By James M. Wall * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

JTA columnist Ron Kampeas has been a lone voice in sounding the alarm to his Jewish readers:

"Pro-Israel leaders in the United States, Britain and Australia are warily watching the unfolding of the phone-hacking scandal that is threatening to engulf the media empire of Rupert Murdoch."

The Murdoch scandal has been extensively reported as a telephone hacking police story. Only in the JTA, the Global News Service of the Jewish People, has coverage of the Murdoch News Corp story sounded the traditional Jewish mother’s alarm: "uh oh, this will not be good for the Jewish people".

Kampeas assumes, correctly I am sure, that his readers do have a strong interest in Murdoch’s "sudden massive reversal of fortune". They have reason to be alarmed.

Without Daddy Murdoch’s formidable pro-Israel presence, that pesky UN September vote could tilt toward the Palestinians. After that, Israel-Palestinian border negotiations might find a disgraced Murdoch-controlled British government eager to prove its independence. Without Murdoch, Fox News will have lost its most reliable news producer.

Thus far, the Murdoch "hacking scandal" has reached ten former staffers and News Corp executives who have been arrested by British police. They are accused of "hacking into the phones of public figures and a murdered schoolgirl, and paying off the police and journalists."

These allegations threaten to severely weaken Murdoch’s media empire, an empire the Australian built which now includes The Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and The Australian. Murdoch also owns two major tabloids, The Sun in Britain and the New York Post. In the US, Murdoch owns and virtually writes the scripts for the Fox News Channel. Until he recently sold it, Murdoch also owned The Weekly Standard, the neo conservative magazine he created in 1995.

Admirers of Murdoch’s aggressive take-over of news outlets have praised him for revitalizing the news industry. What they overlook is that his "revitalizing" has also lowered the standards of the journalism profession. It is the Murdoch style to view the world through black and white lens, "West good, Muslim East bad".

For the Murdoch media empire, accuracy is never as important as racist sensationalism. Glenn Greenwald reports in his Salon column this week-end how both the New York Times and the Washington Post incorrectly blamed "Muslim extremists" for the Oslo, Norway, attacks, retaining on line, false racist accusations later shown to be incorrect.

The Post’s Jennifer Rubin cited The Weekly Standard as a source for her false reporting, a dive into the Murdoch pool of sleeze for which the Atlantic’s James Fallows calls her to task.

Before the hacking scandal broke, Murdoch had expanded his empire into the Middle East, choosing, as no surprise, to connect with a Saudi prince Aljazeera recently described as " the 26th wealthiest person on the planet, as well as the richest man in Saudi Arabia, billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia".

Forbes magazine reports that Prince Walid has a net worth estimated to be at least $19.6bn.

Aljazeera also reports that the Prince is the second largest shareholder (at seven per cent) in News Corp, second only to Murdoch. How close are the two men?

During a recent interview on his yacht with the BBC’s Newsnight, Prince Walid declared himself to be a "good friend" of Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and staunchly defended the men amid the ongoing News Corp scandal.

It is noteworthy that, while Prince Walid is the second largest shareholder in News Corp, Murdoch is also a major shareholder (ten per cent) in Prince Walid’s Rotana Media Group based in the Middle East. As recently as this May, Murdoch’s conglomerate took a significant stake in Prince Walid’s film, TV, and music business, a move that deepened the financial relationship between the two men.

The Saudi connection, however, will be of little help in Murdoch’s dealing with the British and possibly, the American, legal systems.

Kampeas writes that "Jewish leaders" fear that any reduction in Murdoch’s media influence could "mute the strongly pro-Israel voice of many of the publications he owns." Those "Jewish leaders" rely on Murdoch to reassure them that all is well in the world of political Zionism.

His publications and media have proven to be fairer on the issue of Israel than the rest of the media," said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "I hope that won’t be impacted."

These comments suggests that what happens to Murdoch in the future is significant to supporters of Israel not primarily because of the alleged immoral or illegal violations of the public good, but because of the potential impact on the pro-Israel voice of Murdoch’s media empire.

If there are US media outlets, other than JTA, which have included Murdoch’s Zionist zealotry in their hacking scandal stories, I have been unable to locate them.

The Big Three PEPs, (Progressive Except for Palestine) Maddow, Matthews, and O’Donnell, are progressive voices on MSNBC-TV, but they will absolutely not touch the sins of Israel, the third rail of American politics.

Rachel Maddow, my favorite of the Big Three, appeared uncharacteristically oblivious of what she was saying in her recent interview with Bill Moyers.

Writing on Consortium News, Marquette Theology Professor Daniel C. Maguire offered a list of Israel-related issues where "Rachel Maddow Dares Not Tread". He began with a gentle priestly admonition:

To MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: On your show of July 14, you spoke of your complete freedom to say what you want on your show and Bill Moyers gently demurred, speaking of restricting forces that hover over journalists. Bill Moyers was correct. I cannot believe you don’t care, but you are not free to address on your show the political influence of the Israeli lobby (which is far broader than AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

For Maguire’s complete list, click here.

The Big Three constantly feast off the right wing shallowness of Fox news readers and commentators, but they do not venture even close to the linkage between Murdoch’s strong pro-Israel bias, and his threatened downfall.

Kampeas, on the other hand, is quite forthright about the linkage and its potential damage to Israel. Note how eager Kampeas is to cast Murdoch in a favorable light by citing "Jewish leaders".

Jewish leaders said that Murdoch’s view of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians and with its Arab neighbors seemed both knowledgeable and sensitive to the Jewish state’s self-perception as beleaguered and isolated.

Murdoch has visited Israel many times, always meeting, of course, with Israeli leaders. He is equally well received by "Jewish leaders" in the US. In 2009 he was honored by the American Jewish Committee.

On October 13, 2010, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (shown at right in this picture with Murdoch) hosted a dinner in Murdoch’s honor.

At that dinner, Murdoch said,

My own perspective is simple: We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews," Murdoch said last October at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in his honor. "When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.

Murdoch is popular with conservatives in the US but highly unpopular with the progressive community, as the Nation magazine’s John Nichols was eager to demonstrate in his recent story on the scandal.

Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has manipulated not just the news but the news landscape of the United States for decades. He has done so by pressuring the Federal Communications Commission and Congress to alter the laws of the land and regulatory standards in order to give his media conglomerate an unfair advantage in "competition" with more locally focused, more engaged and more responsible media.

It’s an old story: while Murdoch’s Fox News hosts prattle on and on about their enthusiasm for the free market, they work for a firm that seeks to game the system so Murdoch’s "properties" are best positioned to monopolize the discourse.

Even with such a strong progressive as Nichols, there is still no mention of Murdoch’s strong Zionist passions in his story of the scandal.

When he testified before the House Judiciary Committee in May of 2003, Murdoch was seeking to secure ownership of the nation’s largest satellite television company. Nichols writes that Murdoch was pressing for FCC rule changes that would allow him to own newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same cities. His goal was to ease controls so that "one corporation could dominate television viewership nationally".

At that appearance before the House Judiciary Commitee, Murdoch’s reception, according to reports at the time, were "just short of fawning."

Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, who was, at the time, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, greeted Murdoch by thanking the media executive for developing the Fox News network. The chairman added: "When my wife doesn’t get a good dose of Fox News every day she gets grumpy. So there are some of us who appreciate what you are doing."

Progressive writers like Nichols want to make it clear that the right wing Republican party has a deep affection for a strong man like Murdoch whose media empire is dedicated not only to making money but to the promotion of a conservative ideology.

Joe Nocera was equally disdainful of Murdoch in his July 18 New York Times column:

You have to love the fact that when John Yates resigned on Monday as the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London - a k a Scotland Yard - he complained about the "huge amount of inaccurate, ill-informed and, on occasion, downright malicious gossip" that had finally forced his hand. . . .

When the writers and editors of the late, unlamented News of the World were busy bribing Mr. Yates’s police officers, what they wanted in return was - gosh! - malicious gossip. When they were hacking the phones of royal family members and murdered teenagers, they were seeking, you know, malicious gossip.

When the recently arrested Rebekah Brooks called Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, to tell him that Rupert Murdoch’s Sun, which she then edited, was about to reveal that his infant child had cystic fibrosis - information that Brown is convinced came from a hacked phone message - she was telling him the paper was going to print a piece of gossip that a more humane institution would have let pass. She might not have viewed this as malicious, but the Brown family certainly did. . . . .

Laura Barnett's recent story in the London Guardian, describes Rupert Murdoch’s 102-year old mother Elisabeth Murdoch (shown at top with her son) as a mother who frequently stands in "firm maternal opposition to Rupert, 80, the second of her four children."

In her native Australia, "Elisabeth is held in high esteem as one of the country’s most beneficent philanthropists," a sharp contrast to the "sullied reputations of Rupert, and her grandson James", both now under intense police scrutiny.

When Elisabeth’s husband Rupert, Senior, died from cancer in 1952, she turned her attention to charity work. She became life governor of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne and helped to set up the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.

Consistently, however, she has expressed strong disagreement with the policies of News Corp. Nine years ago, for example, she told Julie Browning, author of A Winning Streak: The Murdochs, that her son’s purchase of the News of the World, "nearly killed me".

In the US, Fox News, and more recently, the once highly respected conservative Wall Street Journal, have emerged as "house organs" for right wing Israeli governments.

If Murdoch self destructs, Israel will have lost a major weapon in its hasbara (propaganda) arsenal. Whether that is "good for the Jewish people", depends entirely on your definition of "good".

* James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. Jim launched personal blog April 24, 2008.

Related posts:

• Mohamed Khodr – America’s Media? A Colonial Force for Israel’s Infallibility
• Framing Pakistan: How the pro-Israel media enables India’s surrogate warfare
• Alison Weir – US Media and Israeli Military All in the Family

A Look Behind The Curtain

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

In a unique interview with an official at the highest policy levels of the Pentagon, White House and, eventually, CIA, we are offered a unique "behind the curtains" look at areas of policy making during the period between 1999 and 2007. Extensive notes have been taken of meetings with President Bush and all his top policy advisors. This is only a teaser.

A highly placed source within the White House and CIA confirmed, in an interview, that the invasion of Iran was sheduled for 2006 but planned in 1999. We have heard some of this before but not with so many pieces and, I am told, more to come. In an interview with a Bush administration policy official:

Q. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your work at the White House? You have read my articles, what do you think of my take on things?

A. You are closer than anyone else in understanding how things worked, the only person willing to simply put it out there. You also come at things like the Pentagon people I have worked with, the ones who stood against Bush, Cheney and the AIPAC gang at the NSC (National Security Council.) I can also see that you don't have background material that you need. Some of it you have wrong, particularly the motives for Iraq. It was always Iran, Iraq was simply a door.

"The Iraq invasion was a 'done deal' in 1999, but not as you thought to steal oil and bilk billions, that was all gravy. Iraq, the entire Bush presidency, had one purpose, to remove Iran from the picture."

Q. You talk about journalists. What has your experience been?

A. I have good friends at the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Washington Post and others. They know all of this. They aren't fooled. They could write anything but it would never hit print.

Q. Back to the 2000 election. The first impediment was, I am told, removing John McCain from the picture. Was this the case?

A. "He was enemy # 1, stubborn, unpredictable and already tarnished by the Keating 5 scandal, with all his faults, he didn't have the serous skeletons in his closet that would fit the bill. McCain couldn't be blackmailed like Bush, thus McCain is a risk. Unless you can be controlled, blackmailed or bought or both, you will go nowhere in Washington.

McCain is a womanizer, the real thing. For a war hero, with McCain's charm that's nothing, he would never fall into the kind of trap Clinton did. Rove was assigned the job of getting rid of McCain. We all saw what was done in South Carolina. It was a masterful job."

Q. When you talk about McCain not being vulnerable, he certainly was in South Carolina, a few rumors and smears and he was gone. You say Bush is more vulnerable?

A. "A window into a lot of this can be found in the Rosen-AIPAC lawsuit. Bush has serious issues, let's just leave it at that.

As for Rosen, he just wasn't an AIPAC lobbyist, he sat inside the National Security Council until 2005 as the Rand Corporation's Director of Foreign Policy. When the press talks about an AIPAC employee and spying, he didn't join AIPAC until later, after his arrest.

The FBI investigation and his indictement for spying covered a time when he was at the center of the Bush administration, a key policy formulator at the highest levels of government. Rosen, indicted in 2004 for spying for Israel, was responsible for formulating American policy in the Middle East and largely responsible for the fate of the Palestinian people, a bit of a conflict of interest for an Israeli lobbyist and accused spy."

Q. Rosen has made some accusations, says AIPAC spies all the time and that they do nothing but watch pornography there. You worked with this guy, what do you know?

A. "Rosen has dirt on absolutely everyone. His divorce depositions are fascinating reading. They are sealed now but there are copies out there. I know that reporters at Time Magazine have them, others too. The FBI has tons, they were after Rosen for years. As for AIPAC, Rosen told me of their spy operations many times, but nobody needed telling, they were more than obvious to all of us.

Q. You talk about Rosen and his "black book," that he has dirt on "everyone." The news stories mentioned only porn. That doesn't sound so serious. Dirt, not just porn, what kind of dirt?

A. "Mostly sex stuff, gay bondage, clubs, expense money being spent on sex, liasons in public restrooms, that kind of thing. Many of the key people around the president are involved and there is FBI surveillance, massive amounts of it, photographs, videos, and one or more undercover informants recorded conversations with top National Security Council members. Spying, nuclear secrets passed to Israel, this was common place.

I witnessed, with two others, the top Bush counter-terrorism official, actally primary advisor to Bush on counter-terrorism, who had served Clinton and others, pass nuclear weapons plans to an Israeli agent, like it was nothing."

Q. Did the FBI know about this?

A. "For years, FBI agents, I have a list of names, worked to stop this. Then I learned that the Department of Justice killed the prosecution, Rosen's lasted into the Obama administration before it was dropped. Witnesses were threatened with prosecution and the guilty, the spies, were allowed to keep doing what they are doing. This is what Rosen knows and what he is talking about when he says AIPAC was involved in spying. It isn't just that AIPAC is said to receive information it is that it came from top administration officials."

Q. What do you know about 9/11?

A. "9/11 was planned as early as 1999 or before, to be executed as soon as the Bush team was in place. One meeting in April 2001, a meeting outlining the invasion of Iraq, may have been the green light.' Chalibi was in place early on, from day number one. I remember telling them he was a known crook, totally disreputable and that things in Iraq would fall apart immediately. Nobody in the National Security Council ever spoke about what they would do once Saddam was overthrown. Nobody really seemed to care.

Of course, none of those people have real experience with military issues or, in fact, much of anything else."

Q. How was the Iran invasion supposed to work?

A. "This is where so many have it wrong. In fact, there was never serous discussion about terrorism or Al Qaeda or bin Laden. These things weren't even a sideshow. The only talk about any of it was how it could be used to justify going into Iraq and then attacking Iran.

Q. The intel on Iraq, we all know it was wrong. When was that learned?

A. "The administration didn't believe false intelligence, it created it, order it in place before the election to be ready for, well I guess, 9/11. Silencing Plame and Joe Wilson, those were the same people who planned the creation of the phony intelligence. There was never a discussion of a serious terrorist threat against the United States. These guys would have fallen off their chairs laughing themselves to death. It was all a joke to them, 9/11, the Iraq invasion, all of it."

Q. Back to Iran, how was the invasion to start?

A. "Everything was going to happen in Bahrain. Plans were to attack Americans, blow up clubs, restaurants. There were plans to stage a "Tonkin Gulf' type attack and blame it on Iranian torpedo boats. Guys in the military were aware of this and there was strong opposition. Marine Colonel Joe Molofsky was the real hero here. He did more to scramble administration plans than anyone else, Molofky and General Mattis. These were really straight shooters, how I learned to trust the Marine Corps.

The government there, their security services, I believe they were deeply involved. It would have been good to see something about this in Wikileaks."

Q. You said that war had to start by 2006. Was there a timetable?

A. "Absolutely. General Petraeus was sent to Iraq to quiet things down, not to win a war or create a lasting peace, nothing like that. His job was to shut things down so an operation against Iran could be staged from Iraq."

Q. But that never got off the ground...

A. "No kidding, and Bush was enranged. It was the only reason he was put in office in the first place, as long as Iran survived, he was a failure, no matter what happened to the US."

Q. Didn't they know that war with Iran would have driven oil to $300 a barrel and collapsed the American economy?

A. "There were never briefings on that like there were never briefings on stabilizing Iraq. Nobody cared, nobody noticed and it was never discussed. It was really all about Iran and orders came in and people did what they were told like good little soldiers."

Q. Orders? From where?

A. "All of it, all foreign policy issues, were out of AIPAC, they ran everything in the Bush adminsitration. That was the whole point of it. We never were told why we had to destroy Iran only that it had to be done. Nobody ever asked why. Nobody ever believed Iran had a credible nuclear program and, eventually, we were all very certain they never would. There was never an issue about Iran being a threat or not. There was never an issue of motive of any kind. These were orders, plain and simple, the administration that will come into office in 2001 will be tasked with destroying Iran, tasked by AIPAC who will control all key position in the administration."

Q. Was there talk about Lebanon and the threat of Hizbollah?

A. "There really weren't talks at all, only planning on how to follow policy, never on what policy should be or what was right or wrong. There was never a discussion about the United States, what was good for America or bad for America. People were generally oblivious to there being an America."

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

Related posts:

• Hillary Clinton at AIPAC: Bomb Iran
• Towards a World War III Scenario? The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran (Part II The Military Road Map)
• Former CIA Officers warn Israel may attack Iran this month (Must Read)

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

By Mantiq al-Tayr * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Do you like that shit-eating grin? Well, the good news is that you won't see it in Congress anymore. At least not for the next two years. The bad news you can read about near the end of this post. On your way there, there are a few goodies in between.

1. Let me try this out for size.

"Alan Derwoshitz is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark."

Hmm, let's try that one again.

"David Duke is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark."

Also not a cool thing to write. How about:

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark."

Highly unlikely.

Let's try this again.

"Frosty Wooldridge is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark."

(hahahahahahahahahaha)

Nope. Somehow, I don't think you'll find the often excellent Dr. Juan Cole writing sentences like the one above before he then rips the person's ideas to shreds. But for the moronic David Broder, whose obscene column this past weekend in the Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post has been pissed on by columnists ranging from Pat Buchannon to Steve Lendman (from whom we will be quoting shortly) and virtually the entire rest of the non-insane world, and their dogs, cats, and horses, Dr. Cole felt it necessary to preface his total destruction of every stupid evil rotten thing Broder said by saying what a nice guy he is and how he had breakfast with him. This is why Dr. Cole still gets pushed around by the neo-cons. It's time to drop the kid gloves, because the other side's gloves are padded with lead, depleted uranium, nukes, and virtually the entire elected US government .

You can read Dr. Cole's controlled demolition of Broder here. You can read Broder's evil and stupid column here, please make sure you have a copy of the Nuremburg transcripts with you when you do.

Broder's argument is that we need to prepare for war against Iran in order to save our economy. What he is doing is giving a total bullshit excuse for your sons and daughters dying in yet another war for Israel while he continues to pretend that he is not a total suck up to the worst elements of the Israeli lobby. By the way, in case you did not know, Broder is an Islamofascist.

Cole rips him apart providing very cogent reasons why war with Iran would be a disaster for the United States. (By the way, it would really suck for the Iranians too, but that goes unmentioned.) Cole notes that oil prices would skyrocket – the impact on what's left of the US economy should be rather obvious, even to Shas Party members. Cole, who has been all over the Middle East and knows how to use a map and a calculator, also notes that Iran is three times the size of Iraq and that if we were to try to occupy it we'd be meet with a shitload of justifiably pissed off Shi'ites. We are talking about a potential ass-kicking of 2010 election-size proportions here. We can't handle a bunch of tribal war lords in backasswards countries and we are going to take on a nation the size of Iran. Sure we could bomb the shit out of them and it would be fun, you know, like it was in the first US war against Iraq and its "target rich" environment. We'd get to kill a bunch of Mooselims, also always fun, just ask General James Mattis, the new head of CENTCOM. But if we actually tried to take over the country, well we are kind of like the Israelis – we can dish it out, but we can't take it.

Cole also discusses several other factors that would make any pro-American president think twice before invading yet another country that has not attacked us. The reverberations in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Bahrain, the site of a major US naval base, are things Dr. Cole brings to light.

Cole wraps this argument by saying: [note to Shas Party Members, the red highlights are mine].

"I can't think of anything that would be worse for the US economy, or for Obama's prospects for a second term, than going to a war footing with Iran. And, my own experience is that if you go to a war footing with a country, you have to be prepared for things spinning out of control and into actual war. Since Americans go running to their congressmen demanding a repeal of the Bill of Rights every time there is a little pipe bomb somewhere, anything that might cause terrorism on US soil is deadly to our over 200 year old Republic. My guess is that a third war right about now, for the reasons outlined above, would just about finish us off as a nation."

On this score all the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr are in full agreement with Dr. Cole. My view is this: any American who is calling for war with Iran, directly or indirectly, is an enemy of the people of the United States who is working to destroy what is left of our country. Any Israeli who is calling for the US to make on Iran is also an enemy of the United States. Any American who sounds like an Israeli war monger and is calling for the US to make war against Iran is now an Israeli. As the hadith says (in part)

"من تشبه بقوم فهو منهم"

Courtesy of Skulz Fontaine

2. I am not done with Broder yet. Broder is a picture perfect example of how mediocrity rises to the top in the American, and I am using that term very loosely, main $tream media, a media that is under the control of Shapira law, of course. How such a buffoon could be perceived as a sort of Jewish Helen Thomas is utterly beyond me. Steve Lendman, in an excellent piece, finishes off the drawing and quartering of Broder in the wake of Broder's disgusting article, showing what an obsequious ass-kissing asshole this guy is. One wonders if journalists in wanna-be theocracies like Israel, Iran, or Pakistan have to kiss leadership ass as much as Broder. Anyway, Lendman's excellent article is a must read, especially for those who would like to get some insight into how things are in the so called American main stream media.

One juicy quote by Lendman:

"The man is senile. The US/Israeli/UK alliance (the real axis of evil) alone threaten world stability, peace, and perhaps survival, what the "dean" of establishment journalists won't suggest, not even hint."

I don't agree that the man is senile. He's just doing what he's always done. But as for the rest of the quote, amen brother, amen.

3. Getting back to Dr. Cole. But first, I want to apologize to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and to Dr. David Duke for mentioning them in the same item with scum like Broder, Derwoshitz and Wooldridge. But their name recognition helps highlight one of the points I was trying to make.

Okay, back to Dr. Cole. His blog, "Informed Comment" is one I link to and is one I read on a regular basis. I disagree with Dr. Cole on many points, but his comments are indeed informed and he writes in such a way that non-specialists can be edified by reading him. He seems to represent about how far out of the Israeli orbit one can go and still hold down an establishment job and still get to speak on National Patrician Radio and the like. A very recent column of his correctly went off on the right wing propaganda about how Obama's trip to India is going to bankrupt the United States and maybe cause global warming or whatever bullshit the right wing is peddling. Dr. Cole refutes all of that but his ultimate justification for the trip shows just how morally and economically bankrupt these United States have become though that hardly seems to be his intention in writing the post.

Dr. Cole's thesis is that whatever the cost of the India trip is, it is totally justified because Obama can use the trip to sell 20 billion dollars of weapons to India and isn't that just a great thing for the US economy. This, right after arguing, correctly, against war preparations by the US against Iran. To be fair, Dr. Cole also points to projections for increased civilian trade as well:

"Some analysts think the US could gain $20 billion or so from India in arms sales alone. And then there are enormous potentials for developing civilian trade, as the already-envisaged increase in bilateral trade of $13 bn. over 2009 demonstrates. And since the new deals would be multi-year in impact, the trip would be paid for many times over."

But it is the arms sales that are the immediate meat and potatoes. You see, we really can't do much else as our economy is based on war and credit-default swaps.

Of course selling billions of dollars in weapons to an Israel-friendly country that has had several wars in the past with Pakistan is just too-good a deal to pass up. Plus they both have nukes. The possibilities are endless.

4. Does this quote bother anyone else as much as it does me? It's from today's Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post:

"The engineers at Infosys Technologies, India's second-largest technology company, are at the cutting edge of the country's $60 billion IT industry, which is shedding its image as a low-cost call center, with young Indians keeping U.S. credit card and banking systems humming all night.

In the latest phase of globalization, some economists say, Silicon Valley is in danger of losing a sizable piece of its knowledge-based industry to India in much the same way Detroit lost its lead to Japan in the auto industry."

5. A few comments on the elections. There is so much, so much to comment on. But let's start out with a real Mantiq al-Tayr favorite, Republican Congressman from the state of Virginia who is likely to become the House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor. Of all the Jews in the US Congress, Cantor is the only Republican. By the way, the number of Jews in the Congress declined by a few this time around, but Zionist influence has increased. More on that later. Anyway, Cantor is going to be fun to make fun of the next couple of years and he's already started giving me new ammo. Since, as a Republican, he has to take positions on public policy matters that would have made Nero wince, he has also to show that he is even more pro-Israel than all the other Jews in Congress as well as all the congressmen and women whom the Israeli lobby has bought off and or blackmailed. Sooooo, Cantor's opening salvo is to advocate that the money ear-marked for Israel each year in the US' puny foreign aid budged be moved from that budget and voted on separately from the rest of our foreign aid so that the right-wing retards in the tea party can vote against aid to Egypt, the Palestinians and so forth. In fact, Cantor is dead set against aid for Palestinians with an impressive record in fighting aid to Israel's victims while advocating unlimited US support for Israel.

But, it turns out that the rest of the Jews in Congress are freaking out over Cantor's proposal to set Israeli aid aside (possibly to even make it part of the US defense budget).

Cantor: "Part of the dilemma is that Israel has been put in the overall foreign aid looping, "I'm hoping we can see some kind of separation in terms of tax dollars going to Israel."

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), which ought to be renamed "All the Jews in the US Congress Except for Eric Cantor"(ATJUITUSCEFEC) has taken Cantor to task on this issue. The real reasons you can find by reading between the lines. If aid to Israel is separate from all other foreign aid, then that aid is likely to find itself the focus of increasing scrutiny by out of work Americans who might ask questions like "Why the fuck is all this money going to Israel?" "Why is aid for Israel a separate line item?" Why isn't there guaranteed aid for Ireland, Greece, Poland, Benin, Zimbabwe – pick a country"? "Is our Congress under Zionist occupation"? Yup, these would be dangerous questions and they don't want you asking them.

AIPAC is against the move and so is the ridiculous "J Street" lobby which I've warned you all about repeatedly. Here's are the opening lines of their statement criticizing Cantor's proposal.

"J Street unconditionally supports and lobbies for robust U.S. assistance to Israel, and will continue to support such aid no matter what the legislative vehicle."

Wow. We sure know which side of the street they are on.

J Street is AIPAC without the espionage record (so far). Both outfits should be required to register as agents of a foreign government.

Here's a couple of Cantorian quotes about how much he loves Israel that you can read to your children at night.

"Israel is a democracy that has always made the sacrifices necessary for peace despite living under constant threats to their very existence. The true barrier to ending the Mideast conflict is the widespread Palestinian refusal to accept and to live alongside Israel as a Jewish state," said Cantor. "While Israel continues its search for a reliable partner in peace, Palestinian terrorism is still celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite this reality, since day one the White House has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations. It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration?"

"Yes, I would say so. I certainly am a strong advocate for a united Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state and we should continue to pursue the policy of a united Jerusalem."

6. The NJDC has screwed up again. They went all out for Ron Klein, Likud, Florida, in the elections. He was up against a goy and a black one at that and the race was getting too close for comfort. So, the NJDC did what it thought would help the most, it put oaut an ad that showed that Ron Klein is more Israeli than Allen West (not actually true, sadly). The top part of the ad is what you saw at the top of this post: Here's the rest of the ad and it tells you what your "representatives" are doing when you aren't looking:

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the choice is clear. . . . but I digress.

So an Israeli firster bites the dust, but sadly the guy who replaced him, Allen West, Likud, Florida, won't be any better. He's a pro-Israeli war monger who had to leave the military after more than 20 years of service because of what he did to an Iraqi captive:

“While serving in Taji, Iraq, on August 20, 2003, as commander of the 2d Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel West was in charge of an interrogation of a civilian Iraqi police officer who was suspected of having pertinent information regarding attacks on American soldiers in the area. Interrogators had learned that the detainee had information about a planned ambush. When the interrogators were unable to extract the needed important information for some time, LTC West was asked to come try to obtain the important information. As the detainee continued to hold back the information, LTC West fired his pistol past the detainee’s head into a clearing barrel, frightening (but not physically harming) the detainee and getting him to finally give the information. According to Lt. Col. West’s sworn statement, the detainee informed West that:

[The attack] was to occur Friday morning in Saba al Boor vicinity of the police station by positioned snipers supposedly being brought in from Fallujah. [The detainee] was to ID my vehicle and myself for these rooftop firers. We took this information and the following day established flask CPs and used AH-64s overhead. There was no attack and no further attacks have emanated from the town since the apprehension of [the detainee] and his named associates.

“At least one man was apprehended as a result of the information obtained through the detainee’s interrogation. His home was searched, but no plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. Colonel West testified that he did not know whether “any corroboration” of a plot was ever found, adding: “At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It’s possible that I was wrong about [the detainee,] Mr. Hamoodi.”

For West’s revolting positions on Israel see here.

Eric Cantor, meet your new Zionist Bullshitting Friend, Allen West.  You’ll like him. He hates Muslims and loves to fight wars for your favorite country.

7. As just about everyone south of the Canadian border knows, nothing and no one says class, American style, better than Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra.  Yes, I know you all come to the ends of these posts for either funny cat videos (more of those will be coming), inspirational music videos, or anything that shows Haifa Wehbe – even if she is just window-shopping at a Hizballah hijab store.  But this time I want to change genre’s a little bit and since our economy is ruined I thought that the energizing rendition by Nixon and Biafra of the “Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster” might work here. Some good strummin for sure combined with well-placed righteous indignation. For those of you whose native language is not English, the words might at times be a little hard to follow, so here is a link to the lyrics.

I present you with Mojo and Jello:

You know, I really do think the choice is clear.

* Mantiq al-Tayr is a blogger who is attempting to wake up other American citizens to the true dangers and challenges which face their country and is devoted to justice for the Palestinian people. Truth is his objective, satire is his tool. He also enjoys reading the Qur'an from time to time. See his website.

Related posts:

• Mahmoud Abbas Caves In: Recognizes the US as a Jewish State [Satire]
• Maidhc Ó Cathail – Kristol Clear: The Source of America’s Wars
• The Choice for Israel – Civil war for peace or the end of Zionism?

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

An earlier article, titled "UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism" explained that although Blue Helmets are supposed to restore order, maintain peace and security, and help people transition to stability, they usually create more conflict than resolution as imperial enforcers, committing human rights abuses against vulnerable people, nearly always unpunished.

Wherever they're deployed, it's the same. In Haiti, for example, where for the first time ever, an illegal MINUSTAH mission enforced coup d'etat authority against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, instead of staying out or backing his right to return.

It's no better elsewhere. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, where MONUC (renamed MONUSCO in July 2010) never brought peace and stability, and may be involved in reports of mass rapes and other atrocities. It wouldn't be the first time there or elsewhere.

In December 2004, the London Times reported the following about DR Congo:

• UN staffers committed 150 or more sex crimes, including pornographic videos and photos, "now on sale in Congo;"
• two Russian pilots enlisted girls for sex in exchange for jars of mayonnaise;
• UN peacekeepers in Kisangani, on the Congo River, impregnated 141 Congolese women and girls; others were accused of rape;
• Congo's Minister of Defense, Major General Jean Pierre Ondekane, told a top UN official that all peacekeepers in Kisangani would be remembered "for running after little girls," not doing their job;
• at least two UN officials, a Ukrainian and Canadian, were forced out of DR Congo for impregnating local women;
• many other abuses involved sexual abuse and exploitation, involving sex trafficking and rape; and
• then UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, told the Times: "The fact that these things happen is a blot on us. It's awful. What is important is to get to the bottom of it and fight it and make sure that people who do that pay for what they have done."

Unfortunately sexual abuse, rape, and sex trafficking are more commonplace than occasional, wherever Blue Helmets are deployed.

On November 5, 2009, the London Independent published Bradley Klapper's AP report headlined, "Fifty UN peacekeepers punished for sex abuses," saying:

At least 50 were involved in "committing sexual abuses (and exploitation) on United Nations missions since 2007, the UN said today." It's the tip of the iceberg. Since the first June 1948 UNTSO mission after Israel's "war of independence," abuses occurred regularly in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Lebanon, Cambodia, Liberia, East Timor, Rwanda, Haiti, DR Congo, and elsewhere. Since 2007 through late 2009 alone, UN officials uncovered over 450 instances of misconduct. Imagine how many others weren't reported, and abuses remain ongoing today.

In January 2009, Save the Children reported Blue Helmet abuses, including trading food for sex with girls as young as eight in Liberia, said also to go on in Burundi, Ivory Coast, East Timor, DR Congo, Cambodia, and Bosnia. Various other reports were similar, abuses including sex with young girls, rape and trafficking.

On July 16, 2009, IPS writer Marina Litvinsky headlined, "Rape by Regular Army a Growing Problem, HRW (Human Rights Watch) Says," stating:

In DR Congo alone, "tens of thousands of women and girls have suffered horrific acts of sexual violence at the hands of the government army," according to a new report, titled "Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo." Little is done to stop it nor against culpable peacekeepers. As a result, Congolese women and girls are ravaged with impunity.

HRW's report came two days after an Oxfam one about rampant sexual violence and abuse in 20 conflict-ridden North and South Kivu communities. As a result, people there live in constant fear of more attacks, vulnerable on their own. Congo's MONUC head, Alan Doss, also took note, saying:

"We have also seen violence against women and girls in provinces that have been at peace for many years." In large parts of the country, no one is safe.

On September 7, 2010, New York Times writer Neil MacFarquhar headlined, "UN Officials Say 500 Were Victims of Congo Rapes," stating:

In July and August, they were raped in eastern Congo. Rebel and government troops were accused, involving girls as young as seven. Worse still, "Over 15,000 rapes were reported annually in both 2008 and 2009," according to Atul Khare, deputy head of peacekeeping, omitting how many peacekeepers may be culpable, given how often later evidence shows it wherever they're deployed.

On October 3, New York Times writer Jeffrey Gettleman headlined, "Mass Rapes in Congo Reveals UN Weakness," saying:

Peacekeepers stood by as marauding rebels mass raped at least 200 women. "Despite more than 10 years (and) billions of dollars, the peacekeeping force still seems to be failing at its most elemental task: protecting people," though left unsaid was why. It's because their mission everywhere is for privilege and power, not people, especially when Black and impoverished.

According to Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues," "Congo is the UN's crowning failure. If the women being raped were the daughters or wives or mothers of the power elites, I can promise you this war would have ended about 12 years ago." Instead it continues to rape Congo of its resources as well as its women, easy pickings, including for peacekeepers.

On May 27, 2008, CNN reported that:

U.N. peacekeepers are among those accused of sexually abusing children, according to Save the Children UK.

"Humanitarian aid workers and United Nations peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries," according to Save the Children.

"After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex." According to Jasmine Whitebread, Save the Children UK's chief executive:

"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights."

As shocking is the "chronic under-reporting" of believed thousands more children suffering globally in silence, "too frightened to report the abuse, fearful" more will follow, and no one will confront their abusers.

Report on "UN Peacekeeping Economies and Local Sex Industries: Connections and Implications"

In September 2009, Kathleen M. Jennings and Vesna Nikolic-Rstanovic prepared the MICROCON (Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict) Research Working Paper 17 with the above title.

Examining Blue Helmet missions in Bosnia (UNMIBH), Kosovo (UNMIK), Liberia (UNMIL), and Haiti (MINUSTAH), the paper examined "the interplay between the peacekeeping economy and the sex industry, including domestic sex work, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and sex tourism."

Despite claiming "zero tolerance," UN officials haven't stopped decades of serious peacekeeper-committed abuses. According to MICROCON:

It "suggests that the existence and potential long-term perpetuation of a highly gendered peacekeeping economy threatens to undermine, if not actively contradict, the goals and objectives to gender roles and relations that are generally an implicit or explicit component of most contemporary peace operations."

Organized Sex Transactions in Peacekeeping Economies

Sexual exploitation is wide-ranging, including slavery and prostitution, what the UN calls "transactional sex," peacekeepers very much involved. In countries like Bosnia and Kosovo, "domestic sex work and sex trafficking have become a seemingly permanent part of the" economy. Their peacekeeping missions affect both supply and demand, "effectively creating avenues (for) trafficking of women for sexual exploitation into/through these areas."

Local women often can't satisfy the demand so foreign ones from poor nations are imported to supplement. Bosnia and Kosovo "are consistent with other (countries where) the development and evolution of sex trafficking is a component of the overall expansion of the sex industry, which in turn is driven by militarism."

Organized crime also gets involved. The prevalence of rape and sex slavery increases. Women and young girls are brutally exploited, and "documented cases of UN soldiers (show) that, far from helping the victims," they become clients or otherwise implicated in the trade.

Former prisoners said they saw girls forced into UN vehicles and driven away. International military and civilian personnel are directly involved in the sex industry, including trafficking, a 2002 Turin Conference on Trafficking, Slavery and Peacekeeping report saying "peacekeepers are often part of the problem," connected to organized crime, because human trafficking provides "an important revenue source."

In addition, once established, the sex trade continues when peacekeepers leave, its effects permanent and destructive. MICROCON also asked if the link between peacekeeping economies and sex industries remains valid given claimed UN efforts against it. Yes, based on evidence and observations in Haiti and Liberia where the local sex trade and trafficking flourish, demand "generated by the peacekeeping economy."

"The impact of the UN's zero-tolerance policy on (Haitian and Liberian) sex industries....is debatable." The policy is hard to enforce, harder with little or no effort made to do it. Further, it says nothing about the legality or illegality of the sex industry in countries with peacekeepers, and doesn't try to regulate their types or nature. In fact, it can't as it's up to national or sub-national authorities, often corrupted and complicit.

"The critical issue - the environment that enables the commoditization of the sexual labor of local women, men, and children - is ignored, except insofar as mission personnel are prohibited from patronizing certain establishments," or otherwise being involved. Yet, they do it anyway, the above evidence showing how pervasively and abusively.

Conclusions

MICROCON concluded, saying different peace missions have different gender mandates, goals, and objectives, despite UN Resolution 1325, calling for a gender perspective that includes the special needs and rights of women and girls. The ultimate goal is gender equality, nowhere near achieved.

"....there seems to be a fundamental mismatch between the (UN's) goals....and its participation in and perpetuation of a peacekeeping economy that has concrete and often negative impacts on" local women and men. As a result, peacekeepers often undermine local economies, raising considerations about their effectiveness and real purpose.

UN officials acknowledge the problem, including its own personnel involved in committing sexually exploitive or abuse acts. Yet acknowledgement only highlights its "tendency to compartmentalize problems....rather than (address) symptoms of the larger political economy that it is unable or unwilling to deal with constructively."

The UN's zero tolerance policy is more rhetoric than effective policy, and won't change fundamentals on the ground that include an informal and exploitable labor force, corruption and criminality, no accountability, and ongoing sex trade. As a result, UN peacekeepers are more corrosive and negative, not a positive influence where they're deployed. They serve power, not local people needs, and that's the crux of the problem UN authorities make no effort to address or correct.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

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

Christiane Amanpour

This week's talk show by Christiane Amanpour's spent the better part of two hours discussing Islam and how people are reacting to Islam as a source of fanaticism publicised in the press.

The Western public has been seduced into believing that reactions of "extremists" have something to do with Islam. Extremist reprisals have nothing to do with religion. They are expressions of revenge. Anti-American reactions have been what Reverend Jeremiah Wright called "bringing the chickens home to roost."

How can the West expect a placid reaction to their own actions when they have massacred more than 1,300,000 Iraqis, let alone the Afghans and the support given to Israel for their vicious savagery in Lebanon and Gaza?

How can we expect anything but calls for retribution when the agonizing stories of innocent victims of military atrocities get told and retold?

Just this week, the New York Times published the unusual report of a grotesque story from a small village in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan.

A woman told how American military men took her husband, a local mullah in Maiwand, out of their house, forced him to the ground, put a grenade under his body and blew him up.

The mullah was the third victim of soldiers who killed Afghan civilians for no apparent reason. Is this the kind of activity that's supposed to endear people around the world to America?

According to the New York Times, "Local elders estimate that in the past eight months at least 42 civilians have been killed in Maiwand during American operations."

Expand that relatively small area to the much larger scope of American military action in the Middle East and the incentives for revenge multiply.

One Afghan elder reportedly said, "The Americans have killed many people who did not support the Taliban, which is painful for us and actually creates hatred toward Americans."

In another incident reported by the New York Times this week, five soldiers are facing potential courts-martial on charges that they killed Afghan civilians for sport.

The report says they were "planting weapons near them (Afghans) to fake combat situations, collecting their body parts and taking photographs posing with their corpses."

Also this week, a chicken that came home to roost was tried in New York. Pakistani born Faisal Shahzad, who planted a car bomb in Times Square, New York on May 1st, was sentenced to life in prison.

MSNBC reported that Shahzad came to court to tell Americans he felt no remorse about his May 1 bombing attempt. "Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun," said Shahzad.

It's a great anomaly that Americans expect the extremists to feel remorse for their acts of revenge when most Americans express no remorse over our mindless murder and maiming of innocents abroad.

Moderate and peace loving, as all but the very few extremists like Shahzad are, Muslims are innocent victims of hate and hate crimes.

Writing in the Princetonian, Adam Bradlow observed "Intolerance toward Muslims has become part of the new norm."

Anti mosque rallies have broken out in at least four states, including the recent protests against the "ground zero" Community Centre in New York.

Speaking out against the Centre, past speaker of the US Congress Newt Gingrich called it "an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization."

Elizabeth Madrid, editor of the Tennessee Journal, reminds her readers, and hopefully Gingrich, that "A handful of extremists cannot rightly represent the entire Muslim faith."

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

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Illustration By Carlos Latuff

By Mohamed Khodr *

Zimbabwe expels U.N. rights investigator (Washington Post, October 29, 2009)

Zimbabwe Deports U.N. Investigator (New York Times, October 29, 2009)

Zimbabwe Deports U.N. Investigator (Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2009)

BUT: This headline is Absent.

Israel denied entry to Richard Falk, UN Human Rights special rapporteur and deported him from Ben Gurion (December 15, 2008)

What's the difference between the first three headlines and the last one?

Simple, the first three headlines that appear in the three Jewish papers don't deal with Israel (Rupert Murdoch now owns the Wall Street Journal, a staunch Zionist nevertheless), the second headline does, so its persona non grata in “Their/our” media, although both stories deal with the similar expulsion of two U.N. Representatives from Zimbabwe and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

U.N. Representatives Manfred Nowak and Richard Falk were to investigate human rights abuses and criminal acts in Zimbabwe and the Occupied Palestinian Territories respectively, but both were expelled, and both called upon the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate this diplomatic outrage.

It is axiomatic that "their/our" news media protects Israel from any negative stories that may expose its war crimes; crimes against humanity, its three-year siege of 1.5 million Palestinians denied access to food, water and medicines, its imprisonment and torture of women and children as well as one third of the Palestinian elected representatives. It publicly states with all the chutzpah it only possesses that it does not want peace and let the world go to hell. And guess what, the world salutes, obeys, and moves on to the main story in “Their/our” media: The balloon boy that turned out to be a hoax, much like all the stories initiated by Israel and its lobby against Islam, Muslims, Arab countries and its soon-to-be-attacked Iran.

Shockingly, the world just accepts as de facto Israel's repeated public statements that it will attack Iran, damn the consequences to America and the world. There is no world outrage that this violates the U.N. Charter and International Law, i.e. to attack an innocent sovereign nation on the premise of “what if”, much like Bush/Cheney with Iraq. IAEA, U.S. Intelligence evidence be damned.

The only question the world asks is not if Israel will attack Iran but when, never as to how is this possible. If this is the case, then Iran has the right to preemptively attack Israel with or without nuclear weapons and let the chips fall where they may.

“Their/our” media is the true Apartheid Wall between Israel and our nation. It strangles our capitol like an elastic beltway that it tightens and loosens according to Israel's directions.

It is the whip that keeps our cowardly politicians in tow and our populace ignorant of the truth about Israel “our ally and only democratic government in the Middle East”. Israel is the huge sucking sound that drains our money, military, and mind set while we like indoctrinated puppets cheer it on. We are helping Israel in its strategy to create our own national suicide.

Just recent examples of the Jewish media's blanket love fest for Israel at the expense of our own national interest:

1. Not reporting on the Goldstone Report condemning Israel for its war crimes, criminal acts, and siege of Gaza, nor on Obama's AIPAC directed rejection of it.

2. Failure by our networks to report on Israel's newest Jewish spy who sold sensitive national secrets to Israel. (Only Wolf Blitzer, a former AIPAC employee reported the story briefly, simply to state that Israel is not implicated in any wrongdoing; a way to prepare returning to AIPAC after you've left CNN).

3. Not reporting on the embarrassing slap to Obama on its continued building of illegal settlements, demolition of homes in Jerusalem, and its military/police attack on Islam's third holiest site, Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

4. Not reporting on Amnesty International's Report that Israel is controlling and depriving Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza of water to drink. It reports that the illegal settlers use more than four times the water allocated to the Palestinians. The settlers use that much to fill their swimming pools and water their gardens. This criminal act is deliberately ignored by the west lest it has to issue its usual mild “concern”.

5. Not reporting on the quick AIPAC driven retreat by Obama calling for Israel to freeze all construction of illegal settlements including the outrageous claim of “natural growth”. Obama has now abandoned another of his campaign and policy promises to directly remain involved in the peace process (piece by piece theft of Palestinian land) between the traitor Mahmoud Abbas who should resign if he has any dignity left, or be removed. And Netanyahu, the Nazi from hell.

A USATODAY report states that Obama's top fundraisers have received the plumb jobs of Cabinet, Agency, and Ambassadorial appointments. (Top Obama Fundraisers Get Posts, October 29, 2009).

The story reports: “More than 40% of President Obama's top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds. Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions, the analysis found.”

If you look closely you will find that the vast majority of these donors are Jewish, many from Wall Street, or Pro-Israel activists.

So why is America silent, confused, and supportive of Israel? Why do polls show Americans support Israel? Well, if your only source of information is our Jewish dominated media that inputs Pro-Israel Garbage, you'll get Garbage out; in addition to the fear Americans feel to opposing Israel, knowing the caller has their phone number and address. They don't want to hear a knock on their door, Shalom.

Why is our Congress so slavishly a doormat for Israel's Lobby?

Simple: Jewish money, Jewish Lobby, Jewish Media.

That's why a shot in the arm of billions is going to Israel and Goldman Sachs while America's children are left without the Swine Flu shot.

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

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