of five countries from attending a diplomatic conference in Ramallah, in the West Bank, upending plans by the Palestinian president to announce his intention to renew the Palestinians’ bid this September for enhanced status in the United Nations. A senior Israeli official said the delegations—from Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia, and Malaysia— were denied permission to use Israeli border crossings because their governments do not recognize the state of Israel. Palestinian officials said the delegations had planned to enter on a helicopter from Chapter 9: Hypocrisy | 153

Jordan, and called the decision “childish”, “crude”, irresponsible” and “blackmail,” saying it symbolized the larger problem with Isra- el’s occupation of the West Bank territories it seized in 1967.

Palestine knew that it wouldn’t be recognized by the United Nations Security Council for statehood or even “observer state” status, because any attempt would be vetoed by the United States. So the Palestinians were attempting to garner support for observer state status via the UN General Assembly, a vote it would very likely win:

OBSERVER-STATE STATUS, AKIN to the Vatican’s status, is less than what the Palestinians requested from the Security Council, but would allow them access to institutions like the International Crimi- nal Court, where they could, for example, pursue legal cases against Israeli settlers and officials for actions in the West Bank.

Whoa. Israel getting sued. Now we can’t have that, can we? And of course, both Israel and the US of I both denounced the Palestinians going through the UN for recognition, claiming of course, again, “only direct negotiations can resolve the long-running conflict.”

“When even one American—who has done nothing wrong— is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, than all Americans are in peril.”

PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN, 1951

Chapter 10 The Lobby

The lobbying begins for those even at a young age in the US of I. Check your son or daughter’s history or current affairs textbooks. For example, World History, written by Stanley M. Burstein and Richard Shek and published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 2006 includes a twenty- five-page chapter called “The Hebrews and Judaism.” Pages 208 to 213 are dedicated to Jewish beliefs and texts. Here is a sample of a few of the “history” nuggets being passed along:

ALSO CENTRAL TO the Jews’ religion are the ideas of justice and righteousness. To Jews, justice means kindness and fairness in dealing with other people. Everyone deserves justice, even strangers and criminals. Jews are expected to give aid to those who need it, including the poor, the sick, and orphans. Jews are also expected to be fair in business dealings. Righteousness refers to doing what is proper. Jews are supposed to behave properly, even if others around them do not. For the Jews, righteous behavior is more important than formal ceremonies.

155 156 | The United States of Israel

These are unquestionably admirable qualities being professed to the American public of third graders, but does this sound like the Israel we know? Information that surely got a thumbs up from the Jews that made up 25 percent of the academic reviewers of the book, and met the standards of one of the five consultants who oversaw content, Rabbi Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor (religion consultant), Director of Interfaith Affairs, Anti-Defamation League, New York. Surely he approved of the section “The Hebrew Bible” on page 211:

ALSO IN THE final part of the Hebrew Bible are the Proverbs, short expressions of Hebrew wisdom. Many of these sayings are attributed to Hebrew leaders, especially King Solomon. For example, Solomon is supposed to have said, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.” In other words, it is better to be seen as a good person than to be rich and not respected.

The other major world religions were described in a historical development context, with no reference whatsoever to their professed attributes. “The Lobby” in general is what John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) called “a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seeks to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel.” The state-of-mind that is the pro-Israel public relations effort itself could also be referred to as “the lobby.” And when referring to a single entity, it is usually the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that earns “the lobby” nickname. In fact, on the landing page of its website as of October 4, 2020, a banner across the middle of the page declares “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby.” When Mearsheimer and Walt released their academic paper that evolved into their book, The Israel Lobby, those very lobbyists attacked them hard and often. In the story “Report on Effect of Israel Lobby Chapter 10: The Lobby | 157

Distorts History, Critics Say” by Michael Powell in the Washington Post on April 3, 2006, we are introduced to the scholars’ arguments:

“NO LOBBY HAS managed to divert US foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially the same,” the authors wrote in a paper posted on the website of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “The United States has a terrorism problem in good part,” they add a few pages later, “because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around.”

The main reasons given by the Saudi Arabian terrorists for executing the 9/11 attacks were the US’s support of Israel and the ongoing occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Yet the lobby prevails more often than not.

●●●

Details of the lobby’s influence are highlighted throughout this book; this chapter in particular is more of a potpourri of its effects. Regardless of its techniques, the lobby’s impact is startling, sometimes mind boggling. On March 18, 2007 in the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof, in his column “Talking about Israel,” editorialized:

DEMOCRATS ARE RAILING at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Mr. Bush’s crushing embrace of Israel. There is no serious political debate among either Democrats or Republicans about our policy toward Israelis and Palestinians. And that silence harms America, Middle East peace 158 | The United States of Israel

prospects and Israel itself. Within Israel, you hear vitriolic [bitter] debates in politics and the news media about the use of force and the occupation of Palestinian territories. Yet no major American candidate is willing today to be half as critical of hardline Israeli government policies as, say, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper.

Obviously very few Americans read Haaretz. Any news from that region that reaches US shores is censored, filtered, or modified:

ONE REASON FOR the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an “even-handed role” for the US—and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”

During the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren took command of the polls. On October 15, 2019, the Washington Post opined “that’s 7 percent ahead of Sanders and 10 percent ahead of Biden.” She was vibrant, articulate, and focused on spelling out policy. A few days after the Post ran the numbers, in a Newsweek article by James Walker that ran on October 19, when Warren responded to a question about Israel building settlements on Palestinian land, she said, “It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.” Meaning yes, she would consider cutting off America’s generous annual aid to Israel if the settlement building didn’t stop. Jewish billionaire Mike Bloomberg must not have liked what he heard. After deciding not to run at all unless Joe Biden dropped out, Bloomberg suddenly entered the race in early November, officially filing later in the Chapter 10: The Lobby | 159

month. He’d go on to spend approximately $500 million on his campaign before dropping out in March, having failed miserably in the primaries. About the time Bloomberg signed up, Warren suddenly found that the polls were signaling a fall. By the middle of November she had fallen to third. By January she was a non-factor and in March she dropped out. She was in fourth place among Democrats in Iowa and New Hamp- shire, and her support in the latter state had dropped by 50 percent. She had also waffled on Trump’s order to eradicate Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani in early January. She first backed the move and agreed Soleimani was a murderer responsible for thousands of deaths, but later recanted by saying that Soleimani was a “senior government official” who had been assassinated. She suggested Trump only did it because he was facing impeachment at the time. Probably true, but War- ren’s position was not a popular one among the powers that be, especially since Soleimani’s demise made the Israeli regime very happy. In the same article that suggested that Warren was keeping an open mind about cutting aid to Israel, James Walker also wrote about Israeli sanctions against two Congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were blocked from entering Israel because they supported the Boy- cott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which criticized Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. The US’s “ally”—the alleged lone stalwart democracy in the Middle East—banned two representatives of the American government from visiting Israel and Palestine. So much for open dialogue or allowing differ- ing viewpoints in what’s supposed to be a free and open state. (Remember what the textbook said? “To Jews, justice means kindness and fairness in dealing with other people.”) Meanwhile, over the decades, AIPAC has essentially been a policy and personnel decision maker. On March 12, 2009, Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper wrote in the New York Times about the lobby’s influence in US state affairs under “Israel Stance Was Undoing of Nominee for Intelligence Post.” Charles 160 | The United States of Israel

Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first Presi- dent Bush was named to a top intelligence post by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, in spite of the controversy around the appointment. Correct—the lobby didn’t like it. It was an American naming an American to a post, but it had to be cleared by AIPAC first. That wasn’t going to happen. Freeman had consistently criticized Israel over the years, including the week of his announcement. He said, “Israel is driving itself toward a cliff, and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people.” Mazetti and Cooper wrote:

“THE REALITY OF Washington is that our political landscape finds it difficult to assimilate any criticism of any segment of Israeli leadership,” said Robert W. Jordan, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2001 to 2003. The lobbying campaign against Mr. Freeman included telephone calls to the White House from prominent lawmakers, including Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York democrat. It appears to have been kicked off three weeks ago in a blog post by Steven J. Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Schumer is Jewish, a devoted friend to Israeli leader Benjamin Net- anyahu, and presently the leading Democrat in the US Senate. On June 8, 2013, a story in the New York Times was called “Choice for UN Post Gets Israeli Vote of Confidence” by Mark Landler:

SAMANTHA POWER, PRESIDENT Obama’s choice to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, is encountering resistance from pro-Israel groups for remarks she once made about Israel and Chapter 10: The Lobby | 161

the Palestinians. But on Friday she got an unexpected vote of confidence from Israel’s representative in the United States. Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, said in an interview that Ms. Power, a journalist and academic who has written and spoken widely about human rights abuses, had a deep understanding of Israel’s security issues and sympathy of its concerns.

Whew. Thumbs up from the United States of Israel. In the same story, we were reminded of similar recent events:

CHUCK HAGEL, MR. Obama’s choice for defense secretary, was also accused of being anti-Israel. He defended his record and won a relatively narrow Senate confirmation vote.

During the Hagel deliberations, Nicholas D. Kristof wrote a column on January 10, 2013 in which he pointed out that claims of anti-Sem- itism are ludicrous and devalue the term. He titled his column “In De- fense of Hagel for Defense”:

IT’S BULLYING AND name-calling to denounce people as anti-Semitic because they won’t embrace the policies of a far-right Is- rael government that regularly shoots itself in the foot. In a world in which anti-Semitism actually does persist, this is devaluing the term so that it becomes simply a glib right-wing insult. Maybe that’s why Jewish Voice for Peace, a liberal American Jewish organization, has announced that its supporters have sent 10,000 e-mails to President Obama in support of Hagel’s nomination.

Why was the former US senator in trouble with the US of I.? Michael Abramowitz explained in the Washington Post on July 29, 2006 in the story “Hagel Decries US ‘Crisis Diplomacy’ in Mideast”: 162 | The United States of Israel

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-Neb.) offered a sharp critique of US Mideast policy yesterday, saying the United States must engage Syria and Iran and warning that a close alliance with Israel must not come at the expense of relations with the Arab and Muslim world. Hagel, an iconoclastic [non-traditional viewpoints] Republican who has been considering a presidential bid in 2008, said lasting peace in the Middle East and security for Israel will come only from a regional settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a process he suggested has been neglected by the United States in recent years.

Hagel believed in diplomacy over force; he and his brother were both wounded fighting in Vietnam. Hagel would serve as Secretary of De- fense from 2013 to 2015, a Republican chosen by a Democrat president. On April 5, 2007, David S. Cloud and Helene Cooper wrote a story in the New York Times titled “Israel’s Protests Are Said to Stall Gulf Arms Sale”:

A MAJOR ARMS-SALE package that the Bush administration is planning to offer Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to deter Iran has been delayed because of objections from Israel, which says that the advanced weaponry would erode its military advantage over its regional rivals, according to senior United States officials.

From head-scratching news under Bush to absolutely mind-boggling under Trump. In Haaretz on October 10, 2020, Ron Kampeas wrote under the headline “Bipartisan Bill Would Give Israel a Veto on Middle East Arms Sales”:

THE BILL “WOULD require the President to consult with the Israe- li government to ensure qualitative military edge (QME) concerns are settled” when it comes to arms sales to Middle Eastern countries, Chapter 10: The Lobby | 163

said the news release Friday announcing its introduction the previous day. The release came from the office of the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill. Most of the sponsors are Democrats, including a number of Jewish lawmakers, among them Schneider, Elaine Luria of Virginia, Max Rose of New York, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, and Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Flor- ida. AIPAC, the prominent Israel lobby, supports the new measure.

Interesting to see if and who puts up an argument. They would have to be careful. President Obama was much tougher with Israel, of course to a limit, but he did garner praise on at least one occasion. Feel free to read between the lines of this remarkable story in Haaretz from September 11, 2008. The column “US Jews Laud Obama Pick of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff” was written by Natasha Mozgovaya and Anshel Pfeffer:

CHOOSING REP. EMANUEL is a sign that President-elect Obama is learning from the mistakes of the two most recent Dem- ocratic Presidents, who brought in Washington outsiders to run the White House, and did so at their own peril—often finding themselves in battles with the Washington Democratic establishment. Emanuel’s selection will avoid such “freshman mistakes,” the UJC [United Jew- ish Communities] official continued. “Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun stock, davening [reciting prayers] at an Orthodox synagogue, and sending his children to Jew- ish day schools,” [William] Daroff concluded.

Irgun is in reference to a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. They were terrorists (see chapter 2) who believed in taking all of the land for Jews. His father was a member. Their doctrine is being carried out today. 164 | The United States of Israel

After working for Obama, Emanuel resigned in 2010 to run in Chi- cago’s mayoral election. He won in a runoff and handled the job from 2011 to 2019. Along the way, his approval rating plummeted, based on his overall treatment of race relations and one incident in particular. In “How Police Unions Fight Reform” in the August 3 and 10 editions of the New Yorker magazine, William Finnegan includes:

AT TIMES, THE code of secrecy spreads to elected officials. In Chi- cago, in 2014, an officer shot a teen-age boy named Laquan Mc- Donald sixteen times. The police report said that McDonald had advanced on officers with a raised knife. More than a year later, after an activist and a freelance journalist sued under the Freedom of Information Act, the city released a dash-cam video, which showed McDonald not advancing with a knife but walking away. This cover-up wasn’t perpetrated by the police alone. City leaders knew what was on the video. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, though he denied having watched it, fought for thirteen months to prevent its release.

Murder of a minority covered up. It’s what the two countries in the US of I most regularly have in common.

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Having enjoyed seeing Iraq and Syria being destabilized and weakened, much of the lobbying in recent years has been about Iran. (See chapter 12.) Again, it’s the last piece of the puzzle for the Israeli regime. Not long after he took office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began his ongoing campaign. “Netanyahu Asks Pope to Condemn Iran” was published by the New York Times on May 1, 2009. The story by Rachel Donadio points out that the Vatican has full diplomatic ties with Iran: Chapter 10: The Lobby | 165

A DAY AFTER visiting a Palestinian refugee camp and calling for the creation of a Palestinian state as a solution to the ongoing conflict with Israel, Benedict met with Mr. Netanyahu, whose hawkish Likud government has not endorsed that policy. Mr. Netanyahu used the occasion to raise what has become a central issue to his government. “I asked him as a moral figure to make his voice heard loudly and continuously against the declarations coming from Iran about their intentions to destroy the state of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu told Israeli television after meeting Benedict. (In the past, Iran’s president, Mah- moud Ahmadinejad, has called for Israel’s destruction, although on at least one occasion last year he used somewhat less severe language, saying Israel would collapse.)

Again, talk is cheap. Iran never had nor has any intention of destroying Israel, even as Israel destroys Palestine. It was a distraction. Net- anyahu didn’t like hearing the Pope talk about the creation of a Pales- tinian state, so he sidestepped it and brought up Iran. As always, crying wolf, lying whenever necessary. The lobby is in full support. Dana Milbank’s piece in the Washington Post on March 5, 2012 was called “AIPAC Beats the Drums of War”:

A BARBERSHOP QUARTET performed for participants in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as they took the convention center escalators to Monday’s meeting of the pro-Israel lobby. But once inside the hall, the AIPAC attendees heard the sounds of war drums. “Iran’s nuclear program continues to march forward,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the crowd of thousands Monday night. “My friends, Israel has waited and waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work. We’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.” 166 | The United States of Israel

Unfortunately for his regime, over the course of the last decade- and-a-half, there was plenty of sentiment and proof steering matters in the opposite direction. The Washington Post ran “Neighbors Join Call against Attack on Iran” on October 17, 2007 by Peter Finn:

VISITING IRAN ON Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his opposition to any military attack on the country in response to its controversial nuclear program. No Caspian Sea country should let its territory be used by other countries “for aggressive or military operations against another Caspian state,” said Putin, who is attending a meeting in Tehran of the leaders of the five countries that border the inland sea. The leaders jointly made a similar statement, signaling the opposition of Iran’s neighbors to any military action by the United States or its allies.

In other words, you probably don’t want to start World War III just to appease Israel. Good thing, because less than two months later there was this in the New York Times. December 7, 2007, “US Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003,” by Mark Mazzetti:

A NEW ASSESSMENT by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb. The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

On January 12, 2008, Robin Wright and Ann Scotty Tyson wrote in the Washington Post under “Objects from Iranian Boats Posed No Threat, Navy Says”: Chapter 10: The Lobby | 167

THE SMALL, BOXLIKE objects dropped in the water by Iranian boats as they approached US warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday posed no threat to the American vessels, US officials said yesterday, even as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff charged that the incident reflects Iran’s new tactics of asymmetric warfare.

Then on September 24, 2009, the Post ran “Iranian Leader Offers US Access to the Country’s Nuclear Scientists—Ahmadinejad Says Talks Could Build Trust over Issue.” Glenn Kessler was the writer:

“THESE NUCLEAR MATERIALS we are seeking to purchase are for medicinal purposes … It is a humanitarian issue,” Ahmadinejad said in the interview. “I think this is a very solid proposal which gives a good opportunity for a start” to build trust between the two countries and “engage in cooperation.”

Happy news for everyone in the world, except for the Israeli regime. Also unfortunate for them, some honesty and reality from within, as reported by Jodi Rudoren in the New York Times on April 26, 2012. “Army Chief in Israel Says Iran Regime Is ‘Rational’”:

THE ISRAELI MILITARY chief described the Iranian government as “rational” in interviews published Wednesday and said he did not believe it would build a nuclear bomb, appearing to put some distance between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Finally, the New York Times’ lead editorial on August 2, 2015 was entitled “Republican Hypocrisy on Iran”: 168 | The United States of Israel

THE EXAGGERATIONS AND half-truths that some Republicans are using to derail President Obama’s important and necessary nuclear deal with Iran are beyond ugly. Invoking the Holocaust, Mike Huckabee, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has accused Mr. Obama of marching Israelis “to the door of the oven.” Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, has compared Secre- tary of State John Kerry, who helped negotiate the deal, to Pontius Pilate. What should be a thoughtful debate has been turned into a vicious battle against Mr. Obama, involving not just the Republi- cans but Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The unseemly spectacle of lawmakers siding with a foreign leader against their own commander in chief has widened an already dangerous breach between two old allies.

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Netanyahu bakes the exaggerations and half-truths and the Republi- cans willfully serve them up. And while America listens to the lies and the hype, something else goes on endlessly behind the curtain in Israel. Pay no attention taxpayers. “Israeli Military Closes Probe,” by Howard Schneider in the Washington Post on March 31, 2009, is just another example of hundreds:

THE ISRAELI MILITARY’S top lawyer on Monday closed an investigation into alleged misconduct by soldiers who took part in Is- rael’s recent three-week assault on the Gaza Strip, concluding that accusations made by graduates of a military preparatory school were “based on hearsay.” In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said that Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, the IDF’s advocate general, found no evidence to support the most serious accusations, including alleged instances in which civilians were shot without cause. Israeli human Chapter 10: The Lobby | 169

rights groups including B’Tselem and Yesh Din said they still want a broad, independent investigation of the Gaza operation because they don’t trust the Israeli military to police itself.

Nothing we haven’t read before, but ignored in the US of I by the media and most politicians. This ownership of the collective mind is on display during campaign seasons in particular, as it was leading up the 2012 presidential election. Thomas L. Friedman wrote beneath “Newt, Mitt, Bibi, and Vladimir” in the New York Times on December 13, 2011:

I HAVE A simple motto when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I love both Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their American friends—those who want to love them to death, literally. That thought came to mind last week when Newt Gingrich took the Republican competition to grovel for Jewish votes—by out-loving Israel—to a new low by suggesting that the Pal- estinians are an “invented” people and not a real nation entitled to a state. This was supposed to show that Newt loves Israel more than Mitt Romney, who only told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because “I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’d be inclined to do … I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process. Instead, we should stand by our ally.” That’s right. America’s role is to just applaud whatever Israel does, serve as its ATM and shut up. We have no interests of our own. And this guy’s running for president?

On August 6, 2012, Thomas B. Edsall wrote a piece called “Em - bracing Sheldon Adelson” about Romney in the New York Times. 170 | The United States of Israel

The wealthy Mormon candidate’s net worth was about $250 million at that time:

THE PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN nominee refuses to release his pre-2010 tax returns, will not identify his major fundraisers and bundlers and wiped all computer records of staff emails clean at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. Romney’s rationale is that material like this could be used by the Obama campaign to discredit him.

Material like what?

SO WHAT WAS this ever-so-guarded, moralistic (“I want to clean up the moral pollution on TV and the Internet”) politician doing at a $50,000-a-couple fundraiser in Jerusalem with Sheldon G. Adel- son—proprietor of one of the largest, if not the largest, gambling and casino operations in the world—seated in the honored position at his side? Adelson and his company are under investigation by the Se- curities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice on allegations of foreign bribery. In addition, the United States At- torney’s office in Los Angeles is investigating whether Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corporation failed to alert authorities to millions of dollars transferred to casinos in violation of money-laundering laws, the Wall Street Journal reported on August 4.

Four years later Adelson bought Trump. Referenced earlier, in the June 18, 2018 issue of the New Yorker, Adam Entous wrote an article called “The Enemy of My Enemy—How Donald Trump, Israel, and the Gulf States Plan to Fight Iran—and Leave the Palestinians and the Obama Years Behind”: Chapter 10: The Lobby | 171

IN MAY, 2016, after it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination, Adelson endorsed him, but he informed the campaign that he wanted a commitment to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For many years, Palestinian, Israeli, and American negotiators had discussed a Palestinian state that would have as its capital at least some part of East Jerusalem. Adelson wanted to take the issue of dividing the capital “off the table.” A Trump confidant said, “That was the sole issue for him. It was his dream.”

Dream come true, eventually. Adelson believed it would happen on Trump’s first day in office:

BUT AFTER JAMES Mattis and Rex Tillerson, his nominees for Defense Secretary and Secretary of State, urged caution, Trump decided to defer the move. The Trump confidant said that Adelson was caught off guard. As the weeks passed without an announcement, Adelson started to complain. “You’re making a fool out of me!” he shouted on the phone to a senior White House aide. Eventually, Adelson and others pressured Trump to stop delaying by warning him that he risked losing support among evangelical Christians.

Before another Jewish billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, blew a half-billion-dollars on his failed 2020 presidential campaign, in 2009 he set municipal records by spending $100 million or so on his election to a third term as New York City’s mayor. Until he pushed through a change, there had been a two-term limit for mayors there. Robin Shulman wrote in the Washington Post on November 2, 2009 that “The Mayor successfully pressed the City Council for an exten - sion to three terms from two after voters twice rejected such a change in referendums.” 172 | The United States of Israel

Yes, the city electorate twice voted no to giving him an extension, but he went ahead a got one anyway. The story was headlined “Despite Bloomberg’s Lead, New Yorkers Have Misgivings”:

“IT’S A TOXIC combination of excessive spending and bypassing the public. I think they reinforce each other as a red flag about the state of New York’s democracy,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, who nonetheless said he recognizes the mayor’s achievements.

One of his achievements came three years earlier and had nothing to do with NYC. When former vice presidential candidate and staunchly pro-Israel Jewish senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, lost his democratic primary to hold on to office in 2006, Bloomberg came to his rescue. Lieberman would run and win as an independent. His pro-war, pro-invade-Iraq positions made Lieberman a Republican in a Demo- crat’s body, and very popular with the Israel lobby. On October 28, 2006, the New York Times inked “Bloomberg Sends Troops to Help Lieberman” by Diane Cardwell:

IN HIS BATTLE for re-election to the United States Senate without the backing of the Democratic Party, Joseph I. Lieber - man is deploying a secret weapon in the race’s closing days a so - phisticated operation to identify and turn out voters, courtesy of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City. The Bloomberg group includes several top-level operatives who played key roles in the mayor’s decisive re-election last year or who are in the administration, and have taken leaves from their jobs to work on Mr. Lieberman’s campaign. Since Mr. Lieberman lost the Demo- cratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lamont, they have helped open campaign offices, devised a strategy to reach voters and are Chapter 10: The Lobby | 173

corralling enough volunteers to cover 2,800 shifts at more than 700 polling sites on Election Day, Nov. 7.

He was welcomed back with open arms, and in 2008, despite criticizing President Obama and supporting Republican candidate John Mc- Cain during the presidential campaign, he was able to hold on to his key committee positions. He remained the chairman of the Homeland Se- curity and Governmental Affairs Committee and also head of an Armed Services subcommittee. Money talks, while people critical of Israel, aren’t allowed to.

“A nation of sheep will beget [bring about] a government of wolves.”

EDWARD R. MURROW, legendary American journalist and news anchor

Chapter 11 Iraq

“Now that we’re there …” These were the opening words for the script following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Across the media, across the board, it was only a matter of time before each and every analyst or host uttered some form of “Well, since we’re there ...” Meaning okay, we lied, we invaded, it’s an absolute disaster, but “Now that we’re there, what can we accomplish?” Nothing, actually. Although there was no imminent threat to Israel, the US of I needed a fiction to tell a gullible public because Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein were indeed arch-enemies of the Jewish state. Destroying and destabilizing the country was of benefit to Israel, not the United States. Wealthy American individuals in oil-related industries, including Vice President Dick Cheney, benefitted from the destruction and eventual rebuild of the infrastructure, which is a crime unto itself, but as a US security measure, the invasion contributed zilch. The opening paragraph of Bob Woodward’s article in the Washington Post on September 17, 2007 says,

175 176 | The United States of Israel

ALAN GREENSPAN, THE former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been “essential” to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Garry Trudeau is the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who created Doonesbury while at Yale in the late 1960s. The strip still runs today. Offhand, it’s difficult to find one of his strips that refer to issues in the occupied territories, but Trudeau is no stranger to criticizing the Amer- ican military-industrial complex and its manufactured conflicts. In his December 20, 2011 strip, he went as far as to call out those responsible for the Iraq invasion in four frames. In all four frames a college professor is lecturing. In frame one he says, “For conservatives like me, especially those of us who have served, accountability is everything. It’s part of the conservative brand.” In frame two he continues, “And yet not one of the architects of Bush’s war has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. History.” Frame three stands out: “So as the war winds down, do not forget their names. Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz. Richard Perle. Douglas Feith.” Frame four concludes with a question from a student off-stage: “So they’re on the exam?” The professor answers, “Yes. But let’s shoot for long-term memory.” For the sake of our long-term memory, let’s remember that the only country in the world that benefitted from the US invasion of Iraq was Israel. Feith had strong reason to support the cause. A Jew who had lost relatives in the Holocaust, he fell in line with neoconservative (“Neocon”) causes. This brand of recent conservatism includes aggressive pro-Zion- ist viewpoints. For those prominent Jews who made up the main core of President George W. Bush’s advisory group, promoting and protecting Israel took precedence over promoting and protecting the United States. Chapter 11: Iraq | 177

Obviously. Who else would advocate policy that led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the deaths of more than four thousand US military personnel with more than thirty thousand wounded? Feith’s family included members of Revisionist Zionism organizations—people who support maximum territorial gain, meaning the Jewish commandeering of all of Palestine. (Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu adheres to the doctrine, passed down from his hardcore revisionist father Benzion.) Paul Wolfowitz had similar motivation. His father’s family had lost relatives in the Holocaust as well. He’s considered a leading Jewish neoconservative. His views took shape in college. A professor and his mentor at the University of Chicago was Albert Wohlstetter, a prom - inent Jewish academic behind the neoconservative movement. After jobs as a Congressional aide and at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz landed in the Reagan administration as the State Department Director of Policy Planning. According to journalist and foreign policy author James Mann, who later wrote about the Iraq war years and its background, “Wolfowitz demonstrated himself to be one of the strongest supporters of Israel in the Reagan administration.” Along the way, Wolfowitz became US ambassador to Indonesia, he taught classes at Yale, and he worked his way up through the State De- partment. He climbed his way to the prominent position of deputy secretary of defense under President George W. Bush. He and his immediate boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were directly responsible for setting up the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which involved spreading propaganda at home and abroad that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), the eventual justification for military action. It was done for Israel’s benefit and for American corporate control of Iraqi oil. All of the negative effects were absorbed by the United States government, taxpayers, and soldiers, summed up nicely inside 178 | The United States of Israel

Bob Herbert’s editorial on July 28, 2005 in the New York Times called “Oil and Blood.”

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war, which has taken a fearful toll in lives and injuries while at the same time weakening the military, damaging the international reputation of the United States, serving as a world-class recruiting tool for terrorist groups and blowing a hole the size of Baghdad in Washington’s budget. A wiser leader would begin to cut some of these losses. But the whole point of this war, it seems, was to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq to ensure American domination of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves, which have been described, the author Daniel Yurgin tells us, as “the greatest single prize in all history.”

Mission accomplished. After moving on, Wolfowitz was rewarded for his efforts by being named the president of the World Bank in 2005, a position he resigned in 2007 over a scandal. He had appar - ently given his girlfriend a high-paying bank promotion. Speaking of the Office of Special Plans, enter Richard Perle, like Wolfowitz, a Jewish native of New York City. He also worked un - der President Reagan as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs. For George W., he headed up the OSP. The office existed for less than a year starting in September of 2002, literally with the sole purpose of promoting war against Iraq. Former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson is quoted as saying the OSP was “dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace. (It) lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam.” Perle and Wolfowitz have something else in common. Remarkably, despite their obvious involvement in pushing for war, they both con - tinue to downplay it. Chapter 11: Iraq | 179

In a March 18, 2013 article on the Real Clear Politics website written by Toby Harnden, Wolfowitz says, “It wasn’t conducted according to my plan.” He claims he wasn’t the architect and instead blames then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wolfowitz:

“I DON’T THINK I ever met with the president alone. I didn’t meet with him very often. Powell had access to him whenever he wanted it. And if he (Powell) was so sure it was such a mistake, why didn’t he say so?”

In the 2009 book Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Bro- kers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market by Ja- nine Wedel, Perle is quoted:

“HUGE MISTAKES WERE made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened …”

Sometimes public relations is comical in its gall. By the way, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff from 2001 to 2005 was Scooter Libby, a wealthy Jew from Connecticut, who attended Yale and found Paul Wolfowitz to be one of his favorite professors.

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Some have referred to this particular extended group of neocons who influenced US policy as a “cabal,” or a secret political faction. Secret in this case meant operating out in the open. The only thing not uttered was their true motivation—using the United States to help Israel. 180 | The United States of Israel

Europeans saw right through the verbal manure that many Ameri - cans accepted. The war seemed to insult the intelligence of continen - tal Europe’s population, never fooled by the WMD pretext. Back on August 31, 2003, the New York Times Magazine published a photo on page twenty-nine of French war protestors displaying a sign that read “Bush-Blair-Sharon—L’AXE DU MAL.” It was referring to George W. Bush, Tony Blair the prime minister of Great Britain and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon as the “access of evil.” Bush of course had famously referred to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the Axis of Evil during his State of the Union address in 2002. Outside of the carnage, the saddest story regarding the United States of Israel’s war in Iraq was written by Thomas L. Friedman in his New York Times column on October 24, 2004, “Jews, Israel and America”:

“I WAS SPEAKING the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News’s 60 Minutes about the mood in Iraq. He had just returned from filming a piece there and he told me something disturbing. Scott had gone around and asked Iraqis on the streets what they called Amer- ican troops—wondering if they had nicknames for us in the way we used to call the Nazis “Krauts” or the Vietcong “Charlie.” And what did he find? Many Iraqis have so much distrust in US forces we found they’ve come up with a nickname for our troops,” Scott said. “They call American soldiers ‘The Jews,’ as in, ‘Don’t go down that street; the Jews set up a roadblock.’”

Ugh. Pretty much says it all.

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Meanwhile the American government took an Israeli approach to public relations related to the slaughter and to their own losses. Don’t give Chapter 11: Iraq | 181

them access to photograph the flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers returning to the US, a.k.a. censorship, and the less news the better. Bob Hebert again, refers to it in the New York Times on April 25, 2005 under “The Agony of War”:

THE VAST AMOUNT of suffering and death endured by civilians as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq has, for the most part, been carefully kept out of the consciousness of the average American. I can’t think of anything the Bush administration would like to talk about less. You can’t put a positive spin on dead children. As for the press, is has better things to cover than the suffering of civilians in war. The aversion to this topic is at the opposite extreme from the ec- static journalistic embrace of the death of one pope and the election of another, and the media’s manic obsession with the comings and goings of Martha [Stewart], Jacko [Michael Jackson], et al.

Look! Over here! Celebrities! Who was in charge of prioritizing content? Who determines what Americans see or don’t see?

THERE’S BEEN HARDLY any media interest in the unrelieved agony of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. It’s an ugly subject, and idea has taken hold that Americans need to be protected from stories or images of the war that might be disturb - ing. As a nation we can wage war, but we don’t want the public to be too upset by it. So the public doesn’t even hear about the American bombs that fall mistakenly on the homes of innocent civilians, wiping out entire families. We hear very little about the frequent instances of jittery soldiers opening fire indiscriminately, killing and wounding men, women and children who were never a threat in the first place. We don’t hear much about the many chil - dren who, for one reason or another, are shot, burned or blown 182 | The United States of Israel

to eternity by our forces in the name of peace of freedom. Out of sight, out of mind.

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Iraq. Palestine. The United States of Israel. But then again, they are just brown people. Americans are condi - tioned to hate them and fear them because they may be “terrorists.” In reality, a great majority of them, similar to a great majority of Americans, just want to live, work, and raise their families. And similar to the US’s follow-up strategy after helping Afghani - stan repel an invasion of the Soviet Union in the 1980s with a covert weapons program, as encapsulated in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War, the US again had no plan for after the invasion and destabiliza - tion of Iraq. “Let’s Talk About Iraq” was the column by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times on June 15, 2005, twenty-seven months after the invasion began:

OUR CORE PROBLEM in Iraq remains Donald Rumsfeld’s disas- trous decision—endorsed by President Bush—to invade Iraq on the cheap. From the day the looting started, it has been obvious that we did not have enough troops there. We have never fully controlled the terrain. Almost every problem we face in Iraq today—the rise of ethnic militias, the weakness of the economy, the shortages of gas and electricity, the kidnappings, the flight of middle-class professionals— flows from not having gone into Iraq with the [Colin] Powell Doc- trine of overwhelming force. Chapter 11: Iraq | 183

The New York Times printed a letter from Barry R. Posen, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) called “Fighting Blind in Iraq” on June 7, 2005:

THUS IN IRAQ, the American and Iraqi counterinsurgents face two key tasks: they must collect intelligence on the insurgents, and they must prevent the insurgents from collecting intelligence on their own troops. Though there have been a few successes, the weight of evidence suggests that the Americans and Iraqis are failing on both counts.

Finally, Frank Rich wrote a column in the New York Times on Octo- ber 23, 2005 called “Karl and Scooter’s Excellent Adventure”:

THERE WERE NO weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing a peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly did, we go to war in Iraq?

Rich may be tongue-in-cheek, but the message is serious:

… BUT HERE, too, was an impediment: there had to be that “why” for the invasion, the very why that today can seem so elusive that Mr. Packer calls Iraq the “‘Rashomon’ of wars.” Abstract (and highly de- batable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupt- ed oil production) would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight 184 | The United States of Israel

against those who attacked us on 9/11. And though Americans knew Saddam was a despot and a mass murderer, that was also insufficient to ignite a popular groundswell for regime change. Polls in the summer of 2002 showed steadily declining support among Americans for going to war in Iraq, especially if we were to go it alone. For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most— slam-dunk midterm election victories—and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most—a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11—their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones.

But now that we’re there … It was little more than a month after the invasion, April 20, 2003, that an article by Ed Vuillamy, “Israel Seeks Pipeline for Iraqi Oil,” appeared in the UK’s the Guardian and online:

PLANS TO BUILD a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv, and potential future government figures in Baghdad. The plan en- visages [envisions] the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq’s northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria. Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel’s energy crisis at a stroke.

One might get the idea Israeli oil interests were in on the invasion plans all along. Sure didn’t take long to introduce the payoff:

THE REVIVAL OF the pipeline was first discussed openly by the Is- raeli Minister for National Infrastructures, Joseph Paritzky, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Chapter 11: Iraq | 185

Israel more recently has discovered an abundance of natural gas off its shores, and is turning to that resource and renewable energy like solar power to gradually replace the traditional oil and coal options. In the years immediately following the US invasion of Iraq, the perspective was different. “Victory” brought spoils; the Israeli energy crisis reduced by 25 percent while the rich got richer in the US, regardless of the major collateral damage. This was spelled out in the New York Times article called “Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat” by Mark Mazzetti on September 23, 2006:

A STARK ASSESSMENT of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and oc - cupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among other things, the US occupation led to the formation of the dramatically radical group ISIS, the Islamic State. None of this was unexpected, but the US of I attacked and occupied regardless. Mazzetti wrote:

FREDERICK JONES, A White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, just two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

So, bad for America, good for Israel. The moral of the story? Hey, now that Iraq’s out of the way, let’s see if we can do that again. 186 | The United States of Israel

Maureen Dowd wrote her column on October 24, 2007 in the New York Times under the headline “Madness as Method”:

THE HAWKS ARE pounding the drums on Iran as they once did on Iraq, acting as if the hourglass is running out and we have to act immediately or, as the president apocalyptically [end-of-the- world scare) suggested last week, we could be facing World War III. Or World War IV, as Norman Podhoretz, a neocon who is top [Rudy] Giuliani adviser, says. Podhoretz urges bombing Iran “as soon as logistically possible” and likened [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad to Hitler, as Poppy Bush [the older George Bush] did with Saddam.

Podhoretz, a Jew with an obvious desire to promote Israel’s best interests, once co-founded a powerful conservative think tank that sent a letter to President Bill Clinton trying to get the US to take out Sadd- am Hussein in the 1990s. He would later join others in professing that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. What would it mean for Iran if Israeli interests managed to get the US to carry out an unjustified invasion on that country? Just look at Iraq. From the publisher’s editorial in the New York Times on April 22, 2007 called “Iraq’s Desperate Exodus”:

AND AN INCREDIBLE total of four million people—one out of every seven Iraqis—have been forced to flee their homes. If Iraq continues this descent, the refugee tide could turn into a regional tsunami, with potentially convulsive political consequences. Yet, as with so much about this war, the Bush administration is refusing to acknowledge the human cost of its horrendous errors and pretending that the problem will be contained within Iraq’s borders. It will not. Chapter 11: Iraq | 187

That, on top of the senseless murder of tens of thousands of a con- trived enemy. In Iran, the regime in Israel would love nothing more.

“First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state (Israel) does, openly, brazenly, and with enormous support.”

NOAM CHOMSKY, in an interview with Democracy Now, 2018

Chapter 12 Iran

When you hear the United States of Israel praising itself for defending democracy around the world (while attacking its own institutions), including Israel’s version of it, or supporting intervention that would establish “democratic” governments anywhere on the planet, know that this is propaganda in its purest form. In 1953, the US and Brit- ish governments covertly overthrew a democratic government in Iran and installed a totalitarian monarchy, led by the last Shah of Iran. The reason: oil. The Iranians had threatened to nationalize its oil industry, putting the boot to British Petroleum and US oil barons. That was not in wealthy Americans’ best interest. Tired of the Shah’s extravagant lifestyle, oppression, and the foreign powers that controlled their oil industry, the Iranians’ threadbare tolerance finally snapped. Something had to give, and it did in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution. Iranian students famously took Americans hostage, the Shah’s government was overthrown and a version of the current hardline religious regime took power.

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In 2013, the US released documents that confirmed its role in the 1953 overthrow. Ultimately and ironically, the current Iranian state, the one George W. Bush labeled as part of the “axis of evil,” and one that Israel desperately wants the US to bomb, is a lost democracy due to cheap oil that ran US plants and workers’ cars. Iran is also the last country on Israel’s checklist for destruction and destabilization. Syria, enemy of Israel, was destabilized, and remains in shambles after a decade-plus-long civil war. Syria no longer poses a threat to Israel. If a Syrian fighter strays into or near Israeli airspace, it is eliminated. That is the only public face of the Jewish state’s war on Syria. Iraq, enemy of Israel, was destabilized by the United States of Israel. The US lied to its own citizens, invaded Iraq, spent trillions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of soldiers, while Israel reaped all of the benefits: Enemy gone, nation in disarray, Arabs killed by the hundreds of thousands, and the survivors had no stable future in sight. What more could Israel ask for … Iran, enemy of Israel, home to the Persian Empire and probably the richest and deepest historical culture on the planet, not yet destabilized. The hardcore Islamic Republic has been made the villain by Israel, in the latter’s desperate attempts to have it attacked, preferably by the Americans. Of course, Israel says it would act alone if necessary, but why get your hands dirty and piss off your other neighbors when you can have your bitch, the United States, do it for you. Ideologically, of course, Iran is very different than the US, but it’s not really that different than Israel. The hardline religious fanatics in both countries have a similar track record in terms of their misogyny (abusive treatment of women), minorities, and liberal non-religious thinkers. Americans only hear about the Iranian version of these policies (see chapter 9). Let’s see … if you’re an Iranian citizen, shouldn’t you be a little distrustful or hateful of the United States of Israel? You’ve watched the Chapter 12: Iran | 191

Americans blow up most of one Arab country, all the while footing the bill for Israel to blow apart one or two more. The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has urged the United States to use any means necessary to prevent Iran from manufac- turing a nuclear bomb. On one notable occasion in March 2015, he was given airtime on the major TV networks in the US of I and also invited to address a joint session of Congress to spell out his concerns about Iran’s villainy. Netanyahu wasn’t happy about President Obama taking a diplomatic approach to the issue. When Donald Trump became Presi- dent, one of his first acts was to withdraw the US from a pact with Iran that the Obama administration and its European allies had negotiated, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It had been an effective negotiation that resulted in curbing Iran’s nuclear program ambitions along with the easing of economic sanctions in that country. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons nor will it any time soon because of this diplomacy. While still an authoritarian nation, Iran’s economy and standard of living started to climb out of the basement. Some have suggested a narcissistic Trump dumped the plan simply because he’s a jealous racist who resented his Black predecessor in the White House. They point to the fact Trump also dumped or tried to dump other Obama accomplishments surrounding education, health care, and the environment. Others have argued his reasoning was much simpler, that he was following the guidance of billionaire Zionist Sheldon Adelson, his largest campaign contributor. Even though Trump doesn’t seem exactly re- spectful or appreciative of Jews in general, he simply followed the orders attached to the money. Of course, neither of the aforementioned motives should be thought of as anything approaching a legitimate basis for foreign policy. A May 8, 2018 article in the Intercept points to some of the people who disagreed with the President’s decision to pull out of the deal: 192 | The United States of Israel

BECAUSE GUESS WHO won’t be celebrating? The entire US military establishment: Defense Secretary James Mattis says he has read the text of the nuclear agreement three times and considers it to be “pretty robust”; Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dun- ford, who says, “Iran is adhering to its JCPOA obligations” and a US decision to quit the deal “would have an impact on others’ willingness to sign agreements”; the head of the US Strategic Command, Gen. John Hyten, who says, “Iran is in compliance with JCPOA” and ar- gues “it’s our job to live up to the terms of that agreement”; and the head of US Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, who says the nuclear deal is “in our interest” because it “addresses one of the principal threats that we deal with from Iran.” Those are just the generals still in uniform. In March, a statement signed by 100 US national security veterans from across the political spectrum said the nuclear agreement “enhances US and regional security” and “ditching it would serve no national security purpose.” Fifty of the 100 signatories were retired US military officers, including leading Republicans such as retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, and retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as director of both the NSA and the CIA under George W. Bush.

It is extremely unlikely that Trump ever read the agreement, but he dashed it on the rocks of the Israel Lobby, or in other words the $25-million campaign contribution from Sheldon Adelson. Mattis resigned (Trump said he essentially fired him) and Dunford retired in 2019, as did Votel. Adelson died in January 2021. “The Iran nuclear deal is the most comprehensive and restrictive agreement in history, verifiably preventing Iran now and in the future from ever getting a nuclear bomb,” stated the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The group’s slogan is “building a safer world,” and its global nuclear policy is “reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, preventing Chapter 12: Iran | 193

their use and their spread, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.” Not only did the JCPOA work, it provided economic and humanitarian relief to the citizens of Iran. One country in the Middle East has nuclear bombs but doesn’t have to admit it, nor does it have to comply with relevant international nuclear treaties—Israel. That revelation would allegedly be considered dangerous to the country’s security, so none of the rules apply. David Stout wrote about the history of this reality in a New York Times article on November 29, 2007 entitled “Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Vexed Nixon”:

IN JULY 1969, as the world was spellbound by the Apollo 11 mis - sion to the moon, President Richard M. Nixon and his close advis - ers were quietly fretting about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Their main worry was not a potential enemy of the United States, but one of America’s closest friends. “The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons,” Henry A. Kissinger [who happens to be Jewish], the national security adviser, warned Mr. Nixon in a memorandum dated July 19, 1969—part of a newly released trove of documents. Israel’s nuclear arms program, which Israel has never officially conceded exists, was believed to have begun at least several years before, but it was causing special problems for the young Nixon administration.

Stout goes on to point out that the Nixon documents provide insights “into America’s close, but by no means problem-free, relationship with Israel”:

“THERE IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence that some fissionable material available for Israel’s weapons development was illegally 194 | The United States of Israel

obtained from the United States about 1965,” Mr. Kissinger noted in his long memorandum. He also said that one problem with trying to persuade Israel to freeze its nuclear program was that inspections would be useless, conceding that “we could never cover all conceiv- able Israeli hiding places. … This is one program on which the Israe- lis have persistently deceived us,” Mr. Kissinger said, “and may even have stolen from us.”

Remarkably, five decades later, American taxpayers kick in three to four billion dollars to the Israeli cause annually. As Kissinger alluded, Israel would use its nuclear weapons on Iran to obliterate Muslims. If Iran were to use nuclear weapons on Israel, it would also mean killing millions of fellow Shiites, the Palestinians. Or as Roger Cohen, who writes on diplomacy and international affairs for the New York Times, put it in his column on April 20, 2009 entitled “Israel, Iran, and Fear”:

ISRAEL HAS THE most dynamic and creative society in the region, one that does not convict American journalists in shameful secret trials, as Iran has just done with Roxana Saberi; it has never fought a war with Iran; and it knows—despite all the noise—that Persia, at more than 3,000 years and counting, is not in the business of hasten- ing its own suicide through militaristic folly.

So, why are the politics of fear ongoing? Roger Cohen helps us understand this:

HOW FRIGHTENED SHOULD an Israeli teenager really be, how inhabited by the old existential terror, the perennial victimhood, the Holocaust fear and vulnerability from which Israel was supposed to provide deliverance? Chapter 12: Iran | 195

Fear mongering, on any and all topics, has always been Israel and the US of I’s number-one sales technique. Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”? Nope. Drop the bombs anyway. Iranian “nuclear weapons”? Nope. But it never hurts to keep trying to convince a gullible West of their existence. In December of 2008, Is- rael’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, spoke at a conference at Tel Aviv University and stated that Iran could develop a weapon and attack the United States. In an article in Haaretz on December 18, 2008, Barak was quoted as saying, “If it built even a primitive nuclear weapon like the type that destroyed Hiroshima [Japan in WWII], Iran would not hesitate to load it on a ship, arm it with a detonator operated by GPS and sail it into a vital port on the east coast of North America.” Again, this is one small example of the ongoing lobbying effort to get the United States to do Israel’s dirty work for it, in the form of a military strike against Iran. “We are not taking any option off the table, and we recommend to the world not to take any option off the table, and we mean what we say,” Barak added. Twelve years later, no nuclear weapons surfacing in Iran and no pre-emptive military strike from Israel or the US of I. At least, not yet. In 2015, while breaking protocol and taking the unprecedented non-diplomatic action of not including then-POTUS (Obama) in the process, Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner, a Republican, invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress. Kind of like the State of the Union address the Pres- ident gives annually, except this was from the leader of Israel instead. Netanyahu has spoken to a joint gathering of the House and Senate three times—in 1996, 2012 and again three years later. Speaking of the annual State of the Union Address, President Obama gave his on January 20, 2015. In a one-hour speech, his words 196 | The United States of Israel

garnered seven unanimous (both Democrats and Republicans) standing ovations. The standing ovations marked the beginning of the speech, the conclusion of the speech, and five acknowledgments of a freed prisoner, an astronaut, and three references to the military. However, when it came to Iran “Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where for the first time in a decade we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. [No applause.] “Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran, secures America and our allies including Israel, while avoiding yet another Mid- dle East conflict. [No applause.] “There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran. But new sanctions passed by this Congress at this moment in time will all but guarantee that this diplomacy fails—alienating America from its allies, making it harder to maintain sanctions, and ensuring Iran starts up its nuclear program again. It doesn’t make sense, and that’s why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress. [Mild applause.] “The American people only expect us to go to war as a last resort, and I intend to stay true to that wisdom. [No applause.] “I want future generations to know that we are a people who see our differences as a great gift, that we’re a people who value the dignity and worth of every citizen, man and woman, young and old, black and white, Latino, Asian, immigrant, native American, gay, straight, Amer- icans with mental illness, physical disability, everybody matters. I want them to grow up in a country that shows the world what we still know Chapter 12: Iran | 197

to be true, that we are still more than a collection of red states and blue states, that we are the United States of America.” [Polite applause from people in their seats.] Meanwhile, six weeks later, Netanyahu’s address was designed to scare the US of I into taking action against Iran. The American people heard a message that most of the Congress had to acknowledge in public, despite private reservations. No concern for US troops, no concern for the fallout internationally for US foreign policy, no concern for the economic impact in the United States—just do it for Israel. Netanyahu’s really not too concerned what it might mean to anyone else, not to mention the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dead, innocent Iranians. Netanyahu’s speech garnered eighteen full-fledged standing ovations with cheers and hollering. The American politicians who attended followed along accordingly. Sixty Democrats boycotted the speech by not attending. “I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. That was never my intention,” Netanyahu announced to start off the festivities. “I want to thank you, Democrats and Republicans, for your common support for Israel, year after year, decade after decade.” [Lengthy standing ovation from all in attendance.] His very next sentence: “I know that no matter on which side of the aisle you sit, you stand with Israel.” [Even longer standing ovation with cheers and whoops. Are we clear, anyone who’s actually watching, are we clear?] “Last summer [2014], millions of Israelis were protected from thousands of Hamas rockets because this capital dome helped build our Iron Dome [the name of Israel’s missile defense system that the US of I pays for]. Thank you, America!” [Third energetic standing ovation.] Netanyahu then turned his attention to Iran, a country he seems to 198 | The United States of Israel

blame for every act of terror that’s taken place around the world for the past thirty-five years. “We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subju- gation and terror. [Standing ovation.] “Now, two years ago, we were told to give [Iranian] President Rou- hani and Foreign Minister Zarif a chance to bring change and moderation to Iran. Some change, some moderation [sarcastic tone]. Rouhani’s government hangs gays, persecutes Christians, jails journalists, and exe- cutes even more prisoners than before. “Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America. Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic, one calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world.” This statement, for some, could be considered both outlandish and hypocritical at the same time. (See chapter 9.) “The enemy of your enemy is your enemy,” in reference again to ISIS vs. Iran. [Standing ovation.] “I’ll say it one more time: the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen.” [Full-house standing ovation with cheers.] Netanyahu goes on to trash Obama’s diplomatic process and the nuclear deal the administration was in the process of completing, insisting that Iran would end up getting nuclear weapons anyway—lots of them. Not true, but he picked up another standing ovation anyway. He even lied about the time it would take for Iran to make a bomb, and falsely attributed the information to US and Israeli intelligence. Less than a Chapter 12: Iran | 199

year in both cases. (Five years later following the diplomatic solution; still no bombs.) Netanyahu then compared Iran to North Korea, after stating that by defying international nuclear inspectors, North Korea could have an arsenal of one hundred nuclear bombs within five years. Not true, not possible, didn’t happen, but sounds really scary. But here’s where the hypocrisy really kicks in. “The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, said yesterday that Iran still refuses to come clean about its military nuclear program. Iran was also caught—caught twice, not once, twice—operating secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom, facilities that inspectors didn’t even know existed. Right now, Iran could be hiding nuclear facilities that we don’t know about, the US and Israel.” Netanyahu said it: “we”. “Iran has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted.” Netanyahu then explains that even if the deal works, in a decade it will run out, and that Iran could build a full nuclear arsenal within weeks. If you have ever sought an illustration to describe hyperbole, it is pronounced “high-PER-bowl-lee” and means exaggeration to the nth degree. Netanyahu rambles on: “Think about that. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched ura- nium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and this with full international legitimacy.” He neglected to mention again to those now shaking in their boots that the scenario he was painting would be hypothetically ten years away. Hypothetical, because none of it would actually happen. “So you see, my friends, this deal has two major concessions: one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program [not true], and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade [not true]. That’s why this deal is so bad.” So, get this straight, the Obama administration was in the middle of negotiating a comprehensive nuclear watchdog program with Iran, with 200 | The United States of Israel

the involvement and support of all European allies, with Iran giving up vast concessions and taking the peaceful route to denuclearization, when the Republican Speaker of the House invited the Prime Minister of Israel to give a nationally televised speech to the Congress of the United States of Israel to try to scare the piss out of them with lies and exaggerations so the deal would be killed. It was completely and utterly a grotesque political act. Scholar, political and social activist Noam Chomsky put it this way: “Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done—I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies. [That’s] what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015.” Netanyahu continued to insult Obama’s policy for peace with Iran: “It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb. This regime has been in power for 36 years, and its voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year.” This is clear hypocrisy with a capital H. The main reason hardline Israelis don’t like Iran is because Iran strongly and publicly disapproves of Israel’s habit of stealing Palestinian land, murdering innocents, and gradually erasing Palestine from the map. Scared yet? Netanyahu continued. “If anyone thinks this deal kicks the can down the road, think again. When we get down that road, we’ll face a much more dangerous Iran, a Middle East littered with nuclear bombs and a countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare.” His conclusion: throw out the deal, blow up Iran. Again, this would serve Israel, not so much the United States. In a New York Times piece from February 5, 2009, Roger Cohen pointed out just a few of the drawbacks of the oft-mentioned “military option” thrown around by US Presidents: Chapter 12: Iran | 201

THE UNITED STATES’ role in the 1953 coup here that deposed the Middle East’s first democratically elected government lives in memory. Any US attack would propel 56-year-old Iranian demons into overdrive and lock in an America-hating Islamic Republic for the next half-century. From Basra through Kabul to the Paris sub- urbs, Muslim rage would erupt. The Iranian Army is not the Israeli Army, but its stubborn effectiveness is in no doubt. Rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, and newly tested Iranian long-range missiles, would hit Israel. Chaos would threaten Persian Gulf states, oil markets and the grinding US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US war front, in the first decade of the 21st century, at a time of national economic disaster [this article was written just months after the Bush 2008 “too big to fail” financial crisis] would stretch thousands of miles across the Muslim world, from western Iraq to eastern Afghanistan.

Hey, but it would ultimately be good for Israel. Or so say the empire-building wolves like Netanyahu. He continued his speech. “If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, act like a normal country. … It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it.” [Standing ovation with cheers and whoops.] Ironically, one of the biggest ovations was given near the end of the speech when Netanyahu introduced holocaust survivor, author and No- bel Prize winner Elie Weisel sitting in the gallery. “Elie,” Netanyahu said, “your life and work give meaning to the words ‘never again.’” [Standing ovation.] Irony must be lost on Netanyahu, because Weisel was a peace and human rights advocate; Netanyahu is anything but. Weisel was also an outspoken critic of the apartheid state in South Africa, while Netanyahu has driven to create one in Israel. (See chapter 8.) 202 | The United States of Israel

Netanyahu finished his speech with a crescendo of provocative propaganda. “I can guarantee you this—the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies. Those days are over!” [Huge standing ovation with cheers.] “We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in one hundred generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves.” [Standing ovation.] “I know that American stands with Israel! I know that YOU stand with Israel.” [Huge ovation.] The speech culminated with a standing ovation for a full two minutes, subsiding only when Netanyahu walked away from the dais. He seemed almost bewildered as he walked up the aisle shaking hands. The applause continued until he left the room. Netanyahu was more richly acknowledged for propaganda and war-mongering than Obama for a hopeful message of peace. A few months later, Obama successfully reached a diplomatic solution. The New York Times editorial “Republican Hypocrisy on Iran” from August 2, 2015 said this:

already dangerous breach between two old allies. … Negotiating with adversaries to advance a more stable world has long been a necessity, and Republican presidents have been among its most eager practitioners. … America is stronger when important national security decisions have bipartisan consensus. None of that seems to matter to the accord’s opponents, many of whom never intended to vote for the deal and made clear during congressional hearings last week that facts will not change their minds.

The day before the editorial, a full-page ad in the same newspaper, featuring a holocaust survivor and purchased by the World Values Net- work, a group committed to “advancing a vision of Judaism” to America, stated that “a second holocaust was Iran’s stated goal.” The ad was the textbook definition of fear-mongering propaganda. Three years earlier during the presidential campaign of 2012, we saw other classic examples of blatant bowing to the Israel lobby in regards to Iran. In a March 6 editorial in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd had acolyte Mitt Romney squarely in her sights:

SPEAKING BY SATELLITE to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference here, [GOP candidate Mitt] Romney out- pandered himself. “I will station multiple aircraft carriers and warships at Iran’s door,” he said as if he were playing Risk. Not afraid to employ “military might,” Romney wrote a blank check to Bibi Netanyahu, who governs a nation roiling with reactionary strains, ultra-Orthodox attacks on women and girls and attempts at gender segregation, and increasing global intolerance of the 45-year Pales- tinian occupation.

As for kicking Iranian demons and worldwide hate for America into overdrive, the US of I found a new way to do it with the coronavirus 204 | The United States of Israel

pandemic of 2020. An obedient Donald Trump refused to lift sanctions on Iran, to provide relief, to allow emergency assistance for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Persians threatened by the virus. This insidious (gradual and often sinister) stance apparently brought a thumbs-up from the hardcore wolves and Zionists in his administration and in Jerusalem. As for freedom of speech on the topic, Israel’s Foreign Ministry asked Israeli embassies in Russia, Canada, and Bulgaria to cancel lectures by a top Israeli expert on Iran because he disagreed with the government. In an article on February 26, 2020, the Times of Israel credited Israel’s TV Channel-13 for breaking the story, with the headline “TV: Israeli Embas- sies Told to Disinvite Top Iran Expert who Opposes Government Policy”:

DR. RAZ ZIMMT, who previously served in senior positions in the IDF [Israel Defense Force] intelligence branch, was scheduled to visit Ottawa, Moscow and Sofia for lectures at the invitation of the embassies. But in a message to the Israeli missions Tuesday, Haim Assaraf of the ministry’s Strategic Affairs Division wrote: “Dr. Zim- mt has expressed serious criticism of government policy on Iran and particularly the policy of maximum pressure we promote. In his statements Dr. Zimmt does not promote our diplomatic goals but rather serves as a learned and vocal opponent of them. .. If possible, I ask that you prevent his appearance,” Assaraf wrote, according to the report.

That Strategic Affairs Division, along with The Israel Project (TIP), are often responsible for the public relations efforts meant to guide and/or often deceive the world media, particularly American media, regarding facts on the ground in the Middle East (see chapter 10). Censorship is common in Israel; censorship by Israel in the United States is even more so. Chapter 12: Iran | 205

Ultimately, Israel couldn’t convince the US to bomb Iran, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It was a major conversation during the first two decades of the new millennium. The Iraq lie/debacle from a decade earlier probably didn’t help its cause, nor did having a US president in Obama who wasn’t buying the rhetoric—rhetoric we’d all heard before in scrib- blings like that of Roger Cohen in the New York Times on April 9, 2009:

“IRAN IS THE center of terrorism, fundamentalism and subversion and is in my view more dangerous than Nazism, because Hitler did not possess a nuclear bomb, whereas the Iranians are trying to perfect a nuclear option.” Benjamin Netanyahu, 2009? Try again. These words were in fact uttered by another Israeli prime minister (and now Israeli president) Shimon Peres in 1996. Four years earlier, in 1992, he’d predicted that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. You can’t accuse the Israelis of not crying wolf. Ehud Barak, now defense minister, said in 1996 that Iran would be producing nuclear weapons by 2004.

Even though it’s beyond annoying and dangerous, one could at least appreciate their stick-to-itiveness. In the meantime, Israel took matters into its own hands on a mi- cro-scale. They murdered Iranians inside the sovereign country of Iran. As the New York Times Magazine summarized in its January 29, 2012 issue, it’s believed Israel’s Mossad spy service assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists in separate incidents between January 2007 and Jan- uary 2012. They also blew up a brigadier general and a dozen troops in another incident in November 2011. That’s a neurotic, aggressive country acting illegally. That’s not a normal country acting normally.

“Nor will they speak about the situation of the Palestinian people in occupied territories, France’s responsibility for the genocide in Rwanda, Britain’s responsibility for the disaster of partitioning India, and the detention camps where members of Kenya’s freedom movement were tortured, the American responsibility for the mass slaughter of communists and leftists in Indonesia, or the genocide against natives in Canada, the US and Australia.”

EITAY MACK, the descendant of Auschwitz concentration camp victims, on why he wouldn’t be attending events in Jerusalem commemorating the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation Chapter 13 Holocaust

The holocaust of World War II, perpetrated by the Nazis against Jews, Gypsies (Roma), Soviets, Polish nationalists, prisoners of war, gays, the disabled, and religious fundamentalists was a horrible, horrible atrocity. Approximately 6 million Jews and a total of about 17 million people whom the Nazis considered undesirable and expendable were exterminated. We shall never forget because we will forever be reminded. There are at least seventy permanent holocaust museums or monuments in the United States alone. Of course the most significant is the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Canada has five dedicated sites. In Toronto there is a Holocaust Mu- seum and separate education center. There is a holocaust sculpture in Edmonton, a museum in Montreal, a monument in Ottawa, and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. There are holocaust monuments in at least thirty-five other countries including Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay. While the Nazis were committing their atrocities, on the Pacific front the Japanese were murdering an estimated 10 million Chinese, Koreans,

207 208 | The United States of Israel

Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos, and Western prisoners of war. Of this total, an estimated 6 million killed were Chinese. Two hundred thousand Chinese were believed to have been slaughtered in the Nan- jing Massacre of 1938 when the Japanese invaded that Chinese capital. Most of the women and girls were raped first. There is not one memorial or monument to the victims of this Chi- nese/Asian genocide in the United States or Canada. In the 1930s, the Soviet regime starved as many as 7 million Ukrai- nians. It was called the Holodomor. In the 1960s, 3 million Indonesians (people from Southeast Asia) were killed by their own government and army with the ambivalence if not encouragement of the United States. The victims were Chinese nationals and communists. In the 1970s, 3 million Cambodians (Southeast Asia) were killed by the Khmer Rouge dictatorship led by a man named Pol Pot. One won’t find any memorials in the United States or Canada to those who were killed or maimed so monstrously in the Far East. Yet there seventy museums and monuments dedicated to the Jewish holocaust and we are constantly reminded of it eighty years after the end of World War II. Asian-Americans make up close to 6 percent of the US’s population. The Jewish population of the United States is approximately 3 percent. Americans were involved in the war on both fronts, so they saw atrocities on both fronts. Is it cynical to suggest that the Jewish holocaust provides the cover for Israel to continue committing its own atrocities eight decades down the road? Noa Landau wrote a story in Haaretz on January 21, 2020 with a headline that should surprise no one: “Netanyahu to Use Holocaust Fo- rum to Boost Support for Israel against the ICC.” The ICC is the Inter- national Criminal Court. The subtext read: Prime minister “will attempt to secure backing for claim that court has no jurisdiction in Palestinian territories, as they are not a sovereign state.” Chapter 13: Holocaust | 209

Yes, that is correct: deny them a state, terrorize them, and then say there can be no punishment because the victims don’t have a nation:

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN Netanyahu is expected to take advantage of a gathering of dozens of world leaders in Jerusalem for a Holocaust memorial Thursday to urge them to support Israel’s effort to prevent the International Criminal Court from investigating its alleged war crimes against Palestinians. … Netanyahu is expected to ask the leaders he will meet—chief among them US Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and others—to publish official statements that will back the Israeli claim that the court in The Hague [a city in Netherlands] has no jurisdiction in Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu of course also used this opportunity to raise his other favorite bogeyman, which is the “regional threat posed by Iran.” Average citizens would not know that more than 70 percent of the 193 member states of the United Nations, including China and Russia, recognize the State of Palestine. Among the forty-eight countries that don’t recognize Palestine are the powers that matter most in this equa- tion, Israel and the United States of Israel.

●●●

The quote at the top of this chapter was from an opinion letter written by Eitay Mack that was published in Haaretz on January 22, 2020. The title of the opinion piece was “As Descendant of Auschwitz Victims, I’ve No Interest in the Yad Vashem [Israel’s official Holocaust museum and memorial] Laundromat”:

WITH US CONSENT, Israel quickly became a central weapons supplier for a list of murderous regimes in Central and South 210 | The United States of Israel

America, Africa and Southeast Asia. For example, Israel’s important support for a 1951 charter against genocide was replaced by support for military regimes in Guatemala, and genocide was perpetrated against natives through the use of Israeli weapons. Israel’s support for a charter to eliminate all forms of racial dis - crimination and significant civilian projects for the independence of African nations transformed into massive military support for the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Among the massive hypocrisy machinery (claiming moral standards and then doing the opposite— see chapter 9), nothing stands out quite like Israel’s relationship with apartheid. The Daily Beast website published a story by Stephen Kinzer on July 14, 2017. In the story, “The Secret Arms Deal between Israel and Apartheid South Africa,” The subtext reads “The new book The Unspoken Alliance, about a secret deal between Israel and South Africa, has created controversy around the world but has largely been ignored by the US media”:

THE BOOK OPENS with what was surely the most jarring public moment in the history of this odd relationship. In 1976, Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa, whom the British had jailed during World War II for his pro-Nazi activities, was given a red-car- pet welcome in Israel, laid a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and heard Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin praise him at a state banquet for creating a “prosperous atmosphere of cooperation” between their two countries.

Pro-Nazi?! No problem. There were deals to be made, arms to be sold, natural resources to be gained. Most of the deals, including the mu- tual development of nuclear weapons programs for the two countries, were done in secret. Chapter 13: Holocaust | 211

And according to an article in the Britain’s the Guardian, Jews had developed a prominent interest in South Africa’s diamond mining and trade as far back as the 1860s. The article by Chris McGeal, “Brothers in Arms— Israel’s Secret Pact with Pretoria” (South Africa’s capital city), published on February 7, 2006, also makes reference to Vorster’s visit to Israel:

VORSTER, WHOSE ARMY was then overrunning Angola, told his hosts that South Africa and Israel were victims of the enemies of western civilization. A few months later, the South African government’s yearbook characterized the two countries as confronting a single problem: “Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.”

McGeal quotes from the Israeli ambassador to Pretoria, Alon Liel, who said, “At the UN we kept saying ‘we are against apartheid,’ as to Jewish people who suffered from the Holocaust, this is intolerable. But our security establishment kept cooperating.”

“WE CREATED THE South African arms industry,” says Liel. “They assisted us to develop all kinds of technology because they had a lot of money. When we were developing things together we usually gave the know-how and they gave the money.”

The biggest secret of all was the nuclear one. McGeal actually began this story telling of a woman, Vera Reitzer, who narrowly survived a concentration camp and later moved to South Africa. She joined the apartheid Nationalist party in the early 1950s:

REITZER SAW NO contradiction in surviving the Holocaust only to sign up for a system that was disturbingly reminiscent in its 212 | The United States of Israel

underpinning philosophy, if not in the scale of its crimes, as the one she had outlived. She vigorously defended apartheid as a necessary bulwark against black domination and the communism that engulfed her native Yugoslavia. Reitzer let slip that she thought Africans inferior to other human beings and not entitled to be treated as equals. I asked if Hitler hadn’t said the same thing about her as a Jew. She called a halt to the conversation.

The article describes other prominent Jews involved with the government at the time. “For decades, the Zionist Federation and Jewish Board of Deputies in South Africa honored men such as Percy Yutar, who prosecuted Nelson Mandela for sabotage and conspiracy against the state in 1963 and sent him to jail for life …” The story goes on to point out that Yutar was later elected president of Johannesburg’s largest orthodox synagogue and he was described as a “credit to the community.” Far cry from today, when ninety-year-old Nazi prison guards are still being hunted down and prosecuted for their involvement in a war that ended seventy-five years ago. On the German DW website on March 5, 2020, the headline read “US to Deport Nazi Concentration Camp Guard.” This man had “served as a prison guard in a Nazi concentration camp system near Hamburg. He had been living in the United States for more than 60 years”:

SINCE 1979, THE US Justice Department has won 109 similar cases involving former supporters of the Nazi regime. The last such deportation occurred in August 2018, when 95-year-old former SS guard Jakiw Palij was expelled after living in New York since 1949.

Revenge? Publicity? Are the same Jewish interests who are pushing this effort, and spending US tax dollars and Justice Department Chapter 13: Holocaust | 213

resources for offenses that occurred well outside the United States, also pursuing former guards and soldiers from that war’s Japanese regime, or those involved in more recent conflicts and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, or elsewhere? Actually no. In fact, Israel is selling arms for genocide, happily doing so if the particular victims happen to be Muslim. In a September 6, 2017 article in Haaretz by John Brown, “As Vi- olence Intensifies, Israel Continues to Arm Myanmar’s Military Junta” (junta—a military group that takes over by force), the journalist wrote:

THE VIOLENCE DIRECTED at Myanmar’s Rohingya [Muslim] minority by the country’s regime has intensified. United Nations data show that about 60,000 members of the minority group have recently fled Myanmar’s Rahine state, driven out by the increasing violence and the burning of their villages, information that has been confirmed by satellite images. But none of this has led to a change in the policy of the Israeli Defense Ministry, which is refusing to halt weapons sales to the regime in Myanmar, the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma.

The United States and the European Union had issued an embargo (no sales) on arms sales to Myanmar. Israel continued the sale of arms despite investigations by the UN, Israel’s own High Court of Justice and questions from the Knesset (Israel’s legislature). Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel “subordinated” (followed along) with whatever the US and the rest of the enlightened western world was doing by maintaining the same policy. However, John Brown made a point that:

LIEBERMAN STATEMENT WAS incorrect. … It’s unclear whether the cause was ignorance, and Lieberman is not fully informed 214 | The United States of Israel

about Israel’s arms exports, even though he must approve them, or an attempt at whitewashing.

Whitewashing in this case simply means to prevent people from learning the truth:

IN TERMS OF history, as well, Lieberman’s claim is incorrect. Israel supported war crimes in Argentina, for example, even when the country was under a US embargo, and it armed the Serbian forces committing massacres in Bosnia despite a United Nations embargo.

In other words, he lied. Take the money, damn the blood. In Haaretz on November 12, 2019, Charles Dunst reiterated findings in the story “Israel’s Shameful Role in Myanmar’s Genocidal Cam- paign against the Rohinga”:

IN 2016, THE Myanmar military intensified its decades-long per- secution of the Rohingya, setting fire to their villages, throwing their babies into fires, raping their women, and decapitating their boys. Over a million Rohingya fled; thousands were killed. As the head of the UN’s fact-finding mission for Myanmar told US officials in late October: “It is an ongoing genocide that is taking place at the moment.”

“Never again” is the Jewish slogan of Holocaust remembrance; in reality it means “Never again to us”:

AFTER A LATE 2017 High Court challenge, Israel claimed to have stopped selling advanced weaponry to Myanmar’s military. But public relations dust-ups—Myanmar’s Israeli envoy [ambassador or rep- Chapter 13: Holocaust | 215

resentative] later said Israel was still selling his country weapons; Burmese officials were in June 2019 spotted at a Tel Aviv [Israel] weapons expo—have undermined Israel’s position and credibility.

There’s that term again; public relations. Also known as, so often the case with Israel, out and out lies. It was late 2019 before Israel’s Minis- try of Foreign Affairs finally denounced the Myanmar atrocities.

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The public relations effort also involves downplaying or ignoring the aforementioned genocides committed elsewhere in the world. It would seem the Holocaust doesn’t want to share the spotlight. The US media sees no reason to go down this road, and so it rarely does. On one of those occasions, on August 4, 2016, Ilya Somin wrote about China in the Washington Post under the headline and subtext “Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world— Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ was the biggest episode of mass murder in the history of the world. But it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.” Somin first raises the question “Who was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world?” He brings up Hitler and then Stalin, who through famine and murder combined, killed more people than Hitler did:

BUT BOTH HITLER and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people—easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.

Somin refers to an article published earlier that year by Jewish histori- an Frank Dikotter, It upgrades the number of those tortured, murdered, 216 | The United States of Israel

or starved to death from 30 million to 45 million and it summarizes the ways in which it was done. The basic facts of the Great Leap Forward have long been known to scholars. Ever heard of it?

IN CONTRAST TO the numerous books, movies, museums, and remembrance days dedicated to the Holocaust, we make little effort to recall the Great Leap Forward, or to make sure that society has learned its lessons. When we vow “never again,” we don’t often recall that it should apply to this type of atrocity [communist authoritari- anism], as well as those motivated by racism or anti-Semitism.

The New York Times pointed out in 2010 that secret Chinese documents exposed between 2005 and 2009 revealed the true scope of the horrific and brutal mass murder. Eight times as many people killed compared to the Holocaust, but not a single memorial to honor the victims. The New York Times’ story foreshadowed Dikotter’s article in 2016. So at this publication rate, expect another mention of the Great Leap Forward in about 2022. Meanwhile, for the last decade, legislators in the US Congress have been debating the recognition of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Turks. It’s been a tough battle. How’s it possible anyone would refuse to recognize genocide? Some point to foreign relations with Turkey and that commemorating the genocide would be bad policy. Others might suggest that it’s the Holocaust-sympathy powers that are uncomfortable with sharing the space. There are others. Nicholas D. Kristof wrote an editorial in the New York Times on February 6, 2010 entitled “The World Capital of Killing”: Chapter 13: Holocaust | 217

IT’S EASY TO wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer-reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.

Kristof goes on to tell the story of a young woman, Jeanne Mukunin- wa, who was gang raped more than once after watching her family get tortured and killed. Her internal organs were devastated after she was raped with sticks. Do you remember hearing about this? Have you seen the memorial in New York? Of course not, because there isn’t one. There was money and natural resources at stake and the victims were African:

UNLESS WE SEE some leadership here, the fighting in Congo—fueled by profits from mineral exports—will continue indefinitely. So if we don’t act now, when will we? When the toll reaches 10 million deaths? When Jeanne is kidnapped and raped for a third time?

World leaders are continuously being reminded of Holocaust political correctness. Nations continue being harassed and threatened legally to provide reparations to Jews for World War II. For National Public Radio (NPR) on February 7, 2019, Amy Held wrote about France’s settlement under the headline “Holocaust Survivors and Victims’ Families Receive Millions in Reparations from France” That money comes “in acknowledgement of the government’s role in deporting them to Nazi death camps via French trains”: 218 | The United States of Israel

FORTY-NINE PEOPLE WHO made it out of the Holocaust alive are receiving around $400,000 each, according to former Ambassa- dor Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department’s expert adviser on Ho- locaust-era issues, who helped negotiate the agreement. He said 32 spouses of deportees who died will get up to $100,000, depending on how long their spouse lived. Heirs and estates of deportees or their spouses are also getting paid. The money is the second and last round of payments from the $60 million France provided following a 2014 agreement in exchange for recipients relinquishing the right to sue.

So yes, among other takeaways from this story, the US State Depart- ment is utilizing resources to arrange deals between other countries and Holocaust survivors:

“IT’S ABOUT JUSTICE and recognition and feeling acknowledgement,” Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany told NPR.

That group’s website states:

SINCE OUR FIRST agreement with West Germany in 1952, more than $70 billion has been paid to more than 800,000 Holocaust victims.

In seventy-five years will the Palestinians be compensated for the untimely death of tens of thousands of their family members since 1948 or for their land that has been stolen? Here’s a stand-alone: “Vatican Defends Status of WWII Pope” from the New York Times on December 24, 2009 by Rachel Donadio:

IN AN EFFORT to calm growing tensions with Jewish groups, the Vatican said Wednesday that Pope Benedict XVI’s decision moving Chapter 13: Holocaust | 219

the wartime pope Pius XII closer to sainthood was not a “hostile act” against those who believe Pius did not do enough to stop the Holocaust. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement saying that the beatification process evaluated the “Christian life” of Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, and not “the historical impact of all his operative decisions.”

Even more remarkable is the power the Jewish lobby has over individual US states. Banning criticism of Israel (see chapter 1) in a majority of jurisdictions is simply the most alarming. There are more subtle efforts directly tied to the Holocaust. The original lobbying and legal activities that led to the aforementioned French train settlement began via pressure in the United States. On May 19, 2011, the Associated Press issued a story “Maryland Governor Signs Bill that Would Require French Rail Company to Dis- close WWII Roles”:

MARYLAND GOVERNOR MARTIN O’Malley is signing a first- of-its-kind bill that would require the French rail company SNCF to disclose its role in transporting Holocaust victims to concentration camps, if the company seeks a procurement contract to provide train service in the state… It will require any company pursuing a procurement contract to provide MARC [Maryland Area Regional Commuter] rail service to disclose any activity it undertook in transporting people to Nazi death camps during World War II.

Who came up with this one? It would appear to be part public relations, part legalized blackmail, part opening-up-an-opportunity-to-file-lawsuits seven decades after the fact. Proponents of the bill claimed the rail company failed to be transparent with its WWII record keeping. 220 | The United States of Israel

When the courts lapsed, Jewish senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer, the Democratic Party’s leader on that side of the legislature, introduced a bill supporting the cause in 2008. Ultimately; mission accomplished. It was a sustained legal and public relations effort involving multiple countries and jurisdictions over the course of a decade. Similar examples can be found in a Washington Post article on January 21, 2008 by Craig Whitlock and Shannon Smiley called “Heirs of Jewish Art Collectors Pursue Works Sold in Nazi Era,” or in the Post’s story of November 25, 2007 by the same two writers called “Holocaust Survivors, Heirs Fight on for Compensation.” The subtext: “Though Germany Long Ago Satisfied Most Claims, Many Remain.” Then there’s the case of the Persepolis tablets, priceless 2,500-year- old clay artifacts that tell the early story of the Persian Empire and one of the greatest cultures in history. The Iranians loaned the tablets to a Chicago museum for ongoing study almost a hundred years ago. A Jewish fashion designer and his lawyer led a group wanting the tablets sold and the proceeds distributed to the victims of a 1997 Hamas bombing in Israel that killed five people. They claimed Iran was responsible, or complicit, and won $71 million in federal court. Iran hadn’t paid. The Washington Post article by Peter Slevin covering the case on July 18, 2006 was called “Iran, U.S. Allied in Protecting Artifacts.” Yes, it brought about an unexpected partnership, lawyers from feud- ing governments working together against an outrageous lawsuit:

“THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO justification for this. It’s a bizarre, almost surreal kind of thing, said Gil Stein, director of the Orien- tal Institute at the University of Chicago, which has studied the un- baked clay tablets on loan from Iran since the 1930s. “The Iranians are understandably furious about this. You’d have to imagine how we Chapter 13: Holocaust | 221

would feel if we loaned the Liberty Bell to Russia and a Russian court put it up for auction.”

Nothing is sacred. Connect the dots and collect the money:

“WOULD EGYPT LOAN the treasures of King Tut if they thought they could be seized by anyone who had a beef with the government of Egypt?” he asked.

Twelve years after this report, the US Supreme Court voted 8-0 in favor of Iran.

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The ongoing campaign against European countries, companies and families comes with an irony conveniently overlooked: These are Jewish World War II victims suing in courts all over Europe to get their property or furniture or paintings back eighty years after the fact, as Israel steals land right out from under the Palestinians on a routine basis. Here’s a headline, the likes of which seem to appear on a monthly basis in the West Bank: “Israeli Court Clears the Way to Evict Palestin- ian Family from East Jerusalem Home.” The story was written by Nir Hasson in Haaretz on July 1, 2020:

AN ISRAELI COURT rejected an appeal by a Palestinian family, allowing authorities to go ahead with plans to evict them from a building in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in which they have lived since the 1950s. The Jerusalem District Court ruled Tuesday that all 18 members of the Sumreen family have until August 16 to leave the premises and levied a charge of 20,000 shekels [about 222 | The United States of Israel

$5,800] they must pay to the KKL-Jewish National Fund, which has been deemed to be the property’s legal custodian.

The judges used the Abandon Assets Law from 1950 to say that the patriarch of the family had moved to an “enemy country,” therefore aban- doning the property, making the Jewish custodian the new owner. The custodian exercised the legal effort without the family’s knowledge. The same writer handled a story almost exactly a year earlier entitled “Israel Evicts Palestinian Family from East Jerusalem Home, Handing It to Settlers.” Both stories involved three-decade court battles. The Jews involved sued over and over and over again until they finally won. It could be worse; they could actually bulldoze Palestinian homes or take them by force or harassment, like the Nazis did to Jews and others in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Oh wait, yes, Israel does that too. In the Palestine Chronicle on August 2, 2017, taken from international news agencies, in just one example of the hundreds of incidents over the years, the headline read; “Bulldozed: UK Mom Tastes Pales- tinian Suffering”:

WAKING UP TO bulldozers pulverizing her home into rubble, British mother Jessica Barhum got a glimpse of what Israel has been doing with Palestinians for decades. “You can’t believe a country like this would make a law against its own citizens,” tearful Barhum told Agence France-Presse (AFP).” The 32-year-old mother and her Israeli husband woke up in shock at 5:00 a.m. to two Israeli bulldozers tearing down their two-bedroom house in the village of Ein Rafa, west of occupied East Jerusalem.

According to the story, her husband had built the house eight years earlier on land owned by his family. Eighteen months before the Chapter 13: Holocaust | 223

demolition, Israel told him to get a permit for the building, a permit that’s almost impossible to get. When the bulldozers showed up, the couple was given five minutes to vacate:

FOR DECADES, ISRAEL has been adopting a series of oppressive measures to force Palestinians out of the holy city, including systematic demolition of their homes. Israeli authorities do not issue building permissions for Palestinians who are also banned from ren- ovating their house unless with an Israeli permit, which they rarely get.In 1968, Israel enacted a law allowing “illegal” houses to be razed even if permits are pending in the bureaucratic pipeline. The law is disproportionately used against the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs rather than Jewish Israelis, according to AFP.

That goes without saying in an apartheid state. Taxpayers in the United States pay to support this apartheid and its genocidal tendencies, all while being constantly reminded of the “victimhood” of the perpetrators. “Never again” doesn’t apply in Israel. Jewish writer Peter Beinart summarizes it nicely in his book “The Crisis of Zionism”. Roger Cohen critiqued the book in a column for the New York Times called “The Dilemmas of Israeli Power” on February 13, 2012:

“WE ARE BEING asked to perpetuate a narrative of victimhood that evades the central Jewish question of our age: the question of how to ethically yield Jewish power,” he writes. “That power, for 45 years now, has been exercised over millions of Palestinians who enjoy none of the rights of citizenship and all the humiliations of an occupied people.”

It’s tragically ironic and it must end. 224 | The United States of Israel

At some point, maybe we’ll get to the point of understanding reached by Jewish hockey player Evan Kaufmann, who played for the German national team. He had lost ancestors in the Holocaust. He told the New York Times for an article profiling him on February 18, 2012, “I’m not going to hold it against a whole country for what happened long ago. You’re never going to move forward if you keep doing that.” “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human being than its opposite.”

NELSON MANDELA

Chapter 14 Peace

Read. Expand your options. Expose yourself to other viewpoints. Don’t agree with everything you hear on American radio or television, or read in the press. You’ve read this book to this point. Investigate. Take what you’ve read in here and delve deeper. Find and watch the videos and stories that have been censored. Among them, The Lobby, the multi-part documentary which shows the insidious power of the Israel Lobby in its many forms. It’s available on the Electronic Intifada website. The One Day in Gaza program that was pulled from PBS television shortly before it was supposed to air; find it on the Council for the National Interest website. Watch the movie Defamation about the motives and workings of the Anti-Defamation League from 2009. Read the book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal. It’s full of deep, dark, ugly secrets that are not so secret to the rest of the world. Continue the boycott of Israeli products worldwide; all products, not just those produced in the occupied territories, but throughout the

225 226 | The United States of Israel

country. If Israeli voters continue to elect nationalistic oppressors who support Jewish religious fanaticism in the occupied territories, then that general citizenry is complicit (supportive of wrongdoing) in the crimes. Until irrational, illegal, and inhumane policies committed against Pales- tinians are halted, all of Israel should be held accountable. Support financially, through volunteerism and public relations, or in person if at all possible, humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, necessarily delivered via the Mediterranean Sea and through other methods. Israel cuts off aid whenever it chooses as a collective punishment in the Gaza Strip in particular. This includes limiting or preventing food, money, water, fuel, building supplies, school supplies, and other products from reaching Palestinians in need. Support all humanitarian efforts. Term limits in the United States Congress and Senate are essential. Career politicians have embedded special interests and certain ideologies that are bought or politically forced. The President of the United States is limited to two four-year terms, thus Senators should be limited to two six-year terms, and Congressmen/women to six two-year terms. The current system is broken and the arguments against term limits are absurd, made by those in power and the special interest groups that own them. Urge Congress to de-fund the almost $4-billion gift it gives to Israel every year. This is mostly defense spending, some of which is spent on the wall Israel built around the Gaza Strip and portions of the West Bank. It’s all a part of an American foreign policy that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab civilians, the murder of thousands of Palestinians in the name of policing and protectionism, and the death of thousands of American troops killed fighting in conflicts that have benefitted Israel alone. American taxpayers should refuse to pay for it. Organize a taxpayer rebellion on this topic. Think about it: Israel murders innocent men, women, and children in Palestine while simultaneously making it illegal to criticize those actions in the United States. They have rendered outright freedom of speech Chapter 14: Peace | 227

meaningless. Some Americans worry about “they’re going to take my guns away,” while ignoring the erosion of the freedom of the press and speech guaranteed by the US Bill of Rights. Revert back to previous standards of media ownership in the United States. Federal government regulations that once prevented putting too much power in the hands of too few voices have been degraded or eliminated over the last three decades. Break up the media conglomerates and re-establish diversity of message. Of course, the people who own the media are the same ones who oppose term limits and will use “free-market, pro-capitalist, pro-democracy” arguments. They will cry and scream that limiting free market media is Socialist and un-American. This is pure fear-mongering (deception to arouse fear in the public). In reality, the whole point of having a government is to regulate greed. Right now, those in power enjoy greed run amok with total control of the money and the message. A “democracy” is no different than a totalitarian dictatorship if the regime’s message to its people on any topic is uniformly insidious.

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Support the “two-state solution” even though some “experts” have declared it an impossibility. The two-state solution involves following the original 1948 United Nations doctrine, or a slight variation thereof, that divides pre-World War II Palestine into two separate states, one for the Israelis, one for the Palestinians. What challenges this solution is the amount of Palestinian land stolen by Zionist governments and handed it over to Jewish settlers. Give it back! Giving it back would be no more radical than stealing it in the first place. The United States of America, the European Union, and the United Nations must take a stand in support of this concept. In his March 26, 2009 column in the New York Times, Roger Cohen made reference to a multi-national peace proposal produced and signed 228 | The United States of Israel

by ten economic and foreign policy executives and advisors called “Bi- partisan Statement on US Middle East Peacemaking.” Cohen refers to the template:

THE FIRST IS clear US endorsement of a two-state solution based on the lines of June 4, 1967, with minor, reciprocal, agreed land swaps where necessary. That means removing all West Bank settlements except in some heavily populated areas abutting Jerusalem— and, of course, halting the unacceptable ongoing construction of new ones. The second is establishing Jerusalem as home to the Israeli and Palestinian capitals. Jewish neighborhoods would be under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty, with special arrangements for the Old City providing unimpeded access to holy sites for all communities. The third is major financial compensation and resettlement assistance in a Palestinian state for refugees, coupled with some formal Israeli acknowledgment of responsibility for the problem, but no generalized right of return [for Palestinian refugees, long ago tossed off their land]. The fourth is the creation of an American led, UN-mandated multinational force for a transitional period of up to 15 years leading to full Palestinian control of their security.

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Time heals wounds. Patience is a virtue. These are clichés for a reason. We need to rid ourselves of the old normal driven by deceit, greed, and aggression. Once the next generation, and even more so the one after that, gets used to peace and a fresh reality, a new normal will prevail, marked by peace, dual security, cultural acceptance, and integration. Chapter 14: Peace | 229

Logic must reign over fanaticism. A strong suggestion is to follow the peaceful guidelines established by the Geneva Initiative of 2003 that were expanded upon in 2009. It was a nonbinding agreement between representatives of both governments, which met in secret. Approximately sixty world leaders, some of them normally considered inflexible or biased one way or the other, proclaimed support for the provisions. It coincides with some of the items in Cohen’s aforementioned article. First and foremost is security. Israel must feel secure. It already has its border wall. Now the Israelis must trust that an international peace-keeping group and eventually the next generations of Palestin- ians and Israelis to maintain the peace. Palestine should be utterly demilitarized. Other than possessing a police force, the Palestinians would have no reason whatsoever for a formal military, and any militant group that rises up in the early stages of a transition must be squashed, and violently if necessary. This chapter is about peace, but the legitimate transitional powers put in place must be able to protect themselves, without needing to use an excess of military force. Similarly, radical Jewish settlers conducting terror operations must be arrested, tried, and punished appropriately. Although much smaller in scale, the resolution of the Troubles in Northern Ireland serve as an example. Bad feelings can persist, but eventually the tide becomes more peaceful and generations move along. The Good Friday Agreement (a.k.a. the Belfast Agreement) of 1998 formally ended the violence. Eight years later, the St Andrews Agree- ment between Britain, Ireland, and the major parties of Northern Ire- land further normalized life and security in the region. The Geneva Accord cemented the international border between Pal- estine and Israel on boundaries established in the summer of 1967, with some leeway for land swaps. Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel. East Jerusalem would be the capital of Palestine. Neutral Jordan, 230 | The United States of Israel

or an equivalent international peace-keeping entity, would continue to monitor and enforce access to respective holy sites. Idealistic? There are clear-cut reasons to be optimistic, ones that those presently in power never want you to realize or see. The status quo is just fine with the land-grabbers. In the years leading up to the militant regime of “King Bibi” Netanya- hu, who re-assumed power in 2009 by inciting violence, responding with slaughter, and riding a law-and-order and protection-from-terrorism platform, the mood in Israel was changing. Ariel Sharon became prime minister of Israel in March of 2001. He was the leader who oversaw the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and the return of that land to the Palestinians in 2005. Unfortunately, in exchange Gaza became a “prison” and Israel began stealing land from the West Bank to make up the difference, but a conciliatory (to pacify) mood, not seen since the mid-1990s, had been struck in the relationship. Part of it came from guilt, or self-reflection, on both sides. Glenn Frankel wrote in the Washington Post on Monday, May 24, 2004 under the headline “Key Israeli Condemns Offensive in Gaza— Deputy Premiere Says Images Evoke Holocaust Memories”:

IN STARK AND emotional language, Deputy Prime Minister Yosef Lapid, who also holds the Justice Ministry portfolio and is a Holo- caust survivor, told Israeli radio that the country risked further international condemnation if the army continued its campaign of pursuing Palestinian gunmen, demolishing homes and expelling civilians from the heart of the populous Rafah refugee camp. “On TV I saw an old woman rummaging through the ruins of her house looking for her medication, and it reminded me of my grandmother who was thrown out of her house during the Shoah,” or Holocaust, Lapid said in a radio interview after the weekly cabinet session. “We look like monsters in the eyes of the world,” he added. “This makes me sick.” Chapter 14: Peace | 231

In contrast, Netanyahu’s policy would be to censor the media, as to not let anyone see the woman in the ruins of her home, and even if some did see it in the Middle East or Europe, he’s assured no one would see it in the United States of Israel.

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On the flipside, “Hamas Spokesman Blames Palestinians for Gaza Chaos” was the headline above Steven Erlanger’s article in the New York Times on August 29, 2006. He described the self-criticism of the Hamas official and former newspaper editor Ghazi Hamad:

HE URGED PALESTINIANS to look to themselves, not to Israel, for the causes. But he appeared not to be placing the blame on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas. He said various armed groups in the Gaza Strip—most affiliated with Fathah, Hamas’s rival—were responsible for the chaos. “We’ve all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity,” Mr. Hamad wrote. “We have lost our sense of direction.” He addressed the armed groups: “Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs, infighting. Let Gaza breathe a bit. Let it live.”

Factional infighting amongst the Palestinians themselves has contributed to the ongoing despair. But there have been multiple moments of cooperation. One headline came on September 12, 2006 in the Wash- ington Post, “Abbas Announces Deal with Hamas—Rival Palestinian Movements Agree to Work Together to Create Unity.” This came very shortly after some major changes on the Israeli side. Ariel Sharon’s stroke in 2006 precipitated an election. Ehud Olmert, who briefly served as the interim with Sharon unavailable, became prime minister. The results of the parliamentary election were encouraging for 232 | The United States of Israel

peace, as described in the Washington Post’s official editorial on March 30, 2006. It was called “A Decisive Election—Israelis Overwhelmingly Vote to Withdraw from the Occupied West Bank”:

THOUGH MR. OLMERT’S Kadima Party won fewer parliamentary seats than it hoped for, up to two-thirds of the new Knesset will probably support a West Bank withdrawal. That doesn’t mean it will happen in the next four years; this is still the Middle East. But the Israeli parties that favor holding on to all of the remaining occupied territories and settlements were devastated by the election. The Li- kud Party, which governed Israel for most of the past 30 years and pursued the cause of a “greater Israel” during most of that time, won only 11 of 120 Knesset seats; even among right-wing parties, it took second place to one that favors a territorial separation of Israelis and Palestinians.

Likud is Netanyahu’s party. Following a devastating war with Lebanon in 2006 and continued incitement in Gaza, that peaceful tide was turned back. The country managed to disavow itself from the last true Ameri- can-led peace talks held in Annapolis, Maryland in 2007 and 2008. Just after the Gaza slaughter in early 2009, Netanyahu re-took the prime minister’s office, and he’s been there ever since, as of October 2020. On March 31, 2009, the Washington Post’s editors submitted an opinion piece under the headings “Israel’s New Government—Will the Obama Administration Accept Binyamin Netanyahu’s Dodge on Pales- tinian Statehood?”:

TODAY THE ISRAELI parliament will probably approve a new government that, from Washington’s point of view, looks problem- atic. Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu had a rocky relationship with the Clinton administration when he last held the Chapter 14: Peace | 233

post in the late 1990s. His new coalition is dominated by nationalists and religious fundamentalists; his choice for foreign minister has pro- posed stripping Arabs of citizenship unless they pledge their loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. Arab leaders are sounding the alarm about a coalition that, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat charged on the opposite page Saturday, exemplifies “some of the worst traditions in Israeli politics.”

Over the last eleven years, all of Erakat’s and the Post editors’ nightmares have come true. Netanyahu would have a good chuckle if he went back and read the last line of the editorial now:

ISRAELIS—STARTING WITH MR. Netanyahu—need to get the message that acceptance of a two-state solution has become a prerequisite for normal relations with the United States.

That should be the prerequisite, and at times there have been blips of optimism that eventually get shuffled under the rug. It’s important to highlight them. Most would be shocked to read this headline from December 27, 2006 in the New York Times, “First Settlement in 10 Years Fuels Mid- east Tension.” Yes, Israel had gone a decade without building a settlement in the West Bank. They of course were occupying the Gaza Strip up until 2005, but this is a remarkable overlooked fact. A day before that in the UK’s The Times: “Israel Agrees to Remove 2 Dozen Checkpoints.” Two more headlines from the same newspaper: on July 21, 2007, “In Gesture to Abbas, Israel Releases 255 Palestinian Prisoners” And on August 8, 2007, “[Israeli] Police Fight to Remove West Bank Settlers.” On July 29, 2007, the New York Times published “Coalition of Evangelicals Voices Support for Palestinian State.” The story by Laurie 234 | The United States of Israel

Goodstein pointed out that not all fundamentalists took a hard line against the concept of Palestine. In fact, it may be a very vocal minority, envel- oped by Israel’s public relations machinery that wants you to believe all Christian voices are opposed to Palestinian statehood:

NOW MORE THAN 30 evangelical leaders are stepping forward to say these efforts have given the wrong impression about the stance of many, if not most, American evangelicals. On Friday, these leaders sent a letter to President Bush saying that both Israelis and Palestin- ians have “legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine,” and that they support the creation of a Palestin- ian state “that includes the vast majority of the West Bank.”

Goodstein lists a variety of religious organizations representing thousands of churches. Pre-Netanyahu, there were other positive trends. Also in The Times, on August 2, 2007, an article by Helene Cooper and David S. Cloud, “Saudi Arabia Says It May Meet Israel,” defines clear objectives that need to be tabled to achieve progress:

SAUDI ARABIA’S FOREIGN minister said Wednesday that his country would consider attending President Bush’s planned Israe- li-Palestinian peace conference in the fall, which would put Saudi officials publicly at the same table as their Israeli counterparts for the first time since 1991. But Saudi officials said a precondition of its attendance was that the conference tackle the four big “final status” issues that had bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979; the fate of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to flee their homes in -Is rael, mostly before the 1948 war; the status of Jerusalem; the borders of a Palestinian state; and the dismantlement of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Chapter 14: Peace | 235

Saudi Arabia reiterated these demands in a very simple manner in September 2020 after it was announced Israel had formally normalized already active ties with the United Arab Emirates, a development the scope of which Trump and Netanyahu blew up into a major public relations event. The Saudis were once again clear; sure we’ll talk about normalizing relations as well, as soon as the Palestinians have their own legitimate state. There have been other messages and methods along the way. Palestin- ian Mustafa Barghouthi had his editorial published in the New York Times on February 22, 2012, called “Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine”:

OVER THE PAST 64 years, Palestinians have tried armed struggle; we have tried negotiations; and we have tried peace confer- ences. Yet all we have seen is more Israeli settlements, more loss of lives and resources, and the emergence of a horrifying system of segregation. Khader Adnan, a Palestinian held in an Israeli prison, pursued a different path. Despite his alleged affiliation with the militant group Islamic Jihad, he waged a peaceful hunger strike to shake loose the consciences of people in Israel and around the world. Mr. Adnan chose to go unfed for more than nine weeks and came close to death. He endured for 66 days before ending his hunger strike on Tuesday in exchange for an Israeli agreement to release him as early as April 17.

Barghouthi emphasized “To gain freedom, we must embrace nonvio- lent resistance.”

MR. ADNAN WAS not alone in his plight. More than 300 Pales- tinians are currently held in “administrative detention.” No charges have been brought against them; they must contend with secret evidence; and they do not get their day in military court. 236 | The United States of Israel

A disgrace: people starving themselves to near death in the Middle East’s lone “democracy,” while the US government sits idly by, having to go along with it, while its taxpayers go about their business without a clue.

●●●

It’s this reality, like an emotional version of blunt force trauma, which has led many within the Jewish state itself to make contrarian com- mitments. On August 20, 2009, Jewish Israeli Neve Gordon wrote an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times simply called “Boycott Israel.” The subtext read, “An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it’s the only way to save his country”:

IT IS INDEED not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to sus- pend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself. I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country’s future. The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state.

Eleven years later, the facts on the ground that led to that statement have worsened, the noose on free speech has tightened, and the Net- anyahu regime’s ownership of the American mind has expanded. This book isn’t about the Jewish race—it’s about a regime supported by religious fanaticism and by the financing and power of those likeminded people in the United States. Those likeminded people in the Chapter 14: Peace | 237

US of I make up the actual regime. Over the decades, Philadelphia and Tel Aviv have become interchangeable, as policies and public relations that support and govern the US of I find the light of day although they are half a world apart. It is the greed of power that has led to Israel the enigma, or as Neve Gordon put it, a country that needs to be saved from itself. It is the Jekyll and Hyde, the yin and yang of Israel that is beyond mind boggling. A modern, industrious, creative, dynamic society, locked into an archaic policy of hate and human injustice by extremist religious doctrine. Organized religion in its extremist forms: Islam—kill yourself to kill non-believers. Judaism—murder non-Jews and lie about it. Christianity— support the fanatical Jews because their existence supports biblical proph- ecy, and then remind them that they’re going to Hell if they don’t convert. The insincere madness of the religious co-existence of the latter two is a veil for the true motives of greed and self-interest. Allison Kaplan Sommer reviewed two Israeli documentary films in Haaretz on September 9, 2020. She called her article “Israeli Filmmakers Put AIPAC and US Evangelicals under the Spotlight, and Are Alarmed at What They Find.” In the subtext, “Two new documentaries, ‘Kings of Capitol Hill’ and ‘Til Kingdom Come’ offer a fascinating snapshot of the past, present and future of pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington.” Her review reveals a powerful feeling expressed by some American Jews as to where American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israel are headed:

“THEY WERE HEARTBROKEN,” she [film director Mor Loushy] says. “These were people who were inside the organization, who have given their lives to Zionism. And you can see their pain looking at where Israel is today—and it’s a pain you see across the liberal Jewish community.” 238 | The United States of Israel

Her review of the latter film, from Emmy Award-winning director Maya Zinshtein, involved what she called a much simpler matter:

HER PROTAGONISTS, PASTORS William and Boyd Bingham— father and son preachers at Binghamtown Baptist Church—are both deeply connected to Israel through the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an organization that was founded in the 1980’s by the influential American Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein. … Evangelicals like those in Binghamtown [Kentucky] have little use for discussions on the occupation or Palestinian rights, the topics that are eroding support for Israel within America’s Jewish community. Their interpretation of gospel dictates that the entire Land of Israel belongs to the Jews by divine right, period. This stand has endeared them to the Israeli political right, particularly the settler movement.

Apparently this element of the gospel supersedes “though shall not steal” and “though shall not kill” and other basic principles of Ju- deo-Christian doctrine:

THIS SPECIFIC CONGREGATION is also dear to the heart of the Fellowship’s Yael Eckstein, daughter of the late Rabbi Eckstein. She travels across the American heartland to such communities, collecting more than $100 million annually, which the Fellowship uses to operate charity programs in Israel.

The next part is cringe-worthy:

THE MOMENTS CAUSING the most discomfort in Zinshtein’s film occur when she shows the poverty of the Kentucky community in which the church is located. Half of the children who put their coins in the charity box for Israel live below the poverty line. When Chapter 14: Peace | 239

Eckstein accepts their donations with a smile before jetting off to her next destination, isn’t that exploitive? “They definitely don’t feel exploited,” Zinshtein says. “You can ask how they got to a place where they feel that way, but it’s true.”

It’s called a lack of education. It’s the root of all evil. As this book has readily proven, ignorance is easily exploited. Among all of the activities or actions people should take to improve their society, demanding massive, across-the-board funding for public education at all levels for all people, regardless of race, creed, or color, has to be the top priority. It’s easily done: the entire infrastructure could be rebuilt, teachers employed, and supplies provided, by taking just a fraction from the bloated annual defense budget. Or better yet, take the $4 billion earmarked for Israel and give it to American public schools. Those in control of the US of I do not want this, not just for the obvious financial reasons, but more so because a well-informed, educated public is the ultimate threat to unseating their power. Just as Israel has complete and utter control of the outcome of any military confrontation in the West Bank or Gaza, the United States of America, if acting unabated and in its own self-interest, would have utter control creating, negotiating, and if need be, imposing a fair and just peace and land resolution in the Middle East. As long as the US of A remains the US of I, it will never happen. The United States of Israel has been the new normal for at least four decades. Bring back the United States of America.

“This is not democracy plus occupation. This is apartheid between the river and the sea.”

A declaration by Israel’s own leading human rights group, B’Tselem, January 2021

Epilogue

As 2020 turned to 2021, the Israeli government and military stayed very busy with all things anti-Palestinian: conducting unwarranted night raids into family dwellings, harassing farmers, arresting kids, demolishing homes, planning for new settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ignoring day-to-day terrorist activities by Jewish settlers. In early 2009, during the last transition from a Republican president to a Democrat, the Israelis took the opportunity to rush and conduct a slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. This time attacking wasn’t necessary, because Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israelis would try and let the COVID pandemic do it for them. By ignoring desperate calls for emergency healthcare assistance and vaccines for the Palestinian population in territories the Israelis illegally occupy, Israel was doing two things: reinforcing its label as an apartheid state and breaking international law. In January 2021, Joe Biden became the forty-sixth President of the United States. Immediately following his inauguration, he began undoing some of the foreign policy and environmental orders Donald Trump

241 242 | Epilogue

had issued during his four-year term. Biden’s plan is to reinstate the Iran Nuclear Deal, negotiated originally under President Obama’s administration, which focuses on deliberations and diplomacy with Iran as opposed to threats, sanctions and military maneuvers. The deal was working well when Trump threw it out; he was simply following orders from his Israeli and Jewish-American “investors” whose preference is war. Unfortunately, most other things probably won’t change under Biden as it relates to Israeli foreign policy, not without tremendous external pressure. His administration has already said they won’t be moving the US Embassy in Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. Biden’s Secretary of State is Jewish, as are a dozen other cabinet members or high-ranking officials in his administration. Not to suggest that some or all of these people aren’t open to the humanitarian cause, but this demographic makeup of personnel is standard operating procedure regardless of which party sits in the White House, and the US of I’s track record would indicate no solid action will be taken against Israel’s reign of terror and land theft, just stern warnings and expressions of outrage. As 2021 dawned, it didn’t take long to hear or read headlines like, “the United Kingdom expressed concern over plans for new settlement units”, “United Nations urges Israel to halt expansion” and “Israel announces new settler homes, risking Biden’s anger.” Tragically comical. Urge, concern, and anger? Israel still doesn’t give a shit. Urge away. Only economic pressure or sanctions can change Israel’s mind. Under the current systems and power structure, Europe doesn’t have the economic clout to act alone. It would if it could. The way it stands, if Europe took action against Israel, the United States would punish Europe. Canadians have a similar dilemma. Canada didn’t sign the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, effective January 22, 2021, despite it being in its own best interest and having the support of a majority of its citizens. Shhh … they can’t, or someone might officially recognize Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and that would Epilogue | 243

legally prevent Israel from getting its billions of dollars of defense money from the United States. Any change must come from within, where recently a growing number of North American citizens and politicians have more frequently protested and spoken out against Israel’s activities. These protests and concerns must turn to governmental action. Pro-humanitarian. Pro-boycott. Anti-apartheid. Now. About the Author

A career journalist, R.S. SIMPSON has studied the issues of the Middle East and aggregated material on the plight of the Palestinians for the past two decades. With The United States of Israel - Our Eyes Wide Shut, he marries the two elements of his formal education in political science and media studies. American born, he resides in Ontario, Canada and has previously authored four books.

“As 2020 turned to 2021, the Israeli government and military stayed very busy with all things anti-Palestinian; conducting unwarranted night raids into family dwellings, harassing farmers, arresting kids, demolishing homes, planning for new settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ignoring day-to-day terrorist activities by Jewish settlers.” Why do American politicians and citizens allow these appalling and oppressive apartheid conditions to exist? Money and media. Welcome to the United States of Israel.

A career journalist, .S. SIMPSON has studied the issues of the Middle East and aggregated material on the plight of the Palestinians for the past two decades. With The United States of Israel - Our Eyes Wide Shut, he marries the two elements of his formal education in political science and media studies. American born, he resides in Ontario, Canada and has previously authored four books.

ISBN 978-1-7775148-0-8

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