The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla

http://www.counterpunch.org/

By JEAN BRICMONT and DIANA JOHNSTONE

The past ten days have seen what could be the start of an historic turning point away from endless war in the Middle East.  Public opinion in the United States, in harmony with the majority of people in the world, has clearly rejected U.S. military intervention in Syria.

But for this turn away from war to be complete and lasting, greater awareness is needed of the forces that have been pushing the United States into these wars, and will surely continue to do so until they are clearly and openly rejected.

An American friend who knows Washington well recently told us that “everybody” there knows that, as far as the drive to war with Syria is concerned, it is Israel that directs U.S. policy. Why then, we replied, don’t opponents of war say it out loud, since, if the American public knew that, support for the war would collapse?  Of course, we knew the answer to that question. They are afraid to say all they know, because if you blame the pro-Israel lobby, you are branded an anti-Semite in the media and your career is destroyed.

One who had that experience is James Abourezk, former Senator from South Dakota, who has testified:  “I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear – fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress–at least when I served there – have any affection for Israel or for its lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel. I’ve heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they’re pushed around by the lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the lobby’s animosity by making their feelings public.”
Abourezk added : “The only exceptions to that rule are the feelings of Jewish members, who, I believe, are sincere in their efforts to keep U.S. money flowing to Israel. But that minority does not a U.S. imperial policy make.”[1]

Since we do not have to run for Congress, we feel free to take a close look at that highly delicate question. First, we’ll review the evidence for the crucial role of the pro-Israel lobby, then we’ll discuss some objections.

For evidence, it should be enough to quote some recent headlines from the American and Israeli press.

First, according to the Times of Israel (not exactly an anti-Zionist rag): “Israel intelligence seen as central to U.S. case against Syria.”[2] (Perhaps the fact that it is “central” also explains why it is so dubious[3].)

Then, in Haaretz[4]: “AIPAC to deploy hundreds of lobbyists to push for Syria action”. Or, in U.S. News and World Report[5]: “Pro-Israel lobby Seeks to Turn Tide on Syria Debate in Congress”. According to Bloomberg[6]: “Adelson New Obama Ally as Jewish Groups Back Syria Strike”. The worst enemies of Obama become his allies, provided he does what “Jewish groups” want. Even rabbis enter the dance: according to the Times of Israel[7], “U.S. rabbis urge Congress to back Obama on Syria”.

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iVey- The new Smartphone Holocaust Game

By Gilad Atzmon

JTA Reports: ‘Jewish game developer to market Holocaust game for smartphones’

British game developer Luc Bernard, 26, announced this week his plan to search for funding for his new Holocaust game. 

The Holocaust-themed game was apparently rejected by the anti-Semitic Nintendo because it was deemed ‘unfit for children.’  It made me wonder, since when do Goyim decide how to raise or educate their children?

Unlike unimaginative Nintendo, Bernard knows about education. First, he is young and childish, second, his mother is “Jewish and her mother looked after orphaned Jewish children after World War II.”

The game features the character of a young boy named Hammed who lives in Gaza 2013. Hammed seeks to escape the reality of Israeli blockade and introduces us to his fantasy world.  Don’t worry,  I am just pulling your leg here. 

Bernard’s new game actually features the character of a young Jewish boy named Samuel during the Nazi occupation of France in 1942.  Like all Palestinian kids in the present, fictional Samuel seeks to escape real life into his own fantasy world.

Being myself a Holocaust survivor who, against all odds endured intensive Israeli Shoa education but still believes in kindness and humanism,  I hereby commit myself to placing whatever artistic talent I may have at the disposal of Luc Bernard and his innovative Shoa game.

Hey, I could compose some mournful Klezmer music on my misery stick (AKA my Clarinet) and being an ex-Israeli copywriter specialising in branding,  I might also offer some catchy names with Jew-appeal.

Some samples (no charge)

iSuffer,  iVey, iTler, iZon, iDie, iNnocent, iVictim and iMoral

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Peres Doesn’t Trust Assad

By Gilad Atzmon

Israeli president Shimon Peres is the man who laid the foundation for Israel's nuclear weapon program back in the 1950’s and by doing so, introduced the entire region to WMD. So he is not exactly the right person to pass a judgment on Syrian chemical arsenal.

In his memoirs, "Battling for Peace," Peres describes his nuclear accomplishments leading up to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war: "My contribution during that dramatic period was something that I still cannot write about openly for reasons of state security. After Dayan was appointed defense minister I submitted to him a certain proposal which ... would have deterred the Arabs and prevented the war."

The same Shimon Peres voiced scepticism on Wednesday over Russian proposal to place Syrian chemical weapons  under international custodianship.

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Getting Off The Tree

By Gilad Atzmon 

As the Jewish Lobby (AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other Jewish groups) faces its first colossal defeat,  Jewish media outlets and Zionists  commentators are desperate to find a respectful way for AIPAC to ‘get off the tree’.

Yesterday, The Jerusalem Post editorial went out of its way to save American Jewry out of the Lobby’s blunder. “Just as Israelis are split on support for US military intervention against Assad, so undoubtedly is the American Jewish community.” This may be true, American Jews are probably divided on the topic, yet, we didn’t hear about a lobby of hundreds of ‘progressive’ Jews awaiting to raid the Capitol Hill and advocate the push against the war. If anything, we came across the usual sporadic so-called ‘progressive Jewish voices’  who shamelessly attempted  to divert the attention from the tribal nature of AIPAC/ADL‘s pro war operation.  

The Jerusalem post also contends that Israeli leaders are actually against the war.  “Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon stressed that we are not involved and not interfering in what is happening in Syria. We repeat and emphasize that.” But if this is indeed the case, then AIPAC  and other Jewish Lobby groups  shouldn’t  be conceived anymore as ‘The Israeli Lobby’. Supposedly the Lobby doesn’t follow Israeli policy. It is actually an autonomous collective that promotes what it believes to be ‘good for the Jews’.

In order to save American Jewry from the stupidity of their lobbies, The Jerusalem Post has produced the most ludicrous argument ever: 

”AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other Jewish groups have the same right as other American organizations to come out publicly in support of military intervention in Syria.” I guess that this is a true statement as far as it goes; however, as long as they do it under a Jewish banner, as they clearly did, their activity will continue to reflect on Jews as a collective. This is indeed a disaster and Jews had better address this issue once and for all, and hopefully from a universal perspective.

Veteran IDF Concentration camp Guard Jeffery Goldberg,  is obviously embarrassed by AIPAC failure. He looks for someone to blame but he wouldn’t dare criticising his fellow Zionists.

“If I believed in conspiracies,”  says Goldberg,  “I'd be tempted to think that President Barack Obama… dragged the group (AIPAC) into what at the moment looks like a losing battle to get Congress to approve an intervention in Syria just to tarnish AIPAC’s reputation as all-knowing and all-powerful.”

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Will Obama Hear a Who?

by Paul Larudee

http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/09/will-obama-hear-a-who/#more-50626

“This,” cried the mayor, “is your town’s darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
to come to the aid of their country!” he said.
“We’ve GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”
Thus he spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top,
the lad cleared his throat and he shouted out, “Yopp!”
And that Yopp… That one small extra Yopp put it over!
Finally, at last! From that speck on that clover
their voices were heard!

— Horton Hears a Who, by Dr. Seuss

The American people are rejecting war with Syria by margins up to 6-to-1, according to several polls. They are also burning up the telephone lines to Congress and the White house to voice their opposition. Many are writing letters to their local newspapers or calling in to talk shows, or visiting the offices of their Congressional representatives in person, as well.

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Watch Palestine in The Hyde Park, incredible!!!

ON AIPAC And Patriotism

By Gilad Atzmon

In the next few days and completely against the will of the American people, hundreds of AIPAC activists will raid the American Congress to push for a war. Nothing new in that but still, one question  bothers me: How many of these pro-war Jews have sent their own sons and daughters to serve in the American military?

Bearing in mind that pretty much the same Lobby pushed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, one might wonder whether Jews were fairly represented in the military forces or in the casualty statistics of that military blunder. I’d guess they were not.  It seems that the enthusiasm of the Lobby in pushing for wars for America doesn’t translate much into patriotism or sacrifice. The Lobby indeed pushes for wars, but somehow it’s always the gentiles who do the killing and the dying.

In Britain it’s much the same. David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen, both leading advocates within the British media for intervention in Iraq 2003 didn’t use many column inches in the Jewish Chronicle persuading young Jews to join the British Navy or the SAS. Like their American counterparts, they believed that ‘moral’ intervention was necessary but it was the Scottish, English and Welsh boys and girls that took care of it for them.

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The Return of the Golems

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: Professor William A. Cook bravely examines the current AIPAC’s push for a war in the context of Jewish culture and heritage. He looks at The Golem of Prague - probably the first Jewish drone. Cook’s take is very interesting though I myself believe that ‘Sabbath Goy’ may be even a better description of subservient America.  What we see here is an attempt to study Jewish politics in relation to Jewish culture something the anti Jewish Zionists and the Left have tried to prevent for years.     

The Return of the Golems

William A. Cook

“AIPAC urges Congress to grant the President the authority he has requested to protect America’s national security interests and dissuade the Syrian regime's further use of unconventional weapons. The civilized world cannot tolerate the use of these barbaric weapons, particularly against an innocent civilian population including hundreds of children.” (AIPAC, 9/3/2013)

To understand AIPAC’s press statement to the US Congress and the American people, we must understand what is not said: “urges” means “demands”; “protect America’s national security interest” means “protect Israel’s national security interests”; “dissuade”  means “destroy”; “Syrian regime’s further use of unconventional weapons” means “prevent by total destruction Syria’s use of the weapons Israel uses against Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and the Palestinian people”; “civilized world cannot tolerate the use of these barbaric weapons” means “Israel, which does use these barbaric weapons even against children as in the Christmas devastation of Gaza in 2008/9, calls itself civilized knowing the truth that it acts in a barbaric manner but doesn’t want the world to think that is true.”

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George Galloway On Syria & war propaganda

Gig Review-Gilad Atzmon Trio, wall2wall Jazz Festival

http://www.thejazzmann.com/

By Ian Mann

GILAD ATZMON TRIO

Despite the rapidly plunging autumnal temperatures Mike Skilton decided to stage the festival’s closing set by Gilad Atzmon on the outside bandstand, I think he wanted to get his money’s worth out of the lights that had been installed. It was a bit parky out there and on reflection the event might have been better off being staged in the intimate atmosphere of the club room where Atzmon had generated such a buzz the night before as part of Sarah Gillespie’s trio. However in the end with an inspired Atzmon blowing hot the temperature hardly seemed to matter as one of BMJ’s favourite artists ended the festival on a high note.

Originally Atzmon had been scheduled to appear with his Power Cats trio, an organ combo featuring Asaf Sirkis on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond. In the event Stanley was unable to appear and Atzmon replaced him with double bassist Tim Thornton which meant that we saw a rather different show to the one advertised. Not that this seemed to bother anybody, the music was significantly different to that of the Orient House Ensemble who had visited BMJ back in January. Instead of the focus being placed on original material this was instead a homage to Atzmon’s all time saxophone heroes Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and featured the rare sight of Atzmon on tenor. It was all reminiscent of Atzmon’s earliest days in the UK, incredibly this year represents the twentieth anniversary of his coming to Britain, a milestone that will be celebrated in November with a special concert performance at the 2013 London Jazz Festival.

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