Fabricating WMD “Evidence”: Israeli Covert Operation inside Syria to “Track Chemical Arsenal”

Global Research
Julie Levésque

Israel is conducting a covert cross-border operation directed against Syria in liaison with NATO and the Pentagon.

After looking for a “smoking gun” in Iran earlier this year, Israeli special forces are now “tracking” Syria’s “stocks of chemical and biological weapons”, according to The Sunday Times.

“The cross-border operation is part of a secret war to trail Syria’s non-conventional armaments and sabotage their development. ‘For years we’ve known the exact location of Syria’s chemical and biological munitions,’ an Israeli source said, referring to the country’s spy satellites and drones. ‘But in the past week we’ve got signs that munitions have been moved to new locations.’” (Uzi Mahnaimi and Lucy Fisher Israel tracks Syria’s chemical arsenal, The Sunday Times 9 December 2012.)

Everyone recalls the WMD hype prior to launching the war on Iraq. It turned out that the Iraqi WMD threat was an outright fabrication.

Those involved in the Iraq WMD propaganda ploy are now applying their skills with a view to fabricating a WMD pretext to intervene in Syria. According to a report from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, “Israelis ‘misread’ the Iraqi threat”. In 2003, the BBC wrote on the report’s findings:

Israeli intelligence miscalculated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein […] This contributed to the “false” picture painted by US and British services […]

“Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the US and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction capability,” said the author of the report, retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom.

“It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed.”

“From now on, when we present serious data on other countries, like Iran for example, who will treat us seriously?” Israel Radio quoted Israeli left-wing parliamentarian Yossi Sarid as saying. (Israelis ‘misread’ Iraqi threat, BBC,December 5, 2003)

In late March 2012 The Sunday Times reported that “Israel is using a permanent base in Iraqi Kurdistan to launch cross-border intelligence missions in an attempt to find ‘smoking gun’ evidence that Iran is building a nuclear warhead.” (Israeli spies scour Iran in nuclear hunt, The Sunday Times,March 25, 2012)

There is no evidence that Iran has nuclear weapons, even US intelligence agencies agree on that. Global Research ran a story on the Israeli covert op, potentially fabricating WMD evidence in relation to Iran. What is now unfolding in relation to Syria’s  alleged WMD is a rerun of previous attempts to funnel fabricated evidence into the news chain:

Western sources told the Times Israel was monitoring “radioactivity and magnitude of explosives tests” and that “special forces used Black Hawk helicopters to carry commandos disguised as members of the Iranian military and using Iranian military vehicles”. The sources believe “Iranians are trying to hide evidence of warhead tests in preparation for a possible IAEA visit”. (Cited in Report: Israeli soldiers scour Iran for nukes, Ynet, March 25, 2012)

The number of Israeli intelligence missions focussing on the Parchin military base in Iran has increased in the past few months, according to the article. During that period, Tehran has been negotiating with the IAEA which had requested to visit Parchin. According to Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, both parties had agreed in early February that the visit would take place in March. (Gareth Porter, Details of Talks with IAEA Belie Charge Iran Refused Cooperation, IPS,March 21, 2012)

The IAEA requested to visit Parchin in late January and late February, after having agreed to a visit in March. The IAEA thus requested to visit the military complex exactly at the same time Israel was intensifying its secret operations to allegedly search for a “smoking gun”. (Julie Lévesque, Fabricating a “Smoking Gun” to Attack Iran? Israeli Spies Disguised as Iranian Soldiers on Mission Inside Iran Global Research,March 27, 2012)

Israel’s covert operation in Syria is part of a longstanding intelligence agenda directed against the Damascus government.  According to intelNews:

Israel Seen Behind AP’s Iran ‘Nuclear Graph’ Hoax

AntiWar
Jason Ditz

AP Refuses to Confirm, But Diplomats Suspect Mossad

A late November Associated Press report by George Jahn revealed a “nuclear graph” allegedly from Iran by way of an IAEA investigation, sparking a flurry of responses centering on the graph’s incorrect math and leading experts to conclude it was an amateurish hoax.

But who’s hoax? Western diplomats are pointing the finger squarely at Israel’s Mossad spy agency, saying they believe that the leaks were part of an effort to implicate an assassinated Iranian in a weapons program. The diplomats also say Mossad is increasingly active in Austria, the home of the IAEA, looking to drive support for an Israeli war on Iran.
The AP has declined to comment further on where the graph came from, only saying it was an unnamed country who has been critical of Iran’s nuclear program. Israel has refused to comment at all on the matter.

After experts announced that the original AP story had the look of an “amateurish hoax,” Jahn released a second article attempting to defend the findings and speculating that Iran might have deliberately made a bad graph just to throw people off, claiming that the graph’s wrongness “supports suspicions” about Iran.

WH: Obama 'Is Not Particularly Concerned' Whether Susan Rice Misled the American People

Weekly Standard
Daniel Halper

In response to a question from reporter Major Garrett on whether the Obama administration's mishandling of Benghazi raises "core questions of basic competency," press secretary Jay Carney revealed that Barack Obama "is not particularly concerned" about whether Susan Rice misled the American people:



"What the president is worried about, Major, is what happened and why in Benghazi. He is not particularly concerned about whether the ambassador or I went out and talked about the fact that we believed extremists might have been responsible. And whether we named them as al Qaeda or not does not--no, it certainly doesn't have any bearing on what happened and who was responsible as that investigation was continuing on Benghazi."

Israel's War on Truth | Brainwash Update

Alex jones Says Iran Wants to Wipe Israel off the Map

‘Washington Post’ prints false narrative of how Gaza escalation started

MondoWeiss
Alex Kane

 Palestinian Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip
Ismail Haniya (R) and Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil
hold the body of a Palestinian baby boy who was killed
in an Israeli air strike on November 16, 2012 during a visit

You know the drill by now: an escalation occurs in the Gaza Strip that is automatically blamed on Palestinian fighters. The New York Times does it, as the Electronic Intifada's Maureen Murphy points out, and now the Washington Post prints a story with a similar narrative.
Here's how the Post reports on how the bombardment in Gaza started:

The latest round of fighting began Saturday, when militants from a non-Hamas faction fired an antitank missile at an Israeli jeep traveling along the Israel-Gaza border, injuring four Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with shelling and firing that Gaza medical officials said killed at least four people, including two children, and wounded about two dozen others. Militants then fired about 130 rockets and mortar rounds at population centers of southern Israel over several days. After mediation from Egypt, the flare-up appeared to have waned by Tuesday.

But that's now how "the latest round of fighting began." The Institute for Middle East Understanding published an excellent timeline that shows how the fighting actually began:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Following a two-week lull in violence, Israeli soldiers invade Gaza. In the resulting exchange of gunfire with Palestinian fighters, a 12-year-old boy is killed by an Israeli bullet while he plays soccer.
Shortly afterwards, Palestinian fighters blow up a tunnel along the Gaza-Israel frontier, injuring one Israeli soldier.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10
An anti-tank missile fired by Palestinian fighters wounds four Israeli soldiers driving in a jeep along the Israel-Gaza boundary.
An Israeli artillery shell lands in a soccer field in Gaza killing two children, aged 16 and 17. Later, an Israeli tank fires a shell at a tent where mourners are gathered for a funeral, killing two more civilians, and wounding more than two dozen others.

As you can see, the escalation began when Israel killed a 12-year-old boy. The rockets and missiles fired in response were what the Gaza-based militant group Popular Resistance Committees called a "revenge invoice."

Lebanon Bombing: Impetus for US-NATO Planned Sectarian War

Global Research
Tony Catalucci

It was, starting at least in 2007, the goal of the US, Saudis, and Israelis to trigger a region wide sectarian war with which to overrun the governments of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. This was documented in detail in Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection” which was covered in depth in, “Syrian War: The Prequel.

A recent bombing in Beirut, Lebanon left high ranking security chief Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan dead. Al-Hassan is described as “anti-Syrian.” Before Al-Hassan’s death was announced, and literally as bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage caused by the bombing, politicians from Saad Hariri’s faction began immediately blaming Syria for the attacks. Hariri himself also laid the blame on Syria, offering no other details or supporting evidence.

Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran have all condemned the bombing and cite it as a provocation to start a greater sectarian war, from which none will benefit. Each in turn suspect Israel and the West, as greater sectarian tension is expected to result, playing into long documented attempts by US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to trigger a sectarian war they hope will be the downfall of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.

Suspicious op-eds in pro-Western “Lebanon Now” insist that Syria is responsible, and again without evidence, concludes that blaming Israel is inappropriate, and that the Wall Street-London militant beachhead is by far a lesser threat to Lebanon than what it calls “the most deadly virus” of President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.

The blast has given impetus to Hariri’s mobs to flood into the streets, who will no doubt portray themselves to be as “spontaneous” and “independent” as US-engineered mobs were throughout the equally premeditated “Arab Spring.”

Hariri in 2007 was, according to US journalist Seymour Hersh, building an armed militant front in northern Lebanon, across the boarder from Homs, Syria. Many of these militants admittedly had direct ties to Al Qaeda, and with US, Israeli, and Saudi support, they were continuously armed, funded, and prepared for the sectarian bloodbath now unfolding. Homs to this day remains as one of the strongholds for terrorist militants operating in Syria.

While the Western media claims it is a shocking revelation that Al Qaeda is “amongst” the fighters attempting to overthrow the Syrian government, it is well documented that it was Al Qaeda from the very beginning who began armed operations against Syria, using Lebanon and Turkey as a base of operations, with explicit support from the West. The operations were carried out under the tenuous cover of “pro-democracy” protests and with a constant torrent of disinformation provided by the Western media.

While the current story in Lebanon develops, it will be useful to understand the role Hariri has so far played. The republished article below, originally posted in May, 2012, is by no means an exhaustive expose of Hariri and his role in executing the foreign agenda driven by Wall Street, London, Tel Aviv, Doha, and Riyadh, which starts well before 2007.

....
Originally posted May 21, 2012 -The United Nations has been inexplicably silent over revelations that the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other Persian Gulf states, are arming militants in Syria in direct violation of a UN brokered ceasefire. Additionally, the US has openly threatened to arm Kurd militants in Syria to “rise up” against the government. While in reality this constitutes a greater threat to neighboring Turkey, and perhaps an attempt to motivate Ankara to take a more aggressive stance against Syria, the threat of purposefully inciting more violence in a conflict that has allegedly claimed “10,000? lives, seems not only grossly irresponsible, but a violation of international peace.


Image: A bomb detonates in Syria, May 19, 2012, killing and maiming scores. This is the latest manifestation of overt US and Gulf State military support for terrorists attempting to destabilize and overthrow the Syrian government. The West has planned and prepared years in advance for implementing bloody regime change in Syria and Iran.

....
The West’s meddling in Syria does not end there. Recently, clashes have broken out in Lebanon, revealing a large base of operations supporting the destabilization in neighboring Syria, located along the Lebanese-Syrian border. The significance of this discovery, and extremist groups in Lebanon being directly involved, highlights the veracity of a 2007 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh titled, “The Redirection,” which exposed a joint US-Israeli-Saudi operation to create a violent extremist front and direct it at Hezbollah in Lebanon, President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and at the Iranian government.

In the article, the fact that these extremist forces had direct ties to Al Qaeda was noted, including the fact that many of these militants either participated in fighting US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or were affiliated with groups that did:

“In 2005, according to a report by the U.S.-based International Crisis Group, Saad Hariri, the Sunni majority leader of the Lebanese parliament and the son of the slain former Prime Minister—Saad inherited more than four billion dollars after his father’s assassination—paid forty-eight thousand dollars in bail for four members of an Islamic militant group from Dinniyeh. The men had been arrested while trying to establish an Islamic mini-state in northern Lebanon. The Crisis Group noted that many of the militants “had trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.”

According to the Crisis Group report, Saad Hariri later used his parliamentary majority to obtain amnesty for twenty-two of the Dinniyeh Islamists, as well as for seven militants suspected of plotting to bomb the Italian and Ukrainian embassies in Beirut, the previous year. (He also arranged a pardon for Samir Geagea, a Maronite Christian militia leader, who had been convicted of four political murders, including the assassination, in 1987, of Prime Minister Rashid Karami.) Hariri described his actions to reporters as humanitarian.

In an interview in Beirut, a senior official in the Siniora government acknowledged that there were Sunni jihadists operating inside Lebanon. “We have a liberal attitude that allows Al Qaeda types to have a presence here,” he said. He related this to concerns that Iran or Syria might decide to turn Lebanon into a “theatre of conflict.”" -”The Redirection,” Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker 2007

The report also made mention of extensive US funding behind Hariri’s faction, led then by Fouad Siniora, augmenting the creation of this militant force:

“The United States has also given clandestine support to the Siniora government, according to the former senior intelligence official and the U.S. government consultant. “We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we’re spreading the money around as much as we can,” the former senior intelligence official said. The problem was that such money “always gets in more pockets than you think it will,” he said. “In this process, we’re financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences. We don’t have the ability to determine and get pay vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don’t like. It’s a very high-risk venture.”

American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.” -”The Redirection,” Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker 2007

It becomes clear then that Lebanon’s recent unrest is a result of a greater gambit targeting not just Syria, but the Hezbollah-Syrian-Iranian sphere of power, following the US-engineered “Arab Spring” installing proxy leaders across the Arab World to specifically support this last leg of geopolitical reordering. Such support has manifested itself as political support from US-proxy president Moncef Marzouki of Tunisia, and similar support from US-installed Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib, who’s nation has also committed not only arms and cash to Syrian terrorists, but fighters as well.


Image: Saad Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon, is admittedly a co-conspirator in US-Israeli-Saudi designs to destabilize with militant extremists and violently overthrow the Syrian government. While Hariri feigns anti-Israeli sentiment and makes public calls for Lebanese to refrain from sectarian violence, he is the primary facilitator of both extremists crossing over into Syria, and their creating of chaos in the streets of Lebanon. A 2010 Fortune 500-funded International Crisis Group report describes in detail Hariri’s deep ties, and indeed dependence, on the West.

....
Now, it is reported that “anti-Assad clerics” have been shot by Lebanese soldiers – and just as was seen during the assassination of Rafic Hariri, demagogues are attempting to draw Sunni Muslims into a conflict with Shi’ias. A strategy of tension is being used to divide the Lebanese people into a deadly conflict mirroring the sectarian, not “democracy,” driven unrest ravaging Syria. With Saad Hariri, the US, and Saudi Arabia overtly working to undermine Syrian stability, it appears that all of the characters described by Hersh in 2007 are now openly implementing their plans.

The purposefully nebulous coverage by the Western media over violence in Lebanon so far, and a disingenuous depiction of it being “spill over” from Syria is meant to portray a general sense of chaos consuming the region. In reality, it is a premeditated destabilization dependent on fostering violence between Sunni and Shi’ia Muslims, just as was purposefully done in Iraq to balk an effective Sunni-Shi’ia alliance that achieved initial success fighting a foreign occupation led by the US starting in 2003.

While exposing the premeditated nature of the destabilization consuming Lebanon and Syria is essential, as well as calling for international condemnation of the US for openly attempting to escalate violence in the middle of a mediated ceasefire, calling on people across the Islamic World to refrain from falling into this sectarian trap, and being used as tools of their own division and subjugation by the West is equally important.

Saad Hariri portends that his alliance with the US, Israel, and the Saudis is simply an attempt to protect “Sunnis” from a “Shi’ia threat.” In reality, as empires have done all throughout history, Hariri’s invitation to the West to meddle in his own nation’s affairs will open the door to the destruction and dismemberment of not only his enemies, but inevitably his own movement as well. A faction too weak to fight its rivals is certainly too weak to fight an invited foreign imperial power that decides to overstay its welcome. A strategy of tension is at play in the Islamic World, the trap set, hatred for Israel and rival ideologies the bait. Time will answer the question, “have the people of the world learned enough collectively to avoid it?”

Israel lobby groups press sat providers to ban Iran channels: Report

PressTV

Israeli lobby groups have reportedly contacted two communications satellite service providers to force them to take Iranian radio and television channels off the air following a recent ban on the broadcasters in Europe, Press TV reports.

The lobbies have recently approached International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat) and Hispasat -- a group of Spanish communication satellites -- and called on them to stop the broadcast of Iranian channels.

In a flagrant violation of the freedom of speech on Monday, European satellite provider Eutelsat SA ordered media services company Arqiva to stop the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels including Press TV, al-Alam, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2, Sahar 1 and 2, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Quran TV, and the Arabic-language al-Kawthar following an order by the European Commission.

The decision follows months of jamming of Iranian channels by European satellite companies.

This is while the European Union has denied claims by European satellite companies that it ordered the providers to take Iranian channels off the air saying that the companies have acted on their own accord.

British Democracy: Living in Fear, Kept in the Dark

Global Research
Colin Todhunter

Earlier this year, I watched the BBC’s main political debate programme that allows an audience of members of the public to put questions to a panel of politicians and so-called experts. Syria was on the agenda. A member of the panel referred to the Syrian rebels as ‘freedom fighters’. Within a few minutes, all panel members and the audience were using this term to refer to the rebels. It led me to ponder why so many people were willing to accept at face value an agenda that portrayed the insurgents in such a wholly positive light.

It also led me to conclude just how easy it is to manipulate ordinary people into backing imperialist ventures abroad, which are fought on behalf of rich interests. At a time of biting austerity and attacks on workers and the welfare state, well over a billion pounds of ordinary people’s money was used to fund the illegal bombing of Libya.

The justification sold to people for such militarism is that dictators are bad. The justification sold to people for attacking or destabilising countries resulting in mass death is that democracy must therefore be forced through by the barrel of a gun. Isn’t it terrible, the politicians and media say, that Assad is a brutal dictator who is preventing democracy by putting down the rebels.

The Assad regime undoubtedly has its faults, but nothing is ever said by the corporate media about the authoritarian ruling clique in Saudi Arabia, which has even given its name to that country (House of Saud). Nothing is ever said about a western backed dictator in Bahrain who has been in power for 52 years. Nothing is ever revealed about the brutal ongoing crackdowns on protestors and dissenters in those countries. When Bahrain used Saudi troops to put down uprisings in 2011, the resultant death toll was proportionally much larger than was the loss of life in Egypt during the uprising there. In fact, if the death toll in Bahrain were taken as a proportion of the population, the equivalent death toll for Egypt would have been 12,000.

Where was the outrage from the US and its client states? That’s right, there was none. The King of Bahrain was even invited to attend Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebrations at BuckinghamPalace.

As it did inLibya, repressive Saudi Arabia is playing a big role in facilitating the rag-tag rebels in Syria to destabilise a sovereign state that stands in the way of NATO and Israeli interests.

And far away, back inBritain, the public is being fed a pack of lies by politicians and the mainstream media about the situation in Syria, just as it has been over other military adventures over the past decade. The majority of Brits don’t have much of a clue about what is happening. They are unaware that Syria forms part of the greater game in the region. They fail to see the links between Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, which are all part of a Washington-led wider geo-political strategy hell-bent on global domination, controlling the world’s mineral resources, pipeline routes and lining the pockets of western financiers and oil, armaments and logistics companies. Too many remain confused or ignorant thanks to duplicitous politicians and the corporate media.

The public cannot know the reality. They will not be allowed to know. They must be kept in fear and in the dark and deceived by politicians and the media that churn out increasingly tired-sounding clichés about a war on terror or humanitarian militarism to justify murderous brutality.

And the result is that too many people accept the lie that rag-tag forces made up of vicious, faction-ridden fighters, illegally armed by NATO terror governments and unelected regimes in Saudi and Qatar, are fighting for freedom and democracy. Those forces and nations wouldn’t know about freedom and democracy if they fell over it.

Sorry, my mistake, they would and they do. That’s why they seek to crush it when it appears. And that applies whether it appears within the borders of the US, Britain or Saudi, or elsewhere in places that are of strategic importance to them. The US track record of crushing democratic governments is well documented by the likes of Noam Chomsky and historian William Blum. And look no further to see the attacks on WikiLeaks or the Occupy Movement to see how democratic movements are treated at home. Look no further to see how democratic workers’ movements that took hundreds of years to build in Britain and elsewhere in Europe are under sustained attack.

Giving the people the opportunity to vote every four or five years, while in the meantime deceiving, misinforming and lying to them, has no more to do with democracy or freedom than what is happening in Syria right now.

If more ordinary folk were turn their attention away from glossy sports events, premiership football, cheap knockabout BBC political debate shows or all other forms of comatosing infortainment for one minute, they might well realise that the billionaire criminal elites that take their taxes and dictate national and foreign policy are in many cases a good deal worse than any number of the regimes they seek to demonise.

DNC Chair: Wrong Statements About Libya Attack Doesn't Mean False Statements About Libya

ABC: No Protest Outside Libya Consulate Before Attack

CrossTalk: Israel Snubbed

Rys2sense

New Yorker magazine editor says Netanyahu is 'arrogant and dangerous'

Haaretz

David Remnick accuses the Prime Minister of endangering Israel and making himself a factor in the U.S. elections.

New Yorker magazine editor and Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Remnick accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday of endangering Israel, interfering in U.S. elections and aligning with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a "neocon strategy" against U.S. President Obama.

In a biting blog post in the magazine on Wednesday, Remnick accused Netanyahu of doing more “than any other political figure to embolden and elevate the reactionary forces in Israel, to eliminate the dwindling possibility of a just settlement with the Palestinians, and to isolate his country on the world diplomatic stage.”

Remnick highlighted the Prime Minister’s obstinacy and “innate distrust” of myriad Israeli military and intelligence experts who oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, as well as of President Obama, whom the PM attacked earlier this week for failing to present Iran with so-called red lines. This, despite the Obama's committment to preventing a nuclear Iran and the fact that defense cooperation between the two countries has never been stronger.

Netanyahu held an hour-long telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama early Wednesday, calming things down following reports that Obama had rejected Netanyahu's request to meet when the prime minister visits the United States later this month.

Bibi’s Crazy UN Speech: Medievalist poses as champion of “modernity”

Sabbah
Justin Raimondo

It's no wonder the Israeli Foreign Ministry initially held back from releasing a transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly: Bibi's wackiness doesn't bear close scrutiny. Perhaps "wacky" isn't quite the right word for his 40-minute peroration, during which he pulled out a bomb "diagram" and a red marker to illustrate where he would draw a "red line" defining the outer limits of Iran's nuclear program. Cartoonish is more like it. The cartoonish quality of the bomb drawing underscored the content and tone of the speech, which was the jeremiad of a radical ideologue rather than anything one would expect from a statesman:

"Today a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the right of all our citizens, men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all are equal before the law."

Israel, which privileges its priestly caste, has a state religion, and bases its national mythology on a "promise" from G-d, is as medieval as any of its neighbors. Aside from being a lie, however, this statement is interesting because it evokes the very same supremacist spirit that animates the controversial pro-Israel public relations campaign launched by the Jewish state's extremist American supporters. Posters in the public transport system, from New York to San Francisco, proclaim:

"In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad."

No wonder the Israeli consulates in New York and San Francisco won't disavow those vile subway posters: Pamela Geller is the new public face of Israel.

Yes, Israel protects the rights of all citizens - unless they're Palestinians who happen to own property coveted by the "settlers," in which case it doesn't. And the key word here is citizens: of course, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens, but helots, with no rights, and no protection from fanatical Jewish fundamentalists who have launched hundreds of attacks on their homes, and sought to displace them at every opportunity, with the active complicity of the Israeli government.

This idea that Israel represents "modernity" is rich, considering that every day Israeli society is sinking lower into the morass of religious and cultural fundamentalism, a regression that has not gone unnoticed in the West. Bibi opened his speech with biblical references, describing Jersusalem as the "eternal capital" of Israel and declaring that "the Jewish state will live forever." Yet as we secularists know, nothing lives "forever," and the idea of a city being the "eternal" capital of anything is a metaphor, at best, at worst a dangerous delusion. If this is the "modern" then one wonders how much it differs from the "medieval." But let's not linger too long over the obvious. Bibi rants on:

"Militant Islam has many branches, from the rulers of Iran with their revolutionary guards to al-Qaeda... but they're all rooted in the same soil. It's not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, but how many lives will be lost before it's defeated. Nothing could emperil my country more than arming Iran with nuclear weapons. To imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear Iran, imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear al-Qaeda. There's no difference."

The Israeli Prime Minister may have been addressing the UN General Assembly, but he was really talking to the Americans, whose fear and loathing of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks can always be counted on to raise them to new levels of hysteria. Outside that context, however, equating the Iranians with Al Qaeda makes about as much sense as likening the late unlamented Saddam Hussein toOsama bin Laden - and, hey wait, didn't we hear that equation made endlessly in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq? Yet this was not a time for subtlety from the Israeli Prime Minister - the cartoon "bomb" ended all hope of that - but for the crudest sort of propaganda, which is, of course, war propaganda.

Imagine if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UN that day minutes before Netanyahu took the stage, had said: "Militant Judaism has many branches, from the Washington officesof AIPAC to the center of Jewish power in Tel Aviv - but they're all rooted in the same soil" of intolerance? Picture him conjuring images of violent Jewish "fanaticism" - not a hard task, given what is happening in Israel today. If he had done so, Abbas would have been denounced in every Western capital as the 21st century incarnation of Hitler.

Against All Logic: Iran Blamed by MSNBC for Cyber Attack on Bank Sites

This contrived bit of storytelling is an insult to the American public. Iran's motivation for conducting cyber attacks on banks somehow doesn't match the likelihood that the cyber attacks are MOSSAD operations. These events took place right after Senator Lieberman's appeal to Obama for an executive order to shut down the internet in the wake of a "9/11 style cyber attack". People have to suffer the inconvenience of accessing their bank accounts in a way that is slightly more irritating than having to sit through a commercial for "war with Iran" in a Hulu Plus transmission.