U.S. is Allied with and actively Supports Al-Qaeda

Iran Review
Interview with: James F. Tracy
By: Kourosh Ziabari

Professor James F. Tracy

American political commentator believes that the United States has been constantly allied with Al-Qaeda and supported it militarily and financially.

"Major media have recently had to acknowledge that US-NATO interests are aligned with Al Qaeda in Syria, of course overlooking the fact that the US and Sunni States also recruited and armed these soldiers of fortune. What the Obama administration has sought to do with the alleged murder of Bin Laden in May 2011 is to close the chapter on the old, villainous Al Qaeda and open a chapter on the new and friendly Al Qaeda. This narrative is slowly unfolding, while Americans are instructed on a different bogey to fear, which now appears to be homegrown terrorism," he said in an exclusive interview with Iran Review.
Prof. James F. Tracy is the Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where he teaches courses on media history and the role of journalism in the public sphere. Tracy's scholarly work and commentary on media and politics have appeared in numerous academic journals, edited volumes, and alternative media news and opinion outlets. He is editor of Democratic Communiqué, journal of the Union for Democratic Communications, an affiliate of Project Censored, and a regular contributor to GlobalResearch.ca. Tracy's latest work assessing Western press coverage of US-NATO military ventures and the human costs of war appears in Censored 2013: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2011-2013 (Seven Stories Press, 2012).

Prof. Tracy took part in an interview with Iran Review to answer some questions regarding the influence of advocacy organizations on the U.S. government and the mutual relationship between these entities, the further limitation of civil liberties and individual freedoms in the United States, the challenges ahead of progressive, alternative journalism in the United States, Western mainstream media's coverage of Iran and Syria affairs and the prospect of U.S. military expeditions in the Middle East.

Q: What do you think about the role of influential American think tanks and public diplomacy and advocacy organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations or the National Endowment for Democracy in creating unrest and instability in the countries which are opposed to the United States policies? Do you find traces of their footsteps in the ongoing violence in Syria? Do they have plans to destabilize Iran so as to realize their mischievous objective of regime change in Tehran?

A: One can contend that the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Endowment for Democracy are much more than advocacy organizations. The question suggests the popular view that Western states and especially the United States are above such organizations in terms of decision making power and responsiveness to the populations they purportedly serve.

This is the idealization of a transcendent governing apparatus upheld in public opinion and touted in Western mainstream media. This is the myth the CFR specifically perpetuates about itself and the liberal state. In fact, the CFR is a branch of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and it has more or less dictated US foreign policy from within entities such as the US State Department since before World War Two.

This is not to say that every member of the CFR is involved in such maneuvers. Some are in the organization because they're flattered to be asked and they see it as prestigious and fashionable, or they wish to network with other influential figures. Yet it is no mistake that membership is exclusive and participants all occupy strategic positions of power in major global corporations, in academe and the media, and in government, and thus can be mobilized to exert their influence as the CFR inner circle desires. They also openly share in the ideology of weakening the nation state and privileging global-regional and international bodies, such as the European Union and the United Nations.

It is through such organizations that they can get their policies enacted with little if any interference from the common people or their representatives at the national level. The CFR's interests and activities, alongside the interests supported by the major philanthropic foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundations, and the Gates Foundation, are demonstrable manifestations of the deep state that truly runs the world, has priorities that differ greatly from the bulk of humanity, and has sought to exert itself since the 1920s.

The "Arab Spring" appears to be largely a maneuver of organizations such as the CFR and NED. This was evident from the onset with the high degree of Western media exposure afforded the fairly modest demonstrations 2011 in Tahrir Square that preceded Mubarak's ouster by the Central Intelligence Agency. The same media outlets unquestioningly covered the Western and Sunni-backed deployment of Al Qaeda mercenary forces and NATO airpower against the most modern and socially progressive state on the African continent under the Obama administration's "Responsibility to Protect" cover. A central bank was reportedly created in the back of a mercenary pickup truck. This was a colossal war crime that Western public opinion is left largely in the dark about. It also underscored liberal-progressive hypocrisy and credulousness in the US, evident in the pronouncements of public figures such as Juan Cole and Amy Goodman, who led the cheering section for Libya's destruction. If the Bush administration successfully vanquished the probable leader of the African Union those on the Left would have been in a huff. When one of their purported own oversees such a campaign it's not only condoned but applauded, much like the "humanitarian" bombing of Yugoslavia by Clinton.

As many of your readers are likely aware, Libya is significant because some of the same mercenary forces recruited by US intelligence and Sunni states that were employed there are now deployed in Syria. Like Libya, Syria is also a fairly modern state that is not hostile to the West but is regarded as being autonomous, particularly in its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah. It is also seen as a strategic threat to Israel in terms of Iran, and so must be dismantled before a more concerted campaign against Iran is to take place. I'm inclined to think that those determining policy for the Obama administration want compliant fundamentalist regimes installed throughout the Middle East. This will be disastrous to overall security in the region but I don't believe that's their goal. War is much more profitable and has much greater potential than peace for those who wish to exert control over resources.

Q: In one of your articles, you argue that the United States has become a police state, with such restrictive legislations and programs which the government has put into effect to limit the citizens' personal freedoms and different types of civil liberties, such as the Sedition Act of 1798 which criminalizes the publication of "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government and governmental officials. Would you please elaborate more on your notion of the United States becoming a police state?

A: I believe this was "The Paranoid Style of American Governance," where I pointed out that the laws, policies, and organizational structure of the US government, how its exaggerated concern over surveillance and security is arrayed against the American people. The situation is comparable to how an increasingly delusional paranoid might approach human relationships s/he is involved in.  As a result of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act following the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing and the 2001 PATRIOT Act enacted after September 11, 2001 many of the civil liberties Americans have been guaranteed under the Constitution have been stolen, never to return.

Citizens cannot expect to be secure in their persons and papers. We are subjected to humiliating warrantless searches at transportation facilities. As a result of a string of legislation capped off by President Obama's National Defense Authorization Act of December 2011 the government now reserves the right to jail or murder citizens on political grounds. There is little if any recourse because our political representation has to a large degree been bought off by private interests. The US increasingly looks like a totalitarian state and is one major event away from fully resembling the Soviet Union or an Eastern Bloc state circa 1970. The extent of the rollback in civil liberties is very overdone because a majority of Americans are ill-informed, politically unsophisticated, and in many instances even functionally illiterate. Thus they are unaware of the police state's accelerated formation since the mid-1990s and unprepared to contest it. A combined regime of poor public education and the stultifying effects of mass media and culture have dumbed the American public down to the extent that its republic has been taken right out from underneath its nose.

Q: It's widely believed that the United States, as its leaders claim, is a "beacon of freedom" since the mass media are allowed to publish every critical material at will, even if they threaten the national security, in such cases of war with another nation. Is this widely-accepted belief true? Don't the mass media face any restriction or impediment by the government to censor certain stories or withhold from the public sensitive information?

A: The major, agenda-setting US news media—USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and their broadcast and cablecast amplifiers—that the small strata of semi-politically adept and literate citizens rely on for information are all controlled by interests that are overall supportive of the US police state and US-NATO foreign policy. To return to your initial question, many of the owners or top editors and journalists are also CFR members. Together they perform a central propagandistic function of the state through selective reportage of issues and events, omission of key information, and heavy reliance on "official" government or corporate sources.

Such a set of procedures is worse than outright falsehoods because a falsehood can be disproved and a journalist or news organization called out on the carpet. However, by owning most of the newsgathering and distribution outlets, by using official sources and employing careful editing procedures such media retain credibility in the public mind. In the Soviet Union much of the citizenry knew that by reading Pravda they were being fed outright lies so they learned to "read between the lines" to interpret what was really going on. That requires a degree of political sophistication that is beyond most Americans.

The government and major news media are also being challenged by alternative news media and thus resort to a more blatant form of disinformation that jeopardizes their perceived trustworthiness, which is now at an all-time low. This is the case with their coverage of the US-NATO actions and Libya and Syria—specifically the fact that the US is allied with and actively supporting its alleged arch enemy Al Qaeda.

For over a year corporate media tried to cover this up when it was there in plain view. Alternative outlets reported otherwise and in the face of this mainstream media had to eventually relent and admit that the US is indeed supporting Al Qaeda.

As an example, one case involved a US-based alternative media outlet reporting on the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies collectively purchasing over one billion rounds of lethal, "hollow point" ammunition. Major media sought to assuage growing public concern on this by focusing on a single government agency's (the Social Security Administration) purchase of 180,000 rounds of such ammunition, asserting that it was for target practice. This was absolute propaganda likely pitched to these outlets by covert government sources. It's fairly common knowledge among American gun enthusiasts that "full metal jacket" ammo is used on the range because it's far less expensive than hollow point and performs the same function. Nevertheless, the 180,000 SSA story was widely circulated, performing the intended propaganda function, mainly through conscious omission of the most important information that alternative media honestly chose to highlight.

Another argument that I need to make in light of the world wide expanse of news and information now available on the Internet is that the US citizenry doesn't need to rely primarily on USA Today or New York Times editors for what it is exposed to. This remains the case so long as the Internet remains free from government or corporate encroachment and regulation. In this regard there is a wealth of information for those who have the time, discernment, and initiative to seek it out and become informed. Investigative journalists and commentators have much to draw on in terms of analyzing and explaining the meaning and significance of issues and events. This is essentially what newspapers and journals did before the application of scientific objectivity to journalism and the pretentious separation of news from analysis and opinion.

Q: What challenges do the independent, progressive journalists of the United States face today? In one of your articles, you had criticized some of the progressive media for failing to give coverage to important topics such as the truth about the 9/11 attacks. Would you please elaborate on that? In my view, the progressive media outlets such as CounterPunch or The Nation have to some extent broken apart the monopoly of the mainstream media and allowed the free flow of information while the mainstream media steadfastly try to suffocate the truth. Don't you agree?

The One-Sided View of Hate in Hate Studies

deliberation
Jay Knott

The following paper was submitted to The Journal of Hate Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, USA, on March 14, 2012. It was rejected without explanation. My paper criticizes the approach the discipline of Hate Studies had taken hitherto. It argues that Hate Studies has over-estimated the extent of white racism in the USA, and neglected Zionism as a source of hate. It backs up these criticisms with evidence, and a rigorous approach to evaluating it.

Abstract

The Journal of Hate Studies asks for “cutting-edge essays, theory, and research that deepens the understanding of the development and expression of hate”. The following submission for the 2012 issue of the journal (Call for Papers, Tsai, R.L., 2012) is all of the above. It argues that Zionism  generates hate, and that hate studies writers have neglected it. Further, it produces evidence that hate studies researchers have exaggerated the amount of racism in white gentile America. In the process, it examines the methodologies which have led to this miscalculation, and suggests a more balanced approach.

I. Introduction

In his paper Hate, Oppression, Repression, and the Apocalyptic Style, (2004), one of the founders of hate studies, Chip Berlet, defines the field as “inquiries into the human capacity to define, and then dehumanize or demonize, an ‘other,’ and the processes which inform and give expression to, or can curtail or combat, that capacity”. The current paper argues that Zionism includes examples of the above “human capacity”, but that no contributor to hate studies, until now, has noticed them.
Noel Ignatiev’s contribution to the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, (2007, pp. 240–244), describes the Zionist state of Israel as a “racial state, where rights are assigned on the basis of ascribed descent or the approval of the superior race”. Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (2006), shows how Israel was initiated by the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homeland, because they were not Jewish. I therefore argue that Zionism is a valid subject of hate studies.

However, a survey of the current publications of hate studies reveals a lack of concern with Zionism, in contrast to an emphasis on anti-Semitism and white racism. I illustrate this below with citations from the major works of hate studies, analyzing examples of alleged hate incidents to suggest a more scientific approach to the evaluation of hate. I cite the recommended works which allege there is an “epidemic” of hate crimes, and the one book currently in print which directly falsifies this hypothesis, Hate Crimes – Criminal Law & Identity Politics (Jacobs, J.B. & Potter, K., 1998). I make use of Steven Pinker’s recent work on the decline of violence, including hate crimes, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (Pinker, S., 2011), and a number of newspaper and online reports of alleged hate crimes.

II. Inadequate attention to Zionism

The Zionist justification for expelling Palestinians has included expressions of “the human capacity to define, and then dehumanize or demonize, an ‘other,’” (Berlet, C., 2004). When Zionist leaders  recognize the Palestinians’ existence, they sometimes refer to them as “devil’s spawn” (Rachel Abrams’ weblog; 2011). Other representative epithets include “drugged cockroaches”, “two-legged animals” and “Arab scum” (according to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, 14 January 2002, citing The New Statesman, June 25, 1982). Some Zionists go so far as to say it would be justified to kill gentile babies “if they would grow up to harm us” – Rabbi Shapira, reported by Roi Sharon in Maariv, 2009. The evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, in a book about self-deception, The Folly of Fools, the logic of deceit and self-deception in human life, (2011), in a section entitled “False Historical Narratives”, contrasts the Zionist myth with the reality:

a racialist (and then racist) country was shoehorned into the Middle East, so that Jewish people (half and quarter also) from around the world can immediately claim citizenship to this land but none of those who were so recently expelled could do so. (p. 236).

Nevertheless, only one of the papers for hate studies’ most recent conference mentions Zionism, and not to criticize it for racism, but to ask at what point criticism of it becomes racist – “Not every criticism of Israel and Zionism was viewed as antisemitic, but on many occasions such comment served to mask antisemitism” – Michael Whine, The Community Security Trust – Best Practice in Combating Antisemitic Hate, (2011), Journal of Hate Studies (vol. 9, p. 114).

Kenneth Stern, a founder of the discipline of hate studies, vigorously defends Zionism against the “racism” charge. In his first pamphlet on anti-Semitism for the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Zionism, the Sophisticated Anti-Semitism, (1990), Stern wrote: “This anti-Semitic slander – that Zionism was racism – first appeared at the United Nations in the early 1960s” (p. 6). Even the Jewish Agency for Israel says, of the right of return for Jews, “It has been suggested that an immigration policy which explicitly gives priority to one ethnic or religious group cannot be justified in liberal democratic terms” (2004). But Stern has consistently argued that describing the Law of Return as racist, is itself racist (Stern 2006). In an extensive survey of the literature, I have been unable to find anything recommended by the hate studies department at Gonzaga University’s Bibliography of Hate Studies Materials (Thweatt, E., 2002), which agrees with the United Nations that Zionism as a form of racism.

As well as the United Nations, Stern’s complaints about “anti-Semitism” are directed at rural political movements, known as “militias”, in the USA. In 1996, Stern wrote an article for USA Today entitled Militia Mania, a Growing Danger, and published a book called A Force Upon the Plain, subtitled The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate, claiming that anti-Jewish attitudes are central to these movements’ ideologies (p. 246). Concern about militias is a recurrent theme in the hate studies literature (Dees, M., 1997; Berlet, C. & Lyons, M, 2000; Thweatt, E., 2002).

An example is Public Eye journal – “Researching the Right for Progressive Changemakers” – edited by hate studies pundit Chip Berlet. In her article for the journal, The Montana Human Rights Network, (2005), Abby Scher claims the following statement, from a leaflet produced by a militia in Montana, is an example of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: “George Bush… cynically used the tragedy of September 11th to silence dissent and to launch the war for Israel his Zionist neocon handlers wanted.” Arguments for the claims that the neoconservative movement is overwhelming Zionist, and that it was instrumental in persuading the US government to attack Iraq in 2003, include scholarly ones such as those of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (The Israel Lobby; 2007). Deciding how much truth there is in this view is beyond the scope of the present essay – my point is simply that classifying this analysis as “anti-Semitic” may tend to discourage us from asking legitimate questions.

III. The influence of pseudo-science

The field of hate studies has made use of the evolutionary approach in understanding ethnic conflict, for example in publishing Harold Fishbein’s The Genetic/Evolutionary Basis of Prejudice and Hatred (2004), and James Waller’s Our Ancestral Shadow: Hate and Human Nature in Evolutionary Psychology (2004). However, less scientific ideas have also been given credit. For example Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt’s Hate Crimes, (1993), which is recommended in hate studies’ bibliography (Thweatt, E., 2002), and referenced in several papers in the field, relied on a 1950 treatise on hate and prejudice, The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J., & Stanford, R.N., 1950): “Decades ago, the authors of The Authoritarian Personality recognized that prejudice satisfies a deep-rooted psychological need to protect or enhance self-esteem” (p. 48).
In The Authoritarian Personality, Theodor Adorno and his colleagues claimed to have found “quantifiable relations” between conservatism and anti-Semitism via the “Politico-Economic Conservatism” scale, the “Ethnocentrism” scale and the “Anti-Semitism” scale (p. 49).

The above diagram illustrates the general principle. If person A believes P and Q, and person B believes P, the likelihood that person B also believes Q is greater than the occurrence of belief Q in the general population. This is as true of any one class of beliefs as of any other. Yet the Frankfurt School believed it could derive “the determination of the potential fascist in childhood” (Adorno et al. 1950, p. 56) from this statistical banality.

The authors claimed that a German who joined the Nazis “can apparently never quite establish his personal and masculine identity; he thus has to look for it in a collective system where there is opportunity both for submission to the powerful and for retaliation against the powerless” (page 370); they did not apply this psychological explanation to Communist Party recruits of the same period.

The Frankfurt School’s approach still has influence. As a contemporary example of the use of psychoanalysis to reinforce political, and possibly racial, bias, consider Naomi Klein’s recent article about climate change for The Nation, Capitalism vs. the Climate (2011). She argued that “conservative white men” tend to disbelieve the theory of unprecedented anthropogenic global warming “because it threatens to upend their dominance-based worldview”.

Rep. Ron Paul angers Israel Lobby

Rehmat's World

David Horowitz calls Ron Paul a
"vicious Anti-Semite"

The GOP presidential hopeful, Rep. Ron Paul, has angered pro-Israel lobby groups once again by challenging the H.R. 4133. On May 9, 2012, he opposed the bill in the House as it’s in the interest of Israel’s military expansionism rather than the interests of the United States in the Middle East.

“This bill will not help the United States, it will not help Israel, and it will not help the Middle East. It will implicitly authorize much more US interventionism in the region at the time when we cannot afford the foreign committments we already have. It more likely will lead to war against Syria, Iran, or both. I urged my collegues to vote against this bill“.

The H.R. 4133 – ‘United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act ‘- was introduced on May 5, 2012 by three Israel-Firster Jewish lawmakers, Eric Cantor, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Howard Berman and Steny Hoyer. The bill provides Israel with a blank check drawn on the US taxpayer to maintain its “qualitative military superiority” over all of its neighbors combined. The bill was passed on May 9 through on a “suspension of the rules,” which means it was not actually voted on and was approved by consent of Congress. The bill is now waiting for the Senate’s approval and blessed by Israel-Firster, President Barack Obama.

On Monday, in order to show Republican party’s holy alligiance to the Zionist entity, Mormon Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-California) proposed an additional $1 billion aid to Israel to upgrade its missile defense against Hizbullah, Hamas and Iran. Israel already receives $3 billion annual US military aid.

“Israel and its partisan hacks in Congress are utterly shameless. At a time when the country is screaming for some measure of restraint in government spending, Israel is the one budget line that only sees increases,” says Philip Giraldi, executive director of Council for the National Interest.

Last year, Ron Paul’s former senior Jewish aide, Eric Dondero , in a statement claimed that Ron Paul is certainly not a Jew-hater (anti-Semite) or racist or even anti-gay, but just “anti-Israel in general“. Paul’s views on Israel are that the Zionist entity has the strongest military in the region and can protect its existence without American help.

In February 2011, Israel’s Jewish propagandist, David Horowitz, called Rep. Ron Paul vicious anti-Semite for Paul’s calling freeze on US aid to Israel ($3 trillion since 1970s). Another Israeli lobbist, head of ADL, Abraham Foxman, is also on record for saying that Ron Paul is the only presidential hopeful who doesn’t take dictation from Israel lobby groups.

Palestine solidarity on trial

Socialist Alternative

Palestine solidarity campaigners on 1 July last year.

On 1 May 19 Melbourne activists will be put on trial for their political activity. In a precedent-setting case, these pro-Palestine activists will be fighting a variety of charges designed to criminalise dissent in Baillieu’s Victoria and intimidate supporters of Palestine in Australia.

On 1 July 2011, Victoria Police attacked a peaceful demonstration in Melbourne’s CBD. In one of the largest political arrests in a decade, 19 activists were detained during a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) action against the Max Brenner store. The chocolateria is owned by Israeli conglomerate the Strabdsuss Group, a company that provides “care rations” for the Israeli military, including the Golani and the Givati brigades. These were two of the key Israeli military brigades involved in Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 that killed more than 1300 Palestinians. In more recent times the Golani brigade has been noted for its brutal enforcement of Israeli colonisation of Palestinian Hebron in the West Bank.

After a series of peaceful demonstrations against Max Brenner, the 1 July action was kettled by police before activists were individually targeted in an unprovoked attack by the riot squad. The police used pressure point tactics on some of the demonstrators; others reported bruising and rough treatment. One woman had her shoulder dislocated.

Damian Ridgwell, one of the arrested protesters told Electronic Intifada about his experience:
I was dragged behind police lines. Once they grabbed me and started dragging me, I went limp and dropped to the ground… As I was being carried through the corridors of the loading dock, I lost consciousness because one of the police had me in a choke hold. I am not sure how long I was out, probably a few minutes. I woke up on the loading dock floor and heard the police saying I was “out”.
The majority of those arrested were charged with trespass in a public place (yes that is apparently a crime) and besetting (an archaic law that means “to surround a building”); a small number were also charged with behaving in a “riotous manner”.

After attending another protest, four of these nineteen protesters were again arrested (for breaking their bail conditions) in dawn raids on their homes. These anti-democratic conditions stipulated that activists may not return within fifty metres of Max Brenner stores in the Melbourne CBD. Three were released from jail on a bail of $2,000 each. One of the more prominent campaigners, Vashti Kenway, was made to pay a $10,000 bail or face prison. All up the activists are facing fines of around $30,000.

From Occupation to “Occupy”: The Israelification of American Domestic Security

al-akhbar
Max Blumenthal

New York - In October, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department turned parts of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley into an urban battlefield. The occasion was Urban Shield 2011, an annual SWAT team exposition organized to promote “mutual response,” collaboration and competition between heavily militarized police strike forces representing law enforcement departments across the United States and foreign nations.

At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department was preparing for an imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up camp in downtown Oakland, and would demonstrate the brunt of its repressive capacity against the demonstrators a month later when it attacked the encampment with teargas and rubber bullet rounds, leaving an Iraq war veteran in critical condition and dozens injured. According to Police Magazine, a law enforcement trade publication, “Law enforcement agencies responding to…Occupy protesters in northern California credit Urban Shield for their effective teamwork.”

Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield was the Yamam, an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in “counter-terror” operations but is better known for its extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of repression and abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a largely non-violent democratic uprising by opening fire on protest camps and arresting wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon, the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security landscape.

The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
Having been schooled in Israeli tactics perfected during a 63 year experience of controlling, dispossessing, and occupying an indigenous population, local police forces have adapted them to monitor Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods in US cities. Meanwhile, former Israeli military officers have been hired to spearhead security operations at American airports and suburban shopping malls, leading to a wave of disturbing incidents of racial profiling, intimidation, and FBI interrogations of innocent, unsuspecting people. The New York Police Department’s disclosure that it deployed “counter-terror” measures against Occupy protesters encamped in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park is just the latest example of the so-called War on Terror creeping into every day life. Revelations like these have raised serious questions about the extent to which Israeli-inspired tactics are being used to suppress the Occupy movement.

Scott Brown calls on Harvard to cancel ‘one state’ conference

Boston Globe
Noah Bierman

Elizabeth Warren is being chastised by Scott Brown for teaching at Harvard.

Republican US Senator Scott Brown is calling on Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to cancel a conference on a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I want to condemn in the strongest possible terms Harvard’s sponsorship of a conference exploring a ‘one-state solution’ to the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” he said in a statement. “This is dangerous thinking that gives comfort to Israel’s enemies who view the ‘one-state solution’ as a euphemism for eliminating Israel as a Jewish state. Harvard may have a right to do this, but that doesn’t make it right to do it. The University should cancel this conference.”

The Globe reported this morning that the conference has drawn criticism from the Anti-Defamation league, which said it has dangerous implications for Israel. The ADL has not called on Harvard to cancel the conference, but has instead asked Harvard President Drew Faust to denounce its theme.

Continue reading below

The conference organizer, Ahmed Moor, a first-year student, told the Globe that the conference is intended to discuss ways that all residents of the region enjoy human rights. The Kennedy School told the Globe that the conference is student organized, but received modest funding from the school’s student government and the event’s website will use the school’s name and logo.

Brown, facing a reelection challenge from Elizabeth Warren, has made the Democrat’s ties to Harvard University a centerpiece in his strategy to label her an out-of-touch elitist. Warren teaches at Harvard Law School.

Brown even made a reference to elitism in his in his statement attacking the conference.
“Academic elites need to understand that their ideas have real world consequences well beyond the comforts of the ivory tower, and the last thing Israel needs is Harvard legitimizing a terribly misguided idea,” he said.

Warren’s campaign, in a statement, would not say whether she agrees with calls to denounce or cancel the conference.

“Elizabeth was unaware of this conference, but she is a strong supporter of the steadfast relationship between Israel and the United States, and she firmly believes in a two-state solution,” spokeswoman Alethea Harney said.

Coincidentally, Brown will be hosting students from the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics at his Boston office on Monday. A flier from the school advertises “a private off-the-record meeting and discussion with study group students on the new dynamics shaping 2012 politics in the wake of 2010’s historic wave election.”

ADL Tries to Remove Israel as a Talking Point in the Presidetial Debates

Hareetz


Anti-Defamation League chief Abraham H. Foxman under fire for releasing 'National Pledge for Unity on Israel,' meant to avoid Israel becoming a debate point in the road to the 2012 presidential elections.

Abraham H. Foxman

In these days of political grandstanding, in the build up to the American 2012 presidential elections, with the constant bickering between the Republicans and Democrats over who really supports Israel in the background, the promise of "bipartisan support" seems to be a naive pledge.

But that didn't prevent the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) from offering Jewish organizations and individuals to join them in signing the “National Pledge for Unity on Israel," aimed, as it stated, "to rally bipartisan support for Israel while preventing the Jewish State from becoming a wedge issue in the upcoming campaign season."

AJC Executive Director David Harris said that all the candidates could agree on "the importance of the long tradition of bipartisan support for our friend and ally, Israel."

ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman's explanation stressed that "we want the discourse on U.S. support for Israel to avoid the sometimes polarizing debates and political attacks that have emerged in recent weeks, as candidates have challenged their opponents' pro-Israel bone fides or questioned the current administration's foreign policy approach vis-à-vis Israel."

"The last thing America and Israel need right now is the distractions of having Israel bandied about as a tool for waging political attacks," he added.

"Support for Israel has never been merely a plank in a Republican or Democratic Party or candidate’s platform", the pledge stated, adding: "It is a core American policy that serves our nation’s most fundamental national interests."

"The Jewish community has had a strong interest in ensuring that American support for Israel is one of the critical strategic issues that unites rather than divides parties and officials... Now is the time to reaffirm that Israel’s well-being is best served, as it has always been, by American voices raised together in unshakeable support for our friend and ally," it added.

A couple of days after the pledge landed in the mailboxes of the Jewish activists, Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director Matt Brooks issued a combative response, saying: "This effort to stifle debate on U.S. policy toward Israel runs counter to this American tradition. Accordingly, the RJC will not be silenced on this or any issue."

"An open and vigorous debate on the questions confronting our country is the cornerstone of the American electoral process. Allowing the American people to see where candidates stand, pro and con, on critical issues, is the hallmark of our free and democratic political system. For this reason, the RJC will not be a signer to this pledge," he concluded.

Emergency Committee for Israel joined the opposition to the pledge with a blunt opening: "You must be kidding" and promised that "this attempt to silence those of us who have “questioned the current administration’s foreign policy approach vis-a-vis Israel” will re-energize us... Directors Harris and Foxman need a refresher course on the virtues of free speech and robust debate in a democracy. Their effort to stifle discussion and debate is unworthy of the best traditions of America, and of Israel."
So far for the unity.

But those who know Foxman did not really expect him to take the contemptuous responses lying down, and he indeed replied, saying that "there has been some distortion of our announcement of the ADL-AJC National Pledge for Unity on Israel.”

"The pledge is not intended to discourage raising questions about a candidate’s support for Israel or the policy decisions of the current administration regarding Israel. In fact, ADL has been outspoken in questioning and even criticizing U.S. policies and positions toward Israel during the last three years. We will continue to raise concerns about those policies and positions when we believe it is warranted, just as we will be supportive when we feel that is appropriate," he said.

What the pledge meant, Foxman explained, was to encourage "measured and thoughtful expressions of different points of view regarding U.S. policy toward Israel. What prompted ADL and AJC to launch this initiative was a desire to ask participants in the political discourse to avoid harsh and personal rhetoric or tactics in the form of attacks on political opponents’ positions on Israel."

Censored again on 911 my film gets removed

Editor's note:  I think YouTube might have pissed off the wrong guy...

Fake Al Qaeda

WhatReallyHappened
Michael Rivero

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . ." -- Pierre-Henri Bunel

"Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet". A very common and widespread use of the word "Al-Qaeda" in different Arab countries in the public language is for the toilet bowl. This name comes from the Arabic verb "Qa'ada" which mean "to sit", pertinently, on the "Toilet Bowl". In most Arabs homes there are two kinds of toilets: "Al-Qaeda" also called the "Hamam Franji" or foreign toilet, and "Hamam Arabi" or "Arab toilet" which is a hole in the ground. Lest we forget it, the potty used by small children is called "Ma Qa'adia" or "Little Qaeda".

So, if you were forming a terrorist group, would you call yourself, "The Toilet"?

The Phony (Mossad) Al Qaeda Cell in Palestine

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ... said that al-Qaeda militants were operating in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. "We know that they are there. We know that they are in Lebanon, working closely with Hezbollah. We know that they are in the region," he said. [BBC News - 12/5/2002]

Officials from the Palestinian Authority have accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of setting up a fake al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Gaza. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that Israel had set up the mock cell in order to justify attacks in Palestinian areas. [BBC News - 12/8/2002]

Mossad agents arrested by the PA for attempting to set up phony 'al Qaeda' cells in the Gaza Strip.

The full story:

larouchepub.com - Mossad Exposed in Phony 'Palestinian Al-Qaeda' Caper

antiwar.com - By Way of Deception, by Justin Raimondo

smh.com.au - Palestinians arrest al-Qaeda 'poseurs'
Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act." [Washington Times - 9/10/2001]

Adam Yahiye Gadahn: The Fake Terrorist

Images from official FBI wanted poster for terrorist Adam Yahiye Gadahn

The FBI lists Gadahn's aliases as Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, and Yayah.

But Adam Pearlmen is his REAL name! Adam is the grandson of the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993, much as AIPAC has been caught up in the more recent spy scandal.

Sent in by a reader: I recently saw the article you linked about Adam Pearlman and his brand new feature film in which he plays the character Azzam Al-Amrika. As someone who speaks Arabic, I thought it would be interesting for WRH readers to know a little bit about this particular name. First, Azzam in Arabic means either "determined" or "resolved". Second, "Al-Amrika" (it's sometimes spelled "Amerika") translates back to "America". Interesting use of words Mr. Pearlman is using for a name, I'd say. But even without having to translate the whole name, no Arab has the last name of Amrika. The name, translated, almost sounds like a Bush soundbite.



And another faker surfaces!

On any given day, log on to RevolutionMuslim.com and a host of startling images appear: - The Statue of Liberty, with an ax blade cutting through her side;

- Video mocking the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, entitled "Daniel Pearl I am Happy Your Dead :) ";

- Video of a puppet show lampooning U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq;

- The latest speech from Sheikh Abdullah Faisal, an extremist Muslim cleric convicted in the UK and later deported for soliciting the murder of non-Muslims.

Even more surprising is that RevolutionMuslim.com isn't being maintained in some remote safe house in Pakistan. Instead, Yousef al-Khattab, the Web site creator, runs it from his home in the New York City Borough of Queens.
...
Formerly known as Joseph Cohen, al-Khattab is an American-born Jew who converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox Rabbinical school, which he later described as a "racist cult."

Abu Tallah Al-Amrikee, the "muslim" who threatened South Park using the above RevolutionMuslim.com website, is really named Zachary Adam Chesser!

Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent

ONE of al-Qaeda's most dangerous figures has been revealed as a double agent working for MI5, raising criticism from European governments, which repeatedly called for his arrest.
Britain ignored warnings - which began before the September 11 attacks - from half a dozen friendly governments about Abu Qatada's links with terrorist groups and refused to arrest him. Intelligence chiefs hid from European allies their intention to use the cleric as a key informer against Islamic militants in Britain.
...
Indignant French officials accused MI5 of helping the cleric to abscond. While he remained on the run, one intelligence chief in Paris was quoted as saying: "British intelligence is saying they have no idea where he is, but we know where he is and, if we know, I'm quite sure they do."

---

From a reader: So, 1. We have MI5 (British CIA) posing as Alqueda. "Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent", http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-1050175,00.html   2. We have Mossad (Israel CIA) posing as ALqueda in Palestine: fakealqaeda.html http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2949idf_qaeda.html http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j120902.html http://www.propagandamatrix.com/palestinians_arrest_al_qaeda_poseurs.htm http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=241042&contrassID=2&subContrass ID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=241042 terrorist.html 3. We have USA posing as Alqueda: fakealqaeda.html The FBI lists Gadahn's aliases as Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, and Yayah. But Adam Pearlmen is his REAL name! Adam is the grandson of the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993, much as AIPAC has been caught up in the more recent spy scandal. 3. We have israel posing as alqueda in the phillipines. http://www.mb.com.ph/PROV2004061411759.html The two British operatives, arrested by Basra police and later freed by a British military operation, were identified by the BBC as "members of the SAS elite special forces" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/424614.stm). They were disguised by wigs and Arab dress. Iraqi sources reported that the Iraqi police were watching the two, and when they tried to approach them they shot two policemen and tried to escape the scene. The Iraqi police chased and captured them, to discover large amount of explosives planted in the car, which apparently was planned to be remotely detonated in the busy market of Basra. The SAS involvement in Iraq was discovered on the 30th of January 2005 when an RAF Hercules plane crashed near Baghdad killing then British servicemen after dropping off fifty SAS members north of Baghdad to fight Iraqi guerillas. ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE WATCHING THE RIGHT ENEMY !!!!!!! CIA + Mossad + MI5 = AlQueada The greatest false-flag operations conducting in the history on man !!!! In case you weren't paying attention... Vinnell bombing leader Khaled Jehani, fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Chechnya Members of the Moroccan terror group Salafi Jihadi fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia and Kosovo USS Cole Bomber Jamal al-Badawi fought for the CIA in Bosnia Zacarias Moussaoui fought for the CIA in Chechnya Khalid Sheikh Mohammed fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Ayman al Zawahiri, fought for the CIA in Bosnia His brother Ayman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo Abdullah Azzam, "one of the ideological founders of Hamas" fought for the CIA in Afghanistan When Osama Bin Ladin Was Tim Osman Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Your cause is right, God is on your side." CIA "Arranged" for Passports for Al Qaeda Terrorists & Brought Them to the USA to Recruit for Jihads Will the CIA Leave Their Saudi Partners in Crime Holding the Bag? "The Farce Goes On - The Hunt for Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammad Omar, & Osama "Moussaoui, Khadr, & Ressam Are "Graduates" of CIA's Khalden Camp for Afghanistan & Balkans "Jihads" Bin Laden Puppetmasters Smoked Out In Balkans The CIA arranged for HUM guerrillas to fight in Bosnia & Kosovo Bin-Ladin and KLA have a 'joint' cash box in the United States The CIA & Bin Laden worked hand-in-glove in KLA operations U.S. Protects Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Kosovo America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims Bosnia, 1 degree of separation from Al-Qaeda Where was the "Concern" about "al-Qaida Operating in Iran" during the War in Bosnia? Terror mastermind with taste for high life US Has Al Qaida Backers List CIA Told "Malaysian secret police" to "Monitor" Al Qaeda Meeting on Plans to Hit WTC on 9-11-2001 The CIA's "Operation Cyclone" - Stirring the Hornet's Nest of Islamic Unrest" The Muslim Brotherhood: The Globalists' Secret Weapon U.S. Armed, Promoted Accused September 11 Terrorist Mastermind CIA Bankrolled System of Madrassas & Training Camps to Brainwash "Jihad" Warriors British Press Gagged on Reporting MI6's �100,000 bin Laden Payoff Ramzi Yousef was part of a CIA recruitment drive in New York and he did have "ties" to Bin Laden CIA Recruits Terrorist Agents At Guantanamo Oregon group thrives despite al Qaeda ties Sniper link to al Qaeda investigated Who is behind the "Terrorist Network" in Northern Iraq, Baghdad or Washington?

---

See Also:

Israeli suspected to be a member of al-Qaeda arrested in the Philippines

Is 'Al Qaeda' the modern incarnation of 'Emmanuel Goldstein'?

A "Palestinian Terrorist" Wearing the Star of David

The 5 Dancing Israelis Arrested on 9/11

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Guess Which Al Qaeda is Being used to Push Gun Control? Adam “Pearlman” Gadahn

Boo!

They obviously don't care if we are onto ADL grandson Adam Pearlman direct from the state of Oregon - proud location of Harry and David fruit of the month club. He needs to work on his facial hair to achieve the mustache of Saddam Hussein and the beard of Osama Bin Dead Already.

They continue to roll this character out for those who have not been following this story. It's simply a race to fool as many people sourcing their news from television as they possible can. Cherries are in season now so let's send fierce Adam a batch and thank him for never spiking the fruit sent from this fertile state of Oregon. Then again, we better not give Mr. False flag any more ideas. ADL Grandaddy might still be in Oregon looking for the next post Christmas Tree bomber event of the summer.

And now, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled strongly in favor of the 2nd amendment, your next booga, booga. Enjoy!



Interesting note from IntelHub:

"Mayor Bloomberg, the same man who consistently denied health benefits for 9/11 first responders, is a notorious gun grabber with deep globalist ties."

Pretty scary, aye, kids?

ADL Members Pose as Fake Al Qaeda on YouTube to Justify Policy

WhatReallyHappened

A Strange Kind of Freedom

Bint Jbeil

Robert Fisk

The biggest threat to liberty in the US may come from other kinds of fundamentalism: Jewish and Christian

   Inside the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, the Californian audience had been struck silent. Dennis Bernstein, the Jewish host of KPFA Radio's Flashpoint current affairs program, was reading some recent e-mails that he had received from Israel's supporters in America. Each one left the people in the church – Muslims, Jews, Christians – in a state of shock. "You mother-fucking-asshole-self-hating Jewish piece of shit. Hitler killed the wrong Jews. He should have killed your parents, so a piece of Jewish shit like you would not have been born. God willing, Arab terrorists will cut you to pieces Daniel Pearl-style, AMEN!!!"

Dennis Bernstein

Bernstein's sin was to have covered the story of Israel's invasion of Jenin in April and to have interviewed journalists who investigated the killings that took place there – including Phil Reeves and Justin Huggler of The Independent – for his Flashpoint program Bernstein's grandfather was a revered Orthodox Rabbi of international prominence but neither his family history nor his origins spared him. "Read this and weep, you mother-fucker self-hating Jew boy!!!" another e-mail told Bernstein. "God willing a Palestinian will murder you, rape your wife and slash your kids' throats."

Barbara Lubin

Yet another: "I hope that you, Barbara Lubin and all other Jewish Marxist Communist traitors anti-American cop haters will die a violent and cruel death just like the victims of suicide bombers in Israel." Lubin is also Jewish, the executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, a one-time committed Zionist but now one of Israel's fiercest critics. Her e-mails are even worse.

Indeed, you have to come to America to realize just how brave this small but vocal Jewish community is. Bernstein is the first to acknowledge that a combination of Israeli lobbyists and conservative Christian fundamentalists have in effect censored all free discussion of Israel and the Middle East out of the public domain in the US. "Everyone else is terrified," Bernstein says. "The only ones who begin to open their mouths are the Jews in this country. You know, as a kid, I sent money to plant trees in Israel. But now we are horrified by a government representing a country that we grew up loving and cherishing. Israel's defenders have a special vengeance for Jews who don't fall in line behind Sharon's scorched-earth policy because they give the lie to the charge that Israel's critics are simply anti-Semite."

Adam Shapiro

Adam Shapiro is among those who have paid a price for their beliefs. He is a Jew engaged to an American-born Palestinian, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who was trapped in Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the spring while administering medical aid. After telling CNN that the Sharon government was acting like "terrorists" while receiving $3bn a year in US military aid, Shapiro and his family were savaged in the New York Post. The paper slandered Shapiro as the "Jewish Taliban" and demeaned his family as "traitors". Israeli supporters publicized his family's address and his parents were forced to flee their Brooklyn home and seek police protection. Shapiro's father, a New York public high-school teacher and a part-time Yeshiva (Jewish day school) teacher, was fired from his job. His brother receives regular death threats.

Israel's supporters have no qualms about their alliance with the Christian right. Indeed, the fundamentalists can campaign on their own in Israel's favor, as I discovered for myself at Stanford recently when I was about to give a lecture on the media and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, part of a series of talks arranged largely by Jewish Americans. A right-wing Christian "Free Republic" outfit posted my name on its website, and described me as a "PLO butt-kisser" and asked its supporters to "freep" my lecture. A few demonstrators turned up outside the First United Methodist Church in Sacramento where I was to speak, waving American and Israeli flags. "Jew haters!" they screamed at the organizers, a dark irony since these were non-Jews shrieking their abuse at Jews.

They were also handing out crudely printed flyers. "Nothing to worry about, Bob," one of my Jewish hosts remarked. "They can't even spell your name right." True. But also false. "Stop the Lies!" the leaflet read. "There was no massacre in Jenin. Fiske [sic] is paid big bucks to spin [lie] for the Arabs..." But the real lie was in that last sentence. I never take any payment for lectures – so that no one can ever claim that I'm paid to give the views of others. But the truth didn't matter to these people. Nor did the content of my talk – which began, by chance, with the words "There was no massacre" – in which I described Arafat as a "corrupt, vain little despot" and suicide bombings as "a fearful, evil weapon". None of this was relevant. The aim was to shut me up.

Dennis Bernstein sums it up quite simply: "Any US journalist, columnist, editor, college professor, student-activist, public official or clergy member who dares to speak critically of Israel or accurately report the brutalities of its illegal occupation will be vilified as an anti-Semite." In fact, no sooner had Bernstein made these remarks than pro-Israeli groups initiated an extraordinary campaign against some of the most pro-Israeli newspapers in America, all claiming that The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle were biased in their coverage of the Middle-East conflict. Just how The New York Times – which boasts William Safire and Charles Krauthammer, those giants of pro-Israeli bias, among its writers – could be anti-Israeli is difficult to see, although it is just possible that, amid its reports on Israel's destruction in the West Bank and Gaza, some mildly critical comments found their way into print. The New York Times, for example, did report that Israeli soldiers used civilians as human shields – though only in the very last paragraph of a dispatch from Jenin.

None the less, the campaign of boycotts and e-mails got under way. More than 1,000 readers suspended their subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times, while a blizzard of e-mails told pro-Israeli readers to cancel their subscription to The New York Times for a day. On the East Coast, at least one local radio station has lost $1m from a Jewish philanthropist while other stations attempting to cover the Middle East with some degree of fairness are said to have lost even more. When the San Francisco Chronicle published a four-page guide to the conflict, its editors had to meet a 14-member delegation of local Jewish groups to discuss their grievances.

According to Michael Futterman, who chairs the Middle East strategy committee of 80 Bay Area synagogues, Jewish anger hit "boiling point" when the Chronicle failed to cover a pro-Israeli rally in San Francisco. Needless to say, the Chronicle's "Readers' Representative", Dick Rogers, published a groveling, self-flagellating apology. "The paper didn't have a word on the pro-Israel rally," he wrote. "This wasn't fair and balanced coverage." Another objection came from a Jewish reader who objected to the word "terror" being placed within inverted commas in a Chronicle headline that read "Sharon says 'terror' justifies assault". The reader's point? The Chronicle's reporting "harmonizes well with Palestinian propaganda, which tries to divert attention from the terrorist campaign against Israel (which enjoys almost unanimous support among Palestinians, all the way from Yasser Arafat to the 10-year-old who dreams of blowing himself up one day) and instead describes Israel's military moves as groundless, evil bullying tactics."

And so it goes on. On a radio show with me in Berkeley, the Chronicle's foreign editor, Andrew Ross, tried to laugh off the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby – "the famous lobby", he called it with that deference that is half way between acknowledgement and fear – but the Israeli Consul General Yossi Amrani had no hesitation in campaigning against the Chronicle, describing a paper largely docile in its reporting of the Middle East as "a professionally and politically biased, pro-Palestinian newspaper".

The Chronicle's four-page pull-out on the Middle East was, in fact, a soft sell. Its headline – "The Current Strife Between The Israelis And The Palestinians Is A Battle For Control Of Land" – missed the obvious point: that one of the two groups that were "battling for control of the land" – the Palestinians – had been occupied by Israel for 35 years.

The most astonishing – and least covered – story is in fact the alliance of Israeli lobbyists and Christian Zionist fundamentalists, a coalition that began in 1978 with the publication of a Likud plan to encourage fundamentalist churches to give their support to Israel. By 1980, there was an "International Christian Embassy" in Jerusalem; and in 1985, a Christian Zionist lobby emerged at a "National Prayer Breakfast for Israel" whose principal speaker was Benjamin Netanyahu, who was to become Israeli prime minister. "A sense of history, poetry and morality imbued the Christian Zionists who, more than a century ago, began to write, plan and organize for Israel's restoration," Netanyahu told his audience. The so-called National Unity Coalition for Israel became a lobbying arm of Christian Zionism with contacts in Congress and neo-conservative think-tanks in Washington.

In May this year, the Israeli embassy in Washington, no less, arranged a prayer breakfast for Christian Zionists. Present were Alonzo Short, a member of the board of "Promise Keepers", and Michael Little who is president of the "Christian Broadcasting Network". Event hosts were listed as including those dour old Christian conservatives Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who once financed a rogue television station in southern Lebanon which threatened Muslim villagers and broadcast tirades by Major Saad Haddad, Israel's stooge militia leader in Lebanon. In Tennessee, Jewish officials invited hundreds of Christians to join Jewish crowds at a pro-Israel solidarity rally in Memphis.

On the face of it, this coalition seems natural. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League felt able to run an ad that included an article by a former Christian coalition executive director Ralph Reed, headlined "We People of Faith Stand Firmly With Israel". Christians, Reed claimed, supported Israel because of "their humanitarian impulse to help and protect Jews, a shared strategic interest in democracy in the Middle East and a spiritual connection to Israel".

But, of course, a fundamental problem – fundamental in every sense of the word – lies behind this strange partnership. As Uri Avnery, the leader of Gush Shalom, the most courageous Israeli peace group, pointed out in a typically ferocious essay last month, there is a darker side to the alliance. "According to its [Christian Zionist] theological beliefs, the Jews must congregate in Palestine and establish a Jewish state on all its territory" – an idea that would obviously appeal to Ariel Sharon – "so as to make the Second Coming of Jesus Christ possible." But here comes the bad bit. As Avnery says, "the evangelists don't like to dwell openly on what comes next: before the coming [of the Messiah], the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don't will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon. This is basically an anti-Semitic teaching, but who cares, so long as they support Israel?"

The power of the Israeli lobby in the United States is debated far more freely in the Israeli press than in American newspapers or on US television. There is, of course, a fine and dangerous line between justified investigation – and condemnation – of the lobby's power, and the racist Arab claim that a small cabal of Zionists run the world. Those in America who share the latter view include a deeply unpleasant organization just along the coast from San Francisco at Newport Beach known as the "Institute for Historical Research". These are the Holocaust deniers whose annual conference last month included a lecture on "death sentences imposed by German authorities against German soldiers... for killing or even mistreating Jews". Too much of this and you'd have to join the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC – to restore your sanity. But the Israeli lobby is powerful. In fact, its influence over the US Congress and Senate calls into question the degree to which the American legislature has been corrupted by lobby groups. It is to an Israeli voice – Avnery again – that Americans have to turn to hear just how mighty the lobby has become. "Its electoral and financial power casts a long shadow over both houses of the Congress," Avnery writes. "Hundreds of Senators and Congressmen were elected with the help of Jewish contributions. Resistance to the directives of the Jewish lobby is political suicide. If the AIPAC were to table a resolution abolishing the Ten Commandments, 80 Senators and 300 Congressmen would sign it at once. This lobby frightens the media, too, and assures their adherence to Israel."

Avnery could have looked no further than the Democratic primary in Alabama last month for proof of his assertion. Earl Hilliard, the five-term incumbent, had committed the one mortal sin of any American politician: he had expressed sympathy for the cause of the Palestinians. He had also visited Libya several years ago. Hilliard's opponent, Arthur Davis, turned into an outspoken supporter of Israel and raised large amounts of money from the Jewish community, both in Alabama and nationwide. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz noted that among the names of the first list of contributors to Davis's campaign funds were "10 Cohens from New York and New Jersey, but before one gets to the Cohens, there were Abrams, Ackerman, Adler, Amir, Asher, Baruch, Basok, Berger, Berman, Bergman, Bernstein and Blumenthal. All from the East Coast, Chicago and Los Angeles. It's highly unlikely any of them have ever visited Alabama..." The Jewish newspaper Forward – essential reading for any serious understanding of the American Jewish community – quoted a Jewish political activist following the race: "Hilliard has been a problem in his votes and with guys like that, when there's any conceivable primary challenge, you take your shot." Hilliard, of course, lost to Davis, whose campaign funds reached $781,000.

The AIPAC concentrates on Congress while the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO), made up of the heads of 51 Jewish Organizations, concentrates on the executive branch of the US government. Every congressman knows the names of those critics of Israel who have been undone by the lobby.

Take Senator J William Fulbright, whose 1963 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee detailed how five million tax-deductable dollars from philanthropic Americans had been sent to Israel and then recycled back to the US for distribution to Organizations seeking to influence public opinion in favor of Israel; this cost him the chance of being Secretary of State. He was defeated in the 1974 Democratic primary after pro-Israeli money poured into the campaign funds of his rival, Governor Dale Bumpers, following a statement by the AIPAC that Fulbright was "consistently unkind to Israel and our supporters in this country".

Paul Findley

Paul Findley, who spent 22 years as a Republican congressman from Illinois, found his political career destroyed after he had campaigned against the Israeli lobby – although, ironically, his book on the subject, They Dare to Speak Out was nine weeks on The Washington Post bestseller list, suggesting that quite a number of Americans want to know why their congressmen are so pro-Israeli.

Just two months ago, the US House of Representatives voted 352 to 21 to express its unqualified support for Israel. The Senate voted 94 to two for the same motion. Even as they voted, Ariel Sharon's army was continuing its destructive invasion of the West Bank. "I do not recall any member of Congress asking me if I was in favor of patting Israel on the back..." James Abu Rizk, an Arab-American of Lebanese origin, told the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee afterwards. "No one else, no average American, has been asked either. But that is the state of American politics today... The votes and bows have nothing to do with the legislators' love for Israel. They have everything to do with the money that is fed into their campaigns by members of the Israeli lobby. My estimate is that $6bn flows from the American Treasury to Israel each year." Within days, 42 US governors turned up in Sacramento to sign declarations supporting Israel. California governor Gray Davis and New York governor George Pataki – California has the largest Jewish population of any state except New York – arranged the meeting.

Sometimes the support of Israel's loyalists in Congress turns into farce. Tom Delay – reacting to CNN founder Ted Turner's criticism of Israel – went so far out of his way to justify Israeli occupation of the West Bank that he blurted out on MSNBC television that the Palestinians "should become citizens" of Israel, an idea unlikely to commend itself to his friend Ariel Sharon. Texas Republican Richard Armey went the other way. "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank. I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave... to have those people who have been aggressors against Israel retired to some other area." Do the people of Texas know that their representative is supporting "ethnic cleansing" in the Middle East? Or are they silent because they prefer not to speak out?

Censorship takes many forms. When Ishai Sagi and Ram Rahat-Goodman, two Israeli reserve soldiers who refused to serve in the West Bank or Gaza, were scheduled to debate their decision at Sacramento's Congregation B'nai Israel in May, their appearance was cancelled. Steve Meinrath, who is chairman of the Israel Affairs Committee at B'nai Israel, remarked bleakly that "intimidation on the part of certain sectors of the community has deprived the entire community of hearing a point of view that is being widely debated in Israel. Some people feel it's too dangerous..."

Does President Bush? His long-awaited Middle-East speech was Israeli policy from start to finish. A group of Jewish leaders, including Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz – who said recently that the idea of executing the families of Palestinian suicide bombers was a legitimate if flawed attempt at finding a balance between preventing terrorism and preserving democracy – and the AIPAC and CPMAJO heads all sent clear word to the President that no pressure should be put on Israel. Wiesel – whose courage permeates his books on the Holocaust but who lamentably failed to condemn the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982 at the hands of Israel's Lebanese allies, said he felt "sadness", but his sadness was "with Israel, not against Israel" because "after all the Israeli soldiers did not kill" – took out a full page in The New York Times. In this, he urged Bush to "please remember that Ariel Sharon, a military man who knows the ugly face of war better than anyone, is ready to make 'painful sacrifices' to end the conflict." Sharon was held "personally responsible" for the massacre by Israel's own commission of inquiry – but there was no mention of that from Wiesel, who told reporters in May that he would like to revoke Arafat's Nobel prize.

President Bush was not going to oppose these pressures. His father may well have lost his re-election because he dared to tell Israel that it must make peace with the Arabs. Bush is not going to make the same mistake – nor does brother Jeb want to lose his forthcoming governorship election. Thus Sharon's delight at the Bush speech, and it was left to a lonely and brave voice – Mitchell Plitnick of the Jewish Voice for Peace – to state that "few speeches could be considered to be as destructive as that of the American President... Few things are as blinding as unbridled arrogance."

Or as vicious as the messages that still pour in to Dennis Bernstein and Barbara Lubin, whose Middle East Children's Alliance, co-ordinating with Israeli peace groups, is trying to raise money to rebuild the Jenin refugee camp. "I got a call the other day at 5am," Bernstein told me. "This guy says to me: 'You got a lot of nerve going and eating at that Jewish deli.' What comes after that?" Before I left San Francisco, Lubin showed me her latest e-mails. "Dear Cunt," one of them begins, "When we want your opinion you fucking Nazi cunt, we will have one of your Palestinian buddies fuck it [sic] of you. I hope that in your next trip to the occupied territories you are blown to bits by one of your Palestinian buddies [sic] bombs." Another, equally obscene, adds that "you should be ashamed of yourself, a so-called Jewish woman advocating the destruction of Israel".

Less crude language, of course, greeted President Bush's speech. Pat Robertson thought the Bush address "brilliant". Senator Charles Schumer, a totally loyal pro-Israeli Democrat from New York, said that "clearly, on the politics, this is going to please supporters of Israel as well as the Christian coalition types". He could say that again. For who could be more Christian than President George W Bush?