You quoted Joseph Farah's vile lie: "Because the Arab leadership who sent him understood that Israeli soldiers, even those under the stress of battle, would not shoot a 10-year-old child."

There is something very very wrong with you guys. You are simply deniers.

A few patterns of omission were particularly startling. The Israeli press, international human rights organizations, and medical relief agencies have all reported on the targeting of Palestinian children by Israeli forces. In the first year of the conflict, for example, at least 45 Palestinian children were confirmed to have been killed by Israeli gunfire to the head. Yet, two of the networks carried no reports on this disturbing phenomenon, and one network, CBS, reported on it only once (“...a 12-year-old boy shot in the head by an Israeli soldier...” 10/10/00).

Physicians for Human Rights USA, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem all confirm the Israeli policy of targeting civilians. Are they all lying anti-Semites? You don't want to be an irrational denier do you?

Reporting on children’s deaths was even more flawed.

In 2004, when 22 times more Palestinian children were being killed than Israeli children, we found that ABC, CBS, and NBC were reporting Israeli children’s deaths at rates 9 to 12.8 times higher than Palestinian children’s deaths. By omitting the killings of a great number of Palestinian children, ABC, CBS, and NBC were failing to perform their function as new agencies – the reporting of the news.

"About half of those sustaining gunshot head injuries were children under the age of sixteen, and 15% of the wounded were women. During this four year period, on average, one child under the age of six was shot in the head every two weeks. These and other violations of the military regulations did not lead to the prosecution of the violators, the provision of remedial measures, or reparations for the injured."
By Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is the former director of the Israeli and Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights,
Links are here:
www.geocities.com/neve_gordon/Scars.htm
www.ifamericansknew.org/media/index.html

PLEASE write this WorldNetDaily Editor and CEO Joseph Farah
jfarah@worldnetdaily.com and tell him to stop with the vile propaganda of saying that Israeli soldiers "would not shoot a 10-year-old child." Lies like this are on par with holocaust deniers.

From www.theexperiment.org/articles_printer.php?news_id=1763

What has been confirmed by human rights groups has also been observed directly by journalists.

A notable example was a lengthy investigative report in the New York Times Magazine by Michael Finkel, who responded directly to Israel's claims that its soldiers shot only when they were under threat. In a striking passage about the clashes at Karni Crossing, a checkpoint on a road leading from the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip into Israel, Finkel recounts:

"I spent two weeks at Karni during daylight hours, and in my time there, the Israeli Army fired live ammunition almost every day. Sometimes only two or three shots, sometimes a dozen or more. On occasion the shots were fired when cars or buses needed to enter or exit the settlement, at other times I could ascertain no reason for the shooting. Not once did I see or hear a single shot from the Palestinian side. Never during the time I spent at Karni did an Israeli soldier appear to be in mortal danger. Nor was either an Israeli soldier or settler even slightly injured. In that two-week period, at least 11 Palestinians were killed during the day at Karni."

[Source: "Playing War" by Michael Finkel, New York Times Magazine, December 24, 2000]

In October 2001, Harper's magazine published the "Gaza Diary" of journalist Chris Hedges [ http://www.harpers.org/online/gaza_diary/gaza_diary.php3?pg=1 ]. Hedges' entry for June 17, 2001 provides even more shocking evidence of the wanton and deliberate killing of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers at Gaza's Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Hedges writes:

"It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker.

"'Come on, dogs,' the voice booms in Arabic. 'Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!'

"I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: 'Son of a bitch!' 'Son of a whore!' 'Your mother's cunt!'

"The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.

"A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen.

"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

There can be no doubt that Israeli troops have been targeting innocent Palestinian civilians for death from the beginning of the uprising. This understanding was also reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1322, passed on October 7, 2000, which

"Condemns acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life."

In making the moral superiority claim, Israel's apologists are either shamelessly denying the irrefutable evidence cited above and are simply lying, or they are asserting that some forms of murder are morally superior to other forms of murder.

You wrote, "Yeah, thanks for quoting Finkel and Hedges. Especially considering that there isn't a single evidence to support Hedges' lie about IDF soldiers 'entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport' - WHATSOEVER."

Again, what you are saying isn't true.

From a B'Tselem report:

"A conscript soldier who gave testimony to B'Tselem told of a procedure in a particular area of the West Bank during which IDF jeeps were sent as a provocation to areas of friction with Palestinians in order to serve as bait for throwers of stones and petrol bombs. When the latter would approach, the soldiers, who had taken up position in advance at other points, would shoot at them. The stated goal of this procedure was to distance the demonstrations from other sites, but in fact, stated the soldier, "It became a kind of sport, to "knock down" as many "fire-bombers" as possible. It was an obsessive search. It's called 'strive to make contact.' What bothers me is had the jeeps not have entered, there would have been no disturbances of the peace."

[ The rubber-coated metal bullets in theory are supposed to be non-lethal and their use is supposed to adhere to the IDF's own stated regulations. The rubber-coated metal bullets are not supposed to be aimed at the head. ]

From the B'Tselem report:

For many years, the IDF has been using rubber-coated metal bullets for dispersal of demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. B'Tselem has repeatedly warned against the IDF's widespread use of these bullets and the erroneous treatment of them as non-lethal, despite their great destructive potential and the large number of casualties, including many children, resulting from their use."

Over the course of the intifada, B'Tselem documented many incidents in which shooting took place in contravention of the regulations and with no real attempt to prevent killing and causing grave bodily injuries. An inquiry undertaken by Physicians for Human Rights (U.S.A.) at the beginning of the intifada demonstrated that many Palestinians sustained head and eye injuries from rubber bullets. The organization determined that such injuries bear testimony to the illegal use of this means.

[ The rubber-coated metal bullets come in packets of three and are meant to be fired as a packet so they go slower in order for them to remain non-lethal, you are not supposed to separate the bullet packet. ]

From the B'Tselem report:

One conscript soldier informed B'Tselem that "I do not know a single soldier who does not separate the parts of the bullet"

Another soldier told B'Tselem:

"When the company commander gave us a lesson about rubber bullets, he said that you shoot them together in packets of three, and that is almost ineffective because they are too heavy; but if you separate them - it can kill. He added, with a wink: "I'm not hinting at anything" The guys laughed and said to him: 'You are not hinting - you're saying.' He didn't correct them. One day, I got into the "Sufa" jeep that serves as the mobile headquarters for the battalion means of transportation. I saw that lots of separated rubber bullets had been tossed inside. I asked the driver about it, and he said that everyone separates the bullets, even the commander (the one riding alongside the driver). He added that in his opinion, the battalion commander also separates. From talking to the guys, it is clear to me that this is ignored, and everyone shoots rubber bullets that have been separated. I don't think that there is anyone who shoots them without separating them. I always ask people about it and they are shocked by the very question. It is clear to them that you shoot them separately."

[ B'Tselem documented cases of both the IDF soldiers initiating fire, not merely responding and also of the IDF returning fire but not aiming exclusively at Palestinian sources of shooting. ]

A conscript soldier who served in the Gaza Strip stated in his testimony to B'Tselem that:

"While I was at the post, there were a number of cases of shooting. I thought that it was an exchange of fire, but afterwards I understood from discussions with other soldiers that it was just soldiers shooting out of boredom. Soldiers at two different positions would coordinate opening fire between them, and afterwards they would say that they were under fire. It is important for me to state that I am not talking about single shots, but very massive shooting. In the beginning, I was sure that they had really fired at our post, but afterwards I understood, as stated, that it was shooting out of boredom. From conversations with my friends who were at posts in other areas, it became clear to me that it occurs in those places as well. My friends, who were at the post in the Strip. Told me that they emptied entire crates of ammunition out of boredom."

Ariel Shatil, a reserve soldier, told Yediot Aharonot daily regarding this topic that "They say 'The Palestinians are shooting at us and we are responding.' It's not true. There was one officer there who said to the soldiers guarding at the lookout: "Too quiet for you? You're not sure? Fire a couple of rounds.' Every night they would shoot. We start and they shoot back."

A soldier in the regular army who served in the Gaza Strip told B'Tselem that "In theory, the orders given to us state that it is forbidden to shoot if the source of shooting is not identified," but said that in practice, "If they shoot at you from one building, and you shoot at the entire neighborhood […] the soldiers will probably not tell the commanders, but I find it hard to believe that the high-level commanders are not familiar with this phenomenon." He added that:

"I know from discussions with other soldiers that when they shoot on them, they return with heavy, non-proportional fire, even if they do not exactly identify the source of the shooting. A few days ago, I spoke with a friend of mine whom they fired at. He told me that they returned massive fire in the direction of the shooting without identifying it precisely. When I stated to him the fact that he could have easily hit passers by, he said that he didn't care. In my opinion, this occurs with great frequency. "

B'Tselem reports the frequency of cases in which innocent persons were harmed by IDF firing, even though no Palestinians shot from their immediate surrounding area, indicates that there are cases in which soldiers shoot indiscriminately.

Even a high-ranking officer in the Bethlehem area told journalist Nahum Barnea: "I don't give my soldiers directives of the type 'don't harm the innocent.' In the situation that has arisen, whoever gives such an order has said the equivalent of 'don't shoot at all.' […] We try to shoot at those whom we have identified, but not always."

B'Tselem - Trigger Happy: Unjustified Shooting and the Open-Fire Regulations
also see: Alan Dershowitz's Amazing Wonderland

Gaza Still Under Israel's Boot
"Although most of the "quality" media has praised Sharon’s apparent about face (father of the settlements turns his back on his legacy, being a familiar refrain), the actual details of the plan expose something else. Human Rights Watch stated in a November report that even after the supposed pull-out, "Israeli forces will continue to surround Gaza on land, patrol its coastline and its skies. That military cordon will allow Israel to continue to control the flow of all goods and people into and out of the territory. Gaza will remain dependent on Israel for water, sewerage, electricity, telephone access, trade and currency, which will remain the Israeli shekel."" How Australia reported Arafat's death and legacy

Oil's Critical Leverage
"Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well." 1990, the then oil man, Dick Cheney The real reasons Bush went to war

"America has major strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that are dictated by the region's vast energy supplies. Not only does America benefit economically from the relatively low costs of Middle Eastern oil, but America's security role in the region gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region." Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hegemonic Quicksand The National Interest Winter 2003/04

We are not really dependent on oil from the Middle East, according to US intelligence, the US itself will rely on more stable Atlantic Basin resources (West Africa and the Western hemisphere). The reason the U.S. is so involved in the Middle East is about control of the oil, not access to the oil.

In the 1940s, US planners recognized that (in their words) Gulf energy resources are "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." Naturally, they intended to control it ... That's a very powerful lever of world control, quite apart from the profits that comes from it. And the US probably doesn't intend to access the oil of Iraq; it intends to use primarily safer Atlantic basin resources for itself (Western Hemisphere, West Africa). But to control the oil has been a leading principle of US foreign policies since the Second World War, and Iraq is particularly significant in this respect.

Quite apart from yielding "profits beyond the dreams of avarice," as one leading history of the oil industry puts the matter, the region still remains "a stupendous source of strategic power," a lever of world control. Control over Gulf energy reserves provides "veto power" over the actions of rivals, as the leading planner George Kennan pointed out half a century ago. Europe and Asia understand very well, and have long been seeking independent access to energy resources. - On the US and the Middle

"Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens."
"I CAME here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions." - Al Gore October 5, 2005

"On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said , "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history. " - Associated Press Thursday, October 6, 2005

False Information: Iraq, 9/11 and al-Qaeda
All these stories turn out to have been based on false information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress and the US and UK intelligence agencies. - The Lies of the Press

“I’d be shocked and completely horrified if Aras was working for Iranian intelligence,” says
David Rose, who wrote several pieces for Vanity Fair about Iraq’s weapons program in which he used INC defectors as sources. “I knew INC had connections to Iran but if they were on the Iranian payroll I’ll be completely smackered.”

BAD CONNECTIONS
Several reporters and editors I spoke with recalled that soon after 9/11 the INC started offering them defectors with stories linking Saddam Hussein to international terrorism.

In an article by David Rose, Harith claimed that, in addition to the mobile labs, Hussein was close to building a new long-range missile. He also told of a trip to Africa to buy radioactive materials for a dirty bomb from renegade Russians. He spoke of a chemical weapons factory in Samarra and a bioweapons lab in the suburbs of Baghdad. And so on.

Of all the reporters I spoke with for this article, none seemed as devastated by the INC’s fall from grace as Rose. Perhaps that’s because no one, not even Judith Miller, swallowed and regurgitated more ICP hogwash. Rose concedes that he fell victim to a misinformation campaign and says he wishes he’d been more circumspect. “I feel profound regret over that piece,” Rose confesses. “Harith wasn’t telling the truth but I took every step reasonable to establish that these were credible assertions.” - How Chalabi Played the Press

Chomsky, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", Iraq War and Israel

Noam Chomsky mentions that Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were writing position papers for Benyamin Netanyahu (this has to do with the paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" about War on Iraq and Israel)

"The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration to take control of Iraq -- by war, military coup, or some other means -- have elicited various analyses of the guiding motives. Offering one interpretation, Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace observes that these plans conform to "the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism," inspired by fear of enemies about to destroy us. That strategy is of critical importance if the "radical nationalists" setting policy in Washington hope to advance their announced plan for "unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority," while conducting a major assault against the interests of the large majority of the domestic population.
...
As Lieven correctly notes, the "radical nationalists" in Washington have very close links with Israeli ultra-nationalists. In the 1990s, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were even writing position papers for Benyamin Netanyahu, who outflanks Ariel Sharon on the extremist right. The usually reliable Israel press has been reporting their connections and plans for some time. These include far-reaching plans for reconstructing the Middle East along lines resembling the former Ottoman empire, but now with the US and its offshore military base in Israel in charge, cooperating with Turkey: what the Egyptian press has described as "the axis of evil," US-Israel-Turkey. According to some reported plans, a Hashemite monarchy might extend from Jordan to parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians could then be "transferred" somewhere else, perhaps Jordan. The war against Iran may well already be underway. A good part of the Israeli air force is based in Turkey, and is reported to be flying along the Iranian border from US bases there. Plans for partition of Iran are being developed, perhaps pursued, according to US specialist sources.
...
It is not only much of the world that regards them as a menace. The same is true of highly-regarded strategic analysts and Middle East specialists here, like Anthony Cordesman, who is about as “hardline” as they come within sane sectors. According to Israel’s leading diplomatic correspondent, Akiva Eldar, Cordesman has warned that Washington should “make it clear that its commitment to Israel does not involve a commitment to its sillier armchair strategists and more vocally irresponsible hardliners," referring not so obliquely to Perle and Feith, who are close to power centers in Washington." - A Modest Proposal (This is from an extended version of an article that was carried by the New York Times syndicate. In the version that was carried by the New York Times syndicate, there is no mention of Israel, Richard Perle Douglas Feith or Benyamin Netanyahu)

Question: How do you see military action against Iraq affecting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Ariel Sharon's representatives have said that Israel will wait until the U.S. has dealt with Iraq before pursuing a political track with the Palestinians, and Binyamin Netanyahu has said that U.S. assistant secretary of state William Burns' road map for peace "is simply not on the agenda."

Chomsky: We don't know if the road map is on the agenda because we don't know what it is. In fact, we don't even know that it exists. There are plans about the Palestinians. The people near the centre of power, like Richard Pearl, Douglas Feith and, probably, [Donald] Rumsfeld have been talking about reorganising the Middle East for years. They have all kinds of far-reaching plans. - Chomsky cuts to the heart of the matter

No Other Motivation, No Other Issue

Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 WTC bomber, was motivated to attack the US because of US support of Israel: He had no other motivation, no other issue.

After his capture, the FBI questioned Ramzi Yousef on the flight back from Pakistan about his motivations for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

"Yousef said he took no thrill from killing American citizens and felt guilty about the civilian deaths he had caused. But his conscience was overridden by his desire to stop the killing of Arabs by Israeli troops." "Yousef said he "would like it to be different," but only terrible violence could force this kind of abrupt political change. He said that he truly believed his actions had been rational and logical in pursuit of a change in U.S. policy toward Israel. He mentioned no other motivation during the flight and no other issue in American foreign policy that concerned him." Steve Coll, Ghost Wars p273

Motives for the War on Iraq

Andrea Mitchell: "So what, what is the war in Iraq to bin Laden?

Michael Scheuer: "It is, I think, a proof of his thesis that America is malignantly inclined toward Muslims, that it is willing to attack a Muslim country that dares to defy it, that it is willing to do most anything to defend Israel. It's certainly viewed as an action which is meant to assist the Israeli state. It is in every way predictably, if you will, a godsend for those Muslims who believe as bin Laden does."

[Osama bin Laden] is not a man who rants against our freedoms, our liberties, our voting, our — the fact that our women go to school. He's not the Ayatollah Khomeini; he really doesn't care about all those things. To think that he's trying to rob us of our liberties and freedom is, I think, a gross mistake. What he has done, his genius, is identify particular American foreign policies that are offensive to Muslims whether they support these martial actions or not — our support for Israel, our presence on the Arabian Peninsula, our activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, our support for governments that Muslims believe oppress Muslims, be it India, China, Russia, Uzbekistan. Bin Laden has focused the Muslim world on specific, tangible, visual American policies.

CIA insider, Michael Scheuer, says U.S. fighting wrong war Career officer makes bold claims in book about U.S. war on terror

Michael Scheuer: Universally in the Muslim world, at least according to the most recent polling data, American foreign policy in several specific areas is hated by Muslims. Majorities of 85-90 percent are registered as hating or resenting American policies, towards our support for Israel, our ability to keep oil prices low, or low enough to satisfy Western consumers, our support for Arab tyrannies from Morocco to the Indian Ocean, our support for Putin in Chechnya.

By invading and occupying Iraq, America, or its allies, now occupy the three holiest places in Islam -- Saudi Arabia, first; second, Iraq; and the Israeli control of Jerusalem, the third. Of course, the Israelis are viewed simply as an extension of the United States, so, in essence, in the Muslim mind, all three of their sanctities are occupied by the United States and its allies -- something that was bound to offend 1.3 billion Muslims, whether or not they supported Osama bin Laden.

Michael Scheuer, ex-CIA bin Laden Unit Chief, Explains Why Insurgents Are Willing To Die Fighting Us...Maybe It's Not Our Freedom They Hate...

Also See: One of the Reasons for the War on Iraq

Israeli Terrorism

Former Israeli Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur, who stated that "For 30 years, from the War of Independence until today, we have been fighting against a population that lives in villages and cities," offering as examples the bombardments that cleared the Jordan Valley of all inhabitants and that drove a million and a half civilians from the Suez Canal area in 1970, among others. The Israeli military analyst Zeev Schiff summarized General Gur's comments as follows: "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it...the importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously...the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets... [but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck." p 181 Fateful Triangle

Zionist Jews Killing Jews
Evidence of early Zionists' murderous refusal of a peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians is perhaps the most dramatic when it involves the killing of Jewish civilians. It wasn't just Arabs that were being murdered, Zionists were even killing Jews who didn't accept the Zionist ideology. Killing Jews on the hit list composed by the terrorist groups of Irgun and LEHI was the ruthless Zionist way of "settling internal accounts." [ source: Chomsky, Fateful Triangle pp. 164-165]
One of the victims on the list was Jacob de Haan, a Dutch Jew, killed for the "crime" of attempting to work out a peaceful solution between the new settlers and the local Palestinians in 1921. Their own records reveal them saying "another reason for assassinating him was that he was a homosexual."

In another ruthless and cruel example, they drowned one of their own members because they worried the man might give information to the police if he was caught.
The Zionists did not restrict their killings to Jews, they killed Palestinian civilians as well.

There were large numbers of Jews who were opposed to Zionism and some of the
Zionists continued the assassinations of Jews who didn't conform to the Zionist agenda. In June 1924, a religious Jew was killed by Zionist terrorists, killed as he was leaving a hospital's small synagogue. The Zionist killers rationalized the murder by insisting that the man's anti-Zionist activities were evidence of a "pathological character."

"Formidable"

"Powerful and thoroughly documented."

Author Noam Chomsky added chapters, a new preface, and there is
a new foreword from Palestinian author and activist Edward W. Said.
It has new material on the Intifada, the ongoing Israeli-PLO "peace
process" (including the Oslo and Wye accords), and Israel's
war against Lebanon.


Buy
Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the
Palestinians with Amazon

or

Buy Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel,
and the Palestinians with Powell's

Kristen,

You are in a position to call for taking away the terrorists' motives for attacking the US, why are you not doing so? Bush Lied to the American People about 9/11 Terrorists' Motives, are you OK with that?

You seem to be OK with Bush and others lying to us about why we were attacked since you never point it out and you never call for ending the specific foreign polices that make us targets. Why are you willing to have us spend billions and curtail our freedoms yet ending these policies is off limits with you?

The 9/11 Commission is avoiding the MAIN MOTIVE for why we were attacked, why are you doing that as well? Did you not see this man trying to get the Commission to deal with the main motive?

You should know that the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel.
Mohamed Atta, the ring leader of the September 11th suicide hijackers also held the same grievance.

Why are you OK with Lee Hamilton and others suppressing the main motive for the attack?
Philip Zelikow admits "we don't really discuss American polices toward Israel in the report." Why in God's name are you not demanding that the 9/11 Commission deal with Israel? Why are you willing to have politicians put our lives at risk for Israel? Why are you willing to suffer the consequences of supporting Israel and allowing people to deceive the public about why people are motivated to attack us? Zelikow admits, "it's a fact that American policies in the Middle East have consequences and that you have to weigh those consequences. And that American support for the state of Israel has consequences in the Muslim world and fuels a lot of Arab and Muslim grievances toward the United States."

We don't deserve to be lied to, why are you playing along with the lie and helping these liars?

Life Is Too Short

We the people of America should have more of our lives to ourselves and not be worked so hard. We work our asses off while people in many other countries get much more vacation time to live their lives. We get about 14 days at most while other countries have vacations of up to 5 weeks.

The US business propaganda and manipulations have played us for fools.

Pat Robertson says KILL KILL!!

Pat Robertson calls for the Killing of the President of Venezuelan, Hugo Chavez; Covets Their Oil

Reverend Pat Robertson Says US Should Kill Venezuelan President

Pat Robertson calls for assassination of Hugo Chavez
"We have the ability to take him (Chavez) out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,' Robertson said.

I was flipping through the channels and actually saw him say it. I could not believe it. Pat Robertson is calling for an extremist action, a totally unchristian and illegal act. Robertson want the US to act like a gangster. This is a "reverend"? "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." Why am I always shocked by guys like Robertson?

Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.

Of course people like Pat Robertson, basically a political operative, want Hugo Chavez dead. Chavez helps the poor.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline. CNN

Chavez and Castro offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge.

Telling Us to Attack Iran

In a 2002 article in The Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu wrote: “ The United States must now act .... against the other terror regimes–Iran, Iraq, Arafat's dictatorship, Syria, and a few others. Some of these regimes will have to be toppled, some of them punished and deterred.” - Bush and Sharon send a message

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. "These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve," Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen."- Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran, Libya and Syria

The CIA did not say that there were weapons, Bush and company made that up.
US Intelligence About Iraq Didn't Really Fail, It Was Manipulated
"Never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.'" - General Zinni

The Bush Administration wanted war and didn't care about the truth or the law.
Not one mainstream media outlet has reported the truth:
Bush's War Violates International Law

Remember the weapons declaration that Saddam had submitted?
Saddam was telling the truth, it was Bush who was lying!
Did any of you figure that out yet?

Oh Saddam killed people? Yes, with the help of the US. The US was involved in Saddam's gassings! The US helped Saddam gas people. Scott Ritter and Richard Butler confirm this fact.
(Donahue help expose these kinds of facts on his show, that is why his show was canceled )

How did Saddam get into power in the first place? Who helped him?
The US Mainstream media didn't report this.

"The coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1963 was celebrated by the United States.

The CIA had a hand in it. They had funded the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was a young member - when it was in opposition.

US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them".

"The CIA were definitely involved in that coup. We saw the rise of the Ba'athists as a way of replacing a pro-Soviet government with a pro-American one and you don't get that chance very often.

"Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly
communists so that didn't bother us".

"So just why did Bush choose war? From the evidence before us today, there is no one single reason. Rather, there are three converging and tightly interwoven reasons: oil, Israel and military transformation. The Cheney energy strategy required Iraqi oil; AIPAC and the Christian right wanted to weaken the Arab world to strengthen Israel;
and Don Rumsfeld wanted to expedite the transformation of the U.S. military." - Bush's Real Rationale for War by Patrick Doherty

US Intelligence About Iraq Didn't Really Fail, It Was Manipulated

"Never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.'" - General Zinni

"General Zinni was alarmed that day to hear Cheney make the argument for attacking Iraq on grounds that Zinni found questionable at best:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.'"

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."

Zinni's concern deepened as Cheney pressed on that day at the Opryland Hotel. "Time is not on our side," the vice president said. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action."

Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are getting into." - For Vietnam Vet Anthony Zinni, Another War on Shaky Territory (washingtonpost.com)

The Bush Administration didn't care, they wanted their War on Iraq, they ignored CIA warnings. C.I.A. Warns That a U.S. Attack May Ignite Terror

"There have also been questions about the public portrayal of intelligence by senior policymakers. Preliminary reviews indicate that public statements did not always portray the detailed caveats about Iraqi WMD that intelligence reports generally provided. In addition, questions about possible pressure on analysts to alter their judgments and about possible suppression of alternative assessments must be a central part of a thorough and detailed review."- Opinion from Congresswoman Jane Harman representative from California, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. WMD: What Went Wrong?

"Nuances, qualifications and caveats were dropped; a slam-dunk was the assessment relative to the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The CIA was telling the Administration and the American people what it thought the Administration wanted to hear." - Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich

Sources for the Israeli/Palestinian situation 1947-1948

Reader email:

Greetings:

I am doing some research into the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I came across your site and was hoping to obtain bibliographic information supporting the following statement copied from: http://www.representativepress.org/IsraelHistory.html .
NOTE: This is a critical fact often omitted when the history is presented and this leads to a very distorted view of what happened in 1948. The misleading story often told is that "Jews declared Israel and then they were attacked." The fact is from November 1947 to May 1948 the Zionists were already on the offensive and had already attacked Arabs. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had driven 300,000 non-Jews off their land. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had seized land beyond the proposed Jewish State.

Your assistance is appreciated,
Tracy Jacobson

No problem Tracy, here are some sources:

"The Zionists were by far the more powerful and better organized force, and by May 1948, when the state of Israel was formally established, about 300,000 Palestinians already had been expelled from their homes or had fled the fighting, and the Zionists controlled a region well beyond the area of the original Jewish state that had been proposed by the UN. 62 Now it's then that Israel was attacked by its neighbors - in May 1948; it's then, after the Zionists had taken control of this much larger part of the region and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been forced out, not before." pp. 131-132 Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky * See Footnote 62 below

Zionist forces had been planning their conquest of the Palestine for years and had the military advantage over the native inhabitants. Even before Zionists declared their "Jewish State of Israel" in May of 1948, Zionist armies had already seized land within areas of what the UN proposed for the Palestinian state and had already carried out terrorist attacks (including killing children) in order to ethnically cleanse areas. Writing about a December 18, 1947 terrorist attack killing civilians carried out by the Palmach - the kibbutz-based strike force of the Haganah (the Defense Force of the Jewish settlemetn in Palestine, the precursor of the IDF), Chomsky quotes Israeli military historian Uri Milshtein who wrote that Moshe Dayan justified the attack on the grounds that it had a "desirable effect." Chomsky writes, "Sykes [ author of Crossroads to Israel] suggests that this opperation, three weeks before the first Arab irregulars entered the country, may have "percipitated the next phase of the war." p95 Fateful Triangle The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians The footnote for this says: "For a contemporary record of Irgun-LEHI terrorism in December 1947, see Peace in the Middle East?, pp.64-5, citing a report by the Council on Jewish-Arab Cooperation, which concludes that these actions were undertaken to create conflict in peaceful areas. See Towards a New Cold War pp. 464-5 and referances cited for additional examples of Zionist terrorism, including major masssacres. Little of this is known here; information appears in standard Israeli (Hebrew) sources.

"By May, its armies had taken over parts of the territory assigned to the Palestinian state. The Irgun-LEHI Deir Yassin massacre in April had already taken place, one major factor in causing the flight of much of the Arab population. This fact was reported with much enthusiasm in official statements of Irgun and LEHI, specifically, by the terrorist commander Menachem Begin, who took pride in the opperation in which some 250 defenseless people were slaughtered, including more than 100 women and children, with 4 killed among the attacking forces.

Recently discovered personal testimonies of the leaders of the operation reveal that the majority favored eliminating whoever stood in their way, including women and children, and proceeded to do so, murdering captured and wounded." p95 Fateful Triangle The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians

The rest of this post below is from Chapter Four Footnote 62

Footnote 62. On the extent of the Zionist-controlled territory and the number of Palestinian refugees through May 1948, see for example, David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, London: Faber and Faber, 1977, pp. 123-143. An excerpt (pp. 136, 138-139, 142):

The rise of the State of Israel -- in frontiers larger than those assigned to it under the Partition Plan -- and the flight of the native population was a cataclysm so deeply distressing to the Arabs that to this day they call it, quite simply, al-nakba, the Catastrophe. . . . Deir Yassin was, as Begin rightly claims, the most spectacular single contribution to the Catastrophe.
[Deir Yassin, an Arab town that had in fact refused to be used as a base for operations against the Jewish Agency by the foreign Arab volunteer force, was the site of a massacre of 250 innocent Arabs by the Jewish terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang in April 1948.] In time, place and method it demonstrates the absurdity of the subsequently constructed myth [that Arab leaders had called on the Palestinian refugees to flee]. The British insisted on retaining juridical control of the country until the termination of their Mandate on 15 May; it was not until they left that the regular Arab armies contemplated coming in. But not only did Deir Yassin take place more than five weeks before that critical date, it also took place outside the area assigned to the Jewish State. It was in no sense a retaliatory action. . . .

In reality, Deir Yassin was an integral part of Plan Dalet, the master-plan for the seizure of most or all of Palestine. . . . Nothing was officially disclosed about Plan Dalet . . . although Bengurion was certainly alluding to it in an address [on April 7, 1948] to the Zionist Executive: "Let us resolve not to be content with merely defensive tactics, but at the right moment to attack all along the line and not just within the confines of the Jewish State and the borders of Palestine, but to seek out and crush the enemy where-ever he may be. . . ." According to Qurvot (Battles) of 1948, a detailed history of the Haganah and the Palmach [the Zionist fighting forces], the aim of Plan Dalet was "control of the area given to us by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by us which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies." It was also designed to "cleanse" such areas of their Arab inhabitants. . . .
When the war ended, in early 1949, the Zionists, allotted 57 per cent of Palestine under the Partition Plan, had occupied 77 per cent of the country. Of the 1,300,000 Arab inhabitants, they had displaced nearly 900,000.

Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948," Middle Eastern Studies (London), January 1986, pp. 5-19. An excerpt (pp. 5, 6-7, 9-10, 14, 18):

A great deal of fresh light is shed on the multiple and variegated causation of the Arab exodus in a document which has recently surfaced, entitled "The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948. . . ." Dated 30 June 1948, it was produced by the Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch during the first weeks of the First Truce (11 June-9 July) of the 1948 war. . . . Rather than suggesting Israeli blamelessness in the creation of the refugee problem, the Intelligence Branch assessment is written in blunt factual and analytical terms and, if anything, contains more than a hint of "advice" as to how to precipitate further Palestinian flight by indirect methods, without having recourse to direct politically and morally embarrassing expulsion orders. . . . On the eve of the U.N. Partition Plan Resolution of 29 November 1947, according to the report, there were 219 Arab villages and four Arab, or partly Arab, towns in the areas earmarked for Jewish statehood -- with a total Arab population of 342,000. By 1 June, 180 of these villages and towns had been evacuated, with 239,000 Arabs fleeing the areas of the Jewish state. A further 152,000 Arabs, from 70 villages and three towns (Jaffa, Jenin and Acre), had fled their homes in the areas earmarked for Palestinian Arab statehood in the Partition Resolution, and from the Jerusalem area. By 1 June, therefore, according to the report, the refugee total was 391,000, give or take about 10-15 per cent. Another 103,000 Arabs (60,000 of them Negev beduin and 5,000 Haifa residents) had remained in their homes in the areas originally earmarked for Jewish statehood. (This figure excludes the Arabs who stayed on in Jaffa and Acre, towns occupied by Jewish forces but lying outside the 1947 partition boundaries of the Jewish state.) . . . [The report] stress[es] that "without doubt, hostile [Haganah/Israel Defense Force] operations were the main cause of the movement of population. . . ." Altogether, the report states, Jewish -- meaning Haganah/I.D.F., I.Z.L. and L.H.I. -- military operations . . . accounted for 70 per cent of the Arab exodus from Palestine. . . . [T]here is no reason to cast doubt on the integrity of I.D.F. Intelligence Branch in the production of this analysis. The analysis was produced almost certainly only for internal, I.D.F. top brass consumption. . . . One must again emphasize that the report and its significance pertain only up to 1 June 1948, by which time some 300,000-400,000 Palestinians had left their homes. A similar number was to leave the Jewish-held areas in the remaining months of the war.

The article also explains how this Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch report "thoroughly undermines the traditional official Israeli explanation' of a mass flight ordered or 'invited' by the Arab leadership for political-strategic reasons" (p. 17). See also, Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Benny Morris, 1948 And After: Israel and the Palestinians, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Since Morris's early publications, he has noted that later declassified documents have strengthened his conclusions. See Benny Morris, "Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948," in Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds., The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 37-59.An excerpt (pp. 49, 38):

The documentation that has come to light or been declassified during the past ten years offers a great deal of additional information about the expulsions of 1948.The departure of Arab communities from some sites, departures that were described in The Birth as due to fear or I.D.F. [Israel Defense Force] military attack or were simply unexplained, now appear to have been tinged if not characterized by Haganah or I.D.F. expulsion orders and actions. . . .This means that the proportion of the 700,000 Arabs who took to the roads as a result of expulsions rather than as a result of straightforward military attack or fear of attack, etc. is greater than indicated in The Birth. Similarly, the new documentation has revealed atrocities that I had not been aware of while writing The Birth. . . .These atrocities are important in understanding the precipitation of various phases of the Arab exodus. . . .
Above all, let me reiterate, the refugee problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabitants' fear of such attacks, compounded by expulsions, atrocities, and rumors of atrocities -- and by the crucial Israeli Cabinet decision in June 1948 to bar a refugee return.

See also, Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World,
New York: Norton, 2000. An excerpt (p.31):

Plan D, prepared by the Haganah chiefs in early March, was a major landmark in the development of this offensive strategy.During the preceding month the Palestinian irregulars, under the inspired leadership of Abdel Qader al-Husseini, cut the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and started to gain the upper hand in the fighting with the Haganah. After suffering several defeats at the hands of Palestinian irregulars, the Haganah chiefs decided to seize the initiative and go on the offensive.The aim of Plan D was to secure all the areas allocated to the Jewish state under the U.N. partition resolution as well as Jewish settlements outside these areas and corridors leading to them, so as to provide a solid and continuous basis for Jewish sovereignty.The novelty and audacity of the plan lay in the orders to capture Arab villages and cities, something the Haganah had never attempted before.Although the wording of Plan D was vague, its objective was to clear the interior of the country of hostile and potentially hostile Arab elements, and in this sense it provided a warrant for expelling civilians.By implementing Plan D in April and May, the Haganah thus directly and decisively contributed to the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. . . .

Plan D was not a political blueprint for the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs: it was a military plan with military and territorial objectives. However, by ordering the capture of Arab cities and the destruction of villages, it both permitted and justified the forcible expulsion of Arab civilians. By the end of 1948 the number of Palestinian refugees had swollento around 700,000. But the first and largest wave of refugees occurred before the official outbreak of hostilities
on 15 May.

Ilan Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-51, London: I.B. Tauris, 1992, chs. 2 and 3, especially pp. 76-99.An excerpt (pp. 85, 96):

The Jews moved from defense to an offensive, once Plan D was adopted. The plan, inter alia, aimed at extending Jewish rule in Palestine. . . . from 1 April 1948 to the end of the war, Jewish operations were guided by the desire to occupy the greatest possible portion of Palestine. . . . By 15 May 1948, about 380,000 Palestinians had become refugees. By the end of the war the number was doubled and the U.N. report spoke of 750,000 refugees.

Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, New York: Pantheon, 1987, pp. 81-118. An excerpt (pp. 42, 83-84, 132):

In April 1948, forces of the Irgun penetrated deep into Jaffa, which was outside the borders of the proposed Jewish state. . .
. Ben-Gurion, despite harsh pronouncements against the dissidents [i.e. the Irgun and other terrorist squads], waited until after the establishment of the state to force them to disband. He could have done this earlier had it suited his purposes, but clearly it did not. The terrorists were very successful in extending the war into areas not officially allocated to the Jews. . . .

Between 600,000 and 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were evicted or fled from areas that were allocated to the Jewish state or occupied by Jewish forces during the fighting and later integrated de facto into Israel. During and after the exodus, every effort was made -- from the razing of villages to the promulgation of laws -- to prevent their return. . . . According to the partition plan, the Jewish state would have had well over 300,000 Arabs, including 90,000 Bedouin. With the Jewish conquest of areas designated for the Arab state (western Galilee, Nazareth, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramleh, villages south of Jerusalem, and villages in the Arab Triangle of central Palestine), the Arab population would have risen by another 300,000 or more. Zionist leaders feared such numbers of non-Jews would threaten the stability of the new state both militarily -- should they become a fifth column for Arab armies -- and socially -- insofar as a substantial Muslim and Christian minority would challenge the new state's Jewish character.

Thus the flight of up to 700,000 Arabs from Palestinian villages and towns during 1948 came to many as a relief. . . .

It wasn't until April 30, 1948, two weeks before the end of the [British] Mandate, that Arab chiefs of staff met for the first time to work out a plan for military intervention. Under the pressure of mounting public criticism, fueled by the increasingly desperate situation in Palestine -- the massacre of Dir Yassin, the fall of Tiberias, the evacuation of Haifa, the collapse of the Palestinian forces, the failure of the A.L.A. [Arab Liberation Army], and the mass flight of refugees -- the army chiefs of the Arab states were finally compelled to discuss the deployment of their regular armies.

Jon Kimche, Seven Fallen Pillars: The Middle East, 1945-1952, New York: Da Capo, 1976 (eyewitness report by a Zionist historian, also recounting the fact that well before May 1948 the Jewish guerrilla group Irgun and the Zionist military organization Haganah had driven most of the Arab population from Jaffa and from large areas of the proposed Palestinian state by force). An excerpt (pp. 226-227):

The battle of Mishmar Haemek [in the first half of April 1948] was an obvious sign of the turning tide, but the Jews were at the same time developing another tactic which, as we now know, made a far greater impact on the Arab population of Palestine. . . . Marching at night, they penetrated to Arab villages far in the heart of Arab-held territory. Occasionally they blew up a house occupied by an active Arab nationalist or by foreign Arab volunteers; in other villages they confiscated arms or plastered the village with warning notices. The effects of such nightly visitations soon made themselves felt throughout the Arab hinterland. They caused great disturbances and started an exodus from the areas lying near to Jewish districts. . . .

Plans were now laid for a crucial attempt to seize the ports of Haifa and Jaffa, and to open communications with the north by the occupation of Tiberias and Safed. On April 21st I noted in my diary: "Arabs increasingly leaving Jewish state area. Almost half have left Haifa. Villages in the coastal plains are being evacuated. Crowded boats also leaving Jaffa" (a predominantly Arab city).

And see Benny Morris, "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda
and Ramle in 1948," Middle East Journal, Winter 1986, pp. 82-109 (on the expulsion of the Arab populations of Lydda and Ramle in July 1948); Erskine Childers, "The Other Exodus," in Walid Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948, Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1987, pp. 795-803 (refuting as thoroughly baseless the claim that the Palestinian refugees fled on orders from Arab leaders); Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, New York: Pantheon, 1987, pp. 81-118 at p. 85 ("recent publication of thousands of documents in the state and Zionist archives, as well as Ben-Gurion's war diaries, shows that there is no evidence to support Israeli claims" that Arab leaders called for the exodus of Palestinian refugees. "In fact, the declassified material contradicts the 'order' theory, for among these new sources are documents testifying to the considerable efforts of the A.H.C. [Arab Higher Committee] and the Arab states to constrain the flight").

Here is another Jewish writer exposing myths and propaganda:

"If there ever is to be real peace between Israel and the Palestinians, we have to understand the conflict without the myth and propaganda. ... Not surprisingly, or in fact quite naturally, when Israeli historians debunk Israeli myths they receive no press coverage and are completely ignored. It is much easier for us to go on living our myth instead of facing hurtful facts. ... One of the greatest Israeli myths is that most Arabs left their homes on orders from the Arab High Command. To support this myth, the oft-quoted scandalous canard "their leaders told them to leave" was concocted. Assiduous research has shown this to be false. ... The myth of the radio broadcast was important to us because, if followed to its logical conclusion, it allowed all the blame to be placed on the refugees themselves. Since the 750,000 refugees simply left, we had no obligation to let them back. ... We must reevaluate the myths we have created because, while they ease our conscience, they obfuscate our ability to analyze the situation from a political perspective." - "The Palestinian Problem: A Historical Review" by Jeff Bander - article from "The Commentator," the official undergraduate newspaper of Yeshiva University.

By the way, the myth had been debunked decades ago by scholars like Erskine Childers. "they found, on the contrary, that Arab and Palestinian authorities had repeatedly called on the people to stay put." David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, p626

 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Philip Zelikow Executive Director for the 9/11 Commission on C-SPAN

Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director for the 9/11 Commission, says it's a fact that American polices toward Israel fuels a lot of Arab and Muslim grievances toward the United States but he deceitfully claims "it makes very little difference." Zelikow also admits he made statements that the War on Iraq was really about the threat against Israel but claims it was supposedly taken "out of context."

C-SPAN 7/23/2004: WASHINGTON, DC: 18:59 (Caller's question starts at 14:40)

A caller to C-SPAN asks Zelikow about comments Zelikow made at the University of Virginia Law School on Sept. 10, 2002.

Zelikow said: "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?" Philip Zelikow explains, "I'll tell you what the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dares not speak its name because...the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically because it's not a popular sell."

Caller: Mr. Zelikow, you had said that the war in Iraq was for Israel, like James Bamford says in the Pretext for War could you elaborate on that please? You said that it would be a tough sell but that the war on Iraq was for Israel, could you elaborate? We would like to hear it. And what about the dancing Israelis on 9/11, in the Forward, Jewish publication out of New York?

Brian Lamb: Got that earlier. Any comment on what he just said?

Philip Zelikow: Uh, there's uh, um, um. I think the caller is referring to, uh, something bouncing around the Internet about me that has to do with my being pro-Israeli. Um, it takes some things I said or wrote in an earlier occasion out of context and it, it's uh, it would take a long time to discuss it.

Brian Lamb: We checked this morning and, with word search, and found Israel mentioned 26 times in your report, most of those are footnoting, about 7 of them are substantive mentions. Did you sit around as a commission and talk about the impact that our support of Israel might have had on all of this?

Philip Zelikow: Yes, we did talk about that. It uh, we don't really discuss American polices toward Israel in the report. But, um, -- first it's a fact that American policies in the Middle East have consequences and that you have to weigh those consequences. And that American support for the state of Israel has consequences in the Muslim world and fuels a lot of Arab and Muslim grievances toward the United States. That's point one. But, and you have to remember point two, is that, for the hard core, the bin Laden's and their followers, it makes very little difference. These people were trying to kill us when the Middle East peace process was going great, uh, during the period of the Oslo accords in the early 90's.*(not true, see below) When it goes well, when it goes badly, it makes no difference in their plans. Their objections to the United States have to do with who we are in the world and are not significantly affected by the ups or downs of the Middle East peace process.

First note that Zelikow does not deny that he said the war on Iraq was really about Israel's security and not about US security. Zelikow actually acknowledges the fact that he said it but he tries to explain it it away by claiming his words were "out of context." He then avoids telling us what the context supposedly was by claiming that "it would take a long time to discuss it."

Also note that Zelikow admits the "fact that American policies in the Middle East have consequences" and that "American support for the State of Israel has consequences in the Muslim world and fuels a lot of Arab and Muslim grievances toward the United States."

But Zelikow is at his most devious when he denies the significance of US support of Israel with a dismissal of " it makes no difference." Zelikow wants you to think that changing the policy of US support of Israel will make no difference. He is trying to decieve us about polices that threaten our very lives. He is lying, obviously, because he doesn't want the policy of US support of Israel to be changed.

* Zelikow has the audacity to lie to us about the recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Zelikow lies about the Oslo accords, he is lying when he says the "Middle East peace process was going great." Zelikow is saying that "these people", the "ones trying to kill us", shouldn't have seen the Oslo accords as a grievance! It was great for the Israelis but it was not great for the Palestinians or anyone that cares about their rights. Zelikow is denying the real grievances, violations of the rights of the Palestinian people during the early 1990's.


For some details about the reality of the Oslo accords and how they were so grotesquely unfair to the Palestinians, buy "Pirates and Emperors, Old and New : International Terrorism in the Real World"

"The essential meaning of the Oslo peace process is well understood by prominent Israeli doves. Just before he joined the Barak government as Minister of Internal Security, historian Shlomo BenAmi observed in an academic study that "in practice, the Oslo agreements were founded on a neocolonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other forever." With these goals, the Clinton-Rabin-Pores agreements were designed to impose on the Palestinians "almost total dependence on Israel," creating "an extended colonial situation," which is expected to be the "permanent basis" for "a situation of dependence." Ben-Ami went on to become the chief negotiator and architect of the Barak proposals." p180 Pirates and Emperors, Old and New : International Terrorism in the Real World Noam Chomsky

Get the book if you want to have a handle on what the US has been doing to the Middle East. Chomsky's book is composed of incredible chapters like "The U.S. Role in the Middle East", "The World after September 11", "U.S./Israel-Palestine" and the revealing chapter called "Thought Control: The Case of the Middle East" which details how influential writers like Thomas Friedman deceive the public about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On page 169 of Hegemony or Survival, Chomsky points out, "The wording of the Oslo agreements made it clear that they were a mandate for continued Israeli settlement programs, as the Israeli leadership (Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres) took no pains to conceal." (These settlements are illegal according to International Law!) Because of the Israeli insistence on continuing to build the illegal settlements, the man who headed the Palestinian delegation at the Madrid conference, a man "known for his integrity and one of the most respected Palestinian figures, refused to have anything to do with Oslo." Oslo was not "going great" for the Palestinians, regardless of what Zelikow wants you to believe.

But the kicker is, Zelikow admits, "we don't really discuss American polices toward Israel in the report." The 9/11 Commission didn't really discuss American polices toward Israel in their report!?! This is TOTALY OUTRAGEOUS because American polices toward Israel is the prime motive for the 9/11 attack! (also see Motives for 9/11 Terrorist Attacks)

Please don't let Zelikow and others get away with this. I want to run a big campaign to get these facts out to the American people and I need some funds to work with. Please Donate. I would like to print up material to distribute it on a large scale.

Let's not forget the audacity of American and Israeli government officials who have their eyes on Iraq's oil for the benefit of Israel!

"The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem." - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0825-03.htm

Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s government "views the pipeline to Haifa as a ‘bonus’ the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq," according to Haaretz.

On Sunday, August 24, Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky vowed to discuss the issue with the U.S. secretary of energy during his envisaged visit to Washington next month.

He asserted that the whole project depends on Jordan's consent, adding that the kingdom would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to flow through its territory. http://www.turks.us/article.php?story=20030825102843473
Note that he didn't say "the whole project depends on the Iraqi people's consent"

U.S. and Israeli policy makers don't plan on true democracy for Iraq. Sending their oil to Israel is not what the average Iraqi would want to do. (these facts are kept from the American public. The plans for this "bonus" have gone unreported in US mainstream media. Reporters know what is "proper" to report and they know that facts like these should not be told to the American public. An example of how extreme US TV suppression is the fact that TV news has not been reporting that the Israeli settlements have been illegal all along. US TV news has adopted Israel's definition of what is legal! )

American media play along with the idea that U.S. policy makers intend on allowing true democracy in Iraq.

Cheney has said that Israel will benefit from the Iraq War. "Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration's war in Iraq to a Jewish group on Friday, declaring that Israel would benefit from a new democratic government in the region.'' - War will benefit Israel, Cheney tells Jewish Community in Boca Raton
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=7319&fcategory_desc=Project%20for%20a%20New%20American%20Century

Philip Zelikow on "Iraq threat" and Israel: The Threat That Dares Not Speak Its Name

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?" Philip Zelikow explains, "I'll tell you what the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dares not speak its name because...the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically because it's not a popular sell." - Philip Zelikow forum at the University of Virginia Law School on Sept. 10, 2002

The Philip Zelikow quote checks out. Good research by David Peterson. Peterson wites, "So I ran a quick search of the Nexis database, under the all-News category (i.e., the most comprehensive), using the following combination of terms:

* 'Zelikow' and 'threat against Israel' or 'threat that dare not speak its name' or 'why would Iraq attack America' or 'use nuclear weapons against us' or 'American Government doesn't want to lean too hard on it' or 'because it is not a popular sell'

According to Nexis, parts of all of this incredibly damning passage from Zelikow have been quoted in only four different places within the English-language media archived by Nexis. Namely:

1. IPS-Inter Press Service, March 29, 2004, Tuesday, 1396 words, U.S.: IRAQ WAR IS TO PROTECT ISRAEL, SAYS 9/11 PANEL CHIEF, By Emad Mekay, WASHINGTON, Mar. 29

2. United Press International, March 30, 2004 Tuesday, 702 words, UPI Hears..., WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI)

3. New Straits Times (Malaysia), April 2, 2004, Friday, Editorial; My notebook; Pg. 10, 1023 words, Can this be a safer world despite increased killings?, By Hardev Kaur

4. Business Week Online, April 15, 2004 Thursday, DAILY BRIEFING, 960 words, Blame Bush for What Came After 9/11; The real issue isn't why the U.S wasn't ready for the attack, but why the Administration used the tragedy to invade Iraq, Ciro Scotti

But that's it. A rather embarrassing---if typical---performance by the U.S. media, I'm sure you'll agree.

FYA ("For your archives"): See below, where I've deposited copies of all four them." see link: PHILIP D. ZELIKOW Posted by David Peterson at April 16, 2004 05:34 PM