It would be so easy, with the media control they have at their fingertips, to blur the trail, to confuse the motives…

very, very scary.

re: By Virginia777, June 4 at 3:23 pm:

And it would be so easy to pin it on somebody else, wouldn’t it? They got away with the Liberty, so they could probably get away with this, too.

This is a real possibility that I would hope the countless dollars going into “homeland security” would prevent,

(who am I fooling?)

Is Bibi Netanyahu contemplating a “trip to Dallas” for the Kennedy-esque Obama?

Consider this recent statement from Bibi:

” “We are in the midst of a reality that is not at all simple. We have to consider what options we have on the settlements, in practical terms vis-à-vis this Administration, but also vis-à-vis ourselves. We don’t want to deepen the rift with the Americans. We have no interest in that. But, we’re not going to uproot settlements – no one envisages that.”

OK, so Bibi says he wants to avoid problems with the Americans but also not give an inch on the settlements. Hmmm. Seems to me there’s no way to do that as long as Obama’s our President. Maybe Bibi and the Mossad will try to arrange for an unscheduled, early end to the Obama administration?

The hidden cost of free
congressional trips to Israel

Jim Abourezk

“Branded as ‘educational,’ these trips offer Israeli propagandists an opportunity to expose members of Congress to only their side of the story.

S.D.– Democrats in Congress have moved quickly – and commendably – to strengthen ethics rules. But truly groundbreaking reform was prevented, in part, because of the efforts of the pro-Israel lobby to preserve one of its most critical functions: taking members of Congress on free “educational” trips to Israel.

The pro-Israel lobby does most of its work without publicity. But every member of Congress and every would-be candidate for Congress comes to quickly understand a basic lesson. Money needed to run for office can come with great ease from supporters of Israel, provided that the candidate makes certain promises, in writing, to vote favorably on issues considered important to Israel. What drives much of congressional support for Israel is fear – fear that the pro-Israel lobby will either withhold campaign contributions or give money to one’s opponent.

In my own experience as a US senator in the 1970s, I saw how the lobby tries to humiliate or embarrass members who do not toe the line.

Pro-Israel groups worked vigorously to ensure that the new reforms would allow them to keep hosting members of Congress on trips to Israel. According to the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, congressional filings show Israel as the top foreign destination for privately sponsored trips. Nearly 10 percent of overseas congressional trips taken between 2000 and 2005 were to Israel. Most are paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, a sister organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the major pro-Israel lobby group.

New rules require all trips to be pre-approved by the House Ethics Committee, but Barney Frank of Massachusetts says this setup will guarantee that tours of Israel continue. R Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported consensus among Jewish groups that “the new legislation would be an inconvenience, but wouldn’t seriously hamper the trips to Israel that are considered a critical component of congressional support for Israel.”

These trips are defended as “educational.” In reality, as I know from my many colleagues in the House and Senate who participated in them, they offer Israeli propagandists an opportunity to expose members of Congress to only their side of the story. The Israeli narrative of how the nation was created, and Israeli justifications for its brutal policies omit important truths about the Israeli takeover and occupation of the Palestinian territories.

What the pro-Israel lobby reaps for its investment in these tours is congressional support for Israeli desires. For years, Israel has relied on billions of dollars in US taxpayer money. Shutting off this government funding would seriously impair Israel’s harsh occupation.

One wonders what policies Congress might support toward Israel and the Palestinians absent the distorting influence of these Israel trips – or if more members toured Palestinian lands. America sent troops to Europe to prevent the killing of civilians in the former Yugoslavia. But when it comes to flagrant human rights violations committed by Israel, the US sends more money and shields Israel from criticism.

Congress regularly passes resolutions lauding Israel, even when its actions are deplorable, providing it political cover. Meanwhile, polls suggest most Americans want the Bush administration to steer a middle course in working for peace between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Consider, too, how the Israel lobby twists US foreign policy into a dangerous double standard regarding nuclear issues. The US rattles its sabers at Iran for its nuclear energy ambitions – and alleged pursuit of nuclear arms – while remaining silent about Israel’s nuclear-weapons arsenal.”

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/freetrips.html

EH - I laughed my ass off about the n(itw)it label, how appropriate and true.

ITW - What is it with you zealots and the “aggrieved party” syndrome?  Your always the victim, you falsely whine about how posters want you dead, how everyone hates jews…..whaaa.  Only you are allowed to criticize Israel and its blind followers, any other non jew who does is seen to hate jews in your eyes and makes you a victim.

I guess it is beneficial in business and court dealings to be percieved as the victim, no matter how venal and corrupt your position is.

Might want to brush up on hate speech law with your buddies at the ADL, you seem to practice alot of it here.

Navy Vet Honored, Foiled Israeli Attack

By Ray McGovern

“June 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House”—What’s the difference between murder and massacre?

The answer is Terry Halbardier, whose bravery and ingenuity as a 23-year-old Navy seaman spelled the difference between the murder of 34 of the USS Liberty crew and the intended massacre of all 294.

The date was June 8, 1967; and for the families of the 34 murdered and for the Liberty’s survivors and their families, it is a “date which will live in infamy” — like the date of an earlier surprise attack on the U.S. Navy.

The infamy is two-fold: (1) the Liberty, a virtually defenseless intelligence collection platform prominently flying an American flag in international waters, came under deliberate attack by Israeli aircraft and three 60-ton Israeli torpedo boats off the coast of the Sinai on a cloudless June afternoon during the six-day Israeli-Arab war; and (2) President Lyndon Johnson called back carrier aircraft dispatched to defend the Liberty lest Israel be embarrassed — the start of an unconscionable cover-up, including top Navy brass, that persists to this day.

Given all they have been through, the Liberty survivors and other veterans – who joined Halbardier to celebrate his belated receipt of the Silver Star – can be forgiven for having doubted that this day would ever come. In the award ceremony at the Visalia (California) office of Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman pinned the Silver Star next to the Purple Heart that Halbardier found in his home mailbox three years ago.

Nunes said, “The government has kept this quiet I think for too long, and I felt as my constituent he [Halbardier] needed to get recognized for the services he made to his country.”

Nunes got that right. Despite the many indignities the Liberty crew has been subjected to, the mood in Visalia was pronouncedly a joyous one of Better (42 years) Late Than Never. And, it did take some time to sink in: Wow, a gutsy congressman not afraid to let the truth hang out on this delicate issue.

Treatment Accorded the Skipper

As we gathered in Congressman Nunes’s office, I could not get out of my head the contrast between this simple, uncomplicated event and the rigmarole that senior Navy officers went through to pin a richly deserved Medal of Honor on another hero of that day, the Liberty’s skipper, Captain William McGonagle.

Although badly wounded by Israeli fire on June 8, 1967, McGonagle was able to keep the bombed, torpedoed, napalmed Liberty afloat and limping toward Malta, where what was left of the bodies of the 34 crewmen killed and the 174 wounded could be attended to.

Do the math: yes, killed and wounded amounted to more than two-thirds of the Liberty crew of 294.

I remembered what a naval officer involved in McGonagle’s award ceremony told one of the Liberty crew: “The government is pretty jumpy about Israel…the State Department even asked the Israeli ambassador if his government had any objections to McGonagle getting the medal.”

When McGonagle received his award, the White House (the normal venue for a Medal of Honor award) was all booked up, it seems, and President Johnson (who would have been the usual presenter) was unavailable. So it fell to the Secretary of the Navy to sneak off to the Washington Navy Yard on the banks of the acrid Anacostia River, where he presented McGonagle with the Medal of Honor and a citation that described the attack but not the identity of the attackers.

Please don’t misunderstand. The Liberty crew is not big on ceremony. They are VERY-not-big on politicians who wink when Navy comrades are killed and wounded at sea.”

Getting the Truth Out

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22757.htm

Ed Harges, June 3 at 12:22 am #

Dear (n)ITW(it): you habitually accuse anyone who condemns Zionism as wishing for the death of all Jews. So there was nothing misdirected about my post.
***********************************

I can’t help or remove your lack of reading comprehension or your cognitive dissonance.  It is what it is and you will continue to post absurd, tangential garbage regardless of anything I can say.

If you and “The Contingent” decide I must be a Venusian, (that means from the Planet Venus) then you will all come up with a 1000 justifications and “proofs” that I’m a Venusian, and no fact nor the obvious absurdity will divert you from that argument.

In other words, I can’t cure your venal willful stupidity.

re: By Inherit The Wind, June 2 at 6:40 pm:

Dear (n)ITW(it): you habitually accuse anyone who condemns Zionism as wishing for the death of all Jews. So there was nothing misdirected about my post.

Informed Comment

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Obama and Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“President Barack Obama says he will be more honest than past presidents with Israel. Israel, a great friend of the United States and a country we like and admire on its merits, has nevertheless dug itself into a very deep hole with its determination to colonize the West Bank and to keep the Palestinians stateless. These policies are what is wrong, not anything essential about Israel or the Palestinians. Both peoples deserve to live in peace and with dignity and human rights and without fear of violence. But that ideal situation cannot come about unless Israel comes to terms with a simple fact: It will never be accepted in the region and will never really be secure, unless and until it stops depriving the Palestinians of their resources, their land, and their right to be citizens of a recognized state. (And, no, it cannot be Jordan, either). Not only is Israel hurting itself with this reckless drive to colonize others’ land and so rob them, but it is deeply harming US interests in the Muslim World. Why would a friend do that to us—harm itself and harm us? Israeli settlement policy is the Amy Winehouse of foreign affairs.

Obama has already ruffled the feathers of Israeli hawks by forthrightly asking for an end to the building of new settlements, and a freeze on the growth of existing ones. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is insisting that “natural growth” must be allowed in the existing settlements, but this stance is widely considered a ruse intended to allow for settlement expansion through relocating people, not just having babies. Obama is not falling for it, and continues to argue for a settlement freeze.

This is what I said at CBS about what Obama should tell the Muslim world on Thursday:

  ’ In order to make a genuine and lasting impact, Obama needs to tell the Muslim world that the long years in the desert for the Palestinian people are over and that he will devote his energies to ensuring the establishment of a viable Palestinian state by the end of his first term. No one in the region believes in the so-called peace process any more, inasmuch as progress has been scant and the condition of the Palestinians has steadily worsened.’

In fact, I think Obama should make it clear that by 2011 he will simply recognize as the Palestinian state the government of the Palestine Authority that is elected next January. That would be an excellent way of forcing all the parties to make sure those elections are not handled carelessly. And it will put everyone into over-drive in making sure the transition goes well. I have been saying for some time what Ahmed Qurei recently did, that if the Israeli settlers want to stay in the West Bank, they must accept Palestinian citizenship. A government of Palestine that has Jewish constituents might anyway be a good thing.

Obama has an opportunity, through making sound and wise policy on this issue, to resolve 80 or 90% of the problems the US has with the Middle East. It looks as though he is going to give it his best shot.”

http://www.juancole.com/

Well, PH, I see “The Contingent” is in fine form: Insults and innuendo, but no facts.  I’m sure glad someone how describes the crook Abramoff as Rabbi Abramoff—I’m not aware that he was an ordained rabbi.  Neither are you. It’s merely another of your Jew-hating slurs and then you’ll hypocritically protest “But I’m not anti-semitic!”  Right. Sure.  Just like Cheney is now saying he didn’t know there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.  I believe it as much. 

I don’t answer or apologize for the ADL. I take no responsibility or interest in them.

As for you, Hawkeye, you are the moral bankrupt who blatantly cheered the murder of a Wichita physician who worked in a woman’s health clinic.  It’s hard to take the high moral ground when you are up to your waist in THAT manure. I’ll bet Fecal will support that too, as he eagerly looks forward to my death.  It ain’t the first time either for Fecal to talk about my death.

I see that by losing your job ITW, you have time to be more obnoxious than ever.  Try for a job at the JIDF?  They are always looking for a few good zealots.

I certainly don’t want you to die, I rather enjoy your idle banter and find you the best person to represent the jewish race, sterotypes and all, since I know so few.  Lilmamzer and Lefty are no longer with us so I guess you it by attrition.

How do you feel about Doonesbury?  Your pals at the ADL are stirring up some trouble with Garry.  Don’t be suprised if the American public bitch slaps Abe Foxman back to reality.

http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2009/06/garry-trudeau-maligns-judaism-says-adl.html

EH:

You should actually READ what I write before you respond to it.  You sound like a twit, attacking me for statements and arguments I didn’t make.

You folks in “The Contingent” really need to get your shit together.  I think you all took your “stupid” and “vicious” pills this week, though it’s sometimes hard to tell.

Haven’t you noticed that Fecal loves to talk about my death? I didn’t start that tangent—Fecal did.  You mixed that up and tied it to other shit that doesn’t make any sense at all and then used it as the foundation of a typical rant against me.

As I said: You sound like a twit.

Re: By Inherit The Wind, June 2 at 12:41 pm:

Surviving is not a virtue, ITW, it’s not heroic, it’s just what we all do for a while on this earth, till we croak. Every day, we all eat, we all poop, we all survive. Hurray for you, hurray for us, hurray for shower mold, and squirrels, and oysters — we’re all surviving!

Israel is not the reason you’re alive, you twit, and our opposition to Israel’s ideology is not a project to kill the Jews, not even the Jewish citizens of Israel — just as the end of apartheid did not mean the extermination of the whites of South Africa. And you’re not even an Israeli, ITW! Why do you have this need to feel mortally threatened? Admittedly, this fixation of yours does make us want to wring your neck in our weaker moments, but not seriously.

There are plenty of places in this world where Jews can have a nice life, and America is one of them, and we’re all happy about that, when we think about it at all, ITW. We are not eating our hearts out because you have failed to die. You’re alive! You’re alive! Whoop-dee-doo! Thanks for pointing this out — we hadn’t noticed.

Why do Zionists utterly fail to comprehend that our disgust for America’s subservience to Israel and Zionism has nothing whatsoever to do with wanting all the Jews to be dead?

Still praying for me to die, eh Fecal?  You figure at THAT point you finally will be able to make an argument I can’t refute? Wait around long enough—it will happen to all of us.  No one here gets out alive.

But I warn you there’s a lot of longevity in my family—my dad died “young” for the family because he was a heavy smoker—he was a still-wet-behind-the-ears age of 87….So you have a long wait ahead of you—and I’m gonna have a lot of fun in the meantime, while you’re miserably eating your heart out wishing I would die.  I think I’ll go to Alaska next—despite Sarah Palin it’s still one of the most beautiful places on Earth.  Then maybe Africa…It’s going to be a lot of fun.

You’re not the be-all and end-all of my existence, just a perennially barren source of amusement.

But MY revenge on you will be living well and forgetting you even exist the moment I sign off Truthdig.

Robert et al.

The 2 state solution as senvisaged by proponents in a Haaretz commentary (read link) attests to the acceptance and encouragement of Jews “getting rid of all non-jews in Israel and Israeli desired lands” .

The israeli proposed two state solution is basically to have a state comprised of Jews ONLY and at the same time make every Jew in the world automatically a “citizen” of Israel. Palestenians in the West Bank to move into Jordan and those in Gaza to move into Egypt. These are the new homelands of the Palestenians.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088813.html

By Inherit The Wind, June 2 at 7:20 am #

“I’d rather be forced to host 2.5 million crazy Jews than be forced to host one psychotic Fecal Azzollah.”
====================================================
Thank you Full-of-Hot-Air for making my day again. To put you to task that early in the morning- at 7:00 am- is quite a delightful thing.

I imagine that when you die, hopefully after a long unfulfilled life, and the doctor is called upon to determine the cause of death, he /she will find written across you failing heart, “My hate for Fadel Abdallah and what he stands for has killed me! My Zionist tribe avenge my death!”

Israeli Jews, as well as a hell of a lot of their politically powerful American Jewish supporters, have become blatant ethnic supremacist nationalists. Once you adopt mass forced expulsion as your explicit policy, genocide is inevitably next. Because if ethnically unclean and inferior people simply refuse to disappear from the Fatherland, well then, you have to kill them.

The attempt to hold on to the (relatively recent) tradition of Jewish liberalism while fiercely defending this ethnic/religious, blood-and-soil ideology was always an unsustainable high-wire act. Nobody can keep that up.

Fadel Abdallah, June 1 at 8:35 pm #

“Having said this, I have even a better and a more humane and just idea: Every Israeli who was not born in the area before 1945, should be shipped either to New York or to a part of Germany that should be carved exclusively for the Jews in compensation for where they came from in different parts of Europe before the Holocaust. That would naturally include most of those parliamentarians and the large majority of the Israeli terrorist leaders along the most radical and fanatic settlers who mostly came from America.”
=======================================
As a follow up to my previously posted idea about shipping every Israeli not born in Palestine before 1945 to New York or to Germany, I would like further to suggest that all the fanatic and extremist American Jewish settlers be hosted in America by the two pillars of fanatic Zionists on these threads, namely ITW and Separad. It would be a good and painful practical way to teach those two Z-Gang members the difficult lesson of putting up with a large number of mentally disturbed co-Zionists!
*********************************************

I’d rather be forced to host 2.5 million crazy Jews than be forced to host one psychotic Fecal Azzollah.

(Sepharad would get the other 2.5 million)

Sure glad you guys who advocate shipping 5 million Jews out of the Middle East don’t advocate “etnic cleansing” (rolling eyes smilie).  Hate to see what idiot plans you’d come up with if you did.

Sixty percent of Israelis favor ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian people.  Professor William Robinson (himself Jewish), of the University of California at Santa Barbara, addresses the rise of fascism in Israel.  Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTpyvUrZ9kY

Jewish mobs rampage West Bank

June 02, 2009

“JEWISH settler mobs have rampaged in the West Bank, hurling stones, burning fields and wounding at least four Palestinians, furious that Israel may raze outposts in the territory under US pressure.

Jewish extremists today blocked roads, hurled rocks at drivers, set fields ablaze, cut down olive trees and opened fire at Palestinians who tried to chase the trespassers from their fields in the northern West Bank, witnesses said.

West of the city of Nablus, an area with some of the most hardline settlers in the occupied territory, dozens of masked men blocked a road in the early hours and hurled rocks at Palestinian drivers who stopped their vehicles to move the obstructions, they said.

One of the four people wounded was in serious condition in hospital with a fractured skull, medics said.

Police arrested six Jewish activists, among them an MP, Michael Ben Ari, who represents the pro-settler National Union party.

A police spokesman said Ben Ari was among protesters who entered a restricted area and denied charges that the deputy had been mistreated.

Near the settlement of Yizhar, heavy smoke billowed into the air as settlers set fire to Palestinian fields.

Three army patrol vehicles at a nearby junction stood by and did not intervene to stop the violence, but they prevented a Palestinian firetruck from reaching the field.”

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25573625-5005961,00.html

The Zionists are being more blatant about ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian people.

“Having said this, I have even a better and a more humane and just idea: Every Israeli who was not born in the area before 1945, should be shipped either to New York or to a part of Germany that should be carved exclusively for the Jews in compensation for where they came from in different parts of Europe before the Holocaust. That would naturally include most of those parliamentarians and the large majority of the Israeli terrorist leaders along the most radical and fanatic settlers who mostly came from America.”
=======================================
As a follow up to my previously posted idea about shipping every Israeli not born in Palestine before 1945 to New York or to Germany, I would like further to suggest that all the fanatic and extremist American Jewish settlers be hosted in America by the two pillars of fanatic Zionists on these threads, namely ITW and Separad. It would be a good and painful practical way to teach those two Z-Gang members the difficult lesson of putting up with a large number of mentally disturbed co-Zionists!

.8 million a day just doesn’t buy what it use to.  I guess we should keep that money here and hire more antitrust and SEC investigators to breakup the media and wall street cartels.

The current Israeli government is nothing more than a bunch of racists, epitomizing the worst of what the nazis did to them. 

Everyday for the past 4 months, even longer, I hear on the radio or read somewhere that Israel or America is going to attack Iran any day now.  How I tire of the BS of the owned media.  Its the Bush mentality of if you hear it long enough it will happen.  What did Iran do to us?

A new sheriff is in town and his name is Obama.  While I believe he can do more, I am satisfied that he has addressed issues directly which have been ignored far too long. 

The Israel lobbyists must be spamming the hell out of our congress critters.

“The Israeli parliament, meantime, has proposed that Jordan should become the new homeland of those Palestinians living on the West Bank…”

The nerve, as most of those living in Israel are from European countries and were shipped there after WWII, then maybe they should go back to their respective European country of origin. And while Israel refuses to recognize the genocide they are bringing on the Palestinians it is past time for the US too!  Divestment from Israel will at least bring the Israelis around to the table - for no other reason than to see why they are no longer receiving money!

By Ed Harges, June 1 at 3:51 pm #

“The Israeli parliament should be burned to the ground for this.”
==================
Burning the Israeli parliament to the ground is one good idea among others that can be suggested! However, the real question is who should carry on such good radical solution.

Having said this, I have even a better and a more humane and just idea: Every Israeli who was not born in the area before 1945, should be shipped either to New York or to a part of Germany that should be carved exclusively for the Jews in compensation for where they came from in different parts of Europe before the Holocaust. That would naturally include most of those parliamentarians and the large majority of the Israeli terrorist leaders along the most radical and fanatic settlers who mostly came from America.

The article states:

“Among the challenges facing the proposal is this: nobody asked Jordan if it would support such a plan.”

But isn’t the first problem with this proposal the fact that the people of the West Bank don’t want to be dispossessed of their land and homes and sent to Jordan?

The Israeli parliament should be burned to the ground for this.