Part I

On 12 December 2011 hundreds of Israeli settler fanatics besieged a West Bank IDF army base. They destroyed equipment, set fires, and even stoned the base soldiers. This was the second such attack in a month. The cause? Anger over the army's dismantlement of a small number of isolated, unauthorized settler outposts. The Chief of the Central Command of the Israel "Defense" Forces, Major General Avi Misrahi, is quoted as saying "I have not seen such hatred of Jews towards soldiers during my 30 years of service." He must not have been looking.

This was not an exceptional event. The subsequent indignation over the attack expressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu ("red lines have been crossed") was, as Alex Fishman writing in Yedioth Ahronoth put it, staged hypocrisy. The Prime Minister is certainly aware that for some time there has been on-going skirmishing between the settlers and government security forces. Right wing settlers regularly throw rocks and fire bombs at police and army vehicles and "physical altercations" between settlers and Israeli police and soldiers are "almost routine." This is so despite the fact that the government, both Prime Minister and Knesset, "either tacitly or openly" support the settlers. Then why the hatred and why the attacks?

At this stage the battle is over strategy. The Israeli government wants to gobble up all of Palestine in an orderly step by step fashion. In part, this is to avoid too much international criticism at any particular stage of the process. On the other hand, the settlers don't give a damn about international opinion – no more than does al-Qaeda, to which they have an unsavory resemblance. Led "by fundamentalist religious leaders who do not recognize the state of Israel and its laws," they are driven by religious fanaticism and have no respect for governments or their agents. It is their ideological conviction that all of Palestine (including, by the way, Jordan) must be Jewish as soon as possible. The authorities sometime get in the way of this goal and that has led the settlers to, as Fishman puts it, "terrorize not only the Palestinian population but also the police and the army."

Prime Minister Netanyahu, belatedly noticing an erosion of government authority, has begun to set rules against settler violence when it is directed toward the IDF and police (but not toward the Palestinians). The New York Times reports that from now on such "radical Israelis" attacking soldiers or policemen will be treated just like "Palestinian militants." That is they will be "detained for long periods without charge and tried in military courts."

Alas, this new toughness won't work. For years Israeli governments have looked the other way as thousands of armed religious fanatics organized themselves and got stronger and more self-assured. Now, as Adam Keller of Gush Shalom tells us, "the Golem has turned on its creator." These are the people who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin. What makes Netanyahu believe that Israel's present army, police and courts which, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic, regularly show sympathy and leniency toward these criminals, are going to change their attitude on his orders? When a military reporter asked a brigade commander if he was prepared to act toward settler hostility in the same manner as he would Palestinian hostility, he answered "you would not expect me to open fire on a Jew...I am certain you didn't mean that."

The reporter would have gotten a very different answer if she had asked the fanatic settlers about how far they were willing to go. Anshel Pfeffer writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes that "the only red line that has yet to be crossed is a scenario in which an Israeli citizen [belonging to] the extreme settler right would open fire on IDF soldiers. There are those in Israel's security forces who fear that day is not so distant."

Netanyahu's apparent change of heart comes too late. What we have here is incipient civil war. Any really serious effort to stop these fanatics will result in their turning their weapons on those who represent the government. What you sow is what you reap.

Part II

This climate of internecine hostility contaminates the Jewish diaspora as well. There is no rock throwing or armed men threatening violence, but the hatred is there. Jewish critics of Israeli behavior are categorized as "Israel-haters" or, alternatively, "self-hating Jews." This is often expressed with the same vehemence displayed by Israel's settler fanatics. And, indeed, those pointing fingers in the U.S. are often supporters of the extremists on the West Bank.

Last week Howard Gutman, the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, addressed "a group of European Jewish lawyers gathered...to discuss anti-Semitism" Gutman told them that there was now two different kinds of anti-Semitism: a "classic" type that is "directed against Jews for being Jews" and "a newer form" that is a product of "the Israeli-Arab conflict and can therefore be mitigated by reducing Israeli-Palestinian tensions." This is actually a conclusion that was reached by Israel's Defense Ministry as early as 1994. No matter, when Gutman's statement became public "the long knives" came out "for another Jewish liberal who committed the sin of stating the uncomfortably obvious truth about a causal relation between Israeli policy and Muslim anti-Semitism."

The Republican Jewish Coalition's Executive Director Matthew Brooks called Gutman's revelation "outrageous" and one that "makes excuses for anti-Semitic hatred and bigotry." Senator Joe Lieberman called Gutman's remarks "inexcusable" and Representative Gary Ackerman of New York suggested that Gutman himself might be anti-Semitic.

Again, the charge of anti-Semitism can be and frequently is leveled against fellow Jews who are critical of Israel. The logic goes something like this: Judaism and Israel are one and the same. Ergo if you are critical of Israeli behavior you are critical of Jewish behavior and that makes you an anti-Semite. Very neat. Of course, the whole train of thought rests on the false assumption that Israel and Judaism are two sides of the same coin.

Despite the viral reaction, Jewish criticism of Israel is growing quickly and this creates a frustrating dilemma for the Zionists. The pro-Israeli blogger Steven Plaut describes this situation in catastrophic terms. "Jewish anti-Semitism is all around us, part of the political air we breathe, a modern disease. In the twenty-first century the world is experiencing an explosion of it, a virtual plague."

Part III

None of this Zionist extremism can be dismissed as a passing phenomenon. It has been with us too long. In fact it has been with us since 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. That is when a certain segment of European Jewry began its obsessive drive to create and maintain a state for one group only. It was then, and continues to be an inherently racist project. Ideologies, like Zionism, that support such projects usually reject all opposition. And opposition from erstwhile members of the in-group is the very worst because it exposes the false nature of claims of ethnic, religious or racial solidarity.

When and if Israeli society comes to its senses and decides to rid itself of the Occupied Territories the settler fanatics will resist "fanatically," and the civil war that is now incipient will release its full potential violence. When and if that happens there will be repercussions for U.S. and European Jews and they too may well entail violence. It would seem that the people chosen to be a "light unto the nations" have only managed to create another badly flawed nation state–one with a preference for apartheid policies. Zionism said "let modern Israel be" and, pop, the light went out.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Khalid Amayreh * in occupied East Jerusalem | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews."

Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers.

Shas is a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government,

Yosef, also a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, was quoted by the right-wing newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, as saying that the basic function of a goy, a derogatory word for a gentile, was to serve Jews.

"Non-Jews were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world-only to serve the People of Israel," Yosef said in his weekly Saturday night sermon which was devoted to laws regarding actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on the Sabbath.

Yosef also reportedly said that the lives of non-Jews in Israel are preserved by God in order to prevent losses to Jews.

Yosef, widely considered a prominent Torah sage and authority on the interpretation of Talmud, a basic Jewish scripture, held a comparison between animals of burden and non-Jews.

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them...With gentiles, it will be like any person-They need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money."

"This is his servant...That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."

Yosef further elucidated his ideas about the servitude of gentiles to Jews, asking "why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap; and we will sit like an effendi and eat."

"That is why gentiles were created."

The concept of gentiles being infra-human beings or quasi-animals is well-established in Orthodox Judaism.

For example, rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement, a supremacist but influential Jewish sect, teach openly that at the spiritual level, non-Jews have the status of animals.

Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, was quoted as saying that the difference between a Jew and a gentile was greater and deeper than the difference between humans and animals.

"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews - all of them in all different levels - is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

Some of Kook's manifestly racist ideas are taught in the Talmudic college, Merkaz H'arav, in Jerusalem. The college is named after Kook.

In his book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, the late Israeli writer and intellectual Israel Shahak argued that whenever Orthodox rabbis use the word "human," they normally didn't refer to all humans, but only to Jews, since non-Jews are not considered humans according to Halacha of Jewish law.

A few years ago, a member of the Israeli Knesset, castigated Israeli soldiers for "treating human beings as if they were Arabs." The Knesset member, Aryeh Eldad, was commenting on the evacuation by the Israeli army of a settler outpost in the West Bank.

Faced with the negative effect of certain Biblical and Talmudic teachings on inter-religious relations, some Christian leaders in Europe have called on the Jewish religious establishment to reform the traditional Halacha perceptions of non-Jews.

However, while the Reform and Conservative sects of Judaism, have related positively to such calls, most Orthodox Jews have totally rejected the calls, arguing that the Bible is God's word which can't be altered under any circumstances.

The Bible says that non-Jews living under Jewish rule must serve as "water carriers and wood hewers" for the master race.

In Joshua (9:27), we read " That day, Joshua made the Gibeonites woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the Place the Lord would choose. And that is what they are to this days."

Elsewhere in the Bible, Israelites are strongly urged to treat "strangers living in your midst" humanely "because you yourselves were strangers in Egypt."

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"The American people are afraid, they see disaster coming. Everyone is waiting to see what city is chosen to be sacrificed. Will it be Phoenix or Sacramento or perhaps Atlanta? This is the real fear, the "not so secret" fear in the heart of every American."

For years, America's military has been divided, competent military professionals and patriots on one side and Christian Zionists, loyal to Israel and addicted to a propaganda "dreamworld" on the other. Americans sat, on 9/11, with their military "asleep at the switch," their president in a daze and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, perhaps out of confusion, we may never know, talking about airliners being shot down and the Pentagon being attacked by missiles. Yes, he said these things, things he couldn't "unsay" but things the press showed once and quickly buried. Something terribly wrong happened, something years in planning, but not planned in a cave in Afghanistan. Everywhere investigators look, one thing pops up, Israel. The moment that door is opened, it is slammed shut, often with threats, often with more than threats.

We may never know the full extent of the brutality used against those who have spoken up. We know that Arab leaders can be assassinated anywhere, any time. America will remain silent and the news will always support Israel. Israel owns the news.

What about the "suicided" British scientist Dr. David Kelly, the man responsible for moving the Israeli nukes out of South Africa? Reliable sources tell us he was ready to come forward with the facts about a massive political scandal, a cover-up of lost nuclear weapons, blackmail and bribery.

Do we really believe that there are so many unlucky United States senators? Crashes of small aircraft has done more to control the US Senate than any election, control used to set the stage for a generation of wars. With AIPAC capable of buying any election, capable, willing and doing it, not an American organization at all but a lobby for a foreign government, one that likes America "not so much" as we are lead to believe, is representative government in the United States dead? When someone swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, is it meaningless when the government itself is no longer "American?"

Control of America, or, more appropriately, control of America's vast military, tired and worn as it is, represents the key to ruling the world. Fooling the people, buying the government and duping America's military through infiltrating every level of critical decision making and communications is a task, not only attempted but one long since accomplished. Problem is, even with, not only control of the press, but powerful news organizations directly under foreign control like Fox News, word is getting out.

The American people are afraid, they see disaster coming. Everyone is waiting to see what city is chosen to be sacrificed. Will it be Phoenix or Sacramento or perhaps Atlanta? This is the real fear, the "not so secret" fear in the heart of every American.

When and if it happens, Americans are not so willing to believe a few goat herds in a cave 8000 miles away planned it, not anymore.

Why do you think Senator Lieberman has demanded a "kill switch" on the internet? Why do you think "censorship czar" Cass Sunstein has asked to have accusations of Israeli complicity in 9/11 made a criminal act and openly advocated infiltration of groups pushing for an honest investigation. Who is the real "conspiracy theorist" now?

With thousands of of military and intelligence officials, retirees openly, others hiding their rage, aware of the decades of Israeli spying and the 9/11 cover-up, this divide has never been so strong. What we don't know is how many serving today have the personal courage to speak out openly. Now the threat is nuclear weapons, not just a "shoebox dirty bomb" but full sized nukes, the weapons we have been hunting for years, claiming Saddam was prepared to use them "at 45 minutes notice," the same nukes "sent to Syria by ambulance." They could be anywhere and anyone could be ready to use one. There is only one possible culprit capable of doing this, however, only one country with something to gain and the willingness to act.

"We have hundreds of nuclear warheads and missiles that can reach different targets in the heart of the European continent, including beyond the borders of Rome, the Italian capital... our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us." (Israeli military historian, Martin van Creveld)

Morons or "Masters of the Universe"

Thus, the general basis for the public's ideas about who Israel is, what Zionism advocates and what Islam is really about will be unreliable. When you add control of universities, all academic publishing and even total disruption of free speech, the most extreme ideas can be accepted as fact. They have been.

A substantial evidentiary trail exists that places Israel's possible involvement in 9/11 on the table, with dozens of suspects questioned and more and more of the "facts" about 9/11 now proving, as with the Kennedy assassinations, to be lies.

Real theories, not "conspiracy" tell us that 9/11 was planned to get America to attack Iraq, part of Israel's long term strategy for the region, leaving them, not only the only nuclear power, but an armed aggressor afloat in a sea of broken nations occupied by American troops, troops who take orders from politicians who take orders from Israel. However, after the massive Bush administration blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan and the virtual destruction of a military incapable of sustaining a decade long war, the planned Israeli attack using American troops, again, isn't moving forward as we all know it was planned to.

This time, after America was so badly burned, pushed by the Bush security team, almost all Israeli citizens, many of them still around, running America for Obama, into two insane "Vietnams" it will take more than 3000 murders. With the "duping of America" over 9/11 coming unraveled, something horrendous is in the planning. There is an obvious next step and it has to be nuclear. Anything less would bring an outcry against Israel immediately. Only the "unthinkable" combined with a strong public relations campaign and a cover story with a "do it yourself" terrorist group, like so many of the "just add water" terrorist organizations the Mossad has organized for just such an occasion, will sell the lie, this and the press, not just in America but the other real voice of Israel, the BBC.

The stories about the mobile labs, the "yellow cake" uranium were lies, pap fed to a willing and complicit press. However, the threats are real but how does America protect herself when those tasked with that duty turn a blind eye to the biggest threat. In 1967, Israel was allowed to kill or wound 201 of 296 Americans on the USS Liberty. Surviving crewmen are still threatened by Israeli security for speaking up, as Philip Tourney and his wife will gladly tell you. Captain McGonagle, who won the Medal of Honor working to save his crew from hours of brutal attacks, cried out for justice to his dying day. The American military stood silent as it did on 9/11, as it did on that day in 1967 and as it may have done many times since.

Those among America's military in 1967, those willing to send the planes from the carriers America and Saratoga to bomb Egypt on behalf of Israel received the thanks of a grateful nation. Too bad that nation was not the United States of America. Only when Israel informed Washington that it had failed to both sink the USS Liberty and effect a takeover of the ship, killing the entire crew, did Admiral McCain order planes headed toward Egypt to return. It had been previously believed these planes were meant to help the USS Liberty.

We have since been reliably informed by sources within the Navy that the planes were armed for ground attack. Thus, as early as 1967, America was willing to see its own troops butchered "for the good of Greater Israel." Proof of this is incontrovertible and witnesses on both the Liberty and Saratoga have come forward.

We will never know for sure, what secrets are stolen, what weapons given, what enemies aided, what American interests betrayed. With dozens of organizations demanding 9/11 be investigated and the lowest estimate of those who no longer believe the cover story at 30%, not a single active duty military officer, not one member of congress nor a single member of the mainstream press has said a word about it. How can thousands of prominent Americans demand that their country begin defending itself and it be covered up? Who has that power?

America has lost at least 6 nuclear weapons since 1990, maybe more, not Russia or some "breakaway republic," once part of the Soviet Union. 3 were American hydrogen bombs off Somalia, no longer usable but with enough plutonium in them to build many fission weapons. 3 more were part of 9 produced by Israel in South Africa back in the 80s, all supposedly sent to America for dismantling. 3 of the containers were filled with concrete blocks. They had been consigned to "friends of Israel" for shipment and were stolen from an unguarded facility in Oman after having been abandoned for months. This would be a wild claim if we hadn't interviewed those involved in the project and been made privy to a well documented and detailed history of the operation.

These "unattributable" nukes have only one purpose, to be used in a terrorist attack on the United States, a "false flag" attack, to drive America to attack Iran and Pakistan.

How many loyal Americans, FBI, Homeland Security and other agencies are searching the nation, warehouses, ports, looking for the blue 20 foot shipping containers? How many "dual citizens" are tasked with some other purpose? Are our "protectors" really "ours" or do they work for the same pack that bought our congress? Will we find out when a mushroom cloud appears over one of our cities?

Today, America is facing the biggest threat since World War 2. Nothing will be in the news, nothing will ever be in the news, not the truth anyway. When it happens, the news will be ready, like on 9/11 when it was called on to talk Arabs and box cutters, a childish conspiracy theory millions still believe. It was ready to talk weapons of mass destruction and when that turned out to be a lie, it was ready to sit silent for its complicity in war crimes. "War crimes" seems like a harsh term but the definition fits. Invading Iraq on, not a whim, but a series of lies orchestrated by a criminal conspiracy is a war crime. Less obvious to many, the takeover of Afghanistan as a drug production facility or a base for destabilizing Pakistan or an operation center for gas pipelines, whichever reason you choose, was justified by lies as serious as those used to justify Iraq.

For those who follow such things, real leaks are proving two things:

1. Osama bin Laden never stopped working for the Central Intelligence Agency and their "regional affiliates."
2. Bin Laden was murdered to silence him after 9/11 just as Benzir Bhutto was murdered to silence her.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zScYmvmANcA

Real news never reaches America, news that shows terrorism, corporate banditry and the biggest drug cartel in history, tied to American allies, some Muslim but one worse than all combined, Israel. Even today, the mythology of "threatened" Israel and the rockets raining down on their cities, all imagination, is still believed by many in our military. When 9/11 came, be it radio controlled planes, missiles, controlled demolition, our military was on "stand down," ordered to let the attacks move forward and then roll across the Middle East, an Army hijacked by Israel to help them start their long planned world conquest. Today, America basks in defeat and humiliation and Israel laughs.

We have continual debates about religion in the military. Should Christian sects be able to force troops to prayer? Is America a Christian nation, is this what the founding fathers meant? What if, lets say, these sects were not loyal to the United States but rather constituted a national threat? Is an officer belonging to a Christian Zionist church likely to pass secrets on to Israel? Will they obey orders from the Mossad above their own commanders? Will an Christian Zionist with nuclear access follow his religious calling and cause a nuclear war to bring about Armageddon?

What if their power in the military was that great, part of a systematic infiltration of the military through an extremist take-over of the chaplain's services and eventually admissions and curriculum of the service academies themselves? What else could explain the total silence we have seen when torture, kidnapping, illegal invasions and "stand downs" to allow terrorist attacks are the norm. How many officers have violated the Geneva Convention, their oaths and the Uniform Code of Military Justice because they felt obliged to a "higher power" to exhibit extreme cruelty, cleansing the world of "infidels?"

Those in the military that feel, as Christians, they are tied to Israel, have lost their minds. Islam and Judaism are much closer than Christianity and Judaism. With the advent of the trinity, both Jews and Muslims see Christians as, not only polytheistic, worshiping 3 gods, not one, but idolaters as well. To both Jews and Muslims, these issues alone are enough to make Christianity an enemy. Islam, a religion totally based on Judaism, an Abrahamic faith, built on the foundation of the books of Moses, sees itself as a reform movement stressing moral values as outlined in the Koran and the teachings of the prophet, Mohammad (peace be on him).

To a Christian with a real education, the struggle between the Jews and Muslims is a "family matter." Jews are the beloved children of Islam who have yet to accept the reforms that defined the true religion. We must remember, without Judaism and g-d's covenant with Israel, there would be no Islam. Christianity is seen as a Hellenistic bastardization of biblical teachings watered down to sell to the pagan Roman empire. You won't hear it, not publicly, but it is exactly what is taught to every student, Jew, Muslim, this is their belief.

Muslims have "jihad" and Jews were chosen by g-d to rule the world. 90% of the most serious accusations each makes of the other are, actually, part of the religion of both, only Jews are much better at public relations. After all, they own 90% of the world's media, print, broadcast, even much of the internet. How do we trust military leaders who don't know that "goyim" means "cattle?" If you are "cattle" and you believe those who see you as such are your best friends, you are not dealing with reality. Perhaps we should teach The Scorpion and the Toad at West Point. This should be the start of the first day's lecture on America's Strategic Security in the 21st Century:

The scorpion, in the course of a long journey, encounters a river. The scorpion cannot swim and so he is momentarily stymied until he spies the toad, on the opposite river bank. "Toad!" the scorpion calls out, "will you please let me ride on your back to the other side of the river because, you see, I cannot swim." "No way," replied the toad, "if I let you ride on my back you will sting me!" To which the scorpion replied, "But if I am riding on your back and I sting you then we will both die because I cannot swim." After thinking on it for a moment or two the toad agrees, swims over to the opposite bank of the river where the scorpion jumps onto his back and he turns to swim to the other side. When the toad, with the scorpion riding on his back, gets to the middle of the river, the scorpion stings him. "Scorpion!" Exclaimed the toad, "Why did you sting me? Now we both die."

"Because it is in my nature." Was the scorpion's response.

Should we be sick of watching our troops walk through poppy fields, knowing the heroin being produced is destroying the United States, filling our prisons but, at the same time, filling the pockets of, well who? Who is getting a cut of the $65 billion dollars a year earned from the partnership in Afghanistan? Israel is the money end, the CIA does transportation, the Afghan government runs production, but who does distribution? Do the planes really land on military bases? We have already found bales of cash leaving Afghanistan heading for Dubai.

This is only a small part of the money involved. It is this money, combined with the billions we give Israel, the billions they take out of the American economy through control of the Federal Reserve System (a quasi-governmental scheme of banks with Rothschild lineage that control America) that makes it impossible to get honest news, elect honest politicians and even trust our own military.

In fact, a large majority of Americans openly admit, on every opinion poll, that they don't trust our congress, our president or any American institution. Nobody asks them why. Would they know? Is it because a foreign country controls our banks, our news, our congress, our military , our foreign policy? Is it because the only reason politics exist in America is so the greedy can line up at the trough, not caring who is pouring the slop, as long as they get theirs first.

No American has a clue where President Obama came from. Many believe he is foreign born, many more think he is Muslim and some believe he is a space alien. In 250 years, documents will be declassified that will either prove or disprove that former President Bush belonged in prison, not the White House, guilty of, not AWOL (absent without leave) but desertion during wartime. There is no reasonable doubt of his guilt, only that he used his power to prevent arrest and prosecution. After 9/11, no more questions were asked, and no more witness had to receive new homes, fat government jobs or have mysterious heart attacks.

For the Bush years, it was made clear that a military career had to be built on loyalty to Israel, even though their nuclear arsenal and their ethnic cleansing of Palestine are the root of every conflict confronting America today. There is no military alliance with Israel. America has no potential enemies. In fact, every nation in the region is either controlled by the United States, occupied or frightened to death. Iran trying to stand against America is the equivalent of Denmark standing against Hitler's blitzkrieg.

The view of the state of affairs taught our military is childishly stupid. How many of our military leaders are childishly stupid also?

READER SUPPLIED BACKGROUND:
Gordon,
I was reading your article today, and I thought about General Scratchley Brown. I wasn’t sure if you knew who he was. He caused some controversy a long time ago while Chairman of JCS. You can take a look at his remarks on his wikipedia entry. I smiled when I read it a few years ago. But….seems some things really haven’t changed. I cannot see a CJCS saying what he said now.
Take Care,
Tassi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Scratchley_Brown

Controversy During his term as CJCS, Brown commented on two occasions, to a Duke University audience in October, 1974, and to a French reporter in 1976, that Israel was becoming a burden to The Pentagon and believed that the reason for continual military aid was due to Jews having control over America’s banks, newspapers and elected officials. His exact words were:

It’s so strong you wouldn’t believe now. We have the Israelis coming to us for equipment. We say we can’t possibly get the Congress to support that. They say, ‘Don’t worry about the Congress. We will take care of the Congress.’ Now this is somebody from another country, but they can do it. They own. you know, the banks in this country, the newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is.

Although he was reprimanded by President Gerald Ford to apologize and pressured to resign his post, Brown finished out his term under President Jimmy Carter. Brown’s comments at Duke and subsequent reprimand by President Ford were reported on the front page of The Washington Post on Nov. 13, 1974, and Nov. 14, 1974, respectively. Brown also predicted that Iran would soon become an important military power in the Middle East.

Brown was known for the directness of his speech, which sometimes offended those around him. Asked once to comment on his opinion of the British Armed Forces, Brown replied, “The British? All they have are generals, admirals and bands.”

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

Religion And Democracy Are Incompatible, This Is Why We Learn History

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"As more and more devout rural congregations across America were organized as political pressure groups, it didn't take long for extremist doctrines to be imposed and for cheap, dirty politics to move onto the pulpit."

Where to we start? Do we try to clear up the mythologies, alright we can simply call them lies, about the "founding fathers?" Hey, they were atheists! These were men from "The Age of Reason." This meant they rejected all religion as superstition. All this talk about Jefferson or Franklin being "theists" or trying to negotiate and "lawyer" some religion into the Constitution through the "back door" is simply pandering.

Divide and Conquer

All the talk about the constitution, federalism and America founded as a Christian state is a phony hustle, meant to play on one religion hating another. As more and more devout rural congregations across America were organized as political pressure groups, it didn't take long for extremist doctrines to be imposed and for cheap, dirty politics to move onto the pulpit.

Fear and hate have always been great political tools. Richard Nixon helped hone these failings with the help of a young and bellicose Donald Rumsfeld and his "sidekick" Dick Cheney. The "dynamic duo" of the Watergate years became the cheerleaders for the post 9/11 phobias. Where Nixon used class envy to divide and conquer, the new game is religious hate.

It was easy to take this model global. What had been a ploy to steal an election by Nixon became a political movement under Reagan and eventually a tool of global mayhem and endless wars. Now it appears Israel has taken the helm with the total failure of any American political movement to remain out of Zionist political control.

I have spent many meetings with Arabs and Israelis, chaired a few. They are cordial, productive and never demonstrate any of the conflicts spoken of in the press. People are people, business is business and intelligent and decent people of all religions hate the ignorant and destructive.

This is reality.

WRD's, Weapons of Religious Destruction

Religion and religious wars had destroyed Europe as religion and religious wars are destroying the world today. In America, in France, they saw it, pushed out the churches and the monarchs. What we forget, what we lie about, is that established churches were part of a monarchical system. The French Revolution was a revolution against, not just the monarchy but the Catholic Church which had impoverished the nation for centuries and led a holocaust of murder.

Religion had impeded civilization, science and human values and is doing so today more than ever. Religion used to be flat earth. Today it is "clean coal" and tax cuts for billionaires. Religious beliefs that used to follow "stupid" now chase bucks.

You don't have to burn a Koran or hunt down Afghan villagers for sport to be a religious nutcase.

Do we want to talk about the ethical argument? "Why do you go to church?"

"Without the bible, I wouldn't know how to act, I would blaspheme, kill, have sex with children, steal....treat homosexuals with dignity, love all humans equally...."

If I've heard this once, I have heard it a thousand times. Whenever a sex criminal that preys on children is caught, one of the first things logged into evidence is a bible. It is always "dog-eared"....well used with lots of underlining.

We learn history for a reason, or we used to. The French turned their churches into public toilets, barns, smashed statues, took the endless church lands in a frenzy of anger. The people of France lived like animals for centuries because of religion. Every state with an established church was the same, intolerance, brutality, massive taxation and it didn't stop in the Middle Ages. Over 50,000 people have come forward in the small nation of Ireland, sexually abused by the Church. The Church ran the schools, it ran public welfare organizations, even ran much of the government and everything it touched was stained with violence, injustice and bigotry.

Religion and Superstition

Americans have no idea how few people in Western Europe are Christians. A good guess is 10 to 15%. All they have to do is look around them, every day, and see where history took place. Religion was a nightmare for Europe, a holocaust that lasted centuries. Their rejection of religion is them saying, "never again."

With so much of the world's religious disruption supposedly about the hatred between Judaism and Islam, lets get real here. Most Israelis are atheists, most Jews are atheists. We all know this and, frankly, this is what I like most about Jews, what I respect most. These are educated people, scientists, thinkers. If they can't see it, touch it or prove it scientifically, legally, rationally, they don't believe it. You don't get all those Nobel Prizes for talking to dead people and howling at the moon.

The issues between Israel and others, more the United States than any Muslim country, even Iran, is about money, always has been. Jews were persecuted for two reasons, one tied to religious mythology written into what some call "gospels." A couple of minor points, it is impossible to prove in the remotest way that Jews were ever in Egypt for a minute and it is also even more impossible to learn anything about Christ, whether he was real or not or what he taught from reading gospels written for a "pagan" emperor, Constantine, and gleaned, edited and debauched by the Catholic Church.

This was 2000 years ago, Constantine was a monster, the church was corrupt and the Romans had become the most corrupt people on earth. Saying anything else is silly.

The other reason Jews were persecuted was because of money. There is history here, available to all. Learn it. It is still going on. You will ask yourself, "Why didn't they teach me this at school?" Europe depended on money for wars. Europe was in the business of murdering itself. We called this "feudalism." It was the 'dark ages.' People wore armor and beat each other to death with hammers for amusement. This was not a time to be proud of and certainly not a period to learn from.

Then again, Christianity, or what passed for it, had a few minor faults. The religion that Constantine personally designed, the one we have today, is a real piece of work. Talk about fear of burning Korans. The real fear is examining the roots of Christianity, how the Roman Empire excised everything of value and recreated a hierarchical religion of idolators and feudal warlords under the guise of Bishops, Cardinals and Popes.

These people burned every courageous and decent human they could get their hands on, burned them alive, and did so for centuries. These were the Christians. Religious conclaves that defined Christianity and selected which works were included in the bible were little more than political caucuses and the bible was seen as a party platform.

Would you believe anything they told you? The French and America's founding fathers knew better. Studies of early Christian history clearly show that a fabricated pagan religion repackaged to look something like Christianity, we will never know for sure, killed off the real followers of Christ. The original Christians were hunted down like animals and killed, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions.

They were called "heretics."

The real Christians weren't into money and power enough for the Romans and had to go. A church run by money hungry "bishops" and backed by military enforcers killed off Christianity.

Christians were hunted down and slaughtered until the 14th century with the last of them chased into the Pyrenees and burned alive by the hundreds. This is the not so secret history of Christianity. Next time you are in Southern France, drive the "Cathar Trail" and follow the last vestiges of Christianity as it fled the politicized state religion. If you want to be a Christian, learn about your religion, the real Christianity and who the real martyrs were.

Louis XIV, the "Sun King" worked hard to erase the last vestige of Christianity from history. It threatened his personal divinity.

This is why we learn history.

Today's Circus

Today's "flavor or the month" is Koran burning. Nobody would care, you can burn pretty-much anything you want, here in the US, flags, bibles, anything. The ACLU tells us that burning a Koran is a First Amendment right. Tell me this, why is this such a big deal? A Koran is not a holy book to a backwoods preacher in Florida, it is only paper. We know what is going on, an idiot, and we have millions of them in America, is screaming for attention.

The only reason he is getting attention is because the media needs something to talk about. Nobody is invading Iran, there is a news blackout on Gaza and Israel and nobody cares about Afghanistan. We tried to get some news recently out of WikiLeaks. When that didn't work, poor Julian Assange was accused of rape, in Sweden no less. Think about it. If you can sell that one, you can sell anything.

Oh, I forgot, Pakistan is giving billions of dollars to the Taliban. Last week, the Taliban was making billions selling drugs. Now we hear they get it from Pakistan.

Does Pakistan have billions to give? I have been there. Pakistan is broke. Anything left lying around is stolen by politicians, they would take food out of a rat's mouth. Money from Pakistan? Tell me another one.

What, exactly, would the "Taliban" do with money? There are no stores. They can't travel. They must be using it on the internet. Have we checked to see if the Taliban is buying everything with Paypal?

With their billions of dollars of aid from Pakistan, what is it that the Taliban buys? Do Taliban own things? An AK 47 costs $50 bucks. Since America "misplaced" 250,000 of them a couple of years ago, the only place you can sell one is at a gun show. Everyone in Afghanistan is given one, nearly at birth. A can opener is harder to find and more expensive.

Everyone else in the world has one.

Do this, go to an ATM, take out a few hundred dollars, if you still have that much, and head off into the most remote area you can still afford to drive to. Get out of the car, walk into the woods, desert, mountains. Take the money out of your pocket and try to spend it.

Welcome to Afghanistan.

Some Things Don't Make Any Sense

Let's take a minute to discuss Islam and terrorism. There wasn't any terrorism until the Palestine stuff. It started with the Jews against the British. This is history, lied about, suppressed but more than available. If Muslims were going to be angry at the west, it would have been about Britain, France and, later on, the United States, putting the "stooge" governments in place that enslaved them for decades.

They had been enslaved by the Turks for centuries anyway. If you don't know what that is about, rent Lawrence of Arabia. It is a great film, David Lean was a super director. It is history in a movie, watered down but somewhere to start from.

Learn history, please. Ignorance is embarrassing.

Those governments that Israel loves telling the world are corrupt dictatorships were put in power by us. They are as much our creation as Israel. We did it all. Do you think Jordan or Saudi Arabia were created by a "people's" revolt or Islamic fundamentalists?

There is one of those, it is Iran and nobody, not Russia, not China, certainly not America or Israel wants them around. Why? Is it because they have crazy Islamic laws?

Hey, they cut people's heads off every day in Saudi Arabia and nothing is said. If Iran threatens to stone someone, it hits the papers around the world. The whole thing is a game. Iran stones people, Israel blows up hospitals full of sick people, Americans shoot people in Afghanistan just to watch them bleed.

They world is screwed up. Funny thing, we hear all this but nobody ever threatens to fix any of it, they just love bitching about it.

What Are They Hiding?

Is this because two million Americans are sleeping in cars tonight because they have no homes? Two million Americans are sleeping in prison cells tonight also. Why is that? Why so many? For those of you living in America, have you noticed how short tempered people are getting? Some think it is the anger and alienation Americans feel during elections when faced with the prospect of voting for candidates everyone hates.

Hey, this is how democracy works, live with it or change it.

Why are people angry? Is it because they are broke, busted, no money, facing homelessness, starvation, no future?

Is the freakish sideshow, the religion game, hating homosexuals, burning Korans, imaginary terrorists, and the big spending Taliban, all entertainment to keep people from noticing that there is a real war.

There is real terrorism. Terrorism is stealing the future. The tool wasn't bombs, it isn't bombs, it isn't guns or extremists. The real terrorists own the newspapers, the television networks, the banks, the insurance companies, the hospitals, not just in America but all over the world. They are the phone company, the internet, the oil companies.

The real terrorism is corporate culture and organized crime. If you wonder why there are no candidates that talk about the real issues, why nothing is made in America, why corporations pay no taxes, why we fight war after war for no reason, the answer is simple.

Our government, along with Britain, Germany, Italy and so many others, are owned by corporations, banks, all slaves to a real international conspiracy that we call the "world economy." Al Capone would be ashamed of what we have done. Who pulls the strings?

Figure it out for yourself. It isn't hard. The first step is to turn off the television, the radio and to stop reading newspapers. Then check your internet habits. Are you reading websites like Newsmax or WorldNetDaily or FamilySecurityMatters?

Then, even your attempts to get around corporate brainwashing have been hijacked.

You won't find the truth in a church, mosque or synagogue. You won't find it easily. It won't make you feel better. The truth is a process of admitting that everything you have learned may be and probably is a lie. 95% of the great mysteries of life I have solved have been me buying in on delusion, accepting one cartoon reality for another.

How do we fix this? This is me trying.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Gus Bridi - www.zeropartypolitics.com

"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."- Newt Gingrich

Has Lebanon officially become more tolerant and progressive than the United States?

Let's talk about Lebanon's Ground Zero and you can decide for yourself.

One must first understand what "Ground Zero" means to most Lebanese.

In a country with about the same land mass as Los Angeles County which has been at war off and on for nearly four decades, "Ground Zero" for the Lebanese is arguably their entire country-and at the center of their Ground Zero is downtown Beirut, captured and occupied by the Israeli Defense Force in 1982 and which was almost entirely reduced to rubble from Muslim West Beirut to Christian East Beirut, and all points in between.

Once upon a time not too long ago, there was scarcely a building left standing or unscarred by shrapnel in all of Beirut. I know, because I was in Beirut in 1991, and witnessed first hand a city once described as "the Paris of the Middle East" reduced to ruins, pock marked with unexploded munitions and a haphazard "network" of open sewers.

Miraculously, Beirut was rebuilt and reclaimed its prominence. It once again became the jewel of the Arab world, remarkably able to bridge the ancient mystique of the east with the modern allure of the west.

Upon the first completion of its "rebuilding" process however--after 15 years and tens of billions of dollars spent on reconstructing Lebanon and its Ground Zero from rubble to splendor, Israel did what Israel does...

In July and August of 2006, Israel again followed through on its promise to "bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age," and in so doing displaced 1,000,000 Lebanese civilians (nearly a quarter of the country's population), completely destroyed the country's infrastructure (again), its only airport, at least 64 bridges, leveled entire buildings and neighborhoods to rubble (again), including the country's largest milk factory, a food factory, two pharmaceutical plants, water treatment centers, power plants, grain silos, a Greek Orthodox Church, several mosques, and a handful of hospitals (in a country which only had a handful of hospitals to begin with).

Over 1,200 hundred Lebanese civilians were killed and over 5,000 wounded.

Israel routinely talks about "proportionality" when comparing their "terrorism deaths" to American 9/11 deaths. In order to shock the sensibilities of a gullible American public, they portray a figure "in American terms," by multiplying their dead by a number which reflects their population in comparison to the American population.

Well, what's good for the Israeli goose is good for the Lebanese gander. I will play their game: 1,200 dead Lebanese civilians are the "proportional equivalent" to 90,000 American dead when accounting for the two countries' population differences. Therefore, according to Israeli goose math, that's the equivalent of roughly thirty 9/11's Israel exacted on Lebanon in July and August 2006 over the course of 34 days-nearly one 9/11 a day for an entire month without relent.

Incidentally, July and August of 2006 only tell a small part of the story when it comes to Israeli aggression against Lebanon. There have been decades of invasion, devastation, and occupation which predated 2006. Several thousands of Lebanese have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. Tens of billions of dollars of damage have been levied on the Lebanese infrastructure and private and public property courtesy of the IDF over the course of decades.

"Ground Zero" for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, "proportionately" speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit?

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghen Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the "Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon's rebirth.

This isn't some hole in the wall, nondescript, "excuse me" synagogue hidden out of view so as to not "offend" Lebanese non-Jews-this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

And wait until you hear Hezbollah's response to the building of this Ground Zero Synagogue.

(To those expecting a Newt Gingrich equivalent response, prepare to be woefully disappointed).

Courtesy of Hassan Nasrallah himself: "We respect Judaism, just as we respect Christianity. Our only problem is with Israel."

Did you hear that Newt (and the rest of you idiots)?

An Arab democracy, with a Muslim Prime Minister and a Christian President, allowed the building of a synagogue, squarely in the center of their "Ground Zero" in the heart and pride of downtown Beirut which used to be a dumping ground for Israeli military ordinances.

An Arab democracy allowed this, without so much as a protest being made by its citizens, or allegations by politicians that this was sacrilege, or hateful commentary by the media that the Jewish faith was barbaric, or any of the other stupidity I have seen and heard plastered all over American television, talk radio, and internet-blogs regarding a certain "Ground Zero Mosque" and the Islamic faith.

Regardless of whether you perceive Israel to be justified in perpetrating the devastation it did on Lebanon is irrelevant. The purpose of this article is not to debate that. What cannot be debated, is that Israel (a Jewish State, flying a Jewish flag) unleashed hell on Lebanon for 34 straight days in July and August of 2006 (and for decades prior in its wars against Lebanon). Regardless of whether or not you feel Israel had a right to do that, you cannot deny that Lebanese civilians harbored, and continue to harbor, a very real resentment against the government of Israel-this Jewish state-for those actions and the devestation those actions caused.

Yet these very Lebanese, who are so quickly labeled as "blood thirsty terrorists" by Newt Gingrich and his army of xenophobic morons, were able to draw a distinction between the Jews "flying those planes" in July and August of 2006 working at the behest of the Israeli government, and the Jews whom are citizens of Lebanon who had no connection with those attacks.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue for its Jews.

Not for Israel. Not for the world's Jewry. Not as a monument to mark a "Jewish victory" over Lebanon.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue because its Jews lived in that neighborhood and they had every right to build a house of worship in a place they called home.

For crying out loud, Hassan Nassrallah and Hezbollah can even draw the distinction between a Lebanese Jew and an Israeli soldier who happens to be a Jew. So how is it that Americans can't distinguish between American Muslims who were victims of 9/11 and Saudi Muslims who were the perpetrators of 9/11?

Thank you Mr. Gingrich for allowing Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah to outclass you and the Republican Party (and you Democrats aren't too far behind--yes Harry Reid, I'm talking to you). When the former Republican Speaker of the House and the current Democratic Senate Majority Leader start sounding less tolerant and less reasonable than a "terrorist," we need to start sounding the alarm bells.

What a sad state of affairs for America.

By Alan Hart* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

I have written and often say that very many if not most Jews do not want to know the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. (An essential element of the truth being that Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing).

Because I am a goy, a non-Jew, (actually a blonde, blue-eyed Englishman of advancing years), that may strike some readers as a very presumptuous statement for me to make. How can I possibly know for sure that at least some if not many Jews don't want to know truth of history? It's a fair question and my answer to it, quoted below, is in the now published Volume 3 of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.

After my dear wife, my best friend in the world, for more than 40 years, is my Jewish accountant. I'll call him M. He is very orthodox in the practise of his religion and strictly kosher, but not a zealot. He lives in London and over the years he has travelled with me on a number of foreign assignments. Shortly before Golda Meir died, and as a way of saying thanks to M for his friendship, I invited him to travel with me and sit in on my last conversation with her. I imagined she would not object and she didn't. Our conversation lasted nearly five hours. When it ended, I asked Mother Israel if I could take a photograph of her and M. In the tiny back garden of her small home in Tel Aviv, M put his arm around her shoulder (she didn't object to that either) and I took several pictures. It was, as I knew it would be, one of the proudest moments in M's life. One of the pictures was given pride of place in M's home, and he subsequently told me that younger visitors would look at the photograph, point at the old lady, and ask, "Who's that, your grandmother?"

Over time and privately M came to loathe what Israel has become but he won't read my book. He doesn't want to know the truth of history. Shortly before the publication of the original UK Volume One, I said to him the following. "Like most Jews everywhere, you believe that Israel went to war in 1967 either because the Arabs attacked first or were about to attack. What if I can prove to you, using only Israeli sources, that what you believe is Zionist propaganda nonsense and that it was a war of Israeli aggression?" After a long pause, M replied, "If what I believe about that war is not true, everything crumbles."

I chose not to add to my friend's agony by asking him what "everything crumbles" really meant or at least symbolizes; but over the several years since that conversation took place, and quietly in my own mind, I've been trying to work it out for myself.

What, actually, would "crumble" in those Jews, sadly most Jews, who don't want to know the truth of history but by some miracle were confronted with it?

The short answer is their sense of victimhood, the impulse to see enemies everywhere who are committed to exterminating Jews.

Though constantly reinforced by Zionist propaganda since the creation of Israel, and currently by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, this impulse is, of course, the product of persecution and pogroms on and off down the centuries and which climaxed with the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust.

On 14 November 2009, in a comment on a Truthout post by Ira Cherna headlined "Israel's Pathology", Monty Renot wrote:

"I have thought, for a while now, that in the aftermath of the Nazi extermination during World War II, many Jews (and I speak as a Jew) entered into a mass state of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from which they've never emerged or recovered - like a nightmare trance in which they are stuck. The symptoms are, and have been, so unmistakably evident, especially in right-wing religious groups such as Meir Kahana's Kach, whose slogan was 'Never Again' and whose vow was to 'hit 'em back 10 times as hard as they hit us.'"

What Renot called this "hypervigilant state, so typical of PTSD," reveals that those who are still stuck in the nightmare trance believe that the threat to them (annihilation) is ever present and always will be; and any sign or omen that the worst was about to occur again "is magnified by the residual paranoia into 'Uh-oh, here we go again!', accompanied by a tightening of the emotional armoring and a heightened readiness to go into pre-emptive battle in order to forestall the worst from happening."

In his analysis, Cherna asked how it can be that pathological feelings of fear, weakness and victimization "are comforting" to very many Israelis (and, I add, very many other Jews)

He answers: "For starters, they automatically put Jews on the side of innocence. Who can blame the weak victim for the violence? All the trouble, it seems, is started by the other side... And if all the trouble is started by the other side, then all the fault must lie with the other side. Weakness and victimization seem to prove that 'We're moral.' Obviously, it's our enemies who are immoral and thus to blame for all our problems. So Israelis have no reason even to consider changing any of their policies or behaviors."

Cherna believes, as I do, that as long as this pathology dominates Israeli political life, it's hard to see what Barack Obama or anyone else can do to move the Israelis toward a just peace, one that would be acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians ("who need no special mental condition to feel victimized; all they have to do is look out the window at the Israeli military patrols passing by.")

The answer to my headline question seems to be, "Yes, Jews (most of them) do need to feel persecuted. The question arising is what if anything can be done, and by whom, to cure the sickness of traumatized Israeli and other Jewish minds?In theory

I can think of two possible ingredients for a cure.

One would be a New Covenant, not between the Jews and their God but between the Jews and the Gentiles. For their part of the deal the Gentiles would commit to slaying the monster of anti-Semitism. An undertaking to let the monster die in its sleep would not be good enough. There would have to be evidence that the stake was being driven into its heart. For their part the Jews of the world would commit to making common cause with rational Israelis for the purpose of making a real and lasting peace on the basis of an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians and security for all (Arabs and Jews).

The other would be an explicit declaration by all Palestinian institutions, organizations and groups, endorsed by all Arab and other Muslim governments, to the effect that whether it be in a genuine and viable two-state or a one-state solution, the security and political and human rights of all Jews (in the one or two states) will be absolutely guaranteed.

Beyond that I have no answers to the question of what can be done and by whom to cure the sickness of traumatized and brainwashed Israeli and other Jewish minds. Do others have answers?

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

By Jonathan Cook* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Settlers step up "price tag" policy

A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the extreme wing of the religious settler movement. He is known to be a champion of the "price tag" policy of reprisal attacks on Palestinians, including punishing them for attempts by officials to enforce Israeli law against the settlements.

So far the policy has chiefly involved violent harassment of Palestinians, with settlers inflicting beatings, attacking homes, throwing stones, burning fields, killing livestock and poisoning wells.

It is feared, however, that Shapira's book, The King's Torah, published last year, is intended to offer ideological justifications for widening the scope of such attacks to include killing Palestinians, even children.

Although Shapira was released a few hours after his questioning on 26 July, dozens of rabbis, as well as several members of parliament, rallied to his side, condemning the arrest.

Shlomo Aviner, one of the settlement movement's spiritual leaders, defended the book's arguments as a "legitimate stance" and one that should be taught in Jewish seminaries.

But in a sign of mounting official unease at Shapira's influence on the settlement movement, the Israeli military authorities also threatened last week to enforce a decade-old demolition order on Yitzhar's seminary, which was built without a permit.

Dror Etkes, a Tel Aviv-based expert on the settlements, said the order was unlikely to be carried out but was a way to pressure Yitzhar's 500 inhabitants to rein in their more violent attacks.

He said the authorities had begun taking a harder line against Yitzhar only since Shapira and several of his students were suspected of torching a mosque in the neighbouring village of Yasuf last December.

"Shapira is trying to redefine the conflict with the Palestinians, turning it from a national conflict into a religious one. That frightens Israel. It doesn't want to look as though it is fighting the whole Islamic world," Etkes said.

He added that the rabbi and his supporters were closely associated with Kach, a movement founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane that demands the expulsion of all Palestinians from a "Greater Israel". Despite Kach being banned, officials have largely turned a blind eye as its ideology has flourished in the settlements.

"It may be illegal to call oneself Kach but the authorities are more than tolerant of settlers who hold such views and carry out violent attacks. In fact, what Kahane was doing in the 1980s seems like child's play compared with today's settlers."

In the 230-page book, Shapira and his co-author, Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, also from Yitzhar, argue that Jewish law permits the killing of non-Jews in a wide variety of circumstances. The terms "gentiles" and "non-Jews" in the book are widely understood as references to Palestinians.

They write that Jews have the right to kill gentiles in any situation in which "a non-Jew's presence endangers Jewish lives" even if the gentile is "not at all guilty for the situation that has been created".

The book sanctions the killing of non-Jewish children and babies: "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."

The rabbis suggest that harming the children of non-Jewish leaders is justified if it is likely to bring pressure to bear on them to change policy.

The authors also advocate committing "cruel deeds to create the proper balance of terror" and treating all members of an "enemy nation" as targets for retaliation, even if they are not directly participating in hostile activities.

The rabbis appear to be offering justifications in Jewish law for collective punishment and other war crimes of the kind committed by the Israeli army in its attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008.

Pamphlets similarly calling on soldiers to "show no mercy" were distributed by the army's rabbinate as troops prepared for the Gaza operation, in which 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed. Religious settlers have come to dominate many combat units.

An investigation last year by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, found Shapira's seminary had received government funds worth at least 300,000 US dollars in recent years. American and British groups have also contributed tens of thousands of dollars in tax-deductible donations.

According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, the Yitzhar settlers have responded to the demolition order against their seminary by threatening to publish documents showing that the housing and transport ministries were closely involved in the project too.

The settlers have repeatedly rampaged through nearby Palestinian villages, most notoriously in September 2008, when they were filmed shooting at homes in Assira al-Kabaliya, smashing properties and daubing Stars of David on homes. Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of the time, termed the settlers' actions a "pogrom".

The same year a religious student from Yitzhar was arrested for firing home-made rockets at Palestinian villages close by.

In April, Yitzhar's settlers marched through the village of Huwara and pelted a Palestinian family's home with stones in "reprisal" for the arrest of 11 of their number.

A settler from Yitzhar was questioned last month over the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Aysar Zaban, in May, reportedly after stones were thrown at the settler's car. The teenager was shot in the back.

Last week, the settlers attacked Burin, shooting at villagers and burning fields.

In most of these cases, the settlers who were arrested were released a short time later either by the police or the courts. In January, a Jerusalem judge freed Rabbi Shapira for lack of evidence in the arson attack on the mosque.

Yitzhak Ginsburg, an authority on Jewish law and a mentor to Shapira, was questioned by police on 29 July over his endorsement of the book. In the past Ginsburg has praised Baruch Goldstein, a settler who opened fire in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque in 1994, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers.

In 2003 Ginsburg was accused of incitement for publishing a book that called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories, but the charges were dropped after he issued a "clarification statement".

A group calling itself "Students of Yitzhak Ginsburg" recently distributed a leaflet urging Israeli soldiers to "spare your lives and the lives of your friends and show no concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us".

What is Kach?

Kach was founded in 1971 by the late Meir Kahane, an American rabbi who immigrated to Israel. He won a seat in the Israeli parliament in 1984 on a platform of expelling all Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories. As an MP, he drafted legislation to revoke the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews and ban sexual relations between Jews and gentiles.

The political party was banned from running for the Israeli parliament in 1988 and the movement was outlawed six years later. Although the group is considered a terrorist organization in the United States and most of Europe, its ideology has been allowed to thrive in the settlements.

Today, dozens of rabbis espouse an interpretation of Jewish religious law identical to or worse than Kahane's.

Michael Ben Ari, a former Kach leader, was elected as an MP last year for the far-right National Union party, which holds four seats in the 120-member parliament.

Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the parliament's third largest party and is foreign minister, briefly joined the party before it was banned. His own party's anti-Arab "No loyalty, no citizenship" programme includes echoes of Kahane's ideology.

* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Occupied Palestine.

By Rabbi Michael Lerner* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Rabbi Michael Lerner

ADL leader Abe Foxman presented the position of this organization that claims to oppose discrimination by reading a formal statement that seemed to be a perfect example of "shooting and crying" (first you attack brutally, then you cry about how sad it is to be put into this difficult position, often blaming the victims for having "forced" us to attack them). The key to that statement was this:

"Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not right."

This kind of argument is deeply mistaken. It was not "Muslims" or Islam that attacked the World Trade Center, but some Muslims who held extreme versions of Islam and twisted what is a holy and peace-oriented tradition to justify their acts and their hatred. We see the same thing happening in the name of Christianity (many of those who justified the war in Iraq were Christians who felt they were acting from a Christian ethical perspective) or in the name of Judaism (the immoral behavior of some of the settlers who use Judaism as their cover for stealing land and destroying the olive trees of their Palestinian neighbors). Just as we would rebel against others dismissing Judaism or Christianity, or prohibiting Jews and Muslims from constructing our holy places of worship or community centers where we wish because some of those who had suffered from the immorality of some Jews or some Christians had decided that it was painful to them to see the presence of these institutions near the site of previous suffering, so we reject this claim.

Arthur Waskow asks us to imagine how we would feel if some group of Muslims in the US, identifying with the suffering of Palestinians, and including within them some who had lived in Israel and had to leave to protect themselves from the oppression of Occupation that they labeled as "Jewish oppression," had opposed the construction of a synagogue in their predominantly Muslim neighborhood because it would cause some of the victims of Israeli policy to experience more pain. Would we accept that? Certainly not.

Underlying the ADL position is its references to the Holocaust and the need to respect the feelings of its survivors. Sadly, the memory of Jewish suffering is appropriated by right-wing forces to justify special privilege for Jews in general and Israel in particular, now is to be extended to victims of 9/11 (but not, for example, to the survivors of US military assaults on civilians in Vietnam,Cambodia, Laos, El Salvador, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Iraq, or Afghanistan). The aggression of others is always evil, ours always justifiable, to the political right. That's bad enough. But shame on ADL in particular for now using our suffering in the Holocaust to justify discrimination toward others, whether in Israel or in the U.S.

Actually, to those of us who take seriously the Torah command to "love the stranger" (the Other), it seems clear that the rebuilding of Ground Zero should include the construction of an interfaith center in which all of the world's religions could be represented, particularly that of Islam as a way of affirming and supporting those many Muslims who do not adopt an extreme anti-American or anti-Jewish perspective.

The American Jewish Committee tried to adopt a more nuanced position, but wanted to withhold endorsement till they can establish that the source of money for this building did not come from extremist elements in the Muslim world. Yet how would we feel if construction of a Jewish center was similarly conditional? Would money from those who support the settlers or others who believe that Jews have a right to all of the Biblical Land of Israel and have a right to use violence to achieve that end be sufficient reason to prevent the construciton of a Jewish center? Would a Church that received money from sources in the Christian community that believed it appropriate to engage in violence to create the world they wanted (e.g. to support a US military intervention in Iran) be sufficient reason to deny them the right to build their Christian center? I don't think so.

No wonder, then, that we at Tikkun--seeking to build a world in which animosities among religions can be dramatically reduced so that all of us can recognize our common humanity (or what we Jews call "being created in the image of God") and recognize the immediate global environmental emergency to overcome national and religious antagonisms so that we can work together to save the planet and its peoples from destruction--strongly endorse and support the construction of the Muslim community center/mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero.

Shame on ADL and the American Jewish Committee for not understanding the moral imperatives of this moment! They not only betray Jewish values ("do not do unto others what you would not wish them to do to you") and American values (government should not interfere with the operations of religious communities), they unintentionally but nevertheless certainly increase the tensions between Jews and Muslims at a moment when all sane people in both communities recognize the need to build bridges of understanding, friendship and mutual caring as a prelude to supporting peace in Israel. Given that both ADL and the AJCommittee have consistently supported the most outrageous actions of the Israeli government toward Palestinians, is it possible that unconsciously they are taking these kinds of stands because they do not see the supreme importance of creating caring and sensitivity to the needs of the other? Yet it is this sensitivity which is the necessary prerequisite for a lasting peace with justice and security for both sides in the Middle East conflict. And that peace would be a major step toward undermining the support that terrorists have been able to amass, in part because such a peace is absent.

* Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, Ca. and author of eleven books, most recently the national best-seller The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country From the Religious Right. If you wish to support this kind of thinking, please join our Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org.

By Don Emmerich | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Writing in National Review, Dennis Prager explains why conservatives like himself are "virtually unanimous in supporting Israel":

The reason is based on a verse in Genesis in which God, referring to the Jewish people, says to Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."

One need not be a Jew or Christian or even believe in God to appreciate that this verse is as accurate a prediction as humanity has ever been given by the ancient world. The Jewish people have suffered longer and more horribly than any other living people. But they are still around. Its historic enemies are all gone. Those that cursed the Jews were indeed cursed.

And those who blessed the Jews were indeed blessed. The most blessed country for over 200 years has been the United States. It has also been the most blessed place Jews have ever lived in. Is this a coincidence? Many of us think not.

Those who curse the Jews still seem to be cursed. The most benighted civilization today is the Arab world. One could make a plausible case that the Arab world's preoccupation with Jew-hatred and destroying Israel is a decisive factor in its failure to progress. The day the Arab world makes peace with the existence of the tiny Jewish state in its midst, the Arab world will begin its ascent.

The converse is what worries tens of millions of Americans—the day America abandons Israel, America will begin its descent. ("The Genesis Prediction," National Review, 20 April 2010)

There are several problems with Prager's argument. First, it seems that he has misinterpreted the Bible. According to all the English translations I've found, Yahweh's promise in Genesis 12.3 (the verse Prager quotes) is to Abraham, not to Abraham's descendants, not to "the Jewish people." As the New International Version reads, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse."

It's true that Yahweh makes promises to Abraham's descendents elsewhere in Genesis (see 13.14-17, 15.18-21, 17.3-8, and 22.15-18), but even if we assume that Genesis 12.3 is one of these passages, I'm not sure how this strengthens Prager's argument. For it seems that "the [modern] Jewish people" do not have a closer lineage to Abraham than Arabs do. As numerous scholars have shown, many of the "original Jews" converted to Christianity in the first few centuries of the Christian era, while many others converted to Islam when Muslims conquered Palestine in the seventh century; and many non-Jewish Europeans and North Africans converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages (Shlomo Sand, Invention of the Jewish People, trans. Yael Lotan, 130-249). In other words, if it's true that Genesis 12.3 refers to Abraham's descendants, then it would follow that the United States is just as blessed for siding with Israel as it is cursed for siding against the Palestinians.

But there are other, more significant, problems with Prager's argument. For instance, take his claim that the Jewish people's "historic enemies are all gone. Those that cursed the Jews were indeed cursed." Historically speaking, nobody has been more of a curse to the Jewish people than European Christians. For nearly two millennia, European Christians fiercely persecuted Jews. Jews were frequently banished from their homelands, their possessions often expropriated, their homes burned to the ground; they faced torture, beatings, executions ("An overview of the persecution of Jews for the past 2,000 years," Religious Tolerance). Although Jews were generally treated like second-class citizens in the Ottoman Empire, Bernard Lewis writes that this never matched the violence and sheer hatred they experienced in Europe (The Jews of Islam, chapter 1).

But Europe has not ceased to exist. In fact, Europe is thriving today far more than the Arab world. And Germany is thriving as much any other European nation. If "the Arab world's preoccupation with Jew-hatred and destroying Israel is a decisive factor in its failure to progress," then one has to wonder why Germany—which just sixty years ago, rounded up and subsequently murdered six million innocent Jewish men, women, and children—isn't suffering the same fate.

And while Prager claims that America will "begin its descent" if it "abandons Israel," the truth is that many of the biggest problems facing America today result from its support of Israel. As I argued last month, US support for Israel has engendered all kinds of blowback. For instance, the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing wrote that they were acting "in response for [sic] the American political, economical, and military support to Israel...and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region." Additionally, US support for Israel played a role in radicalizing Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohammed Atta, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, and Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab ("It's the blowback, stupid!," 5 April 2010).

I don't claim to be God's spokesman, but I'm pretty confident that he wouldn't punish people living in one nation-state simply because their leaders didn't unconditionally support the policies of another nation-state, especially if those policies frequently violated the basic human rights of innocent civilians. I'd venture to say that God loves all people, Arabs as well as Jews, and wishes that more Americans felt the same way.

President Harry Truman and Ben Gurion

By Jeff Gates* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Four-fifths of the U.S. House and Senate recently declared in correspondence to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the U.S. must reaffirm its "unbreakable bond" with Israel. What persuaded our Congress to proclaim their loyalty to Israel while our military is waging war in the Middle East based on fabricated intelligence?

Any sober assessment of this bond must concede a need to reappraise its cost in blood and treasure. Yet the Congress-our Congress-opposed that reassessment even as our commander-in-chief seeks to end a brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine that has provoked worldwide outrage for more than six decades.

The Congress and the president are sworn to the same oath of office. That oath obliges them to protect the U.S. from all threats, both foreign and domestic. The facts confirm a common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that took our military to war in Iraq. All the evidence points to Israel or its surrogates, including those in the Congress. Is that why the Israel lobby pressed the Congress for a pledge of allegiance to Israel?

Giving Aid and Comfort

The U.S.-Israeli relationship has proven itself a consistent threat to our national security. That peril has only worsened with time. Tel Aviv's massive land grab in 1967 was not "defensive"- as Israeli leaders have since conceded. That assault on its neighbors was a long-planned seizure of territory that Zionists see as rightly theirs as part of Greater Israel.

That attack provoked precisely the reaction that any competent war-planning game theorist could foresee as Israeli conduct outraged everyone in the region. As Israel's loyal ally, the U.S., was widely perceived as guilty for our unfailing support of an expansionist agenda that the Pentagon urged we shut down in 1948.

In advising President Harry Truman against recognition of this extremist enclave as a legitimate state, the Joint Chiefs detailed the Zionists' "fanatical concepts" including their plans for "military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East." Our military was correct.

Facing a decline in his approval ratings and bare campaign coffers in the lead-up to his 1948 presidential race, Truman put his signature on a two-sentence note that on May 14th extended what the Zionists sought: U.S. recognition. That decision began a "special relationship" that has proven consistently harmful to U.S. interests.

The Truman campaign train was then "refueled" with $400,000 from grateful Zionists ($3.6 million in 2010 dollars). As editorial support from pro-Israeli media shifted in Truman's favor, his approval surged long enough for him to prevail in November over New York's Tom Dewey.

Absent the Holocaust, Truman could not have recognized Zionism as a lawful basis for a sovereign state in Palestine over intense opposition from Secretary of State George Marshall, the Pentagon, the State Department Policy Planning staff and the Central Intelligence Agency. All were adamantly opposed, as were members of the U.S. diplomatic corps. They knew better.

While the politics of campaign finance clearly played a role, Truman also acted out of humanitarian and religious concerns informed by his Christian Zionist upbringing in rural Missouri where he famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15.

His decision was also shaped by sentiments developed as a youngster steeped in a fundamentalist Baptist theology that revered the Jews' "return to Zion" as a prerequisite for the return of the Christian messiah.

Fast forward to 2001 when, in reaction to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil, another Christian Zionist (G.W. Bush) was predisposed to support a military response that coincided with an expansionist agenda long sought by those our military earlier described as fanatics.

The Six-Day Land Grab

In the minds of those who comprise the Jewish Diaspora, the Six-Day War of 1967 reactivated the mental and emotional insecurity associated with the fascists of WWII. In combination, those two events catalyzed a worldwide "internal Diaspora" based on:

• Nationalism-a shared emotional bond among those persuaded they share an identity of interest between themselves and a piece of real estate on which they may never set foot. After the Six-Day War, the state of Israel became the Land of Israel based on the more expansive area it occupied and the additional territory it has yet to seize.
• Insecurity-a shared sense of vulnerability and victimhood as Jews saw themselves pitted against a widely marketed and steadily shifting threat. After September 2001, the 1967 "Arab Ring of Steel" morphed into the threat of "Islamo-fascism." When, as now, Israeli policies come under attack, media campaigns claim an outbreak of "anti-Semitism."

Throughout this saga, certain facts have been taken for granted that are now being questioned. The Zionist premise of the Right of Return relies on an historical account now under scholarly assault. In The Invention of the Jewish People, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand challenges the factual accuracy both of the Exile and the Exodus, thereby putting in question the legitimacy of the Return, the moral foundation for Israeli statehood in Palestine.

As Egyptologists point out, this ancient civilization records little of an Exodus even though Egyptian kings were meticulous in documenting details of their monarchies. How then did such a cataclysmic event as the parting of the sea and the drowning of a mighty king along with his army pass undocumented by the Egyptians while filling an entire chapter of the Torah? Where does fact end and fiction begin?

Christians and Muslims were weaned on similar oral histories. Both faiths are derived from Judaism, an earlier religion also "of the book." Yet the two derivatives were induced to wage war with each other by those long skilled at displacing facts with what a targeted populace can be deceived to believe-as with the fabricated "facts" about Iraq WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons labs and so forth. All were false. Yet all were widely believed.

A Promised Land of Myth-Makers and Story Tellers

Bound by a shared anxiety and the allure of a Promised Land offering refuge through a Right of Return, Israel initially emerged as a shared mental state. In 1948, that mental state emerged as a physical "homeland" in Palestine offering residency for those it considered "Jewish."

In combination, the Holocaust and the Six-Day War made Zionism a geopolitical possibility. Without the fascist abuses of WWII, Truman's recognition of Zionism as a legitimate state would have proven impossible. Absent the 1967 war, moderate Jews would have continued their opposition to a "Jewish state" as a barrier to assimilation and contrary to their values.

By regarding an enclave of religious fanatics as an entity on a par with other sovereign nations, forces were set in motion that were destined to discredit and endanger the U.S. Anti-Zionist Jews rightly worried that this expansion-seeking "state" would imperil the broader faith tradition by enabling all Jews to be portrayed as foreign agents of an aggressor nation.

Moderate Jews saw that charges of "dual loyalty" could be deployed to impugn by association even those Jews appalled at what Israel was destined to become-as the Pentagon predicted.

Meanwhile pressure from the Israel lobby discredited the U.S. worldwide by ensuring Congressional indifference to six decades of Palestinian suffering. Adding insult to injury, the lobby again prevailed by persuading Congress to proclaim this "unbreakable bond."

Turning Fiction to Fact

Tel Aviv's 1967 land grab also enabled the "Israelites"-with support from their Christian Zionist allies-to occupy territory that Jewish Zionists consider theirs-because they are Jewish.

Thus the strategic necessity to oppose anyone who challenges either Israel's retention of occupied land or its seizure of more territory for a more expansive Land of Israel. Or, as Jewish fundamentalists argue, the "redemption" of land that is rightly theirs as The Chosen of God because the land they occupy was given to them-by a god of their own choosing.

Thus also the need to maintain an aggressive strategy that seeks to discredit, isolate, ostracize or marginalize anyone critical of Tel Aviv's expansionist policies – even when those policies undermine the prospects for peace essential to protect U.S. interests in the region. Thus the perilous timing of this Congressional pledge of allegiance to an "unbreakable bond."

Israel's treatment of its Muslim neighbors has long been appalling. Yet it is clear to all but the willfully blind that Israeli behavior is enabled by its "special relationship" with the U.S. This latest pledge makes it appear that Israeli conduct is condoned and even welcomed by Americans-with precisely the effect on U.S. troops that the Israel lobby could anticipate. The perilous impact of this pledge on U.S. national security makes the lobby's conduct reprehensible.

Americans who want to restore our national security must hold accountable under the law those pro-Israelis who conspired to displace the facts essential to informed choice with the false beliefs that took us to war in Iraq. We also must ensure that never again are foreign interests allowed to exert such control over what little remains of "our" representative government.

The Israel lobby should be forced to register as foreign agents subject to all the restrictions that implies, including a dramatic reduction in the funding it provides to Congress.

In practical effect, those Senators and Representatives who recently pledged their loyalty to Israel gave aid and comfort to an enemy within. Those who led this latest dual loyalty effort are adhering to an enemy should rightly be indicted for treason while this nation is at war.

That crime, for good reason, was made a capital offense by those who founded this nation to protect our freedom as Americans from those who manipulate beliefs to influence behavior.

This behavior-traceable to a common source-has long undermined our national interest and endangered our military. Those elected to the Congress face a stark choice: either defend this nation and support our troops or resign.

Those who do not resign risk a charge of treason when a long-deceived American public grasps that this pledge of allegiance was made while our military remains at risk based on intelligence fabricated by those to whom Congress just pledged an unbreakable bond.

An informed public will see the signatories of this pledge as prime suspects when federal law enforcement turns to identifying and indicting those complicit in enabling this ongoing treason.

Any American not outraged is not yet fully informed. Members of the military, both active duty and retired, should let an ill-informed public know what is being done in their name.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates' latest book is Guilt by Association -How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series. His previous books include Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

The Israeli embassy in Madrid is "hurt" and "offended!" How touching... It's okay for Israelis to kill everyday, to spit on Christians and Muslims, to kidnap people and harvest their organs, to arrest and jail children, to use illegal weapons, to impose an illegal siege on a million and a half people in Gaza, to occupy Palestine, Syria and Lebanon and to threaten more war and occupation everyday.. It's okay for Israel to ignore International Law, UN resolutions, the International Court of Justice, the NPT and on and on... but its not okay for a piece of art to be critical of "poor little Israel"... After 62 years of lies, Israel can no longer hide its true ugly colors from the world... even with its total control of mainstream media... (Hat tip: Cherifa Sirry)

Stairway to Heaven by Spanish artist Eugenio Merino

A controversial art piece on exhibition at the Madrid art fair, was condemned by the Israeli Embassy in Madrid as being "offensive to Judaism."

"The hurtful message this piece conveys doesn't hurt less because it is displayed under the veil of art," the Israeli embassy wrote in a letter to the organizers of ARCO art fair, one of the world's top contemporary art fairs.

The installation "Stairway to Heaven," by Spanish artist Eugenio Merino, displays a crouching Muslim, topped by a kneeling Christian, and he in turn is topped by a Jew in prayer. Next to the sculpture was displayed a machine gun with a Menorah shooting out of its barrel.

Merino denied that the sculpture was provocative, and said it reflected "the idea of coexistence between the three religions, all of which are trying to reach God."

The work, which used human hair and silicone to give it a real look, was sold immediately to a European art collector for 50,000 Euros.

The artist says that "Stairway to Heaven", is not anti-Semitic, but reflects the alliance of civilizations.

The Israeli Embassy in Madrid sent a statement stressing its rejection of works by the Catalan artist Eugenio Merino presented in the gallery's booth at the fair in Madrid 2010. The Israeli embassy believes that the work by Merino have "items offensive to Jews, Israelis, and probably others."

In the same vein, he explained that religion is always "problem" and said he has tried to be as "respectful as possible". "I accept their criticism, but they must accept my work," said the artist, who considers that his piece is not "aggressive" because it has an "air of true religiosity." "You always have an opinion or interpretation that can not control. What others think depends on many elements I can not control, such as where you lived.

More from Eugenio Merino:

Staying Alive, Staying Alive!

Illustration by Poderiu

By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The Thursday, April 15, 2010 issue of Pamela "Atlas" Geller's Atlas Shrugs News Blog headlined: "Anti-Semite Richard Goldstone Barred from Grandson's Bar Mitzvah"⁽¹⁾. Considering Geller's credentials – the site won the 2005 "Best New Blog" Jewish & Israeli Blog Award – the headline's intentional name-calling comes as no surprise. Her personal opinion is summarised in the following statement: "Me? I might have invited him so I could spit in his face, kick him in the ass and throw his tuchas [too-khas –buttocks, rear-end ⁽²⁾] to the curb, but this is better" ⁽³⁾. The insults don't stop there. In line with Alan Dershowitz, who called Judge Richard Goldstone a "traitor" and Elie Wiesel, who branded the Goldstone report "a crime against the Jewish people" ⁽⁴⁾, she calls him "a terrible enemy – murderer of the Jewish homeland" ⁽⁵⁾.

The news item that sparked the ugly rhetoric is a private matter concerning the bar mitzvah of Richard Goldstone's grandson at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Orthodox Synagogue in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa ⁽⁶⁾, where the event is scheduled to take place. According to JTA report of April 15, 2010, Jewish groups including the South African Zionist Federation, had planned to protest outside the synagogue, if Judge Goldstone were to attend his grandson's bar mitzvah ⁽⁷⁾. Few days later, the Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation Avrom Krengel announced: "Goldstone had 'definitely not' been barred from the bar mitzvah, but ... he would not receive a welcome reception should he choose to attend ... We'll exercise our constitutional right to protest" ⁽⁸⁾.

The negotiations between the South African Zionist Federation and Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue resulted in the following announcement from Richard Goldstone: "In the interests of my grandson, I've decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue" ⁽⁹⁾. Rabbi Moshe Kurtstag, the head of the South African Beth Din (Jewish religious court) praised the outcome: "People have got feelings about it, they believe he [Judge Goldstone] put Israel in danger and they wouldn't like him to be getting honor ⁽¹⁰⁾. However, Rabbi Moshe Kurtstag should count himself among the very few that lauded the decision. Arthur Chaskalson, a retired chief justice of South Africa, considered it "'disgraceful' to put pressure on a grandfather not to attend his grandson's bar mitzvah ... If it is correct that this has the blessing of the leadership of the Jewish community in South Africa, it reflects on them rather than Judge Goldstone ... They should hang their heads in shame" ⁽¹¹⁾.

Similarly, Congressman Gary Ackerman, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia that holds jurisdiction over United States policy towards Israel, among other countries in the Middle East ⁽¹²⁾, wrote to Avrom Krengel of the South African Zionist Federation that he was "appalled and utterly disgusted by reports that Judge Goldstone will not be able to attend the bar mitzvah of his grandson due to protest threats by Jewish groups in South Africa" ⁽¹³⁾. Acknowledging his criticism of the Goldstone report, Ackerman admitted that "there was 'absolutely no justification or excuse for carrying legitimate opposition and criticism of Judge Goldstone's (wretched) professional work into the halls of his family's synagogue, much less the celebration of a 13-year-old Jewish boy's ritual acceptance of responsible membership in the Jewish community'" ⁽¹⁴⁾.

Critical reaction poured from the World Union for Progressive Judaism, despite Rabbi Moshe Kurtstag's praises for the arrangement whereby "Goldstone would stay away on his own volition" – the Rabbi called it "quite a sensible thing to avert all this unpleasantness." "Goldstone has done 'a tremendous disservice not only to Israel but to the Jewish world," Rabbi Kurtstag, the head of South African Jewish religious court said. "There ... [are] strong feelings in the synagogue against Goldstone attending ... His name is used by hostile elements in the world against Israel, and this can increase anti-Semitic waves'" ⁽¹⁵⁾. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the representative body of the Jewish community in South Africa, denied allegations that they had applied "intense pressure" ⁽¹⁶⁾ to keep Judge Goldstone away from the synagogue. The SAJBD stated that "while 'certain senior Jewish communal and religious leaders were certainly involved in the discussions around the topic, in no way did they attempt to dictate to or otherwise pressurize the family into arriving at their decision'" ⁽¹⁷⁾. In a typical sweep of apologetics, the SAJBD declared: "The SAJBD strongly believes that diversity of opinion in our community needs to be tolerated and respected, whether it emanates from the left, right or center" ⁽¹⁸⁾. This is idle talk but it signals a paradigm shift in the direction of feigning more tolerance towards the critics of Israeli policies.

In reality, the Goldstone report angered Israel and all those that chose to ignore human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, at a conference organized in Jerusalem by President Shimon Peres, called the condemnation an "anti-Israel vitriol" demanding member states to replace it with "recognition of Israel's legitimacy and right to exist in peace and security" ⁽¹⁹⁾. Rice made no direct reference to the Goldstone report, which concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes. She met with Defence Minister Ehud Barak, the "architect" of the Operation Cast Lead ⁽²⁰⁾, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who had earlier spoken of his "belief that the Arab-Israeli conflict would not be resolved in the coming years," and that "people should learn to live with it" ⁽²¹⁾, President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Goldstone report was discussed during the meeting with Peres. As for Netanyahu, he hailed Washington's opposition to the Goldstone report and thanked Rice for her government's "ongoing support of Israel at the United Nations" ⁽²²⁾.

Both Barak and Netanyahu called the UN report "one-sided," claiming that it undermined "Israel's right to defend itself" ⁽²³⁾. The accusation, completely unfounded as it is, ignores the fact that Israel had refused cooperation from the start – it had not allowed the UN mission to enter Israel or the Palestinian Territories – the assignment was made possible only through the Egyptian government that allowed entry to Gaza at Rafah ⁽²⁴⁾. According to Uri Avnery "However much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to cooperate with fact-finding and taking the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war. No credible international commission could reach any set of conclusions other than those reached by the Goldstone Report on the central allegations" ⁽²⁵⁾.

The report is impartial. It investigates Israeli and Palestinian war crimes, noting that "The Mission is persuaded that, in light of the long standing nature of the conflict, the frequent and consistent allegations of violations of international humanitarian law AGAINST ALL PARTIES (my emphasis), the apparent increase in intensity of such violations in the recent military operations, and the regrettable possibility of a return to further violence, meaningful and practical steps to end impunity for such violations would offer an effective way to deter such violations recurring in the future. The Mission is of the view that the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law would contribute to ending such violations, to the protection of civilians and to the restoration and maintenance of peace" ⁽²⁶⁾. The report suggests that "In view of the gravity of the violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity ... the Mission recommends that the United Nations Human Rights Council request the United Nations Secretary-General to bring this report to the attention of the United Nations Security Council under Art. 99 of the Charter of the United Nations so that the Security Council may consider action according to the relevant Mission's recommendations ... ⁽²⁷⁾. The list of recommendations includes requiring the Government of Israel "to launch appropriate investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards, into the serious violations of International Humanitarian and International Human Rights Law" within a period of three months ⁽²⁸⁾. While the Palestinians welcomed the Report, Israel called it "a diplomatic farce," claiming that it harmed the "Middle East peace efforts" ⁽²⁹⁾. Judge Goldstone dismissed this claim suggesting that "Israel's attempt to brand his report as an obstacle to peace" is "a shallow, utterly false allegation" and that there was no peace process to be harmed; "Israel's Foreign Minister did not want there to be one" ⁽³⁰⁾.

Indeed, Israel had disregarded all available diplomatic alternatives "to achieve security on its borders" ⁽³¹⁾. According to Richard Falk, an international law professor at Princeton University and an appointee to two UN positions on the Palestinian Territories, "the report takes no notice of the temporary ceasefire that had cut the rocket fire directed at Israel practically to zero in the months preceding the attacks, nor of Hamas' repeated efforts to extend the ceasefire indefinitely provided Israel lifted its unlawful blockade of Gaza. Further it was Israel that had seemed to provoke the breakdown of the ceasefire when it launched a lethal attack on Hamas militants in Gaza on November 4, 2008" ⁽³²⁾. The Report does not challenge the central premise of Operation Cast Lead that tried to justify the war as a consequence of the Hamas rocket attacks. In doing so, it adopted the government's "dubious proposition" that "Israel was entitled to act against Gaza in self-defence, thereby excluding inquiry into whether crimes against the peace in the form of aggression had taken place" ⁽³³⁾.

In many ways, the report was more sensitive to Israel's argument that "Hamas was guilty of war crimes by firing rockets into its territory" and that "Israel was acting in self-defence against a terrorist adversary" ⁽³⁴⁾, than many previous reports had been. A well-documented previous report, called "Breaking the Silence" collected testimonies from more than 650 soldiers that served in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the Second Intifada. The testimonies – some given anonymously – demonstrate cases of abuse towards Palestinians. "... Looting and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases." The "testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military. While this reality, which is known to Israeli soldiers and commanders, exists in Israel's back yard, Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye and to deny that which happens in its name" ⁽³⁵⁾. Israel has always rejected international criticism of the conduct of its military, claiming that "the IDF was the most moral fighting force on the face of the earth" ⁽³⁶⁾. The Goldstone Report concentrates on IDF's "excessive and indiscriminate" use of force especially in relation to civilian, non-military targets in Gaza ⁽³⁷⁾.

In an interview conducted by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Rabbi Brain Walt on October 1, 2009, Goldstone acknowledged that "even though Israel might have been entitled to use force ... it was disproportionate force." He pointed out that there was no justification for the destruction of thousands of homes, factories and agricultural land. He further acknowledged that there was no doubt that it was deliberate: "The Israeli army has very sophisticated weaponry, and I don't think they make many mistakes as to what they target" ⁽³⁸⁾. A similar point was raised during the October 23, 2009 interview with Bill Moyers: "I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers. I saw chicken farms, for egg production, completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of chickens killed. I met with families who lost their loved ones in homes in which they were seeking shelter from the Israeli ground forces. I had to have the very emotional and difficult interviews with fathers whose little daughters were killed, whose family were killed. One family, over 21 members, killed by Israeli mortars. So, it was a very difficult investigation, which will give me nightmares for the rest of my life" ⁽³⁹⁾. "These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment, and constitute war crimes. The government of Israel obviously has a duty to protect its own citizens. That in no way justifies a policy of collective punishment of a people under effective occupation, destroying their means to live a dignified life and the trauma caused by the kind of military intervention the Israeli government called Operation Cast Lead" ⁽⁴⁰⁾.

The question of intentionality upsets Goldstone's critics. However, he insists that "None of the Israeli responses have even said a word about the property destruction, the bulldozing of agricultural fields, the bombing of water wells, the bombing of sewage works that caused a huge spill over a huge area. There has been no attempt to justify that" ⁽⁴¹⁾. As hard as Israel attempts to deny it, the destruction of civilian infrastructure proves Goldstone's argument that the attacks aimed at weakening the support for Hamas, and this in itself is a violation of International Human Rights. Furthermore, according to Goldstone, "an attack on civilian objects, as opposed to military objects" is a war crime ⁽⁴²⁾. The angry Israeli rejections of Goldstone Report – Shimon Peres called it "a mockery of history" that "fails to distinguish the aggressor and a state exercising the right of self-defence" – insist that the Report originated in a "bastion of anti-Israeli attitudes at the UN's Human Rights Council" ⁽⁴³⁾, and therefore cannot be even-handed. Richard Falk calls it a cry of "foul play" designed to avoid "looking at the substance of the charges" or "the politics of deflection" whereby "the attention of an audience" is deliberately shifted "away from the message to the messenger" ⁽⁴⁴⁾. However, Israel's blunt dismissal of the report and its recommendations are inconsistent with the advice it gave the IDF officers wishing to travel abroad. The IDF did not specify the details but many of its officers, who participated in the Operation Cast Lead, were asked to consult legal experts at the Foreign Ministry before travelling. They were also advised to avoid visiting a number of countries where existing legislation enables the issue of arrest warrants against those linked to war crimes ⁽⁴⁵⁾. The Foreign Ministry adopted the same rhetoric as the Defence Minister Ehud Barak and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that "The Ministry is aware of efforts undertaken by Palestinian groups and their supporters to harm IDF officers through legal and public relations means, and is working to prevent such efforts" ⁽⁴⁶⁾.

Instead of creating an open, impartial, independent process that allowed victims to testify and perpetrators to be brought to justice, Israel found fault with Judge Richard Goldstone and the UN that mandated the Mission. The legal credentials of Judge Goldstone, who authored the UN report on the war in Gaza, were impeccable. Goldstone is an internationally respected jurist that served as chair of the commission that investigated the crimes of the security forces during the apartheid regime in South Africa. He was the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda ⁽⁴⁷⁾. Following the UN report, Goldstone was assaulted by various leaders of the Jewish community and tagged an Anti-Semite ⁽⁴⁸⁾ – an accusation not only inconsistent with his heritage but also with the fact that he was a member of the International Panel, established in 1997 to investigate the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) ⁽⁴⁹⁾, he is a member of the governing board of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ⁽⁵⁰⁾ and a life-long supporter of Israel ⁽⁵¹⁾. Nevertheless, he became a persona non grata in Zionist circles since the release of the UN report. One can easily dismiss Pamela "Atlas" Geller's unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations – for one thing, the personal attacks and the foul language warrant no serious consideration ⁽⁵²⁾ – but interfering with his private family life is something to consider more seriously.

The smear campaign against Judge Richard Goldstone bore no fruit, but it confirmed the simple truth put so eloquently by Richard Falk: "The more damning the criticism, the more ferocious the response. From this perspective the Goldstone Report obviously hit the bull's eye" ⁽⁵³⁾. Pointing at the intentionality, the deliberateness "of shooting unarmed civilians who pose no threat, of shooting people whose hands were shackled behind them" ⁽⁵⁴⁾, targeting and destroying civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, the Report helped fuel international condemnation of Israel. Bulldozing agricultural fields, destroying flour factories, chicken farms, homes, bombing water wells or sewage works ⁽⁵⁵⁾, denying access to adequate amounts of water, destroying Palestinian villagers' rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscating water tankers ⁽⁵⁶⁾ DO NOT AMOUNT TO SELF-DEFENCE. These are deliberate attempts to undermine International law, basic Human Rights, to punish the entire population for voting Hamas into power and to break the Palestinian people's resolve for achieving self-determination.

The recent Israeli reaction to Goldstone report can only mean one thing: the international community has finally woken up to the injustices committed in the name of self-defence. Foreign and Justice Ministry officials acknowledged that the 575-page Goldstone report is "widely seen to have done damage to Israel's reputation" ⁽⁵⁷⁾. The same idea was reinforced by Col Ben-Tzion Gruber in a You Tube video ⁽⁵⁸⁾, posted at Atlas Shrugs ⁽⁵⁹⁾. Amidst all the falsehood, and make-belief, there was one true statement uttered by Col Ben-Tzion Gruber: "I think that we have to do much more because we are losing the media wars" ⁽⁶⁰⁾. Indeed, they are! Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetorical question -- "Ladies and gentlemen, Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report provides a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?" ⁽⁶¹⁾ – thrown at the face of UN Human Rights Council, is a show of defiance that amounts to nothing. One has to agree with Richard Falk on his evaluation of the Report: "... Whatever happens in the UN System and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the weight of the report will be felt by world public opinion. ... A very robust boycott and divestment movement was gaining momentum ever since the Gaza War, and the Goldstone Report can only lend added support to such initiatives. ... The Palestinians have been winning ... [the] non-military war. Such a war fought on a global political battlefield is what eventually and unexpectedly undermined the apartheid regime in South Africa, and has become much more threatening to the Israeli sense of security than has armed Palestinian resistance" ⁽⁶²⁾.

References:
(1), (3), (5), (52), (59) Atlas Shrugs http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/04/antisemite-richard-goldstone-barred-from-grandsons-bar-mitzvah.html

(2) Some Yiddish Words http://www.hebrew4christians.net/Glossary/Yiddish_Words/yiddish_words.html#T

(4) The Magnes Zionist http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/2010/02/alan-dershowitz-richard-goldstone-naomi.html

(6) The Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Sandton http://www.sandtonshul.co.za/

(7), (10), (11), (16) JTA the Global News Service of the Jewish People http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/15/1011590/goldstone-barred-from-grandsons-bar-mitzvah

(8), (9) JTA the Global News Service of the Jewish People http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/19/1011646/group-protests-will-greet-goldstone-at-bar-mitzvah

(12) Congressman Gary Ackerman http://ackerman.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=10&sectiontree=2,10

(13), (14), (15), (17), (18) JTA the Global News Service of the Jewish People http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/20/1011671/moves-on-goldstone-bar-mitzvah-spark-brouhaha

(19), (22), (29) Yahoo News http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091021/pl_afp/mideastdiplomacyusisraelrice

(20), (21), (23), (30), (57) BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8316770.stm

(24), (25), (31), (32), (33), (34), (36), (37), (43), (44), (53), (62) Sabbah Report http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/09/22/richard-falk-why-the-goldstone-report-matters/

(26) UNFFMGC, Report p. 545 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf

(27) UNFFMGC Report, pp. 545-546 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf

(28) UNFFMGC Report, p. 546 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf

(35) Breaking the Silence http://www.shovrimshtika.org/about_e.asp

(38), (41), (42), (48), (49), (55) Tikkun http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371

(39), (4), (54), (61) Bill Moyers Journal http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/watch.html

(45), (46) Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1123814.html

(47), (51) The Journal http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/6006-gazas-goldstone-on-the-backseat

(50)Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/war-crimes-white-wash

(56) Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027

(58), (60) Pro-Israel Rally with Col Ben-Tzion Gruber outside Waldorf -- Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_dGtdrGYw

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at anaitbrutian@videotron.ca

By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews – reminds them who they are ... Anti-Semitism means oppressing Jews even more than they deserve" (New York Times Magazine, February 12, 1995 p. 65). These comments were made by Jay Lefkowitz, an Orthodox Jewish American politician and lawyer, who served as President Bush's Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea ⁽¹⁾. The fact that the comments originated with a lawyer is uncanny, but even more so because of his background in Orthodox Judaism and his status as a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea. What the comments really demonstrate is that a desirable amount of anti-Semitism – Mr. Lefkowitz needs "a little anti-Semitism, not a lot – whenever absent, can and must be induced by provocation to perpetuate the cause of Zionism.

Mr. Lefkowitz shares this thought with Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who witnessed anti-Semitism but instead of combating it, openly declared: "In Paris ... I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism" ⁽²⁾. The Dreyfus affair of 1890s that ended with his exoneration and reinstatement, largely through the efforts of French intellectuals headed by Émile Zola, did not meet Herzl's support as much as other political events of the time, notably the election victory of anti-Semitic Karl Lueger in 1895. Lueger's success in Vienna was used by Herzl to develop "a pragmatic strategy of non-resistance to anti-Semitism coupled with emigration of a portion of the Jews to a Jewish state in-the-making" ⁽³⁾. While the Habsburg Emperor refused to confirm Karl Lueger in office – 8 percent of the generals, considered the most loyal supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were Jews – Herzl favoured the confirmation. On November 3, 1895 he met the Prime Minister Count Casimir Badeni and told him to "accommodate Lueger" ⁽⁴⁾.

A similar attitude underlies the events of 1965-1966 described in Rhonda Spivak's Jerusalem Post article of June 19, 2009. In 1965 Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) hired an ex-cop, John Garrity to "infiltrate the Canadian Nazi Party" ⁽⁵⁾. According to Ezra Levant, the event was more than "infiltration" – the CJC "helped organize the fledgling Canadian Nazi Party." Originally, made up of a dozen members with no political agenda, the party was puffed up to fake the status of "a national menace" ⁽⁶⁾. Rabbi Reuven Bulka of CJC dismissed the story: "all the CJC did for the Nazis was buy them a bottle of rum" ⁽⁷⁾. But Garrity did much more than "buy them a bottle of rum." Hired by CJC in September 1965, Garrity was in their employ for 13 months until his article was published in McLean's on October 1, 1966. His "duties," apart from supplying CJC with information on the names of party members and donors ⁽⁸⁾, included among other things, Beattie's personal security: "I'd often have to dash across to wherever Beattie was living to inspect a caller he'd refused to admit to his apartment, to make sure the man wasn't a potential assassin" ⁽⁹⁾.

Before spying for CJC, Garrity had sleuthed on John Beattie for another Jewish group N3, who felt that CJC "was not doing enough to confront the Nazi threat" ⁽¹⁰⁾. Garrity's evaluation of Beattie and his Nazi group does not fit the description of "Nazi threat." "There was just Beattie and a couple of teenagers ... in the Nazi business ... only a dozen active members, plus perhaps 100 unseen supporters ..." ⁽¹¹⁾. He called the group "harmless misfits," which one may assume, was the evaluation he transmitted to his bosses at CJC. CJC was aware of the status of John Beattie, a 24-year-old unemployed clerk that had been "evicted from his fifth apartment in a year for not paying his rent" ⁽¹²⁾. Even if the CJC had not obtained the information through N3, Garrity's characterization of the group and its leader – his testimony should have carried some weight because he acted as bodyguard and chauffeur that paid for Beattie's drinks for more than a year – should have made it sufficiently clear that there was real "Nazi threat." John Beattie's own statement: "I had no car ... Garrity drove me everywhere and Garrity fed me. He bought me lunches and snacks all the time, every day ... and sometimes he'd buy me groceries ... He bought me lots of drinks ... " ⁽¹³⁾ also supports this view.

According to Ezra Levant, CJC paid $200 per month for 13 consecutive months in fees plus expenditure that included food, transportation and security for Beattie. Describing the bizarre affair, Levant said: "The Canadian Nazi Party was often a party of one ... It wasn't even an organization in any legal sense. It didn't have a bank account. It didn't have a newsletter. It didn't have any formal organization – no bylaws, no constitution." ⁽¹⁴⁾.The source of Levant's information is the report of Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which described Beattie as "a poor leader and organizer" having no more than "50 followers" and "no membership." "It is not believed that Beattie could exert adverse influence on any person other than some supporters of the party and this would only be to a degree" ⁽¹⁵⁾. This profile is substantiated by Beattie's own statement. Explaining the photo of Garrity with a box, referred to as "correspondence" in McLean's article of October 1, 1966, Beattie said: "That box was filled with all of the newspaper clippings about me ... I craved all of the media attention ... I loved it ... " "It wasn't much of a Nazi Party ... There were a few characters who were anti-Jewish maybe four or five who where anti-Semitic. They liked to blame the Jews for everything" ⁽¹⁶⁾.

Even without the RCMP report, ex-cop John Garrity should have known the real rag-tag nature of this "organization." Indeed, one other important role that he played was to ensure that the Canadian Nazi Party would never rise to become a real organization: "I was chosen secret-service chief, with the job of checking applicants for membership. ... I did check about 15 prospective members, and turned down those who seemed intelligent and therefore dangerous" ⁽¹⁷⁾. Ellen Scheinberg of Ontario Jewish Archives acknowledged that Garrity's work in fact destroyed the Nazi Party by eliminating those who would have been useful to the party. To ensure the full trust and cooperation of Beattie, Garrity, on occasion, acted against his former employer N3, whose plan to disrupt a meeting with stink bombs was tipped off to the police by CJC. ⁽¹⁸⁾. Knowing full well that Beattie and his Nazis had never "even contemplated doing anything illegal and all of the violence he witnessed was directed at Beattie, usually by Jewish vigilantes, Garrity helped CJC to turn the Nazi Party into a media sensation: "Sadly, it is the ... anti-Nazi extremists who, in their attempts to destroy Beattie, provide him with most of the publicity he craves. If it weren't for the riots and the assaults and the public protest meetings they hold, there'd be no real news in Beattie" ⁽¹⁹⁾.

Garrity's claim is substantiated through an event involving a rally at Allan Gardens in Toronto on May 30, 1965, where, according to prior announcement, Beattie's supporters would wear swastika armbands. According to Ezra Levant, on May 28, just two days before the planned event, CJC issued a statement that read: "Toronto apparently faces the gross provocation of public Nazi demonstration ... The Canadian Jewish Congress feels that the very threat of attempting such a demonstration ... is insulting and provocative to the great majority of citizens of this city. It indeed poses a threat to the peace and good order of the community ... For the citizens of Toronto, there can be only one response: to condemn completely and unreservedly the acts of the self-styled Nazis, and to bring to bear the weight of an outraged public opinion against the provocations they plan" ⁽²⁰⁾. This statement was issued despite the fact that both CJC and N3 were aware of the fact that Beattie did not have a permit from the City Hall that would allow him to hold a demonstration and give speeches – Beattie had asked Garrity, who had "conveniently forgotten" to obtain the permit. Just as the self-proclaimed "Heinrich Himmler" had "forgotten" all about the permit, so had the CJC and N3 "forgotten" to mention this very important fact to the Jewish community: "The demonstration could have been averted had community leaders, from both Congress and the anti-Nazi organizations, informed the community in advance that Beattie did not have a permit" ⁽²¹⁾.

Ezra Levant claims that CJC "didn't inform the Jewish public of Beattie's not having a permit because it wanted an enraged citizenry to help it in its push for anti-hate laws." "They managed to parlay a second-rate carnival act into the raison d'etre for censorship laws that would otherwise have likely failed to become laws" ⁽²²⁾. Popping-up Beattie with his Nazi Party and creating media frenzy suited CJC, contributing to "convincing the Parliament to give them more 'hate' laws." Beattie's proposed Nazi rally, cunningly anticipated by CJC's May 28 statement, created the "much needed proof" that without censorship laws, public disturbance was unavoidable and law and order could be jeopardized. A crowd made up of 4000 Jewish demonstrators, a riot with violence and eight arrests were the finishing touch to the well-planned CJC masquerade.

Almost half a century ago, in 1952, the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, proposed to send a team of saboteurs "to help redeem Jews" in countries where they were "absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction" ⁽²³⁾. The task of these saboteurs "would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews," and plague their targets with anti-Semitic slogans such as "Bloody Jews," "Jews go to Palestine," and so on ⁽²⁴⁾. A similar plot was adopted by Israeli government to force Iraqi Jews to move to Israel. "The rescue" of 125,000, in early 1950s involved "terrorizing the Jews" with planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and synagogues, followed by leaflets that urged Jews to "flee to Israel" ⁽²⁵⁾. To combat the perceived anti-Semitism in Iraq, Naeim Giladi joined the Zionist underground. He was caught, tortured and sentenced to death by the authorities. Giladi escaped, fled to Israel and later found out that the anti-Semitism and terrorism that plagued the Iraqi Jews were engineered by the Zionists to trick them to go to Israel ⁽²⁶⁾. While all of these nauseating revelations explain the Zionist mindset, they also demonstrate that their methods haven't changed in time. Today there is a growing Human Rights Industry in Canada, and Ezra Levant's Shakedown takes a deep look at it from its inception to its present-day abuses. Garrity's inflating of the importance of Canadian Nazis, with an explicit purpose of ensuring the censorship laws, established the pattern that was imitated in relation to another rag-tag group, the white supremacist Heritage Front ⁽²⁷⁾.

According to June 29, 2009 editorial of the Montreal Gazette, the Canadian Human Rights Commission defends its "authority to police the Internet – or any other electronic medium – for opinions that are 'likely to' expose people to hatred or contempt" ⁽²⁸⁾. An assault on Free Speech, Section 13 of the Human Rights Act is a censorship provision that prohibits transmissions deemed "offensive" to bureaucratic manipulators. Run by the "fanatical thought police at the Canadian Human Rights Commission" ⁽²⁹⁾, it has been used to attack writers, newspaper columnists, website owners, magazine publishers that have demonstrated the audacity to write on such "contentious issues" as the Israeli aggression, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and the criminal insanity of Israeli leaders. William A. Cook's article, Anti-Semitism: Silencing the Messenger of Truth with Canada's "Hate Provisions," details the author's "encounter" with "hate crime" – Mr. Cook was "charged before the Council of Human Rights with anti-Semitism by Mr. Harry Abrams with the support of B'nai B'rith of Canada ⁽³⁰⁾. In this and most other cases, the perpetrator of the real crime is the party filing the complaint. To put it differently, there is a real crime but it is directed at the individual who dares SPEAK THE TRUTH.

Since its first enactment, the law sustained two major changes that altered its original intent and turned Section 13 into an instrument for punishing "politically incorrect views." Today this legislation enables the Canadian Human Rights Commission to censor the Internet and harass the public for views that the Thought Police disagrees with ⁽³¹⁾. Unless the public wakes up to the real implications of the law, and challenges its constitutionality, we will see our most cherished FREEDOM OF SPEECH erode in the hands of vindictive manipulators and "social engineers that staff the Human Rights Commission" ⁽³²⁾ and work for the backroom politics of special interest groups that aspire to eradicate FREE THOUGHT and silence FREE SPEECH.

References:
(1) Jay Lefkowitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Lefkowitz

(2), (3), (4) Lenni Brenner Zionism in the Age of Dictators
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.htm

(5), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17), (18), (20), (21), (22) Several Spies and a Bottle of Rum
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184864673&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

(6), (7), (8), (19), (27) Ezra Levant
http://ezralevant.com/2009/04/why-did-the-jewish-congress-bu.html

(23), (24), (25) Anti-Semitism: Zionism's Indispensable Alibi
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/03/15/anti-semitism-zionisms-indispensable-alibi/

(26) The Zionist Protection Racket
http://www.savethemales.ca/000889.html

(28) Rights Commission Threatens our Liberty
http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=b084ee2b-ed22-4e08-a689-f1c7dc989a51

(29) Stop Section 13
http://www.stopsection13.com/

(30) Anti-Semitism: Silencing the Messenger of Truth with Canada's "Hate Provisions"
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/03/15/silencing-the-messenger-of-truth-with-canadas-hate-provisions/

(31), (32) History of Section 13
http://www.stopsection13.com/history_of_sec13.html

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at anaitbrutian@videotron.ca

The rabbi creates a golem

By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Yitzhak Shapira, the fanatical Zionist rabbi, who heads the Old Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus and rabbi Yossi Elitzur have penned a new book: Torah HaMelech (The King's Torah) that has become the subject of the news in Eretz Yisrael (Hebrew for Land of Israel) ⁽¹⁾. According to Roee Sharon, the book contains no less than "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew" (see the original Hebrew article by Roee Sharon in Maariv, November 9, 2009 ⁽²⁾. A translation of the Maariv article can be read at Coteret News) ⁽³⁾.

The book follows the halachic laws (the collective body of Jewish religious law, including the 613 biblical laws) for the killing of the goyim (Hebrew for nations), who threaten Eretz Yisrael ⁽⁴⁾. "Jews have the right to kill non-Jews in just about any circumstance." "If we kill a gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments ... there is nothing wrong with the murder" ⁽⁵⁾. The permission to kill is given on the basis of the Sheva mitzvot B'nei Noach (the seven Noachian Laws), which, according to the Talmud, should be followed by all mankind ⁽⁶⁾; (see The Noachian Laws in Jewish Encyclopedia ⁽⁷⁾. "When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noachian laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, no prohibition has been violated" ⁽⁸⁾. The Yeshiva World News official website justifies the book's permission to kill with the following statement: "The sefer [Hebrew for book] adds that killing a non-Jew who has violated the Seven Mitzvos [Hebrew for commandments] given to non-Jews because we care about torah and mitzvos, then this is acceptable. It stresses the importance of Eretz Yisrael, the halachic requirements of the land, and living within a torah framework" ⁽⁹⁾. Similarly, the book justifies the killing of "non-Jews who demand the land for themselves" ⁽¹⁰⁾.

Civilians are not immune from Shapira's and Elitzur's attacks: "Any case in which the life of the civilian endangers Israel – it is allowed to kill a gentile." This authorization applies to direct and indirect "endangering" of Israel. Thus civilians who aid fighters, support the war, or sympathise with the resistance should be killed ⁽¹¹⁾. The Rabbis also encourage the killing of non-Jews that bear Israeli citizenship but are suspected of assisting organizations that are considered a "threat to national security" by the present regime ⁽¹²⁾. According to Shapira and Elitzur babies and children can be killed too because they are "hindrances." "Hindrances – babies are found many times in this situation. They block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by force. Nevertheless, they may be killed because their presence aids murder. 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." "The children of the leader may be harmed in order to apply pressure to him. If attacking the children of a wicked ruler will influence him not to behave wickedly, they may be harmed" ⁽¹³⁾.

The conclusion of the book contains the following statement: "In religious law, we have found that non-Jews are generally suspected of shedding Jewish blood, and in war, this suspicion becomes a great deal stronger. One must consider killing even babies, who have not violated the seven Noachian laws, because of the future danger that will be caused if they are allowed to grow up to be as wicked as their parents" ⁽¹⁴⁾. Encouraging retaliation, Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur support violence and give credence to the notion that "In order to defeat the enemy ... [they] must behave toward ... [the enemy] in a spirit of retaliation and measure for measure." "Retaliation is absolutely necessary in order to render such wickedness not worthwhile. Therefore, sometimes we do cruel deeds in order to create the proper balance of terror" ⁽¹⁵⁾.

The idea of using terror fits with Israel Koenig's recommendation in "The Koenig Memorandum" – "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population" ⁽¹⁶⁾. It also fits with Rafael Eitan's prescription for the removal of Palestinians from Palestine: "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimetre of Eretz Israel [the land of Israel] ... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours" ⁽¹⁷⁾. A similar sentiment was expressed by the co-signer of the document called The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ⁽¹⁸⁾ and future Prime Minister of Israel David Ben Gurion: "We must expel Arabs and take their places" ⁽¹⁹⁾. Yoram Bar Porath supported these views: "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonisation or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands" ⁽²⁰⁾. Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, had expressed similar views long before the establishment of the State of Israel: "If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land ... or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE! ... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force[s]" ⁽²¹⁾.

The statements by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath and Vladimir Jabotinsky bear all the trappings of a jihad against the Palestinians. Commonly translated as Holy War, the Arabic word literally means "striving," "struggling," "endeavouring" ⁽²²⁾. Webster's Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines it as 1) "a holy war undertaken as a sacred duty by Muslims" and 2) "any vigorous, often bitter crusade for an idea or principle" ⁽²³⁾. The online version of the same dictionary identifies it as a noun, provides a variant (Jehad), the etymology (Arabic jihād) but maintains the same definitions ⁽²⁴⁾. T. P. Hughes explains that there are two kinds of jihads – "the greater" against one's own lusts and "the lesser" against infidels ⁽²⁵⁾. According to Hughes, the description of the "lesser jihad" occurs in al-Madinah Surahs (an Islamic term denoting a chapter in the Qur'an), written after Muhammad established his supreme rule and was able to dictate his terms and conditions to his enemies ⁽²⁶⁾. Historically, this type of jihad can be viewed as a way of advancing Islam among the conquered unbelievers offering them three choices (1) "the reception of Islam, in which case the conquered became enfranchised citizens of the Muslim state; (2) "the payment of a poll-tax (Jizyah), by which unbelievers in Islam obtain protection, and become Zimmis ..." and (3) "death by sword, to those who will not pay the poll-tax" ⁽²⁷⁾.

Unlike its Islamic counterpart, the Zionist jihad does not differentiate between "greater" and "lesser" types and terror is not used as a last resort, as was the case with the last option in the al-Madinah Surahs of the Qur'an. Terror is part and parcel of all Zionist undertakings. The notion not only justifies the senseless killing of civilians, including women, children and the elderly, but also promotes it. Israel's former chief rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu encouraged the Israeli army to mass murder Palestinians in 2007: "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they don't stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000. Even a million." A similar feeling is expressed in June 2009, by US Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman, who encouraged Israelis to kill Palestinian "men, women and children." "I don't believe in Western morality, i.e., don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy holy sites, don't fight during the holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, and don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)" ⁽²⁸⁾.

According to Maariv, Shapira's and Elitzur's Torah HaMelech does not mention Palestinians or Arabs; the "killing of gentiles" is a "theoretical concept," supposedly unrelated to the politics of the region – "he [Shapira] was 'careful not to explicitly encourage private individuals to take the law into their own hands" ^{(29). The Yeshiva World News official website stresses the fact that while "the media is having a field day with the sefer, it is written that the sefer discusses theoretic halachic principles, and in no way calls for the murder of goyim, 'Arabs' or 'Palestinians' as the media seeks to imply" (30)}. This may be so, but Torah HaMelech, the new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is popular among several prominent rabbis, who recommended it to their followers and students. The Yeshiva World News official website enlists approbation from Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, and Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh ⁽³¹⁾.

In 2003, under pressure from left-wing groups, Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein charged Rabbi Yitzchak Ginzburgh, the former head of the Old Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Shechem, with incitement to racism. Rabbi Ginsburgh's June 19, 1989 statement clearly declares: "Jewish blood and a goy's (gentile's) blood are not the same." Thus, killing isn't murder if the victim is Gentile. ⁽³²⁾. According to Rabbi Ginsburgh "... every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus part of God." If this is so, "then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA." Using similar logic, Rabbi Ginsburg declared that "the Arabs ... don't have the right to live in ... [Israel] and that "they want to take land that doesn't belong to them and therefore they are also robbers." "The concept of the third world, which is the most primitive on the scale of nations, refers to the Arabs who are on the lowest rung in the scale ... According to Kabbalah, the Jewish people are the most advanced people in mind and spirit, but Yishmael is a nation of slaves and the character of a slave is licentious and undisciplined" ⁽³³⁾. Approbation from a brilliant "haematologist" and "DNA specialist" Rabbi Ginsburgh speaks volumes, especially when considering the fact that Ginsburgh's own sentiments concerning the killing of non-Jews do not differ from those of Shapira and Elitzur – Ginsburgh justified the US-born Baruch Goldstein's 1994 killing of the Palestinian worshippers in the Machpela Cave mosque in Hebron during Ramadan on halachic grounds ⁽³⁴⁾.

Another religious leader, Rabbi Dov Lior, the chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council, chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba ⁽³⁵⁾ that has endorsed Shapira's and Elitzur's new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is an "expert" on military matters: "There is no such thing as enemy civilians in war time. The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them ... A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail" ⁽³⁶⁾. A student of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, the founder of the extremist Gush Emunim with the slogan "The Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel," Rabbi Dov Lior continues to sponsor the teachings of his mentor Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and the latter's father, fundamentalist Rabbi Abraham Kook , the founder of the first Zionist Yeshiva in Jerusalem in 1924, during the British Mandate, who said: "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews – all of them in all different levels – is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle" ⁽³⁷⁾. In late 1980s, following a public protest over his suggestions to use captured Arab terrorists "to conduct medical experiments," Rabbi Lior was barred from the election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council ⁽³⁸⁾. More recently, Rabbi Dov Lior issued a halachic decree, which states that "it is forbidden by Jewish law to employ Arabs or rent homes to them" ⁽³⁹⁾. In an interview published by "Eretz Israel Shelanu" (Our Land of Israel), Rabbi Lior said: "since this is a matter of endangering souls, it is clear that it is completely forbidden to employ them and rent houses to them in Israel. Their employment is forbidden not only at yeshivas, but at factories, hotels and everywhere" ⁽⁴⁰⁾.

Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the head of the Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva in Jerusalem and the son of Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ⁽⁴¹⁾ is another supporter of Yitzhak Shapira's and Yossi Elitzur's new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad. He is a member of the national-religious community and has served as a Shas MK in the past ⁽⁴²⁾. The fact that Shapira and Elitzur began selling Torah HaMelech at the memorial for Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Israeli Knesset member who advocated "mass expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the territories" ⁽⁴³⁾ is significant. It implies that even though it is not distributed by the leading book-sellers ⁽⁴⁴⁾, Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer is known among past and present members of the Israeli Knesset, suggesting that the halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is tacitly promoted at the highest level of the government.

The statement that Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad does not target Palestinians or Arabs and approaches the "killing of gentiles" from a "theoretical" perspective is more worrisome than one might suspect. It can be interpreted as a license to kill all gentiles that fit into the authors' category of the "goyim who threaten Eretz Yisrael." But the category can be broadened to include all who oppose Israel's Zionist agenda in the occupied territories, conveniently branded as anti-Semites by the Zionist-controlled media (see What is Anti-Semitism? by the same author ⁽⁴⁵⁾. And finally, the category can be broadened to include all opposition to the Zionist programme of world domination: "We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg's testimony before the U.S. Senate, February 17, 1950 ⁽⁴⁶⁾; Paul Warburg, the founder of the US Federal Reserve, was the brother of Max Warburg, the chief of German Intelligence and an associate of Adolf Hitler – both were executives of I.G. Farben).

Whether these categories were delineated or not is secondary to the fact that Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer was sold at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the flagship of Orthodox Zionism. According to Mathew Wagner of The Jerusalem Post, there was a small sign at the entrance advertising the sale of Torah HaMelech at NIS 30 and "those interested in buying the book were asked to place money in a small cup and take ... [a copy]" ⁽⁴⁷⁾. A young man called Lior, whose name and phone number had appeared on the advertisement, was surprised to realize how fast the copies were sold. The authors and promoters of the halachic guide for the Zionist jihad could not have chosen a better location for the sale – Torah HaMelech is especially useful for the students of the yeshiva "who have served, are presently serving or plan on serving in the IDF" ⁽⁴⁸⁾. Mathew Wagner further explains that since "a large portion of Torat Hamelech is dedicated to exploring Jewish "rules of engagement" according to the authors' interpretation of Jewish law," the book is relevant "for many young men at Mercaz Harav or other Orthodox Zionist yeshivot where IDF service is combined with intense Torah learning" ⁽⁴⁹⁾. The fact that "the book could have practical implications for how religious soldiers do battle" ⁽⁵⁰⁾ is of no consequence to Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, who is "a highly respected halachic authority in both haredi and religious Zionist circles" – his endorsement appeared in the book.

As Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide will undeniably incite more violence against non-Jews, it will also contribute to the rift between Jews and Gentiles. The Zionist intellectual Maurice Samuel, in his You Gentiles of 1924 polarized the gentile and the Jewish worlds: "There are two life-forces in the world I know: Jewish and gentile, ours and yours ... Your outlook on life, your dominant reactions, are the same to-day as they were two thousand years ago. All that has changed is the instrument of expression. You live the same life under different faiths, but something clings to you here and there resembling the original form of the faith we gave you " ⁽⁵¹⁾. Samuel admits that the "surface credo of a Jewish faith" imposed on a gentile way of life did not make a fundamental difference: "But in the end your true nature works itself into the pattern of the borrowed faith, and expresses itself undeniably" ⁽⁵²⁾. Samuel suggests that there is a "clear and fateful division of life – Jewish and gentile," with an "unsounded abyss between" them. Gentiles have a "way of living and thinking" that is distinctly different from Jews: "I do not believe that this primal difference between gentile and Jew is reconcilable. You and we may come to an understanding, never to a reconciliation. There will be irritation between us as long as we are in intimate contact. For nature and constitution and vision divide us from all of you forever..." ⁽⁵³⁾. Similar to other Zionists, Samuel's "solution" is based on the destruction of the existing world order: "A century of partial tolerance gave us Jews access to your world. In that period the great attempt was made, by advance guards of reconciliation, to bring our two worlds together. It was a century of failure. ... We Jews, we, the destroyers, will remain the destroyers forever. Nothing that you will do will meet our needs and demands. We will forever destroy because we need a world of our own, a God-world, which it is not in your nature to build" ⁽⁵⁴⁾.

The separation between Jews and non-Jews lies at the heart of the teachings of Zionist intellectuals and religious leaders. This teaching is encouraged even outside of Israel. Elliot Abrams, a neo-conservative in charge of President Bush's "global democracy strategy," wrote in 1997 that "[Jewish law] does indeed separate Jews from their fellow citizens" and that "Jews are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people" ⁽⁵⁵⁾. The sentiment of irreconcilable differences is enforced in the following statement, this time with overt shades of racial superiority: "We Jews regard our race as superior to all humanity, and look forward not to its ultimate union with other races, but to its triumph over them." Rabbi Saadya Grama's 2003 book Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (The Majesty of Israel and the Question of the Diaspora) provides a race-based theory of Jewish supremacy arguing that non-Jews are "completely evil," while Jews are genetically superior: "The difference between the people of Israel and the nations of the world is an essential one. The Jew by his source and in his very essence is entirely good. The goy, by his source and in his very essence is completely evil. This is not simply a matter of religious distinction, but rather of two completely different species" ⁽⁵⁶⁾. This attitude towards the goyim is reinforced by the statement of Golda Maier on March 8, 1969. Her declaration: "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to" ⁽⁵⁷⁾ is a clever pun suggesting that the original inhabitants of Palestine are "nobody" i.e., not people. Apart from its inherent falsehood (see the statements by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath, Vladimir Jabotinsky above), Golda Maier's derogatory remark downplays the danger posed to Israel by the original inhabitants: a "nobody" surely does not threaten the security of Eretz Yisrael. If there is no real danger to threaten Eretz Yisrael, then Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide for the killing of the goyim is founded on the principle of HATRED – a sentiment shared by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Maurice Samuel, Paul Warburg , Rabbi Abraham Kook, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Rabbi Meir Kahane, Rabbi Saadya Grama, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Rabbi Mordechai Elyahu, Rabbi Manis Friedman, Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, whose statements demonstrate similar hatred for the goyim.

According to Roee Sharon, Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad
includes "hundreds of sources from the Bible and religious law" ⁽⁵⁸⁾. Indeed, the Bible demands separation, segregation and discrimination. After restating his "abhorrence" (Lev 20:23) towards the previous inhabitants of the land and his reasons for driving them out, God promises their land "flowing with milk and honey" – a clear reference to Exodus 33:3 – to his people declaring: "I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples" (Lev 20:24). Ezra marks this separation with his famous term "the holy seed" (Ezra 9:2), "zera hakodesh" in Hebrew ⁽⁵⁹⁾, which compels the entire community to dissolve all inter-marriages, getting rid of foreign wives and their children (Ezra 10:3). The ideology of separation, segregation and discrimination combined with the toxic rhetoric of the fundamentalists yields a dangerous brew made up of insanity and criminality. Mathew Wagner discusses the critical response of a "leading religious Zionist media figure" ⁽⁶⁰⁾. One may take a sigh of relief in thinking that the criticism is based on a sound evaluation of the dangers associated with endorsing radical jihadist ideology. Alas, this is not the case – the anonymous "leading religious Zionist media figure" is NOT concerned with the moral imperative of such indoctrination, in fact he agrees with the conclusions of Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide: "I do not doubt the halachic conclusions of the book" ⁽⁶¹⁾. He is concerned with the negative publicity the book generated: "I grabbed my head when I saw the headline in Ma'ariv ... I said to myself we have just managed to contain the media damage done to us by Teitel, by showing he is an isolated element, and now this happens" ⁽⁶²⁾. Thus, while the civilized world is screaming about Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer Torah HaMelech, the reaction towards the new Halachic Guide is positive in Israel. No one seems to worry about the fact that it will definitely lead to more violence. The "leading religious Zionist media figure" epitomizes the Zionist mentality: the life of the goyim is less important than the media damage caused by the publication of Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad.

References:
(1), (30), (31) Rav Yitzchak Shapira's Sefer Makes Headlines in Eretz Yisrael
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=41807
(2), (4), (9) ספר שמופץ בימין מסביר מתי מותר להרוג "גויים"
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/964/186.html?hp=1&loc=1&tmp=3416
(3), (6), (8), (13), (14), (15), (44), (58) Settler Rabbi publishes "The complete guide to killing non-Jews"
http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/
(5), (10), (11), (29), (43) Settler rabbi authors guidelines on killing gentiles
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=238444
(7) The Noachian Laws
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=582&letter=J&search=jubilees#1948
(12) Zionist Rabbi Calls for Killing of Even Non-Jewish Children and Infants if They Pose a 'Threat' to Israel
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2009/November/9%20n/Zionist%20Rabbi%20Calls%20for%20Killing%20of%20Even%20Non-Jewish%20Children%20and%20Infants%20if%20They%20Pose%20a%20'Threat'%20to%20Israel.htm
(16) Israel Koenig, the Koenig Memorandum
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(17) Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, 1983
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(18) Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Declaration+of+Establishment+of+State+of+Israel.htm
(19), (21), (32), (57) Al- Awda PRRC
http://www.al-awda.org/quotes.html
(20) Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aharonot, July 14, 1972,
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(22) Massive Online Encyclopedia of Islam Hyper-linked to the Qur'an, Hadiths, Taurat, Injil and other sources
http://www.bible.ca/islam/dictionary/index.html
(23) Webster's Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, p. 767.
(24) Merriam-Webster's Online dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad
(25), (26), (27) A Dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes, London, 1895, pp. 243-248
http://www.bible.ca/islam/dictionary/Hughes/jihad.htm
(28), (36), (37), (56) Religious fundamentalism in Israel
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/961/focus.htm
(33) Jewish Forum and Discussions – Chabad Talk
http://www.chabadtalk.com/forum/showthread.php3?t=2402
(34) 1994: Jewish settler kills 30 at holy site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_4167000/4167929.stm
(35), (39), (40) Top Yesha rabbi says Jewish law forbids renting houses to Arabs
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966208.html
(38) Dov Lior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Lior#cite_note-0
(41) Rabbi: Older bachelors must leave Jerusalem
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709700,00.html
(42) Shas rabbi's son: No afterlife for Federman farm destroyers
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3617393,00.html
(45) What is Anti-Semitism?
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/01/11/what-is-anti-semitism-part-of-the-first-word-war/
(46) Jewish Banker Paul Warburg's testimony before the U.S. Senate, February 17, 1950
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(47), (48), (49), (50), (60), (61), (62) Book advocating killing gentiles who endanger Jews is hard to come by
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1257770034282&pagename=JPArticle/ShowFull
(51) Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles, pp. 19-20
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(52) Samuel, p. 22
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(53) Samuel, pp. 22, 23
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(54) Samuel, p. 155
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(55) Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. Santa Barbara: State Street Publications, 2008, p. 139.
(59) Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, ed. A. Schenker. Stuttgart: C. H. Beck, Nördingen, 1997 p. 1426.

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music.

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

If you indulge in ad hominem attacks (attacking the person rather than the issue), you can expect the same in return. The issues related to the anti-Semitic label are many.

First, the expression "anti-Semitic" is a misnomer. It's defined as "hating Jews or Judeophobia." The label "anti-Semitism" is wrong because not all Jews are Semites, and many Arabs are.

In 2004, the US Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. The Act defines a person as being anti-Semitic for holding any of a number of beliefs. My comments follow each of the 14 items supposedly revealing anti-Semitism.

1) Any assertion, "that the Jewish community controls government, the media, international business and the financial world."

According to this, it doesn't matter whether the assertion is true or not. Truth is not an issue. Simply making such a statement violates the Act. In itself, that fact provides strong evidence of control of the US government.

2) The expression of "Strong anti-Israel sentiment."

Any criticism of Israel can thus be considered anti-Semitic. Israel can mangle Gaza and get away with it.

3) Expressing "Virulent criticism" of Israel's leaders, past or present.

Menachem Begin may have led the Irgun in the slaughter and dispossession of thousands of Palestinians, but it's anti-Semitic to say so.

4) Any criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders with its emphasis on the Talmud and Kabbala.

It's perfectly acceptable, as free speech, to vilify Islam, but any criticism of Judaism violates the Act.

5) Any criticism of the United States Government and Congress for being under the undue influence by the Jewish-Zionist community, which would include Jewish organizations such as AIPAC.

Truth matters not to the ridiculous legislators who passed this ludicrous act.

6) Any criticism of the Jewish-Zionist community for promoting globalism or what some call the "New World Order."

When you can't criticise a propaganda machine for its promotions, both free speech and democracy are dead.

7) Placing any blame on Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman crucifixion of Christ.

In order to accommodate the anti-Semitism label, simply rewrite history.

8) Citing any facts that could in any way diminish the "six million" figure of Jewish holocaust victims.

I violate the act simply by citing the fact that five million non-Jews died at the hands of the Nazis. This goes beyond stifling free speech.

9) Claiming that Israel is a racist state.

That's not a claim. It's a fact. Israel is full of racist laws. It insists on preserving its racist character and its right to impose apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza.

10) Making any claim that there is a "Zionist Conspiracy."

A rational provision for such a claim would insist on evidence as proof of its validity. To disallow making such a claim is existentially (Israelis love that word) dictatorial.

11) Offering proof that Jews and their leaders created Communism and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

It just became illegal to offer proof. Minds are made up. Don't confuse them with the facts.

12) Making derogatory statements about Jewish persons.

Why limit it to Jewish persons?

13) Asserting that spiritually disobedient Jews do not have the Biblical right to re-occupy Palestine.

Why limit it to the spiritually disobedient?

14) Making any allegations of Mossad involvement in the 9/11 attack.

I just did in a column published a week ago.

The Act passed by the US Congress makes me anti-Semitic. It's an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. I'm a critic of Israel when they commit wrongs and a critic of America when it does wrong. Despite Congress, that's not anti-Semitic.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.