Gaza and the Politics of “Greater Israel”

Global Research
Nile Bowie

“The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war. Israel’s must be the same. The two states solution doesn’t exist; there are no two people here. There is a Jewish people and an Arab population... there is no Palestinian people, so you don’t create a state for an imaginary nation... they only call themselves a people in order to fight the Jews.” [1]- Benjamin Netanyahu

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza being perpetuated under ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’ comes at an interesting time. Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements into Palestinian lands has increased at unprecedented rates. Netanyahu’s administration has approved the construction of 850 settler homes in the occupied West Bank in June 2012, even after the Israeli parliament rejected a bill to retroactively legalize some of the existing homes in the area. [2] The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has almost doubled in the past 12 years, with more than 350,000 residing illegally under international law. [3] While Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman asserts Tel Aviv’s unwillingness to permit Palestinians any right to return to their lands, emphasizing, “not even one refugee,” apartheid enforced on ethnic and religious lines has become a ratified part of Israeli government policy. [4] Far-right political discourse that was once considered extremism is now the status quo in Israel.

While Netanyahu publically announced support for a Palestinian state on the West Bank, his government has threaten to end the Oslo Accords if the United Nations General Assembly granted Palestine with non-member observer state status. [5] A panel of Israeli jurists assembled by Netanyahu’s government to determine the legal status of the West Bank concluded that there is “no occupation” of Palestinian lands and that the continued construction of settlement outposts are entirely legal under Israeli law, despite critical international opinion. Netanyahu’s far right-conservative Likud party was established on the philosophy of Ze’ev Jabotinksy, who called for the establishment of a ‘Greater Israel,’ a concept embraced by Israeli historian Benzion Netanyahu, the father of today’s Prime Minister. Under his fathers influence, Benjamin Netanyahu was indoctrinated in the ideological foundations of Revisionist Zionism, which promote Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (Palestine) and the full biblical land of Israel by contemporary Jews, an oil rich landmass extending from the banks of the Nile River in Egypt to the shores of the Euphrates.

As rocket fire hits Tel Aviv for the first time since the Gulf War, the ongoing siege of Gaza must be seen as what it is – a premeditated component of Israeli expansionism. Netanyahu was a zealous supporter of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s 2008-2009 sieges on Gaza known as ‘Operation Cast Lead,’ which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, while Israel suffered only 13 causalities. [6] On November 14, 2012, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an offensive into the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip and began announcing their progress through an official Twitter account. IDF forces assassinated a prominent Hamas military commander, Ahmed Jabari, who was allegedly in possession of a draft copy of a permanent truce agreement with Israel. [7] The agreement included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of future military exchanges between Israel and the Hamas-led political factions of the Gaza Strip. Militants from the armed wing of Hamas in Gaza retaliated by firing rockets into Israeli territory, a large percentage of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

Benjamin Netanyahu used this retaliation to claim the moral high ground by warning that he will take “whatever action is necessary” to stop further rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. [8] IDF officials have called on 30,000 reservists to prepare for a possible extended ground incursion into Gaza, as IDF forces indiscriminately kill civilians attempting to strike Palestinian aerial and naval targets. [9] The Obama administration has condemned Hamas for perpetuating violence, while Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government led by Mohamed Morsi recalled Egypt’s ambassador from Tel Aviv. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil arrived in Gaza after the second day of Israeli attacks in a show of support for Palestine. Through ‘Operation Pillar of Defense,’ Israel is targeting the military foundations of Hamas, while attempting to portray itself as a victim in the international media. IDF forces dropped thousands of Orwellian leaflets over Gaza, urging citizens to take responsibility for their own safety, due to Hamas “once again dragging the region to violence and bloodshed.” [10]

Despite Israel targeting the elected Hamas government of Gaza, an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas,” cites a former Israeli official who claims that Israel encouraged the formation of Islamist groups to counterbalance secular nationalists affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Israeli government even officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya as a charity group, allowing it to build mosques and an Islamic university. [11] Israel cooperated with the influential Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was opposed to secular Palestinian activists, as he spearheaded the Sunni Islamist movement that became Hamas. In late October 2012, Gaza’s Hamas government received Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, for an official visit. As part of an aid development package, Al-Thani granted Hamas $400 million, at least $150 million of which will go towards a housing project in southern Gaza – it would be reasonable to assume that large portions of that aid would be invested in defense. [12]

The support given to Hamas by Qatar must be understood through the context of its engagement in Syria. The New York Times articled titled, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria,” states that the arms being shipped to Syria by Saudi Arabia and Qatar are being used to bolster jihadists and al-Qaeda affiliated groups attempting to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad. [13] Qatar has held numerous meetings of US-backed Syrian opposition leaders and hosts a critical American military air base at Al-Udeid, west of the capital, Doha. Qatar has also allowed the establishment of a Brooking Institute center on its territory. Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change” in March 2012, and the directives described in the report have ostensibly become the policy of allied Western and Gulf countries aiming to topple the Syrian government. The Saban Center that published the report was established in 2002 when Israeli-American mogul Haim Saban pledged nearly $13 million to the Brookings Institution in an attempt to influence pro-Israeli policy. [14]

Despite paying lip service to the Palestinian cause, Qatar is supporting policy engineered to give Israel a pretext to consolidate its power. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia have cooperated with the United States and Israel by exporting the Salafist ideology that is so prominent among radical rebel fighters in Hamas and the Free Syrian Army, and using their enormous oil wealth to fund and arm these movements. An unapologetic Op-Ed written by Israeli columnist Guy Bechor titled, “Dangers of a Palestinian state,” bemoans the possibility of an independent Palestine, in fear of the nation becoming a hub for extremist violence:

“A sovereign Palestinian state will immediately absorb 700,000 Palestinians who are living in terrible conditions in Syria, another 750,000 Palestinians who currently live in Lebanon and hundreds of thousands of others who will flock to the new state from all over, because to them the West Bank and Israel are America – just ask the African infiltrators. Due to the ‘Arab Spring,’ Syria and Lebanon would gladly kick the Palestinians out, and the Palestinian state would welcome them with open arms in order to change the demographic reality on the ground. Qatar and Saudi Arabia would fund the entire exodus.

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA spies to recruit terrorists to fight against Iran'

Haaretz
Barak Ravid

Foreign Policy magazine cites CIA memos from 2007-2008 that the Mossad recruited members of Jundallah terror group to fight against Tehran; U.S. was reportedly furious with Israel and moved to limit joint intelligence programs.

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos.

Foreign Policy's Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.

According to the report, Israel's recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.

"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," Foreign Policy quoted an

Former U.S. President George W. Bush
and former Prime Minsiter Ehud Olmert.

intelligence officer as saying. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought."

According to a currently serving U.S. intelligence officer, Perry reports, when Bush was briefed on the information he "went absolutely ballistic."


"The report sparked White House concerns that Israel's program was putting Americans at risk," the intelligence officer told Perry. "There's no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we're not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians."

U.S. sold bunker-busting bombs to Israel: report

Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama secretly authorized the sale of 55 powerful bunker-busting bombs to Israel, Newsweek magazine reported Friday.

Israel first asked to buy deep-penetrating GBU-28 bombs in 2005, but were rebuffed by then-president George W. Bush. At the time the Pentagon had frozen joint US-Israeli defense projects, fearful that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China, Newsweek said.

However in 2007 Bush informed then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that the bombs would be ready for delivery in 2009 or 2010, even though the Israelis wanted them immediately.

Obama released the bombs in 2009, the magazine reports, citing unnamed officials familiar with the still-secret decision.

Newsweek, citing unnamed US and Israeli officials, said in its online edition that Israel has developed its own bunker-buster technology, but that it was cheaper to buy the US weapons.

The 2,000-pound bombs are designed to destroy hardened targets, which could be used to strike Iranian nuclear sites.

The Pentagon declined to confirm or deny the report but press secretary George Little said "the United States remains committed to helping Israel provide for its own security and we remain committed to helping Israel maintain its qualitative military edge."

One-Eyed Men In The World Of The Blind – An Analysis by Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Intifada Palestine
Dr. Lawrence Davidson

There is an interesting phenomenon which we can call “the political retiree’s confession.” I don’t mean all those hyped memoirs, ghost written for all manner of high ranking ex-officials. Here I refer to statements by important political leaders and bureaucrats, either out of office or about to vacate their positions, publically describing what really needs to be done. For instance, what really needs to be done to obtain peace, or accurately pointing fingers at those obstructing peace. These statements can be shocking in their honesty, but curiously enough, are never made, much less acted upon, while the truth sayer is in a position of power. They come to us only with retirement or pending retirement.

For example, take former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was Prime Minister from 2006 (replacing Ariel Sharon who had suffered a debilitating stroke) till early 2009. A few months before leaving office Olmert told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot that, in the end, Israel would have to return “almost all” of the West Bank to the Palestinians, including East Jerusalem. There was no other way to achieve peace with the Arab world. Olmert went on, “the decision we are going to have to make is the decision we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed….The time has come to say these things. The time has come to put them on the table.” Of course “the time” oddly coincided with a period when the Prime Minister could not move this insight from theory into practice.

Now we have another example of this strange phenomenon. This time from the United States. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “in a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee held shortly before his retirement this summer [2011]” gave his expert opinion that the Israeli government was ungrateful for United States assistance. That despite all the Obama administration had done for Jerusalem, “access to top-quality weapons, assistance developing missile defense systems, high-level intelligence sharing….the U.S. has received nothing in return.” On top of that, in Gates’s estimation Prime Minister Netanyahu is “endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation…” No one at the high level meeting disagreed with this analysis.

Gates’s publically revealed anger is nice to hear about but, like Olmert’s epiphany, it means little in practice. Netanyahu has been rude, duplicitous and downright nasty to President Obama in what was actually a replay of the behavior of Menachem Begin toward Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Carter’s National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski learned to distrust the Israeli leadership and would later, after he was no longer in office, advocate an increasing hard line toward Jerusalem. Indeed, he once suggested military confrontation with Israel if that country’s leaders risked a regional war by attacking Iranian nuclear development sites (he suggested the U.S. Air Force shoot down the Israeli planes). This was a reasonable suggestion given the stakes but, of course, it was made when Brzezinski had no position of influence.

Palestine needs a political solution, not aid

Al Jazeera
Ben White


The funds recieved by the Palestinian Authorities have cast a shadow over the liberation that people are demanding.

Part of the Israeli government's response to critics of its Gaza policy is to deny that there is a "humanitarian crisis" in the coastal territory. The implication being that participants in initiatives such as the flotilla are not concerned with "aid" but seek to cause a political "provocation". In a similar vein, recent news of the opening of a five star hotel in Gaza prompted Israel lobby group AIPAC to suggest that the flotilla's real aim was to "delegitimise Israel".

Rather than go into the specifics of Gaza's socio-economic plight - excellent resources can be found at Gisha/Gaza Gateway, PCHR-Gaza, and OCHA - it is important to emphasise a point missing from Israel's propaganda and also neglected by some rights activists: Palestinians are seeking liberation, not aid. The conditions Palestinians are suffering from have political origins and political solutions. This is not a natural disaster; for more than 40 years, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have been subject to a military regime shaped by the priorities of colonial settlement and apartheid control.

Pro-Israel lobby groups in the West like to explain Israel's Gaza policies as first and foremost a response to "terror", and aimed at preventing arms smuggling. Unexplained is why Israel almost entirely prevents Palestinians from exporting goods out of Gaza, why the military enforces a "buffer zone", targeting farmers and fishermen, and why Israel continues to separate Gaza from the West Bank in contravention of their designation as a "Single Territorial Unit".

Furthermore, Israeli officials are on record as framing the siege as a form of collective punishment. In 2008, then PM Ehud Olmert said that there was "no justification" for allowing "residents of Gaza to live normal lives while shells and rockets are fired from their streets and courtyards [at Israel]". The year before, an official in Israel's National Security Council said that the goal of the blockade was to "damage Hamas economic position in Gaza and buy time for an increase in Fatah support". In September 2007, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on the Israeli military's plans "to limit services to the civilian population in Gaza" in order "to compromise the ability of Hamas to govern".

So this is no secret. Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz noted in May that "the Israeli closure was directed mainly at merchandise, rather than at weapons smuggling". The New York Times wrote that Israel's "goal" meant deliberately "suppressing economic growth in Gaza". A Wikileaks cable described how US officials were repeatedly told by the Israelis that the intention is "to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge". Famously, in early 2006, an advisor to Israel's prime minister said that "the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet".

In other words, the conditions facing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are a deliberate result of Israeli policies. A similar logic is at work in the West Bank, where economic gains in recent years are built on the weak foundations of foreign aid and conditional Israeli "concessions".

DEA Released List of 125 Mossad Agents Arrested by U.S. Authorities on 9 /11/2001

Editor's Note:  Article makes the claim  that 9/11 was a 100% MOSSAD operation despite overwhelming evidence of additional participation and facilitation by the United States, the ISI, MI-5/6 and Turkish intelligence.  Text is a translation:

EuropanNetwork

In connection with eos e-mail I received from a reader synellina, which I expressed wonder "why do not Israeli agents arrested on 9 / 11 in the U.S." ...., We quote the complete list of the agents of Mossad, who arrested by U.S. authorities for their involvement in the spectacular terrorist attack of 9 / 11 and proved they were agents of Mossad ...! In my hand I have an additional list of Israeli (with around 140 names) but they ultimately did not prove that it acted on behalf of Mossad, but synepikourousan agents of Mossad ways ...!

Note that the Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert intervened twice through good friend Zionist Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York to release the Israeli agents of 9 / 11. These are the 5 Israeli agents who were dressed as Arabs in the roof of a building against the World Trade Center and the building NO. 7, photographed, recorded with cameras that fact and who were jumping for joy when the aircraft ran into the twin towers. They were also together military-style handheld radios and most likely were those fired and explosives were placed inside buildings ...

The following list of Israeli agents issued by the DEA and most of them were military and intelligence experience ... However, the whole issue in both the U.S. and Greece received little publicity. Finally, I should mention that in this list does not include the dozens of Mossad agents were arrested for spying and involvement in 9 / 11 in Canada and Mexico.

Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak: Likely Suspects for the 9/11 Attacks?

By Christopher Bollyn* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Badness always manifests in destruction and corruption, while goodness always manifests in preservation and benefit.
- Socrates in Plato's Republic (ca. 374 B.C.)

"Wanted" posters of Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak in Jerusalem, April 2010. Olmert and Barak are accused of bribery and corruption in Israel and indictable for serious war crimes in Gaza. Both men are architects of the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11. Olmert, for example, was on a secret visit in New York City on 9-11. When will we see posters in the United States calling for the arrest of Olmert and Barak?

IT IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CERTAIN that 9-11 was a Mossad operation – period.
- Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former director of Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College

"And how can it be profitable for a person's immorality to go unnoticed and unpunished? The consequence of a criminal getting away with his crimes is that he becomes a worse person."
- Socrates in Plato's Republic, "Happiness and Unhappiness"

Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, has been in the United States for a week of meetings and speeches. He is, in my opinion, the key suspect of being the mastermind of the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11. I am providing this brief article to explain how I think he did it.


Within minutes of the airplane crashes on 9-11, Ehud Barak (the founder and master of the Israeli military's covert operation force, the Sayeret Matkal) was in the London studio of the BBC World ready to provide a plausible (and political) explanation to the world. Barak, the real mastermind of 9-11, was the first person to call for a "War on Terror" – and U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East. This is how false-flag terrorism works. The perpetrator is the first one to assign blame by pointing his finger at his enemy in order to shape public opinion, which is the real purpose of such atrocities.



Ehud Barak (Brug) was born at Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon on 12 February 1942. He enlisted in the Israeli Army at age 17, became a career army officer, and helped to found and lead the elite Sayeret Matkal covert operations commando unit. After serving as head of Israeli Intelligence and Central Command during the 1980s, Barak was appointed IDF Chief of Staff, in 1991. Barak was Israel's minister of defense during Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009. Based on the report of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, written by Justice Richard Goldstone, Barak is legally responsible for a host of war crimes committed during that assault. The United States (and all other nations who have ratified the Geneva Conventions) are obliged to arrest Ehud Barak based on the evidence and findings presented in the Goldstone report.

Socrates' point that unpunished criminals become worse is very much the story of modern Israel. The most serious criminals of the Zionist state have never been punished in any meaningful way by the international community – or the United States. This laissez faire attitude regarding Zionist criminals has only enabled and emboldened the most unscrupulous and aggressive criminals to rise to the top of the Israeli government, where they sit today. The criminal audacity of Israel's leaders is, however, simply not sustainable for the long term because their rampant criminality endangers the Zionist state, its citizens, and even its supporters.

Zionist Jews and Israelis living in America, for example, may find themselves in a very uncomfortable position when millions of Americans realize that Israel and its supporters are behind the mass murder of 9-11 and the cover-up of the truth, as Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former director of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, has repeatedly warned. It seems to be only a matter of time before this uncomfortable situation becomes a reality. It should be noted that the Israeli prime minister at the time of the attacks was Ariel Sharon, a Zionist extremist and terrorist who believes that American Jews (actually all Jews) should live in Israel. Sharon had a dream that one million American Jews would emigrate to Israel, while in reality more Israelis have chosen to live in America. Was 9-11 designed to force Jews to move to Israel?

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak (left) talks with Minister of Pensioner Affairs Rafi Eitan as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (center) waits to start the weekly cabinet meeting May 25, 2008 in Jerusalem. Eitan is wanted by the FBI for his role as the spymaster of Jonathan Pollard. Olmert was in New York City on 9-11 on a visit that has been kept secret. These three men know very well who was behind the terrorism of 9-11 - and it wasn't Osama Bin Laden and his band of twenty thieves.

Ehud Barak was prime minister of Israel from July 1999 until March 7, 2001, when he was replaced by Ariel Sharon. I attended an event at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois where both Barak, then prime minister, and Sharon were involved shortly before the election that brought Sharon to power. The fact that Barak and Sharon had travelled to Chicago together illustrated the utter fakeness of their rivalry.

Previous positions held by Barak include Head of Defense Planning and Budgeting, Head of the Israeli Intelligence Community, Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Minister of the Interior in Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin's cabinet, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Shimon Peres cabinet, and Labor Party Chairman. If Israel is involved in 9-11, as Dr. Alan Sabrosky says (and which the evidence strongly indicates) Barak certainly knows all about it.

When Sharon assumed power in March 2001, Barak came to America. He supposedly came to the United States to work as a special advisor for Electronic Data Systems and as a partner with SCP Partners, a Mossad-run private equity company focused on "security-related" work – but this was merely his cover. His real assignment was to oversee the terror attacks of 9-11. As a partner with SCP Partners Barak was well placed to supervise the false-flag terror operation. The complex false-flag terror attacks of 9-11 required that the mastermind of the operation be in the country to manage the critical details.

One of the key aspects of 9-11 that Barak needed to arrange was the production and application of an advanced form of super-thermite, an extremely powerful explosive produced using nano-technology. In 2001, SCP Partners happened to have a suitable company in their portfolio, a private company called Metallurg Holdings, Inc., which has its office in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Today, SCP has another company called Advanced Metallurgical Group, N.V. (AMG) in its portfolio. AMG and Metallurg actually share the same phone number and address at 435 Devon Park Drive in Wayne. SCP Private Equity Partners L.P. and its management company named Safeguard International, which controls the metallurgical subsidiaries, are also both based at this address. AMG/Safeguard International have several subsidiaries, including one that specializes in the production of atomized aluminum (a crucial component of super-thermite) and others which manufacture specialized coatings of nano-composites.

SCP Partners, where Ehud Barak worked from 2001 until 2007, clearly had the capability in 2001 to produce nano-composite explosives like the super-thermite used to pulverize the World Trade Center on 9-11. There are very few companies or countries in the world that had the capability to manufacture super-thermite in 2001, but Ehud Barak and his SCP Partners did. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida, on the other hand, did not and could not have had anything to do with the super-thermite found in the dust of the pulverized Twin Towers. The government version is a pack of lies designed to start a pre-planned war of aggression against Afghanistan. Ehud Barak was actually the first person to call for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan, something he did only hours after the attacks.

Chips of super-thermite found in the dust of the World Trade Center by Dr. Steven E. Jones

Rafi Eitan, the octogenarian Mossadnik who ran a spy operation against the United States using Jonathan Pollard, fled to Israel after Pollard was caught in 1985. Eitan was then offered the position as head of state-owned Israel Chemicals Corporation, which also has production and manufacturing facilities in the United States. In 1978, when Israeli intelligence began planning the false-flag terror operation of 9-11 (according to the documented comments of senior Mossadnik Isser Harel), Eitan was serving as Menachem Begin's "advisor on terrorism". This is the real reason that Rafi Eitan remained in the Israeli security cabinet until 2009 – he is one of the architects of 9-11.

Rafi Eitan was also involved in the 1968 theft and illegal smuggling of nearly 600 pounds of plutonium from a plant in Pennsylvania to Israel for the production of nuclear weapons. As the Pittsburgh Tribune reported in a series of articles about the stolen plutonium, Eitan is the key suspect:

Four other Israelis visited NUMEC on Sept. 10, 1968, and met with Shapiro [then-NUMEC President Zalman M. Shapiro, a staunch supporter of Israel] to "discuss thermoelectric devices (unclassified)," according to a Sept. 12, 1968, letter from Bruce D. Rice, NUMEC security manager, to Harry R. Walsh, director of AEC security and property management, seeking AEC approval for the visit.

The four visitors were: Avraham Hermoni, Ephraim Beigon, Abraham Bendor and Raphael (or, Rafael) Eitan.

In their 1991 book, "Dangerous Liaison," Andrew and Leslie Cockburn wrote, "At the time of his visit to Apollo in 1968, Eitan was acting as an agent for Mossad on special assignment to LAKAM … a shadowy intelligence agency … born in the 1950s with the express purpose of acquiring nuclear technology by any means."

Soon after the men's visit, 587 pounds of weapons-grade uranium reportedly went missing from NUMEC, according to Udall's papers.

In a recent article entitled "America's Loose Nukes in Israel," Grant Smith wrote: "To date, all of the uranium-diversion masterminds, financiers, and beneficiaries have escaped criminal prosecution, even as U.S. taxpayers fund a nuclear waste cleanup at the (now defunct) NUMEC Apollo facility."

Eitan's unscrupulous character can be seen in a comment he made to the wife and lawyer for Jonathan Pollard, the captured spy he had managed:

Eitan told us the only thing he regrets about the Pollard affair is that he did not 'finish the job' before leaving the States. We asked him what he meant by this. Eitan replied, "If I had been at the embassy when Pollard came to seek asylum, I would have put a bullet through his head. There would have been no Pollard affair."
- Esther Pollard, Maariv, March 30, 2006

Raphael Hantman a.k.a. Rafi Eitan

"In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it." – Rafi Eitan to Ha'aretz, February 19, 2010

At SCP Partners Barak worked closely with another Mossadnik named Eitan – Yaron I. Eitan. Although Yaron Eitan looks very much like Rafi Eitan, the relationship between the two Eitans is not known. Rafi Eitan was actually born Raphael Hantman in Mandate Palestine to Noah Hantman from Minsk, Byelorussia. Rafi reportedly has three children, named Yael, Sharon, and Yuval.

Yaron I. Eitan

Sources and Recommended Reading:

"America's Loose Nukes in Israel", by Grant Smith, April 14, 2010:
http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2010/04/13/americas-loose-nukes-in-israel/

Biography of Ehud Barak:
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Ehud_Barak_biography.htm

"Government agencies investigated missing uranium, NUMEC", by Mary Ann Thomas and Ramesh Santanam, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 25, 2002:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/specialreports/buriedlegacy/s_87948.html


Hillary Clinton laughing at her "friend" Ehud Barak's joke about her bat mitzvah as if his joke (delivered in barely understandable English) was hilarious. This is bizarre behavior (for a U.S. Secretary of State) and a classic example of how one overreacts to conceal an unpleasant situation. Clinton's reaction is meant to mask a sordid and sinister relationship between high-level criminals. Americans and Israelis certainly deserve better leaders.

At the American Jewish Committee gala dinner on April 29 Clinton again displays bizarre behavior vis-a-vis Ehud Barak. Is this proper behavior for a U.S. Secretary of State?

Ehud Barak at a news conference at the Department of Defense: