Puppet State America

Global Research
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

The United States government and its subject peoples think of the US as “the world’s only superpower.” But how is a country a superpower when its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister? How is a country a superpower when it lacks the power to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East? Such a country is not a superpower. It is a puppet state.

In the past few days we have witnessed, yet again, the “American superpower” groveling at Netanyahu’s feet. When Netanyahu decided to again murder the Palestinian women and children of Gaza, to further destroy what remains of the social infrastructure of the Gaza Ghetto, and to declare Israeli war crimes and Israeli crimes against humanity to be merely the exercise of “self-defense,” the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the White House, and the US media all promptly declared their support for Netanyahu’s crimes.

On November 16 the Congress of the “superpower,” both House and Senate, passed overwhelmingly the resolutions written for them by AIPAC, the Israel Lobby known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the only foreign agent that is not required to register as a foreign agent. The Global News Service of the Jewish People reported their power over Washington with pride. http://current.com/19su0kc Both Democrats and Republicans shared the dishonor of serving Israel and evil instead of America and justice for the Palestinians.

The White House quickly obeyed the summons from the Israel Lobby. President Obama announced that he is “fully supportive” of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told the media on November 17 that the White House “wants the same thing as the Israelis want.” This is an overstatement as many Israelis oppose the crimes of the Israeli government, which is not the government of Israel but the government of the “settlers,” that is, the crazed land-hungry immigrants who are illegally, with Netanyahu’s support, stealing the lands of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s Israel is the equivalent of the Lincoln Republicans 150 years ago. Then there was no international law to protect Southern states, who left the voluntary union, a right under the Constitution, in order to avoid being exploited by Northern business interests. Subsequently, the Union army, after devastating the South, turned on the American Indians, and there was no international law to protect American Indians from being murdered and dispossessed by Washington’s armies.

Washington claimed that its invasion forces were threatened by the Indian’s bows and arrows. Today there is international law to protect the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza. However, every time that the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, Israel’s Washington puppet vetoes the UN decision.

Furious Israel Bars Günter Grass for Critical Poem

Der Spiegel

Editor's Note:  Here is an unofficial translation of Guenter Grass’ poem,

“What Must Be Said.”

Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long

What is obvious and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.
It is the alleged right to the first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people—
Subjugated by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation—
Because in their sphere of power,
It is suspected, a nuclear bomb is being built.
Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because not accessible to inspections?
The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as an incriminating lie
And coercion--the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of “anti-Semitism” is familiar.
Now, though, because in my country
Which time and again has sought and confronted
Its very own crimes
That is without comparison
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But fear wishes to be of conclusive evidence,
I say what must be said.
But why have I stayed silent until now?
Because I thought my origin,
Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged
Forbade this fact as pronounced truth
To be told to the nation of Israel, to which I am bound
And wish to stay bound.
Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
The nuclear power Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could become suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.
And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the West’s hypocrisy;
In addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
Appeal to the perpetrator of the recognizable danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
By the governments of both countries.
Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
And also us, to be helped.

Israel declared Günter Grass "persona non grata" on Sunday for calling the country a threat to world peace.  Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai went further, saying the author should have his Nobel Prize withdrawn. Politicians in Germany, though critical of Grass, say the ban on visiting Israel is exaggerated.  

The Israeli government has responded sharply to the controversial poem "What Must Be Said" by Nobel Prize-winning German author Günter Grass, declaring him a "persona non grata" on Sunday and thereby barring him from entering the country.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said in a statement that Grass, a former Waffen SS soldier who described the Jewish state as a threat to world peace in a poem published last week, could no longer visit Israel because of his "attempt to inflame hatred against the State of Israel and people of Israel, and thus to advance the idea to which he was publicly affiliated in his past donning of the SS uniform." 

Yishai, who heads an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative coalition government, told Israeli radio that Grass should have his Nobel Prize withdrawn, and likened his comments to the anti-Semitic incitement that ultimately led to the Holocaust. He said Grass was an "anti-Semitic person" and a "man who wore an SS uniform."

Grass qualified his comments in an interview at the weekend, saying that in retrospect, he would have phrased his poem differently to "make it clearer that I am primarily talking about the (Netanyahu) government."

"I have often supported Israel, I have often visited the country and want the country to exist and at last find peace with its neighbours," he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Grass' poem was the expression of the "egoism of so-called Western intellectuals who are willing to sacrifice the Jewish people on the altar of crazy anti-Semites for a second time, just to sell a few more books or gain recognition".

Israel's politicians may seize on the controversy as a welcome opportunity to boost their popularity by positioning themselves as defenders of the national interest. There is speculation among parliamentarians that Netanyahu wants to bring forward the next general election.

Mixed Reaction to Entry Ban

Among intellectuals, opinions differ on the ban. Israeli historian Tom Segev criticized the move as "silly" and "cynical." Israel was putting itself close to fanatical regimes like Iran in doing so, he said in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Michael Wolffsohn, a German historian born in Israel, defended Israel's decision. "I welcome the decision by the government of Israel which I have in the past criticized on many issues. This isn't about the interior or prime minister, but about fundamentals. An ex-SS man isn't a moral authority, especially regarding the descendants of the victims," Wolffsohn told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The former Israeli ambassador to Germany, Avi Primor, said the ban was exaggerated and populist. "I think the interior minister doesn't understand Germany at all. He is conducting domestic politics, I think that's wrong," Primor told German news program Tagesthemen on Sunday night. Grass isn't an anti-Semite, said Primor. But the diplomat also criticized Grass's poem. The author's claim that Israel wanted to eradicate Iran was ridiculous, he said.

German Politician Says Israeli Response 'Inappropriate'
 
There was also criticism of the ban from German politicians. The foreign policy spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats in parliament, Rolf Mützenich, said the reaction by the Israeli government was "inappropriate." He told the website of business daily Handelsblatt there should be a factual debate about Grass' statements. "A democratic and pluralistic country like Israel can bear controversial opinions, especially since the views of Günter Grass aren't anti-Semitic," said Mützenich.

Get down from the roof, you crazies

Haaretz
Yoel Marcus

When Netanyahu is trying to recruit a majority in his forum of eight senior ministers for an attack on nuclear installations in Iran, this is not just a scandal but also a macabre fantasy.

Even Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - who once proposed bombing the Aswan Dam and is now proposing going to war in the Gaza Strip to wipe out Hamas once and for all - said this week on the current events radio show "It's All Talk" that we are talking too much about the Iranian issue. He even quoted a line from a famous Western: "If you want to shoot, shoot, don't talk." Lieberman, the most extreme of the extremists, who has not revealed whether he is in favor of an attack on Iran, is aware of the madness in our threats to attack it.

It's hard to believe that not too long ago the censors prohibited any publication connected to the nuclear issue. At best, they demanded the invocation of the phrase "according to foreign sources." As though whoever is plotting something against us in this area doesn't know about himself what we know about him. When the censors permit what was prohibited until not long ago, maybe it's no coincidence: It is aimed either at preparing the public that the worst and scariest thing of all is liable to happen, or at putting pressure on the United States to act against Iran, or at finding excuses for why we are dawdling in making concessions to the Palestinian Authority. With regard to Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are adopting Machiavelli's advice: Choose yourself an enemy and nourish your loathing of him.

The difference between the situation now and the situation in the First Lebanon War, which was supposed to have taken 48 hours and lasted for 18 years, is that Prime Minister Menachem Begin (whose understanding in matters of defense boiled down to a question to soldiers at the front: "Did you have machine guns?" ) relied blindly on Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan - the same two men who broke him after a long road of mental and physical suffering.

Now the Bibi and Barak duo is threatening to lead the next war if there is one, heaven forbid, contrary to the recommendations of the top military and security people. The impression is that Barak and Netanyahu are not managing to make the necessary concessions for a diplomatic agreement with the Palestinians and have decided to scare the nation and the world with the Iranian nuclear threat and the need to extirpate it.

The atomic arsenal that, according to foreign sources, Israel possesses has been called the Judgment Day weapon - that is to say it is intended for use in a situation of extreme danger to Israel's existence. The possibility of using it was once raised by Prime Minister Golda Meir at the start of the Yom Kippur War, when Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said we were on the verge of the destruction of the Third Temple. This possibility has never been put on the agenda realistically.

When Iraqi Scuds were falling here in the Gulf War and as revenge for the Israel Air Force's destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor under Begin's orders, a panicky public was revealed, which fled daily in the tens of thousands from Tel Aviv. During the course of the war, media representatives met several times for conversations with Chief of Staff Dan Shomron. On one occasion, suddenly there was a warning siren. The chief of staff immediately went down to the security bunker and as we started to make our way out one of the commentators, who is now one of the most popular on television, whispered: "I fear that without an atom bomb this isn't going to end." It ended without an atom bomb and with one fatality in Tel Aviv. Saddam Hussein was also finished off much later by the Americans.

Israel Also Appears to be Desperate

Haaretz

Livni: Loyalty oath proposal 'politics at its worst' Controversial loyalty oath proposal sparks condemnation from a range of Israeli politicians

MK Tibi: Israel is a democracy for Jews, but not for Arabs.

Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni condemned on Sunday the cabinet's approval of a controversial proposal requiring non-Jews seeking citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

"What we have seen today is politics at its worst. The sensitive issue of Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state has become subject to political horse-trading." - Tzipi Livni

"It is essential that we maintain Israel's status as a Jewish state with equal rights for all its citizens. This proposal contributes nothing to this goal. On the contrary, it will cause internal conflict and damage [Israel's image in the world]."

Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi attacked earlier on Sunday the cabinet's approval of the proposal.

"The government of Israel has become subservient to Yisrael Beiteinu and its fascist doctrine," said Tibi. "No other state in the world would force its citizens or those seeking citizenship to pledge allegiance to an ideology."

"Israel has proven that it is not equal and is a democracy for Jews and not for Arabs," he added.

The amendment is one of the promises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made to Yisrael Beitenu in the coalition agreements. Since coming into government Yisrael Beitenu has advanced a long list of "loyalty" laws, which many consider to be discriminatory against Israel's Arab citizens.

Yisrael Beiteinu was enthusiastic over the cabinet's majority vote, calling it "an important message to all those, both inside and outside, who seek to question the State of Israel's existence as the national state of the Jewish people."

Meretz chairman MK Haim Oron also condemned the proposal on Sunday, saying that "time and again it is evident that the government has adopted Lieberman's agenda in its entirety."

Oron added that the government has sunk into a "moral and political abyss."

Hadash chairman Mohammed Barakeh blamed on Sunday Netanyahu and Barak for supporting and promoting "mega-racist legislation."

Israeli Arab MK Talab al-Sana said on Sunday that "the proposal is a serious blow to democracy and will cause the exclusion of 20 percent of the country's citizens... [It] will situate Israel as the successor of Apartheid-era South Africa."

The cabinet voted Sunday by a majority in favor of the proposal, which was submitted by Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman. But ministers had been divided on the issue since it was first raised.

At the last minute, Ne'eman had suggested amending the draft to require Jews to sign a similar loyalty oath. Defense Minister Ehud Barak submitted an amendment of his own to the draft, demanding it include mention of "Jewish and democratic state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence of [1948]."

Barak insisted that adding a reference to the Declaration of Independence "would be the best way to reflect the fundamental values of the State of Israel."

This slight change to include the declaration "would not harm the Arab minority," he said, noting that similar declarations are common in many countries in the world.

Most Labor politicians opposed the bill, including Isaac Herzog and Avishay Braverman, who lead the opposition, and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who was absent from the meeting but left a letter in which he expresses his opposition.

Minister Shalom Simhon (Labor) also skipped the meeting, as he was abroad on a business trip.

Herzog told Haaretz late Saturday that the resounding support for such an amendment showed that "fascism was devouring the margins of society."

"We are on a most dangerous slippery slope," he warned.

Likud ministers Dan Meridor and Benny Begin were expected to try and dissuade their cabinet colleagues from supporting the proposal.

Meridor led an assault on the proposal and warned that such an amendment to the law could severely damage relations with the Arab population in Israel.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin was also opposed to the bill, declaring: "The students of Jabotinsky see no need for such bill. I am a fervent Zionist, and I need no strengthening of my belief. The establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel was an ethical act that the world recognized, and it gained great respect when we described our country as Jewish and democratic. This description is also anchored specifically in the Declaration of Independence and the Law on Elections, and any additions of this type can only be harmful."

"This law will not assist us as a society and a state. On the contrary, it could arm our enemies and opponents in the world in an effort to emphasize the trend for separatism or even racism within Israel," Rivlin said.

"I am not opposed to saying each morning and evening that we are a Jewish and democratic state, but why do we need this law?" Rivlin said.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said, meanwhile, that he would propose his own bill that strip citizenship off of anyone convicted of disloyalty to the state.

"Declarations are not enough in the fact against incidents such as [MKs] Azmi Bishara and Hanin Zoabi," Yishai said in reference to two Israeli Arab lawmakers, one who is suspected of having contacts with enemy states and the other who took part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. "Anyone who betrays the state will lose his citizenship."